So tomorrow is a holiday called Zhongqiu Jie, or Mid Autumn Festival. This is when the moon is it’s fullest and roundest. The tradition of Zhongqiu Ji is to buy mooncakes and eat them while admiring the beauty of the moon at this time of year. Most people go home to visit family on this holiday, but if some can’t go home then they eat mooncakes and admire the moon from where they are. They can rest easily knowing that their family, no matter how far away, are doing the same. With that being said I plan to eat mooncakes and admire the moon with my classmates tomorrow night. After I go out to dinner with my temporary Chinese mother, as I like to call her, I will meet my friends at one of the small lakes on campus to view the moon. I will be thinking of all my friends at home.

Besides being excited about tomorrow night I am looking forward to the my classes tomorrow. Rather than describing are text verbatim, like usual, we are going to do a little role playing in two of my classes. In one class I get to be a government official advocating the one child policy. In the other I am a husband in an arranged marriage. I am not as excited about the second class.

Today I walked around campus and took lots of photos of the cleaner and prettier parts of the campus. I will be taking more photos of different aspects of the campus. This includes some of the not as nice aspects, for example, the small rivers that go through campus. On the school’s website they look really nice and beautiful, but right now they don’t have much water, if any, and they stink. Sandra also requested that I take pictures of the traffic congestion, so I will. Maybe then you can understand the perils of riding a bicycle in Beijing.

This morning a teacher helped me find some information about skateboarding in Beijing. Apparently the shopping area I went to a couple weeks ago has a church nearby. At the church there are a lot of kids who skateboard. Since I know how to take the subway there I will go over our break. I need to be careful though. I think I will walk around and do some shopping before hand or just watch the people skateboard to make sure I won’t get arrested. Getting stuck in a Chinese jail would suck. On the other hand, if I can meet some cool people to go skateboarding with that would be cool as well.

Today I went to the Great Wall at Simatai with my classmates and teachers. It was really exciting, but tiring at the same time.

This morning we left campus on a charter bus at 8:00 am and drove 3 hours outside of Beijing to the Simatai portion of the Great Wall. This portion of the wall is supposedly one of the more beautiful parts of the wall and there are not as many tourists at this part of wall.

When we arrived at the bottom of the hill we ate lunch at a small restaurant. It was traditional family style meal. The food was good, but there were some odd dishes brought out to us. I tried everything and did not find anything I didn’t like too much.

After we ate we started our trip up the wall. We could have taken a cable car part way up the mountain, but a few of us decided to walk all the way up and down. In the end it was not too bad. First we started on a trail that goes up to Great Wall. After about 40 minutes of walking we arrived at the Great Wall.

The first I noticed about the wall was the difference in size and height of all the stairs. I expected this, but it does not allow for anyone climbing the wall to have any sort of rythm. A lot of times the pace is awkward because the steps change in height or are too short for people with large feet. The beginning of the wall was the steepest part of the wall to climb. We made our way up the wall taking photos along the way. The views were amazing even though the weather was not too clear. We passed quite a few guard towers along the way and eventually we made it to then end of the wall we could walk on. The end of the wall was guarded by security, so you could not pass into more dangerous parts of the wall. My friends and I tried to ask the guard what we could do to keep going, but he would not let us. Mostly we were just joking around with him.

At the top of the wall we rested for a while and took more photos with classmates and teachers. After a nice break we headed back down. My friend was definitely right when he said going down was a lot easier. It took us about half the time to go down. Near the steeper parts of the wall we found it was actually easier to walk sideways down the steps because our feet were too long.

The part of the wall we climbed passes through a valley. It goes down one side and up the other. At the bottom there is a small lake. This lake was most likely a man made lake, but I am not totally sure. Anyways, at the point where the Great Wall meets the trail back down the mountain there is a zip line which goes over the lake from one side of the valley to the other. Being a risk taker, I could not pass up this opportunity to go. I payed my 35 kuai and rode the zip line down. It was a lot of fun and much better than walking. We then took a small boat back to the parking lot where I bought a couple shirts.

After everyone returned we headed home on the bus. All in all it was a lot of fun. I would definitely like to go back. I hope to be able to share all the photos with you guys soon.

So now that I have a couples in Beijing I feel like I have enough bike experiences to share with you guys.

First off I don’t think anyone in China understands the simple concepts of traffic. This includes which side of the road to ride on and, more specifically, how to avoid crashing into other and inanimate objects.

The campus of Tsinghua University has a few main roads on it. There is a main which goes in front of the building where my classes are. This road goes north south. There is a road which goes east west that intersects the north south road. I can ride my bike on this road and then take a left at the intersection to go to class, but I usually take a less used route which takes me behind my building. I thought this route would be safer since there a fewer people, but I have seen my fare share of accidents or near accidents. For example the other morning I saw a student ride his bike directly into a small cement divider. The problem was that in one part of the road there are 4 or 5 small concrete dividers to add some organization to an otherwise unorganized system. Whenever people ride through this area they have to choose which columns to ride between. I saw two students, only two students, riding in the opposite direction try and decide which route to take. What struck me as odd is that neither of the students decided to change their mind once they both realized they were headed for the same spot. One of the students did not stop at all, while the other took his feet of the pedals and did not break at all before running into the small cement pillar. It seems like in a place where people ride bikes so often people would be experts at avoiding collisions. However, it is quite the opposite.

On top of this inability to avoid collisions, I do not think people understand what a blind corner is. In just about the same place I described before there is a bend in the road. At the bend there is a huge bush on one side of the road. For some reason people think it is a good idea to ride out from behind from the bush without slowing down or looking for people coming in the opposite direction. After noticing this the first day I decided to ride on the other side of road when I approach that intersection.

I have to say that despite the fact that accidents happen all the time, the people who ride bikes around Beijing have some sort of inate skill at carrying the strangest things on their bikes. I have seen numerous people balancing huge boxes on the back of their bike while riding through rush hour traffic. I saw one guy carrying a box of stuff the size of a small refrigerator. He had one hand on the handle bars and one hand on his box, all the while riding through the intersections as if it was nothing. He must have had a lot of courage.

I have some other stories about my friends almost getting run of the road, but I think you guys get the idea. People only seem to be concerned about themselves and no one else, even if it means it increases their chances of getting into an accident.

A couple of days ago I read Alissa’s blog and she mentioned that she got sick. I must have jinxed myself by reading because yesterday I got sick. I was feeling a little under the weather. I was sneezing and coughing a lot, but it was not severe. If I was in Seattle I would have gone to school, but since I did not want to push myself too hard I decided not to go to classes. The last thing I wanted was for my

sickness to get worse while I was in Beijing. It is not like I can’t get things fixed, but being away from home makes things just a little more uncomfortable and harder to handle.

I spent most of the morning sleeping and reading Goblet of Fire. I was able to read half the book and finish it yesterday. I think it is the best one of the series so far. I liked the twist at the end. I will not reveal it in case people are planning on reading it. After I finished Harry Potter I studied Chinese. Right before I went to bed I start The Two towers. It will probably take me a while to finish this

new book since it is not such a quick read and my workload will probably increase soon.

Last Saturday night I went to a classmates house to eat dumplings. There were very delicious, so I ate a lot of them. I also didn’t want them to think I didn’t like them. While we were eating we talked about all sorts of things. I am envious of my classmate because the lady he lives with is really cool. She talked to us about all sorts of things, one for example was baijiu. Baijiu (buy gee oh) is a notoriously bad

tasting, low quality alcoholic drink. I have not tried and I don’t want to after hearing all of the horror stories.

My classmates roommate is also a friend of the lady I am staying with, so I will probably hang out with them more often. I am still living on my own, but I heard that my roommate will be coming home in the middle of next week. In one sense I am disappointed because I won’t be living on my own. In another sense I am happy because I will have someone to practice Chinese with. I will be able to learn new Chinese sayings and practice the ones I learned in class.

This Saturday IUP is taking a field trip to the Great Wall of China. We are going to go to the Simaitai portion of the wall. Apparently this is a more beautiful section of the wall, so I am excited. I am going to study up on how to talk about the wall, so I can have a better experience. I am also going to take a lot of pictures.

Afterwards I will share them with you.

After the field trip there will be another one of the weekly IUP parties. Even though I will be tired I will definitely want to go because I am realizing how nice it is to have one evening to kick back and relax. I can understand why the greek system has parties so often. They are a very cathartic activity.

If anyone wants me to send them postcards or letters in the mail, just let me know in an email and give me your mailing address. It is relatively cheap for me to send mail to the states. Only about $.80 for each letter. There is a post office right near my house, so it is really convenient. I will also put my address printed on a piece of paper, so you can mail me back if you want. If you want my address

here in Bejing you can also find it here My Mailing Address in Beijing. I really like finding mail in my mailbox, so I encourage you to mail

me.

This weekend was fun because another IUP student from princeton held a party. There were about 20 people there. The activities varied from Beer Pong, in Chinese Ping Pang Pijiu, to discussions on current political issues.

I stayed up way to late Saturday, so I lazy in terms of studying yesterday. I didn’t start until 8:30, so I had to wake up at 5:30 this morning to prepare for class. Even though the classes are getting easier in terms of preparation I still have to change my study habits.

I am enjoying my classes a lot, but I am missing everyone.

Gotta run to class. Please email me! Bye!

The last week has been pretty hectic for me in Beijing. I can now give you a guys a play by play of the last week since my friend has graciously let me use her computer in the foreign students dorm.

The first day I arrived in Bejing I was able to get to Tsinghua without a problem. Since it was late in the afternoon I really only had time to get to the IUP office at Wen Bei Lou. After I checked I went to the hotel on the east side of the Tsinghua campus. Since there was no gate on that side of the campus I had to take a little bit of a winding path. This path took me down an interesting road. It is just about the same as a two lane road in America, but it had some special characteristics. Specfically there were no sidewalks, just some dirt on the side of the road. On top of having no sidewalks to keep traffic and pedestrians separated there were quite a few cars and lots of people on bikes. There seemed to be little order to was supposed to go at intersections, but after a few days I have realized this is the order. People just sort of go. One person is brave at first and steps out, then a couple follow. Eventually there are enough people to stop traffic. Then they can cross. Anyways after I made my way to my hotel room I read all the paperwork that IUP gave me. After I was done with that I went to a local cd shop and bought some cheap music and then went to the hotel and ate some instant noodles.

The next day I was able to take all my stuff from the hotel to the apartment where I was staying. I had to go to the IUP office first. When I was carrying my shoulder bag and two backpacks lots of people would walk by and then say something along the lines of, “wow his stuff is heavy”. I would turn to look and they would still be amazed at it’s weight, but since there were backpacks it was quite comfortable. Along the way a couple people on bikes asked if I wanted help, but I figured it was a ploy to make money, so I declined their offers.

Later that afternoon I was able to find a room in an apartment in the southwest part of the campus. I am supposed to be living a retired professor. She is 73 years. The only reason I say that I am supposed to be living with her is that right now she is travelling in France, so I am living by myself. Everyone once in a while her friend or her daughter will come over to stay the night, but most of the time we just talk on the phone and I tell them how I am not having any problems and everything is fine. It is pretty nice to have the place to myself. It has a refrigerator, bathroom, washer and everything. It might be odd when the lady I am living with wants to return because I might be used to living on my own by then.

After a few days of settling into my place and doing various IUP related activities the weekend came. With some of my new friends I went to a party that another IUP student was having. It was fun, but at the same time odd because I had not spoken any English until that night. I got used to it quickly because it was much easier than using Chinese.

During the days before class I was also able to buy a bike and a cell phone. When you buy the phone you also pay a certain amount of money to add time to your phone. Once your time gets low you have to recharge the phone, so you can keep using it. On the second I had my phone I spent all my money calling Eric and Sandra. I was only able to talk to them for like 15 minutes too! I hear that it is a lot cheaper for people to call me from America. I am going to go to http://www.pincity.com to investigate. If there is anything good I will tell you guys how to call me from America.

Last week Janny, Tammy and I went to Tiananmen Square and Wangfujing. Right now Tiananmen Square is not so nice looking. People are busy putting up a lot of decorations and trees for an upcoming festival. We decided that we go back later when the square was less busy. I didn’t seem to feel the impact of the historical signifigance because there was so much other stuff going on, like biulding fake mountains. After we went to Tiananmen Square we went to Wangfujing. This is a shopping area that sort of reminded me of Japan. There were a lot of American stores along the road. There was also a street where you could walk down and eat all sorts of snacks. You could get these snacks from small carts on the side of the road. These carts are sanctioned by some sort of local government, so it is alright to eat there if you are worried about getting sick. Most everything was sold on a stick. For example you could get chicken, beef, lamb and fruit on a stick. On top of that there were some carts which were definitely catering to tourists and the stereotypes they might have by selling odd things like bugs and lizards on a stick. Needless to say we didn’t try any of those.

Today I went to a Wal-Mart like store to buy a clothing rack to hang my clothes on as well as some other little things. I bought some coffee from starbucks and then came back to my friends dorm. Now it is time for me to head back to my place to put away the stuff I bought. Afterwards I am going to a classmates house to eat dumplings with the family he is staying with. After we eat we are going to go to a party.

I miss you guys a lot. Feel free to email me because even though I should be having a great time, sometimes I am not and it is nice to hear what you guys are doing in the states.

This past week we started classes. Everyday I start at 8:00 am and end at 2:00 with 2 hour long breaks. I use these breaks to either prepare for my upcoming classes or get food. There is a cafeteria right near the building with our classes where I can get lunch for less than 8 kuai, or $1 American. It is great! The classes are kind of difficult, since I am getting used to studying in general. Shifting from two weeks of travel to studying was a little hard. A few times last week I woke up 6:00 am to study, so that I would be prepared for class.

I can not believe it has been a week since I have arrived in Beijing already. I have done a lot of things to prepare for classes and I have also done some fun things.

I was just able to get a good connection to the internet at my friends dorm room, so I was able to update my blog alot. Everything in China has been pretty nice except for one thing … getting online is hard. I have been able to send and respond to email, but getting onto website is tricky. Sometimes you can visit websites and sometimes you are unable to for some reason. For being such a big University, the internet is really bad. I do not think this is the MIT of China anymore. I was watching my connection rate and I was receiving at less than 10 KB/s most of the time I was updating my blog.

Anyways, I have lots of stories and thoughts about Japan which will take a little longer to write. Since I need to eat dinner and start my homework I do not have time right now, but by the end of the week I will post all of this.

Thanks for being patient guys.

Oh yeah, if you want me to send you postcards or anything in the mail, just send me your address.

As for the time difference. I am a day ahead of you guys, but the hour is 9 hours behind you. So when I get out of class at 2:00 pm it will be 11:00 pm in Seattle. That might be the likeliest time anyone will see me online.

After a short flight from Tokyo I was in Beijing. I am not sure how long the flight was because my ticket said we would arrive at 4:00 pm, but we got there at about 2:30 pm and rather than leaving at around 11:00 am, it was almost noon by the time we left. All this combined with the time difference left me confused, so I can only guess that the flight was about 3 or 4 hours.

Just like we had used a bus in Japan, I had to do the same thing in Beijing to get to the terminal. It was easy getting through customs and finding a taxi to get to Tsinghua. While I was in the terminal there were some taxi drivers who tried to get me to use their taxis. I had been warned about these guys before, so I knew not to take them. Often times they will not start their meter or they will drive all over the place since they know that most foreigners do not know where they are going. In the end they charge really inflated prices. Tsinghua gave me good instructions on how to get a good taxi, so I only paid about 80 kuai, or about $10. The exchange rate is very good for most foreigners here. For me, for every American dollar I get 8 Chinese dollars.

When I arrived at the University I grabbed my bags and headed for Wen Bei Lou, which is where the IUP offices are located. I checked in when I got there and they told me where my hotel was. After chatting with them for a little about what I needed to get done and what I had time to do I went to my hotel. The walk is not too far. It only takes about 30 minutes, but with all my stuff it was a little troublesome. On the way I had to stop at the ATM to get some cash for the next few days. Luckily there were two nice students from IUP who helped my find the ATM and my way to the hotel. Their names are Janny and Tammy.

By the time I arrived at my room and got settled it was almost dinner time, so I opened my welcome packet and read that for a while before I got hungry. I ended up going to the local convenience store to get some food for dinner. On my trip out I also went to a small music shop and bought a cd. It came out to about $1.60. I am almost positive it is not the real deal.

I just ate my dinner and I have gotten organized, so it pretty much time for bed, since I don’t have much else to do.

I do miss everyone though. I hope to be able to chat online or through email with everyone while I am here because I am sure I am not the only person having fun. Even though I am doing a bunch of new things half way across the world it is going to be the everyday things in Seattle that I will miss, so if people can tell me about that it would be great. If you want to start your own blog, I suggest http://www.blogger.com. let me know if you start one because I will put a link from mine to yours.

My flight this morning left Narita Airport at 10:55 am. To make sure I was there early enough I wanted to get to the airport at about 8:00 am. To make sure I had enough time to get to the airport meant I needed to wake up at 5:00 am and catch the 5:30 am train to Gotanda. I then took the train to Tokyo station and went all the way down stairs wherer I was able to catch the 6:30 am express train to the Airport. The whole trip from hostel to the airport was about 2 hours. I am really glad that I didn’t have a problem on the trains. I am also glad they were not packed because I was carrying about 60 pounds of luggage with me. It was not too heavy, but it was a little cumbersome.

Once at the airport I was able to talk to the information desk and ask them where I needed to check in. The place was right next to where I was, but I did not realize because this airport worked differently than the other airports I have been to thus far. Rather than each airline having it’s own counter there is a large plaza area with 10 or 15 check in counters that are fenced in. At any given time only certain airlines are checking in baggage at each check in center. Their is a big sign above each of them that display which airline is currently being serviced.

Since I was a little early I had to wait about 45 minutes before I could check in. So to waste some time and spend the rest of my yen I did three things. First I called Jesse to let him know that I made it to the airport alright. Next I went to starbucks to enjoy one last Matcha Cream Frappucino and one last curry doughnut. After I was done eating I hopped onto a computer that had access to the internet to send some emails. I told people I was fine and that I had fun in Japan and that I was heading to China and I probably would not have good internet access for a while.

Soon afterwards I went to my gate and waited for my bus. This was another difference from other airports I had been too. Rather than boarding the plane right at the gate, at this terminal we had to board a bus which took us to the plane. We got off the bus and then got on the plane.

Right now I still on the flight and I taking little naps and trying to finish ‘The Fellowship of the Ring’. It is pretty good once you get into it. After I finish this I am going to start the next Harry Potter book. It will be my little escape from Beijing if I need one.

Today was the last day in Japan that I had free, so eventhough Jesse was at work I still wanted to go out. Last night Kumi said she had plans to go to Yokohama, so I thought it would be fun to join her and Tomoe. We decided to meet a little later in the day because we needed to rest and we all had our own stuff to take care of.

This morning I had to do my laundry because I had not done any since I left Florida. My first task was to get some laundry detergent. This was not too bad since I know Kanji, or Chinese characters. I gave the lady at the front desk a piece of paper that said ‘wash clothes’ with 50 yen and then she gave me the detergent. I thought the rest of the process was going to be a piece of cake, but it wasn’t. I had no idea idea it was going to be so expensive. I was used to paying 50 cents for washing and 50 cents for drying at my mom’s house, but at my hostel it was a lot different. Since I didn’t know where any other laundry mats were I had no choice. The wash itself was 300 yen or $3.00! Then I had to dry all my clothes. I am not sure if Japanese driers do not dry as fast or as hot as my drier at home, but it took me 50 minutes to dry the clothes I had washed. This was even when I checked it frequently and took out the stuff that was already dry. At 100 yen, $1.00, for 10 minutes it cost $5.00 to dry my laundry. I also had to dry my towel, which thankfully only took 10 minutes, so I ended up spending almost $10.00 for one load of laundry!

While I was drying my laundry I was able to walk around my neighborhood. It was a pretty nice place. It was not too rural or too urban. It was sort of in between. Sort of like Columbia City, but the stores are mych more compact and cramped. You could consider Rainer Ava. as being the Ikegami train line which went through the neighborhood. At that time of the morning none of the restaurants were open, so I went to a bakery to get one of those tasty curry doughnuts. I also walked past an elementary school where there were kids stretching on the playground.

After all my clothes were washed, dried and folded I hopped on the train to Shibuya where we met at hachi-Ko statue and then headed to Yokohama.

Our first stop in Yokohama was China Town. I would have to say that the China town in Yokohama seemed to be much more authentic, or maybe cliche, than the China town we have in Seattle. I can not say whether I liked Yokohama’s better though. We walked around China town for a while. It seemed like everyone and their brother were selling roasted chestnuts. This made Kumi happy because she likes them so much. We tried to eat dim sum, but it was a little late, so we went to a restaurant that looked good. After our lunch we started walking towards Minatomomieru Park. While still in China we came across a photo shoot for some fall clothing. Again, there were a lot of people standing around and watching.

We made it to the park and we went to the scenic viewpoint which overlooks Yokohama Bay. We took a few photos and the view was nice, but we did not stay long because we had another place to visit.

Near the park is a building called The Landmark Tower. On the 69th floor is the Sky Garden. It is basically another observation deck to view the city from. The observatory is 273 meters high making it taller than the observatory in the Tokyo Tower and the highest in Japan. Despite being on the 69th floor the elevator only takes 40 seconds to reach the observatory. At one point it reaches a speed of 750 meters per minute. I have calculated this to roughly 37 miles per hour. Apparently this is the fastest elevator in the world. From the observatory we were able to see a lot of Yokohama, but even though we should have been able to see Mt. Fuji there were too many clouds, so we could not see it.

After leaving the tower we all rode the train back to the Yamanote line. The Yamanote Line is the main train line around Tokyo. After we got to Shibuya we all parted because we all had different people to see. Kumi and Tomoe had other friends to see and I was going to have my last dinner with Jesse. Our plan was to meet at Shimbashi station. I told Kumi and Tomoe that if I was on the Yamanote Line then I would be fine. They were surprised that I had gotten used to riding the trains in Japan so fast. I think after that I was jinxed. After I bought my ticket I went down to the station which went the opposite direction. I got on the packed train right near the door, but then I had second thoughts, so right as the doors were closing I jumped off. Then I waited around thinking that the train I got off was the right one. When the next train came I got on it. I watched the little reader board flash with where it had been and which way it was going. Ride before it was going to leave I noticed it had already passed Shimbashi, so I got off again. As I got off and was walking towards the stairs I noticed Kumi coming my direction. She had bought a ticket and came down to tell me I was going to get on the wrong train. We went back upstairs and I went to the right station. I guess in the end I was not so familiar with the trains.

I met with Jesse at Shimbashi station and we went to a nearby Izakaya, or pub. We sat down and ordered a bunch of little dishes. He told me what he thinks about Japan versus the first time he came here and I got to tell him what I thought. I will write a separate entry for that later. After some drinks and some ngiri it was time for both of us to head home. I thanked him for helping me have a great time in Japan. We wished each other luck and then we went home.