A Well-Grown Drying Rack

As I spend more time in Beijing, I learn consistently learn more reasons for Americans to be classified as ridiculous. For example, in America, we buy specific specialty cloths with which to wash our windows. In China they use newspaper. Because it's free. In America, we use special contraptions to wring out and dry our mops. In China, they use natural drying racks and the summer heat.

American Flavor

Because in China, no flavor is American Flavor. (Seriously. They don't sell any other unflavored potato chips.)

*American Classic Flavor

Ratatouille

This week we learned more vocabulary and grammar structures to use when comparing things. Or people. Or people and things. As we discovered when we started comparing one of my classmates with the picture of the main characters from the movie Ratatouille. Because--seriously--they look exactly the same. Except one's animated.

Chinese Chess

On Monday afternoons, after spending five and a half hours in class, I have decided to attend the free, no credit, Chinese Culture Class. Crazy, right? We learn about Chinese folklore, legends, traditional clothing, and even games--like the real mahjong and Chinese Chess. Now, I'm not even going to attempt to explain how to play, or which pieces move in which ways, because I really have no idea myself (though I have it written down in a handy-dandy little notebook). In any case, this is about how the lesson went:

Supermarket Run!

After going to the Great Wall of China on Saturday, it was brought home to many of us just how far we really were from home. So we did what any self-respecting American tourist would do. We trekked out the the farthest, most expensive supermarket, and bought home food. In this case, spaghetti.

Now, the reason we were even able to find spaghetti in China was because we went to the supermarket in the middle of Beijing's version of Embassy Row. It's size made it more like "embassy district", to be fair. And because this is China, the government has handily provided each embassy with a Chinese guard for their front gate. It was...interesting. More interesting was the fact that we were there for the afternoon changing of the guard. That meant that small groups of Chinese soldiers were marching around the district the whole time were were there, picking up and dropping off soldiers as they passed embassies.

We also passed a really weird front gate to...something. I'm not really sure what.

As well as the most awesome sign in the history of exploding cars. Or something.

Finally, after all that, we made it to the supermarket, bought our wonderfully ordinary dinner, and returned to the apartment to put it all together. Wonderful. There was just one problem. When we bought the spaghetti and sauce and Italian bread, we forgot to consider the limitations of our kitchen. And, of course, since we bought the least expensive, recognizable tomato sauce, it was in a can. *HINT* (we don't own a can opener) But we figured it out eventually.

With a bottle opener.

Really.

A Really Pretty Good Wall

This past weekend we went to the Great Wall of China.

Pretty cool, huh?

Now, most people probably realize that since the Great Wall was built for the defense of China, it generally follows the tops of mountain ridges and other high ground. What you may not realize is what th means in terms of actually getting to the Wall. Because in China, they don't make you hike up a mountain--no, they make you take the stairs. The really old, uneven, stone stairs. And there's a lot of them.

Let me put this in perspective. From the Great Wall, we could see the little tourist town we started from. Look there, to the right...

So up the stairs we went.

As we climbed, we discovered a bunch of very interesting facts about China. Like the fact that the Chinese authorities prohibit fire if fire-forbidden areas. Huh. Imagine that.

And on we climbed...

We then discovered that in China, money does grow on trees. Quite peculiar.

And we met a couple of tourists who thought it would be cool to get their pictures taken with some random American folks. we thought it would be cool, too.

And then, finally, we reached the Great Wall of China. You have no idea how much of a relief it was to our aching muscles, at that point.

At the Wall we met a little girl who wanted a picture of us cool Americans at the Great Wall. The moment was too cute to pass up.

She must have been studying American customs in school, because after the pictures she very politely said "thank you" in English and shook our hands. It was very sweet.

After the pictures we took a moment to appreciate the view from the Wall. This is what we saw...

After standing around for a bit, congratulating ourselves for actually getting there. We began the relatively short, but very exciting, walk along the Great Wall to the gondolas that would ferry us back down. Because we were in no way even considering walking back down that ridiculous flight of stairs.

We walked up narrow walkways, and across wide ones...

We saw guard towers,

And we walked into them...

went over to the window...

and looked out.

Then we walked out the other side of the guard tower.

We saw some amazing things:

 And some really awesome views.

Then, at the end, we stopped to rest...

Before taking the gondola back down.

Chopsticks and Watermelon

Not much to say about this one. I actually ate watermelon with chopsticks. It was a big moment.

Congratulations! You Survived Two Whole Weeks!

Friday afternoon, after the last class of the second week, the program took everyone out for lunch, teachers included. We went to a restaurant across the street from campus with really good food, and boy did we eat.

I've been to that restaurant a few times before, mostly because the menu has pictures, which makes it a lot easier to actually know what you're ordering before it arrives. In fact, I've been there enough that our usual waitress knows me. She actually waived today when we came in.

So we all went upstairs to one of the private rooms, and they had four tables (10 chairs each) set up for us, which we didn't quite fill, but it was close. And then they brought the food. And when we were done eating, they brought more food. And then they did it again. And then they brought dessert, and then more food. My table ended up with fifteen dishes for eight people. It was ridiculous (but sooo gooood). We had, let's see... rice, sweet and sour pork, pork with green pepper, sliced beef thing (tasted like salami), fried eggplant sticks in sweet and spicy sauce, garlic broccoli, kung pao chicken (yes, they actually have that in China), tofu-shrimp-veggi thing, spinach, fried rice, fried pumpkin sticks, spicy green beans, spicy potato shreds, honey potatoes, and fried bread with custard. And we brought back the leftovers. Of course, there wasn't actually that much to bring back. Seriously. And we went all together, so we didn't have to pay for any of it. Best. Lunch. Ever. 

Happy Birthday!

This is possibly one of the most awesome candles I have ever seen for a birthday cake.

Now watch it work...

I want a cake like this for my birthday!

Little White Cat

This is 小白 (xiao bai), which means "little white". She belongs to one of the teachers, and wanders in to be petted every once in a while. Also to sharped her claws on our big comfy chairs.

Weekend at the Forbidden City

We passed this on the way to the Forbidden City. Knowing none of the specifics, all I can say is that Mao's burial ground is pretty magnificent.

The Forbidden City (Gu Gong 故宫) is the former imperial palace of the emperor of China during the Ming and Qing dynasties. It's main body encompasses a series of "gates" which are really enormous buildings with a large doorway in each side. Each of these gates was dediated to a different activity, such as presenting awards to successful generals. The first gate, which you have to walk through to actually get to the "palace museum" as it is now called, is Tienanmen Gate of the well-known Tienanmen Square. There are so many gates, smaller buildings, and even gardens in  this structure, that the Forbidden City is still the world's largest palace complex.

Below is a photograph of Tienanmen Square, full of smog and tourists, as we walked through it on our way to the Forbidden City.

 

The first gate we saw after entering the forbidden city was pretty cool. But i'm only showing you one of these, because, in the end, the gates all looked pretty much the same.

Here's a closer-up shot. You may notice all the umbrellas. Let me explain.
It was not raining. Beijing is one of those wonderful places where people actually use sun umbrellas. It's awesome.

This nice picture shows one side of the complex, as seen from a gate. Hopefully you can tell how big this place really is.

Nice walk between buildings in one of those side ares you just saw. Nice long walk.

And last--it was the last thing we walked through in the Forbidden City too--the Empress' Gardens.

Campus View

Welcome to 北大 (beida), where campus is so big it not only has a lake somewhere on campus, it also has numerous ponds and small parks, making it oddly peaceful for a campus so ridiculously large. This is one of the ponds--the one I thought was the lake, until I realized how many of them there are. At this point, the campus is so big, I don't even know how to get to the other side of it. I can't decide if I miss my small AU campus anymore.

Tea House Adventures

Friday afternoon of the first week, we went to a nice little tea house on campus, where you can taste tea before you buy it. Of course, this means a person actually brews the tea in front of you, with a full tea set (three tea pots!) and pours it for you. The whole deal. It was pretty cool, and the tea server was practicing her English on us while we practiced our Chinese on her.

On the table there was a decorative rock filled with water. None of us could really figure it out.

New Old Building

This is just a building on campus I thought was cool. You see a lot of them styled like this around campus, and even around the city--new building, with a traditional style roof.

Beijing Dining

Welcome to Beijing, where you have to call for a waiter in a nice restaurant (they don't check up on you) and the dishes are shrink-wrapped so you know they're clean.

On the plus side, it seems that the majority of establishments that have menus, have menus with pictures. So that's helpful (for all us non-Chinese-reading people out there).

Also, bendy straws. The cafe/bakery down the street has them. And they're super-bendy.

Doorway of Doom

Day one of class:

Our heroine makes her way though the courtyard between two large stone buildings. She turns, suddenly, onto a little-used path between the overgrown stalks of bamboo, and stooping, climbs through the half-hidden doorway. A sign above her proudly proclaims "Gate of Humility". As she wonders about this incongruous title, she rises just moments too soon, and smacks her head into the door frame with a resounding "thud!"

This would be that doorway...

Starbucks and Baozi

I just had to snap this photo of my breakfast the first morning in China. Baozi 包子, a traditional Chinese breakfast food of steamed, stuffed buns, and a Starbucks frappuccino.