t-minus 10 hours.

This will be the last post from China. I board Delta at 10am. Then I take to the skies for 14 hours and then another 2 hours from Michigan.

As I mentioned in the last post I have since ventured to Shanghai. Needless to say I miss Suzhou. The hostel I'm staying at in Shanghai may have tainted my opinion, but I have not enjoyed myself. The hostel is in a building built in 1924 by a Jewish family. The building certainly holds these qualities of 1920s architecture and it gives a certain amount of charm. However, it is obvious that the hostel has not kept up with the uptake of the building as it is often unclean. The showers are infested with mold and bugs. My bed is nothing more than a piece of wood with some sheets placed on top.

As I exit the building I am greeted by the smell of garbage and b.o. Down the block is a street with vendors selling everything from vegetables, cellphones, and the freshest of meat. When I say the freshest of meat, I literally mean the freshest of meat. The street is full of vendors with cages of clucking chickens, quails, doves, toads, fish and turtles. The best part is the stench of fresh animal blood and the red stained streets. Needless to say my dislike of meat has only been intensified since coming to Shanghai. So much so that the smell of most meat causes involuntary gag reflexes. Since coming to Shanghai I have gone no where near anything that could possible contain meat, especially an unspecified meat. For instance a travel mate got a noodle dish called 大肉面, literally meaning big meat noodles. I have no clue what type of meat this is, nor do I think I want to know. I have ingested lots of bananas and ice cream since my arrival in Shanghai.

This trip has made me thankful to be returning tomorrow. I won't worry about what my food is. Also restaurant kitchens will seem like sterilized hospital rooms in comparison to the kitchens in China.

Nonetheless, my return tomorrow, though long, will be a welcome relief. I look forward to reuniting with friends and eating all the foods I miss most (CHEESE!).

See you all in the states.

Here is No Why

It seems I fail at this blogging thing. I leave in exactly 3 days and here I am finally writing a blog. In all fairness though I have been plenty busy and the internet here tends to annoy me.

Last week I finished up classes and took my exams.There's not much to report from my last weekend in Beijing except friday we went to the club (like usual) and I didn't get back until about 6:30am. The next days I went to the silk market got some last minute things and ate at a delicious veggie restaurant. The rest of the weekend has nothing to report.

Monday we departed Beijing for good and began our (me and four of my other classmates) three legged adventure. We caught a train that was to take us to Taishan. We were supposed to climb the mountain and watch the sunrise the next morning. Unfortunately, we didn't realize that the train only stopped a total of 1minute at the Taishan station and we missed our opportunity. I was really looking forward to climbing the massive mountain. We decided then to continue on to our next destination Suzhou. We arrived there at around 8pm and then had to find a place to stay (our hostel was not yet available). The next day we made our way to the Hostel. Let me tell you how much I loved our Hostel. Actually I can't, putting my love in words is impossible. I can only say that the area was gorgeous and genuinely Chinese the hostel was as well an old Chinese building with multiple gardens/court yards. I walked around a lot (and one night walked around until 8:30am). We went to the Lions Gate Garden and it was the most beautiful place I have ever seen. It was peaceful and so well designed. I was sitting in a pagoda in the middle of the massive pond and at one point (hundreds of tourists aside) could imagine the Chinese nobles that roamed this garden and how they must have felt being surrounded by it's beauty.

Sadly, our stay in Suzhou came to an end and we have now made our way to Shanghai via bus (which was way better than the standing tickets on the train we had to Suzhou). Not much to report yet. I'm not in love with our hostel here. It's a building built in 1924 by a Jewish family so the architecture is really neat and not Chinese in the slightest. However, it's not awfully clean and the horrible smell from the streets seems to made residence here as well. Tonight we plan to see the breathtaking (hopefully) lights of Shanghai.

That's all for now, I'll try to update once more before monday.

-M