Over two weeks have gone by since I last posted

First, the Summer Palace. We went there two weekends ago.

Not very much needs to said about this that you couldn't read on wikipedia, except that in that last picture you're looking at the view of, get ready: The Temple of the Dragon King. I'm not sure if there's a cooler title of a building than that. The Dragon King doesn't sit around protecting gold like those lame European dragons, no, instead he controls the weather and gets into fights with the monkey king.

I took too many pictures in painting class last week. I got all my homework finished up early last Tuesday so I could stay after and work on mei huar - beautiful flowers. I wasn't super successful, but it gave me peace of mind to devote some extra time to it.

Then, we celebrated Tan Qing's birthday and one of our friends brought over her new kitten, Chuanr. That means 'boat,' though she said it doesn't have any particular meaning. This cat looks like a fox. I can't stand how cute he is, and his meow is now coming in. Sometimes when I'm studying his mom (she lives the floor below me) brings him up and he runs around the apartment meowing his sweet little kitten meow. For some reason, he's fascinated with our toilet, so I chase him around the place trying to shoo him away, "I can't take it!! I can't take it!! He's too cute! I'm taking him home to America!"

On Thursday evening all of us CETers hopped onto a sleeper train, excited and all slowly getting sick (thanks to yours truly), onward to Xi'an. These pictures are us settling in. The especially terrifying one is everyone pretending to be ghosts? In Asia, ghosts usually have their hair in front of their face with their arms out stretched. And are really tall, from what I hear. In this rendition, they also like giving the middle finger.

That night we played the Chinese version of Never Have I Ever and Would You Rather. It turned out being really cute. I didn't get any pictures in of the set up, but the T sleeper train (T for tebie kuai, meaning "especially fast") has two sets of bunks, each bunk with three beds. The lights go out at 10:30, and we pulled into Xi'an around 8:00 AM. But at 7:00 loud music started playing, "welcoming" us into the city. There were rice fields. In one of those pictures you should be able to see a person, to give some perspective.

I'm not going to go into it, but CET absolutely loves to make us play the "Amazing Chase." Sound familiar? You know, that wonderful show on ABC where people run around the world seeking out cultural places etc. Really fun to watch. Maybe a little stressful to watch. Maybe more stressful to play, in the real world. It was me and my roommate, Rebecca (whose Chinese name is Mei Feng, by the way, and I might interchange those) and her roommate, Xiao-ou.

Fun fact, Mei Feng means beautiful breeze. Xiao-ou means... little seagull. Xiao-ou, how do I describe this girl? I can't. She kind of reminds me a little of my aunt Kathy. Every day is different - sometimes a little gangster, sometimes super femme, but always looking good.

Tan Qing and I have the perfect roommate relationship. When we're working in the room, there might be total silence for hours. When we talk there's plenty of mutual understanding and giggling, even if our conversations are often buffered by my saying, "I know that grammar's weird, but do you understand what I'm saying?"

Back to the story.

We were on our own to get to our hotel. I mean, that was easy enough, but kind of a uh...refreshing wake up call. I stole a shower in. Yessss.



Then we were given our first assignment - go to the Muslim quarter of Xi'an and get yourself some food. Take pictures of you eating the food. Love the food. Be the food. Well, not all that, but I'll tell you that this trip ended up being a very big eating food sort of deal.

Chinese has a phrase called xiao chi, which means "little eats/foods" - basically whatever you see on the street is a xiao chi, and then some restaurants are called xyz xiao chi.

I xiao chi'd the crap out of Saturday. Xi'an was filled with vendors selling all kind of dried fruit, ground up walnuts (tasting like the inside of a Butterfinger), meats, pumpkin rolls filled with whatever, tons and tons and tons, and it was all delicious. My absolute favorite of them all was some dough filled with dates and red bean paste. The fatter, more delicious and wonderful cousin of the Fig Newton.

After breakfast we meandered around the streets, and then went to an Islamic temple. Well, first we went to another one but women weren't allowed. "But that other lady's in the temple." "She's a journalist." "Oh... okay bye!"

Then to the real temple. It was there that we got a little tired of waiting for directions as to where the next location was. We bailed on the Amazing Chase after the second destination. So sue us. You would have, too. While whining we snacked and took pictures.

Where we went next just so happened to be the next stop on the Chase, which was this artist's shop in this little alley. Some really great folk art, I may have snagged a few pieces for 30 kuai a piece, myself.


Caught a taxi to the Pagoda built where the monk who first brought Buddhism from India to China translated thousands of texts. First walked around a bit,

smelled the incense, then climbed the seven stories of the pagoda,

and took pictures! That isn't fog.

The yard by the Pagoda was the most real-seeming green that I've seen since coming to China. We sat and relaxed for an hour or so. The green made me miss home.

Xi'an was pretty fun in general, though I could have done without the added stress. Doing that same kind of activity in New York would be stressful enough, I was thinking, but in China I already have trouble understanding what's going on to add on some competition to it. That day I was exhausted and sick and so my Chinese was especially bad. Some times I just have bad Chinese days, even if I haven't been reading or speaking a lot of English (not with CETers but when talking with home etc).

That night we went to one of the most famous dumpling places in China. I don't know, it was all right, but I realize that my palate is now totally spoiled to the food here. Check out this dish.

You might want to click on it to see it.

Take a guess at what it is. This is the type of stuff that only my dad is totally into. Actually, I'd eat it if I ate meat. Anyway, it's jellyfish!! Mm mmm. Are you... shocked?! Hee hee. Please forgive me.

On Saturday we went to see the Terra-cotta soldiers. I felt so grateful to see them, though I think the most interesting part of the whole story was that the man who discovered them was just some farmer trying to dig a well. And the site where he was digging the well was maybe like... three feet into the entire site of the Terra-cotta soldiers. So had he been just a hair farther away... we'd never have what we do today. It's kind of like the butterfly effect, you know? How many Terra-cotta soldiers have you missed out on in your life time, or what do you already have that you almost didn't?

The only thing that I'll add that Wikipedia couldn't tell you is that surrounding this wonderful UNESCO get away is America's own KFC. I've seen more KFCs here than McDonalds's.

That last picture shows the site of the well.

Now I'm back here and another week has gone by. This post took me SO LONG to put up because blogspot didn't want to put pictures up, and I refused to post without pictures. I've literally been trying since Monday.

The weather is getting kind of better, sometimes it's in the 50s now. At any rate, that's good enough for me to walk around some and... sample Beijing's street vendor's stuff!

For instance, five feet away from our dorm is a couple who sell pineapples. Get yourself two freshly-skinned pineapples for 5 kuai.

"I have kind of a not very smart question..."
"Hey, don't worry about it!"
"Okay. I want to buy your pineapple... but I don't know how to eat it."
"You just... eat it! Hold the stem and eat it."

Needless to say, the Chinese are my kind of people. I bought two and brought them back to the dorm. Rebecca and I crouched over the trash can, held the stems, and ate like animals (with opposable thumbs, Reed adds). Let me tell you, best pineapple eating experience of my life, though I had to wash my face afterwards. I will be finding the tool they use to skin the pineapples. It's too neat.

That was last week, so now me eating pineapples like that is old news!

This week there was a man selling what looked to be bamboo on the street. But my teacher said it was NOT bamboo, something sweet! "Like candy!" she said.

I walked up to the man and looked at what he was selling. Oh. OH! Sugar cane!

But these canes were, like, five feet tall.

"How much is that? I just want a really really small piece. NO NOT THAT BIG. Small. The smallest. Smaller! EXTREMELY SMALL. Perfect!"

Then he had me hold it as he took out this machete or something to slice it. "PLEASE DON'T CUT ME I'M SO NERVOUS." "Hey, it's nothing! I'm not going to cut you! Relax!" Then I handed him 3 kuai. He said I didn't speak Chinese too badly, and then asked if I was German.

Again, I went back to my dorm and learned for the eighth time that it is perfectly okay just to gnaw at some things. Bags of milk, pineapple, sugar cane, just gnaw! Meiguanxi!

A couple days ago I realized in a panic that I only have a little over two months left here. What?! My friend made me list out all the things that I want to do while I'm still here. After I did that, I actually felt pretty good - I don't have the loftiest of plans.

But Spring Break is going to be amazing.

We'll leave April 3rd, Friday night, and get on a train to Zhang You. Fast forward to early Sunday morning, when we arrive in Zhang You. Then on a bus to Jiu Jia Gou, one of the biggest and from what I hear most beautiful parks in China, to hike around. If you remember the scene from Hero where they sword fight over water... we're going to see that lake! On the 8th we'll head to Song Pan and spend a day or two there, and ride horses! Afterwards, to Chengdu. I'm so excited to see real green space here, and it's just a week away! I'll be going with Rebecca, Mickey, and Jiajia - all very cool and fun people who I'm looking forward to getting to know better. The only thing I'm afraid of is the food that awaits us. Sichuan is the spice capital of China. We'll be bringing lots of peanut butter.

Tomorrow me and Tan Qing and maybe some other people are going to go get an authentic Chinese massage. This is another thing that I've wanted to do since coming here. My back has been oddly tight since I've gotten here. One of my friends who will not be revealed felt my back after I told her how tense it was and said, "Dang. I'm going to let you in on a secret. I took a massage class a few years ago and you're the first person who I've felt like revealing that to. I will help you." Things might work out there.

I'm also working on procuring an erhu teacher... as well as an erhu.

The final plan is to see some real Beijing opera. I know that's not necessarily something that every college aged Beijinger is super into, but I figure that I'm here and ever since seeing Farewell, my Concubine in that Chinese culture class at Guilford I've wanted to see some.

Other than that, I'm happy just going to restaurants and wandering here and there. When the weather gets better, I hope that I'll be able to be outside more and experience Beijing.

Tonight... we're venturing to a Mexican food restaurant. Hah! The Chinese roommates are pumped. I'm also curious to see if it's Mexican or American Mexican. When I ate Mexican in Scotland it was ridiculously good but also unlike any Mexican food I'd ever eaten.

I have discovered a favorite food here, and that would be maladoufu - tingly/numb tofu. Chinese has two words for spicy, ma (numb) and la (tingly). I can handle ma, not la.

I just got finished talking about spring break plans with the group and I'm so pumped.

P.S. - as per some requests, here is a picture of a really nice Chinese bathroom.