Before and After

So while I was in China I didn't cut my hair; which, in fact, was a big deal for me since I usually get my hair cut every two or three weeks (thanks Mom!). So I was going on five months without cutting the top of my hair and after looking at Carol's post about Brandon's haircut, I decided it was about time to cut it again. Here is the before and after:

Before:

After:

(don't pay attention to the ugliness of the person, just the change in the hair)

Back Home!!!!

After four months of doing a semester abroad in Mainland China, I am finally back in the US of A!! Let me just tell you how much I absolutely loved my experience in China. As you have seen in previous posts, I went all over and saw a bunch of crazy different things. I enjoyed all of it: the trips, the schooling, the everyday life, the friends, the teachers, the culture, the prices (it's so cheap!!!!), the modes of traveling (now that I am home I can confess that I bought an electric bike while I was there; it was the awesome (I couldn't tell you earlier because my mom would have freaked out)), the purchases... It was perfect; the timing, the experience, everything, just perfect. Tricia and Elizabeth's sister-in-law, Amy, came and picked me up at the end and we traveled through mainland, Hong Kong, and Taiwan (all very different places) for a little under three weeks. For being together for 24 hours a day for three weeks, we got along exceptionally well and I would travel with them again in a heart beat. While going about, we heard a lot about Tricia and Jon (she's so in love and it's fun to see her so happy). We got home on New Year's Eve and have been enjoying the comforts it entails ever since (dryers, mattresses, central heating, cars, homemade cooking, etc). I'm not going to paste many pictures of our trip. If you want to see them go look on Amy Hall's blog on my blog list.

One of my favorite parts of our trip was going back to the Great Wall. We went to a different part of it. We hiked it for 5 miles and zip lined off it at the end of the hike. I also loved Hong Kong. It was so different the mainland. It is modern, mostly clean, and full of parks.

We spent Christmas at Disneyland Hong Kong; it was great. They had Christmas carols throughout the streets all day long. It actually felt like Christmas. I also enjoyed going back to my mission in Taiwan. It was great to see people and just be back.

Winding Down

My class went on our last field trip a couple of weeks ago. It was nice to get out and walk around in the trees. My friends decided to use a straight iron to straighten my hair and I liked it so much that I went to a salon and put permanent straightener in my hair. What do you think?

Just us walking around the place.

This stone pagoda and the sculpture on it are over 1,400 years old. It's crazy how detailed it still is.

Here is some more scenery and me with my straight hair.

Weekend in Shanghai

I know it seems like all I do is go on vacation, and well, it is. :) To take a break from vacationing, I go to class. This weekend's adventure with my class was to Suzhou and Shanghai. On Friday, we went to gardens and a silk factory in Suzhou for part of the day and continued on till Shanghai for the rest of the weekend. It wasn't really a strictly planned vacation so we were free to do what we wanted the whole time. The best part was when we all took a little cruise boat tour in the harbor and you can see all the new and jazzy buildings in Shanghai. This is the last trip we had a class so we'll have to see what else my friends and I can plan before we go back to the US.

This is Suzhou gardens with a Pagoda and me with my Chinese "MOM", Professor Zhou.

This is still Suzhou and the silk worm cocoons which actually what silk comes from. 7,000 cocoons make 1 silk blanket.

This is Shanghai with all the lights. My friends Ray, Bethany, and Hannah (middle).

This is one of the coolest buildings in Shanghai.

Ten Days Trip

Part of the Study Abroad to China includes a ten-day trip touring China in the middle of the two blocks. We left on October 21 and we got back on October 31. It was sooooo much fun. We saw tons but it was not overwhelming. There was a excellent balance of culture and recreation; you can only see so many different Buddhist temples before they start to look the same. We first went to a city called Luo Yang and saw a famous temple where they study martial arts. We saw people throw nails through glass and amazing acrobatics. We also went to Xi'an and saw the Terra-cotta warriors. They are 2,200 years old. Our country's history has nothing to compare. We also went to Beijing where we saw Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, Summer Palace, Temple of Heaven, Ming Tombs, the Great Wall, and some amazing shopping. Here are the pictures of our adventure: (The first couple are before the trip. Our turtle, Enrique, and a visit to a culture village.)

The left picture was when I went into a big bubble and rolled around on top of a lake. It was super fun but really tiring.

The right is an embarrassing picture of me when I dressed up for Salsa dancing. Trip: The other two pictures are of the Long Men Caves. They are Buddhist caves that are over 1500 years old.

More ancient Buudhas, my first attempt at a French braid, and my tandem bicycle experience on the top of the Xi'an city wall (100's of years old).

These are the Terra-cotta warriors. They are over 2200 years old. They were originally painted and each held a different weapon. Their purpose was to guard the emperor's reign after his death. They have found over 6,000 warriors to date.

This is a room of stone tablets that have Confucius' writings on them some 600 years old. The dinner-dance show had some crazy looking dumplings and some interesting dances.

Tiananmen Square and the scenes from the Forbidden City.

Our retreat at Hard Rock Cafe Beijing, our friends with similar hats at the summer palace and my adventure on a dragon boat.

This is the inside of the Temple of Heaven where the Emperor would go twice a year and communicate with God. The others are pictures of the Great Wall with the autumn colors.

More pictures of the Great Wall.

You can kind of see how steep it is and this is my friend Bethany.