Dujiangyan

This past weekend we took a day trip to Dujiangyan.  We visited some very cool areas while we were there.


The first was a high school that had been completely destroyed during an earthquake in May of 2008.  The high school had become a tourist attraction since the earthquake… very Chinese…

A whole little tourist town has been developed around the high school.  You can buy all sorts of little trinkets around the area…. definitely a tourist trap.

The site was very interesting to see, however.

Check out some pictures…

This place got absolutely owned by the earthquake.  The dorms and classroom buildings were completely destroyed.  The only building that remained the most intact was the bathroom and shower building.  It was leaning on its backside quite a bit; however, it was not in as bad of shape as the other buildings.

Just over 50 people died in this campus and thousands died within the city.  The reason that not as many people died at this school was because the earthquake happened at 2:25 PM.  At 2:30 the students have class.  I'm guessing the most of the students were in route to their classrooms when the earthquake struck.  Any kids that were in the classrooms or their dorms were sure to have died or suffered some serious injuries.

It was quite a site to see.  There were a decent amount of people at the school walking around and taking pictures.  A destroyed middle school where many people lost their lives had been turned into a tourist attraction, where the government and shop owners can now make money… Pretty interesting.  Reminds of the controversy surrounding the museum and gift shop at the 9-11 memorial that has been in the news recently.

The next site that we visited was a vast system of dams and dykes that had been created within Dujiangyan.  Apparently Dujiangyan is a city that had one of the first dams in the world, built thousands of years ago.  Today, this river splits into a number of smaller rivers.  A lot of water comes pouring down the mountains in the area.

They had a very cool old town and walking trail in the area.

You can see the areas where the river splits into another river.  This happens numerous times throughout the city.  Despite how often the river is split, the currents of the various rivers can be very strong.  Definitely don't want to get caught in one of the rivers…

Hope you enjoyed!  Another post will be coming soon…

Jono

Recent Activity…. It's been a while...

Ok… Sorry…..  I have been pretty busy lately and I will explain briefly what exactly is going on with my life..

First of all…

I went to Indonesia.  I went to Jakarta and Bali and it was a pretty unreal experience.  But I will talk about that in another blog post.

More recently, I have been pursuing different opportunities throughout China to begin my career.  I have talked with many people and applied for various job positions in Shanghai and Beijing.

While I was talking to many of these people, I realized that before I start my career in China, which I plan to do, I really need to improve my Chinese.  My Chinese is no where near ready to be sufficient in an office setting.  I can get places and have conversations with random people; however, I would definitely struggle in an office setting.

So…  I will be teaching another year, but this time in Chengdu (City of 10 million people).  I will be working for a tutoring institute called i2.  It will be a great opportunity.  I will be making much more money than my current teaching position and, because I will be living in a city, I will have access to a lot more resources to learn Chinese.  My plan is to hire a private tutor that I can meet with everyday.  By doing this, I will be able to dramatically improve my Chinese and reach a level that would be sufficient for an office setting.  I'm very excited for my next year in China.

BUT!

I'M COMING HOME!

Yes, I will be coming home for about three weeks.  I will be home in mid-late July and I will leave around August 18th.  Can't wait to see all my friends and family.  Oh yeah, and eat western food….


In other news…

About two weekends ago, the foreign teachers and I were invited to a barbecue.  We were told very little about the BBQ, except that some representatives of Pengshan had invited us to have dinner with them.  We were in for quite a surprise…

We all met at the front gate of our campus and we soon realized that we were in for a real treat.  When we arrived at the gate there was an entourage of extremely nice cars.  Porsche Panamera, few Land Rovers, as well as a couple Mercedes.  These guys were clearly the ballers of Pengshan.

We all got into the cars and drove off to the dinner spot.

Upon arriving we were met by the richest and most powerful people in Pengshan.  They were in no way connected to the school.  They just wanted to meet and take pictures with the foreign teachers living in Pengshan, a city in which they basically controlled.

They had a MASSIVE feast prepared for us…

SO. GOOD.

The food was fantastic.  The roasted pig was quite possibly the most delicious meat I have ever tasted in my entire life.  There must have been about 25 - 30 people in attendance.  Each section of the table had their own BBQ.  We had a lot of other types of meat and vegetables that we could grill.  They treated us quite well…

The alcohol was also flowing…  They had bought us giant cans of some nice German beer and the baijiu was flowing.

After we were all completely stuffed, we were thinking about going home, but that didn't happen…

Next stop, KTV (Karaoke TV)

Well we had a slight buzz going on when we showed up, but some of the Chinese hosts we're quite drunk…  We spent most of the dinner walking around the table making toasts to everyone that was sitting at the table.  It is very common in Chinese culture to make toasts to all the people at the table, especially the main guy.  You can see the main guy of the party, basically the richest person in Pengshan, standing in the picture above.  He is wearing the white shirt with his back turned to the camera.  This guy must have taken 20 shots of baijiu.  He is included in every toast made.


So, KTV….

We went to the nicest and definitely the most expensive KTV in all of Pengshan.  We had a giant room with everything that we could have possibly needed.

The bottom picture shows the most important man of the night singing a song for all us.  He was pretty drunk by this point…  After this song he started dancing with some of his buddies in front of the projector screen and was stumbling around, definitely very drunk.

In the West, this would definitely be completely inappropriate; however, in China, it is expected.  Because he is involved in every toast made that night, he drinks the most alcohol by far.

About 20 minutes after he sang his song and started dancing around the room, we saw him throwing up in his seat.  He had his friends attending to him and taking care of him.  He then got out of the KTV and we thought the night would surely be over… not the case.  Everyone kept singing songs and drinking.  However, our boss thought it would be a good idea for us to leave shortly after the head guy did.

It was quite a night and a very Chinese night.  I know it sounds completely ridiculous for the head guy at the party to be the most drunk and puking; however, it is completely normal in China and no one even batted an eye.  The foreign teachers and I were pretty shocked, but it was short lived after we thought about just how much he had to drink that night.

It was a very fun night and we were very grateful that they had invited us to the barbecue and KTV.  The food was amazing and I could never say no to free beer.  This experience definitely gives me a deeper understanding of Chinese culture, and I hope that it does for my readers as well.

Until next time (should be sooner rather than later),

Jono

Spring Festival Vacation: Beijing

Traveling around Southeast Asia was definitely an amazing experience.  I was so fortunate to have an opportunity to do something like that during this period of my life.  The experiences I had were unforgettable and the people I met there have become good friends that I will never forget.

Great times in Southeast Asia; however, it was time to go back to China.  I was particularly excited about going back to China because, not only would I be traveling to major cities and tourist destinations, but I also would be able to finally see my family!

It was relatively painless flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.  It was a red eye flight (about 7 hours) from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with a layover in Bangkok.  When I arrived in Beijing at 6 AM, I was dressed to go to the beach.  That was really stupid.  I was wearing a basketball jersey, shorts, and flip-flops.  It was 0 degrees Celsius outside…  I looked like a complete idiot.  The plane did not go directly to the terminal… of course.  We had to get out of the plane, into the FREEZING weather and board a bus that would take us to the terminal.  I frantically pulled a light jacket and beanie out of my bag before I had to get off the plane.  Those didn't seem to help very much….


The first day in Beijing was pretty mellow.  As soon as I arrived at the hotel, I spent some time with my parents and then fell asleep for about six hours.  I was exhausted.  That afternoon we walked around Beijing a little.  Such a big city….

The very next day we woke up bright and early to begin our tourist activities.

The Summer Palace (During the winter…)

The picture above is a map of the entire area.  As you can see, it's massive and there is a giant lake in the middle of the palace.

And now for some pictures around the Summer Palace…

It was pretty impressive.  Everything was just incredibly old…  You can also tell from the pictures that we were a little bundled up…  It was freezing in Beijing… My mom was definitely not very happy about that.  She also probably won't be very happy that I put the picture up of her in the walkway….

Site of the 2008 Beijing Olympics

The Beijing Olympic stadiums and surrounding buildings were supreme to see in person.  They were SO BIG.  The designs and aesthetics of the buildings were as incredible as their size.

We didn't actually go inside the premise and we only briefly stopped out front to look at it.  It was pretty awesome, though.  The pictures don't even do it justice.

The building neighboring the olympic site was pretty interesting…

Can you tell what it looks like???  Yeah… It's a dragon…  Only in China

Tiananmen Square

The square was gigantic.  That is really the only word to describe it.  Check out the pictures.

Quite spectacular.  All of the buildings lining the square were ginormous.  Thankfully it wasn't terribly crowded.  During Spring Festival most people will go to visit their families outside of the major cities, great time to travel in China…

The Forbidden City

Directly behind Tiananmen Square is the Forbidden City.  It is the old Ming imperial palace that lasted through the Qing dynasty.  The palace was completed in 1420 and still stands today.  So it's kinda old…  The palace includes 980 buildings.  I don't even know how many of them we saw, but definitely a lot of them..

Directly behind the Forbidden City was a small hill with a large pavilion at the top of it.  We hiked up the hill to see the view of the Forbidden city from there, very awesome…

The views from the pavilion were jaw dropping.  Obviously the air quality doesn't look very good… but I think this is actually some of the best air quality Beijing has had in a while… Thankfully, the air quality actually improved while we were there!

The main reason that the air quality dramatically improved was because…

IT SNOWED!!!! The pictures from the places we went on this day make the weather look a little gloomy… However, the day after we had crystal clear blue skies.  You'll see.

The Thirteen Ming Tombs

This was a very cool area.  It was basically a long street with a ton of statues.  Each statue came in pairs and there were four of each, two standing, two sitting.

The Great Wall of China

Most amazing thing I have ever seen, hands down.  I wish we could have stayed there longer.  Thankfully, while we were there, hardly any people were at the wall.  Traveling during Spring Festival is definitely the best time to travel throughout China.

It was damn cold at The Great Wall and it was snowing on and off.  I think that the snow made The Great Wall even more beautiful, though.  The only downside was that we weren't able to see very far off into the distance.  

Walking along The Great Wall was definitely one of the coolest things I have ever done in China, and probably my Life.  It really was "Great"….

The Temple of Heaven   (Blue Skies!)

The Temple of Heaven was a beautiful area and the weather that day made it even better.  Now I'm not sure about this… But based on the recent news stories out of Beijing, I think that this was probably the best weather Beijing has experienced in a  long time…  Check out the pictures…

Beijing was an extremely busy, but amazing, time.  We hopped from tourist destination to tourist destination.  My family and I were the ultimate tourists…

Next stop Xi'an!