Almost Over :(

I can't believe it's been two weeks since my last blog post. Time here has been going so fast. I can't believe I leave China in less than two weeks. I feel like it was just last week that I got on an airplane to come here.

I've had a bit of bad luck in the past couple weeks so I've been a little distracted--in the past two weeks I've lost my camera and my room keys. I left my camera in a cab and another day my keys fell out of my purse and I didn't notice. And to top it off, someone stole my bike...

Luckily I was able to buy a new camera (which is now malfunctioning) and get new room keys, but it's just been one thing after another. I've tried to keep my head up though. Tomorrow I am going to try and bring back my camera and exchange it.

This is the last week of classes and exams start next week. Today was our last day of Chinese culture class and we turned in our final reports and my group gave a presentation on Chinese vs. American culture. I wrote my final report on Chinese education, I've found the differences between Chinese and American education to be very interesting. I've posted our powerpoint below and if you're interested you can access my final report here.

I realized I haven't really talked much about my classes here, only our trips. Classes here are pretty different from UM. The Chinese students begin to arrive about 20-30 minutes before class starts in order to get front row seats. I should take a picture of our circuits class, it's a sea of heads of black hair and then our group from UM. The class is actually pretty noisy while the professor is speaking; I've been told that it is because the students do not understand English all that well so they verify what he is saying with their neighbors. Also, they hardly ever ask questions in class and wait until after class or during the break. The professor always has a crowd around him during those times.

The lab component of the class is taught in Chinese; we have translators that help us complete the labs. I've found the labs to be not very useful and I can't say I've learned a whole lot. The schedule of the labs does not line up well with what we are learning in class so I don't always understand what we are doing. I've been told though that the lab component is significantly easier here than at UM, which I am greatful for. I've had two exams for circuits already and I've done fairly well... my final for circuits is next Tuesday and Chinese language is Monday so this Sunday is going to be dedicated to studying!

Chinese language is pretty laid-back, like culture. Language usually consists of practicing a few key phrases, and weekly vocab quizzes.

I want to include a few pictures from our trips the past couple weeks, all of them are up on my picassa though. Two weekends ago we went to Zhujijiao, which is considered the 'Venice' of China. There was a stream that ran down the main road of the town, with lots of pretty gardens. We had a tour guide who referred to our group almost 50 times as his "dear friends." Someone needed to tell him how to properly get a group's attention.

This is the bridge you first come to upon entering the city. The trees are growing out of the rocks of the bridge, no one really understands how they stay alive without any soil.

We went on a boat ride through one of the canals.

This is a sign at KFC, I'm not sure if you can really read it but it says "Food Safety Inspection Notification"... they recieved a fair (not excellent or fail). Haha.

We had our farewell party this afternoon. I never really realized how much I missed American food--they had fries with ketchup, burgers, coleslaw... it was the best thing I've eaten in a long time and we all pigged out. They had a slide show with a bunch of pictures from the trip and watching it really made me realize how much fun I've had these past couple weeks despite my recent loses. I almost teared up during it thinking about leaving in a week and a half. I'm torn in how I feel about going home. On one hand I'm excited to see my friends and family from home and go to the beach. Living in St. Joe really makes me take the beach for granted; it doesn't seem like summer yet because I haven't been to the beach. On the other hand I will miss my friends here, the cheap prices, going out on the weekends, and all the new experiences.

I'll write again before I leave next Tuesday. Check back.

Katie

P.S. I apologize if the formatting of this is a little messed up... apparently blogging is a threat to the Chinese government. I have to use a proxy to access this site so sometimes the formatting of the blog isn't right.

Back from Beijing

Hey everyone,

Sorry I haven't updated quicker since Beijing, this week has been crazy. I've had two mid-terms, homework, and lab this week.

Beijing was so fun! It was a packed 4 days of sightseeing and walking, with very little sleeping. I'm pretty sure I slept 21 hours over 4 nights. I put up the best pictures on here but I made a picassa where I am uploading all my pictures. You can see them all here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/katiebevier

We left on Wednesday night, using every form of transportation possible. We took a taxi to the metro to a train (maglev) to a plane to a bus. Haha. We took the maglev from the Shanghai subway to the airport. The ride was only about 8 minutes long. It went 300 km/hr (about 180 mph!) and we weren't even on the fastest train. The fastest one goes 450 km/hr.

Once we got to the airport we took a bus to a location that was supposed to be close to our hostel (or so it seemed on the map...) but I'm pretty sure the bus dropped off in a different location so we walked for about an hour and a half at 2:00 AM to find our hostel. We were walking down sketchy alleys trying to find it and finally we did on one of the alleys. Luckily in the morning the alley was nearly not as sketchy.

Our first day in Beijing we went to The Forbidden City and the Temple of Heaven. The forbidden city had lots of temples and alleys. We learned in culture class that the forbidden city in chinese directly translates to 'the purple forbidden city.' There wasn't any purple though, everything was mostly just yellow and red. The Temple of Heaven had lots of temples too but was less crowded. Below is a picture of us in front of Tienanmen Square.

Inside The Forbidden City, and the Temple of Heaven.

Friday we went to the Great Wall at Simatai. The Great Wall is literally the coolest thing I have ever seen in my life. The views from the top were amazing and you could see it streching forever into the distance. We climbed one side until they wouldn't let us go any farther and then we went the other way, where the wall was not as restored. Then we took a zipline to the bottom.

Everyone at the top.

After the Great Wall we stopped in a tea shop next door to our hotel and the owners made us some tea. They let us try like 10 different kinds and kept making pot after pot for us. They even kept the store open an hour late while they were serving us the tea. It was really nice, and of course I had to buy some tea afterwards. I got lychee black tea. The guy in the white shirt in this picture was the one making us the tea.

The next day we went to the Summer Palace, which was where the emperors would go for vacation. It was really pretty with a big lake in the middle but required lots of walking (which we were not too pleased about because we were sore from the Great Wall). There were also lots of temples and shrines there too.

In the afternoon we stopped at the Olympic village and saw the bird's nest and the water cube.

Saturday we went to the Lama Temple. I liked the lama temple a lot. There was insense burning everywhere as offerings so it smelled really good. There was also a huge buddha carving 18 m (60 feet) tall that was so cool. It was carved from a single piece of wood, which was unreal. The thing had to be about 20 feet in diameter at the bottom. This is a picture of a woman making an offering to one of the buddhas.When we got home we were exhausted, but the trip was definitely worth it. Seeing the Great Wall was definitely my favorite part and a once in a lifetime experience I will never forget.

Be sure to check out my picassa for all the pictures.

Check back soon!

Katie