Hello! We had an amazing time in Cambodia on our EFT, and dove right into finals preparations when we returned. I am currently sorting through lots of wonderful photos and videos from Shangfest and Cambodia, and hope to get some videos up soon. I do have video logs from South Korea all ready to post, but the internet in the house flatlined on Sunday night (right before finals week! perfect timing...) and everyone has been going insane. What did people DO before internet? The past few days, people have occupied themselves with studying, napping, and wandering around the house with blank looks on their faces.
Anyway, three days later we are almost done "exorcising the internet demon of the jia" (In Chris Van Velzer's words), but I shouldn't be hogging up precious bandwidth. Will post videos as soon as the internet is more reliable.
In the meantime... We'll be home in TEN DAYS! Yes, we are all scrambling to fulfill our "bucket lists" and do last minute shopping. No, we have no idea how we are going to bring everything back in two suitcases. :)

(from Yvonne's blog - I'm going to try to incorporate more from student blogs from now on. With permission, of course :D)

Spent Chinese New Year in Shanghai China.

Spring Break Destination: Yangshou, China.

Modes of Transportation: 24 hour soft sleeper train ride to Yangshou

Activites for the week:

- Boat Tour down the River

- Watching Night Fishing

- Couple’s Bamboo Rafting Down the River

- Bike Riding

- Watching the Yangshou Light Show

- Caves/ Mud Bathing/ Hot Springs

- Tandemn Bike Riding

- watching curling and more curling and more curling

- Eating street food & daily doses of McDonald’s Ice Cream

- Chillin with Darton, Lukas, Shady Katy, Zach, Kalen, Careef, Mander, Fraley, “Dans” - Victoria

Asians getting taken out by the elements:

— Apparently the asians were in for it this trip & we had no idea.

EARTH: While biking to the bamboo rafting location, Amanda fell into a ditch. No worries she survived with the joy & pride of some pretty good looking battle scars on her leg, arms, and head.

WATER: While on the bamboo rafts, Calif asked to row the boat. After some sucessful strokes she offered Victoria a turn. Victoria stood up and fell into the freezing cold water. She claims that a boat hit thier boat, nobody else saw this happen. No worries, we took her to the bathroom, dried her up, and clothed her in Katy’s shirt & sweater, Dalton’s sweat pants, Kalen’s gloves, and Jordan’s jacket. Good Teamwork. After this episode, she had to ride 20 km home to get into a warm shower and change of clothes. Did I mention it hailed that day. She is a proud survivor.

FIRE: While on our train ride home (more details to come), our group decided to play the snapping game. A man with his 2 cups of hot ramen passed by, lost his grip on his two cups and spilled scalding hot water on Calif’s wrist and stomach. Leaving her with nasty battle scars. She’s recovering steadily.

WIND: i am currently the last asian to face the elements. Wind, bring it on. Probably will be one of Darton’s epic farts.

Our Epic Return:

So we got to Yangshou safely and needed to buy our train tickets home. During Chinese New Year, literally everyone is traveling. No soft sleepers, no hard sleepers, no soft seats, no hard seats … solution: standing tickets. We bought 170 RMB (equivilent to $24.28 USD) standing tickets home on the L80 train the following Saturday.

After thinking that this train ride was just going to be 24 hours, we were surprisingly greeted with the fact that… in fact the L80 train from Guilin to Shanghai was actually 34 hours …

Preparation: Mental — head banging, watching curling, sleep Physical: 260 RMB worth of junk food

Experience: Walked onto the train car that we would spend the next 34 hours of our lives on. Sign above the door: Occupancy 66 - haha - there were 200 people on this car — this is China. We spent our time playing pterodacyl and other nonesense games, sleeping on the nasty floor, standing up every 10 minutes for people to get their hot water for their ramen cups, the passing fruit cart, the passing food cart, people going to the bathroom, standing, trying to study for bio 107 — ” i flippin love plants ” , crossword puzzles, word searches, ipods, singing out of key, standing, savoring every moment of a movie on the laptop before the battery died, avoiding getting stepped on, listening to Chinese people, watching Chinese people play card games, standing, making memories, video taping ourselves as we slowly lost our sanity, standing, standing, standing, missing our stop to get on a bullet train home — thereby spending an additional 4 hours on the train, arriving in Shanghai, singing the Hallelujah chorus as we exited the train. Thanks to all my friends for the memories that we’ve made. This one for sure will last a lifetime!

Lesson Learned: Be Grateful. I have nothing to complain about. Doing it like the real Chinese. — People literally do this every year to visit their families.

Crossing Boundaries, Changing Lives — Thanks IP.

We're already halfway through second semester! Time flies :)
This semester we lost some really great people (though we keep in touch through Skype and snail mail!), but we gained 6 really fun ones too. Yvonne, Victoria, Kalen, Fernanda, Jazmyne, and Chris quickly became part of our family. And for some reason, it does feel more like a family in the Jia these days. Maybe it's because we're all very used to being here, and we feel safe with each other.
Shanghai winter is cold! Well, cold to the So Cal students, not to the East Coast students. For first break, most of us decided to spend the long weekend relaxing at home, but a particularly daring group ventured to Harbin, home to fantastic ice sculptures and freezing weather. For spring break we had students escaping the cold to Hong Kong, South Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, and Yangshou. Right before break, however, we got to celebrate Chinese New Year together! It was a very exciting, unique experience - complete with new foods, festive decorations, traditional music, and an atmosphere of excitement in the city (set to the sound of fireworks going off 24/7!)
This coming weekend we get to travel AGAIN! Itineraries include Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and Malaysia.
When we get back, preparations for SHANGFEST (i.e. 上fest!) will be in full swing! Since we're not on campus to participate in the annual Songfest, we're putting on our own little talent show. It's going to be amazing.
Will update with more videos, etc soon!

As the weather gets colder, the students get lazier, and we resort to entertaining ourselves... within the Jia. John, Patrick, and Taylor, for example, cleaned their room. Then they printed out invitations on fancy paper for everyone to come to their Room Warming Party, complete with Martinelli, cheese, and "soft tunes".
Some of the other guys responded with:


The event was a hit. We don't even NEED alcohol to party.

We just got back from our EFT in Beijing/Xi'an! Here's a small video clip of Amanda and Clay dancin' with the locals at Jingshan Park in Beijing! (more videos to come...)

Hey! So I hope everyone had a wonderful time on our last break! Now it’s back to class until it’s time for our EFT to Beijing and Xi’an in November. In the meantime, here are a few announcements to keep you busy:

•There will be a 5K run at Yewcheng International School on October 25. Registration forms and 150 RMB are due to Chris by Thursday night convo
•For the fall-only students – if you are returning to Malibu for spring semester, the priority deadline for on-campus housing is November 7. Go to pepperdine.edu to apply online.
•For all students - registration for spring semester begins on November 13
•For year-round students – the Jia will be closed all through Christmas break, starting on December 10th, and if you are a year-round student you may come back on January 10th
•Don’t forget Bible study (student-led Tuesday nights, guys’ Bible study on Wednesday nights) and Sunday night devotional!
•Happy Halloween!!!

That’s all for now, folks!