Preblog note: I have videos to share, but I guess this website doesn’t allow the filetype they’re in. I’m also strapped for time right now, so I’ll just leave them out try to figure it out. Sorry about that!

Welp. I tried to get this out before I left for Xi’an but had a ton of technical difficulties. From photos being deleted from the website, to photos flipped in weird directions.

Sorry it took so long to get this one out, I went from technical difficulties to traveling to studying for midterms and finals. The Chinese language class is set up kind of weird in that I have 3 finals throughout the semester. Now that that’s over, I’m going to try and post about my trip to Xi’an by the end of the weekend.

This is my first time living in a dorm and out of the house. Its been quite the process and change for me, but its settling down now. The hardest thing was getting my room initially set up, because I’d never had to do that before, but I conscripted the help from some of the more seasoned dorm dwellers. Honestly, right now there isn’t a huge difference to living in the dorm and my room, but what I miss is being connected with my family. It’s really cool and nice to be able to just take a break from whatever I’m doing and just go hang out in the living room.

One of the things I’ve noticed is that I don’t really mind having a physical space that isn’t too decorated. I still want to add some of my own flare to my room, but it’ll probably be in the form of some simple art. I can’t tell if that’s because I’m not going to be in this room for that long of a time or if it’s because I really just value functionality more.

I also noticed that most of what I miss is the people in my life. There aren’t a ton of physical things I miss. It’s a little obnoxious to deal with more frequent laundry and a slower computer, but it isn’t that big of a deal at all. But what I really miss is talking to my friends, and especially all the support that I get if I’m ever stressing about something.

I didn’t really know where to put this, so I’ll put it here because it kind of fits in to this section. Fairly often I’ll hear people say “waiguoren”(foreigners or “hen gao”(he’s tall). It’s kind of fun some days and really tiring others. Like all these people are looking at me and watching what I’m doing, but they’re often really understanding. It’s also kind of funny because I don’t think I’m supposed to be able to understand them, as they’ll often whisper it after I’ve walked past them. Overall it’s not a big deal, but it’s definitely something I’ve had to adjust to and embrace a bit.

The campus!

The campus is actually pretty big. The big things that I noticed that were different were the convience stores on campus and all the sports courts that were outside.

One of the interesting things about this university(no idea if its’ all Chinese universities or not) is that all of the students are required to live on campus. So the international students stay in the same building as the graduate students, but they live 4-6 in a room where we have our own.

This is also extended to a lot of the faculty. I don’t think they are required to live on campus but may be encouraged to do so. So, there are also buildings that are purely faculty.

On top of this, the university is treated sort of like a park. Many people take their kids to the basketball courts or the track fields. So there are often families going around the university and it’s a little different.

It’s located on the inner most ring of Chengdu, so its easy to get around the city and find your way back!

The pandas!

I was surprised at how many pandas were actually out. The advisors said that sometimes its too hot or cold for them so they aren’t let out of their air conditioning. It was cool to see them all in the trees. I didn’t expect so many to be so high up, I guess I always figured that they mostly stayed on the ground.

It’s kinda strange, but I actually liked the red pandas more. There were more of them and they were more active and interesting to look at. The giant pandas would just kinda sit there and eat bamboo, while the red pandas showed some interest in us and would play with each other a bit.

They also had a museum that had some cool stuff in it.

IFS, it’s a shopping center, but the cool thing about it is this!

Food!

I also have a fond experience with these, because they were the first thing I ordered without saying “I want this”(In chinese with pointing). They’re also extremely cheap. I get 2 for breakfast and it costs me less than 50 cents.

Lunch

For lunch, I’ll either have noodles from a shop across the street or eat in the school’s cafeteria. I’m not a big fan of the cafeteria food, but it’s pretty cheap(about a dollar). So I’ll eat in there when I don’t really want to have to figure out where I’m going to be going.

I’ve been eating a lot of noodles recently, so I don’t really feel like ordering some to get a picture. But I’ll get it in the one of the next blogs. The dish I normally get is called dan dan mian. It’s a bowl of noodles with meat and a sauce in the bottom of the bowl. It’s meant to be stirred around after you get it to mix in the meat and all the flavors of the sauce. It’s actually a dish that originated in Sichuan, but many places have modified it from a small snack to offering it in meal sized portions. The same noodle shop also has fried rice and some other dishes there, but I’ve mostly stuck to their noodles and some of the rice.

Had to try the Pizza Hut when we found one. Overall, pretty alright pizza. The pan fried one tasted closer to american pizza while the other one’s cheese tasted a little off.

I’ve also tried some street food, but not nearly as much as I would like to. The two things I’ve really tried are good but I have no idea what they’re called. It’s been a point and hope game.

The first one is sort of like a crepe, except it has an egg broken on the top of it and the ones I’ve had were filled with lettuce(?), a meat, and had a spicy sauce and sweet mayo in it. It’s really good hot, but really losses it’s flavor if you let it cool down too much.

The other thing is pretty similar except it has a noodle base rather than the crepe. It’s also cut differently, but other than that it’s a pretty similar dish. (I think, not entirely sure).

So right now is the Chinese New Year’s festival or the Spring Festival. But its a national holiday that spans a whole week. Many of the natives use the time to go back and see their families in the more rural areas and leave the city. One of the interesting side effects to this is that almost all the shops close and its a lot harder to find food

This led to some questionable decisions and me trying an “American Style Hotdog” from a convience store. Honestly not the best decision. The bread was strange, hotdog wasn’t the best(somehow slightly spicy), and had a lot of sweet mayo on it. The orange drink turned out to be orange juice(I was hoping it wasn’t some kind of orange soda), and the onion bread thing was the best. It was the same bread from the hotdog mishap, and still had the sweet mayo, but it didn’t betray any expectations.

Next morning I tried one of the other iconic Chinese breakfasts. It was this slightly oily bread that you dip in soy(?) milk. It wasn’t my favorite, because it was pretty bland but it worked for breakfast.

I also tried a sandwich shop that serves american and american fusion style burgers. It was a really nice change of pace to have a good burger. The fries were also served in a bbq like sauce that was really good. I had to use a fork for one of the first times this trip and it was really funny to have to figure out how I usually hold a fork.

Oh yeah! The university also gave us a ton of different snacks for the new years. It was really nice of them and now I have a ton of snacks to try! The best thing so far were the dark chocolate “digestives”. They were almost like whoppers but the inside was more cookie like and didn’t have the malt flavor at all.

This morning I decided that I was going to give Starbucks a shot. Honestly, the food there was just alright, but it also nice to get an American like breakfast with a coffee. I’ve pretty much stopped drinking coffee, mostly because it’s too much work to figure out and I wasn’t extremely attached to it before.

Next week I’m going to Xi’an and seeing the Terracotta warriors. I’ll be there for about half the week, then I’ll come back to Chengdu. I’m not sure what else I’m going to see there but I’m sure it’s going to be fun. It’s only about a 3 hour train ride away, but I have to get up early tomorrow, so I have to finish this up!

Hey everyone! Sorry it took so long to type all this out, but I started out this trip with a week of travelling and living out of suitcases to getting set up in a dorm for the first time and trying to figure out where to eat and how to order.

** Some of the pictures turned out blurry, but it seems to have cleared up for the most part. I think I was just not giving the camera enough time to focus. Sorry!

Saying goodbye to everyone was a really strange experience. It’s the first time I’ve ever left the home for an extended period of time and even after that its a long flight home if I forgot anything. It was hard to adjust, but I’ve gone through one bout of homesickness. I’ll talk more about that next blog.

First flight was from Las Vegas to Las Angeles. From there had a couple hour layover then went to Hong Kong. In Vegas I met up with one of the students that was also headed to study abroad in China from UNLV. He was studying in a different city than me, but it was nice to have someone to work through airport problems with.

*I didn’t get any pictures over the sea because I ended up with an aisle seat, wasn’t a good time to find out I only really sleep well with a window seat. It was a long 13 hour flight, also didn’t have wifi but thought I would.

The first night in China was pretty tame. We landed, then took an hour bus ride to our hotel. Then the advisors took us out to a group dinner. It was in the traditional family style of many Chinese restaurants in the US. There were 10 or so dishes ordered and they were placed on a lazy Susan. It’s crazy how much being forced to use chopsticks for every meal does to your chopstick skills. I still struggle a little with rice and noodles though.

The next day started off with a tour of the Shanghai City Planning Museum. It was fairly interesting and many of the displays were written in English, but we were only given an hour to explore the 4 floor museum, so I went through it fairly quickly. The really interesting things were the full floor replica of the city, and their emphasis on innovation.

The focus on innovation was striking to me because it is one of the things that I’ve seen tauten about in the US. Everyone talks about innovation, but very few actually innovate. The things that the museum focused on were improvements in the environment, food, scenery, and transportation.

The next stop for the day was the Yu Gardens. This was the first place that looked like China to me. It had traditional architecture and beautiful scenery.

The Bund was our next stop. The Bund is a strip of land next to one of the major rivers in China(Huangpu River). It was a big hub for many of foreign nations to do business in China. It was kinda strange to see 20th century European architecture in China.

After that was The Oriental Pearl Tower. The Pearl Tower is located across the river from the Bund. It’s actually a TV tower, but it has an iconic shape and has many viewing rooms(the spheres on the tower). We went to one of the sightseeing floors that was mostly made of glass.

But it was a foggy day so we couldn’t see that far.

The next day we bused a couple hours to The Flying Peak. It was a Buddhist area, filled with temples and statues. The area was really pretty, but I already felt like I was intruding on another religion and wanted to be as respectful as possible. So some of the photos will be taken by others.

The next stop for that day was the Tea Museum. It was kind of comical to see how much effort, time, and thought has gone into tea, with many people devoting their lives across multiple dynasties all trying to figure out the best way to make and enjoy tea.

The hotel we stayed at that night was pretty funny. It was called the scholars’ hotel, and had a ton of different “smart” things to do. There were a lot of Chinese books and a couple different board games (go and I think the other one was shogi), one of the cooler things they had was a calligraphy set for Chinese characters, but instead of using ink you used water. So the paper could be reused and you could get more practice out of each page.

The pagoda on the West Lake Island was really pretty. It was built on the remains of the pagoda before it. Pagodas are typically built on or around temple grounds. They serve as a way to…

Then we went and saw ZhouZhuang. Its kind of like a Chinese version of Venice, but its a couple hundred years older.

Our next day was a free day in Shanghai, so a small group of us went to the Shanghai Museum…

…and then went and did some shopping in a nearby mall. I was surprised at how big the nike and lego stores were.

At the time of writing this I’m working through being sick. I just went to the doctor today and got medicine. Its just a sinus infection, and I’m already starting to feel better. I should be feeling better in a couple days. For the next post, I’ll go over the dorms, some of the food I’ve been trying, People’s Park(have to go back and take more pictures!) and the Panda Research Faculty.

千里之行、始于足下- A journey of a thousand miles starts beneath one’s feet.

-Laozi

So, I don’t really know how to blog so I’m just going to start writing from the top of my head and hope it works out. Thanks everyone for showing some interest in my trip! It really means a lot to have the support from all my friends and family.

I’m currently going through all the last minute things that you might expect; figuring out what to pack, buying things, saying goodbyes, and pretending to learn some Chinese before I leave. I’m leaving in 5 days from now, so some of the stress/anxiety/excitement is starting to build up. I feel like I’m mostly prepared, but there are always those things that I could have done more of. The big one is that I really should have put more effort into my Chinese over this last semester, but now its too late to make up for that. I’ll be able to survive, but I should have been closer to conversational than where I’m at now.

I’m going to be studying abroad in Chengdu, China for 4 months. I leave January 7th and return May 12th. I included a map in case my description of “Central-ish China” didn’t do it for you.

I’ll be doing a lot while I’m there, but it still is going to be a semester of college. I’ll be taking 9 credits of Chinese Language, 3 of Modern Chinese History, and another 3 of Government and politics in China.

I’m planning on putting one of these out every week or so (no guarantees though) where I talk about what’s been going on and any cool experiences that I’ve had. I’m planning on taking a ton of pictures and sharing them here. I’m not too familiar with how this site works, but I’m also planning on responding to the comments that people leave. (I’m working on formatting and waiting to replace pictures for when I have some. Will probably end up doing some of that on the plane)