TravelBio

One of my fellow teachers, Chris, created this with an app during his class. The seniors are bit livelier in my class, but not much. I’ve been talking at length about weekend trips out of Hangzhou, but what did I actually do when I stayed put? As far as work is concerned, the fall and early winter are busy in my office, which I share with four Chinese counselors. Yes, there are four Chinese and one foreign college counselor (that’s me!) at the international department of our school—a department which has 50-60 students in each graduating class. If you are surprised, that makes two of us. My high school back in Ohio was on the small side—my graduating class had 175 students or so—and we had one college counselor, Mr. Stahlman. I remember meeting with him to discuss universities and applications one afternoon for no more than 20 minutes. Although I cannot recall it, we probably had a follow up meeting later my senior year, and he was always available if I wanted to email him,

Our school Sports Day festivities After Xi’an and Guangzhou, I had a brief hiatus from weekend trips, but it wasn’t long until I was again eager to travel! It being my second fall in Hangzhou, the city started to bore me—don’t get me wrong, there are things to do, and bars and restaurants to frequent, but my expat social circle is fairly small, and it can quickly feel like a bubble. And I like to burst bubbles. So in early November I was off again, this time to Changchun, in northeast China. If Guangzhou doesn’t rank high on the list in terms of cities to visit, then Changchun is off the page, especially come winter. The city is the capital of Jilin province, and with 4 million inhabitants in the urban area, one of the largest in the region. Some know Changchun as the “Detroit of China,” due to the large automotive and manufacturing presence there. It was also the former the capital of Manchukuo, the Japanese puppet state in the 1930s and 40s, and you can visit the old imp

Did I say I liked the G20? Yeah, we got a late start, but on second thought…during the first semester we typically have a week off for a Chinese national holiday which starts October 1 st , but due to the G20 we needed to make up for lost time. Which means the school break was reduced to a three-day weekend, with our extra day off on Monday, the 3rd of October. Three days is still better than two, and although the semester was only three weeks in, it seemed an opportune time for another trip! Both Robbie and Joanna were keen to travel, so the three of us booked a flight to Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong province in southern China. Joanna preferred to see Hong Kong, but unfortunately flights were pricey—double Guangzhou, so instead of the Pearl of the Orient we settled for a mega-city on the Pearl River. Guangzhou, the largest city in southern China The Pearl River Delta, of which Guangzhou is a part, is famous for manufacturing, so much so that it earned the

I arrived in Hangzhou on the 9 th of September, but I didn’t stay in town long. We had an extra day off of the Mid-Autumn Festival, and since long weekends are limited, I decided to take advantage of the time and fly to Xi’an. I teamed up with with Robbie, the football coach who started at our school this past May, and we planned it all two days before the flight. We had Thursday and Friday off (15-16 of September), but had to be back for work on Sunday; our flight out departed Thursday afternoon and returned Saturday evening. Xi'an is circled in red; although it's east of the geographical center of the country, most would consider it western China (the character Xi actually means "west" in Chinese), since the vast majority of the population lives to the east; west of Lanzhou and Chengdu is a whole lot of nada. Xi’an is one of the oldest cities in China and was the capital of several Chinese dynasties. Most people visit to see the Terracotta Army, a c