Check Out the Photos!

Life has been a little slow in China, but that's not to say we haven't had a good time! Our passports are still missing in action, so we still can't do any travelling. On the bright side, Suzhou has plenty to offer in the way of sights and entertainment, which means we have been enjoying our stay here, even without the means to travel!

I updated our Picasa account with many new albums, and I'd like you to check them out and let me know what you think! You can click on the link at the top of the page, or click here. Easy!

Aside from the previously mentioned scenic areas, we got free access to both the Humble Administrator's Garden and Panmen Gate thanks to our new friend, Mrs. Cheung. She's taking us to the Master of the Nets Garden this Saturday, which is said to be nice. It's nice to see these gardens and parks, but it's especially nice not to pay the entrance fees! Mrs. Cheung is able to swing us free admission because she used to work in these gardens, and she still has a lot friends who work there.

Recently, we were invited to Shangfang Hill, which is right next to our school, by a few senior students. I managed to get the Aqeels to go with us, but Melissa ducked out at the last minute to nurse her sore back. Overall, the park was much nicer than I expected. Of course, it helped that it was really warm that day! Check out the photo album!

The next day was Halloween, which was the day of the long-awaited Halloween Party. All four of us teachers had been preparing for this party for weeks. We decked out our apartments, bought lots of food and drink, and organised activities for the teachers and students. As you can see from the photo album, it was spooktacular (cringe)!

Suzhou's Less-Seen Sights

Melissa and I have not done a damn thing since we arrived here in Suzhou one month ago, which is appropriate since we are, technically, tourists here. And since we are tourists in this fine Chinese city, we've done a little bit of touring!

Melissa already mentioned that we jointly bought an electric bicycle, which is AWESOME!!! We got helmets (not pictured) to spoil a little of the fun and also to keep our heads from turning into hamburger... gross. Above is a shot of Melissa in front of Suzhou Health College's new campus, which is where we live and teach.

Above is a shot of Suzhou Health College's old campus, which is where we neither live nor teach. Boo!!

Doug and Tom took us to see a little of the Singapore Industrial Park (a.k.a. SIP), which is an economic district surrounding a gigantic man-made lake to the East of the city center. Lots of rich folk live there, and it's pretty much only accessible by car.

We also went to not one, but TWO old towns! One in Suzhou by night...

... and one in nearby Mudu by day.

While we were in Mudu, we climbed a mountain with a temple on top. The mountain was really crowded with tourists due to the week-long national holiday, so I assume that some of the serenity was diminished.

However, that did not stop us from enjoying our monk-approved noodle lunch!

And we're back!!

In a turn of events, I've taken it upon myself to author an actual and complete blogpost all by my lonesome, as it seems that Cullen does not share my zest for insomnolence and I feel we owe our dedicated reader an update (Mom, do you even check this anymore?).

We've been in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, for two and a half weeks now, and are enjoying it verily! We are two of six foreign teachers at the school, so it's like, bonus! Washer, refrigerator, modern appliances and built in safety net of sociability right at your fingertips (and it's not even in the contract!). We're not clear on why the school needs so many foreign teachers, as it seems they won't have nearly enough classes to fulfill our contracted teaching hours, but you'll hear no complaints on this end (unless they make good on their threat to make us teach IELTS prep, in which case you should expect lots of complaining in the future). Alas, as our classes do not begin until nearly mid-October, the only things I can find to complain about at the moment are our penury and the fact that Rock does not live/work here and cannot hold our hands this year. Pay day is this Tuesday, however, and Rock is fulfilling a lifelong dream of living the Kentucky high life, so I will grudgingly try to forgive her absence (it will not be easy).

The above photo was taken on a day last week when Tom and Doug, two of the other foreign teachers (who have been teaching at our school for almost 10 years now!), took us around town with the lovely Mrs. Chen (pictured, right). Mrs. Chen is a nationally celebrated calligrapher and, according to Doug, has her work displayed outside of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. It was truly an honor just to meet her, and we have the further honor of being her guests at a National Day celebration next week! She promised to take us sight seeing in Suzhou as well, and we will get to see her work on display.

I know Cullen will follow this up with any even more detailed and thorough account of our stay so far, so I will now attempt to fall asleep before the sun rises. Love to you!

Micro-Reviews of Beijing

Hi all,

Considering that Melissa and I went to Beijing maybe three or so weeks ago, this post is quite delayed. Originally, I wanted this post to have a fun conversation style to it, but Melissa is far, far too busy to write in her own blog. So, without further ado, here are my one-or-two-liners about everything we encountered while in Beijing.

National Centre for the Performing Arts

I’ve heard that the local Beijingers don’t like the look of it, but I’d like to remind you that the Chinese tend to cover their buildings with bathroom tiles. So, I’m just saying… it could have looked hideous.

Decision: 9 out of 10 gasps

Peking Duck

I expected an entire duck for the price, but the taste was juicy, crispy and buttery!

Decision: 8 out of 10 happy stomachs

Military Museum of the Chinese People's Revolution

Much to my befuddlement, this place has it’s own stop on the subway. If rusty Mao-era firepower and propaganda is your thing, then give this FREE museum a try.

Decision: 6 out of 10 replica grenades

Capital Museum

I loved this museum mostly because I could take high-quality photographs by pressing the camera to the exhibits' glass cases.

Decision: 8 out of 10 old things

Beijing Subway

The lines vary in quality, but they all beat the snot out of any of New York City's subway lines.

Decision: 7 out of 10 F train delays

Forest Park

The name is totally misleading. There is no forest! The only draw was the bicycle vehicles for rent. Even with the fun ride, the whole experience was mildly boring.

Decision: 4 out of 10 snorefests

Olympic Park

This hard-to-get-to location resembles a smoggy abandoned highway. There are many Soviet-style sculptures that weren’t even worth the effort of photography. The Bird’s Nest was already gathering dust and grime, like all other buildings in China (the product of heavy pollution).

Decision: 1 out of 10 plastic bags over my head

Lama Temple

Really nice buildings and statues, but they wouldn’t let me take any photos! I mean, they would allow 10,000 tourists to burn incense inside the buildings every day, but I couldn’t even take one little photo? I wonder what’s worse: lots of smoke coating the relics or my camera's flash?

Decision: 5 out of 10 unused cameras

Beijing Aquarium

It was nice to see some exotic fish, but the place was a little on the mediocre side of the spectrum. As an added plus, they sell cuttlefish balls as snacks.

Decision: 7 out of 10 desperate sea turtles

Forbidden City

This place is excessively large. It has many gigantic courtyards, which are the only things that you can see without handing out extra cash. If you don’t know the history, this place is definitely not a must-see destination.

Decision: 5 out of 10 sore feet

Summer Palace

Although getting there was infuriating, the Summer Palace was my favorite destination on our trip to Beijing. There are many tourists, but the scenery is beautiful.

Decision: 9 out of 10 ambling paths

Temple of Heaven

I bought the all-inclusive ticket that has three little stubs, each of which are torn off at the various sites within the park. It turns out that there are FOUR places, which means that you must pay MORE money to see the last place. When the guard at the fourth site told me this, I literally threw a tantrum at him and stormed off. I went before 9:00am, and the place was packed, which surprised me considering it covers just about three square kilometers.

Decision: 3 out of 10 sucker tourists

First Day Impressions of Beijing (+ Free Stuff!)

Last week, Melissa and I more survived Beijing than visited it. There are many words that come to mind when I think of Beijing, but ‘volume’ is by far the most meaningful. This is a city where most city blocks are or seem to be over a half mile long, and all the while you are walking, these massive and imposing hero-sized buildings mock your pathetic efforts to get to the next intersection. So yeah, I think that Beijing may be a little bit too big. 

Volume aside, Beijing offers many sights, and prompts you to visit ALL of them. Beijing has one of the largest sections in the Lonely Planet guide, and it makes every last place seem like a must-see. Considering this added pressure, we laced up our most comfortable shoes and took to the streets.

We only had half of a day for our first day in Beijing, but it turned out to be one of the most memorable days thanks to a few friends of ours. We rode into Beijing with our friend Kelly, and once we were settled into our hostel rooms, we met up with our friend, JB. We were walking around a park when JB’s dad called to invite us to the Beijing Symphony. What a guy! 

So, we scrambled around trying to get ready and by the time we got there, the performance was almost half over! Luckily, we were able to sheepishly enter the performance hall during intermission. 

The performance was great, but the National Centre for the Performing Arts was the real show stopper. It looks like a futuristic, giant half-egg that landed in the middle of a man-made lake. 

The entrance is before the water, and it has you walk underneath so that you are able to see the water through a glass ceiling. The inside of the actual building is so enormous that it resembles an airport, but it is also one of the most beautiful buildings in which I have ever set foot. Unfortunately, I wasn’t allowed to take any photos of the main building. Boo!

Afterwards, the generosity continued from JB’s father, as he took us out to a late dinner at the Lan Club. This is where we had our first taste of Beijing Duck, and man, was it good! 

Thus ended our first day (and free food/entertainment) in Beijing…

Zwischel: in Beijing

Guess what? Melissa and I don't have class until the 16th, so we're taking full advantage of the situation by travelling to Beijing for five or so days! We leave tonight on an overnight train, which will be our second attempt at such transportation trip to Yangshuo, being the first), so our fingers are crossed...

We arrive in Beijing on the afternoon of the 5th, and we look forward to seeing things like the Great Wall of China, the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace, among the potpourri of other things to do in that gigantic city. One thing that is bothering me about our trip though is the timing... Today is the twentieth anniversary of a certain little incident that happened at TS.

I didn't really know why China's censors were kicking into overdrive these past few months, but considering the momentous anniversary at hand, it's all starting to make sense. Of the sites that don't work anymore in China, I believe this list now includes Youtube, Blogger, Twitter, Tumblr, Livejournal, Xanga, Wordpress, Friendfeed, Flickr and Live.com. I guess I should feel lucky that Gmail still works! All of these social networking sites could be used to disseminate information about the Western view of what happened twenty years ago in Beijing, so the government shut it all down.

So, why would the Chinese government shut down sites that relay information about an event that everybody already knows about? Well, it turns out that most Chinese don't know about it, or have been convinced that it wasn't that big of a deal. It is not taught or referred to by anyone in Chinese society, and when it was happening twenty years ago, the entirely state-owned media spun it so it looked like a bunch of unruly hippies disturbing the peace.

Some people in China do, however, recognize the significance of this anniversary, and they have decided to wear white today as a form of protest. You see, white is the traditional Chinese color for mourning. Even our field director sent us an email last night warning us not to wear white today. Therefore, it came to our surprise that so many students and teachers were wearing white today. Were they silently protesting? Nope. They were just wearing what they always wear! It seems that Yueyang doesn't recognize this day like the rest of the world does, which makes sense considering the control on information. 

As I was saying before, the timing of our trip is pretty bad because I fear that things might be a little bit more restricted than usual in Beijing. Tourist sites that may be open to the public may be closed, etc. Also, the weather's supposed to suck... Yeah, that too.

In any case, we will bring our camera and attempt to document the whole experience for you guys, so look out for us in about a week! 

Petronas Towers: Another View

The last stop during our Spring Festival vacation was Kuala Lumpur. Malaysia was a pleasant surprise due in part to the fact that it was an unintended destination. We had to leave Thailand earlier than expected, so we decided to see a little bit of Malaysia instead of renewing our passports at the border and going back to Thailand. Besides, we'd just spent two weeks hanging out on a beach, so it was about time we crammed some culture into our vacation. In any case, I've mostly been letting our PICTURES tab speak for the vacation, but I just uncovered this video that I took while standing in the plaza outside of Suria KLCC & the Petronas Towers that gives another perspective to the photos.

According to Wikipedia, the Petronas Towers stand at a height of almost 1,500 ft. and are the tallest twin towers in the world. Much more than this, they are beautiful to behold, especially at night, when they light up the sky with their brilliant white highlights. Beneath the towers lies Suria KLCC, which houses a transportation hub and giant mall. We spent the good part of an afternoon walking around the mall to escape a torrential downpour. The above video was shot just after the rain stopped.

I'll probably start posting more about our vacation because I miss it so damn much. Prepare yourselves!

Cullen

7 Star Park Gets 2 Stars

We needed to spend our last night in Guilin to catch an early train, and we decided to see what it has to offer. Our Lonely Planet guide (half-heartedly) recommends 7 Star Park as a must-see for any tourist (stuck) in Guilin. So, whilst in purgatory, we decided to give it a shot.

Once the staggering 60 RMB (per person) admission price was paid, we wandered over to the 7 Star Cave. This cave, like the one we visited in Fenghuang, is highlighted in neon lights throughout (although the one in Fenghuang was better). To be honest, the main reason for our entering the cave was to escape the sun. We took many pictures of the cave, which are accessible via the 'PICTURES' tab at the top of this site.

Here is a shot of Melissa noticing a bat fluttering in the semi-darkness.

There was a monkey dragging its butt on a picnic table.

There was a rock shaped like a camel. Or a llama. I'm not too sure.

That was pretty much all we did in Guilin. T'was boring.

Cullen

Li River 360

During our trip to Yangshuo, Melissa used her masterful bargaining skills to obtain a 35 RMB, hour-long bamboo river cruise, which originally cost 60 RMB! While negotiating, Melissa seemed to be powered by a mix of feigned apathy and just a touch of anger. In the end, it paid off! Take that, touts!!

I shot the above video on said bamboo cruise, much to Melissa's chagrin. Enjoy!

Cullen

Yangshuo is Beautiful

There's no getting around it. The scenery around Yangshuo is very beautiful. Apparently, Chinese artists have been painting the Yangshuo landscapes for many moons.

To enjoy this loveliness, we took a scenic bike tour through farming communities.

We saw orange plantations.

We sat on the grass.

We spied many-a-mild-mannered water buffalo.

We were not attacked by zombies.

We were hideously sunburned. :D

Cullen

This is a Lovely-BU YAO!!

There has been one travel destination that has eluded Melissa and me for the longest time. It seemed as though everybody we know has been there, and the Lonely Planet book called it a must-see! What is this place? A mountainous town in northern Guangxi province called Yangshuo!

Our students were testing Monday - Wednesday, which meant that we did not have to teach or anything for five days including the weekend. So we booked an overnight train to Guilin (the jumping-off point for Yangshuo) and packed our crap! We only managed to get hard-seat tickets, so the twelve hour train ride was a nightmare. Hard-seats are booths of two facing hard benches that fit three people each. In the middle is a tiny table connected to the wall, but this addition doesn't provide any extra leg room. Melissa claimed to not be able to sleep, so she spent most of her time trying to get me to sleep (AWWWWW!!!!).

We arrived in Guilin before 6:00am, and were almost immediately intercepted by touts. These touts were trying to lead us to hotels or restaurants, but we found that the touts just kept on coming, no matter where we were. We got to Yangshuo fairly early in the morning by bus and had the unpleasant task of walking the tout-gauntlet to find a decent hostel. In addition to the things listed before, they were trying to push bamboo river cruises, flutes of various make, postcards, books, bike excursions, t-shirts, and more.

The touts were everywhere, but it was easy enough (although infinitely annoying) to dismiss them by saying, "xie xie, bu yao," which roughly means 'no thanks.' However, we ran into one tout who would not leave us alone as we tried to absorb the riverside view. She was followed us over to the esplanade area, casually stood beside us as if she too were taking in the marvellous view and began to hawk her bamboo river cruise. We declined, but she would not go away. It was as though as long as we were there, she would continue her sales pitch. It was SO ANNOYING! Just look at the above picture!

So, the touts almost spoiled the trip for me, but I don't want to sound like too much of a Grumpy Gus! We did soak in some of the better activities, which I will tell about in another post. In all, I'm just glad that we got to cross off the trip from our to-do list.

Cullen

Singalong at the Nunnery

On one cold and windy night at Khoune & Khone's Guesthouse, we were eating dinner prepared by Khone and her staff with some of the new guests. One couple was a pair of expats from Shanghai, so we got to talk about China a bit (although our experiences from the countryside differed wildy). After dinner, we were all whisked off (via ancient army-style Jeep) to a local Buddhist nunnery for a celebration that was unidentifiable to me at the time, but Wikipedia has since informed me that it is the sabbath day, Uposatha.

After a wind-swept and jarring ride through Luang Prabang, we arrived at the nunnery. It is located at the top of a big hill that must offer a magnificent view of the city and countryside during the daylight hours.

One thing that startled me a little about this nunnery was that there were so many Lao people! If you walk around LP all day, you might come to the conclusion that it is some sort of a lost-in-the-jungle European city with the number of white people walking around! However, our small group from the guesthouse was the only bunch of honkies at this swarming nunnery! A feeling of 'otherness' crept over me, just as in China. This was a genuine Lao ceremony, and everyone was looking at us like, 'Are you lost? The pizzeria is on the main drag...'

Feelings of otherness aside, I'm really glad that we got to see what this kind of a celebration is really like. There were many novices and nuns walking around with the townsfolk. Some children were watching a cartoon about the young Buddha inside the temple. And...

...there was singing and music! This went on for a while, but I only caught a little bit of it. Melissa found herself as the object of a certain nun's interest, and they talked and talked and talked until Melissa had to painfully excuse herself from the conversation to catch her ride back to K&K!

Cullen

Story Time! The One About the Lao Shaman...

Okay, so here's something that you don't see every day...

We set up a Lao jungle trek through our guesthouse, Khoune & Khone's Guesthouse (highly recommended, although cold at night and during breakfast) with two other brave guests. The cost was $40.00 US, which, to be perfectly frank, was about $35.00 US too expensive for us, considering that we planned on travelling for another 23 days or so.

Anyhoo, Khoune, us guests and a bunch of his staff hopped into the back of a covered pickup truck, which left from the guesthouse in the morning. Our first stop was to be a pretty dern authentic Hmong village (this ain't no Jamestown). Fun fact: the Hmong ethnic group is the same as the Miao ethnic group. Miao is the Chinese name, and Hmong is the Lao name. Rock and William are Miao/Hmong, so when we showed them the photos of the Hmong village, it was especially poignant for them... or not. I don't know!

We saw a bunch of interesting things, such as a 23 year old mother of four, showing off the newest member of her brood...

...a bong used exclusively for tobacco (honest injun!). Michael Phelps should have used the same excuse as the Hmong people...

...and a real-live shaman talking with a bunch of spirits! I don't know what he wanted to say to them, but if it were me, I would have asked for help down! Looks vom-inducing...

Okay, so the above video is more Khoune and a little kid standing a the doorway than actual footage of the shaman, but the next one has a little more action...

Errr, did I say more action? I meant more footage of a dead pig. I felt a little too much like a voyeur taking any footage of the shaman. So as to not offend, my shameful lens often fell upon the dead pig. Between shots of the pig, you can almost get an idea of what's going on. The shaman is standing barefoot on a suspended wooden plank while wearing a black bag on his head. The scent of incense was strong, as everybody knows that spirits love the smell of sandalwood.

I hope you enjoyed the pics and vids! Let me know what you guys think of the videos, and more importantly, what do you think of my future as a cameraman (any tips on capturing the motion picture?)?

Cullen

Hong Kong: Lantau Island

Lantau Island lies to the East of Hong Kong Island, but is easily accessible by way of MTR or ferry. It is billed as having a number of cultural attractions and loads of natural activities, such as hiking and swimming at beaches. The two cultural attractions that I wanted to see were the Tian Tan Buddha and the Po Lin Monastery (there is also a fishing village and Disneyland, but since we didn't see those places, I won't comment on them). These seemed like nice, authentic sights to see before we wandered off to take a dip in the ocean.

We arrived by MTR and discovered that we would have to take further transportation to the statue and monastery. We would have to take either a bus or a cable car dubbed the 'Ngong Ping 360' (The cable car ends in a village called Ngong Ping, but as far as we could tell, the village is just a terminus for the cable car. Seriously, it's just a newly-built street lined with expensive souvenir shops). We took the bus (partially out of spite towards the cable car's name), which we later found was a terrible mistake. It was a winding and jerky 45 minute ride up and down many mountains, that I felt should have taken far less time, as it seemed like we were driving in a roundabout way. I just asked Melissa if she wanted to add anything about the bus ride, and she replied, "Just that it made me wanna puke." Well said. Anyways, 45 minutes later, we get off the bus from Hell, already feeling violated by this tourist trap. We look around at the hundreds, maybe thousands of tourists flocking up the stairs towards the Buddha statue and join them. 

By this point, Melissa was an unhappy camper. After we had walked up many, many steps to the top, I started to feel a little used. I mean, the statue is big and all, but there were so many people getting in the way of everybody else's pictures that it was hard to enjoy it. I kept telling myself that there must be some saving grace to the Buddha. Maybe it is a few hundred years old? I later found out that it was built in 1993 (it's as old as the students I teach) and that it faces North (towards Beijing), instead of West (towards you know where). Son of a...

The monastery was a lot more interesting than the statue, but that isn't saying much. There were still a lot of people walking around, but there were so many ornate details in the decor that everyone kind of blended in. In fact, that is the thing I remember most about the monastery. 

The walls, ceilings and smaller statues were intricately detailed with lots of colors and etchings. They provided a vegetarian lunch that Melissa describes as 'PBBBBBBBT!' Needless to say, no pics were taken of that, but we did agree that we would need to at least try to locate a beach. That, however, was easier said than done.

First, we ended up wandering up a service path, lined with broken televisions and old dog houses. It may seem like an honest mistake, but we were actually hoping to take the path less travelled. We wanted to do some get-back-to-nature trailblazing. So, we went off on the path that nobody was taking (and for good reason). Then, we walked up to a fork in the road, where we discovered that we were miles and miles away from any beach, and many hiking trails were closed due to rock slides. 

But all was not lost! Right at that very spot where we stood was the ancient Wisdom Path! Okay, so it's not ancient, or even authentic for that matter. It's a bunch of split trees with Buddhist sayings carved on them, which are arranged in an infinity symbol. Well, as you may have gathered, we did not end up finding any beach, or anything off of the planned tourist areas. So, we were pretty bummed about that. 

Maybe we felt like we were wasting our time on Lantau Island because it was our last day in Hong Kong, and there was still so much that we wanted to do. At least that gives us some more incentive to go back!

Cullen

Hong Kong: Kowloon Park in the Morning

On the second morning, I dragged Melissa out of bed at the ass-crack of 8:00am to take a stroll through Kowloon Park, which was located about two blocks away. The above photo is taken at the Southern edge of Kowloon Park. 

Overall, the park is pretty nice, if on the small side (I think it's 6 square city blocks, or so). As shown from the above photo, there were a bunch of birds hanging out around the park. The birds that could get away, however, were penned up in an aviary.

This is a shot of the 'Chinese Garden' section of the park, which is where Kung Fu lessons were taking place for a group of youngsters.

It looked like Tai Chi was being practiced in large groups all over the park. Notice the strange statues around this group. I actually came to the park wanting to see people practicing something that rhymes with talon song (I won't write the actual name, because I don't want our blog to be blocked). I read that these people would be in the park during the morning hours from a book called Lost on Planet China. However, when I arrived, I realized that I wouldn't be able to recognize them if they slapped me in the face. Oh well.

Here is Melissa being brave and smiling for an early morning photo. What a trooper! 

I too wanted proof that I was in the park, so Melissa took this shot. Yay!

Cullen