Day 4:

Thankfully, we got to sleep in today for a bit. At 10, we had to go down to meet the dean of foreign students and some of our professors-to-be. The dean spoke a bit, I understood maybe 10%, but luckily Tang-laoshi translated. Yadda yadda, Nanjing University is awesome, yep. It didn’t last that long, the teachers seemed like cool people, and afterwards we had total free time.

Damon, Lindsey, and myself decided to go get cell phones, because… well, they make things easier. It was a bit of a walk, though the weather was nice and it was cool to get out and explore Nanjing. Sunny day, kind of warm, but a welcome change from the overcast haze of the past few days. Damon had spent the past semester studying Chinese in Taiwan, so he was very much crucial. Lindsey and I both got the cheapest model phone we could find (380Y), it was slightly hectic but I’m glad I did that.

Afterwards, we decided to go get lunch. We had no idea where any restaurants were, so we just started walking in one direction—it looked like there was a high school of some sort nearby, since there were a bunch of kids in school uniforms. It was their lunch break or something… we ended up going to this little hole in the wall where we were seated at this tiny table in the cramped back room as the cooks scurried back and forth outside. We got a simple lunch—rice with sliced beef/veggies, but it was filling and tasty and only cost 5Y apiece. We went back to the dorm, where we chilled out for a while. That night, we and a bunch of non-CIEE students went back to Behind the Wall for one last night of revelry before classes started for us.


Day 5:

Up at 7:15, take a lukewarm shower, grab my books (scurry downstairs and across the street to nab some sort of crackers as a sort of pseudo-breakfast) and head to class. I’m in B-level, unsurprisingly—with Brett, Yoshiko, Jim, Christine, Diana, and Lindsey. First up is the spoken Chinese class, with Guo-laoshi. She’s a very nice lady, doesn’t speak too quickly, so I actually understand a surprising amount of what she’s saying. It seems like this class is right at my level, which is something to be damn thankful for. We also get a 10-minute break halfway through, so the hour+fifty minutes don’t seem too excruciatingly long.

Afterwards, there’s the written class. It’s all simplified characters; Brett and I pretty much only know traditional, so we get stuck sometimes, but hell, they really are a lot easier. Cao-laoshi is a very funny man who’s taught in America at Grinnell and Middlebury, he also seems like a cool teacher. Not too much homework on the first day, and every Thursday after this one, in the speech class, we’ll be watching movies, so that’s kinda cool.

All the students in the A-class are absolutely overwhelmed, so I’m rather glad I’m not up there.

Otherwise, it’s a lazy day with studying in the mix afterwards, but some of us go out for dinner at this place that a few of them had gone to the night before. Some of the dishes aren’t so great (eggplant, for once, is rather “meh,” and I have the misfortune of nabbing a big piece of fat instead of meat when they brought the beef, which turned me off that dish, and there was a vegetable thing we got that tasted like grass) but the eggs+tomatoes are yummy. Really yummy.


Day 6:

Class again. This time, we have written first. Still like the teacher, still understanding more than I’d expected to. Class is class, both spoken and written. We get the itinerary for the weekend’s trip to, among other things, the Shaolin Kung-Fu Temple. Pretty cool.

After class, Yoshiko, Diana, Lindsey and myself head out for lunch and also to get some of the pictures for our camera scavenger hunt (just a bit of silliness, but it gets us acquainted with the surrounding area and it’s kinda fun). We eat lunch at this little restaurant about a ten-minute walk away, and though the noodles are bland and the chicken, though tasty, is impossible to eat due to all the bones, the eggplant and dumplings are nothing short of divine.

Quite sated, we go to a nearby bank so Lindsey can get some money, though upon seeing the line we decide to screw it—and as it’s starting to rain, we get some more pictures and start to head back. We pass a fish market, where, among other things, I see frogs and eels awaiting the slaughter… there’s also a fish being gutted, whose severed head is still moving and flopping around. Sort of disturbing.

We visit a DVD shop, and I pick up the Chris Eccleston series of Doctor Who, because hell, it’s Doctor Who. After coming back, we split up and I spend the next few hours studying vocabulary. It’s raining pretty hard, so I go out for dinner by myself to a small restaurant across the street. Come back, study some more, but now I’m all studied out. Planning on watching some Doctor Who with Lindsey in about half an hour, then sleeping. Sleep is good.

Pictures!

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Brett, Melinda (and I think that's theron in the background) at Behind the Wall.


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Christine, Chris, and Laura, also at Behind the Wall.


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Toasting, right before downing the Kamikazes. That's Stephen in the foreground, with Theron right under his arm, and... I think it's Kellend down at the right.


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At Pingping's. From left to right: Ping Ping, Max, Christine, Theron.


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Jim, Chris, and Stephen (from left to right) open the Tsingtao beers.


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Laura, Chris, and Damon all chilling on the couch.


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Stephen is happy. Or drunk. Or both.


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Kellend and Brett actually knew each other from school back in the states. Ain't it cute?


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Brett enjoys some shitty Chinese beer.

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I enjoy shitty Chinese wine. Like, REALLY shitty. Also, don't ask about the wig.

Day 2

The day started early, as my little travel alarm clock was set to go off at 7:10. However, due to the fact that I crashed at just around 8 PM the night before and the fact that my bed’s mattress was only slightly more comfortable than a plank of concrete, I found myself awake at 5 in the morning. After unsuccessful attempts to get back to sleep, I went into the bathroom and started the water heater. It takes about half an hour for it to warm up enough so that you have anything more than barely tepid water to wash with, but time was pretty abundant.

Also, uh, I don’t know Celsius very well, so it was a mite hotter than expected. After showering, there was a problem—I’d forgotten to pack towels. So I used a T-shirt in lieu of a towel, and it worked… passably.

At 8 PM we headed downstairs for the beginning of our orientation. In addition to everyone I’d met before, there were new people:

Diana, from some small university in Orange County, CA. Yoshiko, a Spanish/Japanese girl from the same one. James/Jim, who… I can’t remember where he went to school, but he’s from Ohio. Chris, who goes to school in Ohio, but lives somewhere else. Max, who goes to Columbia University, Stephen who goes to school at Georgetown. Later on there would also be Damon, who is from somewhere I forget, and Lindsey, who goes to University of Iowa.

The orientation was pretty cool, a lot of it was just about the many, many dangers to be encountered in Nanjing and China. Nothing we’d not heard before, really. It’s kind of amusing how many different legitimate operations you have sex shops posing as—karaoke bars, hair salons, massage parlors, etc.

Afterwards, Pingping and Tang-laoshi showed us around the surrounding area, the Bank of China, the majority of the (absolutely gorgeous) NanDa campus, and so on. We then went to have a buffet lunch at a nearby hotel, sort of an introduction. There was… some pretty cool food. Pigs’ feet, entire little silver fish on sticks (I stayed away from those), normal food such as oysters, some great veggie dishes. Actually, I don’t even remember what I had but it was pretty good.

I had… a mixture of lamb and beef, and they still had the bones in the little chunks of meat. Certainly an interesting surprise. Lots of good food.

Also, being able to legally drink is awesome. This would be a continuing theme of the day.

There was a little shopping market nearby called Suguo. Stephen, who was clearly shaping up to be the clown of the group (and an absolutely hilarious one), dubbed it Segue/Segway, however you choose to pronounce it. Me, Stephen, Brett, and Chris (or maybe just chris… or Brett. One of the two) went to the Segway to buy, among other things, bath towels. Hooray for towels.

Afterwards, we went back to the dorm and kind of chilled for a bit. I met up with Diana and Yoshiko, and the three of us went out to this nearby (5 minute walk or so) café called the New Magazine Café. Slightly pricy (for China), but a wonderful cozy atmosphere, good coffee/tea, and free wireless. We hung out there for about an hour and a half, just chatting and surfing the internet. Diana’s a sociology major, and wants to work on reforming how people teach. Interesting girl, that one.

It was actually her 21st birthday the day before, so we tried to organize like a big Karaoke thing for the night. It… didn’t QUITE happen, really. Miscommunication and all that. Diana and Yoshiko went out after we got back to go try and find a used bike shop, a few other people went out to meet… other people. About eight of us went for dinner, and we found this nice cozy little Korean joint. Great food, even though I can’t remember what it was, exactly. Not that I knew at the time, either.

We got a bit more beer, about six bottles for all of us. After dinner, we went to Behind the Wall, which is this Mexican/Italian place (surprisingly good food, actually). I got some sangria (AMAZING there, which was pretty surprising). We all got some kamikaze shots, and decided to head back to Pingping’s place (with Kellend, who was a former CIEE student but dropped out of the program to just enroll at NanDa proper as an exchange student this semester). Accompanied, of course, by a box of cheap Tsingtao beer, and my own personal bottle of awful, AWFUL Chinese wine.

Hilarity would ensue. Seriously, it was quite a bit of fun, but I returned with a few people on the early side, just after midnight, because we had a “placement test” tomorrow—even though Pingping, Theron, and Melinda said it honestly didn’t matter.

Quite a fun time.


Day 3:

Not much to say. Placement test was ludicrously hard, but it was supposed to be. EVERYONE thought so, even Theron and Melinda who’ve been here for six months already. More orientation about the rules and stuff of the program, we talk briefly about how the classes are going to work. After that, it’s a pretty relaxing day. We mainly hang out at the dorm and chill, but me, Chris, and Lindsey go out to Segway to buy school supplies since we think class starts the next day (though it’s actually Tuesday). Afterwards, Chris heads back to meet up with people, and Lindsey and I go to Behind the Wall.

She’s uber-stressed because she hasn’t spoken Chinese or studied it in two years, so I order some sangria at her request to help relax. We pretty much just hang out all evening and talk, she’s lots of fun. She hikes and plays ultimate Frisbee, too, so that’s some more in common right there (since Brett and Chris both like hiking, I hope we can find a place around here). It really is nice to have someone around my level in Chinese, though I have a hunch I’ll get a lot better fast.

After she retires, Stephen and I go buy another box of Tsingtao, and there’s a super mini-party in his room, because he picked up some speakers and a subwoofer for his computer. After only a beer, I’m pretty tuckered out—so it’s back to the slab-of-wood that I call a bed.

Current Location: China!
Current Mood: sore

Day 1 (approximately)

New York -> Hong Kong -> Nanjing

 

The flight was a plane flight. Entirely too long, and from Vancouver on, I was crammed against the window with two big guys next to me. So, I didn’t do much other than try and nap all the flight, listen to my music, etc. All in all, not as bad as it could have been, but it was certainly a relief to land in Hong Kong.

 

Hong Kong airport is big, and really, really cool. It seems outwardly to be structured like a series of giant airport hangers, but it’s very nice and air-conditioned and clean inside. There’s one huge hall that connects where you go through security / get off the plane to the rest of the terminals. I got to go online for a bit, check in with the family, et cetera. It’s about 8 AM HK time, no clue what time I’m running on, but might as well call it breakfast as anything else. I eat at a ramen fast food place, it’s pretty good… head over to the terminal. I see a fairly American-looking guy on his laptop taking advantage of the free wireless all through the airport, and wonder if he’s CIEE as well.

 

He’s sitting right behind me on the flight (which is pretty empty, we both have rows to ourselves) and it turns out he is. He’s Brett, from University of Washington in Seattle, though he himself is from San Diego. Nice guy, we chat a lot as we fly to Nanjing. When the food lady comes, we both order some Tsingtao beer as our first taste of Chinese alcohol.

 

It’s… pretty awful. Yeah. Might as well get used to it, though.

 

Pretty easy flight, I start reading the Iron Rooster book on the way over. By the time we land, I actually haven’t gotten to the part where the guy’s in China yet, so… yeah. We fly in, and it’s very hazy, but what we can see—ramshackle huts, rice paddies—certainly doesn’t look like a city of millions and millions of people. I wasn’t sure quite what I was expecting, but I guess I was expecting a lot more hustle and bustle and chaos at Nanjing Airport. Actually, it was pretty small and quiet. Brett and I go through immigration together, wait for our bags together—it takes a while for my bag and his second bag to come, and there are a TON of bags on the carousel, so when he goes to get his, one of the seams splits. Ironically, it was the seam covering his masking tape, so no harm done.

 

We meet up with Pingping, who’s like our… not sure what she does entirely. She’s not quite a teacher, but she’s older than a student. She’s really adorable and nice, though. There are also two others: Laura from Rice University (Houston) and Christine from Columbia in NYC. Christina has been spending time with her family in Hong Kong for the Chinese New Year, and we’re jealous.

 

Pingping packs us into a rented cab that we barely fit into with our bags, and sends the four of us off. Nanjing proper is a ways away, it’s about a half hour drive. Everything’s very brown and quiet, and there seems to be a weird melancholy over the place. There’s an absolutely MASSIVE building—a plant of some sort?—with a deserted parking lot that we pass… kind of foreboding. Thankfully, Nanjing itself is a lot busier, even in the silence and inactivity of the New Year holiday vacation.

 

China is a really fascinating juxtaposition of new and old, and Nanjing—one of the oldest cities in the world—really embodies that. You can still see the old city walls that have been left up; these giant monolithic stones in front of gleaming skyscrapers. There’s some really pretty scenery around, and I have a hunch that Nanjing will be absolutely gorgeous come spring. I guess I’ll find out, huh.

 

We make our way to Nanda (Nanjing Daxue) where we get our keys to our rooms… our Chinese roommates won’t arrive for another week and a half, so we have time to get settled. Our rooms are… well, they’re like small hotel rooms, which is kind of nice. Although, the bed, while clean… is really, REALLY hard and uncomfortable. Might go buy some padding for that later.

 

The four of us meet up with Theron and Melinda, who’ve been there for a year. With another non-CIEE student, we go out to a Muslim restaurant, and it’s goooood stuff. Some pretty cool people. Afterwards, we go back… it’s about 7:00, we’re hanging out, trying to leech what little wireless we can (with varying degrees of success). I’m finally feeling the jet lag hit me, and so about 8:00, I retire onto those really hard beds. Sleep comes pretty quickly, which is nice, considering we have to be up for an 8 AM meeting tomorrow…

Current Location: Nanjing!

Wow.

It's been a long road. Two weeks, ~51,000 words... and I'm done. I finish as I begin: with Franziska von Karma.

As always, slight spoilers for GS2 (and a very, very, VERY slight spoiler for GS3 that's not really much of a spoiler at all), and implied romance between two women. Don't like, don't read :)

If you do read... I hope you enjoy, and comments are always welcomed! (Seriously, always. For the entire story, if you feel like it :P)

Now that that's out of the way...


Thanks for reading the story, everybody. :)

Hope you enjoyed!

(X-posted to Igiari)

Current Mood: mellow
Current Music: David Bowie - Ziggy Stardust

A very happy Valentine's Day to you all, and a chapter that may or may not be fitting :P

As always, the standard warnings apply: SPOILERS FOR PW2:JFA, CASE 4, and there is romance between two women--specifically, Adrian Andrews and Franziska von Karma. If you are mortally offended...? Don't read it!

If not, please enjoy. Also, if you've been reading for a while, or not... this would be a pretty good chapter to leave your thoughts :) I appreciate comments, really. They warm my little author heart.

I'm purposefully trying to keep this as brief as possible, but a quick (if huge) thanks to two people in particular... 
musouka_manga
 and
akatokuro
, without whom I'd never have made it this far. You girls are seriously the best, you know that? (Also, look for some more standard yumminess from them later today :P)

Without further ado...





Thanks so much for reading my little story, everybody. :) Hope you enjoyed!

(XPosted to Gyakuten_Saiban)

Hello, everybody. Yes, it's me. Yes, I have another installment in this story of WACKY HIJINX (may not actually be wacky or hijinx) in Germany between a fiery, whip-cracking prosecutor and a shy, blonde-haired American with a penchant for breaking her glasses. This particular installment is... well, it's sort of a bridge, really, slightly different in tone than the rest of the piece (though not drastically). I've been writing rather quickly for the rest of the story... but, well, this next upcoming chapter is going to require a bit more time and effort than most. Look for it in, oh, about five or so days :P

Once more, this story has spoilers for Case 4 of PW2, and contains implied... aw hell, it's not really implied anymore, is it? >.> Anyway, there is romance between two women, so if that's not your thing, best not to read. Otherwise, I hope you enjoy, and please leave a comment, or criticism... flaming, not so much. Letting me know if you enjoyed really does make this all worthwhile.

Read on! (Lactose-intolerant beware, it's SLIGHTLY cheesy at the end...)



(eventually X-posted to Gyakuten_Saiban in the morning)

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: Boston - More Than A Feeling

Hiya! Yes, it's me. :P Yes, I'm here with another product of my twisted yet somehow incredibly sappy and sentimental brain with quite a weakness for "AWWWWWWcute." Don't ask me, I really don't know.

I bring you Part Seven of Follow the Fool, where things start to finally build up... only a few chapters left before the end. I'm certainly enjoying it, and I hope you are too! This chapter, as always, implies romance (and sort-of-sexuality) between two women, so if that offends you or you are made ill by the thought of Adrian and Franziska in a romance... uh, you probably shouldn't read it. Could very well be SPOILERS for PW2 case 4, so you're warned!

As always, comments--positive, negative, constructive (the preferred type of negative comment)--are appreciated and loved and welcomed. They make my cold, cold heart warm again :P So lemme know how you felt about this chapter or the story in general!






Yup. That was that. Hope you enjoyed!

(X-posted to Gyakuten_Saiban and Igiari)

Current Mood: artistic
Current Music: Michelle Branch - Breathe

The saga of one hot, fiery whip-wielding lawyer and a shy, hot, bespectacled talent manager continues! This chapter is... well, it's far more Franziska than it is the two of them, and is... er... well, it's hard to explain. >.> Surreal-esque, I guess? Oh, just read the damn thing already! :-P

No REAL spoilers for any of the games, though Manfred von Karma IS a bastard. As always, there is hinted romance between two women, and if that isn't your thing or you just vehemently don't like KirioMei, best not to read. If you DO read, comments--whether good or constructive and bad--nourish my soul. I love them so. So please leave your thoughts!



Well, that's that. Probably the last angsty-emoooo chapter, and it's relatively downhill from here as we get started on that home stretch... not QUITE there yet, but the end is getting to be in sight. :)

Again, hope you enjoyed!

(X-Posted to both Gyakuten_saiban and Igiari)

Current Mood: cold
Current Music: Iron Maiden - Hallowed Be Thy Name

Yes, Part 5. Wootness. I'm surprised I've written this much so far, though... I really like these two. They're damn adorable and interesting to write for.

Uh, not much to say about this chapter. It, unlike the others, changes PoV at points. It's also slightly more EMOOOO than the others, but it's something that has to happen in order for... well, anything ELSE to happen. Please enjoy, and -please comment.- The comments... they nourish my soul. I love them so. And they make me want to continue writing more >.>

Again, SPOILERS (in-depth spoilers, especially) FOR PW2 CASE 4. YOU ARE WARNED.

Enjoy the Whips N' Glasses action!







Well, uh, I hope it wasn't too overly emo and actually somewhat believable. I -think- it was, but then again, what do I know? :P

Thanks for reading, hope you liked!

Current Mood: hungry
Current Music: Michelle Branch - Even Angels Fall