Dalian University of Technology

It’s Sunday night and I start two classes tomorrow at Dalian Institute for Technology.  I am extremely excited!  Since the last blog, not too much has happened, except for lots of recuperation from all of the activities that we did in Beijing, and of course, arrival at the university that I will be studying at for the next five weeks.  I feel well rested and refreshed for the first time in two weeks.  Time to brew some green tea!



The view from the train on the way to Dalian.



The first thing that I would like to mention about Dalian is my room situation here.  The room is relatively nice, considering it is only a 2-star hotel, and my roommate is quite unique.  I will talk about the room first.  We are on the fifth floor of this little hotel directly across from the University campus (no elevators), and amongst some housing for international students and Asian students.  The room has two single beds, a TV which I probably won’t turn on, and a bathroom that gives me the luxury of using the toilet and showering at the same time.  Not quite what I expected for a bathroom, but I actually enjoy it.  Yesterday I brushed my teeth, used the bathroom, and boiled up some rice all while showering. Haha I didn’t actually boil rice in there, but this bathroom is rather versatile.

The roommate that I decided to go with for the second part of the trip goes by the name of Elbert.  He is a 75 year old that is trying to finish up his undergrad degree that he was unable to finish back in the fifties.  Besides me having to look after him and make sure he stays alive (he got sick recently), he will be a good roommate to have.  I like my quiet time when I am in the bedroom, which I probably won’t be in too often, so he is most likely the best option for a roommate. I could not imagine experiencing China for the first time at 75 years old!  He is a trooper for sure.

Our entire group at The Great Wall.  There is Elbert up front holding the flag

Our location in Dalian is great.  There are plenty of convenience stores and local markets in close walking distance, and the university and dining hall is less than a minute walk away.  One of the great things about being in Dalian, which is a primarily made up of Chinese people and very little tourists, is that the prices are a lot cheaper, especially for food.  I have spent no more than 8 Yuan for a meal here thus far—only a little over a dollar.  The meals have been the best that I have had in China, and they are cheap and filling.  Today in the Dalian Dining hall I ate two large scoops of rice and some tasty sweet and sour chicken, all for the equivalency of 50 US cents.  To get satisfied for a meal that costs 50 cents in America is near impossible.  If anyone is aware of a fifty cent meal, other than roman noodles, I would love to hear about it!

I am excited about being here for the next five weeks.  Well, we are actually headed out to western China for part of one week, but I will talk about that when the time comes near.  Either way, it feels good to be able to get situated in one spot and get to know the area and people for a while.  I will most likely be partnered with a Chinese student while here and will have 3 Chinese students in my 5 person class.  Talk about a great student-to-teacher ratio.  I also will have a class made up of all of the students on this trip.  I will discuss more about these classes later.  I’m definitely looking forward to all that Dalian has to offer.  Time to get back into the books!

Beijing Fling

It’s Friday morning at the Capitol Hotel in Beijing, China.  I have not blogged for nearly an entire week, which is due to the little amount of time that the group I am with has had to relax. We have been non-stop busy for about a week it seems.  I have experienced days were I have had to put in such a large amount of effort to stay up; to  the point that my brain seemed to be shutting down on me and there was nothing to be done about it.  All of this exhaustion has been solely because the intense amount of activities that are available here.  It’s ridiculous. Beijing has been filled with many great stories and adventures, but some things really stuck out to me while I was here.  This blog will hopefully give you a little idea of what I took away from this fast-paced city.

                The first great experience was the overnight train ride to Beijing.  I’m not sure how many people get to go on train rides like this, but I would definitely recommend it.  The ride is obviously a lot slower than a plane ride, yet I feel like if I had an option between the two, I would go with the train.  The greatest thing about the train ride was our little room that we stayed in.  The room was made up of two bunk beds, a small little table between the two bunks, a large window, and a little area to store our book bags.  It was a tight little fit, to say the least; what an amazing time it was, though.  All of us felt so cozy in our little beds, inside the little room, with great night views of rural China.  I can’t really explain how comfortable and worry free we felt in this little room, so go on a train ride with some close friends or family to experience it.  The simplicity of it, I believe, is what made it so great. 

I’m not sure if I’ve had the chance to explain the bathroom situation over here in China, so I’ll lay it out for you here.  While on the train, or anywhere in China, if someone has to drop some buddies off at the pool, there will be a nice hole in the ground for them to use.  The hole looks to be stainless steel, but that is about the best of it.  You just squat over the hole and hope that it turns out okay ha.  Waking up at 3 in the morning on the train to a hole in the ground was not what I wanted to be doing.  I’ll forever be thankful for how wealthy and spoiled we are in America.

The next thing that stuck out in Beijing was our trip to the silk market, which could also be labeled as the six story mall full of bargaining and counterfeit items. Unbelievable is what this place is!  It is like nothing I would have expected it to be.  I can almost say that most highly valued brand items across the world (that can fit in a mall) where in this mall, except for fake.  Anything from a Rolex watch and Nike shoes, to counterfeit iPods and North Face jackets.  Don’t get me wrong, some of things were not counterfeit, like the artsy items, but most of the items in this store are just for looks. 





One of the many aisles.  Notice the fake, white crocs on the right.

 This is how the silk market works.  While walking to get sized for my suit, I will hear people talking/yelling in my ear on each side of me trying to get me to buy an item in their store.  Some of the people working the little stores would even grab me and pull me in there.  These people want to sell something, bad!  While I was at the suit shop and trying to bargain for the suit, the little girl that was helping me out was getting really upset and mad at me, but in a flirty kind of way.  After I had been talking to her for about 15 minutes, I told her that I would go check out some of the other suit shops (all of the suit places were beside each other).  She would then grab my arm and BEG me to stay there.  One time before I was about to leave (I attempted to leave many times), she pushed me against the wall into a manikin! Haha this is no joke.  I was laughing of course, and she wasn’t extremely serious, but this is how they run the stores in the silk market.  They want the sale so much that they will straight up harass you to get you to stay in the store.  For the people that I don’t really care for in the stores, it is easy to just walk to the next place of interest, but for some people, it is a little hard to leave.  They genuinely made us feel bad for not buying their items.  A lot more went on in the silk market that blew my mind, like how quickly the time passed in there, but I will save all of that for a later date.  I have a lot of stories about the silk market.  We went there 4 times…



At the beginning of the 2 mile loop



The next thing that blew my mind in Beijing was our trip to The Great Wall of China.  Before I experienced The Great Wall, I didn’t really think much of the name.  I didn’t think much about it being called great.  However, when we arrived at this unbelievably steep and long wall, my breath was taken away.  This place is absolutely unbelievable.  I have always known that the wall is long, but I never had a clue that it would be so steep.  The hike up this beast showed me, and the group that I was with, just how out of shape we are.  In some parts it felt like we were walking completely vertical, with little horizontal movement.  Some steps are really tall, some are really short; some steps are wide, some are narrow.  I really can’t describe it.  I think we did about a 3 mile loop on the wall, but I’d say it felt more like 10 miles.  The view from the top was amazing, despite how smoggy the day was.  I’m struggling to describe the wall, so I’ll just post some pictures.  It’s definitely one of the wonders of the world.



Getting closer to the end of the long ascent!



Striking a pose.  Looking forward to the walk down!

An intense walk down.  A fall would have been brutal.

The next thing that surprised me about this week in Beijing is/was the amount of smog in the air.  It is seriously hard to breathe some days.  On one particular day, we had to take an hour cab ride to meet with the company Caterpillar, and then take an hour long cab ride back.  This day was ridiculously smoggy.  Visibility was about 200 yards.  The air was thick and smelt like exhaust and other kinds of pollution.  (It is not uncommon to see the Chinese wearing those masks that filter the air). I didn’t realize that I was doing this until later in the night, but I did not take a deep breath the entire day.  My body knew how bad the air quality was and so I took really small, shallow breaths.  Like I said, I didn’t really have to think about doing this, I just did it.  Kind of like blinking.  The next day, many people in the group felt sick.  Our throats and lungs took a beating.  On a happier note, the next day was beautiful!  Some wind came through and blew most of the smog away.

I’m not going to go into too much detail about this, but we went out to the bar one night, which we later found out was the gay bar district, and the group that I was with met some girls from Iceland.  One thing that I have noticed while in China is that we run into many people from around the world. Anyways,   these girls from Iceland were EASILY the most interesting people that I have ever met in my 21 year long life.  I talked to this girl for two or three hours, and it seemed like only minutes.  I was completely drawn in.  The accent is a lot of which makes it so easy to be interested, but it is also the life that they live. Iceland is a unique place.  I am very interested in going to Iceland now.  I would love to talk about all of the things that I heard about the way Iceland does life, however,  I’d rather talk about it in person.  One interesting thing that Iceland does is the way last names are given.  For instance, if I were to have a daughter, her last name would be Benjaminsdotter—Dotter for daughter.  I found that pretty interesting.  She intrigued me in many more ways than this.  One of the best conversations I’ve ever had I think.  I must love accents.  Especially Icelandic ones. 

(These girls graduated high school, which I think they call elementary school, worked for 7 or so months, and have been traveling around for five months.  They go back to Iceland today.  I feel like our run in with them was meant to happen and was a little key to how my life could go. )

The last, but definitely not least, most impressionable thing that happened in China is the arrival of the new group and the departure of the old group.  Today has been somewhat of a sad day for me.  All of the people that I flew over to China with, experienced China for the first time with, and did many things together with, left about two hours ago.  We all had a great bond and experienced some amazing things together.  I will miss all of them greatly.  I could not have asked for a better group to experience China with, and now I will be able to experience it with an entirely new group of people.  I’m excited to get to know these people for the next five weeks!

All in all, Beijing has been quite the experience.  A lot has been left out of this blog, in terms of the things that we have experienced here, but some of the main things were highlighted. So many things happen here that it is hard to get it all down.  For example, I saw a baby poop on the cement, because they don’t use diapers here, but go to the bathroom through the slit in their pants.  I also ate a scorpion.  These just popped into my head.  So much is going on in China and so many new experiences for all of us here.  Every day is full of numerous, unique experiences.

Dropping a deuce like a Champ!



Soda Drinking Bears and an Irish Pub for Dinner

Yesterday was our free day in Nanjing.  It was another eventful day in China to say the least.  The first thing that we did was head out to the zoo that is in Nanjing.  We walked to the subway, bought our ticket which was only 3 Yuan, and rode the Subway for about 20 minutes to the Zoo (my first subway ride!).  After riding for 20 minutes, we got out and walked for about 10 minutes to get to the zoo.  It's weird, even though I have felt like I have been on Mars this entire trip, I felt even more lost once we landed in this city that the zoo was in.  I don’t think many people there have seen Americans.  I really don’t.  Barely any Americans go to Nanjing, and even less go to the zoo 20 minutes outside of Nanjing.  It’s a good thing we had a group of ten people.

Some dirty Pandas at this zoo.  I would love to realease them.

The zoo was strange.  The people I went with said that it was the worst zoo that they had ever been to and probably the worst they will ever go to.  I didn’t mind it too much, but I must admit, the animals there, and the zoo in general, seemed a bit abandoned. There were not many people in the Zoo at all, and it was so huge that it took about a ten minute walk to go from one animal to the next.  The zoo also had random theme parks in it and things that you would find at the fair.  My friend Hampton went into this little ride that had a bunch of manikins in there killing each other.  He seemed a little scarred after attending this ride that cost him 10 Yuan.  However weird this zoo might have been, I enjoyed all of the animals that were there.  They seemed extremely friendly.  It’s almost mind blowing how friendly they were.

The most intense part of the zoo trip was this encounter we had with the Asian bears (they actually looked Asian). After walking for about ten minutes from seeing the Tigers, Panthers, and Cheetahs, we  arrived to see this Bear and his Bear friend drinking sodas.  They weren’t just drinking the soda, they were grabbing the soda from the people outside of the cage, taking the top off, and chugging like they were human.  Standing on the back legs and everything.  We were viewing from the second story at this time, so we walked down to get a closer view.  I have a bunch of great videos of this that I plan to upload to Youtube at some time.  I think it has the potential to go viral. 

I even got to feed this Bear.  I bought these spicy peanuts on the market earlier in the day that I didn’t really like, so I let the Bears try them.  I would put the peanuts in my hand, stretch through the bars while the Bears stretched through their bars, and let the Bear take the peanuts right out of my hand.  This will most likely be the only time I will ever touch a Bear’s hand again, and this is probably a good thing.  After a few times of feeding him, he grasped my hand like he wanted to take it along with the peanuts.  I had to strain to get my hand out of his strong grip.  I quit feeding him peanuts out of my hand after this ha.  These Bears absolutely loved it.  We were all feeding them, because they might not have eaten for a couple of weeks.  There were no employees to be found at this place.

More cool things happened at the zoo, one of which we watched for a long time.  The most playful monkeys were at this zoo.  They were just like little humans.  I don’t believe in evolution, but after watching these monkeys play and have fun like little kids, I started to feel like I was watching humans play inside of a cage.  Crazy.  We watched these monkeys for about 25 minutes.

At night time we ate at an Irish Pub.  I don’t think anyone on this trip enjoys how the Chinese eat.  I’m not even sure how they have a life expectancy of more than 20 years old.  The food that they eat seems extremely unhealthy and very nutrient lacking.  Some people say that the Chinese are so short because they lack nutrients.  I would have to agree.  So, the Irish Pub was a good choice.  Most of us got burgers, and they were really good.  It was strange being in this Pub.  There was no one in there except us, the Scottish owner, an Irish lady, and a guy that has been in China for a year but is from America.  I figure on a Friday night there would be more people in here, but that obviously was not the case.  I don’t think the Chinese do weekends like we do.  I’ll have to confirm that with someone that knows more about when Chinese relax. Before we left the Pub, about 10 Europeans walked in to the Pub.  Such a weird thing to be around so many Europeans in China.

Bargain Central

Today we head out to Beijing on a Train.  I think we leave around ten tonight and get to Beijing at six in the morning.  We will be discussing some of the companies that we have visited and what commonalties all of these companies have that enter into China.  It should be fun.  We are all excited for Beijing.  My teacher has been talking up this place called the silk market for a while.  She has told a lot of people to wait to do their shopping until the silk market.  It is basically a six story mall that you can bargain at.  I know I’m pumped.  Bargaining is extremely fun and requires skill, all of which we are acquiring.  I will most likely not be back for another week, but I will be journaling a little so that I can post what I have been doing when I get a connection.  Be back soon.     

5 Star Hotel in Nanjing = Employees that know a little English

It is Friday Morning in the city of Nanjing.  On Wednesday morning, we headed out of Shanghai at around 7:45 and headed toward the town of Suzhou for a company visit.  The town of Suzhou is a beautiful town made up of many different corporate buildings, all of which are only two to three stories tall.  A couple of people from the area say that this town was designed in the same way that Singapore was designed, which was very noticeable to me when we drove through the streets.  This place has a lot of nice trees and flowers all along the road.  It has this really tropical feel to it, with lots of company buildings hidden behind trees. 

The company that we visited here is called Kemet.  What this company does is produce capacitors for electronic devices. I had no clue what a capacitor was when arriving at the job site, and still am a little foggy about what exactly a capacitor does, but I will try and explain.  A capacitor is this small chip that is needed in products that use batteries.  It is like a mediator for the electricity in the outlet and the battery inside the phone or other electronic device.  The capacitor basically regulates how much energy is let out inside of the device.  This explanation is terrible, but it’s early, and I am still a little unclear about it all.  I am pretty useless when it comes to knowing about what all goes into electronic devices to make them run.  Either way, the company visit was very interesting.  We were able to go into the factory where they mass produce the capacitors.  This was very interesting.  One client that they sell capacitors to is Apple.

After the company visit, we headed out to Nanjing.  The ride to Nanjing was a smoggy/cloudy one, but we were still able to see some great views from our bus.  For the two-three hour ride to Nanjing, we were able to see our first Chinese mountains, and our first view of grass fields.  It was really nice to see that there are not buildings everywhere in China.  Don’t get me wrong, there still were a lot of houses on this drive, but not too many.  I thought about the idea of overpopulation in China for a while on this ride.

Yesterday was our first full day in Nanjing.  It was a day full of history and sightseeing. Nanjing is a much more beautiful place to me than Shanghai, but it still has its rough areas.  The first place that we headed to yesterday was the place were the “father of China” was buried. It was very pretty in this area and had a lot of great views.  I will post a picture of it because I’m not sure how to explain it.  A lot of stair climbing to get to the top, but a great view from the top of the mountains and city.

The view from the top was beautiful!

After this, we headed to another historical site which gave me this unbelievable sadness for the people of China.  Back in 1937 when the Japanese were trying to take over the world, they came through Nanjing (Capitol of People’s Republic of China at the time) and murdered many of the people.  300,000 of them in six weeks.  People were tortured, raped, and murdered.  The museum that we walked through had a great amount of pictures and stories from this event that the Chinese will never forget.  One picture had a Chinese guys’ head on top of a street sign with a cigarette in his mouth.  That is about how much respect the Japanese had for the Chinese during this.  Many people were raped and tortured.  The Chinese that were in the museum were clearly upset when walking through this museum.  Mothers and daughters held hands and groups of people cried.  I wanted to hug them all and really felt for them.  I lost a lot of respect for the Japanese during this.  It is hard for me to grasp how they could do the things that they did.

Many of these statues were at the beginning of the museum.  They showed a lot.  There were really sad poems at the bottom of them.

This was at the end of the Museum.  I did not feel at peace after walking out of there, and I doubt if the Chinese were either.

On a happier note, I ate at McDonald’s last night! Yes!  Easily the best meal of the trip for me.  I had a Big Mac combo and a McFlurry.  I nearly got two Big Mac combos, but I decided to practice a little self-control so that the Chinese don’t get the wrong idea of me and America (and to save a little Yuan for the street vendors). Over the last few days, I have had little insight as to what I have eaten.  For the last couple of meals, I would say that I have been able to identify about 20% of the food items.  It’s a mystery nearly all dinner/lunch long ha.  Breakfast is my one meal of the day that I am aware of all that I put in my mouth.  I like breakfast very much. I’m excited for breakfast right now. 

I have a lot of interesting things to say about China, such as all of the different smells that pass through my nostrils while walking in the street, but I will save all of these interesting topics for a later date.  I am finally feeling a little less Jet-lagged, but I still am jet-lagged.  Around 4:00 PM I get real tired and must make myself last through the day.  One other cool thing before I head out for our free day in Nanjing, we bought some Baijo at the store last night.  It is this Chinese liquor that tastes similar to gasoline.  We didn’t finish the little bottle that we bought.  Thankfully, it was only six yuan haha.  Less than a dollar for some liquor.  Bad taste or not, this stuff would be a hit on a college campus back in the states.  Gotta love China.

The Yangtze River.  As you can see, a very large amount of ships were in this river.  The biggest river I have ever seen by a long shot.

We will leave on Saturday and head by train to Beijing.  I will have no internet connection during this time, so I will be cut off from America and the rest of the world once again.  I will do a little blogging, but will have to post them at a later date.  We meet up with the 6-week group in Beijing, which I am really excited about.  I am sure that Beijing will be great fun for everyone, and will probably pass by pretty quickly.  I am extremely excited for Beijing and all that we will be doing there.  We will meet more companies in Beijing, as well.  I will be back in around a week if I don’t blog later on in the day.         

Foot Massages and Tea Dates

(I wrote this on Tuesday night. I am finally able to get on to the blog site. I am now in Nanjing and about to spend the next three days here.)

Today was another extremely long day.  I just realized earlier why my last two blogs were written in the morning; it feels like 6:00 pm to me, not 6:00 am.  So, now I am attempting to write the blog at 9:30 at night.  It feels like I pulled an all-nighter and just made it through breakfast.  I’m on the verge of crashing, and have been since four o’clock, but I can’t let the jet lag get the best of me!

The two company visits today were extremely top-notch.  I had no idea that they would be set up as nicely as they were.  I am not going to talk too much about the companies, because most people are not as interested in business as I just recently became, but I will say a little.  The first company that we visited was BASF.  They are a huge company that mainly deals with chemicals.  Wow, I am exhausted.  I’ll just say that the 2010 sales for them were 69 billion euros (The guy presenting was from Holland).  We talked to the Senior Vice President of the Construction Chemicals for the Asia-Pacific Region and Stefan Dreher, the Vice President of Innovation for Asia-Pacific.

During the end of this company visit, we were able to eat lunch on the BASF campus.  The lunch was good, but one food item completely turned me off.  It was absolutely disgusting.  It’s basically like this big ball of fat.  My teacher says it is all protein that comes from gluten, but protein or not, the texture of it is like a ball of fat.  I feel a gag coming on.  It tasted so bad that I am skipping dinner ha.  My teacher loves it though, so who knows.  Chinese food is really good, just not this.

I noticed a little craving for American food today.  It is only day 3!  I do like Chinese food, but it’s just weird eating completely different when you have been eating one way your whole life.

Yummy!

Two things really stuck out today.  The first thing was the tea date that we had with our friend in the tea shop just off of Nanjing street (really busy street in China. Many shops).  I told her on Monday that we would be back later in the day, but we were not able to due to time constraints, so going back today was much anticipated for me, and probably her too.  When we arrived at the store, she was really happy to see us.  Right away she started getting some tea ready so that we could all sit down and drink it together.  She was genuinely excited to see us, and we were excited to see her. 

Just thinking about her makes me wish that I could somehow help her out.  Don’t get me wrong, she is very happy and extremely nice, but she works from 7:00 AM to 9:00 PM every day.  I’m not sure how many people come into her store, but she seems like she waits around in there a lot.  She is just one of those people that you can tell really value your time with them.  Anyways, her home is about two hours away on a plane from Shanghai.  We asked her if she wanted to go to America, and she said when she is twenty four.  Turns out, she thought we said married.  She is twenty-two, and thinks that she is too young to be married, but she wants to be married by twenty four.  Her English is good by my standards;  we can communicate a little, but it is done with a lot of effort on both sides of the table. 

This is the tea table. She is using her translator on her phone.  We all miss her already.

Before we left, I bought the tea set.  It was selling for 68 Yuan, but I gave her 100 Yuan.  She didn’t want me to give her so much money, but I really wanted to give her that.  So, she gave us all about 20 grams each of two different types of tea.  I think that because they are so used to Americans bargaining, when we pay them more than they ask, it means so much.  I could talk about this experience for a long time.  We are all friends and I hope to see her again whenever I get the chance to come back.  She says her English will be better next time.  I have around five years to come back before she is gone.  I want her to see America. 

The second experience today that stuck out and was a great time was a foot massage.  China is like no other for these.  You would think an hour long foot massage would be expensive, right?  It is unbelievable, and it is less than a fast food meal.  I paid 45 Yuan for a foot massage!  That’s about 7 dollars haha.  How legit is that?  Too legit to quit!  I’m about to get a few more of these while in China.

If you watch Seinfeld religiously like my family and I do, you will laugh at this.  I feel for George Costanzia and completely understand his massage experience.  Okay, so we walked in this back-alley foot massage place close to our hotel (None of the people in the place spoke English).  There was enough room in there for about 6 people to get massages.  I think these people massaging lived in the basement of this place or something.  Anyways, I go in there, sit down, and wait for a few minutes.  I see three girl massagers, all of which were taken up, and then one guy.  Hmm.  The guy walks over, gives me a hot tub with ginger in it to soak my feet in, and then starts massaging my leg. I think it moved haha.  They move up pretty high on your leg while your feet soak.  I was not down with this.  Thankfully, Kirsty, one of my friends that I went in there with, let me borrow her girl.  I was so happy when this happened!  I did not want my first foot massage experience to be from a guy.

 The girl that massaged my feet was an absolute beast.  It was a pretty intimate thing, I must admit, but she was working my feet like she was trying to make the white man cry.  It was sooo intense, yet it was still sooo good. A foot massage is such a delicacy.  I felt like a king in there.  Despite me struggling at times to handle her strength, I enjoyed this hour greatly.  I also got in a leg massage with it, but just the lower leg.  This was my favorite part of the entire thing.  I must have tender feet, or from what I hear, Americans are just not used to how Chinese massage—the more intense, the better.

Tomorrow we head out of Shanghai and head  to Suzhou for a company visit and then to Nanjing for a three day stay.  I will miss Shanghai and all of the people I have met and taken pictures with (Chinese love taking pictures with us whites).  Shanghai has been about as fun and perfect as it can get.  I believe the rest of the trip will feel the same.  If I am dreaming, don’t wake me up! 

Green Tea, Bargaining, and Much Respect

It’s another early morning for me.  I owe this early morning to the remaining Jet-lag and my excitement for the new day!  Yesterday was my first full day in China, and man, it was a long one.  It was filled with many new experiences and a new-found respect for the Chinese and how they do business.

I started off the day with a nice breakfast at the hotel.  Of course I had rice with eggs in it for breakfast! I also had many other great foods, a lot of which were Americanized to make us feel at home.  I guess the strangest thing at breakfast yesterday was Won-tons.  No way would I be able to eat wontons in the morning ha.  That’s a dinner item to me for sure.  Anyway, I had some amazing all natural orange juice and all natural grape fruit juice.  These were both freshly squeezed and the best I have had of both.  I had about ten glasses haha.  The glasses are really small though, so it wasn’t as extreme as you think.

We started out the day, after an amazing breakfast, with a visit to this nice Chinese museum.  It was really interesting.  Words can’t really describe the museum, and I’m not going to try, because I know how boring it is to read history books.  Basically, it was a bunch of old historic items dating all the way back to 5000 BC.  The place was three stories and had different themed rooms on each floor.  My favorite was the room that had the evolution of their currency.  Some of the dollar bills and coins that they used to use were the size of Apple Ipads and dinner plates.  I’m not sure how they managed with the huge coins, but I guess it wasn’t working for them since they went through thousands of different looks and sizes for the currency.  This outing gave me a great idea of how long of a history the Chinese have, and how much they like to make Buddha statues.

From there, we went to an Americanized lunch, buffet style.  That’s right.  A Chinese buffet.  I didn’t think that they actually had these in China, which I still think this was like the only one, but it was pretty good.  Many different foods than what we have in America.  I think I ate a raw piece of shrimp that had some kind of fruity taste on the outside of it.  It was in the fruit section.  I had about six or seven food items for this meal that were a mystery.  They were all pretty good.  I had six flavors of ice cream too.  The honey doo melon flavor was a great one.

After this, we had some free time to wander around.  I WENT INTO MY FIRST CHINESE TEA SHOP! I enjoy tea a lot in America, but oh my, China knows how to make tea!  The tea is so good, that when I am in there, it almost seems like it should be illegal.  I am not kidding.  It’s like I am in a coffee shop in Amsterdam or something.  All of the hundreds of types of teas are in nice glass jars, close enough to take the tops off and get a nice smell of all of the beautiful aromas.  It’s amazing.  The first tea shop that we went in, we sat down with the owner of the store (she knew some English), and she served us all some nice green tea to get a feel for the taste.  They do it differently than us, and a lot better. We steep our tea for 3-5 minutes, they steep there tea for a couple of seconds.  A couple of grams of green tea will last about ten rounds-ten rounds for four people.  I can’t describe how great the tea is, or how intimate it feels to have a tea party in a little back-alley store with a nice Chinese girl, but it left me with a new friend and a better understanding for how tea is treated in China.  We went in a couple of other tea stores this day, all of which felt illegal, and all of which left me with a new friend.  I find it very kind of them to let my friends and I sample their tea for 20 minutes.  I will be back today to get a tea set.

Fresh Green Tea!

This blog is getting long, so I will try and close it out soon.  We went to this place that was filled with the iconic Chinese houses that we think about when thinking of Chinese architecture.  It was a beautiful place of gardens and intricate buildings.  It felt very sacred and cherished by the Chinese.  Just outside of this place was full of shops, and a lot of bargaining!

If you don’t bargain in China, you are getting ripped off.  It’s that simple.  You must bargain if you come here.  My first bought item, which was green tea, I bargained a little for, but I feel like I could have done better after walking in other tea stores and checking prices. The tea I bought was top quality green tea though.  I know this because of the smell.  Whenever you ask what is the best green tea in the store, they will get the jar and let you smell it.  I bought 30 grams of the tea for 90 Yuan.  This is about 15 dollars. 

Listen to this Bargain. There are these headphones called Beats by Dr. Dre.  Some have heard of them, some haven’t.  Check the price on them online if you have not.  We went into this electronic store (the stores are all about 10 feet by 10 feet.  Maybe less) and looked at these headphones.  They were selling for 580 Yuan for each pair.  Michael and I got a pair for each of us for only 200 Yuan!   100 Yuan a pair.  From 580 to 100, I’d say that’s a good bargain.  We were a little skeptical to as their authenticity, but last night we tried them out, and we got an amazing deal.  I couldn’t help but smile last night about how legit the headphones are and how legit the Chinese are at counterfeiting items, if these are even counterfeit. 

I respect the Chinese a lot for how they do business.  They do it with passion and with a big want to sell the items.  When you bargain and they don’t go low enough, you walk out of the store.  They drop the price real quickly after that.  We also bought 8, quality, counterfeit DVDs.  They are all extremely legit, and only about 8 Yuan each (a little over a dollar).  Nearly everything is counterfeit that I have seen here, and our purchases thus far have been top quality. 

I must stop here. The cruise last night was great.  I really like China.  I will be eating with Chopsticks for the majority of the time.  I’m going to buy my own set in Beijing.  Today we meet with two companies.  I’ll let you know how they are tomorrow.  Oh, I didn’t get to meet up with my Holland friend.  Too busy and no way to get in contact.  Hopefully she emailed me. 

They Love Pictures with White People

"I can't believe we're in China!"

Due to no internet and laws against getting on certain websites in China (They can’t get on Youtube or Facebook!), this post below was done a couple of days ago-Monday morning.

It’s 5:30 in the morning, I am awake, and I am in China!  The last two days have been extremely intense and eventful, in which case I’ll try not to make this journal too long.  These first two blogs will probably be a little lengthy, because there is so much to talk about.  I learn how to get them shorter at some point.

The plane ride was quite the trip.  We flew out of Greenville to Chicago in an airplane with only three rows.  While the flight was about an hour and fifty minutes, it passed by in what seemed like thirty minutes.  Before landing in Chicago, I was able to see Lake Michigan, which I originally thought was some type of ocean from above.  I never really realized how big this lake is or why I hear so much about it, but now I know; it is massive!

The ride from Chicago to Shanghai was a little different than I expected.  Firstly, the plane was absolutely huge.  The plane was Two-by-Five-by-Two for the seats, and by far the most powerful thing that I have ever heard or experienced.  This plane was no joke.  On the ride over there, we went almost completely north for a couple of hours. We flew clear over Alaska and were in the Arctic for quite a while.  Whenever I looked out of my window, I saw thick layers of Ice with these huge cracks in it.  For most of the ride, we flew over completely barren land.  I should have been sleeping during this time, but I wasn’t.  For the entire ride I didn’t sleep.  I watched two movies (hangover twice!), two shows, read and outlined about 50 pages of work on Chinese business, read the bible, ate great food, drank some nice wine, and just chatted with the guy next to me.  I had a window seat.  It was a great time. Oh, and I never did get to see the sun go down until last night.

Upon arriving in Shanghai, we hopped on a tour bus for a little tour on the way to our hotel.  The Chinese drivers are fearless!  Everywhere we went, there were cars cutting off other cars, not using blinkers ever, and using their horns always.  Just to give you an idea of how much they use their horns, I woke up at 2 in the morning last night to what sounded like rush hour traffic outside my window.  Ha, I’ll explain more about their driving later.

The entire ride to the hotel, there were houses upon houses, apartment complexes upon apartment complexes, and basically buildings upon buildings.  Everywhere I look there is a building.  It is extremely clear that this is the most populous place on Earth.  We then arrived at the hotel, went to exchange some money, and then went out to dinner.

On the drive to dinner, I was blown away.  The amount of bicyclers on the streets and people on little mopeds is ridiculous.  The most mind blowing thing about it is, they are completely fearless!  They do not watch were they are going!  I have seen what seems like bicyclers almost get hit, and that doesn’t include the walkers.  They are just as fearless.  They will walk across the street and seem like they don’t even look!  It has to be experienced.  I just can’t explain how many people that I feel like should have been hit.  We were in this huge tour bus, driving down -little ally-ways and people would just cut in front of the bus like it was a bike.  It is seriously unreal how fearless they are.  It seems like there would be millions of wrecks a day.

Dinner was amazing.  I had my first taste of legit Chinese food and loved it.  The restaurant we were in had Lazy Susan’s at the table, which was a great upgrade.  We had about 10-12 different food items at our table, so we stayed pretty busy spinning the wheel. We had the privilege of eating in this private room and having private dancers come in and show us how to get down.  It was interesting.  In the big restaurant lobby, which holds about 200 people, dancers were up on stage eloquently dancing and getting down with the Chinese music.

Last night was probably the most interesting thing thus far in China.  We went out to go see the unbelievable popular skyline and walk amongst the mind-blowingly populous city.  Firstly, the skyline is beautiful.  Shanghai seems to love neon lights, so everywhere in this town things are lit up in vibrant colors.  It gives this place a feel of intelligence and intricacy.  It’s quite amazing to look at.  What is even more amazing is the amount of people that were out on this boardwalk taking pictures of the skyline.  The boardwalk must be a couple of miles long with wall to wall people taking pictures and hanging out.  The city is poppin’ here on Sunday night!  After walking along the boardwalk, we went a little deeper into the city.  This was my favorite part of the night.

I’m sure you have been to some type of tourist attraction before, where you stick out a little and therefore get offered all of these items by street vendors? If not, Imagine random people coming up to you and trying to get you to buy things, and then multiply it by about 100.  I’d say we had around 100 people try and get us to by their items last night.  My friend Michael explains it well- “they are relentless!” That is exactly what they are.  They take selling to a whole new level.  They will do anything to get you into their store or to buy their little clip-on rollerblades.  We walked for about 2 miles on this street.  We stuck out like a sore thumb, despite us being completely surrounded by people.  They still spotted us.

One thing China does well is counterfeit our American items.  One guy came up to us and was trying to get us to buy some items, so we decided to follow him (this was the second guy we followed.  We know when to back out if it is getting sketchy).  We walked into this store with a bunch of Buddha artwork, and then went upstairs in the back of the store.  He walked up the steps and said “follow me”.  I started to leave because I didn’t know what was up there, and then about five girls came down from up stairs and spoke English to me and made us feel comfortable.  So, we went up there and it was like a completely different store than the one below!  So much nicer, and completely decked out with knock off purses, clothes, watches, DVD’s, and some other things.  Michael bargained for two knock-off polos.  This place is really interesting. 

I left a bunch of cool things out, which I must do because I have too much to say.  One more thing, we went on a journey with some guy last night to try and find beer.  He first took us to his shop, then brought us by some sex club, and then finally understood that we wanted beer ha.  It was 50 cents for a pint!  We also met this cool girl from Holland that is traveling alone right now all through Asia.  We are trying to get together today.  It’s hard without a phone or internet connection.

Anyways, Shanghai is unique to say the least.  It seems as if it is another planet and we are dealing with a completely different animal.  Not many know English here, which makes it hard to hold a conversation, but it sure is fun!  We just laugh and know that we don’t speak the same language.  A laugh or smile is something that we all can communicate with.  China is Amazing.