After being up so late, I slept in this morning and then headed to lunch with Adam and Tyler. After lunch, they introduced me to the grocery store right outside of the gate I had no idea existed and I got some more peanut butter and bananas. After stopping back by the room it was already time for class, which went until 5:40.
Straight from class we all grabbed dinner and then I came home and showered and packed all of my stuff up for Xi’an. With the help of Sanford, I also arranged for a taxi to pick us up in the morning and for the auntie’s to let us out of the dorm since they chain the doors from midnight until 6 am and we had a cab for 5. After that I spoke with our hostel and arranged for a driver to pick us up from the airport. I spent the rest of the night organizing my pictures since my high school graduation, which took quite a long time but was very satisfying to complete. I got in bed by midnight only to wake up in about 4 hours for a crazy weekend ahead.
Sunday, March 31, 2013
Day 76: March 20, 2013
With no class today I decided to wake up at a decent hour so I could be really productive considering I will be busy all weekend in Xi’an. I threw in a load of laundry so it would be done by the time I got back from lunch and then hung all of my clothes up to dry as usual since the driers take 2 hours and still don’t even dry your clothes. After that I spent the rest of the afternoon working on a thermo assignment until I finally took a break for dinner.
Once I got back from dinner Bryan, Jess, Joe, Catriona, and I all officially booked flights to Chengdu in a couple weeks to see the giant pandas! We had been putting off booking for weeks since we are completely in the dark with our online class (we haven’t heard from the professor in over a month, had no homework since the first exam, and don’t even know what we got on the first exam). We are supposedly having an exam on April 3, which is unfortunate because other than that we would have a break from the 2nd to the 7th for the Qingming Festival.
After finding out that one of the CEO’s of the trip had already booked a flight we decided to just go ahead and book one for 2nd because we don’t want to lose a 5 day break just because we have no idea what is going on and flights had already gone up significantly since we had been waiting. As uneasy as I feel with the fact we are scheduled to be across the country during an exam, it is pretty quickly diminished by the thought of holding baby pandas instead.
Content with our decision, we decided to take the rest of the night off and enjoy ourselves a little bit. A group of us got a solid game of land mines in, which was pretty hilarious because Ron couldn’t spin his quarter for the life of him and kept getting screwed by everyone else. We decided to venture downstairs with another group for a little while and talk with them and some of their Chinese friends that were really cool. After everyone was calling it a night, Adam, Ron, Nitesh, and I hung out for a little bit but within minutes Ron was passed out snoring. After we realized it was already 3 am and we had been talking for over an hour, we all decided to follow Ron’s lead and snooze.
Day 75: March 19, 2013
Materials dragged on as usual knowing that I would have no class until Thursday once it was done. After making it through without too much pain, I decided it was a nice enough day that I wasn’t going to waste it sitting inside. Jess and I got all ready to go play but then everyone wanted to eat lunch first so we tagged along.
After we ate we headed over to the track and messed around with the football and then the volleyball using it as a soccer ball. Adam suggested the game “Razzle Dazzle,” which we all thought sounded pretty questionable but after he explained what it was we decided it actually sounded really fun. It is basically ultimate Frisbee but with a football. Jess and I got to be captains and I managed to get the first pick and ended up with a team of myself, Tyler, John, and Adam against Jess, Nathan, Ron, and Bryan. It was a pretty good match up with a little bit of different strategies but we played for quite a while until we were all pretty worn out.
I took a quick shower and then Joe, Catriona, John and I headed into the city to hit up the cloth market. Unfortunately by the time we got off the subway the weather had taken a turn for the worse and it started raining and got pretty cool but we were glad it turned out to be a good day to be indoors. We made it to the market and went to pick up our stuff from our girl Lin Fen and tried it on behind a piece of cloth hung over a corner. John’s shorts turned out really well but my pants were actually really big so she said she would take them in if I could wait 40 minutes. That actually worked out fine since we had other stuff to pick up anyway and I wanted to look around some more. From there I went to pick up my shirt from the other shop and tried it on and it turned out really well. At the same place I actually gave them my favorite work shirt and got it copied in both a dark sea foam green and a coral color that both looked really pretty. I bargained down the price a little and she said she could have them ready in 10 days, so looks like I will be back soon.
After that was done we went to try and pick up Adam’s flag, which unfortunately wasn’t done because they had a question about the design and John didn’t leave them a phone number since he doesn’t have one. We made some clarifications and gave them my number just in case and then headed upstairs to get Meg’s dress. The dress turned out to be really cute and John was very pleased joking that it looked shorter than he remembered. Meanwhile, Catriona got her favorite dress copied in a coral color and Joe got his pants altered as well.
With some more time to waste before my pants were done, we headed across the street to Walmart so John could get some shampoo and we could go back to the delicious cream puff shop for a snack. After our snack we headed back to the market and picked up my pants, which fit much better this time. Satisfied with our day at the market, we headed back to campus.
On the subway home we decided that we would grab dinner at the Italian restaurant right next to the subway and that Bryan and Justin could meet us there. The Italian was by no means up to par with my mom’s cooking but it did a decent job of satisfying my Italian food craving. I got spaghetti carbonara with garlic bread and then John and I split a little sausage and green pepper pizza, all of which was actually really good. You could definitely tell it was Chinese Italian but it was much better than I was expecting, especially considering a bowl of pasta was only $1.50. After dinner we walked back to the dorm and I spent some time putting together my NCAA bracket for 3 different groups, which hopefully won’t turn out too badly. After that I spent the rest of the night catching up on my blog and Facebook chatting with some friends about their spring breaks.
Day 74: March18, 2013
Waking up this morning was a struggle after such an exhausting weekend. After making it through thermo, Catriona and I both agreed on a naptime and slept until we headed to the dining courts for lunch.
After lunch, Joe and Catriona went and got more details on this trip sponsored by SJTU to Yellow Mountain and signed up. Turns out it is a great deal and is only about $30 for an all-inclusive trip except for food. It costs just about that much to just get bus tickets there normally not to mention a place to stay and fees to get into the mountain and such. The 8 of us going to Beijing decided it would be another great trip to do together, but then football put some complications in the plans. The guys playing football are only going to be here for 2 or maybe 3 games and their second game happens to be on the same weekend as the trip. Not to mention if they win the game, they get to play another, which probably wouldn’t happen if all of them weren’t there.
This ended up changing our plans and only John, Jess, and I decided to go with the school trip. We went to the building and got our reservations all squared away even though we are still very sketchy on the details. We figured even if it isn’t a good trip, it was only $30 and we could go back again with the other guys if worse came to worse.
With that taken care of, I came back and did some research for our Xi’an trip and decided that this coming weekend would be the best and tried to figure out who all wanted to go. It worked out that Ron, Bryan, Jess and I all wanted to go and we decided to book flights later that night. After that I got some materials homework taken care of and took a break to grab dinner.
After dinner I wasn’t really feeling homework so I went through all of the pictures from Beijing and put them on Facebook. It took forever to upload, not to mention the hours it took to reorder all of them, put captions, and tag people. Relieved when that was done, I went to check another thing off my list and book my flight to Xi’an. I was under the impression that Ron had also booked his but apparently he hadn’t and for a second I thought I may have gotten the last seat since it didn’t give me an option to choose like it normally does. Luckily there were still seats left, but unfortunately the prices went up by about $30 after Jess and I booked our flights, so Ron and Bryan got kind of screwed over. After just being relieved we all got flights, I booked us a 4 person room at a party hostel that another group recommended for only $8 a night. After enough stalling on my homework, I finished my materials and got to bed a little later than I was hoping.
Day 73: March 17, 2013 Smog Enshrouded Summer Palace
We got up pretty early so that we could all eat breakfast and check out of the hostel and then got on the subway to Summer Palace. It took over an hour since it is pretty far away so once we got there we were all pretty excited. We bought tickets and then headed inside, which was filled with all sorts of cool structures. The architecture was really cool and it was really cute inside with older people dancing all around and a guy doing gymnastics. We made our way up the big hill and ended up right next to the Temple of Buddhist Incense. From there we should have had an awesome view of the whole park but unfortunately it wasn’t exactly the best weather as far as fog and smog go. From where we were we couldn’t even see the giant lake at the bottom that would have been beautiful on a better day.
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| Summer Palace |
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| Workin' out! |
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| Tower of Buddhist Incense |
We still decided to make our way down by the lake and see The Long Corridor, which was pretty cool. Along the whole thing there were pretty scenes painted along with some cool designs. Bryan, Jess, John, and I split off from the others since they didn’t seem too interested and got a better view of the temple and got a picture in front.
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| Longevity Hill |
We got on the subway for a quite a while and eventually ended up at the Temple of Heaven. Everyone was pretty hungry so we decided to grab some lunch before going to the temple. Everyone was pretty indecisive and on different pages with what they wanted so we ended up splitting up again and Bryan, Ron, John, Jess, and I found a family style restaurant and the others found a dumpling place. The five of us got a ton of food and all of it turned out to be amazing. Ron and I got eggplant, duck buns, and Beijing-style beef to split. Jess got this cashew chicken that was really good and John had this sweet and sour pork that was basically in syrup it was so sweet. All of it was delicious other than I wasn’t a hug fan of the “Beijing-style beef” that was actually pork. We pulled out the menu to tell them they brought out the wrong thing but turns out there was just a translation error on the menu and the English said it was beef but the Chinese said pork. Besides that we were very happy with our meal and begging each other to help finish it all until we couldn’t wait around any longer if we wanted to get to the temple.
We rushed over to the temple to meet the other group and realized we were kind of crunched on time. We booked it through the park until we were at the entrance of the Temple of Heaven, which unfortunately cost more to get in. Jess and Ron decided they didn’t want to pay to go in but John, Bryan, and I couldn’t pass it up. After going in we decided it was well worth it although we did have to rush through it. We made sure to get a few good pictures and check out the impressive interior designs and then it was already time to find everyone else and make it to the train station. We met everyone outside the entrance to the park and then did our best to catch a couple cabs, which wasn’t all that easy.
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| Temple of Heaven |
After sitting for a few hours I was ready to get up and walk around but unfortunately I was against the window and the guy next to me had his giant suitcase in front of him and was sleeping on it and the girl next to him was sleeping on her tray table. Without much other option, I stayed in my seat and tried to take my mind off of how much I had to pee. Luckily, they both got off in Nanjing not too much later so I could get up. I stayed up talking with Bryan, Ron, and Jess for a while and then made it back to my seat and just listened to music and contemplated life a little bit.
Before I knew it, we were already back in Shanghai and were even 15 minutes early. We all got off the train and headed to find a cab and waited in a giant line that surprisingly only took us 20 minutes to get to the front of. We got in and after a painfully long ride in the rain, we were finally back at our dorm. I got back in my room, fiddled around in the dark for my thermo stuff and headed downstairs to finish the homework. After not too long I was done and couldn’t have been happier to get in bed.
Day 72: March 16, 2013 The Wall is Pretty Great!
So I wake up with still no roommate, which was a little concerning. Jess had said she was getting a cab home last I had talked to her, so when she wasn’t there in the morning I was a little worried. I hopped in the shower really quick and then tried to get a hold of her. Right as I was calling she walked in the door with just one of those looks on her face. She said for whatever reason they couldn’t get anyone to take them back here last night so her and this girl Tess just stayed in one of the other guy’s hotel rooms and she had been up since 5:30 so she could catch the subway all the way back.
Our tour included breakfast at the hostel so we went downstairs to get her some much needed fuel. Breakfast was actually really good; we got eggs, sausage, bacon, hash browns, toast, and coffee! We had ordered 8 of the breakfasts for the whole group and this random guy asked Jess and I if he could sit at our table so of course we said yes. He was kind of weird but we tried to make conversation so we asked where he was from because he clearly had an accent. He said New York, so we asked where he was originally from and he said Hawaii. We were pretty confused so we just that one go and changed the subject. They brought out another breakfast and he just snagged it and we made it very clear that it was one of our friends but he still continued to eat it, which was really awkward. Ron just ended up ordering another, so it all worked out but I’m pretty sure the guy never ended up paying for it and just walked out which was interesting. After we had all gotten our food, we walked down the street with our tour guide to get on a bus. We drove around town for about an hour picking other people up and then were on our way to The Wall.
Once we got there our guide told us to meet back down by the bus at this restaurant with a Chinese flag for lunch at 1:30. He repeated it so many times we actually made a joke out of it the rest of the day acting like we didn’t know when or where to meet. He told us about the option to hike up to the top versus a cable car up and toboggan down and we decided to go with the latter since we didn’t have all that much time.
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| Cable car to Wall |
Within the first couple of minutes we ran into a guy selling beer and snacks and told him we were from America. He freaked out and showed us all of the pins he had of the American Flag and such and then all of the sudden out of no where he grabbed me by my bun and just started whipping out some Kung Fu moves on me. It was absolutely hilarious so naturally Bryan snapped some pictures and then Bryan and Nathan wanted to do the same. After we had all had our turn we told the guy that we knew the next few people walking up and to show them his Kung Fu. As soon as Tyler reaches the guy he just attacks and Tyler was so confused. He told him that he better watch out because he could just throw him right off The Wall. Luckily Bryan got the whole thing on video, which is actually pretty hilarious. A few of the guys bought beers to honor St. Patrick’s Day and then we continued on our way.
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| Kung Fu Man |
We made it all the way down to where the wall changes from restored to unrestored, which was pretty cool to see. Bryan actually managed to take a whole brick out of the wall and then we all decided it would be cool to get little pieces from the wall as souvenirs. We all got a group picture with the American flag that Nathan had brought and then had a difference of opinion of what we wanted to do.
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| Unrestored Wall |
Bryan and I really wanted to make our way further down The Wall and coincidently his friend he was going to meet up with in Beijing happened to be on The Wall at the same time so we decided to go find her. We went ahead and started moving a little more quickly when we decided to stop and get our sunglasses out since it was turning out to be such a nice day. Right when Bryan got up from being bent over his bag he realized his friend had just walked by and we had almost missed her. They said hi and then introduced everyone .We talked with them for a while about their trip, which sounded pretty awesome. They had been traveling all over China for the last week for their spring break and it seemed like that had done a pretty good job of covering ground.
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| The Ray Ban Clan |
On the way we passed a bunch of souvenir shops and came across this shirt that, I kid you not, said I <3 BJ, which was supposed to mean I <3 Beijing but obviously that was not the first thing that came to mind. Adam couldn’t pass it up and got one and Bryan got a Great Wall shirt as well. Even after that, we ended up only being about 15 minutes late to lunch. We had a table to ourselves at first but then were joined by this guy and girl who were from Canada. Naturally we directed them towards Ron since he used to live there and he figured he might as well ask if he knew one of his friends who went to their college. Turns out they are actually really good friends with him and even a few of his other friends who don’t even go to their college; small world! We were all pretty blown away by that the rest of the meal but managed to change the topic and learn about how they were studying business in Hong Kong. They were really fun to talk to and lunch was great, so overall we were very pleased with the conclusion of our trip. After we all finished eating we made our way back to the bus for another 2-hour ride back to the hostel.
We were all pretty exhausted so we took it easy until it was time to make it to our reservations for Peking Duck at one of the most famous restaurants in Beijing called Da Dong. It took us a little while to catch two cabs, but eventually we were there without a problem. We were seated right away, and instantly felt underdressed for the occasion considering how nice the atmosphere was. Some people were dressed a lot nicer than others so we didn’t feel too bad, but we were excited to be in such a nice place. We put in the order for 2 ducks and then Jess and I decided to split and order of eggplant while everyone else got a beer instead. After not much time at all, they had brought out two full ducks and two chefs started their intricate carving process. For how big the ducks looked, we didn’t really get all that much meat, but what we did get was absolutely delicious. We had these little condiment trays with all sorts of stuff like cucumbers, duck sauce, sugar, and garlic paste. Our waitress taught us how to make the little roll ups with the pancakes and it was pretty impressive how quickly and effortlessly she could do it all with chopsticks. She basically took some duck, dipped it in the sauce, put it on the pancake with some radishes and cucumbers, and then rolled it all up. She also showed us how to use the sesame buns where you basically did the same thing but added the garlic paste. She also told us that you are supposed to dip the skin in sugar, which was surprisingly really tasty. After we knew what to do we all dug in and the duck was gone in no time. Everyone thought it was amazing and said they could’ve probably eaten a whole duck to themselves. The eggplant we ordered also turned out to be really delicious and we were very satisfied with our meal. After we thought we were all done, they brought out some complimentary soups and then some water chestnuts on this intricate display with dry ice.
After we were all finished with those, we got the check, some candies to go, and then a group picture out front. Since it wasn’t too late we decided to head over to Olympic Park since we heard it gets all lit up at night and is pretty cool. The subway there wasn’t too bad and we came up right in front of where we needed to be. We didn’t even have to pay and we got an up close view of The Bird’s Nest and The Cube, which looked pretty awesome at night. There were people flying kites all over the place, but there was this one guy whose kite was so long you couldn’t even see the end of it. He let us hold it, which was pretty fun and when we tried to leave he kept chasing us to try and get us to buy one. After we escaped we just walked around exploring until the lights started to shut off. We managed to get one last group picture in front of The Bird’s Nest and then hopped on the subway to make our way back home. By the time we got back to the hostel we were all pretty pooped so we decided to just take it easy and call it a night since we still had plenty to see in the morning.
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| Bird's Nest |
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| Awesome kites! |
Day 71: March 15, 2013 Forbidden City
We woke up around 7:30 to some announcement in Chinese blaring in our ears that Bryan and I managed to catch said that we were supposed to arrive at 8:56 am. I attempted to go back to sleep for a little while and then we all got up and got our stuff together. Once we got off the train we took a bathroom break and then got 2 cabs to our hostel. It was in some alley, which made it kind of hard to find, but after a little wandering we found it and checked in. We were supposed to have two 4-person mixed dorms, but apparently they were out so they gave us one 4-person mixed dorm, one 2-person private room, and put the other two people in a random 4-person mixed dorm. Jess and I got the private room, which worked out really well. After we put all of our stuff down we started right into our site seeing with the Forbidden City.
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| Hostel room |
We walked there and on the way stopped so that Bryan, Jess, and John could buy masks although the rest of us decided to pass for the time being. The Forbidden City and Tian’anmen Square are right next to each other but we decided to go to the Forbidden City first since it closed first. There wasn’t necessarily all that much to do once you were inside other than walk from one end to the other and just appreciate how big it is and all of the cool architecture.
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| Total Asian submersion |
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| The Forbidden City |
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| The Group |
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| Big Stone |
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| The Guardians |
There were a ton of different halls with shrines that were all really pretty and some cool statues. We also found a few cool exhibits along the way including the 9 Dragon Screen and the Hall of Clocks, which were both pretty sweet.
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| Clocks |
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| 9 Dragon Screen |
At the other end we got to walk through the Imperial Garden that had some pretty cool rock structures and Nathan’s discovery of the lion dog, also known as the “log.” After we had seen enough, we exited only to realize that we had to get all the way back to where we started to see Tian’anmen Square. We debated catching a bus but then just ended up walking so we could find something for lunch on the way. We ended up just picking out a random restaurant that looked pretty decent and it turned out to be great. Nathan and I split some sweet and sour pork, three delicacies, and fried rice, all of which were extremely good.
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| Imperial Garden |
After we were all full we made it the rest of the way over to Tian’anmen Square. We stopped and got some good pictures with the giant portrait of Mao and then made our way across the street via a tunnel to the actual Square.
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| Me and my main man Mao |
We walked around the square for a little while just to check it out and made our way around to the Monument to the People’s Heroes and Mao’s Mausoleum. We had to ask about 3 different people to get a decent group picture and then we were ready to head out.
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| Mao's Mausoleum |
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| Monument to the People's Heroes |
Bryan, Nathan, and I weren’t really ready to just go back to the hostel so we decided we would go on an adventure to find the Beijing Ducks stadium and the Stephon Marbury statue that is out front. After a long subway ride and the most round about route to the MasterCard Center, we weren’t even allowed to get past the gate. Nathan tried to bribe the guard with some money but the guy wasn’t having it so we just had to appreciate the statue from afar.
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| Marbury from afar |
After getting as close of a look as we were going to get, we decided to head back to the hostel. As soon as we got back we decided to book a tour of The Great Wall through the hostel, solely for convenience purposes. With that, we all took advantage of our free beer coupons and then Nathan, Tyler, Bryan, John and I got a recommendation from the front desk of a good place to eat. We didn’t realize it was going to be as long of a walk as it was, but after playing match the characters we eventually found it. The pictures were a little misleading so we didn’t wind up with exactly what we wanted but everything turned out to be okay but the green beans and dumplings were definitely the best.
After taking forever to flag down the waiter to get our check, we headed back to the hostel to find everyone hanging out with this other group of people from the states. We all introduced ourselves and spent a while talking with them and drinking a few beers. Apparently this girl tried to come on to Jess, which was really funny and this other guy met Bryan and then gave him a kiss on the cheek goodbye. Jess and I had thought he was gay all night but then he apparently asked if we were single so we don’t really know about that one. By the end of the night he was super drunk and was making zero sense. We were talking and he was obviously from England because of his accent and so he asked what my heritage was. I told him a was ¾ Italian and his response, I kid you not, was “So do you really channel that when you are writing?” I was so confused and didn’t even know how to respond so I just kind of blew it off by saying that I’m an engineer so I don’t really write. Then he got really concerned and thought he offended me in some way and kept asking if that was a rude question, which only made the whole situation even more awkward. Luckily I got saved by the bell since the bar closed at 11 and we said our goodbyes. Our group all went back into one of the rooms to hang out and Jess decided to go with the group of Americans to the bars. After not too much longer we all called it a night since we had to be up early to make it to The Wall.
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