Local time: Fri April 12, 1:04

Finally after a fun week of traveling, immediately followed by midterms, and now laying in bed after numbing my 25 mosquito bites, I can take some time to write an extensive update of our last two weeks!

Last week was our “reading week” which is basically just our spring break.

Monday, April 1
We took a train from Tangjiawan train station (15 minute DiDi/taxi from school) to Guangzhou South train station. We then took a DiDi about 2 hrs south to the Guangzhou airport where we met up with Avril and her dad ~ she had gone to Guangzhou earlier to see her family! The whole process to get through the train stations, airport security, the 2hr flight, and to our hotel was easy and efficient, way to go China. In the Guangzhou airport, we actually found a Tim Horton’s coffee! Our first night traveling, we actually stayed in Meishan, Avril’s hometown. I stayed at a hotel near Avril’s aunt’s house, where Avril and Laxmi stayed the night. Meishan is just on the outskirts of Chengdu. We didn’t do anything Monday aside from traveling, and boy it felt good to get to our hotel room – though it was an odd room, a one-of-a-kind room on the floor… with dark wood and no windows. But, it was very comfortable!

Tuesday, April 2
On Tuesday, we went to the cherry blossom garden! A lot of the flowers and cherry blossoms were past their prime, but it was a still a beautiful place and garden. We then went to lunch with Avril’s aunt, dad, and a couple other relatives… it was a family-style lunch, food was on a center spinning thing 🙂
We then took a quick train from Meishan to Leshan to see the Leshan Giant Buddha! We bought our tickets, left our luggage at a shop near the entrance, and headed into the very large park. You start at the bottom of the mountain and walk through caves and along paths with large buddha carvings and even offerings. It was incredibly scenic and spiritual. There are two parts of the park: the first part is at the bottom through the caves where you can see 30-50 meter-high Buddha, these tickets costed ¥50/student paid just as we entered the park; the second part was the Giant Buddha that you are supposed to see after as you hike up. Those tickets cost us ¥40/student, but we didn’t pay for those until we were about halfway up. Sort of a side note: we discovered that Avril’s dad is not great with directions, he just sort of walks, and Avril takes after her dad. As we followed Avril through the Giant Buddha park, we skipped the first part ENTIRELY and went straight to the Giant Buddha 😂 The Giant Buddha was amazing! A truly majestic and astonishing feat of human work. He was much bigger in person and seated nicely in the mountain facing the city across the water. When you arrive, you arrive right at the top of his head. And this is where we toured this park completely wrong.
The path you’re supposed to take is: go to the Budddha caves, then go to the Giant Buddha’s feet, then hike up to the Giant Buddha’s head, and then take the exit route back down from the head and out of the park.
The path we took: Straight to the Buddha head, then back down to the Buddha feet, then back up to the Buddha head to go back down to the exit… because the park was closing! It was quite funny and memorable, and even though we didn’t see everything or go the correct route, it was fun and we still got to see many beautiful parts. We even stood at the top of the Buddha head for about half and hour watching a worker in a very homemade looking harness stand on the cliff edge with a LONG fishing pole… we wondered what was down there?? Oh boy, we were scared he would slip and his harness that was connected to… nope, being held by a rope by another person… would not save him. Turns out it he was fishing for a scarf!
Anyways, it was a great time. We left the park, got some dinner, went to the club, and called it a night!

I have +6 mosquito bites since I started writing this blog… and I’ve killed 1 mosquito. THIS IS HORRIBLE. I recounted all of my bites as well, I actually have over 30.

Wednesday April 3
This day I was very frustrated. Because we went to the club the night before, everyone slept-in, including myself. But, we were supposed to go for a hike this day which we ended up not doing because by the time everyone was awake around noon, no one seemed interested (it would also apparently take around 6 hours to do the whole hike and riding a tram-like thing to the top of Leshan mountain). This was fine, but what frustrated me was that after we had a delicious take-out lunch in our hotel room, everyone slept the rest of the day. I did not sleep, and I was very bored. We were not in a city center or anything, a beautiful rural area in a woody, mountainy area. We made a new plan to go see Kung Fu Panda 4 that day as well, and as I waited for people to awaken so we can go out, the hours kept on passing… Around 6pm I decided to go by myself and walk around the village and area. It was a nice walk, the streets were all crowded with old-style apartment buildings and street markets. I walked up and down the roads and passed many restaurants and markets. It started to rain on me around 7pm when I was summoned back to the hotel so we could go to eat hotpot… then I waited another 20+ minutes in the hotel lobby for them to get ready to go. But aside from all the waiting and just one lazy day, it wasn’t so bad to relax and also have some time to myself to walk around and explore.
The hot pot was delicious! It was also incredibly spicy. A traditional and fun eating-style in Sichuan. After hotpot, we went around the city-center more and finally tucked-in for the night.

Thursday April 4
Finally – the day we went to the Panda Reserve!!
I mean, there’s not much else to it… we went and saw the pandas!

Friday April 5
We left Chengdu early in the morning, got lunch in Guangzhou, and then headed back to school… Since then I have been very busy with mid-terms. I especially have had 4 presentations this week that have really been taking up my time.

This week, I have been spending lots of time with friends when I get the chance: Captain Lin (my captain from Rugby), Beryl, Rain, Avril, and Alexey. I recently hit a new squat personal record of 92kg (202 lbs)! And a new deadlift personal record of 87kg (191 lbs)! The Hong Kong Rugby Sevens tournament happened over this last weekend. I’m bummed I couldn’t go this year, even though I’m so close, but hopefully I can go next year or the year after. I really have found rugby to be my favorite thing right now. I love watching it and playing it! Peter also bought my flowers last week 🙂 And my friend Beryl surprised me with a bouquet of flowers the other day, for no particular reason (I also got her a bouquet of flowers) ~ now I have flowers drying in my closet.

I’m relieved to be down with most of my major mid-term assignments, though I still have a couple individual projects to work on now. I’m glad that rugby practice is starting up again, I get to practice Tuesday-Sunday! I just hope I can stop getting bit so much by mosquitos (I wear an anti-mosquito cream and apply anti-itch every day)… it makes my body itchy and really sore/achey because they swell and stiffen. Not fun. Looking forward to the next weeks! Sorry for this late and LONG post.

再见，
Abigail

Local time: Mon March 25, 21:21

Next week is “reading week” which is basically just a spring break. Professors and students all encourage you to use this time to travel around China! Currently, our plan is to go to Chengdu with our closest friend, Avril. While we are in that area, we might also try to make our way towards Chongqing.

This week is pretty busy for me. I have 4 classes of group projects to work on and have prepared by the end of reading week.

I am still consistently going to the gym and enjoying rugby practice. Now that I understand everything more, it is even more fun!! The teammates are still super supportive and encouraging of me which makes all the difference. The team is also preparing for the national competition (I will not be a part of that of course, and probably won’t attend as it would cost money and we would have to skip classes) so practices are getting more intense and serious (still enjoyable though, and they still welcome and encourage me to come).

I have been hanging out a lot with a new rugby friend named Beryl. She is probably the shyest girl on the team but we’ve gotten really close and will often go out or go to the library together.

Sunday was Beryl’s 21st birthday, so we ate cake with her and Captain Lin.

I think that recently things have been going pretty well! Also, the weather has been pretty warm lately, mid 70s to mid 80s and HUMID. My ankles are also stiff, sore, and swollen from being perpetually bitten by mosquitoes. They look horrible and feel horrible!! Not a fan of the mosquitoes.

Final note: there is a service on WeChat (the main app used in China for business, communication, entertainment, online shopping, etc) called WeRun where you can track your steps and there is a leaderboard with you and your friends – you can also like peoples’ rankings – and last week I got first place with roughly 20k steps a day five days in a row (my days show slightly less in WeRun because it can’t track any of my work outs or rugby practices)! My steps slowed down this weekend, but actually today I was number 1 again. A very fun and competitive but not too competitive way to motivate movement!

Local time: Mon March 18, 01:11

The rugby team is preparing to participate in a national tournament, often just being referred to as “Championships” so there are more practices to attend (as you are able) and practices are getting more and more specific. It is both difficult and very enjoyable! I have been getting closer with our rugby mates. There was a retreat this weekend on an island half an hour east of UIC. We had dinner, played games (poker, billiard, and Majiang), set off fireworks, and sang karaoke. It was a lot of fun~ and we stayed the night.

I hit a new PR (personal record) at the gym! I squatted 92kg, roughly 202lbs!! Yay, I finally broke the 200lb benchmark. It was one of the best feelings all week!

My classes are mostly just group projects, so I have been chugging along at those. There is nothing very interesting happening in my classes specifically. Everything is pretty normal.

Thursday, we went to dinner with Tony and Hao~ Hao is an intern who exchanged at UIC while he was in college a few years ago. He is from Vancouver, Canada and graduated from University of Michigan.

Just getting through the next couple of weeks before our reading week!! (Basically spring break).

Local time: Mon March 4, 13:22

Not a lot of activities have happened in the last couple of weeks, but classes are progressing and I have established a pretty solid weekly routine!

I am still very excited and passionate about rugby! I join the rugby class on Monday 4p-5p (it’s really 3p-5p but I’m in class until 4p) and Tuesdays 4p-6p. It’s a PE class offered at UIC that I am not taking for credit, just joining to practice and learn more about rugby.

Tony (from Minnesota and the English for Academic Purposes teacher) took us to the Huafa mall to shop and get dinner! The Huafa mall is the largest mall in Zhuhai and actually very near where we were originally staying before classes started. It was a weird feeling of comfort and relief to be in an area we became so familiar with.

The phase II campus of UIC has many cats that inhabit the area. Since arriving, I have frequently seen a couple of them who I’ve named Lucy, Bruce, and Whiskey. I figured they were probably just stray cats and didn’t have names, but upon talking to the front desk lady of my dorm, it turns out they all have names already!! That same front desk lady has given the cats little cat beds to sleep in, daily food, water, and attention. I make sure to pay the campus kitties a visit every time I see them. ~ the cat I named Whiskey (Frisky Whiskey because she likes attention but not pets and can get frisky) is actually named Chocolate. Lucy is actually named 芝芝 (zhīzhī, jer jer) and Bruce is actually named 雀猫 (quèmāo, sparrow cat). Also, I am pretty sure Lucy/Zhizhi is a boy… Lucifer?? There’s a new cat too, we call her Mary, and she looks like Lucy/Zhizhi but the two do NOT get along. There’s 3 other black cats too, but they’re timid and don’t get close to people.

Anyways, classes are going fine, school is going fine, food is the same…

It’s pretty boring with not a lot to do but everything is going overall positively!

Local time: Tue Feb 20, 22:10

Oh boy! My first few days here have been quite the rollercoaster! This will probably be a long post because there has been a lot that’s happened.

I arrived to UIC on Saturday after about an hour bus ride on the city bus which got us within a few kilometers of campus. We traveled around 15km up to school on the bus costing a whopping 1 RMB. Wow! After the bus, I took a short DiDi ride to the main part of campus.

Upon arrival, I learned that campus is split into two parts, phase I and phase II. This might not sound like anything out of the ordinary, but they are actually separated by a little over 1km, or a 15 minute walk. Phase I campus is where all of the academic buildings, supermarkets, restaurant clusters (main one called Happy Eatery), and the old (still in. use) dormitories area. Phase II is a circle of 6 big dormitories where some are still being finished. This is also where they put all of the exchange (from the sister school HKBU, Hong Kong Basic Uni.) and international students. I, of course, arrived to the wrong part of campus and had to walk to the other part with all of my luggage in hand. Most of the walk is on a narrow quiet road which follows a creek and borders an ancient Chinese village called the Huitong Village. Overall, even though I arrived to the wrong spot, it wasn’t all bad being able to take in the scenery of the surrounding community of UIC.

I finally arrived to the correct part of campus (phase II) and was ready to move in! I was excited to be able to get settled in and meet my new home for the next few months. Unfortunately, I did not have anybody to greet me for a few hours.

One UIC student, named Hua gave a quick (like <10 minute) tour of the phase I campus, which I learned had free shuttle busses to and from every half hour. He also helped get my necessary things for living on campus, such as a mattress, a SIM card, wifi, and other basic necessities that are not provided by the school. The dorms on phase II campus are very nice! Each dorm room hosts 4 students ~ there is a small common room with 2 connected bedrooms, 2 connected bathrooms, and 2 sinks (in the common room) in a mirrored fashion. Not only do we have this private common space for the 4 roommates, the rooms themselves are also quite spacious and have ACs. Very necessary, it’s been high 70s and low 80s and quite humid. Despite how easy this process above sounds, it was actually quite a hassle. There was not really any planning or clear communication, lots of last minute “oh we need this, didn’t know that…” “we should have gone to the store you didn’t tell us about to get this before it was closed…” sort of situations. Hua’s English also isn’t a very high level, so there was quite a language barrier. Even though he knew I could speak Chinese (we texted in Chinese before) he never really tried to use Chinese with me for help clarifying situations. Anyways, I finally have everything I need and now I am just taking my first classes and getting comfortable in my new living situations.

My actually bedroom mate is named Mia. She is from Xi’An, China (where the Terracotta Warriors are). She arrived midday on Monday and has been super helpful with any concerns I have. She is pretty much fluent in English as well so communicating with her is very clear. I told her I wanted to practice my Chinese too and she was happy to help and use Chinese with me too 🙂 My other roommates are Eleanor and Dales. Eleanor is from Shen Zhen, so pretty near here, and Dales is from Kazakstan. They are also super nice! Eleanor studied last semester as an exchange student at HKBU where Dales is a full-time student so they knew each other from last semester. Anyways, Peter and I are both moved in and at this point it’s just about getting accustomed to the culture and campus life. (Actually harder than we thought but we still have lots to learn and lots of time).

Most of my classes have just been going over a syllabus and then going straight into lecture. I have had an Organizational Behavior class which was syllabus and lecture. It was fine, a little boring and repetitive to my business ethics class so far. I also had my Advanced Chinese class! There’s only 3 people in it (including me) and it’s a class focused specifically on speaking. It is pretty fun, we did a lot of talking and practicing/fixing grammar. My other classmates are nice! One of them is actually Luke. The only thing about that class is that the vocab we are “learning” and the topics are really basic ~ sports, transportation, shopping. Even Luke asked me after class, “don’t you think this class is too easy for you?” In a 50 minute class he could already tell it didn’t seem advanced enough for me. But since it’s a class focused on speaking I will find a lot of value in working on my grammar. I was recommended to find a professor I like and maybe talk to them about tutoring with them or someone they recommend about business/communication related Chinese topics and vocabulary. So after this week I will do that (I want to meet all of my professors first). My favorite class so far is my Organizational Communication class. Everyone in the class already knew each other and the professor from last semester’s pre-rec to this class. The professor was like “is there an exchange student here who doesn’t understand Mandarin? I thought there was one” and I raised my hand but explained how I do know Mandarin. So she asked if it was okay that she could use Mandarin to clarify some difficult topics in the class and I said yes! The rest of class was taught bilingually (slides and everything are in English still which helps). Most of that class is based around a group assignment and when we were choosing groups a nice group of girls asked if I would join them! I also met another girl who was just in Salem, Oregon and she invited me to eat lunch with her!! My last class was a strategic management but it might get cancelled because there are only 8 people enrolled and only 3 people (including myself) showed up. It’s a little different than the Chinese class rules. I feel bad because it’s taught by an assistant professor who just graduated with his PhD and it’s his first year teaching! Anyways, overall I’ve had a pretty good impression of my classes. All but one of my professors (the one I just mentioned) are young women which I think is cool.

Settling in hasn’t been smooth or easy by any means… actually pretty stressful and frustrating. UIC hasn’t been entirely clear or hospitable in helping us adjust and get to know campus. I think UIC expected our roommates to guide us through everything, but from Vivian’s, Peter’s and my experiences our roommates didn’t really know what their expectations were which really didn’t help with the moving-in process ~ things really only got done if we explicitly asked about it. But like I have said, we are being optimistic and looking forward to the rest of the semester. There is actually a dinner on Sunday for the international and exchange students and I was asked to give a speech on behalf of the international students (I accepted!). I am actually excited for that!

Anyways, I think that covers mostly everything for now! Look out for another post maybe this weekend?

Love,
Abigail

P.S. I will get more campus/class photos for the next blog post!

Local time: Fri Feb 16, 20:09

Today was my last full day in Zhuhai City Central/port area. I will leave and move into campus dorms tomorrow!

To spend my last day, I of course went back to my favorite noodle and dumpling shop, Lan Zhou Noodles. I then took a public bus north to Jiu Zhou Cheng/Hai Bin. I thought the wall temple would be cool to walk through and the map also showed a neat museum but when I got there it looked pretty closed. However, down and across the road a little bit was Hai Bin public park and it was BUSY (and beautiful)! Today is the sixth day of Chinese new year (正月初六), the day where business that were closed for the holiday traditionally re-open, so there were lots of decorations still up in the park! The weather was lovely, not too hot, so walking around in the sun with the occasional breeze felt really nice. I passed by little food stands but decided to pass ~ most of it was fish balls and tentacles. This park was huge, green, and open. There were flower beds around that looked healthy and lush, more picture opportunity spots, and a pond that you could ride pedal (paddle?) boats on and shoot water guns. The park was also by the beach which was PACKED with people, though not a single person was in the water, granted there were signs that said not to go in the water. Down the beach a ways was the Fisherman’s Daughter statue, a famous Zhuhai landmark. We walked down the boardwalk to get our picture of it, and had to squish between people.

SO MANY UMBRELLAS ! (The umbrellas are to block the sun. Lots of the women here wear garments and accessories that cover the majority of their skin. I have heard before that having fair skin is part of the beauty standard, so maybe that has something to do with it?)

I then walked up the mountain a little bit to really enjoy the view away from the noise and crowd before hopping on a bus back to Gongbei for another 冰糖葫芦 (bīngtánghúlù). The bingtanghulu shop keepers gave big smiles and waves as I walked up!

And yesterday A and Lan opened their boutique back up. As I was walking back to the hotel and passed I stopped in to say hi. Lan wasn’t there at the time but A was and she was getting an offering ready for prayer (a small table with duck, oranges, apples, and tea). I didn’t want to interrupt her so I only stopped for a little bit. In that time she went to her purse and handed me a red envelope! So nice of her! I will go back tomorrow as well to say goodbye. Though I have truly enjoyed the time down here and have enjoyed learning to navigate the public transportation, it will be nice to finally be on campus, meet my roommates, and start classes! (It has been a LONG break).

It really has been such an amazing experience living independently here, and the people around me have made being here not so scary and isolating. I am going to miss this little area of Zhuhai I’ve come to know so well but really what awaits ahead is the big adventure!!

Thank you again to everyone who has been supporting and loving me!

I love and miss you ❤