Day 6 - 上海 Shanghai

The plane from Beijing brought us to Shanghai around 10 pm in the middle of the pouring rain.  Every kind of travel in China is exhausting, so we were beat as we staggered outside the airport hoping to find a taxi.  What we found was a line of hundreds of people wrapped around the front of the airport, waiting for taxis.  Likewise, there were hundreds of taxis waiting in line for passengers.  Three at a time, taxis would pull forward while a security guard waved passengers to their open doors.  After waiting in line for more than an hour in the rain, we finally made it to the front of the line and had our turn in a taxi.

The first taxi driver shooed us away because he'd never heard of the place we wanted to go.  The second driver didn't know either, but he wasn't about to give up his chances to drive us foreigners to our destination.  So, he put our bags in his trunk, called our hostel, and asked for directions.  Eventually he figured it out, and 45 minutes and a rather expensive fare later, we made it to our hostel.

When we woke up in the morning, our sixth day of traveling, we had a goal that had nothing to do with the city of Shanghai:  laundry.  When we left our home city, we only packed enough clothes as would fit in our backpacks, so by the time we hit Shanghai we were rather dirty.  Our hostel in Shanghai happened to have a washer and dryer.  We brought our clothes down to the laundry room to find the machines were full.  We came back an hour later and put our clothes in.  Another hour passed, and we went back, hoping to switch everything to the dryer.  What we found was that someone had put twice as much clothes as they should have in the dryer, with hours left on the timer.  A few hours later, we finally got to put our clothes in the dryer.  They weren't dry after, you guessed it, hours.  By now it was 4 pm and we were starting to worry that we wouldn't get to do anything in Shanghai.  You see, we had spent the entire day in our pajamas because ALL our clothes were in the wash.  Eventually we decided to take matters into our own hands.  We spent the next hour drying our clothes using an iron and a hair dryer.  Ridiculous?  Yes.  But when you live in a foreign country, ridiculous is relative.  Finally we left the hostel and climbed onto the subway wearing our still-damp jeans.

By now it was dinnertime, so we decided to take advantage of the fact that Shanghai has so much to offer in the way of foreign foods.  We went to a mall and witnessed the most incredible array of American restaurants:  Papa John's, Coldstone Creamery, Subway, Carl's Jr., and Starbucks.  (I’ve included a picture.)  As if that wasn't enough, this mall contained what I considered to be the promised land in China:  an American candy store!!!  Hershey's Kisses, Reese's, Twizzlers, Whoppers, chocolate chips, Symphony bars, Heath bars, peppermint patties, chocolate covered pretzels, Milk Duds, Jolly Ranchers, chocolate syrup, and more.  Considering my near obsession with candy and the fact that in our home city I can only buy M&Ms, Skittles, and Snickers, I almost wept tears of joy.  The only downside was the prices...a bag of chocolate chips for nearly $10?  No thanks.  However, I did indulge in some licorice and Whoppers.

After we had our fill of American goodies, we made our way back to the hostel to get some rest, since we were leaving the next morning.  So, all in all, we did two things in Shanghai:  wash our clothes and eat American food.  And while some travelers would gasp in horror at our lack of effort to experience the real Shanghai, I consider our visit to be a success.

Beijing: Days 4-5

On the morning of our fourth day in China's capital city, I stayed in bed (if a plank of plywood with a sheet on it can be called a bed).  Some of the more adventurous travelers in our group set off before dawn to see the flag-raising ceremony at sunrise in Tian'anmen Square.  However, still feeling exhausted from our trek up and down the Great Wall the previous day, and having no desire to find out how cold Beijing must be without sunlight, Zack and I decided to let this experience fall by the wayside.  After breakfast, Zack joined the rest of our friends for a visit to the Forbidden City; I stayed behind, still playing the "too-tired-from-the-Great-Wall" card.  So, if you want to hear about the Forbidden City, you'll have to ask Zack, for I have nothing to say on the matter.

After everyone returned from the Forbidden City, we had lunch and then decided we would go to visit the Temple of Heaven.  We were excited about this particular attraction, because this is the place where the ancient Chinese made sacrifices to the "heavenly emperor," in a way not dissimilar to that of the ancient Israelites.  Unfortunately, we had set our hopes a little too high, and most of us were a bit bored with the temple.  It had been heavily restored, so any of the ancient-ness we had looked forward to was...well, ancient history.  But, I have included a picture so you can at least see what it looks like.

After leaving the Temple of Heaven, we decided our next stop would be Beijing's famous snack street.  Probably most of you saw glimpses of this street on TV when the Olympics were held in Beijing in 2008.  The news anchors showed foods like scorpion shish-kabobs, if you remember.  Well, for such a famous place, it was nearly impossible to find.  After consulting a guidebook, a map, a policeman, and several passersby, and after wandering around for over an hour, we finally found it:  the land overflowing with milk and honey...or rather scorpions and centipedes.  I will try to list for you some of the "foods" we saw that night:  scorpions, centipedes, grasshoppers, starfish, lizards, worms, caterpillars, sea-horses, and sparrows.  Of course, they were also selling more palatable foods, like legs of mutton and fruit on a stick.  None of us dared to try any of the more...exotic cuisine; not even Zack, who claims the only reason he didn't try something was that the prices were too high.  However, we all sampled some of what I believe is the best food in all of China:  candy-coated fruit on a stick.  They dipped all kinds of fruit in a clear, sugary liquid and let it dry, so it looks like glass:  strawberries, pineapple, kiwi, mandarin oranges, even crab apples.  Our favorite was the strawberry; I included a picture of Katie and Jessica and me enjoying our snack.  Even though I felt like I could eat 20 of them, we all tried to curb our eating, because our next destination was a Peking Duck restaurant.

When the waitress brought our food to the table, I nearly wept tears of joy.  An entire meal before us, and not a single appearance of the chili peppers I'm all too familiar with in Yichang.  I am now convinced that Peking Duck is the second-best food in all of China, after the candy-coated strawberries.  Of course, when I shared these feelings with my friends back in Yichang, they looked at me with surprise and told me that they thought that the duck I considered to be mind-blowingly delicious was "bland."  For the first time since we moved to China, I left a restaurant feeling genuinely full.  As I blissfully drifted off to sleep that night, I dreamt of a land full of duck and strawberries, where nobody has heard of chili peppers or tofu.

The next morning, we set off for our final attraction in Beijing:  the Silk Market.  We were very excited about this, because when you think China, you think silk.  Also, our trip to the Pearl Market was so awesome, we figured that the Silk Market would be the same.  We were wrong.  On the one hand, the merchandise was beautiful...silk dresses, robes, ties, scarves, table runners, purses, as well as the usual hodge-podge of tourist souvenirs.  However, the prices were astronomical and the vendors were either extremely rude or annoying.  They refused to budge on their exorbitant prices, possibly because we are foreigners and they assumed we were naive enough to buy their products for ten times what they were worth.  In one particular stall, we spent a few minutes looking at scarves while the sweet salesgirls politely helped us.  Just like we had in every other stall, we told the girls we wanted to have a look around and then maybe we'd come back.  When they heard this, they were incensed, and suddenly transformed from sweet and polite young ladies to vicious fire-breathing hags.  They shouted at us, "you stupid Americans!  you are all the same, you stupid!  stupid!  stupid!"  This is extremely out of character for a Chinese person to shout at a foreigner; usually foreigners are treated with respect and people will fall over themselves trying to leave the foreigners with a good impression of China.  Needless to say, we quickly emptied our hands of the scarves we were considering buying and promptly left, while the silk-hawking hags shouted more insults after us.  

When we left the Silk Market, we had very little in our bags but plenty in our wallets, so we went to Starbucks to recuperate before dinner.  After a hurried dinner, we packed up our completely overloaded backpacks and took the subway to the airport.  We said goodbye to Beijing and started to look forward to our next destination:  Shanghai.

长城 Beijing Day 3

On our third day in Beijing, we set out to accomplish what we had come to Beijing to do in the first place: climb the Great Wall of China.  While I am not particularly fond of traveling long distances, sight-seeing, or hiking, I did all three just to see the world-famous wall.  You may ask, "Elizabeth, why did you even go if you don't like any of those things?"  The answer can be summed up by the picture above. I wanted to be able to say "yes" when I come home and you all ask, "did you see the Great Wall?"  And I wanted to have a picture to prove it.  Now I do.

Getting there was no simple task in itself. Most tourists who come to Beijing to see the Great Wall book a tour. We didn't want to do this for two reasons. Firstly, it costs about double the price to go with a tour. Secondly, we fancy ourselves locals and are constantly trying to avoid being suckered into the overpriced things like the other foreigners.  Of course, the reason most foreigners book a tour is because going on one's own, especially when you are neither fluent in Chinese nor familiar with Beijing, is quite an undertaking.  Armed with a subway map and a guidebook, we were on our way.  When we got to the subway stop the guidebook told us about, we stepped outside and asked some security guards where to go.  They gave us a very confused look, and then unconvincingly pointed, "that-a-way."  We hiked up the street alongside the highway, foolishly confident that we could find the bus stop we were looking for.  After investigating three wrong bus stops, we found what we thought was the right one.  This was when the real pandemonium started.  Allow me to give you a play-by-play:

"Excuse me, is this the bus to the Great Wall?"
"No...you want the fast bus...it's over there."
We walk "over there."
"Excuse me, is this the bus to the Great Wall?"
"No...this is the slow bus...that one is the fast bus."
We walk to the second bus in line.
"Excuse me, is this the bus to the Great Wall?"
"Yes, but..." [insert incoherent babbling] "...go over there" (points to the original stop we were at)
We go back to the original stop.
"Excuse me, is this the bus to the Great Wall?"
"Yes, but it won't come for 20 more minutes."
20 minutes pass.  The bus pulls up.
"Excuse me, is this the bus to the Great Wall?"
"Yes, but this is the slow bus.  You probably want the fast bus."
"Where is the fast bus?"
"Over there."  [points to one of the buses we've already been to]
"But you can take us to the Great Wall?"
"Yes, it costs 20 yuan per person."
We resign in our efforts to find the elusive "fast bus," pay the fare, and board the "slow bus."

When we finally settled  on the right bus, we realized why it was called the "slow bus."  Apparently, it was simply a city bus that made many stops throughout the city, one of which happened to be near 八达岭 Badaling, a section of the Great Wall.  But, no matter...slowly or not, we were on our way to see the most famous structure in all of China.

As we neared 八达岭 Badaling, we could catch glimpses of the wall through the bus window.  Zack began frantically snapping pictures in spite of the fact that the grimy windows would undoubtedly make for poor photos.  He was effectively announcing to everyone on the bus that we were tourists; of course, if they saw our "is this the bus to the Great Wall" routine, they already knew.

When the bus dumped us off in the center of all the touristy souvenir shops, we began to wander around, looking for the entrance.  After some confusion, we found it and paid the entrance fee of 40 yuan per person (about $5).  First, a little about 八达岭 Badaling, the section of the wall we chose to visit.  Parts of the Great Wall were built as long ago as the 5th century BC, but 八达岭 Badaling was built during the Ming Dynasty, in the 1400s.  The older parts of the wall have mostly been abandoned and left to fall into disrepair, but Badaling has been heavily restored several times.  It was the first section of the wall to be opened to tourists, in 1957.  Some of the more committed tourists don't like it, because it's "not real" anymore.  However, it is the most popular section for most tourists to visit, Chinese and foreign alike.  As we began our ascent, we were acutely aware of this fact.  Because we've been in China for so long and because there are only a handful of foreigners in our home city, we couldn't keep ourselves from staring at every other foreigner we passed.  Eventually, though, we had to tear ourselves away from staring at their strange white or black faces and focus on the wall itself.

In spite of its debatable authenticity, it was awesome.  As we scaled the steep incline, the freezing mountain wind whipping around our faces, we were stunned by the ruggedness of the terrain.  It was unbelievable that people were able to achieve such a feat as this, especially in ancient times.  It's really like an emblem, hailing the determination of the Chinese people, their unyielding willpower.  In any case, we both rather enjoyed the exhausting climb up and down the wall, in spite of the fact that the Coke in Zack's pocket exploded mid-trek.  As I sit here with my computer in front of me, searching for the words to describe the Great Wall of China, I find myself at a loss.  What can I say about the world-famous structure that is so awesome and huge that you can see it from space?  I'm afraid I'm going to have to give up and just insist that each and every one of you go to see it for yourselves.  After all, as Chairman Mao famously said, "He who has not climbed the Great Wall is not a true man."  I'm not sure what that says about me.

天安门 Beijing Day 2

On our second day in Beijing, we took our sweet time getting up in the morning.  Actually that's not entirely accurate...we woke up at the crack of dawn due to the harder than granite beds...but we had a leisurely morning sitting around the hostel before we left to do the touristy things.  After lunch, we bundled up and set off for our first tourist destination:  Tian'anmen Square.  It's one of the most famous places in all of China, perhaps second only to the Great Wall...it's the largest public square in the world and home to the tomb of Mao Zedong.  The name means "Gate of Heavenly Peace."  There was nothing special going on when we got there, so we just walked around a bit and took a bunch of pictures while our fingers, toes, and faces slowly froze.  The picture above is Zack standing in front of the famous building in Tian'anmen Square, and even though I've been there, I still don't know exactly what the building is for.  After passing through the square, we decided we would go to the Forbidden City.  Apparently it was even more forbidden than we thought, because when we got up to the entrance at 3:01 the guards informed us that they closed the gates at 3:00 and we were no longer welcome.  Sighing as loudly and obviously as we could, we turned around and marched away, trying to decide what to do next.  We (the girls) eventually decided we would go to Beijing's famous Pearl Market.  The boys followed, obviously bored but without anything better to do.  

The Pearl Market was sensational, stupendous, and spectacular.  All the touristy shopping I could ever ask for in one single building!  The place was packed with merchandise and hawkers shouting from their stalls in both Chinese and English, touting their wares.  Their tactics are numerous, from offering special deals "only for you" to trying to inflict guilt by claiming you are pushing their children into starvation if you don't pay their ridiculously high price.  The first floor contained everything you imagine of China...silk scarves, chopsticks, fans, tea, and knock-off rolexes.  After a while, we figured out that the pearls were upstairs and made our way up to what we had been looking forward to for so long.  Each stall had hundreds of strands of pearls, some as cheap as 30 yuan -- just over 4 dollars.  Some were fake, but many were real.  Delighted, we girls scooped up as many pearls as we could without feeling guilty before we realized that the boys had almost died of boredom and we all decided to leave.  We went to a place nearby in search of food and found a Dairy Queen...while we had intended to eat Chinese food for dinner, it proved to be impossible to turn down the prospect of a true American hotdog for only 8 yuan.  Never before has a hotdog seemed like a gourmet meal to me.  It was fantastic.  Thoroughly satisfied with our purchases and our full stomachs, we traipsed back to the hostel and hit the hay, dreaming of our third day in Beijing.

Travels day 1

Since the last time I wrote, we have finished our travels through
China, celebrated the Chinese New Year, rested for two weeks, and begun
a new semester. True, that I had plenty of time to write; however, I felt
as though writing was work, and because I was on vacation, I put off writing
until now. The last you all heard from me, we were sitting in a
Starbucks in Beijing. Soon after, we plunged ourselves into all the
excitement and wonder (not to mention pain and travail) that traveling
in China had to offer us. Since it's hard for me to catalogue
everything that happened in an intelligible fashion, I will break it
down into days.

Day 1- Arrive in Beijing. At this point we were a little worried about
finding our hostel. We were in one of the biggest cities on planet
earth, and didn't know what we were doing. We could try a taxi, but
that would be expensive and there was no guarantee that the driver
would have ever even heard of the place. Eventually we decided to take a
bus from the airport to the train station, where we bought subway
tickets. For the first time in our lives, we rode a subway! After
getting off the subway, we wandered around the streets and hutongs
until we miraculously stumbled upon our hostel. After a short respite,
we left the hostel in search of lunch. I was so excited to finally
experience the food in a different part of China! In our home city,
about 99% of the food is blow-your-head-off spicy, which I loathe.
Everybody had been telling me that I would love the food in other
cities, and for a year and a half I had been waiting for this day.
With an empty stomach and a heart full of confidence, I followed Zack
and a Chinese friend out on to the streets, looking for a restaurant.
If only I could warn poor past-Elizabeth, "Don't get your hopes up! Failure
is imminent!". But foolishly, we went in the first restaurant we saw,
only to find after we had already sat down, that we had entered a
Hunan restaurant. Hunan's claim to fame is their tongue-scorchingly
spicy cuisine. The waitress assured us that the cook could make us
some food that wasn't spicy. LIES! After a few minutes, the waitress
brought out three dishes chock-full of chili peppers. I tell you all
of this to say that my first meal in Beijing was a bag of Lays potato
chips, which I ate defiantly in front of the lying waitress while Zack
and the Chinese friend gobbled up the fire-food. After "lunch," we
spent the rest of the day wandering through the streets, shopping and
bartering with the local vendors. To our surprise, nearly all of them
spoke a reasonable amount of English. "Hello friend, you want silk
scarf? I give you discount on chopsticks because we friends!" Soon
enough, we tired of both the hassling and the cold, and returned to
our hostel to rest for the evening. I'm quite sure that I've already
mentioned that sleeping on a Chinese bed is like cuddling up to a slab
of concrete. It's no wonder I always see people falling asleep on the
bus; it must be more comfortable than their beds. At least in Beijing they
use heaters.

北京 Beijing, baby!

That's right, at this very moment I am sitting at Starbucks in
Beijing...drinking a something-ccino and stuffing a blueberry muffin
in my mouth as fast as I can. It's not because I'm hungry or in a
hurry; I just want to inhale all of the American-ness at once before
it slips through my fingers. (yes, even though we're in the most
famous city in China, to us it is like a taste of home.). We left on
Tuesday afternoon, and already we have seen Starbucks, Dairy Queen, 7-
Eleven, Papa John's, Walmart, KFC, Pizza Hut, and Hooters. (we
skipped visiting the latter.) But please don't misunderstand, we
intend to experience all we can of real Beijing...the great wall,
Tiananmen Square, Peking duck, the silk market, and the gleaming new
subway system. After we finish our rounds through Beijing, we plan
to visit Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Wenzhou, more famous places in
China. After what I'm certain will be an exhausting 2 weeks, we will
return to our apartment in Yichang, hopefully with a few good stories
and great pictures to share with you.

Merry Belated Christmas?

Here's the thing.  It's not that I didn't want to update all of you on our lives during the holidays...it's just that I didn't feel it was all that exciting.  And to tell you the truth, a ho-hum holiday is exactly what we wanted.  You see, excitement isn't always good when you're in a foreign country.  Sure, if we ate roast dog for Christmas dinner or had a bamboo Christmas tree or had a Christmas morning earthquake...we’d have some very fascinating stories to tell.  But, while excitement and stories are great for any other day, it’s the last thing we wanted on Christmas.  So, perhaps you can understand why I’m thrilled to report that we have nothing to report.  We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with our closest friends, Katie and Jessica.  We holed up in our apartment and gathered around the Christmas tree, ate Christmas cookies, watched It’s a Wonderful Life, stuffed stockings, opened gifts, and enjoyed a Christmas dinner.  Just like you!  There’s nothing better than having a few days when you feel like you’re at home.  The day after Christmas, it was back to reality, and we had a huge Christmas party for all of our friends...the final count was 31 people.  We ate store-bought cookies (shaped like snowmen, flavored like beans), listened to Christmas music, read the Christmas story, and played white elephant/dirty Santa.  The pictures above are of our Christmas tree and of some of our friends at our Christmas party.  I wish I could put several more pictures up, but alas, I am still extremely limited by the “Great Firewall.”  But as always, if you want to see more of our pictures, you can go to our Picasa page...I just put up pictures from the month of December.
Our Picasa page:   http://picasaweb.google.com/elizabethopheim/

For New Year’s Eve, our school took all of the foreigners out to eat.  We all got on a bus and drove for about an hour to a restaurant in the middle of nowhere.  During the bus ride, somebody shouted to our boss, “Jian, where are we going?”  Jian responded, “to a slave market!”  While we love his sense of humor, the whole night was a little unbearable.  The food was super weird, the restaurant felt like it was in the middle of Antarctica, and the drunkenness of the other foreigners made us embarrassed and uncomfortable.  After it was finally over, we got home and Zack bought a giant pack of fireworks to try to redeem the evening, and we rang in the New Year with the explosives...of course, we had our New Year about 14 hours before you all did.

Now we are just finishing up the semester, getting into our final exams at last.  We are exhausted, and definitely ready for classes to be finished so that we can have a rest.  But, we are also extremely optimistic about next semester and what is in store for us and our work here.  We hope you can keep us and our Family here in your thoughts as we prepare for a New Year of work.