Back Home, and a Look Back

Our last day was very much what I expected it to be. I was somewhat surprised at how early everyone wanted to leave and start shopping (left at nine), but getting an early start meant more time to find what we were looking for. We went to Silk Alley first, and spent the morning there. Walking through all those stalls one last time made me realize that I was going to miss the Chinese shopping experience a lot. It'll be weird walking through the malls in America; I'll actually have to find a shopkeeper if I need help, and I'll probably have to wait... Ok, maybe I'm exaggerating a little bit. But my point is that living in this environment for a whole month has left a strong impression on me, and I'll be keeping these experiences forever.
We finished up our last day with a little more shopping, then visited our favorite dumpling place for our last meal in China. I already really miss the food, and I'm trying to find some recipes for my favorite dishes. Don't get me wrong, it's been nice to eat cheese again, but the food was excellent over there, and very cheap. After dinner I headed back to the room and packed up what I wouldn't need in the morning and tried to keep myself up late so I would a) be able to sleep on the plane the day we flew back, and b) get adjusted to the time difference easier. I suppose it worked well enough.
That last day we left Beijing Normal University, our home for so many days, at nine. We drove the hour to the airport and got ourselves checked in and waited for the flight. At 12:30 we boarded up, and got off the ground on time at 1 (Chinese airlines are always right on schedule). The flight was long (13 hours, of course it's long), but it still seemed shorter than the flight over. There was much rejoicing when we landed and went through immigrations and picked up our bags. Goodbyes were said and promises to meet over the coming semester were made, then we all went our separate ways. Which for me meant down to the Delta terminal at JFK, which is where the fun began. It wasn't so bad up until about an hour before the flight was supposed to leave, when I found my plane had been delayed until 11:50 that night (it was 5 by now). I was incredibly saddened by this, but right as I was beginning to despair, they made an announcement that an earlier flight that had been delayed had room for us, so we were able to get on that one. That didn't cut out the three hours we still had to sit out on the runway before takeoff, but I was still on my way home at last. Finally lifted off at around 8:20, and landed in Philly at 9. I got to meet up with my family at long last, and that was a relief. Unfortunately, our bags didn't make it on the plane with us, but I didn't care at that point. They shipped them to us for free the next day, so it was hardly and inconvenience. Got in the car and drove home, got back and into bed at 11, at long last. Which gives me a total travel time of 27 hours, all on the third (yes, more than 24 hours of travel time within one day). It was awesome being back home, and I spent the next several days re-adjusting and getting ready for school.
And so this concludes my trip to China. I hope you all have enjoyed reading this as much as I have telling you about it. This will be preserved offline, and there's talk of making a book of sorts... Well, with nothing further to say, I'm off!

Temple of Heaven and the Final Days

I continue to delay the posting of my blogs, even though we're winding down to these last few days and we've got a bunch of free time. Only one and half left as I write this. It's really gone by quick, but I'm excited to be coming back to the states. I think there's going to be some reverse culture shock for a little bit, which will be fun :)
Day before yesterday (that being the 30th) we had classes in the morning and used our free afternoon to accompany Pong laoshi to the Temple of Heaven. Now, the Temple isn't really so much an actual temple as it is a place where the Emperor himself would go to pray and make sacrifices (animal, China never did human). It was built at the same time as the Forbidden City, and the similarity in style was immediately obvious. The construction is all done without nails (like the Forbidden City), and the temple itself is circular. Those two combined just kind of blow you away, though I suppose ancient carpenters were called "joiners" for a reason. The temple was really nice, gorgeous grounds (I can upload pictures now, yay!). After we thoroughly explored the grounds, we left and literally crossed the street to the Pearl Market. I was led to believe that the Pearl Markets would sell a whole bunch of pearls, but it was actually almost identical to Silk Alley, just with a little more room between the stalls. We didn't have a whole lot of time there, unfortunately, but I did get a great deal on some ties: seven for about two bucks each. I love that silk is made right here in China :)
Believe it or not, we didn't really do anything on the 31st. The language classes were all wrapping up with finals the next day, so everyone was studying for that, and we had presentations for culture class as well. So it was classes in the morning and homework in the afternoon for literally everyone. Today wasn't much different, except that now everyone is done with those presentations (had another culture class period this afternoon so we would have time to finish all of them). Nearly everyone here is sad to be leaving already, myself included, to some extent. I've had a blast over here, it's been a great experience, but I'm also looking forward to seeing friends and family again and sharing stories with them.
So tomorrow is our last day. It's completely open, and everyone is taking the entire day to go shopping. I still have a couple things to look for, but I definitely need to get a picture of what it's like in Silk Alley. Speaking of new photos, I've uploaded a bunch today already, so check them out. New material starts on page two with 18Suzhou18. Well, that about wraps this one up. I'll post about tomorrow, and I'll probably post some stories of reverse culture shock once I'm back home :) Until next time!

Down to the Last Four Days

I'm afraid that since I don't have any pictures to post, I've gotten lax in updating my blog, as well. I won't be keeping you waiting any longer, however. I present to you, in the usual format, the past three days.

The 26th, as I mentioned, was New Years Day. Up to this point, the fireworks continue, and I don't really expect them to stop any time soon. Not at the same intensity, of course, but you'll hear a few go off every couple minutes. The 27th was class in the morning with a free afternoon. A couple of us took this free afternoon to do a little work, then head over to the Olympic Stadium. It was really neat riding up to it, the highway kind of snakes around the Green so you get something of a panoramic view of it before you actually get there. We walked around for about an hour and a half, taking pictures and whatnot. Not sure if they mentioned during the broadcasts, but the Water Cube and the Bird's Nest are right next to each other, literally about 200 yards apart. We were there late enough to see them turn on the lights, which was pretty cool, especially with the Cube. That was really the highlight of the day, though. Afterwards we headed back and got dinner, then sleep. The next day was class in the morning (as usual), then a pedicab tour of the Putong area in the afternoon. When I say pedicab, I mean these little two-seater carriage things pulled by bikes. And when I say tour, I mean a 10 minute scoot around the edge of Houhai lake. Not like it was disappointing; to the contrary, it was really interesting. I just expected there to be a little more to it, is all. We got dropped off at a house back in this Putong area (one of the oldest areas in Beijing, it's a government-protected heritage-type place), and we got to look around inside. It's really strange, looking around inside people's homes like this, like we did during our first week here. But this house was made for tourism, so we weren't really intruding at all :)
The next day we had a break from classes because we were taking our day trip to Tianjin. We left bright and early (again, as usual) and took the two hour bus ride to the city (we hit traffic going there and coming back, so it was two hours both ways, unfortunately). Tianjin is China's third largest city by population, and is one of three that is its own province (the other two are Shanghai and Beijing). It's a pretty old city, and the first thing we got to see when we got off the bus was an old market street (also a fairly common occurrence on these trips). The main attraction was a shop that sold clay figurines that had been made by the same family for five or six generations. They were outrageously priced, of course, but they were certainly well-crafted. We got to wander around there for a while, and like most of the other markets there was a lot of the same stuff with a few new things here and there. Once we were done there we loaded back up and drove to a restaurant called Gou Bu Li, famous throughout China for its steamed dumplings ("baozi" in Chinese). They teased us with their normal dishes first (naturally), but the baozi were worth the wait. Definitely one of the things I'm going to miss most back in the states... After lunch we piled back onto the bus (again) and rode to the Tianjin museum. Unfortunately for everyone involved, we only had a half-hour to look around before the museum closed. I was pleased to find that Tianjin's museum didn't have huge exhibits with the usual jade and bronze works (sorry, they get dull after a while), and the displays were really dynamic and visually captivating. We were only walking around for about fifteen minutes before they started closing exhibits and shepherding people out, though, so there wasn't enough time to really take it all in. We hopped back on the bus and drove to the Italian concession in another part of town, looked at it for a few minutes, and then made the long ride back. Needless to say, with all this bus driving, literally everyone on the trip got in several hours' worth of naps, so people were awake and energized when we went out to dinner :)
Tomorrow we've got a free afternoon, which Pong laoshi is going to use to take a group of people to the Temple of Heaven. Pictures of that will be posted once February rolls around, so look out for those. Until next time, readers!

Starting the Home Stretch

I do believe that when I last left off I had just gotten back to Beijing, having just returned from our trips to Xi'an and Shanghai. If that is not the case, then I'm afraid my reality has broken at long last, and I wish you all well from whatever plane of existence I happen to be currently inhabiting. But, seeing as how that's the last post, I'll assume we're still in the same world and continue with my story.
Our first full day back in Beijing was New Year's Eve. We still had class that morning (unfortunately) and we had the afternoon completely free. Everyone was still exhausted from traveling, so no one did anything special for most of the day. I found No Country for Old Men online and watched that to while away my time. Once dinner-time rolled around, we all met up and walked about 15 minutes to a big karaoke place. We had reserved their largest room, and a buffet was provided. The room was pretty big (it easily fit our party of 31) and there was a big-screen TV that the videos/lyrics were displayed on. Mics were around the room, and whoever wanted to pick a song and sing was certainly encouraged :) It was a blast, especially considering the fact that more than a few people were feeling a good buzz at that point (no, myself NOT included!). There was great fun had by all, and at eight we headed back. The fireworks had been going all day, but they were picking up since it was finally dark outside. We stopped for a little bit outside a restaurant to watch them launch their array of fireworks... Of course, scientist that I am, I'm wringing my hands and bewailing all of the safety precautions that aren't being taken (like setting them off under trees, near power lines, etc.), but I still managed to enjoy myself (and no one was seriously injured). As I mentioned before, fireworks were going off across the city throughout the day, but the closer it got to midnight the more there were. At a quarter to eleven the city literally became a city of exploding light, and thunderclaps and explosions filled the air with brilliant stars of green, red, and purple. This continued until about a quarter after midnight. Yeah, and we think Fourth of July fireworks displays are spectacular :P Granted, fireworks were invented here, and they're a lot cheaper...

Woke up today (New Years!) and went to another part of the city for a Temple Fair. It wasn't actually in the temple, but it was nearby. Now, up to this point the streets of Beijing had been fairly quiet; one could readily believe that most of the population had gone away, or disappeared. But upon coming to this fair, it was obvious that China is certainly a large country, and Beijing is certainly a large city. Throngs of people filled the sidewalks of these temple grounds. Just imagine New York subways at rush hour, and you'll get an idea. There were stalls selling everything absolutely everywhere (in true China fashion), and it was really exciting being there amidst the festivities, in spite of the crowds. They had some interesting snacks, of which I partook (fried dough balls made of rice and ox cheese; they were really good). After wandering there for a while and seeing what was offered, we met with Pong laoshi and began the trek to the actual temple. The trek ended up being a journey of about two or three miles past dozens of vendors selling incense (for use at the temple) that concluded at the end of a ridiculously long line to actually get into the temple >.< So we missed that, but we saw plenty of the back streets of Beijing. We came back here and worked on classwork for a while, and went to a local dumpling restaurant for dinner (probably also the only one open today, aside from McDonald's).
The next few days are mostly class with free afternoons. On the 26th we're going to Tianjin, so look forward to that! Until next time!

Last Little Bits of Shanghai

Whew! Unfortunately for me I forgot that last post, so I'm having to play catch-up now. Just so we're on the same page here (the days blur together for me, at least, especially nearing the end here), my last few posts have covered Xi'an and most of Shanghai, up to the 21st. What follows are the events of the 22nd through the 24th. This will probably be the last big post, because it's mostly classes and open afternoons from here on out (though we are taking a day trip to Tianjin on the 29th). Allons-y!

We set off in the morning for Zhouzhuang (bright and early, since we had a drive ahead of us). Zhouzhuang is known as a water town, and has been called the Venice of Asia. There aren't any roads, only sidewalks and waterways (like Venice!). It was really pretty, and there were some new shops to see as well (new things being sold, actually). I will definitely be posting more from Zhouzhuang once February rolls around.
After Zhouzhuang we headed to Suzhou. Now, you're aware of the Silk Road, and Silk Alley, and how China developed the process of actually manufacturing silk goods? Suzhou is where it all comes from. Ok, maybe that's an exaggeration, or at least not historically correct, but Suzhou is the cradle of Chinese silk-making. If you're unaware, silk is made from the cocoons of silkworms (who would have thought?). Silkworms grow incredibly fast, their whole lifespans lasting about 60 days, and most of that eating whatever mulberry leaf they happen upon. It takes a newborn worm about 25 days to mature and begin spinning its cocoon. The cocoons take about 36 hours to make, and once they're done they'll metamorphosize into an adult moth, then break out of their cocoon to mate, lay eggs, and die (out in the wild, at least). In factories, once the cocoons are spun, they are plucked from the branches and cooked in boiling water to kill the worm and dissolve the natural adhesive the worms use in spinning the cocoons. Then they are dried and sorted; if any are discolored or damaged, they are discarded. Then they go into another steamy bath and get brushed by a machine. This gentle brushing starts to dislodge the silk, and the loose end sticks to the bristles. Once the ends are collected, the move on to unspinning machines, which rapidly pull the thread off the cocoons and weave it into silk thread at the same time (that's the machine on Flickr). This silk thread is spooled, then shipped off for dyeing and whatever else it's destined for. The accompanying shop was naturally overpriced, and we left shortly after our tour to go to Suzhou's famous gardens. All I can say is that they were gorgeous. Most of my pictures are going to come from here and the Yuan gardens, simply because I can't really put it into words. It was so meditative and tranquil, just slowly walking along those stone paths and looking at the old buildings. I suppose it wasn't really so much the beauty of the gardens as it was being there, having a place to just let your mind meander as you did. I'd always try and drift off in a different direction from the group so I didn't have people talking history and asking questions, and there were always interesting places to find, if you take the time to look. That's all very Taoist of me, I know :P Just look forward to those pictures, I might have been able to capture it...
After the gardens we boarded up on the bus and took the long ride back. I got some pork fried rice from a street vendor (it's safe, trust me, and it's definitely cheaper than a restaurant: 8 kuai for a nice serving, which equals about $1.25).

I can see this is going to be another long one already... The *next* day (we're on the 23rd now, last day in Shanghai) I went with a few other people over to Shanghai's version of Silk Alley and looked around there. It was mostly clothing stores, so I didn't buy anything, but it was still fun to walk around. We grabbed lunch at a street vendor outside and took a cab to the Pudong area. There is a river that runs through Shanghai called the Pu river. The words for east and west in Chinese are "dong" and "xi", respectively. So the Puxi area (where the hotel is) is on the west side of the river, while the Pudong area is on the east (the Chinese are good at giving things easy names). Anyways, the Pudong area has all of Shanghai's magnificent skyscrapers, and we decided to go up the Pearl Tower (you can see it in the picture I took at night; it's the one with the three orbs, or pearls, going up). The view was really impressive from up there, got several good pictures of the skyline. We spent an hour and a half in the tower's revolving restaurant, sipping overpriced cappucino and watching the view. Then we made our way down and headed across the street to a huge shopping mall. I have to say I was a little disappointed, and I laughed to myself when I realized why. All of the stores were Western, or trying to be, and there was all this open space, like in American malls. I realized that if I was going to go shopping in China, I wanted to be squeezing past people in little hallways with vendors yelling things like, "Rolex? Buy watch? Bag? Give you good price." Haggling, too. I'm going to miss that coming back. It's a lot more fun when you can bring a shopkeeper down from some outrageously high price to an outrageously low one. A lot more fun than just handing the cashier a coupon, at least... Anyways, I digress. We wandered the mall and I grabbed something to eat at KFC (I know! I can get that here, I sound like a hypocrite, but I just wanted something easy, and didn't feel like finding something around our hotel again). We took cabs back to the hotel and I used up the last hour or so of internet, then chilled for a while and went to bed. We left that morning and got back here with enough time to settle in before dinner.

Alright, all caught up! My posts will no longer be retroactive, since I have internet in my room here. The 26th is New Years (also known as the Spring Festival since that's when winter starts to end and people prepare for the coming spring) so expect a lot of culture then :P It's the year of the Ox ("niu" in Chinese), so I wish you all a Happy Niu Year! :)

A Forgotten Post

(Apparently I missed a retroactive post when I put up the other two >.< But here it is. This means I'll have this one up until tomorrow, then I'll post what I did for the last few days in Shanghai. Back in Beijing now, with internet!)

Cue Shanghai, day three... And, action!
Got up and had our hotel's continental breakfast again. I was delighted to find that there was a different selection of dishes this morning, which was a pleasant surprise. Finished there and headed over to the Shanghai National Museum. This is museum number three that we've visited here, and I recently learned that these three that we have visited are ranked as the top three museums in China, which is pretty impressive. They had a great variety of exhibits, but to be honest it can get dull seeing bronze works, calligraphy and jade sculptures in museum after museum. There was a really nice furniture exhibit, though, and I took pictures of my favorite pieces. (I'll be deciding what pictures to post when I get internet. I'll be getting another 100mb in February, and I'll use that up to post some fill-in pictures before I come home.)
After the museum we visited Sun Yat-sen's old house. He is considered the father of modern China, and had great visions for the modern nation that China could become (this was China before Mao, but after the Qing Dynasty). The house was certainly nice, but most of the items on display were mundane (a bottle opener he used, for example), and I failed to really get the impact of his significance... Just around the corner from his house was the room where the first Congress of the Republic of China was held (this distinction is important: it wasn't the People's Republic yet. That was Mao in 1949). It was a really tiny room, and there were only a dozen people there, but that certainly was interesting; such a huge nation starting out in a little dining room at a girl's school. But as Chuangzi says, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
This girl's school happens to be located very near the French Concession (an area granted to French citizens in trade agreements when the Europeans arrived here). All the buildings are in a Western style, and I was surprised at the differences I was noticing in the architecture. I usually don't pay much attention to that, but it kind of hit me after being here for so long. We were given some time to check out the area, and I wandered around checking out the shops and the park with a few other people. We got the absolute worst dinner ever on the fifth floor of this supermarket/department store complex, then came back to the hotel and checked out the nearby internet cafe. If you're thinking, "Hey, if he got internet, how come he didn't post these blogs?" it's because they had computers there, not wi-fi, so these retroactive posts that I have saved on my computer were useless. Until tomorrow night, that is! Tomorrow we're heading to the nearby city of Suzhou for the day, but when we get back that night I'm getting internet for the room so I can update everything. Day after tomorrow's a free day, then it's back to Beijing and the home stretch! It's going by so fast... Later!

ATTENTION!

Hey, as you may or may not be aware, I have had minimal access to the internet for the past few days, so my posting has been belated. There are two before this "advisory" post, and I just wanted to point out that it's in chronological order from bottom to top. So read the one about Xi'an before the one about Shanghai. That is all.

Impressions of Shanghai

Well, I'm sitting here waiting for the inauguration of President Barak Obama, and I ... oh, snap! Dustin Hoffman is there! SWEET! Man, he's so cool... See, my writing is kind of live, in spite of the fact that this will be posted later :D Anyways, as I was saying, I figured now would be a great time to write a little about what I've been up to in Shanghai. I'll be getting internet soon (though, as you read this, I've already gotten it), but I'll write as if I already had it :P

Well, we had something of an adventure yesterday (the 19th as of this writing) at the airport. As I mentioned last post, our flight was a wee bit delayed. What I didn't mention was how the airline offered to put us up temporarily at their airport hotel and serve us a complimentary lunch. Fortunately (or perhaps obnoxiously) we were only there with enough time to be issued rooms, get called down to lunch after ten minutes, then leave right away again. Appartenlty the pilot for the original flight became ill and was unfit to fly, so they had to send a replacement from Beijing. A wonderful side effect to all of this was that they were able to move most of the other people that were on our flight to alternates, so we had the plane almost entirely to ourselves (I think there were five people that weren't part of our group). It was about an hour and a half from Xi'an to Shanghai, just a bit longer than the trip from Beijing to Xi'an. We landed in Shanghai, and as soon as I got off the plane my skin, throat and lungs leapt with joy at the blessedly moist air :P I exaggerate, of course; I haven't had any problems at all with the dryer air of Beijing and Xi'an, but since Shanghai is so close to the coast the air is much cleaner, especially compared to Xi'an. I've had a chesty cough for most of today, getting all that dust out of my lungs...
Shanghai certainly gives one a great look at modern China. As I predicted, it's quite different from both Beijing and Xi'an, and not just because of the air. Everything here is incredibly modern; in fact, I don't think it's very much of a stretch to say that New York feels like the more outdated of the two. All of Shanghai's skyscrapers are less than 30 years old, part of that movement to modernize the country. And modern it is. Last night we took a short trip to the Bund, Shanghai's "Golden Mile", a waterfront area lined with skyscrapers. The view is magnificent at night, which is when we made our visit (pictures will be posted). Grabbed dinner at a small out-of-the-way place that had skewers you cooked at your table, then back to our hotel for a much-needed rest.
Day two (today as I write this, the 20th) we took a trip to a vibrant shopping district about a twenty minute drive away from our hotel. We moved through there pretty quickly and then split up to go our separate ways outside of some old Shanghai gardens. The gardens were beautiful, and I'm afraid I'll fill up my remaining space on Flickr uploading even a fraction of the pictures I took. Ok, so I started feeling artistic and got a little shutter-happy, but these gardens really were phenomenal. Lots of small oriental-style buildings (of course) and ponds, and the paths wound through everything in unexpected ways. There was a lot you could find by just looking, and hopefully I was able to get that in my pictures... After that was free time, but I hung with Pong laoshi and Chen laoshi and went with them and a few other people to a nearby temple to check it out. It was a "conglomerate" temple, really simple so it could cater to Hindus, Daoists, and Buddhists. I still need to find a Daoist temple to go check out... Then we went and checked out the shops we missed, I got a few things, and then had lunch. After lunch I wandered around with a couple people for a while and we made our way back to the hotel. I guess we went a little out of our way at one point, because the walk was much longer than it should have been XP Got ourselves a little something to eat, and I got some internet in the business center to e-mail a few people, which brings me back to where I was at the beginning of this post... Alright, Obama's going to get sworn in now, so I'm off. Next post!

Stories from Xi'an

Aha, well, our flight to Shanghai has been delayed by two hours, so I suppose this is a splendid opportunity for another copy-and-paste blog entry. I really don't mind waiting in airports too much, especially considering I've got my laptop with me. Definitely getting a snack after this, though...
So, the adventures in Xi'an are complete. Yeah, we're only spending two days here, but considering the air quality it's probably for the best. The past two days have been delightful, though I regret we were unable to see more of the city. There's a great deal of history here to dig up, something that can really only be done by careful exploration... Of course, it'd be nice to do that anywhere, but to explore all of China's mysteries, even just in Shaanxi province, would take much more than a year, let alone a single month. But I digress... Without any further ado, I present: Xi'an!

Day one, we woke up on our own and made our way down to the continental breakfast at the hotel. It had a decent selection, and a fair mix of Eastern and Western breakfast foods. Lots of breads, and there were some nice dumplings. After breakfast we assembled in the hotel lobby and got on the bus with our tour guide for Xi'an, Tony. First thing was a visit to Banpo, the site of a neolithic village. That's neolithic, as in 6000 years old. Needless to say, it was mostly pits and holes, with some pottery and incredibly antiquated remains. But there was an almost-hidden reconstruction behind the museum, and it was really amazing to see exactly how advanced we were so long ago. I uploaded a picture or two from there. After that we paid a short visit to a pottery shop that makes replicas of the terracotta soldiers to see how they were made, then rode the bus over to the museum itself.
The terracotta soldiers were made my one of the emperors in the Qin Dynasty. He contributed a great deal to China's development, but he made quite a few enemies in the process. He was very afraid of death, especially since all the enemies he made in life would be waiting for him there. So, he decided that he would have the Chinese army (yes, all of them) buried with him to protect him. Fortunately, his advisers were able to convince him that this was not a good idea, so he agreed to have terracotta replicas made of every soldier. And that's exactly what they are. Each and every single face (that's over 8000) is unique, modeled after the soldier as he was back then. And that was the most impressive thing about it all; just the scope of this project. And you thought the pyramids in Egypt were impressive...
There are three main pits where the soldiers are located; I can't recall exactly what pictures I posted, but the biggest one is Pit 1. Pits 2 and 3 were also enormous, but Pit 1 was at least as big as both of them combined.
We spent a few hours there, then took a visit to a Tang palace. One of the Tang emperors had this place built for his favorite concubine, and there's a Romeo-and-Juliette-esque story behind their relationship. The most notable feature of this palace is the hot springs. Since it's the off-season, they weren't actually open for bathing, but there were a few pools to look at, and seeing some of the artwork and construction from China's glory days was certainly worthwhile.
That concludes our first day. On day two we were able to wake up a little later than usual (left the hotel at 9:30 instead of 8), and hit up the Muslim quarter. Yes, China does have a sizable Muslim minority. It spread over along the Silk Road from Persia back in the day and ended up staying (apparently they got all the way to the East Indies; the official religion of Malaysia is Islam). It's got a big shopping street, which was the main reason we were there. They had a great selection of stuff (like most Chinese markets), and for better prices than other places. Bargaining is how you shop, of course, but their starting prices were lower than, say, Silk Alley. Got a couple things there, but mostly looked and watched some of the other people bargain. After the shops, we had lunch and scurried to two museums and the Wild Goose Pagoda, all before a show and dinner at 5 >.< We didn't give me museums all of the time they deserved, but we were able to see most of what they had to offer. Unfortunately it was the Wild Goose Pagoda that got shortchanged. In front of the Pagoda (which is actually more like a tower than the pavilion-type image you may think of; I posted a picture) there was a fantastic Buddhist temple, with a gigantic statue of the Buddha in gold. Monks actually live at this temple, which is neat, and I saw a couple of them walking the grounds.
We didn't have time to actually go into the pagoda, but we still showed up late to our show. The impression I got was that we were going to see a recreation of the court dancing from the Tang Dynasty, but instead we got a 90-minute Eastern-themed Western ballet. There were a few Chinese instruments used in the composition of the music, and of course the costumes were Chinese, but that was the only thing Oriental about it. The majority of the music was composed in a Western style, the dancing was very much like the ballet I've seen (though less stylized, and not quite as good). The story was Chinese, of course, but when you've got an Eastern story presented in Western mediums, especially with something like dance, you get something flashy, overdone, and ultimately cheesy. The dinner afterward was wonderful, though. They served us a spectacular variety of dumplings, and all of them were delicious. It won't take me very long to miss dumplings once I get back to the states...
And so ended day two. We just came back to our hotel rooms, went to bed early and got up at 6:30 to catch our flight, which was delayed anyways >.< Look for stories from Shanghai within the next day or two!

Impressions of Xi'an

Well, we've left Beijing now, and I'm writing this from our room in the four-star Xi'an Fukai Hotel. We flew in from Beijing at about noon (free lunch on the plane!) and headed towards the city. Our tour guide for Xi'an, a cool guy named Tony, told us a bunch of history stuff as we rode, though only a handful of us were awake.
Xi'an was the capital of ancient China. They say if you want to see pre-modern China, go to Beijing. If you want to see modern China, go to Shanghai. And if you want to see ancient China, go to Xi'an. And ancient it is, at least on the interior. Xi'an is interesting in that it's sort of divided into 3 or 4 roughly concentric rings. The outermost ring is the outskirts of town, with all the industrial areas. As part of their clean-up project, all coal-burning facilities have to be in this outer area. There's a highway that goes all the way around Xi'an known as the Second Ring; this encircles what is essentially modern Xi'an. Here you have all your new construction, and it looks like most other cities (only, you know, excessively smoggy). Then the innermost section lies within the walls of the ancient city, back from Ming Dynasty times (we're talking turn of the 1st century). The interior isn't very big (you can bike around the walls in an hour and a half), but this is where the night life is. All the buildings have to conform to ancient-style architecture, so you've got a strange contrast of the sloping tiled roofs over flashing digital displays. This is where our hotel is, only a couple blocks from the heart of the city, literally (the bell tower directly in the middle was used to announce the time back in the day). The room is sweet, we're staying in a four and a half-star hotel, superb accommodations. I'm getting pictures up right after this, so you'll be able to see :)
Ah, I suppose that's all I have to say. We've got two full days of activities, so expect more stories. Tomorrow we're going to see the terracotta soldiers and visit the Tang Dynasty palace, then the day after we're going to the Shaanxi Museum, Beilin, and the Wild Goose Pagoda. So, yeah, expect a wave of blog and Flickr action!

Then Two Days Inside

When we last left our band of intrepid adventurers, I believe it was after the acrobatics show, right? It better be, because I just checked. The last few days haven't been incredibly eventful, but they've still been interesting. They've followed very much the same format: Classes in the morning, lunch, something for a couple hours in the afternoon, then dinner and sleep. Those "somethings for a couple hours" were really great cultural experiences, though, so here are the stories.
The first afternoon was calligraphy. It's a very interesting art form, a lot more deep and meaningful than Western calligraphy, because each Chinese character holds so much more meaning than letters or words in the West. Brush painting was the day after, and it was a similar experience. I put a couple pictures on Flickr of both. The night after brush painting we watched Hero. If you haven't seen it, do so, it's spectacular.
Then today we had the opportunity to meet and talk with Wang Bing, the writer of Hero and several others directed by Zhang Yimo. I don't know why I wasn't flipping out all over the place, but it was amazing to sit right across the table from someone involved in a project like that and ask him whatever questions we wanted. Unfortunately at that point I forgot the ones I had thought of to ask, but it was still neat. Got a picture and an autograph, so that's pretty sweet :)
Tomorrow we get to visit a middle school and Tai Chi class, then the day after we leave for Xi'an. Already, I know! I can't believe it's going so fast... I'm not sure how long it'll take to get internet set up or worked out, so after tomorrow posts may be a while. See you in Xi'an!

Out in the Cold for Two Days

Sorry for the belatedness of this post, but the past few days have been kind of full. That or I'm being lazy, but we'll go with a full schedule for now. Now I'm sure, as with the Great Wall, you've all been on the edges of your hypothetical seats waiting to hear about the Forbidden City. So, like last time, I'll begin at the beginning.
IT WAS SOOOO COOOOOL!!! Ok, so that's not really the beginning, but it was. We got up and hopped on a bus that took us to the National Museum. They've got a fantastic collection of all kinds of things from China's history; I put some of my favorites on Flickr. I took most of the pictures pretty close-up, so it's hard to get and idea of scale... We spent the morning there and tried to see as much of it as possible, which was easy enough because most of the signs were in Chinese :P We had lunch at the museum's restaurant, then took the subway to the northern part of Tiananmen Square. Walking under that portrait of Mao was pretty awesome, especially when you can see the gate doors close up, with their red paint and gold studs, and the rooftops of the Forbidden City on the other side. There were two other gates to walk through before we got to the main gate of the Forbidden City proper, and going through that last one was literally like taking a step back in time. All the people selling stuff weren't in here, and there were just a couple tourist groups in this massive courtyard. Like I've mentioned before, China has this weird dynamic of really small spaces and enormous ones, the latter of which was definitely more prominent here. We checked out a little hall off to the side that had all kinds of old pottery in it, somewhat hidden back in some trees out a side gate. The detail of the City is beyond belief. Each square foot of ceiling space was decorated with a gold dragon motif, each one entirely hand painted. And this same pattern (and variations thereof) was repeated throughout the entire City. Excellent craftsmanship, too; the courtyard, walls and pillars were stone, but everything else was wood, and built using no nails. You could really feel the history of the place, and it wasn't too hard to imagine robed eunuchs bustling all over the place to do the emperor's bidding.
So that was all of Saturday. Needless to say, when I got back I was extremely tired, hence my not posting. Then the next day it was sort of a reverse schedule; we took taxis to an open-air market in the morning, and had class in the afternoon. The marketplace was a great experience, especially following Pong Laoshi around. He's got an eye for authentic antiques, and he drives a hard bargain when he wants to buy something. I learned a thing or two, and got some pretty good deals on a few things. The walking away tactic works especially well :P
Which brings us to today. This morning was class, again, then a lunch break and calligraphy. A calligraphy artist from the university showed us some basic stuff and then we practiced. I put his work and mine up on Flickr, so you can see the difference between a professional and an amateur XD Then after dinner we boarded up on the bus and went to an acrobatics show! If you saw the gymnastics at the Olympics, you've got something of an idea of what it was like. Some of the stunts were phenomenal, I felt like a kid watching them do some of the stuff. There was juggling, tightrope, floor acrobatics, people-juggling (yeah, this one was insane), Chinese yo-yo (two sticks with a string between them, and a drum that's spun on the string; you'd know it if you saw it), balance acts... There were a few more, and they were all spectacular. Unfortunately they didn't allow photography or filming, so I don't have any pictures for that one :(
Tomorrow is brush painting, so there may be a few new pics. Zai jian!

The Wall, a Home, and the Opera

If you've been following this epic, you were probably waiting with bated breath to hear stories from the Great Wall today (oh, no? alright, then... lol) Well, the wait is over. I'll begin, as with any story, from the beginning.
I woke up this morning at 6, because apparently I feel that's necessary >.< I of course dozed for a while, then got up at a quarter after 7, to get ready to head out at 8! Woot, right? But then I remembered that Pong laoshi had mentioned that we'd get a later start today and just go non-stop. So, yeah, that was a little anti-climactic... But we set off at 9, boarded a bus and drove the half-hour to the Great Wall at Badaling! It was pretty incredible being there. You've got the single greatest structural endeavour in the world that took more lives than some wars have, and it's such a symbol of China. It's similar to seeing the Statue of Liberty, or St. Paul's Cathedral. Just really cool. So we disembarked, everyone was taking pictures, and we began to climb. I uploaded photos to illustrate: The Wall isn't just a wall. It's literally built straight up the sides of mountains, along the top, dipping up and down. We were on a piece that went straight up the mountainside, so after a while it became less about the national monument and more about "Geez, are we at the top yet?" :P But the view was pretty awesome going up, and there was that sense of accomplishment when you reached the very top. People took a bunch of pictures of the group, I'll be getting those soon. Unfortunately, it's winter, so that warm glow of accomplishment was kind of snuffed out when your head's so cold you can feel the sinuses of your skull. The climb down was quicker, but we were exhausted by the end. Quick look at the gift shops and we were off to lunch, which was splendid. I'm going to have a hard time re-adjusting to American food, or at least American eating style.

CULTURE SIDE-NOTE! In China, the way they eat is really cool. When you order food, they bring a big bowl of rice (duh) and several dishes of entrees and put them all in the middle of the table. Everyone has a little plate, a bowl for rice, a teacup and chopsticks, and you take what you want from the dishes in the middle. It's incredibly relaxed and informal, everyone kind of grabbing for food. It's also not uncommon for people to take straight from the dishes with their own chopsticks, especially once the eating has died down.

After lunch, we took a little trip to a lower-income area near the outskirts of Beijing to see how common Chinese people live. Some random guy let us all into his house to take a look (mind you, there are about 30 of us, including the teachers). The house was small, but it wasn't some mud hut. There were a bunch of houses together in a row, and a bunch of rows on a block. The inside was clean, white tile floors and white walls. There was an entryway where this guy had a couple small citrus trees, a kitchen, 3 bedrooms... It had everything a house needs, just smaller. Dude also had a flatscreen TV and a nice sound system :P Anyways, after that we went to the Beijing Jianguo hotel and had dinner (also wonderful, and also the third meal in a row I'd had gangbao ji, or Kung Pow Chicken). This hotel also had a theater where they performed Beijing Opera, and we saw a show. It was pretty short, only about an hour, and there were three little stories presented. I won't go into detail on the actual stories (because I'm running out of space) but it was really awesome, especially for a theater kid like me :P It was all excellently choreographed, and there were screens on the sides that translated the lines, so it was easier to follow. Beijing Opera is (as I'm sure you're aware) pretty different from Western theatre. It's highly symbolic, with very minimal props and scenery, and stock characters are also pretty big. Color symbolism plays into it, too, but not really in what we saw. I took some video (yeah, they let us), and that'll get put up eventually. On that note, I don't have the codec that my camera records in, and the connection here is pretty slow, so those videos will be up probably after I get back...

Whew, today was a big day... Tomorrow is classes and then Silk Alley! So plenty of pictures, but not many stories. Good night!

Settling In

Exciting as adventures may be, there are days where very little happens of note. I don't mean to imply that these days are of a lesser value, however. One shouldn't floccinaucinihilipilificate them, by any means (yes! second time using it in a sentence! XD) It was a fairly routine sort of day yesterday; there were classes in the morning, and the afternoon was completely free. Classes should be fairly easy, two at 45 minutes each. They both come with a fair volume of reading outside of class, but that's hardly a problem. At least I don't have Chinese language, which is two hours long >.< For lunch we went to a Japanese restaurant, and for dinner we went to a pizza place. Yes, I know, I thought the same thing when I realized that I've had just as many Chinese meals as Western, or thereabouts :P
Today was excellent as well. Classes in the morning again, and just as much reading for homework, but in the afternoon we were visited by a quartet of young musicians who were students at some of Beijing's top music schools (their equivalent of Julliard). It was really amazing to see live. I took video of most of the songs they played, and once I get a chance to do a little editing to them I'll get them posted on YouTube for your viewing pleasure. :)
All is going well here in China, look forward to more pictures by tomorrow, after we visit THE FREAKING GREAT WALL!!! (excited... just a little... just a teeny bit...)

The First Day

First impression: China's pretty cool. We got in last night, and these "dorms" are really more like hotels; room service, tv, dressers, closets, hot water in the morning. They're pretty nice. The smoking inside thing took a little getting used to, but it's easy enough to hold your breath going through the lobby. I died last night, yanked right off to sleep with hardly a thought (12 hours in the air, 36 hours lost in the plane; surprised?) I woke up pretty refreshed, though right now I'm just about dead again.
Which brings me to today. What a wonderful day it was :) We got up and met our host buddies and went with them to breakfast (which was held, perhaps ironically, at McDonald's). I got paired with Dani, a graduate arts student (I believe it was screenwriting...) who was very helpful in showing me around the campus. The campus is huge, by the way. It seems like everything's huge over here, or maybe I'm just surprised by the size of things because one typically thinks small and compact when one thinks of China... After the frigid tour of campus (we're on latitude with NYC), I went back to the dorm and relaxed for a while. Then the students all got together for lunch and then went with our buddies to Tiananmen Square. I'll let the pictures speak for this one. It was huge, much larger than most stuff stateside. Quite awesome indeed. From Tiananmen we went to this major shopping street and set up camp. Bought a few things before dinner (a dumpling dinner together with the buddies) and was dead by the time I fell asleep.
Just like right now. I'll add more tomorrow :D Check out the Flickr page for updates.

The Flight (retroactive post)

Here's something I wrote on the plane over. As you can imagine, it got a little boring :P

Jan 4, half-past the hour of Seven o'Clock in the Morning (Beijing time now):

We're chasing the sunset across Canada up to the Arctic. We're somewhere over Canada now, though I'm not sure where (they made us close the windows, and it's pitch black outside anyways). Ha, Chinese Sky Mall coming down the aisle... We're on a huge plane, not sure whether it's a 777 or 797, one of the two. We already had “dinner”, served at 6 in the morning Beijing time. Pork rice for breakfast, yum. Actually it wasn't that bad, for airline food... I'm just kinda sitting here, thinking of more interesting things to write about. Not much happening so far, I'm afraid. A perpetual wait, 12 hours in the air. I'll write a little more when I start running out of batteries.

Not even close to running out of batteries yet (thank you, Dell!), but I thought I'd write a little more. It's nine thirty Beijing time. Which is horrible. Because we're not getting there until six :( so we've still got a really long flight ahead of us, and we're only a quarter of the way done... Got in a nap at some point, fell asleep listening to Nightmare Revisited and woke up to the V for Vendetta soundtrack, with the Sex in the City movie on >.<

Well, I'm in the room now, and they've got American outlets in addition to Chinese! So the laptop is charging, and tomorrow internet shall be had.

Virgin Post

Alright, everyone, this begins my chronicles of my adventures on the other side of the world. It is my great hope that you're all at least *aware* that I'm going to China for a month; if not, well, guess what? On the third of January, in the year two-thousand-nine (or the third day of the Season of Chaos, year 3175), I will be boarding a plane bound for China. We arrive on the fourth, do stuff, and then I will return to these shores on February 3rd (or the 34th day of Chaos).
That "do stuff" I have written there is what this blog is going to be about. I am required to keep a journal, and this will serve as such. Oh, and I'm guessing you guys want to know what it's like over there, too. Just a guess.
AND, this Christmas my parents saw fit to bestow upon me a camera, so there will be pictures! This link should take you to my photostream on Flickr, where I will upload my pictures (some will also go to Facebook, but not all). If the link is fail, let me know (it should be "magefire1114's Photostream"). There aren't any pictures up as of this posting, but there should be some by the 4th.
OK! Look forward to more updates!