This has been a crazy week. Between getting traveler’s diarrhea, which brought three days of fever, going to Olympic events, having my final exam, packing up, and then flying to Hong Kong yesterday, I have had little time to post on my blog.
I am finally feeling better, thanks to taking the cipro that Shansi provided me. Unfortunately I felt pretty bad at my first event, greco-roman wrestling. The weather was pretty bad that day. Here is a before and after picture from the 10th floor of my dorm:


Yes, you are looking at exactly the same view.
Anyways, watching wrestling was pretty fun. I figured out the rules by watching and watching the scoreboard, and when I got home I looked them up on wikipedia. There were some really sweet suplex slams and stuff like that got the crowd going. What I was shocked with was the Chinese crowd, both by how annoying their cheering was, and by how few people were in the stands. The cheering was so annoying and they had this volunteer with a microphone that was egging people on. Then the same volunteers were telling the Kazakhstan fans to sit down. I was happy when the Kazakhstan wrestler beat the Chinese guy, that shut some people up.

The next day I spent most of the day studying for the final, and all the classes were devoted to review, but I was still feeling crummy, but I had started taking antibiotics at this point, so I was on the road to recovery. Friday I took my test, but the most meaningful thing to me was my entry-exit test score. I scored 37% better at the end of the summer than I did in the beginning, which I think is fantastic. I really like my program, even though it was a little bit tiring and monotonous at times, I learned so many words (over 1000 !).
Friday night brought the chance to see Korea play Canada in a baseball qualifier. Steve had gotten the tickets from a teacher and I got invited. It was a lot of fun to eat popcorn (less than $1) and watch the game. For people who are wondering, all of the food and refreshments at olympics events is cheap as dirt. Beers are 5 yuan (75 cents), water is 3 (less than 50 cents) and snacks are in between 10 cents and one dollar. It’s great. We had a lot of fun heckling Canada. I was cheering for Korea because before the game we got free Korean flags for free. The game was not too exciting, and ended 1-0 Korea, but I had a blast and afterwards we hit up the merchandise stand.

We had five people so each bought a head band representing each of the five Fuwa. Unfortunately I don’t have pictures of this, but hopefully my classmates who took some will email them to me. It was hilarious though, and we were stopped twice on our way back by Chinese people to take pictures with us. We hung out until really late in the night and said our goodbyes.
The next morning I woke up in a panic. It was light out and my alarm hadn’t gone off yet. It wouldn’t go off at all, and I had slept 2 hours longer than I had planned. I had 2 hours to get on an international flight and I was freaking out. Luckily I had packed all my stuff, so I started the checkout procedure and got a cool 200 yuan for checking out the right way, instead of just fleeing. Luckily I got a cab driver who had a F-1 fantasy. I got to the airport in 30 minutes, and I always thought it took 45. The cabs in China have no seatbelts, so I was pretty freaked out at points, but I got there and checked in fine. My plane left from the new terminal built specially for the olympics. It was awesome! Not only was it open and airy it was really clean and high tech. My plane ride was really nice, and I even got lunch (Mapo tofu) which came with Hagen Daaz ice cream.
I took a train from the airport in Hong Kong to Hong Kong island where I am actually staying. I found the place easily enough. I am staying at the offices of Mother’s Choice an NGO that does stuff for teenage mothers, runs daycares, and other things. The NGO is run by an Oberlin and Shansi alum. I got set up in a really nice apartment with internet, AC hot water, and everything else you could imagine. The really wonderful thing however is Hong Kong! My goodness this place puts the mainland to shame. Not only is it the beautiful blue skies, ocean breezes, and soaring green mountains, but the crazy and fun street scene. I bought a subway card today and went down to the far end of the island and took a trolley car back. They have these cute little double decker trolleys here that go down the main road, so I got set up on the top floor and looked out the windows. Tomorrow I don’t even know what I’m going to do, but there is plenty. Here is a picture close to where I am staying:
Now I’m just pooped, but I will have a lot more to talk about tomorrow!