Sunday

I could barely sleep because my room was so cold, my bed was so hard and I didn’t have enough blankets to keep me warm. In the middle of the night, I had to move to the living room to sleep on the couch, which is much softer than my bed.
We had to go to our orientation at 9 am, so us students in the apartments met at the entrance of the complex where Wentao's, our program director, assistant met us. Wentao's assistant's name is Vivian. Once we were all there, we took the bus to a hotel. Wentao introduced us to Chengdu by giving a presentation. Afterwards, we went down to the lobby to eat lunch, which was good since I was starving. I had a difficult time using the chopsticks and still do, but I was so hungry that I made it work. I think the waitresses kept looking at me and laughing about the fact that I couldn’t use the chopsticks properly. Once we finished Wentao took us on a tour of the university’s campus, which is very pretty. It is fairly small, although it doesn’t seem like it is, and there are various trees (including palm trees!!!) and statues around. My classes are in the same building as the international students’ dorms, except on the second floor.
Wentao then took us on a city tour. It wasn’t too exciting, but we did get to see a car “crash” (more like a fender bender) that had just happened. One car had switched lanes (without looking, I would assume) and the car in the lane he tried to switch into hit the side of the other car. The drivers were just stuck in the middle of the road and it seemed like they were trying to decide what to do themselves because I don’t think they like to involve the police in these sort of things. As far as I know, no cop cars ever came to report the accident. Plus, I don’t think anyone was hurt, so that might have something to do with it.

City Tour- If you can't tell, the boat in the background is actually on land. It has restaurants, clubs, shops, etc. inside it.


Let me give you a little background on driving here. As one of my classmates put it, “lanes are only suggestions here”. Everyone drives like a maniac. I’ve been in a taxi where the driver drove on the wrong side of the road to pass a long line of cars that went on forever. This exact same driver also drove straight into cars that were turning left at an intersection. He was the only car in this mass of turning cars that was attempting to go straight. But amazingly, no one hit him, and from what I’ve heard (and experienced), very few accidents actually occur. It seems to me as if it’s all just organized chaos.
Later in the afternoon, we (most of the new USAC students) went to Carrefour, an enormous shopping complex about 4 or 5 stories tall with everything you could possibly need (electronics, food, kitchenware, hygiene products, make up, etc.). I had to get some essentials like dishes, blankets, and food. My roommates also had to purchase some items that they had forgotten to buy the night before. So once we finished finding everything we needed, stood in line and paid, my roommates (Kevin and Marit), Magnus, Bjoernar and I all went outside and tried to find a taxi. Kevin, my roommate, found one. However, none of us knew the address of the apartment nor did any of us bring anything with the address on it. To make matters worse, we didn’t know how to say the name of the complex. Instead of saying Tianfu Hua Yuan, I said Tianfu Yuan Hua, which of course the driver did not understand. Kevin said he knew the way back and since he knew most of the Chinese, we told him to sit in front so he could direct the driver back to our homes. The five of us (Kevin, Marit, Magnus, Bjoernar and myself) did not want to split up because only Kevin knew the way back and the rest of us didn’t want to get lost. So the five of us crammed into the taxi (Kevin and the driver were up front) and Magnus, Marit, Bjoernar and myself were in the backseat meant for only three people. So Bjoernar had to sit on Magnus’ lap. If that wasn’t bad enough, Marit and I had to put all of the stuff that didn’t fit into the trunk on our lap. We could barely get the door closed in the back. Fortunately, Kevin’s excellent sense of direction brought us back to the apartment, which was amazing since we had just been in the city for two days and it was nighttime so the fact that he managed to find his way back was very astonishing to me. The five of us then went to our respective apartments and met again, along with about five other students, later to eat dinner.
The restaurant, which Laura (a classmate who has already been in Chengdu for a month and who studied in Shanghai last semester) picked out, was very small (the 10 of us almost filled the whole restaurant) and questionable. However, I wasn’t too worried and the food turned out to be pretty good and cheap, a very common theme here in Chengdu.

The restaurant and its food






Afterwards, my roommates and I headed back to our apartment and I got ready for bed. Kevin, Magnus and Bjoernar were in the living room playing cards. Marit was also in the living room, but wasn’t playing. I wanted to take a shower, so I went into one of our bathrooms that has a jacuzzi bathtub with a waterfall and a shower head. I tried to get the shower head to work. However, I couldn’t figure it out, so I asked Kevin, my roommate, if he could help me. He came and tried turning all the knobs but all we could turn on was the waterfall, not the shower part. He then proceeded to push a button on the top of the bathtub to see if that did anything. Well, it turns out that button turns on the jacuzzi jets and since there was no water in the bathtub (but for some reason some was in the pipes), Kevin got sprayed with the freezing water. We were both so surprised by the jets that we yelled, which Magnus and Bjoernar heard. Of course, they had to see what was going on, so they came over to the bathroom only to find Kevin drenched in water. We explained what happened and Kevin then went to change and I decided to take a shower in the other bathroom, which is not as clean or comfortable. The water in that shower was so cold I could barely even shower. But I felt so gross from my travels and the pollution that I didn’t really care. After this freezing shower, I finally got to go to bed, which was much softer than the day before because of the three blankets I put on it.