Sad story.

Hey kids, it seems that I can't upload pictures anymore. I'm not sure why exactly (I blame China), and I'm not sure if I can fix this problem (很大的問題）。 I'm already using a proxy to get on blogspot to post. My proxy failed at logging in to facebook too. Sad sad story. I mean, I knew this was how it was going to be (with facebook) but then the proxy business just gave me false hope. And the regular internet wouldn't even load the blogger. This pictures problem is super lame because now there's even less motivation for any of you to read my blog (which you don't anyway). It weird talking to an absent audience.

Just before I got on here, I picked out pictures to put up. However, since that won't work, I'll still use them as the highlight points to talk about here and hopefully not be too boring.

My last week at Tunghai (東海）was rather sad because I didn't want to leave, but also fun as always. On the last day, I had an unfortunate headache, slept through my last class, and then during the farewell party, Da Zhang Laoshi (大張老師）assaulted my face. I had taken medicine two hours before, but it hadn't kicked in, so she did this thing to make my head better. Also, I had drunk a number of bottles of water. So those three things (I don't know which actually did it) finally made my headache better.

After class and the party, we most definitely went shrimping again. The three of us girls asked Liu Laoshi to go again, so we were going to go Thursday. But he changed it to Friday and a bigger group of people went. Courtney and I rocked because we took the claws off the shrimps without using the towel. Also, at the end, Leechew, Courtney, and I prepared and cooked the 30 shrimps we caught. I cut their legs off, Courtney salted, and Leechew skewered. Courtney and I both tried to skewer, but we just couldn't go through with it. Then Courtney cut the legs off and I salted. It was quite sad. But tasty once they were barbecued.

Early Saturday morning the five of us from Puget Sound left Taichung (台中）to go to Hualien (花蓮）for a few days. Courtney left Sunday afternoon to go back to the States, Ryan went on a river swimming trip, and Leechew, Max, and I went to see the famous beautiful gorge over there. Monday we headed back to Taipei, as Ryan, Max and I were all leaving on Tuesday (and Leechew on Wednesday).

So that's the end of Taiwan（台灣）. It really sucked leaving again, but I'll be back in approximately two years I've decided.

Ryan and I went to Hong Kong (香港）to get our visas for China（中國）. Hong Kong was interesting. We had a number of adventures, sometimes good, sometimes bad, sometimes on purpose, sometimes unintentionally. It was rather ridiculous. I was more than tired of living out of a suitcase and was anxious to get to Shanghai （上海）. But we did see some beautiful things in Hong Kong. We went up to the peak to look down on the city lights at night. We went to a couple of beaches on the south side of Hong Kong Island. We went to a couple of the outlying islands, one of which had no cars on it. We hiked across the island from on harbor to the other in about an hour and a half. But the heat was crazy intense and we were practically drenched in sweat. Lovely.

This morning we flew into Shanghai. Finally. I'm staying in the dorms for a few days until I move into my host family on Wednesday night. I was really looking forward to getting settled in tonight, after living out of my suitcase for more than a week. And unpacking. And doing laundry. But no. In the dorms. It shouldn't be too bad. This dorm room is like a hotel. It's basically luxury after the sketchiness of Hong Kong. And I'm nearly out of clean clothes, but I'll wash some in the sink with the soap they've given us. This free soap is excellent, otherwise I would have a problem. So now I'm really really looking forward to moving into my homestay. Also, we have orientation all week and classes start Monday September 7. Then it's my birthday. Yeah!