TravelStream™ news feed for member redirksen on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/redirksen en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Mon, 13 Oct 2008 04:15:15 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/redirksen/1/1223817000/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/redirksen/1/1223817000/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/redirksen/1/1223817000/tpod.html Mon, 13 Oct 2008 04:15:15 -0400 My First Term in China

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Chengde, China

So i just got back from the best weekend of my stay in China and my maybe my life. Well this weekend I decided to take a trip by myself to Chengde, China (dont really need the China part but still.) NO! not Chengdu which is the city most people have heard of but Chengde, a smallish city 4 hours north of Beijing.

Well my trip started very early on Saturday morning, Like 4 am early! yeah I had to get up that early so that I could be all ready to go and at the train station at 6am to get on my train. Well Chris being the sweet guy that he is even made sure that i got up so that i wouldn't miss my train. Well i got up and hit the first snag of my trip... getting out of the building. Well you see every night at 11 or 12 (depending on the night) people are locked out of the building. Sadly this means that we are locked into the building. Normally i don't really care but Saturday morning i did. I very sorryfully (is that a word) woke up the caretaker of the building and had her open the door. So then i was really on my trip! ^^

Well I got in a cab and told the cabbie where i wanted to go. He took me straight to the station. I arrived with time to spare on the departure of my train. But since it wasn't even six in the morning the entire station was more than a little dead. Well, once we were able to get on the train i did. Then i curled up on my chair and slept on and off for the 4.5 hours it took to get to Chengde by train.

Well I arrived at the station in Chengde without a hitch (once i got on the train i'm not sure what could have really gone wrong but oh well i was thrilled to be back in the city.) Then I had my cabbie call the hotel to get the Chinese name of where I was spending the night (i really need to figure out if there is a way to get Chinese addresses on Expidia.com because i keep booking with them forgetting that i'll need to call the hotel for the Chinese name.) Got to the hotel and checked in once again hitch less. At this point i was struck with total disbelief that i was really in the city. It has been over a year since i was last there and i was in my hotel looking at the same apartment that i had seen from my homestay's apartment a year ago. and you know what else? I GOT THERE ALL BY MYSELF!!!!

Well after i had calmed down enough to really believe i was there, i started to feel really hungry. So off i went to lunch! Well lunch and as it turned out dinner was at KFC (yeah i know bad american.) Well I got my food and tried to find a table to fit at quickly so that i could get to the real reason i had come the temples. Well there were no places to sit and eat so i was just standing nibbling on my fries when a Chinese invited me to come take their extra seat. Well i did and we just sat and talked in Chinese until i was done eating my lunch. Then i left KFC walked two blocks and ducked my head into the apartment part of the Agricultural Bank of China. My hope was to run into some of my old host family that i have lost contact with in the year it has been since i was there. No such luck. Oh well i jumped on the bus and went down to see the temples that I had come to see.

I started the temples at Puning Temple. I started here because it was the furthest temple that wanted to go to. It was also in the right directions to see the rest of the temples i wanted to see on the trip. This temple is famous for the giant carved buddha in the back. They claim that it is the largest wooden Buddha in the world. I really do like this temple because it is really pretty but at the same time the exit is totally a tourist trap which really annoys me.

After i was done At Puning Temple I walked down half a block to Puyou Temple. This was a strange temple to see. Mostly because there is no actual temple still standing. When you walk in all you see are the jade statues of the used to be temple. The statues are really different than normal temples in how they are carved. They did not look like any of the other statues i have seen before. Then again since it was a Qing dynasty building and all the statues look strange that might have something to do with it.

Next I jumped back on the bus and headed back in the direction of town. I got off on the stop for Xumi Fushuo Temple. I did not wander around the temple very much. This was in part because my foot was beginning to hurt and in part because I ran into a bunch of Peking University students (all of them being foreigners) The temple reminded me a lot of its neighbor because they both are more like walking through a garden than walking through a temple. I was really pretty and once again i saw the elephants that guard the house like the lions do most everywhere else. After this because my foot had started to really hurt i decided to head back into town.

On the way back into town I stopped at the paper cutting studio in order to pick out a framed picture to take home. Well I found the design that i wanted but they didn't have it framed so they agreed to frame it for me at a decent charge. Oh well its looks a lot better than if i had tried to do it myself back at home. While i was there the owner gave me a vcd of Chengde which i still haven't gotten around to watching. I was also able to finally buy my set of the 4 ancient gods. They are of course paper cut outs of the seals that i saw in Xi'an. Once they had finished framing the cut out I went to leave the owner and the master paper cutter stopped me and tried to give me a ton of apples i only took one.

After that I went back to town. There is one small problem i have going to Chengde alone. That would be the fact that i know all these amazing places to eat because i had a homestay family there but these are all places that would would go with several people not alone. Oh well. I ended back at KFC where i got take out. Then i went back to my hotel ate dinner while watching CCTV 9 (the english news station here).

Sunday i woke up bright and early and went to the Mountain Resort. I got my ticket into the park and went in. The first thing i saw going into the park was a group of old people doing what looked like sword Tai Chi no clue what it is really called. It was really cool to watch though. I just wandered around the park for a little while. It took me almost no time to remember why I loved going to the parks on the weekend. People were everywhere doing a world of different things. Of course some were just walking around but others were doing tai chi, some were practicing traditional chinese instruments, and of course there were the sword dancers i already mentioned.

When i was done at the park I wandered to my last temple for the trip. This is the Daoist temple that Yen Nei and I spent an afternoon looking for a year ago. It was cool. I really liked when i ducked out of the main courtyard and found a collection of stones that seemed to just on until they reached the nearby building. Once i was done at the temple i went back to my hotel to get my stuff and head for the train. Well i tried to get into my room and failed. I went downstairs. It turns out that because i was supposed to be checking out in 40 min my key would not get me into my room... um well they finally let me into my room when i explained that i knew i had to check out but my stuff was still in the room.

Well I checked out of my hotel got in a cab and went to the station. I chilled out and texted with Chris on my Chinese cell phone (note to self need more minutes... again). Then I boarded my train got shoved to the window by the group of Chinese people i met. Then I chilled out and read my book.

About an hour into the train ride i started to study for my Chinese quiz on Monday. Then the person sitting across from me offered to help me. I gladly took the help to learn the stroke order for new words. Then we just started talking in Chinese. This trip made me feel a lot better about my Chinese.
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Beijing, China

Sunday

We had a meeting telling us about what was up with the Chinese roommates. We finally we got new roommates this week. I also had to learn a lot of new words for my vocabulary test on Monday.

Monday

We had to listen to the same lecture from Ai-laoshi that we had heard last night.

IES wanted to make sure that we really understood why following the rules is so important this year. It is because this specific roommates program is brand new. It is really special because we are with the best students in the department instead of being with people that bought their way into the school.

Tuesday:

Today after Lit class I had to run to the apple store so that my apple could get fixed. I wish I had gotten a photo of the rush hour traffic because it was really insane and dangerous to be trying to cross. When I got to the apple store they told me they could fix my apple while I waited for them to fix it. This made me really happy but I had to run back across Beijing so that I could meet my new roommate.

When we got there I was a little bit late for the mixer but it was ok because I was able to meet my roommate. She gave me the impression that she was really quiet right off the bat (so far that impression has not been wrong even though I have not seen her much at all.)

Wednesday

was a crazy day. I woke up and had to move rooms to the entire other end of the hall. Once all the construction is done I will be really close to the kitchen and the laundry machine but for now I still need to go down to the other end of the hall.

After I moved I had to go buy my train tickets for the weekend because this weekend I am going to go back north to Chengde! ^^ Yay! But it was an adventure. I found the shop with minimal problems. But once I started to try to buy the tickets I stated to have problems. The problems was I thought he was asking me one question but he was in fact asking me a different question. I managed to get my train tickets with minimal problems once a nice Chinese person and translated what he was saying to into Chinese I could understand. But I got my tickets going both directions.

After that I had to go back to see doctor Barry again about my foot. I am beginning to get really tired of dealing with my foot. But I need to deal with it. He treated my foot. I got a really quick dinner at restaurant. Then I stated to try to go home. I just parked myself on the bus and waited to get on one. At this point a guy came up and started talking to me. Foreign guys are kinda annoying in China. Ok well the first bus came and it so full it didn't let anyone one. The guy told me what bus he wanted and it came and went and the guy was still at the bus stop telling me that I should take a cab. Then the second 967 bus came and it was also so full that no one could get one. Now there was a long wait for the bus. The guy kept talking to me (I was giving minimal responses but he just didn't get that I didn't really want to talk. Finally the third of my buses came. I jumped on the bus. By the time I finally got back to school it was like 2 and a half hours since I had stared trying to get home.

After that I studied for a while. Then I talked on Skype with my mom, Chris and Kristen.

Thursday

I went to classes as the day progressed things got worse. The entirety because I thought I was getting another kidney infection. Plus the fact that I could not read the practice test at all.

My Thursday afternoon class is my Chinese Lit class. While I admit I had not read the text as that point in time, that class still felt like a waste of time. My Chinese Lit teacher spends a lot of time teaching politics. But at the same time he does not seem to know the history that he is trying to teach the class. As I am reading the texts we are discussing but the teacher is saying that the texts are helping to push political changes that had already happened when the books were published. My Lit teacher said two things one Thursday that made me really unhappy to be in class. 1."I would rather teach a politics class." 2."China needs Jesus Christ." (I'm not good with a teacher that is trying to preach his religion to the class this is not the first time that it has felt that the teacher is saying that Christianity is better than traditional culture)

After class I really was worried that I was getting another kidney infection so right after class I decided to go to the doctor/hospital. Well I jumped on my bus. My bus started on the way. Shortly after I got on the bus the bus ticket person started telling the entire bus that we needed to get off. I did understand that I needed to get off but I had not heard why. The Chinese people made sure that I changed buses but then they wanted to know where I was going. I know where I was going but I also know that I can not say the name so they started to try to find someone that spoke English and knew where I was going.

That put me sitting next to the second guy that was talking at me while I didn't want anything to them. He kept talking to me and being the nice person that I am I kept responding. As time passed I got more annoyed and really wanted to get of the bus. The guy decided to focus on the fact that my reader was out of date. My teacher is telling us how the culture has changed as time has passed since the book was written but he didn't believe that I really just needed to study my test. He finally got off the bus and I was able to study in peace until I arrived at my stop.

Then I walked the two blocks to the hospital. I was hoping that somehow a normal doctor would be in but sadly I was out of luck and had to go to the ER. They did all the normal tests and everything came back normal. The doctor had no way to explain my symptoms but said I was free to go and travel this weekend.
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Beijing, China

So today I went to the zoo again. This time instead of going alone I went with my roommate Steph. We woke up this morning and got on the bus to the zoo.

We started off by going and seeing the bears. They had 2 different kinds of bears one was a pair of super fat moon bears and the other was a pair of super round grizzlies. Some of the Chinese people were feeding the bears human food which i blame for some of the weight problems the bears definitely had. But they were cute and round. I am still confused because i heard a lot of people talking about polar bears even though i never saw any. After the bears we went to see the elephants, tigers, and of course the pandas.

On the way into the panda house i saw an animal i didn't believe really existed because of our Japanese exchange student Taku. The zoo had something called a raccoon dog (Taku translated the name into badger but the badgers were on the other side of the fox houses.) They did however kinda look like badgers.

Today's trip was really cool because while we were there several panda's were all gathered around eating bamboo. They were siting in a circle eating it was like a staged photo well if it was i feel right into the photo trap. Inside one of the pandas was on his back eating bamboo and rolling around very happy. I think that pandas might only make good zoo animals because they are perfectly happy once they become big to have food brought to them.

After the giant pandas, we to go visit the lesser pandas. These were being super cute today. I love how they look like red raccoons. ^^ Well I got to see them running around because for the first time since 3rd grade the red pandas were awake when i went to the zoo. They were also super fat but unlike the bears normal people could not feed the red pandas.

After we went to the Zoo we went to the Zoo market. It is basically a giant clothing market. I bought a new coat cause i've wanted one since my last trip to China. I also bought some new pajamas sadly he pj's don't really fit though. It ok they fit enough to be worn once every couple weeks when i need to wash the jammies i brought with me. After we finished shopping we came back to Beiwai and chilled until Steph went out with her friends for the night.
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Beijing, China

So its been a week since I got back into Beijing. It feels like a lot has happened but not really that much has been happening.

The flight home was a lot longer than it should be. This is because instead of our plane taking off at 8:30 pm we didn't start boarding until 10:15. The reason this happened was because China was sending a rocket into space. (Rocket is fire sword in Chinese.) Watching the rocket take off was kinda cool since it was the first time I have seen a rocket take off and can remember it. We had a really rocky flight but it was okay overall. Then we landed in this super tiny airport. There was maybe 5 yards a carousel and an entirely full airplane of people. Two of our students took one corner and just grabbed the IES bag and we redistributed the bags amongst everyone.

Friday a recovery day other than the fact that I had to go to my economics class. My Econ class is not hard, but it can be difficult to stay away because the professor tends to stutters as he looks for the right English word. This just makes it harder to pay attention to the teachers for three hours after I have my final class grade for the week in my Chinese class. Saturday I had to wake up early to and go to the makeup for my lit class. I really am right now not really loving the class. This comes from the fact that since the professor seems to only want to teach exactly what he wants to teach not listen to the ideas of his student's ideas.

I think a good example of this is what exactly happened on Saturday. We had read Lu Xun's "New Year's Sacrifice." This is story about a woman that lives a really hard life, and in the rend she dies. The teacher spent most of the lecture talking bout how God had killed the woman and how blames people for not being able to give the outside inner peace. I don't have the problem but I do have a problem that it seems like he was saying that the native religion was completely wrong for China.

Saturday night I went out to dinner with a few people. For dinner we went out to a restaurant near the Temple of Heaven to get food. We got Peking Duck. It was really good and not extremely expensive. It was nice to eat completely eat my fill.

Sunday, was a work day. I woke late and studied. Monday, I went to class, studied and met with my tutor. Tuesday, I went to class, then I spent the hour working with my tutor on correcting my test and my homework. (I failed my first test and I'm only now starting to get the hang of the daily vocab tests.

Wednesday, I woke up late but it was ok because I don't have class on Wednesdays. When I met with my tutor we spent the entire hour going over the vocabulary words for the test on Thursday. I was really happy because I was able to read more of the reading for Thursday than I have been able to read since coming back to China.

Thursday: I passed the dictation test today. I finally passed one! Ok well the Chinese class was better than normal. This was because I was finally able to do the reading for the test review. After that I went out to the hospital because I my foot is still really messed up and it keeps waking me up at night. I came back and learned that I had done the reading and the grammar for the week review sheet a correctly

This morning was Friday. Today I had to give a presentation on my two week long trip in Chinese. It went ok I did stumble over some of the words that i had to say but over all I think it went fine. Tonight I went out with Steph and a couple other people and got dinner at Big Time Pizza. The food was kinda like dorm food but it was edible.
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Hemu, China

Tonight we went to a Tuban house for a traditional meal. But some stuff happened today today before we went. At 6 we had to do a report on what out findings were. At 5:50 people started pouring out of the room out of the room we were supposed to meet in. They were drunk and trying to hide the evidence. I hate dealing with drunk people. They were all being super stupid stupid. Erika stepped on my left foot which meant I couldn't really walk.

The dinner really fun even though most of them were still drunk. We walked in and there was a room with two tables both covered in bread. We were given bowels of milk tea which dipped the bread into. Li Dao acted as our translator. (Then of course Stilles had to translate for him.) He also led the toasts with the milk beer. (I hope I never have to drink that EVER again.) After we had eaten a lot of bread on the table. They brought us a plate of fried rice with meat. it was really tasty.

After we were done eating we had a Tuban singer and a Kazak guitar player come and sing for us. Their music was really beautiful. Then Li Dao sang a welcome song to all of us. They asked us to sing.

We came back to the cabins. I was really happy when i found out that our heat had been on for a while so the chill had been taken out of the air.
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Dunhuang, Gansu, China

Today was a really long travel day. We woke up super early, well more like 6:20am. We had breakfast at the house. After breakfast we hopped on the bus and started to head back to Xi'ning. The drive was exactly the same as yesterday. However this time I had to use the restroom. (yes this is noteworthy) This means that I had to use a squatter toilet for the first time.

Once we got the Xi'ning we had a really quick lunch. Then we jumped on the train to where we got on our overnight train in Langzhou. On this train ride they were being really loud and help to give me a full blown migraine. So I took my medicine for migraines which made me really not functional. At this point once my foot starts to hurt I can not control the pain.

Today Elise and I went got beef noodles for lunch. It was really funny because we walked into the restaurant and everyone stopped what they were doing to stare at the foreigners. They kept catching glances until we were eating our noodles. Oh well, the food once again was good enough to be worth it.

I am now curled up on my bunk again in an overnight train deciding when to go to sleep. I don't need to worry about making everyone be quiet early because I am in the same cubby as the teachers. Yay!

Later that night:
Well that was fun I just spent like 15-20 min having a conversation with Liu Laoshi in Chinese. And I didn't fail at talking and listening for once. I really like talking to her because she help me to fill in my missing vocab as I try to use it. All of the IES teachers do but I can tell she really doesn't get tired of trying to teach me the same word.
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Xining, China

Today we woke up really early to head from the lake to our Tibetan home stay. We had a small Chinese breakfast. The food reminded me of my home stay families breakfast when my host mom cooked.

After that we got on the bus and started driving towards the village. Around noon we stopped for lunch at another small family restaurant. This was fun because a few other girls and I sat on one of the family kangs. The food was also really good.

After lunch from bus we could see the yellow river, which was really cool. Although the river wasn't it yellow at this point it was really cool to see. The landscape was really breathtaking.

At one point the bus had to stop in the middle of the road and pull over for like 20 minutes. This is because apparently one of the lights were out so that we had to stop so driver could fix it. After that we just kept driving until we reached out home stay for the night. The house was really nice.

We had a small break when we arrived and there we treked up to a temple on top of one of the nearby hill. The temple was really quiet. On the down side my foot was really hurting a lot. I am really sick of my foot hurting and needing to take medication to make the pain bearable.

The owner of the house that we stayed in is a locally famous artist. He makes Tonkas which is a Tibetan Buddhist religious art form. I did end up buying one.
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Urumqi, Xinjiang Uygur, China

So today we woke up and we had our last breakfast in Hemu. After breakfast we built a yurt. (Well more like we held pieces while the Chinese guys did all the tying. It was surprising fun. Then we took down the yurt, loaded our stuff into the bus, and left Hemu. We did a 5 hour drive back to Borajin (including our hour long lunch stop).

Oncewe got back to town we stopped at a deer farm. It was a little sad to see the dear packed into cages. But from what I hear the deer had a lot more space than American food cattle. A lot of the other students were horrified by how the animals were being treated. I kinda wonder if any of them have been to un-updated zoos back in the states.

After we left the deer farm, we went to the night market. But since we got there at 4:30 we had to wait like 2 hours to get food. I kinda pigged out Dogfish, corn on cob, an entire roll of nang, and a little normal chuar. I all tasted to good.

After the market it was off to the airport. I had a really good ride. This mostly because i spent the entire time talking to one of Li Dao's classmates. She was catching a ride because she was going to the airport to meet her tour group.
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Hemu, China

So today was our last full day in Hemu. I woke up had Breakfast. Then we went to the local school and had a soccer game with the local kids. It was really fun to watch because I couldn't play. Li Dao acted as the referee. I began to feel a little bad because a lot of IES people took the game really seriously.

After that Elise and I went to get lunch. We picked a place and put in out order. Then the other people from our group yesterday came in. Elise was nice and offered to let them sit with us because there was no room at any of the other tables. Well the employs were really slow, and the trio that had joined us spent all the time even as they were eating talking about how the good the food was complaining about the speed of service.

After lunch I came back to the hotel and chilled for a while. Then I went for a walk by myself. It was pretty uneventful until a guy started talking to me in Kazak or Russian (i can't really tell the difference) All I could say was I don't understand in Chinese. Oh well. After that I ran across the IES hiking group. They fed me some of the melon that Li Dao had bought them. I really like all the different melons that I can't get in the states.

So we ate dinner, but Jake came to the door unable to slow down his breathing. The teachers hoped that it would pass if they waited long enough again. But by the end of dinner he was still not any better so they decided the Jake had to leave.
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Hemu, China

So today I arrived in the last city on our trip, Hemu. I woke up and ate breakfasts with al the IES students. Then they all got on horses while I stayed on the bus. My bus ride was very pretty. The only really scary part was when the bus had to pull a U turn on a road that was only really wide enough for one bus. This meant the bus was driving straight for a cliff.

The big IES bus stopped and I had to get on a different bus to get into Hemu. At this point I was passed from the bus driver to a new guide. She was really nice even though she spoke no English and treated me like i could speak no Chinese. The second bus ride was also really pretty.

When we got to Hemu I kinda thought that we had walked in a set of an old cowboy movie. In a totally cool way. All of the houses are log cabins. I got out of the bus was surprised by both how cold and warm it was. It was really sunny so I expected it to be warmer but at the same time i could walk around in only my sweatshirt.

I sat down in my cabin ate some of my my lunch. After eating I went for a walk. I walked ways outside. It felt like walking through a movie set other than all the Chinese people. (When is the last time you saw a cowboy movie with ONLY Chinese people?) I walked until my foot started to hurt and then i went back to my cabin and took a nice long nap. Then I got my bag so that catch up on my journal. Thats what I did I sat outside on the porch and wrote my journal while the Chinese people started at me.

Once it got cold I went back in cabin. Around 7 i heard a group making a ruckus. They turned out out to be a group of Chinese. On e of them asked if I was from Uzbekistan. I don't get why Chinese people all seem to think I am Eastern European. Oh well Whatever.

IES didn't come in until 8:30. We had dinner and everyone crashed out. After playing musical rooms i ended up up rooming with Liu Laoshi and Stilles. I'm happy in this room because they are both super cool.
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