Our group of 8 traveled to Sichuan (Szechuan) Province to independently explore a foreign capital city. To see as much as we could in 5 days, we needed to constantly be on the move which required staying in 3 hostels and walking a lot! Not only did I visit a new city, but I learned…

Sorry for the gap in my blog.  I was preparing most of the week for my Chinese mid-term.  It was quite long and hard but I think I did well! I’m so happy it’s over that I celebrated with a long nap.  In the evening, I decided to go to a free performance of a…

One of the most useful phrases I’ve learned in Chinese is 打包 (da bao) which means take out/to go.  If I’m in a rush and want to take my dumplings to go, I da bao it.  However, I’m still getting used to the way Chinese take out works. Sometimes they provide 筷子 (kuaizi) or chopsticks and…

The Great Wall is over 4,000 miles long- but today I only walked 5 miles of it.  This part of the wall is just 2 hours outside of Beijing and it called Jinshanling, or Golden Valley.  It was quite a trek simply getting to the wall but it was well worth it! The Wall!  They…

On Monday, our Sociology class took a field trip to Beijing’s Olympic Park.  This is where the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics were held. Our professor first took us to some secondary Olympic buildings before taking us to the main event, the Bird’s Nest!  I was pretty excited to see these outstanding architectural buildings.  I’ve read…

The title says it all! On the last day in Qinghai, our tour guide DaWei took us on a “hike.”  Only 6 of us decided to go but it was the best decision I’ve made since coming to China.  We should have known this was going to be less of a hike and more of…

One of my favorite parts of traveling abroad is visiting local schools.  I did this while in India and I was able to do it in China as well.  It is very interesting to see how schools are run in different countries, how the building is set up, what the students learn, and how the…

Qinghai Lake is the natural treasure of Qinghai province.  People say that Qinghai province looks like a rabbit with Qinghai Lake being the eye.  It is truly a natural wonder! It is six times the size of Signapore and surrounded by snow-covered mountains, smaller mountains, AND sand dunes.  I’ve never seen water this blue before!…

I was a potato farmer for a day! We traveled an hour outside of Xining to visit a local farm family.  They were beyond nice to us but maybe that’s because we were going to do some hard manual labor for them! The fields were all terraced land built into the mountains.  We had to…

Today we traveled to the village of Tongren.  We were very fortunate enough to visit Longwu Monastery.  This is one of a few monasteries in all of China which is allowed to have pictures of the 14th Dalai Lama. Since he grew up in Qinghai province, the government is a little more relaxed about his…