Earthquake and other news

So the TBC staff told us all to send word home that we are okay because you will probably worry because there was a major earthquake in China. However, the affected city, Chengdu, is 1000 miles from here, and though I did visit it once, I am safe and far from that place. I can't imagine what it looks like now, that place is HUGE, and it sure has had "bad luck" this year first with all the angry Tib*tan activities, and now this? Oh my god, and I just thought of this, Chengdu is where the giant research and breeding center is for the pandas!!! I HOPE THE PANDAS ARE OKAY!!!

In other news, finals week is upon me and I have been busy as of late trying to see everything and also finish my papers and study Chinese. However, I will be boarding the plane on Monday May 19th, which is now officially a week away! This past weekend I visited the Summer Palace and the Old Summer Palace (in the same day...) and tomorrow I'm FINALLY going to the Forbidden City after my Chinese written final. I should have gone much sooner but it kept being cancelled because of rain.

Over the (Chinese)Labor Day holidays, I went with some Chinese friends to Jinzhou in Liaoning Province. We hung out at this amazing hotel right by the ocean. My friend Qi Xu has a good friend that is a big guy in the government of that region, so we didn't have to pay for anything. I have now seen first-hand the perks of the Chinese government... I won't say I wasn't intimidated. The whole time I felt a bit awkward letting this Chinese government man and his assistant pay for everything and show us around their city. Oh well, the hotel was amazing, but the food was NOT. I was stuck for four days in "seafood capital, China" let's call it. If you know me, you know of my fear of aquatic life, which extends to seafood. Needless to say I was very hungry and nauseated at meal times. We went to the beach early in the morning and the tide was low, so there was like this peninsula land-bridge thing that we walked out onto, and we took a boat to an island. We also saw various museums (I've had my lifetime limit of Chinese museums now), and we went shopping, during which time I stocked up on Pepsi Light (the inferior cousin of Diet Pepsi). The train we took to and from Beijing was very nice indeed, and super-fast, unlike the sad little train we took to the Great Wall at Qinhuangdao.

I can't wait to be done with these papers and tests. My plane is departing from the newly opened Terminal 3 of the Beijing Capital International Airport, and it's said to be the largest terminal in the world. The airport was big to begin with, but it was operating at full capacity and they needed more space before the Olympics... should be an interesting sight to see, anyways.