Shanghai on Life

So this is it! Today is my last day in Shanghai. Everything is packed, about to go get some dinner with Danny Boy and I’ll be on a flight to Bangkok early tomorrow morning. The last few weeks have been pretty busy and well, pretty blog-less as well I suppose.

I had a great visit with Steph, Mom and Auntie Rabina. I guess my favourite moment had to be at Qipu Lu…a very busy shopping district in Shanghai. After having numerous taxis stolen right from under us (the Shanghainese are ruthless when it comes to queue jumping and you-were-there-first general courtesies), I told the ladies to sharpen their elbows. Before you could blink Auntie Rabina was booking it down the street shoulder-to-shoulder with a small pack of Chinese girls running for an approaching cab. She peeled them off those door handles, waved to us and jumped in – I couldn’t have been prouder! Once in the cab, the driver looked at me with a huge grin on his face, laughing and saying “foreigners! foreigners!” giving the thumbs up and even taking his hands off the wheel for a quick impression of us all running for his cab. We had an excellent visit, filled with lots of shopping, eating, site seeing, massages and maybe a few too many cocktails in the hotel room ;) .

On the 25th I said goodbye to the ladies and took the night train up to Beijing along with Sandra and her friend Melanie to meet up with Jen and Cody. We took the night train (14 hours) and that was pretty fun. We were stared at a lot, got to hear a lot of snoring and have a few wind-tunnel-esque bathroom experiences, but for the price it was a steal of a journey! In all seriousness though it really wasn’t so bad. As dutiful tourists in Beijing we hit the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven, Tiananmen Square, plus the old AND new summer palace – in three days! Phew! We were happy to return to the warmer Shanghai weather and I have since shown them the what I consider the highlights (again, mostly eating, shopping and massages, with a couple of cultural things thrown in for good measure).

Peppered between visitors have been some tearful goodbyes with Simon, Sandra and Christian, not to mention loads of goodbyes to other friends who have slowly trickled out of Shanghai. Even though this is exchange round 2, I still find myself surprised at the intensity friendships can build in these short-term situations. I am missing my three Germans quite a lot and have been subjecting poor Jen and Cody to countless numbers of nostalgic had-to-be-there stories about our adventures in China. I am already obsessing over when I can make it to Germany next…tentative plans: German Karneval post graduation :D.

So tomorrow is Bangkok where Cody, Jen and I will set out on a two month adventure around South East Asia. Tentatively on the list is Thailand (not so tentative :D), Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, but we might not make it to all, or maybe even make it further depending on where the wind blows us. I can’t guarantee what’s going to happen with this little blog as I don’t know what kind of Internet access we’ll have along the way or what my laziness levels are going to be, but I would have the desire to keep posting so we’ll see what happens.

For those of you who are particularly dedicated  (or particularly worried in the case of my mama), feel free to check out Cody’s blog at codyinasia.ca…he’s a bit of a better and more regular blogger than me (at least so far!).

Hope you’re all well at home, until next time!!

Last weekend our basketball team played our first games of the season. The Shanghai American School was having a small tournament and after a team dropped out at the last minute we were invited.  As far as I have been able to tell we are the only women’s club team in Shanghai, highlighting the lack of popularity of women’s basketball here..19 million people in this city and one women’s team :) Anyway, that limits us to playing against international high school teams, university teams and apparently the Shanghai farm team for the WCBA (Women’s Chinese Basketball Association) :S.  We played three games last weekend – lost the first on Friday night and won both on Saturday. Yesterday (Saturday) we had another game which we won and an hour from now we have practice. As much as I enjoy my relaxed Shanghai lifestyle of little academic stress and firm time commitments, I have to say that there’s something nice and familiar in having to roll out of bed (and not being happy about it) on a Saturday morning to go run around with a team. It feels so great to play basketball again, I didn’t realize how much I’d been missing it. I don’t care what anybody says, it’s the king of all sports – aerobically, mentally, socially, basketball is just so awesome!

It’s a strange thing being on an all-Chinese team (sitting proudly on your integration high-horse) and then entering these gymnasiums and being warped back to Canadian high school.. all the girls at these schools are 17 and Caucasian, the parents look and act the same as our parents did in the bleachers, everything is happening in English, and the gym looks like you could be at Mt. Doug…but you’re in China, and it’s so weird!

The girls on my team are really great; they are inclusive, friendly and very curious about me and Canadian life. There are a couple of the girls who speak English fluently, but otherwise the communication with the other girls is through basic English, broken Chinese,  non-verbal communication, or (very commonly) with the aid of a trusty translator. They are very interested how basketball is at home (when did I play? How long did I play for? Do I know anyone who plays at university? Have I seen a WMBA game?) and what I think of China (Was it scary to come here? Are people shorter here? Is it a tropical paradise compared to Canada?). After the games last weekend we all went out for Chinese hot pot which was yummy. A big pot of boiling broth is put on a burner in the middle of the table and then you order all kinds of meat, vegetables and even bread that you cook in this soup. I impressed with my chop sticking skills (which are not that impressive, but the fact that I had any at all seemed to be good enough) and ability to eat all mysterious contents of the soup without questioning it.

Since joining the team, my personal feelings of pressure to learn more Chinese have ramped up ten fold. Because so many of my friends are other exchange students, the majority of my life here happens in English and even with Chinese friends I’m almost always speaking English (the conversation would be painfully short if it happened in Chinese :D). But with the team, everything is happening in Chinese, the game plan, the recap, the cheering, the joking around and it just makes you want to be able to participate. That said, I am again reminded how great sports can be linguistically. I don’t know exactly what it is about sports, but I really found the same thing when playing basketball in Sweden. I think it’s just that everything happens in context so it’s easier to fill in blanks of sentences where you only understood a few words…plus, communication is often quite simplistic, you can congratulate, console or encourage a teammate with only a few words .  I’ve started picking up on some of the Chinese basketball lingo. My teammates find it endlessly entertaining to hear me chanting “fang shou! fang shou!” from the bench with them rather than the usual “De – fence!”

Yesterday (Saturday) we had another game which we won and an hour from now we have practice. As much as I enjoy my relaxed Shanghai lifestyle of little academic stress and firm time commitments, I have to say that there’s something nice and familiar in having to roll out of bed on a Saturday morning to go run around with a team.

In other news, I am going to Hong Kong this week! Heading out on Wednesday and returning Saturday with Sandra, Simon and Christian.  We realized when booking our flights that our travel time lines were determined based on our party schedule (have to make it to Hong Kong for ladies night on Wednesday, have to get back to Shanghai for Saturday to see Armin Van Buuren apparently the best DJ in the world) – such busy, busy schedules! Hong Kong, hopefully with a side trip to Macao, should be a few days filled with shopping, eating, visiting a few friends, and maybe some gambling for good measure. Conor informs me that James bond also gambled in Macao, I always knew I had a lot in common with James. Special thanks to my parents for the generous birthday gift, some funds to cover the cost of this particular trip. We’re all agreed that it’s  Hopefully I don’t blow it all at the poker table ;) Just kidding, I’m such a card shark (yet another likeness to Bond) that would never happen.

Until next time!

amy

Many thanks to all those who sent birthday greeting by email, skype, facebook (btw, I get the notification in my email but I can’t log into the site to respond in case anyone was wondering), mail and however else!

My birthday in China was really one for the books – a truly memorable 22nd!

Most of the celebrations took place on the 7th, as Saturday is a much more appropriate day for birthday celebrations. In the morning Sandra and I dragged Christian and his visiting brother to the grocery store to stock up for the big night. The chips we could carry ourselves but beer was the main goal. You can buy an obscene amount of beer for 300 Yuan (~$50 CAD) in China, so that’ s exactly what we did!

That night I had dinner with Sandra, Danny Boy, Danny’s friend Ryan, Simon and Joy at the Japanese restaurant around the corner from our place. The party started at 9, but was kicked off a little earlier by a group of Daniel’s most fabulous (in every sense of the word) friends. I guess in the end we were some 20+ people, consisting entirely of Chinese people and Germans..and me, of course. Simon, who spent a year in Canada, helped introduce the classic drinking game of “King’s Cup” to give the party more of a Canadian feel, and despite a bit of confusion over how exactly one “busts a rhyme,” people caught on quickly enough. Perhaps the most entertaining part of the evening was “JJ,” a flamboyant and overly confident friend of Daniel’s who decided to try his luck with every foreign guy in the room even after being told none of them were gay. Christian’s poor little 17-year-old brother looked like a deer in the headlights when JJ made a pass at him.

There was a lot of anticipation for midnight, I think this might be some sort of German thing, but everyone said I couldn’t be wished happy birthday or open presents until midnight or it would be bad luck. So at midnight there was champagne, a countdown and even a small toast made by Sandra; it was like New Years eve, except all about meeee! :P Following that there was presents which included a framed photo collage from our recent travels and adventures, a couple of gag gifts, and a money pot which my closer friends contributed to on the condition that I use the money to fly somewhere (Hong Kong here I come!).

After presents the police showed up and told us to turn off the music and move the party along. We sent everyone out with a can of beer as a parting gift and headed out to the bar for a few hours of dancing. At around 3 or 4 we were enjoying some noodles and considering heading home when we were persuaded to karaoke instead, so we hit the KTV and ended up back home at around 6 :D Good times!

The next day (being my actual birthday) was mostly spent sleeping.  Woke up at 2, cleaned up the apartment, talked to Cody, and then went to basketball practice at 6.

Today life is getting back to “normal.” Had a class presentation this morning and now I’m updating the blog instead of studying for my midterm coming up at the end of the week. Daniel is taking me and Sandra out for dinner as his birthday gift to me and the post office informs me that there’s a package from Canada waiting to be picked up, so apparently I get to stretch my birthday on into the week as well :D

Anyway, thanks again for all the birthday greetings, it’s very nice to be remembered even when I’m so far away!

Greetings to my loyal audience! It’s been awhile now, but that Korea post really took it out of me I have to say. Life is still chugging along here in Shanghai. It is still warm and we’ve hardly seen any of this rain that people keep talking about, so I could get used to this! Don’t get too jealous though because I’m looking forward to a winter of sub-zero temperatures and no central heating :( After discovering our lack of central heating (and whining about it), Daniel suggested that I might consider wearing a sweater when I feel cold – a harsh slap in the face for an ex-Power-Smart rep..how far I’ve fallen already.

Last weekend I went on a day trip to a nearby city, Suzhou, with my friends Christian and Simon. Suzhou is known for its beautiful gardens and a history full of silk trading and prosperity. Wikipedia taught me that Suzhou is one of Victoria’s four sister cities, a little random but interesting fact. The day was fun and relaxed; we rented some rusty and rickety bicycles for $5 and biked our ways to some of these famed gardens, lunch and a temple. When we arrived back at the train station we found out it would be 3 hours before the next train and even that one only had “standing room only” tickets left. The Germans filled this wait time with beer (so cliché) and, eventually, seeing how many crackers they could fit in their mouth at one time (I may have encouraged this behaviour). I, on the other hand, managed to entertain myself with a Vogue magazine that I couldn’t read and a few too many games of solitaire. Not feeling like standing for 50 minutes on the train, we spent the ride home wedged into an empty luggage compartment and managed to catch quite a few stares…now not just the white people on the train but the white people inappropriately sandwiched between their suitcases on the train.

I have recently set about on a mission to make more Chinese friends. I have been hanging out quite a bit with a girl names Joy who is my age and studying accounting at Donghua University in Shanghai. She is in many ways typical Chinese…only child (with parents who worry too much) from Hunan province, came to Shanghai to study and obtain her Shanghai residence permit, loves KTV, table tennis, etc.). Joy speaks English quite well and had recently decided she wanted to expand her horizons (and improve her English) by meeting some foreign friends.  Last Thursday we went for lunch, shopping and a dose of education at the Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition and the Shanghai Museum. The exhibition has some neat exhibits about the history of Shanghai as a city, a floor dedicated to the upcoming World Expo (starting this May in Shanghai FYI), and (what everyone comes for) a miniature scale model of the city of Shanghai – very cool! I managed to find my neighbourhood but couldn’t locate our apartment building exactly.  The Shanghai museum was also very cool, a manageable amount of artifacts for one afternoon…calligraphy, jade, ancient currency, furniture, traditional paintings, etc. Joy’s father is a Professor who teaches ancient Chinese history (a subject she also takes personal interest in), so she had many insights which made the museum a lot more interesting. I have also begun a language exchange arrangement with another Chinese girl, Jasmine, who works and lives in my neighbourhood. Jasmine has a variety of projects she works on professionally, one of which includes a corporate social responsibility consulting project targeted at real estate development firms in Shanghai. When we meet I usually help her with fine tuning the English translations of her business plan or whatever else and she helps me with Mandarin.  It’s nice to get some free help and actually I enjoy working  on her stuff as well (CSR upstart initiatives in Chinese real estate development anyone? Cue nerdy business student drooling!).

Last weekend Sandra went to Xian (home of the famed Terracotta Army) to meet with one of her friends from school in Germany who is currently on exchange in Hong Kong. Sandra’s friend was traveling with five of her friends she met in Hong Kong and one of them happened to be Canadian. One question leads to another and this girl asks Sandra if she knows a Canadian Amy in Shanghai. “Like my roommate Amy?”.. So out of the oodles of universities in Hong Kong and the hundreds of exchange students at their university, it just so happened that Sandra’s friend, Nina, befriended my friend from UVic BCom and former co-worker, Lily. We didn’t realize that they were friends and in fact, both of them had planned to visit and stay with us in Shanghai together but we were in Korea at the time so couldn’t play host..all the while we never figured out that they were coming together and it wasn’t just a coincidence! aaahhhh small world-ness strikes again!

Other highlights in recent weeks have included being taken to dinner (along with Andy, the other BCom exchanger from UVic) with a bigwig from UVic Business International Programs who happened to be in Shanghai on business. A very nice and easy going guy, it was good to see a familiar face..also a passionate advocate of international exchange (Japan changed his life once upon a time), we get along just fine. But lets not forget, we got treated to some seriously awesome (and fancy) Chinese cuisine – lotus root stuffed with sticky rice, sichuan tofu, the coolest looking tea I’ve ever drank in my life, the list goes on. Last Thursday we watched our friend Simon (not lung Simon, another Simon) play trombone with “one of the best youth orchestras in the world” who he usually plays with in Germany.  I guess they are good enough to have all-expense paid trips to China, so I think it’s actually true…they were here for a week touring around with their last stop being in Shanghai, so not a bad deal! The concert was free and ended up being packed with locals who just went crazy for this German orchestra which was really nice to see. There was all this clapping to the beat, swaying, whooping and hollering, and a final standing ovation…it gave you those cross-cultural warm and fuzzies. On a side-note, some members of the orchestra returned to Germany with H1N1 which is apparently creating newsworthy quarantine and investigation hell for both the German and Chinese Governments…..78 people hitting different cities every night for a week makes it a bit difficult to narrow down the origin.

The basketball season has finally started up over here and I went to check out the team on Sunday night. I wasn’t able to play with them as I am sick at the moment (I may as well admit it as my mom has already busted me blowing my nose on skype), but the team looks great and I’m quite certain I will get a chance to play with them! I made it to a Rotaract meeting for the first time last night and it was also positive. The Shanghai club is a little more formal and a little older than our club at home, but everyone was very friendly and they are currently working on some impressive projects, so I’m hoping to stick with it.

I’ve been in Shanghai for two months already! This realization comes with pretty mixed emotions…less than three months to go until Jen, Cody and (hopefully) Sarah arrive for our grand tour around Southeast Asia (hooray!), but at the same time I feel like things are really getting started here, it’s already half way done :( On the bright side, it’s my birthday on Sunday, woohoo!

The first half of this post sat in the “drafts” folder for a little too long, so if time lines seem messed up, it’s because they are.  But anyhoo, this past weekend a group of eight of us went to Huangshan or “the Yellow Mountains”  where we saw some very famous Chinese scenery action! Anyway, more on Huangshan to come!

Hope everyone is well in fine, apologies to those of you who diligently check for updates..more posts are on the way :D

-amy

So we arrived back home last night from our 11 day Korean vacation! Korea was fantastic, I think it surpassed all of our expectations as a travel destination. Now, it true that maybe our opinions might be a little bit skewed as we are all people who have just lived our first month and China and it being our first time back into a fully developed country…but still! I think Korea is great in any case.

Sandra and I arrived in Seoul last Wednesday night and spent the better part of our first two days eating, sleeping and shopping. We had a bit of sticker shock as prices in Korea are roughly comparable to Canada (maybe a bit less, but it also depends on what you’re buying) and we are in full-blown cheap travel mode and are used to Chinese prices on top of that. But Korea was great because they actually had clothes that were sometimes long enough and big enough for me and there was even a remote possibility of finding big shoes (or at least not be laughed or scoffed at when requesting size 10).  The one strange thing is that in Korea you’re not allowed to try most clothes on before you purchase them. It seemed to be mostly around concerns about make-up coming off on the clothes..very strange! Hardly any store have fitting rooms and you always see people holding things up to themselves in mirrors and sales assistants pulling the sides tight…. that’s as close as you can get to trying it on! So yeah, it was fun to look, but not a lot was purchased in the end.

Korean food is pretty tasty, similar to Chinese food in many respects, but with noticeable differences. With every meal you order in a restaurant you get cold dishes with it, usually involving something pickled and maybe a few varieties of the oh-so-Korean Kimchi.  One thing I really loved was Korean barbecue where you order raw meat, veggies, and whatever and cook it at your table, so delicious! It was also nice to not have food safety as a constant concern for a few days as I am always on guard waiting for a special E-coli surprise in China.

On Friday night our other friend Christian (also German) arrived and then the sightseeing could officially begin! That night we met up with Leon, an old family friend from Canada who is currently teaching English in Seoul. We started off with some Karaoke, a popular pastime in Korea as it seems to be in many Asian countries. I have to say that we had some memorable renditions of CCR’s “Bad Moon Rising,” Enrique Iglesias’ “Hero,” and an impressive finale of “Twist and Shout.” A little known fact about Leon is that he is one mean karaoke performer and I am being absolutely serious! Very impressive. Karaoke was followed by a bar where we met a few of Leon’s fellow teachers and the shooter specials got a little out of hand. The night ended “early” around 4a.m. as a member of our party (not naming any names…but would like to clear both Leon and myself at this point) was feeling a little rough.

The next morning was mostly spent sleeping, resorting to a breakfast of hotdogs, and not feeling particularly chipper. We did however make it to the main Korean royal palace for a walk around the grounds. Very neat architecture and a beautiful natural space in the middle of Seoul. It was a long weekend for Koreans so the palace grounds were packed with happy picnicking families and small children dressed up in traditional Korean dress. I’ve decided that Asia is definitely home to the most adorable children/babies and elderly people, no contest with any other continent I am sure.

The following day we woke up early and went on a tour of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that acts as a neutral buffer zone around the military demarcation line that separates North and South Korea since the end of the Korean War. The tour involved walking through one of the four tunnels dug by North Korea under the DMZ. The tunnels were discovered by South Korea in the 70s and have since been barricaded off and opened to tourists like me :D After being discovered North Korean officials claimed that the tunnels were for coal mining despite the almost purely granite geology…oh that North Korea. After the tunnel we watched a video with a very happy tone (“the DMZ is full of beautiful and rare wildlife” and “all Koreans look forward to a future of reunification when Korea will be a united and prosperous country,” etc), anyhoo it was pretty glossy considering the complicated history and politics, but a nice thought I guess. Next they took us to an observation platform things where you can look at North Korea from afar…haha yeah, kind of lame.. we could have been looking at some South Korean village for all I could tell from that distance. After that we went to Dorasan railway station which was built in 2003 after North and South Korea made an agreement to be connected by rail for commercial goods transport..I guess the station is supposed to be a symbol of improving relations. Overall the tour did not rock my world and only really manages to just reinforce the mysteriousness surrounding North Korea. It is possible to take guided (read: propaganda) tours of North Korea, but they are very expensive and sadly were not even close to being in our budget range.

The next day was reserved for “Everland” the Disneyland of South Korea. But before we set off for Everland we agreed to see a temple in the morning as Sandra was really keen on seeing a Korean temple before we left. So we got up early, took the metro to the appropriate stop and saw across the street an ornate rooftop, so we headed that way assuming it was the temple. We arrived on the temple grounds and had to pay a small admission fee (seemed a bit strange and rather touristic, but well) and so we wandered around snapping pictures as usual. I was not so impressed as it seemed very similar in style and architecture to things we’d seen already (plus I was like a restless child waiting to go to the theme park). Wander, wander, wander..there are many buildings on the grounds but you can’t actually go inside and there are a few doors opened up with velvet ropes across and nobody in the buildings. “Guys, I know this might be a stupid question, but where is the actual temple..and you know, people practicing Buddhism? Does this seem rather palace-y to you?” Sandra makes up some reassuring response about how people probably don’t practice Buddhism here anymore and now it’s just a historical site, blah blah, the building in the middle is the temple, and so on. Finally Christian intervenes and points out that we are actually visiting the same palace we saw two days ago – and it was! Perfect! haha we felt like the most ridiculous tourist on earth! Christian hadn’t said anything because he thought he must be going crazy as neither Sandra or I had noticed or said anything. We had just gone in a different entrance and seen the grounds from another perspective..we just believed so much that it was a different place that we didn’t even notice we were looking at the exact same buildings!  hahaha too good! Anyway, we were running late and didn’t have time to go to the actual temple so we headed off to the amusement park instead (priorities people!).

Everland was pretty good though there were really long waits for rides considering it was a Monday, I guess many Koreans decided to take the Monday off and extend their holiday weekend. Everland is home to the steepest wooden roller coaster in the world, so that was pretty great, but most of the other rides were pretty standard. Everland further reinforced my image of Koreans being the happiest, smiliest people on the planet.  For instance, when you finish riding the big roller coaster everyone claps for the returning riders, whenever the staff aren’t actively working they are making jazz hands (and they don’t even seem to hate it! It’s like they enjoy making jazz hands for a good 50% of their workday) and even non-thrill rides manage to produce an impressive numbers of joyful screams and squeals. The park is largely geared towards families and even with so many small children running around I never heard a single child scream, have a tantrum or even cry – I just don’t get it!

The next day Sandra and Christian woke up early to go the temple we attempted the day before and I opted to sleep in instead (yes, I know, booo bad traveler). That afternoon we flew to Jeju Island, a volcanic island located off the southern tip of Korea (definitely worth a google). Jeju is known as the “Hawaii of Korea” and is a very popular vacation and honeymoon spot of Koreans.  We stayed in a waterfront hostel which was full of young Koreans and the odd Western hippie tourist who had stumbled upon Jeju island and never managed to make it back home (or move out of the hostel for that matter).

Our first day on Jeju was spent seeing the obligatory but also fantastic tourist attractions. These included Mt. Hallsan (the volcano which formed the island originally), walking through giant tubular caves formed by lava flows, and climbing up a coastal volcanic crater “tuff” thingy called Seongsan… difficult to describe what these tuffs look like, so I will leave that one up to google as well if you’re curious…or wait, this is it..  http://english.triptokorea.com/english/UserFiles/Image/Jeju/Premium%20Pakage/Seongsan%20Ilchulbong%20Peak.jpg . Mt. Hallsan, the caves and Seongsan are all UNESCO world heritage sites.

The next day we rented scooters!!! Ooooh it was so great! We managed to rent them without producing any form of driver’s licenses or even providing a credit card. I guess the scooter business is pretty slow on Jeju in the off-season or maybe the lack of a common language expedited the process. Anyway, we scootered all over that island for two days straight, we scootered and we scootered and we scootered and the novelty never wore off.  Jeju is the perfect place for scooters, not very much traffic, beautiful, winding coastal roads and well, you’re on an island so distances are relatively short. We scooted mostly along the coast, surrounded by palm trees, a coast of black volcanic rock cliffs, bright blue ocean, crashing waves and good weather – Lonely Planet eat your heart out!  We scooted through small towns and then back on the coast, seeing all the Korean ladies drying seaweed on the side of the road, scouring the rocks for shellfish, or selling the famous Jeju mandarins in stalls.  It was really great -  50ccs of raw scooter power, the sweet helmet and goggle combo, and fresh ocean air – life doesn’t get better! During those two days we saw a good number of the 10 natural wonders of Jeju, including many waterfalls and I even managed to go swimming in the ocean! The water was still so warm despite pretty overcast weather and the beach was just so sandy and perfect. Koreans on the beach looked at me like I was a bit crazy as almost any local looks at someone swimming in their ocean in October, but by Canadian standards it was one toasty ocean!

We flew back to Seoul from Jeju on Saturday and spent one more night in a different Seoul hostel. The hostel had just been opened two weeks prior by a lovely Korean man, Min, who taught himself English through travel and has been on some of the coolest trips (one year traveling overland through Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Pakistan, India, and China and a road trip through the Western US to visit all the canyons, sleeping in tents and cooking Korean food on gas burners). Anyway, we spent an awesome evening with Min and a young Korean student who works for him (his name escapes me) learning all about Korea and picking up some extra Korean phrases just in time to leave the country.

Overall I was very impressed with Korea. The culture, language and history is strikingly different from our own but yet we found the people to be so welcoming, understanding and curious. We experienced so much kindness as tourists in Korea – bus drivers leaving their routes to take us to the correct stop, numerous “Welcome to Korea”s, free mandarins pressed into our hands by the old women on Jeju, prompt offers to help and give directions whenever we look the slightest bit bewildered, small children practicing their English and peppering us with adorable questions like “what’s your name?” or “how old are you?” We were not a spectacle like we are in China and we caught no flack for not speaking Korean, in fact we got an inappropriate amount of praise for knowing a single phrase.

Visiting Korea shed some light on a lot of the discomforts, communication barriers, and cultural clashes that we experience with more intensity in China..Korea was so easy, clean and friendly, it was hard to not to consider whether we had made the right choice for our exchange country. In the end, we realized that so much of what we loved about Korea was it’s relative similarities to home… so thanks a lot culture shock, you’ve fooled us again, but we found you hiding out in our Korean vacation, giving us a taste of comforts we miss so much.

And we didn’t choose China because it’s comfortable and similar to home, in fact, for most of us it was just the opposite reasoning. So we have to work hard to avoid bitterness when we get shoved on the subway, or yelled at for the 100th time in Chinese, and remember that we are in the throes of culture shock and maybe approaching the point where the disdain for your host country is sometimes greater than the love and all these little annoyances are amplified.

So bring it on China! bring on the miscommunication, dirty squat toilets,  and embarrassing cultural faux pas, I can take it! I still have your dumplings, this awesome city, linguistic breakthroughs, KTV, good friends, and all those lovely people who are interested and welcoming.

That’s it for today, hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving :D Until next time…