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Published: March 1st 2009
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Well, here I am again with another Sunday morning wrap-up of the past week! This past week has been very busy! I started classes last Monday. After switching around a lot of classes, I finally have a schedule that will work and classes that hopefully I will like. As part of the CIEE program here, we are assigned a private tutor (a local student) who we meet with for 2 hours per week. My tutor is very nice. He's a freshman from Si Chuan, and on our second meeting I got the honor of giving him an English name. Out of the names I mentioned, he likes Daniel the best, so my tutor's name is Daniel.
On Thursday night, my CIEE group (ACS, with 15 or so students) went on a weekend trip to 三青山(San Qing Mountain). So Thursday, we took an overnight train to the Jiangxi province. It's actually not that far, but the train had a numerous amount of stops. Now, Chinese trains had 4 available ticketing options. The first is hard seat (the cheapest). Next is soft seat. Then comes the hard sleeper and soft sleeper. Soft sleeper is the most expensive. We took the hard sleeper
train, which, after sleeping on the mattresses we have in the dorms for 2 weeks, the hard sleeper was perfectly comfortable. Albeit, a little cramped. There's 3 levels of bunks, bottom, middle, and top. The top (where I was the first night) is seemingly the safest in terms of random people trying to take your stuff. It's about 10 feet off the ground and hard to access. But, the downside is the ceiling is low, and it's hard to access for thieves and passengers alike. In general though, the train is comfortable enough for a long journey if necessary.
On Friday morning, we arrived around 10:30. We went to some historic villages, which were very picturesque. I've got some good pictures from those. But the backdrop to all of my photos is rain. Friday was somewhat miserable because my feet were squishing and squashing for several hours. My umbrella even started to leak out of protest to too much rain. When we got to our hotel Friday night, we all made use of the complimentary hair dryers to dry out our shoes and socks. I also made a great investment in rain boots from a nearby store...Probably the best
30 kuai ($5) I've spent here...minus the faux fur.
Saturday we went to San Qing Mountain. Again, rain. Off and on all day. I had to figure out how to juggle my new digital camera (Canon Rebel XL) and hold the umbrella. The pictures came out ok considering the conditions, I think. The mountain is also well-known for its misty nature. I read online that it's covered in mist for 200 days of the year. Saturday was no exception.
We spent 5-6 hours up on the mountain. It was a little disconcerting to pass older Chinese folk who weren't showing any signs of fatigue. We definitely were. At the end of the trip I could barely stand. So, to remedy that, our entire group went to a massage parlor, where apparently, they just keep masseuses in the closet. Because 15 able-bodied masseuses showed up to give all of our feet a little TLC. Actually, a lot of TLC. 60 kuai (less than $10) for 70 minutes of relaxation after a wet, soggy day was heaven.
We caught the 10:30 pm train back to Shanghai, which was a lot shorter this time. It dumped us off in Shanghai
at 5:10, and I woke up at 4:30 when they turned the lights on. Now here I am, 4 hours later writing this. I've got a
lot of homework and studying to do today, so I'm gonna end here. I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking.
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Hi Meg,Great pictures in spite of the rain.I especially like where you popped up so unexpectedly.The mist looks so thick that it seems you could just keep walking the path right out onto them.Maybe you can take MOM there in June(if the rain has stopped).Get some rest.