Erin is Chinese

More gymnastics

2008-10-20T20:08:00.003+08:00

As I had previously mentioned my new goal for the duration of the Olympics was to somehow score tickets to see Shawn Johnson compete. As luck would have it I met two Americans at our hostel who had two extra tickets to every event they were going to and were looking to swap them for other tickets since they didn't have too many events to go to. I asked them right away if they had any gymnastics tickets and they did and they were willing to trade me for my judo tickets. Score! I was happy to get to see any events during the Olympics, but if I could see gymnastics instead of judo I was definitely going to trade.

So Kim and I gave them our judo tickets for their gymnastics tickets and that night we made our way to the National Indoor Stadium for the women's gymnastics preliminaries. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that that the countries were broken down into different groups and that America wasn't competing at the time we had tickets for :( It was still fun to watch, but I obviously hadn't met my goal of seeing Shawn perform at the Olympics.

How is it that you are louder than all of France?

2008-09-25T20:07:00.003+08:00

This question was posed to me while we were sitting around watching fencing on day two of the Olympics. It was our third event of the Games and the first time we got to see an American compete. Of course I was beyond excited to finally cheer for the red, white and blue. Our seats were on the opposite side of where the American was sitting but after sneaking past some volunteers we ended up getting some great seats. In fact, we were now located right behind the designated athletes seating area. Score!

Anyway, some Frenchies had made the same tricky maneuvering as us and were sitting in the same section now and as luck would have it the U.S. and France were about to face off. Obviously fencing isn't exactly a mainstream event in America, but it definitely is one of those that they love in Europe apparently.

So our American friend took the stage (I don't know what to call the competition area in fencing) and we just started going nuts. We had absolutely no idea who this guy was and we cheered for him like he was Michael Jordan back in the glory days of Chicago basketball. We were greatly outnumbered by French fans but we didn't care. We cheered louder, harder and longer than they did and even though our guy lost it was still totally worth it.

After the match (I have no idea what a round of fencing is called) this French guy turned to me and said, "How is it that you are louder than all of France?" I told him it was because we didn't smoke and gave him a smile. He just laughed and then we showed them how to really yell later when we cheered for the French guy who beat our American friend.

As it turns out fencing was a rather intense sport. The athletes were always jumping around and as soon as they scored a point they would rip off their masks and throw a fit.

OK, so fencing was far more fun than I thought it would be and afterwards we were leaving the venue and we met the family of the American who we had been cheering so feverishly for and they thanked us and told us we rocked for all of our enthusiasm :)

Olympics Day 1 (sleep deprivation and sun burn)

2008-09-24T12:02:00.007+08:00

As previously mentioned we did not have a place to sleep the night of Opening Ceremonies and so when we checked into our hostel (which from here on out will be referred to as the room that mold built) we only had time to shower and change before we needed to head out for the day.

I can't express how much Beijing has changed in the year since I've been here, and even since I was last in Beijing at the beginning of July. The city was much cleaner and everyone seemed to have their welcome mat out for the Games.

Anyway, onto the Games. Our first event of the Olympics was beach volleyball. The venue was pretty small (especially compared to most of the other venues) and was relatively empty considering the Games were boasted as being the first ever to sell-out. But these factors certainly did not stop us from having fun.

The sun was shining, the music was blaring and we were cheering loud even though the U.S. wasn't playing. We talked to some other folks from the states and Germany who we would eventually hang out with several times later in the week.

Beach volleyball was really fun and much more intense than I had expected.

Jenna and I sat with Jon, Tim and Tony (our gang for the next two weeks) for about four hours before we realized we weren't going to make it through the rest of the day, yet alone the rest of the Olympics, if we didn't get some sleep. We made our way back to the hostel and napped for about two hours before it was time to roll out again.

That evening we had tickets to the men's gymnastics preliminaries and, once again, America wasn't competing. We had a good time watching the Games in general, but of course we wanted to cheer for the U.S. At any rate I was super excited to be at gymnastics, because it is always my favorite sport during the Olympics.

As you may or may not know I met Shawn Johnson during my junior year at Drake when I was working for The Times-Delphic. She was only 14 at the time and we ran a story in the Relays issue about her that my friend Jennifer wrote, I tagged along to take the photos. She's from Des Moines and her gym is only a few miles from campus so we got to watch her warm up with the other girls at her gym one day and meet with her and her coach. It was a pretty cool experience and one that I kept bragging about as soon as she made the U.S. team. I was hoping to get to see her compete while we were in Beijing but once I picked up our tickets for the week, which I had ordered more than a year in advance, I realized that just wasn't part of the plan. I made seeing Shawn compete my personal goal for the week.

Back to the events of the evening. Thankfully Jenna and I were wide awake after our two hour naps and decided to celebrate this with a beer as we watched the incredibly buff men frolic around the National Indoor Stadium. The guys were not in such high spirits since they stayed at beach volleyball and didn't have a nap. They ended up leaving halfway through gymnastics to go back to the hostel.

The gymnasts were incredible and a good indication of what we were going to get to see throughout the coming days.

After the event was over Jenna and I were pretty high on the excitement of being at the Olympics and so we decided to walk around for a while, see the grounds and chat before heading back to the hostel. Here are some shots of the green that first night.

We finally got back to the room that mold built at around 1 a.m. and immediately crashed.

The Olympics begin

2008-09-23T23:54:00.002+08:00

I know you've all been patiently waiting for me to finally start blogging about the Olympics. Also known as the highlight of my already fabulous life. So without hesitation I present to you, in blog form, my trip to the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics.

10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 ...

Now, I might be a lucky duck, but I wasn't lucky enough to score tickets to the Opening Ceremonies. Instead I was able to find a sweet spot that was about as close to the Bird's Nest as a person could be without having tickets. The area was packed full of people from all around the world and we arrived just in time to get a spot before they blocked it all off. From this vantage point we were able to see all of the fireworks go off and I have to tell you it was fantastic.

We were standing close to an Olympic countdown sign and everyone was yelling like it was the New Year as we get ready to start the summer Olympics. I was jumping around, screaming and dancing in the street with new friends from around the world and everyone just went nuts when the counter finally said zero and the sky filled with color as the Chinese reminded everyone just who invented fireworks in the first place.

Since we were outside watching the fireworks and having our own party it meant that we didn't get to watch the actual ceremony on TV, but hey I've already got a bootleg DVD of the whole thing to watch whenever I want. We spent most of the rest of the evening cheering with people from around the world. We sang with our amigos from Mexico and danced with our sisters from another mister, the Canadians. We were interviewed by reporters from Italy, France, Australia and China. I was later overwhelmed by e-mails, text messages and phone calls from people in China telling me they had seen me on the Chinese news that night.

After a while we found a tea shop that had opened it's doors for people to come in and watch the opening ceremonies on TV. We bought some of the beer they were selling, made a toast to the games and waited patiently for the American athletes to make their way into the Nest. When they finally showed our team on TV our little group went absolutely nuts and once they flashed Kobe's face on TV the whole place went nuts. One of the reporters we had made friends with earlier in the night was still hanging out with us and we were on his radio station in Italy live, then he bought us a round of beers and we all talked about how excited we were for things to really get started.

We were sitting in the tea shop watching the ceremony as the torch was being lit. Once the flame was ablaze it finally hit me that if we simply peeked outside we would definitely be able to see the torch, so we made a beeline for the door and caught our first glimpse of the flame.

As the hoopla was winding down we realized it was already past midnight and we still needed to meet up with Jon. By the time we were all reunited it was about 2:30 a.m. and none of us had eaten for the whole day so we went to McDonald's and hung out with journalists and fans from around the world, talking about the events of the evening and what we expected to happen over the next few weeks. After a while we headed outside and found some seats to crash in for a while (did I mention we didn't have anywhere to sleep this night?) before getting on the subway at about 4:30 a.m. We made it to our hostel around 5:30, showered, met our new friends who were joining us for the Games and got ready to depart for our first event.

Everyone knows how much I like to party, be loud and cause a scene. You probably also know that I love meeting new people, want to be an awesome journalist and love to travel. All of these elements were melded into one big love blob in Beijing. The Olympics were essentially designed for me. This was only day one and I knew we'd get the party going for real from here on out.

Torch relay

2008-09-23T23:22:00.003+08:00

Since Tibet had turned out to be a dead end we were homeward bound, but as I was browsing the Internet in Chengdu one night I discovered the Olympic torch would be passing through Shijiazhuang the day after we were scheduled to arrive in the city. I sent a quick e-mail to Jenna to see if she'd be around and wanted to go to the relay together - of course she was in!

When I arrived in Shijiazhuang I made my way to Jenna's place, dropped off my stuff and took a nice shower before going off in search of food. Jon decided to head back to Handan since he had already seen the torch, but I got to meet Jenna's friend Kim and the three of us spent the next few days hanging out.

I didn't really have anything to do in Handan so I decided to just hang out in the Shiz, lay low for a few days and have a good time. Of course we also had to go check out the torch. We were told that foreigners weren't being allowed to watch the torch, but I don't believe in hearsay so I said we should check it out for ourselves. We left really early in the morning all decked out in our Olympics garb and we were allowed into the viewing area without any problems.

I bought about 100 Olympics stickers from some guy on the street and just started handing them out to people who didn't look particularly excited to be at the relay. This seemed to perk them up and soon there were crowds of people following us, laughing with us and admiring us for attempting to speak and sing in Chinese. I even had one little boy give me an Olympic phone charm for my mobile. :)

Of course we were basically the only foreigners there and we had some great outfits so essentially everyone wanted to take a picture with us.

We posed for pictures, led the Chinese people in cheers, got the crowd pretty rowdy and caused a giant scene for a few hours before the torch finally came through. There was a huge surge toward the front of the line and I got lost in the shuffle, which means after hours of waiting and being patient I didn't see a damn thing. Suddenly the crowd parted ways and the torch was gone.

I looked at Jenna and Kim, "That was it?!?!" we said in unison. Kim's also from Chicago and we talked about how if this was happening at home there would have been a parade and music and dancing and candy being thrown out and everyone would have been going nuts on the street with the torch and on the sidewalk watching. But we had to shrug and decided that even though we didn't really see anything we still had a lot of fun being crazy with the Chinese people.

She took the midnight train going anywhere

2008-09-23T22:00:00.002+08:00

Well, not really. The train left during the day and was actually headed to Shijiazhuang. The train also marked the end of my ridiculous summer travels, but not the end of my summer fun. Since Tibet had been ruled out Jon and I decided to head home, but there aren't any trains back to Handan from Chengdu so we had to ride to the Shiz and then make the trip from the Shiz to Handan.

For 22 hours I watched China fly by my train window, listened to my summer mix on my mp3 player, read "Eat, Pray, Love" and reminisced about all the things I had experienced during the month of July.

I learned how much it can suck to burn the tops of your knees while riding a camel through the desert.

I learned that you should never say you are an experienced rider when you've never really been on a horse before.

I learned Mongolian cheese is awful and tastes nothing like cheese.

I learned that apparently there is some sort of radar on me that makes people think it would be fun to steal my things.

I learned that it really is a beautiful world that we are living in and occasionally we need to slow down long enough to soak it all in and appreciate it.

I learned that it is much easier to climb up steep rocks than it is to climb down and I should probably just avoid both in the future.

I learned that people are weird, crazy and fantastic all at once and I love meeting new ones.

I learned that I love old cities just as much as modern ones, but for very different reasons and that I can only visit old cities and need to actually live in those modern ones.

I learned that pandas are more fantastic in person than in movies and that holding them is really like cuddling a teddy bear.

I learned that everything in life is what you make of it and you have to create your own adventures from time to time.

I learned that you have to go with the flow and not be afraid to change your plans, that life comes at you fast and you can't set everything in stone because you never know what can come your way.

I learned that those unexpected changes can bring great new things your way and that I will always be up to the adventure.

All in all it was fantastic and for those of you who weren't counting I spent a grand total of 160 hours on trains, planes, vans and buses during my travels.

Big Boy Buddha

2008-09-23T21:39:00.004+08:00

Chengdu is only about a three hour bus ride from Leshan, which is home to the largest Buddha in China (and I think the whole world). After walking through a park for a while we finally got our first view of the giant Buddha. I've seen tons of pictures of this bad boy, but I swear I didn't realize how big it was until I was actually standing there trying to soak in the magnitude of it all.

The Buddha is so big that an adult could fit inside his ear canal. That's pretty damn big! Anyway the park dumps you at the top of the Buddha and then you have to walk down to get the full view and then back up again to get out of the park. Freakin' China ... always making you go up to go down, right to go left, etc. And the weather here was not nearly as welcoming as it had been in Kunming so of course I was dripping with sweat by the end, but it was totally worth it.

I can't help but thinking that the Buddha looks super smug, as if he knows he is the biggest Buddha and that he knows that must be an intimidating fact for all of these people. It was pretty awesome, the statue looks out onto the river and is tucked away in this peaceful area. It was a nice side trip to make and another great China sight to cross off the to-do list.

What's black and white and surrounded by curly blond hair?

2008-09-22T23:41:00.004+08:00

That would be me hugging a panda.

Chengdu is the headquarters of breeding Giant Pandas, basically if you've ever seen a panda in your life chances are good it's originally from Chengdu. I've been anxiously awaiting my trip to the pandas since before I even got on a plane to China and so by the time the morning of the visit actually rolled around my excitement was unimaginable. I was awake early, jumping around, dancing and singing about the pandas.

When we arrived I was equally excited, dancing like a goon and clapping my hands every five seconds. Jon kept trying to explain to our driver that I was probably crazy but also very excited to see the pandas.

Anyway, here are some shots of the cute little fur balls.

Eventually I caved and decided I had to pay to play with the pandas and have my photo taken with them. I dug into my pockets, found the money that had been earmarked for Tibet and used a bit of it to spend some time hanging out with the old black and white. It was fantastic.

After my encounter with the pandas and some more time trotting around the grounds and me continuing to clap and dance it was finally time to go. We hung out around town during the afternoon and then it was time to make our way to the Sichuan opera performance that we had tickets to for the evening.

The show was all over the place and kind of talent show-esque, but it was fantastic.

What to do in Chengdu?

2008-09-22T22:21:00.002+08:00

I wish someone would Internet slap me for all of my poorly titled blog entries. My corniness/intense nerd habits seem to prevail here in China. At any rate, you can deal with my corniness or stalk someone else.

With all the updates I fear you might be lost as far as time frames go again, so to put you all back on track the events of this post took place on July 24, 2008. And yes, that date is almost two months ago. I'm trying here people ...

We arrived in Chengdu around 9 a.m. on the 24 and the whole first day I basically just walked through town and poked my head around. It wasn't anything too exciting - pretty much a typical city in China. It started to rain while I was out walking so after a few hours in the rain I treated myself to a little Starbucks and then met up with Jon at a park in town, which again wasn't anything too spectacular.

The big thing we did try to do on day one was get our permits lined up to go to Tibet. I'm sure I don't need to tell any of you about all of the circumstances surrounding the China/Tibet relationship and what that meant as far as visiting the region. I've really been looking forward to seeing Tibet and even making a trip to the Everest base camp and so when the area was reopened to foreigners early in the summer Jon and I decided to make that the grand finale to our travels. After talking to different people at our hostel and at nearby travel agencies we soon learned that Tibet was only "open" and not really as open as we had been expecting.

Of course this will set me on a whole other rant about the relations between China and Tibet, which then inevitably turns into a conversation about minorities in general, which eventually leads me to talking about China's relationships with Taiwan and Hong Kong. All of which is long and best done in discussion form so if you care to talk about these topics give me a shout out and we can talk when there aren't so many watchful eyes.

So the "open" Tibet meant that in order to go to the area we would have to go through a travel agency/tour group. Have I mentioned before how much I hate tour groups? I detest more than I detest most things on this earth. In fact my list would probably go something like: war, global warming, inconsiderate people, illiteracy, poverty, starvation, tour groups. With tour groups there's no room to do the things you want to do, you are merely shuttled through, told what to take a picture of and then ushered off to another site. I have a tendency to linger around, poke my head places I shouldn't poke my head, wander off the beaten bath and take too long to soak things in. These are not traits that are welcomed by a tour group.

So that was strike one against going to Tibet. Next up these folks tell us it would be a five day trip and give us a list of things we are allowed to see. Most of the big sites are on there but there were still other things we had hoped to see and do, namely the Everest base camp. Strike two.

We decide to put all of this aside and ask the big question, "How much is all of this going to cost us?" I mean Tibet was part of the plan and now that it was "open" we wanted to go. The travel agencies all had a different answer for us. They hemmed and hawed a lot and eventually we got numbers that ranged from 8,000 to 12,000 RMB. To put this in USD that would be about $1,200- 1,800. That might not sound terrible, but it should be mentioned that that was how much money Jon and I had set aside for the whole summer - all of our travels and adventures, plus the Olympics. We just couldn't blow it all on five days in Tibet. Both of us had enough money saved up to pull it off, but it wasn't how we imagined spending that money.

We decided to mill it over for a bit, debate if we wanted to still do Tibet or not and then come back to the travel agents if we decided we did want to go. After a day or two of thinking it over we ultimately decided not to go. Yes, the money was a big deal but it wasn't the deciding factor for me. I really couldn't justify going to Tibet and not getting to do it my way. My deep hatred for tour groups couldn't be dismissed and I had to admit that spending a few extra days in Handan seemed like the better option.

So with that decision made we decided to enjoy the rest of our time in Chengdu and prepare for our earlier-than-planned return to Handan.

Pause from the updates

2008-09-22T22:19:00.001+08:00

I need to take a brief hiatus from all the updates to give a quick shout out to my parents and my good friend Jennifer Ripslinger for making my day with packages from home! Thanks :)

Dali (also known as five hours)

2008-09-22T19:16:00.003+08:00

About 24 hours after arriving in Lijiang it was already time to say goodbye and so Jon and I jumped onto a bus and made the four hour trip to Dali where we hoped to spend the day and take a bus back to Kunming late that night. We arrived in Dali around noon and went to buy bus tickets but as luck would have it the only thing available was in just a few hours. We didn't really have a choice because we were flying from Kunming to Chengdu the next morning and so obviously we needed to get back. We bought the bus tickets rented some bicycles and headed out to see as much as possible as fast as possible.

As you should know I have a bicycle here in Handan that I ride everywhere. It is by far my main means of transportation and I love it. The bike has helped me to get in better shape and makes everything so convenient, plus it is way better for the earth than a car. When we rented bicycles in Dali I figured it would make getting around the city as easy as it makes things in Handan ... what I didn't account for was the fact that these were real bicycles with gears and everything and there were hills all over the city that made things more of a challenge. My out-of-shape butt was complaining after about thirty seconds, but I digress.

Jon and I made our way to the famous three pagodas of Dali, which were really beautiful with the mountains in the background, but when we saw the admission price of 121 kuai we decided to take a pass on actually going onto the grounds. Instead we ended up sneaking into the tourist center and taking a picture out the window.

After that Jon and I split up to do our own exploring around town. I cruised through the streets of the village, past all the local shops and just had a look around before it was time to meet up, give the bikes back and get ready to leave. We grabbed dinner at an awesome cafe that was run by the hearing impaired, jumped in a van that took us to the bus station and then boarded the bus for the four hour trip back to Kunming.

All in all Dali was cool, but I liked Lijiang better.

The old city of Lijiang

2008-09-16T11:36:00.008+08:00

A lot of my travels in China have taken me to modern cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. Other travels have taken me to see something very specific like the Snow and Ice Festival, Naadam Festival or the Great Wall. Lijiang was a destination to just go and absorb.

This side trip to Lijiang was not included in our original travel plans but on one of our long train rides Jon and I were perusing Lonely Planet and Discovery Channel guides when we stumbled across info about the cities of Dali and Lijiang, both of which are still old, well-preserved cities in the south of China.

Jon and I decided that we wanted to veer off of our originally planned trip slightly and make a side trip to a smaller town outside of Kunming. He wanted to go to Dali, which is four hours from Kunming and I wanted to go to Lijiang, which is eight hours from Kunming. We had to be back in time to catch our flights from Kunming to Chengdu so time was of the essence. After looking at the bus/train schedules and talking things over we decided that we would head to Lijiang at night after we left the stone forest and we would stay there for one day before going to Dali for a few hours on the way back and then finally getting back to Kunming.

So after frolicking at the stone forest we went back to the hostel packed our things and boarded a sleeper bus bound for Lijiang. This was my first experience on a sleeper bus and I have to say it was absolutely awful. It looked like something out of a bad horror movie, I didn't get a good night's sleep and by the time we rolled into town I just felt miserable.

Since the trip was last minute we didn't have a place to stay lined up and spent the first hour of our time wandering to hostels and hotels trying to find a good deal at a place that was relatively clean. We ended up finding a hotel where we got our own room for 80 kuai per person for the night. By American standards obviously this is ridiculously cheap, but it was quite a bit more than we had been paying. In the end we decided the place was nice and worth the extra cash.

Because Jon is a nice guy he offered to go and buy our bus tickets for the next day that would take us to Dali so that I could take a nap for an hour or so and try to feel a little bit better. After some rest, medicine and a shower I was feeling better but still pretty bad. At any rate, I wanted to get out there and see the city so we took off exploring.

We went and wandered around a park with the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain in the background. Our book claimed it was the most picturesque place in Yunnan province and it did not disappoint.

The park was also beautiful and we had a good time walking around. There was a big hill (I believe it was called elephant hill) that we started to climb, but I still wasn't feeling very good so I turned back about halfway up and let Jon do the rest on his own. I got a beautiful view from my spot as well though.

After walking around the park for a while we continued into the old part of the city where we were staying and spent the whole day just getting lost, admiring the architecture and having fun.

The stone forest rocks

2008-09-10T14:59:00.004+08:00

Oh man, my puns are getting quite bad at this point. For day two in Kunming Jon and I headed out for our main destination, the Stone forest. David had told us that the forest is "totally awesome" and that we had to check it out so we left bright and early in the morning to spend our day on the outskirts of town among the rocks. Again this is one of those instances where it will be best to just let the photos do the talking.

Kickin' it in Kunming

2008-09-10T00:34:00.004+08:00

Kunming was perfect, everything you could ask for from a city in the summertime. Mongolia had been hot and had burned me pretty bad, Guilin had been humid and sticky. But Kunming, Kunming was perfect. The sun was bright, which helped to build my nice summer tan, but the air was cool, which kept us from sweating like idiots like we had been earlier in the travels. But enough talk about the weather ...

Jon and I arrived at our hostel without any problems and we sat in the dining room munching on scrambled eggs and bacon while we waited for our room to be ready. Unfortunately, we were back to our standard travel routines of sharing a room with as many people as possible to save as much money as possible. Our room was an eight person bedroom, but really there was only one other person staying with us so it worked out nicely. After our post-train ritual of showering and changing Jon and I were ready to set out and start exploring the city.

Our first stop of the day was at the Yunnan Provincial Museum, which wasn't terribly interesting, but did have some cool artifacts to check out, some of which you could even touch. :)

From the museum we headed out to check out a park in the city, which was actually quite disappointing. Our guide book had hyped it up way too much and in actuality it was like almost every other park in China, which would have been fine to check out if we didn't actually live here. Oh well, live and learn.

After our park expedition we just kind of meandered around all afternoon. We had lunch at an outdoor restaurant, ducked into book shops, snacked on western food and just enjoyed the afternoon.

In the evening we continued our walking adventure and headed in the opposite direction in an effort to see as much of the city as possible. We walked for hours (we figured we logged close to 10 miles throughout the day) and just took in the beautiful summer night. Nothing too exciting came our way, but it was nice nonetheless.

In transit

2008-09-05T09:34:00.009+08:00

We boarded our train leaving from Guilin and headed to Kunming, our next destination in our summer travels. We had an 18 hour train ride in front of us and Jon and I were pretty pooped from our running around in Guilin and trying to fit everything in during such a short stay. We were both looking forward to getting on the train and just taking a nap.

Our cabin mates had a completely different idea on how we were going to spend the afternoon traveling together. Because we were in a soft sleeper compartment it means that there are four beds (two bottoms and two tops) and it is actually pretty spacious and comfortable. The cars are always air conditioned and there is even a door on each compartment.

I settled into my bottom bed, pulled out a book and hoped to doze off. In the bed across from me there was a woman and her son who appeared to be about 10 years old. On the top bed was a girl who we assumes was traveling with them. The boy decided that instead of letting me have my peace and quiet he was just going to jump around and shout. He also just kept staring at me and saying "hello." As you know, this is totally common in China and typical of almost every trip I make. The big difference was, that was all the boy would say to me and then he would just stare at me the rest of the time.

Eventually I decided to pull out my mp3 player, put on some tunes and hope that those would drown out his fidgeting and lull me to sleep. No such luck. He decided to start running around and would climb into the top bed and then jump down, crashing into my bed on almost every occasion. Half the time he got too scared to come down and would just scream until his mom came and pulled him down.

When I thought all hope was lost the little boy finally decided to go play in the hallway. Every sleeper car has a hallway that runs along the outside of the doors and there are also seats that fold into the wall in the hallway so you can sit outside if the people in your car are sleeping or you need a change of scenery. The little boy from our compartment found another little boy in the car and they started to play together in the hall. I figured this was perfect because it would finally be quiet in our compartment and I'd be able to fall asleep.

As soon as he ran into the hall to play I quickly slid the door shut and rolled over to catch some Zs. His mother promptly opened the door and left it opened. I rolled over, smiled at her, told her I was very tired (in Chinese) and slid the door shut again. She said something to me very fast in Chinese, gestured to her son and slid the door open.

Fine, I get it. Your kid is outside playing and you want to keep an eye on him. But GO OUTSIDE and watch him. Common courtesy tells me that if someone is trying to sleep and I have a rambunctious 10 year old running around then maybe I should go out in the hall, sit in a chair and watch him for a little bit. This was not the case with our new friends. I finally gave up the fight, sat up, drank some water and continued to read.

Early that evening, around 6, our compartment mates decide it's time to go to bed. Unlike when we wanted to sleep earlier, we were not given a choice in this matter. They started to get ready for bed and then it was time for everyone to be quiet. I was sitting in my bed reading and I look over at the bed across from me to see the boy jumping up and down. Completely naked. To me, this is completely inappropriate given his age and his proximity to people they've never met before. But alas, they did not find this to be a problem. So the boy continued to bounce around naked and Jon and I continued to shove our noses deep into our books.

Eventually the little terror fell asleep and, after staring at me read for a little while, his mother decided to turn in as well and snuggled up to her naked son. I looked out the window and realized there was an absolutely beautiful sunset taking place and the mountains around us only made the view that much more breathtaking. Unfortunately, on the trains the windows are generally locked and if you try to open them the people working on the train come around and yell at you and shut them again.

So I did what anyone in my position would do. I went to the bathroom, where they le you open the windows, locked the door, straddled the squattie pottie, plugged my nose and spent the next twenty minutes taking photos out the window. This was quite the challenge since the window didn't really like to stay open and the toilet smelled awful so I kept using my hand to plug my nose, and besides the train was moving pretty fast so I had to hold on tight to my camera. All in all though I'd say it was worth it.

After my photo excursion I listened to some tunes and read for quite some time before finally calling it a night. Somewhere around 4 a.m. I was abruptly woken up when my delightful compartment mate decided to sit on me. I wish I was joking. Apparently we were closing in on their stop and, because they didn't want us to ever sleep, she decided that she should sit on my bed while she put her shoes on and situated all of her things. I made loud grunting noises, rolled over and tried to wait patiently for them to leave. Once they finally did I breathed a heavy sigh of relief and finally fell asleep peacefully. By the time I woke up we were pretty close to arriving in Kunming so I took the rest of the morning to just read and relax before the train pulled into the station.

A little climbing and cave dwelling

2008-09-05T00:30:00.011+08:00

Because we were trying to cram as much sightseeing as possible into our very busy summer Jon and I were already needing to move onto the next city on our itinerary. We had an afternoon train booked for July 14, but wanted to see a few more things before the wheels started rolling on to our next destination.

Our hostel arranged for a cab to pick us up in the morning, drive us around to the things we wanted to see and then take us to the train station later in the day for a reasonable price.

The first stop on our list that morning was a park in the middle of the town. The main reason we wanted to go there was to climb this tall hillside located in the middle of the park that apparently provided the best view of Guilin. We went to the park, made a beeline for the hillside, took some photos from the top and hustled back to our friendly, waiting taxi driver.

Our next destination was the Reed Flute Cave. I'm not big on caves, because they drum up ideas of bats flying around and bats are like birds that had babies with rats. And everyone knows I hate birds. But, the cave was supposed to be really cool and the photos in my book looked pretty great so I thought I'd give it a shot. I loved the cave! I can honestly say that I didn't think most of the stalagmites and stalactites looked like the description, but I still thought they were pretty interesting and the bright lights installed in the cave (although poorly hidden) did give them a cool effect.

There was also another cave within the cave that I paid an extra 10 kuai to check out. It was lame. There were these huge turtles everywhere and giant signs telling me that they were "1,000 year old turtles." Obviously. Apparently they were really like 140 years old or something, which I thought was still pretty cool.

I returned to the main cave and made my way through the last bit of the cave where I finally agreed that one of the formations actually looked like it's description ... it was supposed to be a lion standing on a rock.

After exiting the cave we made our way back to our taxi driver who took us to a pearl factory to have a look around. We had absolutely no interest in doing this, but we knew that our driver would get a commission just for bringing us by and he had been really nice so we played along. He then took us back to the hostel and waited patiently while we had lunch and grabbed our bags.

Apparently the train station we were leaving from is pretty much abandoned and was on the outskirts of town so it took us a little while to get out there. We still got there pretty early and it became even earlier when our train was delayed about half an hour. At any rate we boarded the train and said goodbye to Guilin.

Yangshuo

2008-09-04T23:46:00.003+08:00

Jon and I decided that instead of heading immediately back to Guilin with the rest of our fellow river cruisers we would hang around Yangshuo for the rest of the day and then make our way back to the city on our own later that evening.

The small (you know, in China terms) city was bustling with people from all over the world and full of western restaurants and cafes. To be quite frank that was the biggest thing to do in the area. There were some mountains to climb and some temples to see, but we didn't have time for mountains and I've seen so many damn temples in China that unless there is something really special to see, I generally pass.

So Jon and I spent the afternoon meandering around, munching on comfort foods, admiring the scenery and soaking up some rays. We also managed to find a few used bookstores/exchange spots where we were able to pick up some new reading material. This basically made my life since I'm generally starved for English reading material.

It was a very relaxing day and the surroundings could not have been better. Also we got a great view of the sunset before jumping on a bus for a few hours to get back to Guilin.

Old Man River

2008-09-04T23:25:00.012+08:00

In case you are completely lost as to where we are in my summer travels at this point let me paint a point of reference: the date should be July 18, 12 days after I started traveling and three weeks until the start of the Olympics. But now onto the day's festivities ...

Jon and I woke up early to join a group of Chinese people on a cruise down the Li River. We signed up for a cruise in Chinese because the cost was drastically less and we were trying to do as much as possible on a tighter budget. We speak enough Chinese that we could get the gist of what was going on and then figured we could look things up on the Internet later if we needed to. The Li Jiang river flows from Guilin to Yangshuo and it is absolutely breathtaking how beautiful it is. I'm just going to post pictures and let them tell the story.

On the road again ...

2008-09-03T23:01:00.004+08:00

After a restful (haha) stay in Handan Jon and I boarded the train headed south to Zhengzhou. Luckily this trip was only a little over two hours and merely a means to an end. We were taking the train to Zhengzhou so that we could take a plane from there to Guilin instead of having to take a 24 hour train ride to Guilin.

As far as flights go ours was fine ... I slept for almost the whole time, which was only about an hour and was anxious to arrive. When we were down in baggage claim (we had to check our bags because of the liquids, even though they were definitely small enough to be carry-ons) I realized that I had left my jacket on the plane and so I had to track that down, but even that didn't really cause any problems.

Jon and I made our way to the train station as quick as we could to buy tickets for our next destination, because in China you have to buy your tickets as soon as you can once they go on sale or you face having to stand for the duration of your trip. We split up and stood in different lines to see if one would move faster than another. After about thirty minutes of standing in line I was finally just a few people away from the front. And that was the exact moment the employee closed the window down. Fast forward about an hour later and that was when Jon and I finally made it to the front of a line. We were hot and sweaty from standing in the stinky train station, but we were able to score some soft sleepers for a lot less than we thought they were going to cost.

We had directions to our hostel from the train station so we headed out to try to find our way and drop off our stuff. Turns out the directions were pretty terrible and after meandering around quite hopelessly for a while we were finally able to spot the hostel, which was located down a side street and on like the fourth floor of the building. Luckily the people who worked there were really nice and the place was also pretty good. We had been able to score a room for just the two of us, which was a nice change from sharing with lots of other people like we had been and like we would be doing for most of the rest of our trip.

After dropping off our stuff we decided to be good tourists and check the city out a bit even though it was getting a bit late and we were tired. We didn't end up staying out too late, but we had some really delicious milk tea (I would even argue that it was the best I've ever had) and saw the river, which looked really beautiful at night.

We were just about to call it a night and head back to the hostel when we noticed two huge pagodas that were aglow in the dark summer night. We walked around the park where they were located for a while and talked before all the lights were turned off and we took that as a sign to leave.

Then we made our way back to the hostel where we bought tickets on the Li Jiang cruise for the next morning and called it a night.

22 hours

2008-09-02T13:18:00.002+08:00

What can a person do in 22 hours? If this person is me or Jon they can arrive back in Handan, do two loads of laundry, shower have lunch with their friends, repack their belongings for leg two of the trip, upload all of their photos to their computer and have dinner with their friends.

As you can tell, Jon and I had a very brief, but busy, stay-over in Handan between leaving Hohhot and leaving for Zhengzhou the next morning.

The rest of Mongolia

2008-09-01T21:01:00.003+08:00

The rest of our time in Mongolia was fairly uneventful. We spent some time wandering around the extremely small capital city of Ulaanbaatar, ate some more Western food and checked out a museum. There didn't seem to be too much to do in Ulaanbaatar so we were a little bored and we weren't in Mongolia long enough to go on one of the expeditions to the countryside.

On the evening of July 13 we hopped on our train that would take us the 17 hours back to the border town to cross back into China. This time we bought bus tickets in advance to take us across and they were much cheaper.

Just like when we were heading to Mongolia we were having a race with the clock on our trip back to China. Jon and I had tickets on a train from Hohhot that evening at about 7 and so we had to make sure we got back in time to make the train. Crossing the border took considerably longer this time around but once we were through we were able to buy bus tickets on the next bus and grab some lunch in Erenhot. Our trip to Hohhot was relatively uneventful except for the fact that I was feeling miserably sick. We made it to the train station about 30 minutes before our train left, which was cutting things a little close but we made it so that was all that mattered.

We had hard sleepers for the trip back and so I took some medicine and went to bed.

Naadam Festival Day 2

2008-08-29T20:47:00.005+08:00

After watching a lot of man-on-man wrestling the day before, Jon and I decided that we would try to go see the horse races of the festival instead. Unfortunately the horse races were outside town and no one really seemed to know how to get there. When we got up in the morning we set off in search of money and breakfast before heading to the festival. After hours of walking we finally secured both and then started asking around for the best way to get to the races.

We were told there was a bus we could take but when we tried to get on a bus they told us to take another bus. When we walked halfway across town to get on that bus they told us we wanted a different bus. When we finally reached the location of that bus we were told that there was no bus that went the 22km outside of town to the races. At this point we probably could have walked that distance ourselves. We had tried along the way to flag down a taxi to take us out to the venue, but the drivers were all asking ridiculous prices (more than our tickets to the festival had cost us) and since it was just the two of us we didn't want to pay that much just to see some guys race horses.

As we were about to give up hope we met a group of people our age who lived in Mongolia and were trying to also make their way to the horse race. They found a taxi, got a slightly better deal and suggested we all ride together and split the cost. This sounded perfect to us but just as we were getting in the taxi one of the guys got a call from his friend who said almost all of the races were over and they would definitely be finished by the time we actually got out there. So we had the taxi take us back to the original venue for some more wrestling and our new friends even picked up the tab wishing us a good time at the festival.

Once we arrived at the stadium we walked around for a little bit and ended up finding the smaller archery stadium that was home to one of the other manly events.

Archery was actually pretty cool and a welcome change from all of the pushing and flabby man boobs from the wrestling we had watched the previous day. After archery ended Jon and I walked around the grounds and looked at all of the overpriced crap for sale and it made me feel like I was back at any carnival or fair at home. We decided it was time to grab a bite to eat and so we went across the street for a bit.

After a good meal we were crossing back into the festival area on this rickety old bridge when I thought I felt something in my pants pocket. I reached around and turned at the same time and sure enough there was a man with his hand in my pocket trying to steal my cash. I quickly jerked his hand away, spun to look at him and let off a not-so-friendly, "what the (you get the picture) ... "He looked at me with disdain and repeated my words back to me as if I had been the one trying to steal his money.

I huffed off the bridge, but with the language barrier as strong as it was and no one around who seemed to care I wasn't quite sure what I could do. Jon was waiting for me at the other side wondering what had taken me so long to cross the bridge and when I relayed the story to him he looked back to see if the guy was still there and, sure enough, he was still on the bridge this time trying to take cash from a woman's purse. We ran up the bridge and both started yelling at him and, no doubt, scared the lady who was trying to mug. The offender got mad at us for interrupting him yet again, gave us the finger and stormed off. We tried to do charades to explain what had happened to the woman and after a few tries she seemed thankful that we had stopped the guy.

Of course this was a moment that made me sad and a little sick to my stomach. As everyone knows I had my passport, credit cards, cash, camera and iPod (among other things) stolen during Spring Festival. I chose to rise above the situation then, knowing in my heart that people are inherently good. I really love to see the best in everyone and when I meet people I tend to open up right away and trust them. This should be a good thing, but when I see people like the man on the bridge it always makes this attitude a little bit more difficult. In the end though I knew I had to put it behind me, remember all of the kind people I've met on this incredible journey and keep smiling.

Jon and I went back to the main stadium to watch some more man-on-man wrestling action and to continue to be confused by what was going on. Every time a wrestler won they did this fantastic little dance and I just absolutely loved it. It was cool to see the tradition that all of these people were apart of and to be able to bare witness to it all for just a short amount of time. The wrestling outfits were absolutely ridiculous and it got a bit old after a while, but it was a unique experience if nothing else.

Welcome to Mongolia

2008-08-29T11:56:00.000+08:00

We arrived in Mongolia around 10 a.m. on the morning of July 11 and we were met at the train station by the owner of our hostel. He rushed us back to the hostel, promptly sold us tickets to the Naadam Festival and showed us to our rooms. The hospitality we had encountered at our last hostel was nowhere to be found in this place. It was strange because the hostel was large and nice, set up more like a house with a big kitchen, living and dining rooms and a semi-finished basement with plenty of space everywhere for travelers to gather and share stories. The bathrooms however were limited and hardly ever cleaned and they charged for Internet, laundry and sheets for your bed. It is common for hostels to charge for one of those services, maybe even two but I've never stayed anywhere before that made you pay for your sheets and neither had anyone else we met during our stay. Anyway enough ranting about the hostel ...

After a quick shower and change Jon and I headed out the door and made our way to the festival, which was already very much underway. The Naadam Festival is known in English as the Festival of Manly Sports so we were ready to see just how manly things would get. When we arrived we spent a good amount of time running around trying to find a gate that would let us in since the show was already under way and once we did we found ourselves in a section surrounded by foreigners all watching the opening ceremonies take place on the field.

Jon and I enjoying the manly festivities:

Because we didn't speak a lick of Mongolian we had no idea what was going on whatsoever. This feeling lasted the entire time we were in Mongolia. After a while the ceremony ended and Jon and I meandered the grounds for some food before the first manly event started. We found some Mongolian style hamburgers that were pretty good and then found our way to some seats to watch half-naked men wrestle.

There were a lot of traditional moves going on on the field and even though we didn't understand most of what was happening it was still interesting to watch. We hung around and watched the mostly naked men push up against each other for several hours before deciding we had seen enough and perhaps it was time to find some dinner.
There was a Western restaurant across the street from the stadium that we went to and celebrated my birthday.

After dinner we made our way back to the hostel where we met two British guys. They were still in university and taking the whole summer to travel from London all through Asia, they had just arrived in Mongolia a few days earlier after taking the Trans-Siberian and were then going to drop into China before moving on to Vietnam and Thailand. We sat and talked for a few hours sharing stories and giving them some advice about traveling around China.

Train ride to Mongolia

2008-08-28T23:59:00.004+08:00

The Mongolian couple who shared a compartment with Jon and I on the train were weird. I'll leave it at that and spare you the details. Other than our strange neighbors the train ride was relaxing and mostly uneventful. Here are some pictures from the journey though.

The inside of the train:

Jon watching the world go by from our room's window:

The view from the train was incredible though. It was a little bland most of the time, but the skies were blue and there were actual clouds in the sky. For most of you this is not a big deal, but for someone who has been living in the middle of smog-filled China for a year this was like heaven on earth. Here's a shot just before we rolled into Ulaanbaatar:

We finally rolled into the city at about 10 a.m. and we were ready for a shower and some food.

The road to Mongolia (also, ugh)

2008-08-28T23:17:00.004+08:00

Jon and I got up early and said our goodbyes to Hohhot and the kind people at our hostel who had welcomed us. We had a long and kind of crazy trip planned out for the day in an effort to cross the border between China and Mongolia. The Nadaam Festival, which was our reason for going to Mongolia, was going to begin the next day and so we were told that the border would close at 3 that afternoon and if we didn't get in before then we wouldn't be able to cross the border for a few days, thus missing the Nadaam Festival and the point of our trip. Long story short: we had to make it to the border in time.

So, we set out on a bus that was going to take us from Hohhot to Erenhot, which is the last Chinese city before Mongolia. The bus trip was mostly uneventful, except for some carbonated water that exploded in my bag and spilled in my hair and some obscure dinosaurs we saw meandering in an open field.

Our bus took forever, but we finally arrived at a little after 2 p.m. We were having a race with time to see if we could make it to the border. We decided to cut the crap and jump in a taxi to get to the border even if it would be more expensive. Better to pay the price for the taxi than pay the price by missing our vacation.

We got to the border in no time and we were under the assumption that when our taxi dumped us off we would just be able to walk across the border. Apparently we have no experience in border crossings. A nice enough guy, who spoke English, came over and told us that we had to be in a car to cross the border and it couldn't be our taxi since she didn't have the proper paperwork to leave the country. After a bit of a panic we finally found a bus and we jumped on it and waited to cross the border. The driver of the bus yelled at us in Chinese and told us he wouldn't take us, but when we flashed him the cash he carried us across. The driver was a jerk and he totally overcharged us but we needed to cross the border.

Once inside customs I had some troubles getting through because of my new passport. As you may remember I had to get a brand new passport in March after my old one was stolen. This wasn't a terribly big deal, but it does mean that I no longer have an entry stamp to China in my passport. I tried explaining this to the people working at customs and after some broken Chinglish and a bit of charades (imagine me acting out the theft of a passport) I got through.

Now that we were officially out of China we just had to go through customs into Mongolia, which went off without a hitch. With a new stamp in our passports Jon and I headed outside to wait for our jankety us, which we assumed would take us into the border town in Mongolia. We waited around for close to an hour trying to find our driver before we finally spotted him. When we did he looked surprised to see us and told us we had to find our own transportation from the border into the city. Ughhh.

We tracked down a taxi and handed over some cash - I can't remember how much, but I'm sure it was more than it should have been - and the driver kindly took us to the train station. Jon and I were hoping that we would be able to catch a train to Ulaanbaatar or at the very least a bus. We walked into the train station and realized for the first time that our Chinese was of absolutely no value to us anymore. We could seriously still see China, but no one around spoke any Chinese. Or English for that matter. After saying the word Ulaanbaatar over and over we realized that we were in luck because there was going to be a train heading for the city in about an hour and if we had missed that train it could have been days before we found another one. So we bought tickets and decided to head outside to try to find some food.

This was the point when Jon and I realized we had no idea where we were (I still couldn't tell you the name of the city we were in), what language the people were speaking (it sounded Russian to me, but who knows?), when we had last eaten or when we would be arriving (our best guess was that it was a six hour train ride). This is me at the train station not knowing much.

There wasn't much for food in the area and we didn't want to leave the premise for fear of never making it back so we bought what they had in the small supermarket (cookies, chips and some juice) and hoped that would keep us full for the duration of our train ride. We then noticed that our train had started to board and since it was raining we decided to get on early.

The train was much nicer, although older, than most of the Chinese trains I've been on and we were happily surprised to see that our tickets were for the equivalent of a Chinese soft sleeper, which meant there were only four of us in our compartment. We thought the sleeper was a bit excessive for a short trip but we were happy to take it since it meant we could take a much needed nap.

Just as the wheels started rolling Jon was standing in the hallway talking to a guy who makes the trip from China to Mongolia quite often and so Jon asked him how long the trip to Ulaanbaatar should take. "Oh not long, should be right at 17 hours."

Ughhhh...

Inner Mongolia (or how it all started)

2008-08-28T22:34:00.003+08:00

For me, summer started on July 1 and I couldn't have been more excited and more eager to travel. Jon and I had out whole summer laid out in front of us and we were ready to start exploring. After a day in Beijing (which I already blogged about) we headed off to Inner Mongolia where we kicked things off in the desert (again, I already blogged about that). Reminiscing now, I can say that riding a camel through the desert was one of those rare, random, wonderful things that I did during this summer and I'm glad I had the chance to try it, though I don't think it will become a regular hobby for me. Here's a pic of me and Fergie:

The following day we made our mini voyage to the grasslands, which sounds a lot more exciting than it actually is. In plain English, the grasslands are Iowa. There were animals and poop and crops ... all it was really missing was food on a stick and a caucus.

The best part about our trip to the grasslands was that we got to meet a traditional Mongolian family and chill out in yurt drinking milk tea, eating gross cheese and relaxing while they prepared a traditional (read: delicious) meal for us.

After lunch and some relaxing it was time for the main event, horseback riding through the grasslands. Before we arrived our guide asked if we had all been horseback riding before to which all of my farming/ranching/crazy friends replied, "yes." I had been horseback riding before, but it was in like the 4th grade and my horse was basically being dragged around the ring by a leader. So, I said "no" and asked for a more mild-mannered horse since I had no idea what I was doing.

Obviously in Inner Mongolia this translates to, "please give me the most uncontrollable horse you have." And they did. My horse wasn't too bad, but for a first time rider it was pretty scary. Before the guide had even handed me the reins my horse took off at a nice trot leaving all the other horses behind. This continued to happen throughout the trek ... my horse seemed to get bored with the slow, take-in-the-scenery approach that I wanted and would just start to run through the grasslands instead. I would post pictures but I was so absolutely terrified that I didn't take any.

This is why I know that I need to live in a city and not in the country. I can handle traffic and weaving between cars and taxis, I cannot handle horses running wild.

After an eventful day in Iowa, I mean Inner Mongolia, we headed back into the city and had one last meal with our fellow travelers before they made their way to the train station to head back to Shijiazhuang.

Jon and I had one more night in Hohhot before an early train ride the next morning so we went and had a drink at an expensive bar and then walked around for a while. We encountered a huge fight on our way home and we tried to help the guys up/break it up without actually getting involved since we had no idea who these people were and if they would come after us or anything. Things got a little too exciting on the street so we decided to stay out of trouble, head back to our hostel and call it a night.

Where to begin?

2008-08-28T22:34:00.001+08:00

Honestly. I've sat in front of the computer on a few occasions now, pulled up my blog, typed a few words, imported a few pictures and then deleted it all. I don't know how to begin to tell all of you about the most fantastic summer of my life. I don't know how to begin to tell you about the wonderful things I saw, the people I met and things I experienced.

I've received angry e-mails and phone calls from many of you back home demanding to know what I've been up to all summer long and I really am just stumped as to where to begin. I've looked through my photos hoping to gain some perspective, but really it just makes me happy to think about what a phenomenal summer I had and then I get sidetracked as I replay the memories in my mind. This was the best summer of my life and I do want to tell you all about it. I've just had a hard time knowing where to start.

I guess I'll try the beginning ...

My humps, my humps, my humps, my humps

2008-07-09T19:56:00.002+08:00

My lovely camel's humps.

Yesterday Sherly, Caroline, her sister Jessica and I headed out early in the morning (yet again) to take an interesting trip. We took a bus, another bus and then a taxi and finally arrived in the desert. Once we were in the desert we headed straight for the camels and took a half an hour camel caravan ride through the sandy dunes. I was a little firghtened to be perched so high between the camels two humps, but I really enjoyed the experience.

The whole time we were riding along I kept switching between two songs. The old kids song "Sally the camel" and Fergie's "My Humps." Thus I named my camel Sally "Fergalicious" the camel. My camel didn't spit at all during the trek, but it did fart quite a bit. I was also leading the caravan and the camel behind me kept setting it's head down in my lap.

The weirdest part about the whole thing was the feeling of getting on and off the camelm because they ley down in the sand for you to get on and then stand back up, but they hoist one end up and then the other so it basically felt like I was being pitched forward while the camel gathered it's strength to stand on all four.

After the camel ride we went sand sliding where you get on a wooden sled and slide down a steep sand dune. It was a bit slower than I expected but still a fun experience. Then we left the desert and started to make the trek back to the hostel.

This took over four hours and we were all hot, tired and hungry so it wasn't much fun. Once we finally returned we set out for dinner, which ended up being really nice. We ate at a restaurant with little yurts set up for each party, which was cool to see. After dinner we went home and showered and went to bed so we could have another early start today.

Beijing again

2008-07-09T19:43:00.002+08:00

Sunday Jon and I left Handan early in the morning to head to Beijing so we could head to Hohhot, because there aren't any trains directly from Handan. Once we got to Handan we met up with Ross and Landy and had lunch together at Subway before heading our separate ways for the afternoon.

Jon and I then went to the Silk Market so I could buy some new light-weight gym shoes for my adventures this summer and a new camera case that was easier for stashing my stuff. I also ended up buying a hat, which is out of character for me but my friends say it suits me and after starting our travels I'm glad I had it.

There was some confusion with bus/train tickets and so after a lot of "meiyou" and running around we ended up getting soft sleepers for the next morning instead of leaving that night as planned.

Around 6 we met up with the whole No. 3 crew (it was coincidence that we were all in Beijing at the same time) and went to dinner at Outback. Western meals are a blessing sometimes. Then we went to the bookstore where we had all of five minutes to choose books and make our purchase. I was so starved for English reading material that I ran around like a madwoman scooping up books before running to the checkout counter with three new paperbacks in hand.

Then Jon and I found a hostel to crash at for the night and called it a day.

The next morning we headed out early again, but this time we were able to start our day with Starbucks. We hooked up with our other friends from the Shiz at the train station and boarded our 11 hour train to Hohhot. The ride was actually the most beautiful train ride I've experienced in the last 10 months with mountains the whole way. The ride went by surprisingly fast and we were greeted at the station in Hohhot by folks from our hostel who were incredibly kind.

Once we were checked in we went in search of some food and after dinner we went to bed because we were going to have an early morning the next day.

The 4th of July in China

2008-07-04T23:51:00.000+08:00

Happy 4th to everyone! I hope you are all out playing baseball, eating hot dogs and apple pie, singing the Star Spangled Banner and watching fireworks. I've never really thought of the 4th as a holiday to give thanks (I just used it as a marker that my birthday is a week away) because that's what Thanksgiving is for, right?

But after almost a year of living in communist China I feel I have a lot of "American" things to be thankful for this year.

I'm thankful that I have the right to free speech and can express myself as I so choose.

I'm thankful that we have a free press, really thankful.

I'm thankful that I can choose to worship who I want, when I want.

I'm thankful that November will soon roll around and I'll be able to cast a vote to choose the leader of my country.

The list could go on for quite some time, but those are the biggies for sure.

At dinner tonight we sang the National Anthem for our Chinese guests and then I told them to get used to hearing it because it is going to play over and over and over again in Beijing as America wins gold medal after gold medal after gold medal.

After dinner Jon set off some fireworks and then we watched a war movie in honor of the land of the free.

Lastly, I'm thankful to have spent this time abroad to help me to realize that America certainly isn't without it's flaws and to gain a better outside perspective of the home of the brave. And to realize how proud I am to be an American.

Attack of the slime and rants about the Olympics and politics

2008-07-03T21:12:00.006+08:00

This summer's upcoming Olympics have been marred by a myriad of problems and concerns, it seems like every time I check the news there is some new story about the pollution or politics in China and how it is going to affect the games. Now it looks like there might be some trouble with the sailing events in the Olympics this summer.

I know my blog was M.I.A. back when all the riots were taking place in Tibet and while the protests were taking place throughout the torch relay but I figured while I'm on the topic I'd comment on that a little and see what others have to say as well. I feel like I could go in a million different directions here and talk about this for ages, but I'll try to be brief.

Now I know my observations here aren't a reflection of every Chinese person, the same way my actions and beliefs aren't a reflection of every American, but there are my general observations.

I've come to realize that young Chinese people are typically the exact opposite of young westerners in terms of political feelings. I'd say in America young adults are the ones most likely to be questioning the government, asking questions, trying to stir things up and hoping to make some sort of difference. In China the young are the most obedient to the communist party and it isn't until they are 30 or maybe even 40 that they even consider questioning the government, if they do so at all.

As an American, I've learned to be able to separate myself from my country and my government. My students have an unbelievably difficult time doing this. When the riots in Tibet started and the protests took place along the torch relay route their response was to start hating everyone who had something bad to say about China. One class had my watch an eight minute video trashing western media (CNN in particular) and talking about how no one tells what is really going on in China and they are all too biased and they only like Tibet and don't tell the real story (meaning the censored story that they get from their government-controlled media) and when the video was over all eyes were on me.

Me, who believes in free speech and free press more than I believe in almost anything else. Me, who studied journalism for years and hopes to become one of those reporters who writes about what is going on in the world. Me, who reads CNN everyday for my news fix. Me, who is also a teacher in communist China. Me, who truly loves all of those kids who were staring at me. So, what to say?

First I had to close my mouth and wipe away the shocked look on my face. Then I told my students that they had a right to show that video (because let's remember that I love free speech) but that it wasn't enough and that they had to tell me what they themselves were thinking. That they couldn't just give into the video and let it do the talking for them, that they needed to be able to express their own opinions and have their own ideas. Apparently this was a bit too much free speech for them to handle because most of the class was silent.

I tried to explain to my class that they have the ability to separate themselves from their government. I think this is a lot easier for us to do in America ... when people say they don't like America or Bush I don't take it personally. I try to be a better person to prove to others that what they think of our government isn't indicative of all people back home. My students can't wrap their minds around this and take everything that is said about their government as though it was being said about them personally. I tried my best to persuade them otherwise and get them to know they can prove people otherwise, but I didn't have too much luck with that.

OK, enough ranting for now ...

Something to groove to

2008-07-03T21:01:00.002+08:00

With well over 100 hours of train rides in front of me in the next month I've been spending a good chunk of this evening with my laptop trying to scour my music collection for the ultimate soundtrack to my trip. Unfortunately I can't seem to come up with the right mix to keep me rockin' and rollin' all summer long. So I turn to you, fair readers, and ask for your best suggestions for the ultimate playlist.

My new love: JPG Magazine

2008-07-02T17:37:00.002+08:00

So last night in browsing the Internet I stumbled across the site for JPG Magazine and within 12 hours I was in love. The magazine is for photo enthusiasts and offers a place for people to share their photos, get feedback and possibly even get published. The site and the magazine aren't pretentious and bogged down with technical jargon, which makes it great for folks like me who love photos but can't quite grasp all the mumbo-jumbo. Anyway, you should all check out the site, check out my photos and vote when I enter to get published.

Planning makes me giddy

2008-07-02T00:33:00.003+08:00

I've been complaining all day about how tired I am and how I need to get to sleep and I've been sitting at home for well over an hour now screwing around on the Internet, looking up travel information and trying to make the perfect summer mix for my mp3. Unfortunately, said mp3 is currently not working and I have to make a trip in the morning to get it repaired. I have a growing list of other things I also need to get done this week before my travels take over and I spend the summer seeing sites, taking photos and living out of a backpack.

Jon and I spent a good chunk of time hashing out details for our summer travels and it looks like I'm going to be gone for pretty much the next month. The plan as of right now is to leave Sunday morning for Beijing (5 hour train) and hang out in the city for the afternoon. Sunday night we'll leave for Hohhot in Inner Mongolia (8 hour bus) where we will stay until July 9, at which point we will leave for Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia (20-some hour train). We'll stay in Ulaanbaatar for a few days to go to the Naadam festival of manly sports. Then on the 13 we will leave for Beijing again (30-some hour train), once we arrive in Beijing we will take a train back to Handan (5 hours). If all goes according to plan we will have about 36 hours in Handan, which should be just enough time to wash our clothes, upload our photos and get a good night's sleep before heading off to the next leg of our journey.

We'll leave on July 17 for Zhengzhou (2 hour train) where we'll fy to Guilin (2 hour flight). We'll stay in Guilin for three days before heading to Kunming (19 hour train). There are some Drakies in Kunming and hopefully we will be able to hook up with them or at least get some pointers on what to see and do while we are there. From Kunming we are flying to Chengdu (1 hour flight) where we will stay for approximately four days with a one day side trip to Lushan. Our days in Chengdu have to be flexible because we have to wait there for a permit to go visit Tibet. Once we get the OK to head to Lhasa we'll jump on a plane (2 hour flight) and head to the Dalai Lama's home for a week, which will (fingers crossed) include a trip to Mt. Everest. After all this we will jump on a train to Shijiazhuang (44 hour train) then take another to Handan (2 hour train). If all goes according to plan, this is China though so I won't count on it, we should be back in Handan on August 5. This will give us enough time to once again do laundry, upload photos, repack and head to Baoding to see David and Amy on the 8th before going to Beijing from August 9 - 18 to watch the Olympics.

All in all it should be the summer of a lifetime and I'm pumped to get it started.

Oh the bureaucracy

2008-07-01T15:08:00.002+08:00

Today officials, from what I gather to be similar to the school board of Hebei Province where I teach, paid a visit to our school to make sure it is running like the well-oiled machine that it typically is not. Of course the school was given plenty of warning for this visit, which gave them more than enough time to make the school shine like to top of the Chrysler Building. (Can you name that movie?)

The first three floors of the building where I live were given a complete makeover (ABC would have been proud of the transformation they made). Please note that I said the first three floors ... the fourth and fifth floors, which is where Ben, Jon and I live were not repaired at all. I addition to a new coat of paint they hung new signs (in English and Chinese) and plastered pictures of the headmasters, China and every foreigner who has ever been to the school all over the building. Because I have excellent luck the school decided to select every horrible picture they've taken of me during the last 10 months and put those on display for everyone to see. When you walk into our building the head shot of me is horrible - I'm mid-laugh, my hair is blowing everywhere, my eyes are squinty and I have about 17 chins. The third floor of our building is marked with similarly embarrassing photos that will live on for God only knows how long. I'm assuming our new TV screen was all part of the ploy to make our school look better than the others in the city.

Since the officials were visiting and I'm white it meant it was time for me to put on a show. Sometimes it seems like I'm just a puppet that gets dragged out for photo shoots and publicity stunts. This time around they had each of us teach one class, even though last Thursday was technically our last day of class. According to the headmaster there were at least 150 officials from the education department who came through to visit the school. None of the classes I normally teach were renovated so they actually had me teach one of Jon's overseas preparatory classes instead since their class is small, well-behaved and nicely decorated. The class was fine - I taught the kids about advertising, had them do a fake commercial, talked about logos and had them try to name as many logos as they could - and the officials only stopped by for a few minutes, but apparently I did a good enough job.

I just can't wrap my mind around the fact that 150 people from the department had to come to check out our school. From what I was told these people were from the province, not our city, which means there are probably thousands of schools that they are responsible for. In my mind it would make a lot more sense for them to divide and conquer, but perhaps that is too logical. I'm just glad they are gone because that means that all my teaching is done and hopefully all of the construction around the school is done as well.

School's out for summer

2008-07-01T14:56:00.002+08:00

I couldn't help but let the infamous lyrics sung by Alice Cooper play through my mind over and over these last few days as my count dwindled from one month left of teaching to one week to one day to one hour. My students were all super great this week and seemed generally sad to say goodbye to me. I'm keeping it a surprise to all of them that I'm sticking around to teach for another term so I just played along as though I'm heading back to America.

One of my smaller classes gave me a yearbook of sorts that they put together themselves. Each student filled out a page in the book with information about themselves and then on the back of the page they wrote me a note. It was a really sweet gesture and the notes were so great to read. Most of them thanked me for being their teacher, paid me a lot of compliments and said that they hope we can meet again in the future. I'll definitely be bringing the book back for everyone to check out, but for now I want to share my favorite passage.

At the top of the page it says, "Chinese isn't a people that are good at expressing, as you know, Class 1 Grade 2 isn't a class that are very active, you know. But, not being good at expressing doesn't equal to not being thankful and not being active doesn't equal to being unhappy. We have hidden our thanks to you in our heart, in the most deep place of our body. Today let me speak it out = Erin, we love you!"

Then she wrote me a poem:
"To Erin:
You're a green leaf,
Flying across the wide ocean,
Falling on the land of the eastern world,
And then gone back with the wind.

You're a lovely window,
Bringing us a new world,
With the sun's bright shining,
And the wind's slight blowing.

Leaf is leaving,
Window won't shut,
We'll continue the window
And last our miss you.

*A short poem, it can be called a poem written for you. Maybe there are lots of errors, however, it presents my heart and mind. Hope you'll be happy when reading it."

And finally she wrote me a note: "I don't think this will be a forever separation because I have a feeling that there must be someone in our class who will got to America for further education or just a job in the future. If so, I think no one will forget to get in touch with you at that time. So, don't be afraid to be troubled when we pay a visit to you then. Haha. Let's imagine what the scene will be like then (just taking me for example) ------

'Ringring, ringring, ringring.' You come to the door, strangely looking at me, who is standing in front of you.

'So you are...?'

'Oh Erin, please don't. Can't you really recognize me? I'm xxx, who you taught ten years ago in Class 1, Grade 2 No. 3 Middle School.'

'Oh My God! It's you! It's unbelievable!'

We have a big hug and walk into the house. A crowd of boys and girls are playing there.

'Oh Erin, are you still a teacher and these are your students?'

'No, no, these are all my children.'

Hearing this, I almost stop my breath. Then you turn to them, 'My boys and girls now stop your games and listen to me! Jack, get a cup of tea! Tom, get a bottle of juice! Rose, get her a chair! Lucy, get something to eat! Jim, get the TV turned off! Rain, get the toys away! Lily get ....'

When everything is ready you order them, 'Come stand in a line and say hello to the guest.'

I can't help counting the number of children in my heart: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen ...'"

I have no idea where she got the idea that I want to have 16 children, but I thought the story was absolutely endearing and the poem and note were the most heartfelt things I've read in a long time. It's hard to read something like that, listen to the kids say goodbye and ever think about leaving them.

Back to Xi'an

2008-06-29T12:55:00.002+08:00

Last weekend I went back to Xi'an with Ben. His mom and sister were visiting and I needed to get some shopping done so we had a 36 hour adventure to see the terracotta warriors and meander through the city.

Tibet reopens to foreign tourists

2008-06-26T14:06:00.002+08:00

As of yesterday Tibet is open to foreign tourists again, you can read about it here. I'm really excited now to have the opportunity to travel to Tibet, it was a huge draw for me in coming to China and now I'm just trying to figure out the best time to go and the easiest way to get there. I'll keep you posted as plans progress.

Ross and Landy's baby

2008-06-25T23:31:00.003+08:00

It's obvious that I haven't posted in a while, because Ross and Landy's son turned one month old yesterday and I have yet to mention him on here yet. Well, he's absolutely adorable and he's getting big so fast. He was born on May 24 late in the morning and the picture on here is from about 30 minutes after he was born. His name is Wang Zi Long (his English name is Julian) and we have regular conversations about whether he looks more like a Chinese baby or a foreign baby. His face definitely looks more Chinese, but his nose is bigger like a foreigner and his eyes are a blue-green color. He's super cute and that's about all there is to share on that end of things.

Last day of class

2008-06-25T22:58:00.002+08:00

So it's hard to believe, but tomorrow is my last day of class. I know I have some blog catching up to do, but I really just wanted to write a little bit about ending the school year. It is so insane to me to think that I started teaching almost 10 months ago and that tomorrow my first year will come to an end.

It has been a lot less dramatic saying goodbye to my students now that I know it isn't really goodbye. At the same time, I'll never teach this group of kids again and they really did make a huge influence on my time in China and just my life in general so it is strange to be saying goodbye.

This week has been really relaxed, I just took a group picture with each class and then we really just hung out and said goodbye to each other.

I've definitely had my ups and downs with each of my classes and there have been plenty of days where I haven't wanted to go to class, but every one of those days have been outweighed by the fun classes we had together, the silly comments my students have made, the small breakthroughs students have made and the progress I've seen some of them make. It has been a really rewarding year and in wrapping it up and looking back over the last ten months it has reaffirmed why I'm staying for another term.

So after tomorrow I'm free for a bit, which will be great but I know I'll miss my crazy students. All 1,200 of them.

Post-earthquake

2008-05-18T15:23:00.003+08:00

I just wanted to let everyone know that I am still OK after the earthquake as is everyone I know here in China. Unfortunately, there are thousands of people who were killed, even more who were injured and millions who have been left homeless from this disaster. Please keep them in your thoughts in prayers.

I'm hoping this summer they will be more open about letting volunteers in and that I'll be able to go help those in need. If any of you hear of any efforts like this please let me know.

Lastly, I'd really like to sincerely thank everyone for their concern this past week. The number of people who have left me messages and sent e-mails to me, my friends and my family in regards to my safety is truly overwhelming. I feel so blessed to know there are so many people out there thinking of me and who care for me. Thank you so much.

Is this an earthquake?

2008-05-12T16:24:00.002+08:00

I was in class this afternoon for all of about ten minutes trying to teach my students some new vocabulary words. A lot of them stopped repeating after me and I put down my book to give them a stern talking to about how it is important for them to practice their English. When I turned to look at the kids they were all whispering and pointing and I had no idea what was going on, but then I realized that the lights and ceiling fans were shaking and my stomach felt a little queasy. I looked outside and sure enough we were having an earthquake and everyone was evacuating the building. I panicked a little and went outside to see if everything looked OK. I was teaching on the fourth floor so I knew I should get my class out of the building in the event that something did happen. Some of them seemed scared and some of them were joking around so I just tried to compose myself and ushered them all out the door. We went and waited on the sports field until we were given the all-clear to go to our next class. All in all it was kind of crazy to experience my first earthquake here in China. You can read about it here.
I'll let you all know if anything else happens.

A race between teams: The undersurface of a shoe of a male duck

2008-05-04T07:19:00.002+08:00

As many of you may know last weekend was the Drake Relays back at my beloved alma mater and because I never like to pass up a party we decided to host our very own China-Drake Relays right here in Handan. Of course for this to be a successful event we had to take everything that is good about the Drake Relays and Chinafy it.

Everyone from the Shiz came in to celebrate the Relays and all the Handanren were exposed to the awesomeness of every Drakies favorite celebration. On Friday night Ben and I met all the Shizren at the train station and then took them out to dinner at the donkey restaurant we had before. It was really nice to introduce our Drake friends to our Handan family and see how well everyone got along. After like three hours of dinner we just went home and hung out and drank a little ... it was a very relaxed evening.

Saturday morning we got up bright and early and started in on the festivities. We cooked scrambled eggs and had fruit and I had made some blueberry muffins and apple cinnamon muffins. Of course we also had screwdrivers. Ben and I took everyone on a tour of the school after that and experienced mayhem when the kids got out of class and were all staring at the eight new foreigners visiting the school.

We then went back to my place and prepared for the games to begin by drinking a little and gathering all the supplies. Around 12:30 kids just started to swarm the field and they were anxious to get started. We had an egg toss, a slowest bicycle race, a three-legged race, piggy back rides, a rice eating contest and more. The kids went nuts and were cheering and having such a good time. We told them about Street Painting and they drew pictures on a long roll of paper that we put out. We even taught them the wave. Basically everyone was running around on a beautiful day having an amazing time. We took a ton of silly pictures and one of the headmasters was there with his camera the whole time ... he told us it was a great event and lots of fun.

After the races finished and the kids went back to class we went home and did a power hour in preparation for the next part of the day. Ben and I planned a scavenger hunt around Handan for everyone that consisted of completing some very Chinese tasks in order to be the winner. We split into teams and spent the next two hours running through Handan trying to complete our challenges, which were:

1. Find someone to take a shot of baijiu with all the members of your group

2. Go to one of the tea shops in Handan and buy one kuai worth of any kind of tea

3. Snap a pic of a baby’s bare bottom

4. Head to Congtai park and take a picture of your group plus at least one Chinese person in front of the castle/pagoda structure at the park

5. Find a group of old folks playing mah jong on the side of the road

6. Go to any store that sells baijiu and snap a pic of the most expensive bottle you can find

7. At least one group member needs to eat a piece of stinky tofu, take pictures of them chewing and swallowing

8. Get a picture of at least four people on one bicycle, bonus points if one of your group members is one of those people

9. Find people playing badminton or ping-pong in the city and play a quick match with them

10. Take a photo with a group of kids equal or larger than the number of people in your group, everyone needs to flash the peace sign

11. Go up to a construction crew and attempt to help them with their work

12. Snap a pic with a crossing guard somewhere around town

13. Buy some sunflower seeds and challenge a group of Chinese people to a seed spitting contest

14. Get a pic of the best Chinglish sign you can find

15. Hit up any supermarket in town and get a picture of your entire group and an employee, all of you holding an item from the store

16. Get a picture with one of the ladies who watches the bicycles, bonus points if she lets you wear her apron

17. Find someone flying a kite around town and convince them to let you have a turn

18. Get pictures of each of your group members posing like the stone lions outside any building

19. Have one of your group members eat the weirdest thing you can find on a stick

20. Get someone to take a picture of your entire group in front of one of the garbage piles around town, tell them you think it’s beautiful

21. Find some teenage boys playing basketball, tell them you know Yao Ming and grab a picture with their team

22. One group member should be brave enough to take a ride on one of the ancient and unstable roller coasters at any park

23. Take a group picture with any Chinese person who does not have black hair, peace signs are a must

24. Someone in your group should be willing to try the corn flavored ice cream treat they sell on the streets, document the whole process

25. Go to any fast food joint in the city and convince an employee to let one group member try on their hat

26. Get a picture of a car or bicycle accident anywhere in the city

27. Ask a random Chinese person to dance with you in the middle of wherever you are

28. Find baijiu in a bag for sale somewhere

29. Get pictures of at least five stray dogs meandering the city

30. Play the shuttlecock/hackey sak game with any group of people you can find around town

When we got together again everyone shared their crazy stories from the hunt and we went out to dinner for lamb kabobs and draft beer. We sat outside and talked and sang and taught our Chinese friends some drinking games. We were at dinner for over three hours and it was at one of our regular spots so they just kept laughing and were really nice to us all.

After dinner we went back to Ben's house for a dance party where we listened to random music, sang along, danced and drank the night away. We even had a beer bong, which we dubbed "Mao Ze Bong" in honor of every Chinese person's favorite leader. Eventually everyone passed out and the next day we went to McDonald's to cure everyone's hangovers before they headed back to Shijiazhuang.

It was a great Relays weekend and a lot of fun to share our traditions with our students and friends here in China.

Learning Chinese isn't always hard

2008-04-23T11:30:00.003+08:00

Here are some simple Chinese phrases everyone can learn, courtesy of David :)

Ice, ice baby (Harbin - Part 3)

2008-04-22T21:52:00.001+08:00

Harbin is the coldest place ever. That is all you really need to know about this relatively dumpy city. Harbin is in northern China, relatively close to the Russian border and every year they put all the ice and snow to good use and hold these huge Ice and Snow Festivals with enormous sculptures made entirely of ice or snow. This was the main reason we were going to Harbin and the reason we had to go in the dead of winter.

Our first day in Harbin we didn't roll in until the early evening and we decided to get rolling as fast as possible and try to squeeze in as much as we could since we were only going to be there for 3 days. Jeremy, Jenna, Michelle, Sherly and I headed off to find our hostel so we could dump our belongings and head to the first of the ice sculpture parks that we wanted to check out. We, of course, got lost in trying to find our hostel, but because I was so full of energy and excited for our trip I kept running through the frozen tundra with my enormous backpack shouting, "Amazing Race, come on you guys, Amazing Race." Apparently I decided to turn our Spring Festival travels into my own private Amazing Race and make sure we got to see as much as possible while we were roaming around the country.

After over an hour of wandering around the city we eventually popped into a place that we thought was a hotel and hoped they would be able to help us. It was not a hotel, it was a massage parlor and this would not be the only time we would make that mistake during our trip. Anyway we called the hostel and Jenna was able to tell them where we were and convince someone to come meet us and take us back to the hostel. Apparently we were really close, we were just somehow missing the hostel that should have been in front of our eyes.

Turns out the hostel was down some crazy back alley, hidden from the main road. Hmm, that seems logical. Anyway, they didn't have our reservation right and there was nothing else available so we had to take what they gave us. We had two rooms with one bed each and five of us. Score! Jenna and Jeremy bunked up in one room and Sherly, Michelle and I prepared to get cozy in the other bed. As if this wasn't bad enough the place was a total dump. We watched them clean the rooms, which consisted of remaking the bed and emptying the trash can before the next guests came to the room. The bathroom was so gross that we decided we would be cleaner if we didn't shower and used the toilet at the KFC up the road. Also, on the second night Jenna and Jeremy found rat poop in their room. All in all it was horrible.

But, of course, we weren't traveling to stay in world-class hotels. We were traveling as cheaply as possible while trying to see as much as possible.

We decided to just dump our stuff and start seeing the sights right away. We decided to hit up the first set of sculptures on that night, because we were told it was best to see everything ice related at night and see the few other things in the town during the day. We went to the Ice and Snow World on the first night and it was beautiful. There were massive sculptures made from ice and all of them were made with lights inside to make the city light up bright as darkness fell.

There were castles and houses and pagodas and boats and animals all made from ice and you were free to climb on almost all of it, but it was incredibly slippery. Of course, I'm about as clumsy as they come and I was sliding all over the place. Jeremy fell on a patch of ice, told us to watch out and then 10 seconds later I fell in the exact same spot. Of course when I did this I broke the zipper on my winter coat, rendering it ineffective for the remainder of the trip through the coldest place in China.

There was a huge hill made from ice and snow and you could pay 10 kuai to walk to the top, jump on a tube and fly down it, so of course I did! I screamed and cursed the whole way down, but it was really fun. We walked around the park for a few hours until we started to worry about frostbite and decided to look for some dinner since it was getting late.

We found a hot pot restaurant nearby and decided hot pot would be the perfect meal to warm us up. Hot pot and beer, of course. We tried some gold label Harbin Beer, which was awesome, seriously the best beer I've had in China. The strange thing was there was this man who worked at the restaurant who kept making our hot pot for us then using chopsticks to feed the food to us. He was really nice, brought us some free food and helped us out, but his feeding was a bit too much. He gave all of us his business card and told us we were good friends of his. It turns out he was a police officer and he kept calling us all weekend, and we finally had to tell him that we didn't understand what he was saying (which was true) so he would stop.

After hot pot had warmed us up we decided to meander a bit and ended up going to a coffee shop. Coffee is a special treat for us here in China and when you do find it it is usually pretty expensive. I drank more coffee during Spring Festival than I have the whole rest of the time I've been in China.

We settled into a both at this coffee shop/restaurant and drank coffee, talked and played cards for several hours. A few hours later these guys sat down next to us in a practically empty restaurant and proceeded to smoke away and be obnoxious. We asked them to stop several times and finally we got pretty angry and told them to stop or to move. Then they felt really bad and when we were leaving they asked if they could take us to dinner. We said no, we had already eaten, but we appreciated their apology.

We got in a cab and headed home. To our surprise they got in a cab and left as well. After a few blocks it seemed definite that they were following us. We all started to freak out a bit at this point. Here we were in a strange town with two random guys following us back to our hostel. When we finally arrived at the back-alley hostel they continued to drive. We threw money at the driver and jumped out of the taxi as fast as we could. We could see that they had pulled over less than a block away and we wanted to get inside before they caught up with us. We didn't think they were trying to give us any trouble, but you just never know.

When we got to the door it was locked! Oh come on, what kind of luck were we having tonight? We pounded on the door for what seemed like forever when an old man finally appeared at the door. He looked at us, then motioned that he didn't have the keys and we would have to wait for a minute. At this point we knew the guys from the cab had to be close and so Jeremy motioned for us girls to hide behind a nearby car while he waited for the man to come back with the key. When he finally opened the door for us we all ran inside, straight to Jeremy and Jenna's room and collapsed on the bed. A minute later we heard some knocking at the main door and then voices in the hallway. The old man had let them into the hostel! Jeremy went outside to tell the man that they needed to leave, but they were just smoking together and then the guys got up and left. It was a very strange series of events and enough excitement for one night.

Sherly, Michelle and I headed next door to our room and curled up in our freezing room with only one bed giggling about the night's adventure. If this is what the first day of our trip held, we knew it was going to be an exciting month of traveling together.

Some photos to share

2008-04-22T08:27:00.002+08:00

Hey everyone! I just tried sending out an e-mail, but I don't know if it worked so I thought I'd post on here as well. I've been having some bouts of insomnia lately and so I decided to be productive and start to sort through some of the over 3,000 photos I've taken in the last eight months. I've chosen some of my favorites and posted them on shutterfly for you to check out: China so far.

Let me know what you think ...

All representatives are still busy

2008-04-21T21:21:00.002+08:00

I'm on hold with Apple right now, waiting to talk to them about a problem with my computer and it is making me anxious to be back in the same time zone (or at least a closer one) as everyone back home. It will be convenient to be able to pick up the phone and just call people without having to think about if they are awake yet or if it is too late to call. I think I adjusted to the time difference pretty fast and I've always been able to keep track of what time it is back home. The only exception was Daylight Savings Time, which I totally forgot about (sorry Danny) since we don't change the clocks at all in China. Anyway, they answered my call so I'm going to run. I just wanted to ramble a little about the convenience of calling people in the same country.

Ugh, you need a haircut ...

2008-04-21T08:47:00.000+08:00

This is how my mom chooses to greet me most of the time when I talk to her via skype. And yes, she's probably right, my hair has gotten long and crazy in the months since I've been in China, but I decided recently that I'm not going to cut my crazy curls until I'm back in America.

I figure I've gone this long without a haircut and my hair has grown as long as it has so I might as well stick it out a few more months and hopefully by the time I get back my hair will be long enough to cut off the required 10 inches in order to make a donation to Locks of Love.

So that's it. I'm not planning to cut my hair until I come home so that I can donate it to someone who needs it a lot more than I do.

Missing you ...

2008-04-20T00:31:00.001+08:00

Really missing everyone back home tonight ... that's all.

Our photo shoot

2008-04-17T13:44:00.003+08:00

On Monday I received a text message from Miss Shan saying we would have our regular TB check-up at the hospital and then afterward the school wanted to take our pictures and then take us out to dinner. The next day we were told to dress nice, but not too nice. Ross called all of us and said, "Why don't we dress really nice just to show off?" Of course we were all game.

So the boys wore their suits and I wore my suit skirt a blouse and a sweater vest and we went to meet everyone for the photos. The two headmasters who were supposed to be in these photos suddenly looked pretty shabby compared to us so they went back inside to change. When they returned we meandered around the school and posed for numerous photos. No doubt these pictures will surface in some recruiting material for the school, but it was actually kind of fun and I got some nice pictures of the four of us, which will be a good memento.

After posing like models we were carted off to dinner, but we still aren't entirely sure why. Perhaps the school wants something for us. Perhaps they were bribing us. Who knows? But it was a fun meal, we ate a ton and joked around and it was nice. I also got to try rabbit, which was really good. The meat was smoked and it was really tender. We also had duck and donkey at dinner. How many people can say that they had rabbit, duck and donkey for dinner the other night?

Ohhhh baijiu was a bad idea.

2008-04-13T10:59:00.003+08:00

Last night I consumed entirely way too much baijiu and now I am definitely regretting it. I casually dropped the idea of having some baijiu with dinner last night and Ben and David were game so we decided to have some fun. Two and a half bottles later I was drunkenly riding my bicycle home and screaming random Chinese words. It should also be noted that Amy had written the Chinese character for "lamb kabob" on my forehead and "free please" on Ben's. I also had the names of random songs that David said I would like scrawled all over my left arm. Ben and I pulled over and got some lamb kabobs, which we inhaled and then I went home and spent the night in the bathroom. My head is still throbbing, but it was a funny, very Chinese night so mei shi.

Reunited and it feels so good (Harbin - Part 2)

2008-04-12T13:56:00.004+08:00

After our luxurious train ride Sherly and I finally embarked on the cold, frozen ground that was Harbin. This is the city where we were hooking up with Jenna, Jeremy and Michelle, the rest of our traveling group. It was crazy to finally arrive in Harbin and see everyone because we had been planning this trip for so long. We had tossed around ideas during our pre-China class back in May and had firm plans since October.

I had seen Jenna and Michelle back at the beginning of December when we went to Xi'an together, but I hadn't seen Jeremy since we traveled to Shanghai together. It was really good to have our little mini-reunion and to kick off our stellar Spring Festival travels together.

Is that really his body? (Beijing - Part 1)

2008-04-12T10:52:00.003+08:00

Spring Festival started for me on January 22 when I finished teaching. That night we had a big Mexican fiesta in Handan so we could all say goodbye before I left town for the next four weeks. The next morning I took an early train from Handan to Beijing. My friend, Sherly, got on the train in Shijiazhuang and the two of us were ready for our first trip to the capital city.

It seemed funny to me that I had lived in China for five months at this point and had still never been to Beijing except for when we arrived at the airport and didn't get to see anything. Sherly and I immediately went to the ticket office to buy train tickets to our next destination, Harbin. We had a list of available trains on the day we wanted, but of course they were all sold out. Our only option was to take a D train (the fastest and nicest trains) a day earlier than we wanted to leave. We called Jeremy, because he and Michelle and Jenna were meeting us in Harbin and we wanted to see if they would have a similar encounter. Turns out they had just bought their tickets and the only thing available would get them in about 30 minutes before us. Sweet.

Sherly and I spent most of our time in Beijing getting lost. Seriously, I don't know what was wrong, but I normally have a fairly good sense of direction and yet as soon as we got to Beijing all of that was thrown out the window.

While we were in Beijing we got to go to the Forbidden City, which was disappointing because almost the entire thing was under construction. They are trying to get Beijing ready for the Olympics (trying being the operative word here) and so EVERYTHING is under construction. It seems to me that cities like Shanghai and Hong Kong are much more prepared for the Olympics than Beijing, but I guess they will have to pull it off somehow.

We also went to the Temple of Heaven, which was really cool. Apparently the whole thing was built without the use of a single nail. That is quite impressive if I may say so.

We went to Tiananmen Square, where all the protests took place in the late 1980s and again it was cool, but it wasn't really what I was expecting. I thought it was going to be a lot bigger than it was (it is still massive, the largest public square in China) and I didn't realize there was a street between the square and the Forbidden City.

The creepiest thing we did was go to the mausoleum where Chairman Mao's dead body is left on display for everyone to come through and take a peek at. We had to dump all of our belonging in lockers across the street and then walk quietly and in a single file line past the waxy looking body wrapped in a Chinese flag. It was eerie and pretty disturbing.

After seeing the big sites in Beijing of course we had to hit up the silk market to test out our bargaining skills in Beijing's third largest tourist destination (or so their web site claims). I was on a mission to get some shoes for the rest of the trip because my gym shoes were falling apart and I didn't have any boots for the next lef of our journey. The woman started out asking 700 kuai for a pair of Uggs and another 700 kuai for a pair of Adidas shoes. In the end I got her down to 300 kuai total for the two pairs of shoes. That's 40 bucks US, so I was pretty happy and I knew the shoes were going to come in handy. I also scored a Burberry scarf for 20 kuai (3 bucks) and some Dolce and Gabbana sunglasses for another 20 kuai. I didn't do any souvenir shopping because I knew this was only the beginning of my trip and I would have to drag along any purchases for the entire rest of my trip.

The next morning Sherly and I set out north to Harbin on the incredibly comfortable D train.

I guess we should start to play catch up

2008-04-12T10:48:00.002+08:00

I know I've been updating you all on what has been going on in the last week, but I guess I should fill you in on everything that went down while my blog was floating along with no new posts.

The biggest thing that happened was all of my Spring Festival travels so I'll take a few entries here to update you on all my crazy adventures. Be patient because it will probably take a while for me to tell all of my stories from a month of trotting around China.

Everybody is working for the weekend

2008-04-12T00:20:00.002+08:00

It was a cold one here in Handan, and it just kept getting colder all day long until it finally started to rain a few hours ago. The crappy thing about rain here is it never seems to storm. We get light rain that lasts for hours or even days, but it never progresses to anything more than that. I would really love a good thunderstorm tomorrow, the kind that makes you glad to stay inside and watch a movie or curl up with a good book.

Anyway, I had two classes today and I just let the kids study because they have a big round of exams this weekend. It sucks that we didn't get to do anything in class, but I know how important these exams are to them and I know their other teachers don't give them the time they need to study.

After that I taught my private lesson where I've been working on the weather and seasons with my little ones. I had been getting frustrated with that class because all of the moms kept coming to class and because they are all teachers they all had their own ideas of how things should be done. Of course, they all decided to keep telling me what to do and none of their opinions agreed with one another. One week they told me to do only group activities, the next week I was berated for not spending enough one-on-one time with the kids. I played too many games, then not enough games. Finally I got really frustrated and told our headmaster that if they wanted me to keep teaching the class then only the one mother who translates for me would be allowed to sit in on the class. Apparently they wanted to keep me on as the teacher because today when the other mothers arrived my translating mom (who I really like) kicked them all out. Today's class went much better than the last two and I was glad I stood up for myself.

I came home from class and relaxed for a little bit and then headed over to Ross and Landy's for dinner. After we ate Amy and Landy told me they had to tell me something. Apparently the pork dish that I had enjoyed had come from the pig's face, which goes against my rule of "no eating face." The meat was really delicious though so I won't complain too much.

After dinner we just hung out and talked and play mahjong for a few hours and now I'm getting ready for bed. Amy and I are supposed to hang out and watch movies and talk tomorrow because it is supposed to rain all day. Then Sunday Amy, Landy and I are supposed to have a girls only day so it should be a pretty fun, low-key weekend.

I'm an old Chinese woman

2008-04-11T13:00:00.000+08:00

A week or two ago I finally learned how to play mahjong, an awesome Chinese game that little old ladies sit around and play on the side of the street all over the city. I've been bugging my Chinese friends to teach me how to play for months now, but they all claimed to not know how to play. Apparently during Spring Festival they all went home and learned, because when we go back they were all ready to teach me and to play.

It's a little difficult to explain via my blog, but I can tell you it is nothing like the mahjong game people play online where they try to match tiles. These rules seem to be fairly similar to the way we play the game, but we don't get too involved in the whole scoring system.

It is a really fun game that actually isn't too difficult to play. I'm still working on a few of the Chinese words, but I've got the hang of it now and have even won a few games. One weekend we played for like three hours on Friday and then played for three more hours on Saturday. It seems as though mahjong seems to be all we are doing when we hang out these days.

I'm hoping to gather the courage to go sit down with some old ladies on the side of the road and go play the game with them, but my skills aren't that strong yet.

Everyone back home had better be ready to learn how to play, because I'm going to teach you all when I return. Then I'm going to sit around and play mahjong and drink tea all day.

The construction has to stop

2008-04-10T23:22:00.004+08:00

So it's 11:30 p.m. here in lovely Handan and the buzzing that has been going on all day is still continuing. Apparently they are installing air conditioners in all of the classrooms in the building where I live.

This is great for the students because I know it will start to get really hot in the rooms soon.

This is not so great for me because it means that I've had to listen to all the clatter all day long. I woke up around 7:30 this morning to the sound of drilling in the hallway and still, now they are drilling away. Thankfully I don't have early class tomorrow or I would be one very unhappy camper.

They have also been doing a lot of construction outside my building, which has been keeping me awake at odd hours and providing plentiful headaches. In addition that they are renovating a building right by the classrooms where I teach so there has been non-stop jackhammering all day long the past few days.

No wonder I can't get rid of my headache.

Wo ai cafe nai cha

2008-04-10T10:09:00.005+08:00

In English: I love coffee milk tea. Mmmmmm ... milk tea. This is one of my favorite drinks in China and I figured it was due time to give this tasty beverage a shout out on my blog.

Milk tea is a drink they sell in China, although I'm not really sure why they call it tea, because I don't think it is really made from any tea at all. Basically it is a powder that you mix with hot water, shake and drink. In the spring and summer it is also really great as a cold beverage.

Milk tea comes in all different flavors from wheat to strawberry, but my favorite is definitely coffee. There are also these awesome tapioca balls that you can get in the drink that I really like.

They sell milk tea in containers at the store that you can make at home, but they also sell it in stands on the street where they make it for you. That is the way I prefer to buy my milk tea. I think the ones on the street taste better, they have the tapioca balls and they are cheaper than the ones in the store.

There is one girl who always works at the milk tea stand by my house and whenever I pull up on my bike (which is usually two or three times per week) she starts to make my drink for me because I always get the same thing. I guess it's like my Starbucks here in Handan :)

Tearful goodbyes

2008-04-09T22:25:00.006+08:00

Tonight I had the opportunity to go to properly say goodbye to my junior students. I cried on Monday when I found out I wouldn't be teaching them anymore, but I thought I had things pretty together to say goodbye tonight. I walked into the classroom and the kids seemed really happy to see me. When I got two sentences into my goodbye I broke down and started crying in class. This only made things harder because half the class was already crying and then most of the other kids started to join in as well. I looked around the room at all of their sad faces and knew I needed to pull it together. Once I stopped crying and finished thanking them for being such a great class and for welcoming me so warmly as their teacher we headed outside to take a group picture. When I snapped the last picture of just the kids they all shouted, "We love you!"

After the group pictures the kids came to give me hugs and say goodbye to me one at a time. This was really hard because I've become so attached to so many of these kids. They came up and hugged me and most of the girls were crying, telling me that they love me and they will never forget me. I had one girl give me a drawing/card that she and her mother had made. Another girl gave me an old key chain of hers that she looks at whenever she is sad.

There was one girl in class who seemed particularly distraught about the whole thing and she had come to hug me several times while I was at school. Finally she stopped crying for a few minutes and came over to talk to me. She said, "A few weeks ago I was crying at school. It was the first time I have cried at school (she had gotten bad scores on a recent round of tests, and she is one of the top students in the class). On that day you comforted me and gave me confidence like no one has given me (I told her the exam was in the past and she couldn't dwell on it, that she was a smart girl and if she had a positive attitude she would do better the next time around) and I will remember you and miss you always."

Of course I started to cry again.

The kids all told me that the loved me and they would never forget me and thanked me for being their teacher and their friend. I don't think they realized that they meant as much to me (probably even more) as I did to them. I got choked up every time I tried to express my gratitude to them. They were great kids and I really will miss them.

I told the kids that now they just have to work hard so they can come to America and we can see each other again. In the mean time I gave them all my contact information and told them they have to keep in touch.

While I was at dinner I got a text message from one of the boys in the class saying even though he was a boy he cried when he found out we wouldn't have class together anymore and that he was glad he had a teacher, and a friend, in me. Ah, I can't go on because it makes me head and my heart hurt to think about how much I will miss all 68 of these fantastic kids.

Saying goodbye was really difficult, but the good thing is this was the class that was going to be the hardest for me to leave. I have other students that it will be hard to say goodbye to, but it will be easier to say goodbye to other classrooms full of kids. The only other goodbyes I'm really dreading are Ross and Landy and David and Amy. I try not to think about it.

If the Iowa State Fair took place in China ...

2008-04-08T08:53:00.000+08:00

Last night Ross invited us to join him for this outdoor street fair filled with crazy food vendors here in Handan. Apparently they all went last year and had fun so we decided to check it out. Basically, it was a bunch of booths selling crazy foods on a stick.

I decided to be adventurous and use my mantra, "You moved to the other side of the world by yourself, this is easy," to put my stomach to the test. We walked down the aisles of food, watching the crazy cooks sling sticks of meat on the grill, flip and season them all while grooving along to some sweet techno beats.

After seeing all that the street fair had to offer, Ross and I decided to start with some skewers of ostrich meat. As everyone knows I hate birds more than anything else in the world and so Ross decided this would be a good way for me to overcome my fear or to plot some sort of revenge against the birds. The meat actually wasn't bad though, it isn't like I'd go to a restaurant and request ostrich, but I probably wouldn't shy away from it at a dinner party.

Next up we all dove in and had some squid on a stick. It was basically just a chunk of squid with tentacles coming off the top of the skewer. I had tried squid in Sanya during Spring Festival and I really liked it, but this time it was really tough and I had a hard time eating it off the skewer ... I didn't really care for it too much.

Then we went and tried some deer, which Ross had had before. It was awesome. I really liked the deer, the meat was really tender and just delicious. I was glad we tried it, I would totally eat Bambi again. :)

Ben and I also tried some crazy glutenous rice jelly thing that was OK, but I'm pretty sure there is just a lump of slimy rice setting in my stomach now and it is not a pleasant feeling.

All in all it was a good little adventure, and it was the perfect spring day so it was a fun outing for all of us.

Uh, thanks for the notice

2008-04-07T22:53:00.001+08:00

So this morning I was walking back to my apartment at about 8:30 and stopped by the second floor to see the director of foreign affairs, Miss Shan, to see when she wanted me to bring down my passport so she could go pick up my new residency permit.

When I popped in she told me I wouldn't have class with my juniors this morning (that class was supposed to be at 10:20) and I said OK, because I've grown accustomed to the Chinese style of giving no notice for anything. Then she kept talking and I wasn't really understanding what was going on and the next thing I know she says, "So you won't teach them anymore." Ever.

Apparently in that moment my biweekly class with 68 smiling 14 year olds came to an abrupt end. I didn't have any advance warning, no time to prepare, to decide how to say goodbye, to even say goodbye at all. The class is just over. It turns out the kids are preparing for their high school entrance exam and so they are going to be in review classes for the rest of the term and so my oral English class was deemed unnecessary.

I told Miss Shan that I needed an opportunity to say goodbye to my students, to let them really know how important they've been to me this year. She told me she would talk to their head teacher and work out a time when I could go in and say goodbye.

I'll still see the kids once a week when they are on the high school campus for P.E. class and I'm sure I'll have the occasional run-in on the street, but I'm crushed that I don't get to see them every week anymore. I came home to my apartment, sat down and started to cry.

I had always assumed I would make some sort of impact here in China, but I didn't at all expect how deep and impact my students would make on me. I've been thinking for a while now about how hard it will be to say goodbye to all the people I've met here, the people who have really touched my lives and taught me about China, themselves and myself. I knew it would be hard, but now that I've come face-to-face with the issue I am finally realizing exactly how hard it is all going to be.

I think leaving China is going to be more difficult for me than leaving America was, and I don't say that as any offense to anyone back at home, if anything I mean it as a compliment. When I left home, I knew I was going back. I knew all of my friends and family would be there for me and that I'd be able to see them all again as soon as I returned from this one year hiatus. With China that's very unlikely. Most of the people I've met here I'll never see again. And that crushes me every time I think about it.

I'm a different person than I was eight months ago, not drastically so, but enough that I can notice the ways in which I've changed and I know I owe the positive changes in my life to the people here. People I'll probably never see again, but who I will carry with me forever.

Long weekend in Qinhuangdao

2008-04-07T16:52:00.000+08:00

So Friday was the grave sweeping holiday here in China, which means the people go visit their ancestor's graves and give them a good cleaning and burn some money for them. Mostly it meant that I didn't have to teach classes. Since we had a three day weekend I was itching to travel so I headed to Qinhuangdao with Ben and three of our friends from the Shiz to visit some friends of mine who live there.

Thursday night Ben and I took the D train (the fastest and nicest train in China) to Shijiazhuang to meet up with Sherly, Emily, Stephanie and Caroline to hang out for the evening. Friday morning all of us except Emily boarded an eight hour train north to Qinhuangdao.

When we arrived in Qinhunagdao we jumped on a bus to go to our friend's Grady and Claire's school. Once we jumped on the bus we discovered that we had gotten off at the wrong train station and that we should have jumped off half an hour earlier in Beidahe. So, an hour and a half or so on the bus later and we finally arrived at their school. By this time we were starving because for some reason there was no food for sale on our eight hour train ride, so we hadn't eaten all day. We headed out for a really good Chinese meal with a bunch of their friends and ate a ton of good food. After that we headed back to their place to clean up and settle in for the night. We all snuggled up and watched Jurassic Park and then called it a night.

The next morning we got going and after a breakfast of champions - Oreos and peanut butter, courtesy of Grady - we all headed out for the day. We traveled almost two hours to go to the Old Dragon's Head, which is the beginning of the Great Wall, at this section the wall meets the sea. It was really beautiful and I got some great pictures that I will eventually figure out how to post on here.

After walking around the wall and meandering down the beach, plus almost cracking my skull open we decided to go get some food. We found a cool Korean restaurant and settled in with our shoes off. We debated eating some dog, but not everyone was game like me so we went with some other dishes instead.

From dinner we went to the Olympic Park in Qinhuangdao. Some of the games (I think soccer and sailing) will be held in Qinhuangdao and so they have a beautiful park with statues and carvings of past Olympic games that was really cool. We walked around the park and took some goofy pictures before we had to head back to the school. We decided to have a marathon "Office" watching party that really only lasted six episodes before I passed out.

Sunday morning we woke up, packed our bags and were greeted with a homemade breakfast of giant pancakes with a delicious apple cinnamon, banana, raisin topping. It was fantastic. Then we made our way to the train station and jumped on our nine hour train back to Shijiazhuang. As per usual we made friends with the people on our train and made our way through some "Chinglish" conversations.

We finally arrived in Shijiazhuang at 7:30 p.m., an hour late, which meant Ben and I had to hurry because our train back to Handan left at 8 p.m. We made it though and got back to school before 10, which was good because I had class at 7:30 this morning.

I'm ba-ack

2008-04-07T10:08:00.000+08:00

OK, blog stalkers, after a very long absence and a switch in hosts I'm back to the blogging world. Admittedly, this one isn't as fancy as my old blog, but it will just have to do while I attempt to get things back on track on the old blog. My Mac has never failed me before and I have confidence that I will eventually be able to work through whatever the problem might have been there (although I still firmly believe that China caught on to my blog and put the kibosh on the whole thing). Anyway, this post is just a welcome back to my life in China. It's been a crazy time since I wrote last and I'll get some posts up here ASAP to let you all know what has been going on.