Going back in Time

So, this was ages ago, but I fail at updating things, so...

When I got back from my trip, I went and had dinner with my host parents from the last time I was here. It was the most shocking experience of being back here, I think. Almost everything was the same. I felt like I was back in high school. I had to try really hard to remember that I've been gone for 4 years.

One big difference in the neighborhood was the fact that it's about about 20 minutes from the Olympic park. I looked down a street and was surprised to see the Bird's Nest. It shouldn't have been that surprising, but it was just a dug-up lot when I was there last time.

My parents were great, it was really nice to feel like I could actually communicate with them... They showed me pictures my host sister had sent them from Florida.

It was a very nice time... My host dad used me to study English on the drive home..

I should try to see them before I go back to the US.

Beijing-->Nanjing-->Shanghai-->Hangzhou-->Xi'an

ok, so... it's been a while. I've been back in Beijing for about a week and a half, but this class is proving to be harder than the last one. Or at least, it has more busy-work. This will be a really long post... but it will have pictures! (as soon as the internet isn't so slow I can't even get on to check my email half the time)

also: Hi Nana! Mom told me you've been reading this, so I thought I'd say Hello!!

but ok, so our trip! the whole group went together to Nanjing, which would have been nicer if we hadn't spent half of the only day we had there having this woman from the Johns Hopkins-Nanjing center try to sell us on their graduate program. (our program director graduated from there last year and they thought they would "take advantage of us as a captive audience". it felt like college visiting all over again, only involuntary.)

This was actually pretty cool, this was Sun Yat-sen's tomb, which is in the middle of this really huge park. there were lots of steps involved...

We went to Shanghai after, which was pretty cool... it has a very different feel than Beijing. I would have liked to have a little more time there, but it was interesting to have a little glimpse. some people were complaining, saying they wished our program was in Shanghai, but I think Beijing will always be my city. The picture below is a meat-on-a-stick stand.... with the sticks in the trash-can.

This isn't the stereotypical skyline-view of Shanghai, but I like this picture better than most of the ones I took of the iconic version... you can still see the CCTV tower, so you know it's Shanghai.

we spent an extra night in Shanghai, and after 5 of us headed to Hangzhou. It's a beautiful city. we rented bikes and rode all the way around the lake that's on the West side of the city, which was where our Hostel was. we spent most of the time on the lake... we also walked up the hill next to it to where there's a closed-off pagoda. Jenny and Emily wanted to hop the fence, but there wasn't really anything to do once inside, so they didn't.

Bill's bike kept breaking, so everybody pitched in playing mechanic.

Pictures of the lake.. in the second one, I was trying to get one in the style of traditional Chinese paintings, since the lake had that kind of feel to it, but I think this one needs a little bit of tweaking befoe it achieves its full effect...

The pagoda

the only downside to Hangzhou was when we first arrived and we were looking for cabs to get to our hostel. we had 5 people, which is 1 too many to fit into a cab, but we found this parked cab and we asked him if he could take all 5 of us together... he said sure, for an extra 10 RMB. As we were standing there, a group of other men gathered around watching and joining in the conversation. The cab driver motioned us to go stand on the other corner so he could turn around (or so we thought) as we were standing there, one of the men from the group waved us to follow him. we followed him, thinking he wanted to take us to where the cab would let us in, but then he led us to this black car and wanted us to get in. My immediate reaction was to say no. We had gotten a call earlier from Bill, who was meeting us in Hangzhou and had said he had tried to take an illegal cab because the cab driver had said 20 RMB at first but then switched it to 40 halfway through the ride and Bill had just gotten out of the car in the middle of the city. So I asked this new person how much it was going to cost. he'd upped the price to 80 RMB. We turned around and walked away.

Our hostel room in Hangzhou... it was pretty nice...
But anyway... the other less-enjoyable part of our trip was the train ride from Hangzhou to Xi'an. Hard sleeper tickets were a little more expensive than we'd figured, so three of us ended up taking hard seat. The problem was that while the ticket lady told us it would only be a 16 hour train ride, it ended up being a 22 hour train ride that was 2 hours behind schedule. So we lost a day in Xi’an because we spent it sitting on the train. You might think sleeping sitting up wouldn’t be that bad, but then you do it in seats that do not recline at all with nothing to lean on except your stuff, which you are holding in your lap because the baby across the aisle keeps peeing all over the floor. That was fun, let me tell you.

While we were waiting at the train station in Hangzhou, we went into a KFC to sit for a bit/use the bathroom/eat. As we were sitting, this little girl came in and sat at the bar-style table we were sitting at. the waitress brought her a cup of milk and she was sitting there drinking. Her clothes were kind of shabby, and she didn't have any parents with her. We pooled our money, and Bill asked her what her favorite kind of sandwich was. Bill went to the counter and bought her a chicken sandwich and we all waited to eat until she'd gotten her food. as payment, she went to the counter and asked for extra placemats that they put on the trays. Jenny had a swiss army knife, so the girl paid us back by making us snowflakes from the placemats. we spent a good 40 minutes making things out of paper for her and she for us. it was really sweet. She was so cute and seemed really intelligent. she had sort of a naivete about her, she didn't realize we weren't Chinese. It was really sad to leave her, but when we left, the waitresses all crowded around her so look at all the stuff we'd made.

Xi’an was lovely. I had forgotten that I’d been to the Muslim quarter of the city before, and it was fun to realize that I was visiting it again. I think Chinese Muslim (in Chinese, they’re called the ‘Hui’ ethnic minority) food is my favorite kind of Chinese food, but I haven’t even had it in the more densely Muslim areas of China, so I s’pose I don’t really know what I’m talking about. We also went to see the terra cotta soldiers, which I’ve already seen, but Emily hadn’t and she really wanted to. They were… much less inspiring the second time.

Then we got on our train ride back to Beijing. We shelled out for hard sleeper that time, since one hard seat overnight was enough. It was nice to have a couple of relaxing days in Beijing before class started.

Next post: Visiting my Host Family and the Olympic Center!