Okay so I am currently in Tokyo. It's nice. I wanted to put up some pictures from Shanghai but alas, my camera just ran out of batteries.... So I shall soon put up some pictures from both Shanghai and Tokyo.

Yay.

Xi'an has secret rooms

I traded IPODs with a friend here in China named Zhou. I might have mentioned him in some previous post. But anyway. He is a graduate student studying Statistics at North Dakota, but he is originally from Tianjin. He volunteered to show us around the city and such, but now we like to hang out with him. His favorite musician is Marylin Manson, so I thought it would be fun for us to switch our ipods. As a result, I have been listening to nothing but Van Halen, AC/DC , Motorhead, and other metal bands. Hopefully he does not think that my music is bad. Haha.

Here is a picture of him with Monica and Justin in the background.

This weekend, we traveled to the historical city of Xi'an. Honestly, if I were to come back to China, I would come back to this town. The place always has something going on. Either a parade, fireworks, or other random cultural events. The town originally was surrounded by a town wall, which today you can ride your bike around (13 km?). We arrived to Xi'an by plane on the fourth of July.

We actually missed the Olympic torch pass through by a few hours. We did not get to celebrate the holiday till the next day.

On July 5th, during the day we went to see the Terra Cotta soldiers located near the mountains. They are buried underground in a tomb. It is very similar to the tomb of the Pharaoh's.

Here is the first vault. Apparently, all of these soldiers were originally in ruins and had to be glued back together. Pretty impressive.

I am a happy Terra cotta soldier!

I found this picture on the wall in one of the tourist shops. I think this man (who ever he is) looks like my father. Or at least his long lost twin.


Later that day we went to see one of the most famous concubines home. She lived during the time when being fat was HOT and women were considered as equals. Her home had access to these natural hot springs, so there were at least four different bath houses on the property.

The house of the concubine. It must be nice to be the favorite.
This is the source of the hot spring.

At night we went to see this amazing fountain show at the Buddhist pagoda. It was really cool. Like a giant outdoor rave with lots and lots of water.

We visited a Muslim temple in Xi'an. When the tour guide was describing their largest minority population, it appeared to me that there remains an air of hostility towards outsiders. She explained that the Muslims do not call themselves Chinese, but Muslim and that they always hope to go back to their homes. The reason why they live in this city is because this town is the start (or end?) of the silk road which opened up China to trade with other regions.






Before going to the temple, we rode our bicycles on the wall. It was a lot of fun to be able to see the city in this manner. I didn't bring my camera, so I have no pictures. But, I was able to do all of the 13 km in 45 minutes? or so? Good work out. Haha.

The train ride back was interesting with beautiful scenery.
Our bunk beds. I don't know if you can tell, but there is a third bunk all the way up top. I slept there. It was nice.
Justin playing Go. Later I played, and lost..... It's a hard game. This was the view outside of the train. It was lovely. A nice escape from the city smog.


Today, I learned how to play this instrument. The 二 胡（er hu). It's like a violin, but with two strings.

We are leaving for Shanghai this Thursday by train. We are having our final ceremony that day where we present our tai chi, wushu, and a short performance. I am not sure when I will update the blog again, hopefully sometime before the trip to Tokyo.

Not enough information

Today was exciting. After our culture class, where we learned how to sing a song, we were taken to the "costume" room. We all were dressed up and made up to look like characters from the Beijing Opera. At first, it felt weird, to look so... weird, but then it almost felt natural. The head peices cut off the circulation to the head, and it hurt, a lot. I have no idea how people manage to wear such an outfit for three hours straight.

Tomorrow we will be taking a flight to Xi'an, a historical town. It houses the terra cotta soldiers and the tomb of the emperor. We will take a train on the way back, which I am most excited for. (I like trains).

Earlier this week we learned about the art of Calligraphy. At the end we got to practice the art. I wrote a pretty impressive poem:

今天是水

我心是渴

（Today is water

My heart is thirsty)

To me, it represents the search for knowledge and experience.

This is our whole class dressed up. We are a good looking bunch, do you think so?

I was dressed as one of the four Chinese beauties represented in the opera.

"This is the blog speaking, I would like to be titled"

So here's a recap of what we have done in the past three days:

-Karaoke
-Tienanmen Square
-Mao's Mausoleum
-Imperial Palace - aka The Forbidden City
-Summer Garden
-Beijing Opera
-Great wall of China

(This list is Copyrighted by Ekaterina Ivanova. If you find it anywhere else on the Internet, just make sure to know that that person, cough cough Joseph Paulson, will be sued upon return to the States. That includes, Pu Shan Jun as well. So. If you see this man on the street, make sure to point him out and call him a copyright infringer!!! Oh, and don't listen to his lies, he wears a white mask, meaning, sly to the Chinese.)

Anyway, back to reality.

The weekend was very long and exhausting. It started Friday night with Karaoke. On the way there, we got caught in the rain and showed up at this classy place soaked from head to toe. I had to wring out my skirt in the trash can. Kind of embarrassing, but the people there treated us very kindly and did not laugh (in front of us) nor did they say anything about it. It was a lot of fun, but we did not get back till very late. Just in time to catch the bus to Beijing at 6 am the next morning.

This was a sweet room, with all sorts of lights that changed colors and flashed with a big screen TV. It was awesome.

The first place we went to visit was Tienanmen Square and Mao's Mausoleum. We went inside and saw his body. It was quiet a sight to see. His body, laying in the glass casket. With all that we know about him, it was funny to hear from Justin, one of the other students on the trip, "Seeing his body is like visiting Hitler's body." But people love him here. Either that, or they simply do not acknowledge him. Kind of erased from history through censorship. And it's not only the government's censorship, it's personal censorship. I don't know. It's a little eerie.

This is Robin and I in posing for Mr. Mao. We is asian.

From the mausoleum, we went into the Forbidden city. It was like everything else in Beijing, Huge. It looked a lot like that of the other estates we have been to. Unlike the other estates, this one lacked vegetation. It reminded me of a prison. A prison for the emperor. Maybe it was just my mood from the lack of sleep that put this hue on the scene.

Next stop, the Summer Garden. This place looked just like the Washington Basin. Instead of Cherry blossoms, though, there were willows. The place was also a bit bigger, but the layout seemed to be identical. It was a nice change from the estates that we had seen over and over again. It was a very relaxing place and I think my mother would have surely enjoyed it.

Lotus water. Van gogh would be happy here.
A boat made of Marble!

We then went to a Beijing opera. I was amused.

This was the story a young woman who was parted from her nan pengyou (boyfriend) and she wanted to catch up to him by boat. She found this old man, but he constantly played tricks on her which were funny.

The great wall was large.


This is the steepest staircase I have ever climbed. It was very misty, so not only was it steep it was slippery. So of course, like a little kid I ran down it.

Spencer and me. Obviously very happy.
You know, I saw some people climb this wall with heels and a dress on. I was surely impressed.

It's quiet a lot to do in such a short amount of time, but it was done. We did not get to explore much of Beijing the city. We just visited the main tourist attractions, which makes me a little sad. I wish we could have gone shopping or something. But it's okay.

I dont' really want to write anymore. I will post some funny pictures next time. Yay!

Nothing much has happened since I last wrote

Yesterday was an especially clear day. You could see the needle and the sky did not look brown. It was nice. With Spencer, Joe and the kids from Quebec, we went to dinner and had some delicious Korean BBQ. Lots and lots of meat. Mmm.

About the kids from Quebec. They live in our building and they all speak French. Quoi interesant. Of course they can speak English too, but their native language is French. Spencer first started talking to them and hanging out with them. I found it funny that my five years of French training in high school is finally coming to use. I mean, I remember going to France and Quebec, but it did not really help in that situation. Now, out of all places, China, I can use my French. Would that be ironic?

The Chinese language classes are getting ridiculously difficult. I am slowly picking up on certain basic characters, but still, my fluency is low. Some of the kids in the class know a lot more because they have studied the language in the past. I am just thrown into it, which is good because otherwise I probably would have never found the motivation or ambition to learn the language.

After classes which typically end around 3, we tend to run small errands and go out. We have not been able to explore the city that much, because half the time we don't know where to go. However, the places near by are fine to explore. Especially the food. The food on campus is kind of bad, however outside it's delicious. The beer on the street for a large bottle is 4 RMB, meaning it's less than a dollar for a beer. Prices at clubs and bars and such are almost the same as in the US, a little cheaper, but expensive compared to the standard of living.


There is a mall nearby the "New Culture Center" which I thought looked very hip. I think the place had more than one hundred (100) clothing stores. Four stories of the same stuff. It made me realize why everything is imported from China to the US (because there's no room for it here). That's a joke. But seriously, I have never seen so much jewelry and clothing all in one place tightly packed together.


Tomorrow we are leaving to go to Beijing to see the Great Wall, the Summer Palace, and the Imperial Palace. I would like to also see Mao's body. Here's something I think, did Mao come out with crazy policies because he had Syphilis?? Hmm.

I would put some pictures in here, but the computer is not really allowing for me to do this at the moment. So I will end this post here.

Wo ai ni.

The Great Firewall of China, yeah sure

This weekend we traveled to the Shangdong province to visit the home town of Confucius and Mencius. We stayed at a local hotel, which from the outside looked like Las Vegas. Outside of the hotel was a park where people danced, literally ALL day long. Like ball room dancing and a form of line dancing. I felt like as if I was in a fairy tale where the ghosts never slept and just continued to dance. Ghosts. The sun has yet to shine on the ground. However we did see some blue skies on Mount Tai.

Mount Tai is said to have over 6000 stairs (which we did not climb). They say that if you climb all 6000 you will live to be 100. We took the cable car instead. It was beautiful. I burned some incense as a prayer. There was a temple and nearly a whole village at the top of the mountain. Unfortunately I do not have any pictures. My camera battery died on Saturday but we climbed the mountain on Sunday.

Traveling through the country side for five hours to the province opened my eyes to the true state of China. They are rationing their gas sales which is a lot different than in the states. The country is really low on diesel, which is kind of bad. If you are from out of town, you can only get something like 2 litres at that gas station. That is no good when you are traveling from town to town or if you drive a truck for transporting goods.

Also, the country side is composed of old brick commune homes. In vast fields you find a cluster of broken brick homes which look like miniature prisons. They are now falling apart and have the appearance of abandonment. But if you look out into the fields, you see a few people out plowing. I assume they live in these homes.

The smaller towns show much more poverty. It may just be an appearance of poverty as those homes appeared abandoned.

There are some themes that we have been encountering on this trip. One of them is arrogance. Specifically our American Arrogance. Although we mainly bring it up as a joke, it is interesting to observe how set we are in our own ways. How set others are in their own ways. It brings up the question of reality. The existence of two worlds, multiple realities which we all share and live in, yet refuse to mold them together. Maybe arrogance is not the right word. Maybe it's more of an independence. Separate identities. Well anyway, it's a pretty funny joke, when used in the right context.

Well here are some pictures. I do not have too many this time of the places we've been to, but I will include some that regard my daily life of class and stuff.

This is at the home of Confucius. It is a pretty large estate. Nearly the size of an emperor's.

This is his burial site. Rest in Peace Confucius. I missed the man praying by a few seconds.

This is a street sweeper. 20 or 30 brooms attached to a spinning motor. It works!
This is our beginner Chinese class. Smiling faces. Starting from the top left, Spencer, Brett, Mike, James, Justin. In the front row from the left, Joseph and Meeeee.
This is Dr. Liu reading a sign. I do not know what it says. It looks like a menu. But it could be something more complex.
Our black board learning phonetics and basic vocabulary.
This is what the country side looked like near the mountains. As you can see, it's very hazy and gray. It is like this all throughout where we have been. Except on Mount Tai, where you are above the smog. (That is NOT mount tai).

This weekend we are going to the Forbidden City of Beijing to visit the great wall and other sites.

Also feel free to call me at 15002229194. The country number is 86, I think. So yeah. Call me!

The sun never shines in Tianjin

Ni Hao!

The trip into China was very long and exhausting. However, we all made it just fine with no complications.

The first thing I noticed when stepping out of the airplane and into the bus to drive from Beijing to Tianjin, Modernization. In the midst of dust and crumbling buildings arise new buildings. A juxtaposition. A merger between the old and the new. Improvement of the old, perhaps?

There is a lot of housing, I suppose for a growing population. All of these people stuffed and packaged into squares one on top another. The construction stirs up the dust that has settled all throughout the city. Tianjin, meaning the port of the emperor, has meant to me, the city without a sun, lost in a haze. Everything looks like it's covered in dust, even the people racing by on their bicycles seem to be covered in an impenetrable layer of sutt.

At first, I felt like this was a reflection of my inner self. Lost. Confused. And jet lagged. So far, with the little Chinese that I know, I rely soley on body language, but that does not help much, as most people are very good at hiding their inner emotions. So I am left with one life saving technique, keep my ears open and my mind alert for the sound of a car horn to tell me, "get out of the way, or I WILL hit you."

Seeing the city, reminds me of a place that I used to know. It reminds me of a life I used to have back in Pskov, Russia. It all seems so similar. The simplicity of living. No nonsense in material. Maybe it is different in Beijing and Shanghai, but here, it is the earth.

Now that I have settled in, we had our first classes in Chinese. The language is very complicated. On top of phonetics, there are what feels like a million characters that mean nearly nothing to me. Just pretty pictures. However, that does not mean that I do not enjoy learning the language. It's just very confusing.

We are also learning Tai Chi and Wushu, which has created a lot of pain throughout my body. Yet, proud to be able to push my body and discipline it through physical movement.

I have been taking pictures of various things that I find to be beautiful and represents the true essence of the city. I hope you enjoy them.

This is where I live. Yiyuan Building 4.





Tianjian needle. Second highest point in China, I believe. You can challenge me on it, because I don't really remember. Maybe 3rd. Point is, it's tall.

This was hidden in some little alley way, and I felt like it was rich with feeling and color. There was something about that garlic.

I think that is the character for luck and me. After all, I am a lucky rabbit based on the Chinese New Year.

I took this picture for Daniel Ward. Delicious.


This is near my class.

I woke up on one of the first nights at 4 am and decided to go for a walk when I walked by these four doors, and thought that it was a metaphore. Choose your fate. Pick a door, any door.

As a group we went to the market after dinner. The market was closing when someone pointed out this bird to me. It's a pretty bird. However, you may notice it is on a leash that is attached to it's neck. I wonder if he/she is happy.

Well, those were just some pictures. I miss home and I miss hearing people's voices and faces. Call me, send me some loving, take care.

Zai Jain