to Xi'an!

Tomorrow night I am going to Xi'an for the celebration of Qing Ming Jie. Qing Ming Jie is on the 4th of April and it is a day for Chinese people to honor their ancestors. They visit graves of deceased family members and clean the headstones/plots and honor the dead. I would say it is like Mexico's Day of the Dead, but I don't know enough about either holiday to be able to say. We have no classes from Sunday to Tuesday - awesome! Something I did not know about the Chinese University system is that it is quite common to have class on Saturday and Sunday....dude. I'm so glad I go to school in America - it would suck to have classes every day of the week. But the Chinese have a lunch/free period from 11:35am to 2:30pm, which is cool, but their classes go later. The free period is kind of like a siesta - a lot of people take naps. I have unknowingly woken a few of my friends up from their naps when I wanted to ask them something. It's an interesting difference.  Anyway, back the main thing. I am going to Xi'an with my friend Jing. We are meeting a friend of hers in Xi'an who will take us around the city. We are planning to go to Hua Shan (Flower Mountain), see the Terra Cotta warriors, go to a few museums, and do a lot of other stuff. It's late now and I have a headache, so I can't really remember where else at the moment. I will be sure to take lots of pictures and video so I can share. The pictures will be up as soon as I can get them up, but videos will have to wait, of course. I'm still having trouble uploading - the files are just too big.  If I compress them any smaller, the quality is crap. I had some pictures of Xi'an in one of my first posts, if you'd like to look. I am sending this blog post via email and I don't think you can put photos on a Mail2Blogger post. I'm hoping to have some Western food while I'm in Xi'an. I'd love to have a cheeseburger. I don't really miss Western food very much, but I do get cravings every now and then. Tonight, I went to the "English Bubble", which is a place where the Chinese students can go to practice their English. No one is allowed to speak Chinese. Tonight was "Louisiana Night", so Jeff and Thuy (who were born and raised in the Shreveport area) talked about crawfish, bayous, jumbalaya, plantations, alligators, rednecks, the Bible Belt, Jazz, and all kinds of stuff. It was nice to be reminded of somewhere that is close to home. Although I haven't been to New Orleans that much, I have to say that it's one of my favorite cities. Someone mentioned me doing a Texas themed night, which would be cool - I'd like that. Anyway, that's all that's new for now - I've got to pack and get some homework done before we leave. Later!