Hotels in China: Flights to China

Travel in China Home
Houston Travel
Chinese Visa Service

Pressley Visits Shanghai
Madison, Wis.

(Badger fullback Chris Pressley continues his reports from China, where he is traveling with other students through the UW School of Business)

I am glad to know that I'm not only learning a lot about Chinese culture, but that I have the opportunity to share my experiences through this blog. It is such a blessing to be here and I am glad that so far the trip has been safe, exciting, and fulfilling. I am still missing the friends and “fam” from home, but I only have a week left so I have to make it count.

We have been doing plenty of activities, and they have been a lot of fun. A couple of days ago, I actually had a chance to play basketball with some Chinese students and, of course, and being the Badger that I am, I showed them my skills. Some other activities that we did included paper cutting, and Chinese painting. The last one was very impressive since it was done by a former Dean of the College of International Studies; he decided to start painting once he retired. I was impressed.

The mornings were pretty basic. We had a few lectures at Nanjing Agricultural University on various topics affecting China's economic development, especially in regards to the agricultural sector. The lectures were very interesting and we learned a lot from them. Many of us had a lot of different questions, and it was funny to see how some of those went unanswered, maybe because some professors still feel some repression of their thoughts due to previous Communist actions. But overall it was fun communicating with them, and learning about their fields. We spent the next couple of days at Nanjing University getting to know the students, and participating in different activities that helped them practice their English and it allowed us to take a deeper look into their culture. Students in Nanjing are very welcoming and they are fun to be around and I developed some good friendships that I hope will last a long time. One special friend I am going to keep in mind is Xia Lei, who was our grad student guide. He and I spent a lot of time together, and at the end of our trip, we exchanged tokens of our appreciation to show that the time was worth while. Nanjing was one of the best places that we visited, and it will leave a long lasting memory.

That was Nanjing, it was fun, but it was time to move on to our last stop: Shanghai.

The first impression that I got when we arrived in Shanghai was that it is a fascinating city with "surprisingly" a lot of people. We have only been here for a few days, and we have already visited some popular tourist spots. For example, we visited the Futures Exchange, several museums, one of the tallest buildings in the world (also the tallest in China), and some markets. Today ended with a great boat cruise and we had the opportunity to see the beautiful skyline of Shanghai. It is getting about that time when I keep thinking I only have a week left, and although I am very happy to go home, I am definitely going to enjoy this last week.

We have a lot of things planned for the upcoming days, and I will try to fit in two more blogs before we leave. So I will talk to you all again in a few days.

Wisconsin Athletic Communications
6/12/2007 1:47:51 PM