Chinese New Year in Kunming

My parents and I are currently in Kunming, where last night the Chinese New Year was celebrated through the setting off of fireworks, launching flaming Chinese lanterns into the air, and of course the traditional Chinese custom of drinking lots of beer. My parents got to feel young again (whether they wanted to or not), which led to us all not sleeping as much as we would have liked. Today it was kind of cloudy and overcast, but definitely warmer and less polluted than Beijing. We did some walking around, weaving our way through the crowds. I am pretty excited because tomorrow I get the key to my new apartment and can start moving some of my stuff in. I am looking forward to having a home in one place for a while after a lot of moving around over the past two months or so. On Wednesday, my parents and I set off on our week of trekking. We are hoping that it won't rain on us too much while we are in the woods. We have been eating well.

Ramie and Steve!

It has been quite a while since I last wrote. I have been many places, and like always I am not quite sure where to start in trying to explain it all. Meaning, I will probably ending up writing about it all in the most non-sequential, rambling, and confusing way possible. I will also probably embarrass myself by showing how I have lost the ability to speak English correctly, or even to realize when I am not speaking correctly. So, sorry. I am going to start actually saying something now.
My parents are here! They are actually here, in Beijing, in our hotel room, in their beds, sleeping right now. It is really bizarre, but also really fun to have them here. They got here on the 20th, which was a crazy day. Sarah and I made good use of our morning, eating two solid meals, going to a temple and a park, and doing some last minute bargain-shopping before I sadly had to bring Sarah to the airport. A quick run-down of some of Sarah and my last week's highlights include visiting the Terracotta Warriors, hiking to the biggest Buddha in the world that is carved into a mountain, being treated to a dinner of beef and yak butter tea by a Tibetan Monk, and of course...feeling our hearts melt at the sight of snuggly baby pandas. I was really sad to see Sarah go. I wanted to force her to stay by confusing her by making her agree to things in Chinese, but I didn't.
Within an hour of Sarah's departure from my life, my exhausted, overwhelmed, but also smiling parents emerged from the magical arrival gate at the Beijing International Airport. I allowed them no down time before I swiftly shoved them onto Chinese public transportation, then forced them to drag their suitcases up many flights of stairs, and finally shoved them into a taxi where they were exposed to their first taste of Beijing opera music...a genre that to the western ear is somewhat less than melodious. But they did great. They have proved themselves adaptable and hearty, especially since Beijing has decided that it is a good idea to be so cold that being outside is kind of like hiking through the arctic tundra. We have eaten a lot of good food and I think my parents have already learned the difference between Jiaozi (dumplings) and Baozi (steamed buns). I am very impressed.
We have seen the sights in Beijing and tomorrow we make a quick trip to the Great Wall before getting on a plane to Kunming, where I will be living for the next six months. From Kunming I take my parents trekking through the beautiful wilderness for a week. I think it will be great, as long as my dad can deal with no ESPN and my mom can deal with no western style toilets. Even faced with such huge adversities, I think it is amazing that they are here and that I can show them around in this country that I have come to feel pretty comfortable in over the past five months.

The Adventures of Sarah and Lexi

So much has happened since my last update, that I am not even sure where to start. I was in Beijing until the 1st, when I said goodbye to Yan and his family, and spent one final night in a really cool hostel right near Tian'an men Square. The next day I went to get my wonderful friend Sarah, who magically appeared at the Beijing airport on the 2nd. Every since, we have been taking on China together, and thoroughly enjoying ourselves. It is really fun for me to see everything again through Sarah's eyes and to think about how far I've come in terms of the things that she thinks are really weird, and must have been really weird for me in the beginning too, but are now so normal. She is constantly asking why, questioning the logic behind the bus, train, taxi, subway, hostel systems...and generally my response is just, "well that's the way it is." So far we have traipsed our way through my hometown of Hangzhou, visiting my favorite teahouse and jazz bar one last time, roaming around West Lake, hanging out with my good friend Peipei, and of course eating the amazing and cheap food at the back gate of my school. Then we were in Shanghai for a few rainy days, where the highlights included the enormous Shanghai Museum, friendly tea shop people, buying beautiful art that was either done by Beijing art students or really skillful con-artists, ascending to the 88th floor of the tallest building in China, and eating a lot of delicious food. Then we got on a 20 hour train to Xian. We had bought the cushy-est beds, which made our 20 hours very enjoyable. Our compartment-mate was very nice and helped me to acclimate to the Xian way of speaking Chinese, as he was returning home to Xian to celebrate the Chinese New Year with his family. So far I really like the feel of Xian. The buildings are smaller and the roads are narrower, and their are a lot of people. We are staying in a hostel right in the downtown area, and we are close to the Muslim area, where all of the good food is. After Xian, we will head down to Chengdu for a couple of days, and then back up to Beijing. Everything has been going really well, despite a few inevitable travel snags that are the result of traveling in general, aggravated slightly by the impending Chinese new year, when everyone travels home.
We have also been complimented on our noses a lot. People in China seem to think that we have perfectly sized noses. An old lady on a bus told us this, and several other random passerbyers. Also, people generally think we are either Russian, from the eastern part of China called Xinjiang, Middle Eastern, or basically anything but American. An old man today was so vehemently sure that we were not Americans that he asked for some identification. We declined pulling out our passport in a crowded train station, but it was pretty funny anyway.