China Trip: Day 4

Today was hands-down the best day of the trip so far! Hopefully I will think of memories from today when I think of China.

My day began when I woke up at 5AM to write two blog posts-- one for yesterday's activities and one for a laser tattoo removal scholarship. By the way, I would really appreciate if you could take a look at the laser tattoo removal scholarship post and like/comment/follow the link if you have the chance.

I had a nice breakfast again and finally had the chance to talk to some of the students from the school in Ohio. They are very nice and complimented us on our playing. They said that basically their entire first-violin section didn't come on the trip because it consisted of many graduating seniors as well as top super performers who were unable to come. I didn't hear them last night, but I was told that they are super impressive. They are an 18-member strings only group.

Before leaving we explored the hotel a bit, and because I have not yet posted any pics of it, here is one.. No match for the second hotel I am at right now...


Upstairs view of hotel restaurant


Waiting for the bus


Riding the bus with Helena!


Driving to the City


We departed for the Forbidden City at around 9AM. It is located across from Tian'anmen Square, the location we visited on Day 2. The Forbidden City is 960x760 meters with 8475 rooms and 90 courtyards. It was CROWDED. Apparently 20-30K travel through the city each day.. And even more during holidays. It finally opened to the public in 1925. The palace itself was originally open for the public as well until it became restricted due to the sheet number of daily visitors.

Today was one of the hotter days of the trip. We were all required to wear our blue orchestra shirts, so we were dying of the heat!


Walking to the site. The surrounding water was intended for good feng shui (I think I spelled that wrong and I don't have google to do a quick-check, so sorry for now).


Helena, the harpist. Walkin


Me, Tay, and Helena in front of the South entrance of the City


Audrey, Kara, & Jessica


Morgan, Bella, Sabrina, Allison, & Danica


In one of many similar looking courtyards



In the square garden


Returning to the bus



Lunch at the dumpling house. The dumplings were mediocre, but the other dishes were tasty.

After lunch we went to the train station, which was large and almost like an airport.. With high security and all.


Selfie with the train station guards who were armed with military-grade guns :0.


At the train center. There were lots and lots of people. Again, several people took video footage and photos of us.


Selfie on the train.

I used the squatter toilet for the first time at the train station. It wasn't bad, but I feel like I need to wash the bottom of my shoes from the stall if you know what I mean..

The train ride was picturesque. It was nice seeing the greenery contrasted with compacted crowded bunch of tall apartment buildings and government buildings and roads in Beijing. We passed by some pretty mountains. The train ride was 3 hrs long. We traveled half the distance spanning from Beijing to Shanghai.




Playing card games and mafia with Matt, Helena, Taylin, Taryn, Yen, Adrian, and Annie


Arrived at our destination!!!! Suzhou!!

Suzhou is gorgeous! At least in parts of it. Helena and I love it, and Helena and Taylin said it reminded them of a Japanese city they visited. It's so clean and lush in parts. It was a Saturday evening when we rode our bus to the hotel, and everyone was out and about-- children, mothers, fathers, elders.. They were colorful, fashionable and clean. Many were riding 2-person mopeds and bicycles. Women were wearing bright-colored dresses and high heels. The streets were in general quite clean. And the buildings were new/under construction in several sections. The waterways and plant life made the city my favorite. My pictures don't do it justice.

Xuzhou is much smaller than Beijing with a population of 8.6 million rather than 27 million. It still is quite populous however. All these cities consist of stores, govt buildings, and high rise apartment structures.

I like Xuzhou more than Beijing so far. There is more active bug life, however, so I must be more careful when outside. I loved how everyone was outside yesterday afternoon.. Walking around, biking, flooding the streets with color.. We passed by our concert venue which is AMAZING looking. It was designed to model a Myrtle flower and it was right by the water line. (Xuzhou is by the water and came about really due to transportation of goods and such.)

On the bus ride, McLane pointed out a quite elderly lady on the side of a busy road who was picking up minuscule pieces of trash!!! We hoped it wasn't voluntary.

I very much enjoyed the bus ride and observing the city of Xuzhou and it's people. If I return to China, I would like to visit here again and take a moped through the streets on a Saturday afternoon/evening.

We stopped for lunch at a nice restaurant in Xuzhou. Dinner was interesting. I couldn't stop laughing. There were about 10 workers staring at our table and observing our strange American eating habits. Helena felt self-conscious and couldn't swallow due to the flourescent lighting. She was making me crack up because she couldn't find her sunglasses. I gave her mine.. But died when Taylin pointed out that Helena was hanging her RayBans on her shirt collar!!! I was trying to use the back of my chopsticks to get some rice, but I failed and dropped some in a different dish. Lone behold, a quick 1 minute later, a lady comes out with an embarrassingly large soup ladle and puts it in the rice dish for me. They must have thought we were so strange! They were pointing and giggling a bit at people. Very curious people. I think it may be less common for people in Xuzhou rather than Beijing to encounter foreigners.

Dinner was very spicy. I spent what seemed like half an hour trying to cool down my tongue. I ran out of water and other drinks so I drank a lot of tofu soup broth. The meal was unique and the dishes looked artsy.

I tried out my Chinese.. And failed. I attempted to ask "Where is the bathroom?", but the restaurant worker did not understand me. He brought the translator over. I was bummed. I am keeping on practicing.

The night life in Xuzhou is nice. The city was bustling. Helena and I walked by a karaoke bar and got super excited.

We then stopped at the hotel which is definitely my favorite. It is HUGE and gorgeous. The hotel room is spacious and modern looking. We have our own balconies. The pool is large.. There's a spa, a gym, and multiple multiple parts.

When we first arrived, there were insane fireworks going off in the parking lot. I got some video footage. The Chinese invented fireworks and they definitely beat us in the sheer awesomeness of their fireworks.

I got my luggage back and they took a chunk out of my wheel during transit so now when I roll my luggage it is very noisy. I feel my suitcase is falling apart.

I tried asking where the bathroom was again in the front lobby but the lady working there replied, offended in perfect English.. "What did you say?" It was awkward and I tried to explain I was practicing my Mandarin.

I had so much energy when we got to the hotel. When we first had to find our rooms.. Which are in the farthest possible section of the hotel... Anna accidentally took us to the 4th floor not the 3rd. We got off and I was getting annoyed cause there were no windows and I heard the fireworks, but there was a door by the elevator and curious, Anna wanted to see if it opened and it did! To an amazing large roof top.. With a wonderful full view of the waterline and the many fireworks and lights in the city and across the ways. We could see the concert venue.. A glittering flower along the water. The view was breathtaking. I got crazy footage of fireworks from the roof. I'll post some when I upload to YouTube later.


The majestic view

We brought our luggage to our room afterwards and before we could set our stuff down in our room fully, I rushed over to the only other orchestra people I heard in our section, Shawn and McLane and we went back up to the roof. McLane was super excited to take pics because the view was crazy. Some people from the other high school noticed us on the balcony and decided to come down. After we went back to the room, Mar, Annie, and Kellie met up and we went back up there to find some Ohio kids there. One snapped a pic of us all.



Here is our room. I couldn't get very decent photos

After the roof we walked around to the lobby and the second floor of the lobby. We visited the pool which is gorgeous.. As well as the gym. Anna and I checked out the "haunted floor" and Anna freaked!!!!!!!! I wasn't bothered. She didn't want to get out of the elevator lol.

After looking at the pool I wanted to go in. There were already costa kids swimming there, so I ran up and got changed and came down and had a refreshing swim.

Then I ran into friends playing cards and took some of them up to the haunted floor, which wasn't very haunted.

Then I re-entered the pool and came back to the room at 11PM for room check.

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China Trip: Day 3

Nì hâo!!! 1/6 concerts done!!!! Hurrah! We had a wonderful first concert last night. There was great energy even though all of us were as hell.

Started the day off with a good breakfast:


I ate alone in silence at a breakfast table with a Chinese mother and her daughter.


Next, we went shopping at a center catered towards foreigners. It was an indoor shopping place with four floors + basement & multiple stalls. They sold clothes, knock-off designer bags, electronics, knock-off electronics, jewelry, porcelain little things, fans, chopsticks, magnets, & other touristy things.



I bought 2 pairs of earrings. One may have been a rip-off.. I haggled down from 350 yuan (almost $60!!) to 100 (-$16). I should have gone lower though. I got the other pair for 30 yuan ($5). I'll post pics of the earrings later. I wore the 100 yuan one last night during the concert.

I tried practicing my Mandarin on some. When entered stalls alone (w/o my classmates) and said Ni hao, many started speaking a Chinese to me..... Then I awkwardly said "Sorry, I am an American" to them. About 4-5 of them responded asking my ethnicity, and I told them I was half Chinese. They all said I looked like a Chinese girl.

I tried asking "How much is this?", but my pronunciation was really, really off until Shawn, Sarah, Christina and others corrected me later. It still is off though.. I tried some phrases, and the vendors helped me out a bit.

We are lunch at the top level of the place, which I very much enjoyed. We had a nice view of the city from the top. The skies were much clearer and blue today.. Probably because of the rain the day before?

We then made our way back to the hotel room to pack up our stuff and head out to the concert hall



We rehearsed a bit. My cello doesn't sound very good. All the cellos are pretty low-quality.. Our school ones are much better. They functioned at least. And I got better used to my cello as the night grew on.

During rehearsal:






Cello selfie attempt


Horrible view of the audience seating.. I'm not sure if I'm throwing out the correct terminology, but there was a lower tier and upper tier with a balcony that wrapped around the sides.


Backstage with the cello fellows

We had several hours to kill between the end of rehearsal time and the start of our concert. Our concert began at 7:30 I believe, and we played after the one other high school with us (from Ohio). I attempted to sleep, played card games (kemp and drug dealer.. Not really a card game), and got more Chinese lessons with Taylin from Shawn. A couple people were practicing.. Like Erick who practiced his solo for what seemed like several hours to get acquainted with his cello. We were all hanging out in this one backstage area, so by the end of the night, we all had memorized how his solo sounded lol. We were provided box lunches to eat backstage. It contained a chicken drumstick, some veggies, curried chicken and potatoes, and some side that had egg that I couldn't eat.


Playing kemp (card game) with the friends.



Playin' cards



Shawn trying to teach Tay and I some Chinese phrases. I've been practicing a lot on the bus and during other times. (I've been annoying Anna with it). I learned how to count from 0-10 and say things like "Good morning", "Help", "Where is the bathroom", "Good luck", "My Chinese isn't very good", etc. Shawn also taught us the 4 different ways of pronunciation as well as some sentence structural things.. Xièxiè lâosheng! (I made up the spelling), but I was trying to say "Thanks teacher"!

The Ohio orchestra played first. Then, after intermission, Chamber played (13 people total I believe). We played Paranoid Android & a Piazolla piece.. Both fun, dramatic songs. We had some choreography and some vocal additions.. Leonard shouted 1,2,3 in English and then in Chinese during our first piece. We all sat in one row facing the audience. Performing those 2 songs were fun.

Then the Symphony came on.. We played Glinka, Mahler's Adagietto, a Haydn Cello Concerto (Erick soloed on a podium), Across the Stars (a Star Wars love song composed by John Williams), and finished off with the Hungarian Rhapsody by Liszt.

We finally played a Chinese combined piece with the Ohio musicians called Spring Festival Overture, which sounded very Oriental and was fun to play for the audience.

We had a fairly full house, which was nice. The audience members had different etiquette as aforementioned our tour organizers. They saved their great applause until the end, and did not give a standing ovation. I'm not sure if that is a cultural thing, or if they were just too tired. A couple parent chaperons stood up in the audience but were not followed by the locals. As observed by Annie and a few others, the audience members didn't refrain much from talking to each other.. But I barely noticed. Some pointed at audience members.. Which I did notice.

We had to change our concert behavior a bit for the audience.. Adding in a couple of new motions and things for added respect for the audience members.

Overall I had a fun time.. Although most of the rest of the orch thought it didn't go so well. Many of my friends said they were falling asleep during the concert. But I was okay. Pumped up on the performance vibes of those around me. Instruments were not so great. And there were a few issues.. Like Erick couldn't see very well during because his eyes were too dry and Annie having her end pin malfunction a bit.. But the issues were fixed, and I thought the first concert went quite well.

After playing we had time to interact with the audience in the foyer. Mostly people wanted pictures with the group and a few of the soloists like Helena and Erick.. As well as Mr. Park. I didn't talk much other than saying Nì hâo and Xièxiè.

Our concert ended at around 10:20PM. A very long concert indeed.. I was exhausted. Once we got back to the hotel, we had to pack up our luggage and create overnight bags. so they could transport our heavy luggage separately while we travel on the high-speed train on Day 4.

I was planning on taking a shower, but I passed out while waiting for Anna to finish.

Overall a fun work day. I have successfully avoided using the squatter toilets the entire trip. Yay for Western toilets. That will probably change on Day 4 when we visit the Forbidden City.

I'm typing this at 5AM on Day 4. Anna is currently sound asleep next to me, but the sunlight is shining through our curtains and I'm fairly wide awake. I'm quite excited for today and shall post again soon! :)

Until next time!

China Trip: Day 2

Oh my. Today was quite a busy, packed day. I guess I'll try to start from the top.

 Anna and I roomed together last night and had our own beds. The hotel we were staying in was nice; our room also had A/C, running warm water, and Western style toilets.

All of the students received a wake-up call at 7AM. I woke up a bit before then, but stayed in bed and chatted with Mar, Kellie, & Annie via WhatsApp. Kellie woke up at 5:30 AM to find the hotel gym and run but unfortunately learned that the gym opened at 9. I had a nice solid 5 hours or so of sleep. The students who flew in on China Eastern arrived later than the Delta passengers at around 9AM I believe.

There was a variety of options at breakfast with both Western and Eastern options. I regret piling a quarter of my plate with Western food because the Chinese food was so tasty and filling that I didn't even touch it. The chow mein was my favorite. They also had rice, soup, meat, and veggie dishes.


Hotel's breakfast area


Group photo outside of hotel breakfast spot!

We all convened as a group a quarter before 9AM to check-in before departing on the buses to Tian'men Square. It was exciting seeing all my h.s. buddies in a new setting! I am still having a hard time believing that we all actually made it in China! We had been talking about the trip in class all year, and it's still unbelievable that the time already arrived.


On the bus!


Sitting next to Anna on the bus. Sorry for annoying you with my practicing of Chinese


I learned several things about China today. The cars really do not stop for you! Or even slow down for that matter...Beijing is a super crowded and busy city. 27 million residents with 6 million of them owning private cars. The streets are definitely bustling and the tourist attractions like Tian'men square are several times worse.


Walking to the square

 Tian'men square was quite clean. Chairman Mao's corpse was preserved in a building there; however due to the preserving process, his corpse vault or however you term it is only open to the public for 2 hours a day. Our group wasn't able to visit. We all took pictures there and walked around a bit. Helena and Anna got a few strangers approaching them asking for pics. The first Chinese man that came up to Helena and I really confused the both of us. He stared at both of us and held out his camera, and I had no idea what he wanted, so I awkwardly stood next to Helena. He then snapped a picture, and then gestured for me to take a picture of him and Helena. He probably deleted the first pic of Helena and me LOL. The other Caucasians in our group were asked multiple times as well by different strangers. When it came time for a group photo, there were several strangers who formed a large semicircle around us to snap photos. In the beginning there were even some people sneaking in on the sides to get in on our group photo!


At the square


Anna and her fan


Lol super cute.

Our semicircle of fans

Tried interacting with locals by waving to them. One man said Ni hao to me.

Sorry I'm all over the place. It was a long day, and just got back in the hotel room.. Have to leave to get my cello in 20 minutes...

However.. Back to Beijing! The smog was definitely noticeable as soon as I stepped outside. I ended up getting used to it. I treated it like morning fog because that is what it felt like to me. The weather was fine to me. It was humid, but I thought the temperature was bearable. It didn't bother me much.. Minus the sweating. I was told by many of my Chinese relatives and friends that this trip is definitely good prep for the Houston weather that I will encounter next year at Rice!


That city life

Okay I'm going to have to keep this short because I'm tired.

We then went to the site of the 2008 Olympics. Mar and Annie bought hats. I helped them haggle the original price of 30 yuan to 15 each ;).


Annie and Marissa with their newly purchased fashionable hats

I further interacted with the locals here! I practiced speaking! I said " I am American". One guy working a stand started talking to me.. I think asking questions in mandarin because he thought I could speak.. But I couldn't.. So I said my one liner .. In broken Chinese lol... He then looked at my tag that read " I am an American artist and I am lost. Please call my translator". I think he understood after that.


The man reading my card.. My fail at communication. That's immersion for ya! :)

After that I wanted to learn more Chinese so I talked to Sarah who earlier taught me that one liner that I used. I learned how to say "sorry" and I am an American student. Shawn taught me how to say " I don't want to buy". I recorded them saying the phrases so I could listen later and practice.

After the Olympic site we went to lunch at the 2nd floor of a porcelain factory. It was family style. Food was O.K.


They were making pieces in the factory!


Their pieces were for sale


Jewelry was also for sale

Then we went to the Great Wall!!




Group pic at site. Observe the very small sliver of the Great Wall in the background


As we drove up, it began to POUR rain. Luckily it subsided slowly and came to a complete stop as we were ready to go up the wall! That was fantastic timing... Although a few ended up buying panchos from street vendors for 5 yuan/each.. (Around 80 cents so not very bad).

 We took several pictures (most are on my camera.. But I can only post the few ones that were taken. on my phone at the moment) and ascended a portion. The descent was the hardest part! Some stretches were very steep, so it was a bit difficult to traverse.


At the wall.

I talked to more people around the site. I mostly said "sorry" and "I can't buy". I was very excited because they understood me!!! I was with Kellie when I was talking to one lady, and Kellie was confused about what I was saying. So the lady explained to her by repeating what I said. I was happy about that. Thanks Sarah and Shawn XD!

Following the Great Wall, we ate dinner at a Peking duck place. The meal was excellent!!! I loved their duck and their other dishes. After eating, our tour guides, Mr. Park, and the other h.s. orchestra's director gave a brief welcome/info session. Then we drove back to the hotel.. Low strings (cellos and double bass) chose their rental instruments. People played a bit to get comfortable with them.


Kellie, Anna, and Katherine.. Tired after a fun-filled day jam-packed with activities :)

It's 11:41PM now. I'm dead exhausted. Going to sleep. Today was fun and exciting. I've realized however that I very much appreciate living in America. I enjoy my freedom of speech.. Talking to the tour guide today about the sheer number of people in china 1.2-1.3 BILLION.. And the competition for work positions/higher educational institutes/money in general.. And the single-child policy.. And Beijing's smog. Traveling always makes me appreciate my home in different ways. I definitely enjoyed today and started appreciating America even more today.

Will post again soon! With the help of my friend Leah of course because Blogspot, Facebook, & Twitter are banned here.