Missed This One

Found this one over on MySpace from during the Trek:

11.30.07

Word.

I'm still alive. Xi'an was great. I gave my presentation at the Da Qin Nestorian (Christian) pagoda. We rode horses through the country side to get there. It was pretty much the coolest thing. Riding a horse on a dirt road and around me people are tilling their fields.

Train to Beijing was nice. We have an odd number of people and my teachers put me in a compartment without any other of my classmates. It was stinkin awesome though. Got to talk with some really neat Chinese people. Overnight trains are kind of fun. Reminded my of those two day ferry rides in high school.

Went to the Great Wall on a perfectly clear day. Summer Palace was today. It was a bit foggy, but was still good. Tomorrow is the Temple of Heaven. I should have dinner with some friends of mine, assuming their daughter doesn't decide she wants to interrupt our dinner plans and be born. I know, I'm selfish.

Things are good, but I am looking forward to being done and being home. I haven't really had a break in a long time, and really won't have one until I return home. Something is always going on. I think we have a four day weekend, and some people want to travel, but I'm seriously considering sticking around, maybe just seeing some things in Xiamen. Relaxing.

Thursday we leave for some rural areas of Shandong. I should be going dark then, that is, no internet, no phones, etc. We'll be teaching, I believe, and visiting some churches and schools. Then on to Shanghai for a day or two, then home for the rest of the semester.

Anyway, I still exist, I'm not sick like many of my classmates. It's nice and cold up here, around 10 degrees Celsius. I'm loving it. I'll bundle up in the freezing cold over sweating any day. It's the Alaskan in me.

Ok, at a Starbucks in a far end of Beijing where I took some girls to go shopping. It's weird seeing a place I've been before. Now we gotta flag a taxi and get home. Leave comments, let me know YOU are alive.