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Home Sweet Home...

So now I'm back in the good ol' USA... I got back last night, just in time to see some of the last few 4th of July fireworks from my window as I flew into Atlanta. The whole family (except for Eli and Mattie, who are in Germany these days) came to the airport to pick me up. I can't believe how BIG they've all gotten! Sophia was barely talking when I left... and now she puts complete sentences together!

At this point, I'm just glad to be home... but I'm sure I'll start missing China soon! One thing's for sure... I've got to go back one day!

Things don't always go as planned...

Well, I was planning to go home today... but that didn't exactly work out. When I got to the check-in counter, I realized that my passport wasn't in the wallet-thingy where I usually keep my important traveling documents. I searched through my backpack and other luggage, but no luck. I had a copy of my passport, but that didn't help me out at all. SO to make a long story short, I contacted the US embassy in Beijing, and they told me about the procedures I would have to go through to get a new passport and an exit visa from the Chinese government. (You need a visa to LEAVE China?! Who knew??) I won't go into detail, but it's a LOT of red tape, and it was going to take about 2 weeks. The first step was to report the loss at the police station, but when I got there, I was told I needed an official letter from my Chinese university, confirming that I was a student, and that I had indeed lost my passport. By the time I got back to campus, it was about noon, and all of the offices and classes take a break between 12 and 2 every day. I decided to use that time to check my room at the dorm and my baggage, in case I'd misplaced it while packing. I searched my room, but didn't find anything (except a sock and a missing tube of mascara). About 30 seconds after I started looking through my luggage, I FOUND IT! (prayer DOES work!) :) Where was it? In a handy side-pocket of the backpack I was originally planning to take as a carry-on. I had put the passport in there so that it would be "easily accessible" when I got to the airport. (It's always a pain to have to dig through your backpack each time!) I realized that that backpack was too big, so I stuffed it inside one of my checked bags, and forgot to transfer the passport to my other backpack. (It's so typical of me-- putting somewhere where "I'll remember where I put it", and then forgetting where it is.

The good news is that I don't have to wait around for a replacement passport, but the bad news is that I did miss my flight (I found the passport 2 hours AFTER my plane left), so I had to reschedule. Because the first part of my trip (Wuhan to Beijing) isn't actually a Continental Airlines plane, I won't know for sure until tomorrow morning at 6 AM (6 PM, Ga time). Today has been such an emotional roller-coaster. Sadness about leaving China and my friends here, excitement about coming home, panic, apathy, an overwhelming sense of relief (mixed with feeling incredibly stupid), and now I'm at relief and uncertainty.

Please keep me in your thoughts and prayers. :) If all goes well, I'll be home by tomorrow (Friday) night! (Which is Saturday morning, China time.) I'm hoping to get back in time for the 4th of July... keep your fingers crossed!

My time here in China has been incredible... but traveling here and going back home have been hands-down some of my worst travel experiences ever.

But right now, I'm just trying to keep a positive/optimistic attitude... it makes the whole situation a little more bearable. Hopefully the next post will be from the States! :)

Where did the time go?

Well I can finally check the Great Wall off of my list of "Things to See in China". It was incredible. That thing just keeps on going and going forever! And as you can see in the background of the picture, it's anything but straight! I got to see a lot of other interesting stuff while I was in Beijing... T'men Square, the Birds Nest and Water Cube, the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace... I'll put up some pictures and tell you more about it when I get a chance... but I'm leaving for home bright n' early tomorrow morning, so I need to get back to my packing! See you (well, some of you) SOON!!! :)

one more week!

A week from now, I'll be sitting on a plane, on my way home! I'm incredibly excited about coming home... but at the same time, I'm really sad about leaving China and the friends I've made here. My semester here had gone by really fast. Too fast, almost. But on the other hand, this next week can't go by fast enough. Such mixed emotions!! I have my final exams today and tomorrow, and then I'm flying to Beijing with a Korean friend Friday evening. I've traveled around a lot since coming to China, but somehow, none of my plans for going to Beijing ever worked out. I was starting to think I'd end up leaving China without ever having seen the Great Wall, and that just seemed somewhat unacceptable. I mean, WHO comes to China without going to the Great Wall? So I decided to squeeze in one last trip between finals and before going home. I'll be back in Wuhan Tuesday afternoon, and then I'm leaving for home bright n' early Thursday morning! I absolutely can't wait to eat some good home-cooked American food again! :)

update!

This time, I have an excuse for my lack of updates over the past month or so: "for some reason", it has been impossible to access blogspot for the past month or so. (hmmmm...?) I've been enjoying myself, doing some traveling (a weekend in Shanghai, followed by a spontaneous trip to Hangzhou, Suzhou, and BACK to Shanghai the following weekend), and now I'm focusing on my last 3 weeks of classes and finals! I went to Shanghai two weekends ago (May 21-24) with my Korean friend and classmate, Park Gyeong Eun. We met up with another Korean friend of hers (named Hanna) in Shanghai. Neither of these girls speaks much English, but we all study Chinese, so we relied on Chinese to communicate all weekend. It was kind of exciting to realize that my Chinese is now good enough to plan a trip, buy train tickets, and carry on (simple) conversations! Being forced to speak Chinese all weekend definitely helped my vocabulary a lot! (I carried around my little Chinese-English dictionary all weekend, and the Korean girls had little Korean-English dictionaries, so if we ever had trouble saying something, we'd break out the dictionaries... that earned us a few funny looks from passer-byes!) It was only my second time to Shanghai, but it was amazing how easy it was to find my way around the city this time! I honestly think I'm a lot better at finding my way around Shanghai than I am at finding my way around Wuhan! That's mostly thanks to the subway system in Shanghai. It's really fast and convenient, and all of the maps are both in English and Chinese (although by now, the English is a nice touch, but I think I could survive without it. :) ) On Sunday morning, we attended a service Shanghai Community Ch-rch. At first, I was impressed and encouraged that the Chri-tians in Shanghai are free to meet so openly for worship. But once the sermon started, it was clear that this ch-rch lacks g-dly guidance. The pastor preached in Chinese, and those of us who didn't understand the Chinese so well were given headphones, and we could listen to a translator, who translated (or at least, tried to) everything the preacher was saying. She (yeah, she) preached on baptism, because they were celebrating Pentecost that Sunday. I'd never heard of this practice before, but this ch-rch only allows people to be baptized on Pentecost Sunday. The whole premise of the sermon was that "they might allow you to be baptized as soon as you believe the Gosp-l in other countries, but that's not how we do it in China." I found myself taking a lot of notes during the sermon, but most of them were about things she said that I wanted to compare with what the Bi-le ACTUALLY says. Pr-y that G-d would send a g-dly man to lead that ch-rch! China has become more religiously free over the past decade or so, but the government still has control over a lot of the aspects of the ch-rch, including what is said from the pulpit. Our little international ch-rch on campus is also experiencing some difficulties. We were recently informed that we are no longer allowed to use the room in the basement to meet for Sunday services! Our pastor already had a meeting with the police and with some of the people in charge of our university, and they told him they would hold another meeting with him to make a final decision, but they haven't called him, and when he tries to contact them, they don't answer the phone. It seems more like a problem from within the university than from the police. Please pr-y that G-d would give us wisdom, and that this issue will be resolved quickly! This past weekend (May 28-30), we had Thursday and Friday off for the Dragon Boat festival, so some friends (Mei, a Thai girl who was adopted by Belgian parents and Celine, a Chinese girl who grew up in France) and I decided to travel. We made last-minute plans to go to Hangzhou and Suzhou for the weekend! They're both actually pretty big cities, but they have the feel of a small town. From Hangzhou, we visited Moganshan (Mogan Mountain) which is about an hour away from the city. In the early 1900's a lot of Americans and Europeans had built summer homes there, and now a lot of the foreigners who live in Shanghai (also very close to Moganshan) and the well-to-do Chinese like to go there for vacations. We spent an afternoon walking around there, and it was absolutely beautiful!We took a bus back to Hangzhou from the mountain, and at the bus station, we found a bus leaving for Suzhou about 10 minutes later! Perfect timing! I absolutely LOVED Suzhou. It's called "The Venice of the East", because it has lots and lots of little canals throughout the city. It was so beautiful! We rented bikes and rode around the city for a few hours, exploring little alleyways, where all of the locals live, and taking pictures. (We even took a few pictures WHILE riding bikes... and somehow, none of us got hurt!):)

(Pardon the blurriness... I was on my bike! ;)

It turned out that there wasn't a direct train from Suzhou back to Wuhan, so we had to take a train to Shanghai first (only 30 minutes on the fast train!), and then we took a train from Shanghai back to Wuhan. We only had 2 hours in Shanghai, and neither of the other two girls had been to Shanghai before, so we asked a taxi driver to drive us past the Bund and then to the famous Nanjing Road, where we stopped for a quick dinner at SUBWAY! (We don't have that in Wuhan... it was HEAVENLY!!!)Then we had to run to the real Subway to catch a ride to the train station to catch our train back to Wuhan. We were in a sleeping car for the ride home, so we arrived in Wuhan Sunday morning with a lot more energy than you would expect after visiting 3 cities in 3 days! But it was a good thing we weren't tired--we had to go to class as soon as we got back to campus, because the university had us make up our Thursday classes on Sunday! (I guess they can't handle more than 3 days in a weekend!)

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RECENT PICTURES!

Shanghai with the Koreans (click here)

Hangzhou, Suzhou, and 2 hours in Shanghai! (click here)

Guilin and Yangshuo-pictures!

What a trip! :) I got back almost a week ago, but since I got back, I've been busy catching up for those 3 days I missed... and I've just been too lazy to post pictures. ;)

Here's the filthy train we took from Wuhan to Guilin...

Here's what 15 hours on a train without sleeper seats will do to you!

Here's the group of girls I traveled with (from left to right):
Hadeel from Sudan, me, Areen from Palestine, Luiza from Algeria, and Rahma from Tanzania. (And I probably butchered the spellings of those names!)The girls loved hearing me even TRY to pronounce their names throughout the trip... haha. I only knew Luiza before the trip... the other girls are all friends of hers, and they all go to a different university here in Wuhan. I met them at the train station before leaving for Guilin... I was afraid that we wouldn't have much in common, and that the trip would be awkward... but we got to know each other pretty quickly (15 hours on the train helped! ;), and we got along great! (I'm starting to realize that I have surprising amounts of things in common with people whose backgrounds are totally different from mine!)

Being a foreigner in China automatically makes you attractive and "popular"... and the fact that our group was so diverse only added to the attention we got. (We started joking that WE were the main attraction, not the caves and such.) Most people just took pictures of us without asking... anytime we were posing to take a picture, random Chinese people would get out their cameras and take a shot. But we didn't have to be posing... they took pictures of us just walking by, eating, etc, etc, etc. One couple even started walking with us while a friend took a picture of them! It was really annoying after a while... I don't mind attention, ;) but it never ends here!

At least this girl was nice enough to ASK for a picture. :)

As I mentioned in my earlier post, we got up bright 'n' early on Monday to take some bamboo rafts down the Li River. It was beautiful! (More pictures are in my albums--see links below.)

I'm just so glad I have opportunities like this... :)

Here are links to my pictures:

Guilin and Yangshuo, part 1

Guilin and Yangshuo, part 2

lovely :)

Well, the long train ride was most definitely worth it. We spent Sunday and this morning (Monday) in Guilin, then grabbed a bus up to Yangshuo. Both cities are really beautiful, but I think Yangshuo is my favorite of the two. We're going on a boat ride down the Li river tomorrow morning (leaving bright n' early at 6 AM!!), and then heading back to Guilin in the evening, so we can see a few more things there and then catch a 7 AM train back to Wuhan on Wednesday morning. This train is supposed to take 16 hours, but at least we got beds this time around! I'll be posting some pictures and stories when I get back.

I'm skipping 3 days of classes for this trip, but I think I'm actually learning/practicing more Chinese than I would on a regular day in class. I'm getting to the point where I can carry on a conversation of some sort, so I've been chatting with the shopkeepers and such. :) It's definitely a much more enjoyable way to learn the language that sitting in class is!

I'm really loving Yanshuo... it's a smaller city, but it has a lot to offer... actually, I'm enjoying it so much that I'm starting to consider moving here and taking a teaching job at a language school we saw! (After I graduate, of course-no worries!) ;)

on the road again...

I'm in Guilin! Yesterday afternoon at 3PM, I got on a train with my travel buddy Luiza and 3 of her friends. (I hadn't met them before, but they're nice girls! One's from Tanzania, another is from Sudan, and the other is.... I think from Algeria, like Luiza. I'll have to ask again... I'm still working on learning how to pronouce their names!) We were told the train would take about 12 hours... but we didn't arrive in Guilin until about 5:30 AM!!!! (That's about 14 and a half hours!!!!) And when we booked our tickets, the bed spots were all already taken... so we were in "regular" seats all night! It was definitely not the most pleasant trip. (I was even checking online for plane tickets this morning, because I would much rather spend some extra money than ride back the way we came... but there's only one, and it's over 700 RMB, so I guess I'll stick with the train... hopefully we'll get bed spots for the way back!)



I've been on trains in Europe plenty of times but Chinese trains are a different animal completely. They're incredibly dirty, the people are loud, and they have no qualms about ignoring the "no smoking" signs. And the train was really crowded for the first part of the trip. The seats were all filled, and there were people standing in the aisles for hours on end... here, you can buy a train ticket to stand in the train if you want to save money. There was an empty seat next to me, so some of the "standers" took turns sitting in that seat for a while.



But I'm gonna quit whining now... my friend Becca is in Ghana right now, and she just spent 10 days traveling around Africa on busses and sleeping in bus stops... so she's probably laughing as she reads this. ;)



Being a foreigner here automatically draws attention... but when you're traveling in a group, you attrat even MORE attention. And in Chinese culture, it's not considered rude to stare at people, read over their shoulders, etc. So people on the train were kneeling on their seats, looking over the backs of their seats, etc, watching us play cards, eat ramen noodles (I've never enjoyed ramen noodles as much in my entire life!), read, talk, etc. I honestly can't wait to be home where it's not weird to be a white girl! (Actually, I spent about 75% of the ride wishing I was at home in my soft bed!)



But that's over with now... and I'll never have to do it again, until Wednesday, when we head back to Wuhan... after that, I'm avoiding Chinese trains at all costs!



We got to our hostel around 6 AM... as the rest of the city was waking up. So we checked in and tried to get some sleep. I slept off and on, waking up about ever hour (it was so loud outside our window!) until about 10, then I got up and took a shower, and read the Word had a nice Western breakfast in the lobby for a while. :) And now I'm taking advantage of the hostel's computers and internet while my traveling buddies are getting up and getting ready for the day. We're going to spend today in Guilin, and then head to nearby Yangshuo tomorrow morning... supposedly, this area is one of the most beautiful parts of China, so I can't wait to see it for myself! :)

let's hope the train ride was worth it... ;)

Wuhan School for the Blind

If you read my Happy Easter post, you might remember that I mentioned visiting the Wuhan School for the Blind. It was a couple of weeks ago, but I never really got around to putting up the pictures...

The kids were really excited to welcome us!

We told them the Easter story, and then some of the Chinese helpers translated for us...
We taught them "This Train" and had them dance around like a "train"... they loved it.

The kids were anywhere from about 8 to 18 years old. And most, if not all of the students live at the school. I was amazed at how much energy and confidence some of these kids have! I expected them all to be shy, quiet, and reserved, and to stay in one place. That was the case for a few of the kids, but a lot of them were running around (literally-running!) like any other kids. And they rarely ran into other people- they have incredible hearing. One of the little boys was even doing cartwheels all over the place! And when it was time to go into another building to start our program, they were the ones showing us how to get there!

After our "program" was over, we fed the kids some cake and juice (they loved it!) and sat around talking to them for a while... I got a chance to practice my Chinese! It was a lot of fun, and it's near to our university, so I'm hoping to get a chance to go back! There's also a school for deaf kids down the road from there... Who knows, maybe I'll get to go there too! :)

Click here if you want to see some more pictures...