http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Brookles/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Brookles en-us Mon, 04 Jan 2010 01:00:54 +0000 Mon, 04 Jan 2010 01:00:54 +0000 Odd signs I saw all around China....And some group quotesYou have obeyed the People's Republic of ChinaI want to see your tonguesThere's beans popping out all overI got a standing ovation from the women at Tai Chi. RealllyWell they were already standing....Frankly its not all that jazzedI think I just told that guy he has a beautiful mustacheWe need a code word for that. It's cal http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/blog-19265.html Sam Annie and I had fabulous dumplings for breakfast 16 cents for a whole plate. The group was doing Great Wall today at Badeling so we ditched them to check out some modern art which I had wanted to do for a while. We found this neighborhood called 768 kind of sohoish that seemed to have a lot of little galleries and studios among a sea of factories. Usually old factory towns become ru http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Beijing/blog-18094.html The middle school we are teaching at is on the river. The staff was very welcoming almost too welcoming. One of the TAs kept wiping my chair down before I would sit in it. All of the TAs and teachers are very eager to improve their English and practice by talking to us. The classrooms are very bare. The walls some of which are painted are cracked and pealing. There are only the bare essentials http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/blog-17945.html THE JOURNEY TO WUHANXIANTAO 710The train station was packed with people in every square inch. Traffic cops were loudly blowing whistles outside. No site of Brandon yet but Sunny had assured us that someone was bringing him to the train station to meet us. Finally we found him. Now in two days we had lost Kate and James on the boat ride and Brandon. So naturally it was my turn. I almost miss http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/blog-17942.html Longest day of my lifehellipjust about 32 hours. My horoscope today actually says I will pack as much in a day as possiblehellipand oh how right. The flight was long. On it were Kate James Jackie and Kareem who we had met in Shanghai. We actually almost missed it because the buses ACT ordered to pick us up at the hotel never showed or showed later so we needed to cab it last minute. And http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Beijing/blog-18097.html Everything I saw in China that I bought I could have bought here for less. They had tons of awesome jewelry and other knickknacks. I didnrsquot even look at the clothes because it was too overwhelming and I had run out of cash. Anyhow after hours of shopping for last minute gifts I went to the established meeting spot but Sam and Jackie were no where to be found. And I waitedhellip.And then http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Beijing/blog-18095.html After a lot of effort we managed to pick up our bags and make our way to the hotel where ACT the large group of Americans we started with in Shanghai would be staying. We would be freeloading off them for a few days free hotel and tentative touring costs. Of course they werenrsquot there when we arrived but they showed a couple of hours later. Turns out they were going to Tiananmen so we http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Beijing/blog-18093.html Irsquom 24 I know I look 12 I think thatrsquos a pretty damn good age to be except for the fact that I like odd numbers better. 23 was such a good year. Perhaps I am feeling a little bit old but maybe that is because I have been traveling mainly with 19 year olds who to be fair are actually very mature. Kate and James met up with us for lunch. They had been in Beijing all this time s http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Beijing/blog-18092.html AKA THE GREAT HORNET'S NESTThe wall is great so great that in fact I am going to call it amazing. It is definitely one of the most beautiful and oldest sites except perhaps some places in Israel that I have ever seen. It also made the Swiss Alps look lame including the 3 hour hike I did there. First off we did not see the wall where most people see it at Badeling about an hour from Beijin http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/blog-17977.html We just got new word that we may still need to leave Xiantao. Apparently the issue is not about money but something else power respect. According to Sunny some woman whom she referred to as fugly wants us out of here for ldquoother reasonsrdquo. We are speculating that it will further her career if she catches foreigners without the right paper workhellipbut who really knows why she wa http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/blog-17954.html Well not me but I saw this guy in the park riding his bicycle on a thin wire while another dude dangled off his bike hanging on for dear life. Just an average day in an average park in China. I was just strolling around the park when I heard early 90rsquos techno and looked up to see all of this nonsense. At night we took a train to Pingyao. Annie had gone back to Beijing to try once again to http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Shaanxi/Xi-an/blog-17968.html In the morning in the courtyard we met this very jaded traveler from PolandAustralia he said hersquos a bit of a nomad. He actually kind of looked Dutch and sounds Canadian. Anyway he was starting to get on my nerves especially after he said that all Psychology was crap. He even said this after I said I was a psyche major which I think is kind of rude. Plus he had been lucky enough to g http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Shanxi/Pingyao/blog-17970.html We ended up near the wrong train station and had to cab it thirty minutes. The city seems to be ridiculously huge. Our driver spoke no English and didnrsquot understand our Samrsquos Chinese. I guess the accident is very different here but I thought Sam and Jackie had been taught Beijing Chinese. Anyhowhellipit was kind of cute because she had to call her teenage son at home to talk to us http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Beijing/blog-17972.html Pingyao is a walled ancient city from the Ming dynasty. I believe its one of the only fully intact cities from this time as most of them have been destroyed and modernized. Anyhow itrsquos totally a tourist town with nothing to do really but eat and buy trinkets but itrsquos a small place so it isnrsquot too crowded. When we got off the train some guy said he had a hotel for us for a go http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Shanxi/Pingyao/blog-17969.html ONE NARCISITC DUDE The Soldiers were about one hour from the city by bus. A young girl popped up out of her seat in front of us out of nowhere to talk to us. They always pop out of nowhere like in that scene in ldquoDonrsquot be a Menace To South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hoodrdquo when the storekeeper follows the customers around and pops out of that freezer. Anyhow the http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Shaanxi/Xi-an/blog-17966.html Woke up to the sound of the mountain screamers again. Sunnyrsquos roommate let us stay here even though she left which was pretty nice of him. We got on the train to Xirsquoan in the afternoon with one small bag of bread one package of ldquogourmetrdquo Frenchstyle cookies and a bottle of Biju hard core Chinese liquor considerably worse than straight vodka. This particular leg of ou http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Shaanxi/Xi-an/blog-17964.html Sunny has left us she has gone to Zhuji to be guide for the other group of teachers and after mourning our loss we went into survival mode. We may starve she had been doing a lot of translating for us. Tonight we had the saddest dinner of all. We went to this nice looking clean restaurant which also meant it was a little pricey for China. The menu had pictures to point at to make it easy. http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/blog-17963.html Sam and I attempted to make pancakes a seemingly easy task. We couldnrsquot read any of the labels on powder bags. We definitely thought we had found flour as Sam decoded one of the characters. Then the mixture began to rise and continued to rise and looked like it might explode. I tried it and thought I might die. Turns out that character meant baking and our substance was not baking flour http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/blog-17962.html Bloody hell There are people screaming in the morning at 5am from the mountain tops. I woke up on Sunnyrsquos hard floor to the sound of bloody screams coming from the window. Behind Sunnyrsquos Apartment is a large mountain and apparently every morning people go up there and let loose. Perhaps this is part of a religious ceremony or some sort of exercise or maybe people are just releasin http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/blog-17961.html We went to West Lake a famous site here in Hangzhou on more than one occasion. It is very beautiful and also very large we got terribly lost on one occasion. We had pizza not bad for China at a pub on the Lake and learned how to play Chinese dice there probably is a real name for this game. We did a ton of walking around town 56 miles every day. Itrsquos difficult for me to keep up b http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/blog-17960.html