Sichuan (四川）

On Sunday we left the high mountains of Tibet and flew to Sichuan, land of spicy food.  After a long journey, we finally arrived in Jiuzhaigou late at night.  Unfortunately, we were greeted to cold, moldy rooms, bad food, and an unfriendly tour guide.  The next morning we were all in a foul mood.  However, despite our bad lodging conditions, I enjoyed the beautiful scenery of Chuanzhusi.  Here's some pictures of this breathtaking park where the movie Hero was shot.

Mountain reflection

 More mountain reflection

The water was a bright blue-green color.  Algae in the water turned it this color.

Me by the lake

Waterfall

 We then traveled to Huanglong and stayed the night at a slightly better, but still cold and moldy, hotel.  The next morning we hiked up the mountain for more beautiful scenery.  This time, the water had made little pools in the rock.  It was also a very bright blue-green color. 

 We finally left Huanglong and flew to Chengdu.  This time, we stayed a Holiday Inn Express, which was the best hotel we stayed in so far.  We ate delicious food and had a very nice tour guide.  Things instantly felt better.  

The next day we went to the Panda Breeding Center.  We even got to see baby pandas.  Sooo cute!!

Lazy adult panda

Baby Pandas

In the afternoon we went to a Sanxingdu Museum and saw prehistoric Chinese artifacts.

The next day we went to Leshan Mountain and saw the Giant Buddha, which was the biggest in the world.

Afterwards we visited Wumu museum, an ebony museum.

Here's one of the statues

Our last day we went to Jinli in the morning, which was a touristy place similar to Qianmen in Beijing, and then lazed about in a park in the afternoon.  At night we flew back to Beijing and arrived around 2 am in the morning.  

Tired, but fulfilled, it was nice to be back home. :)

Tibet part two

So where did I leave off...

Oh yes, so on Tuesday night after supper we (Xing Laoshi, some other students and I) wandered around Lhasa.  We looked around some of the city shops and we wandered into the Muslim districted and got a little lost.  Xing Laoshi swore he knew where he was going, but in the end we asked the friendly police for help.  It was fun seeing Lhasa at night though.  Xing Laoshi's a blast to hang out with.  

In the morning I woke up at 6 to see the Tibetans praying.  Many pray from 5 to 7 in the morning every day.

Later in the morning we visited the Sera monastery and watched monks debate.  One monk stands up, and the other one sits.  The standing monk asks a question and the sitting monk must answer.  There are also certain hand gestures that the standing monk does to show he agrees or disagrees with the answer.  It's quite theatrical.

In the afternoon we wandered around again and came upon a local temple.  It was really eye-opening.  Unlike the other, bigger temples we visited, this one was a place where the local's worshipped everyday. It was so exciting to see Buddhism on a more personal level.

On Wednesday we had a free day, so I got a lot of souvenirs and gifts for family and friends.  We also ate at a small side street Tibetan restaurant.   The owners were really surprised that westerners would come into their shop.  The owners didn't Mandarin, so we asked some younger customers to help us translate.  We had yummy noodles and butter tea, which tastes like melted butter.  However, I believe that if I could add some butterscotch flavoring and make it frothy and sweet it would make a really good butter beer.

Here's another temple we went to on Thursday, I believe.  This is the Jokhang Temple.

At the place we went to for lunch there were little kittens running around.  One jumped up on our table and started eating our leftovers.  Definitely not the most hygienic place, but the kitten's were soooo cute!!  Nom nom nom.

 On Friday we drove up to Shigatse.  Here's a photo of the beautiful mountains that we saw on the way up.

And here's a yak that we saw at one of the rest stops.  It was a little grumpy, so I didn't get too close.  It was very cold on the way to Shigatse.

We visited the Tashihunpo Monastery the next day.

In the afternoon we drove back to Lhasa.  Here's a random statue and lake that we saw on the way back.

 Here's another view of the lake.

We arrived back at Lhasa around 8 and left Tibet the following morning.  The next stop: Sichuan.  Will post pictures of the second half of the trip soon!

Tibet! (西藏）part 1

Ok, so Blogger won't let me upload all my pictures...so I'll just post the ones I can now, and do the rest later. 

So I've been in Tibet for a week, and it's been a trip of a lifetime.  We left BNU around 6:30 Monday (10/17) morning  and headed to the airport where we barely made it onto the plane before it took off to Tibet.  We then had an hour drive from the airport to Lhasa, the largest city in Tibet and it's capitol.  Here's my first view of Tibet from the bus.  It was so refreshing to be around mountains again!!

It was also nice to have clean air, but there was so little of it!! Lhasa has an altitude of 3650 m, which I believe is around 12,000ft give or take.  Just a little bit higher than Durango.  >_<  If I went from Durango to Lhasa I'm sure I wouldn't have been as affected by the altitude, but I was used to Beijing altitude, so I could feel the altitude in my lungs (and my hands and feet).  Going up one flight of stairs was like climbing a mountain!!!  

So we arrived at our hotel around 4ish, so a group of us went exploring.  Here's a picture of the tourist market right outside of our hotel.

The next day we visited the summer palace of the Dalai Lama.  Here's a picture of me right outside of the building.  Because they're religious places, we were not allowed to take pictures, so don't expect many pictures of Buddhas and inside the temples.

After lunch we went to the Potala Palace.  I felt like I was in the capitol of the Earth Kingdom1! (Avatar reference, sorry, couldn't help it)  It was quite a breathtaking sight.  We climbed all the way to the top!

Here's an artsy picture I took of the top.  Apparently the red walls are made of wood wrapped in yak skin....but I don't know if that's true or not.  

Ok, I'll try and post more pictures when I get Blogger to work again.  Preview: more temples, monasteries, yak cheese, yak butter, getting lost with Xing Laoshi, higher altitudes and more!!!!

Food!!!

Today, I'm going to talk about food. :) So here is a collection of my food pictures since the beginning of the trip.

Here are little sugar animals on a stick.

Cody eating a scorpion 

My favorite type of popsicle, it has grape jelly, peanuts, toffee, chocolate, and vanilla ice cream.

The cake I bought to eat for Eric's birthday

Puff pastry in the shape of a swan

Breakfast food at the hotel

Bubble tea!!

More bubble tea!

The chocolate dinosaur I made

So, a little about Chinese food.  I think the biggest difference in Chinese food in America and here is how salty everything is here.  Chinese people love their salt....and msg.  Yum!  I usually eat at the student cafeteria during the week.  It's msg free, feels healthier, it's dirt cheap and convenient.  During the weekend I usually go out and find new restaurants to try.  So far I've tried Uyghur food, Tai food, Japanese, Korean, classy Chinese restaurants and "shack" restaurants.  I've even tried the famous Peking Duck.  I actually wasn't too impressed.  It was good, but too much duck in one meal.  

I'm also addicted to bubble tea now.  There's this bubble tea place nearby called Cocos and it's the best.  I'm also still a huge fan of eggplant in garlic sauce, or just eggplant with anything.  The roasted green beans are delicious and the noodles, "la mian" are the best.  

Chinese desserts are a little strange, since they mostly consist of red or green bean.  It takes a while to get use to, since their pastries are usually not as sweet as ours.  They have really interesting flavored oreos though (green tea and strawberry).  Also, Haw candy is delicious, but mostly sugar.

The fruit is also a little weird.  You have to wash and peel your fruit, because of all the pesticides.  Lychee, persimons (I spelled that wrong), pomelos, and asian pears are pretty common.  The apples aren't as sweet and the pears are really crispy and also less flavorful.  There's a fruit stand right next to the east gate of BNU that we always get fruit from, so I always try new fruit.

Speaking of fruit stands and such, street food in China is pretty good.  They can put anything on a stick, including noodles.  I haven't tried any heats or gross things yet, however if you saw the picture above you can see that some people have tried scorpion.  There's this place the FSP calls "the shack" that makes really cheap jiaozi (dumplings) and baozi(steam buns) and noodles and stick food.  A lot of students eat there often.  There are also stands selling fruit covered in melted sugar on a stick, and some selling this scallion pancake with egg and veggies.

In Tibet and Sichuan I'll try totally different cuisines, so I'll update you on that when I get back.  :)  I'm leaving tomorrow, so I'm super excited!  

Ok, sorry for my food rant.  I just believe that if you really want to know a culture you should discover it through their food. :)

Ok, back to studying.

Datong and hutongs, in that order

Hey guys!!  Been super busy, so sorry this post is late.  To make up for it I'm going to try and squeeze in an extra post this week!

So, since I last posted, another week and a half has gone by.  Last week for Wednesday culture night we went to the Laoshe Teahouse.  We snacked on pumpkin seeds and peanuts while sipping tea and enjoying a variety show filled with traditional performances.  The tea was a bit of a joke, and some of the performances were a bit cheesy.  My favorite bit was the changing mask performance, where their masks  "magically" changes every so seconds.  Don't ask me how they do it....I don't know. 

On Thursday we had our weekly test, because that night we left for Datong.  We traveled by sleeper train.  Below you can see a picture of my bed.  It's even smaller than the one in my dorm!  At around 6:30 in the morning we arrived at Datong and were greeted by an explosion of fireworks.  Apparently, there was a wedding that day and it's traditional to be woken by fireworks.

 After we arrived at the hotel, we took showers and ate a delicious buffet breakfast.  The breakfast buffet had toast and some western food, along with chinese dishes.  Yummy!  I hadn't had toast for such a long time.  The hotel was at least 4 stars, and it was nice to have a comfy big bed for once.

Around 9:30 we left to visit the grottos.  Many years ago people carved hundreds of buddha statues into sandstone cliffs.  The picture below are all the girls on the FSP, including our teacher, posing next to an elephant statue (modern statue, not ancient)

When we arrived there was some sort of service going on.

 Of course no service is complete without the sound-guy monk, making sure all the microphones are working smoothly.

 Ok, so here is one of the statues.  It bigger than it looks.

Here's a picture with me next to it for comparison.  Only the lower half fit into the picture, sorry.

Here's a deteriorating buddha statue.  Because sandstone is so soft, it's easy to carve statues, but those statues are also easily washed away by rain.  Really creepy...

 We went to the nine dragon wall next.  Interesting fact: only emperors can have five clawed dragons.  This wall was for someone in the royal family, but not the emperor, so these dragons only have four claws.


Old guy writing on the streets.  there were a lot of these.

 The Hanging Temple, my favorite site so far!! Interesting fact: those long vertical wooden poles don't actually support any weight.  They're just there so tourist can "feel safer".

 Random side of the building, thought the picture came out nice

 Me in the Hanging Temple

 In the afternoon, we went to Mt. Hengshan.  Xing Laoshi and I at the temples.

Some of us climbed all the way to the peak of the mountain.  It doesn't look very impressive, but it took about an hour to summit.

We got back Sunday morning around eight.  Sunday night a couple of us took a confusing trip to Suanlituanr to go find us some Tai food.  The food was good, but maybe not worth the time and effort to find it.  

On Monday another small group and I explored a nearby hutong (narrow street in Beijing).  There was a cute stationary shop and a chocolate shop where you make your own chocolate.  So cute!!!  We made dinosaurs.  The white one is mine.

I'm going to Tibet on Monday, so I'm excited about that.  I'll try to post more since we'll be on break and I don't think we'll have much or any work during the trip.

Ok, back to studying!