Today I woke up, had some morning tea and went for a 4 mile run on the treadmill. I have to stay in shape so I can run the great lakes relay a few weeks after I get back. I was sweating up a storm and was a bit late to breakfast. Some of my friends commented on me as I ran.

Breakfast was bad as usual, a combination of crappy American and some Chinese. I tried this very hot pickled stuff and it totally reminded me of Korean food.

We arrived at our destination port to get off for our excursion and found that we were unable to dock due to a large size fire that had occurred on a passenger ship. It was pretty crazy and it delayed our excursion into the narrow canals to see the . . . Read More..

Today was our first full day on the boat. We slept on the cruise ship overnight even though we had not set sail yet. Once Rich woke up, I watched a bit of The Incredible Hulk until the ship was off. The breakfasts here were not too impressive this morning.

After breakfast we got off the boat just east of Yichang to tour the three gorges dam. This dam was started in the early 1990's and will be completed in 2009; after which the landscape East of it will be forever changed. The main purpose of it is to prevent flooding of the Yangtze West of the dam and another benefit of it is the power source. It will be the largest dam in the world. The rising of the river caused 1.1 million people to have to relocate; many of the older generations not liking this idea.

Docking the boat there was a huge frenzy of people trying to sell very crappy products and poorly made junk souvenirs. They horded all of the people on the cruise and were super aggressive. I just smiled and made . . . Read More..

Leaving the local online store, I returned to the front desk and the man gave me 15 out of 20 of my Yuan back. For an hours worth of internet surfing, I had to pay 5 Yuan or about 50 cents or so! Whereas while in the hotel I paid 80 Yuan for 30 minutes. Although I paid 30 Yuan in taxi rides to get there, I would rather support the local community and have an adventure. I easily found a cabbie to get home.

I got back about 6:30 and the wake up call came. I got home just in time. We had to get our luggage prepared and outside our door at 7:00 so the bell boys could get it. I told everyone about my little excursion and they thought I was crazy. I really enjoy going out by myself in China; it so much reminds me of my great experiences traveling alone in Europe. It is really interesting and relaxing, I feel it is safer than Detroit.

I had a nice breakfast and then headed out wandering again for 20 minutes. While walking, I met up with Liz and Mary who wanted to find the poor . . . Read More..

Right now it is 5:30 AM in China. It is so easy to wake up this early here. I think I woke up at 4 AM and then I took a cab alone out to find an open internet cafe. The driver didn't know any English, but the hotel people helped him with what I wanted. The place is packed right now with people playing games and hanging out. The driver stopped in the middle of the road and asked for directions. It was interesting.

Anyway in regard to yesterday's activities, we started off the day by taking the bus to the bund river. On the drive over on this large freeway, I noticed many of the small apartment buildings (all owned by the government) had all of their laundry hung out to dry on bamboo sticks.

This is the huge river port that separates the old city from the new. And for those of you who don't know, there is a lot of European influence here because of the affects of the opium war and the occupation of France and England. When we arrived there were hundreds of Chinese tourists. . . . Read More..

From (Middle School Confusion) Original Memory Interview Question

His Response:

Yes, I started running in 8th grade in track and field and cross country.

In cross country, I remember naming myself shoeless joe, cause on my first race ever my shoe fell off and I kept on running.

Another opportunity in high school came along when my brother convinced me to join football.

The week we learned all the plays, I was ironically learning all the plays for our show in band camp.

So I never knew where to go and what people were doing in the play.

A lot of learning experiences through new sports.

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