Kenny's Pictures, Batch No. 11
This batch details my travels during the last semester of my year in China through the end of the year. It was a busy year, 2001, with travels throughout China (including Sichuan and Shaanxi), Southeast Asia, Hong Kong/Macau, and Taiwan. 2001 was also the year that I graduated from college, so I travelled back to the US in May for the ceremonies. I still had one last semester once I came back to Berkeley, however, so it wasn't over yet.

Xi'an, April 2001
This was the last EAP-organized trip of the year. The remaining year EAP'ers went to Xi'an in Shaanxi province for a tour of the area, including the world-famous Terracotta Warriors. But everyone's seen those, so these are just some activities that we did while we were there.

Spring Break, May 2001
Spring Break, known as the "May Day Holiday" in China, was a great adventure. A number of us went to Sichuan province in central China to explore the wonders there. We took the train to Chengdu and from there went to all the sights around the region, with the pinnacle being Jiuzhaigou, a natural wonder really.

Southeast Asia Trip, July 2001
When the year was done, when the last paper and final was completed, we took off for a tour of Southeast Asia. We took the "Friendship train" from Beijing to Hanoi, which took about 36 hours or so. It was in the soft sleeper berths, which was very comfortable. Vietnam was extremely interesting. The cities we visited included Hanoi (best Pho), Catba Island, Hue, and Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). From Saigon, we jetted off to Siem Riep to visit Angkor Wat (right after they finished shooting Tomb Raider... we saw it a week later in Bangkok). Then from Angkor we took the bus (6 hours) to get to Bangkok before splitting up.
Taiwan, August 2001
After Bangkok, we all went on our separate ways. Some went back home to the US, while I went to Taiwan via Hong Kong to meet up with the family. The couple of weeks we spent in both localities was very fun - in Taiwan we drove all the way to the southernmost tip of the island, and also explored some beautiful villages in the northern part of the island. This was the last "summer vacation" I will have as after this, it's school, then work!
Back in the US: Fall and Winter 2001
After 13 months of living in another country, amazing it wasn't too difficult to readjust back to life here. I think the worst part of it was to get used to the expensive prices again! I would convert everything to RMB and then think of all the food and merchandise I could buy for that, and think "I could buy that for $3, why would I want to pay $45?" School was probably the most enjoyable semester I've had in a while - I enjoyed all my classes (except for Real Estate, so I dropped it and opted not to get my CRP minor). Oh well.

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Created by Kenneth Kao.