The grad students wanted to watch a meteor shower so they planned a trip to Anji, a little town without too much light pollution. It was fun to hang out with them but it was freezing and they booked an inexpensive hotel with really bad heating. We had traditional Chinese banquet meals which I wasn't a fan of. Fortunately, I packed lots of snacks and pb&j sandwiches.
I practiced my Chinese a lot because most of their conversations were in Chinese, except when I talked to them in English. I'm really starting to get better. My work offers a free Chinese class once a week so I've been taking some actual lessons besides just talking to Danny. I'm actually a little too advanced for the class from talking with Danny but it has helped me read pin yin and pronounce it properly, and understand the four tones. I sometimes even use the right ones. I can order food and talk to taxi drivers and shopkeepers pretty effectively now. I know lots of basic, high frequency words.
This is sort of out of nowhere but one interesting cultural thing I've noticed about Chinese women is they often hold hands or link arms with female friends. I was kind of surprised by it when one of them took my arm one of the first times we hung out. In America I think that is more something little girls do, grown women don't tend to do that very often. I always find it sort of funny but different cultures do things differently. Either way they are all really sweet.
Anyway, we took a bus there from Shanghai Railway Station. The roads between the bus station in Anji and our hotel weren't full paved and wove around a mountain. It was a scary ride. The main attraction in Anji is the bamboo forest. We did a fairly intense hike and went to a big park.
On Saturday night we watched the meteor shower from the hotel's rooftop. The grad students watched for several hours. Almost everyone in the hotel went on the roof to watch. Some of them, including some of the grad students brought telescopes, laptops and special cameras. I didn't end up watching the meteor shower for long because it was freezing outside.
