About Me

Greeting strangers! If you are reading this right now you most likely fall into one of these categories: family, friends, teachers, or fellow Juniata College students. If you are not one of the above by whatever misfortune or luck you have stumbled upon a college's student study abroad experience in China. Please stay and enjoy. My name is Jasun. Now to interject two disclaimers. One, this is my blog and I will speak my mind and sometimes, unfortunately, this may cross your comfort's threshold - and for that I apologize. Two, as much as this blog belongs to me, I am writing for you. As such, if there are any questions (I mean any) that pop into your head that you want answered just send me an email at Moyjf08@juniata.edu and I'll answer it on this blog. One more thing. I can't seem to upload pictures here. So I will most likely be uploading pictures on my facebook account. If you are interested in seeing these pictures and are not a facebook friend by all means add me - just leave message saying something of the sort that you follow this blog if I do not know you. Best wishes throughout the year, and I hope together we make it a fun, educational, and safe year.

Saturday, February 26, 2011

好久不见 (Long time no see) and Introduction

Note: There are two consecutive posts. I posted them out of order so that when viewed they would look normal to the reader.

Long time no see my loyal fans and paid audience. It’s been a few days now since I’ve been back, but I have just finished up my travels – a little shorter than expected – but I’m back and preparing for the start of our semester, March 7 (finally). Before the semester begins though and I lose all this free time I have, I figure it wise to start rolling out a few blog posts seeing how it has been a while. You are in for a real treat because over the course of a few weeks I will be releasing journal entries that I have wrote while on the road traveling. After much contemplation I have decided that I will not be making any edits to my journal entries. This is being done to keep the integrity of the original writing which expresses in the most real and raw form my experiences, thoughts, and feelings at the current time. The entries, for the most part, were written in the past tense with a narrator-like voice. Most were written in the same day that they took place, with minor exceptions. Because I do not want to flood my blog with posts for both of our sakes, I plan on releasing the posts in random and arbitrary sections; accompanying photos will be released shortly thereafter on Facebook.

There is one final thing before I begin, and to help explain it I’m going to use a quote from the movie Lord of War. To really sum up my travel experience into one theme it is this: “Selling a gun for the first time is a lot like sex for the first time. You’re excited but you don’t really know what the hell you’re doing. And some way, one way or another, it’s over way too fast.” This sentiment and quote kept popping in my head throughout my travels. And as you read the various travelogues you will see me over and over again stressing this theme of “firsts” – in regards to doing something for the first time. Now that I’ve gotten the introduction out of the way, sit back and enjoy as I take you on this magical journey to Neverland.

Final disclaimers: Because while I traveled I thought about how I wanted to present my journal to you, some things I write and do in regards to organizational work and the fact I am not editing will result in some repetition and various rough patches. Furthermore, because I am writing in the stream of consciousness there is a slight chance the censorship is at a minimum.

The Day of Reckoning (Day 1)

Mmmm! I’ve finally made it to my room after a long day of travel. First stop: Harbin; even further north than Dalian, reaching -30 degrees Celsius during winter. The flight was ok. The only snag was after boarding. Our flight was delayed for an hour as we wait on the runway. More importantly, this was the first time I’ve flown alone with no one I knew. It was different. None of that atmosphere that I’m used to when waiting on a plane getting ready to go somewhere different, like when you’re going on vacation. It felt more like a business trip then a getaway to some exotic place. It was definitely quite lonely traveling alone, more so than just hanging around campus – probably because I know the area and some of the shopkeepers. Everyone feels so stoic and indifferent with people minding their own business. Traveling alone seems like it is going to take some of the fun out of it. But I’m not gonna dwell on the things I can’t change and just live it up the best I can.

But besides the delay, everything else ran quite smoothly. One of the moments of truth came when I walked outside of the airport. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. I’m not sure what I felt first: the grabbing of random people and taxi drivers trying to score or the icy chilling temperature. Like you hear about how cold it is, etc, but like you can’t really imagine what -30 feels like, and boy is it cold. But to be honest, for short-term exposure I thought that it was warmer than Dalian without the crazy wind. But after about an hour when you start to lose your senses and numbing starts to take place – well then I think Harbin takes the cake for the coldest places I’ve ever been to. However, all I wore in Harbin was the same thing I wore in Dalian and I stayed relatively warm. I didn’t go all out like the locals with like 2 pairs of long johns and heavy duty jackets and the works. One thing I did pick up on and copied from the locals was to take breaks and utilize the stores and just walk through them. Using this method one could theoretically walk an entire block inside.

I’m staying in the middle of downtown, so no need to deal with taxis and close enough to the ice festival sites which I came to see. I had to pay a little extra to do so, so I’m staying at a 4-star hotel – by Chinese standards – don’t think they would pass Western standards. My room is quaint, not what I expected for 4-stars, so I’m sure this would just be considered average in America, but at least it’s something I can and exaggerate on back home. The service was just like in the movies though, a bell boy came and took my bags and showed me to my room. Besides for the perfect location, they also serve Western-style breakfast buffet. Now doesn’t that sound delicious? Not to lie, but I’m quite excited to see how it so. I haven’t had Western-style breakfast in forever; I hope I’m not disappointed.

Well after arriving a few hours behind schedule and finishing all that check-in business it was basically dinnertime. Initially, I wanted to go to the ice festival sites in the afternoon so I could see them in the daylight and then again at night when they were lit. But instead I will now only be able to do the latter.

After eating, I went out to see the sites. I took as many pictures as I could. But fighting the bitter cold at night is extremely difficult. Even my camera was having trouble; because it was so cold the battery stopped functioning properly – freeeeezing. What made it was worse was that because my gloves were too bulky, I couldn’t press the buttons on the camera meaning I couldn’t take pictures with my gloves on.

After what felt like the coldest and longest night in my life ever, I decided to call it quits and return to my hotel room and take a very long, hot, and steamy shower mmm. Tomorrow I plan to check out the Russian district – no prostitutes I promise. After that it’s back to the airport for my flight to Xian. Just a short stop to one of the coldest places on Earth.