Posting Paparazzi Pictures: Priceless

Alright. I might not have been clear enough when I told everyone about our fantastic night out to GT Banana to see DJ Armin van Buuren. The club had promotional photographers out and about taking pictures and now me and other TBC students are all over the website. Brittany and Devon are actually on the homepage for Clubzone.cn. They turned their picture into a clickable icon to go to the Top 10 photos of the week. If you click on the link, it will take you to the Top 10 Photos Page, and none other than yours truely has made it in the background of one of the pictures (for now, people are still voting whether it is worthy or not). Hilarious, yes. Famous, maybe not yet. This is definitely a huge deal for the ex-pat community and for the publicity of Beijing's nightlife. I wouldn't be surprised if we ended up in The Beijinger's next issue. If you want to see the pictures we took before we went out, I've made an album for everyone.

DJ Armin Van Buuren

I think it is hilarious that Devon and Brittany are on the link to the Top 10 pictures of the week. In all actuality, we are practically celebrities here in Beijing. I'm already expecting the students on campus will be asking us for autographs and I hope I don't have to get physical with anyone to keep the mobs away. Until that day comes, I'll keep on living the normal life.

I have a lot of things planned this weeks. Tomorrow, Brittany, Matt, myself and some others are heading down to Tian**men Square to visit Mao's Tomb. This is a must see when visiting Beijing. Rumor has it the hours are always changing and haven't been constant since the opening of the tomb. There are always days when people arrive to find it closed when it should be open, and that is besides the fact that it is open Tuesday through Sunday 10am until 3:30pm or something ridiculous. No cell phones, no cameras, no water bottles, no backpacks, no purses, no anything inside unless it is the clothes on your back. We have to go in groups because half of the people have to wait outside with our stuff while the other half goes in. It's absolutely nuts and absolutely Chinese at the same time. After we visit the tomb, I have some more gifts to finish getting and then some serious loads of laundry to do.

Thursday, the plan is to head back to the tailor to get my suit made (thank you!) and I'm picking some other things up in the area. Friday, the plan is to head to an acrobat show at the Chaoyang Theater after a wonderful dinner. Devon leaves on Thursday to visit her family in Hong Kong and the whole crew comes to Beijing on Sunday. Everyone is really excited to meet them and, of course, I am too. Saturday, TBC is hosting a trip to see the Temple of Heaven, which I didn't get to see during the Olympics. I think that day I decided to scalp tickets to indoor volleyball. Anyway, I'm glad to be going this Saturday. The weather has taken a turn for the worst and I'm pretty sure I'm not going to see anything over 50°F for a long time. The pollution has let up for a few days, but with the winter, you never know what the air is going to be like. It's been really dry lately and our art teacher advised us to get a cheap humidifier to help with any congestion we may have. (Speaking of art, the paper was a success and I did well.) I hope I can actually get done what I have planned. I've gotten pretty adept at procrastination the past few weeks and it's getting crunch time before I begin travelling again. I'll keep you updated. Have a good one!

Step on a Crack, Break Your Mother's Back

Well, the past few days haven't been too exciting. Wednesday this week was wonderful weather so Sean, Jim, Ryan, Jeff, and John and I decided to take a bike ride around the city. We rode through some hutongs, passed by the Llama Temple and made our way down to Tian--men Square. It was good to get off campus for once. We all feel like we haven't explored Beijing enough. I'm one of the lucky students to have seen a lot of tourist attractions already. Most students don't have time between classes and socializing to wander around Beijing. While at Tian--men Square, Sean was trying to get into the bike lane after accidentally biking on the pedestrian walkway. I don't know the full story because I didn't see it, but one small fall turned into a pretty bad situation. He fell trying to jump the fence between the lanes and somehow landed wrong on the ground. He was in a lot of pain and he knew immediately that he had broken his arm. Well, being at Tian--men, on bikes, not at school, with no idea what to do, we spent the next 20 minutes contacting our friends at school to try and get the numbers of administrators who could then direct us what to do. After getting in touch with the right people, we spent a lot of phone tag trying to get the cab driver to know where to go. Sean was pretty much out of it and as you can imagine, waiting another 20 minutes to translate to the driver where to go wasn't the most comfortable of times. When we finally found out where to go and how to get Sean there, we also had to brainstorm what to do with two extra bikes. Jim decided to go with Sean to the hospital, Jim's phone had no minutes, my phone had no minutes, Sean's phone ended up with us after the cab left to the hospital because we were calling people still, and basically all was in chaos. The good thing is, we're all quick-minded individuals and we decided to just leave the bikes on a bike rack instead of trying to wheel them home somehow. But of course, Tian--men district is all government buildings and high profile living areas. Finding a bike rack here is like trying to find a place to sit on that overcrowded night train to Qingdao.

When we found a bike rack we dropped the bikes off and made for home. John and I had class at 7:30 so we definitely needed to get back soon. And of course the map was with Jimmy and Sean on the way to the hospital. We eventually mazed our way back to school and I made it to class on time. Sean on the other hand, made it to the hospital to find out he fractured his forearm. He's in a cast indefinitely but he's doing all right. No worries. Speaking of bad circumstances, my roommate Jimmy had a rough night the other evening. After watching a movie, we all went to bed. Jimmy had to make a quick call to his sister, so I had fallen asleep by the time things got interesting. Apparently, Jim got a serious case of the 24 hour bug, it wasn't shigella (haha)but it was enough to keep him up vomiting and sick all night long. If anyone knows me and my phobia, I'm really glad I was asleep. I do vaguely remember waking up in the middle of the night and mumbling, "What's going on over there?" before falling back to sleep after realizing what was going on. He's doing a lot better now, just taking it easy and not eating anything adventurous. I'm sad to say however, the cause of this sudden illness was some Mexican food. (Although, in defense of the Mexican food, one of our amigos ate the same thing and he somehow ended up OK.) I think the true lesson to learn is you'll never know when Montezuma will take his revenge, even as far east as China.

Today, I went to check out my coat that I was getting made. It was a little big (the same with Devon's) but it's really nice. Warmer than I expected and softer too, this coat is well worth the kuai. Other than that, I've spent my day trying to find outside sources for my art history research paper. It's about the development of ancient Chinese city walls. Fascinating stuff, really... Enjoy your weekend everyone. Oh, and if you didn't infer, I bought a bike for Y180.

Today had a Happy Ending (not like that)

The Traditional Dinner that we went on with our group was awesome. We went with a group leader who ordered all of our food for us. We had corn and fish and bullfrog and sweet buns and other tasty treats. It was really good and all of us had a good time. We really have a great group. There was a really annoying bird at the restaurant that we wanted to kill. This thing sounded like a car alarm. We were going to cook it until we left the restaurant and the bird squawked "Ni Hao!" That was the only reason we let it live. It was really cool. We didn't do much after dinner. We watched some of the Olympics on TV and went to bed. I had to wake up really early to go to T--nanmen Sq.

The F--bidden City was awesome! It is huge and you can easily get lost inside of it. With my typical luck, my camera died after we walked through the first gate. Luckily Devon was looking out for me and we're going to trade pictures. Walking through the City was awesome. Thinking about how thousands of years worth of Chinese rulers have walked through the same grounds is a cool experience. The pagodas have beasts on the corners of the buildings to show the significance of the building. The more "beasts" the more important the building is. You can see the beasts on the roof in the pictures. Also, they have huge stone carvings and walkways that only emperors could walk on. There is a 102m moat around the whole place and there are many gardens that the emperors used to woo concubines. They said that all the trees within the City are well over 300 years old. Underneath all of the building overhangs, intricate carvings of dragons, flowers, and landscapes are painted with green, blue, and gold paint. There was one room that had some of the largest hand sewn rugs I've ever seen. They had golden threads weaved in really intricate patterns. It was a really great experience overall, but after walking around for 3 hours we were all pretty tired. We went to a dumpling restaurant afterwards and ate delicious dumplings. Our leader ordered us some traditional food, but we pretty much stuck with the meat dumplings. The place was supposedly notorious for their dumplings and had my camera been working, I could have taken pictures of the people hand-making the dumplings in the back.

When we got back to our apartments, Devon and Kelly went to the Silk Market and Andrew and I went to get our haircut. We were laughing at lunch when we were talking about getting a haircut or a massage out in China. Our leader was not shy to tell us the real deal when looking for one of these services. The main point: watch out. China still relies on the sex industry to make a little money, so naturally massages and haircuts are used as fronts for the dirty business. We joke that be careful where you go to get a massage because it might just come with a happy ending. Our leader assured us to never say "special massage" because it implies sexual favors. Also, when looking for a massage place, never go to a place with pink lights outside of it. Those are a common sign for special massages. When you want to get a haircut, they usually massage your head for free. But it is also very easy to ask for a happy ending when your haircut is finished. Everyone thought it was funny when someone asked our leader how much for a happy ending, and she simply said "It depends on the person!" This is probably a really taboo subject for most people, but it is probably good that we talked about this with our leader before we ventured out looking for anything. A Chinese massage is very well known for being inexpensive and thorough and we all really wanted to get one eventually.

Back to the story, Andrew and I went to get a haircut and thought we'd bring along our leader just in case. For my first time, I definately wanted a translator for this adventure. We found a place in an apartment building next to ours for only Y20 which was supposedly really expensive. (That is about $4). I've gotten my haircut in many different places but by far China is the cheapest I've ever seen. I got an excellent haircut, shampoo, and mini-head massage for Y20. Amazing. After the haircut, all of the 20 day volunteers got a call to head to Steve's apartment (the CCI director)to pick up an extra Olympic ticket. I got a ticket for the Men's Pentathalon the morning I have Men's Basketball Semifinals. That should be awesome.

When I got back to the apartment, everyone was pretty bored and we had nothing to do until dinner so we decided what the hell, let's go get a massage! We had talked about it the night before, but after our conversation at lunch we felt prepared to venture out on our own. Not to mention, we're all pretty stressed out around here, so what the heck. Me, Jimmy, Rachel and Kelly went outside and asked a gaurd where one was. He took us right to an apartment building across the street and on the first floor, through the back door, and down a dark hallway there was a massage place. 1 hour massage. Y68 ($11). Total awesomeness. We felt like new people afterwards. I don't really think I need to say anymore but yea. Imagine little Chinese ladies walking on your back, x10. It was great. They did my back, neck, shoulders, butt (which was a little weird at first but you just have to go w/ it), hamstrings, quads, calves, arms and hands. Feet cost a little extra so none of us did that. It was a good experience and it wasn't "special" so we think we'll have to go there again next week.

After the massage, we headed over to stuff our faces. We were really hungry after all that hard work. We sat down and ordered food. That night we decided to get a whole duck (not Beijing Roast Duck). It was really good and we had other dishes to compliment it. I ate the eyeball. It wasn't that great. Don't think I need to try it again either. By the time we were done with dinner it had already gotten dark outside. We decided to head back. Personally, I was done. I had walked around all day, was sore from my massage, and had been up since 7am. I had to wake up really early for beach volleyball the next day and I wasn't looking to have a big night. On the way back we became tourists and saw this dog that seriously looked like a lion. I don't know how to describe it other than it was medium sized, long red/brown fur, with a mane and everything. He sat just like a lion and he looked like a stuffed animal. The old man who owned it said that it was very rare breed. It probably isn't but we loved it anyway.

Random notes: I'm having a great time out here. There are too many times I think of people back home when we're out having fun and I wish I could remember all of them. But here's an embarassing moment. Giro has the habit of making friends wherever we go. He talks to the locals even though he doesn't speak Chinese and he entertains them by taking pictures with them and flashing peace signs. We were walking around our neighborhood to get Olympic tickets and there is this woman sitting on the sidewalk with tons of chihuahuas. Long haired and short haired all with brown, brown/red fur. He approaches the woman cautiously and doesn't want to scare any of the dogs that are laying down licking their paws and sleeping. He stops a few feet away and waves at the lady and looks at the dogs. The lady smiled back very friendly and Giro took another step closer to try and get to know her. Wrong move. It was like attack of the wolves. All of a sudden, the dogs get up as if an alarm had just gone off and it was WWIII. Imagine at least 7 ankle-biters barking like crazy and chasing after a screaming white guy from the states. It was hilarious. The dogs made so much noise that everyone else in the plaza stopped what they were doing to watch the scared guy run away. All of us were actually pretty afraid of the vicious dogs and we left the square before we caused any more trouble.

Tiananmen Square & Forbidden City