Back in Harbin

Things I Saw Over Break But Don't Have Pictures of Because My Camera is Huai le:
(but don't worry my amazing, funny, well-prepared, very chill travel buddies more than compensated for this; pictures will come)

1) The Great Wall: It's really great. It is big and long and steep and scenic and really, really old. Those emperors were totally nuts dude. Building that thing...woooow.
2) Temple of Heaven/ Center of the Universe: Nice park, really. I like the ancient Chinese worldview...it's simple and definite.
2.5) Olympic Stadium: The bird's nest and water cube and olympic tower are really spectacularly lit up at night. I felt like a kid at six flags for the first time.
3) Wangfujin Night Market: Happening place! (living) Bugs on a stick...mmmm.
4) Chinese Hospital: Suprisingly efficient, but not too much fun. Effective medicine- one Chinese prescription and one Western, standard issue apparently.
5) Massage Parlor: The best part was the bucket of warm/hot water to soak my toes in...mmm warm feet.
7) Train, sitting section: Not too uncomfortable but completely devoid of waiguorens. Not recommended for overnight travel.
8) Xi'an's Muslim Quarter: Cheapcheap decently tasty food of unidentifiable types. Made an idiot of myself here after said long train ride, as I was too tired to read the menu correctly or use chopsticks, and also fell on my butt off a tiny stool.
9) Big Goose Pagoda: Awesome history, awesome Buddha temples, awesome park, AWESOME fountain/ light show, awesome lunch/dinner...enjoyable.
10) Hua Shan: One of the five mountains you're supposed to climb to ensure...umm..prosperity? safety? an afterlife? I forget. Ah well, it was Jurrasic Park-meets-Enchanted Rock scenery, which was very unique and impressive, if a bit more crowded than we anticipated.
11) Bingmayong (Terracotta Army): Crazy Chinese emperors!! What is perhaps most impressive about this is the amount of excavation left to do. Only a tiny portion has been excavated, to say nothing of the Emperor's actual tomb itself, and that's very exciting for the anthropologist in me.
12) Ken Laoshi: He's more of a program RA than a teacher, but that makes it no less unlikely that four CET students getting off a random subway in Beijing would bump into him. What. The. Heck. HOW DID HE FOLLOW US?? Hundreds of miles from Harbin! Tens of millions of people in Bejing!! You tell me!

Probably bought you a present (yes Eric),
China-Cat