Red Leaves Valley

On Saturday, Jenny, Matt, Kevin and I trekked to Jiaohe, which is about 1 1/2 northeast of here to check out the Red Leaves Valley. Unfortunately, we arrived a little bit too late, umm, like by 2 weeks. All of the leaves had hit the ground. On top of that it was SO cold! Nevertheless, we made the best of it and had a great walk. We managed to avoid the 50 kuai entrance fee, which was absurd since there were no red leaves to speak of and that barely anyone was visiting the valley. I'm a wimp when it comes to being an icicle, so I kind of complained alot, but in a good way. The pictures are courtesy of Matt's camera, as my hands were frozen and couldn't be bothered to push a button.


I have to admit that I didn't believe people when they told me that winters here would be bitterly cold. Now, I have seen the light: IT'S COLD! (and we're only in October!) I heard from Jenny that the heat would be turned on the 25th, so I'm excited, but I can't complain. The sun warms up my room (when it's not being obscured by clouds), and is decently warmer than Kevin's room across the hall.

Anyhoo, I start my legal English course tomorrow and am kind of nervous about it. I think it'll be an interesting class and I'm glad to be teaching another course, especially since its with undergrads. Hopefully, my seniors won't be to ill with senioritis.

Chopstick Faux Pas

Oh my! I've had a penchant for leaving my chopsticks upright in my dish, which is a no-no here. By leaving them sticking up in my food, I am imitating the scene of incense burning at a funeral, which does not bode well for my meal-mates. Kevin always points out whenever I do this, stating, "James has a death wish for all of us". I can't help myself; it's more convenient to rest them in my food, but then again, I enjoy my friends' company. For more big travel no-no's, check out this article.

Speaking of chopsticks, the other night, the four Jilin guys and my friend, Jenny, were out at a dumpling (jiao zi) restaurant, which by the way, is our most favorite food. As the steaming dumplings were being placed on our table, amidst the pre-packaged dinnerware (showing that everything has been sterilized), beer, and condiments consisting of garlic, soy sauce, vinegar, and hot sauce, each of us were prepping our little area for the onslaught of dumplings. We've all gotten into the habit of mixing Chinese and English, Chinglish (analogous to Spanglish). Thus, I wanted to say, "Where are my chopsticks?" so I said, "wo de kuzi zai nar?". Everyone gave me a funny look, and I realized that I said, "Where are my pants?". I figured if I didn't know where those were, I shouldn't be in public.

Why?!?

This was a desperate plea, in Chinese nonetheless, that exited my mouth at the customs office today in Changchun. Why? Why do I have to pay almost 400 dollars for my computer? In response, I got a mocking 'Why' back at me in English, and several customs officers chortling at my plight.

My computer crashed about a month ago and UVM graciously sent me a loaner computer via UPS. I received a phone call yesterday informing me that my I had a package in Changchun, which about 1 1/2 hours northwest of here. I confirmed many times that I had to travel to Changchun to pick it up and that they would not be delivering the package to me. Thus, I embarked on an adventure this morning with my compatriot, Jim.

It seemed that the gods were smiling down on us, as we jumped on a bus that immediately left for Changchun. Things were moving like clockwork. We finagled a taxi to customs, otherwise known as 'hai guan' in Mandarin. However, as soon as I walked in, everyone was walking in the wrong direction. Ops, we arrived at break time, 11:30AM. I was on the phone with my would-be package deliverer and my friend, Jim, heard me exclaim, "huh, Xiu xi!" which means break, and in China, it means siesta until 1:30.

We did the best we could and explored that part of the city, which is 4x the size of Jilin; about 4 million people live there. We found some pretty neat stuff including: a Chinese-version of a breakfast burrito, a fried egg with potato-like hash, some magical Chinese sauce, veggies and a man de-feathering 2 pigeons and leaving the carcasses on some fresh cabbage heads and a hospital called: Modern Male Hospital: where the trendy get their medical care.


We returned to the customs office and met up with a short woman in a black trench coat, who reminded me of the clothing designer in "The Incredible," because of her spunk and sassy attitude. I had a good amount of fun with her, notwithstanding being computerless upon exiting.

Man, did we have some language difficulties, but we were putting on quite the show for everyone in the room. At first, I couldn't believe how much they wanted me to pay in taxes. It was great, I was pulling out all my Chinese vocabulary: "that's so much!" "What am I going to do?" "How about if I just change the broken computer that I have here for the one in the airport and call it a day?" Well, I didn't say, "call it a day," but I did ask if I could just exchange it so I wouldn't have to pay. She laughed hard at me. I thought it was a good sign, but it didn't get me anywhere.

In the end, I left with only her phone number and bank card number so that I could deposit my payment in her account. Its sounds a little fishy, I know, but she's good people. I'm going to try to haggle the price down by using my resources here. If not, my contact at UVM told me to have them send it back because I should not be paying close to $400 for it. What an adventure! I'm pretty happy that I was able to somewhat communicate in this customs debacle; I'm a little sad that I am still bereft of a computer, *tear*, or rather that I don't have a functioning computer.

PS: It was flurrying today in Changchun, *double tear*
PPS: It was very, very cold today, *triple tear*

马马虎虎 （Ma-Ma-Hu-Hu）

I've learned the bestest phrase the other day "ma-ma-hu-hu" (马马虎虎). Literally, this means horse-horse-tiger-tiger, but in conversational Chinese, it is used as describing something as 'so-so.' When it is used to describe a person, I believe that it means 'sloppy' or 'unkempt.' I've been finding great pleasure in repeating this phrase; I think the novelty will wear off soon, but in the meantime, everything will be 马马虎虎.

For those bibliophiles out there, I highly recommend these two books: "The Memory Keeper's Daughter" by Kim Edwards and "Eats shoots and Leaves" by Lynne Truss.

The first novel is poignant story about a doctor in the 60s who ends up delivering his wife's twins and deciding to send away one of the infants because she is mentally retarded. The novel then whisks you through the parallel lives of each child and their families. It's wonderfully descriptive and a compelling story. I couldn't put it down and literally stayed up until 2AM to finish it.

"Eats Shoots and Leaves" is a light-hearted, humorous and much needed book in society today. Its a great crash course into the sometimes frightening, yet extremely interesting world of punctuation. I get excited about things that sometimes raise eyebrows; however, this is a fun way of learning! Aren't you afraid to use semi-colons? I've always been apprehensive about plopping ';' into my writing. Fear not! This book breaks down the mystical dots, commas and whatnot into easy-to-understand language. Plus, I learned that Starbursts used to be called Opal Fruits, who knew!?

And we have water, hooray!

During the past 1 1/2 months, on random days, our water supply has been cut off. Not to worry, its usually only for a day; we get advanced notice, either from our American buddy, Fr. Jim or from the front desk staff which undoubtedly leads to confused looks on both of our parts and repeated explanations. Its actually quite amusing as the dates and times always are in flux. It's always a pleasant surprise when you go to wash your hands and poof!, water flows out of the faucet in jetting spurts.

I've become accustomed to these water blackouts and the night before, I fill up my small tub of water and hope that the water comes back on. We've even named the first flush of the day a freebie since there's water stored in the square thing (I forget what it's called, or did I even know the name before).

Over the weekend, I learned how to play Chinese Chess (xiang qi) and Ma Jiang, both fun games and challenging. Chinese Chess involves tanks, cannons, elephants, rivers and more! The game is analogous to Western chess in terms of specific pieces having special moves and whatnot; but, I feel its a bit more complex and tricky.

Also, I have discovered that I am replacing Spanish brain cells with Chinese brain cells. For the life of me, I could not remember how to say "there!" in Spanish (Ahi) and all that kept popping in my head was a resounding 'NA!' Ugh! I'm not sure what to make of my waning Spanish ability and my growing Chinese. Nevertheless, I think if I immersed myself in a Spanish-speaking community again, I'd rejuvenate mi espanol!

Final Part: Chang Bai Shan (White Mountain)

On Tuesday, the seven of us took a bus to Baihe, which is the town closest to the Northern entrance of Chang Bai Mountain, which is located in China's largest nature preserve. This mountain also holds a great deal of importance for Koreans and which 1/2 of it is located in N. Korea.

We got off the bus in what we thought was Bai He and began a search for a cheap hostel. We were immediately bombarded by several people offering lodgings and tours of Chang Bai Shan, but we broke free, except for one persistent gentleman. He hounded us for about 1/2 an hour but in the end, helped us find a family guesthouse for 15 yuan a night (2 dollars).

During lunch, we discovered that we were NOT in Bai He, but Tudou! D'oh! Nevertheless, the two towns are practically one city, so we were not that far off.

We ended up meeting the nicest man in China, who drove us around in his mini-van. We gave him an English name, Chuckles, because he was extremely jolly and pleasant mannered.

He drove us to Chang Bai Shan early in the morning and we began our journey up the mountain, which in 2000 won the record for a volcanic lake at the highest elevation. The pictures I've seen of Heaven Lake are spectacular and I was excited to see it in person. When we arrived at the peak, however, we were disappointed as we were greeted by a lake enshrouded in fog. Good thing we waited around because as the minutes passed, the fog began to dissipate and we had some gorgeous views of the lake.

(That's me!)

The rest of the day was filled with walking to different sites in the park: a Waterfall from Heaven Lake, small Heaven Lake, hot springs (where they boil eggs, corn, and funny pork sticks) and the Underground Forest. Pictures of all of it are in this sentence!

The following day was filled with a visit to a random sculpture park and this amazing card game that Jenny and Sherry taught us called: Red Tens! I think in total we spent over 15 hours on the trip playing this card game. It was like crack; we couldn't stop.

Now, I'm back in Jilin, ready to continue teaching medical English and start teaching my legal English class in a few weeks. I'm going to show 'Legally Blond' and leave it at that! (Just kidding) Its going to be an interesting class, as I do not know much about law, but will be well informed for my class!

Part 2: Tumen, China/N. Korean Border

Matt, Kevin, and I were debating on whether or not to stay in Yanji on Sunday because we also had Monday in Yanji with our friends who were coming in that evening. We trekked to the bus station to see about a trip to Tumen. With our broken Chinese, we were able to figure out that the next bus left in 40 minutes, but we couldn't buy the return ticket there. On top of that we weren't even sure if there was a return bus. D'oh! We said, "what the heck, we'll go and if we get back great, if not, there are places to stay there, probably."

Tumen is a border town between China and N. Korea and was pretty amazing to witness. I think after hearing all about or rather not hearing much about this country, to actually visualize N. Korea was surreal.

We couldn't glean much about N. Korea from Tumen, but Matt and Kevin paid 2 yuan each to look at the opposing border town through telescopes and binoculars. From their reports, the buildings looked monochrome and during the night, it was pretty much pitch black.

Along the river, there were alot of touristy gimmicks, so we did them! We paid 20 yuan to cross 1/2 way across the bridge between China and N. Korea; and rode a 3 person tandem bike, which was in shabby condition; but we were able to pull of a 360 turn without falling over.

The rest of the pictures from Yanji and Tumen are here: click me!

We were able to get a train back to Yanji to meet up with our friends at midnight and continue our travels to Bai He, which is right next to Chang Bai Shan, China's largest nature reserve.

National Holiday Triology: Part 1: Yanji

I've returned to Jilin after a week of travel to Yanji, Tumen, and Chang Bai Shan. Its been a great, but tiring week; as soon as I stepped out of the Jilin Train Station, it felt good to be back 'home.'

I last reported that on the beginning of our journey that I was going to stand for 7 hours. This turned out to be a rumor and all three of us ended up finding a seat amongst the passengers. So sadly, I didn't build any character, but I was well rested and pleasant upon arrival.

We arrived in Yanji and started the short trek to our lodgings. As we passed the buildings, dodging cars in the streets, I definitely was reminded that we were in China, but also it felt quite different from Jilin. Since Yanji is the capital of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, all of the signs are in Chinese and Korean. Furthermore, there is a huge Korean population in the city, which contributes to the mix of Korean/Chinese food everywhere.

The afternoon was spent exploring the city. We found a park which sadly had animals in minuscule cages. There was a tiger and a cheetah, right next to each other, with barely enough room to walk around. The cheetah was pacing back and forth, which Matt and Kevin said was probably due to the poor animal's suffocating space causing him/her to go crazy. I was quite disturbed by this maltreatment, so I suggested to come back later in the night for Mission: Liberation. I was reminded that these carnivores are probably famished and would eat their liberators; Mission: Liberation, aborted.

Dinner was spent at a Korean BBQ place which was fun because we got to grill our own food. It was analogous to roasting smores over a campfire, but instead with meat on a stick and in my case garlic cloves and fishballs, which I tried to order more of after the first batch. However, each time I tried to say, in Chinese, 'fish,' then 'white fish' while motioning my hands into a ball formation; and then I gave up because instead of a frozen, half spherical fishball, I got donkey and then some funky fish skin thing.

In my typical clumsy fashion, I was jumping up on to a step and proceeded to trip and gouge my knee on the corner of the step. That pretty much ended our night on the town and I tended to my gushing wound which I think looked alot worse than it really was and I'm glad to report that I'm healing well with no signs of infection.