A Final Post from Beijing

When I started the blog, I told myself that I would be vigilant and post nearly everyday. However, as many of you have noticed, that has not happened. Late in this semester the work load increased heavily and the exciting trips to exotic locals and tourists spots in Beijing all but disappeared. But, I am back for one last post.

I’ll start with the few exciting events that I failed to mention in my hiatus from the blog. The first trip to mention is a weekend in Xi’an. The program in charge of my classes organized this trip, so all of the students and their roommates came along. The transportation to Xi’an consisted of a 12 hour overnight train ride, which was insane because our car was filled with college students. We arrived in Xi’an on Saturday morning, and then started a city wide scavenger hunt. We had to follow directions and find certain things in the city in order to receive our envelope with further directions. It was a pretty fun and exciting way to see the city. The next morning we headed to see the famous terracotta soldiers of Xi’an. However, when we arrived, our program leader told us that we had four hours to see the soldiers. I think two hours would have sufficed. So, most of the day was spent wondering around the giant airplane hangers full of soldier statues. It was really interesting, but after 10 minutes, they all looked the same. Overall, the trip was very fun, and it was definitely a bonding experience for all of the students and their roommates.

The next event occurred two days ago, and that of course, was our graduation from the Chinese program here at CNU! We were required to dress formally and meet downstairs. A bus brought us to the Marriot hotel (the same hotel that we went to for our orientation dinner after arriving in Beijing) for a huge lunch. Then all of the class levels were required to perform a skit. My teacher had chosen Sakhi and I to be in charge of our class’s skit. As a class, we decided to say what we were going to miss about Beijing, and what we were excited to do when they returned home (in Chinese of course). All the skits were pretty funny, and the ceremony ended with the distribution of diplomas and hundreds of group photos.

Over the last two days, people have started heading home or heading to other destinations to travel. So, the mood around the dorm has been a little bit sad. However, most of the students will be traveling on the same flight as me, which stops over in Tokyo for a night, which should be a fun experience if I can get into the city. Currently, I am watching my roommate pack up all of his belongs, and preparing to go on a final shopping trip to blow the remainder of my Yuan. I am really going to miss living in Beijing, but I am also ready to get home to see all of the people that I love (and the food that I love too). Thank you all for reading my blog, and I hope I haven’t bored anyone to tears along the way.

Here is my travel info for the next two days:

Dec. 18:
Leave CNU at 5:00 AM to head to airport
Leave Beijing at 8:25 AM to Tokyo/Narita
Arrive Tokyo/Narita at 12:40 PM
Hopefully take a train into Tokyo
Dec. 19:
Leave Tokyo/Narita for New York 12:00 noon (12 AM est)
Arrive New York at 10:30 AM est
Leave New York for New Orleans at 2:45 PM
Arrive New Orleans at 5:05 PM
Mom picking me up at the Airport, followed by one hour ride home.

As always, there are plenty of pictures online. The most recent are from graduation. I will see all of you soon - Scott

Not so fragrant hills...

Today I headed with a small group to an area called Fragrance Hills. This area is extremely popular in the Fall because of its red and yellow foliage and mountain views. Apparently we chose some sort of Chinese holiday to view the Fragrance Hills. I thought I was at Mardi Gras or something--there were throngs of people all over the roads leading up to the park, and there were even more people within the park. We decided to take a chairlift to the top of the mountain, and we found out that we made the right decision. The ride on the chairlift took around 15 minutes, and it became very clear that the walk up would have left all of us completely exhausted. On the way up, Kyle and I were waved at and had "Hello!" yelled at us by the chairs passing us going the other way.
The Chinese love speaking English. Well, they love to say "Hello!" and "How are you?" but then realize that they have exhausted their English vocabulary and only smile if you press the conversation.
I noticed something a little disconcerting on the ride up to the top of the mountain. I couldn't see any red or yellow leaves, at all. When I arrived at the top of the mountain, I figured out why. There were vendors selling red leaves in plastic bags. Apparently all the vendors go to all the trees with red leaves and knock them off, so that they can sell them. China also loves to sell things--everything.
When we arrived at the top of the mountain, we were once again met with swarms of people. There were so many people that it was hard to really appreciate the view from the top of the mountain, and the haze didn't help either. After snapping a view photos and pushing my way through the thousands of Chinese tourists, it was time for the decent to the bottom of the mountain. Short on cash, we had to hoof it back down. The trip down was long and at times dangerous. Apparently the Chinese also love to make stairs out of the most slippery stones that they can find. Finally arriving safely at the bottom, we discovered that with the thousands of other people trying to leave the park at the same time, that taking the bus back to school was completely out of the picture. The only other option left was to take a cab. We pooled all of our money together, and found that we only had about 20 Yuan. Definitely not enough to get us back to campus. So, I made the executive decision to take a cab and just not tell the cab driver that we didn't have enough money.
The cab driver understood all the directions that I gave him, but when I tried to make small talk, he didn't understand anything. When we got closer to campus, we called Muh and asked him to come down and spot us some money. Thankfully he made it down soon after we arrived, so everything worked out perfectly.
I have new pictures up from today on web shots, so check them out.

Long time no see!

I'm going to first apologize for not updating much sooner, however several factors have prevented me from updating my little blog. First, I have been incredibly busy lately. This week, after coming back from my fall break, my Chinese class began learning two chapters a week instead of just one like we had been. So, it goes without saying that Chinese now takes up the majority of my life. Also, this website has been down for almost the entire week. Apparently they were updating the site so that it worked with all web browsers? Anyway, I will try to catch you up as best as I can, but I will not give my vacation in Shanghai the attention it really deserves, because it has been over a week and I don't remember all the small details. Without further ado, here I go:

Fall Break:
My fall break began on a Friday afternoon. After a final dinner in Beijing, consisting of Jiaozi and fried rice, Muh and I quickly packed our things and headed out the bus. Ten steps before arriving at the bus station Muh stopped me and said, "I don't have my uncle's phone number. Do you think we should go back to get it?" My immediate response was in the negative, because we were already running late and I was carrying a really heavy bag. This decision would later come back to haunt us. So after a very rushed and absurdly cramped bus and subway ride, we arrived at the train station just in time to sit down in our seats as the train began to pull away from the station.
Surprisingly, I had very little trouble falling asleep on the train and got a decent nights rest in my seat, which was definitely a good thing. When we arrived in Shanghai, we were supposed to meet Muh's uncle (who lives in Shanghai and also in California) at the train station. Unfortunately, we were given a decision: to exit to the south or the north. I think I recommended the north. Obviously I chose incorrectly. Muh's uncle was no where in sight, and to add injury to insult, it was beginning to rain. After waiting for about an hour, Muh and I decided to walk to the south exit to see if we could find his uncle, but we had no luck. I soon discovered that we did not have Muh's uncle's name (real Chinese name), address, or PHONE NUMBER. Soooooo we were pretty much high and dry. Muh made phone calls to everyone in China that he could think of, and eventually got the phone number of an emergency contact that his uncle had given him in Beijing. We were so happy when he actually picked up and was able to give us Muh's uncle's phone number. He had been waiting for us for close to three hours at the other exit, and we had been wondering around for just as long. Long story short, it was a long day, but we finally made it back to Muh's uncle's apartment, where Muh's parents were also waiting for us.
Shanghai was a really beautiful city and the architecture was amazing! The Muh's took incredible care of me, and I had several family dinners that involved way too much food and way too much alcohol for the patriarchs of the family. I had tons of seafood, which was a great change of pace from all the food of Beijing. I even ate some live shrimp, which was interesting to say the least. They put the live shrimp into a bowl of wine, so that they are incredibly inebriated when they arrive at the table, so they never really moved around (though one did right before Muh was going to bite down). Most of our time in Shanghai was spent was spent celebrating with the Muh family, which was amazing, and the other portion of our time was spent shopping around Shanghai. The markets were really beautiful in Shanghai, and offered a huge selection of Chinese merchandise.
However, the entire week was not spent in Shanghai. We also made a few side trips to some cities near by. Our first trip was to Hangzhou, which is thought to be one of the most beautiful cities in China by some. It was a really fun tour, and the west lake was incredibly beautiful. However, our entire tour was in Chinese, so Muh had to translate for me quite often. Our other excursion was with Muh's parents on a two day trip to Nanjing. Nanjing was the capital of China until it was moved to Beijing, and so has a great deal of political history. Our first day of touring was around Nanjing, and only consisted of various political sites and a few tourist traps. The weather also wasn't very good, which put a damper on the day as well. The second day consisted of a trip to another city, which was about an hour from Nanjing by bus. The city had three very famous Buddhist temples, one of which was on an island. The weather was horrible again, but still incredibly interesting and beautiful! I'm sorry I didn't go into much detail about these trips, but swing by my picture site to check out all of my pictures!

This Weekend:
This weekend was particularly exciting. My Friday was very uneventful consisting of a huge Chinese test, and a very long nap. However, Saturday was amazing! Someone found an indoor skiing facility outside of Beijing and organized a day trip. If you know me, you probably know that I love skiing, but have not been for a really long time, so needless to say, I was very excited. My university's tennis coach and two Chinese roommates drove our group out the indoor facility, which was about an hour away from school. The whole day, including transportation, food, ski rentals (or snowboard), boots rentals, ski clothes rentals, and lift ticket for the entire day costs only $24 USD. The facility consisted of a bunny slope and also an advanced slope. I was really surprised at how nice the snow was, and even more surprised at how quickly I remembered how to ski. After only two runs on the bunny slope, I headed to the top of the advanced slope and was set for the rest of the day! I had a great time, and I would love to go back again sometime before I leave! It still is one of my favorite activities of all time!

Sunday was another really eventful day. Despite the fact that I was sick all day, and still am, with a mild cold, I managed to have a good time. Myself and a small group headed out to see the temple of heaven, which is relatively close to Tiananmen Square. Unfortunately, I was not aware of how cold it was outside, and the 30mph wind did not help to keep me warm either. The majority of the day was spent outdoors, and was freezing, but the sky was clearer than I have ever seen it in Beijing (I suppose all of the smog was blown out of the city). The temple of Heaven was incredible, but unfortunately, because of the freezing weather it was a rather quick run through the temple, so my knowledge is very limited on exactly what the contents of the temple are at this point. The one place that stood out in my mind was a spot called the echo wall. This area is enclosed in a nearly perfectly circular wall and a round pagoda stands in the middle. If someone speaks in a normal voice next to the wall on a certain section of the wall, and someone listens for them across the area, up to around 80 yards away, the first person’s speech can be heard perfectly. It was really amazing!
After freezing our tails off in the Temple of Heaven, we headed to get some MEXICAN FOOD! One of our classmates had told us that there was a Mexican restaurant close to a certain subway stop. So after another hour long walk to the subway, which left us all nearly frozen, we rode for two stops for a nice confusing 30 minute walk around the subway area looking for the restaurant. However, it was well worth the wait. The name of the restaurant was Pete's TexMex and was populated by lots of Americans looking for a break from Chinese cuisine. I had a delicious enchilada dish and a margarita. It really hit the spot.
Needless to say, I am completely exhausted and not very prepared for my next week of classes, so I will leave you here and recommend that you head over to my picture site to check everything out. The Shanghai pictures are listed under Shanghai, the Ski pictures are under Beijing at the very end, and the Temple of Heaven pictures are under Temple of Heaven. Sorry again for the lack of updates!

Midterms over. Time for some Shanghai.

My midterms are finally all behind me. This semester's midterms consisted of one 21st century exam, one Ancient Chinese Philosophy exam, one Ancient Chinese Philosophy paper (comparing Mozi and Emerson....ugh), one Chinese written exam, and finally one oral exam this morning. Needless to say, it was a long stressful week, but it's over and my trip to Shanghai begins in about three hours with a bus ride to the train station. Our train leaves at 7:35 pm and is supposed to last for roughly 12 hours. Unfortunately, Muh and I will be sitting rather than lying for the entire night. The Z line, which is the quickest train to Shanghai from Beijing, had no more hard sleeper cabins available, and all of the soft sleepers were a bit pricey. Either way, I think it will be a fun night. Once in Shanghai, Muh's uncle, who lives in Shanghai, will pick us up at the train station and bring us back to his home. On either Saturday or Sunday, Muh's parents, who are visiting China for some sort of college reunion, will also arrive in Shanghai. So, it should be a fun week with the Muh family. It will definitely be nice to have free rooms and Muh's family's knowledge of Shanghai (and Chinese). I'm positive that it will end up being a really great experience. At this point I really have no clue what we will be doing in Shanghai, but its a big city surrounded by beautiful landscape, so it shouldn't be too difficult to find something to do. I may or may not have reliable internet at Muh's uncle's home. Either way, I will try to post on here at least once and send out some emails while in Shanghai (maybe a postcard too, if you're lucky). I should be back by Sunday the 28th just in time to start classes again on Monday. So check my picture site then for some pictures.
Sorry I haven’t had a chance to update for a while, but its been a boring/difficult week in Beijing. I hope everyone is having a great fall.

First Annual 饺子比赛

Tonight was the big competition. The Jaozi eating competition, or as it is locally known the 饺子比赛. The competition was inspired by the CET students' love for the tastiness that is jiaozi. Mike and Ian took the idea for the competition and ran with it. The plan was developed a few weeks ago, and had been bouncing around ever since. Finally, ground rules were set up and a date was set. The ground rules were as follows: The time period given for eating was 1 hour. The competition was about quantity and not speed. Secondly, everyone must use a meat filled jiaozi. The vegetable kind are too wimpy. Finally, no trips to the bathroom (unless you really have to go, then it is supervised as to prevent the offloading of consumed jiaozi).
The names were taken down for those of us wanting to participate in the competition a week prior. Zack, Muh, Dan, Ian, Mike, Kyle, and myself would be competing. Yesterday, Mike approached all of the competitors and asked for our desired type of jiaozi. Myself along with two of the other competitors chose pork jiaozi with chives.
Finally, at 7pm this evening all of the contestants and the audience met down stairs to head to the jiaozi restaurant. The audience for the competition was huge! Today we also had our weekly Chinese lunch table, where students must speak Chinese the entire time. We also sit with our teachers and teachers from all of the other levels of Chinese. So, word had spread to everyone throughout lunch of the competition. Two teachers (one was my grammar and drill class teacher) and around 25 students from a variety of the Chinese programs including one from England were in attendance.
We took a quick round of pictures and started our walk over to the restaurant. When we arrived, tables had already been pulled together for us outside of the restaurant and the first of many trays of jiaozi had already been placed on the table. Earlier in the morning Mike had placed an order at the restaurant for seven ins of jiaozi (roughly 50 jiaozi per jin). As we settled down for the competition, all of the contestants received their individual jins. So, began the contest. The first half hour was fairly uneventful. People were taking bets and fans were cheering for their favorite competitor. About 30 minutes into the competition, Kyle called quits and left the competition. At this point I had consumed roughly 27 jiaozi and was not feeling too hot. All of the other competitors stood up to stretch their bellies. This decision was the death of me. Minutes after standing up, I was hit with the pressure of 27 jiaozi and had the pleasure of decorating the street in front of the restaurant. However, the competition continued minus two competitors. As the end of the hour approached, Zack, Mike, and Muh were easily in the lead. 78, 61, and 54 jiaozi had already been eaten respectively. By the end of the night (we extended the time limit), Zack had eaten 90 jiaozi (good God.), Mike had eaten 70 jiaozi, and Muh had eaten a still impressive 61 jiaozi. The most impressive part of Zack's victory was that he had already officially won after consuming somewhere in the 80 range. However, he had set a goal of 90, and so kept eating after the competition was over. When he finally did reach 90, everyone was incredibly impressed, and he was incredibly sick. All in all, it was a great night, and it's always a nice bonus to throw up in front of your teacher. Check out the picture site for some action shots from tonight.

Summer Palace and Karaoke: Good Saturday.

As I stated in my last post, there was talk of going to a gorge somewhere near Beijing. I had heard that it was beautiful and that there would be bungee jumping. Unfortunately, the group who was heading out the gorge failed to wake anyone up before they left. So, a few of us decided to get together and head out to see the Summer Palace instead. After about 30 minutes of planning, Muh and I had devised a rather lengthy and complex route involving both buses and the subway to reach the Summer Palace. The palace and its massive lake are in the very northwest of the city and would be a very substantial walk of about 9 miles. So with this plan in mind we rounded up the group and headed out for some lunch. Thankfully, we bumped into one of the Chinese roommates who told us that we could just take one bus all the way to the entrance of the palace. Muh and I were kind of sad that our glorious plan would no longer be needed. After a delicious lunch at a nearby restaurant, we set out on a rather lengthy bus ride. When we got onto the bus, we had to struggle for breathing room and plow our way into the middle of the bus. After about two stops, the entire bus had emptied out and we were all able to get seats. Thirty minutes later we had arrived at the entrance to the Summer Palace and purchased our half-price tickets (thank you student discount). I was amazed as soon as we entered the grounds of the palace. There was a huge lake stretched out in front of me leading to the base of a small mountain range (maybe large hills is a better description, but it doesn't sound as cool). The lake was filled with boats: paddleboats, tour boats shaped like dragons, and a speedboat or two. It was so surprising, in the middle of this huge city, there is a lush lake environment surrounded by walls and mountains.
Across the lake there were several large landmarks that we all wanted to go see. One was a giant temple about a fourth of the way around the lake, which turned out to be the Hall of Dispelling Clouds. The other was a large cylindrical tower completely across the lake from the entrance of the palace.
I should clarify at this point that I am not really sure exactly where the "palace" of the Summer Palace actually resides. There is apparently another part of the Summer Palace that can be entered for a much higher fee, and I think that the palace is there. So when I refer to entering the Summer Palace, I really mean entering the grounds of the giant lake near the Summer Palace, which is surrounded by various temples and buildings.
So, we made our way around the edge of the lake until we reached the Hall of Dispelling Clouds and climbed our way to the top. The view was amazing. Not only could we see the entire lake, but we could also see most of Beijing. But as always, there were way too many people to get a really good view, so Muh and I decided to climb over a railing into a restricted part of the balcony surrounding the hall. While doing this, Chinese people were saying "Waiguo ren!" (foreigners) and staring at us with concerned looks, but everyday on the street I hear people saying “waiguo!” when I walk by, so it no longer bothers me. I got some good pictures and we headed back to the beaten path to continue our tour. Our next stop was the marble boat of the Summer Palace. One of the queens who summered in the palace apparently commissioned the building of a giant marble boat. For obvious reasons, the boat did not float at all and once in the water sunk like a rock....a large boat-shaped marble rock. Thankfully, it only sunk a few meters in the shallows of the lake and 90% of the boat is still above water, so the Chinese can make a nice profit offering people, for a minimal fee, the opportunity to visit the idiotic boat. However, at this juncture, we discovered that the large cylinder tower across the lake was actually much too far and not actually a part of the palace grounds. Exhausted, we headed to the entrance and caught our bus back to campus.
I arrived at my dorm room with one thing in mind, a nap. My roommate and his girlfriend had other plans however. They wanted to talk to me in English and ask about my photos. So, I let them. In actuality, I ended up speaking more Chinese than English, so it worked out well.

Finally dinner time rolled around, and it seemed that everyone, including my roommate and his girlfriend, were hungry for some pizza. Here in Beijing, there is a local chain called Big Pizza, which at this point in our evening, sounded delicious. It turns out its 39 Yuan for an all-you-can-eat buffet, AND the buffet included unlimited beer. Why don't we have this in America!?!?! We actually closed the place down. There were nine of us, and all of us were thoroughly taking advantage of the unlimited beer. At 9:30 we were politely asked to leave. My roommate and his girlfriend, being that they're Chinese, decided that karaoke would be a good next step in our evening.
So, we all wandered over to the KTV near our dorm. From the outside, the KTV looks like a small one room restaurant, and that is what I expected, a room with a stage and people singing their hearts out. However, when we entered, I thought we had walked into a five star hotel. The entranceway lead into a marble staircase, which lead down into a luxury lobby attended by multiple employees. We were told that it was 100 Yuan an hour to have a room. We couldn't pass this up. We were lead down a marble hallway with doors every 20 feet or so. Through the windows of the doors, we could see Chinese business men and families drinking, smoking, and singing. We finally got to our room and were let inside. The place was incredible! There was a huge red leather sofa, a giant television, three separate monitors and a small stage. Needless to say, we had a great time. My roommate, apparently a seasoned veteran, started us off with a nice slow Chinese song. Then it was time for songs in English, which lead to hilarity and embarrassment. Everyone was singing into the two microphones and singing badly. I can't lie; I have a tremendously horrible singing voice. After two hours of belting both English and Chinese songs, we all decided to call it a night. I do not have any pictures from karaoke, but a few people including my roommate took a few, so I will see if I can get my hands on some. I do have tons of pictures from the Summer Palace though, so head over and have a gander.

The underground city of Beijing.

For the first time in several weeks, my weekend has not been filled with field trips. So, as a group we decided to go somewhere that sounded interesting. Somehow, someone discovered that there is an underground city in Beijing, which Mao had built in order to prepare for atomic war and to provide an evacuation route for the leaders of China to the mountains surrounding Beijing. With only this information in mind, I was told to meet outside of the dorm at 12:15 pm. When I arrived downstairs, after yet another Chinese test, I was surprised to see a large group of about twenty ready to head out to see the underground city. Apparently, less than two years ago, access was restricted to the underground city and any citizens who wished to access the city had to register with the government in order to preserve national security. With this information on all of our minds, the city sounded very mysterious, and so our journey began. We took a bus over to the subway station (1 Yuan), and then took the subway (3 Yuan) from there (after switching to a different line) to a stop just south of Tiananmen Square. With no real knowledge of where this underground city was, we headed out with only the name of a street as our guide. Thankfully, we had a Chinese roommate with us, who was able to ask anyone--and he nearly asked everyone--about the whereabouts of the underground city. No one seemed to know. Discouraged, we sat down at a street corner and waited for the Chinese roommate to find out more information. While waiting, an elderly Chinese woman approached our group and began asking Sulhye (who is Korean) weather I was an American. She was very excited to find out that I was indeed, and then she went about her business.
After a short wait, we figured out the right direction to head in and set out. After reaching the edge of a hutong, we spotted a man carrying a sign that read "Beijing Underground City." We jumped at the opportunity, and asked him if he could tell us the location of the city. Unfortunately, he was a rickshaw driver and was only interested in us paying him to bring us to the entrance of the city. But, we had been told that the underground city was not far, so we trudged on, and so did the rickshaw driver.....right behind us. He followed us for about 10 minutes offering us a ride but never providing us with information about the location of the city. After asking half the population of Beijing, we weaved our way through multiple hutongs. We arrived at a certain alleyway that was patrolled by a husband and wife team of street vendors, who offered everything from Mao hats to Rolexes. Distracted by their intense sales techniques, we briskly headed on. Thankfully, one of the vendors screamed out "Under greand chity!?" as we walked away. We discovered that he was in fact correct, and that there was a sign that we had all failed to see marked in English. So we thanked the man (and I thought him how to properly say under ground city in English) and headed into the small hallway behind the sign. The room was fitted with camo wallpaper and the staff were wearing camo uniforms, though they obviously were not in the military. So, we paid the 10 Yuan entrance fee, and headed down a dank stairwell into the underground city.
After hearing about the underground city for the last couple of days, I was pretty unimpressed by the tour. The tour consisted of walking through dank tunnels for about 15 minutes. It was possibly the most bizarre tour I have ever taken. Our guide explained that the city could hold up to 30,000 people (though in English she said 300,000) and that all of the tunnels, if combined, were longer than the Great Wall. Then, all of a sudden we went up a stairwell and were in a silk mill. The guide gave us a few minutes to look at the merchandise, and then it was time to move on. I have now officially become immune to the commercialization of Beijing. There is a silk store in the underground city of Beijing; there were no other signs of life. The tour ended abruptly, and we were asked to leave through the same way that we had entered. Overall, it was a let down, but I had a good time and as they say, I guess that's all that matters. Unfortunately, I did not bring my camera with me. Even more unfortunately, photography was not allowed in the underground city, so it wouldn't have mattered either way. Hopefully I have some more photographs up this weekend. There is talk of a trip to a gorge somewhere nearby tomorrow, so who knows. Check back soon.