Yes, I'm lazy and horrible about updating. Whatever. Christmas/studying has gotten in the way, so that's my excuse for now. So moving on to updating about China...
Day 5 was an experience. There's no other way to describe it. I know I keep saying that about everything we did in China, but really...this was the ultimate shopper's experience. The menfolk had to go to their first round of business visits, so the girls were left to their own devices. I had breakfast with Jerry around 7:30, and these women did not want to get their day started untill 10am. Huh??? Why wait so long people? I went back to the room after breakfast and I think it was that morning that I picked out Carrie's Santa present over Skype with Mom...gotta love technology :) I bopped downstairs to meet Dana, Elizabeth, Charlotte, and Donna. We decided that today would be the day we'd try out the Pearl Market and the Silk Market. These places are not for the faint of heart. We hopped on the subway (much to Donna's dismay, I think - she wasn't a big fan of the Chinese subway system!) and made our way to the Hongqiao Pearl Market.
You walk into the Pearl Market and it immediately starts...."LADY! LADY! LADY! Want to buy a watch? Ipod? iPhone?" And those were the only things they were saying on this floor because you enter on the electronics floor. It reminded me of the casinos in Las Vegas. There was no good way to get to where you wanted to go without going through all the action. We wanted to go directly to the top floor where we'd been told they have the real pearls, but we had to snake through each floor and find the escalators (no elevators here...guess ADA isn't a big thing, or either they had them well hidden). One entire floor was designer handbags/shoes/etc. Another floor was Chinese knick-knacks. Another floor was costume jewelry. Finally we got to the top floor with the real pearls!
Dana and I attended the orientation for the trip to China with our husbands, and the program coordinator tried to warn us, but there's no amount of warning that can prepare you for the sport that is Negotiating in China. I swear it should be an Olympic sport. Basically you look around for what you might like, look at it, ask how much, and offer about 10%. We didn't think you could do that in the more upscale jewelry stores, but you could! If they actually let you walk away, you know you've gone below cost on the item. The trick is to not let them know you really want whatever it is you are negotiating about. Let's just say that I ended up with an anniversary present of a black pearl ring by the end of this shopping trip, and I paid about 25% of the original asking price :)
Next on the list was lunch - we broke down and found a pizza place and truly enjoyed our pepperoni/sausage pizza with our beers!
Next was the Silk Market. Oh. My. God. If I thought the Pearl Market was crazy, that was NOTHING compared to the Silk Market. Oddly enough there's very little silk in there (really only one floor our of about 4 or 5). This place was CRA-ZY. The aisles in between the stalls were very narrow, and all of the people working in them wanted to reach out and grab you to get your attention. Not okay to a bunch of American women who like their personal space, but I eventually got used to it. This was the place for all of the fake designer handbags, which really did look pretty darn real! We didn't last too long there, as it was pretty overwhelming and it was getting close to the time that the guys were coming back.
Jerry and I ended up back across the street for more Hot Pot :) We tried to go to another nearby restaurant, but they didn't accept credit cards and there wasn't an ATM nearby, so we went back to the known entity. Afterwards we wandered down Wanfunjing taking in all of the sites, then headed back to the hotel to rest up for another day!
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Thursday, December 4, 2008
China Day 4
So it got a little dicey uploading/catching up with blogging after we arrived in Shanghai. The internet was dicey at best, and honestly I was just having so much fun I didn't want to take time out to blog :) Since I've caught up on uploading pics to the Picasa site, I'm now updating the blog, so enjoy!
Today was AMAZING. There's really no other way to describe it, since I truly never thought I'd see the Great Wall with my own eyes, and yet I spent the better part of this morning hiking around on it.
We started out at 8:30 loading the bus and heading out to the wall. On the way, we passed by the Bird's Nest and the Water Cube from the Beijing 2008 Olympics. The architecture is very impressive; it's odd to see something as modern as those two buildings adjacent to thousands year old architecture. We plan on heading out there on Thursday since Jerry has a free day.
We made it to the wall after about an hour, and it's an incredible sight. It's also largely straight up. The ancient Chinese apparently did not believe in switchbacks which makes climbing the wall quite a task. You can tell which side is "inside" the territory and which is outside quite easily - the side of the wall that is higher faces the outside. A large portion of the wall has been subsequently rebuilt in the last 100 years or so, but you still get a great sense of the history that you are experiencing while at the Wall. We spent about two hours out at the wall, which probably wasn't enough time. It takes so long to get up to the top (or, at least what we deemed the top). I do have to say that this trip so far has really inspired me to want to learn more about Chinese history and culture. It is so very different from what we as Americans have encountered, and it's so fascinating to me. Perhaps I'll have some free time to read about China while Jerry's in Portugal next year :)
After the Wall, we headed back to the hotel. We probably should have gotten some lunch, but we didn't have time - it was on to the Forbidden City. This was a short walk from our hotel, which was nice. The Forbidden City is officially known as the Palace Museum, and was homebase for the imperial court and dignitaries until the 20s. It was opened to the public in 1949. It was completed in 1420. That's hard to comprehend since America wasn't even America at that point in time. The US really is a baby in the grand scheme of things! We wandered around in the Forbidden City for well over an hour, just taking it in and snapping pictures.
After the Forbidden City we wandered through Tian'an Men Square. I was 13 when the whole Tian'an Men Square Massacre occured, so that's what I mostly associate this place with. We were told by Jerry's tour guide that about a thousand Chinese citizens can be seen at dawn each day as the PRC flag is raised at dawn. Had dawn not been at about 5am, I probably would have gone to see that myself :) Mao's mausoleum is also located here, but it's not open on Mondays so we couldn't go in. On other days his body is brought out of the tomb for viewing.
After Tian'an Men Square, we headed over to Qian Men. This was known as the most imposing of the 9 city gates to Beijing back in the day. This has been renovated into a shopping area (China = consumerism I've learned). We had so much fun wandering around this area. I even found a place where I could get a cashmere coat tailor made for me! I may go back tomorrow to get measured for it while Jerry's in class!
After such a full day we headed back to the hotel, had dinner, and hit the sack!
Today was AMAZING. There's really no other way to describe it, since I truly never thought I'd see the Great Wall with my own eyes, and yet I spent the better part of this morning hiking around on it.
We started out at 8:30 loading the bus and heading out to the wall. On the way, we passed by the Bird's Nest and the Water Cube from the Beijing 2008 Olympics. The architecture is very impressive; it's odd to see something as modern as those two buildings adjacent to thousands year old architecture. We plan on heading out there on Thursday since Jerry has a free day.
We made it to the wall after about an hour, and it's an incredible sight. It's also largely straight up. The ancient Chinese apparently did not believe in switchbacks which makes climbing the wall quite a task. You can tell which side is "inside" the territory and which is outside quite easily - the side of the wall that is higher faces the outside. A large portion of the wall has been subsequently rebuilt in the last 100 years or so, but you still get a great sense of the history that you are experiencing while at the Wall. We spent about two hours out at the wall, which probably wasn't enough time. It takes so long to get up to the top (or, at least what we deemed the top). I do have to say that this trip so far has really inspired me to want to learn more about Chinese history and culture. It is so very different from what we as Americans have encountered, and it's so fascinating to me. Perhaps I'll have some free time to read about China while Jerry's in Portugal next year :)
After the Wall, we headed back to the hotel. We probably should have gotten some lunch, but we didn't have time - it was on to the Forbidden City. This was a short walk from our hotel, which was nice. The Forbidden City is officially known as the Palace Museum, and was homebase for the imperial court and dignitaries until the 20s. It was opened to the public in 1949. It was completed in 1420. That's hard to comprehend since America wasn't even America at that point in time. The US really is a baby in the grand scheme of things! We wandered around in the Forbidden City for well over an hour, just taking it in and snapping pictures.
After the Forbidden City we wandered through Tian'an Men Square. I was 13 when the whole Tian'an Men Square Massacre occured, so that's what I mostly associate this place with. We were told by Jerry's tour guide that about a thousand Chinese citizens can be seen at dawn each day as the PRC flag is raised at dawn. Had dawn not been at about 5am, I probably would have gone to see that myself :) Mao's mausoleum is also located here, but it's not open on Mondays so we couldn't go in. On other days his body is brought out of the tomb for viewing.
After Tian'an Men Square, we headed over to Qian Men. This was known as the most imposing of the 9 city gates to Beijing back in the day. This has been renovated into a shopping area (China = consumerism I've learned). We had so much fun wandering around this area. I even found a place where I could get a cashmere coat tailor made for me! I may go back tomorrow to get measured for it while Jerry's in class!
After such a full day we headed back to the hotel, had dinner, and hit the sack!
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Editor's note
By the way, I think it's probably pretty obvious that these aren't always posted on the day I write them....sometimes I can get into the Blogger website, and sometimes I can't! Very interesting considering we're in China....So I'm basically just writing everything down in a word document and uploading when I can, just so you know!!
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
China Day 3
So our third day in China was pretty low key, which was nice after the bombardment of sights, sounds, and smells from yesterday. We started out the day with breakfast at Starbucks (didn't I tell you that we'd go there!). While having breakfast we saw all sorts of runners and eventually figured out it was the Shanghai International Marathon. It was perfect weather for running a marathon, but I have to say I was glad to not be running it myself.
We wandered up and down the pedestrian shopping street a bit in the morning, but not for too long since we had to leave around 10am to head to the airport to catch our flight to Beijing. The flight was uneventful, which is always nice when it comes to flights. It was weird to actually get a meal on a flight that was only 1.5 hours long!
Once we arrived at the Beijing airport, we hailed a taxi for 6...that was interesting, seeing as how the van probably really only needed to hold 4 plus the driver, but oh well. We made it to the Park Plaza Wanfujing in one piece thankfully. Orientation for Jerry's program was at 6:30. That's when we finally met up with everyone else in the program. We were glad to have flown over a couple days prior, because those that flew over that day were looking rough! It was Keith's birthday (one of the students in Jerry's class), so he got a birthday cake while we were getting the rundown on the basic plan for Beijing. That was thankfully only about 30 minutes. Then we decided to scope out the food situation...
Luckily, we have a few really good restaurants right across the street from our hotel. One is "Fresh Hot Pot HK Style" Did we have any clue what hot pot was? Absolutely not, but we tried it out. I'm glad we did because it has turned out to be one of the best meals we've had so far. It's basically like Chinese Melting Pot. You pick out a broth base and they bring it to you in a big pot and place it on a hot plate set in the middle of your table. Then you pick out your meats, veggies, etc. to throw in there and cook. We weren't too adventurous and only got beef tenderloin, dumplings, kale, and some egg fried rice (which is WAY better than fried rice at home - not nearly as heavy). There was another group of guys from Jerry's program that had gone over there before we did, but as they didn't know what hot pot was either they just ordered the fried rice and were jealous when they saw all of our food.
So that concluded our first day in Beijing. Tomorrow is a group trip to the Great Wall...
We wandered up and down the pedestrian shopping street a bit in the morning, but not for too long since we had to leave around 10am to head to the airport to catch our flight to Beijing. The flight was uneventful, which is always nice when it comes to flights. It was weird to actually get a meal on a flight that was only 1.5 hours long!
Once we arrived at the Beijing airport, we hailed a taxi for 6...that was interesting, seeing as how the van probably really only needed to hold 4 plus the driver, but oh well. We made it to the Park Plaza Wanfujing in one piece thankfully. Orientation for Jerry's program was at 6:30. That's when we finally met up with everyone else in the program. We were glad to have flown over a couple days prior, because those that flew over that day were looking rough! It was Keith's birthday (one of the students in Jerry's class), so he got a birthday cake while we were getting the rundown on the basic plan for Beijing. That was thankfully only about 30 minutes. Then we decided to scope out the food situation...
Luckily, we have a few really good restaurants right across the street from our hotel. One is "Fresh Hot Pot HK Style" Did we have any clue what hot pot was? Absolutely not, but we tried it out. I'm glad we did because it has turned out to be one of the best meals we've had so far. It's basically like Chinese Melting Pot. You pick out a broth base and they bring it to you in a big pot and place it on a hot plate set in the middle of your table. Then you pick out your meats, veggies, etc. to throw in there and cook. We weren't too adventurous and only got beef tenderloin, dumplings, kale, and some egg fried rice (which is WAY better than fried rice at home - not nearly as heavy). There was another group of guys from Jerry's program that had gone over there before we did, but as they didn't know what hot pot was either they just ordered the fried rice and were jealous when they saw all of our food.
So that concluded our first day in Beijing. Tomorrow is a group trip to the Great Wall...
Monday, December 1, 2008
China Day 2
So today was our very first full day in China, and what a day it was. I started out by waking up at 6:30, bright & early. I’m not sure why, but since I was awake and Jerry wasn’t I decided to go check out the gym (not only to work out, but rumor had it that you could get free bottled water there which is important since you can’t drink the tap water around here…good thing the rumor was true!). I came back and dragged Jerry out of bed and down to breakfast. We had what we are now dubbing the “million dollar breakfast.” Turned out the American buffet is targeted to take advantage of foolish Americans eating in the hotel. I don’t think I’ve ever had a breakfast that cost roughly $70…and never will again. Mental note – Starbucks tomorrow morning.
After breakfast we grabbed our backpacks, camera and guidebook and ventured outside. We weren’t 10 steps from the hotel when we started getting accosted to have Jerry’s shoes shined or asked if we wanted to buy a cheap watch/purse/DVD/fill-in-the-blank. I am not kidding when I say it was incredible how many times we were confronted by random people on the street asking us to look at their stuff (and every single one of them had the same laminated piece of paper with the offerings, so you know they were all in cahoots to screw Americans out of money). This happened no less than 30-40 times while walking down Nanjing Road, the big tourist road that leads to The Bund. After we successfully navigated the tourist trap, we arrived at The Bund which is a nice riverfront area with lots of parks, old buildings, and just generally good people watching. We wandered up and down that area, checking out the local vendors. Here you could buy kites, skates, and pretty much any kind of food on a stick imaginable or otherwise…a popular choice with the locals was what appeared to be squid on a stick. No joke. Needless to say, Crohn’s girl did not partake in that little local delicacy. Instead we opted for a nice Chinese restaurant where we both had beef & noodles. I can’t imagine us getting Chinese take out when we get back to the states at any point in the foreseeable future.
After lunch we headed to the Shanghai Ocean Aquarium. While it’s no Georgia Aquarium, it was pretty nice. But it was here that Jerry and I realized a very important point. Kids here in China are allowed to pretty much do ANYTHING they want. I am not joking about this either. I guess it’s because they are only supposed to have one child, so that one child is spoiled to the hilt. These kids were running WILD in there. And the parents didn’t care one iota. I mean, I know you see kids doing that in the US on a daily basis, but there’s usually one mom that at least looks like she’s ready to jerk a knot in her kid’s neck if said kid doesn’t sit down in the stroller and quit the whining. Not here. All the moms were laughing at everything the little princes and princesses did. I however was ready to do some knot-jerking but obviously couldn’t. :)
Another thing we realized yesterday – they aren’t kidding around about respecting elders. This little epiphany came to me while waiting in a ridiculous line for a public toilet (which I later found did not have any toilet paper – queue the pack of Kleenex) and an older woman decided that she didn’t have to wait in line and could break in front of the roughly 10 of us standing in line. I was glad to see, though, that I was not the only one in line that wasn’t terribly pleased with that turn of events.
The final epiphany we had on Day 2 – there are no traffic rules in China. Sure, they have traffic lights and signals that tell you when you should and should not walk. Pay no mind to those. They are merely suggestions, and not closely followed ones at that. There were plenty of times that Jerry and I found ourselves walking with the masses and before you knew it you were standing in the middle of the road with cars honking at you.
All in all it was a very overwhelming, intimidating, but enjoyable day. China has a lot to offer, but there’s a LOT to take in all at once. And because of this, I’m tired and must go to sleep…but I have to remember to relate the story of Jerry and the tea ceremony before this blog is done at the end of our trip!
After breakfast we grabbed our backpacks, camera and guidebook and ventured outside. We weren’t 10 steps from the hotel when we started getting accosted to have Jerry’s shoes shined or asked if we wanted to buy a cheap watch/purse/DVD/fill-in-the-blank. I am not kidding when I say it was incredible how many times we were confronted by random people on the street asking us to look at their stuff (and every single one of them had the same laminated piece of paper with the offerings, so you know they were all in cahoots to screw Americans out of money). This happened no less than 30-40 times while walking down Nanjing Road, the big tourist road that leads to The Bund. After we successfully navigated the tourist trap, we arrived at The Bund which is a nice riverfront area with lots of parks, old buildings, and just generally good people watching. We wandered up and down that area, checking out the local vendors. Here you could buy kites, skates, and pretty much any kind of food on a stick imaginable or otherwise…a popular choice with the locals was what appeared to be squid on a stick. No joke. Needless to say, Crohn’s girl did not partake in that little local delicacy. Instead we opted for a nice Chinese restaurant where we both had beef & noodles. I can’t imagine us getting Chinese take out when we get back to the states at any point in the foreseeable future.
After lunch we headed to the Shanghai Ocean Aquarium. While it’s no Georgia Aquarium, it was pretty nice. But it was here that Jerry and I realized a very important point. Kids here in China are allowed to pretty much do ANYTHING they want. I am not joking about this either. I guess it’s because they are only supposed to have one child, so that one child is spoiled to the hilt. These kids were running WILD in there. And the parents didn’t care one iota. I mean, I know you see kids doing that in the US on a daily basis, but there’s usually one mom that at least looks like she’s ready to jerk a knot in her kid’s neck if said kid doesn’t sit down in the stroller and quit the whining. Not here. All the moms were laughing at everything the little princes and princesses did. I however was ready to do some knot-jerking but obviously couldn’t. :)
Another thing we realized yesterday – they aren’t kidding around about respecting elders. This little epiphany came to me while waiting in a ridiculous line for a public toilet (which I later found did not have any toilet paper – queue the pack of Kleenex) and an older woman decided that she didn’t have to wait in line and could break in front of the roughly 10 of us standing in line. I was glad to see, though, that I was not the only one in line that wasn’t terribly pleased with that turn of events.
The final epiphany we had on Day 2 – there are no traffic rules in China. Sure, they have traffic lights and signals that tell you when you should and should not walk. Pay no mind to those. They are merely suggestions, and not closely followed ones at that. There were plenty of times that Jerry and I found ourselves walking with the masses and before you knew it you were standing in the middle of the road with cars honking at you.
All in all it was a very overwhelming, intimidating, but enjoyable day. China has a lot to offer, but there’s a LOT to take in all at once. And because of this, I’m tired and must go to sleep…but I have to remember to relate the story of Jerry and the tea ceremony before this blog is done at the end of our trip!
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