Rainy Days and Mondays

Our time in Seoul was met with certain obstacles, starting with a very rainy Saturday. It was our only full-day in the city and we knew the weather forecast would dampen any outdoor activities, so we planned accordingly: City tour bus!A one-day pass only costs 10,000 Won--which is actually less than $9--leaves every 30 minutes and allows you to get on and off at the thirty-some stops, as you please. It also includes free entrance into a number of museums, and is--unsurprisingly, for Korea--fairly high-tech. Each seat is equipped with headphones that tell you about each stop, in any of three Asian and two Western languages. Well...I was impressed.One of J's friends, Soi, met us around 10 o'clock to go on the tour with us. It was great to meet her and have a Seoul native along for the ride. We decided to go to the National Museum of Korea since the rain was still coming down pretty hard outside. On the bus, I was hoping to get a glance at the city as we rumbled down the streets, but the windows fogged up so quickly that it was easier to just sit back and listen to the audio tour.The museum is a rather new complex, opened in 2007, and is an impressive structure. Peter met us there as well, and we all had lunch at the museum's Korean restaurant, Hancharin. I had a dish called Tteokbokki, which is rice cake sliced into a penne-shape and stir-fried. It is supposed to be a spicy snack food, but the dish I was served was neither spicy nor a small portion, and was garnished with shredded egg, mushrooms and beef slices. Soi, Peter and J all had bibimbap (see pic), a bowl of rice topped with veggies, chili pepper paste, meat and a raw egg, usually served in a piping hot stone pot.

After a quick tour of the first floor exhibits, Peter and Soi headed to their respective homes (Peter to go to church, and Soi having a family gathering that night) so we bid them farewell. We checked out the rest of the museum and then, since the rain was subsiding, jumped back on the city tour bus to see what else we could find.

Welcome to Seoul

After a bit of a delay at the airport in Shanghai over the viability of J's visa, we were finally able to check-in. Luckily we'd arrived at the airport with plenty of time to spare, so we grabbed some lunch and then hopped on flight, arriving in Seoul around 7pm.
J had contacted her friend Peter, a classmate of hers in Chicago, and he met us at the airport. I hadn't seen him since the summer of 2009 myself, so it was great to catch up. Our first impression of Seoul was how clean and modern everything is, complete with Samsung and Hyundai products seen at every turn.
Although it was near 8pm, Peter said he'd be happy to take us to the N Seoul Tower where there is an observatory. We took the A'REX airport train to Seoul Station, then jumped in a (Kia) taxi to the top of Namsan, the southern mountain where the tower is located. The "N" in N Seoul Tower  stands for Namsan, apparently.
Peter told us that usually we would have to show our passports at the gate to the entrance road up to the tower, since only foreign visitors are allowed to take cars and taxis up. Koreans all take the bus or walk. It looked like a pretty steep climb to me, but Peter insisted that it was easy. Indeed, at the top of Namsan, there were gaggles of young people whom mostly looked to be on dates, dressed fashionably and enjoying the excellent evening weather.
Up on the observatory deck it soon became apparent as to why there were so many couples. The entire railing surrounding the deck is covered in pad-locks. Not just a few, but probably thousands. This is due to the tradition of couples putting a lock on the railing to symbolize the strength of their love, and some of the locks were indeed heart-shaped, or even had little love notes written on them. We hadn't come prepared with a lock, but Peter was nice enough to take our picture to commemorate the occasion. Then we went to a cafe inside the tower and all had some hot chocolate!
Around midnight, we hopped on the last cable car heading back down to level land. It put us near the center of town, and from there we grabbed a taxi to our guesthouse.
The guesthouse is a simple affair for budget travelers who still want a bit of comfort. It has clean sheets, fast internet, a massive, flat-screen LG television, and other amenities in the room, with access to a communal kitchen on the first floor where we could get coffee and toast with jam for breakfast the next day.
It all sounded great and the bed looked extremely comfy at that point, so we said goodbye to Peter and drifted into dreams.

Shanghai Expo

We had the morning free in Shanghai before we had to head to the airport, so we took the subway over to the 2010 World Expo site where the Chinese Pavilion is still open to the public. According to Xinhua (the Chinese news agency), there were so many visitors to the Chinese Pavilion during the actual expo (which ended in October last year) that they announced it would be reopened for six months in 2011. This likely gave more foreigners a chance to view the pavilion, whereas locals could wait until later to check it out.

We did our best to arrive early, and made it there about quarter to 9, just before it opened. There were already people heading toward the site in droves, but no massive lines. We did a speed-walk, bought tickets and joined the crowd inside. Although it was crowded, the staff did a great job in directing people where to go. And probably more than anything, the way the pavilion was designed and set up made it bearable for large crowds, and still be able to see everything. In fact, I believe Xinhua had noted the pavilion had a capacity of 4,000 people per hour, which is pretty amazing by any measure, but after going through the pavilion, I believe it.
I wouldn't say the actual exhibition was anything "museum worthy", but it was a show of what China is all about, from architecture, to history (there was a National Treasure on display, although it took 10 minutes of waiting in line and about 4 seconds to shuffle past it in a darkened room), to art, to the environment and the future. The architecture "tour" was done on a mini roller-coaster. People were diverted into multiple lines and the cars left every minute or so, meaning there was hardly a wait at all. The cars rolled past scenes in colored lights, showing ancient and modern bridges, old matrix-based joints for wooden structures such as temples, and newer architecture in the cities.
After about an hour, the pavilion tour was over. The exhibit was impressive in many ways, and it did make me wish I'd seen the pavilions of other nations as well had I visited last year. However, it was a good experience and will prepare me for what is to come should I have a chance to check out the next World Expo in, say, 2012 in Yeosu, South Korea, or in 2015 in Milan, Italy.

Friday in Shanghai

After checking out the alleyways of 'Old West Gate'，we looked around for a good place to grab some breakfast. We finally settled on a place that had rou jia mou, what I would call, basically, a Chinese hamburger. It is braised meat, shredded and put between an English-muffin-esque bun. We ate two each, as well as a rice porridge (xiao mi zhou), a hard-boiled and an over-easy egg, so needless to say, it all tasted great. J chided that the restaurant staff was probably thinking, "dang, these two eat a lot!"
Well, the rest of the day we did enough walking to more than make up for the big breakfast. Our next stop was Xi Tian Di, literally "new sky earth".
Xin Tian Di is a newly developed area of Shanghai which caters to foreign tourists. It's mostly restaurants and souvenir shops, all done in a very fashionable, outdoor-shopping-along-a-promenade type style. We passed up the Starbucks, but couldn't resist the coffee and free wireless internet connection at The Coffee Bean.
It was nearing 1pm, so we headed over to the Shanghai Museum, where we easily spent 3 hours checking out the exhibits on the four floors. The museum was certainly a highlight of the trip, and it was fun to get the audio guides to get some background information on many of the pieces, such as 5,000 year old iron wine vessels, and spectacular Jingdezhen "China porcelain" with under-glaze cobalt blue designs and stunning wucai (five-color) vases and dinner platters. J commented how amazing it was to see pieces that she'd only seen in books up until now, and I to agree that looking at 5,000 years of civilization was nothing less than breathtaking.
Nevertheless, the museum closed at 5pm, so we shuffled out of there, and headed over to Yu Gardens where they have a famous take-out shop for Shanghai xiao rampo dumplings, filled with pork and crab. We had to wait in line for about 30 minutes to buy 16 small dumplings (for about $3), but each one was a steamed bun of perfection. 
After that, we strolled down to the riverside to take a look at the skyline from the west side of the Huangpu River. As we walked along the pier, we could see the old British and French buildings ahead of us, which have been preserved in all their splendor. As it was nearing 10pm, we searched for a ferry to cross back to the east side of the river, where our hotel was, and were lucky to find the last one leaving at 9:45. We paid about 2 yuan each (about 0.20 cents!) and the ferry delivered us to the other side in just 10 minutes. Later, finally back at the hotel, we collapsed into bed, exhausted and having had a great time.

Old West Gate

We made the most of our only full day in Shanghai, heading out around 8 am and not returning until 11 pm. I'll have to break-up this day into a few different posts so it's not too long. So for now I'll just say...

Our first stop was the "Old West Gate" (Lao Si Men). We got there by taking a bus, which was unbelievably crowded (although I suppose it was "rush hour"), but the ride provided an interesting insight to the honesty of Shanghai's public transportation users. With no more space at the front of the bus, when we would stop at the next station, people would pass up their electronic bus card and ask someone to tap it against the receiver so they could then go to the rear door of the bus and try to squeeze in there! That happened innumerable times, a few people even passing their cards up after getting on in the back of the bus, and having their card passed back through a long line of people.  
After we got off the bus at Old West Gate, we wandered through the old Shanghai alleys, which are well known for the narrow streets and ubiquitous scene of wet laundry drying on wires crossing above the alleyway. People were going about their daily business and there didn't seem to be too many tourists around--so I'm sure both J and I stood out plenty since we were taking pictures like crazy!

(more to come later...) 

Shanghai Pearl

We arrived in Shanghai yesterday afternoon, a little behind schedule due to a slight flight delay. After stowing our luggage at the airport, we took day packs and hopped on the subway. The airport is about 45 minutes away from the city by subway, but the ride is pretty smooth. After getting checked in and settled at our hotel, it was nearly 3:30pm, so we decided to forgo the 2010 Expo Chinese Pavilion tour (until Sat morning, at least) and headed straight for downtown where we planned to see the Shanghai Pearl Tower at night.
Before that we figured we might as well get a bite to eat, so we grabbed a taxi and J struck up a friendly conversation with our driver. The driver was extremely friendly, a woman in her late-30s, and she suggested an area with good food that wasn't as expensive as the area right next to the Pearl. It was still about 4:00 when she dropped us off at a nice looking hotel restaurant, so we noted the spot and then took a stroll around town.
The Pudong area of Shanghai is the central, cosmopolitan area, filled with shopping malls restaurants, newsstands and other small shops. I was a bit surprised to see a big Best Buy, not to mention a Papa John's Pizza (which in Chinese is, Ban! Yuehan, which roughly translates to "Great! John"). We ended up finding another restaurant that J thought looked like it might be good, and since it was 5:00 and the dinner places were all opening, we decided to give it a try. Lang Yi Fang had stupendous food, at least what we tried of it: a papaya-coconut appetizer, sweet & sour pork ribs, a tofu and crabmeat dish, tofu-chicken eggrolls, and pumpkin fried bread.
After dinner, we kept an eye on the Shanghai Pearl Tower and walked for about 20 minutes until we got there. Seeing it up close was even more impressive than seeing it lit up from afar. It is truly an amazing structure, with a massive sphere near the bottom, a mid-size sphere in the center, and one more near the top. You can take an elevator up to the second sphere for 120 Yuan, but we decided to stroll down to the riverside instead. From there, we could see much of the skyline on both sides. It was a beautiful and unseasonably warm evening, and it felt great to be outside.
Shanghai made a great impression on both of us, and we went back to our hotel looking forward to what tomorrow would bring.

Mandarin Fries

Our last dinner in Dalian, we went out to a local restaurant nearby with J's parents. This place serves excellent dishes, including familiar ones with a little extra pizzazz. For example, the sweet and sour pork (go lao rou) was sweetened not only with pineapple, but also a touch or orange. They also cut the pork along the edges which allowed it to be fried lightly and absorb more of the flavor.
My favorite dish at this restaurant, however, is quite simple, and my fav because I haven't seen it elsewhere (although I'm told it is available at other eateries); I absolutely love their pumpkin fries! They are almost like a potato "french fry" but made with a sweet squash. I think MaiDangLau (i.e. the golden arches in Chinese) should serve these and call them Mandarin Fries. I would super size them in an instant.
We also had a calamari with miso sauce dish and a shrimp and cloud-ear mushroom dish, which were excellent. Not to mention a couple bottles of SNOW Beer... a few days ago I wrote I thought this beer was called "Mons", until I realized I was reading it upside-down!
In any case, that is all for now for dispatches from Dalian. Tomorrow we are off to Shanghai, and then Seoul for a short stint. Maybe I'll discover some Canton Fries or Kimchi Fries along the way.

China's Answer to Dunkin' Donuts

For breakfast today we had doufu nao and sweet bread, which J said is sort of an old standby Chinese breakfast. Cubes of bean curd are mixed in a soy sauce-based soup thickened with potato starch and flavored with different fragrant spices. The exact spices used depend on the shop that makes it, and it's a closely kept secret--a secret sauce, if you will. Nevertheless, no doubt the sauce had some nira (leeks) since I could see some of the herbs from the leek mixed in as well.
The sweat bread is sort of a long, fluffy, French cruller; it's just sweet enough to balance out the slightly salty, and just a tad spicy doufu nao. I followed J's lead and took a spoonful of the soup, then bit off a piece of sweet bread. Before trying it, I didn't know what to expect and was a bit hesitant; however, after the first bite, I nearly didn't stop until it was all gone. And then I had seconds.

Navigating Unexpected Turns

Yesterday J and I went downtown to catch the new photo exhibit at the
Dalian Art Center. We'd gone earlier in the month for a painting exhibit
by local artists, mostly landscape paintings of the seaside town of
Xiamen. At that time they told us the photo exhibit would be open on the
22nd, so we planned accordingly.

We also planned to pick up a family picture we'd taken just before the
Chinese New Year at a photo studio in town. After that, we'd meet J's
friend at one of the city parks, go out to dinner and then maybe do a
little karaoke (which they abbreviate as "KTV" here).

Well, it turned out that the photo exhibit wasn't open yesterday and J's
friend had something come up and couldn't meet us. We called her cousin
to see if she wanted to go out, but she was unavailable as well. J tried
calling the Dalian Shell Museum, a huge, sandcastle-like structure in
the south o the city, to see if they were open, but the line had been
disconnected (apparently the museum is closed now). Luckily, we were
able to pick up the family picture without a problem.

In the afternoon, we ended up at a bookshop where we were initially
looking for a sort-of "coffee table book" of Dalian. They didn't have
one that we liked, but we started looking at all the maps, both local,
national and world, that the store had available. It was a lot of fun
just checking out geography of different places, including a molded
plastic map of the world that showed elevation, so there was a big chunk
of the world raised high above the rest where the Himalayas are located.
On a Chinese map, that's closer to the middle of the world--the U.S. is
stuck near the right margin. We ended up buying two huge wall maps: one
of the whole world in 1:25,000,000 scale, and one of China in
1:4,500,000 scale, both written in English and Chinese.

Reservoir Market

This morning J's mom took us out to the local morning market, which is
set up along an old water channel leading from the nearby reservoir
that's no longer in use. We walked along with market stalls set up on
both sides along the length of the channel. The entrance to the market
is actually just up the street, but J's mom took us around to the end of
the market so we'd end up back near the house. She said that in the
summer, the market extends much further, but since it was winter, maybe
only half of the channel is filled.
The first person we came across was a man sitting on a small stool
spinning a black iron canister hung horizontally over a fire to make
puffed corn. He was selling it for 1 Yuan (about 15 cents), so I picked
up a bag and handed him the money. It tasted great, and I couldn't
resist throwing a few in the air and catching them in my mouth.
We headed further down and came across a clothing wholesaler getting rid
of old merch, "Anything in the pile for 10 Yuan!" There was some good
stuff, all of it in piles laid out on top of a big tarp. J found two
nice tops in the pile and we continued further down.
Next was a man selling a vegetable cutter. It was like he'd been
transported off a home shopping network. He had a headset microphone
with a small speaker projecting his voice to anyone who was interested
to hear. "You want chopped cucumber? Why chop endlessly with a knife?!"
He demonstrates with--and there's no better way to describe the common
kitchen knife in China--a big, honkin' meat cleaver. "Instead, you can
use this and it's as easy as One, Two, Three." With each number, he
slides the cucumber across the grater. "Want sliced carrots? Even
easier!" He changes the blade on the grater, "One, Two!"
and--shebang!--there are finely sliced carrots in front of him. J was
mesmerized, but thinking of our luggage limit and the fact that we were
still just 10 minutes into the market, I told her there were similar
outlets for such a device in the States.
After that, we passed a number of mostly meat, veggie and fruit vendors,
although there was an interesting "CD shop" selling karaoke versions of
old Chinese favorites. The guy had quite a large crowd, including one
old woman who looked about 90 hunched over leaning on a cane reading the
list of the 1,000 songs featured on the CD (set?).
We passed by a table with four piles of different shellfish (I think
scallops, clams, muscles and oysters). The guy behind the table was
shucking huge oysters and putting them into plastic bags for customers,
eagerly buying them up. We ordered a kilo of scallops and he dragged a
small hand rake across the pile and onto a metal tray for the scale. A
closer look at the pile and I could see some of them were still moving,
proving them fresh caught from this morning. I suppose they were
gathered out of the Bohai Sea this morning and brought straight to the
old reservoir, which certainly proved to be an interesting place to
spend some time.

Lamb Soup

The Marx Brothers were known for their movie "Duck Soup"; the restaurant next door from here is known for its delicious lamb soup.
The restaurant has big, red letters in it's window that say 'yang tang' (样汤). You might think that means "Beware of Ram" considering there is a feeble-looking ram chained to a tree near the entrance. However, the letters do indeed mean lamb soup, and although that particular ram is still intact, I suspect there was a different one there last week.
In China, people like to see that their food is fresh. The best example is when Wal-Mart first opened in China and had to change from only "fresh frozen" seafood offerings and include tanks of live fish which customers could select and take home. In short, like the chicken soup I wrote about in this space before, seeing a live lamb, sheep, ram, whatever in front of a restaurant advertising lamb soup tells the customer here that it is only of the best, freshest quality.
We headed inside, grabbed a table and ordered a round of lamb soup. J's cousin also ordered a stir fry of green pepper and pork intestines, and then a tofu dish which, ironically, was hardly touched. The lamb soup is served with the broth kept rather bland since there is a bottle of vinegar and four different spices on the table with which to flavor it to your liking. I put in a good dose of vinegar, a bit of salt and pepper, a dash of chicken consommé and a spoonful of red pepper. The soup had different lamb bits in it, including cubes of congealed lamb blood, and after getting over the novelty of the whole thing, the taste was quite good. Everyone tried each others soup broth and J's cousin by far had the spiciest, but I thought best, balance of ingredients. I added some more black and red pepper to mine, and ate heartily, nibbling at the tofu and pork intestines too.
As we ate, we could hear a dog whimpering in the back somewhere. I'm always on the lookout for possible dog meat on a menu, but I was assured it was nothing of the sort. It turns out the owner was raising a puppy in the back, and he took us back to see a beautiful two-month old Husky. The dog was friendly and playful. I'm not much for petting dogs (especially ones I don't know), so I just snapped some pics of J's cousin playing with him.
As we left the restaurant, we awkwardly decided to pet the ram out front too, which I also have pictures of. I'm a bit hesitant to say, but I don't know if I'll be able to look back on that photo and not imagine dousing him with vinegar and red pepper.

Four Hours

In the last four hours or so I've ingested the following:
1. coffee and a chocolate cupcake
2. sunflower seeds
3. a bowl of fresh strawberries
4. drinkable yogurt from Inner Mongolia
5. a bag of puffed corn (not popcorn) sold by a vendor at the local market, made in a contraption that looked like a cannon ball might shoot out of it.
6. grape juice
7. a grilled flour and egg wrap stuffed with scallions, and a fluffy, fried cracker with a spicy sauce (called jian bing guo zi) made by a street vendor
8. a flour wrap stuffed with stir-fried and salted shredded potato (called juan bing) made by J's mom
9. half a kilo of boiled scallops, also prepared by J's mom
10. celery, cabbage and minced pork won-ton soup, (yes, made by J's mom from scratch this morning. although I was full at that point, who is going to pass up won-ton soup? not I)

Haircut

After nearly a month, I decided it was time for another haircut. I've
had my haircut in Brazil, Ethiopia, Thailand, Japan, of course the U.S.,
and now China. I figured that if a hairdresser in Addis Ababa can cut my
hair pretty well, a hip and savvy Chinese salon worker would have no
problem. And for less than $3 for a hair cut, I figured I'd give it a
shot (btw, that's the same as it cost in Ethiopia, whereas Brazil was
about $10, and Japan runs between $15 to $50 depending on where you go
of course).
We went to a shopping center that had three different hair salons right
across from each other to choose from. The first place we went to said
there was a 20 minute wait, so instead we went to the place next door,
which said they could take us right away.
The salon had a fair mix of men and women getting their hair cut or
colored. My hairdresser commented how amazing it was that my hair color
was natural, and said people would have to go through hours of bleaching
and coloring to even come close. J was translating for me, and she
mentioned that people in the States used to tell her that her jet-black
hair was so amazing. Sort of a grass is greener thing, yes.
The last thing I'll mention was his hair drying technique, which I'd
never experienced before. The cut turned out pretty good, and although
we told him I wouldn't need any wax or anything (we were just headed
home afterward) he gave my hair some lift by using the back end of the
dryer to suck the hair up (like a 'Flowbee', I think they were called;
the old haircut vacuum attachment).
Luckily the cut turned out pretty good. There's generally no tipping in
China, so we just thanked the staff, gathered our things and we were
off. But before heading home, we took a once around the shops with my
new do, just for good measure.

Wholesale

Sunday afternoon we decided to check out the local wholesale market,
located on the other side of the Dalian train station. It is a massive
complex jostling with people moving stuff on dollies, bringing in new
merch. The sellers are not hawking their goods, as you might imagine. I
suppose since it's a wholesale area, the people operating the shops can
be considered "suppliers" that take a more subdued middle-man attitude
than a shopkeeper who deals with the end-customer. We walked around
quite a bit, but after a couple of hours we still only saw a small
fraction of what is available: fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, booze,
meats, seafood, car seat covers, pots n' pans, batteries, kitchen
gadgets, beads, jewelry, stationary, clothes, clocks, telephones,
crochet kits, oil paintings, toiletries, and on and on. At the end of
the day, we didn't end up buying anything except for a bottle of mineral
water to quench our thirst after a long, but very interesting afternoon.

Dinner with Classmates

My last day of Chinese class was on Friday. We had finished the first
textbook early--15 chapters in 4 weeks (and I arrived only for the last
2 weeks and had to catch up!!)--so the last two days we did Chapter 16
from the second textbook. That was done by 10:00, so for the rest of the
morning we watched the Disney movie "Mulan" in Chinese. I kept an eye on
the sub-titles and my ears open for words I could recognize, although I
have to say that there wasn't much in the 16 chapters we studied about
war tactics.

In the evening, the Director and a few of the university staff and
volunteers took us out for dinner. We went to a restaurant nearby the
school and they ordered a massive amount of food and drinks. We sat at a
big, round table with a large, glass "lazy susan" in the center. After
everyone did a self-introduction in Chinese, the Director said a few
words to toast. We all held up glasses of Mons beer (from Harbin); in
most other countries I've been to, people sitting at large tables
struggle to clink glasses together, or give each other an understanding
nod, but in China they tap the glasses on the table a few times instead.
We commenced eating and drinking, and since all of the other students
were Japanese, there was a mixture of talk in Chinese and Japanese.

Near the end of the meal, the Director gave another toast, telling us to
all continue in our studies, and that we were all already great Chinese
speakers. Then she presented us with our course completion certificates.
They came in somewhat ornate envelopes, along with the group photo we'd
all taken together a few days prior.

We finished dinner and everyone walked out together. I bid the Director,
staff and other students farewell, as they were all headed back to the
school and the dorms, and I jumped on bus 708 back to Xishanshuiku. It
was the second night of the full moon, and out the window of the bus I
could see it looming large in the sky between the buildings. As the moon
begins to wane, so does our time in China, but it's certainly been an an
illuminating experience.

Chinese Painting

Today I participated in a Chinese painting class at my school. The
teacher was obviously very talented with a brush, and he showed us
numerous examples of works he'd done himself or that he had in his
possession. I'm not really sure which, though, because he was speaking
in rapid-fire Chinese about a topic I know nothing about...and still
know nothing about, except that I've tried my hand at it. After almost
an hour of him "explaining" Chinese painting to a classroom full of
exchange students that probably didn't understand more than 10% of what
he was saying, we were given paper, a brush, some black ink and water.
Everyone did their best to draw a bamboo grove, with long, straight
strokes for the trunk of the bamboo, and then a few thin branches here
and there, with short, quick strokes for leaves. The teacher made it
look so easy. Mine was alright, although I think it was probably more of
a bamboo jungle than a sparse grove.

New Year's ...Day? HA!

The Chinese must hear of other countries celebrating New Year's with a
bit of revelry, a countdown and maybe the Synge de Lang, along with one
day of rest and recoup on January 1st, and laugh at the simplicity of
it. The Chinese also celebrate the Gregorian New Year with the rest of
the world, but the big celebration is the lunar new year.
I'd heard before that it is comparable to Christmas in the States, where
people begin shopping the day after Thanksgiving (or even the evening of
Thanksgiving, from what I heard recently!) and keep their Christmas
trees up until sometime during, say, the first week of January. People
in China begin preparations for their New Year at least a week in
advance, and the 1st day of the new year--which is the first day of the
new moon--is just the start of official celebrations. It kicks off a
week of holiday from work, which is spent visiting with family and
friends. Most companies will start up again on the 7th day, blasting off
fireworks in the morning. Things are relatively quite again, until the
15th--the day of the full moon.
If anyone has any firecrackers or rockets still lying around, they are
all set off on the night of the first full moon of the year. J said that
no one lights even a sparkler after the 15th. So celebrations are out in
full force, maybe with almost as much force as on the 1st. Fireworks
blast off, bursting in the air, the blasts setting off car alarms around
the neighborhood.
So while Gregorian celebrations may countdown to midnight, in China it
is a minimum 15-day countdown. Happy New Year Days!

How much H20?

I recently feel like I've entered the ranks of Jedi in hot water use.
This morning I managed to wash my hair, shave and make a cup of coffee
with about 5 cups of hot water I boiled on the stove-top. You see, on
account of the solar-only, roof-mounted hot water heater we have here,
it's more timely to do things this way. It's not something I'd want to
do all the time, but it's interesting for the time being.

We have a plastic bowl that fits in the bathroom sink, which I pour some
hot water into, and then mix with cold from the faucet until I get a
good temperature. I use just enough to wet and shampoo my hair, and I
don't mind a final cold rinse.

To shave, I fill a small cup halfway with hot water and mix with cold
again, and use a safety razor. I've always done it this way, actually,
so it's no big change.

Finally, I have a "french press" style coffee mug, so I put some coffee
grounds directly in the mug, pour in hot water, and then, after letting
it seep for a couple minutes, push a screen down to keep the grounds at
the bottom of the mug.

I'm so used to having "all the hot water I need" that I never really
think about it. The same goes for electricity and other amenities, such
as internet. When I've gone to developing countries, I remember being
surprised by the frequent blackouts (sometimes--such as in
Ethiopia--planned during certain hours on a neighborhood basis due to
seasonal shortages), the occasional lack of running water and going back
to using dial-up on occasion. Here in China, the electricity and water
is always available, wi-fi is more of a rarity, but internet is readily
available. The lack of constant hot water during these winter months
(for reasons I outlined in more detail previously) has reminded me, once
again, that until we develop our infrastructure and utilities to run
efficiently (and year-round) on renewable sources, that we need to be
more conscious consumers both when out shopping and at home.

Wedding Anniversary

The other day, J and I celebrated our wedding anniversary. The week before we had been walking around downtown and decided to suss out some places where we might have a nice dinner to celebrate, and maybe even stay in a nice hotel downtown. We checked out the 4 and 5 star hotels in the vicinity of the central square, Zhongshan Guangchang (中山广场), such as the Shangri-La, the Furama, the Ramada and the Bohai Pearl. After taking a tour of the hotel restaurants and seeing some of the rooms, we made our decision and ended up making a booking at Dalian's newest five-star, the Intercontinental at Friendship Square (Youhao Guangchang).
On our special day, J met me at DUFL-School of Chinese Studies, which is near one of the old Japanese sections of town. There are lots of Japanese restaurants in the area, so we went to a place called "Man" (萬: meaning "10,000" or bountiful, I suppose). J had a sashimi and tempura lunch set and I had the grilled mackerel (shioyaki sanma) set, both of which were excellent, and ended up costing less than we'd probably spend for the same meal in Japan.
After lunch, we found the weather had taken a turn for the worse. It was snowing and bitterly cold outside, which put a cramp in our plans to head over to the old Russian section of town and check out the art center there. At the same time we realized that we'd forgotten to bring the credit card that we were planning to use to pay for our lavish dinner and room at the Intercontinental. So we jumped on a bus and went back to J's place, where her parents were surprised to see us back. We explained what happened, grabbed the card, warmed up a bit, and then headed back out.
The dinner at Cafe 6 at the Intercontinental was amazing, and we felt all the more pampered since we were the only two people in the restaurant. Since it was still during the official Chinese new year holiday, most people were still outside of the city and no one was making business trips that would require staying at such a hotel. So J and I chose any table in the place and had about 4 people waiting on us the entire evening.
We took our time and enjoyed the atmosphere, along with a bottle of white wine we'd brought from Japan (which the staff kindly chilled and served for us), a dish of farfalle bow-tie pasta di mare with calamari, and a roasted rack of lamb with a rosemary breading, followed by some creme brulee for dessert.
Our room was like a small apartment, located in the corner of the hotel with massive windows overlooking Zhongshan Square. We woke up early the next morning to see the sunrise over the Bohai Sea beyond the nearby port, and soon after 7am, from the 34th floor, we saw a number of companies blasting off spectacular firework displays in the middle of downtown to start off their first day back in business in the new year. Back at Cafe 6, we enjoyed a maddeningly diverse buffet breakfast with everything from smoked salmon and capers and cheese platters to dim sum Chinese dumplings to pancakes and pitchers of fresh juice.
It was heart-aching to have to leave for my Chinese class after that, but J stayed at the hotel for the late check out, taking advantage of the wifi network and desk in the room to get some work done, looking like a high-powered executive perched in a penthouse. After my class, I came back and met her at the hotel and, with the weather looking better that day, we did manage to make it over to the old Russian street.
It was an anniversary to remember and I hope we can celebrate future ones even half as well.

Cats and Dogs

There are plenty of stray cats in Japan, although I hardly ever saw a
stray dog. In the States, stray animals are usually picked up by the
pound, and attempts are made at adoption. In China, however, I see
plenty of stray cats and dogs; they are not overrunning the streets, but
they're ubiquitous enough for me to notice. Today on my way to school I
saw, possibly for the first time "live" (i.e. not in a cartoon), a cat
being chased by a dog. The dog was actually smaller than the cat, and
the whole ordeal looked somewhat playful. But two other dogs, seeing
their comrade making his case against the feline, decided to get in on
the action. So picture, if you will, a nimble cat high-tailing it around
a corner followed by a pint-sized mutt and two scruffy friends.