My second set of midterms are in the books for the semester!  While everyone at home is out for the summer, I am still in the thick of things with a third of the semester left ahead of me.  With exams out of the way, I now have time to fill everyone in on my absolutely FANTASTIC 21st birthday trip to Guangxi Province with my boyfriend Michael.  The environs were truly breathtaking, so you all are in for a treat! Our flight was delayed, and we literally didn’t arrive at [...]

Today, Michael and I said our goodbyes to his mother and brother who were visiting Beijing.  They arrived last week on Thursday, and we’ve been running about the city everyday since.  It’s been great fun, and they’re really wonderful people.  Michael’s mother is a professor at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.  She’s been all over the world and once even lived in Thailand and India, so I’ve just adored hearing her stories and anticipating my own adventures as I too delve into academia. Here are a few photos from our week [...]

This photo basically sums up my weekend: Yes, I finally made it to the Beijing Zoo.  I had been putting it off all this time because everyone I’ve ever talked to about the zoo has told me how terrible it is.  I had always heard it’s constantly teaming with people, the cages are tiny, and the animals seem unhappy.  You tell me, are those sad pandas?  I didn’t think so. So admission to the zoo was $1.15.  The pandas were an extra $0.80.  Can’t complain there.  I was shocked by [...]

Spring has somehow been busy although on the surface it always seems like I don’t do anything.  The fact is that this whole thing hasn’t gotten any easier.  It’s still a battle every single day, me versus China.  Me versus crossing the street, aka Frogger.  Me versus my teacher telling me I’m inadequate.  Me versus developing asthma from running outside.  Me versus getting ripped off.  Me with a load of wet laundry versus a ten foot laundry line.  Last night I woke up at four in the morning feeling like [...]

This past weekend I FINALLY got myself over to Beijing’s 798 Art District, a place I’ve been wanting to go to forever but never got around to it.  798 is a thriving art community housed in several 50-year-old decommissioned military factory buildings.  They were built as part of Mao Zedong’s “Socialist Unification Plan” in cooperation with the Soviet Union.  The Chinese were in great need of modern electronic components, but the Russians were unwilling to help out at the time, so the Chinese government turned to East Germany for assistance.  [...]

Last week on Thursday, Michael and I took a very hot and uncomfortable sleeper train to the northern city of Harbin for a weekend getaway.  Harbin is home to one of the world’s largest and most famous snow and ice festivals, which was the main motivation for us to go, however we quickly discovered that the city has much much more to offer than just subzero temperatures.  This is a city of remarkable cultural heritage is also home to a haunting remnant of Japanese occupation, religious venues of all kinds, [...]

So here’s the deal.  I’ve been back from Vietnam and South Korea for more than twenty days, and life has been absolutely crazy crazy.  A few days after I arrived, my parents came to Beijing for a week!  It was incredibly wonderful to see them and share my Chinese life with them, however their hotel was all the way on the other of the city, and I spent a considerable amount of time flagging cabs and dropping ‘big’ bucks on transport.  I felt like a chicken with my head cut [...]

Adventure.  Of.  A.  Lifetime.  In ten days time, Brian and I got burned by the sun of the Yuanyang rice terraces, “wasted away” with other washed up expats on the banks of Erhai in Dali, strolled the Epcot-esque streets of Lijiang with a serendipitously encountered old friend, almost died in Tiger Leaping Gorge, and woke up to frozen toothpaste in Shangri La.  FYI we both lived to tell the tale, with a few first degree sunburns, some minor frostbite, and a blown out knee. After showing Brian a bit of [...]

I am tired.  After a truly excruciating week of exams (one test had over 225 new characters), Michael and I headed to WuDaoKou last night to ring in the new year, albeit without plans or 150 RMB tickets to Nova, Beijing’s biggest New Year’s Eve party.  Before we knew it, we found ourselves in a bar surrounded by friends!  In a blur of colors, lights, drinks, and taxis, we were waltzing down the red carpet leading into Nova, housed in a giant, disused industrial gas tank.  Beijing nights…  Happy New [...]

Wow, what a fantastic weekend in Qingdao!  Not only was my seaside getaway refreshing, but it also reminded me just how much I love traveling, and I’m more pumped up than ever for my trips to Yunnan Province, South Korea, and Vietnam in January! Qingdao, population just under 9 million, is a mere 5 or 6 hours away from Beijing via bullet train.  It hosted the sailing event during the 2008 Olympics, was voted China’s most livable city in 2009, and is home to none other than the Tsingtao brewery, [...]

I have ultra exciting news times about five and only about five minutes to write, so here’s the scoop: 1. After class today I’ll be jumping on a five to six hours train ride to the coastal city of Qingdao, we’re I’ll be spending the weekend with Michael, my cool Nebraska guy.  Qingdao is perhaps most well-known as the home of the Tsingdao (pronounced the same as Qingdao) brewery.  Tsingdao is the most exported Chinese beer, and apparently the street just outside the factory, literally called “Beer Street,” has some of the [...]

After a rough week of exams and an even rougher weekend, Megan, my Jersey girl, and I set out for some therapy that only the Swedes can provide.  IKEA, or 宜家家具.  I adore this Chinese name.  宜 by itself means “suitable,” but it is more well-known as one of the two characters that make up 便宜, the word for “inexpensive.”  家 refers to anything to do with “household” or “family,” and 家具 means “furniture.”  Thus, we’re left with “suitable household furniture.”  When read aloud, it sounds something like yi jiā [...]

Today I received an email from Yao Yao, one of the Chinese friends I met while visiting the “small city” of Loudi, population 4 million, in 2008.  It’s a strange reality three and a half years later, that I may so casually return to Nowheresville, China to run around with some very old friends in a place with a two-story Walmart but no white people. It makes me think of when this all started during the spring of 2007.  A fifteen-year-old me was probably watching some crappy MTV reality TV show [...]

Fall has finally arrived in Beijing, and the ginkgo trees on campus are nothing short of spectacular, lighting up the grounds like big golden suns.  In the spirit of the season, I thought I’d bring my camera to campus today to capture the colors before they’re gone in a week or so.  I figured my blond hair already attracts enough attention, so obnoxiously snapping photos on my own college campus wouldn’t really do all that much more damage in the staring department.  After class this afternoon, I set off to [...]

At long last, the Halloween celebrations having finally finished.  What a weekend!  I couldn’t stand the idea of not dressing up as anything for Halloween, one of my favorite holidays, so I embarked on the seemingly impossible quest of tracking down a costume in Beijing.  Carrefour, a French hypermarket, had all of one costume for females – pirate wench.  One size fits all of course.  Well, one size didn’t quite fit all, and I ended up making a few alterations that fell out throughout the course of the weekend.  And [...]