back in the U.S....

I have been back in the U.S. for almost a month and it was brought to my attention that I just left my blog hanging...so if anyone even reads this entry, I apologize for not keeping this up better!
I honestly don't even know what to write at this point... how do I "sum up" up my experience in China?? One thing I can tell you all that it was the most amazing experience of my life and I would do it all over again in a second. I feel like it is my second home now.
So I hope that this is not an end that I need to sum up, but a beginning... hopefully I will be back in China again soon :-)

Yunnan

Sorry it's taken so long for me to get this post up!!


Yunnan Trip
At 4:30 a.m. on November 9, my group left for the Chongqing airport to catch our flight to Kunming, Yunnan, China. For those of you who don't know, Yunnan is a province in Southwest China (right below Sichuan). 

Our plan was to fly to Kunming (the capital of Yunnan), spend the day there and then take the train to Dali that night and sleep on the train. Then, we would spend about half a day in Dali and take a bus to Lijiang and spend the rest of our excursion there (until November 13). We were all really excited for this trip. Not only did we get out of classes for a few days, but Yunnan is known for having the most ethnic diversity in China, so it is a very interesting place.

We actually spent most of our day in Kunming at the Stone Forest, which is actually in the Kunming area- not the city. It was a really cool place. The stone formations are all natural and they used to be under water... however I am a little confused about how they were formed.

the Stone Forest

Luke, Kia, Cindy, Rachel & Bert wearing minority clothing
(& yes, Bert is wearing women's minority clothing haha)

After visiting the Stone Forest, we went back to the city to have dinner and see a performance called "Dynamic Yunnan". This performance was about the minorities in Yunnan. They sang and danced based on the customs of several different minorities.

Our group at the Three Pagodas in Dali

Our time in Dali was actually extremely short. I think it would’ve been cool to spend more time there. By early or mid afternoon, we were already on our bus ride to Lijiang.

We got to Lijiang around 7 pm. We met our guide, Paul, and he showed us to our hostel in the Ancient Town. We all got some time to shower before meeting for dinner. Kia, Chris and I were ready a little early so we asked Paul if there was anything fun to do in Lijiang for free. So he brought us to a little shop that plays music and you can play African drums to the music. It is a little bit hard to explain, but there are shops like this all over the Ancient Town in Lijiang. This was something that we went back to do a few times while we were in Lijiang.  After that we had dinner, wandered around a little, and then I went to bed early.

The next day (11/11/11) was my favorite day of the whole trip. We went to Jade Dragon Snow Mountain near Lijiang. It was absolutely gorgeous! We took chair lifts about halfway up the mountain because you can’t actually go all the way up- or at least no one who has tried has ever survived. It was cool just going that far up though because there was a beautiful meadow. There were yaks grazing in the meadow. There was a little bit of snow, so a few of us had a little snowball fight.

meadow/field at Jade Dragon Snow Mountain

After we went back down the mountain, we went to this river that is the bluest river I have ever seen. This was especially cool because pretty much all the rivers I have seen in China are brownish. I think it is so blue because of some minerals. Anyway, there was also a little waterfall in this river and an area where you could just hang out by the river. From this place, there was an amazing view of the mountains.

the Blue River and the mountains

waterfall at the Blue River

That night, Paul brought Kia, Chris, Axel & me to see a great view of Lijiang from up on a hill. It was so beautiful! After that, some of us went to meet the other people from our group at one of the music bars. I was ready to dance, but it ended up being a little too crazy for me in that bar… within about 10 minutes of being there, an old man (I think he must have been in his 70s) kissed my hand and then licked it… so I was ready to leave again. Paul offered to walk me back. But on the way back, we saw these two guys playing guitar and singing on one of the bridges, so we stopped to listen to them until they finished (around midnight). There were a lot of amazing experiences during my Yunnan trip, but my favorite thing was listening to those guys playing guitar on the bridge.

Lijiang ancient town at night

The next day, we went to Tiger Leaping Gorge. This gorge is supposedly really famous, but I have to be honest that it did not stand a chance after my experience at Golden Knife Gorge earlier in the semester. However, it was cool to see the Yangtze River and to see how strong it was. And it was still a really good time to just hang out with everyone. On the way back to Lijiang (because the gorge is a few hours away), we stopped at a village and visited the home of an old minority couple. Both the husband and the wife were really kind. The woman even brought us some walnuts to eat. I thought it was pretty cool to just stop by a home and see what it looked like.

The next day was a free day. Kia and I were going to rent a couple of bikes and go around Lijiang. However, we changed our minds when we found out we needed to make a deposit of 200 kuai each. So instead, we just wandered around Lijiang Ancient Town buying souvenirs and enjoying the sunshine.

ancient town streets in Lijiang

After wandering around for a while, we sat down by the little river that runs through the Ancient Town. And while we were sitting we saw a drowning dragonfly… Kia adores dragonflies, so she really wanted to save it. And to make a long story short, I decided to save the day and retrieve this dragonfly from the water for her (although at this point, we thought it was dead). We used the branch of a weeping willow and tied a little cloth bag with a rock in it to the other end (so it would have some weight). Anyway… I eventually got the dragonfly to float towards us and I picked it out of the water. And to our surprise, it was still alive.  Hahaha so maybe we are a little crazy, but we had a fun day :-)

the dragonfly that Kia & I saved from the little river in the ancient town

That night, Paul brought Kia, Chris and I out for dinner so we could try Lijiang hotpot. It was definitely different than Chongqing hotpot, but I really enjoyed it! We also had some really good conversation at dinner. It was a perfect end to an amazing trip!!

Our tour guide, Paul, & me
He is holding a mini drum that Kia & I gave him as a gift.

Yunnan post coming soon...

Hey everyone!
I am sorry that I haven't posted anything in a while! Life has been crazy here- the end of the semester is coming up soon, so I have had sooo much to do to wrap up with classes and such. I do have more stories to tell because we recently went on a trip to Yunnan (province in southwest China), and it was amazing! Unfortunately, though, I do not have time to post on that right now because I have several papers to write, as well as a lot of reading and studying to do. But, I just wanted to let you all know that another post will be coming soon!
Here is a little sneak preview:

(photo by Kia)

Halloween

Long time, no blog!! ...Internet woes....
Anyway... I want to tell you all about Halloween! Halloween is not celebrated in China, but my group hosted a Halloween Party on Saturday night (the 29th, not the actual Halloween) to teach the Chinese students about the holiday. Like a lot of things here, we ended up getting this party together a little bit last minute. We each got 15 tickets to give out to friends (although there were some complications with this due to some bad communication with the Waiban). We also invited our teachers and the Waiban (foreign affairs office) staff. So in total, we invited around 200-250 people. We had a lot of snacks, a lot of decorations, and a lot of fun! We had music and a few games, but mostly it was people socializing and enjoying each other’s costumes. My friends really seemed to enjoy our party, so I would say it was a success!!!

Kia was our party photographer, so here are some pictures she took at the party:

Me (fairy)

Cindy (black cat)

Kia (witch) 

Guy (woman)

Bert (panda)

Dan (panda)

Luke (weird old wizard) 

Axel (sunflower)
Also: on the left, Ottobeck [spelling?], a foreign student from Uzbekistan

Chris (shepherd) & Obama (his sheep)
[Obama is Liu Hao Xuan's dog] 

Zach (mummy)

Nolan (Wall Street guy)

Rachel & Sarita (belly dancers)
Also: Nikolai [spelling?], a foreign student from Russia (Russian mobster) &
Charles, a foreign student from U.S. [but not in my group] (woman)

My Chinese friends: 

Liu Hao Xuan & me

Vivien & Olivia (my language partner)

Paul & Kia

Jackie, a girl I don't know, Kia & Daisy

Vivien, Klinda, two girls I don't know, Shirley & Ryan

haircut

So today I decided to get a haircut! I went with a friend/translator, but it didn't turn out at all how I expected (or originally wanted). He cut it a lot shorter than I wanted, and also cut it with my part on the opposite side of my head than I usually have it... but oh well- at least he was very careful with the way he cut it! Annie likes to cut hair so she spruced it up a bit for me, and now it's starting to grow on me. Just thought I would share some pics with all of you!

Here is how my hair was supposed to look/the pictures I showed the hairdresser:

This is how I ended up looking:

Golden Week

       This last week (October 1-7) was National Day & Golden Week. October 1 was National Day, and then there is about 1 week off from work and school for people to spend travelling and enjoying themselves. I had originally planned on travelling somewhere for Golden Week, but decided instead to stay back with a few other people (Kia, Cindy, Chris, Axel, Zach, Sam & Annie & their kids). Before I say anything about my holiday, I just have to say that I am so happy with my decision to stay back- it was fun, but also very relaxing!

Saturday

       On National Day, Kia and I decided to go to downtown Beibei to go (window) shopping. It was pouring and extremely crowded! Everybody had their umbrellas out, but that did very little to increase personal space. My favorite stop was an underground market that turned out to be absolutely huge! My favorite feature of this market is that most of the vendors did not hassle us as we looked at the different stalls. After a few hours of wandering in the downtown area, we decided that it was too crowded and wet to continue shopping. Later that night, Cindy, Kia, Annie and I went out for a girls’ night. We ended up eating at this place called Shingo Times, which was a place that served something similar to hotpot. It was really good food! Then we went to this lounge-like place that Annie knew about to get dessert and lavender tea.

Sunday

       It was rainy again so I decided to stay in for most of the day and just relax. I honestly don’t really remember what I did for most of the day. But that night, Chris cooked for us (Axel, Kia, Cindy and I)… and let me tell you, that guy can cook! Wow- our meal was absolutely delicious!! We didn’t actually end up eating until extremely late (maybe 11 pm), but it was worth the wait because the food was just that good!

Monday


        The weather had cleared up a little bit so my friend, Ryan, brought me to see this old (abandoned) village that is in Beibei (but close to the river and the mountains). First we went down by the river because I hadn’t been there yet. We skipped stones for a little while, and although I got a few good skips, Ryan really showed me up. We sat by the river for a while talking before we went back up to see the village. I was told that this village was more than 500 years old. I thought it was a pretty cool place to see, but I think we ended up spending more time by the river than in the old village. We then went to eat at a cool little restaurant, and Ryan helped me practice my Chinese. One phrase I learned/practiced: wǒ yǒu yī shuāng lánsè de yǎnjīng (I have a pair of blue eyes). When I got back, I went to work on homework with Cindy at our favorite milk tea place. Cindy has become pretty good friends with the guy who works there (Liu Hao). We think he runs this place on his own; he is only 19 years old, but it seems to me like he has a pretty successful business going on. He makes a really delicious mango and cream crepe sort of dessert that I absolutely love. He also has an adorable little, white dog named “Obama”. So, we had a lovely afternoon doing homework and hanging out with Liu Hao and Obama. Monday night, Kia and I babysat for Sam & Annie so they could have some free time.

Jialing River

Jialing River


Tuesday

       For lunch, I met up with Shirley, a Chinese student who wanted to practice her oral English with me. We went to lunch, and I talked mostly about my family and about school to help her learn more English words and pronunciation. She was very nice, and we plan to spend time together again sometime soon! Later in the day, I went with Kia to play Badminton (which is a pretty popular sport here). After we had been there for a while, Chris came to join us too. A Chinese student also asked to play with us. Kia, Chris and the other girl were all so good! It was definitely a work-out for me to keep up with them because my Badminton skills are not as good as theirs. That evening, Kia and I went to meet Cindy and Annie to go on our second girls’ night of the week. We ate a really good chicken and potato dish at a nearby Muslim restaurant, and then went to a different tea place to try their lavender tea. It was another great night of talking and tea drinking. It won’t really do it justice to try to explain it any more than that.

Cindy & Kia

Me & Annie

Wednesday

       In the morning, Axel, Ryan and I to the bus to downtown Chongqing to visit the Three Gorges Dam Museum (http://www.3gmuseum.cn/en/). Sam and Chris were also going to go, but Sam got sick and Chris was too tired to go. The museum is not really about the Three Gorges Dam- it was more of a history museum, but Chinese history includes art, which I love. We walked around the museum looking at everything. And apparently, while we were walking around, there were two separate occasions where little girls went up to Axel and felt his arm hair (because the Chinese don’t have very much arm hair)… events that I wish I had witnessed. After the museum, we went to find a well-known, but hard-to-find hotpot place. It took us a while to get there, but it really was very good, so it was worth it! Afterwards, Ryan helped us to find canned tuna because Axel really wanted some. I think we went to at least 3 supermarkets, but we eventually found some!! Axel basically cleaned them out. And since tuna is not common in China, it is very expensive. I think he ended up spending about 240 kuai (~40 USD). However, the hope is that it will last him the rest of the semester. At one of the supermarkets, I also bought some durian- a fruit with an interesting reputation- to give it a try because I had heard so much about it. For those of you who do not know about durian, it has a very strong, unpleasant smell. The smell is so bad that when a couple of my friends had a durian in their dorm last year, life safety came to check it out because they thought it was a gas leak. Also, durian is a love-it-or-hate-it fruit. It turns out that I hate it, but I figured it was still worth a try. Before we got on the bus back to Beibei, Ryan wanted to get his own “tasty” snacks. When he brought them back for us to try, I was very disappointed to see that he brought back some kind of tentacles and chicken heart. I decided not to try the tentacles.

Thursday

        This day was an exploration day for Kia and I. We went to downtown Beibei again because I was in search of a sweatshirt. After we found the sweatshirt that I had tracked down on National Day, we decided to walk to gate 2 (of the Southwest Campus) to get food (because we know there is an ‘eat street’ there. The set-up of campus, is kind of strange, the order of the gates from the North side of campus to the South side is gate 5, gate 1, gate 3, gate 2, gate 6. I don’t understand why the gates are not in order, but apparently 4 is an unlucky number, so that is why there is no gate 4. We live very close to gate 5, so gate 2 is a little bit of a trek. We wanted to go to gate 6 because we had not been there yet. All of campus is beautiful, but it turns out that gate 6 is even more beautiful. Ryan told us that he lives near gate 6, so Kia decided to call him to see if we could see what his dorm looks like. We had already seen what the girls’ dorms looked like, but we were curious if the guys’ dorms were the same or not. However, students aren’t allowed to be in the dorms of the opposite sex so we weren’t sure if they would allow us in or not. Anyway, Ryan came over to meet us and agreed to show us where he lives. I don’t know what he was thinking, but that guy does not live anywhere near gate 6… he lives way closer to gate 1 or 5. But the guard did allow us to see the inside of the dorms because we’re foreigners. Ryan’s dorm was actually a little bit nicer than the girls’ dorm that we saw because he only had 3 other roommates, whereas the girls lived with 6 people in a room. However, the beds do not look like they are long enough at all. After chatting with him and his roommate for a while, we invited Ryan to come see what our room looks like. We also decided to show Ryan what Youtube and Facebook are all about because those are two sites that are blocked in China. It was actually really interesting though because even though he knew what Facebook was, I don’t think he really understood what it was. When we told him that it was not like MSN or QQ (Chinese instant messenger), and explained what it did, his response was “The facebook is so powerful,” which really cracked us up! We ended up helping him to set up a facebook account (we will soon be giving him proxies so he can actually access facebook) until about 10 pm, when the receptionists for our hotel/dorm called us to tell us that he had to leave.

Friday

     Friday was another relaxation day. I went to KFC for lunch with Chris and showed him the underground market, where he made a few successful purchases. After that, I went to hang out with Cindy to work on homework and chat a little. Friday night, we had our last girls’ night of the week, with another round of Shingo Times and lavender tea. Needless to say, it was another amazing night!

       Unfortunately, Saturday and Sunday were deemed make-up days for some of the days that we missed during Golden Week, so we now have class 7 days in a row…

But despite this, I really enjoyed my National Day & Golden Week experience :-)

p.s. I apologize for having so few pictures to share for this week!

my weekend

Saturday
     Some of the people in our group have been on a quest since we got to Beibei to find cheap DVDs (or just good quality DVDs- depending on the person). We were able to find 5 kuai (about 80 cent) DVDs in Beijing, so we have pretty high expectations. So on Saturday, Kia and I (and yes, I do spend time with other people, but a lot of my best stories happen when I'm with Kia) met up with a Chinese guy she knows to go to a DVD store. Ryan, our guide, brought us to downtown Beibei where we did find a DVD shop...unfortunately, they were 20-30 kuai (aka yuan). However, the day was not a waste. We got to learn new things and visit some new places, such as an ancient poet's house. The house is still intact right in the middle of the downtown area. It was closed, but I plan to explore it sometime in the future. It was also cool to meet Ryan because it turns out that he is not only a good guide, but very helpful in general and very, very nice. At some point, Kia and I mentioned how we wanted to climb one of the nearby mountains that has a Daoist temple at the top. So Ryan offered to take us up the mountain on Sunday (the next day).
     In the afternoon, I babysat Harriet & Jesse (Sam & Annie's kids). We played with playdoh, played around randomly (to get rid of some energy), then we settled in to watch Loony Tunes until Sam & Annie came back. I hadn't watched Loony Toons in a very long time, but they were just as good as I rememebered.  I also realized that Loony Toons are actually a very American thing, so watching those episodes definitely reminded me of home.
     The evening turned out to be just as exciting as the rest of day... I ate dinner with Chris & Kia, and on our way home, we saw a snake on some of the outdoor stairs that we had to walk up. Now, let me note one very important thing: none of us like snakes, but Kia is absolutely TERRIFIED of them! The funny thing, though, is that she never even saw the snake. Chris and I saw it, Chris started yelling, both of us started running (although I ran up and he ran down), so Kia ran and screamed too. Then I had to go back down the staircase to check if the snake was still there before Chris would come up. When we got to the top, Kia asked us what had happened. We told her what we saw and she screamed even more. For me, it was one of those experiences that was just hilarious after it had actually happened. I'm not so sure if they would agree with me though...

Sunday
     Kia, Chris, Axel and I (our group grew a little bit from the previous day...) met Ryan go to the mountain at 9 am. We took the city bus to get to the base of the mountain, which was an interesting experience in itself because the bus was sooo crowded. Once we got off, we headed towards the mountain and started climbing. It was absolutely gorgeous the whole way up...although I'll admit I was a little distracted by how tired and thirsty I was! It was also cool because for the first part, I don't know if we were truly on a trail because the grass was so tall and we were weaving through the trees. We just followed Ryan, hoping that he would get us to the right spot- which he did. It took us about two and a half hours (I think) to get to the top. At the top, it was really busy because the cheaters (people who took the lift up the mountain) were up there too. At the peak, we ate the lunch that Kia and I packed and enjoyed the view. Then we went to the Daoist Temple, which I believe was on a neighboring peak (although we only had to go down a little ways before we could go over and up). We weren't allowed to climb the Temple or go inside because there was construction, but there were some amazing views from that area.
     Everything was going well until Ryan asked where his binoculars were. He had given them to me to use and I had set them down after I was done, expecting someone else to pick them up after me. Except that no one did. Kia went with me to check the spot where I had set them down on the other peak, but they weren't there. I felt so horrible. I made Kia call Ryan to tell him because I couldn't do it. When we all met up again, Ryan could tell I felt really bad and he just kept telling me that we're friends, so it was ok. However, I am still determined to make it up to him somehow... so hopefully, I will figure out how to do that sometime soon...
     The way down the mountain was just as beautiful as the way up. For me, it may have actually been more beautiful just because I was able to appreciate it more. The way down the mountain also felt like it went so much faster. Unfortunately, my bad luck with the binoculars wasn't our only bad luck. Chris, who had recently sprained his ankle, tripped on a step on the way down and reinjured his ankle. Obviously, there wasn't very much we could do about it at the time, so we just told him to rest a little and then take it slow. That evening, Ryan was nice enough to bring some medicine for Chris.
     All-in-all, it was a day I really enjoyed...minus the binoculars, the ankle re-injuring, and sore calves...

Ryan, me, Chris, Axel, Kia

Bamboo Trees [taken by Kia]

All of our hands (+ some random person) holding

the pole on the bus [taken by Kia]

The Temple