国庆节: NATIONAL HOLIDAY! Three days in one post!

The National Day (of the People's Republic of China) is celebrated every year on October 1st. Public Chinese schools all have a one week holiday to celebrate the national day. Our holiday is from Oct 1-7. Literally seven days because we have to attend school on Saturday and Sunday and throughout the week...so a week of non-stop school after the holidays! 


On October second, I met up with my friend Nathan from America. We decided to meet up at Aqua City and we just explored from there...headed to Fu Zu Miao, Xin Jie Kou and then to Golden Eagle...somehow we ended up at Aqua City at the end of the day. We basically talked and looked around to see different areas of Nanjing. I feel a lot more comfortable now going out alone and at night to just explore and see the surroundings. I think this is great because now I can get lost without freaking out!! (Not that that is my intention at all..but just "if" that occurs I would be able to keep a good composure). We ate dinner at this japanese restaurant! It was pretty good, I ended up getting home around 9:30 PM. It was such a long but good day! It felt good to meet another American in Nanjing (the only other American I know in Nanjing is Hawk..and he is only staying for a semester):!!!) 

Nathan & I near Golden Eagle (another shopping mall)

On October 3rd, my classmate, Tiffany planned a KTV(Karaoke) get-together. I was really excited to go with a bunch of my classmates and I thought it would be a really good time for me to get to know them better! We all met up in front of the school and walked to the KTV place. There were about 10 other people there and it was really fun! We sung a lot of English songs, and yes...they knew a lot of them! Of course I didn't know any of the chinese songs but I just listened to them and also choose other songs to sing afterwards. The people here really like Lady Gaga and one of my classmates really liked Ke$ha :P We all sung songs by: Lady Gaga, Ke$ha, Avril, Taylor Swift....there were more! We spent a couple hours in the KTV from 1:30-5:30 PM. 

After our session in KTV was over, all of us headed over to grab some dinner. We had "hot pot" which is really popular during the winter. It was really tasty! There was a big pot with soup inside and the pot had two sides to it, one spicy and the other not spicy. We could order our own vegtables or meat to put inside the soup. We ordered mushrooms, potatoes, noodles, beef...and a bunch of other things. They brought them out to us raw and we would put them in the soup and cook it inside. There was a seperate little bowl with some peanut paste and some other liquid...(not too sure what it was) but we dipped our food in it. It tasted very good!! 

Hot Pot. Half/Half

A couple of us at dinner!

QY, Lucas and I at this store trying on glasses and hats!
(After dinner) 

October 4th:

Today I met up with my friend Giulia from Italy! We decided to meet up in Xin Jie Kou and go shopping around there. Our main goal was to find boots for the winter season coming our way....but we couldn't find a good pair ): It was either very nice boots but way too expensive OR very cheap boots but very..tacky O: So we are going to research a little more to find something more "in between" In price and in looks! At first we looked in Lai Di but didn't find anything and by the time we finished it was noon so we decided to go to PIZZA HUT! I never thought that I would miss eating pizza but I felt so happy that we were going to eat pizza! For some reason, in China, KFC, McDonalds and Pizza Hut are really popular! Whenever I see Pizza Hut there is always a giant line of people outside of the doors. When Giulia and I arrived at Pizza Hut we had to wait on line for about 15 minutes before we were seated. I was suprised when we went inside Pizza Hut because it was an actual restaurant...like a place people actually went to, to enjoy their meal..which was very different compared to America. I was so excited when we got into the restaurant because everything on the menu seemed so familiar. We thought that the pizza portion would be very small so we ordered one regular sized pizza each and a carbonada pasta. When the food came we were like "Oh no....this is A LOT of food...." I ended up eating only two slices of my pizza and some pasta! Haha...it was a waste to just leave all of the pizza there so we both took it home with us :P But it felt so good to eat something we both knew very well. After lunch we still searched for boots and some winter clothes, but tough luck. I think we need a little help with someone who is Chinese....so thats a plan for another day! We basically walked around all day from 1:30 until 5:30 until we headed to Aqua City and went to DQ...it felt so good to finally sit down and rest for a while. After eating a blizzard from DQ we headed to H&M....still tough luck with finding boots ): 

Next in line to go into Pizza Hut!

Yum! Popcorn chicken and hawaiian (had to get it!)

Trying on funky hats in H&M (:

We made plans to meet up on thursday too! Today was really fun (: I'm glad Giulia and I had a lot to talk about and that we got along really well! Goal for the next time? FIND BOOTS. 

This holiday: So far so gooooood :)!