Hottest of Pots

I was feeling pretty down yesterday with the beginnings of a cold, so after a cup of nescafe that tasted not unlike gasoline I hunkered down and got through class best I could. It was a struggle.
After class and time with language partner (I know her name now too!), We headed out to dinner with Brandon and his language partner (still don't know HER name...). Unfortunately my mouth was still sore from where I had too aggressively flossed the day before so hard chunks of meat really didn't help my situation much. That being said it was a lot of fun! We all had chicken and just had to tell the cook "no", "a little", or "a lot" referring to spice. After dinner I gathered some supplies for my room and my poor mouth: salt, sugar, and tea. I was eventually successful, but not before I had spent 30 minutes casing a convenience store trying to find the salt that was in tiny little bags below the cooking oil. That, and tea is only loose here...Which means without a tea ball, things were about to get interesting.
Our room does have a working kettle, so the warm salt water was easy. The tea required some ingenuity I must have inherited from my parents...Them being engineers and all. After many different ideas I ended up making a coffee filter out of papery toilet paper (from a new roll!). It worked! But I chuckled the entire time it was straining.

Today was far more interesting. While I started off still feeling sick as a dog, 张老师 (Teacher Zhang) noticed and went easy on me. After Reading/Writing in the mo
After class I took a nap in the lunch break, and read some of my THIRD book of the trip, Odd Thomas. This was followed by a meditation where I fell asleep (I'm sure of it this time!) and studying with 韩晓康 (My language partner). I was ready to head back to my dorm and go back to sleep, but Kyongnam asked if I was interested in hotpot so...韩晓康 and I joined him and his partner across town at this really crazy hotpot place. We ate so much I'm still stuffed! The hotpot was insanely spicy though so we all took larger breathers and gulps of orange juice between bites. Somehow Kyongnam's partner won a set of soup bowls with the receipt? Still not sure about that one...

rning is Speaking/Listening. Our teacher came in today offering us what looked to be roti, an Indian buttery bread treat and I had never been more happy to see it. I pulled off a big chunk and while it smelled a little funny...I popped it into my mouth. Hey Emma, you remember the white fish salsa days? As soon as I had filled my mouth with buttery goodness our teacher told us what it really was:fish jerky. I couldn't spit it out, so I chewed, and chewed, and chewed...And it was the most potent thing I've ever eaten. If Dad ever pays us to eat fish oil pills, I know I got it down.
 Kyongnam pictured

The Weekend

This weekend definitely had its moments, most of which happened on Saturday. Sunday is our one day off so I took extra special care to be particularly lazy. Saturday we got up around nine and headed to this huge museum on the history of Kunming and the Yunnan province. Just recently the remains of a kingdom were found that predated known records so there's been this huge push to excavate. I think my favorite parts were these crazy sacrificial jugs that all had the zodiac animals doing crazy things on top and something to do with human sacrifice....It seemed like this past Saturday every school in Kunming let their kids free in the museum so hearing the tour guide was pretty challenging. There was also this awesome hall full of small golden Buddha idols discovered from around the age Buddhism really grabbed a foothold in China.

After that, we went to this street market area for a traditional lunch and a look around. As far as the lunch went, I haven't a clue what most of the dishes were called but most were excellent. One of the professors from the local university brought her five year old daughter along who kept spinning the lazy Susan holding the food dishes. This translated us all needed to up our chopstick game in order to grab anything before the dish disappeared around the 13-person tables. We were given some time to explore after lunch so I went with a group of guys that continuously got smaller the longer we walked through streets full of cheap knockoffs. (There were building toys named "Lekos" which seemed to even be using Lego product lines.) 

This was all followed by an incredibly accurate tea ceremony in a dedicated tea ceremony house...We all sat at a very low table with gentle Tibetan music playing. The hostess was calmly telling us about the wonders of tea and the long history of Pu'er Cha (I think. 茶, Or cha, is tea. But the other bit I'm having trouble recalling). By the time the first part of the ceremony concluded we had drank about 8 cups each. It was supposed to make us feel relieved and warm and cleansed. I think the most I felt was a newly burnt tongue, but it was fun! Then a few of the staff pulled off this really intricate synchronized tea brewing that was...Interesting. we came back that night quite tired, and after a few hours began thinking of how to spend the evening. Duncan, Jonathan, and a few others went to a karaoke place with the program's local TA (The one from Yunnan university) while the rest of us just started ambling about. Somehow Matt, Julie, Mary, and I were separated from the group of about 14. This turned out to be quite fortuitous when we were able to finally get a booth in a bar with our smaller size. In Chinese bars (and most restaurants) you pay up front and then have as much time as you want to just hang out. We were able to buy some beer and just hang out playing card games for hours! And when we wanted to leave, we just got up. It's a great system!

Sunday, I rested. Until about noon then I got antsy. Duncan and I went exploring in the afternoon after getting coffee and cake at the Elephant Café. I ordered all by myself! We set out down a different street than we have gone down before, walking a long ways past a pretty decent outdoors store until it intersected with the main road of Kunming. Then, we walked to a hot pot restaurant in the climbing gym mall for lunch. Unable to decide on anything there, we got this crazy combo hot pot thing and spent about an hour cooking meat and random veggies in boiling soup (they had little pieces of corn on the cob to cook too?). The rest of the day was spent mostly studying and prepping for a new wave of daily verbal quizzes instituted by the professor who came with us from northeastern. This new mandate is neither liked by students or the local teachers.

Monday I was able to get back to the gym with Duncan and Jonathan, this time Matt and Kyongnam came too! It seems like Duncan is going to make it a 3 times a week thing which I'm definitely excited about, I even bought a month pass! It will pay for itself in 4 more visits...Should be there by next week! I definitely felt some improvement to the last time I went, feeling more comfortable on the harder climbs I had tried and willing to push myself a little harder. I really have to do more of this at home...

In which i did a V2

So I'm not sure I've mentioned it before, but Duncan (my roomie) is a very outdoorsy dude. He loves to hike, backpack, and rock climbing. Duncan ALSO happens to be president of the new recreational rock climbing club at Northeastern. He even brought his own shoes to China! So needless to say he's been working me over since we got here. Before we had even landed in Hong Kong he had found a climbing gym in Kunming he was going to visit once we got here. He did that on Wednesday with Jonathan and had a blast. So, today when the two were set to go after class I joined them and off we went deeper into Kunming than I'd ever been. Basically, the gym is down the main road one over from our hotel and down a ways until you reach a massive mall. A day pass was about 20 bucks and shoes are 50 cents to rent. It's seriously worth it! So I was able to spend my Friday evening climbing (bouldering specifically) in this neat little gym learning all kinds of cool stuff from Duncan and watching him kick ass on overhangs. Seriously, the man is a monkey. I was also able to talk to Jonathan about what it's like to be in the founding class of a fraternity, since he was in the founding class of Delta at Northeastern five years ago. All in all a fantastic afternoon. Apparently they just redid the routes too, and I found I could comfortably do V1s and some V2s. I'm headed back Monday and Duncan is going to push me to keep going and I'm excited to! After that, the three of us grabbed some dinner at a Korean restaurant and met up with everyone else for a while hanging at a craft beer pub. By the time I got back to the room I was beat!

Thursday 5/19

Today (Thursday) was a good day. Aside from some minor stressing out in class, I made it through! Woohoo! After class Brandon and I met up with Jonathan for lunch at the cafeteria. He showed us the special Muslim cafeteria that has different food options and, word around campus, the food is much better than at the big cafeteria. I'm not sure I tasted the difference but it was pretty good! I had rice with veggies, tofu, and a fried egg. We came back to the rooms to eat and just hang out before meditation. Today when we listened to the meditation recording I either fell into a deep trance... Or I fell asleep. Not sure which! After that my language partner took me to this awesome little cafe called "The Elephant Café," it was an awesome place to work for a couple hours with a modern design in the spring area and the rest of the place was devoted to books of all languages. I was even able to finish half my homework! Tough work like that required some extra relaxing so we headed to the ramen place we knew we liked and had some seriously good noodles... Part 2. After that, I finished my homework, and conked out!

Kunming up through day 3

On Monday I discovered the work expected of me and definitely had a bit of a shock. We have class four hours a day plus study time with my language partner for an additional two hours. This is up from the three WEEKLY hours back at Northeastern.. So mom and dad will be proud at the amount of time I spend studying. I ate lunch in the school cafeteria for around 8￥, roughly a little more than a dollar! I came back to my room to read a little before taiji. That being said I'm not sure what we did was taiji as we ended up doing relay races with many curious onlookers...

For dinner Duncan, Alec, Johnathan, Brandon and I went to an awesome ramen house with the fancy wooden counter and everything! We ordered from a machine...I got spicy noodles and sake. Good choices. We ended that first night the right way, watching a hilarious movie called Kung Fury.

Tuesday I went into class a little anxious, remembering how rough Monday was. My Chinese isn't as strong as Brandon's, the only other person in the class so sometimes it gets really rough. As luck would have it, Tuesday was a little easier than Monday and I felt a bit more comfortable, but there's still a long way to go. We went to a seafood noodle place for lunch. Even though I botched ordering, I still ended up with some delicious clams and noodles! Johnathan has been telling us we have to go repeatedly because it's one of his favorites. I'm not sure I feel the same... But I also have a lot more to explore before return trips! After that, we visited the Dream. An American emigrant running a froyo and waffle shop two doors down from our hotel, Mensa met a group of us the day before when we were on our way back from class and introduced himself. Today, we found ourselves listening to stories about Chinese business and racism in the far East. Then it was time for folk dancing/meditation (I'll let you guess which one I'm doing). This was followed by working with my language partner and a beautiful walk through the park surrounding a nearby lake. It had everything from bamboo groves to shrines to massive Chinese chess gatherings. I need to go back! That night we went to a small traditional Chinese restaurant where I ordered beef fried rice and found it delicious.

Today (Wednesday) I woke up late, after Oakley called at 4:30 to ask me something about summer housing, it took me a while to get back to sleep. Rushing around at 7:30 I was out the door by 7:40 and buying weird cream-filled bread to switch up my breakfast routine from just dumplings. Needless to say it wasn't much of a breakfast and between classes this morning Brandon and I ran back to the hotel for some baozi (dumplings).
Today we had a four hour break for lunch and after a trip to the cafeteria I took the opportunity to get some homework done and watch some Chinese TV. While not as immersive, I needed a little solitude today. It helped keep me same during paper cutting that afternoon and deal with the mountain of homework my poor language partner helped me through.
After that ended around seven, I met up with some different people than my usual crew and we went to a pretty awesome place a few streets away where I was able to order entirely in Mandarin! It was fantastic! I even ordered Coke just because I knew how! On the way back, we ran into Duncan at the $1 boba place at the corner of the street our hotel is on and he reminded us how to order milk tea. When we got back I called Dad for a bit and read The Mountain Shadow until I finished it. It was incredible. I will already recommend that and Shantaram.
I think I'm starting to ease into life here. It took a couple days but I'm starting to fret a little less about interaction and am more open to trying things. Let's hope it keeps up!

Kunming Day 1

So it's day three of classes here in Kunming... And I've already studied the equivalent of three weeks worth of work at Northeastern. It's rough. We got in on Sunday after taking a bus back to the airport in Hong Kong and flying to Kunming in the early afternoon. We were then unceremoniously dumped in the middle of a busy intersection with our baggage a few minutes from the hotel. Location wise, the hotel is perfect. It's located right across from the Western gate of Yunnan university where we have class everyday at eight. The rooms aren't half bad either, just your typical hotel room fare. We were given about an hour to settle in before we met our language partners who will study with us two hours a day everyday we have class. The language partners are graduate students studying how to teach Chinese as a second language, and so far it's been great! Mine started by speaking very little English but as I've gotten better at Chinese her English has improved as well.

After that, a group of us toured the nearby street full of restaurants. I can't remember where I got dinner, but it was delicious!

Welcome to China! (Hong Kong)

你们好! (Hello all!) So it's definitely been some time but I finally figured out how to post from 中国 (China)! Unfortunately I can't use my laptop because China blocks most major Western websites so I have to use my phone...I'm also not sure how I can successfully upload pictures but, baby steps! I'll split my time here into two posts to start with, Hong Kong and Kunming. Here we go!
Hong Kong:
Today started by local time 37 hours ago. I've probably slept for five of them. After going to the North End in Boston with some friends from Northeastern, I headed to the airport around 10 PM. Needless to say it was a grueling flight. Gate to gate it was 13 hours. I did get a couple good hours of sleep in there... In fact all five were on the plane! I also got through a couple movies. For the most part though that flight was a blur... Besides the food! The food was delicious! I had steak for dinner and an omelet for breakfast! Breakfast being around 2 AM...

We got in around five local time. After clearing immigration and getting a bus we made it into Kowloon around 6:30. We were a few hours early for check in, so Brandon, Duncan, Alec, Matt, William, and I went out in search of breakfast part two. We ended up in a small Cantonese restaurant, each with a plate of eggs and noodles... For four dollars!! This was the first experience with prices in China, and so far it's remained pretty consistent.

After breakfast we still had a couple hours before the rooms would be ready so the six of us began a very undirected search for a park. We travelled further down tiny cramped streets filled with little shops and busy people, even in the early hours. Eventually, we found our way to "Old Age Park" whose name became clear when we realized we were the youngest there by 50 years. Nevertheless, we enjoyed our time in the oasis, taking paths through people practicing taiji and badminton. We even saw some strange clapping group, we still have no idea what they were doing... There was also a weight and aerobic section of the park like an outdoor gym disguised as a playground.

After a while we made our way back to the hotel just in time to be handed room keys. Duncan and I dropped our stuff off in our room and headed to the lounge with some of the other students on the trip. We had a buffet lunch some time later and finally the real fun began!

The afternoon was spent touring around Hong Kong with a totally awesome tour guide from the "New Territories." She brought us to this beautiful temple and Victoria Peak before we finally got on a boat cruise through the Harbor for dinner. It was raining off and on all day so the view from the top of the peak was a little clouded in fog, but still breathtaking!

What really amazed me was the style of Kowloon. Unfortunately we never had time to explore Hong Kong Island so I definitely want to go back, but Kowloon...(Kowloon actually means "nine dragons." Many centuries ago when the Emperor visited and discovered the area didn't have a name, he counted the nearby hills to be nine and decided that was a decent enough name.) Kowloon had a verticality I haven't seen anywhere else. Since Hong Kong is so limited in size, the only place it can grow is up. This leads to massive buildings so large the cleaning costs are far too high to be reasonable and therefore most buildings have an almost run-down look. That plus the crowded streets give a sort of beautiful chaos to the city.

I wish today hadn't been so rushed. I could definitely use a week here. I'd love to explore all the temples and surrounding mountains. In the meantime, off to Kunming! 再见!