Blogging from Beijing

I've now been in Beijing for two weeks, and while I can't say I'm entirely used to it yet, I'm pretty well established in my temporary home, and I've seen some pretty cool things. I will try and write a bit about it here on my blog, which my cousin Ben has graciously offered to update for me, since I can't access it myself!

I am studying at the Beijing Language and Culture University, which is among the best universities in China for foreign language study. Hence it's in their interest to have a lot of foreign students milling about and learning Chinese, and there are many of us here, to be sure! My class has a lot of fellow Americans, but we've also go a few Spaniards, a Swede, a German with a New Zealand accent, a French gal, a Brit, and an Ecuadoran. There are a lot of college students, but there are also a few businessmen, an English teacher who's working in northern Beijing, and myself. This, if not precisely representative of the whole program, does show the fact that while Americans might be the single largest nationality, there are a lot of people from other countries. Most of us live on campus, but I'm particularly fortunate in having a faculty apartment all to myself, thanks to my dear friend and roommate at UCSB, Wu Ti. Her grandfather used to teach at this university and her family still has the apartment, so I've got a gorgeous place all to myself, a mere 10 minute walk from my classroom!

Wu Ti and her family have been absolutely wonderful. From picking me up at the airport to helping me shop to taking me to fantastic restaurants and showing me various sites, they've really been spoiling me to no end, and Wu Ti has really helped me negotiate the ins and outs of Beijing and various bureaucratic necessities. After several days of class my Chinese has drastically improved, but it's still far from adequate to deal with a lot of needed tasks. There wasn't really any orientation on this program, and our one class trip to the Great Wall was not organized in the least, though I think we all made out OK, so I've been extremely lucky to have a Beijing native show me around. My meimei, or little sister, has really been acting like the jiejie, older sister, on this trip!

The campus, like most of Beijing, is strikingly modern; the university is 60 years old this year and there's construction going on all over the place (in all of Beijing, in fact), but the main road of the campus is lined with beautiful trees, so walking to class in the morning before it heats up is quite a pleasure. I've got class for 4 hours in the morning and afternoons free. Sometimes I do venture out, usually with WuTi, for an afternoon jaunt, but sometimes I stay in. The pollution really is quite awful, though a good rain can drastically alleviate it, revealing blue sky and lighter air. The heat is pretty bad, too, but it's bearable, especially if you're used to humid summers. Summers on the east coast and then in Japan have prepared me well!

So far, I've seen a few of the great sights of Beijing. Tianamen Square seems like a very ordinary stone plaza, with tons of people milling about, but there's Chairman Mao's benevolent? face and huge red characters saying "Long Live the People's Republic of China" staring across the road at you. The Great Wall, of which we saw the Mutanyu section, is called the Changcheng or "Long Wall" in Chinese, which is certainly a more accurate name. It's a fairly simply constructed brown brick wall, but it goes on seemingly forever through the mountains, with watchtowers at very regular intervals. It's got beautiful scenery, and we were fortunate enough to have blue sky that day.

Probably the coolest thing I've done so far, however, was to get a little outside of Beijing to see the two of the 13 Ming Tombs- tombs of the Ming emperors. These are buildings much like you'd expect traditional Chinese architecture to be, and they too have great pine trees all around them. We were able to go down into one of the tombs and see the different chambers, with huge red boxes and several ritual implements. The other tomb contained a museum devoted to the greatness of the first Ming emperor, Yuanzhang. We also walked down the Holy Road, formerly the emperor's path toward the tombs, where he would show respect to previous emperors. The best part about this pleasant promenade was the many statues of animals (and a few statues of ministers) lining the walkway: elephants, horses, lions, kirin (a mythical beast), all depicted both kneeling and standing. WuTi and I had a lot of fun posing with the different statues! Best of all, we went to a hot spring afterward, which had scores of baths, both inside and outside, of all kinds! It was great, but of course I don't have any pictures.

That's it for my first update; stay tuned for more reports from the big and bewildering yet bountiful city of Beijing!

Friday Adventure #1

I've really fallen off the bandwagon with posting, but I am determined to devote some of my time here to experiencing the joys of living in such a beautiful place. As I looked around online for places to hike I saw that Santa Barbara County calls itself the American Riviera, and while it's certainly pretentious, it is beautiful out here. I won't brag too much about the weather in February, but I did want to share this fantastic Friday adventure that my friend Chrissy and I enjoyed.

We drove up the San Marco Pass to Lake Cachuma, where we took the Sweetwater Trail. This was a very gentle hike along the lake's edge, about 5 miles roundtrip. It just felt so good to be outside and away from everything!

This wonderful little park was quite close to Solvang, the adorable Danish town I've written about already, so we headed over there and indulged ourselves in chocolate and cheese (we had just gone hiking, after all!). Then to top it off, we found this neat little café called the Succulent Café with delicious food, wine, and dessert. The waiter was fantastic, very chatty and knowledgeable, and though we ate too much we were very satisfied. We may have overindulged, but we agreed we must do this sort of thing again!

Happy Halloween!

I hope everyone has had a lovely Halloween and a nice October. I can't believe how fast the month has gone by, but that doesn't mean I haven't celebrated my favorite holiday in style! In addition to wearing orange and black every day and busting out my plastic Halloween earrings from Orchard School Fun Day so many years ago, my roommates and I have really gotten into the ghoulish spirit.

We started off with pumpkin carving, an event sponsored by our apartment complex. We were all very excited, especially WuTi, who had never done it before! She nonetheless was a great excellent help scooping out the goo (and saving the seeds for roasting, of course!), drawing the design and cutting it out, all of which was a cooperative effort.

Unfortunately, our dear pumpkin only lasted a few days before he started growing mold! We soon had to dispose of him, and we saw many other pumpkins suffer the same dire fate. It's an unfortunate consequence of the climate here, but I really can't complain about it otherwise, so I will just lament that our poor pumpkin didn't even make it to the week of Halloween! However, he furnished us with many delicious seeds, which we are still finishing up. 

Then we decided to have a Halloween party of our own! OK, I roped them into it, I admit, but they participated with discernible joy! Unfortunately Corinne was away with family, but Nathan is currently visiting me, so we had a team of four. We decorated, baked goodies (and bought the standard Halloween fare: chocolate goods, largely Reese's!), and made mulled apple cider with optional rum on the side. Then we dressed up in, if I may say, fantastic costumes: WuTi as a very cute cat, myself as a fashionable witch, and Claire as a very snazzy archer.  

 

 

 

 

The party started at 8, and by 8:30 there was a slew of guests, the majority in Halloween costumes. After some schmoozing we brought out the Pin the Tail on the Black Cat game, which was extremely popular and very competitive! But it was properly done, with blindfold, spinning, and placing all strictly supervised :-)

 

 

 

Our last activity was playing the Michael Jackson dancing game on my Wii. Needless to say, Thriller was played a few times! People had a really good time rocking out, I think, and even spectating is really fun, especially with these great outfits on. 

So despite being away from home, I was able to have a smashing Halloween shindig, without the literal smashing that goes on in other parts of the college area this weekend. Hope you enjoy the pictures! And let's give a cheer for the very cute and highly skilled cameraman, who provided these great shots.

Birthday Adventures in Santa Barbara County

I am now 27 and I am loving it! No complaint about the change in number here, not least because I had a fantastic birthday thanks to my aunt Alice, who came down from northern California to spend the weekend with me.

We kicked off my actual birthday last Friday by heading to the San Ynez Valley, which is sandwiched between the two mountain ranges east of Santa Barbara. First, we went to the weirdest apple picking establishment I have ever visited, Seein' Spots Farm. Now admittedly, when I was looking for places to go apple picking, I stumbled across this farm, saw they had donkeys, and immediately wanted to go. Aunt Ali being of similar mind, we drove in and found that donkeys definitely took priority over apples. However, we were able to acquire a decent number of that noble fruit, pet donkeys as well as other rescued farm animals, including a tortoise, and even see a zonkey! Surely that rare opportunity was worth the trip.

Then, we headed over to Solvang, a town originally built by Danish settlers and which retains much of its Danish roots! We had lunch, walked around town and went shopping for socks, clogs, and of course, pastries! It's a bit of a kitschy place, but it's definitely very cute. To finish off the day, we went to Los Olivos, town at the heart of SoCal wine country, for an olive oil tasting and a wonderful dinner.

 On Saturday, we got up bright and early to drive down to Ventura, about 45 minutes south of SB, and board a boat for San Miguel, one of the Channel Islands. These islands, as you might guess, form a channel off the coast of Santa Barbara and are actually a national park. Thanks to the land and marine protections of these islands, most native wildlife are thriving, which is nice to hear for a change! San Miguel is the furthest island of the four right off of Santa Barbara, so it was a three hour boat ride out there, but we got to get a preview of the other three islands and see tons of dolphins (common and Risso, these larger, whitish-gray ones).

Once we got to San Miguel, we had some time to appreciate the landscape as the crew took groups of six to the island on powered rafts. There were a few national park volunteers to lead hikes into the interior, which must be guided; Ali and I decided to do the hike with pretty flowers part way and then head back early so that we could eat lunch and go swimming! The water was quite cold but not as freezing as I expected. We were able to stay in for several minutes (me twice), and it felt so, so nice. Just look at the color of the water, too! I did not expect to see this in California.

 We had about four hours on the island before we had to get back in the boat, but the trip was not over! The very informative and skillful captain took us over to see the popular seal hangout on the other side of the point, where harbor and elephant seals are all over the place. So cute! We also sailed much closer to the other islands, now that we were officially in Channel Islands National Park, so we got to see Santa Rosa and Santa Cruz (islands, not cities) pretty close. Santa Cruz was especially cool because they have loads of ocean caves. The huge, colorful one is the Painted Cave, illustrated by "mother nature in her infinite wisdom," according to Captain Dave. Owing to that man's navigational skills, we were able to go really far into the cave, even in our big catamaran!

We also managed to see a bevy of common dolphins, which I really couldn't photograph well, and the beautiful sunset. What a day!

 Before Ali left on Sunday, she took my roommates and me out for a lovely brunch not far from a very cool place: the dog beach. After we ate, the five of us walked around among the waves and the dogs and soaked in the sun. It was wonderful!

    Corey, WuTi, moi, Claire

 Laughs all around! What could be better?