The Last Month
All right I would first like to apologize for not posting in so long. What follows is a brief overview of what I have done the last month. Hopefully after this post I will get back into the habit of consistently posting.
After my last post I went to Suzhou and then on to Shanghai. We arrived in Suzhou Thursday afternoon. Suzhou is a smaller city (by Chinese standards) that is famous for it's many gardens. When we first arrived to Suzhou we went to Tiger Hill, which is a beautiful garden with many winding paths, traditional buildings and creeks. The highlight of Tiger Hill is a 1000 year old pagoda made out of bricks that due to age has begun to lean, somewhat like the leaning tower of Pisa I assume. After Tiger Hill we went back to our hotel where I saw my first western toilet since arriving in China. The next day we went to see another garden which basically seemed like the first. While each garden is definitely different one still gets the feeling once they have seen one you have seen them all. After this garden we got on the train and headed to Shanghai.
After arriving in Shanghai we went to see the Jinmao Tower in Shanghai which is the 3rd tallest building in the world. From the observation deck we had a good view of the of Shanghai. One thing odd about Jinmao Tower was the small shrine to Yao Ming the basketball player on the observation deck. Yao Ming is apparently from Shanghai and Shanghai is obviously very proud of that fact. After Jinmao tower we took a ferry across the river (Yangtze or Chang Jiang) back to our hotel. On Saturday we went to the old part of town which has basically turned into several city blocks of souvenir shops. Some people bought souvenirs but being the cheap son of an accountant I didn't buy anything. After shopping we went to see the Shanghai museum which is basically an art museum with all of the traditional arts of China such as jade, bronze, calligraphy, landscape painting, porcelain, silk and furniture. It was somewhat interesting. The one thing that stood out was the jade body suit. During the Han dynasty (approx. 200B.C - 220 A.D.) the extremely wealthy where placed in jade body suits after their death to keep their spirits from floating away. After the museum we headed back home and then later that night headed to the bars. Sunday was our free day. I basically spent the whole day walking around people's square getting lunch and then going to the river to look at the water front. The water front was somewhat interesting. I was amazed by the number of barges on the river. There were at least 10 barges in sight at all times. Even in St. Louis you can usually only see one or two barges on the river at any one time. The waterfront in Shanghai also has 5 or 6 western style buildings left over from the 1800's when the western world was looking to force trade upon the Chinese. Sunday afternoon we left Shanghai to return to Nanjing. On our way back I surprised by the number of large cities. It seemed like every few miles we came upon a large city with skyscrapers. I guess in a country of 1.4 billion people you can expect to see a lot of big cities.
Since going to Shanghai not a whole lot has happened. The week after Shanghai we went to the Nanjing Museum which was almost exactly the same as the Shanghai museum.
We also went to Sun Yatsen's presidential office/garden/presidential palace. The presidential palace was the former throne of the Taiping rebellion. The Taiping Rebellion was a rebellion that occurred in the mid 1800's. It was started by some peasants the leader of which claimed to be the brother of Jesus and he also claimed to talk to God. The rebellion was eventually overthrown. This palace later became the office of Sun Yatsen. We were able to see the old thrown which more ornate than I expected considering the length of the Rebellion and the limited time the rebellion had any power. It also had a section on the history from the Taiping rebellion on to the overthrow of the Guomindang. The Guomindang was the Nationalist party the Communist overthrew to gain power.
I also went to see another pagoda on the western part of town. The pagoda wasn't anything great but it offered a good view of the western part of town, especially where the Chang Jiang river and city wall run along side eachother.
Right now I'm working on a couple of trips. Next week we spend half the week in Beijing. Victor, Peng, Liz, Kerry, Amanda and I plan on spending the second half of the week on the tropical island of Hainan sunbatheing. Then the week after that is May Day holiday, a one week holiday here in China. John and I are trying to get train tickets to go see Xian, home of the terracotta warriors and then to Luoyang which has Shaolin temple, home of famous marshal arts and Longmen caves, a Buddhist temple built in a cave with huge statues of differant Buddhas. I'm also trying to schedule a trip down the Chang Jiang River through the three gorges in my extra week after school ends.
I guess those are all of the sights I've been to. As far as school goes, school has been pretty easy with very little homework. In history class we had our first quiz. I got a 70% on it which sounds bad but it was the highest grade in the class so I'm not to concerned about it. It looks like I'm going to have a couple 10 page papers due at the end of the semester and couple of tests, but that's about it. This may be the easiest semester I've had which is quite differant from what I expected.
I also may have found a summer job for me and Amanda. Kerry says she can get us a job in New Jersey working at a blind camp. It would pay $1800 and I would be able to live and eat at the camp so my expenses would be relatively low assuming we didn't take to many trips to New York City.
~ Aaron Yates
After my last post I went to Suzhou and then on to Shanghai. We arrived in Suzhou Thursday afternoon. Suzhou is a smaller city (by Chinese standards) that is famous for it's many gardens. When we first arrived to Suzhou we went to Tiger Hill, which is a beautiful garden with many winding paths, traditional buildings and creeks. The highlight of Tiger Hill is a 1000 year old pagoda made out of bricks that due to age has begun to lean, somewhat like the leaning tower of Pisa I assume. After Tiger Hill we went back to our hotel where I saw my first western toilet since arriving in China. The next day we went to see another garden which basically seemed like the first. While each garden is definitely different one still gets the feeling once they have seen one you have seen them all. After this garden we got on the train and headed to Shanghai.
After arriving in Shanghai we went to see the Jinmao Tower in Shanghai which is the 3rd tallest building in the world. From the observation deck we had a good view of the of Shanghai. One thing odd about Jinmao Tower was the small shrine to Yao Ming the basketball player on the observation deck. Yao Ming is apparently from Shanghai and Shanghai is obviously very proud of that fact. After Jinmao tower we took a ferry across the river (Yangtze or Chang Jiang) back to our hotel. On Saturday we went to the old part of town which has basically turned into several city blocks of souvenir shops. Some people bought souvenirs but being the cheap son of an accountant I didn't buy anything. After shopping we went to see the Shanghai museum which is basically an art museum with all of the traditional arts of China such as jade, bronze, calligraphy, landscape painting, porcelain, silk and furniture. It was somewhat interesting. The one thing that stood out was the jade body suit. During the Han dynasty (approx. 200B.C - 220 A.D.) the extremely wealthy where placed in jade body suits after their death to keep their spirits from floating away. After the museum we headed back home and then later that night headed to the bars. Sunday was our free day. I basically spent the whole day walking around people's square getting lunch and then going to the river to look at the water front. The water front was somewhat interesting. I was amazed by the number of barges on the river. There were at least 10 barges in sight at all times. Even in St. Louis you can usually only see one or two barges on the river at any one time. The waterfront in Shanghai also has 5 or 6 western style buildings left over from the 1800's when the western world was looking to force trade upon the Chinese. Sunday afternoon we left Shanghai to return to Nanjing. On our way back I surprised by the number of large cities. It seemed like every few miles we came upon a large city with skyscrapers. I guess in a country of 1.4 billion people you can expect to see a lot of big cities.
Since going to Shanghai not a whole lot has happened. The week after Shanghai we went to the Nanjing Museum which was almost exactly the same as the Shanghai museum.
We also went to Sun Yatsen's presidential office/garden/presidential palace. The presidential palace was the former throne of the Taiping rebellion. The Taiping Rebellion was a rebellion that occurred in the mid 1800's. It was started by some peasants the leader of which claimed to be the brother of Jesus and he also claimed to talk to God. The rebellion was eventually overthrown. This palace later became the office of Sun Yatsen. We were able to see the old thrown which more ornate than I expected considering the length of the Rebellion and the limited time the rebellion had any power. It also had a section on the history from the Taiping rebellion on to the overthrow of the Guomindang. The Guomindang was the Nationalist party the Communist overthrew to gain power.
I also went to see another pagoda on the western part of town. The pagoda wasn't anything great but it offered a good view of the western part of town, especially where the Chang Jiang river and city wall run along side eachother.
Right now I'm working on a couple of trips. Next week we spend half the week in Beijing. Victor, Peng, Liz, Kerry, Amanda and I plan on spending the second half of the week on the tropical island of Hainan sunbatheing. Then the week after that is May Day holiday, a one week holiday here in China. John and I are trying to get train tickets to go see Xian, home of the terracotta warriors and then to Luoyang which has Shaolin temple, home of famous marshal arts and Longmen caves, a Buddhist temple built in a cave with huge statues of differant Buddhas. I'm also trying to schedule a trip down the Chang Jiang River through the three gorges in my extra week after school ends.
I guess those are all of the sights I've been to. As far as school goes, school has been pretty easy with very little homework. In history class we had our first quiz. I got a 70% on it which sounds bad but it was the highest grade in the class so I'm not to concerned about it. It looks like I'm going to have a couple 10 page papers due at the end of the semester and couple of tests, but that's about it. This may be the easiest semester I've had which is quite differant from what I expected.
I also may have found a summer job for me and Amanda. Kerry says she can get us a job in New Jersey working at a blind camp. It would pay $1800 and I would be able to live and eat at the camp so my expenses would be relatively low assuming we didn't take to many trips to New York City.
~ Aaron Yates
posted by Aaron at 6:19 AM
2 Comments:
Long time ago that I checked your journal. It's the end of the semester and things are getting crazy again. Everybody you might care about is all right and enjoys school I guess ;)
I just read on the news that there are "anti-japanese" demonstrations in China. I would feel like my Mom if I would ask you whether there are people demonstrating where you life (e.g. "Son, I heard there was a tornado in the U.S. Are you all right?" - my Mom)
Seems like you get along (besides a few people ;) ... such is life.
I don't have any news otherwise. I am exicited to go back over summer. It's always a strange feeling to be honest. Anyway, keep in touch.
Alex
I also saw the demonstrators in the news. I know the Chinese have a deep resentment (not a strong enough word) and distrust of the Japanese due to the rape of Nanking, etc., but I'm still surprised that they are protesting over textbooks. We have our own textbook politics over here, but I don't think they've ever risen to the level of demonstrations of thousands of people. Your thoughts, Aaron?
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