The Longest Day of My Life

Literally! I left Beijing at noon on December 5th, which is 9pm Montana time, so I woke up at midnight the night before and stayed awake so I'd be able to sleep on the flight back. In order to ensure I actually stayed awake, I didn't start my packing until roughly 3AM, and as an added measure put the suitcases on my bed so I wouldn't be able to lay down. The first hour or so was really hard -- my eyes kept wanting to close on me. After that, though, I was fine - Kimberley was also awake packing, so I went to her room and watched for awhile, and then went and actually packed up.

Getting to the airport and everything went smoothly, as did my flight back to the US. In the Beijing airport my bags got manually searched, and while they were searching them I was able to have a conversation in Chinese with the one agent about what/where I was studying, how long I'd been in China, things like that. It was a really nice reminder of how far my Chinese had come since I got to China. We landed in Seattle at 6:30 AM on December 5th, and that's when the funkiness of time zones hit me - I had left Beijing 6 hours after I arrived in Seattle! My layover in Seattle was 4 hours, which was more than enough time to get through customs, get a gingerbread latte (!), and kill some time on the moving walkways (much to the amusement of my fellow travelers...I should consider growing up sometime soon!).

Our flight to Salt Lake was delayed for 30 minutes, because of fog at SLC, and then when we were almost to Salt Lake we got placed in a holding pattern (apparently for an hour - I dunno, because I fell asleep) due to the fog, and then were redirected to Twin Falls, Idaho, because the fog wasn't lifting. Twin Falls had an airport half the size of Bozeman, and there were ten other planes that had also been redirected because of the fog. This led to the most traffic the airport had in years, meaning they were delightfully overstaffed, and a slightly amusing situation that seemed to fit the perfect situation for a romantic comedy/psycho thriller/Christmas comedy movie. So anyway,  I spent something like 5 hours there, until the fog lifted and we got to go back to Salt Lake.

By the time we got in there, all the flight to MT had left, so I got to spend the night in a hotel in Salt Lake. As I climbed into bed at 11:30pm, I realized it had literally been the longest day of my life - something like a 38 hour day? :) I finally got home the next morning, and I've come the conclusion that home is the best place in the world. :) It's really weird to be home, it feels like I never left! I may post some more entries on my last couple days in Beijing, reflections on my time there, and what it's like coming back, but they may not be consistent - I fully intend to spend the next week or so just sleeping, eating, reading, and skating. :)

Home in Beijing!

I'm back at my home away from home, cozy Renmin University in Beijing. :) It is actually really nice to be back, sleeping in my "own" bed and being in a familiar setting again. Beijing had a significant temperature drop while we were gone, probably from the 70s down to the 40s. It's beginning to feel like winter! It's kind of cute how weather.com always says it's "foggy" in Beijing; if it sticks around 24/7 except when it rains, in a city known for its pollution, I'm betting it isn't "fog". We have a week long break now, so no classes until next Monday. Most everyone is travelling (Daping is biking to Inner Mongolia), but I'm staying here, filling up the time with skating and Model UN/Other RSO/Summer Internships stuff. Not so exciting, but things that have deadlines and really need to get done, so it's nice to not have to worry about school, too.

Our last day in Xi'an was fun, as we spent several hours on the bus to visit a couple mausoleums of emperors. It was a 2 hour ride to the first one, and while I primarily did Chinese homework, Kimberley, Louis, and Alex were playing poker with Mao Zedong cards, which was amusing. (Kimberley ended up winning 12 RMB!). The first tomb we visited was Emperor Wu's tomb, who was an emperor in the Han dynasty which we  studied extensively in class. There wasn't too much to see there, but they had some large stone sculptures that show a horse crushing the barbarian Xiongnu, which was representative of his reign. The funny thing about the ancient emperors is that they created pyramids for their tombs, except unlike the Egyptians, they made the tombs out of earth, which puzzles me to no end. Emperor Wu was particularly concerned with his own immortality, so although his design of his tomb is him conceding to death, it seems like he'd want something glorious to be remembered by, not just a big pile of dirt. But they were buried with a lot of pottery soldiers, animals, chariots, etc - pretty much everything needed to rule in the afterlife (ie, 8,000+ terracotta warriors). I guess I would just expect them to focus on being remembered, too - I mean, they didn't even find the burial pits of the one emperor until they started digging to make the Xi'an airport.

The trip back was okay, although I've discovered my love of overnight trains is diminishing quickly. This wasn't an express train, so we had to stop at practically every station, meaning that the return trip took about 13 hours. I was so happy to get back to my room and be able to take a shower and a nap in my nice, hard, non-moving bed. :) Since I don't have school, I'm going to try and update quite a bit this week, catching up on topics I've wanted to write about but haven't had the time. But now, it's off to lunch and the ice rink!
~Karissa

WE'RE GOING TO.......XI'AN!!!!!!

.The above title was meant to convey an Oprah-like suspense, similar to when she announced at the beginning of this season that the entire audience was going to Australia. Which I've only read about, but I imagine was quite suspenseful. At the end of this class section of the quarter (our ten week quarter is divided into three class sections of three weeks each, with a week long break at the end of the first), we were supposed to be going on a class trip to Chengde, but today that was officially changed to Xi'an!

While both have a ton of history (heck, all of China does!), Xi'an has the distinction of being home to the world famous Terracotta soldiers, which I am insanely excited to see. They're one of those icons of China that you hear/read so much about, and I'm excited to get to see them! I suppose the other famous icon is the Great Wall, which, coincidentally, we're going to tomorrow. I definitely think the best part of civ abroad is getting to go on field trips. :)

The trip to Xi'an is eleven hours by train, so we'll be leaving from Beijing at 9:30 at night and taking the overnight train. It's nice that we'll wake up and be there, but at the same time, I wish it could be daylight so I can see more of the countryside. We'll stay in Xi'an until Saturday or Sunday night (I can't remember which), and then come back on the overnight train. Overall, it should be a ton of fun - thus far, I've loved getting to go to museums and historical sites, and plus traveling with a bunch of other UChicago students is bound to be a blast. I'll make sure to update and take lots of pictures. :)

Random note: One of Xi'an's sister cities is Kansas City. Hopefully Xi'an will be more exciting. 

Surviving the Bus System

So after being in China for almost a week, I successfully navigated the bus system alone today! The Chinese bus system tends to scare the bejeebers out of me, in part because it's so tremendously large (700 different routes) and because, unlike the subway, there isn't English. I had found an ice rink that was only a few kilometers away, and set out yesterday morning to find it. After some finagling with Google transit to actually get the right start address (my computer can't read characters), I knew it was five stops away on bus 365. Seems like enough information to survive on, right? The entire time, though, I was worried that I accidentally took the bus in the wrong direction, or that Google meant to go 5 stops and then get off, or did it mean at the get off AT the fifth stop? Thankfully, the rink is located in a shopping mall, so when we pulled up at the fifth stop, I knew I was in the right place. Getting of the bus, I was proud of myself for successfully navigating. Turned out the hard part was next - little did I know, the mall I was entering was the second largest in the world. Wikipedia tells me that it was the largest when it was built, but was since replaced with another one in China. Still, the place was really huge, and they even had escalators that were flat, so you can take your cart up them! Prior to finding the ice rink (down in the basement), I passed a McDonalds, a Dairy Queen, a Starbucks, and a KFC, so I guess I know where to go if I get homesick for American food!

The ice rink itself was a bit disappointing- it's only 1/2 a rink, so that makes things a little more tricky. However, there were only a few people there, which I wasn't expecting (considering the city has 23 million), so that's good. And since it's only 15 minutes away, that'll make things easier, too.

In the afternoon, I went with Charis and her business project (Uchicago) friends to give a presentation to a high school about the U of C. Even though I spoke mostly in English, I was worried that the students wouldn't be able to understand me, but luckily, they were. I guess now I can say I've given my first international speech. :) It was a lot of fun, and many of the kids were eager to ask questions about UChicago, which was great.

Yesterday evening, we got Peking Duck for dinner. It was by far my favorite dish thus far in China, and even though it won't be the same back in the States, I'm definitely going to eat it again! :)

Today I'm leaving for Jinan, three hours away. Charis is originally from there, so we're going to stay at her house and climb a mountain! I probably won't update when I'm there, but I'll be back in Beijing on the 10th.

Other Note: It's actually a clear day in Beijing - you can see the mountains in the distance and you can actually see the sky!