SMU Update 04/07/10

The first weekend that we were on campus we left the campus early to go to an old water city about 1.5 hours from campus. In the morning we had to go to the Chinese Quarinteen and Inspection Facility because several of the student needed to change their visas so they can be granted further residency in the country. We spent almost 3 hours at the facility before driving another 2 hours to the old water city. Our tour guide for the trip got us lost once and our coach bus driver ended up driving down a one lane road between fishing ponds. When we got the end of the one lane road we discovered that there were cement blocks at the end preventing us from driving any further. We ended up having to back our way down almost 2 miles of road, with water on either side, in on-coming traffic. It took us a very long time to make it to the city.
This picture is of the all the exchange stuents at the water city. In the undergraduate program with those of us from Mass Maritime, we have exchange students from Australia, The Netherlands, Poland, South Korea, Camereon, and Ghana. In total I think there are 21 of us (including the 11 of us from MMA).

On our return trip from the water city several of us were dropped off downtown to spend the night in the city. I went with some of the guys from MMA and we met our old roommates in the French Concession district. We spent the rest of the day Sunday catching up on laundry and preparing for the next weeks classes once we returned from downtown.

The following week continued much like the first one had, except for the fact that I caught a pretty good cold. The combination of having been on a plane with 200 strangers on the way over, with the very cold and rainy weather (and inproper clothing to deal with it), the sanitary conditions of China being less than that back home, and the style of eating in China made it easy to get sick. In China most the meals that you will eat are shared plates that everyone eats off of, so there are lot of germs going around. I’m feeling 100% better now, almost 2 weeks later.

Myra Shannon is a 1/c cadet and 6th Company Adjutant majoring in the IMBU program