I Fell in Love

...with a two year old Chinese boy at Zhongshan Square in Dalian. It started over pigeons. A couple who was leaving the park gave me their bag of pigeon food. Seconds later, I was attacked by pigeons. They were standing on my head, my shoulders, my back. I was screaming and laughing all at the same time. I think that's what hooked him. Along with the 20 or so other Chinese who gathered around to laugh at Anna-Lina and I, the boy started giggling uncontrollably as he watched me try to escape the attack of the pigeons. He followed me around the park for at least an hour, and he blushed when I gave him the pigeon food because I had had enough pigeon scalp massages for the day. Single friends, write this down: the quickest way to a two year old man's heart is to scream and laugh while being attacked by pigeons and give him pigeon food. He'll be yours forever.

We went to another famous park in Dalian, Laodong Park. Here, we saw a Chinese woman walking a cockatoo on a leash...only in China! There was a small ski park within the park, so we took the opportunity to go snow tubing and ice sledding. It was a great way to spend Christmas Eve day! Ski parks in the US would be heavily staffed with protective nets and pads everywhere. Not in China! We were left to ourselves at the snow tubing area, and until Anna-Lina crashed into an unprotected tree, we had a blast! We were clearly the first customers to try out the ice sledding 'ride' (see picture). The ride was basically blocks of ice that had been stacked in such as way as to form a slide. Anna-Lina got stuck in one of the lanes because it was too narrow for our western bottoms. I took the other one and slowly meandered my way down. Definitely not fast enough for me and it was way too cold!

Dalian is famous for its seafood, so we went to a highly recommended seafood restaurant for Christmas Eve dinner. Anna-Lina is standing in front of the restaurant's menu in the picture. Outside of Mom and I's sushi experience in Kyoto, Japan several years ago, I have never had such fresh, delicious and cheap seafood! We had mussels, shrimp and massive prawn/rock shrimp-type animals that were all fantastic, even though we had to deal with the psychological side of seeing our food swimming minutes before we were eating them!

We spent Christmas day mostly sleeping, reading and hibernating in our room. It snowed all Christmas morning, so we didn't want to be out and about in the weather! Also, we were tired because we didn't go to bed until 6 AM. We met some other westerners and decided together to party away our depression on being away from our families and friends on Christmas.

Our last excursion in Dalian was a 4 hour hike along the coast in the freezing cold! There were a few parks along the way and beautiful views of the coast and sea. We entertained the locals with our mock rock show along with some sculptures in Xinghai Park. We also were the subject of many stares as we took off our socks and shoes, rolled up our jeans and drank a beer while standing in the FREEZING Yellow Sea. It took a solid 30 minutes for my feet to warm up again, and I was only in the water for about 45 seconds! It was great to see water again, sit on the beach and watch the world go by. It would have been much better had I not been wearing thermals, jeans, 3 sweaters/jackets, gloves, scarf and a ski hat. Also, it would have been awesome if there hadn't been snow still on the sand!

All in all, it was a great trip and a nice way to survive Christmas away from home. I know that I won't miss another Christmas with my family again. At the end of the day, though, it appears that I'll have to come back home at least by next August so that I can coach the Gators unless Urban decides to come back! No solid plans for New Year's Eve yet, although there are several large parties going on around Beijing.

I hope that 2010 brings you the opportunity to realize your dreams, laugh with a stranger and experience something new. Happy New Year! Talk to you in 2010!

Merry Christmas and Fire Cupping!

Our class held a holiday luncheon and exchanged secret Santa gifts this week. I drew my favorite guy in the class, Michael, a hilarious Dane, as my secret Santa. I was really proud of myself for the gift I put together for him: a bucket (where I wrote "Michael's throw up bucket" in Chinese because Michael loves to drink) full of beer, candy, etc.- the perfect gift for any man. I also purchased a small fish container and a goldfish. I was saddened when I awoke the day of the luncheon to find the fish dead. So, Michael also got fish food, an empty fish container and a picture of his goldfish in my toilet.

After a long night of a Texas hold'em tournament at Michael's Friday night (I finished 2nd at my table!), I spent Saturday with Anna-Lina and a friend of her family who was in town on business. He lived in Beijing for 12 years, from 1982 to 1994, when the city was rapidly transforming itself to a modern city. He knew great restaurants, bars and a lot about the history of the development in Beijing. It was a fascinating private tour, and he paid for all of it! We went to one of his favorite Chinese restaurants located in a hutong (old Chinese community). The food was superb. Afterwards, we walked through the hutong on our way to his favorite night club in town for an after dinner cocktail.

I suddenly had to use the restroom, and the only ones available were public toilets which are located throughout the hutong. In a hutong, the community shares public toilets because the houses do not have their own.

As this was my first time in a hutong restroom, I was surprised to see two things: no doors on the stalls and a lady actually cleaning the holes in the ground. I hesitated a moment to see if the lady would stop cleaning. She did not. So, I stepped outside to ask Anna-Lina which way I was supposed to use the doorless stall. Behind out or in? (fair question, I thought). After her and her family friend had thoroughly laughed at my question, it was determined that I should go behind in. In I went. The lady immediately switched from scrubbing the hole next to me to mopping. I had to laugh because the mop actually brushed my shoes as I was going about my business. Mom, pack some Depends because you do not want to have to go through that when you are here!

At the night club, I was again struck by how quickly and drastically you can go from horrible to wonderful in China. I later used the restroom there, and it was by far the nicest restroom I have ever been in. There was only one toilet in a room easily 9x10, with mirrors all the way around, a lounge chair, dim lighting, excellent sculptures, and a western toilet with toilet paper!

I saw a sign several weeks ago over a western toilet (a rarity in itself here) that read, "please do not stand on the toilet" in Chinese and English. I laughed to myself thinking how ridiculous it would be for someone to actually think that standing on it was the proper way to use a western toilet. However, Tuesday night, I was having a beer with Michael and went to the toilet. Sure enough, there were foot prints on the western toilet seat. I couldn't believe it. Okay, enough about toilets for this week's blog!

Saturday night, I went to a 24 hour massage parlor with my friends Mike and William. For $14.78, I received a one hour foot massage, one hour body massage and 15 minutes of fire cupping. The picture is of the fire cupping on my back. Fire cupping has been in use in China since around 1,000 B.C. It's a technique where fire is lit into the glass cups, which are then immediately placed on your body, typically your back, for the purpose of helping to increase circulation and remove 'bad blood'. The cups create a very strong suction. It was quite painful, but after about 3 minutes, I had an uncontrollable urge to laugh. Mike was in the room with me and he warned me that it was dangerous to move a lot, which made me laugh even harder. They say that the darker the circles, the poorer your circulation. At any rate, I now have pink/red circles all over my back (17 to be exact). I can't really tell if my circulation is any better, but I think the uncontrollable laughter, as well as 2 hours of great massage, was worth it alone!

I hope that everyone has a very Merry Christmas! Anna-Lina and I will be flying to Dalian on Thursday morning and will be there through the weekend. I hope that North Korea doesn't get any crazy ideas because we will be very near the border! It's going to be weird to be away from home for Christmas, so I am excited to at least have a new city to explore!

Merry Christmas Everyone! Miss you!

Tai Shan

Despite the fact that I only have class 20 hours a week, I remain remarkably busy. I went to a networking event on Tuesday night with some classmates. The networking was not so great as they were recruiting mainly teachers and systems engineers, but the Thai food we had beforehand was fantastic! Near the Thai restaurant is the only Hooters in Beijing. I snuck in to check it out. Based on my research, I feel that the Hooters Girls in China are way more conservative than those in the States! I also said goodbye to my friend Chloe, who finished her semester and is now comfortably back at home in Kansas.

I had originally planned for Mom and I to take an overnight train once when she visits in February so that she could have that experience in China. There's no way in the world I would expose Mom to anything close to that after experiencing it for myself! Thursday, Mei Xian, Masami (Mei Xian's best friend from Japan) and I boarded an overnight train headed south for Tai Shan (Mt. Tai), about 6 hours south of Beijing. First, the train compartments reek of smoke, and it is too cold here to open the windows. I HATE CIGARETTES and almost everyone in China smokes! There are 6 beds, three on each side in a space just slightly larger than a handicapped bathroom stall. Masami and I were on the middle and top bunk (picture), and Mei Xian was across from Masami. There were three Chinese men in the other three beds in our section. They all snored. Loudly. The 'soft sleeper' that we paid for was a bit of a joke, as it was not soft at all. Plus, the bed was just slightly wider than I am. Needless to say, I didn't get much sleep that night! On top of that, the restroom on the train was absolutely foul. I will do my best to avoid taking an overnight train again in China.

Not getting any sleep was not the best way to begin our hike up Mt. Tai, the highest mountain in east China. We started climbing at 7 AM. Six hours, 7 km or 6,660 stone steps later, we reached the peak of the mountain at 1,545 m or 5,068 feet above sea level. It was a gruelling climb nearly straight up at times. The weather was terrible, very foggy and very cold, with limited visibility. We got to the top completely exhausted. After lunch, there was a white out. Snow and ice covered the top of the mountain. I went straight to bed.

Luckily, the bad weather on Friday cleared overnight and we watched the sun rise with perfectly clear, albeit cold, weather. Mt. Tai is known in China as the place where Heaven meets Earth. After watching the sunrise over the clouds, I don't think the Chinese are too far off. It was breathtaking. Past Emperors of China would annually hike to the top of Mt. Tai to make offerings on behalf of their people. I did my first offering of incense in a temple on the top of the mountain for peace. At Dai Temple, I did a Chinese ritual and offering that is supposed to ensure that I have a happy and prosperous life for 100 years! Here's hoping those offerings work! It was great to get out of the hustle and bustle of Beijing and to actually see trees and smell fresh air again! If you ever visit China, I'd highly recommend visiting Tai Shan, but you may want to consider the cable car option!

We took a high speed train home, where I spent the day nurturing my sore knees and calves! I also wrote an essay for a competition that our school is sponsoring. My topic: Chinese men versus American men. Let's hope they understand my sarcasm!

Four S's

I checked off a lot of things off of my 'to do and see in Beijing' list this weekend. On Friday afternoon, our school sponsored a field trip for us to see the Beijing Opera. I have tried to think of something positive to say about it and all I could come up with is that they have very colorful costumes. I'm glad that I got to see it in order to form my own opinion, but I will never sit through something so painful to listen to again!

Friday night I finally made it to two of the most famous weird food streets in Beijing. I lined my stomach with a few Jameson's and pepto-bismals before arriving. Before trying any food, I needed a beer in hand to wash the foods down because the foods for sale in the market were crazy! I didn't realize that the vendor had already opened my beer, and I accidentally knocked it down, spilling it all over the skewered sheep's penis just to the right of the picture. That will definitely go down as something I never thought I would do!

I ate snake first. It was very chewy and didn't taste like anything in particular, but overall not horrible. The silk worm came next. It was crunchy on the outside and gooey on the inside. The picture is not a good one of me, but it accurately captures my reaction to my first and only bite! As soon as I bit through the crunchy shell, I started to gag. I chugged my beer to try and wash it down but couldn't do it. I threw up just a little bit near the food stand, and then once again at the edge of the street. I was teary eyed and had hard bits of silk worm shell stuck in my teeth. It was absolutely disgusting! Please, do not ever eat silk worm. I don't know how anyone could actually enjoy it!

We proceeded to another food stand where we tried sea horses and scorpions. The scorpions were still alive on the skewer before they were fried. They were actually pretty tasty. I'm not sure if you're supposed to eat the stingers, but I did. Ashley, Chloe and I were sharing the sea horse and I was the lucky one who got to eat the head. It brought back terrible memories of the salt water aquarium and sea horses that I had as a child. It was not that pleasant, but no where near as difficult to swallow as the silk worm! There was no rabbit tongue for sale at the market. Apparently you have to travel farther south to get that. So, when Mom comes to visit in February, she's in for a treat! I think we'll order the whole rabbit head to share!

On Saturday, Chloe and I ventured to Zhoukoudian, about two hours southwest of Beijing by bus, to see the Peking Man museum and dig sites. It was a very modern museum and had great information on all of the archaeological finds in China. The former dig sites were mostly in caves that are now open to the public. It was so cool to be able to walk through and picture our ancestors of up to 700,000 years ago living there. At the Peking Man site, the first evidence of man-made fire was found. I decided to try and do my own archaeological dig outside of one of the caves just in case they might have missed a tooth, skull cap or something. I didn't find anything.

I was at a nearby 24 hour cafe at 5 AM this morning to watch the Florida game on our laptops. I recruited people from Korea, Austria, Brazil, Denmark and England to watch the game with me and two other American guys. It was a lot of fun for us to explain the game to them. Unfortunately, once it was clear that Florida was not going to win, I was too frustrated to talk to them! I spent the rest of today hibernating and mourning the loss in my room.

I can't believe it's already December the 6th! How time flies when you're having fun!