I know it's been a while since I updated the world on my whereabouts, but I have just finished writing my proposal for the Fulbright and decided to use my remaining internet time to try to throw some things out there about where I've been lately.
I think the most important things to update on first are how classes and group things have been going and then next time I write I will try to tell you all about the wonderful spring break I just got back from and the other activities I've enjoyed. Ok.....
So for our two classes we meet twice a week for each class and spend Tuesday and Thursday in "Site visits" where we go see factories, meet old Carls doing cool things, or see some other political economy-related business that helps us to grasp a better understanding of how China works, which is no easy task. A couple weeks ago we had one of the better visits yet to a glass factory. They are called Libbey and they make drinking glasses for Ikea as well as the food service industry and they're pretty cool. We walked through the really hot, really loud factory area wearing ear plugs and watching two guys use metal sticks and a strong stream of air to blast some messed up glasses off the assembly line. Weird thing was they knocked every single glass that came out onto the ground... I'm not sure about that, but I was laughing hysterically. The real reason I write about this visit is that... dun dun dun... Libbey started and is based in Toledo, OH!!! I don't know if any of the Toledo family is keeping up with this, but at the very least I can write it for Dad since I know how tied he is to his roots there. It was pretty exciting, everyone in my group thought I was pretty strange for being that excited about something that had to do with Ohio, no matter how exciting that state may be to some of us. We also have 3 Indiana kids on this trip. Cool, right? They sell corn on the cob in the street here for about 30 cents and those kids get so excited. I do, too, but I think it just runs in my blood.
Another big trip we took as a group was to a town in Shanxi province called Fenyang. Carleton has had a relationship with the high school and hospital there since the early 1900s through the first study abroad program Carleton ever had. It involved students spending two years abroad. Just about one of those years was spent en route in a ship from the US to China. We just took a train and a bus. We visited the students in the high school there, taking about 3000 photos a day and making my cheeks hurt so much from smiling that I might have finally learned how to frown. We stayed in a government-owned hotel with internet in the rooms (i know, i should have posted sooner) and where we had two huge banquets with the town, hospital, and school officials. This involves the head table being toasted with fenjiu (a very strong rice wine made in the town - we visited the factory there one day, too) and everyone else being toasted as the officials go around to every table and try to get everyone involved. Being in that town involved a lot of pictures, a lot of fenjiu, two big basketball games that we barely won, and a lot of marathon-like days. It was strenuous and somehow fun in a weird and painful way, but I don't think I need to do it again in the forseeable future. We also visited a nurse's college and I told them all that my mum wants to be a nurse and is in school and they all just looked at me with the same face they used when we were speaking english too fast. I think it's pretty unbelievable to have a mom learning to be a nurse. So Mum, I guess you are cool.
From Fenyang we went to a town called Pingyao that is a walled city and I spent 4 hours walking the city in the dark with Chase talking about everything from China to the program to boys and home. It was a great city to wander and get lost in, even if we saw a dog that looked like a wolf and couldn't find any bread when I needed it most. The hotel also had the most amazing beds I have ever seen or slept in and I will be attaching photos of that as soon as I have them off of my camera and onto the flashdrive. I was roommates with Bea who also was bit by a dog that night and we kept joking she would turn into a werewolf and attack me in my sleep, but so far I have no bitemarks to show and haven't noticed any symptoms. And, as we all learned in New Moon (the second in the Twilight series), werewolves are hot.
So, on that note, I am going to leave and get some food and plan my call home to wish the little sister a happy 18th birthday tomorrow (I feel old) and Mum a happy Mommy's Day. I will write some more at a later date, perhaps tomorrow.
5.11.2009
4.19.2009
Meeting with Parntip
Penny took a picture when Parntip and I were reunited on our bus outside the Royal Palace in Bangkok. I wanted Mum and Dad to see it, but basically she lived with our family for a couple months with AFS teacher exchange and I saw her twice while we were there. Penny just sent me the picture yesterday, so I wanted to get it on here.
My New Best Friends
I just realized I made a post about Beijing and failed to mention my new best friend who I met on Friday!!!! We went to the Pearl Market after seeing the Temple of Heaven and I spent the afternoon bartering on a number of things like a Chinese flag from a man that also makes stamps with your names on them. He asked me what my name was and I told him, but then said that all my friends call me Snacks and that in Chinese my name is "little eats" which I said in Chinese. He laughed and got excited and grabbed a pad of paper and wrote it out in Chinese and it was right, but I told him I didn't really want a stamp so I told him if I decided I did I would come back later for it. We then proceeded upstairs where I bought a pearl necklace and then up another floor where there were little shops with more pearls. We saw some beautiful pearls in one window and the girl came out to talk to us, so we asked to see those earrings, which were in white gold and were 450 yuan, which is about 60 dollars, so we asked to see what else she had. Vivyan and I ended up spending the next three hours talking to her, looking at necklaces and different settings and differently sized pearls and it was so much fun and I ended up spending abou 250 yuan on two necklaces and two pairs of earrings which I think we got good deals on. We loved her so much that I kept saying we were best friends and she kind of agreed, but at the end we bought her and the other three women in there ice cream from downstairs and out on the street and brought it back to them with three new customers from our group, Bea, Brooke, and Catie, and then they loved us even more, so I bought another necklace. I talked to the girl, Sarah, all about pearls and what the differences are and where they come from and how you can tell good pearls and asked her if we could come back and work there and they just laughed and said yes. Now I will go back there and get some more great pearls, and can get a good deal on them, so if anyone would like me to buy them some for a good price (about 5 dollars for a pearl set in sterling silver with a white gold covering and then another 5 for a chain - roughly 10 for a string), let me know the colors (white, black, pink) and what you want and I will go back and give my new friends some more business. It's probably my new favorite thing to do, buying pearls, so don't worry about asking me. I'll just give you the bill when I get home (hehe). I can't stop thinking of my own new pearls, so I am going to run, but I will be going back to my new friends at least two more times, probably. Aaand I might be working with them in the future and learning everything there is to know about pearls.
Getting Settled in Beijing
Now that I've been in Beijing for a week and it seems people have given up on reading this thing, I will try to update y'all on what life is like here now that we are "settled" and having "normal" classes.
We got to Beijing on April 10 from Hanoi, Vietnam, which was a great time, but it was nice to get into our rooms and get settled. My roommates are awesome and the best I could have asked for. We are all three perfect for each other and get along so well and have the same schedule and interests, including in other people, so we are loving living together at this point. We have a DVD player now and 4 beds for 3 people so we have a nice couch and have had a few sleepovers with our extra bed. It's pretty much the best room ever, I'd say. I already bought a bunch of DVDs and we are working our way through them, but I will have to get some more to enjoy late at night on the nights before class.
Classes are good, if not a little bit long, but they happen so little during the week that I can handle it and shouldn't be complaining. We have two different classes and each meets twice a week for two hours each time. The earlier one is a Political Science class and the later one is the Economics one. I love Roy and Penny, so sitting through their classes is not bad, I can handle the four hours of them. On the days we don't have class, we have excursions to various areas around the city that relate to political economy. Last Tuesday we went to a farm two hours away from the university right on the border with the neighboring province, but still within the municipality of Beijing. It was a long drive and we saw some fruit trees and little gardens, but it's weird because the people there cannot make enough money off of their farms so they basically farm for fun and make money from family members who move into the city to work. We all have a sector that we are responsible for knowing a lot about and mine is rural farming, so it was strange to learn that the people aren't actually farming to sell to anywhere and are hardly making enough for themselves to survive on, just what they need to eat. There must be bigger farms around, but the students we've met in Beijing say there are no BIG farms like there are in the US. I will have to keep looking as we make our way into more rural areas, like tomorrow, to see what the farming situation is in a country with so many people needing so much food.
On Thursday we had some optional sightseeing to the arts district (798, see this link) and in the afternoon met a guy who came on the Beijing program in 1992 who now owns a production company in Beijing making small independent films in a culture that really doesn't have much space for that. They keep pushing the envelope, though, and he has seen more and more interest and success of his films as time goes on. He was a pretty cool guy, and we got to go out to a roast duck dinner afterwards. That was delicious, BUT they BRING YOU THE DUCK'S FACE TO EAT!!!! P.s. ducks are pretty much my favorite animal and I'd never eaten one before, so seeing their face while I was eating it was like the saddest thing ever. Luckily they eat very little duck at these dinners and a table of 8 or 10 shares a duck.
This weekend we've spent some time exploring, like visiting the Temple of Heaven and the old Summer Palace (We still need to see the new one which is supposedly very beautiful and doesn't just have ruins that I have a hard time believing are real...). I was supposed to go see a mountain outside the city with a student I met here this morning, but it was too early and then the weather wasn't very good, so we are planning on going next Saturday.
Tomorrow we leave for Fenyang where Carleton has had a relationship with the school for a very long time, since the early 1900s. The Carleton in China program, the first study abroad program at Carleton, was there for years and the city is still very closed off to the outside world. It is very difficult for foreigners to get in there, so we are apparently going to be treated as celebrities, teaching in the school and having celebrations and toasts with the city officials. I hope we make it back alive from the autographs, coal-filled air, and extensive amounts of festivities. I will hopefully be back in touch with the world by Friday.
I've learned some Chinese, but only the characters, so I can translate them directly to English, but don't know how to read them in Chinese. I am hoping that Roy will follow through on his offers to pay for Chinese lessons for all of us, because I will definitely take advantage of that, although ordering in restaurants has been tons of fun. I know the characters for such random things as: noodles, chicken, tea, cigarettes, alcohol, China, middle, Olympics, Beijing, Mountain, exit, stone, petroleum, area, and shop. I started learning characters because I liked the way the pictures looked on the signs I saw in the street, like the character for tea which looks like a cross on a mountain that's crying because it's being bombed (look that one up), or cigarettes which looks like a guy pushing a box that has another guy in it. So basically Shilpa and Zach think I am crazy for asking them the most random characters ever, but I have learned a bit and maybe I'll start to figure out the tones soon... not likely, but I will keep practicing my characters.
I hope you're all doing well, don't forget to Skype me sometime. If you don't have my skype name, shoot me an email and I will hook you up. Until next week, probably, take care and update me on your lives!
We got to Beijing on April 10 from Hanoi, Vietnam, which was a great time, but it was nice to get into our rooms and get settled. My roommates are awesome and the best I could have asked for. We are all three perfect for each other and get along so well and have the same schedule and interests, including in other people, so we are loving living together at this point. We have a DVD player now and 4 beds for 3 people so we have a nice couch and have had a few sleepovers with our extra bed. It's pretty much the best room ever, I'd say. I already bought a bunch of DVDs and we are working our way through them, but I will have to get some more to enjoy late at night on the nights before class.
Classes are good, if not a little bit long, but they happen so little during the week that I can handle it and shouldn't be complaining. We have two different classes and each meets twice a week for two hours each time. The earlier one is a Political Science class and the later one is the Economics one. I love Roy and Penny, so sitting through their classes is not bad, I can handle the four hours of them. On the days we don't have class, we have excursions to various areas around the city that relate to political economy. Last Tuesday we went to a farm two hours away from the university right on the border with the neighboring province, but still within the municipality of Beijing. It was a long drive and we saw some fruit trees and little gardens, but it's weird because the people there cannot make enough money off of their farms so they basically farm for fun and make money from family members who move into the city to work. We all have a sector that we are responsible for knowing a lot about and mine is rural farming, so it was strange to learn that the people aren't actually farming to sell to anywhere and are hardly making enough for themselves to survive on, just what they need to eat. There must be bigger farms around, but the students we've met in Beijing say there are no BIG farms like there are in the US. I will have to keep looking as we make our way into more rural areas, like tomorrow, to see what the farming situation is in a country with so many people needing so much food.
On Thursday we had some optional sightseeing to the arts district (798, see this link) and in the afternoon met a guy who came on the Beijing program in 1992 who now owns a production company in Beijing making small independent films in a culture that really doesn't have much space for that. They keep pushing the envelope, though, and he has seen more and more interest and success of his films as time goes on. He was a pretty cool guy, and we got to go out to a roast duck dinner afterwards. That was delicious, BUT they BRING YOU THE DUCK'S FACE TO EAT!!!! P.s. ducks are pretty much my favorite animal and I'd never eaten one before, so seeing their face while I was eating it was like the saddest thing ever. Luckily they eat very little duck at these dinners and a table of 8 or 10 shares a duck.
This weekend we've spent some time exploring, like visiting the Temple of Heaven and the old Summer Palace (We still need to see the new one which is supposedly very beautiful and doesn't just have ruins that I have a hard time believing are real...). I was supposed to go see a mountain outside the city with a student I met here this morning, but it was too early and then the weather wasn't very good, so we are planning on going next Saturday.
Tomorrow we leave for Fenyang where Carleton has had a relationship with the school for a very long time, since the early 1900s. The Carleton in China program, the first study abroad program at Carleton, was there for years and the city is still very closed off to the outside world. It is very difficult for foreigners to get in there, so we are apparently going to be treated as celebrities, teaching in the school and having celebrations and toasts with the city officials. I hope we make it back alive from the autographs, coal-filled air, and extensive amounts of festivities. I will hopefully be back in touch with the world by Friday.
I've learned some Chinese, but only the characters, so I can translate them directly to English, but don't know how to read them in Chinese. I am hoping that Roy will follow through on his offers to pay for Chinese lessons for all of us, because I will definitely take advantage of that, although ordering in restaurants has been tons of fun. I know the characters for such random things as: noodles, chicken, tea, cigarettes, alcohol, China, middle, Olympics, Beijing, Mountain, exit, stone, petroleum, area, and shop. I started learning characters because I liked the way the pictures looked on the signs I saw in the street, like the character for tea which looks like a cross on a mountain that's crying because it's being bombed (look that one up), or cigarettes which looks like a guy pushing a box that has another guy in it. So basically Shilpa and Zach think I am crazy for asking them the most random characters ever, but I have learned a bit and maybe I'll start to figure out the tones soon... not likely, but I will keep practicing my characters.
I hope you're all doing well, don't forget to Skype me sometime. If you don't have my skype name, shoot me an email and I will hook you up. Until next week, probably, take care and update me on your lives!
4.14.2009
Summing Up Southeast Asia
Before I get into the details of China, where we are finally settled and into classes and exploring, I think I should update you all on the wonders of Southeast Asia, a place I've fallen in love with, just from our three weeks there. Here are the highlights by country:
Thailand - Seeing Parntip in Bangkok was great. She gave me some presents for the family that I have to carry around now, including snacks she wanted me to bring back for y'all, but I will be the first to admit, keeping in line with my newest nickname that everyone here (including the students we meet along the way) has adopted: Snacks, that I have eaten all those snacks and will just have to tell you about them later. They were tastey. Bangkok is a really strange city. We saw Thai silk at the Jim Thompson house and then on our second time through Bangkok saw the side of it I had only heard about. We went to a touristy street with vendors all along the side and hundreds of foreigners wandering looking for adventure and we were offered "ping pong show" and the like (it involves ping pongs and female body parts apparently)... it was accompanied by a great noise, which I am avoiding for the rest of my life, but needless to say we turned down every offer. The best part of Thailand was our time in the north around Chiangmai, both in the city and in villages north of there. We spent three days trekking in the jungle and sleeping in little villages on bamboo floors and that was so cool. We'd met up with a Carleton grad who now lives in SE Asia doing who knows what and the adventures we experienced with Barry were absolutely amazing. It's fun to meet people along the way who show us how they live and why they love the region so much. We saw the Golden Triangle area and spent an hour in Laos across the river in the weirdest little shop I've ever seen. Chiangmai was a cool city, with a night market and a fun night out with the bartender and a waitress from the restaurant at our hotel. That was something i missed in Madrid. We were always with our group and never really branched out to local friends other than the monitores who were paid to be our friends. That's been a highlight so far.
Burma - My favorite country so far on the trip. We met up with students in a program, the Pre-Collegiate Program, run by a woman from Chicago. They are accepted into the program after their normal schooling through high school and they spend a year in it, getting them ready for a foreign university. the kids are incredible and all smarter than me by a lot. We were shown around Yangon by them and really got to see some cool things, including a "social venture" that makes and sells products at very low prices to farmers in rural areas. We were really taken care of in Burma and the people were all so incredibly nice. It's a country that no one wants to travel to because everyone thinks so many things are going on with the government and the military, but when you're there all you see is how amazing the people are and how much hope they have for making their government better and being the people to make that change. It's like going back in time to a place where everything is just real. I've never felt as much in and about a PLACE as I did in Burma. It was something I can't really describe, but being there just made me feel more than I ever have anywhere I've gone. Even being in Spain where I could communicate with anyone and could get anywhere and understood everything, I never felt anything like I did in Burma. Maybe it was that I just didn't understand everything and I knew I couldn't, so my view of the country and people and situation was just so different than it would be anywhere else. I am trying to learn Burmese this summer so that someday I will go back and be able to communicate, but I loved that country. We spent a couple days in Bagan, which was an ancient city at a time when if people died their money would go to the government, so in the ends of their life they used their fortunes to build temples. It's quite beautiful and striking. We spent the days their to recover from our excitement in Yangon and get ready for Vietnam.
Vietnam - Roy kept telling us that Vietnam would be "in your face"... I would say this is mostly true. The people are really intense and don't really care about being friendly and nice to foreigners which was a shock after being loved in Burma and Thailand, but was a nice change, too. We spent some nights in Hanoi, a great city that is very walkable and has a beautiful lake in the middle and then 500 hours on a bus to go to a village in the north for a bike ride and sleepover in the village and then to Halong Bay, which is absolutely beautiful. We took a junk out to Catba Island, in the bay, and jumped from the top of it into the ocean (6 times for me... naturally. not as good as the rocks in the Carrabassett River, but nothing can really be as good as Maine, right?). Catba Island was really cool, too. Wes and I walked out the hotel door in the first fifteen minutes, planning on going for a walk or bike ride to a beach or something, but were harassed by some men trying to rent us their motorbikes, so naturally we got one. We spent the next 4 hours, for 50,000 dong (about 3 dollars) zooming around the island. Don't worry, Mum, I was wearing a helmet and Wes had driven 4-wheelers before. We saw some Canadians climbing rocks in the middle of a farm, went to the opposite end of the island where we saw the sunset but feared running out of gas and sunlight for the ride back, met two other Carls on the way who were fun to zoom around with, and went in a cave that has a hospital used between 1963 and 1965 so people could be treated during the war. I thought when we went through a big steel door into a hospital in a cave that our guide would lock the doors and it would be like a horror movie, but luckily that didn't happen. All three of us thought we might die at a few points, but we made it out of the cave alive and our bikes weren't stolen. We met some British guys who we had seen in Hanoi a few nights before and did magic tricks with Georgie, Rob, and Tom in a little expat bar on the island for a few hours. Back in Hanoi, Vivyan and I spent the day walking around, shopping, and not buying much, but it's a really cool place with a lot of French influence.
To sum up, Southeast Asia is awesome. I am going to have to come back to see Cambodia and Laos, but at least I got a flag in every country, made some awesome friends, and got to know this group much better. I'll write more about that later, as well as where we are now, which is at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing. I'm going to go eat some noodles now and get ready for another class, but tonight we're doing Karaoke down the street and I am WAY excited. Love to everyone!
Thailand - Seeing Parntip in Bangkok was great. She gave me some presents for the family that I have to carry around now, including snacks she wanted me to bring back for y'all, but I will be the first to admit, keeping in line with my newest nickname that everyone here (including the students we meet along the way) has adopted: Snacks, that I have eaten all those snacks and will just have to tell you about them later. They were tastey. Bangkok is a really strange city. We saw Thai silk at the Jim Thompson house and then on our second time through Bangkok saw the side of it I had only heard about. We went to a touristy street with vendors all along the side and hundreds of foreigners wandering looking for adventure and we were offered "ping pong show" and the like (it involves ping pongs and female body parts apparently)... it was accompanied by a great noise, which I am avoiding for the rest of my life, but needless to say we turned down every offer. The best part of Thailand was our time in the north around Chiangmai, both in the city and in villages north of there. We spent three days trekking in the jungle and sleeping in little villages on bamboo floors and that was so cool. We'd met up with a Carleton grad who now lives in SE Asia doing who knows what and the adventures we experienced with Barry were absolutely amazing. It's fun to meet people along the way who show us how they live and why they love the region so much. We saw the Golden Triangle area and spent an hour in Laos across the river in the weirdest little shop I've ever seen. Chiangmai was a cool city, with a night market and a fun night out with the bartender and a waitress from the restaurant at our hotel. That was something i missed in Madrid. We were always with our group and never really branched out to local friends other than the monitores who were paid to be our friends. That's been a highlight so far.
Burma - My favorite country so far on the trip. We met up with students in a program, the Pre-Collegiate Program, run by a woman from Chicago. They are accepted into the program after their normal schooling through high school and they spend a year in it, getting them ready for a foreign university. the kids are incredible and all smarter than me by a lot. We were shown around Yangon by them and really got to see some cool things, including a "social venture" that makes and sells products at very low prices to farmers in rural areas. We were really taken care of in Burma and the people were all so incredibly nice. It's a country that no one wants to travel to because everyone thinks so many things are going on with the government and the military, but when you're there all you see is how amazing the people are and how much hope they have for making their government better and being the people to make that change. It's like going back in time to a place where everything is just real. I've never felt as much in and about a PLACE as I did in Burma. It was something I can't really describe, but being there just made me feel more than I ever have anywhere I've gone. Even being in Spain where I could communicate with anyone and could get anywhere and understood everything, I never felt anything like I did in Burma. Maybe it was that I just didn't understand everything and I knew I couldn't, so my view of the country and people and situation was just so different than it would be anywhere else. I am trying to learn Burmese this summer so that someday I will go back and be able to communicate, but I loved that country. We spent a couple days in Bagan, which was an ancient city at a time when if people died their money would go to the government, so in the ends of their life they used their fortunes to build temples. It's quite beautiful and striking. We spent the days their to recover from our excitement in Yangon and get ready for Vietnam.
Vietnam - Roy kept telling us that Vietnam would be "in your face"... I would say this is mostly true. The people are really intense and don't really care about being friendly and nice to foreigners which was a shock after being loved in Burma and Thailand, but was a nice change, too. We spent some nights in Hanoi, a great city that is very walkable and has a beautiful lake in the middle and then 500 hours on a bus to go to a village in the north for a bike ride and sleepover in the village and then to Halong Bay, which is absolutely beautiful. We took a junk out to Catba Island, in the bay, and jumped from the top of it into the ocean (6 times for me... naturally. not as good as the rocks in the Carrabassett River, but nothing can really be as good as Maine, right?). Catba Island was really cool, too. Wes and I walked out the hotel door in the first fifteen minutes, planning on going for a walk or bike ride to a beach or something, but were harassed by some men trying to rent us their motorbikes, so naturally we got one. We spent the next 4 hours, for 50,000 dong (about 3 dollars) zooming around the island. Don't worry, Mum, I was wearing a helmet and Wes had driven 4-wheelers before. We saw some Canadians climbing rocks in the middle of a farm, went to the opposite end of the island where we saw the sunset but feared running out of gas and sunlight for the ride back, met two other Carls on the way who were fun to zoom around with, and went in a cave that has a hospital used between 1963 and 1965 so people could be treated during the war. I thought when we went through a big steel door into a hospital in a cave that our guide would lock the doors and it would be like a horror movie, but luckily that didn't happen. All three of us thought we might die at a few points, but we made it out of the cave alive and our bikes weren't stolen. We met some British guys who we had seen in Hanoi a few nights before and did magic tricks with Georgie, Rob, and Tom in a little expat bar on the island for a few hours. Back in Hanoi, Vivyan and I spent the day walking around, shopping, and not buying much, but it's a really cool place with a lot of French influence.
To sum up, Southeast Asia is awesome. I am going to have to come back to see Cambodia and Laos, but at least I got a flag in every country, made some awesome friends, and got to know this group much better. I'll write more about that later, as well as where we are now, which is at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing. I'm going to go eat some noodles now and get ready for another class, but tonight we're doing Karaoke down the street and I am WAY excited. Love to everyone!
4.01.2009
Back in thailand
So I haven't had any time to write, but in the time I've been gone I've spent a week in Thailand in Bangkok for 2 days and Chiangmai and up north for about 5, then went to Burma (Myanmar) for a week, which has been the biggest highlight so far. We met up with a bunch of students at a great "Pre-collegiate program" school there, the place a recent Carleton grad attended before coming to Carleton, and it was great to have some young people to show us around Yangon, where we were for most of the time. Now I am back in Bangkok for a night and off to Hanoi and other areas in northern Vietnam tomorrow. I wish I could write more now or had some good pictures to put up, but I've just started taking pictures and am pressed for time right now, but you all should know that I am in love with Burma and am plotting a return following Carleton. I will try to be better about this blog, but I will get better once we're in Beijing for sure. Until then, I miss you all and hope you are learning as much wherever you are as I am here. This has been a life-changing trip already and I am sure it will continue to be so. Lots of love, keep in touch or I might not come home.... :)
3.25.2009
Thailand
So I have now been in Thailand for a week and it is time to go. What an amazing place. I am going to give some really great highlights, because I am a bit pressed for time, but the moral of the story is, I flew into Bangkok last Wednesday night, spent two days there before we headed to Chiangmai in the north, spent a night there, went out trekking in the jungle, and then spent one more night in Chiangmai. This afternoon we are going to Burma, and I can just tell that the adventures will do nothing but continue. P.s. I lost my camera, left it on the bus from Northfield to to the airport and it may or may not be sent. Basically, I don't have any of my own pictures of Thailand, but I will do better now that I just spent 8,090 baht on a new one. Ok, highlights!
Bangkok is amazing. We stayed at the Royal Princess Hotel, which is really really nice, and I had the greatest roommate. We both wanted to lay in bed in the morning, no one woke up before the alarm, and we talked into the wee hours. The best things about Bangkok were the Royal Palace, where I wore a wool airplane blanket as a skirt in 90 degrees (and humid) and saw some amazing gold on everything and the emerald Buddha. It's really interesting because every king gets a new palace and they're just everywhere, in completely different styles. We saw the throne the king was coronated on 62 years ago, and it hasn't been used since then. We went back to the hotel and that afternoon went on a great adventure with very little instructions to find the place we were going to meet a boat for dinner. Took a bus without marked bus stops, a Skytrain, and then a boat that didn't stop at the dock we needed to get off on so we missed our stop and had to navigate back from the next stop. It was crazy fun. Tried some Chang beer in the street, which was funny because none of them were cold and I just asked the guy selling them what was good and he told me one that was only warm, so I ended up with that one. Apparently it's the beer most Thai people drink. We went on a dinner cruise which was a little over the top, but really nice to keep the jetlag off.
Next day, Friday, we went to the Jim Thompson house... look him up, it's pretty cool and his house is amazing. Very traditional thai, which was cool. Biggest stingray in the world at that place, too. Scary. I thought it was a vacuum cleaner. Yikes! It was just in a little pool at the house. In the afternoon on Friday we walked around trying to find money and watches, with little success, but seeing people in the street, selling amazing food, and being as friendly and nice and gracious as the Thai are was just so great. That afternoon, we went to the train station, where professor Tun Myint told Vivyan, Mollie and me that some students nearby wanted to interview us for school. We said of course! and only one of them was outgoing enough to talk to us, Wittaya. We met his friend Surichai after that, who told us he graduated in January with a degree in English and he asked for my email address before reluctantly asking for Vivyan's and Mollie's and giving only me his. Vivyan and I now have a goal to have an Asian boyfriend in every country. So far, so good. We rode the train for about 14 hours, overnight, with sleeperbeds that were a little weird, and people went crazy, but it was fun. I lost 50 baht playing poker with Will T, but it was all for some fun on a long, boring trainride.
We were delayed a bit getting to Chiangmai, but we got there by 9am and went to the nicest hotel I have ever seen. The 4 star hotels in Spain have nothing on this place. A great buffet breakfast for all of us, a beautiful pool, and a wonderful, crazy city that is just about the perfect size, if not a little too touristy in the areas that are most evident and near to what we're doing. We spent the day exploring the city with a tourguide and a local university student in order to study our "sectors" that we each have to study. We were in groups of about 7, exploring the city by truck taxi and foot and it was an incredible way to see the place. I will write more about this after Burma, which we are leaving for right now. Lots of love! I will start taking pictures now! Comment, please!
Bangkok is amazing. We stayed at the Royal Princess Hotel, which is really really nice, and I had the greatest roommate. We both wanted to lay in bed in the morning, no one woke up before the alarm, and we talked into the wee hours. The best things about Bangkok were the Royal Palace, where I wore a wool airplane blanket as a skirt in 90 degrees (and humid) and saw some amazing gold on everything and the emerald Buddha. It's really interesting because every king gets a new palace and they're just everywhere, in completely different styles. We saw the throne the king was coronated on 62 years ago, and it hasn't been used since then. We went back to the hotel and that afternoon went on a great adventure with very little instructions to find the place we were going to meet a boat for dinner. Took a bus without marked bus stops, a Skytrain, and then a boat that didn't stop at the dock we needed to get off on so we missed our stop and had to navigate back from the next stop. It was crazy fun. Tried some Chang beer in the street, which was funny because none of them were cold and I just asked the guy selling them what was good and he told me one that was only warm, so I ended up with that one. Apparently it's the beer most Thai people drink. We went on a dinner cruise which was a little over the top, but really nice to keep the jetlag off.
Next day, Friday, we went to the Jim Thompson house... look him up, it's pretty cool and his house is amazing. Very traditional thai, which was cool. Biggest stingray in the world at that place, too. Scary. I thought it was a vacuum cleaner. Yikes! It was just in a little pool at the house. In the afternoon on Friday we walked around trying to find money and watches, with little success, but seeing people in the street, selling amazing food, and being as friendly and nice and gracious as the Thai are was just so great. That afternoon, we went to the train station, where professor Tun Myint told Vivyan, Mollie and me that some students nearby wanted to interview us for school. We said of course! and only one of them was outgoing enough to talk to us, Wittaya. We met his friend Surichai after that, who told us he graduated in January with a degree in English and he asked for my email address before reluctantly asking for Vivyan's and Mollie's and giving only me his. Vivyan and I now have a goal to have an Asian boyfriend in every country. So far, so good. We rode the train for about 14 hours, overnight, with sleeperbeds that were a little weird, and people went crazy, but it was fun. I lost 50 baht playing poker with Will T, but it was all for some fun on a long, boring trainride.
We were delayed a bit getting to Chiangmai, but we got there by 9am and went to the nicest hotel I have ever seen. The 4 star hotels in Spain have nothing on this place. A great buffet breakfast for all of us, a beautiful pool, and a wonderful, crazy city that is just about the perfect size, if not a little too touristy in the areas that are most evident and near to what we're doing. We spent the day exploring the city with a tourguide and a local university student in order to study our "sectors" that we each have to study. We were in groups of about 7, exploring the city by truck taxi and foot and it was an incredible way to see the place. I will write more about this after Burma, which we are leaving for right now. Lots of love! I will start taking pictures now! Comment, please!
3.16.2009
To Asia I Go
So, friends, tomorrow I leave for Asia with the Carleton Political Economy Seminar. Mainly we'll be in Beijing, but not until about April 10. Until then I will be seeing Bangkok, trekking through northern Thailand on elephants, bouncing around in Burma, biking and cruising in Vietnam, and having a much needed break from the classroom.
With finals finishing today and my own term ending last Wednesday, it's been a school-filled winter, no matter how you look at it. I wrote 35 pages in the last three weeks and lost track of day and night as I stayed up until 4am writing most nights. For that reason, I just have to say: DO NOT be a political science major. But then I think about the joy of this trip and the opportunities I am going to have because of my major and how much I love the department and I realize that I really can't wait to keep taking classes that kick my butt the way they have this winter.
So, at 6am tomorrow I will be on a bus to the MSP airport (no Humphrey terminal this time. this is the big time.) to catch a 10:30 flight to Chicago. From there I will spend 13 hours in the air to Tokyo, just like that time I went to Japan in 8th grade except now I'm a jaded 20 year old with too much time to think about life and what I want and how the past ten weeks have been. I think there will be some journaling going down. And reading my Lonely Planet China, reading books FOR FUN (WOW. i know, it's been a while), and making Chase let me curl up on his shoulder for some snoozies. It's going to be marvelous. In Tokyo we get on another plane (after doing the whole customs thing, which is intense in the Narita airport) and fly another 7 hours to Bangkok. Someday I know there will the option of teleporting and someday even that will be cheap. In Bangkok we'll go to our hotel, which looks pretty plush, considering the adventurous nature I expected on this trip (Royal Princess), where we'll be up early to beat the jetlag and see the city. After a morning of sightseeing and an afternoon of relaxing we'll be out for a dinner cruise with the whole group.
There are 36 of us, two professors, two spouses (one of them is a professor, too), one recent Carleton grad, and a lot of energy and excitement. I will be back in the states June 3rd for a couple days in Minnesota, a couple days at home, hopefully a couple more days in Minnesota and then we're hoping for a job. I'll let you know how that goes, considering I will have very little internet access for the first few weeks.
That brings me to my last point... Please email me! I won't have very good or maybe no internet access until about April 11, but I will do my best to keep you all updated on my travels. If you want to get some more personalized account, email or Facebook me and I will try to put pictures up, too (on Facebook, most likely).
Keep in touch, comment on this, keep the love coming. I will miss you all, have a great spring!! If you're at Carleton this spring, represent at Ole Ball, Spring Concert (p.s. I totally supported Wale coming so you'd better have an awesome time for me), Rotblatt, Mai Fete, etc. I will expect full reports and a general overflow of fun without me. Keep it real, Carleton in spring is wonderful.
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