June 13th, 2007
Today was quite the experience. We began the day with another amazing breakfast at the Jade Palace Hotel, which to everyone’s delight had lots of fruit, cereal, and bread. After a delicious meal, we were whisked onto our bus to yet another Jade Factory, although this one was much bigger than the last one, and the salesmen weren’t nearly as obnoxious. Despite the larger selection, no one bought anything, and we hopped back onto the bus and headed on to the Summer Palace. The Summer Palace was huge, and filled with tons of interesting sites. I think we ignored most of the more interesting sites and instead spent our time looking at rocks with holes in them, buying ice cream, listening to Cherry talking about the “Dragon Lady” and being harassed by/ harassing the people selling stuff. I think everyone now has some form of a fake Rolex or Gucci watch. Lesson number 1: Salespeople who are selling fake watches and purses are probably going to be giving out fake money as well. Too bad for Colin and Ben, who got owned by the salespeople and their counterfeit money. The counterfeit money was printed on like regular printer paper, and had a huge bold line going through the side of it. The rest of the day Ben and Colin talked about how much they wanted to pay one of the salespeople with the fake money… we’ll hear if Ben succeeds when he posts from his NCR internship. It was a long morning, and we were all happy about lunch… especially Li Laoshi, because we went to a strictly vegetarian restaurant. For our “last lunch” we ate several interesting things, like water lily seeds, white fungus, various types of mushrooms, “vegetarian” fish, and some other type of “vegetarian” meat. All of the food was really really spicy, so by the end of the meal, my face had turned a little bit red. As John said, we Irish don’t do spicy very well.
The next stop of the day was the Llama Temple. The Xiao Lin Temple was by far the coolest temple we’ve been to, but that was because of the ridiculous gongfu masters. The Llama Temple was better in a more spiritual way. We got to see the monks at their evening chanting, which was a little bit eerie and a little bit awing. We also saw this really intricate painting, which turned out to be a sand painting. The monks design this kind of artwork a few drops of sand at a time, using nothing but patience and skill. As Li Laoshi explained to us, this kind of artwork represents life; the second that you put all of that time and energy into the sand painting, life takes it away. Normally the monks destroy these as soon as they finish them, just to prove this point. Lesson number 2: Two thongs don’t make a right. Self explanatory.
Our final stop of the day was the Temple of Heaven. The entrance to the Temple of Heaven was like a Chinese Game yard. People were playing Chinese hackey-sack, Mah-Jong, cards, singing, dancing, doing some kind of aerobics with fans, throwing balls, playing Chinese badminton, and just generally lounging around. It was really cool to see some traditional Chinese games and hear all of the laughter in this park that led to the Temple of Heaven. The Temple of Heaven itself stood on top of a platform that was very windy. Because today was a cloudy day, there wasn’t very much light, so it was difficult to see inside it. Instead of spending much time looking at the Temple of Heaven, we instead looked at the stairs and decided to take pictures of ourselves jumping off of them… and filming a mock Rocky video, thanks to Colin and Mark. With the excitement that was the Temple of Heaven coming to a close, we journeyed on to our final destination as a complete group of seven. It was finally time for the Hong Qiao Market. Yay!
The Hong Qiao market was a fresh dose of Chinese salespeople. These people had every type of fake purse, watch, jewelry…if you wanted it, it was there. It was hilarious to see all of the foreigners who couldn’t speak Chinese try to bargain. They were like us at the very first Jade Factory we went to. “OMG, only 100 yuan!! That’s such a deal!” I moved on and watched as Kim and Julie got some great prices... for about 1/6 of the original price. Our bargaining skills have been fully honed. Our visit to the Hong Qiao Market was brief, but tomorrow the final four (Kim, Colin, Mr. Killmer and I) plan on returning to make more shopping ventures.
Our “Last Supper” was one of our best meals yet. Although slightly sad that we would soon be separating, we still had a little bit of time to savor the delicious sweet and sour fish, crunchy egg rolls, turkey in pineapple sauce, and, our all time favorite, white rice. This restaurant was so nice, they even gave us cold water!
Moving on, maybe *cough cough* you *cough cough cough* would like *cough* to *cough cough* know what a pi shu is. A pi shu is the son of a dragon. One of the nine sons of a dragon, to be exact. The pi shu is the brother of the bi xie, which, maybe you would like to know, is another very interesting creature. Lesson number 3: Smoking is a very unattractive habit that may inhibit your ability to speak smoothly.
But, really, the night ended on a sad note, with everyone saying goodbye to Julie and Ben as the left with their host families for the next two weeks. Lesson number 4: You can tell how good of a time you had if you’re sad when things come to an end. Lesson number 5: You can tell you won’t miss someone when you ignore their goodbye being announced over the microphone. Since I know the interns will be keeping this blog up to date: Good Luck you two, and be sure to facebook me and tell me how it’s going. Because the Final Four will still be asleep when John, Mark and Li Laoshi leave in the morning, we also gave them our final hugs goodbye. Lesson number 6: Coffee = Ka Fei, Cream= Niu Nai, Sugar = Tian. See you tomorrow!
Today was quite the experience. We began the day with another amazing breakfast at the Jade Palace Hotel, which to everyone’s delight had lots of fruit, cereal, and bread. After a delicious meal, we were whisked onto our bus to yet another Jade Factory, although this one was much bigger than the last one, and the salesmen weren’t nearly as obnoxious. Despite the larger selection, no one bought anything, and we hopped back onto the bus and headed on to the Summer Palace. The Summer Palace was huge, and filled with tons of interesting sites. I think we ignored most of the more interesting sites and instead spent our time looking at rocks with holes in them, buying ice cream, listening to Cherry talking about the “Dragon Lady” and being harassed by/ harassing the people selling stuff. I think everyone now has some form of a fake Rolex or Gucci watch. Lesson number 1: Salespeople who are selling fake watches and purses are probably going to be giving out fake money as well. Too bad for Colin and Ben, who got owned by the salespeople and their counterfeit money. The counterfeit money was printed on like regular printer paper, and had a huge bold line going through the side of it. The rest of the day Ben and Colin talked about how much they wanted to pay one of the salespeople with the fake money… we’ll hear if Ben succeeds when he posts from his NCR internship. It was a long morning, and we were all happy about lunch… especially Li Laoshi, because we went to a strictly vegetarian restaurant. For our “last lunch” we ate several interesting things, like water lily seeds, white fungus, various types of mushrooms, “vegetarian” fish, and some other type of “vegetarian” meat. All of the food was really really spicy, so by the end of the meal, my face had turned a little bit red. As John said, we Irish don’t do spicy very well.
The next stop of the day was the Llama Temple. The Xiao Lin Temple was by far the coolest temple we’ve been to, but that was because of the ridiculous gongfu masters. The Llama Temple was better in a more spiritual way. We got to see the monks at their evening chanting, which was a little bit eerie and a little bit awing. We also saw this really intricate painting, which turned out to be a sand painting. The monks design this kind of artwork a few drops of sand at a time, using nothing but patience and skill. As Li Laoshi explained to us, this kind of artwork represents life; the second that you put all of that time and energy into the sand painting, life takes it away. Normally the monks destroy these as soon as they finish them, just to prove this point. Lesson number 2: Two thongs don’t make a right. Self explanatory.
Our final stop of the day was the Temple of Heaven. The entrance to the Temple of Heaven was like a Chinese Game yard. People were playing Chinese hackey-sack, Mah-Jong, cards, singing, dancing, doing some kind of aerobics with fans, throwing balls, playing Chinese badminton, and just generally lounging around. It was really cool to see some traditional Chinese games and hear all of the laughter in this park that led to the Temple of Heaven. The Temple of Heaven itself stood on top of a platform that was very windy. Because today was a cloudy day, there wasn’t very much light, so it was difficult to see inside it. Instead of spending much time looking at the Temple of Heaven, we instead looked at the stairs and decided to take pictures of ourselves jumping off of them… and filming a mock Rocky video, thanks to Colin and Mark. With the excitement that was the Temple of Heaven coming to a close, we journeyed on to our final destination as a complete group of seven. It was finally time for the Hong Qiao Market. Yay!
The Hong Qiao market was a fresh dose of Chinese salespeople. These people had every type of fake purse, watch, jewelry…if you wanted it, it was there. It was hilarious to see all of the foreigners who couldn’t speak Chinese try to bargain. They were like us at the very first Jade Factory we went to. “OMG, only 100 yuan!! That’s such a deal!” I moved on and watched as Kim and Julie got some great prices... for about 1/6 of the original price. Our bargaining skills have been fully honed. Our visit to the Hong Qiao Market was brief, but tomorrow the final four (Kim, Colin, Mr. Killmer and I) plan on returning to make more shopping ventures.
Our “Last Supper” was one of our best meals yet. Although slightly sad that we would soon be separating, we still had a little bit of time to savor the delicious sweet and sour fish, crunchy egg rolls, turkey in pineapple sauce, and, our all time favorite, white rice. This restaurant was so nice, they even gave us cold water!
Moving on, maybe *cough cough* you *cough cough cough* would like *cough* to *cough cough* know what a pi shu is. A pi shu is the son of a dragon. One of the nine sons of a dragon, to be exact. The pi shu is the brother of the bi xie, which, maybe you would like to know, is another very interesting creature. Lesson number 3: Smoking is a very unattractive habit that may inhibit your ability to speak smoothly.
But, really, the night ended on a sad note, with everyone saying goodbye to Julie and Ben as the left with their host families for the next two weeks. Lesson number 4: You can tell how good of a time you had if you’re sad when things come to an end. Lesson number 5: You can tell you won’t miss someone when you ignore their goodbye being announced over the microphone. Since I know the interns will be keeping this blog up to date: Good Luck you two, and be sure to facebook me and tell me how it’s going. Because the Final Four will still be asleep when John, Mark and Li Laoshi leave in the morning, we also gave them our final hugs goodbye. Lesson number 6: Coffee = Ka Fei, Cream= Niu Nai, Sugar = Tian. See you tomorrow!
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