Summer Palace and on our Way to Shanghai!

Monday morning we said a sleepy goodbye to Ben and Vinny when they left at 6am and then went back to sleep. We had planned on getting up around 7 or so so that we could pack up, eat and then head out to the Summer Palace which is about 45 minutes to an hour away. We got up around 7:30 and started to pack up and get ready and we ended up leaving the hostel after breakfast around 10 o clock.

We took the subway, switched lines twice and we got to the station. We asked around and found out that we needed to take Bus No. 930 which would take us all the way to the gates of Summer Palace. The bus was only one yuan. Fantastic! We made it there alright, bought our tickets with our student IDs and then made our way into the park area.

My first thought was "This is absolutely gorgeous!" It was nothing like the rest of Beijing. It was absolutely clear skies (probably because it rained the night before) and there was a beautiful lake surrounding the area. (See Picasa Pictures). You would look one way and see an amazing bridge that connected the side we were on to an island in the middle of the lake and then you would look to the other side and see a light house type building set in the mountains. It was magnificent.

We walked along side the lake towards the main area where the temple was located. We found some other sites along the way and we were able to weave our way through the many crowds to see inside the old areas. The architecture looked midly like that of the forbidden city but the paintings on the pillars were more unique and colorful than that of the forbidden city or anything else that I had seen in Beijing.

We walked around and got to people watch for a little while. There were people selling corn at every stop and people that were playing with their kids who were also running around with each other. I took a picture of this little boy who seemed to be pulling along his little sister in every which way that he wanted to go and I saw another another little kid that was pushing his sibling (I don't remember if it was a sister or a brother) in a stroller and it reminded me of pictures that I have seen of my brother and I. Definitely made me wish that he could have been there with me (even though I think he has already been to the Summer Palace). Maybe it was more that I wish that I had a close friend or family member or someone from home that would be able to take in these amazing views and would completely understand what I have been seeing through these adventures. I digress...

We walked around Summer Palace and we bought a map of the area (that you could essential frame because its so pretty) and we discovered that the Summer Palace is absolutely HUGE. You could definitely not see it in the amount of time that we allotted for it. However, we made the best of it and took some pictures and then headed back towards the entrance to get back to the station.

Once we got back to the entrance we realized that we didn't quite know which way to go to catch the bus back to the station. We assumed that we would have to get on the bus on the opposite side of the road from where we got off so we headed in that direction. Wrong. We ended up asking a mechanic of some sort and he pointed us in a different direction. The two of us set off in that direction and found ourselves at the wrong bus stop. After using our lovely phrase book we went off down the street and got to the correct bus stop that was actually in a little alleyway. Who knew.

Anyway, we asked the bus driver whether the bus went to the right station but he said a different station. A station is a station so we got on the bus and we got off where the driver told us to. We didn't see the station anywhere so we chose a person off the street showed him the map of the subway station and gestured to figure out where the nearest station was. He tried to explain in Mandarin, realized that we had no clue what he was talking about and then decided to have us follow him because he was heading in that direction. Really nice of him. He spoke to Sumana in Mandarin and asked her where we were going to which she interpreted to be where are we from (Everyone is shocked when they see us) and she said India as a normal reply and he got really confused/excited/shocked. After a little while he showed us on our subway map about how to get to the airport. Hilarious.

We got to the station, thanked him profusely and then headed on our way to the Silk Market to argue with some of the shop keepers about the shoes that Sumana had bought (which had started to wear out the first day she wore them) and to try and get some name drawings redone or fixed. We had to argue for a good while to get people to fix things (with Sumana also demanding that her shoes be changed and standing at the shop and warding off customers..good work!) and in the end we got everything fixed up. She had to be stern with them because they tried to make it out to be like she was dumb and didn't know what she was talking about when she said that she got them from a specific store. Ha. We knew. She even talked to the girl that we bought them from who definitely recognized Sumana.

We bought a couple of trinkety things and then headed back to the hostel to get our bag and check Shanghai stuff, eat dinner and set out on our way to the train station!

After lugging our suitcase to the train station, we quickly found our platform and queued up to be let inside. We found out compartment and our beds and put everything away before settling in for the night. There was a little baby in our compartment that was definitely really cute and he would play hide and seek with his blanket and would roll around and kind of play with Sumana. It was cute.

The train left promptly at 9:40 and Sumana and I fell asleep, quickly, around 10:30ish. Soon it was morning and we were in Shanghai!

The Great Wall of China (or The Great China Wall as my mom likes to call it) and Where History Was Made a Little More Than a Year Ago.

When we got back to the Hostel on Saturday night we met up with Ben and Vinny who told us that they had booked the Great Wall trip, through the hostel, for Mutianyu. I was a little bit upset by this because Mutianyu is still pretty touristy. I wanted to go on the 10K trek on TGW that was between Simatai and Jinshanling which is supposed to be the less restored part of TGW. I accepted the adventure though I assumed that the two guys would want to go on a hike instead of the touristy part. But I think they also figured that they would want to go see the rest of Beijing when they got back and hoped that they wouldn’t be too tired.

Anyway, we were supposed to be up by 7 am and in the café area but we didn’t get up until around then so we hurried to get ready and then made our way to the café and had breakfast (which came with our ticket) and then hurried to get into the van to take the four of us, two other ladies and a Italian man to the wall.

While we were driving up to get to Mutianyu (about 2 hours), I kept thinking about what this trip means to me and exactly why I was so excited to do this whereas the other three weren’t AS off the wall. A bunch of people tend to think that I am not adventurous that I am a homebody that I don’t want to go out and see things and explore- see knew places. But I haven’t been asked the “where do you want to go, Neesha” type of question. I have wanted to see The Great Wall of China forever. I learned about it so many years ago and since then I have wanted to go. I have wanted to go since before my brother decided to take his Asian adventure-round-the-world trip and have been looking at pictures of The Great Wall of China for years now. I had wanted to go for so long and finally the day came when I was able to and it was so incredibly surreal. I know that I went to a more touristy part of the wall which was not quite what I wanted to do but it was definitely worth the experience.

We got to Mutianyu around 10am and my first thought was “Oh my gods there are so many tourists! I am going to hate this. This is not what I expected at all!” We had the option of hiking up the mountain (takes about 30 minutes to climb the steps or we could take the ski-lift up where we can see the view and the wall and it would only take around 5 minutes. We decided to take the ski lift because we were only really given about 3 hours on the wall and we wanted to make the most of it. We got on the ski lift (my first time EVER) and we headed up the mountain and it was so amazing. The view was absolutely gorgeous. All of the leaves were changing colors and the mountains in the background and you could see little villages set into the Mountains. Even though it was foggy/polluted, It was still so incredibly picturesque and wonderful.

When we got up to the top of the ski lift we had two options. We could either go to the right and go to the not so touristy part or we could go to the left and go to the more touristy part. We obviously sdecided to go to the right first and boy was that an adventure. It was characterized by EXTREMELY steep, uneven steps. It essentially went straight up and was very tiring. It just kept going and going and going. I felt really proud of myself when we got to the very top (where we were told we were not allowed to go further) and looked back and saw TGW stretching out for so long. Of course, we went further past the “no admittance sign” and onto the ruins of the wall. There were shrubs that had grown over on it and it was a winding path that ended at beat up ruins of a lookout tower. We climbed that and were in absolute awe of the scenery with the leaves changing and the remnants of The Great Wall stretching down the side of the mountain and up another mountain, deep deep into the mountains. It was beautiful to see and I cannot even imagine how it was built. I bet many of the people that built TGW probably had some sort of fear of heights and many more died trying to build it through all of the seasons. It was amazing.

We went back down the steps portion and we passed the ski lift and went up the other way. Ben and Vinny went scurrying off while Sumana probably went just as far as they did but took more time to enjoy the scenery and really take in the entire view. I really liked the more touristy part of the wall because there were trees that were growing on the side of the wall and the colors were changing and looked absolutely magnificent.

While we were walking we took the liberty of talking to some other people and Sumana started talking to this one fellow, in broken mandarin. He and his friend asked us if we were from India and because we didn’t want to go into all of the crazy details about our family and the moving processes we just said yes. We then met the cutest baby that was with his father or grandfather or uncle or someone and we ogled at it for awhile and then kept walking and then took some jumping pictures and after while we decided that we were going to get late so we started heading back when we met that same baby and its father/uncle somebody and I asked if I could hold the baby. I have a picture somewhere in my picasa but it was the cutest baby ever. The father/uncle/grandfather person let me hold it and I took a picture with both of them. 

We continued on our way and I saw a STEELERS FAN! He was wearing the hat and a sweatshirt and I yelled “Go Steelers” and he said the same back! I started walking back but then doubled back and asked to take a picture with him. I got a picture and then we started talking about where we are from (His wife is from Upper St. Clair) and then he asked what I was doing here and all that jazz. It was cool. Steelers Fans are EVERYWHERE. I love the City of Pittsburgh.


Anyway we went back down to the ski lift are and instead of taking the ski lift we decided to take a Toboggan down. It was so fun-speeding down the side of a mountain, through the woods with all of the leaves changing colors. It was definitely really touristy but soo much fun.

We got to the bottom of the hill and haggled with the shop/booth keepers and got some souvenirs and then met up with the rest of our group at a Chinese Restaurant which also came with our ticket to TGW. We were skeptical about some of the dishes but determined that there were 4/7 of them for herbivores and then we chowed down. It was pretty delicious-one of the best meals that I have had since arriving in East Asia. We had a tomato and green pepper dish and then some braised potato (YUM) and then some stir fried green beans (YUM) and some other stuff. We got to talk to the other people on our tour at that point. And I used my limited Spanish with the Italian man because he said that he could understand a little bit. At first I was pretty rusty with it and I couldn’t speak as quickly as I would have liked but by the end of the meal I was spouting off sentences and explaining why I was only in Florence, Italy for 4 hours when I went to Italy a couple years ago. He complimented me on my Spanish and my pronunciation, though I don’t feel that it was deserved. But I thanked him and we all went on our way back to Beijing.
We got back to Beijing and the four of us kind of relaxed for a few minutes. Ben and Vinny left to go to the Pearl Market and then we showered and ate dinner in the café and headed off to meet Elizabeth in the Olympic Village.

I was so excited to go to the Olympic Village. I absolutely loved the Beijing Olympics (minus the Chinese women gymnasts winning because they were definitely all 12-13 years old). I loved the Water Cube and the Birds Nest and I could not WAIT to get there.
We met up with Elizabeth and walked around the Olympic village and it was absolutely gorgeous! You could see the Bird’s nest with all of its colorful glory and the absolutely magnificent Water Cube. We, of course, attempted some jumping pictures but kind of failed and it was really windy and cold and it started to rain so we didn’t stay there for too long. I can’t believe I went to the Olympic Village where the most amazing, epic opening ceremonies was held, Michael Phelps won 8 Gold Medals and Usain Bolt broke the world record for the 100 meter dash with his ridiculously fast legs.

I was a little bit upset because I had heard that they completely shut down the Water Cube. I wish they could find someway to keep these facilities open and running because I feel like they could be very useful and helpful. They have the Bird's Nest open for tours during the day time.

Overall the day was pretty amazing and I absolutely loved every minute of it. After the Olympic Village, Elizabeth and I parted ways for another 8 or 9 months until we see each other again. I can’t express how excited I was to see her. It was so wonderful to see a familiar face and after so many conversations about the A-factor (Asian –Factor) that we had in high school- who knew that we would end up meeting up in Asia! We have been friends for over 15 years and it was wonderful being able to adventure around Beijing with her. She said she is going to try and visit Hong Kong towards the end of the semester and I really hope that happens. I would love to show her around here.

Thanks for everything, Elizabeth! 15 years and going strong!

A Day in Beijing with Elizabeth!

So I woke up around 7:45 to a line to get into the bathroom/shower. Ben and Vinny had arrived the day before and were planning on leaving early on Monday morning so they had limited time in Beijing to do everything that they wanted to do. Sumana let Vinny get into the shower before her and then she went in because she was already late in trying to catch a train to visit her Uncle about 2 and a half hours outside of Beijing.

I finally got into the shower around 8:15 (even though that was when I was supposed to leave) and then speedily made my way over to the train station to meet up with Elizabeth in the Forbidden City. I walked down the street towards the train station and there were so many people in the area! There was a market that happens every Saturday morning there. Fruits, Vegetables, Clothing..you name it, they probably have it. I snapped some pictures as I was zig-zagging through people so that I would get to Elizabeth before she started to worry too much.

I got out at the Tiananmen East Exit, went down the underpass and over to the entrance to the Imperial Palace (Forbidden City). First thing I noticed was that there were SO MANY PEOPLE. SO many. It was 9am and there were a couple thousand people right at the entrance. It was crazy. I didn’t know how I was going to go about finding Elizabeth but I figured I would just head over towards the gigantic picture of Chairman Mao and hope that she would be somewhere over there like we had planned. I crossed over the bridge and she was standing in the doorway! Thank goodness for that. Apparently she went around in circles through the Entrance and Exit to make sure that she didn’t miss me somewhere in between there. We walked through the entrance and there were so many tours that were going though. Mostly older people, all wearing the same type and color of hat and following a flag to make sure that they all stayed together.

We bought our ticket with our Student Discounts started our journey through the Forbidden City. It is HUGE. There is no possible way to get through the entire thing in one day. There’s probably, also, no possible way to FIND all the parts of the Imperial Palace. There are tons of little nooks and crannies and corridors all over the place. After walking through the imperial palace, ogling at the thousands upon thousands of people there and looking at the little rooms that housed the emperor’s everyday needs (a room to sit in before important meetings, a different room to change in before important meetings, etc) we made our way back out of the Imperial Palace and attempted to find the No. 5 bus to get to Jingshan Park.

We found the bus stop and the bus came within a few short minutes. It was a really interesting experience because everyone runs over to the entrance, pays the driver and then squishes as many people into the bus as possible. Elizabeth asked me if this was like India and I told her that in India, they fit as many people as they possibly can into the buses but that there aren’t really doors on the bus so people end up on the bus but hanging kind of outside. The Brightside about being squished on the bus is definitely not even having the opportunity to fall over when the bus breaks.

We got to Jingshan park and paid the couple kuai (another word for Yuan) entrance fee and made our way to the lookout points. The first thing that I noticed when I walked into the park was the cleaner air that I was breathing in. People aren’t allowed to smoke in the Park and the trees make breathing a much more pleasant experience. We walked around the park for a little, made our way to the different pagodas and saw the Forbidden City from the top. It was MASSIVE. You couldn’t exactly see all of it because of the pollution but you could definitely tell that it was a really, big area. It was interesting to look out on the forbidden city and not be able to see very much and then look out on the city on the other side of the pagoda and be able to see much more clearly. I am not exactly sure why that would be but it definitely caused us both to wonder. After munching on some bread and some shelf milk that Elizabeth brought, we headed back on the No 5 bus and were even more squished than before and made our way to the Subway line to head on over to the Lama Temple (a Tibetan Buddhist temple).

The subway system is pretty extensive and covers a lot of Beijing. Each trip is only 2 Yuan no matter how many transfers you make or how long it takes you. Definitely the easiest and cheapest way to get around Beijing (though I like Buses better because you can see more of the city (when you aren’t being squished in the middle of the train)). Trains are also very packed and people will run between transfer points to make sure that they are at the front of the line so that if there are open seats on the train that they can race one another to sit there. It was pretty intense.

We got to the Lama temple and paid our Student fee and then went inside through the park and over to the beginning of the temple. This temple was set up like Forbidden City where you enter through one part and go through it and then follow into the next part and keep going to the next one. The architecture was very similar. The Buddhas would start relatively small and by the last part of the temple the Buddha was 26 meters tall! 8 meters below ground and 18 meters above ground! It was massive and very beautiful. I snapped a picture and then got yelled at but it was worth it. We walked around the area a little more and it was so quiet and serene. Very peaceful and even though it was in the middle of the city, it felt as though we were farther removed from the sights and sounds and smells of Beijing.

The temple was about to close so we made our way towards the exit and over a street or two because I told Elizabeth that I wanted to walk through a hutong to see how a lot of people live in Beijing. We walked through what Elizabeth said was a fairly nice Hutong. There were several cars parked outside of their community homes. And we walked further inside and people were playing cards and smoking (the norm) and little kids were playing with their toys. We walked through some winding paths and some people had their doors open so we peeked inside and we could see people cooking on this small little stove that was in the entryway and they had a tiny table on the side that they placed their cut vegetables on. We came outside of there before it got dark and headed across the street into a different hutong where we were about to talk more about her sister and med school and my brother and his job and we reminisced about high school Spanish class and everything.

We started to walk back towards the way we came and part of the alleyway was more polluted than when we came in. It looked like it was stagnant in the air and not dissipating. We covered our mouths and noses and kinda jogged through it and then went around the corner a different way to get out so that we wouldn’t go further into the polluted air.

We made our way back to the subway station and went over to the Temple of Heaven park with the help of Elizabeth’s Lonely Planet China book. We got to the park and walked through the pitch blackness and stumbled upon people practicing their singing in the park and a whole lot more people watching someone else sing and some people dance. People seemed to really enjoy themselves. We went further on into the park and found another rather large group of people that were doing the same thing. We went further yet, almost to the actual temple itself and we saw some people playing Chinese hackey sack. We sat near them and people watched for awhile and they were actually pretty good. They were all older people and were spinning and twirling while they were kicking their feet up in the air. It was pretty nifty.

We started to get cold and we had to meet up with Sumana in Tiananmen Plaza so we made our way towards the exit of the park and we saw a whole lot of people standing and chanting and clapping so we went over there and we started doing it with them even though we couldn’t understand exactly what they were saying. Everything was being said in a rhythm and it was fun. People would walk past and they would do it with the crowd as they were going to their next destination and so we figured it must be something pretty well known. As we were leaving another couple was about to leave and Elizabeth asked them, in her awesome Mandarin skills, what this was. And the man said it was a kind of exercise that people did and to get more blood to their hands and keep warm. He also said that you could pat other parts of your body like your knees or your thighs or something to do the same thing. It was pretty interesting.

We walked outside of the park and low and behold we saw a group of people sitting there and watching two women doing ballroom. After a couple seconds the song ended and everyone paired up and they all started doing ballroom right there! It must have been a class of some sort but it was cool because everyone was doing the same moves at the same time.
As we were leaving, Elizabeth and I talked about how we would never see this type of thing in the US. People don’t generally meet in the park for random group activities like that. We talked about how there is less privacy here, in China, but there is more community involvement and community activities. We talked about how cool it was that older people would go to the park on their own to enjoy the company of other people around their age and have fun whether that’s singing and dancing or playing hackeysack, going for a walk, dancing on the plaza outside of the park. It was so cool to see all of that and I definitely felt like it was an honor to be experience this type of thing. I took some pictures of people dancing and singing and the Chinese people that were sitting there just smiled at me and nodded in approval. It was really nice.

We made our way back to Tiananmen took some pictures of the Forbidden City at night and listened to Sumana’s account of her day that included an unregistered taxi, a really nice driver, her train ticket getting stuck underneath the train 10 minutes before it was supposed to depart, really broken mandarin and a meeting with the Chinese and Indian National table Tennis teams.

Sumana and I headed back to the hostel and stopped to get McDonalds (GROSS) where we ordered corn (yummm) and fries (yuck) and then headed back to get ready for The Great Wall the following day. :D

Trying to find the Airport and Arriving in Beijing...

I left campus around 1:30 on Thursday. Sumana was taking care of the cash flow because I couldn't get yuan in time and she can get yuan for no fees through her bank. So that was fantastic of her. I am gonna owe her so much money but I'll just pay in Hong Kong dollars, i guess. It'll be interesting to see exactly how much this trip costs me. Ah well. What can you do. Its an adventure and sometimes you just have to let caution go to the wind. (whoa. did I just say that?).

Anyway, I met her at the MTR station and it was funny because I had an actual something to tell her but as soon as I saw her I was like WOOHOO! We both did this hop, skip and a jump because we were so excited. Anyway we made our way up to the border and as we were went farther and farther up into the New Territories the surroundings felt less and less like Hong Kong and more and more like India. Not to the same extent, I don't think but much, much closer. We got to the border and ended up crossing and we were slightly violated by PRC people (When you cross the border you have to fill out a health declaration form and before they let you into China, they point this temperature gun to your head to make sure that you are not running a fever. It was pretty funny but definitely not expected at all..I felt a little violated but I guess thats part of the experience!

Anyway, we crossed the border and we started looking for the Bus to the airport because we knew it would take between an hour to two hours to get there and we didn't want to miss our flight. Boy was this a difficult task! First of all, we crossed the border and it seemed like almost immediately noone spoke English anymore. I am glad I brought Vijay's Mandarin phrasebook because it definitely helped us at that point. We asked people how to get to "feiji chang" which is the word for airport and people would start rambling off in Mandarin and we were just like, "umm, okay. Xie Xie" And then kind of head off in the direction that their quick hands were pointing. We walked up and down the bus terminal, first meeting this one creepy kind of guy when he came up to us while we were trying to match chinese characters on the wall and we figured we might as well ask him how to get there and he pulled out his phone started typing numbers on to it and then showed us "40 for one, 80 for two" and we thought he meant by bus but we were really, really skeptical. So we started walking with him a little bit and then he calls over this teenage boy and he offers to take our bags, obviously we said No and then we followed VERY slowly behind him and then we saw him gesture to his friends like with his thumbs up and nodding and all and we decided to get outside of that situation really fast. We just were like, "uhh, no thank you" and walked in the other direction. After asking a bunch of people, we ended up finding the bus (which was in some alleyway) and then left for the airport.

The first difference I noticed was the fact that no one was speaking any English. The second thing that I noticed was that there were soo many cars on the road! I don't know why I noticed that so well but I most definitely did and it kind of freaked me out (I can only imagine what its going to be like when I get back to the States). Anyway, we made our way to the airport and checked in and I took pictures of planes for my brother and then we boarded the flight (20 minutes late). We left at around an hour after we were supposed to leave and got to Beijing on time- don't ask me how that works. I don't have any idea. We got off the plane and got our baggage and tried to follow the directions to get to the Happy Dragon Hostel.

People didn't want to speak English but we managed to use our phrasebook and Sumana's background in Mandarin to figure out that we needed to take Bus 2 and where we were supposed to stand. We got on the right bus and then tried to figure out when we were supposed to get off. It was about 11pm so we were a little nervous as to how we were getting there. We tried to listen to the half Mandarin/half English announcements but the speaker wasn't working so we could not understand anything. An older gentleman that was sitting next to us asked us if we needed help and we asked if we could take the train to Dongsi Station from Dongzhimen Station (where we were going to get off). He proceeded to tell us that the trains stop running at 11 and that we would have to take a taxi. He started to ask where we were going and the address and all. We were very skeptical to tell him because we had heard horror stories but he saw the paper that we had in our hands and so he asked for it. He looked at it for a long while and Sumana and I were very much like.. "uhh, whats going on...we probably shouldn't have done that" but he seemed nice and then we were hopping that he would not get off the bus at the same time that we did but he, of course, did but then walked the other direction after saying bye. Nice man.

Anyways, we are standing outside at this bus station and this man is nearby and he looks kinda drunk and hes smoking a ciggarette and then there was this other more legit looking guy who asked if we needed help. We said we did and once again he asked us where we were going (I HATE THAT QUESTION) but we showed him because we really had no other choice. We hailed a taxi (on the first try..woohoo!) and tried showing the taxi driver the address of the hostel (in Chinese) and he would not accept it and said no. And then started driving away. The second taxi that we asked wouldn't do it either and then we asked the man to help us and he tried talking to the driver but the driver decided to start driving away as the man was talking (definitely not very nice).

Anyway, I guess the man was worried about us a little bit so he let us share a taxi because he was going in a similar direction. He took the paper from us and then explained to the driver what exactly we were looking for. Then he asked us where we were from and told us that he lives in New Jersey and was here for a conference. He got off at his hotel and then told the taxi driver to clear the tab for us so we would start from wherever he got off (Such a nice gesture!). We thanked him profusely and then we made it to the hostel without incident. Awesome old-man-taxi driver. :)

We were received by the Hostel's staff that came out to greet us and took our bags inside and then we went to check in. We were trying to check in and the man essentially said "Did you get my email this morning?" Our response.."No......" to which he replied "Oh, well our guests from today decided that they wanted to extend their stay today and so we don't have any place for you tonight. I can drive you to our sister hostel and you can stay there and then I can pick you up in the morning" We were frustrated with that but we kind of just accepted it (and had no other options and just laughed at the luck that we were having all day). We were weary of him too, especially because he decided to drive in the narrowest, smallest, darkest alleys that he could find; but we ended up getting to the sister hostel and checked into a room that had one other girl staying in it. We woke her up by turning on the light and told us about her stay here and asked us small little questions and then went back to sleep. We weren't quite sleepy so I told Sumana about how Ben was reading reviews of this place a couple days before and it said something about how they had overbooked the hostel and sent the people to stay elsewhere where they had awful beds. Our beds were pretty comfortable. We wanted to get up early to go explore but we decided that we would try and get a full nights sleep because thats probably going to be a little difficult int he coming days. We woke up at like 9:15 were ready by 10:30 and checked out whereby we had to wait for a good 30 minutes for the guy to be called to pick us up. We checked into our actual hostel but were told that our room wasn't ready so we put our luggage in storage (after locking it..thanks to my mom who packed my luggage lock in my suitcase before I came to Hong Kong!) and then set out on our way..

We eventually found the subway station and then made our way to the Silk Market. We roamed around there for quite a while and looked for walking shoes for Sumana so that we could go to TGW on Sunday. We found some and then we bargained with the lady for a bit and I ended up with a pair of fake Puma shoes as well. My only frivolous purchase of the day..though I could use another pair of shoes so I guess its not totally frivolous. We walked around and tried to find a wallet for Sumana and found a stall that we liked. She found a wallet that she liked except it said that it was made out of genuine leather. She asked the guy if it was real leather and he said "yes yes, real leather" and then took a lighter to the material to show us. Then shes told him, "Oh, well then I don't want it" and he asked why and she said it was for religious reasons and then he said, "Oh yes, yes. Its not real leather! I just tell everyone its real leather.Seee!.." and then he proceeded to show us the plastic layering on the inside. Hilarious. We wandered around some more and got slightly manhandled and pulled into stalls and then went upstairs to the clothing section where I bargained with a guy from 400 ish for a sweater down to 65. I went from 50 to 65 and didn't budge until he came down all the way. He was fun and nice too. Its a cute sweater and I am really excited about it. Then we went to what we really wanted (what I really wanted/needed) a winter coat! We found a stall that seemed to have pretty nice ones and we tried on coat after coat and finally found one that I liked and asked how much it was and she started at $1700 yuan!!!!! Of course I am not paying that. I told her I wanted 150 but then upped it to 200 and then stayed there until she came all the way down to what I wanted. Its 30 USD but I really like the coat and am completely happy with the purchase. We left there to go up to the fourth floor (THERE ARE SO MANY STALLS) to find little trinkets. There was this stand when you got out of the elevator that sold scrolls with people's names on them. The artist would look up your name in a chinese-english dictionary and then would spell it out. It was really cool.

I think we are going to go back on Monday. so that we pick touristy things up and then don't need to worry about it later. :) I think I also want to buy a wristlet for formal occassions..I think I can get it for around 30 yuan (5ish USD).

After we finished shopping we made our way to the train station and met a nice old man that helped us to get to the Lama temple where we were supposed to meet my friend Elizabeth for dinner. He kept wishing us a pleasant evening. He was nice. We were already running late and then we got to the station and didn't quite know how to get there and the maps in the subway station weren't helping because they were all written in Chinese. We asked someone (who apparently was not a local) and he asked someone else and then he explained it to us. We were able to find it (after walking down some ways) and crossed the street (which was an adventure in itself) and then walked down a kind of dark alleywayish. We weren't quite sure how far to go but I saw Elizabeth and after watching out for cars went and gave her the hugest hug ever. We went inside and sat at this really nice vegetarian restaurant and we had a buffet dinner which was scrumptious and talked about everything under the sun.. about her family, my family, her adventures, and her language immersion program and just about everything else that you could imagine.

At around 8 or so we decided that we needed to get back to the silk market before it closed to pick up the watercolors and we were going to run late. We got to the silk market around 8:50 and the downstairs was closed so we ran upstairs and outside and around and crossed the street and Elizbeth used her mad, amazing Mandarin skills to get us past the guard in order to pick up our things.

We went back to the station and we tried to figure out our plans to buy Sumana's ticket to go see her Uncle in the morning and then after writing down some quick translations and deciding that she (Elizabeth) and I were going to meet up below Mao's picture at 8:45 the next morning, we called it a night and headed back to the hostel to admire our purchases and to write this extremely long post!

On to Saturday...

Beijing, Here I come!

Midterms are finally over and I am leaving for Beijing in a few short minutes!

Quick Update:

I went to the Temple and to the Beach on Saturday (both amazing...I'll tell you about it soon)
Finance and I will never get along.
I can almost say that I miss accounting...almost.
Psychology is by far my favorite class at UST.
I AM SO EXCITED FOR BEIJING!

Have a good weekend and I can't wait to tell you all about my adventures!

-Neesha

Midterms Midterms Midterms

I am currently half way through my midterms. My globalization studies professor stressed the fact that we needed the book for the class and then we took the midterm and there were absolutely no questions from the book on the test. I was pretty upset. Anyway- hopefully my finance midterm (on Monday) goes well. I heard that last year, the raw average was around a 60something. Gotta beat the curve!

I envy all of these people that are taking their classes pass/fail. Booo. Oh well, I guess. Two midterms next week and then I will be in Beijing!

Nothing exciting has really been going on. There seems to be a routine going on here. As soon as midterms are over, I think I am going to try and explore more and take advantage of the weekday afternoons. Sumana and I were trying to find a place to volunteer but noone really wants people that are here for such a short period of time. It's pretty sad. Tomorrow people are going to go to the Beach so I think I am going to try and get a bunch of studying done today so that tomorrow I can go to the beach for a little while and then head off to the temple to observe Diwali.

Some other Indian kids, here, want to go check out the temple tomorrow so I am pretty excited about that.

Anyway- I should probably go study now. Its going to be a long day/night.

Happy Diwali and Saalmubarak (Happy New Year!) !

Pictures

If you want to see pictures of all my adventures thus far.. you can find the link on the left hand side under the "about Me" section.

I figured I would just post them all there because I seem to have lengthy posts already and pictures would make them much, much longer.

Great win by the Buckeyes AND the Steelers AND the Penguins this weekend! Super excited for all of my teams.

Back to studying now.

Have a good start to the week!

Life since Mid Autumn Festival

Nothing exciting has been going on. There has been a lot of studying and less exploring. I have midterms and they are eating up all my funness. I really wish I was taking my classes Pass/Fail. I would be able to experience so much more but OSU doesn't work like that so oh well.

I am currently at one midterm down and three to go. My next one is on Tuesday.

Yesterday, Saturday, a couple of us went in search of a Sichuan restuarant so that we could try that style of chinese food-spicy! Unfortunately, we made our way all the way down to LKF on a Saturday morning when it is absolutely dead to find that the restaurant, Mum Chau's, is only open for lunch Monday through Friday. So sad. Oh well, we decide to go back to El Taco Loco instead. I got a burrito...it was halfway decent.

My globalization studies midterm is on Tuesday and then I am going to start studying for Finance almost immediately because I want to do something fun this weekend- especially because its Diwali! I definitely want to adventure to the temple and see if anything is going on. My goal is also to make it to the beach or go hiking this weekend. We'll see what happens.

Anyway.. I should get going... Gotta wake up early! Goodnight all!

I miss you!

Mid Autumn Festival

So I have successfully put off writing this post for a while now. And since I haven't been studying for the past hour and don't anticipate studying for the rest of the night, it seems like the perfect time to write this out. :)

Last weekend, Saturday, Sumana, Sungwon, Andrew and I went to our local friend, Yannie's house for dinner. She invited us Friday night and it sounded like a pretty spectacular idea. After our 10,000 Buddha adventure we quickly made our way back to UST and changed out our batteries for our cameras and went back to the MTR station to make our way to Tsuen Wan. We transferred onto the red line, at Prince Edward, heading to Tsuen Wan and met Yannie at that stop. Its so fun to go on a different line of the MTR. You get to see so many different things and Saturday we went on two different lines - I love exploring! Anywho, we made our way to her building and we got to her apartment building where we proceeded to climb up to the 29th floor! Oh my goodness! Her parents were so welcoming and it was so nice to be an a home-like atmosphere for a change. Her flat was a 2 bedroom. It was a really nice building and my battery was dead for the first half of the evening otherwise I would have taken pictures of her family/our dinner table full of people from diverse backgrounds!

Yannie 's mom made vegetarian food especially because Sumana and I were coming to her home- so nice of her! We started off eating/drinking a bowl of vegetable soup and then as soon as the bowl was cleaned out we started with the main courses. She made a mushroom dish, a noodle with beancurd dish, and a preserved egg dish along with a couple meat dishes for the meatitarians. Oh and Rice. How could I forget the Rice of all things?! It was a really interesting experience to eat with her family! They were so hospitable and asked us all about our homes and our majors and what we liked to do. We had a rerun of America's Got Talent on in the background which kind of made me giggle a little bit. We talked about Korean movies for a little while and then after we finished eating we broke out some traditional fruit.

They served starfruit and persimmon. I had never tried a persimmon but boy was it delicious. From the outside, a persimmon looks like of like and unripe tomato. It was so sweet and delicious. I highly recommend it. After the fruit, Yannie's family brought out the mooncakes. They had one traditional mooncake which everyone shared (I wasn't a fan) and various types of snowy mooncakes. Snowy mooncakes are the ones that are frozen/served cold and have a variety of different flavors (like delicious mango) and traditional mooncakes have egg yolk in the middle (not my cup of tea). Yannie's dad was telling the four of us, while Yannie and her mom were in the kitchen area, that he likes traditional mooncakes more than snowy ones because it reminds him of when he was younger and his family was struggling more and they would gather at Mid Autumn Festival time and share mooncakes and enjoy each other's company. It was so sweet. ;)

After we finished, Yannie took us to the harbour area/park area near her home. She surprised us with paper lanterns that we could play with ourselves! We lit the bottom of the candles and stuck them into the inside of the lantern and then pulled up the paper part and Ta-Dah!- a wonderful lantern. We got to the park and we weren't even in the main section and everyone had their lanterns out, little kids had glow sticks attached to them in all sorts of paterns (a bunch of little kiddies had glow stick wings) and people were just having a good time. We took our laterns and walked toward the park area and when we got there we saw a lot of people sitting in circles with their friends and/or their family and they were playing with candles and talking and laughing and playing games. It looked like everyone was having a really great time- that life was just so simple and fun and that they should enjoy it when they can. We kept walking and saw all sorts of different types of lanterns. I saw a bunny rabbit lantern, a hot air balloon umbrella, an airplane lantern (which made me think of my brother), and many others. I have some pretty good pictures that you should look up on facebook/picasa that will give you more of an idea about how everything was laid out.
We walked all the way to the Tsuen Wan MTR station where they had a huge dragon blow up and the start of an even longer walkway with flag lanterns lighting the pathway. We took pictures in front of it and then kept on our way.

Sumana and I sat on a bench after the others left for a little while. We just took in the entire scene and just tried to soak it all in. It looked like so much fun. A big street party where everyone stays out really late with friends and family and plays with candles, lanterns, plays gamed, (apparently a lot of the people around my age go to the beach and hang lanterns and drink and all). The Chinese actually arrange it so that the day AFTER the Mid Autumn Festival is a holiday because they know that everyone will be out super late, spending time with family. Sounds like a pretty smart idea to me!

I know that the "place to be" on Mid Autumn Festival is Victoria Park/Causaway Bay because their decorations are amazing but I am actually really, really happy that I ended up with Yannie. I got to see the not so touristy part of the Mid Autumn Festival (there were no internationals at this park) and I am so thankful to her for inviting us in to her home!

Overall- it was a pretty exciting, fun filled day!

Temple of 10,000 Buddhas and Tai Po Market

Wow, oh wow. There is so much that I have to say about this past weekend. Let me first say that I am absolutely so happy that I ended up staying in Hong Kong this weekend. I am so happy that I got to explore more of Hong Kong and be around some really fun people.

So Friday was pretty uneventful but on Saturday, Ben, Sumana, Evan and I left around 9:30 to head to the Temple of 10,000 Buddha Monastery. We didn't know where we were supposed to go besides knowing which MTR stop that we had to get off at to walk on over to the temple. After reading the MTR map, we got on the train and got off at our transfer point. None of us had ever been on this specific sector of the rail line so we had no idea how it worked. We ended up thinking that we were at the wrong spot but managed to find our way to the above ground line. I was so excited that this rail line was above ground because we were able to take in the scenery of the New Territories area. New Territories (where the temple is) is a section of Hong Kong that seems to have fewer people and is not as intimidating (if that is the right word) in terms of city life. The Racecourse and the Chinese University of Hong Kong is located in New Territories. This is also the rail line that we would take to go to the Hong Kong-China Border.

There are a good number of people that are around but its more nature like and it is more residential. Anyway, we got out at Sha Tin MTR stop and attempted to find out way to the temple. We walked through a mall area, decided that we were at the wrong exit to get to the temple and then turned around and found a map. We followed the not so very helpful map and ended up at the Temple about 10-15 minutes later- Or so we thought. We saw stereotypical chinese style architecture and assumed that we were at the right place. We also saw escalators and decided that this must be a new addition to the temple (so that people would not have to climb the 400+steps to the top). We climbed the steps, taking pictures along the way, and walked around what we thought was the beginning of the temple. There were a lot of people with flowers and gifts that they were placing near their family's pictures (that were placed on these locker-type cubby wholes. We didn't think we were at the completely wrong place and just assumed that we had a long way to go to get to the temple. We got up around 200 something steps (after about 5 escalators) and then had nowhere else to go and realized that we were in more of a mausoleum than a temple. People were givinag us funny looks and some scowls and so we headed back down the side of the mountain and tried to find the right place to go.

We backtracked and still didn't find any signs that indicated where we should go so we went down this random alleyway that we thought might reach the right area and it turned out to be correct! We followed this dirt path through a residential area and past a small temple and then made or way up some crumbling steps. We were a little concerned that the signs were misleading because the "entrance" didn't seem very official but we walked up around 394 steps and reached the first level of the temple. It was amazing. Absolutely gorgeous. There were statues a long the area and then in the main temple, there were cubby holes maybe 4 inches by 4 inches that housed tiny Buddha statues-each statue doing a different hand motion. It was amazing. The ceiling was probably 40 feet high and these small Buddha statues covered the walls from end to end. After spending some time in there we climbed some more steps to the next level walked around there and then climbed the last steps to the very top where there was a very large white statue with a waterfall in the background. It was very picturesque. We sat there for awhile contemplating how we would climb up the rocky precipice to take pictures but in the end we decided against it.

We climbed back down the 500 steps and found, walked back into the mall and found a restaurant called Spaghetti 360 where we had lunch. Yumm. We decided that we didn' want to end out adventure just yet so we went further north to the Tai Po Market.
Now, as a vegetarian I wouldn't really, really recommend this market to you. The entire first floor is fish and poultry. Not a place for me. It was kind of humorous because we got to the building that it was housed in and not knowing what to expect, the four of us just walked in and within two seconds we walked back outside again to get some fresh air. Yuck. It was a very awful, fishy smell but Evan really wanted to go into the building so we went. We walked around and saw the fish and saw a lot of locals bargaining and picking their fish. Next, Evan wanted to go into the poultry section. I was definitely a little hesitant but I decided that it would be a good experience, especially because there is a disctinct possibility that I would never set foot in that building ever again or any other like it (well-maybe not...because I have been to the fisherman's Warf in San Francisco and that was kinda cool) but really...I had to go. So we walked through the carnivore section of the building and I am not going to lie, I was pretty grossed out. After awhile I just couldn't take it anymore and kept my eyes forward and walked straight out of that section. We went upstairs and we found the Herbivore section- Fruits and Vegetables Market- Now that's my kind of place. They had some really cool, cheap flower market and fruits and veggies (including cheap star fruit, passion fruit, and pineapple!)
Evan got flowers for his mom (his parents are visiting) and after careful deliberation and consultation with our local friends, Sumana and I decided to get a fruit basket for this local and her family who invited us over for dinner in honor of the Mid-Autumn Festival. This fruit basket turned out to be pretty big but they wrapped it very nicely for us. It turned out to be pretty expensive and we really could have haggled with them about the price but we were running late and didn't really think about bargaining (hindsight says we really, really should have bargained because it was a little too pricey- 12ish USD for the each of us. Oh well, it was a big basket and totally worth it. After we got the basket, we lugged it back to UST so we could change our camera batteries and get ready. :)

My next post will be about the dinner and the lantern festival! Get Excited!

Give me a couple days

Hello
I have a lot to write about this past weekend and the Mid Autumn Festival but I am currently studying for a midterm that I have on Wednesday so I probably won't post anything about this past weekend until Wednesday Afternoon.

Sorrry!
Miss you all!
Keep me in your thoughts as I begin my first and only midterms of this semester!
With Hugs,
Neesha

Happy Chinese National Day!

Hello everyone!
I just wanted to update you on the ongoings of this past week. On Tuesday, I helped the newly founded Exchange Activities Committee with their first ever event. Sumana asked me to help them out because they felt as though they would not be able to reach the masses when they attempted to everyone make mooncakes. Wait, let me explain what a mooncake is. A mooncake is a staple dessert of Hong Kong (and China?) that is eaten around the time of the Mid-Autumn Festival (which is on Saturday). A mooncake has a very thin layer of sweetened dough on the outside and a type of filling on the inside. The filling, on the inside, can vary a lot in the types of flavours...they have lotus, blueberry with jasmine, red bean, mung (some type of sweet lentil, I believe), green tea, coffee..I think you could put just about any flavour you want. Traditionally, Mooncakes have a egg yolk filling but now the filling types have changed a lot. A friend of mine, Ben (from Minnesota), tried a traditional mooncake and absolutely hated it. I can imagine why, an egg yolk filling would be just awful. Actually, Haagen Das is here and they make ice cream mooncakes specifically for this region of the world but I hear they are really expensive. Even normal Mooncakes are served cold, but not frozen.

Anyway, sorry for my random tangent about mooncakes. So this event was called "Mooncake Making Maddness" or something along the lines of that. The committee planned it out so that everyone would arrive and would sit at tables, at which the ingredients to make the mooncakes would be, and then as the committee members demonstrated how to make the mooncakes, the tables would do it as well. There were about 90-100 people there and I think everyone had a pretty good time attempting to make it. After they finished the preliminary steps (including stuffing the dough and filling into a mold and squeezing out a mooncake, the mooncakes had to be placed in a fridgerator for an hour. While they were cooling off, everyone had some dinner and the UST band society played. They played a couple english songs (and weren't really that great) and then everyone just mingled. We pulled the mooncakes out early because the fridge wasn't working so well and people ended up not really liking the mooncakes, though that might have been because we forgot to tell them to make the outside layer of dough really thin. woops. Oh well.

Anyway, I can't tell you how awesome it was to be a part of that event. I know I wasn't really a part of the planning process or anything like that but just to feel like you helped accomplish something at this school for students to enjoy is just always a really great feeling. I feel totally worthless here. Semesters are really killing me. I feel like I have too much time on my hands and yet, not enough time. I am sooo used to always being on my toes and always knowing when things are due and not having much time, in between, to prepare for assignments and all..but here, its just awful. I am not really a partof any organizations, I don't have meetings that I have to attend or extra lessons or anything. I have no sense of urgency in anything that I do. I hate it. I need my days to be somewhat planned. I need a routine and busyness in my life. I need my meetings and work and organizations and other meetings and random lunches with people. I can't wait to get back to OSU, in that respect. Its going to be awesome.

So Wednesday was pretty uneventful except for the fact that Sumana and I and Ben for most of the time watched Lagaan! We rented it from the UST library (its really cool that they have it) and we watched it. I have been wanting to watch this movie for sooo long. I don't have my copy of that movie anymore because I let one my high school teacher's borrow it and I never got it back, despite the teacher saying that he/she would mail it to me and what not. Thoroughly depressing. Anyway, we watched the entire movie and I realized 1. just how long that movie is (225 minutes!!!!) 2. Just how long the cricket part of it is and 3. How not so flattering they make the women look. Not pleased, in the slightest. But its a really fantastic movie and I love it a lot and its totally worth the 3 hours and 45 minutes even just for the incredible music. Some of my favorite bollywood music of all time. :)

Anyway We didn't have class today because its CHINESE NATIONAL DAY! 60th anniversary of the People's Republic of China. I am not exactly sure how I am supposed to feel about it being the 60th anniversary of a ruling communist party but people seem excited, so I am excited, I guess. We went to Tsim Sha Tsui to watch the fireworks and boy were there SOOOOOO many people there! It was nuts. I'll post pictures on Picasa. The fireworks were awesome and some of the biggest I have ever seen. Everyone was oooing and ahhing at the same time. It was soo funny. :) In the US, people would not have been as vocal in their ooooohing and ahhhhing. It would not be as communal at all. It would probably be more sarcastic than anything else. Anyway, afterwards, we went to grab something to eat and it took absolutely forever for us to get served. Oh well. Sumana and I got a mango shake to split and boy, oh boy, was it AWFUL. It tasted like medicine. I don't know what they think of when they think Mango but it surely was not that. We got back a little bit ago and now I am getting sleepy.

This weekend we decided not to go to Shenzhen and Guangzhou because there might, potentially be an even better China trip that some peoople are doing later and I didn't want to potentially miss out on that by going to Shenzhen now. I only have two China entries and I am certainly not paying another 150 US for another two. Thats absurd. Its very annoying because essentially all other nationalities can just go up to the border and get a visa then and it would cost about 40 US but US passport holders have to go, IN ADVANCE, to the embassy and pay 150 US to get a DOUBLE ENTRY visa. Not even multi entry. Its pretty frustrating but I shouldn't complain because US passport holders don't need a visa for a lot of other countries so I guess it evens out with China or something? I don't know. I know the US Consulates are very hard on other people that want to go to the US to visit or whatever so maybe the Chinese government is trying to get back at US Citizens. Who knows. Their way of distributing multi entry visas is ridiculous as well. My fellow Buckeyes, Diana and Evan, were able to get multi entries but when Kyle and I tried, the lady told me that, because we had never been to China before we could only have a double entry. Though, I don't think that Diana has been to China before. It doesn't make sense to me but thats neither here nor there. Back to the topic at hand, it looks like Ben, Sumana and I and probably some other random people will be going around Hong Kong this weekend! I am super pumped.

Anyway, I am super tired so I will talk to you soon! Comment or Email or something! I would love to hear from you! :)

Neesha