Spring Break in Sanya

Just got back from my wonderful spring break in South China! I was planning on going with just my friend Mal, but we ended up booking the same exact trip as 5 of our guy friends, so we more or less tagged along with them. Unfortunately we couldn't find a train that could take us from the Yellow Mountains to Guilin, so we skipped those and went directly to Guilin, which is this gorgeous city in the south of mainland China. While there we stayed in a nice hostel and did some touristy things each day, including a park that had a huge monkey population we got to get so close to! We also tried to take a boat trip down the Li River, but for some reason the boat never showed up? China...

We stayed in Guilin for 2 days then took a 10-hour overnight train to Zhenjiang train station, which ended up being the most rural part of China I've been to so far. It was really isolated and hot, but they of course still had Coke products and a flat-screen tv! Then we took a 9 hour train to Sanya that was pretty miserable during the 3 hour stretch it took them to ferry us from mainland China to Hainan Island, during which time the air conditioning was off!

Once in Sanya we were in paradise. Sanya's basically Russia's Mexico, so people kept thinking we were Russian and trying to speak with us (the one time I would've understood more if they spoke Chinese!) The beach is the best I've been on, with beach chairs and umbrellas for practically nothing, gorgeous sands, clear skies, and the warmest and gentlest ocean you could imagine. Women walked around selling coconuts, mangoes, sugarcane, and other fruit who's names I don't know but were delicious! The only downside was the wicked humidity, and that our hostel only had air conditioning from 10pm-10am to save costs. Basically every day went like this: wake up around 12 sweating since the air was off, get into our suits and eat either a BLT or a chicken sandwich at the hostel, go down to the beach, relax and do whatever we want for hours, go back to our hostel when the sun went down, shower and get dressed, then go to one of 2 American bars in down and have dinner and watch sports. Living the dream! I got ridiculously burned the first day, but it's not peeling very badly and should turn into a nice tan =)

Mountainside in Guilin

View from the top of a Guilin Mountain

Gorgeous park we found in Guilin

MONKEY!!!!

5RMB for pictures with a peacock!

River we were supposed to cruise down

Female Buddha Statue

I love the shapes of these mountains

As always in China, safety first!

Heaven on Earth: Sanya

Miss it already

Live music at our favorite bar, The Dolphin

It's so weird to think I only have 18 days left here, I really want to be home but at the same time I really don't want to leave! :/

Beijing!

So apparently I am miserably bad at updating blogs...

I've been up to a lot of things, the coolest of which being my trip last weekend to Beijing with 5 of my best girl friends here. We decided to be cheap and take the slow-moving train-horrible decision! We had hard seats, with people who only bought standing tickets crowding all around us, for fifteen hours!! Longest trip of my life-it was faster flying from Toronto to Shanghai than it was going from Shanghai to Beijing. Luckily I slept some so it didn't seem to be as freakishly long. We got there Friday morning and checked into our hostel, which was this gorgeous, clean, very home-y place called Sun Lu Tan youth hostel. That day we went to Tiananmen square, the Forbidden City, and Linshiang (?) Park. Tiananmen was actually kind of boring, it's just a really big square, until you remember the history behind it. I spent most of my time emphasizing with the guards who had to stand at attention all day and judging the marching of the ones going past us. The Forbidden City was really cool and huge!, but most of the actual rooms you aren't allowed in. The park we went to after was an unexpected highlight-you could climb up a ton of stairs to several pagodas that had awesome views of the Forbidden City and the rest of Beijing.

The next day we went to the Great Wall!!! Such an awesome experience! We went to Mutianwu, which is a less touristy part of the Wall, with some sections that haven't been restored available to explore. The Wall is seriously so impressive-you can see it snake through the mountains for miles. As impressive as it is now, it must have been awe-inspiring back in its heyday. The Chinese have another word for it-The World's Biggest Cemetery, since so many of their people died building it. We rode a ski-lift to the top then were able to explore some. It's actually much steeper than you'd imagine, some of the stretches had stairs so steep they looked like vertical drop-offs from above. Several of my friends and I bought beers and shot-gunned them on the wall, which might be the coolest thing I've done in China so far! Totally legal, too ;)

Our final day was spent in the Temple of Heaven, which again was very cool, but you couldn't see that much inside. Then we were all too tired to go anywhere else so we just went to the train station and hung out there...and got accosted by multiple Chinese men. Beijing was weird that way-Shanghai people stare, but Beijing people will actually come up to you, which is really annoying. I'm not sure I like Beijing as a city, it seems really confused as to what it wants to be, either the seat of the government, a rival to Shanghai, or an ancient relic? I think it's trying to be all of it at once. After another hellish 15 hours on a train we were home sweet home in Shanghai =)

Awesome Western-style Breakfast in Beijing

Great Wall group at an
 un-restored portion

Me, Natasha, and Jenn at the Temple of Heaven

Me with the Great Wall spanning behind me

Eating a scorpion! So crunchy!

Such an epic moment

And a snake! Better than it looks I promise!

Sledding down the Great Wall!

Mal, me, and jenn at Tiananmen Square

All of us at the start of our 15 hour train
(We were a lot less happy at the end of it haha)

My spring break starts next week-Mal and I are backpacking south, starting in the Yellow Mountains and finishing in Hainan, said to be the Hawaii of China. Should be an adventure!

Class Fieldtrip!

Wow, I haven't updated in a while...sorry about that! I just got back yesterday from a weeklong fieldtrip with my program that was amazing! We went first to Pingyao Ancient Town, which is mostly a Chinese travel destination not a Western one, so it was nice to not be so touristy. We stayed in a pretty little hotel that was traditionally furnished, complete with a big shared bed and sand pillows! We got to ride really old, almost ready to fall apart bikes around the city and we walked on top of the city wall, which was in pretty good condition for as old as it is! While we were there we went to the first bank of China as well as an old courthouse; both were honestly not that exciting, but oh well.
We left Pingyao after 2 days there and went to Shanxi's provincial capital, Taiyuan to see a famous courtyard and visit a vinegar factory...that was an experience! We were all crying and coughing from the fumes, but the vinegar was really good! Then we took an overnight train to Xi'an, which was admittedly a little dirty and disgusting haha. The next day was the highlight of the trip-the Terracotta Warriors!!! I was as giddy as Christmas morning by the time we actually got to see them, and they were all I had expected and more. There are actually three pits of warriors, Pit 1 contains 6,000 Infantry and is probably what you imagine when you hear "Terracotta Warriors", but there is also Pit 2, which is a 1,000 member Honor Guard including chariots and cavalry, and Pit 3, which is the Command Center. I was in love =)
After that we left for South Wutai town and went to a architecture/custom museum, then to Donghan village for a short homestay. To be honest I didn't really like the food there, but all the neighbors have a tradition of playing and dancing each night on the basketball court, which was such a cool experience! All the elderly women taught us Chinese line-dances, and we loved dancing to American songs like Cotton-eyed Joe and the Hokey Pokey!
After the homestay we returned to Xi'an and had a dumpling dinner, which consisted of over 14 different styles of dumplings, some of which were designed to look like what was inside-like a pig for pork dumplings, a duck for duck dumplings, and fish for seafood dumplings! The next day we visited the Muslim Quarter of Xi'an, which is populated by the minority group the Hui. We visited the Great Mosque and learned about the history of Chinese muslims, which was really interesting. Then we went to a local middle school and met with some students-the little girl I became friends with spoke English WAY better than I spoke Chinese! I joined in a game of basketball with what was supposed to be all middle schoolers, but ended up having three teachers! (we got destroyed) The next morning we got to bike around the Xi'an city wall, which was about 14K and in much better condition than Pingyao's wall. It was a great way to end the trip! If only I could avoid having to take midterms this week... =(

Pingyao City Wall

Pingyao Ancient Town

Our hotel room-very traditional Chinese style

Adorable courtyard outside our room

The really old bikes we rode around the city

Chinese prison cell haha

Wild Goose Pagoda in Xi'an

TERRACOTTA WARRIORS!!! (Pit 1)

Pit 2-Honor Guard

Pit 3-Command Center

"Mr. Lucky"-the only warrior to survive intact

Architecture/Custom Museum

Museum Architecture

On top of Xi'an's city wall

The view looking back from Xi'an city gate

One month down!

Margaritas with Hannah at Zapata's

You can dance on the bar, just put your drink/cigarette down first!

Natasha, Mal, and I at M1NT for Charley's birthday

 

 

Matching lace =)

It's crazy to think that I've been here for over a month already!!! It feels like I just left home but that I've been here forever, all at the same time.

Last week was good but really long. I had my first Wushu, or Chinese martial arts, lesson on Monday! It was so much fun! There are only four of us in the class so we have a lot of one on one time with our instructor, Prof. Yang. He's amazing-I just want to sit and watch him demonstrate all of his skills. Last week we just learned the basic stances and strikes, I think this week we are adding in footwork!

These pictures are from my week/weekend- the first two are from Ladies' Night at this Mexican bar called Zapata's. Margarita's were free from 10-12 for ladies, so we went there to meet up with a friend's family who was in town. Saturday was my friend Charley's birthday, so we took her out to dinner and then to this really swanky club called M1NT-they had a shark tank at the entrance! We all wore black and she wore orange so she would stand out more as the birthday girl; she loved it! =)

I just finished my second Chinese test-it went pretty well I think. We're starting to write whole paragraphs in Chinese, which is frightening but really cool! Taking our test today means I don't have much Chinese to do this week, and my Issues class is talking about gender and the crisis of masculinity tomorrow...should be a great week of classes!

My new favorite obsession is buying cheap movies from the back gate-they're only 10Kuai, which is ~$1.60!!! I found the 6-hour BBC version of Pride and Prejudice and almost died of happiness. I'm going to come home broke, but with so many DVDs!! =)

Citygod Temple!

My absolute favorite picture: Old Shanghai (the Temple) meets new (Bund skyline in the background).

Elephant statue we found

View from the street market outside the temple

McDonald's, of course!

A woman worshiping one of the main deities

Men chanting and praying

Local deities

Offerings are made daily

 

 

Finally had a strong enough connection to upload some more pictures! These are from last Friday's day trip to Citygod Temple.

Last week was pretty normal (it still feels weird saying that because I'm still IN CHINA). I had my very first Chinese test, and it went surprisingly well! It was just a normal test, but it was still longer than my final was for Chinese last semester. Woof. This Friday's day trip was to an old market-it would've been really nice but I was freezing the whole time! Then they took us to Piro's, which is a bar my friends and I really love going to that's owned by a CIEE & Penn State grad. We split into teams of 6 and had a hamburger eating competition, where we had 3 minutes to eat as many mini hamburgers as possible. My team won! I only ate 3 and the two other girls on the team only had 3 between them, but the guys were beasts! We ate 32 hamburgers in 3 minutes!!! We won 500 kuai ($1 American is about 6 kuai) to split between the six of us at Piro's.

This week should be pretty uneventful-cultural classes start this week so I'll be doing martial arts on Monday and learning how to make dumplings (Jiaozi-饺子) on Friday! My Chinese class is going out for lunch on Thursday, too. Maybe I'll actually start working out regularly this week? Maybe not...

P.S. It was great to hear of Roncalli's boys basketball team beating Cathedral! I remember how awesome it was when we beat them my senior year (am I old enough to talk about "glory days"?)-thankfully this class of seniors wasn't stupid enough to try to do the Lebron James powder trick like we did! Good job Bradley Fey!!! As a former babysitter, I'm taking full credit. =)

First Official Week

This marks my second full week in Shanghai, my first of classes! Having Chinese every day for two hours is rough-we have a quiz on 15-20 new vocab words and 5-6 old grammar points every day, and I have my first test this Tuesday on Chapters 1 & 2. For as much fun as we're all having, I still think we're doing more work than most study abroad programs! My other classes are all really interesting, even though 3-hour class periods can get rough. A lot of the workload is on your own kind of stuff, which I like a lot more than something super structured.

What do I like even more than my classes? The fact that I will always have a three-day weekend! (I really need to look into this for next year) CIEE sets up a lot of one day trips for us to go on for free, so yesterday they took us to the Citygod Temple in Shanghai. It's Taoist and actually still in use, so people were worshipping there as tourists were walking around, which made us all feel kind of bad for them. It's also probably the biggest tourist trap I've been to so far, with a verifiable maze of streets full of cheap merchandise and delicious food. One of the CIEE tutors found us dumplings and I got my first Starbucks of the trip, so I was happy! Definite food coma =) There are also apparently gorgeous gardens, but we want to wait until spring when everything is in bloom before we go see them.

I guess that's all-this might get a little boring as I get used to the routine of classes, but I'll be doing a lot of other awesome things that I'll try and keep you updated on!

I'm used to this already?

The famous Pearl Tower on the Bund!

Mal and Anthony taking a pic with the security guards

Entrance to East China Normal University

Casual Mao Zedong statue in the middle of campus

The next Yao Ming or Jeremy Lin?

Safe drinking water and toilet paper-all you need to survive!

The view from my window

I can't believe this is only my 6th day in Shanghai! It already feels like I've been here forever. Plus, I've finally seen the sun here! Such a nice change =) We've just finished up orientation, so I'll be starting classes on Monday. I'm taking Mandarin Beginning 1 (Hopefully I'll move up into Beginning 2, since my book only covers things I've already learned), Modern Chinese History, Issues in Chinese Society, and Chinese International Relations. I'm most excited for Issues-our book looks really interesting and there is definitely no shortage of topics! Mandarin is Mon-Thurs from 10am-12pm, and my other classes meet only once a week for 3 hours; no one has class on Friday!

As far as what I've been up to the past few days, it's been great. We did an "Amazing Race Shanghai" competition yesterday which sent us all around the city, so I am getting much better at navigating how to get anywhere. We've been trying out all the restaurants around campus- we went to one last night called "Ali Restaurant"! Also we've been exploring the nightlife in Shanghai, which is so far all it's hyped up to be. Taxis are super cheap, and most clubs have no cover and are 80 Yuan (like $13 American) for open bar all night! The clubs are wicked fun-all the music is American pop songs and every club has crazy dancers and performances every night! Not that many Chinese people dance, so it's usually mostly us that are on the dance floor (they do like taking pictures of us dancing, though!). A lot of CIEE people like going out, so we're already starting to get to know each other really well and I always have a lot of fun.

I still haven't taken that many pictures, mostly because it's been so dreary until lately, but here are some!

My bed! (Not padded at all)