Last night, we went to this American sports bar called Windows Scoreboard, and it was very similar to Pyro Pizza in Beijing, replacing pizza with hamburgers.  It ended up being a pretty crazy night—after indulging in burgers, fries, and cheap drinks, we went to a bar called M2 that was in that Plaza 66 place we had found that same day, on the top floor.  It’s one of the hot spots in Shanghai apparently, and that night was no exception.  We did manage to go on the night they had booked a transvestite singer/dancer, so that was fun too (thanks Pride week! …).  We made it home by a reasonable hour, and I had fun hanging out with XiaoXia again.

This morning was the second part of Dr. Greenspan’s lectures, and it was not nearly as interesting as yesterday’s.  This part was all about the little nooks and crannies of Shanghai, which was interesting, but I don’t think I’ve ever had a tougher time staying awake through a lecture before in my life.  Everyone in the class felt the same way.  We still had some interesting discussion, and I got to see a darker side of Shanghai, the “developing country” aspect of it that hasn’t been glossed over by the glory and futurism of Pudong.  Hopefully the World Expo 2010 will do to Shanghai what the 2008 Olympics did to Beijing, as far as modernizing the entire city.

After lunch, we went to the tallest building in Shanghai, the tallest building in China, and the world’s tallest habitable floor/observatory—the Shanghai World Financial Center in the Pudong district.  It was incredible.  We bought the high roller tickets, meaning we got to go as high as they let people, almost ¾ mile above ground—the 100^th floor.  The view was absolutely absurd, and they definitely did the trip with style.  The elevator we took (of the 91 in the building) went straight from floor -3 (they don’t really do B1, B2, … here) to floor 97.  In about 20 seconds.  Suck it, Towers elevators.  We frolicked up here for a good while—the only disappointing part about this event was the air quality—not clear enough to get a really good view of Shanghai, but definitely good enough to see the Pudong side (and get some great pictures!).

We went to a big commercial shopping mall in Puxi after this, and had a great lunch—my first experience with hot pot, which turned out to be incredible.  I had veal, and cooked it myself (in hot pot style), and it was delicious.  I also discovered a new love for peanut sauce.  I’m sure I’ve had it before but not by choice, and I pretty much covered all my food at this meal in it.  Mmm…

Our intention for the evening was to walk up the Bund to check out the French architecture and the scenic views of the river, but because of all the construction and cleaning of the river they’re doing, the Bund was almost completely sightless.  So as everyone else headed back to campus as the sun was setting, Zach, Yeong, and I went back across the river to Pudong to check out the Oriental Pearl—the first of Pudong’s futuristic sights, and the tallest building in the city for a long time (until the Jinmao tower and now, the SWFC).  Night conditions were much better for sightseeing and picture taking, and when we found the glass-bottomed observatory we all almost peed ourselves.  Zach had an extreme fear of heights but he conquered it and we all probably acted pretty gay jumping around, 360m above ground, with nothing between us but a piece of clear plastic.  Pretty cool.  This was probably the best part of the trip, if only because we a.) planned it ourselves, b.) exercised group management (more than 4 people = major hassle), and c.) everything worked out really well.  Thanks to Yeong for spotting me the money to go up!

I learned how to spell Xi’an today in Chinese characters (??), and what it means—Western Peace.  I’m starting to recognize and read the most basic of characters, and recognize the individual parts of the really complex characters to associate things with them.  Learning the written language will be a long, long journey…

Today was a short day so that we could get enough sleep to be alive tomorrow morning at 5:30am when we leave for Shanghai.  We went to the Xi’an History Museum in the morning, which was interesting, but I didn’t stick with the tour guide, so read all the English labels there were and then waited for everyone else to finish (with the rest of the uninterested people).  Lunch was paid for again (thanks Professor Liu and the Global Summer Fellowship!), and I had the most delicious vegetable dumplings—they had basil in them, a first for me in China, and reminded me of pesto sauce, a favorite of mine.

After lunch, we did a quick visit to the ancient city walls of Xi’an, and then back to the hotel.  We had all made big plans to go out tonight and stay out until our flight in the morning, but Professor Liu seemed pretty insistent that we stay in.  I definitely stayed in, but I napped all afternoon so I still stayed up pretty late.  At sunset, I found a way to climb onto the top roof of our 11 story hotel (of course).  This was probably the scariest climb I’ve ever attempted—I got really freaked out, but am very proud of myself that I managed to get over my self doubts and make it to the top without hurting myself (too badly).  The view was incredible—see the pictures below.

All in all, I very much enjoyed Xi’an, but 3 days was the perfect amount of time.  I liked being in Beijing because even in 2 weeks I started to get a feel for the area and a glimpse of what living there would be like, and I felt a little bit of ownership of the campus.  I barely have a mental image of what Xi’an’s geography looks like, which is not normal for me.  I’ll be in Shanghai for 3 weeks, so I’m sure I’ll get a good feel for things there, even though I’ll be living in three different places while I’m there.

My least favorite thing about this leg of the trip I’d have to say was the tour guide.  Not the man himself—he was great, telling jokes and asking quizzes, and seemed to know his stuff really well.  I just hate the act of being a tourist.  Granted, we didn’t have matching hats or a big flag or anything, but I don’t like being ushered around anywhere by someone telling me why I should thing this place is important.  I’m sure it was necessary, and made things much much easier on our professor.

Bedtime now, 5am is sooner than I’d like it to be… see you in Shanghai!

First morning in Xi’an-Professor Liu brought us bananas, so that was definitely a plus.  Things are just as cheap here (if not cheaper?), which is also a plus.  We don’t have a good water boiler here, or a fridge-two things we were given at Bei Da-so I went last night to stock up on water.  Three 1.5L and two 20oz bottles of water cost me a grand total of 7.60rmb, about $1.15 US.  All the sugary and starchy snack foods are so good too, and there’s SO MUCH ice cream.  Eating this crap on top of stuffing myself every meal, I’ll need an extra seat on the plane in order to get home.

We got to sleep in a little bit this morning-around 10:30am, we left to go meet up with a bunch of English-speaking Chinese students from Shaanxi (where we’re staying) to have the next of our “issue discussion” sessions.  There were about 10 students this time, and they all had the same major-teaching Chinese as a second language (in English speaking countries).  They were very interesting, and were overall very talkative.  There was one guy in particular, a recent grad school graduate, whose English was very good, and he asked us a lot of questions just as controversial as the questions we were asking him.  We asked about how their government officials got elected, he asked about the Iraq War.  Then he asked about gays in America, and we asked about gays in China.  Though he denied it vehemently, we all suspected that he himself was a closeted homosexual, and some of the girls got to know him well (every girl wants the gay friend, even internationally apparently).

After the discussion and lunch, we went to downtown Xi’an, a bustling metropolis, where there’s lots of “real history” as our tour guide liked to put it.  Remember a few days ago, when I was so bummed that the Drum and Bell Towers in Beijing were closed?  They have Drum and Bell Towers in Xi’an too!  Not as tall, but they were open, and we went in and climbed up.  Each tower had a drum show or bell show (respectively) that we got to watch (drum show was better), and they gave us a good view of the surrounding area.  Xi’an is in the process of building a subway system (part of the Y4 trillion stimulus package), so there was a lot of construction going on.  I imagine that’s pretty much the norm everywhere I’ll go in China.

Last item on the agenda for the day was the Muslim sector of Xi’an, featuring the Muslim Market and the Great Mosque.  The market was pretty much just like all of the other markets we had been to, except none of the street vendors were selling pork.  The Muslim people there for the most part weren’t Chinese, but just lived there, and probably had for a while.  While we were there, the skies opened-fortunately, I didn’t have my big camera bag and did happen to bring my rain coat, so all was well.  We ate some of Xi’an’s famous dumplings for dinner, along with tofu noodles and fresh vegetables (and they were delicious-pray I don’t get sick!).  We didn’t make it in the Mosque, but it was nice to look at.  Most of the group got pretty sullen and moody when they got wet, so we just went back to campus at that point (it was pretty late) and called it a night.  Only 2 more days here…

Not really—I’ve loved Beijing a lot. Today’s our last full day in Beijing, and we’ve had the day mostly to ourselves. This morning, we presented our finals in Chinese class—ours was awful, we were all tripping all over our words, and I think we completely butchered the language beyond recognition, but hey—it’s done. I’m officially fluent (in my own little world). The advanced groups’ skits were really impressive, and made me want to take Chinese more (though I looked, and it definitely won’t fit into my schedule for next year).

For our free time, I really wanted to go to the Houhai Lake district to see the sights there. Just north of the Forbidden City, there’s this manmade lake that’s a hotspot for its traditional and modern sights. All along the skinny side of the lake, there is bar after bar that tried to get us to come in. It’s definitely what I’ve been told is the bar hotspot in Beijing, and we could tell, even at 5pm. There didn’t seem to be many places to dance in the immediate vicinity though. The main reason I wanted to go here though was to see the Drum and Bell towers there—these two big buildings that definitely stand out above all the single-story buildings in the vicinity. The Drum Tower is talker, but the Bell tower apparently has one of the largest bells in China. Either way, they were both closed by the time we got there, which was highly disappointing. So instead of climbing those, my roommate Eamon haggled with the rickshaw manager to get us a 40 minute rickshaw tour of the hutongs (traditional housing complexes and alleyways) for only Y80 (~$12) for all 3 of us. It wasn’t incredibly interesting—I didn’t even really know what we were looking at—but Eamon really liked it and it was nice and relaxing.

After the rickshaw tour, it was getting close to sunset so we booked it over to Tiananmen Square (after stopping through Houhai lake to check out the bar street), and made it just in time. There were hundreds more people here for the flag lowering ceremony than there were for the flag raising ceremony, which I guess makes sense. Again, we didn’t go inside the square, but this time only because the view would have been horrible (I remembered my passport though!). We watched from the gate of the Forbidden City, and it turned out great. We met up with Yeong there after the ceremony, went back to the Chinese National Opera House to get some pictures of the sun setting (the wind was blowing, so the reflection didn’t show up this time), and made the long, long trek back to campus (3 subway transfers and probably a total of 1.5 miles walking). They’re working on a subway line that literally has a stop at Bei Da’s front door, but it won’t be finished for 2 more years.

Last night in Beijing—tonight’s probably going to be ridiculous. I don’t think anyone really knows what we’re doing yet but it should be a good time. Let’s hope I make my flight this time.

Today was the 20^th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square incident, and it turns out the rest of the world cares way more than the Chinese people do.  My roommate and I woke up at 4am this morning to make it to Tiananmen Square by sunrise at 4:47am to see the Red Army Guard raise the Chinese flag next to the monument of the People’s Heroes.  I expected way more people and way more tension than were actually there.  We were disappointed that the guards wouldn’t actually let us into Tiananmen Square because we didn’t have our passports with us, but we made friends with other passport-less foreigners and watched from across the street, which turned out to be a better view anyways (with my nice 200mm lens!).  After the ceremony, some police came up and questioned us-fortunately, a friend that we made spoke enough Chinese to be able to answer their questions.  They yelled at us for not having our passports (apparently it’s the law to carry it on you) and later came back and made us show them the pictures we had taken.  We fortunately didn’t have any pictures of police brutality or anything so they let us go in the end.  Afterwards we walked next door to the National Opera House which was incredibly beautiful.  They designed it to rival the Sydney Opera House, and I think they did a good job.  There was absolutely no wind, which was a downer for the flag raising but worked out perfectly for the water that surrounds the Opera House and gives the perception of an “egg”.  The water completely surrounds the theater-the entrances are all below ground.

This morning was our last actual day of Chinese class-we learned how to ask for internet and hot water in a hotel room.  It’s been really great learning, our teacher Joyce has been incredible, and I’m absolutely not looking forward to our “final exam” tomorrow.  We have to do a skit with all of the students in our class-5 people total-using all of the vocab and expressions we’ve learned the past eight classes.  We’re doing a “Wizard of Oz” skit, with our one girl (Summer) being Dorothy, and everyone else being the other characters (I’m the Tin Man, trying to exchange money at a bank.  Somehow that’s similar to finding a heart?).  With very limited time and expertise, I think our play’s pretty solid.  Now to memorizing the lines…

This afternoon we went to 798 Art Village, quite possibly the trendiest and most liberal part of Beijing.  It’s this small district centered around 798 Street where all of the contemporary artists in Beijing hang out and do… art.  Everything is incredibly accessible and public, and it’s a major difference from most Chinese art we’ve encountered so far.  There are tons of sculptures all over the place, and really beautiful wall art (the less cultured would call it “graffiti”).  I spent about 30 minutes taking 77 pictures of a long wall covered in graffiti-the panorama stitch turned out great.  Zach and I roamed around, taking pictures mimicking the statues, and made friends with a kitten.

The end of the day was spent at the theater-we went to go see an acrobat show, like the ones that travel the states.  The theater was pretty shoddy but the performers were breathtaking-everything you could imagine that a body can do, and some things you couldn’t imagine.  Now, we have to polish up our play for tomorrow and start memorizing lines… wish me luck!

I’ve been rationing myself, now that I’m reduced to the $100 US (almost Y700) that I got changed out after I lost my wallet. It’s been good, because it’s been incredibly easy to resist the urge to buy unnecessary things (everything) at the markets, though I’m sure I’ll splurge once I get to Shanghai and get my ATM card back. God bless Visa, they’re really wonderful people, and I don’t ever pay them anything! It’s great. I’m finding it incredibly manageable to keep my spending down, as meals are at most Y30 and at the cheapest ~Y5. Subway fares are Y2, regardless of how far you travel, and taxis are cheap enough when you split them 4 ways. I hear that Xi’an is the last place where things are super cheap though-our professor keeps saying that Shanghai is going to be much more expensive than Beijing or Xi’an. I’ll just have to trust my high school friend Xiaoxia to take me to all the cheap places and bargain for me.

After class, we walked back over to Zhongguancun, the “Computer City”, to the Aigo headquarters. Aigo is the largest Chinese manufacturer of portable electronics, and now they produce media players, ultra-portable PCs, voice recorders, GPS machines, media cards, etc. Professor Liu set up a tour for us of the facility with the assistant to the president and CEO, and it was very very interesting. She gave us a history of the company, and took us to the product room where we could demo some of the products. Professor Liu kept insisting that I should try to get an internship there, that it would be perfect for me-It did seem like a very cool place to work, so I took one of the CEO’s assistants cards. I do plan on gapping a year before grad school (if I get in), so who knows-maybe an internship in Beijing would be great for that.

After Aigo we went to the new Summer Palace, which was awesome. Another example of spending too little time at somewhere really cool, but it was necessitated by hours of operation this time. The first part of the palace is quite a climb to the top, but the entire climb is developed (1800s style), and there are beautiful ponds and rock faces that you can (illegally) climb while your professor yells at you. There was one rock face that lead right up to the walls of this closed off tower, so of course I hopped over (you’d think I’d learn) and my friend Chavon came with me. The place inside was very clearly well visited, but wasn’t lit at all. There were two staircases leading down into nothingness that really freaked me out. The rest of the palace was beautiful though-there was a statue and temple to the Buddhist god Shiva at the top of the complex, overlooking a man-made lake apparently in the shape of a peach. The greatest part about the trip is that by the time we got to the top, the park had technically closed, but they kept it open just for us.The place was absolutely empty, so we did our worst taking pictures and being rambunctious, like any self-respecting American in a foreign country should.

We were supposed to have “reflection night” again tonight, but our professor decided to push it back to this coming Saturday before our flight to Xi’an. I’m kind of relieved; it’s been an exhausting day.

Today was a pretty standard day– Chinese class in the morning, speaker in the afternoon, time off in the late afternoon (SOOO needed!), and– highlight of the day– the Beijing Olympic Park in the evening. This was day 6 of Chinese class, meaning I’m officially 2/3 fluent in the language, and I have to say it’s a pretty good feeling. I’m still confused why I don’t understand a lot of what people are saying– I’m just assuming that all the practical stuff I learn in the last third of the class. Professor Liu keeps asking me if I’m going to take Chinese at Vandy when I get back– I’d love to take it, because the language is freaking awesome (except the whole thousands of characters to memorize thing), but I’m already at 18 hours for the next two semesters, and even auditing the class would cost about $1000 for each of the 5 credits the class would require. We’ll see how it works out.

The speaker this afternoon was really interesting– she’s an Econ professor at a local university, and spoke really good English which made it easy to pay attention. She did, however, lecture for the large majority 90 minutes– something I don’t miss about life at Vandy. The most interesting aspect was her analysis of China’s ¥4 trillion economic stimulus package, much like the US’s stimulus package. She went into the details, how the money was being broken down, and how China’s stimulus was different than the US’s (mostly, China’s stimulus is going to the people while the US’s stimulus is going to the big corporations. Thanks GM!). A large chunk of the money is going to finish Beijing’s MASSIVE subway building– they’re in the process of over doubling their subway rails. There’s already 3 million people that ride the subway every day. There’s a lot of people here.

The coolest thing of the evening was definitely the Olympic Park. We took the subway there, and got there with just enough time to see all the buildings with all the lights on in full glow. The Bird’s Nest, Water Cube, and broadcasting tower were beautiful displays of every color imaginable, and it was definitely way more impressive in person than on TV. Of course, I took lots of pictures for your entertainment below. I’d have taken more, especially of a fair lit up across the lake, but the lights started turning off and our professor rushed us out of there pretty quickly.

On my way home, I stopped back by Wudaokou, where I ran into Adam Dekich, a friend from high school, the other day. We hung out, ate some lamb, and I walked back to campus (almost 2 miles). My legs are beginning to hate me, but I guess that’s a good thing? Still loving it here.

While I’m sure it wouldn’t surprise you to hear that we’re all playing spin the bottle and making out with each other in closets, that’s not what’s happening here.  Today we did a nice tour of downtown Beijing, seeing the Forbidden City, Tian’anmen Square, and the Temple of Heaven.  After a rough start to the tour in Forbidden City with the whole “Vandy Pause” situation (let’s walk at a crawling pace and spend half our time standing still) we eventually were able to split up a little bit and move more quickly through the place.  It was incredibly beautiful, and even more incredible to think about the place as the Emperor’s guarded home.  There were way too many people there though for me to spend time reading about each building or to check out every exhibit—I have a tough time being the tourist with the big-ass camera AND the headphones guided tour (just the camera is bad enough).  We ate lunch right inside the gate of the Forbidden City, and I don’t think I’ve ever had to pee as badly as I did at this moment.  There were no bathrooms without going outside of the gate, a gate which about 300 people walk through every minute—there was no chance of finding my group  if I had left.  The bathroom turned out to be about 300m away anyways, so it was good I didn’t go looking for it myself.

Tiananmen Square was just what I expected.  We took sexual photos with the obelisk monument in the middle of the plaza—yes, we were those guys.  We almost lost my roommate, Eamon, here—he’s always running off to take pictures or something, maybe he sees something shiny, who knows.  He’s really quite a character, but it was no surprise to us when we started to leave and he wasn’t with us.  He came back to us though, and we moved on with our day.

Temple of Heaven was next, and we spent a very efficient 60 minutes here, the first time on the trip I’ve felt like we didn’t spend enough time somewhere.  Zach and I managed to break away from the big group and wander around—it was absolutely beautiful (as you can see).  Apparently, Friday is senior citizen day and the place was crawling with them.  There were about 4 impromptu choirs (with 4-part harmonies), karaoke, knitting, and card playing going on.  There was even a little bit of a jam sesh happening.  The biggest kicker was that we were given 60 minutes, and Zach and I were back at the meeting spot one minute early—everyone else (including the 3 teachers!) strolled up 20 minutes late.  So much for being responsible.

The rest of this post is going to be dedicated to Pyro Pizza.  This place is in the same Wudaokou place that we went dancing before, right next to Propaganda actually.  You walk down a flight of stairs and it’s like you’ve entered an American frat house.  They’ve got Pi Rho banners everywhere, “Wudaokou University” flags (not a real university), and they serve incredible pizza and beer by the pitcher.  Last night was a beer pong tournament, and it turned out to be a lot of fun.  It was slow getting started but by the end of the night there was lots of people (mostly white) playing, it got pretty crazy.  While we were waiting for the intensity to pick up, we played some games with the manager of the club and his friend, and we played flip cup.  These guys have a really good life.  After getting eliminated in the first round, Zach and I walked back and got ready for today.  People are talking about going out tonight—I don’t think I’ll make it. 

Today, we went to the Old Summer Palace, which was recently redone (the New Old Summer Palace?) which is conveniently in the backyard of our campus at PKU.  I won’t bore you with the details here-lots of pretty paths and buildings and lakes.  There was a zodiac museum-all those of the Dragon (1988, fo sho) had a good bonding moment around our statue.  It gave us power.

I’ve still managed to avoid American food for the most part, and I’m absolutely loving the food here.  I have no idea what I’m eating for the most part, or how healthy (or not) it is, but who asks questions when you’re in another country?  We’ve determined that 90% of the meat we’re eating isn’t what we’re being told, and I’m totally OK with that.

Because the dorm we’re staying in is the international students dorm, we’re running in to way more Americans than I had expected, which is awesome.  There’s a crew here from UMadison studying feng shui (donchya knooooow), a group from Illinois Wesleyean studying history, and some kids from Stanford finishing up their Spring term here.  Plan to party soon.

We talked this afternoon with a few Chinese PKU students that speak English.  The conversation quickly degenerated into girltalk about relationships and dating, but it was interesting for the most part.  They’ve been studying English for 10 years and it was still somewhat broken-I feel like learning a foreign language is such a commitment, I can’t even imagine being fluent in anything other than English.  Maybe if I live in China, that’ll change…

First night in China was a success, I can say.  We all went out to the bars and when we discovered that the cabs won’t let you sit in laps, my roommate Eamon and I decided to walk (run) to the bars instead.  Of course, we had no idea where we were going and ended up getting ice cream at KFC instead.  There are no fewer than 5 KFCs that I could hit with a rock from our hotel at Beijing University.

At 9:30 this morning, we piled into a bus and drove out to the Great Wall of China.  I guess it’s good that we’re putting our tourist caps on quickly.  We do only have 2 weeks here and there’s a lot to do in Beijing.  Anyways, the 30 minute drive there was great, lots of fun times reminiscing about Nickelodeon (what an ice breaker) and checking out lots of par and sub-par walls along the way.

The Great Wall itself was really what I had imagined, but the feeling of being there on a 1,000+ year old structure was really incredible.  I expect to feel a lot of that while I’m here.  I couldn’t stop thinking about Mulan and the Mongolians too.  It’s a good thing they never made it in to Beijing.

The wall kicked my out-of-shape butt, too.   Prof. Liu told us that there were some 600 steps up to the top, but I’m not sure if that was just to the beginning of the wall or in total.  All in all, I think we walked about a mile’s worth of stairs, and I’m definitely feeling it now.

The biggest surprise to me about the Great Wall was how dang commercial it was!  There were hundreds of vendors selling all of the same stuff, and it was really overwhelming.  I felt fortunate that I escaped having only bought one thing-others among us where not so lucky.  I have a very hard time turning down the street vendors too.  They scared us good about what’s good to eat and what’s bad to eat and street vendors pretty regularly show up on the “bad to eat” category, though I’m sure I’ll break down some point really soon.

After an afternoon nap and dinner at a nearby restaurant (ordering food is way way way too complicated), we were all too tired to go out so we called it an early night.  Gotta get ready for 8:30 class in the morning!