Here I am, in Beijing, China

Because of the China censorship policy, I am unable to open my Xanga blog... I have blogged for so long now that it seems unfathomable to me to not blog about my life in China. So I have resorted to starting a Blogspot blog. Don't ask me why Xanga is any different from Blogspot. I really have no idea.

It's already my 4th day in China and I am still loving it. It is raining outside now and the view fromy window is rather dreary. Everything is grey and there's a layer of humidity in the air which is very much welcomed, at least for me. It is so very dry in Beijing, I find my lips feeling all sore after an hour being outside. I have woken up every night since I've been here to gulp down water because of my dry, scratchy throat.
But enough about talk of the dry weather... You have no idea how good it feels to be back in the big city. I've missed the hustle and bustle. Of course, Beijing is like the city of all cities. Kuala Lumpur cannot even be compared to Beijing. First few things that struck me the most.. shit, the amount of cars and people and bicycles! I mean, duh China has like over a million people, but seeing people everywhere roaming the streets on foot, on bicycles, in cars, on buses, in the trains.... is really a big big change from ol' little Oxford. Crossing the roads in China... I cannot even think of what to compare it to. The pedestrian lights and traffic lights really don't serve its purpose. People start crossing the roads at any opportunity they can. Cars speed up when they're about to pass a light or a pedestrian walkway. What my newfound friends and I do is to walk when the locals walk. We squeeze close to them and walk alongside them and learned to just look straight ahead when crossing the roads. Looking at cars when they are driving towards you while crossing the road will only freak you out because cars just speed up and look like they are about to hit you. Ox-people, you would have a fit crossing the roads of Beijing.
My friends and I have very bravely ventured into a few Chinese restaurants so far, not knowing what to order. Menus are all in Mandarin and none of us can really read enough to be able to know for sure what to order. It's worse when the menus don't have pictures in them. We are usually only able to make out if the dish is chicken 鸡, duck 鸭, tofu 豆腐, pork 猪, fish 鱼... and whether they are oily 油, fried 炒, soupy 汤 .... yeah, that's pretty much it. So you can imagine how fun it is trying to decipher a menu. "Oh here this is a chicken dish, but I don't recognize the other characters.. I know this means fried but that's about it..." and so it goes. At the end of it, we just play the guessing game and hope that all that we order turns out tasty.

CIEE people have been truly amazing and I have met some very interesting people. (Not to mention, some very good looking people (guys, ahem!) - but that is really not the point) I am still getting to know most of the people and I have yet to feel confident walking around campus alone. We had our first campus tour today, in the rain. And I could not get my bearings straight as to which way was the north 北, south 南, east 东 or west 西 gate. I am so bad with directions. And I'm the type who is always afraid of getting lost, I get all panicky and really start hyperventilating when I don't know where I am. Definitely not the type that enjoys getting lost and going out exploring on my own.

So far, I've been to Wudaokou 五道口 which is a street full of shopping, fast food and bars that is about 10 minutes away from PKU. I have yet to fully explore 五道口 yet, and I have yet to step into a bar or club here in China. There are a few kids here who have been to a different bar or club every single night since Sunday. Personally, I do not see the point of it.. but I guess it's the "thing to do". Instead, the group of girlfriends that I have made, have been nursing our messed up sleeping schedules due to jetlag, and been trying out new eating places everyday. Yesterday we had a CIEE trip to Hutong 胡同 which had tourists galore. 胡同 means narrow alleys or streets. At both sides of these narrow alleys, there are residential areas of families. These residential areas rarely have bathrooms in them. Usually there is one communal bathroom that the whole neighborhood shares. I am just going to let my pictures do the explaining.














This is our rickshaw driver, who was so very friendly in giving us a commentary on the sights in Mandarin. I could understand most of what he said, and if I didn't I just played the guessing game. That's Matt in the rickshaw with me, his Mandarin was so bad that I had to translate for him! haha. Our rickshaw driver mentioned that Chinese people love the NBA and how his favorite player is umm.. Johnson or something.














This is a snapshot of the very many rickshaw drivers for the purpose of driving tourists around. There really were so many of them!




























These are restaurants and bars alongside the river.














This is the courtyard of one of residential houses that we had the opportunity to enter. The owner of this house gave us a demonstration of how to make dumplings/jiaozi 饺子. Her husband is the Picasso of paper cutting. Surrounding the courtyards are rooms for the people of the house.
Do you know that these houses with courtyards now cost up to about 1 million USD?














This is a hutong, and on both sides of it are residential areas.



















This is the door to one of the houses. Depending on the status of the owner of the house, the door is different and the two stones on either side of the door is different.




























In the picture on the left, you can see one of the many tourists groups that were in Hutong. Everyone on this tour guide had on matching blue caps! On the left, is one of the buildings that some person of high position in China in the past used to live in. I never get tired of Chinese architecture. This building is actually one of the many rooms that make up the residence of a person with a position in the Chinese government. During the Cultural Revolution, this residence area was seized and made headquarters or something to CR activists.














This was so cool. I just had to have a picture of this wall. Look closely and you can see the remnants of the writings on the wall from the Cultural Revolution, wordings of Mao. Well, that was what our tourguide told us anyway.














And this is one of the many man-made rivers that were around that area. This river was frozen over. If you look closely, you can see three worker men standing on the frozen river trying to crack the ice with these sharp sticks. And you see people all crowded around at the edge, watching them.



















To end our tour of Hutong, we had the chance to enter a teahouse and learn the traditional Chinese tea ceremony. I'm Chinese and I never knew all these rituals about tea. We were served Wulong tea, Jasmine tea, Lychee tea and Cherry tea. Lychee and Cherry tea were my favorite. Definitely going to get some and bring them back home. The tea lady in this picture is holding up this special tea cup (that I really want). The picture on the tea cup changes when you pour hot tea in it. It was so amazingly cool being able to watch the picture on the cup transform before your very eyes with the heat of the tea.














This are my new found friends and I, having dinner together in a Chinese restaurant. From the left, that's Stephanie, Annika who's standing (my roommate), Evelyn and Valerie.