International Music Festival

So I have decided one of my favorite things about China is the fact that I can easily have freshly cut pineapple for breakfast. Its pretty rad.

This last week was the Chinese "May Day" holiday. I think its basically the same as Memorial Weekend in the States. Except they do holidays weird here. At least for the schools. My students had ThursFriSat off, but had to come back to school for Sunday to try and get caught up. Why not just build in the extra day to the end of the semester? I have no idea. Just another example of my ignorance for Chinese culture.

                                   

Seriously?!  The things people wear over here. Even though this hat is ridiculous, this girl was adorable. I rudely photobombed her selfie, and then when she noticed she got very excited and then we took a real picture together.

So after the show we waited around looking all pathetic and asked if we could meet the band. So worth it. I was expecting them to be jerks, but they were really nice and down to earth. The drummer was really fun to talk to, he was just chilling in the background so we talked for awhileOne of them offered us beer, and we declined. Then the lead singer said "do any of you drink?" To which Ben promptly replies "well we're Mormons!" Then we chatted about China Horizons for a bit, and talked about Mormons and then the singer said "well sh#@ I would hire a Mormon." That was a pretty cool feeling. 

The bass guitarist was also really cool. He just kept talking about how cool we were for traveling so young. "It took me 42 years to get my butt to China, but you are doing it now while you are young! Just think about the cool pictures you are going to have up in your house one day, just chilling on the great wall." It just confirmed my decision again (for the millionth time) that I am so glad that I decided to live abroad for a semester. And after living in China, I feel like I can do anything.

We decide to end the evening truly American- we hit up McDonalds. But of course it cannot be a perfect night all around. We get trapped inside Wanda Plaza because it is the end of the night and they locked most of the doors. When we finally figure out how to get out of the HUGE mall, it starts raining. Then Sierra cannot find a bike to rent from the city so we somehow fit all three of us on this bike. In the rain. And by some miracle I was able to balance the bike, not hit anyone else, and not run us into the pole, which I cannot say the same for a very drunk man who now has an appointment with his dentist. (Or maybe not... I mean this is China.)

Like manna raining from the heavens, we were so happy to see this!

So obviously China has some super awesome touristy spots. You have The Bund, Nanjing Massacre Museum, Summer Palace, and Purple Mountain just to name a few. But every foreigner goes to see those. I loved today because it was something that you would only know or hear about because you actually lived here. We were the only foreigners on the whole island (where the festival was) and we got a good glimpse of what a concert in China felt like. Super weird, I mean these people l
As weird and different that it was from concerts in America, I loved every minute of it. Well, every minute minus the 2,5 minutes when I broke down and had to use a public squattie. In the dark. On a hot sweaty summer night.