For that last Silk Road entry, I'd been writing those thoughts and experiences down on buses, hotel desks, night train windowsills, in a notebook as they happened to me, as they were fresh in my mind. As for the last few days of the trip, I knew they would be too busy for that, so I decided to go out and experience the pair of Chinese metropolis cities, Shanghai & Hong Kong, for what they were and worry about putting it into words later. Well, coming back home is making me face a lot of those "worry about it until later" [View Full Entry]

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Part 2: Silk Road PREVIOUS WEEK IN REVIEW… (listening to: King Tubby) Tuesday Our Final Exam format was revealed, and CHI 201 portfolio due. Not too stressed about the course any longer now that all major projects are turned in; Final looks manageable especially since it’s all I have to focus on. Had the most delicious BaoZi for breakfast this morning—shredded carrot w/egg & potato. Most surprising thing about Chinese cuisine this trip has been the often and exceptional use of eggs. Past few days have been such a blur that I [View Full Entry]

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It might be merely that they were too used to inflexible fact and far too unused to pliable people. --Issac Asimov, "Foundation" "Now I really don't know what to do. It's very difficult to decide such things because there's no one you can talk to; no one understands. You have to go through it alone, and sometimes you choose wrong." --Philip Dick, "Flow My Tears the Policeman Said" "I'd rather be a little spacey than never trip." --Melissa Button written 7/4/08 10:15 a.m. Hey everyone, these next three weeks are going to be some of the most hectic/ [View Full Entry]

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listening to: Cecil Taylor, The Beatles While not the focus of the trip, this country’s diet is pretty wild and worth a good story or two. I’ve found some delicious and disgusting and sometimes just confusing things here in China, and I’ll share a few right now. I love Baozi’s and Zhunzi’s…a Baozi is a steamed Chinese dumpling, pretty staple, but they’re better here. A zhunzi is filled and sized similarly, but is made of sticky glutinous rice on the outside and wrapped up in bamboo leaf after (I may have explained these before during the fe [View Full Entry]

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It's been a week since I posted anything, and it's been a jam-packed 7 days. Got a lot of creative writing/reflection/picture-taking done too, but don't have time to include that here. I'll post a link to pics, and just ask if you wanna know more about the personal writing efforts. 9 p.m. an already tired so let's get this started... RECAP written on bus 6/27...Late Monday currently listening to: Starlight Mints Drum & Bell Towers were interesting & informative. Background: During the day, the Chinese would play the 24 accompanying drums and large 25th main drum [View Full Entry]

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This next week is gonna be packed so a quick bullet -style rundown of the past few days, otherwise they'd be lost in the hiatus. Rest of Thursday was us running around and forming study groups and trying to prepare for test. I also woke up about 5:30 next morning to study on my own (i just study better when i first wake up). Test was hard b/c a different teacher prepared it so the format was new. However i hope for the best. Week two test was a 90% w/B+ on the speaking. Besides test Friday was pretty chill, took [View Full Entry]

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"You're been spending your time/Thinking about why you think so much/If there was ever a time/now would be time to see your time is limited "Everybody here is a cloud/And everybody will evaporate since/You came up from the ground/From a million little pieces, have you found where your place is?" --Cloud Cult 6/13 12:15PM beginning of bus ride Every place is the same place until you force yr insides to change Vaporize the parts that try to change things Killyrself so identity can re-burst peeking newborn Cocoon children finally running naked around new place All the city si [View Full Entry]

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Group was going on another art museum/tea house excursion, Wes and & (as well as about a dozen other students) just said forget it and stayed back, as these sort of smaller afternoon trips are optional. I really needed to do laundry haha, and everyone's backed up on studying, didn't wanna have to choose between the two when I got back tonight. Anyways also got a chance to get all my pictures in one accessible place. http://s294.photobucket.com/albums/mm93/sterlingsin/ on the lefthand side is a link that says "Great Wall" which will take you to some other pictures, follow these links [View Full Entry]

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Hey everyone, I've had a very busy week and am just now getting a chance to update this. It's about 10:30PM here and we're leaving at 9 tomorrow morning to visit Tianenman Square and Silk Market, so i'll finish the journal tomorrow probably just because I'm exhausted. Right now, I'll just write out a brief bit about what my first several days on the other side of the world have been like, and then soon I'll post all my 100's of photos that I've taken this past week in a seperate journal. You know, let the pictures speak for themselves. But [View Full Entry]

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Just now got my internet up and running...no wireless in rooms so I had to buy an ethernet cable from market in middle of campus (this campus is literally the size of a small enclosed city--you could live here exclusively and comfortably for years. But I've been keeping track of my thoughts via good old-fashioned pen and notebook past couple days, so here goes entry #1, transcribed and in-bulk... 5/30/08 app. 5:30 a.m. Arizona time, during HongKong redeye Interesting day of travel so far. Met up w/group immediately @ Sky Harbor, quickest most painless flight of my life o [View Full Entry]

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