26.02.09 Yonghegong

The Tibetan Buddhist's New Year started yesterday and today after my chinese classes and lunch I went to see the Lama Temple called Yonghegong. The temple is on the east side of Beijing but in the north just like Haidian district where I live.

The temple was really pretty and I took a bunch of pictures. The temple area was quite big and in the last center hall (the Pavilion of Ten Thousand Happinesses) there was a big Maitreya Buddha statue. There was a note saying that the statue was 18 meters tall and carved out of one piece of white sandal wood, and the statue had made it to the Guinness book of Records. It's impossible to try to explain all the things in the temple, but the architecture was amazing. Everything was so decorated and carefully planned, even the ceilings in the building were decorated and full of colors. I found a website that had some pretty good pictures on it, here's the address: http://www.kinabaloo.com/yonghegong.html
And here's also some pictures I took.

The old and new mix

Rooftops

The Front Gate

A month has passed

I've lived in China for a month now and now I feel I should be doing more because there's only five months left! It's been pretty cold lately, so when the weather starts to warm up, I can start sightseeing more. Maybe I should start planning weekend trips also soon, because the school routines are pretty fixed now after a little bit over a week of studying. We were already planning a trip for this weekend but the cold weather is preventing that because we were going to go north...

Since my last update I've gone to see the Beijing Opera, went partying a little and shopping. The Beijing Opera was on last Thursday and it was organized by the International Office of the university. First we were supposed to go see an acrobatic show, but they changed it into Beijing Opera. We went to an expensive looking hotel where they had a theatre. The theatre wasn't very full, but there were some people there. The show lasted for an hour and they did two different acts. The costumes were really pretty and the way the actors moved was interesting (there was also some acrobatic things), but the singing was a little too loud and high pitched, and also the music was a little too loud at points. But all in all, I found it interesting.

Life in the dormitory

I haven't told about the dormitory yet because I've had other things to tell, but I guess now it's time for a dormitory update :) Where should I start.... Well, compared to the chinese student's dormitory, our dormitory is a five star hotel or at least that's what I've been told. But compared to some international dormitories of other universities, we're not that high on the list.

My side of the room

The room I live in is pretty much the same size as the room you get in a Finnish student apartment. The only difference is that I share the room with another person. We both have a closet, a shelf, a desk, a chair and a bed on our own side of the room, and that's pretty much all the stuff you can fit into this room. In the middle of the building between the two corridors that run along the building, are the toilets, showers and "kitchen". Besides the furniture in our room, we also have cockroaches. We've only seen couple because my roommate had put some poison in the room before I came, but we do have them. And the most interesting thing in our room is the floor. There is this thin plastic floor thing on the floor that has been attached there with normal tape. At some points the plastic has been torn and there's also a seam in the middle of our room where the square shapes don't meet.

The dormitory gives us sheets for the bed that you can change to clean ones every time you want by going to the lady in charge of the sheets. The bed.... or should I say the "bed", is as hard as life. The bed reminds me about this rye bread commercial where a small boys is trying to cut a piece from a hard piece of rye bread and his dad says to him "well are you hungry or not". And in the end it says, "rye bread, as hard as life". The bed does not have a proper mattress and the dormitory only gives us this thin little thing they call a mattress. The "mattress" is as thick as a blanket, but luckily the dormitory gives us two blankets, so I have the other blanket folded on top of the "mattress". With the blanket I've been able to get a little bit of softness under my shoulders and hips, but if you sleep too long on one side that side will get numb.

The girls toilet has three stalls in it which are shared with the whole floor and the shower room has four stalls. The actual shower is a metal pipe that is bend down, so when you wash your hair you get a head massage because all the water pours down to just one point. And there is only one water drain for the four showers which is in the last stall. There is also two washing machines in the wash room that wash your clothes with cold water. You need to use these wash bags for your clothes because otherwise the washing machine would destroy your clothes. Now that I mentioned the water, I guess I should tell you the thing with warm water. There is warm water in the dormitory only from 6am-9am, 11am-1pm, and 5pm-1am. So, if you wake up at 9am and would like to go to the shower before leaving the dormitory at 11am, you have to take a cold shower. And if you were wondering, the warm water schedule doesn't have anything to do with the washing machines. They always use only cold water to wash the clothes.

The "wonderful" shower

I mentioned the "kitchen" before, so maybe I should explain that. We have a kitchen room, but although you might think that there would be an oven or something like that in a kitchen, there is nothing. The kitchen has tables on two sides and a sink, and of course a hot water thing where you can get hot water 24/7 because chinese people like to drink warm water. So, in other words you have to either eat out all the time or buy everything starting from rice cookers and hot plates. So, for six months I will be eating out :)

Although you might think this is not a way to live, it's better than sharing a room with about eight people and going to the shower in a public shower which is not in the same building and most likely not even in the building next to you. That is how the chinese students live here. You can see them walking around the campus with their washing stuff in a basket going to take a shower in a public shower some where around the campus.

School

School started on Monday and I had my first lesson on Monday morning at 8am. At 1pm I had to go and do a placement test for a chinese lesson. So, basically they made me go and sit in an exam where I didn't even know which line was for the name, because everything was written with characters and I don't really know any chinese. I was so embarrassed and felt so bad that they made me sit there and wouldn't help at all. But now it's done and it's behind me.

On Tuesday I had another business class and today I found out the timetable for the chinese lessons and bought my books for the lessons. So, I'll have chinese lessons (speaking, listening and writing) at 8 am until 11:30 am from Monday to Friday. In other words five times a week and four hours per day. I'm hoping I'll learn chinese now with all these lessons :) If not, I guess I'm not meant to learn chinese.

It has been snowing in Beijing yesterday and today. Of course this is not usual here, but still I'd prefer that it would get warmer. Last week was so nice and warm and since the Spring Festival ended it should have meant that the Spring started. But hopefully this will be the last coldness we get and it will start getting warmer from now on.

13.02.09 Tian'anmen Square

Today was finally the day to register to school. I was told earlier that registration would be from the 11th to the 13th, but in reality it was on the 13th and it took forever. You had to go from room to room and wait in line for each room. But eventually I got it done and since the weather was really good and sunny, I decided to go and walk around the Tian'anmen Square area.


I've been to the Tian'anmen area before but I hadn't taken pictures from the area, so that is why I went today. First I walked on the Tian'anmen Square and took pictures of Mao's Mausoleum and the Monument to the People's Heroes, which is in the center of the Square. At the south end of the Square, there is a gate called the Zhengyangmen and on the north side, across the street, there is a gate called Miaojiemen that has a picture of Mao on the wall.


On the west side of Tian'anmen Square there is the National Grand Theatre, also called the Egg, which is an egg shaped glass and metal covered building surrounded by a park. On the south side there is a pedestrian street build basically just for tourists. The street is filled with old style beautiful shops, that are, at least at the moment, almost all empty.


In the pictures you can see the two gates on the south side of Tian'anmen Square and the gate on the north side with Mao's picture. The last picture is of a street musician that saw. He is playing a Peking Opera style instrument, which name I don't know but the music did sound interesting :)

Normal life

On Tuesday we went to buy thicker curtains to our room with my roommate. The curtains that the dormitory gives you are really thin, old and too small. So, since the Spring is coming, or has already started, we decided to get ready for the warm. We have air-conditioning in our room, but we are only allowed to use a certain about of electricity each month and that amount is not enough for the air-conditioning. So, we are hoping the thicker curtains will keep most of the Sun out and our room a little bit cooler.

In the evening we went to another university close by and had dinner there with some of my roommates friends. The two hot topics of the evening was the other university's dormitory which is pretty much luxury compared to ours. And the second topic was the Mandarin Oriental Hotel that burned down on Monday due to the fireworks of the Lantern Festival.


On Wednesday we went to see the Mandarin Oriental Hotel that burned down on Monday. And like all the chinese people there, we also took pictures of it and as you can see from the picture, the building sure burned well. After taking enough pictures we went for dinner with one of my roommate's friends. From dinner we went to see a short movie to a small bar and after the short movie they showed us the movie A Beautiful Mind.

Today the weather was absolutely awful. It was foggy and misty and miserable and it also started raining in the afternoon. So, what better to do than go shopping a little. :) I bought a small warm jacket to keep me warm and stylish in classes and also a cute top for the Summer and parties. The evening was spent next to my tea cup and some chocolate biscuits :)

Lantern Festival

Yesterday I went to sing karaoke with Yanfeng and his wife and two of his wife's friends. And yes, I went to karaoke, again, and this time I even sang a little. So, there goes my promise that I will never ever sing in public. The karaoke included a buffet lunch, so that was good and I ate as much as I could :)

Today is the 15th and last day of Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) which is called the Lantern Festival. We went to the city with my roommate and her friends to try to find some Lantern Festival celebrations. But all we found was tons and tons of people. The streets were absolutely covered with people. So, after we had tried to find something for a while, but didn't find anything, we went for a good dinner.

There has been lots of fireworks for the whole weekend starting from Friday, and today, I guess, everyone is doing as much fireworks that they can when it's still Spring Festival. So, hopefully after today there won't be that many fireworks... hopefully :)

The Great Wall

I went to the East side of Beijing, where Tuomo lives (I live in the North-West of Beijing), in the morning and we started our trip to Mutianyu, a part of the Great Wall in Beijing. Our party of six arrived to Mutianyu around ten in the morning and we started to climb to the Wall. First we only had to climb past a bunch of tourist shops to get to the cable car. The cable car took as to the Wall and we walked around there for about three hours.

The Wall climbs up and down the mountain and especially the last part of the Wall that we were able to go to, was really tough. We had go up so many steps, but at least now I won't have to do any workout for like weeks :)


The weather was really good and I got some good pictures like the one here. I overheard one British guy say, that there are about two days in the year when the weather is so clear that you can see the tallest buildings of Beijing all the way to the Wall, and today was one of them. The guy said he lives in Beijing and the weather really was good, sunny and pretty clear. So, we picked a very good day for the trip :)

05.02.09 Dormitory

We checked out from the hotel and went to the dormitory, my new home for six months. I got all the paper work done and we went to the room, where I met my new roommate, a Bulgarian girl named Neli. We just dropped off our stuff and went for lunch and shopping for all the essentials for the room.

After we had gotten all the basics from Carrefour we went back to the dormitory and Roger and Fiona left for the airport. I plugged my computer to the internet and we talked a little with my new roommate while she was getting ready to go to a chinese wedding. I found out that she's here for her masters and she has been here for six months. She seemed very nice and I'm sure we'll get along just fine.

After she left, I got all my stuff out from my bags and organized them to my closet and my shelf. So, now I have all my stuff organized and I even met one of my neighbors, a girl from Paraguay. I have some problems with my internet connection, because it break off every once in a while and I can't get to some websites, like my blog. But I'm sure I'll figure something out for that.

04.02.09 Visiting Mao

We started the day at 7:30 by taking a taxi from the hotel straight to the Tian'anmen Square to go to Mao's mausoleum. There was quite a queue already at 7:45, but it took us only about half an hour to get to see Mao, the whole 30 seconds of it. After we had walked through the room where he is lying we went to see exhibitions of the most important leaders of that time on the top floor of the mausoleum building.

After Mao we meant to go to a museum next to the Tian'anmen Square, but the museum is under repairs from 2007 to 2010. So, we decided to go to KFC for a little breakfast. With breakfast finished, we decided to go see the ancient observatory where all the emperors would go to predict the future (crops and such) and look at the stars. From the observatory we continued to walk to see the old Ming city walls of Beijing and South-East corner watchtower. The wall was build during the Ming dynasty to surround the city and protect it. Now, only parts of it remain that have been restored and parts that will be restored.


In the evening we went for dinner with Yanfeng. Tomorrow its time for Fiona and Roger to go back to Suzhou, and time for me to go to the dormitory. I can't wait to get my internet connection, but in a way I'm a little afraid too because I will be alone for the first time during my trip. But it will probably be ok, I have a roommate and there's probably other students in the dormitory too.

03.02.09 Shopping and a park

In the morning we meant to go see Mao's mausoleum, but when we got to the Tian'anmen Square there were tons and tons of people waiting in a line that had no beginning or end. So, we decided to go shopping with Fiona and Roger went to wait for Mao. We found some good, cheap shops where you were able to bargain and I got few things, like a warm shirt with 60RMB, first suggested price was 160RMB. 60RMB should be about 6 euros, but now that the value has changed it's about 7,5 euros.

Roger had also given up waiting for Mao and he had gone to a museum and after that back to the hotel. So, we went to the hotel to drop of things and went for lunch. After lunch we walked around the Hutongs (tiny old houses and alleyways) and Behai Park, which is close to the Forbidden City. The park was huge and there was a Tibetan style building on top of a hill that was in the centre of the park. The park was really nice, but in Spring or Summer when everything is blooming it will probably be even better. So, I'll might have to come back later.

02.02.09 Arranging things plus more

We started the day by getting a bank account for me and a Chinese mobile phone number. After that we went to see my soon-to-be new home, the International Student Dormitory of Renmin University. At the dormitory we agreed that I will be able to check-in to the dormitory already on Thursday (before they told me that I won't be able to check-in before the 11th). So, on Thursday we will go to the dormitory in the morning, leave our stuff there and go to Carrefour (big French department store chain), which is just few subway stops from the university. We'll get all the necessities from Carrefour and in the evening Fiona and Roger will go back to Suzhou.

After the dormitory visit, we went for lunch near the university. With full stomachs we went to the CCTV Tower, which is 405 meters tall TV tower. The tower has a scenery floor somewhere around 220 meters where you can look around Beijing. Unfortunately it was a little foggy today, so you couldn't see that much, but on a clear day the scenery must be really good.

For dinner we went to a really nice Sichuan style restaurant pretty close to the hotel. The restaurant was amazing, old style chinese with lots of wood carvings. While we were waiting for a table (the restaurant was pretty popular) we saw a show where one woman changed her mask many times. I think the mask changing is somehow related to Peking opera and the trick is that they change the mask really really quick. First the woman danced and then she walked around the audience and shook hands with people. She also shook my hand and when she nodded, she changed her mask. Right in front of me!!! Just nodded and *snap* her mask had changed. Fiona was laughing at my face because I just went blank, it was so amazing :)

After the show, we got our table and the food was also good. But I still can't get over the mask changing :)

01.02.09 Ming Tombs

We started the day a little earlier to get to the World Heritage site, the Ming tombs. We took two busses and arrived to the Changling around noon. The Ming tombs are located on the north side of Beijing and around the same area (huge area) are the mausoleums of Ming dynasty emperors. Most of the emperors are buried there and during their reign they build these mausoleums where they would be buried with their wife and lots of valuable objects.


The emperors build inside huge walls few buildings and a Soul Tower behind which, they would be buried inside burial buildings build inside a hill that was filled with trees. In Changling the actual burial building was untouched and had not been excavated. But after Changling, we went to Dingling, which is another tomb that they have excavated. In Dingling you can go into the halls of the burial building and see the coffin of Emperor Ding and his two wifes and all the boxes filled with valuables that were buried with the Emperor and Empresses. The coffins are replicas, because the actual ones were partly decayed. In the show rooms, however, you can see some of the objects buried with the Emperor and Empress. There are growns, hairpins, jewelry, clothes and other jade and gold objects.


After we came back to Beijing, we went for dinner and bought a chinese book for me from the Foreign Language Bookstore. The cover of the book says "Chinese in 3 months", so we'll see what happens :)

31.01.09 Sightseeing in Beijing

Today I went to the Beijing Capitol Museum with Fiona and Roger. The building was huge and had a lot to look at. We saw the painting, calligraphy, bronze and jade exhibitions, and also some others. We also saw the temporary exhibition they had about the Spring Festival, meaning the Chinese New Year. The exhibition showed traditional chinese decorations, some New Year's foods and most importantly they made things like paper cutting, the knot decorations and kites right there, so you could see how they are done. The only problem was that there were a lot of people and I haven't yet learned the chinese way to just push through people to see what I want to see. I think we went through about half of the museum and it took as about five hours. After five hours our legs were starting hurt and we were dying of hunger, so we went for late lunch and continued the day with looking through shopping centers.

30.01.09 Back to Beijing

In the morning we went to see the Great Wall in Zhangjiakou and the scenery was amazing. We walked around the mountain and it was great. Unfortunately there was some fog so, most of the pictures I took are a little foggy.

After walking around the Wall we went to Yanfeng's grandparent's for lunch and at 15:19 we took a train back to Beijing. We arrived to Beijing around seven in the evening and went to the hotel I'm staying in with Fiona and Roger. After getting all my stuff to the hotel room we went for dinner.

29.01.09 Last day in Zhangjiakou

First we went to visit Yanfeng's parents at their small apartment at their factory. The apartment was one room, with a bed, fireplace, table and cabinets, and the factory was few rooms where the three workers of the factory made parts for machines. They also had a dog there that liked to catch the smoke from cigarettes. He would jump around and try to eat the smoke that Yanfeng's father would blow into the air :)

When we drove to the factory, we went past a part of the Great Wall of China. I've been told that the Great Wall is build during two different eras, during the Ming dynasty 500 years ago and another 2000 years ago, which is pretty much destroyed through the years. The part of the Wall that is in Zhangjiakou and near Beijing is build during the Ming dynasty. The best time to go see the Wall should be during Spring or Summer when the nature looks better. So, maybe I'll go and see the Wall near Beijing then.

We went for lunch to a restaurant with Yanfeng's school friends. The restaurant was filled with customers and employees and noise. We were probably sitting near the kitchen because almost all the time there were employees going past us with lots of plates filled with all kinds of food. I don't think Finnish waiters and cooks would ever work that fast :)

For dinner we went to Yanfeng's grandparents home where we had a hot pot. A hot pot is similar to fondue, but it's boiling water with spices like ginger and garlic. And instead of sticking everything to sticks, you just put everything in the pot and take stuff that is ready with your chopsticks. Before I left Finland, I was thinking that I want to try a hot pot and now I've tried it once and it was very good :)

28.01.09 Skiing in China

We woke up at seven and headed to Yanfeng's wife's relatives to go skiing. There were two cars full of us when we headed for the skiing resort that was about an hours drive away. And when I say full, I really mean full. There about eight people in the other car that was small like my car and six of us in the other.

We drove through some small villages and around the mountains. The mountains looked great, of course, and the villages very rugged. There were cows, mules, pigs and sheep around and most of the time they were not tied. So, the animals would walk around freely and we almost hit one cow, because it ran on the road suddenly. Another thing we saw on the roads was cars with only one wheel in the front. The cars were either small ones like the moped car in Finland, or pickups. They might be good cars, but they do look funny :)

When we drove through a small town, the garbage and littering was seen clearly again. There were piles of garbage on the streets. It almost seems that people just through their garbage bag on the street at a certain place and maybe at some time someone will clean it. At least in restaurants or public places, some times even at homes, it's ok to drop the ashes from your cigarette to the floor and dump the rest of it there also when you are finished. And, for example, a candy wrapper can be just tossed on the floor or road and someone will probably come and clean it.

At the skiing resort, there were three slopes, a flat one, a less flat one and a big one. There were a lot of people new to skiing and one thing is for sure, I would never take my own skis there because, just like other queues in China, they don't exist. So when going to the lift, people queue, in a way, meaning that they try to push people around them and get past people. So basically, all the skis are on top of each other...

After skiing, we stopped at a small town for late lunch. We went to this small place, that looked a little suspicious at first. The place was only one tiny room and probably a kitchen in the back. In front of the door, a guy was baking noodles and there was a coal (or at least so it seamed) heated stove right in front of the door. We ate noodles in soup and the lunch was prepared right in front of our eyes at the door. Although the first look might have scared some people away, the food was very good.

27.01.09 Big family lunch at a restaurant

After eleven we went to a restaurant to have a big family lunch with Yanfeng's wife's family. There were three big round tables full of Nancy's relatives, one that had all the husbands, one with wifes, and one with younger children. In the middle of the table was a big round glass plate that you could turn and where all the food was placed. And there was lots of food, like every time we have had lunch or dinner, but this time there were more people and, of course, tons of food. It's amazing how much food and how many plates can be placed on a table. The plates are stacked on top of each other, so that you can still get everything with your chopsticks. And yes, with your own chopsticks. Everyone uses their own chopsticks and spoon to take food and there are no separate spoons just for taking food. Because I'm a guest and not so used to using chopsticks, especially with big slippery foods, I'm offered food with people's own chopsticks.

One other thing with chinese food that Finns are not probably accustomed to, is that the fish is served as a whole, with fins, head, skin and, of course, bones. Also the shrimps have their head and skins still. So, what you are supposed to do, is stick the piece of fish or a shrimp in your mouth and get the fish bones and shrimp skin out with your mouth, and then place them on the table, or spit them on the table.

Before the lunch started, a lot pictures were taken. Now I know my numbers from one to three well, because with every picture was the same thing. Yi, er, san, smile :)

During the lunch people, especially men, would go from table to table and toast and say New Year's wishes. There was also singing during the dinner, and it was no other singing than Chinese Opera. From what I've understood, Chinese Opera is very hard and a very special type of singing. The singing continued with more modern type of singing after the dinner in a karaoke place, loud of course like many things here. The karaoke was not like finnish karaoke where you go in front of a bar on your own turn and sing. Here you get your own karaoke room where you have a big TV and you can choose songs from a machine by yourself. So, the day continued with karaoke singing and also dancing, and of course drinking tea and eating snacks.

26.01.09 Going for New Year's visits

Today we started the visits from Yanfeng's father's mother where we had lunch. I'm still having trouble with eating because I'm not hungry at all and I'm pretty tired, but I'm sure it will get better. After lunch we went to play some pool with Yanfeng, his wife and his cousins. First I was very bad at pool, but then I started to get a hang of it, but anyways we had fun :) By the way, I'm not very sure about all the relatives, because it seems that all cousins are called brothers or sisters, and your parents and your husband's/wife's parents are all called mothers and fathers...

After playing some pool we went to a shopping center with Yanfeng and his wife and walked to Yanfeng's wife's grandparent's. There we had dinner and after dinner we went back home to get some rest because it was already after eight. At dinner I was finally able to eat well and I think I'm starting to get rid of the jet lag.

By the way, if you thought that the fireworks would stop for the big midnight firework session, they didn't. Every once in a while there's fireworks exploding everywhere and it feels like you're in a city that's being bombed. So, it's a little hard to sleep well all through the night, because I wake up every once in a while to fireworks and car alarms that are going off because of the fireworks.

25.01.09 In China

The flight to Beijing was ok, a little bumpy few times but other than just fine. I was even able to sleep most of the flight. At the airport everything went well and I didn't have any trouble at the customs and I found Yanfeng easily. We took the shuttle bus and went to a proper chinese restaurant to eat, the only problem was that I ate a big breakfast in the plane because I didn't know when I would eat the next time. Anyways, we had some Beijing duck, fish, duck soup and tofu, and they were all great.

With a very full stomach, we went to see the Tian'anmen Square for a little bit until we had to go to the train at three. The train left from the West railway station (there are four railway stations in Beijing, East, West, North and South) which was a huge building. The train was almost full of passengers but I was told that on Friday, so two days earlier, the trains were very full and the railway station full of people going back home for the Spring Festival. The train trip took three hours as we went around and through the mountains and the scenery was absolutely great.

When we arrived to Zhangjiakou, we were picked up from the station and went to Yanfeng's grandparent's house, where there were his parents and his grandparent's from his mother's side. As we drove through the city, I could see a lot of Chinese New Year's decorations, lots of red and lanterns and blinking lights. Soon after we arrived, we had a big dinner (I was still full from the lunch) and at eight the Spring Festival Gala started from the TV. The gala lasted until midnight when we went outside to blast all the fireworks.

I heard fireworks already in Beijing and they lasted all day. At midnight however the noise was unbelievable, it sounded like the war would have broken and the air was filled with smoke. The fireworks were amazing. There were small things that just made a lot of noise and smoke, torches that would shoot out sparks and "normal" fireworks that shoot stuff up in the sky and blow up. I even saw a bonfire across the street. The finnish safety officials would have probably died of shock, because the normal way to light up fireworks was with a cigarette...

"Some" updates

I haven't been able to get online until now, so I'll try put everything here as clearly as I can :) Try to survive and from now on, I should be able to update the blog more often.