Yueyang

Yueyang is the closest big city to Huarong- about 1 1/2 hours by car or bus. I explored it just a little bit for one Sunday- and am excited to get to know the city better throughout the year. 

Not proud to admit I shopped at Walmart to get some western food... 

China Walmart

Just your usual Oreo selection

My groceries: Reese's <3, BUTTER, olive oil, cheese (which tastes nothing like cheese :( ) and a coke. I mean, what else do you need in life? 

Yueyang is known for it's lake: Dongting Lake 

The famous Yueyang tower

BLUE SKY! Blue skies in China are so rare I still can't believe I experienced this.

The whole tower is made out of wood. Everything has so much detail it's beautiful. 

I think this is the famous poem written about Dongting Lake

Dongting lake

The blue sky is only right above our heads... Where is the horizon?

Dumbo?

BLUE <3

Dongting Lake

The nice family who had me for both lunch and dinner during Mid-Autumn Festival

A lil' trip to Changsha

On a whim I decided to visit Changsha for the weekend. Even though I've only been in my rural city Huarong for a month, Changsha seemed suddenly very different from my first impressions during orientation. Changsha IS SO BIG and there are so many choices for everything and SO many people who are all very fashionable and pale and I even spotted a few unknown foreigners and it was all very overwhelming. I love Changsha- but I'm definitely glad I am in Huarong for the year. Huarong is much more manageable :)

So lucky to be able to get noodles with this girl 

Mao & I- twinning

Changsha Municipal Museum

AH THIS KILLED ME. So there was a wall of paintings from random european cities and HEIDELBERG got a shout-out BUT THEY TITLED IT WRONG. The title reads "Frankfurt Old Castle"- NOT OKAY.

Mao's old bed... where the real magic happened

Mao's calligraphy

Changsha Municipal Museum

Changsha South Train Station- fast trains

When it's dark out...

One night, it started pouring rain around 6 pm. An hour later, the electricity and water went out in my apartment and all over campus- leaving us in complete darkness. From my apartment (which is right next to the school buildings) you could hear the students shout in glee. Since it was pouring rain outside, I was stuck in my apartment, alone, with nothing to do except play with the 4 candles and my trusty camera (who is always there for me, no matter the circumstance- shout out to my camera <3). 3 hours later, when I finally had given up all hope and was about to go to bed, the lights suddenly turned on! It was quite the happy experience.

My rural city

Rice outside of the government building

Remember to clean your rice...

So beautiful! So new! So empty... 

Oh yeah, great crossroad

My city :)

Blawar and Kris, GOSH THEY ARE SO CUTE.

And I currently own a t-shirt with this picture on it. Because my students are the coolest.

Comfy?

The park at night. By the way, all of these buildings stand empty.

The beautiful lighting of my bedroom 

All-you-can-eat buffet with some students :) 

Every (Chinese) food imaginable

Gosh they're so cute.

PRADA, DUH

KTV with some 15 year olds

RICE RICE RICE

Fish & Mops

Typical Huarong street

Big, new & empty of course

Beautiful, new.. also: empty

The rural city...

Cows under bridges

One of the sweetest women I've met so far. Ms. Wang is 6 months pregnant and has taken me under her wing these past few weeks. I have no idea how to ever thank her for everything she's done.

Chinese Ice Cream

The Old & The New... both way too small -_-

On one of the cards my classes gave me. "Trust to fly, bravely chased after all our half-baked dream!" Classic.

The Dream......

.....the reality.