My last trip in China was to Hong Kong. I left for Hong Kong right after my last final on Saturday 22nd and then jumped on a plane. I arrived in Hong Kong late and caught the last bus from Hong Kong island to my hostel on Nathan Road. My Hong Kong hostel was a VERY small single person room. My first day in Hong Kong had a completely different feel compared to my other trips. Travelling alone felt different but I was also surprised how different Hong Kong was compared to China. The city was much more international compared to [View Full Entry]

---

---

My last two entries in this blog have been entered after the study abroad program as I was busy with finals at the end of the program. During the program we had one 5 day break which I used to go to Beijing. Although we initially planned on taking the hard sleeper train for some reason they were only running soft sleepers and it was actually cheaper to fly to Beijing. We arrived late on Thursday July 2nd and stayed in a international youth hostel for about 6USD a night per person. The first day we woke up early to join [View Full Entry]

---

---

This past trip to Xian was during our last 3 day weekend and also means that I am more than halfway through my summer program. After visiting the Shanghai Museum on Thursday afternoon we caught a 7:00 sleeper train to Xian. The train ride took 14 hrs and we arrived around 10:30am on Friday in Xian. After dropping bags off at the hotel we took a bus to see the famous Terracotta warriors. Over 2,200 years old, the life-size pottery figures were made to guard the tomb of Qin Shi Huangdi, the first Emperor to unify China. He enlisted over 70,000 [View Full Entry]

---

---

This past weekend was relatively low key since I have midterms coming up. On Friday I went to Zhujiajiao, a historic water town dating back to the 14th century, and on Saturday I spent all day in Hangzhou. Hangzhou is the other place mentioned in the Chinese saying "Above is heaven, below is Hangzhou and Suzhou" which I mentioned in an earlier entry. It is most famous for West Lake which covers 3 square miles and has been a long time inspiration for artists. For this entry I also decided to share some anecdotes from China. Honking A honk in the [View Full Entry]

---

---

Xuijiahui has become familiar and people have found their favorite places to go for restaurants, cafes, bakeries, xiao long bao. This past week in cooking we made a delicious sweet and sour chicken that I definitely plant to make at home. On Thursday night the SJTU students threw a welcoming party for us at the Minhang campus, the main SJTU campus (I am at Xinhui). We sang the Ramblin Wreck song and put on a couple other performances; including a Backstreet boys song (which they all knew) and one of us even break danced. They provided most of the entertainment with [View Full Entry]

---

---

On Thursday I went to a Shanghai Jiao Tong University volunteer house to celebrate the traditional dragon boat festival. The festival commemerates the Chinese poet Qu Yuan who drowned himself. According to the story, all the villagers threw rice cakes into the river to keep the fish from eating the poet's body. Today the sticky rice cakes, wrapped in bamboo leaves and filled with pork or red beans, are served at the Dragon Boat Festival. We went to the apartment to talk, have traditional tea, and have snacks before leaving for a traditional Chinese restaurant. Traditional style means ther [View Full Entry]

---

---

On Saturday I had to wake up at 8am for the GT Shanghai Overview tour. Two tour buses transported us between all the events for the day since public transportation would have been too hard for that many people. The first stop was the Shanghai Urban Exhibition Museum. This museum laid out the future plans for the expansion of Shanghai. The exhibit also included an impressive full scale model of the city. After that we that we took the Bund sightseeing tunnel to cross underneath the Huangpu River to the base of the Oriental Pearl TV tower. The tunnel included a [View Full Entry]

---

---

This past week has been very busy with class and orientations. I also had my first Chinese cooking class where we made a very spicy beef tofu dish. It was delicious but the first cooking class was crowded and the kitchen was small so we cooked in groups of 4. Next week I should have a better chance for some hands on cooking since a large number of people decided to drop out of the cooking class. On Thursday one of the SJTU volunteers called Scott in our group and offered to take us to the Xuijiahui park, the public park [View Full Entry]

---

---

On Sunday, a group of us went down to the Bund, which is probably the most recognizable part of Shanghai. The Bund is a walkway that runs along the western bank of the Huangpu River. From the Bund you can see Shanghai's world famous skyline which is on the opposite bank of the river. We used the subway for the first time to travel from the southwestern part, where SJTU is located, to the East Nanjing Road. We rode two different lines to get to our final destination. The metro system is the cleanest I have ever seen. Both lines seem [View Full Entry]

---

---

I arrived in Shanghai at 11:00pm on Friday night but the language barrier became apparent the moment I stepped on the airplane in Atlanta. I flew Korean Air and all the flight attendants were korean with limited english. The flight took about 15 hrs to Seoul, Korea where we had a 2 hr layover before a 2 hr plane ride to Shanghai. I was served 4 meals over the two flights but I gave up asking what the menu choices were after the second meal. When we arrived in Shanghai some grad students from SJTU were supposed to meet us but [View Full Entry]

---

---