Helen’s Travel Corner

Just wanted to touch base on my blog since I haven’t written on here while in China. Part of the reason is that WordPress is blocked on the China Firewall and part of the reason is that I’ve been busy in a whirlwind of activities since I’ve been here and haven’t had time to figure out how to update this. Low and behold, I’ve gotten through to my blog!

So what have I done in the two weeks I’ve been here? In short, I flew into Shanghai and stayed there 3 nights then took an overnight train to Beijing. I partied the 4th of July at Muse, a big Chinese club and danced my independent booty into the wee hours of the night. As soon as I got into Beijing I met up with Adam, my cs-er host for the evening. He was great and introduced my to a delicious Yunnan restaurant where we and 3 of his other friends chowed down and enjoyed conversing. My class flew in on Tuesday so I met up with them and we all were taken to the Communication University of China where I’ll be staying while I’m in Beijing.

A quick synopsis of my whirlwind of activities include: playing ping-pong with Chinese students, shopping at Wal-Mart, hanging out on the dorm’s roof deck with our Aussie colleagues, being videotaped on a tour of a water treatment plant and a China-approved “rural” village, ate Peking Duck, walked on the Great Wall, saw the Ming Tombs, took a boat around the Summer Palane, stood on the ruins of Yuanmingyuan, ate Weiger food and drank at an expat bar, practiced Mandarin with a taxi driver after checking out bars and restaurants in HouHai Lake, listened to media representatives at the US Embassay, drank champaign at a sunrise reception at the St. Regis, gotten a Chinese body massage and saw Yao Ming the first day of training as a volunteer at the Wukesong basketball venue!

Now that I have a feeling for my schedule and have reliable internet in my room, I’ll expand on this bullet-point list and fill you in on the details as much as I can….and as much as the China Firewall will let me.

Also, check out my class’s blog at http://blog.emerson.edu/beijing/ where you can see the collective experiences about our time here and read my latest post on my Chinese Momma!

More to come…