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