天津 (Tianjin)

The 所谓 long (3 days...) inter-semester weekend was spent in 天津 a city only 30 minutes away by train, and by train I mean bullet-train. Traveling at 330 km/hr (~200mph) was surprisingly smooth. After stepping out of the train station, the first thing I noticed about Tianjin was that the 环境污染 (pollution) was worse than 北京 in that the smog was more dense, the air was stickier, etc... After checking into the hotel, we hopped in taxi#1 to go the beach! After an hour long drive, we arrived at a different part of Tianjin, but still no beach, so we decided to have lunch at one of the local seafood restaurants. When we walked into the restaurant, we were first shown to a room with all the seafood the restaurant had to offer.

That's a lot of seafood.

Overall, the meal (clams, shrimp, fish, etc.) was excellent and relatively cheap compared to American prices (as usual). After the the seafood bonanza, we hopped into taxi #2 for what was supposedly a short ride to the beach. 10 minutes later we arrived at the water's edge, except this was more like a harbor/bay/not the beach.

The group at the faux beach.

Nice Architecture.

We then proceeded to walk around for a while. Still not satisfied we hopped into cab #3 where we were then taken to the 所谓 "so called" beach. Apparently, it was high tide so the sand was not visible, but I'm going call that total BS. Although the water was littered with empty bottles, I still walked in up to my knees, but I didn't stay in to long for fear of contracting some sort of water-borne disease.

Favorite Teacher!

Attractive photo of myself.

After the beach, we headed back to the hotel, rested a bit, went to see Little Italy (not that impressive), ate dinner, then proceeded to walk around Tianjin. The best part was seeing an old man continuously doing the "Monkey" dance as exercise in the park. After walking around, we retreated to the hotel and played cards until 2 in the morning.

Little Italy...

The following day, breakfast consisted of a KFC wrap except that it had a 老北京味道 old Beijing flavor (kind of like the flavor of Peking duck except with chicken). After walking around the city for quite a bit, we had lunch at a mall, and then hopped on the train back to Beijing. Overall the trip was a lot of fun. Whew, now I'll let the pictures do the talking.

We rode in one of the 3 wheeled cars. (Not a tricycle)

Yale takes Tianjin!

Statue somewhere in Tianjin

The group!

Tianjin at night.

Special thanks to Yvonne for lending me photos :)

Dumpling count: 160

Za Ji, Yi He Yuan

So I lied. Last weekend, I didn't have time to fully update my blog. Keeping up with a blog is tougher than I expected, especially with PiB's heavy workload... but I'm doing my best so here we go...

杂技, za ji, is one of the most absolutely stunning facets of Chinese culture. The show opened with an amazing acrobatic showing, with small Chinese girls (no more than 7 or 8) being thrown through the air. At one point, one of the girls was standing on a male performer's shoulders, who was standing on another male performer's shoulders, who was standing on another male performer's shoulders! (That girl was probably 20 feet in the air)! The most impressive act, by far, was the running/bicycle act. At first, I laughed when 8 performers rolled out on the staged riding bicycles in a circle, but at the end when 16 performers were piled onto one bike, my jaw had dropped to the ground. Wow.

Chinese Acrobatics

In other news, PiB took us to 颐和园, aka the summer palace, last weekend. Paddle boating was fun, but unfortunately, while racing another, my camera fell out of my pocket and into the lake... On a lighter note, weaving through the 17 arches of the 17 arch bridge 十七孔桥 was fun. To get through the smaller arches, we had to literally rock the boat. The Summer Palace, even on a hazy day, still was breathtaking (I think I may be running out of breaths to be taken because there are so many beautiful places in Beijing!) Now, I will let the pictures do the talking.

Paddleboating

Weaving through the Arches!

Dragon Statue

The Palace

So, I think my English is getting worse, the longer I am here in Beijing. This may/may not be a good thing. Time is flying by so quickly here, I already know I am going to miss China, but then again Yale isn't such a bad place to be.

Dumpling Count: 156

Gu Gong, Jing Shan, Bei Hai

Time is certainly flying by here in Beijing. Today's semester exam marks the halfway point of PiB. Entering the much-hyped long weekend (3 days), I now have time to fully catch up on all of my adventures.

Cheezing it up with Mao

天安门广场

Long live the unity of the great people of the world

The Saturday before last, a couple Yalies and I traveled to Tiananmen Square and Gu Gong (The Palace Museum). 漂亮得不得了! Simply beautiful. The light rain, while persistent, did not dampen our spirits (the hawkers in Tiananmen Square trying to sell us umbrellas did slow us down a bit). Tiananmen Square's walls were grand and imposing; I felt a tad intimidated. We visited a bunch of places within the palace, but my favorite site by far was the Imperial Garden, which contained elaborately crafted faux 100 ft tall "mountains" and a wide variety of flora.

Imperial Garden

Gu Gong

After visiting Tiananmen and Gu Gong, we went across the street to Jingshan Park, which is famous for its artificial mountain (45.7m high). Built for favorable feng shui (supposedly protected the palace from the northern winds) using earth from Gu Gong's moats and surrounding canals (took from wikipedia, not going to lie...), Jingshan Park's artificial mountain offers spectacular view of the Imperial Palace.

Jing Shan Park

The view from JingShan (looks better in person or on wikipedia)

After Jingshan, we took a short walk over to the renowned Bei Hai Park. All Yale Chinese L1/L2 students know the Bei Hai Chant (see the video). Turns out the professors fudged the description of the park a bit; 左右两边没有竹子 (the left and right sides of the park are not bamboo). 白塔 (the white dagoba) was spectacular, but we missed out on paddleboating when the rain began to pick up.

Overall, the trip into the heart of Beijing was a successful one despite the rain. I think I'm starting to think in Chinese, so my English 水平 has 下降了.

I almost forgot to mention that I had dinner with Master Pitti, Kelly McLaughlin(Light Fellowship Coordinator), and a few other Stilesians! The restaurant was a little hard to find, but the food as good as the company.

Fantastic dinner.

Dumpling count: 129

Xiabu Xiabu (Hot Pot)

Many apologies for the lack of posts recently. Recently, time to write blog posts has been hard to come by.

About a week and half ago (yes, falling behind quite a bit), I went to eat hot pot/火锅 with my Chinese language teacher. We arrived at the restaurant at approximately 4:50, but that still wasn't early enough to beat the dinner rush, but the delicious food was well worth the 45 minute wait.

I thought the restaurant's name Xiabu Xiabu was phonetically derived from Japan's version of hot pot, but my teacher soon corrected me saying that Chinese characters for Xiabu Xiabu 呷哺 呷哺 have 20 口, which is the Chinese character for mouth; so the twenty mouths represent how delicious/ mouth-watering hot pot is.

Xiabu Xiabu Restaurant

If you haven't had hot pot before, here's a quick briefing on what you're missing out on. Hot pot centers around the pot of boiling broth positioned in the center of the table (hence the name hot pot). Accompanying the hot pot are thinly sliced meats (lamb, chicken, port, beef), vegetables, uncooked noodles, and seafood. After each batch of food placed in the pot is done cooking, the food is dipped into a sauce (spicy, sweet, whatever floats your boat) and then eaten. The flavor profile is difficult to describe, but with each progressive batch, the flavors begin to meld and compound upon each other. So good.

The hot pot. Left side is a mild broth, right side is spicy.

A lot of food...

Gone.

Chinese Language Table Group!

With each day, I'm finding life here in China becoming easier. Talking to teachers has become easier, calling for the 服务员 has become easier, even understanding the taxi drivers' thick Beijing accents has become easier. As the new phrases increase in number in difficulty, I find it is the inexpensive and delicious food, (like hot pot) here in Beijing that keeps me going.

Dumpling count: 114

长城 - The Great Wall

On July 3rd, PiB took us to the famous Great Wall of China 长城. The portion we visited (JinShanLing 金山岭)was absolutely stunning. I'll let the pictures do most of the talking, but here's a few thoughts:

- 长城 is truly 长. After hiking for 2 hours in 100+ degree weather, I realized that I had only hiked past maybe 15-20 towers, the great wall probably has hundreds or even thousands of said towers.
- Building the Great Wall must have been tough ... but not nearly as tough as PiB
- When you visit the wall, the Chinese say you are about to 爬长城, which translated to English means to climb the Great Wall. 爬 (Climb) was a well chosen verb.

The best part about the Great Wall was meeting a particularly interesting woman who tried to sell all sorts of trinkets to us. While helping my friends haggle by commenting on the crappy quality or saying how we could get it cheaper by the parking lot, the lady began to furiously yell at me in Chinese. I believe she said it's cheap people like me who deprive her of well-deserved money. I laughed it off saying I was equally poor as I am a college student.

After my friends bought a few things off this lady (at cheap prices after haggling!), we proceeded to hike a few more minutes, then turned around, exhausted after a long, hot day of climbing the wall. When we encountered the same lady, her mood seemed to have taken a 180 degree turn. She was very nice to us, and even offered to show us a shortcut down to the base of the wall. We soon befriended this lady, exchanging life stories, and buying even more souvenirs at very cheap prices.

Assorted Pictures:

Breathtaking View of the Great Wall

I fail at jumping.

Map of the Jin Shan Ling Portion of the Great Wall

I believe this statue commemorate the emperor who thought up the idea of building the wall.

New Friend - Trinket selling lady/farmer

Learning Chinese is becoming progressively harder, and I believe I am slowly slipping down the curve that Kelly and Erica (Light Fellowship coordinators) referred to during pre-departure. It's a little frustrating, but no big deal.

Dumpling count: 78

Bei Hai Chant

THE BEI HAI CHANT.



Update: Apologies, the previous video was uploaded through facebook. People without facebook should also be able to see this video now.

北京烤鸭 (Beijing Roast Duck)

Outside the restaurant.

A mandatory item on any Beijing traveler's checklist is a visit to the famous 全聚德 Quanjude Restaurant. Beijing roast duck is perhaps one of the defining dishes of Chinese cuisine; served to emperors for the past 5 centuries (and US presidents and foreign dignitaries for the past 50 years), 烤鸭 (roast duck) is certainly worth its somewhat expensive price tag.


At Quanjude.

Last Friday, a group of us Yalies from different programs in Beijing met up to eat roast duck. The first thing I notice when I entered the building is that 全聚德 does not play around when it comes to roast duck. With six floors of seating and several waitresses, carvers and chefs running around, 全聚德 certainly means business.

Three minutes after ordering two roast ducks for the eight of us, two carvers promptly rolled their carts next to our table and began carving away. Since Quanjude goes through millions of 烤鸭 in a year, both these carvers certainly know how to partition the ducks into the perfectly sized pieces.


Our two carvers.


Carving the duck.

Beijing Duck is usual served with simple flour pancakes, green onions, and a sweet bean paste. The exact flavor of Beijing duck is difficult to describe as it falls somewhere close to a savory-salty-sweet-melt-in-your-mouth-deliciousness.


Pancake + sauce + roast duck + green onion in its pre-rolled-up form.

The best part of the duck is the skin, which is usually eaten alone. Fatty and crunchy the skin disintegrates the moment it hits your mouth. Simply delicious.


The Skin.

Dumpling Count: 51