Took It Long Enough

After four months of being here, I've seen it rain about five or six times, and it hasn't snowed properly at all. I've been told that this is the driest it's been in over a decade.

I woke up at about 7:30, and was about to sleep in another 30 minutes or so when I got an sms from one of my Chinese friends.

Hi. Get up. Look out the window. It's snowing!

I'm fairly certain she spammed the message to everyone in her contact list, because a couple minutes later I got a similar message from one of the other teachers who probably wouldn't be awake for another hour or so under normal conditions.

I glanced out my bedroom/balcony window and caught a glimpse of snow. I rushed out of my room and looked out the living room window to get a better look. It was beautiful. It's changed to sleet by now, but it was a wonderful morning. Large wet flakes were falling from the sky, and although they melted when they hit solid ground, there was a thick white covering on all the plants and cars. Perfect snowball snow too.

Like my dad, I'm not a fan of the snow, but I was beginning to fear that for the first time in 21 years I'd go a Winter without a sheet of white on the ground.

Little Villages

I wandered around a new part of the city with a Chinese friend today. We spent bit of the time wandering through one of the "little villages". I'm still not sure if that's a Chinese term for them or a foreign one that got picked up by the English speakers around here, but the description really fits. Little villages are these mazes of back-alley markets. They're filled with everything that makes a stereotypical Chinese market street a stereotypical Chinese market street.

On one side of the street is a China Mobile next to a sock shop and a noodle place, and on the other side is a net bar a cheap restaurant, and a fresh fruit stand. You can't see it, but somewhere down the street someone is selling stinky tofu and none of the Chinese people seem to pay attention to the smell. At one corner, a guy is shaving the outer layer off a piece of sugar cane that's as tall as he is. He's talking to his friend who's pealing a pineapple with a special knife so it gets a nice spiral pattern. A woman on the other side is making caramel candy popsicles in the shape of the zodiac animals. Some people walk by you eating some dumplings, but you don't know where they got them. There are probably at least three places in the area that sell them. You have to dodge out of the way of people riding bikes or electric scooters. A car might drive by on one of the bigger parts, how they have room to push through is a miracle to say the least. The roads are dirty, and there's a small pile of garbage on fire in the corner, but the smell of food is stronger so it's not that noticeable. Every once in a while you pass some guys playing cards or a group of people crowded around two old men playing a kind of Chinese chess. The rest of the street is filled with people shopping or just heading home. Girls in high heeled boots and skirts (and stockings since it's cold out.) will walk past men wearing suits and nobody seems feel out of place at all.

I love the little villages. They're easy to find. In some areas, you can't go more than three or four blocks without going past one. I live in the Gaoxin, high tech, part of Xi'an, so I'm mostly surrounded by tall buildings and offices, but even here is a little village.  And I love it.

Happy Birthday to Me

Yesterday I turned 21! Hooray, huzzah, and jubilation!

My birthday is on the 15th. the day after Valentines day. Because of the way the scheduling worked out, this whole weekend has been one big off and on party for me.

Saturday, most everyone came over and we had a big dinner at the Hunan restaurant down the street. For Chinese birthdays, typically person takes his friends out and treats them, where in America it's (not quite, but mostly) the other way around. I expected to pay more for dinner, but we were able to feed nine people for 120 kuai. That's less than 20 USD. I love China.

After dinner we came back to the apartment to party for most of the night. More friends showed up as the night progressed. I was gifted with such things as scented lanterns, wine, and balloons. Then there was the cake. Saffron bought me a wonderful cake, which so eloquently reads: Happy Birthday Minge. (I guess it's more of an English English word.) She's such a good friend. :P

Sunday night most people were either tired from the previous day, or busy, but Saffron and I managed to get a couple friends over and out to a club. Then we fed Saffrons addiction and went to KTV. Great weekend, and a great way to have a birthday.

Then came Monday morning. For most of this weekend I was under the impression that I did not have work on Monday. So when we got back from KTV, it was about 6:30~ in the morning. Somehow I was still wide awake and got to checking things on my computer. This was probably a good thing, because it meant I was awake when I got a phone call at about 6:50. They needed me to come in to work today.

I have no idea how I managed to do it, but I did the full day with nothing but a nap during the big gap in between my classes. It was a great day at work, actually. One of the teachers there had a birthday too, so we each gave each other a piece of chocolate. All of the classes sang Happy Birthday to me, and I got to teach them some of the silly alternative verses to the song.

I can only hope that next year goes half this well.

Chinese People and American Candy

My birthday is next weekend, so my mom sent me a Valentines Day/Birthday package. In it were some shirts my Aunt sent me for Christmas and some snacks. Specifically, a bag of root beer flavored hard candies. For those of you not from America, root beer is a type of  soda that origionally got it's flavor from the root of the sassafras tree. It is quite possibly the best soda ever created by man. And my mom sent me a whole bag of root beer flavored candy.

I had to spread the love.

I've given away about three times more than I've eaten myself. This is usually what happens when I get a snack food that people here haven't had. The same thing happened with Pop Tarts. Everyone seems to like them though, so I'm happy. 

The funny thing though is how special the candy is to them. Because it's made in America it's automatically ten times better than the candy they can buy in a store. If you give a Chinese person anything that isn't food, they'll often check to see if it was made in China. If it is, it's not as special. They don't seem to put to much importance on their own goods. But if it's made in ANY non-Asian country, it becomes the coolest thing since sliced bread. Especially if it's a food or candy.

It's Picture Time!

I got loads of pictures from the trip to Chengdu. Here are a few choice ones.

Chengdu is a very different city than Xi'an. Much less structured in the layout. This is partially because of the rivers, and Xi'an having been the home of an emperor at one time.

A big statue of Mao overlooking a large city square. It's probably about three stories tall.

The inside of the Mao Museum. It really was just a small shack with a lot of stuff crammed inside. I had a lot of fun in there, though. Worth seeing if you can find it.

The old man who owns the museum and his weird friend. They were quite nice.

The People's Park was very quiet. You couldn't tell you were in the middle of a city with a population of 11+ million people.

Saffron and our new friend Robert. Like her, he is also English. He's doing a journey around the world and is meeting up with his girlfriend once he gets about half way through. 

We rented a boat and rowed around for a while. The people on the bridge were watching us because they didn't think we could make it under such a low bridge.

We proved them wrong.

There were lots of nice flower and bush arrangements throughout the park.

The next day we went and saw some actual pandas.

They're incredibly lazy. Most of them couldn't even be bothered to sit up to grab the food, and would just reach around until they found something edible.

The baby pandas were cute and incredibly funny. They were always climbing around their cage, and falling onto each other.

For 1000 kuai (about $150 US) you could hold one and get your picture taken with it. I was satisfied with what I got, though most of my pictures are fairly blurry. I took some short videos and they turned out alright.

There were also some red pandas. They look cool, but they're vicious little bastards. They couldn't go for more than five minutes without biting each other.

We made lots of new friends at the hostel. We made them come to KTV with us.

Saffron and Millie.

Mark and Thi

Thi wasn't a very good singer. Luckily that's not an important factor in KTV

By the last night we were practically walking up to people at random and telling them that they had to join us for KTV. I didn't even get these two's names the entire night. I don't think anyone regretted their decision to come.

One of the performers for the Sichuan Opera. The face changing was amazing.

The secret of the masks is very closely guarded, but at the same time they let people take pictures and recordings of the act.

Part of the monastery we went to. I thought it was overly touristy.

On one side, peace and tranquility. On the other, a busy tea house. All in a monastery.

They even had a vegetarian restaurant. Saffron got some sort of  pineapple drink that was pretty much a glass of extra thick bubbles. It was pretty good though.

Most hostels have a pet that wanders around. Mix's Hostel had two cats that like to lurk near the fireplaces in case a backpacker dropped some toast for them.

The "Lantern Festival" wasn't at all what anyone expected. Everyone at the hostel thought it would be a quite event in a park where people light candles and lanterns. We were wrong. This thing was full on carnival.

They were very creative with the "lanterns."

Other times... Not so much. Chengdu is really trying to cash in on the Kung Fu Panda movie. It seems to be a big hit here. I liked it too.

There was a big tower in the middle of the park. Some people took an elevator up. (Lazy) We took the stairs. We took the elevator down because the stairs were very narrow.

Saffron and our other new Brit friend, Helen.

The view from the top of the tower was amazing.

I'm going to miss all the friends we made at the hostel. Robert and Helen from England. Mark, our crazy Dutch comrade. Millie and Thi from Australia are coming to Xi'an in a coupel days, so we'll get to see them again.

Saffron and I are going to spend most of the weekend relaxing and recovering from our trip. Happy New Year everyone.