Kelly and I landed safely in China yesterday. After 36 hours traveling I was relieved to finally get back to my apartment and pile my bags in the entry way, mind you half are still sprawled there as I dug through to get out the few things I needed. 

My trip home was worth all the trouble. It provided a much needed relief and a fresh start to the upcoming semester. With a roommate now and a new found determination to learn Mandarin it is already shaping up to be a great semester.

The trip began with me eating my words I gave the previous day to my friend Maria. When dropping her off at Bakersfield to head home I’d teased her about the Prop-Plane at the Airport. I’d never ridden in one and hoped never to have to. Everything comes back to bite you I’ve learned and sure enough before I knew it i was boarding a Prop-Plane to LAX. It was everything and worse I’d imagined!

Upon exiting the Prop-Plane my purse broke! I’d always made fun of luggage and bag stores in Airports, I mean come-on by the time you are getting onto the plane shouldn’t you already be packed!! But here I was stranded with a broken purse still facing another 24 hours of travel, I was willing to pay anything for relief! I found a tacky Hollywood bag at Hudson News and headed to my next gate to settle in for a long layover. Poor Kelly, we were to meet up at LAX and catch the same flight to Beijing together. She got stopped at every security check and pulled aside for further scrutiny. We tried to change seats to sit together but it was a full flight.

As they began boarding we ran to Starbucks for a last meal. Fiji water, blueberry scones and shrink-wrapped turkey sandwiches. I found my seat and was relived to find yet another window seat. I’m sticking with Expedia, since adding a window seat preference, that’s all I’ve scored on flights through them. I’m finally learning the trick to sleeping on international flights, oh another dozen and I should be a pro! Flights went smooth. In line after costumes I ran into the Sorensons, the BYU teachers from Jinan. I had ran into them going through security at LAX when flying home in January. We all had breakfast then headed to our domestic flights.

The puddle jump from Beijing to Qingdao was quick and James was waiting at the luggage carousel. It was intriguing watching Kelly’s reaction to Mainland China on the two hour drive home. I felt relieved to be done with flights and back into a normal routine. Qingdao to Weifang seems to be practically a Tulare – Visalia run most weeks.

James took us out to lunch before heading to the apartment. Lunch was wonderful. I’m thrilled to no longer be the novice with chopsticks, knock on wood. Kelly is reminding me of all my first experiences that have now become casual everyday events. Lunch was a usual conglomerate of vegetables, meats and tofus, chopped, diced and sauced up! With a hot bowl of noodle soup for the main course.

Once back on campus and in the apartment I finally felt I could relax after 36 hours of travel.

It’s good to be home and settled back in!

Wendy and Me!

Wendy and Peter took me out to dinner tonight to say goodbye, or rather see you later. Wendy knows how much I love trying to new food and promised to take me to a restaurant that specialized in Northern Cuisine. It was amazing! A back alley hole in the wall.

Bei Da Wang is down the same alley as our favorite soup place. I’ve always been too scared to go into an unrecommended restaurant as my ordering abilities are, well, non existent still. But this place has a picture menu!

Throughout the dinner I practiced Chinese with Wendy and Peter. I think I will have to make this a more regular occurrence as Peter is so encouraging!

Wendy suggested three traditional dishes that were phenomenal! The first a typical stir-fry with sugar peas, chicken, peppers and mushrooms.

Okay, I lucked out with location! I love northern food!

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The main dish didn’t have a specific name rather a list of ingredients. It was a soup of sorts served in a large wok that was kept heated during the dinner. Those are not marshmallows along the sides, but steamed rolls of sorts. The soup contained, spinach, peppers, peas, chicken, and potatoes. I really am falling in love with Chinese food. I just have to learn what to order.

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Chinese Mash Potatoes!

Last but not least on the menu for the evening was Chinese Mash Potatoes! Yes, y0u read that right, Chinese Mash Potatoes. They were delicious. I still can’t figure out what made them yellow rather than white but I’ve been told it was the potatoes used. It is chunky rather than smooth and the gravy is more of a caramel but it was delicious!

I’ve already decided this is where I want to go for my first dinner back. That is if it is still there. As we’ve sadly learned from our favorite wing place, what’s there one week can easily be gone the next.

A little history behind the name of the restaurant. The direct translation is  North Big Desolate , I think, Wendy was trying to describe the word ‘Desolate’. Anyway, it is the name of a location up north that was colonized by people from Shandong province that had been sent as part of a military campaign. The cuisine is a combination of North eastern traditions and Shandong dishes that evolved in this region.

Okay okay I know, I lied, sorry. I said I’d have my blog caught up before I left for Harbin but that just didn’t happen. I leave in an hour and lets face it I’m just too long winded to finish the 6 posts sitting in my draft box. So another week will pass before I can touch it.

If I don’t start catching up on Friday, I’ve frozen to death in the northern regions of China. So in the Spring thaws the frozen foreigner clutching the hot water bottle in the Red Michelin Man Jacket is me. Will someone please make sure my cremated remains make it back to the mantle in Tulare.

I’m not kidding, Harbin this week was in the -30*F.

Christmas Day…humm…lets just say it was an adventure.

My first Christmas waking up to an empty house. I didn’t want to get out of bed as there just didn’t seem like any point. The usual hustle and bustle of Christmas morning was not there nor did I have the pleasure of looking forward to it. I finally dragged myself out of bed and over to the computer excited for my Christmas call home. I finally made it through but to my disappointment, as it was still Christmas Eve in the States, everyone seemed busy and some where not even home to chat. I did an unusually short call with and become rather childishly disgruntled by the whole thing.

I finally just turned my attention to the afternoon and weekend in Qingdao! One frustration of living alone is the fact that I have to remember to prepare the house for a trip. Mom thank you for all you do! I hate coming home to a dirty house which means the morning before a trip the usual list includes: laundry, dishes, trash, sweep, organize and close and lock up.

Christmas morning!

A few students dropped by to give me Christmas cards and Wendy dropped off a gift. I sat down and try to recreate a little Christmas opening my gift and reading cards. By 11 I was headed out the door to meet up with the  Gang at the train station.

Katie and Thomas invited a new friend along to join our foreign group for Christmas, no one should spend Christmas alone. The train was crowded as usual. The plan was to have a big familial Christmas dinner then hand out blankets to the homeless. [Last Christmas Victoria had experienced her coldest day in China and was horrified to see homeless people sleeping on the streets under nothing but a sheet of plastic. This year she vowed to correct this and purchased blankets to hand out to the homeless. We Weifangians were happy to help deliver the purchased blankets.]

Americans and Canadians

We arrived and headed to THE DINER for Christmas dinner. We were a merry party! There were about 28 of us in all, and the table next to us was all foreigners too! You felt like you were back in the states. It was interesting to be able to eavesdrop again, to be fair both tables were doing it because we were commenting on each other’s conversations. THE DINER had a wonderfully scrumptious Christmas menu but it was just out of my price range so I settled on a lamb sandwich. Not as good as their steak sandwich but NOT Chinese in the least so I’ll take it. Some days I just don’t want Chinese, Christmas is one of them.

After dinner the hostel hunt began. Thank heaven for Katie and her prepared self or we would have being sleeping on the sidewalk accepting blankets from Victoria. This Christmas was the coldest day in Qingdao and it even beat out last Christmas Victoria said. The BYU teachers headed back to the university and told us they would call when they were going to head out to deliver blankets. The Walk: we decided to forgo the bus and just go for a cab wrong idea. There was no cabs to be found and we were forced to keep walking to keep warm we finally ducked into a hotel and asked the door man to find us a cab. We soon realized we had headed in the opposite direction of the hostel. The doorman returned empty handed explaining there were just no cabs to be found on a night such as this! Oh just keep piling on the frustrations. We were all froze and our brief stay in the hotel lobby only seem to half thaw us. Working from a small google map we found a bus that would take us west and hoped for the best. We got off hoping the map was spacial correct, wrong again. After what seemed like eternity in the cold we found the hostel at the top of a hill. Katie had been unable to book a hostel online due to technical difficulties on the website, “Welcome to China”. Big Brother Hostel’s, yes no lie on the name, dorms were all booked and they only had a 4 person room at 200Y. That is hotel prices by the way and no way were we going to pay hotel prices for hostel accommodations. By the way the dorms had been 25Y so you understand our hesitation here.  Prepared Katie had a back up plan, we ventured out into the cold and by some miracle were able to find a cab within 5min. Mind you we were a double fare but hey we were out of the cold and sardines are toasty when they are packed together. I don’t know if the first passenger was fully aware of what he agreed to when the taxi driver accepted us. Somehow we were able to cram 6 people and all our luggage and bedding into a small cab not using the trunk.

Hostel Lobby

We finally made it to the next hostel when I realized I didn’t have everything that I needed to check in. At that point we were near the train station and I just figured I would catch a train back to Weifang if I had to. The Receptionist was kind enough to let me slide with numbers and a Driver’s License. She was even kind enough to give us member prices and we settled in for the evening. Victoria called and said there were no homeless people out so we would not be venturing out either. We dropped off the bags and headed down to the lobby to chat.

All decked out for Christmas

Okay this is were I go off on hostels! I LOVED THIS PLACE. The rooms were clean and warm once the heater got going, the lobby was phenomenal and the help well I don’t have enough glowing words in my vocabulary to cover how amazing they were. Their English was excellent (boy does that sound snobby) and they were extremely accommodating. We threw ourselves into the center lounging area and were soon joined by a British guy who had been sitting at the other end.

His name was Lew, he took a hiatus from school to study Martial Arts for a year in China. He is a drama major with a growing resume. We all had a lovely chat for the rest of the evening. It is always nice when you can sit and have a stimulating conversation at a normal speed with a normal vocabulary, excepting of course the occasional translation hiccups between British and English. We turned in around 11.

Christmas was an adventure or to be more honest was one adventure after another. But the company and accommodations at the end made it all worth it!

Were both up and ready by 7am so we headed out the door, no point in wasting daylight. Traveling with Victoria was a real treat. As soon as we were both ready we hit the road, we were both eager to see all the sites so it was a marathon of sorts.

Hotel Subway stop.

Before we headed up to Purple Mountain we decided to find the metro stop next to the hotel. As not everything was in Pin Yin I found it easier just to take a picture rather than try to memorize the characters. One plus to Chinese subways is that each entrance/exit is numbered which makes getting out on the right street a breeze. Some of the stations will dump you out on to as many as 8 different locations depending on the exit.

Jumped in a cab to head up to Purple Mountain, this time we had an illiterate cab driver. The night before the concierge had written out the instructions for us in Chinese to show the cab driver. He looked at the paper and shook his head, then I showed him a picture from my travel book and he brightened pulling into traffic.

Unfortunately we didn’t understand the mountain and the cab driver didn’t understand what we wanted so he pleasantly dropped us off at the foot of the mountain and took off. We looked around and I panicked for a min. Not a single English sign and no big ticket office. Okay this is a big site with more than one HUGE historical attraction so where are all the people? There was a nice couple by the big wooden sign with the layout of the mountain, thanks to Victoria’s nifty guide book we were able to match up characters and point to where we wanted to get to. The one thing I do have down in Chinese is numbers. So after a lot of gestures and the number 20 二十 repeated a half a dozen time we figured out we could take bus 20 up to Sun Yet-Sen’s Memorial.

The bus ride up the hill was another adventure in itself. One sure trick I’ve learned, chant the name of the place you are trying to get to in the poorest Chinese possible (which is no challenge) and when you get to the right stop half the bus is happy enough to kick you off. We finally made it to the top and found our way to the clearly marked ticket office. We purchased the full park pass but were unable to figure out where to catch the shuttle between sites.

The first stop was the Sun Yet-sen Memorial. It was magnificent. Victoria told me the memorial is almost identical to the Memorial in Taiwan.

Entrance to Sun Yet Sen's Memorial

Brief History: Sun Yet-sen is considered to be the Father of China. He is revered and loved by both China Mainland and Taiwan as he was the first official President of China. He was the leader of the Nationalist party prior to the split of Chiang Kai-Shek and the Communist party. He was a great man who was a true visionary for what China could become.

View from the top.

The memorial and view was breathtaking, both visually and physically after the hike up the stairs. The hike provided plenty of time for a history lesson on the founding of China and the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty. After China I think I’ll just laugh at a StairMaster. As they love to say in China, “It’s good for your health”. They use that line as an excuse for just about everything, especially their lack of elevators and love for long walks UP stairs.

Memorial Room

As we entered the Coffin Chamber there was a guard reminding visitors to be quite. This was the first place I’ve been in China that has requested reverence. It was a beautiful tomb. (I was not able to take a picture at the tomb, this is a postcard) Victoria said it was the complete opposite of Mao Zedong’s tomb in Beijing years ago.

Field Trip!

On our way back down from the Tomb we came across school groups on their way up. Of course I had to take pictures, it is only fair right. I was asked to be in two photos on the way down. Oh the stardom of being a foreigner in China. After a small rant of having your picture taken oh so obviously by Chinese Victoria reminded me that I too take pictures of Chinese to catalogue my trip and they are just doing the same. Okay so then I felt bad and had to agree.

The grounds were just so peacful.

Just didn't really fit the overall mood in my opinion.

We contemplated walking to the next area of the mountain but as we could not accurately judge the distance we finally just decided to find the shuttle. It is horribly convenient speaking English because really there is always a student who can muddle through directions. We found a group of school girls who helped us locate the shuttle, which turned out to be a tram. Victoria and I think someone here visited Disneyland. What do you think?

Bought my Chinese Christmas tree ornaments.

Designed by an American as a memorial.

Climbed to the top of the 8-story Pagoda. I had debated whether to go all the way up and boy am I glad I did, I’d  hate to lose face with the elderly man with a cane coming down the top flight. The view from the top story was well worth the work out. Some of the leaves were beginning to turn purple. I wish the view of Nanjing was clearer but that is too much to ask in any Chinese city it seems.

View from the top of the Pagoda looking down on the entrance.

Temple Courtyard

Visited the Buddhist temple. The temple was moved to the present location to make way for  a tomb. There are three major tombs on Purple mountain dating back to the Ming. Learned more about Buddhism.

Last stop on the Mountain was the Ming Tomb Complex. We took the tram from the Temple. We were not informed that the tram dropped us off at the end of the complex. Half way through the self tour we figured out we were going through the complex backward. We just assumed the DIY tour book was horribly organized, whoops.

We started at the final stage of the tomb. This is the Entrance into the burial section.

Further down the processional. It was one long complex with numberous buildings along the way. Each held significance in the funeral process ensuring a prosperous afterlife for the decesased emperor.

Another stop along the way, China is a very hands on country regardless of what the signs say.

The final Gate House before the Burial Mound. You just got to love the incomplete guide book. If a half constructed picture in the guide book does scream replica I don't know what does.

The book said they don't clean the walls because the grim gives the "ruins" an ancient feeling.

Thr burial mound, There was a path leading up to the top. I couldn't help but think of the burial mounds from the Lord of the Rings, the first book not the movies.

 

Remember this is backwards... This is the end of the Sacared path before you reach the tomb complex.

After touring the complex backwards we stumbled into the back door of the museum and proceed through the exhibits backwards, no joke. So the Ming Tomb was great backwards. Hint for park transportation, drop non Chinese guests off at the front!!  or at least have clearly marked signs reading EXIT at the drop off point.

We caught the bus into town and were able to find a metro stop back to the hotel. We crashed for an hour and then headed out to find a restaurant that served the local speciality, Nanjing Duck. Turns out the local speciality is hard to find unless you want the flash freeze foil take home. Our hotel provided the flash freeze take home version but did not provide a meal, go figure. We ended up settling for chicken wings and breaded pork. We were both pleased with our stay in Nanjing. We were able to see everything on our list with time to spare. I was so excited to have extra time in Shanghai!

Okay the only way I’m actually going to get everything posted is if I take it a day at a time. Please remember I am printing my blog as my scrapbook/journal for the year so please feel free to just skim through and look at photos. I know I get long winded so you’ve been warned. 

We left Victoria’s at 6:00am to catch our flight. She had arranged for a cab to pick us up and he was waiting just out side the building. When we got to the airport we found our ticket counter and were thrilled at the short lines, then out of nowhere a Chinese tour group saddles up next to us and we realize the first customer in line is the tour guide who is getting tickets individually for each member. Needless to say all the foreigners in line were ticked, there was a group of Russians in front of us.  After a few min a kind Chinese women tapped us on the shoulder and pointed to the other side of the counter to open lines. Thank you, check-in was a breeze from there.

Plane Food! and in China wet-naps get handed out at every meal.

The great thing about airports is the fact that check-in is pretty universal. You just hand the person your reservation and your passport, when they point to you bags you shake your head and make a carry-on motion and you are good to go. All relevant information is in numbers and letters and tickets are bilingual with English as the second language. The flight to Nanjing was only an hour and they gave you an entire package of crackers with a beverage. Do they even serve snacks on 1hour flights in the US?

Quick history Lesson:

• Nanjing literally means ‘Southern Capital’. It plays a prominent role in Chinese history as the seat of many of the dynasties. Beijing was actually only established as the main capital for the last two Dynasties, Ming and Qing. Nanjing as the power house of Ancient China became the headquarters for many of the riots and revolutions that have taken place in the last two hundred years. Many of the sites we visited reflected these historical ties. With Victoria as my guide I got a walk through of Chinese history as we visited each site.

Took a bus into the city easy enough. Most people have a background in English and with a combination of horrible Chinese, basic English and exaggerated hand motions things are fairly simple to figure out. Having all our reservations in Chinese was helpful too of course. Once at the hotel we asked directions to the first site and hopped on the bus hoping for the best.

Map of Nanjing, I'm pretty proud of myself for getting around with only a Chinese map!

We started with the Heavenly Palace also known as the Presidential Place in later years. It was a large complex with few English signs, and those were sent through google translate it seems. (not to diss google, Dad can attest how much I’ve come to love Google, but really you can NOT just translate Chinese word for word it just DOESN’T make any sense.)

Originally built as two successive ducal palaces in the early Ming Dynasty. It really saw its hay day as the headquarters for the Taiping Rebellion in the late 1800’s, Sun Yet-Sen was sworn in as President in the Early 1900’s and finally as the headquarters for the Chiang Kai-Shek and the Nationalist Party before fleeing to Taiwan.

The Chinese love models! So here is the first model of the trip. The Heavenly Kingdom Palace

The decorations throughout the rooms were phenomenal.

The Gardens were beautiful, I have fallen in love with the moon gates

the gardens were extensive so this is one pavilion of many throughout

The ancestor worship hall within the complex

More gardens

A modern picture of Sun Yet-Sen and the Nationalists

Chiang Kai-Shek's office

Next we took the bus to the South Gate. It was huge, well preserved and unlike most of the historical sites in China, original. Built in 1368-1386 by the first Ming Emperor Hongwu, it was the most extensive in the world at the time. (DK-China)

 okay can you tell what college drilled into me? Mom how do you site a guide book?

Zhonghua Gate -  On the south side of Nanjing, this is the city side of the Gate complex.

 

Side view of the Gate complex, there is a ramp on the side that leads to the Gate house area on the very top.View from the entrance

Ramp to the Gate house. Got to love the Cheesy Soldiers.

View from the top of the inner stairs looking towards the city

Some of the blocks contain the signatures of the brick maker and crew with the date.

View of the city wall extending out from the Gate

We decided to risk the walk to the Temple and set out with our Chinese map to find the Confucius Temple. Originally built in 1045 it was the seat of Confucius teaching the area for hundreds of years. Rebuilt in the 1900’s.

The entrance to the walking street on which the Temple was located. We just stumbled across it.

It was a pleasant walk and to be perfectly honest we just lucked out in finding it because I took a turn and was lost on the map for a second. The temple was tucked away down walking streets.

The Fuzi Miao Temple

Burning Incense in the temple courtyard

The stone inlay was spectacular. They represented various stages in Confucius Life.

Scenes of Confucius Life, all in stone

The dragons were my favorite

one of the many structures with in the temple compound

 

Prayer tree in front of the temple.

Market Stalls around the temple, great finds!

Went shopping in the market stalls. Found some beautiful fans, wasn’t sure if I really like the first few so I decided to wait, yeah should’ve gone back but oh well. I did find my NANJING piece of jewelry though. A beautiful jade pendent. (I collect a piece of Jewelry from each city I visit. Light weight non dusty collecting souvenirs, that are functional and bring back memories each time I wear them.)

China towns look like Chinatowns in the states!

 

A good taco pot-sticker! Yumm.

I have to admit I was dissapointed in the lack of enthusiasum by the person who lit this monument.

 We walked back to the South Gate hoping it would be all lit up in true Chinese fashion (aka completely tacky) but were disappointed to find it rather dull. I had the map and was the designated navigator. I still say according to the map the closer metro was to head south for what looked like three blocks. Well China maps seem to say one thing when reality says another. We ended up along a shady street that just made the wrong side of the tracks look pleasant. Finally we saw a metro sign but couldn’t find the entrance when we asked the shop keeper about the metro we just got confused looks. So when all else fails hail a cab and hand over the hotel business card!

Now for the part, a cab driver with a bad optometrist! He couldn’t read the business card, he even held his lighter up to it before finally giving up and asking a teenager on the sidewalk to read it to him. We did make it back to our hotel and turned in for an early morning!

Well I’m on my way. I’ve made it to Qingdao and tomorrow morning bright and early Victoria and I will head to Nanjing.

This is my first official sightseeing trip in China and couldn’t have chosen a better travel companion. I met Victoria my first Sunday at church and hit it off then. She is a world traveler and taught AP Art History before coming to China. Let me just say it, she is my idol. Together we plan to hit all the worth while spots in Nanjing and Shanghai, namely the museums and architectural must sees.

The itinerary is as follows:

Fly from Qingdao to Nanjing: early Wednesday morning

Stay in Nanjing through Friday Morning

Take the train from Nanjing to Shanghai: Friday morning

Stay in Shanghai through Sunday afternoon

Fly from Shanghai to Qingdao: Sunday afternoon

Catch the late train home to Weifang Sunday evening.

I promise to post pictures as soon as possible so Monday morning my time, Sunday afternoon Cali time.

Wendy had a lunch at her house for three students who had helped her correct some tests she kindly invited me along to join them.

Peter, our fabulous cook.

Peter cooked the entire meal which was to die for. We ate in true Chinese fashion, family style with no plates. Everyone has their chopsticks and you just dig into the bowls. Peter loves to cook and with his skills I know why.

Chinese food is growing on me!

The conversation was a mixture of Chinese and English. Wendy encouraged the English conversation as all three students were second year English Majors.

As we were walking into their apartment complex the guard stopped us and asked who we were visiting. Wendy explained she lived there and we were all her guests. Wendy suspected I raised their curiosity as I was probably the first foreigner to come to the complex. On our way out the guard asked where I was from.