I ended up waking up at 6:24 this morning because of how early I went to bed. The good news is that my body clock is normal, so I kind of evaded jet lag.
Me and Hannah ended up leaving our room around 7:15ish in order to get some breakfast. It was weird having rice for breakfast, but I ate it anyway because who says no to rice?
After breakfast, me, Hannah, and some others went walking around Nanjing. The city is absolutely beautiful, and while the city reminds me a lot of America, the cultural differences are very apparent. (In a good way of course.)
For one, the streets smell a bit funky, but that’s to be expected when you have live fish out in the open. We went into a few convenient stores and there were pickled eggs everywhere. Also, I saw split pants today.
We walked around for a good hour and a half before trying to exchange out USD for RMB, but the banks were giving us a hard time. Nanjing Bank told us that they couldn’t exchange bills on Sunday, so out RD ended up doing it for us since we were going to be late for orientation if we stuck around to figure it out.
When we got back to Nanjing University, we met out Chinese teachers and took a “placement test” which meant speaking to the teachers in casual conversation. All of them seem super friendly, and I’m excited to see how classes go. I got placed in the intermediate class, which I think it’s a perfect fit since the advanced class is full of fluent people. Although, the beginner classes doesn’t seem too bad considering the fact that I feel on the same wave length as them, but I digress.
At noon we went to eat lunch in the cafeteria, and I ended up only getting some kind of watermelon drink because I got scared when they asked me what I wanted to eat in Chinese. I already hate dealing with waiters in the US, so idk how I’m supposed to function in a foreign language. Apparently my method is to walk away oops.
After lunch we got to meet our host families. I absolutely love mine. They are so sweet and caring. They keep telling me to relax because I look (and am) high key stressed because I can’t really understand them. I don’t have too much trouble speaking, but I have a really hard time with listening comprehension. Thankfully, my host sister speaks some English (as well as my host mom), so my sister will speak in English to me and I respond in Chinese. Even though I’m not practicing my listening too much, I do get to practice speaking.
And their apartment is super nice. I think their shower is nicer than mine at home tbh. And I think my host sister ended up giving me her room to sleep in which is so nice. Honestly I would have been fine sleeping on the couch. I feel bad for taking her bedroom because she and the rest of the family have already done so much for me in literally less than 24 hours. They’ve made me feel so welcome despite me being awkward.
For example, I accident set my backpack down on an instrument because I thought it was a table. (fml) Also I keep dropping everything..
Around 6, we walked to dinner. The restaurant we ate at was really good. I had to be adventurous and try new foods (like oyster). And while I liked it, it’s not something I think I would order when by myself. And then there’s just the amount of food they eat. Like holy mother, there was a big oyster, beef, a shit ton of small oysters, veggies, yams, fish, and rice porridge. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten so much food. I kind of had a little sick in my mouth a one point because of how full I felt.
After dinner, we went for a small walk around the city before heading back home. I took a shower, hand washed my underwear and socks, and then my host mom urged me to talk to friends and family.
It’s been a great day.