New Friends

I always knew that I suck at making new friends. I cannot small talk, am paranoid about saying/asking the wrong things and, sometimes, am simply not that interested in meeting new people. I much rather hang out with old friends: people that I knew like the back of my hand, people that I knew for sure what they thought about me, what they responded to and what they could and could not talk about. With new people, it's all just too up in the air. For the past two weeks I've been constantly reminded of this weakness of mine. I meet new people in the halls, around campus and near my dorm but I tend to keep it to "hello! You're done class?" or "Hey! How's it going" and then hurry to my next destination without really paying attention to their response.

After almost a week of online tv in my room day in and day out, I was ready to come out of my shell today.

Armed with fresh knowledge from How to Small Talk from eHow.com, I decided to step out of my room and joined the very noisy and crowded potluck that was going on in the kitchen, two rooms down. Of course the first attempt wasn't that successful. My unfortunate chatting partner (the first somewhat familiar face that I saw) and I quickly ran out of conversation topics and I was left pretty much alone. I tried again. Luckily for me, the second girl was MUCH more talkative and all I really had to do was ask her questions and say "uh huh" or "right, of course". Soon, there was a little group of us all standing and laughing and having a great time (me included). And I got myself an invitation to view the season premiere of "America's Next Top Model" with some of the girls next week.

There. My first, whole-hearted small-talking-making-new-friends experience.
Must be the bravest thing I've done yet here in Ningbo.

Currently listening: 小步舞曲 - 陳綺貞

Americanism

I never thought that the words "splurge" and "MacDonald's" could possibly appear in the same sentence but this is exactly what happened today. I splurged on MacDonald's. My double-cheeseburger meal (with medium fries and medium pop) costed a total of 16.5RMB. Of course, this is absolutely nothing when converted to Canadian (comes to under $3 CDN) but when you consider that...

• 豬肉包 at the canteen during breakfast = 0.7RMB
• 珍珠奶茶 at the tea shop on campus = 2.5RMB
• 紅燒牛肉面 = 12RMB
• 8 packs of 康師傅即食面 = 10RMB
• a loaf of white bread = 5.5RMB
• 街邊小販炒麵　for 2 = 4RMB
• 寧波特色湯圓 = 5RMB
• average lunch at canteen = 6RMB
  

...then the cheeseburger, medium fries and medium Fanta was very expensive.

Eh. What could I do? I was having an intense craving for greasy, disgusting, American food even though I'm in the midst of this wonderful, fresh, delicious Chinese food.

Must've been my North American side revolting against all this Chinese-ness after 2 weeks. Thank God for globalization.

Currently listening: Paranoid Android (Live) - Brad Mehldau

還以爲離開了溫哥華，我的二月可以好過一點．．．

寧波諾汀漢大學校園　(the fake manmade river)

溫哥華的二月永遠都是最難挨的．endless rain and cold and nothing to look forward to. 原來寧波跟溫哥華都差不多. It has rarely been over 10C (not to mention that I did not bring a warm jacket of any kind and my umbrella is broken) and I haven't seen the sun in almost a week. Certainly this crappy weather is affecting my mood. I can't bring myself to eat (or maybe this is the consequence of eating too much few days ago...) or study or socialize with my dormies. All i want to do is nap but can never truly sleep at night.

二月，我求求你快點離開．

currently listening: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart (Feat. Joss Stone) - Al Green

February blehs

Spent a day in the emotional dumps today, living off oreos, chili-flavoured bugles, IPE readings, and this song.

Porcelain - At17

I am very very much in like with you
I hope that it's enough 'cause it's all I can do
'Cause you treat my skin like porcelain,
Rare and special porcelain
Even though you know I know you know
That this is not the real thing...

Oh, isn't it enough what I'm giving to you, baby?
Oh, isn't it enough that your kisses drive me crazy?
Oh, isn't it enough, isn't it enough?

I read a book like you, it says for what it's worth
People only really get what they deserve
And I hear a voice cry out within
Relax, enjoy the porcelain
Treatment feels like liquid gold
A treasured hand for me to hold

Oh, isn't it enough what I'm giving to you, baby?
Oh, isn't it enough that your kisses drive me crazy?
Oh, isn't it enough, isn't it enough?

Porcelain, porcelain
You treat my skin like porcelain...

In the big, big scheme of things
Beyond the rare and special porcelain
Beyond the joy, joy and the dis-at-ease
Well there's a place for me...

Porcelain, porcelain....

Sometimes I think I should say I love you too
If words are free, why can't I spare the best for you?
'Cause you treat my skin like porcelain
Rare and special porcelain
Even though you know I know you know
I'm cracked from all of this living

Oh, isn't it enough what I'm giving to you, baby?
Oh, isn't it enough that your kisses drive me crazy?
Oh, isn't it enough that I'm checking for you, baby?
Oh, isn't it enough that your kisses drive me crazy?
Oh, isn't it enough, isn't it enough?

Isn't it enough?
Isn't it enough?

哇...怎麽我今天去了那麽多地方....

"千古功臣" 張學良第一幽禁地




"四名第一山" 雪竇寺 (there was a 50+ metres tall buddha but we didn't go in because it'd cost another 60 RMB)



蔣介石故居 - 妙高臺 (the rock that I'm sitting on was, according to the guide, Chiang Kai Shek's favourite rock)




千仗巗: really tall waterfall with it's name written on the rocks besides it in red (if you look carefully, you can see it in this picture) +　王安石紀念碑



蔣介石母親的墳墓 (聽説這個位置的風水是超好的)




同學家經營的農莊: people rent this place to take vacations or even get married (hence the "wedding carriage" that I'm sitting in in the picture). At the ranch, there was a man-made river that you can canoe in, tons of chickens and ducks (even peacocks and turkeys), vegetable farms and greenhouse strawberries to be picked (the strawberry grower commanded us that we must eat the strawberries without washing them - they were REALLY sweet.)



We ended the day by having TWO dinners - an outdoor barbecue followed by a traditional Chinese farmer's feast. Don't let the word "farmer" mislead you because it was NOT meager or just simply veggies. There were at least 20 dishes (I kid you not) ranging from pig's trottle, turtles, seaweed, more 湯圓 and grass. All cooked by one woman. For more than 20 people. Pretty crazy stuff I say.


Happy Birthday, Jasper!
祝你每一天都是健康，快樂，笑著過.
Thank you for planning this wonderful trip for us today.

currently listening: 太美麗 - 陶喆

my t-shirt

Nothing interesting happened today except I came back to my dorm from the library to find a very familiar looking t-shirt lying amongst the bushes besides the dorm building.

Apparently my newly laundry-machine-cleaned t-shirt decided to take a jump from my 4th floor dorm balcony (where it was supposed to be happily blowing in the wind and drying itself off) and landed amongst the bushes. Hanger and all.

Thank you Jeanri (my new South African friend from the UK who has a very beautiful sounding French name) for going into the bushes for me and saving my ungrateful shirt.

Currently listening: Reign of Love - Coldplay

寧波....好好吃!

A local friend finally took me to try some authentic Ningbo local food today. Tried a number of things including an, apparently, very famous local ingredient known as 小黃魚 (literal translation: little yellow fish). It was in soup and the soup tasted very delicious. The only bad thing was that the 小黃魚 had little tiny bones in it that kept getting stuck in my teeth. On top of that we had other dishes like eel slices (pictured below) which, as gross as it sounds, had a very good texture and was great with plain rice. Not pictured are the funny-looking clams (cooked with onion and ginger), 糖醋排骨 (really good tasting sweet and sour pork), and this really stinky dish called 臭冬瓜 (there were also 豆干 in it too). Trust me, it seriously stank so badly that I could not eat it.


Afterwards, we went to, as my friend explained it, the 旺角 of 寧波, 鼓樓. Basically, the "shopping district" is a few alley ways behind a gate. It was a funny looking gatebecause, as you can see in the photo, it is a Chinese-styled building (taken straight out of a 古裝劇) but on top is a Western-style clocktower. Inside the architecture is still very Chinese-y. Unfortunately, it was really cold and wet today, hence most of the merchants were closed.


Lastly, 去寧波, 怎麽可以不吃湯圓呢? Surprisingly, it took quite a bit of work before we found "real" 湯圓. My friend tells me that lots of restaurants tend to buy frozen ones and just simply reheat them for their customers. In the end, we found a 大排擋 place with real handmade 湯圓. There were 3 types to choose from (my friend made sure I tried all three). Two were 酒釀小丸子 (one with eggs and the other with black bean) and one 豬油湯圓 with 黑芝麻 filling and 桂花 on top which made the whole thing very very fragrant (unfortunately, I did not realize there was 豬油 inside until I finished the 3rd one). 這些湯圓跟超級市場買的當然有很大的分別. The filling is very smooth (I think it's the 豬油 that makes it that smooth) and the rice flour around it is very sticky and soft. Even though I'm not a big 湯圓 fan, I still ate more than what I would usually eat. The 湯圓 was very big but, according to my friend, they used to be even bigger and a bowl could only hold 3 湯圓 at one time because they were that big!


And just to round it off, I thought I'd share the most Chinese-y McDonald's I've seen in my life:


currently listening: 林民龍 (At17 Mix) - 麥浚龍