long time no entry

i've been home for a few weeks and despite having no job and nothing to do, i have been too lazy to update my xanga. but the lack of update is probably also due to the fact that i have done a lot of nothin lately. the trip around China and Thailand was simply amazing. i can't wait to go abroad again, to anywhere. but, i do need to earn some money before spendin it all over the world, and the way things are goin now, doesn't look like i'll be having any positive cashflow anytime soon.

anyway, i decided to update because i had a really fun day yesterday and wrote an email to some friends about it, and thought i'd plagerize myself a bit to make things easier.

After dinner came the show! Phantom of the Opera was amaaaazing! When the phantom theme came on the first time it was really funny because I kept thinking our marching band show junior year (i kno, how terribly sad). My legs almost involuntarily started to move, haha JK. But really, it was such a fabulous show! After the show, we parted ways with Steph's roommie, got some Nuts for Nuts--a must every single time i'm in the city, and headed back to the more awesome side of Hudson River.

on our own

After a week with the school group and another 5 days with the Jon/Johns, KP and I are now officially on our own. Exciting? Freightening? Perhaps a mix of both? In today alone, we hit 4 major cities of China: Dali, Kunming, Guilin, and now we're in Yangshuo, a town close to Guilin that is even more picturesque and a lot more backpacker-ish. Backpacker, a term I have never ever come close to associate myself with, rolls off my tongue a lot easier nowadays. KP and I got into Yangshuo and settled in into this dingy youth hostel for 20yuan per person per night. We actually have a 3 bed room with a private bathroom including a western-style toilet and hot water. We should be very happy with the accomodations, but something about the place just doesn't feel right. It's so ...unhomey. We fell very alienated and lonely. Perhaps that's why it's almost 1am and we're still sitting in this internet cafe passing time. Tomorrow, we're moving to the center of town into a more expensive and more active place. We need people in our lives. People and noise and life. Thankfully, I think we will get that tomorrow when we go biking to the riverbank and floating down the Yulong River on a bamboo raft. It's going to be beautiful. I can feel it. And whatever I feel nowadays, seems to become reality. So, basically, it's going to be a wonderful day because I said it is.

On the night of the 25th, we're heading to Bangkok to regroup with 3 lovely girls from the study abroad program. From there, we're going to head down to Phuket for four days, then back up to Bangkok for another 3. When we bid farewell to Thailand, KP and I are flying back to Guilin together and staying the night at the airport (or somewhere near there) and I'm flying back to Beijing the following morning. Then, on Monday May 8th, 2006, I will be back in the United States! I think I am ready to head home. I miss my parents, I miss Greg, and I definitely miss my friends. I even miss Cornell. And New Jersey. But, for now, I'll keep faking the life of a backpacker and do my best at having a blast wherever I find myself on the continent of Asia.

On a sidenote, breaking up from the foursome has been proven a bit difficult. KP and I spent the whole day of traveling reminiscing and being reminded of our former travel buddies. Street food, orange shirts, backpacker backpacks, hiking boots, hairy men, lol. Traveling on our own isn't too easy, but it's not un-doable. We are two tough cookies and we have the advantage of being able to pass for native Chinese (KP's Chinese Viet). Two more days of this twosome action and then we'll be partying it up with the girls in Thailand. For now, I'm very glad we have each other.

travel plans

my life in the next few weeks:

4/10-4/12: Xi'an-Terracotta warriors

4/13-4/14: Chengdu-Panda center

4/15-4/16: Lhasa (Tibet)-Potala Palace

4/17: Chengdu-Leshan (Big buddha mountain)

4/18: Kunming

4/19-4/20: Dali

4/21-4/22: Lijiang

4/23: Kunming

4/24-4/25: Guilin

4/26: Bangkok, Thailand

4/27-4/30: Phuket-island hopping

5/1-5/3: Bangkok

5/4: Back to Beijing

5/8 (roughly): Back to U.S.!

t“V“ž—¹!

it's spring in Beijing and the Beida campus looks beautiful! the trees are green once again and the flowers are blooming in all different colors. Weiming Hu is no longer frozen, which means no more ice skating or goin on the skating chairs (darn), but the reflection of the foliage on the water is gorgeous. beida is gorges :-p

after class this afternoon, i went out for a walk around Beida by myself to take some pictures. it's the first walk i've taken w/o any companions and it was nice to have a bit of alone time. i'm so grateful to be studyin here at Beida for this semester. I am really really spoiled when it comes to beautiful college campuses, with Cornell and Beida...it really doesn't get better than that. thanks to the horrendous weather in Ithaca, i've come to fully appreciate any sliver of sunlight and any temperature above 50 (or sometimes, anythin in the double digits!). luckily for me, spring comes sooner in Beijing than in Ithaca, so while it is "spring break" at Cornell and still snowing in Ithaca, i am out enjoying the cool spring breeze and admiring the flowers and lake at Beida. good weather always puts me in a great mood!

on my walk, i stopped periodically to take pictures and videos. about halfway around the lake, another student approached me and asked me to take a picture of him with the water tower as a backdrop. so i took the pic, asked if it was okay, and continued on my walk. but then i noticed that he was walking alongside me now, haha. he actually struck up a conversation w/ me and was really friendly. i found out that he's a first year grad student from Inner Mongolia. how cool! he's like the 4th student i've met from inner mongolia (between beida and tsinghua). unfortuantely, he doesn't speak the inner mongolia dialect because the people there have all been 'mandarinized,' so to speak. we ended up loopin around the rest of the lake together and talkin about the difficulty of rural development/modernization (he just heard a lecture on it and i told him i was writing a paper on it, not completely random and senselessly nerdy). it was really cool to chat with a Beida student, the only bad part was that he prevented me from takin more pix of the campus! but i'm sure i'll have another opportunity to do that so no worries.

so, now i'm back, i uploaded some pix onto facebook, and i haven't done anythin else for the past 1.5 hours. need to start researching for my paper! haven't written a real paper since 1st sem. freshman year for freshman writing seminar. need to do some serious brushing up of my writing skills!! alrighty, that is all for now. tomorrow we're goin to a section of the Great Wall that dips into a lake (HuangHua Cheng) with the school and sunday i think my friends and i are plannin our own trip to XiangShan (Fragrant Mountain). i can't wait! will update later and hopefully put up more pix too!