考试，口试，开心

It’s been a week since I’ve blogged, but oh boy have we been busy. Also, I haven’t really had anything of significance to write about, because during the week we pretty much study. Every Friday the two things that stand between us and the weekend are a written test and an oral test. The written test is pretty standard: 2 hours of listening comprehension, reading, writing, multiple choice, translation. The oral test, on the other hand, is really difficult. They give us the topic the day before, and we have to prepare a 5-6 minute oral presentation using at least 12 new grammar structures and as much of our new vocabulary as we can fit in. It's supposed to be  memorized, but I wanted to take notes in. But then my notes turned into me writing the whole thing, so I just took the entire essay in to the classroom. Which may I mention has two to three teachers, sitting there watching you and taking notes on your pronunciation and delivery. Needless to say, 每个星期五我很紧张. So, the title of this blog post in pinyin is "Kaishi, Koushi, Kaixin," which means "written test, oral test, have a great time." Yes, the chinese has more of a ring to it. Also, it is a chronological progression of events; I'm not suggesting that tests are a great time. 

First page of "notes" for the oral test, grammar structures highlighted

Allison, Thanh-Ha, and I decided to check out the nightlife in an area of the city called Sanlitun (pronounced "Sanlitunrrrrrr" in the Beijing accent) on Friday. We basically proved that we are the worst bar hoppers ever. Since this is China, outside of each bar there was a guy who would try to convince us to go into their respective bar. Each had pretty much similar methods. They would first say something in Chinese, then as we walked by they would start walking along side us. Once we were almost past the bar, their last ditch effort would be to literally get in our way, I guess trying to herd us into the bar. So it goes without saying that walking past this strip of eight bars was kind of a pain. Because we couldn't choose what bar to go in, we ended up walking by all the bars like three times. By the third time, those guys outside the bars didn't even pay attention to us anymore. We eventually selected a bar that was loud and happening, but was filled with old people. By old, I mean the youngest people besides us were 30. We were hesitant, but decided to check it out. It ended up being a great decision. These "old" people were dancing on tables and the DJ was really good. Later on  a band came on. But the best part of the night was meeting a woman named Emma, who is a Chinese grad student at a university in Beijing. We (Allison) started talking to her, and she was really nice and thought we were so young and cute (but not in a creepy way). We got her number (look at us, making moves), so hopefully we'll actually be able to go out to dinner with her sometime. 

Me, Emma, Allison, Thanh-Ha

On Saturday we went to Shidu, which is a town/area located two hours north of Beijing. But that’s two hours without traffic. For some reason we got stuck in a huge traffic jam, and the drive took five hours! Let’s be honest, it’s probably because this past week one of our lessons was about the traffic in Beijing. So while we were sitting in traffic, we were able to say 在北京，每天堵塞堵得厉害, which means, "in Beijing, there are terrible traffic jams everyday." Woo so worth it. Highlight of the trip was one of the boys in our group getting off the bus, going to the bathroom in the shrubbery on the side of the road, and then getting back on the bus. That's how slow we were moving. But the best part is that the bus driver even opened the door, got out of the bus, and stood on the side of the road waiting for the kid to come back. Ha great times. Anyways, Shidu was scenic, but honestly confused me a little bit. It was a weird combination of hiking trails and fun activities like motor boat rides, slow traditional style boat rides, horse rides, a zipline, and people squatting on the banks of the river having what I would call the equivalent of a barbecue. Probably eating meat on sticks. It was a fun trip, but I'm not sure it was worth the 7 or so hours we spent on the bus, of which I slept 6.5. That night we went in a group of ten or so to get 北京烤鸭, or Beijing duck. Thanh-Ha really really wanted to eat this, so we went to a nice restaurant that we had been to on the first day of the program. When we were ordering, the funny phenomenon happened where the waitstaff only wanted to talk to the Asian looking people at the table. When, ironically, the three white people at the table are a higher level in Chinese than any of the Asians. Frustrating for them, but funny to watch us struggle I guess. We ordered a lot of food, but when we split the bill it only ended up being about $4 per person! Not too bad, not too bad at all. Although, my lunch today at the cafeteria cost 1.5 kuai. That's $0.25. A new personal best.

so many activities!

Beijing duck

- Here is a typical day for me, for those who are interested:
6:30 - wake up, get ready for class, review characters
7:30 - stop by the store on the way to class to buy a yogurt (at 4.30 kuai, sometimes this costs more than lunch!)
8-12 - class
12:30 - 1:30 - lunch with friends. we usually either go to the cafeteria, or a restaurant within walking distance of campus
2-6 - free time, during which I do homework and occasionally nap
6-7 - dinner with friends, once again we go to the cafeteria or a restaurant
7-8 - meeting with my language partner
8-9 - workout. I like working out at night here, because it's cooler and the pollution isn't as bad. 
9-? - finish (start?) studying. bedtime is usually between 12 and 1.


- I never thought I'd say this, but the eight or so characters we learned a day at Duke seems a little silly now. Jumping from learning eight to forty characters definitely took some time to for me to adjust to (I'd say approximately two weeks) but now that I'm in the swing of things, I actually kind of like learning this much vocab. It's all very applicable here. For instance, Thanh-Ha and I took the subway yesterday, and realized that we can actually read a good number of the stops. We even corrected our pronunciation of our destination by reading the characters. Pretty cool. Who would have ever thought such annoying little things could be so useful.


- Today after we ate lunch and were walking to our one-on-one sessions, Thanh-Ha and I realized that we had been completely speaking in Chinese the entire meal. Go us. Even though it has only been two weeks, we are already halfway through a semester's worth of Chinese, so we think that's where the improvement is coming from.


- Buying things at the store near the dorm can be nerve wracking. For two reasons: when the woman says how much my food costs, sometimes I don't understand. Whether I understand or not, I have to pay. And fast, because there's always a growing line of Chinese people behind me. They pay with their student cards, so I'm that American paying with cash that holds everyone up. Which brings me to reason number two. The cash system here still confuses me when I'm flustered. Like digging for 3 mao (similar to 30 cents) in my wallet always seems to end in disaster. Sometimes the lady gets impatient and reaches into my wallet and gets the bills out for me. Now that's embarrassing. Even more embarrassing, this morning she gave me my change but I dropped it during the transfer, so she had to pick it up off the floor. Then she literally threw it onto the counter for me to get myself. Then I couldn't pick up the coin because it was flat and the counter was flat. 糟糕.


 - Tonight I met with my language partner outside in a tiny park on campus. These other two couples came over at one point and sat close to us. And listened to our entire conversation. And then that thing happened (which happens to me occasionally, only during moments of intense stress) where I can't understand a foreign language. She asked me what American influences could  be seen in China. And suddenly I couldn't remember any Chinese vocabulary. And both couples were straight up staring. 尴尬.

Thanh-Ha and I at Shidu

Great wall, 798, meat on sticks, awkward moments

Well, it's been a long week, but thankfully the weekend finally arrived. We went to the Great Wall today, which was a lot of fun! I think the game plan for this blog post will be Great Wall, 798 Art District, and then random thoughts. So read on!


Great Wall: This morning we met in the lobby at 7:45 (which sounds early, but I actually woke up an hour later than I usually do for class) and got onto two tour buses, the kind  commonly used in Asia (surprise). It was funny to be a passenger on one of these buses for once, instead of just watching Asian tour groups pile out of them. Anyways, after an hour and a half ride we arrived at the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall. This section has cable cars, and a toboggan slide which you can take from the top of the wall down the side of the hill towards the parking lot area. It was really hot today, so walking up all the steps to the top was pretty arduous. However, once we were on the wall it was amazing. The views were the same as I remembered them from five years ago. The thing that surprises me the most about the great wall is just how massive it is. Not only is it wide and tall, but it stretches off into the distance as far as you can see in both directions. We were on top of the wall for about two hours, taking pictures and such. Highlight of the day was a Chinese couple asking to take a picture with Anna. Haha so funny. We decided to take the toboggan slide off of the wall, which was 60 kuai. Definitely worth it, because it was 10 minutes long! Some people in our group bought a few souvenirs in the slew of small shops along the path, all selling pretty much identical products. Anna is pretty good at bargaining, so we didn't get ripped off too badly. Then again, we were talking today about how we don't mind getting ripped off, to a point. For instance, there's really no point in trying to haggle down a price 5 or 10 kuai more. That's really just a one US dollar difference, but to the people who sell the goods, it's their livelihood. We left to go eat lunch all together at a restaurant ("free" meal!) and then headed back to the university.

Anna, Thanh-Ha and I on the Great Wall

I'm sure this is what they had in mind when constructing the wall 

haha Anna with the Asian tourist

All ready to toboggan (is that a verb? maybe)

woooo

798 Art District: Yesterday, a group of ten of us or so went to the 798 Art District in Beijing, which is about a 20 minute cab ride from the university. Soon after arriving, we split into smaller groups. My group (Allison, Thanh-Ha, and Zach) decided to pretty much aimlessly wander through the district. I'm not sure exactly how to describe it, but it does not look like Beijing at all. All of the buildings are two stories, some are maybe three. Most of them are brick, and look like warehouses. But the buildings themselves are not what are interesting. There are statues, and murals, and graffiti, and other works of art seemingly randomly placed on walls, or down alleyways, or outside of studios. Most of the studios had their doors open, but some required an admission fee (we didn't check those out). During our wanderings we saw many interesting things, but unfortunately we didn't have a guide book and there were no explanations for any of the art, so we were in a sense left hanging. Nonetheless, it was a really cool place to go for the afternoon; certainly a unique experience to have in Beijing a little off the beaten path (I'm looking at you, Great Wall).

Thanh-Ha and I, Asian tourist style (which seems appropriate)

one of many murals

Allison, Thanh-Ha and I. Shortly after this picture was taken, the shopkeeper came over to the window to creep on us...we turned around,  and she was just standing there...

Random Thoughts:
- street food: Tonight, Allison, Thanh-Ha, and I went to dinner at a baozi place a two minute walk from the university (baozi are kind of a mix between dumplings and buns, best way I can describe them). We each got three baozi and a plate of vegetables. After we left the restaurant, we decided to walk down the street a little and maybe try some street food. We came across a man and woman pouring what looked like a corn mixture into a large-ish machine with a motor. In went the mixture, and out came these long sticks. We were intrigued, to say the least, so we asked the woman if we could buy just one stick. Everyone else was buying large bags, so she laughed at us. But agreed to sell it to us for 2 or 3 kuai. Surprise, it was like eating the Kix cereal, but in stick form. Weird, unexpected, but definitely good. Next, I wanted to try some of the meat on sticks that street vendors all over sell. We coincidentally ran into a group from the school who had just bought a dozen sticks of meat or so (they're really not that big), so I got to try one. I think it was pork (?) and it was pretty spicy, but once again really good. We next encountered a man cooking fish balls in what looked like muffin pans (once again, best way I can describe them). He would add oil, and then slowly rotate the fish balls in their individual slots in the pan until they were perfectly round. Then, he would put six in a little container, and put some kind of sauce, mustard, mayonnaise, ketchup, and dried fish on top. I really wanted to try one, but the sign said four or six. I asked if I could only buy two, and he said no. But we explained to him that I only wanted to try them, and had a brief conversation with him, and he agreed to give me two for 3 kuai. They were also very good! So in conclusion, street food is good, actually very good because there is such a variety. We walked past people selling more meat on sticks, fruit, tofu, noodles, more meat on sticks, some kind of pancake type things, oysters, and yet more meat on sticks. In fact, there were just tables and chairs set up on the sidewalk with people sitting all over the place eating their meat on sticks. I'll have to eat more meat on sticks, apparently it's a thing here.


- buying my passport picture: To make a long story short, I messed up when I applied for my visa and miscounted the days that I will be in China. Instead of putting down 61, I put 60. So my visa is one day too short, and apparently that would be a problem when I tried to leave (but what would they do? deport me? ok good I was leaving anyways. thanks for expediting the process). My teacher was helping me out with the problem, but by helping I mean that she was exclusively speaking in Chinese. She wrote me a note telling me what to do to apply for a new visa here at the university, but that too was in Chinese. Oh well. Anyways, I needed to get two passport size pictures taken for the visa application, but I had no idea where to go. After class on Tuesday, I walked to the street right outside of the university, determined to find a Kinko's. After about two minutes of walking, I realized that it was pointless to look because I probably wouldn't even be able to read the characters for Kinko's if I found one (by probably not I mean 0% chance). So I walked into a bank, because I figured the bank employees would be friendly, and willing to help someone speaking really bad Chinese. I was correct! I asked them where I could buy a passport picture, and three of them started talking with me trying to help me figure it out. I thought I was doing ok in the conversation, until halfway through one of them turned to me and asked if I understood Chinese. Cool, I've been speaking to you for like five minutes. Anyways, they gave me directions and said it'd be a five minute walk. I followed their directions, and stumbled upon a Kodak store in a smaller alley! Once inside, I told the man what I needed, he took the pictures, I paid, and left. I was (am) so so excited, because all of the speaking, with the bank employees, with the Kodak man, was in Chinese. Baby steps.


- bubble tea: I have had bubble tea every day that I have been here. It's Saturday. That's 8 consecutive days. I'm a champ. And have no intention of breaking that streak.


- awkward moment of the week: I've written about this before, but I have a language partner here at the university, and we meet together Monday-Thursday for one hour each day. We had agreed to meet Thursday night at 7 pm right outside of my dorm. So two of my friends and I were walking back from dinner, and it was a few minutes after seven as we were approaching the dorm. My language partner usually calls me right about the time we are going to meet just to make sure I'm ready or on the way. So I was expecting a phone call. I saw my language partner standing outside of the dorm, on her phone. My friends and I were speaking english (what rebels! but actually...) and I told them "look! I told you my language partner would call me!" and waved at her. She waved back. As we walked up, I started to tell her in Chinese that I was going upstairs to get a piece of paper but would be back downstairs in a second. But I couldn't construct that sentence so I asked my friend to tell her in Chinese for me. And she did, and then I told my language partner to wait a second, I would come back down shortly. As we were walking away, she said "don't speak english!" (in Chinese), which I thought was a little odd, because my language partner seems pretty chill, not the kind of person who would care if we were breaking the language pledge. As we were walking away and about to walk into the dorm, my actual language partner walked up from a different direction. Yup, that woman that we were talking to before? Not my language partner. Actually, she was one of our teachers. And that was why I recognized her. The moment when I realized that we had just straight up spoken English to a teacher...a teacher who I had never spoken to and who was probably very confused as to why I told her to wait one second I was going to get a sheet of paper and I would be back down shortly...awkward moment of the week.


p.s. my language partner has no name in this blog because I haven't figured out how to pronounce her name/can't remember it/can't read the characters/can't even write the characters correctly. And now it's that amount of time where I've known her for too long to ask again. Awkward. Oh well. The strategy here is to bring my friends to meet her, and get her to introduce herself to them, and then get them to report back to me later as to what they think her name is. I'm thinking maybe a spreadsheet or a Doodle poll to compile their answers. You can't say I'm not determined.


p.p.s. for those of concerned for my wellbeing, do not fear. My friends figured out what is wrong with my ridiculously hard mattress. It is upside down. 

A new perspective

It's amazing how much can change in a day.
My thoughts this morning: why am I here? Why did I think I could study abroad in China? When can I go home?
Now: can't keep a smile off my face.


Ok end of blog post, just kidding let me flesh this out a bit. The last few days have been both overwhelming and rewarding. The chinese course is really intense. Our schedule Monday through Thursday is:


8-9:10 - Lecture, which has 10 people. There is a quiz at the beginning
9:20-10:10 - Drill 1, which has 4 people
10:20-11 - Drill 2, same 4 people
11:10-12:30 - 1 on 1 session, during which each of us gets 20 minutes with a professor


The student to teacher ratio here is really impressive. For the 30 2nd year students (that's me), there are 9 professors! On every Friday, we have a 2 hour written test, followed by an oral test. Talk about stressful. Since this course is designed to fit a year of chinese into 8 weeks, each day of class/homework is equivalent to what we did in a week at Duke. So in the afternoons/evenings, I have at least 3 hours of work to finish. I never thought I would have to memorize 50 characters a night, but here I am after two days of class, already with 150 flashcards made up. To give you an idea of the workload, here's my to do list from Monday: learn 50 characters, written homework assignment, record myself reading a passage and email it to the teacher by 9 pm, listen to the vocab and text audio files, read the text multiple times, prepare for meeting with language partner, meeting with language partner (1 hour), write up for time spent with language partner (100 characters), read the grammar notes for class tomorrow. Today I went to a nearby bakery that has a lot of tables in it, and worked there from 2-5. It was actually really nice, because my desk chair here is not too comfortable. I picked the studying back up at 10:30 and studied until now, 11:30ish. And I'll wake up tomorrow morning at 6:30 to review characters before the quiz.


Each of us was assigned a language partner. The language partners are Chinese students at the university, who are paid to spend one hour Monday-Thursday with us. My language partner is really nice, but I have a significant amount of trouble understanding her. She speaks fast, and uses a lot of vocab that I don't know. That being said, I'm already finding it easier to understand her after two days of meeting, which is a great sign. Tonight, she took me to her dorm room and showed me around. I met two of her 5 roommates. They were really nice! I introduced myself (in chinese of course), and they were really genuinely excited to meet me. Each of them wrote down their names, email addresses, and phone numbers on a sticky note to give me, and one wrote that I should call her if I ever need any help! As an example of how I don't understand my language partner, tonight at the end of our meeting she asked me when I usually eat dinner, for the purposes of planning our meeting tomorrow. After asking her to repeat the question twice, I said seven. We continued to talk about where we'd meet, etc., and at the end of the conversation I asked her what time we were meeting, because I hadn't heard/understood. And she said seven. So basically she scheduled the meeting for the one time I said I was busy. But it's ok, I'm learning here that you have to be really flexible and just roll with things.


For this summer program, we all took a language pledge, which means that we are not allowed to speak any english to each other inside or outside of the classroom. I was really worried about that, because since I have only taken Chinese for a year, my vocabulary is pretty limited. I understand the purpose of only speaking in Chinese, but some of us have been speaking English to each other...I mean we have three plus hours of class a day, and then at least three more hours of studying, and then a one hour meeting with a language partner that is completely in Chinese. I think we're getting sufficient practice.


Yesterday, two of my friends and I decided to try out one of the three student dining halls on campus. It is quite complicated, and I am still very excited that we managed to figure it out, and eat lunch there among all the other Chinese students. In retrospect, the system really isn't too complicated, but we were only speaking in Chinese, and when we would ask the workers questions they obviously were only speaking Chinese too. Some things definitely got lost in translation. I'm perfecting my "blank stare" face that I make when I don't understand I word of what someone just said to me. I've gotten pretty good at it to say the least. Anyways, I got a rather large bowl of noodles, which were really good, for less than a dollar. Well worth the confusion.


While we're on the topic of food, tonight my friends Anna, Allison, and I walked down the street to find a restaurant for dinner. We decided to go to a place that looked pretty homey, not too nice but filled with people eating. To our dismay, the menu only had pictures and characters, no english. Allison is a third year Chinese student, and Anna is fourth year, so they are considerably more advanced than me. May I also add they are white (Allison is blond, Anna has red hair). So first of all, I'm pretty sure our waitress was confused when I didn't speak a word of Chinese, and they took over order and speaking to her. She was clearly amused at our attempts to order what we wanted, and specify what kinds of meat we wanted in our dumplings. Dinner was good, but everything became hilarious for some reason once we asked for the check. Basically we called her over, but then none of us said anything because we couldn't remember the word for check. So she laughed at us (in a nice, friendly way), and eventually one of us said we wanted to "pay money." She brought the check over, and then we were confused about which bills to use, and how to divvy it up. She continued laughing at us. By this time, the guys at the table next to us were staring too. Then, we asked for her to box up the rest of the dumplings, and she brought a clear plastic bag. So then Anna specified that we wanted an actual box, and she laughed at us again and brought one over. At this point, whenever she would walk by our table, she would look at us and have to cover her mouth because she was laughing so hard; trust me, we were laughing just as much. We eventually got up and left. On the way out, one of the guys at the table next to us said "bye bye!" in a really silly voice. It was hilarious. And then to the waitress I said "mingtian jian" which means "see you tomorrow!" She laughed again, probably because those were the first two words I'd spoken to her all night. We will definitely be going back.


A random tidbit: the other day we were wondering if Chinese people eat dinner late, so I googled "when do Chinese people eat dinner?" and yahoo answers said "racist bastard." Haha so helpful.


To connect this rambling blog post to the first paragraph, today has been really good, between studying in the bakery, the hilarious dinner, and getting to meet my conversation partner's roommates. I realized, while walking back from my language partner's dorm (with a smile on my face), that I really like it here, despite the incredibly tough schedule and workload. Beijing is an amazing place, and I am so lucky to have the opportunity to study here for two months. Hopefully I'll be able to make the most of it. Now, it's bedtime so I can get my 6 hours!

Home Sweet Home...For Two Months

Yesterday, I moved into the international student dorm at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing. The campus is pretty large, and I haven't gotten to explore much of it at all (actually, so far just the dorm and the convenience store). The definite low point of the day was having to carry my 50 pound suitcase up to the fifth floor (no elevator, no AC in the hallways). I have zero complaints about our room; it's a lot nicer than I expected! That being said, here are a couple of observations about the room, and Beijing in general so far:
- the shower was burning, scalding hot. I could barely touch the water. I'm going to have to figure out how to turn the cold water on at some point.
- here's what the "mattress" on my bed feels like: imagine for a second a wooden table. now, put a sheet on top of said table. and there you have my mattress.
- buying shampoo and conditioner at a drug store was literally the hardest thing I have done so far in China. I don't know the characters for shampoo or conditioner, so I couldn't tell which was which. I also couldn't tell which were for men and women. And forget about choosing the right product for my hair type. I bought some with pink letters on it - that can't be for guys, right?
Here are some pics of my room before I unpacked:

There's no shower curtain or anything, but at least we have a real toilet instead of a hole!

We have a TV! I'll be watching Chinese children's cartoons because that's what level I'm at right now...

This morning we had our placement exams, which went pretty much as I expected. Meaning I knew nothing. But its ok because all students took the same exam, so I took the same exam as fourth years, who are obviously way above my level. In the afternoon, a group of 8 of us went to Tiananmen Square to check it out. The subway is a 10 minute walk from campus, and then it took us about 30 minutes to figure out the subway and then ride it. We just kind of wandered around the square, taking pictures and reading plaques as we went. Awkward moment of the day: one of the guys and I were wondering if the guards posted along the edge are like those at Buckingham Palace. So we walked up to a guard, and were laughing trying to figure out how we should pose for a picture with him. While we were standing behind him, he turned his head and looked at us, and then abruptly turned ninety degrees and marched away. And we were just left there laughing, with all of the Asian tourists laughing at us too. That's another thing: we all posed for a group shot later, and two Asian guys took pictures of us, which was pretty funny.

Check out that smog

Some of the group

A guard, similar to the one we tried to take a picture with

Blue sky!!! A rarity, or so I hear

Outside the mausoleum

artsy

Tonight my dad and I went to visit a relative who lives on the outskirts of Beijing...it's such a huge city that the taxi ride was close to 40 minutes, but we were still in Beijing! Tomorrow we have the "opening ceremony" for the program, meet our language partners for the summer, and take the language pledge.

p.s. Here are a couple close up shots of a water buffalo that I forgot to post (muy importante):

Everybody has a water buffalo

They say that Guilin is prettiest in the rain (Midnight in Paris, anyone?). Well it really is. We went on a three and a half hour river boat ride today, and I have to say that the Li River is the most beautiful place I have ever been to. The combination of the hills and the mist and the water is unbeatable in my book. We made friends with a Dutch couple sitting across from us, so we passed the time taking pictures, talking with them, and eating. At lunch time, there was a buffet with a dozen different dishes, all cooked homestyle in two woks at the back of the boat. It was the best meal we've had so far, and it's too bad I forgot to take a picture of it. So brace yourselves, here come my favorites of the 100 plus photos I took on the river:

Tonight we went to a restaurant in Yangshuo (where we're staying for the next two nights) that was a five minute walk from the hotel. Snails are a popular local food here, so I wanted to give them a try. Surprisingly, they were really good! Kind of tasted like sausage. We also got a tofu dish and green beans. Our whole meal cost less than $12. Yeah I can live with that.

and boy did the restaurant have a view

After dinner, we went to see an outdoor show called "Imitations," directed by the man who organized the Olympics opening ceremony performance in Beijing in 2008. Our guide didn't tell us much about it, so we didn't know what to expect. It was incredible (yes, today was a pretty awesome day). First of all, the show has 600 actors. Only a few of those actors are professionals; most are local people from villages who work their farms during the day, and come to perform in the show at night. The "stage" is the Li River, and the backdrop is mountains like those we saw on the boat ride today. Many of the performers stood and paddled boats; sometimes they had torches, and during one act they together pulled large ribbons across the river. It was a full house tonight, 3000 people in the crowd! It's kind of difficult to describe the show (kind of a you had to be there type of thing) but check out the pictures below to get an idea:

The view of the "stage" from our seats. Yes, those are real mountains in the background

Performers standing on boats, pulling ribbons across the river

Last act of the show, their costumes lit up!

Ok, now onto the real highlight of the day, and the title of this post...while on the river boat ride, we saw water buffalo. Soooo cool. I had never seen a water buffalo before, but let me assure you they're my new favorite animal. If any of you reading this want to get me one, my birthday isn't until May, but Christmas works too and is basically right around the corner. I mean, everybody has a water buffalo, right?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltG37Bbx1qk

...so here's my number, Macau me maybe

Yesterday, we took a day trip to Macau. Let me first explain a little about the history of Macau, because I didn't know anything about it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macau . There.

Statue of Guanyin

Moving on, we took an hour long boat ride to get there. Because Macau and Hong Kong are still considered separate entities from China, even though they're technically a part of it (this is confusing...), we had to go through customs, etc., entering Macau and returning to Hong Kong. It was kind of tedious, because you have to fill out forms, but I did get more stamps on my passport which is nifty. We visited a few pretty interesting historical sites in Macau. The statue of Guanyin is a blending of Buddhism and Christianity (and Taoism too); there is a small museum underneath the statue which took us literally three minutes to walk through - best museum ever...just kidding. Next, we went to A-Ma Temple, which was really crowded. As temples go, it was relatively small, but it did have the largest incense stick I have ever seen. The third place we visited was the Ruins of St. Paul's. The Ruins refers to the facade of St. Paul's cathedral, which burned down three times (糟糕), hence the facade and not the whole cathedral, but I thought that the adjacent fortress was way cooler. It had a nice garden on top, and great views of the city. Casinos and gambling are a huge part of Macau (it has 35 casinos!). We went to two: the Grand Lisboa, which is older style, and the Venetian Macau, which is a replica of the Venetian in Las Vegas. There are signs in front of the doors to the casino saying you must be 18 or older to enter, but everyone just kind of walks in. Everyone was smoking, so it was really smoky (duh). We walked around and watched some table games (Sic bo, Baccarat, Blackjack) which I had/have no idea how to play. So instead I played the slot machines twice, and lost twice. But hey it was only $4 so I'm not complaining. The Venetian Macau is ridiculous; in addition to the casino, it has a shopping mall on the third floor with a river that you can take a gondola ride on. It may seem silly, but it was definitely popular with the mall-goers. 

check out the incense on the left - its HUGE

view of Grand Lisboa from the top of the fortress

look, Mom, a topiary!

Dad, cannon, me

Facade from above

Facade from below

 For dinner last night, we went to a seafood restaurant pretty close to the hotel. You have the option there of picking a fish out of the tank and having them cook it for you, but we just went with the normal menu. We got a shrimp dish and singapore noodles, good stuff. The dialect spoken in Hong Kong is Cantonese, which is pretty much completely different from Mandarin, so I couldn't understand the waitress at all (I'm not saying that I would have been able to understand her if she was speaking in Mandarin). But I did understand one word: watermelon! Glad I remembered that rather obscure vocab word because it was delicious, highlight of the meal for sure. 

Lobby of the Venetian

One of 35 casinos

This morning we took the Star Ferry from Kowloon to Hong Kong Island and then back. The ferry ride is about 5 minutes, and the fare is $.33, definitely worth it. The views from the ferry were really good. We flew from Hong Kong to Guilin this afternoon. The flight was only an hour! What a relief after that 15 hour marathon...and more passport stamps! Guilin is definitely smaller than Hong Kong, but still a bustling city of 6 million people. Tomorrow we'll take a scenic boat ride, I'll take a book. Then on to a new hotel tomorrow night!

View from the Star Ferry

Goodbye Hong Kong...