Hot Pot

Hot Pot - that is mildly how I would describe these past two days. A little bit of spicy, but overall really good.

Yesterday we had orientation which is nothing like orientation in the states. It lasted a total of an hour and a half and about half of it was in Mandarin. Then the important stuff they flew by and none of us knew what they were saying. It was A LOT different than the American ones which last a week and seem to drag on and on. We then had a lazy afternoon while some students took a test for the intensive mandarin class. We went back to the dumpling place and got noodles instead. It's the Olive Garden of China. They give you so much food for like $2, it's awesome! Forget going on a diet here. We had so much extra food and were able to get a to go box somehow and took all of our extra food home with us. Between finding a restaurant, attempting to order everyone's food, getting our food, eating it all, and trying to pay, we have to set a block of two hours of time.

Our fried noodle
"Olive Garden"of China

While at this "Olive Garden" dinner we got some interesting spiced candy from an old  man playing music on the street. What we thought was an instrument turned out to be the chisel that he uses to cut the candy for people. It was the Chinese equivalent of our taffy but with a spiced nutty taste. It was interesting to say the least. We were all exhausted after this, so we used the afternoon as a chill time. Some of us had to deal with some visa stuff, which is a whole fiasco and story in itself. But overall it was a nice afternoon.

Hot Pot! Middle is not spicy,
Outside is spicy

Unlike in the US where there is WiFi everywhere, the only way you can really get wifi here is through your sim card and your cell phone. So one of our guys is a tech genius and suggested a router, so half of us now have routers so that we can have internet all over our rooms. Before it was one e-thernet cord, so only me or my roommate were able to be on the internet. It's amazing how we take advantage of stuff like that, like we expect wifi almost everywhere in the US and while some restaurants and malls have it here, you have to login and you guessed it, it's all written in mandarin characters. So needless to say, having wireless in our room makes life a little bit easier. My roommate and I can both be on our laptops on the same time, can skype in the hallway, and I can text on my ipod all at the same time.  The little luxuries of life.

Hot Pot with food in it!

Getting the router was an adventure however. The store was a little further than we had previously remembered and we got there half an hour before it closed, which usually isn't a big deal, except for the fact that this is a 6 story electronics store with different booths and brands everywhere - no organization whatsoever. We finally managed to find our routers after some investigating, but on our way out a random man and his wife asked us if we wanted DVDs. We were told they were on the 4th floor but instead of going up, they took us to the main level so we thought maybe they were telling us that it was closed and showing us the way out. We felt weird following them so we started to go a different way, but then they came back and found us. They took us next door to elevators that went up to over 20 stories! He told us to come to the 10th floor for a DVD (this was all in Mandarin by the way,) but luckily one of us got a phone call and were able to escape. Some of the guys went back and checked it out yesterday, turns out it was a sketchy business floor, who knows what he wanted, but our common sense and instincts worked out well this time.

We then met up with a bunch of our group for some infamous hot pot. It's like the Mongolian Grill of China. Chengdu is famous for its hotpot and spicy food, boy were they right! The bowl of spicy sauces sits on the table over a stove that they turn on for you. They then bring you a variety of foods. Once the spices and water start to boil, you throw in the food and let it cook. The foods ranged from tripe (pig intestine.... couldn't bring myself to try it. YUCK!), quail eggs (they tasted like hard boiled eggs), beef, cabbage, and other vegetables. In front of each person is a bowl of oil to cool down the food when you take it out of the pot and to add flavor. You then flavor your oil with garlic, salt, straight MSG.. yes you read that right, cilantro, vinegar, and oyster sauce. It was spicy, but amazing! The funny thing is, you cook it all yourself, something I don't think they would really allow in America. After dinner a bunch of people went to an old traditional street to go see it at night, I went back to the dorms because I was starting to not feel well. Apparently it was closing down when they got there so glad I didn't go - we have 3 months!

McDonalds To Go Bag

The kids at McDonalds were so cute!
They told me I was beautiful

Yesterday, 8/30 for us, started off as a nightmare. Since the Visa Headquarters messed up our Visas, we have to go apply for new visas because many of ours are only good for 30 days, they were supposed to be 180. So we were advised to go to the American Consulate in which there was a long line of Chinese Citizens there trying to get their visas to go to America. At first we thought we had to wait in line, but we were soon told that since we have USA passports, we could go straight to the front of the line. Yes, we pulled the "I'm an American card." While we were waiting line some guy busted out his iphone and started taking pictures of us. Americans at the US consulate, who would have thought? When we got to the window, the guy didn't speak English which was frustrating. But then he put us on the phone with someone who did. They wouldn't let us in to the Consulate, they would only talk to us through the window. Then they told us they couldn't do anything and to go to the security bureau, which is what we were told by the school we had to do. We then had to take the subway to the Security Bureau which is the equivalent to the US DMV. We had to get paperwork and take a number. They take a lunch and close down from 12-1 and of course they stopped at number 52 of course, and I was number 54. So we went to McDonalds, which is half the price that it is in the US and just as good. Then had to go back to the Bureau, overall it was just frustrating. The best part is they took our passports from us and won't give them back until next Thursday, so hopefully nothing big goes down. Luckily most of us have a US ID of some sort.

Monastery Library

After that exhausting fiasco, we decided to keep trekking and went to a monastery. This was no ordinary monastery, or at least not what I think of when I think "monastery". The monks, acted pretty much like ordinary citizens. We saw one riding a moped and another with and Iphone, definitely not what I would picture. This was more of a tourist spot, but many people still went there to burn incense and pray to the different Buddhist Gods. It was an interesting experience, definitely very traditional looking architecture and very beautiful! We found a monk chant going on where Buddhists come to pray and chant a Buddhist God's name. The monks go first marching in the square wearing yellow robes, followed by Buddhist women in brown ones, followed by random people who came to pray. They march around the square, it was definitely different but peaceful to listen to.

We bought bread from him.
Since he was so different I had to get a pic

After the monestary, we hopped on the subway again and went to the Lotus Market, a market with everything you could imagine that lasts at least 4 square blocks if not more. Half of it you bargain for the items, but if it has a pricetag written on it, you can't. So we found a lot of great stuff, I got a purse for about $4.50 and my roommate got a dress and a shirt for $4.50 each as well. The only downfall is, you can't try on the clothes before you buy them, you just have to hope that they fit! We met a young Muslim man who looked nothing like any other Asian I have seen yet. He was very exotic and had very beautiful light brown glowing eyes. We bought some bread from him and on the way back I got a picture with him because I couldn't get over how different he looked. Apparently he's from a province in the far northwest of China. The market wore us out so we came back earlier than planned and made it home in the pouring rain. The catch to going to the market however, is trying to cross the street from the subway to the market. The cross traffic never has a red light, so people just clump into groups of 15-30 and cross the street, hoping the cars slow down. I saw 5 people whose backpacks got bumped by a bus. It is scary, but entertaining. The trick is to go in the middle of the group so that way if anyone gets hit, you're in the middle. You cross halfway then wait for the traffic coming from the other way to slow down and sprint across. It's definitely a different world in that aspect here.

Our first meal we ordered on our own!

Last night we went to a Chinese restaurant for the first time without one of our Chinese friends there to help us. One of our guys speaks Cantonese, but most people in Chengdu speak Mandarin or their own Sichuan version of mandarin.... Eventually we just began to point at things that looked good and hoped that they worked out. It actually turned out to be a pretty tasty dinner. After that, the last week and a half caught up to all of us and we just crashed. I went to bed around 9:30 and slept until 7:30, with this cold I currently have, it was much needed.

Today it was rainy and gloomy so most of us took it as a lazy day. A few guys went out to explore and found a legit WalMart, nothing like the ones in the states by any means. For the most part I laid down all day and slept and rested, hanging out

The rain cleared all the smog away.
This is the view from our room!

with some of our group. We got our class schedules today which was exciting, except they are all in the same classroom and our Taiji Class is in the big square for everyone to see, it will be embarrassing. My schedule is:

Monday: Nothing! Woooo
Tuesday:  Mandarin 9-11, Contemporary Chinese Culture and Society from 1:30-4:30
Wednesday: Caligraphy 4:45-5:45
Thursday: Mandarin 9-11, Global Business 1:30-4:30, Taiji 4:45-5:45
Friday: Sino-American Relations and Problems 1:30-4:30

All of my classes are in the same classroom which will get redundant, especially when they're all in the same classroom. Taiji is in the giant square across the street which will be embarassing. It's a popular walkway and many people drive through it, so that will be interesting. I will just have to hide in the middle of a group so less people will watch me.

Chinese Medicine...

The rest of the day I napped and rested. Went to dinner at our favorite dumpling place tonight. Had fried dumplings instead of boiled, only 95cents or so for 6 which is awesome. We had dinner for 11 people for about $22 total. That still amazes me! I got some weird Chinese medicine I am going to try tomorrow for my cold, hopefully it will  help, but we will see. My Chinese friend helped me get it and then I had another Chinese friend read it and tell me about it when we got home.

Everyone just went out to the local foreigners bar, but I stayed back so that I can try to rid this cold. We will see. Prayers would be awesome! It has been raining a decent amount the past two days, so hopefully the weather will improve soon. I figured out why all the girls where the platform heels too, first of all it makes them taller, but it also makes it so their feet don't get wet when it rains, or so that's my theory.

Off from Chengdu, hope everyone has a great Friday!


Oh by the way our official bug count is: 2 cockroaches and 4 spiders in our room. Should be an interesting semester!

Nihao from Chengdu!

Nihao!
Hello from Chengdu.

Art at the Sichuan Museum - made out of Oxen Hide 

The city is slowly starting to grow on me and I'm actually beginning to love it here. The language barrier is till a little bit tough but our guides are awesome! Today we got a slight tour of the school and saw where the international building is, which is where all our classes are taught for the most part. We then ventured to the Sichuan Museum which is a four story museum full of different artifacts from ancient China, even with things dating back to 206 BC. There were beautiful vases, traditional clothing, stone carvings, and more. It was amazing because China has so much culture and it dates back to so long ago. 

After the museum, we and the PLU kids were taken out to lunch with our program to a fancy restaurant. We got a 10 course meal give or take and it was amazing. Rice, tofu, chicken, fish (bones and head attached), shrimp, literal corn puffs (like deep friend corn), pork, and more. Needless to say I’ve been eating way more than necessary or than I thought that I would be eating. 

The shopping district. This is only a small piece of it!
The statues mark the entrance.

We then had some free time and took the time to relax for the first time since we’ve been here pretty much. One of our Chinese friends, Sally, took a nap in our beds and fell right asleep because she was just so tired. She then took us to one of my new favorite places in the city – the shopping district in city center. We took the subway, which by the way is about 33 cents each way, to the center of the city in where there is a large Mao statue and a large city square – called Tianfu Square. It is extremely large but so beautiful. The shopping district was shopping heaven. Prices were similar to the US with some exceptions to clearance items. There is an H&M here but it is about the same price and many stores have similar clothes for cheaper. We found giant ice cream cones for 85 cents each and an 8 story shopping mall, needless to say it was amazing. A few of us got stopped and asked to take pictures with locals or tourists from other parts of China. The children here are absolutely adorable I just can’t get over it. 

Mao statue in Tianfu Square

The people are friendly for the most part except when they are driving. From what we have observed, the lines separating lanes mean nothing, the bigger car always wins, pedestrians NEVER have the right of way, bikes and mopeds can do what they want, and you always honk until you get your way. We call it organized chaos because we have only seen one “accident” and it was a slight fender bender. Crossing the street is like playing a game of frogger; you hop between lanes and hope you don’t get hit. We are beginning to learn our way around campus and around different parts of town but there is just so much to explore!! On our way back from the subway station we went into a 6 floor electronics store that is just packed with real and knock off electronics everywhere, I have never seen anything like it at all. 

Comedy Act at the Opera

This evening we were taken out to famous Sichuan Opera. It consisted of everything from mask changing (which is like a magic trick), to an instrument being played, to a comedy act with a guy balancing hot oil and fire on his head. There was even a shadow puppet show in which the girl made all sorts of animals and designs with her hands – it took shadow puppets to a whole new level in my book. The opera was amazing and nothing like what I pictured it would be like. On the way home the group of nine French boys decided to ride our bus instead of the one that they came over on and were as obnoxious as could be. Good news? They made Americans look like angels!!!!!!

Dumplings and Beer - pretty much what
they eat and drink here!

After the opera we were all starving so the Chinese students took us to a local dumpling place. Between three of us we had 48 beef dumplings, which taste amazing, for less than about $5. This place is so cheap and the food is so good!!!!!!  A good sized bottle of beer is 75 cents, the same price as 6 dumplings. So we have been eating a good amount. 

We are starting to make friends with the other international students and have orientation in the morning. Some of us have to get resident permits because the Visa company gave us the wrong kind of permit. But it’s pretty cool to be able to say that I am a resident of China – how often do you get to say that? 

Overall I am beginning to love this place and the culture shock is slowly but surely wearing off - minus all the bugs and the squatty potties (you can figure that one out yourself!)

Goodnight from Chengdu!

Culture Shock

Culture shock is now in full swing. I feel like I am ready to catch the next plane home from Chengdu. There is just a lot of adjusting and trying to figure stuff out. China is just such a different world completely and absolutely no one, except some of the students, speaks English which makes everything extremely difficult - not even the international students office speaks English which makes no sense at all. Their concept of cleanliness is completely different along with everything else except for how they dress. Everyone dresses very Westernized and the girls all wear heels and dresses everywhere which is just crazy!

I know I will settle in soon enough but I just don't think I mentally prepared myself well enough for this. It is nothing like I expected. There are very modern portions and then there are portions that are full on 3rd world that I wonder how people live like that. It makes me think twice about the way we live with people complaining about walking or working too much. People here work 6AM - 10PM and make about $200 a month if that, so no one in the states has any room to complain.

I know China has a lot in store for me but right now it is just a little overwhelming and a lot to take in. Who knows how the rest of the trip will go but for now I am just trying to make it through the next few days.

Adventuring Around

It has been a crazy five days.

On our second full day in Beijing we hiked the great wall of China, which let me tell ya isn't as easy as it sounds. It's over 1200 steps just to get up to the wall from the ground, not to mention all of the steps once you get on it. We went from watch tower 10 to 20 and then came back and went down to 6. It is amazing that it was all made by hand and is still in such a good shape. It is huge and beautiful. Though it's up high, you can't see very far because of all of the smog. It was so bad that I could barely breathe. Asthma + smog + exercise = not being able to breathe at all. Regardless it was still beautiful and it was fun being able to say that we hiked the Great Wall. 
After climbing The Great Wall, we were able to toboggan down, which is the sketchiest and least safe thing we possibly could have done! But it was simply amazing. After all, how many times can you say that you have tobogganed? Exactly. It was super fun. Just a piece of plastic with wheels and a break... sort of.

After that we went to the olympic park to go see the Bird's Nest and the Bubble. It was pretty cool and absolutely huge. The people here take a lot of pride in the Olympics and their country.
We then went to a family's house to learn how to make dumplings, which are very popular here. But they are soooooo good! Dumplings are time consuming to make however.
 That night we took the city bus over to the lake to check out the local night life. It was very western and very expensive, nothing like what we expected. It was an adventure finding the right bar and walking back, but super fun and the city is pretty at night.

Saturday was our last full day in Beijing. We crammed as much as we could in at one time. We learned how to make kites and write the characters for 1-10 in calligraphy, which is not easy at all! From there we flew our kites around and went over to an acrobatic show, it was the craziest thing I have ever seen. They were all award winning acrobat shows that went anything from the guy jump roping on top (on the outside) of a double hamster looking wheel and almost falling - they don't use harnesses, to girls twirling umbrellas on the tips of their feet to 7 motorcycles all doing tricks in a globe shaped cage. It was crazy! Then we were able to have free time to shop the local market which is like a five story shopping mall, except you bargain everywhere. We just looked but they will bargain pretty low and have all sorts of clothes. The subway ride on the way back was an adventure and our group got separated from each other, but somehow we all made it back in one piece.


Sunday we flew to Chengdu which is so different than Beijing. It has less smog, thank God, and is much more local. There are less people, less crowding, and yet it is still very westernized. We went to a local restuarant that was a 30 min walk from our hotel, it was good. Except I accidentally ate rabbit, thinking that it was chicken. Then we went out to a local foreigners bar where the bartender was from University of Washington and liked it so much here that he moved here. The nightlife is definitely busy here but it's fun.

Today we worked on getting all settled in in our rooms which are all on the 6th floor and there are no elevators. Chengdu is much more humid than Beijing and dirty. We have a great view of the city from our room and are enjoying it so far. We went to a local place for lunch where I tried frog, if you don't think about the fact that it's frog it's decently good, but once you start thinking about it it tastes gross.

I am still a little homesick and am trying to get adjusted to the culture. I'm still experiencing culture shock and am ready to come home, but I know that it will get better and be fun once I get over the initial shock. Well off to hang out and rest!

Zaijian!

Mandarin for goodbye. :)

Days One and Two

China is definitely different, a weird mix of being a giant developing country with 185 out of the fortune 500 biggest businesses being headquartered here along with half looking like a third world country. The driving is crazy, cars have the right of way for sure and stoplights and stopsigns are simply guidelines they don't have to be legally followed. Also fun fact the Beijing airport is really three different airports in one, each airport is considered a different terminal. Terminal 3 was built just for the Olympics and is the 3rd largest airport in the world and the biggest one in Asia.

Wednesday night we went to the food street where there was fried snake on a stick, dog, starfish, scorpions, spiders, squid, etc. None of us had any yet but I think a few are going to brave spiders and scorpions tonight.

Thursday we went to Tienanmen Square which is the largest square in the world and is just crazy. A lot of people are tourists from around Asia and had never seen a white person before. We also have three african americans, a few redheads and a few blondes so they were celebrities among the chinese people. But we all got asked to take our picture with the people and it was quite crazy. Then we wen to the Forbidden City which is 180acres alone. It has 9,999 rooms and would take over 2 weeks to visit everything. Over 50,000 people visit it a day. It was extremely crowded and crazy. I would call China organized Chaos more or less. The food is fantastic but a cheeseburger sounds nice right now. We then went to the flower district which is right on this cute little lake and there was a Starbucks, so of course I stopped by there. The coffee here isn't as sweet as it is back home. The lake was beautiful and we also went to the pipe district which is a local shopping district. We are going to the market after dinner tonight, back to food street, and might adventure to find the local night life.

China is awesome but I miss home already. Our group is great, minus one girl getting lost while at the Forbidden City today.... we found her after about an hour or so. The smog here is absolutely ridiculous, I think it was blue skies today but I am not 100% sure since the smog is so thick and everyone here smokes all the time. Also fun fact, since there are 14 million people in Beijing and 5 million cars - cars with certain license plates can't drive on certain days. If your license plate ends in a 1 or 9 you can't drive on Monday, etc.