Imagine if China Town took over New York, and you would have Shanghai. If you tell from the picture, it's very westernized. Even though many of us feel more comfortable here, it is definitely still very Chinese. So, in the theme of Chinese, I thought I would take this blog entry to explain some very distinct aspects of Chinese Culture. 1. Public Displays of Spitting: Everyone spits here...and everywhere. On the street, in restaurants...everywhere. And it's not j...

I am extremely frustrated right now. My last blog entry was unfinished since the internet here cuts out without warning. I have spent the last 45 min updating my blog and the internet just cut out 30 min early, and I lost it all. I am not going to rewrite it for a third time so I will now do bullet points of what I wrote before. I am not happy. 1. Met the rest of the tour group the morning after the Forbidden City, everyone was really nice.2. Went to the Temple ...

Ni Hou! After having a teary goodbye from Sydney, a two and a half hour delay for "engine problems", and a 12 hour flight, I got off to a bit of a rocky start with the Asian leg of my trip. The part I was most worried about (getting from the airport to the hotel) ended up being the easiest! I arrived at the hotel at 12:30 am, about four hours later than was expected. Check in was relatively easy...until they gave me the wrong room and I walked in on two...

It's my last day in Australia :( Tomorrow morning I leave at 11:50 am on Qantas Airlines for Beijing. I got back to Sydney last week, after I almost had to stay in Canberra for another night (the horror!) since Greyhound messed up my booking. BUT i did get back eventually. Keir has been nice enough to let me stay at his place till I leave, so in exchange for monetary rent I have been doing some laundry and i even made dinner one night...well sort of. I got back...

I spent last night on a ten hour bus ride from Melbourne to Canberra. It was not comfortable. The seats weren't bad, they just weren't made for long term company. I popped a sleeping pill (Thanks for those, Mom!)...turned out to have some weird effects. I was absolutely exhausted, but because of my unsavory positioning (atleast thats what I am blaming it on) i kept waking up and feeling really disorientated and confused. At one point I woke up when the bus stoppe...