Articles tagged with 'study-abroad' — 17 found
Life lessons, from Cuba
Habana vintage For two weeks, I saw not a single advertisement for a corporation, not a company’s name at all, unless it was under the command of the Cuban government. It is the exact opposite of the shock of those pictures of random Hong Kong or Shanghai alleyways, that flash thousands of signs, brand names, [...]
May 30th, 2011My job as a psuedo travel organizer
Part of my job involves reading travel guides. You know, the big fat Lonely Planet ones, and the TimeOut guides that have the colorful pictures. And more than that, the ten-or-so books on my desk are about Cuba: a place I never thought I’d visit. In my regular life, I would have no time to [...]
September 23rd, 2010Snapshot Yangzhou: home
View from the moutaintop temple outside Yangzhou To end my series on Yangzhou, it is only right to leave you with my favorite image: a hut, full of character, perched on the side of a mountain, overlooking the valley and farms below. Above this humble and beautiful home was a temple that we visited, which [...]
July 20th, 2010Snapshot Yangzhou: future vision
On the outskirts of the city, the huge mall loomed as a vision of the future towards which China is aiming. On the outskirts of the bustling city lies some of the newest additions to the area, a modern development area that includes the enormous mall here, as well as the giant new museum that [...]
June 28th, 2010Snapshot Yangzhou: dorm room
Our desks, made our own We stayed in the international student dorms during our time in Yangzhou, and for a small monthly fee (around 5 dollars), a man would come by and hook up the internet for your computer. This was a huge relief after the horrors of the Zhengzhou computer labs with their limited [...]
June 26th, 2010Snapshot Yangzhou: eating up
My favorite meal A big steaming pot of freshly-made noodles with mushrooms and cabbage; add some cayenne pepper flakes and a soy-type sauce and you’ve got a delicious, satisfying dinner. That whole pot would cost me 8 yuan, about $1.14. Plus a few yuan for a cold water. YUM. Our group ate regularly with various [...]
June 24th, 2010Snapshot Yangzhou: shortcut
Don’t mind me… It was Team China versus Team USA one hot day, and we were the sideline cheerleaders. They had kept this rivalry up for a number of sports: basketball, table tennis, and most certainly, soccer. We, the girls, were not the most cheery crowd, but we tried to be present when we had [...]
June 23rd, 2010Snapshot Yangzhou: beautiful vandalism
It’s just the classic "I was here" inclination, but in Chinese characters, the result is so much more charming. I saw it on the Great Wall, I saw it on dusty temple walls, and I saw it in the concrete surrounding any oft-visited site throughout China; but the graffiti on the members of this lush [...]
June 21st, 2010Snapshot Yangzhou: crazy rickshaw driver
Something’s not right here… It was a regular afternoon, and Stacey and I were either sweaty or exhausted or (probably) both, and we decided to spring for the 3-yuan (42-cent) rickshaw ride back to campus. He was confused, rightly so, by our feeble Chinese language skills, and we had tried to tell him we wanted [...]
June 18th, 2010Snapshot Yangzhou: Shouxi Lake and its gardens
Winding pathways and misty gardens along Shouxi Lake The very first day that the whole group was together, we spent a disgustingly humid day at Shouxi Lake that almost made us forget the sticky heat. Little enclaves were built in random spots, with wide-open window frames and benches and tables; old Chinese men were playing [...]
June 16th, 2010