Well, it took a hop, skip and a jump but I am finally back in the USA! It feels great to be home, and a little surreal at first. I've been home for almost a week but it has flown by. Jet lag has attacked me with a bad cold (possible sinus infection) but it doesn't matter, because seeing my family and friends has lifted my spirits!
As I get ready for this upcoming semester, I haven't had much time to look back and remember the times on Global. It almost feels like it was a very long dream. This blog post, though, will help me reflect on the important lessons I learned and the great friendships I came away from my travels with.
Global Semester was a dream, but a dream come true. When else in my life will I get the chance to circumnavigate the globe, with things mostly planned out for me? Probably never. I am so thankful and feel so blessed to have the opportunity to take this amazing trip. I will never forget Mount Saleve in France/Switzerland, the beautiful mosques of Istanbul, the towering pyramids and hot temples of Egypt, the ECC kids in India, my time with my mom and elephants in Thailand, the hikes in Hong Kong, the Great Wall of China, and the DMZ in South Korea. Phew, that was a run-on sentence, but I could say so many MORE things I will never forget. Good friendships formed, confidence built of my own ability to take care of myself, experiences of hugely different and unique cultures, appreciating God's beautiful work in nature, and so many other things have marked my journey as well. I've learned some tough lessons too: how to have patience to a degree I've never had before (when 30 people are trying to travel and it's extremely slow), how to handle drama in a large group of students who get annoyed with each other at times, how to confront people with my feelings, and that the world around me is much bigger than I thought and I am quite small in it! These lessons are going to stay with me always.
A recurring question people have asked me is, "what was your favorite country?" To answer that I have to cheat because I have two: Hong Kong and India. I loved India for the people there and the lessons I learned about true hospitality (they are the most hospitable and friendly people I've ever met), and I loved Hong Kong because it is such a great blend of ocean, mountains, and city and I've never been anywhere else like it. To the typical second question, "what was your favorite food," I would have to say that I liked Egyptian food--milky rice, koshary, felafel, and shawerma were delicious. I also liked waffle balls in Hong Kong and China though.
Would I do it all over again? Absolutely. Except maybe not for five months straight next time. This trip can never be done exactly the same though. I would love to go back to all of these countries individually someday, and take people with me to see the amazing sights!
So this is officially my last blog post. Thanks to all my loyal viewers (I know who a lot of you are!) and I'm so glad I could share this incredible experience with you all! It has truly changed my life.
Friday, February 1, 2013
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
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| The lookout from the observation deck into North Korea! |
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| The view of North Korea (the actual view was foggy) |
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| Across from us is North Korea's building |
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| South Korean soldiers! |
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| A North Korean guard |
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| Surrounded on three sides by North Korea! |
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| The Bridge of No Return |
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| One of many information poles in Gangnam |
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| Gangnam is known for its great plastic surgery centers |
Sunday, January 20, 2013
The last days...
T-minus 6 days until I am home sweet home! My, the time has gone by fast! It seems like just yesterday that my dad was giving me a pep talk in the airport before I left... and now I'm about to see him again! And all my family and friends! I am so excited. But enough about that, that is in the future and I'm blogging to tell you about the PRESENT and PAST.
This past week, we had class and did our final presentations for our St. Olaf class! So... we are officially done with THAT part of Global--so strange. We celebrated the end of our class on Wednesday night by going to a karaoke place called Sing Sing right down the road in Sinchon. It's a different type of karaoke joint--I had pictured a bar or restaurant where I'd have to stand up and humiliate myself in front of all sorts of people I didn't know, but instead you walk down some stairs and there are tiny rooms that a whole group can rent! So a huge group of 24 of us got our own room with a TV, a remote, and a book of songs and let me tell you, with only those three things we had a BLAST.
This past Thursday, I had to add another excursion to my list of favorites on Global... we went to the De-militarized Zone (DMZ) between South and North Korea! It was AMAZING and also a little bit scary.We first went to get briefed on the North/South Korean relations, and then we visited the observation building that looks into North Korea. We could see North Korea from where we stood! We saw the fake village and the huge North Korean flag. We also got to check out the third tunnel that the North had started digging (it's the most dangerous one because it's closest to Seoul) and we walked down in it with hard hats on and saw how the North had painted coal dust on the walls to pretend it was an old mining tunnel (although there is no coal to be mined down there...hmmm). Then we went to the US military base and the demarcation line, where we actually had to take a bus through THREE layers of defense which included an anti-tank wall, a barbed wire checkpoint, and a live minefield! Our guide was a military police and he was very serious but he's from Davenport Iowa! We first went to the area that is like "no man's land" where the South and North meet (I can't really believe that they let tourists come here...seems dangerous) and so we saw the line that divides the two sides. There were guards facing the North Korean building and on the other side from where we stood there was a North Korean guard staring back at us and we were told they were monitoring and taking pictures of us from behind a curtain and in a building. They told us to smile for the camera--it was funny but also kind of scary. We weren't allowed to make any gestures at the North Korean guards so that they couldn't use it for anti-US or anti-S Korea propoganda. Then we went into one of the buildings that the North and South meet in and in the middle table there was a line of microphones that mark the line dividing the N and the S. We went and stood on the North side and we were in North Korea! So I was in North Korea that day. Surprise! Then we went to a checkpoint and looked out over the fields and forests. We were told that we were surrounded on three sides by Communist North Korea territory and only what was behind us was South Korean. Eek! It was such a great experience and we learned a LOT about the relationship N and S Korea have.
Since then, we've been to see a Nanta performance--South Korea's version of Stomp where they use every-day utensils to make music, except with a cooking twist thrown in. They even made soup and cut veggies rhythmically with sharp knives and there was food all over the stage! Some of our Global friends were brought up to participate. It was hilarious. Dancing, singing, love story, cooking, and music were all thrown into this amazing show, and we all loved it. We also have been using our weekend to shop at cute boutiques and appreciate South Korea's somewhat strange but extremely adorable style.
And for the finale, today we went to GANGNAM district! If you haven't heard, there is a famous song that has swept the world called Gangnam Style by a Korean pop artist, so we thought it wouldn't be right to leave Korea without traveling to this district that has become so famous. We met up with some of Rachel's friends from boarding school who live in Seoul and they took us to a auto-mechanic-themed restaurant, where we ate pizza with spoons. Then we shopped and took in the sights of Gangnam. It's pretty similar to other districts, but the excitement of being in a famous district was still there! Also, Gangnam is the prime spot for plastic surgery procedures in Seoul, and having done my research and finding that one in five Koreans in Seoul have had plastic surgery, I found myself scrutinizing faces around me to see whether this statistic was true. Surprisingly, I think it is. I've seen enough pictures of Korean eyelid surgery, jaw rounding, and nose jobs to possibly make a somewhat decent guess at whether or not someone has had it. It's such a skewed perception of beauty here. Overall, it was a great day.
This week is going to go by fast! I'm excited to go home, but I hope I can find enough time to finish up in Seoul and give it a warm farewell!
This past Thursday, I had to add another excursion to my list of favorites on Global... we went to the De-militarized Zone (DMZ) between South and North Korea! It was AMAZING and also a little bit scary.We first went to get briefed on the North/South Korean relations, and then we visited the observation building that looks into North Korea. We could see North Korea from where we stood! We saw the fake village and the huge North Korean flag. We also got to check out the third tunnel that the North had started digging (it's the most dangerous one because it's closest to Seoul) and we walked down in it with hard hats on and saw how the North had painted coal dust on the walls to pretend it was an old mining tunnel (although there is no coal to be mined down there...hmmm). Then we went to the US military base and the demarcation line, where we actually had to take a bus through THREE layers of defense which included an anti-tank wall, a barbed wire checkpoint, and a live minefield! Our guide was a military police and he was very serious but he's from Davenport Iowa! We first went to the area that is like "no man's land" where the South and North meet (I can't really believe that they let tourists come here...seems dangerous) and so we saw the line that divides the two sides. There were guards facing the North Korean building and on the other side from where we stood there was a North Korean guard staring back at us and we were told they were monitoring and taking pictures of us from behind a curtain and in a building. They told us to smile for the camera--it was funny but also kind of scary. We weren't allowed to make any gestures at the North Korean guards so that they couldn't use it for anti-US or anti-S Korea propoganda. Then we went into one of the buildings that the North and South meet in and in the middle table there was a line of microphones that mark the line dividing the N and the S. We went and stood on the North side and we were in North Korea! So I was in North Korea that day. Surprise! Then we went to a checkpoint and looked out over the fields and forests. We were told that we were surrounded on three sides by Communist North Korea territory and only what was behind us was South Korean. Eek! It was such a great experience and we learned a LOT about the relationship N and S Korea have.
Since then, we've been to see a Nanta performance--South Korea's version of Stomp where they use every-day utensils to make music, except with a cooking twist thrown in. They even made soup and cut veggies rhythmically with sharp knives and there was food all over the stage! Some of our Global friends were brought up to participate. It was hilarious. Dancing, singing, love story, cooking, and music were all thrown into this amazing show, and we all loved it. We also have been using our weekend to shop at cute boutiques and appreciate South Korea's somewhat strange but extremely adorable style.
And for the finale, today we went to GANGNAM district! If you haven't heard, there is a famous song that has swept the world called Gangnam Style by a Korean pop artist, so we thought it wouldn't be right to leave Korea without traveling to this district that has become so famous. We met up with some of Rachel's friends from boarding school who live in Seoul and they took us to a auto-mechanic-themed restaurant, where we ate pizza with spoons. Then we shopped and took in the sights of Gangnam. It's pretty similar to other districts, but the excitement of being in a famous district was still there! Also, Gangnam is the prime spot for plastic surgery procedures in Seoul, and having done my research and finding that one in five Koreans in Seoul have had plastic surgery, I found myself scrutinizing faces around me to see whether this statistic was true. Surprisingly, I think it is. I've seen enough pictures of Korean eyelid surgery, jaw rounding, and nose jobs to possibly make a somewhat decent guess at whether or not someone has had it. It's such a skewed perception of beauty here. Overall, it was a great day.
This week is going to go by fast! I'm excited to go home, but I hope I can find enough time to finish up in Seoul and give it a warm farewell!
Monday, January 14, 2013
Alright, so the beautiful Korean mountains I had envisioned myself sailing down actually turned out to be more like hills. Actually, the ski resort looked exactly like Highland Hills in Minnesota. This was disappointing for the avid skiers in our group, but we all decided we were going to have a blast anyway! There was one triple black diamond (which was probably the equivalent of a Minnesotan black diamond) that was fun, but short, and the rest of the slopes were fairly easy. It took me a while to get my ski legs back, and I only fell once! One of my friends had a pretty messy fall and had to walk down the rest of the hill while we went back up to look for his missing ski. He was fine, and to see ten Americans snowplowing down the mountain with their heads down, looking around desperately, was probably quite a funny sight. We had hot cocoa and dippin' dots in the chalet, and then headed home after a fun, beautiful day. Now we're on to final presentations (mine is tomorrow) for our St. Olaf class and lectures upon lectures about South Korean relations with Japan and the rest of the world.
One more fun experience: on Sunday a small group of us decided to check out a dog cafe! These are not places where people eat dog, as many people back home have asked me, horrified, but they are cafes where dogs can go to play! Kind of like a city version of a dog park. There are dogs that live there as well as dogs brought by their owners, and the place is a MADHOUSE. It was a little disappointing when we realized that all these cute dogs running around were only interested in you if you had a treat for them. Which we didn't. The only dog that genuinely liked me was a yellow lab...who could have guessed? That just proves that they are the best dogs! Anyway it was quite the experience and we were a little grossed out to order drinks in a place where dogs were licking you and jumping up on your table and sitting with you in the booth and peeing all over the floor, but hey, my smoothie was DELICIOUS. It was a good end to the weekend! Some of my friends decided to go try live octopus that day too, and I wasn't there but they came back raving about how good it was. Don't worry, I will not be eating live octopus!
Friday, January 11, 2013
Hello to one and all!
South Korea has been probably the most calm and the least busy place we've been to so far. Maybe it's because we are all a bit tired from five months of travel, or maybe it's because we haven't had much of a chance to explore, but I feel that I've been lacking in adventures this past week. Our first few days in Seoul were full of touring. We visited a museum showcasing a little of Korea's history and it's presidents, a Korean palace (my toes almost froze off) and then went to the Korean War Museum, which is probably now one of the best museums I've ever visited. Its exhibits were very effective and VERY technologically savvy. They had exhibits that lit up and moved and made you FEEL as if you were in a war, which was scary but showed the realities of what it was like. During our free time there a couple of us tried out a 4D show, in which we had 3-D glasses and it felt like we were in the middle of war. It was very scary.
Last Sunday I attended church with some Korean students and some girls from Global! It was a Lutheran International Church so the people there spoke English and they were very excited to meet us. One man even had a connection to St. Olaf--his college choir sang with the St. Olaf choir once and he said he'd never forget it. Small world again! After church we went to lunch--the Korean students are SO cute and always look fashionable and put-together; I had to explain to them what sweatpants were and why they were so great, and even then I'm not sure they understood why people wear them in public.
On Monday our classes started, and let me tell you, they are taking up a LOT of our time. Some days we literally have class from 9 to 5 (okay, there's a little break for lunch but that's IT). We are taking a Korean class and I am OBSESSED with the Korean alphabet. It's like a code, and the second day of class I got so excited that I spent the entire class writing down the names of my classmates in Korean. I even tried taking notes that way, but it was too difficult. I'm weird like that. It's funny though because we've learned the alphabet but have yet to learn much to SAY in Korean. In our other classes we learn about the relationship between South and North Korea and our first professor was actually the only South Korean man to have been at BOTH Summit meetings between the north and south. He's also had lunch with Kim Jong-Il. It was pretty cool to hear his stories.
The rest of the week was filled with classes, and on Thursday we got on a bus to Jeonju! This tour has been largely about Korea's culture, as we've seen a traditional Hanok village, gone to a paper-making museum, learned how to perform the Korean "mask dance" (I volunteered and there should be some funny pictures of me in a ridiculous mask on facebook soon), and learned what a traditional Korean wedding is like by role playing one. My good friends Doug and Susie were "married" in Korean wedding clothes and other people played the part of bridesmaids, mother of the bride, and bridegrooms. It was hilarious. I've also noted that Korean food freaks me out even MORE than Chinese! We've tried bibimbap, which is unidentifiable veggies with rice and meat, and a lot of tofu with pork sauce dishes as well as whole minnows (those were surprisingly good), whole fish, raw crab (whole), and many others. Many meals I've been forced to eat just rice for fear of what else is on the table. I like kimchee though!
Today we visited another temple and had a Korean singing lesson, where we all sang together repeating after the teacher. It sounded horrible but it was a blast. We're now in Incheon and tomorrow we will be skiing in the beautiful Korean mountains! I'm super excited!
South Korea has been probably the most calm and the least busy place we've been to so far. Maybe it's because we are all a bit tired from five months of travel, or maybe it's because we haven't had much of a chance to explore, but I feel that I've been lacking in adventures this past week. Our first few days in Seoul were full of touring. We visited a museum showcasing a little of Korea's history and it's presidents, a Korean palace (my toes almost froze off) and then went to the Korean War Museum, which is probably now one of the best museums I've ever visited. Its exhibits were very effective and VERY technologically savvy. They had exhibits that lit up and moved and made you FEEL as if you were in a war, which was scary but showed the realities of what it was like. During our free time there a couple of us tried out a 4D show, in which we had 3-D glasses and it felt like we were in the middle of war. It was very scary.
Last Sunday I attended church with some Korean students and some girls from Global! It was a Lutheran International Church so the people there spoke English and they were very excited to meet us. One man even had a connection to St. Olaf--his college choir sang with the St. Olaf choir once and he said he'd never forget it. Small world again! After church we went to lunch--the Korean students are SO cute and always look fashionable and put-together; I had to explain to them what sweatpants were and why they were so great, and even then I'm not sure they understood why people wear them in public.
On Monday our classes started, and let me tell you, they are taking up a LOT of our time. Some days we literally have class from 9 to 5 (okay, there's a little break for lunch but that's IT). We are taking a Korean class and I am OBSESSED with the Korean alphabet. It's like a code, and the second day of class I got so excited that I spent the entire class writing down the names of my classmates in Korean. I even tried taking notes that way, but it was too difficult. I'm weird like that. It's funny though because we've learned the alphabet but have yet to learn much to SAY in Korean. In our other classes we learn about the relationship between South and North Korea and our first professor was actually the only South Korean man to have been at BOTH Summit meetings between the north and south. He's also had lunch with Kim Jong-Il. It was pretty cool to hear his stories.
The rest of the week was filled with classes, and on Thursday we got on a bus to Jeonju! This tour has been largely about Korea's culture, as we've seen a traditional Hanok village, gone to a paper-making museum, learned how to perform the Korean "mask dance" (I volunteered and there should be some funny pictures of me in a ridiculous mask on facebook soon), and learned what a traditional Korean wedding is like by role playing one. My good friends Doug and Susie were "married" in Korean wedding clothes and other people played the part of bridesmaids, mother of the bride, and bridegrooms. It was hilarious. I've also noted that Korean food freaks me out even MORE than Chinese! We've tried bibimbap, which is unidentifiable veggies with rice and meat, and a lot of tofu with pork sauce dishes as well as whole minnows (those were surprisingly good), whole fish, raw crab (whole), and many others. Many meals I've been forced to eat just rice for fear of what else is on the table. I like kimchee though!
Today we visited another temple and had a Korean singing lesson, where we all sang together repeating after the teacher. It sounded horrible but it was a blast. We're now in Incheon and tomorrow we will be skiing in the beautiful Korean mountains! I'm super excited!
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| A garden in Suzhou! |
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| Christmas Eve dinner! |
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| Our little Christmas in Shanghai :) |
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| See me on the left? White hat? This is a pic from a website showcasing New Year's Eve in Beijing! |
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| In front of the Forbidden City, looking like an eskimo |
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| The hall of Supreme Harmony, I believe (there's so many!) |
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| In front of the Temple of Heaven |
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| Beautiful designs like this were everywhere in temples and palaces |
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| A whole ship made of jade! |
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| THE GREAT WALL |
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| The Water Cube from the 2008 Olympics! |
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| Inside the Bird's Nest |
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| The Bird's Nest, 2008 Beijing Olympics |
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| Can you believe we got this at Haagen Dasz?! Delicious! |
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| New Year's Eve show at the Summer Palace |
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| The Summer Palace at daytime |
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| Families in China having fun on the ice! |
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| The New Year's show |
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!
I need to apologize for such a late blog post... we have been in China for the past ten days touring, and the firewall has been ridiculous. It was a nice break from facebook, but it also meant no blogging for me! And now I have to catch y'all up on one of the most eventful touring weeks of Global. Where to start?
Okay, I'll just start in the beginning of China. We flew to Shanghai from Hong Kong and let me tell you, it was a weather SHOCK. It was freezing! Most of my time spent in China, I wore three layers of pants, two layers of socks, and at LEAST four layers of shirts/jackets/coats. Plus scarves, mittens, gloves, hat, etc. Freezing! We stayed at the East China Normal University and met up with some St. Olaf students who had been studying there for the semester--they took us to a bar nearby and introduced us to some of their friends. We also had our first meal, and I'm not sure if their intention was to freak us out but we were pretty unsure about what half of the things were on our plates! Most of our meals in China were in the form of a round table with a lazy susan in the middle that had about 20 dishes placed on it throughout the meal for us to spin and choose from. Our first meal had some normal food, but we also tried cow stomach, fermented meat, soup with baby eel in it, and lotus root stuffed with rice. Talk about culture shock! I was experimental with all this food in the first few days but after a while I got a little sick of it. ANYWAY, our first full day there we visited a museum to see many of the pieces that we had studied in our Hong Kong Chinese art course, which was pretty interesting. On Christmas Eve we traveled to Suzhou for a day to walk through the famous Chinese gardens there. They were striking--very different from American gardens in that there are absolutely no flowers, but a lot of grass and gigantic rocks that are put together to look like mountains. You can even walk through these mini "mountain ranges." There are also beautiful pagodas, small buildings, and ponds. We had Christmas eve dinner that night at a hotel by the campus and I missed my family a LOT, as did everyone else. The next day was Christmas, obviously. It was definitely a Christmas to remember, partly because it was in China but mostly because it was my first Christmas away from my family. We read aloud emails from our parents about Christmas memories and there were definitely some tears, but our professors did their best to provide a nice little Christmas celebration for us. We had a tiny tree, a secret santa gift exchange, Christmas cookies with hot cocoa, and special engraved Global necklaces from our professors! We also sang some impromptu Christmas carols, which was hilarious but surprisingly good. That night I skyped my family and they pretended I was with them by taking pictures with me, sitting me on the couch, and opening their stockings in front of me. It was such a blessing and I'm glad they shared that with me.
The next day we took the high speed train (305 km/hour! WOW!) to Tai'an, a town I'd never heard of and ended up not knowing much about even after we left. Pretty much all we did there was climb a mountain with a temple on the top (I actually didn't even make it to the top--too cold!) and watch the movie Mulan. The next day we visited Qufu, the town where Confucius lived, and saw a temple, Confucius' family mansion, and his grave. All very cold and to be honest, I don't remember learning much because it was so darn hard to understand ANYTHING our guide said.
Next, to Beijing! THIS was my favorite part, and there was so much to tour here that we stayed a full five days. I heard that we only saw about 1/6th of all the sights there are to see in Beijing. First we visited Tiananmen Square and saw all of the Chinese propoganda. I thought of my cousin Tommy when we were there because I kept thinking that he'd been in this very spot in the summer! We visited the Forbidden City and saw the emperor's residential quarters as well as the Hall of Supreme Harmony or whatever it's called. There were so many halls, I've lost track. After lunch we saw the Temple of Heaven, a huge round pagoda that the emperor visited once a year to pray to heaven for blessings and to re-receive his command to still be emperor...funny how he always got the "okay" to stay emperor every year...
The next day was one of my favorites in China. We climbed the GREAT WALL! Woohoo! It was a blast but also pretty treacherous. There was ice all the way up and I definitely almost went down a couple of times. The views of the mountains surrounding us were absolutely gorgeous, and it wasn't too crowded because it's off-season. At the very top there was a watchtower with a huge platform and although we don't think it was allowed, we climbed on top to be at the TIP-TOP of the wall. There were no guardrails and the wind was blowing so hard we thought we'd fall off! But it was quite a thrill. It made me want to tour everywhere during off-season because you get to do stupid, crazy things like that when there aren't as many people around ;) After the amazing Wall, we trekked on over to the Olympic Village, which I was super excited about. We saw the Water Cube where Michael Phelps got his gold medals and half of the building has been converted into a giant water park. Unfortunately we all forgot our swimsuits. The Bird's Nest was right across from the Water Cube so we visited that next, and since the top of the arena is open it was freezing inside, in fact it was so cold that they had set up sledding and cross-country skiing inside, and they were in the process of building a giant ice castle! The entire arena was filled with snow. Good use of all that space in the winter, I guess! That night we ate Peking duck--my first time--and I literally stuffed myself. It was one of the most delicious birds I've ever eaten. Then after stuffing myself THERE we decided to go to Haagen Dasz. Now it wasn't just ANY old Haagen Dasz ice cream place...it was a RESTAURANT. So I ordered a Belgian Blossom which was a gigantic ball of pure chocolate (as big as my head) filled with 8 scoops of ice cream, on a bed of chocolate shavings. They pour melted chocolate on it to crack it open. We could not finish and I swear I was in a sugar coma the rest of the night.
The next day we visited the Summer Palace, smashed some ice on the lake like little kids, and drank tea at a fancy teahouse. Then it was New Year's Eve, and this is one night I will never forget. New Year's eve day was pretty interesting; we did a lot of hikes and made our way through a couple of parks, then got pulled in a pedicab to a 'hutong,' a preserved neighborhood from Imperial times, to see a 350-year old house that is still inhabited. The family there was very nice and the husband was a professional artist, so some people bought his paintings. China has kept these neighborhoods intact and they've had to restore some of the houses, but that just means thickening the walls and adding plumbing, heating, and electricity. Otherwise they are intact, which is amazing. Now, New Year's Eve was actually INSANE. We started out calmly by eating Korean barbecue (you grill your own meal right in front of you). Then we headed to the Summer Palace, where we'd gotten special invitations from the Chinese government to attend their first ever New Year's eve show there. We were told it was going to be China's equivalent of the ball-drop in Times Square. It was pretty exclusive, people were almost tackling our tour guide for his extra tickets and we had to rush in before they tried to get OURS. Once there, we got free backpacks with mittens, hats, scarves, earmuffs, balloons, and light-up pins to wear and we were taken to a stage/platform they had set up on the ice. Pretty soon we realized we were probably the only American tourists there, and the paparazzi figured this out as well because they went CRAZY on us. They had us posing for pictures constantly, and whenever we did ANYTHING cute (smile, hug, put on our light-up 2013 glasses) they would be in our faces snapping pictures. When the opening ceremony began, I must have been standing in the right place at the right time because all of a sudden I watched some officials pass in front of me and stand on my left, and I was told they were the senior deputy and the mayor of Beijing. They were on my left and to my right was a pretty lady with a microphone. I noticed a camera right in front of us and realized I was on national and international television, an American tourist standing right between the officials of Beijing and the host for the night! I smiled dumbly and held a huge balloon and didn't know what to do as they started the night's celebrations. Then later I was interviewed by a reporter asking me to make a new year's wish. The show in itself was pretty cool, with lasers and singers, and our group got overexcited at the new year which brought the paparazzi back to us. We felt like celebrities and it was absolutely CRAZY. A really fun experience though! We were wired the rest of the night!
Thankfully, New Year's day was free for us to relax and sleep off our previous night's excitement, and the next day we flew to Seoul! Now we are here and we're pretty much just in the orientation stage, and the most exciting thing so far is that we received free Yonsei University sweatshirts. More to come!
Sorry for the super long blog post!
I need to apologize for such a late blog post... we have been in China for the past ten days touring, and the firewall has been ridiculous. It was a nice break from facebook, but it also meant no blogging for me! And now I have to catch y'all up on one of the most eventful touring weeks of Global. Where to start?
Okay, I'll just start in the beginning of China. We flew to Shanghai from Hong Kong and let me tell you, it was a weather SHOCK. It was freezing! Most of my time spent in China, I wore three layers of pants, two layers of socks, and at LEAST four layers of shirts/jackets/coats. Plus scarves, mittens, gloves, hat, etc. Freezing! We stayed at the East China Normal University and met up with some St. Olaf students who had been studying there for the semester--they took us to a bar nearby and introduced us to some of their friends. We also had our first meal, and I'm not sure if their intention was to freak us out but we were pretty unsure about what half of the things were on our plates! Most of our meals in China were in the form of a round table with a lazy susan in the middle that had about 20 dishes placed on it throughout the meal for us to spin and choose from. Our first meal had some normal food, but we also tried cow stomach, fermented meat, soup with baby eel in it, and lotus root stuffed with rice. Talk about culture shock! I was experimental with all this food in the first few days but after a while I got a little sick of it. ANYWAY, our first full day there we visited a museum to see many of the pieces that we had studied in our Hong Kong Chinese art course, which was pretty interesting. On Christmas Eve we traveled to Suzhou for a day to walk through the famous Chinese gardens there. They were striking--very different from American gardens in that there are absolutely no flowers, but a lot of grass and gigantic rocks that are put together to look like mountains. You can even walk through these mini "mountain ranges." There are also beautiful pagodas, small buildings, and ponds. We had Christmas eve dinner that night at a hotel by the campus and I missed my family a LOT, as did everyone else. The next day was Christmas, obviously. It was definitely a Christmas to remember, partly because it was in China but mostly because it was my first Christmas away from my family. We read aloud emails from our parents about Christmas memories and there were definitely some tears, but our professors did their best to provide a nice little Christmas celebration for us. We had a tiny tree, a secret santa gift exchange, Christmas cookies with hot cocoa, and special engraved Global necklaces from our professors! We also sang some impromptu Christmas carols, which was hilarious but surprisingly good. That night I skyped my family and they pretended I was with them by taking pictures with me, sitting me on the couch, and opening their stockings in front of me. It was such a blessing and I'm glad they shared that with me.
The next day we took the high speed train (305 km/hour! WOW!) to Tai'an, a town I'd never heard of and ended up not knowing much about even after we left. Pretty much all we did there was climb a mountain with a temple on the top (I actually didn't even make it to the top--too cold!) and watch the movie Mulan. The next day we visited Qufu, the town where Confucius lived, and saw a temple, Confucius' family mansion, and his grave. All very cold and to be honest, I don't remember learning much because it was so darn hard to understand ANYTHING our guide said.
Next, to Beijing! THIS was my favorite part, and there was so much to tour here that we stayed a full five days. I heard that we only saw about 1/6th of all the sights there are to see in Beijing. First we visited Tiananmen Square and saw all of the Chinese propoganda. I thought of my cousin Tommy when we were there because I kept thinking that he'd been in this very spot in the summer! We visited the Forbidden City and saw the emperor's residential quarters as well as the Hall of Supreme Harmony or whatever it's called. There were so many halls, I've lost track. After lunch we saw the Temple of Heaven, a huge round pagoda that the emperor visited once a year to pray to heaven for blessings and to re-receive his command to still be emperor...funny how he always got the "okay" to stay emperor every year...
The next day was one of my favorites in China. We climbed the GREAT WALL! Woohoo! It was a blast but also pretty treacherous. There was ice all the way up and I definitely almost went down a couple of times. The views of the mountains surrounding us were absolutely gorgeous, and it wasn't too crowded because it's off-season. At the very top there was a watchtower with a huge platform and although we don't think it was allowed, we climbed on top to be at the TIP-TOP of the wall. There were no guardrails and the wind was blowing so hard we thought we'd fall off! But it was quite a thrill. It made me want to tour everywhere during off-season because you get to do stupid, crazy things like that when there aren't as many people around ;) After the amazing Wall, we trekked on over to the Olympic Village, which I was super excited about. We saw the Water Cube where Michael Phelps got his gold medals and half of the building has been converted into a giant water park. Unfortunately we all forgot our swimsuits. The Bird's Nest was right across from the Water Cube so we visited that next, and since the top of the arena is open it was freezing inside, in fact it was so cold that they had set up sledding and cross-country skiing inside, and they were in the process of building a giant ice castle! The entire arena was filled with snow. Good use of all that space in the winter, I guess! That night we ate Peking duck--my first time--and I literally stuffed myself. It was one of the most delicious birds I've ever eaten. Then after stuffing myself THERE we decided to go to Haagen Dasz. Now it wasn't just ANY old Haagen Dasz ice cream place...it was a RESTAURANT. So I ordered a Belgian Blossom which was a gigantic ball of pure chocolate (as big as my head) filled with 8 scoops of ice cream, on a bed of chocolate shavings. They pour melted chocolate on it to crack it open. We could not finish and I swear I was in a sugar coma the rest of the night.
The next day we visited the Summer Palace, smashed some ice on the lake like little kids, and drank tea at a fancy teahouse. Then it was New Year's Eve, and this is one night I will never forget. New Year's eve day was pretty interesting; we did a lot of hikes and made our way through a couple of parks, then got pulled in a pedicab to a 'hutong,' a preserved neighborhood from Imperial times, to see a 350-year old house that is still inhabited. The family there was very nice and the husband was a professional artist, so some people bought his paintings. China has kept these neighborhoods intact and they've had to restore some of the houses, but that just means thickening the walls and adding plumbing, heating, and electricity. Otherwise they are intact, which is amazing. Now, New Year's Eve was actually INSANE. We started out calmly by eating Korean barbecue (you grill your own meal right in front of you). Then we headed to the Summer Palace, where we'd gotten special invitations from the Chinese government to attend their first ever New Year's eve show there. We were told it was going to be China's equivalent of the ball-drop in Times Square. It was pretty exclusive, people were almost tackling our tour guide for his extra tickets and we had to rush in before they tried to get OURS. Once there, we got free backpacks with mittens, hats, scarves, earmuffs, balloons, and light-up pins to wear and we were taken to a stage/platform they had set up on the ice. Pretty soon we realized we were probably the only American tourists there, and the paparazzi figured this out as well because they went CRAZY on us. They had us posing for pictures constantly, and whenever we did ANYTHING cute (smile, hug, put on our light-up 2013 glasses) they would be in our faces snapping pictures. When the opening ceremony began, I must have been standing in the right place at the right time because all of a sudden I watched some officials pass in front of me and stand on my left, and I was told they were the senior deputy and the mayor of Beijing. They were on my left and to my right was a pretty lady with a microphone. I noticed a camera right in front of us and realized I was on national and international television, an American tourist standing right between the officials of Beijing and the host for the night! I smiled dumbly and held a huge balloon and didn't know what to do as they started the night's celebrations. Then later I was interviewed by a reporter asking me to make a new year's wish. The show in itself was pretty cool, with lasers and singers, and our group got overexcited at the new year which brought the paparazzi back to us. We felt like celebrities and it was absolutely CRAZY. A really fun experience though! We were wired the rest of the night!
Thankfully, New Year's day was free for us to relax and sleep off our previous night's excitement, and the next day we flew to Seoul! Now we are here and we're pretty much just in the orientation stage, and the most exciting thing so far is that we received free Yonsei University sweatshirts. More to come!
Sorry for the super long blog post!
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