Camping on the Great Wall

Last weekend CET took us on a trip to go hiking on the Great Wall (to a different part than where we went in Janterm) and then to camp out overnight on top.
The first part was a really nice stone path that was crowded with tourists, both Chinese and foreign. Once we hit the suspension bridge that you can see in the bottom corner of the picture, we had to show a special ticket to get through to the next section of the wall. This was a lot better, because the crowd definitely died down as we moved further along the wall.

Crossing the suspension bridge.

Caen taking pictures as everyone crosses the bridge.

On the bridge and looking up at the stairs to climb...

Once we crossed the bridge, the path gradually became more treacherous. It's interesting to do things like this in a country where there aren't lawsuits, because there were no railings or safety precautions in the places where the wall got very steep and a little rocky. It does end up being a lot more fun without all of those things though, because you don't feel caged in and like you're being forced to observe instead of actually climbing around on the wall.

That yellow dot on the wall is Caen, running...crazy.

The benefit of having Caen run ahead was having lunch ready right when I got hungry, and what a delicious lunch it was. We went to a store called Jenny Lou's the day before, which sells all sorts of imported products. So our lunch was French bread, tomato, mozzarella cheese, and oil and balsamic vinegar...mmmm.
Caen starts back up after lunch, racing a couple of the other guys (in the next picture) down the very rocky and broken steps.

Caen, Ned, Ben, and Nicole pretending to not see the camera (Ned and Ben go to Holy Cross, which is also in Worcester).


Ben and Ned striking a pose at the end of our hike.

That evening was very fun, mostly because CET (at Caen's suggestion) decided to buy us a ton of s'mores stuff so that we could, if only momentarily, feel like we were really camping at home. They kept throwing gas on the bonfire, which is why I'm trying to stay as far back as possible...made difficult by the fact that our roasting sticks were actually skewers.

Chinese beer and s'mores in next to the Great Wall...what an experience.
After dinner and s'mores, we packed up our things and climbed back up on the wall to find a place to spend the night. My group decided not to pick just any spot, but to climb past all of the other groups and up to one of the watch towers along the wall. It was a big, ceilingless room on top of the wall, it felt like we were in a castle. If there hadn't been so many clouds, I'm sure the stars would have been amazing.

Amanda checking out the sky in the morning.

Caen waking up, bright and early to see the sunrise...that didn't come, thanks to the clouds.

Even though we didn't see the sunrise, the view was still spectacular.

After we got back to CET, we proceeded to make a lovely pasta dinner with the other things that we bought at the foreign grocery store. And when I say "we," I mean Caen. I chopped some ingredients up, but otherwise Amanda and I sat back and let him work his magic. The result? Homemade pesto and chicken stuffed with spinach. Then Amanda made crepes which we filled with Nutella, raspberry jam, and marshmallow fluff. Decadent.

Caen and Paolo waiting for the crepes to be finished.

My friend Micheline getting aggressive with the crepes.

Seeing some more of China...

Well there's quite a bit to catch up on, so I guess I'll just jump into it. The following pictures are from St. Patrick's day, which also happens to be my friend (and fellow Clark student) Sam Bennett. We rented a full room at a nearby restaurant and invited a bunch of people out to dinner. When dinner time came around, a lot of people had already gone out to the bars, so we didn't have as many as we thought, but it was still a great time. To top it all off, Caen and I had ordered a cake at a nearby Russian bakery, and it actually ended up being really good (pastries can sometimes be disappointing here).

These are a few of the Chinese roommates in our program, that's Sam's roommate on the left.

Sam marveling at the size of the knife that we were given. We asked for something to cut the cake with, and that's what they came out with. It was ridiculous.

I got the honor of cutting the cake, and yes, I know how creepy that picture looks.

After dinner, we headed out to Paddy O'Shea's, an Irish pub in the Chaoyang district of Beijing. We all made sure that we were dressed appropriately, and Sam even wore the boa that his mom sent him.

I just love this picture, the Chinese students had a lot of fun celebrating St. Patrick's day with us.

This picture was for my Belgian sister...don't worry though, I still had a Guiness.

Caen and Garrett out at the pub. Garrett was in my class in Janterm, and goes to Holy Cross, so we'll get to hang out next semester.

Caen, Garrett and me at the pub. It was extremely crowded, I had to climb over the back of a chair to get up next to the bar, and then I was basically stuck there for the entire night. I think that every English/Irish/American person in Beijing was there that night.

Just a picture from my window on a day with bad pollution.

We decided to get out and around Beijing one weekend, so Caen and I headed to 798, a district outside of Beijing full of old factories that are being turned into art galleries. It was a really interesting place, I would definitely recommend it to anyone headed to Beijing.

Caen wondering why a cardboard maze would count as a work of art.

This last week was our Spring break. Our friend Dan (he was here in January) came down from Harbin, a city in the north where he's studying this semester. On his first night here, we headed to a jazz club in HouHai, which turned out to be a really good time.

The boys dressed up and ready to head out to the jazz club.

Sam and I on our way out.

On Sunday night Caen, Dan and I caught an overnight train to Shanghai, where we planned to spend the next 2-3 days. It was a 12 hour ride, but with the help of Benadryl, we slept pretty well.

I woke up at around 2am, groggy, and wondered where Caen had gone off to. After a few minutes of stretching and wandering, I sat back down, put my headphones on, and looked around. And then up...yes, Caen had climbed up and gone to sleep in the luggage rack. It took me a good minute to process what I was looking at. According to him, it was much more comfortable than the seats.

We got to Shanghai around 7:30 am, and after checking in at the hostel, headed out for a walk. This is when we realized that Beijing is not the only city with a pollution problem.

Looking across the Bund, an area of Shanghai along the river that has a lot of European-style buildings.

Dan and Caen scoffing at the pollution.

I just thought this was great, old Chinese buildings and...KFC.

We wandered around and came upon this whole shopping area with really cool buildings. They had just about anything you could want.

Including Starbucks.

This is a park in the middle of Shanghai. Someone had the brilliant idea of putting a really neat restaurant right on the lake, and after finding it we came back at night to enjoy the view and the feeling of being semi-removed from the city.

Caen and I out having sushi! We found a restaurant that, for about $30 per person, was all-you-can-eat sushi. I've never had so much sushi in my life, and it was absolutely delicious.

Dan eating his first piece of raw fish.

Caen out walking around in Shanghai.

The Shanghai museum. It was a rainy day, which was actually really pleasant (there's not really any humidity in Beijing) and a wonderful day to spend in a museum.

Looking across the river at night.

The Bund at night.

Caen and Dan in the Bund Sightseeing Tunnel...it was a really weird, very short ride under the river. We were a little disappointed when we found out that we could have taken the subway, but it was an experience.

It was kind of reminiscent of the boat ride in the original Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

The view on a day with much less pollution!

We came back on Wednesday night, got into Beijing on Thursday morning, and then spent the day resting. Overnight trains can really take it out of you, especially when you're sitting up (not that I can complain, one of the lovely advantages of being 5'2" is that I could actually lay down).

On Thursday night, I was surprised with a package full of candy from Julia. We proceeded to watch a couple of movies and eat more sugar in one hour than I've probably consumed in the last three months.

The next day we headed out to see the Summer Palace in Beijing, because we really haven't seen so much around here. I think that happens when you actually live in a place instead of just visiting it, so we've made a decision to get out and see some of the touristy things.

After we got through the gate, Sam was promptly attacked by a group of Chinese women who wanted to dress him up like an emperor and then take a picture. He was totally fine with it until he realized he had to pay for the picture. It was hilarious.

I think this lake is called Kunming lake. It was a really beautiful view, I had seen pictures before but had never realized that the lake was so big.

Sam and Caen finishing off the sugar at the bottom of a bag of Sour Patch Kids...thanks again Julia :)

We found out that you can rent little boats and go around on the lake, so we decided to rent one for the last hour that the stand was open. In true Chinese fashion, there was no instruction on how to operate the boats, no life-jackets, no lecture on how to be safe, etc. We couldn't have really gotten into that much trouble though, because the boats were really slow. We were passed multiple times by people who had the foot-pedal boats.

Now the vacation is sadly over and we're back to class tomorrow. We only have about 6 weeks left, which is really exciting. Not that the classes here haven't been useful, but my brain is really tired of the schedule. I just registered for next semester at Clark, and got all of the classes that I wanted, so I'm obviously very happy about that.

Well, I have to finish an essay that's due tomorrow, so I'll have to cut this short. I hope everyone is doing well at home, I hope you're all enjoying the Spring!

赛翁失马焉知非福

This morning I woke up and read a friend's blog while I was eating breakfast (Alec Paxton's, he's in the Peace Corps in Thailand right now) because my mom kept telling me how great it was, and I felt very guilty after reading it for not updating my blog more often. It was so wonderful to read, and I thought that the frequency of my updates is a little below par, seeing as I have access to the internet almost every day at any time. This all basically means that I'm going to attempt to share a little more of my everyday life here in Beijing.

It was very shocking to realize that I have hit the halfway point in my time here in China. If all goes as planned, I should be staying a little bit longer to travel a bit, but even then I will be back home in about three months. It's just really weird, because every other time I've been abroad, time passes so quickly. In China I feel both like I've been here for a very long time, and yet that I've also just arrived. Our daily class schedules are one of the reasons that time drags, since they're the same every day, every week. It's not that the classes aren't useful or interesting, but having the same schedule gets monotonous, especially since class schedules at college are much more flexible and varied. It's days like today, the first day of blue sky in a week of disturbingly polluted days, that make it really wonderful to be in Beijing. (Here's what I saw out my window this morning...I was so excited that I had to take a picture).

I've made friends with a few people that I knew, but didn't really know well, and it has been really great. It's interesting to see how so many of us come to similar conclusions about why it can be frustrating to live here, though we all react to the frustration differently. I was talking with a girl who spent last semester in South America, and how it is such a different experience. What I've basically come to realize in the last few days is that maybe time drags because we haven't really integrated into Chinese society, something that results from a lot of different things. One obvious reason is that we are at a school for American students, so we take classes and study every day with Americans. Most of the students have Chinese roommates, so that definitely helps, but it's not the same as being put in a family and learning to become one of them. That aside, it's interesting to realize that we could be so different that it would take years and years to feel like I was "Chinese," and I'm not even sure that that is possible. For example, when I lived in Mexico, after a year there I could really have been Mexican. Naturally, one will always retain some differences thanks to being raised in a different culture, but I felt completely accepted as an equal there and that I could exist outside of the limits that at first defined me as a foreigner. This is not to say anything negative about living in China, because it's wonderful, but I don't think I'll ever stop being a foreigner to most of the people here, or if I wanted that to happen I would have to move everything here and make a decision every day to be more like them. It just doesn't seem to be as natural of a process.

On the other hand (I think that might come off sounding a little negative, and it certainly isn't meant to), I have had some really unique experiences as an American here. Generally speaking, I've been treated very well in every country I've been to, but the fact that I'm American is always something that is kind of shrugged off and slightly ignored. Like there's an understanding between me and them that my nationality isn't necessarily a negative thing, but it's something to be pushed aside in order to recognize me as something other than a stereotype defined by my government. In Beijing, people obviously stare at us all of the time because we stand out, but aside from that I've had no reactions, good or bad, to my nationality. The other day I was walking with Caen and Sam to the grocery store, and we walked around the corner and almost straight into a man going in the opposite direction. We said sorry, and then he gave us a very stern look, saying "Mei guo ren ma? (Are you American)?" (there's no way to do justice to this sentence, because he had a really deep, rough voice, and an incredibly strong Beijing accent, the kind you normally hear from taxi drivers and street vendors - it's an amazing accent, and so fun to listen to). We were kind of wary and said that yes, we were American, and then he curtly nodded, gave us a thumbs up and said "Mei guo ren, fei chang hao (Americans are great)!" nodded again, and walked away. We were a little dumbfounded, never having experienced that sort of reaction before. Sam said it best: "I've never been so aggressively complimented before."

This is just a random picture of Sam from the last time we went out.

Aliza and I out on the same night.

Whew. That was kind of a really long, slightly pointless rant. I think it's because I've spent the past few days discussing this stuff with my classmates. Anyway, this weeks class has been quite a bit more interesting, because the teacher for my small class is the kind of person that doesn't mind straying a bit from the lesson plan in order to let us talk about things that are actually relevant and teach us words that aren't in our lessons. First of all, our first hour of class is in a larger room with about ten people, and we go over the grammar in our text. Then the nex two hours are groups of four or five people, and we practice using the grammar. It's almost too riveting to handle. We change teachers every week, and because I have the aforementioned teacher (Xiu Laoshi), we learned some really interesting things.

For example, you might be wondering what the title of this blog means. The pronunciation is "Sai weng shi ma, yan zhi fei fu," and it's a Chinese proverb that means something is a blessing in disguise. This may not seem very interesting, but it's actually really fun to learn these things, because Chinese has an unfathomable amount of proverbs, and honestly if you don't know any you won't ever hold a true conversation in Chinese. The most traditional kind of proverbs are called "cheng yu," they have a strict four-character pattern, and Chinese people use them all of the time. Another one that we learned this week was 天下乌鸦一般黑 (tian xia wu ya yi ban hei), which literally means "all crows under the sky are black." We were talking about the different systems for getting into college in the US and China, and when we tried to explain to our teacher that the US system has a lot of problems as well, she replied with this proverb. Basically it means that bad things exist everywhere, regardless of the country you're in.

We also learned 抢打出头鸟 (qiang da chu tou niao), which literally means that the bird who flies out first gets shot. This was in reference to how Chinese students do not attempt to stand out in class or outshine other students, because teachers don't like it when students try to one-up their peers. Apparently this is also something looked down upon in the workplace, we watched a cartoon about a guy trying to get a job, and he was criticized for moving ahead and doing more work instead of helping the others around him. This was really interesting because it's so different from how we're raised to behave in class. Not that it's great to always talk out, but that teachers appreciate people who volunteer and who put in the extra effort to contribute.

Another thing that I learned this week was that it is very impolite to tell a Chinese woman that she is very open-minded (literally translated that her beliefs are very open), because it's the equivalent of calling someone loose to their face. It's another random thing, but thought it was pretty funny. In the same class, I also learned that there is a reason that there are so many hideous lap dogs running around Beijing (it's ridiculous, everyone has these little dogs and they all dress them up in even more hideous outfits); the government actually makes it very difficult to get permission to have a big dog, because they don't want them running around Beijing...I'm sure they have a lot of reasons for that, I'm just not aware of them.

Outside of class, I've had two other really interesting experiences talking with Chinese people this week. This semester I am working on a field project/research paper, which is something that Clark requires students studying in China to do. We get to pick our own topics, and then we meet every week with a professor and make sure that we're doing everything correctly. In the next two months, I have to interview at least five people, make an outline, and then write a 2,000 character essay on what I've found (which sounds really long, but it's about eight pages double spaced, nothing too badd). I'm researching the importance of literature in Chinese middle/high school education, i.e. what they teach, why they teach it, if it is seen as very important or second to other subjects, etc. I did my first interview this week, which was sort of intimidating because I had to go by myself to a high school, explain what I was doing, and try to find a teacher that would talk with me. Luckily, there is a high school right down the street, so all of the people there knew I was an exchange student and not just some random American trying to break into their school. It was great because right when I was talking to the person at the gate, the head literature/Chinese teacher rode up on her bike. She was really nice, and was more than happy to talk to me for a bit. She also got another teacher to come in, so I could get more of a variety of answers. Needless to say, I had to record the interview, since I couldn't understand about half of the words that they used (though I still got the overall idea of what they were saying), but they didn't have a problem with that at all. They even let me take a picture with them, which I promised to send them via e-mail.

The second interesting chat was yesterday, when we had an hour-long language practice class. The teachers had a few of the Chinese roommates come in and we broke up into small groups and discussed the differences/similarities between the lives of Chinese and American college students. It was really interesting, mostly because we got so off topic. We went from talking about what we do on vacations, to trying to explain Easter (for anyone who's read "Me Talk Pretty One Day," you'll understand why I was laughing as I was trying to explain what Easter was about), to talking about "The Passion of the Christ" and then the fact that not only is Jim Caviezel from my hometown, but that he was struck by lightning when they were filming the crucifiction. This can give you an idea of how that was explained (a couple of the things on there have nothing to do with that specific explanation, but we only had one paper)...that's what we had, plus some broken Chinese:

All of this illustrates how much of my life revolves around being in class/doing class related work. I did, however, get to have another interesting experience this past weekend, which was going to get my hair cut. Caen and I decided to brave the slightly sketchy salon down the street and get haircuts on Sunday. Though I was a little skeptical, I figured that if they messed up, my hair would grow back and I could get a better cut next time. And for what amounted to just over $3, I was pleasantly surprised. Not only did I get a decent haircut, I also got a full head, neck, back, arm, and hand massage. This is all a normal part of getting one's hair cut in China, but the place was so busy that they kept giving us massages so we weren't just sitting there. They kept apologizing for making us wait, and I just thought that they could make me wait as long as they wanted, as long as my shoulder massage didn't stop.

Well, this has been very long and very random, and now I have to go off to my one-on-two class and practice how to bargain like a real Chinese person. I hope you're all doing well!

The End of Janterm and Vacation in Yunnan

Hello! I know that it's been quite a while since I last wrote, which is mainly because we're just wrapping up about two weeks of vacation for the Chinese new year. I finished my exams on the 25th, and then proceeded to nap and read, a welcome break for my brain after an intense week of studying and keeping up with normal classes. That night I went out with my friends to an area of Beijing called SanLiTun (pronounced "San-Lee-Twar"...people in Beijing add lots of "ar" sounds onto their words), which is where you can find a lot of bars and a lot of foreigners. We ended up at a place called Bar Blu, and ran into almost half of the students from the CET program. Needless to say, it was a really fun night, it was great to have some time to actually get to know some of the people that I never got to talk to.

Aliza and me in the bar.

Dan, Aliza, Caen and me having a great time and getting incredibly sweaty.

After the big night out, most of the CET students took advantage of the two week break and traveled to different parts of China. A group of us had planned to go to Lhasa, Tibet, but our plans were destroyed by the unbelievably unorganized transportation system in China. We had read that foreigners need special permits to get into Tibet, mainly because the government doesn't want you to get there and then stage some "Free Tibet" protest. Because of this, it's very difficult to get permission to go, especially if you're not part of a large tour group. Naturally, we didn't want to be in a tour group, we wanted to take the train there (50 hours straight, crossing the entire country) and just see what was around Lhasa. We were turned away from multiple travel agencies because they won't sell you the ticket without the permit, yet they have no idea how/where to get this permit. We then went to the train station and asked around 10 actual employees, from guards to ticket sellers to people at the information desk, were sent in completely different directions and given completely different instructions on what we had to do. When we asked the people at information, they literally said "Hm. I don't know. Maybe you should ask someone." What???? The "Information" sign above the desk evidently doesn't mean that anyone there actually knows anything.

One of the other main problem with this system, permits aside, is that in China you can't buy train tickets more than four days in advance, and you can't buy round-trip tickets. At 7:00pm the tickets for four days later go on sale, and people will get in line at 6:00am just to be the first ones at the ticket window. We got to a travel agency about one hour before the tickets were on sale, we were the first ones there and we made sure that the people knew exactly where we wanted to go. At 7:10, we were informed that there were no tickets left to anywhere in China. It was hard to understand how every ticket could have sold out, so we figured that there was some sort of miscommunication, and informed the travel agent that we would buy tickets to anywhere in China that was over 20 hours away from Beijing by train. We pulled out a map of China and pointed to the entire southern half of China, the whole west, and she looked at us, smiled and said that she was sorry, but every ticket to every city in China had been sold. In ten minutes.

While this was all going on, we did get to witness a pretty spectacular event here. I didn't know this, but apparently one of the largest human migrations in the world happens every year in China during the new year, when people are all trying to leave the big cities and make it home to their families. Beijing is a huge city, and there are a lot of people, but wandering around the train station was the first time that I've actually been struck with the sheer number of people there are here. The information desk was at the entrance to all of the different tracks and waiting rooms, and we just stood back for a while to watch. People were running, carrying huge loads on their backs (I will never cease to be amazed at how much the Chinese can carry on their backs), and the flow of people never stopped.

After this, we had to give up on Lhasa (only for the moment, it's now our plan for Spring break in April) and consider our options. We had almost become resigned to the fact that we might end up in Beijing for the whole time, something that we desperately wanted to avoid, when Dan found last minute tickets to a city called Kunming in the southern province of Yunnan. They were for the next day, so we bought them right away and got ready to leave for Yunnan. I know next to nothing about China's geography, so I was mostly along for the ride. Dan was the one who knew the most about this area, because he's been wanting to go there since he was little.

Dan, Caen and Bill in the airport in Kunming, waiting for our bags to come out.

Walking around in the bird and flower market in Kunming. There were cages and cages of the most beautiful little birds, not to mention boxes of rabbits, mice and turtles.

Either these turtles love laying around on top of each other, or they're planning on getting out of that box.

Just a pretty flower in the market.

On the second day in Yunnan, we went to a place called the Stone Forest, a random rock deposit in the middle of these rolling hills (I think it's from a glacier, but I'm not exactly sure). We spent the whole day walking around, climbing around on the rocks and getting slightly lost.

Caen climbing around.

I don't know if it's possible for fish to have rabies, but these ones sure acted like it. The minute we walked in their direction, they started swarming, swimming on top of each other, opening their little mouths....kind of creepy.

Dan, Caen and Bill in the Stone Forest.

What happens when you tell the boys to strike a pose.

Caen looking very impressive and stoic climbing on the rocks.

Dan making his way on up.

They're always watching here...

Making our way through a very narrow crack in the rock.

After the Stone Forest, we headed back to Kunming and got a sleeper bus to a smaller city called LiJiang. The sleeper bus was certainly an experience (10 hours of bumpy, curvy roads), though personally I didn't have any complaints...sometimes it's very handy to be 5'2." The boys had a harder time, which wasn't made easier by the fact that both Dan and Bill were sick. The bus looked like a normal charter bus, but instead of seats they had three rows of bunk beds that lined the entire thing.

Caen getting settled into his bunk, looking very optimistic.

Dan, not looking too optimistic...needless to say, he was very happy to get off of the bus.

We made it to LiJiang in the morning, and immediately found a hostel so we could get hot showers and take a nap. The hostel was really nice, but unfortunately the 24 hour hot showers that were advertised weren't so hot. There were a few screams coming from the bathroom when people got in the shower.

LiJiang turned out to be a beautiful city, with a distinctly separated Old Town. That was where our hostel was, and where we ended up spending all of our time, because we didn't leave Beijing to spend time in another crowded city. The Old Town of LiJiang was absolutely beautiful, with old buildings and lots of canals.

Some women dressed in traditional Naxi (I think) outfits. Yunnan is home to about 50% of China's minority groups, and the most prominent in LiJiang is the Naxi (pronounced Na-Shee). There were a lot of people in traditional clothes, I think mainly because a lot of tourists pass through LiJiang. It was interesting, because the majority of the tourists were Chinese, so even though we were in a tourist area, our group still stuck out a bit.

A view of the Old Town from up on a hill.

Another view of the canals in LiJiang.

The most adorable little puppy that was hanging around by our hostel.

Bill, Caen and Dan out to lunch at a great Belgian/Chinese restaurant that we found.

We decided one day to rent bikes and head up the valley from LiJiang, and it turned out to be a wonderful idea. This is just the beginning of our ride, the mountain in the background is Jade Dragon Snow Mountain (I don't know why it has such a long name, most of the signs just said Snow Mountain). Here's some info about it from a website that I found: "Jade Dragon Snow Mountain (Yulong Xueshan) is the southernmost glacier in the Northern Hemisphere. Consisting of 13 peaks, among which Shanzidou is the highest one with an altitude of 18,360 feet, Jade Dragon Snow Mountain stretches a length of 22 miles and a width of 13 miles."

Caen and Dan posing in front of the mountain.

Caen and me braving the crazy bus drivers on the road to get a picture in front of the mountain.

Dan, Caen and me sitting on the road...maybe not the smartest idea, but hey, it's a cool picture.

After a couple of days in LiJiang, Bill went back to Beijing and Caen and I joined Dan in fulfilling a childhood dream...hiking through Tiger Leaping Gorge. We spent two and a half days hiking through the gorge, which turned out to be relatively easy. It was a really pleasant hike, and we didn't see more than two or three other people on the trail (except for the people who take their horses back and forth, hoping to tempt exhausted tourists).

Caen and Dan making their way up the road to the trail.

A view out over the river. It was a truly spectacular day to be outside, and we appreciated it even more, coming from over a month in Beijing.

Dan after he made it up the first uphill part...which was followed by about an hour of uphill switchbacks :)

Caen and Dan having a break and enjoying the view.

This picture is for my dad. This was actually my first real hiking trip without him, so I had to get at least one picture of me up there.

Looking down at the river at the bottom of the gorge (the Yangtze, I believe).

The Tea-Horse Guest House, the place that we stayed on our first night. These little places are all along the trail, renting rooms for under $3 per person. We even got hot showers, not to mention some absolutely delicious food.

Another view of the guest house.

Caen and me walking across part of a waterfall. Times like these definitely reminded me of hiking in the Cascades.

This is for my brother, my dad, my uncle and my grandpa...Woody's Guest House. It made me smile every time I came around a corner and saw another sign for it.

I thought that this palm tree was a little out of place.

On the second night we stayed in another guest house, this time at the end of the trail. The book we had made it seem like it would take a full three days, but we must have moved a little faster than they did. The next day we got a ride with an English family headed back to LiJiang, and then spent another night there before heading back to Beijing.

We arrived in Beijing on the night that the New Year's or Spring Festival started. It was incredible, because we flew in at night and saw fireworks exploding all over the city. I have no idea what the laws are here, but I've never seen people set fireworks off so close to buildings and busy roads. It kind of felt like we were in a war zone. (I took a video from my bedroom window at midnight, and I tried to attach it to this...hopefully it works. It's only 30 seconds, but it went on for over 20 minutes straight).
Since then, we've just been hanging around in Beijing. It has been nice to get to relax, and the building was almost empty so we had most everything to ourselves. A few of my friends left for different programs today, so last night we all went out for dinner and then to a bar...though, being a Tuesday night, we were the only ones there. We obviously still had an amazing time :)

Aliza and Sam out to dinner.

Caen, Dan and me. Dan left today for the CET program in Harbin, which has made those of us still here in Beijing very sad.

Eric and Jerimiah (who is, coincidentally, from Enumclaw and goes to the UW) getting down at the dinner table.

The whole group.

Well, I guess that's it for now! The new students arrived tonight, and we start orientation for the Spring semester tomorrow, so I'll be getting busy again. I hope everyone is doing great, drop an e-mail when you can because I'd love to hear from you! (Oh, and since it is after midnight here, happy Valentine's day!)

Getting closer to the end of the first month!

It's almost unbelievable, but this week is my last week in "Janterm," the month long intensive course that I'm taking here in Beijing. It seems incredible that I've been in Beijing for three weeks; sometimes it seems like such a short time, but it also seems like I've been here for much longer. Our classes are relatively long (especially since we're all used to college schedules that have nice long breaks between classes), which make it feel like the days are even longer. The living situation here means that we spend a lot of time with our classmates, and I've been lucky enough to meet some really amazing people. We spend most of our time together, in class, after class, at dinner, working on homework, etc. so I feel like I've known them for a long time; it doesn't seem possible that a few weeks ago I never knew they exsisted.
Even though we've been kept busy, we have been able to get out every once in a while. Last week, we made it out to Hou Hai, a touristy area in Beijing that has a big lake and lots of bars.


I'm assuming that this guy was planning to jump into the lake, but I have absolutely no idea why. I was completely bundled up and freezing, and these guys were walking around in flip flops. Crazy crazy people.


A view of the lake in Hou Hai (which actually means "Back Lake"...back as in behind something) and all of the people ice skating on it.


This cat looked so amazing, just sitting up there on the roof.


Sam and Caen getting warm in McDonald's, memorizing the next day's grammar.

Every week we do a language practicum, which means we go somewhere and have some sort of activity with Chinese people. This week we went to a kindergarten and got to play with 3 and 4 year olds for a few hours, which was pretty amazing, except for the fact that Chinese children are just as hard to understand as grown ups (which was made even more difficult since all of them were yelling at the top of their lungs).


Caen trying to teach our group of kids how to fold paper airplanes.



One of the other guys from my class getting high fives from everyone.


The little play area had the greatest ceiling.


This little girl was so adorable. She and her twin sister just sat around and hugged each other, even when they were dancing for us (they actually sang for us and had a dance to go with it, they were so cute).
These are our teachers. The woman on the left is our very adorable but very imposing head teacher, her name is Wu Laoshi (laoshi is "teacher" in Chinese). She teaches all of our grammar classes, and is such an amazing and very cool woman. She makes me wish that I could speak better Chinese. She is also the only teacher that has ever hit me.

Yesterday we all decided that we missed real breakfast food, so we found an American diner and went out for some omelettes and French toast.

Aliza, Caen and me out to breakfast.

There was a Starbucks on the way, and I had a latte for the first time in three weeks.

Aliza's suprise when we were handed forks and knives...we haven't used normal silverware since we got here.

Caen showing his Woodmansee/Mt. Vernon pride :)

Dan, Bill, Caen and Aliza making dinner tonight. We went grocery shopping this weekend and decided to take advantage of the kitchen on the first floor.

Caen and Aliza getting dinner ready.

Dan and me waiting for the vegetables to be done!

Caen making some delicious broccoli.

We still have a few days of classes left, and then we have our final on Friday. After this weekend, we have a two week break that we're all in need of. I'm planning to go with a few people to Lhasa, Tibet, but we're still in the process of getting our tickets. We decided to take the train from Beijing to Lhasa, which is around 50 hours. It's going to be a long ride, but I'm really excited because we'll basically be crossing the entire country, and will get to see a lot of really beautiful scenery.

Some more pictures...

I got the pictures that my friend Caen took, so here are a few more!

Dan trying to get a good angle (I'd like to see the picture that he took...)

Dan and Aliza trying hard to make it up the steep steps.

Caen striking a pose on the wall.

Just another great view.

Getting some jasmine tea, my current favorite.

I think that this resembles a senior picture pose, but it is on the Great Wall...so a little less cheesy.

Sam Bennet (a fellow Clark student) taking pictures.

Peeking around.

We seem to have quite a few pictures of people...taking pictures.

Bill, me, Aliza, Dan, and Caen.

Dan, Caen, and me waiting for our tickets. Caen was sporting his ninja gear.

Colorful food by the ticket stand.

Dan, Sam, and me, all unaware that Caen is taking pictures.

Aliza and I working very hard to make it to the top of that damn wall.

The Great Wall

Last weekend CET took us on a trip to see the Great Wall of China! It was a really great trip, and the best part was that we went to a part of the wall that isn't visited as often. It's called Mutianyu, and even though we had to take a two hour bus ride, it was completely worth it because there was barely anyone else on the wall (or at least less than I expected).

This is a picture of my friend Caen walking on the wall.

Caen and Dan (they're from Dartmouth and Georgetown) on the wall.

Instead of walking back down, we took a five minute "sled" ride down. There are these little sleds that go on a metal track (kind of like a metal water slide), and they were SO much fun.

Another view of the wall.

I finally made it up all of those steps!

Aliza (she goes to Tufts), Dan, and me.