(Part one and two were written together, but are too long to post together. Here is the link for part two.) My group of friends and I decided that today definitely felt like week five, as opposed to day five. I am already in my third town, a small city of three million (yes, in China that is small) called Lanzhou. It is in the middle of the China, and the Yellow River runs directly…
(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…
(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…
(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…
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…
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…
Americans sometimes wonder how the obesity epidemic has gotten so out of hand. What are other countries doing right that we are getting so wrong? In two words: portion control. The week before I came to China, I travelled to DC and spent five days hanging out and going to restaurants with friends. It seemed that wherever I went and whoever I saw, getting food with them was so required it was assumed I would…
Today is flight day. Nearly fourteen hours of sky time and the longest I have gone without night in my lifetime (By travelling to China I altogether skip the evening hours). My four hour layover in Newark, New Jersey turned into a five and a half layover which was spent half in fitful sleep and the other half conversing with fellow students in the Beijing Center program. We are all worried about the placement test…