Tuesday of Our Trip - Part 3

It had been quite the night before, all of us staying up till about 3 or 4 AM. We were all pretty much asleep, but at 8 in the morning, we were awoken by some pretty crazy laughter by Carlin. Mostly mad, I rolled over to see what the fuss was all about, and I am sure glad that I did. Somehow, we still do not completely know how or why, one of the guys in our group was sleeping in the same bed as another guy in our group. The hilarity really got going when we realized that the one roommate who wasn't suppose to be in this bed, was completely buck naked...haha!!

At this point I am dying laughing in the top bunk, not really understanding what was going on but frankly not really trying to understand. The funny part was that neither of them even realized what was going on until they fully woke up, and they gave that double take at each other, like...what the heck....haha it was so so funny, I honestly laughed harder than the night before with the crazy asian guy. Hopefully you didn't forget about the 6th guy in the room, our new roommate. It was 8 in the morning and only getting a couple hours of sleep, we were all dying laughing while this poor guy just wanted a place to sleep. After the laughter settled down, we were all able to head back to bed until about noon. When we woke up, our roommate was nowhere to be found =/...so two roommates lost in consecutive nights, maybe we are the weird ones everyone is afraid to get stuck with while staying at a hostel. It was sad that he was no longer there, but it was also a good thing that we no longer had a roommate the rest of the trip to be annoyed by us.

Alright so after all the morning shenanigans, we decided that we wanted to hit up the Muslim quarter of the inner city. This part is extremely well known for its food and cheap prices. It wasn't till I got here and took my culture class that I found out how big of a Muslim population there is here in China. After the traditional and ancient beliefs, this religion has the most followers in China. It kind of blew me away thinking that a religion that I thought was primarily in the Middle East, plays an extremely large role here in China. It was definitely an interesting experience walking through the countless roads, side roads, and alleyways where this population lived and did business. Below are just a couple pictures of what we saw in this area of the town.

There were many crossroads in this area and if you stood in the middle of it, you could literally see this view on all sides of you. The streets were very narrow but there was food and merchandise sold in every direction.

This is just another picture of more of the main road going through the Muslim marketplace

After the stop to the marketplace, we wanted to check out one of the most famous pagodas in China. It is called the Big (Wild) Goose Pagoda (yes there is a small one that we didn't check out). We went later in the night because every night there is a big fountain show right in front of it. Although the pagoda was closed, we were still able to get some good pictures of it and see the fountain show. Again, below are just some of the pictures we took while we were there.

Above is the Big Goose Pagoda. The whole area around it was like one ginormous park that was lit up everywhere you looked. It was a pretty amazing sight. Again, I am not able to describe really what I saw because it really was just that awesome. The atmosphere is literally indescribable. 

The three pictures above are our attempts at water bending. It is from a tv show just to clear things up a little bit. Josh in the middle picture was declared the winner.

We really weren't suppose to get in the fountain area when the show was going on, but as you can see above, multiple people were doing it. So being the followers that we all are haha, decided it would be fun to also join in. As a result, I was able to get this picture of the fountains and the pagoda in the background. I think it turned out pretty good!

The picture above is a guy who really wanted to take a picture with me. I am still amazed and slightly confused with the amount of Chinese wanting to take pictures with us. I always try to relate it back to the states which is probably why I find it so strange...in Indiana when I see someone not from the country, I don't ask him or her for a picture with them. Haha I don't know, it just another thing I think about.

After the show was over, we grabbed a bite to eat and headed home. The rest of the night consisted of playing cards and drinking while going over our game plan for the next day. We all agreed that we would ride bikes around the inner city wall, about 9 miles from start to finish! I will be posting more pictures and stuff about it in my entry tomorrow!

Corbin

Xi'an (Monday)

Alright so I left off without telling you of what woke all of us up after midnight on Monday. About 12:30 AM rolled around, and our door suddenly opened. We knew our roommate was still out and about, but we just assumed he would come in as quiet as possible. The door opened, and two guys came in; the one escorting his friend (our roommate) to his single bed at the end of the room. The friend said he was sorry and left the scene fearing for what might happen next if he stayed. At this point we are all kind of dazed on what was really going because we had just woken back up. He staying pretty quiet for the first few minutes, and then all of a sudden he appeared in the middle of the room with only his long underwear on...

Speaking decent enough English, he explained to us that he was quite inebriated and that he was sorry. He told us atleast a hundred times that he was sorry. He continued to ramble on in the middle of the room essentially naked when God knows why he decided to jump into Elliot's bunk trying to 'cuddle'. As if cuddling was not enough, he attempted to kiss every single one of us minus Carlin...not saying that he was successful with some of us may or may not be a lie. I will say that being on the top bunk saved me from much of this awkward asian man, and I was not touched haha. While Elliot continues to fend off this man telling him to just go to his bed and go to sleep, all of us were just dying laughing. My stomach hurt afterwards from laughing so hard...all the time this man was trying to get in our beds, he kept saying how he was not a handsome man, and that we were all very good looking...

Needless to say, he finally was convinced that his bed was actually the empty one in the corner of the room. He finally laid down, but DID NOT go to bed...ugh! He decided that it would be a good idea to talk to someone on his phone for a good 2-3 hours till the wee morning light...

Although I had quite the morning laughing while also fearing to close my eyes, I was glad to learn that he moved out the next morning to a different room...which was quite a good thing haha

So you guys get somewhat of an idea of what craziness I am talking about, I present you this picture I was able to capture of this crazy night.

Crazy man haha

Anyways, like I said in my first post, Monday was the day we decided to head to the Terracotta Warriors. I was pretty stoked to head out even though we had to be up by 6 to make it to the bus by 7 AM to take us there. A little hiccup though before we started, the bus driver locked his keys in the bus... With a little Chinese ingenuity and lock picking devices, we were only set back about 20 minutes or so. The bus ride was about an hour and a half which was not too bad. When we got there, our tour guide led us out to where the 3 pits were. I was not expecting to see that buildings were built over all three pits to make this attraction a whole year around thing.

Our tour guide was quite weathered in this field having gone to this place every week day for the past three years haha. She gave us a very informative tour of each pit, showing us the least interesting one to the grand finale! As soon as we walked into the the first building to see the pit, I was already in awe...the soldiers are around 2000 years old and some of them are still intact from all the way back then. 

Another fact I found interesting was that archaeologists are still working in these pits every day starting at 6 PM after the tourists are gone. There is a strong belief that there are more pits that are still not discovered because of the positioning of the warriors in the three pits. So look out, in the next few years the 6000 soldiers already discovered could become much much more! After hearing interesting fact after interesting fact, we finally made it to the grand finale! The last pit is where most of the soldiers were found. Because most of the warriors were broken when found, archaeologists are finding best match pieces every night and piecing them back together. Once they have a complete warrior, they will replace it where it was found but standing up. Below are some of the cool pictures that I took of my time at these pits.

This is from the third pit, there used to be a chariot made of wood where the 36 is. Being made of wood, it was not able to restored.

These guys are still being finished and are almost ready to be put back with their friends

I wish these pictures could express how truly amazing this sight was. An army of clay soldiers that were thought to be used in the afterlife...it was pretty awesome

Just a picture from behind as we walked to the front

After exiting this last pit, we stopped and ate a pretty mighty meal of quite the variety, nothing I hadn't had already; but it was pretty good. After dinner, we headed back to the hostel where we had a pretty relaxed night. We did however, find out that we had acquired a new roommate. He looked like he was a world travel, and was pretty laid back when we talked to him. We were hoping that this one would actually stay for awhile...well we were proved wrong once again...

The following morning, I again was crying because I was laughing so hard...I will make sure to write all about it it the next post!

Hopefully you guys keep reading these =]

Corbin

  

Xi'an Recap Part 1

Wow, what a week!! I got settled in to the new campus last Saturday, but relaxing did not last too long as my group of 5 guys set out to explore China on our own! The destination was Xi'an, and we could not have picked a better place to spend the week without school!

I thought about how I wanted to post of my experiences while being gone for a week with limited access to the internet and this blog. I was able to update you guys briefly on some of my experiences from my phone, but I also wanted to go a bit more in depth on some of the experiences had on each day. If I were to sit down and write about everything from Sunday to Friday in this one post, well I would be writing till the early morning, and you would be reading for quite some time haha. So, I decided to go ahead and write about my events in parts. I will post each night on what I did exactly a week ago. So tonight, being Sunday, I will be writing about my experiences last Sunday when we arrived in Xi'an by train.

Depending how much I am willing to write, I may be combining more than one day of my trip on any given night, so just watch out for that =]

Alrighty then, I want to talk about my experience of getting to the great city of Xi'an (pronounced Shee-an) by sleeper train and also what we did on the first day.

I really had no idea what to expect when riding on this train, as I have had no previous experiences on trains that went such distances. My furthest train ride was about 3 hours where we sat on hard seats the whole way there. The group of 5 guys that I decided to go with wanted to see what it was like to get a soft bed sleeper for our 14 hour train ride. I had numerous ideas of what this might be running through my head, but really had no inclinations of what this trip might be like. As we arrived to the train station in Shanghai, masses and masses of people like I have never seen flooded the station attempting to buy tickets, waiting to board, and all with the same purpose; getting back to their families for the Chinese New Year. Because of this, I was quite nervous that we would miss our train, but luckily we found our terminal, boarded our train, and found our sleeper cabin!

As you can see by the picture above, the room has two bunks that fits four people quite well. The beds were more or less small pads on a hard surface, but the room had a comfy feel to it nonetheless. Both Elliot and I were quite happy as you can see that these rooms were actually decent for a 14 hour train ride.

As you can see with this picture, the top bunk is set up pretty similar as the bottom bunk. You were given one pillow with a blanket for the trip. There were tv's for each bed, but they weren't working for this trip for some reason. 

Now some of you may have been doing the math in your head saying 5 guys, 4 beds, something does not seem right. Well this would be correct haha, one of our group actually stayed in a similar sleeper with three Chinese guys going back to Xi'an to see there family for the New Year. Because of this, we spent the majority of the night being spoiled by our new Chinese friends. One of three Chinese guys spoke as much English as we spoke Chinese, so the act of hanging out with them was actually a bit difficult. Regardless, whatever words were spoken, they seemed to understand that we were good guys that were just wanting to have fun. They ended up buying much beer and snacks for the room so that we all could have a good time.

It was at this point that I actually surprised myself by actually having short conversations with one of the Chinese fellows describing who I was, what I was doing in China, and other random talking topics. Although the conversations were short, it was great to atleast try speaking and understanding others in a different language. This went on for much of the night until every one was pretty exhausted and went to bed.

On another note of the train ride, if squatters weren't hard enough to use the way it is, there were multiple ones on the train. I did not try it, but thinking about it just doesn't make much sense to me haha.

We pretty much were able to sleep most of the way until we pulled up to the station in Xi'an. We were able to book a hostel ahead of time, so a man was waiting for us with a sign that said Cartin Horman (suppose to be Carlin Hormann) who took us to the hostel. At this point it was still pretty early in the day, and we arrived at the actual building around 10 in the morning.

Above is actually the entrance to the place we stayed at that was taken from the city wall on Wednesday. This was also a new experience for me staying at a place like this. Hostels are pretty much hotels but for much much less for those who are wondering. This place was very nice having many different styles of rooms, a cafe, a bar, free wifi (spotty though), and a great staff. We were staying in a dorm style room that slept 6, 2 bunks and 2 beds. Because of the one extra bed, we did have 2 different roommates during the duration of our stay....If you want a good story, read tomorrow and Tuesday's post because both have to deal with those roommates and how they didn't stay for very long haha!

Once we were settled in, we were all itching to go out and explore this new terrain that we immersed ourselves in. We kind of just walked around inside the gates coming up with possible game plans for the next coming days. There are a couple major buildings that are a must see inside the walls of Xi'an. Two of these are the Bell Tower and the Drum tower. The Bell Tower is the center of attention in the inner city because it is in the exact center of all the walls. The South, West, North, and East streets all connect around the Bell Tower creating one of the biggest round abouts I have ever seen. We were about a 10-15 walk from this tower which me made quite a few times. 

Before it got dark, we headed back to the hostel to come up with an actual gameplan for what we wanted to do on Monday. We decided that we would get up early and see the world famous Terracotta Army. If there was one thing I wanted to see on this trip to Xi'an, it was these statues. I was definitely not let down but what I saw the next day which will be in my next post! =]

After the game plan, we headed back to the Bell Tower to take pictures of it lit up against the dark night sky. Below is the best picture I took that shows both the Bell Tower and the Drum tower in the distance.

This was a pretty amazing sight to see, and it amazes me that people actually live here in see these every day. To them, they aren't some famous relic that has been around for the past thousand and some odd years, but a beacon of their own city. I find this often times hard to comprehend at home, not having the same ancient backgrounds. I once visited Boston not too long ago and saw all of my own "ancient heritage" and where it all started for the United States. By the time those buildings were built, these two buildings have been aging in history and had already withstood a thousand years. We see certain buildings in the States and think that they are special, and they are, but these buildings really do encompass more than just a timestamp. They represent the ever present culture that still is seen in every day lives here in China. If anything blew me away the most on this trip, it was thinking about this.

Who knew you could get so much out of a building haha, or maybe I just read into it too much. Regardless, it fascinates me either way =]

After seeing these buildings, we headed back to the hostel where we got acquainted to the bar in the basement. Because we were staying there, prices were discounted for us, and much fun was had playing cards and just spelling out what was to come. We called it a early night because we were pretty exhausted from our train ride, and an early morning was ahead of us. Little did we know that a little past midnight, our roommate would be waking us up with some interesting antics.

That is all for now, Part 2 will include our first roommate story and also our trip to see the Terracotta Army with was amazing! There will also be more pictures to come =]

Hopefully this read was good, and you will come back to read the next one =]

God Bless,

Corbin 

The Epicness Continues in Xi'an!

After an interesting start here at the hostel, the otherwise quiet city of Xian was anything but with the presence of a few Americans.

Again more details and pictures will come, but the fun continued as we were able to travel through the markets without much trouble, find our own way to some amazing mountains, and then most recently were the center of attention at the biggest club in Xian! The experiences just keep growing, and I can't wait what is to come!

More to come :)

Corbin

Xi'an - quite an interesting start

So our spring break is happening right now in Xian China, and what an interesting few days! A little overview here and then ill post more when I get a computer.

The train ride was awesome! We met these old Chinese guys who couldn't speak barely any English but wanted to drink with us! We were able to communicate quite a few conversations with each other with the Chinese that we knew and the English they knew! They liked us enough to invite us to karaoke haha.

The first night, our Asian roommate came in completely drunk with no clothes on trying to cuddle and kiss everyone haha...very weird...more on this to come!

We then went and saw the terracotta army...mind blown, can't wait to talk about this. Here is a picture :) and its only the third day we have been here!

Corbin

Goodbye Xujiahui, Hello Minhang

So as I promised, here is my latest blog entry! This past week was full of pretty awesome experiences left and right. I want to let you in on some of them. I left off last time talking about school, fieldtrips, and just some of the bar life here in downtown Shanghai. Although it has just been a week, I feel as if I have a million things that I want to talk about.

First things first, I want to go back to last week. SUPER BOWL MONDAY was a great experience in itself haha. Because the game was so late, we actually had to get up early on Monday to watch the big game. There is really nothing like eating eggs, bacon, and BEER on a Monday morning. (Don't worry, we were able to persuade our teachers to reschedule classes so that we could make the whole day into a good time =]). The game itself was amazing as I am sure most of you know, but a good friend of ours, Josh, is a huge Baltimore Ravens fan. It was almost as much fun just watching him bite his nails and do his superstitious routines to help his Ravens hold off the 49ers. As the time ticked to nothing, the cheering in the bar was pretty awesome, mostly because it was just Josh and Carlin doing the cheering. Carlin, really isn't a Ravens fan, but that morning, you would have thought he rooted for them since he was a little kid haha.

This is Josh having a rough time as the 49ers began their comeback in the 2nd half. It was pretty funny to watch. Elliot and I both took quite a bit of video that I can show when I get back haha.

After the big game on Monday, Tuesday brought my Chinese Language Final. Although I was a bit nervous to actually speak in front of my classmates for a Final grade, I ended up passing with flying colors. I was successfully able to talk about my best friend for 15 sentences, so yes Logan helped me get a passing Final grade haha. After Tuesday, Wednesday brought my last class on this campus which was my Chinese Culture Class. It was a good time, filled with much laughter and actually somewhat sad. Our teacher, Weiqi, was probably one of the most interesting and entertaining teachers I have had in College. She truly enjoyed teaching us "Americans" the history and ways of the Chinese people. I can honestly say that this was my favorite class because she was teaching it. Any who, Wednesday ended which brings us to Thursday which I really want to talk about!

Thursday night, our entire group was to preform at the main campus in Minhang in front of 600+ people affiliated with the school. They in return fed us an amazing free meal, which included 15 different foods, and unlimited beer and pop. Our group is really making a decent impact and making a little bit of noise around the Shanghai area. This is the first year that the school has asked our group to do something, and we have successfully awed them into loving us haha. We were even written about in one of the largest newspapers in Shanghai -----> http://xmwb.xinmin.cn/html/2013-02/06/content_6_3.htm.

----I am actually in the picture! I am sitting in the very back on a table looking away in black sweatshirt!----

Also I know its in Chinese, so here is what the article says in English =]

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Purdue's Exchange Students Preparing for Chinese New Year
-Yi Rong

(caption for photo: Purdue exchange students showing off their paper-cutting art work)

Snowflakes, Zodiac Signs, City Views, these are the paper-cutting art works the students are talking about for a competition, the winning student will receive a professional art piece done by Shanghai's local artist Xi xiao qing. 

During this Chinese Culture class, a group of 40 exchange students from Purdue University studying in Shanghai Jiao Tong University's mechanical engineering department discusses about their lives in China.

"(we are) used to living here" in China and Chinese culture is "very interesting", they are awaiting the coming Chinese New Year with excitement.

-They love "Meat buns (bao zi)" and eat it as snacks-

SJTU and Purdue University have been collaborating for years and many rotations have gone by over the years. This time, the 40 students that arrived have lived in Shanghai for about 2 months, taking intercultural study, Chinese culture & history, and Chinese classes. After the new semester begin, they will be taking heat and mass transfer and engineering thermodynamics and other classes. Some of the students will be staying in Shanghai for internships.

Coming to China, the Chinese food have captured these exchange student's heart. Bao Zi became their favorite snack, even the street food stand selling noodle is often visited. The Bao Zi and noodle shop keepers are quickly becoming friend with these students, "My chow-mien friends went home over the New Year and I am quite sad and miss them" -Jessica said.

-Learning about the Chinese culture and to speak Chinese language-

"ni hao" is the first phrase they learn. "mamahuhu (horse horse tiger tiger meaning "so so") is the funniest phrase the students find. Chinese traditional medicine leaves them facinated. Through Sa Weiqi's culture class and Dianne's intercultural studies, the exchange students gradually understand the Chinese culture. Nitesh have learned Chinese for 3 semester before he arrive, "learning in China" is always his dream, although he only knows "yi diandian (a little bit)" of chinese, it was enough to get him and his friend through a difficult situation in Tongli and got his friends back to Shanghai.

Outside of class, students take group trips to explore the city's attractions and to understand the local's lives. Public transportation is very convenient and left everyone a good impression. The rush hour traffic left everyone in shock. "It seems chaotic but there seems to be a natural order" said John Roberts.

During the banquet hosted by the school of mechanical engineering, the Purdue students performed a dance that combined popular songs from the East and West. When the melody of the "Most dazzling folk song" came on, the whole crowd clapped for them. In the past two days, the class leader Kat and Joe have been practicing with class mates to sing "pengyou" in the coming up SJTU new year banquet. This song also reflect a bit of their feeling of making friends, learning about culture, and gain some knowledge whilst here in Shanghai.

reported by Yi Rong

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So if any of you were wondering, we are actually getting stuff accomplished; and we are being recognized which is a first for our group!! It is kind of exciting.

As far as the banquet we had on Thursday night, the performance went so well. It started out with the same dance with the select group that has done it before. (I posted this dance earlier as a youtube link, the one I did the music for). Then the entire group got on stage and we faded into the Purdue fight song, and then ended with a local favorite song called The Friend Song. (Pengyou - Friend in Chinese). We sang it in Chinese, and the whole crowed loved it and sang with us. It was definitely a crowd pleaser =] and I will try to see if I can find someone who recorded it, so I can post it. All in all, we are making ourselves at home here in China; and although at times it still is really difficult to fit in, things are going well =]

So then this brings us to Friday, my first Exam for my online class. It was pretty hard like I expected, but I think I did okay on it. That is really all that Friday entailed. Saturday rolled around, which also ended up being the Chinese New Year Eve. After a very nice sit down dinner with the group, we went out on the town to experience the Chinese New Year in full.

The atmosphere is like nothing you would be able to experience in the states. Fireworks aren't just for pretty colors and fun, but they serve an important role in Chinese culture. As the legend goes, lighting fireworks and putting red on your door scares off the Great Nien that would come and eat the people. Lighting fireworks scares away this creature. This being said, there aren't just a couple of people setting off fireworks throughout the night. Anywhere you look, in alleys, on main roads, in yards, people are setting off traditional fireworks that light up the night sky. You can literally just stand there and lose your understanding of a peaceful night. The usual sounds of a few horns and otherwise silence are filled with bangs and pops of fireworks in the night sky. I walked a good mile home from a bar that I was at, and not once was there a time where I just heard silence. This may have taken away from some needed sleep, but was completely worth it for the experience!

This image pretty much captures what it was like all around the city. Empty red boxes and remains of Chinese firecrackers could be seen everywhere. The amazing thing was that fireworks could literally be set off anywhere! The image above was taken on a pretty busy street where cars were backed up a good couple of blocks until the show was done. These were also set off close to a building where many of the rapport would hit the 10-15th floor windows which in America is just unheard of. Another start different in safety measures between the two countries. This was a good night, and I am so glad I was here to experience it.

Alright now to our class field trip. Sorry if this is long, but I really have done so much that I want to make sure I incorporate the important stuff!

Our field trip consisted of heading out to Suzhou on Sunday, visit some important sites, stay the night till Monday, then head to Hangzhou on Monday, stay the night, visit some sites on Tuesday, then head back here to Shanghai. The days were pretty long it seemed, and there was many amazing sites that we saw. I think what will be easiest, is for me to just post a few pictures of some of the things I did, and explain about them.

This is the same pagoda from the last post. It is the oldest standing pagoda in China. It is probably the coolest pagoda I have seen so far

The picture on the left above shows a bridge that had been used for the past 400+ years or something like that. The two holes on the right above are in that bridge. In the earlier uses, the Chinese would use this to stick people into these holes and then behead them. The bodies would then fall into the river below.

Suzhou is world famous for their silk worm silk products. We were able to take a tour of this famous silk mill. It was extremely interesting to learn the process of how silk worms make the silk. Above shows the machine extracting the silk from cocoons 

Above shows a larger plaza/garden area. It was pretty much like the other gardens I have seen while I have been here, but this one was much larger than the other ones. I thought this picture was pretty cool, so I wanted to show it to you guys =]

I have never seen this many bonsai trees before, well I haven't really seen many bonsai trees period. There were about 100 of them in different shapes and sizes spread among three different gardens. 

This is what the first hotel looked like that we stayed at. It was a Holiday Inn, and it was quite nice! haha. We ended up being on the 15th floor with a pretty awesome view. It was nice to come back to a pretty awesome bed after we walked all day.

This is a temple where many people were burning incense praying to their gods. Because it is part of the New Year celebration, many other Chinese were here from all over China to pray to these gods. 

While we were here, we took a cruise down the canals of Suzhou. It was pretty interesting because it seemed as if the ancient culture just remained intact. This picture showcases what most of the canal side homes looked like. Most looked primitive and still relying on the canal for most of the major necessities. It was a pretty amazing view.

This is said to be the oldest wall in China. We have heard many times that this is the oldest that, or that is the oldest this, so we really don't know what to believe when things seem to contradict each other. According to our tour guide, this is the oldest standing wall in China!

The rare golden dragon boat readys itself for its voyage. This lake is in Hangzhou and played an important role in the shaping of this area of China.

This shows a cave that we walked through in Hangzhou. This was probably the coolest thing we did on this trip. I wasn't able to get a good picture inside the cave, but I will hopefully get some pictures from some friends off of facebook. The cave was lit up with colorful neon lights, and it made the experience pretty awesome.

Part of another garden place we visited in Hangzhou.

This was called the 7-Story Pagoda which I am not sure why because it has much more than 7 floors. We were able to go to the top, and the picture below shows what the view looked like when you got there.

The last stop we made before we headed back to Shanghai was a tea farm. These tea plants covered this area and were plentiful all throughout this area. We were able to taste test some of this tea, and it was just okay. Haha but that also comes from me who isn't a big fan of tea.

Well that brings us to today =]. We move to the other campus in Minhang on Saturday which will be filled with more and awesome experiences. I cannot wait for it; we only have classes on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday which will make for some time to dig deep into the Chinese Culture. Also because we do not start classes till the 25th, me and a group of other guys are heading off to a place called Xi'an, China. I will hopefully be able to update this blog on the go through my phone. I will definitely be posting another long post with pictures when I get back sometime =]

If any of you have any questions about the pictures or any of the experiences I have mentioned, please do not hesitate to ask!!! =]

Hopefully all is well with everyone at home =]

God bless,

Corbin Blair

A Recap of This Past Week

I am currently sittin g in the lobby of a Holiday Inn in Suzhou, China. We are on our class field trip doing a number of things. Once I get back to my laptop, ill post a full recap of what I have been up to this past week! It was pretty fun and fulfilling week :)

To tide you over, here are some pictures of the oldest pagoda in China that is still fully standing. And yes, it does slant at about a 3 degree angle.

It's Already Been 4 Weeks!!

Before I start this one, just want to apologize for not having posted for awhile. I did not realize that I was actually going to be this busy haha, and maybe I was being just a tad lazy =]

Anywho, last time I posted I talked about going to a water town and seeing a pretty stellar concert that is Steve Aoki, hopefully this one will be just as interesting.

This past Friday, a group of us guys decided to head out for some night fun at a bar called Perry's. Many of our group had already been here and told us that it was a good time. It had a great atmosphere and most of the people there were fellow internationals who were here either for school, internships, or jobs, which made it easier to relate to and start conversations with.

To start with, it was just Elliot, Carlin, and I that got one of the bigger party tables that were there because it was the only table that was available. We were perfectly okay with this, just more room for us when the rest of the group came. We ordered and were getting used to the atmosphere when a bigger group of girls came to meet up with some of their friends that were sitting at a table close to ours. (Please read the rest before jumping to any conclusions haha). Being the good gentlemen we are, we decided to graciously relinquish our seats so that these lovely ladies could enjoy a night with their entire group. Later, a girl from the group came over and talked to us introducing us to the rest of their group. The girls were from a scattered number of countries throughout this world. Germany, Finland, Norway, Sweden, England, and one lone American girl. They were all here for school, and being at a bar figured they were around our age. After talking more and more with the American girl, we found out that most of the girls were 16 and 17 years old! Haha, Carlin, Elliot, and myself all looked at each other, wondering why such "young" girls were doing at a bar. The official drinking age in China is 18, but many bars do not care who they let in.

The rest of our group showed up, and that was the end of talking for the most part with that group of girls. Myself and Carlin just sat in amazement just looking around the bar observing the different culture of this bar, the amount of "underage" drinkers, and the diversity of the seemingly worldwide activity that is drinking.

I knew I was going to be in a place that was nothing like anything I had experienced before; new food, new people, new everything, but even by week 4, I am amazed at the stark differences between what I thought I knew China was like, and what it is really like. Although Shanghai is a very diverse city, I did not think I would meet people from 10 different countries in one night. I was thinking that when I went out to a bar or club, that I would be meeting people my age or older than me, I was not expecting to meet people younger than me let alone 16! The funny thing about some of the 16 year olds, they seemed to fit the bar scene better than I did haha. This all being said, I have been loving experiences these new things, things that if I would have played it safe, would have never experienced in a million years. It still just takes me back to the fact that God has to have an amazing plan for me...I cannot wait to see what the rest of this semester has to bring.

I must say that going to Perry's was a great time, and getting to know some of my fellow students on this trip has already proved invaluable. I definitely know that these relationships will last outside this trip and continue to last for quite some time. The rest of last weekend was pretty laid back, and so I won't post really about that. Homework was complete and movies were watched, that is about it haha.

This is at Perry's. The whole bar is covered in signatures from people around the world. It makes for quite the wallpaper.

The following Monday (4 days ago), we went on a field trip with my ME 497 class to the American Axle Plant here in China. We loaded up the bus around 7:15, and the trip there ended up taking around 4 hours =/. It was only suppose to take one and half hours. When we were on the highway, the traffic came to a sudden halt. Here, because of the smog, the whole highway was shut down. Yes it was that bad, below is a picture of us when we were stuck. You can kind of see how bad the traffic backup was and the smog.

The plant was pretty interesting. It was about 210,000 square feet and reminded me much of my internship. The pictures above really don't do it justice on how massive the plant was, but they are some neat pictures regardless. There were many machines doing pretty awesome jobs on the floor, and a few labs doing quality testing. We were showed around most of the plant and ended with some amazing sandwiches and fruit (May be the best American Style sandwich I have eaten here. I was going to take a picture, but I was so hungry that I forgot to haha). We did end up making it home with a lot less difficulty than it took getting there. The experience was pretty unique because even though it was a Michigan based Company, the way it was run was anything but American.

That brings us to Tuesday-Thursday which really nothing exciting happened, other than on Wednesday night, many of us went out to Burger Night at a bar in the French Concession of Shanghai. Below is said burger, which I must say was an experience in itself. Below is a picture of the burger that I got. It was a Blu Cheese Burger which I was expecting to have a bit of blu cheese sprinkled on the burger. NOPE, haha there was a ton of it right smack dab in the middle. It was still a pretty dang good burger which sent me home a pretty happy camper.

The burger was really like a baseball. Both the burger and the fries were delicious

This brings us to today (Friday February 1st, 4 weeks in). I can't express how thankful I am that I am here living out this experience. God is working in me, that much I know is true. Also so thankful for my parents and my family. I was able to skype with my lovely parents this morning, and their bright faces said enough without them saying a single word. I love them so much! Also shoutout to my amazing sister Ashley and her husband Lance, and to my brothers Logan and Nate. Now, none of you can be mad at me haha =]

Before I head off to another pretty relaxed weekend, I want to share my progress for the first 4 weeks on a few topics

The Bet: None of us have caved, all facial hair is going strong. Not going to lie, I grow a pretty awesome mustache! Ask my parents if you don't believe me haha, they saw it on skype this morning
Chopsticks: Never thought I would love these little guys as much as I do. They are really useful, pretty much an extension of my hand. I wouldn't say that I am on grandmaster level with them yet, but I am extremely close!
Friends: Never would I have thought that I could actually have engineering friends outside of Carlin and Elliot haha, but I have already made a few good ones. Also, I have been reminded why I like hanging out with Carlin and Elliot haha.
Faith: I was pretty nervous that when I came here, my faith would suffer. I keep mentioning in my posts that God has blessed me so much with being able to go on this trip, and it really is so true. I keep seeing his amazing works where ever I go whether its in the people I am talking to, the opportunities he opens for me, or just the amazing scenery here, I see Him. It really is relieving to know that whatever happens here, He has His plan for me and has everything under control!


Writing these entries really makes me step back from this entire experience of China already, and really want to understand why the people here are the way they are. Why they focus so much on family? Why "face" and self-pride are so highly regarded? Why China keeps adapting to western society, when outside influence in America is so menial and slow? I still have about 3 and a half months, and I am hoping I can answer some of these questions before I have to leave!


Hopefully you who read this get something out of it! =] I really do enjoy writing them when I get the time. I am hoping to keep posting atleast once a week.

If you are wondering about anything I am doing or will be doing, please please please email me at blairc@purdue.edu. I would love to answer any questions that this blog may have sparked or questions you already had about China.

Also, if you want to skype, my skype name is at the top right underneath the picture. Just add my name, and we can set up a time, I would love to skype!

God Bless!

Corbin

OH WAIT, PLEASE CHECK OUT THIS YOUTUBE VIDEO!! haha its of some of my group doing a little dance for a Chinese banquet. I was in charge of doing the music for it, enjoy! =]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rz0Tfn5BcCw