yesterday when i was on the bus, on the way to visit my elementary school teacher, the crowd was packing up. by the time i was ready to get off, the bus was a sea of humanity. i must get up early and squeeze myself thru the human pack in order to get off the bus on time.

when i first got on the bus, i took money out of my wallet and put it back into a small backpack i used. the wallet was on top of the two of my photo albums and my digital camera. when i was getting off the bus, since it was too crowded, i only put the backpack on one shoulder and squeezed off. as soon as i got off the bus, stuff in my backpack felt onto the ground. i picked up my two photo albums and put them back. i realized then my wallet was gone. and the bus already left me.

i was standing in the rain in pain. i lost almost 1000rmb (about $125) plus my american credit card, my school id and of course my leather wallet. i couldn’t believe it. still thankfully my digital camera was with me. it would cost $300 and a lot more pain.

so that was my story. i already got over it. i would never see the wallet again. i did call the bus company. no news since monday morning.

on the other hand, my trip is ending. in less than two weeks, i will be on the plane back to see andy again. aww i miss him!

I am getting everything organized and ready to move. Dodo and I are finally going to have a place of our own. She won’t be back before the move, but then again I like that I can have the new apartment looking nice and comfortable for when she comes home.

It is amazing how much stuff can actually accumulate in a short period of time, and find its way into the most fitting arrangements for a dwelling, only now to be stored away again. I definitely have more work cut out for me than I was expecting.

I suppose its back to it now.

i’m going to live with my grandpa on my dad’s side for two days. leaving today.

meeting my elementary classmates this sunday in front of our elementary school gate

i bought an optical wireless mouse for 215rmb (about 27 dollars). i tried it on my friend’s computer. it worked fine. hope it will maintain its functionality when i go back to US.

my friend bought me a mic and headset for $1.25

I exchanged my vcds with dvds. i’m going to check the quality of them at my grandpa’s today. then i’m gonna visit another recommended place looking for more dvds =)

i finally have internet access at home now. i bought an dail up card. and it finally WORKED! thank god. man, isn’t andy sexy? drool.

here’s a total OMG incident. i was looking thru pirated dvd today and guess what i found? Lord of the Rings II and III. WOOHOO!!! I can’t wait to see them. andy, i also got Star Wars II, Man in Black II, Ice Age, Meet the parents, Gladiator (I hope andy likes this one coz i’ve never seen or heard of it), Dogfqweru (is this a scary movie?),The Scorpion King, Blade II, Air Force I. A total of 11 dvd/vcd. It’s 99rmb (less than 12.5 dollars) I hope they all work. The guy said if any of them doesn’t, i can go and exchange. i was about to jump up and down!!

I’ve also gotten a very pretty traditional chinese dress. unfortunately i can’t put the pictures online yet. i took pictures of my grandparents today.

still three weeks to go before i leave china. i miss andy dearly but at least i have internet access now =)

I have been working out hard to get in shape for Dodo’s return from China. Here are a couple of webcam images she can look at. (I suppose anyone looking at this will see them)

HA HA HA! No Hands!! How did I take that????

Dodo said she would be online by tomorrow night so hopefully she will see them! Ugh, when I went jogging yesterday, I ended up getting about two miles away from home and the biggest damn rainfall started. By the time I got back into the apartment I was SOAKED!! The rain kind of felt good though. It is very cool and relaxing.

Hey honey, just remember that I love you and I can’t wait for you to get back.

Poor Dodo. I don’t think she has gone this long with such limited internet access in a long time. =) Sometimes I think this is her second home. Not now though. I have really been missing her, but I at least have been able to sleep better now.

I was thinking about our relationship when it was young. I would write her a poem for every special occasion. I never wrote one for her before she left for China. I did write her this afterwards:

Thinking of you
when I wake up in the morning
and the sky is blue,
and during the night
when all turns black
and the stars are grey
they remind me of how
you are so far away;
and when I come home
I start up to say
“Honey I’m here”
in my eye there’s a tear
the apartment is cold
and there’s no one to hold.
I lay in the bed
with your face in my head
then I fall asleep wanting to be
with the girl that I love
back home with me.

I feel good when I go and think of all of the nice things that I love about Dodo. She will make faces and jump around when she is happy. She loves innovative cooking. A few nights before she left, she made some meatballs. She was trying to give them the nice dark color that her mom’s come out with, but it would not work. She couldn’t figure out why they turned out this way, but I just told her how much I was enjoying them. I ended up eating about 75% of them!

I could use some of those meatballs now. Although I still have about 1/4th of that sloppy rice left! I love those spicy preserved radishes!! I talked with Dodo today. I guess the weather is hot there, and she wasn’t feeling well. That, though, did not stop her from going out and having some excellent dinner. I wish I was enjoying a few of those dishes now.

i bought a bunch of clothes today. clothes here are so much cheaper and prettier. it’s a heaven for me. i’m addicted to mashimaro right now. i bought two mashimaro shirts today. one is 10rmb (10/8 US dollar) and the other is only 5rmb (5/8 US dollar). i bought two other tops and a dress. i bought a mashimaro plush, too. everything together plus lunch and dinner, i only spent 200rmb (25 US dollar). Isn’t it wonderful? this is only a start. there will be a lot more of shopping. YESSSS!! this is so fun!!

btw, where’s andy? he still didn’t check his email. what’s going on? i hope he knows that i have internet access now. he should check the email!

hi everyone, i’m finally in china. after i’ve stuck in tokyo for a nite. they told us the flight would change to 10am the second morning. later the flight was delayed again to 1pm. we accepted the change as long as we won’t need to spend another nite in toyko. but by the time we reached the airport, the woman said altho they were gonna take off on time but if the weather (typhoon) in shanghai was bad by the time the plane reached shanghai and couldn’t land, they would need to come back to tokyo. i fell asleep on the plane. at last i arrived in shanghai airport around 3pm on July 5th; i couldn’t find the guy who was supposed to pick me up. i even asked the people working there to annouce the person’s name in the intercom. i was very desperate when no one responded. i had no chinese currency. i had to exchange for chinese currency with my dollars there first before i could even make a phone call. finally i got some money after a long period of waiting in line. i got a hold of the guy on his cellphone. it turned out that he had a meeting and he sent his driver to pick me up. since the driver had never seen me before, he was holding a sign with my name on it waiting by the exit. i had no idea such thing could happen. first of all, the guy who i thought was picking me up has glasses and secondly i absolutely didn’t expect a sign waiting at the exit. i neither looked for people without glasses nor a sign. so we missed each other. and i didn’t know that driver was very close to where i stood until i made that phone call. quite a mess. i wasted half of an hour waiting there.

since i got to my uncle’s house from the airport, many had happened. change in shanghai is tremendous. i couldn’t put every single thing down. the driving here is a nitemare for those who drive in small cities in US. crazy drivers everywhere. NO ONE follows traffic rules. passing illegally and honking the horn is just a piece of cake. i saw cars driving in the middle of the two lanes so often now that i no longer feel surprised any more. another interesting thing about traffic in shanghai is that all the traffic lights will turn yellow before it turns green from a red light. and when the traffic lights turn from green to red, they flash three times first and then yellow and red. strange? in addition, at the intersection, sometimes the lights let turning cars go first and sometimes it’s the other way around. it all depends on the condition of the specific intersection. i don’t think that’s such a bad idea for shanghai since it’s just too overpopulated and different traffic laws must be provided to cope with the situation.

the food here is so cheap. i told andy two dozen dumplings here is only 6 RMB (6/8 US dollars), he just started to cry LOL. i just start shopping yesterday. i’m looking forward to buy some cheap and pretty clothes to take back. i brought an extra suitcase. haha, i’m gonna fill it up!!

can you believe it? i’m here using the $1 per 10 minutes internet to say hi to everyone. my flight to shanghai will unfortunately be delayed possibly cancelled due to bad weather in shanghai. i used internet to contact the person who will pick me up. i really hope he gets it before it’s too late. altho the airline will probably provide a shelter for me to stay tonite if they cancel the flight i’d rather not spend a nite here. so…

the flight from chicago was mostly fine. the condition on the plane was better than i expected. 12 hours of flying went by pretty fast. interesting fact that i didn’t remember until i see the road in japan: drivers in Japan drive on the right side of the cars. it’s the first time i’ve been to a country with such a case. it’s kind odd. a left turn is like a right turn in America. anyway, i want to say more but i can’t.. i don’t want it to run out of time on me so i lost everything i wrote. so bye everyone!!! thank you for the wishes for my trip!!