Amelia's Asian Adventure

Home, Sweet Home

2007-06-13T11:32:00.000-04:00

Spent most of the weekend doing nothing, puttering around, and packing. I am so amazing at packing that I fit all my stuff into my two original suitcases. Pretty sure I left with the least amount of luggage out of everyone! Monday morning, I went to the airport at 5 am to see a bunch of the kids off. Six of my fellow classmates took the group flight offered by CET, so I wanted to say that last goodbye. 5 others went too, and it was sad. I knew I wouldn't see some of them again, but others I probably will. Monday I spent running some last minute errands, exhausted from little sleep. That night I went out for dinner with a bunch of the Chinese roommates, one guy and the two Wellesley girls (we were the only ones left). Had a nice time and got to have our last hurrahs.

Tuesday, Jinling and I checked out of our room and then went out to lunch with two other roommates. The checkout process was a lot better than expected because of the horrible interactions I've previously had with the front desk. On Sunday they called my roommate to kick her out and we had to resort to getting our Resident Director of CET on the phone with them. These people are such morons that they can't process information they've already received. Perhaps this was the fourth time they've tried to screw Jinling and me. Ugh. Well, we got them back! A long time ago I broke one of the provided glasses and just went down last week to pay for it and replace it. Forced them to take the money out of my deposit (if not that, what is the deposit for?) and they said they'd replace my glass. Next morning they brought a new one. Later that week, my roommate broke her glass but neither of us told anyone. When we went to check out, they called up to the maids and have them inspect the room before giving us the deposit back like with everyone. Noticing the missing glass, they asked and Jinling told them we never got a new one! Haha, joke's on you jerks, joke's on you.

That afternoon we went out for the last meal in China. I treated the four of us and ordered way too much food because I wanted a last taste of everything. Delicious! After that, I picked up my luggage from a friend's room and then we headed out for the airport. Jinling was nice enough to accompany me to the airport. When we got there, the first thing was customs, so I had to say goodbye right away. Both of us cried a lot and hugged and said goodbye, and I think a lot of people in line at customs were staring at us. Oh well. Got through and waited around the airport for my 6:30pm flight. The flight wasn't too bad, other than the length (13 hours). We had to circle Morgantown, WV for a while because of thunderstorms around Dulles, but we got priority to get through and land due to length of flight. Landed at 7:50 and it was nice to be back in the USA. Really nice to fly directly into Dulles with no stopovers. Cleared customs and immigration without a problem and saw my parents waiting outside! Driving home, it was really weird to see everything in all English, signs using miles instead of kilometers. At home, we had some dinner (I ate baked beans) and Aunt Beth came over for a bit. Gave out some presents and started unpacking.

Doing absolutely nothing today. Kind of want to go out and do something, but I'm not back on the car insurance yet, so I can't drive legally. Made scrambled eggs for breakfast loaded with lots of goodies... I'm not sure why I chose that, but it was yummy. Can't remember the last time I ever made scrambled eggs in the States, but it's hard to know what I want after China. Tonight is a small dinner gathering with the parents, AB, grandmob, and Jen for spaghetti! Can't wait!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So this is almost positively the last blog entry, since I'm now back home from China and there's nothing else to talk about. 再见。

Last Few Days

2007-06-08T23:28:00.000-04:00

I'm all finished with my papers and exams now, so I'm basically free as a bird in Beijing. This past week was pretty much just work and no fun, had to get done (and really, I hadn't done much during the past semester). On Tuesday night, four of us girls went shopping at Wudaokou, picked up our custom-made shirts, and then had dinner at Lush (a cool hang-out bar restaurant). It was delicious and made me decide to not do my work that night. Basically I didn't do my paper until Thursday and Friday night because I didn't have to, not the best choice, but a choice nonetheless. Friday at noon we had our graduation banquet at supposedly the best Peking Duck restaurant in Beijing. It was delicious although I'm not a huge fan of Peking Duck. Each Chinese class had to do something for our ceremony, so my class did a powerpoint presentation narrated and basically making fun of all the things we'll "miss" about China - Beijing air quality, traffic, squatter toilets... All the stuff was cute, the 400 class did a xiangsheng (2 person stand-up comedy) performance that I helped them write, the 200 class and 100 class each did skits.

Last night a bunch of us went to Pete's Tex-Mex and then out to Sanlitun for the bars. Amazingly, most of our roommates came and had a good time. We stayed out til around 3, and only left because it was so hot where we were that everyone was sweaty and fatigued. I was impressed that Jinling came out and didn't leave early - she's so much fun! I think this weekend is going to be packing in as much as we can do in short time, but still having fun. The group flight is leaving in the wee hours of Monday morning (there are 6 people on it), but I'm not leaving until Tuesday afternoon. My plans for Monday night is to have dinner with my roommate at a local restaurant and order everything that I really like here that I can't get back home. Perhaps we'll have 5 or 6 dishes but food is so cheap that it's worth it to have one last taste. Probably won't update until I get home from China, but not sure, so see y'all around!!!

Rombauer and Becker - No Competition Here

2007-06-04T05:12:00.000-04:00

Friday night, Vicki and I took our roommates out to show our appreciation for them. We know they've put up with a lot and have certainly learned many new things about American culture. So where did we go that was so American? Tex-Mex. We took them to a cool Tex-Mex restaurant in the east side of Beijing. Expensive (American prices) but also American portions, and worth it for something they'd never had before. We ordered nachos as an appetizer and they were delicious. For entrees, Vicki and her roommate both got enchiladas while Jinling and I split tacos and fajitas. Jinling had no idea what to order, so she asked me to pick. I figured it would be good to try both. Everything we got was really yummy and actually better than some places I've been to in the States. Go figure! That night I decided to stay in and actually do homework, but instead I just talked to people. Saturday I finally sat down and wrote one paper. Only three pages, but at least that's one down and two to go.

Sunday I accompanied my roommate to her family's house in Beijing. Although her parents live in Jiangsu Province, she recently found out that a cousin of hers lives in Beijing. More like 3 cousins, but who's counting? We left around 8:30, took the busses, and arrived an hour or so later because these people live in suburbs of Beijing. Their apartment was nice and I'd guess they were middle class (the man is an editor at a magazine). Also, they had a daughter my age who was home for the weekend from college in Beijing - an English major, but not very good compared to my roommate. They had delicious cherries and watermelon out for us to nosh on before lunch and I had my fill. Those two fruits are in season now, so you see them everywhere. Mmmmm. But that means pineapples are nowhere. For lunch we went to a local restaurant and met up with another cousin and his wife. Everything they ordered was food I like, they kept asking me what I like and all I was saying was just pick what you want. But apparently that's not how they roll in China, so I had an awesome lunch! Also an amazing beef dish I'd never had before but wish to have again.

That afternoon we retired to their house and chilled out. While Jinling played on their computer and talked with the parents, I kind of got stuck alone with the daughter. She was nice, but I was getting tired of speaking Chinese. Without rest, my brain starts to hurt from too much thinking. We basically just watched TV and I fell in love with some random soap opera. Chinese soap operas are different than ours, but here was the basic plot: man loses memory in accident, falls in love with girl, stuff happens in each episode, eventually they find out that he's not who he really is, still in love and he chooses to stay the new person. Typical but funny. That night we had dinner at their home and it was quite typical. Since there were a bunch of us, the mom made a whole mess of jiaozi (dumplings) and a cold noodle dish. I imagine that's how a lot of Chinese people eat every day and it was good. Homemade jiaozi = tasty. Much better than restaurant bought. We didn't leave until really late because someone was taking us back by car, but didn't come for a long time. I got bored and just kind of sat there. Oh well, it was a nice fun day.

Today I got my final exam for 21st Century Beijing and should be working on it now. We get 24 hours to complete it, but I'm part of the way through and can finish soon. On another note, I don't know what to get my roommate as a going away present. If y'all have any suggestions, please help, but remember my time to get places and do things is rather limited (yea, I know, poor planning). Some new Americans have moved onto our hall and they're really obnoxious. Actually it's just this one girl that's really bad. Her voice is the cross between a smoker and a Russian, even though she's from Buffalo. Dresses like a slut, has been continually drunk since I first met her on Friday, and yea, is just, well, yea. I guess summer study abroad programs are all starting now, so new people are arriving in droves.

If y'all want any last minutes things, tell me now so I can shop soon. I'm leaving China on Tuesday the 12th at 6:30 in the evening, so my time is short. Unfortunately, I don't want to go, but home will be nice too. Here's an annotated list of some things I miss: good cheese - the French kind, not the kind that comes wrapped in red wax; salad - any kind really; tap water - oh, to just fill up a glass from the sink and plop in some ice cubes; pickles - apparently not too popular here; mac and cheese - again on the cheese; and American TV - as trashy as it is, Chinese TV is just horrible, not only is it in Chinese, but it's not funny, interesting, or informative (the trifecta of loserville here).

On another note, folks have been asking about what Chinese food I like to eat. Since I haven't bothered recently, I'll try to describe now. 宫保鸡丁(gongbao jiding) - known in the West as kung pao chicken; 鱼香肉丝 (yuxiang rousi) - pork slices in a brown sauce with carrots too, one of my favorities; 京酱肉丝 (jingjiang rousi) - pork slices in a totally different brown sauce that you wrap up in little wrappers with spring onions; 香辣土豆丝 (xiangla tudousi) - a tower of fried potato strings that are spicy and sweet; 凉面 (liang mian) - cold noodles, my favorite at the cafeteria, just some noodles with a few sauces thrown in, peanuts, and cucumber; 东北拉偏 (dongbei lapian) - another cold noodle dish, but these are wide clear noodles in a vinegary sauce with sesame paste on top; 炒饭 (chao fan) - fried rice; and 藕片 (oupian) - lotus root, good stir fried, deep fried, candied, anything really. There are some other things that I like to eat, but those are the real winners, the things I'll miss back home. I'm trying to get Jinling to ask her mom for some recipes or something, but we'll see. I'm pretty sure on how to make fried rice and the cold noodles, everything else is a little hairy.

Farewell, My Propaganda

2007-05-31T02:11:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was our last night at Propaganda, our oft visited and ever so loved Wednesday night hang-out. Left the dorms a little after 11 and met Chad, one of our teachers in front of the club. It was cool that he came out with us, but a little awkward. Not gonna lie, the club scene is not exactly where you want to be hangin' with your professor. Good times though, he's pretty young and still fun, so we had a nice time. Around 1:30 or so, we all headed to Lush, which is more of a lounge/bar kind of place. No dancing there, just sitting around a table eating, talking, and some people smoking hookah. I didn't smoke because I think it's kinda nasty, but China is so filled with smoke that sitting around the table made no difference whatsoever. Turned out to be a really chill night and most of us didn't leave until around 4:30 this morning. Chad (the environmental class teacher, so I didn't have him) is a neat guy and fun to hang with.

These past few days have been incredibly unproductive for me. I know I have work to do, but I have no inspiration at all and nothing pushing me to do it. As always, I'll do it right before it's due. However, I did write my introduction paragraph to a paper yesterday. Better than nothing, right? Today's weather is really dreary and vaguely reminiscent of the Boston spring. Except more polluted. And grayer. And less fun. Everything inside me is saying "stay in," I have absolutely no desire to go anywhere or do anything. Too bad because some of us were going to go to the Temple of Heaven and the Pearl Market today, but the weather isn't cooperating. Maybe tomorrow. Remember that story about the brothel in Shanghai? Well, it happened again. No, just kidding. But us girls (all 6 of us) are getting T-shirts made that say Judie's Brothel on the front and our nicknames on the back. I guess they aren't really nicknames, but the titles of our awards from the Dundees. If you've seen The Office you know what I mean, if you haven't you should. We had our own little version of the Dundees here and they were awesome. You'll just have to wait and see what my shirt says!

Today, You Are a Man

2007-05-26T22:40:00.000-04:00

Usually that's what kids get at their Bar Mitzvahs, Confirmation, Graduation, etc... but Friday was definitely an "adult experience" for me. Early evening almost our entire crew (only missing one, but nobody really missed him so it was ok) went out to an Italian restaurant in the east side of Beijing. Later that night we had a "field trip" for our Pop Culture class at a jazz club, and this restaurant (voted #1 in Beijing) happened to be next door. Anyways, when we got there it turned out to be a totally legit place. It seemed like we were walking into an Italian restaurant in the States, but all the waiters were Chinese. Because I've been craving the food of Italy recently, I decided to go all out. Instead of ordering wine with a few others (I don't like the taste and why waste the money), I got a Caprese Salad with tomato and mozzarella and Penne Arrabiata. The salad was delicious, and although they did not use buffalo mozzarella, it was still nice for China. However, I think it made me sick because my stomach was churning all night after I ate it. The pasta was mediocre at best. From what I read in That's Beijing, the reason Annie's Italian Kitchen always gets rated #1 is because there are 5 branches and it's good enough that people rate it well, pushing the smaller restaurants out of the running.

Afterwards, we headed literally next door to the CD Jazz Club. I find the name hilarious - say it out loud to yourself and it sounds like Seedy Jazz Club, which is what they're often stereotyped as. Hm? Anyways, we watched our professor play with his jazz band (he plays piano with a upright bassist, drummer, and saxophonist) for a little bit. The real reason we were there, though, was to see a xiangsheng performance. We've been studying this type of Chinese stand-up comedy and he arranged for these performers to do a show for us. Xiangsheng is generally 2 people with a funny one and a straight man, but the topics they talk about aren't as funny as in the US because a lot of stuff is verboten, such as criticizing the government or society. They did 3 bits and I did not understand most of the first one, but the second two I got pretty well. It was cool just to see it done live, whether or not I understood (especially because a bunch of the students are still beginners and definitely didn't get it).

Next came the really fun/embarrassing part. Sam, one of our male students, sang with our professor's band. He happens to be a voice major back at school and has the voice of an angel, the kind that makes all women melt a little inside. His performance was absolutely amazing! Following Sam's act, I promised to play trumpet for a song. Our prof let me borrow his trumpet (he used to be a trumpeter) on Thursday after class so I could practice a little and even gave me some music to Watermelon Man. Luckily I'd played that back in the day (Carrabba's night anyone?). Got up on stage and was super nervous playing in front of all my friends, for a few reasons. One - I haven't played jazz music since senior year in high school; two - I haven't played trumpet since about December, three - I was terrible at jazz back in the day and could never improvise, four - they've never heard me play so they didn't know that I'm actually pretty good and not just a hack with a big mouth.

Oh well, figured I'd give it a try! Started playing and it was going well... but then all the sudden the saxophonist broke and wanted me to improvise. Not knowing what to do, I started and it probably was kind of lame, but whatever. After a few bars though, I got really into it and amazingly it sounded good. All the cheering from my friends helped too. Really enjoyed that night overall. Not only because I played trumpet for my friends and showed them I have some talent, but also that I showed myself I could improvise. Guess it was one of those "aha" moments making me wish I just let myself go in high school and learned how to improvise well. After a night of a relatively upscale dinner (with a bunch of people drinking wine) and fun at a jazz club, I felt like such an adult. Usually we just go out to bars and clubs or stay in and do nothing at all, but this was different. Fun, but a nice change.

Saturday morning 6 of us decided to go to the Summer Palace. Nice to actually get out and do something on the weekends. Since we don't have much time left, we're all now panicking to do touristy stuff. It was so hot out yesterday and probably a bad choice to spend the day outside, but it's only getting hotter. Walked around the place for about 3 hours which was overkill due to the heat. All exhausted, we went to an American restaurant for lunch because it was close. After lunch, Vicki and I went shopping at Wudaokou (I hadn't been there yet, but everyone was always saying how good it was). Indeed it was much nicer than the other places I've been and it's a lot easier only shopping with two people. I got a dress that's sailor-esque but cute and Vicki got a dress and a shirt. So hot inside that we were tired before we started, so we left fairly early and headed back to the dorms. When I got back I just fell asleep and didn't wake up until 10:30 pm. Thinking I wouldn't be able to sleep that night was wrong, because I slept from 12:30 am to 10 this morning. Now I feel rested! This week we only have Chinese classes, so maybe in the afternoons we'll be able to do more stuff and see things. On my list: Temple of Heaven, Lama Temple, National Museum, Silk Market, Pearl Market, and (though I've already been) Forbidden City because a bunch of others haven't gone yet.

Lucy, I'm home!

2007-05-24T01:40:00.000-04:00

I swear I was back in the 1940s this week. On Tuesday, instead of attending our normal meeting of Pop Culture and Media in China, our class went to the taping of a Chinese TV show. Our professor for that class is an American living in China since the early 90s, and it turns out that he's a pretty big deal here. The most famous white guy here is Da Shan (that's his Chinese name) - everyone recognizes him and he does advertisements for a million different products. However, our prof, Mo Dawei, is also well known. He's works for one of the TV stations and is frequently on TV. Even my Chinese professor said she knew who he was! Anyways, he has the hookups so he got us into the audience for a variety show produced by his station. We thought we'd just sit there for a while and watch, not understanding what's going on.

Well, when we arrived the producers decided to sit us in the on-stage audience seating. Probably because they love seeing foreigners on TV it worked out, but I think some of the Chinese were miffed because they thought they'd get to sit up there. We were seeing a variety show (by the way, Chinese TV is horrible, just horrible) and expected there to be some singing, dancing, and talents. Turns out a little different. Basically that episode's topic was family, how corny. Instead of a bunch of Chinese families on the show, they had one that was Inner Mongolian, one that was an Algerian husband and Han Chinese wife, and one that was Taiwanese. For some unknown reason, the Chinese pride themselves in being multicultural and respectful to minorities, but 95% are ethnically the same - Han Chinese. Ooooooook. Anyways, the hosts just asked questions and they talked about their families and being Chinese. Then every so often one person would get up and sing a song or do a dance, or like at one point when the Mongolians introduced their twin sons, they came out and wrestled. There was also a random stand up comedy performance thrown in there by two Beijingers. It was an interesting experience, to say the least. We were pretty bored by the end because we didn't understand half of what was going on and what we did understand was truly awful and sappy. Seriously felt like I was at a taping of I Love Lucy, because had there been a bedroom scene (which there wouldn't on Chinese TV) the married couple would have been in separate beds.

This week is our last week of content (non-language) courses, so today at 5 I have my last class! Our assignment was to research a pop song, translate it into English, and describe why it's popular to the class. My roommate picked one out for me that's super popular, but very depressing. Apparently a lot of Chinese pop songs are depressing or sappy romantic songs, nothing like Chamillionaire's Ridin' Dirty or Shakira's Hips Don't Lie over here! My translation ranged from bad to worse, but I think it will do. My dictionary and I struggled through it and Jinling looked it over and helped me choose better words or phrases in a few places, but this'll do. Clearly I do not have a career in translation.

Gettin' Dirty in the Yurty

2007-05-21T01:21:00.000-04:00

Explanation to come later in this post. On Friday, we headed out for Chengde after lunchtime. This trip was organized by our history professor and was only for CET students, not roommates, so there were us 15, our program director Ben and his wife, his assistant director, the intern, our professor, and our professor's friend who works for the Antiquities Bureau. Bus ride was supposed to be around 4 hours and we'd arrive no later than 6 pm, but we got stuck in mad traffic and didn't get in until 7. Ugh, no time to rest before evening activities. Instead of staying in a regular hotel a la Xian, we stayed in a yurt hotel inside the Summer Palace. For those who don't know (and I can't imagine who that would be since yurts are clearly a part of everyday English vocabulary), a yurt is the traditional Mongolian style dwelling. It's basically an easily movable circular tent. Ours happened to be stationary, filled with modern appliances and furniture, have running water and electricity, and basically not resemble a yurt at all from the inside. But they were awesome, because it was like camping without the gross parts.

Once we arrived, we dropped off our stuff and headed to the big yurt for dinner. Dinner was comprised of almost all meat dishes. And not just normal Chinese stuff like Kung Pao chicken and Yuxiang Rousi, but giant chunks of meat in different sauces. Appetizing? No. Filling? Yes. Mongolian food also turns out be extremely salty. It's like you cook the food in salt but that isn't enough so you dump a whole can of Morton's on one piece of lamb. For some reason, we had this whole Mongol experience in Chengde, except Chengde isn't in Inner Mongolia, it's in Hebei Province. Go figure. Next we went to the Antiquities Bureau offices for a lecture about the area etc. It was pretty interesting. However, I got tired of listening because the woman speaking only used Chinese and our professor was translating, but I understood most of the first time and it was exhausting to hear everything twice. Around 9:30 we headed back to our yurts to spend the night.

Instead of going out to a bar or restaurant like we normally would, most of us gathered in one room and sat around talking. First came the ghost stories, of which I was terrified, and then came the poop stories. For some unknown reason, poop is a favorite topic in our group and always gets some interesting stories ranging from the extreme gross to the downright hilarious. Bedtime. Next morning we woke up and ate more Mongolian food for breakfast. It was just as salty (Dad, remember that nasty Japanese breakfast at the Forum? This was way saltier). Hoping that we'd be eating different food later that weekend.

Saturday we went to the Summer Palace which was built around the early 1700s as a resort escape from Beijing for the emperor. Beijing gets really hot in the summer, but Chengde is in a valley and significantly cooler temperatures exist. Quite odd really that we'd be wearing jackets or sweatshirts in the middle of May. Our tour guide, provided by the Antiquities Bureau, was amazing (his English name was Peter). His English skills were incredible, even better than our professor, and he was a downright good guide. Very informational and also very interesting. The Summer Palace was neat and we got to take an electric bus around the place to visit the sites instead of walking like all the normal tourists. This whole trip was full of cool opportunities we only got because of the Antiquities Bureau involvement. After that, we returned to yurt land for more yucky food. Then I took a nap. That afternoon we went to a temple built by the emperor to represent the Dalai Lama's temple in Tibet. It was amazing, not only its resemblance to the real deal (from pictures I could tell) but also the intricate details.

That night we had free time after dinner and most of us spent it napping (or doing Sudoku puzzles if you were me). Into the night, we sat around someone's room not drinking beer and then went out for a late bite to eat. We were all so tired of the Mongolian food that nobody ate much at dinner. Sleepytime and then wake up time early again. Sunday we went to what I thought was the coolest sight. The Antiquities Bureau and Peter took us to a temple that was still in its restoration phase. It was not open to the public because it was full of scaffolding and projects to be completed. The Bureau is working with the Getty Museum in LA to determine the best ways (and develop new ways) for preserving the artifacts and artwork inside. I really enjoyed seeing the progression from original to restored, and we even were allowed to climb the scaffolding and look up close at some stuff.

End of our tour, followed by yurt lunch and a moderately shorter bus ride back to Beijing. Last night I realized that this week is my last week of English language classes. Unfortunately that means I have two papers due that I thought were due next week. Knocked out one last night and I'm hoping to do one tonight, shouldn't be that bad. You know how it gets during crunch time... some tea, some sugary candy, and I'm good to go!

The Great Wall

2007-05-16T03:18:00.000-04:00

Sorry I haven't posted in so long, but our internet has kept me from accessing nearly anything lately. This past Sunday, we took a group trip to the Great Wall and it was great! Left the dorms around 9 am and arrived at the Mutianyu section of the wall at 11. For those who don't know, there are a few different sections of the wall that have been restored enough to climb. Badaling is closest to Beijing, and therefore more touristy and less fun (supposedly). Mutianyu is further away and a much harder climb, but from my view very worth it. Oddly enough, the hike up to the wall is longer than the hike on the wall. I felt like I climbed up to Le Sacre Coeur about 3 or 4 times before hitting the main attraction.

Once on the wall, most of us decided to go to the watchtower on the right because it was a moderately shorter climb. Basically you reach the Great Wall and then have to climb a lot more to get to anything worth seeing. Unfortunately the steps on the wall are quite uneven and alternated between so tiny you keep missing steps to so huge you can barely lift your leg high enough. Being a short person, the tall steps were the hardest. When we got to the farthest tower on the right, we all hung out for a while, resting and snapping pictures. Some of us decided to continue on to the "do not enter" part because it looked fine, just hadn't been wiped clear of trees and debris. Honestly, I thought that area was the best because it was an uninterrupted view of our surroundings with a more natural look of what the Great Wall probably used to be. After playing around there for a while, we headed back, met everyone else in the tower, and started our descent. As we approached the middle of the wall, instead of going down the stairs we took earlier, we all chose to take the toboggan ride. Remember the Hebei Tombs episode? This was very similar. The Chinese seem to like semi-dangerous methods of going down large mountains and heights.

Whatever, it was fun. You know you would have done it too. This time there weren't even gates keeping your cart from falling off the track, all the responsibility is on you. I particularly liked how when we bought our tickets, we had to buy the 1 RMB insurance. Insurance for what? Getting a band-aid at the end? Compare this to going to Six Flags and paying a mandatory dime for "insurance" along with your $40 ticket. Anyways, I arrived safely at the bottom along with everyone else and did a little shopping in the walk back to the bus. That whole area leading up to the park entrance is full of typical Chinese tourist shops selling all the same crap you can buy anywhere. For the corny factor, a bunch of us bought Great Wall t-shirts. I really wanted one that said "I climbed the Great Wall" but they were really ugly, so I got one with pandas instead that says "The Great Wall of China." In that area, I also had a delicious snack similar to a crepe with banana and chocolate (totally Westernized, no Chinese person would think to eat that).

We all passed out on the bus ride back - fantastic two hour nap, one of the best I've ever had. On to other business... I ate at Outback Steakhouse last night. A few of us decided to be fat Americans and go out for expensive, fatty food that was delicious. Great choice! I ate so much that I'm still full at 9 am this morning. Split a Bloomin' Onion (over my daily calorie/fat allowance at just the appetizer!), entree was a giant salad with chicken on it, split a brownie and ice cream dessert. Why did I order a salad and not some delicious hamburger or shrimp on the barbie? Because here in Beijing eating fresh vegetables is a considerable risk, but for the prices Outback charges I figured they were probably trustworthy. They only cater to Westerners anyways. My food was delicious and I spent a near fortune for it in Chinese terms, but so worth it. This weekend, we're taking a fieldtrip to Chengde and sleeping in Mongolian yurts...

Fine, If I Must

2007-05-06T05:36:00.000-04:00

I'm really not in the mood to blog, and I haven't been this whole week. Time has been short, things have been crazy, and I just don't feel like explaining. But that's not good enough for you, my friends, I will try harder. At this point I'm not sure if I can even remember everything that's happened. Last Monday, all 15 of us (-1 American and +1 Chinese roommate) went out to an American pizza place called Kro's Nest. It's run by this 20-something American dude by Peking University. 4 of us got one large pizza with half hawaiian and half garbage pail (every topping they had), but when it arrived it was half hawaiian and half something else. The pizza was good, but not great, definitely not somewhere I'd go in the States, but for here it's as good as you'll get. Also, the beer on Monday nights is 5 RMB per pint... hm can we say lots of drunk Americans eating pizza? Sounds like college? What?

Normally we wouldn't drink and go out on a Monday, but Tuesday was May 1st, also known as Labor Day. Quite a holiday here in China, up there with National Day for importance. The students all get off for the week (aka spring break) and almost everyone gets of on May 1st itself. Since our spring break was the week before, we only had off that one day. On Tuesday, along with 3 other people from our group I participated in filming a pilot episode for a TV show. Basically, this company is trying to start an American network dedicated entirely to China. For the promo so it would get picked up, they want a bunch of pilot shows. This one is to be a reality show of Americans for their first time in China. Whatever, I thought it would be fun and something to do. Turned out to be super tedious, not much fun, and didn't really like the other students I was with. That's not true, I really like 2 of them, but the third from our group and the 2 students from another university were not my type of people. The crew and everyone was really cool though, so it was moderately redeemed. Unfortunately I also had to go back on Saturday and spend the whole day with them, but I think it's done now. An experience to remember nonetheless.

Wednesday we had to go back to class and that was a bummer. But we took a field trip to a hutong neighborhood in the afternoon. We saw one that had been preserved from the late 1800s early 1900s and then we saw modern day ones that are really cramped and poor. Also saw some old brothels and general entertainment areas for turn of the century Chinese. That night, Jinling and I watched Babel. Interesting movie - I'd recommend seeing it, but I wouldn't have nominated it for an Oscar. Rest of the week was pretty ordinary, just classes and going out on the weekend evenings.

Since this entry was moderately boring, I'll share some stories that I've wanted to for a while, but they never quite fit in. When I landed at the airport in Beijing, arriving from America, I remember thinking that China didn't look so different from America. We were only taxiing, still on the plane, but I could see outside. Oddly, the first two other planes I saw definitely confirmed my view that I spent 13 hours on a plane to land right back at Newark. One was Ethiopian Air and the other was Fed-Ex; you really can't get more non-Chinese than either of those. Here's something I've noticed over time - there are almost no female taxi drivers in China. The only one I ever had was in Wuhan. Don't know why, but women don't seem to drive taxis at all. KFC is huge here in China. You'd think McDonald's would be so big because it's everywhere you want to be (or is that Visa?), but instead it's KFC. No joke - almost every street corner has a KFC, or as they translated it here to just "Kentucky." This fast food chain was the first to enter China and has totally won the market here. I think part of it is because the food they offer is similar to Chinese tastes in general, like fried chicken, iced tea, and corn. I swear I've eaten more fast food since I've been in China than I have since I graduated high school. And I will admit that KFC is pretty good, and as the ad goes "they do chicken right."

Picture Time

2007-05-04T02:24:00.000-04:00

Sorry for not updating in a while - this week has been quite busy and I just haven't had time. I'm going to try and upload some pictures from spring break, because someone just showed me how. Maybe it'll work, maybe it won't. That's China!

A Week of Military Training

2007-04-28T09:13:00.000-04:00

So this week has been interesting, getting back to normal life after spring break. Less than two months until I'll be stateside though, so better soak up the culture while I can. Nothing major happened this week, but I do have a few funny stories. I forget which day it was, but a few days ago I was sitting at the computer checking my email when I heard band music coming from someone else's room. Since y'all know me, I went around looking for it and found it was my neighbor watching TV. Hm... what could possibly sound like a marching band on TV? Turns out it was North Korea celebrating the 75th anniversary of their military. Phoenix TV (an international Hong Kong station) was showing this crazy North Korean parade. Usually at home we see a clip of giant squares of people goose-stepping and Kim Jong-Il waving. This was not much different, but it went on for hours. There were military units of men, women, children, those toting weapons, those driving tanks, those with flowers, everything imaginable and some things unimaginable. I watched in amazement at the spectacle. It only got better...

My roommate came in and I asked her the Chinese word for this activity. When she told me, she asked me the English and I said parade, but she was confused when I explained that we don't have giant military reviews showing off our latest nuclear weapons to President Bush. I can't really picture thousands of people marching down Pennsylvania Avenue with massive weaponry, but that's just me. Anyways, I asked if they have those parades in China and she said of course! Then, I mocked the goose-stepping soldiers and pretended to march like that around our room. Jinling surprised me by showing me up and doing the real deal. I asked when she learned that and apparently when everyone goes to college, they have military drill for 2 weeks before school starts freshman year. And then what do they do? They have a giant parade for a genuine military general! She showed me the proper way of goose-stepping, along with how to salute, stand straight, etc. Coming from her it was just the most hilarious thing I've ever seen.

Second event this week was the Easter party. One of the roommates asked us if we wanted to go to the foreign education majors' Easter party, so we had to go. I'm pretty sure Easter was over three weeks ago, and a Christian holiday, but that did not stop these Chinese kids. About 10 of us over the period of the evening went to the party with about 50 Chinese in a multi-purpose room. I felt like I was at my 10th birthday party all over again. We played musical chairs, pin the tail on the bunny, pictionary, and other interesting games. Everything was very childish, but reminiscent of home. I even led everyone in the Hokey Pokey (they had never seen that one before). This "Easter" party wasn't very Easterish, but there were pastel colors, candy, and daikon radishes (a sign of spring?) involved.

Today, our 21st Century Beijing class took a field trip to the Museum of Tunnel Warfare somewhere in Hebei province. Bus ride for 3 hours there and back, but fun overall. The tourguide was terrible because since she only spoke Chinese, our teacher had to translate everything she said. Instead of giving a brief overview of each section and letting us look at the artifacts and pictures ourselves, she stopped and talked about every single item. Oh well, Chinese museums, as I've said before, are just not up to my standards. After the museum we went down into the tunnels. That was supercool! Basically, in order to fight the Japanese during the War of Resistance (1936-1945), the Communists built a system of tunnels around northern China. Here, we walked through just a small part, but we got to see underground factories, offices, and supply routes. I think everyone really liked this part of the trip. Fun today, tomorrow I have to write my weekly Chinese essay. This week's topic: AIDS.

Spring Break, Part III

2007-04-25T05:17:00.000-04:00

Left out a part of Guangzhou... on Tuesday while I was shopping around, I got a pedicure. Quite different from that in the States though. First, I soaked my feet in a water bath with some herbs in it, then one foot at a time, the lady used a tool to scrape off all the dead skin. It took maybe 15 minutes for each foot and felt very ticklish, but nice and smooth in the end. After that part was done, I got nail polish put on. The whole purpose of this was not only to relax and enjoy some "me time" but also to have pretty toenails at the beach.

So, I arrived in Sanya on Hainan Island (basically the most southern part of China, look at a map) around 7:15 pm. Since the group I was meeting came in around 10, I just waited at the airport for them. Unfortunately, Joey and his girlfriend had missed their flight from Shanghai because they went to the wrong airport, but everyone else (Christina, Emma, Chris, Vahan, Andrew, Vicki, and Li) arrived on time. We bargained for a minivan taxi service that took all of us to our hostel for 100 yuan ($12 USD) since regular taxis would have cost about the same. On arrival, it seemed like our hostel was in a pretty sketchy neighborhood. That night we decided to hang out at the hostel since all we saw around were Russian places that our hostel director told us were possibly run by the mafia. Hope not, but wouldn't be surprised if that was true.

Next day we pretty much just hung out at the beach and walked around the area. Most of the shops were selling the same stuff over and over and nothing special to Hainan. It looked like all stuff I could buy at Rehoboth or any other American beach. Clearly, the Chinese have not totally figured out the tourist market yet. There were no t-shirt making stands and nothing sold with the name Sanya on it. For dinner we all went to Rainbow, an all-American restaurant. I got a burger and it was fantastic. Genuine American food (the owner apparently lived in Chicago for a few months and trained with real cooks) and really pretty girly drinks. I got some pineapple-y frozen daquiri thing and it came with a crazy straw and cherry - how cute!

That night, we were all too pooped to go out because of the hot sun. Some of us hung out in our room and we talked deep into the night. Next morning we woke up very early for our trip to Monkey Island. The bus we took was so bizarre; there was bad techno music playing and the driver put in a DVD of strippers (or something similar) dancing along. Pretty uncomfortable, especially since there were kids onboard. Arrived at a city and had to take a motorized rickshaw to get to the launch point for Monkey Island. Basically a motorcycle with a windshield and seats in the back. Safe? No. Fun? Yes! To MI, we took a cable car/gondola thing in the air, which was fun. Monkey Island itself was not up to my expectations; we all thought monkeys would be running around in a natural habitat. They did run around unleashed, but they were quite tame and used to tourists. One did steal Emma's orange juice bottle and drank it. It was fun anyways, just getting out and doing something other than beach. That afternoon we did more beach and then went to Rainbow again. Li, Vicki, and I tried a local place but they were already closed and most of the other local restaurants were of dubious cleanliness.

We all decided that for our last night in Sanya, we'd stay at one of the resorts in a different part of the city. Hoping it would be cleaner and more beautiful, it sounded worth the price. Saturday's lunch was Li, Vicki, and me at that local restaurant trying some local foods. My favorite was the coconut rice - the rice is steamed inside the coconut with all the natural juices and then you eat the rice and coconut together. After lunch, we all headed over to Yalong Bay (we'd been at Dadong Bay) to the Crowne Plaza Resort. Interestingly, the Crowne Plaza is owned by Holiday Inn. The Wellesley girls (Emma and Christina) stayed the last 2 nights at the Sheraton, so they were no longer with us; Joey and his girlfriend were also at a different place. For a two person room, we paid $100 USD, so for $50 each we had an amazing room at a 5 star resort! The rest of that day was consumed by going to the private beach, lounging in the pool, etc.

Sunday morning, our last of spring break, we slept in and checked out of the hotel around noon. Went over to the Sheraton to hang out with our friends (they didn't have to check out until 4) and use their pool. Spent the whole day lounging poolside, playing in the water, and going down the waterslide. That afternoon we all took turns showering in their shower and then headed to the airport. Unfortunately, spring break was rapidly coming to an end. We arrived at Beijing Nanyuan Airport. It's not the main one, but we figured it would be fine. Turned out to be really sketchy - walked down from the plane to a portable trailer where there were tables for "baggage claim" and then when we left there were no legitimate taxis. Hm... we split up and just got in private cabs (don't worry M&D, one boy went in each group so we'd be safer) which turned out totally fine. Got back to school around midnight and that ends my story. Until next time...

Spring Break, Part II

2007-04-23T09:29:00.000-04:00

Arrived in Guangzhou and took an airport shuttle to a hotel supposedly nearby Sun Yat-sen University, maybe a short cab ride away. When I got a cab, instead of the driver taking me to the north campus of Sun Yat-sen University, he took me to the north gate of the main campus (on the other side of the river). In any case, he took me back and I only paid for what the ride should have been. Once I arrived, I walked onto campus and asked someone where the hotel was (I had it written down in English, pinyin, and characters). They pointed me one direction, which turned out to be the wrong hotel because it was quite expensive. I asked a few other people and nobody knew, but finally I got lucky with one guy. He was so nice that he walked around the campus with me for over an hour looking for this hotel. None of the school's employees even knew the place though it was part of the university. The guy, Huang Zhongguang, even carried my bag from hell for a while - I was in major hand pain because the straps were ripping into me. Once we eventually found the hotel, he helped me check in and even accompanied me to dinner. Since he spoke no English, this was my real "aha" moment that I can speak Chinese. We had a two+ hour conversation in only Mandarin about a wide array of topics, such as American universities, his wife and daughter, my studies in Beijing, etc. I even found out that he's in med school to become a cancer research doctor (yes, I even know the word for cancer). It was so cool to meet a local and talk and stuff. After dinner, I went to bed because I was so exhausted.

That night, unfortunately, I stayed up all night because I was creeped out by a weird tingly sensation in my hand. After quite a while and calling Mom a few times, I think I figured that it was from carrying that damn suitcase all day. Oh well. My shower that morning was cold because the hotel doesn't have hot water - always a good start to the day. That day I did all the touristy stuff and saw the Peasant Movement Institute which was very cool. Basically a museum housed in the old school for teaching peasants how to be good revolutionaries during the Maoist period. They had a bunch of neat things on display and writings of famous Communists, definitely the best museum I've seen in China so far. After that, I tried to go to a famous Mosque that I read about in Lonely Planet, but it was only open to Muslims. Instead, I walked around for the whole afternoon going in and out of shops, seeing cool stuff on the street, watching people, etc. That night I wanted to grab dinner, but there was a 2 hour thunderstorm. It poured, and when you imagine pouring rain double or triple that amount. Crazy and so wet that I just bought some food from a stand next to the hotel and ate in my room.

Next day (Wednesday) I had set my alarm for 7:30am so I could go out and buy a new suitcase and repack before the day started. However, I overslept my alarm and didn't wake up until 10! Hurried through packing my stuff and taking another cold shower and headed out. When I took a bus to where I thought I was yesterday, it turned out that the stop I was heading for was the other end of a very long street. That was ok, I just hopped off the bus when I saw a luggage store conveniently located. Bargained for a much nicer piece of luggage that hopefully wouldn't break as soon as I picked it up and then repacked all my stuff right on the sidewalk.

After packing, I went to Shamian Island which is right in Guangzhou. This area is super Western and most of the people I saw there were white couples (with or without their white children) pushing strollers with a Chinese baby. Apparently everyone goes to Shamian Island on Guangzhou to adopt Chinese children, no other explanation is apparent. I had a nice lunch in a park and then took the shuttle to the airport. The Guangzhou Airport was quite fancy and had many expensive stores, fun for window shopping. Maybe sometime later this week I'll cover the next part of my trip - Sanya.

Spring Break, Part I

2007-04-22T20:49:00.000-04:00

Finally home from spring break, but since my trip was long and filled with lots of interesting and crazy things, I'm separating my entries for ease of writing and reading. Be sure to check back throughout the week for more on my travels. I'll start at the beginning. Left school on Friday after my midterm in Chinese and caught a 4pm flight to Wuhan in Hubei Province. There I met Nicole and we caught a super sketchy bus to Yichang. Reasons for sketchiness: a) when we got off the airport shuttle, we took some random cab that was hustling us to get to a different bus station after we said Yichang, b) when we got to that bus station it was pretty weird looking, c) the bus driver bargained with us for a price for the ticket, d) many of the other passengers were not too well off, and e) we made stops all along the bus ride randomly dropping people off and picking people up along the highway. On arrival four hours later, we checked into the Yichang Electricity Hotel and promptly got a good night's sleep. Yea, I love the name of that hotel too, I wonder if it's run by the electricity company. Wouldn't surprise me because I know that the Chinese Army runs some hotels.

Next day we hopped a local bus to Maoping to see the Three Gorges Dam. On the bus, two Chinese girls sitting behind us started talking to us and they were really nice, so we all decided to spend the day together touring. When we got off there was no site of the dam (we passed it maybe 10 minutes before), but there was a random lady hawking a tour of the site. Usually, Nic and I wouldn't go for that, but we 4 bargained the price down from 100 kuai to 30 kuai each. Instead of driving us to the dam and letting us roam as I expected, they drove us there and the lady gave us a half day long private tour. We went to all these places along that dam that seemed semi-illegal to be. Kind of beyond the normal perimeter and definitely places that were in construction zones. It was really cool though. That night we again stayed at the Electricity Hotel. Sunday morning we took a legitimate bus back to Wuhan, but unfortunately the price was higher. I guess in the end you get what you pay for; this one had air conditioning and no random pick ups or sketchy passengers.

Back in Wuhan, Nicole and I checked into our hostel. This hostel was definitely a real hostel, like none I'd been in before. It had writing all over the walls, weird people running it, located next to an art college, all the great things you hear about but never see. We basically spent the day walking around Wuhan and trying out new foods. I got a fried banana on a stick which was delicious. We got the famous local dish of reganmian (hot/dry noodles) but it was just noodles with sesame paste and we weren't impressed. I also got some kind of gelatin dessert, but it didn't come close to real Jell-o. That night we had dinner at a hot-pot restaurant and it was really good (even though hot-pot is Sichuanese and not Hubei food). On Monday, we just walked around the neighborhood by the hostel and then went to the airport. My flight left in the afternoon, but with the typical Chinese airline delay (this one actually including, disembarking and reboarding a different plane), we didn't leave until 6:30pm. I'll finish here for now and start the next entry with my trip to Guangzhou.

Hating the Yankees

2007-04-11T08:24:00.000-04:00

Is as American as pizza pie, unwed mothers, and cheating on your income tax. At least according to Mike Royko, a once-famous columnist for the Chicago Tribune? Or was it the Sun-Times? Either way, my point is that I introduced my roommate to pizza tonight. Never before had Jinling tasted pizza, not even one bite. Since I thought it was quite a travesty to live with an American but never have such an American food, I took her out for pizza tonight. First, I looked up somewhere to go online. I tried for Pizza Hut, but I couldn't seem to find their Chinese or Beijing website. Instead I settled for Papa John's. Actually I prefer Papa John's assuming that in China you still get the garlic butter sauce.

We took the bus 7 stops to some area to which I had never before been. Once out we found Papa John's and went in only to find that we were alone in the restaurant. This place was about the same size as an American one, but empty. Whatever. Since she'd never had pizza before, I chose what to order. We got a pitcher of Sprite (she had never seen soda in a pitcher), a 9" Hawaiian pizza, and a 9" pepperoni pizza. Originally I wanted half pepperoni half plain, but they messed it up and made it all pepperoni. After ordering, I explained to Jinling what all the condiments on the table were: Kraft parmesan cheese, pepper flakes, and tabasco sauce. Intriguing. What I didn't expect is what came next. My roommate looked at her fork and knife, picked them up, and asked me how to use them. I was totally flabbergasted. Checking with her a few times to make sure she'd never used one, I quickly told her and showed her how to use them. My question: why does Papa John's have forks and knives?

When our pizza came, it looked so delicious but also so greasy. They did something that made it much greasier than pizza at home so I put tons of napkins on it and tried to mop some grease up. Likely to no avail, but worth a try. First we tried the Hawaiin, which was excellent. Luckily Jinling like it, or at least pretended to all night. Between the two of us we finished off both pizzas (so full, so full, about to explode) and the Sprite. Of course, I treated her since A) I invited her, and B) the cost was at American prices. I'm really glad that I got to see her experience pizza for the very first time because it is so important to knowing the American lifestyle.

Shanghai and Suzhou

2007-04-10T01:11:00.000-04:00

On Friday, I left the comfort zone of Beijing and headed out into the wily world of Shanghai. Instead of taking a cab from my school to the airport (it would have cost around 100 yuan), I decided to take the airport shuttle. Basically, the only information I had was that it existed and my roommate thought I could catch it at a place called Gongzhufen. To get there, I hopped on a bus and went 4 stops (Gongzhufen is the same locale of our closest subway stop) then saw a little shack selling airport shuttle tickets. For a mere 16 yuan I got the pleasure of an hour long trip in Beijing traffic going to the airport. Actually, it wasn't that bad. Once at the airport, I picked up my boarding pass at the China Eastern desk and headed through security. Since I was alone this time, there were no problems of getting through passport control. My plane left the typical 40 minutes late, and the delay was of course once already on the plane. Oh well. Plane food in America is gross, but this flight confirmed in my mind that plane food in China is grosser. The stewardess asked if I wanted chicken with rice or pork with noodles, so I chose chicken but then discovered it was really squid. And not just squid, but a whole squid. Needless to say I put the foil right back on that dish and ate my fresh fruit.

Arriving at the Shanghai Pudong Airport is fun because you get to take the Mag-Lev train downtown. Within 7 minutes I arrived at a subway stop and then a little bit longer until I popped above ground to my parents' hotel. The Shanghai Park Hotel (direct translation: Shanghai International Hotel, a little presumptuous?) was quite nice in location and amenities. Since I got in fairly late around maybe 8ish, we just headed out to eat. Next to our hotel was a hopping street full of restaurants, massage parlors, KTV, and people with monkeys. People with monkeys? Yes, people with monkeys. Clearly they earn their living by walking around tethered to small monkeys and soliciting money to make the animals dance or something. Maybe instead of dancing the monkeys just bite you and give you rabies. That's how the scenario went in my head, at least.

That night we were all tired, so we just slept instead of going out and seeing the skyline or anything. Next morning we got up fairly early and headed to the train station. There we fought our way through the line and bought tickets for Suzhou. Only problem was that we got standing room only, no seats available. At least it was only an hour and a half ride (and I sat on mom's suitcase the whole time). On arrival at Suzhou, we discovered the craziness of their train station. Now, haven't been a huge fan of Chinese train stations thus far, but this one sealed the deal. 10 minutes of searching eventually led us to the ticket office which was about 20 lines of people maybe 50 deep. Dad and I waited in line while Mom watched our stuff outside, which was a good choice because it was hard to even keep track of purse inside there. Finally we got to the agent and I managed to get our tickets for the next day's Shanghai return - with seats! Whew. Finding the taxi was an equally difficult endeavor, but we did and we safely arrived at our hotel.

Our hotel in Suzhou was supercool and we even got a free upgrade to a suite (there was some mix-up between our reservation and their booking, I think it had to do with us having 3 people). Well, let me tell you, this suite was awesome. Very modern looking, great location, and comfortable beds! From the room, I gave my Suzhou friend a call. If I failed to mention this before, I got an email a while ago from a girl who lives in Suzhou and will attend Brandeis next fall. Since I knew I was going there, I told her and we planned to meet. Turned out that was a great idea because she (Tracy) was really nice and took us to some places we wouldn't have seen on our own. First we went to the Humble Administrator's Garden (Suzhou is known for their public gardens and their silk trade). Dumbstruck at the feeling of nature, I really enjoyed this place. It was my first time seeing live trees and grass and flowers in a few months. Beijing could use some livening up like this.

After the garden, Tracy called her mom and found out a very traditional Suzhou restaurant. For lunch, we ended up eating a lot of Suzhou "snacks" instead of real dishes, but we were all full. Some of the more interesting things were pumpkin cakes filled with some sweet paste, shredded and fried daikon squares, and a soup of sugary water with tapioca type things in it. Generally I like to nap after lunchtime, but Saturday afforded me no such luxury. Instead we shopped. Tracy took us to a silk shop her mom recommended that was only aimed at locals. It was on the second floor of some building along some anonymous street; no tourist would ever find it. Neat to see someone who isn't aimed at the tourist business. Then we walked around the area near our hotel and went in lots of stores to look at things. A fun day with Tracy! When she left, the parents and I headed up to our room for a little R & R. With stomachs rumbling, we walked around until we found a restaurant to our liking. Yummy dinner and some more shopping later (we even went to a Starbucks), it was time to retire.

Sunday morning we returned to the ridiculous Suzhou train station only to find out it wasn't so crowded. Not great, but not as bad as expected. We waited for a while and then boarded our train to Shanghai. This time the ride was only an hour long (with planes they have the jet stream, what do trains have?). Back in Shanghai, we dropped our baggage off at the same hotel and then headed down to the Bund. Unfortunately, the sky was cloudy so the futuristic Pudong skyline wasn't the best, but we enjoyed the view. Around 3 we went back to the hotel because I had to fly back to Beijing, good ole Beijing. Told the taxi driver where I wanted to go, then I promptly fell asleep. I arrived at the Shanghai Hongqiao Airport and discovered that my flight was delayed for a while (before boarding) so I walked around looking for food. No way was I eating the plane garbage. Instead of the typical Chinese airport that has KFC, McDonald's, and other assorted fast food, this only had fancy restaurants. Instead of forking over $8 million for a bowl of noodles, I decided to chance it.

Lucky for me, Hainan Airlines' food is much better than China Eastern's. They gave me a rice dish with chicken and green beans, fresh watermelon, bread, some "salad" I didn't eat, and a piece of cake. And they had coffee; although it was probably Nescafe, I'll count it. Back in Beijing, I went to my dorm and finished up some homework. My weekend trip was really fun and I loved seeing my parents (especially at their expense), but I did get sick. By Sunday night, I could barely talk and my throat hurt every time I swallowed. It wasn't better the next day. Monday afternoon, my roommate took me to get some medicine for it at a Chinese pharmacy. What an experience. So you walk in and the lady dressed in a lab coat asks what your ailment is. Jinling told her that I had a sore throat but nothing else and the lady wrote out a prescription for some medicine including instructions on how to take it. We took that to the counter where I paid for it, then we went back to the lady and she handed us the medicine. I was a little leery of traditional Chinese medicine, but I believe it now. Maybe not for all problems of the human body, but after taking it only twice I felt so much better. The prescription was for two days, so I'm still taking it right now, but basically my throat doesn't hurt at all. Good.

Bing Ma Yong

2007-04-05T21:07:00.000-04:00

Continuation from last post... On Sunday we all woke up and vacated the hotel at 9 am. We boarded another private bus and took a 40 minute ride to the Terra Cotta Soldiers. My roommate told me the Chinese word for them which is Bing Ma Yong (literally terra cotta soldiers and horses). After disembarking from the bus, we had to walk about 10 or 15 minutes to get to the entrance. There were shops and restaurants and people selling stuff, but it was oddly reminiscent of a ghost town. Upon entering, we went straight for pit number one (there are 3). Walking in was the most amazing sight I've ever seen. I got to the railing and looked down at a giant pit full of thousands of terra cotta warriors, horses, and other things. Nothing else is comparable. I took some pictures and read the signs explaining different things, but just staring was all I needed. A few friends and I walked around the whole pit very slowly discussing our wonderment and rapidly throwing questions at each other even though none of us knew the answers. There is no way to properly describe the Bing Ma Yong, so I shall apologize. After pit one, we continued on to pit two. Pit two was less impressive because it was much smaller, there were only a hundred or so in that one.

My favorite place was pit three. Most people would wonder why because pit three has almost nothing in it. It's a gigantic pit, nearly the size of pit one, but few terra cotta things have been unearthed yet. However, as my two friends would agree, this pit brings so many questions and feelings to mind. It really makes you think about the craftsmanship and labor that went into building this tomb. Not only do you consider the work, but also how it was found and the archeological methods of unearthing such a massive place. After pit three, we went to the museum but it was pretty lame. Unfortunately, the Chinese haven't figured out how to make a good museum yet. This one had almost no explanatory information (in Chinese or English) and not so many interesting artifacts. Oh well, seeing the figures in the pits was more impressive anyways. My two friends and I left the site and grabbed some lunch before leaving at 2.

Our group bussed it over to the Huaqing Pools, an old imperial resort. This place was absolutely beautiful with so many flowers in bloom and natural hot springs to see. We walked around for about 2 hours, and even got to feel the hot spring. I can imagine why the emperor wanted to go there with his concubines for some fun and relaxation. The buildings at the resort were also magnificent because they reflected the old imperial Chinese style of architecture. Basically our trip was finished at this point. We headed back to the Xian train station and boarded our 6 pm train. This train was a little different because instead of our berths having a moderate amount of privacy, these had no walls between the berths and the aisle. Not only unpleasant to constantly have people looking in at you, but also a little unsafe. We all slept with our stuff under our heads.

The train arrived in Beijing at 6:30 am and that's when I left the group. Instead of heading back to campus, I caught a public bus to my parents' hotel. It was really nice to see them and it seemed like they were really enjoying China so far (even though it was their first full day). The parentals brought me a suitcase full of things I wanted from home including a big tub of chocolate chip cookies! Nothing is as American as those and until I ate one I hadn't realized how much I missed them. In the room I showered and changed out of my three-day-old clothes and we headed out. First we stopped at a bakery and got some breakfast, then I showed them a cool food market. Throughout the day, we must have eaten a million different things because I wanted to introduce them to all the traditional Beijing snacks. What better way than to eat yourself across town?! We ended up walking really far that day even though it was windy beyond windy (Beijing seems to put Chicago to shame). Through the shops of Qianmen to some unknown and untouched hutong area, we arrived at Xidan. Xidan is a huge shopping area and I showed my parents a market where you can "beat the price" (bargain to us native English speakers). So tired, we cabbed it back to the hotel and napped.

Rested from our naps we headed out to my campus. The cab driver was really nice and seemed super interested in me. He kept asking me questions about my studies and stuff; I think he was just fascinated that I could speak Chinese. Back at the dorm, I introduced my parents to a bunch of my friends and my roommate. We used my internet to book all our flights for the ensuing weeks, etc. I headed downstairs to tutor some kids in English and my roommate entertained my parents for an hour or so. Afterwards, we went to dinner at one of our local joints and introduced the Liebholds to some classic dishes, also known as my favorites. There was yuxiang rousi (Yuxiang pork), gongbao jiding (Kung Pao chicken), qiezi (eggplant), and --I forget the name-- (fried shredded potatoes). Yummy! Since we weren't quite full enough after that large dinner with leftovers, I forced some jiaozi and baozi upon them. Back to the dorm and parents left.

Tuesday after my 5-6:30 class I headed downtown to meet the parents and Fengwei's family for dinner at the hotel. I caught a bus from nearby campus to get to the subway, then took the subway downtown. The trip took a little over an hour, not too bad for rush hour. Dinner was bizarre because my parents speak no Chinese, I speak a moderate amount of Chinese, Fengwei's speaks a moderate amount of English, and his wife speaks almost no English. The conversation went back and forth between English and Chinese the whole night. Often I was trying to translate things for my parents that I didn't quite understand myself. Usually I can get enough of a sentence to make some sense out of it - definitely no State Department translator job for me. Fengwei's family drove me back to campus because they live pretty close by.

On Wednesday, L & P left for Xian so I don't really know what's going on with them. Talked to them on the phone last night and it sounds like they enjoyed the Terra Cotta Warriors. Today we are meeting up in Shanghai for the weekend. I'm hurrying to the airport after my Chinese test and finding them at the hotel. Tomorrow we're heading out to Suzhou to see the gardens and a student who will be entering Brandeis next semester. No more to tell, so I'll sign off now.

Xian and Beyond

2007-04-04T20:57:00.001-04:00

I'll attempt to describe the ins and outs of my entire Xian trip, but it will be long and tedious to read. Friday 7pm we loaded up our private bus with all 15 CET students, our 15 roommates, our program director Ben, his assistant Hao Ziduan, and 4 of our teachers (Ma - 21st Century Beijing, Lin - my Chinese teacher, Xie - our Chinese teachers' assistant, and Tang - 400 level Chinese teacher). After managing the Beijing rush traffic, we arrived at the train station, piled into the over-crowded waiting room, and guarded our belongings from thieves. Chinese train stations, similar to those around the world, are ripe with pick-pockets. We had been warned about them and how Xian was even more prone to it, but I didn't really understand until my roommate pointed out one to me. He was a guy standing right on the edge of our group with no belongings just watching all of us, totally didn't fit in. No dice pick-pocket, we managed to keep our stuff and get on the 9 o'clock train. Our group basically occupied half or 2/3 of one car of hard sleepers. The hard sleeper is a small room off the aisle with no door that has 3 bunks on either side. Each bunk has a blanket and pillow, and though it sounds terrible it really isn't. It might be if you were alone, but there were a lot of us.

Figuring out which bunk was whose seemed to be overly difficult, but eventually we all landed somewhere and it didn't really matter where. Long train rides tend to be dull without some entertainment, so we ate food, played games, and eventually slept. As the night progressed the games got more and more interesting. Some of us played truth or dare with some our Chinese teachers, which was rather unusual. We tried to keep it clean because usually that game gets a little raunchy with college aged Americans. However, it took a turn as soon as one of the teachers started asking the other one about her new boyfriend. Oh, what fun. The best dare of the night, however, was Tang daring one of the students to call his Chinese teacher (she wasn't on the trip with us) at home and talk to her. Mind you this is about 11 pm, but that didn't stop anyone. More games continued late into the night until we went to sleep around 1 am. I woke up the next morning around 6 am because of the light shining through the blinds. We didn't disembark the train until 8:30ish, so I had quality reading time. Current read: One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Off the train and away we go on the Amazing Race: CET. My roommate and I were partnered with another pair, Vicki and Zhou Fan (luckily they are probably each our closest friends here). We started off by catching the bus to our hotel and checking in - we were the first group! Between check in and the next leg we had some time to ourselves, so we decided to explore the area. We went to the Muslim quarter and shopped in an open air market and ate delicious food. Xian has a large Hui minority population who are all Muslims, so their quarter is full of things like lamb dishes, dried fruit, and others. The open air market was like a bazaar and very cool. Next we returned to the hotel and got our second mission which was to go to the South Gate of the city wall. When we got there we climbed up and rented tandem bikes, rode to one end and found one of our teachers, and got our next assignment. The view from the top of the wall was pretty amazing; we could see the whole city of Xian for quite a distance. On the way to our teacher I rode on the front of the bike and on the way back I was on the back (my roommate was on front). I'd say the back was pretty scary because you have no control over the bike, and I also got my pants ripped in the chain.

Onwards to the Beilin Museum, but first we had to buy a xun which is an egg shaped musical instrument that plays like an ocarina. Vicki got the one to play for the group and I bought one for my mom, but I tried it anyways. Playing it was surprisingly difficult and I could only get about one note out. The Beilin Museum was truly beautiful on the inside, especially because it was one of our first times seeing nature in a while. Trees, grass, flowers, and more lined the inside courtyard for our viewing pleasure. Inside the museum we saw giant stone sculptures of animals and buddhas and other things of that sort. But, the piece de resistance was the steles, or giant stone tablets. Supposedly this museum has the heaviest library in the world because these steles are all books and writings of famous people like Confucius. Hundreds of steles later, I could only imagine what drugs these people were on to think of carving the classics onto stone tablets. Generally when I like to read a book, I choose paperback - maybe next time I'll chose stele.

From the Beilin Museum, our group walked for about half an hour to get back to the Muslim Quarter. There we had to find an artist by the name of Ding and ask him some questions about his artwork. All we knew was his shop was in the alleyway area leading to the Great Mosque. Earlier in the day before the race we went a few feet into that area because it has some of the really cool shopping, like all the touristy trinkets and stuff. So this was nice because it gave us a chance to shop while trying to accomplish our mission. It was rather difficult finding Ding because we had to ask a lot of other shop owners and not everyone knew him. Eventually we got to his shop and saw his art. Art is a compliment to most of his work because I thought his paintings were tragically hideous. Ding's focus was apparently using ridiculously bright colors in paintings about peasant life in rural China. Hm, no thanks.

Artist Ding gave us our next clue, which sent us to the Great Mosque. Before we got there, we continued shopping and Vicki bought a wristwatch with Chairman Mao waving on the face. The Great Mosque was perhaps the most interesting place we went all day. Instead of the traditional Middle Eastern look, this mosque was entirely built of Chinese architecture. There were no minarets or domes, no archways or gold plating; but there were plenty of pagodas, flowers, and Chinese characters. The inside was quite beautiful just like the Beilin Museum. It's always interesting to see how places blend in with their natural habitat. In Xian, the Great Mosque is still used daily by the Hui people. The final mission was to go to the Big Goose Pagoda, for which we could finally take the bus. As we walked out of the Muslim Quarter and caught the bus, we saw the group which had been in front of us the whole time waiting to get on the bus. Now we were in a close race for second place with them, so we were getting ready to run!

Unfortunately, as we readied to get off the bus by getting out our money and student IDs, Zhou Fan (Vicki's roommate) noticed that her wallet was missing. In the few minutes we were on the bus, someone stole her wallet. The thief did a good job too because none of us noticed and he or she didn't unzip the purse, just broke the other end of the zipper and pulled it out. Jerk! Because of that incident, we decided to catch a cab and head back to the hotel. We didn't want to go to the pagoda because Zhou Fan needed to call the bank and credit card companies. It was kind of nice to finally just hop in a cab and go. Back at the hotel, we told our program director what happened and then went up to our rooms. Instead of napping out of sheer tiredness, Vicki and I did some more shopping. We returned to the Muslim Quarter and those alleyways and got snacks and souvenirs. Among other things, I got myself an army green shirt with a giant red star in the middle (too funny to pass up). Xian has wonderful dried fruits in the bazaar and I'm upset now that I didn't get more to bring back to Beijing.

A few hours later and Vicki and I were totally pooped. We went to find some dinner and looked at 3 of the street corners at the center square, but could not locate a single restaurant that appealed to us. Instead of continuing on our search beyond the tourist trap places, we just headed to Mickey D's and ate there. Not the best and certainly not a Xian specialty, but food was we were aiming for at that point. After dinner, we returned to the hotel and basically stayed in our rooms until waking up the next morning. I was so tired I kept falling asleep, but I did manage to watch the Daily Show on CNN. I'm going to end my post at this point and discuss the rest of the trip later because my hands hurt from typing.

Sun Yat-sen to the Rescue

2007-03-30T01:58:00.000-04:00

Once again, Sun Yat-sen has helped out the poor students rallying against the imperialist business class. Or at least, I'll be staying at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou because the International Trade Fair has made every hotel so expensive. Between yesterday and today my roommate and I called probably a dozen places that seem on the internet to be hostels or hotels. You may be asking, what happened to the Guangzhou Petroleum Hotel? Well, I tried booking it online, but their website was broken and wouldn't accept my booking or credit card payment. So much for them. One major problem of calling Guangzhou hotels is that my Chinese isn't very good. Generally I can get by if I were calling somewhere in Beijing, but down there they don't speak Mandarin. Most of the hotels understand good Mandarin, so basically I would dial the number and my roommate would do the talking. It was very nice of her to help with this endeavor. Since not a single place was available, I was getting desperate.

In an attempt at pure luck, I asked another roommate if she knew anyone living in Guangzhou. My plan was to ask that person to book a hotel for me and pay the deposit and then I'd pay them back when I got there. Amazingly, this girl's aunt lives there and helped find me a place. The girl's English isn't so good, so I had to explain the whole predicament in Chinese, but I got my point across. At the end she asked me in English, "so you want the cheaper the better?" Bingo. This morning, she came over and said her aunt found out that students from other universities around China can stay in dorms at Sun Yat-sen University (one of the most famous universities in China). It will be an experience, but isn't that what this trip is about? I'm just grateful for everyone's help. And let me add, screw you Canton International Business Fair for messing up my cheap spring break plans.

Changing subjects drastically, I'd like to share that I've successfully gotten my roommate hooked on Sex and the City. At first I didn't think she's like it because she's very traditional when it comes to sex and relationships. However, last night I was studying for my test today around 11.30 and she asks me if we can watch some of the show. Being me, I said no problem. We ended up watching 3 episodes back to back. I think Jinling likes the show so much because it's so different from her culture. Very different. So different, in fact, that I often have to explain what's going on to her. Some of the topics they talk about my roommate has never heard of before.

Warning: if you are squeamish about sex or easily embarrassed, please stop reading. Last night part of an episode in Sex and the City was about vibrators. Clearly she didn't understand what was going on because I could see her expression, not fazed at all. Jinling asked me to explain, I couldn't refuse, so I ended fumbling through the minimal Chinese I know and her electronic dictionary to get the point across. What did she say next, you may wonder. I'll paraphrase: (her) In China masturbation is bad for your health, (me) Is it bad for your health or is it culturally unacceptable, (h) detrimental to your personal health, (m) that's interesting because many people in America do it especially males, (h) well then they have bad health habits, (m) I guess American medicine has found an adequate way to care for these habits, (h) maybe so, that hasn't happened in China yet. Wow, that was an interesting conversation. Hope that never happens again, but I know if we keep watching SatC some new awkward topic will come up. I can't just leave her not understanding either, because what would the show be if you didn't get the sexual references? A comedy with poor fashion taste?

Canton Mistakes

2007-03-28T09:39:00.000-04:00

More problems with my blog. It seems like 9 out of 10 times I try to log on the Blogger webiste is "unable to be found." I highly doubt that; I'm sure that the Chinese are just blocking the entire Blogger website because there's one nutball out there blogging about something that's censored. So if I go long periods of time without writing it's because the Chinese internet sucks. It really does.

Anyways, I'd like to take insult to what my parents, probably my mother, said about the pineapples. If you haven't already read her comment, she implies that I've never taken apart a pineapple myself and therefore wouldn't know what it takes. This is a blatant lie since I have indeed purchased and de-franned (?) a pineapple in the States ON MY OWN. In addition, I have also opened a coconut by myself before, or more specifically, at school when nobody else knew how to do it. I was the one who got the hammer and nails and broke the coconut and figured out how to get the milk and meat out. So there mom, take that.

Today, or maybe last night, I discovered that I'll be in Guangzhou during the Canton International Trade Fair. Normally I would be thrilled, perhaps intrigued (it's bold, shall I say daring? - that's for you Jen) by this event, however this fair interferes with my cheap hotel prices. Before I booked my flight to Guangzhou I figured it would be responsible to check out some hostels and hotels and see if any were in my price range. After looking at no less than 6 websites, I determined that yes, there were hostels available for $5 a day (that one's for you mom). Now, you and I both know that $5 USD will not get the best quality of places, especially in a place as cosmopolitan as Guangzhou, but did I care? Not at all. If I could have paid $3 a day I would have booked at that place. It's not about the money, it's about the thrill of staying in a sketchy hostel with strangers in a place where they don't speak Mandarin. No, I lied, it is about the money. Probably I would have gone for the classier $5 hotel; maybe it would have included a towel.

Last night, I logged on to reserve a room in one of these up-standing joints and lo and behold, it's now $50 a day. Now I'm no dummy, so I searched around for a reason to explain the ridiculous jump. This new rate was only for the weeks of April 14th and 21st, an odd thing in my mind. After a Google search, I determined that this fair was going on during that exact time period. Just my luck! With some intense searching today I landed a place that is 228 yuan ($28) per night. By far the cheapest in the area and actually nicer than the hostels I'd looked at before. Why? Because it's on the opposite side of the city from the fairgrounds. I have no need to go to the fair or be near lots of middle-aged white people that can't speak Chinese, so it's a perfect match (not that I have anything against middle-aged white people). Now, I just have to secure the room before the hordes of spring breakers trample down my Guangzhou hotel for their swag and sunbathing (see the Washington Post online for more information).

As long as this ordeal is soon finished, I can rest peacefully until Friday. My group departs for Xian on Friday evening by train and we'll arrive Saturday morning. Now, I'm not sure about you, but I've heard that a lot of people drink on trains (Fox5's party train story?) and it sounds like a plan to me! Just kidding, being drunk on an overnight train ride with nasty bathrooms is the last thing I want to do. Anyways, in Xian we'll explore the city, see the terra cotta warriors, and I imagine other things that one does in a foreign place. Sunday night we depart and arrive in Beijing at 6.30 am. From there, I'm going straight to Mom and Dad's hotel near Tiananmen to meet them, by way of rush hour subway no less. You better appreciate this one, parents, because you don't want to be on the Beijing subway during rush hour, especially from the train station. Been there, done that.

Boredom creates randomness

2007-03-26T05:08:00.000-04:00

I don't really have anything of interest to say today, but I'm a little bored right now. Of course, this post will generate at least three emails questioning how I can bored in Beijing, but let me explain. Everyday I do the same stuff, the only time I really have to explore or do interesting things is on the weekends. So this evening I have homework to do, a dictation to study for, and dinner to eat. Yay. Instead of discussing some great ideas or fascinating discoveries, it's up to the boring stuff.

Pineapples have become one of my favorite things to eat here. At home, I've always loved pineapple, but something about the ones covered in filth just says eat me. There are carts located everywhere that sell some fruit, but mostly pineapple. Now, you can usually by it three different ways. You can buy a whole intact pineapple, a pineapple that has all the outer parts taken off except the top, or a chuck of pineapple on a stick. Clearly, the whole one is the safest, but it requires a knife and a lot of work to eat. No way would I dare to eat the one on the stick from the stand, so that leaves me with the nearly naked one. Roommates have told us how to properly eat it - buy from the stand, bring home, cut off the top and cut into 2 or 3 big chunks (these pineapples are smaller than in the US), soak in hot salt water for about 1/2 an hour. I know it sounds gross to soak a sweet fruit in salt water, but it tastes truly amazing when you finally bite into it. Maybe the salt heightens the sweetness or something. Also, the pineapple becomes so tender after soaking that you can peel it apart with your hands and eat the entire core without noticing a difference. Yummy. This is a tradition I plan on bringing back to the States.

On another note, I tried sugarcane for the first time on Sunday. I was just sitting around working on my Chinese essay when my roommate pulled out a stick in a bag and asked if I wanted some. Originally I had no idea what it was, so she explained that it's sweet, juicy, and from the tropics (she didn't know the English word for sugarcane) so I figured it out. Sugarcane is bizarre to eat; you bite a piece off, chew it for a while and then spit it out into the trash. It was pretty good, kind of like eating sugar water. However, I'm not sure if I need to go buying some myself... I'll stick with the pineapples.

Since I've only mentioned food so far, I'll stick with it and talk about snacks here. Now, sometimes when I sit around my dorm at school (as all college kids do) I get bored and decide to snack on something. Perhaps I'll eat a cookie, maybe a granola bar, if I'm feeling healthy I could have some carrot sticks. Chinese snack food is quite different. At Wumei (the fake Wal-mart nearby), they sell tons of snack-y stuff. So far I've tried three different kinds. I can't remember what the first was called but they were O's about the size of quarter that tasted like Kix but with a kick. Currently I have two others going because I got tired of only having one choice. One is egg sachima (I'm not sure what sachima means) but its a wafer type cube with only a little flavor, and the other are egg custard cakes that taste kind of like a Twinkie but with butter and not cream filling. I like them both, but the O's were by far the best. Chinese snacks seem to be starch centered with light or distinct flavors because there is almost no chocolate or hard candy here. I've seen Lays potato chips at the store that are such flavors as: cherry tomato, cucumber, meat, shrimp, and Chinese barbeque. Hmm, I'll pass thanks.

Enough about food? No, I've been asked by several people to discuss a typical day's lunch and dinner. Lunch is easier to focus on because it is almost always one of two basic options. First there are the egg pancake carts outside our campus. Directly next to the gate, tons of carts selling food line up during lunch and dinner for the hordes of hungry students. My favorite is the egg pancake made by the following process. 1) Ladle some batter onto a circular griddle reminiscent of a crepe griddle, 2) spread it around like a crepe so the pancake becomes very thin, 3) crack an egg on it and spread that around (since the pan is so hot, everything cooks super fast), 4) flip it over and let it cook while 5) use a brush to paint on some kind of sauce and then a hot sauce, 6) sprinkle some scallions and parsley on, 7) put a large crunchy thing in the middle and lastly 8) fold over the pancake around the crunchy thing using the knife to cut it until it forms a perfect square. All of this takes around two minutes and is mightily delicious for only 2.5 kuai.

The other lunch option is the jiaozi man, at least that's what we call him. It's about a 5-10 minute walk away but so worth it. From him you can order jiaozi or baozi (steamed wontons or filled buns) for 3 kuai per long (a long is the measure word for the basket they cook it in, maybe 10 in each long). Jiaozi man also makes fried rice and other tasty treats. Occasionally we eat inside his literal hole in the wall "restaurant," but usually we take it back and eat in the lobby or in our rooms. The jiaozi and baozi are so good, so good. I generally order one long of each because I can't decide which I want more. So that's about it for lunch, maybe I'll tackle dinner another time.

Problems with my blog

2007-03-24T12:31:00.000-04:00

Major problem: I can no longer view my own blog or what I post. Therefore, I have no idea where I left off. I'll assume I remember and go with that.

Friday afternoon, we took a field trip to the Legation Quarter in Beijing. This area is right near Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. Basically it was the foreign ghetto during the late imperial period in China. Except foreigners weren't forced to live there by China, they took over this area and refused Chinese entrance. You had to have a foreign passport to get into the Legation Quarter during the late 1800s and early 1900s (even the Emperor couldn't get in without special permission). Foreign meant American, British, French, German, Russian, Belgian, Japanese, and others all together. Nowadays, the area is all Chinese. A bunch of government offices are located there, such as the Beijing Municipal Government, the Chinese Supreme Court, the Ministry of Security, a military base, etc. I would say as field trips go, this one was relatively dull because nothing is really left of the old Legation Quarter. Not many foreign buildings are still standing.

Last night (Friday) we all went out to KTV (KTV is what the Chinese call karaoke). That whole event was crazy and fun in one! We paid 300 kuai among about 20 of us to rent an entire room where we could play as many songs as we wanted. The room was decked out with a giant tv, a few small computers for choosing the music, and sofas and tables. As soon as we got in, we all started picking music to play like a madhouse. However, it was pretty clear that Americans and Chinese have a different idea of karaoke. When Chinese songs came on, one or a few people would get up and calmly sing along to the music. The songs they chose were pop music (I think current) but very slow and romantic. The songs we all chose were from middle school or before like Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears. As they came on, all of us would jump and scream and sing together in a big group with no respect for the microphone. All in all, it was a really fun night.

Today, I went shopping with a bunch of other people at Tian Yi. Since my watch broke last week, I've been in search of a new one. At this shopping center I managed to find one after an exhausting search (they don't believe in clip-ons here I guess), and it has Mickey ears. Yea, I'm cool now! I also got some barrettes for my hair now that it's shorter. We went to another shopping center a block away where I got a pair of white shoes. They are very cute, but unfortunately I can never send a picture because upload speed is slow here. In addition to having fun shopping, today was also Sam's birthday. We all decorated his room and snuck in and surprised him while he was out (taken out by another member of our group). After that we went to a Brazilian Barbeque restaurant to celebrate. This restaurant was interesting; there was a buffet of mostly vegetable and starch dishes and then waiters walked around with skewers of different types of meat to just cut for you. There was lamb, pork, beef, pears, pineapple, and chicken. I thought the pork was really good because I like white meat, but I didn't try any of the others (except the fruit).

Ladies' Night

2007-03-22T02:27:00.000-04:00

Tuesday night was ladies' night for no reason other than the guys have started a tradition of "Bro-ling" every Tuesday. Instead of going bowling ourselves, we decided to get dressed up and have some fun. First we watched a few episodes of Sex and the City and then we went out to the Sanlitun area where all the bars and clubs are. Only problem is that on Tuesday night everything was empty. We ended up at one place where we were the only ones there and had a great time. A British guy and a Canadian guy joined our group for no apparent reason and they were terrible dancers. But us girls had a good time!

I'm pretty sure I know what I'm doing for Spring Break now. As of yet, the plan is to leave on Friday afternoon (the 13th) and fly to Wuhan. In Wuhan I'll meet up with Nicole and we'll see the Three Gorges Dam and other beautiful sites in that area. On Monday the 16th I'll fly by myself to Guangzhou (old Canton) when she goes back to Hong Kong. For two days I'll be in Guangzhou seeing the old treaty port and other stuff until I fly to Sanya on the 18th (Wednesday). Sanya is the southernmost city on the island of Hainan, which is supposedly the Hawaii of China. There I'll meet up with a bunch of people from my group who are doing Shanghai, Suzhou, Hangzhou, and Sanya. I didn't enjoy Shanghai enough to go back, so I'll see them at the end. We'll be in Sanya for a few days until we come back on the 22nd for classes on Monday. Sounds like a great trip to me because I'll get to see three radically different parts of the country. I'll also get to use that expensive malaria medication I brought because I'm going to cruise down the Yangze River in Wuhan. Other than that, nothing special is going on right now. This week has just been ordinary with classes and such.

Mancheng Han Tombs

2007-03-17T22:59:00.001-04:00

Today we went on a field trip to see two Han tombs in Hebei Province. We loaded up the bus at 9 am and were off by 9.20. Not too bad of a start for a three hour ride. Basically, once we got on the bus and everyone finished eating their breakfast, we all fell asleep for the rest of the trip. About 20 minutes before we got to our destination, our teacher woke us up to see the surroundings. Hebei's landscape, located south of Beijing, was quite different from what I've seen up here before. It was kind of like a bizarre version of Southern California. The area was quite agricultural with sod farms (your favorite, grandpa), greenhouses, and migrant labor; however, there was none of the lushness of SoCal. No greenery except the clear areas that had been irrigated, everything brown and dry.

We got to the place around noon and ate at the only restaurant there. The food was not very similar to Beijing food, but still quite tasty. One dish was corn in an almost syrup-like substance, another was spicy fried chicken pieces (everyone's favorite). After our meal, we met up with the tour guide and started on the trip. Little did we know what was next. The hike up the mountain was tedious and reminded me of my trip to Masada. Except the climb up Masada wasn't hard; this was like the walk down going the opposite direction. Luckily I had a bottle of water with me. At the top, we first went to the tomb of the the Prince's wife (the Prince being the guy in the other tomb). It was pretty unimpressive and I thought maybe the next one would be better. Wrong - the next one was just as boring. The problem was that a) there were very few artifacts still in there, b) some of the artifacts had been replaced with replicas, and c) there were no explanations of the artifacts even by our guide. Oh well, it was nice to get out of Beijing.

Getting down the mountain was fun, however. There was a luge-type ride that you could take instead of walking all the way back. For 20 kuai, you sit in a little car (it has an impression for your rear and legs with a brake in between and a rail around you to keep you in) and go down a track. Unsure how safe it was, but it sure was fun! You don't get to go too fast, but the scenery was beautiful looking down the mountain. After that, we hopped back on the bus and headed back on our three hour ride. The rest of the day was uneventful except that my watch broke. It upsets me a little because I'm worried I won't be able to find a watch that clips onto my pants or something similar. We'll see.

And it didn't happen on Oprah

2007-03-13T03:21:00.000-04:00

Big news: I got my hair cut today. I don't really know how it happened, but my roommate and I were talking and she convinced me to do it. So I did. Jinling took me to a local barber shop where I sat trying to explain what I wanted. Not too short, a little longer in the back than in the front, no bangs, etc. There was some miscommunication and it came out a little shorter (maybe an inch or two) than I wanted, but otherwise it looks great. Style wise I think it turned out quite well. The best part about it was the whole thing was free! March 8th was International Women's Day (celebrated heavily here in China, people get a day off work for it) so this barber shop which is a big Beijing chain has a special this week - free haircuts for all women. Great deal! It will be interesting to see how I deal with the new length though. Less shampoo and conditioner, not as much brushing, should be good.

Owen Wilson's got nothing on me now!

2007-03-12T00:02:00.000-04:00

Shanghai was amazing! Our trip was so much fun and we really got to bond with each other this weekend. I'll write the interesting parts here (even at there's too much to say). 10 of us left our dorm on Friday around 2.30 in the afternoon. It was about 40 minutes in a cab to the airport. We checked in for our flight on China Eastern airlines and got in line for security. Here's where it gets interesting - one person in our group forgot her passport, so that made everything quite hectic. Most of us went through security without a problem, but they took her aside and our two Chinese speakers (one being an actual Chinese person, she lives on the 9th floor here and we hang out a lot) went with her. After waiting for a long time, the rest of us walked to the gate because we were boarding soon. The Beijing airport is extremely inefficient and they don't announce gate numbers until 5 minutes before boarding. About 15 minutes before our scheduled boarding time, we got a call from the other group asking for one girl to come down and help out. She went and it turned out they let the passport-less person get through security on someone else's passport that had already gone through. Can we say not ready for the Olympics? Security, not so good.

Luckily, we all made it and were excited to get on the plane! For boarding, it was a bum rush to the door instead of anything organized. Once they take your ticket, you get on a bus and they drive you to your plane. I think the Beijing airport has too many planes and not enough docking stations, so they park around the airport and drive the busses out. Weird. The plane ride was fine and we got to Shanghai by about 8:30. We decided to take the Mag-Lev train from the airport into the city because it was 7 minutes versus 45 for the regular transportation. Our group of 10 ran through the airport because we found out the last train left at 9 and we had only about 7 minutes. We got our tickets and ran to the platform where we got on and found seats and then a minute later it left. The Mag-Lev was cool because it went about 300 km/hour and tilted, so the street looked like it was at an angle.

We arrived in the city and hopped on the subway to get to our hostel. However, we could not get a taxi at all from the subway stop (the line that went to our hostel was closed). It probably took about half an hour to get three cabs for us and then another 20 minutes to get to the hostel. We arrived and checked in (with passport checks, of course). The cool part was that they messed up our reservation because we were supposed to be in rooms of 6 bunks, but they were out and gave us rooms of 4 bunks for the same price. And they let us be the only ones in the rooms, so we had 3 rooms for 10 of us. The hostel was really nice, much better than I expected. Later, we went out to get food at McDonald's because nothing else was open. Then, at 12.30 we went out to a bar/club, but it was really lame. The DJ was awful, so three of us left early and walked around our neighborhood for 2 hours. Turned out to be a really nice evening just seeing the sights; I was surprised how many locals were out and about at 3 am.

Next morning, we woke up around 10 and got ready for the day. I went out with 3 other girls and 2 guys. We first took the subway to Nanjing Donglu (East Nanjing Road) which is a major shopping district. But we didn't shop; it was the closest stop to the Bund. The Bund was quite a breathtaking view. Looking back on the river bank we were on was all colonial style architecture and very traditional sights. Across the river, however, was space city. Google image search the Shanghai skyline or Pudong skyline and see what I mean. Unfortunately it was foggy/smoggy so our pictures didn't turn out so well. It was really neat though. After taking a million pictures, we grabbed some lunch and caught a taxi to Qipu Lu.

Qipu Lu is this ginormous area with a few huge indoor markets for shopping. We went to one and had quite a field day. After a few hours, I ended up with two shirts, but I got the least of the girls. One girl and I went off on our own for a while and had an incident with a store clerk. We were trying to bargain for a coat she wanted and I offered a price that was too low (that's always how you start) and she said no way, so we kept talking. The clerk was basically refusing to lower her ridiculously high price probably because we were both white. So we left, but decided to try back later and see if a different clerk was there. We did, but the first lady saw us and tried to bargain with us again and when I offered a price she threw her calculator to the ground. Now, I understand getting a little upset, but destroying your own property? That's silly. This time around I really enjoyed bargaining because it gave me a chance to use my Chinese, especially because the girl I was with is in beginner level. I guess I just think faster in numbers. We met back up again to our group of 6 and decided to get a cab back to the hostel. Oddly enough, our group (I was with 2 beginners, a guy and a girl) could not get a cab at all. We ended up walking 20 or so minutes back to Nanjing Donglu to the subway and going that way.

Back at the hostel 3 of the girls and I sat around our room and girl-talked for maybe 2 or so hours. It was really nice and fun; a good bonding experience. That night we all went out as our group of 10 to a Thai restaurant which was very delicious. Instead of going with the Pad Thai theory (if I try it everywhere, I can rate the restaurants against each other) I got something new, but I don't remember what it was. After dinner, we decided to head out and go to a club and do some dancin'. Since none of us knew Shanghai well enough, we asked our cab driver to take us to "bar street" assuming every city has one. We got to this area and just kind of picked the first bar we saw because it looked fine. Mistake, big mistake. Once we were in there and settled, some of us started to wonder why there were so many older guys (maybe in their 40s or such, old for the bar scene) with younger girls there. Someone in our party informed us that we were at a prostitute bar. So that was totally awesome. We definitely stayed and had a great time and of course now have a great story to tell. Instead of dancing near all the creeps though, we moved our tables and chairs around and barricaded ourselves off and created our own personal dancing space. It was fun!

Next morning we woke up and I went out for breakfast with 2 other people. After that we checked out of the hostel and stored our luggage there. We went shopping again, actually back at Qipu Lu because we only saw a teeny portion of what was there. I didn't get anything the second day, but it was still fun helping others bargain and look. That afternoon we all met up at the hostel and cabbed it to the train station. We waited around for half an hour or so and boarded the train. 3 of the girls and I were sharing a "soft sleeper" which is a cabin with 4 beds bunked. It was so cute, we got sheets, blankets, pillows, and even slippers. We girls were having a great time while everyone else was in the regular cabin in airplane type seats (unknown why they didn't want a cabin). During the evening hours, we had dinner in the restaurant car and then retired back to the cabin where everyone joined us. Fun was had by all and we talked late into the night, with multiple passengers stopping by and asking us to be quiet! Finally we kicked them out and went to bed.

This morning, they woke us up at 6.30 because we arrived at 7 in Beijing. We got out of the train station only to find the taxi line so long that it would take too much time (we had to make it to class). Beijing, once again, is not ready for the Olympics next year. We hopped on the subway which was packed in like sardines and eventually got out and took a taxi to our school. Between the airport, train station, and traffic, Beijing is going to have a hell of a time with so many people bombarding the city in 2008. Us girls got back to school at 8.15 when I wrote my essay due for Chinese class. Unfortunately it took me so long I didn't have time to study for dictation. Oh well, guess one bad grade won't kill me.

On another note, housing for school was this weekend. I had a really good number in the lottery (number 60 out of all upperclassmen) so my friends and I are living in the Mods next year. Robbie, Bryan, Sammy, Jason, and Reuven are joining me in our 6 bedroom, 2 bathroom (one shower has a tub), kitchen, and living room apartment. Can we say awesome?! Hell yea! For once, I didn't get screwed in housing. That's all for today.

Shanghai Nights

2007-03-07T01:02:00.000-05:00

Shanghai is on! I have now paid for my airfare down there which was only 600 yuan ($75 USD). Even cheaper will be the return flight, but I don't know why. We're staying in a hostel for 40 yuan per night, so this trip is gonna rock. 10 of us are leaving Friday afternoon and returning Sunday night. I'm super excited about this trip because I'll get to do some sightseeing, some hanging out, some Shanghai-ing (whatever that is?!).

Yesterday I had calligraphy class. It was fun, but the instructor was kind of boring. He seemed more suited for Tai Chi because everything he did involved slow thoughtful movements. I did get to keep what I practiced, so I'll have some fun souvenirs. Every Tuesday I get to do more, so that should be interesting. I've also signed up for Wu Shu, a martial art, class on Thursday.

I had my first "yay I can speak Chinese" experience today. For the airline ticket, I needed to pay today and had no money so I had to go to the ATM. I walked in the bank and asked the floor manager lady, in Chinese, if I could use a foreign card at their ATM. She said yes and I hoped she understood what I said because I didn't want my card eaten. But it worked and I got money! I did it all on my own because nobody else was with me.

Don't wait 'til the last minute to do laundry

2007-03-04T23:18:00.000-05:00

One would think I'd have learned this lesson freshman year, but apparently not. Yesterday I decided to do laundry since I basically had nothing clean to wear. I thought to myself "this is OK because tomorrow I will have many shirts and pants to choose from." Fortunately, I had more clean underwear so that wasn't a problem. I went and got my laundry card and put my clothes in the machine. It's a pretty small machine, so I could only fit about 3/4 of my stuff in. Thus I chose 4 pairs of pants, a bunch of shirts, some undies and socks. I know this isn't usually information to share, but it's part of the story. Here's what happened: the dryer doesn't work. You can "use" it, but your stuff won't dry so there's no point. Luckily I saw it not work for the person before me, so I knew not to dare. Then I ran downstairs to buy some hangers and hung up my pants and one shirt. But I had a bunch of wet laundry left with no place to put it. Therefore, I brought it back to my room and hung up most of it on the line in the shower. I put all my socks on the towel rack and some stuff I had to lay on the countertop. It was kind of awkward and neither Jinling nor I showered last night/this morning because my stuff was everywhere.

On to more pleasant topics. Like spending all day yesterday doing homework. Yea, I had to write a 400 character essay about "the problems of single parent families." Um, ok, I don't think I could even do that in English. It took me the entire afternoon and evening because I couldn't think of anything to say. I bought some jam and bread at the supermarket and had it for breakfast this morning. Definitely on the Klaus Liebhold diet of everything that's yummy!

Last night was the Lantern Festival, for which I did nothing special. Untrue, I went to dinner with a friend and her roommate and we ate the traditional glutinous rice balls. They were quite delicious, some filled with peanut paste and others with red bean paste. I learned some new things about my roommate this weekend. She didn't learn Mandarin Chinese until right before she came to college. She'd heard and used it a little bit before, but everyone in her town spoke Jiangsu dialect. Apparently Mandarin is easy to learn. She also didn't know English before college because her town is very small and only had a few teachers. None of those teachers were qualified to teach "standard English." Anyways, I'm shocked because her English is amazing (basically fluent) except once in a while when she doesn't know something.

Bargaining 101

2007-03-03T02:18:00.000-05:00

Seeing the acrobat show last night was wild. It was a total blur of the line between cool and creepy, however enjoyable. Unfortunately, the group we saw I believe was kind of a B group. A few of the acrobats dropped their props sometimes and some missed their stunts, but overall it was a neat show. Today, Jinling and two other roommate pairs and I went shopping in Xidan. We had to take 2 busses to get there, but it was worth it. Basically, this was a giant traditional style market but indoors. Kind of like a mall, but not in the American sense. There were hundreds of stalls on every floor but no stores with individual walls and doors. That seems to be the Chinese way of shopping. Each floor had tons of stalls that all sold the same stuff, for example one floor was all jeans and t-shirts whereas another floor was all shoes and ladies underwear.

As often happens, the shoes called out my name. I found this cool pair of shiny teal, no heel, pointy toe shoes that were too amazing to pass up. First I tried on one pair but they were too small since compared to Chinese women I have giant feet. Next I got ones that fit, and when I asked how much they cost the clerk told me 250 kuai. Now, we all knew that was ridiculous, so I told her that's too expensive. Then she says "since I'm your friend, I'll only charge you 180." Of course this was all going on in Chinese and this lady had a crazy Beijing erhua (the Beijinger accent) so I only knew about half of what she said. Still, I pushed more and looked to my and another roommate for what is a good price. Eventually I told the clerk 80 kuai and she let in. I'm pretty sure I overpaid by probably 20 kuai, but for my first time bargaining it wasn't so bad. $10 US for a pair of cool shoes is OK in my book.

Later, our group split up so Jinling and I decided to head to a nearby bookstore. I wanted to pick up a Chinese-English English-Chinese dictionary since I dumbly left mine at home. Beijing Bookstore was gigantic and I think it is maybe the biggest bookstore in Beijing. It seemed like a Barnes and Noble on steroids. For once, I could even use my credit card since I was running out of cash. My roomie and I were so tired after this ordeal that we just wanted to go back to the dorm. We hopped on the bus, but had to transfer again. This second bus was ridiculous - there were so many people on board that I couldn't even reach a pole to hold. And people kept pushing on just when I thought there was no more space. Oh well, we made it home safely. Public transit here is pretty nuts!

Guard your wallet Mom and Dad!

2007-03-01T20:07:00.000-05:00

I'm going shopping tomorrow! But I won't do too much damage, maybe just a few things here or there and some shoes. It should be cool because I really want to see some of these free flowing markets I've heard about. Jinling taught me the hand symbols last night for numbers 1-9 so I'll be able to bargain faster than if I speak.

On another note, tonight we're going to see an acrobatics show, which should be totally cool but creepy too. When I saw Cirque du Soleil it was amazing but also mind-bending how those people could do tricks like that. I have a feeling this will be even weirder. Yesterday some lady came to talk to us about traditional Chinese medicine. The only reason most of us went to hear her was because they gave us free pizza. The pizza was Dominos, but surprisingly better than in the States. This woman was doing her graduate research here and was so boring and a terrible speaker. I hope she never becomes a professor. All she could do was read straight from her notes and was super nervous.

This morning is my first big test in Chinese class. Each day thus far we've had a dictation, but that isn't so bad. Just memorize a bunch of words. However, this test is a 50 minute written section (part fill in the blank, part sentences, part paragraphs) and a 10 minute one-on-one with the teacher. 10 minutes all by myself speaking about our chapter with her is nerve-wracking. Especially on such topics as the high divorce rate, single parent families, and children born out of wedlock. Great textbook, huh? Better than the one from sophomore year about rape, abortion, and theft though. Back to studying now.

Some differences between America and China

2007-02-28T05:12:00.000-05:00

This is just a list of some things I've noticed so far about China:

-In college, girls cannot enter boys' dorms and vice versa.
-Public toilets are all just holes in the ground and often do not have TP, however you will almost always find soap and water or antibacterial hand gel.
-Along with that, you can't flush the TP here.
-People drink hot water like we drink ice water.
-Often stores don't give receipts because they don't want to pay taxes. The government has instituted a program whereby if you request a receipt, the receipt comes with a lotto ticket on it.
-Many Chinese people like KFC. I mean ridiculously like KFC.
-You don't have to sign a contract for a cellphone.
-Beds are really hard and have no padding.
-School supplies are relatively expensive. I haven't been able to find any that even resemble what I use at home except pens.
-They don't have tampons.
-Every food dish has meat in it even if it's a vegetable dish. Very few exceptions.
-The top 3 foreign languages spoken by Chinese people are English, Russian, and French.

That looks good for now. If I think of more maybe I'll add it.

Grand Cell Phone Search!

2007-02-27T02:42:00.000-05:00

Today my roommate took me to buy a cellphone because I asked for her help in this matter. We caught the bus and went a few stops where we ended up at a gigantic cell phone store. At China Mobile, they had booths for every brand of phone you can imagine like Sony Ericsson, Motorola, Lenovo, Nokia, and more! I let Jinling do all the talking because this was a very confusing experience. Bascially I got the cheapest phone there was and she managed to talk their price down ever more, so I paid 300 yuan for my phone. Next we had to buy the SIM card to put in the phone so I have a number and money to use it. That was fun! We stopped at a few places to find out how much they cost but they were too expensive. Finally, back near campus we stopped at a place and almost bought the card. However, when the lady handed Jinling the card, I realized I already had something that looked like that. Apparently the mysterious second card from Feng Wei was a SIM card. That was great, don't have to spend any more money.

Once we got back to the dorm, Jinling showed me how to use it and also set it up in English for me. Next, we input her phone number and I called and it worked. Yay! So now I have a cell phone, but I don't think I can call you with it because it is only for China. And I don't think you can call me either, but maybe. If you want to try, email me for my number.

On another note, I managed to drop one of my classes today. Somehow when I registered for CET I picked my classes from the fall semester's choices. So when I got here, there was no History of Chinese Women as I selected, but I was put into Material Culture of Imperial China. This class seemed OK except when I went yesterday it was basically History 80a all over again. You da man J.Schrecks. Problem was that you're not allowed to drop classes here because the program is small, which I understand. Yesterday I met with our director about this and he had to speak with the Washington Office etc. etc. Finally, this afternoon he told this was OK to drop the class and filled out my paperwork. Now I'm only taking 3 classes (really 4 because Chinese language is 2 classes worth - 11 hours per week) like most people and I still get full credit for Brandeis.

Long time without the internet

2007-02-25T03:20:00.000-05:00

To me, it seems like years. Maybe to you only the days it probably was. Either way, I've been without a computer since Friday morning. I tried to get onto the internet around 8 am, but it didn't work, so I went down to the internet guy and told him "my internet is broken." When he came to fix it, my whole computer was down too, so he took it away. Just now someone came to give me a new one, so I'm all good now.

A few updates since my last post are due. After I moved in, I met a few other people that were here too from CET but didn't take the group flight over. We went out to a club called Propaganda where it was mostly Korean people. Funny thing though, when we got there (6 of us) nobody was dancing, so of course we all jump on the floor and get our groove on. It was pretty clear that people were just staring at us. I felt especially weird because I was the only white person; there was one African-American boy, and four Asian-Americans. We had a really great time and other people joined us quickly.

The next day was orientation so we met the rest of the people and everyone here is so nice. There are 15 people in our group, which is a great size. We go out to eat and do stuff a lot together in big and small groups. I think everyone gets along really well, so that's cool! We walked around the neighborhood, took our Chinese language placement exams, and ate dinner and stuff. Later, I started getting sick with a cough and cold, so I went to bed. Next day was more orientation, etc. Friday afternoon, our Chinese roommates arrived. My roommate's name is Jinling and her English name is Jessie. She is so cute and really nice. Her English is quite good, but she likes to speak Chinese to me.

Saturday was the grand scavenger hunt. We paired up with another CET student/roommate to go around Beijing and find all sorts of crazy stuff. There was the easy stuff like a bus ticket, subway ticket, etc and then there was the hard stuff like a non-digital photo of our team from Tiananmen Square and a card from the National Library. We were all over the place! Public transit here is quite interesting, as there are many many many bus lines that overlap and it's so crowded. The four of us had a great time scavenging and we even tied for 3rd place! Today was our academic orientation where I found out my classes (since I'd forgotten). So you people will stop asking me, I'm taking: Chinese 300, Beijing in the 21st Century, Chinese Popular Culture and Media, and Material Culture in Imperial China. I'm super excited for all of them.

By the way, we all love this store down the street from our school called WuMart - kind of like a Walmart/Target. I've gotten school supplies, water, beauty products, and other stuff there. It's a really awesome store! Anyways, until later...

Finally situated in my dorm

2007-02-21T01:01:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone out there in cyberspace! I'm finally checked in to my dorm here at Capital Normal University in Beijing. I'll give some details about my trip so far:

Saturday 2007/02/17 - arrived Beijing airport around 4.30 pm (Beijing time), went through customs, got my bags, and met Feng Wei and his daughter. As we were driving to the hotel, the roadways looked like driving through Canada because all the measurements are metric and instead of French and English it's Chinese and English. I checked in at the hotel and then we went to their apartment to celebrate New Year's Eve. Feng Wei's whole family was there and they were all really nice. His father looked straight out of a movie! I tried some interesting dishes at the house like salty beef (you know my love of meat). Then we went outside and set off fireworks with many other people. All around Beijing people were setting off fireworks and it is still going on, any time of day for the first 7 days of New Year (fireworks are banned in Beijing at other times).

Sunday 2007/02/18 - Found a great bakery next to the hotel (although I later found out it is quite expensive for breakfast, maybe 3 yuan per item). Feng Wei, his wife Zhou Sihong, and daughter picked me up at the hotel and took me to the Forbidden City. We spent the morning there and it was immense. Totally beyond the imagination even after watching videos and seeing pictures. Next we went to Pizza Hut because the daughter loves pizza. It is quite different than in the states. Maybe the Chinese think Americans like meat so much that they put sausage, ham, bacon, and more on each pizza. That night for dinner we met up with Xiang Shang and went to a showplace for dinner.

Monday 2007/02/19 - Bakery again, yummy! Xiang Shang picked me up and took me to a Temple Fair which is kind of like a county fair but for New Year's and at a temple (food stalls, midway games, but no yucky animals). Then we met a friend of her's for lunch, Wu (I think that's his name). According to Xiang, Wu is a very rich architect with the Army from Guilin (he has his own personal driver/bodyguard). He took us to a fancy Beijing Duck restaurant where I had to try duck feet, goose liver, and other delicacies. Next we went to a tea house where he showed me the traditional tea ceremony/service. Wu did not speak English, so everything was said through Xiang and my poor Chinese. For dinner we went to Tony & Tina's Wedding a la Chinese style. It was a Mongolian wedding with traditional Mongolian food, dancing, etc. Pretty crazy.

Tuesday 2007/02/20 - On my own today. Walked to Tiananmen Square and looked around for a while. I tried to go to Mao's Mausoleum but it was closed for holiday. In search of lunch I found a market nearby the hotel which had buns and stuff for only 1 yuan (for future reference $1 US equals about 8 yuan or RMB). Spent the afternoon at a shopping mall that was huge. I bought some necessaries like soap at the supermarket on the basement floor.

Wednesday 2007/02/21 - Today. Leisurely wake up, etc. Took a taxi to CNU today and checked in to my room. The group isn't getting in until later, so I'm on my own right now. Room is really nice (and I've already bought my internet access for this month!).

Packed my bags and ready to go

2007-02-15T09:03:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was packing day. I began by gathering my stuff that I had collected upstairs and bringing it downstairs into the packing arena. There was a lot, but not too much for my suitcases. My mom and I then went to see Music & Lyrics with Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore. It was fantastic; not only was it a decent chick flick, but there was also lots of Hugh Grant butt-shaking! After the movie we went to Barnes & Noble so I could get some decent reading material for the flight. I decided on O! Pioneers (or is it O, Pioneers!) and The Brothers Karamazov. Back home to pack. I had never used space bags before, but I had some so I tried it. They are amazing - I got 4 pairs of pants and 2 shirts down to the size of 1 pair of pants. Basically, the rest of the night I spent packing. Oh yea, and answering the phone because you people couldn't stop calling. For the past 2 days our telephone has been non-stop calls between family and friends phoning us and me calling United for a weather update.

It's icy here today, as it was yesterday. My mom got off, thankfully, so she's driving up to Newark with us. I'm not too excited about New Jersey. I mean, really, what's the point? Anyways, the plan is that I leave the Newark airport tomorrow, stop in Chicago, and switch planes and fly to Beijing. There, I'll be picked up by Wei (see earlier entry) and be party to the Wei Family Rockin' New Year's Eve. I think I'll meet his wife and children, his parents, and his brother and sister-in-law. Cool.

Only a week and a half to go...

2007-02-06T09:05:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I got an email from Wei, the coworker of the coworker of my cousin who will be picking me up at the airport. When I land at the Beijing Airport, hopefully he will recognize me. I sent him a picture of myself and he has my name, so it shouldn't be a huge problem. After that, we'll stop by at the hotel to check-in and then go home to his house for the New Year's celebration. I arrive on New Year's Eve, so Wei's parents, brother and sister-in-law, wife, and children will all be gathered. Apparently the kids are an 11 year old girl and a 13 year old girl; maybe I'll be able to speak Chinese with them. My vocabulary probably rests around the elementary or middle school level. They are learning English, so hopefully I can help them with their endeavours, even if that means just speaking to them a bit. I'm getting really excited now about going! Meeting everyone will be super cool and I'll get to see real people's celebration.

3 Weeks Until Departure

2007-01-26T11:09:00.000-05:00

Well, it's getting close to that time. In three weeks I'll be departing for Beijing, my home for the next four months. I leave from Newark, so my dad and I are driving up the day before. Good thing my passport and visa just came in; now I have to go pick them up! Soon to be gone...