My Feet Hurt

June 24, 2019

Xi'an University: College of Architecture

Today we visited Xi'an University's College of Architecture. First we walked through their campus museum and learned about the history of the university as a while and the College of Architecture. Their 4 pillars are innovation, giving back, honesty, and self improvement. Their current president is also the first female president the school has ever had.

They also showed us around their student studio. It's kinda funny how similar it was to Dudley. We are half way around the world, but our students and their students were pretty similar.

I really liked their campus. It had tree lined walkways and roads, and overall was really peaceful. It was a lot calmer than Shanghai. I think of Shanghai as a New York, and Xi'an is like a Washington D.C.

I Feel Beat Up

The rest of the afternoon we had as free time. A group of us tried to find where we could bike the city wall, but we're unsuccessful. We walked a pretty good ways and found was cool side streets. I like the mix of modern and traditional Chinese architecture Xi'an has. It is more of what I was picturing China to be like.

On the way back to the hotel we decided to get a traditional Chinese foot and shoulder massage. I think I'm starting to see bruises forming. Sometimes massages are a good kind of pain, but I was feeling more pain than good. I liked the foot massage better, but my back feels pretty beat up. I think my masseuse might've been letting out some anger on my shoulders. He was very nice though.

After we got back to the hotel, we decided to give biking the wall another try. We walked to the other side and stopped to checkout the bell tower on the way. It had some pretty amazing views of the city. We got to the wall around sunset, but you couldn't really see it. It was good timing though because it was still daylight when we got there, but by the end it was dark and you could see all the city lights. They were having some kind of graduation ceremony, so there were some extra lights. The whole wall is about 7 miles to bike and we probably did 2/3. That was enough for me. Between the massage and walking all day, I'm very ready to go to bed.