First Chinese Mountain Down

We all woke up and met at 530am to begin our journey. Even though it was so early, the roads were extremely busy and trying to pay attention to so many cars and other bikers at the same time was a new experience for me. On our bike ride we went through the outskirts of Beijing. This part of the city was vastly different than what we had been used to. At one point, we stopped in a local street market to get some breakfast and we could all tell by the looks that we received that most of the people there had never seen a foreigner before. It's times like this I wish I knew more Chinese so I could fully understand what people were saying about us. It took us about 2.5 hours to bike to the park where the mountain was. The road up to the park was basically empty except for a few fruit stands. It was refreshing to finally be away from the dense city.

Once we finally reached the base of the mountain, we paid our fee to enter and came up with creative ways to lock our bikes together so that they wouldn't get stolen. After looking at the park map we decided the best course of action was to try to climb the smaller mountain since it also had a natural spring on its path. The trail to the mountain was pretty well paved and just consisted of a bunch of rocks formed into steps. The trail was completely empty until later in the day when we got closer to the top. The natural spring was very interesting. Apparently people come from all over Beijing to collect water from it and bring it back with them. I was extremely impressed with how nice and cool the water was. The runoff of the spring water, however, was not very nice and was extremely polluted. It probably took us about 3 hours to reach the top. The trail was very indirect and had many flatter areas that circled around the mountain. At the top there was a paved road and more paths that led to other mountains and temples. It was extremely smoggy the entire day so we were unable to see anything when we reached the top.

The hike down was extremely hard on my knees and we were all dreading the 15 mile bike ride back to campus. On the bike ride back we got to experience what it was like biking in rush hour traffic. It was extremely intense with cars driving in the bike lane and little space for us to go anywhere. By the time we made it back to campus it was already 6pm. We grabbed some dinner at one of our favorite local places and then headed back to the dorm to shower and relax. By about 730 we all had passed out from exhaustion. I'll post the picture I took tomorrow after class but most of them are just smoggy outlines of mountains. This trip was the most enjoyable one so far and it was extremely nice getting to be away from the crowded and noisy city.

Mountain Trip

Today my friends and I spent all day trying to acquire bikes we could use for tomorrow to travel to a national park and mountain nearby. Right when it looked like we wouldn't be able to find bikes to rent our Chinese teacher, Li laoshi, found a place and bargained the prices down so we could rent 3 bikes for our trip tomorrow. It is only costing us $3 US to rent the bikes for the weekend. Having a bike here is quite nice though and after using it today we are all thinking about getting one for the rest of our time here.

We're leaving at 6am and are going to bike to the base of the mountain which is about 15 miles away. At the base there is a temple and then we are going to climb to the top and ride our bikes back to our school. Lately, it has been very smoggy in Beijing and there has been a lot of noticeable pollution. We're hoping we will get lucky and have a great day for our decent to the top. Depending on how this trip goes, we are also planning on climbing the highest mountain in Beijing next weekend. I'm very excited to see what the park and mountain is like tomorrow. We drove past a lot of mountains on our way to Chengde last weekend and they all looked very unique. It will be nice to get out of the city again and do some more rural exploring. I'll be sure to update the blog and post some pictures once we get back.

I'm back!

I got a little behind falling into the swing of things the first couple weeks but my new goal is to update the blog at least once every day, even if its something small. Along with this I'm adding a new album of photos I took over my fall break on our trip to the Great Wall and Chengde, China.

The Great Wall was a very different area than where I went to when I first came to visit China. This time, instead of climbing up countless stairs, we simply walked up a paved road all the way to the top. We also started much closer to the wall. In total, it only took us about 10 minutes to reach the top. Many people in the program were still complaining until I told them what it was like the first time I climbed the wall.

Chengde is a city north of Beijing located in Hebei province that is known for its Buddhist temples and the mountain resort which is a vast imperial garden formerly used by the emperors of the Qing Dynasty. The most astonishing thing about the city was how much of it was under construction. The first half of the city was full of skyscraper tall apartment buildings that were all being constructed simultaneously. You could definitely tell that Chengde was being transformed into a high caliber city.

We saw 2 temples while in Chengde. They were both pretty cool but my favorite part of the trip was exploring the city and being in the mountain resort. The center of the mountain resort is very similar to that of the Forbidden City and is full of little artifacts; however, outside the center is an enormous closed off area of land that has many lakes and natural vegetation. Getting to see the more ancient type of Chinese landscape that has been preserved was very cool and quite peaceful. I imagine this is what it will be like when I go on my end of the semester trip through Southern China.

While in Chengde we also met some Wiggers who came from the north east part of the country. They spoke both Mandorin and Wigger, which is a mix between Chinese and Arabic-like words and sounds. It was very interesting to see this different ethnic group. We hung out with them for a while after we ate some of the food they were selling. They played cards with us and tried to teach us a new game which was a lot of fun. Overall, they were extremely nice and friendly which is contrary to what I have heard from some of the Han Chinese. I look forward to getting to interact with other ethnic minorities and seeing the many different perspectives of the people in China.

Don't Trust the Art Students

This weekend our program took us all to the Forbidden City. Once inside the city some local chinese got the attention of our group and told us they were from the Beijing Art School and were holding an exhibit. My friends and I went along with the large group from our school to check it out. Once inside, Igor (one of my friends here) commented on what kind of art exhibit tries to sell all of their works of art. I also found this strange but I guess quite a few of the students didn't. After this realization, Igor and I decided to bail and retreat into the shade to wait for the rest of our friends to leave the "exhibit." One of our friends ended up buying a scroll painting for quite hefty price. They told her that all of the art in the "exhibit" was original and done by either students or professors at the school. The painting included 2 pandas that looked like a 4 year old had drawn. It got quite a few laughs out of us at the time but it was even funnier when we discovered the exact same paintings later on at the Pearl Market--so much for the supposed original work of art at the exhibit. Other students got ripped off even worse and paid as much as $100 US for these paintings. So if you ever go to the Forbidden City, remember, don't trust the art students...

InterestingThings in China part 1

Deodorant is virtually nonexistent -- my roommate had to prepurchase it at the store and then someone went in the back and retrieved a tiny stick.

Pirating is socially acceptable and the viewpoint is why would you pay for it if you can acquire it for free. For example, in the US equivalent of Wal-Mart people were watching a stolen recording of the Expendables like it was no big deal and there was no risk of punishment.

Couples often wear matching shirts or clothes to signify that they are dating.

All of the cellphones have preprogrammed ringbacks on them that change every time you call someone instead of hearing the usual ringing sound.

I'll add some more when I think of them but I wanted to get a list started

First Full Week Done

The first week is officially over. All of my classes went pretty well. I'm enjoying my language class a lot and its much nicer to be able to learn the language in a less stressful environment. The content classes all seem interesting and I still can't tell how difficult they are actually going to be.

Tomorrow we have our first excursion with our program to the Forbidden City. Since I've visited there before I think its going to be interesting to see if its changed at all. I'm also panning on looking for a night market to go to after our excursion. I have a lot of things on my list I still need to get like a dvd player, a clothes rack, and more clothes in general.

The food here all looks good but I haven't found much I like so far. My stomach has definitely shrunk since I've been here and it takes much less food to make me full. It's nice that I'm starting to adjust to it though. We still haven't figured out how to do laundry--right now we're just hand washing things and hanging them up to dry. We're going to try to figure out a better system over the weekend.

Soccer

We found endless pickup games of Soccer today. The Chinese play very differently than the game I'm use to and focus heavily on making short passes, it's a nice change. It's extremely easy to go to the field and play whenever you want to. In the US I can never find any games so I plan on playing here almost daily.

We went to Xidan yesterday, it was a very cool place but we only had a few hours to spend there. I plan to go back in the next week or so and explore more. It was interesting to see the mixture of a real western like mall next to a market mall. The pollution here is absolutely terrible--at night in the air all around you is extremely hazy and you can easily tell how much pollution there is due to the lights. We're going to Wodaoku tonight--its a foreigner friendly place and it will be interesting to see how different it is from Xidan. Still working on pictures--it's hard to remember to take pictures everywhere but I'm starting to get into the habit.

End of Orientation

Today was our last day of orientation. It consisted mainly of just picking up our books and getting ready for classes to start tomorrow. I also had to go get some more clothes since I only packed 3 tshirts. My roommates and I went to Carrefour to get clothes and school supplies. It's a huge supermarket located inside a giant shopping plaza. I bought notebooks, pens, pencils, highlighters, shampoo, body wash, face wash, 3 collared shirts, 1 tshirt, some chinese dessert bread, and a soccer ball for a total of $42 us dollars. We can already tell it is going to be hard to readjust to regular prices when we get back to the US.

I'm still trying to adjust to the time change here and can't stay awake past 1030 but I wanted to write a short update before I fell asleep. Once I adjust and can keep awake later I will post more detailed logs with some pictures and be better at updating more frequently.

Orientation day 1

My first full day in Beijing was focused around how much Mandorin I have forgotten. We had our language placement exams and I couldn't recall a lick of Chinese. Stopping for a year after taking it truly made me forget the language. I expect relearning the language will come quickly though since you are constantly being bombarded by it. Peking University is absolutely enormous--it's like our own private part of Beijing.

My roommate and I wondered out into the city this afternoon--it is astonishing how much it has grown even since the last time i was here 2 years ago. We walked through the local stores and you could tell people were wondering why we were in there. I'd occasionally try to speak the little Chinese I can recall to the workers but then they think I know more than I actually do and would instantly start speaking extremely fast making it impossible to communicate. I think the speed of the language is going to be the hardest part about trying to use it while I'm here.

Crossing traffic in the city is insane! Imagine trying to cross the street in New York or Chicago but add as much bike traffic as there is car traffic and then couple that with the fact that many of the drivers are recently from rural parts of China and have no regard to common traffic laws. It's intense and makes you feel like the frog in frogger-- you just have to go for it when you get an opening and cross little by little haha

I aim to start using my camera here once I get situated and will post pictures when I can.