Here are some pics from our awesome month-long vacation around all of China!
They are in Kitty's picasa gallery because mine was filled up from the blog of the year:
http://picasaweb.google.com/kathleen.myra.kelly/ChinaVacation
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Vacation Photos!
They are in Kitty's picasa gallery because mine was filled up from the blog of the year:
http://picasaweb.google.com/kathleen.myra.kelly/ChinaVacation
Friday, July 24, 2009
Job!
Got me a research job! Work 14 hours and it pays all my out-of-state tuition! Phew!
Plus 1200 bucks more a month! Yay!
Here's what it says the job is:
I am basically going to be doing the coding to get this big weird body puppet into action, but i guess mostly i will be in charge of making big weird 3-D puppets that the body thing will control.
Relief! fun!
Yay!
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Back with a tight schedule
So I am back in the land of sit down toilets and have about 2.5 weeks until school starts. In those weeks Kitty and I will be running all over sorting things out. So here is a rough idea of where and when we will be!
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Re: welcome back
Our flight went awesome! Started out with we each had 4 bags (2 of which were terribly overweight) 2 backpacks, a purse and a carry-on, but one of our teachers drove us all the way to the Futian Border crossing where there were people to meet and greet and carry our luggage for us all the way to the HK airport. Then, because the HK airport is so nice, they had free big luggage carts which made our luggage a breeze. At check-in we got the nicest guy in the world who drew us a little map and sped us through the whole process and only at the end did he say, "Now sir, i want you to know that your bag IS pretty overweight, so maybe next time try to make sure that it isn't too heavy, okay? Thanks a lot!"
Our only worry was coming back through the Chicago airport, but once again they had free carts and customs didn't check our luggage at all!
When we got back, Mom and Doug greeted us with big open arms and more importantly NACHOS GALORE!
So far it has been awesome!
Monday, July 20, 2009
Back! Almost!
Leaving for the US in 15hours!
Flight leaves Hong Kong at 1 PM and gets in Chicago at 2:30
Only 1.5 hours long!
See everybody soon!
Flight leaves Hong Kong at 1 PM and gets in Chicago at 2:30
Only 1.5 hours long!
See everybody soon!
Sunday, July 5, 2009
More rugged vacationing
We are currently in Lake Lugu on the Sichuan/Yunnan border after going to see the LeShan giant buddha, which I believe is just flat out the biggest Buddha in the world. It was really cool, we can post pictures later.
We also climbed up Mt. Emei, which is one of the 4 sacred Buddhist Chinese mountains. It took two days and we had to sleep in a monastery on top of one of the peaks. The dorm rooms were sex-segregated and Andy got pinched by some monstrous rat/cockroach in the middle of the night. Also there are native Tibetan macaques that live on Emei Shan and they are surprisingly scary. The guide book talked about "monkey tolls" on the path, where you have to pass by monkeys expecting a hefty fee in food and sparkly or enticing goods such as cameras, wallets, etc. In the official monkey protection areas, ladies with slingshots follow each monkey and prevent too much mischief, but outside of those areas you're on your own. Andy and I almost got attacked by a group of ten to twelve monkeys with their babies - a couple of them started making truly terrifying growling sounds, but we avoided eye contact and held threatening looking sticks, and we passed without incident.
Lake Lugu is really pretty but maybe not quite as weird as you would expect. It's purportedly the only matriarchal society left in the world. They have all kinds of goddess mountains and stuff, and the line of descent goes through the mother instead of the father. As far as we can tell, men don't have too much importance in society. Anyway it's also home to a huge plateau lake (we think we're about 2 kilometers above sea level), and the lake is really gorgeous.
We're probably leaving tomorrow to go to Lijiang, since this place is gorgeous but life is a little slow and too boring for Andy. It's weird because I'm getting more and more homesick and wanting western food and stuff, but I know we'll be leaving for good in two weeks, so I should probably try to soak up Chinese culture even more. However, I guess Lijiang and Dali are big backpacker towns so it's probably really easy to pretend like you're barely in China at all. While we were trekking on Emei Shan, I dreamt of coffee and french fries, so it's hard to pick another bowl of tomato noodles over a delicious western breakfast when it's available.
We also climbed up Mt. Emei, which is one of the 4 sacred Buddhist Chinese mountains. It took two days and we had to sleep in a monastery on top of one of the peaks. The dorm rooms were sex-segregated and Andy got pinched by some monstrous rat/cockroach in the middle of the night. Also there are native Tibetan macaques that live on Emei Shan and they are surprisingly scary. The guide book talked about "monkey tolls" on the path, where you have to pass by monkeys expecting a hefty fee in food and sparkly or enticing goods such as cameras, wallets, etc. In the official monkey protection areas, ladies with slingshots follow each monkey and prevent too much mischief, but outside of those areas you're on your own. Andy and I almost got attacked by a group of ten to twelve monkeys with their babies - a couple of them started making truly terrifying growling sounds, but we avoided eye contact and held threatening looking sticks, and we passed without incident.
Lake Lugu is really pretty but maybe not quite as weird as you would expect. It's purportedly the only matriarchal society left in the world. They have all kinds of goddess mountains and stuff, and the line of descent goes through the mother instead of the father. As far as we can tell, men don't have too much importance in society. Anyway it's also home to a huge plateau lake (we think we're about 2 kilometers above sea level), and the lake is really gorgeous.
We're probably leaving tomorrow to go to Lijiang, since this place is gorgeous but life is a little slow and too boring for Andy. It's weird because I'm getting more and more homesick and wanting western food and stuff, but I know we'll be leaving for good in two weeks, so I should probably try to soak up Chinese culture even more. However, I guess Lijiang and Dali are big backpacker towns so it's probably really easy to pretend like you're barely in China at all. While we were trekking on Emei Shan, I dreamt of coffee and french fries, so it's hard to pick another bowl of tomato noodles over a delicious western breakfast when it's available.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Xi'An and Chengdu
Sorry this will be a picture-free post, but we don't have it together enough to regale you with images. We went through Xi'An recently, the city that hosts the legion of terracotta warriors. It's pretty cool, and a massive act of humanism for a Chinese emperor to bury terracotta versions of his army instead of burying the live army along with him, but I thought it was a little boring. I know each warrior is totally individual, with a distinct face and clothes, but you're not allowed anywhere near close enough to them to really discern any differences. What was really cool was the Xi'An water and music show! An entire square in the city transforms into a dancing fountain that moves to the beat of music. It's really gorgeous. I bet there's a good YouTube video somewhere, but the site's still blocked in China, so you'll have to look it up yourself. I sort of worry that China's new, tackier tourist attractions sometimes appeal to me more than its ancient sights. Makes me feel like a heathen. I'm handing it off to Andy, who will tell you about Chengdu.
Chengdu is super fun! We just got back from the panda research center, where thanks to lucky connections with cool people we met, we discovered that we can avoid paying the 100 yuan fee to our hostel or the 58 yuan regular entrance fee, and instead were able to get special 1 yuan panda gold cards which allow us to visit most of the attractions around here totally free! So i used all that money i saved and blew it on getting to hold the cutest best red panda in my lap and feed it apples! IT WAS THE BEST! (I could have also held the baby famous pandas but those were 1000 yuan instead of 100). We got there at a perfect time and all the pandas were going freaking nuts:Running all over , attacking each other, and generally being the cutest things imaginable. Oh man!
Before that we have been visiting some weird old temples (if anyone ever played the game "Dynasty Warriors" we got to go to liu bei's mausoleum and castle), eating super spicy sichuan hot-pot, relaxed at a tea house and missed a very lame chinese death metal concert. (it started at 8 and was over before we got there at 9:30, super metal)
Tomorrow we are going to try to head out to some cool taoist caves, and maybe the world's largest overall buddha (http://www.gluckman.com/LeshanBuddha.html).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)