The Beijing Diaries

Epicness

2009-03-01T23:47:00.000-08:00

Apologies to all for not having sent an update last week. Things got really busy here this week and I was unable to sit down with spare time to write up a thorough update. This is pretty long, so brace yourselves. Oh well, here goes...

Last weekend and week was standard. After another grueling week at IUP, some of my classmates and I went to an all you can eat and drink Japanese restaurant ($10USD beer only) for dinner followed by an evening of consuming high quantities of beer at a neighborhood bar with some of our teachers. Baller.
Saturday night was awesome. I went to a Paul Van Dyk show with my sisters friends and Lukas (college friend). We got a pimp little booth and enjoyed 4 bottles of whiskey with sweet green tea (the bread and butter cocktail of China) and lots of dancing. As per usual, the evening took a few interesting turns here and there, the most unexpected of which was my sisters ex-bf having a serious conversation with me about how I need to go out and date older men (my sisters guy friends, according to him, are definitely not off limits) and somehow letting slip that my sister is not the conservative good girl I imagine her to be. Eek. That conversation ended swiftly with me ramming my fingers into my ears and shouting "TMI!" (too much information - for the squares out there).

This week was quite interesting as well. Another rough week hitting the books prompted a deep set desire in me to rage on the weekend. I think I'm going to straight up call this weekend epic. Read on and judge for yourselves...

Friday night I went to dinner with S (friend from last semesters program) at this fancy pants Brazilian place called Alameida and ate the most succulent rack of lamb I've had in a while. Even though S is not usually one to go nuts on the weekend night scene because he works 7 days a week, I convinced him to tag along with me on my adventure of an evening. He was game. We started by going to this bar called Tun, that has ladies night every Friday (all you can drink till midnight, fo frizzle!) where we guzzled a few Miami Iced Teas (delicious) before heading to Hou Hai (Back Lake) to meet up with a bunch of kids from my program at this little Jazz bar. After jamming out listening to the band for a few hours we headed to this little place called Huxleys that is famous for cheap drinks and shots (owned by the same people who own Tun). We played a few drinking games, namely 7, 11, or doubles. Needless to say, I'd consumed something like 13 drinks or more by the end of the night and had to have two guys from my program carry me home. I woke up on Saturday (yesterday) still wearing my dress, earings in my ears, and with racoony eye makeup. Zexy.

Last night however, may have really put the icing on the cake. Jill organized discount tickets for a bunch of us to go to a live improv show by the Chicago All-Stars that were in town just for this weekend. Before the show and after spending most of the day in bed recovering, a group of us went to an all you can eat and drink Teppanyaki restaurant ($30USD beer, sake, wine, fresh juice, soda... anything). Needless to say, MANY shots of sake were drunk and glasses of beer chugged. Classy as usual. Then we made our way to the theater and enjoyed 2 solid hours of comedic fun. It was a nice breath of fresh air to be entertained by western humor. It sounds weird, but most of the jokes and funnies told in Beijing usually involve a ridiculous encounter with a local, some badly written sign (yay chinglish!), or drinking stories. It was nice to watch 3 men and a lady sing, improvise and generate laughter to the tune of sex jokes, slapstick, and awkwardness. Loved it. Of course, since it was only 11 when the show ended, 5 of us decided to keep the night alive and went to Tun (previously mentioned bar place) for a few drinks. While usually raging on friday nights, Tun is relatively quiet on saturday nights, so we ordered a few drinks and went to sit in the special section on the second floor. We had a few cocktails and then were wonderfully informed by the generous waiter that on saturdays there is a drink special that is $100rmb (about $15 dollars?) for 24 shots. Granted these shots are not the size of a proper and full shot, I'd say they're about 25-40% smaller than a regular shot. But who's complaining? Anyway. The drinking spurred a game of truth or dare in which we all divulged many personal gems that are sort of hazily on the edge of my memory. At around 4am the bar closed and were were asked to peace out so we went home. This may be one of the first times in my China career that I have outlasted the openness of a bar. Go me!

Unfortunately I am now so ill from all the drinking (or not sleeping or something) that I am at home, curled up in my bed, reading the final book in the Twilight series. Oh god.

Random Thoughts, Musings, and Stuff...

2009-02-23T04:50:00.001-08:00

There are days when I realize just how crazy I am. On those days, I hope that somewhere on this good earth there will always be people who love me despite my insanity, who embrace who I am and look fondly on my short comings. Todays blog is dedicated to these moments, and of course the people as well as to whatever random -ish pops into my head...

* I am apparently incapable of making decisions, which usually leads me to unnecessary awkwardness, stress, and spastic outbursts.

* I am a social alcoholic and take pride in my lushyness, however, occasional unforeseeable conversations (about my love life, other people's love lives) usually lead to unwanted thoughts and mini regrets dancing around in my head.

* I have a tendency to put people on pedestals. Friends, family.... strangers?

* I know I've been living in China too long because discussing gastro-intestinal issues (aka Beijing Belly) is something that sparks up lengthy conversation instead of upturned noses and awkward grimaces.

* I have begun to rethink my stance on older men. Maybe it's the mature side of me that is thankful for the older, focused, less juvenile (though it is debatable whether or not men ever truly grow up), and intensity of the older male. I am intrigued since I began interacting with them and have found that my past fear of a maturity gap was mostly a figment of my imagination (or is no longer applicable since I am now a mature, semi-well adjusted, blossoming lady of 23... and a 1/3). In the blessed words of The Boy Friend (play my sister did in high school)

It's never too late to have a fling
For Autumn is just as nice as Spring
And it's never too late to fall in love
It's never too late to wink an eye
I'll do it until the day I die
And it's never too late to fall in love
If they say I'm too old for you
Then I shall answer "Why, sir,
One never drinks the wine that's new
The old wine tastes much nicer"

* Paul Van Dyk is an incredible dj, but the allure of a spring-loaded dance floor has passed for me (maybe I needed more friends braving the flailing elbows and toppling ravers?).

* I have a seriously cool sister... and her friends... well they're pretty bomb too. (That's a pretty major admission for me, seeing as my sister and I only became close in the past few years).

* The unfortunate fact that I'm starting to feel old at 23 does not bode well for my, hopefully long and entertaining, future years. I think I'm nearing that quarter-life crisis point where I wonder where my life is going and part of me wants to stay a kid bereft of responsibility, while the other part of me is excited to finally feel like a grown up. So now I begin to wonder...

What do I want to be when I finally DO grow up?

A very loving Housewarming and my Networking Schmooze-fest Devirginization

2009-02-18T22:51:00.000-08:00

As a way to get to know some of my new fellow IUPers and to show off my pimp house I threw myself a housewarming party last weekend. Unfortunately, because I'm semi-retarded, I didn't double check the date ahead of time and somehow ended up having it on Valentines Day. Buh-Arf. it's not that I don't like that vile "happy remember you're single" holiday, it's just that people in China (and maybe also the world, but here especially) have this incredible propensity for the kind of relationshippy gooeyness that makes me throw up in my mouth. After spending the morning at my sisters place, stealing her hard liquor (that she never drinks) and hanging out, I took a very hungover cab ride back to mi casa and watched with disdain as millions (no, really... MILLIONS) of couples donned matching outfits, held hands, made out, frolicked, and bought their significant others giant unnaturally colored teddy bears (green, blue, pink... you name it).

The party itself was pretty successful and made me realize how much I love China, enjoy my China buddies, and that I am a lush? (oh wait, I already knew that one). I got 70 dapings (contains just less than 2 bottles worth of beer) hand delivered to my apartment (I love China), and appreciated with much glee the extra bottles that almost every guest brought with them (I am a lush). As people trickled in and took off their shoes (I love China, and my China buddies), good conversation and cheap beer flowed with ease from about 9 until 1am. When the last few guests trickled out I gaped at my watch, apparently appalled at the early hour (what was I thinking?) and forced one of my IUP buddies to go grab a post party drink with me, thankfully very little arm twisting was necessary.

***

Last night, yes a school night, I schlepped my unemployed self to my very first Networking Shmooze-fest Happy Hour Extravaganza. Of course my sister, being the overachieving alpha female that she is, played a role in organizing the so called "Inter-University Happy Hour", and so I arrived alone and a little later than the initial "straight from the office" crowd. As per my sisters instructions I dressed "like I had a job" wearing some fancypants (aka slacks) and a grey tank top and the tallest heals I could stand in. Oh yes, and my very naughty schoolgirl glasses. Fabulous.

Upon paying 100RMB (roughly $15) I greeted the open bar with loving eyes and an unquenchable thirst. Thankfully my sister took the leadership role in introducing me to dozens of new people (NEW FRIENDS!) who either didn't recognize me with my glasses on, or thought I had a job (SCORE!). It was sort of refreshing how generally good looking the crowd was and how nice people were (is it because I'm mini-Montuori?). Lots of wonderful conversations and 5 glasses of wine later I stumbled out and eventually home. Luckily, this time, I left the event unscathed, without making an ass of myself (unlike this one guy, I did NOT bring a pet parrot on a chain to the bar... though I seriously contemplated petting it) and proud of my determination to still go to class this morning.

*pats self on the back*

Stay tuned for the post-weekend entry about my shenanigan filled friday (more free drinks?????) and Paul Van Dyk concert on Saturday. Photos may also be included.

An old bit of travel blogging I forgot to post

2009-02-15T00:25:00.001-08:00

As a short Forward I'd like to ask all of you reading this email to pardon me if the writing is a little spastic and long winded. There was a lot that happened during the week and I'm going to try to include as much as I can. Following this email will be an email with JUST pictures (if you don't want to bother looking at them on email, just stalk my pictures and look at the albums my friend Erik Hyman put up on facebook).

(I wikipedia-ed a little bit about XinJiang for your educational pleasure. If you do not wish to read the following short bit, skip ahead until you see the proper title of my travel-log)

Xinjiang is an autonomous region (Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region) of the People's Republic of China. It is a large, sparsely populated area (spanning over 1.6 million sq. km), which takes up about one sixth of the country's territory. Xinjiang borders Tibet to the south, Qinghai and Gansu provinces to the southeast, Mongolia to the east, Russia to the north, and Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India to the west.

"Xinjiang" or "Ice Jecen" in Manchu, literally means "New Frontier", a name given during the Manchu Qing Dynasty in China.[1] It is home to a number of different ethnic groups, many of them Turkic, the largest of which is the Uyghur people.

Last week I had my mid semester break and chose to go (along with 3 pals from my program), to the lovely province of XinJiang. This was my week...

Mariel Travels Throughout Pretty Much All of XinJiang Province:

Probably the Most Ridiculous Week Ever

10/18 - Saturday – The Arrival

After a late night of talking and hanging out in the dorm, I woke up at 4:30am and collected my bags, lots of toilet paper (the most essential travel buddy in China), snacks and my 3 travel companions (Ben, Lauren and Erik) and headed to the Beijing International Airport.

Our flight from Beijing to Urumqi took roughly 4-5 hours (think a cross continental flight) and provided lots of window scenery that took our breaths away (mountains, deserts, a weird square shaped crop circle looking thing… aliens in CHINA!). When we arrived in Urumqi we found that we had 3 hours before our connecting flight to Kashgar, so we RAN (slash took a cab) to the Urumqi train station to try to buy our end of the week return tickets to Beijing... no dice. So we RAN back to airport to catch connecting flight. Urumqi to Kashgar.

Upon arriving in Kashgar we found there were still some daylight hours, so we sought out an Internet café (where this one Kashgari guy's phone kept ringing to the tune of Usher… but in that really ghetto synthesizer way) and then decided to go for a stroll around our neighborhood and find some dinner.

Dinner brought us to our favorite block in Kashgar. The Night Market. Though only a block or two long, the Night Market boasted fruit stands, food stalls and restaurants, lots of locals, some donkey carts and plenty of amused stares.

Since food is VERY important to me, I'll give you a small breakdown of the main eats of XinJiang.

(XinJiang name – Chinese name – description. Deliciousness level.)

Laghman – lamian – a noodle dish covered in peppers, onions, lamb meat and spices. This is the dish that Napoleon took back to Italy and called Spaghetti. Genius.

Kebab – chuar – lamb meat on a stick, seasoned with cumin, chili powder and a dash of salt. Although quite delicious, and probably the most common food in the entire Province, the XinJiang people have a deep love for fat on the meat that my companions and I, unfortunately did not share.

Pollo/pilau – chao fan – rice, fried in a wok with zucchini and carrots, lamb (of course) and mystery spices. Our favorite.

Naan – nang – essentially a pizza crust (much thicker than Indian naan), some had flavoring, most were embossed with pretty patterns and sprinkled with sesame seeds. Delicious staple. Actually, Naan bread is very common in Kashgar and XinJiang because of the large amounts of Pakistani, Kyrghistani, Tajikistani and general middle eastern/Indian people populating the area.

Bagel… ok, that's not its authentic name, but we found a round bread with an almost hole in the middle that was, as far as we could see, a XinJiang version of the amazing Bagel. Slight problem, they baked their bagels, so instead of the soft deliciousness commonly associated with this type of bread in the United States, the Uighur bagel was hard as rock. Bad for teeth.

Samsa – baozi – there were two versions of this samosa like dish. One was steamed and the other was baked in a tendoori style oven thing. Inside, lamb meat, lamb fat, onions and some spices. Delicious if you could get past the fat…

Finally, XinJiang is quite famous for its fruit and we ate apples, melons, bananas and grapes by the ton. We also found Pomegranates here by the hundreds. This little contraption did the wonderful job of squashing Pomegranates and filtering out the juice so you could buy shots (1RMB) or small bottles (10RMB) of PURE Pomegranate juice. SUCK ON THAT POM! I got totally antioxidant out. (minus the fact that the bottles the Pom juice was sold in were old medicine bottles... safe?)

Our "hotel", like most hotels around China provided both the luxurious and the amazingly cheap. The 4 of us decided to spend the night in the 30RMB a night hostel portion of the hotel, and unknowingly began our weeklong foray into the business of making of new friends.

Our first friends unfortunately were of the smaller nature. Shortly after arriving in our room for the evening we discovered that were not the only occupants of room 319, a room with 6 beds, 4 people and an unknown number of antennae-ed crawly friends. After our initial shock, we decided that there was only one way to show these little roaches who was boss, so we all jumped on our beds, screaming, and proceeded to flick as many of them onto the floor as possible, after which they disappeared for the rest of the night. Thankfully.

The room itself was something that could have been featured in a Japanese horror, or low budget slasher film. Though it may have at some point in the very distant past been a fairly decent hotel, it has unfortunately resigned itself to a creepy-peeling-pink-wallpaper-high-ceiling-lumpy-bed-scary-bathroom type of room. The dial and switches on the bedside tables were connected to nothing (and in fact, we removed the gold switchboard at one point to discover a hallow full of cigarette butts, little friends, and scraps of garbage), and the bathroom was the standard Chinese toilet, sink, showerhead (no stall), with a large serving of creepy. No photos available unfortunately.

Once we got into bed to sleep, however, we were surprisingly comfortable, and comforted by the teacup alarm system we had concocted (consists of a rickety table set in front of the bedroom door with teacups on the edge, so that if someone opens the door the teacups come crashing down and we wake up…hopefully).

10/19 – Sunday – Bizarre Bazaar and Lakeward Travels

Although we were in XinJiang, my travel buddies and I decided early on that we would not be adjusting to the time difference (XinJiang is 2 hours behind Beijing), so that we could wake up early every day and pack as much into the daylight hours as possible.

One of the main reasons we rushed straight to Kashgar from Beijing, despite being the furthest point away from the glorious capital, was because every Sunday in Kashgar there is a massive outdoor Bazaar/Market that we did not want to miss.

We arrived at the Market at about 10am (Beijing time) and stayed until 3pm. At 3 we decided to take a quick peak at the Livestock Market, where a toothless old man offered to buy me for 100RMB or trade me for a sheep. We think he was kidding because he kept on laughing, but we didn't want to risk it, so we walked on.

The regular Bazaar was full of the largest assortment of commodities I've ever seen in one place: hats (I bought myself a furry white rabbit hat), scarves, tea, spices, carpets, bags, clothes, blankets, fabric, traditional instruments, knives (which XinJiang is also famous for), kitchen appliances, pots and pans, TVs (both new and ridiculously old), food, shoes, underwear, candy, decorated gourds, etc etc… We managed to do a fair amount of damage, in terms of items bought and pictures taken.

We also met and exchanged numbers with another new friend we made (this one was real and had no antennas!), Matt, and made plans to meet up with him later on in the week. (more to follow later on).

The Livestock Market had 4 main animals for sale: cows, sheep (which had huge booties), horses and camels… and also apparently young foreign women, if you were willing to bargain enough.

Having found a small tourism agency earlier on in the day we organized a last minute trip to Karakul. Karakul in Kirgiz/Kyrgyz (Kyrgyzstany) literally translates to Black Lake. It took about 4 hours of driving to arrive, by which time it was roughly 9:30pm and nighttime. Nestled in Pamir Plateau and surrounded by Tian Shan (Heaven Mountain), Kunlun Shan, and the Pamir Mountains. The highest peak belongs to Muztagh Ata (approx 7500m – a whole lot of feet), which our travel guide told us is used as a training mountain for people who want to climb Mount Everest. WOAH! The lake itself is about 2 miles above sea level, so the clarity of the night sky was unbelievable. We saw the milky way in its milky wonderfulness, literally thousands of stars and a bunch of constellations that none of us recognized.

Our evening was luxuriously spent in our own mud brick hut… with no heating. Luckily for us, we were the only ones sleeping by the lake, so we used ALL the blankets to create a cocoon style bed, where the four of us were literally crushed beneath the weight of the blankets (they were REALLY heavy) and had to wake up every time we wanted to move or change positions, because (1) we were 2 miles up and everything was an effort and (2) because the blankets were so heavy we were pinned beneath them. It was fabulous.

10/20 – Monday – The Most Beautiful Sunrise – Taklamakan Desert – Mariel Drives a Dune Buggy and LIVES!

We woke up at 8:30 Beijing time and put on every article of warm clothing we could manage to get on with our numb fingers before heading outside in the dark. The photos to come will show, it was the most beautiful sunrise I've ever seen in my entire life. There are no words, really.

As we began to walk around the lake a bit we ran into a Kirghiz lady, who, using a very comprehensible variety of hand gestures, invited us to have breakfast in her hut. Yak milk tea, naan, some hard bagels and an hour of conversation with our mud brick renter later we were satiated and piled into our minivan for the long trip to the Taklamakan desert.

The Taklamakan Desert is one of the largest deserts in the world, and is apparently very dangerous due to the fact that there is no water inside of it (no oasis here!). Its name very appropriately translates to "go in and you'll never come out," which was reassuring as we neared its sandy dunes.

Fortunately we were mostly in a reserve where we rode camels out into the dunes (I somehow managed to pick the biggest camel of the bunch, and was a little thrown off by its sporadic yarbles and spitting) and drove dune buggies. As embarrassing as it may sound, I drove for the longest period of time in my life on that dune buggy… it was a stick shift. I was awesome! Never fear my driving again… really!

10/21 – Tuesday – Sleeper Train

Tuesday was our first and only mid-trip "travel day". We woke up early, strolled around the Kashgar Old Town. Took our last photos and then headed to the train station to catch our 22 hour train from Kashgar to Turpan. The train station, in Kashgar is an elusive building. Though our travel agent and our cab driver both claimed it was 15 minutes to half an hour away, we found that with a little persuading (and a promise of a small tip, usually unheard of in China), our cab driver got us there in less than 10 minutes. (Apparently the usual custom is to drive through the city, which puts all cars at the mercy of traffic lights, donkey carts, jaywalkers and the surprising slow pace of driving that most XinJiangers stick to).

Though the day was lost, we discovered that short distance sleeper trains in China are not half bad. We later discovered, on our trip from Urumqi to Beijing, that longer distance sleeper trains are quite different… in a bad way. Some interesting things about sleeper trains in China…

(1) Beds are bunk style and thus tickets are purchased by levels (the higher up the cheaper..).

(2) Chinese men enjoy drinking lots of beer on long train rides.

(3) Since most Chinese people don't have the luxury of owning ipods, and apparently choose not to read books on long trips, trains will play bad music and radio soaps over loudspeakers, not allowing anyone to sleep, talk at a normal voice level, or read.

(4) Lights out at 10. No choice. No nightlight. Though they do provide a variety of good "falling asleep" tips 20 minutes prior to the train wide blackout.

10/22 – Wednesday – Turpanese Shenanigans

Our train arrived in Turpan at 12pm (Beijing time. We loved the time difference), and a small shuttle delivered us right to the front door of our hostel, where our Kashgar Bazaar friend Matt was waiting for us. Without wanting to waste any of the precious time we had in the city (we were leaving first thing in the morning for TianChi – Heaven Lake), we found ourselves a willing minivan driver and proceeded to see the sights of Turpan.

Located on the edge of the Turfan Basin, the lowest depression in the world, after the Dead Sea, Turpan is the home to 3 famous sights. The Flaming Mountains (of legendary fame), the Emin Minaret and the Jiaohe Ruins.

The Flaming Mountains were our first stop. After a serious of very bad jumping pictures, our small group decided to climb up as much of the mountain as possible. Many inappropriate sexual jokes ensued, especially since the mountain was essentially a mound of red clay with lots of depressions where rivers flowed down from the top. We decided to climb up via one of these depressions (aka "cracks"… and so the jokes took an interesting turn for the worst) and found that we had taken much too long in our climbing attempts and had to quickly head to the Minaret if we wanted to reach the Jiaohe Ruins in time for sunset.

The Minaret and Ruins were beautiful. Built by the local Muslims during the Qing Dynasty (1777), the Emin Minaret is quiet and impressive in its simplistic intricacies. Made of some sort of brown clay and carved into alternately flat and geometric shapes, the Minaret seemed to glow in the late afternoon sun. The Jiaohe Ruins could not have been more different from the solid structure of the Minaret. Known as one of the best-preserved ancient desert cities, Jiaohe's life spanned from roughly 100BC till the 13th century, when it was destroyed by Mongol invaders. We walked through the partially restored and generally preserved city as the sun set in the distance. It was amazing to see how much of the city had kept its shape, made mostly of some sort of sand/mud combination, we could still see the shape of bricks in some areas, while other parts merely looked like convoluted rock formations. As the sun sank beneath the horizon, our stomachs began growling and we headed back to our hostel.

After eating our fill of yummy street food. We decided that we wanted to have a look at the local nightlife. Just so you know how few people in XinJiang go out to bars (the preferred activity is hanging out at a restaurant, house, park, curb drinking beers and maybe playing cards), it took 2 taxi drivers, 2 randoms on the street and my surprising ability to recognize Chinese characters I had never seen before to find the ONLY bar in Turpan.

Much dancing, drinking and bad music later, we headed home, but not before crashing a XinJiang wedding, awkwardly slow dancing around a room (they literally danced counter clockwise, like waltzing, but not waltzing). The bride didn't look like bundle of joy, so we scurried back to our hostel and crashed.

10/23 – Thursday – Yurt of Kings, Feast of Gods, Shooting Stars and our Last Night in XinJiang

It took a large part of our morning to get to Urumqi, bargain for a van ride to and from Tian Chi (Heaven Lake), drive to Heaven Lake, and then decide to hike up to the lake rather than take the under 10 minute bus ride to the top.

The hike itself took about 2 hours, with lots of photo ops and disbelief at Big Brotherness of the supposed picturesque hike. Not only was the entire path paved with railings, there were signs of various types the whole way up, as well as fake tree stumps playing bad Chinese pop music (so much for the sounds of nature), cameras (which were not disguised at all), and numbered birdhouses. We found this all very amusing, but decided that we could not dilly-dally because my fingers were turning purple and we needed to find a place to sleep.

One Kazakhstani man, our new friend Matt and lots of bargaining later, we found ourselves in a massive yurt with a "feast" before us. (Feast = pollo, some scary chicken dish with the whole chicken in it, and mystery vegetables that smelled like feet) (Yurt = tent like abode made of a wooden skeleton and covered in cloths and skins, and in this area plastic to prevent snow from seeping in).

After our meal (and some snacks we'd packed in our backpacks), Lauren and I wrapped ourselves in blankets and joined the fellows outside for some stargazing. Although the view of the stars at Heaven Lake did not compare to that of Karakul, the fact that it was not as morbidly freezing (though there was snow everywhere), made it easier to stay out for longer and we managed to catch sight of the milky way again, millions of constellations and a few shooting stars before heading back to our yurt for conversation and thawing.

10/24 – Friday – Mountain Adventures, Public Baths and 2 Day Train Rides

After spending most of the night talking we decided that for once we would wake up a little late and peeled ourselves from beneath our blankets at 10am. Lauren and Ben decided they wanted to go for a horseback tour of the peaks, while Matt, Erik and I chose to freestyle climb our mountain. The horseback riders took a trail up to a ridge with a fabulous view of the lake in its wintery snowyness, and us hikers ended up getting lost in the trees on our way back down but have lots of pictures of me covered in snow after various unsuccessful attempts at smoothly sliding down the snow covered mountain. We all managed to make our way back to the yurt by 2pm where we packed, listened to Matt sing a rewritten version of some John Mayer song (that I can't remember and it's killing me) that was about his language study program back in the day (he's 26), and headed back to Urumqi.

Our initial plan had been to go straight to the train station and find some dinner around there, but since we all smelled a little funky, either due to horseness or hiking we found ourselves a public bath house instead. Long story short, lots of not good looking naked women, a shower warden that stared, and a fresh and clean feeling crew.

Our train ride back to Beijing took 2 days. We slept a lot, wrote a lot in our journals and read. We also discovered a switch on our train that turned off the terrible music and radio soaps, and found that little victories made long trips worthwhile.

Random Thoughts, Musings, and Stuff...

2009-02-11T00:15:00.000-08:00

Today I managed to somehow finagle some sort of deal where Monday, Wednesday and Friday I have classes from 10:00-2:00 (with a 1 hour break for lunch) and Tuesday and Thursday I have classes from 11:00-2:00 (with a 1 hours break for lunch), while everyone else starts at either 8:00 or 9:00 and goes until 12:00 or 2:00.... While I'd love to pat myself endlessly on the back, there's a catch. Whereas I used to have 3 small classes (with 2 other people) and only 1 one-on-one class, I now have only 1 small class and 2 one-on-one classes. This means I'll be studying like a crazy person in order to get all my studying done, since you can't exactly tune out during a one-on-one class. EEEEK! Oh well, my zhongwen (chinese) shuiping (level) yinggai (must) tigao (increase) le hen duo (a lot).

"That party really re-ignited my love for jizz in my pants." Is an actual sentence that came out of me today. God, I can't take me anywhere. I should probably go hide in a book and stop talking to normal people. haha. Applause for awkwardness!

Had it not been for facebook, I don't know when I would have heard about the Mandarin Oriental burning down the other night. *sigh* My incapacity to be "with it" is astonishing and reminds me that I should probably not ignore the NYTimes that I have as my homepage and start actually scanning those headlines.

On a similar note, the other night I literally saw a firework (not firecracker, those little fuckers are annoying) explode a few feet from my living room window. Although Beijing claims to have stringent rules regarding the use of fireworks, I think allowing children under 15 set them off is a definite no no, as is the explosion of fireworks in a closed building complex. Silly chinese pepos.

Finally, I need a gym membership asap.

An entertaining weekend to say the least

2009-02-08T04:08:00.000-08:00

Where to begin?

This weekend began with a serious potential for lameness. I was going to settle into my new apartment, get my books, go to some random parties with my sister. Nothing too thrilling. Apparently the city decided that it was time to get back to business and welcome me with open arms and lots of cocktails.

Friday started out well. I woke up, went for a tour of my new campus, Tsinghua University. Afterwards our teachers dropped us off at this amazing/ridiculous Africa themed bar. There were gazelle heads mounted on the walls (real? unclear), zebra skins on the walls, animal print seat covers, dark wood carvings on the walls, and lots of good Akon playing. Apparently everything is for sale, and my program has an 85% discount for students, booyah! So the alcohol began flowing at 4:30 and went on flowing through the night. Before heading back to my sisters apt I had dinner with some people from my new Chinese program and then went home to shower and change for a night out with The Climber and his fam. We went to this swanky bar/restaurant called Face where papa Climber was picking up the tab and drinks like Jagertini's were settling in my stomach. Just to prove once more to the world that I am less cool than I pretend to be, I agreed to play a few rounds of pool and discovered that my only skill is cheerleading, and helping to point out to my partner exactly where to hit the ball. My own shooting skills leave a lot to be desired, unfortunately for my ego and boundless desire to be a bar sensation. When the bar finally closed, the climber, his sister a friend of theirs and I hopped into a cab and headed to Sanlitun (bar district) to do a little dancing. Though I kept my head above water the drinks took their toll and I am glad its winter because my knees are bruised and hurty.

Saturday started out poorly. I woke up at 1:00pm, hungover and wanting mostly to hide my pounding head under a pillow. I managed to get some food and a mani-pedi before returning home to get ready for the nights festivities. My sister was taking me out to a birthday party and then to a semi-formal holiday party hosted by some people who work for the US Embassy. I prepared myself for lots of talking, little drinking, and unnecessary standing, which sounded good to my aching body. Unfortunately the evening ended up being one of the more fun nights I've had in Beijing since arriving in September. The birthday party was at this Mexican restaurant called Lugo's Villa. Besides the good food and margueritas (which I had plenty of), the place was a little odd but with a cool vibe. There were tv's playing soccer games around the bar, a pool table and lots of good standing room. The music was a little random (Savage Garden, followed by Guns and Roses, followed by Metallica, and then back again). We headed out to the second party at 9:30 and the evening took off from there. Although the party began as a relaxed chatting, standing, introducing and nibbling type event it slowly morphed into what I can safely call a rager. I met a lot of my sisters friends and ended up hanging out with another Class of '08er from Harvard for most of the night. By midnight the previously calm guests were liquored up and in a dancing mood. I watching in amused excitement as girls in cocktails dresses took shots straight from vodka bottles, as men scrambled to grab bottles of vodka, rum and eventually (when the hard stuff ran out) beer, and everyone began dancing, singing loudly and rocking out. I'm not sure how long that lasted (the details are hazy), but eventually the party ended and Harvard and I left with some of his friends to hit up a club. How I managed all of this after my epic hangover is beyond me. But before giving up on the clubbing plan a group of about 6 of us ended up playing an amazing drinking game in the middle of the road called Street Fighter (oh yes, JUST like the video game) that consisted of emphatic gestures and yelling of things like "YOGA FLAME!" and "HARUKEN!"

Needless to say, a wonderful evening.

Magical New Years or Apocalyptic Thunder?

2009-01-30T03:41:00.000-08:00

Fact: In China during the week of Chinese New Year firework purchasing and use is legal.

I'm sitting in my sisters apartment and am having serious trouble watching season 1 of Californication because outside my window it sounds as if the city is under heavy attack. The whistling and banging of fireworks began almost 2 hours ago when the sun went down and has literally not stopped. Last night the explosions went on till about 2am. While I am definitely a person who enjoys displays of fireworks and a good old New Years celebration, the non-stop eeeeee-POW of fireworks has brought me to the brink of my sanity. Forget going to sleep early or enjoying a nice movie with a glass of wine, all hands below deck, prepare the bomb shelter, hold on to your hats it's going to be a long night.

While I'd normally be out and about, having dinner with family or friends, maybe at a bar, I'm currently socially handicapped as I (1) have no battery on my phone and no charger to speak of and (2) just moved to Beijing (again) and have maybe 2 or 3 friends in this city? So here I am, at home, drinking a cup of ginger tea, watching movies and tvshows on my computer and hoping, for the love of all that is good in this world, that the banging will stop.

Day 1

2009-01-29T21:01:00.000-08:00

Day 1 in Beijing turned out to be more interesting than I had planned. I arrived at 3:30 and headed straight for my sister place, sending a few texts to friends I know in town to see if anyone was doing anything. No luck. Not wanting to sit around all alone in my sisters apt on my first night in the city I took myself out to dinner at a cute little restaurant called Element Fresh and sat happily eating a plate of pasta, sipping a glass of chardonnay and reading The House of Spirits. Not wanting to go home so early I strolled over to a cafe/bookstore/bar called Bookworm and sat happily again sipping more wine and reading my novel. By 9:30/10:00 I was getting kind of tired (3 glasses of wine later) and started to pack up my things when out of nowhere this blond boy with a british accent starts to chat me up (what are you doing in Beijing? how long have you been here? etc etc). Next thing I know I'm sitting at a table with this boy (who we'll call The Climber because he's very much into rock climbing), his sister, his dad and a friend of theirs. Apparently they're all in Beijing for a few months studying chinese but lived for a long time in Hong Kong. Conversation flows freely as we all discuss the difficulties of studying chinese, the brilliance of russell peters, billy connelley, monty python and mr. bean. At midnight we decide to turn in and I exchange numbers with the climber and head home to watch a few episodes of Californication (brilliant show).