Andrew Buser's UDCI Experience

Day 105, Wrap-Up

4/22/2015

All in all, I’ve had a lot of fun writing this blog, and it will enable me to answer those questions that always arise in the recounting of adventures, such as, “What else were we doing that day?” and, “When was that, again?” And it also helps you to remember your in-the-moment reactions to the situation, rather than only the romanticized version that human memory has an incredible knack of making for us. And I know I’ll be able to look back on these events for a long time because, as everyone knows, once you put something on the Internet it never really goes away.
I hope you all have enjoyed my blog about the adventures of the inaugural full-semester class of University of Dayton China Institute. Our student group in total consisted of 10 American and 17 Chinese students. The Chinese students were from all parts of China. I can’t remember where all they were from. As for the Americans, there were: Renee and myself from Columbus; Jesse, Lauren, and Rachel from Dayton; Cierra and Dan from Indianapolis; Vidy from Louisville; and “Gonzy” from Nashville. So, a very diverse Midwestern group. I think, in terms of personality and ethnicity, our antics probably would have made for a great reality TV show.
If you’ve enjoyed reading this blog as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it, and you are interested in a different take on our adventures, I recommend reading the blog my friend Lauren Schmitz wrote about her experiences during our China adventures. It’s called “Laurie’s Stores”, and can be found at lauriesstories.weebly.com.
I hope that this blog I’ve written can be used to recount some of our adventures and experiences to students and people going to China, and to future generations of UD students, to alert them to some things they should know before going. Hopefully this information can somewhat reduce the culture shock, although no matter how much you read or hear about a thing experiencing it for yourself is totally different. At the very least I hope it will provide reading material for those interested in China who have never been there, and people who like adventure and travel. As I said, I have had a lot of fun writing this blog, and I hope you all have enjoyed reading it.
P.S. Sorry for the delay in getting these last blogs out. It was like coming home from a long vacation. Almost as soon as you readjust, you realize you have a million things to do!

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Day 104, Return Trip Day 2

4/21/2015

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They told us to go to the service counter, where they got most of the people on the first plane to Dayton at 6:20. They also gave each of us 21 dollars in food vouchers. We walked over to the food court in Terminal 3 between Concourses H and K (American Airlines territory). We had to walk so far because half of the food places open in the entirety of O’Hare were there. These were a Starbucks, a Dunkin Donuts, and a McDonald’s. It turns out that even the massive Chicago O’Hare International Airport shuts down from midnight to 2. Even TSA. No announcements, and not much noise. Maintenance workers and janitors work to clean and fix everything before the next day. It’s so quiet you can hear the escalators and the moving walkways operating, and there are people stretched out everywhere on benches and couches. I wandered back from the food court to Terminal 1, Concourse C (back in United Airlines territory), where I sat down with everyone else in our group near Gate C7, our last known departure gate. They didn’t have a gate for the 6:20 flight when they gave us the boarding passes, so we had to wait for them to put one up. We aren’t the first people to spend a whole night in O’Hare, we aren’t the first people to have a 14.5 hour layover at O’Hare, and we certainly will not be the last. But it wasn’t so bad because we were still sort of on Beijing time. Actually we are more in limbo with respect to time zone, but either way we are equally capable of either staying up all night or sleeping until boarding time.
When they finally announced the boarding gate it was Gate C8, right near where we were sitting. We started boarding on time around 5:45. By 6:20 the 56 of us were all boarded and ready to go, when the pilot informed us that the ground crew had forgotten a couple of bags and we needed to wait five minutes for them to be loaded. Shortly thereafter, the baggage handlers drove up with two loaded trailers and everyone’s luggage. Half an hour later we did the safety briefing, and they finally pushed us back from the gate. The pilot came on the intercom and told us (in words to the effect):
            “Yesterday when the plane arrived, the pilot reported problems with the steering. They were supposed to have fixed it last night, but it seems that they didn’t. So they’re going to tow us back to the gate, and we’ll decide what will happen after that.”
            We all ended up disembarking, and were just beginning to lay siege to the service desk when we were informed that they were giving us a new plane at once. Arrived now at Gate C5, we discovered that we were being given the plane from the Albuquerque service. I really hope they got another working plane before their boarding time. Our entire extra flight was moved to the new plane: number, crew, passengers, and luggage. We reloaded, re-completed the safety protocols, re-left the gate, and finally made it off the ground. We arrived in Dayton around 11:30 or noon, retrieved our luggage, said our goodbyes, and headed home.
            I got home, unloaded my luggage, and sat down on the couch with a book, intending to spend some time reading. I ended up falling asleep after a few hours, and managed to stay asleep for over 12 hours. I think we’re all happy to be home. It’s odd, but every time I go outside I notice the big, blue, smog-free sky. It was also initially somewhat odd to be somewhere where everyone speaks English either very well or as a first language. Everything is monolingual, and there are no Chinese characters anywhere in sight. Also, it’s nice to have American TV again, and American Internet, even though the TV has so many more commercials. I’m just glad I haven’t run into any political stuff yet, because once I do I’ll never hear the end of it until after November.

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Day 103B, Return Trip Day 1 Part 2

4/20/2015

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The sunset/sunrise last night was very cool, and very pretty, even though I couldn’t really see it at all. Mostly I just noticed a very nice shade of red. Then the cabin lights came back on around 2:50 Beijing time, 13:50 Chicago time (remember, we’re traveling backwards in time), and they served us breakfast around 15:00 before we landed early at around 15:50.
Once we landed, we sat on the tarmac for 15 minutes while our gate was being cleared. We apparently arrived so early that the proceeding flight was still at the gate. After that we went through customs and rechecked our bags before making our way to another terminal to go back through security and make our way over to the gate. Our flight wasn’t up yet so we went to the gate area where the previous Dayton flight was leaving from. When we got there we found out that flight was delayed. We went to get food, and shortly after I came back they cancelled that flight.
So after that we kept a watch on the departures board. Our flight was “awaiting aircraft”, so they pushed it back first to 21:51 and then 22:15, which put us in Dayton around 0:30. They also changed our gate, but that didn’t effect where we were sitting. Finally at 21:00 we were told that our plane would be arriving from Kansas City at 22:00 and we would try to leave by 22:15, getting into Dayton at 0:35. They changed gates again, and the new one was right next to us, which we were happy about. We were sitting there for long enough that we managed to move completely through the phase where you sit there in the terminal moaning “I don’t want to be at O’Hare anymore”. Apparently when the plane does arrive they are going to do a fifteen-minute rapid reload and send it off to Dayton.
The plane arrived right at 22:00, and we were supposed to be on it and leaving by 22:30. But then the disembarking process took longer than expected, and after that the pilot found a problem with the windshield defroster. So maintenance was called but after 75 minutes they still hadn’t fixed it. We were told that, after 2.5 hours of delay, the flight was cancelled because maintenance didn’t have the necessary part to repair the plane, which is odd, given that it’s O’Hare, one of the biggest airports in North America. One would think there would be enough spare parts around to build at least one whole new plane from the ground up, especially since they have literally thousands of commuter jets that come through every day.

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103A, Beijing Day 4, Return Trip Day 1 Part 1

4/19/2015

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Today I woke up around 8:30 and made my way to breakfast. All our breakfasts in Beijing have been complimentary with our rooms, and it’s a good mix of Western and Eastern cuisine. After breakfast I spent some time finishing packing before going downstairs to say goodbye to all of the Chinese students as they went off back to their homes. During that I managed to get all of my luggage on the bus.

We left the hotel at noon and drove to the airport where we checked in and then waited for our flight to leave at 16:10. We are scheduled to arrive in Chicago around 16:05. The pilot told us that we are actually going to arrive around ten minutes early. Not that it’s much help, because we were supposed to be on the 18:05 flight out of Chicago but through some weird series of events got bumped back to the 21:05 flight that’s not scheduled to land in Dayton until 23:43. On the way onto the plane we had to go through a semi-US-style security screening, which surprised me because China’s security regulations aren’t too terribly different from the US and we had already gone through security once.

On the plane I wrote some blogs and watched four movies, Saving Mr. Banks, Gravity, Big Hero 6, and Sleeping Beauty. United has a thing where you can get free personal entertainment on your electronic devices either through the Internet or through their app. It’s actually pretty nice. For dinner I had the beef meal, and they gave us chocolate cake for dessert. We were happy, because it’s the first proper chocolate cake we’ve had in months!

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Day 102, Beijing Day 3

4/19/2015

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Today we got up early to drive two hours north of downtown and climb the Great Wall of China. I made it pretty far up the wall, and then I came back and rode the toboggan slide down. I couldn’t go fast at all because the people in front of me were very, very overly cautious drivers. They stopped three or four times when there are signs all the way down that clearly say “no stopping” in both English and Chinese.
Climbing up the Great Wall was hard work, and towards the end of where I got to it was twice as intense as Yellow Mountain. As you walk along, you go up through signal towers and watch towers, and you can see the wall running along the ridge of the mountains away from you. It is quite impressive, actually.

We came back down the wall and had a good lunch at a nearby restaurant before making the two and a half hour journey back to the city to see the Olympic sites. They weren’t very exciting, but it was cool to see and cool to know that you are at the location where it all happened. We got pictures by the Olympic rings and the wall of medal winners. We also got pictures of the torch and the Water Cube and the Bird’s Nest. The whole thing was actually quite boring, and the only souvenirs they were selling were little trinkets.

After the Olympic park we went to our long-awaited Peking Duck dinner. The duck was quite good, and we all enjoyed the rest of the meal as well. They even had terrible pancakes, which I was still ok with.
After dinner some of us went back to Silk Street where I bought a portable speaker and a Chinese fan. Then we all went back to the apartments where we began saying goodbye to our Chinese friends and drank a little before going to bed. We have to be out the door by noon tomorrow, so there will not be a whole lot of extra time once we wake up.

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Day 101, Our 100th Day in China, Beijing Day 2

4/18/2015

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Today, on our 100th day in China, we went to see Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven, and a knock off market called Silk Street. Tiananmen Square was impressive, and there were many people. Most of them were there to go inside of Mao Zedong’s mausoleum. Also on the square are the Hall of the People (the Chinese Capitol Building) and the Museum of Chinese History. At the west end of the square is the entrance to the Forbidden City.

There are three gates you have to walk through before you actually reach the city, and behind each is a large courtyard. Behind the last, there is a canal carved into the courtyard in the shape of a bow, and the path leading from the throne room out to the square is the arrow. Everything in the city is impressive. We saw the political buildings, along with the living quarters for the emperor and empress, and also the living space for the emperor’s concubines. After those, we also saw the Imperial Garden, which was impressive but not as impressive as the Humble Administrator’s Garden in Suzhou.

Tony took us from the palace to the Temple of Heaven, the pagoda where the emperor and his advisors would pray for good harvest. It was beautiful, and the temple is the highest building in the surrounding landscape (it is situated in the middle of a large garden), so on a clear day it gives good views of the surrounding skyline, which was still visible on our moderately clear day.
After the temple we went to lunch, which was quite good, and then went to visit Silk Street, where we were given several hours to wander and shop. I didn’t buy anything today, but we are planning on coming back another day. After the market we went back to the hotel and got dinner before relaxing until we went to bed.

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Day 100, Beijing Day 1

4/17/2015

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The end of our fourteenth week in China comes to a close with a plane ride to Beijing. We made it to the airport in plenty of time and made it to Beijing by 14:00. We then had a long bus ride to our hotel, and our tour guide Tony talked about Beijing the whole way. It seems that he’s used to taking tour groups who have never been in China, and so his speech was only partially helpful to our group. We made it to our hotel, and Tony told us where we could find dinner. I observed on the way in that Beijing seems very Westernized, as evidenced by the bellhop asking for a tip. I had a good dinner. I was pointed to a place called Uncle Sam’s, where I had a good American style burger with fries and a milkshake. After that I went back to the hotel and hung out until bedtime.

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Day 99

4/16/2015

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Today I wandered around taking final pictures of things and packing. I was able to get up really late too, which was nice. I spent most of the evening doing laundry, but took a break at one point to go watch the movie Big Hero 6 with some of the other students. After I got my laundry done I went to bed. We have to leave by 08:00 tomorrow.

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Day 98

4/15/2015

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Today some other students and I went out with the marketing crew again to see the scenic spots in Old Suzhou. We saw Pingjian Road, and then we walked to Pan Gate Scenic Area, where we saw everything and also shot archery. It was a lot of fun again. This evening we had our last community building meeting. We went over our basic schedule for Beijing. After that I went around taking pictures of UDCI before I went home.

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Day 97, Final Exam Week Day 2

4/14/2015

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Today we had our project management presentation, which actually did go well, even though I had a cold I got last Thursday. But it’s ok because I brought a whole box of Mucinex from America. He had several comments for us about it, but in the end he said we did pretty well. After the presentation I submitted my ethics paper and relaxed for the rest of the day. I get to go out with the marketing team tomorrow, and we’re going to visit all of the gardens and scenic spots in Suzhou. Tonight, a group of us went back to Pingjian Road to buy some final souvenirs for our families.

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<<Previous

Day 105, Wrap-Up

Day 104, Return Trip Day 2

Day 103B, Return Trip Day 1 Part 2

103A, Beijing Day 4, Return Trip Day 1 Part 1

Day 102, Beijing Day 3

Day 101, Our 100th Day in China, Beijing Day 2

Day 100, Beijing Day 1

Day 99

Day 98

Day 97, Final Exam Week Day 2

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