Tonight is my last night in Tianjin because tomorrow I'm taking an early bus to Beijing, and from there I'm flying to Tokyo in the early afternoon. I'm not sure when I'm getting back from Tokyo, actually, but I'll most definitely be back by the 21st. You see, I was going to stay there until the 20th, but one of my wisdom teeth has decided that now, RIGHT NOW is the perfect time to start pushing its way through the gum, so I need to get home sooner. I don't want to buy a new ticket home if I don't have [View Full Entry]

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What does an American look like? As an American, I don't really think about this because, well... I think we look like every one, but Chinese people seem to give this a lot more thought. From what I gather, when Chinese people think of Americans, they think of tall, pale white people. Many Chinese imagine that all Americans have light colored hair, light colored eyes, and pointy noses, so when they look at me, they say things like, "But you don't look American!" I've actually had my "American-ness" called into question quite a few times since I've been here. Most of [View Full Entry]

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According to the calendar on my wall, I have 17 days left in China. Three more weeks till I come home! Adjusting will be strange... at first I will wake up on my Mom's couch surprised that I'm not in Tianjin. Maybe this will happen a few times, and then after a while it while all seem like a dream, like none of this ever happened at all. Then I'll look over and see some small trinket which will remind me that his trip actually did happen, much like the little' boy's bell in the Polar Express. In my case, it [View Full Entry]

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I never made it to the sand dunes or grasslands of Inner Mongolia, but the capital city of Hohhot was extremely interesting. We set off on a Friday night for a location further north, but by the time we had bought our tickets, all of the beds had been sold out, and only seats were left. We spent the whole night and the rest of the next day sitting in seats that couldn't recline on a crowded train as it wound through the country side of China (although there were some pretty areas, that last part might sound much more majestic [View Full Entry]

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So we have a ten day "field trip" that starts today (officially tomorrow) where we the students are supposed to choose some place to go (preferably outside of Tianjin) to "study" some aspect of Chinese culture. I am traveling in a group of four people. We were originally planning on going to Sichuan, but the train tickets leaving from both Tianjin and Beijing to Chengdu on the dates we wanted to leave were sold out. Change of plan - now we're going to the autonomous region of Inner Mongolia, not to be confused with the country of Mongolia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inner_Mongolia I' [View Full Entry]

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This weekend was the best! I went traveling with my room mate (Demi), and two other guys from our program (Sam and Sheldon). They were really great! Every one was so laid back and down to earth; it was a huge relief. Our first stop was Taishan mountain in Shandong province. As the legend goes, in ancient times there lived a man who kept growing and growing and growing. Eventually after some thousands of years he died from exhaustion and fell to the earth. His arms, legs and head formed five mountains of which Taishan. The mountain formed from his head [View Full Entry]

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We have a long weekend coming up, so this weekend three other people and I are leaving Tianjin to go hiking in Shandong. I'm really excited to get out of the city, but I ran into trouble when I went shopping for more suitable shoes today. As it turns out, my feet are half a size bigger than the biggest women's size that is commonly available in China. My feet are a US size 8.5, but the largest shoe size available in most women's shoe departments is an 8. I was even chased out of one woman's shoe store! She just [View Full Entry]

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Beijing was a lot of fun! The city was amazing; there was so much to see that a weekend just wasn’t enough. The city was everything that a bustling metropolis should be; there were all kinds of shops, sights, scenes, and restaurants. I was really impressed, so I plan on going back on another weekend to see more. Maybe I’ll bring my computer with me next time so I can write about my experiences every evening. It’s hard to recall two days worth of sights and actions in a lot of detail, especially about specific points. That kind of blog would [View Full Entry]

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It seems to me that almost everything in Tianjin is either behind walls or gates and the windows are all barred, even the windows on the upper levels of apartment complexes. Well, maybe not everything, but a lot of places are. Furthermore, there are security guards every where who are working for all types of businesses. My own campus is a gated community. There are three entry points at which one or two guards are posted. Once it gets dark, two of the gates are closed and locked, and only the main gate remains open. Eventually however, even the main gate [View Full Entry]

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The past week has been very uneventful for the most part. I wake up, I go to school, classes let out, I meet my language tutor, I study, I converse with my classmates, and then I sleep. We can't do much during the week; we don't have the time. Instead we all wait for the weekends to have our fun. Yes, there are a lot of amusing moments through out the day, but I'm not sure I can capture them in writing very well, so here are some disjointed excerpts from the past few days. Now, each set of room mates [View Full Entry]

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