So...China?
yeah so I went to China which was amazing. Missed two weeks of school so that is always good..until you return to be engulfed by work. I loved China, I would have had no problem staying there. In Beijing it was freezing...seriously freezing. The temp was about -6 C and then w/ windchill...it was super cold. Anyway beijing was cool...so much history. We went to the forbidden city, temple of heaven, great wall ect... the only down fall was the city layout. There is not really a downtown or anything. Everything is so spread out. It take 30-45 min just to get anywhere. After Beijing we went to Xi'an which was really cool. I really enjoyed Xi'an even though we only stayed one day. Our tour guide was cool, Bai Xiaojie, she helped me quite a bit w/ my chinese which was great since in Beijing I would speak in chinese and get a response in english haha. The terra-cotta warriors were interesting as well. In the hotel Al and I met some cool kids from Elon who were also w/ the school. We met some of Chen laoshi friends and also ate at a "world famous" dumpling restaurant...where I possibly ate the worst dumpling in the world...this little chicken shaped dump got the whole table gagging. After Xi'an we went to "New China"...Shanghai. I was overwhelmed by the size of shanghai. Skyscrapers everywhere. It was really my first time in a huge city like that since I have yet to visit NY. I loved Shanghai, met so many amazing people there especially on the covert night ops to the bars. The weathers was nice, much like Cali 47 F. I met quite a few Europeans, Russians, and even people from Africa. It was interesting especially with the Russians because they didn't speak english and I of course don't speak Russian so we communicated through chinese. Anyway all in all the trip was amazing. I can't wait to go back in 2 years when I study in China for a year. well until next time...oh and I forgot to mention the Shanghai bootleg market....i guess that is a story for another time
peace
~ Nic
peace
~ Nic