Temple of Heaven

Today I went to the Temple of Heaven with my friend Sam. We rode the subway, which I am becoming more familiar with by the day. The Temple of Heaven is aligned with the Forbidden City and the Temple of Earth on a north-south axis (according to Sam), it being the southern most of the three. The Temple of Heaven is actually a huge park with various Temples inside where ancient Chinese emperors would go to pray for good harvests and such. The architecture was beautiful, like with most ancient Chinese buildings. In addition to the temples, there were very entertaining sights on the sidewalks of the park. The most notable (and hilarious) was a group of middle aged ladies energetically dancing to the music of Pink (for those of you who don't know, Pink is an American "alternative rock" singer who was especially popular at my middle school in Illinois). It was quite a sight to see them dancing, and while we were sitting gazing at them a fifty-something 外国人 ( wai guo ren, AKA foreigner) came up to us and told us we should go dance with them. We smiled and said, "You first":) Anyway, The day was filled with entertainment and we have decided to explore at least one new place each weekend. The picture I have included was taken a couple of weeks ago at a Chinese history museum we visited with school. To the right of me is Marianne and to the left is Sam. They are awesome!

MEATY MEATY MEAT

So... I just ate meat. On accident. 

Sometimes my dad makes these little loaves of bread stuffed with vegetables inside, so tonight at dinner I took one thinking I knew exactly what it was.

I took a bite, and although it tasted a little different than usual I thought nothing of it. The stuffing looked like it always had... just harmless green vegetables.

A few bites later, I reached the conclusion that my seemingly innocent 包字 (bao zi) definitely had a new, unknown ingredient in it. I looked down to examine it more carefully, and saw two black eyes staring back at me. Yup. Two black eyes. Then two more, and two more and two more. Turns out, there were tons of little mini shrimp things in the bao zi. They were colorless and transparent, which explains why I didn't see them the first time.  

I reacted surprisingly well. I didn't choke, gasp, or scream. I just set the bao zi down, and ate other things. My appetite wasn't even lost. I actually almost laughed, because I knew this would happen sooner or later, and I have to admit it's hilarious. 

Anyway, I guess that was the most eventful thing that happened today. Each day brings a new surprise... haha. I'm going to go do homework now...

Toodles,

苏娥利

Goldfish People!

I am happily munching on my last few (entirely stale yet still delicious) goldfish right now, and thought it would be an appropriate time to write a little blog entry. My heart is cringing a little, knowing that I will not eat any more of these little guys for 7 and a half months. Sad Face. My diet has been rather bland lately, since I am vegetarian AND cannot eat any dairy products due to the whole "Chinese milk is poisoned with Melamine" thing going on right now. I have to say, reading about a Chinese milk crisis and actually having to deal with one are totally different things. I miss yogurt and cheese like crazy. Actually, I miss all American food like crazy. Chinese food is fabulous, but I would kill for a peanut butter and jelly right now. I ate at McDonald's for the first time here last week, and my mouth was in heaven. I feel guilty, but those fries were heavenly. Anyway, I'm going to stop talking about food and go eat dinner. If anyone wants to sent non-perishable food items, just ask for my address! haha. 

Until the next time I get a random desire to blog,

苏娥利

Boring News

I pretty much don't have any exciting news, so I'm just going to talk about this random semi-boring incident that caught my attention when it happened. It is an exchange between my Chinese teacher, 申老师, and the kid who sits next to me, James. Here is the very basic English translation.

申老师: "What do you get a small child for their birthday?"  

Student A: "Toys"  

James: "But big kids like toys too"

申老师: "Toys are for small children"

James: "But I like toys"

申老师: (smiling) "You are a small child"

... When put into English, and then presented to English speaking people, it doesn't sound in the least bit funny, but it got the whole Chinese class to crack up. 申老师 wasn't being mean, he is never mean, he was just straightforward, and it ended up being funny. Maybe we all laughed just because we were desperately in need of some humor (we had been speaking only Chinese for an hour and a half, which gets tiring). 

Anyway, we went to the Lama Temple and some ancient Chinese history museum on saturday and they were pretty cool. At the Lama Temple, people burn incense and kneel on little wooden stools to pray. The Architecture was very intricate, and in every room, there were three Buddhas. One for the past, one for the present, and one for the future. We weren't allowed to take photos of the buddhas, but I got some pictures of the architecture outside the Temple's rooms, and of us at the museum. There were real Terra Cotta Soldiers at the museum, taken from the army in Xi'an. The picture of the three people are my friends (L-R) Sam, Marianne, and Ian. There was a huge garden of bushes that was fun to walk around in. 

THE GREAT WALL

Today I went to the Great Wall with my classmates. The part of the Wall that we went to was 2 hours away from Beijing, and for most of the drive we were surrounded my mountains and fields. Even from the bus, there were some great views. The hike itself was one of the most physically exerting things I have EVER done. For the first hour, I was in misery. I'm guessing we climbed over a thousand steps in that one hour. Endorphins must have kicked in though, because for the rest of the hike I felt great. We were all sweating like pigs and looked like death warmed over, but I couldn't have cared less. I cannot even begin to describe how incredible the Wall and the views from it are. Neither words nor pictures do it any justice whatsoever. It is absolutely surreal, and every person reading this should climb it before they die. That having been said, here are a few pictures. 

The first picture is the view from the ground. Just to get up to the wall was a 20-30 minute uphill hike. The second picture is of two of my good friends Marianne and Ian. The third picture is of the three of us. The fourth one is of a cool view from the Wall, and the fifth is a picture of what we hiked. However, the first quarter-ish of a mile (entirely uphill) is not shown in the picture. 

The Week

This week was an unpleasantly difficult week. We had monday off for a mid autumn moon festival holiday, and the rest of the week was pretty close to hell. I haven't gotten more than 5 1/2 hours of sleep for the past three nights, and all I do is homework. Constantly. I am getting huge blisters on my hands from writing so many characters per night. No joke. It is miserable. I can't even describe it. However, I'm doing well in Chinese, which makes it a little bit worth it. But honestly, I am ready to collapse. Mr. Bissell, our resident director, talked to us this week and said something that was incredibly accurate about adjusting to China. He said "All of you are stressed out, and some of you are falling apart at the seams (for the record, I don't think I'm completely falling apart at the seams). And there's a reason for this. You guys may not be getting any more homework than you would be back in America, and you may be getting just as much sleep, but in America, getting to school each morning isn't a stressful experience. Communicating with people requires no effort. You don't have to adjust to anything". And he is so right. Living here increases my stress level dramatically, even if I don't notice it sometimes. There are so many little things that I do automatically in America, but here I always have to be aware and attentive. Which isn't bad, it's just tiring. I wouldn't call it "culture shock", but the adjustment takes time. And right now, I'm trying to adjust, keep my grades up, not disappoint my family in any way, and enjoy China. And half the time I have a stomach ache for reason, probably because my digestive system is also trying to adjust. Doing all of this stuff is harder than it sounds. But tomorrow we're going to hike the Great Wall, so hopefully that will put me in a better mood. I have been a little bitter all week, but have tried to overcome it and in the meantime, not let it show. I have good friends here too. I'll get some pictures with them at the Great Wall, and post them asap. Until then... toodles. 

Elle 

Photos

I was able to plug my sister's camera into my computer, so here are pics from the Zoo and the torch at the olympics!