Even More Beijing Pics

More Beijing Pics

Pic 1- View of the Forbidden City from Jingshan Park
Pic 2- Cute one of Jenny

First Day in Beijing- Forbidden City

We woke up around 9 and got ready for our first full day in the
awesome city of Beijing, China. To give some perspective on the city,
Beijing is geographically the same size as the country of Belgium. I'm
sure it would take weeks to do it justice, but we just had three days
so we hit all the highlights. Our first stop... McDonalds!

As anyone who has been to China and is not a native knows...and I'm
sure we've made it very clear...the hardest thing about being in China
is fulfilling a basic need..eating. We got up and spent 2 hours trying
to find a McDonalds just so we could have a full stomach to sight see
on. We never actually found one, but after passing the Mao entrance to
the Forbidden City and walking all the way through Tian'anmen Square
we settled on a KFC. Finally we had enough fuel to enter the Forbidden
City.

Jenny thought before we went anywhere, it was vital to get some
perspective on the city of Beijing so she took us up to Jingshan Park.
Jingshan Park was a beautiful park right next to the Forbidden City
that had a large hill with a spectacular view. The hill was actually
made from the dirt that was dug out to create the moat around the
Forbidden City itself. The view was spectacular! On the hill there
were pagodas and buddhist temples. Despite the freezing cold wind
blowing us, the hill was a great welcome to the city of Beijing.

One thing I thought was really interesting was a locust tree at the
bottom of the hill. During peasant uprisings, the last Ming Dynasty
Emperor (Chongzhen) fled to the Jingshan Park and hung himself and a
servant at the foot of the hill on a Magnolia tree. The interesting
aspect was the different accounts of the story. Next to the tree there
were three accounts of what happened to Chongzhen. One portrayed him
as a mass murderer who first killed his wife, daughters and
concubines, and many servants all to save himself and when he finally
decided he could not win he killed himself. One portrayed him as a
hero who killed himself because he wanted to save his loved ones and
his country, and his servant hung himself in dedication. Finally, the
third story blamed the peasant uprising and death of the emporer and
his servant as a problem with the political system. There are a lot of
things in Chinese history that have been manipulated for one reason or
another.

On the way to Forbidden City from the park, we saw our first Chinese
toddler peeing on the street. Chinese children have free reign to use
the toilet (through a slit in their pants!) anywhere they chose
without any reprimand! Noone but Liz and I seemed to notice or care
that a kid was peeing in the middle of the sidewalk. I spent the rest
of the walk to the Forbidden City watching my step to avoid puddles.

Because Jenny had already been to the Forbidden City a few times, she
dropped us off, and after chatting with a Chinese, English speaking
tour guide about wanting a foriegn wife (divorced women are OK), we
said our farewells and headed in to the palace. We picked up the
English audio guides on our way in. Forbidden City is huge and we
spent three hours exploring the city. The highlights were the Clock
exhibition (with clocks from all over the world) and the Hall of
Mental Cultivation. The Mental Cultivation Hall was really preserved
similiar to how it must of looked when the Ming and Qing Emporers
lived in the palace for hundreds of years. A lot of the over 1,000
buliding in the palace were painted over, so it was hard to imagine
what it looked like hundreds of years ago. The palace was huge, and it
is funny to imagine how the Emporer lived in the city with just his
family, some officials and his concubines (a prestigious job back
then) and never really got outside of the walls to the country he was
supposed to be ruling. We spent time looking at old relics, some a
thousand years or more old. Unfortunately, the audio guide was not
very helpful. We spent more time just exploring and reading the
English explanations next to the various buildings.

We met Jenny outside the Forbidden City and headed to Wangfujing, a
happening city center for shopping. We found an Outback Steakhouse and
had an amazing dinner. Jenny reluctantly agreed to go, but I think she
was really happy she did and really liked her food. We headed back to
the hotel, it was after nine by the time we got there, and rested up
so we could get up early and travel about an hour and a half away to
the Great Wall of China!

Trip to Beijing

This morning we left the house at 7:45am to go to the bus station. We
took a bus from Guangzhou to Shenzhen, which took about 2 hours. We
finally got to the airport in Shenzhen with about one hour to spare
before our flight. The cab ride to the airport was interesting because
the door was broken and Jes seriously thought she might fall out of
the cab! Shenzhen was actually really beautiful and modern. It would
be a cool place to go back to and check out. We boarded the plane and
took off for Beijing. The flight was only about 3 hours long. It went
by really quickly. We flew in to an airport about an hour outside
Beijing in Tianjin to save money, and then took a bus from there to
the center of Beijing. It was absolutely freezing in Beijing when we
arrived and we still had to find the metro from the bus station, take
the metro to the hotel stop, find a cab to the hotel, and check in!
All in all, it was an extremely long day of traveling and we were
exhausted by the time we got to our hotel at 8pm that night. We
checked in and then walked down the street and found this Korean BBQ
place to get dinner. We didn't get any BBQ, but what we did get was so
delicious, warm, and all veggies of course! This place was somewhere I
would definitely eat again! We walked back to our hotel in the
freezing cold and passed out, since the next 3 days would be extremely
busy and full of fun :)

Picture from Flower Scene

Lights, Camera, Action!

Saturday, we woke up pretty early. Jes started memorizing the lines
for the movie trailer we were suppose to be starring in today, while I
decided it would be a better use of my time to pack for Beijing. It
would have been cool to learn the lines, but there was a lot of lines,
one script for the both of us to share, and hardly no time to do it
in. He also wanted us to learn both parts and he would choose later
which character he wanted us to be, judging by our performance. So, we
decided Jes should try to learn the part since she was more interested
and it would have been impossible for us both to learn it.

We got ready and took a cab to the Westin hotel at 2pm to meet the
movie crew. The movie was being filmed in Guangzhou but actually takes
place in Hong Kong. He was going to film the backgrounds separately
and then merge the shots together. Anyways, they filmed the first
scene at the hotel, which we weren't in so we just used the free wifi
for the hotel. Steve came with us too by the way to make sure we were
okay. We left the hotel to go to the next location of the movie
trailer, a flower shop. This scene was between Julia and Theo, played
by Jes and Will, a British guy. We filmed there for about an hour out
on the street at this flower shop. People were gathering around and
taking pictures. It was funny though since they couldn't have
understood what was being said since it was in English! I got some
video footage on my phone of Jes in action.

When we were done there, we set off looking for a Starbucks, where the
next scene would be shot. We tried a few before we found the right
one. This scene I played in with Will, so it was "the blonde" and Theo
on a date at a coffee shop. I have some good videos on my phone, but
unfortunately no pictures to post. Next, we went upstairs to shoot the
last scene of the day with "Julia and Theo". Jes played the role of
Julia first and then we switched and I played the role of Julia. The
director, Steve, said he would choose which one he liked later, which
made no sense to us! Oh well though, it was a fun day and we made some
new friends! It was definitely worth it to have an experience like
this while in China.

Back in Guangzhou...maybe the beginning of a career?

Friday, we were exhausted when we got home. We both slept in until about 11:30. We were starving at that point so we decided to venture to get food. The problem is...western food is hard to come by and there really is not very much we can eat. Jenny and Steve usually have food around the house but they didn't that particular day. We went exploring to find a Papa Johns with no luck. We decided to hop on the metro and go to our favorite little western place, Tomatoes. It was thriving with action as there was a big fight outside involving some Chinese men, a foreign woman, and various Chinese police officers. We couldn't really follow, but were more interested in the fact that police officers were just kind of standing around watching. They weren't stepping in at all to break up the fight. I thought the Chinese police would be a little more intimidating...but they really aren't at all. We haven't been asked to show our passport on the street yet, but we've met several foreigners who insist it happens regularly.

After some pizza and brushetta, we headed home and toyed with the thought of going to Hong Kong to party for the night with some people we met in Yangshuo. Liz and I had our first little fight of the trip because we wanted different things. We managed to work it out and decided to stay in GZ. Jenny had a movie producer come into her work at Wall Street and ask if she knew any Americans that could help him film a movie trailer to present to film makers in HK. She volunteered us, so that night we went and met the guy at Starbucks. He asked us both to memorize all the lines and told us we would be shooting tomorrow! We were kind of freaked out. Liz will go into more details about the movie shoot in the next entry.... lets just say things are not always as they appear. 

Silver Cave in Yangshuo

Pics from Yangshuo 3

Pic 7: Jes and I with bamboo man (who resembles Obama)
Pic 8: Me with the cute little monkeys

Pics from Yangshuo 2

Pic 5: Jes and I after stopping by the beer raft
Pic 6: Another amazing pic of the river

Bamboo Rafting in Yangshuo

This morning, Wednesday, we slept in and woke up around 10am. We were
both coming down with a cold. Jesica was pretty sick yesterday on the
bus, but she was starting to feel a bit better. We got ready and
headed out to find a good spot to eat breakfast. We decided on a place
called Cafe Mimosa. They had a wide variety of foods, but I thought my
meal wasn't the best. I guess I had too high expectations for all the
western food that was being advertised. After we ate, we went to the
tours office to decide what we wanted to do as activities for the two
full days we were here. We decided on the bamboo rafting down the
Yulong River. The lady told us to come back at 2pm and someone would
pick us up to take us to the river. We went to the hotel to get ready
and came back at 2pm, to a guy outside on a motorcycle. We were hoping
it wasn't our ride, but it sure was! We could barely even fit on it
with 3 people! At first, it was a little scary riding through the town
with all the other taxis and buses, but then we got on the back roads
and paths and it was actually really fun and exciting. It was like
getting two tours/activities for the price of one, since we clearly
thought a bus full of people would be picking us up, not a motorcycle.

We finally got to our destination after passing a few cows and driving
on some pretty bumpy trails. The Yulong River was awesome! By far the
most beautiful thing I had seen since we got to China. We climbed onto
our bamboo raft and our paddle guy got us going. I would like to add
that our bamboo man looked a lot like Obama. Anyways, it was so
relaxing and scenic! It was a great tour decision, since we were still
recovering from our colds. The scenery was absolutely breathtaking! It
was a two hour ride down the river. We were also the only foreigners
on the rafts. All the Chinese people were very amused with us,
especially because we did not have our umbrella up, we had bikinis on,
sunglasses, and were laying out sunbathing. They all said "hello" as
they went by us, some took pictures of us, and others tried to shoot
us with water guns. We were getting a little annoyed so we stopped by
the beer lady's raft to get some beers for the ride. We even offered
the paddle guy one, but he responsibly took a vitamin water instead.
This made me care a little less that the Chinese were shooting us with
water guns. We also saw some really cool water buffalo. I took about
200 pictures just on this raft, since everything was so amazing!

Once we made it to the end of the trip, we got out by this bridge with
a few little shops and a place where you can buy pictures from the
rafting. I bought one of me, Jes, and our bamboo man. Then, we saw
this man with two adorable monkeys that you could take pictures with
for 10 yuan. I was such a sucker for that so I had to get some pics
with the monkeys. They were so cute and cuddly! One even tried to pull
out my belly button ring, ha ha guess he wasn't sure what it was. We
finally found a cab to drive us back into town. It was quite possibly
the roughest cab ride I have ever taken! I literally thought the
wheels were going to fall off this wagon thing of a cab. He dropped us
off at what we thought was the center of town, but was actually a
little far away. It was alright though, since we wanted to walk around
some and had plenty of time to explore. We had to stop at a hotel to
ask for directions back to the main street of town. It was the nicest
hotel we had seen in Yangshuo and I'm sure was pretty pricey!

Our hotel ended up being pretty close to where we were, so we got back
and showered up for dinner. We decided on a pizza place again, which
was even better than the night before. While we were eating, our
German friends from the night before just happened to be walking by so
we finished up at the pizza place, and went across the street to grab
some drinks with them. The menu at this restaurant was quite
disturbing. It had "stir fried dog" and "roasted bamboo rat" on the
menu, so gross! They were the most expensive menu items as well. We
just stuck to drinks! We went to another bar after awhile and ended up
staying out pretty late, since we were having so much fun! After a
quick McDonald's ice cream stop, we finally got some sleep! What an
awesome day :)

Pic 3 & 4: Bamboo rafts and gorgeous scenery along the Yulong River

Pics from Yangshuo

Pic 1: Main entrance road to this amazing town
Pic 2: Riding on the motorcycle on the way to rafting

Journey to Yangshuo pics

Pic 3: View from our hotel room in Yangshuo
Pic 4: Popular street with shops and restaurants

Journey to Yangshuo

After an amazing day at the spa on Monday, we were packed and ready to
leave on our journey to Yangshuo. Yangshuo is known as the most
beautiful place in China and is very touristy with many foreigners. So
Tuesday morning we went to the bus station to leave on the 8 hour bus
ride to Yangshuo. We both had a bit of a cold and feeling under the
weather so we took some meds and boarded the bus. Jes slept most of
the time, but I took some pictures along the way and took in the
gorgeous scenary. The 8 hours passed very quickly I thought. Luckily,
every time we took a break and got off the bus, someone would let us
know when we were leaving since we were the only white people and
could be spotted very easily!

We finally arrived around 5pm in Yangshuo. The bus dropped us off in
the center of town instead of at the bus station like we thought it
would so we had to find our own way to our hotel. We took a mini
bus/cart looking thing for 1 yuan a person, so cheap! We arrived at
our hotel, which was so nice for only being $15 a night. We walked
around for a bit to scope out the area before it got dark and ate
dinner at an Italian restaurant. They had western food everywhere and
so many foreigner, we were in heaven! Everyone had such a delicious
looking breakfast menu with coffee (which is hard to find in China if
you are not at a Starbucks) and milkshakes and smoothies of every
flavor that they make with fresh fruit! It was really like a vacation.
After seeing some of the town we went back to our hotel room to rest
up and get ready to go check out the nightlife since we heard the bar
scene was great! We went to a few bars but I guess we were early since
it was only 8:30pm. We met some foreigners on the street and thought
we might hang out with them later but we were so exhausted from
traveling we went back to the hotel to get some sleep. My first
impression of Yangshuo is definitely a good one. I think I will really
like it here!

Pic 1: Cute town on the way to Yangshuo
Pic 2: Pic from the bus ride

Posts from Yangshuo and Beijing Coming Soon!

Hot Springs Spa Day

On Monday we had the most amazing day ever! We spent the day at a Hot Springs spa about a two hour bus ride to an area right outside of Guangzhou. Unfortunately we were unable to take any pictures of it because photos were banned inside the spa. After the bus ride with a Chinese tour group we had arrived at the spa. It was in the mountains and the scenery was really relaxing. We walked in the spa, took off our clothes just so we were wearing our bathing suits, put on the comfy spa shoes and started our adventure.

As soon as we walked out, we had servants offering us tea (cha), Cola and water. As we explored the premisis there was a ton of different spa baths. We started in the hot spring bath that had massage chairs that would shoot water to massage either your back or front. Then we found the hot spring pool with little fish that eat the dead skin off of your feet. It felt like little nibbles but Liz couldn't handle the fish on her feet because they were trying to pull off her scabs from her new shoe battle wounds. I thought it was really cool, and after I used it my feet did feel much nicer.

We went into a coffee pool that was meant to help keep you skinny (we were directly recommended to go there by a staff lady-hahaha). My personal favorite was the rose pool. There was a bag of roses in the hot spring water and it smelled wonderful. There were like 20 pools, all that were supposed to benefit the body in a different way. One was a rice wine pool that added rice wine to the water, a tea pool with tea.

The ambiance of this place was amazing. There was a beautiful mountain and lake with flowers.... When we needed a break from the water we went and sat on lounge chairs, drank tea and had a staff member put sliced cucumber on our faces to cleanse our skin. Jenny spent most of the day in the massage pool and said she got some pretty good massages. I tried it but it was way too hard for my taste. By the time we showered and got on the bus at the end of day, I was feeling so good and tingley. It was a wonderful day :). Liz and I decided we will need to go back there for a day before we go back to the States. Oh and did I mention the entire day (including lunch) costed a grand total of $25. This included the transportation and everything. So worth it!

Pic 1: Working out in the park on the POIW Sunday
Pic 2: Another pic of the park from Sunday

Point of Interest Walk with Jenny & Steve

We stayed out pretty late on Saturday night so we were determined to sleep in and have a leisurely day on Sunday. We were also thrilled hat we didn't have another tour. Don't get me wrong, they were great, but they were exhausting. Some lasted 9 hours long, and we were on our feet all day. By Sunday we really needed a break. Jenny set us up with a bunch of tours but on Sunday she decided it was time to give us our own tour. We decided that we were not interested in going on any more "t-words" so Jenny decided the title "point of interest walk" was a more appropriate description. Jenny and Steve took us down the street from their building to a housing place for communist officials when Guangzhou was the communist party headquarters for a short period in the 1930s. The rooms were no frills and a bit dreary but they were in a pretty Victorian style building. Next they took us down the street to another communist museum. Everything was written in Chinese, so often Jenny and Steve had to translate.

Next they took us to the beautiful park that is the main attraction from the balcony of Jenny and Steve's apartment. The park was very pretty. It was on a few lakes, one of which contained hundreds an hundreds of giant goldfish. One of my favorite things about the park, however, was simply watching Jenny and Steve together. They are so happy together and are one of the happiest married couples I have ever seen.

Midway through the park there was a cute little kids game where you throw rings and try to get them around a prize. The best part was that the prizes were REAL baby ducks and rabbits. There were also smaller prizes. We all tried to win, Liz won a kids toy she gave to the cute little boy standing next to her. Steve won a rabbit!!! But for some reason they didn't give it to him!! They just handed him more rings. I know it was a prize because occasionally we would see kids walking around the park with baby animals.

We went to a French bakery and got a few snacks for lunch and then went over to an art street a few blocks away from the apartment. We had some great finds there! Liz even found a huge painting for her newly redecorated bedroom. It was really awesome. Our bargaining skills have tremendously improved since we've been here. We bargain for everything and in most cases get the prices cut in more than half. My greatest bargain was from an original price of 250 rmb to 50 rmb!!!  That's a price difference from about $41 to about $9. I think a lot of times here they overprice a lot of things.

We walked took the bus home a little later (after being attacked by Mosquitos). A great, relaxing POI walk with Jenny and Steve!

 

Pics cont...

Pic 7: Katie, Jes, Looey, and I in front of the Chen Clan Academy
Pic 8: Jes, Steve, and I outside the bar where the Panda Band performed

Saturday pics cont...

Pic 5: Beautiful buildings and flower-lined streets
Pic 6: Jes and I at the Chen Clan Academy

Pics from Saturday tour

Pic 3: View from the Liwan Lake Park
Pic 4: Chinese performing tai chi routines in the park

Saturday Tour with Looey

Today, we went on our last tour of Guangzhou with an English student
named Looey. This tour was the top winning tour of the 3. Katie,
Angie's sister also came with us. We met Looey at the metro station
and traveled to an area called Xiguan in the western part of ancient
Guangzhou city. This was the traditional Cantonese area with
traditional architecture and mansions. The streets were actually
really old world and beautiful. It was nice to see how Guangzhou would
have looked a very long time ago. They did a great job of rebuilding
and fixing up the old without making it look too new or modern. First,
we went to the Renwei Temple. This was a taoist temple that was pretty
similar to a few others we went to. We walked through a traditional
market in an alley, where they had all sorts of goodies. We had to
look away several times, especially where the meat was or where we
thought they might be selling dog, rat, or any other gross meat! It
was a very cool thing to see though. It was only a walk that would be
done by a local, not a tourist. People were staring at us, but seemed
to not care. Also, throughout the whole area of Xiguan there were
majority older Cantonese people that live there.

Next, we walked through Liwan Lake Park. There were tons of people
doing all sorts of activities there from playing card game to chatting
to tai chi to amusement park rides to paddle boats on the water. This
park had entertainment for all ages. It was very big and really neat
to walk around in. After walking to the other side of the park and
taking lots of pictures of the beautiful houses and architecture, we
arrived at the restaurant we would be having lunch. It was a very
famous place called Panxi, where we tried the Dimsum and other
Cantonese dishes. Now, I know we have made it very clear through some
of our other blog post how we feel about Cantonese food ha. Needless
to say, lunch was very interesting but we tried everything for the
most part... everything but the pork tendons! The dimsums were my
favorite part. The chinese water chestnut was amazing. It tasted like
jello almost. We were still hungry after all the food came so we order
a plate of broccoli. It was very hard to eat most dishes because the
all contained some sort of meat. I would never recommend a Vegetarian
to come to China. They would have an impossible time eating.

After lunch, we walked through the rest of the ancient town on the way
to the metro stop. We go on and went one stop over to the Chen Clan
Academy. It was a building that the prosperous Guangzhou Chen family
had built to honor their ancestors. It was really big with many rooms
and court yards. We walked around through most of it and decided we
were pretty tired! This tour also had a time limit because we had to
be at Jenny's school by 4pm to teach an English corner. We left the
academy and went to Starbucks to hang out till it was time to go to
Jenny's school. Looey had class that day as well so she left us there.

Looey was definitely the most knowledgeable about Guangzhou out of all
of our tour guides. She seemed to love her city and culture the most
and really takes pride in being Cantonese. It was really an awesome
thing to see that. She was only 25 but was very mature and traditional
for her age. She had actually given this same tour to other people so
it ran very smoothly and didn't have any down time. I really liked
that about this one because it all seemed to connect a lot better than
some previous ones and we actually got a history lesson out of it. I
can see why this was the winning tour!

We left Starbucks and got to Jenny's school at 4:00pm. They do these
English corners where they discuss different topics and compare things
so Jes and I were the guest speakers for the discussion today. The
topic was to compare and contrast college life in America versus
China. For the most part, it seemed that the student were either
attending a college or had already attended so they were very
interested in what we had to say. We did small groups first and
answered question and then had a large group discussion. My table kept
the questions coming the whole entire hour! Luckily, I was able to
respond to most of them. They actually spoke English pretty well so I
could easily understand them. The thing they thought was the coolest
about American universities is that we did not have curfews and some
places had coed dorms. They were shocked about both of these things.
Also, they were amused by how easily and readily available parties,
alcohol, and the social aspect of college was. Jes had some pretty
crazy questions such as, "Have you ever done drugs?" ha. It was a
great experience for me as well because I learned about about young
adults and college life in China. This was one of the most fun things
I have done since we got here. It was also nice to meet the other
teachers at Jenny's school and to see Jenny teaching.

We went home to rest and shower up since we still had another activity
for the night. Jenny's coworker Angie, is the lead singer in a band
called The Panda Band. They were the opening act for another band at a
foreign bar tonight. We got ready and took a taxi to the bar. Steve
went with us thankfully or we would have never found the bar! We got
there just in time as they were taking the stage. They were actually
really good! Angie had such a good voice. I really felt like I had
stepped back home into a live music bar. Katie was there so we hung
out with her and met all of Angie's roommates. We also made a few
other friends from the US and Canada. It was nice to have a few
drinks, dance, and just talk to other people that spoke English. We
spent a lot of time outside of the bar though because people smoke
everywhere in China. Places say to not smoke in them but everyone
still does, so it was getting hard to breathe in the bar since it was
so smoky with low ceiling and no ventilation. We said our goodbyes
around 12:30am and heading home. Overall, this was one of the best
days I have had so far :)

Pic 1: Entrance way to the Renwei Temple
Pic 2: Inside the temple

Our Tour with Jane, Jenny and Amanda

After our tour with Liz it would have been hard to compete. A group of girls (Jenny, Jane and Amanda) had the second winning tour at Jenny's school. Jenny's coworker's sister was in town too, so she got to come on the tour with us too. I guess I should point out that the names that are used are there English names, not their "real" names. I don't want anyone getting the impression that they use all English names in China. It's actually really funny... Jenny says that since students get to pick their own names they get a little creative. One student asked to be called "Jingle" and another was "Cream." We met Jenny and Jane and rode the metro for an hour out to this area of Guangzhou way on the outskirts. After we arrived we jumped on a bus for 40 minutes to this area that looked like a beach. They called it "Seaside Park." It was so beautiful, the air was clear and the sun was shining... it felt amazing to be outside of the big city. We rode a golf cart type machine around the park just to see what it looked like on all sides. There were beautiful flowers, trees and views of the mountains and water. We arrived at this amazing looking temple. It was up the side of the mountain! It looked amazing. We explored the temple. With the heat and the sunshine paired with the hundreds of stairs we climbed up the mountain, we were all covered in sweat by the time we arrived at the top. It was worth it for the amazing view at the top. We could see way out and across the Pearl River mouth. The pictures of this view really don't do it justice. The temple was a Matsu Temple (I'm not sure if I'm spelling it right). There was not English to be seen in the Park anywhere, and the girls taking us did not know the English translation for the word, but the god was supposed to be the goddess of waters. We guessed later that the temple was a Buddhist temple. Our tour guide told us this was the largest Matsu Temple in all of China.

After we explored the temple, we had a Chinese BBQ on the beach. The girls had a difficult time starting it up, but Katie came in and saved the day. The food was interesting...emphasis was certainly on meat. It was true Guangdong cuisine. There was pork, chicken, lamb, beef, Guangdong sausage and mixes. It all looked so unappetizing. I ate to be polite, but I feared during a lot of the meal that I was eating pig neck or snake or something. We had vegetables, but they were all either mixed with meat, or had Oyster Sauce on them. It is really hard to eat in China. The meat tastes very different. It looked like we had steaks to eat, but the steaks tasted terrible...it more closely resembled pork. After suffering through the eating aspect of the BBQ for a long time, I finally cooked up some vegetables without sauce that I was happy with. They brought a loaf of white bread too, which Liz had devoured by the time the BBQ was over. We explored the beach and headed back. Amanda (who met us at the temple) took us to the metro in her car and that made the journey a little shorter.

Overall it was a great day but the BBQ was a little long and the food was not so good. The scenery and group was fun! The women did not speak English as well as Liz the day before, but we managed. I am so impressed that anyone can speak another language so well. The Chinese seem to speak tons of languages. These woman were studying English, they spoke Mandarin, two spoke Cantonese and two of them also had native languages from their village that they spoke. It was so weird that they could not always understand each other. When two of the woman were speaking Cantonese to each other, Jane, the other woman told us she couldn't understand what they were saying. When Amanda got a phone call from a family member she spoke in her native language that the other two women explained they couldn't understand.

Before I go, I have to debunk the myth that Chinese people only have one child. Amanda who was with us had four kids. A lot of the people we saw on the street have more than one. In some circumstances there are ways to get around the law, sometimes it requires paying a tax, but we've noticed in many cases its just not true.

Friday was a relaxing day for us. We got up late, went to see the Canton Trade Show with Steve. We weren't allowed in but we went to the door. The trade show was a cool experience. It is a very big deal for China, Asia and a lot of Eastern European nations. Steve has to go every year for a day for the plastics magazine that he writes for. We went back to Tomatoes (our Italian Restaurant) and it was delicious. It was nice to feel full again :) After lunch, we walked around town and went to Starbucks to catch up on our blogging. Our big triumph of the day was when we managed to make it all the way to the train station and buy our tickets to a place called Yangshuo. Jenny wrote us a note in Chinese to give to the lady at the train station. We handed her the note after asking if she spoke any English and she gave us the tickets. Unfortunately we had to battle rush hour in the third biggest city in China to do it. There is no regard for personal space during rush hour...you are basically on top of the person next to you. Feet were stepped on and bags hit people but the Chinese are very civil and not crazy like Americans. They are orderly and line up, and don't push at all costs until they get where they want to go. I like the people in Guangzhou. Jenny and Steve were surprised/proud that we were able to fend for ourselves and get the tickets...but I don't know what we would do without them.

That's all for now :)

Pics:

Pics by the beach
Group shot by the beach

Matsu Temple by the beach pics2

More pics of the Matsu Temple.

--
Jesica L. Tomlinson
James Madison Univeristy 2010, 2009
College of Business
Masters of Science in Accounting
BBA- Accounting

Pics of Matsu Temple by the Beach

Pics:

Group shot by the temple (Liz, Jenny, Katie, me and Jane)

Real Chinese BBQ

--
Jesica L. Tomlinson
James Madison Univeristy 2010, 2009
College of Business
Masters of Science in Accounting
BBA- Accounting

And again...

Pic 5: Me, Liz, and Jes at the Pearl River

Pic 6: Liz and I out back at a tea house in Guangzhou

Tour #1 with Liz continued...

Pic 3: Mall on Beijing Road

Pic 4: Pearl River and boat parade

Tour #1 with Liz

Wednesday, we had our first tour of the trip. Jenny had a contest at

her school to see who could make up the best itinerary for a tour of
Guangzhou to take foreigners on, and whoever wrote the best one would
actually take us on the tour in real life. We were a little skeptical,
but very excited to see what the wanted to show us. The students'
papers were so good that Jenny picked 3 tours for us to go on.

We went on the first one today with Liz, that is her English name she
picked for her school. First, she took us to some underground shops to
start the day. They were all fake designer goods with super cheap
prices. We were very tempted to buy stuff, but resisted for now. Next,
we went to Shamian Island. This area of Guangzhou is best known as an
adoption area. There are a lot of foreigners that stay here to adopt
children. The road we were on was so beautiful and it felt like we
were far away from a big city. Liz took us to this souvenir shop
first, which was the best we had been to so far. Jes and I both bought
Chinese style dresses! Then, we walked around through the park and
streets and saw all the beautiful Victorian style buildings. It is
also a popular location for couples to take their wedding photos. We
saw at least 8 couples in wedding attire taking pictures. It is weird
here because brides rent their wedding dresses instead of buying them.
The dresses were really elaborate.

Liz took us to another shopping mall area for lunch. It was Cantonese
food... This means that we only ate the rice ha. This meal grossed me
out in particular because it contained fish heads! We tried to eat the
meat but it had a certain flavor that all Cantonese food has that we
haven't been able to stomach! Instead, we bought some donuts on the
way to the next place. My strawberry one really hit the spot! I would
also like to add that there are McDonald's and KFC on practically
every corner, but we are trying to avoid them to experience the real
Chinese culture.

The next place we went was Beijing Road or Beijinglu. This was an
awesome mall that young people go to and is pretty modern. They also
had really cheap prices with decent items. This is where we bought the
most stuff. I bought 2 pairs of shoes because they actually have my
size everywhere. I guess having small feet pays off if you are in
Asia! Jes unfortunately had the largest foot in China haha, jk. But,
she did have a difficult time finding a shoe to fit, but finally found
a pair of flats. We also both bought scarves. Jes bargained for the
both of us since she is better at it. The most expensive thing we
bought that day was around $7 US dollars, so cheap! Then we went to
another shopping area called Haighu, which is known for shoe city.
They had a lot of great shoes, but at this point we were pretty worn
out. We took a break at McDonald's to talk to Liz and eat ice cream.
Last but not least, we went to see the Pearl River (every time Jes
sees water she thinks it's the Pearl river but it never is, this time
she was right!). It was very beautiful and it just so happens that
there was a boat parade taking place for the Asian games since
Guangzhou is hosting them starting Nov. 12. We couldn't tell for sure
but it looked like each boat represented a different country
participating in the Asian games. It was really awesome to see! Liz
finally took us back to the metro and said goodbye. We had an awesome
first tour and very tiring day!

Liz was really awesome and so fun to hang out with. She spoke English
very well and had no issue communicating with us. She was a modern
Chinese woman we thought, and she said she was around 24-25. So weird
how people here do not know their age. She also had a clothes dryer,
which is really rare to have in China or to use (everyone hangs their
clothes outside to dry). Anyways, she was like my Asian counterpart.
We have the same name, same iPhone, same pink camera, same shoe size,
like the same tv shows, etc. She told us she watches shows like
Desperate Housewives and Lost. We really learned a lot about life in
China from her since we felt like we could ask her anything and she
was young and similar to us. Liz was definitely a fun tour guide.
Tomorrow, we have another tour. It will be very hard to compete with
the one we went on today!

On a side note, we have not been able to access our blog since being
in mainland China. China has blocked our blog and Facebook. We have
figured out alternative ways to post blog entries but we can't see
them after we post so be patient and keep checking back. We will try
to post as timely as we can! Thanks :)

Pic 1&2: In the park at Shamian Island

Foshan

Left in the morning with Jenny and Steve and took the bus to Foshan. On our way to bus station we saw some imitation Pizza Hut (called pizza) and Starbucks (called Starvisitor Coffee). Its amusing that China isn't all that strict with its patent laws. They have so many imitation items. Imitation brands, imitation stores, and they are so blatant, but no one seems to care to do anything about it.

Foshan (means Buddha Hill) - one of China's oldest pottery towns and is the cradle of the Cantonese opera. The city was about about an hour bus ride away. We got to see a little of the city during our bus ride. The bus was so bouncy, I thought it was going to flip itself. When we arrived in the city we first walked to Renshou Temple.

Renshou Temple - Buddhist temple. This was the first temple we've seen in China. It wasn't very big, more striking was the hundreds of old people at tables surrounding the temple. We found out it was Elder's Day- the 9th day of the 9th month of the lunar year. We grabbed some Vegetarian Chinese food right outside the temple...it was not all that tasty. I thought it would be vegetarian dishes, but instead, it was all normal dishes (dumplings, orange chicken, etc...) with imitation meat instead of real meat. I think I ate more rice than anything else. After lunch we went to tour the temple. We asked some people in the temple if we could take pictures of the big, golden Buddha that people were worshiping, but they insisted on having us join them for Elders lunch! We were the only people under the age of 60 eating at the tables. They brought us an endless supply of food...and we felt it would be rude to refuse. They were all very friendly, but I'm sure it was because we were foreigners. The temple monks all came to our table and toasted with us. It was like something from a movie!

Shiwan - ceramics production. Where we found the toilet waterfall and the beautiful lake with the pottery queen in it.

Zu Miao - founded during the late 11th century. Taoist temple. Beidi is represented by a turtle and a snake there was a pond in the middle filled with hundreds of turtles big and tall. Had a martial arts show.

There were no foreigners in any of the towns we visited. We were the only ones. There were tourists but none I saw that were not asian.

Guangzhou

We woke up Sunday morning and prepared to travel to Guangzhou on a
train. As I was getting ready that morning I blew up my hair dryer on
its first use! I knew this would probably happen at some point :( It
was raining so hard as well as we traveled to where we needed to catch
the bus. This was very difficult with our big suitcases trying to move
through the crowded sidewalks on the street. We asked a cab driver to
take us to the train station and he said no... we assumed he just
didn't speak English. Next, we tried to catch the bus. The first bus
turned us down as well and told us to wait for another one. We finally
were able to catch a bus and head to the train station. When we got
there we had quite a journey still ahead of us to get on the train.
Apparently they do not have many elevators here so getting our luggage
around has been very difficult with a lot of extra walking. Jes has
already blogged about all of this so I will skip to the next day.

We finally got to Guangzhou and had a good nights sleep! The next
morning, Monday, we woke up early since we were still jet lagged.
Steve and Jenny made us cinnamon toast for breakfast. It was
delicious! Then we set off around the city to meet Steve for lunch at
a place close to where he works. It was a western restaurant called
Tomatoes and it was awesome! We all split a pizza and it was the first
meal I have been full from. After lunch we walked around the streets
where Steve works. This was cool because it was much more touristy. It
was the first time since being in Guangzhou that I saw a foreigner.
There were many shops and malls and nice hotels. Jenny had to catch a
bus to go to class and Steve went back to work so this was our first
real test to find our way around alone and get back to the apartment.
We took the metro, which has very clear labels in English and fairly
easy to use, and found our way back to Jenny and Steve's neighborhood.
We were so proud of ourselves! ha We decided to rest up when we got
back and unpack some since this will be our home for the next month or
so. Jenny cooked us dinner that night with the left overs from the
night before, so yummy! After dinner Jenny took us to get a massage.
The place she goes is called "Blind Man Massage". We were all in the
same room (clothes on of course) and each had a full body massage
(mine was by a real blind man). At moments during the massage, I
actually felt like I was dying haha. He was pushing so hard and in the
places that hurt the most. Apparently, they do really hard massages in
China we were told later. This was the first time Jes has ever had a
massage so she was a bit scared thought she was going to die! He also
tried to talk to me the whole time, which was weird. Not sure why he
would think I can speak Mandarin haha.

The pictures are from the balcony of Jenny and Steve's apartment (on
the 21st floor!)