Christmas in the PRC

Well its the eve of the eve of the eve of Christmas eve, and awhile most of you in the States are enjoying your holiday, I am not so lucky.  I have class until January something, and I have class on Christmas! What sorcery is this? Oh right, I'm in China, where Christmas isn't a thing unless you're spend time in a shopping mall. 

Funny story, not so much funny as to a story. So there was this couple in China doing a little bit of shopping, actually some hardcore "Black Friday shopping." The boyfriend complaining to his girlfriend that he has had enough and that he wants to go home. Everyone in the mall could hear them argue, and the news said that he was carrying handfuls of bags.  After he had enough, he just jumped. Moral lesson of the day. Be patience with your girlfriend, cause there is no afternoon delight in the afterlife. 

Anyways, I'm too lazy to finish my final paper, so I thought I would come write a quick little post. Only 3 more weeks until I'm out of Nanjing and back to Shanghai, I can't wait, but I am kind of sad to leave Nanjing. I wasn't until today, I realized that I've met so many great people, and that I've made some what of an impact in their lives. I'll miss them when I finally have to part. It really has been a great semester here, it may be a crap place to live, but it's full of wonderful people... and crappy alcohol. 

Well back to my paper/death, until next time.

-MC

Final Stretch...sort of

I'm down to my last month in Nanjing finally.  I just got back from my "interview," what a wonderful experience that was. Oh, also during that time I got accept for my internship at Morningstar, where I'll be a marketing intern.

I have one more paper to write and then I'll be done with the heavy lifting for the semester, aside from studying for finals and whatnot. Although, the learning fatigue is already settling in, looks like its going to be a long last month.

On a happier note, an early Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas to everyone out there, hoping everyone is safe and happy during the holiday season. No one go killing anyone for an PS4 or Xbox One, it's not a tickle me Elmo, that toy is the bomb.

Well, that's about it really, at least for now.

Until next time.

-MC

Close the window you're letting in the PM 2.5

Well if you didn't know Nanjing has had two days where the air quality index was over 400.  Just to put things in to perspective at 100 you should avoid any heavy activity, 200 stay indoors, 300 don't go outside unless money is raining from the sky, even then reconsider, 400 death....

It literally was hard to breathe when I wake up in the morning, and I'm pretty sure I've lost some lung capacity in the last two days.  On a positive note, I feel like I've recovered from my marathon and have begun to walk normal again.  :) I'm really to take on my next challenge, unfortunately the Hong Kong Half-Marathon/10k are all filled up so no running there, but I'll find something hopefully.

It's crunch time in Nanjing right now, I have two papers to write and I have yet to start.  I don't know what is about me recently, I have no drive to study anymore.  Maybe it's not having a break since I've start college. Literally ever summer has been accounted for, and I thought this year would be a relaxing year... WRONG. It some way it has been relaxing, teachers taking it easy on me cause I got that "foreigner" status working for me, but then I just get lazy.  I want that drive that I use to have when I was a freshmen.  Maybe I need a swift kick in the ass, or some kind of motivation.  I don't want this mentality of "just getting by" to carry into my real senior year.  Change starts tomorrow!

A couple more months and I'll be back in the states. I cant wait to have real bacon again, and anyone who makes me a Thanksgiving meal when I get back, I'll love you forever.  Bacon-stuffing? Just a thought.

Until next time,

-MC

4 hour and 20 minutes later...

I completed my first marathon.  Not too happy with the time, but I'm happy that it's over and that I finished. 

First things first, thank you to my wonderful friend and running comrade Maddie, without her I don't think I would have been motivated to train in China. 

Anyways, a little about the marathon. It was in Shanghai, the place where both my parents are from and the city where I can actually use my dialect. Since China uses the metric system, all the distance markers where in the metric system, so by the time I'm at 26, I had to remember I'm only at mile 15, roughly. I did less math during the race because of all the converting, maybe if I didn't think so hard I could have done better. Haha.  What can I say, must be the asian part of me, always wanting to do math.

I had a couple times during the race, where I thought I wasn't going to make, the legs started to give up, but slowing down and stretching helped.  I rather have a crappy time, than not finish at all, that was most important to finish. 

After the marathon, I literally passed out at the restaurant for about 20 mins and then again at the train station and then again on the train. One last thing, stairs.... are the devil. 

Marathon complete, one more thing checked off my bucket list. 

Until next time,

-MC

Marathon.. death to my knees

Hello Hello,

2nd day with my new VPN and I'm back online now. So the marathon I've been training for the past 3-4 months is in 5 days now... And let's just say I have not been up keeping up with my training. 

I'm a bit nervous... correction I'm terrified.  Before I came to China, I think I was in the best shape of my life. Lifting, swimming, running, doing doubles 3 times a week, I felt great.  As long as I get to China, BLAH! I turn in to a mess. I am glad that I put in a lot of miles before China, there's a Chinese saying that goes perfect here.  好的开始，是成功的一半, a good start, is half the battle. 

Getting away from my marathon problems... China updates:

Girlfriend: no, school: sucks, internship: pending, money: broken. 

I've had some odd approaches by some girls here.  Most recently, I met a girl at an event, and at the time she had a boyfriend of two years.  Two days later, poof no more. The most awkward part about this story is that she tell me I'm attractive, I'm flattered but..., and that "I'm not a reason for why they split up." Oh... she only wants to speak to me in English, so I'm thinking "green card maybe?"

Anyways, back to work.  Until next time!

-MC

Pre-Thanksgiving Withdrawals

Well I know I've been getting worse and worse at posting blogs and vlogs. I've been too lazy/busy to write and record. My VPN seems to be on the fritz as well so I'll be blogging on my phone now. Let's see how this goes...

Well as I promised, my trip home from Ningbo to Nanjing was an interesting experience. I took a "black bus" or something like it to get back in order to avoid the typhoon coming. (side note: in China there are illegal taxi so they call them "黑车" translates into "black car" hence  "black bus") The whole process in which we got home was so shady. In our attempts to go home early, we were lured to take a "blac bus." Impulsively, we returned our train tickets to buy our bus tickets. Magically they were the same price. The person who attempted to sell me the tickets wanted cash up front and then would give us directions to where the bus was supposed to pick us up.  I pretty much knew we got screwed right then and there, but I didn't want to lose a kidney or any other part of my body.  Working my Chinese haggling skills, I made him take us to the bus stop where we met by an even shadier fat lady.  It really wasn't our best day. After about 10 马上到 (it'd be here soon), the bus finally get there.

After about a 4-5 hour bus ride, they literally drop us off in the middle of nowhere. I didn't know where we were nor did Alec. Fortunately, some "black mini-van" dude came and asked where we wanted to go, and instead took us to the metro station before it closed. We amazing raced it to the station and got on the second to last train. This was my wonderful vacation experience full of shady deals and creepy tunnels....

Now I want turkey.....

National Day in the PRC

So I'm back in school after the week long holiday, plus one extra day for a sick day. So lets not waste any time shall we?

Last time I posted, I had just gotten back from Shanghai on Mid-Autumn festival break, and literally a week later I get another break for National Day.  This is the last long vacation time for people in China until Chinese New Year, so a lot (I mean a lot) people go out and travel for this particular holiday.  

As Alec (my old room mate) and I were deciding where to spend our holiday last minute, it was probably not in our best interests to buy last minute.  Fortunately we found some tickets to Ningbo and planned to travel to the islands nearby to do some camping.  

Riding on the High-Speed Rail first class, nothing like flying first class unfortunately, it's about a 3 hour ride from Nanjing to Ningbo, and then we needed to get on a bus to shuttle us over to the islands.  In like any tourist-y area there are always people asking where you're going and if you need a ride, now imagine that on a much larger scale.  Appearing Chinese on the outside, I was bombarded with where are you going, do you need a ride, so my trick with getting them off my back is saying "No Chinese" in English.  As I'm waiting in line to buy bus tickets, some dude is asking me the same questions, and I tell him "No Chinese." With a perplexed look on his face, he says in Chinese "What language is that, that's not Chinese." I responded to him in foreign accented Chinese, "No Chinese, means cannot speak Chinese."  Alec is laughing his ass off. Naturally the guys assume I'm Korean, so I just leave it at that.

Anyways, getting to Dinghai and wondering around for a good part of the afternoon, asking where we could camp.  It didn't look too hopeful, so we took a city bus to another island in search for a bit more luck. Fortunately the island down south was more beach-y, and we end up beach camping for the night. The place we ended up camping at was a sand sculpting park. So there was this lovely light/sand sculpture show before we went to bed.

Next morning, after we got bored with the beach and Chinese girls wanting to take a picture with Alec, cause he was literally the only white person on the island.  We decided to hike up the road to see what else the island had in store.  We kept following the winding until we got to this path that took all the way to a radio station tower. From there we kept following a path that lead us to a creepy pink house.  I'm talking like spooky creepy. And what's inside this spooky creepy pink house? That's right a bomb shelter-like room, expect this one is dug into the side of a mountain.  Worst part is that there was multiple chambers in the dungeon room, and that lead to more rooms.  We think it's from culture revolution era or around that time. It was really cool and interesting, but creepy and scary.

After the creepy, scary dungeon house, we just kept following the road to wherever it took us.  Basically hiked for about 3 until we hit the next big town, but they had no camping grounds or anything close to it.  So we improvised. We did a little urban camping (slept in a parking lot, near a park though). In the morning we found out that a typhoon was coming, so we figured that we should head home a day early......

Well the journey home I think will make a great blog post.

Until next time,

-MC