CHINA!

yes. I went to China. As a school trip. (How awesome is that?! why don't we have school trips to Asia in America?!)We went to Shanghai and Suzhou. It was interesting, scary, fun, and tiring.

So, the first day we all met up at Kyoto station and from there went to the Kansai airport. I had forgotten that just because I'm used to being on airplanes doesn't mean everyone else is. The plane takes off and I hear all this excited loud chatter from the general direction of my group. Also, when we got to Shanghai airport in the baggage area my friend asked if it was ok to take her bag from the carousel hahahaha
From Shanghai we took a bus to Suzhou...and it broke down half way though...
so after waiting an hour or so a new bus finally came and we went to a five star hotel in Suzhou!!! Seriously, why not in America?!
The main scary part occurred right when we got to the level our rooms were on. Everyone had just gotten off the elevator and there were 3 huge probably drunk Chinese guys yelling at my Japanese classmates for no apparent reason. They had no idea what to do, seeing as they couldn't understand a word the Chinese guys were saying (Actually, I couldn't understand them either. And I've at least studied a little Chinese) So, I had to step in and say "they speak Japanese" in Chinese.
Well, at least they stopped yelling.
But now their focus was on me..

The moment they started trying to talk to me in Chinese was the moment all my Chinese education somehow disappeared.

Wonderful.

so the conversation went a little like this:
"nhjkdfhsfjld hlskfhc speak Chinese"
"uhhhhh i speak a little Chinese" (wo hui shuo yi dian zhong wen)
"what nationality?" (ni shi na guo ren?)
"...American" (...mei guo ren..)
"ohh America. beautiful" (in English)
"uhh..."

It was not fun. It was scary. He was three inches away and smelled like cigarettes.
fgvgd,hn\hgfcj khl hgdschdlshvgf sdlcf

The rest of the trip was good though!

We saw a lot of really old buildings and visited my Japanese school's sister school in Suzhou. The school just celebrated it's 1003 year old "birthday". That's. INSANE.

I got to tour the school with one of the Chinese students whose English name is Away. I don't think this is an actual name, but hey, why not. (I decided her Japanese name is あそ子)
She talked about how she wants to go to American and wants to go to Princeton. She thinks American guys and cool especially bald black guys. Her mom is really strict but she likes to get even by saying shes going to marry an American man.

She's an interesting person.

Although, it was really starting to bug me, every time I would try and speak to her in Chinese, she would obviously understand and then answer back in English. I didn't come on this trip so you could practice you're English!! Give me a chance to practice too! If I really wanted to speak English I would be back home by now!

We also went to several market type areas and an old city similar to Venice with the rivers and boats weaving throughout the city. The shop owners are very...aggressive. I heard a lot of "Hallo! Miss! You look!" I tend to just ignore them but my classmates had little to NO idea of what to do. They would smile and nod and try and get away but they would be followed. So I would occasionally have to drag them away from whoever was following them.

People took a LOT of picture of me. They would mysteriously gather in front of me when I would be looking at something in a shop and attempt to take a picture...until I move and then they have to actually ASK to take my picture. People also liked practicing whatever English they could conjure up at the moment like "Hello! Beautiful girl!"
I basically had to repeat over and over in my head "I'm from Sweden and I don't speak a word of English" like a mantra.

The food was awesome! We would all sit at a huge round table with a lazy susan in the middle and it would be filled with dishes and dishes of food! like magic!!!!!
It was interesting how Japanese people couldn't handle the spicy food though. Now that I think about it the Japanese only really have wasabi. They were all surprised at the fact I could use chopsticks (how long have I been here?!?!) and I could/ like to eat spicy food.

Pictures include: A bridge in one of the gardens, on the boats, Chinese circus we went to, and two of the guys messing around at the Pearl Tower because they were scared of the see-through floor.