Alright, sorry guys that it’s been a while I haven’t updated. Once I finish adding in all the pictures from the Shanghai and Beijing trip, I’ll start posting more often as I have some pictures from Macau, Hong Kong and other places that I’ve been too. So lately it’s been extremely hot as in it’s getting close to 100 degree Fahrenheit so literally the moment I step outside the apartment, I’m already sweating. I can even feel myself sweating when I get out of the shower so yeah… it gets THAT hot here and plus it’s really humid too.
For the most part though it’s actually not too bad since I stay inside most of the time with the air conditioner blowing. There’s a cafe right down the street too which is pretty convenient since I can just take the bicycle and ride there. Other than that, I’ve been trying to study Chinese as much as I can but I still feel that I have a lot more to learn. The most difficult part I think is that people here speak with a different accents and there a bunch of dialects too so not everyone speaks “proper” Mandarin.
I guess it’s kind of the same thing with English since you have different accents and expressions but still, it’s really hard to communicate with people here especially when they speak in a dialect that I don’t even understand. I talked with Ariel (our cousin) and she said that she’s going to teach me Chinese over Skype so hopefully that’ll help too 🙂 Lately though, I’ve been fairly distracted with getting some online work done which could still be a while before my income starts to pick up again…
Speaking of which, I did an interview at an English school about a week ago they will let me know if I get the position in a few days. I figure this will be a good chance to network with some of the people here and make some extra money too. I think I could probably even privately tutor some of these students since studying English here is really expensive. One place charges 23,800 RMB which is about $3,400 and that’s not even for a full year’s worth of lessons.
Anyway, so far I’m still enjoying myself here but it’s still rather inconvenient not being able to speak the language very well and taking the bus around town kind of sucks too. I saw my first car accident about a month which involved a van, a taxi and a motorcycle. The damage was actually pretty bad on those two cars and the motorcycle guy was obviously in pain on the floor. At first I was consider maybe getting a scooter to get around town but after seeing that…. Yeah, there’s no freaking way I will.
The thing here too is that everyone is so damned rush and the drivers here don’t give a shit about others. Pedestrians, bicycles and scooters have absolutely no right of way so a car will just come speeding down the roads without even looking. It just seems like the overall mentality here is very self-centered. It’s kind of hard for me to explain but it just seems like a lot of people here think they’re better than everyone else so it somehow gives them the right to do whatever they want.
Well that’s the end of my rant but there are still a lot of good people here though. Anyways, so here are some pictures of the final day from Shanghai and also the first day of Beijing. There were actually a lot of photos since we went to a museum but I ended up cutting out a lot of them and only showing the ones that I thought were interesting.
Shanghai Day 3
A museum that we went to:
And some ancient artifacts:
The level of detail on this one was pretty crazy:
Calligraphy:
Coins:
Paper currency:
Some objects made from jade:
The inside of a home during those times:
Then after we saw all the floors, we left. Here’s the outside and some other areas where we walked around before leaving for Beijing:
After walking around for a bit, we went to get dinner at this Pho place which was actually kind of nasty. We were really hungry too so we just ended up going to the closest restaurant we saw. Earlier that day, we actually ended up buying tickets to go to Huangshan (Yellow Mountain) but then since it was a holiday there was no train from Huangshan to Beijing so we ended up not going to Huangshan.
So after resting up that night and waking up early the following morning, we were getting ready to head to Beijing which was another 20+ hour train ride…
The train ride this time around really sucked compared to going from Guangzhou to Shanghai because we couldn’t get the lower bunks so we were all the way on the top. I don’t think I took pictures but I do have a video that I’ll post up a little later. But it was so small to the point where we couldn’t be able to sit upright but luckily there were chairs in the aisles so the whole time Mike and I just chatted. Now that I think about it… I don’t remember what we did that whole thing but I think we brought some wine with us, haha. Anyway, we arrived in Beijing early in the morning:
Took us a while to find the motel since it was in a more ghetto area. And actually, they weren’t going to let us stay there because the government prefers foreigners to stay at hotels that are more in “nicer” areas but since Mike has a Hong Kong resident card, they let us stay:
Oh yeah, we were taking a taxi and the Beijing dialect is REALLY thick and heavy so even Mike was having a little trouble understanding them.
Forbidden Palace with a portrait of Chairman Mao:
Front of Tiananmen Square. Didn’t realize I was taking a picture of someone taking a picture of someone else:
Me!
There were a lot of tourists here as well:
The Forbidden Palace is freaking huge once you get inside:
The courtyard after the entrance:
In between the steps, there’s a huge marble slab of intricate designs and patterns:
Some areas were restored:
Another picture of the courtyard:
Another courtyard AFTER the first courtyard. Yeah, this place is annoyingly big:
Each step has stone carvings. This whole marble slab has patterns of dragons on it:
On the side of each courtyard, there’s also other areas:
This section is after the second main courtyard:
Up close picture of the marble slabs:
The inside of some of the buildings:
More photos of the courtyard:
So after walking through I think 3 courtyards, there’s a garden at the very end:
In one of the buildings, there was a small museum. I took a lot of pictures but only added a few here:
Overall, the Forbidden Palace was definitely pretty awesome to see. Afterwards, we went to walk around Tiananmen Square which kind of had a weird feeling to it and there were a bunch of guards around too…
It started to lightly drizzle after we walked around:
Since Beijing is known for its roast duck, we were looking for a restaurant that had it. We finally ordered it and we ended up waiting like 30-40 minutes but it was definitely worth it:
It even included soup too which we weren’t expect at all!
That’s all for day 1 at Beijing. Just like in Shanghai, the people are much taller than people down in the south. Not exactly sure why that is… but I felt short for once. Anyway, the next post will be of pictures from the Great Wall!
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