KTV, Pilates, and Packing

I've only done two of those three things - guess which one I haven't tackled?

Saturday night, we celebrated Malcolm's birthday. We couldn't resist the excuse to go to KTV.

For those of you who don't know, KTV is the Chinese version of karaoke. It differs from American-style karaoke in a few ways:

Chinese-style: Private room with your friends.
American-style: Singing in front of strangers.

Chinese-style: Music videos to watch while the words are playing!
American-style: Sad words all lonely on the screen.

Chinese-style: The employees are in formal wear.
American-style: You're probably not going to find that, but I haven't done karaoke in America very often.

Basically, KTV is very, very nice, and it's a lot of fun. I didn't bring my good camera (of all times to leave it behind!) but I got a couple of pictures anyway:

That's the room we rented. The picture shows a little less than half of it. My back was to the multiple TV screens.

Even the tables lit up.

You build a custom queue of songs to play. They certainly do have options! We had a few Chinese songs, some dance party classics by Lady Gaga and Ke$ha, and a few of our boys didn't need to look at the screen when they sang "Teenage Dream." We even heard some Panic! at the Disco and "Skyfall."

It's a fun, community-building experience, at least the way we did it, which was everyone clustering around the pair of microphones, dancing and singing together.

10/10 do want in America.

I suppose I mentioned other, non-KTV related things in the title. Very well.

A lot of us have been diligent about working out here. I think a good half of us (not including me - I can't afford a half hour walk each way) have gym memberships, and another four or five run in training for the half marathon.

I work out in my room, just like I always have.

I learned, early in college, to deal with stress by being physical. It's one of the reasons why I love dance so much.

So, dealing with culture shock meant finding an intense and fresh new workout regimen, which meant Pilates. I only do about half an hour every day, but I feel so much better for it. It has been a great way to clear my mind and keep my body under my control while I'm adjusting to a new environment.

The final thing that I wanted to mention was packing. The packing itself (which I haven't started, whoops) isn't exciting, but what it means is.

We leave for the Silk Road trip on Tuesday.

We're going to see deserts and glaciers and the Magao Caves and so many things I never dreamed of. I will absolutely bring my camera and flood this blog with pictures when I return.

Speaking of the blog and returning... this is my last post until after the trip! I'm sure I'll be able to get a few things posted pretty quickly after I return on the 21st, but we have our Chinese midterm on the 25th, so I'll be quite busy!

I will, as you might expect, not be posting between now and then.

Wish me adventure!