Myanmar Pics

https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/117227796572875349799/albums/5854794932786939137

Malaysia Pics

Malaysia pics are up on Google+

Thailand Pictures

Pictures from Thailand are up (if anyone still looks at this)

Russia Pics

Russia pics are finally up. Blog post coming soon.

西安 - Xian Continued

Just a quick post about what we did in Xian before I do my Russia post.

Xian was wonderful. We were incredibly busy the whole time, but it allowed everyone to learn a lot of Chinese and learn about a lot of interesting things. Every morning we had to prepare a 2-3 minute speech about the previous day's activities and then learn a little bit more before our afternoon activity. We went to visit a bank, see the Terracotta Warriors, visit a railroad company, and visit some small Chinese villages.

Everyone in my class was really great. We had six students in our class, and since we all ate lunch and dinner together almost every day, as well as 3+ hours of class and then activities, we all became pretty close. One section of our class was taught by "Little Teachers" who were a bunch of grad students teaching for the first time in their lives.

On our last night, we all held a performance. Three other students and I hosted the event. During the performance we all sang "Goodbye". I sang a duet, "Friends", with another classmate, and my whole class danced to a song.

The whole time was a wonderful experience and is truly unforgettable. It is exciting to know that one day I will be working somewhere in China and will have this kind of exposure all the time.

Here are the songs we sang if you are interested to listen:
Goodbye - 再见 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFnmTeSWYI0
Friends - 朋友 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJJfLSYuDQQ

西安 - Xian

Sorry, I don't have time to make a full post right now because I'm headed off to Russia in less than an hour. Pictures will be up when I get back. Just a brief summary, it was an amazing time. My class and I got really close. My teachers were great, and I was speaking a ton of Chinese the entire time I was there. Hopefully, I'll have an opportunity to make a post at one of my hostels, but if not there will be a long, long post coming soon.

Exploring Hong Kong Through Running

Well, I'm a bit hesitant to make this post in thoughts of making another false promise. Hopefully this is chapter 1 of many, but we'll just see how it goes.

Tonight, for some odd reason, I decided to go on a run. I think it was just to take a nice break from studying for exams. This was my first run since I went to Korea, so it's been close to three months since I've last ran. Unofficial duration is about 35 minutes based off my last text message sent and my time of returning.

I hope to go on runs through some more interesting parts of the city and region, but I think I'll need to work on stamina a bit more first. Today's run took me through the Science Park of Hong Kong. It is about 10 minutes away if you run down the back road here at Student Hostel 2. I've actually never been to the Science Park here, but it has a really nice location right next to the water. While running towards there, I got to cross over the metro system and a major highway as well as running along a very poorly lit road.

One of the strangest things I encountered on my run was having to look the opposite way while crossing the road. I've gotten used to doing it while walking, but it just seemed strange since whenever I used to run it was always cars driving on the right side instead of the left.

Since I'm a bit out of shape, my run through the Science Park was very brief. From my view, it looked very much like an office park like you would find in the U.S. This is all for now. More to come while I can; however, I will be on hiatus pretty much all of May. Hope everyone had a great Easter!

学期快结束了 - The Semester is Ending Quickly

Well as of right now I have about two weeks left until my last exam, and I'll have two papers after that. I have 1 accounting case, 1 Chinese oral exam, 1 Chinese written exam, 1 accounting exam, 1 marketing exam, 1 English exam, 1 English paper, and 1 marketing paper standing between me Korea, Xian, and Russia.

I only have about one month until summer classes start up again. I'll be in Korea from May 4th until the 15th. After I get back from that I'll be spending a whole 1 day in Hong Kong, and then I'll be off to Xian to do some Chinese studies there while taking in the culture. I'll be in Xian from May 17th until the 28th. I'll be back in Hong Kong for another whole day then I will be off to the Motherland a.k.a Moscow, Russia. One of the Hong Kong airlines was having a 100 year anniversary, so flights were significantly cheaper than usual.

This will probably be the most serious my blog has ever been by a long shot. I've been being very pensive recently just about my current situation and where I'm headed. As I hear news of friends moving away from Atlanta, it feels more and more less like home. Including being in Columbia for a year and now Hong Kong for a year, I'm growing more and more out of touch with everything that I've known for so long. Living here is a great experience. It's forcing me to grow up much quicker than I ever would have in Columbia and giving me a taste of what it will actually be like to live and work in Asia. Friends will always be friends, but it's just weird not talking with them on a regular basis which I'll have to learn to live with as we all move away and work in different places. Seeing them maybe once a year at best most likely much longer than that.

/deep thoughts off
Easter's coming up next week, and I'm thinking of camping on a beach for a couple days to relax from all the studying. We'll see if I have time

Quick Post

Well, I've been informed not to apologize for length in between posts. Since my last post, I've been to Singapore, Korea, the U.S., and now back to Korea for Chinese New Year. Classes this semester seem more interesting and not as difficult. It's only been a few weeks so far, but I think this semester will be way more fun. I'm hoping when I return that I can actually start keeping up with my blog. Until next time...

台湾 - Taiwan

Sorry again for taking so long to get back with the post. The next day on our vacation was Saturday. We woke up early and went straight to TaiPei 101. It is the second largest building in the world. We took an elevator to the top which goes 100 m/m making it the world's fastest elevator in the world. At the top, you have a nice 360 degree view of the entire city of Taiwan. I took pictures with all of their mascots called the Damper Babies. They get their name from the damper that holds the entire building in place. We then climbed to the very top of the building up two floors to the 91st floor. The view wasn't as good because all of the metal bars in our way; however, I can safely say I have gone pee on the top of the second tallest building in the world.

After that, we went to a temple that was pretty much the same as all the others except it was packed with people. After the temple, we went to one of the biggest squares there. They had a giant gate and a Taiwanese version of the Lincoln Memorial. We watched the sunset then the moonrise, and I got a green tea latte which is one of the best things ever.

The next morning Diana, Charlie, and I went to a park to get a different view of Taipei. We only had a little bit of time before we had to leave and go to the hot springs. The hot springs were really fun. They had three different pools: the first was from 35-38C, the second from 38-41, and the third from 41-44. Apparently after you get out of every pool you transfer to one of the cold pools before moving up to the next heat. The first two were bearable. I decided to move to the top one. After getting into it, I immediately wanted to get out as soon as possible, but I was afraid that the older Chinese people might judge me and think I couldn't handle it. I stayed in for about another minute until the bottom half of me was a nice medium rare. We met an old man there who had lived in France for his entire schooling after high school and who spoke pretty good English. After he found out that I spoke Chinese we switched languages. He then told me the best way to learn Chinese is not to study every day, but the best way is to find a pretty Chinese girl. We went back to the hostel then took a bus to the airport and that was the end of our Taiwan trip.

The weather is finally cooling down here, and without a doubt, this is the happiest I have ever been for fall/winter. ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

台湾 - Taiwan

Well it's been about a month since I've posted anything. I'm sorry. It's a lack of free time and a little bit of laziness. I guess I will start about 3 weeks back when I was busy being an international movie star. I got a facebook message about being in a movie called Contagion on Sunday night, and they needed extras for the movie the next day. I ended up skipping class and making 600 HKD for my work. The scene we were shooting was set in a Macau casino pre-SARS infection. I was standing about 5 feet away from Gwenyth Paltrow and Steven Soderbergh(the director) for awhile.

This past Thursday, 6 other classmates and I embarked on a trip to Taiwan. No need to worry, we survived the typhoon safely with only a little bit of rain on Friday. We got in about 9 P.M Thursday evening and were at our hotel around 11. We decided we would try and check out the nightlife in 台北(TaiPei) that night and asked one of the hostel employees, Phoenix, where to go. We ended up wandering around until about 2 A.M. without finding anywhere of real interest. We woke up early Friday morning to go to a tea house and eat brunch. Unfortunately, the scenic route to the top was cancelled due to heavy wind, so we just took a bus to the top instead. The tea and food were both really good. We went to 西门(West Gate) afterwards which is one of the more famous shopping places in TaiPei. After that, we went to 淡水(Danshui) which is alongside the river. There we just walked around, and I ended up buying a pumpkin seed brittle. Unlike Hong Kong, all the people in Taiwan give out free samples, and it is amazing. After Danshui, we went to 士林(ShiLin) the biggest and most famous of the night markets in TaiPei. We walked around for a little bit but we were already exhausted since it had been such a long day.

Just want to get this post up since I haven't posted anything in a really long time. I'll get the rest up within the next couple days.

中秋节等等 - Mid Autumn Festival etc.

It's been awhile since my last post. Since then, classes have been going for 3 weeks. I like my schedule a lot mainly because I have no classes on Friday. I'm taking Korean, Chinese, Business Statistics, Intro Management, and Corporate Finance. I'm the only white person in my Korean class, so a lot of people like talking to me. We have already learned how to read the entire alphabet in Korean, so I can read every word but might pronounce it incorrectly because the pronunciation is really rough. My Chinese class is completely focused on business and business terms. I'm learning some really useful words for Chinese business that I'm sure will help me on the BCT(Business Chinese Test). Statistics is easily my worst class. The teacher's English is incredibly difficult to understand, and she makes it impossible to stay focused in class. Instead of saying sample, she says zample. Probability turns into probiblity. Intro Management is with all of the IBCE students from USC and CUHK. The teacher is really passionate about teaching, and the material is pretty interesting. Corporate finance is more like what my teacher does for her own personal finance. It's a really interesting course, but I only have it once a week, and it's for 2 hours and 45 minutes making it a bit difficult to pay attention.

Last Wednesday night was the Mid Autumn Festival. It's pretty much the Chinese equivalent of Thanksgiving. They all celebrate the end of the harvest and eat mooncakes. We celebrated with most of IBCE on Friday night. For 60 HKD each, you and your friends get an unlimited supply of meats that you can grill over a fire. They had good stuff like some kind of steak, chicken wings, hot dogs, and sausages. Then they had some more questionable things like fishballs, squid, and something even the Chinese kids didn't know what it was. After that, we ate mooncakes. Mooncakes are one of the most filling foods that ever existed. I had one with green tea, mango, and something that looked like cookie dough.

The next day, we woke up early and decided to go cliff-jumping. The site is pretty far from our dorm. First you have to take a 45 minute bus, then a 20 minute taxi, then an hour or so hike. We actually ended up walking past the waterfall, but we found another beach which was really nice and had very few visitors. It was about 4-5 times as big as the other beach we go to with only 10 people instead of over 200. Anyways, the cliff was about 30 feet above the water. After getting up to the top, I was a little nervous, but I didn't wait too long to jump. I only brought flip-flops to hike in, so after a couple hours I was really excited to get back in the taxi. We ended the day at McDonald's where I had 2 Big Macs, fries, and a Coke since I hadn't really eaten anything all day. 'Til next time...

最后部分 - Last Part

The day after visiting Want Want Group, we went to the Shanghai Futures Exchange and Amway. The SHFE was probably my least favorite of the three just because I had no idea how trading of futures was carried out. We got to see their trading room, but because it is all electronic, it wasn't too interesting to watch. At Amway, we learned all about how their company worked and why they had become successful in China. Since its a direct selling company, its a little pyramid schemey but still interesting.

The following day was our first day at the World Expo. Because it happened to be the first day of school for kids in China, the lines were relatively short. The first pavilion we went to was Australia. They had a really cool movie/presentation at the end which was a good way to start the day. We went to some other interesting countries like Singapore, North Korea, and Iran. There was a section where we pretty much hit up all the countries that hate the U.S. My friend and I had heard the Japan pavilion was really cool, so we decided to wait 3 hours to see it. It was well worth the wait. I wasn't allowed to take any pictures, but they have some really cool technology they are developing like an amazing camera by Canon, a touch screen you can put on your wall, and smaller personalized "cars". Overall that day we visited about 16 countries getting stamps in our fake passports for most of them.

The following day the lines were a bit longer. Thankfully, Amway was one of the sponsors of the USA pavilion, so we were able to skip the line completely. It was nice to get a little taste of America after being gone for so long. We had a couple hours to ourselves then had to meet at the China pavilion. We got incredibly lucky by getting reservations to go inside. It is easily the hardest pavilion to get into having to wait multiple hours to get a ticket to then wait in the actual line. The pavilion itself was pretty good. They had a short ride inside which was one of the coolest things.

Our last day in Shanghai was a free day. We ended up going with a couple of the CUHK kids to a kinda touristy place a bit outside of town. We went on a gondola type boat ride through the canal that last about 15 minutes. We then walked around and looked at shops. At one cart, they were selling pets, and you could get a rabbit for less than $6. They also had a chipmunk which I'm fairly certain they captured off the side of the road and put in a cage to sell. Saturday, we headed back to Hong Kong and our trip was over. Coming soon, I'll be talking about my life at CUHK now that real classes have started up.

Quick Post

Just a quick post before I forget. I left out the performance we went to go see in Yang Shuo. It is called 刘三姐 Liu San Jie. It was directed by the same person who directed the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics. It was an amazing musical/play thing and had over 600 people in it. Most of them come from villages nearby and do other things during the day.

Continued

Sorry it took so long to get around to making this next post. Getting started with classes has been a little hectic. So, after an entire free day of biking and driving mopeds, the next day we took a 4 hour bus ride to the Long Sheng Rice Terrace Fields. Before we began the hike, we stopped by and watched a Yao minority group performance. One of their beliefs is to never cut their hair, so most of them have hair that is longer than they are tall. One of our friends was called up on stage to get "married" to one of the women. After that, we began the 45 minute hike to the most scenic spot for the rice terrace fields. From the top, the view was great; however, it was a little hazy making the pictures of the mountains in the background not as good. The next day was a traveling day. All I did was wait the entire day. We finally got into 上海 Shanghai around 1:30 a.m. The next morning we woke up to go to the first of our company visits. The first stop was 旺旺集团 Want Want Group. They are actually a much more legitimate company than they sound. I can't remember exactly which product, but they hold 70% of the market share with the next closest competitor around 2-3%. After eating lunch and changing clothes, we went to Chenghuang Temple, but it was just a complete tourist area selling everything you could possible imagine.(Yes mom I bought a mask :D)

Just to talk about the food briefly on the trip. The first meal we had in mainland was $3 yuan for a bowl of noodles. Morning noodles are on of the specialties in Gui Lin. At this particular restaurant, it was served with a choice of beef or pork, peanuts, and some sauce. In Gui Lin, dog meat is also a very popular dish which is usually eaten in the winter. Some slang used in Gui Lin is to actually call friends 狗肉 dog meat. So while we were in Yang Shuo, we set out to find some dog meat. We spot a restaurant called 狗肉饭馆 which literally means dog meat restaurant. Well its a little bit down an alley then you have to turn up the stairs and find the restaurant. Conveniently located on the right side of the poorly lit stairs is some throw up. We then go up and find the restaurant, and it turns out it is closed. Fearing for our lives, we run back to the main street. The food we ate in Shanghai is similar to what we usually eat in Hong Kong, but they have one specialty called 小笼包 Xiao Long Bao. It's a dumpling with regular meat inside, but they also put some soup broth, and they are incredible. We had a restaurant that was relatively cheap and served them about 5 minutes away from our hotel. It was 1 yuan for 1 dumpling. We ended up eating there 3 times in our 5 day stay.
More to come! I promise you won't have to wait as long as this time

桂林- Gui Lin

Due to the massive amount of things I must cover in this post, I have decided to break it into 2 or 3 sub-parts. First is about Gui Lin. We left for Gui Lin on August 23rd, and I went on my first real train ride. It was a 13 hour trip total but wasn't nearly as bad as you would think it was. Each seat is actually a bed so from about midnight until 7 a.m. I was asleep to pass the time. Everyone said the beds were uncomfortable, but I slept fairly well. When we arrived, we went to get get ready, and then went to breakfast. We ate breakfast for 50 cents, but it was still incredible. Later that day, we went to Elephant Trunk Hill and hiked up to the top. You can see some of the pictures on my Picasa. After that, we went around in a small cave, and then hiked to the top of that. After that, we went to Reed Flute Cave which is where all the colorful pictures come from.

The next day, we headed to 阳朔 (Yang Shuo). Instead of taking a bus, we took a 3 hour boat ride down the river which had really nice scenery. After arriving in Yang Shuo we had free time the rest of the day. I　ended up passing out asleep as well as my roommate. We went to dinner, and afterward decided to check out the night life. At one place, they played the only Chinese song that I know all the words to, so everyone liked me. The next day we went on bicycle ride through some of the village/towns outside of Yang Shuo. We had more free time in the afternoon, so we decided to rent Mopeds. To rent a Moped in China, you only have to give them $10 USD for 60 km of Moped use. They don't require you to present any form of ID or require you to fill out a waiver. Driving in a downtown city.

It may turn out to be longer than 3 posts. It is a lot longer than I expected.

大陆 - Mainland

Tomorrow we head off to Guilin, China. It's located in Southeast China hopefully not too close to all of the floods that are happening. It's about a 13 hour train ride away. It's a relatively small city in China only 1,340,000 people live there. It's well known for its scenery. After Guilin, we will head to Shanghai and spend 5 days there. We are going on a few corporate visits, so I will get to try out my new suit that I bought here. We are also getting two full days at the Expo from 10 a.m. - 10 p.m. When we return, I will have all of a day and a half to get ready for classes that start on the 6th. I'm a little worried about what my roommate will be like. I'm also incredibly worried that I may get placed in a 3 or 4 person room with constant Cantonese that will make me go crazy. Also here is an interesting article I found on China's economy:

夏天才开始 - Summer Finally Started

I've been meaning to make this post for awhile...Friday, we finished up our summer classes. For my morning class, I didn't have to do anything because I had already made my speech on Thursday. In afternoon class, we had to take a mock BCT(Business Chinese Test) which was pretty hard. Earlier in the week, I had two speeches on Thursday, an oral test on Tuesday, and a written test on Monday. It is sad that the morning class is over and that some of my classmates are leaving Hong Kong. Fortunately, a good number of them are still going to be here, so I will be able to see them next semester.

I haven't been doing much since break got off. I figured I would start learning Korean since I now have a lot of Korean friends. Yesterday, we went to Lamma Island. There are two ferries you can take from Hong Kong Island. One goes to a populated side, the other goes to a fairly deserted side of the island. We ended up taking the second one. We hiked for about 30 minutes to the beach. At the beach, it had a great view of a factory behind us. After swimming for a little while, we hiked to the other side of the island and ate dinner at a Lebanese restaurant, but we only ordered pizza. I'm really enjoying the time off.

Just a recap of roughly how many new words I learned this past summer. If we assume there were 40 new phrases per lesson (conservative side), and we learned 15 lessons that's roughly 600 characters from morning class alone. I can tell that my Chinese has improved significantly over the past few months while my English gets worse and worse >_<.

日本菜 - Japanese Food

Friday night, we went to a Japanese restaurant with about half of our class. The two Japanese guys in our class ordered us a bunch of authentic Japanese yakitori(kebabs). I ate some crazy stuff like cow tongue, chicken butt, and chicken heart. It was all really good. Of the weird stuff, chicken heart was probably my favorite. They said next time we would go to a sushi restaurant. They paid for my meal because they said I was not old enough to have a job, so I didn't complain.

This is a group picture after the lunch.