http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Nutmeg/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Nutmeg en-us Tue, 29 Dec 2009 15:50:27 +0000 Tue, 29 Dec 2009 15:50:27 +0000 Hello everyone Once again it's been a while. I've now been back in the US for just over a week it feels like longer and I really need to finish this last update before I forget all the details So in my last post I left off right before my mother and I headed for Guilin.So we arrived early in the morning in Guilin and took a shuttle into town. After getting off the shuttle which didn't drop http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Guangxi/Guilin/blog-410626.html Hello everyone It's been awhile Sorry about that but I haven't done a lot of interesting things in the last couple of weeks. The last couple of weeks have been dedicated to doing end the semester projects and tests. But here's a quick note to sum up my last 2 weeks. Some recent Shanghai highlights include bowling gokarting and another trip to QiPu Road for cheap clothes. Also my friend Soph http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Shanghai/blog-402970.html Hello everyone Sorry it's been so long I've been quite busy since I got back from vacation a week and a half ago. Last week our first week back from vacation was fairly quiet but the looming threat of finals and papers has had everyone hear and myself scrambling to get things done. It's really crazy that I only have a week and a half of classes left. Where has the time gone Yesterday my ti http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Shanghai/blog-398505.html Yunnan Province is located in Southwest China about as far southwest as you can go before you hit Tibet India or Laos. Being bordered by so many different countries has led Yunnan to gain rightly so the reputation of being very diverse. Statistics vary but from what I've been toldread about 4050 of Yunnan's population belongs to ethnic minorities. Within Yunnan Province our group 6 peo http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Yunnan/Kunming/blog-395113.html I know the title for this entry is a little...bizarre but there really isn't any way to connect everything I'm about to talk about. I have a bit of a backlog of things I've done in the past two weeks and need to get them published before my Spring Break starts this Friday. Some of you may have noticed that the pictures in my previous entry are missing...I know about it. Travelblog.org as mu http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Shanghai/blog-392867.html 22823234782290965281Hi everyoneIt's been a while or it feels like it anyway. I haven't had too much to write about lately. We had midterms this past week so the past couple of weekends have been fairly quiet traveling limited to Shanghai. Now that it's Spring I've been able to play more volleyball than before. But pickup volleyball games here are a little different than at Umass. http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Shanghai/blog-389905.html Sorry about the delay everyone I know I said I'd have this second half of my trip typed up for you to enjoy a couple of days ago but I lied. I had to play catchup this week after missing classes Monday because of food poisoning. But I'm better now and it's the weekend here so on with the showAfter leaving Inner Mongolia Monday night 323 we arrived at 2 am in Xi'an Tuesday. We caught a f http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Shaanxi/Xi-an/blog-387216.html It's been a long week of traveling I've decided to split the week into more than one entry because I have so much to tell and 1000 photos to sift through. This entry is about my trip to Inner Mongolia.We the entire ACS CIEE group 20 people left Shanghai on Friday morning for Hohhot the capitol of Inner Mongolia not to be confused with Outer Mongolia. Inner Mongolia is part of China and http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Inner-Mongolia/Hohhot/blog-385531.html Why are you all dressed in green asked a curious Chinese student. Is it Arbor Day A good guessafter all trees are green. But no it's St. Patrick's Day. How do you explain what St. Patrick's Day is to someone who doesn't understand Well this is the conversation I had several times throughout the dayIt's an Irish holiday.So you're from IrelandNo we celebrate it in America.Oh. http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Shanghai/blog-383074.html I had a fairly quiet weekend this time 'around. I've been dealing with a nasty cold but thanks to my quiet weekend it's getting better. Now on with the story On Friday my friends and I took a trip to the Shanghai Planning Exhibition. Remember that picture of the blue gumbylike fellow Well he's the mascot. And the planning exhibition well it's the plans for the 'New Shanghai'...Part o http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Shanghai/blog-381898.html ...Because you're American. That's what my classmate was told by a cab driver who refused to give her and some friends a ride a week ago. I learned about her story today after I was telling her my own cab problems I experienced today. I must admit I've known that people here are not as friendly and outgoing toward foreigners as in Taiwan but I hadn't noticed until today how far people went t http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Shanghai/blog-379847.html Well here I am again with another Sunday morning wrapup of the past week This past week has been very busy I started classes last Monday. After switching around a lot of classes I finally have a schedule that will work and classes that hopefully I will like. As part of the CIEE program here we are assigned a private tutor a local student who we meet with for 2 hours per week. My tutor is v http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Shanghai/blog-377579.html As the title says it's Monday morning here. When could be a better time to blog and wrap up last week So I've been asked about my language skills and how they are improving here so far. Well I haven't started classes yet I start tomorrow so I haven't learned a lot of new Chinese yet. But I have learned how to use the Chinese I know. My listening skills have most definitely improved in the la http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Shanghai/blog-375700.html This week I've been fairly busy with orientation activities. CIEE has an extensive orientation program here. It's a weeklong process with different workshops everyday. Some are required some aren't. And we took a trip to downtown Shanghai yesterday. So far things have been going well in terms of settling in. On Monday I successfully bartered down a salesman for a cheap cell phone and sim card. http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Shanghai/blog-374187.html Here I am in Shangahi Whew it was a lot of work getting to where I am now. Where am I now you ask Well I've just moved into my permanant residence for the semester and I'm ecstatic to have internet. I've met my roommate who's really awesome and from North Carolina. The dorm we are staying in the international student dorm I believe is far better than the rest of the dorms and just got remo http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Shanghai/blog-373751.html First off I logged onto travelblog.com today and was pleasantly surprised to find that many of my pictures from older blog entries have been recovered. Awesome Because I don't have the time or energy to re upload them. Now all they need are captionsstay tuned.Today was the final day of classes which is hard to believe. I can remember writing my entry 'First Day of Classes' and wow does that s http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Taiwan/Taichung/blog-194981.html Well this entry is a little late but I finally have some down time to write. Last Saturday we took a day trip to Lu Gang. Lu Gang is about an hour away on the coast. Our first stop was a restarauntlike place where we used an imitation of oldfashioned riceclay playdough basically. But edible. and had arts and crafts time. The guy leading us through the clay modeling tried to help us creat http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Taiwan/Taichung/blog-193205.html Last week we took a trip to Kenting. Kenting is the very south of Taiwan. It's a 45 hour bus ride which meant we got to watch lots of pirated DVDsnew and old. The one's that stick out in my mind are Pan's labyrinth Harry Potter 5 and Transformers. We left bright and early Thursday morning class was canceled for us for Thursday and Friday. Arriving around noon we stopped for lunch. After lu http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Taiwan/Taichung/blog-190407.html Well I have a nice long entry written up for your viewing pleasure but it is trapped on my computer which has no internet yet. I don't think internet will be available to me until July 1st. I'm using a roommate's computer right now. So instead of my long entry which I will post as soon as I have internet I'll give you a summary.We met up with this amazing woman who by sheer coincidence was go http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Taiwan/Taichung/blog-174150.html Ok I'm standing in the library lobby typing this. Air conditioning is a blessing which you cannot fully appreciate until you come to Taiwan. Seriously you do not know the meaning of heat until you've been here. I just checked the weather for the first timeIt says that its 84 degrees here but feels like 94. I find this hard to believe as I feel sweat pouring off of me. The only comfort in this http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Taiwan/Taichung/Dajia/blog-174547.html