The school itself is pretty nice, it’s actually built next to a great park with a beautiful lake that the university purchased and then built a campus next to. There are 10 foreign teachers at this school (5 English, 2 French, 1 Korean, 2 Japanese) which is a big increase from SUST which had a total of 3 English teachers. The living quarters here are also much nicer, they’re actually more like real apartments and feel much more homey. My only complaint is that the couch in my apartment sucks, it’s way too small for more than one person to sit or lay-down on. Due to it’s status as an International University, XAIU actually has quite a few foreign students here to learn Chinese as well. This is to my benefit because I can actually go to the Chinese classes as a student at no charge (which is definitely worth something!). XAIU’s location is also a bit better than SUST because it’s in the southwest of Xi’an where more of the action is, as opposed to the far north which was pretty far away from most things.

This year, October 10th was an extra special day, as many Chinese couples decided to get married on 10/10/10, and hey, why not? You’ll never forget your anniversary! But it was, of course, also my birthday and I turned 25. In fact it was my second birthday celebrated here in Xi’an, and the second one in a row that it was raining. But that’s nothing a home-cooked meal, and a few hours of mahjong can’t fix.

See pictures of my new apartment and XAIU campus here

Celebrating my birthday here in Xi’an was a bit different experience that what I’m used to. But only a little different. Saturday night I went out with a handful of my friends to a restaurant in the Muslim quarter of Xi’an. We had a nice meal of typical Chinese food. Unfortunately, I neglected to take some pictures of the meal. Here’s where it was different; because it was my birthday I did the inviting. As you soon find out in China, if you invite, you pay. So I had to pay for my own birthday dinner. I hope they enjoyed my dinner!

After the meal my friends and I walked down Dong Dajie (East street) to go to a club. We had decided on the 1+1 Disco because one friend had a discount card that would get us a bottle of Chivaz (scotch), 7 bottles of tea, and a plate of fruit for only 200 kuai (of which I also paid for). About 5.5 hours, one huge alcoholic orange juice glass, 1.25 L of scotch, dancing, being offered to take home some guy’s (hot) girlfriend for the night (for a price of course), and one friend almost getting the boot, we decided it had been a successful night and I headed back to my hotel.

Jake, Marina, me

It was rainy the next day, and after waking up with a nice hangover, and getting some fried rice I finally met up with my Chinese parents. I always like hanging out with them, it feels good to have someone around that you can consider family. They also help me a lot with my Chinese because they force me to speak Chinese with them and always want to teach me and show me cool things.

My parents took my girlfriend and I to the plaza near Da Men Ta (Big Wild Goose Pagoda). The first thing that surprised me was there was a Dairy Queen! I was psyched! Despite having just eaten we decided some ice was in order. I got a chocolate shake and we talked about the previous day. After DQ  we explored the plaza and looked at a lot of the statues and fountains, which Lijun always tried to explain to me with Marina’s help.

We then checked out the Xi’an Art Museum (where I decided that I like looking at the photography a lot more than paintings), there was all kinds of really nice art to look at, and it was good to get out of the rain.

After the art museum we made our way to a hot pot restaurant nearby and had a nice dinner to celebrate mine and my Chinese mother’s (HeBin) birthdays. Hot pot is always a good (and a bit expensive) meal in China, and I really do like it, unfortunately I never feel very well for about an hour or two afterwards, it just hurts the stomach.

After dinner my parents gave me my birthday gift, a nice fall jacket! Since all the Chinese men are so small, they bought me a XXXL jacket, and it’s even a little snug. But I think it’ll fit soon, I can tell my waistline is shrinking little by little. To end the evening we saw a movie, I have no idea what it was called, but it was about spies in the Sino-Japanese war during the 1940’s or so. Fortunately, it was subtitled in English so I could understand what was happening. Following the movie it was an hour or so car ride back to school.

Overall, a different and busy, but still very satisfying birthday weekend.