Nanjing, Day 32

Wow, I can't believe its finally over. I think we all felt a huge sigh of relief that the classes and finals are over, but I'm actually kind of wish we were just beginning again. The short four weeks we stayed here was more than enough for us to call this beautiful city home!

After finals we had a delicious lunch given to us by the school, but unfortunately I couldn't go. My boss from the homestay took me to another branch to meet with his big boss, which was really cool. I was surprised because it was a woman, and I haven't seen many women bosses in China very often. She was extremely smart and I could tell she knew exactly what she was doing in the huge bank. After the meeting I hurried back to meet everyone for the mystery Nanjing!

No one knew what to expect from laoshi when she handed out the instructions of what we were going to be doing for the rest of the day. We had to break into teams of 4 and 5, and were given a ton of different tasks to do all around Nanjing. They ranged from taking a picture of a man with a long beard, to answering what gate the Japanese first entered during their invade of Nanjing. What ensued when we all ran off in different directions was definitely one of the most fun times we've had this trip.

My group went all out, running 95% of the time and trying to fit everything into the short amount of time. We had some great achievements, like climbing into the huge water fountain in the middle of xing jie kou, and convincing the manager of McDonald's to let us wear the delivery man helmet!! Some tasks were really hard, like holding an Asian baby. The best I got was holding its hand but the mother was way too protective to let me hold her, for good reason. After 4 hours of craziness we had to meet at a soup dumpling fanguan. The problem was at 530, when we wanted to start heading back, all the cabs were switching shifts. It is literally impossible to hail a cab, unless you offer an extra 30 kuai!

After everyone's points were tallied, me cedric mike and aaron were victorious, laying waste to all competition. Our reward was a 90 minute massage at the blind massage place down the street! We had a delicious meal of soup dumplings, and then headed to the massage place! The character for blind is 盲。I think its really interesting because the parts of the character are death and eyes combined. While their eyes were dead, their hands were certainly not, and the massage was absolutely amazing. Now fully relaxed, its time to celebrate the last day in Nanking!

-汤明阳