Datong Weekend Trip

Sorry for the delay!!! I haven't been able to put up pictures because our internet connection has been terrible. Everyone is convinced that Wikipedia has been blocked, but I really just think its having a hard time loading, just like the rest of our internet.
So we went to Datong this past weekend. Datong is in Shanxi Province near Mongolia. It was about a 4, 4 1/2 hour bus ride from Beijing. Datong was disgusting, but the tourists sites outside of Datong were cool.
First, Datong. Datong apparently is one of the 20 most polluted cities in the world. (along side Beijing I might add). Datong has a huge number of manufacturing / factories.... the air was horrible - worse even than Beijing. When we arrived, there was a thin layer of dust on everything :( Also, they seemed to be in the process of replacing every single road within Datong - because they had ripped all of them up. And in China, they don't mark construction sites or put up tape, so Chinese people were just walking among the construction along the ripped up roads to get to places. No other word describes Datong except, "ridiculous".
The tourist sites were for the most part really great. The Hanging Temple was awesome, and we had a good time there. The Wooden Pagoda wasn't as exciting- we couldn't climb very far up. And the Buddhist Grottos were fascinating and really cool.
And we also got to see alot of China outside of Beijing - like the wooden and stone homes / courtyards that you no longer see in Beijing.
I will also add that Sarah and I ate McDonalds in Datong and it was amazing. We also went to Wal-Mart (a legitimate Wal-Mart), and instead of blue as the color, it was red. As in Communist Wal-Mart I guess?
In conclusion, McDonalds anywhere in the world is great!! Except maybe in America ;)

Experience the grossness of Datong! You can see: First, the smog. Second, the cranes, of which there were about 5 I could see from my window. Third, the lack of roads. They really plowed up every single road up. I'm not sure why.

Datong was gross, but our hotel was really really nice. And had a normal bathroom!!!

The Hanging Temple. It was built about 1400 years ago on the side of the mountain. The Buddhists wanted somewhere extremely quiet and calm, so they ended up on the side of the mountain....

Here you can see the stilts that the Temple is on.

The Hanging Temple.

The Chinese tourists definitely did NOT pay attention to this sign. And once they pushed by you they barely paid attention the Temple itself... took some pictures and left. See my Note on Chinese tourists down below.

Looking up at the Hanging Temple - and its stilts....

The view from the Pagoda: not so great, and slightly depressing.

The oldest wooden Pagoda in the world. It was cool but we could only go up to the second floor which was a bummer. And I didn't end up taking many pictures.... because it wasn't that cool on the inside.

One of the caves with intricate carvings at the Grottoes.

The Yungang Grottoes are Buddhist and were constructed between 400 and 500 AD.... According to Wikipedia (see, its not blocked!!) there are more than 51,000 statues of Buddha in the Grottoes. However, some of them were in sad states of disrepair, and alot had been worn away by water damage, which I guess you can except in caves that old.

We had to fight off hordes of crazed Chinese tourists to take pictures of ourselves in front of the giant Buddha.

A Note of Chinese Tourists: First, they really are crazed. Second they push violently to look at something for two seconds and then they are gone. So really, it works best to just wait them out.

Third, they are pretty annoying. Fourth, they like taking pictures more than actually looking at something. Fifth, I don't know why they are so nutty. Sixth, they will assemble in sorm form of a line to take pictures in front of something such as the Giant Buddha, and then someone will ignore it and run up and have their picture taken, thereby throwing the whole line into chaos. It's nuts.

Me and Giant Buddha!

A whole wall of little Buddhas!

Old China and New China in Datong.

So I forgot to write about this this summer. But, Amway is everywhere in China. Everywhere! They have billboards and signs up all over the place - even in the Beijing Subway. And I have seen lots of adds for its line of makeup, Artistry. I find it funny that it can run in China. I didn't really expect to see a billboard in Datong for it though.

Trying to be Chinese. The peace sign gives me legitimacy...

One picture!

So this is all Blogger could upload before my internet failed. More pictures from this weekend to come soon!!!

Temple of Heaven

This Sunday, Sarah and I ventured out to the Temple of Heaven Park. It was very pretty - and we got to enjoy grass! :)
Though, this weekend was the Chinese holiday, the Mid-Autumn Festival and the subways were packed. I mean PACKED. I can't even begin to explain the thousands of humanity that can fit in a single subway car. I'm not even kidding.
But, the Park was nice :)

Being Chinese.

Marble Post.

My best picture! :)

Wangfujing and 798 Art District

This weekend we went back to Wangfujing and the street market. I still didn't try any scorpions, and this time I didn't put any pictures up of them either - so rest assured!

Saturday morning we went to the 789 Art District, Beijing's artist's village I suppose. Its mostly modern art. It was a neat little village with shops and cafes and studios - all of it was renovated factories which was interesting to see.

Sad.

Billboards for the Olympics.

Beijing, 798

These type of statues were everywhere!
I didn't really appreciate this...

These were my favorites.

I took this picture after Sarah and I had walked through the tunnel AND slid down the slide at the end. It was full of tv monitors as you can see... oh modern art...

A big, red fist?

Chinese grafitti? It says "very..." and I don't know the last two characters.
Communism!

I hope these videos work!!!

Lamb.. what?

Wangfujing Street!!!

"Hello! Free!"

The night market people are all crazy!

Teahouse

I just got back from having dinner with my roommate and her parents. I could understand most of what her dad said (well, for the most part!), but her mom's Chinese was very fast and I had no idea :( Even so I don't speak fast enough for conversational Chinese.

Last night CET took us to a famous teahouse in Beijing, The Laoshe Teahouse. We had tea and Chinese snacks and saw performances, some of which were really cool. One was called "Face Changing Sichuan Opera" which at first we were worried about, because opera in China... well, its different than our opera - its a lot of high screaching notes. But it was just a performance of the opera masks which are pretty famous. The guy danced and then would "magically" change his mask - it was really neat. Its hard to explain in writing...

Here's one!

We also saw the long-handled tea pouring performance. The tea kettle (?) has a really long nozzle (?) (I obviously don't know tea terms... :( ) and they perform by dancing around and pouring the tea into tea cups... again, I'm not very good at explaining this..

There was also a performance by five men doing Kung Fu which might have been the best.

I have a Chinese test tomorrow. sad :(

Success!!!

Because of the Olympics, the gym in our building is closed. Now I don't know why the Olympics justifies shutting down the school gym AND not allowing foreigners to eat at the school cafeteria... but thats how China is.
Anyway, theres a gym down the road from the school (like 3 minutes of walking before my parents start to panic) which CET told us about on the first day that we could buy memberships to. A few of my friends had been discussing going, but so far it hadn't happened, so after a long day I decided to just do it. I had the resident director of CET write down "gym membership" (believe it or not, they don't teach you that in class ;) ) and I went down there and did it! And understood most of the Chinese that the guy said to me! woo!!
I was so proud of myself, I bought a 20 kuai caffe latte ;)

Our excursion to a Mosque and Buddhist Temple

On Friday we went to the Nujie Mosque and the Fayuan Temple in Beijing. We took two buses and never got lost :)

Some of my pictures got out of order because internet in China doesn't like blogger, but most of them are in order.

Right now I'm sitting in an internet cafe because our internet in the dorm doesn't work. I'm also watching the opening ceremonies for the Paralympics.

"Please do not enter if you are not Muslim"

This was to the entrance of the Men's Prayer Room.

So I stayed out...

We had to wear hijab in the Mosque. I was bad at it and it wouldn't stay on my head... :( which angered the little Muslim lady who didn't like me and Sarah...
but Sarah was better at it than me...

Nujie Mosque - the oldest Mosque in Beijing



Women's Prayer Room

Noor's new friends at the Mosque!

Another mosque we found. But it had been converted into a school, and they wouldn't let Noor in...

These next pictures are of Fayuan Temple. Its a Buddhist Temple like the Lama Temple that I put up pictures of a few days ago. This one however isn't on a direct subway line, so has hardly any visitors. In fact we were the only tourists there... which was weird, but quiet at the same time.
Outside Fayuan Temple
Fayuan Temple: Temple of the Origin of the Dharma

Burners for incense.

Tombs.

A motorcycle at a Buddhist Temple?
Anyone know what this says??

Buddhist Monk (who said hi to me).

This poor monk. We got him to take a picture of all of us, and then asked if Sean could be in a picture with him. I think he immediately regretted it because he looks so uncomfortable in this picture! :(