EVERYONE GO SEE TANGLED.

Since I doubt it's being released in China at the same time as it is in the US.

See it for me. ._.;

While I'm here, have a picture:

The date is set. :)

After weeks of being unsure as to whether things would work out, I'm finally set to meet the guy from Wuxi around the end of this month. He's currently on a business trip in Jiangxi and he'll be away for most of the month, but he'll be heading back around the 27th-ish. From the looks of things, we'll most likely be able to meet at least once before I head back to the US.

Neglected to mention this earlier, but his job is to analyze DNA. The business trip he's on right now is to train newbies in Jiangxi to analyze crime scene DNA. It's like CSI, but in China. :D

EDIT: Oh hell, here's one of the randomly endearing messages he wrote to me in his last email:

听到你到云南玩的那么开心，我也非常高兴, 中国有很多好玩的地方，但是地方太多了，你在短暂的时间里不能全玩遍。呵呵 慢慢挑选几个你喜欢的地方去玩。 -- Hearing that you had so much fun in Yunnan makes me really happy too. China has a lot of fun places, but there's too many. You can't see all of them with such a short period of time left. Take time to carefully decide which places you'd like to visit next.

^-^

On that note, other than Wuxi, I think the other place I'd like to visit before leaving is Suzhou. Apparently, it's called the Venice of China. *o*

To Shangri-la and back.

I've been traveling with the rest of the people in my program for the past week and a half. We went to four different cities in Yunnan province: Shangri-la, Lijiang, Xishuangbanna, and Kunming.

Notable events:

• Shangri-la was actually the coldest place of the four. It was also the highest up, so lots of people got altitude sickness. :(
• Also, Shangri-la was very, very unlike any other part of China I've been to. Clear skies, hardly any people, Tibetans running around everywhere. Real interesting.
• Lijiang had some pretty nice tourist-y shows. One that I saw was choreographed by Zhang Yimou (guy who directed Hero), and the second show I saw was really professional and had acrobatics and everything. *o*
• Saw Elephants in Xishuangbanna. :D
• We stayed in a realllllly sweet hotel in Kunming. It was right in the middle of the central shopping district, it was like thirty floors tall, the breakfast was awesome, and the bathroom was made out of marble (except the toilet, haha). Also, blew tooons of money on clothes in this city. It was around 1000 kuai in all, which is about $150 USD. x__x
• Also. I got my cellphone and hotel card stolen in Kunming while I was shopping. It wasn't even a particularly sneaky pick-pocket in retrospect. Still feel pretty salty over it. =_=

EDIT: Almost forgot! In Xishuangbanna, we went to a hotspring. One of the pools had little fish in it that eat your dead skin. It was really tickly. *o*

Expo.

Went to the World Expo in Shanghai yesterday. I COULDN'T GO TO THE JAPAN PAVILION. The line was six hours long! I've never even heard of a line that long before!! T__T

The S.Korean Pavilion was almost as long. From what I remember, the most popular Pavilions (in approximate order) were Japan, S.Korea, Coca Cola Company (LOL), United Arab Emirates, China, Germany, Italy, Russia, France, the UK, the US... and some others that I'm forgetting.

I only had one day at the Expo, so I only went to the Pavilions that had short lines... which basically meant that I went to the Pavilions of poorer countries. ^^;;

Oh, and I went to the Pavilion for North Korea, LOL.

I also got to see one of the big shopping districts in Shanghai (which had an H&M and a ZARA omg), and also got to walk around the Bund for a while during the nighttime. Out of all the places I've been to in China so far, I honestly think I like Shanghai the best. And the people there seem to really like foreigners, which is def. a plus. ^^

Giggly.

Short on time right now, so all I'll say is:

There was a guy who I met on the train ride from Beijing to Nanjing. He could speak pretty good English, and even though we only talked for a couple hours, for some reason, I just cannot stop thinking about him. We exchanged email addresses and have sent a couple emails to each other since. In my last email, I mentioned how I might want to visit Wuxi (the city he works in) at some point, since it's nearby and it's one of China's fast developing cities. When checking my email earlier today, I got this message from him:

欢迎你来无锡玩，我周末都休息，如果你来请提前联系我，我可以当你的导游，呵呵!
你的性格非常好，很乐观，尤其是你甜甜的笑，给我留下了非常深刻的印象。
我的手机号码是---------，有空可以发短信或者电话联系。

(And I only had to look up 3 words to understand this. Woohoo! ^^;)

Rough trans: If you want to come to Wuxi, on the weekends I'm always free. If you contact me beforehand, I could act as your tour guide. You have a very good personality, very optimistic (?). You left a deep impression on me, especially your sweet-sounding laugh. My cell number is --------, if you have time, send me a text or give me a call.

OMGGGGGGGGGG. I CAN'T STOP SMILING, YOU GUYS. It's weird... maybe I really am the type to be so won over just because a guy throws a few compliments my way. Am I pathetic for getting so attached to someone after only talking them for a couple hours? And to think about him a lot just because he said he thinks I'm cute? =_____=;;

IN LESS EMBARRASSING NEWS: just came back from Chengdu, which was *such* an experience. Got drunk more times this last week than I did all of last semester. (But unlike my friends, I suffered no vomiting or hangovers, and even had enough sense to avoid hooking up with some really, really desperate Chinese guys. I made getting shitfaced look classy, haha.) Also, I saw pandas and the largest Buddha in the world. More on this later, maybe. ^^;