so I'm here in zhenjiang in an internet cafe, where the keyboard barely works and is covered in cigarette ash. the aior in here is pretty smoky, but it's not as bad as ireland. the pollution, on the other hand, is quite bad. my nose has been running since i got on the plane - airplane air isn't very good either.I have a bunh of note from my flight but there's so much running through my head i don'tthink i'lll type those up quite yet. maybe i'll go home and use my laptop to type stuff up and then transfer it to my usb key. but I don't have an adaptor thing for the sockets here, and dunno where to buy them.... luckily devon's laptop happens to have the same connector thingy, so i can borrow his cord for now.it's very polluted and dirty here. hte bathrooms aren't as bad as I had feared though. so long as i'm not too tired to balance, and remember to keep kleenex with me, they're ok.
by the time i finally got to devon's place last night, it was 1am. that's 10amvancouver time, and I'd beeen awake since 7am the previous day (nt counting a few very short naps) so I just collapsed into bed.
now it's friday, and me and ashi have been wandering around town. it's a lot less crowded than i expected. the traffic is crazy, but fairly slow, so it's not scary. I had a nice breakfast, although the heat has affected my appetite - I feel like I need more food but I don't want to eat when i actualy see food. i've brushed my teeth with tap water, and had drinks with ice, so I'm bound to get sick eventually. at least devon and ashi's place has a toilet with a seat. :)
it's really confusing here - I can't understand a word most people ssay, and then once in a while someone has a clear accent and i get a whole sentence that makes sense. I've forgotten a lot of characters, though, so i wanna go home and study now.:) left my dictionary behind too. I'll have to remember to bring it with me tonight when we go to the night market.
urgh... so hot. feels like the middle of summer right now, and it's probably going to get a lot worse.
it's so interesting, though... some things are so different, and some are just the same :)
I do wish the shift key on this keyboard worked properly.
ah well - I probably won't be online much for a while. so much to do!! :)
so much to buy, too. I want a camera and a phone and a bike and kleenex - oh god I need kleenex - and food and a million other things.

I kinda wish there was three of me right now, though. I wanna be here in chimna doing stuff, but there's also a bunch of stuff happening in vancouver right now that I wish I could've gone to, and then there's all that programming I don't have time to do... and various forms of exercise that i gave up because I lacked tim... I hope there's a nice martial arts class at zhejiang. it seems to depend a lot on the teacher whether i enjoy those classes. ohh, but there's so much stuff i wanna do!
maybe I should head out soon.
I kinda wish I'd brought more books...my suitcases were way below the airline limit, but after being up 25 hours and having to drag them on and off the train n'stuff, they seemed extramely heavy. I'm very glad devon was able to carry both of them for part of the time.
ah well. probably won't have much time for reading... wouldve been nice to show devon and ashi my textbooks though.
I'm hoping to get some rest the next few days, juts laze around and relax for most of the day, then go shopping - and it seems I'll be drinking a fair bit in the evenings, of course. sound like we might be going to nanjing for a day too. since there's a big holiday coming up, i expect the streets will get a *lot* more crowded in a few days.
anyways, time to get going... I think I wanna go home and lie down and get some water. feeling dehydrated already. and running out of kleenex.

it still hasn't really hit me that i'll be here for two years. it just... doen't seem real :) right now I just feel like a tourist.