Sunday in ZhengZhou was one of the most tiring days yet for me here in China. The adventure for most of us today was to travel to the Shaolin temple. My exchange student Elsie told me that it was around 3 hours away so I had to wake up at around 5 since we wanted to arrive there together with everybody else at 9. However since it was their first time going they had exaggerated the time and it was only about an hours drive away. I sat awake and ready to go in their building for about 2 hours watching chinese tv I couldnt understand. Also, that night me, Jason Sigmon, Catherine, and Brian had watched a movie called Forbidden Kingdom with our exchange students. The movie started at 9:15 and ended around 11 so as you can tell we got home pretty late. Don't get me wrong though, I love my host family and theyve been extremely generous. Whatever I needed they were able to provide and much much more.
Entering the Shaolin temple was pretty magnificent as mountains upon mountains full of green trees surounded the temple. The parking lot was packed and as we waited near the entrance for everybody else to arrive, I could see the statues and introductions leading into the temple. The weather was hot and muggy as usual. The major highlight of the shaolin temple were the shaolin monks performing. They were able to do really amazing things such as bend rods made of im guess pretty hard material using only their necks, break a metal pans on their heads, and pop a balloon by throwing a small dart through a pane of glass (though it took him a few tries).
The ride back was extremely tiring but well worth it as I ate at yet another yummy chinese restaurant which I have no clue what the name of was. However, after the meal my stomach wasn't too happy with me. We went to a place near their school to do an event called the English Corner where each of us american students spread out into different groups of chinese teens to practice their english. Elsie told me that the English Corner was extremely boring for them but they got some sort of extra credit for going. We got the chance to communicate and learn about more people aswell as make more friends. Then they had a square dancing performance to show us which they were pretty good at for a western performance. Afterwards we all took pictures in the square with 4 different classes. At night me, Jason Sigmon and Michael Kahn went to a place called KTV with our exchange students. KTV is a place where we get a private room with a tv and karaoke machine with many selections of mostly chinese but some well known english songs to sing. We had gone with many more people to a bigger KTV place the night before so this night was not really as fun but KTV is something I wish we had back home since it really bonds people together. It's getting kinda late now so im goin to go to sleep. Soon were off to Beijing!
Nathan
