黄山比天津漂亮的多 (Huangshan is MUCH more beautiful than Tianjin)

So anyway, sorry its been FOREVER. Im getting so nervous and stressed now because everyday I hear a new cousin or friend deciding the read this. im running out of humor! Oh well, as always ill tell it like it is. Before I get to my weekend (last weekend), ill tell you about this week. I had a very vigorous first week of 4th semester Chinese. The vocab and grammar is getting noticibly more difficult but I really think my Chinese is getting a lot better. As I write this I feel as if I could write it completely in Chinese with few mistakes which makes me really realize how much I am learning here. This Tuesday was my good friend Taylor's 21st birthday, so we went out pretty big for him that night. We took him to a bar and then went Saki bombing (his choice) and then came back late night for some birthday cake. I think he had a great birthday which was really nice because he wasnt planning on it being as fun as it was. Today I had a pretty difficult test but now that Im staying in Tianjin for the weekend i can FINALLY RELAX! Tomorrow I am going to culture street to try and pick up some chachki's (wow that spelling is atrocious) and I even want to get a mahjong set. Grandma when I come visit I can fill in for someone if you need me! I also had Erhu class today and honestly im starting to get kinda good. The instrument is a pretty gross sounding instrument if not played perfectly so it still sounds pretty terrible but im slowly getting better. Anyways, enough of this week, let me get to last weekend which was an AMAZING weekend. The people that went to huangshan was me, phil, ben, ky, leslie, and margaret. We left Friday afternoon on OKAY-Air (eesh we didnt know how to respond to that name but whatever) and landed in Shanghai's smaller aiport. from there we took a bus to the larger airport, and from the larger airport flew directly into Huangshan. We checked into our hotel around 9 and searched the city for a nice place to eat. We found a small restaurant open late with a bunch of locals inside so we decided to stop by. The meal was actually amazing. We had some random meat skewers as well as some fried rice, these other friend vegetable things and some random vegetable dishes (mom, im eating my greens here, i promise). The meal was great and of course I couldnt go without another drinking story. We ordered a case of beer and went downstairs to mingle with the locals and have a good time. We left the restaurant late that night and headed to bed only to wake up at 8am the next morning to leave for Huangshan. The deal was, we were to pay a base price and they would take us to the bottom of the mountain (little over an hour away), meet us toward the top with a tour guide who would then take us to our "hotel" - ill come back to the "hotel" part shortly. We woke up, picked up the bus and arrived at the bottom of the mountain where we were told that we had to meet at a certain time and place. We were SO anxious to hike that we took off not really knowing how far we had to go and how long it would take or how hard it would be. after about 4 hours of climbing and going less than a damn INCH on the map, we decided to ask for help. Oh and I failed to tell you that walking up the mountain we saw only people coming down. NO ONE was coming up except a man that had to bring a computer screen somewhere on the mountain. People were giving us quite odd looks but we didnt really know why until hours into the hike. The hike was DIRECTLY UPHILL and it was all stairs. it was actually hell hiking. Anyway, we found out that what most people do is take a gondola most of the way to the top, and the nest morning hike down. ya we took the 7-8 hour hike to the top and were absolutely EXHAUSTED. so at the top what did we see? it was incredible. we were often either in the clouds or looking down on the clouds. the views were breathtaking and the pictures that I have don't do a bit of justice. it was one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen and I was judging it to the great wall and the grand canyon. It was such an amazing view and it was WELL WORTH the 5 or so mile hike. So we met with our tour guide and she guided us toward our "hotel." along the way she mentioned to us that in Huangshang guys in girls cant stay in the same rooms which wasnt a problem at all but she then mentioned to us that we were going to have some roomates as well. we were on our way (oh and we were told that all the hotels on the hill were 4 or 5 stars) and were SO excited to get there finally. the 4 of us guys had such good plans for the hotel. we were going to get a huge amazing me, have a nice cold beer and smoke a big fat cigarette. So as we were getting really excited about all this we arrive at our hotel, i mean hostel. Man..... i dont even know what to say. this place sucked. we walked into our rooms, and there were BEAUTIFUL rusted bunk-beds and the bed was NO JOKE a piece of wood with a sheet on top. bugs everywhere, no shower just a shower head next to the toilet and a group of 5 others sleeping in there. so... 1)nice hotel-no check 2)amazing meal-disgusting-NO CHECK
3)Fat Cigar - no check 4)cold beer - only hot beer. This is exactly what we wanted to do after an amazing hike up. Oh well like the men (and the 2 women) we are, we toughed it out, played hours of Euchre over hot beers and went to sleep on our wood. we came back late to our room cracking jokes and laughing so loud and our roomates where pretty pissed but it was a good time. We came back the next morning on the gondola and then proceeded to wait for the bus for 3 hours until it was finally time to head back to the hotel. Upon our arrival back at the hotel we checked in again to the hotel and then headed to a really good korean restaurant for lunch. That afternoon we went to the culture street in Huangshan which was acutally REALLY cool. I didnt buy anything there but it was a good time. Im not going to tell the whole story of the next hours because it would take days but we lost the 2 girls and looked for them for a while and because my phone was dead there was nothing we could do. we hopped in a few rickshaws and told the driver to take us to the neaerest bar/restaurant. we get out of the rickshaw (75cents a person later) and proceed to the bar they took us too. they were speaking in chinese and we understood 2 things. 小姐-pronounced xiao-jie which means whore and 一百塊-prounced yi bai kuai which means 100chinese dollars. We figured that wasnt the best place to say so we finally found a place. To save time lets put it this way, later that night before we found a real bar they took us to about 3 more of those places. We found a place finally that was more of a restaurant, bought some beer for cheap at a store and walked in there to play more cards and have a good chinese dinner. We contacted the girls finally from a convienent store phone and finally got a hold of them. we left to go meet them up and of course they were pretty pissed but we solved the issue. it was just a lack of communication on both parts. That night we went to a bar (after being dropped off first at a whore house basically) and then came back late and went to bed. the next day we went again to culture street and then more shopping (i added money to the phone), more cards, and had a relaxing day. We left that night for the airport where are flight was slightly delayed direct to beijing. we made it to beijing and out of a crowd of TONS of people we spotted 4 of our friends. we took a cab back to tianjin which took a little over 2 hours and arrived back at the dorm at 3:30 in the morning. I did alittle studying for my quiz that was in 4 hours and then fell asleep. I woke up and actually went to my discussion and was the only one there. It was actually really nice because I had basically a free tutoring session. The lecture only had about 5 people in each instead of 15 in each so we combined the 2.......phew I think that is were I would say my weekend ended. It was an AMAZING time and definitely something ill never forget. I hope this post wasnt too long but I had to get it all out. This weekend wont be AS exciting but im sure there will be a lot for me to talk about. Oh ive also been playing alot of basketball with a bunch of random chinese guys that are at the court. they cheat alot but i guess when we are in their hood we have to play by their rules. Anyway we are going tonite to a muslim restaurant and then bowling probably for a program party so I will update you with that hopefully shortly. I miss you guys alot and I cant believe Ill be back so soon. Love you all and hope to hear back from many of you. Im sure I left a lot out or skipped stuff but thanks for baring with me. Ill talk to yall soon!