China Trip

Hey everyone,
So I am writing this last blog back in the USA!! Our last day in China was awesome. We went to school, took an amazing kung-fu class and then got to go shopping for the afternoon. We spent the last night all with our individual families and doing a little karaoke at KTV with all our host siblings! It was a great way to leave the country and all the students who hosted us.

We all had to get up extra early on the morning of our departure. We left the school at 7am after meeting the school's headmaster. She had been unable to meet us all week [Madame Mao was serving in the People's Congress in Beijing] so meeting her on our way out was a great surprise. We all took last minute pictures with the group and our families before saying our goodbyes and leaving for the airport. We got to Shanghai around 10 or 11 where we had about 2 hours to eat and get ready for the long plane ride back to America. While waiting to leave, we all ate some burgers from Burger King and bought duty-free candy. It was a great way to waste some time. We then got on the plane where we would spend the next 10 hours of our day. This ride was so much easier than the plane ride to China, even if it was only 4 hours shorter. I myself read 2 books from the Twilight series, while others watched movies and slept. The time passed much quicker than any of us were anticipating. After almost 10 hours, we touched down in San Francisco, California.

We soon realized that our day had only just begun. First stop was security where almost every member of the group got stopped, with David especially targeted for his packaged meat. We then had about 4 to 5 hours in San Francisco just to kill as we waited for our next plane. Here we got to enjoy our first food court experience in two weeks. If I do say so myself, the Mexican food was by far the best. We made friends in the airport as well, seeing that there were several different groups of people in our terminal. Members of our group were passing out left and right as the hours passed slowly. Nelson had his earplugs in to block the rest of us out and Dr. Lai's snores could be heard for several terminals. Mr. Chambers enjoyed his rides up and down the moving sidewalks. We watched him pass several times, much to our confusion and enjoyment. Following the trend of the trip, the rest of us passed the hours with card games. I don't think any group of people have played as much squares and spades as our group did. Will and Jeff think that they were the champs of squares, but really they just had the most unique signs. The rest of us were some pretty tough competition.

We then got to get on our plane to Denver where we had a little more time to kill and play cards. From Denver we finally reached Atlanta!!!! We got our luggage, lost Christian, Ella and Amy to their parents, and the rest of us went to meet the bus to head to Athens. We got lucky and got all of our luggage relatively quickly.

Even the bus ride home was entertaining. Trying to play card games in the dark was quite a task. We were able to do it, while bumping into each other and spilling cards all along the way. The worst part of the ride: we all stunk. I never knew that people could smell so bad after 30 or so hours of traveling. It was quite disgusting but still funny. After our stench competition we made it back to Athens Academy where we were greeted by waiting parents and a sign that said "Welcome Home Spartans!" It was great to be home. This trip was truly incredible. It was definitely the best experience I have ever had and will never forget. Gaining new friends both American and Asian, trying new things, and being forced to go beyond our comfort zones we all had the time of our lives.

Thanks for making it all possible,
Ginny Pylant

Today we began the day with Chinese culture class about the different foods Hangzhou is famous for. We then went to Chinese Kung Fu class, where we learned Kung Fu routine from the school's Kung Fu instructor. After lunch, we participated in a farewell ceremony. The students hosting us sang "I Believe I Can Fly," and we sang the Athens Academy fight song. I was picked to give a speech, and I talked about how much fun we had and how beautiful the school was and how excited Athens Academy was to receive students next year. We then went shopping in Hangzhou, which is famous for its tea and its silk. I bought some of both, as well as a present for my dad. At night, my host family took me to dinner at a famous restaurant, and it was one of the best meals I have had in my life. Then my host brother and I went to KTV (karaoke) with the other students who were hosting us. Tomorrow, we leave for Shanghai to take the plane to San Francisco. China has been very fun, and I know I will miss it a lot.

David Millard

Greeting from Hangzhou!
I was awakened around 7 this morning to start the last day of school. After a delicious breakfast of noodles and eggs, my host brother and I headed to school via bicycle. Today was different then the other days because I knew it was our last opportunity to be at the school and to spend time with our new friends.
When we arrived at school, I parted ways with Mike and headed to our meeting room, where we spend most of our off time. A quick game of cards took place before and intriguing history class of Hangzhou. The card game entailed Will and me destroying Akash and Nelson, as usual. The history class was extremely educational, because we had not learned much about the city itself. We were taught in great detail about temples in the city and about the food famous in Hangzhou. The food was interesting because of the history that we learned along with it. This class helped me gain a furthur understaing of the great city of Hangzhou.
After the class, we headed to the gym for a Kung Fu class. Personally, I thoroughly enjoyed this class. Teacher Leo did a great job of helping us grasp the activity. Instead of being just "fighting," like I expected it to be, it was a very intersting routine. By the end of the class, we had a good handle on our work.
We were all excited to be able to go shopping after lunch. While this market was different than those in Beijing, I still believe we had a good time. I believe tea was on many of our lists since Hangzhou is famous for it.
Since tonight was our last night here, my family treated me to an outstanding, scrumptious dinner in a famous resturant on the town. The meal consisted of various meats including duck. chicken and lamb. This dinner was delicous, but sounds a little less exciting than Ben's Ox head on a platter. None the less, the food was great and I appreciate and enjoyed their kind gesture. After dinner, the majority of our group enjoyed some splendid Karaoke. I believe my rendition of "My Heart will Go One" took the prize.
Tonight was bitter sweet, due to the fact that our departure is tomorrow, yet we only spent less than a week here. I will never forget the time and adventures that took place on this journey. It truely was a once in a life time trip that will stay with me forever.

Thank you,
Jeff Nordgren

It was another exciting day in Hangzhou. This morning, my host brother, Shu, woke me up at around 5:45, so that we could make it to school on time. After a short breakfast, consisting of eggs, warm milk, and bread, we took an hour-long drive, and barely made it to Shu’s Chinese class on time. I had completely no idea what was going on during class, so I sat quietly in the back room playing cards by myself. At 8:00, I met up with the other Athens Academy students for a lesson in Chinese festivals. We learned about the six national holidays of China, including the Spring Festival, Tomb-Sweeping Day, National Day, and Women’s Day. Our instructor then taught us how to say numbers 1-10 in Chinese, along with several useful phrases.

After a short break, which all of the boys spent in search of pretty Chinese girls, we went back to class to do Chinese calligraphy. We all got our brushes, black ink, and paper, and spent an entire hour trying to paint a single, relatively simple Chinese character. The teacher explained to us the characteristics of good calligraphy, and then showed us, in several steps, how to draw the Chinese symbol for “big.” After an hour of feeble attempts, none of us were able to master Chinese calligraphy, although the instructor did say that one of drawings was “pretty good.” We then cleaned off our brushes and headed to lunch.

In the afternoon, we left campus to visit the Silk Museum and the Hangzhou Tea Museum. The Silk Museum was not the most exciting part of our trip, but we did see a pretty cool dance involving girls dressed in silk. At the tea museum we were able to sample tea from various parts of China. I first sampled some black tea, and then tried some of Hangzhou’s famous longjing tea. Our tour guides, who were teachers at the high school, then took us to a restaurant, where we thought we would be eating ice cream. What they gave us to eat, however, was one of the oddest things I have ever seen, and was definitely not ice cream. It was a huge tower, consisting of unflavored shaved ice, and layered with corn, beans, and an unidentifiable fruit, which tasted like gummy bears. No one really liked it all that much, but we devoured it anyway.

After the museums, we all went out to dinner with our hosts and some teachers from the school. In my opinion, this dinner was certainly the most entertaining part of our trip thus far. Following several minutes of awkward small talk with the Chinese students, things got interesting. We began discussing music, then one thing led to another, and eventually all of the American students at our table were singing “I Believe I Can Fly.” After our performance, the Chinese students sang a song of their own, and one boy even gave a solo. This was followed by Ella performing the “Soulja Boy” dance and then teaching it to some of the Chinese kids. After some amazing magic tricks by David, we called it a night and headed home with our respective families. Tomorrow is our final full day in China, and we are all looking forward to kung-fu lessons and more shopping.

Will Harris

Day 4 in Hangzhou started differently from all the others. We awoke to a cold drizzle which we have not seen while in China. The week before we arrived in Hangzhou, it rained continuously. This weather would normally not be a problem, but my host parents do not use heat and leave many windows open. The apartment was very cold and damp when I awoke at 6:15. After putting on multiple jackets, Liu (my host student) and I left for school. Our morning classes consisted of a basic Chinese language lesson and a Chinese calligraphy class. I now know a few basic phrases and how to count to ten in Chinese which is pretty good for one class period. Next, the calligraphy teacher taught us the basics of this ancient art. We then had to practice each stroke of the character for big. After many failures, I finally put the three pieces together to form something that looked like the Atlanta Braves "A" logo. The school arranged for us to visit two museums in the afternoon. The first stop was at the silk museum where we learned all about the process of producing silk. Next, we visited a tea farm and museum. There, we were able to sample the tea of Hangzhou, long jing tea. The school treated us to "ice cream" after our visits. In reality, we were served a tower of shaved ice coated in red beans and corn and a mango smoothie. Without a doubt, the mango was the most popular. We were then taken to the restaurant where we had our farewell dinner. The teachers made up one table and students made up the other two. This was by far the largest meal we've had in China. Our lazy Susan was completely full with food stacked on top of each other. It was also one of our more exotic meals as duck, eel, jellyfish, and chicken claws were all served to us. We exchanged performances of magic tricks and odd talents with our host student during dinner. Liu and his card tricks were very entertaining. After dinner, Liu and I took a taxi back to his apartment.

Ben Terry

This afternoon my family took me out to dinner. Because of all the Chinese food I have been eating they thought I would appreciate some American cuisine so we ate at the Pizza Hut. In typical chinese style however we ordered multiple dishes and shared: a salad, onion rings, spaghetti, chicken wings, mango ice cream cake and the American Special or simply Pepperoni Pizza. Surprisingly I preferred it to Pizza Hut in America because it was less greasy. Then after dinner we walked along the West Lake to view the night scenery. While walking a man named Jimmy came up to me and spoke very fast English. Lo and Behold he wanted me to give him money for bread. Sue, my host sister, instantly ushered me away. As we walked I could hear Jimmy ask "Why you so mean?". Finally we saw the water-light show. On the lake there were fountains that sprayed water in sequence to the music while lasers made patterns in the spray and lights from below the water's surface changed colours. It was incredible to watch. Now that I am home I am enjoying trying all the various drinks and cookies and various foods that we bought at the Supermarket the other day just for me. I hope that I can consume it all!

Ella Douglas

Today we started out with our families eating breakfast before school. We all went to school where we went to class with our students for 30 minutes. After this we all met up together and headed on a tour of the city. Our first stop was Linying Temple. Here we saw many different Buddhas carved into mountains of rock. There were many caves that we were able to climb through to see the different Buddhas that were carved into the walls. Once we we saw the caves, we saw the temple where many Buddhists were worshiping. In one part of the temple the monks were practicing their singing rituals. Here we also got to climb to the top of the caves/mountain that held all the Buddha carvings.

After the temple, we went to a traditional chinese meal where we ate all different kinds of seafood. On the first floor of the restaurant the seafood was in tanks waiting to be cooked and eaten. From the restaurant we went to many sites on the West Lake. We went to several of the top ten sites to view the lake. The lake was very vast and covered miles. It was absolutely gorgeous. We could see for miles from every different spot. At one point we got on a boat and took a tour on the lake. Here we took many pictures of all the different areas of land we could see. We climbed up a pagoda that was several stories high and we could see almost all of the city of Hangzhou. After all this touring we went back to school where we met back up with our host siblings. The boys challenged the teachers to a basketball game once we got back. The game fell through but they played other students and won some. We all went our separate ways after this for the night. Tomorrow we are taking a chinese class and going to the tea museum.

Ginny Pylant

It is so exciting for me to have the opportunity to be a member of this group of people who are so interested in our experience in China. Everyone is engaged in a very positive way!
While we are exploring the magnificent modern and ancient sites, I have particularly enjoyed interacting with the Chinese people. For some time all Chinese students have been studying English; therefore, it is typical for us to engage in conversation with most people we meet. I have talked with shopkeepers, bus drivers, ice cream vendors, school teachers, tour guides, and high school students. I must admit that I have met my match in story telling. One of my favorites was told today while we were visiting the Buddhist Lingyin Temple.
During the Cultural Revolution, the Red Guards were moving about China destroying physical features of the "old" ways as they were promoting a new society described by Chairman Mao. One of the ancient carvings in the limestone that flanks one side of the entry path to the temple is of the Happy Buddha. It is an ornate piece of art that occupies about a 20' X 30' space. In anticipation of this valued piece of art being a prime target for destruction, people of the area organized an effort to cover the carving with many large pictures of Chairman Mao. The deception worked as members of the Red Guard passed by while hailing the display of the Chairman. Without casting any dark shadows on the purposes of the Red Guards, the storyteller was obviously pleased that the 700 year old carving survived. Several Academy students have commented on the beauty of the coexistence of the modern along side the ancient they have seen.
Understandably, many people were concerned about how we would respond to the food. Well, we fully partake of the variety of dishes offered at every meal. Are you aware that there are at least six different presentations of lotus root?! While it takes on average about 20 minutes to finish our Tillman Center meals (in-house or mom delivered), here we keep the "lazy Susan" rotating for 45 minutes! For those hopefuls who thought I might lose some weight, sorry.
On another day, I will share some comparisons and observations about school -- Hangzhou High School and the Academy.

Bob Chambers

Today was an interesting day. James (my host student) woke me up at around 6:30 for breakfast. We ate some steamed buns with egg inside of them and we also had fried eggs along with warm milk to drink. After that we walked to school which is about 3 minutes away since he lives inside the school in an apartment owned by the school. We got to class at about 7:00 even though classes start about 8. They all get to school early so they can talk, study, or do homework that they forgot. At 7:45 James took me to our Chinese painting and paper cutting class. It was not so different from watercolor painting in America and paper cutting is the same as the snowflakes we all make when we are little. We spent 2 hours paper cutting, had a 30 minute break, and then spent another 2 hours painting.
After that we all had lunch together with the 3 other American students from Boston named Alex, Leanne, and Mark along with their teacher chaperone, Alison Ricks. They all seem very nice and they have already been at the school for 3 weeks. Lunch was amazing with a ton of food such as fish, steamed buns, jell-o, cake, and lots of fruit.
After lunch our student translator, Bruce, showed some of us around the campus. They have awesome Physics and Chemistry labs with equipment much more advanced than ours. The most amazing part was their observatory. They actually have the rotating dome building with the sliding roof and a huge telescope and they pointed it at the sun for us and were burning pencils with the heat that was generated. It was really funny watching about 10 Chinese students working an expensive telescope without any teacher supervision.
After that it was time for Ben and me to go to class with our host students. They have a very different class schedule. They have 8 class periods in a day with 4 in the morning, lunch, and 4 more in the afternoon. Each class is 45 minutes long with a 10 minute break in between to allow for the teachers to change classrooms to teach the different subjects. All the students stay in classes of about 56 kids and they have all their academic classes in that room. My classes were Math, Photography, History, and Class Meeting. I actually understood some of their math class because they were doing geometric sequences which are somewhat simple. Photography was very different from photography in America. Here they take pictures of themselves posing for portrait-like pictures instead of taking artistic pictures of nature and other things. History was very boring because it was all in Chinese, but I was able to pick out the name of Thomas Edison. Class meeting is a lot like homeroom in America. Today they decided to play English games with Ben, Mark, Leanne, the teacher, and I. First we introduced ourselves and then we played vocabulary games and other silly games until 4:30.
We then went to play our much anticipated game of Basketball. They weren't that great, but I don't think that the kids we played were regular basketball players. We won 1 out of 2 games and only lost 8-10. The second game they had 2 really tall kids that were obvious basketball players. After the game, Ben and I walked with out host students and 2 other classmates of their's, Harry and Xu, to go eat dinner at Papa John's. It was very different from Papa John's in America because it is an actual restaurant where people sit down to eat. The food was delicious and we had some good conversations about movies and sports at dinner. I'm most surprised at how well they all seem to speak and understand English. Also, the more I get to know and talk to them, the more I realize that they are exactly like us. The only difference is that they are probably a little better at Math and Science than us.
Tomorrow we are going to visit West Lake which is a very popular tourist place in Hangzhou. It is supposed to be a little colder than in the city (which is surprisingly nice with sun and about 65-70 degrees) and windier because it is on the lake. I'm looking forward to the rest of the week here in Hangzhou as it should be just as eye-opening as it has been already on the first day of school.

-Christian Lapp