塔 Selfies

So, for this next blog post I have decided to show all of my glorious 塔selfies from my travels around Chna so far. I haven't taken many, but I really like the way they look, so I am not going to stop taking them anytime soon.
I mentioned before this first selfie is not a real selfie! :O I know......scandal, but I think it still looks epic. It was epic enough that I made it my profile picture on facebook, so there. It wasn't a real selfie, but the picture kicks ass. There is my justification.

The next 塔selfie comes from the town where I live and work, Haining. This was a rather small and short pagoda, only three floors in height. I found it on an amazing investigative adventure with my friend Sarah, better known as 沙拉(salad....yes, I know.....my students all asked me if she was delicious). This pagoda was found on a small mountain right next to the street where I like to go shopping, called 工人路.

 Our third 塔selfie comes again from Haining, but this one was taken at a location about an hour away from my school. This pagoda is known as 占鳌塔(zhan ao pagoda), and is located at Haining's famous landmark, the Qiantang river. Each year in the fall there is an amazing tide at this particular location along the river, and I plan to go back to see it! (Also on this fall's to do list: eating lots and lots of crab.)

The final 塔selfie takes a more modern approach to a traditional idea. You can probably guess where this is based on the moderness and expensiveness of the appearance. Yes, it is indeed Shanghai's famous Oriental Pearl Tower. My costar in this photo is my always charming boyfriend, Hui. Give him a round of applause for his first 塔selfie!

Here's hoping that my 塔selfies will start a trend! C'mon, now everybody's doing it!
给我看你的塔自拍。:D

Hangzhou (Day 1)

There is a saying in Chinese that says Hangzhou and Suzhou are heaven on Earth. I definitely fell in love with the city when I came to it. After one visit I said to myself "I need to live here" and the next day I asked for a transfer. Right now I am still working on transferring, but I have visited this city many times since then. It feels like I go every other weekend.
      My first stop in Hangzhou was a restaurant for lunch. I was with my friend, Hui, and it was my first day to meet him, so I was very excited. I let him order off the menu, because I love everything, and I always have trouble choosing. We ate fried fish, crab and rice cakes, and a few other sweet dishes. I thought it was all good, but he said "I hope you don't think 好吃 is a compliment". He's a very traditional Chinese guy, he doesn't give out compliments too often.

      After eating, we went to a magical place called 西湖, in English, West Lake, a famous world culture and heritage site. As soon as we arrived I instantly fell in love. I could understand why the Chinese called it heaven on Earth. I thought I had to share it all with my friends and family, so I started taking pictures, but Hui told me I was just taking pictures of a restaurant, and there were better things to come. I still took the pictures, because I loved it. The first thing we did was ride a boat to the other side of the lake. Everything was so amazingly beautiful, I took pictures of everything, because the beauty needed to be shared.      
    While on the boat I was also texting my friend (aka Chinese sister), Judy, who is Hui's cousin. She had been trying for two years to make a match of us, and I wanted to let her know that I met him. Actually, I already liked him. I had been messaging him every day for two years. I was so excited to finally meet him and see if he was the one for me. When I met him the first time in Hangzhou train station, he looked so excited to finally meet me. I was excited too, but I am a shy person, so.......basically I was shy. haha

On the other side of the lake we came to an area called 三潭(san tan), where you can see three small statues in the water. In English this area can be translated as three pools mirroring the moon. The legend is that at night you can see 18 moons in the lake there. It is known for being a great place to view the moon during the mid autumn festival, and the scene can also be seen on the back of the 1 yuan bill.

While walking around west lake I was feeling amazing, like I really really wanted to move to Hangzhou. After going there for the first time, I remember feeling a real appreciation for nature that I had never felt before. Now, I am looking back at these pictures, and I also notice there are sooooo many mountains! This city is just surrounded by beauty.

Next we caught sight of the famous 雷峰塔leifeng pagoda. I didn't realize from a distance just how big it was, and I didn't realize that I was going to get to go inside it! Hui really had the whole day planned out for me, and it was so touching. I honestly just came to Hangzhou to meet him, but he planned to show me all of this.



The sunset was coming, so it was time to head over to the leifeng pagoda. Traditionally, the best time to view the pagoda is at dusk. Hui told me the custom is to watch the sunset from the top floor, so we did!
You will notice that there is an escalator installed in the middle of the stairs. I onced joked to my friend that it had been there for thousands of years and that it was installed for the emperor's use only. All the other people had to use the stairs.....unfortunately the emperor had to walk going down, but this was much less tiring.
Another thing the leifeng pagoda is famous for is the story of the white snake. A snake spirit named Bai Suzhen disguised as a human and fell in love with a man named Xuxian. In a later part of the story Bai Suzhen is discovered by a monk and is imprisoned inside of the leifeng pagoda. Twenty years later she is released and returns to Xuxian. There is a famous Chinese tv show about this called 新白娘子传奇. The song from this show(千年等一回） is also famous, and whenever I go to west lake now I feel like I want to sing it.

the new wallpaper on my computer, my sstudents love it

雷峰塔

 This photo is the first of many. After going to Hangzhou I found it is really fun to take what I call 塔selfies. The word 塔(ta) basically translates to tower or pagoda. What I do is take a selfie like this with every 塔 I can find. Now, obviously this one is too perfect to be a real selfie (Hui took this one), but the rest are real selfies!
On day two we only went to west lake for a short time, so I am going to focus my day two blog on something else. Here are all of my pictures of west lake from day two.

上有天堂下有苏杭, that is the Chinese version of the saying I mentioned earlier. Later that night I was watching the show at the xihu musical fountain, and I couldn't help but feel moved and shed a few tears for the second time in China. The first time was when the airplane started to descend and all you could see were mountains, and I saw the great wall of China. Great day great day great day! That night I got on wechat to let all my friends know I met Judy's cousin, and I was ready for day two.

some interesting observations about toilet paper

So far this blog has basically been a way for me to organize my photos from my adventures in China, but I don't want this to be just a travel blog. After all, I am not just a tourist here. I also want to write about my daily life. Maybe someday I will even write a book. I mean, I don't claim to have such a profound life, but I love to write. I especially love to share my writing and see the response from other people, so a blog seems like the way to go for now. From here on out I am going to try and take a more narrative aproach with my photos, and share all of my interesting stories. Of course, just in case someone who might be interested in visiting these places happens upon my blog, I will also try to include some information and tips about transportation, saving money, etc. Also, just putting this out there, but I can speak Chinese a bit, so I might also share some things about the Chinese language. So, here goes.

This afternoon I was in the bathroom, and I took a look at the toilet paper and felt inspired to write a blog post. I know it sounds weird, but you never know when inspiration will strike. Looking at this toilet paper, I was instantly reminded of a commercial I had seen back in the US before I left for China. It advertised the seemingly revolutionary idea of toilet paper without the cardboard roll in the middle. In the supermarket I often visit, there are actually many different brands that sell toilet paper without the cardboard roll in the middle. It isn't as revolutionary an idea as they thought it was. I can see a few cons to this idea though. If there were never a cardboard roll in the middle, children would not have their pretend toy swords, and hamsters would not know the joy of running through their cardboard tunnels, and, of course, it could all be recycled when the fun is over. Looks like I might be pro-cardboard, but I digress.
On the topic of toilet paper, before I came here, I heard many interesting things about how different using the bathroom is here. At one point I heard that the Chinese don't even use toilet paper. Well, that isn't true. It's just a misunderstanding. It is true that most public restrooms here don't have toilet paper, but there are so many people in this country, can you imagine how expensive it would be for every place to keep a fresh stock of tp? People usually carry tissues with them to use in place of toilet paper. They can be bought in convenient little travel size packages, and some of them come with cute little cartoon characters on them.
Well, that's just about all I have to say on the topic of toilet paper.
Thanks for reading!
~麦安琪

Daily Life of a 外教 in 海宁

 

 

 

These days I am an English teacher in Haining, which is a comparatively small (but huge by American standards) city between Hangzhou and Shanghai. It is famous for its leather and an annual tide which brings in many tourists during the fall. I feel like it isn't actually famous though, because some of my Chinese friends were even like "oh, Haining.....where is that again?" So, it isn't exactly well known, but there are a lot of wealthy people in my area....and I am talking like I see Maseratis daily kind of wealthy. I have found that living in the city has helped me identify myself as a country girl. I am terrible at hailing cabs, and I am super awkward on escalators, but hey, we don't have those things in my hometown of Muncie, Indiana. I am also having to get used to not apologizing every time I bump into someone, and don't even get me started about the traffic!

These are some pictures of the view from my apartment. I was quite shocked by the amount of humidity in Haining. I mean, I have never actually seen humidity in the form of a giant cloud of ick before. It is unreal!

Speaking of my apartment....it is really nice! I have a really big bed, so I can invite my friends to come stay with me when they visit. No need for them to get a hotel. It's great! I have a huge closet, and the bathroom is pretty nice too, except for the fact that my hot water never works. lol

Teaching high school has been pretty fun too. I was pretty nervous at first, but the students really love me. I have taught them famous movie quotes, American slang, traveling English, and other very fun topics. On my first day of teaching, one of my students drew a pictures of me. It made me feel so happy. Also, as you can see she is such a great artist! She got all the little details including my earrings, the shirt I was wearing, and the way I did my hair. Anyway, I was impressed.

Here's one thing I have never seen in a mall before. These children are fishing....yes, fishing inside a mall. I feel like in China I see so many more child friendly places than I do in America. I see so many babies around too. I guess it isn't too  hard to see that age gap issue everyone is always talking about. When I go out I see a lot of old people and a lot of babies.

Here are a few interesting things you can't find at your local supermarket in the US....at least not in Muncie! I don't know about you, but I think those smoked ducks look delicious. Before I came to China I watched a Chinese documentary show where they showed the process of cooking them. I want to eat one so bad! Now, if only I knew how to cook it.

Also, I found these adorable bunny shaped buns with egg inside. They were too adorable not to buy! They are also delicious, and they were perfect for our Easter celebration.

So, this was one experience that was interesting....but at the same time totally disgusting. My coworkers told me that some people were coming to fix my shower, because it didn't have any hot water......well that isn't exactly what happened. The people came in and completely took out my shower! I had no clue what was going on. Then the next day some guy came and left this big ugly orange mess.....my bathroom looked like an episode of one of those muder mystery shows. Thankfuly, later more people came, and they actually put in a new shower, and gave me the gift of hot water! Unfortunately, those people left it a complete mess. I was kind of upset, but I felt more happy to finally have a shower. Fastforward to right now.....and the hot water isn't working again. Oh well.

 

After I was in Haining for a while spring came. It was definitely a beautiful spring. I can't wait to see how China looks in my favorite season, fall.



Shanghai!

March/April 2015
I had a really fun time in Shanghai, this biggest city in the world. I must say, it was really really really big. I really got the meaning of the Chinese phrase "人山人海“ (people mountain, people sea). Because this was the first city I went to, I didn't realize how modern it was. In the places I went to, I really couldn't see anything old. Going to Shanghai was also my first time to ride a train. I learned from my friends that in Europe people ride trains all the time. I feel like I have more transportation options here. I can ride a train, bus, taxi, and other things.

I would say I did pretty well on spending in Shanghai. I expected everything to be really expensive, so I didn't open my wallet for just anything!

 The Bund!

Going to the Bund was the last thing we did in Shanghai. I felt like the only other time in my life I had seen that many people was when  I went to the Super Bowl (or do I need to say big game?) village in Indianapolis. My friends told me that, if I come earlier I could take a boat to the other side, and there are even more places to go shopping. Alright, when I become a 土豪 (rich person) I will come to Shanghai all the time to help circulate the economy. lol

It was around the time when Cinderella came out, so they had a lot of princessy things.

Looks like Japan at Christmas time. 

This building here is called Jing'An temple. Just so you know, the subway station for here is very hard to get out of. I was afraid we were going to be in there for the rest of my life, but I did get to buy some macarons there, so that was pretty awesome. If you know me well, you know I am a huge fan of macarons. 

This sculpture was made by Salvador Dali. It was pretty cool that I got to see some of his artwork just there at the stoplight for free!

I always like to take pictures of the adorable handbags at the Kate Spade store. In this one they had a sheep clutch. Sheep are so popular in China right now, because it's the year of the sheep. My friend said that this bag might have been specially made just for China.

 Shanghai is a great place to go shopping!

Happy Easter!

My first hot pot in China!

Shanghai is famous for sweets!

Who needs a chocolate bunny when you can have a chocolate darth vader head

Met my Ball State buddy Cecilia in Shanghai!

I had a fun day trip with my friend Beth, who is another teacher at my school. 

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We saw a turtle just walking on the sidewalk. My friend said that is really lucky. As you can kind of see, there was a crowd of people around taking pictures of it. 

At this point we had just escaped from being lost inside the subway station not knowing how to get out. I exclaimed "ah, finally fresh air!" but then I quickly took it back, because I remembered that I was in Shanghai. Nothing fresh about that air!

My time in Shanghai was really nice, but getting back to Haining was a little bit scary. The train tickets back were all sold out, and we had no idea what to do. There was a lady standing next to the ticket office who told me she had a car that was willing to take us back to Haining. It was a 黑车(black car), and taking a 黑车was one of the things that my Chinese sister, Judy, told me never to do! My first month in China, and I was already breaking the rules. I was really nervous, but I had to focus on speaking Chinese with this guy. I let him know that I was very wary of the situations, and that Beth and I were taking pictures of their plates and keeping in contact with our Haining friends. It was a really scary situation, but in the end it was ok, because we got back alright, and it became nothing but a cool story to tell people. Thus, we close the book on this very eventful first trip in China. Yay!