Piangjian Road

Piangjian Road was a long road in Suzhou with stores on one side and water on the other. It was extremely old which showed in many ways, like it’s cobble stone path ways. Animals sat at the front of many store doors to attract customers, and I’m not sure if it worked on the locals but know it worked on me. Boats slowly drifted through the water and people took pictures of us as we walked along the old street. It also had this very distinct smell, which I found out was a local food called dofu. It was a smell I’ll never forget and I’m not sure that’s a good thing. 

KTV is a thing.

Everyone talked about how fun karaoke was in China and I thought they were kidding, but we did it anyway. AND it was so fun. Most of the songs we sang came reminded me of those from my 6th grade play list and I loved it. 

May 21 2016

Lavender and Cherry

These girls were my first friends at Soochow! Lavender & Cherry. Most of the students at the University pick out their own English names and I thought theirs were so unique and cute. 

May 18 2016

🍳it’s not what it looks like

While at the University sitting with the students chatting it up I mentioned that I was hungry. My new friends offered me a snack and insisted I tried one of their favorites. 

I assumed it was chocolate. But I assumed really wrong. It’s a quail egg, a tea soaked quail egg. 😁 

May 17 2016

First Food Encounter

I played it safe for my first lunch in Suzhou. Stuck with the chicken fried rice. It was all going well until I got really excited about the soy sauce and dumped it all over my rice. The sauce was actually 1/4 soy and 3/4 vinegar….. Not a fan of vinegar. 

May 16 2016

This is it…

Hello! I am Kennedy Hogle, a junior marketing major from Dallas, Texas. I am headed to China for the International Business Seminar. I was blessed to receive the Center for Retailing Excellence (CRE) Study Abroad Scholarship administered by the Sam M. Walton College Global Engagement Office, helping me to take this amazing opportunity. AND tomorrow is the day; we leave bright and early and will be arriving Monday after a very long flight. I am so excited! I have only been out of the country one other time and that was only to Panama for a few days. I know this is going to be extremely life changing. I am going to take on every adventure that I can. We are going to be doing multiple business visits and I cannot wait to see how business is conducted in China. In particular, how their business relationships are conducted. I know this will open up my eyes to different ways of embracing life. I hope to gain skills that I would not have obtained while just staying in my comfort zone. I have already turned in my first assignment for China. It was over the ‘Transition into the Service Industry’, which was a topic of choice. I have multiple papers due over the course of my trip, which will not be hard to write because I will have more than enough to say! John Aloysius is the faculty member going on the trip with us and it will be interesting to learn from him throughout our journey in China. We will be returning on June 6^th – but I will not be counting the days!