E-mail Kathryn sent Sunday, September 23, 2001, from Beijing, China

Hello from Beijing!!!!

I can't believe that I am writing you all from Beijing China!!!! We docked in Hong Kong on Friday, Thursday in the US. I spent the day exploring Stanley Market, which has every kind of touristy nick nack and not so touristy gifts that you can imagine! It was so much fun! I went on a little shopping spree, since I knew I would not be able to buy much when i was in Beijing! At night I went with some friends to a small restaurant for dinner and then we headed into a very cute part of town and experienced a little Hong Kong night life! Everyone I met was amazing and Hong Kong is such a beautiful city! Our ship docked on an island across from the main island of Hong Kong, and the view from my porthole is incredible! The Hong Kong skyline at night is something that I have never seen the likes of elsewhere! The lights are very bright, but they go together very well and I could have stood out on deck and looked at them for hours and hours!!!! don't worry, I took pictures of EVERY angle, so you all will be able to sit through ages of dull Kat tales of what picture means what and who is who and where is where! SO MUCH FUN TO COME!!!! The next morning a group of us hopped on an Air China plane and flew 3 hours to Beijing. Since China is relatively the size of the U.S., it was equivalent to flying from Kentucky to LA (that one's for you Ginny!) The plane was SO roomy! And the food was incredible! These chinese sure do know how to travel in style! We were greeted at the Beijing airport by students from the University of International Business and Economics! We hopped in some 70s looking buses and headed into the city to our hotel. We quickly moved in and ran around the rooms, being dumb American kids that were excited to be in mainland China, and then we headed across the street to the University for dinner! The food was AMAZING, and we ate a family style meal, taking food from a spinning set of platters with our chopsticks. After dinner, we stood in a very sizable herd, and were infiltrated by about 60 Chinese students, who selected us at random and asked us to walk around with them. It felt a little bit like being picked for teams in elementary school, but luckily I wasn't the sad pathetic rolly polly that always got picked last, I was immediately spotted by a very sweet girl whose English name (since it is a business school, they all do all of their work in English, since it is the most widely used language in International commerce) happened to be Catherine!!! She was with her friend Kelly, and the three of us, plus the girl who Kelly went up to began to talk and get to know each other! We all exchanged t-shirts, ours from Semester at Sea, and theirs from their University, and we took off to walk and talk and see what was in the area!!! It was a fantastic evening, and I was so grateful to be able to meet students from China and be able to speak with them about various questions i had and other tid bits about what they do that was of interest! It was also fun to be able to exchange information, they had many questions about American Universities and Culture and where we live.

The next day, today, we went to THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA AND THE SUMMER PALACE!!!!!! And may I just say, that wall is in fact, QUITE GREAT!!!!!!!!! It was a huff and a puff getting to the highest point in the area, but it was completely worth it. I took quite a few pictures, and then started heading back down to the bottom. I did, just so those of you who know who Dudley the Squirrel is, get polaroids of him and various spots on the wall, so he is officially quite the world traveller! Tomorrow, I hope to get his picture with Chairman Mao in Tianenmen Square! After the Great Wall, we went to the Summer Palace, now, my history and knowledge of what the Summer Palace actually is, is a little vague, but don't worry, I'll be studying up on it quite a bit more when I get back to the ship, but it was a very beautiful place with many Temples and Dragon boats on a lake and a MARBLE BOAT, if you can imagine such a thing!!!! I'll let you know more about it later!

Finally today, we returned to our hotel, after stopping for a very nice dinner which featured the famous Peking Duck! Quite the experience!!!! We met back up with our friends from the University and walked around a bit more in the city, picked up some $2 knock off DVDs, some Chinese Pop Culture music, and some gifts for them, and headed back to our hotel, where I sit right now in their VERY nice Computer Cafe! So, tomorrow is Tianenmen Square, the Forbidden City, Silk Street (mom, the scarves are coming), and a Chinese acrobatics show! They are really packin in the sights around here!!!!! And then the next day we head back to Hong Kong and arrive an hour and a half before our ship departs the port of kobe.