ping finally visits the homeland.

so i realize its been about a month since filled ya'll in on china. i've tried though i swear. i think i'm losing my funny, its depressing. well anyways here it goes. the first week of october was national holiday week. yayy once again for china and their crazy random holidays. my family came to visit, my momma, dad, aunt, and my youngest brother will! and they brought me american candy :). it was fun to have them around. they were in beijing only a couple of days and they got to see all the important stuff. unfortunately i decided to tag along with them. it was a bit repetitive considering i've seen all the historical beijing nonsense numerous times. but just my luck we got to see the great wall, i'm not sure i could have left china without going there. again. not only did we visit the great wall, but we spent two hours sitting in traffic trying to get there. prolly because all of china had the same idea. i am now a firm supporter of this whole one child policy they got going on. believe me, they need it. my fifth trip to the great wall was no different, and no more exciting than my other. except for the fact the wall decided to take my blackberry hostage. great wall of china - 2 casey - 0. least to say i think that will be the last time i will be visiting the so called "great" wall.

after hours of touristy nonsense my family went to xi'an and then shanghai, where i met them again. my flight got in a few hours before theirs so i met my friend chris for lunch - a bunch of tbc-er's went down to shanghai for the break. chris and i had lunch on the 91st floor of the building that houses the tallest bar in the entire world. needless to say i spent a little too much on lunch than i do around beijing. however it was worth it. it was amurican. and it was steak. yummm. after my family finally arrived, we did some explorin around shanghai and they seem to think that since i had been living in beijing almost two months i'd know my way around shanghai. no mom and dad, beijing and shanghai are not the same place nor are they even in the same vicinity. shanghai was fun, much more industrialized than beijing. lots of tall buildings, kinda like new york. it was also a lot more westernized. lots of western food restaurants and so many people speak english, which is unheard of in beijing. we got to visit the shanghai expo, which was really cool! my friends ross and chris came along with my family, which was great except my mom, ross, and chris just complained the whole time that they wanted to leave. while they were at the world expo. i pick winners. however after a couple days full of shanghai and family i was ready to head back to 对外经贸大学, UIBE. so on friday, i said my goodbyes to the family and took the shuttle to the airport. since whenever china has a holiday their students obviously must make it up by attending school on the weekend. crazy communists. my flight was set to take off at 8:00, having me arriving back in beijing around 10:30. however at around 7:50 they proceed to tell us our flight will be delayed at least an hour. okay no big deal. except for the fact that i sat at the shanghai pudong international airport until 12:00 in the morning. after they finally boarded us i decided it wasn't too bad, i'd get in around 2:00 finish my chinese homework, take a nap, and i'd be ready to go. false. they just decided to make us get on the plane at 12:00 and not to leave until 2:30. perfect. we finally take off, i try to finish up some work, but of course i pass out. and wake up at 3:45 in beijing. i get to school a little after 4 in the morning greeted by many of my classmates, who had all of national holiday break to do their homework, but decided not to. so a few of us proceeded to go to 24 hour noodle to get our work done. i finish my work and its time to shower and go to chinese. great. chinese class with no sleep, not the best idea i've ever had. i had six straight days of classes. it was awful. basically no sleep just work. mostly chinese nonsense. i hate national holiday week.

luckily after that awful week, i got to relax all weekend and had a fairly easy week this past week. however, midterms are next week. hopefully they won't be too awful, my chinese midterm doesn't even sound that bad! after next week, the rest of the semester should be a breeze. i'm also very excited because after midterms they take us on a trip to guilin! its in southern china, in guangxi province and we're going to be visiting hot springs, mud caves, rafting the li river, hiking, rock climbing, etc. so hopefully the thought of guilin will be able to get me through midterm week. i promise to try and update a bit more often and hopefully my funny will have bad it back into my system by the next time. unfortunately, these chinese are starting to rub off on me, i'm beginning to turn into a real asian.