China

As I type this, it seems like my first day in China was quite awhile ago, but in reality I arrived on Thursday, November 6. We arrived in Hong Kong that day and it was Savannah’s birthday. She decided to go bungee jumping in Macau with Brittney and our friend Tess. It’s the tallest point in the world, and they jumped off a building. I hear it was crazy, but not for me… So anyways, a bunch of us, I think 7, walked around Hong Kong for the day. We had lunch at a little Chinese café and I got something called shrimp bombs. They were kind of interesting and very pink on the inside but luckily I didn’t get sick. We went up these escalator/walkway things through the city. There were so many of them – it was like an escalator without stairs that went up to a scenic view of the city. I didn’t make it up all of them because I had to leave early to get ready for the dinner with the Tung family. The dinner was so amazing; I had a really great time. Everyone was so nice and it was so interesting to speak with people from another culture about education, politics, and Semester at Sea. Mr. Tung came to sit at our table for a little while and was discussing the Presidential election from the day before. I also sat with two of his nieces who were so friendly and I think were in their late twenties, early thirties. I found out that evening that not only did Mr. Tung and his family primarily begin Semester at Sea, but he is also one of the leading shipbuilders in the world. On top of that, when Hong Kong split off from the mainland, he was the person who was the executive of the country, which was basically the President at the time. The food was so delicious – we had a special menu including seared scallops, creamy seafood soup, salad with duck, salmon and rice, and a chocolate soufflé. They have been hiding some great food in that kitchen. They also served us wine – it was very classy. I was really happy to be a part of the experience and found it to be great exposure. I was also able to get the business card of Mr. Tung and his niece. It turned out to be a really fun and memorable night and I feel so lucky to have been invited.

The next morning my trip left for Beijing through Peking University. After a lot of travel as always, we were met by our hosts, Clara and Betty (their English names). They were so sweet and used this microphone system that echoed through the bus and sounded like we were in a gymnasium so we couldn’t hear them half the time. On the way there we drove by the Olympic stadium all lit up at night which was really cool. I can’t believe it took place just a few months ago. There are 46,000 students at PKU (what they call the university), and we stayed in a hotel on the campus which have what are similar to dorm rooms. It was nice but very hard beds. For dinner that night we ate jellyfish, lamb (which I had never had before…I usually avoid it), shrimp, chicken, pork, donut-like bread, and some kind of a custard or jelly made of pumpkin. American Chinese food is not like authentic Chinese food, and I must say I like the American version better. Often the meats are not recognizable and I DO NOT like that. After dinner we walked around the campus and ran into a girl named Troy who is studying at PKU from the United States. She was really nice and had these two adorable puppies only 2 months only that had been nursed back to health. They were tiny and cuddled into her blanket because it was so cold out. It was a fun night but I was exhausted so I got to bed fairly early that night. An interesting fact…license plates ending in a particular number are not allowed to drive on a certain day of the week to cut down on pollution. For examples, license plates that end in 0 or 9, cannot drive on Mondays for example. It was even more severe prior to the Olympics because of all the tourists coming, but even now they still must take subways or buses once a week.

The next day we had breakfast at the hotel which consists of rice, weird breads, corn on the cob, and other things you would not expect for breakfast. The few days of Chinese breakfasts really made me miss American breakfasts. After that we went to the cloisonné factory, which makes copper pots, with inlaid copper wire to make shapes like flowers or dragons, and powdered dust that creates the colors. The dust is all natural and made from minerals such as chromium, cobalt, and iron. I had no idea what it was before going but it turned out to be very interesting and a very long process. After the factory we went to the Ming Tombs which housed the burial sites of the emperors and empresses of the Ming Dynasty. It actually snowed there it was so cold – it was only flurries, but it proves how freezing it was in Beijing. Next was lunch, and following that was our trip to the Great Wall. It was absolutely amazing and indescribable. I guess I hadn’t realize that the Great Wall was really a hike up – I had thought it was long but not high. Well, I learned otherwise on the hour and a half up many steps. It was so beautiful though and completely worth it. I have a picture of me at the very top of the Great Wall of China! We saw a lot of Chinese people climbing it, but also a lot of people from Europe. We didn’t see many Americans during our trip to Beijing, and there were many times we were the only Caucasians in sight. I enjoyed it because it allowed us to see their culture from another standpoint instead of only as tourists. After the Great Wall we had dinner on the campus with some of the local university students, and following that we had a party with them. At first it seemed like it was going to be kind of awkward, but it turned out to be a lot of fun and one of the best things on the trip. We did limbo, the Chinese students fed SAS students from behind and acted as their arms which was really funny, we did the human knot (and won!), hair braiding where guys from our trip had to braid our hair – my hair was very knotty by the end, we taught them dances such as the macarena, the electric slide, and soulja boy (hilarious!), mission impossible where ropes were held over the floor and 3 SAS students did two runs through without blindfolds where they had to jump over and under ropes, then on the third time we took away the ropes when they had blindfolds on – so they were jumping over nothing and ducking and rolling – very funny, my personal favorite game: the hosts yelled a number and depending on which one we had to do the action with that number of people (2: watching, 3: standing, 4: eating, 5: rowing – there were certain positions we had to do for each) and if you couldn’t find that number for your group you were out, and lastly, a few people played flip cup with coke. I know that was a very long run-on sentence, but the night was so much fun I couldn’t leave anything out. We really got to interact with the students and it made me really happy I did a university stay rather than at a hotel in Beijing.

The next day we went to Tiananmen Square and had some free time to explore. Myself and a couple of my friends walked around the area and took a bunch of pictures, but we realized the two hours that we had was more than we needed. The guys didn’t have their cameras because their batteries died so I was in charge of taking all the pictures. After we were exhausted with picture taking, we went to a little café to get hot chocolate, and Bobby ordered Hawaiian pizza for some unknown reason. Next thing I know I looked at my watch and it was 15 minutes before we had to get back so we really had to hurry. Along the way we kept passing these vendors that had these little squishy pig things that they threw at the ground and flattened out. I guess one of them threw it and said “funny piggy” which I found hilarious, and if someone had said that to me I definitely would have bought one. After we got back we had lunch at a restaurant in the area and then went to the Forbidden City. Next we went to Jingshan Park which was beautiful and had the most amazing, bright red sunset. It was made up of stairs that led to a temple-like structure set within a park. At the top I got my picture taken in a fancy, supposedly Chinese outfit, which made for a hilarious picture I will post. Because of that I ran a little late and found myself lost, but luckily I ran into another student at the bottom who is the son of our trip leader, so after wandering around together, he found his dad. Next we went to dinner at a nice restaurant that featured peking roasted duck which is a specialty in Beijing. I don’t typically eat duck either, but I tried it and was good, especially in the tortillas that came with it. I also ate something that was kind of stringy and chewy, and after I finished it, someone at the table announced that they thought it was tendon and had read about it somewhere. Gross. I do not like not knowing what I’m eating. After that we headed to the Chaoyang Theatre to see the most amazing show I have ever seen. It was an acrobatic performance and I cannot even believe the things they were doing. One of the scariest things was a man jump roping on wheels that were spinning in mid-air. He almost fell one time and it was terrifying because he would have fallen to the ground. I cannot even explain the show but if you ever want to see videos from it, let me know because they are really cool. Some of things included a see-saw jump/flip, upside down person’s head balancing on another person’s head, body contortion, and at least 10 people balancing on 1 bicycle. It really was the most unbelievable and extraordinary thing I’ve ever seen.

The next day was our last in Beijing, and I had thought I was going to the Beijing Zoo with a couple of my friends because we had planned it at the beginning of our trip in China. Well, after seeing the people I was supposed to go with, they announced they were going to the silk market instead. They had seen someone the day before who had gotten Armani and designer brands for cheap prices (they for some reason believed all the stuff was real) and wanted to go to the market instead. I was very disappointed and had to put my sunglasses on because my eyes teared up. I know it sounds silly, but anyone who knows me knows how much I like animals and how much I was looking forward to the zoo. I was kind of depressed after that but hopefully I will go back someday. Three of them left for their trip, and I got on the bus with everyone else and headed to the Summer Palace. I would say the best thing about my trip there is that I got a cloisonné vase at one of the stores at the palace. My friend and I were the only ones in the store and the first ones for the day, and we ended up getting really great deals. The vase I got was originally 460 yuan (almost $70), and I got it for 90, a little over $13. It cheered me up a lot, and after that we met our group at the marble boat, which was built by an empress centuries ago. It was beautiful, but so heavy it never left the dock and is still sitting there. From there we took a boat across the lake where we met our bus, and after that we headed to a restaurant for lunch. After eating, one of the guys on our trip announced that we just ate cat. I thought he was kidding, so I said no we didn’t you’re joking…this went back and forth at least 3 times but he acted very serious and wouldn’t back down. I really thought he was telling the truth and I started to cry (yes I am a big wussy). He felt bad as well as the other 10 people at the table and said no I don’t know what it was. After confirming it was in fact pork, I did not find it funny, and was a bit embarrassed. I was horrified by the thought of eating cat, I thought I was going to throw up thinking I did. After that we went to the Temple of Heaven. We had been walking for a few minutes and my friend said, is that pillow keeping you warm? I had no idea what she was talking about, and looked down to see the pillow (the one you got me Lisa!) around my neck. We all started laughing because I had no idea it was there after I had used it to rest on the bus. Everyone got a kick out of it and I decided to keep it on for fun. About 10 minutes later, a group of Chinese people, maybe 10 were laughing and pointing and I do not if it was me as an American or the pillow. Either way, four of the women wanted a picture with me and it was really quite funny. After that I decided to take it off though because I didn’t want to make a scene. One person on our trip bought a feather hackey sack and were playing for a few minutes, when it went off the side a little bit and a Chinese man jumped in. It was really funny and they drew a crowd a little bit and a bunch of pictures were taken by bystanders of it. The architecture at this point was all beginning to look the same because it was all from the Ming Dynasty and looked very similar) so after about an hour of walking around, we had two hours where we sat on a wall overlooking the main temple. It was myself and four of my girlfriends and we became a tourist attraction. Lines began queuing up, and literally 20+ people took pictures of us and with us. I am not even exaggerating, it was probably even more than that.  That was our last site to visit, so we got back on the bus to go to the airport for our flight to Shanghai. After checking in we were feeling pretty hungry, so after finding a Subway (the one place with American food), I ordered and tried to pay with debit card. Most places take card, but not this one, and all I had was American money. I had a $20 and luckily they accepted it but gave me a terrible exchange rate so I got a little overcharged for my sandwich. It was worth it though because I was so hungry from all the walking we had done. I have walked many miles in the last few days, which is why I have been so tired at night. When we got back we had to wait an hour to get back on the ship because of the line, but it wasn’t too bad because we all talked and got to see a beautiful view of the skyline at night.

The next day, today, I went into Shanghai for the first day with my friend Bridget. We had no idea where we were going so we walked around the city for awhile, which turned into about two hours. We ended up finding something called a sightseeing tunnel, which we found out was almost like an amusement park ride from Disney. We rode in this little glass box that went under the river and there were lights flashing everywhere, and these little things that popped up on the sides, and they told some story in English and Chinese. It was really cool and fun and we were laughing the whole way because it seemed so strange. After we were so hungry because it was about 11 and we hadn’t eaten anything yet, so we found a huge mall with 8 floors and got burger king. We finished our entire meal in less than 10 minutes and had never been so happy to have American food. After that we decided we would go to the movies, and I had to be back by 3 because of my dock time, so we found one that started at noon. It was so much fun. I saw James Bond in Shanghai with Chinese subtitles. The day was a story for sure, and was really relaxing, and we got to see the city – both the touristy, industrial part and also the more rural area where we got to see people in their everyday life at the market. It was a really good day and I made it back in time for the ship.

I left this part at the end because it deserved its own section. Some very sad and tragic news… a student on Semester at Sea with me died on October 7, 2008. Early Friday morning, Kurt Leswing was hit by a car and fatally injured. He was from Wisconsin and has a twin brother there. It has really hit our ship hard because we have become like a family, whether people knew him or not. Tonight we have a meeting…in about 15 minutes actually…to discuss what happened and the events to follow. His family will be in my prayers. This is from the e-mail sent to our families by Semester at Sea: During the fall 2008 voyage, Nobel Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu visited the Semester at Sea ship during its stopover in Cape Town, South Africa. Kurt is said to have been especially touched by the Archbishop’s address, often sharing the following quotation with family and friends: “Take the anger from your hearts. Wipe the tears from God’s eyes. And live a life of love.” RIP Kurt.

Overall China was an amazing time and I cannot believe I will be in Japan this week. I have thought of Japan as the end of the trip so it will be weird when we leave. Less than 5 weeks left and I will be back in the states… Especially after recent events, I feel so lucky for my life for all I have and all I experience. Events like this are very shocking and make me realize it could have happened to anyone and we should appreciate every day, and try to forgive and not have regrets, because we never know when it could all be over.