The End at Last

With the final exam, Chinese classes have now drawn to an end. Tomorrow morning a last formality in the form of a graduation dinner and ceremony remains to toast to a successful summer semester. Once the ceremony is over, later that afternoon we begin our end of the program trip. The itinerary is something like this: Qingdao City, Qin Island, Qufu City, Mount Taishan (Confucius' birthplace), Jinan City and then back to Beijing on Saturday July 21st.

The names by themselves probably don't mean much, but the main event include visiting the Qingdao beer factory (famous beer here in China) and Mount Taishan, on which we will be sleeping the night. The view from Mt. Taishan is said to be quite nice and I believe will prove even nicer at sunset and sunrise (I hope to get pictures of both).

Aside from these attractions to visit, I believe the trip will bring other benefits such as relaxation and the relief from going to class :D I think it will also be a nice way to end my stay here in China. I admit I will miss the culture and being surrounded by all that is Chinese (Chinese characters and all). Being home, however, is irreplaceable!
Here is also a last call out to anyone that has any particular requests of items of such that they've always wanted from China. You can either leave a comment on here or send me an email. I'll do my best to get it :D

Other things that have happened since the last blog are a swimming competition, of which there are some pictures on Flickr. I did not participate in the competition as I am not quite that advanced, although we had two McGill teams participate and one of them won the competition. Wahoo! Last week I also went to eat some Korean BBQ, it was quite delicious. It is actually the second time I eat Korean BBQ here, but this time the cooking was done over a bowl of charcoal: very cool! That's also the picture for this blog.
That's all the news for now. More after I get back from my trip.

While trying to upload this blog my internet connection seems to have been cut off. It took me a while to get it back after seeing the reception desk and other problems. The internet will be cut off while we are on the trip. I will hopefully get another day of internet access right after the trip so I can blog when I get back. At the latest I can definitely write an update from the lounge at the airport.

See everyone soon!