My name is Keith and I am one day away from my flight to Athens, Greece and the beginning of my Faculty-Led Study Abroad Program. I am so excited! I have been running around like a madman trying to get ready, make sure I have everything for the trip, and tying up any lose ends before we leave. This is a link to the resort we are staying at in Kamena Vourla, Greece (it’s about 93 miles north of Athens) http://www.mitsishotels.com/Hotels/galini-wellness-spa-and-resort/welcome_17.htm.

We’re all pretty well settled in to our dorms, classes are under way and we’ve got a really sweet rhythm going. I thought I’d write a bit about what we’ve been doing and what life is like here at SWUFE.

The dorms are good. There’s two women who live on the first floor who act as security guards, it’s pretty nice to say hi to them every time we come and go. In Chinese there’s a word that means Auntie, spelled Ayi and pronounced Ah-yee… we call them that. There’s two of us to a room and each room has a bathroom. The floors are stone so it makes it easy to sweep. There’s no heat or air conditioning so it’s been a bit cold in the rooms, but they gave us extra blankets so it’s been fine.

Here are some pictures.

The entrance.

The bathroom, yes it’s a squat toilet. But before you cringe, or perhaps while you cringe, click on this link and take a look at this very informative website.

This is my side of the room. It isn’t very organized.

The campus is really nice. It was all built in 2005 and it’s very clean and attractive. It’s pretty big, so bikes are a necessity to get around. We bought ours for ¥200, which is about $34.

This is the library. It’s nothing like Holland in Pullman, but it’s good for studying… but it doesn’t help that everything’s in Chinese.

There’s a cafeteria. You can get away with $1 for a good meal. It’s not spectacular though. It’s the cheapest and it’s edible.

There’s also a supermarket on campus for the necessities. Bottled water, cup-o-noodles and snack foods are all easily accessible.

The best place for good cheap food though is outside the east gate. There’s an overwhelming amount of little restaurants and stand with really good food. For about $2-3 you can get dumplings, noodles, stir fry, barbeque… so much food.

The east gate.

The entrance to the market.

It goes a long way.

Barbeque.

Our favorite place right now is actually this Northeastern diner. They have some really authentic and delicious food from northern China. They have really good dumplings and fried pork. We’ve gone there about four or five times now and they’re the nicest people, the owner’s wife always bothers us about not eating enough.

The owner.

His wife rolling dumplings.

The guys and the owner.

Fried pork. The authentic version of orange chicken.

Kid with a cleaver.

Classes have been good. We have quite a full load, myself and two others are taking five classes, but we have been three and nine hours of class a day. We get Fridays off though, which makes it worth the extra work.

We’ve made use of the schools rec center and track. They have basketball, tennis, and badminton courts. They also have a legit rec center with indoor basketball and a weight room.

We’ve done a bit of working out since we got here, it’s been nice. It’s only about $10 for a card to get 15 visits to the weight room. The only thing is that it opens at 2pm so you have to go in the evening.

So that’s the state of things here in Chengdu. We’re actually a little ways outside Chengdu, take a look at this map and you can see where we are in relation to the greater metro area. It takes about 40 minutes to an hour to get into the city, but thankfully there’s a school owned bus that goes about every 15 minutes for only about 75 cents.

I hope this was a good look at what it’s like here in Chengdu!

Take a look at my personal blog and read more about China!

My favorite experience however was visiting my friend Gao’s family on the outskirts of Chiang Mai.

Gao, one of the ‘Thai-Buddies,” lives on the out-skirts of Chiang Mai.  It took about 30 minutes to reach his house, and it was located in a small village centered around a lake.

Gao’s father is a fisherman, so upon arrival he took us to the lake to help him catch seafood for lunch.  He had numerous traps set out, designed to catch these tiny shrimp.  After about fifteen minutes, we had around 200 shrimp in a bucket and we took them back to Gao’s home.  I expected us to cook the shrimp, but Gao’s family had other ideas…

Instead of frying the shrimp, Gao’s mother made a sauce out of lime and chili.  We dipped the shrimp, whole and alive, into the mixture and enjoyed our meal!

At first it was strange, but I soon realized that it was delicious!  Along with the raw shrimp, we enjoyed Mango and sticky rice for dessert.  It was a great lunch and a truly unforgettable experience.

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Jared and I arrived in Guilin two nights ago around 5:30. I waited in line to see about train tickets further south to Hainan, but it looks like I’m just going to have to take an 18 hour bus ride instead of the train. It should be an experience.

We spent the night in Guilin and the next morning hopped on a quick bus to a town about an hour out called Yangshuo. We randomly met two Chinese girls on the bus who were from Guilin traveling to see Yangshuo. We ended up getting rooms next to each other-  we were thankful they helped us make sure we didn’t get cheated. Yangshuo is a total tourist trap. There are a ton of tourists and a ton of overpriced junk. We tried to see about getting some scroll paintings, and the guy started at ¥80 and we got him down to 30 in about a minute because we spoke Chinese and had the girls with us. It was really good to have met them especially because they didn’t speak any English, it helped us practice our Chinese.

To backtrack a little, when we got to Yangshuo it was quite frustrating trying to find the cheapest hotel, I was pretty set on the youth hostel, because it’s usually cheaper than other places, but the second we got off the bus we were barraged by salespeople…  a few scraggly looking women wanted to get us to come to their houses, that were supposed to double as hotels. I mean, the pictures looked nice ( They looked like they were probably magazine cut-outs) and they were cheap, but there had to be a catch. So like normal I just ignored them, hoping they’d get the idea. But after going by two youth hostels and realizing the one persistent saleswoman wasn’t going to leave us alone, we let her take us by her place, oddly named the kingfisher hotel. It turned out that her place was less expensive and actually nicer than the hostels, so we ended up staying with her. It’s turned out really good, and all for about 7 bucks a night. The rooms even had heating and a bathroom with shower. I have no idea how she manages to stay in business.

After we got checked in we found another lady who wanted to take us to dinner, she claimed she would escort us by bike to a place called Moon Mountain. The Chinese girls were into it, so we didn’t vocalize concern, though we were indeed skeptical. We biked for about half an hour until we got to this mountain with a little village next to it.

It turned out that trusting this lady was one of the best decisions we’d made in a while. It was beautiful clear evening and she showed us to a small restaurant where we had a fantastic meal on a porch with a spectacular view. The Yangshuo specialty dish is Beer Fish. We chose the fish ourselves from a little pond.

It was fantastic.

After this we biked back to a park and walked around a bit, then went back to the hotel at a leisurely pace and took some pictures along the way.

We spent the rest of the evening looking at shops and eating ice cream at KFC. We also had a really good conversation with a woman at our hotel visiting from Beijing. It was good to talk about lifestyle differences in the U.S. and talk about things that we don’t usually talk about on a regular basis with Chinese people, just to stretch our vocabulary a bit. Our first day was good.

The second day was better. Jared and I rented bicycles and took a trip back out to Moon mountain to hike to the top. But first we stumbled upon an old brick making factory. We looked around a bit then saw some trails that led back to a really cool area.

After our exploring we hiked to moon mountain. It was funny because there were these older ladies who were trying to sell us water and drinks before we started climbing, and their English was actually very good. They even followed us up the mountain and even when I was sweating they were still casually walking along as if they were just taking a stroll up the insanely steep path. They probably do it every day though. I wish I had taken some good pictures of them.

So we went to the top of Moon Mountain and ran into some foreigners. One guy from the states and a couple from Germany. They were all teaching English last semester. We talked for a while as we rested and then went back to the same restaurant and had basically the same meal as the first night. It was good enough to have twice. We had dinner then went back and went to a bar that our friend heard about, it had this Chinese guy playing French Experimental music. It was really awesome. My favorite was him playing the violin and throat singing at the same time. It was cool. But kinda wierd too, he also played the clarinet, the erhu, a lyre and some other Chinese guitar instrument. We grabbed some street food then headed back to the hostel late and crashed.

This morning I woke up a bit early, but we’re planning on taking another bike trip. I think we may return to Guilin either tonight or tomorrow.

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On an early Saturday, a few of us students gathered to snowboard 10 minutes away from the school. Someone like me, who has never touched a snowboard before, thought it was absolutely exciting to snowboard up in the Alps. So I got all my gears – bought a few things, rented a few things, borrowed a few things, somehow managed to put myself together.

So, we got up there. Then, I realized it is a red slope that I am going on to. hmm….I didn’t know different types of slopes. But the word red sounds…dangerous. Everyone knew how to snowboard but me. I got up there, thought it was still kind of exciting. Strapped my feet on the snowboard, got up the lift, here I come. A friend tried to teach me how to start, and it took me TWO hours to get downhill. I fell, I got up, gosh it was so exhausting.

So we went and grabbed some lunch and rested for a while. Everyone else went back up and I decided to sit at the restaurant so everyone could enjoy themselves and not watch me fall every two seconds. Last round, I figured I would try one more time before I ever snowboard again.

Here is when the story gets embarrassing. Since it took me SO freaking long to go five steps, I fell and got up and fell and got up. I had no idea about the time. I was up there for a while and when I was maybe an-eighth through, I was ready to be done. But an-eighth through, I couldn’t go back up and I couldn’t get down because of how skillful I was – here comes the guy who was making sure everyone was out of the slope and the place needed to close. I wondered how the heck I was going to get down that fat slope. It was getting dark. The guy had to watch me go all the way down and a couple of my friends was with me. Everyone waited here and there to watch me snowboard like a turtle. It took me SO LONG to finally go down the freaking hill. I sled a bit, I walked a bit, whatever it took for me to be out of that slope. Two of our friends were waiting at the train station for us to go back home. Of course, everyone laughed at my snowboarding skill that day. And man, I was sore that night. All I wanted was to pass out in my bed and not be cold.

Here is me acting like I know what I was doing

By the way, I almost lost my camera too…yeeaaa…didn’t know pocket zippers are supposed to be zipped up.

Here is me two seconds later next to that pole.

Another one of me falling. One out of the 1000 times I fell.

At the end of the day though, it was SO fun. One of the memorable stories about traveling and studying abroad. You can laugh all you want, it is no doubt one of the more embarrassing and funny stories I will remember forever. But hey, who can say they snowboard first time ever on the Swiss Alps?

To the foreigner, the Chinese train should not be just another mode of transportation. It’s a cultural adventure in and of itself, just like a day at the Forbidden Kingdom. Plus, you have a great chance to see what China looks like outside of the big cities. Experiencing the train is experiencing the essence of what China is. The people are normal Chinese people, and they don’t want to be stuffed in a tin can for 24 hours just as much as the next guy. They understand each other and have no choice but to get along and make friends. This typically includes sunflower seeds, top ramen, decks of cards and copious amounts of alcohol.

Now, to the foreigner in China, there are few basics he or she must understand about the train system.

1. Every city has at least one train station, and tickets can only be purchased in person at the train station or at satellite kiosks somewhere in the city, there is no online or over the phone reservation system.
2. Buying tickets at the train station is not fun. Expect to spend anywhere from one to two hours in line. Have your itinerary set up beforehand to keep the line moving fast.
3. Remember that train station personnel and the train attendants don’t speak English. Always have a Chinese-speaking buddy with you when making purchases.
4. Train schedules are available online here, but tickets cannot be purchased online.
5. If planning to travel by train on or around the time of Spring Festival, usually between January 1 and February 31, find another means of transportation or be prepared for a standing ticket. Tickets are nearly impossible to come by as it seems that all 1.3 billion Chinese try to take the train to their hometown during this time.
6. Remember to bring toilet paper, the provided tp usually runs out within the first 8 hours. Also, remember that the toilets on trains are usually squatty potties. Sometimes they’ll have western toilets, but don’t count on it.
7. In terms of food, cup-o-noodles are the meal of choice and can be bought from the attendants at a hefty markup. Hot water is provided on the trains. I’d suggest though to do some planning and bring your own food. Grocery stores sell cheap noodle bowls as well as other treats like peanuts, dried fruit, sunflower seeds, american candy, as well as inexpensive fruits.
8. Always remember to bring ear plugs.

There are five ticket classes….

1. Soft sleeper. This is the most expensive ticket. You get a very nice bed in a berth with four other beds stacked two high. The room’s door can be closed and electrical plugins are available. Nights are very quiet and fellow passengers are typically wealthy Chinese or foreigners who, in general, are harder to be social with. A bathroom with sinks are on every car for every class
2. Hard sleeper. The price for this ticket is typically about half the price of soft sleepers. Very economical. There are six beds to a berth stacked three high and there is no door. The beds are very comfortable. These tend to be louder at night but fellow passengers are regular Chinese people who like to talk and play card games. If you don’t speak Chinese, you’ll usually end up attracting English students who want to practice on you.  Its always nice to have a group of friends when traveling, just to watch over your stuff and have English speakers to talk to. Hard sleeper is my preferred ticket class.
3. Soft seat. These seats are similar to airplane seats. They typically only have these on shorter distance rides as the prices are not much less than the hard sleepers (go figure).
4. Hard seat. These are two benches sitting across each other with a small table in between. There are two of these tables on either side of the aisle. Very uncomfortable, especially when traveling for more than 5 hours (most routes are between 20 and 30 hours). This is for the poorest of the Chinese. It is very loud, it usually smells but it is by far the most culturally enriching. Sleep consists of leaning over onto your knees. I suggest having no expectation of sleep. Just play cards all night and you’ll be fine. Price is usually one fourth the price of soft sleeper. Don’t forget to bring a pillow!
5. Standing ticket. This means you don’t have a place to sit, so buy a newspaper and use it as a mat to sleep on the floor at night. During the day you can move from empty seat to empty seat as other passengers get up to use the restroom. They might as well be free (between five and ten dollars for a 24 hour trip ). If you’re lucky a Chinese person might offer you their seat.

In general, people have mixed emotions about the train. The reality is that taking the train in China takes a little courage and will usually require westerners to get over some fears about uncleanliness. It all depends though on your attitude. Be positive and open to new things, and you’ll be fine in China.

Another option is to head south.  The south of Thailand has some of the most beautiful beaches in the world.  While the cost of living is a little more in the south, it is MUCH cheaper than visiting Hawaii, Europe, or even Mexico.  A few of the students I traveled with organized a trip, visiting around five different islands; they stayed at every beach for only a night, carrying only their backpacks.  You have the opportunity of meeting many people from around the world, as many young Europeans enjoy visiting these beaches as well.

For those who really want to travel, it would be a great idea to visit other South Eastern Asian countries.  My roommate Alex for instance spent a week in Laos.  He said that Laos is by far the most beautiful country that he’d ever seen and found the trip to be truly unforgettable.  Another student, Sherry, went to Myanmar.  While Myanmar is very politically unstable she told us that she felt very safe in the country.  Shopping in Myanmar is even cheaper than Chiang Rai, so hardcore souvenir-getters may be tempted to visit.

If you have a layover in Taipei, Taiwan it is also a great idea to organize a longer layover for your return flight.  After all, when else are you going to get the chance to see Taiwan?

Travelling was an amazing part of the Chiang Mai Program.  It was great because the program lets you see a lot of Thailand, but also gives you the opportunity to organize your own trips with friends and see the region on your own.  I would recommend planning on staying a little longer than the program length, because once you spend some time in Chiang Mai, you will feel a lot more comfortable and confident  when travelling.  South-East Asia, for the most part, is a relatively safe area of the world and if you conduct yourselves properly, you will most likely find that the locals respond very well to visitors.

Planes

Planes are a quick and easy way to travel around if you are limited on time and you want to see countries that are farther apart.  Air travel is surprisingly cheap if you know where to look. The two low cost carriers in Europe that are used the most are:

Ryan Air: www.ryainair.com and Easy Jet: www.easyjet.com

These two carriers are extremely cheap with little to no ammenities. If your goal is travel cheap, but without in-flight meals or other ammenities, this is the way to travel. On my experience I used Easy Jet because it flies to bigger airports. After school was over i flew from Milan to Stockholm, Sweden for around 80 Euro roundtrip with booking it only 2 weeks in advance!  The disadvantages of these carriers is they do only fly to mostly regional airports, you have to pay to check luggage, and there is no assigned seating. But.. if you are looking for cheap travel, this is the way to go.

Trains.

By far the best way to see Europe is by train. It is a chance to see how locals travel every day and a chance to see some of the best scenery in the world.   From my experiences I used trains nearly every day when i was there. While trains are everywhere, navigating the train system in Europ is complex if you don’t know what you are doing.

For starters each country in Europe has their own train system and you can go to their individual websites to get individual country passes. Most people though plan on spending time in more than 1 country. For that I would reccomend the EU Rail pass: http://www.eurail.com/

There are a number of options that can be tailored to your individual needs. You can purchase 15 day- 3 month continual passes, or purchase flex passes which means 5-10 days in a 2 or 3 month period. Finally within these you can choose a global (most countries) or 2,3,4 or 5 country passes. Confused yet? Basically… on the EU website you can cater you trip to whatever you situation. For example I only planned on traveling to France and Italy by train after school got out, so I only purchase a 10 day flex-pass that covered Italy, Switzerland and France. Others though may want to purchase a global pass.

Hope that helps and Happy Travels!

Being in Switzerland made traveling so much easier! Within a 6 hour train ride radius, you can go to many major cities in Europe.

During school year, I was able to take a few weekend trips with friends to Paris, Munich, and Rome. Also, with the program, all of us WSU students visited Milan and Venice. Don’t be overwhelmed with the idea of planning trips in Europe. It really is much easier than you think! I actually enjoyed planning the trips a lot after a couple of trials and most of the time, traveling is cheaper than you think if you spend money wisely!

For hostels, there are so many websites out there for you to reserve hostels. Most hostels in Europe were very very clean and affordable. The average price I paid was probably around $30- $35 a night, ranges from $15-$45 a night depending on where you go. I planned all of my accommodations before I went just so I could make sure I would have a place to stay at night.

With Eurail passes, they definitely came in handy for me. Rick Steve’s website’s got all the prices and info. Again, depending on where you want to go, how many countries you want to go to, and how long you want to stay in Europe; there are many many different combos of Eurail passes you can get. They go from a few hundred to about $1,500. Selecting the pass no doubt took some research and planning so keep that in mind.

From Geneva airport, you can fly to many places easily too. There are a few cheap airlines in Europe that you can fly with. For example, my flight to Glasgow, Scotland was less than $100 from Geneva.

I had never been to Europe before. So before I went, I was worried about the traveling situation. But I was able to make friends easily to travel with and to figure out how the transportation system works in Europe. Sometimes it was an adventure to go to new places. At the same time, it was always fun and there were so many good memories from traveling. I also traveled by myself after the program was over. It was very exciting and I met so many people as I traveled. Trust me, it is very hard to not have a great experience traveling.

With the Switzerland program, one trip is included and we went to Milan and Venice. Food and hotel and train were all paid for. I barely spent any money all weekend. We also saw the Last Supper in Milan, which was AMAZING! I love museums so that was a great side trip we took. It was also a fantastic bonding experience too with the WSU group and professors. When you travel with such a big group, you always look out for each other!

I did travel a lot when I was in Europe. If you plan carefully, it really is easy to take trips on the weekends and see a few places that you have always wanted to see!

But I would recommend experiencing the local cuisine as much as possible.  Visit local diners and try and eat what the locals would eat. This allows you get a truly valuable cultural experience.

One of the coolest places I visited was Istanbul, Turkey. In Istanbul a lot of the restaurants don’t have tall tables but have tables where you sit on your legs on comfortable floors. Meals are typically served with pita bread and different types of humus.

For the main meal chicken and different types of fish are served. The biggest surprise for me was how the fish was served. I was not used the fish being whole and having to pick apart the skin and the bones. Gross, but delicious!

Outside of Turkey I of course spent most of my time in Switzerland. For Switzerland, the restaurants are typically smaller and family owned. Being that Switzerland is a multi-lingual country you might have menus in French, Italian, German, and sometimes English, but not always. Meals are served in multiple courses and are not rushed. Eating in Switzerland is an experience and the waiters are not at all concerned about how long a meal takes. In fact waiters will not typically give you a check until you say you are ready. I found that a lot of the meals I had typically took 2 hours or so, which may seem long but actually was very enjoyable.

One word of warning, meals in Switzerland can be pretty expensive. Switzerland is one of the richest nations in the world. A typical meal for one in Switzerland can run anywhere from $20-$30, not including wine or a side salad. While it’s expensive, plan on spending a few meals taking in the the unique dining experience and the great views of the Swiss Alps.

Regardless of where you eat, as I said earlier, eating is a major part of the cultural experience. Go out and try something new. You can have American food all the time, but you may not get many opportunities to experience the food and lifestyle that makes Europe a great place to eat.

Bon Apetit!