I’ve been back in the States and started my new job and I still can’t believe I was just in China only two weeks ago. It feels like a completely different life from now. I really went into this trip knowing if I had expectations based on stereotypes of China from the American media I…

Our final day was spent in the morning at the Yu garden. The Yu garden was built by a son to please his parents and if I were his mom I would be very happy. It is absolutely a gorgeous place. I am just going to have to let the pictures speak for themselves on…

Today was our visit to the Shanghai Deep Sea Port, one of the biggest ports in China and a hub for trade in the country. The drive was about two hours, so a Pitt alum who lived in China was invited to come and speak with us on the ride there. Her name was Sarah,…

Today was our first full day in Shanghai, Nancy’s home city, and man I want to move here !! We spent our morning at ECUST the East China University of Science and Technology. When we arrived we got a tour of their gorgeous campus in the middle of the city. It occurred to me that…

Today we had to wake up early again so we could get to our first destination early, the Terra-Cotta Warriors. We had to go early so we could try to beat the crowds a little bit, otherwise it would have been hard to get a good view of the warriors in the pit. There were…

After a day of pretty chill travel and a quick tour around the Muslim district the day before, it was our first full day in Xi’an. We had to leave a bit early to head outside the city to the Sun Village, a place where kids live who have parents in prison. Driving out into…

Today was the day we got to visit the infamous Tiananmen Square as well as the Forbidden City and the Temple of Heaven. Inside Tiananmen Square we saw a hella long line forming to see the body of Chairman Mao, but it was about 4 hours at like 9 in the morning, so we weren’t…

This was the day we had all been waiting for since before we left for China. Our visit to Huawei, one of largest telecommunications companies in the world, the phone brand second in world sales after Samsung and beating out Apple, and also a central player in the trade war and U.S.-China relations. Because our…

Today we spent the whole day at CUFE, the Central University of Finance and Economics. When we first arrived, we were greeted by Aurora, our hostess for the day. She escorted us to our lecture room where Kai Long, a professor at CUFE, gave us a lecture on big data, e-commerce, marketing, and smart phone…

Oh my Lord. Day one in Beijing was crazy. After a fourteen hour flight from Newark to Beijing and some strategic sleeping during travel we finally made it to Beijing at about 1 p.m. local time. We had a delicious welcome dinner after figuring out how to convert our money with the help of our…

Hey y’all! My name is Catherine Buchanan and I’m a freshman here at Pitt in the Swanson School of Engineering. I am studying Environmental Engineering and I am pursuing either the Sustainability Certificate or the Engineering for Humanity Certificate (or hopefully both). I am hoping to later on work with Engineers Without Borders or work…