WENZHOU!!!!

Okay so I may have fallen asleep a bit too fast.  I woke up almost 2 hours later and we were still on the ground!!!  Remember, we have to catch another flight in Wenzhou, originally we only had about a 3 hour layover.  We finally take off, unfortunately I pass out again until mid flight when I see the estimated time of arrival at destination being about 15 minutes before our connecting flight departs.  We start considering the possibilities, we would have to collect our luggage, go through security, check back in, and then board all in 15 minutes.  Oh, and planes usually close the gates 15 minutes before the plane takes off.  So we decided that a couple of us, Greg and Austin run up ahead while we get our luggage all together and then see if we can do anything.  We get there, Greg and Austin go, we get that bags and everybody is pretty clueless, we don't have any working phones so we couldn't really find anybody.  Nick went searching until we found them at customer service attempting to communicate with the people.  Our plane had already left by the time we found Greg and Austin so now we are negotiating new flights, hotels, transportation, etc.  At first they tried to blame missing our flight on us until I showed them our flight times and then they had to have somebody verify.  It was difficult to talk to them, since they would help other people that spoke their language first.  It also didn't help other customers were incredibly rude and pushy.  I have no idea how long everything took, but we finally arranged for a bus to come get us, drive us to a hotel the airport has a deal with and food as well.  Luckily, the airport paid for everything.  We would be catching a flight the next day around 8 am.



The air was so gritty.



After a 40 minute bus ride we arrive at the hotel and the first words we say are "hello" and then all the clerks start laughing, at this point we all knew this was going to be rough.  We do get our key cards and our bags upstairs, about 5 minutes after we discover our rooms a troop of room service people come up and start yelling at us.  We eventually determined that it was time for lunch and they had it all set out for us.  The food was okay, certainly not the best thing I've ever had.  After, we went up to our rooms and slept, until about 3 hours into our slumber, yet again there was a banging at our door. Before they started talking we just walked out back down to the cafeteria and hardly ate anything.  None of it was really that great anyway.  But now we were all awake, and since we were in Wenzhou we figured why not explore?



Yeah we walked out about a block to the right and a block to the left.  Wenzhou was a dirty dirty place.  We eventually found a mall, barely lit, and checked it out real quick.  We bought a few things from a grocery store for breakfast the next day.  While I had to give up buying a really nice hiking backpack for 25 RMB. That's 5 USD by the way.  We didn't stay out long, it was somewhat terrifying and I was sure I began to develop asthma.  The air was terrible.  To get back to the hotel we had to cross a street.  Simple right? Not in Wenzhou, zero lights, zero crosswalks, and limited visibility with the smog and plus it was night out.  Best imitation of frogger I have ever seen.  Everyone made it back alive and we were so ready to get out of there.

It was Easter and instead of looking for a basket at 6 am our taxis arrived, my taxi driver was pretty sketch, he wouldn't stop rocking back and forth.  Anyway, we get to the Wenzhou airport.  The international flight terminal was about the size of one half of a basketball court. It all looked scary, but I didn't care.  Austin, Greg, Nick and I practiced some feathersacking while we waited.  We actually got pretty good at it, until we almost hit some military personnel.  We stopped after that, it was about time to go anyway.



PEACE WENZHOU!

The flight itself was great.  Our meal was a snickers bar, a bun, three cups of coffee, and some veggies.  Since there was only about 15 people on the flight I had a whole row of seats to stretch out.  I can only hope the 16 hour flight back home is nearly as good.  We got back and I never realized how much I missed Hong Kong, it was looking really good after that adventure.

Beijing: Days 4-6

Alright, after Wednesday, started to get into the real touristy stuff.  It began Thursday morning at about 9 am I think.  We were getting ready to check out the Ming tombs where many emperors have been buried.  It was a misty morning which made the experience even cooler, since we were surrounded by dead emperors.  The buildings, statues, and gateways were amazing.  The place was covered with pine trees also, since they represent longevity. They are evergreens after all.  The Chinese are some of the most superstitious people around.  We were told that just to find this place they searched for years.  They had to find a place with the perfect fengshue.  Mountains in the south block out the bad spirits and then there was an opening towards the north to allow the good spirits to come in.  It was all really interesting to learn about all this.  The Ming Tombs, however, was only stop numero uno on our day of sightseeing.  Next stop. The Jade Factory and some food.

 

Giant Jade Boat

The Jade Factory was great.  They had so many jade carvings and they even painted with jade dust.  Some carvings were massive. Especially these pirate ship looking things and they had carvings of lions and bears bigger than I am.  They also took us past where they carve some of the sculptures.  Many of the artists were making happiness balls that have 9 circles inside that can move freely.  The cool part is that they make them out of one piece of jade.  Then, the guide took us to a room to demonstrate how to tell fake jade from real jade.  The two most common ways to make fake jade is glass and then ceramics.  With glass, if you hold it up to the light, you can see right through it.  With porcelain jade, the light doesn't pass through it at all.  Then the real jade, light passes through it, but you may see some cloudiness from some of the impurities still inside of it.  Perfect jade won't have any "clouds" and can get to be pretty expensive.  After looking around for a while we got to sit down to a great lunch with the Dean and Dr. Bennion.   It was another feast, they just brought out plate after plate of food, and all of it was great.  We talked for a while also, about the College of Business, some of the teachers, and programs and everything.  After we got some food in us we were ready for the next challenge. . .

The Great Wall



It took us about half an hour to drive from the tombs to the part of the Great Wall we were going to.  The tour bus took us to an area that didn't have as many tourists called, Badaling.  Once we left the bus we got some coffee and snacks for the walk, after we got our supplies the students tore off to climb the wall.  Snapping pictures, ignoring hawkers, and nearly falling the whole time, we enjoyed ourselves very much.  We somehow planned this trip perfectly since the trees were blossoming with white flowers everywhere and it really looked great.  The wall itself was incredibly impressive, though not very high, it did run right on top of the mountain ridge almost perfectly.  At some parts it looked like wall back tracked and folded on top of itself many times.  At one point there was 4000 miles of wall and now remains about about 800 miles.  We only walked about half a mile, but at some points we were walking almost straight up on the treacherous stairs.  We went as far as we could until the part of the wall was closed off since it wasn't renovated or anything for tourists. Unfortunately we only had about two hours to explore the wall, I could have stayed there all day, but I guess it was time to get back.  I'm pretty sure everybody fell asleep on the bus ride back to our hotels.  Tonight was dinner on Dr. Bennion.



Din Tai Fung was the place, and it was amazing.  We each got to order two things, with the majority of it being dumplings and pork buns.  Although, we failed to mention that we wanted BBQ pork buns, they were still really good.  Apparently the restaurant is one of the 10 best restaurants in the world somehow.  Which I think they can owe the rankings to their amazing dessert.  Shaved ice.  We got the strawberry shaved ice and it looked like a painting it was so perfect.  The strawberries looked perfect everything was perfect on it, I couldn't believe we were going to eat it. It turned out to be the best food I have eaten in Beijing, it was so delicious.  I was happy for the rest of the night, knowing that I had that in my stomach.

We decided to walk back to the hotel from there, rather than taking a taxi.  The walk was nice and we got to see where the president lived and we passed a lot of very big buildings. When we finally arrived at our hotel it was lights out, everyone was tired from the days activities.

Friday was a great day.  We woke up to sunshine and great Beijing weather.  We went to the Temple of Heaven or the Temple of Good Harvest, which ever one you want to call it.  This place was actually my favorite among the sites that we saw.  It was in a great big park where all of Beijing goes to have a relaxed stroll.  Many retired old folk were there relaxing and enjoying themselves.  I saw alot of circles of old people playing a version of hacky sack, only theirs was made out of aluminum circular cut outs and a bunch of feathers sticking out of it.  They were all really good at it as well, I've never seen retirees move so quickly.  Needless to I would end up purchasing one of these for the right price of 5 RMB.  Still working on my skills.

Dragons, Phoenix, then Clouds



Okay we are walking through the park and everything is really nice, there were alot of people there, then we turn the corner, and basically out of nowhere comes the Temple of Heaven.  It was really massive, and incredibly decorated with dragons and all the little spirit animals. Also at almost every set of stairs are giant marble slabs with carvings of dragons, phoenixes, and clouds, all mean good fortune in China.  Once I walked around the Temple of few times everyone was ready to continue.  We walked down the long path, passing different buildings and shops.  Stretching the whole length of the path is a straight line of marble leading all the way to the most sacred area in all of China.  It was in the middle of nine concentric circles, each with segments of marble totaling in multiples of nine.  I never bothered to count unlike a few people, I just took their word for it.  At the center was a raised portion where you were supposedly able to feel Him.  People have since then traded prayers and worships for photo ops and quirky poses.  It was good to experience something that has been such an important article to Chinese history and life, but after a few pictures we headed back down the long path. 

Grabbed some tentacles real quick



Before we left, we stop inside a little art store that Dr. Bennion knew about.  Inside they sold art pieces that have been painted by students around the area.  Many of them depicted natural scenes, and heroes of China's past.  All of them were well done and I picked up a couple myself, satisfied I went outside to practice some of that feathersack I bought about a blog ago.  Now it was definitely time to leave, tonight we would be on our own to get some dinner, we were all starving.  We finally found refuge at a Japanese restaurant hidden deep inside one of the malls.  The price was perfect and we ate everything in sight.  We knew we would be waking up early tomorrow so we didn't do much after dinner except pack.



Next morning went well, we slept walk to the lobby at about 5 am I think and waited for our taxis to come take us to the airport.  Since we had a connecting domestic flight we parted ways with Dr. Bennion and Brandon (both had direct flights).  We all checked-in, and waited to board the plane, once I was in my chair I passed out, I didn't even have time to turn my Ipod on. I was out.



The Great Wall, In All Of It's Greatness



Bejing Days 1-3

This year, since BGSU was having talks with some of the Chinese Universities for some sort of exchange partnership all the students from BG were able to stay in Beijing for a week on a nearly-all-expense-paid vacation during Easter break. 

My Luggage!

We left on the 18th of April to fly out of the Hong Kong International Airport, an experience on it's own.  Austin spotted a Popeyes and couldn't resist, ultimately he would end up going through security clutching his bag of deliciously fried goodness.  We actually had our own AFTER we went through security, but we all enjoyed it together anyway.  The ride there and the connecting flight in Taiyuan came with minimal problems and we got to Hotel Beijing without much trouble either.  Although the taxi I was in charged us 180 RMB while the other taxi only paid half of that. We did all arrive to the hotel safely though, some of us had to sacrifice some credit so we could get into our rooms, since our teacher hadn't arrived yet.  We walked into our rooms, threw everything on the beds and met back up in the lobby to explore.

We had a supremo location.  The Beijing Hotel is right in the middle of it all.  To the left of us was a giant shopping plaza complete with markets, food stalls, and designer outlets, as well as a McDonalds.  We went out into the night and turned down the first interesting/busy/dangerous alley we could find. Unbelievably we ran into some friends we knew from HKBU eating at one of the tiny restaurants, we decided to sit down and join them for some noodles.  Luckily we had a mandarin translator present with us.  After dinner we walked around for a little bit, but soon I hit a wall and got very sleepy and so did everybody else.  So we headed back to the hotel and fell asleep, since we had to be up early tomorrow.

The 19th was a Tuesday and that day we met with some US Embassy officials and were able to have a fairly informal conversation with them.  Even though we were dressed to impress.  The conversation was very interesting, unfortunately a bit short.  I apologize but I'm not allowed to publish any thing we talked about during the dialogue, confidential stuff.



Outside the Forbidden City

 

BGSU does Beijing

After the Embassy our teacher took us to a great little place that served mounds of dumplings for a super cheap price and we definitely had our fill.  Once we were satisfied we found our way to parts of the Forbidden City, the unpaid area anyway, and got a quick view of Tienanmen square.  We also went to a nice little park and walked around there for a while.  This day was full of a lot of walking and we were getting tired again so we trekked it back to the hotel. I'm pretty sure alot of us passed out but we had plans for dinner around 7 pm.  All the students gathered together to go hit up the food stalls down the street.  Seriously, the food in Beijing might have been the best part for me, although some people say the opposite. There is just so much to choose from, Chinese hamburgers, snake, squid, feet, starfish, bugs, worms, fruit, mmmmmm.  I usually stuck with the normal things, although the snake was decent, as well as the squid.  But the winner definitely went to these sugar coated fruits on a stick.  Probably the best thing I've ever tasted.  Be careful when you are at the food stalls though, one because the vendors are pretty aggressive and you should strike a deal before handing them any money, and also because you could spend alot of money without noticing, since items usually cost around 10 RMB.  It is certainly worth a try though.


Cobra Whiskey. Hardcore.





Wednesday 20th, we had a few of our plans fall through, including Mcdonalds breakfast. Sadface.  But we did have a nice long lunch at a Subway in one of the malls near our hotel.  We sat and talked for a fairly long time about things happening at our University, it is always nice to get some inside information.  Since we couldn't get into contact with anybody, we all took a trip to Beihai Park, which was a brilliant place mostly reserved for emperors to take walks and just chill.  The park was like an island in a pond so we were able to walk around it pretty quickly, and then we went up the hill to get a good view of the city.  The park had a lot of great buildings and arches painted with detailed, vivid, colors and designs.  I noticed a sign pointing towards "Ancient Jade Caves" so naturally I convinced everybody to come check it out.  We had to pay 5 RMB, but I'm a sucker for novelty trips so we took the chance.  It couldn't have been better.  There were like 60 small warrior figurines all hidden throughout the cave, also they had fake vines hanging on the ceilings, it completed the full affect pretty well.  It took us about 10 minutes to explore the whole thing.  We found an exit that spit us out behind a restaurant?  But we had to peace out since we were getting dinner with the Dean of our college.

 We met up with the Dean at his, incredible hotel, The Grand Hyatt, and started for the restaurant.  The place was pretty nice, and ordering was just as much fun as it usually is.  We had a very good meal though, and it was free, so it was even better.  Then for dessert the Dean treated us to Dairy Queen which was amazing.  I haven't had that sort of ice cream in such a long time, I savored every second of it.  Then we walked with the Dean back to his hotel and said our thank you's and goodbye's.  We had other plans, which included a hot tub, and some HBO.  We sat in the hot tub for a while, digesting not only our meals, but our experience as a whole.  We were doing things so fast, it was necessary to relax and process it all, but tomorrow was another early, walking intensive day, so we retired to our rooms and beds.