April 1 (Friday) - Today was much like a usual Friday here. We had class, and then afterwards we picked up some food and chilled out before going to Taiji. We had class inside the school gym which essentially was a whole lot of badminton courts. We eventually moved into the weight room because of the badmitten players kicking us off. Later that night we all went out to Fantasy (club) again with the Australians and did some dancing etc.
April 2 (Saturday) - Laziest day yet in China for probably all of us. Every day here seems to be so stimulating and exhilarating that today was a good day for a break to recouperate.
April 3 (Sunday) - Today I played basketball in a game for the first time. It was me, Sean, Crystal, and Hutch (one of the Australians), against a couple other Chinese teams in a pick up game to stay on the court. I have no idea exactly how to play basketball, so I was pretty horrible though I got a couple blocks in. The rest of the peeps on my team were pretty good though (each one of them have had some sort of experience playing basketball). Anyways we played an group of "men" (as Crystal liked to call them) and they didn't exactly play clean... especially the guy that I was covering. He wore a full adidas suit and was a dense guy. He plowed Crystal when she was defending another dude. And he and I collided a couple of times beating up my right leg pretty bad. Nothing serious, but I'll be feeling it when we hit up the Silk Road on Sunday.
On the bright side, in Chinese Language class, we were learning terms for accidents, and collisions so it made a good anecdote in future classes.
Sean and I tried working out later that night on the various equipments around campus, but they all were kind of disappointing, so we ended up climbing trees instead and then going back to do some jump roping.
A couple of the Canadians from downstairs heard us and came on up to deliver the news that they will be leaving tomorrow. This just reaffirms that time seems to fly by so fast.
April 4 (Monday) - We (international students) were the only ones around having class because Chinese people have a holiday between Sunday and Tuesday to more or less celebrate and pay respects to the deceased. Of course the Chinese students have to make up some of the vaction by going to school on Saturday (and those in a couple of our roommate's classes, who didn't go to class had to write a 2,000 word apology paper for skipping class).
Chinese Language Table was at a fancer version of the normal restaurant that we go to (same company). I'm sure you've gotten the message already that the food was good.
Since Chinese students didn't have school today, we didn't teach today and we got to chill out for the rest of the day.
April 5 (Tuesday) - Had class all day. We got some Bian Bian Mien for dinner for the first time in a long time. This is one of Xi'an's specialty noodle dishes which is delicious! Afterwards, Margaux and I navigated a few of the narrow ally-ways full of people selling various foods, shoes, clothes, DVDs etc. It's just fun walking through and seeing the culture and the hustle and bustle as each vendor is looking for their next customer.
April 6 (Wednesday) - After my one on one session, I played a little bit of ping pong with Zhang Laoshi. We left before long though because the ping pong table in the internation building is highly sought after and a couple of others wanted to play.
At 1:30, Gao and I headed to a haircut place. It was probably the best haircutting experience yet for me! They start by washing and shampooing your hair. They then cut it (with mostly scissors) and then they rinse it again. After that, they do some final touches and then style it a bit. I didn't take a picture, but I looked like a classic Chinese guy which had some mixed responses. (Chinese people liked it, but some thought that it didn't suit me well) The haircut was 50 kuai, but Student IDs cut that in half = 25 kuai, and with Gao's VIP card, it dropped down to 20 kuai. It was definitely worth it!
I then ended up buying a new smaller backpack for the Silk Road trip as well as a new pair of shoes. (My other pair of shoes are really worn and the shoe laces had already ripped off the left shoe). I got my shoes from the Converse discount store for 190 kuai = maybe 30 USD.
We then had calligraphy class which flew by quickly as always.
For dinner, we went to the all-you-can-eat hot pot again. It was delicious - as always, and I ate too much - as always.
April 7 (Thursday) - Class all day agian. Joe and I went to go get some bo tai mien (spinache noodles, with beef, spices and an egg)(which I go to all too frequently). Unfortunately, it was closed, so we got some street food which is always really tasty, but at the same time extremely greasy. We joked that we were "adding oil" which is the direct translation from "Jia You!" (which is an encouraging cheer that Chinese people belt out to root on their friends)
We studied the rest of the night for our midterm tomorrow.
April 8 (Friday) - Midterm! The test went surprisingly well. I think it was best test yet! Afterwards we all took a siesta. Later that night we watched "Life is Beautiful" suggested by Joe and it did not disappoint. I would highly recommend watching it.
April 9 (Saturday) - Woke up early to go to Sculpting in Time to get a nice hearty breakfast to start the day. Margaux, Xie Miao, and I then caught the bus to Jiaotong University to meet up Jocelyn and a couple of her friends to see the Cherry Blossoms. The day was warm and beatiful expertly complementing the blooming flowers.
After looking at the flowers, we headed to muslim street walked around and picked at different foods. These included (plum drink, seasame noodles, fried rice, roasted beef and tofu, etc.)
At 3:30ish we headed to KTV to meet up with Xie Miao, Margaux, and Dodo. It was fun, but the foreign the songs seemed to be played by some orchestra from the alps and the video was always focused on some chick that stood there and looked blankly into the distance. I really need to learn some Chinese music...
Jocelyn, her friends and I then headed to get bo tai mien. So good.
Spent the rest of the night packing and now in just a few hours, we'll be hopping on the Silk Road!
Prepare for a massive update 2 weeks from now!
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Hustle and Bustle
I have come to the realization that the longer I'm here, the less differences I'll notice. The things that seemed very peculiar in the beginning are now part of every day life. So I'm going to blurt out a few things before I forget:
March 14 (Monday) - We had our first "Chinese Table" aka we go out to lunch treated by Alliance with our teachers and we only speak Chinese. The food was great, and I think I learned a lot just from the lunch. Also, the teachers are all pretty fun outside the classroom as well, so all in all it was a great success!
After lunch, we went to teach the preschool class. The kids were good and I pretty much just read books to them ("There are all kinds of people," "There are all kinds of fears," and "WALL*E"). Afterwards we grabbed dinner with a few of the preschool teachers. The company was great and so was the food!
Sean had previously bought some balloons so that he could do a lesson with them for his preschool classes, but he ended up using maybe 1 of the 100. So later this night a few people blew them all up and we had a blast in the hallway.
March 15 (Tuesday) - For lunch, I grabbed some baozi because they are delicious, filling, and cheap! I think one baozi costs maybe 10 cents!
For history class, we went to the Shaanxi History Museum here in Xi'an between our campus and the South Gate (maybe 10-15 mins by bus away). It was pretty cool, we went to the section that focused on the Neolithic and Bronze ages.
March 16 (Wedenesday) - Today we had our first Calligraphy class which was pretty interesting. We learned a lot of philosophy stuff and technique review before actually getting started, and we only learned two strokes, the horizontal line and vertical line. Though the class may be a little slow, I'm excited for when we hopefully will be able to write some awesome looking characters! Spent the rest of the night preparing for the Silk road course the next day (reading the articles -- which was a pretty tough read) and preparing my Capstone research project abstract, research methods, and bibliography.
March 17 (Thursday) - For the Silk Road class we visited the same museum again, except this time we looked into a different exhibit. We checked out stuff from the Tang Dynasty today and saw some pretty neat statues, tools, etc.
Afterwards, we all went to an Indian restaurant for dinner - supposedly the best in Xi'an (the prices reflected it) but it didn't disappoint... too much. They got a few of our orders wrong, but the food was great nonetheless.
I spent the rest of the night studying with a few others for our big exam tomorrow!
March 18 (Friday) - We took the exam in the morning... I thought it was difficult because some of the stuff on there wasn't exactly part of the lessons. How I did on it, I have no idea, but I'm keeping my expectations low just in case.
Afterwards, we jammed out a bit in Malcolms, I tried rocking my ocarina ostrich egg flute thing, but I could only really play maybe 2 notes well right now.
We then celebrated Mery's birthday by going to Fantasy which is a club here in Xi'an with a bunch of the Australian and Canidian hotel-mates.
March 19 (Saturday) - Not much to report -- it was just a lazy day. Skyped with the family for the first time in a long while. Did a lot of sleeping, etc. Noticed the proxy that I've been using doesn't work anymore, so that's why it may take me a while to put up this blog post.
March 20 (Sunday) - Sean and I went to a western cafe to try it out (Sculpting in Time). We ended up running into Haley, a Canadian who was going there too, so we went collectively. It was raining so getting there wasn't that fun, but once we got there, it was great! I liked the smell of it (coconut flavored scent?), the warmth, they had a couple of other cool things like a book shelf with a lot of reading material, and the food was delicious! (omlette with mushroom, bacon, onions, and maybe provolone cheese? complete with croissante, and coffee). The price was a little high like all western restaurants, but it was a good change (the meal was I think 28 kuai = 4 to 5 USD).
Afterwards, Haley showed us a good place to find dictionaries and in return we offered to help her find fireworks.
Thus our quest began at the old man's hole in the wall convenient store which I saw fireworks at around the lantern festival, but he didn't have any more. We then went out the other side of the university to a couple of stores asking various owners/managers if they knew where we could find fireworks. They all pointed in various directions, and we just followed their gestures. We began asking random people on the street, and finally, we found out that fireworks aren't allowed to be sold in the area (in fact firing off the fireworks during the Lantern Festival is actually illegal - but everyone still does it). We then made our way back to the hotel to rest after a long and moderately disappointing defeat.
This didn't keep us from going out again. We then went out to get some music instruments. It was Mi Ting (Crystal's roommate), Margaux, Sean, Joe, and myself. We were lucky that Zhang Li Ping (Malcolm's roommate) had some connections and memberships so he pointed out some good places for us to go to.
Joe got some pretty sweet bongos at the first place. We then went to the store where Sean and I finally got our ukuleles that we had been waiting to get for a while. We then headed back and grabbed some dinner at a noodle place which was really delicious. They were spinnache noodles? (they were green), with some potatoes, and some beef or lamb. The sauce was good with a little bit of spice, and it was topped with a fried egg.
We finally returned to the hotel for the day and jammed out on our ukes while studying. (when I say jammed out on our ukes, I mean play horribly on our ukes -- we didn't actually know any chords or anything or how to tune it) Eventually, I looked online and tuned them up so we can learn Somewhere Over the Rainbow before the night ended.
March 21 (Monday) - Class went well today. Afterwards we had our "Chinese Table" (the Alliance students and the teachers go out to lunch and only speak Chinese) which went well. We went to a Korean restaurant and the food was tasty! The Chinese Tables always end up doing a good job at making me feel a little more confident about my Chinese speaking.
Afterwards, we went to teach the preschoolers. I went to the new school this time and taught. It went well, since I had slides prepared already for it and Malcolm and I switched off classes halfway through.
After dinner, (at the normal restaurant [I could never remember the name]) we jammed out in Malcolm's room with our ensemble of new instruments. I'm just thinking that we may have a future as a band... (maybe not now, but maybe one day we all could jam out and sound amazing).
March 22 (Tuesday) - Today, we pretty much had class the whole day (or 6 hours of the day). But afterwards, we were able to finally relax and take a breather. By this point, I think I may already be starting to annoy people with the constant uke playing -- but it's very addicting.
March 23 (Wednesday) - Had our weekly one on one sessions with our teachers as well as our calligraphy class (shu fa ke) which went by really quickly once we started painting (we practiced painting maybe 4 different characters and after running through two pages, it was time to leave). Afterwards, I went to the street stand that sells wanton soup and baozi with Patrick and we soaked in the scene while enjoying our meal.
March 24 (Thursday) - Today after classes (another 6 hours), we went to the Starfish Foster Home (click here to check our her site) which is north of the University. It's a little ways out, but it was really cool. The lady that runs it, Amanda, is a foreigner -- white from South Africa that studied in America and then went to China where she accidentally started her orphanage to watch after the children ranging from maybe 1 month to 3 years old. It's amazing what she has done, where she's started from, and her success. She now has 55 children that she's looking after at the orphanage. We were able to unpack some boxes for her with a whole lot of donated baby clothes from a local French company.
March 25 (Friday) - After class today, we had another Tai Ji class. For dinner we went to hot pot (33 kuai for all you can eat and drink). It was pretty fun, and the food was delicious.
March 26 (Saturday) We had a group trip with the roommates and a few others to Hu Xian which is a Village which is South West of Xi'an. There we explored the village that was slowly becoming more industrialized. Additionally, we went to a local elementary school which was interesting to compare to America's elementary schools. We then went back and learned how to do some paper cutting and "peasant painting" from a local and very famous artisan. I'll see if I could eventually put up a video of her cutting out some butterflies or painting a panda.
When we got back, Xie Miao, Joe, Wang (Patrick's roommate) and I went to play some ping pong. Wang turned out to be extremely skilled since his father is a gym teacher and trained him in ping pong and badminton.
Later that night we went to see Zhang Li Ping perform at a bar in Xi'an. Unfortunately, getting there was difficult. The cab driver took some of us for a ride to up the service fee. But when we finally got there, we were not disappointed because Zhang and his friends stole the show. People were moshing and crowd surfing. I'll eventually try to put up a video of one of his songs as well.
March 27 (Lazy Sunday) - Nothing to report, it was a catch up day essentially.
March 28 (Monday) - Today was like a normal monday. Class, then Chinese Table (at a spicy noodle place this time) and teaching the preschoolers. I taught them "nature" vocabulary along with anatomy and animals once again. We then in the teacher's lounge made some tie dye like paper snowflake things for the classrooms I guess. We also got our paychecks so our cost of living improved a little bit more.
March 29 (Tuesday) - Today, we had a test in the history class, but I think I did pretty well. We got out early and then Sean, Margaux, and I spontaneously hopped on the first bus that we saw (...well the third bus because it wasn't as crowded) and decided to wait ten stops before getting off.
We then explored this area of Xi'an and passed the Small Wild Goose Pagoda as it was closing up. We also walked through one of those busy streets full of people and vendors which was really neat. And then we stopped to watch two older gentlemen have at it in a game of Chinese chess. It was the most intense game I've ever seen.
We then went back to the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, got some Subway and Dairy Queen before heading back for our weekly meeting with Darren.
March 30 (Wednesday) - Today, we (Patrick, Margaux, Crystal, Darren, and myself) woke up early to go to the track and field day for our department. The others slept in a bit and came later. When I first heard about this event, I was pretty excited because I saw a race earlier with the Chinese students and they ran in jeans and unconventional excercise apparrel. I was confident that I could at the very least keep up with them. Later on I found out that a lot of foriegners were competing too since that was pretty much our department. This included the Australians studying sports science, so at that point, my enthusiasm dropped a little.
I was signed up for the 800 meter race and Crystal was signed up for the 400 and hopped into the 100 as well. All of us were signed up for the fun events after the races (potato sack race, "harmony motor train", three legged race, etc.). In the 800, I ended up coming in 2nd place with a time of 2:13.5 which I'm not too disappointed at (I thought I'd be maybe closer to 2:20). I ended up getting a tea leaf jar as a prize for coming in 2nd place.
We ended up coming in second for the potato sack race and last for the harmony motor train. The three legged race was hilarious to watch (especially Sean and Zhang Laoshi).
Afterwards, we grabbed food, headed back and then headed on out to a couple of hours of KTV (kareoke). It was Gao, Xie Miao, Dodo, Patrick, Margaux, and I and much fun was had.
For dinner a large group of us (mostly Australians) went out to the same all you can eat hot pot to welcome Mery's friend who is staying in Xi'an for a week.
March 31 (Thursday) - For our Silk Road class we went to the Little Wild Goose Pagoda ironically (since Sean, Margaux, and I had spontaneously passed by it on Tuesday). We went into the museum to check out artifacts from the Tang Dynasty. Afterwards, we went to the Village Cafe and got some western food. It was the first time I had a root beer float in a long, long while (mmmmmmm).
Final thought: All in all, things are getting really hectic and busy, but everything is still really great here and though I'm busy, I'm enjoying every second of it!
- Smoking everywhere (people smoke in and out of buildings, vehicles, etc.) -- I personally don't enjoy that part, but it's definitely something different.
- Street sweepers (there are always street sweepers sweeping the roads and sidewalks) -- It's really great to feel that sense of cleanliness.
- Kids with slits in their pants (kids have a gap in their pants by the rear end, so that they can just squat and take care of business wherever) -- not too fond of this and it is the Yang to the street sweeper's Yin.
- Bikes/Tricycles/Scooters/Motorcycles - It's a big thing here and they will be frequently riding through the sidewalks honking or ringing their bell at you.
- Dust - there's a whole lot of dust. After the first day of kicking the soccer ball around, it looked like it was months old and had been used for a while.
- No Tipping - you don't need to tip. Not in restaurants, not in taxis, etc. That means a whole lot of money saved! On the other hand, quality could be less since they aren't working for anything extra (but it's not usually the case).
- Style/Fashion - Gao (my roommate) he told me about some of Chinese fashion -- one major thing that most people know about are the eye glasses frames. They wear the frames without any lenses which struck me as well as many other foreign students as odd, but it's a style. Maybe you'll wear it because it goes with your outfit or something.
- Chinese view of Americans - Gao said that online he saw that Americans are known for their: Zippo lighters, sunglasses, and Harley Davidsons. They also expect Americans to be blonde haired pale people (when I teach the preschoolers, they never believe that I'm American).
- Riding in cars - it's a scary thing (compared to America, people drive like crazy people) but everything more or less flows well without a hitch. Also, in the vans and taxis, seat belts usually aren't accessible... (may be true for America too, but there's been many times where I reach for the seat belt and nothing is there).
- Wearing the same clothes - Chinese people wear the same clothes maybe 3-5 days in a row. It's convenient, you don't have to wash your clothes as often, and you are easily distinguished since people will know what you wear. I spoke with Gao about this and I think it is derived from the fact that they don't usually have dryers here (everyone hangs their clothes out to dry). Also they never wash socks and underwear with the rest of their clothes (maybe due to diffusion of germs?)
- Books in China are also really cheap. Gao showed me a couple of his books that he had to get to study with for his exam - they were maybe 60-70 kuai total between the two books which is way different than that in America.
- I'm not sure if I mentioned this already, but the education system in general here is different. Students study really hard to get into the schools that they want to get in. They are graded on a Midterm and a Final and that is it (no homeworks, no classwork, etc.). I just though if they are bad test takers (like me) then they may not be able to do what they want to do. Gao was telling me that students work really hard when they are children to get into a good university, and when they finally make it to the university, they kind of live their childhood.
Here are some links to the videos that I referred to from my last post:
- Shaolin Temple performance:
Patrick and I looking awesome (...not really) - Monkeys at the temple:
MONKEYS!
Now onward to the past couple weeks (I would like to apologize in advanced for not having any photos up... for some odd reason, it's not letting me):
March 14 (Monday) - We had our first "Chinese Table" aka we go out to lunch treated by Alliance with our teachers and we only speak Chinese. The food was great, and I think I learned a lot just from the lunch. Also, the teachers are all pretty fun outside the classroom as well, so all in all it was a great success!
After lunch, we went to teach the preschool class. The kids were good and I pretty much just read books to them ("There are all kinds of people," "There are all kinds of fears," and "WALL*E"). Afterwards we grabbed dinner with a few of the preschool teachers. The company was great and so was the food!
Sean had previously bought some balloons so that he could do a lesson with them for his preschool classes, but he ended up using maybe 1 of the 100. So later this night a few people blew them all up and we had a blast in the hallway.
March 15 (Tuesday) - For lunch, I grabbed some baozi because they are delicious, filling, and cheap! I think one baozi costs maybe 10 cents!
For history class, we went to the Shaanxi History Museum here in Xi'an between our campus and the South Gate (maybe 10-15 mins by bus away). It was pretty cool, we went to the section that focused on the Neolithic and Bronze ages.
March 16 (Wedenesday) - Today we had our first Calligraphy class which was pretty interesting. We learned a lot of philosophy stuff and technique review before actually getting started, and we only learned two strokes, the horizontal line and vertical line. Though the class may be a little slow, I'm excited for when we hopefully will be able to write some awesome looking characters! Spent the rest of the night preparing for the Silk road course the next day (reading the articles -- which was a pretty tough read) and preparing my Capstone research project abstract, research methods, and bibliography.
March 17 (Thursday) - For the Silk Road class we visited the same museum again, except this time we looked into a different exhibit. We checked out stuff from the Tang Dynasty today and saw some pretty neat statues, tools, etc.
Afterwards, we all went to an Indian restaurant for dinner - supposedly the best in Xi'an (the prices reflected it) but it didn't disappoint... too much. They got a few of our orders wrong, but the food was great nonetheless.
I spent the rest of the night studying with a few others for our big exam tomorrow!
March 18 (Friday) - We took the exam in the morning... I thought it was difficult because some of the stuff on there wasn't exactly part of the lessons. How I did on it, I have no idea, but I'm keeping my expectations low just in case.
Afterwards, we jammed out a bit in Malcolms, I tried rocking my ocarina ostrich egg flute thing, but I could only really play maybe 2 notes well right now.
We then celebrated Mery's birthday by going to Fantasy which is a club here in Xi'an with a bunch of the Australian and Canidian hotel-mates.
March 19 (Saturday) - Not much to report -- it was just a lazy day. Skyped with the family for the first time in a long while. Did a lot of sleeping, etc. Noticed the proxy that I've been using doesn't work anymore, so that's why it may take me a while to put up this blog post.
March 20 (Sunday) - Sean and I went to a western cafe to try it out (Sculpting in Time). We ended up running into Haley, a Canadian who was going there too, so we went collectively. It was raining so getting there wasn't that fun, but once we got there, it was great! I liked the smell of it (coconut flavored scent?), the warmth, they had a couple of other cool things like a book shelf with a lot of reading material, and the food was delicious! (omlette with mushroom, bacon, onions, and maybe provolone cheese? complete with croissante, and coffee). The price was a little high like all western restaurants, but it was a good change (the meal was I think 28 kuai = 4 to 5 USD).
Afterwards, Haley showed us a good place to find dictionaries and in return we offered to help her find fireworks.
Thus our quest began at the old man's hole in the wall convenient store which I saw fireworks at around the lantern festival, but he didn't have any more. We then went out the other side of the university to a couple of stores asking various owners/managers if they knew where we could find fireworks. They all pointed in various directions, and we just followed their gestures. We began asking random people on the street, and finally, we found out that fireworks aren't allowed to be sold in the area (in fact firing off the fireworks during the Lantern Festival is actually illegal - but everyone still does it). We then made our way back to the hotel to rest after a long and moderately disappointing defeat.
This didn't keep us from going out again. We then went out to get some music instruments. It was Mi Ting (Crystal's roommate), Margaux, Sean, Joe, and myself. We were lucky that Zhang Li Ping (Malcolm's roommate) had some connections and memberships so he pointed out some good places for us to go to.
Joe got some pretty sweet bongos at the first place. We then went to the store where Sean and I finally got our ukuleles that we had been waiting to get for a while. We then headed back and grabbed some dinner at a noodle place which was really delicious. They were spinnache noodles? (they were green), with some potatoes, and some beef or lamb. The sauce was good with a little bit of spice, and it was topped with a fried egg.
We finally returned to the hotel for the day and jammed out on our ukes while studying. (when I say jammed out on our ukes, I mean play horribly on our ukes -- we didn't actually know any chords or anything or how to tune it) Eventually, I looked online and tuned them up so we can learn Somewhere Over the Rainbow before the night ended.
March 21 (Monday) - Class went well today. Afterwards we had our "Chinese Table" (the Alliance students and the teachers go out to lunch and only speak Chinese) which went well. We went to a Korean restaurant and the food was tasty! The Chinese Tables always end up doing a good job at making me feel a little more confident about my Chinese speaking.
Afterwards, we went to teach the preschoolers. I went to the new school this time and taught. It went well, since I had slides prepared already for it and Malcolm and I switched off classes halfway through.
After dinner, (at the normal restaurant [I could never remember the name]) we jammed out in Malcolm's room with our ensemble of new instruments. I'm just thinking that we may have a future as a band... (maybe not now, but maybe one day we all could jam out and sound amazing).
March 22 (Tuesday) - Today, we pretty much had class the whole day (or 6 hours of the day). But afterwards, we were able to finally relax and take a breather. By this point, I think I may already be starting to annoy people with the constant uke playing -- but it's very addicting.
March 23 (Wednesday) - Had our weekly one on one sessions with our teachers as well as our calligraphy class (shu fa ke) which went by really quickly once we started painting (we practiced painting maybe 4 different characters and after running through two pages, it was time to leave). Afterwards, I went to the street stand that sells wanton soup and baozi with Patrick and we soaked in the scene while enjoying our meal.
March 24 (Thursday) - Today after classes (another 6 hours), we went to the Starfish Foster Home (click here to check our her site) which is north of the University. It's a little ways out, but it was really cool. The lady that runs it, Amanda, is a foreigner -- white from South Africa that studied in America and then went to China where she accidentally started her orphanage to watch after the children ranging from maybe 1 month to 3 years old. It's amazing what she has done, where she's started from, and her success. She now has 55 children that she's looking after at the orphanage. We were able to unpack some boxes for her with a whole lot of donated baby clothes from a local French company.
March 25 (Friday) - After class today, we had another Tai Ji class. For dinner we went to hot pot (33 kuai for all you can eat and drink). It was pretty fun, and the food was delicious.
March 26 (Saturday) We had a group trip with the roommates and a few others to Hu Xian which is a Village which is South West of Xi'an. There we explored the village that was slowly becoming more industrialized. Additionally, we went to a local elementary school which was interesting to compare to America's elementary schools. We then went back and learned how to do some paper cutting and "peasant painting" from a local and very famous artisan. I'll see if I could eventually put up a video of her cutting out some butterflies or painting a panda.
When we got back, Xie Miao, Joe, Wang (Patrick's roommate) and I went to play some ping pong. Wang turned out to be extremely skilled since his father is a gym teacher and trained him in ping pong and badminton.
Later that night we went to see Zhang Li Ping perform at a bar in Xi'an. Unfortunately, getting there was difficult. The cab driver took some of us for a ride to up the service fee. But when we finally got there, we were not disappointed because Zhang and his friends stole the show. People were moshing and crowd surfing. I'll eventually try to put up a video of one of his songs as well.
March 27 (Lazy Sunday) - Nothing to report, it was a catch up day essentially.
March 28 (Monday) - Today was like a normal monday. Class, then Chinese Table (at a spicy noodle place this time) and teaching the preschoolers. I taught them "nature" vocabulary along with anatomy and animals once again. We then in the teacher's lounge made some tie dye like paper snowflake things for the classrooms I guess. We also got our paychecks so our cost of living improved a little bit more.
March 29 (Tuesday) - Today, we had a test in the history class, but I think I did pretty well. We got out early and then Sean, Margaux, and I spontaneously hopped on the first bus that we saw (...well the third bus because it wasn't as crowded) and decided to wait ten stops before getting off.
We then explored this area of Xi'an and passed the Small Wild Goose Pagoda as it was closing up. We also walked through one of those busy streets full of people and vendors which was really neat. And then we stopped to watch two older gentlemen have at it in a game of Chinese chess. It was the most intense game I've ever seen.
We then went back to the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, got some Subway and Dairy Queen before heading back for our weekly meeting with Darren.
March 30 (Wednesday) - Today, we (Patrick, Margaux, Crystal, Darren, and myself) woke up early to go to the track and field day for our department. The others slept in a bit and came later. When I first heard about this event, I was pretty excited because I saw a race earlier with the Chinese students and they ran in jeans and unconventional excercise apparrel. I was confident that I could at the very least keep up with them. Later on I found out that a lot of foriegners were competing too since that was pretty much our department. This included the Australians studying sports science, so at that point, my enthusiasm dropped a little.
I was signed up for the 800 meter race and Crystal was signed up for the 400 and hopped into the 100 as well. All of us were signed up for the fun events after the races (potato sack race, "harmony motor train", three legged race, etc.). In the 800, I ended up coming in 2nd place with a time of 2:13.5 which I'm not too disappointed at (I thought I'd be maybe closer to 2:20). I ended up getting a tea leaf jar as a prize for coming in 2nd place.
We ended up coming in second for the potato sack race and last for the harmony motor train. The three legged race was hilarious to watch (especially Sean and Zhang Laoshi).
Afterwards, we grabbed food, headed back and then headed on out to a couple of hours of KTV (kareoke). It was Gao, Xie Miao, Dodo, Patrick, Margaux, and I and much fun was had.
For dinner a large group of us (mostly Australians) went out to the same all you can eat hot pot to welcome Mery's friend who is staying in Xi'an for a week.
March 31 (Thursday) - For our Silk Road class we went to the Little Wild Goose Pagoda ironically (since Sean, Margaux, and I had spontaneously passed by it on Tuesday). We went into the museum to check out artifacts from the Tang Dynasty. Afterwards, we went to the Village Cafe and got some western food. It was the first time I had a root beer float in a long, long while (mmmmmmm).
Final thought: All in all, things are getting really hectic and busy, but everything is still really great here and though I'm busy, I'm enjoying every second of it!
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Settling in: Listening, Speaking, Learning and Teaching
Sorry for not posting earlier, I have been extremely busy with a ton of different things and updating the blog always ends up eating into much needed sleeping time!
Thoughts so far:
Communicating is becoming easier for me and I am beginning to lose the fear of speaking to people. I'm still way far out from being able to speak fluently, but I can now order things and buy things which is very helpful/useful. It can be discouraging at times though when I try speaking to someone and they give me a mocking smile as they tap their buddy's shoulder and have me repeat my order/question in it's very altered state.
Gao and the rest of the roommates are teaching me a whole lot of Chinese which I appreciate very much.
Things are still going well. Work is overwhelming as well as a few other things... (you'll find out later in this post).
I find it really interesting that cars are parked up on the sidewalks (I mean completely off the road on the sidewalks) and people are running through the very busy streets frogger-ing to the other side. It's really neat though how rare it is to see accidents. I've only seen one so far, but it was just a fender bender if that and not even on the main road.
I just realized today when being shown some photos of Xi'an how different culture is here that I'm kind of not realizing anymore. But from the carts being wheeled around, to the children with splits in their pants for easy relief, to the people all carrying hot water containers (because they can't heat up hot water in their dorms), to the architecture of the buildings and the old fashioned walls, to the street sweepers who get up early in the morning to clean the streets, and everyone operating on a very standard time basis (the common people probably 8am-10pm but no earlier or later [which is a pain if you want breakfast early in the morning or a snack late at night]) to the non-awkwardness of staring at people, to the hocking of lugies at free will, to the smell of the stinky tofu every time you get out to the main street. And though, I listed a lot of things, I barely breached the surface of the differences here. There's just so many things that are different than American culture that I somewhat dread going back and not being able to see some of these that will forever stay in China.
Feb 26 (later on) - We got back and chilled until 9 where we set up some Mahjong (a Chinese tiled game with similar aspects to rummy). It was a really fun time, but it was interesting because we played in a different style that I'm not used to. The other Chinese roommates were also saying how they played differently where they come from, so we just stuck with Darren's rules.
Feb 27 (Sunday) - Woke up late and went out for a small run through Xi'an. I didn't really run that far (after all I'm really out of shape and haven't run in a while), but the scenery was magnificent. I went out of the back gate of my university and ran in the park area between the highway. They have basketball courts, playground equipment (that's actually exercise equipment), and other cool statues and stone structures that are really cool to see. I eventually turned around and headed back to get another one of those Chinese breakfast burrito like things and an apple (which was the best apple I think I have ever had, it was very crisp and not extremely dense, while still juicy and just seemed to make my day a whole lot better.
Ate dinner in the cafeteria with Patrick and Gao. It was pretty good (especially now that all the food sections are opened, there are more people [so food moves faster], and Gao knows which foods are better than others). Gao had to leave early for a meeting so Patrick and I headed back once we finished. On our way back we saw a whole lot of water containers (containers that probably hold a gallon of hot water I'm guessing). There were probably hundreds just sitting around this building. We were both very curious to figure out what it was all about, but our limited knowledge of Chinese rendered us unable to understand what one guy was saying after we inquired about it. We figured that since hot/sterile water isn't found inside of the dorms, that the students had to go down to the building to get the water. And for some reason they leave their containers there (maybe until they are heading back to their dorm?). I think this was later confirmed by Gao, but I'm still not completely sure...
Studied the rest of the night with lots of help from Gao.
Feb 28 (Monday) - Had a great class! I was on fire, and was answering questions and learning a whole lot. It was the best class yet!
It was raining a lot today and of course I don't have an umbrella, (I don't even keep one back at my home school) but Gao, Xie Miao (probably really butchered the spelling of her name [Margaux's roommate]), and Mi Ting (Crystal's roommate) all picked us up with umbrellas. We once again ate at the cafeteria which was less satisfying this time since it was just over crowded and getting good food was difficult because you'd have to fight through a massive group of people, so we ended up getting some mediocre food.
We then went to our weekly Alliance meeting (just the US students) where we talked about meaningful stuff etc etc and saw a very interesting youtube video on LARPing (Live Avatar Role Playing) which was hilarious.
After the meeting, Malcolm, Sean, Patrick, and I headed towards the preschool thing that we signed up for. They wanted foreigners to teach the classes because they wanted the children to hopefully pick up some English through osmosis. I was pretty excited to play with the young (3-6 year old) children there.
It turns out that my expectations were a lot different than what actually happened. I was expecting maybe handling 10-12 kids, but I ended up standing dumbfounded in front of 30ish 5-year-old kids. We were all split up into classes like this. I was with Malcolm at the new school (25-30 mins away from the University or old school). Sean and Patrick stayed at the old school. Malcolm had 40ish 6-year-olds. I started off by trying to sing some Old McDonald, because the kids supposedly loved animals and knew them as well (in English), but the only thing that they seemed to know for sure in the song was the E-I-E-I-O part. I quickly stopped and tried doing some Simon Says. But explaining the rules was difficult (especially when they speak Chinese and only know a few English words). So whenever I said something whether I said Simon Says or not, most of the kids did it. It was a bit frustrating. So I decided to then sing some songs like Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and London Bridge Is Falling Down. One of the teachers was nice enough to even accompany me on the piano. Unfortunately, half way through both songs, I realized that I forgot the lyrics to both of them! Yup, I was beginning to run out of ideas. Next, I reverted to a game called Red Light, Green Light, which I'm sure you all know. The rules are pretty simple, and I think I really got through to the kids when I explained it to them. So I started them off by just having them march in place and stop. They seemed to do really well, so we tried lining them up behind me as we marched around the room continuing to play Red Light, Green Light. But I was foiled again, because the first time I said "Red Light!" all of the kids scrambled in a mad rush back to their seats. This went on for a little bit until the teacher helped me out, told them they were wrong, and demonstrated with me. After this, they finally got the hang of it, and we stuck to the Red Light, Green Light for a long while (especially because I had exhausted pretty much all of my ideas, and this was the first success that I was able to pull off there). After a good bit, the teacher said that "it's okay" and they let me take a break. By the way, there are 2-3 teachers per class to tag team these kids because the kids are easily distracted and the job is very exhausting. During my break, I checked out Malcolm's room and he seemed to be doing well drawing out animals as the kids tried guessing them. In my classroom, one of the other teachers played the piano as the kids sang along. After my 5 minute break, they had me read a book to them. This was probably the best part of the class. I didn't have to over think too much on keeping their attention because the book was displayed through a projector with the pictures. I also liked acting out the book to the best of my abilities so that the kids would follow along. I would read each page twice and have them repeat me after every word. After reading 1.5 books, Robbie (the guy in charge of us at the new school) told me that time was up and I was good to go. After speaking with the rest of the guys, we all agreed that it was brutal and that we'll have to be more prepared for next time.
Got some of those flat noodles again (The Xi'an special called Bian Bian Mien I think) with the rest of the Alliance students. Very delicious.
I passed out afterwards, woke up later and played some Assassin/Mafia. I was finally picked to be the killer and I ended up killing everyone. I then 'studied' -- well sort of, late into the night.
March 1 (Tuesday) - The class today wasn't as good as Monday -- I was much less prepared. The history class was still on the Neolithic age, but we finally finished it up.
Afterwards we (Margaux, Malcolm, and I) grabbed some food at the restaurant next to the hotel which was actually a very fancy place. Malcolm and Margaux got KungPao Chicken. I pointed to something on the menu and it turned out to be beef, nappa (a Chinese cabbage), and mushrooms -- which sounds great. However, it turned out to be pretty gross because all of it was bathed in chili oil. When I say bathed, I mean like they gave me a bowl of chili oil with the various food submerged in it somewhere. I think it would have been a whole lot better if they took all of the things of substance from the bowl, drained out the oil, and fried it up or something, but it was just submerged in oil making it not so appealing. Malcolm and Margaux were asking me how much money I would want to drink the chili oil. I said 1000 kuai but that wasn't going to happen. We then went back, met Mery (Mi Ting's friend from Australia) and chatted for a bit before watching Detective Dee in Gao's and My room on my new monitor. It was an interesting movie about a Chinese detective solving a mystery kung fu style with a lot of weird supernatural stuff going on in the background.
March 2 (Wednesday) - had a one on one session going over the mistakes on each of our tests (at least for my class). I ended up being held up an extra 25 minutes (since I had a lot of mistakes probably). I didn't realize the passed time though and missed my meeting with Darren and Andrew (the Silk Road/History course teacher) to talk about my Capstone Project which is a research project that each Alliance student has to do during their time in China. I luckily ran into Andrew on my way back and we talked about potential projects. I didn't have many ideas about what I wanted to do, but Malcolm suggested doing a project on Martial Arts in China and on the Silk Road. After running the idea by Andrew, I decided to do it since it sounds really interesting and the material seems to be ascertainable.
A small group of us then grabbed food on Shir Da Lu (the road that our University is on). We then went to Vangard (the local supermarket/mart) on Changan Nan Lu (the road that Shir Da Lu intersects with). I got a soccer ball and ping pong paddle, while everyone else got peanut butter.
We then headed back and studied a bit. Xie Miao, made some tea in a traditional style (Gong fu cha) with oolong leaves. It was very good! I'm no tea expert, or enthusiast for that matter, but it was really great and it was really neat to observe this type of tea making/serving style.
After studying a bit more, Margaux and I kicked around the soccer ball for a bit at the field in the University before grabbing some baozi, fruit, and onion bread for dinner on the way back to the hotel. All of it was delicious, filling, and inexpensive.
March 3 (Thursday) - Had class pretty much all day, got some baozi from the place adjacent to the hotel. 3 baozi were 1.9 kuai and they didn't disappoint! After class I studied a bit, and kicked the soccer ball around in the hallway as a break before studying some more (the soccer ball was a great investment!). We also had a small jam sesh in Malcolm and Zhang's room. They both play the guitar, and Joe plays the drums along with many singers.
Here's a small clip, it's a bit blurry, but here's a taste of how it was like:
March 3, 2011 First Alliance Jamming in Xi'an Spring 2011
March 4 (Friday) - A couple hours after class we all headed to the Terracotta Warriors. It was about 45 minutes to get there. We watched a small 360degree movie on the history of the Terracotta Warriors before heading to the actual site. I'm not going to lie, it was pretty cool at first, but after a few minutes of checking them out, there didn't really seem to be all too much else to see. I was a little bit disappointed because I was expecting to see a whole whole lot of soldiers, but there weren't nearly as many as I thought there would be. I would go a second time, but probably not a third time. There was a saying that Wang (Patrick's roommate) told Patrick that pretty much said: "If you come to Xi'an and don't see the Terracotta Warriors you'll regret it, but if you do go and see them, then you'll regret it even more."
March 5 (Saturday) - Went on the "Hash Run" with the Hash House Harriers (you could look them up online ... but essentially, they're all about running followed by drinking). The run was pretty cool, but also a little frustrating. Part of the whole hash run is hitting a fork (or two arrows pointing in two separate directions) and finding the right path. So if you found another arrow, then you would know that you took the correct route and shout "On On!" so everyone will know which way is right. What made it more difficult though was that the arrows were sometimes a bit faint (maybe by some street sweepers with OCD or store owners throwing water out on the sidewalk) or covered up by cars or massive amounts of people just walking on the streets. The "leader" (AKA the guy who drew the arrows) of today's run was actually the teacher for the Silk Road and History course, Andrew. It was pretty neat getting to see him outside of the classroom environment. He said that the course was maybe 3.5 miles, so not all too bad. I ended up finishing pretty early at the top of the pack and we waited at the end point until everyone else got there. We then did some Hash House Harrier traditions met everyone and ate a whole lot of delicious food.
We eventually made it to a German bar (I think Belgium something?) with the hashers. Later that night we got back and stayed up pretty late just chilling, chatting, and watching Joe's very own documentary "Wisdom Teeth." The last of us eventually fell asleep around 6am.
March 6 (Sunday) - Today I met up with Jocelyn (friend from UMBC who goes to school in Xi'an as well) and showed her around the campus after grabbing some of the Bian Bian Mien (so good!) We studied a bit afterwards and then grabbed some Ro Jia Mo (Also really good!) She then had to head back to her school which is North West I think? But pretty much spent the rest of the night studying for Monday.
March 7 (Monday) - Today, class went great! Zhang Laoshi had to go over the lesson again since we finished so quickly! After that, we grabbed a quick bite from the underground before heading out to our weekly meeting for the Alliance peeps. Unfortunately, Malcolm, Sean, Patrick, and I were all dreading going to teach the little kiddies (after all, last time was a horror story). This time though, it wasn't too bad at all. Only Malcolm went to the new school this time, while Sean, Patrick, and I stayed at the old school. We started off by going outside joined by all the kids. As music began to play, the children followed the teachers up front as they led in a coordinated dance. At 3:00 on the dot the kids headed back inside and we were sent in to our individual classes to do our thing. This time, I was ready. I had prepared a flash drive with 10 animals on it. We plugged it in and I asked them if they knew each of the animals and what sound they make. It was soon followed by some Old McDonald (I sang it differently then them... so they were a little lost -- but still over all, better than last time). I then was taught some cool games by the teachers to teach to the children which was really helpful. I taught a second class the same lesson, and then got to take a break in the teacher's room with a few of the teachers which was really fun. We went over some of the things that we could do, but mostly just ate some snacks and chatted it up. After leaving, we played some Mafia with a bunch of Zhang's (Malcolm's roommate -- hope I spelled his name right) friends before grabbing some food.
Sean, Malcolm, and I went to the usual restaurant and I finally got the tofu that I had been dreaming about for days. We then spent the rest of the night studying it up.
March 8 (Tuesday) - Lots of class today. When we got out of class, one by one, each of us ended up in Malcolm's room as we followed the sound of his guitar. Some of us sang, and when Joe got back we got some percussion in there. Darren came in too as well as Mery and her fellow Australian friend. I thought it was so great how the power of music could bring everyone together (yeah, that sounded really cheesy, but it was true). Later on, we watched a Hong Kong Comedy, I forget the name, but Gao set it up on his computer. I thought it was pretty funny, not as hilarious as Gao described (probably just because of the language barrier) but it was still really comical. It just goes to show that comedy can transcend language barriers.
March 9 (Wednesday) - Today I slept in, went to my one on one session, it went really well. Then I grabbed lunch with Xie Miao, Margaux, Gao, and a couple of his friends. We ended up going to the "Calligraphy Street" I believe? The street was just inside the South gate of the city wall. It was really awesome because there were a whole lot of street vendors selling things that I'd actually want to buy (calligraphy brushes, jades, seals [like stamps], these cool flute things that may very well be ocarinas [which I did end up purchasing for 7 kuai] amongst many other things). We also stopped into a building/house/museum/art gallery where they had a bunch of Chinese paintings on sale. I thought that it was cool because it was a classic textbook scene. American student goes with his roommate and checks out the Chinese paintings (zhong gua hua) and oil paintings (you hua) and talk about them. Just last week, I was thinking that we'd never use the vocabs, but they proved me wrong indeed.
We then went to a street between the wall and our school to find some bikes. It was difficult to find some second hand bikes, but a couple of us were able to get some (unfortunately not myself).
As they rode back on bikes, the remaining of us walked back and saw some interesting things, such as the silver/golden dragon fish, or the extremely fluffy dog that was way cute.
Eventually we got back in time to go to hot pot, and it was the best hot pot yet! We had lamb (yang ro), beef (neo ro), spinach (buo cai), mushroom (mo gu), quail egg, shrimp balls, noodles, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and fruit (not bathed in the hot pot).
We headed back and played mafia. I was the killer again, and once again succeeded in killing everyone (the feeling is very similar to Death Note which his a bad kind of thrill until it's all over).
March 10 (Thursday) - Woke up at 6:15 to get ready to head out by 7:00 to the bullet train to Luoyang for our extended weekend trip. We caught the train alright and it was pretty cool because I think the train could reach 350 kilometers per hour? When we got there, we were greeted by Joe our Tour Guide who is native to Luoyang. The hotel was very spacious and had a whole lot of TV channels which was different than what we were used to in Xi'an (of course it didn't have the same kind of view like our place and Luoyang's city isn't as cool or traditional as Xi'an), but it was a nice temporary change.
We quickly headed out towards the Longmen Grottoes which was really amazing. There were carvings within the wall of buddahs. A lot of buddahs. From the collossal sized buddahs (a buddah taking on the image of Emperess Wu) to the smaller buddahs sitting along the walls maybe a couple inches tall.
After the grottoes, we went to Dinner at a muslim restaurant that tried ripping us off a little bit in the end. Darren impressed us all by standing up against the manger battling it out in Chinese.
March 11 (Friday) - Got up early to hit up the Shaolin Temple. When we started getting close, we could see a ton of schools congested with students practicing kung fu. I think they said that there were 50,000 students just in the area studying kung fu.
When we got there, we got to sit in on a performance by a few of the most skilled martial artists in the area. It was really cool!
Anyways, half way through, they had a little competition where they pull up 3 people from the audience to try to imitate 3 different styled kung fu teachers. The winner wins a DVD of the shaolin performances or history or something. Patrick and I both volunteered and were selected to go up with a final happy middle aged looking guy. We had no idea what the spokesperson was saying, but we followed as best we could. The other guy was first and was pretty comical with his moves. I don't remember what style he was doing, but I'm thinking it was tiger. Patrick's teacher was doing the mantis style and he ended up doing really well. My teacher's style was the monkey style which didn't have any cool floor sweeps, high kicks, or cartwheels which I think I could have done. I however prevailed with a kip up and ended up winning the DVD! Sean caught some of the footage for me which I will put up and attach in a later post (It takes me forever to upload videos with my super slow proxy).
Afterwards, I purchased a three-section-staff and Patrick finally got his feiyues. When we got out, we saw a couple of small monkeys that were really cute! I'll put some footage of that post up later as well.
We then looked around and saw some of the stupas (Buddist buildings that pagodas are based off of).
After grabbing some McDonald's, we went to a martial arts school. It was really neat because we got to see first hand what it's like for the students in the school as well as the harsh reality of students sent there at an early age to study. Most end up being sucked up into the world of martial arts without having much of a say in what they want to do. Day in and day out they train and train and train. I always thought it was cool to study the discipline of kungfu like them, but now I realize how much I take the freedom to decide what I want to do for granted.
Four of the top students taught us part of a kung fu form after the tour of the school. It really enjoyed it! It reminded me of wushu back at home which I was kind of itching to do.
When we got back, we ended up going to a big disco bar and danced the night away.
March 12 (Saturday) - We went to see the White Horse Pagoda/Temple (which is supposedly where Buddhism started in China) so very interesting. However, by this point, we had seen many many many Buddha stuffs, so we only stuck around for a bit before heading to the Old Town where we were able to see Luoyang in a candid nature. We saw a nursing home where the elderly reside as well as the streets filled with street vendors selling foods and afterlife money, parents picking up kids from school on their bicycles, and the friendly dogs running around as they please.
We were able to get taught by the second best painter in Luoyang I believe? She is well known for her pictures of flowers. She taught us how to draw the basic flower. Mine didn't come out all too well...but Sean's was good enough for her to touch up and complete for him.
Thoughts so far:
Communicating is becoming easier for me and I am beginning to lose the fear of speaking to people. I'm still way far out from being able to speak fluently, but I can now order things and buy things which is very helpful/useful. It can be discouraging at times though when I try speaking to someone and they give me a mocking smile as they tap their buddy's shoulder and have me repeat my order/question in it's very altered state.
Gao and the rest of the roommates are teaching me a whole lot of Chinese which I appreciate very much.
Things are still going well. Work is overwhelming as well as a few other things... (you'll find out later in this post).
I find it really interesting that cars are parked up on the sidewalks (I mean completely off the road on the sidewalks) and people are running through the very busy streets frogger-ing to the other side. It's really neat though how rare it is to see accidents. I've only seen one so far, but it was just a fender bender if that and not even on the main road.
I just realized today when being shown some photos of Xi'an how different culture is here that I'm kind of not realizing anymore. But from the carts being wheeled around, to the children with splits in their pants for easy relief, to the people all carrying hot water containers (because they can't heat up hot water in their dorms), to the architecture of the buildings and the old fashioned walls, to the street sweepers who get up early in the morning to clean the streets, and everyone operating on a very standard time basis (the common people probably 8am-10pm but no earlier or later [which is a pain if you want breakfast early in the morning or a snack late at night]) to the non-awkwardness of staring at people, to the hocking of lugies at free will, to the smell of the stinky tofu every time you get out to the main street. And though, I listed a lot of things, I barely breached the surface of the differences here. There's just so many things that are different than American culture that I somewhat dread going back and not being able to see some of these that will forever stay in China.
Feb 26 (later on) - We got back and chilled until 9 where we set up some Mahjong (a Chinese tiled game with similar aspects to rummy). It was a really fun time, but it was interesting because we played in a different style that I'm not used to. The other Chinese roommates were also saying how they played differently where they come from, so we just stuck with Darren's rules.
Feb 27 (Sunday) - Woke up late and went out for a small run through Xi'an. I didn't really run that far (after all I'm really out of shape and haven't run in a while), but the scenery was magnificent. I went out of the back gate of my university and ran in the park area between the highway. They have basketball courts, playground equipment (that's actually exercise equipment), and other cool statues and stone structures that are really cool to see. I eventually turned around and headed back to get another one of those Chinese breakfast burrito like things and an apple (which was the best apple I think I have ever had, it was very crisp and not extremely dense, while still juicy and just seemed to make my day a whole lot better.
Ate dinner in the cafeteria with Patrick and Gao. It was pretty good (especially now that all the food sections are opened, there are more people [so food moves faster], and Gao knows which foods are better than others). Gao had to leave early for a meeting so Patrick and I headed back once we finished. On our way back we saw a whole lot of water containers (containers that probably hold a gallon of hot water I'm guessing). There were probably hundreds just sitting around this building. We were both very curious to figure out what it was all about, but our limited knowledge of Chinese rendered us unable to understand what one guy was saying after we inquired about it. We figured that since hot/sterile water isn't found inside of the dorms, that the students had to go down to the building to get the water. And for some reason they leave their containers there (maybe until they are heading back to their dorm?). I think this was later confirmed by Gao, but I'm still not completely sure...
Studied the rest of the night with lots of help from Gao.
Feb 28 (Monday) - Had a great class! I was on fire, and was answering questions and learning a whole lot. It was the best class yet!
It was raining a lot today and of course I don't have an umbrella, (I don't even keep one back at my home school) but Gao, Xie Miao (probably really butchered the spelling of her name [Margaux's roommate]), and Mi Ting (Crystal's roommate) all picked us up with umbrellas. We once again ate at the cafeteria which was less satisfying this time since it was just over crowded and getting good food was difficult because you'd have to fight through a massive group of people, so we ended up getting some mediocre food.
We then went to our weekly Alliance meeting (just the US students) where we talked about meaningful stuff etc etc and saw a very interesting youtube video on LARPing (Live Avatar Role Playing) which was hilarious.
After the meeting, Malcolm, Sean, Patrick, and I headed towards the preschool thing that we signed up for. They wanted foreigners to teach the classes because they wanted the children to hopefully pick up some English through osmosis. I was pretty excited to play with the young (3-6 year old) children there.
It turns out that my expectations were a lot different than what actually happened. I was expecting maybe handling 10-12 kids, but I ended up standing dumbfounded in front of 30ish 5-year-old kids. We were all split up into classes like this. I was with Malcolm at the new school (25-30 mins away from the University or old school). Sean and Patrick stayed at the old school. Malcolm had 40ish 6-year-olds. I started off by trying to sing some Old McDonald, because the kids supposedly loved animals and knew them as well (in English), but the only thing that they seemed to know for sure in the song was the E-I-E-I-O part. I quickly stopped and tried doing some Simon Says. But explaining the rules was difficult (especially when they speak Chinese and only know a few English words). So whenever I said something whether I said Simon Says or not, most of the kids did it. It was a bit frustrating. So I decided to then sing some songs like Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and London Bridge Is Falling Down. One of the teachers was nice enough to even accompany me on the piano. Unfortunately, half way through both songs, I realized that I forgot the lyrics to both of them! Yup, I was beginning to run out of ideas. Next, I reverted to a game called Red Light, Green Light, which I'm sure you all know. The rules are pretty simple, and I think I really got through to the kids when I explained it to them. So I started them off by just having them march in place and stop. They seemed to do really well, so we tried lining them up behind me as we marched around the room continuing to play Red Light, Green Light. But I was foiled again, because the first time I said "Red Light!" all of the kids scrambled in a mad rush back to their seats. This went on for a little bit until the teacher helped me out, told them they were wrong, and demonstrated with me. After this, they finally got the hang of it, and we stuck to the Red Light, Green Light for a long while (especially because I had exhausted pretty much all of my ideas, and this was the first success that I was able to pull off there). After a good bit, the teacher said that "it's okay" and they let me take a break. By the way, there are 2-3 teachers per class to tag team these kids because the kids are easily distracted and the job is very exhausting. During my break, I checked out Malcolm's room and he seemed to be doing well drawing out animals as the kids tried guessing them. In my classroom, one of the other teachers played the piano as the kids sang along. After my 5 minute break, they had me read a book to them. This was probably the best part of the class. I didn't have to over think too much on keeping their attention because the book was displayed through a projector with the pictures. I also liked acting out the book to the best of my abilities so that the kids would follow along. I would read each page twice and have them repeat me after every word. After reading 1.5 books, Robbie (the guy in charge of us at the new school) told me that time was up and I was good to go. After speaking with the rest of the guys, we all agreed that it was brutal and that we'll have to be more prepared for next time.
Got some of those flat noodles again (The Xi'an special called Bian Bian Mien I think) with the rest of the Alliance students. Very delicious.
I passed out afterwards, woke up later and played some Assassin/Mafia. I was finally picked to be the killer and I ended up killing everyone. I then 'studied' -- well sort of, late into the night.
March 1 (Tuesday) - The class today wasn't as good as Monday -- I was much less prepared. The history class was still on the Neolithic age, but we finally finished it up.
Afterwards we (Margaux, Malcolm, and I) grabbed some food at the restaurant next to the hotel which was actually a very fancy place. Malcolm and Margaux got KungPao Chicken. I pointed to something on the menu and it turned out to be beef, nappa (a Chinese cabbage), and mushrooms -- which sounds great. However, it turned out to be pretty gross because all of it was bathed in chili oil. When I say bathed, I mean like they gave me a bowl of chili oil with the various food submerged in it somewhere. I think it would have been a whole lot better if they took all of the things of substance from the bowl, drained out the oil, and fried it up or something, but it was just submerged in oil making it not so appealing. Malcolm and Margaux were asking me how much money I would want to drink the chili oil. I said 1000 kuai but that wasn't going to happen. We then went back, met Mery (Mi Ting's friend from Australia) and chatted for a bit before watching Detective Dee in Gao's and My room on my new monitor. It was an interesting movie about a Chinese detective solving a mystery kung fu style with a lot of weird supernatural stuff going on in the background.
March 2 (Wednesday) - had a one on one session going over the mistakes on each of our tests (at least for my class). I ended up being held up an extra 25 minutes (since I had a lot of mistakes probably). I didn't realize the passed time though and missed my meeting with Darren and Andrew (the Silk Road/History course teacher) to talk about my Capstone Project which is a research project that each Alliance student has to do during their time in China. I luckily ran into Andrew on my way back and we talked about potential projects. I didn't have many ideas about what I wanted to do, but Malcolm suggested doing a project on Martial Arts in China and on the Silk Road. After running the idea by Andrew, I decided to do it since it sounds really interesting and the material seems to be ascertainable.
A small group of us then grabbed food on Shir Da Lu (the road that our University is on). We then went to Vangard (the local supermarket/mart) on Changan Nan Lu (the road that Shir Da Lu intersects with). I got a soccer ball and ping pong paddle, while everyone else got peanut butter.
We then headed back and studied a bit. Xie Miao, made some tea in a traditional style (Gong fu cha) with oolong leaves. It was very good! I'm no tea expert, or enthusiast for that matter, but it was really great and it was really neat to observe this type of tea making/serving style.
After studying a bit more, Margaux and I kicked around the soccer ball for a bit at the field in the University before grabbing some baozi, fruit, and onion bread for dinner on the way back to the hotel. All of it was delicious, filling, and inexpensive.
March 3 (Thursday) - Had class pretty much all day, got some baozi from the place adjacent to the hotel. 3 baozi were 1.9 kuai and they didn't disappoint! After class I studied a bit, and kicked the soccer ball around in the hallway as a break before studying some more (the soccer ball was a great investment!). We also had a small jam sesh in Malcolm and Zhang's room. They both play the guitar, and Joe plays the drums along with many singers.
Here's a small clip, it's a bit blurry, but here's a taste of how it was like:
March 3, 2011 First Alliance Jamming in Xi'an Spring 2011
March 4 (Friday) - A couple hours after class we all headed to the Terracotta Warriors. It was about 45 minutes to get there. We watched a small 360degree movie on the history of the Terracotta Warriors before heading to the actual site. I'm not going to lie, it was pretty cool at first, but after a few minutes of checking them out, there didn't really seem to be all too much else to see. I was a little bit disappointed because I was expecting to see a whole whole lot of soldiers, but there weren't nearly as many as I thought there would be. I would go a second time, but probably not a third time. There was a saying that Wang (Patrick's roommate) told Patrick that pretty much said: "If you come to Xi'an and don't see the Terracotta Warriors you'll regret it, but if you do go and see them, then you'll regret it even more."
Despite, the Terracotta Warriors being a slight buzz kill, they are still very interesting in a historical light and I'm glad that I got to see them for sure!
When we got back, we grabbed some food and headed back. A few of us (Malcolm, Zhang [Malcolm's roommate], Zhang's friend, Joe, Margaux, and myself) headed out to billiards and shot some pool for a while. On our way we grabbed some food. Joe and I got these sandwich deep/stir fried snack which was, like everything else, pretty delicious! We then played some Assassin before going to sleep (well a few went out, but the rest of us were pretty pooped).March 5 (Saturday) - Went on the "Hash Run" with the Hash House Harriers (you could look them up online ... but essentially, they're all about running followed by drinking). The run was pretty cool, but also a little frustrating. Part of the whole hash run is hitting a fork (or two arrows pointing in two separate directions) and finding the right path. So if you found another arrow, then you would know that you took the correct route and shout "On On!" so everyone will know which way is right. What made it more difficult though was that the arrows were sometimes a bit faint (maybe by some street sweepers with OCD or store owners throwing water out on the sidewalk) or covered up by cars or massive amounts of people just walking on the streets. The "leader" (AKA the guy who drew the arrows) of today's run was actually the teacher for the Silk Road and History course, Andrew. It was pretty neat getting to see him outside of the classroom environment. He said that the course was maybe 3.5 miles, so not all too bad. I ended up finishing pretty early at the top of the pack and we waited at the end point until everyone else got there. We then did some Hash House Harrier traditions met everyone and ate a whole lot of delicious food.
We eventually made it to a German bar (I think Belgium something?) with the hashers. Later that night we got back and stayed up pretty late just chilling, chatting, and watching Joe's very own documentary "Wisdom Teeth." The last of us eventually fell asleep around 6am.
March 6 (Sunday) - Today I met up with Jocelyn (friend from UMBC who goes to school in Xi'an as well) and showed her around the campus after grabbing some of the Bian Bian Mien (so good!) We studied a bit afterwards and then grabbed some Ro Jia Mo (Also really good!) She then had to head back to her school which is North West I think? But pretty much spent the rest of the night studying for Monday.
March 7 (Monday) - Today, class went great! Zhang Laoshi had to go over the lesson again since we finished so quickly! After that, we grabbed a quick bite from the underground before heading out to our weekly meeting for the Alliance peeps. Unfortunately, Malcolm, Sean, Patrick, and I were all dreading going to teach the little kiddies (after all, last time was a horror story). This time though, it wasn't too bad at all. Only Malcolm went to the new school this time, while Sean, Patrick, and I stayed at the old school. We started off by going outside joined by all the kids. As music began to play, the children followed the teachers up front as they led in a coordinated dance. At 3:00 on the dot the kids headed back inside and we were sent in to our individual classes to do our thing. This time, I was ready. I had prepared a flash drive with 10 animals on it. We plugged it in and I asked them if they knew each of the animals and what sound they make. It was soon followed by some Old McDonald (I sang it differently then them... so they were a little lost -- but still over all, better than last time). I then was taught some cool games by the teachers to teach to the children which was really helpful. I taught a second class the same lesson, and then got to take a break in the teacher's room with a few of the teachers which was really fun. We went over some of the things that we could do, but mostly just ate some snacks and chatted it up. After leaving, we played some Mafia with a bunch of Zhang's (Malcolm's roommate -- hope I spelled his name right) friends before grabbing some food.
Sean, Malcolm, and I went to the usual restaurant and I finally got the tofu that I had been dreaming about for days. We then spent the rest of the night studying it up.
March 8 (Tuesday) - Lots of class today. When we got out of class, one by one, each of us ended up in Malcolm's room as we followed the sound of his guitar. Some of us sang, and when Joe got back we got some percussion in there. Darren came in too as well as Mery and her fellow Australian friend. I thought it was so great how the power of music could bring everyone together (yeah, that sounded really cheesy, but it was true). Later on, we watched a Hong Kong Comedy, I forget the name, but Gao set it up on his computer. I thought it was pretty funny, not as hilarious as Gao described (probably just because of the language barrier) but it was still really comical. It just goes to show that comedy can transcend language barriers.
March 9 (Wednesday) - Today I slept in, went to my one on one session, it went really well. Then I grabbed lunch with Xie Miao, Margaux, Gao, and a couple of his friends. We ended up going to the "Calligraphy Street" I believe? The street was just inside the South gate of the city wall. It was really awesome because there were a whole lot of street vendors selling things that I'd actually want to buy (calligraphy brushes, jades, seals [like stamps], these cool flute things that may very well be ocarinas [which I did end up purchasing for 7 kuai] amongst many other things). We also stopped into a building/house/museum/art gallery where they had a bunch of Chinese paintings on sale. I thought that it was cool because it was a classic textbook scene. American student goes with his roommate and checks out the Chinese paintings (zhong gua hua) and oil paintings (you hua) and talk about them. Just last week, I was thinking that we'd never use the vocabs, but they proved me wrong indeed.
We then went to a street between the wall and our school to find some bikes. It was difficult to find some second hand bikes, but a couple of us were able to get some (unfortunately not myself).
As they rode back on bikes, the remaining of us walked back and saw some interesting things, such as the silver/golden dragon fish, or the extremely fluffy dog that was way cute.
Eventually we got back in time to go to hot pot, and it was the best hot pot yet! We had lamb (yang ro), beef (neo ro), spinach (buo cai), mushroom (mo gu), quail egg, shrimp balls, noodles, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and fruit (not bathed in the hot pot).
We headed back and played mafia. I was the killer again, and once again succeeded in killing everyone (the feeling is very similar to Death Note which his a bad kind of thrill until it's all over).
March 10 (Thursday) - Woke up at 6:15 to get ready to head out by 7:00 to the bullet train to Luoyang for our extended weekend trip. We caught the train alright and it was pretty cool because I think the train could reach 350 kilometers per hour? When we got there, we were greeted by Joe our Tour Guide who is native to Luoyang. The hotel was very spacious and had a whole lot of TV channels which was different than what we were used to in Xi'an (of course it didn't have the same kind of view like our place and Luoyang's city isn't as cool or traditional as Xi'an), but it was a nice temporary change.
We quickly headed out towards the Longmen Grottoes which was really amazing. There were carvings within the wall of buddahs. A lot of buddahs. From the collossal sized buddahs (a buddah taking on the image of Emperess Wu) to the smaller buddahs sitting along the walls maybe a couple inches tall.
After the grottoes, we went to Dinner at a muslim restaurant that tried ripping us off a little bit in the end. Darren impressed us all by standing up against the manger battling it out in Chinese.
March 11 (Friday) - Got up early to hit up the Shaolin Temple. When we started getting close, we could see a ton of schools congested with students practicing kung fu. I think they said that there were 50,000 students just in the area studying kung fu.
When we got there, we got to sit in on a performance by a few of the most skilled martial artists in the area. It was really cool!
Anyways, half way through, they had a little competition where they pull up 3 people from the audience to try to imitate 3 different styled kung fu teachers. The winner wins a DVD of the shaolin performances or history or something. Patrick and I both volunteered and were selected to go up with a final happy middle aged looking guy. We had no idea what the spokesperson was saying, but we followed as best we could. The other guy was first and was pretty comical with his moves. I don't remember what style he was doing, but I'm thinking it was tiger. Patrick's teacher was doing the mantis style and he ended up doing really well. My teacher's style was the monkey style which didn't have any cool floor sweeps, high kicks, or cartwheels which I think I could have done. I however prevailed with a kip up and ended up winning the DVD! Sean caught some of the footage for me which I will put up and attach in a later post (It takes me forever to upload videos with my super slow proxy).
Afterwards, I purchased a three-section-staff and Patrick finally got his feiyues. When we got out, we saw a couple of small monkeys that were really cute! I'll put some footage of that post up later as well.
We then looked around and saw some of the stupas (Buddist buildings that pagodas are based off of).
After grabbing some McDonald's, we went to a martial arts school. It was really neat because we got to see first hand what it's like for the students in the school as well as the harsh reality of students sent there at an early age to study. Most end up being sucked up into the world of martial arts without having much of a say in what they want to do. Day in and day out they train and train and train. I always thought it was cool to study the discipline of kungfu like them, but now I realize how much I take the freedom to decide what I want to do for granted.
Four of the top students taught us part of a kung fu form after the tour of the school. It really enjoyed it! It reminded me of wushu back at home which I was kind of itching to do.
When we got back, we ended up going to a big disco bar and danced the night away.
March 12 (Saturday) - We went to see the White Horse Pagoda/Temple (which is supposedly where Buddhism started in China) so very interesting. However, by this point, we had seen many many many Buddha stuffs, so we only stuck around for a bit before heading to the Old Town where we were able to see Luoyang in a candid nature. We saw a nursing home where the elderly reside as well as the streets filled with street vendors selling foods and afterlife money, parents picking up kids from school on their bicycles, and the friendly dogs running around as they please.
We were able to get taught by the second best painter in Luoyang I believe? She is well known for her pictures of flowers. She taught us how to draw the basic flower. Mine didn't come out all too well...but Sean's was good enough for her to touch up and complete for him.
We then rushed out so that we could make it to the Bullet Train in time to get back to Xi'an.
An unfortunate animal was shot down by the bullet train!
Final remark: Things are still awesome here though the work is beginning to pile up, but it's nothing that I can't handle! I'll try to update you guys sooner next time!
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Singing and Laughing
Thoughts so far:
So far, everything has been wonderful. Of course there are minor frustrating things, but nothing too terrible to throw me into the "culture shock" that everyone warns me (and other study abroad students) about.
I like the idea of trust here in China. It just seems like people trust each other a lot more. i.e. anyone buys fireworks and lights them off themselves on the day of the Lantern Festival. Also walking back at 1:30 in the morning, we passed a police officer that didn't seem the least bit suspicious of us even though we were in the Teacher Housing area and we certainly don't look like teachers -- (more details on how we got there on Feb 25).
I like how lots of things are cheap here or at least bargainable. Getting enough food for breakfast, lunch, or even dinner could cost maybe 3 kuai each = less than 50cents USD.
Feb 23 (Wednesday) - Had a "one-on-one" session with my teacher Zhang Laoshi. Margaux introduced me to the underground market underneath the convenient store where I could get some noodles for 3 kuai. I love it because it's cheap and convenient with a large variety of foods. They also have a bakery, fruit stands, meat stands, etc.
Attempted to study today, but constantly got distracted from sleep and an undying need to do laundry. To complete the laundry task, I first needed to retrieve detergent. To complete the task of retrieving detergent, I first needed to get some moolah. To get some moolah, I needed to first go to the ATM and use my newly acquired bank card (got it like last week) and take out some cash. It wasn't too bad, I went to the wrong ATM by accident, but they still gave me what I needed for probably a very small service fee (I'm thinking 3 kuai). After folding my receipt into my wallet, I reached for my ATM card, but as I touched it, the card was absorbed back into the ATM. It then flashed a number to call for 2 seconds and went back to the welcome screen. Essentially, in the time it took for me to put away my receipt, the card safety timer timed out and ate my card. I would have to go to the bank the next day to retrieve it.
It was alright though, because I was able to withdraw money and pay for detergent and some snacks.
As I went to do the laundry back at the hotel, I got extremely confused by the Chinese washers. In the end, I overloaded one of them, and the other one never drained the water. Fortunately, a guy who also happened to be doing his laundry knew English and Chinese really well and assisted me. It was still annoying to not have a dryer. The room was then filled with hanging clothes all over the place as they raced to dry.
For dinner, I got a bowl of wonton soup for 3 kuai with Margaux and Patrick and sat it the mini tables out on the street. Food was excellent, and once again, very inexpensive. It was kind of funny sitting at the seats though because I felt like we were grown ups playing tea party with a young girl since everything seemed miniature, but it was great all the same. I really enjoyed being outside, having the wontons fresh from the stand, and just relaxing and eating as the local people passed by with their busy selves.
Feb 24 (Thursday) - It's the day before the big exam (exam on Friday on sections 15 and 16). But before studying, Joe, Crystal, Malcolm, Darren, and myself all went out to a local Xi'an place with a Xianese noodle specialty for cheap. These noodles were fat and flat and very tasty. It was a great precursor to intense studying for the rest of the night.
Feb 25 (Friday)- Test time! Don't really know how well I did -- either really good, or really bad, hopefully the former. At 2:00 we met our Chinese roommates! They all seem pretty cool, each seeming to match flawlessly with their American counterpart. We all went to KTV (karaoke) and sang some songs (yeah, it's kind of an awkward way to meet people at first... but there were many instant connections). I hopped in on some Maroon 5 (This Love) and a couple others. It was a success, and we ended up playing a couple games of Mafia/Werewolf/Drug dealer/Assassin followed by, once again, delicious food.
Gao is my roommate and like his name suggests, he is certainly a tall guy. I didn't speak to him all too much in the beginning when we were still unsure of our roommates, but when we did find out, we instantly connected and I'm sure living with him will be great! It's also helpful that his knowledge on English is pretty good (since I'm still a noob at Chinese) though I try to speak in Chinese to him when I think I could compose a sentence correctly.
We ended up going out tonight -- well all of the American students plus Gao and Mi (Crystal's roommate). We went to a local bar, and played some Kings and Mafia/Assassin/Drug dealer/Werewolf which is becoming a very popular game here because of how super fun it is.
On the way back though, the gate was closed. This meant having to walk all the way around the perimeter of the campus to get into the other entrance. Half of us wouldn't take it. Sean, Joe, Malcolm, and I, climbed through a hole in the wall finding ourselves standing on a whole lot of debris (all I could think of was, "I really hope we don't step on any land mines out here..." [though it is highly implausible that they would have any]). There was then another wall that we climbed with the help of an adjacent tree. After climbing the second wall we were home free and back in the hotel long before the other half of the group. All I could say is night well spent.
Feb 26 (Saturday) - This morning Sean showed me this street vendor selling something like a breakfast burrito/omelet/egg roll thing. It had some vegetables, protein, and crunchy in it and it did not disappoint for cost or taste. It was 3 kai, tasty, and hit the spot.
Went to the Muslim area of Xi'an -- kind of forget the name of it, but it was very cool. To get there we went through a Chinese Bazaar like place which reminded me a lot of the Turkish Bazaar that I visited a couple years ago (except here it was a lot colder and smaller). But we finally got to the gate where we were welcomed by Bai Laoshi. He taught us a lot about the history of Islam and how it reached China. The architecture there was very cool and Bai Laoshi was very kind, welcoming and informative in his lecture on the Muslim areas and populations here in China.
Unfortunately, it was pretty cold and we all had to retreat a little earlier than we wanted to to find a quaint restaurant with delicious soup-like lamb/beef, noodles, and soft bread pieces. We'll definitely be going back to that area when it gets a little warmer. We ended up trying to hail a taxi for quite a while until a bread van/taxi came and took us back. It was a bit cramped and not everyone had a seat, and most people got car sick, and it took a while, but it was an interesting ride nonetheless.
All in all, there were still quite a few pleasant surprises and exciting events this week. There were also a few hurdles, but we're taking each hurdle one stride at a time and I'm pretty psyched for more fun to come!
So far, everything has been wonderful. Of course there are minor frustrating things, but nothing too terrible to throw me into the "culture shock" that everyone warns me (and other study abroad students) about.
I like the idea of trust here in China. It just seems like people trust each other a lot more. i.e. anyone buys fireworks and lights them off themselves on the day of the Lantern Festival. Also walking back at 1:30 in the morning, we passed a police officer that didn't seem the least bit suspicious of us even though we were in the Teacher Housing area and we certainly don't look like teachers -- (more details on how we got there on Feb 25).
I like how lots of things are cheap here or at least bargainable. Getting enough food for breakfast, lunch, or even dinner could cost maybe 3 kuai each = less than 50cents USD.
Feb 23 (Wednesday) - Had a "one-on-one" session with my teacher Zhang Laoshi. Margaux introduced me to the underground market underneath the convenient store where I could get some noodles for 3 kuai. I love it because it's cheap and convenient with a large variety of foods. They also have a bakery, fruit stands, meat stands, etc.
Attempted to study today, but constantly got distracted from sleep and an undying need to do laundry. To complete the laundry task, I first needed to retrieve detergent. To complete the task of retrieving detergent, I first needed to get some moolah. To get some moolah, I needed to first go to the ATM and use my newly acquired bank card (got it like last week) and take out some cash. It wasn't too bad, I went to the wrong ATM by accident, but they still gave me what I needed for probably a very small service fee (I'm thinking 3 kuai). After folding my receipt into my wallet, I reached for my ATM card, but as I touched it, the card was absorbed back into the ATM. It then flashed a number to call for 2 seconds and went back to the welcome screen. Essentially, in the time it took for me to put away my receipt, the card safety timer timed out and ate my card. I would have to go to the bank the next day to retrieve it.
It was alright though, because I was able to withdraw money and pay for detergent and some snacks.
As I went to do the laundry back at the hotel, I got extremely confused by the Chinese washers. In the end, I overloaded one of them, and the other one never drained the water. Fortunately, a guy who also happened to be doing his laundry knew English and Chinese really well and assisted me. It was still annoying to not have a dryer. The room was then filled with hanging clothes all over the place as they raced to dry.
For dinner, I got a bowl of wonton soup for 3 kuai with Margaux and Patrick and sat it the mini tables out on the street. Food was excellent, and once again, very inexpensive. It was kind of funny sitting at the seats though because I felt like we were grown ups playing tea party with a young girl since everything seemed miniature, but it was great all the same. I really enjoyed being outside, having the wontons fresh from the stand, and just relaxing and eating as the local people passed by with their busy selves.
Feb 24 (Thursday) - It's the day before the big exam (exam on Friday on sections 15 and 16). But before studying, Joe, Crystal, Malcolm, Darren, and myself all went out to a local Xi'an place with a Xianese noodle specialty for cheap. These noodles were fat and flat and very tasty. It was a great precursor to intense studying for the rest of the night.
Feb 25 (Friday)- Test time! Don't really know how well I did -- either really good, or really bad, hopefully the former. At 2:00 we met our Chinese roommates! They all seem pretty cool, each seeming to match flawlessly with their American counterpart. We all went to KTV (karaoke) and sang some songs (yeah, it's kind of an awkward way to meet people at first... but there were many instant connections). I hopped in on some Maroon 5 (This Love) and a couple others. It was a success, and we ended up playing a couple games of Mafia/Werewolf/Drug dealer/Assassin followed by, once again, delicious food.
Gao is my roommate and like his name suggests, he is certainly a tall guy. I didn't speak to him all too much in the beginning when we were still unsure of our roommates, but when we did find out, we instantly connected and I'm sure living with him will be great! It's also helpful that his knowledge on English is pretty good (since I'm still a noob at Chinese) though I try to speak in Chinese to him when I think I could compose a sentence correctly.
We ended up going out tonight -- well all of the American students plus Gao and Mi (Crystal's roommate). We went to a local bar, and played some Kings and Mafia/Assassin/Drug dealer/Werewolf which is becoming a very popular game here because of how super fun it is.
On the way back though, the gate was closed. This meant having to walk all the way around the perimeter of the campus to get into the other entrance. Half of us wouldn't take it. Sean, Joe, Malcolm, and I, climbed through a hole in the wall finding ourselves standing on a whole lot of debris (all I could think of was, "I really hope we don't step on any land mines out here..." [though it is highly implausible that they would have any]). There was then another wall that we climbed with the help of an adjacent tree. After climbing the second wall we were home free and back in the hotel long before the other half of the group. All I could say is night well spent.
Feb 26 (Saturday) - This morning Sean showed me this street vendor selling something like a breakfast burrito/omelet/egg roll thing. It had some vegetables, protein, and crunchy in it and it did not disappoint for cost or taste. It was 3 kai, tasty, and hit the spot.
Went to the Muslim area of Xi'an -- kind of forget the name of it, but it was very cool. To get there we went through a Chinese Bazaar like place which reminded me a lot of the Turkish Bazaar that I visited a couple years ago (except here it was a lot colder and smaller). But we finally got to the gate where we were welcomed by Bai Laoshi. He taught us a lot about the history of Islam and how it reached China. The architecture there was very cool and Bai Laoshi was very kind, welcoming and informative in his lecture on the Muslim areas and populations here in China.
All in all, there were still quite a few pleasant surprises and exciting events this week. There were also a few hurdles, but we're taking each hurdle one stride at a time and I'm pretty psyched for more fun to come!
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
China - A First Dose of Awesomeness
I'm pretty new to this whole blog thing, and I guess I may have started a little later than I should have because there's so much that has happened over the past 11 days that I've been in China that explaining it all in one single blog post will do any of them justice... however I'm going to do my best to try.
Day 1 (Feb 8/Feb9) - Connected to Chicago from BWI Airport and met up with the rest of the students flying in the suggested group flight by Alliance (you can check out this program at: http://www.allianceglobaled.org/) Just if you happen to find yourself interested at any point along the way.
Here our quickly bonded small group got on the flight from Chicago to Beijing. The trip took about 12/13 hours and it was kind of neat because we flew over the North Pole which I thought was pretty interesting. I believe the temperature over that spot was around -60/70 something degrees Fahrenheit.
On the trip over, for dinner, we got Ramen Noodles or some equivalent to it which I thought was kind of funny, but I definitely was not upset.
We landed in Beijing in the late afternoon with the forecast saying: smoky
We got through immigration easy enough and made our way to the baggage claim. After a long while of waiting and retrieving bags, we headed to the "white dragon wall" which we were all baffled about... until we got there. Here we met up with others who had arrived earlier/on independent flights as well as Han Bing who is the director of the Beijing Program. The plan is for Xian students to chill in Beijing with the BLCU students for a few days for orientation before actually heading out to Beijing.
When we finally got the BLCU, we quickly dropped our bags off in our rooms.
I roomed with Patrick who is in the Xian Program as well (by the way, this semester there are 7 Xian students and something like 23 or 24 Beijing students). Here we also met the Xian Director, Darren Wright. But we quickly made our way back for the first dinner in China. It was pretty good to say the least, but the main attraction was the Peking Duck -- that was pretty delicious.
At BLCU, there isn't any internet in the dorms -- or wireless at least so we had to go to Han Bing's office to use it. Unfortunately, if you don't know, China censors some sites such as Facebook, Youtube, and even my school's (UMBC's) gmail account. So pretty much all I was able to do was email my family and head back where I quickly fell asleep.
Day 2 (Feb 10) - Went to breakfast where I, along with many others got Jiu (I believe? I'm used to calling it Jook from a Cantonese American standpoint, but it's essentially rice porridge) and it was the best I've had before. I also got a Baozi (? which are steamed buns with meat or vegetables in the middle) which was delicious.
The rest of this day mostly consisted of orientation stuff and important information.
For dinner, we had the same food as the night before with the Language teachers for the Beijing students. It was definitely awkward for me not knowing much Chinese -- especially not enough to communicate with the teachers.
This night I tried going out to Lush (an internet bar like place) but my computer died 5 minutes after turning it on and the internet was REALLY slow. So after a while I gave up and headed back where I once again, quickly fell asleep.
Day 3 (Feb 11) - We (the Xian students) packed our luggage to be shipped to Xian early.
Got some breakfast at a pastry place. I got a flaky hotdog pastry thing which was pretty delicious. We then raced back to take our placement tests.
This test was extremely difficult and I probably completed about 20% of it. If that paper exam wasn't discouraging enough, the oral exam had to rub it in some more. Here, probably more English was spoken than Chinese. Once it was over and I walked out of the room, I heard chuckles and snickers of amusement from my ignorance of the language.
I made my way back and sulked as I watched some ping pong on TV.
Later on though I realized that many people felt like the exam was crazy, insane, and demoralizing which made me feel a bit better.
We (Xian students+Darren) then grabbed lunch at Pyro's Pizza which was tasty and amusing because they had TV's showing a game show that was pretty hilarious. Nothing I've ever seen in the US.
From there we grabbed the metro and made our way to the Tiananmen Square/Forbidden City which was really neat! The architecture and history behind it was really interesting.
We then made our way to the Night Market or Market Street where they sold a variety of random foods ranging from your basic dumplings and baozi to starfish and seahorse to scorpions and silkworms. I personally ate 1.75 snakes (the spices on it were pretty good, but the spine bone took some working at), 2 scorpians (tasty, crunchy, highly advised), 1 seahorse (crunchy, much harder than the scorpion, bathed in a lot of garlic which made it spicy and strong... it was alright I guess), and a silkworm (The worst of them all. Crunchy on the outside, gooey on the inside, tastes horrid, somehow I downed it, but no one else really did)
After that, we saw an acrobat show with the following performances:
Day 4 (Feb 12) Dayplan: Great Wall!
We (Xian students + Darren) headed out early on a 2 hour ride accompanied by Omar Ali, a former director in the Alliance Program. When we got to our drop off point, I took a look around in this town/farm and it looked just like a setting in a movie. Down to to the wandering mules and dogs, to the high stack of sticks neatly placed upon each other next to the walls of the houses. The scenery around it was beautiful. The mountains stretched all around us, overgrown with trees and blanketed by freshly fallen snow.
We were greeted here by a farmer who managed the village. He was very kind and accommodating. But we didn't stick around for too long since we had a long hike ahead of us.
We started ascending from his backyard and continued from there on a path that Omar knew all too well (he'd hiked this path probably 20 times before this day). There were some very very steep parts and some areas where the drop was pretty intimidating. We hiked up for maybe 45 minutes to an hour until we finally came upon The Wall. We were able to get in and stand on it and admire the depth of the surrounding mountains along with the trees and plains that colored them. The contrast from the freshly fallen snow only added to the breathlessness that had befallen us (from awe – not hiking).
The wall was covered in overgrowth and was well worn by the elements, but I wouldn't have had it any other way. I haven't been to the more touristy areas of the Great Wall, but I think seeing this spot was perfect because it seemed very natural, like uncharted territory, off the beaten path, or the road less traveled. It was like discovering something new and untouched by industry and profiteers.
The day was perfect, it was cold, but not too cold. It was sunny and the rays of light warmed us as we hiked. The sky was clear and blue, and the mountain air had the freshest smell yet in China. And when you stopped and listened, you can hear the wind blowing over the mountains and through the trees in harmony.
We hiked up to 3 or so towers and then turned around and headed back. Hiking back was much faster but a little more dangerous. There was lots of falling, slipping, and sliding, but fortunately no casualties and no serious injuries.
When we got back to the farmer's house, his wife, had dinner prepared for us. It was the best meal yet. The dishes included eggplant, mushrooms, bok choy, donkey, beef, pork, pork ribs, string beans, and more. They also had a lot of almonds that they let us eat that were indigenous from the area. Everything was delightful, but we had to be on our way back to the university. Here we would pick up our bags and head to the train station so that we can catch a sleeper train to Xi'an.
When we got to the station with our remaining luggage we had to wait in line for a bit. Here we received a lot of stares from the others waiting in the station. I was approached by an older Chinese man with a long green coat who was having a one way conversation with me. All I could do is sit there awkwardly as he began criticizing me for not knowing Chinese (as I later found out). The stares did not stop.
We didn't stand in line for much longer though until we headed onto the sleeper trains which had these rooms that were probably 8-10 feet in length, maybe 6-8 feet in width, and about 14-18 feet in height. There was a doorway in the middle and two bunks on both sides when you enter. There's also an additional two bunks above each of the bottom bunks. Once we got settled in, I was out like a light.
Day 5 (Feb 13) Arrival in Xian
We finally arrive in Xian around 7 or 8 and grabbed a van to Shaanxi Normal University where we will be residing at for the remainder of our study abroad in China. We arrived at our dorm/hotel (it really is a hotel on campus) and got our room key cards. When we checked out our rooms on the 10th floor (essentially the top floor) we were pleasantly surprised to see that we each had balconies overlooking the city, and a nice hotel set up inside the rooms (this includes room service and supply replacement).
We went out to lunch with our area studies teachers at a local place just outside our university. The food was once again the best yet. There was tofu with the most delicious sauce, this mashed up cartilage in vinegar type dish, some eggplant that was tasty, nappa and peppers which was also great, sweet and sour chicken, deep fried mushrooms and a couple more dishes with rice, tea, and a popular Xi'an drink: bing feng – it’s similar to orange soda.
Day 6 (Feb 14) - Had the hottest noodles yet here for lunch with the language teachers.
Ate some ro jia mo (like a pulled pork sandwich) and went onto the city wall with the New Year decorations still in full swing. They were cool to look at especially when it got dark and they all lit up!
Feb 15 - Hit up the playground early with Patrick and Sean. There was a middle aged gentleman there that was dressed up in a shirt and tie with a nice leather jacket, but he was there for the same reason as us -- to get in a good workout. He was good too - he some how swung back and forth on these parallel bars and ended up inverted as he started doing different exercises.
Today was the first day of classes for us, and they were difficult -- well the language class was. But I feel optimistic that things will get better over time.
Went to the cafeteria to eat which is a great place if you're trying to save some money because, you could easily eat there for under a dollar. The food quality is alright, but not amazing, it's filling, but they don't have any drinks surprisingly.
We grabbed dinner with Darren which was great once again. I did one of the scratch off taxes things (they give you a sort of lotto scratcher thing where you can win money for free after eating at their place as a thing to make sure that they're paying their taxes or something like that) -- but I won 5 kuai, so it was a pleasant surprise -- I'm not used to winning anything that involves luck.
Later, Darren, Sean, Joe, and I all played some Mahjong out in the hallway before we headed off to sleep.
Feb 17 (Thursday) - Lantern Festival - Fireworks were going off nonstop from the early morning to the wee hours in the night. Some of us went to check out some of the fireworks being launched off on the main road close to the university (Changan Nan Lu) where we certainly saw the fireworks close up...
Later on, we all went out and checked out the fireworks from our dorm which was really cool because fireworks could be seen everywhere all over the city, some very near to us and some out in the distance. There were also some that were very close to buildings (in fact they were partially hitting the buildings) but no one seemed scared or panicked. It was merely part of the celebration.
Doing homework that night was not easy with the fireworks distracting us and everyone being sick and exhausted.
Feb 18 - Toured the Big Wild Goose Pagoda and the Ci'en Temple. Learned a little more about Buddhism and some of the Buddhas.
We climbed up to the top of the Pagoda and got a nice view of Xi'an from up there. Unfortunately, it was foggy and our vision was cut a little short. But it was still cool being able to see around the area since they didn't build structures high in this particular area.
Feb 19 - Went to a potty place ans spun some clay on a wheel. It was a good time except for the part where my clay pot kept falling apart and having to restart.
Feb 21 - Played Ping Pong for the first time here in China with Joe, then went to a computer city like place? It was giant! Each floor had a different specialty whether it be cameras, external monitors, software and webcams with competing companies scattered about creating a labyrinth of market.
Feb 22 - Field trip! Went to the Banpo Museum - an excavation site of one of the earliest signs of civilization in China from the Neolithic Age. There were lots of pots, bones/skeletons, and other early tools of these ancient civilizations.
That's all for now (wow, that was a lot!). It's been a great first dose of awesomeness here in China!
Over and out.
Day 1 (Feb 8/Feb9) - Connected to Chicago from BWI Airport and met up with the rest of the students flying in the suggested group flight by Alliance (you can check out this program at: http://www.allianceglobaled.org/) Just if you happen to find yourself interested at any point along the way.
Here our quickly bonded small group got on the flight from Chicago to Beijing. The trip took about 12/13 hours and it was kind of neat because we flew over the North Pole which I thought was pretty interesting. I believe the temperature over that spot was around -60/70 something degrees Fahrenheit.
On the trip over, for dinner, we got Ramen Noodles or some equivalent to it which I thought was kind of funny, but I definitely was not upset.
We landed in Beijing in the late afternoon with the forecast saying: smoky
We got through immigration easy enough and made our way to the baggage claim. After a long while of waiting and retrieving bags, we headed to the "white dragon wall" which we were all baffled about... until we got there. Here we met up with others who had arrived earlier/on independent flights as well as Han Bing who is the director of the Beijing Program. The plan is for Xian students to chill in Beijing with the BLCU students for a few days for orientation before actually heading out to Beijing.
When we finally got the BLCU, we quickly dropped our bags off in our rooms.
I roomed with Patrick who is in the Xian Program as well (by the way, this semester there are 7 Xian students and something like 23 or 24 Beijing students). Here we also met the Xian Director, Darren Wright. But we quickly made our way back for the first dinner in China. It was pretty good to say the least, but the main attraction was the Peking Duck -- that was pretty delicious.
At BLCU, there isn't any internet in the dorms -- or wireless at least so we had to go to Han Bing's office to use it. Unfortunately, if you don't know, China censors some sites such as Facebook, Youtube, and even my school's (UMBC's) gmail account. So pretty much all I was able to do was email my family and head back where I quickly fell asleep.
Day 2 (Feb 10) - Went to breakfast where I, along with many others got Jiu (I believe? I'm used to calling it Jook from a Cantonese American standpoint, but it's essentially rice porridge) and it was the best I've had before. I also got a Baozi (? which are steamed buns with meat or vegetables in the middle) which was delicious.
The rest of this day mostly consisted of orientation stuff and important information.
For dinner, we had the same food as the night before with the Language teachers for the Beijing students. It was definitely awkward for me not knowing much Chinese -- especially not enough to communicate with the teachers.
This night I tried going out to Lush (an internet bar like place) but my computer died 5 minutes after turning it on and the internet was REALLY slow. So after a while I gave up and headed back where I once again, quickly fell asleep.
Day 3 (Feb 11) - We (the Xian students) packed our luggage to be shipped to Xian early.
Got some breakfast at a pastry place. I got a flaky hotdog pastry thing which was pretty delicious. We then raced back to take our placement tests.
This test was extremely difficult and I probably completed about 20% of it. If that paper exam wasn't discouraging enough, the oral exam had to rub it in some more. Here, probably more English was spoken than Chinese. Once it was over and I walked out of the room, I heard chuckles and snickers of amusement from my ignorance of the language.
I made my way back and sulked as I watched some ping pong on TV.
Later on though I realized that many people felt like the exam was crazy, insane, and demoralizing which made me feel a bit better.
We (Xian students+Darren) then grabbed lunch at Pyro's Pizza which was tasty and amusing because they had TV's showing a game show that was pretty hilarious. Nothing I've ever seen in the US.
From there we grabbed the metro and made our way to the Tiananmen Square/Forbidden City which was really neat! The architecture and history behind it was really interesting.
We then made our way to the Night Market or Market Street where they sold a variety of random foods ranging from your basic dumplings and baozi to starfish and seahorse to scorpions and silkworms. I personally ate 1.75 snakes (the spices on it were pretty good, but the spine bone took some working at), 2 scorpians (tasty, crunchy, highly advised), 1 seahorse (crunchy, much harder than the scorpion, bathed in a lot of garlic which made it spicy and strong... it was alright I guess), and a silkworm (The worst of them all. Crunchy on the outside, gooey on the inside, tastes horrid, somehow I downed it, but no one else really did)
After that, we saw an acrobat show with the following performances:
- A clown that walked/unicycled on a loose tightrope,
- Skeletons that tossed these ropes with weights on the end,
- A juggler who juggled probably about 12 balls at one time,
- 2 ladies that held glass things on their head's/feet/hands/etc. while doing flexible stuff,
- Ladies that juggled these cylindrical drum-like objects with their feet,
- Guys that climbed up vertical posts flawlessly,
- A side act where the clown and the woman MCs pulled out a guest from the audience which happened to be Sean to do a hilarious demonstration.
- A flexible lady who did a lot of balancing on one hand,
- Girls with Chinese yoyos,
- and girls with fans that rode on bicycles who ended up balancing 12-20 girls on one bike
Day 4 (Feb 12) Dayplan: Great Wall!
We (Xian students + Darren) headed out early on a 2 hour ride accompanied by Omar Ali, a former director in the Alliance Program. When we got to our drop off point, I took a look around in this town/farm and it looked just like a setting in a movie. Down to to the wandering mules and dogs, to the high stack of sticks neatly placed upon each other next to the walls of the houses. The scenery around it was beautiful. The mountains stretched all around us, overgrown with trees and blanketed by freshly fallen snow.
We started ascending from his backyard and continued from there on a path that Omar knew all too well (he'd hiked this path probably 20 times before this day). There were some very very steep parts and some areas where the drop was pretty intimidating. We hiked up for maybe 45 minutes to an hour until we finally came upon The Wall. We were able to get in and stand on it and admire the depth of the surrounding mountains along with the trees and plains that colored them. The contrast from the freshly fallen snow only added to the breathlessness that had befallen us (from awe – not hiking).
The day was perfect, it was cold, but not too cold. It was sunny and the rays of light warmed us as we hiked. The sky was clear and blue, and the mountain air had the freshest smell yet in China. And when you stopped and listened, you can hear the wind blowing over the mountains and through the trees in harmony.
We hiked up to 3 or so towers and then turned around and headed back. Hiking back was much faster but a little more dangerous. There was lots of falling, slipping, and sliding, but fortunately no casualties and no serious injuries.
When we got back to the farmer's house, his wife, had dinner prepared for us. It was the best meal yet. The dishes included eggplant, mushrooms, bok choy, donkey, beef, pork, pork ribs, string beans, and more. They also had a lot of almonds that they let us eat that were indigenous from the area. Everything was delightful, but we had to be on our way back to the university. Here we would pick up our bags and head to the train station so that we can catch a sleeper train to Xi'an.
When we got to the station with our remaining luggage we had to wait in line for a bit. Here we received a lot of stares from the others waiting in the station. I was approached by an older Chinese man with a long green coat who was having a one way conversation with me. All I could do is sit there awkwardly as he began criticizing me for not knowing Chinese (as I later found out). The stares did not stop.
We didn't stand in line for much longer though until we headed onto the sleeper trains which had these rooms that were probably 8-10 feet in length, maybe 6-8 feet in width, and about 14-18 feet in height. There was a doorway in the middle and two bunks on both sides when you enter. There's also an additional two bunks above each of the bottom bunks. Once we got settled in, I was out like a light.
Day 5 (Feb 13) Arrival in Xian
We finally arrive in Xian around 7 or 8 and grabbed a van to Shaanxi Normal University where we will be residing at for the remainder of our study abroad in China. We arrived at our dorm/hotel (it really is a hotel on campus) and got our room key cards. When we checked out our rooms on the 10th floor (essentially the top floor) we were pleasantly surprised to see that we each had balconies overlooking the city, and a nice hotel set up inside the rooms (this includes room service and supply replacement).
We went out to lunch with our area studies teachers at a local place just outside our university. The food was once again the best yet. There was tofu with the most delicious sauce, this mashed up cartilage in vinegar type dish, some eggplant that was tasty, nappa and peppers which was also great, sweet and sour chicken, deep fried mushrooms and a couple more dishes with rice, tea, and a popular Xi'an drink: bing feng – it’s similar to orange soda.
In the late afternoon we went to tour the city which was inspiring. Lights were everywhere, and stands were set up all over the place for the Lunar New Year. The buildings are metropolitan-like but traditional at the same time. After a while of walking around, we grabbed some hot pot which was arguable the best pot I've ever had.
Afterwards, we darted over to the daily fountain show which only added to Xian's awesomeness level.
Props to Margaux and her super sweet camera for this wonderful pic!
Day 6 (Feb 14) - Had the hottest noodles yet here for lunch with the language teachers.
Ate some ro jia mo (like a pulled pork sandwich) and went onto the city wall with the New Year decorations still in full swing. They were cool to look at especially when it got dark and they all lit up!
Sean, Malcom, Margaux, and Crystal all looking out different gaps in the wall
Feb 15 - Hit up the playground early with Patrick and Sean. There was a middle aged gentleman there that was dressed up in a shirt and tie with a nice leather jacket, but he was there for the same reason as us -- to get in a good workout. He was good too - he some how swung back and forth on these parallel bars and ended up inverted as he started doing different exercises.
Today was the first day of classes for us, and they were difficult -- well the language class was. But I feel optimistic that things will get better over time.
Went to the cafeteria to eat which is a great place if you're trying to save some money because, you could easily eat there for under a dollar. The food quality is alright, but not amazing, it's filling, but they don't have any drinks surprisingly.
We grabbed dinner with Darren which was great once again. I did one of the scratch off taxes things (they give you a sort of lotto scratcher thing where you can win money for free after eating at their place as a thing to make sure that they're paying their taxes or something like that) -- but I won 5 kuai, so it was a pleasant surprise -- I'm not used to winning anything that involves luck.
Later, Darren, Sean, Joe, and I all played some Mahjong out in the hallway before we headed off to sleep.
Feb 17 (Thursday) - Lantern Festival - Fireworks were going off nonstop from the early morning to the wee hours in the night. Some of us went to check out some of the fireworks being launched off on the main road close to the university (Changan Nan Lu) where we certainly saw the fireworks close up...
Later on, we all went out and checked out the fireworks from our dorm which was really cool because fireworks could be seen everywhere all over the city, some very near to us and some out in the distance. There were also some that were very close to buildings (in fact they were partially hitting the buildings) but no one seemed scared or panicked. It was merely part of the celebration.
Doing homework that night was not easy with the fireworks distracting us and everyone being sick and exhausted.
Feb 18 - Toured the Big Wild Goose Pagoda and the Ci'en Temple. Learned a little more about Buddhism and some of the Buddhas.
We climbed up to the top of the Pagoda and got a nice view of Xi'an from up there. Unfortunately, it was foggy and our vision was cut a little short. But it was still cool being able to see around the area since they didn't build structures high in this particular area.
Feb 19 - Went to a potty place ans spun some clay on a wheel. It was a good time except for the part where my clay pot kept falling apart and having to restart.
Feb 21 - Played Ping Pong for the first time here in China with Joe, then went to a computer city like place? It was giant! Each floor had a different specialty whether it be cameras, external monitors, software and webcams with competing companies scattered about creating a labyrinth of market.
Feb 22 - Field trip! Went to the Banpo Museum - an excavation site of one of the earliest signs of civilization in China from the Neolithic Age. There were lots of pots, bones/skeletons, and other early tools of these ancient civilizations.
That's all for now (wow, that was a lot!). It's been a great first dose of awesomeness here in China!
Over and out.
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