Xi'An

from the last weekend of October 2009

Xi'An was one of the ancient capitals of China, formerly known as Chang'An. It was home to many of the high dynasties of China's peak, including the Tang dynasty. It's famous for the terracotta soldiers guarding the tomb of the first Qin emperor, for Hua'Shan, one of five sacred taoist mountains in China (though there are tons of mountain ranges that are sacred to one extent or another- for resembling brothers, sisters, monkeys, flowers, clouds, Avatar, etc etc). Like many other cities in China today, Xi'An is heavily polluted and a victim of traffic and poor urban planning under communist China, though its city walls and other ancient treasures are surprisngly well preserved.First Stop: Maosoleum of Qin Shi Huang! Estimated to hold over 8,000 clay soldiers, 500+ horses. impressive indeed, and a really incredible accomplishment by any means.
my best warrior pose!
Back in Xi'An city center: a visit to the drum tower, bell tower, and the muslim night market sandwiched between the gorgeous buildings.


Then.. hike up Hua Shan! Resembles the great paintings on rice paper of mountains and trees, absolutely stunning especially when the sun was out. it was popular to purchase locks, chain it to the fence, lock it, and throw the key away so your love would forever be captured on the mountain.

beautiful view!!

me, sitting on a ledge overlooking the valley

Back to the night market for shopping, food, greasy lamb soups, and more fun.

i like the smoke effect in the photo, steam from the buns they were selling (not pictures)
The Wild Goose Pagoda at night. built for Tang Sanzang, the monk that traveled 17 years to and from India to bring back Buddhist scriptures. he was the inspiration for the epic Journey to the West (which i am still reading, on chapter 83...)


The Great Mosque of Xi'an, one of the most famous mosques in China, first built around 700AD.


Biking around the city wall. fun fun! took about two hours, the city wall is complete and around 14 km long. looks so cool to see the ancient buildings and rooftops against the city wall

my butt started hurting an hour in.
another fantastic trip in china!

Gansu, 我的老家

from Early October 2009:

Gansu province was really unique, on the border of Tibet and Xinjiang. Actually, my grandfather is from there, and i have some of his characteristics. especially the large nose. It is on the Western edge of the Chinese Empire, and thus the area has a large population of minorities- especially religious minorities- muslims, tibetans, etc.

We went to the mogao grottoes, where the massive Buddha statue’s foot was as large as I was. Sadly, no pictures allowed. The Buddha caves were filled with statues, scriptures, and wall paintings. It was so magical to see these Indian influenced caves the earliest ones) with peacocks drawn in, as peacocks are exclusive to india. Some caves had a wooden ceiling painted on, and to prevent fire, and water patterns drawn in between the beams
grottoes
the ginormous buddha sat in that temple, his head more or less reached the top tier of the wooden beams. and the colors were so well preserved from hundreds, maybe nearly a thousand years ago.
paintings, similar to what were in the caves!

The desert:
Trekked two hours into the desert, the camels were fun and obedient, had an amazing dinner made for us on the spot, hiked up a sand dune. Watched a breathtaking sunset. Crawled/ slithered down the sand dune.


remnants of the great wall, on the western edge of Gansu. i coulda jumped over that if i wanted to...

We went to linxia to visit a muslim community. The kids were adorable, and some wore their shoes backwards. We visited a pretty grimy and dusty street market, but the people there were so warm and curious about the American way of life. They didn’t believe I was American because I wasn’t white! Haha it was so refreshing to see this totally different lifestyle of China, where most people didnt look Han Chinese but had larger noses, lighter hair, ruddy skin.
this guy was real tough with his HUGE sunglasses. i had to get a photo with him. a mosque in Linxia, reminds me of the great mosques in Istanbul and Iran
adorable boy that loved the attention he was getting from all of usselling tea in the street market. my mother says the man on the right looks shockingly similar to my grandfather

Then.. went to the Labrang monostary, a Tibetan complex of great significance. We spun the prayer wheels, went inside these lavishly decorated interiors with rich silks and fabrics, that burned yak butter candles.

monks in training running in the background. i really love this photo
prayer wheels

Finally made it to the sangke grasslands, visited a nomadic family and their horses and sheep and stuff. The kids were going nuts over a ball that we brought, and we left it for them to play with. Last we drovev a little further down, danced the Macarena with these teenagers/ 20 somethings, they taught us their dances and songs.

BEIJING 北京

so.. its MARCH 2010! and its been two months since I left the greater China area. i did promise myself i'd finish all these posts so i might as well have a complete collection of my study abroad experience on one site. something to look back on when im 80 and can no longer travel, or when im 30, broke, and unable to afford traveling beyond the mcdonalds down the street.

Great wall:






Forbidden City: shoulda woke up earlier to get in when there were less tourists. the site loses its effect when there are hundreds of people crowding into the same alley or building youre trying to get into. still grand nonetheless


^love to have seen this on a less smoggy day where the air wasnt supersaturated with pollution. alas, Mao wanted "a forest of smokestacks" around Beijing in the 50s to show how industrialized the nation had become.




Temple of Heaven:

a high point in Ming dynasty architecture, where the emperor sacrificed a lamb (or was it a goat?) on the winter solstice for good fortunes

Summer Palace: finally the air cleared up after a night of rain, and it was BEAUTIFUL! not stuffy like the forbidden city. dozens of temples, palaces, pagodas, and walkways scattered throughout the playground for Empress Cixi. she bankrupted the nation with her marble boat.





Snack Streets: selling some pretty weird stuff, crickets (ehh too crispy), scorpions (tasted like kebab seasoning), starfish (dry and gross), and some other critters along those lines.

Sensory Overload in Qi Pu Market

(written for a school blog, so a little wordier than usual).

No longer content with Cloud Nine mall’s conservative clothing (love its restaurants though), and eager for an authentic Shanghai shopping experience, I called up JiaoTong student Rose Hwang on Saturday and asked her where I could go to find a bazaar that would meet my simple demands. She suggested I pay a visit to Qi Pu Fu Zuang Shi Chang. (Qi Pu clothing market). Intrigued, I brought Connor “Foreign” Foran with me and took the metro to East Nanjing Road, then cabbed it from there.

This Qi Pu Fu Zuang Shi Chang is a multi-floored market inside a giant, dusty as hell building. It looked quite old and has yet to see a building inspection this century. From the outside its hard to tell what the market has to offer. We walked in and saw an endless maze of stalls and vendors. There were hundreds of shops on each floor, well over a thousand in total. It was tightly packed with no air flow, basically the largest fire hazard in all of shanghai (yes people were smoking inside, right next to highly flammable cardboard box shreddings and old receipts no one botherd to dispose of). Risking our lives and holding our belongings with a tiger grip, we ventured deeper into the chaotic shopping scene, bracing ourselves for all kinds of crazy we might run into.

Vendors sold their flashy D&G shoes, fancy hipster t-shirts and sunglasses, knock off bags, jeans, skirts, fake watches… it was all so much to take in. And thanks to Mr. Foreign’s presence, the store owners were chasing us in droves shouting in English, “COME TO MY STORE WE HAVE EVERYTHING YOU WANT! SUNGLASSES? GUCCI? JEANS? T-SHIRTS?” We were dragged, grabbed, beckoned, heckled, and tossed around. Certain vendors wouldn’t take no for an answer and stalked us from floor to floor. We were creeped out at first and feared for the worst, but finally took a look at what they had to offer (which of course was the same shit that everyone else had).

I picked up a couple t-shirts, including one of Doremon, whom local student Courdy concluded would be a fitting moniker for me for the duration of this semester, and one of a baby wolf from Jolly Sheep and Big Big Wolf(the cartoon our Chinese teacher said her 3 year old niece watches obsessively, though not a single student in our class could understand a word of it, despite a median age of 20).



mah shirts...

Connor Foreign took interest in a pair of really nice sneakers, and the salesman hastily threw them into a bag to hand to him. Connor opened the bag and upon further inspection realized the two sneakers were not of the same pair and in fact a half size apart, but they still fit anyway and for less than 200 kuai he decided it was a good deal. We walked out satisfied with our purchases and left the Qi Pu bazaar in high spirits, ready to leave behind the noise, the bargaining, the harassment, the stuffiness, the misspelled English printed on shirts, and everything else in between.



connor "wai guo ren's" shoes, size 11 and 12 respectively!

Shanghai!!!

I've settled into Shanghai for about two weeks now, but (for the 2.5 people who read this) blogs, facebook, photo sharing sites, and youtube have all been blocked in china. oh xinjiang province uprisings! (not to mention the recent 20th anniversary of tiananmen sq. and 60th anniversary of the founding of the communist party.. or something of that sort)

anyhoo, Shanghai has been fantastic and so different from anywhere I've been to in the past. living in china off of American $$ makes for very easy living! for the same price as a tiny room and airplane sized bathroom in london, I get a three bedroom, two bathroom, full kitchen, living room, etc etc

the food here is great (they even have schwarma reminiscent of the London late night delicacy sort), the women are incredibly fashionable thin and tall (and pale because its beautiful to be sickly white in this half of the world), and public transport is convenient and clean. Korean BBQ and hotpot, once saved for celebrations in new york, have become nightly outings for us.

its still difficult to load photos but i'll add them soon hopefully. so far, so good!