Category: China

Evening in Beijing

The Friday before last (so, the 22nd), we went to Beijing for 5 days. It is a picturesque city, or at least the things we did there were, so I have a ton of photos. I decided to spread them out over a number of posts, because I think I quite like the format of using less content per post. Anyway, I can experiment with it.

We went to Beijing by fast train from Xinyang. The trip took around four hours – we arrived around 6 o’clock, just as the light was starting to diminish. They said the air was the best they’ve had all week, and honestly I couldn’t notice a difference compared to Guangshan.  The next morning my snot was a bit black, which meant that nonetheless it wasn’t quite the same. From the train station we were headed to the hotel for dinner. Beijing has seven (7!!!) road rings and our hotel was just out of the 5th ring. Between that and the immense amounts of traffic in the city, it took a while before we got there. I took the photo soon after we left the station, and by the time we sat down to eat it was dark outside.

How I Came to China

Story time! Or rather, explanation time! Doesn’t sound quite as exciting though. For those who are reading this and don’t really know how I came to live in Henan for 5 months (and for those who may not know all the details), I want to outline the steps that lead me here. They’re not very complicated, but I thought it would be good to write them down.

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Botanical Garden in Guangshan

I have visited the botanical garden in Guangshan twice now. To be honest both times were about three weeks ago, but in the mean time we’ve been to Beijing and I haven’t managed to select and edit any photos, not to mention writing a post. Everything will be here eventually, no need to worry. I could never deprive you of this amazingness (it could be a word?).

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DaBie Shan View and a Lil’ Update

I didn’t feel like this photo fitted into yesterday’s post, but I still wanted to publish it, so here it is. View from DaBie Shan.

For the last week or so, I’ve been a little sick. No enough to prevent me from doing anything, but enough not to feel completely alright. Especially at night. Here’s to hoping posting this will help me get over it sooner?

26 Hours

My co-volunteer Sabina and I are currently in the process of moving to The Far East. We’ve been sitting in the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris for about three and a half hours and still have about two to go. I ate a sandwich, two mini airline muffins, a piece of raw cucumber, and even a bite of raw pepper, which isn’t something I usually do voluntarily. I hiked around the terminal twice. During one of those I took the photo above.

I cried a lot today saying goodbye and I’m going to cry more, but I’m okay. After the initial 26 hours (which is how long our three flights and two layovers will take) this thing that I’m doing really begins and I am looking forward to it.