Week and a half of Xiamen
Its been very busy since the rest of the group arrived in Xiamen, but its been a lot of fun as well. Its nice to see some friends from the last trip and Chinese class, and to get to know a few people I barely knew before a bit better. I've also met and chatted with some of the locals, as well as a few other foreigners. Exploring Xiamen has been great too - there is more here than we'll be able to see in a semester!
The schedule varies a bit from week to week, but here is what it looked like last week (as a sample):
Monday:
9:00 AM - 12:00 PM: Modernization and Economics
3:00 PM - 4:30 PM: Kung Fu (optional, but I go - its fun!)
Tuesday:
9:00 AM - 11:00 AM: Intermediate Chinese
Wednesday:
9:00 AM - 12:00 PM: China Seminar
3:00 PM - 4:30 PM: Caligraphy (also optional, but I go to it too!)
Thursday:
9:00 AM - 11:00 AM: Intermediate Chinese
3:00 PM - 6:00 PM: Chinese Politics
Friday:
Morning field trip to Nanputo Temple and the Chinese Overseas Museum, afternoon free ^^
Its also pretty easy to hop a bus to go downtown to some restaurants and shops, or ride a ferry over to Gulongyu Island for an afternoon. My favorite restaurant memory so far is when 8 of us went out for dumplings after our field trip, and sat around talking politics for an hour! I also joined some other people in our group in a little basketball the other day (which, considering I haven't played in about two years, I didn't do too bad).
On Friday we start a one-week mini trip up to Beijing, Xi'an, and Shanghai - right in the middle of the Chinese New Year. (Part of me thinks Professor Grasso was a bit crazy to be wanting to travel when everyone else in China is traveling, but it should be fun.)
Meanwhile, I have a health exam in a few hours (part of the process of getting a residence permit). We also have new Chinese bank accounts and little student ids/meal cards/bus cards. In a way it is starting to feel like we really are staying for a semester.
EDIT: Asia 2007 Stories Table of Contents / Picture Album