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!

More Summer

2:00 AM. and im hungryyy... so im posting pics of some of the better meals ive consumed the summer. not an accurate representation of my regulary eating habit... which is mcdonalds, subway, takeout and iced coffee. ah, the life of a student!

BBQ from the middle of summer. yum!

mac and cheese from s'mac! great specialty eatery in east vil. the place only serves mac and cheese!

chicken and waffles in harlem! this was from sylvia's, but i daresay ive had better at Amy Ruth's also in harlem. people think its so bizzare to eat fried chicken and waffles together, but it makes perfect sense to me. hot sauce on the chicken, syrup on the waffles.. wash it all down with sweet tea =). its an artery clogger on a platter but as with all good things in life, i wouldnt have it any other way

Fellow globe trekker Stef in front of a restaurant in chinatown. we are preparing our senses for shanghai! looks like it'll take her a while to embrace entire fowl hanging in window fronts. if you've every had the duck though, you'd know its pretty good and worth dangling in everyone's faces

and algae from central park? nah we werent that desperate, though algae has become the new "it" source for biofuel this past summer. im really excited to see what scientists and startups can make of it in the coming years. energy independence by 2020?

Much belated New York Post

so i've been in and out of nyc for the past.. 11 weeks now? i've been busy doing everything, nothing, and not posting on this blog. so heres some fun from new york

view from the pier at hudson river park. wonderful weather (rare for this summer...)



gina and i clearly know how to pick the most popular films in new york...

the queue, waiting in line for some chicken n rice at midnight.

chicken and rice the most delicious stand in new york!

requisite shot of times square at night. really sharp picture thanks to nikon s560 camera!

Last of London!!

Last bits of fun from London! It was a great experience (at times too cloudy, rainy, and i-have-too-much-free-time-should- have-volunteered for my taste), but I made a group of great friends, many of whom will travel to Shanghai with me in the fall.

I was also fortunate enough to meet some wonderful Brits that completely changed my perspective on life, camaraderie, indoor picnics, and everything in between. As expected my GPA took a pretty bad hit but I got to explore much of London and Europe so it was definitely worth it!

Regent's Park! It was pretty impressive, one of the larger parks in and included a man-made lake, which is perfect for...

Boating with your new bffs & favorite student life advisor! As usual, the guys had to do all the work

...though this was not the case in some other boats.

The park also had some really impressive gardens. Glad I got to see London in full bloom

Next: Camden Town, where the young, hip, and rebellious gather for tattoos, piercings, and a heck of a lot of sodium-saturated Asian food.
also a great deal of souvenir shopping can be done in the area. After a semester of "souvenir shopping" throughout Europe, I've learned its pretty much a euphemism the girls like to use for jewelery shopping
me on Millennium Bridge on a sunny day
One last shot of London's icon, Big Ben! my parents wanted me to bring back a box of cookies that were unmistakably from London. I got two boxes; one was a double decker red bus with chocolates, and another of Big Ben and Buckingham Palace photos engraved on the top.

and thus concludes my semester in London :-) i'm anxious to go back and see what London is like during the summer, I'm sure it's incredible... and warm... and fun. Hopefully i'll find out sometime in the near future!