March 2012
17 posts
7 tags
Mar 28th
6 notes
6 tags
Mar 22nd
8 tags
Going to See Pandas!
I’m leaving bright and early tomorrow to fly out to Chengde, in the Sichuan Province (yes, with the spicy food) for our weeklong trip with our program.  We’re going to be building houses with Habitat for Humanity in a remote area in Sichuan, then heading to Chengde to experience some Sichuan culture and see…pandas.   I’m armed with a new camera too!  My coworker told me...
Mar 22nd
7 tags
Zhongwen Trials
So I figure I should post something about learning Chinese, considering this is supposed to be what I’m in China for (not clubbing and running around a foreign city?  What?  This isn’t what I signed up for…).   We have two hours of Chinese class every Mon-Thursday, and quizzes pretty much everyday.  This feels like an accelerated language class; we already know over 100 Chinese...
Mar 21st
1 note
7 tags
Mar 19th
4 notes
5 tags
“You lose sight of things… and when you travel, everything balances out.”
– Daranna Gidel
Mar 18th
9 notes
7 tags
Mar 17th
1 note
6 tags
Mar 17th
1 note
7 tags
Beautiful Clubs and Bored People
My group of friends and I went to a club last night for our friend Charly’s birthday called M1NT.  Out of all the clubs I’ve been to in Shanghai, this one was the most beautiful.  It was on the top floor of a high-rise, and had excellent views overlooking the Bund.  The entrance to the club had one side of the corridor decorated with a shark tank.  We rode the elevator up to the club,...
Mar 16th
4 tags
“We are torn between a nostalgia for the familiar and an urge for the foreign and...”
– Carson McCullers
Mar 14th
14 notes
4 tags
Mar 13th
3 notes
Chinese Propaganda
My roommate and I explored the Shanghai Propaganda Poster Art Centre this weekend. This is an amazing gallery, and holds an incredible number of propaganda posters from Mao’s reign, including from the Cultural Revolution and the Great Leap Forward. They also had Cultural Revolution era photos from a Shanghai University, and a dazibao (Big Character Poster). The dazibao were Cultural...
Mar 12th
6 tags
Mar 11th
1 note
5 tags
“Travel is like love, mostly because it’s a heightened state of awareness, in...”
– Pico Iyer
Mar 10th
37 notes
10 tags
Mar 10th
8 tags
My Mom Insulted My Blog
Found this yesterday when my roommate and I were exploring in the Jing’an district.  Love you Mom!  
Mar 10th