"Are Robin and Jason coming?... It's not funny."

Hey everyone, Adam here.

Time for that long put-off post, the one that proves that I wasn't left at BWI. So, let's see... Jane's post left off on Sunday.

Classes resumed as per usual on Monday. Nothing new, just plowing through new vocab and sentence structures. In the afternoon we had planned to go to the Suzhou University computer lab, but there was a bit of a hold-up, apparently. Zach and Jane had taken the bus down to Guanqian Jie, a pedestrian shopping street, and got a tad lost. As in wandering around/looking for random buses for 35 minutes lost.

I'm not quite qualified to tell that story to it's fullest extent, but this one is mine. Monday night we had gone out to dinner (Chinese!), and we were on our way back when Jimmy struck. A young-ish Chinese guy, he approached me wielding a mechanical, obviously-memorized speech, in English, attempting to befriend me. I said maybe two things to him, and he latched on. "IhaveheardsomuchaboutyouIloveAmericaactuallyIthinkAmericanslookweirdactuallyyouareallveryhandsome."
Oh, and it was fast, too. Before long he was asking for money (surprise), and we quickly ducked into the nearest store and became VERY interested in their polo shirts. Whole thing just gave me the creeps.

Tuesday we went to the closest high school. Cindy's mom had a friend who is teacher there (she has friends everywhere) and so we met his class. They had all been learning English for 11 years and were about our age. Since Jane had sat down with a group of boys, I was left with a girl group. Only one really talked to me, doing a lot of interpretting work for the other girls, but I think that the others could understand most of what I said. They giggled, though. A lot. One even proclaimed "She," pointing at the girl next to her, "has a crush on you!" Cue giggling. Later we played the guys of the class in basketball. Jane, Zach, Jason, Cindy, and I were more or less schooled... but we had fun. As did the two dozen onlookers. At one point our opponents were practically tossing us the ball to let us score. A bit of ping pong and badminton followed. The whole experience was really enlightening, and we made a lot of friends.

Wednesday. We took a day trip to the Humble Administrator's Garden, probably one of the biggest attractions in Suzhou. Or it seemed like that, with all the tour groups with their guides waving flags and spouting facts from their megaphones. Otherwise, it was very relaxing, and we just meandered around the maze-like paths, ponds, and bonzai gardens. Dinner was KFC at a new-ish mall, Emerald City. Portions seemed smaller, of course, but we reveled in the greasy Western food.

Today, Thursday, we went on a boat tour of a portion of the Grand Canal, which separates the old, historic Suzhou from the new, apartment building-filled new Suzhou. We had our third tai chi class, too. Good stuff. Personally, memorizing the moves isn't as hard as I thought it would be. And it's always fun for me to think about the martial arts roots of the movements (I watched a kung fu movie on TV before the class).

(Brief) Chinglish Report:
"Are you have smile?" on a student's shirt at the high school
"Beware of safety" a sign at Panmen Gate

Whew, that was a long one. I guess it had all just been building up. Sorry my post was kinda late. Oh, and enjoy the pictures! More coming soon, I'm sure. Zai jian.

-Adam