Henan

Hi guys, sorry I'm so late in posting.  I've been super busy, as always.  Let's rewind back to more than a week ago where I traveled to Henan....

On Thursday we had our weekly test.  So after finishing it we barely had time to pack and head out to the train station.  We had packed ourselves a supper, so I had my first peanut butter and jelly sandwich since I left home.  (Rachael and I made a trip out to WuMei, which is the Chinese version of Walmart and bought some bread and jelly and peanutbutter.

After our 5 hour train ride, filled with lots of card games and studying, we arrived in Anyang. We wandered around for a bit, but realized there wasn't much to see in our vicinity and retired for the night.

In the morning we awoke to a delicious breakfast and headed off to a quiet Buddhist temple.

Here's a pretty statue wearing a cloak...don't know why...

 These are actually incense!  I had never seen round, swirly incense before

Afterward we went to the oracle museum and then the writing museum.  Here are the earliest forms of writing on turtle plastrons

 A dead slave buried with the carriage

 The character for dragon in old script

In the afternoon we drove to the Yellow River and got on this hover boat (It goes on land and water!!).  We traveled to this nearby island and got out and looked around.  People were offering horse rides for ten kuai, but the horses looked sad and dirty.  Plus I’ve ridden a horse before.

Here's the hover boat

 horses!!!!

 Us and the Yellow River

Then next day we visited the original Shaolin Temple.  There was a kungfu show for us (less gaudy than the one we saw in Beijing) and then we took a tour around the temple. 

A guy breaking a piece of metal with his head

 Shaolin monks would strike trees for training, so the trees had holes in them from the monks striking the trees so much.  In the temples, the floors would bend in places because the monks would stomp on the floor so much.

All the Master monks at the temple were buried in this "forest" of tombs.  They always had an uneven number of floors, from 1 to 7.  The more floors the more important you were.

In the afternoon we went to the Grottoes, similar to the ones in DaTong.  At one of the statues, we saw these two little girls taking a picture in one of the pots, and a couple of us decided to take a picture with them. 

For supper we had a traditional “water banquet.” Well, we had half of the water banquet.  The other half was normal Chinese food. The “water banquet” was a meal of different soups.  No one was too impressed, but it was definitely an experience. 

At seven we boarded a sleeper train back home.  I was sad that this was our last weekend trip.

Three weeks left

Sorry I haven't updated in a while.  I've been trying to fit in as much sight seeing as possible.

So I don't have any pictures from the summer palace, because I forgot my camera.  Sorry guys!  It was pretty wet and murky that day though, so the pictures wouldn't have been very good anyway.

I also realized how little time I have left in Beijing!!!  I've been here for over 9 weeks and only have three weeks left.  I'm already starting to miss Beijing.  It's griminess and it's glamour have grown on me.  Part of me feels like I've improved my Chinese a lot, and part of me feels like I haven't improved at all.

Last Wednesday we went to a kongfu show, which was a little cheesy, but one of the best shows we went to in China.

On Saturday we went to a buddhist temple; there was nothing particularly memorable about it.  It claims to be the oldest buddhist temple in the city.  On Sunday I returned to the Forbidden City.  I went to the Forbidden City last time I visited China, and it was nice to revisit all the buildings.  I even explored the back area more than last time.

We'll be going to Henan on Thursday, so I'll post a lot more pictures next time.

Back to studying!

Back in Beijing

After a long, two-week trip full of fun and excitement, getting back into the swing of Beijing city life and studying was a little hard.  However, it was nice to continue painting class on Monday, and Wednesday we at Peking duck, which was especially delicious.  At the end, they re-cook all the scraps of the duck (bone included) and they were surprisingly tasty.

Today we went to US embassy and tomorrow we're going to the summer palace. :)  Will post pictures.

Also, I received the Tucker Fellowship!!! So yay!!

Ok, back to studying :)