This is China

A man walks up to you and your friends, says “Hello,” looks away from you, but still stands right next to you. You quickly look around for his friend’s camera taking an opportunistic shot, but you can’t find it. The guy is standing next to you just for the hell of it.  “This is weird,” your friend says. “No,” you reply. “This is China.” So many moments occur on a daily basis here that are…

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Day Eight: The Sick Road

My blog has been quiet for a while, as I waited to come back to Beijing for Internet, and get settled in. Many more blog posts on the Silk Road to come. Stay tuned and enjoy! Day Eight: Today has been rough, to say the least. This morning I woke up to discover that the high altitude did not agree with me, and my body retorted with painful cramps lasting a large portion of the…

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Day Seven: Bargaining and Baizhou

Today we checked out of the hotel at 6:30am. I had gotten about six and half hours of sleep, which sounds like a lot to a typical college student but is not enough to survive the heavy activity that is touring China. Luckily, I was able to nap on the bus after breakfast—a 4-hour-turned-5-hour bus ride to Xia’he. Breakfast this morning was especially special since we met up with Group A (the other half of…

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Day Six: Sick out like a sore thumb

Every day now is easily blurring into the next one. Writing these blog posts though serve as a good tool to set my bearings straight (and remember what all I’ve done!). Last night for dinner, my two friends and I walked around Lanzhou to figure out what to eat. We grabbed some baozi (steamed buns, this time with veggies in it) and I found my all time favorite Chinese treat—matuan! It’s a sesame seed bun…

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Day Five Part Two: I’ve been here for weeks

(Part one and two were written together, but are too long to post together. Here is the link for part one.) The train seats weren’t half bad. I played a few games with the students beside me (the games “What am I?” and “Bullshit”), read Foundation by Isacc Asimov, journaled, didn’t sleep, and visited a friend for two hours in another car. My friend was talking to a 13 year old Chinese girl, and occasionally…

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Day Three Part Two: Going, going, going

(Part one and two were written together, but are too long to post together. Here is the link for part one.) Back to my busy and fruitful days. After the caves, a few of my friends and I took advantage of the opportunity to see a Chinese acrobatic show. The story was very interesting, and very Chinese: A woman is sought out by the Fire Devil, but a shepherd comes and saves her by hiding her in…

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Day 3 Part One: Going, going, going

(Part one and two were written together, but are too long to post together. Here is the link for part two.) I’m already at the point where I can’t remember where I’ve left off. Every day seems much longer than 24 hours (sleeping twice a day may have something to do with that). I was afraid that experiencing so much in so little time would make each part less exciting than if I had spaced…

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The Beginning: Silk Road—Day One

(Author Note: Day Five, Aug. 24th, 2011: I finally have ethernet in the hotel. All of the Silk Road trip blog posts are written on a daily basis, but posted only when I get internet, so please refer to the time phrases as having written them at the time.) Yesterday I embarked on an ancient journey that used to take traders of all races through China. Since I am in group B, I get to…

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The Placement Test

我吃饱了。 I am so full. I feel like I have been eating food all day. This morning I woke up at 7am and ate three baozi (steamed bun with meat) while I waited an hour for my gmail to load. (I wish I was exaggerating.) After dealing with Internet issues, I wasn’t in the greatest of moods. I went back to my room and my roommate had looked up Chinese music that I could use…

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The Language of Money

This is the third day that I have woken up at 5:30 in the morning. This morning was much more pleasant though, since, unlike yesterday, I didn’t have mosquitoes buzzing in my ear and no one played basketball until after I had woken up. (Apparently the Chinese like their basketball…at ALL hours of the day) The mosquitoes hadn’t left the room this morning—I killed a big juicy one with my gargantuan roll of 卫生纸 aka…

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