Whew, I've been lazy. I apologize.
Since the lantern festival... A couple friends and I have been trying to travel every other weekend which has mostly worked...
Tianjin: February 13-14
the port city of Beijing about a 2 hour train ride east of Beijing on the slow, stuffy, crowed train. People alson really don't obey no smoking rules... if there's anything to convince me not to smoke it's probably these enclosed vehicles in which people light up one after another. That train ride was 6yuan though, about 95 cents. What a bargain. We really wanted to try the super fast train on the way back though so we splurged - I think it was about 50 yuan - 8 ish dollars. Whoa, that one was super comfortable but only 30 minutes. It could have lasted longer.
So when we got to Tianjin we hoped on a bus we thought would take us to our hostel. Two hours three buses later we arrived at the hostel (I believe we drove around it maybe 3 or 4 times). Unfortunatley nothing was open though as the bus rides took so long so we just hit the sack.
On Saturday we got up bright and early and went to the drum tower in the middle of the older part of the city. Nothing was open so it wasn't super interesting but I kind of liked it... it was really peaceful. After that we headed over to a little monestary which was also realy nice, although not my favorite monestary we've been to. In the afternoon we went to walk around a part of the city with a lot of European architecture (banks) from when China was semi-colonized (early 20th century). That was really interesting though. I felt like we could have been anywhere but China. The last thing we really did that day was to go to an outdoor market. I was skeptical but it actually turned out to be really fun. We had some pudding like snack made from flavored powder, hot water and driend fruits and watched 糖化 (tang hua) sugar painting. It's incredible. These men (generally men) sit at a piece of steel or something and use melted sugar or some sort to make incredible pictures. Then they stick a astick in it and voila! It's a lollipop. Although probably the prettiest lolipop I've ever seen. It was valentines day too so They also made roses out of red sugar.
After that we caught our super luxery train home.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Chinese Lantern Festival
So Monday night was the Chinese Lantern Festival and the official end of the New Year. We went downtown near Tienanmen Square to a Lantern festival. Didn't really know what to expect so we just followed the crowds to a pedestrian only street on which most of the stores were closed but Red Lanterns were hung everywhere. It was really pretty but I couldn't really figure out what the draw was... at least I thought there would be food because so much of China is food. We walked down to o end of the street and it was just that, the end of a street. We somehow ran into some of our friends who told us where the food and shops and excitement was - a street that turned off of the pedestrian street we were on.
We went back to this street so some of the most intense crowds I've ever been in. There's ab expression here - ren hai ren shan - which literally translates to people sea people mountain... basically people EVERYWHERE. We pulled off into a tiny alley to find jiao zi (Chinese dumplings traditionally eaten at the new year). We ate steamed pork and cabbage dumplings which were delicious - I think steamed are the best - better than boiled or fried. Towards the end of our meal a little white cat came into the restaurant-y place we were eating and just wandered around for a while. It didn't occur to me until now that in most restaurants in the US or the west in general the entrance of an alley cat into a restaurant would not be acceptable. Instead, here, the patrons of the restaurant were mewing at it and playing with it - no problemo.
When we got out of the restaurant and back onto the street the crowds lightened up considerably - I could see my feet! We were four at the beginning but at this point two went back and my friend and I continued down the street. So much street food and people and excitement. We stopped at this one guy and bought the closest thing to fortune cookies I've found in China! They were flat and thinner than US fortune cookies but tasted similar except that there were maybe ten different flavors! I got strawbetty and my friend got orange. They had just a hint of flavor (mine tasted like strawberry...) (I tend to buy things with awful english because I think it's funny... it might get me in trouble some day...) I was going to buy this other cake-like thing but the woman told the Chinese girl before me 3 yuan for two little squares and told me 5 yuan for one smaller square. I should have argued with her but I was pretty insulted and just scoffed and walked away. When we go back, I'll have a bone to pick with her.
Anyways, we were just heading back when some guys started lighting fireworks in the street right in front of us! They were SO cool and really big. I was a little concerned about the buildings maybe ten feet away from the fireworks but it all seemed fine. I've never been so close to their lighting. Chinese New Year puts the 4th of July to shame. These were incredible. At one point one did hit an air conditioner on the side of a building right next to it but it seemed okay... When we got back to the subway station it was closed for some reason so we walked to the other side of Tienanmen to catch that one. Turns out it was closed because one of the new CCTV towers burned down because of fireworks - yaoza. At midnight on Monday night the fireworks restrictions cracked down again so no more morning, mid day and evening, and nightly booms...
People are staring to return to Beijing and cafeterias are starting to open on campus again which is most excellent as we have been having to go out for nearly every meal instead of eating cheap, on campus food.
As for my apartment, There is still only the three of us here and apparently there is a leak in one of the other rooms so we have to water today. What a bummer... I don't have any class today
We went back to this street so some of the most intense crowds I've ever been in. There's ab expression here - ren hai ren shan - which literally translates to people sea people mountain... basically people EVERYWHERE. We pulled off into a tiny alley to find jiao zi (Chinese dumplings traditionally eaten at the new year). We ate steamed pork and cabbage dumplings which were delicious - I think steamed are the best - better than boiled or fried. Towards the end of our meal a little white cat came into the restaurant-y place we were eating and just wandered around for a while. It didn't occur to me until now that in most restaurants in the US or the west in general the entrance of an alley cat into a restaurant would not be acceptable. Instead, here, the patrons of the restaurant were mewing at it and playing with it - no problemo.
When we got out of the restaurant and back onto the street the crowds lightened up considerably - I could see my feet! We were four at the beginning but at this point two went back and my friend and I continued down the street. So much street food and people and excitement. We stopped at this one guy and bought the closest thing to fortune cookies I've found in China! They were flat and thinner than US fortune cookies but tasted similar except that there were maybe ten different flavors! I got strawbetty and my friend got orange. They had just a hint of flavor (mine tasted like strawberry...) (I tend to buy things with awful english because I think it's funny... it might get me in trouble some day...) I was going to buy this other cake-like thing but the woman told the Chinese girl before me 3 yuan for two little squares and told me 5 yuan for one smaller square. I should have argued with her but I was pretty insulted and just scoffed and walked away. When we go back, I'll have a bone to pick with her.
Anyways, we were just heading back when some guys started lighting fireworks in the street right in front of us! They were SO cool and really big. I was a little concerned about the buildings maybe ten feet away from the fireworks but it all seemed fine. I've never been so close to their lighting. Chinese New Year puts the 4th of July to shame. These were incredible. At one point one did hit an air conditioner on the side of a building right next to it but it seemed okay... When we got back to the subway station it was closed for some reason so we walked to the other side of Tienanmen to catch that one. Turns out it was closed because one of the new CCTV towers burned down because of fireworks - yaoza. At midnight on Monday night the fireworks restrictions cracked down again so no more morning, mid day and evening, and nightly booms...
People are staring to return to Beijing and cafeterias are starting to open on campus again which is most excellent as we have been having to go out for nearly every meal instead of eating cheap, on campus food.
As for my apartment, There is still only the three of us here and apparently there is a leak in one of the other rooms so we have to water today. What a bummer... I don't have any class today
Sunday, February 8, 2009
China - Semester 2
I got back to China a little over a week ago - on a turbulence free flight - thank goodness. There was no sleep to be had so I watched probably 4 movies. Once in Beijing it was apparent that the Spring festival was in full swing. Fireworks were going off EVERYWHERE which then would set off car alarms ... KAPOW! beep beep beep... it was a pretty noisy welcoming.
This semester I'm living off campus in one of Beijing's huge apartment complexes with five other Chinese girls. Three are still home for the New Year so I've only met two of them. One is really sweet and the other seems scared of me. Understandable. I have the only single room. There's a room with three beds and another room with two beds. This makes me a little self-conscious... I also only get Chinese internet in the apartment which means any site not created in China is pretty much off limits with the exception of google (and gmail). Aside from that, internet surfing will consist of watching movies on tudou.com... Another major difference is the shower. It's not really a big deal but the bathroom is a wet bathroom so you just kind of stand there - in the middle of the bathroom and take your shower. It makes everything wet but it's fine. Oh, you also have to turn on the hot water and wait for it to warm up - although these differences are quickly becoming habit.
We spent a couple of days in Chengde a small, dirty city outside Beijing and went to to Great Wall; which never fails to impress, and a couple of temples. It was all really cool except the city itself which was super dirty and sad. The river was frozen though so a lot of folks were out ice skating or doing this ice sledding thing where they propel themselves on little tiny chair/toboggans using ski poles - or something similar. It's pretty funny looking. We couldn't find where to rent them so we didn't try it but it looked fun.
Just started classes on Friday which will probably be difficult. My Chinese class is using a new book that has about 60 english words a chapter - the definitions for the 60 new words in the chapter.
Yesterday I went to Tiananmen Square because my friend and I realized that we've never just walked around the square. It's big. There's a pretty gigantic mausoleum for Mao right in the middle which distracts from its size but you can still see that it is big. I took pictures and will put them up on picasa tomorrow when I have internet.
Happy Niu Year! (The Chinese can be a little corny... niu is how you say cow in Chinese - so it's everywhere)
This semester I'm living off campus in one of Beijing's huge apartment complexes with five other Chinese girls. Three are still home for the New Year so I've only met two of them. One is really sweet and the other seems scared of me. Understandable. I have the only single room. There's a room with three beds and another room with two beds. This makes me a little self-conscious... I also only get Chinese internet in the apartment which means any site not created in China is pretty much off limits with the exception of google (and gmail). Aside from that, internet surfing will consist of watching movies on tudou.com... Another major difference is the shower. It's not really a big deal but the bathroom is a wet bathroom so you just kind of stand there - in the middle of the bathroom and take your shower. It makes everything wet but it's fine. Oh, you also have to turn on the hot water and wait for it to warm up - although these differences are quickly becoming habit.
We spent a couple of days in Chengde a small, dirty city outside Beijing and went to to Great Wall; which never fails to impress, and a couple of temples. It was all really cool except the city itself which was super dirty and sad. The river was frozen though so a lot of folks were out ice skating or doing this ice sledding thing where they propel themselves on little tiny chair/toboggans using ski poles - or something similar. It's pretty funny looking. We couldn't find where to rent them so we didn't try it but it looked fun.
Just started classes on Friday which will probably be difficult. My Chinese class is using a new book that has about 60 english words a chapter - the definitions for the 60 new words in the chapter.
Yesterday I went to Tiananmen Square because my friend and I realized that we've never just walked around the square. It's big. There's a pretty gigantic mausoleum for Mao right in the middle which distracts from its size but you can still see that it is big. I took pictures and will put them up on picasa tomorrow when I have internet.
Happy Niu Year! (The Chinese can be a little corny... niu is how you say cow in Chinese - so it's everywhere)
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Oh man, it has been a while, so here is the quick run down...
Back in October I went with a couple of friends to a more deserted section of the Great Wall (nothing in China is deserted) and we slept in an ancient guard tower. It was freezing but really fun! The sunrise in the morning was totally worth it.
Two weekends ago I went with three other friends to Tai An and climbed up Tai Shan - I think the most famous of five famous mountains in China because Kong Zi (Confucius) climbed up. According to legend, whoever climbs it to the top will live to be a hundred years old which sounds pretty good until you descend back to the polluted city below... We stayed in a hotel at the top and got up at six to watch the sunrise with the other tourists - I can only imagine how crowded it is up there during a holiday week.
Final Exams are next week so, in the Chinese style, we are plowing ahead in the book. I will have gone through 2 complete books at the end of next week; we do two chapters a week. Despite all this Chinese I still fee; like a complete beginner and too often get the blank stare when I speak Chinese outside of campus.
After the semester we're going to the south, Shanghai and HanZhou and SuZhou to travel for a week which should be really fun.
I still can't get over the delicious street food of Beijing - my favorite are the roasted sweet potatoes... oh man it smells like Thanksgiving and Christmas and deliciousness. Speaking of Thanksgiving, it is almost here and I think we are going out with my Environmental Issues in China and the US class for Peking duck... Chinese style.
Also, one of my friends studied in China in high school and lived with a host family in Beijing for a year. She gave me her Chinese mother's contact information so I have gone over to her apartment a couple of times now and she's teaching me to make some Chinese dishes - which are soooooo tasty - jiao zi (dumplings), bao zi, gong pao ji ding (kung pao chicken). I'm excited to try it at home!
I am going home for winter break then coming back for second semester in Beijing despite the warnings I got about the sand storms... I'll bring my aviator goggles......
Happy Thanksgiving!
Back in October I went with a couple of friends to a more deserted section of the Great Wall (nothing in China is deserted) and we slept in an ancient guard tower. It was freezing but really fun! The sunrise in the morning was totally worth it.
Two weekends ago I went with three other friends to Tai An and climbed up Tai Shan - I think the most famous of five famous mountains in China because Kong Zi (Confucius) climbed up. According to legend, whoever climbs it to the top will live to be a hundred years old which sounds pretty good until you descend back to the polluted city below... We stayed in a hotel at the top and got up at six to watch the sunrise with the other tourists - I can only imagine how crowded it is up there during a holiday week.
Final Exams are next week so, in the Chinese style, we are plowing ahead in the book. I will have gone through 2 complete books at the end of next week; we do two chapters a week. Despite all this Chinese I still fee; like a complete beginner and too often get the blank stare when I speak Chinese outside of campus.
After the semester we're going to the south, Shanghai and HanZhou and SuZhou to travel for a week which should be really fun.
I still can't get over the delicious street food of Beijing - my favorite are the roasted sweet potatoes... oh man it smells like Thanksgiving and Christmas and deliciousness. Speaking of Thanksgiving, it is almost here and I think we are going out with my Environmental Issues in China and the US class for Peking duck... Chinese style.
Also, one of my friends studied in China in high school and lived with a host family in Beijing for a year. She gave me her Chinese mother's contact information so I have gone over to her apartment a couple of times now and she's teaching me to make some Chinese dishes - which are soooooo tasty - jiao zi (dumplings), bao zi, gong pao ji ding (kung pao chicken). I'm excited to try it at home!
I am going home for winter break then coming back for second semester in Beijing despite the warnings I got about the sand storms... I'll bring my aviator goggles......
Happy Thanksgiving!
Monday, October 6, 2008
Back in Beijing
I’ve now been in Beijing for about three and a half weeks in which I have come to discover why exactly the Chinese have the reputation of hard workers in the US. Because I am doing the immersion track I have class Monday through Thursday from 9 to 12, oral class from 1:30 to 3 and a one on one tutoring with my teacher (lao shi) for another half hour a day. Finally, I am done with my class of the day only to go back to my room to do homework and study for the daily dictation the following morning. Every Friday we have a review session and take a rather massive test from 9-12. Afternoon class is shorter because we only have to do an oral test. Pretty much the Chinese are super hard core about their studies. At the end of our second week the boss sat in our class and after having decided so, we now have to memorize a dialogue every night and recite it the following morning. Fantastic. It’s super hard to tell if I am getting any better because I still practice my blank wai guo ren (foreigner) stare whenever spoken to by a Chinese person.
I’m also taking an environmental class taught by an American University professor but a bunch of Peking University students are also in the class with whom we are going to have discussions about today’s environmental issues and what we should do about them. Nobel prize maybe?
Aside from homework and school work Beijing is an incredible city. Crazy, polluted, way over crowded but incredible all the same.
Our first weekend adventure with the group was to go to the Great Wall at Simatai. The Great Wall is definitely one of the most appropriately named constructions. To get to the wall you have to walk up a mountain and once on the actual wall it is like doing stairs for and hour to an hour and a half. These aren’t any normal stairs either; the Chinese guards must have had tiny feet and super muscley legs to conquer those stairs. Some of the steps were probably five inches deep and while some steps would be maybe two inches high, the following step would be like 15 inches. And this is pretty much all the way up. Every now and then there would be a guard tower which apparently are spaced so far apart that with a bow and arrow the guards could reach anyone between the towers.
The Great Wall was refreshingly not crowded for Chinese tourist standards and by the time we reached the top, exhausted and drenched in sweat I had a pretty good idea as to why. Just the same we got to the last watchtower before being fined for trespassing at lunch time and the Chinese had all crowded into the tower with their snacks having picnics on the Great Wall. It was really cool to step into the cool tower from the sun to walk in on maybe 40 Chinese people sitting in picnic circles snaking and laughing away. Like the good tourists we are becoming we sat down to our own snacks.
This past weekend we went to the Summer Palace in Beijing (actually really close to BeiDa – maybe three bus stops away). The week before and this past weekend were part of a National Holiday in which no one (except us and touristy places) work or go to class. Turns out to not be a good time to go to any tourist attraction in China. The Summer Palace, despite the rainy, cold weather that usually turns people off to strolling outdoors, was packed. The place is enormous, complete with a huge lake and mountain. Of course, as the emperor of such a nation you need a mountain and lake on which to relax. Even though the Summer Palace was so big, there were people shuffling about everywhere. I’m becoming a lost more sympathetic to the One Child Policy…
Also because of the Golden Week (National holiday) people were all over BeiDa’s campus because it is so well known and so beautiful. It was definitely nicer today to not have to push through the throngs of tourists on my way to class…
I’m also taking an environmental class taught by an American University professor but a bunch of Peking University students are also in the class with whom we are going to have discussions about today’s environmental issues and what we should do about them. Nobel prize maybe?
Aside from homework and school work Beijing is an incredible city. Crazy, polluted, way over crowded but incredible all the same.
Our first weekend adventure with the group was to go to the Great Wall at Simatai. The Great Wall is definitely one of the most appropriately named constructions. To get to the wall you have to walk up a mountain and once on the actual wall it is like doing stairs for and hour to an hour and a half. These aren’t any normal stairs either; the Chinese guards must have had tiny feet and super muscley legs to conquer those stairs. Some of the steps were probably five inches deep and while some steps would be maybe two inches high, the following step would be like 15 inches. And this is pretty much all the way up. Every now and then there would be a guard tower which apparently are spaced so far apart that with a bow and arrow the guards could reach anyone between the towers.
The Great Wall was refreshingly not crowded for Chinese tourist standards and by the time we reached the top, exhausted and drenched in sweat I had a pretty good idea as to why. Just the same we got to the last watchtower before being fined for trespassing at lunch time and the Chinese had all crowded into the tower with their snacks having picnics on the Great Wall. It was really cool to step into the cool tower from the sun to walk in on maybe 40 Chinese people sitting in picnic circles snaking and laughing away. Like the good tourists we are becoming we sat down to our own snacks.
This past weekend we went to the Summer Palace in Beijing (actually really close to BeiDa – maybe three bus stops away). The week before and this past weekend were part of a National Holiday in which no one (except us and touristy places) work or go to class. Turns out to not be a good time to go to any tourist attraction in China. The Summer Palace, despite the rainy, cold weather that usually turns people off to strolling outdoors, was packed. The place is enormous, complete with a huge lake and mountain. Of course, as the emperor of such a nation you need a mountain and lake on which to relax. Even though the Summer Palace was so big, there were people shuffling about everywhere. I’m becoming a lost more sympathetic to the One Child Policy…
Also because of the Golden Week (National holiday) people were all over BeiDa’s campus because it is so well known and so beautiful. It was definitely nicer today to not have to push through the throngs of tourists on my way to class…
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
PICTURES!
Alright, here's the link to what I have thus far! (Beyond what I've wrote about too)
http://picasaweb.google.com/home
http://picasaweb.google.com/home
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