Christmas in 江油

Happy Holidays dear friends and family! I just passed into the New Year (To celebrate in a fitting fashion, Teddy and I had some ox tongue for dinner). So far, it looks like a good one. You may want to give it a shot in the next day or so!
I have been busy with exploring the city, bumbling my way around Mandarin, trying new foods, building relationships, watching pirated movies, and sleeping in.
Here are some pictures of our (I went to Jiangyou to visit Mark and Janice) Christmas exploits.
We found a mostly intact creche in a forgotten closet of the apartment. I tried to tuck this unfortunate 3rd king behind the Christmas tree...


Apparently during Christmas in Chengdu it is traditional for hordes of people to mob and fight in the city with blow-up bats (they often sport an American flag). However this mode of celebration has been banned as of this year due to the inherent dangers accompanying such a Yuletide riot. (Here's a blog with good pictures: Chengdu Christmas Tradition). Despite the new legislation this new Christmas tradition is too good to be forgotten!



Here are some neat things that we found while wondering the streets of Jiangyou:

Self-explanatory


poultry & produce!


Pretty colors


(pig? sheep?) hearts--the blood keeps them fresh!


Edible foliage

Woops!

I would like to take a moment to respond to this thoughtful comment:

"I enjoy the pictures of the surroundings. Reminds me of the travelogs your Grandma used to take me to when I was a kid. Do you ever have trouble making purchases there if there are only characters and not words? Have you for instance ever had to go back to a store and say "Even though this plant food was delicious with a little milk and sugar, I would like to get coffee this time."

Hah!!! You bet I have trouble making purchases. Usually I just nod, smile, say an affirmative 'uhh,' and resign myself to the knowledge that I am about to have an adventure. So far I have purchased date flavored yogurt instead of strawberry yogurt, bought some lemongrass-mint gum, and attempted to buy a bunch of bananas that were intended to be individually deep-fried and sold. However with a bit of persistence, hand-motions, crude drawings, and laughter even the novice can successfully score a nice dish of korean-style squid!

Slowly getting better at China

My friend Betty had me going that we were about to experience a tasty Sichuan treat called 龟苓膏 (Gui1 ling2 gao1) made from turtle blood . She said that we would each choose a turtle from the pool and then smash the shell and collect the juice.
I was only a little disappointed when it turned out to be 'herbal jelly.' However, even herbal jelly can be fun sometimes!






I had my first test today for my language class. I think it went ok. Check out some of my homework! So far, whenever I show my work to them, my teachers ask me to stop drawing pictures in class...I'm not sure how to say 'chicken scratch' in Chinese.


Oh! Almost forgot-if you're interested I've been dumping more pictures here: http://picasaweb.google.com/postcentral.gyrus

Jinli street plus some other things

When all else fails, post a lot of pictures!

This is Jinli Street in Chengdu. It's pretty much a tourist thing, but I liked it!

We tried some neat foods! Teddy wouldn't let me bring the bamboo home; it was too greasy.

She was making a silk rug! Wow! Can't find those in IKEA.

I have one Chinese friend (Hi, Teddy)!

I liked the contrast of the grey and yellow.

Mild street action

What else would you post on a bus?

Home for the month

I moved out of my room on the first floor of the guest house into a new room on the fifth floor. I should be staying here for the rest of the month. I'm also posting some pictures of the scenery on the way to my class.



My new room on the 5th floor



This is nicer than my last one!



Scary hole in my bathroom wall



Kitty on the way to class



Stairs to class

Opportunity to indulge in Chinese dentistry

Sorry friends, this is a long post. If you scroll to the end, there are more pictures...
I could tell you about going to see pandas, struggling along in my language classes, or being utterly confused at the zoo-like environment of a Chinese cellphone store. However I would first like to tell you about tonight's tasty treat. Last night, there was a man selling sweet, sticky goo at the south gate of the university. If I had a pocket big enough, I would put him there. He is short (go figure) and older and has a smile full of character. Wonder of wonders! he was there again tonight! I finally mustered up the courage on my way back from dinner (fried peppers and rice) to ask for some of his tasty treat. As I admired how awesome he was, he took two sticks, dipped them into the bucket full of this viscous, caramelized sugar, then twirled them around until he got a nice wad stuck to the ends. Here's what was left by the time I got back to my room. Yeah mom, I absolutely got my hair in it!


I recently purchased a new cell phone. The absurdity of this experience far surpasses words, but I'll do my best. When Mark, Janice, James, Betty, and I walked in to the store, the employees set us down at a table, crowded around us, poured copious amounts of tea in our paper cups, brought out phones, and held about 8 simultaneous conversations in Mandarin. Once we had finally decided on our purchases, they sent us to the register to pay.
A whole new set of people had gathered when we returned to the table to pick up our phones. These employees were busy preparing the phones for operation. Some people were designated to put on the plastic screen protectors, some helped us with the warrantees, while others materialized to assemble and fix our cellphone charms.
The charms were absolutely over the top! They brought out a plastic box full of cheap metal numbers and characters. We were instructed to choose 4 numbers to put on our charms. I was at a complete loss, and I assume Mark and Janice were as well. We dug around in the box while trying desperately to make sense of the situation and comprehend why in the world we needed numbers dangling from our phones. In a baffled stupor, I decided to just have 4 '4's' and the character for 'destiny.' Turns out this is the worst possible choice of numbers that one can make. The Mandarin pronunciation for the number '4' sounds like the word for 'death.' Hence, it is a very unlucky number. In fact, you pay less for phone numbers that end in '4' (you guessed it, I chose the phone number ending in 4 to match my charm).

Here are some pictures of pandas:




I also like these pictures from the place with pandas:

From infancy to toddlerhood

I think that I had a breakthrough today. My brutish attempt at communication spurred me on to go for an adventure. Let me tell you about it. I have been in Chengdu for four and a half days now, and my supply of toilet paper was starting to run low in my guest house room. I had previously purchased a pack of travel tissue, (BYOTP seems to be the going trend in public restrooms) but I was feeling adventurous, bored, and in need of some human contact. After scraping some unintelligible sino-mutterings together from the vocab list in the back of my language text, I ventured out into the lobby armed with my out-of-place, North American grin. SUCCESS!!

This spirit of fortune widened my already absurd smile, and I set out into the night to seek out some tea and note cards. I'm pretty sure that everyone was staring at me, but I just walked faster and kept my eyes straight ahead. After self-consciously ambling around the stores nearer where I am staying, I wandered into a small store located at the fringe of the terrain currently stored in my cognitive gps. I stared at the goods for quite some time, and the store workers stared at me. I finally decided on my purchases and went up to the counter where a father/daughter team (presumably) was working on math homework with the curious 'Speak and Spell' calculator from the register. I smiled and shrugged as he rung up my purchases and the little girl put her head in her hands and smiled up at me after writing imaginary characters with my new brush.
I think I'll go back there.
Check my treasures out! I think I payed less than $2 for the lot (sans citrus fruits).

I wish I could express everything that is going on in my mind and heart at this point, but I suppose it will take time to form a cohesive picture in my mind. One of the other teachers here was talking with me and shared a very useful analogy for what I'm experiencing. He said it is like I have gone from being a fully-functioning adult who is capable of taking care of myself to infant-hood. I am very thankful for that articulation as I am also thankful for today's beautiful blue sky which perhaps mirrored this bit of clarity.

Stumped at where to begin

It is to be expected, but I can't believe how much has gone on in my life since I indulged in Marmite. Perhaps I'll do a tour of the last week and a half in a succinct and sweeping photo summary of some events that led to me publishing this update in my Beijing hotel room. Please feel free to ask me for details if you would like. I can't promise a hasty reply, but I'll do my best.


Joel, Heather and I traveled to Oban on the West coast of Scotland

I ventured out to the Botanic Gardens in Glasgow

We ate a Scottish breakfast the morning before I left (Joel's birthday)

I made it to Beijing on Sunday afternoon and I visited Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City on Monday


In my last full day in Beijing I went to The Old Summer Palace (Yuan Ming Yuan - Garden of Perfect Splendor ) where I was pleased to find that there are mountains in China and I got lost in the maze (that guy is on top of the maze, sweeping off leaves)
The last 10 days have also given me a lot of conversation, growth, perspective, and insight into relationships. I would argue that these tools are arguably much more valuable even than the cornucopia of scenery I have experienced.
Now, I am off to do some pre-packing before I go to bed and wake up to fly off to Chengdu (the plan is for me to do language study there for a month or two at the Sichuan Normal University).
p.s. I had a dream last night that Mt. St. Helens was Erupting again....

What not to put on toast

I tried Marmite today.





It was really bad.

Joel didn't mind it so much.

Glasgow is a nice place to sleep

Now that I've passed my cold on to Joel and Heather, I am free to make the most of my time here. So far I have gone to the Kelvingrove Art Gallery, spent hours in my new sleeping bag on Joel and Heather's couch, celebrated the exploits of Guy Fawkes at Strathclyde Country Park, ventured to the local organic store to refill Heather's bottle of washing up liquid, attended Calvary Chapel Glasgow,met Jaffa, and helped make curry .

Perhaps I should have specified which N. American virus

I have a cold from PA, so I guess that's 2 strains (I was sick before leaving home too!)down and 3 to go (Glasgow, Beijing, finally Sichuan). I feel Kind of like this:













In other news I made it to Glasgow safely, although it started raining in the airplane during take-off.
Heathrow was actually quite peaceful.















I set up camp and sat for a bit before ambling around Terminal 5. I eventually found my gate, boarded the plane, and found my seat. I don't think we ever took off from the ground, but the plane was in the air when I woke up.