The Mom Chronicles: Dandong

Dandong is located right on the China/North Korean border. I guess I have an affinity to this particular border, as this is my 2nd venture to the border. One of the main sites here is the most eastern part of the Great Wall is found here, Tiger Mountain. It was great (...get it?) because we had the whole wall pretty much to ourselves, which was the complete opposite outside of Beijing. It was fabulous! I've been trying to incorporate the use of fabulous in the other guys' daily vocabulary, but it hasn't taken. But it was wonderful to see that little Dandong is using "fabulous."
The following day, we trekked to Phoenix Mountain, which was a short jaunt as we had to get back to Dandong to take a bus returning to Dalian to catch our overnight train to Haerbin.


Dandong Pictures

The Mom Chronicles: Dalian

When I told people I was going to Dalian, they said, "oh! why now? Its so cold!?" Indeed, it was cold, but not so bad, as its situated right by the ocean. Even though we spent a couple of days here, I really liked Dalian. The downtown was pretty compact and the shopping in the area was varied from high-end stores to bargain bins.

My mom and I found our way to a park with lots of cool statues and a enormous soccer (football) ball. Apparently, the Dalian football team is popular and during the summer, people crowd in the main square to watch the games on the huge TV screen.

This is the year of the mouse!Mom going in for the goal!

Even though it was not speedos weather, we found our way to the beach areas and had a pleasant stroll.

We had some great seafood dinners. We even ate at the same restaurant twice because the food was fabulous and cheap! Dalian Photos

The Mom Chronicles: Beijing

After I arrived in Beijing, I booked it to the Laos Embassy to get a visa because in February I am meeting Carolyn in Cambodia and we are making our way through some of the SE Asian countries. The security at the Laos embassy was very small compared to the U.S. Embassy in Shenyang. I just showed my passport and walked into the Embassy, filled out some paperwork, paid the fee and was given a slip to come back to reclaim my passport 2 days later.

Compared to what my friend, Alec, had to undergo for an Australian visa, it was effortless. I met up with Alec for lunch to catch up, as he is temporarily living in Beijing for a job. He is from Jilin, and his English is superb. He got a scholarship to study in England, which is very competitive. The program doesn't start until later this year, so he was planning to go visit his friend in Australia. He had to fill out a bunch of paperwork and go for an interview. Even though, he explicitly told the government officials that he already had plans to go to England and was only going to Australia to travel and had no plans of staying, they told him that he still might decide to stay and not go because the cost of living is cheaper than in England.

I felt bad that it was relatively easy for me as a US citizen to have the opportunity to visit almost any place that I want to, whereas he had to go through a whole ordeal, including flying to Shanghai for an interview, and still got rejected.

Anyhoo, I met up with my mom later that day and was very excited to see her. That evening, we walked to a row of night snack stands. They had everything from scorpion kabobs to stinky tofu (my fav!), called chou dofu (臭豆腐). Stinky tofu doesn't exactly elicit a mouth watering response, but its comparable to stinky (expensive) cheese.

On a side note, the character for stinky has an interesting explanation. The top character of chou is zi (自) which means "self" and the bottom part is da (大) which means big. So put them together and you have "big self" or someone who is arrogant: 自大. So no one likes anything stinky (besides stinky tofu and cheese) and no one like anyone who is arrogant, thus the character for stinky is combined from arrogant: 臭.

Eating a fried eggplant kabobMom signing the word deer and happens to be eating some too!

The next few days involved seeing all of the major sites of Beijing. We went to Tiananmen, Temple of Heaven Park, the Forbidden City, Lama Temple, a Tibetan temple and some other places. Everyday was cold, I am a wimp when it comes to negative Celsius weather, so I was always bundled up. At least our hotel room had heat!

On new year's day eve, we ended up joining this Chinese tour, which ended up being a disaster. I was warned beforehand about hokey tours, but I thought that it might have been legit. We went to the Great Wall, which was great but then they schlepped us around to places that tried to sell us jade, Chinese medicines and the deal was that the tour operators gets money from bringing in tour groups and makes a commission off anything that is purchased. C'est la vie. At least we made it out to the Great Wall.

New year's eve, we went out for a wonderful dinner. My mom was SO excited to see frog on the menu and she hadn't eaten it in ages. I'm not quite sure where I stand on eating amphibians, but I am sure that I wanted my mom to be happy, so we ordered it and I managed to eat a leg or 2. Beijing photos are here. Our chilly adventures continued the next day with a flight to Dalian...

Mom in China!

I've been traveling the past week with my mom who I met in Beijing this last Wednesday. I took an overnight train from Jilin on Christmas evening. It was my first experience on a hard sleeper train and it was not bad at all. It felt a little like a big slumber party, except that I didn't know anyone and I was afraid of my bags being stolen, which did not happen.

Thus far the weather has been frigid, to say the least, and I've felt like a Popsicle, trekking through the crowded streets.

We spent 5 days in Beijing and then took a flight over to Dalian (大连). Usually, a summertime destination, but again, its located in the 0 degree Celsius and minus club, so needless to say, while the beaches looked nice, we did not join the polar bear club.

Today, my mom and I took a bus from Dalian to Dandong (丹东). We ventured out to the most eastern part of the Great Wall.

I just wanted to give a quick update and I promise to write more about our adventures and post pictures.

Shenyang 沈阳

I've been sort of lazy about updating my blog, as I have been busy studying, teaching, and planning the next few months of traveling. As part of my prep for the future journey, I had to get more pages for my passport, which can be done in Shenyang, the capital of a province adjacent to Jilin province.

We had been meaning to take the train down to Shenyang, as there are other Maryknoll teachers located in the capital and visit them. Thus, Matt and I took the slow train down last Thursday, which translated into a 7 hour train ride, usually its 4, but it was the only train we could take at the time.

Shenyang is the fifth largest city in China and is 5 times the size of Jilin. While Shenyang does have some nice western perks, like Starbucks and Listerine!, it noticeably had more air pollution. I was so excited to find Cool Mint Listerine in a local drug store. I had given up my quest for the refreshing minty liquid and had resigned myself to sub-standard dental hygiene, but Shenyang has almost everything.

They even have a Carbohydrate-laden Great Wall!

One thing that Shenyang is lacking are things to do, which is not only a problem in this country, but as Patrick and Matt pointed out: its a major problem in most cities. The Shenyang crowd frequents the bowling alley, so we bowled our hearts out, 2 nights in a row.

Visiting the U.S. Embassy in Shenyang was an interesting experience and it was nice to be on American soil for a while, until we walked in; we were greeted unfortunately by the smiling faces of the leaders of our country. It was surprisingly easy to get more pages put in and we only had to fill out 1 form and wait. Our passports were returned with a bunch of pages, stuck in with scotch tape. It looks like a fourth grader put it in. Oh well, I hope its not confiscated at any border. Regardless, its a free service and was relatively stress-free, aside from the surge of disbelief and anger when passing those photos, twice.

Overall, I had a pleasant trip to Shenyang, but realized that I'm glad to be living out in the "country." When I first got to Jilin, I was overwhelmed with the size, the amount of people, but now it seems so small compared to Shenyang. Even though we don't have some Western amenities like Starbucks (I don't even go there that much, but its nice to have the option), I enjoy being in Jilin.

Birthdays Galore

The past week has been fairly quite, aside from my senior classes ending, and celebrating birthdays of two friends. I gave the seniors a short final and asked for feedback on the back of their test paper. I think one of the best comments was "James, you are my 2nd favorite foreign teacher. (Aaron is my first)." I thought it was a great compliment and felt very touched by her words, honestly. I heard a rumor that we would have the same students next semester, which bodes well for me, since, I really enjoy the students that I had.

Last weekend, I met Kevin's two friends, Monique and Jessica, who was celebrating her birthday. We had a nice, frigid stroll along the Song Hua River and ended in a bakery, sharing some cake and hot "chocolate." Along the way we found a pack (group?) of bull statues and enjoyed the sunset (which I think starts around 2 or 3 in the afternoon, *tear).

Our Korean friend, Joo also celebrated his birthday this past week. We went to this pretty fancy restaurant, where the "lazy Susan" was the epitome of lazy, it was battery operated! Anyhoo, the party was fun and as Matt said, "this place certainly has the best presentation of any restaurant in Jilin, I hope its not too expensive." Towards the end of our festivities, we played an infuriating game called, "two up, one up/one down, two down." Its actually an amusing party game which involves drinking, if that's your bag.

The birthday boy, Joo and his favorite cake
The spread on the self-rotating table
oddly colored vegetable shrimp and fish
Hooray! 好哇!

World AIDS Day

In preparation for World AIDS Day, I did a lesson on HIV/AIDS with my classes and showed the movie, "Philadelphia," which was well received. To be honest, I was surprised with how much my students already knew about HIV/AIDS and was glad to know that they were mostly well informed. Anyhoo, I just wanted to throw it out to y'all that World AIDS Day is this coming Saturday, December 1st. I am sure that there is an event: memorial service, candle light vigil, etc. happening near you. I found that this website has a list of events worldwide: World AIDS Campaign (Its listed by country in alphabetic order) or check local papers for events. Tell your family and friends and get involved!

Solitary Kidney

I have 2 classes of seniors and most of them are frantically searching for jobs, which entails shelling out money and shoving their way through different job fairs. It sounds pretty stressful as I am sure thousand of students are making their way through the job fairs in the region. Consequently, the other day, only 2 students showed up to my class because everyone else was wrapped up with job hunting. I didn't mind as this made for a very intimate class. The three of us went over some of the lesson I had prepared and we chatted about gender roles, life, and how the job search was panning out.

One of my students was telling me she was offered a job in the South. However, she was ambivalent about accepting because it is so far away from home and the high crime rate. I think the North's views are that the south is full of drugs, murders; basically, that its chock full of the seven deadly sins. She the proceeded to tell me that ubiquitous horror story, ending with someone in the bathtub full of ice, horrified to find that a kidney had been removed.

My students asked me if it was possible to survive on 1 kidney. I explained that our bodies would be able to handle living minus 1 kidney. Then, I thought this was cute; she asked me, "Won't that kidney become tired?"