From Lijiang to Kunming with a stop in Dali

Returning to Kunming to Lijiang was a lot more pleasurable than traveling from Kunming to Lijiang on that bumpy, dusty and musty overnight bus. For our return trip we chose to take a bus to Dali from Lijiang. From Dali we would then take an overnight to Kunming. This seems like the best choice to travel from Lijiang to Kunming.

In Dali we visited the Old Town. Like Lijiang's Old Town this place was for tourists, so it had it's appeal, but at the same time we all knew it was for tourists, so it was not 100% authentic. Dali is a great little town with a lake just down the hill and a huge looming mountain behind. Because of the all the mountains right behind the city there are lots of backpackers and hikers who use Dali as a starting point for their travels. This means that you will find a store selling North Face jackets or outdoor supplies on almost every block.

For lunch that day we wanted to find a restaurant recommended in the our guide book, but after talking to some locals we learned it had been torn down. So we got a recommendation from some girls selling North Face jackets. When we found the place we were told that there was no menu. The man told us all we needed to do was pick out what we wanted to eat and how he wanted us to prepare. This was a pretty neat experience. It was also great how we could customize our dishes to all of our tastes or requirements. The owner was even nice enough to let us watch him cook the dishes after he had taken all of our orders.

The afternoon was pretty relaxing. It basically involved a little shopping for gifts and riding bicycles around. There are plenty of places to rent bicycles that you can take for the whole day. We only rode for a couple hours because we needed to catch our train, but we still had plenty of time to ride down to the nearby lake and the Three Pagodas.

Dali is a nice place to stay, but I think it is kind of small. Despite this, I hear that there are lots of people who get to Dali and end up staying longer than they expect. I think it might be related to how easy it is to get drugs. I was not approached, but my friends were approached by a couple ladies offering to sell them weed. It was great because it was unexpected. These ladies dressed up in some sort of traditional dress would approach them and try to sell them a bunch souvenirs, but then when it was obvious they were not interested, the ladies would immediately try to sell them pot. Apparently there is also a great shoe repair economy in Dali, or so it seems from the number of shops. One man approached me from across the street and told me that I needed my shoes repaired. I reassured him that they were fine, but he insisted and then bent over to point something out on my shoe. Not really paying to my shoes in the last couple days I thought that maybe something was wrong, but I soon realized he wasn't pointing at anything. He just tried to find anything wrong with my shoe and point it out. Eventually he gave up and we moved on.

After a bus ride to the airport where we met a nice young girl who was excited to learn and go to school and a train where I met a fellow computer scientist turned hotel manager who dreamed about traveling around the world we made it Kunming very early in the morning. We did not get a chance to ring in the new year because the lights on the train were turned off before midnight.

Tiger Leaping Gorge Day 2

Day 2 of the Tiger Leaping Gorge Adventure was pretty mundane for the first half of the hike as compared to the first day. In the late mornigng we left the halfway house and headed towards Walnut Grove.

Before you reach Walnut Grove the trail passes Tina's. This is another restaurant / overnight establishment for visitors, but it is right on the new road which goes through the gorge, so the views are not as stunning and it does not feel like you are far from anything, whereas the Halfway House gives you this feeling.

The most spectacular part of the hike was not on the hill above the road. It was the hike from the road down to the river and back up again. Once you reach Tammy's you can take a pretty steep path down the side of the gorge to the river side. It did not take too long to get down to the river. After about forty minutes of walking we ended up at the bottom of the gorge at Sandy's. We rested at the bottom of the gorge for a short while, chatted it up with lady at the bottom of the gorge and generally enjoyed the scenery. One of the things you can do at Sandy's by the river is to sign your name on the side of the building.

* If you guys go, don't forget to look for 小普, Tex and Flashlight. All of which are the nicknames we used on the hike.

Sandy's is located right next to the river and is directly below the feature of the gorge from which it developed it's name. Just down river from Sandy's on either side of the gorge are two large rock outcroppings, which look as though at one point they were connected and made a land bridge. If this was true it has been gone for a long time now. At some point between when this land bridge was destroyed and now it is said that one day a tiger jumped from one side to the other. And, that is how the gorge was named.

After hearing the story of the gorge it was time to head back. The section of the trail from the river to the road was by far the most challenging trail we had encountered. Basically you have to hike up the side of the gorge. There is no room for a trail to wind it's way back up the gorge. The scariest part of trail was on of the ladders we had to climb. This ladder, by American safety standards was probably one of the most unsafe ladders around. Not only was it made of rebar, but it was not made in one piece. It was actually two ladders. You start at the base of a tree and the ladder goes between the branches and out of the top. I thought it might have been for dramatic effect or maybe the tree just grew there over time. I mean, it hard to tell how old a piece crap rebar ladder actually is. As I climbed the ladder I noticed that this choice was probably more for support than anything when I noticed wires wrapped around the ladder stretching to branches of the tree. Then I thought to myself, how in the world is this thing safe?

After a nice grueling hike back up to the road we met up with a pair of travelers. The man was a Chinese guy who chatted with us in the kitchen at the Halfway House the night before. The woman, we could only presume at the time , was his girlfriend or wife. This couple was headed back to Lijiang via Qiao Tou just like we were, so for the sake of saving money we all decided to take a taxi back to Qiao Tou where we would find another cab back. Making it to Qiao Tou was relatively easy because there were some drivers right where we were. We spent the car ride getting to know each other. The man is from Canton and the woman works for Dell in Dalian.

Once we reached Qiao Tou the hilarity ensued. Everyone knows that you can bargain in China. People always tell foreigners to do it because Chinese people will rip them off otherwise. Foreigners are not the only ones who haggle. I feel like the lady with us is one of the best hagglers I met. Before we reached Qiao Tou she had decided to not pay more than 15 kuai per person. This was pretty cheap compared to most prices offered, but she was budging. After a couple minutes she had our first driver and another man competing to take us to Lijiang. I did not catch everything she was saying because I was busy laughing and filming the thing. She kept saying weird things about cute guys, so I was curious as to what bargaining technique she was actually using. In the end we took a third driver who showed up after most of the bargaining and was willing to accept our low price.

That night we headed back to our respective hotels to take showers. Afterwards we planned to meet up to eat dinner. Once we arrived in the Old Town of Lijiang we met up with our new friends. One of the first things the woman mentioned was how she was lucky to be around so many cute guys. We are all starting to get the picture that the man and woman were not romantically involved. Dinner was fun, just like it always is when you go out to eat. During dinner we started talking the mo suo minority in China. This minority still maintains a fully matriarchal society. Women can sleep around with lots of guys and they have all the rights to raising children. It is quite interesting. The woman we were with had just recently visited this society. She mentioned that this place is one of the only places where she could live out the rest of her life. We thought this was odd. We could not tell whether this was because of the society or whether the place was beautiful. We were still puzzled. What left us even more puzzled was her response to one of our questions. We asked what her husband would do if she moved into the mo suo society and he husband did not want to go. She simply said she would let him marry another man. Then she said it is a little silly for a man to stay with only one woman his entire life. ..... Interesting is all I can say. She is great though.

A Night at the Halfway House

By the time our hike led us to the Halfway House in the Tiger Leaping Gorge we were all very tired. We had not been hiking for the entire six or seven since we started our hike, but still we were tired. So even though it was still pretty early and we had a few hours of daylight left we decided to call it a day and stay at the Halfway House for the night. Plus, we would all get to meet the mysterious Franky who ran the halfway house. Apparently he was to some degree a Chinese medicine man, according the Lonely Planet China Travel guide.


The first step of the night was to get our room. We had a couple choices. Some were better than others, but all we needed were beds. Since they had a 4 person room that was clean we decided to take it. By clean, they meant that no one had used the room in a very long time. This worked out for the better because they switched out all the sheets for us. Still, after the sheet change we were not staying in the Grand Hotel or anything. My bed consisted of a piece of plywood stretched between two bench like pieces of furniture. I felt that if I was any bigger I would break my bed.

After getting settled into our rooms it was time to go down to one of the porches and enjoy the view of the gorge. The Halfway House is located on one side of the gorge and has a beautiful view of the other side of the gorge. It also allowed for some picturesque views of the sun coming over the mountain the next morning.

After a couple hours some other hikers started showing up. A couple of them were some french travelers we had met along the trail, so it was nice to see them again. As the night wore on a few more international travelers showed up. Before dinner our party consisted of the four of us students from Beijing, a couple young guys form northern Europe (I think Norway), the French couple, and a man from Australia accompanied by an Israeli woman. The last two had met on the trail and decided to hike together. It was a great mixture of people because of the age difference and the experiences of everyone. The four of us from Beijing automatically became the experts on China because most of the others were only vacationing in China. The French couple were about halwfway through a 10 month vacation around the world, so they were able to share all sorts of great stories with us. The two Norwegian guys were young and generally fun to be around, so even though they did not have a vast amount of travel stories to share they still had lots of stories about Europe to tell us. The last two people, I think, were the most interesting of the group. The lady from Israel did not speak much because she spent most her evening rolling joints out of the pot she had picked along the path. The man from Australia, Gavin, was hilarious.

The first thing he wanted was to eat some chicken. He didn't want his chicken cut up into small chunks like the usual Chinese style of preparing chicken for dishes, but he wanted to eat half a roasted chicken. Being that we spoke Chinese we became his ambassadors and had to convince the people who ran the Halfway House to roast a chicken. This was not too hard, we only had to ask. Being a farm owner from Australia Gavin was a sort of connoisseur of chicken, so he wanted a fresh chicken. Luckily the Halfway House is a combination of this families home, farm and place to stay for the night, so they had plenty of chickens running around. After a couple minutes Gavin had caught his chicken and it was ready to be killed. This was one of the less appealing moments of the night, but I guess it is the only was to get a fresh chicken.

Once the whole chicken situation was worked out we started ordering food. There were about nine of us ordering food on our porch, but there were also plenty of other staying the night as well. It was great because certain people would order food and it would be quite a while before someone elses food would show up or the server would come back. In either case we would remind him of the food we wanted and he would say, 'oh, right, yes, coming right up'. We all understood that there were only about six people cooking food and serving the twenty or so guests, so we usually laughed when he would say this. After three or four hours of ordering food and eating we had gotten what we wanted and it was time for bed.

That night was a great night. It was great to have a number of people from so many different places get together and hang out for the evening. I definitely will not forget all of Gavin's stories about traveling through Africa and eating river water soup every meal, every day on a three day boat ride. I will not forget another comment he made while people were discussing how unfortunate it is that many of the mom and pop bread or cheese stores in many places are disappearing. Here is what he said "You can't get shit in Burkina-Fhaso, but you get some fucking good baguettes!".

Right before bed I poked my head into the kitchen to see what was going on. There was not so much food being cooked, but there were plenty of people huddled around the wood burning stove chatting. Even though we were in South China, it got pretty cold at night and a sit by the stove was very nice. We spent about an hour chatting with the staff, including the man serving our food who promised to us multiple times that they had not forgotten what we ordered. The best story of the night came from Franky. After he gave us some of the history of the Gorge and how he explained that Tina's was not the best place to stay. I am not sure how much of this was because he was in competition with her establishment. I had heard stories about the surly australian woman who came from Australia to live in the gorge and get away from everyone. She ended up marrying a Chinese man and at some point she developed a slight attitude problem with certain types of guests.

After the conversation and a group photo we all headed to bed.

Off to the Gorge!

Today was the day to head to the Tiger Leaping Gorge. We all turned in a little bit early last night, so that we could wake up early this morning and get a nice start on the gorge. We woke up before the sun was out because our plan was to leave Lijiang by 7 in the morning. Our first task was to find a place to eat breakfast. This was easy because the little alley in front of our hotel lead to a main road. On side of the road practically all of the shops were selling food and even though it was six in morning everyone had already started their work day. They were all ready to server everyone else going to work or school.

After we each had eaten our breakfasts it was time to catch a cab out to the Tiger Leaping Gorge. Because of the great Chinese economy it was no more than $5 American for all of us to take a one hour cab ride into the mountains. Eventually we flagged down a cab and haggled for a reasonable fare and it was time to leave. The first thing I noticed as I stepped into the cab was the driver's accent. I thought he had a British accent at first, but later I learned that his accent was one that a lot of locals had. I still find it odd how they can end with a British accent while speaking Chinese. I can understand if they have a British or more standard accent while speaking English, but not Mandarin.

On the way to the gorge everyone took naps at one point or another. The cab driver wa s not too talkative, so it was hard to hold a long conversation with him.

At just before 9 in the morning we arrived at Qiao Tou. This is a small town at the west end of the gorge. Right now it does not even look like a town. There is a lot of construction going on. I am sure they are preparing for all the potential tourists that will come and visit the gorge in the future. We were not concerned with much other than getting on the trail, so we did not spend any time in Qiao Tou, which is really what I would recommend from the looks of things. We did concern ourselves with the map of the gorge that our cab driver had. He kept using it to help explain to us where we wanted to stay that night. We all liked the map and we almost plotted to pilfer the map, but after Aaron offered the driver money for it he ended up giving it to us.

Once we were dropped off by the school we were ready to go. The school is apparently where the trail starts. The trail head is not clearly marked and since there was no one else around to guide us we just started walking in the general direction we wanted to go. We ended up walking through a schoolyard. As we passed the school building children got up, ran to the windows and got as close to the windows as they could, so they could watch us go by and say 'Hi' to us in English. At the same time we were passing the school's basketball court. I considered challenging the kids to a game, but it probably would not have happened even if I did ask.

The walk out of Qiao Tou gave us a lot of ideas of what the trail was going to be like later on. We ended walking past people's houses and through their farms. I figure the people were either really tolerant or enjoyed all of the people walking through where they lived. On the other hand, I learned that besides the new road that was built, the trail is the main thoroughfare for people who live in the gorge to go to Qiao Tou.

One of the things that stood out for me was one of the buildings we passed. On the side somone had written 实行计划生育是基本国策. This means 'Implementing Family Planning is Basic National Policy'. This just goes to show how well the cover has been able to spread propaganda no matter how far from the capital this place is.

The walk into the gorge was by far the hardest part of the hike. We basically started at the level of the water in Qiao Tou. As we walked around the edge of the hill and into the gorge we wound our way through a few villages and past some farms. We even stayed for a few minutes at the Old Tea Horse Guest House. The woman their was very welcoming and she gabe us some pears, so we could have energy for the next part of the hike. Maybe we should have eaten them because the next part was tough. In a matter of a couple hours we had already had a vertical elevation change of a few thousand feet and most of it was in the latter half. The section containing most of the change is called 26 bends, or 29 bends or something like that. The name doesn't really matter because there are a lot more bends, maybe about 40. I am proud of everyone for making it up, especially because this was the first hike ever for everyone. MCK had an advantage because he runs cross country. I am jealous of them for picking such a great hike to be their first ever.

Once we had reached the top of 28 bends we did not have to do anymore rigorous hill climbs anymore. This was nice because we were all tired at this point. For the next couple hours we kept a pretty constant pace. We often to took breaks to enjoy the view and take photos. This part of the hike was amazing. As we worked our way further into the gorge the foliage changed. Also, the view of the opposite wall of the gorge got better and better because we were able to see more of it in either direction. The opposite wall of the gorge is almost a sheer cliff in a lot of places, so the views of it are amazing and it seems a lot large and steeper than it actually is.

In the middle of the afternoon we made it to another home on the trail. This home had been 'converted' into a place where people could stop and eat. Since we did not know where we would be stopping in the evening and since we were all hungry we decided to stop and eat lunch. I forget the name of the place, but it is easy to find. It is between the Old Tea Horse and The Halfway House. The service is good and the views are great. The menus are made of bamboo sticks, which adds to the atmosphere, but I am not sure whether that was intentional. Also, according to a fellow hiker we met with later in the trip, there is pot plant growing on the premises as well. Maybe that is why the green tea is soo good.

After a nice lunch that filled us all up, but was not too greasy we decided to head out. We would have liked to have stayed and chatted with another group of Chinese people who had chatted with us during lunch, but we were not so excited about the prospects after she had told us to meet her and her female friends next we were in town.

After a few hours of navigating the trail we ended up at the Halfway House. This was not before we got lost a couple times trying to find the right path. Even though there are painted signs a long the trail. When we reached a critical point in the trail it always seemed as if the painted rocks we needed to look for were always smalled than the rest and that you had to choose a path before you knew if it was right. Only after seeing a few more painted rocks did we know the path we chose was right. Another comfort were the suddens booms were heard every once in a while. Just like the rest of China even the Tiger Leaping Gorge is undergoing amazing fast development. While we were hiking there were workers blowing off sides of the hill, so they could dig up big rocks and use them to build other things. What those other things were I have no idea. It was nice to see those workers on the hill above the trail trying to work rocks free with sticks and other tools, but we didn't realize what they were doing until we walked around the bend and saw all the boulders on the trail. This made me a little scared because it did not look like they were taking any safety precautions. It make the hike exciting right?

In the late afternoon we reached The Halfway House and decided to stay there for the evening. It was quite an evening.

My Little Lijiang

Lijiang is a nice little city in the northwestern part of Yunnan province. There are two distinct parts of the City, Old Town and New Town. Old Town is specifically for tourists just like all Old Towns are. In 1997 there was a big earthquake which destroyed much of the old Old Town and it was rebuilt after that. The first I walked through it I had the feeling of being in Aspen because there was large mountain in the background, which was covered in snow.

In the morning we went to Old Town to buy some tickets to listen to some Naxi people play traditional Chinese music. After scoping the seats out and buying tickets we headed for the nearest mountain. We heard that going to the mountain was a great activity from the lady who helped run the hotel we were staying at. In the end I think we all unanimously disagreed with her, but it was still a fun experience.

We payed too high a price to ride some horses up the mountain and back down, but it is a little late too complain now. We were all given a horse with a lady. The lady is supposed to come along with the people to accompany the horse, I assume. They certainly did not fulfill any type of guide role. Most of the time they were quiet, screaming they don't have kids or speaking in their native Naxi tongue. They told us not to speak English, but they continued to speak their Naxi language even when we asked them to speak Putonghua. I think the best part of the afternoon was just talking with them. I was kind of sore after riding the horses, but I did not want to complain because the whole few hours we were riding up and down this mountain the ladies, whose ages ranged from relatively young to old enough to be a grandma, hiked with us.

Once we had gotten back to the 'ranch' we quickly hopped in a cab home, so we could shower and get ready for dinner. We went back to Old Town to eat since we had tickets for the concert which was held in Old Town as well.

This concert was definitely interesting. Their is a man named Xuan Ke who sort of runs the whole show. He starts off by speaking to the crowd and Chinese and then English. Afterwards the band plays. Once the band is done performing he gets up again to speak to the crowd. This goes on for about two hours and then it is over. The most entertaining part of the evening was listening him criticize the youth for listening to pop music. Also he managed to bring up suicide bombers. I wish I remember how he did it. On the whole the music was decent, but I would not dare say it is my favorite music.

After all the music was over we walked around for a little bit, bought some postcards and then headed back to the hotel.

The Yunnan Adventure Begins

This afternoon I went to the Beijing for my first trip to Yunnan. I don't know much about the area except that it is warmer than Beijing and that is enough to get me to come here.

We hopped on the plane for a short flight to the capital of Yunnan, Kunming. My first impressions of the city are good. It is clean and there are lots of places to shop. It is really a consumer's dream. There are clothing stores everywhere and they even have lots of name brands. Apparently people are investing in the area in hopes that the borders to neighboring countries like Burma will open up. Afterwards Kunming would become a major hub for trade in the area.

Getting to the airport to the place we were staying was pretty easy, but somehow the driver of our cab got into an accident. We were picking up a friend, so the driver stopped and let MCK out to go get him. Meanwhile the driver decided to get ready to leave and promptly backed into a telephone pole. This was after he was saying he was such a good driver too.

The first night in Kunming was not so eventful. We got into the hotel a little late, so by the time we went to go eat it was already about 10 o'clock, so most places were closed. We walked around for a little bit and then came to a place called the Camel Bar. It was pretty hip little joint run by a local musician. The ambience was nice and it was even a little romantic because they had to use candles to light all the tables since the regular electric lights weren't working. They had some great posters around the walls that said things like 'Smoke for Peace'. They also had a huge Jamaican flag with Bob Marley's picture on it and the dates 1981-2001. None of us could figure out the relevance of those dates.

The Second day in Kunnan was pretty fun as well. The first stop of the day was a noodle house. At the noodle house we ate some of Yunnan's specialty noodles. They were pretty tasty, but I would fly all the way just for the noodles. After we ate noodles we went to a beautiful Bhuddist temple right nearby. We spent about an hour or so walking around and taking pictures. The place was really peaceful, the sun was out and the sky was blue, so it was very relaxing just walking around. One of my most favorite things about the place were all the turtles swimming around in the water.

After we had our fill of the template was walked to the Kunming zoo, which was right nearby. I was a little worried before hand because I had heard stories about the Beijing zoo and how pathetic the animals and their conditions were. To say the least I was not too impressed with the zoo in Kunming either. A lot of the animals were chained up and it seemed like most of the favorite animals like lions and tigers were used for performances as well. I think the zoo in Kunming was more a carnival type attraction than a zoo simply because they also a rollercoaster and a ferris wheel and even an old airplane for you to sit in and take pictures in. In the aquarium section there was even a sea turtle whoes viewers were encouraged to throw coins into his 30 square foot pool of 6 inch deep water. It was kind of depressing to see actually. I think one of the first I am going to do when I get home is go to the Woodland Park Zoo just so I can forget about this zoo.

Dinner that evening was delicious. My friend's travel book mentioned a Dai restaurant near where we were staying, so we trekked over to that part of the city after going through Foreigner Street. The food was really good and the atmosphere was nice. The front of the restaurant was open to the street, so we could watch all of the people walking home from work and riding their bikes with their friends. It was not noisy at all because since Kunming is not very large most of the roads are pretty small. In some senses the restaurant reminded me of Key West.

After dinner we headed back to the hotel to grab our luggage and head for the bus station. We scheduled to take the ten hour overnight bus to Lijiang. I will let you know now that it was an amazing experience.

The Return of the Snow Day!

I mentioned last week that it was supposed to snow a bunch this weekend, but it never did. Apparently the big storm my 'chinese mom' told me didn't hit until last night. I woke up early this morning for some unknown reason. I still don't know what it is, but after I woke up and looked out the window. To my surprise everything was covered in a blanket of white. All of a suddden I forgot about everything I needed to do this morning and got ready for class and grabbed my camera. On my way to class I took a few photos, check out my snow day photos here.

After getting to school I chatted with a friend from Seattle. Both of us couldn't wait for the director of the program to come and tell everyone to go home because it was snowing. I guess we have been conditioned by Seattle.

At lunch time one of classmates was sharing a bunch of homemade cookies she made here in Beijing. She somehow has a friend in Beijing with an oven. When she told me this I was wondering where she was when I was thinking cooking turkey for Thanksgiving. Her cookies were excellent. One of my classmates even joked if she was married or not ... unfortunately for him I think she is.

There was also some bad news for the day, which I heard pretty early on. One of the administrative staff at IUP had their bike stolen. When I was studying in our library this morning she came and told me. I figured since I was leaving Beijing soon and lately I have only been riding my skateboard around that I would give her my bike. After a little bargaining with her I think she finally agreed to take my bike without giving me money. Who knows, she might try to bring it up with me tomorrow. At least I can be happy that when I leave Beijing my bike will be in good hands.

Right now I am just preparing to wrap up this week. I have a presentation on Friday that I am kind of wishy washy about. I still have time to prepare really well, so that I won't be reading when I presenting or I won't need to make things up on the spot, but then again everyone else has been doing that. It is hard to find motivation these days when all I can really focus on is getting things done for coming back to Seattle.

This week I made sort of spur of the moment decision to take a trip to Yunnan in southern China. First we are going to fly to Kunming. Afterwards we are probably going to take a bus to Lijiang. From there we are going to take a trip to see one of the deepest gorges in the world, Tiger Leaping Gorge. I plan to take too many photos for you guys to see. I can't wait to go!

Let the Festivities Begin!

Yesterday was another Friday and it came and went. This week my Friday was a pretty relaxed Friday in terms of the level of excitement I experienced, but that is not to say I did not have fun. Come to think of it my Friday was full of a lot of little different experiences.

My first experience of the afternoon was at 3:30. After I talked to Taylor about his job search I headed for the little plaza Area near the building I attend classes in. My plan was to meet my new friend Wendy, 薛雯婷. Her name means graceful clouds ... or something along those lines. Anyways we met in the same place where we met for the first time. She brought a little Chinese dictionary because I told her I had been looking for a traditional character dictionary, but had been unable to find in Beijing. I don't care how many times people tell me I am on the mainland it seems ridiculous that all the traditional characters dictionaries I have found have not been very. I mean China is much closer to Taiwan or Hong Kong than the U.S. will ever be! ... Geographically speaking. Politics are such a pain in my ass!

After she gave me my little gift I thought it would have been a little awkward to just accept her gift and say goodbye, so I tried to invite to get some coffee or something, but we ended up skateboarding instead. I was happy with this decision too, so we went back to where we met and skateboarded around a little. I thought it would have been pretty ridiculous to have her sit and watch. Plus I would have felt a little weird, so I suggested that she try and learn, and so the skateboarding class began. It was pretty fun and she picked up things pretty quickly. By the end she was rolling around and turning and tic-tac-ing and everything. I was impressed. It was interesting to watch also because as she was having fun all the older Chinese people passing by would look from me to her and from her to me with a confused look on their faces wondering why she was on the skateboard and not me.

After we had both had our fill of skateboarding we went back to my apartment so we could listen to some music cds and watch some breakdancing videos. I didn't realize she enjoyed beatboxing and breaking until she scolded me for not inviting her to the breakdancing competition I went to last Sunday. After watching some Massive Monkees breakdancing I let her listen to Rahzel's If You're Mother Only Knew. I think she was pretty surprised by the song. If you guys have heard it then you guys should definitely give it a listen because this guy is beatboxing and singing at the same time. I think it has become a standard by which beatboxers measure themselves now. During intermission at the breakdancing competition there was a beatboxer who performed the same song.

After Wendy left it was time for me to meet my teacher at the local bookshop. I skated over to the bookstore and met. We spent a little while looking at books and we found a cool copy of Animal Farm by George Orwell with both English and Chinese. My teacher, 刘郁, was nice enough to get me a copy of the book since she had a gift certificate. For one of my homework assignments I wrote a short essay about Animal Farm, so she knew I liked the book. I told her that after I got back to the states we could read the book together. She could read English and I could read Chinese, then we could write essays about the book. Please refrain from dork comments until I get back to states.　刘郁，谢谢你买给我动物农庄！下一辈子我会做牛做马报答你！

We were planning to go to our classmates Christmas party, so we stopped at McDonalds to eat dinner. We chatted over our meals and some new soy bean shakes. I didn't think about the meal when we ate, but after watching some of Super Size Me I am starting to wonder what is inside of me now. Especially seeing a jar of McDonalds french fries look just fine after 10 weeks ... watch the DVD for yourself!

The Christmas party was cool. I have a couple pictures, but I am going to wait to get the rest of the pictures from my classmates until I post any of them. The party was like any old typical party except that the director of program came. This was a change of pace from the rest of the IUP parties. Usually our teachers show up, but he doesn't. I guess he figured since he lives in the same apartment complex and it was Christmas party that he should show up. In any case he is a nice guy, so it was cool that he showed up and socialized with us. I think it helps us bridge the gap between him and us.

The party was fun and it gave me a chance to meet some new people and chat in English. I ended up meeting a girl who works at That's Beijing Magazine. I did not stay at the party too late because I was a little tired and wanted to get some rest. Skateboarding home gave me a little energy, so I decided to skateboarding around campus for a little bit. I found some neat places to skateboard which I would like hit up during the daytime. After skating around I went back home past 二效门. Thinking of Kagan I looked at the gate for a while and tried to figure out how to climb it and get a good picture at the same time. Reality kicked in and I thought the potential risk of injury and Chinese prisons.

I just looked outside and didn't see any snow. My friend told me it snowed a little bit earlier today, but I am still waiting for the big dump that my landlord told me was going to come. I am crossing my fingers now as I am getting ready to head to bed.

Snow Day!

This morning when I went to class it was snowing! It was only lighlty
snowing, so I was still able to skateboard to school, but the light
dusting made the icy lakes very pretty. By the time I got to school it
was snowing a little harder, so when lunch time rolled around
everything was covered in a thin blanket of white.

Right now there is no snow left, so I am a little disappointed
overall, but the lady I am living with told me it is going to snow a
lot this weekend. I really hope it does because it will add something
interesting to these finals weeks. Maybe there will be enough to make
a snowman or even have a snowball fight. I will cross my fingers for
that.

Come back for more updates on this crazy Beijing weather!

Keep on Dancing!

So Sunday was an eventful day. I woke up late because I had gotten home late the night before. Plus it was Sunday, I figure since there is something about a day rest I should get to sleep in. I did not sleep in too long because I had to meet my friend Cathy at the sky train station.

My friend Cathy has been working in Beijing for about eight months, but the whole time she had never come to the part of Beijing I live in. This is not too surprising because unless you are a student there are not too many reasons to come out this way. Anyways we met about 1:00 in the afternoon and then spent most of the afternoon just walking around the campus and chatting. We took a few photos of campus as we toured.

After the tour I was walking Cathy back to the station when we ran into one of my classmates Taylor. He has a friend name Ting Ting who used to be in a hip hop group and she really likes to dance and is into that whole scene. I have talked to her about breakdancing and all that so when her, Taylor and MCK planned to go to a breakdance competion on Sunday night they invited me too. When we bumped into Taylor he told me about it. He told me that we were going to meet at 7:30 to leave and since it was 5:30 I figured I had enough time to go home and get some homework done. I rushed home and got some Korean food on the way home, so that I could eat and do homework at the same time. Unfortunately I decided to take a nap after I ate my dinner instead. So when it when I was supposed to call Taylor and MCK to meet them I just about decided not to go since it was already Sunday night and I had not done any of my homework.

To make a long story short, I decided to go and it was a blast. We went to a club called High Speed in the Chaoyang district. Since Ting Ting knew some people performing we were able to get in for a discount price .... I assume, just because the tickets were not too expensive. The show was called "Keep on Dancing" and was put on by Beijing Better Dance Family. The first part of the night was a popping and locking competition followed by a beakdancing competition. In between the competitions there were some performances by Ting Ting's friends who were in a dance group. At the end of the night there was going to be a performance by Skeeter Rabbit. We did not stay long enough to see it since all of either had to go to work or class the next day. I would have liked to see it because he has worked with all sorts of people from Talking Heads to Micheal Jackson.

After a long evening of watching people perform I wanted to try and start learning again. I have tried a couple times before, but those times I never did much more than think about it for a while and then stop thinking about it. I know that Taylor and MCK want to learn, so maybe I can try a little bit before I leave Beijing.

To see more photos from the evening click on the image below.

I also shot a few videos with my camera. If you are interested then watch a few breaking videos. They are not the best because of where I was standing and I was using my camera to shoot the video you can get an idea of the atmosphere, plus you can see some girls breakdancing!

One more week down, not too many to go

Tuesday was my birthday! I was really excited to celebrate my birthday in China. During the day my classmates were asking what I was going to do for my birthday. I kept telling them that I did not have any special plans for my birthday. A few of them understood because we had homework to do, but some of my other classmates felt like I should go out and have some fun. I fooled myself into thinking that I did not want to go out until the late afternoon. My classmate Tammy and I were chatting online when she asked me what I was doing and whether or not I wanted to go out. She convinced me pretty quickly to go out and have some coffee. I am really glad she did this because even though we did not make a big deal out my birthday it was still nice to know people wanted to spend some time with me on my birthday while I was in China. I also have to thank Janny and Taylor for coming too. After we had our coffee it was time to study.

Tuesday was the highlight of my week until Friday. That is the day we had our midterms in class. I did better on this midterm than I had done on the final and midterm from last quarter, so I was happy. My grades were not stellar, but I have had progress, so I am happy.

Friday night was also really special because I got to eat dinner with a classmate of mine and my good friend Eric Stowe. Eric and I studied Chinese together at the University of Washington. Right now he has a great working for an adoption agency in Tacoma. He just so happened to be in Beijing this week, so we planned to hang out eat dinner together. We went to a really nice vegetarian restaurant near Wangfujing. We had a great conversation about all sorts of things including the trip to Nepal he just took. He had some amazing pictures of the children and villages he on his trip. I really envy Eric for the work that he does.

Tonight we had a movie night at my classmate's apartment. We shared pictures that we had taken in China and then afterwards we watched a romantic comedy called Something's Gotta Give. The movies stars Jack Nicholson, so at times it is a little hard to not think about The Joker from Batman. At other times it is hard to accept him as the person chosen for this role, but at other times he suits his role really well. I think it was a decent movie, so I might watch it again sometime.

Besides all this excitement I realized again this week what it means to be a skateboarder in Beijing. If I am anywhere on campus or around campus I get lot's of looks, but something very strange happened on Friday. I was going to my friend's apartment to fix her computer when I had just crossed the intersection. I heard a person yelling my name. It was not my Chinese name and not too many people around here really know my English name. I was really confused as to who could be yelling my name in the middle of Wudaokou. I turned around to see my classmate from the UW jumping out of a taxi waving me down. I knew he was in Beijing, but not at the same university where I study. He told me that as he saw a skateboarder in Beijing he figured it could only be one person ... me.

This example on top of the time my neighbor in my apartment telling me he has watched me skateboard in other parts of the campus makes me feel as if my skateboard is now acting as a large nametag.

In addition to all this "excitement" I went out and bought a small christmas tree with some lights and ornaments today. All of it came out to about $6 and it gives my room a nice Christmas flavor, so it makes me happy. There are a few final touches I need to make to the tree, but for now it comforts me. Here is a picture of my nice little xmas tree.

Finally if you guys want to see the church I skateboard at, here is a picture of the Church at Wangfujing.

A People's Republic?

The media and people's access to media here amazes me. This covers the way news is broadcasted to the control over the news people can get.

I have a classmate right now researching media control in China and it seems like the government information agency needs to play a constant game of catch to block all the news that people within China are trying to broadcast. She told me one story that a person she had an interview with told her. Their website's tactic was to broadcast real news, that China would allow them to broadcast. After the officials do their obligatory check of the websites contents, maybe a week or two later, their company will change the links to the actual articles they want to share. Of course these articles contain content which the government would not want other people to see.

Being that this whole internet thing is being controlled with computers and there are always a million ways to do things with computers it is not really hard to get around the national firewall. Just use a proxy. The problem is that you can't easily find these proxies from within China. Their happened to be a person who had a blog hosted by blogspot.com that decided to share these proxies through his blog. Not long after the government simply blocked all of blogspot. Talk about a few bad appples spoiling the bunch. However, this may not be the only reason. In a country where media is so heavily controlled it would be dangerous for them to potentially give a large portion of their population the freedom to say whatever they want, whenever they want and have billions of people around the read it. So now the only way to be able to read your blogger blog in China is to have it hosted by a 3rd party server.

I find all of this really interesting that it seems like everyone knows, but no one has the power to do anything about it. This is just reflective of the divide between the rich and the poor and the powerful and the powerless here in China.

Friday at Friday's

Today signified the end of another week. The week went well. It had it's up and downs. All I can say is thank goodness it is Friday ... speaking of which, tonight 代老师，刘老师，泰立，李迈轲，魏立德 and I went to T.G.I.F's for dinner. We could not help but ask the waitress about her "flare" each time she came by. By the way, here is the best burger I have eaten in China so far.

Besides going to 星期五餐厅, today was fun because our third classmate in our listening class finally came back. She missed the first four days of this week because of work and illness. She came back just in time to participate in a little in-class performance where I was an unreasonable kid who did not want to do anything but play games online. She played the role of my teacher and my other classmate was my father. It turned out to be hilarious even though we took the performance in a direction the teacher did not expect. The result was that my father and I criticized my teacher for being so strict and that when my computer company made me millionaire she could criticize me again when I rolled up to school in my nice new BMW.

After classes I decided to kill a little time by skateboarding. I went to a little spot that I like to skateboard at. I had not skated for very long until I noticed a student walking by. Each time I would do a trick she would stop to watch. After she continued on I noticed that she hesitated and turned around and kept watching me. Anyways, I decided to talk to her because she was at least somewhat interested in my skateboarding. I talked to her for a few minutes about nothing in general. After I skated for a little bit longer I decided to head home, so my new friend Wendy and I chatted for a little longer and then parted ways. I was really glad that I met her, this is because every morning when I skateboard to class it seems like people don't like my skateboard too much, but this afternoon Wendy told me that she thought skateboarding was cool. Even though I don't need people here to accept my skateboarding it is always nice to find some support. Also these kinds of situations make me even happier at the fact that I decided to bring my skateboard to China. It has already helped me make a few friends. I wish Seattle was like this.

Dumpling Party!

I am absolutely stuffed right now. My friends and I just finished eating dinner at my place. I invited four good friends of mine over for a meal since I have already been to their places to eat food. The lady I am living with invited her friend over and we all stuffed ourselves until we could not eat anymore, well at least us kids did. I took a couple of photos and thought I would share them with you guys, so you can finally see who the lady I am living with is. She is the one in the grey sweater and I call her Xu Laoshi.

The lady in the brown sweater is the lady MCK lives with. MCK is the one in the striped shirt. Taylor is in red. You should recognize them from my trip through Central China. Janny is the one wearing red and the girl next to her in brown is my friend Tammy, from Canada.

The Final Stretch

So I only have about 5 weeks until I come home. It seems like a long time, but I know it will fly by quickly. I have already been gone for over 3 months now and the time has seemed to go by very quickly.

Some days I want to go home, but most days I don't. I know I am going to miss all the people I have met here. I am going to miss all my teachers, my classmates, Taylor, MCK and Dave from Princeton, Kitty, Judy, Cici and lots of others.

Anyways, between now and then my friend Eric Stowe will be coming into town. He and I studied Chinese together at the UW and now he works for an adoption agency, so he gets to come to China every once in a while. It just so happens that I will be in Beijing this time, so we are going to go hangout together. I am excited for his arrival in Beijing.

My classmates are also going to put together some parties in the middle of December. We are going to burn cds and share music, but there is also going to be some sort of birthday / going away party for all the students only staying during the fall. I can't wait for the party, but in one sense I don't want it to come because it represents that I will be leaving.

On a better note I get to celebrate Christmas in Beijing! I hear that it is a lot like America. People hang lights and all that good stuff. I am ready to experience a Chinese Christmas. I have been thinking of ways and asking people where I can get a small Christmas tree, so that I won't miss home too much.

I think this last month is going to be a blast. I am going to try and cram as much fun into my time as I can between taking the HSK test, my midterms, my finals and the test you take when leaving IUP. I also have to throw in two presentations. If I come out of it alive I will be seeing everyone in Seattle on the 7th of January.