Okay, I am finally going to continue my China trip journal before I forget everything! So, as I said before, we FINALLY landed in Guilin and met Ping, our tour guide there. However, she was WAY too ADD and excited to ever go through such formalities as introducing herself, so we were never completely sure of her name! More on that later.
On the way to the hotel from the airport, Ping told us ALL kinds of stuff about Guilin, and we FINALLY knew the answers to a Chinese person’s pop quizzes! Yay! Our tours were paying off! Ping is a minority in China, which is pretty rare, considering only 8% of Chinese people are not of Han ethnicity. In this 8%, there are 56 different minorities! On the way to the hotel we learned the customs of a few of the “major” minorities, and they were really interesting. They also helped us with our minority show we went to later on!
We got to the hotel very late and were EXHAUSTED. It was a nice hotel, as it was on a lake with lots of nature around it. Then again, that shouldn’t be too surprising, since Guilin is like the land of nature! Oh, for those who don’t know anything about Guilin, I will tell you random facts! Guilin is in the south of China. It has a population of about 670,000 people. “Guilin” means “forest of Sweet Osmanthus,” which is a type of tree that is ALL OVER Guilin, apparently, but we weren’t there at the right time to see them in bloom. Guilin is incredibly famous for their nature. It has been seen in countless paintings and films. The people there are soooooooooo much different from people in the big cities, as Cindy and I are convinced they are all high the whole time! It totally reminded me of Eugene! Everyone is SO laidback and doesn’t care about anything! It is great! It was really relaxing to be around people like that! Like, people just chill in the park all day long and stuff!
Anyway, we were SUPPOSED to get there in the early afternoon that day, so we were worried that we weren’t going to have enough time to do everything on our itinerary. Fortunately, however, Guilin is teeny and EVERYTHING is like five minutes away! It was crazy! There is also not that much to do, so we were able to cram everything into a day and a not-even-half!
Day 7
We got up early on our first real day in Guilin, had breakfast, then met with Ping and our cool driver (I don’t know why I think our drivers are cool, we never talk to them! But they are!) to drive to the port (is that what you call it?) to go on our river cruise! The Li River is famous, as it is a big river in China and blah blah. Anyway, we were lucky with our timing, as there is barely any water in the river in the winter, let alone this scary global warming winter! So we were there like right before they cut the cruise short for the winter (from five hours to like one or so). Five hours sounds like the LONGEST river cruise in the world, but it was just relaxing and whatever, so the time kinda flew by! Cindy and I were in the rich gaijin area of the boat, as we had our own reserved room at the top that was all nice and warm and had a great view! All of the other cheap bastards were down below and they had to stand on the top in the cold to see everything! Sad! Anyway, in the rich gaijin area was me and Cindy, this random white guy by himself, and the MOST INTRIGUING FAMILY EVER. Oh, and our tour guides, who have the easiest job in the world (they just sat there and talked and enjoyed the heat!).
Anyway, most intriguing family ever! So they were Asian-Europeans, which is always interesting to me because that is way more interesting than Asian-Americans! Haha. Well, the parents were from China, I believe? They lived in Amsterdam, though, and they were there with their daughter and her boyfriend, who is also Asian. Um, they all spoke literally like at LEAST five languages! Like, they would just switch between languages the whole time, it was so crazy! And they were also rich as shit, you could just tell by looking at them! Anyway, I guess you kinda had to be there, but Cindy and I would just sit there and listen in and be amazed by them. I want to spend a day with them and just watch them! Hahaha.
Anyway, Cindy and I were sneaky and had to find a way to find Ping’s name out without asking her, as that would be embarrassing. So Cindy asked her for an emergency contact card in case we needed to call her if we got lost or something, hehe. So, we THINK her name is Ping! :)
The boat cruise was really nice! The area was beautiful, as it was just hills (or “mountains,” depending on your definition of mountains, I guess) for like hours! They were so pretty. And it was really green and relaxing! We would walk outside for pictures, then go back in our great heated room and sit down and relax :) There may have been some river napping involved! Hehe.
During our cruise, we realized that the people of Guilin’s favorite hobby is to stare at rocks and figure out what they look like. In our stay in Guilin we saw a camel rock, a Buddha rock, a thumbs up rock, horses on the rocks, EVERYTHING! Like, they seriously just decided, “Hey, this rock looks like a naninani!” It was amusing.
We also realized that Ping’s favorite saying in the world was “It’s just like dreamland!” Ping had GREAT English, but this was the only incorrect phrase she used, and she used it all the time! EVERYTHING was “just like dreamland” in her mind, it was hilarious! So her nickname is Like Dreamland!
After eating lunch and napping on the boat, we arrived at Yangshuo, which totally looked like Thailand. They were selling ALL kinds of crap and had lots of yummy-looking food! We literally just walked through it on the way to get to our van, but Cindy and I totally would have spent a lot of time eating and shopping there if we were on our own! Perhaps it is best that we didn’t!
We drove back to Guilin from there, which took an hour. Apparently the five-hour long river cruise was exhausting, as Cindy, Ping and I all took naps the entire way! Cindy and I woke up before Ping. Suddenly she opened her eyes a bit and said sleepily, “Time to wake up....for meeeeee!” with a big smile on her face. It was hilarious! I love Guilin people!
Once we got to Guilin, we went to Elephant Trunk Hill, which of course was a big rock/mountain that looked like an elephant! Haha. This is why we were able to do Guilin in like a day, as all you can do there is be like, “Hey, it looks like an elephant!” and then turn around and go somewhere else. And that is what we did! :)
After that we went to Fubo Hill, which is about 700 feet tall. According to Cindy’s blog, half of it stands in the river, and half of it stands on land. Thanks, Cindy! Anyway, Ping left us on our own to climb it. She said it would take about 10-15 minutes each way, but we somehow climbed it, took pictures, and climbed back down in five minutes or less! Ping couldn’t believe it! She asked if we ran to the top and we were like, “Um, NO!” She obviously doesn’t know us! Hehe. Anyway, she then realized that we are the fastest people in the world when it comes to tourist things! Hehe.
We then went to Seven Star Park, which is a big park that also has a zoo. It was a really pretty park. Very relaxing! Oh, I should mention that I swear Ping secretly sells real estate in Guilin, as she constantly was advertising how it is such a great place to live, is beautiful, relaxing, and that we should retire there! I could totally do that, as it is the most chill place ever, but it was funny that she mentioned it every ten seconds! Chinese people are so proud!
Anyway, at the park we wandered around and ended up at the zoo, where my Chinese dream came true! I said I wouldn’t leave China until we saw a panda, and we DID! He was soooooooooooooooooooo cute! He was devouring some carrots when we were there, and apparently it is pretty rare to see him awake, so I was very happy! WOOT! Yay pandas!
It had been like an hour since we saw a rock in the shape of an animal, so we were able to fill our rock-animal craving by seeing a big “camel” there!
We had some free time before our dinner, so Cheap Jeff and Cindy decided to finally take up a tour guide on one of their offers! Guilin is famous for foot massages, as one of the minorities traditionally only showered (I think) three times in their life, but would bathe and massage their feet every day. They live hella long, so I guess it is good for you! Anyway, we went to a BIG five-star foot massage place that was nice! Definitely expensive for China, but totally worth it, as it was nice and clean!
Oh my god, the hour-long foot massage was sooooooooo nice, especially with all of the walking we had been doing for the last week! I wanted a hot boy masseuse, but Ping ordered me a girl, hrmph! Hehe. My masseuse didn’t talk, but Cindy’s asked her like her whole life story in Mandarin, and asked about our relationship! Apparently I can understand some Mandarin, as I totally knew what she was asking about me! Hehe, sneaky Chinese peeps!
Next we went to dinner, which was weird, as it was a Chinese wedding! Like, it was a restaurant, but there was a big wedding party there having dinner. Um, why wouldn’t they reserve the whole place??? There were like five non-wedding tables, and we were one of them! It was strange but amusing. I got WAY more gaijin stares there, as I think people wondered what the hell I was doing at a Chinese wedding!
After dinner we had free time (since we are the fastest tourists in the world), so we walked around the streets of Guilin and just chilled Guilin-style before our minority performance show. That is where we ran into the guy who was on our boat ride for the THIRD time that day. Guilin is teeny!
The minority performance show was fun! Minority performance shows are always fairly sexy, and this one didn’t disappoint! Yay shirtless boys! :) It was nice to understand the significance of costumes and dances and stuff, since Ping had told us about a lot of minorities’ customs, so we knew what it all meant! It would have been entertaining either way, but this way it was a lot more interesting.
After that we went back to our hotel, and walked around the lake there. It was pretty, despite them lighting it totally Asian-style, i.e. you can see it from space! Asians need to learn that more lights aren’t necessarily better! Haha. It was still pretty, though. Then we returned to our hotel room. OH, I forgot to say that our hotel apparently had some love hotel influence, as in the bathroom they had this basket of stuff you could buy? Like, apparently sexy guys briefs, tho they were NOT sexy. They also had male and female “genital wash?” Um, ewww! And other weird sex-related stuff! It was strange!
Another AMUSING fact about Guilin is that they have tons of bridges, all of which are mini replicas of famous bridges around the world! They have a mini Golden Gate Bridge, a mini some-French famous bridge, etc! It was hilarious.
The next day we only had the morning in Guilin, and we spent it at the Reed Flute Cave, which is five kilometers northwest of Guilin (i.e. not far, since nothing is!). There are literally thousands of caves around Guilin, but Reed Flute is famous, as it is VERY large. It also has historical significance, as it has been used as a hideout for local people in times of war. During World War II, it was used as an air raid shelter.
The cave was beautiful, though it had a bit too much artificial lighting for my taste. However, it was still amazing to see. It is pretty sad, but I am too spoiled by like Disneyland and artificial things like that, so it was really difficult for me to realize that it was REAL nature, rather than man-made! Like, the texture of the rocks makes it look really fake, even though it isn’t! Hehe, how depressing. Anyway, it was really pretty.
After that we went to the airport and said our goodbyes to Like Dreamland and our driver. And with that, we were off to Shanghai!
To be continued...man, I am tired of writing this!!!!
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Craving
Oh my god, I have been craving Burrito Boy SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO badly the last few days, I need it RIGHT NOW. Seriously. If anyone is in Eugene, you NEED to go there immediately and eat a chicken wet burrito (with no sour cream) for me. NOW. Sigh......
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Only 48 days...
Only 48 days until my boyo comes! WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE, Eduardo needs to be here RIGHT NOW! 48 days, 48 days, 48 days......
(a picture for no reason!)
(a picture for no reason!)
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Xi'an and Guilin pics are up
I added Xi'an and Guilin pics to my photo site a few days ago, but have been too lazy to mention it. But yeah, if you wanna check 'em out, they are here!
Monday, January 22, 2007
China, Part Two: Xi'an
China, Part Two: Xi’an
Okay, continuing the longest series in the world. I may just crash Blogger’s servers with these!
Day 4- On day 4 we got up at freaking 4:30 in the bloody morning to check out and head to the airport, UGH! Lynn was sweet and gave us boxes of Beijing dried fruit, aww! Plus good for old man Jeff, who is currently way into dried fruit for some reason. We flew into Xi’an Airport and met our new tour guide, Tracy. She was younger than us! She is a college student who is a guide as part-time job. We landed and discovered that Xi’an is like Chinese London, as it is the foggiest place in the ENTIRE WORLD! We had to take a different way to the hotel, as they closed down the freeway due to the fog.
Xi’an was one of the first capitals of China, and was for 13 different dynasties. It is one of the 10 largest cities in China, and was the start of the Silk Road. It is now a college town (it is only behind Beijing and Shanghai in the number of colleges in a single city in China). It had a very different feel compared to Beijing! It felt like a college town, in that it seemed small, and there were a lot of young people. It is weird that it had such a small feel, considering it has a population of 8 million people, but it somehow did. Wherever Tracy went, Chinese people would talk to her and be like, “So you’re speaking English, huh?” Haha. I liked the small-town feel, tho, it was more relaxing than Beijing (and later Shanghai). Plus they have good food, always a plus in my book!
We checked into our hotel, rested for like 30 minutes, then went to lunch, which was probably my favorite tour-provided meal of the whole trip! IT WAS SO GOOD! It was a really nice restaurant (which, it turns out, Tracy’s parents own) and it was SUCH good food. I wanted to have sex with the pepper steak. After lunch, we went to the Bell Tower, which is in the center of the city. I am pretty sure that English people need to stop claiming they invented the round-about, as China has them and they are older! Anyway, it is kind of inconvenient that the Bell Tower is right in the center of downtown, as it slows down the traffic and stuff. But yeah, it was a big bell tower! Haha. We then went to the City Wall, which used to protect the city. It was Christmas Eve, and the guards there were setting up for a HUGE Christmas party that was happening there that night.
We quickly learned a few things about Tracy. First of all, it was obvious that she was still studying English. While we didn’t have too many problems understanding her, hers was the worst of our four tour guides (but not bad by any means). Plus this provided the best entertainment, as there were some WEIRD WORDS THAT SHE USED! First of all, for some reason she doesn’t know the word “clothes” in English (um, shouldn’t she have learned that her first year?) and she calls them “wears!” HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. She also pronounces “hair” as “high-r,” which confused me a lot until she gestured towards her hair while saying it. Thankfully there were lots of places for people to “iron their HIGHR” back in the day, so I got to hear this often and laugh on the inside! Best and most confusing of all, however, is the word “anime,” which she used OFTEN. It is pronounced as animay, and I have NO IDEA what it is supposed to mean. She said it a LOT of times, and each time I would nod my head and be like, “oh, interesting,” while secretly thinking, “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?!” I was hoping that Cindy would know, so I asked her at the end of the day, and she was hoping I knew! SAD! It is till eludes, us, tho we just realized two nights ago that it MAY have been animal. At first we thought it was enemy, but she used it in a lot of contexts which didn’t make sense. I still am not sure what it means, but because of this, Tracy’s nickname became Anime!
After the City Wall, we went to the Shanxi Museum, which is a famous museum, apparently. It was big, and I was really happy to have Tracy there, as we learned soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much more than we would have otherwise. It was actually really fascinating, as it started in the first dynasty, then finished in the fourth. It had a lot of the same items (weapons, art, etc.), so you could see how they developed as time passed. It was really interesting to see, and Tracy’s narration helped! It was also amusing to see her in “I am an important tour guide!” mode, as she would like shove her way in front of other people and not care if they were trying to read something or take a picture, as she wouldn’t move! Haha.
We then went back to the hotel for our OH so important afternoon nap, a staple of any Jeff trip. We were very excited to find that our hotel had BBC World, as it is soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much better than the SHITTY SHITTY CNN International that every other hotel has! I swear CNN International is just made by bored ALTs or something, it is awful. We quickly learned, however, that BBC World is great, but only if you watch it for like 15 minutes, as they repeat the same things over and over. We watched it for like 3 hours at a time and saw the same segments like 10 times! Haha. Oh, well, at least this induced naps, which is always a good thing.
After our naps, we ventured out for Christmas Eve, which we learned is an excuse for a BIG party in China. Our mission was to find a Christmas cake, as that is the thing to eat on Christmas Eve in Asia. We soon found two and had to carry them around for like four hours, hehe. We are devoted to our Christmas cakes!
So, yeah, Christmas Eve was CRAZY CRAZY CRAZY in Xi’an. There were people EVERYWHERE. Christmas Eve appears to be a strange mix of Christmas, Mardi Gras, and New Year’s. People just wandered around aimlessly (as they did on New Years) and wore ridiculous things! People were selling light-up devil horns, strange glowing things, Santa hats, masks, and all kinds of ugly things that people were wearing! There were LOUD fireworks EVERYWHERE. There were lots of couples and young people because of the nearby colleges. There were also hot guys everywhere, HELLO! You could barely even move in some parts, as there were so many people. Thankfully they shut down the streets so that you could wander a little bit, but it was still sooooo crowded. It was fun, tho!
We ended up at another izakaya-type place for dinner, which was yummy, tho they totally ripped us off for being dumb gaijin. It didn’t matter, tho, as it was still cheap. We then wandered the streets and tried all kinds of yummy desserts from street vendors, mmm! We had a fried red thing with kurogoma (black sesame paste) inside, CUTE cupcake-like things on sticks that the lady decorated to whatever you wanted (pictures will be online later), and a mochi thing. Mmm! We then continued walking so that we could have MORE dessert when we got back to our hotel, haha.
When we got back to our hotel we were the biggest losers EVERRRRRRRRR and put on our pajamas, turned up Cindy’s iPod to full volume while playing Christmas music and ate our Christmas cakes! Yes, we are cool. It was fun, tho, and the cakes were only 350 yen each, instead of 3000 yen each like in Japan!
Day 5
Day 5 was Christmas, but didn’t feel like it AT ALL. It was a really good day, tho. Xi’an continued being the foggiest city in the world as we went to the Wild Goose Pagoda. The Pagoda was beautiful! I expected a typical Asian pagoda, but it almost looked Mexican, in that it was all one piece and brown-ish. Anyway, you will see pics of it to see what I mean. It was built in 652 and was made for the storage of the translations of Buddhist sutras that made their way from India on the Silk Road. We learned at the Pagoda that Tracy is the WORST photographer in the ENTIRE WORLD. Not only does she not get the famous things in the background, she barely gets YOU in the damn picture! It was amusing but irritating! Haha.
After the Pagoda, we had planned to go see the terracotta warriors. However, the fog totally messed with our plans! The freeway was closed again due to the fog, so we took back roads there. At first Cindy and I didn’t realize anything was wrong, as we were napping like crazy in the back of the car. However, it became clear that we had been sleeping for a while and we were not moving at all on a nasty old dirt road in the middle of nowhere. The taxi driver got out to see if we would ever move, and he came back and told Tracy, “You guys should walk and get a taxi and I will meet you later!” Tracy’s reaction was PRICELESS! She was like, “HUH?!” She is rich, so I don’t think she fancied the idea too much! However, we didn’t have a choice, as we weren’t going to be moving any time soon. So we got out on the dirt road and walked through ditches and whatnot. It was amusing and I finally felt like I was in China! Hahaha. Looking back, Tracy is really lucky that we aren’t the typical old rich people that go on tours, because I don’t think they would be very amused by walking through mud and stuff. A few times I had to tell myself that I was only walking in mud, but I suspect is may have been something ELSE, if you know what I mean! It was fun, tho, and made a good story! So we walked for 15-20 minutes, tho Tracy, who has lived in Xi’an all her life, got lost on the way and asked a FIVE YEAR OLD BOY for directions! Hmm, perhaps he should be our guide! He wasn’t very talkative (she wasn’t very pleased with that), but his 7 year-old sister was full of information. Haha. We eventually got in front of the traffic jam and took a cab to the winter palace instead.
The winter palace was beautiful! It is outside of Xi’an, and it is where the Emperor (and his concubines) would spend his winters during the Tang Dynasty. It had a lot of hot springs to bathe in and was really natural and relaxing. I kinda wanted to jump in! Unfortunately it was too foggy to see the mountain that was right behind it, but it was still impressive. We were told by Tracy that there was a Romeo and Juliet-type story between the Emperor and one of his concubines, but it was not nearly as romantic, as he had her killed in order to save himself! That is not Romeo and Juliet!
After that the driver met up with us and we went to lunch, which was the typical huge meal. As a bonus we got YUMMY sweet potato things. They have them in Japan, too. They are like long potato sticks that are sticky and hard, as they are covered in a ridiculous amount of sugar. They were SO good! However, they were the hardest things in the world, and were stuck in a huge pile. Jeff MAY have broken his chopsticks while trying to pull them apart! Whoops! The waitresses probably thought I really didn’t know how to use chopsticks ;)
After lunch we went to the terracotta warrior museum! It was amaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazing! First of all, the place is HUGE! As Cindy said, it is like a college campus! They are currently building TONS of spaces for restaurants and shops (I have no idea why they would need as many shops as they are making, but whatever), and there is lots of space, trees, grass, etc. It totally looks like a college!
The terracotta warriors were built to protect the first Emperor of Qin in the afterlife, so they are buried with him. 8100 warriors have been found, and there are MANY left undiscovered (they are still digging for them now). They were built in 246 BC, and it took about 700,000 workers 38 years to complete them!!! They weren’t discovered until 1974, when a farmer was drilling a water well. It is amazing to think that THOUSANDS of them could be underground and that no one knew…and to think of what a difference a farmer made! Anyway, the warriors on display are split into three pits. The first pit is the largest one, with over 6,000 soldiers, chariots and horses that represented the Emperor’s main army. The other two pits are much smaller. The second pit contains cavalry and infantry, and the third pit has high ranking officers.
We went to the first pit first, and it was overwhelming! There are soooooooooooo many warriors, and they were just incredible to see. Along with the Great Wall, it was unbelievable to think what people can make when they put their mind to it (or when they are forced to, hehe). The warriors obviously didn’t survive in pristine condition by any means, so they have been put back together piece by piece. I don’t even want to think how much work that has been! There were some areas where the soldiers were left “as is,” and they were all just teeny pieces! I have no idea how they put them back together!
The warriors were originally painted, but almost all of the paint has been rubbed off by now. There were one or two warriors where you could see like a spot of paint, but that was it. However, I like the way they are now, as they look really natural. The museum was rare for me and Cindy, as we were actually visibly excited in front of our tour guides for once! We were like taking pictures like crazy, and were just excited about the warriors in general. They were awesome! They totally made me want to go to Egypt to continue my “seeing old things” tour of the world, hehe.
One FUNNY story we heard was that last fall a German guy dressed up as a terracotta soldier and JUMPED IN THE PIT and stood as one of them! When people told the guards that someone had jumped in the pit, the guard couldn’t find him! Dude, I would not do that in China, I don’t wanna end up in Commie prison! Apparently he wasn’t arrested, tho, strangely.
After the museum we went to the hotel to nap, then had a traditional dumpling dinner that was sooooooooooooooooo good! Xi’an is famous for their dumplings, as the Emperor LOVED them, so they invented them specially for him. There are 800 types of dumplings in Xi’an! Sadly we didn’t have all 800, but we did have about 15 kinds, including cabbage, azuki (red bean), mushroom, walnut, duck (in the shape of a duck!), pork, chicken, seafood, almond, etc. They were yummy!!!! After the dinner we saw a Tang Dynasty show at the restaurant (it was dinner theatre, but you don’t actually eat while you watch it, so it is like after-dinner theatre, I guess!). Unlike the awful Beijing Opera show, I actually enjoyed the Tang Dynasty show a lot. It was beautiful! The Tang Dynasty was a very peaceful time in Chinese history, and the arts really developed then, so the show was very artsy and pretty. It was also good for ADD people like me and Cindy, as it was fairly long, but comprised of lots of short songs and dances, so if you didn’t like one thing, it would soon be over! Once again Japanese people pissed me off at a show as these two WEIRD WEIRD WEIRD Japanese people (I think a mother and her son) like stole the two extra seats at our table?! Their tour guide “asked” if they could sit there, but there wasn’t much of a choice in our answer! They were freaking WEIRD and did not look very amused to be there. They totally seemed “off” and not like the people who would travel anywhere. I don’t know what was wrong with them! I may have purposely totally sat in the grumpy lady’s way, as I refused to be uncomfortable for some party crashers! Hehe. The people watching at the show was also good, so that is always fun!
After that we went to bed and had a boring Christmas night, as we were tired from the day and had to get up early-ish for the airport the next day!
Day 6
Day 6 was PURE FREAKING DRAMA! Because it had been so foggy the entire time we were in Xi’an, I was a bit worried about the plane being able to take off. We were assured it would be fine, but Tracy thought it would be a good idea to get to the airport early, just in case the freeway was closed again. We got there at like 9 or something like that for our 12:00 flight. Right when we got there we saw that TONS of flights were delayed and canceled from the fog! Um, NOT a good sign. We stood there for a while while Tracy figured out what was going on. We were lucky, as our flight was NOT canceled. We finally checked in and got our tickets, only to see that instead of the 12:00 departure time that SHOULD have been printed on the ticket, it was freaking 18:55!!!!! None of us saw this coming and it was not very cool! So we spent our entire morning and afternoon just sitting around the airport.
First we spent like four hours in a hotel restaurant, then we sat on a gross thing that wasn’t even meant for sitting. We finally went into the departure lobby (after Tracy ignoring us all day long, hahaha) and were getting ready to board our flight, when we went to our gate and our flight wasn’t even listed! We asked and they were like, “I don’t know!” Um! It turned out our flight was even MORE delayed, and it was rumored it might take off at 2 in the morning or so. NOT COOL! After being muy grumpy and hating the world, we FINALLY got to take off at about 8 PM. All in all, we had been at the airport for 11 damn hours at that point! We ran onto the airplane, giddy as school children, and I chose to ignore the fact that you couldn’t even see the lights on the wing due to the fog while we were flying. SCARY!
It was also annoying, as we missed a half a day that should have been spent in Guilin. However, I must admit that I was pleasantly surprised that they were actually delaying and canceling flights, rather than being Asian and like, “Oh, I am sure it’s fine, we’re Asian and everything is safe!” So that was good, in an annoying way.
Anyway, we FINALLY landed in Guilin at about 11 PM, where we met our tour guide Ping. However, we didn’t know her name was Ping until the next day (and we are still not sure!), as she NEVER introduced herself! Hahaha. She was the most ADD girl ever! But she was cool. On the ride to the hotel she never stopped talking! We learned all kinds of things about Guilin, AND for the first time all trip we KNEW THE ANSWERS TO CHINESE POP QUIZZES! Yay! Anyway, we got to the hotel and passed out after a day of frustration! To be continued!
Okay, continuing the longest series in the world. I may just crash Blogger’s servers with these!
Day 4- On day 4 we got up at freaking 4:30 in the bloody morning to check out and head to the airport, UGH! Lynn was sweet and gave us boxes of Beijing dried fruit, aww! Plus good for old man Jeff, who is currently way into dried fruit for some reason. We flew into Xi’an Airport and met our new tour guide, Tracy. She was younger than us! She is a college student who is a guide as part-time job. We landed and discovered that Xi’an is like Chinese London, as it is the foggiest place in the ENTIRE WORLD! We had to take a different way to the hotel, as they closed down the freeway due to the fog.
Xi’an was one of the first capitals of China, and was for 13 different dynasties. It is one of the 10 largest cities in China, and was the start of the Silk Road. It is now a college town (it is only behind Beijing and Shanghai in the number of colleges in a single city in China). It had a very different feel compared to Beijing! It felt like a college town, in that it seemed small, and there were a lot of young people. It is weird that it had such a small feel, considering it has a population of 8 million people, but it somehow did. Wherever Tracy went, Chinese people would talk to her and be like, “So you’re speaking English, huh?” Haha. I liked the small-town feel, tho, it was more relaxing than Beijing (and later Shanghai). Plus they have good food, always a plus in my book!
We checked into our hotel, rested for like 30 minutes, then went to lunch, which was probably my favorite tour-provided meal of the whole trip! IT WAS SO GOOD! It was a really nice restaurant (which, it turns out, Tracy’s parents own) and it was SUCH good food. I wanted to have sex with the pepper steak. After lunch, we went to the Bell Tower, which is in the center of the city. I am pretty sure that English people need to stop claiming they invented the round-about, as China has them and they are older! Anyway, it is kind of inconvenient that the Bell Tower is right in the center of downtown, as it slows down the traffic and stuff. But yeah, it was a big bell tower! Haha. We then went to the City Wall, which used to protect the city. It was Christmas Eve, and the guards there were setting up for a HUGE Christmas party that was happening there that night.
We quickly learned a few things about Tracy. First of all, it was obvious that she was still studying English. While we didn’t have too many problems understanding her, hers was the worst of our four tour guides (but not bad by any means). Plus this provided the best entertainment, as there were some WEIRD WORDS THAT SHE USED! First of all, for some reason she doesn’t know the word “clothes” in English (um, shouldn’t she have learned that her first year?) and she calls them “wears!” HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. She also pronounces “hair” as “high-r,” which confused me a lot until she gestured towards her hair while saying it. Thankfully there were lots of places for people to “iron their HIGHR” back in the day, so I got to hear this often and laugh on the inside! Best and most confusing of all, however, is the word “anime,” which she used OFTEN. It is pronounced as animay, and I have NO IDEA what it is supposed to mean. She said it a LOT of times, and each time I would nod my head and be like, “oh, interesting,” while secretly thinking, “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?!” I was hoping that Cindy would know, so I asked her at the end of the day, and she was hoping I knew! SAD! It is till eludes, us, tho we just realized two nights ago that it MAY have been animal. At first we thought it was enemy, but she used it in a lot of contexts which didn’t make sense. I still am not sure what it means, but because of this, Tracy’s nickname became Anime!
After the City Wall, we went to the Shanxi Museum, which is a famous museum, apparently. It was big, and I was really happy to have Tracy there, as we learned soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much more than we would have otherwise. It was actually really fascinating, as it started in the first dynasty, then finished in the fourth. It had a lot of the same items (weapons, art, etc.), so you could see how they developed as time passed. It was really interesting to see, and Tracy’s narration helped! It was also amusing to see her in “I am an important tour guide!” mode, as she would like shove her way in front of other people and not care if they were trying to read something or take a picture, as she wouldn’t move! Haha.
We then went back to the hotel for our OH so important afternoon nap, a staple of any Jeff trip. We were very excited to find that our hotel had BBC World, as it is soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much better than the SHITTY SHITTY CNN International that every other hotel has! I swear CNN International is just made by bored ALTs or something, it is awful. We quickly learned, however, that BBC World is great, but only if you watch it for like 15 minutes, as they repeat the same things over and over. We watched it for like 3 hours at a time and saw the same segments like 10 times! Haha. Oh, well, at least this induced naps, which is always a good thing.
After our naps, we ventured out for Christmas Eve, which we learned is an excuse for a BIG party in China. Our mission was to find a Christmas cake, as that is the thing to eat on Christmas Eve in Asia. We soon found two and had to carry them around for like four hours, hehe. We are devoted to our Christmas cakes!
So, yeah, Christmas Eve was CRAZY CRAZY CRAZY in Xi’an. There were people EVERYWHERE. Christmas Eve appears to be a strange mix of Christmas, Mardi Gras, and New Year’s. People just wandered around aimlessly (as they did on New Years) and wore ridiculous things! People were selling light-up devil horns, strange glowing things, Santa hats, masks, and all kinds of ugly things that people were wearing! There were LOUD fireworks EVERYWHERE. There were lots of couples and young people because of the nearby colleges. There were also hot guys everywhere, HELLO! You could barely even move in some parts, as there were so many people. Thankfully they shut down the streets so that you could wander a little bit, but it was still sooooo crowded. It was fun, tho!
We ended up at another izakaya-type place for dinner, which was yummy, tho they totally ripped us off for being dumb gaijin. It didn’t matter, tho, as it was still cheap. We then wandered the streets and tried all kinds of yummy desserts from street vendors, mmm! We had a fried red thing with kurogoma (black sesame paste) inside, CUTE cupcake-like things on sticks that the lady decorated to whatever you wanted (pictures will be online later), and a mochi thing. Mmm! We then continued walking so that we could have MORE dessert when we got back to our hotel, haha.
When we got back to our hotel we were the biggest losers EVERRRRRRRRR and put on our pajamas, turned up Cindy’s iPod to full volume while playing Christmas music and ate our Christmas cakes! Yes, we are cool. It was fun, tho, and the cakes were only 350 yen each, instead of 3000 yen each like in Japan!
Day 5
Day 5 was Christmas, but didn’t feel like it AT ALL. It was a really good day, tho. Xi’an continued being the foggiest city in the world as we went to the Wild Goose Pagoda. The Pagoda was beautiful! I expected a typical Asian pagoda, but it almost looked Mexican, in that it was all one piece and brown-ish. Anyway, you will see pics of it to see what I mean. It was built in 652 and was made for the storage of the translations of Buddhist sutras that made their way from India on the Silk Road. We learned at the Pagoda that Tracy is the WORST photographer in the ENTIRE WORLD. Not only does she not get the famous things in the background, she barely gets YOU in the damn picture! It was amusing but irritating! Haha.
After the Pagoda, we had planned to go see the terracotta warriors. However, the fog totally messed with our plans! The freeway was closed again due to the fog, so we took back roads there. At first Cindy and I didn’t realize anything was wrong, as we were napping like crazy in the back of the car. However, it became clear that we had been sleeping for a while and we were not moving at all on a nasty old dirt road in the middle of nowhere. The taxi driver got out to see if we would ever move, and he came back and told Tracy, “You guys should walk and get a taxi and I will meet you later!” Tracy’s reaction was PRICELESS! She was like, “HUH?!” She is rich, so I don’t think she fancied the idea too much! However, we didn’t have a choice, as we weren’t going to be moving any time soon. So we got out on the dirt road and walked through ditches and whatnot. It was amusing and I finally felt like I was in China! Hahaha. Looking back, Tracy is really lucky that we aren’t the typical old rich people that go on tours, because I don’t think they would be very amused by walking through mud and stuff. A few times I had to tell myself that I was only walking in mud, but I suspect is may have been something ELSE, if you know what I mean! It was fun, tho, and made a good story! So we walked for 15-20 minutes, tho Tracy, who has lived in Xi’an all her life, got lost on the way and asked a FIVE YEAR OLD BOY for directions! Hmm, perhaps he should be our guide! He wasn’t very talkative (she wasn’t very pleased with that), but his 7 year-old sister was full of information. Haha. We eventually got in front of the traffic jam and took a cab to the winter palace instead.
The winter palace was beautiful! It is outside of Xi’an, and it is where the Emperor (and his concubines) would spend his winters during the Tang Dynasty. It had a lot of hot springs to bathe in and was really natural and relaxing. I kinda wanted to jump in! Unfortunately it was too foggy to see the mountain that was right behind it, but it was still impressive. We were told by Tracy that there was a Romeo and Juliet-type story between the Emperor and one of his concubines, but it was not nearly as romantic, as he had her killed in order to save himself! That is not Romeo and Juliet!
After that the driver met up with us and we went to lunch, which was the typical huge meal. As a bonus we got YUMMY sweet potato things. They have them in Japan, too. They are like long potato sticks that are sticky and hard, as they are covered in a ridiculous amount of sugar. They were SO good! However, they were the hardest things in the world, and were stuck in a huge pile. Jeff MAY have broken his chopsticks while trying to pull them apart! Whoops! The waitresses probably thought I really didn’t know how to use chopsticks ;)
After lunch we went to the terracotta warrior museum! It was amaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazing! First of all, the place is HUGE! As Cindy said, it is like a college campus! They are currently building TONS of spaces for restaurants and shops (I have no idea why they would need as many shops as they are making, but whatever), and there is lots of space, trees, grass, etc. It totally looks like a college!
The terracotta warriors were built to protect the first Emperor of Qin in the afterlife, so they are buried with him. 8100 warriors have been found, and there are MANY left undiscovered (they are still digging for them now). They were built in 246 BC, and it took about 700,000 workers 38 years to complete them!!! They weren’t discovered until 1974, when a farmer was drilling a water well. It is amazing to think that THOUSANDS of them could be underground and that no one knew…and to think of what a difference a farmer made! Anyway, the warriors on display are split into three pits. The first pit is the largest one, with over 6,000 soldiers, chariots and horses that represented the Emperor’s main army. The other two pits are much smaller. The second pit contains cavalry and infantry, and the third pit has high ranking officers.
We went to the first pit first, and it was overwhelming! There are soooooooooooo many warriors, and they were just incredible to see. Along with the Great Wall, it was unbelievable to think what people can make when they put their mind to it (or when they are forced to, hehe). The warriors obviously didn’t survive in pristine condition by any means, so they have been put back together piece by piece. I don’t even want to think how much work that has been! There were some areas where the soldiers were left “as is,” and they were all just teeny pieces! I have no idea how they put them back together!
The warriors were originally painted, but almost all of the paint has been rubbed off by now. There were one or two warriors where you could see like a spot of paint, but that was it. However, I like the way they are now, as they look really natural. The museum was rare for me and Cindy, as we were actually visibly excited in front of our tour guides for once! We were like taking pictures like crazy, and were just excited about the warriors in general. They were awesome! They totally made me want to go to Egypt to continue my “seeing old things” tour of the world, hehe.
One FUNNY story we heard was that last fall a German guy dressed up as a terracotta soldier and JUMPED IN THE PIT and stood as one of them! When people told the guards that someone had jumped in the pit, the guard couldn’t find him! Dude, I would not do that in China, I don’t wanna end up in Commie prison! Apparently he wasn’t arrested, tho, strangely.
After the museum we went to the hotel to nap, then had a traditional dumpling dinner that was sooooooooooooooooo good! Xi’an is famous for their dumplings, as the Emperor LOVED them, so they invented them specially for him. There are 800 types of dumplings in Xi’an! Sadly we didn’t have all 800, but we did have about 15 kinds, including cabbage, azuki (red bean), mushroom, walnut, duck (in the shape of a duck!), pork, chicken, seafood, almond, etc. They were yummy!!!! After the dinner we saw a Tang Dynasty show at the restaurant (it was dinner theatre, but you don’t actually eat while you watch it, so it is like after-dinner theatre, I guess!). Unlike the awful Beijing Opera show, I actually enjoyed the Tang Dynasty show a lot. It was beautiful! The Tang Dynasty was a very peaceful time in Chinese history, and the arts really developed then, so the show was very artsy and pretty. It was also good for ADD people like me and Cindy, as it was fairly long, but comprised of lots of short songs and dances, so if you didn’t like one thing, it would soon be over! Once again Japanese people pissed me off at a show as these two WEIRD WEIRD WEIRD Japanese people (I think a mother and her son) like stole the two extra seats at our table?! Their tour guide “asked” if they could sit there, but there wasn’t much of a choice in our answer! They were freaking WEIRD and did not look very amused to be there. They totally seemed “off” and not like the people who would travel anywhere. I don’t know what was wrong with them! I may have purposely totally sat in the grumpy lady’s way, as I refused to be uncomfortable for some party crashers! Hehe. The people watching at the show was also good, so that is always fun!
After that we went to bed and had a boring Christmas night, as we were tired from the day and had to get up early-ish for the airport the next day!
Day 6
Day 6 was PURE FREAKING DRAMA! Because it had been so foggy the entire time we were in Xi’an, I was a bit worried about the plane being able to take off. We were assured it would be fine, but Tracy thought it would be a good idea to get to the airport early, just in case the freeway was closed again. We got there at like 9 or something like that for our 12:00 flight. Right when we got there we saw that TONS of flights were delayed and canceled from the fog! Um, NOT a good sign. We stood there for a while while Tracy figured out what was going on. We were lucky, as our flight was NOT canceled. We finally checked in and got our tickets, only to see that instead of the 12:00 departure time that SHOULD have been printed on the ticket, it was freaking 18:55!!!!! None of us saw this coming and it was not very cool! So we spent our entire morning and afternoon just sitting around the airport.
First we spent like four hours in a hotel restaurant, then we sat on a gross thing that wasn’t even meant for sitting. We finally went into the departure lobby (after Tracy ignoring us all day long, hahaha) and were getting ready to board our flight, when we went to our gate and our flight wasn’t even listed! We asked and they were like, “I don’t know!” Um! It turned out our flight was even MORE delayed, and it was rumored it might take off at 2 in the morning or so. NOT COOL! After being muy grumpy and hating the world, we FINALLY got to take off at about 8 PM. All in all, we had been at the airport for 11 damn hours at that point! We ran onto the airplane, giddy as school children, and I chose to ignore the fact that you couldn’t even see the lights on the wing due to the fog while we were flying. SCARY!
It was also annoying, as we missed a half a day that should have been spent in Guilin. However, I must admit that I was pleasantly surprised that they were actually delaying and canceling flights, rather than being Asian and like, “Oh, I am sure it’s fine, we’re Asian and everything is safe!” So that was good, in an annoying way.
Anyway, we FINALLY landed in Guilin at about 11 PM, where we met our tour guide Ping. However, we didn’t know her name was Ping until the next day (and we are still not sure!), as she NEVER introduced herself! Hahaha. She was the most ADD girl ever! But she was cool. On the ride to the hotel she never stopped talking! We learned all kinds of things about Guilin, AND for the first time all trip we KNEW THE ANSWERS TO CHINESE POP QUIZZES! Yay! Anyway, we got to the hotel and passed out after a day of frustration! To be continued!
Thursday, January 18, 2007
China, Part One: Beijing
Okay, so I am finally starting on the chore known as blogging about China! I am gonna do it a city at a time, for my own good as well as yours! As a warning, I am doing this for my own memory later down the line (which, btw, is not TOO far down the line, since I am forgetting way too much already!), so this is gonna be long and detailed. Feel free to not read :) Also, it will probably be the exact same blog as Cindy’s, tho I am not reading hers until after I write it to avoid copying! Hehe. But yeah, our blogs are always the same anyway, so what else is new ;) Anyway, on to Beijing!
So, on the 21st Cindy and I left Narita for Beijing, woot! The flight there was uneventful. Sadly the movie choices, while there were a LOT of them, all sucked, so I decided to get in the Chinese mood and watch Mulan, yeeeea! I love that movie! Anyway, we landed at the Beijing Airport, which was nice! Better than the nastay Taipei Airport for sure! At the airport, we met our first tour guide, Lynn and our driver Du. They rock! They were my favorite tour guide and driver of the whole trip, so it was a nice way to start it off.
On the way to the hotel (we arrived at night, so that is all we did that day), Lynn showed her secretive Chinese side by trying to be subtle with questions and failing miserably! Within like two seconds of meeting us, she was like, “Are you a couple???” Hahaha. Then she like didn’t believe us when we said no! She was also confused why Cindy “looked Asian” and then told her that Cantonese was useless. Haha, I wish she would tell us how she really felt! Anyway, we got to our hotel (which was nice, woot!) and when she was checking us in, she was “sneaky” again and asked us, “Two rooms, RIGHT?” When we said no, she was like, “Hmmmm.” Cheeky Chinese monkey! Because of this downright cheeky behavior, Lynn’s nickname (we gave all of our tour guides nicknames behind their backs) became Cheeky Panda, as she is a cheeky monkey, but hello, she is Chinese so she is obviously a panda!
That night we wandered around our hotel area, which was not too exciting, but we DID find a conbini and a couple mini conbinis! AND I was amazed to find out that Beijing guys are hooooooooooooooot! Holie! Dude, seriously! HOT! I couldn’t believe it. Far far far far far hotter than Japanese guys, tho that isn’t very difficult! We went back to the hotel after walking around and checked out Chinese TV. Dude, like the first thing we saw was Rain in concert! A good omen if I have ever seen one! Rowr.
Day Two
Day two was our first official day in China/Beijing, and it was busy and fun! We started it off with our hotel’s AMAZING continental breakfast, which I totally want in my house here, because it was soooooooooooo good. After eating about 7,00 calories, we went to Tiananmen Square for like all of 30 seconds! Haha. We literally just walked through it (it is HUGE!) and that was it, but that is all there is to do there, unless you want to wait in a long line to go see Mao’s pickled corpse (I am not kidding!) on display. I actually wouldn’t mind seeing that in the future, it would be weird! Despite temptation, I did not try to protest for democracy while in the square, btw. Oh, also, a depressingly low amount of people actually know what happened in the Square, and those who do know don’t talk about it, so Lynn was like, “This is Tiananmen Square, it is the biggest square in the world! The end.” Haha. Oh, we did learn that it fits 500,000 people! Damn. BTW, I have now been to the largest and third largest (Mexico City) public squares in the world, so I guess I have to go to Russia now, despite no interest in the country!
So the main event of day two was the Forbidden City, which is where the Emperor used to live. It is HUGE and full of tons of old buildings and other things, as you can see from my pics. It was built in the early 1400s, which sounds really old, but when Lynn said, “That is naninani years before Columbus discovered America,” it really put it into context! It is crazy to think how old China is. Anyway, we didn’t go to every room in the Forbidden City, as it is enormous. Apparently if the Emperor were to stay in a different room every day of his life, it would take over 20 years! That is impossible for me to comprehend, but amazing! The Emperor literally got ANYTHING he asked for. His meals literally contained I believe 107 dishes EVERY time he ate! UM, that is ridiculous. Anyway, yeah, the City was too big, so we went on a highlight route to see what was important. Sadly we didn’t stop at the Starbucks that is in the Forbidden City (so evil, but I wanted a picture!), but I will survive, I suppose. It was really interesting to go through the City with Lynn, as she would tell us all kinds of things that we would have NO idea about if we were just walking by ourselves. We learned a lot about the customs back then (damn, they were strict!) and stuff like that, and it was really interesting. This is where we realized how much Lynn (and Chinese people in general!) love giving us pop quizzes! I swear they just do it to laugh about how little you know! Starting the night before, Lynn would ask us all kinds of RANDOM questions about China, populations, history, Beijing, etc. Our answers were ALWAYS, “Ummm…..” Hahaha. It’s like, dude, we know nothing about your country, why do you think we are paying you a bazillion dollars to teach us about it! Haha.
Oh, we didn’t even realize it, but the second day was the Winter Solstice, which was cool, as it had a lot of meaning back in the day! Lynn would tell us things that they would do on Winter Solstice, and it was cool to think that it was the actual day.
Parts of the Forbidden City (and pretty much all of Beijing and lots of other tourist places throughout China) were under construction for the bazillion tourists that will come with the 2008 Olympics. Fortunately they only do parts of the Forbidden City at a time so that tourists don’t get too pissed. Overall, the construction wasn’t bad at all. I was worried that it would ruin a lot of things we wanted to see, but I didn’t notice it that much. However, it is amazing to see how INCREDIBLY excited everyone is for the Olympics. Like, they are a year and a half away, but they already have Olympic merchandise stores all over the country, and people talk about them all the time! They have electronic countdowns to them all over Beijing, etc. I cant believe how excited they are! K, end tangent.
We were in the Forbidden City for a couple hours, then we had free time before lunch, so we were dumb and followed Lynn’s “suggestion” of going through the Hutong, which is the oldest part of Beijing. It is an area with alleys and “quadrants,” which is where the common people used to live wayyyyy back in the day. Quadrants are a fenced area with a few “houses” (more like rooms, I guess), and a courtyard in the middle. People used to live in the quadrants with their extended families, and many still do. It is extremely old and traditional, and they are worth a LOT of money now for what they are!!! Anyway, so we paid for a tour of the area, and a rickshaw rode us around. We got to go in a Hutong and talk to a man whose family has owned the Hutong for generations. They are worth about a half a million dollars (a LOT of money in China!!!), but I doubt many people actually sell them, as you know your family would hate you for it! Anyway, it was interesting, tho in retrospect we paid a lot of money for what it was! I am glad we did it, though, as we were able to see how people used to live back in the day (and still do, in some cases). Plus it is the only “extra” thing (of which there are MAAAAAAAAAAANY on Chinese tours!) that we ever said yes to to Lynn, and she totally thought we were the cheapest people ever! Hahaha.
After that we had our first tour meal. The tour provides most meals, and they are the hugest meals EVER! It is the Chinese custom to give you more food than you can eat (um, wasteful!) and despite our best efforts, we could NEVER finish an entire meal. Each meal had at least six dishes, it was insane.
Surprisingly Lynn gave us food and the morning’s tour before us ever paying for the tour, so after that we gave our credit card companies a big smile by charging the damn tour. Ugh. BTW, I totally wanna work for a Chinese online travel agency, as everyone there was like 23 years old and looked way cooler than us! It was like going to Chinese MTV headquarters or something!
After that we went to the Temple of Heaven, which is where the emperors of the Ming and Qing Dynasties (ahahaha, just typing those makes me think of the MILLION times our tour guides told us about “the Ming and the Qing”) went to pray for a good harvest. The walk to the temple was cool, as we saw our first park in China, which is like where senior citizens LIVE, practically, as they are always there singing Chinese opera, playing card games, etc. I saw my first Chinese hackey sack, which was amusing. It is depressing, tho, too, as Chinese old people are more active and flexible than I am!
Anyway, the Temple of Heaven was pretty. There was this weird area where you could stand on opposide sides of the courtyard, but could talk to each other through sound being carried by the walls? It is hard to explain but it was cool!
That night we went to Wangfujing, a shopping area in Beijing. This is where I realized how HUGE Beijing is. Like, everything is big! The roads are soooooooooo wide (especially compared to Japan, but also compared to the States!), everything is spread apart, the people are TALL (tall people scare me now, it was freaky!)…everything is big!
Anyway, in Wangfujing I only ended up buying DVDs, as was the theme for the WHOLE trip, as we learned that clothes in China are either really cheap and low quality, or REALLY expensive name brand (like, REAL name brand) stuff that I don’t want and cant afford. BAH. Anyway, so yeah, I bought DVDs. Let me say that China is my heaven, as DVDs are sooooooooooooooooooo cheap! The legal ones are ridiculously cheap in order to try to compete with the illegal ones (tho it seems to be a losing battle). Legal ones are less than five bucks usually! Hell, yeah! So yeah, I got any movie I was semi-interested in, which was also the theme for the trip!
While wandering around the area we found a VERY kimoi “couple” that was this old white man and like a 19 year-old male Chinese prostitute! Ewwww! It was gross, and we stalked them for a little while just because we are losers with nothing better to do than watch hookers and old men! However, I totally wanted to hooker’s jacket…to bad he was like 5 pounds.
After call boy-stalking, we intended to go to a hot pot place but it was under construction, meh, so we ended up at this izakaya-type place that was MUY Chinese and MUY loud! It was definitely an interesting experience! We got there and had to fight for a table, then we got a menu with no pictures in all kanji. I could read some things, but it was still confusing, and there were like 300 options! Thankfully the couple at the same table (you share tables with other people) were helpful and the girl’s English was really good! She offered to help us and we were more than happy to take her up on her offer! She turned out to be the most hilarious lady EVER, as she was WAY high-class and awesome! We had been sitting there for like 10 minutes and the staff still hadn’t cleaned up the dirty dishes from the previous people, or wiped down the table. The lady started ordering for us and got this WAY mightier-than-thou look on her face while saying nicely, “And you still haven’t cleaned up this table, look how dirty it is! Take these dishes and clean the table, please!” I don’t speak Chinese, but it was SOOO clear what she was saying. The waitress was not amused and was like, “If they want a clean table, they should move over there!” and pointed to another table, and the lady totally ignored her and kept ordering! HAHAHAHA. She was the most awesome lady EVER, but you kinda had to be there to see her faces and tone of voice!
Anyway, the lady ordered us a lot of yummy dumplings and other things (she asked if we wanted a beer, and we hadn’t realized it was a drinking place and were like, “We’ll have water or tea,” and she gave us a weird look and was like, “Hmm, I will ask if they have water or tea!” Hahaha, whoops) and left, she was awesome! Like an English-speaking helpful ghost that disappears when she is done helping you! It turns out that the restaurant was a good choice, too, as we later learned that Chinese people traditionally eat dumplings on Winter Solstice, so we were good Chinese people. We ALSO witnessed some major Chinese drama, as this homeless guy kept coming in and being kicked out for annoying people. He finally got yelled at by a waitress and was apparently sick of it and PUNCHED HER IN THE CHEST?! The whole restaurant FROZE, then the lady got VERY mad and ran him out of the restaurant and threw stuff at him! Hahaha, welcome to China!
Day Three
Day three was a big day, as we went to the Great Wall! This of course gave me an excuse to eat an EXTRA big breakfast at the hotel before the inevitable climbing! On the way there we stopped at a jade factory. Every tour in China is full of many factory stops, where they tell you about what they make there (jade, silk rugs, pearls, blah blah) and then try to sell you stuff. A lot of stupid tourists buy the stuff, but Cindy and I were like, “I will take your free tea but I am not buying anything, suckah!” Haha. Anyway, we got to the Great Wall and were given 90 minutes to 2 hours to climb as much as we wanted. There are five spots open to tourists on the wall, and this is one of the more popular ones. I am glad we didn’t go to the one with a ropeway that carries people to the top! That is only for lazy Americans! Hehe.
Anyway, the Wall was AMAZING, of course. I seriously cant comprehend how they made it. It is over 6,700 km long! It stretches as far as the eye can see, and then some. Like any major structure (just ask Eduardo about the Brooklyn Bridge!), many people died making it, and many of the dead people were buried inside the wall itself. However, I think they have been dead long enough for me to say that it was worth it! It really is amazing to see what people are capable of when they put their mind to it. It made me want to go to Egypt to see the pyramids! It also really made me realize that we are making complete shit now. Like, what do we have to be proud of? Ooo, Taipei 101 sure is AMAZING, I am sure people in 2,000 years will be traveling to see that! Hahaha. But yeah.
Anyway, I cant really describe how incredible (K, I need more than three adjectives in my vocabulary) the Wall is; you just have to see it. Instead, I will complain about it! Haha.
Cindy and I got to the wall in our usual million layers that we wore in Beijing, along with Hokkairo (heating pack things that you can stick to your feet, back, etc., they are AWESOME). However, by the time we got to the top (well, the top of our section, not of the entire Wall), we were pretty much naked because we were SWEATY and NASTY! I have no idea how people in armor and whatever “wears” (haha, that will make sense later) they wore back then could have climbed that damn Wall, because it was freaking ridiculous! I would say it did it’s job, if I wanted to break into China I would take one look and turn right around! There were a lot of people at the bottom, but as you continued climbing more and more of the fat lazy people gave up and Cindy and I kept on fighting, yo! We got to the top and there was barely anyone up there, it was great! Well, if by great you mean completely sweaty, out of breath and too ugly to be seen in pictures! But it had a beautiful view! The Wall stretched all over the mountains. I am so glad I got to see it in my life, I think everyone needs to!
We went back down and I am glad we got up early to climb it, because there were SO many more tourists than when we went up! They were annoying! Including these three STUPID GIRLS who were wearing HEELS and had like high-fashion purses! I was stuck behind them and wanted to kick them down the damn wall! There was also a Chinese guy in a FULL SUIT climbing it?! WTF! Anyway, I was proud, as we made it to the top and back down in exactly 90 minutes!
For lunch we went to the Friendship store, which was apparently the only place tourists could shop when they first opened China to tourists (which is not that long ago, strange). That would suck, considering it was boring stuff to buy there! Anyway, I tried my first sip of Chinese rice wine there and it is SOOO STRONG, holy crap! I seriously took a teeny sip and I couldn’t handle any more. Damn!
After lunch we were sleepy from lots of food and actually exercising in the morning, so we were totally ADD when Lynn took us to the Ming Tombs. Fortunately that was okay, as the Ming Tombs are pretty damn boring. The Ming Tombs are the burial site of 13 emperors from the Ming Dynasty. Most of them aren’t open, but we went to one (of the two, kana?) open tombs. Anyway, it wasn’t very interesting, as it was completely re-done inside the tomb and stuff was moved around and it was modern and boring. Oh, might I add that Cindy and I are the worst tourists for tours EVER. We must seem SOOOOO not interested in what people are saying, because we just kinda nod and are like, “Mmhmm!” when the guides tell us stuff. I think they are used to tourists who are like, “Oh my GOOOOOOOOOOOD, tell me MORRRRRRRRRRE about the MING AND THE QING OH MY GOD OH MY GOD!” because they always looked disappointed in our headnods! Hahahaha. It is like, are we supposed to orgasm over the old emperors or something? Anyway, yeah, so we were completely out of it at the Ming Tombs UNTIL Lynn randomly mentioned that ALL of the artists who could make the Ming period famous white-and-blue porcelain were poisoned on the same day! She just mentioned it in passing, but we continued to ask her about it for like 20 minutes, as if we were Chinese Sherlock Holmes or something! Haha, we are such freaks.
After the Ming Tombs we volunteered to visit a couple factories, as we had time before dinner. At first I thought I would hate factories, because I don’t like being pressured to buy things, but it was actually really interesting, as you get to learn about how much work goes into making various things. We first went to a famous silk factory, where we found out how RIDICULOUSLY DIFFICULT it is to make a silk rug! First of all, high-class silk rugs (these are oriental rugs, in case you don’t know) cost a ton of money. Second of all, they take more than six months to make!!!! What the hell?! Lynn was like, “Do you know why only women can make rugs?” We imagined it had to do with small hands or something anatomical or something, but her answer was “Because only women are patient enough to make them!” Hahahaha! She was completely serious when saying that, too. Amusing. Anyway, I will never look at an oriental rug the same way again, because I had no idea how much work went into them. It is also sad that the cheap fake ones have ruined them in my mind, as I would NEVER pay that much for a rug that Americans would think I got for like 20 bucks out of the bed of someone’s truck! The one COOOOOOOOOOOOOOL thing about silk rugs, tho, is that when you move them, they FREAKING CHANGE COLOR! Seriously! You have to see it, it is the coolest thing ever! Anyway, it was worth the visit to the factory to learn that, plus to use their bathroom :)
After that we went to a furniture factory that was also good to visit, as just as much labor goes into carved furniture. There were some really cool pieces there, but I don’t understand what tourists do when they buy this stuff?! Like, do you move to China?! How can you ship that stuff back home???
Oh, I am gonna copy and paste a paragraph from Cindy’s blog. I broke my promise of not reading her blog, as she is sneaky and pretends to be smart, when she really looked up history on Wikipedia to put in her blog! I am too lazy for Wikipedia, so I am just copying her historical facts, haha. Anyway, here is an interesting cultural bit that I am too lazy to type into my own words:
“We found out from Lynn that it costs $10 to watch a movie in China. That is just ridiculous, considering the average annual salary in Beijing is just over $2000. Lynn said that she just downloads movies, which I would too considering the ridiculous prices they charge at movie theaters! Jeff and I never seemed too too giddy outwardly when Lynn guided us on the tour (not b/c we weren't interested, but b/c we weren't sure how to react other than by nodding and saying, "Wow" and "Interesting" every so often. How else should one respond while on a tour?) Anyway, we tried our best so hopefully our tour guides didn't think we were too ADD. Anyhoo, when it came to the topic of movies, we lit up. While in the car, we even made a list of movies we recommended for Lynn to download! Haha.”
After that, Mr. Du, our awesome driver, took us by the Olympic Stadium and the Aquatic Park that were being built for the games. I am glad we got to see them, as we can claim we were there when we see it on TV in 2008! They are both really cool-looking. The Aquatic Park is all bubbly and high-tech looking, and the Stadium is supposed to look like a bird’s nest?! It looks cool, but that is random. I asked Lynn why, and she apparently thought that was a silly question to ask and pretty much answered something like, “Why wouldn’t we make it a bird’s nest?” Haha. She may need to think of a new answer by 2008!
Oh, our bad student behavior came out at this point of the tour, as Cindy and I were distracted by an AWESOME ethnic park (which I want to go to when I go back for sure! It has an area for every minority in China!) and Lynn actually had to yell “Attention, please!” to us! Hahahaha.
That night I tried Peking Duck for the first time ever. It was good enough, but too greasy! I would rather just have normal duck. However, Cindy said it wasn’t that good of Peking Duck in the first place, so maybe I need to try it one more time. Anyway, whatever, I can claim I had Peking Duck in Beijing, hehe. After that we were forced to go to Beijing Opera, as it was included in the tour. Oh my god it was awful awful awful! So ugly and boring! No wonder young Chinese people don’t like it! It was only tourists there, and some of them were completely RETARDED Japanese people. They were the only ones that bought the translations on headphones and were apparently deaf as they had the volume WAY up and it was practically all I could hear! The second act was “catered for tourists” and was really really crappy martial arts. For some reason that was translated, too, despite the fact that not more than two words were said in it? The Japanese people CONTINUED listening to their headphones during that and I was about to shoot them because it was SO loud and unnecessary! Anyway, the opera sucked, but at least I can claim I am cultured.
That was our last night in Beijing. The next morning we had to get up early (ANOTHER theme for the tour, which was not fun!) to fly to Xi’an! And with another city comes another blog entry in the future. Good lord, this was sooooooooooooooooo long, I cant even believe it. I am sick of writing the damn thing, so I highly doubt anyone actually read it! Oh, well, I will have this when I forget all of my China trip due to Alzheimer’s! To be continued!
So, on the 21st Cindy and I left Narita for Beijing, woot! The flight there was uneventful. Sadly the movie choices, while there were a LOT of them, all sucked, so I decided to get in the Chinese mood and watch Mulan, yeeeea! I love that movie! Anyway, we landed at the Beijing Airport, which was nice! Better than the nastay Taipei Airport for sure! At the airport, we met our first tour guide, Lynn and our driver Du. They rock! They were my favorite tour guide and driver of the whole trip, so it was a nice way to start it off.
On the way to the hotel (we arrived at night, so that is all we did that day), Lynn showed her secretive Chinese side by trying to be subtle with questions and failing miserably! Within like two seconds of meeting us, she was like, “Are you a couple???” Hahaha. Then she like didn’t believe us when we said no! She was also confused why Cindy “looked Asian” and then told her that Cantonese was useless. Haha, I wish she would tell us how she really felt! Anyway, we got to our hotel (which was nice, woot!) and when she was checking us in, she was “sneaky” again and asked us, “Two rooms, RIGHT?” When we said no, she was like, “Hmmmm.” Cheeky Chinese monkey! Because of this downright cheeky behavior, Lynn’s nickname (we gave all of our tour guides nicknames behind their backs) became Cheeky Panda, as she is a cheeky monkey, but hello, she is Chinese so she is obviously a panda!
That night we wandered around our hotel area, which was not too exciting, but we DID find a conbini and a couple mini conbinis! AND I was amazed to find out that Beijing guys are hooooooooooooooot! Holie! Dude, seriously! HOT! I couldn’t believe it. Far far far far far hotter than Japanese guys, tho that isn’t very difficult! We went back to the hotel after walking around and checked out Chinese TV. Dude, like the first thing we saw was Rain in concert! A good omen if I have ever seen one! Rowr.
Day Two
Day two was our first official day in China/Beijing, and it was busy and fun! We started it off with our hotel’s AMAZING continental breakfast, which I totally want in my house here, because it was soooooooooooo good. After eating about 7,00 calories, we went to Tiananmen Square for like all of 30 seconds! Haha. We literally just walked through it (it is HUGE!) and that was it, but that is all there is to do there, unless you want to wait in a long line to go see Mao’s pickled corpse (I am not kidding!) on display. I actually wouldn’t mind seeing that in the future, it would be weird! Despite temptation, I did not try to protest for democracy while in the square, btw. Oh, also, a depressingly low amount of people actually know what happened in the Square, and those who do know don’t talk about it, so Lynn was like, “This is Tiananmen Square, it is the biggest square in the world! The end.” Haha. Oh, we did learn that it fits 500,000 people! Damn. BTW, I have now been to the largest and third largest (Mexico City) public squares in the world, so I guess I have to go to Russia now, despite no interest in the country!
So the main event of day two was the Forbidden City, which is where the Emperor used to live. It is HUGE and full of tons of old buildings and other things, as you can see from my pics. It was built in the early 1400s, which sounds really old, but when Lynn said, “That is naninani years before Columbus discovered America,” it really put it into context! It is crazy to think how old China is. Anyway, we didn’t go to every room in the Forbidden City, as it is enormous. Apparently if the Emperor were to stay in a different room every day of his life, it would take over 20 years! That is impossible for me to comprehend, but amazing! The Emperor literally got ANYTHING he asked for. His meals literally contained I believe 107 dishes EVERY time he ate! UM, that is ridiculous. Anyway, yeah, the City was too big, so we went on a highlight route to see what was important. Sadly we didn’t stop at the Starbucks that is in the Forbidden City (so evil, but I wanted a picture!), but I will survive, I suppose. It was really interesting to go through the City with Lynn, as she would tell us all kinds of things that we would have NO idea about if we were just walking by ourselves. We learned a lot about the customs back then (damn, they were strict!) and stuff like that, and it was really interesting. This is where we realized how much Lynn (and Chinese people in general!) love giving us pop quizzes! I swear they just do it to laugh about how little you know! Starting the night before, Lynn would ask us all kinds of RANDOM questions about China, populations, history, Beijing, etc. Our answers were ALWAYS, “Ummm…..” Hahaha. It’s like, dude, we know nothing about your country, why do you think we are paying you a bazillion dollars to teach us about it! Haha.
Oh, we didn’t even realize it, but the second day was the Winter Solstice, which was cool, as it had a lot of meaning back in the day! Lynn would tell us things that they would do on Winter Solstice, and it was cool to think that it was the actual day.
Parts of the Forbidden City (and pretty much all of Beijing and lots of other tourist places throughout China) were under construction for the bazillion tourists that will come with the 2008 Olympics. Fortunately they only do parts of the Forbidden City at a time so that tourists don’t get too pissed. Overall, the construction wasn’t bad at all. I was worried that it would ruin a lot of things we wanted to see, but I didn’t notice it that much. However, it is amazing to see how INCREDIBLY excited everyone is for the Olympics. Like, they are a year and a half away, but they already have Olympic merchandise stores all over the country, and people talk about them all the time! They have electronic countdowns to them all over Beijing, etc. I cant believe how excited they are! K, end tangent.
We were in the Forbidden City for a couple hours, then we had free time before lunch, so we were dumb and followed Lynn’s “suggestion” of going through the Hutong, which is the oldest part of Beijing. It is an area with alleys and “quadrants,” which is where the common people used to live wayyyyy back in the day. Quadrants are a fenced area with a few “houses” (more like rooms, I guess), and a courtyard in the middle. People used to live in the quadrants with their extended families, and many still do. It is extremely old and traditional, and they are worth a LOT of money now for what they are!!! Anyway, so we paid for a tour of the area, and a rickshaw rode us around. We got to go in a Hutong and talk to a man whose family has owned the Hutong for generations. They are worth about a half a million dollars (a LOT of money in China!!!), but I doubt many people actually sell them, as you know your family would hate you for it! Anyway, it was interesting, tho in retrospect we paid a lot of money for what it was! I am glad we did it, though, as we were able to see how people used to live back in the day (and still do, in some cases). Plus it is the only “extra” thing (of which there are MAAAAAAAAAAANY on Chinese tours!) that we ever said yes to to Lynn, and she totally thought we were the cheapest people ever! Hahaha.
After that we had our first tour meal. The tour provides most meals, and they are the hugest meals EVER! It is the Chinese custom to give you more food than you can eat (um, wasteful!) and despite our best efforts, we could NEVER finish an entire meal. Each meal had at least six dishes, it was insane.
Surprisingly Lynn gave us food and the morning’s tour before us ever paying for the tour, so after that we gave our credit card companies a big smile by charging the damn tour. Ugh. BTW, I totally wanna work for a Chinese online travel agency, as everyone there was like 23 years old and looked way cooler than us! It was like going to Chinese MTV headquarters or something!
After that we went to the Temple of Heaven, which is where the emperors of the Ming and Qing Dynasties (ahahaha, just typing those makes me think of the MILLION times our tour guides told us about “the Ming and the Qing”) went to pray for a good harvest. The walk to the temple was cool, as we saw our first park in China, which is like where senior citizens LIVE, practically, as they are always there singing Chinese opera, playing card games, etc. I saw my first Chinese hackey sack, which was amusing. It is depressing, tho, too, as Chinese old people are more active and flexible than I am!
Anyway, the Temple of Heaven was pretty. There was this weird area where you could stand on opposide sides of the courtyard, but could talk to each other through sound being carried by the walls? It is hard to explain but it was cool!
That night we went to Wangfujing, a shopping area in Beijing. This is where I realized how HUGE Beijing is. Like, everything is big! The roads are soooooooooo wide (especially compared to Japan, but also compared to the States!), everything is spread apart, the people are TALL (tall people scare me now, it was freaky!)…everything is big!
Anyway, in Wangfujing I only ended up buying DVDs, as was the theme for the WHOLE trip, as we learned that clothes in China are either really cheap and low quality, or REALLY expensive name brand (like, REAL name brand) stuff that I don’t want and cant afford. BAH. Anyway, so yeah, I bought DVDs. Let me say that China is my heaven, as DVDs are sooooooooooooooooooo cheap! The legal ones are ridiculously cheap in order to try to compete with the illegal ones (tho it seems to be a losing battle). Legal ones are less than five bucks usually! Hell, yeah! So yeah, I got any movie I was semi-interested in, which was also the theme for the trip!
While wandering around the area we found a VERY kimoi “couple” that was this old white man and like a 19 year-old male Chinese prostitute! Ewwww! It was gross, and we stalked them for a little while just because we are losers with nothing better to do than watch hookers and old men! However, I totally wanted to hooker’s jacket…to bad he was like 5 pounds.
After call boy-stalking, we intended to go to a hot pot place but it was under construction, meh, so we ended up at this izakaya-type place that was MUY Chinese and MUY loud! It was definitely an interesting experience! We got there and had to fight for a table, then we got a menu with no pictures in all kanji. I could read some things, but it was still confusing, and there were like 300 options! Thankfully the couple at the same table (you share tables with other people) were helpful and the girl’s English was really good! She offered to help us and we were more than happy to take her up on her offer! She turned out to be the most hilarious lady EVER, as she was WAY high-class and awesome! We had been sitting there for like 10 minutes and the staff still hadn’t cleaned up the dirty dishes from the previous people, or wiped down the table. The lady started ordering for us and got this WAY mightier-than-thou look on her face while saying nicely, “And you still haven’t cleaned up this table, look how dirty it is! Take these dishes and clean the table, please!” I don’t speak Chinese, but it was SOOO clear what she was saying. The waitress was not amused and was like, “If they want a clean table, they should move over there!” and pointed to another table, and the lady totally ignored her and kept ordering! HAHAHAHA. She was the most awesome lady EVER, but you kinda had to be there to see her faces and tone of voice!
Anyway, the lady ordered us a lot of yummy dumplings and other things (she asked if we wanted a beer, and we hadn’t realized it was a drinking place and were like, “We’ll have water or tea,” and she gave us a weird look and was like, “Hmm, I will ask if they have water or tea!” Hahaha, whoops) and left, she was awesome! Like an English-speaking helpful ghost that disappears when she is done helping you! It turns out that the restaurant was a good choice, too, as we later learned that Chinese people traditionally eat dumplings on Winter Solstice, so we were good Chinese people. We ALSO witnessed some major Chinese drama, as this homeless guy kept coming in and being kicked out for annoying people. He finally got yelled at by a waitress and was apparently sick of it and PUNCHED HER IN THE CHEST?! The whole restaurant FROZE, then the lady got VERY mad and ran him out of the restaurant and threw stuff at him! Hahaha, welcome to China!
Day Three
Day three was a big day, as we went to the Great Wall! This of course gave me an excuse to eat an EXTRA big breakfast at the hotel before the inevitable climbing! On the way there we stopped at a jade factory. Every tour in China is full of many factory stops, where they tell you about what they make there (jade, silk rugs, pearls, blah blah) and then try to sell you stuff. A lot of stupid tourists buy the stuff, but Cindy and I were like, “I will take your free tea but I am not buying anything, suckah!” Haha. Anyway, we got to the Great Wall and were given 90 minutes to 2 hours to climb as much as we wanted. There are five spots open to tourists on the wall, and this is one of the more popular ones. I am glad we didn’t go to the one with a ropeway that carries people to the top! That is only for lazy Americans! Hehe.
Anyway, the Wall was AMAZING, of course. I seriously cant comprehend how they made it. It is over 6,700 km long! It stretches as far as the eye can see, and then some. Like any major structure (just ask Eduardo about the Brooklyn Bridge!), many people died making it, and many of the dead people were buried inside the wall itself. However, I think they have been dead long enough for me to say that it was worth it! It really is amazing to see what people are capable of when they put their mind to it. It made me want to go to Egypt to see the pyramids! It also really made me realize that we are making complete shit now. Like, what do we have to be proud of? Ooo, Taipei 101 sure is AMAZING, I am sure people in 2,000 years will be traveling to see that! Hahaha. But yeah.
Anyway, I cant really describe how incredible (K, I need more than three adjectives in my vocabulary) the Wall is; you just have to see it. Instead, I will complain about it! Haha.
Cindy and I got to the wall in our usual million layers that we wore in Beijing, along with Hokkairo (heating pack things that you can stick to your feet, back, etc., they are AWESOME). However, by the time we got to the top (well, the top of our section, not of the entire Wall), we were pretty much naked because we were SWEATY and NASTY! I have no idea how people in armor and whatever “wears” (haha, that will make sense later) they wore back then could have climbed that damn Wall, because it was freaking ridiculous! I would say it did it’s job, if I wanted to break into China I would take one look and turn right around! There were a lot of people at the bottom, but as you continued climbing more and more of the fat lazy people gave up and Cindy and I kept on fighting, yo! We got to the top and there was barely anyone up there, it was great! Well, if by great you mean completely sweaty, out of breath and too ugly to be seen in pictures! But it had a beautiful view! The Wall stretched all over the mountains. I am so glad I got to see it in my life, I think everyone needs to!
We went back down and I am glad we got up early to climb it, because there were SO many more tourists than when we went up! They were annoying! Including these three STUPID GIRLS who were wearing HEELS and had like high-fashion purses! I was stuck behind them and wanted to kick them down the damn wall! There was also a Chinese guy in a FULL SUIT climbing it?! WTF! Anyway, I was proud, as we made it to the top and back down in exactly 90 minutes!
For lunch we went to the Friendship store, which was apparently the only place tourists could shop when they first opened China to tourists (which is not that long ago, strange). That would suck, considering it was boring stuff to buy there! Anyway, I tried my first sip of Chinese rice wine there and it is SOOO STRONG, holy crap! I seriously took a teeny sip and I couldn’t handle any more. Damn!
After lunch we were sleepy from lots of food and actually exercising in the morning, so we were totally ADD when Lynn took us to the Ming Tombs. Fortunately that was okay, as the Ming Tombs are pretty damn boring. The Ming Tombs are the burial site of 13 emperors from the Ming Dynasty. Most of them aren’t open, but we went to one (of the two, kana?) open tombs. Anyway, it wasn’t very interesting, as it was completely re-done inside the tomb and stuff was moved around and it was modern and boring. Oh, might I add that Cindy and I are the worst tourists for tours EVER. We must seem SOOOOO not interested in what people are saying, because we just kinda nod and are like, “Mmhmm!” when the guides tell us stuff. I think they are used to tourists who are like, “Oh my GOOOOOOOOOOOD, tell me MORRRRRRRRRRE about the MING AND THE QING OH MY GOD OH MY GOD!” because they always looked disappointed in our headnods! Hahahaha. It is like, are we supposed to orgasm over the old emperors or something? Anyway, yeah, so we were completely out of it at the Ming Tombs UNTIL Lynn randomly mentioned that ALL of the artists who could make the Ming period famous white-and-blue porcelain were poisoned on the same day! She just mentioned it in passing, but we continued to ask her about it for like 20 minutes, as if we were Chinese Sherlock Holmes or something! Haha, we are such freaks.
After the Ming Tombs we volunteered to visit a couple factories, as we had time before dinner. At first I thought I would hate factories, because I don’t like being pressured to buy things, but it was actually really interesting, as you get to learn about how much work goes into making various things. We first went to a famous silk factory, where we found out how RIDICULOUSLY DIFFICULT it is to make a silk rug! First of all, high-class silk rugs (these are oriental rugs, in case you don’t know) cost a ton of money. Second of all, they take more than six months to make!!!! What the hell?! Lynn was like, “Do you know why only women can make rugs?” We imagined it had to do with small hands or something anatomical or something, but her answer was “Because only women are patient enough to make them!” Hahahaha! She was completely serious when saying that, too. Amusing. Anyway, I will never look at an oriental rug the same way again, because I had no idea how much work went into them. It is also sad that the cheap fake ones have ruined them in my mind, as I would NEVER pay that much for a rug that Americans would think I got for like 20 bucks out of the bed of someone’s truck! The one COOOOOOOOOOOOOOL thing about silk rugs, tho, is that when you move them, they FREAKING CHANGE COLOR! Seriously! You have to see it, it is the coolest thing ever! Anyway, it was worth the visit to the factory to learn that, plus to use their bathroom :)
After that we went to a furniture factory that was also good to visit, as just as much labor goes into carved furniture. There were some really cool pieces there, but I don’t understand what tourists do when they buy this stuff?! Like, do you move to China?! How can you ship that stuff back home???
Oh, I am gonna copy and paste a paragraph from Cindy’s blog. I broke my promise of not reading her blog, as she is sneaky and pretends to be smart, when she really looked up history on Wikipedia to put in her blog! I am too lazy for Wikipedia, so I am just copying her historical facts, haha. Anyway, here is an interesting cultural bit that I am too lazy to type into my own words:
“We found out from Lynn that it costs $10 to watch a movie in China. That is just ridiculous, considering the average annual salary in Beijing is just over $2000. Lynn said that she just downloads movies, which I would too considering the ridiculous prices they charge at movie theaters! Jeff and I never seemed too too giddy outwardly when Lynn guided us on the tour (not b/c we weren't interested, but b/c we weren't sure how to react other than by nodding and saying, "Wow" and "Interesting" every so often. How else should one respond while on a tour?) Anyway, we tried our best so hopefully our tour guides didn't think we were too ADD. Anyhoo, when it came to the topic of movies, we lit up. While in the car, we even made a list of movies we recommended for Lynn to download! Haha.”
After that, Mr. Du, our awesome driver, took us by the Olympic Stadium and the Aquatic Park that were being built for the games. I am glad we got to see them, as we can claim we were there when we see it on TV in 2008! They are both really cool-looking. The Aquatic Park is all bubbly and high-tech looking, and the Stadium is supposed to look like a bird’s nest?! It looks cool, but that is random. I asked Lynn why, and she apparently thought that was a silly question to ask and pretty much answered something like, “Why wouldn’t we make it a bird’s nest?” Haha. She may need to think of a new answer by 2008!
Oh, our bad student behavior came out at this point of the tour, as Cindy and I were distracted by an AWESOME ethnic park (which I want to go to when I go back for sure! It has an area for every minority in China!) and Lynn actually had to yell “Attention, please!” to us! Hahahaha.
That night I tried Peking Duck for the first time ever. It was good enough, but too greasy! I would rather just have normal duck. However, Cindy said it wasn’t that good of Peking Duck in the first place, so maybe I need to try it one more time. Anyway, whatever, I can claim I had Peking Duck in Beijing, hehe. After that we were forced to go to Beijing Opera, as it was included in the tour. Oh my god it was awful awful awful! So ugly and boring! No wonder young Chinese people don’t like it! It was only tourists there, and some of them were completely RETARDED Japanese people. They were the only ones that bought the translations on headphones and were apparently deaf as they had the volume WAY up and it was practically all I could hear! The second act was “catered for tourists” and was really really crappy martial arts. For some reason that was translated, too, despite the fact that not more than two words were said in it? The Japanese people CONTINUED listening to their headphones during that and I was about to shoot them because it was SO loud and unnecessary! Anyway, the opera sucked, but at least I can claim I am cultured.
That was our last night in Beijing. The next morning we had to get up early (ANOTHER theme for the tour, which was not fun!) to fly to Xi’an! And with another city comes another blog entry in the future. Good lord, this was sooooooooooooooooo long, I cant even believe it. I am sick of writing the damn thing, so I highly doubt anyone actually read it! Oh, well, I will have this when I forget all of my China trip due to Alzheimer’s! To be continued!
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Beijing Pics
I finally got my pics of Beijing up. I am doing it city by city, as it is too overwhelming otherwise. You can check them out here. Hoping to get my first China blog done by tomorrow...let's praying for not much lesson planning tomorrow so I actually have time!
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Please Please Me, 12 year-olds!
So for 1nensei classes this week we are warming up with a Beatles song. Let the record state that it is never my choice to sing in front of the kids, but oh well. Anyway, we were gonna do Eight Days a Week or Love Me Do, but couldn’t because of technical difficulties. My teacher ended up choosing Please Please Me, which I am beginning to think was NOT the best choice! Here is part of the chorus:
Come on, come on, come on, come on
Please please me oh yeah like I please you
There is also this line:
I do all the pleasing with you
Now I may be a big hentai with a dirty mind, but I do NOT like saying this to a bunch of 12 year-olds and them repeating it back to me! The Japanese translation has it translated as “Please cheer me up.” Now that very well could have been The Beatles’ intention with the lyrics, but I have a feeling the cheeky monkeys behind Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds had other things in mind when writing these lyrics. Either way it is very disturbing to be saying this to 1nensei!
Come on, come on, come on, come on
Please please me oh yeah like I please you
There is also this line:
I do all the pleasing with you
Now I may be a big hentai with a dirty mind, but I do NOT like saying this to a bunch of 12 year-olds and them repeating it back to me! The Japanese translation has it translated as “Please cheer me up.” Now that very well could have been The Beatles’ intention with the lyrics, but I have a feeling the cheeky monkeys behind Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds had other things in mind when writing these lyrics. Either way it is very disturbing to be saying this to 1nensei!
My kids are f-ing crazy
Okay, my kids are officially fucked up, as I keep coming into classrooms to find they have the fucking sliding doors and windows open to let in fresh air?!!!!!! Dude, wtf! Just because it is sunny does NOT mean that it is WARM outside! Apparently they are putting far too much faith into the theory of global warming, ‘cause I dunno what the fuck they are thinking. Then they are like, “It’s cold!” Yeah, no shit it is cold, it’s fucking January and you have all the windows open! I don’t get it! I don’t think they have miraculously learned that they smell like gross teenagers, either, because winter is like the one time of year that they don’t stink up the whole school, haha. Does anyone else’s kids do this? Anyway, I hope they aren’t too into the windows being open, because I get in there and passive-aggressively slam them all shut right away, haha. Crazy-ass mofos.
Monday, January 15, 2007
A Tokyo/Saitama Weekend
So my goal for the week is to at least start blogging and posting pics of China, but I dunno if that will happen today. Anyway, I will blog about my weekend in the meantime, as it is much shorter and easier to talk about than two weeks of touring a huge country!
So on Friday I “secretly” left work 20 minutes early (tho it is difficult to do this secretly, as my bike is parked right in front of the staffroom windows, so I am sure I was seen) to catch the train to Tokyo to see Sweeney Todd with Ann. HOLIE, it was sooooooooooooooooo good! I would usually refuse to see a Sondheim musical in Japanese (or any foreign language), just because Sondheim plays with language and it is impossible to translate it accordingly. However, I loved it! The reason I went to it in the first place was because it was by a really famous director with a famous cast, so I figured it should be good. It went beyond my expectations fo sho! It had great directing, great acting, great sets, great costumes, great lighting....it was fucking awesome! Of course the show is muy fucked up (about a barber who kills his customers, then turns them into meat pies), but it was damn good. Plus the lady who played Mrs. Lovett ROCKED! It worked really well with a Japanese woman, as Japanese women are good at playing crazy-ass obaachans! Haha. She was cool! Anyway, the show was great, I am very glad we saw it, even if it was from the last row (stupid Japan is evil and never gives Jeff The Spoiled Theatre Queen good seats!).
After the show I had the worst train ride of my life (long story, but Jeff was sweaty and crammed against the door and NOT amused with Tokyo!) on my way to Saitama to meet up with Natsumi and Adam! Natsumi was my RA when I studied abroad at Senshu and I am horrible and haven’t seen her in like 300 years! Anyway, I met up with them for the weekend and it was fun! Friday night we did a bit of karaoke, which I hadn’t done in forever. Saturday morning Natsumi and I had McDonald’s breakfast, which is SO FUCKING GOOD. I hadn’t had it since March! You had better believe I got two value meals up in hea, yo! Mmmmmmm.
In the afternoon we went to Ochanomizu, which is by far like the most random area in Tokyo EVER! It is nothing but guitar and snowboarding shops? Weird! Anyway, we ended up at Natural Lawson in the end, which is always good. I love Natural Lawson, I want to live there!
We then met up with Andrew, another friend from study abroad who is in Japan for a couple weeks with his friend Mark. We went to happy hour for a while, where I tried absinthe for the first time (ooo, I sound like Ewan McGregor!). However, sadly it did nothing for me, sigh. Then we met up with Neil, yet another person from study abroad (talk about a reunion!) and went to another place to drink. Then we drank some more and trained it back to Saitama for THREE HOURS of karaoke! Dude, that is hardcore! That definitely made up for my lack of karaoke as of late! But I understand the need for karaoke, as Andrew hadn’t done it in like two years, kawaisou!
On Sunday I had to head back to Gunma, and fortunately I had to norikae in Omiya, i.e. the best eki in the world! I got a shitload of REAL baked bread and bagels and shit. Mmmmm.
Anyway, the weekend was muy fun! It was nice to see people again, and to get the hell outta Gunma for a while! Thanks, Nacchan and Adam!
So on Friday I “secretly” left work 20 minutes early (tho it is difficult to do this secretly, as my bike is parked right in front of the staffroom windows, so I am sure I was seen) to catch the train to Tokyo to see Sweeney Todd with Ann. HOLIE, it was sooooooooooooooooo good! I would usually refuse to see a Sondheim musical in Japanese (or any foreign language), just because Sondheim plays with language and it is impossible to translate it accordingly. However, I loved it! The reason I went to it in the first place was because it was by a really famous director with a famous cast, so I figured it should be good. It went beyond my expectations fo sho! It had great directing, great acting, great sets, great costumes, great lighting....it was fucking awesome! Of course the show is muy fucked up (about a barber who kills his customers, then turns them into meat pies), but it was damn good. Plus the lady who played Mrs. Lovett ROCKED! It worked really well with a Japanese woman, as Japanese women are good at playing crazy-ass obaachans! Haha. She was cool! Anyway, the show was great, I am very glad we saw it, even if it was from the last row (stupid Japan is evil and never gives Jeff The Spoiled Theatre Queen good seats!).
After the show I had the worst train ride of my life (long story, but Jeff was sweaty and crammed against the door and NOT amused with Tokyo!) on my way to Saitama to meet up with Natsumi and Adam! Natsumi was my RA when I studied abroad at Senshu and I am horrible and haven’t seen her in like 300 years! Anyway, I met up with them for the weekend and it was fun! Friday night we did a bit of karaoke, which I hadn’t done in forever. Saturday morning Natsumi and I had McDonald’s breakfast, which is SO FUCKING GOOD. I hadn’t had it since March! You had better believe I got two value meals up in hea, yo! Mmmmmmm.
In the afternoon we went to Ochanomizu, which is by far like the most random area in Tokyo EVER! It is nothing but guitar and snowboarding shops? Weird! Anyway, we ended up at Natural Lawson in the end, which is always good. I love Natural Lawson, I want to live there!
We then met up with Andrew, another friend from study abroad who is in Japan for a couple weeks with his friend Mark. We went to happy hour for a while, where I tried absinthe for the first time (ooo, I sound like Ewan McGregor!). However, sadly it did nothing for me, sigh. Then we met up with Neil, yet another person from study abroad (talk about a reunion!) and went to another place to drink. Then we drank some more and trained it back to Saitama for THREE HOURS of karaoke! Dude, that is hardcore! That definitely made up for my lack of karaoke as of late! But I understand the need for karaoke, as Andrew hadn’t done it in like two years, kawaisou!
On Sunday I had to head back to Gunma, and fortunately I had to norikae in Omiya, i.e. the best eki in the world! I got a shitload of REAL baked bread and bagels and shit. Mmmmm.
Anyway, the weekend was muy fun! It was nice to see people again, and to get the hell outta Gunma for a while! Thanks, Nacchan and Adam!
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
Only 67 days.....
Only 67 days until Eduardo comes! YAY!!!!!!!!!!! He booked his flight over the weekend, so it is official now! 67 days, 67 dayyyyyyyyyyys!
Monday, January 08, 2007
Photo Update
China photos (and blogging) are FAR too overwhelming for me at the moment, but I did update my photos page with Tokyo Disneyland, Lake Haruna, and me as Santa for the kouminkan. Check it out.
Sunday, January 07, 2007
Signs that I live in the inaka...
Lately I have had a couple reminders that I truly live in the inaka (middle of nowhere):
-I love me some Coop! It is the teeny store by my apartment that has good stuff and is cheap! However, I never buy beer there. Anyway, the other day I was shopping there and I bought two beers. When the lady at the register scanned the beers, she looked at me and said, “Oooo, this is rare for you!” and gave me a mischievous look to show she was very happy that I was being naughty for once. SAD! I know they know me there, but that is sad that they know what I buy and how often! Hrm.
-I was VERY happy to find a cab waiting at the eki (train station) when I got back from China with my million pounds of luggage (they were on New Year’s holiday when I got back from Thailand last year). I got in the taxi and was giving the driver directions to my house when he interrupted me and told me he remembered from last time. UM, the last time I rode a cab was September at the LATEST! It may have been the spring?! How the hell does he remember where I live?! That is scary! I may have a 70 year-old stalker!!!
-I love me some Coop! It is the teeny store by my apartment that has good stuff and is cheap! However, I never buy beer there. Anyway, the other day I was shopping there and I bought two beers. When the lady at the register scanned the beers, she looked at me and said, “Oooo, this is rare for you!” and gave me a mischievous look to show she was very happy that I was being naughty for once. SAD! I know they know me there, but that is sad that they know what I buy and how often! Hrm.
-I was VERY happy to find a cab waiting at the eki (train station) when I got back from China with my million pounds of luggage (they were on New Year’s holiday when I got back from Thailand last year). I got in the taxi and was giving the driver directions to my house when he interrupted me and told me he remembered from last time. UM, the last time I rode a cab was September at the LATEST! It may have been the spring?! How the hell does he remember where I live?! That is scary! I may have a 70 year-old stalker!!!
Thursday, January 04, 2007
Maybe Wal-Mart isn't TOTALLY evil....
I'm back from China and it was great! I will blog about it later, but in the meantime, random news....
So yeah, Wal-Mart isn't totally evil, apparently, but it still isn't good. This article is really interesting for both the environmental info, plus it is amazing how one decision can make such a difference. Particularly this bit:
If it succeeds in selling 100 million compact fluorescent bulbs a year by 2008, total sales of the bulbs in the United States would increase by 50 percent, saving Americans $3 billion in electricity costs and avoiding the need to build additional power plants for the equivalent of 450,000 new homes.
That's freaking crazy how much power they have. Anyway, everyone should use these bulbs. They last for freaking ever and they are good for the environment! Eduardo and I were good Oregonians and used them and you should, too :P
So yeah, Wal-Mart isn't totally evil, apparently, but it still isn't good. This article is really interesting for both the environmental info, plus it is amazing how one decision can make such a difference. Particularly this bit:
If it succeeds in selling 100 million compact fluorescent bulbs a year by 2008, total sales of the bulbs in the United States would increase by 50 percent, saving Americans $3 billion in electricity costs and avoiding the need to build additional power plants for the equivalent of 450,000 new homes.
That's freaking crazy how much power they have. Anyway, everyone should use these bulbs. They last for freaking ever and they are good for the environment! Eduardo and I were good Oregonians and used them and you should, too :P
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
China!
I dont think I will have a chance to blog anymore before I go on vacation (YAY vacation), but in case you want to stalk me and know where I am for the next two weeks, here is my itinerary for Chizina! I am too lazy to edit out the random squigglies that appear in it, so you can just deal with it!
Dec 21st Beijing Arrival stay at Tiantan Hotel ¡ï¡ï¡ï¡ï
Arrival in Beijing, met and transferred to Tiantan Hotel or same class. The rest of the day is free.
Dec 22nd Beijing ( B L ) stay at Tiantan Hotel ¡ï¡ï¡ï¡ï
Beginning the day with a visit to Tiananmen Square, the world largest. Then move on to the imperial palace, also known as the ¡°Forbidden City ¡° that symbolizes the imperial and traditional China. After lunch go on with the visit to Temple of Heaven, the place where the emperors of Ming and Qing Dynasties worshipped heaven and prayed for peace and harvest. Back to hotel
Dec 23rd Beijing ( B L D ) stay at Tiantan Hotel ¡ï¡ï¡ï¡ï
Today's highlight is to visit the Great wall , symbol of Chinese civilization. After lunch, continue a visit to Dingling , one of the Ming Tombs, where 13 emperors were buried in Ming Dynasty. Peking Duck dinner and Peking Opera Show in the evening.
Dec 24th Beijing -- Xi'an by air stay at Xian Hotel Or Tangcheng Hotel¡ï¡ï¡ï¡ï ( B L )
Take a morning flight to Xi'an. After lunch, city tour begins with a visit to the Shanxi Museum, the Bell Tower and City Wall. Stay at Xian Hotel or Tangcheng Hotel
Dec 25th Xian Stay at Xian Hotel Or Tangcheng Hotel¡ï¡ï¡ï¡ï ( B L D )
Beginning the day with a once-in-a lifetime viewing of the extraordinary 2200-year-old terra-cotta Army of China's First Emperor-Qin Shihuang. Three exhibition halls house the continuing excavation of am army of 7,000 terracotta soldiers and horses that guard the tomb of the the First Emperor. After lunch visit Huaqing Hot Spring and Big Goode Pagoda .Local flavor dinner--dumpling . Tang Dynasty Show in the evening.
Dec 26th Xian ¡ªGuilin by air stay at Park Hotel ¡ï¡ï¡ï¡ï ( B L)
Take morning flight from Xian to Guilin. Arrival in Guilin, met and transferred to Guilin Park Hotel. After lunch, visit to Fubo Hill ,Seven Star Park.Back to your hotel.
Dec 27th Guilin stay at Park Hotel ¡ï¡ï¡ï¡ï ( B L D )
Enjoy a morning cruise down the winding Li River to Yangshou. Return to Guilin. Dinner and Minority Performance in the evening.
Dec 28th Guilin ¡ªShanghai by air and stay at Golden River-view Hotel Shanghai ¡ï¡ï¡ï¡ï or Shanghai Ocean Hotel ¡ï¡ï¡ï¡ï ( B L D )
Half day City tour of Reed Flute Cave, Elephant Trunk Hill. Afternoon flight to Shanghai. Stay at Golden River-view Hotel Shanghai or Shanghai Ocean Hotel In the evening dinner will be served. After dinner, you will be arrange d to watch the fantastic acrobatic show
Dec 29th Shanghai ( B L )
Today's highlight is your visit to Yuyuan Garden and Bazar. After lunch, move on to the¡± Pedestrians only ¡° Nanjing Road and the Bund. Take one hour cruising on Huang Pu River.
Dec 30th Shanghai Exit ( B )
Transfer to airport for departure
That last part isnt right, tho, as Cindy and I have extended our stay in Shanghai until January 2nd. I am excited for that, as it is the city I am most looking forward to seeing, plus it is the best city of all of them to have New Years in! Yay! So, ittekimasu....I hope I survive the cold hell known as Beijing! ;)
Have a great Christmas and New Years...hope everyone is eating TONS of holiday food and drinking eggnog and whatnot for me!!!
Dec 21st Beijing Arrival stay at Tiantan Hotel ¡ï¡ï¡ï¡ï
Arrival in Beijing, met and transferred to Tiantan Hotel or same class. The rest of the day is free.
Dec 22nd Beijing ( B L ) stay at Tiantan Hotel ¡ï¡ï¡ï¡ï
Beginning the day with a visit to Tiananmen Square, the world largest. Then move on to the imperial palace, also known as the ¡°Forbidden City ¡° that symbolizes the imperial and traditional China. After lunch go on with the visit to Temple of Heaven, the place where the emperors of Ming and Qing Dynasties worshipped heaven and prayed for peace and harvest. Back to hotel
Dec 23rd Beijing ( B L D ) stay at Tiantan Hotel ¡ï¡ï¡ï¡ï
Today's highlight is to visit the Great wall , symbol of Chinese civilization. After lunch, continue a visit to Dingling , one of the Ming Tombs, where 13 emperors were buried in Ming Dynasty. Peking Duck dinner and Peking Opera Show in the evening.
Dec 24th Beijing -- Xi'an by air stay at Xian Hotel Or Tangcheng Hotel¡ï¡ï¡ï¡ï ( B L )
Take a morning flight to Xi'an. After lunch, city tour begins with a visit to the Shanxi Museum, the Bell Tower and City Wall. Stay at Xian Hotel or Tangcheng Hotel
Dec 25th Xian Stay at Xian Hotel Or Tangcheng Hotel¡ï¡ï¡ï¡ï ( B L D )
Beginning the day with a once-in-a lifetime viewing of the extraordinary 2200-year-old terra-cotta Army of China's First Emperor-Qin Shihuang. Three exhibition halls house the continuing excavation of am army of 7,000 terracotta soldiers and horses that guard the tomb of the the First Emperor. After lunch visit Huaqing Hot Spring and Big Goode Pagoda .Local flavor dinner--dumpling . Tang Dynasty Show in the evening.
Dec 26th Xian ¡ªGuilin by air stay at Park Hotel ¡ï¡ï¡ï¡ï ( B L)
Take morning flight from Xian to Guilin. Arrival in Guilin, met and transferred to Guilin Park Hotel. After lunch, visit to Fubo Hill ,Seven Star Park.Back to your hotel.
Dec 27th Guilin stay at Park Hotel ¡ï¡ï¡ï¡ï ( B L D )
Enjoy a morning cruise down the winding Li River to Yangshou. Return to Guilin. Dinner and Minority Performance in the evening.
Dec 28th Guilin ¡ªShanghai by air and stay at Golden River-view Hotel Shanghai ¡ï¡ï¡ï¡ï or Shanghai Ocean Hotel ¡ï¡ï¡ï¡ï ( B L D )
Half day City tour of Reed Flute Cave, Elephant Trunk Hill. Afternoon flight to Shanghai. Stay at Golden River-view Hotel Shanghai or Shanghai Ocean Hotel In the evening dinner will be served. After dinner, you will be arrange d to watch the fantastic acrobatic show
Dec 29th Shanghai ( B L )
Today's highlight is your visit to Yuyuan Garden and Bazar. After lunch, move on to the¡± Pedestrians only ¡° Nanjing Road and the Bund. Take one hour cruising on Huang Pu River.
Dec 30th Shanghai Exit ( B )
Transfer to airport for departure
That last part isnt right, tho, as Cindy and I have extended our stay in Shanghai until January 2nd. I am excited for that, as it is the city I am most looking forward to seeing, plus it is the best city of all of them to have New Years in! Yay! So, ittekimasu....I hope I survive the cold hell known as Beijing! ;)
Have a great Christmas and New Years...hope everyone is eating TONS of holiday food and drinking eggnog and whatnot for me!!!
The Time Traveler's Wife
I just finished reading The Time Traveler's Wife and it was SUCH a good book, I LOVED it. I haven't loved a book like this in a long time! I was purposely reading it slowly so that it wouldn't end! I highly recommend checking it out, I loved it loved it loved it! Thanks to Holly for forcing it down my throat, btw :) Hee hee.
A random quote from the author in an interview, which I found interesting:
"I do not quite understand why people are so suspicious of fiction. Nonfiction is every bit as managed and shaped as fiction is and has the disadvantage of being too much like real life."
Monday, December 18, 2006
Keitai Pictures
So I have been far too lazy to blog about what I have been up to lately, so instead I will just post random keitai pics, and they sorta say things about where I have been, so there ya go!
Plate #1 of the 3,765 servings I had at the Thanksgiving dinner in Maebashi. Oh my god, it was SO good and I literally ate at least 6,000 calories and loved every minute of it! Of course, it wasn't as good as my Grandma's, but what is?
My parents and grandma ROCK because they sent me my favorite thing in the world....my grandma's Thanksgiving rolls! ONLY my family would spend the time and money to express me rolls, but they are fucking AMAZING! Pure butter! They are my favorite part of the meal! MMMM!
So, I have heard nothing but incredible things about Beer Lao from everyone that goes to Laos (yes, people actually go to Laos!). I have heard it is the best beer in the world, but that they don't export it for unknown reasons (hello, you'd think they would want to make MONEY in that country?!). Anyway, I seriously was pondering going to Laos just to try the beer, but fortunately I found it at a sketchy Thai restaurant in Tokyo! Of course I don't think any beer could meet up to such expectations, but it was good!
The Christmas tree at Disneyland! It was huge! I LOVE DISNEYLAND CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS!!!!
A moving Christmas tree in the Christmas parade (I was Japanese and actually watched the parade...usually I take advantage of the no-lines for rides during that time!).
This is currently my keitai wallpaper to get me in the Christmas spirit! So cute!
Is this not the cutest picture EVER?! Kawaii! Thanks to Ann for sending this!
I finally got to ride the Buzz Lightyear game for the first time ever! There is usually a huuuuuuuuuuuuge line. You ride around and shoot shit with your laser. Dude, apparently I should be in the military because I kicked fucking ASS at that game! I don't know if that is a good thing or not!
Mami is a genius and had us leave the park for lunch, and we went to a Hawaiian burger place. HOLY SHIT, I had the biggest and best avocado burger ever! I had been craving one for a month and it more than made up for it! I didn't know how to eat it, it was dekaiyo.
What can I say, I can fit big things in my mouth ;)
This is my AWESOME present I gave to a very lucky ALT for the gift exchange for the ALT Christmas enkai in Haruna. Is it not BEAUTIFUL?! ;)
Yes, only the best presents come from the conbini!
Plate #1 of the 3,765 servings I had at the Thanksgiving dinner in Maebashi. Oh my god, it was SO good and I literally ate at least 6,000 calories and loved every minute of it! Of course, it wasn't as good as my Grandma's, but what is?
My parents and grandma ROCK because they sent me my favorite thing in the world....my grandma's Thanksgiving rolls! ONLY my family would spend the time and money to express me rolls, but they are fucking AMAZING! Pure butter! They are my favorite part of the meal! MMMM!
So, I have heard nothing but incredible things about Beer Lao from everyone that goes to Laos (yes, people actually go to Laos!). I have heard it is the best beer in the world, but that they don't export it for unknown reasons (hello, you'd think they would want to make MONEY in that country?!). Anyway, I seriously was pondering going to Laos just to try the beer, but fortunately I found it at a sketchy Thai restaurant in Tokyo! Of course I don't think any beer could meet up to such expectations, but it was good!
The Christmas tree at Disneyland! It was huge! I LOVE DISNEYLAND CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS!!!!
A moving Christmas tree in the Christmas parade (I was Japanese and actually watched the parade...usually I take advantage of the no-lines for rides during that time!).
This is currently my keitai wallpaper to get me in the Christmas spirit! So cute!
Is this not the cutest picture EVER?! Kawaii! Thanks to Ann for sending this!
I finally got to ride the Buzz Lightyear game for the first time ever! There is usually a huuuuuuuuuuuuge line. You ride around and shoot shit with your laser. Dude, apparently I should be in the military because I kicked fucking ASS at that game! I don't know if that is a good thing or not!
Mami is a genius and had us leave the park for lunch, and we went to a Hawaiian burger place. HOLY SHIT, I had the biggest and best avocado burger ever! I had been craving one for a month and it more than made up for it! I didn't know how to eat it, it was dekaiyo.
What can I say, I can fit big things in my mouth ;)
This is my AWESOME present I gave to a very lucky ALT for the gift exchange for the ALT Christmas enkai in Haruna. Is it not BEAUTIFUL?! ;)
Yes, only the best presents come from the conbini!
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Lactose intolerant people are GAY!!!
Oh, boy, I can get married and have kids and watch football all day long! All I have to do is stop drinking soy milk!
Sunday, December 10, 2006
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
A sign I may be out of touch with American culture....
K, so until like two days ago I thought Tenacious D was the name of some rapper that I didn't know anything about. And it turns out it is two fat white guys, one of whom is Jack Black. Hmm, interesting. K, I know nothing about American culture anymore, let alone youth culture. Sad.
Monday, December 04, 2006
What is this, CHRISTMAS?!
Shout out to Holly (and Joja!) in the subject, yo!
Anyway, I have a confession to make….I have been downloading some MAJOR guilty pleasure music in the last week! I am on a one-man mission to make it feel like it is Christmas time. In the last week I have watched Love Actually, drank an absurd amount of sparkling apple cider (they have it here!!!!!!!!! WHEEEEEEEE!), and had about 500 gingerbread lattes from Starbucks. The next part of my Christmasification is...dare I say...listening to Christmas music! Yes, despite my absolute hatred for Christmas music that was caused by a life-altering four holiday seasons in a row at Barnes and Noble (oy), I am actually CHOOSING to listen to Christmas music! And not just any Christmas music, no no no...guilty pleasure Christmas music oh fo sho!
What is this music, you ask? Um, can we hear some Mariah Carey love up in here??? Yes, I hate her with a passion, but hello, who doesn’t love her Christmas album (namely “All I Want For Christmas is You,” which causes me to dance around Japanese department stores). I also MAY have downloaded the Nsync Christmas album. Also, it MAY have only been available in a huge file with their complete discography in it. Just maybe. Um, guilty pleasure FOR SURE! Jeff gonna be doin’ some dancing around his apartment (a good way to burn off Christmas calories, might I add!).
I also just downloaded some album called the VA Christmas Hits 3-CD package? I am not sure what that stands for, but I think it might be “Very Awesome” because it is some good shit, yo! It is the most random compilation album ever, as the artists include Bing Crosby, Michael Bolton, Cyndi Lauper, Frank Sinatra, Christina Aguilera, Wham, Elton John, Backstreet Boys, Eartha Kitt, Doris Day, Destiny’s Child and many more. Intriguing!
I also just learned of the existence of a new Sarah McLachlan Christmas CD? It is good, but like the most depressing Christmas music ever! That will be Jeff’s go-to-bed Christmas music, perhaps! I think the album should be called “Slit Your Wrists by the Fireplace.”
Anyway, yes, I think I may have enough Christmas music for now...next step in my Christmasification is Christmas-decorated DISNEYLAND this Friday! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT!!!!!!
Anyway, I have a confession to make….I have been downloading some MAJOR guilty pleasure music in the last week! I am on a one-man mission to make it feel like it is Christmas time. In the last week I have watched Love Actually, drank an absurd amount of sparkling apple cider (they have it here!!!!!!!!! WHEEEEEEEE!), and had about 500 gingerbread lattes from Starbucks. The next part of my Christmasification is...dare I say...listening to Christmas music! Yes, despite my absolute hatred for Christmas music that was caused by a life-altering four holiday seasons in a row at Barnes and Noble (oy), I am actually CHOOSING to listen to Christmas music! And not just any Christmas music, no no no...guilty pleasure Christmas music oh fo sho!
What is this music, you ask? Um, can we hear some Mariah Carey love up in here??? Yes, I hate her with a passion, but hello, who doesn’t love her Christmas album (namely “All I Want For Christmas is You,” which causes me to dance around Japanese department stores). I also MAY have downloaded the Nsync Christmas album. Also, it MAY have only been available in a huge file with their complete discography in it. Just maybe. Um, guilty pleasure FOR SURE! Jeff gonna be doin’ some dancing around his apartment (a good way to burn off Christmas calories, might I add!).
I also just downloaded some album called the VA Christmas Hits 3-CD package? I am not sure what that stands for, but I think it might be “Very Awesome” because it is some good shit, yo! It is the most random compilation album ever, as the artists include Bing Crosby, Michael Bolton, Cyndi Lauper, Frank Sinatra, Christina Aguilera, Wham, Elton John, Backstreet Boys, Eartha Kitt, Doris Day, Destiny’s Child and many more. Intriguing!
I also just learned of the existence of a new Sarah McLachlan Christmas CD? It is good, but like the most depressing Christmas music ever! That will be Jeff’s go-to-bed Christmas music, perhaps! I think the album should be called “Slit Your Wrists by the Fireplace.”
Anyway, yes, I think I may have enough Christmas music for now...next step in my Christmasification is Christmas-decorated DISNEYLAND this Friday! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT!!!!!!
Sunday, December 03, 2006
The Best Conbini in the World!!!
On Thursday, Cindy and I skipped school so that we could “put extra pages in our passport” (our cover story for getting our Chinese visa). While there was drama with the visa (um, can I pretend to be Chinese and work at the embassy??? They work FOUR HOURS a day and don’t do shit!), it was worth the trip to Roppongi just to see a Natural Lawson! Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuude, they are the best conbinis EVER!
So, Lawson is a conbini that is good enough, though not particularly amazing (Ministop forevah, mothahfuckahs!). However, they have recently opened Natural Lawson, which is a conbini but with natural stuff, veggies, fruits, good products, etc. They are only in Tokyo and there aren’t that many of them, so I was excited to see one on the way to the embassy. And dude, they fucking rock, yo! It is like a mini Trader Joe’s, but in conbini form! It was fucking awesome.
I took some blurry pictures with my keitai (I had to do it in a hurry because I was embarrassed):
Their man, mmmm.
Anyway, if you find a Natural Lawson you’ve gots to try the man, yo! They are the SHIT! We had a kurogoma anman (black sesame and azuki paste), a sweet potato man, and a fucking AMAZING takaya man, which is spinach and pork. It tasted like it was just made by Chinese peeps in the back! Then again, maybe it was, as we were in China Town! Hehe.
Anyway, here is their site if you are interested. And even more interesting is their menu of man (dude, I am going back for the pumpkin one, yo!).
K, I am a loser, but it is the shit, yo! Non-food-related posts (gasp!) to come later in the week :)
So, Lawson is a conbini that is good enough, though not particularly amazing (Ministop forevah, mothahfuckahs!). However, they have recently opened Natural Lawson, which is a conbini but with natural stuff, veggies, fruits, good products, etc. They are only in Tokyo and there aren’t that many of them, so I was excited to see one on the way to the embassy. And dude, they fucking rock, yo! It is like a mini Trader Joe’s, but in conbini form! It was fucking awesome.
I took some blurry pictures with my keitai (I had to do it in a hurry because I was embarrassed):
Their man, mmmm.
Anyway, if you find a Natural Lawson you’ve gots to try the man, yo! They are the SHIT! We had a kurogoma anman (black sesame and azuki paste), a sweet potato man, and a fucking AMAZING takaya man, which is spinach and pork. It tasted like it was just made by Chinese peeps in the back! Then again, maybe it was, as we were in China Town! Hehe.
Anyway, here is their site if you are interested. And even more interesting is their menu of man (dude, I am going back for the pumpkin one, yo!).
K, I am a loser, but it is the shit, yo! Non-food-related posts (gasp!) to come later in the week :)
Yummy Seasonal Stuff
So, in Japan they love love love having seasonal stuff. With the change of seasons comes all kinds of new products (of course I am referring mainly to food here). Go to any conbini right around now and you will find tons of new “limited time” winter treats. There is limited time sparkling cider (mmmm!!!), limited time Kit-Kats, limited time winter-y chocolates, etc. etc. Now normally Jeffrey doesn’t like change and would want the same yummy treats to be available all year-round. However, for some reason it is okay in Japan!
Two winter things that you MUST HAVE if you are in Japan are:
Strawberry daifuku! HOLY SHIT, they are so good. I had my doubts last year, but they are the most amazing things EVER! So, normal daifuku are mochi (rice cake) with azuki bean paste in the middle. It is sweet and YUMMY. However, strawberry daifuku are 300 times better! The mochi is somewhat strawberry-flavored AND there is a strawberry in the middle with the bean paste! IT IS SO GOOD!!!!!! They just came out this week and I have already had three. MMMM!
This is new this year...white chocolate and pistachios combined into one orgasmic cube of delight! Hello, could there be a better, fattier combination?!
I don’t have a picture of it, but fukahire man (shark fin Chinese-style dumplings) from Ministop are the shit, too! YAY limited time oishii stuff!!!
Two winter things that you MUST HAVE if you are in Japan are:
Strawberry daifuku! HOLY SHIT, they are so good. I had my doubts last year, but they are the most amazing things EVER! So, normal daifuku are mochi (rice cake) with azuki bean paste in the middle. It is sweet and YUMMY. However, strawberry daifuku are 300 times better! The mochi is somewhat strawberry-flavored AND there is a strawberry in the middle with the bean paste! IT IS SO GOOD!!!!!! They just came out this week and I have already had three. MMMM!
This is new this year...white chocolate and pistachios combined into one orgasmic cube of delight! Hello, could there be a better, fattier combination?!
I don’t have a picture of it, but fukahire man (shark fin Chinese-style dumplings) from Ministop are the shit, too! YAY limited time oishii stuff!!!
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
I love the fall!
Dude, I have had the easiest weeks EVER lately!!!! This month I had the 3rd off (Culture Day), then a full week of school (um, not acceptable!), then on the 15th I got the day off, as I had to teach two classes on Saturday, the 18th (an acceptable trade, as I got the whole Wednesday off!). Then I got Thursday the 23rd off for Labor/Thanksgiving Day last week, and this week I have a conference on Wednesday (no shou, yay!) AND I get Thursday off to take care of passport drama (well, hopefully, the Chinese Embassy is sketchy!!!). Then I am taking next Friday off for Disneyland (!!!), then SADLY I have a full week, followed by a 3-day week before China!!! WOOT! Then I have two weeks off, then two days of sitting on my ass in the staffroom, then a 3-day weekend before the term starts! I love this shit!
Free shit at school!
Dude, this week at school rocks, as I have gotten random free shit! It is especially helpful, as I am broke as shit at the moment (more on that in a future post). Anyway, last Friday Momose Sensei gave all of the 3nensei teachers these lemon drinks that were really yummy? Not that exciting, but still nice! Then I arrived at work on Monday to find a big present on my desk. It was from a high school in Kiryu that gave all of the 3nensei teachers presents to try to suck up to them. Thankfully, I am a fake 3nensei teacher, so I get the presents, too (including a set of pens that I love, woot). It is not the most amazing present in the world, as it is a HUGE towel with an ugly picture of a samurai or something on it, but whatever, that means I don’t have to do towel laundry as often ;) Then after school I came back to my desk to find a piece of apple pie on it! One of the 3nensei teachers made apple pie and gave slices to every 3nensei teacher! Awww!
Then today I needed to move around, so I was walking around the halls, when the home ec. (is that how you spell that?!) teacher stopped me and was like, do you want some leftover miso soup? Hell, yeah! So I chatted with her while I ate yummy miso soup that 2nensei students had made. Ironic that I was walking to burn off calories and then ended up eating a bowl of soup, but oh well! Hehe.
So yes, lets hope this week of free stuff continues, and a 3nensei teacher decides to treat us all to a trip to Thailand or something!
Then today I needed to move around, so I was walking around the halls, when the home ec. (is that how you spell that?!) teacher stopped me and was like, do you want some leftover miso soup? Hell, yeah! So I chatted with her while I ate yummy miso soup that 2nensei students had made. Ironic that I was walking to burn off calories and then ended up eating a bowl of soup, but oh well! Hehe.
So yes, lets hope this week of free stuff continues, and a 3nensei teacher decides to treat us all to a trip to Thailand or something!
Friday, November 17, 2006
I'm back in bloody middle school!
K, I have decided that I am living in junior high again, and I really have no desire to do so, as it wasn’t even fun the first time! I used to think that my kids were retarded (I mean that in the best way possible!) kids who didn’t really notice anything. However, I have come to realize that they are like queeny gay men, observing one’s characteristics and (most importantly) personal flaws, just in case they are needed for a cat fight in the future! Today my special needs kids were doing impressions of various teachers and they were SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO good at it (and fucking hilarious), it was ridiculous!!! They totally notice the….how do you say komakai tokoro? Like, details. It is really crazy!
Anyway, you can totally notice the kids judging you when you walk by them or when you are teaching. Not necessarily because they are bitches (tho some of them are), but because they are teenagers and that is what they do! It’s especially sad, as I realized that I worrat they think. They totally know that I have like three pairs of work pants that I rotate on a regular basis. They also affect what I wear! I don’t want to wear something too often or they will be like, "Oh, you’re wearing THAT shirt again!" Hahaha. Not that they would say it (probably), but you know they are thinking it!
So yeah, sad, I am totally a 13 year-old again. Bah!
Anyway, you can totally notice the kids judging you when you walk by them or when you are teaching. Not necessarily because they are bitches (tho some of them are), but because they are teenagers and that is what they do! It’s especially sad, as I realized that I worrat they think. They totally know that I have like three pairs of work pants that I rotate on a regular basis. They also affect what I wear! I don’t want to wear something too often or they will be like, "Oh, you’re wearing THAT shirt again!" Hahaha. Not that they would say it (probably), but you know they are thinking it!
So yeah, sad, I am totally a 13 year-old again. Bah!
So for my 2nensei class I am having them do a dialogue in which one person is going to Tokyo and doesn’t know where to go, and the other (who goes to Tokyo all the time) is suggesting good places to go. It has a basic set thingy and the kids insert certain words and places themselves (which I am italicizing here). Today two of my best students had funny ones that I had to share. Plus it is in good English!!!
A: You look very tired.
B: Yes. I am going to Tokyo on Friday! I want to go sightseeing, but I don’t know much about Tokyo.
A: Oh, really? I love Tokyo! I go there every week with my
girlfriends.
B: Really? Will you please tell me good places to go sightseeing?
A: Why don’t you go to Kabukicho? It is very fun. You can meet many kids of women there.
B: That sounds great! Thank you!
A: Have fun in Tokyo!
K, that is only fun if you know about Kabuki-cho, but it is funny, dammit ;)
And one other:
A: You look very angry.
B: Yes. I am going to Tokyo on Friday! I want to go sightseeing, but I don't know much about Tokyo.
A: Oh, really? I love Tokyo! I go there every day with my
three thousand dogs.
B: Really? Will you please tell me good places to go sightseeing?
A: Why don’t you give up going to Tokyo? It is very dangerous. You can not do anything there.
B: That sounds great! Thank you!
A: Have fun in Tokyo! (and he wrote in (?) here, hehe)
K, so maybe these don’t seem funny to anyone but me, but you have to be an ALT here to understand! They actually thought outside of the box!
A: You look very tired.
B: Yes. I am going to Tokyo on Friday! I want to go sightseeing, but I don’t know much about Tokyo.
A: Oh, really? I love Tokyo! I go there every week with my
girlfriends.
B: Really? Will you please tell me good places to go sightseeing?
A: Why don’t you go to Kabukicho? It is very fun. You can meet many kids of women there.
B: That sounds great! Thank you!
A: Have fun in Tokyo!
K, that is only fun if you know about Kabuki-cho, but it is funny, dammit ;)
And one other:
A: You look very angry.
B: Yes. I am going to Tokyo on Friday! I want to go sightseeing, but I don't know much about Tokyo.
A: Oh, really? I love Tokyo! I go there every day with my
three thousand dogs.
B: Really? Will you please tell me good places to go sightseeing?
A: Why don’t you give up going to Tokyo? It is very dangerous. You can not do anything there.
B: That sounds great! Thank you!
A: Have fun in Tokyo! (and he wrote in (?) here, hehe)
K, so maybe these don’t seem funny to anyone but me, but you have to be an ALT here to understand! They actually thought outside of the box!
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Takasaki AEON!
On Saturday Cindy and I went a pretty-much-ridiculous distance to check out the new Takasaki AEON. It is either the biggest AEON in western Japan or all of Japan, I am not sure which...either way it is damn big, yo! It is three floors and has tons of stores and food and shit! It was really crowded but it is big so it wasn't overwhelming. Of course Cindy and I mainly got excited over the food places that they don't have at our AEON. Apparently the other people were equally excited, as there were HUGE lines for all of the dessert places! It looked like fucking Tokyo Disneyland (where more people wait for food than for rides)! Anyway, here are a few keitai pics from the trip:
They had a VERY dorky exhibit of replicas of costumes from a Power Rangers-ish show (I forget what it is called). There were tons of costumes, tho! Needless to say, a buncha little boys (and scary otaku) were very excited about it.
The MOST exciting news of the month...Starbucks has SEASONAL DRINKS this year!!!!! That's right, I finally finally finally get to have a damn gingerbread latte, my favorite drink EVER. And they have toffeenut lattes (woot!) and chocolate mint mochas. Um, you had better believe I am going to Starbucks as many times as possible in the next two months! It IS Christmas!
Me and my gingerbread latte.....pure joy.
They had a VERY dorky exhibit of replicas of costumes from a Power Rangers-ish show (I forget what it is called). There were tons of costumes, tho! Needless to say, a buncha little boys (and scary otaku) were very excited about it.
The MOST exciting news of the month...Starbucks has SEASONAL DRINKS this year!!!!! That's right, I finally finally finally get to have a damn gingerbread latte, my favorite drink EVER. And they have toffeenut lattes (woot!) and chocolate mint mochas. Um, you had better believe I am going to Starbucks as many times as possible in the next two months! It IS Christmas!
Me and my gingerbread latte.....pure joy.
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Love Hotel Lovin'
Yes, I lost my love hotel virginity, and I have the pics to prove it!
What seems like a normal hotel room.....
Cindy shows off the amazingly real cityscape
Hmm, how strange, why would a hotel provide condoms to its guests?
One flip of a switch and the romance begins!
The control above the bed that helps you control the magic...
Love hotels rock!
What seems like a normal hotel room.....
Cindy shows off the amazingly real cityscape
Hmm, how strange, why would a hotel provide condoms to its guests?
One flip of a switch and the romance begins!
The control above the bed that helps you control the magic...
Love hotels rock!
Friday, November 10, 2006
Thursday, November 09, 2006
Mikan!
It is a glorious time of year, as mikan are in season! Yay! Perhaps one of the only good things about the dreadfully cold winter to come is that at least I can eat mikan all day long. For those who don't know, mikan are like small oranges. There is some random English word for them, but I don't know it and you probably don't, either. They aren't tangerines, though. Anyway, they are perfect, as they are yummy and vitamin C-y, but not too big to eat for one person like an orange! They are the perfect snack. AND they are the ONLY cheap fruit to be found in this country! To celebrate this momentous occasion, I bought a huge bag of them and have been having approximately four mikan a day. Woot!
One of my kids has personality AND can speak English?!
K, so Cindy and I have the same blog and we are both writing about what our students wrote in class, but get over it! Hehe. I was gonna say this anyway, dammit ;)
Anyway, in the 3nensei class we are doing this boring (I mean exciting! Yes, EXCITING!) handout with questions about the kids' favorite song. It is like what is your favorite song, who sings it, why do you like it, etc. The kids write the answers to the individual questions, then write a paragraph about their favorite song. Anyway, I go around and help the kids out while they write it, check their answers, etc. On Tuesday I got to this one boy who wrote "I don't know" to all of the questions, which caught my eye, so I read his paragraph, and it was the following:
I don't listen to music. I don't like music. But I know many singers. I don't have any money, so I can't buy CDs. Please give me money.
Hee hee! Maybe it isn't that funny in "real life," but it is nice to see someone thinking outside the box! And he only had one error on the whole sheet!
Anyway, in the 3nensei class we are doing this boring (I mean exciting! Yes, EXCITING!) handout with questions about the kids' favorite song. It is like what is your favorite song, who sings it, why do you like it, etc. The kids write the answers to the individual questions, then write a paragraph about their favorite song. Anyway, I go around and help the kids out while they write it, check their answers, etc. On Tuesday I got to this one boy who wrote "I don't know" to all of the questions, which caught my eye, so I read his paragraph, and it was the following:
I don't listen to music. I don't like music. But I know many singers. I don't have any money, so I can't buy CDs. Please give me money.
Hee hee! Maybe it isn't that funny in "real life," but it is nice to see someone thinking outside the box! And he only had one error on the whole sheet!
Maybe the world ISN'T ending?!
...or at least is ending in a better way than expected. Thank GOD for the results of the elections yesterday! Well, a lot of them, at least. Not that Democrats aren’t retarded, too, but at least they are far less retarded than Republicans. They had better ganbaru in Virginia so they can have the House AND the Senate. Hmmm. AND Rumseld is getting the fuck out now, yay yay yay!
Of course, now that the Democrats actually have power, the Republicans will just blame any problem on them since they are “in charge,” but it will be a good thing for the most park, kana? Hmm.
AND whatever-inbred-state-it-was didn't vote to make abortions illegal! Perhaps there is hope. Of course, not really, because I am totally ignoring the homophobic shit that went down, but we will pretend that didn’t happen. Fucking dumbasses.
Of course, now that the Democrats actually have power, the Republicans will just blame any problem on them since they are “in charge,” but it will be a good thing for the most park, kana? Hmm.
AND whatever-inbred-state-it-was didn't vote to make abortions illegal! Perhaps there is hope. Of course, not really, because I am totally ignoring the homophobic shit that went down, but we will pretend that didn’t happen. Fucking dumbasses.
Monday, November 06, 2006
It's time for.....more random photos!
Pics from the weekend in Tokyo!
The kick-ass Anpanman store in Shinbashi!
Me, Shokupanman and Anpanman
Displays outside
Japanese people know how to advertise! This display for the Rent DVD was at Tower Records...it had all kinds of shit popping up out of it, a TV screen playing highlights of the movie, and lots of DVDs.
A reflection-y picture of the TTB poster.
Jumpin' Jap Flash, indeed!
A picture of my desk....aren't I a serious and professional ALT? Hehehe. Apparently I work in Heaven, based on the strange lighting going on here.
Pics of Taiwan, Halloween and the Love Hotel during the weekend, kana?
The kick-ass Anpanman store in Shinbashi!
Me, Shokupanman and Anpanman
Displays outside
Japanese people know how to advertise! This display for the Rent DVD was at Tower Records...it had all kinds of shit popping up out of it, a TV screen playing highlights of the movie, and lots of DVDs.
A reflection-y picture of the TTB poster.
Jumpin' Jap Flash, indeed!
A picture of my desk....aren't I a serious and professional ALT? Hehehe. Apparently I work in Heaven, based on the strange lighting going on here.
Pics of Taiwan, Halloween and the Love Hotel during the weekend, kana?
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