Chinese People and Tea

July 19, 2011

Just a quick update today. Our Cleveland group all went out last night and we walked around the town together. Apparently people in china have absolutely no problem with staring because nearly every head is turned toward us. And then when you look back at them they don't even blink they just watch you as they walk past you. We stopped at the mall during our walk yesterday. I went into a tea shop, and the lady sat me down and made me some tea. Our whole conversation had been in Chinese and then after about 3 minutes she asked something that i didn't know how to answer so i said "dui bu qi. wo zhong wen shuo de bu hao." (im sorry. i speak chinese poorly.) And then she got this surprised look on her face and said "oh english? Are you american?!?" And i thought, umm obviously! So that was neat. After your first year you actually know a lot of Chinese! You just dont always use "zhe shi sheme?" (what is this?) when your talking about school supplies. You have to mix what you learn together! "Zhe shi sheme?" (what is this?) "Zhe shi lǜcha." (this is green tea). Anyways, that's it from me today!

Culture Street and Food Street

July 18, 2011

Sorry that i didn't get to post yesterday! The trip has gotten extremely better from the first day! (I didn't show it in the first blog post, but the first day absolutely sucked! It was culture shock and everybody was cranky from our 52 hour day filled with flights and buses. We would all see one tiny thing that didn't fit our fancy and we would flip. And when everyone around you is complaining it just makes life even more annoying. i mean imagine it! Your on the other side of the world with 26 kids you don't know and they're all complaining) I think everyone has just been forced to get used to it so now we don't even notice it. Like the weird shower! Yesterday after lunch we traveled to ancient culture street and food street. Both were very cool. Ancient culture street was like a long street lined with shops, and food street is like an indoor food market. There's groups here from Cleveland, New York, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky. I played soccer last night with 4 other people (1 OH, 2 NY, and 1 KY) Everyone is so nice, and we all get along so well. When you're thrown into a foreign country and the only people you have to rely on are each other, its surprising how close everyone becomes.

Welcome to China!

July 16, 2011

Before i talk about today allow me to explain a little bit about the flight. Our flight itinerary showed that it would be 36 hours from when we left Cleveland to when we arrived in Beijing. Now that's not total flight time, that's including our stops in Detroit and Tokyo (we had layovers in both). Our longest flight (Detroit to Tokyo) was only 13 hours. All of our flights went by smoothly except for our final flight from Tokyo to Beijing. I believe it was only supposed to be 4 hours but it ended up being 8. The story: It was nighttime, everyone was tired, and we all were beginning to wonder why this flight seemed so long! Just after the thought crossed my mind, our captain  announced that we had been circling over Beijing for some time now because there was a terrible storm going on. He then said that obviously we don't have enough fuel to circle around Beijing forever so we will turn around and land in South Korea.  So that was that, we flew nearly half way back to Tokyo and landed in South Korea. In South Korea we all sat on the plane for an hour and then took back off and landed smoothly in Beijing.

We landed in Beijing at 2 A.M. this morning. Julia and i stepped out of the plane and into the tunnel that lead to the terminal together. That moment was huge. My thoughts were 'Wow, we're actually in China'. We had been looking forward to this trip since last school year, and we were actually here. We were in China!

We left the airport on a bus and drove the two hour trip to our boarding school in Tianjin. When we got off the bus at our school nobody was talking about the long flights or how great it was to be here. We all spent about five minutes looking into the sky and asking, "Is that the sun?" The sun here is just a pale orange circle in the sky. You can stare into it without blinking or squinting. Its really sad actually.

Our dorm rooms are not bad. There are two beds per room. One thing that surprised us all was the showers. The showers aren't separated by a curtain or door, in fact they don't even have their own tub or floor. The shower is just a nozzle near the ceiling that sprays water over the toilet and onto the bathroom floor (flooding our dorm room in the process). Breakfast this morning was dumplings and bread. I have to go to my language class now so that's it from me today!

My Daily Blog

Hello everyone! My China trip is now over, and i can easily say that it was the best experience of my life! Everything about it was just amazing! Sadly, while i was in China i could not post on my blog because it was blocked. I have decided though that by combining all of the emails i sent out and adding more from my memory, i will make a blog post for nearly each day of my trip. I'll share it all with you soon!

Tianjin Experimental High School

Here are some pics of the school i'll be staying at... 19 days!

First Post!

I'm starting this blog as a way to keep in touch with family and friends while on my trip to China! Here's a basic overview of my trip:
The trip is through the Confucius Institute at Cleveland State University. My classmate, Julia, and I were both accepted into the program, and are very excited. We depart from Cleveland on July 15, and the trip is two weeks long. The cities we will be staying in are Tianjin and Beijing.
I'll post again as July 15 nears, and throughout the trip.
24 more days!