Here’s a little geography lesson about Beijing:

At the center of the city is the former Imperial Palace and the Forbidden City.  Just south of that lies Tian’anmen Square and other important government buildings.  Between Tian’anmen Square and the Forbidden City is Chang’an Street (Eternal Peace–which I find incredibly ironic, actually).  Encircling the Forbidden City is the 2nd Ring Road.  A little further out is the 3rd Ring Road, and after that, the 4th Ring Road.  Beijing actually has six ‘ring roads’ that encircle each other with the 5th and 6th being furthest away from each other. 

A while back I got this crazy idea in my head that I wanted to ride my bike around the 4th Ring Road (about 42 miles, or 68ish kilometers) for a challenge.  I was thinking about doing it over the May holiday but ended up traveling instead. 🙂  So, an American friend and I decided that we were going to do it!  I decided to ask my students if any of them wanted to join us.  On Friday in my business class, I began by drawing Beijing on the board. 🙂  (This was actually really funny because as soon as I started drawing they started guessing!)  It didn’t take them too long to figure out what I was drawing.  Then I labeled some key places (Forbidden City, the ring roads, Tsinghua University, my home, etc.) so they had a frame of reference.  Then I drew a bike on the 4th ring road and an arrow all the way around it.  A few of them caught on to what I was ‘telling’ them.  Then I asked them, ‘who wants to come with me?’  Most of them said, ‘you’re crazy!’ or ‘too far!’  But, I ended up with two students who said they would come with me. 🙂 

I told them where we were going to meet and at what time.  (Actually, I told them a little earlier because they are notorious for being late.)  The plan was to meet at 7:40 (for them) on the corner of the 4th Ring and another street close to the university.  I got a phone call from one of them at 7:15.  I answered.  He said, ‘where are you?’  WHAT?!?  I said, ‘I’m at home. Where are you?’  He said, ‘we are on the way!’  AAAAHHHHHH!!!  Then, I got to where we were meeting and received another phone call from a different student (a student who didn’t actually tell me he was coming on the trip–four students ended up coming!).  They were on the opposite corner of the intersection and wanted to bike the other way because they didn’t want to look into the sun.  I guess I didn’t really care which way we biked so I agreed.  So began our journey ‘around’ Beijing.

I had warned the men that we were going to go fast. (I’m used to Chinese people biking slowly and I didn’t want to be biking for 12 hours.)  I was impressed with their speed and was happy that we would finish the journey in a reasonable amount of time!  🙂 Hehehe….ever the optimist…  Dexter brought his map so that we wouldn’t get lost. 😉  (apparently Dexter doesn’t read road signs).  And, the map didn’t help anyway.  In the first hour of the journey, he and Edward led us astray 5-6 times.  Aaaaahhhhh!!!  Each time I said to them, ‘we need to go this way’ and they wouldn’t listen.  I may not speak Chinese but I’m really good at reading road signs that are IN ENGLISH!  After a few wrong turns, they finally figured out that the foreign girls might actually know what’s going on.  There were a few times where we didn’t even let them stop long enough to check/ask.  We just kept going so they were forced to follow. 

Then… my friend and I were pretty hungry at about 11:15-11:30ish.  We’d been riding for a few hours.  So I said, ‘let’s find a place to stop and eat.’  Dexter said, ‘we’ll eat at 12.’  🙂  Then we had a little exchange about how I eat when I’m hungry and not when the clock tells me to eat and how he thinks one should have an eating schedule….blah blah blah.  This concept was so foreign to him.  We ended up stopping to eat (at one of the nicest restaurants I’ve been to in China–in sweaty athletic clothes!).  Lunch took way too long because they assumed that we wanted to have a sit down meal.  I would have been fine with baozi from the street or some other street food.  After our hour-long lunch we got back on the bikes.  (this was pretty painful)  About another hour into the trip, Dexter’s bike chain came off.  🙂 He immediately got out his tissue so that his hands wouldn’t get dirty. 🙂  The chain was stuck and he wasn’t able to pull it out.  So, he went off the road to find a branch to use for leverage.  While he was looking for the branch, I pulled his chain out (sans tissue) and proceeded to put it back on his bike.  It was pretty humorous to hear the reaction of the other three guys.  Clearly they think that I am not capable.  (Thanks, Dad, for all the times you ‘let’ me help you with handy things around the garage/house/cars/etc.) 

So, we were back on the road.  About 30 minutes later, my tire went flat.  I ran over a nail-like object.  At the same time, the spring on Hubert’s kick-stand broke so it wouldn’t stay up. (I fixed that one with a piece of ribbon I happened to have in my bag)  So another 30 minutes was spent finding a bike guy and repairing my tire.  Edward wanted to send me home in a taxi!  No way was I going to stop when I was so close to finishing!  After fixing the bike and having a popsicle we were back on the road. 

We were on the final stretch home when we lost the guys in the last kilometer.  They decided that we didn’t know where we were going and went a different way.  Who ended up in the right spot?  That’s right…the two foreigners.  They never did show up at the original corner.  They just found the back road back to the university.  🙂 

At the end of the journey, I was sore in the rear and burnt in the face.  But, it was a fantastic day!!  🙂  See below for a map of our journey.

The red dot is where I live. The line from the red dot is where I bike every day on my way to the university. My original idea was to go clockwise so that we didn't have to worry about crossing intersections on the corners. They wanted to go the other way because the sun would have been in our faces for the first hour. Total time for the trip including wrong turns, extended lunch, flat tire, and broken kick-stand: just over 7 hours. A bit embarassing for 42 miles. Next time I hope to beat that time!

In my afternoon classes at Qinghua U my students were doing presentations.  Of course, it is rather difficult to motivate 25-35 year old businessmen to prepare for an English presentation about anything.  The presentations were pretty awful.  A few of them did prepare, however.  The presentations were supposed to be only 2-3 minutes, and I would take notes on their grammar and have little mini-lessons after each one. One student kept talking and I had to cut him off at about 17 minutes.  Another student copied and pasted a wikipedia article onto a slide presentation and made the class read it.  One more student showed an inappropriate 11-minute video about Japan. Hmmm…. 

Clark (aka Superman–remember him? Just got married…wasn’t going to tell me…) went to the front of the class to give his presentation.  He decided that he was going to tell the class about his new wife. 🙂 Awwww…  He told us about how he met her and other things.  He also said, ‘…and in 8 months we will have a baby!’  (Which was followed by uproarious laughter from the rest of the class)  I asked him, ‘You do know it takes 9 months to have a baby, right?’  To which he replied, ‘I know.’ So I decided to share the English phrase ‘Shotgun wedding’ with them.  They thought this was hilarious and were happy to hear another ‘useful’ English phrase.  What I didn’t realize was that Clark/Superman didn’t appreciate the comment.  When I was dismissing the class for the afternoon he came up to me and said, ‘My wife and I have had our marriage license for three months already.’  I think I may have hurt his feelings. 🙁 

A note about Chinese culture:  Just because the wedding just happened doesn’t mean that the couple hasn’t been legally married for much longer.  Many of them wait until they can afford it to have the actual ceremony.   So he didn’t just get married two weeks ago. 

Another lesson learned…

So, I had to fill in for another one of Wang’s groupies on Thursday morning because he had a family emergency.  Thankfully, I teach this class every now and then anyway so I know the students well.  One of my students, during the course of the morning class, asked me if I could tell them what really happened in 1989.  (Look it up if you can’t remember or weren’t born yet. Not sure it would be wise for me to talk about it on here.)  I told this student that I wouldn’t talk about it in class but that if he wanted to have coffee with me sometime I would be willing to chat with him about it one-on-one.  He said fine and that he was looking forward to our chat.  So, “coffee sometime” turned into supper the next night.  So, tonight for supper he treated me, another teacher, and another one of the students (and this other student’s wife) to Korean barbecue.  (I love Korean barbecue. A lot.)  

During the course of the conversation (almost like yelling at each other because the restaurant was so noisy) he asked me about the “incident” in 1989.  I didn’t want to dive into it too much when we couldn’t hear each other so I asked him what he already knew.  The information he told me was so far from the truth and incredibly watered down.  The other teacher and I made eye-contact and then sort of a shocked look at each other.  The whole “ask-the-teacher-what-she-knows” situation may have been fueled by the “Equal Rights” discussion that we had in class the previous morning.  My students spoke very candidly about their desire to make changes to the way things are politically, but I think their fear of what might happen to them if they try to do anything far outweighs their drive to “rebel”.  Honestly, I’m looking forward to my one-on-one chat with this student. Pr*y for him and for the other people in his generation who also strive to “make a change of it.”  Keep the whole country in your pr*yers too!  They need them desperately. 

Another brief comment from the same conversation that night was a bit more light-hearted.  The “other” student (who brought his wife with him) was chatting with me. I asked him, “how long have you two been married?” He proceeds to get out his hands to count…1, 2, 3,… Then he said, “seven” (In my head I’m thinking months–way too young to be years…sounds about right.) Then he said, “days.” WHAT?!? This news came to me after I found out (the day before) that another one of my students also got married over the weekend.  You leave Beijing for five days and your students all get married.  Wow.  So, we had a round of congratulations at the table.  His name is Marty. Every time I see him I can’t help but think of Back to the Future for some reason. 

The other student of mine who got married over the weekend is named Clark. (obviously these are their English names)  He wanted his name to be Superman but I nixed that one and told him it wasn’t a name. (apparently Mars, Tsinghua, and ‘Log on’ didn’t get the “not English names” memo–at least they are more creative than Tim 1, Tim 2, and Tim 3)  To make him feel better about losing Superman as his name, I suggested that we call him Clark. He didn’t get the reference but agreed for that to be his name.  Every now and then I call him Superman anyway to be funny.  I didn’t actually find out from him that he had gotten married. One of the other students told me.  I congratulated him in class and asked him if he was planning to tell me that he had gotten married. No.  Hmmm….  Then I told him I couldn’t wait to meet Superwoman (round of laughter from the class) followed by me asking them if anyone else had gotten married over the weekend. (another round of laughter)  It doesn’t really take much to be a comedian in this country.  I might actually consider that for my job next year! 🙂  Later in the class, Superman’s phone rang.  I said, “you might want to answer that, it could be your wife.” Which was followed by more laughter. 

Ah, China.

Unfortunately, most of the time they are ignored! 🙁

I knew I would find one somewhere. 停车场 = Tingche chang = parking lot = (literally) "stop car place" 🙂 🙂 I love Chinese!!

After a “working vacation” with my classes from Qinghua, I was ready for a vacation from teaching.  Thankfully, because of Labor Day, I had Thursday through Tuesday off.  However, I only had one class on the previous Wednesday so I decided to find a sub for that class so that I could travel with two friends to Chengdu, Sichuan and Xi’an, Shaanxi. 

Chengdu 成都 –  Chengdu is the capital of Sichuan province. Chengdu means “city capital” and Sichuan means “four rivers”.  Chengdu is known for it’s teahouses and pandas! 

Our flight from Beijing was Tuesday evening.  I don’t know why I have developed a hatred for flying.  I used to love flying.  Maybe it is because I have recently had some really terrible flights.  Why is it that you have to fly to get somewhere quickly? 🙂  We landed in Chengdu late in the night and found a taxi to our hostel.  The hostel was amazing!  They only had the beds for that night so we had to find ourselves a different hostel for our remaining nights. 

Le Shan乐山

Our first day in and around Chengdu was spent outside of the city about 2 hours.  We first went to Le Shan乐山, which literally means “happy mountain”.  It was a beautiful bus ride out to Le Shan city.  The hills were covered with tea.  I thought maybe it was rice at first but then we asked someone what it was.  I didn’t take any photos in the bus. You’ll have to take my word for it.  We arrived in Le Shan city and had to transfer to a local bus to take us the Le Shan giant buddha.  Ever since I saw the picture in the Lonely Planet, I wanted to see this. 🙂  We had a little climb before we got to the top of the buddha’s head.  (Not like the climb up Taishan) 

Le Shan Giant Buddha - he was carved right in the mountain. If you look closely at the top of the picture you can see people to get a size comparison.

This is from the other direction. After seeing this side of him, we ventured down the staircase to get a view of him from below.

This was his foot. Notice the size of the people next to it.

The sad part of all of this was that people were actually w*rshiping this statue at the bottom.  I don’t understand how someone could put their faith in a stone statue. This is the thing that strikes me the most about the temples and other various places of w*rship here.  The artwork is beautiful but it’s purpose is very sad.

A few other things struck me about Chengdu and the surrounding areas.  First, it was so warm there.  Beijing was having some terrible cold spell or something so it was nice to be in warmer weather.  It was also very green.  This country is full of contradictions.  There is a drought in the north but flooding in the south.  The trees and other greenery were very beautiful!  Below is a picture of part of Le Shan.  I couldn’t resist taking a photo! 🙂

I loved how tropical it was. It was so warm and green. I could live there!

I was having a great time photographing HIS creation! What a blessing! 🙂

Emeishan 峨嵋山

From Le Shan we headed to Emeishan which was about 40 minutes away by bus.  Emeishan was also very beautiful.  When we got off the bus we were bombarded by people trying to sell us tickets back to Chengdu.  This was incredibly hilarious and my roommate, who’s Chinese is much better than mine, was having fun talking to all the people.  We decided to just wander around for a while and then catch a bus later on.  We found our way down a little river walk.  It was lovely. 🙂

One view of the river. There were numerous little restaurants, teahouses, etc. along the river. I would love to come back here and stay for a couple days!

Even the sidewalk was green (from the moss). It was difficult to get used to the humidity.

This waterfall is definitely man-made. They didn't even try to make it look real. Behind it was a big wall! 🙂 It was still nice to stand next to it and cool off.

This one looks a little less man-made. We actually had to climb up behind it to see the tubes/etc. It was still very beautiful. The rest of the surroundings were very pretty.

We encountered some interesting people while were climbing around.  One lady wanted to sell us beads.  She was super cute and told us she was over 80 years old. Then this little old man (I thought they were working together) wanted us to buy his oranges.  🙂  After we hiked around a bit, we went back to the town to catch the bus.  The bus ride home was brutal.  What was supposed to take an hour and a half ended up taking almost three hours.  We don’t really know why either.  Traffic wasn’t bad and there was minimal stopping.  We made it back to the hostel to collect our things so that we could get to our other hostel.

The next morning we decided to do a bike tour of the city with a group from our first night’s hostel.  Our ‘tour guide’ Joe was terrible.  Most of the time he wasn’t in the lead and we didn’t know where to go.  But he did have a pretty sweet outfit on.  We bike all around Chengdu along the river and through the city.  He took us to a seafood market where we found this:

This man was skinning snakes. The snakes were still alive and trying to climb out of the blue bin. Gross.

They had their jaws taped shut. 🙂 They weren't that big.

On the bike ride were the three of us, two Israeli men, one Israeli woman, a guy from Texas and another guy from Maryland.  It was a very interesting group of people.  Most of the time we didn’t know where we were going and we had to stop numerous times to get bikes fixed for some reason or another.  🙂  It was definitely a very “China” day.  Joe also took us past the largest statue of Mao in China.  Below is a picture of Joe.

This is Joe. He was our 'tour guide' through the city. Check out that awesome outfit! He was a really nice guy. Just not a very good guide.

After the biking tour of the city, we went to a really beautiful temple in the city.  There was much more green space in this temple than any other temple I have been to. 

Part of the garden of the temple.

The next morning we found ourselves on a minibus with a woman from Australia.  It was the three of us and this woman.  We don’t actually know who she was talking to but we do know that she wouldn’t stop talking.  Thankfully, the ride was only about 40 minutes or so.  We arrived at the Giant Panda breeding and research center.  Our minibus driver was also the one who ‘led’ us through the center.  It was very beautiful there and taking pictures of the pandas was addicting.  They were so cuddly looking. 

"Love me, don't bother me" This was at the panda breeding and research center. 🙂

This guy was taking a bath or something. He may have just been splashing around in the little pool. Nevertheless, he was cute.

Mmmmm.... Wouldn't you love to munch on bamboo all day long? I guess if it was in a pile right next to you and you didn't have to move to get it you might! 🙂

It looks like they are playing. Or maybe they are fighting over the bamboo. Either way, it's pretty cute.

It was so funny to watch them.

They're actually much more flexible than you would think. I think this one was putting on a show for us.

I think most of their day is spent lying around and eating bamboo.

These two babies were having a fight. At the end of the fight, one of them ended up at the bottom of the hill. I also saw another one fall off of it's wooden structure. They seem so clumsy. 🙂

Hmmm..... It's not? I am fairly certain I would never eat a panda but many wild animals taste very delicious. 🙂

This lake was called "Swan Lake" hehe 🙂

I specifically like #1 "Don't spit", #2 "Don't jump the queue", #3 "Don't step on the grassland", #6 "Don't force foreign tourists to take photos", and #7 "Do not utter dirty words"! 🙂 🙂

And so ends our time in Chengdu.  That afternoon, we got on a flight (super bumpy-not my favorite flight) to Xi’an, home of the terracotta army and also home of my dear friend Michael who was one of my students last semester.

Xi’an 西安

Michael came to the airport to pick us up.  It was pretty great to not have to find a bus or take a taxi.  The traffic in Xi’an was crazy and way worse than Beijing!  It took us just over an hour to get to Michael’s apartment.  I was hanging on for dear life to the handle above the door when Michael said, “Take it easy! Keep your heart inside your body!” 🙂 Ha!  Hilarious.  His English is actually really good.  I think it would have been easier for me to keep my heart ‘inside my body’ had there not been 3.5-4 lanes of traffic occupying 3 lanes.  It’s really every car for itself here in China.  But I think Xi’an takes it to the extreme.  I always laugh at the drivers who park on the sidewalks here in Beijing or the drivers who honk at the people walking on the sideWALKS.  But now I know, Michael is one of those drivers.  And part of the reason is because there is literally nowhere else to put the cars.  Crazy.

After we dropped our stuff off in his AMAZING apartment (very modern and so not China), he took us into the part of the city that is enclosed by the old city wall.  It was very beautiful down there.  I neglected to bring my camera with me that evening. Sad.  We saw the Drum Tower, Bell Tower, and the Muslim area.  Michael treated us to a delicious supper in the Muslim district.  After walking around for a bit, we decided to try to find a specific wood carver’s shop.  He carves wood and then uses the relief for a painting.  I bought one of his paintings and another painting by one of his students.  He and his wife were so nice.  I actually felt bad bargaining with them. 

We made it back to Michael’s apartment later that night and he told us that he and his wife would stay with his parents. What?!? Okay? So, we had his apartment to ourselves. 

The next morning the plan was to meet Michael at the south gate of the old city wall.  We were going to bike around the city wall (14 km) with him.  We got to the south gate and sent him a message.  To which he responded: “go without me. I can’t get there before noon.”  Okay.  So we climbed to the top of the wall, rented some bikes and were on our way.  A little way into our journey around the wall we decided to see how fast we could ride around the wall.  The rental fee was for 100 minutes of biking.  Surely we could bike 14 kilometers in 100 minutes or less.  So after we decided that we didn’t stop.  It was super bumpy on top of the wall.  But, we made it all the way around the wall in 49 minutes! We even got one “加油!” on the way. (加油 literally means ‘add oil’ but it’s a way to cheer someone on).

This man tried to sell me one of those instruments. I almost bought one but then decided they were too much.

After we were finished with that escapade we found ourselves walking through the incredibly crowded markets.  It was, after all, a holiday.  We met Michael for lunch as planned and then visited a Mosque in the Muslim area.  The mosque was definitely not worth the Y25 it cost to get in.  It’s bad when all temples/mosques/religious buildings start to look the same.  Hmmm…  This was an active one.  Also very sad to see.  One good thing that came from visiting the mosque was the addition of a few Chinglish signs to my collection. 🙂

Michael then drove us to a completely different part of town to see the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda (I love the names for things) and these really awesome fountains!  The fountains were set to music and the show lasted about 20 minutes.  It was really cool.  I wish we could have seen it at night.  They were especially nice to stand near because the temperature in Xi’an got to 97.7 that day! Whoa!  It wasn’t even that warm in Chengdu, which is further south. 

We were standing near this pool when I noticed these hoses pointing in all different directions. I asked Michael if he thought we should move or not. He said we should be fine. About three minutes later everyone started to run to the other side! 🙂

 The above picture was taken before the fountain show started.  They had many ‘warning’ signs that we were about to get wet. 

We'll call this flat area a 'tier'. There were probably 5-7 tiers just like this in addition to the lower large pool and the one in the previous picture. The show was huge and crazy.

I’ll compare China and America once again.  Think back to the crazy New Year’s fireworks.  Chinese fireworks were crazy-huge and out of control.  The Chinese definitely know how to do things in large quantities (I mean, come on, 20% of the world’s population lives here–large quantity? Yes.)  But I would take an American firework show any day simply because it is more beautiful.  Then there’s this fountain show.  Quantity? Yes, for sure! It was huge and crazy.  Quality? It was good, but I’ve seen better.  The most entertaining part of this was watching the young men gang up on their buddies and drag them out into the water.  That, and the little girl who was behind me posing for her father’s pictures.  I’m not actually sure which one (the girl or the father) wanted her to be out there…

After the fountains we went back to Michael’s apartment and then found a really good restaurant near there.  We ate the Xi’an specialty before heading back to his apartment to hang out and wait for Mrs. Michael to come home.  I was excited to meet his wife.  I had only heard about her from him.  She didn’t get off work until really late and then had to wait a long time to take a bus home.  So we passed the time by looking at their wedding photos.  Chinese wedding photos = hilarious!  Michael’s did not disappoint!  There’s something about fake poses, rented dresses, and super-photoshopped photos that make a person smile!  I also love how newlywed couples (Michael and his wife have been married for one year) have incredibly large photos of themselves hanging everywhere in their apartment!  After Michael and his wife left, we tried to watch Kung Fu Panda (since we had been to the pandas and can fully appreciate the very accurate Chinese culture in the movie) but the movie didn’t play on Michael’s computer.  You would think that in a sweet awesome apartment with a ginormous TV, this man would have a DVD player to go with it. Nope.  That’s okay. I needed my sleep anyway. 

The next morning we got up to head to see the terracotta warriors.  Michael picked us up in his dad’s SUV (not his typical red Beetle) because he thought it would be more comfortable for the long ride. We made it to the location of the terracotta army and it was a madhouse.  There were people everywhere!  This was definitely not the time to be at this particular tourist location.  We zoomed through the museum part and also through the warrior part.  It was neat to see the pieces but this wasn’t my favorite place to visit.  I know people say that not visiting the terracotta warriors when you are in Xi’an is like not going to the Great Wall when you are in Beijing.  I felt obligated to go.  I took a few photos but all in all it was ‘just so-so’. 🙂  Below are some photos.

Pieces of the warriors that have not been put together yet

A few 'more complete' warriors

I'm not sure all of the horses are different. It was cool to see all of the different warriors though.

There were three different exhibition halls. This was the largest hall with the most complete warriors. This hall also had the most people. It was kind of a pain but Michael and I had fun trying to take photos! 🙂

After seeing the army, we met another one of my students (from this semester) for lunch.  We had a nice lunch and then went back to Michael’s apartment to rest a bit.  The rest of the afternoon was spent getting our things together and napping.  Michael then took us to a restaurant before sending us off on our overnight train back to Beijing.  This was my first time having a sleeper.  It was awesome!  I definitely want to take the train again! 

HE has blessed me again with safe travels!  Enjoy!