out peace china.

Wow, it has been a while. China was super interesting. I think I have decided that I could never ever live there, but I am def glad I got to see it. I certainly learned a lot. The reason I haven’t updated in so long is that I couldn’t access my blog at all in China. Apparently my blog is a threat to the Chinese government? I dunno. I guess that’s what happens in communist countries. One day at the internet cafe in Shanghai, the woman working there showed me a note written in English that said I had to write down all the websites I had visited for the police records. It is all too easy to take our freedoms in the US for granted. Since I have sooo much to cover, I will give some brief thoughts and highlights from my destinations.

Nikko, Japan. My favorite stop on the trip so far. It is a quiet little mountain town which was a welcome break after our time in busy Tokyo. The Japanese people are some of the nicest people I have ever met in my life. Everyone has such a high respect for everyone else. I have never felt so safe in my life. We didn’t lock our hotel room once, and there was never any fear of anyone coming in, there just isn’t any crime there. Everyone you meet will bend over backwards to do whatever they can for you. I spent most of the days there wandering around the Buddhist temples there. Unfortunately all the guides only spoke Japanese, so I didn’t always know what I was looking at, but it was gorgeous none the less. Nikko is the kind of town where we could just walk around and explore on our own, which was very nice to have a few moments away from the group.

Beijing, China. My least favorite stop on the trip so far. Beijing is dirty. You seriously can’t see out the window it’s so dirty. There is a thin layer of dust and grime covering everything. The hotel we stayed at was supposed to be a 4 star hotel, and at 1st glance, it was. But we quickly learned that looks can be deceiving and that good appearances are what is valued in Beijing, not necessarily good quality. The rooms were huge apartments, but the kitchen appliances weren’t fully assembled, sometimes lights were burnt out, some rooms didn’t even have a shower curtain. As we learned in class the next day, this seems to largely be a result of the rapid growth of Beijing. Everywhere you look there is construction, and things are being built so quickly that none of it really gets finished properly. As long as it looks nice, that’s good enough.

There is a lot of poverty in Beijing, in Shanghai too, but not as obvious there. There are a lot of beggars in the street who will quite literally grab you, or follow you for several blocks asking for money. It is heartbreaking to be followed two blocks by a 5 year old tugging at your pants asking for money, or to have a man with no leg position himself in front of you on the side walk so that you can’t get past. It is really hard to see. There seem to be a lot of burn victims. The first day there we saw a man who can be best described as not having a face. He looked like something out of a horror film. There is definitely a conflict between who to give to and who not to. Because obviously you cant help everyone. As we learned at the US Embassy in Beijing, there is no social system at all set up to help these people. If you are homeless, or disabled, or unemployed...too bad, you are on your own 100%.

Ok, enough of that depressing stuff. Good things about Shanghai:
-The Great Wall!! Which I climbed (talk about a workout). It was awesome. I will post some pics soon.
-The techno club across from our hotel. Sooo fun. I love dancing!
-Interesting company visits with NCR and the Embassy
-The celestial walk. Hard to explain, but it was really pretty and there were really cool animal statues.
-Having an English speaking tour guide at the Forbidden City. It made it soo much more enjoyable to be able to understand what we were seeing.

Wow, that’s it, everything else was terrible. I don’t think I had a single meal I liked, the traffic is a nightmare, the toilets are a hole in the ground, I couldn’t breathe there, every 3 feet you walk someone is trying to sell you something, I got ripped off so many times, it takes 30 minutes to buy anything, they don’t believe in lines and they like to push you over, it smells...yeah, that about sums up Beijing. Despite all that, i'm glad I went, but I will never go back.

Ok, this is getting way too long. I gotta go write a paper. I will fill you all in on Shanghai another day, which I liked much better than Beijing.

i think im turning japanese

wow, everything on the screen is in japanese. it took me 5 min to get to the update page.

so, im in tokyo! finally! it was quite the adventure getting here. we were about an hour away from dallas on the way to japan when the pilot announced there was a crack in the windshield. we had to turn around and fly back to dallas where we waited a good 4 hours for another plane to arrive. we finally left the states at almost 6pm. however many hours later we landed in tokyo and the madness began.

the plane fiasco put us in tokyo 7 hours late. by the rime we got our luggage it was 9 30pm local time. we made a mad dash to the atms, and brian and i were sent to find out when the last trains left. the one we needed had already gone and the very last train left in 15 minutes. we were all rushing around trying to get money, get tickets and get everyone on the train. it was insanity. japanese insanity. i totally take for granted the ability to read signs. since we missed the train we needed, train took about an hour longer than needed. when when we finally got to the right station, we could not find our hotel. lau doesnt help us much, there is a team leader in charge and we all just sort of work together to figure out where we are going. i like that system. it feels good to know that you got yourself across tokyo. im team leader for the day we travel from nikko to beijing. that will be quite the challenge and im already scared. but i know i can figure it out.

last night we got to our hotel a little after midnight. while sleep would have been the smart decision, almost everyone headed out, we found a nice little resturant and shared some snacks and a round of japanese beer. the menu was all in japanese and the waiter spoke about 2 words of english, which was enough to figure out that we had ordered chicken and pork skewers. they were really good. we are very much relying on just pointing and hoping for the best when ordering. we made it back around 3am and were more than ready to sleep. we pushed the trip to the fish market back until friday since we got in so late. so tomorrow ill be up at 4am.

i gotta go, theres a wait for the computers. talk you you all later! i miss you already.

ps. i think i fixed the comments so that anyone can leave one, so feel free to do so.