Beijing!

Hello everybody,

Its Monday again.  So that means another blog post! Yay! And this week was filled with many adventures, most notably, a trip to Beijing.  The capital of China.  To begin with a recap from last week, the Tai Chi thing I was supposed to go to didn't happen.  The people I was going with never showed up, so I decided to go for a 2.5 mile run instead, so the entire evening wasn't wasted.  Also, according to the lady working the office here, the calligraphy class doesn't start until after our holiday week (Oct. 1st  to the 7th.).  So as soon as that gets going, if it still does, I'll let you know how it goes.

Other than those two things, the biggest point of my week was our trip to Beijing, from last Thursday to Saturday.  After a five hour bus ride, we arrived in the capital city.  And, wonderfully, we could see clearly down the streets we were driving on.  In Shi Jiazhuang, the smog is so bad that we can't even see all of campus from our sixth story window.  Beijing is not so, which was literally a breath of fresh air.  After a quick lunch, we went to Tienanmen Square, the largest central square in China.

Right next to the square is the Forbidden City, which we found actually used to be the largest living quarters for the emperor of China. Almost 600 meters long, the "city"/palace had almost 90 buildings, if I remember the tour guide correctly.

After our first packed afternoon, we went to the Phoenix Suyuan hotel for the night.  The next morning, after a normal breakfast consisting of eggs, french toast, and buttered toast, we traveled to easily my favorite of the sites, the Great Wall.  Now, the Great Wall is a lot more daunting than is often advertised on pictures and such.  For starters, the section we visited was mostly stairs.  And not just stairs, but incredibly steep, uneven stairs that climbed almost vertically up the side of a mountain.  I was able to climb to the first outpost on one side of the wall, and then turn around and reach the highest point on the other side.  It felt incredible to be doing that, and it still hasn't really sunk in that I've now walked on something I'd only dreamt of seeing before now.

 Here is the first wall of stairs I had to climb.

In this picture, I made it to the first small outpost, where the wall forks. 

I also reached that red temple you can see on top of the mountain behind me.

After lunch, we visited the summer palace, which didn't impress me nearly as much as the other places we had been.  It was interesting, but nothing like the Great Wall or Tienanmen Square. Again, a quick dinner, and then back to the hotel for evening.  Our final morning in Beijing brought us to the temple of heaven, where the Emperor would pray on the same day ever year for the blessings of heaven on the entire population of China. It was an interesting location to see as our last one of Beijing.

And with that, our tour of Beijing was over. We got back on the bus for the five hour ride back to campus.  I used Sunday to rest after the long trip, and I definitely can't wait for the other trips if they are all going to be like this one.  That's about all I have for this post, too.  I'll keep it going next Monday of course, unless something exciting happens before then. Thanks again to anyone reading this.

Adam

Another Week, Plus Trip #1

Hello everyone,

Jeez, it seems like forever since I've posted on here.  And the reason why is a mixture of my being busy, and my being lazy. :P So, as the title says, another week is down in our four month trip to China.  The time seems to be both going very slow when I'm in any given moment, but also very fast when I look back and realize I've almost been here a month already.

Things have started to get a bit better with both of my major struggles from last time.  Our internet connection has mostly stabilized.  There are still some moments where the internet doesn't want to work at all, but for the most part I can log in whenever I have time to.  The language issue is still a struggle, but we are learning more of the language every day.  We can now understand prices, and when people ask "What do you want?" Any questions beyond that are still mysteries, but at least we're getting the basics down.

We have also started to meet more people here.  The professor with us from Kearney is living in an apartment off campus, and has introduced us to some of the people living in her building.  She is also Indian, and invited us over for a homemade Indian meal one night.  That was entertaining, and really did give us the chance to talk to and connect with our professor.

As far as actual schooling goes, we have started both of our other classes:  literature and history.  Both classes are taught in English by Chinese professors.  Both professors speak relatively good English, and have created very comprehensive PowerPoint presentations to help with anything they may not be able to say accurately.  I am very interested to get more in depth in those classes, as so far we've only had introductions in both.  I will keep you all updated with interesting facts I learn in these classes.  For example, in literature class, I have learned that one of the most famous Chinese literature pieces, when translated into English, is over 2300 pages long.  Even as an avid reader, that is a massive book that will take a long time to get completely read.

Now, with all of the basic living things out of the way, we took our first trip this Saturday!  The trip was to Baiyangdian, or the largest man-made lake in China.  It took almost three hours to drive there by bus, and the place we were going was on an island in the lake, which took another half hour by boat to get to.  The lake is so large that they have had to put "street" signs up to tell boats where to go:

Now, as you can see from this picture, the smog in China is thick. And yes, that's smog, not just fog. I've gotten a little more used to it since I've been here, but looking out my window on sixth floor and not being able to even see all of campus is a little scary still...

When we arrived at the island, we found out that it was just a small center where they put on shows. If any of you have been to Branson, Missouri, its a lot like that, except all in Chinese.  We watched two shows there, one performed all by midgets and the other performed on a stage that was a foot under water.

After the shows, we went to the Lotus Garden, which was about ten minutes away by boat again.  This was a very nice place, and had many cool things to look at.  Below are pictures of lotus flowers, and one of me with a giant Buddha statue that was in the center of the garden.

 After the garden, we had another boat ride and bus ride back to the dorm.  Overall, the trip was interesting.  I wish the tour guide had spoken English, however.  I wish I could tell you more about the history of the lake, or about some of the site history at the lake, but you know as much as I still do.  Hopefully, as we go on other trips, we will get guides that speak English.

That's about it for this post.  I hope I didn't bore you all too much with the wall of text here.  It's been a week since my last post, though, and I wanted to get everyone caught up to where things are.  Thanks again to anyone who reads this, and I'll be updating again when I have more to share.

Adam

An Introduction

Hello!

My name is Adam Stauffer, and I am just getting ready to embark on my first solo international trip.  I am very excited to have the chance to travel to China and experience a culture from halfway around the world.  I have yet to experience a trip out of the United States, and through the University of Nebraska at Kearney Study Abroad program, I will get that chance while still paying Kearney tuition and fees. This means that all of my scholarships and grants still apply to the costs of studying in a foreign country.

I can't wait to begin my journey, and keep all of you readers updated on everything I am doing.  But before I forget, I want to introduce myself as well.  As I said, my name is Adam. I am going into my Junior year of college with this trip, with a major in Organizational Communications, emphasizing in both Marketing and Literature.  I hope to work either in the marketing division of the ATP, or in the sales department of a publishing house.  I believe this trip will help me with both.  Not only will I be taking classes and learning a new culture, but it will also teach me important lessons about taking chances and working to make my goals and dreams into reality.

I truly hope this experience is a good one, and I will do my best to keep you updated as often as I can. I will post at least once a week for sure, but I would have to guess that it will be even more frequently than that.  Thanks for reading to anyone who does, and I hope you enjoy hearing about the trip as much as I will enjoy going on it. :)

Adam