Trip to Taiwan and Philippines is official!

October 23, 2007
Lisa picked up our passports today with no problem so thats all set. Then I had a nap and made some more bok choy ( its getting better every time!!) and then we discussed our trip. This is now the official trip

November 9 1230 AM Shanghai - Manila (arrive 430 AM :()
November 9 1110 AM Manila - Taipei (Arrive at 110 pm)
November 9 to 16 in Taipei and surrounding areas
November 16 at 155 PM Taipei - Manila (arrive 355pm)
November 16 to 18 in Manila
November 18 8 PM Manila - Shanghai (Arrive after 11pm)

And now that thats all worked out I can start to work more on my European/North Africa plans. After discussing with Phil and Aliyah this seems to be a good plan to start working on:
Phil and I arrive in Madrid on December 22 and most of our friends will be there already.
Then we will stay there and on the 25th or 26th we will take a bus down to the south of Spain and then catch a ferry over to Tangier, Morocco. From there we will either go to Fez, Marrakesh, or Casablanca and spend some time there. Then on the 29th or 30th of December we will head to Barcelona and stay there for 3 or 4 nights. Then we will hop on a bus from Barcelona to Madrid. Then I will leave Madrid on the 4th and fly to Marseilles with Phil and stay with him for a while there. (We are thinking about going to maybe Oslo, Norway, or Stockholm Sweden sometime in the beginning of January... but thats another story) Then sometime towards the 18th or so of January I will fly back to Madrid and stay there for a few nights before heading to Cairo. :o) It is really confusing and it involves lots and lots of planning and I have to hear back from all of my friends if they like this idea or not... but it seems to work out pretty well as of now.
I still haven't heard from Cairo though if I got accepted to not into the program. They told me middle of November though so I am not really worried, I am just getting too antsy haha... Also I have a spoken midterm tomorrow for Chinese and a written one Thursday so I think I need to study now!!!!!
Leave a comment!! I like to see if people are actually reading this or not haha

Sichuan part 3!!! (Hailuogo Glacier park fun and Hot Springs with flesh eating fish)

the first picture is me and my friend jamie in the flesh eating fish and the second is on the ski lift ride to the glacier, and the third is my roommate Yuki and his girlfriend in the flesh eating fish



September 30, 2007
We get our wakeup call and go down to breakfast which is another dismal array of watery rice with some pickled things and a hard boiled egg, luckily our teachers bought us some instant coffee though to get us through it. We then hopped on the bus to get to the other bus station (which took less than a minute to drive to so i dont know why we we didnt walk...). We waited there for a bit then hopped on a bus to go up to the top part of the mountain where the glacier was. the bus ride was kinda scary because they were driving are really high speeds around narrow corners going up. There were also a lot of buses on their way down so every time there was a turn or a curve (or someone in the road or on the side of the road or he for any reason the bus driver wanted to which seemed like every 3 seconds) he would lay on the most annoying horn I have ever heard, and it got old really quick. Everyone in China honks their horns A LOT even when they don't need to.

Anyways we got to the top of the mountain and had to hold off all the Chinese people from cutting us in line to get on the ski lift to the top. The ski lift was really nice because you could see everything there on the way up, but it was also a bit scary. Once we got to the top of course they had meat on a stick like everywhere in China, and I got some and it was gooooooooood, They told me it was goat meat, I hope they weren't lying haha. We then hiked for a bit, only like an hour or so and that was fun and got to go up and touch the ice and sit up there for a while. After that we got back on the honking bus and headed down towards the hot springs (we weren't really supposed to know we were going there cuz it was a surprise but we all already knew it). Before we went there though we ate a a restaurant which of course was again highly disappointing for what was I was hoping for :o(. After that we had a tour of the springs which was basically a huge pool and mini hot tub looking things that have hot springs water pumped into it. They also had one pool that was filled with thousands of little fish that eat all your dead skin cells when you get in and I thought it was disgusting but I ended up doing it anyways. It was really strange at first and tickled a lot, so for the first 20 minutes or so I couldn't stop laughing but then it felt nice and I think between two trips in I might have spent almost 2 hours in it. While we were there they also gave us soft boiled eggs which were basically slightly cooked eggs that you drink, I didn't have any... Then as we left I of course accidentally locked my glasses in my locker and forgot which locker number it was so that was a big ordeal trying to find which one it was and having to ask the girl at the desk for a bunch of keys to try.

After that we got back on the honking bus and headed back to the hotel. When we got there we had dinner at our hotel which was probably the worst dinner of the whole trip, so I didn't eat much and got a lot of grilled eggplant and goat on a stick which was a lot better. So we got that and walked around for a bit and looked at all the same stores of tibetan stuff then found the same little kids as before and talked to them for a bit and then headed back to the hotel to play cards for a while. Then we got bored and got some not so good tasting ice cream ( but it was only 13 cents so whatever) and then went to sleep for our next long trek to Danba Tibetan town.



below is some pictures



pictures of the glacier and hot springs!

My Trip to Sichuan Province Pt. 1 (Shanghai to Chengdu)

September 28, 2007

We all met in the lobby around 7:30 (i was a little late though because i forgot to set my alarm... oops) to take a bus to Pudong International Airport to fly 2 and a half hours or so to Chengdu which is the capitol of Sichuan Province. I bought a a bag here to use for the trip which probably wasn't a good idea and it broke before we even go to the airport haha, lucky I didn't have to check anything and I could hold it shut until we got to our first hotel. The airline was a lot nicer that I thought it would be too which was a plus, I didn't see much of it though because I passed out almost right when I got on haha. We arrived in Chengdu at about 1:30 and met the Beijing students from our program and went to our first hotel. On the way there the Beijing leader teacher, Han Bing, told us what was ahead of of for the next week and a half which included lots of mountain driving, Tibetan villages, among other things. We got to our first hotel and checked in. It was pretty nice except for some reason bathroom basically had windows for walls and you had to pull a curtain over it to block anyone from seeing haha. We had a few hours of free time but that was basically spent in Carrefour (kinda like a French Walmart) standing in line because me and Lisa each and to buy a new bag to put our stuff in. Then we had to wait for another 20 minutes while they figured out how to use our credit cards haha. We went for a group dinner at a restaurant but I was kind of disappointed because Han Bing told us he was gonna tell all the restaurants not to make the food spicy because he didn't want anyone to 拉肚子 (diarrhea) on the trip haha. Me and Lisa were both kinda upset because we were both looking forward to spicy food so much. After that Yuki, Masako, Lisa and I just walked around Chengdu looking in expensive shops, then back to a bathing suit shop so they could get one for part of our trip. We also saw a huge statue of Mao with fireworks and crazy lights... almost a bit scary. After all that went back to the hotel and Yuki taught us a Japanese card game that we played for until 2 am haha, and then we went on a snack run to a 24 hour convenience store before finally going to sleep.


p.s.

Also I have a lot of pictures but they are on on Facebook, I haven't gotten around to finding another photo site but here are a lot of pictures from one of my friends that anyone can see

http://www.shanghaijim.smugmug.com/

sometime I will get around to it and then you can see all mine


update!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
my pictures are up to see!
click here for my pictures!