Shanghai Trip! Woo!

So I'm going to Shanghai for the next week or so. A little less than that, but yeah, until next Sunday at the latest, I'll be offline (subtract 15 hours for you Pacific Time Zone States people, so that means Saturday actually), so be sure to send me lots and lots of messages for when I come back to read.

Also, can someone tell me when Daylight Savings Time happens? I'm really not sure, but I wanna know so I can adjust accordingly here for phone calls, etc.

Talk to you all soon!

再见
杜楷

Not sure who else cares, but...

AHHHH!! I just found out that Chrono Trigger DS is coming out November 25th in the States! This is a re-release of one of my favorite games ever! I'm so freaking excited right now! I thought it was going to be late January or so when it came out. Glee!

Plus, there might be an announcement of a sequel to Skies of Arcadia, another one of my favorite games (and one of most under-appreciated RPGs of all time).

Add on that Video Games Live! in January...and this is a good year for video games for me. I am happy. :)

Groups

One thing that I've realized on this trip: I don't like groups. I generally was aware of this fact about myself previous to this trip, but it really hit home during these first couple of weeks. And let me be clear on one thing; I'm not talking about a small group ("small" being defined as two or three people). I'm talking when you have over five people that you have to worry about what they want, when they want it, and what all they are doing. Because I just don't function like that. I like to make decisions NOW, do things quickly, and not waste anytime. Of course, I'm such a nice guy, I try and go along with the group...but really, how long does it take for us to decide where to eat? And there have been a couple of scary moments too: one time in a grocery store, my shopping cart was the catch-all shopping cart for a few people, which wouldn't have been a problem, except I was starting to run low on energy and I felt like I was going to faint unless I got something, ANYTHING to eat, but I couldn't leave because I couldn't find the other people who had their stuff in my cart. A few of my friends can tell you, I was getting mad. So yeah, I like doing things with a few people or by myself. I think it works best in the end.

Enough of the complaining! Cool thing for next week: going to Shanghai! It's kind of a week long national holiday, and today, I bought tickets for myself, Charlie, and Tyler to head off to Shanghai Monday morning. We'll need to either make hotel reservations in advance or at least look up what's there prior to going, but we're going to spend a couple of days in the area, shopping, doing the tourist thing, and possibly going outside of the city as well. We don't know right now, and you know what? That is a-okay with me. It'll be an adventure! (But no, don't worry; I'll find out where to stay before leaving. I'm not that idiotic...)

Um, let's see...other stuff. Classes are going well, even if I don't necessarily want to be going to them (I'm very sleepy, and getting up at 7 every day for classes is starting to wear thin). I'm getting more and less adventurous with my Chinese, depending on the situation. Hardest part is understanding what other people are saying fast enough to come up with a proper response. I finished Angel (Smile Time is still one of my favorite episodes...if you don't know the show, you should watch it), and I'm missing my other DVDs. One of the things to look forward to when I come back, I suppose. Oh yeah, I'm definitely looking forward to coming back. I haven't fallen "in love" with China yet, regardless of what some people told me. I'm just too invested back in the States, I suppose. I had really bad heartburn for a long time, didn't put it on this blog because I didn't want people to worry, and I'm feeling better now! So see, I can take care of myself. :) And...I think that's it. Any questions, comments, and so on will be forwarded to my secretary, thank you, have a good night!...or day, or whatever the heck it is where you guys are. I'm off!

再见！
杜楷

Walk-about

It was strange. Today, I just got the urge to go walk around the area without anyone else. I haven't gone walking without a purpose for a long time. Even "hanging out" serves its own purpose. Today, though, I wanted to walk. Granted, I could have thought it out before going out with long jeans in hot, humid weather, but all in all, I really did enjoy just walking around. Maybe I need to do that more often. Of course, if I do it more often, then it becomes "with a purpose" again...drat. And if you are expecting some large report about something AMAZING I saw, you'll be waiting awhile. Nothing special about it except it made me feel good. Plus, it was nice to be alone in China. Every other time I've gone out, I've been with a group. This was my first time I ventured out without a chaperone, and I think it was worth it.

Until next time!

再见！
杜楷

Wow...today was full of stuff

I'm still trying to take it all in. What it started as was some of my friends from my classes asked me if I wanted to join them in a tour around parts of Suzhou with some Chinese students learning to speak English, and rather than the usual "no" that I might give after a long week of studying, I said yes. I'm in China, right? Have to try new stuff. So this morning, instead of sleeping in, I got up, got showered, and started the day by going to a beautiful (and by "beautiful", I mean gorgeous) garden. It was so pretty, and I forgot my bleedin' camera! Luckily, one of my friends said they didn't like to take photos so they let me borrow the camera...mwahahaha...

After that, we went to another portion of Suzhou where we first ate some food (which managed to squirt hot liquid at me not once, but twice! First time was my fault, second time was the fault of the person next to me...it was really funny. =] ), then went on a bit of a walk-around through some smaller shops and whatnot. It wasn't like the historic town we went to previously, but that was kind of nice.

Around 4, we returned to Suzhou University (I refuse to write "Soochow"...dangit, I just did!) where we got cooled off for a bit...before going out to go dancing! Unfortunately, the dancing was a bit of a bust: they merely presented the type of dancing we could do IF we signed up for the class. I still plan on going tomorrow, though; it's the first day of Salsa, and if I don't like it, it won't cost me a thing. I like things that don't cost me anything. =]

Finally, I helped one of the students studying English understand some of the finer points of Dead Poet's Society. Boy, that's hard to do in English, much less in Chinese...fortunately, I had one of my class friends there to bounce words off of and translate with. It all worked out, and it was good to do.

Now, I'm listening to Owen Pallet, enjoying his wonderful string compositions, and starting to relax before tomorrow. "What's tomorrow?" you might ask. Well, I'll have the answer for you after it all happens. Yes, I know: cliffhanger. But hey, if I ever want to be a successful screenwriter/novelist, I have to practice.

再见！
杜楷

Pictures!!

Okay, despite my griping in the last blog, I managed to set up an account to put all of my pictures up on so you fine people can view them at your leisure. Hopefully, this slide show thing works...



And if not, click HERE.

It is all very interesting. Well, not really...but there should be more later.

再见！

Good days

The title is an obvious contrast with the last blog post. Why? Well, because I feel better! I actually UNDERSTOOD my teachers today! I mean, I've always understood bits and pieces, but today I understood most everything. How awesome is that?! It either means they've finally learned to dumb it down a bit (yeah right!), or I'm finally starting to learn the listening portion of the language better. This is my goal! YES! Yeeeeessss....and that is only funny to me because I read Dr. McNinja way too much.

In other news, I'm going salsa dancing on Saturday with some friends. I haven't done salsa in a couple of years, so that should be interesting. Hopefully swing doesn't completely throw me off. =)

And another side note: to all the people who have been commenting on this blog on Blogger: I did not realize that you were doing so! Hello IMAX friends, Doki, and so on! Um, sorry I didn't respond earlier to your questions. I feel so sheepish now. I don't know that I should go back and answer them now since the moment has sorta passed. But I will answer my *cough* superior's *end cough* question pertaining to photos. The answer is: China's internet STINKS. I don't trust it to upload photos, to be honest. You can be sure that I will have plenty when I come back, and that they were then be posted. If I can find someplace around here with decent enough internet, I'll do a "best of" photo album and put a few up there. That's about the best I can do.

Man...I'm hungry. I need food. Talk to you all later! And, yes, NOW I'll be checking the comment sections. Good to know that people are reading this (besides my wonderful family, of course; they'd read this even if I had nothing to say...oh wait, that's most of the time. =] )

再见！
杜楷

Bad days

Think I'm feeling homesick for the first time this trip. Not that I wasn't feeling homesick before I came over. I really didn't want to leave Seattle the day I had to get on the plane. But I did because Mom told me that I could come home anytime I wanted. I believed her, and still do...I just don't know right now.

I watched a few episodes of Angel, and I think that's what did it to me. As I watched the episodes that got us hooked into the show, the memories of Mom and me sitting around the TV, watching it together just really hit. I really wanted to go home and watch it with her again with all the trimmings: TNT commercial breaks, Solo and/or Neesha trying to get our respective attentions, eating steak and various other foods, and so on. In other words, home. But I don't know if I'll ever have that again, and that's the thought that hit me. Hit so hard it made me cry. Hell, it's making me cry right now. I just want a home again...but I don't know where or when I'll ever get that, even when I come back from China. Plus, it doesn't help that I'm not sure whether some of the people from SU like me or not. Probably doesn't matter, but dangit if I'm not self-conscious.

In summary, I really want to come home, but I'm not sure where "home" is anymore. It's not the same place it was when I was growing up because I've basically grown up. So the real question is, then, what do I have to do to make my own home? Who do I fill my life with? My roommates are wonderful, for sure, but eventually they are going to want a place of their own, and then what? Do I strike out on my own? Try to find someone else, like another roommate, or perhaps a significant other?

I'm not ready to answer these questions. Not yet. Not here.

Amusement

As in, Amusement PARK. There's one here in Suzhou. Seriously. How awesome is that? Our group has befriended a Chinese student (as in a student who is Chinese, not someone who is studying Chinese...are we clear on that now? Good. :) and he's been showing us around the town a bit, which is awesome. So yesterday we went to a place that is literally translated as "Suzhou Happy Park". And it is a happy park at that. I went on my first roller coaster in...I don't even know how many years. Anyone from my family know the last time I went on an actual roller coaster? Regardless, it was fun. I didn't want to go at first because I had one of those bad feelings in my stomach that usually mean that something bad is going to happen, but it didn't, so...yeah. There you go, right?

Not so amusing: the dreams. I don't know what's up with them, but they're getting stronger. I remember most of last night's dreams. It involved people getting hurt physically, me having to be mean to people, people being mean to me, hearts being broken, and a whole lot of other stuff. It's starting to fade now...but it was very strong at the time. And this is coming from a guy whose last really strong dream involved a ghost woman above his bed. I still wonder why I'm having such vivid dreams here...maybe I regret things I did/didn't do back in the States? Seriously, I have no idea. Maybe something in the water...or lack of something in the water...gah, I don't know, and rambling won't help me figure it out either. Oh vell.

Today's the Mid Autumn Festival (中秋节), so I'm hoping we do something fun, awesome, sweet, or all of the above.

Anyway, that's all from me for now.

再见！
杜楷

I find

I'm dreaming more in China. More vividly, more often...just more. It's rather odd. Maybe I should start keeping a dream journal while here...too bad I don't have a nightstand since my bed is six feet off the ground. Under the pillow, then. That sounds good. Now I have to go buy another notebook...I keep thinking I'm done with that, but they keep bringing me back in!

Another thing I have to remember: the tickets for Video Games Live! in Seattle comes out in October, and I'll have to buy my ticket either in China or get someone else to purchase it for me in the US. I'm so excited for it; I've waited literally YEARS for it to arrive, and when it does, I'll be there with bells and whistles...or maybe I'll just leave the musical instruments to the orchestra.

For the people who are reading this on Facebook (if you'll take notice, I've been importing these blogs automatically), I apologize if you've tried to get in touch with me recently only to not have it happen. The internet is quite variant over here: some days it works alright, others, it hardly works. It's never great, though, and with the recent switch in Facebook format, I've found it difficult to even get online, much less use things like the chat-bar. So if you strike up a conversation with me and I don't respond, chances are it's because of that. I'm hoping, though, now that the changes are complete, it won't be as big of a deal.

For now, that's all folks!
再见！
杜楷

Missed my one day to sleep in

Oh well...I suppose there are worse things.

To explain: every Wednesday morning, there's a writing elective course. Because electives are, well, optional, they didn't start at the same time as the rest of the courses. I wasn't sure of that, though, so I still got up at 7 to go to class at 8:30. Again, there are worse things. At least I'm staying on schedule, right?

Just wish the stupid people would take my rent money already...I really, really don't want to be kicked out on the streets here in China. It's not even that much, but it's turning out to be so much work.

So come on, people in the States, what's going on with you? Send me an email, message, comment, whatever. Can't hear from you if I don't hear from you?

Update Numero Tres

Boy, I keep forgetting to make note of things as they happen. Oh well...I'll try my best to remember what happened in the past.

Saturday was another day on the town. Well, at least part of the town. We went to the "downtown" area of Suzhou. Basically, think of a gigantic outdoor mall. Well, it's a little more than that, but that's the best way I can think of of describing it. There are so many shops, both brand name and not-brand name, that you literally get confused by everything there is to buy there, including food. Though the best part of the area, in my opinion, was the temple in the center. I am not sure what religion it was (I believe someone said Buddhist, but I could very well be wrong), but oh my god, it was absolutely awe-inspiring. Side note: I use "awesome" to describe a lot of day-to-day events, items, and ideas that really don't leave me in awe. It's part of growing up shortly after the 80's and into the 90's, I suppose. But this temple truly left me without breath, and that does not happen as much. The statues inside were absolutely amazing, the architecture was unlike anything we have in the West...I just loved it wholly and completely. Though that isn't that surprising, I suppose; I've always preferred Asian art to Western. Not quite sure why, but, eh, what can you do?

After our time in the downtown area, we then went over to a park. The most "spectacular" part of that park, whose name eludes me at the moment, was "out of order", so to speak, because of the construction of a nearby light rail. But still, there was something about the park that was just...nice. Today, I think I finally figured out what it was: it wasn't the same as the city. Now, anyone who knows me knows I'm a city-boy at heart. I spent eight years in the country-side (at least, I considered it that), and as peaceful as that was (minus some personal problems...), I still had to get my city fix every so often. But I'm talking about American cities here. Even Seattle at its craziest is nowhere near as hectic in day-to-day life as Suzhou. Or maybe that's because it's our first week here and we've done a lot, or I could just still be acclimating, who knows? Regardless, I liked the park. It was quiet, relaxing, and just a nice reprieve.

The last two days have been nothing special. Sunday we had to ourselves, and I spent a good portion of it just watching my Angel DVDs and talking to my mom for the first time since I arrived. Monday was our first day of class, and although there's something I will talk about shortly, all in all, it was pretty average. I was happy with how much spoken Chinese I really understood, and I'm sure my own speaking ability will increase by such a large factor by the time I'm done here. Monday night was also our last night with Feng Laoshi (our teacher from Seattle U. who came to Suzhou to make sure our first couple of days went well), so that was a little sad. But hey, now we're on our own, free to make our own decisions. I just hope that most, if not all, of those decisions lead to positive outcomes.

So since the "tourist" part of our time in China has come to a close, minus any holidays or weekend excursions we partake in, this blog will most likely become a personal journal of my feelings and whatnot. At least, the ones I choose to share. One of those feelings is a leftover from the last quarter of school at S.U. that even I had forgotten about. If you didn't know, spring quarter 2008 was one of the most difficult times I've ever had in school. I did not want to go to any of my classes, I didn't want to do any of the homework or study, hell, I didn't even want to be in the area. I was just done with everything school-related. It took all my effort to get through that time, and although I'm satisfied with the results, I still apparently have some of those feelings. I realized this when I woke up to go to class today and just went, "No." I remembered how much it took to get through that time, and I didn't feel like I wanted to go through it again. However, I'm going to try. I may need some help sometime, and I may not always do my best simply because I won't want to. But, so help me, I am going to try. The question remains, though: what will I do when I leave China? I'm going to look into a couple of different options, but the ones I've thought of so far are a) continuing to go to school and see how it fits me; if it doesn't, I'll take spring quarter off, and b) taking winter quarter off, still performing my service project for my Freeman-ASIA scholarship but also working nearly fulltime. There's some variation in there between both of them, but that's basically the jist of it. Of course, I may come back, eager and ready to learn and never need to take a quarter off at all. Who knows? Que sera, sera, right?

Anyway, I'll be back soon with more thoughts and whatnot. Man, this is the most writing I've done in a long time...and it's mainly stream of consciousness. How odd...I used to hate that. Maybe that can be my next talk. :)

再见！
杜楷

A Quick Update Pt. 2

So, where was I? Ah yes...van to Suzhou.

If you've never been to China, then I don't know that I can describe the craziness that is their traffic system. The horns are not used to get mad at people, there is no road rage...but it is literally every man for themselves. You hear honking, it is to tell you, "I'm-a coming, and you best get out of the way." I'm not talking just cars, either; mopeds, motorcycles, and bikes all have horns that are all used nearly every second of driving. Strange thing is, I haven't seen a single incident yet. A lot of close calls, to be sure, but that's where it stops every time. And nobody gets mad. This will take some getting used to.

Anywho, to continue with the story. We had to travel an additional two hours to Suzhou from Shanghai, so by the time we got to the university (I still call it Suzhou University because the characters are the same as the city, and Soochow just sounds so...wrong to me) it was nine o'clock in this time zone. The rest of the students and I had a fun time getting checked into our rooms...and if you can't tell the sarcasm through the internet, "fun" equals "oh noes, things don't work!" My roommate Tyler and I had some difficulty figuring out how the internet worked, mainly because we thought there was only one internet jack in the room, and as it turns out, that jack is the only bad jack. Other students' rooms have had problems with hot water, the TV, and the air conditioning. Overall, though, I've been really happy with the state of the room. They really give us a lot, even if some of it doesn't always work.

I finally fell asleep and put myself back on a good sleep schedule. I still woke up every so often thanks to the wonderful (again, sarcasm is intended, if you can't tell) effects of jet lag, but my "true" waking up time was around 8:30 AM. That'll serve me well with class times. For Thursday, our day consisted mainly of getting our picture taken for our university ID's, eating a HUGE lunch, taking our placement tests (which I did pretty well on, considering I hadn't studied much over the summer...thanks a lot, two jobs and a play... :P), and then going to the most jam-packed supermarket I have ever seen. Everything is so cheap over here, it's ridiculous. You can buy food over here for around 2 yuan. That's less than 10 cents American. Wowzers.

Friday (for those of you in the US, we're about 15 hours ahead of you, so although you might currently be reading this Friday night, I'm writing it Saturday morning. Just FYI) was our slightly tourist-y day. We went to a canal city call Luzhi, saw the sights, got extremely wet from a huge downpour of rain, proceeded to go to a silk factory, got our text books, and then went back to the dorm. All and all, a pretty full day, despite the rather rushed description thanks to just finding out we are supposed to be somewhere soon.

If anyone wants my Skype account number, feel free to send me a message and I'll give it to you over email so as not to reveal too much personal info on this blog. I can't promise that I'll be on it at the times that calling will be good, but I will try.

再见，
杜楷

A Quick Update

Hello to all who are reading this blog! 你们好我的朋友！As it says in the title, this blog is mainly an attempt for me to keep a journal of my adventures whilst living in Suzhou, China at Soochow University. I honestly would have started updating the first day, but I'll get to that part of the story in the minute.

After a hard farewell to my mother (whose reassuring words did more than I think even she knows), I managed to get past security and on my way onto the plane. The flight to San Fransisco was relatively mundane: no peanuts, a little something to drink, and a slightly annoying woman next to me. It was peaceful...until we landed. Upon our arrival in San Fran, our pilot informed us our gate was being occupied by another aircraft, and it would be awhile until we could get off the plane. There were two problems with this: one, I had to pee REALLY badly, and two, the flight that took me to China was boarding in less than twenty minutes. We (my friend Charlie and I) managed to get off the plane with just seven minutes to run to the other side of the airport to the international terminal, go through security AGAIN, and try and find our terminal. When we did, we were quickly informed that our flight had been delayed by an hour. Both lucky and unlucky. Lucky, in the sense that we needn't have run as far and as quick as we did and now we could take a break (aka, I could go PEE!), but unlucky in that our fellow abroad students were now going to have to wait an extra hour for our arrival. But oh well, there was nothing we could do.

The flight itself to Shanghai was, again, uneventful. The most common conversation started was, "So why are you going to China?" I played my DS, read my Chinese textbooks, and ate most of the way, trying very hard not to sleep so that my schedule wouldn't be messed up by a four hour "nap". I succeeded by only taking an hour and a half nap. Upon our arrival in Shanghai, we actually had to take another hour getting through customs and the border patrol, showing our visas I have no idea how many times. Finally, we met up with 冯老师 outside of the gates, and proceeded to get on a van to Suzhou University.

I'll have more to tell later. Right now, I have another adventure to go on, which I will of course write about. :)

再见！
杜楷