TravelStream™ news feed for member james.forester on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/james.forester en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Wed, 29 Jul 2009 00:13:32 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/james.forester/1/1248805739/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/james.forester/1/1248805739/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/james.forester/1/1248805739/tpod.html Wed, 29 Jul 2009 00:13:32 -0400 James goes to China

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Beijing, Beijing, China

This morning we went on our final school visit. We went to Beijing Huairou No. 2 Middle School. When we arrived, there were several people video taping. While in hind sight it make sense (they wanted to document the international visitors coming to their school), it did make us a little nervous. We sat down for about an hour with the the English teachers and the administration. The speech was similar to many other that we have received; that is, we were told how great the school performs. This is what is considered a honors school. It is a tier below the top key schools. About 60% go to college from this school, compared to 80% or more from key schools. After the small talk, we got a chance to tour the classrooms. A lot of the schools are starting to look the same.

After the school, we went a little farther outside of Beijing to a fish farm. The farm had dozens and dozens of cement tanks to hold fish. They had everything from small fish not much bigger then a goldfish to gigantic fish that looked like they could be sharks. We at lunch at this place and apparently some of the fish we saw became our lunch. Lunch was great. All the food was good, but the central dish in this meal was the fish. The brought us two fish which we happily ate. It was very tasty fish. When fish 3 and 4 came, we graciously accepted. Then fish five came. The they at temped to bring fish 6 which we refused. I wonder how many we would have gotten if we did not turn out. It was great to see another part of the world that is china. I very much enjoyed both the atmosphere and food
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/james.forester/1/1248805574/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/james.forester/1/1248805574/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/james.forester/1/1248805574/tpod.html Tue, 28 Jul 2009 18:26:11 -0400 James goes to China

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Beijing, Beijing, China

Today we went to visit the Lama Temple. It is also called Yonghegong. This place was filled with temples. Some of temples had giant Buddhas or other statues in them. Some were as big as 20 feet tall. The temples must have been built around them since one of the biggest ones said that it was carved from one piece of wood. I don't have any pictures since you are not allowed to take pictures inside. Outside the temples, there were people paying homage to Buddha. This involves bowing with three incense.

After we left the Lama Temple, about half of use decided to go to the Confucius Temple since we were within walking distance of it. We played our daily game of forager to cross the street and then walked down about a block to the temple. Inside there was a few buildings for paying homage to Confucius. People come to pray before a big test so that hopefully they can score well. There were two long buildings that gave a significant amount of information of the life and times of Confucius. I learned a lot about him.

One part of the temple that I found fascinating is the pillars with records of test scores of public servants. It is a little nerve reacting to think that everyone would see your test scores for years to come.

As I was leaving, I saw a bride and groom that were having their wedding pictures taken.


]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/james.forester/1/1248805823/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/james.forester/1/1248805823/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/james.forester/1/1248805823/tpod.html Tue, 28 Jul 2009 16:02:36 -0400 James goes to China

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Beijing, Beijing, China

Today was another kinda boring day. I spent the morning working on the lesson plan. The afternoon was spent trying to get done reading the book I borrowed from Ryan since I need to get it back to him tomorrow since he is on a different flight. It is a long book, but is very interesting.

Tonight was our last meal at the restaurant that was our default place to eat. Ron had made kinda friends with a couple of the waitresses. He would almost have conversations with them even though they do not know English and he does know Chinese. But some how they communicated. I think that they enjoyed not being invisible. They exchanged contact information, but based on what I said above I am not really sure why. Then we gave them some of the trinkets that some of us still had and had not given away yet. They also took pictures with several of us. After Ron left, one of the waitresses was looking at the napkin and tearing up.

After dinner several of us went to the Olympic Village a second time so that we could see it at night. The Bird's Next looked about the same as it did during the day, although it was lit up. The water cube was spectacular. It has a constant color blue. But every few minutes it would change colors. It was great to see it up close.

Afterwords, I went back the hotel and finally finished the book so I can return it to Ryan tomorrow.

]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/james.forester/1/1248805872/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/james.forester/1/1248805872/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/james.forester/1/1248805872/tpod.html Tue, 28 Jul 2009 15:44:27 -0400 James goes to China

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Beijing, Beijing, China

Today was the best day that I spent in China. One of Ryan's college friends lives in Beijing, and thus knows about a place to go see the wall that not many people know about. Four of us from the group went with Ryan's friend since if was a free day. We started the day at 5:45 by meeting in the lobby. We took the subway to a bus stop. Once there, we met up with Ryan's friend and took a public bus about an hour outside of Beijing. From there we got in a minivan "bus" which drove us to this guys house.

At his house, we ate a small meal of bread, tomatoes and eggs, and gruel. The food was so much better then we have experienced at some other restaurants. After this breakfast, we started the hike to the wall. As we started, we almost ended up in somebody's backyard. But they happily pointed us in the right direction. A few minutes up the trail, we ran into a donkey blocking the path. We were able to sneak behind him, but as Ryan's friend passed he kept telling the donkey "Please don't kick me in the face. Please don't kick me in the face." The hike was pretty uneventful, but the views were breath taking.

Once we got to the wall we were in a guard tower. We looked at the great views and then climbed up the wall. The difference between this part of the wall and the wall at Badaling that we went to before was like the difference between going a museum and going to see the real thing. The wall, even on top was over grown. Parts of the top was like walking through a forest. We went up a steep part that was almost like rock climbing.

When we got to the top, the place we decided to stop, we took out customary 5 minutes of picture taking. Then we just sat up there for about an hour soaking in the breathtaking view before walking down. The walk down, except for the steepness in some parts, was relatively easy.

When we got down we sat around for a while waiting the them to be ready for us. Then we ate lunch. It was a great meal. We had a grilled fish, which was just as good if not better, then the others we had the other day. There was also grilled bread, which was one of the tastiest bread I have ever had. Also there were some green beans. The eggplant was the best that we have had the entire trip. The most unique food was the fried vine like plant. It was refereed to by Ryan's friend as peasant food. We had not seen it the entire trip.

The trip was awesome and only cost about 100 yuan (about $15) for all the transportation and the meals.

For dinner, Ryan's friend took us to a restaurant in a part of Beijing that we had not been to yet. We had fish again. But this fish was cooked in black beans which added spice and flavor. They brought it to a table in a pan with a Sterno can underneath. We also had some fried pumpkin cut in the shape of french fries. They were a tier or two above the fried squash we had at other places.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/james.forester/1/1248805924/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/james.forester/1/1248805924/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/james.forester/1/1248805924/tpod.html Tue, 28 Jul 2009 15:14:48 -0400 James goes to China

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Beijing, Beijing, China

We spent the morning hanging out at the hotel and packing up. We left for the airport at about 11 am. We had some Burger King for lunch. I had my first grilled chicken sandwich in about a month. It was awesome. Some Americans sitting near us shared some of their experiences that they had in Beijing. They had been in China for a week. We were able to share some to the things that we did.

On the first plane to Chicago, I spent the first half reading the book called The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night. It is a book about the murder of a dog told by from the point of view of a autistic teenager who is brilliant in math and physics. I love the book. The math problems he presented were interesting since they were some of the same that I solved in some of my college physics classes. The second half of the flight I watched five episodes of Criminal Minds.

In Chicago we did not have a huge layover. After customs and going to opposite side of the airport, we only had about an hour until the flight to Roanoke. Micheal, a professor at Virginia Tech, and I had a chance to discuss the experiences of the last month for a little while. The flight to Roanoke felt like a mom and pop operation. I tried to stay awake for the flight to help with the jet lag. I was not very successful.

We got to Roanoke, finally, at about 10 pm. This is the same day that we left. So we were traveling for nearly 24 hours, but it only took about 12. This made us very tired by the time we got home since we had been up for about 36 hours. This allowed me to adjust to then new time zone pretty quickly.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/james.forester/1/1248805643/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/james.forester/1/1248805643/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/james.forester/1/1248805643/tpod.html Tue, 28 Jul 2009 15:00:19 -0400 James goes to China

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Beijing, Beijing, China

Today is a pretty boring day to write about. I spent most of the morning working the lesson plan that I am using what I have learned here to make it better. It is a lesson about energy and society. At the beginning of the electricity unit each year, we discuss the generation of electrical energy. We pay a lot of attention to the environmental impact using this energy. But with what I have learned in China, I am able to give the lesson a much greater global prospective. China is perfect for this as it is the largest consumer of energy in the world (followed closely by the US).

I spent a good portion of the afternoon reading a book that I borrowed from Ryan. It is called Lost on Planet China. It is a great book. He is so honest and does not sugar coat his experiences in China at all. Reading it is really interesting since so many of his experiences are similar to what we have seen.

After dinner, I took a walk around the city. I ended up at a McDonald's near the train station. It was interesting to see people sleeping in the McDonald's. I surmised that they were waiting for trains in the morning and this is more comfortable than the train station.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/james.forester/1/1248270439/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/james.forester/1/1248270439/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/james.forester/1/1248270439/tpod.html Wed, 22 Jul 2009 10:00:37 -0400 James goes to China

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Beijing, Beijing, China

So today we decided to go and visit General Mao's mausoleum. We walked a little over a mile to Tienanmen square in what felt like an oven. And it was only 9 in the morning. When we go to the square, we were greeted with a sign that said it is open from 8-12 Tuesday through Sunday. So of course it was closed. A vendor was trying to sell us things until he realized we were there to see the tomb. He actually stopped trying to sell us things to laugh at us. And then he said "Ha, Ha, Mao tomb is closed." Thank you captain obvious.

We spent the afternoon working on the curriculum material for the Fulbright. So there is not much interesting to tell about that.

]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/james.forester/1/1246632518/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/james.forester/1/1246632518/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/james.forester/1/1246632518/tpod.html Sun, 19 Jul 2009 08:46:40 -0400 James goes to China

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Beijing, Beijing, China

If you wonder why I have stopped talking about food, it is because most of the food we have now is a repeat of previous food that we have had.

Today we took a trip to Beijing Normal University (BNU). Normal is what they use to refer to a teacher university. We were able talk to a couple professors and several graduate students who are training to become teachers. They discussed the teach education in China. The teacher education is similar to that of a pre-service teacher who pursues a masters before starting teaching. They spend 4 years in a bachelors program to learn content knowledge and 2 years in a graduate program studying pedagogy. We enjoyed the time at the university. It has about 15,000 students with 1,600 faculty. They also spent time talking about education and education reform in China. Most of China's education is done using the format of a teacher standing at the front lecturing. There does not seem to be as much teacher-student communication and interaction as there is in an American classroom.

We stopped for lunch at a new restaurant. The food looked a little different then what we have been having, although it was similar food.

After lunch we went to the Olympic Village. We got to see the outside of the Bird's Nest and the the water cube. The Olympic village is absolutely huge. It seems that it is not used as much as it could be. Although it was very crowed, mostly tourists walking around taking pictures. We only had an hour to walk around which was not even enough time to get to the other side and come back so we did not get to go in the Bird's Nest or the the water cube although we got to see the outsides and take pictures.

After dinner, a few of the guys and I went looking for an Irish Pub that one of them had been to on a previous trip. It has since closed down, but we continued to walk around the city and found a Japanese sushi bar where we sampled Japanese and Chinese beer. I was a good time as the group of guys I am with are hilarious to hang out with.

Well off to bed, tomorrow is the Great Wall!


]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/james.forester/1/1246869742/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/james.forester/1/1246869742/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/james.forester/1/1246869742/tpod.html Sun, 19 Jul 2009 08:45:06 -0400 James goes to China

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Beijing, Beijing, China

Today we went to visit the Great Wall of China which was a surreal experience. On the way to the wall we stopped at the jade factory. Apparently it is a requirement that bus drivers stop there. They had a lot of stuff, but it was mostly overpriced.

At the Great Wall, there was two different ways you could go. To the left was more steep and challenging, but less people. To the right was easier, but had more people. We decided to go to the left. First, the wall is not flat at all. It is located in the mountains, so you are constantly climbing up or going down. Some the areas are ramps that are so steep, that I was afraid that I would loose my footing, start sliding down and not be able to catch my self. Other areas had stairs. Now I don't mind stairs usually, but these were challenging at times. The stairs were varied in size from a couple inches high to as high as my knee which made them very difficult at times. We picked a spot on the wall that we could see ahead, really the farthest point that we could see, and we started walking towards it. We literally stopped every few minutes to let a couple of the older people catch up. While waiting for them, we did meet some other people. The wall is littered with hundreds of people, mostly Asian. So, just like the rest of the trip, it is nice when you see someone that looks like they might speak English. Half the time they turned out to French or German so they don't speak English either. But we did meet some Canadians from Toronto. The wall was fairly wide at most places, about the width of a one lane road.

To really paint the picture of the wall, I do have to talk about the vendors. The wall, just like every other landmark has many vendors trying to sell you things ranging from t-shirts to artwork, to handbags. The are extremely pushy to the point that sometimes you feel assaulted. They have neat things, but it is like a cars salesman times a thousand, so most of the time it is not worth looking.

When a couple of the guys did not want to continue, Jill and I picked out a farther point to walk to. Once we arrived there, we picked a farther point. This continued until the last point was as far as you were allowed to walk as there was reconstruction being done on the next section. The view from the top of the great wall is breath taking. You can see mountains for miles and miles. The Chinese also constructed a "Hollywood type" sign for the Beijing Olympics next to the wall. It is a unique sight to see the old right next to the new. It seems in a lot of ways Beijing was changed for the Olympics.

The walk back down, took less than half the time of the walk up. When we got down, I went with Richard to buy a shirt that said "I climbed the great wall" Well they wanted 130 yuan for the shirt (about $20). We bartered with them for a while and got the price down to 20 yuan (about $3) so it was a decent deal.

After the great wall we went to the Ming tombs where 13 emperors are buried. We were not there for too long, but like any sight, there was amazing Chinese architecture to see.

We as a group decided that we would celebrate July 4th by going to the Hard Rock Cafe. We split into groups of 3 and 4 to get taxis. Getting to the Hard Rock Cafe was an adventure in and of itself. I think I have mentioned this before, but the Chinese drive extremely crazy. On the way there, we almost got into four accidents. At one point we got cut off and the taxi driver was cursing in Chinese. But, the adventure did not end with the taxi ride. We get dropped off at an hotel and the driver told us to just go through the hotel. The hotel staff did not like that and point us around the building. After making almost a complete circle we end up in a dark alley in front of a building with 5 China flags. Now the more flags a building has, the more important the building. It also had concertina wire around the top of a wall surrounding the building. And in case that did not deter you, there were shards of broken glass embedded in the concrete on top of the wall sticking up. We come to a gate and one guy suggest we jump it. Does the building I just described sound like one you want to mess with? So cooler heads prevailed and we walked around and finally found our way to the restaurant.

It was a good time inside. We got to each American food, except for the one guy who decided to order Chinese food. It was mostly Americans inside. A large group of American exchange students were celebrating as it was one of their last days there. The had a Filipino band playing American music like Journey and Cold play.

After the Hard Rock, a few of us went to check out the night life in Beijing with the one guy with us who can speak Chinese. It was an interesting experience. We saw an Asian Micheal Jackson impersonator who was actually pretty good. The four of us, one being one of the Fulbright evaluators, really got a great chance to discuss the program and the outcome objectives of the trip.

It was a great days of extremes from the great wall to celebrating the 4th of July in a foreign city.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/james.forester/1/1246880423/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/james.forester/1/1246880423/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/james.forester/1/1246880423/tpod.html Sun, 19 Jul 2009 08:44:12 -0400 James goes to China

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Beijing, Beijing, China

Today we went to the Forbidden City which for you non-history buffs, it is a city (literally) where emperors lived. They would basically spend their entire lives inside the Forbidden city or at the summer palace. The only men allowed inside are the Eunuchs. This place was absolutely enormous. There are a huge number of buildings with a total number of rooms of 9,999. Nine is very lucky number for the emperors. The buildings were amazing. This would be the place if you love Chinese architecture. I don't know a lot about the history but it was fascinating to see the buildings, especially considering that not a single nail was used to build the city.

In the afternoon, a bunch of us took the subway to the silk market. The silk market is similar to the other market we had been to. Jim made a furry in the market when he started handing out the trinkets that he brought. He decided that he wanted to get rid of some of them because he has not had much of a chance to give them out. When Jim started hand things out, we only had the two employees that were trying to sell things near us. With in about 30 seconds, there was probably about a dozen. The US Navy lanyards were a hit; the girls immediate used switched the one holding their ID badges to the navy ones. Jim also brought a ton of Yao Ming basketball cards and the everyone loves them. At one point I actually used the t-shirts he was handing out to negotiate a lower price of something he was buying. You have to barter to buy everything in these markets. A lot of times they will start out with a price that is $50 or $60 and you can talk them down to $5. It can be fun and annoying at the same time. You have no idea of whether you can afford something or are willing to buy it since the first price is almost always ridiculous. After the feeding frenzy at the market, were going to walk back but there was a brief thunderstorm so we took the subway.

Dinner was great. We had new things like noodles. They were great and a good change from rice at every meal (including breakfast). We also had little small perogie type things that were filled with chives.

After dinner, I went to the supper market with Debbie and Karen to get soda. I find the supermarkets in and of themselves interesting. We also walked through the McDonald's to see if people were using chop sticks, but of course just like in the US no one was using silverware. (Obvious in hindsight). Of course as soon as we were leaving a monsoon came. Not even 10 minutes after the rain started, there were Chinese capitalists at the doors of the mall trying to sell umbrellas. We tried to wait it out, but it wasn't letting up. Buying the cheap umbrellas wouldn't have offered much protection from the weather, so we just ended up being soaked. When I got back to the hotel, I pretty much called Jenna and crashed because I was so tired.
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