Qingdao Update~

Hey everyone,

After a week of resting and such, I’m finally feeling better! I’m having a tough time coping with having to leave soon and the relationships I’ve developed with people here, but everyone will always be in my heart. Also, it was my birthday this past weekend so it’s been a good reflection of who I am. Time will make everything better.

We had to present our trip in Chinese this past week so I feel like I have to do it over and over. But yeah… Our Alliance group left on a Thursday morning by plane to Qingdao. We met up with our tour guide Howard and he took us on our merry way. And I’m pretty sure we’re all sick of being a bus now because we spent a huge amount of time on the bus. For real!

Anqi and Lydia at the airport!

So many wedding pictures on the beach~

At Qingdao, we headed straight from the airport to the Badaguan area, and the beach. Sadly, the beach was not very pretty. It was rocky and gross. There was glass and such. And the water was cold. And honestly, the weather sucked the entire week we were at Shandong. It was more of a, “let’s just take pictures here…..” kind of deal. The pictures were nice? Some people went for a swim, but there were no locals really swimming. Most of them were just looking around for sea life and shells, and the like to sell to tourist. There was also a no swimming sign…..Awkward.

The water is cold!

After swimming, we went to a hotel to get some food. It was buffet style. The food was quite disappointing. I usually don’t like seafood so I never get any but since we were at Qingdao and I thought the seafood would be good by the seaside, I was like….Yeahhhh let’s try some! Nope. Not a great experience. I think people were more scared of eating the seafood and getting sick than it actually not tasting good. We went to the hotel right afterwards and it was a meh night. We mostly just chilled or watched TV.

Sad we didn't get to go on a boat tour~

The second morning, we were suppose to go on a boat tour but the weather and mist was so bad, we once again….only got to take pictures. Seriously, it was sad not being able to do anything. But after that, we went to the Beer Museum so it was redeemable. We basically just took pictures with some of the interesting scenery there and then drank Qingdao beer. After getting some lunch, we sat on the bus for a long time to get over to Tai’an. And since the weather was bad, it took pretty long.

Giulianna and I tasting some Qingdao Beer

Once we got to Tai’an, we went to see a shadow puppet show. It was refreshing to be able to enjoy that aspect of Chinese culture. It was neat and funny. I think the best part was the end, where they did gangnam style puppet show.

Right after the puppet show, we went to get supplies to hike up Tai Mountain! And everyone bought these sandwiches that turned out to be quite bad…..well, not so much bad but it barely had anything on it. The PB/J sandwiches had like a little smudge. Basically just eating white bread.

After spending another night at a hotel, we got up in the morning and bused over to Tai Mountain. Although a lot of people didn’t want to hike, we were all slowly getting pumped to hike it anyways. We got there and had to wait….and we didn’t know why. We ended up just taking the “before” pictures of hiking up the mountain. Quite a bit later, we were informed that we weren’t able to climb up the mountain because it wasn’t safe due to the weather. And we were so mad, because it had been raining for like 9 days prior, and they didn’t figure that ahead of time?

So Plan B was going to Jinan. We ended up at 大明湖 (da4 ming2 hu2), which is a huge lake. The weather wasn’t that great still and the scenery was just alright. The best part was just taking pictures and paying to get on a small electric boat that we drove around the lake. That was my favorite activity of the trip to be honest….spending our free time to do something we figured out. Just chatting and having fun with friends. And also “chatting” with the Chinese people around us.

We're on a boat!

They came at us head on! I thought we were gonna tip T.T

After the lake, we grabbed lunch and were told we’re going to a different mountain to hike. It was smaller and it had a lot of Buddhist statues and altars. It was tiring to hike all the way up. But getting to the very top was an accomplishment! There were quite a bit of hornets though. And I saw that there were locks up on the top; I’m assuming that it’s a couple related symbol since that’s a common thing to do, but I’m not entirely sure if that’s what it means here in China. Going down the mountain was the worst part for me because it was steep and wet. I had fell three times hiking up so I took extra caution with my slippery flat Nike’s. So advice: Bring some nice shoes with a grip if you’re planning on hiking. When I got to the bottom, I found out some people had taken a cable car up and a slide down. I mean, hiking up and down was an accomplishment, but that would have made my life easier!!!!!

The tallest point!

Eddie and I were excited we made it to the top!

We drove back to the hotel at Tai’an and had time to ourselves. I ended up showering and headed out with some friends to buy some snacks for the train ride and had some Pizza Hut. Also, Pizza Hut in China is like a nice sitdown place. After Pizza Hut, we went to a bar right across the street and had some drinks. It was fun because I was with people I didn’t usually hang out with and we were just enjoying ourselves in a different country.

The last day, we drove to Qufu, which is the hometown of Confucius. We waited a really long time to get in and it was so hot. And when we got in…..Blah, literally, it was not interesting. I mean, I enjoyed learning some history and seeing the traditional Chinese life but our tour guide just went from place to place with brief descriptions. Apparently, the other tour guides there did a lot better job explaining and such. I honestly just wanted to go home at that point.

After the tour of the mansion, we ended up going to a really shady restaurant. The plates weren’t very clean and the food was not good. After trying a little bit of the dishes, my friend and I just decided we were going for the snacks.

We went to the high speed train station and waited for over an hour to get on our train. I thought the fast train was nice but it literally stopped like every 15 minutes.  It was more of a train stopping everywhere in China than a train from point A to point B. And on the train, there were so many kids being so loud. I was going crazy from the noise! At one point, there was a fight that broke out because a kid touched a lady’s butt. I don’t even. We got delayed for a little while.

Best part of the train, I ended up getting sick and vomited all over myself….at first I thought it was motion sickness, but after vomiting a few times, it definitely was from the shady restaurant. And I was dying for awhile. Literally. I’m all better now though soooo. Enjoy my post. 

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Food Poisoning

Hey all,

I got back from my Alliance trip Sunday evening and was planning to post and update then. But I got food poisoning from a restaurant we went to. So many people got food poisoning. I just can't. I didn't even want to miss class yesterday. BLAGH.

The trip was alright...I'll definitely update you all on it later this week, preferably on Friday. Just let me have my rest~

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Almost half-way update

Hey everyone,

Sorry, I haven't updated as often as I wanted. I've been sick the past week because there's something going around. It's not the bird flu (my mom was freaking out when she found out I was sick). And I don't think it's the pollution because I barely go out that long and I just got sick after other people got sick. Totally blaming my roommate who was sick last week. Also, classes are kicking my butt! Everyday there's a lot of work to do and a lot of studying. We had two tests last week and I just had a test yesterday. Today I had an oral report. Individually they aren't too bad but they all start adding up. Next week we have a midterm but then we're going to Qingdao and Tai mountain. It'll be fun but that means it's already almost half-way done. Everyone is kind of bleh about it and people have been saying they should have done a semester. So definitely do the semester if you can. Plus it's kind of sad to think about leaving all the new teachers and friends I've met.

Anyways, hopefully I can update more soon. Here's some random pictures from today's cooking workshop. I didn't take pictures of the end result because everyone just wanted to eat it!

The cooking workshop 

Getting ready to cook!

The Dim Sum Team making Xiao Long Bao

小笼包~

Almost time to cook it.

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五角场 shopping

Hey everyone,

Today, I'm going to be talking about a recent experience at 五角场(Wu Jiao Chang)'s shopping. So yesterday night, we wanted to go to a place that required business casual clothing. I wasn't sure how business casual it was since in China, that could be pretty different. We finally settled upon the conclusion of collared shirt, nice pants and nice shoes - so pretty much the same... I packed a lot of clothes so I just tried to wing it with the clothes I had. My roommate, Eddie, on the other hand, didn't pack business casual. It's not very convenient to pack, as well as packing for summer classes. So we ended up have to miss the first hour or so of the group KTV party (which was also at Wujiaochang) to shop around.

五角场
Source: www.ypta.gov.cn

五角场 is a huge shopping plaza area. It's so huge!  The image is on the right. It's so awesome because at night, it's so bright and changes colors a lot. I can even see it from my room too. It's the closest shopping area by Fudan University. Everyone likes going here, but mainly for the Walmart. Also the Walmart here is huge. It's three stories.

Anyways! We looked around a bunch of places to shop. There's a lot of big brands here - ones that you can find in the US and ones that are from Korea as well.

We spent an hour looking around. I was a bit disappointed seeing all the prices. Definitely thought things were going to be a lot cheaper but everything pretty much is the same price. H&M, Zara, etc. All the same price. It had a bit different selection though. I thought the clothes were a lot more trendy (but that's just because I like some Asian fashion). Eddie ended up buying clothes from H&M, Zara, and (Shoes) Nike . I'm thinking it rounded to about 160USD for an outfit. So the big brands are pretty much price consistent here. Gotta look for the little shops if you want to find cheaper clothes. But honestly, I still thought Eddie's outfit was nice and suited him well. Cough~ I think so because I was there in the process of helping him pick.

Eddie and I (The Kiwi) in business casual before we left. Eddie's entire outfit was bought at 五角场！

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上海城隍庙 (Shanghai's City God Temple)

My roommates, Eddie and Lingxiao, and I went to 城隍庙 (Chénghuángmiào) on Saturday. It was pretty fun because it was the first time our roommate took us to go sightseeing. And it was really nice because between classes and spending money going to different places, this was the first time in awhile to just sight see.We took the train from 五角场站 (Wujiaochang Station) to Yuyuan Gardens. It didn't take that long. Our roommate's girlfriend, Chuyi, accompanied us on the train but went to hang out with her friends because it was her last day being able to hang out with us before starting her internship! We miss her already.  Anyways, we walked around quite a bit! Lingxiao told us to be careful of getting pickpocketed here, so be warned everyone. It's pretty tourist-y. According to Eddie, it's a tourist trap. Here, you can barter too! Our roommate was able to get a jade elephant that Eddie was getting for his mom from about 280kuai to 50kuai. Here are some pictures....For once~

All the buildings here at 城隍庙 are like this.

We were in a jewelry store and the pillar was a fish tank...There were a few. I thought it was cool.

I thought it was cute that even the Starbucks here in 城隍庙 was in the style of everything else.

According to our roommate, this is the most famous 小笼包(Xiaolongbao) place in Shanghai.

Walking by a bunch of stores, I spotted.....Spongebob....what the? China....

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Belated First Day Impression

[Note: A lot of this was written during that day so some impressions have been changed and I've tried my best to note things that have changed]

I got in on Tuesday at 8 in the morning since my plane got delayed in Finland (le sigh). But I didn’t have anywhere to be. It was pretty quick to get through immigration and customs here. Also, a bunch of Chinese hotel/taxi drivers will attack you with questions once you leave customs. They’ll ask things like “你去哪里？ 你要出租车吗？你要sim 卡吗？” I politely declined and just waited for about 1.5 hours for my friend (and now roommate!) Eddie to arrive. And not going to lie, I couldn’t get access to any of the free WiFi that people tell me is everywhere. Maybe it’s cause I didn’t have a simcard…Anyways, if you’re thinking about arriving in China and using airport WiFi to call home or message people, don’t count on it being easy.

After Eddie arrive, we were on our way to the hotel. Both of us combined, they charged us 500CNY to get from Pudong  airport to our hotel in Hongkou district. It was about an hour away from the airport so I guess it was worth it. Our hotel was a lot nicer than I thought it would be, especially for the price. I booked it for $34USD a couple days before we left. It’s called New Asia Hotel ( 新亚大陆管).  Overall, it was a cool place where you had to use your access card to use the electricity in the room (is that the norm in Chinese hotels because well….that’s awesome?).  The only thing that bugged me about the hotel was that there was a window in the bathroom by the shower that showed to the room. There were shades/curtains in the room but not in the shower. I don’t know why it bugs me but it was a room with double beds. In what world do you need to see into the shower if you’re sleeping in separate beds? It’s a minor detail……

We ventured out into Shanghai because we were hungry and well… we’re in China! Family Mart became quite familiar to us because it’s like everywhere. It’s a little convenience store (it’s been extremely useful for us, from bottled water to sandwiches to soap and shampoo).  We wanted to go to the Bund for food but our adventure did not really end up there. Not to mention not knowing the Bund in Chinese was a huge mistake since we could never ask for directions fully. It was always, “Bund 在哪里?” or”怎么去Bund,” or my favorite “怎么去那边.” ... we ended up going to a Chinese restaurant. When we walked in, we quickly realized we couldn’t read the entire menu. Eddie, with his (I’m growing to like) witty humor, told me “Let’s just stand here for a few minutes and pretend we don’t want anything and leave.” That’s not what we did and I don’t recommend it if that happens to you either! Eddie ended up getting a translated menu from the cashier and we were able to order our first Chinese meal! And I found out that restaurants don’t accept foreign cards [Mine wasn't a credit card, boo]….. We got fried rice and 小笼包(xiao long bao); everyone always says how good xiao long bao is in Shanghai so I was really excited to have that as my first Chinese meal! It's pretty good but since I've been having it quite a bit while here, it's becoming normal (though still good) food.

After our meal, we ended up going back to the hotel to figure out how to get to the Bund [technically we were in the Bund area but we weren't at the places we wanted to be] and planned our evening plans but unfortunately, it fell through once we both fell asleep.  It was fun but we were literally dying from the heat and humidity. I’m pretty sure I’m 3-4 shades darker than I was before I left the room…. So sleep was good, even if we didn’t get to enjoy the Shanghai night life on our first day. Eddie also coined YOCO (if you’re familiar with YOLO, you’ll pick up on it right away). You only go to China once! That’s pretty much that sums up our adventure of the first day. 

That first day walk was so tiring, but I've been walking around in China everywhere! Especially since we go on a lot of sightseeing adventures. Remember to bring them good shoes because flip flops aren't too comfy and shoes are about the same price here.

Signing off y'all~

Thomas

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First Update

Hey Everyone,

I've been in China for over a week now! Time seems to fly by pretty fast. All in all, orientation week was pretty much awesome. I learned a lot of things about China and met some pretty awesome people. My Chinese has also been improving bit by bit. I definitely have to update this on the weekend or something. I'll at least tell you all about my classes right now though!

I'm taking the Intensive Chinese track with Alliance. I was pretty nervous about it since...well, it sounds pretty scary. There are actually quite a lot of students from all over the US here though. So we took a placement test last Friday to determine what level would be best for us. There was a written part and an oral part. The written part has a bunch of parts like any Chinese test I've had, such as listening, grammar, fill in the blanks, composition, etc. I didn't do too well on that. It was definitely difficult because I would understand all but one or two characters in a sentence and I would have to skip it or hope I was using it right. The oral part was....Well, I'm a bit nervous with my speaking part since I'm not too good at speaking. So it was a bit difficult. They get you to talk in Chinese about different things like yourself and your classes.

Since I've had four semesters of Chinese, I was correctly (wishful thinking?) placed into the 300 level. Although I know some people who studied for awhile and got placed differently. It really depends on how your school's Chinese program is. And the teachers definitely make a conscious effort to put you into the right class. I've seen people move around quite a bit the past couple days.

For classes in general, they're a bit....hard? I don't know what they would be otherwise. We start at 9 in the morning Monday through Friday. There's a dictation part where we have to write the characters for what we studied for that day. Then we begin class. The classes are about an hour each. So we have grammar class, then drill 1 (which basically drills us on everything we learned in grammar class). Then there's drill 2 class where another laoshi takes over and we usually have a topic to talk about or go over. It's still about the same things as the first classes, just more independent speaking. Then we break for lunch! (We usually all go out together and grab food somewhere or go to a restaurant). Or we might have Chinese language table where we have food together with some teachers and chat in Chinese.

After lunch, we start the Intensive Chinese class with our third teacher. It's a whole different book with it's own vocabulary. There's a lot of emphasis on the oral part (as is the first part but moreso in the second part).    But we definitely need to know all the characters and we study all that on our own time. Depending on the schedule we might have a one on one with a teacher after everything. So far, it's kind of a free-for-all type of deal where you can talk about anything. It gets you use to talking with Chinese people. And the teacher also corrects you so you know what's up and what to pay attention to when you're outside a class setting.

Overall, the classes aren't too bad. It's actually pretty nice to have small classes. The teachers will correct you immediately if you say something wrong or if your tones are struggling.....It's a bit hard to get use to still but it really helps. We're all expected to speak in Chinese like all the time. It's so hard especially when you don't know how to say/describe something. And since we have a Chinese roommate, they speak Chinese with us too and it helps because they're just students and don' have that teacher relationship with us. But the teachers here are awesome too and we can talk with them and text them and everything.

After classes, I've had to spend a lot of time doing homework... It's way more intense than any Chinese class I've taken. It usually takes me a good while just to finish a few worksheets, read things, and study all the characters. It gets pretty tiring between studying, sleeping and attending class. Doesn't seem like we'll have too much free time during the weekdays. I feel like I'm being lazy already just by writing this blog post and not studying more. Ah~

Anyways, ask me any questions! I'm sure I missed out on the class life somewhere~
Thomas

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