I'm back. Safe trip that was blessedly uneventful. The only downside was my mp3 player ran out of juice, so I had to wait until Tokyo to charge it. Fine and dandy.
Courtney picked me up at the airport. She had a public transit adventure trying to get to me and the return trip was the same. I was surprised at how long it took me to see something familiar and we chose the longest bus route.
Tomorrow:
-More adventures in how my Chinese has suffered
-Having lunch with a yet undetermined number of former students
-The shopping begins.
Aren't you excited?
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Busy busy busy
Sorry for the long wait between blogs. We've been quite busy over here and it's only going to get busier!
Monday, June 11: After getting ready, Elizabeth and Carlson went off to the Pearl Market and I set out on my grand adventure to the Summer Palace. Getting there was no small feat! First, I had to try to navigate the Beijing Subway system. This involved buying a ticket with many hand gestures, making sure I was going the right way on the right line, riding a crowded subway for about 40 minutes, getting off, switching lines, and riding for another 10-20 minutes. As if that wasn't enough, then I could either take a taxi or figure out a bus system that had no English whatsoever. Knowing me, I went for the challenge. My guide book said to take bus 375, but of course didn't give me any clue about which stop to get off at. So I found the bus stop and pointed in my book at the Summer Palace to a girl who was also waiting for the bus. She didn't speak English, so that made things very interesting. She pointed at a few different things, then changed her mind and walked me to a different bus stop. She pointed at a different bus completely. Through many more gestures, she told me which stop we were at and which stop I should get off at. The bus in Beijing was different than the ones in Shanghai. Not only is there a driver, but there is another person on the bus who takes your money. And the bus is only 1 yuan (12.5 cents) as opposed to 2 yuan in Shanghai. I counted out the stops and got off at the one I assumed to be it. As soon as I got off, people were shoving bottles of water at me (hello lady...cold water...2 yuan!) so I knew I was in a touristy area. Success! I bought a map of the Summer Palace from some peddler and then got my ticket. (half price for students...score!) There were TONS of tourists around the gate and just inside. Once inside, I tagged along with some tour group that had an English speaking guide and listened in on what he had to say, then I broke away and walked around. It was a cloudy day, but I still got some great pictures. I climbed up as far as I could go in the Tower of the Fragrant Buddha. After climbing the Great Wall the day before, all I needed was more stairs! But the view from the top was really cool. Since it was quite a hike to get up there, there weren't many people so that was a plus too. I took a back way circling back to the gate and saw some very pretty scenery. I walked back to the bus stop, hopped the bus back to the subway, and then the subway back to the hotel. All in all, it was a very fun little side trip and I didn't get lost once! I met up with Carlson and Elizabeth back at the hotel. Carlson bought several pearl necklaces and earrings at the market. He said that he went to one store and asked how much a necklace was, the lady said 180 (just over $20) and Carlson opened his mouth and said, "That's all?!" before he could stop himself. After he said that, there was no bargaining. He could have gotten the stuff he did for much cheaper, but even so, it was cheaper than Shanghai. He spent quite a bit of money there. Elizabeth didn't get anything, but that's because she didn't have any money on her. She said it was probably best, otherwise she could have been in trouble pretty quickly! We set off together for Tiananmen Square. It was a bit less than a mile walk from our hotel. We got there and to my utter dismay...Mao's tomb was CLOSED for remodeling!!! It was devestating. I personally think they closed it to re-glue his left ear! :) The sun was boiling that day. Luckily, I brought my own shade....my umbrella. Otherwise I would have been as red as one of Mao's books. At one point, we tried to discretely get a picture with a PLA guard. However, he was wise to our tricks and kept turning around so we couldn't get one. Next, we tackled the Forbidden City. That place is HUGE...it's gi-normous...just to walk straight throught it, not even venture to the sides at all, took us several exhausting hours in the blazing sun. I think I drank about 4 bottles of water from beginning to end. Plus an ice cream break! From Tiananmen to the end of the Forbidden City has to be at least 2 miles, plus our walk just to get to Tiananmen, plus all the walking I did at the Summer Palace. When we got to the end, we crawled to a taxi and went back to the nice, air conditioned hotel. We sat around there for a while, then Elizabeth and I were hungry. She was craving biscuits from KFC and I decided that didn't sound half bad either. There was one a few blocks away, but when we got there...they had no biscuits! I think that's gotta be illegal. At least in my books it is. So she got some chicken, but I decided that I would have broken down and gotten biscuits, but not their chicken, so I found a little bakery that had some amazing croissants. We picked up our bags from the concierge and walked (aahh...more walking!) to the train station. Elizabeth and I played several card games. We took the wonderful, glorious night train back to Shanghai. I love the train, you get on, mess around for a couple hours, wake up, and there you are! Easiest traveling ever.
Tuesday, June 12th: We took a cab back to the hotel, unpacked, did some laundry, and other miscellaneous whatnot. Then, we walked to Lotus, took bus 33 to the Bund, and took a cab to the fabric market. This place is pretty much my idea of heaven on earth. Silk, cashmere, tailored clothes, unbeatable prices! I could have got in some serious trouble here. I went to a place to get a dress made. I showed the lady a picture of what I wanted and she led me to severeal different fabric stores to pick out one I liked. On the way there, she said, "don't ask anything about price, I'll handle that because they will give me a much better price than you." I found a really cool pattern. It was brown and blue on a cream background. Then I got a little bit of solid brown for an accent. They took some measurements and asked me a few more questions about what I wanted then told me to come back in a week. Next, we went to a place where Elizabeth got measured for a pair of black wool cashmere pants for 140 yuan. ($17.50 for tailored cashmere!!) Then she got a 2 piece suit; I got a 3 piece suit and an amazing chocolate brown pea coat with a silk lining. Suit: 500 ($62.50) Pea coat: 480 ($60) After that, we had to leave before we drained our bank accounts! We went back to campus and checked our email, ate supper, and other random things I can't remember.
Since I only have 10 more mintues before they lock me in this place, I'll give you the short version of events for the past week:
Wednesday, June 13th:
-not a whole lot in the morning
-lunch
-work on some powerpoints for class
-meet with Eric (friend of ours also from UND) in People's Park
-get dinner (yummy pasta)
-decide to go to a movie
-tried to figure out how to say 'Pirates of the Carribbean'
-finally find a poster and just point
-have 2 hours to kill until movie
-go to his hostel and look at pictures of his 3 day cruise through the 3 Gorges Dam
-go back to movie theater
-watch Pirates of the Carribbean
-take cab home
Thursday, June 14th:
-class at 8am-11:40am
-lunch
-kill time until guy came with me and my sister's tickets to Chengdu
-get tickets and do a little dance because I'm going to Chengdu
-teach class from 6-8pm
-go to my rock hard bed
Friday, June 15th:
-teach class at 8am for 2 hours. Boo.
-sit in on another 2 hours of class.
-chinese cafeteria food
-ANOTHER 4 hours of class. (don't worry, this much class isn't normal, their schedules are quite wierd, so we just had a really long day)
-supper, walk around, and other not very interesting things
I'm about to be locked in so I'd better leave!
Monday, June 11: After getting ready, Elizabeth and Carlson went off to the Pearl Market and I set out on my grand adventure to the Summer Palace. Getting there was no small feat! First, I had to try to navigate the Beijing Subway system. This involved buying a ticket with many hand gestures, making sure I was going the right way on the right line, riding a crowded subway for about 40 minutes, getting off, switching lines, and riding for another 10-20 minutes. As if that wasn't enough, then I could either take a taxi or figure out a bus system that had no English whatsoever. Knowing me, I went for the challenge. My guide book said to take bus 375, but of course didn't give me any clue about which stop to get off at. So I found the bus stop and pointed in my book at the Summer Palace to a girl who was also waiting for the bus. She didn't speak English, so that made things very interesting. She pointed at a few different things, then changed her mind and walked me to a different bus stop. She pointed at a different bus completely. Through many more gestures, she told me which stop we were at and which stop I should get off at. The bus in Beijing was different than the ones in Shanghai. Not only is there a driver, but there is another person on the bus who takes your money. And the bus is only 1 yuan (12.5 cents) as opposed to 2 yuan in Shanghai. I counted out the stops and got off at the one I assumed to be it. As soon as I got off, people were shoving bottles of water at me (hello lady...cold water...2 yuan!) so I knew I was in a touristy area. Success! I bought a map of the Summer Palace from some peddler and then got my ticket. (half price for students...score!) There were TONS of tourists around the gate and just inside. Once inside, I tagged along with some tour group that had an English speaking guide and listened in on what he had to say, then I broke away and walked around. It was a cloudy day, but I still got some great pictures. I climbed up as far as I could go in the Tower of the Fragrant Buddha. After climbing the Great Wall the day before, all I needed was more stairs! But the view from the top was really cool. Since it was quite a hike to get up there, there weren't many people so that was a plus too. I took a back way circling back to the gate and saw some very pretty scenery. I walked back to the bus stop, hopped the bus back to the subway, and then the subway back to the hotel. All in all, it was a very fun little side trip and I didn't get lost once! I met up with Carlson and Elizabeth back at the hotel. Carlson bought several pearl necklaces and earrings at the market. He said that he went to one store and asked how much a necklace was, the lady said 180 (just over $20) and Carlson opened his mouth and said, "That's all?!" before he could stop himself. After he said that, there was no bargaining. He could have gotten the stuff he did for much cheaper, but even so, it was cheaper than Shanghai. He spent quite a bit of money there. Elizabeth didn't get anything, but that's because she didn't have any money on her. She said it was probably best, otherwise she could have been in trouble pretty quickly! We set off together for Tiananmen Square. It was a bit less than a mile walk from our hotel. We got there and to my utter dismay...Mao's tomb was CLOSED for remodeling!!! It was devestating. I personally think they closed it to re-glue his left ear! :) The sun was boiling that day. Luckily, I brought my own shade....my umbrella. Otherwise I would have been as red as one of Mao's books. At one point, we tried to discretely get a picture with a PLA guard. However, he was wise to our tricks and kept turning around so we couldn't get one. Next, we tackled the Forbidden City. That place is HUGE...it's gi-normous...just to walk straight throught it, not even venture to the sides at all, took us several exhausting hours in the blazing sun. I think I drank about 4 bottles of water from beginning to end. Plus an ice cream break! From Tiananmen to the end of the Forbidden City has to be at least 2 miles, plus our walk just to get to Tiananmen, plus all the walking I did at the Summer Palace. When we got to the end, we crawled to a taxi and went back to the nice, air conditioned hotel. We sat around there for a while, then Elizabeth and I were hungry. She was craving biscuits from KFC and I decided that didn't sound half bad either. There was one a few blocks away, but when we got there...they had no biscuits! I think that's gotta be illegal. At least in my books it is. So she got some chicken, but I decided that I would have broken down and gotten biscuits, but not their chicken, so I found a little bakery that had some amazing croissants. We picked up our bags from the concierge and walked (aahh...more walking!) to the train station. Elizabeth and I played several card games. We took the wonderful, glorious night train back to Shanghai. I love the train, you get on, mess around for a couple hours, wake up, and there you are! Easiest traveling ever.
Tuesday, June 12th: We took a cab back to the hotel, unpacked, did some laundry, and other miscellaneous whatnot. Then, we walked to Lotus, took bus 33 to the Bund, and took a cab to the fabric market. This place is pretty much my idea of heaven on earth. Silk, cashmere, tailored clothes, unbeatable prices! I could have got in some serious trouble here. I went to a place to get a dress made. I showed the lady a picture of what I wanted and she led me to severeal different fabric stores to pick out one I liked. On the way there, she said, "don't ask anything about price, I'll handle that because they will give me a much better price than you." I found a really cool pattern. It was brown and blue on a cream background. Then I got a little bit of solid brown for an accent. They took some measurements and asked me a few more questions about what I wanted then told me to come back in a week. Next, we went to a place where Elizabeth got measured for a pair of black wool cashmere pants for 140 yuan. ($17.50 for tailored cashmere!!) Then she got a 2 piece suit; I got a 3 piece suit and an amazing chocolate brown pea coat with a silk lining. Suit: 500 ($62.50) Pea coat: 480 ($60) After that, we had to leave before we drained our bank accounts! We went back to campus and checked our email, ate supper, and other random things I can't remember.
Since I only have 10 more mintues before they lock me in this place, I'll give you the short version of events for the past week:
Wednesday, June 13th:
-not a whole lot in the morning
-lunch
-work on some powerpoints for class
-meet with Eric (friend of ours also from UND) in People's Park
-get dinner (yummy pasta)
-decide to go to a movie
-tried to figure out how to say 'Pirates of the Carribbean'
-finally find a poster and just point
-have 2 hours to kill until movie
-go to his hostel and look at pictures of his 3 day cruise through the 3 Gorges Dam
-go back to movie theater
-watch Pirates of the Carribbean
-take cab home
Thursday, June 14th:
-class at 8am-11:40am
-lunch
-kill time until guy came with me and my sister's tickets to Chengdu
-get tickets and do a little dance because I'm going to Chengdu
-teach class from 6-8pm
-go to my rock hard bed
Friday, June 15th:
-teach class at 8am for 2 hours. Boo.
-sit in on another 2 hours of class.
-chinese cafeteria food
-ANOTHER 4 hours of class. (don't worry, this much class isn't normal, their schedules are quite wierd, so we just had a really long day)
-supper, walk around, and other not very interesting things
I'm about to be locked in so I'd better leave!
Thursday, June 14, 2007
2/3s of Beijing
Here are our adventures for the first two days in Beijing:
Saturday, June 9: We left the train station and walked a couple blocks to our hotel. Since check-in time wasn’t until 1pm, we left our bags with the concierge and headed to Panjiayuan Market. This market only runs on Saturdays from dawn until 3pm. This place is insane! There is everything you could ever want there. There are whole aisles devoted to one item: beads for jewelry, silk scrolls, cloisonné, scarves, paintings, you name it. I found 3 absolutely beautiful paintings. The first one was of a large, white flower, (possibly magnolia?) the next was a field of yellow tulips with one red tulip, and the third is a great scene of the Great Wall. I can’t wait to get back and get them hung up! They are amazing. I also got a great matted picture of the Great Wall. Elizabeth bought a vase, a silk picture, and a gift for her parent’s anniversary. (They read this too so I can’t tell you what it is!) Carlson bought several pictures, a wood carving, and some jewelry for his nieces. After we all had spent WAY too much money, we caught a cab over to the Temple of Heaven. It would have been cool to take a rickshaw, but two people can hardly fit in one, let alone all three of us with our stuff! The Temple of Heaven is big. We walked around that place forever! It had many different halls for this and that, but one of them was the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests. I said a little prayer for all the farmers back in North Dakota, so I expect when I get back for the 4th of July, the corn is going to be waaaay past knee-high! We also walked through a flower garden where we saw a guy painting some flowers. I got a really good picture of him, the painting he was working on, and the flowers. After the Temple of Heaven, we went back to the hotel to check in, buy our tickets for the Great Wall tour the next day, and all that. We took a shower and it was the best shower I’ve had since leaving the States. It had pressure!! And water that didn’t smell like it came out of the slough by my Grandma’s!! I thoroughly enjoyed it. We got ready and had a great supper of Peking Duck at a nearby restaurant. They bring out the duck and carve it right at your table. I wonder how many they typically sell in a night, because at any given time during our meal, we could look around and see five or six guys out carving ducks. It is the most tender, juicy duck I have ever had. It is served with onions, cucumbers, and some sort of sauce. They also give you small buns and something that looks like a tortilla for you to make sandwiches and wraps with. Plus, they had some really good fresh squeezed apple juice. It was a wonderful meal. When we were done, we walked back past our hotel to a main street nearby and walked around there. Many of the building along the street were under construction to renovate for the Olympics. I was surprised at the lack of people asking me to buy a ‘watchbagshoesdvdcheapocheapo’…it was nice to walk down a street and not be bothered! There were all sorts of shops along this street. We walked down a side street that had lots of little stands selling touristy stuff. I bought a lighter that looked like Mao’s red book. As we were walking, we saw this area that had three carnival-type rides. The big one was two pillars with a big ball in the middle attached with two bungee cords. It looked like a lot of fun. For 120RMB ($15) two people could ride it and you got a picture and a video. However, Elizabeth was too chicken to do it with me…jerk. So, instead, I went on one of the side rides. It looked like an astronaut training course. I sat in a seat in the middle and there were three circles around me. They spun me in every direction. I expected the ride to last for a minute and a half or so, but they kept going and going and going! Every time I thought they were about to stop me, they sped it up again. I drew quite a crowd. I was laughing and screaming and Elizabeth and Carlson were laughing so much that Elizabeth had a tough time taking a picture that wasn’t blurry. It was fun, but I had a tough time keeping my arms and feet where they were supposed to go. The next day my arms, legs, and feet all had lots of bruises on them. But it was definitely worth the 20RMB ($2.50). Surprisingly, I wasn’t that dizzy when I got off. After that, we were walking along the street and a guy came up to me and said, “I didn’t think they were ever going to let you off!” I laughed and agreed. He was from Chicago and he had just come to Beijing the day before. We all talked until we had to turn onto a different street. The next street we went to was the night market. This place had all sorts of crazy things on a stick: octopus, bugs, scorpions, eel, snake, pork, beef, unidentifiable objects, and my favorites, sea cucumbers and starfish. I asked one guy how you were supposed to eat the starfish. I was thinking you broke it open and ate the insides or something, but he motioned that you just eat the whole thing as is. That blew my mind. After the duck meal, I wasn’t hungry so I didn’t try anything, but I took pictures. I was looking at some fruit kabobs one vendor had with this glazed sugar on it. I was only half paying attention to what he was saying, but I heard him say something about ‘free’ and he was holding one out to me. So I walked over and asked him if it was free. He smiled and said, “for a kiss, it’s free!” I laughed, looked at the fruit, looked at him, but decided it just wasn’t quite worth it. All the other workers were laughing at him too. We walked along a bit more and stopped in a silk fabric store. Elizabeth bought some really pretty green silk fabric to get a shirt made. I debated about buying some, but just decided to wait until we went to the market in Shanghai. By the time we got back to the hotel we were more than ready for bed.
Sunday, June 10: We got up and had the breakfast buffet in the hotel. They had eggs, waffles, really good hash browns, croissants, fresh pineapple juice, and lots of other things. I miss American style breakfasts! Usually we just have toast with peanut butter or ‘Frosties’ which are the Frosted Flakes here in our room at the hotel. After that, we got ready to go on our grand adventure to the Great Wall!! We left the hotel lobby at 11am along with a man and a woman from the Washington, DC area who were here on business, a husband and wife from the Indonesia with their two sons were a bit older than us, then we stopped and picked up a furniture salesman from Atlanta, his son, and the tour guide and his assistant. We had a small tour bus/van type vehicle. We were working our way through the ring roads when the rear driver side tire started making this horrible knocking noise. I looked back and saw black stuff flying, so I was sure we had a blowout or a flat tire or something. The driver pulled over and was checking it out. I was able to look out the window and see that it wasn’t a flat, so we weren’t sure what it was. It was taking a while to fix it and every now and then the driver would get in and drive for a bit to see if it stopped, but it didn’t. The guy from Indonesia told the tour guide that we’d either have to get a new bus or cancel the trip. Elizabeth and I looked at each other and had the same thought. We didn’t care if we had to crawl there, we were going to the Great Wall and this guy can walk back! The guide called his company and they sent a new bus, but it ate up quite a bit of time. We didn’t get to the wall until 2pm. There are three sections of the Wall open to tourists: Badaling-which is the most popular and touristy one, Simatai- which has very few people because it’s a three hour drive from Beijing, and Mutianyu-which is the one we went to that doesn’t have many tourists and is only an hour drive. (or at least it is when your bus doesn’t break down!) There are two ways up: the wussy way where you ride a cable car up to Tower 14 and walk around or the real way…you walk up. The rest of the group took the easy way out, but Carlson, Elizabeth and I did it right. Just the walk up to get to the Wall was a hike. We were all huffing and puffing. We started at Tower 8 and walked to 14. I went through about 3 or 4 bottles of water. It was close to 100F that day with absolutely no shade. Yes mom, I did remember to put on sunscreen. Otherwise I would have been a lobster. Since there weren’t a lot of people there, I was able to get some really great pictures of some sections without any people on it. I’ll put more pictures up on Shutterfly soon. The view was spectacular. In every tower there was a guy selling cold water and postcards. A bottle of water was 2 yuan down at the start of the climb, but was 10 yuan up in the towers. I told one guy there was horrible inflation here and he just laughed. I willingly paid 10 for a bottle because it was so hot and we were all dying. I thought Elizabeth was going to pass out a couple times! We were going to climb down, but we ran out of time so we had to take the cable car down. At the top of the wall, Carlson and Elizabeth each bought a beer. So I got a couple pictures of them drinking a beer on the Wall. Elizabeth is mildly afraid of heights, so she asked to sit backwards in the car so she didn’t have to see the drop off. However, Carlson being how he is immediately said, “Holy crap, it goes straight down!” She made a horrible face and closed her eyes and drank her beer. We were laughing the whole way down. When we got off the car, there were all sorts of vendors selling Great Wall stuff. All three of us had to get an “I climbed the Great Wall” t-shirt because we truly did. We all loaded onto the tour bus and then stopped at a cloisonné factory. It was interesting to see how they made everything. First, they had to make a copper mold, (they demonstrated how a vase is made, but you can make all sorts of different objects) then they have to take tiny bits of wire and glue them on the vase to make the pattern. One 10 inch vase can take a worker 8 days to make…and they get paid per vase…but they don’t get paid at all if the quality isn’t good. Rough way to make a living! The next step is to paint in all of the little spaces made by the wire then they fire it. However, when they fire it, the stuff they paint with shrinks, so they have to repaint it…and this happens about 8 times! The guide said that only women workers put on the wire and paint because it is delicate work that requires a steady hand, but more importantly, it requires great patience. All the women in the group laughed at that. Then when we saw the room with the kiln, she said this is where the men work because it’s too hot in there. After it’s finally painted well enough, it goes to the sander to smooth everything out, and then gets glazed to protect it, and finally it is gold plated. They couldn’t show us the gold plating part because that was a guarded business secret. We looked around the store for a bit and then went back to the hotel where we showered before dinner because we were all drenched in sweat! After getting ready, we decided that the duck last night was so good we had it again. Then Carlson went back to his room while Elizabeth and I went out exploring. There were several interesting walkways with music notes and math equations on them…no idea what they were for, but I took a picture. We saw a guy out walking his dog and we made motions asking if it was okay to pet it. He nodded, so we were petting it and then out of nowhere it growled and tried to bite me. That’s when I walked away…don’t want rabies or anything. We went back to the room, watched ‘The Mask of Zorro’ on HBO, and went to bed.
Saturday, June 9: We left the train station and walked a couple blocks to our hotel. Since check-in time wasn’t until 1pm, we left our bags with the concierge and headed to Panjiayuan Market. This market only runs on Saturdays from dawn until 3pm. This place is insane! There is everything you could ever want there. There are whole aisles devoted to one item: beads for jewelry, silk scrolls, cloisonné, scarves, paintings, you name it. I found 3 absolutely beautiful paintings. The first one was of a large, white flower, (possibly magnolia?) the next was a field of yellow tulips with one red tulip, and the third is a great scene of the Great Wall. I can’t wait to get back and get them hung up! They are amazing. I also got a great matted picture of the Great Wall. Elizabeth bought a vase, a silk picture, and a gift for her parent’s anniversary. (They read this too so I can’t tell you what it is!) Carlson bought several pictures, a wood carving, and some jewelry for his nieces. After we all had spent WAY too much money, we caught a cab over to the Temple of Heaven. It would have been cool to take a rickshaw, but two people can hardly fit in one, let alone all three of us with our stuff! The Temple of Heaven is big. We walked around that place forever! It had many different halls for this and that, but one of them was the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests. I said a little prayer for all the farmers back in North Dakota, so I expect when I get back for the 4th of July, the corn is going to be waaaay past knee-high! We also walked through a flower garden where we saw a guy painting some flowers. I got a really good picture of him, the painting he was working on, and the flowers. After the Temple of Heaven, we went back to the hotel to check in, buy our tickets for the Great Wall tour the next day, and all that. We took a shower and it was the best shower I’ve had since leaving the States. It had pressure!! And water that didn’t smell like it came out of the slough by my Grandma’s!! I thoroughly enjoyed it. We got ready and had a great supper of Peking Duck at a nearby restaurant. They bring out the duck and carve it right at your table. I wonder how many they typically sell in a night, because at any given time during our meal, we could look around and see five or six guys out carving ducks. It is the most tender, juicy duck I have ever had. It is served with onions, cucumbers, and some sort of sauce. They also give you small buns and something that looks like a tortilla for you to make sandwiches and wraps with. Plus, they had some really good fresh squeezed apple juice. It was a wonderful meal. When we were done, we walked back past our hotel to a main street nearby and walked around there. Many of the building along the street were under construction to renovate for the Olympics. I was surprised at the lack of people asking me to buy a ‘watchbagshoesdvdcheapocheapo’…it was nice to walk down a street and not be bothered! There were all sorts of shops along this street. We walked down a side street that had lots of little stands selling touristy stuff. I bought a lighter that looked like Mao’s red book. As we were walking, we saw this area that had three carnival-type rides. The big one was two pillars with a big ball in the middle attached with two bungee cords. It looked like a lot of fun. For 120RMB ($15) two people could ride it and you got a picture and a video. However, Elizabeth was too chicken to do it with me…jerk. So, instead, I went on one of the side rides. It looked like an astronaut training course. I sat in a seat in the middle and there were three circles around me. They spun me in every direction. I expected the ride to last for a minute and a half or so, but they kept going and going and going! Every time I thought they were about to stop me, they sped it up again. I drew quite a crowd. I was laughing and screaming and Elizabeth and Carlson were laughing so much that Elizabeth had a tough time taking a picture that wasn’t blurry. It was fun, but I had a tough time keeping my arms and feet where they were supposed to go. The next day my arms, legs, and feet all had lots of bruises on them. But it was definitely worth the 20RMB ($2.50). Surprisingly, I wasn’t that dizzy when I got off. After that, we were walking along the street and a guy came up to me and said, “I didn’t think they were ever going to let you off!” I laughed and agreed. He was from Chicago and he had just come to Beijing the day before. We all talked until we had to turn onto a different street. The next street we went to was the night market. This place had all sorts of crazy things on a stick: octopus, bugs, scorpions, eel, snake, pork, beef, unidentifiable objects, and my favorites, sea cucumbers and starfish. I asked one guy how you were supposed to eat the starfish. I was thinking you broke it open and ate the insides or something, but he motioned that you just eat the whole thing as is. That blew my mind. After the duck meal, I wasn’t hungry so I didn’t try anything, but I took pictures. I was looking at some fruit kabobs one vendor had with this glazed sugar on it. I was only half paying attention to what he was saying, but I heard him say something about ‘free’ and he was holding one out to me. So I walked over and asked him if it was free. He smiled and said, “for a kiss, it’s free!” I laughed, looked at the fruit, looked at him, but decided it just wasn’t quite worth it. All the other workers were laughing at him too. We walked along a bit more and stopped in a silk fabric store. Elizabeth bought some really pretty green silk fabric to get a shirt made. I debated about buying some, but just decided to wait until we went to the market in Shanghai. By the time we got back to the hotel we were more than ready for bed.
Sunday, June 10: We got up and had the breakfast buffet in the hotel. They had eggs, waffles, really good hash browns, croissants, fresh pineapple juice, and lots of other things. I miss American style breakfasts! Usually we just have toast with peanut butter or ‘Frosties’ which are the Frosted Flakes here in our room at the hotel. After that, we got ready to go on our grand adventure to the Great Wall!! We left the hotel lobby at 11am along with a man and a woman from the Washington, DC area who were here on business, a husband and wife from the Indonesia with their two sons were a bit older than us, then we stopped and picked up a furniture salesman from Atlanta, his son, and the tour guide and his assistant. We had a small tour bus/van type vehicle. We were working our way through the ring roads when the rear driver side tire started making this horrible knocking noise. I looked back and saw black stuff flying, so I was sure we had a blowout or a flat tire or something. The driver pulled over and was checking it out. I was able to look out the window and see that it wasn’t a flat, so we weren’t sure what it was. It was taking a while to fix it and every now and then the driver would get in and drive for a bit to see if it stopped, but it didn’t. The guy from Indonesia told the tour guide that we’d either have to get a new bus or cancel the trip. Elizabeth and I looked at each other and had the same thought. We didn’t care if we had to crawl there, we were going to the Great Wall and this guy can walk back! The guide called his company and they sent a new bus, but it ate up quite a bit of time. We didn’t get to the wall until 2pm. There are three sections of the Wall open to tourists: Badaling-which is the most popular and touristy one, Simatai- which has very few people because it’s a three hour drive from Beijing, and Mutianyu-which is the one we went to that doesn’t have many tourists and is only an hour drive. (or at least it is when your bus doesn’t break down!) There are two ways up: the wussy way where you ride a cable car up to Tower 14 and walk around or the real way…you walk up. The rest of the group took the easy way out, but Carlson, Elizabeth and I did it right. Just the walk up to get to the Wall was a hike. We were all huffing and puffing. We started at Tower 8 and walked to 14. I went through about 3 or 4 bottles of water. It was close to 100F that day with absolutely no shade. Yes mom, I did remember to put on sunscreen. Otherwise I would have been a lobster. Since there weren’t a lot of people there, I was able to get some really great pictures of some sections without any people on it. I’ll put more pictures up on Shutterfly soon. The view was spectacular. In every tower there was a guy selling cold water and postcards. A bottle of water was 2 yuan down at the start of the climb, but was 10 yuan up in the towers. I told one guy there was horrible inflation here and he just laughed. I willingly paid 10 for a bottle because it was so hot and we were all dying. I thought Elizabeth was going to pass out a couple times! We were going to climb down, but we ran out of time so we had to take the cable car down. At the top of the wall, Carlson and Elizabeth each bought a beer. So I got a couple pictures of them drinking a beer on the Wall. Elizabeth is mildly afraid of heights, so she asked to sit backwards in the car so she didn’t have to see the drop off. However, Carlson being how he is immediately said, “Holy crap, it goes straight down!” She made a horrible face and closed her eyes and drank her beer. We were laughing the whole way down. When we got off the car, there were all sorts of vendors selling Great Wall stuff. All three of us had to get an “I climbed the Great Wall” t-shirt because we truly did. We all loaded onto the tour bus and then stopped at a cloisonné factory. It was interesting to see how they made everything. First, they had to make a copper mold, (they demonstrated how a vase is made, but you can make all sorts of different objects) then they have to take tiny bits of wire and glue them on the vase to make the pattern. One 10 inch vase can take a worker 8 days to make…and they get paid per vase…but they don’t get paid at all if the quality isn’t good. Rough way to make a living! The next step is to paint in all of the little spaces made by the wire then they fire it. However, when they fire it, the stuff they paint with shrinks, so they have to repaint it…and this happens about 8 times! The guide said that only women workers put on the wire and paint because it is delicate work that requires a steady hand, but more importantly, it requires great patience. All the women in the group laughed at that. Then when we saw the room with the kiln, she said this is where the men work because it’s too hot in there. After it’s finally painted well enough, it goes to the sander to smooth everything out, and then gets glazed to protect it, and finally it is gold plated. They couldn’t show us the gold plating part because that was a guarded business secret. We looked around the store for a bit and then went back to the hotel where we showered before dinner because we were all drenched in sweat! After getting ready, we decided that the duck last night was so good we had it again. Then Carlson went back to his room while Elizabeth and I went out exploring. There were several interesting walkways with music notes and math equations on them…no idea what they were for, but I took a picture. We saw a guy out walking his dog and we made motions asking if it was okay to pet it. He nodded, so we were petting it and then out of nowhere it growled and tried to bite me. That’s when I walked away…don’t want rabies or anything. We went back to the room, watched ‘The Mask of Zorro’ on HBO, and went to bed.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
I got mugged!
Yes indeed...but you'll have to read it all to find out the details. First, more catching up....
Wednesday, June 6th: We woke up at 6am today, got ready and took a cab with Patton and Carlson to meet up with the rest of the UND group at their hotel. From there, we took a bus to Suzhou, a city about an hour/hour and a half outside of Shanghai. David, a student from USST who is now at UND to get his Master's, had his father invite us to visit his factory. Vicwood Industries is a factory that takes lumber and manufactures many different products including solid wood flooring, veniers, furniture, etc... We rode in the tour bus through the factory, that's how big it was. Then, David's dad took us to eat in this really fancy hotel...it was delicious. After lunch, we went to the Humble Administrator's Garden. That was fun because we got to hang out with the rest of the people from UND who we really haven't seen much. Pretty much everyone slept on the way back to Shanghai. When we got back to their hotel, Elizabeth and Carlson headed home and I stayed and hung out with everyone. I ended up going to supper with my teachers Victoria Beard and Mary Loyland, Victoria's husband Michael, Eric, Dave E, and Jill. I had a really good steak salad. We all sat around and talked for a while then headed back to their hotel. I took a cab back to the Bund and caught the last bus home.
Thursday, June 7th: We went to class from 8am to 11:40 and grabbed a bite to eat in the cafeteria. Then, we went to the Bund and took a cab to Xintiandi. We met with Spencer Wong, a partner with PriceWaterhouseCoopers. He talked with us for a while about his career path, accounting in China versus US, and other topics. When I asked him if I would need to know Chinese to work in Shanghai, he said definitely yes. I thought this was interesting since Deloitte said no. Mr. Wong said that 10 years ago he would have said no, 5 years ago maybe, but now yes for sure. We went on a quick office tour too. PWC currently occupies the whole building (about 11 floors or so) and is looking to expand. One side of the building overlooks a pond/pool area. In China, water represents money or fortune or something like that, so he said that all the partners want offices on that side of the building! After that, we walked over to the UND people's hotel and hung out there. We all went out to supper together since it was Eric's last night with the group. We ate at a restaurant called 'Heaven on Earth.' It was really good. After that, we went back to the hotel. Everyone pretty much went to bed or started packing or whatnot. Dave E and Eric both had gotten white suits made and wanted to take some pictures. Elizabeth and I had to go back to the Bund anyway to ride the bus, so we all went together and bummed around there. We got some rather strange looks from people...I'm used to it by now. We walked by a lady selling some ornaments with jasmine in them. I bought 3 for 10 yuan ($1.25 or so). They wouldn't fit in my purse, so I just had them tied around my finger as I was walking along. I stopped to take a picture and all of a sudden I felt this tugging on my hand. I looked down and there was this 4 year old girl looking up at me and saying 'shie-shie' (thank you) over and over tugging at one of the ornaments in my hand. I tried to pull it away from her and then a whole family of beggars came over to us. I was trying to make her let go so I could reach in my pocket a pull out a few coins, but she had a death grip on it. Finally, she just pulled the string and broke it off. Before I could react, her brother (maybe 5 years old) came over and broke off another one! I was mugged I tell you! Eventually they went away. So now I have one lonely ornament. *sigh* We took a few more pics then hopped on the bus to go home.
Friday, June 8th: Class in the morning, lunch at the cafeteria, class in the afternoon. After class, we quickly packed our things and took a cab to the Railway Station to get on the night train to Beijing. A girl from USST was there to help us get on the right train. Elizabeth, Carlson, and I had a soft sleeper car. Elizabeth and I played some cards, did some Sudoku, and went to bed. We woke up the next morning and there we were in Beijing. We left at around 7:15pm Friday and arrived at 6:45 am on Saturday.
Beijing will require a long entry in itself, so that will follow shortly.
News from the homefront: I talked with mom over MSN last night and she informed me that my Grandma Ginny took a tumble while getting the mail. Luckily, she only cut her top lip and hit the back of her head. How she managed to hit both the front and back of her head is still a mystery to all. She also sent the mail flying in all directions and blew two shoes into the flowerbed. Now Grandma: I've managed to fly halfway around the world and live in one of the biggest cities with no problems, and you're the one who gets hurt?! Good grief...maybe I should be worrying about you and not the other way around! :) While she was getting stitched up at the doctor's office, she asked the doctor, "will these stitches hurt my beauty?" Now you know where Shanna and I get it from!
Wednesday, June 6th: We woke up at 6am today, got ready and took a cab with Patton and Carlson to meet up with the rest of the UND group at their hotel. From there, we took a bus to Suzhou, a city about an hour/hour and a half outside of Shanghai. David, a student from USST who is now at UND to get his Master's, had his father invite us to visit his factory. Vicwood Industries is a factory that takes lumber and manufactures many different products including solid wood flooring, veniers, furniture, etc... We rode in the tour bus through the factory, that's how big it was. Then, David's dad took us to eat in this really fancy hotel...it was delicious. After lunch, we went to the Humble Administrator's Garden. That was fun because we got to hang out with the rest of the people from UND who we really haven't seen much. Pretty much everyone slept on the way back to Shanghai. When we got back to their hotel, Elizabeth and Carlson headed home and I stayed and hung out with everyone. I ended up going to supper with my teachers Victoria Beard and Mary Loyland, Victoria's husband Michael, Eric, Dave E, and Jill. I had a really good steak salad. We all sat around and talked for a while then headed back to their hotel. I took a cab back to the Bund and caught the last bus home.
Thursday, June 7th: We went to class from 8am to 11:40 and grabbed a bite to eat in the cafeteria. Then, we went to the Bund and took a cab to Xintiandi. We met with Spencer Wong, a partner with PriceWaterhouseCoopers. He talked with us for a while about his career path, accounting in China versus US, and other topics. When I asked him if I would need to know Chinese to work in Shanghai, he said definitely yes. I thought this was interesting since Deloitte said no. Mr. Wong said that 10 years ago he would have said no, 5 years ago maybe, but now yes for sure. We went on a quick office tour too. PWC currently occupies the whole building (about 11 floors or so) and is looking to expand. One side of the building overlooks a pond/pool area. In China, water represents money or fortune or something like that, so he said that all the partners want offices on that side of the building! After that, we walked over to the UND people's hotel and hung out there. We all went out to supper together since it was Eric's last night with the group. We ate at a restaurant called 'Heaven on Earth.' It was really good. After that, we went back to the hotel. Everyone pretty much went to bed or started packing or whatnot. Dave E and Eric both had gotten white suits made and wanted to take some pictures. Elizabeth and I had to go back to the Bund anyway to ride the bus, so we all went together and bummed around there. We got some rather strange looks from people...I'm used to it by now. We walked by a lady selling some ornaments with jasmine in them. I bought 3 for 10 yuan ($1.25 or so). They wouldn't fit in my purse, so I just had them tied around my finger as I was walking along. I stopped to take a picture and all of a sudden I felt this tugging on my hand. I looked down and there was this 4 year old girl looking up at me and saying 'shie-shie' (thank you) over and over tugging at one of the ornaments in my hand. I tried to pull it away from her and then a whole family of beggars came over to us. I was trying to make her let go so I could reach in my pocket a pull out a few coins, but she had a death grip on it. Finally, she just pulled the string and broke it off. Before I could react, her brother (maybe 5 years old) came over and broke off another one! I was mugged I tell you! Eventually they went away. So now I have one lonely ornament. *sigh* We took a few more pics then hopped on the bus to go home.
Friday, June 8th: Class in the morning, lunch at the cafeteria, class in the afternoon. After class, we quickly packed our things and took a cab to the Railway Station to get on the night train to Beijing. A girl from USST was there to help us get on the right train. Elizabeth, Carlson, and I had a soft sleeper car. Elizabeth and I played some cards, did some Sudoku, and went to bed. We woke up the next morning and there we were in Beijing. We left at around 7:15pm Friday and arrived at 6:45 am on Saturday.
Beijing will require a long entry in itself, so that will follow shortly.
News from the homefront: I talked with mom over MSN last night and she informed me that my Grandma Ginny took a tumble while getting the mail. Luckily, she only cut her top lip and hit the back of her head. How she managed to hit both the front and back of her head is still a mystery to all. She also sent the mail flying in all directions and blew two shoes into the flowerbed. Now Grandma: I've managed to fly halfway around the world and live in one of the biggest cities with no problems, and you're the one who gets hurt?! Good grief...maybe I should be worrying about you and not the other way around! :) While she was getting stitched up at the doctor's office, she asked the doctor, "will these stitches hurt my beauty?" Now you know where Shanna and I get it from!
I've got some catching up to do...
Sorry for the wait...get ready for a loooooooooooong one....
So, when I last left you, I was just an international bigmouth. Now, I'm an international bigmouth who has climbed the Great Wall of China!!! Ooohhh....aaaaahhhhh. But, no use getting ahead of myself. Let's start at the beginning. If I repeat a day, I apologize...but right now the computer won't let me view the blog, just enter new ones and I can't remember if I wrote about Sunday or not. So here it is:
Sunday, June 3: We woke up after getting a total of 4 hours sleep since we were up all night singing the many songs we thought they should have had at karoke. We had a blast and thought we were pretty cool. So we woke up, reluctantly, and got ready. Now, there are pretty much only two things I will wake up at ridiculous hours to do: #1. travel to someplace that's not North Dakota and #2. shopping. And shop we did. (Yes, I am using sentence fragments....so any grammar junkie will just have to live with it...*coughVICTORIAcough* :) Carlson, Elizabeth, a student from USST, and I went to Yu Gardens to tackle gifts we had to get for people. Interesting tidbit: on most English maps, it is called Yu Yuan Gardens...however, 'yuan' in Chinese means 'garden' so really it's like saying Yu Gardens Gardens. As we were shopping, we heard music coming from the street. We looked over and there was a parade rounding the corner. They had people playing instruments and two very long dragons like you see in pictures of parades. We asked the Chinese girl who was with us what it was all about. She had no clue. So we just saw some random parade. It was interesting and I took a couple pictures. We walked to Nanjing Road. Elizabeth and I broke down...so we went to a Pizza Hut and got some stuffed crust pizza. Man...it was delicious. We were having cheese withdrawals. In my book, Pizza Hut is okay, but I refuse to go to a McDonalds here. A girl has to have SOME boundaries. We went into a KFC in Beijing, but they didn't have biscuits...so I didn't eat there either. We walked around a bit more, went to a book store where I bought some Chinese books for Shanna's friend's little boy, walked to the Bund, hung out there for a while, then caught the bus back home. I can't really remember what we did that night, but it was probably something along the lines of: hung out in the room, played cards, ate at our restaurant, watched a movie, or any variation of the above.
Monday, June 4: We woke up, got ready, and took the bus to the Bund. Then we walked around for a bit trying to find Deloitte's offices. Deloitte, Touche, and Tohmatsu is one of the "Big Four" accounting firms. I know many UND alum who work there, so I was able to get in contact with someone they knew and visited the firm over in Shanghai. Their meeting room was up in the 30th floor of a building, so it had some pretty commanding views. Elizabeth and I met with Wilfred Cheung. He is a manager at Deloitte. He was born in Hong Kong and moved back and forth from there to the US several times. He got a degree from a university in Texas (don't remember which one) and started out with Arthur Anderson in LA. We all know how that went, so a year or so later, the firm went kaput and he joined Deloitte in LA, then PriceWaterhouseCoopers in Hong Kong, and finally Deloitte in Shanghai. He showed us around the office. They have about 7 floors in one prominant building and are hiring more people. I asked him about the work load in China versus US. In China, everything falls on the calendar year, so the books close every December 31 and annual reports are due on April 30th. No extensions. So their busy season is at a whole new level compared to the US. And it's no picnic in the US. Very interesting information. Also, I asked him if I were to transfer to the Shanghai office, would I have to learn Chinese? He said it was no problem, people either speak only English or only Chinese and many people can speak both, so any level was okay. He gave us both a set of chopsticks with Deloitte engraved on them as a gift for visiting. It was definitely informative and interesting. We took the bus back home and again did some variation of the above hang out, eat, play cards, explore, etc...
Tuesday, June 5: We got ready and took the bus to the Bund. As you can tell, Bus 33 is our friend. We take it almost every day. One end of the line is the Lotus Center, which is a great big market (think Chinese K-mart) which is about a 10 minute walk from our hotel and a 45 minute bus ride to reach the Bund. Then we took a cab to Xintiandi. This is the international part of town. Elizabeth and I met with Grant (one of the guys from the Central Michigan group) and his girlfriend's brother Robert to have lunch. We were going to try to meet up with the whole CMU group before they left, but it didn't work out and Grant was the only one who stayed after the program. We ate at Wagas which had really great pasta and smoothies. After lunch, they were going to pick up some glasses they had made, so we went with them. Robert's parents are actually living in Xintiandi. His dad works for GM and got sent here with his mom. They live in a high rise apartment with a great view. Their apartment is paid for, but they said it would be about $6000 USD per month to rent!! So we went with Grant, Robert, and Robert's mom to the eyeglasses place. I was very tempted to buy a pair for myself. To get "designer" frames with prescription lenses is less than $30. At these prices, you can see why I have no trouble spending money.... After that we took the subway back to their apartment. We also met Grant's girlfriend and her dad. We watched 'The Game' on an illegal DVD, then took the bus back to campus. We had office hours for 3 hours...one guy showed up and asked a few questions, but mostly we just checked email and facebook and whatnot. Why can't all work be this easy?
Well, it's almost 11pm. At 11 they will kick me out and lock the doors so I guess I will wrap this up. More to come.
So, when I last left you, I was just an international bigmouth. Now, I'm an international bigmouth who has climbed the Great Wall of China!!! Ooohhh....aaaaahhhhh. But, no use getting ahead of myself. Let's start at the beginning. If I repeat a day, I apologize...but right now the computer won't let me view the blog, just enter new ones and I can't remember if I wrote about Sunday or not. So here it is:
Sunday, June 3: We woke up after getting a total of 4 hours sleep since we were up all night singing the many songs we thought they should have had at karoke. We had a blast and thought we were pretty cool. So we woke up, reluctantly, and got ready. Now, there are pretty much only two things I will wake up at ridiculous hours to do: #1. travel to someplace that's not North Dakota and #2. shopping. And shop we did. (Yes, I am using sentence fragments....so any grammar junkie will just have to live with it...*coughVICTORIAcough* :) Carlson, Elizabeth, a student from USST, and I went to Yu Gardens to tackle gifts we had to get for people. Interesting tidbit: on most English maps, it is called Yu Yuan Gardens...however, 'yuan' in Chinese means 'garden' so really it's like saying Yu Gardens Gardens. As we were shopping, we heard music coming from the street. We looked over and there was a parade rounding the corner. They had people playing instruments and two very long dragons like you see in pictures of parades. We asked the Chinese girl who was with us what it was all about. She had no clue. So we just saw some random parade. It was interesting and I took a couple pictures. We walked to Nanjing Road. Elizabeth and I broke down...so we went to a Pizza Hut and got some stuffed crust pizza. Man...it was delicious. We were having cheese withdrawals. In my book, Pizza Hut is okay, but I refuse to go to a McDonalds here. A girl has to have SOME boundaries. We went into a KFC in Beijing, but they didn't have biscuits...so I didn't eat there either. We walked around a bit more, went to a book store where I bought some Chinese books for Shanna's friend's little boy, walked to the Bund, hung out there for a while, then caught the bus back home. I can't really remember what we did that night, but it was probably something along the lines of: hung out in the room, played cards, ate at our restaurant, watched a movie, or any variation of the above.
Monday, June 4: We woke up, got ready, and took the bus to the Bund. Then we walked around for a bit trying to find Deloitte's offices. Deloitte, Touche, and Tohmatsu is one of the "Big Four" accounting firms. I know many UND alum who work there, so I was able to get in contact with someone they knew and visited the firm over in Shanghai. Their meeting room was up in the 30th floor of a building, so it had some pretty commanding views. Elizabeth and I met with Wilfred Cheung. He is a manager at Deloitte. He was born in Hong Kong and moved back and forth from there to the US several times. He got a degree from a university in Texas (don't remember which one) and started out with Arthur Anderson in LA. We all know how that went, so a year or so later, the firm went kaput and he joined Deloitte in LA, then PriceWaterhouseCoopers in Hong Kong, and finally Deloitte in Shanghai. He showed us around the office. They have about 7 floors in one prominant building and are hiring more people. I asked him about the work load in China versus US. In China, everything falls on the calendar year, so the books close every December 31 and annual reports are due on April 30th. No extensions. So their busy season is at a whole new level compared to the US. And it's no picnic in the US. Very interesting information. Also, I asked him if I were to transfer to the Shanghai office, would I have to learn Chinese? He said it was no problem, people either speak only English or only Chinese and many people can speak both, so any level was okay. He gave us both a set of chopsticks with Deloitte engraved on them as a gift for visiting. It was definitely informative and interesting. We took the bus back home and again did some variation of the above hang out, eat, play cards, explore, etc...
Tuesday, June 5: We got ready and took the bus to the Bund. As you can tell, Bus 33 is our friend. We take it almost every day. One end of the line is the Lotus Center, which is a great big market (think Chinese K-mart) which is about a 10 minute walk from our hotel and a 45 minute bus ride to reach the Bund. Then we took a cab to Xintiandi. This is the international part of town. Elizabeth and I met with Grant (one of the guys from the Central Michigan group) and his girlfriend's brother Robert to have lunch. We were going to try to meet up with the whole CMU group before they left, but it didn't work out and Grant was the only one who stayed after the program. We ate at Wagas which had really great pasta and smoothies. After lunch, they were going to pick up some glasses they had made, so we went with them. Robert's parents are actually living in Xintiandi. His dad works for GM and got sent here with his mom. They live in a high rise apartment with a great view. Their apartment is paid for, but they said it would be about $6000 USD per month to rent!! So we went with Grant, Robert, and Robert's mom to the eyeglasses place. I was very tempted to buy a pair for myself. To get "designer" frames with prescription lenses is less than $30. At these prices, you can see why I have no trouble spending money.... After that we took the subway back to their apartment. We also met Grant's girlfriend and her dad. We watched 'The Game' on an illegal DVD, then took the bus back to campus. We had office hours for 3 hours...one guy showed up and asked a few questions, but mostly we just checked email and facebook and whatnot. Why can't all work be this easy?
Well, it's almost 11pm. At 11 they will kick me out and lock the doors so I guess I will wrap this up. More to come.
Sunday, June 03, 2007
I guess I'm just an international bigmouth...
Wow...this week has flown by! It's hard to believe my time here is almost half over. On Monday, we didn't do much of anything...at least that I can remember. Tuesday, it was a fairly cool day, so we decided we had no excuse to sit around and we made the trek to visit the Jade Buddha Temple. It was very interesting and had many large Buddha statues made from various materials. Many people were going around, praying and offering money to Buddha. There was one temple in particular where there were coins all over the place. People left them on ledges, put them on the statues themselves, and put them into the container for coins. Many coins were also balanced on their side. I wasn't able to find anyone who could explain to me what this symbolized, but I thought it was quite interesting. The entire place smelled like incense...it was very calming. You could even watch some monks worshipping. I felt very odd here. I felt bad taking pictures of some things, because I wouldn't want people coming in and taking pictures of me during church...but this is a tourist attraction, so I'm sure they are used to it. Outside of the temple, I bought a Ni-Ni ceramic magnet. For those of you that don't know...for the Beijing Olympics, they have 5 bears to represent the 5 rings and I believe the 5 elements. One of them is called Ni-Ni...which is the nickname I self-proclaimed at the age of two (nee-nee...but close enough and pronounced the same). Shanna and mom brought me back a stuffed animal Ni-Ni. And I also bought earrings with a light green jade and a purplish-black pearl. Then we headed back to campus to teach our first class. (dang...I guess we do have to do SOME work...) Carlson usually teaches the class, but he was invited to Suzhou and made us teach. It went rather well...nothing too stressful.
Wednesday: We met up with Shanna's friend, Denise for lunch and a quick tour of her office. She is the head of Asia operations for Ashland Partners. They mostly do compliance work with GIPS (Global Investment Performace Standards) for companies from all over the world. She has been in charge of everything from setting up the office space to hiring and training employees to day-to-day management of operations. The office has grown to about 40 employees and they are looking to double that. They have a pretty posh office space in the Platinum Building in Xintiandi (the international part of town). She took us out to a delicious meal of Shanghai's specialty: a small steamed bun with different fillings and hot broth inside. It was fantastic. Afterwards, she had to get back to work. We told her that we were doing pretty well with the Chinese food, but we were both craving cheese. She pointed us in the direction of an import grocery store. When we entered, it was like the gates of heaven opened before us. They had such wonderful things as a whole aisle of cereal and a spread of different cheeses. A box of Golden Grahams will set you back close to $10. We bought a brick of anchor cheddar cheese and some sort of cracker. Not quite as good as a normal Club cracker, but it fit the bill. We decided that will we be going back and buying a larger chunk of cheese soon... Wednesday evening, we held office hours for any students who had questions or needed help. Only one guy showed up, so we helped him and chatted for a while...but mostly we bummed around on the internet.
Thursday morning we had class from 8am-11:40. Afterwards, we had lunch with Tracy, her roommate Katrina (?...I think that was her name), and Harry. They took us to the newest cafeteria on campus. Elizabeth and I immediately decided it was much better than the cafeteria we had been going to...the food at this one was actually warm and appetizing. I had some sort of flour noodle dish with bean sprouts, lettuce, and mystery meat. I'm guessing pork with lots of salt on it. It was very good. The helping was about twice as much as I could eat and cost me under 50 cents. During lunch, we were chatting with the students. I asked the girls if they had boyfriends and Tracy laughed and blushed. She is dating Victor, who we talk with often during class and he was the one who bought us the tickets to the dance show last Wednesday. We thought they were a very cute couple and teased her mercilessly. After lunch, they had to go back to class, so we did some exploring until it was time for the night class. In class, Victor usually sits with Harry, but that night, he was sitting with Tracy so Harry came over and sat with us. During the first break, Victor came over and we gave him crap about holding back on us. He laughed, then called us "international bigmouths" and walked away. We all had a good laugh about that. Thursday night, we met Denise downtown for a drink. She had a friend singing in a bar. It was called 'Visus'...and let me tell you...it's not the type of bar that you will find in Grand Forks! It was very classy and elegant. We told Denise this and she just laughed. She said if we thought this was nice, we should see some of the other bars around Shanghai! Her friend had an amazing voice. She used to sing in Las Vegas and then got the chance to come to Shanghai. We stayed there for a while, then Denise took us across the street to a different bar. It had a lot more people and a lot more foreigners. She took off because she had to work the next day. Elizabeth and I hung out there for a bit then headed home.
Friday morning, we had class from 10am-noon. Half the class was taught by Carlson and the other half was taught by the graduate assistant, so it was all in Chinese. Elizabeth did her sudoku while I sat and read a book. We went to the office after class, got a quick bite to eat, then went back to class. They had their first test, so we had to proctor it and make sure no one was cheating. It was probably the most boring 2 hours ever. Oh well...at least it was easy. The students thought the test was pretty hard, so we will see how they do. Hopefully they will catch on. During the test, I counted the number of students...61. In an itty bitty classroom. I am so uncomfortable at their tables. My legs are not made to fit under them! I have to turn to the side most of the time to sit comfortably. After that, Carlson, Elizabeth, and I went downtown to meet with Carlson's friend Catherine and her dad. We also met up with Mary Loyland who is another one of my accounting teachers at UND who is here for a couple weeks. Catherine's dad collects jewelry and hopes to open a store soon. He gave us great deals on many pieces...pretty much wholesale price. I got a strand of white pearls that would normally sell for over $100 for about $25. After that, we bummed around Nanjing Road for a while and headed out.
Saturday: We had nothing to do that morning, so no alarm clock! Woohoo! I only slept in until about 10:20... We got up, went to the office for a bit, and had lunch at the restaurant outside campus that we really like. After that, we went exploring for a bit. There's not really a whole lot to do around where we live, we usually have to go downtown to do anything. I bought some cherries from a little stand and we went back home. We met Victor and Tracy at the gates at 6pm. We took a cab to a part of town we hadn't been to yet. They took us to eat at this great Japanese style restaurant where you sit on stools around the grill and watch them cook your food. It was fun to watch and the food was amazing. We had sirloin steak, a t-bone (which absolutely melted in your mouth and the seasoning was to die for!!), prawns, octopus, and some really good cabbage. Elizabeth and I both tried a piece of the octopus. It took me a while to work up the courage though...the suckers just weirded me out. I like breaded calamari where you don't have to see that. I wasn't too crazy about this though. It had a very spicy seasoning on it and was quite chewy. I don't like really chewy things. Not terrible though. I was quite surprised that Elizabeth tried it without much coaxing from me! After the meal, we saw Spiderman 3. It was in English with Chinese subtitles. The special effects were pretty cool, but the movie was pretty cheesy. There is one part where Toby Maguire is strutting down the street...Elizabeth and I were dying we were laughing so hard! After the movie, Victor said that must have been Western humor because they didn't think it was that funny...so of course we laughed even harder. Then we walked over to a KTV place. KTV is very popular over here. You can rent a room with a karoke machine in it and go nuts. It was so much fun. Elizabeth and I sang such hits as: Dancing Queen, Hopelessly Devoted to You, Save Tonight, If You Want to Be Happy (just for Dad!), Heartbreaker, Oh-Bla-Di, and many others. At about 12:50am...Victor and Tracy were tired, but Elizabeth and I had our second wind. Tracy requested we do Dancing Queen one more time then hit the road. We laughed at them and said they'd never make it in the US if they were calling it quits this early! Elizabeth and I took a taxi back, Victor headed to his uncle's and Tracy was going to her parents. On the whole cab ride back, Elizabeth and I were wound up and talking. We were still talking and singing walking back to the hotel...and kept talking and singing in our room...until about 3:30am when we decided we should probably go to bed. We are going to have to do some KTV again!
That brings us to today. We got up and met with Carlson and one of his friends and went to Yu Gardens to do a bit of shopping. After we had spent too much money, we walked over to Nanjing and decided to have lunch at Pizza Hut. We were having cheese withdrawals. I still refuse to go to a McDonalds. It was delicious! After lunch, we found a book store where I picked up a couple books for Shanna's roommate's little boy Ben. We all walked back to the Bund and hung out there for a while then went home. We had a lazy afternoon, then came to the office. I talked with Mom briefly over MSN, but it was a poor connection today.
We have a busy week ahead, so I don't know when my next post will be. We have a meeting with a Manager from Deloitte, Wednesday we are going with the other UND students to Suzhou, and Friday we will leave for Beijing, getting back on Tuesday or so. I can't wait to see the Great Wall!!!
Wednesday: We met up with Shanna's friend, Denise for lunch and a quick tour of her office. She is the head of Asia operations for Ashland Partners. They mostly do compliance work with GIPS (Global Investment Performace Standards) for companies from all over the world. She has been in charge of everything from setting up the office space to hiring and training employees to day-to-day management of operations. The office has grown to about 40 employees and they are looking to double that. They have a pretty posh office space in the Platinum Building in Xintiandi (the international part of town). She took us out to a delicious meal of Shanghai's specialty: a small steamed bun with different fillings and hot broth inside. It was fantastic. Afterwards, she had to get back to work. We told her that we were doing pretty well with the Chinese food, but we were both craving cheese. She pointed us in the direction of an import grocery store. When we entered, it was like the gates of heaven opened before us. They had such wonderful things as a whole aisle of cereal and a spread of different cheeses. A box of Golden Grahams will set you back close to $10. We bought a brick of anchor cheddar cheese and some sort of cracker. Not quite as good as a normal Club cracker, but it fit the bill. We decided that will we be going back and buying a larger chunk of cheese soon... Wednesday evening, we held office hours for any students who had questions or needed help. Only one guy showed up, so we helped him and chatted for a while...but mostly we bummed around on the internet.
Thursday morning we had class from 8am-11:40. Afterwards, we had lunch with Tracy, her roommate Katrina (?...I think that was her name), and Harry. They took us to the newest cafeteria on campus. Elizabeth and I immediately decided it was much better than the cafeteria we had been going to...the food at this one was actually warm and appetizing. I had some sort of flour noodle dish with bean sprouts, lettuce, and mystery meat. I'm guessing pork with lots of salt on it. It was very good. The helping was about twice as much as I could eat and cost me under 50 cents. During lunch, we were chatting with the students. I asked the girls if they had boyfriends and Tracy laughed and blushed. She is dating Victor, who we talk with often during class and he was the one who bought us the tickets to the dance show last Wednesday. We thought they were a very cute couple and teased her mercilessly. After lunch, they had to go back to class, so we did some exploring until it was time for the night class. In class, Victor usually sits with Harry, but that night, he was sitting with Tracy so Harry came over and sat with us. During the first break, Victor came over and we gave him crap about holding back on us. He laughed, then called us "international bigmouths" and walked away. We all had a good laugh about that. Thursday night, we met Denise downtown for a drink. She had a friend singing in a bar. It was called 'Visus'...and let me tell you...it's not the type of bar that you will find in Grand Forks! It was very classy and elegant. We told Denise this and she just laughed. She said if we thought this was nice, we should see some of the other bars around Shanghai! Her friend had an amazing voice. She used to sing in Las Vegas and then got the chance to come to Shanghai. We stayed there for a while, then Denise took us across the street to a different bar. It had a lot more people and a lot more foreigners. She took off because she had to work the next day. Elizabeth and I hung out there for a bit then headed home.
Friday morning, we had class from 10am-noon. Half the class was taught by Carlson and the other half was taught by the graduate assistant, so it was all in Chinese. Elizabeth did her sudoku while I sat and read a book. We went to the office after class, got a quick bite to eat, then went back to class. They had their first test, so we had to proctor it and make sure no one was cheating. It was probably the most boring 2 hours ever. Oh well...at least it was easy. The students thought the test was pretty hard, so we will see how they do. Hopefully they will catch on. During the test, I counted the number of students...61. In an itty bitty classroom. I am so uncomfortable at their tables. My legs are not made to fit under them! I have to turn to the side most of the time to sit comfortably. After that, Carlson, Elizabeth, and I went downtown to meet with Carlson's friend Catherine and her dad. We also met up with Mary Loyland who is another one of my accounting teachers at UND who is here for a couple weeks. Catherine's dad collects jewelry and hopes to open a store soon. He gave us great deals on many pieces...pretty much wholesale price. I got a strand of white pearls that would normally sell for over $100 for about $25. After that, we bummed around Nanjing Road for a while and headed out.
Saturday: We had nothing to do that morning, so no alarm clock! Woohoo! I only slept in until about 10:20... We got up, went to the office for a bit, and had lunch at the restaurant outside campus that we really like. After that, we went exploring for a bit. There's not really a whole lot to do around where we live, we usually have to go downtown to do anything. I bought some cherries from a little stand and we went back home. We met Victor and Tracy at the gates at 6pm. We took a cab to a part of town we hadn't been to yet. They took us to eat at this great Japanese style restaurant where you sit on stools around the grill and watch them cook your food. It was fun to watch and the food was amazing. We had sirloin steak, a t-bone (which absolutely melted in your mouth and the seasoning was to die for!!), prawns, octopus, and some really good cabbage. Elizabeth and I both tried a piece of the octopus. It took me a while to work up the courage though...the suckers just weirded me out. I like breaded calamari where you don't have to see that. I wasn't too crazy about this though. It had a very spicy seasoning on it and was quite chewy. I don't like really chewy things. Not terrible though. I was quite surprised that Elizabeth tried it without much coaxing from me! After the meal, we saw Spiderman 3. It was in English with Chinese subtitles. The special effects were pretty cool, but the movie was pretty cheesy. There is one part where Toby Maguire is strutting down the street...Elizabeth and I were dying we were laughing so hard! After the movie, Victor said that must have been Western humor because they didn't think it was that funny...so of course we laughed even harder. Then we walked over to a KTV place. KTV is very popular over here. You can rent a room with a karoke machine in it and go nuts. It was so much fun. Elizabeth and I sang such hits as: Dancing Queen, Hopelessly Devoted to You, Save Tonight, If You Want to Be Happy (just for Dad!), Heartbreaker, Oh-Bla-Di, and many others. At about 12:50am...Victor and Tracy were tired, but Elizabeth and I had our second wind. Tracy requested we do Dancing Queen one more time then hit the road. We laughed at them and said they'd never make it in the US if they were calling it quits this early! Elizabeth and I took a taxi back, Victor headed to his uncle's and Tracy was going to her parents. On the whole cab ride back, Elizabeth and I were wound up and talking. We were still talking and singing walking back to the hotel...and kept talking and singing in our room...until about 3:30am when we decided we should probably go to bed. We are going to have to do some KTV again!
That brings us to today. We got up and met with Carlson and one of his friends and went to Yu Gardens to do a bit of shopping. After we had spent too much money, we walked over to Nanjing and decided to have lunch at Pizza Hut. We were having cheese withdrawals. I still refuse to go to a McDonalds. It was delicious! After lunch, we found a book store where I picked up a couple books for Shanna's roommate's little boy Ben. We all walked back to the Bund and hung out there for a while then went home. We had a lazy afternoon, then came to the office. I talked with Mom briefly over MSN, but it was a poor connection today.
We have a busy week ahead, so I don't know when my next post will be. We have a meeting with a Manager from Deloitte, Wednesday we are going with the other UND students to Suzhou, and Friday we will leave for Beijing, getting back on Tuesday or so. I can't wait to see the Great Wall!!!
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