Kui's Blog #1
Kui’s Blog
你好 & Aloha from Beijing, China! 我叫 吴亭。 My name is Kui. I am a senior GSIS major from Oahu, Hawaii and am currently working on finishing my two minors in Middle Eastern Studies and Asian Studies. I play on the ERAU Women’s Volleyball team, and am a part of the Hawaiian Club and the unofficial Arabic Club. I am currently in China on a study abroad trip with eleven other ERAU students from the Daytona and Prescott campus. I am also working on a research project while in China.
I left Arizona on the 12th of May, and journeyed on a 12 hour flight from San Francisco to Beijing, China. The first half of the flight didn’t bother me, since it felt like I was flying home to Hawaii, but the second half of the flight I was very restless. I watched four movies, ate two meals with snacks before and after each meal, paced up and down the aisles talking to people in my study abroad program, and studied from my Chinese books. I flew on Air China Limited, which had adequate leg room, but I was unfortunately squashed in the middle.
Our Boeing 747-400 flew over Russia, which was covered in snow! You could not see the ground at all, or the rocks that would normally stick out on mountain tops… It literally looked like a dream land with the snow blending into the clouds on the horizon. A huge tip for long trips is to bring your iPod. My iPod lasted for the whole trip, with the exception of watching the movies on the airplane screen.
I tried to sleep on all of my flights, but I could not. By the time I was able to crawl into bed and fall asleep, I had been up for a total of twenty-seven and a half hours. I was exhausted, and hoped to sleep in the next day. I woke up at 530am in the morning the next day. We had a short class, then we went to the bank to take out and exchange our American money for Chinese currency (which is 原 yuan). The exchange rate was one American dollar for seven yuan. This rate is amazing! I was able to buy a huge meal for fewer than three dollars.
Before my trip started, mainland China had an earthquake near Xi’an, which is one of the cities our study abroad group was to go stay at. Our teacher in uncertain to if she is still going to take us there or not, due to the earthquake and now the rain that has made it more difficult to travel in that region. I would love to go and visit the terracotta soldier statues, but our safety is our number one concern.