Day 5: You need rain for rainbows

"Where else will we put them?"

Today we got the first real rain since I arrived. Though there are plenty of plants, trees, gardens and waterways, there was still issues with drainage. I need some rain boots! An unfortunate day to get rain, as today is also the campus mail day, where everyone’s packages are set outside (under cover) to be claimed with proper identification. Also, everyone in China owns an umbrella. They are used for sunny days in many cases, but everyone uses them in the rain. The result is hallways full of drying umbrellas like I’ve never seen. In a related issue, perhaps going with all marble floors was a poor decision by the university. I spent my day nearly falling on my face.

"Mine's the black one."

Bilin treated a party of us to dinner at a restaurant on campus. Joining Bai, Bilin and I was Fang Zhou, a student who I had met at Maine and he fellow student Luoliang, who will be visiting Maine in August for a year. I also met Jingyuan, Bilin’s new, and first ever student. I was the first American she had ever met, a novel experience for me. She is from Shanghai (therefore, Shanghainese) and is very happy to be attending school so close to home. I am doubtful she will want to visit Maine as many others do, but maybe I can work on that going forward.

The real fun of the dinner was the opportunity to try some exotic (to me) foods. Jellyfish, which had the texture of hard plastic, was fine to taste, but I probably wouldn’t seek it out. Snails, were pretty tasty, but exhausting to eat. They were so small, it was impossible for me to efficiently eat enough to really be satisfied. Bilin is the master of eating all seafood, I have determined. He just blazed through the snails and the crayfish we ordered. The crayfish was pretty spicy, but very tasty. Again, so small, I felt like I was working on a calorie deficit. Luckily, the leeks, chicken/peanut/cucumber, cucumber and garlic, broccoli in bacon broth and rice dishes were enough to overcome this problem.

When dinner was done, the rain had cleared and left a cleaner sky, complete with partial double rainbow, which was taken in by many onlookers, including myself. China is pretty good so far, you know?!