From Beijing to Cangzhou

Sunday, August 26

We got to have our second encounter with the Beijing subway system on our way to church. We actually got to church much faster than they (our group leader people, Jacob and Spencer) had expected, so we had about an hour to kill at the church building before it started. This was good because it gave us a chance to grab some breakfast, which we had neglected to do before leaving for church. Luckily, there was a little restaurant on the first floor of the building where church was held, so we ate a random bowl of something we pointed to and it was really yummy. It tasted like a rice bowl that you might get at like a Rumbi or something back home. Yum. Then we went back up to the fourth floor where church was held. This office building seemed pretty ordinary, but once you got off the elevator at the fourth floor, it seemed fairly similar to a church meeting area you might find like on BYU campus, not necessarily like any old church building in Utah. All of the rooms had labels in Chinese and English for churchy things like “Branch President's Office,” etc. There was even a chapel room that seemed like it was pretty dedicated to being a chapel. It was just like a big meeting room with chairs all facing a podium and stand in the front. There were even those little wooden plaque things that show the hymn numbers up on the wall. At the beginning of sacrament meeting the Branch President read a message that they apparently read every week, reminding the members of the circumstances under which we were meeting and the laws that we needed to strictly obey. Then an American couple that has been living here for 6 months spoke one by one and it was very touching. It was nice to be in such a familiar environment again. After sacrament meeting, we all (China Horizons people and some foreign exchange students here from BYUI) met in a big room with the Branch and District Presidents, where they reiterated the importance of our obedience to the laws of the land. They expressed that it took a lot of negotiating to get to the point where the church is with the Chinese government right now, and that we need to be very careful to keep those good terms untainted. They then went over what branches everybody would be in. Just like most others, we will be attending the virtual branch. It's pretty neat. You just call in and type in a certain number every Sunday and then participate in sacrament and one other one-hour meeting (they switch between relief society and priesthood) virtually. Pretty neat. I think we'll do that most of the time, but try to go to Beijing every once in a while to attend the branch there. Overall, church was a really nice experience. We just about doubled the size of the branch for the day. Pretty crazy.

On our way back to the hostel from church, we actually ran into some other LDS people! Small world! We were walking down the street that our hostel is on and a Swiss lady walked up to us and asked us if we spoke English. Then she asked us if we were mormons. I was a bit caught off guard, but answered in the affirmative, and she said that she was too! She pulled her children and husband over and explained that they wanted to go to church in the Beijing branch but had a hard time figuring out when and where it met. So neat that we ran into some other LDS people. We spoke with her for a few minutes and then went to a little restaurant with the Erbs for dinner. I had that tomato-egg dish on rice and it was so so delish. Mmm.

Monday, August 27

For breakfast we tried this new thing that's basically a sandwich bun around a big piece of fried bread and some stuff (saurkraut?) in the middle. It was pretty good. Then we spent the next 8 hours in “ESL training,” which was actually pretty simple and just consisted of our teacher teaching us some Mandarin using techniques we can use in the classroom. Plus we chatted about how to deal with some cultural differences and stuff like that. Somewhere in the middle there we took a lunch break and ate 30 dumplings. Oh boy, I'm pretty sure we're going to come back quite plump. Also, at some point we were assigned a Chinese family name that was supposed to sound like Russell, for the purpose of learning how to introduce ourselves and stuff. Whew. It's hard to say. It's spelled Cao (no, it is not said like “cow”). It's the second tone, so to us it sounds like you're asking a question when you say it. The hardest part is pronouncing the “c,” which is pronounced like a highly aspirated “ts” sound. It's the same sound in our city's name, Cangzhou. Also, apparently it means “grass,” but is a homophone with the worst swear word that exists in Mandarin. Oh boy. Aren't we lucky. I think we'll try to get a new Chinese family name.

After training ended, we grabbed some dinner with our new buddies, the Erbs. I ate a big plate of fried rice (it made me happy) and Tom ordered a mysterious thing that was translated as “fried bean curd with sauce.” As it turns out, it was a plate of tofu with some brown sauce. He actually quite enjoyed it, but felt weird being full of tofu after. (He is currently lying down, saying “too much tofu, too much tofu...”)

Then we went to an acrobatic performance. Overall it was pretty dang impressive. Some of it was a bit cheesy, and they lacked perfect timing, but some of the stunts were simply unbelievable.  

These guys were pretty awesome. They were like super buff and hairless and stuff. They were really good at cool poses but the most important part of their act was their zoolander look out into the audience when they reached the climax of their pose.

This was probably the most mind-blowing act of the night. What you see is a large metal cage, with 5, I repeat, FIVE motorcycles riding around inside together in loop-de-loops. Craziness.

These ladies were really good with their balance and could juggle balls with their hands and feet and hold each other up. Amazing.

Tuesday, August 28

Tuesday was another training day. We were running late, so we had to skip breakfast, so like an hour into the meeting I thought I was going to die. Luckily, the “super market” next door sold some Ritz crackers, which we bought and ate a whole sleeve of during a break. We only had training until like 11:30, and then had a long break for lunch and a nap. We reconvened at 3 for some last words of wisdom from Jacob and then at 5:30 we went to the farewell dinner down the street. Side note: crossing the streets here has been an adventure every time. Wow. It's pretty scary. Each street has a little side street which is separated by medians for bikes and scooters to ride on, which is such a great idea, except for when it comes to intersections. It is seriously a free-for-all. Traffic laws (if they even exist), signs, lanes, red traffic lights: they are all simply suggestions, only to be followed if convenient. Crossing the street is basically like playing Frogger with your own body. (Has anybody seen that episode of Seinfeld?)

Anyway, the farewell dinner was yummy. We've had this dish at a couple of places which is like cooked bok choy with chewy mushrooms. I ate more than half of the plate that was brought to our table. I think part of why I like it so much is that my body really wants more vegetables than it's getting. Dinner ended with this delicious American-type treat that was little rolls that you dip into sweetened condensed milk. Mmm. We ordered a second plate. I think Jacob knew that we would need a little American food for our souls before being sent off to our cities.

The subways are so packed. There is no such thing as personal space.

After dinner, we went on an adventure with a few other couples. We took the bus and subway back to the silk market, where Tom got really close to buying a pair of toms shoes. He talked the lady down to only charge 50 RMB (like $8 USD), but when he got out his wallet to pay, he realized that he only had 30 RMB with him at the time. We were sad about that, but not too sad. Then the real adventure began. We took the subway and did a lot of walking to get to this famous night market where they sell fried scorpion and other such things. Unfortunately, by the time we got there it was shut down. For such a huge city, Beijing shuts down really early. On our way walking back to the hostel (which was quite a long walk, might I add), we saw very few people and cars. And it really wasn't all that late, between like 10 and 11 p.m. It was pretty weird. We did see something neat though: we walked by the city's mote (yes, it has a mote; and until semi-recently it had a city wall with towers for archers and watchmen) and saw people night fishing in it. It was pretty dang nifty to be in the middle of this massive city and all of the sudden see a huge mote and people fishing into it off of the bridge, basically in complete silence.

We passed through Tianenmen Square on our way back to the hostel (that's how we knew we were close), and took a quick break on the curb because our feet were hurting. As we were sitting there, a few Chinese girls stopped to talk to us. They looked like they were on their way to a dance party or something. They wanted us to be their friends and "come and drink beer and dance" with them. I'm sure that would have been an adventure, but we were very tired and ready to go home. It's fun to see how eager some people are to try speaking to us in English. These particular Chinese girls were very excited to show us their English abilities.

Wednesday, August 29

We woke up real early to pack up our things and head to the train station. Driving up to the train station felt like driving up to a big airport, except for instead of a runway, there was a huge platform area with tons of bullet trains lined up ready to depart. There was a security check, just like at an airport. We made a pretty big traffic jam in the train station waiting for our gate to open up, but the wait gave us time to say goodbye to our friends that we'd made over the tour. Unfortunately, Tom and I couldn't sit together on the train because of some errors in organizing the train tickets, but ten minutes into the ride, I went to sit with Tom because he had an empty seat next to him. There were only two stops before ours in just over an hour. In between those stops we were going well over 120 mph or so. The train was very smooth, quiet, and spacious. Spencer came around to make sure we got off at the right stop. We said our goodbyes and thanks to him and got off the train in Cangzhou. At the exit, we met our liaison, Susan. If we thought we were nervous, then she was definitely nervous. She and a driver escorted us to an Audi that they brought to pick us up. We asked Susan about the weather and if it was always this muggy and she said it was. As soon as we pulled in to the Cangzhou area, it was like we were in a cloud of fog and pollution. This combo made it very hard for our eager eyes to see anything in our new city. We just had to trust that these were the right people to be leading us into the city. 

Susan showed us to our apartment, which is conveniently located on the school's campus. She told us we could "take a rest" and call her when we were ready. We weren't really sure what this meant, so we just checked out teh the apartment for a half hour and called her. She took us to meet "The President" of the school, Mr. Zhang. This was by far the most interesting experience of our introduction to the school. We had no idea what to expect before walking into his office. We were quickly welcomed in and sat on the couch. On the other side of the coffee table, or tea table if you will, sat Mr. Zhang, The President, wearing a "Just Do It" t-shirt and some jeans and tivas. We felt a tad overdressed in our dress and suit. He was slow to begin the conversation, but managed to offer us a cigarette, tea, and coffee, within the first 10 minutes of meeting him. When we mentioned we were from Utah, he immediately made reference to the "religious building" in Salt Lake City. He's never been there, but he knows about it. He asked about the church and we told him it was a Christian church; he seemed surprised. He was also quite surprised we declined tobacco, tea, AND coffee. He thought we were quite healthy for it. He wanted to make it clear to us that he wanted us to be happy here; that was reassuring. He then invited us to have lunch and dinner with him in his personal kitchen for the next few days, until the school cafeteria opened up. Immediately after inviting us, he walked over, picked up the phone, shouted something in Chinese, and put the phone back down. We assume he was telling the chef to make extra food. Unable to interpret everything that was going on, we simply accepted the invitation. After meeting with Mr. Zhang, Susan showed us around the school, and then we went to the kitchen to have lunch. Mr. Zhang met us there, with a line of 4 or 5 pretty Chinese ladies following him (I think they were kindergarten teachers). This is when he offered us some of his finest liquor. He seemed really quite befuzzled when we declined. He said we could just try a little, but when we told him it was a family tradition to not drink alcohol, he respectfully didn't prod any longer. The food was delicious; it was served family style, of course. Out of the 8 or so people sitting at the table, he and Susan were the only others who spoke any English. We soon discovered that Mr. Zhang speaks English very very well and actually is a kung fu master. He offered to teach Tom his ways. Tom wasn't really sure how to react, so accepted the offer, but didn't take Mr. Zhang up on it (yet). Since that lunch, we've had a number of lunches and dinners in his personal kitchen, and we think that Mr. Zhang really enjoys talking to us. He's a very interesting guy and has a powerful position in his family and city. At the end of lunch, Mr. Zhang recommended that we go and take a "snap" (nap), so we can have more energy later in the day. He told us this was a Chinese tradition, to always have a snap after lunch, and he said we should enjoy it while we are here. We were happy to oblige.

The first thing we endeavoured to do in our new apartment was to figure out how the A/C works. This was especially fun because there are about 15 buttons on the remote control, and none of them are in English. Also, the temperature is in Celsius. After our afternoon snap, we took to cleaning the apartment. It wasn't terribly grimy or anything, but there was a layer of dirt on pretty much everything. After Susan finished her regular work, she took us to Tong Tian, the supermarket, so we could get some food and household supplies. This was the first real supermarket that we'd been to here in China (save for Walmart in Beijing), and boy what an experience it was. We felt like lost ducklings following our liaison through the store. It was such a good thing that she came with us; we would have been so lost without her. It's hard to find things for two reasons: we didn't know if certain things existed in China, and very very few items had any sort of English on them, or any recognizable American brand or symbols to show what they were. On our way back, Susan told us that we couldn't leave our apartment the next day until we went with her to buy a cell phone because it was her job to keep track of us. It was kind of late when we got back, and we tried to cook some dinner, but realized that the fancy gas stove (our only cooking mechanism) wasn't hooked up, so we just ate some "mini french breads" and jello cups. Luckily, they were both delicious. We decided to end the night by watch a copy of Forrest Gump that we found in the DVD player. Turns out that this copy was pirated and only played in black and white, and had Polish subtitles. It was good enough! I was really quite happy to see that my favorite movie just happened to be left here. It was a sign.

Thursday, August 30

Susan called us at 8 a.m. and told us she'd call us back in an hour. So we snuck out to the market across the street in the meantime. The market was pretty nifty. There were stands with all sorts of fresh produce, fish (alive or freshly killed), chickens (also alive or freshly killed), and many other interesting things. We bought a couple of crispy biscuit-type-things and some pizza bread, but we hurried back to our apartment, so we wouldn't get in trouble. The pizza bread was pretty interesting. It looked like a very simple pizza from afar, and it turned out to be fried bread with sweet and sour sauce and some chives on top. It didn't taste like pizza, but it was still quite delicious. After we got back, Susan came over with two guys to fix our stove dilemma and internet dilemma. It turns out that there's no gas running through the pipes, so they just brought an electric stovetop. They couldn't figure out how to hook up our laptop to the internet, so we are just using the desktop computer they provided for now. It's actually really nice to have a desktop, other than the fact that the operating system is in Chinese and can't be switched to English. 

Then Susan took us to buy a cell phone. We bought the cheapest one available, and later found out why it was the cheapest. It's pretty old school Nokia, and doesn't even have T9 texting. But that's okay, it does what we need it to. The cell phone is basically our ticket to freedom, so we won't have to stay in the apartment all day. We got back late for lunch, so Mr. Zhang wasn't there when we went to the kitchen. But the chef had food ready for us. Using Susan as a translator, we set up an appointment to go to lunch early the next day so that the chef could teach us how she cooks so well. After lunch, we of course enjoyed a "snap." The rest of the day was filled with getting settled in to our apartment and having dinner with Mr. Zhang.

Friday, August 31

In the morning we did some more cleaning and unpacking, and exploring the market across the street. Then we headed to the kitchen early to get a cooking lesson from the chef lady. It was quite the experience since she spoke zero English and we only know a few phrases in Chinese. She taught us how to make the tomato and egg dish, as well as these delicious-looking fish pictured to the left. The word for fish in Chinese is yu, spoken with a rising tone, and a curly-do lip that is impossible to replicate. Then we decided forego our afternoon nap, and save a few kuai (slang term for yuan) by walking to Tong Tian, the supermarket, instead of taking a cab. That walk was longer than we had anticipated. Although our walking experience was an adventure, and we saw many interesting things on the way, we will be taking a taxi from now on. It's worth 7 kuai (~$1 USD) each way. On our walk, we spotted a KFC and a place called e-Pizza that we made plans to try in the future. We bought a few more food items and household supplies while we were at the supermarket too. Unfortunately, we didn't bring the backpack this time around so we had to carry all of our groceries back by hand. We thought about asking this guy for a ride. He looked so friendly.


It was all worth it when we stopped at one of the street vendors selling fruit literally right accross the street from our apartment. The verbal exchange was confusing as always, but when it was all over, we walked away with 13 bananas for less than 1 USD. Even better, they were some of the best tasting bananas we've ever had. The bananas here are way better here. I think it's because the banana taste is not quite as strong, but they are sweeter than usual. It's pretty awesome that we came to Cangzhou at this time of year because it is harvest time, and all of the produce is super fresh and super cheap. We informed the chef that we wanted to cook in our apartment that night, and made some Ramen Noodle packet. We couldn't read the instructions, but it wasn't hard to figure out.

No, we did not get this picture off google. And yes, that is a real carrot. We are just glad that we don't have to get scurvy.

Saturday, September 1

Today was a good learning experience for us about the a particular aspect of Chinese culture. Here, things tend to be planned at the last minute. This morning, our lovely liaison, Susan, called us at 8 a.m. and asked us to come to the school right away. We were still in bed, but jumped up, threw on some clothes, and were there within a few minutes to parade around to each class and introduce ourselves. It was the first day of class, so all of the parents were there dropping their kids off. I'm pretty sure one of the reasons we were told to come right away was so that the parents could see that the school did indeed have foreign teachers. We have certainly gotten used to being paraded around; it's kind of fun. Anyway, after that we went home and Tom worked on fixing my computer, which has been a little sad lately. At 3 we went back to meet with Mr. Zhang (President of the school) and chat about curriculum and schedules for the semester. At one point, he told us that he has had several people (other teachers) tell him that Tom and I look alike, which in Chinese culture means that we are meant to be together and we are going to have a good marriage. Right on. Also, Mr. Zhang and a few teachers chatted in Chinese for a few minutes while we waited (we've gotten used to this) and eventually decided where our office at the primary school would be (we already have an office in the kindergarten building). I'm pretty sure that they just decided to take somebody else's office and give it to us, because when we got into "our" office there was a freshly smoked cigarette in the cigarette dish and a bunch of other signs of recent use. After sitting in there for about 10 minutes and snooping around, another teacher walked in and grabbed the cigarette dish and a few other things and left. It was fairly awkward. So we decided to go home after that. We walked around the campus on our way back and realized how big the property really is. There are geese and chickens and a bunny and a dog and frogs as well as a few acres of gardens with different types of fruits and vegetables. Awesome.

Around 4:45, Mr. Zhang called us and asked us if we wanted to come with him to a wedding banquet of his close family friend at 5:30. We accepted. He called back about a minute later and asked if we could leave right then. So we did. I'll tell you what, we could not have been more satisfied with the cultural richness that we experienced. He drove us out to a village that was only about 20 minutes away from the school, but that was enough for it to seem far far away from a city. On the way over, he told us about his relation to this family and how the bride's grandfather was his kung fu master (teacher). Also on the way over, there was about a mile-long strip where there was just tons and tons of corn piled on the shoulders of the road. It is harvest time! Anyway, once we got into this little village, it was like being at a small family reunion. Everybody chatted, argued about who would take the nicer seats (we were automatically given the nicest seats for some reason, even though there were several people there who were at least 80 years old), etc. Mr. Zhang told us how he was related to everybody, which was a bit hard to keep straight because he was related to everybody there through blood or marriage in some way. This all took place in a little area between some houses, I'm not sure how to describe it. It was like a dirt courtyard, I suppose. I wish we had brought our camera. After chatting for a while, we got back in the car (along with Mr. Zhang's kung fu master and some pretty lady that was related to somebody) and drove down the dirt road into the next village. There we all (nearly 150 people) met up at a restaurant. We sat at a table with Mr. Zhang, the kung fu master, and six other people. Again, Tom and I were given the best seats available at the table. In this case, these were the seats facing the door (in Chinese culture these seats are given to the highest guest). We felt like we were being treated much nicer than we deserved, especially since we didn't even know the happy couple. The food.. wow. The amount of food served at this banquet put mormon eating events to shame. First, ten big plates of food were brought out to each table. A few of these dishes included: crab (which had fur on its legs), shrimp (with heads and legs still attached), meatball-type-things, strips of pig ear mixed with vegetables, sweet egg-roll-type-things, roasted chicken, roasted pork elbow (?), chicken nuggets (more or less), and a few other things. This first round was pretty tasty in general. The pig ear was a strange consistency; I gave up on it after one bite, but Tom finished his helping - he said it was crunchy. Neither of us tried the shrimp because we weren't sure how to go about it. The roasted chicken and pork were both delicious, and in combination with the chicken nugget things made for a good reminder of home. Eating the crab was pretty interesting. Mr. Zhang and the lady sitting next to me helped us bust it open and told us to eat what seemed to be the brain to me. We tried it, but spit it out when no one was looking. Blegh. However, the furry legs yielded tasty morsels of crab meat. Then the second round came. Eight soupy dishes were brought out and piled on top of the already overflowing dishes. These soupy dishes were all clear noodles in a brown sauce with various types of meats and such on the top. I'm not so positive about what the meats were, but I know one of them was tofu, one was little meatballs, and one was described by Mr. Zhang as "not real chicken." Oh and let's not forget the several toasts that were made. What appeared to be vodka was in bountiful supply. Luckily, Mr. Zhang kindly explained that we didn't drink and we were given sprite (with many refills in our little glasses) instead. Many people came up to Mr. Zhang throughout the meal and we were introduced. It was a lot of fun and a bit of a challenge to try to make small talk with somebody with whom we shared little to no common language. All the while, we felt that we were quite overdressed, as Tom was certainly the only man wearing slacks and a tie, and I was the only lady wearing a dress that wasn't a flowy summer dress. Mr. Zhang assured us that this was fine, and that we should simply wear what we feel comfortable in. At that, he motioned to his outfit, which was the same "Just Do It" shirt and jeans he's been wearing since the first day we met him. Overall, the night was a great success. We got to know Mr. Zhang on a much more personal level, which was so much fun. We definitely got a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see a wedding banquet in (semi-)rural China. We loved every minute of it.

Sunday, September 2

This morning we were awoken by a phone call at 8 a.m. It was Susan, our liaison, explaining we need to work today because we get an extra day off for National Day vacation. So we went over to the school and figured out our schedules. We came back home just in time to phone in for church. The virtual branch is a pretty interesting experience. We call in and simply listen to and participate in the meeting over the phone. There were some technical difficulties, but overall it was a great experience. It was so interesting to be sitting in a living room, just the two of us, and be "at church." There was a great spirit present during fast and testimony meeting. The opening hymn was "The Spirit of God" which really invited the Spirit. It was so awesome. Then we listened as the phones were taken off of mute and various members bore their testimonies. After the meeting was over, they took a roll call of everybody present. Some groups who called in had up to 10 or 12 people, most groups were 2-6 people, and a few were calling in alone. Though people were calling in from all over the country (and even one from Wyoming, I don't know what the deal was there), I felt a great sense of unity among us. After roll call, we had Relief Society. This was again an interesting experience because whenever the teacher asked if anybody had comments it was a bit hard to know when to speak without seeing anybody raise their hands or anything. It all worked out wonderfully though, and was just the lift we needed for the week.

After church, we went over to the kitchen to have lunch with Mr. Zhang. We had a delicious squash dish, among a few others. Then, unfortunately, we had to go work. Thomas taught a grade 5 class, and then I taught a grade 1 class. Wow, there is such a big gap between those two age groups. The fifth graders were so well behaved, and the first graders, well, they were first graders. They spoke nearly no English, so I couldn't really instruct them. It was a bit disheartening, to be honest. But luckily I fell back on a simple "hello" song that I learned during training in Beijing, which worked out okay. Thom did a great job teaching the fifth graders; he's a natural.

When we got home, we watched "Raising Arizona" on netflix, or at least we attempted to. That movie is so funny; if you haven't seen it, I suggest you do. Yes, it has Nicolas Cage in it, but he is really hilarious in it. The internet connection was struggling, so we had to watch in 10 minute increments with 5-10 minute loading sessions in between. We eventually got through the movie and ate some dinner. We've been eating these things that are basically Top Ramen but more authentic. Pretty tasty. Then Susan dropped by and told us that we'd be giving a speech at the kindergarten opening ceremonies the next morning. Lovely. So Tom wrote up a little speech and emailed it to her so she could prepare to be our translator. While he was at it, he made us a QQ account. QQ is like a Chinese mixture of MSN messenger and Facebook. EVERYBODY is on QQ. When you ask someone for their email address or phone number, they give you their QQ number. People are constantly chatting on QQ on their smart phones and such. In fact, we've had two experiences where we've had someone help us with our computer or some other electronic thing and they've hopped onto QQ to ask their buddies how to fix the thing. So now that we have QQ we're going to get mighty popular here in China.

The Beijing Tour

Hello lovely friends and family! Thank you for keeping us updated on your lives as we tell you about ours on this blog. We'll try to update this often, but who knows how busy we'll be and how reliable our internet connection will be. Don't feel obligated to read everything we write; we are basically using this blog as a journal of our experience here, so we may get a bit long-winded at times. 

First, we'll update you on what's happened since we left. 

Tuesday, August 21 and Wednesday, August 22

After saying our last goodbyes to Clan Russell in the (very early) morning, Papa Nelson drove us to the airport. On our way in, we got shuffled into a huge pack of missionaries - how exciting! There were literally hundreds. Eventually, we boarded our first plane to LAX. All went well on that flight, and it went by pretty quickly. We spent a couple of hours chatting with other China Horizons people at the LAX airport while we mentally prepared for the impending long long flight to Korea. We will tell you what, moving from Delta to Korean Air was a major upgrade. The airplane was like an all-inclusive Hilton in the sky: individual TV screens with over 100 movies, games, music stations, etc. for all of your entertainment needs; semi-hourly drinks and treats hand-delivered by blue-scarfed fancy matching Korean air hostesses; two full meals (we'll chat more about this); hot refreshing towels; and even a small shopping area where you can buy gifts, purses, perfumes, and much more. It had two levels of seating and easily held 700+ passengers. We sat in the second-to-last row, which we shared with a Korean guy who spoke zero English and produced strange noises. The two meals that they served were pretty interesting, but yummy. The funniest part was that they gave the Korean guy next to us completely different meal choices from what they gave us. The meals came in cute little-sized containers with fancy little utensils and such. This is what we wanted to take a picture of when we realized, after about 10 stressful minutes of searching, that we did not actually pack our camera. What a bummer. Anyway, this plane ride was pretty interesting because it was light outside the whole time we were flying. Because we were flying in the same direction that the Earth was rotating, our daylight lasted for something like 20 hours that day. Crazy. Eventually we got to Korea and made a quick transfer onto our last plane to Beijing. This is when the sleepiness really started to kick in. Basically, we boarded the plane, ate another tasty Korean Air meal, and next thing we knew, we woke up while flying in over Beijing. The city didn't look quite as huge as we had expected (height-wise), it seems to be much more of a sprawling city. After getting off the plane, grabbing our bags, and exchanging some money, we made our way to the hostel. (Again, we completely slept through the bus ride and woke up when we got there.) The area we're staying in is a pretty low-key traditional part of Beijing, so the streets were too skinny for the bus to drive down, so we got dropped off a few streets away. We got into our room (which was definitely nicer than we expected; we have our own room with its own bathroom and everything) and crashed. 

Thursday, August 23

Jet lag is a weird thing. Even though our bodies were super tired, they still wanted us to get up early (by China time). So we woke up at 5 am. A group of us went to a little food place a few doors down and got roll-type-things for breakfast - this was a good learning-experience for us to figure out how to order at a Chinese restaurant. AKA we learned how to see something that looks edible, point at it, and hold up our fingers to ask how much to pay. 

Then the tour began. We walked over to Tiananmen Square (which wasn't far away, but took some time to get there because of the underground crosswalks and security checkpoints), which wasn't too exciting, except it gave us many chances to learn how to turn down street vendors. We learned the helpful phrase "bu yao" (which means "I don't want"). Apparently Chairman Mao's body is in the mausoleum at the square, but we were not allowed in because we were wearing open-toed shoes. Also, we made friends with a couple in our group, Sharlie and Cory Erb. They have been kind enough to take pictures of us at everything until we got a new camera. They are probably the most like us of anybody in our group of 60-something people, so they're obviously pretty neat.

After wandering around there for a bit, we met up as a group again and headed over to the Forbidden City. There we again got many many opportunities to turn down street vendors. They were selling all sorts of funny things, mostly umbrella hats. About half of the Chinese people had either umbrellas or umbrella hats to stop the sun from tainting their nice light skin. It's actually kind of funny to watch - they hide from the sun the same way that we hide from rain or strong wind. Anyway, the Forbidden City was beautiful. It was basically just an extremely lavish and humungous palace with loads of courtyards and hoards of people. By the time we got half way through we had walked several miles that day and were tired and quite hungry, so we decided to buy an interesting little food tidbit we found at a side shop. It was in a (not refrigerated) box that had a picture of a hamburger on it and was labeled "Fried Drumstick Hamburger". Turns out it was a stale bun with a few little pieces of lukewarm fried chicken and probably like ¼ cup of mayonnaise. Needless to say, we didn't eat it. Luckily food is extremely cheap here, so it wasn't much of a loss. After another hour of wandering around the forbidden city and making our way through another crowd of street vendors, we had our first public bus experience. How exciting. We took it back to the neighborhood where our hostel is. It was slightly scary, but, as we would learn over the next few days, nowhere near as thrilling as a ride on the tour bus. 

For the next few hours we had free time, which we filled with researching cameras and where to buy cameras. We also stopped by a restaurant on the main street in our neighborhood to get some lunch and totally got ripped off. The waiter gave us an English menu with pictures so we could easily order, AKA so they could put crazy prices on it without us questioning it. We paid 42 RMB (like 8 USD) for 10 dumplings. This is slightly expensive by American standards, but super super expensive by Chinese standards. For a comparison, the next day we paid 10 RMB for 20 dumplings. However, the experience was a success, because it taught us how awesomely delicious the dumplings are here.

That evening we all went to a family-style restaurant for dinner, where we had some Chinese people stare at us and laugh at our chopstick abilities. A few of them gave some of our table-mates chopstick lessons. This was our first experience truly eating family style: the food was put on a lazy susan and everyone served themselves using their own chopsticks – no serving spoons. After dinner, we went to a Kung Fu show.

 It was really neat, but jet lag forced us to sleep through about half of it. It was actually kind of ridiculous, I literally felt like I had no control over my body. I eventually got so frustrated with the fact that I couldn't stay awake that I just stood up and watched from the sidelines for the rest of the show. The show had more of a plot than I thought it would, and the actors were pretty impressive. Sometimes you could tell that they were lip-syncing, but their kung fu moves were pretty awesome. After the show, we again got blasted by some street vendors, but eventually made it back to our hostel, where we promptly fell asleep (despite the less-than-soft double-sized bed that we share). 

Friday, August 24

Big day! We climbed the Great Wall of China! Woo. We again woke up early and ate those roll things for breakfast (not so great the second time, or the first time for that matter), which were basically just boring rolls filled with molasses or something similar to it – we were running late and didn't have time to scout out better food. Then we took the 1.5 hour bus ride to the Great Wall. This is when we got to see more of the city for the first time. I can't believe how long it took to drive through it. Our hostel is basically in the center of the city, and it took about 40 minutes to get out of the main part of the city. About ten minutes of that was driving past tall uniform apartment and business buildings, and the rest of it was just sprawling regular-sized buildings. Then we started getting into greener and greener areas until we were basically in a forest. We got off the bus and walked up a fairly steep hill where street vendors bombarded us from all sides until we got to the ticket booth. Turns out you can take a ski-lift to the Wall, and an alpine slide type thing back down! We decided to hike up and take the slide down. Whoa. That is a pretty steep and long walk if you're not prepared for it. We should have counted the stairs.

 Near the Wall, we came across a donkey that someone had apparently taken up there. He was friendly. 

The Wall was Great indeed. We saw the section of the wall that was built in the Ming Dynasty, just a few hundred years ago. It was nice that we went to this section because it wasn't very crowded. I simply cannot imagine building this wall, let alone trying to traverse it. Pictures speak a thousand words, so we'll mostly let the pictures do the speaking, but basically it was awesome. It was so cool to know that thousands of people had worked on this wall hundreds of years earlier, and that they had literally given their lives in some cases to protect their country in the process. It is incredible how the foundation was so strong that it has lasted so well over so many years. The Wall works around the landscape so well; it simply looks like it belongs there.

The ride down from the Great Wall was quite fun. It was pretty funny that we went from being on this outstanding historical monument to being on an amusement park ride. It was the most expensive thing we've purchased yet (except for the camera) in China, costing 60 RMB (less than 10 USD).  Unfortunately, we got stuck behind some timid Chinese people and had to go slow at some parts, but it was a blast anyway.

At the bottom of the street vendor hill, we went to another group lunch at a family-style restaurant and pigged out. There, I discovered this delicious dish that I will definitely be eating on a regular basis. It's basically just cooked tomatoes and fried eggs in some sauce – throw that over some rice and... YUM. 

Oh, one more thing about the Great Wall experience was that throughout the entire area there was a crazy bug making a strange noise that sounded like it was being electrocuted. Then we realized they were cicadas. Jacob (China Horizons program director)'s son caught one. 

Afterward, we took the bus over to a jade factory, where we learned how to tell if jade is authentic or a fake and learned some history of jade in China. Then we were led into a big room with tons of jade jewelry, figurines, etc, and like 15 saleswomen. We felt like sheep that had been led into a lion's den. We overheard that the reason it's part of our tour is that they subsidize some portion of our Beijing tour so that it can be cheaper for us because they know someone will buy something after the factory tour. It was neat anyway.
 

Then we went to the Ming tombs. We didn't actually go to the tombs themselves because those are apparently pretty boring, but we just went to the walkway leading up to the tombs, which was really pretty. There was a big monument building thing with a turtle type statue in it. Apparently, if you touch the turtle's bottom, you will have good health, and if you touch the turtle's head, you will have good wealth. So we are set to be rich and have long lives. 

The ride back to the hostel from the Ming tombs was when we really learned about the space-warping technology that China has secretly developed. We are convinced that they have discovered a way to make it so more people and things can fit into spaces than is physically possible. There were so many times that the bus really looked like it was running a person or another car over and we apparently didn't (unless, that is, that we simply didn't notice because the bus was so big). It was pretty scary. 

When we got back to our neighborhood we grabbed some delicious and cheap dumplings for dinner. Yum. Then we recruited our Mandarin-speaking buddy, Adam, to come to Walmart with us to check out the cameras there. That was the place we felt safest buying one so we could return it if it didn't work. As it turns out, Chinese Walmart is quite different from American Walmart. It was a two-story Walmart held within a large building, and it had escalator ramps that shopping carts could go on. Sadly, they didn't have a very good camera selection, and their return policy was only that we could return it within 7 days if it was broken. So instead, we went to a camera shop on the main street in our neighborhood (Qianmen street – the one where we got ripped off on the dumplings a few days earlier) and ended up buying a Nikon D3000 with Adam's help. Unfortunately, we learned about 5 minutes after and 100 feet away from the store that the camera has no video capabilities. All well. We are just happy to have a nice camera. 

Side note:

Chinese people love using us Americans as a background for their photos. One thing we've gotten used to quite quickly on this trip has been the consistent desire of the natives to take sneaky pictures of us. Every time we turn around there's a Chinese person trying to take a picture of us without us noticing.  When we notice, we always give a big smile and a peace sign. A couple of the people have been surprised to see that we knew they were taking the picture. It is funny to see their embarrassment when they know they've been caught. The blonds in our group have especially been bombarded with pictures.

Saturday, August 25th

We were up early the next morning to catch the tour bus and head over to The Summer Palace, this time with a new camera. We were super hungry, but were a little late, so we ran down the road where a little breakfast place was, and there was no English or pictures of anything. A local motioned us to walk into the tiny kitchen and show the cook what we wanted to eat. The lady pointed at an egg and opened a large pot that looked like scambled eggs so we thought she would make us a scrambled sandwhich type thing, which is what it looked like everyone else there was eating. Thirty seconds later, she brought out a boiled egg which was blue on the inside, and a bowl of soup with a blob of tofu in soy sauce. Alicia wouldn't even touch it. The taste wasn't terrible, but we didn't have time to sit down and eat because our group was passing and we had to leave. We just left some money on the table and ran off, learning our lesson that we need to plan more time for grabbing breakfast.

It's always hard not to sleep on the bus, so we aren't sure how far away the Summer Palace was, but it is essentially the place where all of the emperors of the Ching Dynasty would come to live for the summer when southern China was too hot. Everything was extremely extravagant, and as other historical places in China, was highly commercialized with vendors on every corner.There were a few artists who appeared not to be there for money, including an old man who sat at the bottom of a tree and hand painted a very intricate water color painting on the palace on the hill. There was another old man who used water as his medium and he was painting temporary Chinese characters onto separate blocks of the sidewalk. It was pretty neat. One of our group members who happens to be 67 years old decided to go up to the water painter and steal his paintbrush to write "neehow," which is spelled incorrectly. This immediately got the attention of everyone around and the old Chinese painter was soon painting portraits of people in our group.

 There was an outdoor corridor that was the longest corridor in the world at some point. Each pillar was hand-painted. We walked through a few courtyards where we were shown the living quarters of the empress who was responsible for bankrupting China and eventually led to the fall of the Qing dynasty. She had 125 dishes served at every meal, no exceptions. She also built a huge marble ship that doesn't actually float, it just sits on the bank of hte lake. All of the buildings at the Summer Palace were located on a man-made hill which was made from the dirt that was taken out to make the man-made lake.

Anyway, we took a dragon-headed ferry across the man-made lake, and that is where we met the real Chinese Gandalf. It was as if he just appeared. He was very tall, and wore wooden platform shoes. He wore a large-brimmed straw hat and deep red flowing clothes with Chinese characters written on them. He had a long black beard as well. Everyone wanted a picture with him, although I don't think worked for the park, he was just a regular tourist. As we finished taking our picture with him, we heard his voice and knew that he was indeed the real Chinese Gandalf. His voice was deep and booming, and his smile was big and bright.

 

Apparently, half of the group was so mesmerized by this man that we lost track of the tour guide, and were lost for about fifteen miinutes. We just sat and waited for somebody to come find us. On our way back to the bus, I watched a watch salesman latch onto one of our group members and wouldn't let go. He followed him across the street and down the sidewalk. I found this amusing, and decided to take a few pictures of it. Quickly I became his new target, and had to battle with him about how already had a watch and didn't need a new one. It's amazing how relentless the street salesmen can be.

After seeing the Summer Palace, we took a tour of a silk factory. I think we did this for the same reason that we toured a jade factory. It was neat to see how silk is made. The lady showed us the whole process, from a silk worm egg to final silk quilt. Our experience there was much like the jade factory: we were shown how silk is made, then how to tell if it is real, then told how their product is of the highest quality, and then led into a huge show room of silky things, and many many sales ladies. Tom accidentally used face wash that was on display as hand lotion, and three Chinese ladies ran off to get him something to clean it off. After carefully inspecting the softness of each silk article in the store, we walked out empty-handed, headed to the pearl and silk markets to buy fake versions of everything we just saw. Not really, but the pearl and silk markets were something to remember.

Some people saw the pearl and silk markets at an incredible opportunity to get good deals on 100% knockoff products, and other people saw them as a bad dream, where you're walking down a hallway and small Chinese women are shouting English phrases at you every 3 seconds. "You want to buy?" "Hello pretty lady!" "You need a bag?" "Hello!" "Good price here!" "Come in now!" "Look, look!" (Imagine all of these in a terrible Chinese accent, and being said over and over again.. And also imagine no escape.) If we hadn't learned it yet, the pearl and silk markets taught us how to have tough skin when it comes to turning down a vendor. We did eventually end up buying a "silk" shirt for me. (Tom adds that it looks really good.) This was quite an adventure. I tried on 5 or 6 shirts at this lady's booth, which, unlike in America, led to me feeling like I had to buy something from her. The first several shirts were too small or just fit weird; the Chinese are simply built differently from us. But I finally found one that fit pretty well and decided to get it. Then came the fun part: bartering. Any friendship that you feel you may have built with the sales lady goes straight down the toilet when bartering time comes along. We would explain our reasons for not being able to pay so much, and she would explain her reasons for not being able to sell it for so little, and eventually we agreed on a price. Tom really revelled in this experience. That was at the pearl market. Then we hopped over to the silk market with some people in our group and continued shopping. The silk market was a bit fancier than the pearl market; all of the little shops were in glass cubicle things instead of just booths or tables (at least on the higher levels of the market). Tom liked this because once they got you to come into their little store, the tiny glass room acted as a playing field for the bartering. Pretty exciting. We ended up buying one of those fold-out fans and a little trinket thing. We made buddies with the guy who sold us the fan. Buying the little trinket (a little painted wooden figure) was an adventure for me, because Tom was out trying to barter with someone else over an SD card. Luckily, I held my ground. To get back to the hostel from the silk market was our first experience on the Beijing subway system. It went pretty smoothly, and I don't think we lost anyone in our group for too long of a time.

That night we grabbed some dinner at a small street cook and ordered some fried rice and tomato and egg soup that was all delicious. We especially liked the cook himself. He was so comfortable with his personal hygiene that in between helping customers he would grab his electric shaver from the top of the fridge and walk around the front door of the shop just going to town on his facial hair. When he was done he just put the shaver back on the top of the fridge and went back to cooking and helping customers.

(  Had a similar experience in Wal-mart where a chinese man picked up one of the shavers on display and did a quick test run on his face and then put it back in the display box and went on his way.)

Chinese side note: (we can call anything "Chinese" now, because we're in China) Most of the food here is so good, we're told it's so good because it's cooked in MSG. Imagine eating Chinese take-out for every meal, but with a more authentic taste. It's pretty awesome, but we do find ourselves craving hamburgers, pizza, and some root beer. Luckily, we found a bag of these "French mini rolls" that don't taste Chinese at all. They are so good. Also, although cooked in tons of oil, Chinese food does not stick to you at all. We get as full as possible each time we eat, but are still hungry within a few hours. Oh, and remember to read the English menu with a pinch of salt.

 And to always have adventures with a "SMILE" on your face.