旧金山欢迎你！

Chinese people do some funny stuff on planes (and trains too, I guess, but it’s always weirder on a plane). Maybe it’s because the majority of the country does not normally travel by plane nor has ever stepped foot on a plane. Jenna was even once asked if airplane food was any good by a student!

“We’re here!”

On every domestic flight I’ve ever taken in China, at least one person jumps out of their seat immediately after landing and still on the tarmac to reach to the overhead bins and gather their stuff. Then a frantic stewardess has to sprint down the aisle to tell them to sit down until we reach the gate. This sometimes works, but they are always so surprised to hear that it might be dangerous to be walking around when the plane has just landed (I’m talking wheels touching the ground here!).

Free food?!

You don’t get snacks on a train, so it doesn’t surprise me that Chinese people get very excited about plane snacks. I’ve gotten some pretty interesting plane snacks, including

dried jujubes and

a giant package of parsley-flavored(?) crackers.

There’s also the inevitable wiping of the face using the complimentary wet napkin, which always grosses me out. On my last domestic flight between Kunming and Beijing, we got the most random assortment of sacks I’ve ever encountered: a dinner roll with jam, a brown cupcake (I don’t know what flavor it was, just brown), and a packaged soy sauce hard boiled egg. Then I looked over and the man and woman next to me ate the jelly with a fork and wondered why it tasted so sweet.

Lights out!

On my flight to San Francisco, the lights went out after dinner, the normal attempt to try to get everyone to sleep to adjust to the time better. I didn’t sleep much and watched two movies, The Road and The Men Who Stare at Goats. There were also some American movies (and one about the Cultural Revolution… shocking) but they were dubbed over.

Anywho, when the lights went out, the guy sitting diagonal of me yelled “EHH???” and then whistled at the stewardesses before he and his friend figured out that they could simply turn on their own lights from their seat. I laughed silently in my seat.

So I guess typing this on the plane will be my last of the China-tastic experiences for a while. I mean, unless I happen to go to a Chinese grocery store with my mom (very likely) or go to NYC Chinatown (also likely).

On a side note, the Rockband app for the iPhone is insanely awesome.

See ya later, China!

Departing Qingdao at 10:00am, landing in San Francisco at 11:20AM.  It only takes 1 hour and 20 minutes to cross the Pacific!  Actually, I'll be leaving Beijing at 4:00 PM, which means that I am going 5 hours and 40 minutes backwards.  This really is the future!

I love Beijing

There's something about this city that never fails to amaze me. It's partially the history, and the fact that I was hanging out at the Temple of Heaven park yesterday, built just a few years ago in 1407. It's also the sheer size and magnitude of the city, with it's five ring roads and it's 8 subway lines. Oh, and don't forget that with a population of 16 million, mass transit takes on a whole new form.

Maybe it is the memories of my months here in 2007 as a student which were not only marked by drinking large quantities of Tsingtao beer, but also with exploring and becoming familiar with the unfamiliar. I think I'm on my way to making plenty of new Beijing and China memories though.

I've been staying with my friend Cathy who is doing the abroad program I did 2.5 years ago and staying in the dorms this weekend, a mere 2 floors exactly above my old room. We ate at the famed Medicine House when I got in- it was still as good as I remember it.

Friday I went to say hello to a lot of my old teachers and program directors. I totally surprised them which was funny. They also find it amusing that most of my group of friends from Beida are back or trying to come back to China.

Yesterday I dragged cathy out to the Temple of Heaven park because I had never been before. It was really big and filled with old people singing, dancing, playing cards, and exercising. The prayer halls were really beautiful and very colorfully restored. Then I took Cathy over to one of my favorite areas, nanluoguxiang, to eat at a little southern Chinese restaurant (two little southern girls like to complain about northern food and it's lack of flavor) which is one of my favorites in Beijing.

We ended up meeting her friends and KTV'ing until midnight too, so it was a pretty China day yesterday. I'm going to take her to Lush for breakfast (I don't know how she hasn't been yet!) and then we are going to the Silk Market, of course.

I have an early morning train back to Qingdao tomorrow, officially marking the end of my China vacation and the start of my American one.

Thanks for the blue skies, Beijing!

Victory! (And a blister to prove it)

Tiger Leaping Gorge was amazing.  The first day was pretty rough, especially the 28 Bends path which was pretty much an upward climb to 2670m complete with 28 hairpin turns for about 2 hours straight.  From there, it was pretty much downhill with beautiful views of the mountains and rapids. 

We stayed overnight at a hostel called Halfway House which is well known for its prime location and scenic toilets.  They had open-air squatty potties (troughs, actually) but they faced the mountains and made for an exciting bathroom visit.  There was also a terrace (appropriately labeled "Inspiration Terrace") where the three of us watched the stars at night and listened to the gorge.  The sunrise was also beautiful and I wish I had been able to fully capture how beautiful it was.

The next day we hiked to Tina's Guesthouse from which we hiked down into the gorge itself.  There were two sets of ladders, the longer one having about 40+ steps that were vertical and quite rickety!  We walked along the edge of the gorge and managed to see two of the three 'tiger jumps' before we turned back because of an aggressive beggar woman.  It was really great to go from the top of the mountains to the very bottom in two days. 

The last night we stayed at Sean's guesthouse, the oldest one in the valley and the most famed.  We spent the night looking at the stars and relaxing by the fire.  My legs were really sore (hiking down means hiking up!) and I have a huge blister on my right foot.  When we got back to Mama Naxi's the next day, Jenna and I immedeately did laundry and boy, was our wash water black!  We had to run three cycles before we felt the water was clean enough to put our clothes in spin dry.  This is also the first time we've done laundry in about two weeks. 

Zaijian, pengyoumen

Sean left for Xishuangban'na yesterday evening and we were quite sad to see him leave, but excited that he's going to backpack his way through the Philipines and other places before ending up in New Zealand.  Jenna and I were very fortunate to find such a positive and easy-going travel buddy!  Jenna (and Andy) left for Chengdu a few hours ago and will return to Qingdao before going to Beijing and then on to Taiwan, her new home and job. 

I leave for Kunming tonight on an overnight train to spend a day before I fly out to Beijing on the 28th to meet up with Cathy and do my Beijing thing.  I'm a little frustrated right now though, because you can only add money to your cell phone from the home province and I am a little SOL right now when it comes to calls, but can still text.  China makes no sense sometimes (or a lot, actually). 

America in NINE days!

Welcome to Yunnan

We left Guilin on a rainy day and managed to find Sean right before he attempted to buy a train ticket with pictures (three stick figures) and a lonely planet phrasebook. The sleeper train was great- our car wasn't full and we met a cool group of kids who had been working at a rock climbing company in Yangshuo. They were also totally nuts (one dropped her phone down the toilet on the train) but made for good company on the train ride. We stayed up pretty late drinking Snow beers (!!!) in the dining car (then another one of them tried to steal a train conductor's hat and then after I woke him up, tried to return it naked).

I bought a camera charger yesterday, so photos of the trip onward will be plentiful. Kunming is a really chill city and it's warm during the day and a litle brisk at night. We walked around the public park yesterday and it was filled with ladies dancing, old guys singing, and kids playing. The funniest part was when a little girl yelled "外国 人!" (foreigners!) at the top of her lungs at Sean and Jenna. Her parents laughed and I nearly died! Then we had a really amazing Yunnan dinner (lonely planet never fails!) complete with fried yak cheese, prawns in a foil bag lit tableside, and chili battered fish.

This morning we got up early to head over to the Stone Forest in Shilin, about 120km southwest of Kunming. However our early start was negated when we took the wrong bus and then decided to buy our train tickets to Dali.

Ok so... the train station is already a zoo and it's one month until Spring Festival. There are huge gazebo tents and portable dividers outside the train station to sell tickets. There are even army guys with batons to direct people lining up to the next open window! I'm so glad I'm getting out of here next month.

Anyway, the Stone Forest took about 2.5 hours to get to and was also a whopping 170元 per ticket. The place was overrun with Chinese tour groups, complete with matching hats and whistles. The perifery was amazing though and the park is like looking at another planet. Imagine pointy grey rocks protruding from the ground... covering many hills.

We met a group of Germans that had been on the road for months, driving from Germany, through Iran, Pakistan, Tibet, Krygystan and now China. They had an orange van and this huge red sandcrawler thing which they have been driving around. Theyre going to Laos, Burma, and
Vietnam next, so watch out! Try orangetrotter.de or project-Asia.com to follow their travels.

This leg of the adventure was fun and a lot slower paced than before with pleasant weather and random people. tomorrow we take a morning train to Dali and should be there in the evening. Happy MLK day!

I'm exhausted!

This morning, Jenna, Sean and I headed out on our bikes to Moon Hill. It's basically a giant hill with a hole in the middle. We blimbed up to the top, which had an amazing view of the countryside. It realy was spectacular. We even found Caerin, the Irish guy from Guilin, up there!

Then we biked for 20km to Puxi before we realized there was nothing out there. We were also starving and wouldn't have been able to bike back before nighttime... Plus I apparently found the last bus back to Yangshuo, so we headed back completely exhausted. It was a bizarre little day and I was so close to just calling it quits towards the end. Plus, my jeans now have a rip in the butt! Considering that I only have two pairs with me, this really sucks. I'm going to have to buy some Chinese girl pants soon.

Tomorrow we (Sean will probably be with us the rest of the way) will take an 18 hour long train to Kunming.

On to Yunnan!

Yangshuo: Part One

Taking the bus to Yangshuo was funny- the lady at the hostel told us to wait on a curb for the bus. So we were waiting and thought we were in the wrong place until a bus came slowly towards us, with a woman hanging out the open door yelling "Yangshuo! Yangshuo!"

Our hostel here, the Giggling Tree, is really unique and is owned by a Dutch couple that bought a farm village 4km outside the main town and converted it into a hostel. We're in the middle of a field and
surrounded by the karst peaks. It's a refreshing change from the tourist trap that is West Street.

Last night we just walked around West Street, where I had an amazing veggie burger (with cheese and fries was only 18rmb!) and drank some crappy local beer. We had a hard time finding a cab afterward so we bargained and hopped on the back of a motorcycle to come back!

Today we met a woman who teaches in Shenzhen and her parents who are staying in the hostel. We took a bus up to Yangdi and then walked a trail for 3 hours along the Li River. It was beautiful and surreal. Pictures don't do this place justice. Then we took a bamboo river raft down to Xingping, which has the Karst scenery that is pictured on the back of the 20rmb note. No, we didn't have a 20rmb note.

Tonight we ate at a really great vegetarian restaurant and are just hanging out at the hostel now. I love staying at hostels because you meet the nicest people that make great day trip buddies. Tomorrow we're going to hike another trail nearby that ends at a great Karst mountain but will probably use bikes for most of it.

On another note... something is wrong with my iPod and the volume up button is jammed so the annoying square in the middle of my screen won't go away and I had to lock my sound. I miss my pals at the apple store.

First Stop: Guilin

Jenna and I arrived in Guilin late Sunday night and settled into our hostel (Wada hostel, if you're ever down here).  Our dorm was really nice and we even had our own little bathroom!  Monday morning we woke up and walked to the market behind the hostel to grab some breakfast.  I bought four yummy baozi for 1kuai and then we walked over to McDonalds, where I discovered that my backpack had been opened and my wallet had been stolen! 

We ran back to the alley, but the baozi woman said that she remembered me putting my wallet back in my bag.  I started panicking, running around the alley and was just about to give up and start calling my banks when I checked my backpack again.  My bag had been opened again and the thief had put my wallet back in my bag, without the cash, but everything else intact!  I'm almost more angry that they snuck by me twice, but I guess its better that I lost 300RMB rather than 300RMB + ATM cards.  So that was my exciting morning.  Grr! 

Jenna and I then headed to the Solitary Peak, this giant stone that is the highest peak in Guilin.  We climbed to the top and even though it was a cloudy day, the view of Guilin was spectacular.  We also walked around the park, that was actually Guilin Normal University.  Those lucky students have such a nice campus!  When we headed back to our hostel, we had a new roommate named Caerin from Ireland.  The three of us then went to the Sun and Moon Pagodas to see them illuminated at night, which was also very pretty. 

We ate at a Northeastern China restaurant which was alright and then we went to a random Irish bar (Caerin's request) and were accosted by some Chinese men.  They always want to speak in English with foreigners, buy foreigners drinks, and then 'gan bei' every five seconds. It was a rather funny night, if anything, but definitely not what I would call "cool" Chinese people. 

We're headed to Yangshuo this afternoon where we will be staying at a hostel called The Giggling Tree, which is owned by a Dutch couple who basically bought a village and turned it into a hostel. It should be interesting. 

Till next time~

Adventure Itinerary

My grades are done!  I slogged through and only failed five students.  There were a whole bunch that got by with a 60 or 65, because I'm merciful, but I failed the kids that never even bothered to show up but once or twice.  I'm going to turn in my grades tomorrow and then it's off on vacation with Jenna.  It's the trip I've been dreaming about doing since I left China and I am very excited to travel down to the southwest region.  So here goes...

Jenna & Alison's January Adventure

January 10-12
Guilin

January 13-15
Yangshuo

January 16-18
Kunming

January 19-21
Dali

January 22-23
Lijiang

January 23-25
Tiger Leaping Gorge

January 26-27
Go back to Lijiang, take train to Kunming

January 28-31
Beijing

February 1
Take train back to Qingdao

February 4
Flight to AMERICA!

I'll have wifi at the hostels I'm staying at and will be posting via email.  Since I went to Yangshuo two years ago, I knew I wanted to come back.  This time we will not be staying on the super-touristy West Street, but instead will be staying at a village-turned-hostel about 3km away from the Yangshuo hotspot.

I've also been very interested in the Yunnan province for about two years now and am looking forward to exploring Naxi villages and seeing many Buddhist temples.  The Tiger Leaping Gorge, of course, is bound to be the high point of the trip and will take us 3 days to hike there and back.  I am also looking forward to spending time in Dali and seeing the famous Stone Forest.

Exciting stuff over here!  Until the next post...

New Years in Shanghai

新年快乐！Happy New Year!

I spent my New Years weekend in Shanghai with my friend Max, who is interning at a law firm translating documents and such.  Getting to the city was annoying because not only was my plane 20 minutes delayed leaving from Qingdao because of a late arrival, but the Maglev was broken, so I had to take an airport bus into the city.  Fortunately, I was sitting next to a very nice Chinese man who helped me to figure out which subway stop to take to meet Max for Japanese teppanyaki courtesy of his German roommate, Daniel, and his parents.

Then we went to drop my stuff off and by the time we managed to catch a cab (it was a serious debacle trying to get one and I actually shoved my way into a cab before another guy could), it was about 11:30 PM.  We headed to Kangaroo Bar, grabbed a quick drink and were surrounded by fire torches at the stroke of midnight!

The Modern Shanghai

The next morning I wanted to go to The Bund, but it was closed for renovations for the Shanghai Expo.  I'm still pissed I didn't get to stroll on the famous Bund, which was the only 'must-do' in Shanghai for me.  The expo has seriously taken over the city, with pictures of the little Expo mascot (which looks like a mini-Gumby), countdown clocks, and slogans everywhere.  It's just as crazy as Beijing was about the Olympics.

We walked around on East Nanjing Road, a kind of giant pedestrian mall swarming with tourists and huge billboards.  There was a huge Sephora, Zara, and a huge Nike store with Kobe Bryant on it.

After much wandering around the area, avoiding construction sites and swarming Jan1st tourist mobs, I finally got to take a nice photo in front of the famous Shanghai/Pudong skyline!

Amidst all the development, large malls, and skyscrapers, I was amazed by Shanghai's assortment of public parks.  There are many "little" parks in the downtown area, some complete with little lakes, paddle boats and bumper cars for kids, squares for public ballroom dancing, and places to sit.

And that's about when I concluded that there was nothing that hadn't been run over by hyper-development... so the search for the "real" Shanghai began.

We went to the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Museum in his old house in the French Concession.  I have a lot of respect and love for the man and think he did some really amazing things when he was President of the Republic, including being fluent in English and traveling around the world.  The house was really cool and I totally nerd-ed out looking at old photos and artifacts. 

That evening, we went out to get Korean BBQ with the Germans.  Max and I were really tired from walking around the city all day, so we tried to make it a chill night and go out to a jazz club.  We ended up being too early for the show, so we went back to Kangaroo Bar for a drink or two, and ended up leaving four hours later.  Chinese people are awesome.

In Search of Old Shanghai

The next morning, we headed out to Jade Buddha Temple which houses this GIANT statue of Buddha made out of a single chunk of jade.  It was really neat and the temple was also pretty active.

 

(Not the Jade Buddha.  No pictures allowed in that hall.)

After this, we wandered into a neighborhood not far from People's Square where people (a) didn't live in high rise buildings and (b) weren't surrounded by Western stores.  I love taking pictures of the vendors and stores here and would have taken a picture of every single one if I could. 

 

We also wandered into a pretty cool Daoist temple nearby, which had a ceremony of sorts and some really awesome statues.

 

I find East Asian religions fascinating and always feel a little sacrilegious (read: Catholic guilt) when I take photos in temples.  They are just so intricate and interesting to me that I can't help but take pictures!

Where is Shanghai?

I realize I'm being a huge China snob when I start separating what is "real" and "fake" Shanghai.  But what makes Shanghai, well, Shanghai?  Is it the skyscrapers or is it the old buildings that are being razed to make room for the high-rise buildings?  Or even the Shanghainese feeling that they are superior to the rest of the Chinese?  Maybe it's because I came to appreciate China in Beijing, but Shanghai is just so unlike what I know that it baffles me. 

So that's my "little" post about Shanghai.  I've been really busy this week because it is exam week and I have to grade 500 students!  Next post: Spring Vacation

Nanjing Weekend

This past weekend I went to Nanjing with my friends Charlie and Max.  It was a blast and such a well-needed break from teaching and Qingdao.  I miss having the university-age expat populations that Nanjing and Beijing have to offer.  The guys are applying to the Johns Hopkins- Nanjing program and had to sit for their Chinese proficiency exam on Friday so I tagged along for weekendfuntimes.

Charlie and I got in on Thursday after much "air traffic" delays for both of us.  When I waited for him I also saw a real dog in the airport -- a golden retriever from Australia with his German daddy!  I miss real dogs and get very excited when I see a dog that is not a pekinese or some sort of small drop-kick dog.  Then we checked into our hostel and had a really yummy italian dinner, complete with salad, bread, and of course, Qingdao beer.  Max got in later that night and after a reunion drink, we turned in for an eventful Friday.

We went to eat some yummy Korean food and then grabbed a cup of coffee before I left them to study for the test.  Then I headed out with my new buddy, Ryan, who was staying in our dorm room in the hostel and had my bottom bunk.  He had done a semester studying Chinese at Nanjing University so was a great buddy to run around the city with for the weekend.

First we went to Jiming Temple in the northeast portion of the city.

It was really neat and the view from the top of the pagoda was really outstanding.  The thing that always amazes me about China is how you will see an ancient temple right next to a huge skyscraper and surrounded by cars, bikes, and people that forget how amazing it all is. 

Then we went to the Ming City Wall which was also amazing!  The wall has survived 600 years and many wars and invasions.  I love seeing city walls because they are just so massive and contain so much history and culture.  The wall is the longest city wall in China and is still intact, although does not join in all the places it used to.

The bricks that make up the wall are actually fired clay and are surprisingly light and can be picked up.  They also have characters etched into both sides -- one indicating the company that made the brick, the other side the name of the person who made the brick.  If the wall crumbled or fell, whoever/the company who made the brick would be held accountable and executed.  Now that's quality control!

The wall also has lots of roots and even grows grass at the top, something I hadn't seen at the Xian wall.  They apparently have to mow it every so often and the last time Ryan climbed the wall, he said it was past his knees.

After wandering around on the top of the wall and walking near Xuanwu lake, I headed back to the hostel to meet up with Charlie and Max to have some celebratory drinks.   Then we met up with our friend Nate's girlfriend's friend and little sister for dinner at a traditional Nanjing-style restaurant in the heart of town.  It was really delicious and we had some great food, including an excellent fried fish, shrimp and my first real 臭豆腐, or stinky tofu.  We also consumed copious amounts of Qingdao beer and had a very, very funny night. 

After dinner we headed out to Castle bar to meet up with Ryan and his friends from Nanjing University who had just ended their final exams.  There were a ton of students, both from the Johns Hopkins program and from the main Nanjing programs.  It was fun to be with college and post-college kids that were doing the whole abroad thing again.

The next day we emerged from the hostel and went to the Nanjing Massacre Museum.  It is a huge complex and an interesting museum, albeit kind of boring just because of how the Chinese design their museums.  The Nanjing Massacre was when the Japanese invaded the city and killed approximately 300,000 Chinese men, women and children in six weeks in 1937.

 I just find it a shame that in America our World War II history is so Europe-centric that many are unaware of the atrocities that occurred in Asia.  There are even still problems as a result of the Japanese invasions as there are problems in Europe because of the Nazis.

So after this uplifting afternoon, we came back to eat dinner and hang out with some new friends we had met at the hostel for dinner and night out.  Overall, it was a great weekend with some good new friends and great old friends that definitely contribute to my happiness in China.

(post to be continued...)

Eating Diaries, Part 1

I take photos of food.  Is this weird?  I've only come to realize recently that no one else outside my family takes photos of food.  Well, here goes my food tour of the weekend in Beijing.

Lush Cafe

I've dreamed about their fresh foccacia bread for two years now and finally got to enjoy a grilled vegetable sandwich with mozarella, tomato, and basil.  It tasted even better since I hadn't had Western food since being in China!  Lush is one of my favorite cafes of all time.

Wangfujing Snack Street

I had two 串 (chuan-r: kebabs), one was freshly made fishballs, I think.  I'm a big fan of eating anything from the sea and this fishball was really delicious.  They poured the mixture on a giant waffle-iron thing with 1" indentations and the person swiveled the balls every few seconds while they cooked in order to make the sphere of the fish ball.

Then I ate a octopus tentacle chuanr.  Roasted tentacles ranks pretty high on my list of favorite seafoods and while this one could have been cooked just a little longer, it wasn't too bad.

Then there are the things I did not eat at Wangfujing snack street:  starfish

seahorses and scorpions (still moving!)

Ganges Indian Food

This place has some of the best Indian food I've ever had.  This is a statement considering that I grew up in Dallas which has a huge Indian population.  Anywho, I made a mistake ordering my own curry but I did get a really yummy Vegetable Pakora for an appetizer.

TianChu MiaoXiang Vegan Restaurant

This may have been the best vegan restaurant I've ever been to!  It was so yummy and here are my favorite dishes from the dinner:

This was fried mushrooms in a salt/pepper chili batter.  It was really good and was a vegan version of a dish that is often  made with octopus tentacles (shocking that I like it either way, ha!).  Definitely the winner of the meal!

Sizzling beef was definitely my second favorite dish and was a textured veggie protein cut like beef (really weirded us out) and served on a sizzling iron platter.  An impressive display since vegetarian dishes usually lack this flair!

Airline Snack

I flew back to Qingdao and got a little surprise snack on my 1 hour 10 minute flight.  Dried dates!  Definitely one of my least favorite chinese "snacks" but only outranked by those dried plum things that my dad eats.

And that was my food tour of the weekend.  I should actually blog about what my apartment and campus looks like soon.  Oh, and the kids.  Right.  They're singing "As long as you love me" by the Backstreet Boys this week in my classes because they LOVE them.  Chinese kids also love Westlife.  It's really odd.  I had them singing "Umbrella" by Rihanna this week and it didn't go over so well with some of them, because it's not the type of music they listen to, but it was really amusing to  me to see them get into the 'ella ella eh eh eh' part of the song.  Until the next post...

Beijing Weekend

I made a weekend trip to Beijing and it reminded me how much I enjoy that city, but at the same time, made me appreciate Qingdao a little more. Beijing fascinates me because of its history, sheer size and population, and the multitude of things to do and eat. At the same time, it is so jam-packed with people constantly shoving and pushing that it can be overwhelming. Nevertheless, I miss it a lot and had a great time this weekend.
I went with another teacher, Jenna, to visit my good pal Charlie who has been living in Beijing since February studying Chinese and will finally be returning at the end of December. The rest of us thought he might never return!

It was really nice to get out of Qingdao because it is such a smaller town over here. I feel like I’m going to run out of things to do and see soon. I’m already kind of over the “scene” and fear the day when I run out of things to do on the weekends or foods that interest me. Anyway….

Jenna and I took the bullet train to Beijing and it was really cool. It was completed before the Olympics and has made the ~888 km trip under six hours long. The train went up to 243 km/hr at some points and was just amazing to watch out the window. It also had airplane-style seats and tray tables, which was nicer than Amtrak!

After dumping our stuff at Charlie’s apartment and leaving him to take a phone interview with the States, Jenna and I went to Lush in Wudaokou for dinner because I was really craving their foccacia sandwich, which turned out to be just as good as I remembered it!

Saturday we got up early and went to meet my old teacher, Linda, at Peking University. The campus is beautiful and is possibly one of my favorite spots in Beijing. Imagine going to a campus that looks like this:

Then we headed over to 789 Art Space which is actually located in an old factory center that has been converted to several art spaces. It’s a really great location and has some really interesting pieces to look at.

We then went to the famous Wangfujing Snack Street, where you can eat things like, seahorses, scorpions, and starfish on sticks. I stayed with fresh made fishballs and a delicious skewer of octopus tentacles, my favorite!

On the obligatory tourist destinations, we visited the Forbidden City, which never fails to amaze me because of how intricate and HUGE the place is. It’s really a trek across the thing and I can only imagine those poor guys running around the place with cymbals and stuff (I have a very Last Emperor imagination, ha).

Tiananmen was overrun with 60th anniversary propaganda, including giant pillars depicting the fifty-one minority groups as cartoonish dancing figures. It’s not exactly what I would consider pretty either.

There are also the giant screens on the Square, playing a rolling loop of inspirational music, dancing people, and panoramic scenery from around the country. Oh and don’t forget the recap of the 2008 Olympics Opening Ceremony. Happy 60th Birthday, China.

I also made an obligatory Silk Market trip on Sunday and emerged with these goods: a grey Jimmy Choo hobo purse, Longchamp purse, LeSportsac satchels, Black boots, and a scarf. Not too bad but I was definitely restrained. I really want a Mulberry purse next time I go back!

Food post next time… yeah go ahead and laugh at me always taking pictures of food.