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Montana Summer & Glacier-Waterton National Park

// July 30th, 2011 // 1 Comment » // Travel

Before starting my PhD studies at Carnegie Mellon University this fall, I decided to spend the summer back in Livingston, Montana working the same job I did last summer: teaching off-road driving at a ranch. It’s a great job, tons of fun, and it will help a lot with expenses for school, especially after coming back from a 7-month trip to Taipei and Beijing (I badly need money!). But perhaps the best part about being here is that it is giving me some much needed time to relax a little, have some fun, and in general have a good time enjoying life before having to hunker down and get really serious with my studies and research this fall. After 7 months of being in huge cities, I can’t think of a better place to be than the northern Rockies.

There’s no doubt that the best way to enjoy this place is to get outside, so once again I’ve decided to take advantage of my time and get out as much as possible. Last summer I spent most of my time hiking surrounding mountains, so this year I decided to spend more time rock climbing (though I did get to hike Livingston Peak again, one of my favorites). My roommate Sam is a very skilled climber, so I’ve gone out a few times with him to try and learn as much as I can and have a good time doing it. My friend Vanessa, a lindy hopper in Bozeman, is also an experienced climber and has joined for some climbs as well. While I have climbed in the past, I’ve never had so much time on real rock, and it’s opened up a whole new world for me. My first time on real rock was in Yangshuo, China, back in November 2010, and ever since I’ve been itching to climb more outside on the real thing. I also started learning how to lead and lead my first route (only a 5.7) just a couple weeks ago. I’m hoping to get to do a little more in the last few weeks here and then hopefully get to do some near Pittsburgh this fall.

The other great things about being in Montana is how close it is to some of the greatest national parks in the world. Last year I went through Yellowstone and Grand Teton, my first time in a national park. This year I decided to head to Glacier and Waterton National Park for my 24th birthday. Vanessa joined me for the trip and we decided we’d spend most of the time hiking some backcountry up in the Canadian side. We drove up from Bozeman on the 24th and fortunately were able to drive through the Going to the Sun Road at dusk (the road was just opened just 10 days prior having been closed due to snow before). That night we drove to a small camp site, cooked up some pasta, and rested for the morning.

The next day we drove up to Waterton in Canada and found a trail to hike in the backcountry for the next 2 days. The only multi-day hike listed was the Tamarack Trail, a 35 km stretch with a few different camp sites along the way. Most people do it in 3 days, be we decided we’d push hard and get to Lone Lake on day 1 (17.5 km in) so we could hike out on day 2. We got on the trail at about 11 am and started in, carrying all our gear (tent, food, sleeping bags). The first part was relatively easy, but after about 6 km it got significantly harder, with switch backs through the snow through a 2000 ft climb. Just as we hit the snowy part, a rain storm swept through with some pretty serious winds. It was about a 45 minute stretch of loose footings and cold rain, but as the storm past we crested the peak of Lineham Ridge and came upon this view:

After a break at the top, we descended the other side of the ridge, back down another 2000 ft. or so, into a forrest in the valley. The forrest provided some refreshing shade and fresh glacier melt water at a stream, but after several hours of hiking back and forth up and down switch backs, we were getting pretty ready to get out of it. Eventually the trail brought us out of the valley and back up yet another huge climb of switch backs to another peak. At this point we were getting pretty exhausted, and just as we were getting ready to sit down and make camp anywhere, we saw Lone Lake just on the other side of the peak, the camp site we were shooting for. Down more switch backs and some snow and we finally made it to the camp site.

We set up the tent and decided to take a break for a bit and relax before dinner. About 30 minutes later, we heard thunder, and decided maybe we should have gotten on dinner right away. Sure enough, about half way through boiling some pasta, the storm hit, but what came was more than anything we could have anticipated – golf ball size hail! It started as little pellets, but sure and steadily grew to huge balls falling insanely fast. Fortunately the camp site had a wooden outhouse, so we sought refuge there and brought the pasta inside. Together we enjoyed a nice pasta meal over a plastic toilet seat to the sound of golf balls pulverizing everything. All I could think of was how our tent was holding up.

After dinner and the storm passed, we checked the tent and found that despite the hail, it held up rather well. We filled up on water by the lake, hung our food from the bears, and finally crashed. In the middle of the night, another storm hit, with lightening, thunder, and rain most of the night. We woke to more rain, and after waiting for an hour for it to pass, we just gave up and accepted that it was going to be a long, wet day. We packed up camp and headed on north towards the next camp site, Twin Lakes. The 8ish km between the two sites, while relatively flat, was the most snow-covered of the whole trail, and we were hiking in snow at least half the time. At a critical point where we totally lost the trail in the snow, we came across 3 people hiking in the opposite direction. Had we not ran into them right then, we probably would have wandered for a few hours searching our way back to the trail. After passing Twin Lakes, we ran into some park trail workers that were burning an old outhouse and enjoyed the warmth for a moment by the raging fire they had started.

From that point on, the rain slowly dissipated and the trail became very wide and flat. We hiked the last 8 km sopping wet, but in the sun, slowly beginning to dry. At the end, we came out of the trail head and ran into a crowd of tourists from all over the world, several asking how the trail was, and we shared our story of the past day. We started walking down the road looking to hitch hike back to the other side of the trail where we parked the car and fortunately ran into the same trail workers. They beat us back because they rode bikes, but they gave us a lift back into town. From there we hitched another ride up to Vanessa’s car and then got dinner at Subway.

We only had one more night, and since all our gear was completely soaked, we decided to drive back into Glacier and just sleep in the car. We came into Many Glacier and washed up a bit at the hotel there, warmed up by the fire, and then slept in the car. Once again it rained all night, and in the morning we drove back down the Going to the Sun Road.

This time the sun was just breaking through the mountains, so the views were completely different. The clouds drifted through the valleys like a fog and made for some surreal scenery. A few hours and a few stops for road maintenance later and we came out the west side of the park and began our drive back to Bozeman. On the way back we stopped at a diner and had the biggest breakfast we could find. We got back at around 5 pm and had to shower and get ready for a dance class I had to teach at 7, though I wanted nothing more than to sleep! I got home late and completely wiped. In the end, the trip was a serious test of the elements and the shape we were both in, but the scenery and wonder brought by the time spent out alone with just the mountains and the snow is a memory that will last forever.

2010 China Travels: Part IV – Beijing, Guilin, & Yangshuo

// April 21st, 2011 // No Comments » // China, Chinese, Dancing, Taiwan, Travel, Uncategorized

Wow, considering I wrote Part III back in November 2010, I’d say it’s about time to finish writing about my 2010 China travels! I was doing well keeping up with it all, but then classes started in Taiwan and things got busy (read my last post if you want to know what kept me so busy in Taiwan). So now I’ll take the time to finish what I started. Where I left the story last, it was Halloween and I had just landed in Beijing.

Beijing

I spent 4 days in Beijing, and while I was originally not planning on making a stop there, one thing changed my mind: The Cangelosi Cards. One of my favorite jazz bands of all time, it just so happened that the Cards were in town that weekend and were getting ready to play two shows back to back in Beijing. Since the last time I saw them was in Virginia Beach back in 2007, I decided I couldn’t miss it.

The first day in Beijing, I joined in the Rocky Horror Picture Show party being put on by Beijing Swing, which was a riot to say the least! The next day was the Cards’ first show, and as soon as I entered the venue I ran into Tamar, the singer, who instantly recognized me. I couldn’t believe it, but she remembered seeing me the last time in VA Beach, because at that time we had talked about how I had just started learning Chinese. Here I am 3 years later and we meet in Beijing! The rest of the night was incredible, dancing away to their music till late in the morning.

The following day we did it again, and this time even better! The Cards gave an epic performance, and some of the dancers performed some routines live to the music. It was two of the best nights of dancing in a row that I’d had in a long time! The next day I headed to Tianjin to visit for a day and met with some professors at Tianjin University who showed me around the city. At the time I was considering working with them come spring of 2011 (though I ended up working in Beijing where I am now). I found Tianjin to be an extremely beautiful city, one very different from others I’ve visited, and it seemed a lot less crowded. It seemed like a city I could enjoy living in for a while.

Guilin

I left Beijing in the morning, but my flight to Guilin was booked from Shanghai, so I spent one more night in Shanghai surprising all my dancer friends when I showed up. I flew into Guilin airport on November 5th and took a bus to the middle of the city where I went to Guanxi Normal University to meet with my buddy Robert’s girlfriend who was letting me spend the night while he was out of town. Robert and his brother run a school there, the Chinese Language Institute, and showed me around. I have to say I am very impressed with the program they have set up, and if I had the time I would considering studying there myself. I explored a tiny bit then crashed and prepared to visit Yangshuo in the morning.

Yangshuo

In the morning I went down to Yangshuo along with some of the CLI students, accompanying them on a field trip. We rode motor boats down the Li River marveling at the Karsts, then hiked through the small town of Xiping on our way to Yangshuo. We arrived in the evening, dropped our bags, and headed to a grand theater built on a lake where we saw Zhang Yimou’s famous show “Impression” (刘三姐). It was quite a fantastic sight to see, as most of the performance was done on small boats on the water. The choreography was breathtakingly complex and timed to a perfection that can only be achieved in China.

The next day we rented bikes and rode around all over town seeing the many beautiful sites Yangshuo had to offer, including a famous mud cave where half the students stripped to their bathing suits and jumped in the mud. I opted to chill in the hot springs myself instead of freezing mud! Later that day, the students all went back to Guilin, but I decided to stay for one more day so I could do some rock climbing. I found a small climbing store, “Black Rock Climbing,” and booked a day with a couple Norwegian girls also looking to climb. In the morning, our guide, Weihua, brought us out to a cliff face called Wineglass and showed us the ropes. We spent the whole morning climbing, and in only a few hours we were pretty beat. It was an incredible experience though, because as you climb higher and higher you can see a remarkable view of the hundreds of karsts surrounding you. I now understand why the whole world talks about Yangshuo as a mecca for climbers.

In the evening I headed over to Moon Hill mountain, famous for the huge hole in the middle, which was also full of climbers. I hiked past the “warning don’t go here” signs and got all the way to to top, where I caught an unforgettable sunset amongst the karsts. Later that night, I went over to The Giggling Tree hostel, a place I had heard of the very first time I visited China and had been wanting to see for years. It is a small place owned and run by a Dutch couple who bought the land and converted 17 different farm houses into a hostel. It is on the outskirts of Yangshuo in the middle of farms, and by far one of the most unique hostels in the world. It was also one of the nicest places I’ve ever stayed at in China, and quite affordable for a dorm room (only 50 RMB a night!). A night at The Giggling Tree was the perfect end to my 2010 backpacking adventures in China.

I headed back to Guilin and hopped on my 20 hour train back to Shanghai, and while everything started nicely, things took an unfortunate turn for the worse. About 10 hours in, I got horribly sick…vomiting sick. Throwing up on a Chinese train for 10 hours has got to be one of the worst physical challenges I’ve endured in my life…and things only got worse. When I arrived in Shanghai, I at least had a day to recover at Bruce and Julia’s before boarding my flight for Taipei in the morning. In the morning, with nearly no strength left in my body, I managed to make it to the airport, only to find my flight had been delayed 3 hours. We boarded the plane, and waited another 2 hours before even taking off. By the time I landed in Xiamen, my connection to Taipei had left, and I was stuck for the night, sick, weak, and frustrated. Luckily I still had one extra day on my visa, and the airport put me up in a nice hotel. All in all it took an entire 24 hours until I got back on a plane for Taipei. When I landed, I was extremely relieved to find JC and Mindy waiting on me in the airport, and my Taiwan adventure began.

While it was a rough last 2 days traveling from Shanghai to Taipei, the previous month was full of incredible experiences and moments I will cherish forever. I had danced for 9 days in Shanghai and visited Hangzhou, Huangshan, Nanjing, Beijing, Guilin, and Yangshuo. I experienced so much in such little time I had to write about it in 4 parts, and didn’t finish it until now, 4 months afterwards! When I look back at the time I spent, I realize how lucky I am to have been able to see so many amazing places in this world, and it makes me very thankful to have had these experiences.

A Farewell To Taiwan

// March 14th, 2011 // No Comments » // Taiwan, Travel

Taiwan and I finally parted ways last week after a brief love affair over the winter months in late 2010 – early 2011. I spent 3 months studying Chinese at National Taiwan University as a recipient of the Taiwan Huayu Mandarin Enrichment Scholarship. While my time in classes was both enjoyable and beneficial to my Chinese, what will really leave an impact on me are the many unique life experiences Taiwan provided in those short 3 months.

It started with the violin. In my first 2 weeks in Taipei, I asked around and looked for an opportunity to play with a local symphony. I quickly found Apo Hsu and the National Taiwan Normal University Symphony who adopted me into their ensemble (and even lent me a violin!). Two weeks later, I performed with them at the National Concert Hall! I would have never imagined in my life that I would have this kind of opportunity, but within my first month in Taiwan is showed up at my doorstep. I wrote about the concert in detail in a previous post.

A couple weeks later, my friend from Montreal (and girlfriend for a short time) Amanda came to visit for Christmas and New Years. Within a few days, we confessed our feelings for each other and decided to start dating, even though we knew it would be 5 months until we could see each other again. Nonetheless, we had an incredible 2 weeks together, and we celebrated both of our first Christmases away from home as well as Taiwan’s 100th New Year together! It was a very special time to be in Taiwan, and it was particularly special to me to have someone I loved to share it with. However, in March we broke up after I left Taiwan and moved to Beijing – the distance was too much, and it simply would not work. Though heartbroken still, I will always remember Taiwan as the first place I truly fell in love with someone.

In January, I flew over to Hong Kong for the Hong Kong Swing Festival and had a blast dancing all weekend long and catching up with old dancer friends from all over Asia. Another fantastic weekend, and also a chance to renew my Taiwan visa since I had left the country and re-entered!

A few weeks later and it was Chinese New Year, so I hopped down to Kenting with Vlad (my Russian/Dutch classmate) and spent a few days surfing and driving scooters in the most beautiful place in Taiwan. It was a paradise down there! Imagine surfing during the first week of February! Afterwards we headed north into the mountains and spent another few days searching for hotsprings, only to find out most had been destroyed the past few years due to typhoons and landslides. We did have some unique experiences though, including dancing in a traditional aboriginal wedding ceremony and exploring an old abandoned and destroyed resort club.

One more week of classes and then I was done. I still had two weeks until I would move to Beijing, so I took advantage of my last bit of time in Taiwan to do make a few more memories. On February 25, Taipei Swing threw a party for me and we danced the night away. The next morning all the dancers and I visited Jiufen, a tiny town that has now become a huge tourist area filled with many traditional Taiwanese snacks and souvenirs. A few days later, I took a day trip down to Taroko National Park drove through the entire park all day on a scooter. It was one of the most beautiful days I’ve seen in Taiwan, and I even got to spend a few hours relaxing in an old abandoned natural hot spring.

The very last unique experience in Taiwan was on my 2nd to last day – I got to be an extra in Ang Lee’s new film “Life of Pi” based on the novel by Yann Martel. The movie was being shot an the old airport in Taizhong, and on March 3, I got up at 2:30 am to catch a bus down to the studio. Along with about 40 other foreigners, we were dressed up in 1950′s sly swimsuits and places around a pool, the scene being the famous “Picine Molitar,” where Pi (the main character) got his name. I got in several close up shots and even got to chat some with Li An himself as well as a couple of the lead actors! We had to spend a lot of time waiting around, and it was a pretty freezing day with a constant cold breeze (and barely any clothes on), but it was still a very unique and memorable experience. I left with a pretty bad sunburn, a bit of cash for doing it, and the hopes that I might actually be in a movie for a few seconds! Check it out – Life of Pi, 2012 (if I’m in it, I’m the one in the skimpy brown and white striped swimsuit).

Oh I almost forgot to mention – the last couple months in Taiwan, I had the pleasure of jamming with the David Chen and the Muddy Basin Ramblers, a New Orleans style jazz band in Taipei. As a group of expats, we played several performances together, one specially with the Taipei swing dancers. Our time together was short, but I had a blast playing with the Ramblers. Thanks David for the awesome times together!

Well Taiwan, that’s all for now. Who knows when I’ll get to visit again. I have to say, you gave a whole lot in just 3 months, many amazing experiences that I will never forget. It’s too bad we couldn’t have stayed together longer – who knows what could have happened!

2010: The year of Nature, Serious Dancing, and Travel

// January 12th, 2011 // No Comments » // Dancing, Other, Travel

For many, 2010 was a year to forget, bringing nothing but a constant stream of disappointment and troubles.  While I had my fair share of the same, I figured I’d look back and note the good I encountered this year.  Apart from several significant events this year (including graduating from Virginia Tech), 2010 had 3 recurring themes: nature, serious dancing, and travel.

Nature

By far, I had the privilege of seeing more amazing landscapes in 2010 than any other year in my life.  I never planned things to be that way – it just sort of happened, probably mostly because I just travelled so much and kept finding myself in amazing places.  It started in the middle of the year right after graduation.  I took a road trip in June up to Montreal and on the way back visited Niagara Falls (the Canadian and American sides).  The falls have been on my list for a very long time, and I never thought this would be the year to see them.

I followed that trip with a whole summer working in Livingston, Montana, one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been for an extended time.  Up in the north eastern Rockies, this is the view I saw from our townhouse everyday (right). Throughout the summer, my coworkers and I hiked many of the surrounding mountains and soaked up the landscape, including Livingston Peak, Sacajawea Peak, and Cottonwood Lake.  Here are some of the views we enjoyed:

Being only an hour north of Yellowstone National Park, I couldn’t leave Livingston without a visit, so I picked a weekend in August and visited both Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Park.  I spent two days driving through both parks and can’t describe how amazed I was at the landscapes and wildlife I encountered.  The pictures don’t even come close to capturing how spectacular this region of America is.

At the end of my job in Montana, I began my current trip to Asia and flew to Shanghai.  After a week there, I spent three more weeks backpacking and visiting many places I’ve wanted to see in China, including Huangshan, Hangzhou, Guilin, and Yangshuo – 4 destinations packed with breathtaking natural surroundings.  Anyone in China will agree that each one of those places are what people dream of seeing, let alone visiting all 4 back-to-back in 3 weeks!  Yangshuo marked the end of my natural landscape adventures for 2010, but in just a few weeks I am planning to continue the trend by visiting the rest of Taiwan, including the national park in the middle of the country famed for its unbelievable landscapes!

Serious Dancing

I add “serious” here because 2010 was the first time I noticed that my dancing has now become a major part of my life.  Before then, dancing was something I just loved to do (albeit do A LOT!).  Several events in 2010 made me realize just how important swing dancing has become.  First, I attended my first ever all blues event called “Steel City Blues” in Pittsburgh, PN back in March.  Before then, blues had been a dance I knew rather little about, and mostly all I did know was from social dancing.  At STB, I took my first ever workshops with professional blues dancers, and a whole new world of dancing was opened.  I learned a tremendous amount that weekend, and I even competed and made it to the final round in the open Jack and Jill, my first time ever making it to any J&J final. 

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A month later, I went to my first ever DC Lindy Exchange and spent the weekend hanging out with 3 of my best dancer friends ever: Michael, Annabel, and Kara.  We all became friends at different times, but this was only the 2nd event we had all been at, and it was amazing to see how much we had bonded through dancing.  I realized that weekend that some of my best friends are dancers, and that had I never danced I would never know these amazing people.  

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The rest of the summer, I attended several events that kept up with the same theme: seeing some of my best friends over a weekend of endless happiness dancing.  I visited Philadelphia for Hot Mess in July and then Atlanta for the Southern Belle Swing Bash, where again I made it to the final round in the open Jack & Jill.  

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To finish the year off, I spent my first week in Shanghai dancing for 9 days straight at the first ever Swing Out Shanghai and then performing at the Shanghai World Expo with dancers from all over Asia.  It was an unforgettable week and an incredible start to my current trip in Asia.  I’ve already begun 2011 continuing the same theme having just attended the 3rd annual Hong Kong Swing Festival!

Travel

After reading the first two themes, it’s clear that I traveled a lot in 2010, and I mean a lot in addition to the normal amounts of traveling I do.  All in all, I visited over 10 states in America, 4 different countries, drove from VA to Montreal and back, flew from VA to Montana and back 5 times, flew from America to China, and traveled to 8 cities in Asia (and most of that travel was between June and December).  Between working in Montana for 4 months, traveling for dance events, and starting my current trip in Asia, I have probably covered over 50,000 miles in the last 6 months alone.  Besides the frequent flyer miles I’ve been racking up, I’ve learned a few things doing so much traveling.  One, I am an expert at packing now and am ready for just about any situation you can imagine on the road.  Two, my navigational skills have never been sharper – getting lost is not something that happens easily, and I will never be caught without at least one compass on me.  Three, I miss my friends and family.  While constantly seeing new places and making new friends is exciting and fun, I also realize how much I am missing out on back home.  There are so many people that are important in my life and I barely got to spend any time with them in 2010.  It is something I regret, but also the unfortunate reality of life on the road.  I learned this lesson clear in 2010, and I will keep it in mind as I look towards future decisions I will have to make about where I will be and what I will be doing next.  As a visual, here is a map of all the places in Asia I have travelled to in the past 2 years:

View Complete Travels Through Asia, 2008 - in a larger map

As I said, so far 2011 is starting off with many similar trends as I just got back from an awesome weekend dancing in Hong Kong.  I am learning and learning and still going and going, but it feels good to sit down and remember the good times from a very scattered and crazy 2010!  Here’s hoping 2011 will be full of just as many memories – it is the year of the rabbit after all (my year!!!)!

2010 China Travels: Part III – Nanjing

// November 28th, 2010 // No Comments » // China, Chinese, Travel

I arrived in Nanjing on the night of October 28th and immediately met a young Chinese guy staying in the same dorm room who was so impressed with my Chinese that he invited me to dinner. It turned out he was meeting an old friend who he hadn’t seen in over 3 years, and although I felt I was imposing, he insisted that I join. We had hotpot, the first hotpot I’d had in over a year! Thousands of memories came flashing back over that pot, and I realized yet again how much I had missed China. The whole evening was a wonderful warm welcome to Nanjing and a great start for the city.

The next morning I visited the Johns Hopkins Nanjing Center at Nanjing University, where I am considering studying this fall. I began a tour of the school by sitting in on a couple lectures – one in English on business economics in the Enron case and the other in Chinese on modern US/China relations. Both were quite interesting, and I could tell from the Chinese one that this program was serious about language. Afterwards, I met with Liz Muller who showed me around the campus and answered questions. Walking down the hallway, we passed two American students carrying violins dressed in suits. It turned out they were heading to a dress rehearsal for a performance that night with the Nanjing University Symphony Orchestra, and they invited me to join! The show was all traditional chinese music, and it was mostly a celebration of the 20th anniversary of their music program. The 2-hour performance included mostly older men and women singing Chinese songs, and then the orchestra joined in for the last 45 minutes. Afterwards, we went up on stage and got a photo with the director (right) who reminded me of a Chinese Gene Wilder. On the metro ride back, I got a great glimpse of the study body at the Nanjing Center. All of them came from different parts oft he US and from all different backgrounds and majors, yet they were all here working hard at their Chinese while having a blast living in China. By the end of the night, I decided I would definitely be putting in an application for the Nanjing Center.

The next morning I started out by heading to the house of John Rabe, a German who saved thousands of Chinese during the Japanese invasion of Nanjing in WWII by establishing a safe zone. Unfortunately, the house was only open on weekdays, so I went on to the Ji Ming Temple, and active temple with a huge pagoda from where you can see the whole city. After passing through, I continued onto the old city wall and walked along it for a bit before going down the the lakeside park and exploring around there. I was definitely one of the most beautiful parts of Nanjing and it reminded me of NYC’s central park, this huge green space in the middle of a metropolis. Later on I visited the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum (中山陵) on Purple Mountain. Known as the Father of China, Sun Yatsen (a.k.a. Zhong Shan) is kind of like a Ben Franklin figure in Chinese history, laying down the foundation for establishing a Republic after the fall of the Qing Dynasty. Although the Communists fought and eventually beat him during the civil war in the 20s and 30s, the whole country still honors him as China’s first great modern leader. His tomb and memorial clearly shows it too – an epic temple with deep blue roof tiles at the top of hundreds of steps on a mountain. It was quite an honor to finally see the Zhongshan himself.

I finished the day by going all the way across town to the Nanjing Massacre Memorial, established to commemorate the 300,000 lives that were brutally and mercilessly taken by the Japanese rape of Nanjing in WWII. The crimes committed were so atrocious and so unspeakable that even Nazi German soldiers who were posted in Nanjing and witnessed the events wrote in their journals about how disgusted they were with the inhumane acts of the Japanese! China is often spoken of as the forgotten front during WWII, and it is rarely mentioned in any western history books, even though the whole war essentially started there. As the sun began to fall, I took one last solemn look at the memorial and then headed back to the hostel.

To my surprise, I returned to a very different place than from where I had left. Through all the traveling, I had forgotten that the next day was Halloween, and the hostel was throwing a party to celebrate. All of the foreign students at Nanjing University showed up and partied until late into the night, not something I was too thrilled about considering the 5:00 am get up I had in the morning to catch my flight to Beijing!  In the end, I found the city to be charming, calm, extremely welcoming, and bursting out the seams with history. Spending a year there (if I got into the Nanjing Center) would definitely be something I would like to do.  In the morning I caught a flight to Beijing, where part IV of my trip begins.