So miraculously I'm able to read the NYTimes articles regarding Tibet, which I'm pretty sure that I'm not supposed to be able to do. In the interest of understanding what local Chinese people would be reading about, I checked out the People's Daily English paper...
"Foreigners suspended from entering Tibet for safety concerns"
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90776/90785/6374421.html
"Full disclosure: Dalai coterie's secessionist attempts doomed to fail"
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90776/90785/6374438.html
(this one leaves me...speechless)
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Saturday, February 23, 2008
And she finally gets to Hangzhou...
Where to begin?
So Lili and I left Beijing on Feb. 6 on a 9:45pm train bound for Luoyang. Chenjun came out to the school and the three of us had dinner [this being the meal that you MUST eat with your entire extended family] so it was nice to be with friends. Chenjun then took us to the train station and right onto the car, which was a blessing because Lili and I had pretty much no idea what was going on. But the train was perfectly fine-we ended up being in a section with another foreign exchange student, only he was from France. You could hear the French accent in his Chinese, which was really cool. The car that we were in was a sleeper car, so Lili and I played cards for a while, watched the fireworks out the window of the train, and then slept. At 7：30 in the morning we arrived...tired, dazed and somewhat confused in Luoyang. We found the closest hotel (100kuai a night special because no one was staying in hotels over Chunjie) and then collapsed for 2 hours. We finally got ourselves up again around 11 and wandered around the old part of the city...along with every other human in Luoyang, but it was exciting to be with so many people. We ate lots of street food [and didn't die] and then walked along the river that runs through Luoyang while trying to avoid the exploding fireworks that were being set off everywhere. We ended up walking along the train tracks back to the main part of the city (bad idea, don't do that) but we survived (we were actually walking on a path next to the train tracks, so we were okay...). I'm pretty sure we had peanut butter sandwiches that night because the vast majority of restaurants were closed...but we were tired anyways, so it was all good.
The next day we were up early, and then took a tour bus out to Mount Song, about an hour and a half out of the city. We stopped outside of Baimasi for about 5 minutes while the bus driver could set of the loudest fireworks he could find. Our first official stop of the tour was the Songyang Academy-one of the oldest schools in all of China, built at least 1,500 years ago during the Northern Wei Dynasty. Many famous Confucian scholars studied here, and allegedly Confucius himself lectured here (though I"m not convinced this checks out...and none of the English websites are being helpful). The coolest part about this school is that China's oldest Cypress tree lives there. She's named "The General" and according to the sign, is 4,500 years old. [!!!!!!!!!!!!!!] (there are pictures of her on facebook) . After that we went to the Yongtai Temple. This too was built during the Northern Wei Dynasty, and was the first nunnery built since Zen Buddhism was introduced to China and is partnered with the Shaolin monastary. After visiting this temple, we went to the Shaolin monastary. Meticulously well-kept, we visited several of their temples, their Pagoda forest (really cool), and then got a free half-hour demonstration by some of the younger monks. The coolest part was one monk threw a needle through a piece of glass and popped the balloon held on the other side of the glass.
So the next day we went out to the Longmen Grottoes. Just outside of the city, there are more than 1,300 caves, 2,300 holes, and 10,000 statues. It's incredible. The carving began around 493BCE (same time period as all of the Song mountain temples) and continued for some 400 years. Unfortunately, after during various periods of turmoil (either internal or external), many of the figures were destroyed...or their faces removed. After just entering the grottoes, there's a sign posted with each important face that's missing, and which museum holds it hostage (there are several in NYC, Boston, and CA). Fengxian Temple is undoubtedly the most impressive part of the Grottoes. Vairocana Buddha sits in the center of the Temple towering 17.14 meters high (56.23 feet). His head alone is some 4 meters tall (13 feet). Eight other enormous figures accompany him. It's breathtaking. There is also another temple, where Chiang Kai Shek spent some time with his wife. And also apparently had a "birthday party" there where he invited all of his GuoMinDang leaders to plan the destruction of the Communist Party...apparently that didn't go so well, after all.
Day 4 was out at Baima Si-the oldest Buddhist temple in China. The two missionaries who brought Buddhism to China are also buried there. On the right side of the temple is the Qinyun Pagoda (Cloud-Scraping Pagoda) which was built in 69 BCE. There are some interesting stories associated with the place (like that the mound of earth kept appearing at the place after being leveled repeatedly). The best part of this pagoda is that (and I quote the sign)
"if you stand 20m away from the pagoda and clap your hands loudly, you will hear an echo from the body of the pagoda, which sounds like the croaking of frogs.
So there is said to be a golden frog beneath the pagoda.
The sound, however, is not a frog's croaks at all. It's only the reverberation of hand clapping.
The reason why the reverberation sounds like the croaks is no more than a physical acoustic phenomenon. Because of the uneven surface of the pagoda-the unique style of the Qinyun Pagoda, the sound of hand clapping is echoed in different ways and in various tones, pitches and temperaments therefore, the echo sounds like the croaking of frogs."
[:D oh, China]
Day five was spent at two museums: first the ancient tombs museum which had recreated tombs from various time periods in the museum so you could walk in and see them (Lili and I still haven't decided how much of it was real artifacts bricks, carvings, paintings, etc. and how much of it was completely recreated), and second, the Luoyang museum which was full of new art and old artifacts-tracing civilization in Luoyang through the Tang Dynasty. Both museums were free because of Chunjie (hooray!).
So that was our time in Luoyang, on the 12th, Lili and I boarded a bus at 9 in the morning, and 18 hours later arrived in Hangzhou. It was the most ridiculous and frustrating travel experience I have ever had. We were told the bus was leaving at 10 pm, so around 10:10 the bus driver gets on, and pulls out (ignoring the girl waving at the bus to try and get on, let alone all of us telling him to stop...) and drives around the block to pull into a giant parking lot behind some buildings where some other buses are parked. He turns the bus, off, fiddles with the cigarette lighter, and then gets off...and disappears. An hour and a half later, another bus driver gets on, and drives the bus...back to the original place we had been parked. now it's, oh, 11:30 and we're hungry...so I run and get Jiaozi for us to eat (all the time panicked that the bus will just up and leave because it feels like it). An hour or more passes...and we find out that they've been waiting to leave until every last seat is filled. So hooray! it's around 12, and all the seats are filled, and the original bus driver gets back on...and drives the bus 2 minutes down the street to fill it up with gas...but before he can actually pull out into the road, he has to block the side road (where public buses and bikes drive/ride) so he can sit and talk on his phone...while the public buses are beeping at him (finally a driver gets out and the two of them yell at each other for 5 minutes). After getting gas...which takes 15 minutes...he drives it back to the original station-place. Where we wait for another...oh, 30 or 40 minutes. I'm pretty sure this was because the driver wanted to talk to his friends. Well, 1:30 rolls around and we finally get on the road. Only we have to stop twice before we leave Luoyang. Once to get the broken Cigarette lighter looked at, and the second time so the bus driver can go buy food. [what????] so now we're actually on the road...2 hour into the drive, we make a pit stop. Two hours later we stop again so the driver can get dinner [but Lili and I are too angry to go get food...] Thirty minutes later we're on the road again. At the next rest stop, the driver pulls off again so he can talk to a friend. The bus drivers switch (there were a total of 3)...and the original one starts drinking...and offering alcohol to other bus drivers (not on our bus)...and then we get going for real. At one point the middle of the road was on fire. [people are lighting fireworks in the middle of the highway?] but we don't stop again until 11:30pm, when we stop to fill up on gas. I think Lili and I drank in total maybe 5 sips of water the whole trip....Did i mention that we were sitting behind 2 chain smokers the whole time? I think my lungs wanted to kill me by the end of the trip. Anyhow, 3:15am rolls around and we've arrived in Hangzhou (finally). So the bus driver (back to the original one who we hated the most) finds the most deserted street he can (no taxis, trains or buses) and forces everyone to get off the bus. The entire bus protests, but in the end he succeeds in kicking us out. Lili and I grab the first cab we see, and the nicest man is driving it. He takes us to a close hotel (which he assures us is both cheap and clean and also right next to the bus station so that it's easy to get where we're going to want to go) he even goes inside with us to make sure they give us a room (Hangzhou was already living up to the unrealistic fantasies we'd been having about it for weeks: warm climate, no wind, no traffic, no pollution....). Anyhow, we slept well that night, or at least what was left of it.
The next morning we took a cab to our new school (Zhejiang Technical University), and I fell in love with Hangzhou along the way. As we drove over the city, there were solar panels on the roofs of all of the buildings! Lili and I met Jeremy and then our roommates and then a group of 8 of us went out to lunch and then to explore a bit of the city near the school.
Okay, just a little about my roommate, and then I promise this post is done...
My roommates name is Songdan, she's a sophomore here and a computer science major. She has a younger brother who is a freshman in college, and I went to her house the past weekend. She lives in Fuyang which is about an hour and a half outside of Hangzhou. Thursday night we went to her father's older sisters house for dinner (it was Yuanxiao Jie -the 15th day of Chunjie, and also her uncle's birthday) with about 30 other relatives and guests. Lots of good food-including (lake) eel (i'm told it has a different taste then sea eel...and i don't think i've had eel since that one time in Singapore...but it's pretty decent) and jellyfish (this was good jellyfish...squishy and the crunchy. remember how we use to do the noodles at new year in Singapore at the revolving tower restaurant? and they would have jellyfish in them? they don't do the noodle thing here...(which kind of makes me sad) but they do jellyfish even better). On Yuanxiao Jie everyone eats these small white rice flour balls that are filled with doujiang (red bean) and are so delicious. I ate way too many. Anyhow, her house was a lot of fun, and her parents are so sweet. We made our own Jiaozi for breakfast. (I think i'm going to try and make them when I go home...I think I can probably get the skins from a store out in U. City.)
Okay, really, I'm done writing. Tomorrow I'm going to the music store so I can make my final decision between the Pipa and Erhu. I'll post pictures from this weekend on facebook soon...
Love always.
So Lili and I left Beijing on Feb. 6 on a 9:45pm train bound for Luoyang. Chenjun came out to the school and the three of us had dinner [this being the meal that you MUST eat with your entire extended family] so it was nice to be with friends. Chenjun then took us to the train station and right onto the car, which was a blessing because Lili and I had pretty much no idea what was going on. But the train was perfectly fine-we ended up being in a section with another foreign exchange student, only he was from France. You could hear the French accent in his Chinese, which was really cool. The car that we were in was a sleeper car, so Lili and I played cards for a while, watched the fireworks out the window of the train, and then slept. At 7：30 in the morning we arrived...tired, dazed and somewhat confused in Luoyang. We found the closest hotel (100kuai a night special because no one was staying in hotels over Chunjie) and then collapsed for 2 hours. We finally got ourselves up again around 11 and wandered around the old part of the city...along with every other human in Luoyang, but it was exciting to be with so many people. We ate lots of street food [and didn't die] and then walked along the river that runs through Luoyang while trying to avoid the exploding fireworks that were being set off everywhere. We ended up walking along the train tracks back to the main part of the city (bad idea, don't do that) but we survived (we were actually walking on a path next to the train tracks, so we were okay...). I'm pretty sure we had peanut butter sandwiches that night because the vast majority of restaurants were closed...but we were tired anyways, so it was all good.
The next day we were up early, and then took a tour bus out to Mount Song, about an hour and a half out of the city. We stopped outside of Baimasi for about 5 minutes while the bus driver could set of the loudest fireworks he could find. Our first official stop of the tour was the Songyang Academy-one of the oldest schools in all of China, built at least 1,500 years ago during the Northern Wei Dynasty. Many famous Confucian scholars studied here, and allegedly Confucius himself lectured here (though I"m not convinced this checks out...and none of the English websites are being helpful). The coolest part about this school is that China's oldest Cypress tree lives there. She's named "The General" and according to the sign, is 4,500 years old. [!!!!!!!!!!!!!!] (there are pictures of her on facebook) . After that we went to the Yongtai Temple. This too was built during the Northern Wei Dynasty, and was the first nunnery built since Zen Buddhism was introduced to China and is partnered with the Shaolin monastary. After visiting this temple, we went to the Shaolin monastary. Meticulously well-kept, we visited several of their temples, their Pagoda forest (really cool), and then got a free half-hour demonstration by some of the younger monks. The coolest part was one monk threw a needle through a piece of glass and popped the balloon held on the other side of the glass.
So the next day we went out to the Longmen Grottoes. Just outside of the city, there are more than 1,300 caves, 2,300 holes, and 10,000 statues. It's incredible. The carving began around 493BCE (same time period as all of the Song mountain temples) and continued for some 400 years. Unfortunately, after during various periods of turmoil (either internal or external), many of the figures were destroyed...or their faces removed. After just entering the grottoes, there's a sign posted with each important face that's missing, and which museum holds it hostage (there are several in NYC, Boston, and CA). Fengxian Temple is undoubtedly the most impressive part of the Grottoes. Vairocana Buddha sits in the center of the Temple towering 17.14 meters high (56.23 feet). His head alone is some 4 meters tall (13 feet). Eight other enormous figures accompany him. It's breathtaking. There is also another temple, where Chiang Kai Shek spent some time with his wife. And also apparently had a "birthday party" there where he invited all of his GuoMinDang leaders to plan the destruction of the Communist Party...apparently that didn't go so well, after all.
Day 4 was out at Baima Si-the oldest Buddhist temple in China. The two missionaries who brought Buddhism to China are also buried there. On the right side of the temple is the Qinyun Pagoda (Cloud-Scraping Pagoda) which was built in 69 BCE. There are some interesting stories associated with the place (like that the mound of earth kept appearing at the place after being leveled repeatedly). The best part of this pagoda is that (and I quote the sign)
"if you stand 20m away from the pagoda and clap your hands loudly, you will hear an echo from the body of the pagoda, which sounds like the croaking of frogs.
So there is said to be a golden frog beneath the pagoda.
The sound, however, is not a frog's croaks at all. It's only the reverberation of hand clapping.
The reason why the reverberation sounds like the croaks is no more than a physical acoustic phenomenon. Because of the uneven surface of the pagoda-the unique style of the Qinyun Pagoda, the sound of hand clapping is echoed in different ways and in various tones, pitches and temperaments therefore, the echo sounds like the croaking of frogs."
[:D oh, China]
Day five was spent at two museums: first the ancient tombs museum which had recreated tombs from various time periods in the museum so you could walk in and see them (Lili and I still haven't decided how much of it was real artifacts bricks, carvings, paintings, etc. and how much of it was completely recreated), and second, the Luoyang museum which was full of new art and old artifacts-tracing civilization in Luoyang through the Tang Dynasty. Both museums were free because of Chunjie (hooray!).
So that was our time in Luoyang, on the 12th, Lili and I boarded a bus at 9 in the morning, and 18 hours later arrived in Hangzhou. It was the most ridiculous and frustrating travel experience I have ever had. We were told the bus was leaving at 10 pm, so around 10:10 the bus driver gets on, and pulls out (ignoring the girl waving at the bus to try and get on, let alone all of us telling him to stop...) and drives around the block to pull into a giant parking lot behind some buildings where some other buses are parked. He turns the bus, off, fiddles with the cigarette lighter, and then gets off...and disappears. An hour and a half later, another bus driver gets on, and drives the bus...back to the original place we had been parked. now it's, oh, 11:30 and we're hungry...so I run and get Jiaozi for us to eat (all the time panicked that the bus will just up and leave because it feels like it). An hour or more passes...and we find out that they've been waiting to leave until every last seat is filled. So hooray! it's around 12, and all the seats are filled, and the original bus driver gets back on...and drives the bus 2 minutes down the street to fill it up with gas...but before he can actually pull out into the road, he has to block the side road (where public buses and bikes drive/ride) so he can sit and talk on his phone...while the public buses are beeping at him (finally a driver gets out and the two of them yell at each other for 5 minutes). After getting gas...which takes 15 minutes...he drives it back to the original station-place. Where we wait for another...oh, 30 or 40 minutes. I'm pretty sure this was because the driver wanted to talk to his friends. Well, 1:30 rolls around and we finally get on the road. Only we have to stop twice before we leave Luoyang. Once to get the broken Cigarette lighter looked at, and the second time so the bus driver can go buy food. [what????] so now we're actually on the road...2 hour into the drive, we make a pit stop. Two hours later we stop again so the driver can get dinner [but Lili and I are too angry to go get food...] Thirty minutes later we're on the road again. At the next rest stop, the driver pulls off again so he can talk to a friend. The bus drivers switch (there were a total of 3)...and the original one starts drinking...and offering alcohol to other bus drivers (not on our bus)...and then we get going for real. At one point the middle of the road was on fire. [people are lighting fireworks in the middle of the highway?] but we don't stop again until 11:30pm, when we stop to fill up on gas. I think Lili and I drank in total maybe 5 sips of water the whole trip....Did i mention that we were sitting behind 2 chain smokers the whole time? I think my lungs wanted to kill me by the end of the trip. Anyhow, 3:15am rolls around and we've arrived in Hangzhou (finally). So the bus driver (back to the original one who we hated the most) finds the most deserted street he can (no taxis, trains or buses) and forces everyone to get off the bus. The entire bus protests, but in the end he succeeds in kicking us out. Lili and I grab the first cab we see, and the nicest man is driving it. He takes us to a close hotel (which he assures us is both cheap and clean and also right next to the bus station so that it's easy to get where we're going to want to go) he even goes inside with us to make sure they give us a room (Hangzhou was already living up to the unrealistic fantasies we'd been having about it for weeks: warm climate, no wind, no traffic, no pollution....). Anyhow, we slept well that night, or at least what was left of it.
The next morning we took a cab to our new school (Zhejiang Technical University), and I fell in love with Hangzhou along the way. As we drove over the city, there were solar panels on the roofs of all of the buildings! Lili and I met Jeremy and then our roommates and then a group of 8 of us went out to lunch and then to explore a bit of the city near the school.
Okay, just a little about my roommate, and then I promise this post is done...
My roommates name is Songdan, she's a sophomore here and a computer science major. She has a younger brother who is a freshman in college, and I went to her house the past weekend. She lives in Fuyang which is about an hour and a half outside of Hangzhou. Thursday night we went to her father's older sisters house for dinner (it was Yuanxiao Jie -the 15th day of Chunjie, and also her uncle's birthday) with about 30 other relatives and guests. Lots of good food-including (lake) eel (i'm told it has a different taste then sea eel...and i don't think i've had eel since that one time in Singapore...but it's pretty decent) and jellyfish (this was good jellyfish...squishy and the crunchy. remember how we use to do the noodles at new year in Singapore at the revolving tower restaurant? and they would have jellyfish in them? they don't do the noodle thing here...(which kind of makes me sad) but they do jellyfish even better). On Yuanxiao Jie everyone eats these small white rice flour balls that are filled with doujiang (red bean) and are so delicious. I ate way too many. Anyhow, her house was a lot of fun, and her parents are so sweet. We made our own Jiaozi for breakfast. (I think i'm going to try and make them when I go home...I think I can probably get the skins from a store out in U. City.)
Okay, really, I'm done writing. Tomorrow I'm going to the music store so I can make my final decision between the Pipa and Erhu. I'll post pictures from this weekend on facebook soon...
Love always.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Last thoughts from Beijing
It's February 5th: Luke's birthday (happy 16!) and two days before the start of ChunJie (the Spring Festival aka Chinese New Year). The fireworks have been going off all day along the streets of our Hutong. But, I've been in Beijing 38 days now, and I'm ready to move on. The last 10 days or so have been fun, but I'm exhausted from doing the tourist thing, and I'm ready to move on. Tomorrow night at 9:41 we leave for LuoYang, where, naturally, we'll keep doing the tourist thing (details). It seems vaguely appropriate to start Lent by moving somewhere new. But it's only temporary- by the 13th we'll be in Hangzhou and starting orientation for the new semester. Renli, Lili and I have worked Hangzhou up to be essentially paradise (warm weather, no wind, cheap food, no cars-or people for that matter...and a church that I can get to) so it will be a relief to finally be there (warm weather or no). Really, I think I'm just looking forward to structure and studying again. Hopefully the classes will be more engaging...
Last Monday, we went to District 798-an art district that was started in an old industrial section of town. Artists there are pretty 'kaifang' and apparently get shut down sometimes...but there was a big exhibit of Greek Comics-really cool stuff, dealing a lot with death...and cycles. but really neat. There was also a photo gallery where there was a series called "Family Stuff" where the photographers had a family bring all of their possessions out in front of their home to be photographed with them. They picked a 'typical' family from each region of China. It was so interesting to see what people owned-not much, and a tv. Tuesday we went to China's ancient Observatory which dates back to Kublai Khan (built sometime in the 500's) and is one of the oldest in the world. It was a working observatory until the 1920s. They had a ton of cool equipment that was stolen by the French and Germans, but returned after the Treaty of Versailles. Wednesday we went to a museum on Luxun, a famous Chinese writer born in the last 1800s. He translated in a billion languages (okay, well, I think we counted at least 7), taught biology (!!!) as well as all things literary. Really fascinating character. Then we went to the White Dagoda which was just next door and quite beautiful. On Thursday we somehow managed to eat pigs brain for dinner...or rather we ordered it, I began to recognize brain structures, and then we stopped eating it...because it's texture was very...brain-y. But we made up for it afterwards with egg custards and ice cream. On Friday we went out to Ba Da Chu, which is a big national park with 8 temples in it. It's on the fringe of the city, and I really enjoy being out that way-kind of in the same place as the botanical gardens. We saw a Glacial Rock (kept in a cage???), and one temple that dated back to 735 (with a 500 year old tree in the courts). It was so cool. The last couple of days we've been hanging around here, doing last minute shopping and preparation for traveling. Lissa left on Monday for Nanjing...and Lili and I are too lazy to go out and do anything...plus we've done everything we want to do in Beijing, well everything we can do. On Sunday we tried to go to the Temple of Earth Park...but they wouldn't let us in. even though the gates were open. and the sign said they were open until 5. but whatever....I'm going to put pictures on facebook of the things I bothered to take pictures of....
Lili just informed me that it's in the 40s in Luoyang! I am so excited for slightly less cold weather! Anyhow, back to packing i suppose....
Last Monday, we went to District 798-an art district that was started in an old industrial section of town. Artists there are pretty 'kaifang' and apparently get shut down sometimes...but there was a big exhibit of Greek Comics-really cool stuff, dealing a lot with death...and cycles. but really neat. There was also a photo gallery where there was a series called "Family Stuff" where the photographers had a family bring all of their possessions out in front of their home to be photographed with them. They picked a 'typical' family from each region of China. It was so interesting to see what people owned-not much, and a tv. Tuesday we went to China's ancient Observatory which dates back to Kublai Khan (built sometime in the 500's) and is one of the oldest in the world. It was a working observatory until the 1920s. They had a ton of cool equipment that was stolen by the French and Germans, but returned after the Treaty of Versailles. Wednesday we went to a museum on Luxun, a famous Chinese writer born in the last 1800s. He translated in a billion languages (okay, well, I think we counted at least 7), taught biology (!!!) as well as all things literary. Really fascinating character. Then we went to the White Dagoda which was just next door and quite beautiful. On Thursday we somehow managed to eat pigs brain for dinner...or rather we ordered it, I began to recognize brain structures, and then we stopped eating it...because it's texture was very...brain-y. But we made up for it afterwards with egg custards and ice cream. On Friday we went out to Ba Da Chu, which is a big national park with 8 temples in it. It's on the fringe of the city, and I really enjoy being out that way-kind of in the same place as the botanical gardens. We saw a Glacial Rock (kept in a cage???), and one temple that dated back to 735 (with a 500 year old tree in the courts). It was so cool. The last couple of days we've been hanging around here, doing last minute shopping and preparation for traveling. Lissa left on Monday for Nanjing...and Lili and I are too lazy to go out and do anything...plus we've done everything we want to do in Beijing, well everything we can do. On Sunday we tried to go to the Temple of Earth Park...but they wouldn't let us in. even though the gates were open. and the sign said they were open until 5. but whatever....I'm going to put pictures on facebook of the things I bothered to take pictures of....
Lili just informed me that it's in the 40s in Luoyang! I am so excited for slightly less cold weather! Anyhow, back to packing i suppose....
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
snow
It's snowing in Beijing!
Never mind that it has a decidedly brownish tint, it's still snowing! We've gotten maybe, 1/4 of an inch, maybe even 1/2 and inch. It's Yali's first time in a place when it's actually snowing, so she's pretty excited.
Of course in class this morning, all of us Midd kids were ranting on about how this is nothing like middlebury snow. apparently we're all vaguely midd-sick right now.
At least it's Thursday.
I have a soar throat and a sneaking suspicion that the cold that my roomate has had twice, and Lissa and Yali have both had is finally taking over my body. But I'm going to go sleep and see if I can't postpone the inevitable a bit longer...
Love.
Never mind that it has a decidedly brownish tint, it's still snowing! We've gotten maybe, 1/4 of an inch, maybe even 1/2 and inch. It's Yali's first time in a place when it's actually snowing, so she's pretty excited.
Of course in class this morning, all of us Midd kids were ranting on about how this is nothing like middlebury snow. apparently we're all vaguely midd-sick right now.
At least it's Thursday.
I have a soar throat and a sneaking suspicion that the cold that my roomate has had twice, and Lissa and Yali have both had is finally taking over my body. But I'm going to go sleep and see if I can't postpone the inevitable a bit longer...
Love.
skits
so our skit is offically where in china is carmen sandiego.
AND I GET TO BE CARMEN!
note that this means very little stage time and lots of reading my lines from paper. weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
also, it's just exciting.
and i'm writing my essay on darwin! [or will, once i stop procrastinating...]
AND I GET TO BE CARMEN!
note that this means very little stage time and lots of reading my lines from paper. weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
also, it's just exciting.
and i'm writing my essay on darwin! [or will, once i stop procrastinating...]
while avoiding an essay...
Lissa, Yali and I went back to the park that Lissa found this week. There was ice! and we walked across the lake! it was fun! and then cold. but then we went and ate really really really good XinJiang food [agian]. And I broke down and bought chocolate icecream and more oreos...and will probably have a cold by the end of the week. HOORAY!
oh, and we went to a museum today for class, where there was a huge group of Korean students. And all of the girls thought that our guys were the hottest things they had ever seen. And managed to hunt them down 4 or 5 times-the last time being in the main atrium of the museum where they giggled and shreaked in broken English. Sam got told that he looked like Harry Potter. It was amazing.
And now I'm going to go write my essay on _[insert person]_. It will be great!
oh, and we went to a museum today for class, where there was a huge group of Korean students. And all of the girls thought that our guys were the hottest things they had ever seen. And managed to hunt them down 4 or 5 times-the last time being in the main atrium of the museum where they giggled and shreaked in broken English. Sam got told that he looked like Harry Potter. It was amazing.
And now I'm going to go write my essay on _[insert person]_. It will be great!
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
thoughts on a not so late night...
I went to an enormous bookstore on Sunday [it may even rival that one in Portland, shoot, what is it called?] It was absolutely jam packed with people, but I bought my first two Chinese books ever [textbooks and dictionaries most certainly excluded]: ZhongGuo ChengYu GuShi (Chinese ChengYu Stories...Chengyu's are kind of like idioms. But this is what I was studying last semester in Classical, so clearly I needed a children's book with lots of pretty colourful pictures to add to my textbook) and Ba Xian Guo Hai (which I don't know how exactly to translate, other than it's the stories of the 8 Immortals, which I had just seen in a temple earlier that day, so I obviously needed a picture book about them). The books were super excited, I even saw some rip-off Harry Potter books of my own (only I'm not really sure how they were Harry Potter related, but Chenjun assures me that they were. Speaking of which, she hasn't read any of the books, she's only watched the movies. This makes me want to cry. But she's studying for an exam that's on Thursday, so I guess I can cut her a little slack for now).
In other news, I went shopping for new shoes because I loose feeling in my feet after about 30 minutes of being outside [it's wonderful]. We went to a big shopping mall, and I almost bought a lovely pair of boots that were all furry and wonderful, but the sales guy said I looked stupid and that I couldn't wear them with the pants that I was wearing. So I kept my money and left. [they were really too expensive anyways]. More importantly, at least 6 Avril Lavigne songs played on the loud speaker. It was...interesting. I sang along, just because it was English and I miss singing. And Juniper and Tigress. A lot. Anyhow...There were an absurd number of people in that mall. Mom, you would have absolutely detested it.
Anyhow, it's 7:30 and I want to go to sleep. Beijing is cold. Orion misses Middlebury.
"show me a garden that's bursting into life..."
In other news, I went shopping for new shoes because I loose feeling in my feet after about 30 minutes of being outside [it's wonderful]. We went to a big shopping mall, and I almost bought a lovely pair of boots that were all furry and wonderful, but the sales guy said I looked stupid and that I couldn't wear them with the pants that I was wearing. So I kept my money and left. [they were really too expensive anyways]. More importantly, at least 6 Avril Lavigne songs played on the loud speaker. It was...interesting. I sang along, just because it was English and I miss singing. And Juniper and Tigress. A lot. Anyhow...There were an absurd number of people in that mall. Mom, you would have absolutely detested it.
Anyhow, it's 7:30 and I want to go to sleep. Beijing is cold. Orion misses Middlebury.
"show me a garden that's bursting into life..."
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