Why we should be glad fireworks are illegal in America

Happy Chinese New Year from Beijing

Happy Chinese New Year （新年快乐）from The Study Abroad Blog. The actual start of the Chinese New Year a.k.a. Spring Festival (春节） was the 23rd of January, but since it lasts for 15 days, I think I can say Happy New Year and still be in the clear for another 3 days. Knowing both that it’s the biggest Chinese holiday and that the Chinese do it bigger than we do any holiday in America, I was looking forward to my first Chinese New Year experience, and what an experience it was… Read the rest of this entry

My 2012 study abroad New Year’s resolutions

No one ever told me about the rager going down at the Temple of Heaven so credit to the AP for the photo

I have mixed feelings about New Year’s resolutions. For the most part, I feel like if you want to accomplish something, there’s no need to wait until a specific day to start doing it. That being said, New Years is still a great reminder of how quick time flies. If nothing else, it allows me to reflect on everything I said I wanted to do over the course of the previous year (and whether or not I actually did them), as well as push me to start planning what I want to do next. In the spirit of that mindset, here’s 5 things I accomplished this past year, and 5 things I’m looking forward to/ want to/ need to do in 2012.
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Why I no longer suck at buying pirated goods

Silk Street

Sadly, it’s our last week here at CET. Surprisingly I’m not all that busy, and because Christmas is quickly approaching and I hadn’t gotten any gifts for people back home, I figured last Sunday was a prime opportunity to hit up the Silk Market (aka Silk Street, Silk Street Market, Xiùshuǐjiē, and 秀水街) and try my hand at bargaining. (If you remember, my last experience was some what of a failure.) I’m happy to say that I was successful, but only after going back again on Wednesday. Here’s why it took 2 attempts.
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Friday of Fall Break at Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City

Me, Mao, and some random woman

This is the long-delayed ending to the photo documentary of my Fall break in Beijing – Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. I guess you could say I saved the best for last, although I had just as good of a time at the Olympic Park and Liulichang. The one thing Tiananmen and the Forbidden City had over everything I’ve done in Beijing, except for maybe the Great Wall, was the shear size of it.  It was almost overwhelming, and not just because of the crowds.

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How to see the best of Xi’an in two days

Just mingling with the ladies of Xi'an

This past weekend was our last CET organized excursion, the Xi’an Historical Trip. In Chinese, the characters “西安” in Xi’an literally mean “Western Peace”. I’ll admit I was a bad traveler, and neglected to do any research beforehand. I associate any place in Western China with the desert, comparatively spicy food, Islam, and rock cut cave dwellings. Needless to say I was a little surprised when we arrived in a place that had a pretty strong resemblance to Beijing (bad traffic, polluted air, high rises built next to ancient architecture, family run butcher shops next to McDonald’s, all of which can be called the best attempt at preserving culture while promoting modernity).

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