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I can hardly believe that I only have one more week of classes, and then finals. This summer has gone by incredibly fast. When I got on the plane in June I wouldn't have even begun to think that it would go by this quickly. I'm really excited for the other WSU students to arrive. I'm meeting everyone in Beijing on the 27th, so we'll have a couple days of English before the language pledge starts up again :)
I'm pretty nervous about my final exam. We have finals in all of our courses, but the most intimidating one is the one-on-one final. It's an oral and written report. The oral report is given in front of a panel of three teachers, who then ask you questions on your topic. I'm pretty intimidated, but it should turn out all right.
This last weekend was our last weekend activity with CET. We went to "Old Harbin" and had about an hour and a half to walk around on our own and then went to dinner. The buildings were awesome. And the contrast between the new and the old was pretty striking. A lot of the buildings had plaques saying when they were constructed and what the original purpose was. We ran across a street where there were a ton of small vendors. I looked around quite a bit and ended up buying a small bracelet and a ceramic teapot. I think my roommate thinks I paid too much. I tried bartering, but let's face it, I'm just not quite used to it yet. I think it's because I'm still not quite sure what's considered a "good" price. Yanping insists on helping me from now on. I really appreciate her help, but I think it's kind of fun, haha. At one vendor, they wanted me to buy this huge vase. Like you could put a small child in it. It was great fun and I would love to go back and walk around the area, but it's rather far from campus and I don't know how I would get there.
Harbin is just way to big to ever see it all.
This morning I went to the morning market with Yanping, her classmate, and Kelly (he's in some of my pictures). I didn't buy anything, but Yanping bought a skirt and some shoes. I still haven't found an effective method for buying clothes and shoes in China. More often than not, the salesperson underestimates my size, greatly, and gives me an extra small to try on. It takes some explaining that I am completely unable to try on that shirt unless they want it in pieces. I'm able to find clothes, but it takes some searching.
I'm really excited to do some traveling with David. I've booked our hostel in Beijing and will buy the train tickets from Beijing to Xi'an when we arrive on the 16th. I think my classmate, Geraldo, will go with us to Xi'an and maybe to Shanghai. It should be a ton of fun and I'm sure I'll have hundreds of pictures when I'm done :)
I'd better get back to studying!!
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