Wonderful week-end

We went to a small village in neighbouring Hebei Province for the week-end. "We" = a Chinese English teacher, around 18 students from Continuing Education (Monday afternoon class) and me. We took four cars (owned by my students) and drove there. We stayed with a local villager in her home, which can accomodate many tourists. The villagers make their money by playing host to stressed-out Beijingers looking for the quiet, relaxed country life in the spring, summer and early autumn months. Here's a cute boy and his grandfather that a couple of my female students played with. One of my students gave the young boy (1 1/2 years old) the yoghurt. You drink yoghurt here, through a straw.
The kitchen in the home where we stayed - pretty simplistic but the food was great!
One of my students preparing the sheep meat. I saw the sheep being killed and I have pictures, but I'll post them later. This student spent three months in culinary school at one point. He thought it was boring, but he learned a few tricks. "He'll make a good husband," as they say here.
The view from our porch (just outside our room) - wire reparations were taking place in the village.
A view of the village from our porch. These are the "hills" that surround Beijing. There are some that are open in the winter for skiing, but apparently the snow is man-made!
Another view from our porch. That's a white horse under the...could you call that a barn? An open shack?
Rooftops seen from our porch. I love these very pittoresque rooftops!
The class monitor - a very important position in China - is on the left (in black), and two of my students (working for China Air at the airport) are in the middle and on the right. They're super nice. We toured the local train station before breakfast on Sunday.
Hu Da Ming (in red) and Franklin in black.
The girls' room. I didn't sleep here (I slept in a room for three beside this one - I shared a bed with one of my students).
Me with a group of my students. I'm wearing Hu Da Ming's coat because I'm cold.
We went boat riding on Sunday on this lake in the middle of high hills. There are two ways to move forward: using large poles to push the boat or by peddling with your legs in that plastic blue thing you can see in the picture.
Three of my students. The one in the middle - Jack - he made dinner for me last week and he's coming back tomorrow to make me some more Chinese food. Yum Yum! On the right is the woman - Chang Ping - who came with him and who's also from Inner Mongolia.
Some of the views from the lake.
We stopped at a market on our way back to Beijing - mostly it was a rest stop.

HAPPY HALLOWE'EN!!! Just came back from a party at one of the restaurants right outside the university campus. Saw quite a few of my students there (not from the continuing education department; they're my first and second-year students). It was fun at first, with dancing and singing and shows, but then it got boring - it was all in Chinese and they were playing Chinese games that I couldn't understand. I've got class early tomorrow anyway.

More pictures from my trip to come tomorrow. These were the pictures from Saturday night and Sunday. Pictures from Saturday to come tomorrow. I loved my week-end, btw! It was wonderful!

TGIF

Yay! It's the week-end!

Still have work to do - prepping for next week's classes, but I'm in such a good mood.

Today was great. The weather's wonderful. Very windy but super sunny and lovely. The temperature is dipping quite drastically. Mornings and evenings are cold, but mid-day is warm, almost hot.

Enjoyed class. Played a vocabulary game that took up an hour and which the students always like. There were only around twenty students, so it was nice. The ones who know how to speak, spoke, the ones who don't know how to speak stayed quiet. That's always tough. But when I try to get the ones who don't speak to speak, they don't say anything and then the rest of the class gets restless or the ones who know the answer chime in! Terrible...

But I'm in such a good mood after nine hours of sleep. I feel like a million bucks.

OK, should get down to business and start working. Finished my midterms and sent them to three important people. Made a coffee date for next week with the guy who lives above me. He's a super nice old man, who at 66 talks to me of his "girlfriend" - which is really sweet but I find it difficult not to laugh when he says "girlfriend." Sounds so high-school-ish for some reason.

This is what I do on a typical day:

my alarm rings at 6:45 AM. I used to set it at 6:30, but I like the extra fifteen minutes of sleep. I use my cell phone as my alarm - I use the "jazz melody" so I wake up to nice music rather than a clanging bell.

I go into the bathroom and wash my face and take a shower and all that. I look out the winder to see what the weather's like and get dressed.

I boil water to make myself instant coffee - it's a 3-in-1 deal with coffee/milk/sugar all in one individual package. Convenient!

I turn on the computer and read my email and Lucas' webcomic (usually the same as the night before) and James' site and the CBC website if I have time, while sipping my coffee.

I look for the class list(s) for the day's class(es) and try not to forget anything.

I make sure I have a full bottle of water (600 mL) because my throat gets pretty dry in class.

I take out 1 kwai in order to buy baoze for breakfast at the campus cafeteria.

I usually walk to cafeteria number 2 to buy 4 baoze for 1 kwai from the same lady. It takes around 5 minutes in total - the walking and buying.

I'm always on time for my class in Building #1; my classroom is either on the third or fourth floor. I turn on or off the fans, open or close the windows as I see fit.

I close the doors to the hallway when I start class. I feel better.

I teach. I try to enjoy myself.

When I get off from work I usually have lunch by myself, unless there's a student (rare) that invites me to lunch or I meet someone who's ready to have lunch themself. I often eat leftovers from the night before or an instant noodle or something I grab from the cafeteria later on (1-ish) because at noon there's way too many people at the cafeteria and I don't want to bother.

If I don't have class in the afternoon I'll most likely eat at a restaurant outside North Gate. I'll bring something to read - maybe a book or some Chinese to study or something.

In the afternoons I'll usually work or watch TV or find somebody to hang out with - someone from the French crew. Everyday is different.

We always meet up for dinner - the French crew. We talk about where we're going to eat, what we're going to do that evening. There's always something. If it's not billiard's, it's a video at someone's place, or drinks, or even KTV (kareeokee) at a bar.

And then I stress about next day's class and if it'll go OK. Usually it's OK.

That's my day. Alright, here's wishing you many happy days in your life!

Beijing crowds on National Day - October 1st. We were in Xidan - a shopping district - which is usually pretty crowded anyway, especially on week-ends (I had already been with a couple of my students one Saturday afternoon).
Crazy Beijing crowds.
People like to sit and stare into space or at their cellphone screen.
Sports Day at BISU (the university I work at). There are runners in the distance, going around the track.
Sports Day - it's a glimpse of the campus and the place where I work (I work in Building #1 - the big red one on the right).

I felt OK this morning, but after work I didn't feel so hot. Maybe it's the beginning of a flu of some sort. Sucks. Ate lunch with Katia, Loic, and one of Loic's good students whom I see very often now, Wang Sheen (not sure of the Pinyin spelling...). We bought our food at the cafeteria and went to eat it outside in the sunshine. It was wonderful.

Spent the afternoon visiting the very interesting Lama Temple in the north of Beijing. It was a beautiful - and quite warm in the end - afternoon. There are lots of places to pray to Buddha, and many intricate statues of different buddhas of varying sizes (one is 25 metres, or 80 feet, high, and is apparently made of only a SINGLE piece of sandalwood - it looks amazing!).

Got two hours of class tomorrow, then I'm off to the countryside (the real outskirts of Beijing) with 18 of my students and one other English teacher (of Chinese origin) for the week-end. We're leaving early Saturday morning and coming back Sunday afternoon. Horse-back riding is apparently an option and we're going to eat farmers' fare, including a whole sheep! I'm looking forward to the break. :-)

Please leave comments - I can now read them no problem!

Wushu

This afternoon my Chinese friend, Zou Chuan Jun (let's say Jun for short), met up with me all happy, telling me his friend had already bought him a stamp and that he had even gotten me a stamp as well (I had told him I needed to buy stamps). It was truly touching. But then, of course, the stamp was for China, not for Canada, and I wanted ten stamps, not one, so...to the post office we went.

Problem: neither one of us knew where the post office was. So I stopped someone on campus and asked them - in English - where the post office was, and we found it easily enough. Jun wanted to stay outside while I went to buy my stamps! The whole point of going with him was so he could ask in Chinese for me! So I insisted he come with me...

Conclusion: funnily enough, with a Chinese person in tow, I rely more on myself and my English (and very poor Chinese) rather than on the Chinese person.

Wushu was great! We ended up practicing in my living room. I didn't think I'd break a sweat but I certainly did! It's quite demanding even though it looks more like a graceful dance than martial arts. I don't remember any of it, but it was really fun. I'll certainly continue. The routine Jun taught me apparently lasts ten minutes! I learned maybe the first thirty moves or so - maybe I'm being optimistic. I think what we did today lasts less than a minute! Oh well...

Went grocery shopping. Dental floss doesn't exist here. Neither does deodorant (it's very hard to find). I bought a broom. My place gets super dirty super easily. I feel like I spend all my time cleaning my marble floors...

Hope class goes well tomorrow. Hope your days go well too. Good luck!

The horrors of the Iraqi war hit home at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5369610,00.html

Thanks to Lucas for the link.

There seems to be an avian flu scare - especially in Europe - but I'm not worrying about it one bit. I'm registered at the Canadian embassy so if anything were to really happen, they can contact my mother and she'll come and save me.

I was sick this morning and I stayed in bed. I slept a lot. I feel much better now.

I'm off to practice "wushu" (martial arts) with a Chinese guy I met through friends. I'm the first foreigner he's ever spoken to (but he's seen plenty!). We're going to buy stamps as well.

Tuesdays

Well, today's Tuesday and it's going well. I'm surprised actually. Usually I like Mondays and hate Tuesdays, and this week I didn't like my Monday and have so far enjoyed my Tuesday!

Weird.

Right-o.

Congratulations to Jessie for getting her American visa and going back to Washington to work for National Geographic Traveler. Yippee! I want to see your article on Vancouver!!!

Congratulations to Rachel for getting a second interview with a very impressive accounting firm - good luck!

And congratulations to Grace for being Grace!

I could go on...congratulating everybody...but then it wouldn't be "special" anymore.

Hope you're all well. More later (and maybe pictures).

Monday blues

My 26-year-old student, Jack (he didn't give me his name in Pinyin) making the noodle dough.
A better view of my kitchen...snazzy-looking eh?
The other student who came to "help cook" - I feel bad but I forget her name! She's stirring the mutton-noodle soup that was so delicious!

Well, usually Mondays go well but I found this Monday tiring and stressful. This morning I had nine students in my class so for the first hour we simply had a conversation and we went over the students' mistakes. My second class of the morning was tiring because the students were noisy and non-attentive. The problem is that I like my classes to be interactive and I think these students are used to learning super passively. If they don't know how to speak, it must be the teacher's fault and that's the end of it. It frustrates me. I try to get them to participate in some interesting activities but they certainly don't show any enthusiasm. My last class always goes well, I just hope they're getting something out of it. I'm not looking forward to working another six hours tomorrow...sigh.

What I need is a good night's sleep.

Yesterday I went to an art district called Dashanzi (http://www.benoa.net/beijing/dashanzi/). It's a cool artsy neighbourhood. It used to be an industrial area which has now been renovated into many art studios and galleries. You need to walk outside from gallery to gallery. There are little shops and studios and cafes and some of the galleries turn into clubs at night. I went there with Josh and some of his buddies when he was in town back in early September - so long ago it seems! But we didn't see much. This time I saw only one of the places I had already been to - the rest of them were new to me. And the place I had already been to had changed its exhibition so everything was new, in fact. This art district is big! There's so much to see!

Today is Monday which means the end of the teacher's strike in B.C. which means my mother goes back to work and also my friend Lucas can get to sub again. Sorry, they're not called subs any more (how demeaning!) but TOCs (Teacher On Call) - that should be TsOC.

Tomorrow is Tuesday. I just hope I survive in OK condition...before I collapse.

Saturday night

Two of my students from the "Trainee" program made me dinner tonight. It was sweet. I met them at North Gate (in Chinese: Bay Mern) - one of the main entrances to the university campus - at 5 PM and we went shopping together at the supermarket.

It was super funny because they kept asking me if I had this or that utensil or basic food (like oil and vinegar and salt) and I was like, "No. No. No! I'm sorry, but no." So we bought many things (including a chopping board, a huge kitchen knife - for $3 Cdn - and sponges and rags to clean dishes afterwards) and headed back towards my apartment in the teachers' dorm.

These students are from Inner Mongolia (very distinct from plain old Mongolia). They work for an engineering company. He's 26, she's 25. They're both married but to different people (fortunately). As you may have guessed they're from my Monday afternoon class, which is a continuing education class where the students are older; they've stopped working in order to focus on learning English to improve their job skills.

The man, Jack, was the cook. He made fresh noodles using Mongolian flour and a bit of water. The woman, Alice, helped out by washing and stirring things when needed (and folding up his sleeves when he was kneading the noodle dough). Photos to come tomorrow.

So now my kitchen is a little more fleshed out. It means Jack will definitely come back to cook because I won't be the one doing any cooking in my kitchen.

Jack made us mutton-noodle soup with tomatoes and spices. It was delicious! It was simple but it took over an hour to make... Everyone was very pleased and happy.

We talked on my sofa after dinner. Alice and I drank OJ while Jack drank orange-flavoured beer. I showed them (upon their insistance) photos of Vancouver and Paris and Banff - some of you are in there! Hope you don't mind.

It was a super pleasant evening. They left around 9:30 PM. I went to Katia's to watch a video - I HEART Huckabees. I've already seen it but I totally forgot it so I didn't mind seeing it again. It's still just as strange as the first time I saw it. If it weren't for the excellent cast I'd feel like it was a pretty stupid movie, but there are some interesting and entertaining moments.

Tomorrow I need to work. I have to create a midterm for my students! I found this out on Thursday. My department wants a copy of the midterm I've created by the end of October. No outline of what the midterm should look like or be like (other than that it's a one-on-one with a teacher). Gotta love China.

That said, I don't think I'll feel like working, so it'll be hard.

Departments are important here. There's a whole structure to the university that I'm not fully aware of. I know I work for the HND (Higher National Diploma) department but then I have that extra "Trainee" program class Monday afternoon that screws everything up. I'm not sure if I belong to two departments or if I even belong to the English department at all...

I'm falling asleep at my computer. It's 1:30 AM. Good night.

I'm half-watching CNN at the moment. In my new apartment I have access to some international channels: Arabic, Spanish, Japanese, French (TV5), German, and CNN.

Sometimes my internet doesn't work. It wasn't working earlier, but then it works again, so I don't bother complaining.

Heating started today. I got the remote control to adjust the temperature of my apartment yesterday. It's getting quite chilly in the evenings and I still don't have winter clothes. Maybe I'll die.

Watched a dance competition organised by the university last night. The auditorium seats 900 and it was packed - lots of people standing at the back. It was pretty cool. There were groups and also individuals (8 competitors in total) and some of them weren't bad. There were professional guests invited - a couple who danced salsa beautifully, it was a joy to watch! And a group of breakdancers that were too cool for school (baggy clothing and baseball caps). They were lots of fun to watch.

Went clubbing yesterday at Club 7 (in the area of Sanlitun - the international bar district - on a street called "Ladies' street") - it was mostly foreigners and rich Chinese. Entrance fee was 50 kwai so only the elite could go... We were a group of twelve: Gaetan, Katia, Guillaume, Loic (all French), JiWoon (Katia's Korean roommate), JiWoon's Chinese friend called Emily, Bob and Maisy (Chinese friends), Tom (British - an English teacher), Matt (American - an English teacher), and Loic's new friend that he met over the internet and saw for the first time last night; she's French (from Toulouse) and is doing an internship for a real estate company in Beijing and her name is Laure. Gaetan was super drunk and was dancing crazily with everybody. I left early (1:30 AM) with Tom, who was also super drunk, it was kinda weird.

China loves marble. It's everywhere - in banks and in our apartments. It gets dirty super easily. There's a lot of dust, but also mud gets spread on the ground. It's annoying. I'm constantly cleaning.

Saddam Hussein's trial has begun - but then was adjourned until November because the defense hadn't been allowed to see the evidence in time to prepare properly. And now one of the lawyers representing one of Hussein's co-conspirators (one of the lawyers representing Hussein's side)has been found dead. This is going to be another one of those super drawn-out, super expensive processes. You can always check out the CBC link: http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2005/10/21/saddam-trial051021.html

What's happening in Pakistan is a real-life horror story. Thinking about it depresses me so I don't. It's not the answer but it's a way for me to continue living with myself.

On that note I hope you're all well and happy.

Tai'an and Tai'shan pictures

At the back of the mini-van we took from Qufu to Tai'an, the city at the bottom of Tai'shan mountain.
At the bottom of the Tai'shan (the most famous of the 5 sacred Taoist peaks). This is around the place where we bought our tickets to go up the mountain and take the bus (20-minute bus ride) to the bottom of the steps.
Tai'shan here we come: it's the name of a TV series. :-) We found this picture reminded us of an ad for a popular TV series - we're at the bottom of the 6000 steps (or maybe more?) that lead to the top of Tai'shan. A waterfall along the way up Tai'shan mountain - if you look closely you can see engravements of Chinese calligraphy in the stone.
The view of the stairs leading up Tai'shan. The temple is up at the top in the centre - it was our goal! This is after we had already been climbing for at least twenty minutes. With a half-hour lunch break it took us two hours to reach the top.
From L to R: Gaetan, Guillaume, Loic. In front of an egravement of beautiful red calligraphy (who knows what it says) onto a part of Tai'shan mountain.
The view up Tai'shan. Look at the people!
Outside the KTV in Tai'an (the city from where we could get to Tai'shan mountain - the sacred Taoist peak). It was raining and we were waiting for a taxi when a worker from the KTV came out with an umbrella to keep the girls dry. :-) Katia is taking out a plastic poncho that we bought for 3 kwai - they're the equivalent of a garbage bags and they look just as fashionable.

I spent the afternoon shopping in Xidan with Katia. First we did some banking stuff (the central Bank of China is quite impressive in and of itself), then we went to eat at one of the many food courts in the area. We were looking for a specific food court Katia had seen before, but we never found it.

Katia bought a t-shirt, a bag, and socks, and she was ready to buy more, making me feel guilty for not having bought anything. We went to this huge bookstore and looked at the selection of learn-Chinese books. Katia got a CD-Rom-type thing, plus a book of Chinese songs, but upon closer inspection (in her dorm room), she realised what crap it was. The CD-Rom is useless because the explanations for very basic words (numbers and "me," "you," "it") are all in Chinese, which makes it very difficult to understand... And her book of songs, well, she already knows all the grammar in it, and in fact, they're not even songs at all...not very useful.

I got a good textbook, written by a French author, Belassen. It's supposed to be the best one around. They didn't have the accompanying CD though, which is very unfortunate. Katia's going to see if she can't burn hers (Gaetan is borrowing her book + CD for the moment) so that both Gaetan and I can use it. We went down and back up three flights of stairs and we asked about a million different people a million times where we could find the CD - "mayo" is all they answered ("We don't have it."). Very frustrating. We even went to the CD (media) section and found the place for learning Chinese cassettes and CDs, but my specific CD for my specific textbook wasn't there...

This evening we went out for dinner - there were ten of us. Five French and five Chinese students all studying French. It was good fun.

And now I'm exhausted. I've got class tomorrow but I get to sleep in until 8:30 AM. Yay!

The picture is of a guy in Xidan in the typical Chinese stance: the squat. I thought it was pretty funny that he was in the middle of a patch of grass, squatting on a manhole, talking on his phone. Had to take a picture. :)

Erika

All together now: let's wish Erika the best of luck on her midterms. Go Erika!

And I want to thank Pierre from the bottom of my heart for thinking ahead yet again and insisting at London Drugs that I get the 1 Gigabyte memory card for my digital camera. That way I was able to take all the pictures I wanted (plus videos) on the trip and not have to worry about filling up my memory card. It was truly wonderful.

I've asked a couple times for some more furniture to put my things in, but I've been told no everytime. So when I saw a couple furniture-type things in the open space between the hallway and the apartments (our building is weirdly constructed), I jumped at the chance to simply take. Maybe I was wrong, but they were there a whole day so they don't have anywhere pressing to go. Might as well spend their time in my place, where they'll be used. This evening I got Guillaume and Gaetan to help me take a bookshelf-type thing into my room. It's just one of the two things I saw. If there's a problem, I'll survive the consequences, I'm sure.

Good night, y'all. I hope to visit the Temple of Heaven tomorrow, after my 8-10 AM class.

Qufu

At a rest stop on the side of the highway. That's our bus. We traveled in it for about five hours from Qingdao to Qufu.
This is where the bus dropped us off...pretty much in the middle of nowhere. We were about an hour's walk away from downtown Qufu. We walked for about ten or fifteen minutes, until a nice man with a mini van and a son in the front seat took us to our hotel.
A view of the first people we saw once we got off the bus. They stared at us for about as long as we stared at them.... Notice how the road isn't paved. We just got off the highway. The road to Qufu was paved, of course.
We were walking in the hutongs (alleyways) when we saw this man feeding his dog - he tied up his dog's ears before giving him anything to eat! It was too funny. He used a clothing pin to tie up his dog's ears (it's light blue in the picture). Older men also often have birds - they carry their bird cages with them everywhere, it's like they're "walking" their bird.

A noodle-maker in Qufu's night market. This is where we ate our first night in Qufu. That's noodle dough in the forefront, where he strings it and suddenly noodle-shaped noodles appear before our eyes. Then he puts them in that black cauldron-type thing that he's going towards in the picture. He adds some herbs and meat to make a delicious soup. Nobody got sick. It was nice to sit outside.
A dragon on the ceiling of a pagoda in Confucious' temple.
A young girl praying at Confucious' temple.
Chinese kids are so cute. Chinese people don't use diapers. Kids have holes in the bottom of their pants and simply squat whenever they feel like doing anything. That's why you gotta watch out for puddles on the street... It also means that kids' butts are continually feeling a slight breeze...
Confucious' residence: full of temples and parks. Apparently the Residence takes up one fifth of the size of Qufu's area.
A Chinese family - only men. In front and to the right is the garbage can (nicely disguised, no?). Behind them is an old tree...
One of the gates leading to Confucious' forest that we passed under... I don't know what the horse was doing there. Confucious' forest, to the North of Qufu (about a half-hour walk away), where Confucious and some of his descendents and many important Qufu people lie burried.

Confucious' tomb
Guillaume's head got cut off by the date & time. We're in Confucious' forest.

Qingdao pix

Us by the ocean in Qingdao - it was so nice to be by the ocean again!
Guillaume took the picture....From L to R: Katia, me, Gaetan, Loic. With Qingdao's famous cathedral in the background (built by Germans).

Streets in Qindao (not in the tourist district).
Candice, Melanie, me and Guillaume beside our names in Chinese at a beach in Qingdao.
Qingdao beach - notice the rotten weather and yet the large number of people on the beach! And some people were swimming!
Another street in Qingdao: main tourist street.

Katia and Gaetan in Loic's kitchen.
Our French dinner: Russian-style potatoes (fried potatoes with cheese), Chinese salami (saucisson) - which was sweet and not very good - and pork chops, and don't forget the French wine, which in the end wasn't great but it was definitely drinkable.
The guys from left to right: Jean-Baptiste (Guillaume's classmate), Guillaume, Loic (French teacher), and Gaetan (studying economics).

We made great efforts to make it look nice: despite the paper plates, we had a nice tablecloth, no? We bought the salad bowl especially for the dinner.

Last Saturday I watched the first episode of the first season of The L Word - the TV series in which my brother shows up three times (in the 2nd season). It's pretty much sex scenes with a little bit of story inbetween. Although as with every TV show, it's addictive. What was funny was that it was just Katia and me watching...in her bed :-) Katia ended up not seeing the sun that day, since she woke up around 3 PM and I came over around 4 PM to watch the DVD.

Yesterday (Monday) was a very cool day. I had a good first class, the second class didn't go as well (because there's more students). I went out to lunch with a young colleague (Chinese guy who spent a few years studying in England so his English is good). I was called by the person who is supposed to take care of me on campus around 2:15 PM and asked, "Why aren't you in class?" I had tried calling this person over the week-end, but her cell phone wasn't working and nobody answered when I called her house. All the other teachers didn't have class, and the colleague I went to lunch with assured me there wasn't class, so I didn't go to class! And I ended up having to go to class! So I was half-an-hour late but I added around 20 minutes to the class and then I went out to dinner with fourteen of my students. It was lots of fun. They're continuing education students, they're older and more appreciative and I like them a lot.

They invited me on a trip with them the week-end after next. We're going to the countryside just outside Beijing, in a place with lots of rivers apparently, and living with the local folks (farmers?). We leave Friday afternoon and come back on Saturday. Perfect. I'm excited.

After dinner I met up with "le club des 5" (the French group) and four Chinese friends (some of Loic's students and some people Gaetan had just met while running the Beijing marathon that morning - he only ran 10 km, not the whole marathon!) at a jazz bar in a back alley outside our university. It's a super cool place, but also super dead. It's got lots of wood and just a cool atmosphere. And a resident cat. We stayed there for the evening and sang some karaokee (Backstreet Boys and Big Big World - hey, there's not much choice in English songs).

Life is good for the moment. I'm enjoying myself immensely. Today I don't work because it's "Sports Day." This morning I watched the school parade in front of me at the university stadium. Katia, Loic and Maxence, a French dude studying Chinese here, were part of the ceremony, so Gaetan and I stood in the bandstands and cheered them on. I watched the morning's races with Maxence, Loic, and some of his students. The Chinese can run fast! I was often impressed. There were also some stupid ones who would run too quickly in the beginning and then almost lose the race in the end....

Hope life is going well for you guys. Take care.

Pictures

Scenes from the train on our way to Qingdao. We left Beijing around noon, and arrived in Qingdao at 2 o'clock in the morning...

Just so you know, here are descriptions of people so you know who they are:

Melanie = blonde American
Candice = brunette American (long hair and huge, teethy smile)
Katia = French brunette who never has her hair up (shoulder-length hair)

Gaetan = tall sandy-coloured hair (spikey/messy hair)
Loic = shorter, darker guy with very short, black hair
Guillaume = wavy brown hair; sometimes wears glasses

And in the first photo there's the Chinese guy who sat with us and played card games with us. I forget his name.

Pictures from the trip

Yay!!! Looks like pictures are working now...finally!!! These are pictures of us on the first day of our trip to Shandong province. The first pictures is us in the lobby (front hall) of the Foreign Students' building, and the second one is of us at the train station.

Guillaume's birthday

Today was Guillaume's 22nd birthday. We celebrated the end of his 22nd year and the beginning of his 23rd year of life.

Everything went well, from breakfast in bed (croissants and pains au chocolat - chocolate-stuffed croissants) to kareeokee (called KTV in China) and clubbing at night.

We went for a two-hour massage this afternoon. Full body. Fully clothed. Kinda weird, at times it even hurt, but all in all, a good experience, and so cheap that maybe we'll do it every week.

Five of us went, but Loic chickened out when he saw the place. He was a little scared of what they were going to do to him. So we ended up being all four in the same room, that way the masseuses could talk to each other and we could talk to each other. Pretty funny.

We ate our French-style dinner. It was pretty delicious considering the difficulties we had in making it. We started peeling the potatoes at 6 o'clock and we finished cooking around 9 o'clock. It's hard to cook when you have so little equipment - cooking everything in one pan is not ideal.

We had a rice/tuna/cherry tomatoes/hard-boiled egg salad to start, but the rice was sticky, of course (being Chinese and all) and a bit burnt, and the vinaigrette (sauce) was pretty bad because the mustard and vinegar we found in the local supermarket definitely does NOT have the same taste as it does at home... But by 9 o'clock we were starving and anything and everything tasted good.

We ate day-old baguette and a fried potato-and-cheese dish Katia knows how to make. It looked like mush but it tasted wonderful.

We finished off with real French cheese that cost us a small fortune at the Carrefour (French supermarket) yesterday. Around $10 a piece, and we got three different kinds.

We were four at the massage place, seven for dinner (the seventh didn't eat and hadn't formally been invited, but she's French and lives across the hall from Loic, where the party was held, so she came), and seventeen or eighteen at the KTV place, which was lots of fun. There was a group of Koreans, of French, two Americans (Karen and Matt, both English teachers), a British dude, a Russian girl who sings this Chinese song really well, and a group of Chinese friends. The singing was therefore very multi-lingual and quite entertaining. We followed with clubbing just downstairs from the room where we had been singing. The club was pretty dead but it was fun and I impressed everybody by being the only one who danced the whole time...

And now it's off to bed because it's past 3:30 AM. Tomorrow: sleep-in.

Smelly

It's funny, everyone told me China was smelly. I didn't really think about it the first month I was here. Seriously, I didn't smell anything. Then Dave and Geoff arrived and started commenting about the smell, and since then, it's true, it's pretty smelly around here. And there are times when the stink's pretty bad...

Today was so beautiful - nice sunny autumn day. Windy at times, but super nice. The leaves on the trees were rustling, just like they do where I come from.

I've kind of been feeling just a leetle homesick these past couple of days. It's so much more convenient, so much more comfortable in Vancouver...everything's easier. But then again, I am enjoying myself here. It's been nearly two months now. Doesn't feel like it. In some ways time has passed super quickly, in other ways I feel like I've lived here forever. The cool thing about this place is that you're always discovering new things. Everything is still new.

I'm also still meeting people, which is always exciting.

The leaks haven't been dealt with and supposedly I'm entertaining tomorrow - that's if I'm hosting Guillaume's dinner party. We'll see.

This afternoon we went to Carrefour, a French supermarket. It was huge. I think we spent at least two hours there and we didn't even buy that much stuff. We bought two cheeses imported from France for $15 (that's really expensive here!). We also bought a bottle of French wine. The guy helping us choose our wine was French! It was so cool talking to another French guy, plus none of us had any idea what wine we shoudl get... We want to have a good French feast!

We also found a 2 kwai store. 6 kwai = 1 Cdn dollar, so 2 kwai is equivalent to 30-35 cents. Katia found a map of China and I saw some things that I might buy, but I wasn't sure if I should...always the same thing...

Tonight we're going to make Guillaume's poster. We took pictures of fifteen of his friends and we're going to sew them onto a piece of cloth that we bought today and we'll write some notes...sounds terrible the way I'm describing it, but I'm sure it'll turn out OK. We're trying to be creative here. Plus, he'd only tear a poster. This way, if it's on cloth, he'll be able to pack it up and take it with him without too much hassle when he goes back to France.

Hope you're all being as creative wherever you are. If you want to check out something really creative, go to Lucas' webcomic, where Cinn departs....

Story-telling

I'm definitely not as good a story-teller as James. His site kills me. Wish I had his talent.

Plans

Just came back from dinner with Loic, Gaetan and two Chinese girls studying French.

Spent the afternoon with Katia, preparing for Guillaume's birthday this Friday. We developed pictures (my first time with my new digital camera!) and shopped for decorations and we went to a massage parlour to see if we need to make reservations for the five of us this Friday (we want to offer Guillaume a nice massage...). Turns out we can get a two-hour massage (feet and body) for just over $10 Canadian (68 kwai). We're all going Friday afternoon.

Classes this morning went well. As you know, my Wednesday classes are great. Mostly because I know it's my last real day of work.

Tomorrow I'll spend the afternoon going to a French supermarket in the city called Carrefour, buying special French food for Guillaume's birthday dinner Friday night. Then Katia and I will prepare the decorations and posters and we're going to make a collage of pictures of all of his friends from China. Anyway, this is useless information for you, but it's fun to think about.

At the restaurant we went to this evening, one of my students served us. It was pretty funny for both of us. He tried to speak in English (not very well) and I tried to speak in Chinese (not very well). He gave us a free dish that was actually very good - deep fried shrimp from Qingdao (he had remembered I had gone there last week).

Okay, I'm off to Loic's for the evening. Hope to hear from you all soon!

Back to work

I'll admit it's been a while since I updated, but that's because I think the last time I posted there was enough reading material to last a few days...

I moved into my new apartment on Sunday. I used to be in the foreign students' building, now I'm in the foreign teachers' building. The university has been renovating the teachers' building for at the last few months, hence the need to put the foreign teachers with the foreign students...which in the end turned out really well because that's where I met many of my friends. It wouldn't have been as fun had I stayed with only the teachers.

So I kind of procrastinated my move as much as possible on Sunday. My mother phoned in the morning and I recounted my trip to her (took a while), then I had lunch with friends until 3 o'clock in the afternoon. I continued packing and just when I wanted to move I went to see a Chinese-style American-Idol talent search concert happening in the tennis courts right outside our building. One of our Chinese friends, Maisy, was singing "Hero," so I had to go see that. I ended up moving out later-ish in the afternoon, and not having time to un-pack because it was already time for dinner. We had dinner with the daughter of the woman we spent two nights with in Qingdao. I was back at my place around 9:30 PM, at which point I had to start preparing my classes for the next week. Luckily I found a plan that would work for all three classes... Ended up going to bed around midnight.

Monday was long and tiring. Tuesday was long and tiring, although I did find that these two days passed pretty quickly. Last night I wanted only one thing: to go to bed early. But Katia and Guillaume came over after dinner, then Loic joined us, and they didn't leave until later-ish, so I didn't get to bed before midnight. Having to wake up at 6:45 AM the next day and teach for six hours is harsh...but I survived.

When your tired you reach some low points. I've had a leak in my kitchen, coming from the ceiling, for the past couple of days. The caretakers are aware of the problem, but don't seem to be doing much about it. I don't know what they can do about it since it's definitely coming from the piping system itself. They'd have to break the ceiling and re-do the whole piping...

I also just discovered a leak coming from the bathroom ceiling, although that's most likely linked to what's going on in the bathroom above mine, and is not as dramatic because it's not constant.

My toilet doesn't work. A brand new toilet and it must've flushed satisfactorily maybe three times, five times AT MOST.

I did do laundry. And I did find a fridge. That's another adventure. All the other teachers get a fridge in their room, but I didn't have one. I told the front desk and they took note. I told a cleaning lady and she told me to go see in the foreign students' building. I went there and they told me that they had one but I'd have to transport it myself. A whole fridge. Myself.

So I went to class Monday afternoon (my continuing education class, where the students are older) and asked one of the students to help me. He got a buddy to help him, and they ended up being six students coming to help me (including the class monitor - I was honoured!). It's lucky that there were six of them because six is what was needed. The fridge was quite big and heavy and it was on the FIFTH floor. The poor guys had to carry it down five flights of stairs, out of the building, and all the way to my place (the building's not far - it's actually next door - but they still had to climb some stairs and go over bumpy terrain).

I live on the first floor, which has its disadvantages. The biggest problem I find is that everyone can see me, it's not very private. I love the idea of being on a higher floor. Another small thing is that I have less space - the apartments higher up get a whole extra sunroom, with a cool sliding door and everything. I'd love to have that!!!

But I guess I should be happy with what I have. And I am, when things work.

Things I'll miss leaving my old room:
the coziness of having a small place - everything was close
the furniture - I had more room to put my things (I had two of everything remember: two wardrobes, two beds, two bookshelves)
the "pock, pock" sound of the tennis balls because the tennis courts were right outside, although I suppose that would've gone with the season anyway


Things I won't miss about leaving my old apartment:
I would've said having to go into my toilet tank everytime I wanted to flush, but now it's the same here too!
the pipe noises (although here it's construction noises, but I don't find they're as bad)
the shower - I can finally shower without flooding the whole bathroom and making a mess in my whole room


I'm heading to bed. I work from 8-12 tomorrow. We're planning Guillaume's 22nd birthday this week-end.

I hope everything's going well with you guys. I think about all of you!

Shandong

Hello everyone. My blog is back on track.

Came back from my trip yesterday (Friday) around 2 PM and was in my dorm room by 4 PM. The trip was lots of fun, as can be imagined, but extremely tiring. I'm glad we came back one day earlier than planned in order to have the week-end to recover.

Day 1 - train ride

Woke up early (6:30?) in order to make last-minute preparations for the trip. At 8 AM I met Katia and Candice in the front hall to go make photocopies of passports and Chinese lessons (for those studying Chinese) and the guide book (too heavy to carry). I went to buy breakfast for everyone - 5 pieces of meat-filled crepe-like things. They taste almost like pizza (kind of) without the cheese. At 2 kwai each, breakfast for seven people cost less than $2.

After a photo shoot in the front hall we left the campus and headed for the subway around 9:00 AM. We packed light but we also brought a lot of food in plastic bags. There were lots of people taking the subway for some reason. We found some space for all our bags. The train station was also very busy. We sat on the ground and waited for the Chinese to start moving at which point we would follow the crowd. We stood up when a line started forming and we were packed in like sardines with Chinese people surrounding us.

We got sleepers - 6 beds divided from the other "rooms" by a plank. We sat on the bottom two bunks in one of these "rooms." There was a young Chinese guy who was going to sleep on the top bunk. He's 21 and studying Chinese medicine - he's in his 4th year out of 5. He spoke English quite well. We played cards with him. We played a game of crazy eights that lasted more than two hours and I'm very proud to say that I won!!! It passed the time. Melanie and Candice slept a lot. Melanie hadn't slept the night before - she had been doing her scholarship and masters applications.

We did end up sleeping but not for long - maybe two or three hours. At 2 AM we were woken up by the conductor asking us for our tickets. We were some of the last people to leave the train. We were all super tired.

Ying Ying's parents (Ying Ying is a friend of Katia and Gaetan) met us just outside the train station. They took us on a mini-tour of the city at 2 AM. We saw the ocean (heard it mostly) and we walked for an hour up a hill to get to the place where we were going to spend the night. The father left us and the mother took us to a large room that gave directly onto the central stairs of the building (so no front door). This was our sleeping quarters. To go to the bathroom we had to cross the hallway (the stairs of the building that was covered in graffitti) and unlock the door to the kitchen which also had a bathroom. To flush the toilet we would use the water used in the kitchen sink (the water was kept in basins). So if I wanted to flush the toilet I'd have to go to the kitchen sink, take out the basin that I had just filled with water by washing my face and brushing my teeth, and put the water in the toilet to add enough pressure to flush everything into the pipe system. It was new to me. The kitchen was cold and didn't look cozy at all. It had a hot plate in a corner. Obviously it was being used by the residents of the building.

There was no shower.

Day 2 - Qingdao

By the time we had all gone to the bathroom and prepared for bed it was around 4 AM. We discovered that the mother wanted to sleep in the room with us because she had the key and she didn't want to give us the key. She slept on a mattress lain on the ground with Katia and Candice. The rest of us slept on a wooden platform covered by a sheet. Apparently the mother took a perfectly good blanket and rolled it up to use as a cushion. Katia and Candice were cold. I had a sheet on top of me but my legs were freezing. The window had been kept open. There was a lack of blankets and pillows (I used my towel). The mother didn't sleep so she played with her cell phone and kept many people awake with her tapping of the keys. I was able to doze off but not for long because the mother woke us up at 5:00 AM. Nobody understood why, but we were told to hurry up and get ready for the day. We had had not much more than an hour's sleep. Since we didn't have a key to the room we had to plan what to take for the whole day. We were out of the building by 6 AM at which point the mother left us and we had to figure things out on our own. The mother spoke no English but Katia and Guillaume were able to speak with her in Chinese.

We had some traditional bread-like sticks for breakfast that we bought from a street vendor.
We walked down to the city centre and found our way to the train station where we got directions to the bus station. The bus station took a while to find because we kept asking for directions and being pointed to in different directions. We had to take a bus that took us right past where we were staying for the night and continued to another part of town. Eventually, after quite a bit of walking, we found the station (and realised we didn't need to walk that much if we knew where we were going). We bought tickets for the next leg of our trip - Qufu, Confucius' hometown. It felt like we had done so much and it was only 9 AM. Yay for waking up at the crack of dawn!

By this time we were tired and cranky and most of us were hungry.

We went back to the city centre and went to McDonald's so that the Americans (Melanie and Candice) could eat and the rest of us could get coffee (the Chinese aren't into coffee, so it's hard to find). We stayed there around an hour and used the bathrooms.

We were right in front of the beach, which was crowded even though the day was overcast. It started to rain when we decided to go on a boat tour. A person came up to us and offered the tour to us for 10 kwai each. Although it looked kinda sketchy we agreed to pay upfront. We followed a woman who pointed to a place across the street (crossing streets is always an adventure). There we found some people waiting in the wind and rain. The group grew larger. We didn't know how long we were going to wait there. We ate Mentos that I had brought in my purse.

Finally a mini van arrived and it was get-on-the-bus-as-quickly-as-you-can Chinese style. Being polite Westerners, we didn't push and shove and therefore we didn't get on the van. We didn't know how long we would have to wait for the next one. But the next one did come quickly and we had befriended some Chinese folks who made sure we all got on. It was a packed mini-van - fourteen people in a van that was supposed to seat maybe eight, ten at most.

Once arrived at the boat dock, we had to again wait in line. Again, we had to get on the boat Chinese style and we decided to go to the front of the boat where there were no seats but good views. Well, they would've been good had it been nice weather. It was windy and sometimes it rained, but we had fun laughing about it. We had, after all, only paid 10 kwai. We took lots of pictures of each other and the coast. Qingdao is not super beautiful, but it's alright. It has some pagodas and parks and some business-looking office towers. The boat ride lasted around 40 minutes, even though we had been told it was an hour long. 40 minutes was plenty.

Back on land we walked quite a ways to try and find a restaurant to eat lunch. We chose one off the beaten path and maybe we shouldn't have because it wasn't very good. You're supposed to eat seafood at Qingdao because you're by the sea, but nobody likes it much. Plus, nobody was up for seeing the fish and other seafood living at the front of the restaurant, being taken out and killed in front of our eyes. Weak Westerners.

We ordered what we were used to eating, many of the dishes we knew from Beijing. Unfortunately, none of them tasted the same and we were quite disappointed.

After lunch we separated. The American girls went shopping while the rest of us (Katia, Gaetan, Guillaume, Loic and I) went to look at the Cathedral, built by the Germans who had had a great influence on the city even though they had traded there for only a few years around the turn of the century.

We walked down to the beach and walked along it and went a few blocks inwards to check out some nice neighbourhoods. We made our way to a park that was out in the ocean and joined to the rest of the city by a street. Unfortunately it took us quite a bit of time to get there on foot and then we discovered it cost money to enter the park and we weren't up for paying. So we found some rocks to sit on and looked at and listened to the ocean and watched some Chinese women taking photos of each other as if they were models before heading back to the city centre (still on foot).

The Americans called to see if we wanted to go buy sweatshirts for the night; because we had all been so cold the night before we wanted to wear more clothes. We were going to meet at a KFC because Katia wanted to eat mashed potatoes and that's the only place in China she could find some. There was a mix up in which KFC we were supposed to meet in but we finally found each other around 7 PM.

We found a cheap hostel in Qufu in Katia's Lonely Planet guide and Guillaume was able to reserve two rooms for the next two nights over the phone.

We looked in a funky supermarket for some clothes but ended up buying food for the next day's journey. We also went down a cool-looking street in search of an authentic restaurant. We found a dingy-looking one where the owner took us through the building's courtyard to a small building out back where there was a maze of rooms with tables and people eating inside. The Americans bulked a little but ate the food. We ordered meat kebabs and rice and this eggplant dish that everyone likes (except Katia who doesn't like veggies).

We walked home in the dark. We had planned to meet the mother in front of our building at 9 PM. We had to prepare for bed straight away. Nobody wanted to sleep with the mother so I was the sacrificial lamb. I had my own pillow and sheet. We wanted to close the window but the mother wouldn't let us (she said we shouldn't). Melanie and Candice had taken the perfectly good blanket the mother had used as a pillow the night before and used it to warm themselves. At this the mother went to take out another blanket from a closet (we could've used this blanket the night before!) and rolled it up to use as a pillow.

We would have to wake the mother up if we wanted to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

Just before going to sleep I couldn't help but laugh really hard at the situation. I couldn't believe we were still doing this! It was just all so surreal.

Day 3 - Qufu

At 1 AM there was a bathroom break and the mother turned on the lights. At this point she realised how cold the room was and she went to close the window. She also took my sheet and used it as a pillow (for her only, since I had my towel) and took her pillow and used it as a blanket - but it was small and only covered her! I had absolutely nothing. She cuddled up to me but it didn't make much of a difference in terms of amount of blanket I got. Plus I could feel her every movement and I didn't feel all that comfortable about her feeling my every movement. I didn't sleep that much.

Plus, we were again woken up at 5 AM and out of there by 6, this time with all of our bags packed and ready to go.

We went straight to the bus station, taking the same bus as we had the day before. We had some baoze in a small hole-in-the-wall for breakfast. Melanie wasn't feeling well at all and didn't eat. We were early and so Loic and I searched for our coffee. We went to a hotel next door and found their restaurant on the second floor. The coffee was terrible and it was a big deal to get milk (looked like they tried to microwave it for us) so by the time the milk was ready we actually had to leave. Ah well, it only cost 4 kwai for both of them - less than a dollar.

Melanie was sick in the bus station's bathrooms and felt much better.

We found out that seats 1-7 were actually in a row, and not next to each other. I sat by myself at the back of the bus because I had wanted to be by a window and there were no window seats near the group. We sat where we wanted but then a couple came in just before we were to leave the station and they pushed out Loic and Guillaume from their seats. Loic came to sit next to me and Guillaume was right in front of us. We talked a lot and slept a little and watched the world go by.

The bus would stop in the middle of nowhere on the highway and drop people off. It was a little frightening.

We had been told the trip would last around 7 hours, but it only lasted about 5.

We got off the highway and were dropped off pretty much in the middle of nowhere ourselves. We thought we would be brought into the city of Qufu but nope, we were stuck in no-man's land. As an afterthought, I suppose we could've very well been dropped off on the highway, but since we're foreigners the bus driver might've been nice and dropped us off closer to the city. We were stared at by the local peasants. After getting over our initial shock we walked down the street where corn was laid out to dry. Shandong is corn country and there's yellow stalks everywhere - on rooftops, on the ground, in piles, or laid out chaotically.

We walked for fifteen or twenty minutes before finding a gas station where Guillaume went to ask how far away we were from the city - three kilometers. Just then a mini van rolled up and a man with his young son (4 years old?) asked us if we needed a ride. 15 kwai I think the trip cost us. Again, we were packed in tight but it was fun and the guy was nice. He came into the hotel with us to make sure we would be okay. His son was so cute but he didn't speak a word or smile, he only stared.

We each paid 100 kwai a night to stay in this hotel. We had to ask the hotel workers to open our doors for us every time we came in (we didn't get a key) and there was a curfew (in by midnight), but at least we had a shower and comfortable beds with blankets that wouldn't be used as pillows.

One slight glitch: hot water was only available from 7:30 PM to midnight. We arrived around 3 PM. We took cold showers. We were hot and sweaty and we wanted cleanliness after three days of being on the road!

We crossed the street to the bus station (we were really close) and we bought bus tickets to Tai'an, the city where we would have access to Tai'shan, the sacred Taoist mountain that we wanted to climb. We bought tickets for 15 kwai.

We went to walk around the city on our own since it was about 4 PM and all the tourist attractions closed at 4:30. We went down the main street and then through the hutong (alleyways). We lost Candice at one point. She was really scared because she didn't know how to get back to the hotel. We split up into three groups and eventually found her. We went to the local night market - a real Chinese night market. It was amazing. I loved it. Little stalls everywhere and lots of food. Everyone wanted us to eat at their place. We had noodle soup at a stall where we saw the guy making the noodles with his hands. We sat at the tables laid out in the street. It was wonderful. The soup was good.

We were back in our hotel rooms early-ish and we tried to party it up in one of the rooms but we were too tired to make it happen. We had a good night's sleep. Three boys in one room, four girls in the other.

Day 4 - Qufu

We met up around 10 AM the next day. A guy working at the hotel came to talk to Guillaume about a friend of his who wanted to take us to Tai'an - the next city on our trip. He would come with us on the bus and take us straight to a hotel there. The hotel would cost approximately the same as in Qufu. We decided to accept and meet this friend in the hotel lobby at 7:15 AM the next morning.

We went to buy an all-inclusive ticket to Qufu's tourist attractions for 105 kwai - this was much more than anyone had expected. Melanie was already out of money and Guillaume and Katia were running out. They had all expected to find ATMs that would accept their Visas but we didn't find any. Guillaume, Loic and I had a lot of cash on us so it wasn't a problem.

We visited Confucius' Temple. Although beautiful, after a while it gets to all look the same. We were lucky, the weather was great.

For lunch we wanted to sit outside and we found a great restaurant just outside the tourist attractions but the waiter didn't want to deal with us, it was very strange. He right out shouted at us to leave after we had spent about twenty minutes looking at the menu and deciding on what to order. We were quite annoyed.

We went to another restaurant that was quite busy. We waited at least fifteen minutes for menus at which point I got up to grab some from a waitress. They were set menus, the cheapest one was at 300 kwai ($50), way too expensive. We explained we wanted to order "a la carte" but we were told we couldn't. Then the waitress offered a 270 kwai meal when she saw we weren't happy with the 300 one (who knows what cheaper ones there were). It was too risky because we couldn't know what dishes were going to be served and it really seemed too expensive. After being told there was no way we could order a la carte we decided to leave, and right when we were out the door we saw the same waitress give a Chinese couple an a la carte menu with decently-priced dishes!

We went into a third restaurant where we saw right away that they had a-la-carte menus. We looked at them as we made our way up the stairs to another eating room. Along the way a waitress wanted to grab the menus from our hands to offer us those set-meal menus, it was quite unbelievable. By the time we sat down we had gotten a bad impression yet again from this third restaurant. It was extremely frustrating because it was now past 1 PM, we were hungry, and we had two other tourist sites to see that afternoon. However, we decided to leave this tourist-trap establishment as well.

We ended up going to a bakery down the street that had good sandwiches and sausage rolls and fried chicken. It was fast, cheap and delicious. Perfect.

We visited Confucius' residence quite quickly because there wasn't too much to see. We walked to the Kong forest, where Confucius is buried along with some of his descendents and family members and many other Chinese people. It took us maybe twenty minutes to walk there. It was quite crowded, but also beautiful. We walked to Confucius' grave which wasn't anything extraordinary. The Frenchies decided to walk off the beaten path to go explore in the underbrush. Melanie couldn't come with us because she's allergic to grass and Candice stayed with her. They sat on the sidewalk and talked. We found a nice place to sit on the grass and took pictures and talked. We didn't stay too long because we did have to meet up with Candice and Melanie afterwards. They were happy to go back home.

On our way we went to a supermarket to buy food for the trip to Tai'shan the next day. I bought a fake Nike backpack (it looked good - it was red) for 19 kwai (6 kwai = 1 Canadian dollar). The store worker kept repeating "very good. Very good." Famous last words. We also found fleece coats. Candice, Katia and I bought one. They cost 40 kwai each.

We ate in the hotel restaurant because nobody seemed up for moving much farther out. The American girls went to bed while the Frenchies went for a last walk around Qufu. Unfortunately we were too late for the night market - it was 9 o'clock and pretty dead. We walked around the hutongs drinking a couple of beers (not me because I don't drink) and exploring the Chinese way of life. We found a place where the owner came out to talk to us. He would've housed us for 20 kwai if we had wanted to spend the night. Too bad we had already paid for our hotel. Sleeping in a hutong house would've been so cool.

I ate an ice-cream that had obviously melted and been re-frozen. It looked gross but tasted delicious and I didn't get sick. My stomach is strong!

We sat by the city moat and took pictures of a lighted bridge.

We were in our rooms before midnight.

Day 5 - Tai'an and Taishan

The next morning the "friend" wasn't on time. I went to get breakfast at a bakery across the street. Gaetan came to get me because we weren't going to take the bus but go in this guy's mini-van. Crazy! We weren't going to pay him but rather give him our bus tickets which I suppose he would then return and get money for. Guillaume sat up front and talked with him.

It was cloudy in Tai'an. At the hotel we had to bargain to bring down the prices of the rooms. It's funny to think that in such an official-looking place bargaining is fine. If we had known, we would've bargained at the hotel in Qufu as well. This time we had room keys.

The "friend" from Qufu waited for us as we unpacked our bags and prepared for the hike up Tai'shan mountain. He took us to the bottom of the mountain where we were to take a bus up to the place where we could start walking up the 6000 steps to the peak. The entrace fee was 105 kwai, which included the bus ride up.

Climbing Taishan is literally like doing stairmaster for two hours. It's step after step after step. Plus, the steps are small. We were over-packed with our coats and sweaters and tons of food. There were tourist shops at every corner. There were lots of places to eat.

Katia had some difficulty so she went up at her own pace. The two American girls were well ahead of us. The three guys and I climbed up together. It was fun.

Once at the peak, where temples and burning incence greeted us, there was absolutely no view. Everything was misty and white. It was quite mysterious. It was also very cold. We were glad we had bought the fleece jackets. Melanie wore a hat and Candice had mittens. It started to rain so we bought ponchos for 5 kwai each - these were like plastic bags but they worked. We decided to go back down because there was nothing to do up at the top. Well there were things to do but we didn't want to go exploring under the rain.

We lined up to take the gondola back down, but then we realised that it would probably be faster to walk down. So we climbed back down all those stairs. After getting over the fact that you could slip and fall and break your neck at any moment, it was alright and it did only take about an hour, even less. People were still climbing up that mountain, even in the rain.

We had to pay for the bus ride back and for the taxi to our hotel, but considering everything it was still cheap. We hadn't eaten much (I had eaten two slices of bread and some sandwich meat and some crackers, but some people hadn't eaten anything) so we were hungry. We all took hot showers and changed (all our clothes were soaked). Everyone but the American girls met up to make sandwiches (the American girls didn't want to eat packaged meat).

The zipper on my Nike bag broke and I could no longer close it. Thankfully this happened at the very end, when we were taking the bus back to the foot of the mountain. I had to carry my bag like a baby in front of me. I had been glad it had lasted me the day.

We took two taxis into the city centre to the train station. We discovered that the only option left was to stand in the train back to Beijng. The trip was scheduled to last 7 hours. It was now Thursday and all the trains on Friday and Saturday were going to be standing-only. After much discussion we decided to leave early Friday morning (7:05 AM).

It was raining hard and we went to the nearest restaurant we could find for dinner. This place had many cats and a dog running around the place. One of the cats made a pile of instant noodles fall. It was quite funny. The food wasn't great, but it was edible. We stayed there quite a long time. The American girls didn't eat much and were still hungry. We all bought instant noodle bowls for the train ride the next day.

We took taxis back to the hotel where we sat and relaxed for a bit.

The Frenchies wanted to go back out - after all, this was our last night of vacation! The American girls would've been up for it except for the rain. They wanted us to call them when we were settled in a place.

We walked out in the rain and went to a bus shelter to try and find a taxi. There were five of us and we weren't sure a normal taxi would take us, since they usually only seat four. So I waved at a mini-van that had numbers on it. It stopped and Guillaume talked to the driver. Turns out they were a young couple - she was a student studying design, from what I could gather, and he worked, but Guillaume couldn't make out what he did exactly. Anyway, they were super nice and they made room for us in the back and took us to a KTV (kareokee place) free of charge, just because they were so nice. We all really liked them. They didn't want to go out with us though.

The KTV place was amazing. It was two floors up and a there were a hundred workers all dressed the same that were super excited at seeing white people and they all showed us the way with outstretched hands. When we went to buy drinks and food at the KTV store, all of the staff huddled around the entrance to watch our every move. Two workers held a basket for us and followed us around the store, helping our every decision. It was quite funny. We were ecstatic in our roles as super stars.

There wasn't much choice of English music. We played a lot of Madonna and Britney Spears and Abba because that's mostly what there was. Some of the workers would look through the peeping hole of our door to look at us sing. It was one of the rare times I enjoyed myself at kareokee. We just blasted our hearts out.

The hour passed quickly but then there weren't a lot of songs we could play so we left. We asked a taxi driver if he knew of a billiards place we could go to. While the driver was phoning a friend to find a pool hall, one of the KTV workers came out with an umbrella to make sure Katia and I were dry. He came all the way to the taxi with his umbrella. These Chinese...so polite. The driver found a place - bowling and billiards and card-tables. It was quite deserted. We were the only ones playing pool. It was Gaetan, Guillaume and I against Loic and Katia. I played okay and I think we won both games. The place closed at midnight so we left.

We were really tired and we went back to the hotel. The Americans were sleeping soundly.

Day 6 - train ride back to Beijing

We woke up at 5:30 AM and packed our bags (our clothes were still wet) and left the hotel around 6:15 AM. The train station was wet and soggy and packed, as usual. We bought some food at the train station.

We had to line up among the throngs to get to the train deck and then when the train arrived (it only stayed three minutes) we had to push and shove to get on. We were going to stand in the corridor between the seats. Unbelievable. Gaetan, Loic and I found a nice standing place by the sinks beside the bathrooms. Many people would come and shave and wash their faces there, but there were open windows and some room. Katia and Guillaume shared a seat when someone left, and then another person left and Melanie and Candice could sit down (sharing a seat of course). Before the two American girls had been sitting down in the middle of the corridor, making it difficult to step over them. They had to get up every time the lady with a food carriage came by. They were extremely glad to sit.

Katia and Guillaume practiced their Chinese with the people around them. Guillaume came to give me his seat after an hour or so. I gave one of the Chinese people a Canadian cent because he had a son collecting foreign money. He was very happy. Katia left to go smoke and I had the seat to myself so I slept. Loic came later to take my seat and I went to eat my instant noodle bowl with Katia and Guillaume. Two people had left near Melanie and Candice so Gaetan went to sit down as well. The train trip went actually very well, despite having to stand for extended periods of time. It was really quite alright. And once you found a seat, you could stay there for the rest of the trip.

We arrived in Beijing around 2 PM, exactly 7 hours later. Melanie and Candice were really glad to be back. They took a taxi back to the university. The rest of us wanted to take the subway. Some guy asked us if we wanted a ride, so we said okay for 20 kwai. This was really cheap. We walked for a bit in some back alleys behind the train station before we came to his mini van. Once we were all inside his van I wanted to make sure it was still 20 kwai. Turns out he had wanted 20 DOLLARS - American dollars! That's 160 kwai and WAY too expensive! Plus, we didn't have any dollars to give him! So we all tumbled out and made our way back to the train station where the subway station was. The subway was packed and we had to change subways twice and we were hot but it was a beautiful day and we were happy, although tired.

Friday evening we had dinner together in the canteen. Melanie and Candice weren't there. There had been some friction between the two "camps" I guess we could call them. I had been stuck in the middle, trying to make everyone happy. Everyone was happy with me but not necessarily with each other.

While Loic and Gaetan went on an errand, Katia and I went to Guillaume's place to look at his pictures and to drink some OJ and vodka. We listened to music from his computer. The guys joined us later and we had lots of fun. We talked about the order of the planets and I showed them how I could write upside-down (this really impressed them) and we tried writing with our left hands and we just laughed and laughed... We listened to lots of classic French songs, some of them modern. I'm going to be so French when I come back to Canada...

We stayed up until 1 AM without even thinking about it. Crazy. We didn't want our vacation to end.

Today I got the key to my new apartment. I'm on the first floor, the floor I didn't want, but it's okay. I'll survive. I'm thinking I'll move out tonight some essentials and sleep there, just to see what it's like.

Got to go pack! Yikes!

Tonight I'm eating with the Frenchies at 8 PM, then we're probably going to do a photo session at somebody's place.

Leaving

Alright Rachel, time to find a new homepage for the next week. I'm leaving tomorrow (Sunday) at 8:30 AM, for the train station (the major/central Beijing train station). Our train leaves at 11:55 AM for Qindao, a (so-they-say) beautiful seaside town in Shandong province. I won't be posting for a full week. Hopefully I'll get back by Saturday, but in China, nothing's for certain.

There's seven of us. I think I've already said how I don't like the idea of being 7 - always one of us will be left out. But oh well. Nothing can go perfectly.

Melanie is applying for the Rhodes scholarship and she's writing up her essays now. It's past midnight. Her application must be mailed before Monday and she's leaving tomorrow at the same time I am. I wish her the best of luck in these trying times.

Had dinner in a new restaurant (new for me) which was pretty deserted but was actually quite good. The menu was all in Chinese but with Guillaume's help (he has the most Chinese out of all of us) we were able to order some good food that we all enjoyed - sweet vegetables, fried rice, sweet and sour chicken, beef in tofu wraps, and chicken with peanuts. Delicious. The seven of us ate together in order to talk about the trip. Already Melanie and Candice are planning shopping sprees...

Today we did end up going to Tainanmen. "We" = Gaetan, Katia and I. The subway didn't stop at Tiananmen so we got off at the next stop, Xidan, which is a shopping district. There were supposed to be 50% off sales at Xidan so we looked around. The crowds were terrible. I took lots of mini-videos of the throngs of people with my camera. We went into one of those picture-taking cubicles. We could chose 16 frames and then we took 16 photos of the three of us making different faces - it was so much fun! We liked the pictures so much that we each got a copy of the 16 photos. It was great. The five minutes we were supposed to have spent simply checking out the sales turned into two hours...but it was good fun.

We walked among the hordes to Tiananmen, which actually wasn't *too* crowded. We took some pictures and went south towards Qianmen to try and find roast duck as a present for the people we're going to meet in Qindao. We were tired. It was already 4 PM. I saw some in the window of a supermarket so we went in and bought some right then and there. Turns out there's the same thing in practically every store on the block! We had to walk to Wangfujing, the station east of Tiananmen, since Tiananmen was closed. The subway wasn't more crowded than usual, I found.

Back on campus we went to the nearby supermarket and saw roast duck absolutely everywhere, and even in nicer-looking bags. But oh well. We were quite satisfied with our roast duck and I'm sure it'll do just fine as a present.

Bringing along a Vancouver key chain with killer whales for the girl who speaks English and who's hopefully going to help us a little getting around Qindao.

Alright, it's 1 AM and I'm so unbelievably tired. Wish me luck on my trip and I'll wish you luck surviving this week...

Happy National Day

Happy National Day you guys! Yay for October 1st and the founding of the People's Republic of China!

Hopefully I'll get to Tiananmen Square at some point today. Wouldn't want to miss the million-people crowds.

There is a time difference between Beijing and Vancouver. When it's midnight here, it's nine o'clock in the morning in Vancouver, and when it's midnight in Vancouver, it's three o'clock in the afternoon in Beijing. When it's noon in Beijing, it's nine o'clock in the evening of the day before in Vancouver. When it's noon in Vancouver, it's three o'clock in the morning the next day in Beijing. Try to figure that one out in your heads...

I did get to do my laundry yesterday. It's drying around my room right now. Haven't cleaned my room in a while. But it's been officially reported that we're getting the keys to our new teachers' apartments October 5th. I won't be here, so when I come back from vacation I'll be able to move out and move in. Nice.

Rumour has it that they don't want to put too much old furniture into our new apartments because they don't want to have to take all that furniture out again when they give us *new* furniture in two months. Apparently we're to get a bed, a table, and a chair. I really don't want to spend my Saturdays buying furniture which I won't know what to do with when I go back to Vancouver. I don't particularly enjoy shopping, especially in a place where I don't know the language and where it takes forever to get anywhere or get anything done. As well, I'm already struggling to keep to my budget, I don't want to spend any more money. This is not what I bargained for. We'll see what happens.

A Chinese classmate of Katia and Gaetan's has organised everything for our trip (we're leaving Sunday at noon). Her mother and a family friend's daughter, who speaks English, will meet us at the train station in Qindao (at freaking 2 o'clock in the morning!) and will take us to the family friend's house where we'll sleep the first night at least. We told her (the Chinese classmate) that this was much too kind, that we felt we were imposing too much, and it was way too much to ask of this said classmate's mother to come pick us up at the airport! However, they inisisted, and told us this was OK, so now we're looking for presents for all these kind, wonderful people. It has been said that we can get some roasted Pekin duck in gift boxes and that this would make a nice present. We'll see what we can find today.

So it looks like we'll be seven to a room on the night of Sunday, October 2nd!

Last night (Friday night), I had dinner with the French crew - Katia, Gaetan, Loic - and one of Loic's Chinese students, who has been studying French for a bit more than a year. Her French was alright, pretty good in fact, but it gets irritating speaking slowly and considerately all the time. She spoke better English and sometimes we switched. Dinner was good. Afterwards we went to play some pool in the most weirded-out pool hall I've ever been to.

It was on the second floor of a deserted building. It's probably a recreational building of some sort, but at night it was dark and deserted. We had to walk around a fence to get to the entrance - if you didn't know it was there you wouldn't have noticed it. There are six pool tables, no music, a lady sitting on a chair, watching TV in the back. Three tables were taken when we arrived. All guys. Guillaume came to join us, so there were six of us - two teams. We all took turns playing. It was fun. Loic's pretty good, as is Guillaume, and they were on the same team, so they won the two games we played. The Chinese girl didn't know how to play, but she learned quickly and I think made at least two holes. They sold cans of beer in the back for two kwai (30 cents) and bottles of Coke for 3 (50 cents). It was pretty funny that the lady took our drinks out of a fridge, but the fridge was only for show because it obviously wasn't working, so our drinks were luke-warm. We went back to our dorm around midnight and chatted outside for maybe an hour before the need to pee was too great and we all went to our rooms to find our Western-style bathrooms. There had been no female washrooms available at the pool hall.

Blogger was down last night so I wasn't able to write when I wanted to. Also, I can't view my blogger today at the new site my editor gave me, so that sucks. Taught my students "sucks" this week. Don't know if they'll remember it when we all come back from our holidays.

Hope y'all have a fabulous week-end.