Sydney/Shanghai Study Abroad

Moganshan Lu- Art District

2008-12-11T15:24:00.000-08:00

Here are just a couple pictures from Moganshan Lu, a strip in Shanghai that has a lot of art galleries, I visited it this past weekend and took a lot of pictures so I thought I'd put some up... All the pictures are either from walking there or inside the galleries.

Shaoxing Part 2

2008-12-11T15:15:00.000-08:00

Here are some of the other pictures I took, mostly coming from An'Chang and Screaming Mt. There's drying meat hanging out, the pig head's my favorite, a lady making sausage and at Screaming Mt. a lady painting a tree trunk... I'm not sure why but I liked the picture, and finally some of the kids in our group by the lake by the mountain. If you have any questions about anything feel free to ask. Enjoy!

Shaoxing

2008-12-11T14:56:00.000-08:00

Here are some of the pictures from Shaoxing, the first are from the clothing factories we visited, then the boat ride I took, there's a picture of me with Helen, our program's assistant director, next is a lady washing her hair by the river and finally one of me in the bonsai garden at Lu Xun's old home.

Thanksgiving Pictures

2008-12-11T14:44:00.000-08:00

Here are a few pictures from Thanksgiving, I'm not in any of them because I had to take them, just picture me there.

Josh is making the apple pie, I also showed a close up of it. The hanging pumpkins had each one of our names on it, mine's a little left of the center.

Thanksgiving and our trip to Shaoxing

2008-12-10T03:05:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone!!

I haven't had much to put up lately, although I did go on a trip to Shaoxing a few weekends ago, which was fun, just really really cold. I didn't bring a coat to China because Shanghai's weather on average never is supposed to go below the mid 40's for November and December, although it was in the 30's last weekend and 70 today so the weather's never something you can really depend on.

I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving, our program directors reserved the top floor of this restaurant for us and we were able to use the kitchen and given a budget to make dinner, which was a lot of fun, we tried our best to make all the dishes we remembered from back home, although you can't find all of the ingredients here. I helped make an apple pie, we couldn't find a pie crust so we were going to use graham crackers to make the crust but we couldn't find graham crackers either so we bought these other biscuit things that looked similar and did our best. We ended up using 8 sticks of butter for 4 small pies... it came out looking more like a cobbler than anything else, but it was really good.

The next morning on Friday we all left for Shaoxing for the weekend, it's a city about 3 hours West of Shanghai. That afternoon we toured two textile factories, Shaoxing is known for it's textiles so that was interesting. The floors are divided by what's being made, so everyone on the same floor is making the same type of thing. We kept making jokes that they knew we were coming so they told all the 7 year old kids to take the day off... not funny i know.

During the other two days we visited this 1,000 year old river town of An'Chang which I'll try to put pictures up of. We also visited Screaming mountain, took a boat ride to the hometown of Lu Xun, who's one of China's most famous writers.

All in all it was a lot of fun but we all got back around 5 on Sunday night and still had all of our homework to do, so it was also a very tiring weekend.

More Macau and Zhuhai pictures

2008-11-11T07:09:00.001-08:00

Here are some other pictures from Macao and Zhuhai... We knew we were back in China when there was trash in the water, picture of the Pearl River Delta after just going through customs from Macao to Zhuhai. Seafood drying at a fruit farm in Zhuhai. a baby cow in a parking lot, none of us ever really figured why there were cows there, the parents were eating pineapple scraps. A sweater getting made in a clothing factory, the pieces are made by machine and then sewn together by hand, in case you were interested. Lastly, me in front of the Macau Tower model, in the 360 cafe (in the Macau Tower). To its left is the Pearl Tower in Shanghai, which you can see a picture of from my earlier posts.

All travels aside I'm doing pretty well, trying to get some of the end of semester work done now so I don't have to spend the last 6 weeks I'm here in a panic. Hope everyone's doing well, stay warm!!!!

Back from Hong Kong/Macau/Zhuhai

2008-11-11T06:36:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone!

Late Saturday night I finally arrived back in Shanghai from our week-long field trip to Hong Kong, Macau and Zhuhai. We visited a variety of different places including the MGM Grand in Macau, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, a chemical factory in Zhuhai and the Chinese University in Hong Kong... I watched the election from my hotel room in Macau, some of the guys in our group actually skipped the first half of the day's activities in order to watch it, all very exciting. Anyway....

There's a picture of me on the top of the Peak, which is a famous area of Hong Kong where you can see the entire skyline, we went at night but if you can pick out that building behind me with the criss-crossed lights, that's the building that Batman breaks into in The Dark Knight. That view from the cable car is on our 1 free day in Hong Kong, it's the longest cable car system in the world and goes up a mountain that has the world's largest sitting Buddha on the mountain. The pointed tower is the Macao Tower which is the tallest building in Macau and offers the world's tallest bungy jump (233 meters), 7 of the guys in our group ended up doing it. The last two are one of me on the roof of the MGM Grand Macau by the pool and Granville Road (there's also a Granville Square) by the Hong Kong Museum in Hong Kong.

Procrastinating

2008-10-07T01:41:00.000-07:00

Hey!

I was working on my Chinese homework but I needed a break so I thought I'd talk a little more about my trip. Last week was vacation, which was a very welcome break; classes here are very challenging... especially Chinese. We're in Chinese class for 3 hours a day, 4 days a week meaning that we do learn a lot but there's a lot of work involved.

My study abroad group has a week-long trip to Hong Kong in 3 weeks and between now we'll have had 3 tests in Chinese, our midterm being the day before we leave, so if I don't write very much between now and then you'll know it's because I'm studying. Next Thursday we're going to the Peking (Beijing) Opera as a field trip, it's world famous so I'm really excited about that, I've never seen an opera before, much less a Chinese opera. Besides that I've been pretty busy with school, there are a lot of art galleries in the city that I want to go visit, especially before it starts getting cold... it's about mid 70's now but should get down to the 50's in the next month or so.

One thing that's more different here from anywhere else I've lived is the food. I love Chinese food, although it's nothing like what you get in the US, there's no such thing as General Tsou's chicken in China. As you may have guessed there's a lot of rice and noodles, but depending on the region of China food can be very different. I've been eating a lot of soup and rice and noodle dishes... there's a lot of street vendor food that we can get behind our school, but it's usually deep fried and I usually get something else. I have had to change what I normally eat quite a bit though since I started living here. For example, in China things like cheese, salads, sandwiches and deli meats really aren't that common. They don't actually eat much dairy at all, except yogurt. I don't have a kitchen where I live so I can't cook any of my own food, which I miss doing but I've adjusted for the most part, and while I'll dearly miss my xiao long bao and strawberry pearl milk tea I can't wait to have a reuben or pizza again.

I should probably get back to work though, I hope everyone's well! Here are a few more pictures. One is of the Shanghai Circus we saw during orientation and the second is of a meal we had when we visited a small town as a field trip... the snails were actually very good.

Beijing pt. 2

2008-10-04T06:25:00.000-07:00

Here are some more pictures from Beijing, from the Forbidden City and Summer Palace. The picture of me with the two girls is a picture their mom wanted me to take with them, I must have had my picture taken with at least 25 different people by the end of that trip, also the last picture is at the Summer Palace and is of the longest corridor in the world, with hundreds of paintings on it.

Beijing Trip

2008-10-04T06:03:00.001-07:00

Hey everyone, this past week was the Chinese National Holiday week (October 1st is sort of like our July 4th) so we got a week off of school and went traveling! There was six of us that did this 5 day Beijing tour (travel within Beijing is a little difficult since the city is so big so we decided that a tour would be the best way to see everything we wanted to.) Here are some pictures from my trip, starting at the Olympic Stadium.

The second two pictures are of my group and I in front of the entrance to the Ming Tombs and an elephant on the Sacred Way. The last pictures are from the Great Wall.

More "Zhaopian"

2008-09-11T21:45:00.000-07:00

Hey people, here are some more pictures...

The first two are taken from this restaurant we went to showing the variety of food and me eating it. The last two are taken from my balcony, compared to most of Shanghai we have a very green, tranquil campus.

Pictures from Shanghai

2008-09-10T02:02:00.000-07:00

Here are a few of the first pictures I took since I've been here, the first are shots from my flight, one flying over the Arctic and the other entering Hong Kong, the 3rd is our jiaozi making group posing with our home-made dumplings. Finally, these two girls wanted to take a picture with me while we were on the scavenger hunt, this is at the Bund in front of the pearl tower, which is a famous landmark in Shanghai... I guess there aren't many blondes in Shanghai.

First Blog from China

2008-09-09T21:48:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone!!!

In case some of you weren't sure, I safely arrived in Shanghai late on September 3rd, everything went surprisingly smooth; my flight, the transfer in Hong Kong and the taxi to SUFE all had no problems. The only rough time was when I arrived at campus at 8 pm and I was trying to find out where I had to go but no one spoke english so I had to use my limited Chinese to find out where I had to bring my things... eventually I met the director of the program and she helped me put my suitcase in my room and go to a restaurant where my orientation group (who arrived earlier that day) was just finishing dinner.

Thursday morning was the first day of orientation where, for the most part we were busy all day with information sessions and being shown around the city. On Saturday our roommates moved in and that night we had a "jiaozi" making competition (boiled dumplings) which are extremely common here. Sunday, the day before classes started we had a scavenger hunt, where we were put in to groups of 6 (3 of us and our roommates), and we had to answer questions about various famous places throughout the city by taking the metro (or taxis) and visiting them. I had fun, there are some really nice places, although the more into the city you go, like most cities the more touristy it becomes. I'm uploading my pictures onto my computer right now, I didn't have enough space on my hard drive to do it before so they should be up soon.

I'm taking 4 classes here, 12 hours of Chinese language a week (four 3 hr classes a week... that's a lot) I'm on my way to my Finance class right now though. Zaijian!!

more pictures...

2008-05-01T18:19:00.000-07:00

Alright, here are some more pictures from my stay in Australia...
In order we have myself in Hyde park, by the fountain (for all of you familiar with London, they have one here as well.) Next is me and Warren (which is correct grammar, dad.)
at the Royal Botanic Gardens and finally
my kangaroo friend nibbling on my glasses
on my Blue Mountains trip... this is for Leah.

Cairns, and everything else

2008-05-01T18:07:00.000-07:00

Ok, this is actually the third time I've tried to upload pictures, but I'll try it again. I know I haven't posted anything in a while but I've just had midterms and spent the 22nd-28th of April in Cairns (northern Australia, where the Great Barrier Reef is.) I'll try to upload some of the pictures from my trip...
This is actually me sandboarding at Port Stevens, our friendly guide is helping me.

Here I am in front of the Sydney Opera House, Warren had taken the picture, we're actually going there on May 31st to see Edward Scissorhands with Warren's parents when they come up to visit, I'm so excited!! I'll start another post and try to upload some more pictures on there so this will be easier to open for all of you out there with less than speedy internet.
Ok, one more...the one on the right is me on the top of our campus tower building... I joined the photography club and our April photoshoot was going to the top of the 32 story building and taking pictures, so you can see a bird's eye view of Sydney behind me... I'll add some more in my next post.

Easter Weekend & Travel Plans

2008-03-25T17:12:00.001-07:00

Hey everyone,

I've been pretty busy with a lot of things lately so I haven't really had time to write. It's wednesday and I don't have class until 6 so I thought I'd try to maybe upload some pictures. Amie is in Cairns for the week so I'm all alone until monday but Warren came over this weekend and we did a lot of site seeing so that was nice. There was this festival going on at Darling Harbour this weekend called Hoopla where there were all of these street performers, we also got to walk around Circular Quay and see the opera house up close, I'll try to post some pictures from that. We also went to Victoria park, which is right across the street from me as well as the Royal Botanic Gardens where thousands of bats go to sleep during the day in the trees...they start waking up in the afternoon and it's quite loud.
Here are 4 pictures (it takes forever to load them so I probably won't be posting too many but I wanted to at least put up a few). There's one of me sand boarding near port stevens, me sitting on the steps of the opera house, the Rocks/Circular Quay where these huge cruise ships dock, and you can see the Harbour Bridge in the background and finally one of Amie and my room, with her sitting at her computer... we have two big windows so our room is always nice and sunny.
I've taken over 500 pictures since I've been here and I wish I could put more up but it just takes so long, I might put them on snapfish since I know a lot of you have access to it, but right now I'm still loading these pictures...it's been over 5 hours since I started. I might have to leave my computer open so it can finish while I'm gone. We have midterms and a two week vacation starting on April 14th and so far I only have 3 midterms all ending by the 17th, I'm going to Cairns from the 22nd (moved up from the 24th) to the 28th, so I'll be able to explore the Great Barrier Reef and all of the rainforests up there. Warren and I want to plan a trip to Uluru and the Red Center (Alice Springs area) but I don't know how we'd go about it, it would be too expensive to fly but it's a famous part of Australia that I'd hate to miss out on. I'll try to update you on what my plans are when I get it figured out!

School and Markets

2008-03-07T01:17:00.000-08:00

Well it's the end of the second week of classes and I feel like I'm settling in quite nicely. I just got out of my Chinese class, which is my favorite out of the 4 I'm taking. I love languages and I have a good teacher so I'm very excited about going to China now, instead of worrying so much about the language barrier.
Because I've been trying to eat well and haven't found a job yet I've been exploring the local markets. Paddy's is the closest but Sunday I'm going to the Rocks market at Circular Quay, which has more touristy things where as Paddy's has a lot more produce, but they both have a huge variety of everything. Tomorrow I think I'm going with Stephanie to this BBQ at Coogee Beach sponsored by the Japanese Australian club, and even though I'm not Japanese or Australian I can still go (Steph isn't either one but she still wanted to join the club.) I've only been to Bondi beach so I'm curious to see what this one is like.

I'm sorry about not posting any pictures up yet, right now I'm writing from a computer in the library because I don't have internet in my room, I'll bring my laptop here and hopefully be able to upload the pictures that way, sorry about the delay.

~Rachel

UTS Orientation/Aquarium

2008-02-19T18:26:00.000-08:00

Hey guys!! Right now it's around 1:30 on Wednesday and I'm on campus at UTS for their big orientation day. Today is when all of the clubs set up booths throughout the main tower building, I joined the photography club; they have trips to different parts of sydney for photoshoots, so i'm hoping it'll help me take more and better pictures.
In other news we went to the aquarium yesterday, which is right on darling harbour, it's a very nice walk there, it goes right past the chinese gardens and all these parks and cafes that are next to the water. I really love living here, it's a beautiful city with a lot to offer anyone. The only major setback is that things here are more expensive and australia is so big so it's difficult to explore the whole country...we do get a 2 week break in april and my friends and I are thinking about either going to thailand or new zealand... We'd all love to go to thailand and it's decently cheap to stay there but the flight would be around $1,000, new zealand would be a lot cheaper to get to and a couple of us have friends there so we might be able to stay with them...we still have a little while to decide.
Well I think i'm going to head back to my room, it's the hottest part of the day right now (it's probably around 82 F. today, which is actually about 5-10 degrees warmer than it has been, although all of the locals I've talked to have said that this is one of the worst summers they've seen, so it's normally a lot nicer out I guess. Bye everyone!!

First Days in Australia

2008-02-11T20:38:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone, this is where I'll be posting all the pictures about my trips throughout Australia and China this year. I haven't uploaded any pictures yet but I've only just arrived in Sydney a few days ago so I'm still settling in. The flight was very long (16 hours) but luckily I stayed with my friend in Los Angeles for 3 days before flying to Melbourne (where we had orientation). We actually stayed outside of the city for the first 3 days, at a hotel right on the beach called the Oceanic...it was so beautiful, it rained and was fairly cold by their standards (it's the middle/end of Australia's summer so it should have been pretty hot, but it was still a great deal warmer than New England, so it didn't really bother me.) The orientation staff took us on many different nature walks and we had information sessions about living in Australia (Oz.) and about our universities specifically. I'll be attending the University of Technology in Sydney or UTS for short. On our last day in Melbourne we went into the city and for the most part we had the chance to explore on our own, it's a beautiful city, very artsy with many alleyways lined with little boutiques and cafes. I'm still getting used to a few cultural differences, for one thing they don't have internet access as readily available as we do, right now I'm on campus but I'd have to go to an internet cafe if I didn't want to walk the 10-15 minutes down the road. Things here are also generally more expensive than in America because the minimum wage here is around $14 an hour so they can afford to pay more...I'll be able to get a job once school starts.

As for right now, orientation for UTS started yesterday, but there's not much more to do until next week, when all the students will be on campus. Classes don't start until the 25th so I'll try to spend time exploring the city in the mean time, I'm right in the heart of Sydney, there's a shopping mall, a bank and two grocery stores in this huge shopping center right across the street from me, so it's very convenient. There are also these asian markets near China town on the weekends where we can buy fresh produce and nuts and dried fruit, which is much cheaper than in a supermarket. Well it just started raining so I better walk back home. Cheers!