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.
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