Latest Posts
Zhangjiajie
Monday I took a soft sleeper from Yichang to Zhangjiajie. The train was supposed to arrive at 12:40 AM, but instead it arrived 30 minutes late. It also left significantly later. However, this was actually a good thing because it allowed me to arrive later than 6 AM in Zhangjiajie and catch a bus to Wulingyuan instead of paying someone to take me there. Wulingyuan is the city next to the park with the cool...
Yichang and The Yangtze River
I left Shanghai armed with a pen, a notebook, and a camera.Yichang was a cool place to visit. Tiago opted out of going, so I went alone. To be honest, I would have loved for him to join me, but I also enjoyed unrestrained travel. And to some extent I think that shows a level of selfishness, but the dilemma has caused me no loss of sleep. Friday night I took the subway to Pudong...
Bye Bye Shanghai!
I haven't posted in a while because of finals week and I didn't travel anywhere the weekend before I left Shanghai. I left Shanghai Saturday morning at 7:30. Shanghai was really cool, and if you are looking for an awesome cityscape, then look no further. With a total population of 34 million, I can hardly say I've visited the city. There are so many nooks and crannies that I walked by without even noticing. I...
Hangzhou
Shanghai is the last stop of this trip! I can't believe how fast time has flown by. It seems like just yesterday I entered China... Anyways this isn't the time for my goodbye blog post because the best has yet to come! If everything goes according to plan, my final china post will be 2 trains, 4 planes, and 5 cities.This weekend I only did one day trip. I went to Hangzhou with George and...
See Ya Shenzhen!
Shenzhen was a blast. We left Friday morning to fly to Shanghai. I meet many cool and interesting people in Shanghai. I will miss them.Interestingly, I became friends with a really good photographer, and he took lots of cool pictures of me and Tiago.Also, I have some more fun pictures from the city.We also went and stole some Lychee fruit off the trees around the SusTech campus. Apparently, there is a fine if you get...
Macau and Hong Kong
Last weekend I visited Macau and Hong Kong. Friday we went to the electronics market in the morning to buy some resistors and other electronics components for my circuits class. After that we took the metro to the ferry to Zuhai. In Zuhai we left our stuff at the Airbnb and went to Macau. Macau is pretty great in my opinion. It is a Portuguese colony, so all the signs have Chinese and Portuguese. The...
Gone to Guilin
FridayI felt like I had just walked out of an ancient Chinese scroll painting. A cool breeze wafted around my skin and lifted my eyes towards the hazy hilly view of Yangshou. As far as I could see, huge lumps of rock stood out of the ground. It was both so bizarre and wonderful that God created such an interesting landscape. The hills are primarily composed of limestone where everything else around them is eroded...
First Few Days in Shenzhen
We flew into Shenzhen on the Friday the ninth of June. The next day we learned about the SusTech campus and explored the city. The campus is like a resort in a tropical jungle. It is humid and hot, but it is also very pretty and wild. We explored Shenzhen a little bit. I liked it. There isn’t barely any pollution compared to the north of China. We went to a huge mobile phone market,...
Goodbye Tianjin!
This past weekend we left Tianjin to travel to Shenzhen. I really liked Tianjin. By far, the most important thing I left in Tianjin was the people. Unfortunately, all I could bring was my memories of them and the gifts they gave me. I’m sure I will stay in touch because they are very interesting people and very dear friends already. Here is the link to article that they wrote about us.Tianjin University has a...
Xi'an
I traveled to Xi'an with eight other students last weekend. I took a plane, but three of the students took the overnight trains there and back (a total of 31 hours). Xi'an was the ancient capital of China, so the inside of the city is still within an ancient wall. We stayed in an airbnb in that section of the city. We arrived Friday and went for a bike ride around the entire city wall...
Beijing
Last weekend Tiago and I traveled to Beijing with all of the students from our program.FridayWe took a bullet train in the morning and explored the forbidden city. After checking into our Airbnb we went to the Olympic park. The park is amazing and free, and I highly recommend visiting it if you are in Beijing.We finished Friday night by going to the night market. Several of our classmates tried fried scorpions and crickets.SaturdayThe next...
My First Week In China
I have now spent a week in China. This weekend I will be traveling to Beijing to hike on the great wall and explore the city. The week has been incredible. I tried a self taught Chinese Barista's Mocha, and it was wonderful.Despite being a in a city of 16 million, it does not feel too crowded.We cruised the river at night through the "Chinese Manhattan". In that area is a building that resembles the...
First Day in Tianjin
Today we arrived in Tianjin after a nearly three hour bus ride from Beijing. We were escorted by Tianjin University student volunteers. Tiago and I stayed in a hotel by the airport last night. Despite having slept on all three flights and a 11 hour time difference, we both slept the whole night.Tiago and I quickly became friends with Fei, a super friendly student volunteer. He took us for a walk around the nearby universities...
Goals and Objectives
Hello Friends and Family!First and foremost, I would like to thank my parents for this opportunity to explore the world. I'm starting up a new blog to cover my trip to China with Tiago this summer. We will be attending the Georgia Tech China Summer Program to study and travel in China.We will be flying out May 18th to arrive in Beijing. There we will stay in the nearby city of Tianjin till June 9th....