Had a bit of free time tonight so thought I'd blog for awhile...

So this weekend was a blast! On Friday after classes, Erin and I along with another of our friends here went to Maya Bar yet again for Mexican food and margaritas.  We were feeling alright after our Friday tests, but absolutely DID NOT want to go travelling for the weekend.  Good thing the school had already made plans for us to travel to a local mountain village, right? Haha, anyway after we got over the fact that we would have to ride a bus into the mountains for a few hours and stay at a house with people we didn't know, it was alright.

Headed into the mountains about 2 and a half hours outside of Hangzhou and ended up in this tiny little village in a valley of sorts.  Although still a village, this couldn't have been anymore different than the previous village I visited.  The people here were rich and all had HUGE houses.  Like 4 stories huge.  It was really quite impressive.  Apparently the people here grow and sell walnuts, which is a lucrative business in China it turns out.  Anyway, we stayed with these really great families, and I actually got a room to myself. An entire room!  It was intense!

Friday night, they cooked for us, and after a delicious dinner including bamboo shoots from the backyard, we all went outside to play with the kids from the village.  These kids were so cute and so happy to have us there, so it was fantastic.  All were under the age of 12-ish, because after that age, kids go to boarding school and/or have to study all day long for the gaozhong(the intense state-run testing system to determine what colleges kids can get into...think the ACT/SAT but instead of testing your thinking ability, it tests raw knowledge of subject matter.) so they're not around much.  We played hide and seek all night long, and after an hour or so, collapsed into bed.

Saturday, we woke up early and went on a hike after breakfast.  The hike was rather fun, winding through bamboo covered mountains and valleys punctuated by winding rivers.  Before returning to the village, we explored a dam on one of the rivers.  After the hike, I was really struck by the amount of actual planning and construction that China puts into creating the scenery.  It seemed that every hillside was cleared at least partially of the trees to allow for foot traffick and the path of every river seemed meticulously controlled for maximum usage.  Really strange.

That night, the village threw a party in our honor.  We met in the "town square" where several groups of women from the village performed choreographed dances and played instruments.  A couple of women even did a line dance to an American country song.  That part was extremely surreal.  After several hours of festivities, we all went to sleep because we were waking up early the next morning to go to church.

Sunday morning, most of us headed to the local church.  When I go to foreign countries, I always make it a point to go to a church service, because I think religion is so indicative of the culture.  If you want to have any grasp at all on the situation of the locals, I feel like a church service is a must.  I'd already been to a Buddhist shrine in my first village, so luckily, on this visit, we all headed to a local Christian church.  Once we arrived, everyone seemed to stare and us, but unsurprisingly, they were very hospitable...offering us all Bibles to read (in Chinese, of course) and cups of hot tea.  Overall, I had a great time translating familiar Bible verses in my head while attempting to understand the preacher.  The church service wasn't actually that much different from one at home.  The preacher seemed a bit "fire and brimstone," but besides that, I was pretty comfortable.  Wish I could say the same for everyone else, though.  The Chinese roomates/teachers all seemed extremely uncomfortable with the situation, and after 5 minutes or so, most had left to walk back to the village.  I'm not really sure how I felt about that...we were invited to the church and everyone was extremely hospitable, so it seemed like even if you didn't necessarily believe in this, you could at least sit for a bit and watch.  But oh well...I guess it might just be another cultural thing I won't understand for awhile.  Regardless, I had a fun time learning about Chinese Christianity.  By the way, the Chinese translation of the Bible was hilariously literal.  Think Genesis..."God said LIGHT!, so LIGHT!  Now do not have dark"

After church, a couple of us decided to go hiking on our own up a nearby mountain.  The mountain was beautiful climbing up, and though a bit steep at times, it was manageable.  Getting down was another matter.  We tried walking down the way we came but soon realized this would be impossible.  Walking up a muddy mountain is surprisingly easier than walking down it.  So we slid down.  On our buts.  At high velocity.  I can easily say it was the most outright fun thing I've done in China so far.  We were basically pinballs on the way down, ricochetting between bamboo stalks, brambles, and each other.  Once at the bottom, we all stood up and started jogging, but couldnt stop.  The hill was still steep, so I managed to grab onto a passing bamboo stalk and stopped myself from flying into the forest.  It was absolutely great.

Once we got back and cleaned off our pants, we had lunch and then departed for Hangzhou.  A few hours later, we got back, but on the bus ride back I got to finish reading my book, The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway.  Easily one of my favorite books now...I can't believe I haven't read it before.  I also bought a new CD, "The Hazards of Love" by the Decemberists, so I'm pretty set right now.  Little homework this week and possibly heading to Shanghai on Thursday, so all is well in China.

P.S. Here's a link to a friend's online photo album.  It's got some really great China pictures on it, so have a look.  I've been to most of the places she's been too: http://picasaweb.google.com/lubyx010

PICTURES

Part of an archaeological dig that we visited.  They were excavating the site of the Hemudu civilization from something like 2-3000 years ago.  Very cool.  The gov't built a roof over the site to protect it...but it leaked.  Thus, the cave-in in the next picture.  Nice, China.


When I went to the village a few weekends ago to stay with one of the roommates' family's, we went to a pig farm that they owned.  Very strange.


Piglets.  Very cute.
This is the house that we stayed in that weekend.  It was super nice.
This is the front of the Buddhist shrine that was in the village.  Everyone came here to worship, and they hold festivals and religious celebrations here as well.
Buddhist idols/whatever you want to call them.  They were really beautiful.  I think I like Buddhism.

This was a view from my balcony in the house...mountains in the distance and a river down below.
This was what some of the village houses looked like...but alot were smaller than this. And dingier.
I'm standing next to one of the other guys in our program.  On the far right is that guys roommate.  In the middle is the roommate's mother...she cooked for us most of the weekend.  Really nice lady and a really good cook as well.
Cute dog that I saw.  I wanted to keep him.
Funny sign I found on a wall in the village...it was advertising "Radiation Protection Screens" for your computer because apparently, computers emit tons of radiation that will fry your face.  The text is hilarious.

Random street in the village.
These were shoes on display inside the Buddhist shrine...the ones on the right are what really threw me off.  They're shoes used for the practice of foot-binding.  People don't do that in China anymore, but it was really strange seeing that on display.

And finally, this is the room that we stayed in that weekend...there are three beds total.  It was actually pretty nice.

Finally...New Post

Hi everyone.  Writing to you from the most beautiful Starbucks in the history of the world.  It's in XiHu TianDi which is this Epcot-ish grouping of restaurants, bars, and other things all nestled against the lake.  The Starbucks is in the middle of the rainforest, and seeing as it's currently raining outside, it seems rather fitting.

Chinese is....rather difficult.  Tests are hard and studying is taking over my life, but I don't want to talk too much about that because then I'll just sound negative.  I'm having a great time in China, and it's really nice that I can actually see how much better my Chinese is getting as the days go on.

Spring Break is in a month (April 4th-9th, or something like that), so this weekend, Erin and I along with some of the other students we're friends with are planning our trip.  We have it narrowed down to either XinJiang (a predominantly Muslim province in the far west of China.  It borders 8 countries including Russia, Pakistan, India, Kazakhstan, etc.) or Thailand.  Both have cheap flights, so I'm not really sure right now.  We'll see.

Well, went to the mountains a few weekends ago with the roommate and a few other students.  We stayed with the family of one of the roommates in this tiny village of about 100 people.  The village is based around this Buddhist shrine/small temple and everyone congregates there.  The first day we were there, we went trekking into a local bamboo forest.  The villagers all grow their own bamboo to eat (which is phenomenal, by the way), so it was really cool to see their rows of bamboo growing.  We slept in really nice rooms (for China), but there was no heat anywhere or hot water, so things got cold that weekend.  The next day, we got up early and explored the village with the family.  It turns out that the family business is pig farming, so we went to their farm and visited.  Baby pigs are cute, by the way.  Later, we went to this really cool archaelogical dig nearby that the Chinese government is currently excavating.  It's the remains of the civilization of the HeMuDu people from something like 2,000-3,000 years ago.  Really neat stuff, except for the fact that the rain had eroded alot of the people's progress and caused several cave-ins.  Oh well...that's China for you.  They tried to build a roof over the site, but of course, it leaked.  Hahahaha, oh China...

Last weekend, we stayed in Hangzhou and explored the city some more.  We got a few glimmers of nice weather, so we all went to West Lake to walk around.  It was a really nice weekend overall.  This weekend looks to be more of the same.  My friend, Katelyn Wear, mentioned to me that she knew a high school friend who was in Hangzhou working this semester, so a few days ago, we got into contact with one another, and I think we're all going to go out tonight.  Apparently, there are several Americans working with her, so it'll be nice to meet some more Americans in Hangzhou.

I promise to be more diligent with the blogging from now on.  I think I'm finally adjusted to life in China, so things should get more consistent from now on.  Until next time, here are some pictures that I've accumulated.  I started a Photobucket.com account that I'll update occasionally, so you can just follow me there.  Oh, and there are some videos too: Here

COOOOOLD

It's super cold here.  I know I shouldn't be complaining too much considering some of my friends are in Harbin, China on the border with Russia, but I can't help it.  I haven't been properly warm in days.  Our dorm rooms have "heaters," but really, they don't do that great of a job.  The classrooms don't use heaters either.  And outside surely isn't warm, so I'm forced to constantly suffer through this chilly weather.

I think it might not be so bad if it wasn't for the rain.  Usually, I really love cold weather (barring that one trip to Chicago where the temperatures were something like -13).  It's brisk and really wakes you up in the morning, but here, the cold is always accompanied by the rain which just seems to seep in everywhere.

Besides the weather, I had a good weekend.  Decided to stay and explore the city instead of heading to Shanghai, which was nice.  On Friday night, a bunch of us went to Maya Bar for food and drink specials.  They served MEXICAN FOOD!!!  I had chicken burritos with real white meat...none of this biting into your KFC sandwhich only to find a bone and some darm sinew. As the night dragged on, we saw a white man pull up in a van outside the window.  He unloaded a grill and proceeded to cook these massive hamburgers.  Although we'd already eaten, none of us could pass up a hamburger.  So we ate them.  Turns out we met a ton of American, German, English, Australian, French expats that night.  They were all really cool (and really old), so it was nice to be able to ask them questions that you can't exactly ask another Chinese person.

Classes are still going well.  I took a few pictures this weekend when we headed out into the city, but most of them turned out like crap because of the weird and awkward weather.  West Lake was constantly covered in this dense fog/misty rain making it near impossible to take a picture that didn't look like I was gazing across the River Styx in Hades.  Anyway, when the weather lets up, I'll have some nice pictures to put up.

Coming Soon...

Decided to stay in Hangzhou this weekend to hang out with the other students, so I'll be sure to take actual pictures of Hangzhou.  It's really pretty so far, but the weather has been terrible.  I hear Spring is comin soon, so the plum trees will be blooming everywhere.

In other news, I signed up for a cooking class taught by a Hangzhou tv chef.  Should prove to be interesting.  Also, I signed up for a Tai Qi class (Tai Qi on Wikipedia) which takes place once a week in a park on campus.  I'm excited about both, so it should prove to be an interesting semester.  Well, I've got to go.  We're going to a local restaurant to learn to make Jiaozi(Picture from Wikipedia) in 5 minutes.  I've got to be off.  Bye!

So, today was a good day.  Not that the rest have been particularly bad, but today's was particularly good.  It's not that I did anything spectacular, but I think I finally have my routine down.

Joined a gym a yesterday that's extremely nice.  It's funny because the showers at the gym are better than the showers at the dorm.  The showers here are insid the bathroom, but not separate from the toilet, sink, etc.  So when you take a shower, all the water just kind of runs everywhere.  There are two drains that the water supposedly runs into, but there was also a mop provided in every bathroom, which says to me "Sorry our drains are terrible, but here's a mop to help out juuuust a little."  Regardless, showers here are sketchy to say the least.  I wear shoes.

Anyway, back to the gym.  It's extremely nice, so I've gone there the past two nights.  After the gym tonight, a couple of us went to KFC which was my first time to eat American food here in China.  It was nice, but not exactly the same as at home (not that I eat at KFC that often in America).  For one, there weren't any biscuits or mashed potatoes.  I was livid, which is funny because I don't know that many exclamations in Chinese, so I just kept saying the same thing over and over.  Also, they don't sell chicken strips.  LAME.  So I got a chicken sandwhich (which turned out to be dark meat, but thankfully without bones) which was pretty good and also some french fries. Yum.

Classes have started and are going fairly well.  I only have 1 class tomorrow and then I'm through for the week, so I'm excited about that as well as the lack of homework tonight.  So far, I'm enjoying my classes even if it is difficult to undersand the teachers sometimes.  I'm taking 4 classes here: A One on One Topics-Based Course (my topic is Religion in Modern China), a Two on One speaking and pronounciation course (which turned out to just be a One on One course because of an odd number of students), Business Chinese, and Modern Chinese Literature.  All the courses are taught exclusively in Chinese, which has proven to be difficult.  Even when the teachers define new words and phrases, they use Chinese to describe them, though I suppose this is good because of how much it will increase my listening comprehension.

Tomorrow night, a bunch of us are going out to this huge club, G+, to hear this famous DJ.  I mean, I've never heard of him, but he's billed as famous (which I guess means I'm buying into the marketing scheme.  Oh well, I'm in China and won't get to do this kind of thing again for awhile).  So anyway, we're all going to do that tomorrow night, and then for the weekend, most of us are going to stay in Hangzhou to explore the city and maybe head to a few of the smaller tea villages in the nearby hills/mountains.

My roommate and I seem to be getting along quite well.  I came home tonight to find a pear sitting on my desk that he bought for me.  He's really thoughtful, and the fruit was tasty.  He probably got it from Hou men(literaly "back door or gate", which is this amazing little neighborhood at the back gate of our campus.  There are restaurants galor and also tons of street vendors selling all different kinds of food.  I've tried some strange grilled meat (they said it was pork.  For my sake, let's hope so), a fried banana with ketchup, baozi, jiaozi, tons of fruit (they have GREAT pineapple and oranges here), and various other noodle and rice dishes.

Well, I'm about to head out.  I just bought some American tv shows in iTunes and some friends and I are going to watch them.  Nothing says comfort like Rock of Love: Tour Bus and The Real World. Yesssss.  

P.S. Here's some pictures I've accumulated.

This is a baozi.  It's basically a small dumpling with any number of fillings inside.  You can get vegetable inside along with different meats, but this one is my favorite.  It has red beans inside of it.  Red beans are this tasty creation that I hardly ever see outside of China.  They look like kidney beans, but they have this intensely sweet taste to them, so this is sort of like dessert.

This is some tuna sushi that a man on the side of the road made for me.  Overall, it wasn't that great, but it was totally worth the 60 cents I paid for it, haha.

PICTURE POST!!!!!

So, Erin and I were walking through a park in Shanghai and were accosted by this random man.  He really wanted to talk to us because according to him, "I HATE talking to the Shanghainese...they're so boring.  I only talk to foreigners."  He seemed really proud of his strenght, and he made us guess his age (88, if you were wondering).  He was also really proud of his teeth.  Apparently, its pretty common in China to lose all ones teeth, so keeping them at such a late age is a real feat.


This was a sign on a door in an antiques market we went to.  Strange things, these Chinese people.  I'm pretty sure if anyone had mammoth tusks, this dirty antiques market would not be where they were.
This was a window at a jiaozi shop.  The woman inside is rolling the dough that she then passes to her left where it is filled and steamed.
Since it's the year of the Ox in the Chinese zodiac calendar, there are oxes EVERYWHERE in China.  This was one of our favorite.

Inside the YuYuan gardens that I mentioned in my first post, there were all these bizarre...I dunno what you'd call them.  They're sort of like nativity scenes, but made out of paper, and I'm not really sure the purpose of them.  Oh, and there's another ox.

This is what the alleyways looked like.  Everything was REALLY  touristy, and Erin and I kept forgetting we were in China.  It was almost exactly like Epcot's China exhibit in Disney World.
In the middle of the pond is a famous tea house...I think it was called Huizhong.  Anyway, there were about a thousand people in or around it, so we never made it inside.

This was our view of the Pearl Tower at around 2:00 one day.  There was an insane amount of smog...it was kind of gross.

This is a picture of a public restroom near our school in Hangzhou.  For some reason, the sign said "Tool Room." Believe me, I'm just as confused as you are.
I was absolutely terrified to eat this at first.  I thought it was some monstrosity of congealed orange meat and maybe worms.  Turns out, it's candied lotus root.  Inside the holes of the root, they stuff sweet rice.  It was surprisingly good, but I think I might have been slightly allergic to it because after I ate it, my tongue went sort of numb and tingly for an hour or so.  Strange times.
And this is the famous Shanghai skyline.  I took this from my cellphone on the night of the lantern festival.  Such a cool experience.