9:53 pm May 5, 12 (Saturday)
Ok so since I cannot sleep at all on the plane and I’ve watched two movies I’ve decided to recount everything since I arrived in Pittsburgh yesterday and I will add this to my blog once we arrive in Beijing. Yesterday my dad in I arrived in Pittsburgh around 1:30. After eating lunch I checked into Towers and after saying good-bye to dad I got to socialize with the other Plus three students. At four we all had a meeting, which included an activity with all the Plus 3 students about etiquette in the countries we were traveling to. We then had a session with Vanessa where she answered last minute questions. We went as a group (all the china students, there are 16 of us total) to eat at the Porch for dinner. I had never been there and it ended up being really good, most of us got their pizza. I think everyone had a good time getting to know each other. Later on I went to Razzy’s with Megan, Michelle, and Drake. It was weird being in Oakland and walking around without actually being in school. Went to bed around 11 knowing we had to be up early Saturday morning.
This morning (Saturday morning) we met in towers lobby at 7:45 and we all took the 28x to the airport. It was not fun fitting all of us plus all our luggage onto a city bus, but we did it. We got to the airport and after security didn’t have to wait long before boarding our plane to Toronto, which was tiny, and the AC was broken on. The plane itself held maybe forty passengers and felt like it was 85 degrees inside. Luckily it was only an hour flight. Toronto was huge to look out the window at and looked as if it went on forever. We had a three-hour layover in Toronto so we were able to get something to eat before boarding our plane to Beijing. Which is where I sit now. This plane is anything but small. I was very fortunate to get a window seat and I am really excited to be able to see Beijing as we fly in. We have been flying for about 7.5 hours and I am getting a little stir crazy…and we still have about six more hours. We each have our own TV screen and I watched both New Years Eve and The Help, which kept me entertained for a little while. I have never been on a plane long enough to be served more than pretzels and a drink, but today I officially experienced airplane food, I wasn’t missing out on anything. We had a chicken TV dinner meal a couple hours after taking off and were served ramon noodles a little bit ago as a snack (my chopsticks skills were put to test for the first time). Oh, something else I didn’t mention, to get to Beijing we flew over the North Pole. I kept wanting to open my shade to see when we were actually over it but the sun is so blinding you can’t really see much, plus you light up the entire cabin when you do. The shade is also burning hot because of the sun beating straight on the windows.
Anyways that’s all I got for now, not very exciting yet. I just want to land in Beijing and settle in. The suspense is killing me!
May 6, 12 9:30 pm (Beijing Time) Sunday
I can’t even begin to describe what it’s like to be here! It’s a surreal experience and I don’t feel like its real. When we landed Dr. Gao met us at the airport and he and some of the students from Tsiugua University took us back to the hotel. On the bus ride to the hotel I was just trying to take it all in. I was expecting to see a big downtown but Beijing doesn’t necessarily have a downtown like Pittsburgh or other US cities, it is very spread out. The traffic is crazy just as we were told it would be and the air isn’t the cleanest. When we walked outside of the airport you could actually see dust particles in the air. All the Chinese people I have come in contact with have been super friendly. We went to dinner at a restaurant down the street and they served us so much food. I tried to try as much as a could. Everything was on a big lazy susan and your just grabbed whatever you wanted. Everything has its own distinct taste that I can’t really explain and it will definitely take some getting use to! We were all almost falling asleep at dinner as we haven’t gotten much if any sleep at all since we left yesterday morning. So its bed time for me!
May 7, 2012 5:50 PM (Monday)
So we have the rest of the night free to do whatever we want so while everyone is taking some downtime I wanted to take some time and write about the day. This morning I woke up at about 5:00 thanks to jet lag. I laid in bed and tried to go back to sleep but it just wasn’t happening plus the mosquitoes were driving me crazy (I think I am up to ten bites right now). I got up at about 6:00 to get ready for the day. At 8:15 some of us went to breakfast as a group, we get breakfast at the hotel every morning. They had many of your normal breakfast foods such as fruit, toast, eggs and bacon. But they also had rice, noodles, some different types of Chinese breads, fried dough and much more (it was a huge buffet). I really enjoyed their yogurt here which unlike at home you drink it through a straw. Pear juice was also something different it was so sweet and tasted really good.
After breakfast we went across the way for our first lecture at the hotel’s conference center. A PhD student from Tsinghua University taught us about Chinese history, and even though it was for a little less than two hours she was able to fit in many tidbits of information that was really interesting. The conference center even had coffee cups with tealeaves in them and had hot water pitchers for each person and even though I am not a huge tea person I really enjoyed it.
After our lecture we traveled as a group to a mall a couple blocks down the way from the hotel to get lunch. The mall was huge and not really your typical mall. It had all kinds of stores and restaurants and even had a supermarket on the ground floor. We ate at a Chinese restaurant and Dr. Gao ordered for us. The brought out these huge bowls of food that had chicken, pork, beef and a couple other meats and many different vegetables in them. You scooped out from the bowl and put on your plate what you wanted. We also each got our own bowl of rice. Dr. Gao also ordered chicken feet for us to try, which I did. The flavor was good but there wasn’t a whole lot to eat since it was mostly just bones. Overall I thought the meal was very good, I just had to make sure to avoid a few thing on my plate that didn’t taste the best to me. We also went down to the supermarket. It was very similar to any store in the US except of course the packaging of different items. I was able to buy a case of water to keep in the room and used RMB for the first time.
After we had a short break back at the hotel the bus from Tsinghua picked us up and took us to the university. It is a huge and beautiful campus. We first went to one of the main buildings that had a museum of the history of the school. Tsinghua is one of the most prestigious schools in china and is a great honor to go to that school. At first Dr. Gao was making us listen to the recorded guided tour but then when he realized how long it was going to take decided to turn it off and let us walk around. They then took us to the environmental school within Tsinghua. The building was completely eco-friendly and it was neat to learn about all the features that it had. We then walked around the scenic parts of campus. There were many different ponds that were surrounded by willow tress and had Chinese gazebos tucked into the trees which made for great pictures. We had a funny experience while taking a group picture. We were all together in front of the gate of the university and we saw this random guy taking a picture of our group, we figured he was just taking a picture of us cause that’s what Vanessa said would happen sometimes. When we were done with the picture we saw this Chinese girl run away from the group…turns out she photobomed out picture and we didn’t even realize it. She just walked away laughing, it was the funniest thing. Besides the size and the location there wasn’t a whole lot that made Tsinghua differ from universities in the US.
So now I am just back in my room and in a little bit some of us are going to get dinner. It will definitely be interesting because this will be the first time any of us have ordered without Vanessa or Dr. Gao doing it for us. I’ll let you know how that one goes! So some general observations I made today: BIKES, everywhere and anywhere. No matter where you looked while at the university or on the road there are bikes parked one after another. We said it would be fun to knock just one over and watch them fall one by one. Dogs: you see a lot of people out with their dogs and even though the city is very busy they aren’t ever on leashes, they stay right by their owner though. Air: I am tired of it looking like you keep seeing snow ( the cottonwood trees give off white fluff that make the air look twice as polluted as it really is). Dust: everywhere.
Even though the US and China are on complete opposite sides of the world they are a lot more similar than you would think. Although there are vast differences and I am amazed by everything I have seen here. I am so excited for tomorrow to go sightseeing to Tiananmen Square and the forbidden city!
May 8, 12 6:31 PM (Tuesday)
So today has definitely been a long day. First to recap last night which was interesting. We went back to the mall as a group (without Vanessa or Dr. Gao). We didn’t know where to eat at all so we just picked a random restaurant. It ended up being a north Korean grill and none of the workers spoke English. It was very difficult to communicate. We each tried to order different things but the waiter was confused and was trying to tell us we had to order one big thing as a table. When we finally got the message we ordered a big meat platter. When the dish came out it was all raw beef. They then lit the grill in the center of the table and we were supposed to grill the meat. Although we didn’t know exactly what we were eating, all the meat was very tasty. We were pretty sure some of it was cow tongue by the look and texture. Even though there was a definite language barrier the waiter was very nice and didn’t get frustrated with us. Afterward we looked around a little in the mall and then just came back for the night.
This morning started out early and after breakfast we got on the bus to head to Tiananmen Square. The traffic at 8:00 in the morning was terrible. People just kind of make up their own traffic rules and just keep going even though there might be a car or person in front of them. There are so many different lanes of traffic and the mix of cars and bicycles make it ten times worse. We even saw a guy laying on the ground after he got hit on his bicycle by a car, it looked like his legs were broken. We got to the square about two hours after we left. It’s crazy to think that it took so long to get somewhere that was in the same city. While the square was neat I just felt like I was looking at building since we didn’t go into any of the museums. The main things to see were the Monument to the People’s Hero and the Tiananmen Gate. The square was very large and also very crowed there was also a long line to get into the hall that contains Mao’s body. We were able to get many pictures and had many Chinese take pictures of us again.
After the square we entered the Forbidden City. All I can say is wow. The city is so intricate and is literally it’s own city inside of Beijing. It is never ending; you would go through one building walk through a courtyard and then walk up through another building and through another courtyard afterwards over and over. The buildings were very intricately painted and much attention was paid to detail when building them. We were able to learn a lot of history from our tour guide and get a ton of pictures, although I felt like I was taking the same picture over and over because all the buildings were very similar. It was very hot out and by then end we were definitely all tired from walking so much.
For lunch Dr. Gao took us to a restaurant that was very different from anywhere we had eaten. They brought out big bowls of chicken broth that sat on top of burners. Then thry brought out different meats such as beef, lamb, seafood balls, fish, and even sharks lip! You had to put each of these into the broth to cook. It was actually one of my favorite meals since we have been here. Everything tasted really good and I especially liked the tea they served after the meal. We ended up being at the restaurant for over two hours just eating and talking. When we got done about 3:30 we headed to a big shopping market that had all kinds of souvenir shops and vendors. I felt like I could walk around there forever just looking at everything! Today was definitely a great day but very exhausting! We are back at the hotel know taking a break and are on our own again for dinner. Most of us were thinking of getting pizza since we could use a little break from all the crazy food.
May 9, 12 (11:25 PM) (Wednesday)
So just to finish off yesterday, we ended up going to a bar called Labamba for dinner. The bar was very much like bars in the US, it had pool tables and many people were socializing and overall having a good time. I just had a chicken quesadilla, which was similar to what we have in the US except it was very cheesy. Most of the group stayed at the bar to drink but Megan, Drake, and I went to Hagen Das after we were done eating dinner. The ice cream was very expensive although it was worth it to have something cold, as we were all just complaining that we missed cold drinks. We headed back to the hotel afterwards and went to bed shortly after.
This morning started out with breakfast and meeting the group at nine to head to the Beijing Zoo. The first thing we saw were the pandas! They were all so cute and reminded me of big lazy cats. They would be in one spot eating bamboo and then get up and slowly moved to the next spot to plop down. Many of the exhibits had playgrounds for the pandas and although I didn’t see any playing Dr. Gao said they do in fact use the playgrounds. The zoo was huge and since we were only there for about 3 hours I didn’t get to see everything. The one thing I did notice was how bad some of the animal cages were very small and the animals looked pathetic in them, especially the bears. The black bears just sat there and begged for food from the visitors (reminded me of the bears in Tennessee). The zoo had animals that you would never see in a zoo in the US, they had raccoons in cages and chickens and roosters, these animals are so common to us that they aren’t in our zoos. Even though the animal cages weren’t that great the zoo was very scenic. You could look down a river and see willows draped down over the water.
After the zoo we ate lunch at a Japanese fast food restaurant. The food we had was very similar to Chinese food in the US. I had glazed chicken in a rice bowl. The restaurant had a dairy queen inside of it so Vanessa bought us all ice cream, which was the exact, same as from home, just goes to show you cant really mess up ice cream. After we all finished we headed down the street to what they call a market, but what I would call mass chaos. The market was eight floors tall and each floor was very expansive. On each floor there was booth after booth after booth selling almost the exact same things. One of the floors was completely filled with shoes. I had never seen so many shoes in my life. They were displayed just one after another after another. Other floors were mainly clothes, and each floor kind of varied by price. Megan, Drake, and I just pretty much rode the escalators just taking everything in. At the market was where you could notice many culture differences; some of the shoes were way different from anything you would see in the US, the guys had very crazy hairstyles, and the market itself was very different from our own version of a mall. The market wasn’t really someplace where you would go to hangout with your friends like our mall is, it is someplace where you would go to get exactly what you need and to drive a hard bargain.
We returned about 4:30 and I was able to take a quick nap, everyday makes you so tired from all the walking we do. At about 6:00 some of us headed down to “Mr. Pizza” to get a quick bite to eat. The pizza tasted ok, but not exactly like our pizza. I feel like how that is with most American foods, it taste almost the same but there is a little difference. At seven we boarded the bus to head to a place called hohai (don’t know if that’s how you spell it). But it was a place of higher end bars and restaurants and some shops. When we got there I didn’t want to close my eyes, there was so much to take in. The best way I can describe how it looked like was Epcot in Disney World. Everything was situated around a lake and all the building had different kinds of lights on them, people could take paddleboats out on the lake, and it was a very busy place even for a Wednesday night. I almost felt like I was at a fair with all the different foods, everything that was going on, and the different bands that were playing. We walked almost around the whole lake and then found a restaurant to get drinks at. While some people ordered alcoholic drinks I just got watermelon juice, which tasted exactly like you were eating a watermelon. We were sitting at a table on the top deck so we were able to sit and talk and enjoy the beautiful scenery and weather for a while. When we left the restaurant we stopped at a few food booths. I got a huge cotton candy that was literally bigger than my head so I was able to share it with everyone. Three people in our group also bought and ate fried scorpions. They didn’t say they tasted horrible but were just salty. We got back on the bus and so here I sit now writing this and it is definitely time for bed after a long day.
May 10, 12 (6:50 PM) (Thursday)
So we just got back for the day. Today was a more relaxing day than sightseeing day. We started off with our lecture from Claudia this morning from 9:30-11:30. She gave a lecture on modern China (1870-present). She told us about the main wars that china got involved in and talked extensively about Mao Zedong. She also showed us a clip from the movie Flowers from War which is definitely something I want to watch when I get back home. When we were dismissed we were on our own for lunch, so being the Americans that we are we searched out a McDonald’s. It took us awhile but we finally found one down by the subway station. It wasn’t too bad to order because they had a menu that we could point to what we wanted (that’s pretty much the only way we can ever get food is by pointing). The McDonald’s was very similar to American McDonald’s except it had less variety and a few things that we don’t have on our menu. I just got a regular cheeseburger meal which tasted great after all the food we have been eating that I’m not accustomed to. While in the McDonald’s we met a guy from Boston, and it made the world seem a little smaller.
We were originally scheduled to visit Hundai today but they were redoing their assembly line and that was something we were supposed to see so they rescheduled that. So in the afternoon Dr. Gao wanted to take us to a karaoke place. I was not too thrilled about the idea because I don’t sing in front of people, but it is a past time for the Chinese people so that’s why Dr. Gao wanted to take us. When we got their it was way different from what I was expecting. This place made you feel like you were at an expersive club or something similar. When you karaoke in China you and the group you are with get your own private room. You would look down the hallway and there would just be room after room after room all the way to the end. We were led to a room that had a u-shaped couch and was the perfect size for all of us. The karaoke machine had thousands of songs and many American songs. There were four microphones but everyone just belted out songs together. Some of the best ones included Backstreet Boys, Brittney Spears, Cascada, and Celine Deion’s classic “My Heart Will Go On”. Dr. Gao and Vivien even sang some chinese songs, and Ruby who has been kind of quiet on the trip shocked us all with her amazing singing voice. Everyone had a great time and although it wasn’t very busy at 3:00 on a Thursday Vivian said places like that get packed on the weekends because it is such a common thing to do. We stayed for a good 3.5 hours, which was about an hour too, many especially considering how warm it was in the room we were in. Right now we have free time and are meeting up at 8:00 to get diner.
May 11, 12 (6:00 PM) (Friday)
So first off, to finish off talking about last night. We met up with everyone at 8:00 and walked to Pyro Pizza where we were going to meet Vivian. Pyro Pizza is a place that is supposed to mimic an American frat house. It had pong tables set up and a bunch of American posters on the wall. Some people wanted to stay there and drink, but Vanessa took those of us who didn’t want to stay somewhere else. We took the subway to get there and I can’t remember the exact name of the place but it had many stores, restaurants, and outside food vendors. We were walking down one of the streets and there were a few homeless people, as we see everywhere begging for money, one guy particularly disturbed me. While many of the homeless are maimed and you feel bad for them this guy I felt extremely bad for, he only had half his body, the rest was gone from about his waist down. He was just on the sidewalk and you could have easily run into him if you didn’t look down. I had to turn away because I couldn’t stand to look at him. Anyways after walking around for awhile we found a Vietnamese/Mexican restaurant (weird combination right?). Vanessa asked our waitress and she said that the upstairs use to be Mexican and the downstairs was Vietnamese but they decided to combine them. I had Vietnamese food for the first time and it was actually very good. It was a noodle bowl with chopped up carrots, cucumber, meat, and shrimp on top. After we ate we headed back to the hotel but we had to take taxis since it was 11:30. It was definitely interesting riding in a car for the first time in Beijing, the traffic is so crazy you feel like any second you could die. I can’t ever imagine driving here. Anyway we got back to the hotel and I went straight to bed.
Today might have been my favorite so far in regards to the sight seeing. We started our day off at 9:00 and headed to the Summer Palace. It was a rainy day and I had a huge headache so the day didn’t start off great but got a lot better. We started off walking down this long covered porch; I think they said it was 400 m long. Every inch of it was delicately painted and had so much detail that you didn’t want to look down. The sad thing is that it wasn’t even the original paintings, during the Qing dynasty every thing got painted over white as was ordered by the emperor. Anyway after that we hiked up to the summer palace. It just felt like stair after but it was so worth it to get to the top. The view was beautiful as it is situated on a man made lake and you could see the island in the distance. We all took many pictures, and once again had many pictures take of us (which is starting to get old). Just like at the Forbidden City it was very neat to think about how it was back in ancient times. After we climbed back down we went to what I think was the backyard, which had many buildings that had been converted into, placed that held artifacts in glass cases. It was all interesting to look at. After we made our way through the backyard we walked across a big and supposedly famous bridge. Over on the island was my favorite part. There were many shops but the best part was that they were all along the river. It reminded me of what Venice would look like and Dr. Gao told us it was modeled after southern China. It was so picturesque that it reminded me of something I have seen on TV or online but I never really thought it looked like that, but it actually does. It was so neat to just walk around and look at some of the shops.
We all got back on the bus after everyone was done shopping and we headed back to Wundaoku (our neighborhood). We stopped at the U-center to eat (the large mall that I mentioned earlier). We ate at a place that was similar to the place we ate at earlier in the week where you had to boil your own food. It was ok, not really my favorite but it was food so I ate it. And now I am back in the room and everyone it asleep so I’ll probably take a nap for awhile since we had a long day and another big day tomorrow!
May 12, 12 (5:30 PM) (Saturday)
So pretty much there isn’t much to recount about last night cause when we all went to take naps nobody really woke back up cause we were all exhausted from the day. All I can say about today is “wow”, everything was so breathtaking at the Great Wall. The motto for today was “this is so cool”, because everything was absolutely amazing. Our day started out at 8:00 and then we had a two hour bus ride to the wall. We thought it was going to be crappy outside because it was raining again this morning but it ended up clearing up in time for us the climb the wall and the rain made the air so clear and clean. We first started off by walking through this merchant area that had vendors selling a lot of souvenirs and while I wanted to buy a lot of stuff but I know things will be cheaper at the silk and pearl markets when we go tomorrow. There was also a lot of fruit stands. After we passed through that area we were at the base of the mountain. We had to walk through this cave area that reminded me a lot of the Ohio caverns. There was a river running through it so there were stepping stones to use. Once we got through there were little building that held different rocks that could be found in China that were in glass display cases. Then it was really time to climb to the top, and climb we did. It was as if the stairs never ended and it was so exhausting. The good things were that it wasn’t burning hot out and the scenery on the way up was absolutely beautiful. I feel like no matter where we go the scenery is amazing. Once you got to the top it was like nothing you have ever seen before. Even all the pictures I took can’t do the view full justice. It was so exhilarating and the air was pretty clear so you ncould see the outlines of many of the surrounding mountains. Even though we finally reached the top we weren’t done climbing. The Great Wall is very uneven so as you are walking along it you still have to climb many sets of stairs. The worst part about the stairs is that they were so uneven. There would be very shallow stairs followed by very steep ones so I was scarred to look up because I was afraid of loosing my balance. We stayed up at the wall for a pretty long time and when crossing through one of the guard stations even saw a group of girls from Duquesne University! They were in Beijing doing something similar to what we were doing. The Great Wall was the place that I heard the most English and this is probably because it is the biggest tourist attraction in China.
My favorite part of the Great Wall aside from the view was the way back down. You could have taken the stairs back down, or a trolley car, but our entire group wanted to take the giant slide! You had to pay 60 RMB but it was so worth it. The slide wasn’t straight down but looped back and forth and it took about four minuets to reach the bottom. Everyone sat inside their own little toboggan car to ride down and had to control your own speed. Although it wasn’t as intense as a roller coaster it was very similar. I wanted to just go at full speed but if you did you would catch up to the people in front of you so it wasn’t the best idea. Once we reached the bottom we walked back through the little village, and then got back on the bus. We stopped at a buffet place to eat and it just seemed like a cheap buffet, it was nothing spectacular but it was food so we ate. Something that set it apart from American buffets is that you could just go up and fill your own glass with beer if that’s what you wanted to drink. So now we are all just back at the hotel not sure what we are going to do tonight, probably nothing too exciting since today was such a long and tiring day.
May 14, 2012 (7:35 PM) (Monday)
So since I missed blogging yesterday I have a lot to catch up on. Anyway the night after the great wall we ended up just hanging out and then a few of us went to find food. We ended up going to the KFC in the U-center. It pretty much tasted the same as American KFC except that it was a little bit spicier. I just got popcorn chicken, some potatoes and lemonade. Afterwards we were going to get some Dairy Queen which is on the bottom floor but it closed just as we got there so we went to get some ice cream from the supermarket. I thought I was getting a pint of ice cream that was priced at 15 RMB but when I went to ring it up it was 25. It wasn’t that big of deal because it’s only a little more than a dollar difference but it just goes to show that something as simple as ice cream being in the wrong spot can mess you up. It was pretty much worth it though because it was so creamy and anything cold taste really good. After that we just headed back to the hotel for the night.
Yesterday was amazing. It was one of the best days in terms of having fun. We started off by meeting Ruby in the lobby at 9:30 and she took us to the Silk Market. It took us quite awhile to get there. We had to take three different subways and it got pretty jammed packed in some of them. New York City subways have nothing on Beijing in terms of the number of people that jam on. Rule of Beijing subways: there is always more room somewhere as long as you push. It took us a total of about an hour and a half to get to the silk market. When we got inside it was everything that I thought it would be and so much more. There was just stuff everywhere. They had all kinds of purses, shoes, electronics, souvenirs, and of course pearls. I mainly stuck with Megan and Drake and bargaining pretty much became a fun game. You had to pick a price and just stick to it. They thought because we were Americans that we didn’t know how to get what we wanted but I think we at least partially proved them wrong. They tried to make you feel bad for them by saying that they wouldn’t make any money but you just had to be firm and be willing to walk away and for the most part could get anything for the price you wanted. I feel like I did pretty well and although I could have probably gotten some things for cheaper I am satisfied with my purchases and that’s what matters.
We spent about two hours at the silk market and then we all got lunch and then Ruby took us to the Temple of Heaven. The main building was neat and artistically detailed just like all the other buildings and the location where the temple was located was huge and although we found our way in alright it took forever to find our way out. One of the neat things at the temple was they had an echoing wall, you could stand all the way on the other side of the wall and whisper but the other person could still hear you because of the curvature of the wall. Other than the main building it wasn’t much to see. There were a lot of weeping willows and it seemed more like a park than anything with a lot of green areas. There were also many people sitting around playing cards and playing hacky sack and it almost seemed like it was a place that people bought a membership to. It took us forever to find our way out and once we did we had to rush to the subway so we could get back to the hotel quickly.
Once we got off the subway we had to rush to the hotel (never has the hotel seemed so far from the subway station) and get our stuff ready for the waterpark at the Watercube! Luckily once we all got together Vivien informed us that she was able to get us tickets for 65 RMB instead of the original 200 we thought we had to pay. Vivian had everything set up for us. Once we were all together the taxis started pulling up one by one to take us there. It was a pretty quick ride and once we got there Vivien took care of getting out tickets and getting our lockers and food money. It was actually really efficient the band for the locker had money loaded onto it to spend to eat at the small restaurants and whatever you didn’t spend you got back. Walking into the cube was a surreal experience. It was neat to think of what it was like and how many people were there in 2008 for the Olympics. We didn’t see the official pool but I’m guessing we will on our official tour. Once we got changed we hit the park. The one noticeable thing was that we were the only ones wearing bikinis and everyone else was mostly in suits that covered their stomachs. We got a lot of stares not only for our suits but also for being a group of white people but we didn’t care we had a blast! Although there were only three big slides and a few medium slides and the waterpark wasn’t anything spectacular we made the best of it and everyone had such a great time. We did the wave pool and the lazy river for a little bit. Since we were there later at night the lines were practically non-existent and usually got right on the slides. A lot of our favorite was the funnel slide that seated four people in a big tube. At nine we all headed to the locker room to change, which was another place, you noticed a culture difference. Lets just say that Chinese women weren’t afraid to let other people see them naked. In America we usually change in corners or use towels to cover up but these women didn’t do either of these and the changing room was so full that we just decided to put our clothes over our wet suites. We got taxis and headed back to the hotel. It felt so good to shower and sit down after a long day of walking and standing and climbing stairs.
I was so exhausted and sore that it was a good thing that today was more of a relaxing day. We started out with our lesson on Chinese economics given by a professor from Tsinghua. Although it was very interesting and it was neat to learn exactly how China got to be where it is today, two hours is a long time to pay attention. After our lesson we only had an hour to get lunch and change before we left for our company visit to Tsinghua Solar. So Megan, Drake, and I found a restaurant in the hotel that served Japanese food. Although I had never had Japanese before I ended up loving what I got. I had breaded chicken and then they also served many sides with it. After lunch we had to rush to get changed into our business clothes so we could meet back up in the lobby to go on our company visit to Tsinghua Solar. This was a smaller company so the presentation wasn’t all that exciting, although it was neat to learn how the solar tubes worked and how effective they were compared to how much they cost. After the presentation they showed us their show room that had many model of the heating systems. Something that this company visit made me realize was that Chinese companies are a lot more lax than American companies. The guy giving the presentation was just in jeans and a plaid shirt whereas we had all dressed up to go there. Vanessa said a lot of the companies will let their workers wear whatever they want in order to keep them happy. After we where done at the company visit we got back on the bus to head back to the hotel. We are all just relaxing in the hotel now and will probably go in search of food later. Like I said it was a pretty easy day today so there isn’t really a whole lot to recount.
May 15 2012 (10:30 PM) (Tuesday)
So today was jammed packed. I feel like I could say that about almost everyday here but today especially. The worst part was that after having a little bit of a sore throat last night I woke up with an even worse one. Almost everyone has one though so we are pretty sure the waterpark made us sick. Anyways we started out the day by touring the Birds Nest. The Olympic Park is so beautiful and there are flowers planted everywhere. The birds nest is so much bigger and so neater than you can imagine by seeing it on TV. The structure is so much different than any stadium you have ever seen. Walking into it you could almost feel the glory of the Olympic games and it made me very excited for this summer’s games. We went down in the stands and just looked all around taking it all in. The big screen TV’s were even playing highlights from the 2008 opening ceremony and games. Many people in the group paid 100 RMB to ride Segway’s around the track for 15 min but I opted out because just being there was neat enough for me. After taking group pictures and looking around the gift shops (which I found a keepsake coin set for dad at) we got back on the bus. Since we were so rushed for time we took a quick stop at KFC for lunch. We all ordered real quick and then got back on the bus so we could get back on the bus and change to get ready for our company visit to Capital Bio.
Capital Bio was so much more interesting than our visit to Tsinghua Solar, at least it was to me because that’s what I am interested in. The guy who was giving us our tour first showed us their display table that had all the instruments that they manufacture. We then got to see the room where they store their one-million+ samples of bone marrow. There was just refrigerator after refrigerator of test tubes. After we talked to him for awhile in the conference room we got to see many labs were technicians were working. For me this was the best part because as a biomedical engineer I don’t exactly have a firm grasp on what they do and now I could see one instance right in front of me. Although I technically didn’t know what they were doing in the lab it all looked cutting edge with labs that were very sophisticated. I think going to Capital Bio was very worth our time because not only did we learn the scientific engineering side but when we were talking to him he explained the business side.
After Capital Bio we got back around 5:00 and Vivien had booked us tickets to see a Kung Fu show. We had to hurry up and change and walked to the subway together. As it was rush hour the subway was pretty busy. When we got to the show it was pretty much one of the touristiesty things we could have done here. It was all white people at the show and the show was pretty much all English with Chinese subtitles. It was a lot different than what I was expecting. It was a show of a young boy growing up into a kung fu master. All the action in the show was fake. It was entertaining but it was definitely not something I would pay to see again. We were all exhausted afterwards and it was a long trip back to the hotel. I didn’t even get any dinner when we got back because I was so tired so now its bedtime.
May 16, 2012 (11:33 PM) (Wednesday)
Today we had more company visits in the morning. Neither of the company visits were very interesting to me. We met extra early because the bus ride was an hour and a half. The first place we went was to Nulanshan, which was a liqueur distillery. And man could you tell it was a distillery as soon as you stepped off the bus because it smelled so bad. Some people said they didn’t mind the smell and said that smelled like grains but I didn’t like it at all. They mainly gave us a tour around their main sights such as the grain storage and where they let the liqueur age in big barrels. They also gave our group free samples. I didn’t try them because I know I wouldn’t have liked the way they tasted. The liqueur was 150 proof and everyone commented on how strong it was. We got to see one of their assembly lines, which was not modernized very much. They still had people hand do many of the tasks such as cleaning the bottles and putting labels on them. It was neat to see the way an older factory line works. After Nulanshan we got back on the bus and drove down the street to a company called Jangho. Jangho was a company that manufactured coatings for building and big glass windows for skyscrapers. They first showed us their presentation board that had their history and all their accomplishments and rewards displayed on it. Some of their work was very impressive for a company that I had never heard of before. We also got to view their factory. It was the kind of place that an industrial engineer would have been very interested in, but me not so much. The factory was huge and as soon as we walked through it seemed like everyone stopped what they were doing and just stared at us.
After we were done touring we were fed lunch by who I am pretty sure Dr. Gao said were government officials. It was a turn style type dinner like the first night were they kept bringing out more and more dishes. They even brought out a whole fish that still had the head on it and everything. You just had to pick off what you wanted. I made the majority of my lunch and dumplings. The fruit juice also tasted very good to me. After we finished and after we got a group picture with the Chinese officials we got back on the bus to head back to the hotel.
We had very little time to change and then we were off the Fragrant Hills. None of us were very excited about two business visits and then going to a sight that we really hadn’t heard about before but it was so worth it. Vanessa told me that the Fragrant Hills were more of a park with some temples and I wasn’t really expected to climb a big mountain when we got there. But that’s exactly what it was. There were many gardens at the base of the mountain and small it was very beautiful scenery. And then we walked to where you start climbing. The girls in the group took one look up the mountain and decided climbing the Great Wall had been enough for us so all the girls took cable cars to the top even though Dr. Gao made fun of us. The fifty RMB was definitely worth it for the view you got and the relaxing ride. The top was amazing. The view you got was so different from the view that you get from the top of the Great Wall because instead of seeing the mountain range you saw the view of the city. It was so expansive that it stretched as far as you could see in either direction. There were different levels you could walk around up top and there were red ribbons tied everywhere. Ruby told me that they were prayer ribbons and people buy them to write their prayers on, so I had to buy one and do as many Chinese people do. I also met a little four legged friend at the top of the hill. He was a little short dong that I just wanted to take home with me. After everyone had time to look around and get plenty of pictures we headed back down and everyone decided to walk down. After going down I was so glad that I didn’t climb up as well.
After we rode the bus back to the hotel it was time to find food. Megan, Drake, Jonathon, Rosalyn, and I went to the Papa Johns in the U-Center. It tasted so good. It was very different from our Papa Johns because instead of just a pizza place it was a nicer sit down restaurant that served many dishes beside pizza. We just got pizza, breadsticks, and cheese bread. The funny thing is that if I would have ate the same meal in the US it probably wouldn’t have tasted as good to me but here any American food taste good to me! But after that we went to a little French bakery in the U-center and I just got a cinnamon twist it was pretty good. So now its about bed time for me!
May 18, 2012 (10:00 PM) Friday
I can’t believe we leave tomorrow!!! The time here definitely went way too fast. But anyway to recap both yesterday and today. Yesterday started off pretty badly because I woke up with abetween 15-20 mosquito bites on my face alone so it made the day pretty miserable and I felt like I had the chicken pox. My roommate only got three mosquito bites the whole time while I had an uncountable number. Anyway the first thing we did was get on the bus to travel to Lenovo. The building was beautiful and the landscaping was also very well done. When we first went in we sawa a group of students from NC state, which it is always weird to see other groups of students from the US. Anyway when we were waiting for the guy who was going to show us around we got to sit in the lobby and play on these big interactive touch screen computers, which were really neat. The guy showed us around and pretty much gave us a big marketing pitch. It didn’t really feel like we were learning much about the actual business or engineering principles but felt like a big sales pitch for their products. They started off by telling us about their history and how the company started off and showed us models of their very first computers. It was weird seeing these big box computers when we are us to laptop computers that fit in a small pocket of our book bags. As we progressed through their show room they had many of their newest products out for us to play with which included their cell phones, laptops, tablets, and many other gadgets. Since Lenovo was a huge sponser of the Beijing Olympics they had a mini torch that was one of 100 replicas made so we each got to pass that around. All we did at Lenovo was tour their show room, we didn’t get to set down with a representative like we did at Capital Bio or Tsinghua Solar. You pretty much walked out of the visit wanting to buy one of their products.
After our company visit we went straight to lunch. We ate a very well know Chinese meal, peking duck, at a very fancy restaurant. When you walked in you could seen them cooking and carving the duck in a viewing area. The meal was like many others we have ate were there is a big lazy susan in the middle and they bring out dish after dish. One of the first dishes that they brought out was the duck skin, I tried a piece of it and it just tasted like chicken skin. Soon after they brought out the duck, which was cut into smaller pieces. You were supposed to use the flour like tortilla to place the duck in and then you put lettuce, cucumber, and plum sauce in with it and eat it like a mini burrito. I thought it tasted pretty good but it wasn’t amazing. The lunch ended up being my favorite Chinese meal that we had there because I really liked all the dishes that were there. My favorite dish had pieces of pork that were on top of eggplant.
After lunch I went to the U-center with Vanessa to find Benadryl. We couldn’t find any at either the pharmacy or supermarket so we settled for some methalatum, which was better than nothing. When we got back we had to change and then meet in the conference center for our lesson. Our lesson was by an older Chinese woman this time whose English was very good and she even had a slight Australian accent. She taught us about the history of politics and modern politics. Since the lecture wasn’t first thing in the morning I felt like half of us were falling asleep especially since it wasn’t that interesting, and my face was itching like crazy. Lecture ended at four and we were very fortunate that Ruby had volunteered to take us to the Silk Market.
We took the subway to the Silk Market, which was about a forty-minute trip with three transfers. The Silk Market was connected right to the subway so we didn’t have to walk at all to get there. It was very similar to the Pearl Market except that is had more of the knock off stuff like purses and shoes and watches etc. My favorite find while there was the chocolate pandas that I plan to give as gifts. Besides that I found a miniature folding wall that was decorated very detailed, and although I paid more for it than I wanted because I couldn’t get the lady to bargain down anymore I really wanted it so I still got it. The Pearl Market and Silk Market were definitely experiences as far as bargaining and haggling with the Chinese people. Many of the people would get really mad when they realized we weren’t dumb American’s who were going to pay the first price for the souvenirs. You usually had to cut their price down to ten percent in order to pay a reasonable price.
We got back from the Silk Market and it was between nine and ten o clock. We had to work on our business proposal presentations that were part of the class. And since we didn’t feel like venturing out for food we just ordered Mcdonald’s which got delivered to the room. My group had mostly got a lot of our presentation done when I was at the silk market so I just had to put the finishing touches on it. So that was pretty much it for Thursday.
This morning (Friday) we had our last lesson. It was a politics and economics presentation. It was a lot more interesting because the lecturer told us a lot about here own family and what it was like to raise a family in China. After the lecture we all had to give our presentation. Ours went okay. Our project proposed the construction and selling of large industrial air filters for household and business use. The downside of theses projects was that we were expected to know all these little details that we could never know unless we actually constructed the filter. All the groups presented which took a lot longer than we actually expected. It felt like we were in the conference room forever but a lot of people came up with great ideas! We got done sometime after noon and the rest of the day was free time. Megan, Drake, and I got lunch real quick and then we got a taxi to take us to a site Vanessa suggested. It was supposed to be the site of the old summer palace but it was more of a park. The original summer palace had burnt down so we were excited to see the ruins. When we got there we paid the main gate fee and we thought that would be good to see everything and since we were low on RMB we couldn’t afford much more. The bad part that anything you wanted see you had to pay extra for. The ruins were behind a gate so we got to snap one picture of them but besides that we just explored the part area, which like most tourist locations was very scenic and beautiful. I felt kind of like a little kid exploring the back paths were no other people really were. Getting a taxi back was a little more difficult and although it took us awhile we finally got one and made it back to the hotel in time to get ready for the farewell dinner.
The farewell dinner was at a fancy restaurant that we walked to from our hotel, and it was very close to Tsinguhua. All the people including Vivien and Ruby met us at the restaurant and we had one last time to socialize with them. They did so much for us throughout the entire trip that it was good we got one last chance to have dinner with them. The dinner was like a lot of the other meals we had eaten where there were many dished on the turntable. After dinner we just headed back to the hotel, and I currently taking a break from packing in order to catch up on this. I am definiteltly not looking forward to the long plane ride tomorrow and definitely not looking forward to leaving china so soon!
May 19, 2012 (Saturday)
Well today is the day we fly home L I cannot even express how much of a great time I have had the past two weeks. Meeting new people, experiencing a different culture, seeing all the sites, and tasting so much new food was an experience I will never forget. So this is going to be my last blog. We are sitting at the airport right now. This morning we pretty much all slept in packed and got some lunch. We met to go to the airport at 1:30 and then took the bus here. Not very eventful in comparison to days like the Great Wall, Forbidden City, and all the others! So now we get too look forward to 15 hours of travel although it will feel good to be back in the US!
gormanplus3china2012 