Hello everyone from chilly but noisy Shanghai! It is cold everyday, but noisy because of the constant fireworks being shot off all around the school.

You might ask, WHY ARE YOU NOT OUT DOING SOMETHING ON CHINESE NEW YEAR?? Well, allow me to explain. This weekend I was visiting a friend in Nanjing because I needed a change of scenery. I went to visit the Museum commemorating victims of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre in Nanjing (http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-02/26/content_309322.htm) which was good but horrible all wrapped into one. The next day I went for lunch at my friend’s in-laws house. We ran to the train in 5 minutes and I went back to Shanghai.

The next morning I woke up very early to see Super Bowl XXXIX and the Patriots win, of course. Then I went with a friend back to his place and had lunch. He is a guy I met who is from Texas and working here in Shanghai. After that I hopped on a bus and went to the Yu Gardens, a really cool place to go shopping and see lots of traditional Chinese things. I met my teammate and her sister there and we hung out and looked all around and got some great pictures. I was feeling a bit hungry but not so bad.

We left the Yu Gardens and headed for the ferry. I was really feeling hungry now and I decided to try some CORN ON THE COB that is sold everywhere. I had about 5 bites and tossed it because it was kind of gross. Then after the ferry I bought a SWEET POTATOE. This is what I think caused my sickness. We took the 45 minute bus ride back to my school and the girls wanted to eat dinner, but seriously, I could not. Right after they finished dinner, as I was walking home, I became violently ill.

I returned home and went to bed at about 7:30pm. I awoke about an hour later, ran to the bathroom and became violently ill again and worse. This continued to happen every two hours through the night and I started to feel a bit dehydrated. Finally at around 10am the next day I was not visiting the bathroom with great regularity but I was so weak and tired. The whole night, if it wasn’t my sickness keeping me up, it was the fireworks outside, they were so loud!!!

So, even though I wanted to do something today, even though I had asked so many students what to do, and even though I had many plans, I am sad to say that my first Chinese New Year in China I am sick and missing all the festivities!

But don’t worry Mom, I am alive. Don’t worry too much.

Posted February 9th 2005 The Year of the Rooster. 12:15pm

Now the food in Fuzhou was something that I was kind of not really ready for, I mean, I knew that there would be seafood but I guess I didn’t know to what extent we would eat it. The first two evenings we ate at the same restaurant and we had basically the same amazing food. Here is a picture of me standing at the menu of the restaurant.

Now you might say, “Wait a minute, you are standing at a fish tank not a menu.” And you would be correct and I would also be correct. You see, the people in Fuzhou care so much about the freshness of their seafood that if you want to have a really successful seafood restaurant you will have your food out where the customer can just say, “I want that thing swimming around, and I will take that thing swimming there, oh and what about that one over there!” The fish tanks are the menu! I ate so much seafood during the time I was there it was incredible. Here is a brief picture showing just all the different kinds of food that I ate:

After the lunch banquet I was telling you about in the country side we gathered up the gifts that they gave the people and helped them bring it all back to their house. Here I am with a native Fuzhou person who had accompanied my friend’s friend. Does all this make sense?

Here is another little picture of what it was like in the country side, kind of a worn out path and kind of inviting. The day in the country side was quite relaxing and the landscape was beautiful and I can see why some of these people prefer this kind of life compared with the city life.

Posted March 7, 2005 8:30pm

Of course out in the country side, away from the bustle of the city it is ok to honk your horn and here I am in a beautiful area where you can see the mountains rise up behind me and it was so peaceful and beautiful.

In exploring the city I was able to see many interesting and wonderful things. Of course I was also able to see some sad things. There were many many shoe shiners who were working on the street. I only wished I had brought my nice teaching shoes with me so that they could shine them for me, but I had only brought my new sneakers, but that didn’t stop them from offering to somehow shine my sneakers. I wanted to explain to them that you can’t shine this kind of footwear but I am not up to that level in Chinese yet. But around the shoe shiners there were what seemed to be their children playing and running around and talking. I decided to take their picture and they turned out to be great shots. The one little girl in the front reminded me of my little niece in America, especially her smile! But they were holding their ears and having a good time and they were very cute. Don’t you just want to play with them!?!!

While I was in the country side I attempted to create a kind of modern art. I feel that it is my best work as of yet, and it embodies the essence of the human figure in a hostile environment where the odds are stacked up against him and the weight of the world is resting on him. That, of course, is a load of bunk and I just thought it was a darn funny shot!!! So when this scene struck me funny, I quickly took the picture.

Oh, last but not least. Fuzhou has something that Shanghai doesn’t have. Ready for this? WALMART! Can you believe it? And a Sam’s Club! I couldn’t believe it either but there they were! We went shopping there and it was a bit weird but was like a pretty typical store in China. But it was still kind of fun to see it.

Posted March 7, 2005 8:30pm

So without delay, and my apologies to Peet’s Coffee and Tea (the saving grace to coffee lovers the world over) I give you my canned coffee review. All coffee seen in the following review had at one time been drunk by me.

A. Caffe Latte:
Definitely not a Peet’s Latte but it did the trick of tricking me into believing that I was drinking something called coffee. More taste than all the other drinks and same price as the smaller cans. This could really catch on in America, don’t you think? Yes, I had two.

Posted March 16, 2005 4:00pm

Here is a great picture from the other day when I had trouble ordering coffee. You see I was very tired, and I wanted a good size cup of coffee. So I ordered the small, but it was too small…then I ordered the medium but it was too small. So the worker told me that they have a really big size cup but it is only for special occasions and it is only “to go”. So I said, that sounds good. So I ordered a 80 yuan cup of coffee. It was impossible to get it out of the coffee shop to begin with but then I had to walk back to the bus, down Nanjing Road. So while I was walking these Public Safety officials grabbed me and took me away. I was only half way done with my coffee. The picture below was apparently in the English language Shanghai newspaper the next day. Kind of embarrassing.

Happy May Holiday everyone! Even though it is long gone I just wanted to update you all about what I was doing. More is to come…

We left Shanghai on Saturday April 30th at about 5pm and arrived in Guilin on Sunday May 1st at about 9pm. Crazy. How many hours is that? TOO MANY! But we were there with nothing to complain about. We attempted to purchase our train tickets back to Shanghai but were told the “computers were off for the evening” and there was nothing to do till morning. Fine, we found our tour guide lady who brought us to our hotel. It was a nice hotel near ELEPHANT mountain. It looked like an elephant’s face complete with the trunk and all. That night we walk around a bit and went to a market, but didn’t find much. We returned and slept.

The next day was going to be interesting. The plan was to purchase the train tickets bright and early then get the bus tickets to Yangshuo then pick up the rest of the girls and explore Guilin till we are ready to go. So one of the girls, who could speak Chinese, and I went to the train station. She waited in line while I went to purchase some breakfast for the both of us. While I am waiting for some steamed buns I felt my shorts wiggle a bit, and looked down to my left front pocket and there were a pair of tongs pulling my wallet out of my pocket. I sprang to action and jumped on the guy with a kind of half headlock and he just handed me my wallet back. He then squirmed out of my death grip and just walked away. HEY WELCOME TO GUILIN. This was the first day of my trip, I had tons of money in there, if I hadn’t feel it, I WOULD HAVE BEEN DEAD. But I did feel it and I couldn’t believe that nobody saw it or if they saw it they didn’t do anything to help me!!! I told the lady who was making my steamed buns and she understood me and made some face like, “really?” I immediately thought that she was in cahoots with the thief.

We had fun riding around Guilin in a double-decker bus with an open top. That was fun. We took a long walk all around just killing time. Our bus for Yangshuo left in the afternoon. It took about an hour to get to Yangshuo. The mountains all the way were just beautiful, different and bizarre but really cool. We got to Yangshuo and walked down the famed WEST STREET to find our hotel. We stayed at a really cool place called the BAMBOO HOUSE INN AND CAFÉ!!! So cheap and really great rooms and everything was great. The hotel was just off the busy West street and down a quiet alley. The workers and owners of the hotel were really cool and super nice, especially Jenny, Rosie and Rosie’s brother-in-law. They run a great business and are wonderful hosts.

Basically Yangshuo is West Street. That is the foreigner area. There were so many foreigners there. They were everywhere. There were shops to shop in, restaurants with outdoor seating areas so you can sit, eat and watch the world go by. There were travel agencies and I think every business had a room or two to rent out to tired travelers. This place is considered a bustling backpackers stop, but it is also a good place for normal, good smelling people and tour groups and people like that. If you walk to the end of West Street you can find the Li River which is the main reason you go there because it is beautiful. The mountains rise above and come crashing down at the river. The mountains also surround Yangshuo so you can see them everywhere you look.

Every morning I woke up early and went to Jimmy’s Bar and Cafe for a wonderful Yunnan Black coffee and bowl of Yogurt and Muesli. It was so nice. I would draw, read and journal there till the girls got up and were ready for breakfast and I would have my second breakfast. NICE! What a life. But of course, I was on VACATION!

One day we decided to take a trip by bike to the countryside outside Yangshuo. I purchased a nice hand drawn map and we hopped on our bikes and took off for a day of enjoyment. We were nice and slow so everyone could keep up. There were always opportunities to spend money. On our way out of town there were really poor people who were making head wreaths of wild flowers and leaves. IT was really cool but definitely not for a guy. One of the girls bought one but they were rushed by many people, I think I heard her say, I ONLY HAVE ONE HEAD!!! The bike trip was really fun. We biked and biked, then pulled over, got a picture, then got back on the bikes and rode more. It was really fun. The weather was perfect but hot as blazes. I took advantage of the sun and tried to give my shoulders some color, it didn’t work very well though.

More to come…
Posted Monday May 16th at 4:00pm

The next day we went on a fishing trip at night. The way it was supposed to go was at about 7:30pm you go down to the boat and go out with the driver and tour guide and you go to the fisherman who is fishing in a very rare and ancient method. He uses Coromant birds which swim in the water and then dive down to catch fish. But the fisherman has tied the throat of the bird which makes the bird unable to swallow the fish and the fisherman gets the bird and grabs the fish from his mouth. Kind of confusing and strange but it works and we got to see it in action. I had only seen it on TV here in China and it was really strange but when I saw it I thought it was really cool. Then after all that we got pictures of us with the birds and then they were supposed to bring us back to Yangshuo. This is how it was supposed to happen. Of course it didn’t go as smoothly as my explanation.
Here is a shot of the fisherman getting a fish from the bird.

We got on the boat and noticed that we were quite an international bunch. There were Europeans, Chinese/Europeans, 8 children, Australians, Germans and of course some Americans and my teammate and I. Basically everything was going well until we were on our way home. This was after we took pictures of the fisherman and got out of the boat on dry land and took pictures of ourselves holding the huge bird…like this great shot…

We were just about to start and the boatman and tour guide wanted to get the money from the Germans. They refused again claiming that they would pay when they safely arrived back in Yangshuo. The one German mentioned that he had already called his tour guide lady and explained the whole situation to her. The boatman and tour guide apparently didn’t believe him and the German took offense at that. Thus starting about a 20 minute argument which included comments like, “Are you trying to piss me off?” and “I want to talk to her too!” and “YOU MUST PAY THE MONEY!” and the German then called on his cell phone to the tour guide lady and said some really funny things in a German/English accent like, “You realize that we are in a van, in the dark and we are all feeling very unsafe now. We are all very unsafe. The deal was to come back to Yangshuo, but we are in a van in the dark and we are very scared.” The American at that point piped up with the most ridiculous comment of the evening: “How do we know that you will bring us back to Yangshuo, for all we know you will bring us to a warehouse and there will be a bunch of guys in there with guns ready to shoot us.” And this moron apparently was working in China! One of the Australians reassured the Germans who didn’t pay that, “if you get out of the van and have to stay there than WE WERE ALL GETTING OUT. You know it’s the principle!” I looked at my teammate with the biggest grin on my face and wanted to yell, “I AIN’T GETTING OUT OF THIS VAN FOR NOTHING!” But I didn’t of course. Finally the boatman and tour guide were threatened with the police, which personally I don’t think would side with Americans, Germans or Australians, but that is beside the point, and the boatman and tour guide instructed the Germans that they should go and pay them the next day.

Good Grief! That is over. The rest of the trip was uneventful. Except of course the boat trip down the river and stopping at a really really really old village and having to pay some old lady 3 yuan because the policy at the village was that since there are so many darn foreigners who come to visit and take pictures ­and we aren’t getting paid ­we should just charge them for each photo that they take. So, I had to scrape together 3 yuan which usually isn’t difficult but that day and at that moment it was. That lady was so old that she wouldn’t accept the 5 mao coin that I gave her because apparently she didn’t know what it was! CRAZY!

The train ride was not so bad since we were already seasoned travelers. Of course we did have to purchase hard seats for the 29 hour ride back. The girls were not happy but there was really nothing we could do. I was chosen to go back to find out if there was a possibility of upgrading our tickets. By about 4pm (we left at about 10am) a policeman came to us and told us there were four beds available. That started the long trek from car number 3 to car number 16 I think. Through the WHOLE TRAIN ­dragging the luggage and pushing hundreds of people out of the way! UGH!! But we get beds and it wasn’t that much more expensive: HALLELUJAH!

Check out the other pictures too!!
Posted May 17th 3:00pm

Here is a really cool Panaramic picture of the town of Yangshuo. The mountains are known as Karst…I’ve never seen anything quite like them…but I’ve seen many paintings starring those mountains, so it was nice to finally see them for real!

On the bike ride we rode by rice field after rice field. Well, I really wanted to get a picture of me in the rice fields…so I went out and get ankle deep in the muck. I almost lost my sandal…but I got it out…CRAZY.

I’ve had a strange rash on my feet since that day…but whatever. JUST KIDDING!!!

Here is a nice shot of DRIFTERS, a restaurant on West Street in Yangshuo, we were chowing on a great breakfast. YUM!

Which one is cuter? Thanks Mom… HA HA just kidding. Is that child not precious? There were many cuties in Yangshuo. But this one actually approached me and was cool…most of them are mortally afraid of me.

Posted May 17th 2005 3:15pm

Week #1

Week #2

Week #3

Posted Tuesday June 7th, 2005 8:45pm

Here is a shot of me packing all kinds of stuff and my suitcase not being enough.

While packing I found a stack of business cards that I’ve kept this year. These are cards that I recieve when I walk downtown. There are usually young boys outside subway stops or outside different places who have a stack with them and they give them out and I always get a few and keep them. My students think I am crazy.

Posted Wednesday June 29th, 2005 1:50pm