Tough Test Times are Past

My midterms are all done as of yesterday and it could not have come to soon. The tests went better than expected but I am still not sure how well I have done. I excel at reading comprehension but am woefully inept at writing characters. My speaking is on par with others but still not where I want it to be after three months in China. The hardest test for me was the listening exam. The speakers would read questions, paragraphs, or numbers and we had to answer questions about them. They simply read too fast for me, but alas I think I did ok.

Off the Reservation

My classmate Anna and I are heading off the Hangzhou reservation tomorrow to the Mogan Mountains, Moganshan in Chinese. This is a resort town between here and Shanghai. My Chinese friend is taking us with two of her. Own friends for a fun weekend of exploration and KTV. Anna and I cannot wait for this much needed break from the monotony of study.

The Best of the Rest

The rest of our time here will be spent traveling to Shanghai, Beijing, Nanjing, and marketing in Hangzhou. Since we will it be attending finals here it feels as if the worst part of classes are behind us and we can focus on these more enjoyable tasks. We are over the hill and rolling on towards December and our return home. Yet, I find myself wishing I could stay longer. I have not begun to accomplish as much as I wanted to and fear my time is spent unwisely. But Hey, I am in China and I still can not believe it at times.

Parting Shots

I had another English class last week and as I we awaiting my twenty some students the scenery out the window caught my eye. Mountains shrouded in mist will surely be missed, the industrial wasteland, not so much.

Tough Times

I wanted to get in a quick update while I could. My midterm exams are drawing near and I fear my time is being divided between a great friend and a great challenge. I have found I am TERRIBLE at Chinese. I struggle daily with it and no matter how hard I try I seem to fall behind. But like any good Branion I simply put my head down and bull my way through it. I have some great teachers and even better Valpo professors looking out for me so I know I will get through it…

Not so Tough Times

China, for me, is a land of contradictions. Sometimes I want to run home shaking my head at the stupidity and backwardness I see, yet at other times I look forward to coming back. My Chinese friend Julia makes me forget the bad things and remember why I came here. I really do love learning all the little differences and exploring a very different culture. This always makes for good times!

Travel

My time of traveling is quickly approaching. I will be going to Beijing, Nanking, Shanghai, and hopefully the Moganshu mountains, a small resort town between Hangzhou and Shanghai. I have not traveled nearly as much as I wanted to so this will be some great times for me.

Oh my Lord, I have a free evening!
As busy as I am recently there is a rare free evening. But one may ask ‘what is there to do?’

Food

It is well known I am a connoisseur of fine foods. Hangzhou is full of restaurants with great budget friendly food. Our favorite is Grandma’s Kitchen. Here we enjoy a family style feast of fantastic foreign food. The food is tasty and the price is right, about $4-$9 a person.This is a chain of restaurants around China, if you see one give it a try.

Along with Grandma’s there are a myriad of cheap western cafes and of the really cheap Chinese shops, my personal favorite.

Fun

KTV, Karaoke TV, is HUGE in China. You and 20 of your closest friends or co-workers pile into a private room with a big screen TV, 3 mics, percussion instruments, and an all you can eat buffet for hours of fun. At $9 a head for 3 hours the price is right.

Friends

Let us not forget the most important part of China, your old and new friends. Below you will see me with a VU classmate, Dan, as we explore a temple. Then there I am at West Lake with a great Chinese gal I met.

你们好!

As you can see my Chinese is slowly improving. The above says ‘Hello Everyone.’ I thought I would devote this entry to the various sites around Hangzhou I have visited. I will try and be brief, as many of you know I can be long winded at times.

Beautiful Scenery

When I imagined China I never thought I would see so much beautiful scenery.

Here is a picture of Xi Hu (West Lake). The lake with the mountain ranges are a site for sore eyes after days downtown.

Temples

Scatter around Hangzhou are Buddhist and Taoist Temples. The most famous are atop mountain peaks with breathtaking views. Here I am at Baopu Taoist Temple overlooking Xi Hu.

Outskirts of Hangzhou

I most recently visited the National Tea and Silk Museums which are located in the most amazing mountain ranges and valleys I have ever seen. We traveled by bus for about an hour total and I spent the entire time entranced by the scenery. Here is a picture from the National Tea Museum. The museum itself was not worth the trip, but landscape and two well known restaurants next to it made the trip worthwhile.

When Do I Make Time?

Great thanks go out to our fearless leader Prof. Ostoyich. He has arranged for many of these excursions and comes armed with interesting facts and cultural context. Our class trips always open my eyes to more of China and serve to remind me what an amazing country this can me.
The remainder of the trips are made within our group of students on the weekends, usually via foot and most of the time partially lost. I must admit lately our adventures have fallen off as we find ourselves busy with classes.

I hope this gives everyone a little different picture of the China I experience daily. While at times I hate this place sites like these, and my Chinese friends, keep those times to a minimum.

Wushan Lu Night Market

I wanted to get this blog out quick as I had a very interesting night on Wednesday the 21st.

There are eight of us here and we do hang out a lot. I can usually be found with Alex exploring, aka walking, around Hangzhou or Shanghai. We are also know for our market trips and overall love of haggling. The three girls, Liv, Myra, and Anna, are also know to join the team. Somehow I have managed to acquire the nickname Mr. Bear and Alex is known as Koala Man for his deep devotion to Japanese Koala cookies.

On this particular night we made our second trip to the Wushan Lu Night market, Lu means road by the way, but do not get confused here, it is no longer on Wushan Lu. As always we had a blast, bought some gifts for people and had some amazing street food. This was my second experience with street food here, my first being an onion relish stuffed pita type pancake grilled inside an open oven. This time I found what looked like the Chinese version of a gyro. I was not disappointed! It was just darn tasty. I also found a potato pancake type item stuffed with onions, ground meat, and some veggy which an old lady deep fried. This too was absolutely amazing. Together this cost me $1.45, what a deal.

The Real Adventure Begins

We had six people with us so we had to take two cabs. Alex and I gave the first one to the girls and we patiently waited for a second one. So there we are, big Tim and small Alex, twiddling our thumbs with no empty taxi’s in sight. Have no fear, pedicabs are here though! Below is a picture of a manual pedicab, ours was powered by a very small Chinese man on an even small moped. Did I mention I am not a small person? Well I am not. Yet, this certain pedicab really wanted our fare. After arguing for a better price we SQUEEZED into this thing, Alex was a trooper. For about 15 minutes we sped through town, creaking, moaning, leaning, and with the fear of God in me. The cab driver felt the need to explain multiple times that I am a big guy, DUH! All the while weaving in and out of traffic.

After we get to our campus and climb out the driver is a little upset. He checks his cab for damages the big American might have caused then proceeded to scam us on the price, a whole other story. Long story short… Mr. Bear will never EVER ride in a pedicab.

Classes Begin

Today brings about my second week of Chinese classes. I have three total, listening, speaking, and grammar. My schedule leaves me time for study and exploring, except for Tuesdays when I am in class from 8-6. They are going well so far, my characters are almost legible, my vocabulary is progressing, but my speaking is terrible. I did to ace my first three homework assignments and my first two tests.

My first day of classes.

English Corner

My big event for the week was English corner this past Sunday. Xihu (West Lake) park six for the last 30 years has been the place to go Sunday mornings and afternoons to meet locals and for locals to meet Westerners. We ended up spending over four hours with some amazing friendly people, young and old. This is the China everyone told me about. Everyone was friendly, inquisitive, and a pleasure to meet. I found out my Tom Cruise blue eyes and partially grown beard drive the ladies into a frenzy!

Side Note

For anyone planning a trip to China, or a non-Western country, please remember to bring over-the-counter medicine. My Dad did a great job outfitting me but no one ever thought about the common cold. It has knocked me on my butt for the past week. I am feeling a little better today but am still on my diet of rice, South African oranges, and water.

Shanghai Bound

My travel Chief and I made our way to Shanghai this weekend and it was amazing. Now let me say we did not sightsee much, we shopped for suits. Alex did his homework and found the tailoring district along the Bund. We headed for booth 153, an expat favorite, and Alex haggled like a pro. He got a three piece suit for about $110. Next we headed upstairs for tailor-made shirts, handkerchiefs, and special buttons and cufflinks. All for the price of a cheap JC Penny suit.

After our shopping we headed up the Bund, an historic district, for a quick sightseeing moment.

Food Discoveries

Ok, if you have not noticed yet I have been eating my way through Hangzhou. The number of tiny cafes and coffee shops on every corner combined with great restaurants make for a great experience.

This week I stumbled into pastry heaven. We were forced to take a detour due to the Chinese President’s upcoming visit and dropped off a mile from campus. On our way back we hit gold! Sweet pastries are hard to find here and the pineapple turtle and peach danish were tasty!

Last but not let for this is my new cafe. The Vineyard has the largest wine cellar in eastern China and some great Chinese and Western food. The cabbage and beef dumplings were so good I ate it all before my camera could snap a proper picture.

Taxis’s

In an earlier blog I mentioned the incessant honking on our bus ride into Hangzhou. As it turns out this was not an isolated incident. Navigating in Hangzhou has proven to be a most interesting feat. Unlike in America not a single person yells or offers gestures while driving, they just honk. There are three types of honks, the ‘courtesy’ honk is a simple warning from approaching bikes, scooters, mopeds, pedi cabs, or motor vehicles to someone lower on the food chain that they are coming or passing and you should get out of the way. This is a simple beep beep, or ring ring. The ‘get moving’ honk’ is more of a longer beep that, while still polite, lets you know you should be either speeding up or moving of the way quicker. And the ‘Oh My Lord you are really upsetting the 1.5 billion drivers behind you’ honk is a series of long extending beeps informing the offending driver he has upset the Gods and will be punished for not moving fast enough or simply for hesitating a little to long.

Food

I learned the above lesson on our trip back from a famous restaurant named Lo Wai Lo. Frequented by Chaing Ki Shek and Richard Nixon, it has been open for more than 100 years in one form or another. Said to be the most expensive and most regionally true restaurant in Hangzhou it did not disappoint. Everything from Beggars Chicken, a whole chicken wrapped in lotus leaves and baked in a brick, to Dong Po Pork, semi-sweet pork fatback and meat served in a dumpling pancake, was mouth watering and after two and a half hours we could not have been happier. Below is a tasty dumpling!

And Fun

The entire experience so far has been great. I have spent the past three days walking around the city. We have ventured deep into a Walmart, see flickr for some interesting pictures, took a saipan onto West Lake, and visited my first Starbucks. At times it is easy to forget I am in China as city life has a very western feel if you do not look too closely.

This post is a lot longer than most as I am trying to cover a lot. The future posts will be a little more manageable. I just have had so many interesting things to talk about it is hard to pick what to write.

As always subscribe to the blog so you are alerted when I update it and keep checking out my Flickr album for photographical fun.

Welcome to the new site!

I’ve been out of touch with my blog the past month or so but have no fear regular updates will be forthcoming.

As I write this time seems to be slipping through my fingers. I feel it was just yesterday I sat here thinking what I would do for the four months before my trip to get ready. Yet, here I am with nine days of work left and only 16 days until I leave. Since we last talked I have been slowly amassing what I call my ‘China provisions,’ everything from q-tips to my MacBook Pro. I have read a lot of material from students and teachers who have taken this trip in the past and they all say less is more when it comes to packing. I just hope as I start packing this up I do not end up with 4 suitcases!

My Chinese lessons are slowly progressing… very slowly… My tutor tells me I am doing well but I feel so unprepared. I hope I can find some people at the university or in my VU group to venture out with and travel some. I want to see and experience as much as I can while I am there and a travel buddy would be indispensable. Have no fear though, if I must a will brave the wild accompanied with my wits and a Chinese English dictionary, and of course my camera. While I am not usually the photogenic type I promise the next four months will be full of pictures and videos for everyone to enjoy.

Anyways…August 24th here I come!

What I’ll love and hate about being away.

Admittedly, I know very little about China and Hangzhou aside from what Wikipedia has. I am looking forward to experiencing a different way of life. The city is supposed to be beautiful and Marco Polo described Hangzhou as the “finest and noblest city in the world.” From the gorgeous West Lake to the Immaculate Conception Cathedral of Hangzhou, over 400 years old, there are endless sights to see and activities to partake in. Zhejiang University is one of the top Universities in China and offers innumerable opportunities to expand my horizons. These, plus a myriad of other things, comprise the “Good.”

This weekend the Leusch Clan is assembling in Dayton to celebrate the upcoming birth of my niece Dorothy Back. I am overjoyed for my sister and brother-in law, and of course they know I am awesome and made me Dorothy’s Godfather. Throughout the week I have been thinking of what I am going to miss while in Hangzhou. My family is the first thing that comes to my mind. Their support has always been the rock upon which I depend on. I plan to share as much of my experiences with them as I can but they will surely be missed. I will lose out on four months of Miss Dorothy’s life and for this my sister and Tyson better send me lots of pictures and anecdotes! I am going to miss being able to take off for 8 hours to an old fashion arcade with a buddy and game until we drop. I know it’s rather pathetic but I going to miss my dog Hannah greatly too. The above, plus a host of other small things, comprise the “Bad.”

Now come the “Ugly!” Ah yes, what in the world am I doing? I will be spending four months in a country where I do not speak the language, with people I barely know. What can possibly go wrong?!? I have found I can not fixate on the unknowns, I can only prepare myself to the best of my ability and hope for the best. It is hard to not second guess my decision to travel halfway around the world, but so far I am holding out okay.

I hope everyone back in the States will continue to offer their heartfelt support and guidance while I am away. And for those who are able to post a comment or send a note to me while I am in Hangzhou I will be forever grateful.

Immaculate Conception Cathedral of Hangzhou