Nanjing Zoo

On Monday, Jake had school off so we decided to go to the Nanjing Zoo. It was quite the experience. It makes me appreciate American zoos a lot more. People there throw all sorts of food, trash, etc in the animals cages. We got to see pandas, monkeys, ligers....yes I saw a real liger, elephants, giraffes, foxes, lions, tigers. The pandas were pretty uneventful. It was really hot so I don't blame them for just laying there. The monkeys were the craziest of all. Jake and I decided that they were probably at some point or another test/research monkeys. There was this monkey bar contraption that had the 2 ladders that they could climb up on each side, but the part that connects the 2 ladders had broken off. So the monkeys would climb up to the top and sit, then one of the other monkeys would race over and run up the ladder. That would scare the one that was sitting on top of the ladder so he would make a leap over to the other ladder. However he wouldn't quite make it, so he would SLAM into the ladder and fall down. But he wouldn't learn his lesson that time, it happened about 4-5 times while we were there. Crazy! Again I put captions on the pictures, so if you want to read them scroll the mouse over them. Enjoy what zoos in China are like.

How we dry our clothes

Well Jake and I are pretty lucky that we have a washing machine, so I'm not complaining. So I know some of you are wondering how we dry our clothes. Well in our bedroom, behind a lace curtain is this:

Off to the side is a lever that you can raise or lower the poles (not really sure of the purpose). I actually don't mind hanging up the laundry, our washing machine is so small that it isn't really a lot to hang up (this picture is 2 loads)

PS I know you are jealous mom:)

Crazy Cabs

Well I don't know if you know or not, but cabs in China are CRAZY. I usually sit behind the driver seat so I can't see anything because if I do I make a bunch of gasping noises "AHHH, Watch out!, Yikes, Huh". Jake always tries to tell me that it is alright because we go really slow (15-25 mph) and they know what they are doing. Honestly...no one follows any traffic rules here. They will pull into oncoming traffic, and cut in front of everyone. Once we were headed for a cement wall, a bus head on, you get the idea. Well we were going on a little outing last Saturday and we were driving along, driving along and all of a sudden the cab driver, who was actually driving a lot faster than normal, slams on his breaks and skids to a stop. We were about 1 centimeter from the cab in front of us and beside us. I could feel my adrenaline start pumping, and our cab driver was screaming out his window at the other drivers for about a block. Jake asked if I was alright and I just nodded, knowing that if I said anything I would start crying. We finally made it and found a really cool mall with Papa Johns pizza and Dairy Queen blizzards. The person I felt sorry for was Jake, because he almost had me convinced that cabs were safe and that they know what they are doing.

On my own

Well I did it, I finally went out on my own. I know some of you are thinking "Haven't you been there a week and a half?" And my answer to that is yes, yes I have. Let me put a little disclaimer in here that Jake has been home a lot and there have probably been about 3 days that I've been at the apartment all day. So today I decided it was time to start my adventures. I walked to a mall about a mile away and found a McDonalds. I walked in, I was pretty nervous at first because there was nothing in English...I almost turned around and walked out, but I wanted to show Jake that I could do things on my own. So I walked up to the counter and the lady smiled and pulled out a menu with things written in English. So I pointed to what I wanted, and then got my food and sat down. They only gave me one packet of ketchup for my fries but I wasn't going to go back and ask for more, so I just rationed it out:)

Me headed out on my own

Don't worry I made it back, safe and sound

My proof for Jake, that I went out and got food all by myself

My walk to the New City mall

Down the street

Sun Yat-Sen's Mausoleum

So the day I got here, the Flagship students were going on a hike. Jake thought we should go, so I wouldn't crash. (we are 12 hours ahead of East coast time) So we went and saw the beautiful gardens with stone animal statues and then hiked 392 stairs up to the top so we could see a tomb. My legs hurt so bad. I put some comments on some of the photos, so if you want to see them, roll the mouse over the picture.