Qingdao (May 18-21)

Pronunciation Help
Qingdao = Ching-Dow

Here we have the overnight train to Qingdao from Beijing. It was VERY interesting in comparison to the European sleeper cars I had ridden before. Our group took up most of the car with MAYBE 6-10 other Chinese passengers.



And by day. We all managed to sleep fairly well on the train.


Qingdao is right on the ocean and we had beautimous weather (about high 70s) during our stay. And look! BLUE SKY! This is a picture BEFORE I fell into the Sea of China...



The weather was so nice and the air was such an improvement from Beijing that we all spent the morning by the sea and rock-hopping.



Noelani (No-el-ah-nee), my roommate for a majority of the tour, getting her feet wet.



The view from the street.



Due to the earthquakes, China declared 3 days of mourning that did not allow for any sort of public performances... meaning us. So we used our free time to visit schools and go shopping. This is the sweet mural-painted street where we went shopping our first "free" day.



On our first free day, we were on our own for lunch. My group of seven (always travel in small groups) found a clean restaurant that had platters out on display that you pointed to a selection of entrees and they were to be shared among the group. Well the restaurant also had a karaoke TV and when we sat down, they changed the songs to English songs (not that we'd know any of them). This song in particular was popular all over China.



As mentioned before, this day began the three days of mourning and at the time the earthquakes struck, all businesses emptied into the square, all pedestrians stopped walking, and vehicles blared their horns. This lasted for approximately 3 minutes.



By the way, China has WAL-MART! Official blue and white sign with the yellow "Supercenter" logo to boot too! But... their produce is not the same as ours. Check out this crazy melon that had spines all over it I could barely hold it. I'm not sure how you're supposed to eat it... but it looked interesting.




As you can guess, American-Chinese food and Chinese-Chinese food are not the same. Neither is the style of serving the food. Here are some things to note--
1) When eating at a restaurant or hosting, you always should cook far more than you think people can eat. This is a sign of wealth if you can provide so much food that your guests cannot eat it all. At our "Chinese Feast" on the last day in Qingdao, we were served 15+ courses!!!
2) The red dish featured in the picture below is called "Squirrel Fish". The whole fish is deep fried in a tempura batter and then is served to look like a bloody Awesome Blossom. The red sauce differs from city to city. In Qingdao, the red sauce tastes like sweet licorice while in other cities it tasted like sweet-n-sour sauce.
3) Chinese people eat at round tables. This allows for the lazy-susan/turntable to be used. All entrees are placed on the lazy-susan and the tenants simply turn the lazy-susan to reach the desired dish. I thought this would've been a great gift for my Mom... and then I remembered we have an oblong table. Awww....
4) To eat, each person is given a tea cup, chopsticks, sometimes a chopsticks rest, a small tissue-like napkin, small soup bowl, soup spoon, and a small saucer-plate. Using your chopsticks, you take small portions of entrees and eat off the saucer. All bones and skins stay on the saucer and if the plate becomes full, a waiter/waitress replaces it with a new one. So you end up serving yourself many times and you FEEL as though you're eating a lot... but two hours later... you're hungry again. So maybe it's true that eating is psychological as well as physical.
4) You'll know it's the end of the meal when fruit is served. Chinese don't have "desserts" like we do and rarely are the desserts "sweet" like our kind of sweet. Watermelon was always served to us.

Beijing May 13-17

Here are some pictures of my visit to Beijing. Enjoy!


This is the type of loft bed I slept upon at the Beijing Institute of Petrochemical Technology. It looks savvy, but the mattress is made of 2x4s. The drawers/cabinets in the steps were a cool idea though.



So the dorm bathrooms were quite interesting. Here we have a nice Western-style toilet. But oh, what's that to the right? Yes, that is a shower hose and a drain. In China, you can do your business and shower at the same time! Such efficient people...


And in case you still don't feel clean enough, guys, you can shave at the sink too! Talk about multi-tasking!



The guys of our group had their own song, "Rain, Rain, Beautiful Rain".



This is Travis, one of the main leaders from the BIPT who started off our first "Engrish/Chingrish Corner".



Here we have a few of our own students attempting Tai Chi.



This is a typical street in Beijing. Please notice the plethora of lanes and the smog.



Beijing has been working hard to get ready for the Olympics... by giving all their tourist sites a tune up! This is the main gate to the Forbidden City (no longer forbidden if all I paid was <$10 to get in).



Here is some detail work of the gates. The color blue is significant because it shows the emperor's desire to have his power reach even to the heavens.



There were MANY throne rooms.
Throne Room 1

And Throne Room 2



This is one of 3 major guardians in Chinese culture. The two lions guard the entrances of most businesses, corporations, and temples. This is the female lion because she has the cub under her paw.



I just thought this sign was funny... and it was more like a 3/4 of a star toilet by American standards. Quite frightening.


I'm not sure if you can tell...


...but the Forbidden City is HUGE! Rumor has it that long ago, someone set fire to it and it burned for 3 months!

And of course, the Great Wall of China! It was a hazy day when we went but that made the hills all the more mysterious and cloaked in history.


When traveling, it's best to have family around. =) Here is my cousin, Alex, NOT falling off the GWC.


To get to the GWC, the group took a gondola lift to the wall, hiked about 3 miles of it and then took the 3,000+ stone steps down back to the bus. Everyone's legs were trembling when we met at the bus and everyone was sore the following day. The GWC is no joke. The Mongols/Huns were crazy to think they could get over it. On top of the wall, you will notice many steep steps between towers and some places are wide (approximately 10 people across) while other places, like stairs, are narrow and have large intervals, some so large I had to sit down on the step to reach the next one!