End of the adventure of a lifetime

Sorry I didn’t make a blog post last night while I was packing, kind of really wanted to but with packing, making sure I didn’t leave my most important possessions (dvd player), and having my final meal with my friends. I just couldn’t make it to writing about “the end”.
Mom called this morning at 9am and said, “Wake up you’re coming home today!” and “You start work on Monday!” I think you can assume my reaction to waking up with those two phrases thrown my way? Haha
Its not that I don’t want to come home, I just want to stay in China more than coming home. I have learned so much Chinese in the past 3 months than the 2 ½ years that I’ve spent at the U. But I would still stress to have a good basis of Chinese before going to China to study abroad otherwise you’re kind of caught in the middle of the city with your pants down, so-to-speak. From what I’ve seen through the people that start from scratch at BLCU, you tend to progress more if you already have some hold on Mandarin than if you don’t.
Ugh but wow, 3 months really flew by, even my mom said that, but I’m more than glad to stick around Beijing until time doesn’t seem to pass so quickly. I am glad though that I didn’t do everything humanly possible in Beijing. The places I went I know well, and there still is the Summer Palace, Silk road, and the many many massage parlors I haven’t visited (ones without happy endings).
Sanghoon and I were exchanging first day in Beijing stories, and its funny with the whole foresight thing that neither of us expected to meet so many great people and create such strong friendships in such a short period of time.
I laughed when I thought about walking into my dorm for the first time, taking a deep breath, and saying “Well this is my home for the next 3 months”
I can honestly say that I’ve grown mentally, physically, and spiritually due to all the new experiences I had in Beijing.
You know that really annoyingly catchy Olympics song “Beijing welcomes you”? Its true, Beijing truly is a welcoming city with exciting activities and completely astounding sights and people. I’m not just talking about the Chinese people but the international experiences through all the people from Belgium, Australia, South Africa, and the many MANY people from Seoul ahha…
Its just a pity that nobody back home will know the inside jokes we all made about our old teacher, or reminisce about the times I had with my class at the Great Wall, Car Show, or just hanging around eating cheap food.
I know I want to come back to China, especially back to Beijing and BLCU. It won’t be the same as this time but maybe it’ll be better. Its cool to know that now I’m welcome to visit so many countries around the world, I just need to pay for the airfare.
Where should my next adventure be? Chile? Germany? Alabama? Haha
I have to say though, right now I hate the Beijing Olympics because I’ve spent so much on getting presents back home to people. Total, I’ve probably spent a good $600 on presents to bring back home. I am so grateful that I only had to pay 200 kuai for one of my overweight bags, I kind of regret not trying to pack my extra fold out table and not buying another awesome dvd player, or maybe a psp? Of course money is always a restriction to having stuff no matter how cheap they come.
It was a challenge trying to write my most interesting experiences down on this blog and keeping up with it. It was pretty easy doing it at the beginning just because everything was so new and different but as time went on, things became more normal along with all the homework I had to do. I’ll do my Shanghai trip post sometime.
I’m planning to come back in 2 years after I graduate and before I jump into the full time mandatory work part of my life that is careening towards me. I feel bad for sort of deserting the people that are staying for another few months or the whole year. I would definitely want to live in the dorms again with a roommate because compared with the people who lived off campus, my friend making opportunities were increased ten-fold. Maybe I’m just that likeable? Anyways, Brent got into the architecture school that he applied to in Savanna, and Aaron is going home in July and will be sticking around for a bit. I’m planning on going to the NSHMBA Atlanta expo, so there could be a possible meeting of the minds which I look forward to. I’m also trying to convince Sanghoon to work on learning Spanish and getting sent to the states with some company so we can still hang out.
I really do need to start reviewing Chinese back at home so I don’t lose it all. But the only things I’d change is taking less hours of class so I can get a tutor and take some HSK prep classes. I’ll post up later on how terrible I did on it once the results are out.

So for now, I guess this is me signing off and closing my chapter in Beijing. Thanks for keeping up with me and reading about what I’ve been doing in China. For those who are thinking about going to BLCU or just studying in China, I’m always welcome for questions and I highly encourage the idea of going because it is completely well worth the trip. My first meal once I get home will be Taco Bell. Mmm nachos ^_^

Food Glorious Food

I think this is a better time than any to write my long over due blog post.
This has been an interesting week. I've basically been filling my tummy with amazing delicious food with lots of friends and new people.

Last week my friend Chris arrived in Beijing with his girlfriend Lulu and Mike. We went to 2 restaurants, one next to the Lama temple which I guess is famous for being really big and also a place famous for making Peking Duck big in Beijing.


Both were pretty good places to eat but the duck place is catered for tourists since they're well known so one peking duck was 300 kuai so very much on the pricey side. I'll admit that its the best that I've had while in Beijing but for the price, i could go for a slightly not so crunchy duck.

Another amazing must have food while in China is hot pot, I didn't take any pictures because I was busy devouring boiled meat and vegetables, but the idea is that you sit down at a table with a hole cut in the middle and there's a gas or electric burner there in the hole, they bring you a pot of broth, you can have half plain and half spicy. Then they just bring you raw ingredients: pork, beef, lettuce, mushrooms, whatever. And then you cook it yourself and dip the delicious items in whatever sauce you choose. My favorite is a bowl of sesamie oil with shredded raw garlic, cilantro, and green onion. Kind of different sauce than i'm used to back at home but still delicious. Its really nice to get hot pot with a bunch of people because sometimes everybody is indecisive about which restaurant to go to, but if you go to hotpot everybody can order what they want and its really cheap. I've gone twice this week and its averaged about 35 kuai, 5 bucks a person.

The restaurant I want to stress and make a huge deal about is the all you can eat all you can drink sushi place. Aaron proposed the idea of going last Sunday and we went as a group of 8. The cost was 58 kuai per person and we could order almost anything off their normal menu, salmon sashimi, fried pork cutlet, california rolls, and grilled eel to name a few. You can also drink as much beer, pepsi, or 7 up.

This deal is just so awesome because what place in the US can you eat all the sushi you want for 8 bucks? So we ate till we were full and wanted to do this again, I asked a few people, Aaron asked a few people and soon the word spread and we showed up at the Sushi place once again but this time with 28 people.

We got there at around 8pm and didn't leave till 12. It was a fantastic opportunity to meet more people and to eat good food too. I swear it was like a an informal UN meeting, we had people from the US, Mexico, Canada, Hong Kong, England, Italy, Belgium, Sweden, Germany, Korea, and I think one person from China.

Total bottles of beer drunk were about 80 bottles. And the total bill for that night was around $230. Where back home can you feed 30 people for $230 bucks?

It is the dragon boat festival today and I'm meeting up with my mom's relatives for dinner. I kind of got to the destination 45 minutes early so I found an internet cafe to go to. Kind of feel like I need to disinfect myself once I leave just because its dark and dirty and everything I touch is sticky *shudders*

I won't reflect on my trip just yet because I don't want to start missing Beijing when I haven't even left yet but I'm planning on starting to pack tonight so I can get a good idea of how much crap I've spend my money on. I might have to either buy a new suitcase and deal with the $150 surcharge for having a 3rd suitcase or I might check into DHL's rates and mail back my clothes and other heavy not so important items.

Useful Tip- Doctor's visit

So my roommate told me that he's getting tired of hearing the sound of me coughing so today I asked my teacher if she could tell me where I could go for a doctor's visit. She was so nice that she actually accompanied me along through the entire process. The location of the BLCU hospital is right outside the West Gate, you cross the street and its the building on the right side.

I walked in and went up to a counter down the hall and they asked for 2.5 kuai, gave me a sort of white booklet and told me to find a doctor. There was an empty seat in one of the offices so I sat down and was somewhat put off at their lack of organization. Books and note books and tools were kind of everywhere and the "doctor" i guess, asked me what was wrong and grabbed a flashlight and told me to open my mouth. The thing that worried me was that the flashlight was super dim, she shook it and banged on it with her fist to make it work and it sort of sputtered out a little bit more light and she's like "ahh i see that your throat is somewhat irritated"...newsflash for me...

She perscribed 3 kinds of medicines all without doing anything other than look at my throat. One was a spray that had to be taken 3 times a day and whenever my throat hurt? One was a bottle, 20 ml, morning, noon, and night. And then this box of what looked like batteries, take one bottle 3 times a day.
I can assure you that I've taken this stuff and it tastes really really nasty. I did feel somewhat relieved but I'd rather cough than try to choke that stuff down again.
All together the medicine cost me 67 kuai. The most surprising thing about the entire visit was that seeing the doctor only cost me probably around 40 cents US

Tofu and Cheese

Ok so if you've been looking at my pictures on my Flick lately you might have noticed some really random (and hilarious) comics that I drew and posted. I was sitting in class last week and started drawing random shapes and ended up drawing a bunch of cubes. I then added eyes and stick arms and legs and voila I created two characters who would now be friends for life. I thought about what to name them and I thought to myself "hey these guys look like a block of tofu and cheese" and thus Tofu and Cheese were born.
I kind of doodle these every once in a while, have had bad ideas that ended up as eraser shavings, so far most of them have been good ideas that have made people smile, chuckle, or say wtf is wrong with you?
This is the album on my Flickr where I've been posting my creations
http://www.flickr.com/photos/24737890@N07/sets/72157605192180664/

I miss my 10,000 lakes

So I think like a week later, and I'm still coughing up a storm?
I finally managed to find a medicine store on Friday that sold Pei Pa Gao, a black syrupy Chinese herbal cough medicine I recognize from the cupboard from home. Unlike my childhood memories, this stuff actually tasted better than Vicks or Robutessin cuz it has honey and ginger and a lot of other stuff I've never heard of...Indian bread, Milkwort Root, Snakegourd seed? Anyways, once I take it my cough and sore throat are instantly relieved for a few hours and then I have to take it again because I get close to haking up a lung. I've been getting a lot of bloody noses too the past 3 days so I definitely know that I don't have a cold and that its just the hot dry un-humid weather which I guess....(aghhhrrrggg I got another mosquito bite!) I'm not completely used to yet. I need the hot humid sticky air that Minnesota summer is all about. I'm not going to be here long enough to justify getting a humidifier, so I guess I'll have to tough out the dust. I just checked the weather report for the rest of the week and it doesn't seem that there will be any rain this week, darn.

To Zhong Guan Cun and Back

I seem to only be attracted to activities that will completely drain my energy and leave me completely dead by the time I get back to my room.
I kind of ran out of space on my laptop since all the pictures I've been taking have been in full quality and I just have a tendency to be a packrat for documents and pictures. I needed to finish a project for work and so the place to go for cheap electronics at a bargain is at Zhong Guan Cun. About 45 minute walk from BLCU or 45 min bus ride during rush hour.
Sanghoon and I went there planning on only getting a flashdrive for each of us, but since prices are so ridiculously high and people expect you to bargain, I needed to walk around and check on flashdrives and prices. I ended up going with a 4 gb Kingston brand flashdrive.


I hate dealing with those annoying caps because they tend to force you to keep track of them and if you lose it you kind of freak out. This one had a slider on it, and I spent 2 hours walking around looking for the best deal and I finally settled for this one for 17 bucks.
Afterwards, we went to grab something to eat and I needed to look for DVD players and speakers. Passable speakers get as low as 8 bucks for 2 speakers and a sub, and I'm looking for a specific type of dvd player that has a usb port so you can watch .Avi files on it.
Not saying that I'm going to download more movies off the internet and watch them on my dvd player, but it's crossed my mind ^_-

Well I have about 3 weeks left until I have to go back home and I have barely scratched Beijing's surface. I've had a scratchy throat for the past 3 days and now I started coughing today, like a lot, its not because of the pollution but because they're doing major 24/7 construction on the road right outside of our dorm. They started about 2 weeks ago and if I leave the balcony window open during the day, dust accumulates everywhere in the room so I'm assuming that the source of my sore throat is because of that.
Sorry I haven't written anything about my trips to the Temple of Heaven here in Beijing, or my weekend in Shanghai, I'll try to get to it maybe once the weekend rolls around *cough cough*

HSK= Horribly Stinky...Koala

Sorry that was the first thing that started with the letter K
Anyways, so yesterday I took the HSK, Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi. Its the Chinese equivalent of the TOEFL and honestly after taking it, I feel like I know nothing and my almost 3 years of studying Chinese have all been for nothing.

There are 2 tests, a lower and a higher one. I took the lower one with Brent and Sanghoon and none of us prepared for it. My reason behind it was that if I wanted to take the HSK back home, I'd have to fly to San Fransisco, Houston, or New York to take it not to mention the higher exam fee. Here I can walk down the street and give it a shot.

On the lower test, the lowest you can score is a 4 and highest is an 8. People who want to study at a Chinese university have to score at least a 7. On the higher test you can score from 9-11. To work in China you need to score a 9...which is...optimistic...
There were 4 parts, listening, reading comprehension was broken in 2 parts, and grammar.
All parts were super difficult and there were so many characters that I didn't know. The characters I DID recognize, I couldn't put together to make coherent sentences so basically I guess on 95% of the test.

I won't know what I really got on the test for another month and a half, but I'll be back home by then so someone will have to pick it up for me. But honestly If I really want to find out how "well" I did on that test, I should just ask a magic 8 ball.

All in all, I think it was a good opportunity to test my reading and writing out in the real world. I asked some other people who have taken it before, and they said that after studying prep books for the HSK they felt that they had learned a lot more. When I get back home, I'm not planning on taking any more Chinese classes at school, but to do some self tutoring, I might just study for the HSK in case I get a chance to work out here.

Beijing = Home?

Geeze its been almost 3 weeks since I've written something on this blog. Its been on my mind seriously like every day but I just haven't gotten around to writing something interesting or I've been held up with homework or other activities.
I think one of the main things is that since i've been here for about 2 months already, things are starting to seem normal and not so out of the ordinary for me as it was when I got here. Its normal for me to cross the street without looking if the light is red or green, its normal for me to see people walking down the street picking their nose or ears or hawking up loogies (still super gross though), and its normal for me to stand in the subway or bus with absolutely no room to turn and have to shove back when being shoved.
Its definitely a nice feeling to know I'm used to living here and its even more awesome when I run into someone from class or someone I've met before on the street or somewhere off campus just because I know people now! haha

Another probably minute detail on why I haven't been updating is because my neighbors on my floor all pitched in and got a wireless lan going and they forced me to learn how to play Enfos on Warcraft - -''

I'm really excited for the next oncoming weeks because I have a bunch of friends that are coming from Minneapolis to visit Beijing, so right now I'm trying to see everything and learn about all the cool places to go to show them a good time. I think the price of food and stuff is enough to make them love Beijing haha

School is periodically getting more difficult. Everyone is running out of steam seeing that we have to endure 6 hours of class with the temperature now rising to 80's every day, its nice to be outside but the teachers don't like my idea of having class in the park haha...
6 hours a day of chinese is seriously grueling though. I try to wake up at 7, breakfast at 7:45 and then class at 8. Lunch at 12, and back to class from 2-4. When we get out of class, the afternoon is basically over and all the teachers expect us to review for the next lesson which is completely unreasonable.
I have dinner and chat with my neighbors and before I know it, its already 9 and I have to do homework and bed is usually around 12 or 1 because I eventually give up and know that if I don't go to bed I'll fall asleep in class the next day.

So I mean this is life. And I honestly didn't know how close to college dorm life it was going to be, I wish I brought my wii though. Rockband would have been awesome because everyone that's from the states have been here since rockband came out so they're all dying to try it haha...

I'm OK

Hey everybody
I've gotten a few emails and calls from people asking if we are all right from that terrible earthquake that happened in the Sichuan Province. Apparently Beijing felt aftershocks from the 7.9 magnitude quake but nobody noticed here at school.
Thank you so much for your concern, I really appreciate it!

Seeing the Real Beijing

One of Aaron's friends had a fantastic idea of renting bikes for 20 rmb and biking around Beijing sight seeing and creating our own route. I wish I kept the map that we used but because we were in a rush and were rough with it, it kind of died...
But some of the major places we visited was Hou Hai, Tian an Men square, and the Olympic Stadium.
What an experience it was to bike through the endless traffic jams, old antique neighborhoods, and random alleyways and shopping districts. I highly recommend grabbing a few friends and biking around Beijing instead of following a tour group because its cheaper, all the sights are based on what you want to do, and Beijing is very safe so you don't have to worry about anything, just not getting hit by traffic.
Today was a labor day which is why we got the day off, but Tian An Men was so packed with people on the sidewalks so we had to ride our bikes to the opposite side of the street so we could freely move.
Somehow we ended up in a really tight alley way with broken down brick houses and people doing random road repairs but we got back on a main street and found ourselves in a busy shopping district. The question "Do chinese people do anything but shop" comes to mind just because of how busy and crowded it was.
We finally arrived at the Bird's nest and the water cube thing but since its still under construction, nobody can get near it so we had to settle for this picture.
Overall, this bike ride was a fantastic chance to get to know the city i'll be living in for another month and a half and I would so recommend everyone to do it instead of taking some lame tour group with a bunch of old people haha

Finally a Break!

So starting tomorrow we have from Wednesday to Saturday off and for some reason we have school on Sunday. But my original plan was to get plane tickets to go to HK but the weather looks sort of gloomy for the week there and its going to cost me 2,500 rmb to fly there.

Here in Beijing however its going to be 80f and sunny for the rest of the week and its honestly not like there isn't anything to do here so I figured I could save the money for something else and I could use the extra few days to study.

Today in class I got the crazy notion of going to Shanghai next weekend so I got 3 other classmates to get in on the idea and now we're trying to find train tickets for next Friday and then come back monday morning just in time for class. I did some quick calculations and round trip from Shanghai and back it should be 1000 rmb, hotel for one night 200, food 200, and misc for spending 400. Total is about 1800 and I'm sure I'll have a lot more fun with a group of people rather than myself in Hong Kong.

Beep Beep

I don't really like cars but this was just something to do on a Sunday afternoon. Brent, Sanghoon, and I went to the last day of the Beijing Auto Show. It was about 30 min by subway and then we still had to take a taxi for another 30-40 min out into the suburbs. Its amazing how China is really responding to the olympics. Brent's parents live about 15 min walking from the exibition, and he said that people came in and tore the entire road apart, added new asphalt and a road divider and put flowers and trees all over. They even redid the electricity and there was an area with a lot of stores along the road and the front of the stores were painted and got new signs up for free just so they wouldn't look so depressing. SO people who have been asking me if people here in Beijing are excited about the Olympics? Its not much of an excitement, its just a matter of getting roads redone, sidewalks paved, and everything else done so it looks good for all the foreigners. I even asked the Taxi driver if they're being taught english and he said "Hallo Sir" "Guud Mowning" and "Sank you bery mush". And he said he was studying really hard because he has to.

Anyways, the car show was fun. I think we needed a mop for Brent or maybe one of those monkey backpacks for kids that has the rope tied to it so they don't get away. There were a couple cool concept cars, like one that Nissan designed that looks absolutely impractical that can drive sidways.



I did see my Evo, so I was happy.


Mercedes and Audi had the largest displays and the Chinese car companies were absolutely laughable because of the designs and some of the cars were complete rip offs from other companies.


I took about 200 pictures, so if you want to see more pics of the show, they're on my Flickr account, oh and I got a haircut too for 50 kuai ^-^

Go China!

So my friend Brent and I went to see the new Jackie Chan/Jet Li movie on Saturday night and then we got a call from the rest of our class to meet up for dinner, so half way through the movie we got up and left. I liked the movie, we just all of a sudden got better plans. On the way out, I said "Well I guess we could wait until next week for the dvd." and Brent laughs and said, "They're probably selling copies right now."
Then today while we were walking down the street, an old guy with a suitcase of dvds actually had the movie for sale for a dollar and if you look at the box, apparently its in BluRay too.

Sorry!

I know I haven't updated at all this week but that's only because I've been going to class, get out at 4 and then do work and exercise and start homework at 9 and go to bed at 1, that's basically my schedule every single day. So I really don't have anything interesting to report back until the weekend when I have time to go out and explore.
Today I was supposed to go to the Beijing car show with a couple people but plans changed and I guess we're going tomorrow.
One thing that I constantly regret when I go out is sometimes I don't bring my camera and I always miss some old guy with a huge load of stuff on the back of his bike, or a really tiny fat dog, or a super cute Chinese baby doing something that would make you go "awwww".


Well today I was walking down the street and found this guy who was selling salamanders, goldfish, turtles, bunnies, and hamsters. I would have asked how much a super fluffy bunny is but I didn't want to dash my hopes if it was super cheap cuz I'd have to give it up a month from now.
This coming week is my break week, so I don't have class from tuesday until next monday. I've been lazy in getting those plane tickets to Hong Kong so there's a good chance I won't be going. I heard its been raining there every day so if I don't go it won't be a terrible thing, and a bunch of my friends are sticking around here so I'll be able to save money too if I don't end up going.

Useful Tip- Getting to Campus

I'm writing this post for other people's references on one of the ways you can get to campus from the airport.
I arrived to the airport around 6:30 and followed some really useful advice on saving money getting to campus from Aaron.
Once you arrive find a desk that says bus tickets, and ask them for a ticket to Zhong Guan Cun 中关村. The ticket should be about $16 RMB. Then take the escalator down and walk outside and take a left, there should be big green signs that show a simple map of where each bus goes. Find the one that says Zhong Guan Cun 中关村.
Get off at the 3rd or 4th stop, I can't quite remember because I was worried about getting off at the right one myself, but its the 2nd stop after you pass the Olympic Stadium, you should have passed Xue Yuan Lu by a couple blocks so don't worry. Then just hop in a taxi and its about $11 rmb to get to campus. It originally cost me $96rmb to catch a cab from campus to the airport, so I kind of wanted to save some money coming back.



I snapped a quick shot of the stadium, I'll try to go back soon so I can get a better pic.

End of a Good Weekend

Guangzhou’s climate kind of reminds me like Miami. Right now it’s the middle of typhoon season so it’s really hot and humid and of course rain. We left the hotel at around 10 so too late for dim sum so I guess my uncle’s brother in law invited us to visit one of his contacts who owns a pig farm that raises pigs for “yu jiu”. A Chinese dish that roasts the pig until the skin is super crispy and delicious.

When we got there the whole place was covered with tiny baby frogs. Lunch wasn’t for another 2 hours so I got bored of just sitting around drinking tea so I went out and checked out the pig containment area. My first attitude towards this place that is an hour out of Guangzhou was a nice country area away from all the smog and activity from the city, but I guess here I really saw China.

I’m assuming this lake used to be full of fish and water but now its all drained and full of gross brown and green stuff and trash along the sides. I think its due to the fact that people used up all the water for faming and stuff, Yuck..

We went to 2 different seafood restaurants today. For lunch we met up with 2 other business men. Our table was overlooking the river which was pretty cool and there was an old lady that drove her boat along the restaurant selling bananas and papayas.

The restaurant we went to for dinner was 3 floors tall. Food was super tasty but I wasn’t bold enough to try the water beetles, maybe next time…

Right now I’m on the plane back to Beijing and I’m glad I made it out to Guangzhou for the weekend for some awesome seafood and sightseeing. I took more than 200 pics and I’m debating whether or not I should get a pro account with Flickr so I can upload an unlimited amount of pictures because my next planned trip is to go to Hong Kong for our May break and Shanghai during our 3 day weekend at the end of May.

I was lucky enough to get a Beijing Olympics plane on the way home ^-^

Food and Fair

So far the most exciting events during the 2 days I’ve been in Guangzhou is eating at fancy seafood restaurants and the Export and Import fair. The restaurant I went to tonight really was extraordinary though.

We went to a buffet called 4 seas international house, and honestly I’ve never been to a buffet like this one. All you can drink bubble milk tea, beer, and wine. Then there’s Chinese food of course, Korean, and all you can eat sushi. Total per person was around $100 rmb, so around $15. The amazing thing was the fact that there was so much fresh food that would definitely not be served at your typical Asian buffet back home. There was grilled oysters, tappanyaki, Hagan Daaz ice cream, and salmon and tuna sashimi to name a few. The tuna was so fresh they literally were cutting up the fish in front of you and put it on your plate. The placemats showed the map of the buffet, so I grabbed one and when I get a chance I’ll scan it and post it up.

A funny thing that I’ve seen here is that parents actually encourage kids to drink alcohol. Like at the buffet there were two kids that were around 12 years old and the parents told them to get some red wine if they wanted to and they brought it back and downed the entire glass. I’m not sure if its my American mentality that finds that off or what.

My uncle, cousin, and I went to the China Export and Import fair today and it was really awesome. I’ve never been in such a huge convention before.

There were so many exhibits to visit, Clothing and Textiles, Toys, IT and Electronics, Food products, Home Appliances, and Farm Machinery just to name a few.

The ones that we went to were Clothing and Textiles, Electronics, and Home Appliances. We walked around for about 6 hours and barely covered 30% of the total exhibits.

At first I thought that the electronics part was going to be like the normal Vegas shows with state of the art stuff with lots of freebies and stuff to try, but mainly it was just cables, computer parts, and tools. So not all that exciting.

The home appliances however was pretty nifty.

There was a humidifier where you can just put in a bottle of water and it’ll run off that. Lots of neat state of the art refrigerators, ovens, and microwaves. One fridge actually took your picture as you opened the door for extra security.

The best appliance we saw was the IRest, yah I know cheesy name. The most expensive one was about $1000 and it had all the bells and whistles you’d ever need in a chair.

I wish I was here for a few more days and with people so I could maybe make some connections and check out the rest of the fair but this was definitely an awesome experience.

Weekend in Guangzhou

So I ended up deciding to drop everything and head to Guangzhou for the weekend. For the many that don’t know where Guangzhou is, its south of Beijing about 3 hours by plane, 22 hours by train.

My uncle helped me buy round trip tickets for 2400, so a little over $300. Although it’s a bit on the pricy side, it’s not bad considering I took the flight about 5 hours after the tickets were booked.

I ended up skipping class today which made me feel guilty because we were going out to eat again as a class but this time our teacher was going to teach us basics on ordering Chinese food, and I guess going to class is important too…

I always hate packing last minute because I know with my short-term memory, I end up forgetting something.

So far I forgot my cell phone charger and I just realized this very second that I didn’t bring my power adapters so if I want to charge my laptop I’ll need to find a store and pick up a power strip. I also have to be on the constant lookout on how I can maximize my cell phone battery until Monday night, hopefully that won’t be a problem as long as nobody calls me, which isn’t out of the ordinary haha

My flight was at 3 but I needed to leave campus at 12 because I only had the tickets ordered but not purchased. I thought the airport was a lot closer and would have cost me 40 kuai but it ended up costing around 100 and took 45 min to get there. The Beijing airport is really huge and I had a hard time finding the places I needed to go.

I flew with China Air, and even though it was a 3 hour flight, they treated it like a 10 hour flight. There was lunch served and tv to watch but in Chinese. I was even booked for an aisle so that was nice. What was also cool was that there was a camera under the plane so you could see what the ground looked like when you were landing.

Total travel time from BLCU to my final destination to meet my cousin and Uncle was about 8 hours.

This should be a fun weekend because I’m planning on checking out Guangzhou and attending the 103^rd Guangzhou Import and Export Fair.

Watching Life Whizz By

The title really doesn't have anything to do with the post, the pic is just neat...
So tonight I finally got up the courage of doing what I've been wanting to do since I got here. I am so glad I brought my tripod from home otherwise none of this could have been possible.
The day I arrive in Beijing, I saw a timer for the Olympics not too far from BLCU but it was daytime and the pic I took was sort of blurry, and the only way to access a good picture of it would be to get on the freeway ramp and walk about 1/4 mile down with cars 3 ft away from you ready to run you over.
SO I thought it would definitely be a great picture to take at night and I'm glad I did it.



It's not crystal clear because since I took it on a freeway overpass, there were slight vibrations with the cars going by. But still, I'm pretty proud of getting this out of the way on my To-Do list.

Aside from nearly escaping death for your brief enjoyment of neon lights and the knowledge of when the Beijing Olympics will start 2 hours ago, today was pretty interesting in and of itself.

I signed up to a gym close by about 2 weeks ago because the campus gym closed because of the Olympics, I nor anyone else understood that explanation. Today I decided to see what they had for personal trainers. I found out that it was 500 kuai for 5 over 1 hour sessions, so about 80 bucks. Which is honestly not bad considering the trainer I have does not speak an ounce of english, so in a way, I got myself a Chinese tutor/conversation partner and an athletic trainer.
I find that I learn more, the more I put myself in awkward positions. For example, if I were to look for a certain building or go to the travel agency to check out tickets to go to Hong Kong. The difference is that tutors and chinese teachers are taught to speak slowly and clearly, whereas in the real world, that's not exactly the case.

I also found out that a bunch of my family members went to Guangzhou for a business conference for the week. So I'm considering jumping on a plane tomorrow afternoon and spending the week in Guangzhou. I also haven't purchased my plane tickets for my trip to Hong Kong for the end of the month




I just find something deeply disturbing about this pic...

Considering An Occupation Change

So I was talking to someone down the hall last night and found out that he got a gig here teaching English to someone. I however was suprised at how much they were paying him because to get a Chinese tutor, they're around 25 kuai an hour, so $3.25 an hour? He however is getting paid around 125 kuai an hour...
Maybe I should looking into teaching English too seeing that I can speak it but it helps to know English phonetics which I doubt 15% of native born speakers know what that even is.

Someone treated our entire class to lunch last week which was awesome because we got to bond more as a class and free lunch...
The food was fantastic and to feed 11 people it was under $100 US

Saddness

So all of us American students have been following how the US economy has been going, and so far we just keep getting sadder and sadder while the European and Asian students laugh at us...
I'm considering converting all my money into RMB because I know I'll be back here but I'm not sure if that's completely a good idea yet

Wandering aimlessly around Beijing

So tonight it seems like everybody had plans of their own except for me. I got back from the Great Wall at 2, uploaded the wall pics and did stuff on the computer until 5 and then Stephen lent me his transportation card just in case I couldn't get one for myself. Its funny that I went on Aim when I got back and Katie asked what's up? and I said, oh nothing I just got back from the Great Wall of China, and she replies with "Show off"...
So I decided to re-visit Wang Fu Jin just because I didn't get to check the whole thing out when I went with my cousin last week.

Took the subway from Wu Dou Kou which is down the street about 3 Chinese blocks West, so about a mile and a half. Switched trains and jumped on the line 2 at Xi Zhi men, then got to Fu Xing Men where I swapped over to the line 1 and got to Wang Fu Jing. Bad timing on my part because I was traveling at rush hour and the trains were absolutely packed so I got my fair share of pushing and shoving for the evening.
I went into this mall looking place which is pictured uptop, It was really huge, and just full of name brand stores. I felt poor just standing outside and looking in so I didn't bother window shopping.
I was looking for a good place to get ramen but couldn't find one so instead I went to Yoshinoya, this fast food place I went to when I was in HK oh so many years before.

I wandered around the outside shopping district looking for a polarizer lens for my camera because they're $40 back home but people were offering me absurd Chinese prices from 200-300 rmb, which is better than back home but still quite expensive and they weren't willing to bargain.


Walked back to where I ate random street food last time but really didn't have much of an appetite and it wasn't because every other vendor was selling stinky tofu or scorpions.
Seriously how does anyone eat starfish?!


I did however run into several Official Olympic stores and they are just chock full of expensive touristy goods which I will be wasting most of my funds on because lets face it, they're adorable and way better that what we came up with during the 96 Atlanta olympics, like seriously what the heck is this? Homer Simpson totally came up with a better mascot with the spring, with hilarious results too.


Wouldn't you rather be surrounded by these cuddly things? Like this guy for instance who looks like he's about to be tackle hugged by these 4 ft Friendlies.

So tonight was sort of an unproductive night I could have just spent staying in and doing homework but its Friday so hopefully tomorrow will be a little bit more productive following with a fun evening not spent by myself ^-^

Oh btw, someone dropped Donald while we were in the parking lot at the great wall so I need to get some super glue and fix him up...so my sympathies and prayers go out to him in his time of need

A Great Day at the Great Wall

Sorry that I haven't posted anything this week but nothing really all that interesting other than staying up doing homework and showing up to 6 hours of Chinese class a day...
Well today we went to the Great Wall of China, the Mutianyu section to be exact. Apparently the Mutianyu section of Great Wall used to serve as the northern barrier defending the capital and the imperial tombs. It's located in the northeast part of Beijing about an hour and fifteen minutes away.
I made some bad and good choices last night totally knewing that I had to meet my class at 7:50 at the east gate. I stayed up until 2am watching Juno with my neighbor down the hall. I woke up with Andy standing over me saying, dude its almost 7:50! My response was "no way you're kidding right?"
I was so glad that I packed everything in my backpack before watching the movie last night otherwise i'd be in so much trouble.
I got ready and got to the east gate at 7:55 and the busses didn't get here yet so I was ok.

It took a little bit more than an hour getting to the Mutianyu section which wasn't bad at all. The bus was like a Southwest bus so quite comfortable to ride on.
Our teacher, Wei Laoshi, took the cable car along with 3 other students while the rest of us walked up. Surprisingly without breakfast and 5 hours of sleep, I managed to be the first person to get all the way up without collapsing. It took less than half an hour to climb the stairs but honestly it felt like I was stuck on a stairmaster machine and I couldn't get off and was forced to just keep going up.

I checked my cell phone just because I thought it would be ridiculous to have reception all the way at the Great wall but surprisingly i had 3 bars which is crazy to me haha
I really wish I remembered to bring my slinky though, oh and one of the many random thoughts that crossed my mind were "I wonder if border patrol back home would go to this extreme"

So we all got up there and had lunch and then came back down, once we got back down to ground level we were bombarded by people holding tshirts yelling in bad English "you want tshirt you get good price"



I'm getting more pictures from the other classmate's cameras on Monday but for now, you can check out the 30 something pics that I uploaded here:
http://flickr.com/photos/24737890@N07/sets/72157604477990620/

China stinks...literally

Now that I've been in China for 2 weeks I am so very thankful for statewide smoking bans back home in Minnesota. Seriously, it seems like people here decide to smoke at the most inconvenient places. Like for instance, I'm waiting to get into the elevator to get to the 7th floor, and someone else is also waiting. The elevator is currently at the 10th floor and takes about 2 minutes to get down to the first because its a stupid slow elevator and the other elevator in the building always seems to be broken. Anyways, what does this person decide to do during their 2 minute wait..."Oh I can wait about 5 minutes to get to my room where I could smoke or walk outside, but I'm really bored so I will light up" GRRR!
Also, when I'm in the bathroom taking a wiz, guys also decide to light up during the 45 seconds it takes to empty their bladder. SO again I have no choice but to either hold my breath or suffer the ill effects of second hand smoke.

I know that picture I posted uptop, really doesn't describe what I'm talking about but I just took it and its pretty ^-^

Something's Missing...

So I've been here for almost two weeks and walking around my campus something just seems off or missing. Then about my 5th day here it totally made sense. SQUIRRELS!
There are absolutely no squirrels here on campus or from what I've seen, China for that matter. Do they just not exist in this country or have they been hunted to extinction?
But I'm used to being on the U of M campus and just watching smug overconfident squirrels run past me or jump out at me from inside a garbage can, here at BLCU it seems somewhat too quiet without these furry little foes.
Oh I took that pic btw outside of the hallway window, I'm getting better at taking pics because I had to do a little bit of exposure tweaking to get the buildings correctly lit up, so its not photoshopped at all so I'm a bit proud. I think there's supposed to be mountains in the background...



Yesterday was pretty great, I met my language partner, and for those who keep asking me, NO she is not hot! sheesh...
Her name is Sophie and she was the person that helped me out to open my account at the Agricultural Bank of China. She randomly just asked me if I needed a language partner and I was a little taken back but I said sure since there wasn't any real drawback to it.
Sophie and I went to the Electronics market in Zhong guang zhong, I think that's how you spell it.

She needed help picking out a digital camera and I learned a bit about bargaining in Chinese.
Sophie's pretty nice, she was a student at BLCU as well but in Finance. She asked me about banks in the US and the idea of banks being closed on Sundays and very short hours on Saturday were like impossible for her, so I had to laugh.


This is just funny that Jackie Chan is endorsing the Rebel XTI, the camera that is a step up from the one that I have.
Advertising here is kind of funny, apart from the crazy old men with a ton of crap on the back of their bikes, olympic sponsored goods, and chinese dogs, I think i'm going to add another focus for me to take pictures and that is Stars and the stuff they sell. haha
I've seen SOOO many pictures of Wang Lee hom and Jay chou, and even David Beckham selling cell phones and clothing. I wish I took pics at the market but I'm very sure there will be more opportunities to do that.

A cornucopia of experiences

sorry I had to use that word haha
I've been pretty busy these past few days, and always being busy usually means being horribly tired afterwards.

First and foremost. BLCU is seriously a fantastic school to not just learn Chinese but understand the culture behind the language. Yeah i know its called Beijing language and culture university for that reason but seriously they know what they're doing here.

All the books are written by professors that have taught here, and they're quite good at teaching different leveled students in one class so its not too fast or too slow. There's free martial arts classes here so I'll have to check that out later. For those who are going to study here, once you get here, go out and look for an electronic dictionary, those are definitely an indispensable resource. Get one that is touchscreen and the one I got was about 2000rmb, which is expensive but it has some really nice features on it. I'm sure you could find it cheaper if you shop around.

On Tuesday night, my cousin took me to a place called Wong fu jing, a place with a ton of street food vendors and you can pick your share of wierd foods. I got stinky tofu which i'll never try again, squid on a stick, and I am so proud but I found takoyaki here in beijing!
I found a random camera shop and walked in and found a uv filter for my camera for less than 10 bucks and I was super excited, but unfortunately I forgot to bargain for it. Once I walked out I realized that on the same street there were about 10 other camera shops just like it and I def could have gotten mine for cheaper but I'll just have to remember next time.




Last night my friend Aaron grabbed me to go to an internet cafe down the street. Its 2rmb per hour there, so like 30 cents an hour? It was crazy the amount of people playing world of warcraft. What game did we play? Starcraft, yah I come all the way to china to play starcraft, but it was fun nonetheless because its such an old game that they dubbed the voices to be in chinese so it was really wierd listening to them because they did not match the character whatsoever. Like zealots had a really high pitched girly voice that would yell, Yeah yeah! every time you clicked on them.


We have today off for tomb sweeping day, so I'll try to take advantage of it and snap some nice pics, but for now I need sleep...

Recovering from chinese class related trauma

Today was the first day of class and I honestly have to ask "what did I get myself into?!"

It was so hard. Out of the 3 teachers, the old guy spoke the slowest and used some english to explain things we didn't understand and he was pretty funny. The other two were around 27 yrs old and omg they spoke fast.

First class was listening, i'm not at all surprised that this school is still using audio tapes but they're really inconvenient when you have to repeat something. The beef I have with this teacher is that every time my mind slipped and I was daydreaming for nothing more than 10 seconds she asks me a question and I apparently missed the most important part of the question but everything else I knew so that happened like 3 or 4 times.

The comprehension class was taught by the old guy, wei laoshi, and it went relatively fast. The thing I liked about this part of my classes is that he sort of teaches how chinese culture is infused into the language.

The absolutely impossible part of my day was the reading portion. We're "encouraged" to not use dictionaries and they intentionally put words we've never learned and chinese phrases that can't exactly be translated directly into english. I'm so glad I'm not the only one that had about a 5% understanding in this class. The difficult part about all of this is that I never learned what we're going over so I need to work my behind off to catch up

Other than that, it seems like BLCU knows what they're doing, seeing they've been around for more than 30 yrs, and the textbooks are written by them. Here's a tip to whoever is thinking about applying to this school. Unless you really love being in a small squished classroom, I suggest doing 20 hours a week vs 30 if you're the self study type and somewhat adventurous. Because other than the people in my class, I haven't met anyone who's doing 30 hours. Everyone I've talked to chose 20 because they all have language partners and tutors, and they can spend the extra time in the afternoon to go out and explore the city by using what they've learned from class. Plus, getting out at 4 gives you a lot less time to go out and enjoy Beijing because its later and you get 2 more hours of class which equals more homework