With Good Comes Bad

The theme of my entry today is "with good comes bad". Why? Well, as much fun as I am having being in China, there are some downs that I've encountered so far.

These past couple of days, I have been having problems with eating the food. Normal Chinese food has made me feel sick lately... but it's not like I've been throwing up or anything, so I guess that's good. I guess my stomach and my immune system are both still trying to adapt to my new environment.

The second problem I've been having with is my "new bike". I bought a bike with 6 other classmates the other day off a street vendor (big mistake). We all knew that the bikes weren't of very good quality, but we decided to buy them anyway because they were cheap, and we're only going to be here for 4 months anyway, right? Well, after we haggled for 3 hours for 7 bikes, and then waited another hour for them to put the bikes together and make sure everything was okay, the owner said we could all come back to his stand if we had any problems with the bike. On the first day, Marcus's chain broke, and his pedals fell off. On the second day, my chain broke, and Laverne and Abe's pedal fell off. We went back to the guy, and his stand was gone!

We asked around, and found out that he had "skipped town", basically. I was so angry that we got taken advantaged of, but there was nothing we could really do.

After class today, I saw a street vendor who looked like one of the guys who helped the bike vendor. I walked up to him and started asking him questions about the bike vendor. He kept denying that he helped sell any bikes, and then he finally admitted to it. I was so angry and I wouldn't stop harassing him (not very mature, I know... but I was REALLY angry). He told me his "boss" went to another school to sell bikes. But, there was basically nothing I could do, so my friends and I left.

Although being in China has been a fairly great experience so far, I've learned that locals tend to take advantage of foreigners... so lesson #1: Try not to look like or act like a foreigner!

This was just one long rant, so I'm going to leave this post with some pictures of karaoke night, and group field trip to People's Square:


Marcus; this is just a taste of the craziness within each other we have to endure


Jen and I are matching! (Kind of)


Before karaoke


Karaoke! SO cheap! Equivalent of $1.80 per person for all you can sing until 6 AM!


Some friends...


Judo Hello Kitty outside the karaoke bar


Visiting Ona's high school... in front of a rock that Mao carved


View from Ona's high school--in the middle of the financial district. This picture reminds me of an AT&T commercial (raising the bar)


Ona's high school


Shanghai City Council


We went to a tourist place where all the shops are shaped like temples


With moon festival characters


Eating soup buns! These weren't as good as the xiao long bao though...

I will be updating with more pictures soon! Stay tuned!