Why China is great

This past week has been full of exciting train rides, amazing sights and sounds, and a ton of good home-cooked food.

It all started on Tuesday morning (Jan 27) at about 5:30 in the morning. All of the teachers here met at the Shenyang train station in preparation for our early morning train ride 7 hours North to Harbin. After a bit of waiting we were shuffled into line and made our way to our train car. We were riding in the "cheap" seats, but we had assigned seats so we all figured it would be easy to find out where we needed to sit and get settled in for the long ride.

Boy, were we wrong.

There were about a million people trying to cram into each train car, and the train almost started moving while people were still outside on the platform trying to get in. This caused a great commotion and made the pushing and shoving even worse. By the time we all got onto the train, we were packed so tight that it took forever just to push our way through the crowded aisles to find out seats (which were all taken by random people). After a bit of negotiating and kicking people out of our seats, we were all mostly settled (although for the first hour or two I was sitting on a small table surrounded by all the other teachers, waiting for another seat to open).

After a long 7 hours, we finally arrived in Harbin and made our way to our hotel. The first night consisted of wandering around the city a bit (in the freezing cold), finding an open restaurant for dinner (a lot of places were closed because of the new year holiday), and hanging out with all the other teachers playing cards and games in our hotel.

The next two days at Harbin were amazing. We went to Buddhist temples and walked around for a while, saw a 7-tiered pagoda, and went into way too many gift shops. After that we found our way to a small ice festival in the city that was all Disney themed (which was hilarious and weird). It ended up being a great time though, since everything inside was free (besides admission, of course). We slid down slides made completely of ice, rode a small roller coaster, had a bumper car competition, and took a lot of random pictures.

The last day was the best. We walked across a frozen river to a place called Sun Island Park, where the biggest snow and ice festival is held every year. To our disappointment, the admission for both festivals was separate, so not everyone was able to go to both. Luckily, admission tickets were half price for students, so I was able to use my international student ID card that I made while working at STA Travel and got in for cheap. Our first stop was the snow festival, which was better than I could have ever imagined. Some of the sculptures were huge, bigger than buildings, and about 5 of us walked around for a couple hours taking pictures and staring in amazement at the skill of the sculptors.

The next stop was the ice festival. We decided to see this festival during the day and at night, since the entire festival gets lit up at night. Before it got dark, we slid down some small ice slides, walked around a bit, and got on this cool ride that spins you around and goes upside down. Eventually it got dark out, and all of the ice sculptures were lit up with various different colors, making it one of the most beautiful sights I've seen in a while. We ended up waiting in line for quite a while to ride sleds down the longest ice slide at the festival. This thing was intense and so much fun.

The train ride back home to Shenyang left at 8:40 that night, and ended up being a much more comfortable ride. We were on a sleeper car, which just consisted of 6 beds in each section (not in separate rooms), but ended up being a nice place to take a nap until we got back at around 3:30 in the morning.

The last two days back in Shenyang have been super relaxing and full of great food. It was the last 2 days of our short spring festival holiday, and it was great to just stay at home in our warm apartment after a great trip. Yesterday evening Mollie, Chelsey, and I had a bunch of people over to our apartment and made chili (actually, Mollie made it), and it turned out great. I didn't think I liked chili, but it was an awesome home-cooked meal.

Tonight has also been a great night. My friend Alex came over for dinner and cooked me and my roommates an amazing African meal which consisted of chapati, a pork dish mixed with peppers, tomatoes, onions, and garlic, mashed potatoes mixed with pumpkin and peppers and onions, delicious spiced chicken wings, and some weird unidentified chicken organs. It was soo good.

Now it's after midnight and I am going to bed soon since I go back to school tomorrow. It has been nice having some time off, but I'm looking forward to getting back to teaching and learning Chinese. I have been here now for exactly 1 month, and it has just confirmed the fact that my 6 months here are going to fly by. Things are going great so far, and I'm starting to feel like Shenyang is my home (at least temporary).

Don't worry though, Mom and Dad, I know where my real home is.

I'll see you guys soon. Love and miss everyone.