The Great Wall of China

Today is one of those days that I will remember for the rest of my life. 

I visited the Great Wall of China!!!! But we didn't just visit it, we conquered it. My classmates and I hiked along the Great Wall for over four hours, climbing up the steepest of stairs and overlooking some of the most breathtaking landscape in China.

We took a two hour bus ride outside of Beijing to Simatai Great Wall in Gubeikou Town to the northeast of Miyun, Beijing. We chose to visit the 

Simatai Great Wall section because it is out in the middle of nowhere, and thus very far away from tourists. It is the only part of the Great Wall that has the original features of the Ming Dynasty well reserved. This section consists of 20 watchtowers covering peaks over 1000 meters high! Deep in the valley,  there are two springs called Mandarin Duck Springs. The west spring is warm and the east spring is cold. They join in the middle, creating one lake that is half warm and half cold. At the end of the day, I zip lined off of the Great Wall, over the lake, and landing in the valley at the base of the mountains.

Hiking along the Great Wall was such an incredible experience. I love how the Great Wall was built along the very highest ridges of the mountains. It is unbelievable how these walls were built, starting as early as the 5th century B.C., without modern machinery! It is so high up, so far away from the city. How did ancient China get all of the man power to accomplish such a feat? I suppose the threat of invasion by nomadic tribes like the Mongols is reason enough.

The climb along the Great Wall was so steep!! It must've been insane during an attack. I can't imagine a warrior running up and down the wall in armor with weapons during a invasion. It must've been very dangerous. I was slipping and falling myself, and I was moving slowly! I also thought that the watchtowers were so neat! It was cool to imagine warriors living in the towers and scanning the horizon for invaders. Seeing the watchtowers along the ridges reminded me of the scene in the movie Mulan when the warning torches are lit across the Great Wall, alerting China of approaching enemies. How incredible!

The engineering on the Great Wall was interesting. As mentioned before, mobility is extremely difficult along the wall. The steps are uneven, slippery, and steep. However, I thought that the engineers did a fine job of dealing with water along the wall when it rains. Imagine a section of the wall that slopes 30 degrees upward. Imagine water rushing down the wall. Dangerous, right? So the engineers built raised stone ledges every ten steps or so that catch the water and funnel it out a hole on the side of the wall. It was kind of like a rain gutter catching water along the roof of a house. During a rain storm, I'm sure the Great Wall looked like it was crying with water spouting out from both sides, kind of like how a boat empties its ballast tanks. The only problem would occur in very heavy rains when large amounts of water could spill over the ledge if couldn't be funneled off the wall fast enough. Maybe one day I will see how the wall works when it rains heavily, but I'm glad that today it did not rain. It was cloudy today though, which made me sad because the views were not as far and crisp as I would've liked. However, the cloud cover kept the temperature very cool and enjoyable.

I left the Great Wall with the hopes that someday I would return. There are bricks in the wall that have Chinese inscriptions on them. Many of the bricks on the wall are engraved with Chinese characters that say the date when and the factory where the bricks were made all those thousands of years ago.

When we returned to campus, Caroline, Gabby, and I met up with Susan, my local friend I had met at the university. Susan took us on our bikes to the weight room that she had found for us. She translated for us and helped us get a tour of the facility and apply for a club membership and get our questions answered. She was so wonderful to help us out so much. I'm so glad that I met her. We will start going to the weight room on Monday, and I'm also interested in taking some of the classes they provide for free with membership, such as yoga, pilates, aerobics, and dancing. It looks fun! I must say though... we will be the only girls lifting weights. The Chinese boys on my trip have explained to me the differences in what Americans and the Chinese find attractive in women. Americans like tan and toned women, whereas the Chinese like light-skinned and softer women. It makes sense, and you can totally tell. Women in China are so thin and tiny, and they carry umbrellas at all time to shield themselves from the sunlight. Crazy. 

Ahhhhh what a wonderful day :)

Tiananmen Square and the Temple of Heaven

Today was my first adventure into the heart of Beijing. My class went to Tiananmen Square today, which is not only the very center of Beijing, but it is also the biggest square in the world. I don't even think Atlanta has a square...

My day started with a bike ride down to the subway. I wasn't nervous about the actual ride... I was more nervous about crossing the road and parking my bike. I crossed the road okay. You kind of just bike between cars, they don't stop for you and you don't stop for them. It's really a judgement call when to proceed across the street. Parking my bike was another story. There were hundreds of parked bikes covering the sidewalks outside of the subway station. Plenty of the bikes had fallen (or been pushed) over and were laying in mud. All of the bikes have locks on them for the most part, but in Beijing, you do not lock your bike to anything stationary. Instead, you just loop the lock around your tire spoke and the frame of the bike so the wheel won't turn. So technically someone could still take your bike... and sell the parts I assume.

So we decide to park our bikes in a paid bike parking lot. I go to the entrance of the lot and make a motion for one of the tickets. The old Chinese woman proceeded to scream at me in Chinese, point angrily at my bike, and wave me away. This went on for about ten minutes while me and my group tried to explain that we wanted to park in the lot. Finally, Troy showed up and he spoke to the lady. Apparently, the only thing she was upset about was that the bikes we had bought all had bike seats that could be easily stolen. All she wanted was for us to understand that if our bike seats got stolen, she was not responsible. Yeaaahhh talk about language barrier. All I wanted to do was park my bike. If my seat gets stolen, I just buy a new one... I wish I could've told her that.

All 30 of my classmates and I crowded onto the subway and headed toward Tiananmen Square. When we arrived, we walked past the Egg, Beijing's Opera house. It literally is a building shaped like a egg, and it is sitting in a huge pond. It was pretty cool. Then, we entered Tiananmen Square!! How incredible! Tiananmen Square is really just a huge concrete slab in the middle of Beijing. It was crazy to picture the square packed full of Chinese people, screaming and shouting and protesting. It's scary to imagine the chaos that must've ensued when the military forcefully broke up the student protests in 1989. 

However, there are no references at all to the violence that occurred in the square in 1989. In fact, today the square is quite the tourist destination. It was strange to be happily posing for pictures in a place with such a dark and controversial history. I also went inside the Mao Memorial at the square, which is were Mao Zedong's body is on display. There was a HUGE line to get into the memorial and file past Mao's glass casket. I was excited to see it at first, but once I was there, I was a little creeped out by the absurd number of Chinese people wanting to see Mao's body. I actually got sad for the Chinese people. Do the younger generations know how the Chinese suffered under Mao? People were selling all kinds of Mao paraphernalia in the square, like Mao wrist watches and hundreds of wrapped flowers to lay by Mao's casket (I'm almost positive the staff at the memorial resell these flowers everyday). It is apparent that the Chinese people revere Mao and regard him as some kind of a hero. A man even tried to sell me one of Mao's "Little Red Books". If I had wanted to buy it, would I have been allowed to bring it back to the US? It tells you how to be a good communist. There were also plenty of soldiers stationed across the square, wearing their red arm bands... it is quite a different world over here.

There was one fun part about Tiananmen Square. I was walking with Troy, and an old Chinese man started yelling Chinese at me. I sounded like he was angry at me for some reason, but Troy told me that he wanted to take a picture with me. How fun! So I called over some of my friends and we posed with this man and his family. That was only the first of many pictures that we took with Chinese families. They are fascinated by Americans, and it's kind of fun! Mother's would bring their children to take pictures with us, and they always acted so gracious when we agreed to take a picture with them. One small girl even poked Adrienne's face numerous times and giggled. So cute! 

After Tiananmen Square, we were free to explore Beijing on our own for the rest of the day. I was eager to break away from the big group. We attracted too much attention. So I found some of my friends that wanted to go to the Chinese National Museum, and we headed that way. This was actually the first time that I ventured through Beijing without anybody that spoke Chinese. All we had were our maps and each other :) It was fun trying to find our way, but sometimes difficult trying to get our point across to people. 

It turns out that the National Museum is closed for renovations until 2010! So, if you are planning on going to Beijing for the Olympics, don't put the National Museum into your plans. I was so disappointed.  So then we decided to go to the Underground City, which is literally a city that was built underground. Our graduate assistant for the study abroad program told us that it is not a place that a lot of tourists go, so naturally I was very interested to go see it. Well it turns out that the Underground City is permanently closed, and the original Silk Market is permanently shut down, all because of the Olympics! Those dang Olympics keep taking away all of my fun. Apparently the Olympic Committee doesn't want tourists wandering into the Underground City, and of course the notorious selling knock-off goods at the Silk Market is illegal, so that had to be shut down before the Olympics. Add that to the list of disadvantages of the Olympics, along with perpetual cloud cover because China is manually making it rain to clear the air of pollutants.

Advantages of the Olympics being in Beijing: more signs in English and Olympic merchandise everywhere!! I bought a blue backpack today with the mascot Beibei swimming on it! If you want any Olympic merchandise, please do not hesitate to ask. I am happy to pick up anything you may like- pins, t-shirts, hats, backpacks, watches, cups, mugs, magnets, keychains, phone charms, decks of cards, coins, stuffed Fuwa mascots... the list seems limitless.

So after finding all of these closed places, we changed our plans and went to see the Temple of Heaven, which was wonderful! The Temple of Heaven is one of China's famous icons (next to the great Wall of course)! It was built in 1420 by the Ming Dynasty. We toured through the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, the Echo Wall that encloses the Imperial Vault of Heaven, and the Circular Mound. The Echo Wall is a huge enclosed circle (a perimeter of 193 meters), and when you whisper into the wall, you can hear it all the way across the circle as if the person were standing right next to you! When we got inside the circle, of course we had to try it out! So, our group split into two and posted at opposite ends of the circle. My group yelled "Yellow!" into the wall, and then we got a return "Jackets!" It was so exciting!!! So we kept yelling "Yellow" with a return of "Jackets!". We got it on video too! The Tech community should be so proud. We're going to post the video online, so I'll add the link as soon as it is posted. Also, the very center of the top of the circular mound is supposed to be where your voice is the loudest. 

After visiting these three areas, we took a walk along some trails inside the Temple of Heaven Park. The Quote of the Day is from David Schwartz reading a park map: "Walk past the Divine Kitchen and the Temple for Killing Animals, and take a left." 

After we had walked ourselves into absolute fatigue, we rested at the Long Corridor where there were people playing flutes and cymbals and dancing with ribbons. Then we took the subway back to get our bikes, which were safe! Yay! We rode our bikes back to campus in the rain, and then went to the grocery store to stock up on water and snacks for our adventure to the Great Wall of China tomorrow. We are taking a bus ride to a rural part of the Great Wall, two hours outside of Beijing. It will not be as crowded, and I am hoping that we will see some blue skies :)

Day Two in Beijing

Today, my class and I took a tour of the Beijing Benz - Daimler Chrysler (BBDC) automotive factory. The place was HUGE! I got to walk along the entire assembly line for the production of the E-series and the C-series Chrysler cars. I saw engines being put together, the welding of the frames of the cars, an assembly line of car doors, and even the testing facility where they put the car on a treadmill! I learned firsthand about lean manufacturing, which is creating a process that eliminates waste and implements good flow. Seeing this factory will definitely help me understand the concepts that will be introduced in my manufacturing class starting on Monday.

An interesting thing about the factory is that they had inspirational sayings on banners hanging up all along the production floor, like "Work toward success together". One thing I found interesting is that they had a big white board with a timeline for every worker. Along the timeline, it lists how every worker spends their time. Time is divided into two categories: contributing to the process (assembling parts, attending meetings, fixing a machine) and taking away from the process (taking breaks, being late to work, machine failures). The workers are then assigned to different stations based on how they spend their time. All stations need to be balanced in contributions and take aways from the process. It was so interesting!

On the way home from the factory tour, we rode past some Olympic venues: the Bird's Nest (National Stadium) and the Water Cube (the swimming pool!!!!!!). It was very hazy and foggy around, so I didn't get very many good pictures, but the Bird's Nest was really awesome, and the pool was a bit of a let down. It looked kinda nasty, but I've heard that it is gorgeous at night when it lights up. I want to go back to the pool and touch it!

When we got back from the tour, I went on an adventure with Troy, David, Chris, Adrienne, Caroline, Hannah, and Thomas to Wal-Mart. I bought some peanut butter, crackers, cereal, some Chinese cookies that ended up tasting REALLY good, and a loaf of freshly baked coconut bread! YUM! After shopping, we joined Shayna, Michael, Noyoun, and Cicy for barbecue, but it wasn't American barbecue! There's hot coals in the middle of the table, and you order plates of raw meat and vegetables, and then you cook them over the coals. It was similar to Hot Pot in that respect, but I thought the meat was a lot tastier after being barbecued rather than being boiled in flavored sauces. I barbecued beef and mushrooms and had spicy fried rice on the side. It was yummy!

After dinner, Caroline and I rode our bikes around campus as an attempt to become more familiar with our surroundings, even though it was dark. The night air felt amazing though. It was so cool! What a nice change from the hot and humid Singapore weather 24/7. But... the air in Beijing may be cooler, but it's far too dirty. What a tradeoff. Anyway, we tried to find our way to the classroom building... we never found it, but we sure had a fun time trying!

I also learned a lot about the Olympics today! The slogan of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games is "One World One Dream", reflecting the essence and the universal values of the Olympic spirit: unity, friendship, progress, harmony, participation, and dream. The Olympic mascots are five Fuwa, each borrowing one of the colors from the Olympic rings. The Fuwa mascots are Beibei the fish, Jingjing the panda, Huanhuan the Olympic Flame, Yingying the Tibetan antelope, and Nini the swallow. They are absolutely adorable, you should look them up online! When you put their names together- Bei Jing Huan Ying Ni- they say "Beijing welcomes you". How adorable! The Olympic Torch is in the shape of an ancient paper scroll as paper was one of the four great inventions of ancient China that was spread to the world via the Silk Road. The Olympic Medals have the standard design on one side (the Greek winged goddess Nike and Panathinaikos Arena). On the reverse side, the medals are inlaid with jade with the Beijing Games emblem engraved in a metal centerpiece. Try to find these online too! They are GORGEOUS! Also, to prepare for the games, Beijing is trying to lower their pollution levels by making it artificially rain (which could explain why it's so cloudy everyday) and cars with even-numbered license plates are only allowed to drive on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Cars with odd-numbered license plates can drive on the other days. Interesting.

First Day in Beijing

Beijing is different. I do not like it so far, but I expect that it will get better. I feel trapped... there's so much fog and haze that my world feels so small. I haven't seen blue sky or even the sun since I've arrived in Beijing. I haven't seen more than 500 meters ahead of me. I can't see far, but I also can't go far. I'm so curious as to what is outside the gates of the university campus, but I cannot go outside. I can't even find my way around campus yet, it's so big. I can't communicate with anyone. I didn't know it would be this difficult. I can't speak to other students on campus, I can't order food a restaurant or a dining hall, I can't read the menus, I can't talk to a taxi driver. But I've learned how to ask for bottled water, so now my survival is guaranteed. haha. I'm forced to stay with the group, especially with my friends that speak Chinese. It's not a bad thing being with them, but I wish I could exercise a bit more freedom. 

I expect that things will get better as we get more settled. We all rented bikes today, so now I can ride around and explore and become more familiar with campus. As a group, we walked to the classroom this morning, and near the classroom is a market, dining hall, and a bank. I'm really interested in finding the other dining halls on campus, as well as the library. There's a  huge four story building on campus... it's the public bath house!!! The dorms on campus do not have showers and bathrooms. All of the students must go to this public place to use the facilities!! Disgusting. Luckily, we're living in the "Foreign Student Dorms", yes that's what they're called. Oh and lunch yesterday was disgusting. I went to a stall in the dining hall that gives you rice, and then you point at some meats and vegetables that you want. It was not very tasty, I couldn't stomach it all. Next time, I will take one of my Chinese-speaking friends with me so i can order something off the menu.

I spoke to some students about the athletic facilities. They have a gorgeous indoor pool and recreation center, but it is CLOSED TO THE PUBLIC until after the Olympics. I'm upset. The Chinese Olympic Team is training there, so the rec facility and pool is completely closed down to all outsiders, including the local students. I think it would be cool to practice with the olympic team, but of course that is impossible- I don't think they would like the idea of having Americans train with the Chinese Olympic team... can you say "high security risk"? So Caroline and I have no place to swim that is on campus. We have no where to lift weights. We can run outside though, in the pollution. One of the local students has my email address, and she is trying to find a place for us to swim and lift somewhere close to campus. We'll see what she finds out, but for now, no swimming :(

Later in the day, we took a tour through a  prettier part of campus. We walked along a gentle river with pretty bridges going across it. There were big lily pads all over the lake.We also saw some famous landmarks at Tsinghua University. It was nice to find something beautiful on campus. It was quite peaceful too. Perhaps I will study there during the week. During our walk, a Chinese couple came up to me pointing at their camera. They were looking at me with wide admiring eyes and captivated smiles. I thought they wanted me to take a picture of them, so I reached for their camera, but they just kept pointing at themselves and then at me. It turns out, they wanted to take a picture with me! (I assume it was because I am American). I took one with the guy first, and then the girl switched places with him and excitedly latched onto my arm for her picture. It was so fun and so cute. We took a group picture outside the university gate, and Chinese people were coming up and taking pictures of us with their cameras too!

We then took a tour to Yuan Ming Yuan. Yuan Ming Yuan is also known as the Old Summer Palace or the Gardens of Perfect Clarity. It is an extensive network of palaces and gardens that was built in the late 18th century. It is where the emperors of the Qing Dynasty lived and handled government affairs (they only used the Forbidden City for formal rituals). Yuan Ming Yuan was destroyed by British and French troops in 1860 during the Second Opium War, and it is still regarded as a symbol of foreign aggression in China.

Our journey through Yuan Ming Yuan took us along a natural and winding lake, covered with lily pads and flowers. Beautifully arched walking bridges spanned narrower parts of the water, and pagodas majestically guarded the river banks. Our walk through the gardens was quite peaceful and calming, the misty fog creating a mystical feel. The ruins of the Summer Palace are about an hour's walk from the entrance. Crumbled arches, fallen pillars, dried up fountains, and cracked statues are all that is left of the once elegant palace. However, it seemed to me still beautiful, how nature had gently adopted the ruins, growing up around them. 

My trip to Yuan Ming Yuan helped me to feel like I was really in China. Inside the gardens, I could no longer hear the city. I observed ancient Chinese architecture and became immersed in China's past while experiencing firsthand the serenity and simplicity of nature.

Upon arrival back to campus, we all rented or bought bikes. Then, a group of us went with Troy, one of my Chinese-speaking friends, to Waduko for dinner. Waduko is a suburb down the street from the university. I was excited to get outside of the university walls and see some of Beijing for myself. We went to a restaurant for Hot Pot. We ordered two sauces, one spicy and one not spicy, that boils on a burner in the middle of our table. We order raw meats and vegetables, and you cook them in the boiling sauces. When cooked, you dip them in more sauces, like soy sauce, chili sauce, peanut sauce, and then enjoy! It is Troy's favorite meal of all time, and he definitely made the experience so fun and very tasty. We order beef strips, pork strips, tofu, fish meat balls, dumplings, and all kinds of vegetables (lettuce, spinach, corn, mushrooms). It was delicious! I was a bit worried that we would all get sick, but we made sure that the meat was thoroughly cooked before eating. Dinner was so fun, and absolutely hilarious! I had a great time with Troy and my table of Caroline, Jen, Gabby, Kristi, and Sara. I laughed so much tonight :) 

Arrival in Beijing

Today was my 20th birthday, and what better way to celebrate than going to Beijing??? AHHH I'm 20, and I'm in China! How wild!

I woke up at 4:10 this morning to head to the airport. By the time our group arrived in Beijing, it was 5 PM. By the time we finished checking into the dorms, it was 10 PM. We're staying at Tsinghua University, and they've increased security because of the Olympics. We had to fill out extra paperwork and spend lots of time at the residence office making copies of our passports and visas and whatnot. Tsinghua actually almost canceled this portion of our program because China does not want too many foreigners in the country right before the Olympics. Our professor that is in charge can actually be arrested if any of us misbehaves... crazy! 

A friend of mine on the program grew up in Beijing, and he was going to take me and a few friends out to a really neat place to eat for my birthday dinner, but it was too late by the time we were all moved in. No worries though, I've got five whole days before classes start to celebrate by visiting Yuan Ming Yuan, Tiannaman Square, the Forbidden City, the Olympic Gardens, and THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA! So excited!

Beijing is interesting so far. I haven't seen much of it, and it's mainly because there is a thick haze blocking visibility. I feel like I'm on the Truman Show or inside a snow globe, just surrounded by this thick fog on all sides. My world feels so small and caged. I can't wait to get off the campus tomorrow and explore. Maybe then I will feel like I'm in China when I see more of it.

I Love Hong Kong!

Hong Kong is SPECTACULAR!!!!!!!!!!

I absolutely LOVE Hong Kong. We landed in Macau and took an hour-long ferry ride to Hong Kong. As the ferry approached Hong Kong, I knew that this city was the place for me. Tall buildings covering every square inch of land on the shore of Victoria Bay, nestled among gentle mountains. Paradise. Absolutely stunning.

I traveled to Hong Kong with Hannah, Caroline, Kristi, Jen, Sara, and Gabby- a girls weekend in the most beautiful city on the planet. When we got off the ferry, we hopped on the city's subway to get to the hotel. It is safe to say that I am OBSESSED with Hong Kong's train system (MTR). It is the most perfect system I have experienced. Locals travel using an Octopus Card, similar to MARTA's Breeze Card and Singapore's EZLink card that you load money onto and swipe in and out of the stations. Visitors, like me, buy one-way passes from machines at the station. Each ticket machine has a map of all the different lines and stations. All you do is touch your desired destination and the machine calculates the fare for you. You insert money, and the machine dispenses your paper ticket and change. So easy.

Then, you put your ticket in the machine, walk through the turn stiles, pick up your ticket on the other side, and head to the train. HAHA the machine literally eats your ticket and spits it out the other side. So funny! The coolest thing about the train is that inside there is a map overhead that lights up! There are arrows on the map that light up to show the trains progress along the line, and the station you are approaching has a blinking light. If you are approaching a transfer point, then all of the stations along the new transfer line also blink. There is also a light that turns on telling you which side of the train to exit. Brilliant.

Another interesting thing about Hong Kong, is that while walking along the street, you can here these different clicking noises. It took us a while to figure it out, but then we realized that the clicking is for blind people! So neat! 

Another thing I liked is that every train station had multiple exits. There were clearly labeled signs that listed which streets, shops, restaurants, and tourist destinations were around each exits. Some stations spanned a good 5 or 6 blocks underground, so it was pretty important that you picked the right exit. But it was so easy! What a smart city! I think that every civil engineer at GT needs to take a trip to Hong Kong and experience their transportation system. It is interesting to compare this MTR system to Atlanta's MARTA system. The MTR is a lot cheaper than MARTA, but it is because more people use the MTR than MARTA. More people use the MTR because Hong Kong was built around the subway system. In Atlanta, the city was built, and then the transportation system was put in place. People in Atlanta already have cars and do not seem willing to give up that freedom.

Also, for pedestrians in Hong Kong, at every intersection, there is clicking to signal to a blind person whether or not they can cross. Slow steady beeps means to wait (beep pause beep pause beep pause), fast beeps mean proceed across the intersection (beebeebeebeebeep), and fast beeps with pauses mean that you need to hurry across because the light is about to change (beebeebeep pause beebeebeep pause). There is also fast beeping at the beginning and end of EVERY escalator or moving sidewalk in the city. To me, it was fascinating, but I'm sure to a local, the beeps can get quite annoying.

In the end, our travel day on Saturday was defined by public transportation. I took the Singapore campus bus to the library, boarded the Singapore city bus to the train station, took the train to a transfer station, boarded another train for the airport, took an airport shuttle to my terminal, took a plane to Macau, took a taxi from the Macau airport to the ferry terminal, took a ferry to Hong Kong, took the Hong Kong MTR train to the hotel, and then walked a few blocks to the hotel. WOW. I've never utilized that much public transportation in my life. I think I used every possible mode of transportation except a helicopter. There was an option to take a helicopter from Macau to Hong Kong instead of a ferry, but I didn't want to be THAT much of a baller. HAHA!

Once we got to the hotel (our room had a beautiful view of the harbor!), we found an awesome restaurant nearby for some food. We were starving! We flew on a budget airline that served NO FOOD and NO DRINKS the entire flight. Luckily I had a power bar and a bottle of water that I bought before I left, but other members of my group were pretty famished after the 4 hour flight. I ordered pineapple fried rice, and the rice actually came inside a real hollowed out pineapple! So fun! We also shared some satay and spring rolls. After dinner, we took the MTR to Lan Kwai Fong, the notorious bar district in Hong Kong. The place was packed!! We did some bar hopping- a margarita at one bar, a shot from another, good times. After having a little fun, we went back to the hotel and prepared for Sunday, our only full day in Hong Kong.

The next morning, we enjoyed some omelets for breakfast at the hotel. Afterwards, Kristi and Sara went to DisneyLand in Hong Kong, and the remainder of us (me, Caroline, Hannah, Jen, and Gabby) took the MTR to Times Square to do some shopping! I found an awesome pair of gold and white (GT colors!) shoes for $6 US. They were too small for me, but I went ahead and bought them to give to someone at home. I also bought two wallets with this awesome Asian pattern on them, and I picked up a pair of earrings too. 

After walking around Times Square about three times, we got on the MTR and went to the neighboring island of Kowloon to shop at the Ladies Market. The train went underneath the bay!!! We went UNDERWATER in the MTR. Crazy! I'm craving to know how they built that! In Kowloon, we got lunch (I had roasted duck with rice) and then walked a few blocks to the Ladies Market. It was so CROWDED!!! People EVERYWHERE! Sidewalks packed, shops and restaurants bursting at the seams... I absolutely LOVED it!

I definitely had my most successful shopping so far at the Ladies Market. I bought a pair of jade earrings, an awesome little pocket mirror, a pair of funky glasses, and a leather purse. All of these items added up to less that $20 US. Thank you, bargaining! So fun!

After the Ladies Market, we hopped back on the love of my life, the MTR, and went back to Hong Kong to visit Victoria's Peak. Victoria's Peak is a mountain that overlooks the entire city of Hong Kong, Victoria's Bay, and Kowloon. I was just so excited to get up there!  We got off at Central Station and headed toward the Peak Tram. On the way to the tram station, we passed by a concert in Central Square. It was a cover for Mandy Moore, and it was a guy! haha yes, and there were tons of people out there watching! This concert is the number one place that I've seen the most Asians so far. I took a picture from above, and it was just a sea of black hair and umbrellas. 

We took the tram up to the top of Victoria's Peak. We got a small snack, and then hiked around the top, stopping at lots of overlooks with some SPECTACULAR views of the city. It was so breathtakingly beautiful that we stayed for the rest of the afternoon, saw the most glorious sunset, and then enjoyed seeing the city come alive at night! What an incredible experience! I took so many pictures! Hong Kong is my new love. Forget Singapore, I am going to work in Hong Kong for AT LEAST a year after I graduate. I feel like I only scratched the surface of what Hong Kong has to offer. There is so much opportunity there- so much to see, so many people to meet. I am definitely going back and staying for quite a while.

We reluctantly took the tram down the mountain at 9:30 that night, and we went back to Lan Kwai Fong for some pizza! It was the first pizza I'd had since I left Atlanta! Actually, pizza was the last meal I had in the US, at Johnny's with my daddy, Taylor, and Uncle Mike. On the way to Lan Kwai Fong, we saw a couple taking their wedding pictures! She was in her wedding gown, and he was in his tux, and they had their photography entourage taking pictures of them posing in and around the streets of Hong Kong. It was so beautiful! In fact, we saw FOUR couples getting their wedding pictures made that night!

At the end of the day, I was completely exhausted from all of the walking, that I fell asleep as soon as I got back to the hotel room at around midnight. We woke up Monday morning, had more omelets, and then got back on the ferry to Macau. We had two hours to kill before we had to be at the airport for our flight back to Singapore, so we went to Sands Casino, and I gambled for the first time! I played some of the slots, and I was so confused. Not only had I never played slots before, but  it wasn't in English. So I just hit a bunch of random buttons and ended up losing all my money. So sad, but it was only $5 US. Everything in Asia is so inexpensive, even gambling. I wasn't brave enough to play any of the tables, so I watched some of the other girls win some money on the slots, and then we went to the airport. I hope my next casino experience is less confusing than this one.

And then I sadly left Hong Kong, but I have sincere hope that I will return again. I've finished packing up my dorm room in Singapore, and now I am going to get less than four hours of sleep before I have to wake back up and go to the airport to leave for Beijing. I will be celebrating my 20th birthday on the airplane! Yay.

...but no worries. I'll make up for it in Beijing, easily :)

2nd Class Completed

This morning I took the final exam for my second class- Statistical Quality Control. woooww the final was tough. It reminded me that I was actually taking Georgia Tech engineering classes over here. I was under-prepared... oops. Why does study have to be part of "study abroad"? haha. I think I need to buckle down a bit more in Beijing... haha who am I kidding, it's China! Too many things to see!

After the final, our class was taken to the Prima Revolving Restaurant for our farewell lunch. The restaurant overlooked the major port in Singapore, hence I was captivated by all of the barges and machinery. I didn't see any people down there working, just machines and cranes and trucks! I REALLY wanted to get a personal tour of the facility... perhaps I will the next time I am in Singapore. We also got a neat view of Sentosa from the restaurant, which made for a nice full circle for the program- beginning and ending at beautiful Sentosa :)

Our lunch was a traditional Chinese 9-COURSE MEAL!!!! I was in heaven! The food was spectacular and so different than anything I'd ever tasted. In fact, the mix of flavors made my stomach feel a bit queasy afterward, but it was still so delicious! We sat a circular tables with a lazy susan in the middle, similar to the family-style dinner we shared at Way Joe's grandmother's house last weekend. The waitresses personally dished out each course, and to serve the food, they held a fork and spoon in one hand and used them like chopsticks! It was fascinating!

The 9 courses were as follows (check out my photosite for pictures):

1. Drunken Chicken with Sea Blubber- Yes, I ate blubber. It was a very strange texture, and quite tasteless

2. Shredded Scallops with Fish and Egg White- Quite yummy, looked kinda of like a thicker egg drop soup.

3. Shark Fin Soup with Crab Meat- It came with some crispy rolls to dip into the soup. This dish was my number one favorite! 

4. Steamed Red Fish- served on a sizzling hot plate. The fish came out whole, and the waitress filleted it in front of us. I swallowed a little bone, and it hurt. haha!

5. Authentic Barbecued  Peking Duck- my 2nd favorite! Peking duck is the signature dish of Beijing (hence we will be eating quite a bit in the next six weeks). First, small wraps are served with the barbecued skins and celery and scallions inside with a soy bean sauce. Then, the duck is carved and the meat served. It was all dark meat and tasted so good dipped in the sauce. It tasted like a mix between lamb and game. It was interesting and very tasty!

6. Sauteed Garlic King Prawns- Prima's specialty dish, the biggest shrimp I have ever seen! My third favorite dish!

7. Sauteed Fresh Scallops with spinach- quite tasty.

8. Fried Noodle- served with shrimp/prawns and bok choy (a big leafy green vegetable)

9. Dessert- an assortment of fruit (watermelon, papaya, pineapple, and cantaloupe) and Chinese Pancakes (small sugary pastries with red bean paste inside, I promise it was yummy!)

After an amazing lunch, we returned to the dorms and I took a wonderful nap. It was only my second nap the whole time I've been in Singapore (not including the short 20 minute naps I got in the library a few times between classes). It was wonderful. Right now, we are getting ready to celebrate our last night in Singapore!! We'll be out at the club Zouk until 3 (meeting our swimmer friends there), and then we leave at 6 for the airport. We're champs. 

We are spending the weekend in Hong Kong, and then moving onto Tsinghua University in Beijing, China!

Happy half-way! (but I'm still sad we're leaving Singapore)

Learning about Singapore

I met the most wonderful people today!

My Uncle Michael in Las Vegas has a friend that lives in Singapore, Ron Phipps. He owns Phipps' Plaza! haha just kidding, he's in real estate, which is really neat, especially in Singapore where the land is very precious. I've been in contact with Ron while I've been in Singapore, and tonight he, his wife Jenny, and her sister Aline took me out to dinner at Newton Circus. I had such an awesome time meeting them and learning so much about Singapore! Jenny is the Director of Sales and Marketing with In2Design (www.in2design.biz). Her company designs exhibition sites, and recently they designed a brand new venue to host the Singapore Air Show! Jenny was wearing a new watch she had just received from her company, and she gave it to me as a gift! I am so touched, the watch is absolutely beautiful! Aline works at an awesome hair salon (she told me that it costs $40,000 a month to rent out the space!), and she is also a tour guide for Singapore. Ron, Jenny, and Aline were all very knowledgeable about Singapore's history, and I enjoyed learning how the country became so efficient and one of the top ten leading nations in the world.

The following is what I've learned tonight from my hosts:

Newton Circus is a Hawker Center. Back in the day, hawkers used to sell their food from carts that they would push around the street. There were so many hawkers in this one area that the government decided something needed to be done. Thus, they set up this Hawker Center where hawkers can rent out a food stall (for $5000 a month) and sell their food from there. There were 83 stalls at Newton Circus, and 40 of them sold sea food alone! It is no surprise that these hawkers are extremely competitive and just fighting for business. Jenny told me that there is a fine for hawkers if they hassle customers too much. This statement led me to a question I have been considering for a long time- there are so many rules in Singapore (no chewing gum, no littering, no drinking and eating on the buses or trains), but I never see any police around, so how are the laws enforced? Jenny and Aline explained that Singaporeans are very law abiding citizens by culture. They are proud of their country and it's beauty, and they know that the consequences for their actions are severe.

They told me the story about Michael Fay, the 19-year-old son of an American diplomat living in Singapore. Michael Fay was caught vandalizing cars in Singapore, and the Singapore government ordered him to be caned by law. Caning is like being beaten by a stick, but it leaves terrible scars as a permanent reminder to the offender for his or her actions. Aline says after three strikes, you're pretty much dead. Six strikes were ordered for Fay. The US was outraged, calling this sort of punishment barbaric and ordered Singapore not to punish the boy. What the US failed to realize is that Fay had done millions of dollars worth of damage. Cars are extremely expensive in Singapore. A Toyota Corolla costs $50,000 in Singapore and costs $12,000 in the US. Fay had vandalized Mercedes and BMW's! In the end, the Prime Minister of Singapore refused to yield to the United States. Singapore had gained their independence from Malaysia only 30 years earlier, and they were in the process of establishing themselves as an important nation in today's world. The Prime Minister did not want to let the "Mighty America" walk all over them just because they were a small and new nation. Fay was subject to Singapore's laws, and ended up receiving four strikes with the cane.

There is also an interesting story behind the reason that gum is not sold in Singapore and why large quantities of gum are not allowed to be brought into the country. Singapore's public transportation system is very precise and very efficient. Trains and buses arrive and leave on schedule, and the entire system is controlled by computers. During the peak hours of the morning, someone was chewing gum and stuck it between the doors to the train. The gum caused the doors not to close, and this caused the entire system to completely stop! The trains were frozen for three hours while authorities tried to find the gum to clear the jam. This three hour back up costed the government millions of dollars! As a result, the government said, no more gum. This law also helps keep the roads and sidewalks clean and saves the government millions of dollars every year because they do not need to clean the gum off the streets. 

Ah so at Newton Circus, Jenny ordered lots of different Singapore dishes for all of us to share. They explained that this is the way to eat in Singapore, and they hoped that I had a good appetite! I did not let them down. We had Laska (noodles in red curry, so delicious), some flat noodles with shrimp called Hor Fun, shell fish called Gong Gong, BBQ chicken with chili sauce, satay chicken with peanut sauce, carrot cake (which is actually fried egg and shrimp and scallops, one of my favorites of the night!), and Singapore's famous chicken rice. Ron explained that the chicken is made by boiling it and then putting it in ice water, and then boiling it again and putting it in ice water. This technique helps make the meat smooth and tender and separates the skin and the fat from the meat. The rice is cooked in the chicken broth! YUM! 

After dinner, Ron, Jenny, and Aline took me to Raffle's Hotel, one of Singapore's oldest hotels. It was absolutely gorgeous! The lobby alone was so grandiose, with white marble floors, carpeted staircases, and chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. Aline explained that you can have tea at the hotel for $50, and also that Michael Jackson and Elizabeth Taylor have stayed at the hotel! We went to the Long Bar, and they treated me to a Singapore Sling- a unique drink invented at Singapore's very own Raffle's Hotel. The ingredients? Gin, Heering Cherry Liqueur, Pineapple Juice, Lime Juice, Cointreau, Dom Benedictine, and Grenadine. It was delicious!

I also learned that Singapore's first Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew is a very intelligent man. When Singapore split from Malaysia, they were a brand new country that had nothing, no resources, no military... nothing. It would be like Hawaii splitting from the United States. Lee Kuan Yew looked to outside nations, and adopted some of their systems for Singapore. Lee believed that Singapore was like Israel, a country in the middle of a lot of Muslim countries. Thus, Lee mandated three years of compulsory military service for all boys 18 years of age, which is the same system Israel uses, except that Israel also requires their women to serve in the military. For sacrificing three years of their lives to the military, the men in Singapore are awarded higher salaries than the women. Also, Singapore did not have an airlines, so Lee fostered his own Singapore Airlines, which is his pride and joy. Singapore Airlines may be expensive, but they boast the best in-flight service (food, drinks, and movies all the time, even in coach), and all of their airplanes are less than five-years-old. As soon as the airplanes pass five years, they are sold to other airlines. In fact, airlines bring their airplanes to Singapore to get them serviced! 

Also, Singapore provides citizens of many things to help keep poverty levels low. There is free health care for all citizens, and the government also sells government housing in high rise apartments called HDB Flats. HDB stands for Housing Development Board. These HDB's are very affordable and of good quality. The government sells these flats instead of renting them out so that the citizens feel a sense of ownership, and consequently, they take better care of their flats. I think this is very intelligent. The government has also put into place measures to keep people from buying cars. They have an efficient and inexpensive public transportation system that reaches all parts of the island quickly. Cars are extremely expensive to buy, and you are only allowed to keep your car for 10 years. All car owners are required to buy little digital boxes that are placed on the dash of the car. You slip a cash card into the box, and whenever you go through a toll, money is taken out of your cash card. The fine is astronomical if you fail to have enough money on your cash card. Even parking lots have digital payment systems. You drive up to the gate to the lot, your little box beeps, and the arm opens. When you leave the lot, payment is digitally drawn from your cash card. Now you don't have to worry about losing your parking ticket or forgetting to pay it at the kiosks! Also, Singapore is building their first casino, and the locals have to pay $100 dollars to enter. I thought this completely outrageous and irrational, and then Ron explained that it will keep the locals from wasting their money. Smart.

I am so sad that I'm leaving Singapore in a few days. I had the most wonderful time tonight with Ron, Jenny, and Aline. I'm sure I will remember more of what I learned and will keep adding to this entry. I feel like I've only just scratched the surface of all that Singapore has to offer and to teach me, and now I have to leave. I've been convinced to return to Singapore and work for a year or two. Ron, Jenny, and Aline say that the experiences I would have by working abroad will be invaluable when I go back to work in the States.

Penang, Malaysia

This weekend Caroline and I visited Way Joe in Malaysia!!!! I had the time of my life! We saw so many awesome sights in Penang and ate so much amazing food! Way Joe's mom is so incredibly sweet and wonderful, and Way Joe has some of the best friends that anyone could ask for!

Caroline and I arrived in Malaysia about mid-day on Friday. Way Joe and his mama picked us up from the airport and took us out to lunch. We ate real Malaysian food at a place called Kayu. We had Nasi Kandar, which was curry chicken with rice. yum! We also had some Teh Peng to drink, which is tea with ice and condensed milk. sooooo good and refreshing!! Afterwards, Way Joe's mom took us downtown to another place to eat! We had some pastries and iced coffee and Fried Koay Teow, which was a noodle dish and definitely one of my favorites! Then we went to another place to eat- a little vendor that sold Chendul, which is a dessert. It's very hard to describe, but it was coconut milk in a bowl with red beans, brown sugar, ice, and this green gummy string stuff that was kind of like gummy worms. No worries, it was DELICIOUS!!!!! 

I LOVED being in a Malaysia with Way Joe and his mom because they knew all of the best food spots. We didn't go to any touristy areas or over-priced restaurants. We went to the little hole-in-the-wall local family vendors, and it was perfect and delicious! These are places that Way Joe has been going to since he was a little kid! Oh also, Way Joe and his mom laughed at me and Caroline because we eat with a fork. They eat everything with spoons!!! They use forks to push their food onto the spoon and then eat from the spoon, and no one uses knives, instead you cut your food with a fork and spoon. It was crazy and lots of fun to eat in this different way!

After we were so stuffed from two lunches and dessert, we arrived at Way Joe's house, which was absolutely gorgeous and nothing that I ever could have imagined! They live on the 8th floor of an apartment complex, and their apartment has two floors. The first floor opens up into the family room and dining room with beautiful marble floors and an awesome view of the beach. There is a big kitchen with a back balcony that has another incredible view of a mountain. There is a spiral staircase that leads upstairs where there is a living room and the three bedrooms. They have such a beautiful home :) 

Later in the day, Way Joe took Caroline and I to Botanical Gardens where Way Joe often goes to run. We saw wild monkeys!! Way Joe says they are like the squirrels of Malaysia. That's so crazy! There are dozens of gardens with orchids, crysanthiums, and the like, and there is a river that runs through the park where Way Joe used to catch tad poles when he was little. I enjoyed seeing and hearing about the things that Way Joe did when he was growing up. It made me so happy to see this part of his life.

Then, Way Joe took us to Youth Park where we literally climbed up a mountain. The stairs were practically vertical, I almost climbed up them on all fours! What's insane is that Way Joe said he runs up the mountain for training, and he would mountain bike up and down it with friends growing up. Insane!  At the end of the trail is an awesome lookout with a breathtaking view of the city and the ocean! One of Way Joe's childhood friends named Belvin joined us at the lookout, and after descending the mountain, we all enjoyed some Fruit Ice, which is a bowl of cut up fruit topped with shaved ice and a mango sauce. Yummy and so refreshing after our hike!

That night, we went with Way Joe to the swimming pool where he trains and also plays water polo. We met more of his friends that are on his water polo team, and we watched them practice. Their dry land workout included more push-ups than I have ever seen in my life! I'm pretty sure they did 5 sets of 50 pushups in a row, and then ended with a push up duel where everyone ended up doing over 100 additional pushups. Absolutely insane, but get this, their water polo scrimmage afterward was even more intense! Caroline and I were invited to join in and play, but it was so intimidating and hardcore. I've never played a real game of water polo, so instead Caroline and I had a great time watching them play a 50 meter water polo game. So insane!

We capped off the day with an awesome time at the club Mois. We stayed out all night, hanging out with Way Joe and his friends that he's known his entire life! He's got such great friends, they are all so much fun and such exciting and happy people. We met Belvin and Kah Hoong, who play water polo with Way Joe, and they both work as fashion models. So fun! We also met Gloria and Jinny, who swam with Way Joe growing up, and Jinny goes to Cornell. I'm hoping to visit her in New York sometime next year. We spent the entire night at Mois, and when it closed we went to eat some roti, which was probably my favorite food! I had a Roti Bomb, which was bread filled with cheese and condensed milk. Yum! Yum! We also shared Roti Tissue, which was really crispy roti, kind of like a tortilla chip, but sweet because it was drizzled in condensed milk. It was delicious!

On Saturday morning, Way Joe and his mom took Caroline and I out to breakfast. We ate Wan Than Mee (a noodle dish), Mee Goreng (another noodle dish, one of my favorites), and drank Pat Poh Gu Leng Peng (an AMAZING herbal tea with ice and milk that kind of tasted like an iced chai, but better). It was a perfect breakfast! Then, we visited some of Penang's temples, which were absolutely beautiful! We went to the Sleeping Buddha temple and the Standing Buddha temple. At the Sleeping Buddha temple there was the four-faced Buddha, and at each face you pray for something different. The faces were Prosperity, Happiness, Relationships, Education. At the Standing Buddha Temple, there is a pond, and in the center there is revolving apparatus with bowls. Each bowl is labeled, like one for Happiness, one for Success, one for Good Luck, etc., and you throw a coin into which ever bowl you like. I thought that was very nice and clever. Also, there is a Buddha for education where students go pray and take their school schedules and leave them with the Buddha, which I thought was neat. 

Then we visited Kek Lok Si, which is lots of Buddhist temples built into the hillside. At the top of the hill is a beautiful pagoda. We toured through the temples and saw amazing views of the city. One of the temples near the top had pillars carved from stone, and these pillars had 3-D stone figures coming out of them. It is hard to describe, but it was absolutely beautiful and very ornate. We also saw the Liberation Pond where people release their pet turtles. Caroline and I got to feed the turtles, just like Way Joe did when he was little. How fun! Kek Lok Si was certainly my favorite place that we visited. It was just so beautiful and peaceful. I even bought a mantra CD to listen to when I do school work. It's very relaxing and calming and makes me happy. It reminds me of the Catholic Gregorian chants that I really like :)

After visiting temples, we went to Way Joe's grandparents' house, and his grandmother cooked us a home-made lunch!!!! She made rice, curry chicken, vegetables, steamed fish, and Tau Iu Bak, which is pork with soy sauce. It was all so good! We sat around a big marble table with a lazy susan in the middle, and all shared the bowls of yummy food! Way Joe says that this is how they always eats at his grandmother's house with all of his family sitting around the table and sharing the meal. It was wonderful. I met Way Joe's grandfather, and some of his aunts and cousins too. There are actually seven of his family members that live in his grandparents' house- his grandmother and grandfather, as well as their oldest son and his family. One thing that I found just spectacular was that Way Joe's grandmother had beautiful Chinese artwork and antiques all throughout her house! It reminded me of the stores that Hannah and I visited earlier in Singapore that had the Chinese paintings, tea sets, and painted wooden chests, except that these antiques were in Way Joe's grandmother's house- big landscape paintings with the Chinese characters inscribed on them, porcelain figurines... it was all just so beautiful. 

After lunch, Way Joe took Caroline and I to the mall where we watched Belvin and Kah Hoong model in a fashion show. It was a promotion called "Switch" put on by Apple, so of course I was very interested! Apple is trying to set up a base in Asia, so they put on this fashion show promote their products. Basically, Belvin and Kah Hoong got to model in front of a hundred photographers with ipods and lap tops and awesome clothes. It was so fun to watch! After the show, Way Joe took Caroline and I to Sushi King!!! Yes, it is called Sushi King, like Burger King, but with sushi! They had a conveyer belt that revolved around the restaurant filled with different plates of sushi. All you do is see something you like and reach up and grab it. The color of the plate tells you the price of your particular sushi. You save all of your plates and pay at the end. Very clever. Later, we met up with Belvin, Kah Hoong, Johnny, Gloria, Jinny, and Jinny's brother and saw the Incredible Hulk for only 10 Ringgit, which is about $3!!!! So inexpensive compared to the US!

After the movie, we were all ready for dinner, so we walked over to a big outdoor food court on Gurney Drive. I kid you not, this place was huge and packed with people!! There must have been more than fifty stalls of various food! Haha, how do you choose?? Our group snagged a table, and then we split off to order. The way it worked was that everyone ordered whatever they liked, and then shared it with the whole table. How fun is that?! Way Joe and I brought back to the table some Satay pork with peanut sauce, Laksa noodles, and Rojak (a bowl of mixed fruit with a fruity paste drizzled over it). I also tried some fried tofu, mango juice, and Muar Chee, which is little gooey balls of flour rolled in sugar and peanuts. Yum! It was so sweet!

After dinner, we all headed to Batu Feringghi where there over a mile long flea market notorious for selling knock-offs, yay! We shopped around for a bit, and I bought a T-shirt and a lantern for my dorm room. The lantern has a painting of cherry blossoms! Caroline got herself a T-shirt too, and a Gucci purse. After shopping, we went to one of Way Joe's favorite places- a karaoke bar called Red. We relaxed for the remainder of the night, playing cards, eating these really good addicting chips, and singing karaoke!!! haha I'm not much of a singer, but I had such a great time! Most of the songs that other tables sang were in Chinese, and one was even in Tamil, the Indian language, but some of the favorite songs that we sang were It's My Life by Bon Jovi and I'll Never Let You Go by Westlife. The grand finale was I Don't Want to Miss a Thing by Aerosmith, hahaha and it was incredibly fun! This song holds a whole new meaning in my life!

This morning, we slept in a bit and reminisced about our fun-filled and non-stop, action-packed weekend. Way Joe told Caroline and I that we are marathoners for going on all these weekend trips and doing so much in such a short amount of time. I'm going to look back at this summer and wonder how I did it. Four days of class, papers, projects, and learning two weeks worth of material in one day, and then three days of traveling and sight-seeing and staying up late to experience it all! 

On the way to the airport, Way Joe and his mom took us to eat Dim Sum for breakfast. Again, this place was packed with people, and it was delicious! We grabbed about a dozen plates of different foods to try- wan than, egg rolls, minced meat, shrimp rolls, fish meatballs, and custard for something sweet. Yum! I think food has definitely defined this trip! I am so sad to be back in Singapore. I had such an amazing time in Malaysia, and I did not want to leave. It was sad having to say goodbye to Way Joe's friends, who I'd only met 48 hours before, but felt like I had known them for a lifetime! I miss Malaysia so much, and it was hard to say goodbye to Way Joe and his mama who treated us so well. They made our stay in Malaysia truly wonderful and I am so happy :)

IBM Tour

Ahhh today was a good day!

The midterm yesterday went well. I do not know the results yet, but I think I performed well, and I'm glad it's over. Now I just need to prepare for the final this Friday! hahaha. A bunch of us went out last night to a club to celebrate. We went to St. James Power Station, and it was fabulous and definitely the most fun I've had yet out in Singapore! Oh and even better, it was ladies night, so I spent absolutely no money all night except for the taxi ride home.

We also went on a tour of IBM in Singapore yesterday as a class field trip. It was boring to be honest, but I did learn a few things:

1. IBM wants us to work for them, hahaha. They were trying to recruit us during our entire visit.

2. There is very obvious system of hierarchy at IBM in Singapore. When a worker/team leader/manager introduced himself, he would say "Hi, I'm (name), and my boss is (name). His job is to..." and then he would sit down without having said anything about himself, just his boss! Also, one of the lower managers gave us a presentation, and the first thing he said to us was "well I was picked to give this presentation because I am the youngest" and then the older managers laughed. This guy definitely resented that he was the youngest. They also have a tree diagram of the hierarchy posted on the factory floor and in the offices.

3. Asians have a different sense of humor. It's very dry. They seem to get a laugh out of jet lag. Singaporeans are still joking with us that it seems we have jet lag... but we've been here for over a month. I don't understand.

4. We took a tour of the plant floor, and workers were assembling IBM's digital video recording and storage boxes that are used by news crews, ESPN, and any other station that does live broadcasting. There is a difference in the way Singapore assembles the product and the way that the same product is assembled in the US. In the US, the workers personally handle the heavy boxes, flipping them over to put in screws, carrying them from station to station, and packaging them by hand. However, in Singapore, the majority of the factory workers are small women. For this reason, IBM in Singapore has designed their own devices to carry the heavy boxes. They have a conveyer belt that runs through the factory that transports the boxes to each station. At one station, the box is slid onto a cart and strapped in. The cart has a crank that flips the box over onto all sides so that screws can be placed. For packaging, there is a suction machine hanging from the ceiling. It suctions onto the final product, slides along a track, and then lowers the product into the packaging boxes for shipping. It truly is a very intuitive system that IBM has designed to fit the people in Singapore. 

5. To test their final product, IBM places the boxes in a sealed chamber. This chamber changes in temperature and pressure to guarantee that the product can withstand extreme conditions. This is particularly important if these boxes are to be used on or transported by airplanes. I thought this was very interesting and smart.

As for today, we got released from class an hour and a half early! What a perfect start to the weekend! Caroline and I went to afternoon swim practice, and it was our first practice since we swam in Singapore Nationals. Arriving at the pool, it was like a light had been switched on with the team. They were so excited to see me and Caroline, and they were talking up a storm! It seems that they are finally comfortable with us, and I had such a wonderful time talking and laughing with all of them. I'm glad that we're finally past the simple "hello" and "have a nice day", but it's sad because we finally are becoming really good friends with the team and we have to leave Singapore! We only have about one week left! Insane!

We had the most amazing practice. We ran 10 stadiums, did over 100 lunges, and over 100 squats, including 5 x 1 minute of holding a stationary squat. ummm my legs are in pain, but it was awesome! I've never sweated so much in my life! I'm being dead serious. The amount of sweating today far surpassed any sweating I've ever done in the weight room, running stadiums at the football field, or doing agilities on SAC Field. My skin was raining. The Singapore heat and humidity is outrageous. But of course, swimming afterward felt heavenly, and even though I'd been a week since I'd been in the pool, I still felt awesome. So wonderful :)

When we were working out,  our friend Joel was complaining that he wasn't going to be able to go out clubbing tomorrow night because his legs were going to hurt so bad. We told him about our awesome night at the Power Station, and Joel invited us to go out with him and some other guys on the team next week! So excited! Joel is going to take us to his favorite place called Zouk on our last night in Singapore. So excited!

Tomorrow morning, Caroline and I are leaving for Malaysia to visit Way Joe!!! I am so pumped to see him and meet his famliy! Way Joe swims with us at Georgia Tech, and he is originally from Malaysia and only came to the US for school. He's picking us up from the airport, we're staying at his house, his grandmother is making us lunch, it's all just so wonderful. Way Joe says that we're playing water polo with some of his Malaysian friends on Friday before going out. On Saturday, he and his mom are taking us around to see some sights, like temples and whatnot. It's going to be a great weekend!

Bangkok, Thailand

I spent the weekend in Bangkok, and it was so much fun!

Caroline, Josh, Hannah, and I left for the airport right after class on Thursday. We arrived in Bangkok at 7:30 PM, and after checking into our hotel, we searched for a placed to eat dinner. Bangkok is so different than Phuket! I thought the roads were crowded in Phuket with all the crazy drivers and motorcycles, all of the shops right up against the road leaving no room to walk along the street. Bangkok was even more crowded. The streets were wider and jam packed with cars and buses. The dozens of motorcycles were still present, but they were weaving in and out of the cars and zooming through intersections without any regard to the traffic lights... so it was yet again another weekend of being scared to cross the road. Interestingly, I never saw any pedestrian get hit by a car, and I never saw a car accident. I wonder what the Bangkok accident rates are... it seems like they would be astronomically high because of the utter disregard, or in some cases, nonexistence of traffic laws, but I bet it's surprisingly low. These Thai people definitely know what's up.

Our hotel was not near any restaurants. Instead, as we were walking, we passed by numerous tailored clothing shops, beaded necklace shops, massage and manicure shops, and so many roadside food vendors that it made me wonder is anybody actually buys anything. Everybody runs practically the SAME business, advertising the same products and even the same prices! There are tailor shops just lining the streets, all advertising the same thing- custom-made, completed in 24 hours, etc. There were four massage parlors alone next to our hotel, not to mention the family-run restaurants in the middle of the sidewalks! How does a consumer choose, and how do these families make any money when everything is the same? No wonder they are all out in the streets hastling anybody that walks by, they're all competing for business.

We found a local food spot in a well lit alley. It was crowded with people, which means the restaurant must be good and safe. Of course, the food was delicious! I ordered chicken and cashewnuts with rice. There was also pineapple sauteed with the chicken, yum! Hannah ordered chicken with basil leaves, and Caroline got some fried duck, which was very tasty! Some of the other menu items included Brocori (haha broccoli!), Pig Entrails Salad Thai Style, and Sour Fermented Pork Salad. yummmmm?

Later that night, Hannah and Josh got on a bus for Cambodia, and thus began the adventures of Caroline and Ryann in Bangkok! It was neat because we were the only students from our entire program in Thailand that weekend. We were truly on our own, in our own hotel room, organizing our own trips, having our own fun, traveling wherever we wanted to go... I felt like an adult, and it was weird.

On Friday morning, Caroline and I enjoyed the most amazing breakfast at the hotel. It is the best breakfast that I have eaten while I've been out of the US. I had an omlet with onions, mushrooms, and tomoatoes. I had some toast with jelly, fruit salad, potatoes and bacon, and lots of little pastries. It was delicious! After breakfast, we took a bus to Kanchanaburi province, about 3 hours outside of Bangkok. During World War II, Burma invaded Thailand and set up a Prisoners of War camp in Kanchanaburi on the River Kwae. The POWs were forced to build a bridge over the river for the Death Railway. This railway was later bombed, but it has been restored as a memorial to those who lost their lives building it. Caroline and I visited the Kanchanaburi War Cemetery and the JEATH Museum. The museum has a replica of the huts the the POWs lived in, and as you walk through the hut, you can look and pictures and read newspaper articles about the prisoner camp. From the museum, we took a long boat down the River Kwae and got off at the bridge. We spent some time walking along the bridge and taking pictures. There was an INCREDIBLE rainbow overhead the entire afternoon! It was a circular rainbow that completely surrounded the sun! I'd never seen anything like it before, and it is definitely a sight that I will never forget :) Oh and I also paid to use the bathroom! Crazy! It cost me 5 Baht. haha!

After visiting the bridge, we took a train about 25 kilometers outside Kanchanaburi to Wat Pah Luangta Bua Yannasampanno Forest Monastery, also known as the Tiger Temple!!! This monastery serves as a nature preserve. Animals live on the property and can come and go as they please. It reminded me of the Yellow River Game Ranch that my mom and dad took me too when I was little, minus the fences. These animals were completely free- wild pigs, cattle, horses, goats, peacocks... But of course, the reason that Caroline and I traveled so far outside of Bangkok was see the tigers! 

The first tigers to arrive at the monastery about ten years ago were two cubs. Their mother had been killed by tigers, and the cubs were left alone in the jungle to die. Some locals found them, and brought them to the monks to be raised. This soon became a trend, and the monks eventually found themselves raising a dozen abandoned tigers. The monks are currently in the process of building a new habitat for the tigers, but we visited the tigers in the old Tiger Canyon, which is a gorge that you walk down into where all of the tigers play and nap during the day. 

Playing with the tigers was absolutely AMAZING! They were so cute, and so fun, and just adorable! I love tigers! The big ones were beautiful, but kind of boring. The little tigers cubs were my favorite. They liked having their bellies rubbed, so cute! The youngest cub I played with was three months old, and his name was Lucky! Such an amazing experience and totally worth the trip!

When we finally got back to Bangkok late that night, I found a restaurant that served Penang Curry with Shrimp, which is my favorite Thai dish at home, and it was even better in Thailand! I also chose one of the tailor shops and decided to get a business suit tailor made for me. They took my measurements that night, and by the next day they had my suit completely made. I had to go back a few times for small adjustments, but in the end I am very happy with my suit. I got matching pair of slacks, a skirt, and a jacket, all wool and cashmere with silk lining on the inside, a dark charcoal color, and all tailored to fit just me! I went to bed that night excited about my suit and the tigers and looking forward to another amazing breakfast the next morning.

Of course, I was not disappointed- breakfast was phenomenal yet again! After eating, Caroline and I took a bus to Siam Square which had two of the craziest malls I've ever been to! One mall was 8 stories tall! It had an aquarium in the basement, ponds and rivers and trees in the main lobby, restaurants on the 7th floors, a movie theater and an Imax on the 8th floors, and shops all in between! It was insane and I was so overwhelmed. Caroline and I found a shoe store that was selling shoes for 50% off, so of course we each got a pair. I was trying to decide between a black business pair and a purple fun pair, of course I chose the purple fun pair! I also bought some tank tops from another store, all for half price, so combine half off with Thailand Baht, and you get a REALLY good deal. I was such a happy shopper, except for the fact that I still can't find a nice dress... that's on the top of my list. We ate at the biggest food court I have ever seen. It took up an entire floor of the mall- food stalls, restaurants, a grocery store, counters just serving food for take out... it was overwhelming. I got some satay chicken on skewers with rice, and then I happened upon a Flavored Sticky Rice stand. They had big bowls of yellow sticky rice, blue sticky rice, red sticky rice, etc. I asked the guy what flavors they were, but he didn't understand me. I got some coconut-flavored sticky rice with a coconut and brown sugar spread on top- so DELICIOUS!

After our Bangkok shopping extravaganza, Caroline and I went back to the original little streetside restaurant, and I ordered chicken with basil. It was good, but not nearly as amazing as the Chicken with cashewnuts. Then, Caroline took me to get my first pedicure ever! It was fun, and only cost about $7! Once again, I went to sleep anticipating an amazing breakfast the next morning.

The next day, Caroline and I went to Ayutthaya, Thailand's ancient city that was built in the 14th century. Our first visit was to the Summer Palace, home of Thailand's royal family. It wasn't a one big mansion, it was a huge estate with dozens of mansions! Each member of the royal family has their own mansion and staff, including the little princes and princesses. How crazy is that?! There were also a few beautiful temples on the property and a tall pagoda that you could climb up to the top. After the Summer Palace, we went on to my favorite place of the day- Wat Maha That. This was a temple that was in complete ruins because it had been bombed by the Burmese invaders during WWII. The Burmese broke the heads off of every Buddha statue in the temple! Some of the larger Buddha statues have been restored, and they wear orange robes, which I found to be pretty neat. Afterward, we visited the Cremation temple, which really wasn't that spectacular, and then we went to the Reclining Buddha! It was 42 meters long and 10 meters high, and of course it was wearing an huge bright orange robe!!! It was really cool! After seeing all the temples, we took a cruise down Chao Phraya River that runs right through the middle of Bangkok. Along the river, we passed the Grand Palace and Wat Arun, the Temple of the Dawn.

During our trip, we learned that the Thai people associate each day of the week with a particular color. The day the king is born on determines the national color for his entire reign. It is considered good luck to wear the color of the day you are born. Thailand's current king was born on a Monday, so the country's national color is yellow. Tuesday is pink, Wednesday is green, Thursday is orange, Friday is blue, Saturday is purple, and Sunday is red. I was born on a Friday, so my lucky color is blue according to the Thai people. 

The trip to Ayutthaya completed my trip to Bangkok. We got on the plane later that day to head back to Singapore, but no worries, more adventure awaits!

Singapore Nationals

Today was the day that Caroline and I competed in the Singapore Swimming National Championships.

We met our coach at the train station at 7 AM, and he drove us the rest of the way to the meet. The pool was at the Singapore Sports School in Woodlands, Singapore. The pool was in an open-air facility, with a roof but no walls. It was nice. The water was actually cool instead of sweltering hot, and there was a ceiling, so I was happy! No more crooked backstroke! The competition pool had 10 lanes. and lanes 4 and 5 had yellow lanes ropes while the rest of the lanes had blue lane ropes. It was just like the Olympics where the two middle lanes are different colors! Fun! I got to race in the special colored lanes too!

Since there weren't many heats of the events this morning, the meet was not as rushed as in the US. We had to go to a holding area before our event, and then each heat would walk out together to the blocks. When the heat before mine finished the race, they were all given time to swim to the side to get out of the pool, and gather their things. Then, my heat would walk out on deck, stretch and what not, and then begin the race. It was a very chill and relaxing environment. In fact, during warm-up they played a boy band CD that sounded a lot like The Backstreet Boys and N'Sync back in the day. It was not very good pump up music. 

Also, they played music while the heats were swimming! They would start the heat, and as soon as they hit the water, they would turn on a song! I mean, it was nice for the 1500, but they even did it for the short 50 races! I asked the coach why, and he said they started playing music during the races because that's what was done during the World Cup this past year. Interesting. Oh and the deck near the pool side is completely roped off during the meet. Not even the coaches are allowed to stand by the side of the pool. They had to sit about 15 feet away. None of the teams cheered during prelims either. I really got the sense that you have to race all by yourself, without the yelling support of your teammates or the coaches whistled and hand waving. The meet is so quiet!

So this morning, I swam the 100 free first and went 1:03.38, which is only 0.16 seconds slower than my best time. I guess I can be happy with that, especially because I haven't been getting the kind of training I usually do, and I'm not tapered. I ended up placing 18th overall, missing the Consolation Final heat by two swimmers. I swam the 200 backstroke immediately afterward. Because there were only 13 girls entered in the event, only the top 8 make it back to finals. I swam a best time of 2:28.83 in the morning, dropping 0.50 seconds from my previous best time and placing me second overall going into finals.

Caroline, who has been sick for the last 7 days, swam the 100 free in 1:05.10 and the 200 backstroke in 2:39. Her 200 backstroke was tied for 8th place, so she got to do a swim off at the end of the morning session. The winner of the swim off got to swim the event at finals. Caroline beat the girl by over 7 seconds, and swam a 2:37! 

Caroline and I went back to the dorms to rest before finals, and then headed back to the pool later in the evening to swim our 200 backstroke. Swimming finals at Singapore Nationals was so fun! The top three finishers received medals, and I was determined not to go home empty handed. Looking at results from last year, I knew I would have to swim a best time to medal, and I just wasn't sure if that would be possible without training and tapering as much as I have in the past.

For the 200 backstroke, since I was the final heat, we got to walk out to blocks! It was the first time I've ever gotten to walk out and put my clothes in the basket behind the blocks! haha and when my name was announced, the guy said "Kopacka Ryann"! Just as we were about to start the race, a huge group of my classmates showed up at the meet! It was so exciting to have them there!!! So the race began... and I got second overall! I'm the second fastest 200 backstroker in Singapore!!! So amazing! So much fun! I went a best time by almost two seconds, 2.27.03! I'm so thrilled! So then after the race, there was a medal ceremony where I got to stand on the podium and accept my silver medal. It was the first time that I've ever been on a podium! I've won medals before, but this was the first time for me that a ceremony and a podium was involved! It was exhilarating and made me love swimming even more! What an amazing experience!

After the meet, Caroline and I went to celebrate with a yummy meal from an American Grill called Swensen's.  We shared some mozzarella sticks, and I had some real spaghetti with meat sauce and the most incredible dessert ever- a scoop of chocolate ice cream, a scoop of vanilla ice cream, chocolate fudge, caramel drizzle, slices of bananas, slices of strawberries, nuts, whipped cream, and a cherry on top! Victory!

Official results from the meet are at http://www.swimming.org.sg/swmcompetition_local-2008_SNSC.html

I've also posted the site under my "Fun Links" list on the left side of the page. I only swam on Day One of the meet, prelims and finals.

History Class Completed

This morning was my history final. All I had to do was turn in my two papers, and my history class was completed! Today is the official 25% program completion mark! Yay, one class down, three more to go.

After lunch, Caroline and I spent time in the library planning our trip to Bangkok, Thailand this weekend. We leave on Thursday evening and return on Sunday night. We are staying at Bossotel Inn, which is on a river! On Friday we are planning on riding a bus 3 hours to Kanchanaburi, a more rural town. There is a Buddhist temple there that takes in wild animals that can no longer survive on their own. They are most known for their population of domesticated tigers that visitors are allowed to pet and cuddle with! The rest of our weekend will be full of shopping and relaxing in Lumpini Park. We are also going on a day long river tour of Bangkok on Sunday with Hannah and Josh, right before we leave Thailand.

This afternoon we started our second class, Quality Engineering, also known as Quality Control. I loved today's class! It was so interesting! I really hope I continue to like the material. Today we learned about what types of characteristics give a product or a service good quality, like performance, special features, reliability, durability, conformity, etc. It was fun! 

After class, Caroline and I went to swim practice. Tomorrow is Singapore Nationals!!! (So of course I'm up past midnight...). Prelims are at 9 AM, which is 9 PM on Tuesday for those in Georgia, and Finals are at 7 PM, which is 7 AM on Wednesday in Georgia. I'm swimming the 100 free and 200 back. I REALLY want to swim the 1500 free tomorrow. There are only three girls swimming it, and I'm sure I could beat one of them and get a medal! I'll have to see if I'm allowed to deck enter...

Good night!

Phuket, Thailand

I went to Phuket, Thailand this weekend. I left Singapore on Friday morning at 8:15 AM and returned on Sunday at 11:30 AM. I flew Tiger Airways, and we left from the airport's "Budget Terminal"! HAHA I found that really funny! We got to walk out onto the tarmac to board the plane, so that was really fun.

Thailand this weekend was absolutely FABULOUS!! So amazing and beautiful!! The scenery was absolutely breathtaking! As we were flying into Thailand, I was blown away by all of the little islands off of the coast. It is one of the best views I've ever seen from an airplane! I put plenty of pictures on my photo site :)

When we arrived in Phuket, I was caught off guard by the number of taxi drivers and shuttle services that were haggling us for our service. It was very overwhelming. We found a service that would take us all the way to the hostel and even come pick us up on Sunday to bring us back to the airport. It was expensive, but it was the safest decision. We stayed at Jinny Hostel, which was a 15-20 minute walk from the beach. The rooms were AMAZING! My room had two twin beds bathroom, shower, air conditioning, and a TV, which only had stations in Thai. It was like a palace, and the couple that owned the hostel were two of the nicest people I've met abroad so far.

After checking into our hostel, Hannah, Caroline, Josh, Sharifa, and I headed to the beach. There were no sidewalks along the road, and the houses and shops came right up to the edge of the road. It was pretty scary walking so close to cars and motor bikes. There were no street markings, no crosswalks, and no traffic lights... it was interesting. Crossing the road was literally like playing Frogger. There were a few times where I legitimately feared for my life. 

On the way to the beach, we passed by numerous street vendors selling fruit, vegetables, meat on skewers, basically any kind of food. Some of the vendors even sold their goods out of the back of their trucks or from their scooters as they drove up and down the road. During our stay in Phuket, I noticed that these little family businesses were open all hours of the night- 24 hours a day! It was insane! I suppose that they are open as long as there is business. The food from the vendors was very inexpensive, but I was not brave enough to try anything other than peel-able fruit. We ate these lychees that had a red outside, and you twist it open to eat the fruit on the inside. The texture was a cross between a pear and a peeled grape. It tasted very sweet.  We bought breakfast both mornings from a nice lady down the street. We had little banana nut muffins, the most amazing sugary banana chips, an interesting pancake-like pastry with a flan-like custard on top, and a little cube of sticky rice with a coconut and brown sugar topping!! So good! 

Also during our walk to the beach, we noticed that there were so many power lines along the street. I cannot even describe how crazy it was. Just imagine 20 to 30 black power lines running down the length of the road, all overlapping and tangled. You could even hear then buzz and crackle. There were also dogs and cats every where, as well as a fair amount of interesting smells...

When we made it to the beach, we were attacked by people trying to sell us lounge chairs, umbrellas, volleyballs, a jet ski ride, it was terribly overwhelming. America could take a lesson from the private businessmen in Phuket. The Thai are very good at selling their products, very persistent. They would follow us, keep coming back to our spot on the beach... it was actually quite annoying and it is so hard for me to say no. But no worries, I became a pro by the end of the weekend of getting by the hagglers. Haha, it helped that I was taller than them, I just had to keep looking forward to avoid eye contact.

However, on the beach I did give in to one little business... PARASAILING!! Yes! I went parasailing for the first time in Thailand! The ride was pretty short, maybe three minutes tops, and it was the most expensive thing I paid for all day, but it was absolutely AMAZING and so worth it!! It was a harness and a parachute and I rode with a monkey! haha the monkeys were small Thai guys that rode behind you (with no harness!) and would steer the parachute. The monkeys were so awesome. They're so lucky that they get to parasail every day. I was nervous at first, but as soon as my feet left the ground, I was so in love! It was an incredible feeling, so free, I want to go again right now! I had a big, open-mouthed smile the whole time. There was so much to take in! The wonderful feeling of flying, the incredible view! Ahhhhh pure bliss :)

After the beach, Hannah and I went shopping at the awesome open air markets selling all kinds of clothes, jewelry, handbags, and other souvenirs. I learned to barter for the first time. I was uncomfortable with it at first, being so insistent on a low price from an already ridiculously low price, but... when in Thailand, do as the Thai do! Hannah was very good at bartering, so she taught me her ways, and then I started having a good time with it. I bartered down a handmade purse with little elephants on it from 650 Baht to 200 Baht, which is about $7. All the bartering was great practice for when we go to Beijing for six weeks. I'm really excited to go shopping there! 

The accessories at the markets were nice, but the clothes were terrible. They had shops full of awesome shorts, tank tops, dresses, and shirts. The styles were awesome, open-backed tank tops, beautifully patterned sun dresses. The terrible part was that all of the clothes were so little! There is only one size in Thailand: one size fits all. The shopkeepers tried to convince me of this by showing me how the tank tops and dresses were made of a stretchy material... but a small is still a small, so I didn't end up buying any clothes.

After shopping, we enjoyed the sunset on the beach. It was beautiful of course, so naturally we took a zillion pictures.

For dinner, we went to Savoy, one of the top 10 Thai restaurants in Phuket. I ordered coconut cream soup and Pad Thai. Yum! There was a live band, and they gave us Georgians a shout out, many times! They played "My Girl" and "Brown Eyed Girl" and get this... "Colors of the Wind". HAHA! Hilarious! They're very up-to-date on their songs.

Later that night, we hit up the bar and club district. I just want to say that nightlife in Phuket was VERY different than the nightlife I have seen in Atlanta. The way the girls dress, the prostitutes all along the streets, the hagglers all over the street advertising their bars and their ladies, the A-Go-Go Girls dancing at and on the bars, the Cabernet ladyboys in their flamboyant peacock-like outfits.. It was quite an interesting site to see. Don't get me wrong, the atmosphere was very fun. The streets were crowded, the bars were bursting at the seams, the clubs were playing awesome music, but it's so different in how Thailand so outwardly advertises sex and alcohol. Girls were walking around with posters that advertised a particular bar or even themselves! The US seems very private about partying, almost shameful, compared to the way Thailand nightlife is flaunted. So needless to say, it was an eye-opening experience, and I had fun nonetheless. 

The next day, a group of eight of us went on an elephant trek through the jungle!! Oh my goodness, RIDING AN ELEPHANT WAS SO MUCH FUN! I had the time of my life! The elephants have little chairs tied to their backs that can sit two people. Hannah and I rode together in the chair, and our tour guide rode of the elephants head. haha! Our elephant's name was Boonmee, and he was so cute! About a quarter of the way along the trail, the guide taught Hannah and I commands for directing our elephant, and then he hopped off and let us ride the elephant by ourselves! We even got to move out of the chair and straddle the elephant's neck! So amazing! At the end of the ride, we got to feed Boonmee some bananas, which was so fun!

After the elephant ride, our guides took us white water rafting. It wasn't as intense as what I've done in the US, but it was certainly fun and refreshing! The way that this tour company controlled the river was pretty neat. Since we did not visit during monsoon season, the water in the river was very low, so the company had a big reservoir on their property that they emptied into the river right before we began. The extra water created some nice rapids! When we returned to base camp after our rafting trip, the reservoir had been drained completely empty! It was a pretty nice system they had worked out :)

After rafting, the tour group provided us lunch in the pavilion- chicken with cashews, a vegetable dish, a Thai soup dish with squid, and a whole fish, all served with rice. We also had salad and fruit, and I ate some of the bananas that we had fed to the elephants. The bananas are much smaller in Thailand than what we eat in the states. So after an amazing lunch, we went swimming in a waterfall, and then headed back to the hostel. 

We were home by 5:00 PM, so five of us girls went out and got Thai Body Massages! It was incredible and so relaxing. If I lived in Thailand, I would get one two or three times a week. It was only 250 Baht for one hour, which is like 8 US dollars. Can't argue with that price! In fact, the exchange rate for Baht from the US dollar is so good that the slogan for the trip became "Drop it like it's Baht" and "It's ok, it's just Baht!", meaning that Baht is pretty much useless. They have a 20 Baht bill, that is worth less than a dollar. One of the boys on the trip found that extremely funny.

After massages and a quick dinner at a pizzeria, four of the boys and I went to see a Muay Thai Boxing fight. After paying quite an insane price for the ticket, I was disappointed to find that the boxing matches were held in a place that resembled a garage. The ring was in the middle, and there were couches around it. The neat thing though, was that we got to sit in the second row, very close to the action! Also, we were the only tourists there. It was all locals, yelling and gambling and carrying on. It was fun and a nice cultural experience! There are no rules in Muay Thai Boxing. The boxers only wear gloves and a mouth guard, and then anything goes. The way to win the match is to "inflict the most visible injury on your opponent", and if you knock out your opponent, you automatically win. It was so awesome. The boxers had incredible speed with their punches and kicks. The cool thing was that almost all of them were in the ring smiling while they were fighting! They were having such a great time trading blows, it was crazy. Before the match, the two fighters participate in a ritual were they bow to each of the corners of the ring and honor their teachers, and then the 5 rounds begin. We saw one bloody nose, plenty of bruised ribs, and one guy got kicked below the belt and the match was halted until he recovered. Two rounds later, that same guy ended up knocking out his opponent, right in front of us! It was so cool! He kicked his opponent in the head, and the opponent crumpled. The referee caught him before he hit the ground, and then his coaches ran over and picked him up and started rubbing him and waving things in front of his nose to get him to regain consciousness. It was so intense. My favorite part of all of the matches though, was the breaks between rounds where the fighters would go to their corners to recover. I liked how the coaches would poor water on them and stretch their muscles and pump them up for the next round. It was awesome!

So that was Phuket, Thailand. In less than 48 hours we were on a plane back to Singapore. I think I'm going to like these weekends where we travel to a different country, and try to pack in as many activities as possible! So fun!