Home.

My study abroad is officially over. What an incredible journey. There are few word's that can encompass all that I have learned, seen, and experienced. Looking back at pictures, I am in awe at all that I have done this summer. Though my time in China still feels very real, my travels to Singapore and Thailand feel like lifetimes ago. I am truly blessed to have had this opportunity, and I will be forever thankful for Georgia Tech, the President's Scholar Program, the ISYE Department, Program Director Chen Zhou, and my parents for giving me such an opportunity. To my dearest family and friends, thank you for following my blog this summer, and I loved hearing from you when I was abroad.

Ah I finally made it home! What a crazy three days it has been! After spending my last day in Beijing with Onur, I stayed up that night to pack. I checked out of my room at 2:30 AM on Saturday, August 2nd. I was surprised to receive a letter from my brother at basic training at the Air Force Academy when I checked out! Reading his letter just made my day, and I wanted to call my parents right then and tell them about the letter. Then I realized that I would be seeing them at the airport in a days' time, haha :)

Everybody checked out of the dorms successfully, and we got to the airport and checked in without any problems. I even managed to  get myself an aisle seat for our 14 hour flight to the US. Our flight plan was from Beijing to Hong Kong to Los Angeles to Atlanta. It would take 26 hours to complete with 22 hours being actual flight time. However, after boarding the plane in Beijing, we ended up sitting on the plane at the gate for three and a half hours! Apparently, there was limited air space in Beijing at the time, so they couldn't get our flight out. Because of our three hour delay, we missed our flight in Hong Kong to the US. 

Originally, Cathay Pacific told us that we would have to spend the night in Hong Kong and catch the same time flight the next day. In the end, Cathay Pacific was very accommodating, and they managed to get all 20 of us onto another flight to the US that day. Unfortunately, my seat was not as awesome as it was if we had made our original flight. Since they squeezed us onto this new flight, I ended up with a middle seat in the very last row. Of course, since it's the last row, the seats are up against the wall, so they did not recline. Hooray. I even ended up getting sick on the flight to the US. It was crazy to me how my immune system had been such a champion while I was abroad, and now I was finally on my way home and it decided to get upset. I was not sick at all my entire time abroad, except for a small cold on the train to Shanghai. I hardly used any of my medicine, and I did not have "China Cough" or suffer from "Beijing Lung" like the majority of my classmates. Nevertheless, I decided to get a sore throat and a fever on the way home. Goodie.

I ended up sitting next to a pretty neat guy. He was a 23-year-old Korean, and he was going to the United States for the first time! He will be studying English at UCLA for five months. He asked me lots of questions about the US, and I told him he had to go to Yosemite National Park and Disneyland while he was in California. He also told me about how he met his girlfriend in the Philippines a month ago, and we ended up flipping through all of the hundreds of pictures on his digital camera from the Philippines. What a gorgeous place! When our flight was about to land in LA, he got so excited! He also told me that I was his first American friend :)

By the time we landed in LA and made it through customs, we had obviously missed our flight to Atlanta. The two red-eye flights to Atlanta were both oversold, so instead of flying standby, Delta put us on a flight for the next day, and Cathay Pacific handled our hotel accommodations for the night. At this point, we had been traveling for 24 hours, and I had been awake (or sleeping intermittently) for 44 hours (since I saw Onur in Beijing). haha no wonder I was getting sick. 

So we spent the night in LA, and we finally arrived in Atlanta at 10 PM on Sunday the 3rd, exactly 24 hours later than planned. At this point, it was 10 AM on Monday the 4th in China, and we left China at 4 AM on Saturday the 2nd, which means that it took us 65 hours to get from Beijing to Atlanta. Whew! 

Being home has been interesting so far. I love looking in my backyard and seeing tall green trees, green grass, and bright blue sky. I definitely do not miss the grays and browns of Beijing.

One of the first things I did in the US was speak to someone in Spanish in LA. HAHA and I actually understood him. It was funny to me that I was back in the US but I was still speaking foreign languages. 

When we were leaving customs, I had to speak to an airport attendant about our delayed flight, and I started racking my brain for how I could explain the situation to her when I realized that she spoke English! haha I was so excited! At the hotel, a woman said "Good morning" to me, and I was so excited I must've scared her with my overly happy "Good morning!" reply. I was so happy someone was speaking to me and I knew what they were saying!

Interestingly, when I first arrived in the states, I was still speaking Chinese, even though I only know a few words! When I convinced myself that people understood English, I found myself speaking English, but thinking in Chinese! Weird. I think I'm still hooked on my few words of Chinese because it was the only way I could express myself for so long. Crazy!

When we were taking a shuttle to the hotel, I was surprised when I heard the radio in English, and when me and my classmates were rambling on to each other, I had to keep reminding myself that the shuttle driver could actually understand what we were saying. We were no longer riding in taxis with drivers that didn't know English.

I am still in awe that I can drink out of the sink faucet and not get sick. I was in my hotel room, and I was thirsty, and I panicked because my bottle of water was empty, and then I realized I could just fill it up in the bathroom sink. I was so pumped! I was even more excited to see water fountains!! Those are nonexistent in China!

I more fully understand the value of the dollar. I still find myself converting everything to rumbles (Chinese yuan). I bought a chai tea at the airport in LA, and it was five US dollars. That's 30 rumbles!! I could get five lunches at the dining hall with 30 rumbles! Now, 20 USD's seems like SO MUCH MONEY. I used to think that $20 was nothing, but that's 120 rumbles, which is a lot! Goodness I do not want to spend any money anymore.

As soon as I got home, I jumped on my bed! it's big and fluffy and has a soft comforter! In China, I slept on a wooden board, an inch thick sleeping pad, and a thin blanket. There are also no couches in China. There is pretty much nothing soft to sit on in China. 

I was super excited when the public bathrooms in the airport had all toilets, supplied toilet paper, and had soap and paper towels. It's the little things in life that are making me happy right now. Not having to fish my own toilet paper out of my purse was a big plus of the day.

I had cereal and milk this morning for the first time in three months :)

I have surprised myself by how much I remember about home, and how much I do not remember. I saw my cellphone for the first time in three months. When I turned it on, it seemed like I hadn't even been without it. I still knew which buttons to press and how to set the alarm on it. I was excited. I also went out to the store today, and I remembered exactly how to drive and how to back out of our driveway. I have to admit I was a little worried that my driving skills were going to be rusty, but they weren't :) I forgot to bring my driver's license and cell phone with me though. Oops. Those were definitely two things that I didn't use in China.

I was also caught by surprise when we got to LA because at dinner I reminded that we had to add tax to the prices on the menu and that we had to tip our waiter. I was also kindly reminded by my classmates that I was not 21... . I miss China for these reasons. Other than that, I am glad I am home. I especially like walking into the kitchen and eating whatever food I like, instead of having to ride my bike to the nearest dining hall. I also like turning on the radio and the TV and hearing English :) 

Oh and ordering water at a restaurant in the US is so amazing! It's FREE and they REFILL it!!!! YAY! In China, water at restaurants was more expensive then soda and alcohol. so annoying because all I ever wanted was water. Now I can get water whenever I like. God bless the USA :)

Last Day Abroad

Today was my last day in Beijing, and my last day abroad in Asia for the summer! Oh my goodness, I can't believe that the program is coming to an end. It's weird to think that this could be the last time I am ever in China. I like to think that I will come day one day for business maybe, but you never know. Right now, I am all packed up and ready to go. I check out of my room in 3 hours, and then it's off to the airport to go home :)

Today was an awesome last day in Beijing. The weather was some of the best we've seen all summer! Sunny, blue sky, white clouds, and not too much humidity. Caroline and I went early this morning to go see Onur!!! Kristi came along too! 

We met Onur at the Water Cube after he had finished practice. It was so awesome seeing him! We only spent 3 hours with him, but it was just so amazing that we were seeing him in Beijing. I just couldn't get over how he is an Olympic Athlete (twice! He went to Athens in 2004 as well!). He showed us his Athlete ID tag, it was just all so cool.

Of course, everything is on lock down, so Onur couldn't take us into the pool or the village, but life in the village sounds so fun! They get free drinks and free food everyday, they got some cool goodies bags upon arrival, there's an olympic store just for the athletes, and there is a HUGE dining hall for all of the athletes that serves a variety of foods. Onur said the dining hall is the size of three CRC's, and it's open 24 hours! He said there are so many volunteers there wanting to help, like carry his tray for him and everything! haha!

We took Onur to Houhai for lunch. Houhai is a bar district and a shopping district along a lake. It's very pretty there all the time, day and night. We ate a traditional Chinese lunch of fried rice and noodles, and then Caroline and I took him to the Silk Market. We saw SO MANY athletes at the Silk Market! Egypt, Ukraine, Italy, Canada! I was surprised that so many of them were out and about, and they were all wearing their team gear too! I thought they would try to blend in... but I guess not. I also gave Onur a list of tourist spots, like the Temple of Heaven and Forbidden City, for him and his teammates to go see when they have some spare time.

All too soon, we took a taxi with Onur back to the Village. Onur even got to use his athlete pass to get the taxi through one of the security check points. We were dropped off outside on of the gates to the village, we took some more pictures, and then we said goodbye to Onur. I wish we were staying longer so we could see him more. It was interesting how we were spending our last day in Beijing with Onur on his first day in Beijing. Good luck to him at the Olympics!!!!

When we left the village, Caroline, Kristi, and I got some pedicures in Wudaoku and ate some chicken and rice for dinner. We returned to the dorms, and I napped for a bit and then packed up my room. I got everything to fit in the bags, even with some extra space! I'm so pumped! I'm staying up tonight to check out of my room at 2:30, and then we leave for the airport, take a four hour flight to Hong Kong, a 14 hour flight to LA, and then a 4 hour flight to ATLANTA!!!!! 

AAAAHHHHH! This is my last post from ASIA!!!!!! I'm so sad, it's been awesome :)

4th Class Completed!

I'm done! I'M DONE! I'M DONE, I'M DONE, I'M DONE! The "study" part of my study abroad is over!!!! My group and I gave our presentation yesterday, and we're turning in our paper today for our logistics class. My 4th and FINAL study abroad class has now been completed :)

A bunch of us went out last night to celebrate. We went to Pyro for pizza and Tsingtao, and then we went to Tango for some karaoke. We had our own private karaoke room that had comfortable leather couches, a bar and stools, and a big plasma screen TV for the karaoke. We had four microphones in the room, and some of my songs to sing were "Low" by Flo Rida, "My Humps" and "Glamorous" by Fergie, "Stronger" by Kanye West, and "Lean on Me". We had free juice and snacks all night. Some of our snacks included fried pastries filled with red bean paste, deep fried pumpkin cakes, dumplings, Chinese sushi (no raw meat),  and some custard filled pastries. 

This morning, we went back to the classroom for the last time. Professor Zhou gave a brief wrap up of the program, and we all filled out some course surveys. At the end of the meeting, we watched a thirty minute slideshow video of pictures from the program. David Schwartz put it together, and he used over 500 photos! It was so fun to see pictures from Singapore and Thailand. That seems like AGES ago!

After the meeting, we went to the #1 Peking Duck restaurant in Beijing for our farewell lunch. It was a very fancy "Lazy Susan meal", consisting of many many courses. Naturally, my favorite course was the Peking Duck. The cook carved the roasted duck right next to our table and served us the fresh meat. You roll the duck meat into a tortilla with lettuce, cucumber slices, and a bean curd paste (which doesn't sound appetizing, but it's really good I promise!). 

Now, I am back in my room putting the final touches on our paper before I submit it to Professor Tsui. Then I am going to start packing! Ah almost time to go home!

Olympic Preparations

Beijing has transformed.

It is night and day how Beijing is different from the Beijing when I arrived 5 weeks ago. Olympic preparations have increased as of last Sunday the 20th, and Beijing is becoming more beautiful everyday. Olympic banners line the campus, the streets, and the highways. There are potted flowers all along the sidewalks and medians. There are new road signs posted through the city that point toward Olympic attractions. The signs have English on them! There's even a sign for the Tsinghua Swimming Pool. I have no idea why, seeing as it's closed.

The new subway lines are FINALLY open!! ...well almost. The new line 5 has been open since I arrived in Beijing. It runs north to south, ending at the Temple of Heaven. Line 10 opened on the 20th, which runs east to west, and I LOVE taking it. The line goes near the venues, and it is also a much easier way to get to the Silk Market because you can avoid the nasty transfer at Xizhimen that makes you walk nearly a half a mile up a bunch of stairs. The sad part is that Line 8 is not open yet! This is the Olympic Line that takes you to the Olympic Green, the Olympic Sports Center, the Olympic Village, the Bird's Nest, and the Water Cube. I'm sure it's done being built, they just haven't opened it to the public yet. Anyway, the new subways are beautiful. They have brand new trains with new seats and handrails, air conditioning, and plenty of space because not many people are using the new lines yet. The new trains even have map the light up to show the trains progress, just like in Hong Kong! The new trains also have TVs that are currently playing instructional videos about each Olympic sport. For example, the gymnastic videos explain what the gymnists wear, how high the pommel horse is off the ground, how gymnastics is scored, etc. At least, that is what I can gather from the Chinese and animations. I think it's neat how the government is teaching the Chinese about the Olympics by playing movies on the subways. Oh, and all of the subways and trains have English recordings that follow the announcements made in Chinese! I actually know when the train is coming and which station we are approaching now. That would've been helpful about a month ago. 

Also, the new Olympic bus lines are now open too which transport people around the Olympic Green, which is made up of the Olympic Park and 10 venues, including the Bird's Nest and the Water Cube. Oh and the construction by the Wudaoku subway station (the one closest to campus) is finished. They were putting in bike paths, sidewalks for pedestrians, and a bike parking area. It's not controlled chaos, instead of just chaos :)

The roads are less crowded too! As of the 20th, Beijing has been regulating the amount of cars on the roads. On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, only cars with license plates ending with an odd number can drive on the roads. On Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, only even-numbered cars can drive on the road. Taxis and buses can drive on all days, and I'm not sure which cars are allowed to drive on Sundays. The cool thing is that the Chinese people are abiding by this rule! It's fun to ride down the street and only see odd numbered license plates. 

This system has definitely cleared up the roads. It's not so scary riding my bike anymore or crossing intersections because there are not as many cars! The new system also benefits the taxi drivers because it keeps the fake taxis off the roads every other day. There are even lanes on the roads that are designated just for Olympic vehicles, similar to the HOV lanes in Atlanta. I'm not sure what constitutes an "Olympic vehicle", but the lanes stay empty most of the time, not even the taxis are allowed to use them. There are really pretty Olympic rings painted in the lanes too. 

This car regulation system is working so well at loosening up the traffic that I will not be surprised if the Chinese government tries to continue this rule after the Olympics. It's had some great results, but there is no way that this kind of solution would work in Atlanta. Compared to Beijing, Atlanta's infrastructure and underdeveloped (or underutilized?) public transportation system would not be able to get people where they need to be. One day those civil engineers from Tech will figure something out :)

There are also officials throughout the city that are teaching the Chinese to be polite. Before Sunday the 20th, on the 11th of every month, Beijing instated "Queueing Day" where the Chinese people would practice courteous behavior on the subways and buses. Since the 20th, there have been guards wearing orange at all of the subway stations and bus stops. They have flags that they wave around too. At the subway station, each guard stands at a door of the train and makes sure the people line up away from the door, instead of standing in a big mob with their noses up against the doors. The guards make sure everyone has room to get off, and then they let the other people board the train. The same process occurs at the bus stops. 

There has also been an EXPLOSION of Olympic volunteers. They are everywhere! They were all given the same outfits to wear- a bright blue and white Olympic polo, a gray Olympic hat, a yellow Olympic fanny pack, gray and yellow tennis shoes, and gray Olympic zip-off-at-the-knee pants. These volunteers are stationed throughout the entire city and in all of the subway stations to help tourists find their way. One of the guys in our program asking for directions to the Summer Palace, and he said they were incredibly eager and excited to help him. I wish they would've been around when we arrived a month ago. I have no need for them now, but it's still fun seeing them throughout the city. Their uniforms are so bright and pretty, and they are always so happy. They all seem very proud to be a volunteer. One of my group members for my Logistics class is actually a volunteer at the Water Cube!

As far as pollution goes, there has not been much of a difference. Last week there were four days straight of blue skies, but it's been all cloudy and gray since then. I hope I see one more blue sky this week before I go home. All of my pictures of the city still have a gray haze in the background. Also, one bummer about the Olympics is that they are closing down a lot of clubs around the city... Mix, Vics, Propaganda, Kro's Nest, basically our favorite spots, are all closed :(

As far as this weekend goes, my classmates and I went too see an acrobatics show on Thursday night at the Chaoyang Theater. It was INCREDIBLE! I got to see contortionist that pulled their feet back up over their heads to the front of their faces. They were literally sitting on their heads. Their backs were so flexible! It hurt my back just watching theirs bend! It was so awesome! There were also two guys that ran around in a wheel, and there was a bike act where they put 12 girls on one bike! It was awesome.

On Friday morning, I went back to the Great Wall with Hannah, Gabby, and Adrienne. We went to the Juyongguan section, which was about an hour outside of Beijing. Much closer to campus than the previous Simatai section. The Juyongguan section has been renovated and reconstructed, so it looked really nice. Instead of doing lots of hiking like at Simatai, we spent a few hours taking tons of pictures. We got to there early in the morning, so we had the whole wall to ourselves! After an hour or so, lots of tour groups showed up, and the wall became just PACKED with people. Most of the tour groups were middle school aged kids, and they would come up to us and try to practice their English. We heard plenty of choruses of "Will you take a picture with us please?". It became more and more difficult to get good photos, so we headed back to Beijing. I had a great time. I would've liked to go to what they call a "wild" section of the Great Wall that is not touristy, and it's crumbly and overgrown and dangerous, but the Juyongguan section was still nice. If I ever go back to Beijing, I will definitely spend an entire day hiking across a wild section of the Wall. 

After the Great Wall Part 2, I went to the Olympic Flagship Store with Kristi, Gabby, and Sara. The flagship store is the biggest store for official Olympic merchandise. The place was crazy! It was so crowded and there was so much merchandise it took us hours to look through it all. My favorite items were the 5 foot tall stuffed Fuwa mascots and the 4 GB Olympic flash drives. Haha so clever. Outside of the store, it was like Beijing 2008 explosion. The street was jam packed with people, and there were huge colorful Olympic banners covering the buildings that lined the street. There were three huge Olympic stores just along this one half mile stretch of road! Can you believe that I still couldn't find the one item I was looking for that is sold out at the Tsinighua Olympic store? Yep. True story. Out of all these stores, I still couldn't find the one item that I wanted: a set of five drinking glasses that has each of the Fuwa on them. I even looked on the online store, and they were sold out too. 

On Saturday, Caroline, Kristi, and I went to the Olympic Green!!! We took the new subway line 10 and tried to take line 8 directly to the Green, but it was still closed. So we walked a good mile or two with the hopes of getting as close as possible to the Water Cube and the Bird's Nest. On our way, we passed lots of guards and lots of fencing. The ENTIRE park and venues are all still blocked off. I guess it makes sense to protect the venues, but I don't understand why the park is still closed. We passed by lines and lines of people waiting to pick up their tickets, the International Broadcasting Center (IBC), the Olympic Sports Center Stadium (soccer finals and the Modern Pentathlon), and a military zone that had surface to air missile launchers. Yikes. 

Eventually we could see the Bird's Nest, and we went up on a bridge crowded with people to try to get a better view. There was also a news crew on the bridge doing a live broadcast. Fun! After taking pictures of the Nest, we saw the Water Cube!! This is where Onur and Kathleen will compete!!!! How exciting! The Water Cube actually looks blue during the day time, and apparently it lights up really nicely at night too! There was a big parking lot by the Cube that we could enter, and this is where we took a lot of our pictures. I wanted to actually touch the building, but of course we couldn't. It was so hot outside that we just wanted to go jump in the pool. How incredible would that have been! I would have given an arm and a leg to go inside! After visiting the Cube, we tried to follow the signs and my map to the Olympic Village, but we could not find it. The heat eventually got the best of us, and we took a taxi back to Wudaoku where we bought juice and water at the 711 and then went to our favorite BBQ chicken place for lunch.

My activities on Sunday included homework and studying, and I took one trip to the Silk Market to get three business shirts tailored. Today we took our first and only exam for our Logistics class. We had a homework assignment due today, and one is due tomorrow. On Wednesday we have a project presentation and a paper due, and then my summer study abroad is complete! AH! We are going out for pizza on Wednesday night to celebrate, and we have a class farewell dinner of traditional Peking/Beijing Duck planned for Thursday. On Friday, Caroline and I plan on meeting up with Onur who arrives in Beijing on Wednesday to swim in the Olympics!

Things That Make Me Happy

1. A really good dinner with friends.

We went out to a local chicken wings restaurant for Scott Bruce's 21st birthday. There were 23 of us total, and we got a private room in the back of the restaurant. We ate over 1000 rumbles worth of the best chicken I have tasted in China! Honey wings, normal spicy wings, and abnormally spicy wings. The wings were served two at a time on a skewer. Usually I do not like spicy foods (I can't even handle the spicy hot pot!), but the spices they used on the chicken wings were TASTY! I ended up eating everybody's abnormally spicy wings because they didn't like them, but I loved them! We were also served spicy lamb on a skewer, which I liked because they used the same spices as the chicken, and the lamb had no bones.  We also ate soy beans, tomato slices topped with sugar, apples and pears covered in a sweet fruit salad sauce, and a round pumpkin pastry drizzled in condensed milk (my favorite!). We also shared a vanilla birthday cake with chocolate frosting, and it was shaped like a basketball, just for Scott :)

2. Swimming

Ever since we found the pool, Caroline and I have gone there every single day possible. Unlike Singapore, the water is pleasantly chilly, so it's much more refreshing to swim in the afternoon in China. The water keeps getting clearer everyday we swim. I'm not sure why,  but it's far from the murkiness it was when we started swimming there last week. The good news is that I can see in front of me, the bad news is I can see how dirty the bottom of the pool is, haha. Unfortunately, our class gets out at 4, and the pool closes at 5, so it gives us about 45 minutes of swimming. I like to see how much I can swim in that 45 minutes. It hurts, but I like that I'm getting back into some kind of shape. I'm no where near where I was when I left Atlanta, but just getting the feel of the water back is a start.

3. Being Ian Crocker's friend on Facebook. YUM.

4. A shower.

At the end of a long day in class, at the pool, at the weight room, biking through the dusty streets, I love when I turn on the shower and it actually works and has good water pressure. So incredible. Showers in Beijing are much different than showers in Singapore. In Singapore, showers were a way of escaping the heat and humidity. In China, showers are a way of escaping the dirt, haha.

5. Hearing from friends and family back home.

Thank you Facebook message threads, e-mails, blogs, Skype, and AIM.

6. Finishing a homework assignment in less than an hour. BALLIN!

7. Apple bottom jeans and boots with the fur.

8. The Great Wall of China.

9. The Olympic Fuwa mascots, especially JingJing the Panda!

10. Music that gets me through the day.

Currently, Chris Brown, Casting Crowns, and Colbie Caillat (wow that's a lot of C's! I promise I did not plan that).

11. Marking my weeks by my malaria medicine.

12. Being a baller in China, duh.

13. Using the Chinese Language.

When I recognize Chinese characters, such as "middle", "entrance", "exit", and "people".

When I hail a taxi all by myself and tell the driver where I want to go in Chinese, and he understands me and takes me there :) So exciting!

When I check into my dorm complex and tell them my room number in Chinese, and they understand :) 

14. The sun, chocolate, and hugs :)

Inner Mongolia!

AHHHH I just had the best weekend in Inner Mongolia!!!!!! Vast stretches of grasslands, fluffy white clouds on the brightest blue sky, sunsets, sunrises, endless desert sands, and experiencing pure freedom :)

I left Beijing on Thursday night with Caroline, Hannah, Adrienne, Melissa, Kristi, Jen, Gabby, Sara, Chris, David, Randy, Thomas, and Andrew. We had arranged a four night group tour of Inner Mongolia!

We got picked up from campus by Daniel, the owner of the tour company. We all took an overnight train to Hohhot, the capital of Inner Mongolia. Since we signed up for the tour a bit late, Daniel could not get us tickets on a soft sleeper Z-Train like the one we had taken to Shanghai. Instead, we were spread across one of the cars in a hard sleeper K-Train, but it was still lots of fun! We were joking around about how funny it would be if we were taking an M-Train (which is the term that refers to management majors at Georgia Tech). There were no private compartments on the train. Instead, there were just isles and isles of beds stacked three high! Most of our tickets were for the middle and top beds, and I slept on one of the top beds.

When we arrived in Hohhot, our tour guide Susan met us outside the train on the platform. Susan is 24-years-old, and she grew up in Mongolia. She speaks four languages and kept apologizing that her English was very poor. It wasn't bad at all, and she ended up being an awesome and fun tour guide for our group. She even had a green flag that she held up for us to keep the group together. Haha it was awesome! I've decided that if you live in Inner Mongolia, you are either a farmer or involved in the tourism industry by working as a tour guide, tour bus driver, or at a tourist location.

We had breakfast in the city, and thus began our "Lazy Susan meals". Every meal we ate in Inner Mongolia the entire weekend was Lazy Susan style. We sat at round tables with a turn table (called a Lazy Susan) in the middle. Twelve dishes were served at every meal, and we shared them by rotating the Lazy Susan. For breakfast, we had rice with green bell peppers and chicken, hard boiled eggs, some watermelon, and a variety of different looking bread rolls that all ended up tasting like dough. There were even some rolls that looked like they had chocolate and cinnamon in them, but it ended up being red bean paste. It was interesting. Our dishes at lunch and dinner were pretty similar. Usually we had white rice, a spicy chicken dish, a whole fish (not filleted), steamed bok choy, egg drop soup, bread dough balls, tasty lamb mutton, cabbage, and watermelon.

At every meal, we were either served hot green tea or traditional Mongolian milk tea. Right out of the tea pot, the milk tea tasted very watery and somewhat salty. However, they always served a plethora of additions for the tea, such as sugar, goat cheese, and corn meal. You're supposed to put everything into the tea and eat it with a spoon. It actually tasted really good! It was kind of like eating warm cereal, and it became my comfort food for the weekend :)

After our breakfast in Hohhot, we took a three hour bus ride to the Gegentala Grassland in the Aobao hills. During the ride, Susan asked each of us to go to the front of the bus and talk about ourselves into the microphone. We ended up asking each other crazy questions, like What is your favorite smell?, and Andrew sang "My Girl" into the mic. The scenery along the ride was absolutely gorgeous, but it was nothing compared where we were staying for the night- gentle rolling hills, covered with the greenest grass against a clear blue sky with the fluffiest white clouds, ahhh so picturesque. Even the weather was incredible! It wasn't humid at all! In fact, the air was dry and quite cool, but the sun kept us warm. It was the perfect temperature the whole day. Also, there are no bugs in Inner Mongolia! There are these awesome flying grasshoppers that make cracking noises when they snap their wings together, but there are no biting insects!

We spent the day riding horses across the grasslands! The horses were smaller than I expected, and it was quite funny to see all of us tall Americans on them! I rode on a white horse with black spots that looked like a Dalmatian's coat. We rode to the top of a hill to see a monument the Mongolians use for prayer. Then we rode out to visit a traditional Mongolian family at their farm. They live in dwellings called yurts. Yurts are circular tepees with a hard clay floor covered with rugs and a wooden frame draped with canvas. There was a circular opening in the roof for ventilation that could be closed when it rained. We sat inside the yurt and were served milk tea and deep fried bread sticks for dipping. Yum! An interesting thing to note, the Mongolian woman served tea to the boys first! Quite patriarchal if I do say so myself.

After visiting the family, we rode back to camp. During the entire ride, the guides kept signaling to us to keep our horses at a walk, hardly letting us even trot. I was so anxious to just break away and gallop across the open grasslands. I was getting disappointed as we neared the camp, but then to my excitement, our guide took off and left us in the middle of the fields. Ah I was so excited! I kicked my horse into a full gallop and went flying across the grasslands!!! I was such an amazing feeling- wide open grasslands, the endless blue sky, the wind blowing by, ah I wish I could've let go of the reins and just opened my arms toward the sky! How incredible!

After the amazing horse ride, we watched a Mongolian rodeo that featured horse racing around a track, Mongolian wrestling, and acrobatics on horseback! People were doing handstands on a galloping horse! They were also hanging off the side of the saddle, carrying another rider on their shoulders, making a human pyramid, it was awesome! After the rodeo, me, Hannah, and Caroline went out into the fields to take some pictures with the grasslands. Then, we ate a Lazy Susan dinner and afterward, all of us went back out into the grasslands to watch the sunset! It was incredible! Such vivid colors against such a big sky! I took so many pictures, and looking back at them now still takes my breath away! Did I really see that in real life??

When the sun finally set behind the hills, we went to a bonfire where we watched some performances with Mongolian dancing and singing. One crazy thing about the performance, people were going on stage in the middle of the show to take pictures with the performers!! Yet another example of how the Chinese have no shame... that kind of behavior would be unacceptable in the United States. Family after family was taking their children onto stage to

stand by the singers, right in the middle of the performance! I was in disbelief! The awesome thing was that Adrienne went up there to pose with one of the singers too :)

After the show at the bonfire, I was really excited to see a big night sky full of stars!! To my disappointment, it was a cloudy night, so I didn't get to see a single star. However, there was a really bright moon that illuminated the clouds, so that was neat to see. We went to sleep later that night in our very own yurts! Yes, we stayed in yurts! haha it was really cool!

Caroline and I shared a yurt, and we woke up at 4:20 in the morning along with Hannah, Melissa, Kristi, and Gabby to see the sun rise. We walked for a good 45 minutes to the top of a hill. We watched the pink sky for a good hour, and we were about to turn back when the sun finally peeked out from behind the hills. A big orange globe! We watched it rise from behind the hills, and once it appeared, it rose so quickly! haha it reminded me of the opening scene in the Lion King. When I looked back at pictures, the sky is a beautiful pink and orange with the circular sun right at the horizon. The grasslands are darkened, and when I flip the photos upside down, it looks like the pictures are taken from space!

Oh one fun thing about Inner Mongolia was that we were the only white people there, and the Mongolians were FASCINATED with us! We got our pictures taken so many times, with and without our permission. Depending on what mood I was in, it was either really fun or really annoying to be watched. In the end, I liked it when people would ask me to take my picture instead of just plain snapping one of me when I'm eating dinner.

After the sunrise, we ate breakfast and then got back on the bus for a five hour ride to the Gobi Desert!! On the way, we stopped in the city of Baotan for lunch. Baotan is the second cleanest city in China! The section of the desert that we visited was called the Resonant Sand Gorge, and it had been turned into somewhat of a mini theme park. We took a cable chair ride (or snow ski lift) from the parking lot over to the dunes. When we arrived on the dunes, there was just desert everywhere, stretching in all directions! How cool! The dunes were gorgeous, and I liked how the wind had created ripples across the sand like the waves do to the ocean bottom.

We went on a camel ride, which was so fun! All of our camels were tied together in a line, so we looked like a nice train of camels traipsing across the desert. My camel was beautiful and white and so soft! We sat between the two humps, and it was very comfortable. We got on the camels went they were sitting on the ground, and it was like a roller coaster when the whole line of camels stood up! During our camel ride, there was some lightening in the distance, and then we started to hear thunder, and then it started RAINING in the desert! INSANE! We had to stop and get off our camels in case they spooked. An ATV was driven out to our group to pick us up and take us back to the base camp. We piled 16 wet people into this ATV, and the driver was crazy! He raced across the dunes, bouncing us into the ceiling. The windows were all foggy, so none of us could see outside. There were times when I thought the car was going to roll over! Now THAT was like a roller coaster. It kind of reminded me of Jurassic Park.

After waiting out the storm, we took some sled rides down the side of a steep dune, in which we all got covered in sand from head to toe! We then took the cable chairs back to the bus and headed back to Hohhot. That night, we stayed in Jin Jiang Hotel in Hohhot. It was a FIVE STAR HOTEL!!! Obviously, it was the nicest hotel I have EVER stayed in! Wow, we were ballers in Mongolia! Caroline and I shared a room on the 16th floor, and it had two full size beds, with big fluffy comforters, and two fluffy pillows for each of us! There was also a sitting area with a glass topped desk and a big window overlooking the city. The bathroom was incredible! The shower was actually separated from the toilet! YES! There was also a bathtub, and they gave us complimentary shampoo AND conditioner AND lotion! There were even big soft white towels and BATH ROBES!!! I took the most amazingly warm shower, and then wrapped up in my robe. Caroline and I went over to Kristi and Jen's room where we were joined by Gabby and Sara for a robe party! hahaha :)

After our ballin night at the five star hotel, we ate an awesome breakfast. They had eggs and cereal and milk! I had some peach juice, and it was very tasty! They even had banana bread and it was so moist and yummy, so of course I had four pieces :) After breakfast, Susan took us to visit the Dazhao Lamasery, the Five Pagoda Temple, and the Zhaojun Tomb. The Dazhao Lamasery was a traditional Chinese Buddhist temple built in the same style as the temples in the Forbidden City. The Five Pagoda Temple was really pretty, and there were little buddhas along the walls that people had given little yi jiao coins. To get to the top of the pagoda, we climbed through a steep staircase in a small dark tunnel. Nice! At the Zhaojun Tomb, there was a museum about the Huns that included artifacts like swords, bowls, and armor from 200 B.C.! The Zhaojun Tomb was for one of the Hun Kings, and it was at the top of a hill, guarded by a pagoda of course!

After touring Hohhot, we had some time to spare, so we walked around a mall in the city, and Caroline and I bought some juice and relaxed in a nearby park, similar to Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta. They had a big concrete amphitheater with a huge TV screen that was showing a soccer game. Caroline and I chilled on the stairs, and as we were sitting, people started wandering over and sitting near us. I guess they were interested in the white people. A homeless man came over to ask us for money, and two boys paid him and shooed him away from us. That was nice of them. Also at the park, there were these ponds, and floating on the water were these big, clear, hollow plastic balls. Inside the balls were CHILDREN! Yes! Like hamsters! Running around in the balls on the water! Crazy! It looked like fun, but something like that would never happen in the US.

Later that evening, we ate dinner and then Susan took us to the train station. We took a group photo in front of the bus (it was called the Golden Dragon). Then, we bid goodbye to Susan and our awesome bus driver, Mr. Li, who was one of the most animated people I've ever met, and he didn't speak a word of English! We took the K-Train home, and arrived in Beijing this morning at 7:30. The tour company picked us up from the station and took us back to campus in rush hour traffic. We even passed a six car accident where they had all run into each other's bumpers! We ended up making it to our 9:00 class just in time! What an awesome weekend!

Updated Links

Caroline and I are featured on GT's athletics website (www.ramblinwreck.com)!! We are submitting journal entries and pictures to them about our travels this summer! How fun! Check it out! A more detailed link is posted in the "Fun Links" column on the left of this page.

Also, I've posted some direct links to my photo albums since I cannot access my Photo Website in China. I am also not able to upload photos anymore due to Internet restrictions, so this is all I've got until I get back to the States in August. Enjoy!

Caroline and I went back to the pool today with our Teaching Assistant Ralph to be our translator. We passed our deep water test (YAY! 30 seconds of treading water and a 200 meter swim), and we got our updated swimming certificate. The people at the pool were FASCINATED by Caroline and I, it was crazy! We were watched the whole time, and people were giving us thumbs up. Ralph informed me that everyone was talking about us and that we looked like professionals. One guy even asked Caroline and I to do a lap of butterfly, and he said that the Tsinghua swim team is far behind us. haha.

I asked Ralph why so many of the Chinese go to the pool, and he said it's because they don't have air conditioning because it is too expensive. So they go to the pool during the day to cool off. Oh and the showers at the pool are COLD. No hot water. And the lap pool is nice, but it's dirty and murky. I'm afraid I'm going to get sick from swimming in the water, but swimming felt SO GOOD! I swam a 1500 (the pool closes at 5 and we get out of class at 4. It was 4:30 by the time we finished our swimming test). Swimming was tough, and I was definitely out of breath, partly because I haven't swam in a month and party because there is no oxygen in China.

Oh, and Caroline and I went back to the Silk Market after swimming, and one of the ladies asked if we were athletes. We said yes, and then she asked if we were swimmers, and she was so excited that she had guessed correctly!

One thing to note about China: there is no shame. Mothers breast feed their children on crowded subways, little children walk around with no pants or underwear on, and when a child has to go to the bathroom, the mother stops them right where they are and let's the child pee on the ground. Yes, I've seen my fair share of children peeing in the corner of a store or in the subway tunnels or even by the escalator. No wonder everybody was sitting on newspaper at the train station...