Returned to good old Beijing yesterday. It feels good to be back! Traveling is amazing but its nice to know I will sleep in the same bed more than two nights in a row. Unfortunately Beijing welcomed us back with some terrible smog. I guess it hasn't rained here in awhile, which means bad pollution. The average temperature while we were gone was also 40 degrees Celsius which is like 103 degrees Fahrenheit. From what I have heard from home the weather seems pretty similar.
I only have 3 and a half more weeks of class, which is exciting/terrifying. I feel like there is still so much more to see and do.
The study tour was an amazing experience. We first went to Chengdu which is basically an up and coming city in China. It had such a different feel than Beijing, way less foreigners, much cleaner. There we visited some museums, I got to see some ancient relics and an archaeological dig that I studied this past semester in my Art of China class I took! We visited the Chengdu Panda Research Center and got to be interns for a day! We got to clean out Panda cages, FEED the pandas and be super close to them! It was really cool, they are ridiculously lazy and cute.
Then it was off to the country! We stayed in a small village most of the time called Huangcun. It was very quaint and a big difference from city life. We stayed in family courtyard inns and mostly just toured the local historic spots. We went for an overnight trip to Huangshan (Yellow Mountain) which is one of the most BEAUTIFUL mountains in the world. Its were they filmed Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. The mountains are so different from the East coast here. They are so ragged and all around you are shear cliff faces with these crazy trees popping out of the cracks. It rained pretty much the whole time, but it didn't ruin anything, we still got some great pictures. I definitely want to return there though, I think there is so much more to explore.
Then we went to Shanghai! Talk about culture shock from the country to HUGE city! Shanghai basically feels like you're in a US city, like New York. Its very westernized, its filled with mostly western stores. I had some Starbucks while I was there, first decent coffee since I got here! We visited the Shanghai World Financial Center, one of the tallest buildings in the world, which was slightly terrifying but a great view! The last day we checked out the World Expo which was really interesting but SO CROWDED. I got to see the Norway, Russia and US pavilions. Then we took a night SLEEPER train back. It was so cool, I got to sleep in a bunk bed on a train! Its the simply things that amuse me :D
Well its class time for me, but I will try to post some pictures of the tour later!
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