China – Beijing – Day 2

The Great Wall is epic.  My mom and I decided to visit the Jinshangling portion of the wall against the urgings of our hotel.  They kept trying to convince us to go to more touristy, jam-packed, and closer portions of the wall.  This section of the wall is a further drive away, but it was well worth it.  Most people who decide to make the trek out here start at the Jinshangling section and walk to the Simitai section.  That hike takes about 5 hours and requires ascending steep and loose sections of the wall.  On this particular day it was also raining on and off, making the stone slippery.  Once we got to the wall, you could go left toward Simitai on a rugged unrepaired section of the wall, or go right on a partially rebuilt part of the wall. My mom and I decided to walk as far as we felt toward Simitai on the rugged section, return to the starting point, and then walk as far as we felt to the right.  We spent about 3 hours at the wall, and saw only about 25 other people that day compared to this possible nightmare http://greatwall.se/blog/wp-content/badaling.jpg if we went to the closer sections of the wall! We got a great workout and enjoyed this ancient marvel in peace and quiet.

 

At a certain point my mom stopped to take a break, and I continued on toward Simitai.  This is where I decided to turn around and meet up with my mom again.  Although I’m sure I could have climbed up this portion of the Great Wall, I didn’t really want to climb back down it.  

China – Beijing – Day 1

For our first day in Beijing, we took the suggestion of my friend Miriam to stop by the Nanluoguxiang Hutong area for good food and shopping.  Well originally we had a different itinerary for our three days in Beijing until we found out that Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City were going to be closed 2 out of the 3 days we were there!  The areas were closed off in preparation of the October 1st celebration, which marked the 60th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China.  So off we went instead to the see the hutongs, a former style of neighborhoods and housing in China that are disappearing in favor of large apartment structures.  After buying some cashmere scarves, we noticed a long line out the door of a shop.  We got in line despite not knowing what the store sold except that in came in a small white cup.  The store turned out to be called Wen Yu cheese, and we bought 1 cup of cheese curd with mango on top, 1 cup with red bean on top, and a box of cheese curd/red bean swirls.  I generally avoid cheese and find the word ‘curd’ to be gross, but since we didn’t know what it was at the time I proceeded to eat the dessert.  I found it completely nauseating, but proceeded to eat it hoping I would increasingly enjoy it with every bite.  That experiment failed, and I ended up with a stomach ache for the rest of the day.  From there we headed over to the bell tower and Hou Hai lake.  We enjoyed a stroll around the lake, stopping to view minor sites.  I wasn’t feeling too well from the Cheese dessert, but couldn’t stop from breaking into laughter when a Chinese man looked at me and said “smellll!”.  My mom thought he said we smelled, but he was actually trying to tell me to smile, which I immediately did of course!

Wen Yu Cheese. Popular, but not appetizing for this girl.

 Mom shopping and exploring the Hutong.

     After the lake we headed over to the Olympic area to see the Water Cube and the Bird’s Nest.  We didn’t go inside either of them, opting to enjoy the unique architecture from the outside.  Among the masses of people, the one that most stood out were the 20 couples wearing matching tops and posing for a photographer.  That would not fly in the US.

I didn’t see as many Chinglish signs as I expected, but this one made me smile.

China - Yangshou

For our first foray into China, my mom and I first stopped by the city of Yangshou.  The scenery in this area is famous for being on the back of the 20 Yuan bill.  This was our small city respite between Hong Kong and Beijing.  We planned our itinerary to alternate between large and small cities, adjectives which have different defintions in China than in the United States as I would find out throughout the trip.  There is no doubt that Yangshou is a tourism oriented city.  I thought we were going to be staying in a small quaint town setting, which was partially true other than the street of bright neon lights, bars with booming rap music, and county fair style games such as shoot the balloons and shoot basketball hoops to win prizes.  In many ways, this area reminded me of the road to Manuel Antonio in Costa Rica.  The closer you get to the beautiful beach area, the more brightly lit signs, booming bars, and hawkers selling goods appear.  It just seems so absurd juxtaposed next to the beach, or in this case next to the beautiful towering peaks adjacent to the city and Li River.

The next morning we started off our day by bicycling to the Yulong river.  We followed a man on a moped out of the city and through the countryside on bumpy dirt roads all while taking care to avoid small dogs and chickens while rolling past corn and rice fields.  We arrived at the river launch point and sat down on our 2 seater bamboo raft.  The moped man then pushed us downriver using a bamboo stick for the next 2 hours.  It was a relaxing mid morning activity through the countryside.  There were floating snack stands selling food and water.  Every once in a while our guide would tell us to lift our feet and the raft would drop down 5 ft due to the nature of the river.  The river felt relatively unspoiled unlike the city and was a relaxing retreat.

  

We hopped of the raft and were greeted by our bicycles which we rode over to Moon Hill a rock formation with a half moon shape missing from the middle. 

We then bicycled all the way back to the hotel and took a short break before heading out for our afternoon river adventure, this time on the Li River.  This boat ride took us up and down a very picturesque portion of the river on a motorized 2 person boat.  At the turn around point my mom and I took a touristy picture with two cormorants.  Fishermen in this area use cormorants to fish.  The birds dive into the water to catch the fish, but are unable to eat their prey because the fisherman have put a ring around their neck.  The fisherman gather the catch and allow the birds to eat every 7th fish.  The photographers although out in the middle of a river had nice digital SLRs, a photo printer, laptops, and a laminator although I couldn’t tell where they were getting power from on this rocky beach.  So long to getting away from technology.

  

We headed back and ate a quick delicious vegetarian meal before going to see Impressions, an artistic performance by the same director as the 2008 Summer Olympics Opening Ceremony.  It featured 600 local fisherman and other performers dancing and moving across a section of the river amidst some towering peaks.  It was a love story although I actually have no idea what was going on since it was in Chinese.  It was an interesting show but I preferred the opening ceremony.

China – Shenzhen – IV

This is the story of a Chinese Amazing Race. Lots of text to follow, but a good story.

I have lived in several countries and cities for short but extended periods of time – Madrid and Brazil for 1 month each, Italy for 3 months. Even if these are temporary destinations, I prefer to feel like more than a passive tourist. I like to wander off on my own and explore the city, struggle with the language barrier, and get that sometimes scary but wonderfully liberating feeling of being lost and completely out of my element. I hadn’t quite gotten that feeling yet from Shenzhen since there were several very capable mandarin speakers who would translate, and Wesley would always order for us when we went out to eat and guide us in the correct direction. We also usually traveled as a group or in smaller groups wherever we went. I agree that in most situations this is ideal for efficiency, safety, and overall makes the trip run more smoothly. However I didn’t really feel like I was in China. I had been to Wal-mart, McDonalds, and was traveling about a very new and well-planned out city. I was itching to break free from my comfort zone. Thus I pestered Wesley to let me do something on my own, go on my Chinese Adventure, but have him nearby just in case I really dug myself into a hole. He almost let me cross from the grey zone in between Hong Kong and China into China by myself, but thought better of that within 10 seconds. That would have been easy however since there is a designated path to enter Shenzhen, and I had done it before.

On the next to last night Wesley gave me an envelope with my name on it and said it was time for my adventure. At first I objected a little, it was almost midnight and I wanted to sleep, but Wesley said the clues would be gone by morning. The first clue brought me to a nearby rollerskating park where I found my next clue taped to the ground. It was too dark to read the clue so I walked over to the nearest streetlight and Wesley appeared out of nowhere to yell I was going in the wrong direction. The next clue required me to go to the 5th telephone booth. It was so hot and humid I felt disgusting as I walked through the night. At the same time it was awesome to be walking somewhat alone through a suburban area under trees next to an empty road. Wesley appeared again to walk with me since we were walking by a park where someone had gotten stabbed before. I found the next clue by ‘looking up to the stars’ in the 5th telephone booth, and proceeded to the an avenue of palm trees. Here I got a little lost and confused, I didn’t really understand where I was supposed to look. At first I walked by the row of palms because there were 3 shady looking guys walking by, then I returned and looked around but couldn’t find it so I started walking backwards thinking maybe it was elsewhere. Wesley called me and asked where I was going, so I returned and found the next clue taped to a palm tree. It required me to walk down some steps, through a white tented environmentally themed pavilion, down some more steps to a Brazilian BBQ restaurant. I found me next clue under a table at the restaurant, and proceeded to the Pizza hut as required by the clue. I didn’t know however, that there were no more clues so I started picking up trash paper and bottles off the ground in front of Pizza hut looking for more clues while Wesley was off talking to some dude. Wesley returned and we walked toward the final destination – a mysterious large ship lit up in different colors plopped down on land next to a main road. We tried to figure out how to enter the ship, but it was supposedly closed. Undeterred, we entered an elevator where Wesley used his people skills to start talking to a random man in the elevator. It turned out this man was a member of the band that plays inside the bar of the ship, and he took us through a back entrance inside. It was a cool bar but they were closing since it was 2am by this point, so we headed into the attached upscale hotel to cool down with some water and chat before heading back to the hostel.

China – Shenzhen - III

Group picture of the MIT mentors and Shenzhen high school students.

For the cultural difference’s fair, I represented Brazil. I brought dolce de leche cookies, guava paste, and guava, cashew, and papaya juice. I also taught them Brazilian Portuguese. To start off each lesson I gave them a brief overview of the country, and I casually asked so how big do you think Brazil is in terms of population in the world? They all started thinking and listing off the top 5 most populated countries in the World and determined Brazil was #5. I never learned that in school, I was really surprised since I was expecting guesses and going to tell them the answer!

These are my two mentees – Rita and Sherry. Both really awesome girls!

China – Shenzhen - II

For the Service Leadership Project (SLP), I was part of the Cultural Differences team along with Michaela and Jia.  For our curriculum, we had a cultural fair to introduce the students to other cultures of the world.  Our countries included Mexico, USA, Japan, Tanzania, and Brazil.  I was in charge of the Brazil booth and I introduced the students to the Portuguese language and offered them a taste of some Brazilian snacks and juices.  For the USA team, Jia taught them some hip hop dance moves and we also decided that we would make an American birthday cake since the cake we have in the US is different in terms of taste and texture than the cake in China.  Michaela bought a box of pillsbury funfetti cake mix, quite possibly the simplest way to make a cake – just add water, eggs, and oil…or so we thought.  Apparently, nobody in China has an oven in their kitchen, and no one bakes.  We asked around to see if any of the kids had an oven, two said they did, but one turned out to be a microwave oven, while the other sounded like an oven.  Rita, one of my mentee’s, had an oven and asked me if she should bring it the next day.  I then got confused and then realized it must be a giant toaster oven.  We stopped by Walmart to grab some supplies and ate dinner at McDonalds.  McDonalds was cheaper and tastier than in the US.  I really liked my carbonated fruity drink with frozen yogurt on top.

Of course since nobody has an oven, baking pans are also nowhere to be found.  We decided to buy rolls of aluminum foil and let Wesley used the engineering concepts he learned at MIT to form some sort of baking pan.  We had a circular piece of metal, and formed the bottom of the ‘pan’ with many layers of foil.  We also didn’t have the correct type of oil – we had olive oil instead of vegetable, so we were a little nervous if the cake would turn out on top of all the other factors.

We let the cake cook for 45 minutes and the top layer was a golden brown.  However when we attempted to move the cake, the middle wobbled and jiggled like it was uncooked, so we stuck it back in for another 30 minutes to let it fully cook.  In the end, we got a fully cooked cake, cut off the burned top, and covered it in frosting – just like in the USA.

China –Shenzhen - I

I spent 2 weeks in Shenzhen, China as part of the MIT China Development Initiative’s Service Leadership Program.  The objective of the project was to mentor local high school students to give them the skills to develop their own mentorship program for less privileged migrant school children.  Before the intensive 8 day program started, the MIT group planned out the final details of our curriculum as well as had some fun exploring China!

We got massages.  I got an hour long body massage that was the best massage I’ve ever had.  The woman really focused on my left shoulder, my hip, and this point in my back where I used to have a lot of tension.  It was painful, but a good pain.  Toward the end of the massage she grabbed onto the metal bars above the table and jumped onto my back which was surprising and yet satisfactory because she cracked my back.  She then proceeded to yank me backwards several times to stretch my abs out, which was less fun but felt good afterwards.

We went to Karaoke twice during the trip.

We ate a lot of food and Wesley always encouraged us to eat more/was the human garbage can.  I tried a lot of new authentic Chinese food in Shenzhen, and I greatly prefer the flavors in China rather than the Americanized versions we get here.  In the above pic, we are eating dim sum in Hong Kong.

We took a day trip to Hong Kong, and mmm I got a delicious watermelon with jelly drink.  I loved how all the drink places I want to in China put real fruit into their drinks, and wished the bubble tea places here did too.

Amy’s Birthday 8/12/09

My long lost friend Amy came back to Boston for a few days until heading up and out to her Brother’s wedding.  One of those few days happened to be her birthday as well.  To celebrate this momentous day, as well as my birthday 3 days later, we decided to go on a segway tour!  I’ve wanted to ride a segway since 2005, and I know this to the year because I wrote a newspaper article about the device.  Yes, I know, quite nerdy.  Anyways, Amy and I were in a tour group with two other young college graduates and we rode around the city for 2 hours.  I greatly enjoyed zooming around back and forth about columns, down streets in the North End, going at maximum speed and then suddenly stopping, going over bumps, and having people stare at us and then inquire about how they could do the same.  I was appointed Segway Queen by our guide because he said I had good control of my segway and was clearly having a lot of fun.  Amy’s first segway was like a wild bucking horse – it kept throwing her off.  She got to trade machines with our guide and got to ride a nice shiny and faster one.  While I didn’t learn too much history on top of what I already knew, the highlight of the tour was riding the segway, something I would definitely do again.  The company also had a segway polo tournament and an extreme segway tour where you cruise through obstacles.  Perhaps that will be a future adventure.

  

For Lunch, we met up with Wen-fai and ate Indian buffet, something Amy had greatly missed, at Bombay Club.  I then headed out to pickup Amy’s birthday cupcake.  This thing was more massive than I anticipated.  I only bought it because I found a half-off coupon online and it looked cute in the picture.   I had no idea with would be 9 inches in diameter and weigh a few pounds.  Nevertheless it was quite delicious.  We made a small dent in the cake after enjoying breakfast for dinner at the Friendly Toast.

Somehow this is turning into a weird photo montage of Wen-Fai and hands…the end.

The past few days…

Sunday

At the beginning of the summer I made a to do list, and while most of the goals on there are still on-going, I finally crossed another goal off the list. I wanted to see the Shepard Fairey exhibit at the Institute of Contemporary Art.  I went with MJRo who was temporarily in town and my new friend, Garrett.  I enjoyed the exhibit, even though before I didn’t really understand the hype about Fairey before.  I had seen his Obama poster before of course, but I thought he just took an AP image did some contrasting and color fill-ins to get the look of the piece.  Of course I was wrong, he actually paints his pieces and seeing the actual texture of the paint on newsprint with these meditative background patterns. Something about his visual style now appeals to me.  We checked out the other exhibits and there was one that stood out to me.  I entered a poorly lit room and saw what looked like cottony wisps spread across the floor, and thought how is this art?  As I approached, these clouds transformed into small pieces of tape rolled and carefully arranged into what reminded me of a cellular organism.  Words that came to mind were organic, cellulose, trees. 

Nebulous, 2008 by Tara Donovan
Cellulose adhesive tape

Garrett and I then headed over to the MIT Alumni Club of Boston for their annual summer bbq.  The corn was deliciously sweet mmmm.

Monday

I woke up at 6am, dropped off my stack of China travel books at the Boston Public Library, and picked up my zip car for a day of well, just about everything. Over the past few days I’ve been doing loads of laundry, packing my suitcase for China, as well as packing up my room to move out, and attempting to sell my bed.

Unfortunately, not only did I chose an extremely hot day to move the majority of my possessions out of the apartment, but I also managed to select the second Monday of the month to do so. This specific day never had any meaning attached to it, except around my apartment it means that its street cleaning day. All the cars seem to magically disappear from the streets. On one hand this was great, then it was extremely easy to find a parking space right near my apartment and I didn’t have to face my arch nemesis parallel parking, it also meant I could easily keep an eye on my car in case they tried to ticket me for parking without a permit. On the other hand, I had to be wary of the tow trucks circling the streets as I juggled running between my apartment and loading boxes and other items into my car. It was game, I would see them coming and towing cars on the street I was on, and I would jump in my car and move to another location. Sweaty and exhausted, I drove off to my grandparents house where I unloaded my stuff until I return from China and move into my new apartment. I hustled back to Cambridge, and repeated the cycle.

My family is very proud that I graduated from MIT, and I was surprised to see 5 pictures of me in my cap and gown. Most were with family, but the largest one is me in my graduation gown glancing off to the side, not smiling, and with my tassel in my face.  There must be a better pic out there.

My grandparents then treated me to a dim sum lunch, and then I drove them to Stop and Shop, and Costco. Oh Costco, how I love thee and never get tired of thee. I guess if I went all the time I would get sick of the bulk packaging, but I normally only go 3-5 times per year.

More Art in my life…

On Friday I went to the Museum of Fine Arts, a place I’ve been many times before, but this time I got in for free with my MassArt ID!  I went to go see two specific special exhibits related to Venice, a place close to my heart since I lived there two summers ago.  The first exhibit was called “Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese: Rivals in Renaissance Venice”.  These three Venetians battled it out to be the best painter, and you could see how their styles differed but influenced one another in the way the exhibit was laid out.  The gallery was divided into themes rather than by artist for easy comparison.  It was interesting to see how their styles evolved over time, and some of them even completely changed their style in the late years of their life!  One of the paintings talked about the use of Chiaroscuro which made me smile and recall the days of Mr. Guilmet’s AP European History Class.

I related more to the smaller exhibit was “Mad on Color: Paintings of Nineteenth-Century Venice”.  This exhibit was tiny in comparison to the main special exhibit as it was only about 10 paintings.  I really enjoyed Renior’s and Monet’s (see below) interpretations of Venice, especially the thick brushstrokes of paint layered upon on another.

I stopped by one more exhibit at the MFA.  It was a bunch of television screens with people singing and dancing to various Madonna songs.  I got there just as they were singing “Just like a prayer”, it was pure awesomeness.

Finally, as a birthday present to myself I bought a Wacom Bamboo tablet.  Basically its a pressure sensitive tablet that connects to your computer that you can draw and write upon.  I really wanted the Cintiq tablet, but at $2000, it was out of my price range.