For this week’s passion blog, I want to talk about my travel to another school—the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. My story with UNC starts from my boyfriend, who studies at UNC as a freshman now. When the spring semester of 2015 just began, which was this January, I went to visit UNC. Since UNC term begins one week earlier than ours, I was lucky to spend a whole week there experiencing its semester-beginning atmosphere, where everyone was preparing for their class textbooks and some necessities.
UNC was established early in 18th century. You can easily tell its long history by exploring its architecture styles. Per lectures of Arts and Architecture class I scheduled this semester, I learned many of its main buildings apply the Greek and Roman architectural structures such as pediments and columns and so on. UNC also has some featured old dorm buildings, the walls of which, you can easily tell, are made of red bricks. Some dorms are too old that you cannot even open the windows, aerating only with air conditioners.
Each school has its own architecture landmark. You can tell which university it is by only looking into the pictures of this main building. The one in Penn State is, without doubt, the Old Main. And the one in UNC is the Bell Tower. There is a large clock on the top of the Bell Tower, much similar to the function of the clock on the Old Main. There is another landmark in Chapel Hill, which is the Old Well and it is also the most recognizable symbol on campus. When you enter the” UNC” in google, the first image you will see is a wooden shelter, featuring wooden pillar with marble bases and a copper dome. The Old Well is beautiful especially when spring comes when it is surrounded by dozens of pink flowers. The leading path will be emerged into the flower sea. But unfortunately my traveling there is in January, when the campus is still grey and dark yellow.
But no matter what the color is on campus, the color of the sky in Chapel Hill is always blue, which is the so-called “Carolina Blue.” One of the facts about UNC that attract me much is the “Carolina Blue.” I can feel that the whole school is associated with blue. Blue has been more than the color of the school! I have never seen such blue sky and great weather for the whole week, not to mention the temperature there. Even the lowest temperature is not lower than -10 Celsius degrees. I looked up my friends’ pictures in UNC in Instagram these days. What they already had is the large green grassland and the blooming flowers everywhere. Though I am not a person obsessed with spring and flowers, I am still jealous especially when every time I look outside the windows, seeing snow falling in Penn State.
Hope to visit UNC again!
Wuzhen ancient town is a small town near Shanghai. I haven’t talked about Shanghai yet in my passion blog because everyone knows Shanghai, which is a large and really prosperous city even around the world. Even though you haven’t been there, you must have heard of it. My trip to Wuzhen is an additional two-day trip after Shanghai because it takes only two hours by bus.
Another my favorite part in Wuzhen is the food there. I don’t mean the dishes in the restaurant but the snacks that you can buy from the retailers along the road. The one impressed me much is a kind of Chinese style bread that is steamed on the steamer tray. There is no wrapper outside. When I was handed with the hot bread just fetched from the steamer, I was happy from the bottom of the heart. The bread is really soft and good tasted. Another snack that impressed me is the turnip cake. It is not as delicious as people say but the reason whyit impressed me is the line behind it, many people waiting fro it. It is a fried snack so if you like something light, you will not like it. Since those are Wuzhen featured food that you cannot buy them elsewhere, it is still a great experience to have a taste.
