where in the world?: good bye Huzhou...

hello long road home! My last week in my home for the last four months was very eventful. i got to see Huzhou on my own and without having to work and it was pretty enjoyable. i spent good quality time with some students and prettied myself for the (Chinese) New Year with Penny. i got a more Chinese-y haircut and bought some new glasses as well. i was impressed to find that i got a free eye exam upon entry to the Xin Tian Di Yan Jing Chang (New World Glasses City) and my glasses only cost about $30 USD! what? yes, that is right. So Penny and i got haircuts at a new place, called Jing Mei, which means golden dollar, and we waited for like three hours because there was only one hairdresser for five customers! But it was worth it because it was 10 RMB.

i spent all of Saturday with two students, Jane and Candy, and we had a great time! We ate on the 5th floor of Zhebei Mall, which is a cafeteria of sorts

and had some bubble tea and Tang HuLu (candies hawthorne berries on a stick).

Then we went to walk around and ran into a dream come true: a camel in the middle of downtown Huzhou! i proceeded to ride said camel for a photo-op and it was glorious.

We also managed to squeeze in some Da Tou Tie, which is like going to a photobooth, on crack! You can choose from hundreds of backgrounds and then when they print out the pictures it's usually on stickers or you can pay extra to have them made into hard plastic mobile phone bobble (which i did, you shall see...). Later that same evening i went to Candy's Grandma's house for dinner and to witness her mad skills at ping pong.

i said a very unceremonious good bye to the city that has been my home for the last four and a half months: i bid Penny farewell at a city bus stop and i will miss her a great deal, but we will stay in touch and i really want her to come visit me in America. Then i sent a mass text message to most of my other Chinese friends, and i ended up changing my plans at the last minute (so not like me) and catching the last bus on Tuesday night to Shanghai to visit Nellie for the last time. i had to drop my bicycle off with a friend to give it away for me, and therefore i had to ride downtown with my messenger bag in the bike basket, my purse on the back rack, and my giant orange duffle bag i wore like a backpack. i have a lot of crap to lug around for the next five weeks! i hopped in a taxi to the bus station and caught the bus with only two minutes to spare and almost peed myself before i got to Shanghai! So now my Huzhou days are over, and i'm on to bigger (literally, a lot bigger) and better (arguably) things!