China: Week Two

Another long week of classes done!

Last weekend a group of us went to Thousand Island Lakes - sadly, I do not have any pictures. We were rather rushed because we only had 4 hours to explore (it's a two hour bus ride so we had a bus home to catch) and we went "white water rafting".  Though really, it was a little tame to be called white water rafting. If I had brought my camera rafting it would have died - I got super soaking wet. I wrote about it for my blog entry for my technical communications class. Not as good as last week's entry, but here it is...

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Last Saturday, a group of us decided to check out Thousand Island Lake. We spoke to some of the Chinese students previously and were told it is a very clean and beautiful area. Wang Kai even said that not only is it good for swimming, but the water is so clean you can take a glass, scoop up some lake water, and drink it! I wasn’t about to go start sipping lake water, but I was excited to explore the area.

When we arrived at West Station, we found that the next bus available wasn’t leaving until 11:30 AM, meaning we had a 1.5 hour wait. We decided it would be worth the wait and stuck it out at the bus station, playing cards to make the time pass. Some of the locals at the bus station would walk over and quietly watch us play every once and a while – an event that has happened elsewhere around Hangzhou as well. If I actually knew how to say more than “nĭ hăo!” [hello] and “wŏ bù chī ròu” [I don't eat meat], I would have asked them to join us! They seemed extremely interested in what we were playing.

At 11:30 we boarded the bus, where I nearly immediately fell asleep. Napping while driving Chinese roads, however, is extremely difficult because of the non-stop honking. People here do not just honk their car horns when they are angry at someone’s driving abilities – they honk when they are passing you, they honk when to tell you they are going through intersections too fast, and sometimes they honk to just say hello.

Once we arrived at the Thousand Island Lake area, we were quickly surrounded by some of the locals. There were a lot of confused expressions until Kevin and Ji (both speak Mandarin) took over and cleared things up. We discovered that the boats that take you to different islands were already closed because of a triathlon, or some kind of race going on in town, in addition to the cloudy weather. Since we were not able to explore the islands, we decided to go white water rafting instead!

We took a hotel tour guide van up the zigzagging roads to the mountains surrounding the city. The drive was an adventure in itself. The drivers here are insane enough in city traffic, and it only gets more exciting going up curvy mountain roads. A few times I honestly felt that I would go flying out the open window beside me.

After making it to the top, we all got helmets and life jackets and were put into little rafts in pairs. I was wearing jeans at the time, so I sat down carefully attempting not to get them wet, knowing that they would remain cold and soaking the remainder of the day if they did. My attempts were futile. Nearly the moment I was settled in my raft, a water fight began and I was drenched before starting the ride down.

The river was really more like a shallow man-made gully, but it was still a blast. Every so often, a dam would slow the water down, leading to a cement/rock water slide. Will, who I was paired with in the raft, had the paddle so I almost always ended up going down these nearly vertical drops backwards, making it more scary and therefore more fun! I was soaked when we got to the bottom, my jeans extremely heavy with water, my lips nearly blue from being so cold, but ecstatic from the thrill. It is definitely one of the highlights of this trip so far.

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Tomorrow we head to Huangshan, where i have to walk up 7000 steps. Sounds extremely tiring to me, but it's supposed to be extremely pretty.

Other than that, i've been pretty busy with school. Since it's a semester of class bunched into 6 weeks we have an exam every 1.5 weeks or so. Our bigger writing assignments seem to always fall when we have a mechanics exam too! I'll have a little more free time from now on though because I no longer have a 1.5 hour Mandarin class in the afternoon.

Tomorrow (Sunday, June 13) until Wednesday is the Dragon Boat festival! I will be gone for most of it at Huangshan, but will be around Wednesday to see the celebrations. I've been told it's cool, but I'm not really sure what they do! They are supposed to have some pretty cool boats on West Lake though


That's all for now

China: One week done, Five weeks to go

One week of classes are over with already! Five more to go!

I've already had two Mechanics of Materials problem sets (which are finished now) and two writting assignments.  My first exam is already next Tuesday - YIKES!

One of the writing assignments is a memo for my team project (not started yet, eek) and the other is a "blog" entry of my observations for each week I'm here.  I thought I'd post my blog entries for class here as well, even though i talked about some of it already:

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Blog Entry - Week 1
The Troubles of Being Vegan in China

When I first became vegan for the sake of my health and well-being, there was a long period of discovery.  I slowly found restaurants that had tasty vegan options, I discovered stores that have a wider variety of non-processed foods and relied more on my own cooking skills.  However, in this carnivorous world, when I leave my safety circle of vegan-goodness and end up in a tiny dorm with no kitchen in the middle of China, I am blind on where to find good food.  Adding a foreign language in the mix doesn't make it any easier!

Being able to find (good) food was one of my main concerns about this trip to China.  This anxiety was reinforced during the first few days of my travels.  On the 14-hour plane ride to Shanghai, I had the opportunity to put the airplane barf bags in use - I had gotten food poisoning before touching down in China!

After landing safely in Shanghai, with the majority of my GI track intact, I crashed the moment I walked into my hotel room.  My insides were no longer angry, but I found that I had no appetite.  I made sure to eat to keep my energy, but was not pleased to find that most of the food was greasy and salty.  By the time we were on our way to Hangzhou, my concern about finding good things to eat was increasing exponentially.

The second night in my little dorm here in Hangzhou, I still didn't have an appetite.  Not only was the greasy food not agreeing with my stomach, but I was also worried about being vegan will affect me socially on this trip.  I wanted to go do things with people, but whenever it involved food I ended up being ore of an observer.  I realized there was only one thing to do - start building up a new circle of vegan-goodness.  It may take a while, but there is bound to be good foor for a vegan somewhere around here.

The next day we got to explore Hangzhou and West Lake for the first time.  I had a blast - the lake and surrounding scenery were breathtaking.  Lunchtime rolled around and five of us decided to try a noodle place that was next to the cafeteria on campus.  I wasn't expecting to be able to eat anything, having no way to ask for noodles without eggs or meal, but Will jumped in to help.

Honestly Will, if you ever read this, trumpets sounded. You are awesome.

After speaking to one of the men there for at least five minutes, he successfully ordered me fried noodles with just veggies - no meat or eggs.  Even though I still did not have much of an appetite, it was delicious.  These noodles, and Will's help, ended up being the turning point of my vegan worries.

From then on, I have been able to get a wider variety of foods, thanks to continuous help from Will.  I also found some whole wheat bread, peanut butter and banas, which I have been eating for breakfast.  This breakfast has built my appetite back up, allowing me to explore more of the local foods for lunch and dinner.

Although I am still eating a lot of greasy vegetables with rice, prospects are high.  Carol, one of the Chinese students here, suggested I try to Muslim cafeteria because they may have more vegetarian options.  I even found a vegetarian restaurant in the More Hangzhou magazine that I am excited to try in the near future.  Slowly but surely, I am building up a new vegan food repertoire here in Hangzhou.

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I am currently doing my laundry, and after that I plan on going out with others to the silk area of Hangzhou.  We are then planning on going to Thousand Island Lake tomorrow - so after this weekend I might have more exciting things to share!

China: Total Win

SCORE!

(I was getting rather sick of greasy veggies and noodles...)

China: Hangzhou - May 30th

Today started with a hike up the huge hill behind campus - when I say hike however, I mean going up 700+ stairs!

After a little break from the millions of stairs, a group of us went down to a shopping area of town on the opposite wide of West Lake (campus is on the northwest side).  After waling around for a few hours, we saw this pagoda and decided we wanted to go check out -- so more stairs!

It was gorgeous up there!  Pictures cannot even begin to show how amazing it was, but i took them anyways of course!

Will

me and Elise

After walking back down, we headed closer to the lake to see it when it's nice out, not cloudy and foggy like yesterday.  The park we walked in was wonderful.

It was pretty epic, just like this picture of Will

We finally made our way back to campus, slowly bus surely, finally getting a taxi.  I was exhausted when I got back, after hiking 8-9:30 and then 11-7!  My legs were about to fall off.

Classes start tomorrow, so I might now be posting as much as I have been because I will actually have to do work and not just exploring!  I doubt anyone would want pictures or descriptions of my homework.

China: Hangzhou - West Lake

Today we explored Hangzhou a little bit.  We split into three groups and explored the city for 3-4 hours.  My group went to the downtown-ish area near West lake.  The lake as a path all the way around (though I'm not sure how far around it is, but it's big!)

Part way down we decided to rent some bikes - it was a blast, though a little crazy!  There are so many people, bikes, cars, etc. everywhere!  It was the best bike ride I've EVER been on.  With the adrenaline of being in a new place and flying down the paths, you just had to be there to really understand.

So a few people have asked me what my dorm is like - it's pretty tiny.  It is about as wide as I am tall.

Here is where I'm sitting right now - at my desk.  To the right is a closet and shelving where i have all of my stuff: 

Behind me is the door and bed, nothing to exciting!

I also have my own little bathroom.  Like some of the shower I encountered in France, there is no tube - just a drain on the floor.  The ones in France were always slanted towards the drain, but this one doesn't so my whole bathroom gets extremely wet when i take a shower.  At least I have a western style toilette and not a squatter!

China: Shanghai - Yu Garden

Hey everyone!

On the second day we were in Shanghai we went to Yu Garden.  It was extremely beautiful.  I wont say much about it, I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves.

After Yu Gardent, we had some time to walk around the shops near there.  We then headed to the river that divides Shanghai.   What amused me is on one side of the river, it looks very space-age, while the other is romanesque!

We finally began our way to Hangzhou after lunch.  The campus is really nice, though I haven't really been here long enough to know my way around.  Me and a few other students found our way to the "Trustmart" which is just like Walmart (and I dont feel as bad buying there since everything is made here too, haha).

Food thus far as been interesting.  As far as I know I've been able to remain vegan (though its impossible to know for sure).  Things are a lot greasier and saltier than I expected.  So far I've been having a lot of rice, cabbage and broccoli.

China: Shanghai - World Expo

I'm in China!

I flew into Shanghai late last night - not the best flight in the world.  Two hour delay, plus i got food poisoning from Delta Airlines (though they were nice enough to have a special vegan meal for me, who knows how long it was sitting around) before even arriving in China!  Let's just say that the last ten hours of my flight were anything but pleasant. For the first time ever, those barf bags weren't funny.

I woke up at 5:00 AM this morning, wide awake - feeling fine thankfully.  Elise (also from Madison on this study abroad adventure with me) and I  got to go walk around the park that's across the street from our hotel here in Shanghai.

Here is our view during the day/night:

There were TONS of people dancing and doing tai chi in the park - it was amusing.  We are also by a big soccer stadium, where I believe a game is taking place while I type this.  I keep hearing cheering.

After our walk and breakfast, we joined the rest of our group and went to the World Expo.  The actual exhibitions were actually rather disappointing, however the buildings themselves were BEAUTIFUL.  Here are some of the pavilions I thought were cool.

India:

Russia:

UK:

Poland:

Spain:

I'm pretty exhausted from all the walking (the Expo area is HUGE) and from waking up so early.  After another morning in Shanghai, we are heading off to Hangzhou (2-3 hour bus ride) where I will be living for the majority of this trip.  I may not have internet for a while, because I will have to get it set up in the dorm.

Hope all is well in the USA!