Detroit: Detroit was my first stop in a whizz around the world on this crazy abroad program I am doing this Semester. Detroit was a real trip. I came in with so many negative expectations from the media--that Detroit was falling to pieces because of the crashing auto-industry, that everyone was trying to get out, that racial tensions were searing as the black inner city continued to decay, that there was no hope for Detroit--that the best thing to do would be to give up on the city and walk out. While many of my expectations were confirmed (Detroit is a [View Full Entry]

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Hey everyone! This is a follow up on my Beijing blog (#3) that I didn’t finish… At one end of Tiananmen Square is the main entrance to the Forbidden City boasting a large portrait of Mao Zedong over the central gate (very odd…Mao still seems to be worshipped to some extent here, despite the havoc he wreaked on the country with his cultural revolution and other extreme policies). The Forbidden City is literally a city of ancient building clustered at the heart of Beijing. It is thus named because, for five hundred years during the Ming and Qing dynasties, it was [View Full Entry]

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My sister (aka my other half) has arrived! And she wasn’t quarantined for a week because of the paranoia about swine flu! A day later the whole family took off for a six day trip to Huangshan Mountain, famed as the most beautiful mountain in China. We boarded an overnight train, and 15 hours later we arrived in Huangshan city. The train was great! I love overnighters—they a so compact and cosy and we had tea and crackers and fruit and Ramen Noodles and it was lovely! I fell sound asleep listening to the steady rhythm of the train sweeping across [View Full Entry]

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Spiderman: So I’m looking out the window of our seventh story apartment just gazing at the bustling city; the men pulling rickshaws loaded with 50 or more wicker-chairs, or slowly, laboriously pedaling bicycles with impossibly heavy loads. These biker-movers are incredible—they tow carts that have disappeared under layers of stuff; teetering stacks of tires, towers of stuffed teddy-bears, sheets of cardboard, explosions of water-bottles that have been crammed together and are sticking out every which way so that it looks like the biker is towing a huge plastic porcupine. I was [View Full Entry]

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Hey everyone!! Falling behind on my blog a little, but it has been a great past two weeks. First we took a trip to Beijing where we stayed 3 full days and got to see so much! Beijing is a completely different city than Shanghai, with a totally different atmosphere. It is centered around huge historical monuments such as the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square, and spreads in a grid-like circular pattern away from this core. It is an odd mix of old and new—the Shanghai-like modern sky scrapers are sprouting from a field of old crickety neighborhoods full of dumpling [View Full Entry]

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My second week in Shanghai has been chock full of dancing. I live, breath, sleep, and eat thinking about what I am learning and how fantastic it has all been. It all began Monday night when I decided to check out this purported salsa/latin dance club that I found online (went alone so I wouldn’t be tied to anyone and could dance with whomever I choose;). I was curious about salsa in Shanghai…and slightly skeptical that the Chinese would be skilled in Latin dancing. But when I got there it was like Havana—the dancers were incredible, spinning and weaving around and [View Full Entry]

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Hey everyone!! Hope everything is well! So I will be keeping a blog about my experiences in China. I am here for two months this summer—It is pretty amazing and I just want to keep in touch, share, and record as much as possible for you guys. I wish I could bring everyone here! So the flight took 15 hours instead of 12 because Russia wouldn’t give us air rights to fly over their country—a**holes. When we landed, they wouldn’t let us off the plane until these Chinese Officials—decked out in what looked like space-suits—boarded and took everyone’s temp [View Full Entry]

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