Second day of vacation! Even though I went to bed around 2:30 last night, I woke up at 8 feeling refreshed and couldn't fall back asleep. Did some work on my computer for a while before meeting up with Chelsea to go to the noodle shop down the street to get lunch. They have really good food there!
After lunch, we headed back to the dorms to relax for a little and plan what to do for the day. We were originally planning to go see some sights around Beijing, but since today is the Mid Autumn Festival and tomorrow is National Day, we decided against it. We headed over to Cafe Paradiso, which is a coffee cafe on campus and did homework for a little bit. Then we went to the cafeteria next door to grab some mooncakes and dinner. The mooncakes were a little stale, but they still tasted great. Headed back to the dorms to relax for a little while. I was pretty bored....didn't quite know what to do with myself. After a while Chelsea and I got together and started trying to figure out what to do since my options were fix my boredom or go to sleep. We ended up texting a Chinese friend we had made while playing basketball and he invited us to go with him to a bar in Wudaokou. We met him at the gate of BeiDa and had quite a hard time trying to flag a cab. We manage to call a cab, but he refused us when we asked to go to Wudaokou. Cabs typically don't like to drive between BeiDa and Wudaokou since they aren't far apart. So we ended up walking to that district. It was about a 2 km walk, so it wasn't too bad. We tried to go to a few clubs, but all of them were full with people celebrating the holiday, so we walked a little further down the street and found a small bar to hang out at.
We decided to sit outside and ordered our first round of drinks. I didn't know what to get so our friend, 海波，ordered me a mojito to try. I thought it was ok. Chelsea and I didn't really know what to talk about to him with our limited Chinese. It was quite a challenge for both of us. Her listening is a lot better than mine, so she was able to understand him better. Thankfully, he didn't have a Beijing accent. I could understand in general what he was saying, but not specifics. It was a little frustrating. Chelsea talked me into pulling out my handy deck of cards and showing him my magic tricks. He really liked them and wanted me to teach him how to do them. I felt accomplished that I was able to pull off the tricks only using Chinese, although I still have to figure out how to tell people I'm going to make their card appear at the top of the deck in Chinese. Him and I both like Texas Hold'em poker, so we ended up teaching Chelsea how to play and played a few rounds. Sadly, I lost so I had to buy the second round of drinks (he insisted on paying for the first round). All in all, it was a very interesting night, though a little frustrating trying to fumble with Chinese. He's a really nice guy and was very patient and willing to let us puzzle out how to say things in Chinese, which I really appreciate. I'm glad I made a friend who is that patient. A lot of people here just like to switch to English is your Chinese is not very good. I think out of the few hours we were talking to him, I got some good practice in and I feel like I'm starting to improve.
After a few hours, it started to get really cold, so around 1, we decided to finish our drinks and head back to the campus. We managed to catch a cab that wasn't refusing to use its meter and came back to the global village. I didnt realize how cold it gets around here -- wish I would have brought a jacket along with me! I was definitely shivering by the end of the night. Trying to set up a karaoke night with 海波 in the future. I can't wait to try karaoke in China! Time for me to get some sleep so I'm ready for another day of fun and adventure!! Also, I had my first Budweiser in China! Much better than the Tsingtao and Yangjing that everyone else drinks. That stuff is too sweet for me! I missed drinking Bud!
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Saturday, September 29, 2012
Temples, Teahouses and Hutongs
Today marked the first day of the 9 day holiday celebrated during national day. It's one of China's 2 golden weeks where the whole country takes off in order to celebrate the holidays. Tomorrow (Sunday) is the Mid Autumn Festival, which marks the end of the Fall harvest. And Monday, Oct 1 is National Day, which commemorates the founding of the People's Republic of China.
Today was such an exciting day! I got to sleep in (so I was super happy). I met up for breakfast with my classmate Chelsea and then we embarked on a journey to explore a few places in Southern Beijing. Our first stop was the Cow Street Mosque (牛街礼拜寺) which is the oldest mosque in Beijing. The mosque was originally constructed in 996 and then reconstructed and enlarged in 1696. The mosque has been restored 3 times since the founding of the People's Republic of China. The mosque was very interesting to see because it combines both Islamic and Chinese culture and architecture. We arrived at the mosque just as the service was ending. One of the gentlemen stopped to talk to us for a while. He was very interesting to talk to. He was of Chinese origin, muslim faith and spoke English with a British accent (despite having never been to Europe). He told us a lot about the history of the mosque and was curious about America and how life is there (he hasn't been to America either). He apparently thought I was a 17 year old Chinese girl. I don't know why people here keep mistaking me for Chinese. He said my facial structure is very similar to Chinese people. We talked for quite some time, then he left and we began to explore the mosque. The architecture was so beautiful -- I took tons of pictures. It was a nice quiet place to walk around and relax.
After we finished at the mosque, we decided to look for FaYuan Temple (法源寺) which is one of Beijing's most well-known Temples, housing the best Buddhism school in China. Finding the temple was quite an adventure. We had a general idea of what direction to go, but it was hard to tell because the Hutongs (Chinese alley ways) were not labeled on my map. We wandered around the area for quite some time and ended up finding a small park to sit in while we tried to figure out which way to go. We were quite excited when we located the street sign for the street the temple was on. We spent the next hour wandering around a spiderweb network of hutongs. The people there definitely were not used to seeing foreigners in their area. We got a lot of looks that clearly said "why are these 老外 wandering around my hutong?". So we wandered around and took tons of pictures. It definitely was not an area most tourists would wander through. After a while of going in circles, we were fed up with trying to find the temple and asked a girl on the street where the temple road was. She told us to go back the way we originally came from and we found ourselves back in the park.....which the temple was right behind. We had read the street sign the wrong way and went the wrong direction.
So we finally found the temple and went inside. It was such a pretty temple! Again, we took tons of pictures. We were lucky enough to be arriving at the temple just as the prayer session was starting. So we walked around for a little enjoying the scenery and listening to the chanting in the background. It was really peaceful. I wanted to stay until the end of the prayer session, but we were clearly a distraction for the people there, so we decided to leave.
After the temple, we grabbed the subway and rode for a few stops to get to Qian Men in search of Lao She Teahouse (one of Beijing's top 10 teahouses). The subway transfer stops were packed with people! I couldn't believe how many people were trying to squeeze through the narrow hallways. After a bit of difficulty, we finally located the teahouse and went inside. They escorted us upstairs through this beautiful indoor garden and gave us a private tea room. We were all set to order.....until we saw the prices of the place. It was 60 Kuai an hour to rent the tea room and the cheapest tea was 1000 kuai a pot ($150 USD). So we excused ourselves from the tea house and went to look around the store that was attached to it. Most of the stuff was super expensive, so we were just looking around. We found some loose leaf tea that was in our price range and one of the workers came over to help us. She seemed excited that we could speak Chinese and offered to, if we had time, to brew us the teas we were thinking of buying. So we sat down at a table with her and got to experience a Chinese tea ceremony-esque ritual. The teas were so good! I picked out a black tea and Chelsea picked out an oolong tea. We were probably in the tea house for 90 minutes just drinking tea and talking to her. Our Chinese isn't that great, so we struggled a bit but it was fun. Then a man came over to join us (I'm pretty sure he was the owner) and sat down to chat. We were chatting for a long time. After we had finished sampling the second tea, she actually went to brew us a third to try, but we excused ourselves and said we had to go (we were getting pretty hungry at this point). Chelsea and I both ended up buying the black tea since we liked it so much.
After the tea house, we jumped on the subway and headed back to campus. The transfer station was chaos! So many people are traveling around Beijing for the holidays. I was very relieved to return to BeiDa and put my feet up. We rested for a while and then headed over to Wudaokou for a few drinks and then headed home for the night. All in all, a good day. I still have no idea what I'll do tomorrow though.
Today was such an exciting day! I got to sleep in (so I was super happy). I met up for breakfast with my classmate Chelsea and then we embarked on a journey to explore a few places in Southern Beijing. Our first stop was the Cow Street Mosque (牛街礼拜寺) which is the oldest mosque in Beijing. The mosque was originally constructed in 996 and then reconstructed and enlarged in 1696. The mosque has been restored 3 times since the founding of the People's Republic of China. The mosque was very interesting to see because it combines both Islamic and Chinese culture and architecture. We arrived at the mosque just as the service was ending. One of the gentlemen stopped to talk to us for a while. He was very interesting to talk to. He was of Chinese origin, muslim faith and spoke English with a British accent (despite having never been to Europe). He told us a lot about the history of the mosque and was curious about America and how life is there (he hasn't been to America either). He apparently thought I was a 17 year old Chinese girl. I don't know why people here keep mistaking me for Chinese. He said my facial structure is very similar to Chinese people. We talked for quite some time, then he left and we began to explore the mosque. The architecture was so beautiful -- I took tons of pictures. It was a nice quiet place to walk around and relax.
After we finished at the mosque, we decided to look for FaYuan Temple (法源寺) which is one of Beijing's most well-known Temples, housing the best Buddhism school in China. Finding the temple was quite an adventure. We had a general idea of what direction to go, but it was hard to tell because the Hutongs (Chinese alley ways) were not labeled on my map. We wandered around the area for quite some time and ended up finding a small park to sit in while we tried to figure out which way to go. We were quite excited when we located the street sign for the street the temple was on. We spent the next hour wandering around a spiderweb network of hutongs. The people there definitely were not used to seeing foreigners in their area. We got a lot of looks that clearly said "why are these 老外 wandering around my hutong?". So we wandered around and took tons of pictures. It definitely was not an area most tourists would wander through. After a while of going in circles, we were fed up with trying to find the temple and asked a girl on the street where the temple road was. She told us to go back the way we originally came from and we found ourselves back in the park.....which the temple was right behind. We had read the street sign the wrong way and went the wrong direction.
So we finally found the temple and went inside. It was such a pretty temple! Again, we took tons of pictures. We were lucky enough to be arriving at the temple just as the prayer session was starting. So we walked around for a little enjoying the scenery and listening to the chanting in the background. It was really peaceful. I wanted to stay until the end of the prayer session, but we were clearly a distraction for the people there, so we decided to leave.
After the temple, we grabbed the subway and rode for a few stops to get to Qian Men in search of Lao She Teahouse (one of Beijing's top 10 teahouses). The subway transfer stops were packed with people! I couldn't believe how many people were trying to squeeze through the narrow hallways. After a bit of difficulty, we finally located the teahouse and went inside. They escorted us upstairs through this beautiful indoor garden and gave us a private tea room. We were all set to order.....until we saw the prices of the place. It was 60 Kuai an hour to rent the tea room and the cheapest tea was 1000 kuai a pot ($150 USD). So we excused ourselves from the tea house and went to look around the store that was attached to it. Most of the stuff was super expensive, so we were just looking around. We found some loose leaf tea that was in our price range and one of the workers came over to help us. She seemed excited that we could speak Chinese and offered to, if we had time, to brew us the teas we were thinking of buying. So we sat down at a table with her and got to experience a Chinese tea ceremony-esque ritual. The teas were so good! I picked out a black tea and Chelsea picked out an oolong tea. We were probably in the tea house for 90 minutes just drinking tea and talking to her. Our Chinese isn't that great, so we struggled a bit but it was fun. Then a man came over to join us (I'm pretty sure he was the owner) and sat down to chat. We were chatting for a long time. After we had finished sampling the second tea, she actually went to brew us a third to try, but we excused ourselves and said we had to go (we were getting pretty hungry at this point). Chelsea and I both ended up buying the black tea since we liked it so much.
After the tea house, we jumped on the subway and headed back to campus. The transfer station was chaos! So many people are traveling around Beijing for the holidays. I was very relieved to return to BeiDa and put my feet up. We rested for a while and then headed over to Wudaokou for a few drinks and then headed home for the night. All in all, a good day. I still have no idea what I'll do tomorrow though.
Friday, September 28, 2012
Short post tonight as it's already very very late. Had an easy day of classes today (last day of classes before the 9 day holiday!). I was free for the rest of the day after my classes because my field trip to Bei Hai park was canceled due to my tutor having something important come up at the last minute. Ate lunch with a few Norwegian classmates and then headed back to the dorm to relax and start working on the homework that was assigned for the break. Grabbed dinner with a classmate and then headed back to the dorms while she went to go see the Batman movie with my roommate. Got through a little of my homework and started working on my scholarship project. Most of my classmates went out partying tonight, but I suddenly got a fever at the last minute, so I ended up staying in for the night and watching a Japanese/Chinese movie with 3 of my class mates. I can't remember the title, but it was a decent movie. I think it was called Riding 1000 Miles Without You, but I could be wrong since all of us kept mixing up the title. After the movie, I collaborated with Chelsea to try and plan what we want to visit tomorrow on our first day off. I think we have a pretty good idea for what we're going to do. Looking forward to exploring the city tomorrow!
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Another beautiful day in Beijing. It was quite windy, but that was the perfect thing for keeping the pollution levels down. A thunderstorm broke out during the middle of the day, but thankfully it ended before my class let out. I had 2 classes today followed by an awesome tutoring session. I had to interview 2 Chinese people about their ideal job for my homework and then write a summary paragraph to turn into my teacher for tomorrow. I interviewed my tutor and she had pretty interesting answers. I had a really good session with her. Since I told her last time that I was interested in learning how to understand directions, she had prepared a dialog for me to practice reading with words that I could change in and out of the dialog to have different meanings. She really likes to challenge me. After teaching me a few of the terms, she told me to draw a rough map of campus and tell her how to get from the building we were in back to the dorms. I had a lot of fun with it and learned so much. I wanted to get Bao zi after my session, but the restaurant was closed. So I headed back to the dorms and started on my homework.
By the time I got my summary paragraph finished, I was hungry. So I grabbed 2 classmates and we headed out to the area outside the SouthWest gate to grab some food. We had dinner at a restaurant and then stopped for Bubble tea (which was really good). We went to the bakeries in order to buy mooncakes for the Mid-Autumn Festival, but we couldn't find any flavors we liked. My tutor had told me about a huge bookstore near the SW gate and suggested I buy a book to practice during the session. So I will practice reading and she can help me with the characters I haven't learned yet. I thought it sounded like a pretty good way to learn more vocabulary words, get a better grasp of the grammar and practice reading.
We got directions from the worker at the tea shop (which I could actually understand thanks to my earlier lesson) and headed down to the next block. The bookstore was hard to miss. It was part of an electronics complex in ZhongGuanCun and the book store was on floors 2,3 and 4 of the complex. We ended up spending a good hour there looking around. JK Rowling's new book came out today and they already had copies of it in English at the store. I was tempted to buy it, but I figured I'll just wait until I get back to the states. I really want to focus on my Chinese while I'm here. After wandering around the store for a while, I finally found books I was looking for (and they were in Chinese, there was a separate section for American imports). I had a hard time deciding between The Hunger Games, Game of Thrones and The Fellowship of the Rings. After paging through the three books, I decided to get The Hunger Games. Game of Thrones and the Fellowship are a bit too high above my skill level...I couldn't recognize half of the characters on the first page. Hunger Games, on the other hand, I could manage to read a little bit, but still didn't know all of the characters. I felt like it was an appropriate skill level for me. Melissa bought the Sorcerer's Stone ( I decided to pass on HP since I already have the first book in Chinese back in the states). Before I leave China, I'm planning to go back to the bookstore and buy the Fellowship as well as Game of Thrones. The books are so cheap, it's hard to pass up on. For a soft cover copy of the Hunger Games, I paid less than $4.50 USD! I can't wait to start reading it! I think I'm going to be buying myself quite a few birthday presents from that bookstore! I also want to get my hands on a few movies in Chinese! I really love exploring the city and I wish I had more time to do it. I'm going to end up being up late tonight finishing my homework since I spent so much time wandering the bookstore. I think it was totally worth it though! I can't wait to go back (although I feel like I'll end up spending a lot of money there HAHA)!
By the time I got my summary paragraph finished, I was hungry. So I grabbed 2 classmates and we headed out to the area outside the SouthWest gate to grab some food. We had dinner at a restaurant and then stopped for Bubble tea (which was really good). We went to the bakeries in order to buy mooncakes for the Mid-Autumn Festival, but we couldn't find any flavors we liked. My tutor had told me about a huge bookstore near the SW gate and suggested I buy a book to practice during the session. So I will practice reading and she can help me with the characters I haven't learned yet. I thought it sounded like a pretty good way to learn more vocabulary words, get a better grasp of the grammar and practice reading.
We got directions from the worker at the tea shop (which I could actually understand thanks to my earlier lesson) and headed down to the next block. The bookstore was hard to miss. It was part of an electronics complex in ZhongGuanCun and the book store was on floors 2,3 and 4 of the complex. We ended up spending a good hour there looking around. JK Rowling's new book came out today and they already had copies of it in English at the store. I was tempted to buy it, but I figured I'll just wait until I get back to the states. I really want to focus on my Chinese while I'm here. After wandering around the store for a while, I finally found books I was looking for (and they were in Chinese, there was a separate section for American imports). I had a hard time deciding between The Hunger Games, Game of Thrones and The Fellowship of the Rings. After paging through the three books, I decided to get The Hunger Games. Game of Thrones and the Fellowship are a bit too high above my skill level...I couldn't recognize half of the characters on the first page. Hunger Games, on the other hand, I could manage to read a little bit, but still didn't know all of the characters. I felt like it was an appropriate skill level for me. Melissa bought the Sorcerer's Stone ( I decided to pass on HP since I already have the first book in Chinese back in the states). Before I leave China, I'm planning to go back to the bookstore and buy the Fellowship as well as Game of Thrones. The books are so cheap, it's hard to pass up on. For a soft cover copy of the Hunger Games, I paid less than $4.50 USD! I can't wait to start reading it! I think I'm going to be buying myself quite a few birthday presents from that bookstore! I also want to get my hands on a few movies in Chinese! I really love exploring the city and I wish I had more time to do it. I'm going to end up being up late tonight finishing my homework since I spent so much time wandering the bookstore. I think it was totally worth it though! I can't wait to go back (although I feel like I'll end up spending a lot of money there HAHA)!
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Today's weather was beautiful courtesy of yesterday's rains. It got super hot towards the afternoon though. I only had one class today, so it was an easy day. My class today was really fun, we ended up playing a game of taboo with our vocabulary words for most of the class. After class, I headed over to the CIEE office to hang out. Chelsea and I started doing some research for stuff to do in Beijing and we're planning to compile a database of everything we want to do while we're in the city. Since National Week is coming up, we want to have a few things together so we can explore the city on our days off. I have a very long list....I'm skeptical about whether I will be able to finish it off or not. Guess I'll just have to try my best!
After hanging out in the office for a few hours doing homework and research, we headed over to the basketball courts and played basketball with a few classmates and Chinese students from BeiDa for several hours. It was so much fun! Although the guys were all huge, so I felt pretty small by comparison. It's really interesting going to play basketball here. There were no other girls on the courts. Girls here don't really play many sports. The guys almost don't know how to handle us when we want to join them for sports since so few Chinese girls typically jump in. We ended up talking to the guys for a while after we were done playing. Then the 3 of them headed off to the gym and Chelsea, Melissa and I went to grab some food.
We headed back to the global village and stopped to get some ice cream from the one store. We were talking to the owner for a while and found out that the ice cream there is hand made everyday and they also sell tea that they grow and prepare themselves. It was really interesting. Now I'm back in the dorms and just finished my homework for the night. I'm glad to be done with it. I had no tutoring today since on Friday my tutor is taking Chelsea and I to Bei Hai park and I moved my individual tutoring session from today to tomorrow since I didn't want to have 2 days of tutoring in a row. All I have left to do for this week is interview 2-3 Chinese students about what they think the ideal job is and summarize their answers into a paragraph for my Hanyu class. Guess tomorrow will be a little bit busy of a day for me, but it shouldn't be too bad. Hoping the weather stays nice! I'm excited for the vacation on Friday!
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Today was a long day, but thankfully I have no homework tonight, so I should be able to go to bed soon. The day started out rough...super early and super polluted. I couldn't tell if it was overcast or polluted, so I didn't think to grab my umbrella this morning. I had a slow start and then ran off to my first class of the day. I had so much trouble staying awake and paying attention. After class, I went to the CIEE office to work on my homework during the time between my classes. The teachers there were nice enough to brew some coffee for me -- but I had to grind the coffee beans myself! Imo, a small price to pay for a cup of coffee. Towards the end of my break it started raining, I borrowed an umbrella from a friend so I could run out and grab some lunch.
After lunch, I headed off to my second class of the day. Writing class isn't terribly interesting. It just kind of seems to drag on and on and on. She gave me a packet to fill out for homework, but it isn't due until after the holiday break. Next up was Hanyu class. By this time, I was starting to slow down again...and I was hungry. We spent the whole class reviewing the homework assignment from the night before, so it wasn't too bad. I have a lot of work to do for this class for Thursday. He assigned several book exercises. I also have to interview 2-3 Chinese people on what they think is the ideal job and why and have that to turn in for Friday. At least Friday starts the National Holiday week!
Next after Hanyu was my tutoring session, which I had to move from Monday since I didn't make it back from Xi'an in time. I didn't really have any homework to do and I didn't want it to be a boring session, so I amused my tutor by performing magic tricks for her. She liked them so much that she insisted on recording one on her phone so she could show her friends. I had her help me translate a few sentences into Chinese so I can work on improving my language skills so I can eventually give street magic a try! It was a really good session and we ended up talking about a whole bunch of things; from magic to food to cities to acupuncture....it was all over the place. I feel like I got a lot of good practice in :) I also told her for my next tutoring session a few things I want to learn so she has some idea on a few things I want to work on.
By the time my session ended, it was pouring rain. I had no jacket, no umbrella and was wearing flip flops. Nothing to do but suck it up and walk back to the dorms. I got really lucky and halfway through my walk back, a BeiDa student ran up to me. She asked me where I was going and offered to share her umbrella with me. I was really surprised. We started talking a bit during the walk. She is a 3rd year student at BeiDa studying law. Apparently she thought I was a freshman and couldn't believe that I was a year older than her (which means I am addressed as "师姐” (shi jie) by her). Besides law she is also studying Japanese and likes anime. Her Chinese was so fast! I had trouble keeping up with what she was saying but I was able to hold up pretty well. She spoke a little English too, so between that we were able to communicate pretty well. She ended up walking me all of the way back to the global village and we exchanged phone numbers^.^ She was really sweet! I hope I get to meet up with her in the future :)
After returning to the global village, I skyped with my parents before running out to the convenience store to get a pack of instant ramen. It was so cold and muggy, I needed something hot and wasn't in the mood to go to a restaurant to get something to eat. Hung around the dorms for a while and talked to class mates. I ended up talking a lot later than I was expecting, but since I have no work to do tonight, I'm fine with that. I need a break sometimes I guess. I hope this weather gets nicer because I'm totally not in the mood to do my Hanyu homework tomorrow. I was hoping to start it to night, but no luck! Guess I'll just have to hop on that tomorrow. Also my vacation for National Holiday starts on Friday, so I want to sit down and start planning out a few things that I want to do with my time off. I have 5 days in Beijing and then 4 days of hiking/living in a rural village in the Shanxi province. I'm super excited!
After lunch, I headed off to my second class of the day. Writing class isn't terribly interesting. It just kind of seems to drag on and on and on. She gave me a packet to fill out for homework, but it isn't due until after the holiday break. Next up was Hanyu class. By this time, I was starting to slow down again...and I was hungry. We spent the whole class reviewing the homework assignment from the night before, so it wasn't too bad. I have a lot of work to do for this class for Thursday. He assigned several book exercises. I also have to interview 2-3 Chinese people on what they think is the ideal job and why and have that to turn in for Friday. At least Friday starts the National Holiday week!
Next after Hanyu was my tutoring session, which I had to move from Monday since I didn't make it back from Xi'an in time. I didn't really have any homework to do and I didn't want it to be a boring session, so I amused my tutor by performing magic tricks for her. She liked them so much that she insisted on recording one on her phone so she could show her friends. I had her help me translate a few sentences into Chinese so I can work on improving my language skills so I can eventually give street magic a try! It was a really good session and we ended up talking about a whole bunch of things; from magic to food to cities to acupuncture....it was all over the place. I feel like I got a lot of good practice in :) I also told her for my next tutoring session a few things I want to learn so she has some idea on a few things I want to work on.
By the time my session ended, it was pouring rain. I had no jacket, no umbrella and was wearing flip flops. Nothing to do but suck it up and walk back to the dorms. I got really lucky and halfway through my walk back, a BeiDa student ran up to me. She asked me where I was going and offered to share her umbrella with me. I was really surprised. We started talking a bit during the walk. She is a 3rd year student at BeiDa studying law. Apparently she thought I was a freshman and couldn't believe that I was a year older than her (which means I am addressed as "师姐” (shi jie) by her). Besides law she is also studying Japanese and likes anime. Her Chinese was so fast! I had trouble keeping up with what she was saying but I was able to hold up pretty well. She spoke a little English too, so between that we were able to communicate pretty well. She ended up walking me all of the way back to the global village and we exchanged phone numbers^.^ She was really sweet! I hope I get to meet up with her in the future :)
After returning to the global village, I skyped with my parents before running out to the convenience store to get a pack of instant ramen. It was so cold and muggy, I needed something hot and wasn't in the mood to go to a restaurant to get something to eat. Hung around the dorms for a while and talked to class mates. I ended up talking a lot later than I was expecting, but since I have no work to do tonight, I'm fine with that. I need a break sometimes I guess. I hope this weather gets nicer because I'm totally not in the mood to do my Hanyu homework tomorrow. I was hoping to start it to night, but no luck! Guess I'll just have to hop on that tomorrow. Also my vacation for National Holiday starts on Friday, so I want to sit down and start planning out a few things that I want to do with my time off. I have 5 days in Beijing and then 4 days of hiking/living in a rural village in the Shanxi province. I'm super excited!
Sunday, September 23, 2012
Xi'an Part 2~!
I was supposed to go with a few classmates and our teacher on a hike through the mountains to the South of Xi'an, but since I hadn't slept well on the train and the night in the hotel, I woke up with a headache and decided to go back to sleep. It ended up working fine because I got to explore the city. I slept for a few more hours and then got breakfast with 4 of my classmates. Wtand on the e decided to form our own group for exploring the city since the other group was too big. I bought this delicious pastry from a stand on the street. It was some kind of fried doughnut with some kind of sweet glaze in the middle. It was so good! I wish I would have found another stand selling them, but it looks like it was a breakfast only item.
Our first stop was the city wall of Xi'an. It goes all the way around the city. We walked past the bell tower to the Southern Gate. Sadly, because of China's current situation, the bell tower was closed off as well. At the Southern gate, we paid a few kuai to buy tickets for access to the wall. It really is a big structure. From the top of the wall you can see so much of the city. You also have the option to rent bikes to ride around the wall, but none of us were in the mood for giving that a try. We walked around a bit and as we were looking over the city, we spotted a small alleyway that had a ton of Chinese paintings and calligraphy hanging up, so we headed off the wall and walked over to the alley.
It was a neat experience. The alleyway was full of art galleries and led to a street where every few feet, people had stands set up selling all sorts of different things, ranging from calligraphy brushes and supplies to jewelry, seals, statues, keychains and much more. We started at teh beginning of the street, which had a huge gate over it and slowly worked our way down the street, looking at all of the stall and stores. There was so much I wanted to buy, but I know my suitcase space is limited. I ended up buying a seal and getting my chinese name engraved on the bottom. I had so much fun haggling with people.
There was one thing I wanted to buy...the 1st shop to me it was 20 kuai. I figured that wasn't bad, but I didnt want to carry too mcuh stuff around all day, so I decided to wait until later to buy it. I found another shop later on and decided to buy. I asked the woman what the price was and she told me it was 65 kuai! I thought for a minute and told her I would give her 10. She started laughing at me and said she would never sell it for 10 and then offered me 55. Then one of my classmates came in and told me in Chinese that she bought one down the street for 10 kuai. So I told the woman I wasn't interested. She offered me 25 and I still said no. So I put the item down and left the store. She actually chased after me and told me she would sell to me for 10 kuai! Although she wasn't too happy about the price she got. I was happy though. I got the souvenir I wanted for the price I wanted to pay and I got to practice my Chinese skills.
We walked for several hours down the street and it never seemed to end! We probably walked for 2 miles and then sat down to take a break and decide what to do next with the time we had left. While we were sitting, we were approached by a group of students from Xi'an University who were working on a project. They wanted to interview a few foreigners to get our opinions on what we thought about the art and culture streets (which is apparently the name of the street we happened to stumble across). They were super enthusiastic to talk to us once they realized that we knew how to speak Chinese. We even went as far as doing the interview with them in Chinese, which they were super excited about. After the interview, 2 of the girls from the group approached me and said they wanted to make friends with me. They were super cute! So I ended up exchanging my email and QQ with them. It was a really great experience!
Next we wandered back to the shopping plaza and got some food from a small curry restaurant that we found. The food was delicious! We had curry chicken, curry taro and a black pepper beef dish. I really liked the curry taro. It had a really interesting taste to it. After lunch, we split up into smaller groups and walked around the shopping plaza before meeting back up to play in the arcade again. After the arcade we headed back to the hotel to catch the bus to the train station.
On the train, I bunked with Misha again, but instead of having 2 randoms, I had 2 CIEE teachers. It was so much fun! At the start of the trip we brought out a ton of snack foods and our room was packed with people sharing food and joking around until the train left. Then everyone had to be in their own rooms so the train workers could collect tickets. It was nice to be in the room with the teachers, but it was a little inconvenient because people kept coming in our room to ask them for homework help, but I didnt really mind. Later in the night Me, Trevor, Dr Lucas and Ke Laoshi sat down and Dr. Lucas taught us a Chinese card game called up the river that was really fun to play. We played for several hours and then everyone headed to sleep. The train ride back was much quieter because most students were busy doing homework or went to bed early. I slept a lot better this night.
When I woke up in the morning, I was back in Beijing. We grabbed the bus and headed back to campus. Most students ran off to class, but I had missed my only class for the day since the bus was late in picking us up. I met up with Kyle and we stopped at a Taiwan pancake place on campus so I could give one a try. It was sooooooo tasty! I wanted another one. It's a great option for lunch and its only 7 kuai! Though it is a little on the greasy side. Now I'm just relaxing in my room. I had a little homework to do tonight and I rescheduled my tutoring session today for 7pm since I didn't think I would be back in the city in time for my session. So I'll just be relaxing and doing homework from now until then and then it's back to school tomorrow.
National Holiday is next week, so I have off from school for a whole week. I"m planning to stay around Beijing and check out some stuff here. For the last few days of my break, I'll be going with Dr. Lucas and a few classmates to live in a rural village for our 2nd field trip of the semester. I'm super excited! That's all for now. I have a lot of stuff to get done today!
I was supposed to go with a few classmates and our teacher on a hike through the mountains to the South of Xi'an, but since I hadn't slept well on the train and the night in the hotel, I woke up with a headache and decided to go back to sleep. It ended up working fine because I got to explore the city. I slept for a few more hours and then got breakfast with 4 of my classmates. Wtand on the e decided to form our own group for exploring the city since the other group was too big. I bought this delicious pastry from a stand on the street. It was some kind of fried doughnut with some kind of sweet glaze in the middle. It was so good! I wish I would have found another stand selling them, but it looks like it was a breakfast only item.
Our first stop was the city wall of Xi'an. It goes all the way around the city. We walked past the bell tower to the Southern Gate. Sadly, because of China's current situation, the bell tower was closed off as well. At the Southern gate, we paid a few kuai to buy tickets for access to the wall. It really is a big structure. From the top of the wall you can see so much of the city. You also have the option to rent bikes to ride around the wall, but none of us were in the mood for giving that a try. We walked around a bit and as we were looking over the city, we spotted a small alleyway that had a ton of Chinese paintings and calligraphy hanging up, so we headed off the wall and walked over to the alley.
It was a neat experience. The alleyway was full of art galleries and led to a street where every few feet, people had stands set up selling all sorts of different things, ranging from calligraphy brushes and supplies to jewelry, seals, statues, keychains and much more. We started at teh beginning of the street, which had a huge gate over it and slowly worked our way down the street, looking at all of the stall and stores. There was so much I wanted to buy, but I know my suitcase space is limited. I ended up buying a seal and getting my chinese name engraved on the bottom. I had so much fun haggling with people.
There was one thing I wanted to buy...the 1st shop to me it was 20 kuai. I figured that wasn't bad, but I didnt want to carry too mcuh stuff around all day, so I decided to wait until later to buy it. I found another shop later on and decided to buy. I asked the woman what the price was and she told me it was 65 kuai! I thought for a minute and told her I would give her 10. She started laughing at me and said she would never sell it for 10 and then offered me 55. Then one of my classmates came in and told me in Chinese that she bought one down the street for 10 kuai. So I told the woman I wasn't interested. She offered me 25 and I still said no. So I put the item down and left the store. She actually chased after me and told me she would sell to me for 10 kuai! Although she wasn't too happy about the price she got. I was happy though. I got the souvenir I wanted for the price I wanted to pay and I got to practice my Chinese skills.
We walked for several hours down the street and it never seemed to end! We probably walked for 2 miles and then sat down to take a break and decide what to do next with the time we had left. While we were sitting, we were approached by a group of students from Xi'an University who were working on a project. They wanted to interview a few foreigners to get our opinions on what we thought about the art and culture streets (which is apparently the name of the street we happened to stumble across). They were super enthusiastic to talk to us once they realized that we knew how to speak Chinese. We even went as far as doing the interview with them in Chinese, which they were super excited about. After the interview, 2 of the girls from the group approached me and said they wanted to make friends with me. They were super cute! So I ended up exchanging my email and QQ with them. It was a really great experience!
Next we wandered back to the shopping plaza and got some food from a small curry restaurant that we found. The food was delicious! We had curry chicken, curry taro and a black pepper beef dish. I really liked the curry taro. It had a really interesting taste to it. After lunch, we split up into smaller groups and walked around the shopping plaza before meeting back up to play in the arcade again. After the arcade we headed back to the hotel to catch the bus to the train station.
On the train, I bunked with Misha again, but instead of having 2 randoms, I had 2 CIEE teachers. It was so much fun! At the start of the trip we brought out a ton of snack foods and our room was packed with people sharing food and joking around until the train left. Then everyone had to be in their own rooms so the train workers could collect tickets. It was nice to be in the room with the teachers, but it was a little inconvenient because people kept coming in our room to ask them for homework help, but I didnt really mind. Later in the night Me, Trevor, Dr Lucas and Ke Laoshi sat down and Dr. Lucas taught us a Chinese card game called up the river that was really fun to play. We played for several hours and then everyone headed to sleep. The train ride back was much quieter because most students were busy doing homework or went to bed early. I slept a lot better this night.
When I woke up in the morning, I was back in Beijing. We grabbed the bus and headed back to campus. Most students ran off to class, but I had missed my only class for the day since the bus was late in picking us up. I met up with Kyle and we stopped at a Taiwan pancake place on campus so I could give one a try. It was sooooooo tasty! I wanted another one. It's a great option for lunch and its only 7 kuai! Though it is a little on the greasy side. Now I'm just relaxing in my room. I had a little homework to do tonight and I rescheduled my tutoring session today for 7pm since I didn't think I would be back in the city in time for my session. So I'll just be relaxing and doing homework from now until then and then it's back to school tomorrow.
National Holiday is next week, so I have off from school for a whole week. I"m planning to stay around Beijing and check out some stuff here. For the last few days of my break, I'll be going with Dr. Lucas and a few classmates to live in a rural village for our 2nd field trip of the semester. I'm super excited! That's all for now. I have a lot of stuff to get done today!
Just got back from my weekend trip to Xi'an. It was such a fun weekend! On Friday, I had to run home after class to pack my stuff and then dashed over to the supermarket to buy some snacks for the trip in case there wasn't time to eat at the train station before we left. After a flurry of running around, I finally ended up on the bus for the ride to the train station. Sadly club sign ups were on Friday and I didn't have time to stop and sign up for anything since I was in such a rush to get ready for the trip.
The Train and Xi'an Day 1:
The train station was chaos. We were divided into smaller groups and assigned to a teacher who would be leading us through the station. We ended up at our station early, so there was time to get food and relax. Our group definitely got a lot of stares from other people and had quite a few who were trying (not to successfully ) to discretely take pictures of us. After a while we finally go to board the train. We had soft sleeper tickets for the overnight train to Xi'an. Despite the name of the ticket, the beds are not that soft. They are just as hard as my bed in the global village (which I'm actually starting to like. I've been sleeping a lot better on it). Each person is assigned to 1 berth, for the soft sleeper, there are 4 beds per berth and I think about 10 berths per car. I was assigned to a berth with one of my classmates and 2 random people. They weren't very friendly. We tried talking to them, but no luck. The one woman had a ton of luggage and it pretty much filled up all the floor space of the berth. We were stuck waiting for her to rearrange all of her stuff so we could even get into the berth. Both of them seemed unhappy that we showed up....I dont think they wanted to have to sleep on the top bunks. Misha and I just relaxed in our room for most of the trip. We only ventured out for a little because it was Anthony's birthday. Elliot joined us in our room and we were talking for most of the night and snacking on food. Misha had this delicious red bean bread that she got from one of the bakeries on campus. It was sooooo good. I had a few snacks that I contributed as well. The one person in our room didnt seem happy with us at all. She went to bed pretty early and I guess she was annoyed that we were still up talking so she kept rolling over, looking at her phone, sighing and then turning back over and trying to fall asleep. We really weren't being loud or anything, but she didn't even try to ask us to be quiet or to go elsewhere, so that's her problem, not mine. I think around 12 we all decided to head to bed.
The train ride through the night was pretty bumpy and there were some bad weather conditions, so the train had to stop several times during the course of the night. The delays caused us to arrive in Xi'an 40 minutes behind schedule. From the train station, we met up with our tour guides for the trip and walked over to a nearby hotel to have breakfast. The hotel was beautiful and the breakfast was delicious. They had a good mix of Chinese and western food. It was nice to have bacon and eggs for breakfast along with a bunch of different asian pastries and fried rice. There was so much to eat. The banana bread was particularly delicious.
After breakfast, we boarded the bus and drove about an hour to see the Terracotta warriors. The terracotta warriors were a depiction of the armies of Qin Shi Huang, who was the first emperor of China. These statues were buried with him upon his death and were meant to protect the emperor in the afterlife and give him people to rule over. The warriors were first discovered by a Chinese farmer in 1974. There are 4 pits at the burial site, 3 of which contain warriors. There are several kinds of statues: horses, cavalry men, warriors, kneeling archers, leaning archers, mid ranking officers and generals to name a few (not sure if there were more kinds, but these are the main ones). I was able to see pits 1 and 2. Pit 1 is the largest of the excavation sites being 230 meters long and 62 meters wide. This pit contains more than 6,000 figures! Pit 2 was found to contain cavalry men and infantry men and chariots. Pit 3 contains a command post and pit 4 is empty, seemingly left unfinished by its builders. There are other pits, but these 4 are the only ones open for tourists. The tomb has never been opened, supposedly in order to preserve the artifacts inside. After the excavation of the terracotta warriors, the paint began to flake off within 4 minutes. Some pieces still have spots of color left to the, but not many. Some of the figures in 2 of the pits show signs of fire damage from when the building was burned down (don't remember when or why). Also because of this event, several figures are smashed and archaeologists are working to use the fragments to restore some of the terracotta statues. It was an amazing site to see. I'm fairly certain I took over 100 pictures during the time I spent there.
After visiting the Terracotta Warrior exhibit, we boarded the bus and headed back to the center of Xi'an. Here, we stopped at a local restaurant to eat 肉夹馍 (rou jia mo), which is a local staple. It consisted of stewed and smoked shredded pork in a Mo, which is a type of flat bread. It was really really delicious! I wish I could have eaten more! When lunch was finished, the group walked across the street to check into our hotel. It definitely wasn't as nice as the one we had breakfast with, but it was decent. The hotels in China have an interesting system. Not only do you need a room key to access your room, but you also need your roomkey to provide electricity to your room. When you enter the room, there is a slot on the wall where you have to insert your card to turn on the electricity while you are there. It was inconvenient since 2 of us had to share 1 card, but I guess it eliminates the chances of losing a card in your room and it saves the hotel on energy costs since all the lights get turned out once you leave.
We were supposed to go to take a tour of The Great Mosque, but due to the current situation in China, the mosque was not open to visitors, which left us with free time for the rest of the day. I went exploring around Xi'an with 2 of my classmates. We were looking for shops to buy souvenirs in, but didn't have much luck. Instead, we stumbled upon a huge shopping plaza that had tons of stores and food places. There was a stage where they were taping something for China's Voice show (not sure what that is exactly). So there were people trying out and singing. We also stumbled upon an arcade where Chelsea and I played DDR. We managed to attract quite a crowd. People were very interested why we were in Xi'an and what we were doing in China. Since the discovery of the Terracotta warriors was what made Xi'an famous, they city has only really been a tourist attraction for the past 30 years or so. They still aren't used to getting a lot of foreigners in the area.
We headed back to the hotel and met the group for dinner at a local restaurant. The food was delious (except for the donkey...I didn't want to eat that again). Then it was back to the hotel and to get some sleep and rest up for the next day!
This post is getting pretty long, so I'm going to cut this one off here at the conclusion of the first day and write a second post for my second day in Xi'an. Pictures will be up as soon as I can find some time. I have classes today and quite a bit of work to get done before I can upload pictures.
The Train and Xi'an Day 1:
The train station was chaos. We were divided into smaller groups and assigned to a teacher who would be leading us through the station. We ended up at our station early, so there was time to get food and relax. Our group definitely got a lot of stares from other people and had quite a few who were trying (not to successfully ) to discretely take pictures of us. After a while we finally go to board the train. We had soft sleeper tickets for the overnight train to Xi'an. Despite the name of the ticket, the beds are not that soft. They are just as hard as my bed in the global village (which I'm actually starting to like. I've been sleeping a lot better on it). Each person is assigned to 1 berth, for the soft sleeper, there are 4 beds per berth and I think about 10 berths per car. I was assigned to a berth with one of my classmates and 2 random people. They weren't very friendly. We tried talking to them, but no luck. The one woman had a ton of luggage and it pretty much filled up all the floor space of the berth. We were stuck waiting for her to rearrange all of her stuff so we could even get into the berth. Both of them seemed unhappy that we showed up....I dont think they wanted to have to sleep on the top bunks. Misha and I just relaxed in our room for most of the trip. We only ventured out for a little because it was Anthony's birthday. Elliot joined us in our room and we were talking for most of the night and snacking on food. Misha had this delicious red bean bread that she got from one of the bakeries on campus. It was sooooo good. I had a few snacks that I contributed as well. The one person in our room didnt seem happy with us at all. She went to bed pretty early and I guess she was annoyed that we were still up talking so she kept rolling over, looking at her phone, sighing and then turning back over and trying to fall asleep. We really weren't being loud or anything, but she didn't even try to ask us to be quiet or to go elsewhere, so that's her problem, not mine. I think around 12 we all decided to head to bed.
The train ride through the night was pretty bumpy and there were some bad weather conditions, so the train had to stop several times during the course of the night. The delays caused us to arrive in Xi'an 40 minutes behind schedule. From the train station, we met up with our tour guides for the trip and walked over to a nearby hotel to have breakfast. The hotel was beautiful and the breakfast was delicious. They had a good mix of Chinese and western food. It was nice to have bacon and eggs for breakfast along with a bunch of different asian pastries and fried rice. There was so much to eat. The banana bread was particularly delicious.
After breakfast, we boarded the bus and drove about an hour to see the Terracotta warriors. The terracotta warriors were a depiction of the armies of Qin Shi Huang, who was the first emperor of China. These statues were buried with him upon his death and were meant to protect the emperor in the afterlife and give him people to rule over. The warriors were first discovered by a Chinese farmer in 1974. There are 4 pits at the burial site, 3 of which contain warriors. There are several kinds of statues: horses, cavalry men, warriors, kneeling archers, leaning archers, mid ranking officers and generals to name a few (not sure if there were more kinds, but these are the main ones). I was able to see pits 1 and 2. Pit 1 is the largest of the excavation sites being 230 meters long and 62 meters wide. This pit contains more than 6,000 figures! Pit 2 was found to contain cavalry men and infantry men and chariots. Pit 3 contains a command post and pit 4 is empty, seemingly left unfinished by its builders. There are other pits, but these 4 are the only ones open for tourists. The tomb has never been opened, supposedly in order to preserve the artifacts inside. After the excavation of the terracotta warriors, the paint began to flake off within 4 minutes. Some pieces still have spots of color left to the, but not many. Some of the figures in 2 of the pits show signs of fire damage from when the building was burned down (don't remember when or why). Also because of this event, several figures are smashed and archaeologists are working to use the fragments to restore some of the terracotta statues. It was an amazing site to see. I'm fairly certain I took over 100 pictures during the time I spent there.
After visiting the Terracotta Warrior exhibit, we boarded the bus and headed back to the center of Xi'an. Here, we stopped at a local restaurant to eat 肉夹馍 (rou jia mo), which is a local staple. It consisted of stewed and smoked shredded pork in a Mo, which is a type of flat bread. It was really really delicious! I wish I could have eaten more! When lunch was finished, the group walked across the street to check into our hotel. It definitely wasn't as nice as the one we had breakfast with, but it was decent. The hotels in China have an interesting system. Not only do you need a room key to access your room, but you also need your roomkey to provide electricity to your room. When you enter the room, there is a slot on the wall where you have to insert your card to turn on the electricity while you are there. It was inconvenient since 2 of us had to share 1 card, but I guess it eliminates the chances of losing a card in your room and it saves the hotel on energy costs since all the lights get turned out once you leave.
We were supposed to go to take a tour of The Great Mosque, but due to the current situation in China, the mosque was not open to visitors, which left us with free time for the rest of the day. I went exploring around Xi'an with 2 of my classmates. We were looking for shops to buy souvenirs in, but didn't have much luck. Instead, we stumbled upon a huge shopping plaza that had tons of stores and food places. There was a stage where they were taping something for China's Voice show (not sure what that is exactly). So there were people trying out and singing. We also stumbled upon an arcade where Chelsea and I played DDR. We managed to attract quite a crowd. People were very interested why we were in Xi'an and what we were doing in China. Since the discovery of the Terracotta warriors was what made Xi'an famous, they city has only really been a tourist attraction for the past 30 years or so. They still aren't used to getting a lot of foreigners in the area.
We headed back to the hotel and met the group for dinner at a local restaurant. The food was delious (except for the donkey...I didn't want to eat that again). Then it was back to the hotel and to get some sleep and rest up for the next day!
This post is getting pretty long, so I'm going to cut this one off here at the conclusion of the first day and write a second post for my second day in Xi'an. Pictures will be up as soon as I can find some time. I have classes today and quite a bit of work to get done before I can upload pictures.
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Thankfully tonight is not a long night like the previous few have been. Since I have less classes on Thursday and Friday, that means I have less homework to worry about. Today was an easy day. I had class from 8-12 and then grabbed this delicious crepe-type thing from one of the food places on campus for lunch. Relaxed in my room and skyped with my dad for a little. Went to take a shower to find that the shower for some reason had all of these little fruit-fly type bugs flying around. Took a few minutes to kill most of them before grabbing a shower. My roommate said she got the cleaning ladies to spray it with insect repellent but it doesnt look like it worked.
Worked on homework for a bit. Went out for a break and grabbed some Hong Kong waffles from a place outside the SW gate. They were pretty tasty. I got chocolate flavored ones. Definitely could have had more chocolate flavor. Definitely will go back there again. Headed back to my room to do some more studying and work on getting my stuff together to take to Xi'an since I'm leaving tomorrow. This will probably be my last post before my trip. I'm not taking my computer with me, so I will be offline until Monday afternoon Beijing time. Hopefully lots of good pictures to come from the trip. I'm really looking forward to it. Time for bed! I'm so sleepy I'm going to bed early tonight. Today things were starting to get hazy. I'm hoping it rains soon to keep the pollution at bay. I"m pretty sure the air quality is what's making me so tired!
Worked on homework for a bit. Went out for a break and grabbed some Hong Kong waffles from a place outside the SW gate. They were pretty tasty. I got chocolate flavored ones. Definitely could have had more chocolate flavor. Definitely will go back there again. Headed back to my room to do some more studying and work on getting my stuff together to take to Xi'an since I'm leaving tomorrow. This will probably be my last post before my trip. I'm not taking my computer with me, so I will be offline until Monday afternoon Beijing time. Hopefully lots of good pictures to come from the trip. I'm really looking forward to it. Time for bed! I'm so sleepy I'm going to bed early tonight. Today things were starting to get hazy. I'm hoping it rains soon to keep the pollution at bay. I"m pretty sure the air quality is what's making me so tired!
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Seems like long nights is becoming a frequent trend. I don't know where all my time goes anymore. So much for classes not giving a lot of homework. At least Tuesday and Wednesday are my busy days, so after I finish my homework tonight, things should quiet down. Although after I finish with my classes tomorrow I have to start packing since I'm leaving on Friday to go to Xi'an for an extended weekend trip. I'm really looking forward to the trip. It will be my first time traveling by train and my first time going on a train overnight. Not to mention I'm going to get to see the Terracotta Warriors and the Great Mosque. Gotta make sure to charge my camera batteries!
I'm also super excited because for the second field trip, I was able to sign up to go over the national holiday on a trek to a rural Chinese village. Sitting in the front for lectures definitely has its benefits! So for 3-4 days over the national holiday, I'll be traveling with the program director and a few classmates out into the mountains of China to learn about the environment and stay at a village for a few nights. I'm super super excited. Plus it's a way better option than trying to travel all over China for the few days we have off from school. Tickets for planes and trains are selling out so fast. I decided to save myself the hassle (and some money!) by just sticking to the Beijing area. There are so many things I want to see here. I just don't see the point of rushing off to a different city for a handful of days and rushing through whatever there is to see. I would rather wait until I have more time so I can ensure I will be able to see everything I want (Guess that means I'll be coming back to China). Well that's all I have time for tonight. I gotta start studying for my quiz tomorrow and take a shower at some point. Until next time!
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Another long night of homework ahead of me. I got an email from my tutor informing me that I have to make a PPT presentation to introduce myself at my tutoring session tomorrow. Started off my day by going to my new Kouyu section. I don't like this 老师as much as the other one. I wish I didn't have a conflict so I could switch back to the other section. Well turns out this section is behind mine, which is nice. But, they had to make a presentation for homework and tell the class about their university. So now I have another presentation to make for tomorrow. After Kouyu, I had a short break to grab lunch and chill in the CIEE office for a little bit until I had my first elective class. I like the teacher for this class, although I'm still pretty confused as to how she plans to structure the class. She wrote some random words on the board today and we were telling her words that were written using those radicals and at the end of class she told us our homework was to familiarize ourselves with our classmates names and learn the characters on the board. I didn't really bother to write most of them down since they were characters I already knew. After my elective class, I had to go straight to my Hanyu class, which is slowly getting better. I was super prepared for the quiz today, so I'm hoping for a 10. I still have to get moving on the interview I have to do for that class. After Hanyu, I headed back to my room to start on my presentations, worked for a few hours and then grabbed a light dinner and some DQ with a few classmates. Now I'm back in my room again slaving over my powerpoints. I haven't even had the chance to start studying for my next quiz, but thankfully that's not until Thursday, so I still have most of tomorrow to study for it...although I have a lecture series I'm attending tomorrow night. So busy! That's about it for tonight. Just going to work for a few more hours and then head to bed. I'm hoping to sleep in tomorrow and be able to get my homework finished at my tutoring session tomorrow. Looks like I'm going to have another busy day!
Monday, September 17, 2012
Long night tonight, as I sit here still trying to work my way through my homework. Learning how to write so many characters overnight is a tough ordeal. Started off my 2nd week of classes today with my Reading class and then had my tutoring session directly after. I didnt' have any homework at that time, so there wasn't much to go over. We ended up just reviewing what I've gone over so far in my classes. This learning Chinese in Chinese stuff is pretty difficult. I have a whole new respect for ESL students now. I get really frustrated every time I'm asked to define a Chinese word using Chinese. Way above my skill level so far. My tutor was pretty tough too. She had me read over the conversations in the book to practice reading out loud and then she would ask me to recite the conversation from memory and then I had to summarize the conversation in Chinese (There is no English allowed during tutoring sessions or classes as per the language contract). I got really nervous when she pulled out her computer and started typing all of my responses to review for grammar and eliminating fragments. I'm not as bad as I thought I was, but still need improvement.
After tutoring, I returned home with the intention to start studying my new vocab words for tomorrow's quiz, but I had been feeling tired all morning, despite having 8 hours of sleep the night before, so I ended up sleeping for 3 hours. After my nap, my roommate introduced to a study abroad student from Holland she had met on campus. We had dinner together at one of the restaurants on campus and then I came back home to start my work. Skyped with my Dad for a while and then finally got to start my work. It's going to be a long night tonight.
I also got the syllabus for my Reading class and it's a little intimidating. I have 3- 800 character essays I have to write this term based off of prompts from the text book. I also have a series of 5 questions and at some point during the term, I have to interview 2 chinese people about the questions, record their responses, and compile the responses into a summary passage. After that, I will be paired with a few students from my class and we will have to make a powerpoint to present the answers we gathered from the interviews. On top of that, I also have 3 midterms along with homework assignments and quizzes.....and this is just one class! I'm so spoiled by Drexel's Chinese classes, which have no grades other than the grade you get from the final exam. I'm starting to think I preferred that format a lot more. For my next tutoring session on Wednesday, I have to prepare a powerpoint introducing myself and listing my goals for the term in China. I'm starting to feel like I have a lot of work to do. It's actually more work than I was expecting to have here. Although at least it's not as much work as I would be having if I was studying engineering. And, hopefully at the end of the term my Chinese will be getting pretty good and having to write a paper in Chinese to finish off my minor at Drexel should be a cinch (or so I'm hoping). Looking forward to the Xi'an trip this weekend! Although I think I have a test the day I get back from the trip!
After tutoring, I returned home with the intention to start studying my new vocab words for tomorrow's quiz, but I had been feeling tired all morning, despite having 8 hours of sleep the night before, so I ended up sleeping for 3 hours. After my nap, my roommate introduced to a study abroad student from Holland she had met on campus. We had dinner together at one of the restaurants on campus and then I came back home to start my work. Skyped with my Dad for a while and then finally got to start my work. It's going to be a long night tonight.
I also got the syllabus for my Reading class and it's a little intimidating. I have 3- 800 character essays I have to write this term based off of prompts from the text book. I also have a series of 5 questions and at some point during the term, I have to interview 2 chinese people about the questions, record their responses, and compile the responses into a summary passage. After that, I will be paired with a few students from my class and we will have to make a powerpoint to present the answers we gathered from the interviews. On top of that, I also have 3 midterms along with homework assignments and quizzes.....and this is just one class! I'm so spoiled by Drexel's Chinese classes, which have no grades other than the grade you get from the final exam. I'm starting to think I preferred that format a lot more. For my next tutoring session on Wednesday, I have to prepare a powerpoint introducing myself and listing my goals for the term in China. I'm starting to feel like I have a lot of work to do. It's actually more work than I was expecting to have here. Although at least it's not as much work as I would be having if I was studying engineering. And, hopefully at the end of the term my Chinese will be getting pretty good and having to write a paper in Chinese to finish off my minor at Drexel should be a cinch (or so I'm hoping). Looking forward to the Xi'an trip this weekend! Although I think I have a test the day I get back from the trip!
Sunday, September 16, 2012
The weekend is over and now it's time for me to start my second week of classes (this time with 4 classes instead of 2....good bye free time!). The weather today was so nice! I grabbed breakfast with my roommate and a friend on campus and then stopped at a cafe to get drinks. Afterwards, I went with my roommate to meet up with a Chinese person she had met on campus a few days ago. He was really nice. He treated both of us to a delicious lunch at one of the restaurants on campus. The food was soooo good...although the service was slow and they ran out of rice ((WHO RUNS OUT OF RICE?????)).
After lunch we headed back to the dorms with the intention to do work, but one of my friends in the room across the hall invited me to come to Wudaokou with her because she wanted to exchange a jacket that she bought. So we went shopping for a little. I'm surprised that the good quality clothes and shoes in China are just as expensive as things would be in America. I was planning to get a new pair of sandals to wear around, but I couldn't find anything I liked for the right price. In the end, I ended up buying a black fake leather jacket from one of the sales racks in a store. It was only 200 kuai (about $32)! What a steal! It looks really nice too :) Although apparently in China, I'm a size Large.
Lina and I grabbed dinner at a Korean restaurant around the corner from the shopping center. They had these amazing chicken skewers. It was a nice meal except for the fact that a few policemen decided that they wanted to move mopeds that were blocking a street, causing the moped alarms to blare for several minutes while they moved them all out of them way. Quite annoying...and loud.
After dinner, we grabbed a taxi and headed back to the dorms. I showered and started my homework and then Skyped the lovely Schaller family to check in and wish my cousin a happy birthday! I even managed to convince my roommate to join me and sing to him! I'm really glad I did most of my homework on Friday night so it didn't really matter that I didn't get much done today. I have to review a bit before I go to bed so I'm ready for my classes tomorrow. I have my first tutoring session in the morning. I'm kind of looking forward to it, but I'm not sure what I want to go over with her. I don't really have any questions yet...although I do need to learn more about ordering food. My vocabulary is so small! Pretty much I just go for any dish that has beef, chicken, pork or duck in the name....then I at least know what kind of meat I'm eating! Time for sleep and the start of week 2~! Xi'an trip this weekend!
After lunch we headed back to the dorms with the intention to do work, but one of my friends in the room across the hall invited me to come to Wudaokou with her because she wanted to exchange a jacket that she bought. So we went shopping for a little. I'm surprised that the good quality clothes and shoes in China are just as expensive as things would be in America. I was planning to get a new pair of sandals to wear around, but I couldn't find anything I liked for the right price. In the end, I ended up buying a black fake leather jacket from one of the sales racks in a store. It was only 200 kuai (about $32)! What a steal! It looks really nice too :) Although apparently in China, I'm a size Large.
Lina and I grabbed dinner at a Korean restaurant around the corner from the shopping center. They had these amazing chicken skewers. It was a nice meal except for the fact that a few policemen decided that they wanted to move mopeds that were blocking a street, causing the moped alarms to blare for several minutes while they moved them all out of them way. Quite annoying...and loud.
After dinner, we grabbed a taxi and headed back to the dorms. I showered and started my homework and then Skyped the lovely Schaller family to check in and wish my cousin a happy birthday! I even managed to convince my roommate to join me and sing to him! I'm really glad I did most of my homework on Friday night so it didn't really matter that I didn't get much done today. I have to review a bit before I go to bed so I'm ready for my classes tomorrow. I have my first tutoring session in the morning. I'm kind of looking forward to it, but I'm not sure what I want to go over with her. I don't really have any questions yet...although I do need to learn more about ordering food. My vocabulary is so small! Pretty much I just go for any dish that has beef, chicken, pork or duck in the name....then I at least know what kind of meat I'm eating! Time for sleep and the start of week 2~! Xi'an trip this weekend!
Saturday, September 15, 2012
Today was a chill day. Woke up early to skype my mom and Casey. Studied for a while and then went out with a group of people for food. We ended up deciding to try the Papa John's restaurant near campus. It was so funny. Papa John's here is a nice sit-down restaurant. We walked into the restaurant and all of the people there were sitting at the tables eating their pizza with forks and knives. Very amusing. We ended up getting a few appetizers and 3 pizzas to split among the 9 of us. The appetizers sucked. The wings were horrible and had a weird taste to them. Two classmates got a mashed potato with bacon dish that tasted horrible (I'm pretty sure they were instant potatos). At least the pizzas were good...not as good as NYC or Philly pizza, but an acceptable level of good. After lunch, we had planned to go to the market to shop, but most of the people were feeling tired since they were out late the night before, so we ended up heading back to campus. I don't know if it's the fact that the pizza in China isn't as good as the pizza at home or its just eating "american" food after 2 weeks of a strictly Chinese diet, but the pizza did not agree with me at all. I had lunch 8 hours ago and I still feel full...not a very pleasant feeling. I think that might be my first and only attempt at eating "american" food in China. I spent the rest of the day in my room relaxing and working on my homework. Since I switched the section of my one class, I'm not sure where they are in the textbook, so I've been trying to work ahead so I'm not behind them when I go to the new section on Tuesday.
I realized one thing I like about BeiDa is that they have a designated lunch time. There are NO CLASSES on campus between the hours of 12 and 1 so that teachers and students have time to eat lunch. I really like this concept. I wish Drexel had a similar system so I didn't always have to suffer through hours of class without having time to stop and eat. I was pleasantly surprised when I laid out my schedule in Excel and discovered this gem of information.
I find that I'm still stuck in a Drexel mindset as far as classes go. My roommate has been feeling guilty because of all the studying and preparing I've been doing for my classes. It's definitely hard to adjust to a school that doesn't move as fast as Drexel. I find myself wanting to do more studying to work ahead, so that I can be a little bit ahead of my classes. I guess I really don't need to do that here since the pace is so fast, but I still find myself filling my idle time with studying. I think I need to break that habit. I want to start walking around campus and meeting people, not just staying in my room the whole time. I don't know how my classmates do it, but I'm still not comfortable with talking to random people. I still don't know the area too well either, so I haven't done much exploring. I started to realize today how much of the campus I haven't seen because I mostly just walk from the dorms to my classrooms or to the Southwest gate to get food. My classmates showed me a bubble tea place on campus today, which I'm sure I will start going to more often now that I know it's there (rather than braving trying to cross the street to go to the bubble tea place over there). It made me realize how little of the campus I've seen. I think I want to get a bike soon so I can ride it around and explore the campus. I think walking would take way too long. Hoping to go shopping at the markets tomorrow!
I realized one thing I like about BeiDa is that they have a designated lunch time. There are NO CLASSES on campus between the hours of 12 and 1 so that teachers and students have time to eat lunch. I really like this concept. I wish Drexel had a similar system so I didn't always have to suffer through hours of class without having time to stop and eat. I was pleasantly surprised when I laid out my schedule in Excel and discovered this gem of information.
I find that I'm still stuck in a Drexel mindset as far as classes go. My roommate has been feeling guilty because of all the studying and preparing I've been doing for my classes. It's definitely hard to adjust to a school that doesn't move as fast as Drexel. I find myself wanting to do more studying to work ahead, so that I can be a little bit ahead of my classes. I guess I really don't need to do that here since the pace is so fast, but I still find myself filling my idle time with studying. I think I need to break that habit. I want to start walking around campus and meeting people, not just staying in my room the whole time. I don't know how my classmates do it, but I'm still not comfortable with talking to random people. I still don't know the area too well either, so I haven't done much exploring. I started to realize today how much of the campus I haven't seen because I mostly just walk from the dorms to my classrooms or to the Southwest gate to get food. My classmates showed me a bubble tea place on campus today, which I'm sure I will start going to more often now that I know it's there (rather than braving trying to cross the street to go to the bubble tea place over there). It made me realize how little of the campus I've seen. I think I want to get a bike soon so I can ride it around and explore the campus. I think walking would take way too long. Hoping to go shopping at the markets tomorrow!
Friday, September 14, 2012
Successful first week of class but today was super busy. After my 2 classes this morning, I had to head over to the Russian building to select electives. It was quite a mess since one of my classes conflicted with all of the electives. So I had to sign up for the class I wanted and then wait around until things cleared out so I could switch my class section. Today was quite busy. I was happy that I at least managed to switch my Kouyu class section using my Chinese skills. It wasn't as hard as I was expecting. So apparently the reason I had a problem is because I'm strange and my reading skills are 1 whole level above my speaking skills. According to the person I had to talk to to get my classes switched, my reading skills are high enough to take electives, but technically, my speaking skills aren't at the same level, which is why there was a conflict between classes. I always have some strange circumstance connected to me it seems.....
So all this time I thought I only had 2 classes....wrong! I completely forgot about the Language and culture class I'm required to take, which includes 4.5 hours of meeting time every week. I had to pair off with one of my classmates and then we each get 2 private tutoring sessions and 1 shared session for field trips and projects. So I think I'm around 25 hours of classes each week now........it's going to be a lot. Suddenly my schedule isn't as open as it was before. Oh well. At least I"ll be learning a lot. I was debating about dropping the elective, but I went through so much work to get it, that I might as well stick with it. It looks like it shouldn't be too difficult of a class. I just have to get a schedule established for doing homework and figuring out the pace of the school.
So that's about it for this week. Not much going on. I was going to go out tonight, but I'm not feeling up to it, so I'm just going to stay in and start working on my homework that's due monday and previewing my new book. Might as well get a head start on things so I can stay ahead. Learning 80-100+ new characters each week is not going to be easy!
So all this time I thought I only had 2 classes....wrong! I completely forgot about the Language and culture class I'm required to take, which includes 4.5 hours of meeting time every week. I had to pair off with one of my classmates and then we each get 2 private tutoring sessions and 1 shared session for field trips and projects. So I think I'm around 25 hours of classes each week now........it's going to be a lot. Suddenly my schedule isn't as open as it was before. Oh well. At least I"ll be learning a lot. I was debating about dropping the elective, but I went through so much work to get it, that I might as well stick with it. It looks like it shouldn't be too difficult of a class. I just have to get a schedule established for doing homework and figuring out the pace of the school.
So that's about it for this week. Not much going on. I was going to go out tonight, but I'm not feeling up to it, so I'm just going to stay in and start working on my homework that's due monday and previewing my new book. Might as well get a head start on things so I can stay ahead. Learning 80-100+ new characters each week is not going to be easy!
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Another day finished....although I'm still slaving away over my homework. I have a handful of new characters to learn, a few book exercises to do and I have to study for the quizzes I have tomorrow. I get to pick elective courses as well. I'm hoping they have changed the schedule since I got the one that was sent out or else I'm going to have to switch to a different section so I can take an elective. I'm pretty sure I'll go crazy if I'm just taking 2 classes all term.....even if it is 14 hours of classes.
Had 2 classes this morning from 8-12 ( and didnt mix up the times today!). Afterwards, I went to the CIEE office to try to fix my schedule, but they told me to wait until tomorrow when the finalized schedule gets posted. Grabbed some 包子 for lunch and then headed back to my room. Started on my homework, but kept getting distracted by emails from Drexel. I'm still stuck trying to figure out the co-op and work study mess. Sigh. A few of my classmates haven't tried hot pot yet, so at 5:30 we met up at the Southwest gate to head across the street to the hot pot restaurant. Turned out that my Chinese was the best out of the groups, so I got to do all of the ordering. It was an interesting experience. The food was amazing ( as usual) and it was only 23 kuai a person! I definitely have a hot pot addiction. Oh and 南瓜 is my new favorite vegetable. I think it's some kind of japanese vegetable or pumpkin or something of that nature. I'm not exactly sure what it is, but it's delicious. After dinner, we checked out a small arcade that's in the basement of the strip mall where we ate dinner. It was on the smaller side, but it looks like it has a ton of fun games. I was surprised because there were no young kids in the place, it was all adult people. I definitely want to go there and play some knock-off DDR! Next to the arcade was an internet cafe, which was filled with a ton of serious gamers. I wouldn't mind going there to play if I actually had a game that would work in China. I tried downloading the Chinese version of League of Legends today and I got it to work.....but I can't read anything! Might be an interesting experience trying to learn how to play the game while playing in a different language hahaha.
After dinner, I headed back to the dorms. Time for me to relax and finish up my homework before going to bed. I can't believe it's only 8:30. I dont know what it is, but something over here tires me out day after day. Maybe it's the constant task of trying to communicate with a second language. I'm not sure. The weather here today was beautiful! I love how nice the city is after it rains. But just give it a few more days and the pollution will roll back in until the next rain storm comes. Hoping the weather stays nice and starts to cool off! I'm ready for Fall and Winter!
Had 2 classes this morning from 8-12 ( and didnt mix up the times today!). Afterwards, I went to the CIEE office to try to fix my schedule, but they told me to wait until tomorrow when the finalized schedule gets posted. Grabbed some 包子 for lunch and then headed back to my room. Started on my homework, but kept getting distracted by emails from Drexel. I'm still stuck trying to figure out the co-op and work study mess. Sigh. A few of my classmates haven't tried hot pot yet, so at 5:30 we met up at the Southwest gate to head across the street to the hot pot restaurant. Turned out that my Chinese was the best out of the groups, so I got to do all of the ordering. It was an interesting experience. The food was amazing ( as usual) and it was only 23 kuai a person! I definitely have a hot pot addiction. Oh and 南瓜 is my new favorite vegetable. I think it's some kind of japanese vegetable or pumpkin or something of that nature. I'm not exactly sure what it is, but it's delicious. After dinner, we checked out a small arcade that's in the basement of the strip mall where we ate dinner. It was on the smaller side, but it looks like it has a ton of fun games. I was surprised because there were no young kids in the place, it was all adult people. I definitely want to go there and play some knock-off DDR! Next to the arcade was an internet cafe, which was filled with a ton of serious gamers. I wouldn't mind going there to play if I actually had a game that would work in China. I tried downloading the Chinese version of League of Legends today and I got it to work.....but I can't read anything! Might be an interesting experience trying to learn how to play the game while playing in a different language hahaha.
After dinner, I headed back to the dorms. Time for me to relax and finish up my homework before going to bed. I can't believe it's only 8:30. I dont know what it is, but something over here tires me out day after day. Maybe it's the constant task of trying to communicate with a second language. I'm not sure. The weather here today was beautiful! I love how nice the city is after it rains. But just give it a few more days and the pollution will roll back in until the next rain storm comes. Hoping the weather stays nice and starts to cool off! I'm ready for Fall and Winter!
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Third day of classes......oh wait, I dont have any classes on Wednesday! Slept in late and relaxed in the morning. Met up with a friend and went for bubble tea and individual hot pot for lunch. It was sooooooooooooooooo good! The restaurant was great. We got this huge plate of meat to share. The bill came out to only 100 kuai. They even gave us a student discount, so it ended up only being 45 kuai (6.75 USD) each for lunch. I'm definitely going back to that place again. It was delicious. After lunch, I headed back to my dorm room to start on my homework. I had 50 new characters to learn, a few exercises in my textbook and I had to use my new vocabulary words to write sentences. Took me most of the night to get my work done, mainly due to multitasking between many different things. Took a break in the middle of the study session to grab some baozi for dinner and then jumped right back into the work. It's really nice to have Wednesdays off. I just hope I can get my schedule fixed tomorrow. I think I'll go crazy if I'm only taking 2 classes, but we'll see.
I was supposed to go shopping with a few friends today, but that ended up not happening. One of my classmates was feeling sick for the past few days and wasn't getting better, so he went to the hospital today. I guess he's staying the night and hoping to come back to campus tomorrow. A lot of the people from my program have gotten sick so far since coming to Beijing. I guess I've just been lucky. 1+ week down and no signs of sickness or discomfort. Hoping the trend continues :) Adjusting to living in Beijing was a lot easier than I was expecting. Although ordering food is still the most challenging thing I have to deal with in everyday life. I just don't know enough words and I can't read well enough to usually tell what's on the menu, but I somehow manage to get by and order myself food that I enjoy eating. Some restaurant workers will just automatically hand us a menu in english. Others will just automatically talk to whatever asian people are in the group and ignore everyone else. It's definitely an interesting experience. I need to start studying more food words!
I was supposed to go shopping with a few friends today, but that ended up not happening. One of my classmates was feeling sick for the past few days and wasn't getting better, so he went to the hospital today. I guess he's staying the night and hoping to come back to campus tomorrow. A lot of the people from my program have gotten sick so far since coming to Beijing. I guess I've just been lucky. 1+ week down and no signs of sickness or discomfort. Hoping the trend continues :) Adjusting to living in Beijing was a lot easier than I was expecting. Although ordering food is still the most challenging thing I have to deal with in everyday life. I just don't know enough words and I can't read well enough to usually tell what's on the menu, but I somehow manage to get by and order myself food that I enjoy eating. Some restaurant workers will just automatically hand us a menu in english. Others will just automatically talk to whatever asian people are in the group and ignore everyone else. It's definitely an interesting experience. I need to start studying more food words!
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Second day of classes.....not so nice as the first day. For one, the air pollution today was horrible! Second, I didn't realize how big BeiDa campus was until I realized that it takes me 25 minutes to walk from my dorm room to my classroom. Forgot my schedule in my room and didn't have time to double back, which caused me to show up at the wrong room for the wrong class at the wrong time. Had to take a 15 minutes trek to the other side of campus to get to the right building for my class and then I couldn't find the entrance. All of the doors were locked. I had to circle around the building, trying all of the doors until one of them opened. My Kouyu class was super easy, but it's a comfortable level for me. I really like the teacher too. She speaks slow enough that I can understand what she's saying. After Kouyu, I headed over to my Hanyu class, only to realize that Tuesday is the one day that I don't have Kouyu and Hanyu back to back. So I headed back to my dorm to relax for a while until I actually had to go to my class. I'm really not a fan of my Hanyu class. They bumped me up a level without asking me and I feel a little bit over my head. Plus my professor speaks really fast so half of the time, I can't even catch what he's saying. But I have to say, I'm happy I placed into section 8 because if I had placed any lower, I would have a mandatory listening class I would have to take and I dont think I would want to take that.
After class, I got to have my first experience riding on the back of someone's bike. It was a lot of fun, but difficult. There are so many people here its hard to ride a bike when there is heavy walking traffic. You sometimes end up walking more than riding. Yoshiko and I rode from our classroom to the subway to meet a few other students. We headed over to Ming zi DaXue for a taichi class. It really wasn't for me. The pace of the class was way too slow and 2 hours is just way too long. After a long day of classes, I really don't have that long of an attention span left for anything that long. Plus there was this little kid running around counting all of the foreigners, which was a little distracting. After the class, a few of us went to a local restaurant to grab some dumplings before heading back to campus.
So now I'm stuck trying to figure out my schedule. I need to take an elective class, because just 2 classes isn't going to cut it for me. I have sooooo much free time. The only problem I'm having is that all of the electives are at the SAME TIME and that same time happens to be at the same time as my kouyu class. So now I'm kind of stuck. I need to take an elective to have enough credits to fill my time, but all of the electives conflict with my kouyu class. I found my kouyu class to be easy, so I wouldn't mind jumping up a level. But I'm comfortable with the level that I'm in and I really like the teacher. So I am stuck for now. I emailed one of the program advisors, but I'm going to have to wait until tomorrow to talk to them and see what they're going to recommend. Maybe I'm just meant to jump up to another level..... I guess I'll have to wait and see.
As for my realization of the day.... I realized that Chinese people do not maintain their bicycle brakes very well. My ears hurt from how many times I heard people trying to use the brakes on their bikes and instead only hearing a screeching sound because there's nothing left to the brake pads. So annoying!
I guess today is just a day full of annoyances. I was hired by the study abroad office to write journals about my experiences for a work study position, but there's not tab on my Drexel profile to report my hours. So now I have to find a way to call Drexel HR and have them fix my profile so I can get paid. I'm not writing journals for Drexel if I'm not getting paid. Yea for more stuff to take care of...... Time for me to go to bed. I'm exhausted from today. At least I dont have classes tomorrow! I might go do some shopping!
After class, I got to have my first experience riding on the back of someone's bike. It was a lot of fun, but difficult. There are so many people here its hard to ride a bike when there is heavy walking traffic. You sometimes end up walking more than riding. Yoshiko and I rode from our classroom to the subway to meet a few other students. We headed over to Ming zi DaXue for a taichi class. It really wasn't for me. The pace of the class was way too slow and 2 hours is just way too long. After a long day of classes, I really don't have that long of an attention span left for anything that long. Plus there was this little kid running around counting all of the foreigners, which was a little distracting. After the class, a few of us went to a local restaurant to grab some dumplings before heading back to campus.
So now I'm stuck trying to figure out my schedule. I need to take an elective class, because just 2 classes isn't going to cut it for me. I have sooooo much free time. The only problem I'm having is that all of the electives are at the SAME TIME and that same time happens to be at the same time as my kouyu class. So now I'm kind of stuck. I need to take an elective to have enough credits to fill my time, but all of the electives conflict with my kouyu class. I found my kouyu class to be easy, so I wouldn't mind jumping up a level. But I'm comfortable with the level that I'm in and I really like the teacher. So I am stuck for now. I emailed one of the program advisors, but I'm going to have to wait until tomorrow to talk to them and see what they're going to recommend. Maybe I'm just meant to jump up to another level..... I guess I'll have to wait and see.
As for my realization of the day.... I realized that Chinese people do not maintain their bicycle brakes very well. My ears hurt from how many times I heard people trying to use the brakes on their bikes and instead only hearing a screeching sound because there's nothing left to the brake pads. So annoying!
I guess today is just a day full of annoyances. I was hired by the study abroad office to write journals about my experiences for a work study position, but there's not tab on my Drexel profile to report my hours. So now I have to find a way to call Drexel HR and have them fix my profile so I can get paid. I'm not writing journals for Drexel if I'm not getting paid. Yea for more stuff to take care of...... Time for me to go to bed. I'm exhausted from today. At least I dont have classes tomorrow! I might go do some shopping!
Monday, September 10, 2012
First day of school! Although it didn't really feel like a first day of school. I had to get up early and met up with 2 friends to try and grab breakfast. Lines everywhere were too long, so we ended up just grabbing a few pastries from a 超市 and then headed to class. I only had 1 class today from 8-10, so it was a pretty chill day. I definitely was not ready for my class at all. It was 2 hours long and the only language spoke was Chinese. Guess I better get used to that pretty quickly. After class, I grabbed some 包子 for lunch and then embarked on an adventure with Mariah to help her figure out how to put more funds on her student id and add more money to her sim card. We also went on an adventure in search of bubble tea and had an interesting experience trying to order our drinks at the place. We wanted Bubble Tea, but they kept trying to give us Pudding bubbles (which we didnt want). The girl seemed excited that I knew the word for bubble tea and we eventually got what we were after (and it was delicious!). I think I'll be going back to that place again. And maybe I'll try the pudding option for fun. The bubble tea here is SO CHEAP! I think I paid 6 kuai (to give you a feel for the currency difference, 10 kuai is equal to about $1.50 USD, so a bubble tea here is about $0.80). After our adventuring, I went back to my room to chill for a few hours and start my homework. I have about 35 characters I need to learn how to write for a quiz in class tomorrow. They really don't mess around here (good thing Drexel has me prepared!). Went out for dinner with a few friends later in the evening, but the food wasn't that great. First meal I haven't really enjoyed. Not going back to that restaurant again any time soon. I'm back in my room now and need to finish up my review before I go to sleep. Class from 8-12 tomorrow, so it's not too bad. Looking forward to picking electives at the end of the week!
Sunday, September 9, 2012
Pretty quiet day today since there were no planned activities. It was nice to have a day to just relax and enjoy the city. I ended up sleeping in to make sure I was rested for the start of classes tomorrow. Sat around in my room for a little bit and then walked around the campus to explore and try to find the buildings I would be having my classes in on Monday. Since I don't have electives yet, I only have class from 8-10 tomorrow, which is pretty nice. After exploring the campus, I just relaxed in my room for a while and then a group of us went out for dinner to get hot pot. It was absolutely delicious. I thought we ordered too much food, but the group of us managed to finish it off, no problem. Time for a shower and sleep and then I start classes in the morning! Still have to find some way to fill my day after I finish with classes. I'm looking forward to selecting electives on Friday so my schedule is a little bit more full.
Saturday, September 8, 2012
Another exciting day in Beijing, though thankfully not as busy as most. Got to take my time waking up today. Went over to the language building on campus and spent a while trying to figure out how to read my schedule on the boards that were placed outside. Finally got my Spoken Chinese and Reading Chinese class schedule set up. I don't get to pick my elective courses until Friday. Afterwards, I headed over to the CIEE office and they escorted the group of us over to a restaurant to meet the host families we would be staying with for our homestays. I think I got a pretty good family for my homestay. I'll be living with them for one month starting in October. One of the teachers from my program stayed with this family when he was in the program a few years ago and said they are a very good family. The man we're staying with is a retired physics professor from Beida. His son and granddaughter also live with him (I also heard the son makes amazing food!). The best part is that his house is about a 5 minute walk from the campus West gate. Some students have a 40 minutes subway ride every morning to get to campus, so I'm very thankful that his house is close. Should be an interesting experience. He actually walked us over to his house to show us where it was and even walked us back to the campus to make sure we knew the way.
Afterwards, I met back up with a group from my program to go shopping at the Pearl market. It was about a 1 hour subway ride to get there, but the Pearl Market was so much fun. My chinese really isn't that great yet, so I wasn't ready to do a lot of haggling. One of my classmates' mom is a flight attendant and apparently flight attendants share places to shop with each other, so he took us to an electronics store. The others had fun buying a bunch of stuff. I really didn't need anything. Later, with the help of a friend I managed to buy a really nice white ceramic watch (a knock off, of course). I think I got a pretty good deal on it. I think Kyle had the most fun today with the shopping. He was really excited about haggling to get good prices for stuff. He was really good at it too. I have to learn from him! He kept jumping into deals to drive down the prices. I learned that it's best to shop in groups of 2s or 3s. If he wanted a lower price and the person wasn't budging, I would walk over to him and say "走吧" which means, let's go. So he would look like he was walking away and they would usually call after him to lower the price. Pretty effective system I think. They managed to get fake LV wallets for like 30 Kuai (about 4.50 USD). Not a bad deal. Overall it was a good learning experience, but I need to improve my Chinese a lot more. We also stopped at a McDonalds to grab dinner before heading back to campus. I had trouble ordering since I've only learned Chinese words for Chinese food and not Chinese words for American foods. It was an interesting experience.
Afterwards, I met back up with a group from my program to go shopping at the Pearl market. It was about a 1 hour subway ride to get there, but the Pearl Market was so much fun. My chinese really isn't that great yet, so I wasn't ready to do a lot of haggling. One of my classmates' mom is a flight attendant and apparently flight attendants share places to shop with each other, so he took us to an electronics store. The others had fun buying a bunch of stuff. I really didn't need anything. Later, with the help of a friend I managed to buy a really nice white ceramic watch (a knock off, of course). I think I got a pretty good deal on it. I think Kyle had the most fun today with the shopping. He was really excited about haggling to get good prices for stuff. He was really good at it too. I have to learn from him! He kept jumping into deals to drive down the prices. I learned that it's best to shop in groups of 2s or 3s. If he wanted a lower price and the person wasn't budging, I would walk over to him and say "走吧" which means, let's go. So he would look like he was walking away and they would usually call after him to lower the price. Pretty effective system I think. They managed to get fake LV wallets for like 30 Kuai (about 4.50 USD). Not a bad deal. Overall it was a good learning experience, but I need to improve my Chinese a lot more. We also stopped at a McDonalds to grab dinner before heading back to campus. I had trouble ordering since I've only learned Chinese words for Chinese food and not Chinese words for American foods. It was an interesting experience.
Friday, September 7, 2012
I've only been in China for a few days, but I feel like I've been here for a long time already. This morning, I had to go over to the Chinese as a Second Language Building to get my placement scores. It was an interesting experience. They had everyone's scores posted on this huge board in the courtyard outside the building. I couldn't read what I placed into, so I had to grab the room number and head to that room to find out what books I would be getting. After waiting in line, I had to talk to 2 teachers. They talked to me a bit to see if I had been placed into the right level. For both spoken they bumped me up 1 level and reading I got bumped up 2. I think I can still go to the next higher level and not have a problem, but I'm going to wait until my class starts and see how easy it is before I make a decision to level up. I want to enjoy my time in China, not spend all my time studying and trying to catch up with the rest of my class. As long as my Chinese improves enough so I can test out of classes at Drexel, I'll be happy. I get to pick my elective courses on Friday, tomorrow morning I have to go back to get my class schedule.
After getting my books, I went with 2 friends over to the 饺子 restaurant on campus. After eating, I was invited by a friend to play basketball. I really suck at basketball, but I decided to go along anyway to have some experience talking to local people. Ended up playing a few games with a few of the guys on the courts. They looked very confused when I asked them if I could join them. I guess they don't get many girls that play basketball in China. We ended up playing a little 2v2. It was a lot of fun and a great way to learn new words and practice what I already knew. I realized I know a lot more Chinese than I initially thought I did. I ended up playing basketball for about 3 hours.
After that, I headed back to the dorm to cool off before jumping on the bus to go to the Great Wall. It was a 1 hour ride from campus to the wall. We didnt' go to the main touris-ty spot, we instead to a more run down part of the wall. No one else was there. We were allowed 3 hours to hike around the wall and look at everything. I took so many pictures. It was actually a very difficult hike. Sections of the wall are super steep and it's all stairs going up to the top. I was not prepared for this level of diffculty, but it wasn't too bad. I'm definitely tired out from it. Towards the end of our time there, a lot of clouds started rolling in, making everything look pretty foggy. After the hike, we headed to a local restaurant for dinner and once again stuffed our faces with food before heading back to the school. So now I am home and I am exhausted from basketball, climbing the Great Wall and all the other activities I've been doing this week. Time for me to get some sleep!
After getting my books, I went with 2 friends over to the 饺子 restaurant on campus. After eating, I was invited by a friend to play basketball. I really suck at basketball, but I decided to go along anyway to have some experience talking to local people. Ended up playing a few games with a few of the guys on the courts. They looked very confused when I asked them if I could join them. I guess they don't get many girls that play basketball in China. We ended up playing a little 2v2. It was a lot of fun and a great way to learn new words and practice what I already knew. I realized I know a lot more Chinese than I initially thought I did. I ended up playing basketball for about 3 hours.
After that, I headed back to the dorm to cool off before jumping on the bus to go to the Great Wall. It was a 1 hour ride from campus to the wall. We didnt' go to the main touris-ty spot, we instead to a more run down part of the wall. No one else was there. We were allowed 3 hours to hike around the wall and look at everything. I took so many pictures. It was actually a very difficult hike. Sections of the wall are super steep and it's all stairs going up to the top. I was not prepared for this level of diffculty, but it wasn't too bad. I'm definitely tired out from it. Towards the end of our time there, a lot of clouds started rolling in, making everything look pretty foggy. After the hike, we headed to a local restaurant for dinner and once again stuffed our faces with food before heading back to the school. So now I am home and I am exhausted from basketball, climbing the Great Wall and all the other activities I've been doing this week. Time for me to get some sleep!
Thursday, September 6, 2012
Nothing much going on today. Took my placement exam in the morning and it was absolutely horrible. I'm so glad I self studied over the summer or I wouldn't have been able to read the test to take it. Definitely the most brutal 2 hours in Beijing before. After the test, I signed up to try and get a slot for a 2 week home stay. had a few hours of free time before catching the bus over to a fancy hotel to have a welcome lunch with a few of the administrators at PKU. The whole welcome was in Chinese. At least my comprehension is starting to get better after 3 days here. The lunch was good, but I had no idea what I was eating. I found out later that one of the dishes was made out of kidneys. I think I'm better off not knowing what I'm eating. Had another break and then the teachers treated us to dinner at a dumpling restaurant down the street. That was about it for today. I'm tired so I'm going to sleep early tonight. Have to get up early tomorrow morning to find out my language placement, pick up my textbooks and then (if it's not raining) head to the Great Wall for a field trip!
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Another busy day in Beijing! I had a super long orientation this morning (which included signing my language pledge for the rest of my stay here). followed by lunch with one of the teachers. She took us to a Sichuan restaurant which was right out side of Bei Da's South gate. The food there was also excellent! I can't believe how much good food they have to offer in Beijing. The Sichuan food was really good. We had spicy shredded pork, sweet and sour chicken, black pepper beef, curry chicken, some sort of soup, mapo tofu and a bunch others that I forgot about. It wasn't nearly as salty as the sichuan food around Philly. I'm really loving the food (if you couldnt tell already)! I'm so happy that I get to eat Chinese food all day, every day. After lunch, there were a few hours of free time before the field trip to the Summer Palace, so I went wandering around the campus in search of a cell phone. I had my first successful haggling experience and manged to land a phone and a SIM card for next to nothing. After the free time, the group headed over to the Summer palace for a tour. We only had about 2 hours to spend there and it wasn't nearly enough time. I could probably spend a whole day there. There are so many neat buildings to look at and so much history behind the whole place. It's a really nice place to just sit and relax. There's an amazing breeze coming off of the lake. You can pay for a boat ride to be taken across the lake to the other side. Did not have time to do that, sadly. I think I will be going back there in the future so I can take my time and look around. The interesting thing about the lake and the hill is that they are both man-made. From what I understood, one of the emperors had it made to honor his mother on her 60th birthday.
So in China, the people here love to take pictures of foreigners (for some reason). Whenever we stop to take a group picture, random people will come over to take pictures of us. Or if we're standing around in a group, I can usually spot a few people lingering around us trying to take pictures. One guy in my program is so funny. He noticed a guy trying to discretely take pictures of us, walked over to the guy, stuck his phone in the guy's face and started taking pictures of him. It was so funny. The guy was nice tho and we ended up taking a group picture with him. For the rest of the trip to the summer palace, everytime we noticed someone trying to sneak pictures with us we invited them to take a group photo with a few of us. They seem to be fascinated with the tall guys that we have in the program. It's really interesting.
Just got back from the summer palace now and I'm putting my feet up for a few minutes before heading out to find some dinner. My feet are so sore from walking up and down steps all day. It still hasn't quite sunk in yet that I'm actually studying in China. I'm really looking forward to classes starting on Monday. Just not looking forward to the placement exam tomorrow at all. I guess I'll be up studying tonight for that test.
On a side note, traffic in Beijing is absolutely horrifying. The cars do not have to yield to pedestrians, making crossing the street very dangerous. Bike traffic is equally horrible. Also the street corners don't have nice lights that tell you when you can and cannot cross the street. It's kind of a mad dash for safety. The cars don't slow down or stop at all. And if a car is making a right on red, they dont even bother to stop. I swear, I don't even know why they have lines painted on the roads here. Sometimes you just see a line of vehicles that are half in one lane and half in another. Merging looks super scary too. Definitely have to be a super aggressive driver to drive around here. I'm glad the taxis are so cheap. Some places have bridges built that allow you to safely cross to the other side, but they are not as frequent as I would like.
Well that's all for now. I really need to get some dinner. Until next time!
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
Survived my second day in Beijing! After an early breakfast at a dumpling restaurant the group headed to Tian'anmen square. I got to take a lot of pictures. Didnt' have time to go into the Forbidden City, so I'm hoping I can find time to go back there one day and take a look. Got there just in time to see the Mausoleum of Chairman Mao before it closed for the afternoon. After Tian'anmen square, took a short bus ride to a restaurant to eat 北京烤鸭(Beijing Duck). It was soooooo good!. I could not stop eating the food at the restaurant. The teachers ordered so much! I think there were at least 10-12 different dishes for all of us to try. The food just kept coming and coming and coming. I ate sooooooo much food. I was cleaning off plates left and right. After lunch, the group headed back to campus to have a campus tour. I found the tour to be very frustrating. I thought the tutor was giving the orientation/tour in Chinese so we could all practice....but it turns out they just didn't speak English. So they were trying to convey important info about how to add money to our student IDs or how to pay for internet for the rest of the stay, pointing out buildings to us....and I had almost no clue what they were saying. Very frustrating experience. I've still been unsuccessful in my search for a cell phone. Too frustrated after the tour to go around shopping for one, so I guess I'll have to try again tomorrow if I have time. This week is packed with tons of orientation seminars and field trips and other stuff to do. It feels so nice to finally be able to sit down after such a long day. I got to meet more people from my program today since everyone went as a group to Tian'anmen. Got some pretty neat people in the program with me :) Found a have a few fellow gamers and martial arts enthusiasts, so we're probably going to take a look around the university and see if there are any clubs to join so we can have a change to mingle with some of the chinese students and practice language skills while doing something we enjoy. Looking at another long day tomorrow and then a night of cramming for the placement exam. While today may have been frustrating, I can definitely see that my Chinese skills are improving already so I guess that's a plus!
Monday, September 3, 2012
我在中国!!! This is my first post from the lovely city of Beijing, China. Left early this morning from Newark airport and braved at 14 hour direct flight to the airport in Beijing. Thankfully there were no long lines or waiting or anything. I think they only thing I really had to wait for was for my luggage to come onto the carousel. I slept for most of the flight, so it didn't seem that long (thankfully). No screaming children or irate people or smelly people so I was happy. The guy next to me didn't speak English, so I had a nice quiet ride. No internet on the plane, but I entertained myself with a few movies. The flight went well except my nose is all dried out from the icky recycled cabin air. The food was kinda meh (nothing at all like my dad's cooking!).
I got picked up at the airport by a shuttle bus and taken directly to my new living place, Zhong guan yuan Global village. I guess it used to be a hotel or something, so it's pretty nice. The common area in the room is a little depressing (small and no natural light), but the bedrooms are nice. I have a huge window/door combo. My room had 2 bedrooms and each person has their own room. My roommate so far has been great. She's from Tennessee. So far the people I've met from the program have been really nice. I think it should be a good term.This week is all orientation and then I start classes next monday. Working on settling into my room and unpacking. Decided to figure out the internet and send a few emails before people start worrying if I actually made it to my destination. I still don't think it's quite set in that I'm living in another country. I just can't believe I'm here. Pretty much every other thought includes "wow I'm in China and I'm speaking Chinese".
So far everything is going well. It's just going to take a lot of adjustment. I keep forgetting that people here don't speak English (and then realize I'm speaking the wrong language when they give me funny looks). Well that's all for now. I need to get finished unpacking and change so I can go out and get some food with the rest of the group. More to come later (once something exciting actually happens)! Tianamen square tomorrow! I have a lot of field trips this week!
I got picked up at the airport by a shuttle bus and taken directly to my new living place, Zhong guan yuan Global village. I guess it used to be a hotel or something, so it's pretty nice. The common area in the room is a little depressing (small and no natural light), but the bedrooms are nice. I have a huge window/door combo. My room had 2 bedrooms and each person has their own room. My roommate so far has been great. She's from Tennessee. So far the people I've met from the program have been really nice. I think it should be a good term.This week is all orientation and then I start classes next monday. Working on settling into my room and unpacking. Decided to figure out the internet and send a few emails before people start worrying if I actually made it to my destination. I still don't think it's quite set in that I'm living in another country. I just can't believe I'm here. Pretty much every other thought includes "wow I'm in China and I'm speaking Chinese".
So far everything is going well. It's just going to take a lot of adjustment. I keep forgetting that people here don't speak English (and then realize I'm speaking the wrong language when they give me funny looks). Well that's all for now. I need to get finished unpacking and change so I can go out and get some food with the rest of the group. More to come later (once something exciting actually happens)! Tianamen square tomorrow! I have a lot of field trips this week!
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