Lucas

Lucas Thompson (卢卡斯）

April 4 (Thursday)

The first activity we did, right after we got off the plane, was going to a Sichuan restaurant. I ate Kung Pao Chicken（宫保鸡丁）, fried rice（炒饭）, fish（鱼）, and a few other dishes which I don’t know the names of. My favorite dish so far is Kung Pao Chicken because it's spicy（辣）, crunchy, and a little salty（先）. My father and his friend both can’t speak English, and I like that I can practice my Chinese with them. Furthermore, my mother’s English is perfect, and my sister’s English is pretty good（还好）. I find it difficult to understand Chinese, but I think it’s fun（好玩儿） to try. Also, my family said that my Chinese pronunciation（发音） was phenomenal, and I was happy（高兴） that my years of hard work were finally paying off. We got home at midnight, and I plopped my head on a pillow and went to sleep（睡觉）.

Sunday morning was boring（无聊）, but the rest of the day was fun. I got up at 9 o'clock, and a few hours after breakfast（早饭）, we drove for 20 minutes to a Hai Nan restaurant. This meal was delicious with many unorthodox foods: fried pigeons（炸鸽子）, Chinese carp, pork squares, steak, and lamb（羊肉）. One dish was so spicy that none of us could eat it. A few hours after we got home, the father also gave me some special nuts for a snack（小吃）. I don’t remember the name, but they were delicious. My dad and his friends then went on a business trip in a different province, and I was sad that I didn't get to give them the gifts （礼物）that I had brought. If I give the host family their presents now, then I’ll have to give the dad his presents later; I don’t want to have to do that because then it’ll be awkward. I found it very surprising how everybody wanted to get our pictures（照片） and videos. I like the attention that comes with being a minority in China, and I don’t think I will get sick of it.

I played Clash of Clans（部落冲突） for 15 minutes, read, and played basketball（篮球） with Andrew and the JSYY students. I walked to the basketball court with Andrew and met up with his Chinese cousin. Andrew is very good at basketball. I also met Mark's (a student from last year) brother on the basketball court. They not only play basketball very well, but are also friendly（友好）. I hope to play soccer（足球） with the students on my first day of school!

Lucas Thompson (卢卡斯）

April 21 (Sunday)

It was the last day （最后天）of Xi’an, and we were all dead tired from yesterday（昨天）. We went to the night market, bargained for a bunch of random trinkets, ate some smoke balls, and tried Turkish ice cream. It was a great night（晚上）, but we got back to the hotel（饭店） at 11:30. I was so exhausted, I even slept（睡觉） through the citywide wakeup call. There’s this Buddhist temple that sounds this giant bell, and it’s supposed to tell everybody to wake up（起床）. I hated（恨） this bell because our bedtime was really late（晚） and always out of our control, and I lost sleep. That next day, I woke up at 9:15, and I raced downstairs because I knew the buffet closed at 9:30 and our tour bus left at 10:00. I ate a decent amount of food: a plate（盘子） filled to the brim with vegetables, a plate with eggs（鸡蛋）, sausage, and bread, and a plate containing steamed buns（包子）. After shoving a couple pounds of food down my gullet, I raced upstairs, got my stuff, and came back down. Keita and I checked out of our hotel, and we put all of our luggage in storage except for my backpack（书包） which I was going to use to carry the stuff we bought.

As we were walking（走） to our destination, we passed by a bunch of markets that looked like you could bargain at. We found five rice hats（斗笠） and bargained the price from 80元all the way down to 20元, the first of our many bargaining adventures. After about ten minutes of walking, we reached China’s oldest mosque（清真寺）, and it’s over 1200 years old! It looked nothing like any mosque I had ever seen: it didn’t have the spherical roof, it didn’t have the gold（金） and extravagant paintings, and it looked like a traditional Chinese building as opposed to a Muslim one. After this little excursion, we went back to the market（批发市场） we could bargain at, and this is where the fun began.

The first item Keita wanted to buy was a fake Gucci sweatshirt（毛衣）. He had done most of the bargaining and gotten the price down from 680元 to 150元, and I jumped in and helped （帮）out a little. We both bought（买） gray ones, but I saw the black（黑色） one and realized that one looked so much cooler. After a little bit of persuasion, I was able to exchange the gray（灰色） one for a black one with no extra cost! It looked so sick（酷）!

I found a few other items of interest in that store. One of these such items was a Mao Zedong（毛泽东）T-shirt（T恤）. The price started at 200元, but I was able to get it down to 55元. I also bargained for Mao’s little red book, 40元. I haven’t found that book anywhere for under 120元, so it was cool to finally get one at a reasonable price（价钱）. I bought a real Neymar Jersey for $30; it’s a bit pricy, but I wanted to spend my American money（美元） because I have no use for it elsewhere in China. Keita got a nice fake Rolex（劳力士） for 100元, and the guy at the store even resized it for him. He was very happy with it, and I also think it looks pretty nice（很好看）.

I thought this was one of the most exciting（兴奋） things I’ve done in the entire trip. I really enjoyed the thrill of bargaining because I had seen people do things like this on TV（电视） and make deals that actually matter. Even though I am just saving a few dollars here and there, it feels like I’m doing something quite important（重要）. However, I feel like if I had to do this every day（每天）, I would get bored of it fairly quickly.

Lucas Thompson （卢卡斯）

April 26th (Friday)

Keita and I were getting hyped for the upcoming football match（足球比赛）. We were moments away from the kickoff, and we were giddy with anticipation. “On my third goal I’m going to do the Ronaldo SIIIIII,” I told（告诉） Keita.

“I’m still gonna eat-up when I score a hat-trick,” responded Keita. 3,2,1, the opposing team kicked the ball and the game was on. It was a very unorthodox game to say the least. It was Devin, Keita, Luciano, and me on team America（美国）, and 14 students（学生） from JSYY on team China（中国）. We had won the last 2 matches fairly easily（容易）, so we thought this one was going to be a breeze, however we were wrong（错）. In this current match, there was much more talent on their side than last time（上次）. The other match there was one kid who had decent speed, but had no ball skills at all. This match there were at least 3 kids with decent speed, 1 with pretty good footwork, and they were overall much better （更好）defenders. Luc was the goalie（守门员） who would also go up on throw-ins, Devin was defense, and Keita and I were kind of offense, but I came back a lot.

The start was super hectic because everybody had so much energy, so we were swarmed even more than usual. The ball（足球） kind of bounced back and forth with no real direction（边）. Either Keita or I would dribble the ball up, get swarmed and be unable to pass it, then lose the ball and run back to help（帮） Devin with the onslaught of eighth graders（八年级人）. While the ball was randomly bouncing, one of the Chinese kids decided to lob it at the goal. It was a pretty terrible shot, but Luc thought it would hit the crossbar, so he didn’t try to stop it or anything. It arced its way into the net and they scored, 0-1.

We were the dominant team in this part of the game, and we had many opportunities to score. However, all of our shots were either terrible（很水）, or they bounced off somebody’s back. They had 10 people back when we were attacking and a bunch of them sort of stood around in front of the goal, so it was almost impossible to get a clear shot. Keita and I tried（试试） a few crosses, but those always got blocked, unless Keita landed them perfectly on my head（头） where it was too high（高） for them to reach. We managed to do that once（一次）, and I connected on the header. However, it hit their goalie straight in the stomach，（肚子） and he caught it. One time, Keita kicked the ball up because he was surrounded by players, and I had an open goal. The ball was moving really fast（快） towards the right and the goal was a little to the left（左边）, so I had to run and turn super quick and kick（踢） it into the goal. This was a feat I could not achieve, and I missed a golden（金） opportunity. Keita decided to nickname their goalie “Lucky Boy” because he should’ve been scored on multiple times but hadn’t.

Finally, Lucky Boy screwed up when he picked the ball up outside the goalie box. This infraction have us a free kick really close（近） to the goal but at a weird（奇怪） angle. Keita decided to take it, and the plan was for Keita to smash the ball at or above the wall and try for the rebound. Keita was feeling pretty good（好的不得了） at the time, so he completely scrapped the plan and went for the goal. He kicked through the ball in a smooth motion which arced it right over the wall, and the football glided down into the top right corner. It was spectacular, and it’s probably the greatest goal ever scored in all of China.

We walked toward each other and “ate up” in celebration of this spectacular finish from Bayern Munich’s star player. It was funny how the kids called me Messi（梅西）. Yesterday, we also played football（足球）, and I was wearing a Messi shirt（T恤） and dribbled through everybody because they were much worse than today（今天）. I scored 3 goals, so I got the nickname “Messi” (YEAH). We were confident now that we’ve scored, so we tried a lot of stupid（本） things. These stupid things included, trying to dribble through 8 people, doing skill moves around the goal, and fake plays which actually sometimes worked, so I don’t think I should consider them stupid. Their team had this one kid（一个孩子） who was pretty fast, had terrible footwork, but had a decent shot. Devin was in a 3 on 1 situation in the back, and I was running back. Unfortunately for my team, I wasn’t fast enough and the kid used his shot to put it past Luciano and we were down 1-2.

A weird thing about this game, is that the other team would commit a lot of fouls（犯规）, but they（她们） would always fall down form them, not us（我们）. They would stick a leg out in front of me, and I couldn’t stop quickly enough so I would always run through it. After these little skirmishes, I wouldn’t fall, but they go down like a sapling in a hurricane. While the other team wasn’t paying attention, Luc took the goal kick and sent me down the right side of the field（足球场）. This side got crowded quickly, so I looked（找） for Keita. I saw him past the wall of people that separated us, so I decided to get out of there. I dribbled the ball all the way to the other side of the field, and nobody was in front（前面） of me, so I decided to start sprinting to the goal. The people who usually stand in front of the goal came out a little bit to defend me, so I cut the ball back and went around one, two, then all three of them. I was coming in at a sharp angle and didn’t have a very good shooting opportunity. However, I saw（看见） that Lucky Boy, the goalie, wasn’t in a very good position, so I shot it near post on the ground and the ball slithered its way in the back of the net, 2-2.

Even though I described that goal in a lot of detail, Keita’s goal was honestly way better （更好）and one of the best （最好的）goals we’ve scored in China. Team China didn’t seem to be getting tired at all, but we certainly were. I ran 7 miles yesterday, so my legs hurt（疼） from that and the football match yesterday. Luc and Devin said they would have to go home （回家）after the next goal, so the game would end then because just Keita and I would have no chance.

We were having a few chances here and there when we dribbled the ball up the field. It was difficult（难） to get any clear-cut chances in this game because team China would just stack with middle（中间） with most of their players, and 4 would come over to defend Keita or me. It was also almost impossible to switch wings because the field was a 6v6 one, so the kids wouldn’t have to cover much ground to get to where we played the ball. Our main attack strategy was to run down the sideline and cross the ball or cut it back. If we crossed the ball we would have to plow into the box and hope（希望） that we got lucky, and if we cut it back, we would have to go through 6 people, then pass to the now open teammate or take a crappy shot. In addition to stacking the middle with vast numbers of people（人）, they also had around 2 or 3 guys near our goal waiting for a punt or long ball. If they ever got the ball, I would have to run back and Devin and I could take them. I had just made a giant run all the way into the box, so I was gassed（太累了） when the goalie punted it and couldn’t sprint back. Devin had to deal with 5 people all by himself because a few of them had sprinted down the field as well. One kid made a pretty good pass and the kid with the good shot did what he’s best at. This effort wasn’t his greatest, but nonetheless, he caught Luc off guard when he was in a bad position. His pea-roller managed to go in, and we couldn’t continue because Luc and Devin had to go home. We lost, 3-2, but it was still a blast（非常好玩儿）.

Not only the game was amazing, and the most fun part of this was the relationships we were able to create with the JSYY kids. We were able to make a friend（朋友） named Arthur, Eric, and Dave. They’re all pretty good soccer players and great people as well. We got their WeChats（微信） and have been talking to them since then.

Lucas Thompson (卢卡斯)

May 5 (Sunday)

We had just arrived（到） back at my house after a long couple of days in xinjiang. The trip was so exciting（兴奋）, and it was definitely the high-point of the entire trip thus far: we went out to eat almost every night（每晚上）, we saw tons of beautiful scenery（风景）, and we went to a ton of interesting（有意思） historical places. In our car（车）, there were a ton of boxes; they were gifts（礼物） from my host dad’s friends to me and my host family. I’m guessing there is a lot of fruit and wine in there because xinjiang is famous（有名） for those two things. I also got an extravagant panda（大熊猫） painting.

Although this trip was so exciting and so amazing, I went to sleep at midnight（半夜） every night and I woke up at 6:00, so I was getting no sleep and was dead tired everyday（每天） when waking up. By the time we got home, it was 10:30 and we still had to drag a bunch of boxes of gifts upstairs. However, we had an elevator in our apartment building, but（但是—— it was incredibly confusing（糊涂） to get to. Lucky for me（我）, my host family knew just how to get there, and I simply followed them down the hallways through all the twists and turns.

We had to carry a ton of boxes upstairs, but thankfully, our driver（司机） helped us carry them. Even with this great man’s help, I still had to spend 10 minutes（分钟） carrying heavy（重） boxes through a doorway and depositing them at a location near the back of the house（房子）. I was also starving（饿死了）, so I had to eat right when I got home. I ended up going to bed around midnight, and I was really annoyed because I had to wake up at around 6:30. It’s also annoying because I’ve been going to bed really late（晚）, and I didn’t even have control over it. It’s one thing if you can choose when you can go to bed and you go to bed late, but I couldn’t even decide, my family（家人） decided for me. Well, it’s not the worst thing in the world（地球）.

It was a Saturday（周六） and we had to go to school tomorrow（明天）! I have never in my life even thought it was possible to go to school on Sunday, and I hate（恨） it. I just want 2 days each week to sleep in, but in China（中国） they work so hard that they have to make up their vacation! American culture（文化） is really different（不一样） from the Chinese culture in that education is valued much less in the U.S. I’ve noticed in the U.S. kids completely dread going to school（学校）, whereas kids in China don’t exactly enjoy it, but they don’t absolutely despise it either. If this was America（美国）, kids would be complaining so much if they had to go to school on a Sunday, but I’ve talked to a few of the kids in this school about how they feel about going to school. They said that it’s pretty normal（正常） for this to happen, and they weren’t too mad（生气） about it. I was so tired yesterday（昨天） that I was steaming mad about it. I was really annoyed that I would have to sacrifice my precious sleep just to go to school.

I noticed that the Chinese kids seem to care more about school than Americans. An example of this is my host sister’s reaction to her bad score on her test（考试）. She locked herself in her room and didn’t come out even to eat dinner（晚饭）. She simply sat in there and whenever my host mom tried to talk to her, she would yell and get super angry at her. In America, it’s always the parents（父母） who punish the kids for getting bad grades on tests, not the kids punishing themselves. I don’t necessarily agree（同意） with this behavior because I don’t think grades in school are the end-all be-all for your life（生活）. Many super-successful people didn’t go to or finish college: Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Frank Loyd Wright, and Tom Hanks. However, this is the culture in China, and it’s probably more difficult（难） to do well in China without going to a good college（大学）.

Lucas Thompson (卢卡斯)

May 10 (Friday)

We arrived（到）at a random hotel（酒店） in Chengde at about 7 o’clock at night（晚上）. Right when Keita walked in he was telling me that the room（房间） looked sketchy. I didn’t really think so, but then again, he’s stayed in way more hotels than I have. We hung out for an hour（小时）, then went out to explore the streets of Chengde. I felt amazing, and we walked for a while and found interesting（有意思） places. One terrible fake shoe store, an Adidas outlet, and a fake clothes store with poor quality fakes and a cute（可爱） little kid who wanted to read us his English book（书）.

We arrived at the hotel and realized that there were many problems with it (rant time). For one, the toilet（马桶） wouldn’t flush. One of the plugs didn’t fit into the outlet because the plug had something on the bottom of it which blocked it from entering. The shower（淋浴） leaked through the pipe, and it got the floor wet. The floor of the shower looked like it had some toe fungus on it, and the mat didn’t look much safer（安全）. Keita and I had to share shower shoes（淋浴鞋） because we only brought one pair. There was this gigantic water（水） stain on the top of our room’s closet, which definitely shows how much care was put into the room. Although we thought the amount of toilet paper（卫生纸） we had was bad, Mr.Reddington didn’t even have any toilet paper, and he had to text us to bring him some! There were some nuts which they gave us that looked like someone whacked with a hammer and left them sitting in swamp water for 60 years, so we definitely did not eat them. Worst（最坏）of all, the gosh darn air conditioner didn’t work at all! It said you could only set it between 20 and 25 degrees Celcius, about 68-77 degrees Fahrenheit. However, we had it on the entire night set at 20 degrees, but when we looked at the temperature after waking up, it was still 25 degrees!

When I woke up（起床）, I felt feint and extremely hot（热）. I had also woken up multiple times that night from the stupid air conditioner making noise and not actually doing anything. I also had a mild headache（头疼） and felt like I was on another planet. Although I felt weird, I knew I still had to eat something for breakfast（早饭）, so we took the elevator down. We got some pretty standard Chinese food（中餐） for breakfast. Altogether we thought it was really bad, super oily（油）, very little flavor（味道）, and inedible vegetables. Keita got something that he thought was milk（牛奶）, but it was clear it wasn’t milk right after he took the first sip. It tasted like someone mixed water and milk in a ratio of 3:1, and that’s not a good taste if you’ve never drank（喝） that before.

After a horrible breakfast and awful overall hotel experience, we had a fairly boring （无聊）bus ride, and eventually arrived at a Buddhist temple. I felt kind of funky, but the pain was bearable, and I was able（能） to enjoy the temple. At this Buddhist temple, there were tons of Llamas (not the animals), Buddha statues, and certain rituals to perform. One of the most amazing things we saw was the giant Buddha. The structure that enclosed this Buddha was three stories tall, and looked like a giant ancient Chinese house（房子）, however when we got inside（里面）, we saw that it was nothing like a house. From the outside, you could only see the Buddha’s legs sitting crossed and nothing else. Once we got inside, we saw that the roof was so high, and the Buddha stretched all the way up to it. The Buddha was a blueish-grayish color, and it had 40（四十） arms each with an eye on them, and an eye in the middle（中间） of its head. They called this the 1,000 eyes Buddha because they said there were 25 of these Buddhas, so 40x25=1000. They seem to have forgotten his two normal eyes and the eye in the middle of his head, but the tour guide wouldn’t answer me when I tried to bring that up.

As we got farther and farther into this visit, I felt worse and worse（怀来坏）, and by the end of it, I couldn’t pay attention to anything at all, and just had to sit down（座). After a half an hour of walking around and not really paying attention, we made it to the bus. I felt so feint, I fell asleep（睡觉） instantly on the bus on which I had one of the only two non-reclining seats. I didn’t feel good（不舒服） when I awoke, and we were at the small Tibetan temple. I groaned in displeasure at the thought of walking in the hot sun again and felt absolutely terrible, so I reluctantly decided to skip the excursion. After the excursion, everybody told me all the amazing things they did: Keita bought nunchucks, made friends with a bunch of kids, Devin did a vlog and bought a magic ring, Luc was also making new friends, and Andrew got some amazing pictures. They all definitely agreed that it was the best part of the trip. I later figured out that this was heatstroke, I took some tylenol, drank a lot of water and felt much better later. Even though the hotel was terrible and I got sick, this was a very fun trip and I was so happy that the school invited us to join the 8th graders for a chance to see yet another Chinese city.

Lucas Thompson (卢卡斯）

May 17 (Friday)

Mr. Red read

I arrived at the middle school（初中） at 7:56, and I went up to the normal meeting spot in the chairs（椅子） on the second floor. I didn’t see anyone and I became extremely worried. I didn’t know（不知道） what I was going to do, so I started（开始） wandering aimlessly around the school. I saw（看） a bunch of teachers that I’ve never seen before, and I was very confused（糊涂）. After a couple of minutes of running around like a headless chicken（鸡）, I finally saw that everybody was sitting in the backside of the school（在学校后面） on the soccer field（足球场） and track. There didn’t look like there were any people standing up（站起来）, so I walked quickly as to not disturb anyone. I kept looking around and ended up asking one of the teachers（老师） where the high schoolers were sitting 高中学生在哪儿？. She said they were on the right side of the field 他们在我们右边。I quickly walked over and saw a very small amount of blue shirts（蓝色的衬衫）. On the very outskirts, I saw my all of my American friends.

I sat down with them and I noticed that everyone else had stools, but I didn’t have one. We were sitting with two amazing Chinese kids（孩子）, Tommy and Bob. Tommy, a ninth grader, was very interesting（有意思）, and he had taken us to a KTV the week before. A KTV is a karaoke room（房间） where people can pick from 20,000 songs（歌） and sing them in a private room with two microphones with all their friends. The other kid, Bob, was a sixth grader, and he was really funny（可笑）. His English wasn’t too good, so we communicated with him and Chinese, and he told us a ton of hilarious jokes, some English（英文）, some Chinese.

This was a ceremony celebrating the birthday（生日） of the school. It started off with the students doing a dance（跳舞）. This dance was a little bit strange（奇怪）, it didn’t look like a traditional Chinese dance, and it looked like a bunch of American dances put together in an interesting way. Nevertheless, it was really fun to watch（好看）.

The next part of the performance was the main portion. All of the grades had a poetry competition（诗比赛） where they all performed a poem that they had rehearsed for months and months. A couple weeks ago we watched the seventh graders do their poems. Every single kid（每个人） in every single class had it perfectly memorized. I couldn’t see any stumbling or any kid forgetting（忘记） at all. My host sister’s class won the seventh grade competition. I could clearly see they were the best competitor. Their poem flowed better than all the other classes, and they had one kid who really put a ton of emotion into it and made it that much better（更好）.

In this birthday celebration（典礼） we were able to see all of the class winners perform their poetry. All of them were amazing, but it got repetitive after hearing five of them and not understanding（明白） much of them. We were talking to some of the other Chinese students for the remainder of the celebration, and it was a lot of fun.

At the end they were ready to announce the winner. I was really excited to see if they would give it to the second graders（二年级学生） like an American school would, and how they would judge them. The older kids clearly have an advantage over the younger kids in memorizing and performing great poetry, so I had no idea who（谁） would win. I was astounded when my host sister’s team won the schoolwide competition. I was so overjoyed and really proud of what she did with her friends who I also somewhat know. To celebrate, we went out to the hotpot（火锅）restaurant with Andrew, it was a really good day.

Lucas Thompson（卢卡斯）

May 26 （Saturday）

Mr.Red read

Today was a very interesting（有意思） day. In the beginning, we woke up bright and early to go to the Pacific Ocean and go to the beach（海边）. We heard you aren’t allowed to swim in the Ocean, but we still though it was worthwhile going. We got on the subway preparing to take a long ride for a good payoff. We all played our Hungry Shark on our own phones（手机）, one of the greatest games every created. All of us were leveling up like crazy, so the train ride wasn’t so bad（不错）, although it was very long（长）.

After a relatively short hour（小时） of riding the subway and bus（公共汽车）, we finally arrived at some really remote and desolate area with a bunch of rundown buildings. We walked for about a kilometer（公里） until we found the first sign of life in this place. It was a rundown conveince store that actually had a person（人） manning the desk. We all bought different assortments of drinks（饮料）. I got a water, and everyone else got some sodas（汽水） and ice tea. Keita loves iced tea for some reason, but I really don’t like it because I think it’s going to taste like tea, but then the ice just takes over and it stops tasting like tea（茶）.

We were kind of lost trying to find the ocean, so we consulted Baidu maps. However, when we went to the place（地方） it said to go, there was a big fence and it said in Chinese（中文） that we couldn’t enter and would be fined 500 yuan each if we chose to violate. There was also an extremely（好极了） beautiful nature reserve there, but we weren’t allowed to go there either because the VEGETATION HAS TO GROW, REEEEEEEEEEE.

Because we were unsuccessful with Baidu maps, we consulted the locals of the area. I asked（问） them how to get to the Ocean. They gave us some weird and unclear directions, which we followed as best as we could, but still got nowhere near a beach we were legally allowed to enter.

We got back on the bus and spent another hour playing Hungry Shark, but my phone was really low on battery, about 5 percent, so I needed to conserve power（电）. While my friends were playing on their phones, we were going to another place that was on CNN and Trip Advisor. It was a very famous（有名） fish market（鱼店） that was another half an hour away from where we currently were.

This market was also nonexistent which we soon learned when we asked a policeman（警察人） in that area. We saw a sign that said something about the fish market, and it was all torn down. We were fairly confident（知道了） that it had moved, but it was completely closed and disappeared.

We were all hungry（饿）, so we went to find a restaurant. We went into a couple really sketchy and weird restaurants（饭店） which we all thought looked repulsive, and some of them said they didn’t have a single dish they could guarantee didn’t have nuts for Andrew. We probably went into five different restaurants before we found one that we all finally thought looked half-decent（还好）.

This restaurant was a variation on hotpot（火锅） where there was one little hot plate in the middle where all of the food was cooked. However, there was no soup（汤） in it, and a chef came over to cook（做） it instead of the diners. We spend a while getting them to take away all of the sauce with peanuts in it. Then after that, they kept asking if we could eat everything, chicken, beef（牛肉）, lettuce, etcetera.

Although the ordering was chaotic, the food we got was so amazing. The beef was perfectly cooked, really juicy, and spiced amazingly. Everything was so great that it melted in your mouth like an ice（冰） cube in a sauna. I also ordered fried rice because we thought the meal was going to cost a ton of money, and that was also delicious（美味）. All in all, we all only payed a little over 100 yuan which I think is great price for easily the best meal we had in ShangHai（上海）.

I feel like people don’t take enough risks because they’re scared of the downsides. I’ve learned that the upside is usually a ton better（更好） than the negative from this trip to China. We’ve gone to a lot of places（地方） which required a ton of waiting to get to the fun part. In the end, I’ve always been happy that I went because the good experiences always have overpowered the bad stuff every time. I don’t even remember most of the boring（无聊） things that have happened, but I remember all of the interesting and fun things very vividly.

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