Will the fireworks ever end?!

The Chinese New Year was 2 weeks ago and they are still shooting fireworks everyday and all times of the day. The cool part is they are big pretty fireworks. The bad part is they never end. I can't quite understand the point of fireworks at 8 am?

These past few days have been awesome. We had our language placement test at 7 am on Thursday. It was pretty much the SAT's in Chinese and I think I placed about as low as I did for the SAT's in high school. Fortunately, my schedule isn't too bad. I am taking 4 classes (reading/writing, listening, speaking, and intercultural communication). We start school tomorrow and I'm really excited to see what my classes are like/ actually use my brain again.

I'm happy to report that I've been eating a lot of street vendor food and haven't gotten sick yet! It's actually super yummy. All the food is sooo good and about $3 a dish. I was upset to wake up this morning and see that I spent 100 yuan last night but quickly realized that is only $14. We keep joking that we won't eat/drink when we go back to America because it is so much more expensive. I don't think I'll ever be able to get over how cheap everything is.

The weather has been very cold and grey :( I am definitely ready for it to warm up but then we will have to smell sweaty armpits so I guess it's a trade off. Speaking of sweaty armpits a bunch of just joined the Bally's Total Fitness which is conveniently located next to my hotel. It was about $120 for 3 months (of course we bargained for the price..) Don't worry I will inform yall on what a Chinese hip hop class is like.

Yup, there go the fireworks again..so much for a nap. Hope everyone is doing well. Thinking about yall everyday. Much love.

Lauren
柯若兰The king came back as an asian

Chinese bar

View from my hotel

我爱中国！

你好! Oh man what a busy/exciting few days it's been!

On Monday my mama left to go back to the ATL. It was sad to say goodbye but not too sad since she left at 6 am and you all know what I'm like that early in the morning. I then packed up my stuff and moved into my new residence. I am living in a hotel for the next four months. We had the choice to either live in a on-campus dorm or off-campus hotel. Guess who chose the hotel?? The room is comfortable and about a 10 minute walk to my classes. Of course this 10 minute walk includes crossing three very busy streets which in Beijing means putting your life on the life. My roomies name is Cherrica and goes to Notre Dame. She's a super sweet girl and is reallllly good at Chinese so I am glad to have her as a roomie :)

On Tuesday we woke up bright and early to have orientation and meet everyone. This included a complimentary breakfast of sushi and sandwhiches. To say the least I didn't think I could stomach sushi at 8 am. Later on that day my roommate and I headed to the Target type store here. I was very overwhelmed by the mass amounts of people. The check out line was a good 20 people! Definitely something that is going to take a while to get use to. That night a group of us went to WuDaoKou which is where a lot of the bars are. We had a good time but nothing too crazy since we all had to wake up early today.

Today (Wednesday) we went to the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. I already went there last week but thought it'd be a good chance to get to meet everyone. We were warned that because we were foreigners and many Chinese people have never actually seen Westerners (other than the TV) that we would be stared at/photographed. It was truly a crazy experience. Every time our group stopped for 5 minutes to listen to the tour guide there would be a group of people just snapping our photo. They also aren't scared to ask you to take a photo with their kids. We all just kept wondering what do they do with these photo's?? Later on we had a campus tour. I am attending the University of Beijing (BeiDa 北大) which is known as the Harvard of China (yeah don't ask me how I managed to pull that off..) The campus is very different than Boulder but I know it will be so beautiful in the spring.

Everyone in my groups seems really awesome. We take our language placement exam tomorrow at 7 am which will determine what level Chinese classes we can take. That should be interesting. The weather is a bit grey. I can't tell if it's just really cloudy or really polluted. Considering I blew my nose and black stuff came out today I think I'm gonna go with it being polluted. Hope my lungs can survive these next few months!

Anyways, things are great here other than feeling overwhelmed by the Chinese language. I've worked so hard to make it to this point but it's extremely frustrating when you don't understand anything. But I guess that means you just got to work harder!

Here's to placing above the elementary level on my language placement exam! Love you all.

Lauren
柯若兰



My bed for the next 4 months


Cloudy or pollution?
The Chinese paparazzi
My campus
The famous bagoda at Beida

"Sally Group"

So we finally decided it was time to stop shopping and actually do some touristy things. And boy did we. Get ready..it's going to be a long post.

On Thursday we went and visited the Forbidden City. We were immediately greeted by an English speaking woman named Ma Sa who wanted to be our tour guide. We were a little bit hesitant but once she gave us her cell phone to hold we knew she was the real deal. Ma Sa was quite the spitfire of a tour guide. We were allowed about two seconds to look at things before she would say "next next come on". But she was very informative and we got a good feel for all the history. We then went to to Tiananmen Square and chilled with Mao. After that we got the brilliant idea of going to see the university I will be studying at. Much to our dismay we did not realize that all the students are on vacation because of the new year. We could not really find the university much less anyone to direct us to it. Hopefully come Monday it will be a bit more happenin. That night my dear friend from CU, Consto (or Chris as they called him...weird), was in town from Semester at Sea. He, his friends, and I headed to the drinking district of Beijing. Maybe people in China don't do "thirsty thursdays" because there weren't many people out but we still managed to have fun. Of course this included some karaoke. Not sure the Chinese people thought we were as great of singers as we did...Nonetheless it was great seeing a familiar face!

On Friday I woke up in a state of anxiety. My mother had lent me her Blackberry the night before in case I needed to call the hotel. I woke up that morning while she was at breakfast to find that her phone was not in my purse. I spent the next hour replaying in my head how I would break the bad news to her (all the mean while playing solitaire on my phone so I wouldn't think about the deep shit I was about to be in). Soo you can imagine my relief when she walked back in the room with her phone in hand...phew! Feeling 5 pounds lighter from all the sweat I sweated out we then headed to the Lama Temples which is still an active Buddhist temple. The amount of incense was overwhelming but it was very beautiful. However, trying to find a restaurant to eat at was not so fun. I ended up settling for Ritz Crackers which by the way are no where near as buttery/salty as in the US. After that we decided to go to Bei Hai Park. We go off the subway looking for a big white bagoda. After 30 minutes of walking to a big white bagoda we realized we were at the totally wrong one. On the positive side we got to walk down a sketchy ally and see how many people really live in Beijing ( with one communal toilet in the street). After a nice nap we headed to the Legendale Hotel which is super fancy but very empty. Guess the Chinese don't drink on Friday's either..

Today we took a guided bus tour to the Ming Tombs and Great Wall. Our tour guide was named Sally or Pan Jiao..whichever you prefer. She was super cute and her English was really good. The best part was she kept referring to herself in 3rd person "Sally group!" or "So you might ask Sally". The Ming Tomb we went to was not very exciting but the Great Wall was great! We took a cable car up to the top and then walked the rest. The walk was straight up but we were informed that if we made it we would be "heroes". Of course we wanted to be "heroes" so we hiked our way on up along with a thousand Chinese people. The view was breathtaking and so was the trash. There was litter every where!! Not sure how people can do that to such a historical place.. We also visited a factory where they made Jade which is the stone of China, and a factory where they made silk. Some very interesting stuff indeed. Tonight we almost ate at a restaurant until we saw "dog meat soup". Yes, the rumors are true. They do eat dog.
Tomorrow is moms last day :( We have had a great time and I am whipping her butt in Gin Rummy!

Here's to a fabulous last day with my mama for 4 months! Much love to all. Pictures are below..

Lauren
柯若兰

Pictures

Not only do they make silk but they are also a great source of protein..or so they say
The great wall was great...you can even find random llama's in the parking lot
Mama and I on the great wall
It was pretty impressive
A buddha at the Lama Temple
4 days into my trip and I broke down and had to have some pasta..
Just a little karaoke
Deb, Lauren, and Mao chilling in Tiananmen Square
Our Forbidden City tour guide Ma Sa
The masses of people at the Forbidden City

Sorry this took so long..

I know you all have been anxiously sitting by your computers waiting for my latest blog entry so I want to apologize that it took a few days. Blogs along with Facebook and Youtube are blocked in China so its rather challenging to get on them. But the good news is we made it!

The flight to Tokyo was not bad at all. We lucked out because Mom had an aisle seat and I had a window and there was no one in the middle! However, we did not have our own personal tv's which was a tad upsetting. Once we landed to Tokyo we were a bit tired because neither of us slept on the first flight much (it was also 3 am in Atlanta). The flight to Beijing was rather painful because not only were we sooo tired but there were about 100 school kids on the plane. But we just passed out and next thing we knew we were in Beijing! We quickly went to bed that night and woke up refreshed and ready.

Our hotel is really nice and is located right by Wangfujin St. which is a very popular shopping street. It has about every fancy store you can imagine along with the Starbucks I am currently sitting in. We spent our first day walking down Wangfujin and then headed to the famous Silk Market where you can find every fake good you can imagine and includes the most annoying hagglers in the world. It didn't take us long to realize that you do not point at anything that may be cute because you will be hassled for the next 30 minutes. But to say the least, I was in heaven. I now know where all my money will be spent...

The second day we went back to Wangfujin because we read that there was an Apple store there and I needed a converter for my charger. We were unable to find an Apple store but did eat at this delicious Thai restaurant. Then we went around the mall trying to find anyone that knew where an Apple store was. We located one about 10 minutes away and headed there in a taxi. Good thing we were on our way to the Apple store because about 30 minutes before I found my entire Thai leftovers spilled out onto my laptop..clearly it survived! Once we left the Apple store we headed to the YaShaw Market which is another famous market with fake goods. This one was much more peaceful though. We found a very nice lady on the silk floor named Snow (they all have English names that they create). Her English was very good and she was the most pleasant haggler we had met so we felt inclined to buy some silk from her. The art of bargaining can be intimidating at first but once you get use to it it's not so bad. They usually mark things up 100% so you just have to work your way down. For instance, mom was interested in a pair of leather boots. They originally asked for over $200. We managed to get it down to $100 but decided that was way too much for boots so we walked away (this is the key). The lady chased us down a whole aisle until we agreed to buy them for $38. Not bad for a pair of leather boots!

So I am sure y'all are all wondering how is the food!? The food is actually delicious!! Most things on the menu are slightly scary (pigs feet, roasted pigeon, fungus..you get the picture) so we have stuck to fried rice, noodles, dumplings, eggplant, and chicken. The portions are absolutely huuuge! Mom and I keep saying this time we will only order one dish but end up ordering 3. The best part though is the price. For example, our meal last night consisted of two gigantic bowls of soup, a bowl of fried rice, a huge plate of eggplant, and 4 beers. All of this food cost us less than $14!

Here is a list of the top 5 things that has surprised us the most:
5) You never see anyone use their cell phones
4) Even in the bright sun no one wears their sunglasses
3) We have yet to see any animals (birds and everything)
2) The streets are extremely clean and feel very safe (probably a result of the Olympics)
1) We never see any foreigners

The weather has been in the high 30's and thanks to our matching jackets it has been pleasantly warm. We have decided it is actually time to do something touristy today so we are heading to the Forbidden City which is about a 10 minute walk from our hotel. I will be sure to let y'all know how it is as soon as I can make it back to the Starbucks! Now I leave you with some pictures..sorry they are on a new post..when I post them in this post they go to the top and I want them to the bottom..any of you bloggers know how to fix this? Hope everyone is doing well. Here's to a fantastic day at the Forbidden City.

Lauren
柯若兰

Pictures of the first few days

The beautiful bathroom

Hotel room
Just your average snack
It's the Chinese New Year
Some scorpions and seahorses! YUMMY!
Inside the mall at the Wangfujin

China Here We Come!

I can't believe the day has finally come! Mom and I will be boarding the plane in a few hours. Our first stop is Tokyo which is a 14 hour flight and then we fly to Beijing which is about 4 hours! If all goes well we will arrive in Beijing on the 15th at 10 at night. Of course we are leaving for the airport in an hour and my mother has yet to put anything into a suitcase! Janis and Lindsay are driving us to the airport and it will be very sad to say goodbye to them. I have had a great two months doing nothing but I am ready to begin this adventure and actually use my brain again.

I will constantly be thinking about everyone back home! I'll miss y'all very very much. I hope everyone takes care and keeps in touch. Here's to a fantastic 4 months! xoxo

Lauren
柯若兰