What a weekend...

Before I explain my weekend, in very random fashion, let me give you a few of my thoughts on some random issues.

1) The door open and door close buttons in the Chinese elevators actually work. its the first time I have ever seen them work.
2) During class, the bell that rings to signal class is over for the other students attending the school is a beautiful rendition of silent night. who knows why but it makes for a good choir session during class every day (numerous times)
3) I have to go wash my clothes soon. and if you know me, im not known to be the best at that or have much experience, and to make it better, I have to go do it by hand in my bathtub...sweet
4) Traffic = wow....so much traffic and picture the worst drivers uve ever seen (be it new york, boston, texas, etc...) multiply that times 1,000,000,000 - the other day I was ccrossing the street and it was probably the scariest thing I have ever done, and our bus was going the wrong way on a one way and in a cab we almost pegged about 6 bikers and a few walkers.....wow its crazy
5) KFC in China tastes amazing, and I have never seen so many people at a restaurant in my life. My friend Phil and I went and we coulnt even get a seat. we had to sit like bums on the side of the road and it and we got the weirdest looks. it was quite an experience.

So my weekend...... Friday night the program had organized a Chinese acrobat show for us to attend. It had contortionists, magicians, weirdos, and everything. It was actually quite amazing some of the things they did, but some of the magic kind of reminded me of the crappy tricks scott used to do to us out of his magic bag. sorry scott, i liked them when i was 10 but now that I think about it, they were kinda weak haha. I dont even know how to explain some of these contourtionists. I have pictures and hopefully the link I attatch at the bottom will work and you can see some of the crazy things these people do. After that we decided to go out and as soon as we got out decided we were tired and wanted to just come back. A few of my friends were talking to me in my room later that night and I started to watch the newest episode of entourage online when I found out that my two friends had fallen dead asleep on my bed. So Friday night I ended up sleeping on the floor which wasnt the best sleep Ive ever gotten but oh well. Saturday morning my friend Phil and I woke up and he came with me to go add minutes to my phone. We went to a place with a billion cell phone companies and of course I didnt know mine and of course I went to the wrong one. The guy at China Unicom noticed that I was supposed to be at China Moble and he was extremely nice and walked me to where I needed to go. After about 20 minutes of figuring out what to do we finally got the minutes on my phone and we then left for KFC. After KFC I came home, did some homework and kind of relaxed for a few hours. Around 6pm my friends Ben, Taylor, Phil and I set off to what became one of the best "going out" nights I think I have ever had. Heres the story: First of all, it was the first time we have gone somewhere without a gigantic group of americans, which we soon realized small groups were way more fun. We told the cab driver (in chinese of course) to take us to bar street which we had never been too. He dropped us off at a place called Club COCO but it was a little to early for that scene. As we were walking we saw a small cute little Japanese restaurant which looked really chill and fun so we stopped there. We ordered some meat skewers and a few beers and just having a very relaxing night. I then deciced that we needed a little spice in our night so I brought up the idea of Saki Bombing. for those of you who dont know, I shall explain: First you fill up a glass of beer about 1/4 the way. you then fill up a shot of Saki. Lay your pair of chopsticks on top of the beer and put the shot of saki on top of the chopsticks. if you are following along with me right now your saki will be stable yet probably a little wobbly. You the count: YI, ER, SAN (1,2,3) and bang the table. The saki falls into the glass of beer, splashes everywhere and you chug the saki/beer concoction. I promise you guys, Im not an alcoholic. This was probably one of the most fun things Ive done in a going out fashion. We asked our waiter to do one with us, and then we started asking random people in the restaurant to do them with us. Everyone one there was watching us and taking pictures and partaking and loving it. Even a 40 or so year old couple joined in on the fun and took a saki bomb with us. The people working there were loving us and kept bringing us out free bottles of saki and beer and what not. It ended up being such a fun experience and definately something I will never forget. We then left and went to that Club COCO which was pretty fun and we just kinda chilled there had a few more drinks which was unnecessary but oh well. Then we took a cab home which ended our night. Im sure I sound like a total alcoholic but I promise thats now how it is. Anyway, that brings me to this morning and I should probably go shower and get myself back to normal, but Rachel hope you had fun tonite. I understand giving directions to ur friend is more important that talking to your bf 6000 miles away. im only kidding. miss you so much and miss you all tons. Week one of China is down, one test is down, and next weekend we are going as a group to BEIJING!!! I cant wait to see the great wall and all that other cool stuff. I shall talk to you guys in a few days. Write back!! Love you all

MY PICTURES:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLandingSignin.jsp?Uc=18vfgggl.aiefn08l&Uy=pjlilh&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=0