Quanzhou

Well, school seems to have dominated my life. I just realized I haven’t really written about Quanzhou, getting sick, or anything.

So we went to a nearby city called Quanzhou (Chwen-joe). Around 1000 years ago, it was the largest city in the world. It was the start of the “Maritime Silk Road.” In fact, Columbus, in all of his intelligence, was trying to find a faster route to Quanzhou when he ran into the Americas. While we were there, we visited the oldest mosque in China, built in 1009. We visited a sort of Daoist temple and a Confucian temple. We spent some time at one of the most famous Buddhist temples in China, built in 649. We also stopped by the second largest Protestant church in China. We spent most of a day at a Maritime museum, which talked about China’s incredible maritime exploits. I’ve got a ton of photos that I would’ve posted sooner, but my internet bill came due on Sunday and I couldn’t pay until Monday. They’ll be on Facebook, and if you don’t have that, ask and I can get you the external link. All in all it was quite eventful and worthwhile…

…except for the part where I threw up before we went to the Confucian temple. I had other symptoms, but I won’t bother to describe. Suffice it to say, it wasn’t fun. I hardly ate all day, which isn’t really a good thing considering I had to do a lot of walking and standing. It did bring me back to the time a friend and I got lost on an island when we were backpacking… perhaps I’ll write about that story. Anyway, I had to rush to the bathroom just before we hopped on the bus home, but after that I felt pretty good. The rest of the weekend was spent resting and recovering. It took until Monday before I ate a full meal, which was good because myself and another gal were picked to take the president of CCCU (Council of Christian Colleges and Universities—the organization that puts on this and other programs) out to dinner.

We also had a Chinese exam on Monday. I did very well, except for the writing part. I’ve neglected my writing a bit and forgot a few characters. I was glad I did well because that night I had to order all the food amongst other things… much to my surprise I didn’t think twice about it. My listening is horrible, but that’ll come with time.

We basically finish our semester here in 9 weeks. So we are now having what is more or less finals. At the end of the month we start gallivanting around China for two or three weeks and when we return we’ll only have a few weeks before we return to the other side of the world. We’ll have a few classes then, but not much. I am taking Chinese 2 which will continue through that time and will take the most of my time.

So that’s basically it. I’ve got a few things to write about… ok maybe one or two, so hopefully in the next few days I’ll do that.