From the Saturday before last to last Saturday, six of our North Central group went to Mongolia for our week vacation. We went there (and back) via a thirty hour train ride, and I while I did spend an uncomfortable amount of time with the Count of Monte Cristo (which I still haven’t finished so don’t ruin the end), I really enjoyed traveling that way. We were able to see a lot of the countryside, which is a whole lot more interesting on the Chinese side of the border, and that was really nice. Taking pictures of said countryside from a moving train at an unflattering angle through an incredibly reflective window was just as difficult as it sounds, but some turned out all right.

A couple notes about Mongolia, in case you should ever find yourself there:
A lot of the Western chains you find in Beijing or even in Xi’an, like McDonald’s or Starbucks or Walmart, are not to be found in the capital of Ulan Bator (or Ulaan Baatar, depending on how you spell it). There are, however, more Western products, like peanut butter and Lucky Charms (twenty dollar Lucky Charms, but they were there nonetheless).
Ulan Bator is… how shall I put it? Well, how about this. It is, at present, underdeveloped. An Israeli woman staying in our hostile kept describing it as the ugliest city she had ever seen, but I don’t think I would go that far. It is, however, much smaller than Beijing (isn’t everything?) and Xi’an, though it does hold a full third of Mongolia’s three million people.
Ulan Bator isn’t the reason anyone goes to Mongolia (I hope), because what you really should be seeing in Mongolia is Mongolia, which is to say that the sights outside the city, including the vast and empty countryside, is really what is amazing about Mongolia.

Mongolia is, in truth, and interesting combination of landscapes. I keep wanting to compare it to the South Dakota badlands, but it’s not quite like that. We did visit when it was chilly, and so that may have made the landscape look a little bleaker than it should have been, but much of the terrain directly outside of the city was simply short grass and hills. However, on the two trips that we went on outside of the city, we reached places that were absolutely gorgeous. It was almost cinematic, in one area, how we drove for almost an hour in this generally uninspiring hilly landscape and, behind the next hill, was a valley full of strange rock formations and trees of every color.
Every tree color, you witty people. Not like, neon pink and aquamarine.
I would recommend Mongolia, and really I would like to visit again (for longer, next time) because when you finally got there (there being the amazing place you were headed, of which Mongolia has no shortage) it was entirely worth it.

By far my favorite excursion was our trip to Tereji National Park. Not only was everything phenomenal, but we also were able to ride horses for about an hour or so, and some of us joked that we would come back to the US and say to our friends: ‘I rode horses in Mongolia. What did you do your Fall Term?”

So all in all, it was a truly incredible experience, and this is why you people should study abroad.

Was that a good enough ad?

Well, it appears as though I owe you folks a few posts. If you’ll allow me, I’ll just write two (or do I owe you three?) about the past couple of weeks. And by allow me, I mean humor my colloquial, conversational style, because I intend to fill you in regardless. :-p

Right! So not this past week end, or the one that preceded it, but the one that preceded that weekend, many of the people in our North Central group (ten or twelve of us, I think?) went to Xi’an, which I believe I have mentioned in posts past. Xi’an is one of China’s landmark cities, known as the start and end of the Silk Road, but probably better known as the site of the Terracotta Warriors. For those of you that are not aware, these warriors were made to protect the emperor Qin Shi Huan in the afterlife. Qin Shi Huan, the man who first unified China (though an interesting combination of military action and a legalist governing philosophy), is buried relatively nearby the Terracotta Warriors, but his tomb has not been excavated yet.
The site itself was a fair distance outside of the city, and it was very tourist oriented, which is to say that yes, the Terracotta Warriors is an iconic sight not only for Xi’an but also for China and yes, some argue it’s a must-see for either Xi’an or China, but the site itself, while cool (and I certainly don’t regret going to see it) is mainly the pits (there are three excavation sites, or pits, with terracotta soldiers inside) and little else. There are actually several sites around Xi’an, of which the warriors are only one, and these sites include a hot spring and a paleolithic village, but we didn’t see these on our excursion.
On a side note, when we left the gated area around the terracotta warriors, we were – impressively, I feel – inundated with salespeople trying to sell us souvenir warriors. We literally walked out of the gates and a wave of salespeople ran up to us with identical merchandise and all talking at once.

So I admit I was a little disappointed in the Terracotta Warriors, because while I absolutely believe that not seeing iconic sights is downright silly, I often feel they are not as interesting as the lesser known and lesser visited sights. To this end, I have to say that the city of Xi’an did not disappoint in the least.

I had the pleasure of visiting quite a few incredible places, some more heavily trafficked than others. One of the iconic sights of Xi’an city proper is the Big Goose Pagoda, but as you may be able to guess from me, I was a little underwhelmed. However, the Little Goose Pagoda had dramatically less people, and I felt the grounds around the pagoda were much more beautiful. Additionally, walking up the thirteen flights of narrow, poorly lit stairs was pretty amazing, especially as the ceiling in some places became much too low for someone of my height. It was rewarding though, as being at the top gave a good view of that section of the city.

There were actually a lot of places in Xi’an that I loved that were not the most iconic sights. The Great Mosque was a lot of fun to visit, both because I had never been to a mosque before and because the complex was a really neat mixture of Chinese and Arabic architectural influences. The path to the mosque, actually, was through a series of covered alleyways full of street vendors hawking their wares. This alone was worth visiting the area for, because it was an experience that I haven’t been able to find in Beijing (I am told this is in no small part due to the ‘cleaning up of the city’ for the Olympics).

The streets leading to and all around those covered alleyways were also full of street vendors, and this was really where the Muslim Quarter (as it is called) really shines. Many folks are in traditional head coverings, and there is just street after street of vendors with souvenirs, lamb on a stick, flat bread, and pretty much anything else you might want to eat.

One of the neatest places I went in Xi’an, though, was the Temple of the Eight Immortals: a Taoist temple still in active use. This place was very small, but it gave a very good view of what an active temple looks like (lots of incense, in case you were wondering), and it was really neat to see Taoist monks kind of doing their thing.

A few of the people in our group rode around the city wall on a bicycle. Xi’an is actually one of the few Chinese cities with it’s city wall still standing (Beijing has had several, but they’ve been torn down and replaced with major thoroughfares) though the city has expanded beyond them since it was built. You could rent a bike on the wall and just ride around it, which was a lot of fun (though some parts were unpleasantly rough).

Before we left, I was in one of the streets with street vendors (not in the Muslim Quarter) that were focused on selling art. I found one person (I think he was an art student at a nearby college) that was painting in the traditional Chinese style on the spot, and while I didn’t have time for him to paint a custom one for me (which I would have really liked, and which he offered) I did pick up one of the scrolls he had painted at some earlier time. I wish I could find someone like this in Beijing, but my search has been, as of yet, fruitless.

So that was our stay in Xi’an.

Oh, and the hostel we stayed at (located very near the South Gate) was incredibly clean, with very helpful staff and very reasonable prices.

Stay tuned for what I assume will be my next post.

Hello happy readers, and here is the second installment of life in Beijing.

Living abroad makes you realize how many things you take for granted at home. I naturally miss my friends and family, but I expected that. I also expected to miss American food, which I mentioned in the previous post. But there are some things that you don’t expect to miss, like Discovery Channel, or liquid dish soap. I think it is remarkable that, for someone who didn’t really watch all that much TV while at home, I really miss the ability to just turn on the Discovery Channel or the Science Channel and watch something interesting. I have been watching a lot of CNN International here, which has been nice though the news has been rather dismal.
As far as liquid soap goes, I found some eventually. And maybe it was just my inability to find the stuff, but I’m pretty sure you can pick up a thing of liquid dish soap at a convenience store back home, but here, I could barely find it. Which makes me wonder how folks do their dishes, but I suppose that’s for another day.

Language classes have been very intensive (four hours a day, five days a week) and we have often had an additional lecture (though “often” stretches it, as we’ve not been here that long) for two hours after that. I feel like we’re learning a lot in class (which I’ll get to later) and I know that, while it is a lot to learn, some of it is sinking in. The amount of material that we’re covering though is sometimes overwhelming, but I’m doing my best.
The additional lectures have also been really informative: one professor here lectured twice on recent Chinese history and relations with the United States, so that’s really cool.

The language classes, while difficult, have been helpful in daily life here. At the very least when I buy something I can understand (after a moment or two) what the cashier said the price was. I also recently had an incredibly minuscule “exchange” with a local street vendor, as it could not be called a conversation, that started out pretty well but ended in him saying a number of things I had no hope of understanding. I know learning a language is an incredibly time intensive task, and I know that even after this term I will not know enough Chinese to have anything more in-depth than a child-like conversation, but I was still quite happy that I was able to say and understand anything at all.

Since I wrote last, I’ve been to a number of places, including the Great Wall. I will not make the ‘It’s a good wall, but…’ joke, but rest assured it was pretty spectacular. We were only able to be there for a short time, much of which was consumed by climbing the stairs up the mountainside to get to the Great Wall, but it was still quite a incredible sight.

Many of the people in our group are going to Xi’an this weekend, the city that has (on its outskirts) the site of the famous Terracotta Warriors, and some in our group intend to go to Mongolia for our week vacation, which I hope will be really fun.
When I’m at home, I have a map that has pins for places I’ve been and places I want to go (color-coordinated, because I’m an insufferable nerd), and I’m quite excited to be able to add one in Ulan-bator.

Hopefully everything works out, and I hope you all are doing well back there.

Happy travels,

-chris

P.S. - This picture is actually of me holding up the Great Wall. Seriously. That small section was about to fall, but with my Herculean strength I managed to hold it up and pose for a picture. No, I was not leaning because I was exhausted from forty minutes of essentially non-stop stairs, what are you talking about?

 P.P.S - So I did make the Great Wall joke. Sue me. Actually, don’t.

Hello happy people,

Over the past couple weeks I have put considerable thought into the stated purpose of these (and really any) student blogs, and the phrase ’seeing what college life is really like’ keeps standing out. I think it is valuable to remember two things when thinking about that idea. First, that life in college and anywhere else is based greatly on what you make of it (as I believe I have stated before) and secondly that college life still falls under the broader category of ‘life.’ Life here is much like life before and after graduation. And while I recognize there is a wealth of popular opinion to counter that argument, I defer those opinions to a professor I had only once (and who, despite our limited interaction, provided some remarkably insightful comments about life) who said (to greatly paraphrase) “there is no ‘real world’ when one leaves college. College is just as ‘real world’ as anywhere else. You people [students] have to balance your personal lives, full time academic schedules, many of you have jobs and extra curricular activities and I know several of you commute. This is just as real as the world you’ll find when you graduate.” The professor, mind you, when on to use this argument to discuss how if we were habitually late for class we would be habitually late for work when we graduated, etc. But the argument in and of itself stuck with me. And I was reminded of it when confronted with some of the issues of this term.
As you folks may have noticed, there’s been a lapse in my posts. I explain this only by saying that I, like any other student here, am subject to the same real life laws that people in the real world are subject to, which sometimes includes some hilarious and not-so-hilarious misfortune. To recap briefly, personal issues, a short emergency room visit, an automotive failure, academic issues, and all manner of other small and incredibly annoying misfortunes (like leaving a pen in a load of laundry and causing ink spots to appear over all of my clothing) have plagued me over the past couple weeks. But things look to be on the rise: my health is recovering wonderfully, even though I cannot say the same for my clothes.

The past few weeks, I feel, should remind us all that while some students may go to college for free, party all the time, never go to class, and in general not take any responsibility for their lives, I think that this group is in such an overwhelming minority that those students should not shape (as I feel is so often the case in popular culture) the perception of students. We, like any other population, live in as real a world as any.

And now, for the general updates.

I am making significant progress at a project I have been working on for a fair amount of time at my internship. The project involved me learning –essentially from scratch- some of the basics about Visual Basic, ASP.NET, XML, XSL, and some commercial web-services. It has been a really significant learning curve, but I have made some really appreciable progress so I’m glad for that.

Classes are going relatively well, which is to say that they are -as is their nature- challenging, time consuming, and worthwhile experiences. Hopefully in a post soon I will talk a little bit more about my honors thesis. I’m quite excited about it, as it lets me research into a subject that is important to me.

As a junior, I met with my advisor to schedule my last round of classes. We spoke at length and made sure that I would be able to graduate in four years, fulfilling the requirements for a Computer Science major with an English Writing minor while simultaneously fulfilling the requirements to graduate with honors. And there was a strange sense when I realized I would have exactly enough time to get in exactly the classes I needed. Everything fell into place, and it allowed for the moment when you realize graduation isn’t that far away. And then you also realize that doesn’t change the one paper being due next week, and so that moment was short lived.

Oh! And the first study abroad orientation met since I posted last, and I must say I am very excited about the program. Which I suppose should go without saying, but the opportunity to be able to meet the other people going on the trip, including the professor that would accompany us, was really nice. The folks seem to be cool people, and I’m glad for the opportunity to get to know them better over the course of the orientations, pre-study abroad class, and the program itself.

I think that’s about it for me.
So there.

Hi folks,

So a quick post, but action packed!
This past week was quite challenging, as a couple of projects were due that involved some nifty but complicated data structures (one of which was a quad tree – think binary tree with four kids per node). On Friday the 8^th Cardinals on Wheels had our Winter Party, during which we had folks eat food and make No-Sew blankets to a donate to an organization called Project Linus. Project Linus, for those of you who don’t know, is non-for-profit organization that donates blankets to children with serious illnesses or who have recently lost a parent. So we had a ton of people put together these blankets, and I was able to drop them off to the Project Linus folks this last Saturday.
Next weekend looks to be really exciting for COW as well, because we are going to travel to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. And though we originally budgeted for the cheapest (and therefore most distant) seats possible, they ended up upgrading us to the main floor, which means we skipped another level of distance in-between. So exciting.

And also, this Friday I received a letter from the Office of International Programs, and I was accepted into the China / Japan study abroad program. I am really happy I was accepted, and so more updates on that as they progress.

And for now, that’s all.