China no strike lightning double

Ok, so my last post was a little doom and gloom, but there have now been at least two good days in China--maybe three now. Monday and Tuesday were a bit rough, but it got better from there. Wednesday we had our first lecture and welcome banquet, which I think I wrote about. Then thursday we were in the outpatient clinic again with Dr. Xu, and I got to needle and cup a whole bunch. I was totally complimented by the Dr., patients and chinese interns about my technique, which is a really big honor. Then, I got more advice and help about it from the Dr., which was more complimentary than the compliments if that makes any sense. We went to dinner in this crazy huge mall---it's like pionner square fancy but Lloyd center size or bigger. After dinner we found a gelato place, which I think made my stomach hurt more than anything else I've eaten here. The only sad news I have about Thursday is that Happy Bike got stolen!!! A group of us had gone to dinner, and I had locked my bike together with two others and when we got out of the mall, all three had gotten stolen! I was pissed for a minute, but then I realized I spent like $20 on it, and they probably stole it because they saw us lock them and knew I was some weird looking white person--which honestly makes me more OK with it than blind theft. So, today we took a cab to and from clinic which was a really nice break for my bike butt. I will probably go bike and D lock shopping again tomorrow or sunday, but we'll see. I'd really like to figure out the bus system.

Today, friday, was AWESOME!!! This morning we did inpatient rounds, and heard a lecture about herbal injection treatment for cancer with ku shen and tu fu ling. Afterwards, we got to go out with Dr. Xu and another Dr, I think his name is Dr. Wang. They took us to this really close dumpling/noodle place which was delicious and simple and cheap. It was a really nice break from crazy spicy eggplant and peking duck and fried lotus etc etc etc. We got to talk to Dr. Xu a lot, and develop a pretty good rapport. She is going to Germany in a month or so for three months to set up a TCM wing for a hospital there. She speaks a little bit of german, but is nervous about the travel and will miss her family. We talked about all kinds of things from her job to family to structures of the medicine in the US and in China to how to find the bathroom if you don't know the difference between the men's and women's to herbal medicine theory. Then, this afternoon I got to go to the herbal dispensary where they showed us every single herb and their crazy awesome machine that decocts and packages the bulk herbs for the patients. Once I set up my clinic, I totally have to get one of those!

Tonight a bunch of us went out, back to the Jazz club where 4 of us went Tuesday night, and then to this crazy strip of nightclubs called "1912". The clubs are totally weird. There's no dance space, just all huge booths. Some guy gave me a shot of iced tea, and another guy was handing out sparklers. If you think white people have no rhythm, you should totally go to a nightclub in China---whoa. Some of the songs were in chinese, but some of them were weird disco remixed of songs like "stand by me". The second club we went to had bigger booths and each table got their own personal waiter who would hang out and dance with you and order stuff for you if you needed anything. He insisted on taking a bunch of pictures with us, and I totally love him---adorable!!!

But, dancing around a table in a big booth gets kind of ridiculous after a while, and we left after about an hour. So now I am freshly showered and winding down before my marathon night of sleep. It's supposed to rain like crazy here tomorrow, so our trip we planned to purple mountain (the Mt. Tabor of Nanjing) is going to be postponed until Sunday most likely. It's good, because honestly I have some laundry and reading and note transcribing to do. I hope to make it to the night market to get some crazy stuff if it's not raining too hard. Yay! Bring on the weekend!!!