Escape from Beijing - Tianjin

Sorry it’s been such a long time since my last update!  Time flies by so fast now I can’t believe it’s been over 2 weeks since my last post.  Things have slowed down a bit so I feel like there’s less to fill people in on… and I’m lazy haha.  But I’ll go with my first reason since that sounds better :P

Last weekend, I went with some friends to a city outside of Beijing called Tianjin.  It’s to the southeast of Beijing on the Bohai Sea.  It’s a historic city that apparently is the largest industrial base and trade centre in northern China.  It was a gorgeous city and the architecture was amazing.  It had a much more European feel than any place I’ve been in China so far.  The only thing that detracted from it was how bad the pollution was.  I didn’t think anywhere could be worse than Beijing, but man was I wrong.  Maybe because it’s an industrial city so there’s more pollution?

Pollution ... blegh

On my trip to Beijing I got to experience the high speed train for the first time!  We took it from Beijing to Tianjin and it only cost 55 RMB (~$9) each way!  It was different from my other experiences with trains so far in China because the high speed train is newer and cleaner.  We were at Tianjin in 30 min!  I can’t even fathom how fast it must have been moving because being inside the train, you really can’t tell at all.  

When we got to Tianjin, our first stop was an area that was called the “Italian Style District.”  It was essentially an area with Italian inspired architecture and “Italian” food.  At least the Chinese take on it.  From my experiences eating in Beijing so far, different culture’s food here tastes just a littttttle bit different from what it should be.  It was interesting getting to walk around and see the buildings and whatnot.  We ended up eating Thai food in the “Italian Style District.”  Kind of ironic but none of the Italian food looked good :P.  And the Thai food ended up being pretty tasty!

Italian Style District

Yummy Thai food

We also got to visit an area called Gu Long Da Gie.  Which is essentially a long street with a whole bunch of shops and food stalls lining it.  China is fillllled with these!  Nothing too different from what we’ve seen before, but always fun to walk around.  We mostly wandered our way through the city since we didn’t really have a set plan on what to do while we were there.  We probably should have… because after we returned, we realized there were a couple more popular sites that we missed out on.  However, right before we got back to the train station to head back to Beijing, we got to see a really pretty river with gorgeous buildings lining it.  It was nice to end our trip there with such a nice view.

Entrance to Gu Long Da Gie

Night view along the river

 One thing I've noticed while being here is that there are surprisingly a large population of Koreans here in China.  And Tsinghua especially.  So there is a lot of Korean food and Korean supermarkets around  Tsinghua.  The food I've tried has been pretty tasty so far (Bibimbap!).  I was in the Korean supermarket a while ago and saw some interesting things...

Cream Soda with milk sound tasty to anyone?

How about Korean spam?

Or maybe silkworm pupa?

Fall is in the air

Brrr, it’s gotten a lot colder here in Beijing.  Highs are around the mid 60s and it gets pretty chilly at night.  A couple nights ago, it was 39 degree F.  Even though I’m from Minnesota, I do not like being cold so I have been bundling up like crazy.  Good thing I brought a lot of long sleeve clothes.  The weather changed so fast.  A couple weeks ago it was still shorts weather.  

Onto what’s been going on in my life! This past weekend a friend of my performed in a cultural festival at Tsinghua University.  The school had organized the event as a way for Chinese students and International students to learn about each other’s culture, traditions, and cuisine.  My friend is from Myanmar and I got to see her perform a Burmese dance, which was pretty cool.  It always intrigues me how different cultures use intricate hand movement a lot in dancing versus their body.  I know especially in Indian dancing, a wrong hand sign can mean completely different things.  The Korean association on campus also performed Gangnam Style at the festival and I was blown away.  They had a guy dressed up to look exactly like in the video, and everyone performing knew all the dance moves.  It was crazy! I wish I was able to get a good picture, but I wasn’t in the front and we all know I’m vertically challenged so I didn’t get a good shot :P  I got to walk around to see the different booths representing different countries.  It felt like I was back in the US for a bit, especially because each booth had free food!  Even Chinese students know that free food brings in college students haha.  There was an American booth, but it was a little sad looking.  They had peanut butter sandwiches to showcase American cuisine which I found really amusing.  Peanut butter is expensive here though.  A small jar of pb can easily be $5-6.

Free Korean food!

American booth with our pb sandwiches

Burmese dancing

Another interesting thing I’ve noticed here is that milk is unrefrigerated.  When I first got here, I didn’t drink milk at all because I was worried I’d get really sick from it.  But after talking to a couple people, they have told me that milk is treated differently here.  They do some flash heating thing that makes it so that milk doesn’t necessarily need to be refrigerated and can even last six months (isn’t that crazy?!). Apparently this is done in other countries as well, who knew?  I tried unrefrigerated milk a couple days ago, and even though it tasted a littleeee bit odd, overall it was still good.  And I’m still here and not sick, so I guess it’s not bad to drink!  

This past week has been the most relaxed for me by far.  Because there is so much to do in Beijing, any free day I had, I usually had plans to go somewhere and see something.  Now I’ve been able to do a lot of the things in Beijing (although I’m sure there’s a ton more to see) so the focus is a bit more on school.  What has surprised me being here is that even Chinese students at Tsinghua University can be slackers! Who would have known?? I thought all Chinese students here would be pretty good about not procrastinating and doing quality work.  However, in my Financial Management class, I had a group project with a couple other local Chinese students.  The deadline for them to send me all the information so I could compile it by Monday for class was 12am on Sunday (between sat and sun).  I still hadn’t received all the parts by Sunday night!  It was beyond frustrating trying to go around getting everyone’s part and it reminded me of being back in Carlson :P.  Lesson learned, all college students are somewhat the same.  There are some good students and some bad students everywhere haha.  Another surprising thing is that they don’t require citations here at Tsinghua!  When I was compiling the paper, the parts that people were sending me were clearly taken directly off a website and copy pasted into the paper.  Some of my group members hadn’t even bothered to change the font to match the rest of the paper so it was even more obvious.  It made it really difficult to compile everything because it would be hard to make sense of things they were trying to say because they had just pulled it out-of-context from a scholarly article.  But I guess its ok at Tsinghua because no citations are necessary?  I found it very odd that plagiarism is not looked down upon here.

I had sushi in Beijing!  I had heard some people warning me not to eat fish in Beijing because of bad chemicals in the fish and whatnot (although looking back I’m not sure that’s true), but I had a really bad sushi craving recently so my friend Sara and I went to get our sushi fix!  It was really yummy! And really cheap!  We got three rolls and a piece of sashimi and it only cost us 52 RMB (approx $9)!  That’s about the same cost as one roll back in MN or even less than a roll! Mmm mmm mm.  My tummy and wallet were both satisfied =)

Food Adventures

The Mid Autumun Festival break has now ended so that means back to school/ work for all of China.  I enjoyed the break so much, I was not looking forward to going back to class on Monday.  But anyways, things have somewhat slowed down here in Beijing as I don’t have any plans to go anywhere sightseeing like I usually do.  But in lieu of that, I have been eating a lot of reallllly good food.  Which is what this post will be about.  FOOD. It’s everyone’s favorite topic, right? It sure is mine =D  I will shamelessly admit that sometimes when people post pictures of their trips, I will skip all the pictures of the sights they’ve seen and jump straight to the ones with food.  Then maybe after seeing those I’ll go back and look at the others.  Yes, I do that.  Don’t judge.

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, as of yet, I’ve found the food in Beijing to be somewhat below my expectations.  I really want to visit Hong Kong and try their food as I’ve heard it’s amazing, and I want to visit Sichuan for some spicy food!  From what I’ve noticed, noodles and bao zi are pretty popular here.  There’s also this one type of street food that I’ve seen around that I really want to try.  It’s called jian bing.  When they make it, the cook spreads a pancake like batter on a circular flat iron and cracks an egg onto it.  They then flip it over so the egg is cooking on the other side and slather on a bunch of different sauces and pastes, and depending on who is making it, they put lettuce, cilantro, onions, etc. on it as well along with a thin fried piece of dough.  It always looks sooo good but I’ve usually seen it after I’ve eaten so I still have yet to try one.  I will report back when I do!  You can see a video of what I'm talking about below.

Anyways, back to Beijing.  I’ve been asking around to see what kind of food Beijing is known for here and the answer I usually get is Beijing Duck (which is apparently the same as Peking Duck).  So this past weekend, a couple friends and I went to go try it.  Usually eating Beijing Duck is pretty expensive as I’ve heard of people paying over 250 RMB for a meal (~$45) which is expensive comparing it to the fact that you can get a full meal for 6 RMB (~$1) in China.  However, our meal only ending up costing us 36 RMB (~$6)!  And it was pretty tasty for the price.  We ordered a Duck set, an eggplant dish, and a pork dish.  

Eggplant with green peppers

Pork dish

Duck side dishes

The star of the meal... Duck!

While we were there, they had a party room right next to our table where a huge group of guys were having some beer filled party or something.  Everyone in that room must have been very drunk as we heard shouts coming out of the room all the time and every couple minutes the doors would open and a red faced, barely can walk guy would come out and stumble around.  It was a somewhat amusing, slightly sad sight to see.  I don’t think one sober guy walked out of the room that night.  Oh, and it was only like 7:30pm.  The Asian guys get the party started early!  Some of the guys looked realllllly young too.  There doesn’t really seem to be a drinking age here in China as I’ve never seen anyone denied alcohol, even if they look pretty young.  I’ve also never been carded in bars or clubs which I know for sure I would back in MN.  Oh, the good and bad of China =P

Onto my next delicious meal!  I had been hearing people talk about a coffee place with good waffles and French toast called Maan Coffee.  So my friend Sara and I went to go try it out.  They had plastic displays of the food they offered in their display cases and it all looked really yummy!  I wasn’t in the mood for something too sweet this time, but the next time I go I’m going to have to try a chocolate waffle with ice cream. MMMM, CHOCOLATE.  However, this time I settled with the Strawberry toast which was essentially a big block of bread (yum!) with some strawberry swirl in it topped with strawberries and sweetened condensed milk.  I was a very happy, sugar high girl when I finished.  The decorations in the coffee shop were really cute too and when you ordered they gave you a teddy bear to help the waiters identify you when your food was ready.

Display case.  Doesn't it look good?!

Mmmmmm

Onto my last food adventure this week.  Being here in China, it wouldn’t be right if I didn’t try something a little of the ordinary.  One of my friends mentioned how he had recently tried Donkey meat.  When I first heard it, I was instantly against the idea of trying and didn’t think too much of it after.  But I mentioned it to another friend of mine later, who is really open to trying new things, and she really wanted to try it.  She convinced me to go with her, and I’m happy she did.  The restaurant we went to was a small shop that specialized in only Donkey meat as almost item on the menu included it.  We ended up ordering a Donkey sandwich for each of us (which was only 4 RMB! (~$0.70), and a big Donkey meat soup that had napa and clear noodles in it.  I first tried the sandwich.  I took a deep breath… and took a big bite.  It tasted like… meat haha.  And really tasty meat at that!  I can’t really describe it but either the meat itself or the seasoning they use on it made it taste really good.  The soup was delicious as well.  Lesson learned from this meal is that I need to be more open to trying new things.  Maybe the next time I talk to you guys, I’ll have tried dog! (Just kidding!! Dog lovers please don’t kill me)

The name of the restaurant was literally "Donkey Meat Restaurant"

Donkey noodle soup

yummy Donkey sandwiches

Here in a China, you see a lot of weird things.  Many times, I just accept it or turn my head and keep walking.  But there’s something I’ve been seeing around China that I can’t help but laugh every time I see.  They are these weird hat things that people wear.  They’re made out of paper and originally take on the shape of larger toilet paper tube.  However, the ends expand so that they can fit over your head.  This invention makes absolutely no sense to me.  It doesn’t block the sun or rain as there are holes in the paper once it expands and it would not be a good fashion statement as they are a bright, multi-colored contraption.  I couldn’t help but take a creeper shot so you guys could see what I am talking about.  What do you guys think?

Mid Autumn Festival = Trip to Pingyao + Xi'an

Happy Mid Autumn Festival!  It's an excuse for all of China to take a whole week off of school/ work and eat yummy mooncakes :D  For my break from school, 7 friends and I went on a 5 day trip to Pingyao and Xi'an. We took an 12 hour train ride in a sleeper car from Beijing to Pingyao.  It was quite the experience being in a sleeper car for the first time and it was actually pretty comfortable! (minus the random sudden breaks and creaking noises from the rails)

bed in the sleeper train

Pingyao turned out to be a pretty interesting place to visit.  It is well known because it is one of the best preserved ancient cities in the world dating back to the Qing dynasty.  We definitely got that feel when we visited as the city wall surrounding Pingyao was still intact and buildings inside of the wall were very well preserved.  Inside the city, you can pay 75 RMB (~$12)  and get a pass to see any of the museums they have.  They had a variety of different museums dedicated to weapons, banks, currency, and newspapers just to name a few that you could visit.  They also had a lot of temples with Buddha statues.  The food in Pingyao was surprisingly delicious!  Especially compared to the food I've had in Beijing, I found the food in Pingyao to be more unique and tastier.  I've also discovered a love for eggplant!  I wasn't the biggest fan of it back in the US, but they cook it differently here and always have a sauce with it that makes it super tasty.

City streets inside Pingyao

Inside one of the museums

Pingyao special noodle dish

During this entire trip, we stayed in hostels.  I have never stayed in hostels before but after this trip, I don't see why everyone doesn't just sleep in hostels!  The ones we stayed in were really nice and totally worth it since each of us only paid about $10/ night.  The owners at the hostel we stayed at in Pingyao even provided us a home cooked breakfast each day we were there.  The hostels we stayed in at Xi'an were even nicer.  The had tasty food, clean rooms, spoke English, and just had good service all around.  You can easily meet young people from all over the world as well because so many different kinds of travelers stay there.

Entrance to our hostel

Home cooked breakfast at our hostel

Our bed at the hostel in Pingyao

After two days in Pingyao, we headed to Xi'an.  It turned out to be quite an experience as we took an 8 hour private bus ride over and had multiple questionable instances.  One included being stopped by the Chinese police because our driver seemed to be driving with an outdated identity card and the second included having our driver go up the wrong way on a ramp to the freeway into incoming traffic.  But we made it safely to our second hostel! =)

Going from Pingyao to Xi'an was a pretty drastic change.  Xi'an is much more modernized and had an overall very different feel from Pingyao in terms of surroundings, people, and food (which was definitely not as tasty as Pingyao).  Xi'an is most famous for the Terra Cotta warriors and of course we had to see them.  For about 270 RMB (~$45) the hostel was able to arrange transportation, a tour guide, and entrance into the warrior sites.  It was pretty crowded when we went to visit because we visited on the actual day of the Mid Autumn Festival.  However, we were still able to see everything.  When I first heard of the Terra Cotta Warriors, I pictured having to walk down dirt roads and into a cave or something to see these warriors.  Instead, China has built these huge buildings over all of the warriors and made it more of a museum type thing instead of leaving it in it's natural environment.  It had a really touristy feel which detracted from it somewhat, but I'm still glad I was able to experience it.  Also, having a local tour guide with us to explain more about the warriors made the experience more educational and we were able to take away more than we would have just walking around.  For example, we learned that all the workers who helped create the warriors were killed after it was all constructed.  Also, that the person who discovered the warriors was a farmer who was originally digging for a well and was only compensated 10 RMB (~$1.50) for discovering it (the poor guy got ripped off).  

Our tour guide with her cute teddy bear on a stick to let us know where she was

Kneeling archer

Pit #1 of 3 - This was the most impressive one out of all them

Dome covering the soldiers

While we were in Xi'an we also visited an area called the Muslim Quarter.  There was a lot of street food and shopping there.  I noticed that everything seems to be cheaper in Xi'an than in Beijing; at least for the goods sold at the stalls in the Muslim Quarter.  The street food in Xi'an was just ok.  I've been spoiled by the amazing street food in Taiwan so I have yet to be impressed by what I've seen in China... I need to lower my standards :P A big thing in China for street food is meat kabobs.  Every stall puts a special seasoning on the meat and then grill it.  The night we went to the Muslim Quarter was crazy.  Since it was the night of the Mid Autumn Festival, there were a ton of people there.  Just getting food took extra long and trying to keep the 8 people in our group together turned out to be a pretty difficult task.  Surprisingly, Xi'an didn't have any big celebration for the Mid Autumn Festival and fireworks are actually illegal in Xi'an during that time which was disappointing.  I've been envisioning the fireworks in China to be absolutely amazing since they were created here so I really want to see fireworks while I'm here.  In spite of that, in honor of the holiday spirit, our hostel we stayed at gave us free moon cakes!  So we still celebrated a little bit haha.

Wild Goose Pagoda with the world's biggest water fountain in front of it

One of the ubiquitous meat kabob stands

Muslim Quarter craziness

The Bell Tower in the center of Xi'an

Overall, I had an amazing time on my trip.  I had a great time with the people I went with and we got to see, eat, experience a ton of new things.  I need to keep pinching myself all the time when I'm in China to remind myself that I'm lucky to be experiencing everything and to make the most of my time here. 

So guys, I've made a life changing discovery here. Birthday Cake flavored Oreos.  They are absolutely DELICIOUS.  If you haven't tried it yet, do yourself a reallllly big favor and go buy some.  I'd even go so far to say that they're better than the original Oreos.  Yep, I went there.  While I've been in China, I've been trying to find new things/ flavors  that I wouldn't usually find in the US.  My first attempt almost scared me off from trying any new flavors.  I tried mixed berry flavored Oreos.  Definitely not one of my smarter decisions while I've been here.  Imagine an artificial gum flavor with hints of fruit creme.  Now pair that with an artificial chocolate flavored cookie.  I should have known better not to buy it. It was not good guys.  I should have chosen one of the other flavors such as green tea, vanilla milkshake, or mango (actually another fruit flavor would probably be just as bad).  After the mixed berry experience, I really hesitated buying any more Oreos.  However, in need of a snack for the train rides around China I decided to give Oreos one more try with a safe sounding flavor, Birthday Cake.  Sooooo good.  You're welcome in advance ;)