Advertisement
Published: January 4th 2008
I remember thinking about how nice it would be to move to China and be free from our many commitments back home. Teaching in the private system should allow me more time for my personal life, more time for leisure. I guess the answer is that Craig and I are workaholics. If the school doesn't fill up our time, we will find other ways to make ourselves busy. This story will end with my completely exhausted body getting on a plane to head south to Hainan, to recover.
Beijing Trip #1 - Adventures in Transportation
Craig and I have decided to travel to Beijing once a month. Our November trip to Beijing was only for the day and was an adventure in transportation. We woke up early that Saturday and headed to the Tanggu bus station; however, due to fog, the highways were closed. Troopers that we are, we took a cab, to the Chingway (light rail), took the Chingway into Tianjin proper, and then another cab to the train station. As its only a temporary station, while the new one is being built, it took awhile to find the ticket counter. Having no real clue as
Ceiling Detail
This is a lesser building within the Temple of Heaven grounds.to what we were doing, we managed to get 1st class tickets on the fast trip to Beijing, mostly by accident. The train ride was very enjoyable and comfortable. We arrived in Beijing about 1.5 hours later than we had originally planned but we were pumped. We had tackled a new system of transportation without help.
Exiting from the trainstation was another story and we did not have a working camera at this point to document the masses of people. You were walking through a huge hall, filled with a tide of black haired humanity pushing you forward. You had no personal space, no choice but to move forward, and as the hallway sloped upward, you could see that the hall was incredibly long. With hands on our wallets, no real idea of where we were going, we moved forward eventually exiting the building.
Catching a cab from the Beijing Train Station was not fun. Two points to make here, first of all, I take cabs constantly in China, and 99% of the time, the cab drivers are sweet, talkative and honest. It seems the other 1% like to hang out at the Beijing Train Station. Point #2
The Temple of Heaven
Far more impressive than this picture can ever capture. is that supposedly Beijing is cracking down on bad cabbie behaviour to get ready for the games... it doesn't seem to be working. Taxi after taxi refused to turn on the meter. We would leave the cab and try a new one. They all wanted ridiculous prices to head to the Natural Science Museum. Finally, fed up and feeling our good moods starting to slip, we started walking. 2 city blocks later we hailed a taxi driving down the street who happily turned on his meter (da biao).
The Natural Science Museum has a nice collection of dinosaur bones and fossils, but little is translated into English. It also has the most extensive collection of taxidermied wildlife I've ever seen. However, it really doesn't deserve anymore attention in this blog. We then headed to IKEA, as the main purpose of the trip was to make our little apartment feel a little more like home. We decided to eat at a restaurant outside of IKEA and that was also a poor decision. Using the picture menu we managed to order...deep fried pieces of chicken gristle and eggplant with unidentified fish substances... it was also very expensive. We fought the crowds
Oh Yeah, I'm in the middle of a huge city...
The grounds are so extensive you forget where you are until you get up high enough... of IKEA, decided we wouldn't be able to get the fake Christmas tree home easily on the train and headed back to the train station. The Beijing Train Station is much bigger than Tianjin, and it took longer to figure out how to buy tickets, and this time ended riding coach. We discovered its only 9 rmb more for first class, and wish we had invested the 1 dollar. Not that the train car was terrible, but it was more cramped for sure. We were tired when we got on the train, even more so when we got off in Tianjin and had to reverse our tracks, taxi to Chingway, Chingway to TEDA, Taxi back home. We got back at 10pm and barely made it back up the steps. We vowed to always stay overnight in Beijing from then on. It just wasn't worth it.
Beijing Trip #2 - Temple of Heaven
On a sunny (not foggy) Saturday morning, we boarded a bus back to Beijing with backpacks for spending the night at our favorite hostel. We spent the morning at the Temple of Heaven which we have decided, hands down, is far more amazing than
Beautiful Blue Glaze
This is the glazed tile along the base of the Temple of Heaven. the Forbidden City.
Kelsey, the Forbidden City is thus named because servants in the Palace could not leave, and common people could not enter .
Anyone travelling through China should know to always purchase the "through ticket", other wise you are only paying to get into the grounds and will be purchasing tickets to see each individual part of a site. Through tickets in hand, we entered. The place was packed with local people just enjoying the park space. People were playing their version of hacky sack, painting calligraphy with water on the sidewalk, exercising, drinking tea. I love how the Chinese make full use of their park spaces, and places of cultural heritage. Its not just to see the exhibits, its a place to enjoy and frequent.
The Temple of Heaven encompasses large grounds and a number of buildings besides the temple itself. My favourite part is the raised bridge, a long laneway that takes you to the temple. It slopes ever so gently so that it appears the bridge is infact rising towards the heavens, with the Temple at the top. The bridge has 3 lanes of sorts, and whether you walked at the edge,
Outdoor Choir
This was just one of those moments no amount of travel planning can ensure... the mid section or dead centre was an expression of rank.
Another fascinating aspect of the Temple of Heaven are the doors. As Emperor Qianlong aged, they built him "shortcuts" to save him steps on the way to the temple. However, not wanting his heirs to use these paths unnecessarily, doors were set across the paths which only persons of a certain age could pass through. As Qianlong was the last Emperor to reach his seventies, he is the only person to have ever passed through the "Seventy Year Old Door".
Admiring the Temple of Heaven we began to hear beautiful singing. We set off in search of its source. Below the walls of the temple we found a public choir practicing, backed up by accordion. They were unbelievable! We sat an enjoyed their performance, trying to clap with our heavily gloved hands (there was snow on the ground!!!). We left the Temple of Heaven in awe, the place is beautiful, peaceful and yet vibrating with energy.
We also checked out the Pearl Market that morning which I enjoyed much more than the Silk Market. Its a lot less aggressive. But other than stating that my bartering
Accordion Player
The back-up band. skills continue to improve, it requires little description.
We stayed again in the Hutongs, and enjoyed exploring its back alleyways. We headed home the next morning on the bus, a far more successful and enjoyable trip than the previous.
End of Term
As we started in early August, our term here actually ends before Christmas Break. Although in theory this is great because you leave for vacation with everything wrapped up, its a lot of work. We had to calculate report card marks, write, invigilate, mark and report exams. Things were busy!!! But wait...there's more!!!
All that Extra Stuff
Craig played his first gig in China. It was the Christmas Meeting of the Teda Chamber of Commerce. He and the PE teacher played two songs at the Renaissance Hotel. I enjoyed it because of the free wine and desserts. REAL desserts, made with butter and cream and tasting exactly as they should. Craig enjoyed it because he was paid 700 rmb for 2 songs! Making it his most lucrative gig on a per song basis ever.
We continue to enjoy teaching English at the
Craig's Christmas Gig
This is Blair the PE Teacher. What is it with PE teachers who have a secret desire to sing...(ahem Ross?) Cardiovascular Hospital to nurses and doctors. Our class is becoming very popular, and keeps growing in numbers. I think this is because we have given up on teaching grammar and focus on things like, playing poker, how to dine out with friends etc. Anyhow, we hosted a Christmas Party at our apartment and it was a blast. They enjoyed our fake Christmas tree (procured from no other than Walmart) and candy canes, thanks to my dad and brothers. They then took us out to KTV. This is Kareoke where you rent a private room. Craig and I did our standard Kareoke choice of "I've had the Time of My Life" from Dirty Dancing. They kept Craig pretty busy all night long as he sang duets with a number of students...some even in Chinese. No Craig has not suddenly learned to read Chinese characters, nor did he know the songs he just made it up as went along to the delight of our students.
I also spent a lot of time in December volunteering in the Children's Wing at the hospital. The hospital took 60 children for open heart surgery from XinJiang province in the West. The hospital actually picked
up most of the bill on these surgeries, as the families could not afford the bill. The children ranged from babies not yet able to crawl to 17 year olds. It was amazing to watch how the teenagers became surrogate parents to the younger children. Meanwhile, they certainly had a more clear picture of the scale of the surgery that awaited them.
I went to the hospital 2-3 times a week. I would mostly just keep the kids busy. Craig and I bought toys and crayons. The volunteer coordinator at the hospital asked if I would run some Christmas activities, so we bought an artificial tree and some secular decorations. The kids loved putting it up, as they had seen them on television. They treated the trimmed tree with absolute reverence, standing in awe staring at, and occasionally poking an ornament. I think my best contribution was the balloon animals...they were a big hit...especially that I could blow up the balloons without a pump. So papa, it turns out all your headaches from the squeaky balloons, and my own self-inflicted nose bleeds from blowing up the balloons have served the greater good.
One "interesting" problem I ran into
Craig and Emily Rock Out
KTV Night, Craig tries to lend a hand. ended up working out well in the end. Promising to hold a Christmas Party for the children at the hospital, I went into Tianjin proper with Shelby on Tuesday, December 18th, to buy Christmas presents for the kids, intending to deliver them on Wednesday. Well, out of money in my Chinese account, no problem, I got out my greencard and used an international bank machine, or tried too. To make a long story short, one which involved numerous international phone calls...the security department at my bank had noticed a withdrawal in November from Beijing and frozen my card...it must have been stolen to have been used in China!!! Of course, these great sleuths had failed to read any detail of my account which includes...the fact that my pay comes from China, that I had been using my card ONLY in China since August...oh..yes and the fact that our Financial Advisor had done all the work to help us get ready to ever go to China. I had about 100 rmb to spend on the kids at the hospital, and had been intending to spend closer to 600 rmb. In the end, it was an email to our financial advisor that
So many hands, so few ornaments
This little fellow wanted to be close to the action, but did not want to hang an ornament himself. An observer I guess. had the freeze lifted...and the good news? Although it was too late for the Christmas Party itself, TD donated 100 dollars to the Hospital's Charity, to support more children getting life saving surgery.
It was amazing, I was so busy, and I would always enter the hospital in a fog, stressed and grumpy. Ninety minutes later the kids had basically slapped some perspective into me. They were so brave and strong, and my problems ... well non-issues really. You can get really attached to these kids.
All in all it was pretty easy to get in the Christmas spirit here. Urban China has adopted the secular Christmas as a reason to decorate the city and their homes. We were even given some beautiful Christmas papercraft lanterns for our own home. Even if Teda hadn't put up big public Christmas Trees and "Christmas Merrys" everywhere, it still looks like Christmas due to all the red neon signs lighting up the night.
In Conclusion
We worked until December 21st, and December 22nd we boarded a plane...fodder for our next blog. I was totally knackered and feeling on the edge of getting really sick. Just like home.
Ni duo da le?
I know as a teacher I'm not supposed to have favourites but this little guy is only 3 years old and loves to sit on my lap and colour. Fortunately vacation hit.
How did Bobby and Kelsie make out in debating? Did the write-a-thon come off again? Love the notes from home. Brag the students of NHS up all the time here.
My love and Best New Year's Wishes to Everyone!
Beth
Advertisement
Tot: 0.216s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 12; qc: 62; dbt: 0.0665s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Krista
non-member comment
Happy Birthday!
happy Birthday Beth... you just figured out your a workaholic now... thats funny : ) Take Care!