Beijing

We had a week-long vacation from September 28th to October 7th so we spent the first five days in Beijing! This week was Moon Festival and the entire country celebrates it; everyone gets school and work off and travels. Thus, Beijing was super busy! But we wanted to see the city anyway so we didn’t care! At first this vacation was really fun—I had a blast eating new food, meeting new people, and seeing everything—but then a lot of problems arose and we were ready to go home. This is an overview of my vacation, but I will go into detail on some places in my following posts…

Friday:

We left late Friday night and took a 15 hour train ride to Beijing. We wanted to get beds on the train, but they were sold out by the time we bought our tickets so we spent the whole 15 hours on hard seats. The train was really crowded (there were people who bought night long standing tickets in the aisles!), the light stayed on, and the seats were hard—basically I couldn’t sleep the whole time. This was probably the first time I’ve stayed awake all night and the following day.

We saw my student Andrew and his dad at the station!

My friends all trying to sleep on the train. Not pictured: me sitting alone on the other side with a Chinese guy falling asleep on my shoulder. It was actually pretty funny.

The sunrise on the train.

I made friends with these two on the train and we named them Joey and Keira (doesn’t she look like the Chinese version of Keira Knightley??). One thing I really like about trains is that you get to talk and know the people around you (which can also be a bad thing). Most teenagers and young adults know English because it is now highly intergraded in schools so we always have people we can communicate with. I talked to Joey and Kiera for a while and got to hear about their lives; they are both studying medical at an University and were on their way home to visit their families.

Saturday:

We arrived Saturday afternoon at our hostel and spent the night exploring the local streets around our hostel. I love hostels! Hostels are very cheap and have kind of a vintage feel with their walls all covered with postcards, drawings, and decorations. The rooms aren’t that nice, but definitely worth it for the price. Also, most people who stay at hostels are foreigners! I’ve met people from all around the world and it’s really cool talking to them and hearing about all the things they’ve done.

Our hostel.

 

Sunday:

 

Sunday was national Moon Day. In the morning a few of the girls and I made our way over to the Beijing branch for church. We don’t have the opportunity to go to church each week and it’s such a blessing when we get to go. The spirit there is incredible and I miss being able to go each week. After church we decided to rent bikes and explore the city (see following post). Then we had Beijing’s famous duck and a little moon party of our own. 

 

Monday:

 

We spent the majority of Monday on the beautiful Great Wall (see following post for more details). It was amazing. In the night we just walked around local streets and Mandy was brave enough to try a bug sandwich.

Tuesday:

 

On Tuesday we visited the Lama Temple (see following post for details) and the silk market. We meant to do more things during the night but we lost Mandy at the silk market, there was a huge fight on one of the streets we were trying to walk by, we locked a key inside one of the rooms (and the hostel didn’t have a spare!), and endless other problems.

Some delicious pastries we bought everyday and the best fried rice I’ve ever had.

Whitney and I in a KFC, just laughing at the events of the night (this picture is mostly an inside joke between us) and Shayne breaking into her room because they locked the key inside--this is why we don’t leave valuables in our rooms.

 

Wednesday:

 

On Wednesday we went to the Forbidden City (see following post for details), the silk market again (you could seriously spend DAYS shopping in that place), and an amazing acrobats show. At night we were running of time, but I really wanted to see the Olympic Eagles Nest so we raced over there and were able to snap a few photos before it closed up.

There were 8 motorcycles in that ball!!

 

Thursday:

 

We spent Thursday morning at the Temple of Heaven (see following post for details), went shopping for a bit, and then headed out for a train to Qingdao (which is a whole another crazy story in itself…).

Riding in a little car.

First Impressions

So…I’m a bit behind on my blog. When I first arrived to China, it took a few weeks to figure out the internet and then we have been traveling so I just haven’t had the time to catch up yet. Although this blog is a great way for friends and family to see my adventures, this blog is mainly for me to look through later in life. Just know that most of my posts will be late, but I will eventually catch up. I wrote this particular post in early September of just some random thoughts about China and the way I now live. I’ve debated a lot about posting it because I now understand the culture better and could add more to this list. Plus, I’m worried that it sounds like I’m complaining a lot and I don’t want people to think I hate it here—I actually don’t mind these things at all! But I want to show my progression and keep this blog chorological so I decided to post it anyway. Also, these things are very specific to my area and experiences so it doesn’t necessary apply to all of China. Anyway just keep that in mind. :)

 

I know I haven’t been here very long, but it feels like its been forever (in a good way). I am already comfortable with the Chinese people and way of life. I thought I would crave American food, but so far I haven’t. I don’t particularly like the cafeteria food, but most Chinese food I love and I’m always wanting to try new things.

The Chinese people drive crazy! For example, the bus driver that took us to our school from the airport turned around on the freeway and drove through head-on traffic! Turns out that’s a pretty normal thing to do. I have been scared for my life almost every time we drive someplace.

We’ve learned that the Chinese people are not very organized or punctual. Chinese teachers are often late and cancel meetings on the spot. The school didn’t even finalize our teaching schedule till a week after we arrived. We also never know if class is cancelled until the kids don’t show up.

Everything is so cheap here—I feel so rich!

Back home drivers honk when people are driving badly or as a warning; here honking is more to let everyone know you’re there. Thus, the streets are filled with non-stop honking. There a street outside our building and we are often woken up in the middle of the night by cars honking.

My roommate Whitney and I have had quite the adventure with our shower. First off, there’s no shower curtain—just mops and a drain on the floor. Second, you have to twist all these knobs in random directions to get hot water and it only last about ten minutes. Then there’s the fact that the water turns off at 10pm or randomly earlier (like in the middle of shampooing). It’s all easy to deal with now, but it was quite the adventure and heartache trying to figure this all out.  

China stinks…literately. It’s like a mix between smoke, pee, and garbage.

Before I came to China I was told that the ground is really gross—I didn’t fully understand that until I came here. To say it is nasty is an understatement. There’s no good garbage system and kids are encouraged to go to the bathroom on the streets so the streets are covered in garbage, slime, pee, and who knows what else.  

We are really lucky to have air conditioning! Air conditioning is surprisingly really expensive here and the school monitors very closely our use. They check all the time to make sure we are only using it in the hot daylight hours and that we are actually in the room when it is on.

The school provides breakfast, lunch, and dinner for us in the cafeteria. I’ve noticed that Americans really like sweet breakfasts (cereal, waffles with syrup, toast with jam, yogurt, etc.) while Chinese prefer fried bread, veggies, eggs, rice, etc. So we’ve decided to buy our own breakfast foods from the local grocery store and then we try to eat what they serve for lunch and dinner (although some days we just can’t do it). Below is what lunch and dinner usually looks like (gotta love those chicken feet). Also, I found out later that the meat by the chicken feet is dog! So I eat puppies for lunch all the time—and it’s actually not too bad!

My room is on the sixth floor of my building and it takes 123 steps just to get to my room. I walk up and down these about 3-6 times a day. When I first arrived, these steps made me exhausted, but now I can climb them pretty easy.

The juice here is so good. Seriously. It’s one of the best parts of China.

It’s interesting to me how the Chinese people all have really nice, cute clothes and nice cell phones, but live in these horrible, run-down buildings.

Tap water is unsafe to drink here so we each have a water cooler in our room. Whenever we want to fill up our water, we have to carry the big jug up those lovely six flights of stairs.

I love my fellow English teachers! There’s seven of us; five came from Utah, one from Idaho, and one from Canada. I was worried about coming to China with no one I knew, but I feel like the other girls and I have instantly become best friends. We all agreed that we have been blessed to have this good of a group!

I don’t think a lot of Chinese people brush their teeth…ever. 

All students do here is go to school. They wake up, go to school for over 13 hours with some short breaks, and then go to bed. They do this every day, Monday through Sunday, with a couple weeks off each year. And I’ve complained about long school hours!

I like spicy foods. I always thought I hated them, but I love everything spicy here! The more peppers in my noodles—the better!