Blogging From China / Doing Laundry

Nihao!

Wow, I'm blogging from Nanjing, China. I have been needing to start doing this. I originally started this whole blogging thing for a class and now I'm using it to get honors credit for a Chinese Culture class I'm taking. I seem to only blog if I need to for a grade. Oh well, I'm going to have to do it every day for this one. I'm already behind because I'm starting like 9 days late. But I have a good excuse, I've been really busy and tired. There's been so much stuff going on in the last 9 days that this is the first chance I've had to really start this blogging thing.

I was thinking about going through and summarizing all the events and things that have happened to me but I think I'll pass. I'll probably just talk about them as they come up naturally.

Right now I'm sitting in my hotel room/dorm waiting for the laundry services to open up. I have to admit that I was really scared to do my laundry here. I'm so used to doing it myself and the idea of other people handling my clothes is really scary. If they shrink or get destroyed or something I don't have any clothes left basically. I only packed a limited number. I went down a few minutes ago and the laundry room was closed. I looked in through the plexiglass door from the gray cement room with ping pong tables and some hard pink chairs and wooden end tables and saw my clothes neatly folded up on a self. So, I'm not so nervous anymore. I just have to wait until they open.

Dropping the laundry off was an experience in itself though. The woman said "wash and dry" and I agreed. I tried to communicate that I wanted my clothes washed on gentle cycle in cold water, tumble dry low but that didn't work so well. There is a girl in my group named Jessica who is American/Chinese and speaks Mandarin fluently (but can't read or write it) who tried to help me and another girl (Alex) out. She said the woman was very rude and that our clothes would be ready in "About a day, I don't know!" We had to make sure each load was under 2 kg. So I had to do three loads, one for shirts and other soft fabric clothes and two for my jeans: 3 pair per load. I had to pour laundry detergent into plastic cups for each load. I borrowed some of Jessica's since we had this plan to all share detergent. I felt weird about it though, I'll probably just buy my own. I don't want to have to go into other people's rooms and take their detergent when I need to do laundry.

So, after we left the clothes we had to go from the basement to the building next door's lobby. We had to pay for the laundry services there and get tickets to pick our clothes up. Mine was 42 yuan or $6.20. I don't have much experience with laundromats but I think that's kind of expensive. Oh well, at least they folding my clothes for me so they wouldn't wrinkle. That's priceless to me.

I like to keep my blog posts organized according to subject so I think this one is done for now.

Xiexie