Tuesday, October 28, 2008

No Monkeying Around

So this last weekend was a crazy fun trip. We went out to an area called Emei. It's known for the famous Mt. Emei or Emei Shan. We left early Saturday morning and got back to our dorm late Sunday night.

Saturday featured us going to the largest sitting Buddha in the world. He is right next to water and carved right into a cliff. It's a crazy sight to see. His head is over 10m long. It was really interesting. The stone there is soft so carving is easy but at the same time, it is surprising that the carving would last for so long from the erosion.

Sunday feature us going into the National Park. We went up to the top of Mt. Emei but it really wasn't that impressive. We drove most of the way up and even hopped on a cable car.... Oh China. You just love to make everything tourist friendly. At the top was a giant stupa and a temple.

After lunch, we had the choice to go to a famous temple in another part of the park or go to the a monkey preservation area and see wild monkeys! It was an easy decision for me. I chose the monkeys. We had to really hurry to get there because it was 7km(about 5 miles) away. It really didn't feel like that long though. It was really worth the trip too. The area had a lot of wild monkeys that were actually pretty dangerous. There were a lot of hired park workers who hard sticks and sling shots to protect the "observers." They really didn't do too much though because the monkeys were running around like crazy. We could buy food and feed them too. However, the monkeys would steal anything that we were holding so it didn't take long for them to hijack all the food. Erin got mauled by a monkey and dropped the three packs of food that she bought. The monkey grabbed all the food and ran up into the trees. It was hilarious from my perspective but she was really scared after that. I'm not going to lie, I was pretty freaked out by the monkeys too. They were scary.

The path did a loop around the highly populated monkey area. There were two main bridges for the short path. The second bridge was guarded by monkeys. They wouldn't let anyone pass unless we gave them food. I saw a big monkey land on a guys back and just grab onto him. A park worker beat the monkey off with his stick. The man was lucky to not have been biten. I thought the same was going to happen to me when I didn't have food. Luckily, I passed freely. Eva was stopped by monkey who grabbed onto her legs and wouldn't let go. Monkeys are so quick and so strong and can really jump far. They are really funny to watch but at the same time can be very intimidating. I was so glad I made the choice to go see the monkeys though. They were definitely the highlight of my trip. I mean, how many people can say that they've seen wild monkeys?

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Cooking /// KTV /// Hot Pot x2

So I've been really busy and even yet am writing this while I should be studying. I'm still alive, though my brain is being crammed with overloading information on a daily basis. I hope that my Chinese will improve through pure osmosis.

My studies have still been the biggest priority and also my biggest time killer. It's what I came here for. I'm making a lot of friends but still find it hard to practice my Chinese with them because they speak English to me.

Lately, a group of friends and I have been coooking a lot. It's so much cheaper than going out, not to mention a lot of fun. There is a little food market close to our dorm that we hit up for mostly just veggies(no meat there) and sometimes spices. I consistently use garlic and onion. We also go and get rice from the cafeteria. Overall, the meals end up costing only about 2-3 RMB or about 30-45 cents USD. It's amazing. It's helped me save money to buy cool things or take a trip(I'm going to Shanghai!).

Also, this last weekend was my first time to go to KTV. My PLU buddy Colin and I went out with a bunch of our Chinese friends to KTV(Karaoke). Here, you rent a room by the hour and can order drinks and snacks
to your own private room. We stayed for a couple of hours and had a blast. My friend Bayanna(he's Mongolian) sang a traditional Tibetan song. The girls were all very good. It made Colin and I look so bad.

Saturday night, my friend from Chinese class named Mendis cooked dinner for me. He's from Sri Lanka which is an island located off the coast of India. The food is very similar to Indian food but also similar to Thai food. Considering those are my two favorite foods, I loved it! He also made me Sri Lankan coffee and tea. A lot of the spices he uses to cook with came from home. Something that surprised me was that Sri Lankan people eat with their hands. I ate with a spoon this time but next time I'll be digging right in there with my hands.

For dinner on Sunday and Monday, I went to the .
Sichuan hot pot. There is already a post devoted to the Sichuanese hot pot so you can check that one out if you are curious. Let's just say that spicy oily food two nights in a row was not good for my stomach come today...haha. It's China though. It happens.

I'm buying tickets to go to Shanghai and stay with my friend Eli's parents. I'm leaving Thurs Nov 6 and returning Sun Nov 9. I've been reading up on Shanghai a lot and am really excited to go

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Tibet Autonomous Region

So I’ve just finished up a week of vacation in Tibet with the rest of my study away group. It was a one of the best experiences of my life. I was so excited for trip. We did a lot of readings and had many lectures on Tibet for the trip so I knew a decent amount of information about the trip before going. Now, I’m struggling to catch up on my studies, along with my journal and my blog. The pictures on this blog are in no particular order. Also, any of these pictures can be clicked on to be seen at full size. Note, the situation in this area calls that I am careful with my political language and information. More stories are waiting for you when I get home.



Our trip started on Saturday, September 27 and ended on the following Saturday, October 4. We arrived in Lhasa on Saturday and drove to our nice hotel right next to the old market. It took about an hour to get to the city from the airport. We had a lot of free time to explore and shop. They there are so many little stalls selling all types of little things. Anything from prayer flags to hats can be found. I had a great time practicing my Chinese and working the vendors’ prices down. I was by far the best bargainer in the group. I’m really learning the art.


I don’t remember our exact agenda, but we spent a few days in Lhasa. In that time, we had a lot of free time to explore yet we still toured famous places as a group. Each day in the morning, we would take a tour bus to certain location and spend a couple of hours there. Usually, we were out until dinner. Then the rest of the night was ours.


In Lhasa, we toured the Potala Palace, the Drepung Monastery, Jokhang Temple and the Drak Yerpa. I know that these names might mean nothing to you, but I’ll briefly try to explain each one to you. The Potala Palace is most famous place in Lhasa. It sits atop a hill and can be viewed from almost anywhere. It used to act as both the political building and dwelling house of the historical Tibetan politician/religious leaders. In the old Tibet, the two went hand-in-hand.


The Drepung Monastery used to house 10,000 and was the biggest in Tibet. Now it houses 600. It is pretty much just a Buddhist-type university. The Jokhang Temple is a very famous temple located in the heart of the old market. We wanted to see the chanting practices that took place later in the night but we weren’t allowed to enter because we were foreigners.


The Drak Yerpa is a hermitage located about 50 miles outside of the city of Lhasa up in the mountains. We traveled up there to see some of the most simple-living Tibetans practicing their highly religious lifestyles. It was fun to be able to hike a little bit, although the altitude was really killing me. I don’t understand how they got all those statues and buildings up on those mountains. It was truly an extraordinary place.


I had a couple of highlights while in Lhasa. The first one was the shopping. I bought a lot of cheap clothing. The best pick-up was a read fleece I bought for merely 40 RMB or about $5-6 US. It is really nice and high quality. The second highlight of Lhasa was meeting up with my friend Lawrence. I met him via facebook through my friend Dave in Chengdu who I met via other friends who I met via friends in ORTV. It seems complicated but it’s really not. It’s just making friends. Anyway, he’s a doctor 28 years of age working in Lhasa for a non-profit called Touching Hearts. Lawrence is Malaysian but he studied in the USA.


I met with Lawrence with my friend Phil. Lawrence took us to a part of town that we wouldn’t have known about without him. It was really a Tibetan part of town and as modern as the rest. The place he took us to was a sketchy night market. According to Lawrence, we could get stolen TVs, cell phones, and just about anything else we wanted. We made our way to the back where the food was. He found his favorite spot. The small restaurant had all the food on display for you to choose before being cooked. We worked our way but to more daring dishes.


We ended with the entire skull of sheep: tongue, brain, meat, and even eyeball. It was hard for me to stomach, but I persisted. I have a video of me eating the eyeball but for some reason I couldn’t get it onto the blog. It was really just a good time and good experience. Before leaving Tibet, Phil and I would have the chance to meet up with Lawrence on our last night for coffee. It would turn into a trip to his apartment for conversation and we wouldn’t get back to the hotel the last night until almost 1 AM.


We hit the road out of Lhasa on Wednesday for a smaller town called Gyangtse. We only stayed a night. There trip there was a fun time. We got to see so much scenery and we stopped at many locations to bust out our cameras. We stopped at a very spiritual lake for Tibetans, a rural family’s farm house, and a giant glacier. It was all amazing scenery. The pictures all turned out wonderful but they really don’t do the landscape any real service. In Gyantse, we had the afternoon and night to ourselves. With a couple of friends,

I went up and explored a large abandoned castle up on the hill. We had a 360 degree view of the whole town. At night, we played pool at a small local place. The equipment and table were horrible but we still had fun. The whole town was closed up and most of the street lights were off as we walked through what appeared to be a ghost town at 10 PM.


The next day, we traveled to the very famous monastery there before hitting the road again for another town, Shigatse. This one was actually bigger, the second biggest city in Tibet next to Lhasa. We traveled to another famous monastery called the Ta Shi Lhun Po Monastery. I can describe these places more in-depth when I get home. It is very big deal for Buddhism. It also had a big market by it that we checked out. Later at night, I took it easy and studied my Chinese. I really needed to.


We returned to Lhasa for our last couple of days there. Overall, it was really just an amazing trip. Each day could be recorded into a book of its own. I really loved the scenery and wished that I could have more time to hit up the trails. Some things to note about Tibet that I neglected to mentioned, most Tibetans are Buddhist. Often times I would see people circling a temple or the Potala Palace with interesting prayer devices. They would swing the small ball around the stick as they walked and prayed. Also, almost everyone meal I had consisted of yak. It is one of the staple foods of Tibetans. It tastes similar to beef but more like buffalo. My favorite food in Tibet was a yak hamburger. Delicious! They also drink a lot of yak butter tea. I don’t like it at all. It tastes like pure melted butter. There is another tea that is famous for Tibetans called sweet tea. It tastes a lot like the Indian Masala tea. I just love it.



I would love to make my way back up to Tibet someday. I don’t know when. I hope that my next trip would consist less of large tourist bus travel and more of hiking. I really can’t complain though. I was in Tibet!