For some reason none of the formatting is available with Safari on my friends computer, so no headings.
My parents came last weekend, so I did touristy things with them. That was good, since I'd done surprisingly little of it before by myself. First day, I took my parents and about 10 friends out to KTV (I'll get the pictures up once back in Nanjing). Spent all day 4 at the purple mountain, which is only 430 some meters tall, but is practically in Nanjing. I'd never really seen it though because of the smog. In between, ate a lot of good food.
Parents left monday night, so I pretty much spent all my time after that studying for midterms and being sick. Wednesday morning, I overslept and was awoken by a call from one of my classmates saying the midterm had started two minutes ago. Ran down 9 flights of stairs and took the test. I did fine, but over the course of the day I started feeling sick. I had a fever, so I got out of the next day's midterm which was this 10 minute dialogue that my partner and I hadn't written. In good enough shape the next morning to pack and make it on the plane to Chengdu, Sichuan Province.
Spent the first night in Chengdu, although we only really had time to eat dinner and crash because the next day we were going to Leshan. It was a two hour drive southwest of Chengdu. It's home of the largest sitting buddha which was carved into a cliff facing a river. It took 90 years to build and was completed in 803 A.D. It's supposedly like 24 stories tall, and it was pretty aweinspiring. We couldn't look up from the foot since there was a 3 hour wait. so we went right by it on the river.
Went to Mt. Emei city for the night, and today went up the mountain. The scenery was probably the best I've seen yet in China, practically a jungle. Back in Chengdu tonight and ate a hamburger at an excellent american-style restaurant. It's been so long since I've been american-style full, I practically can't move.
Saturday, October 20, 2007
Sunday, October 14, 2007
No Way to Update about Golden Week
I actually have some time to study, but I have a good internet connection so I'll update first. With my parents visiting, midterms coming up, followed by a 10 day trip to Chengdu in Sichuan, there is no way to go through every day of my trip during Golden Week. That said, I'll put up the best of my photos and outline what I did real quick.
Xian:
-Went to this awesome tomb where they have glass floors installed over the excavated trenches
-Went to the Great Mosque (largest mosque complex in China), and haggled for a small Mao Zedong messenger bag ($9) and a counterfeit NorthFace ($20) in the bazaar outside.
-Looked at and "mounted" the 9-story Big Goose Pagoda
The Bazaar outside the Great Mosque
Beijing:
-Went to Tiananmen and the Forbidden city, took like all the first day.
-First night, saw my friend Jon Kent and went to a Talib Kweli and Ozamatli (sp?) concert, which was amazing, but ridiculously tiring after walking all over.
-Second day, slept late, went to the Temple of Heaven, and found a marginally dirty hostel to replace my really dirty (cockroaches) hostel.
-Third day, Great Wall at Mutianyu, awesome as expected. Long distance bus to Huairou, no clear way from there, so got ripped off slightly by a guy with some car. He gave me a ride for 40 kuai, and I said I'd give him the same to pick me up. Didn't come, so I talked to a cop (in chinese) and he crammed me into a cheaper 10 kuai van with like 7 other people.
-Fourth day, went to Dongyue Temple. it's Taoist and dedicated to hell. There are shrines to all 8o some departments of hell. I love stuff like that, so it was great.
-Caught the 4 p.m. train back to Nanjing. Everything but the hard seats was sold out. I think I already said how uncomfortable that was.
Great Wall
Xian:
-Went to this awesome tomb where they have glass floors installed over the excavated trenches
-Went to the Great Mosque (largest mosque complex in China), and haggled for a small Mao Zedong messenger bag ($9) and a counterfeit NorthFace ($20) in the bazaar outside.
-Looked at and "mounted" the 9-story Big Goose Pagoda
The Bazaar outside the Great Mosque
Beijing:
-Went to Tiananmen and the Forbidden city, took like all the first day.
-First night, saw my friend Jon Kent and went to a Talib Kweli and Ozamatli (sp?) concert, which was amazing, but ridiculously tiring after walking all over.
-Second day, slept late, went to the Temple of Heaven, and found a marginally dirty hostel to replace my really dirty (cockroaches) hostel.
-Third day, Great Wall at Mutianyu, awesome as expected. Long distance bus to Huairou, no clear way from there, so got ripped off slightly by a guy with some car. He gave me a ride for 40 kuai, and I said I'd give him the same to pick me up. Didn't come, so I talked to a cop (in chinese) and he crammed me into a cheaper 10 kuai van with like 7 other people.
-Fourth day, went to Dongyue Temple. it's Taoist and dedicated to hell. There are shrines to all 8o some departments of hell. I love stuff like that, so it was great.
-Caught the 4 p.m. train back to Nanjing. Everything but the hard seats was sold out. I think I already said how uncomfortable that was.
Great Wall
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Epic China Adventure Day 2: Terracotta Warriors
Woke up at 7 a.m. on Saturday to get breakfast, and everybody was off to the train station by 9 to catch a bus to see the Terracotta Warriors.
When we boarded the bus, the bus employees were playing incredibly loud techno music videos which were pretty much women pole dancing. It was probably the most abrasive thing ever at that hour of the morning. Definitely the kind of thing that wouldn't fly with a bus company in the U.S., but funny.
We arrived and hired a guide for 150 yuan, which we probably could have haggled down. We got a 2 hour tour though, so for 25 yuan a piece, I can't really complain. We proceeded to walk around and get the standard run down. I'll spare the history except that the first emperor to unite china built a crazy burial site that included 50,000 detailed, life-size warriors comprised of all the ranks of a real army at the time.
For more go to: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terracotta_Army (link may or may not work)
Building 1 of 3 housing the most terracotta warriors. These guys were found in up to about 300 pieces and have been reassembled. This is only a fraction, and it may take 50 years or more to put the rest together.
Got back at about 3:30, and found a dingy restaurant for a late lunch/early dinner. Picked up my train ticket that a friend of Jerry's had bought for me, surfed the internet, started to feel really sick, and went to Pizza Hut since Kyle and Tom hadn't eaten with us. Pizza Hut was bizarrely upscale and expensive, so I'm glad I wasn't very hungry.
When we boarded the bus, the bus employees were playing incredibly loud techno music videos which were pretty much women pole dancing. It was probably the most abrasive thing ever at that hour of the morning. Definitely the kind of thing that wouldn't fly with a bus company in the U.S., but funny.
We arrived and hired a guide for 150 yuan, which we probably could have haggled down. We got a 2 hour tour though, so for 25 yuan a piece, I can't really complain. We proceeded to walk around and get the standard run down. I'll spare the history except that the first emperor to unite china built a crazy burial site that included 50,000 detailed, life-size warriors comprised of all the ranks of a real army at the time.
For more go to: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terracotta_Army (link may or may not work)
Building 1 of 3 housing the most terracotta warriors. These guys were found in up to about 300 pieces and have been reassembled. This is only a fraction, and it may take 50 years or more to put the rest together.
Got back at about 3:30, and found a dingy restaurant for a late lunch/early dinner. Picked up my train ticket that a friend of Jerry's had bought for me, surfed the internet, started to feel really sick, and went to Pizza Hut since Kyle and Tom hadn't eaten with us. Pizza Hut was bizarrely upscale and expensive, so I'm glad I wasn't very hungry.
Monday, October 8, 2007
Epic China Advenure Day 1: Xi'an
Got back from my trip at 6 a.m. on Saturday, but have been too lazy to update the blog. I took a hard seat back from Beijing, which is the least comfortable of the four classes (soft sleeper, hard sleeper, soft seat, hard seat). So I didn't get much sleep. My sleep schedule's been pretty erratic since, with a two or three hour nap punctuating every day.
That said, here are some pictures:
Xi'an
Left for the first leg of the trip on Thursday at 4 p.m on a hard sleeper train. I went with five other people from my program (Mei-Chun, Kari, Ben, Tom, and Kyle), so we took up a whole compartment to ourselves. So we spent the first seven or eight hours chilling on the bottom bunks and eating from a tremendous pile of snacks. Talked to this Chinese guy who's an engineer in Shanghai on the train for a bit. He was on his way to Lanzhou I think. Lights out at 10 (I think) probably got five hours of sleep, up at 5:30 a.m. to get off the train. I was immediately surprised by how much colder it was getting off the train, Xi'an being far north of Nanjing, in Shaanxi province (not to be confused with Shanxi province) in north central China.
Went to our hostel, which at 100 yuan a night was very nice. Stayed in three double rooms f of open courtyards. There were four computers with free Internet up front, a bar in the basement and a cafe in the back. Dropped our stuff off, had a "American breakfast," and then went on to see the city's bell and drum towers.
The cafe at the back of Shuyuan Youth Hostel in Xian. I wouldn't know how good I had it until I traveled on to Beijing.
The south gate of the Xian city wall. Our hostel was located about 100 yards to the west. The old city walls are completely intact, albeit with some restoration and rebuilding (although it seems everything in China has at one point or another been damaged and rebuilt or restored). The wall is 12 m high and 18 m thick at the base, and comes with a moat running along the outside. You could walk around the entire 14 km of wall and arrive back at the south gate. I did not.
Every city that has been a former dynastic capital of China has a bell and drum tower in order to inform people of the accurate time. The bell tower sounded at sunrise, and the drum tower sounded at sunset. These were built under the Ming (14th century) and rebuilt under the Qing dynasty (18th century). In all, Xi'an has been the capital of 11 dynasties, some back when the ancient city was called Chang'an.
The bell tower had an exhibit dedicated to Chinese shadow puppets from several different provinces which was kind of cool. Bell tower had a traditional music show involving a large set of bells and the drum tower had the same with drums.
In front of a replica bell at the bell tower. Pictured, left to right: Tom from NU, me, Kari from Lehigh, Mei Chun from University of Washington, and Kyle from OSU. Not pictured: Ben from Grinell taking the picture.
The drum tower
The large Muslim Quarter was adjacent to the drum tower, so we found a restaurant there for lunch. None of us could really decipher the menu, so we got a bunch of chuanr (meat on a stick, in this case lamb), some sort of circular flat bread, and a vinegary tasting cucumber dish. In addition, Ben and I got some excellent and incredibly spicy chicken wings.
Then went back to the hostel, where our hour long naps quickly turned into three hours. For dinner, we went to a massive jiaozi (dumpling) restaurant that had like 5 floors. The more floors you went up the more expensive the restaurant gets. We stayed on the bottom floor, which meant nobody spoke English. Service was pretty awful, as jiaozi only trickled to the table. We would point to things we wanted only vaguely knowing some ingredients in it with no way of knowing whether it actually made it to the table. We got desert later at KFC (kenduji).
Later that night, we just went down to the bar for live music. It was one girl covering English songs, but it was relaxed enough.
Other stuff
This is going to take a long time to update on, with all the pictures I took. I'll try to do one or more a day about my travels during golden week. This weekend, my parents will be visiting from Thursday through Monday, then going on to see the rest of the country. The following week I have midterm exams and my research project proposal is due. That Thursday we leave for the 10-day long "Chengdu Module" in Chengdu, Sichuan province. The module is organized by the program and we'll be attending classes and lectures in addition to sight seeing. The next three weeks will fly by.
That said, here are some pictures:
Xi'an
Left for the first leg of the trip on Thursday at 4 p.m on a hard sleeper train. I went with five other people from my program (Mei-Chun, Kari, Ben, Tom, and Kyle), so we took up a whole compartment to ourselves. So we spent the first seven or eight hours chilling on the bottom bunks and eating from a tremendous pile of snacks. Talked to this Chinese guy who's an engineer in Shanghai on the train for a bit. He was on his way to Lanzhou I think. Lights out at 10 (I think) probably got five hours of sleep, up at 5:30 a.m. to get off the train. I was immediately surprised by how much colder it was getting off the train, Xi'an being far north of Nanjing, in Shaanxi province (not to be confused with Shanxi province) in north central China.
Went to our hostel, which at 100 yuan a night was very nice. Stayed in three double rooms f of open courtyards. There were four computers with free Internet up front, a bar in the basement and a cafe in the back. Dropped our stuff off, had a "American breakfast," and then went on to see the city's bell and drum towers.
The cafe at the back of Shuyuan Youth Hostel in Xian. I wouldn't know how good I had it until I traveled on to Beijing.
The south gate of the Xian city wall. Our hostel was located about 100 yards to the west. The old city walls are completely intact, albeit with some restoration and rebuilding (although it seems everything in China has at one point or another been damaged and rebuilt or restored). The wall is 12 m high and 18 m thick at the base, and comes with a moat running along the outside. You could walk around the entire 14 km of wall and arrive back at the south gate. I did not.Every city that has been a former dynastic capital of China has a bell and drum tower in order to inform people of the accurate time. The bell tower sounded at sunrise, and the drum tower sounded at sunset. These were built under the Ming (14th century) and rebuilt under the Qing dynasty (18th century). In all, Xi'an has been the capital of 11 dynasties, some back when the ancient city was called Chang'an.
The bell tower had an exhibit dedicated to Chinese shadow puppets from several different provinces which was kind of cool. Bell tower had a traditional music show involving a large set of bells and the drum tower had the same with drums.
In front of a replica bell at the bell tower. Pictured, left to right: Tom from NU, me, Kari from Lehigh, Mei Chun from University of Washington, and Kyle from OSU. Not pictured: Ben from Grinell taking the picture.
The drum tower
The large Muslim Quarter was adjacent to the drum tower, so we found a restaurant there for lunch. None of us could really decipher the menu, so we got a bunch of chuanr (meat on a stick, in this case lamb), some sort of circular flat bread, and a vinegary tasting cucumber dish. In addition, Ben and I got some excellent and incredibly spicy chicken wings.
Then went back to the hostel, where our hour long naps quickly turned into three hours. For dinner, we went to a massive jiaozi (dumpling) restaurant that had like 5 floors. The more floors you went up the more expensive the restaurant gets. We stayed on the bottom floor, which meant nobody spoke English. Service was pretty awful, as jiaozi only trickled to the table. We would point to things we wanted only vaguely knowing some ingredients in it with no way of knowing whether it actually made it to the table. We got desert later at KFC (kenduji).
Later that night, we just went down to the bar for live music. It was one girl covering English songs, but it was relaxed enough.
Other stuff
This is going to take a long time to update on, with all the pictures I took. I'll try to do one or more a day about my travels during golden week. This weekend, my parents will be visiting from Thursday through Monday, then going on to see the rest of the country. The following week I have midterm exams and my research project proposal is due. That Thursday we leave for the 10-day long "Chengdu Module" in Chengdu, Sichuan province. The module is organized by the program and we'll be attending classes and lectures in addition to sight seeing. The next three weeks will fly by.
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