Dear Blog readers: I have not written in quite a while, the reason being that I have been home visiting friends and family. More blog entries are forthcoming as I am back in Lithuania and have lots of exciting travels planned for this summer. Here is, in brief, my plans: -I will be here in Lithuania for a month and a half staying with Viktorija and her family, going to baseball practices, working on a project that will bring two Lithuanian youngsters to Durham to spend June and July living with host families and playing baseball. -During March and April I [View Full Entry]

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For a month straight I was teaching english classes on both Saturdays and Sundays, knocking out any possibility of taking excursions in and around Beijing. Finally on my first free weekend we hired a van and driver for the day and headed North out of the city and into the mountains surrounding Beijing. We were equipped with a book called 'Hiking around Beijing,' a pocket hikers' manual that was published about six years ago with fifty suggested hiking routes of varying difficulty, each with a cute little hand-drawn map with it. After scrutinizing over every hike in the book, we decided [View Full Entry]

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My fourth (I think) weekend here in Beijing I travelled south with Liu Lan's University of California Education Abroad Program. We spent two days visiting the mountainous region of Wuyishan, and then travelled by overnight train to Xiamen, the southernmost coastal city in China. Both were incredibly beautiful places, and a refreshing change of pace from Beijing's hustle and bustle, millions of people (though we were met by a new mass of people--tourists--in both Wuyishan and Xiamen), and pollution! Here are a few photos from the trip. [View Full Entry]

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During my two months here in Beijing, I have been teaching english at John's english school, 'New Channel School'. I teach four times per week, in a program they call 'English Club'. It is essentially a course offered three times per day, every day, and each class focuses on a different topic (for example, 'hobbies' or 'politics') with the goal being to learn the vocabulary for the given topic and to generally help the students become more comfortable and confident with their spoken english. It is a drop-in course, which means that the students pre-pay for a membership (1 month, 3 [View Full Entry]

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Riding the bus On my bus ride home the other day we were stopped by a train crossing the road. It was a cargo train carrying coal, but loaded up with lots of folks traveling as passengers. There were workers, men in suits with briefcases, streetsellers with their goods in a big bundle or canvas bag, all just sitting or squatting atop the heaps of coal. Maybe two dozen people spread over several train cars. It is possible that the men in suits were not business men. Many men, of all occupations and social classes, wear slacks, dress shoes and sports [View Full Entry]

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Before you go and visit the Tian'anmen Square or The Forbidden City, before you venture out to see the Great Wall, or go to the Temple of Heaven or Bei Hai Park or Tiantan Square, First go to the nearest barber shop and get a haircut. It is a truly unique experience. On Sunday, my first Sunday in Beijing, I decided that it was time for me to get a haircut. I have lived with long hair (relatively long hair) for most of the summer and I've really liked it. But now it was time--I had moved on to another part [View Full Entry]

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My first full weekend in Beijing I took a 12-hour overnight sleeper train Xi’an. John took a flight the same night traveling to give a promotional lecture for two new ‘New Channel’ schools being opened out side of Beijing. The second lecture was in Xi'an. Though it does not come close to the size of Beijing, Xi'an is still a very big city with about 6-8 million people. It served as the Capitol of China for a long period. Much of Modern Xi'an is still enclosed within the City Wall and surrounding moat; it is one of the only such city [View Full Entry]

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When I first arrived in Beijing I had about 550 Euros, (which is around 800 US dollars and 6,000 RMB). This was to get me through two months of living and traveling in China, pay my credit card bill (about $300 dollars’ worth of skype credit and a plane ticket), and buy my flight home to NC. Not to mention needing money to buy xmas presents for friends, family, etc…… needless to say it was not going to be enough, and I needed to get some kind of work to make ends meet. I had been banking on the fact that [View Full Entry]

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Written October 11: As I write this latest blog entry, I am sitting in my friend Tommy's flat in Freiburg. I am only passing through Freiburg--a short stop on the way to Beijing, China, to visit my brother and his wife and to stay with them for a few months. This is my second time 'passing through' Freiburg; both times I have visited this place I have been in a place of transition, of travelling from one place to the next, of having no real responsibilities or obligations during my time here. In fact it is a great place as a [View Full Entry]

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September: I was on the hill for game 1 of the Lithuanian finals. The weather was horrible--lots of wind, lots of rain, very cold. Kaunas stadium can sometimes give you the feeling that you are on top of the world. The clouds are right above you, there are few trees around, not much protection from the weather--in short, you feel like you are in the clouds, on a mountain summit perhaps. The rain stopped play numerous times throughout the day, and it is in fact a miracle that we completed the game. Twice we ran out onto the field ready to [View Full Entry]

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