Tianjin

So, I realized I really haven't talked to much about what I actually do everyday or for that matter what that main city I am staying in is like. Tianjin is my home over...and I can say that when we go places such as XiAn, we got back and realized it did kinda feel like home. I can't imagine how it will feel when we really get back home, but anyways...Tianjin, despite the dirt everywhere, the millions of bikes and people, and the squatter toilets...I must say I am pretty happy. I am not to homesick although I mean I miss everyone, but I feel like I am not wishing my trip away at all...

So, my dorm...well it is called a hotel..but it is a dorm.. At first..not even cleaned before we came.. I kinda freaked out.. but since then it has become my place for rest...most definitely!! You would never believe how hard my bed was....but now some how it has become comfortable and very useful for those naps! Our view is awesome, we look out over one of the main roads of Tianjin, so we see tons of people and the canal next to it... across the street is a middle school and of all things a TGIFridays.. weird.. We can also see a huge ferris wheel and bungy jumping thing..as well as a huge TV needle...reminds me of Seattle..We are lucky to have a balcony to relax on consider many of the others in our group face construct workers that work throughout the night! I have gotten used to the honking of horns all day, all night.

Almost everyday, I have class in the morning from 8 to 11:40am, but with a total of 40 minute break ineptness all of our four parts of class. Class was challenging at first..considering one of our two professor speaks only Chinese in our class. But NOW.. I actually understand and am not frustrated. I feel like my Chinese has improved.. I hope it has considering we have class and then we have been paired with a different tutor every week. The tutors are really fun because not only are they teaching us, but they take us to very neat places around the city. For example, they have taken us to all the markets to bargain down sellers as well as the zoo and their huge ten story bookstore.. what else.. authentic restaurants, museums, and much more. So, we have learned lots and done lots around here. I am truly happy that we have met these students because it will be a great way to stay involved in speaking and using Chinese when we keep in contact with them.
Homework is actually not bad.. I don't think I spend more than an hour studying... if that even for tests. The practice everyday helps I think...

Other then school related things.. we do a lot of shopping, walking and just exploring of the city when we are not traveling around China. The people stare, try to sell anything, sell chocolate popcorn, eat tons of ice cream (odd), ride bikes everywhere, crowded buses, dirty streets...I probably have to wash my feet at least twice a day..smokers everywhere.. just a few things that stick out a lot to me. Buying things here is amazing.. I don't know how I am going to come home and spend money on food or anything because everything here is soo cheap. I will do a comparison sometime soon in a blog.
All I can say is it is soo easy to bargain them down and once you do.. you definitely pay the minimum you could ever think of.

Food wise...we have found a place of survival.. so yeah I love Chinese food but having it for breakfast lunch and dinner gets pretty repetitive after awhile.. so we found a definite hole-in-a well joint, that is the best thing ever!! I have never walked into a restaurant with a cloud of smoke in the air, French, Japanese, Chinese, English, Australian, Korean, African American.. all kinds of people.. and experience such diversity and comfort. It is such a neat feeling. A Liu.. our waitress.. lazy and fun at the same.. I think she is getting used to us.. It is such a laidback place.. and we can get anything we want to eat from Mediterranean food to a good ol' grilled cheese...which I had yesterday for dinner.. OH SOO GOOD!!!

I think I have covered it..

Purple lights in the barbershop

Haha...ok so more about XiAn...this is reason..we experienced it all..So Friday night after our awesome day of touring..we showered and were ready to go for a walk.. doing a little mai dongxi (shopping)...and find ice cream (which is really popular in China..which I thought was odd) anywho.. and we must walked they wrong way...although we found ice cream.. we sure did find many other things that showed us a little bit more then we needed to know about XiAn... So we walked by a ton of restaurants and everything was great.. but then we decided to walk back the other way and found some interesting barbershops...with fluorescent purple lights and girls opening the doors to every guy trying to get them to come in... needless to say the barbershop was a definite cover up. We got scared and walked a little fast back to the hotel... ahh about a minute away so we were ok (MOM)... but just wanted to make sure we got away from the scary part of town.. So yeah we saw everything...

That night too I bargained like crazy and bought huge paintings that were originally around 550 yuan and we got three for 100 yuan each... which is like a little over 10 dollars at home... I also got another really cool hard to explain souvenir for 100 yuan and saw the next day that it was worth 1540 yuan... great bargain! I don't know if I will every get back in the swing of things being so expensive at home.

Saturday was a easy touring day... we went to this huge seven stories high pagoda.. and experienced more Buddhism firsthand. Needless to say I paid my homage to the Buddhas, so hopefully I will receive my prays... Also Kristen and I climbed to the top of the pagoda and Li Lao Shi (my Chinese professor) said that it barging good luck and high promotion in your career.. SO WATCHOUT.. I am going to be a successful business woman!!!!

Well, that about it right now... I just got package from my mommy with some survival food!!! So exciting...tell y'all more later!

Women qu le XiAn!!

Just got back from XiAn.. a little, (little if you compare it to Tianjin) still having 7 million people, town out West! Although not so little, you could definitely tell the difference in the amount of people on the streets. I didn't feel as confined while actually walking down the sidewalk.. I also didn't fear getting ran over by a ton of bicycles. Things seemed a little more up-scale in XiAn. We were treated like MovieStars once again.. probably the nicest hotel I have ever stayed in... comfy beds..the softest bed I have slept on since I have been in China.... rotating breakfast room on the 20th floor... great meals...and a beautiful view... couldn't asked for anything more!

So I guess you could say, we experienced everything in this city. We fly over to XiAn Thursday morning. First stop was the hotel...then we began the touristy stuff. We headed to the City Wall... which just like Beijing surrounds the entire city. It was huge with a great view of the city but didn't compare to the Great Wall...obviously. Close by were two towers..a bell and drum tower in which the bells are sounded every morning and the drums every evening. We also went through a huge museum about the many dynasties that survived through China... since XiAn was the capital of China throughout the first four dynasties... don't I sound intelligent. :) After that we went to the hotel... relax in our bubble bathes and very comfy beds!!

The next day was the best day of the trip.. We first saw the Tercotta Warriors... soo crazy!! There were over 7,000 warriors that have been found.. and they are still excavating! It was so amazing. Each warrior had a different face and each were soo detailed it was CRAZY... We watched a movie before which was in one of those surrounding theatres like Disney World.. it explained everything about the warriors and how they were found and made and all the detail... We also saw to see the farmer who found the actual warriors..that was pretty neat.. It was crazy how all the Chinese people flocked to get his signature..screaming and crowding around him. There were three actual buildings that dug down underneath were the warriors, horse and carriages.. SO MUCH DETAIL...I still can't believe it...

Later on Saturday we went to visit the actual tomb of the emperor of the Qin Dynasty that all the warriors were constructed to protect. We couldn't go into it since they are really trying to preserve the tomb, but there was very cool display of old rituals played out and we were able to climb to the top of the tomb and see the view of the rural area surrounding it. We had seen many of the same type of mountain/hill/tomb looking things on the way into the city from the airport..they were all also tombs of emperors.. many were spread over the valley of XiAn...

There were beautiful mountains north of XiAn that we only got a glimpse of at the summer place we went to that day..we saw the slightly at the tomb, but since it was so foggy we missed out...SAD.. but the summer palace made up for it.. we saw hot springs, old bathing rooms for the emperors and his concubines.. and where a very famous conquer got caught...I will update the name a little later when I can think more...Overall it was beautiful... the bridges and walkways and stairs were so detailed and to think the emperor and his concubine just used to walk around and be in this beautiful place so long ago make it all so much more amusing.

More to come...

The Great Wall

Chang Cheng..or the Great Wall as you would call it was the most amazing experience. We left Tianjin about 6:30am and drove North from 3 hours. Slept most of the way until right before the wall came into sight. The wall climbed the mountains that seemed to keep reaching higher and higher until we arrived at the Badaling sight. We could decided between easy and hard....let just say we went the HARD WAY!!! Hard but completely worth it. At some points, we climbed 90 degree angled steps and hills only to turn around and see the wall continue to go far in the distance with mountains and valleys only to beautify the view. I took my time and soaked in the moments, knowing it would be a while until I saw something so beautiful. On the easy side you could only see the massive amounts of people,over thousands,forcing their way through to reach the top. The hard way definitely was hard but worth it for the view, few people and the accomplishment. I can't even think of how to describe it. So many emotions at once piled on top of the leg straining.. I can be considered a man in China now...for climbing that wall!! I wish I could described it more but I trully cannot express it in words.

On the way to the Ming Dynasty tombs, I couldn't help to look back at my pictures and think about all the vendors and people that surrounded us. The amount of English was few and far between. You could hear the voices yelling "Hello, tshirt, Hello water" and soo on just to make their money!

Something I will never forget....

Here we go again...

So the next that after noon we went to a place to receive foot reflexology, basically a full body massage emphasizing the pressure points on your feet, not only a great way to start practicing our chinese but soo relaxing. I really needed it after the uncomfortable plane sleep. We slept for over 12 hours that night on rock hard beds, but that didnt matter! The next day we were ready to go to tour more temples and parks.. many great views and awesome picture opportunities. Hopefully once my computer works in my room I can send some out! Beijing was an experience, especiall because the people there treated us like movies stars...not only staring but taking pictures of us!

Sunday we headed to Tianjin, where we currently are studying at Nankai University! We have a great view from our view of the main street with horns sounding throughout the night. It better then the construction that the rest of our groups has to deal with on the other side.. since Tianjin is developing quickly for their 100th year anniversary and the Olympics that will be near in 2008. Pretty neat! Everywhere here and Beijing is pretty dusty.. I have to wash my feet probably two to three times a day. Basically it never rains here and is soo hot, so the dirt is never washed away. Class is going well I have already had two tests... done ok....

More to come later....

Finally Figuring things out

Well, I am finally figuring things out...well first how to use this and my way around China. Anywho let me update you on the trip so far..

So We got here almost two weeks ago... crazy to think about. We arrive early morning..5:30 am Friday. Don't worry we headed straight to our first authentic Chinese breakfast in a back alley.. quite an experience to start out with other then the hole in the floor toilets at the airport. WEIRD. Anywho after we had breakfast we began touring Beijing...nonstop 24 hours of travelling straight into touring the city all day. I have never seen so many people in my life, you think I would expect it since there are 15 million people in Beijing. Bikes and people everywhere. Well anyways we saw amazing things, Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, Summer place...that was only the first day. After that we actually got a chance to relax and check in our hotel..

My first time!!!

Hey Friends!
This is just a test to see if I know what I am doing!! I will post more when I come to the Wang Ba...internet cafe.. again! But I am in CHINA!!!
Miss ya!