I'M A CAT!!!!

CHINA


I woke up bright and early in Hong Kong and met up with the 72 other people on my trip. We left the confines of the MV Explorer and took a motor coach to the Hong Kong Airport, where we caught our 3-hour flight to Beijing! On the flight they played these odd tv shows including Chinese clowns galloping around a stage, a Chinese game show, and Tom & Jerry. They also gave us a surprisingly good meal. I didn’t get much sleep like I was hoping for, but still enjoyed the relaxation.

We arrived at the Beijing airport. It only took minutes until we were bombarded with “Beijing 2008 Olympics” banners, other odd signs displaying what one can/cannot do, thousands and thousands of people in spaces not big enough to hold hundreds, scrolling messages written in broken English, and small pieces of cotton-looking dust that flew around throughout the air in Beijing. These specks of cotton obviously spread germs; most of which cause ones body to break out into so-called “Communist rashes.” If one doesn’t seek medical help quickly, he or she may be completely red in a matter of days.
One cannot see far into the distance around the city because of the incredible pollution problem. They’re apparently working on ways of improving the air quality before the Olympic games, but I’m thinking that they’ll need Gandalf or someone with some wizardry powers to do a feat like this.

Even though there were 72 people on this trip, this large number didn’t affect me having a good time. Many friends strategically signed up for the same trip together, so we luckily had a really good travel group.

We stayed at Tsinghua University, located right outside the city. The university is the largest in the Beijing area...huge! When I learned that we were going to be staying on campus, I figured that we’d be lodging in the leftover crappy dorm rooms, but oh was I wrong! We were staying in the university’s guesthouse. This was literally a hotel on campus.

After the 40-minute bus ride to campus, we crowded in the guesthouse lobby to pick up our room cards; they then gave us roughly 10 minutes to check-in and inspect our rooms.
James and I walked into our room and laughed at the many accessories offered to us including slippers, a sewing kit, “shower shoes,” a hot water maker WITH teacups, and a television with at least 60 different stations. Oh, and I forgot to mention the sweet doorbell located outside each room that we definitely took advantage of. All of these accessories kind of lost their touch when later that night we noticed all of these weird stains, spills, and blemishes all over the bed sheets and the carpets. THAT’s why they provided us with the slippers!

Staying on campus was a blast, because we got to interact with other Chinese students directly, and everyone was super kind. After a student gave a few of us a tour of the university, they treated us to a Peking duck dinner in the guesthouse’s restaurant. Starting with this meal, every meal in Beijing followed this trend:

1. The waiters/waitresses bring out food as soon as we sit down and place it all on the lazy susan located in the middle of the round table.

2. We begin questioning what we’re eating, but continue to try new things.

3. Every time someone slowly spins the center circle around to get their food, I begin humming carousel music or at least “The Final Countdown” in my head.

4. We’re only given small plates to place our food on, along with a set of chopsticks, but by the end of the meal, someone always makes some type of social blunder with the chopsticks. The funniest was when Kyle insisted that one serves the food with the top of the chopsticks, but only eats with the bottom sticks (this IS true in Japan though). The two Chinese students sitting at our table began laughing hysterically at this.

5. Eventually so much food sits on the table that the waiters begin pilling plates on top of plates, creating this collage of different cuisine.

6. One cannot judge a food by the way it smells. The taste is always completely different. This also holds true with the food in Vietnam, except all of the Vietnamese food I tried was actually good.

7. The meal’s main course is usually brought out 2/5 of the way through the meal; the dessert is always brought out halfway through the meal; the rice and/or noodles are always brought out 4/5 of the way through the meal.

8. I only end up liking 2/5 of the actual food.

ACTUAL Chinese food is much different than the stuff they serve in America. Some foods were really wonderful, but most of it wasn’t very filling.

After dinner, a bunch of us decided to spend our night walking around the beautiful campus. A couple of Chinese students joined up with our small group, walked around with us, and showed us the interesting hangout spots. We spent the night telling ghost stories (most of which were very lame) and talking about “college stuff.”

Back in our room, I found that flipping through the television stations was so much fun. China seriously has at least 5 or 6 American Idol-esque shows. The main difference is that, unlike in America, these performers actually have genuine talent. Other interesting observations concerning Chinese television:

- I’m often disappointed how no news source in the US is completely truthful, because everyone throws in their own opinions/propaganda throughout the newscasts (examples include the Fox News Corporation, as well as CNN and CNBC), but when you watch men in military uniforms delivering the newscasts on Beijing television, at least you can appreciate their complete lack of subtlety.
- Jackie Chan is HUGE here. Within a half hour timeframe, I saw him advertising 3 different products on three different commercials…two of which were competing credit card companies.
- The lack of western influence is awesome. The only westernized thing I saw on television was some random Michael Keaton comedy that I couldn’t remember the name. It was dubbed in Mandarin of course.
- Chinese opera is amazing to watch and hilariously unique at the same time…I don’t care what you say.

I woke up early the second day and took a long shower, for I don’t want any communist germs turning my skin red (please appreciate the sarcasm in this post…don’t take anything too seriously).
A couple of us joined up outside the hotel for a session of tai chi before eating a breakfast unlike one I’ve ever eaten before. Let’s just say that my breakfast the following two days only consisted of bread and cookies.

We took an hour bus ride and soon enough, I saw a long wall running along the mountainside. We visited the Great Wall of China that morning, and yes, it was pretty great. I’m still kind of confused on how the Mongolians couldn’t find ANY way past this wall, but still, it certainly deserved its “great” title. After walking up the hill and being bombarded with dozens of men and women selling products, we made it to the actual wall. Most of the people were taking a right and walking up to the more picturesque part of the wall, but four of us decided to make a left, solely because there were A LOT less people this way.
The path we took was still rather steep, but still offered us a wonderful view of the surrounding mountains. While at the top, a woman started pestering James about buying this warm Russian-looking hat. Long story short, James, Noopur, and I all ended up buying one. VERY warm hats indeed, which did come in handy because it was rather windy up on top of this wall. They also make for some really hardcore pictures.

After our wall trek, we visited a restaurant that served the traditional dish titled the Mongolian Hot Pot. Cooking food in my hot pot was exciting, especially when I began getting bored and got creative, as I just threw every kind of food on the table in my pot at once.

We then went to the Beijing zoo where we had the opportunity to visit the ultra cool Giant Pandas, who had their own wing of the zoo. These giant pandas were HUGE. I naturally thought that they’d live up to their name, but they far exceeded my expectations. These pandas seriously measured up to the size of a small building. You could probably fit a small child inside one of its ears. Hell, these pandas could battle Godzilla if he so challenged them. Why didn’t the Chinese just release giant pandas on the Japanese when they invaded their country during WWII? Makes sense to me.

Actually, sorry; that’s all quite a lie—just like the Chinese lied to us by referring to them as “giant” pandas. They weren’t that big at all…but they were still cute. I had the Deerhoof song "Panda Panda Panda" in my head for the rest of the day.

After viewing the No-So-Giant Pandas, we decided to check out the rest of the zoo. The zoo was incredibly spread out…you seriously needed a shuttle to take you from one side to the other. We learned this when we tried to walk to the other end of the zoo to see the penguin exhibit. That’s right…I was FINALLY going to see some penguins on this trip! We made it to the building, walked up to the front door, but we were sad to learn that you had to purchase tickets in order to catch the penguin exhibit. I didn’t want to see penguins THAT badly. Still, we enjoyed our time walking through the heaps of cotton dust (probably a panda shedding somewhere), viewing catching some reptiles, and trying to figure out why some Chinese guys were laughing at us (always a fun pastime).

For dinner, we were promised Pizza Hut. Pizza Huts in China are not fast-food-like establishments. They’re actually really nice restaurants. Unfortunately, Pizza Hut actually meant the university’s pizza restaurant, which was ok, because the pizza still tasted like Pizza Hut.
Before we ate though, we were brought to the university’s basketball/volleyball courts so that us Americans could play some basketball and volleyball with the students. As you can imagine, I chose not to play, along with everyone else in my group of friends.

After James, Haley, and I left to watch some students play soccer for 20 minutes or so, we met up with this girl named Jenny. Jenny was awesome! She asked us if we wanted to learn a new game, and we all said, “sure,” so she taught us “I’m a Cat.” Basically it’s freeze tag, except when the tagger’s running up to you, you can just scream, “I’M A CAT” and he/she can’t do anything. About 15 of us played, and we had soooo much fun! You’ll have to see the video. After everyone grew incredibly tired, we thought that we’d teach Jenny and a few other students an American game. That’s right, we played Red Rover until they made the announcement for dinner. The game, of course, ended with half of us in pain, but that’s how it’s supposed to end, right? The Chinese students were very bewildered why we would play a game like this when we easily could just play a real game, like basketball.

We ate dinner at the Pizza Hut restaurant on campus, but a bunch of us felt like going out afterwards…possibly hit up a karaoke bar? Our good friend Jenny helped us out, as she took us to this incredibly nice karaoke club. When leaving the campus, we had a lot of trouble securing three separate cabs that could transport us all to the same place. Apparently, nobody knew where the club was! In the end, Jenny’s Chinese skills really helped secure us three drivers that took us to the really posh, underground karaoke club.

We spent the next 2 hours or so in our own VIP karaoke room with a huge projector screen, comfy couches, crazy neon lights, and some dancing space. Me, Steph, Kate, Mark, Matt, Kyle, Katie, Caitlin, and a few others sang the night away in true karaoke style. Some of the highlights included Kyle’s stunning/hilarious renditions of “My Heart Will Go On,” and “Do-Re-Mi,” Caitlin and Katie’s Spice Girls dance moves, Matt and I bringing life to “These Boots are Made for Walking” with Kyle dancing around the room/filling in on tambourine, and everyone joining together for many Disney sing-alongs throughout the night. The night ended with Jenny and her boyfriend singing a popular Chinese love song. Of course, the video played behind the lyrics had none other than movie footage of Mr. Jackie Chan doing his thing. I’ll be honest, and say that some of the English translations were pretty funny, but still, it was a beautiful moment and a perfect way to end the evening. My first Asian karaoke experience was a success! I only wish I brought my video camera with me.
Even though we all pitched in for the karaoke room, Jenny and her boyfriend refused to let us pay for anything else. This is a Chinese custom…since they were our hosts, they couldn’t let us pay for anything. I still felt bad that I couldn’t throw in a few bucks, but didn’t want to make a scene (something my dad would probably do because he’s too nice).

We woke up the next morning and left straight for Tiananmen Square. It’s been hailed as one of the biggest squares in the world…damn straight. It was huge. It was rather odd that the entire center of the square was filled with trailers, campers, and some gift shop stands. I can’t tell you how many sellers approached me with hopes of selling me a Mao Zedong watch. Still, the historical relevance of the area made it an intense experience.

Afterwards we were given a few hours to explore the Forbidden City.
I just LOVE the Chinese’s use of adjectives in their titles: the GREAT wall, the GIANT pandas, the FORBIDDEN city. It makes each sight seem more grandiose than it really is. Still, the Forbidden City was incredible. It didn’t take us long to walk through the whole thing, but some interesting sights WERE observed:

- We were told that there was a Starbucks hidden inside the Forbidden City, and that many Chinese historians weren’t pleased with this addition to the historical sight. Matt and I spent over a half hour trying to find this Starbucks for him to shoot for his video. Eventually, we did spot some friends drinking some cappuccinos, and behind them was a building that housed none other than a Starbucks. The search was a success! Unfortunately, the line was at least 20 feet long…the whole line occupied by white people by the way. Figures. Luckily, Haley was near the front, so she got me my Banana Chip Java with success! Thanks again Haley!
If you would have asked me beforehand what I thought about a Starbucks located within the Forbidden City, I would have probably said that it’s ridiculous, but I definitely don’t think that anymore. Considering the fact that there are souvenir and gift shops located EVERYWHERE in every sight we’ve seen, the fact that Starbucks sells some coffee in the middle of the city isn’t really THAT big of a deal. All of the gift shops are ruining the authenticity and historical mood of the ancient places, but hey, if there’s money to be sold, one might as well go for it.

- They grade the bathrooms in China! Fortunately, for our sake, all of the bathrooms located within the Forbidden City were all 4 star bathrooms! Woohoo! The best part is the fact that they proudly display all of the ratings outside each building with a plaque, as if they’re bragging or something. Later on in the trip, I ran into some 3 star bathrooms…I’m not going to discuss the details of those. I’m sure that the 2 star ones don’t even have a rating in front of them. How embarrassing.

We ate lunch and then spent time at the Temple of Heaven. This was also a very picturesque area, filled with shrines, temples, and gardens. While on top of the temple’s main structure, I saw a Chinese teenager wearing a Pittsburgh Pirates shirt. I walked up to him and asked if he’d ever been to Pittsburgh. He didn’t speak English very well, but he still enthusiastically shook his head “yes.” I told him that I’m from Pittsburgh, and he ran to his father and younger brother and started pointing at me while smiling. The two others soon smiled after.

Rather than choosing a place for us to eat dinner, they agreed to give us some money and let us go in this market area and buy whatever we want. Instead of eating, I choose to shop. The women in this market area were the worst I’ve encountered so far. They seriously heckle you, grab you, and won’t let you go until you go inside their booths. I’m going to miss all of this bargaining when I get home. I’ll walk into a Best Buy and try to hassle them to lower the price…yeah, that’ll work.

That night, we had a trip to the theatre to catch a show put on by the Chinese Acrobats. These were mostly kids and teenagers…except they weren’t real children…they were mutants. If you’ve ever seen X-Men, you’d understand where I’m coming from; these kids could do things that are clearly impossible. If I was working for the US Secretary of the Defense, I’d seriously look into the Chinese scientific community and make sure that they’re not breeding superheroes. I mean come on! Have you ever seen anyone fit 14 people on top of one bicycle WHILE someone’s still pedaling or watch men climb up smooth walls with their bare hands or watch women catch umbrellas with their feet or walk down the street and see children jumping rope…10 different ropes at one time.

My mind was blown away by the acrobats, but we still wanted to go out afterwards. James, Haley, Matt, and I tried to catch a cab to KFC (not too far away from the campus). Somebody brought up KFC earlier that day, so all of us developed this intense craving. The problem is that no cab drivers in Beijing speak a word of English, and none of us spoke a word of Chinese. Even writing “K F C” on a piece of paper did nothing, so they ended up eating some convenience store snacks while I went back to my room because I wasn’t feeling well (the Chinese food was probably destroying my digestive system or something).

Our last day in Beijing started with another breakfast, and then moved onto the Summer Palace. I thought that the Summer Palace would be this big castle-like structure that would take us about an hour or so to travel through, but I was wrong. We spent 3 or 4 hours exploring the area surrounding the Summer Palace, and still didn’t have enough time to see the entire place.
Mark, Kyle, and I paid the extra bucks to actually travel inside the palace, and boy was it worth it.
After a nice final breakfast, we made our way to the Beijing airport and said goodbye to the cotton flying throughout the air. Make sure to watch out for the cotton while watching the Olympics next year.

We didn’t fly back top Hong Kong. While away in Beijing, the ship moved onto Qingdao, China. The bus picked us up from the airport, and took us through this murky, creepy, foggy, crappy-looking town known as Qingdao. This was the ugliest, least-attractive port on our trip so far. Seriously…why go to Qingdao? The only decent thing about the bus ride back was the fact that the bus driver was crazy, and was racing the other bus back to the ship.

We spent the next day walking around the shopping district of Qingdao, which was somewhat interesting, mainly because not one person in the entire city spoke a word of English, and I rather liked that. This was also the first place where no ATMs took our credit cards…though a few found some select ATMs that worked. We did end up getting our KFC that we were craving.
I did catch some distinctive things around the city. For example, I saw this odd-looking building with Spiderman and Lord of the Rings posters surrounding the door, so I voted on going inside. I walked through the meat flaps (many, many buildings have meat flaps instead of doors), walked down the long staircase into the basement, turned to my right, and there were literally hundreds and HUNDREDS of computers. This internet café was huge. The computer monitors were enormous, they had separate rooms with leather reclining chairs for a few select people, and nearly every kid at every PC was either playing World of Warcraft, Age of Empires, or some random soccer game.
While on my computer, I googled “Tiananmen Square” and was actually surprised that 3 sites were found…I figured that it wouldn’t list any of them. Ohhh government censorship!
I bought a few cds because they were so cheap, and then we made our way back to the ship, narrowly avoiding any dock time.

China was certainly the most different country we’ve visited on this trip. Like every other country, I wish I could have seen more, but still, I saw a lot of important sights and sounds. I was mostly excited for Japan, for it was only two days away!
I’ll try to write about my Japan experience sometime before Hawaii.