Home Again

(Sidenote: "Home Again" was the name of my stepmother's consignment shop in RI.)

I am back from China. I had a good time, overall, although there were some bad spots. The conference was fun, if a bit lonely. JD & Hedy weren't in town until the last day, and Kathie didn't hang out at the conference for meals, so I spent a lot of time by myself. I met a couple of cool people, including a guy from the Ukraine who was in grad school in Japan, and grad student and professor from France. My collaborator from UCLA, Judith, introduced me to a couple of people she worked with as well. My presentation with JD went well--people told me they liked it, and they seemed genuine enough. And I felt pretty confident while giving the talk, which is always a good sign. I also saw some very good presentations. There was a banquet on the second day of the conference, at which I ate Peking duck. Yum!

On the very first night I was in China, Michelle and Ed (the people I was staying with) and I went to eat hot pot. Oh, how I regret this. I began to get sick on Saturday afternoon, shortly after I left the conference. Michelle and Ed had already been sick over the preceding day. I had stomach pains all afternoon and evening, threw up in the middle of the night while burning an extremely high fever, and then had a fever, chills, and stomach pains the following day. By the afternoon, I was able to walk around one of the old neighborhoods in Beijing with Michelle, before the fever came back and we went home.

On Monday, I felt much better, and I joined Lisa, Kathie, Hedy, Scott, and JD for a tour of the Wangfujing Snack Street--the one where you can buy scorpions on a stick! It was fun to look around, but we eventually went into a restaurant for lunch. After lunch, JD, Scott and I went to the Forbidden City, and then I went home.

On Tuesday, Michelle, JD and I hiked 8KM of the Great Wall. It was very fun, and very difficult. It was quite hot, and there were many steep climbs up stairs and the remnants of stairs. After 4+ hours of this, we ended our hike by taking a zip line over a small lake, and then a bus ride home. That night we had a yummy dinner followed by desserts at a rooftop bar.

All in all, the final two days made up for my misery. I loved hiking, and am inspired to do more sometime this summer. Unfortunately, I continue to have stomach problems--I felt very ill on the plane and on Thursday. Yesterday was a bit better, and I am waiting to see how today will go. I went for a run this morning, and the heat plus my stomach made for an unhappy time of it, but my post-run meal appears to be causing only minor stomach issues. It will be a while before I have any urge to eat Chinese food, though!