seeking shanghai.

every [mis]adventure of my six months in china

[ikwt]

Shanghai (reycanlasjr) | instagram

[ohlordofficial-deactivated20181]

[citylandscapes]

Shanghai, China.

[thelavishsociety]

Skyscrapers in Shanghai by David D | LVSH

[citylandscapes]

Shanghai, China.

[meganann823]

Week 24: The End.

The end has come. I survived 6 months in China and am now back in my little apartment in Ames writing this blog, as predicted :), although I realize it is a few days late. I’ve just been so busy since I got back! But we’ll get to that. First, I’ll tell you about my last few days in China. I’ve only been back in the U.S. for less than 4 days, but thinking back to Shanghai feels like an unbelievably long time ago, like a different life; it was just so surreal that now that I’m back in my normal life, it’s almost hard to believe it happened at all.  The amount of mental distancing my brain has already done is impressive and somewhat inexplicable, as if it wants to block out something traumatic. In fact I had to dig out my little Chinese phone and look back at wechats to even remember much from July 27th-31st.

But anyway, the miserable hot weather continued during my last week in Shanghai, giving me all the more reason to count down the hours until my escape. So although I didn’t have much work to do during my last few days, I enjoyed just spending time in the air conditioned office. Monday night I decided to have dinner at the little chicken stand for the last time and did a little more packing.  On Tuesday I headed to the Food Embassy for lunch to spend the rest of the money on my silly food card and got the same giant bowl of noodles from my first visit there. After work on Tuesday I decided to stop by a mall that’s close-by because a co-worker was telling my about how it has curved escalators! Curved! Escalators! Of course I had to check that out. I rode the curved escalators all the way up and thoroughly enjoyed it. 

Curved! Escalator!

Curved escalators. Oh, China.

Unfortunately I had to take boring straight escalators down, but that’s okay. It was a very fancy mall, as are common in Shanghai, so it was just kind of fun to be inside and look around.  Tuesday night I did laundry in order to continue the last of my packing. By this point I was very concerned about meeting the baggage limits.  

On Wednesday I eventually came up with a plan.  I had been planning on checking my giant suitcase and then having a small duffle and messenger bag as carry-ons. But since I was worried about the weight of my giant suitcase, I decided I’d take the heaviest stuff out of it and put that all in the duffle and then check that as a second bag.  All the heavy things in the duffle of course meant I couldn’t put my laptop in there, which I’d been planning, so instead my carry-ons were my laptop bag and my messenger bag.  I’d been figuring the fee for checking a second bag would at least be less than the fee for an overweight bag, which is true, but it still ended up being $100. I got my hopes up for a minute because online United said my flight allowed 2 bags for free, but then when I went to check in for my flight online on Thursday, they said I only got one :(. But Mom came to the rescue and paid for my second bag like the lifesaver she is because I’m not a responsible adult and I buy too many things when I visit foreign countries. In my defense, most of the things I bought are gifts for other people, so it’s the thought that counts, right? ;)

Thursday was my last day at work and I went out to lunch with two of my coworkers at a café nearby that’s apparently heavily frequented by our office but I somehow was unaware and hadn’t been there yet. Due to this office popularity, we were also joined by our boss for a little while a bit later on, but she was busy as bosses often are and couldn’t stay long.  I got a Greek salad that had feta cheese on it and I’m sure you can imagine from my blog where I talked about the importance of Starbucks and my salad there how excited I was about that. Also, feta cheese. They don’t eat much cheese in China so it was always a rare treat. I maybe should’ve spent my last few meals in China eating, like, Chinese food, but I sort of swung the other way and was just kind of tired of Chinese food and couldn’t really do it anymore.  After lunch, to my surprise, they told me I could just go home and finish my packing. I really had absolutely nothing to do at work that day since obviously they aren’t going to start me on something new on my last day, so it made sense. I just hadn’t expected it, so it was a nice surprise. I was a tiny bit sad to leave the A/C but it ended up being really helpful to have the extra time. It probably would’ve been a late night otherwise. I even took a walk around campus and took some photos and then I finished all my packing and cleaned my room a bit, although I’m not sure that was necessary. I’d just feel bad leaving it a mess.  

Hey, Mao. This is right when you enter the main gates of campus.

The little canal that runs through campus.

I also found a scale! As I was running around packing I remembered that I’d seen one in the laundry room.  So I lugged my giant bag down there to double-check and it was a good thing I’d decided on a second bag. When I put everything in it, it was over by about 6kg, but when I took all the heavy stuff out it was just under the limit.  Once I was finished with all that, I went and met up with Rachel for a sort of farewell dinner. I felt bad since she’s had to go to so many of those lately with everyone leaving and her staying, but we just went to a little Japanese restaurant in the plaza outside the University. Again, not really Chinese food for my last meal in China, but I’m okay with that.  It felt weird to say goodbye to Rachel, weird that she wasn’t coming back to Ames with me. It was tough to sleep that night. I was excited and nervous on top of the usual miserable heat and tiny, uncomfortable bed, but I managed almost 8 hours or so of somewhat restless sleep.

The excitement and nerves only intensified the next morning as I went about getting rid of/packing up the last of my possessions.  I went to the little print shop and printed my boarding passes and then around 11 am I went to the front desk to check out. I wasn’t sure what all that would entail but I just had to give them my room key and then go up to my room with one of the workers so they could check that I hadn’t broken or stolen anything. I passed with flying colors and was sent on my way.  It was strange closing the door on the little room I’d lived in for 6 months and knowing I wouldn’t be back.  

Bye, little room!

I knew it would be a task to get all my luggage to the metro/all the way to the airport, but I had underestimated just how much of a struggle that was.  Let me just set the scene for you. It’s sunny and at least 100 degrees even though it’s only like 11:30 am, I’m wearing jeans and boots so that I don’t have to accommodate their space/weight in my bags, and I’m carrying a 50 lb rolling suitcase with a heavy 17in laptop in its bag on top of it, plus a duffle bag full of heavy things on my back like a backpack and my messenger bag hanging in front of me.  It’s probably only a 10 minute walk to the metro station under normal circumstances, but I had to switch pulling-hands on my suitcase probably every 30 seconds and my hands felt bruised for two days afterwards. When I was probably ¾ of the way to the metro, I heard someone call my name and it was one of my Italian friends from when I first arrived! He offered to help with my bags and I’ve never been more grateful to anyone in my life. I was sweating so much by that point I probably looked like I’d just gotten out of the shower.  But it was great because not only did I get help with my bags, but I got to say goodbye to a friend I hadn’t seen in a while. What a coincidence that the moment I would run into him was as I was literally on my way to the airport to fly home.  Thankfully I did make it to the metro and after fighting with the turnstiles for a minute or two, I even made it onto the train.  I knew the worst part of the trek to the airport was over because once I was underground, I’d be indoors from there until I arrived at the airport and therefore out of the heat. My bags weren’t any lighter, but at least I wasn’t out in 100+ degrees anymore. I’d decided to take the maglev because it’s faster and less annoying than the metro, so I made it to the airport with plenty of time, right on the schedule I’d made for myself.

Needless to say, I was 100x happier once I was able to check my bags, which I was able to do without trouble.  The weight limit was 23kg and my big suitcase ended up at 22.2. Yikes! But I made it. However, my flight was delayed because the plane was late coming in from Chicago, so I had even more time at the airport than I’d thought I’d have. But I didn’t mind. Once I got through security and all that, I was just happy to not be lugging around my bags anymore, to be in air conditioning, and to be on my way home. I stopped at a café and had a milkshake and then just wandered around all the fancy airport shops for a while. I like airports. I was concerned that the delay would make my connection in Chicago difficult, which it did, but there was nothing I could do about it at that point and I still had a 13 hour flight to get through before I really had to worry about it, so for once in my life I managed to suspend the worry temporarily. There was obviously absolutely nothing I could do to make the plane go faster, so all I could do was sit tight for 13 hours and hope for the best.

For a 13 hour flight, it really wasn’t too bad.  I was irritated by the woman next to me, but what can you do? I was supposed to have an empty seat next to me for whatever reason, someone didn’t show up or who knows, but this woman decided she wanted to sit there. I was angry because I was in the middle row of seats, which is 4 seats wide; I was on one edge, then there was a man on the opposite edge and two open seats in between us, and the woman sat in the empty seat next to me instead of the one next to the other guy… Lame. She then proceeded to bump into me, a lot, eat sunflower seeds loudly, and play some weird Chinese movie on her iPad without headphones. Well, technically she was wearing headphones and they even appeared to be plugged in, but the sound was definitely still coming out of the iPad. I put up with it for about 10 minutes and then I couldn’t stand it anymore (a surprising amount of people in China will do that, just watch whatever they’re watching on their devices without headphones and force everyone around them to listen to it too) so I tapped her on the shoulder and politely pointed out that I wasn’t sure her headphones were working since I could hear her movie.  She assured me that they were working, but turned the volume down anyway. I wasn’t able to hear it anymore either way, thankfully, so I was happy enough, but I think she was very confused about her technology. Aaaanyway, so they served dinner right away and once that was all finished and cleared away, we’d been in the air about 2 hours. Then they shut the lights off in the cabin, so I decided to try to sleep and somehow managed it on and off for about 6 hours. So I was pleasantly surprised when I finally looked at the time again and saw that we were over halfway through the flight. After that I watched some TV shows on my iPad (with headphones) with the free wifi connection they had. If you wanted to do anything other than watch TV/movies, you had to pay like $20, but the TV/movies were free, so that was nice. Then I read for a bit and soon enough we were descending towards Chicago.  

Of course as the flight went on, my resolve against not worrying was weakening and as we taxied for a solid 30 minutes, I became more and more convinced I couldn’t make it. I had less than an hour to go through customs, collect my bags, recheck them, transfer terminals, re-clear security, and find my new gate. Yeah, right.  I’d even gotten a text from United when I landed saying my connecting flight had already departed (not true) and that they’d rebooked me for the NEXT MORNING! Nope nope nope nope nope. Of course I tried my hardest to make it anyway (maybe even more so now that I was trying to avoid having to spend the night in Chicago) even though they’d obviously already decided I wouldn’t make it; I was freaking running through O’Hare. But there’s nothing you can do to speed up your bags coming through the carousel, and that proved to be the death of me. It’s unlikely that I’d have made it anyway, but I waited for my bags for probably 20 minutes. The longest 20 minutes of my life. My connecting flight did end up being delayed, but not long enough.  A lot of people had delayed flights and were as frazzled and confused as I was, but the airport employees seemed to take pity on me. Perhaps another occurrence of what I’ve termed the lost-puppy phenomenon (first witnessed when I was trying to get to Australia).  And although she’ll never see this, I’d like to sincerely thank the woman working in customs at O’Hare who took the time to so calmly and sincerely explain to me where I needed to go and what I needed to do even though her job is probably very monotonous and boring and enough to make the calmest person a little irritable. There are an outrageous number of steps involved in the whole process of arriving in the U.S. and transferring to a connecting flight and all that and at that point I wasn’t even sure if I should be rechecking my bags since I was positive I wouldn’t make my flight and thought I’d have to wait until the next morning, but she very kindly helped me to understand and it made me want to cry even more (but in a good way).  Even though I did miss my original flight, things ended up more or less okay.

When I got to the bag re-check area, they asked if I’d missed my flight and I said it left in 7 minutes, so they had me get in line instead of just dropping my bags and running. I was irritated when I got up to the desk and the woman said I probably could’ve made it since my flight was delayed, even though it was her coworkers who had told me to get in line instead. But I still think she was wrong because it was only delayed like 10 minutes, which would’ve given me a grand total of 17 minutes to transfer terminals, re-clear security, and find my gate, things which afterwards took me at least 30-45 minutes.  And I’m sure my bags wouldn’t have gotten on that plane.  Either way, whether I “could have” or not, I did not make that flight. But I also did not have to wait until the next morning. Well… technically I did, but I’ll get to that. She was able to put me on a flight through a different airline that left at 9:55 pm. At that point it was about 7:30 pm, so I finally was able to quit hurrying. I would get back a bit later than I’d planned, but still, I’d get back. And I didn’t have to stay overnight. There were plenty of other people in the line of missed flights who were getting hotel vouchers instead of boarding passes. So I took my leisurely time once I was through security. I got an iced tea (in English!) and stopped by a bathroom to change out of my gross, sweaty t-shirt. At least I’d had the foresight to pack an extra one in my carry-on. Then I just hung out at the gate, reading and waiting to board. It was only then that it really hit me that I was back in the United States.  Our plane arrived on time, but then we were informed that maintenance was on the plane and we couldn’t board just yet. They kept pushing the flight further and further back just 15-20 minutes at a time and people around me were starting to get convinced that it was going to be cancelled.  That freaked me out. I hadn’t even considered that as a possibility. I’d thought that once I got rebooked on that flight, all my problems were solved and I’d be home in no-time. I could not handle a cancellation. I was already a bit of a wreck and had done my fair share of crying-in-public earlier that evening.  

I was sitting right by the desk and I noticed a lot of people are big jerks. I understand we all just wanted to get home, but didn’t they think the employees would rather go home than hang around and wait for our flight to leave as well?  I’ve just never understood why people blame the employees like that for things that are obviously out of control. And just on a practical note, if they approach the counter all bitchy and hostile, do they really think anyone is going to want to help them? I certainly wouldn’t go out of my way for someone like that.  On a side note, once we did get on the plane, I noticed that all the worst complainers were sitting in first class, so maybe that just tells you a little bit about the types of people they are… But through the whole ordeal at O’Hare, I always tried to be friendly to the workers. And I don’t say that to point out what a good person I am, but I’ve learned that it’s genuinely more effective. Just be respectful of your fellow humans and thank them genuinely when they help you out instead of considering it your due. Also, crying a little never hurts ;).  Plus if you’re hostile to a customs officer, you never know what that could lead to. I always think customs is so odd because I can never clearly tell when the officers are just making small talk or when they’re interrogating me. Maybe the whole thing is an interrogation disguised as small talk? I don’t know. It seems a little tricksy to me, but it’s probably effective. Welcome back to the U.S.! May we interest you in a seemingly innocuous conversation that could lead your jetlag-addled brain into saying something incriminating?

Anyway, that was backtracking a little bit.  Back to the delayed flight.  Eventually one of the workers at the desk went out to the plane to talk to the maintenance workers and see if he could get some idea of how long it would be. (People didn’t seem to understand that they literally knew just as much about the situation as we did.) However, he didn’t return for a long time so then the second desk worker went out there as well to check on him and we were left with no one to complain to or blame face-to-face for at least another 15-20 minutes.  By this point our 9:55pm flight was delayed until at least 11:45.  Finally they both came back through the jetway doors and I swear everyone in the gate held their breath. We were the only flight left in that part of the airport. The guy announced, “So I have good news and bad news…” *pin-drop silence* “The good news is… You’re going!” *literal CHEERS from his audience* “The bad news.. You have to walk down to gate G6.” And so our little band of weary travelers walked back to the other gate where it said we’d depart at 12:20 am. So this is where I technically did have to wait until the next morning. But not nearly as bad as it could have been.  I cannot describe the relief I felt when we were actually in the air on the way to Des Moines.  The whole time I was in Chicago, whether it was when I thought I’d have to wait 12 hours or 2, I just could not handle the thought that I was SO, SO CLOSE to home, but couldn’t get there.  This is further illustrated by the fact that during the amount of time our flight from Chicago to Des Moines was delayed, we could’ve made the 50 minute flight three times over. I mean it’s just ridiculously close, a textbook example of “so close, yet so far”.

But, after AAALLL that, *drumroll please*…. I made it! We landed in the empty little Des Moines airport a little after 1 am and Jake met me in the baggage claim :). Both my bags even made it without a hassle! I was a little worried after all the nonsense in Chicago. He said he almost didn’t recognize me because of my hair, but I think he was just joking.. I think. We’d wanted to go get pizza when I got back, but since it ended up being so late we decided to kick the America up a notch and go to McDonald’s at 2 am. Because what says freedom more than that? It might sound obvious, but the first things I noticed when I left the Des Moines airport were the lack of people and the air: both the comfortable temperature and the fact that it smelled SO FRESH. Like I was standing in the middle of a cornfield! Which, on a large scale, I guess Des Moines/Ames are in the middle of cornfields. Of course, words can’t describe how excited I was to see Jake again after six months, and I’m looking forward to seeing my family too in the next few days :)!  Because I’m a jerk I kept him up until 3 am unpacking because I hate not unpacking immediately and plus, I wasn’t tired thanks to my confused inner clock. The next day he worked until 4 pm, during which time I drove for the first time in 6 months to go to the bank and exchange my remaining yuan for dollars.  Everything in Ames just seems SO calm compared to Shanghai. And it’s wonderful. It just seems so relaxed. I feel like I’ve been wound like a spring for 6 months and just hadn’t even noticed it until I got back and was able to un-wind a bit. Like I was just on edge constantly and didn’t realize how exhausting it had been until all of a sudden, I wasn’t.  After Jake was done with work, we went to Target and the grocery store, both of which I was really excited about, which is saying something because I usually hate going to the grocery store.  After we finished our errands, we went and got the pizza we couldn’t get the night before and it was glorious.  Cheesy and garlicky and American and glorious. Yes I understand pizza is technically Italian but not the way that Americans do it. And I don’t think anyone is going to argue that Jeff’s Pizza in Ames, Iowa is anything other than American food.  After dinner we took a drive around Ames so I could see what had changed while I was away, which was interesting.  Then yesterday we took a trip to Des Moines so I could go shopping :). That was fun. Also! I got a haircut yesterday :)! FINALLY! The first thing I did on Saturday morning was schedule an appointment for as soon as possible and I can’t describe how happy it makes me. My hair was driving me absolutely crazy. I don’t know how I ever used to put up with long hair, it’s awful.

Here’s what 6 months of not getting a haircut looks like! On the left was taken less than a week before leaving China, looking bewildered by all the hair on my head, and on the right is a picture from today with my new haircut :)!

So that’s that! I’m back! Today Jake is at work so I’ve been trying to sort of catch up on things, blog included. Like I mentioned at the beginning of the blog, it’s honestly hard to believe that less than a week ago I was living in Shanghai, China. Just writing it seems ridiculous, like it must be about some other person. Not me. I’ve been surprised at how easily I could just slide right back into my old comfortable life.  It just feels so normal, so natural, after having to practically fight for every single thing in Shanghai.  But although the surroundings feel the same, I feel different. That sounds cliché, but it’s true. There’s just a sort of restlessness kind of hiding away in me right now. Not a restlessness to leave home, I don’t think I’ll want to do that again for a long time, but in a way that’s why I’ve been so busy these past two days. I feel like I just need to do everything, all at once. Like if I just sit for too long I’ll get unbearably bored.  It’s almost like I just don’t quite fit into the space I left.  I’ve always been fairly complacent, fairly content, and I certainly still am but somehow I feel like from now on I’ll just need to make more of an effort towards life, perhaps more notably, I’ll want to.  It’s not like I want my life to be harder, I love how simple my life in Ames is, particularly in the summer, but I just have more of a drive now to do things, see things, make my time worthwhile. Does this mean I’ll never again spend an entire weekend watching Netflix? Of course not. But what it does mean is that maybe when some sort of opportunity or occasion does occur, I’ll be more likely to go after it, to work hard for whatever it is. Is this overly optimistic and will the last year of working towards my Master’s degree crush this out of me in a week? Possibly. But all I’m saying is how I feel right now, and that’s that world travel changes you. It sounds silly and cliché but it really does, in immeasurable ways. And that doesn’t mean that I’m now unhappy with my life and the people in it, in fact it’s more like I appreciate it all even more because of the fact that I’ve outgrown my mold (which I’m sure I’ll shift to fit me again in no time) because it’s given me distance and objectivity. The distance of 6 months in a foreign country is far enough to see your life from outside in and really realize how wonderful it is and doesn’t something that incredible deserve our very best? 

Says the brilliant J.R.R. Tolkien, “All that is gold does not glitter. Not all those who wander are lost.”

Never settle. 

Thanks for sharing the journey with me :).

[meganann823]

Animatronic, anatomic dino says “rawr”.

[meganann823]

Animatronic dino :)

[meganann823]

Week 23: Last blog post from Shanghai!

By the time I write my final blog post next weekend it’ll be from my apartment in Ames :)! I feel like I have a lot to do before I leave 5 days from now, mostly in terms of packing, doing laundry, cleaning, and that sort of thing, but I’m sure I’ll get it all taken care of.  I mean, I don’t really have another option. I can really hardly believe it that I’ll be home in less than a week! China’s been great, but I’m excited to be back in the States.

This week at work was kind of boring because there wasn’t much work for me to do, but I was glad to be there nonetheless just to be able to sit in air conditioning for 9 hours a day. The weather this week has been just ridiculous. I know I’ve complained about the heat in Shanghai already before but this is a new record. Yesterday the heat index was 115 and today I saw 113. What?! How do people live like this?! I have never experienced those temperatures before and hope to never experience them again as long as I live.

One thing that was cool on Wednesday was that Jim Goettsch was visiting the office from Chicago (Goettsch as in Goettsch Partners, the name of the firm, of course) and I got to meet him and he talked to me a bit about my time in China and about Iowa State since he’s an alumni there.  Then on a much-less-important-but-still-notable-for-blog-purposes note, I went out for lunch on Wednesday and decided to go back to the fancy mall and the “Food Embassy” on the top floor. While trying to decide what to order, I figured out why I’d caused a fuss by paying in cash last time. I saw a family of some other Westerners ordering food and noticed the card they were using looked odd and then sure enough I looked behind me and there were machines where you buy pre-paid cards for that specific food court. To me that seems super weird and inconvenient, but of course I had to get one and therefore avoided angering the workers a second time with my ignorance.  I chose a Korean bibimbap stall and it was pretty good. There were a lot of mushrooms, but I survived. Also, it was so pretty! 

My Korean bibimbap from the fancy food court

It’s obviously a high-class, gourmet food court or something, not like your average American mall food court.  I have just enough money left on my silly prepaid card to get lunch one more time this week, so it should work out perfectly.

Thursday was eventful (but not in a good way) as my iPhone’s battery died overnight thereby preventing its alarm from going off. I woke up 25 minutes before I had to leave for work. And let me emphasize, this does not happen to me. I do not oversleep. This is the second time in my adult life I can remember it happening (and it wasn’t frequent even during my teenage years) and both times were because of alarm failure. I mean, I don’t even use the snooze button! I am good at waking up! The first time it happened my alarm clock was broken and this time, of course, a dead iPhone was the cause. Somehow I managed to shower and get ready and even make myself a PB&J while still getting to work on time, but it was stressful. The annoying part was I had woken up 20 minutes before my alarm was supposed to go off, but I looked at the time on my Chinese phone, not my iPhone, which was presumably already dead by that time, and thought I’d just rest for another 20 minutes and wait for my alarm instead of getting up but as you can now predict, I woke up over an hour later, 55 minutes after my alarm should’ve gone off, and immediately panicked because I could tell I’d been asleep for way more than 20 minutes.  The first thing I did was accusingly look at my iPhone for failing me and that’s when I realized the battery had died. But I made it! So I suppose that’s all that matters. Jake had tried to wake me up but of course I sleep with my Chinese phone on silent and without my other devices connected to wifi. That’s just how confident I am in my waking-up abilities and it almost never lets me down, but Thursday was obviously an exception.  Friday was another day of nothing for me at work, but it was one of my coworkers’ birthday on Saturday, so we celebrated on Friday with chocolate cake and wine (at work!) Also, because it was Friday, I’d gotten a Starbucks scone and orange juice from the office breakfast rotation, so it was a day full of free food, which is a great thing and helps to break up the day when you’re an intern with nothing to do.

Basically the themes of the week were: awful hot weather, boring work days, and counting down everything. Like I’ve been counting the days until I leave of course, but I also can’t help myself from counting other things, like the amount of rush hours I’ll have left to endure on the metro, amount of showers I’ll take, nights I’ll sleep. Of course most of these numbers are the same unless it’s something that happens twice a day like rush hour, but I like thinking about it in as many different contexts as possible because I’m a big dweeb :). However, once the weekend came the hot weather theme remained, in fact intensified, but my new focus was souvenir/gift shopping with a few last sight-seeing occasions thrown in.  I got up fairly early on Saturday, mostly because I couldn’t really sleep with the heat, but it was a good thing because I wanted to start (and hopefully finish) my shopping as early as possible to try avoid the worst of the crowds and the worst of the heat.  Of course it was a delicate balance between getting things done and not getting up too early on a weekend because no one wants to get up early on a weekend.  However, I did make sure that I set out fairly early because my first shopping destination was Yuyuan Bazaar and that place gets outrageous any day of the week, and weekends especially of course.  I think I was successful though because although of course it was crowded (I mean it is still Shanghai on a Saturday) it wasn’t crowded enough to be disruptive to my shopping and I got things crossed off my list pretty quickly.  Although I left the actual shopping to the last minute, I’ve been planning for a long time, so it was more a task of just finding the things I wanted to buy for people rather than looking around and deciding.

An interesting thing happened to me right when I got there, however. I think I almost got scammed. As soon as I got out of the metro, these two Chinese people asked me to take a picture for them and then started to chat with me in really good English, just about where I was from, what I was doing in Shanghai, where I was heading, the usual.  They looked super normal, the guy was probably in his mid-30s and the woman he said was his cousin was probably about my age if not a bit younger.  They said they were just in Shanghai visiting for a few days, but then when I told them where I was heading they tried to tell me how their cousin had said how it’s so busy in the mornings and you should go in the afternoon (which is B.S., I’ve been to Yuyuan Bazaar 3 times now and I know when it’s busy.) They said they were heading nearby to a tea ceremony and said I should go with them and then we could all go to Yuyuan Bazaar afterwards, which was another red flag because I’ve heard about a really common scam (common enough to be put in guidebooks as a warning) where Chinese people tell foreigners they’ll take them to show them a traditional Chinese tea ceremony or whatever and then it ends up being absurdly expensive and they have a deal with the establishment where they get a cut of the money for bringing in the tourists.  So I tried to politely decline, said I had a lot of errands to run, I could handle the crowds, blah blah, but they were super freaking insistent! They weren’t even listening to my excuses at this point, they just kept talking over me saying how it’s really close by and I should really see it since I’ve spent all this time in China without seeing a tea ceremony, and how they wanted to practice their (flawless) English with me and we could all go to the Bazaar afterwards together; they were literally begging me to go with them. I just started to walk away and thank them at that point because that was when it started to feel super sketchy, just that they were so insistent that I go to this damn tea ceremony.  I’ve heard that the “practicing English” line is a common one for scams too, apparently it’s a good way to get foreigners to stay and talk (preferably at an overpriced tea ceremony.)  I mean maybe I’m unforgivably rude for being suspicious and they really were just friendly tourists from outside of Shanghai, but I seriously doubt it. I didn’t suspect anything at first, but then it got weird when they started talking about the tea ceremony. Either way, as a lone female tourist you can never be too cautious.

In fact, I think being a lone female tourist, and probably my age, make me a pretty good target. It’s possible that I was being paranoid by then but I walked less than 10 minutes farther after extricating myself from the tea ceremony people when I was asked by two more Chinese people to take a picture for them, this time a young couple probably about my age. That in itself wasn’t suspicious of course, although it did seem like a weird coincidence, but then they started chatting to me afterwards asking almost the same questions (again, not terribly weird since they’re pretty standard questions to ask foreigners, but I’d expected them to just thank me for the picture and we’d both go on our separate ways), but I was kind of reluctant to answer and kept my body turned as if to walk away. Either they were genuinely friendly and weren’t trying to scam me after all or they decided I was a lost cause because they let me go after a few minutes and thanked me for the picture, but like I said, you can never be too careful. In this case it’s even more likely that I was just being super rude and they were just friendly but it was just too weird of a coincidence, the similarity of the conversation to the one I’d had just 10 minutes previously, so I was extra on-guard and not feeling particularly chatty.  So although I felt bad, I just didn’t really want to take any chances by seeming too eager for a conversation. There was one point that was funny, though, when the woman asked what I was studying and instead of “architecture” she thought I said “acupuncture”. I should’ve just gone with it, much more exciting. Yuyuan is a super touristy area though and now that it’s summer there are a lot more foreigners around, so if you were out to scam some silly Westerners, that would be a good place to camp out and who could be a better target than a young American woman, all by herself, who doesn’t speak the language.  They were probably freaking thrilled to see me come out of the metro. But ha, scammers! I read guide books and I’ve been in China for almost 6 months! I know what’s up! Or I’m just rude.. Also a possibility. But sometimes, particularly in China, you just can’t worry about that.

That was an ongoing theme for the day, actually, as I had to be rude to/entirely ignore the salespeople in the bazaar when they tried to sell me things and bargain with me when I actually wanted something. That still makes me uncomfortable as well, but I’ve gotten better at it.  Not the bargaining part, the ignoring part. I still suck at bargaining. Someone who’s good at bargaining probably could’ve gotten all the things I got for half the total price, but I just hate it. Plus, the stuff is already so cheap! If I genuinely felt it was overpriced, maybe I’d try harder.  I mean, it’s not like I just took the first price they offered me (usually), but I definitely didn’t push hard to get it way down. I suck, I know. But I got everything I wanted for less than I was planning to spend overall, so I didn’t care.  After some time at Yuyuan, I went to my second destination, Tianzifang, another area I’ve been to a couple times but not in a serious shopping mood.  I was in a good mood from crossing so many gifts off my list so quickly and I do enjoy shopping and picking out gifts for people, so aside from the heat I was quite content and enjoying my Saturday. I stopped at a Subway for lunch because I’m a lame American and because it was empty and then continued my gift quest among the little winding alleys.  After just an hour or so I had everything else I’d been hoping to find that day and had walked around a bit just browsing because I really like Tianzifang and then I decided to head back to my dorm to drop off my purchases (and change my shirt since it was all sweaty; that’s how hot it was, it was a 2 shirt kind of day) before heading back into the city to go to the new Shanghai Natural History Museum.

Mostly, I wanted to see the building because it’s super cool, but it was also a pretty neat museum, and air conditioned, which was a key factor in my plans since my room isn’t air conditioned.  

Natural History Museum, all the ugly fences were a bummer (probably not a part of the architect’s vision ;).)

The ticket lines were super congested because they’re in a teeny tiny space for some reason and at one point the line was moving forward and apparently I wasn’t crowding the people in front of me quite as much as I should have been because the man behind me literally put both his hands on both of my shoulders and was trying to push me forward. I whipped around and shot him such a nasty look that he literally jumped back a bit and apologized to me in English. I even withheld my Midwestern impulse to say “it’s okay” even when it’s not okay. Because it wasn’t, so I just continued to scowl and then turned back around and didn’t move anymore. I was overheated and I was pissed. And I was happy that he’d apologized. He didn’t touch me again after that or crowd my space too much. Like seriously what is the point? He’s not going to get to the front of the line any more quickly just because I’m closer to the people in front of me. Unless he was trying to push me so close to them that we’d actually just osmosis and become one person and then there’d be less people in front of him in line. Because seriously, there was not a gap between me and the people in front of me to begin with. By American standards I was already crowding them, but by Chinese, I apparently should’ve been closer.  I know I’ve mentioned it countless times before but Chinese line/crowd etiquette, or complete lack thereof, is probably my hugest pet peeve here and after 6 months of putting up with it I literally have zero tolerance. Seriously, the guy’s lucky I just glared at him and didn’t punch him (not that I have a habit of punching strangers, or punching anyone for that matter, but sometimes it’s seriously tempting and that’s just how irritated I was.)  Then on a happier note when I did get to the ticket counter, I made money by buying a museum ticket. Student tickets were 12RMB, so I gave the guy a 50 because I didn’t have anything smaller, but he must’ve put it in as 100 because he gave me 88RMB in change. So I made 38RMB and got a ticket into the museum.  I felt kind of bad just taking it but with the combination of my surprise, not wanting to keep the rude guy behind me waiting, and not knowing how to explain the situation in Chinese, I just went with it.  I didn’t even notice it until I’d already walked away from the window and was putting my “change” into my wallet.  I mean, it’s his fault right? He only had one job and he screwed it up, not me.

The museum was crowded, as expected, but wonderfully air conditioned, which was probably an explanation in itself for the crowds, but I enjoyed it. 

Inside the Natural History Museum

I wasn’t interested in reading the captions of every artifact anyway, like I said I was mostly there for the building in the first place.  The way the museum exhibits were displayed though, it worked really well to just walk around and observe. Also, this may sound silly, but the museum had a really specific path you were supposed to follow through the exhibits and it was clearly marked and I really appreciated it. I feel like most Chinese museums, and some others, that I’ve been to have not had that at all and I always feel like I end up going the wrong direction or missing things. So that was greatly appreciated. The museum seemed to mostly be comprised of either taxidermied or just fake animals, I don’t know which, as well as some awesome animatronic dinosaurs (videos to come!), which probably weren’t taxidermied.  

Probably-not-taxidermied dinos. And whale.

There were also some cool fossils or castings of fossils, again I don’t know which, but they were neat either way.  

Dino fossils

I used my extra money from my ticket to buy some ice cream at a stand in the museum and that made me feel a little better about it, although obviously I realize that I still technically stole from them. I chose to think about it instead as them just giving me free admission and ice cream.

Scary dino!

After the museum I headed back to Tongji and it turned out I got to my room just in time, because less than a half hour after I got back it started storming pretty seriously.  I think it was the loudest thunder I have ever heard in my life. It was setting off a moped alarm! It happened at least four times, right when the thunder would boom the moped would start freaking out. There’s no way it was a coincidence. It was also pouring rain pretty hard but that unfortunately didn’t cool it down outside at all.  I decided to start the packing process to make myself feel like I’m actually preparing to come home instead of passively waiting because I’m impatient and passively waiting exacerbates impatience in my case.  Also, it’ll probably legitimately take a few days to pack everything in a successful, strategic way. So far all I’ve packed are clothes that are too warm to wear (which is most of them because I suck at packing and erred way too far to that side when I packed to come here) and the souvenirs I’ve bought. As well as officially starting to pack, I’ve officially started to worry about my luggage capacities. I think I’ll have enough space, but as always it’s the weight limit I’m concerned about. I know I’m leaving a lot of things behind but when I look around my room it still feels like I have a lot left to pack. We’ll see! Obviously I’ll have to make it work somehow. I’ll just have to be ruthless about what I pack to come back with me. Like, no toiletries or everyday living supplies that I bought here and can buy/already have back home, maybe not even some of the clothes that I’ve worn so many times in the past 6 months that they’re getting worn out. Like I said, we’ll see.  I’m not sure that there’s even anywhere I can weigh it ahead of time, so I’ll just have to guess. Which is not easy, for me anyway. I don’t know what 50 pounds feels like, I just know if I can’t lift my suitcase that’s probably a bad sign.

This morning I woke up to another miserably hot day with a few more errands to run. First of all, I headed to the bank to close my account that I’d set up for my scholarship from Tongji. I was worried it’d be busy on a weekend, but when I got there and took a number there were only 3 people in line ahead of me and one of them inexplicably left before their number was called, so I barely had to wait at all. Also, once I got up to the counter it was super simple AND I had assumed that my account was empty because I didn’t think we’d get scholarship money in July since there weren’t classes so I didn’t even bother to check but I was wrong! So I got 2500RMB! I wish I’d at least checked the account before, it could’ve saved me a few trips to the ATM out of my savings account but it was a nice surprise this morning. There’s no way I can spend that much cash in the next few days before I leave so I’ll just have to get it exchanged when I get back to the States, but that’s okay.  After I was done at the bank I stopped by one little shop in the same plaza and then headed back into the city to East Nanjing Road to get one more souvenir: Emma’s chopsticks. Don’t worry, this isn’t a secret. Emma asked for chopsticks and knows she’s getting them. I’d read in my guidebook about a chopsticks shop on East Nanjing Road that was supposed to be good but after walking back and forth in front of the exact address the guide book gave, stopping at a Starbucks to use their wifi to double check it, and then walking back and forth in front of it a few more times, I concluded that either I’m entirely blind or the shop must’ve closed. Turnover is outrageously quick in Shanghai, so it’s not at all outside the realm of possibility. While I was drinking my smoothie at Starbucks I had also looked up other possibilities, however, just in case, so I decided to give up and try one of those instead. One of the most famous was back at Yuyuan, but I hadn’t seen it yesterday, so I headed back to the Bazaar to try to find it.  The Bazaar is a maze so it was a little tricky, but I eventually found it and no one even asked me to take their picture this time ;). Emma will be happy to know that I found her some chopsticks, which was the end of my gift list, so then I just wandered around a bit more, bought some fried dumplings for lunch, and then decided it was time to head to another air conditioned museum to spend the afternoon.

Today I chose the Urban Planning Exhibition Hall, which was cooler than it sounds, and it would’ve been embarrassing to study architecture in Shanghai for 6 months without visiting it because it turned out that’s basically what it was a museum of.  It was really interesting and not nearly as crowded as the Natural History Museum yesterday (also no one pushed me).  There were a lot of cool photos and models, but the highlight for sure was the absolutely gigantic model of the city of Shanghai that took up the entire 3rd floor of the building. 

So that’s Shanghai for ya.

I probably walked around it and stared at it for at least 15 minutes. I mean, I’d read that it was huge and it was basically the reason I was visiting the museum, but I had no idea it would take up an entire floor! I think it was actually good that I visited this museum at the end of my time here because I could recognize places I’ve been and it was fun.  I tried to find Tongji and I think I succeeded, but it was hard to tell for sure. I’m like 80% sure, though.

Probably Tongji. My dorm is theoretically at the upper left/middle left-ish of the photo, near the park :)

Today after I left the museum to head back to the life-size Tongji, I wasn’t quite as lucky with the rain. As soon as I stepped out of the metro at the University, it started to pour. It was literally like I stepped out, there was a huge crack of thunder, and then it went immediately from dry to pouring. It was like a cartoon.  I had my umbrella thankfully, but it was raining so hard that I still got pretty wet. It was so hot out that even the rain was warm. It was like having bathwater dumped from the sky.  I had what will probably be my last meal from the school cafeterias for dinner, since they’re closed by the time I get back from work on weekdays, and it was as underwhelming as I remembered. But it was cheap and convenient, so I can’t complain too much. Since then I’ve been sitting in front of my useless fan blogging and uploading photos, not looking forward to trying to sleep in this misery again (I only have to do it 5 more times, though!) I wonder if when I get home I’ll think Iowa in August is cold after dealing with this. Or Minnesota. Probably. But I’ll try to be thankful for it because right now I don’t remember what it feels like to be cold.

As I said this has been my last blog post from Shanghai. I’ll write one more after I get back to chronicle my last few days and my trip back, although my last few days will be spent at work for the most part and I certainly hope my journey back is smooth and uneventful. I’m sure I’ll have plenty of words to reflect about my time here, however, and about how I’m adjusting back to life in Ames after being gone for 24 weeks. See ya on the other side!

[meganann823]

Apparently Xi’an has a thing for musical fountains. This was was particularly high-tech as it also incorporated colorful lights and water-shapes. (Also in the background, an indoor obstacle course full of adorable Chinese children.) This was taken during one of my shopping mall refuges while hiding from the heat.

[meganann823]

Snazzy, giant musical-fountains in Xi’an, but isn’t that a Christmas song...?

[meganann823]

Some fancy taffy-pulling in Xi’an’s Muslim Quarter.  Of course a woman walks in front of me at the end, because China, but you get the idea.

[meganann823]

Week 22: 36 Hours in Xi’an

I promised a more exciting blog this week and a more exciting blog you shall have! Read onwards!

First I suppose I could tell you about my week, although there’s not terribly much to tell. On Monday there wasn’t much work for me to do at the office, but I was still glad to be there because of the air conditioning. Apparently Shanghai is now entering its hottest part of the summer. Joy. I was sent home early due to lack of things for me to do, which I was okay with, and then I ran into one of my Italian friends in the lobby of the dorm who told me he was heading back to Italy on a plane that night. I was a little jealous, I’ll admit, but it’s almost my time as well.

On Tuesday I started helping with a new project in the office since the one I’d been helping Mike with was at a bit of a standstill until they heard back from the clients. So since then I’ve been working on a competition project to bid for a Marriott hotel in Guangzhou. Hopefully that’s not classified information.  Mostly I made a site model and then lots and lots of foam models to put on it to show design ideas.  

My site model and foam studies

That’s alright with me, I hang out in my model room and listen to audiobooks and try to avoid burning my fingers on the foam cutter (it’s happened twice now :(.)  I went to Starbucks for lunch that day since it’s easy and was thrilled beyond belief to eat a salad. I’m normally ambivalent about vegetables but since being in China those may have been the first raw vegetables I’ve eaten. And if I’m ambivalent about raw vegetables, I’m slightly less friendly towards cooked vegetables. So that particular sweltering afternoon, I could imagine nothing more delicious than a salad and that is saying something for me. Since coming to China, I’ve decided to Starbucks serves an important cultural function to misplaced Americans like myself. I’m sure it sounds silly but it can be very comforting to walk off the hectic streets of Shanghai and into an air conditioned Starbucks with salads and sandwiches and Frappuccinos.  It’s almost like a little pocket of America and I honestly credit Starbucks with some percentage of maintaining my sanity while abroad these past 5 months. I never had strong feelings about Starbucks in the US, mostly because I don’t really like coffee, but now I realize: Starbucks is important. True, it’s less important in the US, but it’s important internationally for weary travelers like I sometimes find myself to be. Of course the seriousness of the above paragraph is a tad dramatized, but I am genuinely appreciative for Starbucks’ existence, thanks to China, which I find funny.  Speaking of food and such things, that night after work I went to the often-previously-mentioned chicken stand and realized they’re starting to remember my order. Shoot. Time to leave. ;)

On Wednesday we had another lunch presentation, with more Pizza Hut, which are both good things. This time I made sure it was okay for me to attend, as well. It was a company who makes copper cladding for buildings and I found it quite interesting. I like the idea of copper on buildings because it changes color over time.  They also had bronze and gold cladding which I found a little tacky and ostentatious, but it’s probably a big hit in China ;). Wednesday was notable for a few other reasons, not least of which being my Dad’s 54th birthday! Woohoo! Happy birthday, Dad :). Also, it marked exactly 5 months since I left Ames for Shanghai. I cannot believe it’s been that long! And as I write this blog, I only have about 10 more days left! (Not counting today because it’s 9:30pm.) It doesn’t feel real yet and I’ll probably only truly register it when I’m lugging all my bags to the airport to catch a 14 hour flight.

On Thursday morning, my studio TA from the semester almost hit me with his bike while I was walking to the metro, so that’s always a nice and totally-not-awkward way to run into (thankfully not literally) someone and say hi. After being at work for a few hours I noticed my tank top was on inside out, so apparently it was just that sort of day. I was wearing another shirt over it, of course, so it wasn’t too noticeable, I hope, but I went and flipped it outside out (inside in?) again in the bathroom, of course. Also, I usually bring a granola bar with me to work to eat with my PB&J, but that day I forgot it. Thursday was a day of petty misfortunes and odd inconveniences.  On a (maybe) brighter note, as I was walking to the metro after work a Chinese guy on the sidewalk handing out fliers said “hello beautiful” to me in Chinese and then as I continued to walk past him he yelled “I LOVE YOU!” in English. So, there was that. I wasn’t sure how to respond, so I said “…thanks..?” Because I’m an awkward human and because really how does one respond to shouts of love from sidewalk strangers? An undeniable plus to Thursday was that, thanks to Jake’s help in making phone calls from within the country, my flight was officially changed to July 31st! So I no longer have to stress about that and will not be in the country illegally!

Speaking of legality, on Friday morning I got up and headed straight for the Entry and Exit Bureau instead of to work to pick up my passport and shiny new residence permit, thereby legalizing my internship with Goettsch, finally. At least I’m legit for the last two weeks? There’s literally one difference to my previous residence permit, which is that under “notes” where it previously said “none,” the new one says “off-campus internship.” Which really doesn’t seem like a significant enough difference for me to have gone to all that trouble, but what can you do? Not reason with China, that’s for sure. Anyway, after I had my passport I decided it would be best to go pick up my train tickets because I was worried about the station being crowded after work on a Friday night. I had debated my options for a plan of attack all the night before and finally (with Jake’s help again because I’m uselessly anxiety-prone), I decided I’d get the tickets in the morning, be a bit later for work, and then stop back at the dorm after work to collect my bag before heading to the station. It seems so logical now, but like I said I can’t always control my anxiety well enough to see logic. So after a particularly unpleasant and sweaty metro ride, I got to the station and found the ticket office (which is of course not connected to the main station…) and then realized all the signs were in Chinese without a single word of English. However, the Chinese characters above some of the ticket windows were different, leading me to assume I couldn’t just go to any window because they served different purposes. After wandering aimlessly for a bit and eventually choosing a line at random, I decided to ask a friendly young Chinese girl for help and she pointed me in the right direction (not the line I’d been in, either.)  I got my tickets without a hitch and could not even describe how much better I felt about life with passport and tickets in hand and with that, set off to work for the day. Plus, after all that I only ended up being about an hour late! It was a good thing I did things the way I did or I would’ve been anxious about my tickets all day. Good thing Jake thinks clearly in the face of my unnecessary anxieties.

That day at the end of work we had a little group meeting (in which my foam models played a starring role :)) about the competition project to try to narrow down the 9 design schemes to 3 or 4 and once we were finished with that, we were free to go for the weekend at about 5:30. So that was nice because then when I got back to my dorm I had about two hours to spare before I had to head to the train station. Even then, I still managed to get to the station, through security, and to my gate an hour early. I stopped to get some food and ate it and then I only had 50 minutes to wait… Even though the train wasn’t departing for a while, the waiting room was already packed, and despite this fact, quite a few people decided it would be okay if they laid down on the benches to take a nap while they waited for the train. So I stood. 

The insanity that is the Shanghai Railway Station. (I shortly after took one of those seats.)

Thankfully Chinese people also find it necessary to queue up at the ticket check gates before they’re even checking tickets, so when they all rushed to do that 20 minutes earlier than necessary I got a seat. Plus when ticket checking actually started I just did like the Chinese and wormed my way through the “line” that was more of a crowd (and of course I wasn’t the only one, that’s how “lines” work in China) so there was literally not a single advantage to waiting there early. But it doesn’t stop people from doing it, of course. I got onto the train and found my train bed, which was an odd thing but kind of fun.  

My train bed.

At first there were three guys in my carriage but as we stopped at other stations outside of Shanghai I realized they didn’t actually have tickets for the beds and they got kicked out by people who did. I actually wish they hadn’t though because the people with the tickets also brought with them an infant. Infants cry. Infants wake up in the middle of the night to cry. It wasn’t terrible, thankfully. She did cry for a while before they could get her to sleep and I remember waking up once in the middle of the night because she was whining, but other than that I think I slept pretty well. I’d guess I got a solid 6 hours, which I think it pretty good for being on a train with a baby. Sleeping on a train felt kind of futuristic for some reason, even though the reason I was sleeping on it was because it was a slow train and they don’t have a bullet train to Xi’an like they do to Beijing. Either way, I thought it was fun and therefore was able to tolerate the baby. I kept thinking of Emma though and what she would have done in my place. I imagine she would have very angrily and huffily stomped out of the compartment, slammed the door, and laid down in the hallway or something along those lines, hopefully not resorting to violence towards the child or her parents ;). Close guess, Em?

The couple with the baby got off a couple stops before we got to Xi’an so then I was able to change in the compartment instead of using the nasty train bathroom. I slept in my clothes, but I had planned ahead and worn a sundress, so it was basically pajamas anyway. I know I could’ve changed and gotten ready for bed and all that but it honestly didn’t seem worth the hassle to wait in line and use the dirty, tiny bathroom. So I changed and got ready in the compartment the best I could and figured it would do for the day. I had showered the night before between work and leaving for the station, so at least I wasn’t too grungy.  After arriving at the station in Xi’an around 8:30 am on Saturday, I hopped on the metro and followed the directions my hostel had sent me. I missed a turn once but thankfully realized it soon enough and was able to find the hostel without too much trouble. I wasn’t sure I would be able to check in so early in the morning, but happily I was and I was really glad for an opportunity to brush my teeth before I set off for the day. That was the one thing seriously bothering me about my getting ready on the train. I really liked the hostel, I thought it was cute. 

Hostel bar/cafe/lobby

And the staff were seriously the friendliest, most helpful hostel employees I’ve ever encountered. They remembered my name! I was only there one night! I had a bacon and egg sandwich for breakfast in the hostel’s café and arranged for my tour of the Terra Cotta Warriors for the nest day before I went off on my day of sightseeing and felt quite content that everything had worked out so well. I love it when plans go smoothly. Literally nothing makes me happier. That’s what kind of fun and exciting person I am.

The only thing not to my advantage in Xi’an this weekend was the weather. It was sweltering. At least 100 degrees and sunny. I am not a creature made for such temperatures, I was raised in the chilly woods of northern Minnesota! Hot, sunny, hardscaped cities are not my friend. I was determined to enjoy my sightseeing anyway, of course, but it admittedly made me a bit lethargic (I only climbed one of the two pagodas I visited and had to seek refuge in air-conditioned shopping malls…twice.)

I decided to start with the farthest sight from my hostel and then work my way back towards it, so the first thing on my agenda was the Big Goose Pagoda. After walking the wrong direction for a couple blocks and eventually righting my mistake, I made it to the large, fountained square outside the pagoda where I sat for a bit and watched the fountains before trying to figure out how to actually get to the pagoda itself. 

Pagoda Square and fountains, with pagoda in the background

It was entirely walled off with only one entrance to the area so that they can charge you for tickets. I got a killer student discount, though. This first pagoda I did climb, since I wasn’t too fatigued yet, but I seriously regretted not buying a bottle of water before I started. I was feeling a bit faint by the time I reached the top.

View of the fountains from the top of Big Goose Pagoda

 It was a nice view, if a bit foggy, and when I returned to the ground I bought two bottles of water and drank the first entirely within minutes. The second I saved to keep me going, but I felt much better after that. I think I was dehydrated because I was hardly even sweating, instead the skin on my arms felt hot and dry as if I had a fever or something. This concerned me a bit (whether reasonably or not), so I vowed to stay better hydrated for the rest of the day.  And Mom, I also remembered to put on sunscreen and I didn’t even get burned. I hope you’re proud ;).

After I left the Big Goose Pagoda, I’d been considering going to the free Shaanxi History Museum (Xi’an is in Shaanxi province) which I’d walked past on my way, but when I made it back there, the crowds and lines were unbelievable. My guidebook had warned me to get there early, I guess they weren’t joking. I decided to skip that museum and continue on to the Little Goose Pagoda and the smaller (also free) Xi’an Museum, which are both located in the grounds of Jianfu Temple. The Little Goose Pagoda I decided not to climb. I know, I’m lame, but I was dying of heat exhaustion at the time and decided it looked perfectly impressive and picturesque from the ground.

Little Goose Pagoda (the top fell off in an earthquake)

The biggest draw of the museum was that it was air-conditioned, but after some underwhelming exhibits on the top two floors, the basement was actually quite interesting. It had a huge scale model of the ancient city of Xi’an during the Tang Dynasty and some neat sculpture galleries as well. 

Huge city model

I reluctantly left the air-conditioning to continue on, making my way to the old city walls. The city walls are well-preserved and still entirely surround the center of the city. You can walk or bike all the way around them, but again it was hot and I had a lot left to see and only one day to see it. I did climb to the top of the wall to take a look though, and that was quite impressive. 

On top of the city walls

After climbing back down, I made my way to the Drum Tower and Bell Tower. I didn’t pay admission to go inside them but just looked from outside, I mean that’s where you can see them best anyway, right? You can’t see a building much from the inside.  They’re not very tall, especially compared to the modern buildings around them, so it’s not like you get a view, and the interiors aren’t said to be as impressive as the exteriors anyway. Does it sound like I’m justifying too much ;)? It was a tough decision but I really did have limited funds and had to prioritize sights.

Drum Tower (I think)

Bell Tower (I think)

I was also pretty exhausted by this point. It was probably about 5 pm and I’d been walking since 11 am, aside from my shopping-mall respites, but they were brief. I thought I’d just check out the Muslim Quarter really quickly and then head back to the hostel since it was last on my list of sights to see and quite nearby where I was staying. However, the Muslim Quarter ended up being my favorite part and I walked around for at least an hour.  The main street was absolutely packed with tourists, but it was lined on either side with Muslim food vendors. At various points as I walked along, I got some spicy tofu, some pureed grape juice/smoothie thing, and some sort of sweet, chewy seed cakes that were quite delicious.  This part of the Muslim quarter wasn’t at all what I was expecting. It didn’t seem particularly “Muslim” aside from the people and the fact that most of the food stands were halal. It seemed like a food street in China, otherwise. 

Making candy in the Muslim Quarter

I was still quite amused by it and I enjoyed my walk, but as reached the part of the street where I’d entered, I saw a small covered alleyway leading into a marketplace and decided to have a look there as well. Most of it was the same touristy junk you find all over China, but I still like to look. I’m usually not too uptight about that sort of thing either and am sometimes admittedly drawn to knick-knacks (yes, yes, I’m one of those people), but after seeing literally the exact same products in stalls all over the country, sometimes still wrapped in their plastic packaging, it doesn’t exactly tempt me to buy. There was one thing that caught my eye though, these little white trinket-type boxes with Chinese-style paintings on the top. I can’t say why these caught my eye and I didn’t know what I’d put in one, but I thought they were so cute that I had to stop and take a closer look. Unlike the main street of the Muslim quarter, the covered market was almost deserted and I was the only one at the little old lady’s stand at the moment so of course she came out to sell to me. 

Muslim Quarter main street

Muslim Quarter marketplace

She told me the boxes were ox-bone, which admittedly put me off a little, but they were still so pretty. Is that weird that I’d rather they were made of some lame synthetic material? Probably. Anyway, she all of a sudden picks one up and puts a lighter to it, presumably to prove that it was real ox bone. All things considered, I decided to ask how much she wanted for one. She seemed to speak some English, but she wrote down on the page 120 (120RMB is about $20) and when I didn’t answer right away she crossed it off and told me to write what I’d pay for it. I suck at bargaining and it’s my least favorite thing, although $20 was a little more than I was hoping. I couldn’t low-ball the sweet old lady though so I wrote 80. She wrote 100. I took it. I know that’s not much of a deal, but I hate bargaining and wanted it over with so I could just take my little box. I thanked her and went on my way through the market some more.

While the main street looked almost anything-but Muslim, the covered market hardly even looked like I was still in China. It reminded me exactly of the markets in Marrakesh except maybe with more cheap tourist junk and less piles of spices. I walked around some more and looked at some stuff before I eventually came out onto another alley, smaller than the main street but filled with more food and souvenir vendors. 

Muslim Quarter alley

Now you may have noticed or may be aware that I’m terrible with directions, so I turned in the way I thought would lead me back towards my hostel once I was out of the Muslim Quarter and continued to meander the alleyways, but once I did finally emerge from the alleys and looked at the GPS map on my phone, I was quite a good ways west of where I needed to be, not at all where I expected, of course, and my feet were exhausted. I blame it on the curving lanes of the covered market, I think they got me turned around. Either way, there was nothing else to do but start walking back towards the hostel. Unfortunately my navigational woes were not at an end and I overshot at least twice while trying to make my way back. Thankfully I did eventually make it, but by the time I got back around 7 pm I was quite certain I would not be getting out of bed again until the next morning. I was super grimy too, by this point, from 24 hours of not showering and walking and sweating all day in the dusty Chinese streets. When I took off my shoes there was such a distinct line I thought maybe it was a suntan. Until it washed off. I knew I’d take another shower in the morning but there was no way I could crawl into bed that filthy, so I showered immediately when I got back to my (air-conditioned!) room in the hostel and then pretty much laid in bed and read until bedtime at 10 pm. It had been a long day and I had to get up early for my tour the next morning.

I slept really well, the bed was way nicer than the one I have here at Tongji, and the A/C was the most glorious thing I could imagine. It felt downright luxurious and this is a hostel we’re talking about. I forgot to mention, I paid a little extra for a private room with its own bathroom since I was only staying one night. It was still only like $20 for the night and totally worth it to have my own huge bed and a shower and Western-style toilet all to myself (the communal bathrooms had Chinese squat toilets, much less luxurious). The room itself was pretty tiny, really just a bed, but I liked it anyway.  

My teeny hostel room

View from my room

The next morning I got up and packed up my things to go downstairs and check out before I left on the tour. I was able to store my bigger bag (one of the main things I look for in a hostel), so thankfully I didn’t have to carry that all day.  I ordered a blueberry muffin and sat down to wait until tour time at 9 am. There ended up being only 5 of us plus the tour guide, which was actually really nice. I prefer small tours. Plus, we all had more space in the van that way.  It was about a 1.5 hour drive out of Xi’an to get to the Warriors and our friendly little tour guide Jaja gave us some information as we went. I liked Jaja, but as the tour went on I noticed she seemed to take a special concern in me out of all the group and I’m not entirely sure why, but she seemed to be taking extra special care of me. I was the only one I ever heard her call by name and she always made a point to say directly to me that I could ask her if I had any questions. Either she was just being friendly or she was looking for a tip, but either way I found it a tiny bit disconcerting, which probably makes me a terribly rude, suspicious person undeserving of nice things like friendly tour guides.

Our first stop was at the tomb of Emperor Qin Shi-Huang (if I remembered how to spell that correctly) who is the guy who commanded the Warriors be built, but his tomb itself is about 1.5 km from where they’ve found the warriors, so Jaja was telling us that they’re looking to see if there are more buried between the two. The tomb itself is really just a hill from what you can see as a visitor. Due to something about high levels of mercury inside and not having the proper technology yet to safely open it up and preserve what’s inside, my understanding is that it’s never been opened. They just know what it is from historical documents.  So from the outside it’s just a gigantic man-made hill. 

Ta-da! (It’s that big green hill in the back.)

Needless to say, we stayed less than 5 minutes before heading to the main attraction.  There are three different pits to the Terra Cotta Army and Jaja had us save the best for last. So we started at Pit 2, the second biggest. I don’t know what I expected the sight to be like, but I probably wasn’t imagining it inside a gigantic building. Obviously I didn’t actually think hard about it because of course they need to be protected but I also didn’t realize they still had so much excavating to do.  

Pit 2

The main pit, which I’ll get to, has 6,000 warriors, but only about 2,000 have been unearthed and Pit 2 has about 2,000 but most of the site was still an active archeological dig.  I thought that was actually pretty cool. There weren’t literally archeologists there working during the day, but you could see all the statues in different states of being reassembled.  

Statue pieces in Pit 2

The thing is, all the pits collapsed hundreds of years ago, so the statues are all buried and many of them are crushed and apparently it’s taking a really long time (understandably) to find them all and put them back together.  In Pit 2 there were I think 5 statues that they’d found at least mostly whole, and those were displayed in glass cases surrounded by swarms of Chinese tourists.

The kneeling archer, the first statue found (note Chinese tourists)

After that we took a quick look around Pit 3, the smallest of them all, which only has about 68 statues but was thought to be the “command center.”  However, the emperor died suddenly while his afterlife army was still under construction so a lot of the warriors in this pit are missing heads, not due to any failure by the archeologists, but because they were left unfinished when the emperor died. 

Headless warriors probably aren’t very useful

I suppose I could say a bit about that emperor and how this all came about, according to Jaja. Basically he was a bit nuts. He was ingesting mercury because he thought it would make him live longer but instead it made him go crazy and die sooner, as mercury does. He apparently believed that his rule would continue in the afterlife and after all, what’s a Chinese emperor without an army? Hence the Terra Cotta Warriors. Also, I’m sure you’ve read that they all have unique faces. The theory goes that the sculptors working on the statues would use each other as models for the warriors, which sounds sweet until you learn that because Emperor Crazy wanted everything to be a secret, he later killed all the sculptors and therefore all the faces are of men who worked hard sculpting for the emperor and were then murdered for no other reason than he’s a crazy person. So that made me sad. There have been about 8,000 warriors found so far, so that’s at least 8,000 murdered sculptors if the story is true.  Most of them are in Pit 1, which is where we went next.

Impressively huge Pit 1

As I said, only about 2,000 can be seen right now but as it’s still being excavated like the other sites, you can see various stages of where others are hidden underground and currently in the process of being freed.  Jaja asked a guy to move out of my way so that she could take my picture for me. 

It was incredibly impressive. I’ve tried to capture the scale with my panoramas, but I’m not sure it does it justice. And even though you can’t see all the warriors, 2,000 is a lot and just imagining the rest of them still hidden underground is hard to fathom. It was quite the sight, quite the experience. 

Warriors

Warriors still being unearthed

For some reason afterwards we were taken to an anticlimactic 20 minute movie about the warriors’ history and discovery in the 70s by a farmer looking to drill a well, but I didn’t really mind except for the fact that I was hungry. Thankfully after the movie it was lunch time and it was quite good. I felt pretty proud of myself as some of the other Americans on the tour didn’t know how to use chopsticks and tried to ask for a fork (they didn’t have any). To be fair, I’ve been using chopsticks almost exclusively for 5 months and they were just on a short trip to China, but I still had a feeling that I’d done well improving and adapting.  After lunch it was time to head back to the van and back to Xi’an, but as we were walking to the bus, the strangest part of the day occurred when Jaja took my hand as if to hold it but instead pressed something small and round into my palm. It was a little jade ring on a string, a souvenir. She gave me a present! And I did not see her secretly give presents to anyone else. I mean if she had, it wouldn’t have had to be a secret! I was thankful and confused and all sorts of other things, but mostly confused. I thanked her, of course, but really didn’t know what to say other than that. It’s not that I didn’t appreciate it and it’s quite a pretty souvenir, but just why me? And why only me? As we got off the bus I looked to see if anyone else gave her a tip and they didn’t, so I didn’t. After all I don’t know if that’s why she was being so nice to me, but usually you don’t tip in China anyway and I never know if you’re supposed to for things like that. But that’s why I looked to the other group members and I didn’t see them give her anything. Hopefully I wasn’t mistaken and hopefully she wasn’t terribly disappointed in me if she’d been expecting a tip for being so nice. Overall it was a situation I felt very awkward about and I hope I wasn’t rude for not tipping but I didn’t know what else to do so I just took my souvenir, said thank you and goodbye, and headed back to the hostel.

At that point there were about three hours before I had to leave for the station, so I debated doing some more sightseeing but Xi’an honestly isn’t that big and I’d been pretty ambitious on Saturday so there wasn’t anything I really wanted to see badly enough to make going into the heat worthwhile. I think Sunday was even hotter and sunnier than Saturday had been. Certainly sunnier anyway. So I decided to just hang out in the pleasant hostel bar/café area instead until it was time to leave. They were even handing out free slices of watermelon! I’m usually not a huge watermelon fan because I don’t think it has much taste, but I figured I’d try a piece and it was actually really sweet and tasty. So I had another, because they said I could. So yes, it would’ve been hard to leave the cozy, air-conditioned hostel bar with the free wifi and watermelon, and so I didn’t. Until I had to, to catch a train.  Again, I was about an hour early and the train station was really empty. I figured that made sense on a Sunday night and Xi’an is a smaller city than Shanghai, after all. I got some dinner and just hung out until it was time to board the train around 9 pm. I had better luck with my roommates this time, no babies, although there was a guy snoring a bit. He wasn’t too loud though, so I just put in my headphones with some music and all was well. Again, I’d say I probably got about 6 solid hours of sleep, so really not bad for a night on a train in a room with snoring strangers.

We pulled into Shanghai around 8:00 am this morning and it was already stifling when I got off the train. By the time I got on the metro I was a legitimate sweaty mess, and of course keep in mind I hadn’t showered or brushed my teeth and was wearing the clothes I had slept in. Attractive. The metro platform at the train station was so crowded that I didn’t get onto the first train that came by because they literally could not cram another human body into it. The second one, however, I didn’t have a choice because the people behind me were insistent and they literally pushed me into the train. I hardly had to move my feet except to make sure I didn’t trip. If I had, of course, I couldn’t have fallen anywhere, I’d just lean slightly closer to one of the other sweaty humans surrounding me. By the time the train doors closed, I literally couldn’t move even so much as to turn around and face the door. Thankfully I only had two miserable, smelly, sweaty stops before I had to transfer trains to get back to Tongji and that train was as good as empty by comparison. Either way, by the time I got back to my dorm I hardly took the time to drop my bags before I jumped into the shower. I hate being sweaty and I hate not showering. I had told them at work that I was in Xi’an for the weekend and that my train got in on Monday morning so I’d be a bit late and they said that was fine, so I took an hour and a half or so to get ready and have some oatmeal before heading off again to start another work week. It still seems crazy that that was just this morning as I type this, it feels like a really long time ago, but in fact I’ve barely been back in Shanghai for 12 hours.

I hope this blog was more interesting than the past few, I just have one more weekend left in Shanghai and I’m having a hard time deciding what to do! It’s hard to accept that I’ve run out of time and can’t do everything that I want to, but I know I’ve seen a lot during my time here and I’ve explored a  lot of  the city, so I shouldn’t regret not being able to see more. I mean, it’s a gigantic city after all. I’ll certainly have to do some souvenir and gift shopping at some point during the weekend. I’ve been looking around the whole time and cultivating ideas, but have yet to make the purchases. To make my job easier, however, I am accepting requests ;)! So if there’s something you’d like from Shanghai, just let me know!

Overall, another successful adventure in the books (in the blog?) and only two blogs left!

[meganann823]

Week 21 – In which I survive a typhoon.

But we’ll get to that later. You may remember last week when I promised to make my last few weeks in Shanghai blog-worthy. Well, I forgot to mention that of course the excitement will start NEXT week… Silly me… In the meantime, this was a fairly average work week but I’m going to tell you about it anyway.

On Monday morning I felt the sadness and disbelief of all working people that the weekend could’ve possibly gone by so quickly.  I enjoy my internship, but still, staring down my first full 40-hour work week in quite some time seemed a little daunting. Thankfully it actually went by pretty quickly, but as of Monday morning that seemed unlikely. Unfortunately it was also a kind of frustrating day at work.  I was assigned two different models to make and they were both complicated forms that I was struggling to wrap my brain around, which led to an embarrassing waste of foam from my failed attempts before I decided to just make them in paper instead.  These struggles, however, took literally the entire day and I still wasn’t finished with the second one when I left.  

As far as I managed to get on Monday...

I don’t think I even spoke to anyone all day after I was given my assignment, I just stayed in my little back model making room fighting the urge to throw misshapen pieces of foam at the walls.  After work I had to make a trip back to the supermarket from the day before because I had forgotten to buy as much as a plastic bag to put my sandwiches in and my PB&J had gotten pretty squished that day (improvisationally wrapped in paper towels and a small garbage bag).  To remedy this for future sandwiches, I got a little tupperware container and from now on won’t have to worry about squished sandwiches. Nothing is sadder than a squished sandwich. Also, apparently “improvisationally” isn’t a word, but it fits my purposes so I’m keeping it.  I hadn’t left the office to eat my sandwich that day because it was rainy and ugly outside and so I was essentially hidden away up in the office for a solid 9 hours and when I left and suddenly found myself in the midst of Shanghai once again at the largest, busiest metro stop in the city during evening rush hour, I ended up feeling a little shell-shocked and overwhelmed, almost as if I’d been so focused on my work during that time I’d forgotten where I was.  Plus, it’s so quiet at the office.  It was all a bit too much and I was glad to finally be back in my room at the end of the day. I had ended up eating dinner at McDonald’s after my trip to the supermarket since I hadn’t been able to refill my student card and therefore can’t eat on campus, and even that had felt overwhelming somehow when the worker didn’t understand the words “chicken sandwich” in English. Maybe he would’ve known “McChicken”? But I didn’t know if they still called it that here.

McChickens aside, I wasn’t looking forward to going back to work on Tuesday to fight with my model some more.  I eventually finished it, but wasn’t really happy with how it turned out and due to a miscommunication between two of my supervisors, they actually didn’t end up even needing it… One guy had told me they wanted all the floors and atrium spaces, essentially the building without a skin, and that was what had taken me a long time, but then the other said that for a presentation with the client they actually wanted all the models to match and be in foam.  

My sad, time-consuming, unused model

So with the help of some sandpaper I ended up re-doing both of the models that had taken me all of Monday and half of Tuesday.  I inhaled a lot of foam shavings, especially making the rounded tower (the foam re-do of the photos above), but it was actually significantly less stressful and I was able to get them all finished. After work I took the long way back to the metro, just for fun, and walked down East Nanjing Road, which is quite a sight at night.

East Nanjing Road at night, one of the shiny parts of Shanghai

Then later that night I realized I’d gotten an email saying I could pick up my internship certificate paperwork from the international office any time, so I emailed Mike and told him I’d be late on Wednesday since the international office doesn’t open until 9 and it takes me 45 minutes just to get to work from campus. However, I ended up being quite a bit later than I’d imagined since after I picked up the paperwork, they told me the next step was to take it to the Exit and Entry Bureau to actually submit my application for an internship certificate.  I knew they’d keep my passport for at least 7 business days so I did the math and realized if I wanted to get my passport back by the time I was to leave for Xi’an this coming Friday, I had to submit the application that day.  So instead of heading straight to work, I instead went to the Bureau to take a number and wait in line. I have unhappy memories of the Bureau and was really hoping I wouldn’t have to ever go there again, but what can you do?  I hoped they’d understand at work, since the reason I was doing it was to make my internship there legal. They can’t really object to that, I wouldn’t think, but I did feel bad that I was going to be significantly later than I’d thought (I hadn’t actually said how late I’d be in my email, so maybe they weren’t even concerned, but I was). I couldn’t just wait until I returned from Xi’an because the letter they gave me at the international office was only good for 10 days, of course. Also, it made sense to get the internship legitimate as soon as possible even though I’ve been working there already (shhh…), but the whole time I was on my way to the Bureau I was debating intensely in my head (and to poor Jake via wechat) whether it was really worth the hassle and how bad it would really be if I just didn’t quite complete this last step of the process. However, the rule-follower in me won out and before I knew it I was at the Bureau and it would’ve been silly to turn back at that point.

When I got to the Bureau there were 50 people in line ahead of me, but it actually seemed to be moving fairly quickly.  I’d been waiting maybe half an hour when all of a sudden there was an announcement in Chinese and then everyone made a rush for the desks. I had no idea what was going on, of course, but it seemed like a good idea to follow. For whatever reason instead of going by the numbers anymore, they had apparently told people to just line up at the desks. I still don’t know why, but it actually probably proved faster than if I’d had to wait for my number. I was a little nervous that I wouldn’t have everything I needed since the woman at the international office who had given me my paperwork hadn’t really seemed to know (but I’d brought every important document I have, of course, just in case), or that they’d tell me I couldn’t pick up my passport in time for my trip.  Despite my ever-present anxiety, however, it actually went quite smoothly; they accepted my application without trouble and I can pick my passport up on Friday, the day that I leave for Xi’an,  so it’s a good thing I didn’t delay at all.  I ended up getting to work around noon, feeling guilty, but that ended up being fine too. I explained where I’d been to Mike and that just picking up paperwork had turned into much more of an ordeal than I’d expected (seems like the story of China in my experience, so I probably should’ve expected it) but it seemed like they hadn’t really been worried and since I had notified them ahead of time, it wasn’t a problem. Phew, crisis averted. I’d been sure to get straight to work when I did get to the office, going straight back to my model room, and when I went to get lunch I didn’t take my usual whole hour. I went to Carl’s Jr. in the mall since it seemed like it would be quick and I headed back as soon as I was done eating. Overall, I think it was okay; I don’t think they were mad at me. I also learned that Carl’s Jr. has free beverage refills and I was unreasonably thrilled. I think that’s the first place in Shanghai I’ve encountered with free refills. They sure know their way to my little American heart.

Thursday was fairly unremarkable, but aside from work there were two exciting developments in my life: I accepted a new assistantship position for when I get back to ISU and I’ve started talking to the university’s travel agency about changing my flight and the cheapest option (at $300 still *grumble, grumble*) is actually a much better itinerary. It cuts out two of my layovers and takes me straight from Shanghai to Chicago and on to Des Moines so that I’d be back in Ames by the night of the 31st! It’s not official yet since we have to figure out the logistics of the payment, but at least it doesn’t seem like it’ll be too much of a hassle and it should all be okay; I’ll even be home two days early! One odd situation on Thursday was when I returned to my room after work, I immediately had the impression that things were where they shouldn’t be, meaning someone had been in my room while I was gone, and it was unsettling. I tried to justify it at first, somehow trying to tell myself that since I’d left my windows open all day, maybe there was a really strong wind that blew my slippers to the middle of the room and turned up two of the corners on my comforter? Maybe I left my room looking this way and just forgot? I tried to tell myself it didn’t matter and I was just being silly, but then a little later I went to open a drawer on my bed and noticed a shiny new bracket attaching it to the bunk bed post and felt relieved that I wasn’t going crazy. Even then, though, I was thinking maybe it had always been there and I’d just never noticed it before.  The next day, however, I looked on the notice board in the dorm’s lobby and saw a note that I’d missed before telling everyone that maintenance would be in our rooms to make sure all of our furniture was safe (?) and that confirmed it. Apparently my bed needed new brackets for safety. I was a little embarrassed though, since I’d done laundry the night before and it had all been hanging literally all over my room to dry on the day that maintenance had been in my room; most notably, all of my underwear were hanging on my bed… Oh well.

On Friday morning I was helping with a deadline for the project that I’ve been working on, but there was a lunch presentation at noon, so I went to it. I was thinking I usually take lunch breaks anyway and it would only be an hour, but when I got back to my desk afterwards someone had finished my work for me, so then I felt guilty. Bad intern. On the bright side, we got Pizza Hut for lunch. Chinese Pizza Hut is a little different from American Pizza Hut of course, but it was still cheesy and delicious, so I was happy. After they met their deadline there was a decidedly informal Friday-afternoon feeling in the office (and none of the bosses were present, for whatever reason) and also no work for me to do for a couple hours, so I mostly chatted with the woman who sits across from me, which was fun. It was like having a friend or something! Around 3, Mike had some more work for me and I was determined to do it well to make up for not finishing my work before lunch, so I retreated to my model room once again, but then around 5:15, Alex, the woman I’d been talking to before, came back to tell me that Mike and a couple other people had just left for the day, so I probably could too. I took her up on that, as well as her suggestion that I take some extra pizza home. I don’t love cold pizza, but it’s better than no pizza. And then the typhoon warnings began. It was supposed to hit Shanghai sometime between Friday night and Saturday and the weather seemed a little odd on Friday night. It was rainy and windy with a weird yellowish light, but nothing too serious. It seemed more like just a sign that something was coming. Rachel had gone out to dinner, however, and left her windows open, so she wanted me to see if I could go down to the front desk and pretend to be her and to have locked myself out of “my” room so that I could close them for her.  I was a little nervous since I don’t generally like the front desk ladies and I was embarrassed to even pretend to lock myself out of my room, but it was actually a little concerning how easy it ended up being.  I just had to write “my” name and room number on a sheet of paper and then off we went to unlock “my” room. They didn’t even check it against anything. Oh well, it worked to our benefit in this case and Rachel’s room didn’t have to get soaked thanks to our building’s lax security.  Due to supposed typhoon, I didn’t make any plans for the weekend, but it ended up being a bit of a letdown as far as typhoons go.

All day Saturday was really windy and rainy, but it didn’t seem like anything out of the ordinary. I know some areas south of Shanghai were hit worse, but all reports said it would be heading straight for us. I was kind of excited, I wanted to see a typhoon, but unfortunately that was as much as we got. Just a day of rain. I stayed in my room and watched TV shows on my computer, so it wasn’t a bad day by any means. I was still hopeful that maybe it would just be a bit later and come on Saturday night or Sunday. For this reason, I didn’t make any plans for Sunday out of uncertainty, but this morning I woke up to light rain and the news that the typhoon had essentially ricocheted off of Shanghai and that was the best I was going to get. Now as I write this, there are blue skies outside my window! So I probably should’ve gotten out today… Ah well. I told myself I needed to rest after my first full work week ;). Plus next weekend I’ll be plenty busy with my trip to Xi’an! So the typhoon was disappointing from my experience. They talked it up a lot about how it’d be the worst storm Shanghai has seen in 35 years and all that, but up where I live anyway, we mostly missed it. It’s not like I was hoping for casualties and destruction of course, I just wanted a bit of a show. I’ve never seen a typhoon! Anyway, no such luck, but I’ll just continue to say I lived through a typhoon anyway. I mean it’s technically true, right? ;)

[meganann823]

Week 20 - Real life.

Greetings! Prepare yourselves for a much shorter and less exciting blog than the past two! Now that I have you on the edge of your seat, let’s begin!

Less than 12 hours after returning to my dorm room from my trip to Beijing, I was waking up for my first full day of my internship, the official start of my full-time-ness.  I’ve only had one other 40-hour-a-week, sit-at-a-desk internship and I remember being baffled that so many adults spend their lives in jobs like that. I’m supposed to be there EVERY week day? ALL day? I guess I’ve gotten too used to my university schedule of limited in-class hours. It’s a struggle for me to comprehend, let alone do, but I haven’t figured out what I’ll do about that yet in my future. For now, I suppose there’s nothing for it but to conform and be a normal adult with a normal job.  It’s not all bad, of course, and thankfully my first day had a little excitement in it to ease me into my new schedule (which I’ll only have to keep for 4 weeks as it is).  

Almost as soon as I got the office on Wednesday morning, a few of my coworkers and I headed off to a factory that makes steel fire doors. Sounds thrilling, right? But really it was pretty interesting and definitely more fun than sitting at a computer or getting x-acto cuts on my fingers making models.  I was definitely curious to see what the conditions at a Chinese factory would be like, but I was pleasantly surprised.  Although we did see a few questionable things, like workers in a sealed painting chamber without any sort of masks, it was pretty nice as far as factories go.  The company took us on a tour through the factory and the showroom, the highlights probably being the bomb- and nuclear explosion-proof doors and that they’re doing all the doors for Shanghai’s new Disneyworld, and then showed us their organic farm(!) that they keep to feed their employees.  I had never heard of a factory with an organic farm, so I was pretty impressed.  They also served us lunch at the end of the tour, from the organic farm of course. Organic though it may have been, lunch was still a bit of a struggle for me.  I think it was actually quite high-quality, fancy Chinese food, but what that meant to me was that it looked all the weirder, basically the same way  I feel about “gourmet” food in the States except I struggle enough with everyday Chinese food.  

What I did eat was quite good, but I was scared off by probably 75% of the dishes, which were themselves served on a tray in the middle of the table that spun by itself! Usually if you want a particular dish, you have to spin the tray yourself, like a peasant.  Not so at organic-farm-slash-steel-door-factory; you could just sit back and leisurely wait until the safe, white rice or edamame passed by your plate again.  Part of the problem was that almost all of the meat dishes were seafood and those that weren’t were some odd-looking cold, cured meats or a whole plucked chicken, head and all.  I know I’m particular, but I really do try. It’s just seafood that I cannot do (or chicken heads), so that ruled out a lot.  Of course, I always try to be polite and look like I’m eating, so that leads me to try at least some things that I otherwise wouldn’t, by default. As is typical for me in situations like that, I ate a lot of vegetables and rice. Hopefully no one noticed.  Everyone seemed to be too busy talking in Chinese to notice the skittish American intern.  I was the only one on the tour who speaks almost no Chinese, so that was another little challenge, but with the exception of lunch conversation my coworkers translated for me, so all was well.  Anyway, all my coworkers raved about the food on the way back to the office, so it must’ve been good, if you’re into that sort of thing ;).  The company even sent each of us home with a goody bag! Of course, it was mostly information about their products, but we also each got a box of tea! They just never ceased to impress me, which I assume was the goal. Little do they know I’m just a lowly intern with zero knowledge and/or say in steel fire door selection.

We got back to the office around 2:30, so half the work day was over, which was nice, but everyone was a little disappointed to be back, of course.  It’s a tad discouraging how little my coworkers enjoy their work, like I’m looking into my future, but I suppose most people complain about work and would rather not be there given the option.  The rest of my day was spent on massing models in my little back model-making room, which I enjoy.  I listen to tunes (with headphones, of course) and play with the foam cutter. After I got back from work, my goal was to get caught up on blogs and photos, and I got halfway, finishing with Chengdu but not Beijing, before I decided it was bedtime.  I have a job now, after all, with adult responsibilities; I can’t be staying up until the wee hours of the morning like some crazy university student.  

Thursday was a fairly uneventful day at the office, I mostly worked on AutoCAD, which isn’t my favorite program.  It’s becoming outdated and not many people my age use it anymore, so I’m not very familiar with it, which of course makes it more frustrating in the first place, and then it’s just flat-line drawings, so how exciting can that really be? Not very. However, because Goettsch’s office hours are 9:30-6:30 (9 hours), I decided I get an hour lunch break, so I left the office from 1:30-2:30 to wander and get some food and split my day in half nicely.  Because I don’t often feel ambitious around lunchtime, I just walked to one of the five Starbucks in close proximity and got a tea and a sandwich (which was actually really delicious, it had cheese!) and then walked around in the mall it’s connected to.  It’s quite a large mall and I like malls, so I enjoyed just walking around it and looking at all the stores.  There’s even a gym on the top floor! It made me wish I were a fancy person who shopped at fancy malls and ate at fancy mall restaurants and had a membership to a fancy top-floor mall gym.  Alas, I am an unpaid intern with a Starbucks sandwich and a yoga mat in my dorm room. But I did scope out the restaurant’s food court and more fast-food type restaurants so that I can branch out from Starbucks.  I just feel so cliché every time, the American going to Starbucks. I go to Starbucks more in Shanghai than I ever did in the US.  Once my fantastic sandwich was gone (not long) and I was done exploring the mall, it was about time for me to head back to the office.  I hope no one cares that I disappeared for an hour (and plan to every day), a lot of them eat lunch at their desks, but I’ve read that it’s good for your mental health to not eat lunch at your desk.  My mental health wanted to get out of the office for an hour.  Being an unpaid intern does have a certain amount of freedom that way.  After work I came back to my room and repeated the process of trying to get caught up on my blogging and Facebook photos and I was able to finish it up that night, although Tumblr did crash on my first blog attempt :(.  I had the words saved since I type them in Word beforehand, but had to go back and re-insert all the photos.  It surprised me both days how few hours I feel like I have between getting off work and bedtime, but I suppose I’ll get used to it.  It’s certainly nice not to have any homework to do; even if it isn’t many hours, at least they’re legitimately FREE time.

Friday of course marked the end of my three-day work week (baby steps). There were pastries and juice due to the coworker-provided Friday breakfast, so that was nice.  There wasn’t much for me to do for the first couple hours, but then I was given a Sketch-Up project, which made me happy. Sketch-Up is much more fun than AutoCAD and I can work in Sketch-Up for hours without realizing much time has gone by, so it’s ideal for an 8-hour work day.  Of course, I left again at lunch time and headed back to the mall to check out one of the places I’d scoped out the day before. I won’t buy lunch every day, of course, but as of last week I hadn’t had time to go to the grocery store yet.  I looked around the ground floor and considered Carl’s Jr. but felt like I should be a little more adventurous and less American (always good to have a backup though), so I then headed to the top floor (just below the gym) where the “Food Embassy” is located.  It’s when I have to do things like find lunch that I get nostalgic for the United States: things that shouldn’t be difficult but are that I never thought twice about back home.  I never know how much English the workers will speak and it’s usually not much, and I also never know 100% what the food I order is going to end up looking like/being.  I selected a Taiwanese noodle place and pointed at a photo of a bowl of noodles (I appreciate point-able photos) and was presented with a GIGANTIC bowl of noodles. 

I should’ve included something for scale... The receipt maybe helps show its hugeness?

It was delicious, if a little spicy, but definitely larger than I expected.  The bowl was oversized, but it was still a lot of food.  I apparently caused some challenges by paying with cash, the girl had to run over to another stand, get some sort of card, run back to the other stand, and only then was able to give me my change. I was a little concerned. But it all worked out okay, I had my giant noodle bowl in just a few minutes and then sat in the food court and read my book and ate noodles for an hour.  Available seating is imperative and I look for that as much as the actual food when trying to eat somewhere. China is just so darn crowded (there weren’t many seats at Carl’s Jr.)

After I finished my noodles (or as much of them as I could), I just couldn’t resist going to Starbucks for a Frappuccino.  I don’t usually drink coffee but working like a regular person was getting to me and I felt that I needed it to survive a Friday afternoon.  I told myself I’d only go if there was no line, since I had to get back to work, but amazingly there wasn’t! So I got a caramel Frappuccino :).  As I was paying, the guy behind me apparently saw my driver’s license and thought I was from California. Not quite. Maybe the licenses look similar? Maybe it was a weird conversation starter? Anyway, I learned that he had been born in China but moved to California when he was 10, so considered himself American (or was actually legally American? I’m not sure). He asked me what Minnesota was like and of course I couldn’t think of anything to say but “cold.”  But he knew more about the Timberwolves than I did. Go figure. I went back to the office and did some more Sketch-Up until 6:30.  A lot of my coworkers seem to work late, but like I said, unpaid intern. Friday night I finally had a chance to catch up on Game of Thrones, so now I’m back to waiting for another year for the next season and goodness knows how long for the next book. Any time now would be cool with me, George R. R. Martin…

Saturday was a wonderful day. I did nothing and didn’t leave my room. And it was glorious. Some days I like to hide in my room and pretend I’m not in China, or really even a part of humanity, and it was one of those days.  Not in a bad way, I’d just been so busy and had to interact with humans so much for the past few weeks that I no longer wanted to do things or see people. I tend towards hermit-ism occasionally.  My fellow introverts likely understand. I wore yoga pants all day, finished a book, took a nap, ate ramen noodles for dinner. Good day.  I also FaceTimed with some family since it was the 4th of July, so of course that makes for a good day :) even if I was a little jealous and sad not to be home. I never let myself be a recluse for more than a day, though, it’s too tempting to become an all-out hermit, and today I felt refreshed from my nothing-day, so I ran some errands.  I tried to go refill my student card so I can eat at the cafeterias on campus again, but it was inexplicably closed, even though the sign says 10-1.  The problem is dinner.  So far, I’ve mostly been getting street food from the happy chicken stand or other places, but there aren’t a ton of options near campus.  Most of the cafeterias are closed by the time I get back from work but the main one stays open, so I thought I could eat dinner there, but not without money on my student card I can’t.  So I have at least another week of street food/ramen noodle dinners before I can try the office again next weekend.  Of course I’m not around during their hours on work days, but after today I don’t have high hopes for the weekends either. Ah well, I’ll figure something out I imagine, even if it does mean the happy chicken stand workers knowing my order before I point to it.  I also went to the grocery store today and bought PB&J supplies so that I don’t have to buy lunch every day.  I think I will allow myself one day a week, though (which means all of 4 days total since I’m there such a short time, haha.)  I went to the far away fancy international grocery store, just for fun. Then I had to go back on the metro all the way past Tongji in the other direction for my other errand: contact solution.  I may have mentioned this before, but Shanghai is terribly frustrating when it comes to errands.  For example, my shopping list was as follows: contact solution, bread, peanut butter, jelly, snacks, gum; that’s it, and that took me to 4 stores. True, I just don’t know my way around Shanghai’s stores very well and don’t always know where to get things, but I don’t think that could’ve been condensed much.  I looked around in the supermarket for at least 10 minutes for bread before I gave up and figured I’d get it at a convenience store or something, but then right after I left the store I walked past their ~separate~ bread shop...

Shanghai is absolutely unparalleled when it comes to specialty stores, but so god-awful at general stores.  I don’t think such a thing exists in Shanghai, actually.  There are just so many stores, I guess it makes sense to spread everything out.  Plus China’s national pastime appears to be shopping, so I suppose they want to go to as many shops and collect as many different bags as they possibly can.  A general store would ruin all of the fun; they’d be done so soon, how would they spend the rest of the day? You can find literally any individual brand and any individual product you could ever want in Shanghai and it will have a store of its very own.  But you cannot find a store that sells, for example, bread and contact solution together.  Now, bread and contact solution have nothing to do with each other, so of course by Shanghai logic they’d never be together. But I’m an American, gosh darn it, and I like my efficiency (or I’m lazy, take your pick) and if I could just go to Target I could get bread AND contact solution plus a vacuum cleaner and a new dress. And that’s a beautiful thing, America.  Good job.  Instead, bread in Shanghai is only sold at bread shops and contact solution is only sold at contact lens shops; I’m sure there’s a contact lens shop that was less out of my way, but it was easier for me to go to the one I knew of than search for another, and so I did. But I also bought myself some face masks (different store, of course) to make it worth the trip.  Shanghai makes my skin sad. Then I stopped at a coffee shop (after I finally found one with an empty seat) that wasn’t Starbucks (but still wasn’t Chinese) and got a hibiscus ginger tea and a blueberry muffin :). So overall it was an okay day of errand-running. At least I got everything I needed, eventually.

When I got back to my room, I decided to plan my next adventure.  After my trips to Chengdu and Beijing, my travel bug was dormant and content for a few days, but then when I talked to my mom yesterday, she asked if I had plans to travel to Xi’an yet to see the Terracotta Army, which was second on my list only to Beijing, and that awakened the bug yet again.  It’ll be a really quick trip since I don’t want to miss work, but that’s okay. I only need one day to see the Army after all. There’s no high-speed train to Xi’an like there is to Beijing, so the train journey in itself will be part of the adventure.  It’s 10.5 hours overnight.  So I booked my soft-sleeper tickets online and once they’re confirmed I can go pick them up at the train station.  I’ll leave Shanghai around 10 pm on Friday, sleep on the train that night, and arrive at Xi’an at 8:30 the next morning, spend one night at a hostel, then leave Xi’an around 9 pm Sunday night, sleep on the train again, and then be back in Shanghai around 8 am on Monday morning! It’ll be a whirlwind tour for sure, but I’m sure it’ll be worth it.  I booked a hostel that does tours to the Terracotta Army, just like my hostel in Beijing did Great Wall tours, and it goes from 9-5:30 or something, so I’m thinking I’ll explore the city on Saturday and then do that on Sunday before I leave that night.  I think I’ll ask whether I can show up to work around noon or so on Monday so that I have a chance to at least come back to my room and shower. I’m sure they won’t mind. They’ve been quite flexible with my schedule so far and of course they want me to explore China while I’m here.  So that’s in two weeks, the weekend of the 17-19! That way I work two full weeks before I have to ask to show up late on Monday. I figure it’s best to wait a little while since I only just started full-time last week and it was only a three-day work week for me at that (and I’m only there for such a short time to begin with).  Unfortunately, that’ll probably be the last chance I’ll have to travel outside of Shanghai while I’m here, but I’m happy with what I’ve gotten to see so far and what I now have planned and there are still some things in Shanghai that I’d like to check out :).

Assuming I get my flight changed to not overstay my residence permit, I now only have 25 days left in Shanghai! I can’t believe it, really. I also only have 19 days of work, assuming I don’t work on the day I leave, the 31st.  There were definitely days and weeks when time seemed to crawl here, but overall I can’t believe it’s almost over! I’ll do my best to make my last couple weeks blog-worthy :).

[meganann823]

Week 19 – The semester ends and I go to Beijing!

After staying up somewhat late on Monday night when I returned from Chengdu to finish the two presentations I had to give on Tuesday, I got up and went to my internship for a couple of hours on Tuesday morning.  It was a really tough time to start my internship with all of my end-of-the-semester work piling up, but I already felt bad that I wasn’t going to be there very long, so I wanted to give them all the hours I could… Which meant I no longer had those hours for homework. But I made it work, just got a little less sleep, and gave my presentations in my Chinese Traditional Architecture and Chinese Modern Architecture classes on Tuesday afternoon/evening.  They actually both went quite well, if I do say so myself; I was glad that my late night had paid off.  Both classes went late, I had to leave the first one so I could get dinner before the second (although I usually hate it when people do that and I felt really guilty leaving when there were two presentations left). The second presentation in my evening class went really late and people started leaving again after they’d presented, like in the first class, but I went 4th to last, so I of course stayed for the remaining presentations after mine and there ended up being only the 4 of us there by the end, but the professor thanked us for staying.

Wednesday I went to work again since I didn’t have class during the day on Wednesdays.  They were really busy with a deadline for most of the morning, too busy to find work for me.  So I hung out and went and got lunch at Starbucks and practiced my Chinese speech in my head for our presentation that night until about 1:30, when they finally had a chance to give me something to help with.  When Mike found out my studio review was the next day he told me I could leave whenever I needed to, which was nice, but unfortunately I wasn’t actually able to work on my review at all until after my Chinese final. I did leave around 4, but it was so I could meet my Chinese group to practice before class.  We were singing the national anthem (with matching red scarves!) and then we were all going to memorize a Mao quote and recite that as well, since the anthem is really short.  However, my other three group members dropped the ball a bit and didn’t even have the anthem memorized, let alone a further speech.  Ah well. We climbed up to a rooftop across the street from campus, which is apparently just a place some Tongji students go sometimes? I’d never been there, it’s some residential building I think and we had to climb a ladder to get up, but the view was pretty good until it got too hazy to see the skyline.  We figured that would be a good place to practice our singing so that no one else would have to listen to us.  There was struggling and I was a little irritated because I had memorized it completely and had thought we were getting together just to run through it, not learn it. But we knew the presentations, as the class in general, would be pretty informal, so we figured we had it well enough (or at least weren’t going to get it any better in the hour we had before class) so we climbed down from the rooftop and headed to class.

Our Chinese final just had to be some sort of presentation and you could be in groups up to 4.  It was a pretty small class, so there were only 4 groups including ours, but it was pretty entertaining.  One group did a dialogue that they’d memorized and all the others sang, some even danced.  I felt silly that I was the only one in my group with a speech after we finished our song, so I was irritated with them for that, but I had spent a lot of time and effort memorizing it, so I wasn’t just going to not do it.  I got a little flustered and had to look at my notes a few times, which was frustrating because I knew I had had it entirely memorized, but what can you do? It ended up okay though, our teacher got back to us with grades that night and I got the highest score in the class :). I realize I probably took it too seriously for a class we won’t even get credit for, but I can’t help it. Hopefully I wasn’t too rude to my teammates when I was frustrated with them.  The class ended with all of us dancing and taking group photos with our teacher, so yeah I’d say it was a pretty low-key final.  

Our Chinese class with our teacher in the middle

My group singing, with our fabulous red scarves

Unfortunately my night was just beginning, since as I mentioned, my studio review was the next day.  I had originally told Goettsch I could work on Thursday morning, but thankfully thought better of it when I was there on Wednesday and asked if I could switch it for Friday instead.  That was fine with them and it was a good thing I did because long story short, I was up (Mom, skip this sentence) literally all night until 8 am the next morning finishing my work and even then, I wasn’t happy with it.  It wasn’t up to my standards and wasn’t up to the standards of work I’d produce at Iowa State. It’s my fault, of course, for not giving the project more time and effort, but it’s not like I’d entirely slacked off, so I was frustrated with myself (and frustrated that I hadn’t gotten to go to bed, bedtime is my favorite part of the day).  I took a nap from 8-10am and then got up and got ready.  I had to do some more paperwork-running for my internship and was annoyed when I made the trip to the international office and she just told me to take it to a different office (when she’d originally said SHE’D get it to the other office…) After that I rushed to the printing shop on campus because I hadn’t printed my presentation booklet or boards yet. I’ve never before been so bad with time management and I’m not sure whether to blame my trip the weekend before, starting my internship, or just myself for not planning better, but that’s certainly the most last-minute work I’ve done before a review. I passed a studio-mate of mine on the way there and he scared me to death by saying he’d had to wait about an hour to print because it was so busy.  At that point, I only had an hour until the review was supposed to start, so I was panicking.  My worst-case-scenario to make myself feel better was the fact that I wasn’t actually scheduled to present until second-last in the line-up, so I technically could show up late, but of course I didn’t want to do that.  Thankfully, I had much better luck than my friend and was helped at the shop almost right away.  They even offered to bind my booklet with transparent covers for me and mat my boards on foam! I was so grateful in my sleep-deprived state, I could’ve cried. These were both things I’d wanted done, but didn’t know how to ask for in Chinese, so when they were able to ask me, I was thrilled.

With my boards and booklet, I made my way back to the architecture building to get set up for the review, just in time.  I had to make a second trip back to my room to get my models, but then I had everything there with time to spare before the review actually started.  We had a ton of invited reviewers and not all of them spoke English, so it was pretty tough to keep my eyelids open when they’d drone on in Chinese about someone else’s project, but I managed.  Review days are always pretty long and miserable and I really was just looking forward to being done.  My review didn’t go very well.  I had sort of expected it, since I wasn’t happy with my work, but it’s still hard to go through, especially after staying up all night just to have something presentable.  I must’ve looked upset (with no sleep, not crying was a victory, let alone keeping a poker face during the critique) because the woman apologized to me afterwards for being harsh. Oh, final reviews… Only two more and then I’ll be out in the real world.  I was also frustrated because I’ve been getting the same critique lately over and over: my analysis and thought process are really good, but they don’t translate into the design.  That’s the most frustrating critique in the world because obviously, to my eyes and my brain, they do translate, or I wouldn’t have designed it that way.  So when it makes sense to me, it’s really hard to determine whether it will be clear to others and if it’s not, how to fix it. I mean I suppose that’s just sort of the story and struggle of being a designer, some people just struggle with it more than others… Maybe I shouldn’t be a designer, I’ll just go into writing about other people’s architecture or something… We’ll see.  Anyway, I was bummed but it didn’t last long in my joy to be finished.

We all decided to go out for dinner after the review, which was a really fun way to celebrate the end of the studio.  You always bond with people in a studio, architecture is tough that way; you bond over your shared struggles with the same project.  We went to a restaurant called Grandma’s Kitchen and, of course, let our Chinese friends do the ordering. It was really good, probably the best meal I’ve had in Shanghai, and it was so fun to be out relaxing with friends after the stressful day.  I still had a tiny bit of work left to do at that point, but of course studio had been the big one, so I was hardly worried about what I had left and was able to enjoy the night.  A lot of the international students who had been at Tongji for a whole year were leaving just a few days after the review, they’re gone by now when I’m writing this, so the dinner had a nostalgic sort of farewell feeling to it.  I truly hope I’ll see them again. Maybe we’ll all have a big reunion in Shanghai in 5 years ;).  

Our farewell studio dinner :)

We said our goodbyes as we made our way back to Tongji and I headed up to my room to write a paper. Thankfully writing is fairly easy for me (as these outrageously long blog posts can attest to) and it was a paper based on the same subject matter that I’d presented in Tuesday in one of my classes, so I already had the information.  It wasn’t bad and thankfully wasn’t too late of a night when I got it all done. I don’t think I could’ve done that two nights in a row.

Friday morning I went into work, my exchange for not coming in on review morning, but I could only stay until noon so they just gave me some Photoshop work to do.  It was fun, I like Photoshop.  They had given me a sort of reference image to use by someone who is obviously far more experienced in Photoshop than I am, so I tried my best to emulate it but I’m sure I fell a bit short. Hopefully it was good enough that they were able to use my work, I’d hate to think that I’m not helping.  One exciting thing I learned about the office is that they take turns on Fridays bringing in breakfast for everyone! That day there was cupcakes and juice :). (I’m writing this blog on a Thursday night and looking forward to seeing what we get tomorrow!)  After I left work I went really quickly back to the print shop on campus to print my final paper before heading to my last final exam to turn it in.  The exam was unfortunately a little harder than I’d expected it to be, but not terrible. Again, I was just giddy that it was over since it was my very last task of finals week and therefore of year 2 of my Master’s degree! One year left!

After I left the exam, I came back to my room, cleaned it spotless (which I had not had time to do for a while and it was a huge mess after my model-making for studio), felt like I reclaimed a bit of my personhood, and then tried to plan somewhat of an itinerary for my trip to Beijing, which I was leaving for early the next morning! Another trip I felt very unprepared for.  There’s so much to see in Beijing, it certainly required a lot of planning and prioritizing and even when I was there, each night I had to carefully plan the next day.

So, that’s the end of my semester at Tongji, onto my trip to Beijing! (AKA “A Study in Selfies”) What better way to celebrate the end of my 6th year of postsecondary education?!

I got up bright and early to get to the train station; I was on the first train out of the metro at 5:45 am. My train to Beijing was at 7 am, again the first train.  I didn’t have many days at my disposal, so I wanted to use as many hours of them as I could!  It’s a 5 hour train ride from Shanghai to Beijing and I spent the time alternately listening to my audiobook, reading, and sleeping, and at around noon we pulled into the Beijing station! I was definitely a little nervous about undertaking such a large trip by myself, but I knew it was really the only chance I’d get and Rachel was busy that weekend, so off I went alone.  When I got to the train station, I found my way to the metro and took that the rest of the way to my hostel.  The hostel was in a great location, it was a super popular shopping/eating area in a historic neighborhood in Beijing and the hostel itself proved to absolutely adorable.  It was almost tempting to just hang out there for four days.  

Peking International Youth Hostel :)

I checked in to my bed in the 6-female dorm, but none of the other girls were there at the time.  My plan for the day was to check out the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square and then I had a list of some other sights that I wanted to possibly fit in somewhere or another depending on how I worked around the big ticket items. So I was at the hostel probably all of 15 minutes before I set out for the Forbidden City, since it was about 2 at the time and I knew it closed at 4 (turns out they stop selling tickets at 4 but you can stay inside until 5), so I was in a hurry.

It’s within walking distance of the hostel, but it was probably a 20 minute walk or so, then of course I had to wait in line to get tickets and then go through security, but I finally got in around 2:30. And I was awestruck. So much of my writing about Beijing is going to feel inadequate because the things I saw there were extraordinary and I’m not nearly a talented enough writer to adequately describe them.  First of all, the Forbidden City is HUGE. I mean I knew that, but knowing it and seeing it are entirely different things.  

Part of the Forbidden City

Also, it’s so beautiful, in a very majestic and intimidating way, which, considering its history, was likely the intention.  I followed a sort of walking tour through the area given by my guidebook, trying to soak up as much as I could with my limited time, but I basically walked around giddy and amazed and left completely thrilled by my life. 

Me and some fancy Forbidden City architecture

Maybe it’s an architecture thing, maybe it’s a history thing, maybe everyone feels that way after visiting the Forbidden City, who knows, but I was happy to be there.  After I left I headed just south to visit Tiananmen Square, which isn’t nearly as scenic but is equally historically important and interesting.

I mean seriously, look at it!

Tiananmen Square was a whole different beast.  First of all, it was a challenge to even get to. I’ve never seen tighter security on a “public” place, and that’s saying something in China.  The access points are seriously limited, I think there are only four of them, and you have to cross the street via these underground tunnels. Of course, when you come up, you come up straight into a security line to scan your bags and get a pat-down. And then the CCTV! I’ve never seen so many cameras in one place, not to mention the police and military just “casually” stationed around the square as well.  

Cameras at Tiananmen Square

It’s entirely fenced off, even to exit you have to go through those four points of access.  Now I was in awe for a different reason, this was the China that Americans were a little spooked about.  I walked around the square and took photos, but was promptly greeted by a little Chinese man who I thought wanted to sell me something but instead was offering to take my picture for me when he saw me taking selfies.  I was a little nervous about handing him my camera, but then remembered he’d have a tough time getting away.  He took one picture, then wanted to look at it with me. 

Awkward photo thanks to awkward stranger

I thanked him and started to walk away… I noticed he was following… He asked if I wanted a picture with a different part of the square… I said okay, repeat the above process and walk away, again…

Awkward photo, part 2

He follows and starts trying to speak to me in Chinese. I tell him I don’t speak Chinese (one of the Chinese sentences I made sure to learn, but that always seems to encourage people into thinking I speak more than I do). He keeps trying. I keep not-so-subtly walking away. Finally I extricated myself and I’m pretty sure he tried to follow me again but I took advantage of the Chinese crowds, the one time I was wishing they were thicker, and eventually I either lost him or he gave up.  I’m guessing the latter, since it’s hard to lose someone in a giant open square the size of Tiananmen and my blonde hair makes me stand out like a beacon. Not good for blending into the crowd.  Tiananmen Square didn’t look like I expected it to.  That maybe sounds odd, but I think on TV or wherever you only ever see a specific angle of it, looking towards that red building with Mao’s face on it.  But that’s not even really in the square, it’s across the street just facing the square. Either way, it was certainly an interesting visit.

Me and my buddy, Mao (not actually in Tiananmen Square)

After leaving Tiananmen via the approved route, I walked just a short distance away to see the National Theater, which is a surprisingly different style considering its proximity to Tiananmen Square.  I was mainly visiting because I’d done a presentation on it earlier in the semester (focused on whether it’s a mistake because it ignores its context) and wanted to see it in person.  

The National Theater/giant silver egg

I passed many a stern-faced guard and even some officers marching in formation around the outskirts of the Square.  My feet were pretty tired by that point after my whirlwind tour of the Forbidden City and wandering Tiananmen, so I sat and pondered the egg building for a while. If nothing else, it’s certainly iconic.  After that I tried to go see the area where the former legation was, but I couldn’t find it. I’m bad at maps sometimes. But like I said I was a bit exhausted by then, so I was okay with taking a break from sightseeing for dinner. I did bargain with a postcard seller on the street, however, when he accosted me while I was consulting my map, and got two packets of postcards for the price of one! Not bad, I thought, even if I didn’t necessarily need them.  Sometimes it’s worth it to buy something so they’ll leave me alone and it only put me out less than $2 USD. Plus I got some postcards, so hey, win-win.  I subway-ed back to the hostel and had dinner at their café, which was quite good.  The thing about eating by yourself in China is that it can be challenging, because most Chinese restaurants are set up for a group of people to order a bunch of dishes and share, so the portion sizes don’t quite work when you’re alone.  This leaves the options of street food or Western-style restaurants, which the hostel café was.  Also, it was adorable and a very nice place to sit.

Hostel cafe

After dinner it was still pretty early and  my feet had recovered a bit, so I decided to make the obligatory architecture student trip to see the CCTV Building on my way to the Olympic Park (also somewhat obligatory in terms of architecture).  

CCTV Building/giant pants of structural engineering

I expected the Olympic Park to be desolate, but there were actually quite a few people hanging out there.  It was nothing compared to actually during the games, I’m sure, but I certainly wasn’t the only tourist even though it was maybe 9 pm by that point. Also, I discovered that Beijing wants to be considered for the 2022 Winter Games.  I guess it makes sense to want to reuse some of those buildings, but come on Beijing, isn’t that a little greedy? I mean yes, the Beijing games were 2008, so that is 14 years in between, but still, Olympic cities don’t usually repeat that soon do they? Whatever, you do you, Beijing. Best of luck.  After taking some selfies with the Bird’s Nest and Water Cube, I headed back to the hostel for the night.  

Bird’s Nest

and Water Cube

Some of my hostel-mates were there by then and they were all Chinese, so I didn’t speak to them much, although they seemed perfectly friendly. I felt a little bad when I went to bed early because then they felt like they had to whisper and be super quiet when honestly I could’ve slept through a bomb; I’d been going nonstop for at least a week, with my trip to Chengdu, finals week, and then Beijing. Honestly I’m not even sure that momentum has stopped just yet now that I’ve started my internship full time (the very morning after returning from Beijing at 11 pm) and have so far spent my time after work getting back into being a person and catching up on blogs/photos. I’m looking forward to the weekend.  Anywho, got a tad off subject there…

Sunday was my first full day in Beijing, so I planned to spend it at the Summer Palace, which is a little way outside the city (but reachable by metro) and quite huge. It was a sweltering hot day and I was feeling the effects of my busy schedule for the past week, so it was quite a different day from my normal tourism habits.  I just walked around very leisurely and did a lot of sitting, which is okay because it’s very scenic and nice for sitting. I’d walk a little, sit for a while, walk a little more, sit for a while, buy three bottles of water, etc.  

The most important purchase I’ve made in China

The whole area was beautiful, even though it was a pretty hazy day.  

Part of the Summer Palace

My highlight was probably when I was walking along and stopped to watch a little old man drawing Chinese characters on the path with water; he noticed me and told me to write my name and that he’d translate it into characters.  He spoke pretty good English and was very excited when I told him I was American because his kids live in Virginia and he has four grandkids.  He was quite animated and quite a crowd had gathered around us, which I tried not to look at because it made me self-conscious, but it was still a highlight because he was so friendly. Plus, he translated my name into beautifully-written water characters :).

My name in characters

Speaking of self-conscious, I swear you’d think I was the biggest attraction at the Summer Palace. I mean I’m used to people staring and whatnot in Shanghai and even asking for pictures or sneakily taking them, but that day was a whole new level. I don’t know why, but I have seriously never been so popular. I felt like a celebrity, but not in a good way.  I got asked for a picture at least three times, and not-asked many more.  The rubberneck stares were absolutely constant and started to make me really uncomfortable since I was already sweaty and tired.  I just felt so…Observed. I had new-found pity for zoo animals.  At one point, I was sitting on a sort of bench/railing thing and all of a sudden these women come and set their baby down at the other end of the railing and pretend to take pictures of her, but it’s obvious that I’m in them too.  The baby looked at me, so I smiled at her and she smiled back; she was adorable, of course. Apparently this indicated my consent and the women gave up the pretext and moved the baby closer to me and continued to take photos for at least a couple minutes.  I could not make this stuff up. That’s a common strategy I’ve noticed, to pretend to be taking a picture of just your friend or your baby, but to conveniently do it right next to the American. It is never subtle.  Depending on how I feel, sometimes I’ll just get up and leave as if I’m oblivious, or other times I’ll look directly at the camera and smile so they know I’m onto them.  It irritates me, I honestly wish they’d just ask. I’d say yes.  But them pretending to be so “secretive” at it and failing so miserably is just annoying. Like do they really think I’m so dumb that I don’t notice what they’re doing? Or they just greatly overestimate their own cleverness. I’m not joking when I say that exact thing happened at least two other times that day, in addition to the people who asked for photos.  One guy and his dad(?) were really nice and told me I was very beautiful after they asked for me to take a photo with the son, so of course that lessened my irritation a little.  Also a younger girl with her parents on the metro seemed so excited when I said hi to her (after I noticed her staring and could tell they were talking about me) that I felt like I made her week when I agreed for a photo with her. That one was on a moving subway train; that’s a first.  That’s another thing Chinese people are terribly unsubtle at, talking about me. Usually it happens before they ask for/decide to take a picture, but sometimes it doesn’t go beyond talking. But they look right at me while they whisper to each other.  And I know the Chinese words for “American” and “foreigner”.  When the girl on the metro asked me, in very good English, where I was from and I answered her in Chinese, the whole family was so excited it was as if I’d just told them I was giving them each a brand new puppy.

After I decided I was done sweating to death and playing celebrity at the Summer Palace, I headed back to the metro.  Thing is, the metro is a little way away from the entrance/exit and there are these like moto-rickshaw taxis that wait outside and offer rides; I had declined on the way there but after walking around for a couple hours, I took one of them up on it on the way back. It was fun and really pretty cheap. I felt fancy.  

My ride to the metro

I decided a good place to spend the rest of the afternoon would be the China National Art Museum, since it’s air conditioned. I had wanted to go the previous day since it’s right by Tiananmen Square, but I didn’t get there before closing time.  On Sunday I did get there in time, so I figured I’d have a look. Fittingly with its proximity to Tiananmen, the security there was super intense as well, especially to get into a free art museum.  First I had to go to a little side office and show my passport, then they gave me a ticket and pointed me towards the security, which was an imposing lineup of like 5 bag scanners and a row of police-friskers. I was like the only one entering the museum at the time too, so that made it quite intimidating.  It was a really nice museum and the gigantic building was impressive.  

China National Art Museum

Again, I did a lot of sitting in between exhibits and also took some time and sat at the café and had a snack since the heat had worn me out. But the air conditioning was quite nice and I was sad when I was kicked out at closing time.  I headed back to the hostel and decided to just hang out and rest my feet for the night because I had booked my trip to the Great Wall for the following day!  It was really convenient, because all I had to do was go up to the front desk and they had a couple different options for trips and then they took care of the whole thing and a bus picked me up at the hostel the next morning. But for the evening I had dinner at the hostel café again and then sat in the common room, which was predictably adorable and cozy, and read my book.

Cozy hostel common area

I went to bed early and got up at the crack of dawn to meet my Great Wall bus at 6:20 am! I was actually pretty nervous but I think it was because I was so excited that I just needed everything to work out smoothly.  A visit to the Great Wall was essentially my main goal in coming to China. Call me cliché, I know, but after seeing it, it was an entirely worthy goal to have.  I got onto the bus with a bunch of other Westerners and our English-speaking guide and we started off on the two-hour drive.  I had chosen a trip to one of the less-touristy areas and oh my goodness am I glad I did. It was incredible. Again, this is where my words will fail me entirely other than to say it was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. I mean, people make a big deal out of it for a reason.  The weather wasn’t very nice, it was cloudy and hazy, but it kind of just gave the mountains a more majestic, mysterious look. I didn’t mind.  

Is this real life??

We did get rained on a bit and it genuinely got a bit chilly, but I didn’t mind one bit.  I was too absorbed by the experience and I was just glad it wasn’t hot because we were doing some serious climbing. I really preferred the weather we had to hot and sunny, strange as that may sound. I just don’t handle heat well. 

A little wet, but still ecstatic

One thing I didn’t expect was when we arrived at the base of the mountain, a bunch of Chinese women met our van and looked super happy to see us and I was informed by one of the men in our group that they would follow us up to the wall and try to sell us things.  It was kind of annoying but I didn’t let it ruin the experience and eventually I bought a small little purse-thing (after bargaining the price down of course) to make her go away.  They all left after a little way along the wall, they obviously had a sort of routine set up.  They’d follow us so far and try to make conversation and tell us things about the wall and then when we got to a certain point they’d ask us to buy something because they were poor farmers from Mongolia who had no jobs other than selling souvenirs on the Great Wall every day.  The one who’d latched onto me actually said, “if you buy something, I’ll go home.” Like I said, sometimes it’s worth it to make a purchase to get them to leave you alone. And she did, so all was well and we continued salesperson-free.

The part of the wall we were on was much less-restored than the more touristy areas and therefore so much more interesting.  At the end of the section we were climbing, we actually climbed a pile of wobbly bricks to climb through a window into the last accessible tower; it felt much more authentic than some of the pictures of other areas I’ve seen.  

“I like old things, they make me sad.”

Our tour guide joked that if you go to those areas you’re not actually visiting the wall, you’re visiting the people, which I thought was funny. Fun fact on our tour guide, she does Great Wall tours 7 days a week and has been for over a year. She’s gone over 400 times! She probably weighed about 75 pounds and I understand why. My legs were screaming at me the day after.  So the way it worked was we took a cable car up the mountain to the wall, then we hiked for about three hours and I took about a hundred photos, and then we hiked along a path back down to the bottom of the mountain.  Like I said, I can’t even think of words to describe it, so I’ll just have to let my photos do the talking, but the whole time I was there I just couldn’t believe my life.

“Are you sure you don’t want to look majestically off into the distance?” “Sure, might as well.”

After we got back down to our bus, they took us to lunch at a little restaurant in the side of the mountain, which was pretty good, and then we were back in the city by about 4 pm. They dropped me off in a different spot than they picked me up and I had a little trouble finding my way back to my hostel, but I made it eventually.  I went back and changed out of my hiking clothes and then decided to do a little more sightseeing (can’t be wasting hours!), so I went to a park that overlooks the city and then to one of the nighttime food markets, which was super interesting.  

View of the Forbidden City from Jingshan Park

I grabbed a couple things for dinner, but nothing too crazy.  The night markets are where you find things like fried spiders, scorpions, and silkworms, all of which I saw.  

Spiders, snakes, scorpions, you name it.

It was definitely entertaining to walk around and look at what they were selling, but I was not about to eat insects. Sorry to disappoint, I know it would’ve made good blog material.  After that I headed back to the hostel and took it easy for the rest of the night since it had been an early morning and an eventful day, to say the least.

Unfortunately Tuesday was my last day in the city.  I checked out of my hostel in the morning and had breakfast at the café, but then was able to leave my bag there while I checked a couple more sights off my list. My first stop that morning was the Temple of Heaven park, which was as beautiful as the name suggests.  

Temple of Heaven park

It was a rainy morning, but that was okay. I had my umbrella.  I spent a couple hours wandering around the large park, which had a surprising amount of locals in it. There were old people dancing, playing cards and mahjong, even something that looked like hackey-sack. It was great. I wanted to take pictures of them all but I know what it feels like to have your picture taken by strangers, so I refrained.  After I left the park I was planning on visiting the Mao memorial where his body is enshrined, but it didn’t work out, thanks to Tiananmen Square security.  When I got there I got a little confused and couldn’t figure out where I was able to enter the square and then when I finally figured it out, it was super busy and I had to wait for a long time in security. Once I got through that, I made my way all the way around the gigantic building the memorial is in to the front entrance, but when I got there a guard said “no bag” and pointed off in some direction.  I came to realize there was a bag check. Outside the square. Outside security.  The memorial is only open until noon and by then it was 11:30, so I figured there was no way I’d make it and I honestly didn’t care enough to try and deal with the hassle.  I think the whole reason the square was so busy was because people were visiting the memorial. They love Mao like a god.  There were people selling so many things with his face on them.

But anyway, I gave up on that and headed to my next destination, Lama Temple, the largest in Beijing. It was quite impressive and definitely the largest temple I’ve been to in China, which is saying something because I’ve been to a lot.  

Lama Temple incense clouds

Thankfully the weather was clearing up at that point, so I strolled around the temple for a little while before heading back in the direction of my hostel.  The last thing I wanted to check out more fully were the hutongs, which is what they call the old alleyways in Beijing like the one where my hostel was located. So I got off at a metro stop a little way from my hostel and walked there through the hutongs, doing some leisurely shopping and buying churros and ice cream as I went.  

Nanluoguxiang, the hutong where my hostel was located

All too soon, I was back to my hostel and it was time to head to the train station.  I picked up my bag and said goodbye to the lovely little place and made my way to the station.  I listened to my audiobook on the way back and looked out the window; the scenery was quite pretty, with lots of big green mountains.  The train even went under them a few times through tunnels.  I got back to Shanghai around 9 and got on the metro to take me back to Tongji and just like that, my whirlwind trip to Beijing had come to an end.  I unpacked and went straight to bed since I had to be up the next morning to start full-time at Goettsch.

All in all, it’s certainly been an exciting and busy couple of weeks, but of course the highlight was the Great Wall. I can now leave China feeling accomplished.  It’s also quite nice to be done with my classes, of course. Now when I get back from work I don’t have homework to worry about.  I can’t think of a better celebratory end to the semester than my trip to Beijing was. I’m proud of myself for managing it alone, for seeing all the sights I wanted to see, and for holding my own on the challenging hike up the Great Wall. I already know that my trip to Beijing will be something I’ll remember for a lifetime.

Buh-bye!

[meganann823]

Week 18 – PANDAmonium!

Never could resist a pun. But before we get to the pandas, there were a few other events worth noting.

First of all, if you remember way, way back when I wrote my last blog and said nothing exciting would likely happen over the weekend, well I was wrong! My friend Cara, who I went to the U of M with and lived with during our semester in Barcelona our junior year, was in Shanghai for a couple weeks for a May-term through the U, where she now goes for grad school! Her group was doing presentations ON my campus on Friday morning! Imagine that! So of course I went and watched, and it was great to see Cara since it had been a couple years. One of the first things she asked me was, “how have you managed to live here so long??” and it was nice to have someone to commiserate with over the daily difficulties of China (although I am coping much better now that I was before).  Apparently Cara had informed their professor of my whole situation and how I was coming to watch their presentations and afterwards he kindly invited me to have lunch with the whole group.  It was really good, as I’ve found Chinese food can be if you have a Chinese person there to order it, and the professor seemed quite interested in my whole deal with Iowa State and basically how I ended up at Tongji and how it was working logistically and he had plenty of questions. I’ve realized since being here what a unique opportunity it is, the way this worked out, and it’s pretty fantastic.  I felt bad though because I wasn’t able to answer all of his questions as well as he was probably hoping, since I feel I’ve been a tiny bit left out of logistical-type things while they get worked out back home.  I was really just sort of sent here with little information and it’s only gotten more confusing since trying to set up the internship (which is good to go now, hooray!)  

Anyway, after lunch with Cara and her group, she invited me to go shopping with a few of the girls over on East Nanjing Road, where their hotel was. It was an absolutely sweltering day in Shanghai, so we spent as much time inside the air-conditioned stores as we could and eventually gave up to sit in the shade at a little terrace bar with over-priced drinks, but it was an enjoyable afternoon even with the weather. After that we parted ways since Cara’s group had dinner reservations and I had a ton and a half of homework to do, so it was a short visit but I’m glad I caught her while she was in town; it’s always nice to see a familiar face :).  The rest of the weekend and Monday and Tuesday, however, were as uneventful as predicted and I spent it almost entirely doing homework in preparation for the last week of classes.

Wednesday was another story. It was the first day of my internship at Goettsch Partners, and I was quite nervous and excited, which was enough for me to not give much thought to the weather until I was outside with my umbrella, carefully stepping around puddles. I didn’t realize the futility of this effort until I rounded a corner and saw a significant section of campus near the main gate completely flooded with calf-deep water. Couldn’t walk around that. But I needed to get to the metro to make it to my first day of work on time, of course. I noticed a couple people had taken off their shoes and were wading through, where some just gave up and walked in, shoes, socks, pants and all. I went the former route, trying to maintain at least some appearance for when I arrived at the office and not wanting to walk around in wet boots all day. So I took off my shoes and socks, rolled up my pants, and waded through the nasty flood water towards the metro. It was easily the most unexpectedly ridiculous and surreal thing that had happened to me lately. When I imagined all the difficulties I could face on my first day of work, trudging barefoot through flood water was not on the list, silly me.  It was all okay though, I made it to the metro and put my shoes and socks back on, returned my pants to their normal length.  Although I was bothered by the fact that I knew how dirty Shanghai’s streets/sidewalks usually are and the thought of all that and more being in the water I had walked through and therefore on my feet the entire day, I tried not to worry about it for the time being.  A tad sweaty and disheveled, I nonetheless made it to my internship on time. Other people were delayed by the rain and flooding, so for the first hour or so, there wasn’t really anyone there to tell me what to do, so I just hung out in the pretty office.  Then a guy named Mike arrived, another American, and the woman I’d been talking to, Claire, the head of the Shanghai office, said I should check in with him.  

Mike is really friendly and gave me the whole office tour, introducing me and giving a little spiel about my new position in the office to each person, which was very nice of him. After that he showed me a project they’re working on that he wanted me to make some foam massing models for. I was pretty happy with that for work because I like making models and it meant I got to hide in this little back room (with really nice views of People’s Square, it’s not an ugly little back room) by myself and play with the foam cutter. I like the foam cutter. I’d never seen one before but it has a pedal like a sewing machine and when you press it, a vertical wire heats up and you can slide the foam through and it cuts like butter! So fun. I’m not actually very good at it yet (getting better, though) but I enjoy it regardless.  At lunch time a bunch of my new coworkers invited me to lunch with them and we went to a Turkish restaurant just across the street. The office is on the 21st floor of a building near People’s Square, so it’s a pretty exciting place to work, lots of shops and restaurants and humans. The restaurant was really good and all my new coworkers are really friendly, so it was a great lunch.  After that I got back to making models until around 5, when I left to head back to the university so I could get to my last Chinese class of the semester.

Our teacher went through the last lesson at lightning speed and then started a movie and, predictably, everyone left. But for me, being in class meant I didn’t have to feel guilty about not working on other homework, so I stayed and watched the movie, just me and the teacher. I’ve been irritated about it other times, but I honestly didn’t care. It wasn’t even all that awkward, and then afterwards when he saw I was the only one left, he offered to give me some Chinese movies (with subtitles) on a flash drive, which I assume was a reward for not being rude and leaving, or else he thinks I stayed because I have some affinity for Chinese cinema. Either way, I got some movies. I haven’t watched them yet, but I will sometime. Also, he was telling me a joke Chinese people tell about Shanghai when it floods. Apparently Shang Hai means “on the ocean” roughly, but if you switch it and say Hai Shang, it means “under the ocean” so when the city floods they say that Shanghai becomes “Hai Shang” and refer to it that way, because apparently the flooding happens like every year around this time.

Thursday morning was our last studio session, but by that close to the final review, no one really wants to present their work because we don’t want to hear that there’s something we need to change, so we got done early.  Then I had to run around trying to figure out some paperwork for my internship, which is made complicated by the fact that the office I need to deal with is only open from 9-11 and then 2-4. Who needs a three hour lunch break?! That’s what I was wondering and since it was the only chance I had to stop by, I just went and interrupted lunch. Whoops. They’d been frustrating me lately so I didn’t really feel bad and all I needed to do was pick up a form for Goettsch to stamp, so I wanted to do it before I headed to work that afternoon. All was well, I got my form and didn’t even get too many dirty looks in return. Then I headed to work for the afternoon since I only had classes on Thursday morning.  I worked on some more models but was frustrated at one point because the guy I was working with that day (not Mike) was giving me unclear instructions and even when I tried to clarify and then came back with the “finished” model, he’d directly contradict himself and tell me to do it a different way. I’m assuming some things were maybe lost in translation, so I don’t blame him; he wasn’t being mean about it or anything, I was just starting to worry he’d think I was some super ditzy intern who didn’t know what she was doing.  I ended up staying a bit late, until about 7:30 (office hours end at 6:30, so only an hour) which I was a little frustrated by, mostly because I was hungry and don’t get paid to be there. But I stayed and finished my work and then when I got back to Tongji, I went to the happy chicken stand and got two bags of chicken and inhaled them both.

Love the chicken stand. That right there is as big as it is, that’s it.

On Friday I got up bright and early to meet my Traditional Chinese Architecture class for a field trip to Zhouzhuang, a water town near Suzhou.  It was very pretty but very crowded.  

Zhouzhuang

For the morning, the professors wanted us to stay with them, which resulted in a lot of standing and waiting for some inexplicable reason. I like to say I’m a speedy museum-walker and it applies to all sightseeing-type locations really, not just museums. I don’t know why, it’s not like I’m not paying attention to what I’m looking at, I just don’t feel the need to sit and contemplate it for five minutes and I got impatient waiting for the professors/group.  They did take us all out for lunch, though, which was nice, but unfortunately the restaurant specialized in fish and seafood. Ah well. I did try a piece of eel because one of my German friends essentially dared me to; it didn’t taste bad but it had the texture of a giant rubber band, so I didn’t eat any more eel after that.  I was able to eat enough vegetables and rice though, I was content. After lunch we were able to break off from the group and just had to meet back at a certain time/place.  I went with Rachel and a couple others on a walk to visit a temple, which ended up being very pretty and a good use of the time. 

Temple in Zhouzhuang

When we met the group the professors wanted to take a group picture and while we were all posing, a bunch of Chinese people started taking our picture as well (we’re a group of maybe 20 international students, score!) which was pretty funny.

After we got back from the field trip, I tried to prepare for my trip to Chengdu the following morning, which I was feeling terribly unprepared for since I’d been so busy, but somehow I managed to get everything ready and in order before I had to get up for my 5:00 am taxi. I had arranged the taxi ahead of time since I didn’t know how many taxis hung out around the university that early in the morning. 2 or 3 in the morning, of course, no problem. But I didn’t know about 5. My taxi was there waiting for me when I got there, so that was handy, and it ended up taking even less time to get to the airport than I expected. A couple of us were planning on meeting the trip coordinators, Anastasia and Sheng, at the check in desk at 6 am and I was early, so I just sat in the waiting area. Eventually I saw two other foreign women standing around the area and after seeing them check their phones at the same time that I got a group message from Anastasia saying they were on their way but running a bit late, I decided they must be in the same group and went to say hi to them.  They were both school teachers from Britain at an international school in Shanghai, named Caroline and Katherine, and they were part of the Chengdu group, so we decided to just check in together and meet the others at the gate.

Caroline and Katherine were super friendly and invited me to have a coffee with them while we waited. Once we were done with our coffee, final bathroom breaks, and shopping for some snacks, we realized it was time for our plane to board.  However our plane must have been even ahead of schedule because as we were walking toward the gate we heard a final boarding call for our flight! I’ve never cut it that close before. We made it okay, but I think we scared Anastasia a bit, she had been calling Caroline to make sure we were on our way to the gate. It was a pretty short flight and after my 4 am wake-up, I slept pretty much the whole way except to eat breakfast, which really wasn’t worth it.  At the airport we met our local guide, who went by her American name, Helen, and the rest of our group.  So in total there were 7 of us, plus Helen:  Sheng and Anastasia, the coordinators, from China and Russia respectively, Katherine and Caroline from Britain, a couple with a woman from China and a man from Turkey, and me, the American.  It ended up being a really good little group and I was glad there weren’t more of us; I hadn’t known what to expect, but I prefer small groups.

We got into our van at the airport and headed straight for our first attraction; it was going to be a short trip, so we were making the most of every hour.  It was a couple hour drive to Leshan, where the giant Buddha lives, and when we got there we had lunch before beginning the hike.  The Sichuan region where Chengdu (and Leshan) is located is known for its food; aside from just being delicious, it’s known for being spicy.  Midwestern as I am, this concerned me a bit, but I really think I raised my tolerance just over those few days. And it was good! I was genuinely impressed, the food I had during my three days in Sichuan were the best meals I’ve had in China, no doubt.  Helen ordered for us each time and she did a great job.  After lunch we drove the rest of the way to the Buddha.  It was a pretty hot day so I wasn’t necessarily looking forward to hiking, but it wasn’t too strenuous and I was surprised how quickly you reach the top.  The way it works is you hike up to where the Buddha’s head is...

Giant Buddha head (people in upper right for scale)

...and then there are stairs and a path down the side of the mountain alongside the Buddha where you can walk down to his feet and then you walk back up to leave, like a big circle. Knowing it was a holiday weekend, I was prepared for crowds to be the human version of this:

But they weren’t too terrible. I mean it was China, at a tourist attraction, so it was definitely busy, but it didn’t seem worse that regular China crowds to me. Maybe I’m just acclimating. Either way, I was glad.  We did have to wait in line for quite a while to start the path down the cliff, but it had been expected and planned into our schedule even, so that was no big deal.  There was even some entertainment while we waited as a fight broke out among Chinese tourists about someone cutting in line. Ironic, seeing as that’s all Chinese people do in lines to my eyes, but every once in a while someone actually cares, and this woman cared a lot.  We eventually made it to the front of the line and began making our way down; that was when the worst of the crowds happened since it’s a pretty narrow path.  

Maybe there is a resemblance to a human koi fish pond...

Luckily, I’m smallish and quite sneaky, like a hobbit, and I accidentally got a way ahead of my group. I’m like a local with the way I can press through crowds ;)!  We all met up again at the Buddha’s feet (I wasn’t that far ahead) and took photos. 

Me and giant Buddha! And some old lady’s profile, for good measure.

It really defies explanation how huge that Buddha is; it’s hard to even show it in a photo because it’s hard to get the whole Buddha into a photo! But it was incredible to see, knowing it was just carved out of the cliff face like that. The hike back up was pretty brutal and sweaty, but what can you do? We visited the temple back at the top and then got back into the van for the short drive to Emei mountain, where we’d be visiting the following day.  We went and checked into our hotel quickly, and I was quite impressed! The room was huge! Also, because one girl hadn’t made it on the trip (kind of a mystery, Anastasia couldn’t contact her almost all weekend) I got my own room! I mean, I feel bad that she didn’t get to come… but not that bad.  We had just barely enough time to change out of sweaty clothes before heading to a Sichuan opera show.

They call it an “opera” but it was really more of a variety show.  It was all in Chinese of course, which only mattered for a couple of acts (there was a long “comedy” act in the middle that meant nothing to me) but of course the highlight was the “face-changing” mask performance.  If you haven’t seen it before (I hadn’t), then do yourself a favor and youtube it (like “Sichuan opera face-changing” or “mask-changing” should find it for you). It was seriously the coolest thing. It’s apparently super elite and only a very few performers really know how to do it authentically, but I honestly don’t even want to know the secret of how it’s done (my best guess is they’re hiding something in their headdresses). I could’ve watched that alone for an hour and a half.  I really can’t describe it, so like I said: youtube.  Another amusing part of the performance was a segment with grown men in monkey costumes.  They did cool acrobatics, but they also rolled on the ground like toddlers and I was just overall amused. After the show we had a late dinner, more good Sichuan food, and then hit the hotel for the night.  I was super exhausted and I’m pretty sure I fell asleep immediately.

The next morning we got up early and had Chinese breakfast at the hotel, which wasn’t particularly impressive to Western tastes.  I grabbed a bunch of steamed buns, thinking they’d be different since they were in different containers and looked different, but I basically ended up eating four sweet rolls for breakfast; they were all the same.  After breakfast we headed to Emei mountain.  When we got there, there was a bit of group tension because Mr. Turkey pointed out that the original WeChat post advertising the trip said we’d be going to the summit of the mountain and Helen had been explaining that we’d take a different route and go to about the middle of the mountain and then hike downwards and see the monkeys and then back to the bottom.  I hadn’t even remembered the original post and I was honestly just there for the monkeys, not mountain climbing.  I didn’t feel like he handled it well because as Helen was pointing out our path on the map, he all of sudden just flipped as if this was something he’d brought up before and been ignored about (he hadn’t, to my knowledge), as if he were just continuing an argument that no one else had been a part of. I don’t know, it was odd. There was no discussion, no build up, just all of a sudden he was pissed and accusing Helen of changing plans to make things convenient to her and Anastasia and Sheng of not delivering on a promise.  I think his victims were as surprised by his random outburst as the rest of us, but Sheng was really good, just saying they were trying to give options since the mountain would be really busy on the holiday weekend and that if he really wanted to go to the summit, one of them would go with him (I should mention, Anastasia and Sheng are probably not much older than me and Mr. Turkey is probably in his 40s, so I felt he was being condescending and rude).  What irritated me is he assumed that we all felt the same way he did, when I really didn’t want to worry about crowds at the top summit and was totally cool with Helen’s plan to go to the middle and then see monkeys.

Eventually they got him to act like an adult instead of an angsty teenager and we agreed, reasonably, to split into two groups. (It seemed an obvious solution to me from the beginning, but instead of asking whether that was a possibility, he just blew up at the poor tour guide and I didn’t want to get involved.)  I’d kept my distance from the argument (literally, I walked around the bus station) because yelling and mean people stress me out (he wasn’t always mean, just sometimes), but when I came back he seemed disappointed in the rest of us for being okay with the alternate itinerary, which annoyed me. Why did he care what the rest of us wanted to do? He acted all betrayed. Stupid. ANYWAY, I was glad he was going to a different part of the mountain.  It ended up being just him and his girlfriend (who was legitimately the sweetest woman I’ve ever met and was probably just obligated to go where he went) and then Anastasia who went that route.

So Helen, Sheng, Caroline, Katherine, and I got onto the bus that went to the middle of the mountain and then got onto a cable car to take us to where the paths started.  

View from the cable car.

Our first stop was a really old temple nestled up into the mountain, which was really neat.  It was also nice having Helen around because she was able to explain a lot about Buddhism to us; it was a little confusing but better than my previous cluelessness.  After the temple, we began the downward hike toward the monkey area (!), stopping for lunch and souvenir shopping along the way.  It was another hot, sweaty day for hiking, so I think we were all quite glad to be going downhill, but that’s still a workout after a while.  The mountain was absolutely beautiful and the hike was really quite enjoyable for that reason, we even went down and crossed a stream at one point, and I don’t think I’ve ever eaten lunch somewhere more scenic. 

Mt. Emei

Finally we got to the monkey protection area; there were thick crowds and we had to walk quite a way in before we found any monkeys, but then sure enough there were a bunch just hanging out in the trees and up on the hill leading away from the path, taking food from the tourists.  They’re Tibetan macaques and they’re adorable.  The whole area is just open for them to roam around and tourists just have to walk around the paths until they find some, it’s not like a zoo sort of situation. They just live on the mountain and now it’s a sort of conservation zone for them.  

Monkey parade up the railing!

Spot the monkey :)!

We watched them for a while and it was all I had hoped for, but then were eager to leave the crowds.  We made our way back down the rest of the mountain, back to a bus pick-up area and then all the way back down where we met back up with the others and our van.  We had been worried we’d get back way before them since theirs was a much longer hike, but, knowing that, we’d gone at a pretty leisurely pace and both groups reached the bottom at almost exactly the same time.  I had been worried also that we’d have to hear ALL about how we missed out by not coming to the top (I think they missed out by not seeing monkeys), but thankfully Mr. Turkey was in a much better mood and didn’t even gloat; in fact, he wanted to see our pictures as well as show us his.  Group harmony was restored and I was at ease again.

We made our way back to Chengdu city after that and checked into our new hotel: another giant room all to myself! Woohoo!  We all had to laugh at the name of the place though, the Caesarean Hotel.  We figured it was probably meant to invoke the ambience of Julius Caesar and not C-sections, but the language barrier struck again and it was hilarious either way.  That night we went out for traditional Sichuan hot pot for dinner and that was quite an experience.  

Our group at the hot pot restaurant!

I’d never done it before and neither had a couple of the others, but you all sit around a giant pot with a fire under it filled with all sorts of spicy spices and then they bring a bunch of food for you to hold into the boiling lava hot pot to cook. You’re supposed to make yourself a little bowl of sesame oil and cilantro/salt/garlic/whatever you want to dip things in once they come out of the pot to help cut the heat a little, but I think we were all sweating by the end anyway.  It was a lot of work and preparation (and also a giant mess) and I don’t really like to work for my food, so I’m not sure it’s something I’d do all the time, but for the novelty it was definitely worth it and the food was quite good as well as long as you can handle the heat (and Helen had told them to only make ours a little spicy!)  After dinner a lot of us just hung out in the lobby for a bit and talked, which was nice. I was the only student in the group so they were all older than me, which I’d suspected might be the case since the organization Anastasia and Sheng work for is geared towards actual expats, but they didn’t seem to mind my presence.  But everyone else had been in Shanghai for anywhere from 3 months to 10 years, working there in various industries.  It was interesting hearing about their lives; it’s definitely different than just being a student in Shanghai.  Actually moving here and committing to a two-year contract or more sounded pretty scary to me.

Monday morning it was finally time! Panda time!!! We started out from the hotel early, after a slightly better hotel breakfast, to catch the pandas while they were still active before they got too warm and sleepy.  There was a bit of an awkward situation in the van on the way to the pandas, however. Helen was telling us about pandas as we drove along, she had a lot of information about them, and I was looking out the window contemplating pandas, as you do in a vehicle, when all of a sudden she said “well obviously no one is listening, so I’ll just…” and I didn’t see it since I was in the back of the van, but apparently she dropped/threw her microphone. Thankfully Caroline spoke up and explained that yes, we were listening, we were just also looking at the city since we’d never been there before.  So Helen must’ve taken a minute to collect herself or something, but then she did start talking again where she left off.  I was quite surprised and taken aback by it all and then I may have imagined it, but I felt like she was irritated with us the rest of the day.  Apparently the theme of the trip was inexplicable angry outbursts. I mean, it only happened twice (once with Helen and once with Mr. Turkey) and otherwise everything was fantastic, but it was certainly odd. Helen’s outburst left me just as confused as his had, having come just as out of the blue.

But all that really matters is we eventually arrived at the Panda Research Base. So many pandas!  It was actually a really nice place; each adult panda had its own spacious enclosure and they all looked clean and nice, not like some zoos.  

Panda!

That particular panda base is actually a breeding center as well, so there was a baby panda nursery, but we couldn’t really see anything in the tiny incubator because it was covered with a little pink blanket, but we saw plenty of other pandas of all ages. And we must have come at a good time because they were active! They were playing and climbing trees and swimming and it was just so great. I took so, so many photos.  

Silly panda in a tree :)

It was pretty crowded with humans as well, but not unbearable. I got plenty of panda viewing time.  After we were all panda-ed out (as if that’s possible!), we had lunch and then got dropped off in the historic alley shopping area for a couple hours.  

A man making ginger candy

It was really cute with lots of neat shop and food stalls and things to see, but unfortunately it started to rain about an hour before we had to meet the van again to take us to the airport.  It wasn’t too bad and I still certainly enjoyed it, but I was also exhausted and happy to sit once we got on the van.  We got to the airport plenty early and said goodbye to Helen and our van driver and then we all decided to go get something to eat at McDonald’s in the airport since we had so much time.  Afterwards we took a few last group photos and then sort of split up since a couple people were on a different flight.  

“Make panda ears!”

Caroline and Katherine and I found our gate (before the final boarding call this time) and waited to make our way back to Shanghai.

I did a bit of homework on the short plane ride and before I knew it, we were landing.  We got back to Shanghai too late for the metro, so I joined the gigantic queue for taxis and I was worried I’d be there for hours but it only took about 20 minutes.  They have a serious system worked out and Shanghai apparently has an inexhaustible supply of taxis, so I got back to my dorm around midnight or so. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to go to bed right away since I hadn’t done any homework over the weekend and the next day was the beginning of finals week and four days of complete hell, but it was totally worth it for the wonderful trip I had.  I had known going into it that the timing would be tough, but I did my best to prepare ahead of time and really, what was going to matter to me more in the future? I wanted to go on the trip and that’s the weekend they were going, so off I went. I wouldn’t have changed a thing. It was a spectacular weekend; I met wonderful people, saw amazing things, and got out of Shanghai for a few days. What more could I ask for?

Sleepy panda says buh-bye!

[meganann823]

blog delay...

finals week...

sorry :(

but good things are coming! eventually!

[meganann823]

Weeks 16-17: Australian Adventure!

What I learned in Australia:

How to have a good day

Step 1: Wake up in Australia.

Step 2: There is no step 2.

These weeks were split between China and Australia and boy, it has been an adventure. Even more so than I expected, but we’ll get to that.  It’s only been a week and a half since last Monday but so much has happened in that time that I’m having a hard time even remembering that long ago; it feels like it’s been more like a month.

I wasn’t scheduled to leave for Australia until Tuesday afternoon, so Monday was a pretty regular day. In fact, Monday was a great day; on Monday, my life was flawless.  My studio class got done early, I got my laundry done, got my rent for July all figured out, got some reassurance that I don’t need to worry about my residence permit expiring (there’s a 72 hour grace period), I went and visited the (so pretty!) architecture firm I’ll be interning at and it went wonderfully, I got Starbucks to celebrate, and I was heading to Australia tomorrow! On Monday, my life was perfect…

Tuesday, which should have been a fantastic day, the beginning to my vacation, not so much… And so began the epic saga of my quest to get to Australia.  The day even started out on a strange note (in hindsight, of course, everything was a sign) when I ran out of electricity during my shower. Thankfully I still had hot water so I just finished showering and then went downstairs to see what was up. Since it was a couple days into the new month, I should’ve gotten new free electricity by then, but inexplicably hadn’t until I went downstairs and gave them my room number. I’m unsure why it had to be done manually, but either way all was well. I had been planning to leave my room around 11:30 am for my 2:45 pm flight, giving myself plenty of time to get to the airport, but around 11 I got a text from the airline saying my flight had been delayed two hours. No biggie, I had a 5 hour layover to make my connection anyway, I’d just wait anxiously to leave for another few hours. Little did I know that was just the beginning.

I got to the airport with no troubles in plenty of time, but as I was waiting in line to check in I got more messages from my airline. Problem was, they were in Chinese so I didn’t really know what they said.  Then I got up to the counter and started to get concerned because things seemed to be taking a long time and the guy was looking at the screen in a confused way. Eventually he called someone else over, she stared at the screen, then informed me that I needed a visa to enter Australia. Shit. How had I missed that?! I’m such a good planner! I had planned every detail of my trip! Because I was freaking out, I argued with the woman, hoping I could convince her to just give me my boarding passes so I could figure it out after I got through security and to my gate and all that. She said she could get me my boarding pass to Guangzhou and when I was there I could apply for an electronic visa. I hadn’t ever heard of an electronic visa so I didn’t quite understand what that meant and was seriously freaking out because I thought there was no way I could get it in time.

I made my way through security and to my gate, seeing that my flight had been delayed “indefinitely”. This was certainly concerning but at the time overshadowed by the fact that I was a big idiot without a visa. I wasn’t able to get the Chinese internet to cooperate with me well enough to apply for the electronic visa, so being the big jerk I am, I woke Jake up and asked him to do it for me.  He was so nice and so helpful and told me he didn’t even mind being woken up at 3 am even though he had to work in the morning (although I did scare him half to death by calling in the middle of the night; middle of the night phone calls are never good news). Thank you for lying to make me feel better, darling (and for your help of course).  As I was soon to find out, I would have had plenty of time to get it figured out by myself and wouldn’t have needed to wake him, so I felt even worse then, but I’m getting ahead of myself.  Thankfully the electronic visa is effective immediately after you do the online application, so although I still wasn’t over my stupidity at having missed it in the first place, at least I NOW had it taken care of.  

After that was settled and it registered in my brain that my flight was still indefinitely delayed, I decided to walk around the airport and look for some food.  I didn’t find much and eventually settled on the tiny Subway stand. As soon as I was returning to my gate with my sandwich, however, they made an announcement in Chinese that sent everyone (who understood Chinese) rushing towards the desk. Obviously, this was concerning.  No one was really explaining anything in English, but I eventually understood that we were to be put on a bus and taken to a hotel. Not a good sign.  I had noticed by this point that my flight was far from the only one being delayed/cancelled and the weather outside was rainy and so foggy that you could hardly see out the windows.  Probably not ideal flying conditions. So that was when things got really interesting. I maybe should have just gone back to the University at this point, but my flight hadn’t technically been cancelled and I was still hopeful we’d just be at the hotel for a little bit. As soon as we walked outside, I realized the weather was even worse than it had looked from inside the airport, weather which would eventually evolve into the storm of the freakin’ century. Not good timing, China, not cool.  I ate my Subway sandwich on the bus, still somehow remarkably calm, just trusting that things would work out. I mean, I’d planned. How could the universe mess with that? How bad could it really be? Oh, silly Megan. So naïve.

When we got to the hotel I still wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do but I joined the mass at the counter to get a hotel room. Why not, I guess? I felt like I was just going through the motions I was supposed to, doing as I was told. Because if you do as you’re told, things work out. Right? RIGHT?? I stood at the counter for a couple minutes being ignored when eventually a friendly Chinese man next to me explained to me that if I wanted a single room I’d have to pay for it (double rooms were free). I decided that was fine and he translated back and forth for me with the front desk workers until I had a room. I imagine looking back that I must’ve resembled a sad, lost puppy, which led people to want to help me. I had exactly enough money for the room, literally down to the yuan. It didn’t cost much, I was just out of cash.  It was as I was walking to the elevator, alone, not knowing if or when I was going back to the airport or how I would even know one way or another, that I started to lose it a bit.  And things deteriorated from there. I’ll try to summarize and spare you the nasty details, but that ended up being a rough, rough 24 hours or so. Apparently I don’t deal well in unexpectedly difficult situations, it’s hard for me to even think/write about because I’d rather block it from my memory, but here goes.

After moping in my room for a bit (to put it lightly) and contacting my mom and Austin to keep them updated, I went down to the lobby to see if I could figure out what was going on. There I met some friendly fellow Americans (from Colorado) who came over to me (sad puppy again, I imagine) and let me know what they thought was going on, which wasn’t much, but I appreciated it regardless.  I went back up to my room, where I then received another Chinese text message from my airline.  Obviously, I could only guess what it said, but I had a pretty good idea.  I went and asked the front desk workers to translate and thankfully one of them actually did speak pretty good English.  He confirmed that my flight was now officially cancelled.  I had suspected it would happen, but it was still a blow.  I’d never had a cancelled flight before and didn’t even know what to do. I went back up to my room and started frantically searching online (with terrible internet) what kinds of options I had. I started out looking for other flights to Guangzhou so I could still catch my connection, then looking for different flights to Perth that night, then eventually different flights to Perth the next day, then the day after. I realized there were only 3 flights a week from Guangzhou to Perth and flipped.  Thankfully, my superhero of a mom was helping the whole time.  We thought we had a solution when we were able to book a new flight out for the next evening, but got a weird email from the website saying the reservation was incomplete and needed to be confirmed.  We figured it would just take a while and that I should have the confirmation by morning. I would have a day or two less in Fremantle, which was a huge bummer, but what could you do?

And so passed a pretty terrible night. I decided to stay in the hotel room I’d paid for since I was hopeful that I’d need to be back at the airport the next day.  The hotel bed was comfier than the one in my dorm, but aside from that things were pretty miserable.  I was so anxious about my uncertain flight, felt so bad for inconveniencing so many people (which wasn’t even over at that point): waking up Jake, making my mom help me with flights because my internet sucked when I’m sure she had other things to do, not being able to give Austin any certainty as to when I’d be arriving, etc… And then there was the storm. It really was quite impressive and it made sense that so many flights had been grounded. Definitely not flyable conditions.  But somehow, the night passed, but the morning brought no good news. I had an email from the website saying there was a problem with my reservation (which was scheduled for about 12 hours from now at that point). Again, I frantically contacted my parents and then could only wait while they updated me as they made phone calls and inquiries and tried to figure out what we could do.  I don’t even know the amount of work they put into helping me and can’t imagine the amount of stress and I could never thank them enough.  Turns out, you can’t really make a reservation less than 24 hours before departure, so that was the problem with the second reservation.  All that was left to do was to make it for a later date. Thankfully my incredible parents found a flight that worked out and bottom line was I’d be in Australia from Friday-Tuesday instead of Wednesday-Sunday.  This was actually an incredible relief since I’d been so bummed about the cutting short of an already short trip; this extended my trip back to 5 days, they were just pushed back a bit from when we originally planned. It was less convenient than the original plan in terms of both my class schedule and Austin’s, but it would work.

It felt like defeat to return to my dorm room when I had left it thinking I was on my way to Australia, but I tried not to think of it that way. My trip hadn’t failed, it had just been postponed a few days. Everything would be okay and I would make it to Australia if it was the last thing I did. I was going to visit my brother no matter what, damnit!  It was weird walking back to my dorm and seeing all these people just having a normal Wednesday when I felt like I’d been in hell for the past 24 hours (I know it sounds dramatic and I know there are far worse things than cancelled flights, but seriously, for me it was traumatizing).  As someone who always talks about how I love airports and air travel, I was seriously not so sure anymore whether the stress and struggles were worth the benefits (though I quickly was back to my original opinion as soon as I was in the air on my way to Sydney. Flying is magical!)  So I spent a relatively normal, but unexpected and anxious, night in my dorm, at this point setting out again for the airport, for the second time, two days later than planned. I knew, logically, that this new flight was in no way connected to my first attempt to get to Australia, but logic did little to calm my nerves. I had just been so excited to go and so devastated when it didn’t work out the way I’d planned that I was convinced that something else would have to go wrong.  Even though this was technically just a normal flight like any other flight I’d been on, in my mind I could not disconnect it as an extension of the failed flight and therefore assumed that it had to be affected by it. It wasn’t even the same airline, the same airport, the same layover airport, but my brain would not listen to reason.  Of course it was not affected by my previous cancelled flight and in fact, everything went entirely smoothly. Thank goodness. I think if it had been delayed even 20 minutes I would’ve been reduced to a puddle on the floor of the Pudong airport.

My flight to Sydney was a red-eye and whether it was because of that fact or not, the plane was probably only 1/2 to 2/3 full at the most, which was really nice.  The seat next to mine was vacant so I got to lie down and sleep, I watched a movie, I read my book, all was well.  I knew I had a short connection in Sydney so I was a little nervous, but even that went flawlessly.  I had to get the customs forms, fill them out, go through customs, check in and get my boarding pass for my domestic flight, go back through security, transfer terminals, all in under 2 hours.  But kudos to Sydney airport and Qantas airlines, because that was one of the smoothest international connections that I’ve ever made. I got off the plane and got my forms filled out (they’d only had forms in Chinese available on the flight), then proceeded to the automatic passport scanners.  It was kind of funny because you scan your passport and then go up to a machine with a camera and it tries to match the passport to your face, but my passport is from when I was 16 and I look so very different.  In fact when I had checked in for my flight in Shanghai, the guy had kind of smiled and asked, “this is you??” I mean, if I were actually travelling with a fake passport, I would have done a better job to find a photo that looks like me. That’s how bad it is. (And probably why it’s not as suspicious as it might be.) Anyway, the machine didn’t recognize me so the worker had me try again without my glasses, but still no luck. It was okay, I just had to go to a person instead since the machine had failed me.  There were hardly any lines, so I didn’t even have to do much waiting. And the workers were even friendly! Imagine that! Friendly airport workers! The U.S. could learn a few things from these cheery Australians, obviously.  

Still feeling a bit frazzled at this point, I was quite pleased to see clearly marked signs for “Qantas domestic transfers,” in other words, exactly what I was looking for.  I followed the signs to Qantas’ own little check-in and security area, which was almost empty, and then got on to their own little shuttle bus to be taken to the domestic terminal! So handy! I had thought I’d have to like catch a train and I didn’t know where it was and I thought I’d have to go through the main security area, but no! So convenient! I ended up getting to my gate for my flight to Perth with plenty of time to spare. That flight went equally smoothly and before I knew it, I was actually in Perth! I could hardly believe it after the couple of days I’d had trying to get there. I had honestly been unsure I was ever going to make it. I had caught myself saying “if” I’m in Australia instead of “when” I’m in Australia. But I was there! I seriously could’ve kissed the ground like a big cliché but I was just anxious to finish my journey and make it to Fremantle and Austin. I got some Australian money from an ATM, (which is so pretty, by the way!) and got a taxi to take me to the Perth railway station where I’d meet Austin.  When I told the taxi driver I wanted to go to the Perth railway station, he said “which one, love?” in a wonderful Australian accent, but I was able to eventually communicate that I meant the main one, the big one, and that’s really all the name it has. I got to the right station and all was well. Although, when I got my fare, I was confused and (thinking I had twenties instead of fifties) handed him $100 for a $30 fare… So with those two instances combined, I’m sure he thought I was a total ditz, but oh well. International travel can mess with your head, especially with the experience I’d had. He kindly explained that I had handed him way too much money and I took a 50 back and my change and then headed across the street to the meeting place Austin and I had established via Google Earth. He wasn’t there right away (turns out he’d just been getting a coffee), my flight had actually landed early (imagine that!) so I sat down to wait, but within literally a minute, I heard behind me “welcome to Perth!” and there he was! It was wonderful to see a familiar face, especially after all the drama and uncertainty as to whether I’d even make it to visit him, and I was so thrilled to be there. We hopped on the train and made our way to Fremantle! Finally!

We made it to Fremantle right around check-in time, so our first stop was my B&B. It was so adorable and for the first two nights I had the top room with my own bathroom and that was just as charming as could be.  After the first two nights I had booked the following two in the same B&B but the same room wasn’t available, since my trip had been delayed/extended from the original dates and I found myself in need of a place to stay for two further days. So thankfully all I had to do was move my bags downstairs in the middle of my stay instead of to a different hotel.  Austin had talked to the people at the B&B when my flight got cancelled to ask them to hold my reservation for at least the two nights I would still actually be there and they were great about it and said that was no problem, so overall it worked out okay.  I would’ve loved to stay in the top room for the whole time, of course, as I originally planned, but my other room was perfectly nice as well.

I dropped my stuff off and Austin gave me a little tour of Fremantle, we walked down to the beach and the harbor and he showed me around the building he’s staying in and a little bit of the town. Fremantle is lovely.  All the buildings are historic (or do a good job of looking historic, but Austin said he thought they all actually were for the most part) and they’re just so pretty. 

Lovely Fremantle. My B&B is the building on the right with the little turret (which was in my room!)

Fremantle is also absolutely packed with just the coolest restaurants and cutest boutiques and it’s seriously everything you could want out of a town; it’s almost too cool/trendy for its own good, but at least as of now it didn’t feel contrived, so I thought it was great.  After my mini-tour, we parted ways for a bit and I went to take a shower and unpack and then we met back up to go see the sunset from one of the lighthouses.  It was beautiful, of course.  After that we went back to Austin’s dorm to make some food. They have a pretty nice kitchen, so Austin made dinner and it was a nice change from Tongji’s cafeteria food for sure.  I tried to help, but I kinda suck at cooking so really it was pretty much Austin. I met lots and lots of Austin’s buddies who also live in the dorm and pretty much didn’t remember any of their names, but they were all quite friendly :).  After dinner we planned out the next two days, heading to Caversham Wildlife Park on Saturday and then Rottnest Island on Sunday. Once we had that all figured out, we went for another walk and I got to see a bit of Fremantle’s nighttime street life, which seemed quite lively even during the “winter” and non-tourist season.  We checked out the Fremantle Markets, which were really neat and I ended up returning a few days later to actually do some souvenir shopping.  Then that night I went with Austin and a couple of his friends up to the Round House and we sat there and talked (I mostly listened, but I don’t think they minded my presence too much). We even saw a couple super bright shooting stars!  After that I was introduced to the local bar, Bar Orient.  Austin and I and a couple of his friends played pool, which I’m god awful at.  I was on a team with Austin though and thankfully he’s quite good, so we won anyway. I did hit a couple of balls in though!  Then Austin and one of his other friends, who is also quite good at pool, played against some other bar patrons a few times. I was more than content to just watch. So it was a long day for my first one in Fremantle, but it was wonderful!

The next day we got up and met pretty early to head out to Caversham Wildlife Park.  It’s a little way outside of Perth, so it took a while to get there, but it was pretty straightforward.  We took a train all the way to the end of its line, where it then turns into a different line, which we took a way farther, and then hopped on a bus to take us the rest of the way! When we first got there it was sprinkling ever so slightly, but it cleared up quickly and ended up being a lovely day! The weather in Australia was such a nice break from the miserable humidity of Shanghai! I was so happy to be able to wear a sweater! But of course it still wasn’t cold, I think it was in the 60s-70s the whole time I was there, not bad for “winter”.  We saw lots of Australian critters; there were tons of birds and some reptiles and small mammals arranged like a typical zoo, but of course the highlights were the kangaroos, koala, and wombat, because you actually got to pet them! The first of those that we visited was the kangaroos and the way it’s set up is like a large area in the middle of the park is fenced off and you can enter and it’s just full of kangaroos hanging out! You can feed them too, I think, but we didn’t.  They’re friendly though! Or at least curious. We were probably disappointing since we didn’t have any food, but they’d approach us to check and let us pet them! Also, fun fact: kangaroos have really soft fur. Who knew?!  

My new kangaroo buddy :)

When we were done hanging out with the kangaroos, we made our way to the koalas.  They only take one out at a time on a rotating schedule of 30 minutes because apparently they can get cranky if they’re kept awake for too long. I guess they sleep like 23 hours a day or something. Lazy koalas. Anyway, there was a keeper there holding one of them, a koala named Sunshine, and you could pet him and get a picture with him, so naturally I did.  

Me and Sunshine the koala!

We wanted to see the wombat show too but that’s only at certain times and we had a while to wait so we went back to the front of the park and got some food and sat for a while, fending off some birds as we ate.  Once it was closer to wombat time, we went over to the farm section of the park, which isn’t home to particularly thrilling animals, but they did have the same kind of deal where you could go walk around with sheep and goats and chickens and whatnot.  Finally it was time to “Meet wombat and friends!” so we filed into a barn with a fairly large crowd of other wombat fans, but once they finished their little intro speech Austin and I went straight for the wombat (instead of his friends) and therefore managed to be like third in line to get a picture! His name was Neil. I think he was asleep. Lazy wombat.  It was a good thing we’d been speedy though because after we looked around a bit at wombat’s friends, the line to get a picture ran about the length of the barn.

Me, Austin, and Neil the lazy wombat

When we were finished at the park we headed back to Fremantle, but we made a stop at Cottesloe Beach along the way and walked around there for a while.  It was beautiful, of course. I mean, could Australia be more scenic? Every single thing I saw was just perfectly picturesque. 

Cottesloe Beach. I mean, seriously?!

Not quite the case in Shanghai, interesting city though it is.  That night we went to a brewery for dinner called Little Creatures that Austin had wanted to try and it was really cool.  We got pizza and frites with aioli, which was delicious. We had a discussion about what makes them frites instead of fries (or chips if you’re being Australian) and figured maybe it was because they were little. “Frites” just sounds little, right? We don’t know much about fancy food, but that was our best guess. After dinner we went to Baskin Robbins for ice cream cones and walked down by the beach.  Then we figured we’d just chill since we had to get up pretty early again the next morning, so we watched Interstellar in the common room at Austin’s dorm. I hadn’t seen it yet but I thought it was really good.  

At Little Creatures

The next morning I packed up my stuff and brought it to Austin’s room for a couple hours before I could check into my new room at the B&B. I’m sure I could’ve left it there, but Austin’s dorm was literally just diagonally across the street from the B&B, so it was convenient to just do it that way too.  If I walked out of the B&B and he walked out of the dorm, we could see each other, so it was like the best possible location. I had known it was on his campus but I didn’t realize it was SO close to where he lived. It was nice because we never had to waste any time on transportation to meet up.  We headed to the harbor to catch our ferry to Rottnest Island. It was sprinkling again that morning but it cleared up by the time we got to the island and was another beautiful day.  I enjoyed the ferry ride, we went over some pretty big waves (to me, anyway) and it was like being on a roller coaster! Haha. When we first got there we hit up the general store for some water and granola bars and bought tickets for the island bus at 11, but it wasn’t quite time so we walked a bit to see a lighthouse first before heading to the bus stop.  

Rottnest Island lighthouse

The bus was nice because it makes a big loop of the island but with a ticket you can hop on and off wherever you’d like.  The only thing was the buses only come every hour and fifteen minutes, so it did involve a bit of planning to make sure we’d be back to the harbor on time to get on our ferry.  Rottnest Island is full of quokkas and they are adorable. They’re pretty chill about humans, too. As long as you don’t come running at them or anything, they’ll let you approach them; they were even curious about my camera, which makes for adorableness, of course. Again, they were probably hoping we had food, but we did not, so they’d quickly lose interest.  Anyway, the day was interspersed with quokka sightings, which was pretty great.

QUOKKA! Just look at his little face :)!

We got on the bus and went a few stops before hopping off to go see one of the pretty beaches.  Then we took a scenic walk to a farther bus stop, stopping for plenty of pictures and a lunch of clementines and granola bars on the beach.  Rottnest is seriously breathtaking.  As Austin put it, “Australia pretty much ruins you for beaches,” saying he’ll probably never really be impressed by another beach once he leaves. Which is understandable, because wow.

It’s hard to believe this is a real place.

We got back on the bus after a while a couple stops farther down the road and then got off one more time fairly close to the harbor to check out a couple more scenic sights before we got on the boat.  We cut it pretty close but made it back to the harbor just as they started boarding the ferry, so it worked out perfectly.  Overall, it was a morning/afternoon of very scenic walks and adorable little creatures, so what could be better?  

Austin and me at Rottnest :)

We were both pretty tired when we got back though, I had almost fallen asleep on the ferry.  So we parted ways for a while, but I refused to spend my precious time in Australia napping, so I decided to go back to the market and check that out again.  This time I was prepared to do some shopping, so I got myself some lovely souvenirs :). I also stopped by a couple shops, including a secondhand bookstore where I bought a “Blind Date with a Book” which is a genius, super fun idea that all bookstores should be doing.  I was slightly worried that by some weird coincidence it would be a book I’d already read, but luckily it wasn’t.  

Never could resist a bookstore...

I met back up with Austin at his dorm for dinner where he was excited to serve me a kangaroo burger.  So one day I was petting them, the next day I was eating them. Whoops, sorry roos. I had told him I needed at least 24 hours between the two events, which is why we’d gone to the brewery the night before and saved the roo burgers until that night.  Honestly it tasted pretty much like a regular hamburger, it was good. Austin said he eats them a lot because it’s a lot healthier than beef hamburgers. He also made sweet potatoes, which I appreciated because I love sweet potatoes. So now I’ve tried kangaroo. Hooray? Haha. That night we made another visit to the Orient and watched a band, so that was fun. I liked the band, they were fun and pretty much right up my alley in terms of music.  Fremantle seems pretty big on music. There were a lot of street performers too, but they were actually pretty good (which I don’t often expect from street performers), and the Orient seemed to have live music most nights of the week.

The next day Austin had to study for a final for most of the day, but we’d agreed to meet up in the afternoon to go on a tour of the Fremantle Prison. Makes for an interesting study break, right?  I enjoyed the tour, it was a neat old building if a little creepy.  They do nighttime tours, too, which Austin had been on previously, but I don’t think I would’ve been brave enough for that. 

Fremantle Prison. Homey, eh?

That morning I had gone by myself to see the Shipwreck Galleries museum, which was also quite neat.  It was all things that had been recovered from shipwrecks off the coast of Western Australia; apparently there are a lot of shipwrecks because there were a ton of artifacts and even part of a ship! 

I really liked the “beardman jugs” from the Dutch ships

Then after the prison tour Austin went back to study and I went to another sea-related museum, the Western Australia Maritime Museum, which wasn’t nearly as lame as it sounds. It was actually really interesting and there were a whole bunch of actual huge boats inside the building, so that was neat.  

Western Australia Maritime Museum

I felt like that day I did a good job getting filled in on Western Australia/Fremantle’s culture. Austin took another break from studying for dinner that night; he had coupons for the Orient so we actually got food there instead of just drinks and it was really good. I fully enjoyed my break from Chinese food.  Austin joked about how often his entire group hangs out at the Orient, but it’s just so darn convenient! It’s like right next door to his dorm, they have good food, pool, and live music. What more could you ask for?  After dinner I let him return to his studies and just relaxed at the B&B for the night, watching some Australian TV, some American. I like Australian Master Chef and Australian Shark Tank. I’m sure they’re identical to the American versions, but the American versions lack the accent, so they really can’t compare.

Tuesday was my last day and the day of Austin’s final. I had to check out of the B&B so I brought my stuff over to Austin’s again and then did a little bit of my homework while he did some last minute studying for his test at 2 pm.  We took a break to get Subway for lunch and then I decided to do a little exploring on my own since it was my last day in Fremantle. I walked up to the Round House just in time for their daily cannon firing demonstration, so that was fun. Then I walked down to the beach again, got another Baskin Robbins cone, because why not? Then I sat on the beach and ate my ice cream. Then I sat on the beach some more and pondered the physics of waves. I still need to look that up.  

Bathers Beach

After I was done with my contemplations, I went and caught the free bus and went to the Fremantle Arts Center. There were some interesting photography exhibits and a really neat gift shop (though out of my price range) but really I’d just wanted to explore some part of the city outside of where we’d been already.  Then I took the bus back and it was just about time for Austin to finish his final.  We made arrangements to head to the airport that night, he did some packing (he was leaving on a trip just a few hours after my flight, so we figured why not go together) and then took a walk up to Monument Hill to see the sunset over Fremantle. It was beautiful, as is everything is Australia, and it was a lovely way to spend my last night in the country. 

Like, does it get any prettier?

After the sun set we went back to the harbor area and went to a restaurant for fish and chips because it seemed like a very Australian end to my time in Fremantle. I don’t usually eat fish, but I figured since it’s right on the ocean I’d give it a try for the sake of the novelty and I was not disappointed! I mean really I’m only offended by fishy-tasting fish and as I suspected, since Fremantle is right on the ocean it was fresh and not fishy-tasting. Also, of course it was breaded and fried so it mostly tasted like that. Either way, I was happy with it. We ate out on the pier and it was wonderful, although we did have to fight off some seagulls. I hate seagulls. What useless birds.  When we got back from dinner it was just a little after 7 and our taxi wasn’t coming until 9, so we went to the Orient, of course. Where else? There was more live music and again I really enjoyed it, so it was a perfectly pleasant end to my trip.  

We caught the taxi at 9 and headed to the airport. Austin had printed his boarding pass ahead of time and wasn’t checking a bag, so he was able to come through security with me and hang out at my gate while I waited. I later heard from him that after I boarded he was kicked out and had to go nap at the international terminal instead for a few hours because apparently the domestic terminal closes for a few hours overnight. I was quite sad to leave, of course, and honestly a bit jealous of Austin since he’ll be back home in just a little over a week. I was not feeling favorably towards the country of China on my way back. I was angry at it for not being the US. Or Australia, for that matter. Unreasonable? Obviously. But I was sad either way.  Today I’m resigned to my remaining time here and I’m sure by tomorrow I’ll be feeling fine about it again, but on those plane rides back I could’ve cried a little. That’s the hard thing about vacations, especially when you have to leave but you aren’t going home. I really felt like if I had to leave Fremantle, I just wanted to go back home to the States. Not back to Shanghai.  It was just so comforting being somewhere that seemed similar to the US and hanging out with a family member, I think that’s what made it hard.  My flight from Perth to Sydney left at midnight, so I slept most of the way, but it was only like 4 hours. When I got to Sydney I had to take the train to the international terminal, but it was super straightforward and I had plenty of time. In fact, I got there before I was even able to check in for my flight to Shanghai.  But soon enough I was wandering through the Sydney airport, which is quite nice and has lots of pretty shops, and then I was on my way back to Shanghai. We got delayed a bit on the tarmac but I was already sleeping so I didn’t really care. Also, I didn’t have any time constraints for getting back to Shanghai aside from the metro closing at 10 and since we were due back around 7, I didn’t foresee that being an issue. I slept for a while on the flight and then I watched Boyhood and Sense & Sensibility. Quite different movies, haha, but both good. I like in-flight entertainment. As soon as we landed in Shanghai, I was irritated, because a woman on the plane was pushing me and being generally inconsiderate (welcome back to China!) and then I stepped out directly into a brick wall of humidity.  We had to take a shuttle bus from the plane to the terminal, but thankfully I somehow got in front of all the crowd and didn’t have to wait in line at all in customs or anything, so I was out of the airport and on the Maglev train in no time. After the Maglev, two metro trains, and a 10 minute walk, I was back in my dorm just about 24 hours after Austin and I had arrived at the Perth airport. I unpacked, did a bit more studio work to make sure I’d be prepared for class this morning, and then went to bed and fell asleep almost instantly.

Overall, I think Austin and I did a great job of seeing all the major sights in a short period of time. We’re like professional tourists. I definitely feel like we made the most of my time there and I’m now entirely in love with the country of Australia. Austin made a good choice.

This morning I had studio and now I have the weekend to make sure I’m caught up okay with all my classes and just generally get my life back together the way you always have to after a trip.  I think I’ll post this blog as a dual Week 16-17 since I really think all I’ll be doing this weekend is homework, not really worth writing/reading about.  Anyway, this blog is quite long enough to count for two weeks, right? And I didn’t think it made sense to split Australia into two different blog posts. On the off chance I do actually do something exciting this weekend, maybe I’ll just post a short little blog about it. But right now, all I have planned is to catch up on homework and other life things. Next week is my last week of classes, then I go on my Chengdu trip, and then I have a week of finals. So I’ll certainly be plenty busy for the next couple weeks. I’m sure it’ll go by quickly!