Hello everyone! Sorry for the very long break in posts. The Chinese Government is at it again. They're afraid someone will say damaging things about them in their travel memoirs so they've blocked the country's access to blogspot. I am therefore getting my parents to post this for me. If they do a bad job, please, blame them.
Things have been pretty good in China. First semester over and done with, most of my students passed okay! This July, I wandered out of Fuzhou and met my parents in Xian. There we saw the famous Terracotta Warriors. They did not disappoint: 100s of individually sculpted statues depicting an entire army (each soldier modeled after a real person), from general, to archer, down to the last horse. These were buried thousands of years ago by an emporer who wanted a grand escort into the afterlife. Very benevolent of him - it seems the previous emporers buried actual soldiers. It was rediscovered accidentally in the 70s by some workers digging a well.
Dad and I tried to climb Hua Mountain, a famous Chinese mountain that supposedly has some daring exposure in the last leg of the climb, but we never got that far. We (er...especially me) got wasted by the endless set of stairs and had to turn around in order to meet our deadline for our meeting with Mom. The surroundings were pretty, but the trail was really crowded. A lot of people left padlocks with a red ribbon tied to it on the trail for luck. The last thing we did in Xian that's worthy of note is rent bikes to circumnavigate the ancient city wall. We only had 100 minutes to make 17 kilometers, but we did it! 
Next we took a train to Shanghai where we were anxious to see the eclipse, but alas! It rained all morning and the sun was blocked by clouds! It did get suddenly very dark for about 5 minutes at about 10 am, which was pretty cool. I got sick with the flu and stayed in the hotel for this event, but my parents assure me I didn't miss anything.
We did some shopping and saw a show, but mostly I was pretty sick in Shanghai so I lounged around the hotel quite a bit. The best part of the trip was getting to hang out with my parents. When it was time to go, Mom and Dad left for the airport, while I was off to take the train back to Fuzhou. However, on my way to the metro station, I accidentally left my luggage in the taxi. This was very, very sad. I lost many of my most valuable possessions, including my journal and my computer. I missed my train in order to stay in Shanghai another couple days trying to get my luggage back. But no such luck. The taxi driver is a thief!
I love you all! (Even if you're just some schmo I don't know who decided to read this.) Assuming this works, I will post like this again soon!
