April 2007 Shandong Trip

Now that I'm mostly settled back in Seattle, I'm going to revisit a couple of my trips in China that I never got around to posting before.  This post is the first of those.

One of the three main holidays in China is labor day, which takes place May 1st.  The government shortened it in 2008, but it was previously a full week off work/school.  As you can imagine, there are a lot of people using the transportation system during these holidays.  I had previously traveled with some other teachers from my school during the National Day Holiday, and while we saw some cool stuff, there were huge travel frustrations because of how overcrowded the Chinese transportation system gets when a billion people are all trying to get somewhere.  So, this time we decided to go a week before the break and try to beat the crowds.  Josh (one of the other American teachers at my school) and I tweaked our teaching schedule a bit and headed to nearby Shandong province.  We went to Tai Shan (one of China's sacred mountains) first, and then headed to nearby Qufu (the birthplace of Confucius).  

Tai Shan

Tai Shan really wasn't anything special.  Of course, both Josh and I had been to Huang Shan and Chiang Bai Shan, and it's a bit hard to be impressed after seeing mountains like that.  We didn't even make it all the way to the top.  

The streets of Tai'an, the city at the foot of Tai Shan.

You've probably heard that everyone rides bikes in China.  Yep, it's true :).

A registered church in Tai'an.

Apartments in Tai'an.

The bedside stand at the hotel I stayed at.  "Don't smoke"--but we'll give you an ash tray in case you do.  I don't get it...

Tai Shan.

I've seen rows of locks like this in many places in China, and I'm still not really sure what it means.  I think it's just something the Chinese do at a tourist site, kind of like how westerns throw a coin in a pool.

Qufu

Qufu is the hometown of Confucius, and unlike Tai Shan, it's way cool.  Virtually all of the residents claim to be descendants of Confucius, but 2500 years later, it's probably impossible to trace it back anyway.  The coolest part of Qufu was the cemetary, where Confucius and many of his relatives and descendants are buried.  Josh and I rented bikes to in the cemetary and pedaled around it.  

The Qufu city wall.

The cemetary was covered in a carpet of these flowers.  Absolutely gorgeous.

There were stone sculptures throughout the cemetary.

I'm not sure that this was allowed, but no one was around to stop me :).

The picture didn't come out so well, but this is Confucius' Tomb.  It's 2,500 years old!

This is the monument next to the grave that says something like "Confucius is buried here".

I also went to the Confucius mansion in Qufu.  This is from the gardens there.

Life Update

I'm back in Seattle, and have been for about a month. Needless to say, posting on my blog has not been at the top of my list of priorities, amid everything else I've had to do (buy a car, get car insurance, file my taxes, find an apartment, move into the apartment, find a job, etc...). But, I do intend to post a bit more about China, particularly to post some pictures and stories from a couple trips that I never got around to posting.

I started a new job two weeks ago at jobster.com. So far it's been a great place to work. Besides the cool people I work with and the great location, I'm a big fan of the Jobster development process. For the sake of the few of you who will know what I'm talking about, Jobster uses a fairly agile development process (including TDD, which I'm a huge fan of) while not rigidly sticking to it for the sake of the buzzword. We're a Ruby on Rails shop, which is a huge contrast from my old job at Consona/Intuitive (where I helped develop a .NET desktop ERP app). I like using so many open source tools. And I'm loving the fact that Jobster lets developers use any operating system or tools that they want...so I'm taking the opportunity to switch over to Mac, and I plan on buying a Mac in the not-too-distant future.

That's enough for now. Encourage me to write up and post the rest of the China stuff if you want to read it, as I'm sure that will help motivate me to get it done :).

The Olympics!

Well, I'm back in Qinhuangdao from Hong Kong and Taiwan. My time in Hong Kong and Taiwan was enjoyable, but not very eventful. I've got more about my time in China that I plan to blog about, but recently I've focused all my computer time on finishing a project that I'll be putting on my resume for when I apply for jobs. So blogging just isn't a priority right now.

The Olympics don't officially start until tomorrow night, but some of the events have already began. I went to the USA vs. Norway women's soccer game last night. Unfortunately, we lost 2-0, but it was fun to go. I'll be going to 3 different events in Beijing before flying home in 6 days!

What's Next?

Finals just finished last week, and many people are asking me, "what's next?" I'm not totally sure, but I do know some of what I'll be doing in the near future...

• On July 5th, I head to Hong Kong. I'll be there about a week. The main reason I'm going is to get a tourist visa so I can come back to China in August (since my residence permit expires July 15th).
• On July 12th, I fly to Taiwan. I'm going there to help out with an English camp.
• I'll return to mainland China on August 3rd, just in time for the start of the Olympics.
• I'll be attending several different events during the Olympics: soccer (in Qinhuangdao) and rowing, hockey and handball (in Beijing).
• On August 13th, I fly back to Seattle.

After that, I really have no idea...

One cool bit of news I found out today: the tickets I have for the August 6th soccer game is USA vs. Norway. I bought the tickets several months ago, so I'm lucky I get to see the USA in the one soccer game I'm going to :).

Also, there are a few other trips I took the last two years that I haven't had time to blog about yet, but I still intend to, just for the sake of completeness and so that I don't forget. So check back here in the future for those updates.

Winter Travels Wrap-up

I finally finished blogging about my travels this winter with that last post. (I know, I know--it shouldn't have taken me until 4 months after the trip ended to finish, but oh well). I posted this map in an earlier post, but now I've updated it to include a picture and a link to the blog post about each place. So for anyone who missed a blog posts, here's a good chance to catch up:


View Larger Map

Handan

Handan Picasa Photo Album

After visiting Rayleigh in Pucheng, Drew returned to Qinhuangdao to begin spring semester at his school.  I traveled to Handan, a city in south Hebei Province, where I met up with Mike (another ELT Edge teacher at my school).  We visited two of our students, Jeff and Angel. 

 

 

 

This is some famous old structure in Handan, called something like Cong Tai.

 

Angel and her family.

 

The streets of Angel's village.  They don't get many foreigners here, so everyone would just stop and stare at us.

The kitchen in Angel's home.

Angel's father is a doctor, who specializes in mending severed fingers.  This is the sign above the entrance to their clinic/home.  I guess it comes in handy so people know where to go when they have this problem...they can just hold their hand up, and say, "Yep, my hand looks like that, so I guess this is the place to go."

 

The artwork inside the clinic is a collage of photos of all the severed hands that Angel's father has mended.

Mike and I with Jeff's family at his home.

 

We played Mah Jiang one evening with Jeff's family.

 

I rode on the back of this motorcycle for about 30 minutes to get to where we could catch a bus back to Handan.

From Handan, I returned to Beijing, where I caught a train to Qinhuangdao.  So that's the end of my trip :).

Pucheng

After our time in Urumqi and Kashgar, Xinjiang, Drew and I needed to head back east, so that Drew could make it back to his school on time for the start of classes the next Monday (my classes didn't start for another week).  Our original plan was to take a train from Kashgar to Urumqi (which lasts 24 hours), and then take the train from Urumqi all the way to Beijing (which is another 48 hours or so).  We managed to get train tickets from Kashgar to Urumqi, but the train tickets from Urumqi to Beijing were all sold out, unless we wanted to stand for 48 hours (and you can imagine how we felt about that prospect).  We decided to see what kind of discount airfare we could get.  Urumqi to Beijing was pretty expensive (about 2,000 RMB or $300, if I remember correctly), but there was a flight to Xi'an for less than 1,000 RMB.  Xi'an is one of the main train hubs in central China, and there are lots of daily trains to Beijing (taking 12-24 hours).  Drew and I also know a student from a Xi'an suburb, so we called Rayleigh up to see if she could help us out and buy our train tickets in advance.  Unfortunately, tickets from Xi'an to Beijing were almost entirely sold out, but Rayleigh managed to buy us one of the last tickets left--a standing ticket on the slowest (24 hours!) train to Beijing.  The ticket was a train leaving two nights after we arrived, so Rayleigh invited us to come hang out with her family for a few days.  We spent February 14th and 15th in Pucheng (a suburb of Xi'an) with Rayleigh and her family.  This was still during spring festival, so we got to meet all sort of aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents.

The ancient pagoda of Pucheng.

Drew and I with Rayliegh and her parents.

Rayleigh with her mom, two aunts and two cousins.

When we arrived in Beijing, Drew headed back to Qinhuangdao to start his classes.  I still had a week, so I headed to Handan to visit two students.