Ni hao. Xie xie!

Hello Mei Guo ren's!! (americans)

We just finished our exams yesterday (6/16) and had our graduation today! All of us did really well; A's and B's. Riley and I hope to continue our friendships with some of the students in our group. It's funny, in the beginning with group pictures, everyone would bring out there camera and someone would take the same picture on each person's camera. After Summer Palace, we realized instead of posing in the same position for that long (and poor camera taker) we just decided to Facebook tag when we get to America. So whenever group pictures are taken now it's taken on maybe one or two and people say "Just facebook tag me".

I found a really good restaurant here. Riley and I went there for good burgers (I couldn't resist!!). The restaurant cleared out and we ended up inviting the owner to play cards Rummy with us. She was compliant and she even schooled us after catching on in a couple rounds. She makes really good Gin-fizzies, too. Since we know how to greet in Chinese we practiced some of it. Her name is Hua Hua ("Flower Flower" she told us). She liked the game and wants to teach her friends.

It is very interesting that many websites in China are blocked: Facebook, many blog sites, youtube. Actually it's hard to find things that aren't blocked. Thank goodness I have a gmail account and google is not blocked. Today is our last day in Nanjing as we will be leaving for Shanghai tomorrow morning. We've gotten comfortable and well acquainted with Nanjing these past few weeks. From taking a day trip with Chen and Cheng laoshi to Fashion Lady by public bus then to the Nanjing Train Station, Xuanwu Lake, and a department store by metro then back to the university by bus. Riley and I really like taking the metro and we've gone-out on our own to the cinema at XinJieKou (were Fashion Lady is at) and the Olympic Stadium (but it was closed that day). Riley and I saw Pirates of the Caribbean and the new Fast and Furious (Fast 5) which was awesome and now Riley has to see the other ones.! First Class is not out yet here but Kung Fu Panda 2.

Riley and I have made two Chinese friends here and they are really nice. Shero is a student and waitress at a restaurant our group went to for drinks one night. She's really cool and she has helped us plan some of our trip for the next month suggesting good places for us to visit. She told us a really funny story about her name and it sticks with me. Ironically, Taneck, we also meet at a family restaurant. It was a different restaurant but he happened to know english and the chef (who was about 12-yrs old, no kidding) needed a translator so he translated for us. He is a post graduate and foreign language teacher. We made friends with him instantely. He described his name as "taneck...you know like the titanic" and we all laughed. We meet Taneck and invited Shero and they took us out sightseeing at lake Xuanwu on Wednesday. We took the metro to the gate of the lake and then took a boat around the lake. They explained the history of some of the sights on and around the lake including the famous Purple mountain. Taneck is a hilarious driver. Riley had been itching to go swimming and once the opportunity came up and Taneck said "yeah the water is clean", Riley jumped in for a swim. haha.  In the evening five of us were invited to the home of Liu laoshi to make dumplings. It was really fun and also an adventure as we had a difficult time catching a taxi. Maybe there was a change of shifts but it usually wasn't hard for us to catch a cab. Liu laoshi ended up picking us up. One of the guy's did catch a taxi but it didn't drop him off close enough to her home and he didn't know where he was. All in all, we got to her home. It was beautiful. Her husband is an interior designer. So we learned how to make dumplings, made many many of them, and then we got to eat them!! We also had an egg and mushroom soup. Afterwards, Liu laoshi brought out her photo albums to share with us. Then she invited us upstairs to play ping-pong. She told us her husband and her practice ping-pong 30-minutes a day. So we got to compete with her and with each other. She has some cool techniques and she said Riley was really good at ping-pong.

I uploaded more pictures to the picasa. In China adventures part III & IV. My email won't work here on but if you want to contact me email Riley.

Love,
Diane