Last weekend was Katie's birthday! On Friday we decided to have a Minnesota-themed birthday party, don'tcha know. Katie dressed up as Prince (the artist formerly-formerly) and I was Bob Dylan.  Also in attendance were Paul Bunyan, Babe the Blue Ox, the world's largest ball of twine, a T-Wolf, Miss Minnesota, Snoopy, and that mouthy girl from the movie Juno.  We had Fargo playing in the background... and the night ended at KTV, a Chinese karaoke bar that actually had a few English songs, too. On Sunday the we took a quick train over to Changzhou Dinosaur Land.  Changzhou is known for having the world's tallest pagoda or something, but we were a-fixin' to see us some dinos instead. We had been warned before by several expats that Dinosaur Land was actually terribly lame... and all of those people were wrong, dead wrong, more dead than the dead dinosaurs. There was a roller coaster shaped like a brontosaurus with spinning velociraptor cars. There was a jungle with screaming robot attack dinosaurs. There was a museum. Changzhou Dinosaur Land was amazing. Although I think our Laowai pack was at times more of an attraction to the local Chinese than the dinosaurs.

Last weekend I dumped my Chinese paycheck (or brick of cash, rather) on a trip to Hong Kong via Shenzhen. Naomi, Katie, and I checked-in to the Kowloon area near Little India.  That night,  Naomi and I walked through the Avenue of Stars and saw the amazing Symphony of Lights laser show. From Kowloon we had a perfect evening view of the Hong Kong skyline choreographed to music and lights. The next day we set out to see these buildings, such as the Bank of China tower and the International Finance Centre.  We walked just about all of the island, including the Stanley Street antique market and a trip up the world's longest outdoor escalator. We met up with Katie at the Peak Tram station for a view of the skyline at sunset. The next day we boarded a ferry to Macau, which was absolutely beautiful. We walked from the city square to the Cau Paulo Cathedral Facade and Museum. Then we hiked up to the top of the island to see an old lighthouse, and then back down to check out the Macau MGM Grand and the Bodhisatta Avalokitesvara statue.  Back in Hong Kong we made our way through the Temple Market, the Hong Kong Museum of Art, and a slimy meal of Dim Sum before returning to the mainland.

After a nice hot pot meal, my friends and I boarded an overnight train to Beijing. Since the 2008 Summer Games, I was interested in seeing if the city lived up to its reputation as the national seat of government, culture, and contemporary art. The notorious Beijing weather turned out to be... beautiful. First, we walked around Tiananmen Square and saw Chairman Mao. Then we made our way into the Forbidden City and spent a full four hours inside. We saw some gardens, palaces, and a hall of clocks. From there, we took a taxi to the 798 Contemporary Art District for art and coffee. After that we took another taxi to the Olympic Park area (by drawing the Olympic Rings on a sheet of paper and showing it to the driver...) which was spectacular. I captured a lot of great photos of the Bird's Nest and the Water Cube as daytime turned into night. That evening, we had a nice dinner at a place called Blue Frog. The next day we went to the Great Wall of China at Mutianyu - which involved some bus hitch-hiking, a ski lift, Rocky Balboa videos, and a picnic at a restricted area of the wall where the trees had grown in through the brickwork. At the end of the day we took an alpine slide back down and began to head back to Suzhou.

Getting back to Suzhou was a bit tiring - we took a bus across the border into China, then a flight from Nanning to Shanghai, and then a bus home to Suzhou. I was scheduled to start work again the very next day... I had certainly maximized my time off! I was greeted by a few nice surprises upon my return home: I was to move into a new apartment; and, even better, my schedule had been changed to only four days a week! My new Monday-Thursday schedule now lets me travel within China any weekend I want. Conversely, it also allows me to rest up when I need to. However, this week there would was no time for rest because Katie's family came to visit! It was so great to see some familiar Minnesotan faces. I had a nice time with her family in Suzhou, where we made sure to take them to all of our usual haunts, including Yang Yang's and Little Sheep. It was also good to finally see my other friends and my students. At the end of the week, I took a train with the Rausch family to Shanghai and showed them around town. We went to the Yu Yuan Gardens and Bazaar, the Nanjing East pedestrian street, and the Bund area looking out over Pudong. I also discovered the unbelievably affordable Shanghai Eyeglasses Market.

Our first stop in the capital city was the Hoa Lo Prison - also known as the "Hanoi Hilton" which probably doesn't do a good job at helping out the actual Hanoi Hilton nearby.  Hanoi has a lot of French colonial influences so we made sure to sample a variety of foods that we can't normally get in China.  The next day we went to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum where we saw the embalmed body of Uncle Ho. Then we moved on to the grounds of the Presidential Palace area and the absolutely bonkers Ho Chi Minh Museum. Never before have I been to a museum layout that completely overwhelms the info inside of it! It was worth the visit simply because it was so surreal... and so bad. Later on we returned to our amazing hostel to make some really great friends and travel companions. Together we went to a place called Funky Buddha and a cheap outdoor beer garden called Bia Hoi. Finally, my last destination in Southeast Asia was an overnight cruise in Halong Bay, where we did some kayaking, cave crawling, swimming, and sight-seeing.  The rock formations in Halong Bay are very similar to what I saw in Yangshuo and Xingping - except this time in the middle of a sea - and made for the perfect bookend to my trip.

Instead of taking the Reunification Express railway system up through Vietnam, we opted for the cheaper and more convenient overnight bus system.  The sleeper buses in particular were actually quite nice, other than in the very back where passengers may experience the sardine effect. It turned out to be worth the trip - Hoi An was a quaint and historic fishing village that has been beautifully preserved. The best thing to do in the town was simply to walk around. Hoi An has really great walking streets, a Japanese covered bridge, a waterfront market, and a Ceramic Trading Museum. Ashley and I took a day trip to the My Son Ruins (pronounced sort of like "mee san") where we saw the 2000-year-old remains of a temple complex from the Champa Kingdom. After leaving My Son and Hoi An, we travelled further north through Vietnam.  Ashley and I had a day stop in Hue, the former capital under the Vietnamese monarchy before the emperor abdicated the throne to the current government.  Hue is the location of several ancient royal tombs and other sites related to the monarchy, including the foreboding Hue Citadel.  From Hue, we continued our journey north on another overnight sleeper bus.

After Ashley and I said our good-byes to Katie, we boarded our flight to Vietnam.  From the HCMC airport our taxi dropped us off in the backpacker district, which is a collection of alleyway hostels. Everything in Saigon was abuzz with a really unique energy. Perhaps some of this energy comes from the traffic "rules" in Vietnam - or lack thereof.  Simply crossing the street was so dangerous that it was actually a bit exhilarating: the surrounding traffic organically weaves past each and every jaywalker without incident.  Aside from the threat of becoming pho ga soup roadkill, the city was actually quite walkable.  We toured the Saigon War Remnants Museum, the old Presidential Reunification Palace, the Ho Chi Minh Museum,  the Notre Dame Cathedral, and the Ben Thanh Bazaar.  Ashley and I also spent a day touring the Cu Chi Tunnels which were very claustrophobic. Back in the city, we were absolutely spoiled with dining options - in addition to the delicious local cuisine (and the Vietnamese coffee!) we were also able to sample a lot of French and Indian meals.  Saigon was really beautiful in its own way - a kind of beauty hidden under crumbling buildings and heaps of tangled power lines.

Our evening flight from Jakarta to Bangkok was a bit delayed, but as soon as we got there we hit up the Bangkok Night Market for some local crafts, live music, and Pad Thai.  The next morning we woke up extra early to head to the art deco Bangkok Railway Station, and then from there we hopped in a taxi to take us to the Grand Palace.  The taxi driver tried to drive us all around town so when we finally got there we refused to pay and left.  The Grand Palace, however, was worth it - every single square foot of the royal complex is covered in some kind of jeweled design.  It was overwhelming in the hot sun but also very, very beautiful.  After that we went to the Wat Pho temple where Katie and I befriended an Iranian and walked around the garden area taking pictures until we were just plain exhausted.  After that we went to Koh Samui island where we finally met up with our friend Ashley from Suzhou.  After a day at the beach we went to the Full Moon Party where we saw people breakdancing and throwing fire.  We bought some glow in the dark body paint and had buckets of fun.  The combination of taxi, boat, bus, and train back to Bangkok was a bit harrowing, though.  

Katie and I boarded a ferry to Medan, Indonesia.  Then we took a bus to Bukit Lawang for an eco-tourism hike through the jungle.  Funds from visitors go towards the local orangutan rehabilitation program.  During the hike we encountered seven orangutans and saw 4 different species of monkeys!  Unfortunately this also included Mina, the alpha female orangutan, who sort of chased after us for a bit.  After we were done filming Jurassic Park IV, we showered and set up camp along the riverbank and in the morning we rafted down the river back towards town.  However, towards the end Katie and I popped our raft (us being the only two who couldn't swim) and we all had to walk back through a few very small fishing villages.  We hitched a ride atop a bus to get back to town.  It was exhilarating!  Katie and I spent the next week in rainy Jakarta, where we saw the National Monument, the Wayang Puppet Museum, the Glodok and Blok A districts, Fatahilla Square, the Fine Art and Ceramics Museum, and the National Mosque.  We also ate some great Lebanese food and saw an Indonesian Elvis impersonator.  At the end of the week, we crashed the opening reception of the surprisingly awesome 2009 Jakarta Bienalle. 

We spent our first day in Kuala Lumpur at the Islamic Art Museum, where we saw a great display of the geometry behind some of the elaborate designs commonly found in traditional Islamic crafts.  We also walked around the the Little India district and ate some really tasty Indian cuisine.  We were very surprised to see Western restaurants that Katie and I don't have living in China: A&W, Popeye's, and Wendy's.  That night we explored China Town, where everyone was lighting off fireworks in excitement for the Chinese New Year.  There was a lot of traditional dragon costume dancing.  The next day, Katie and I walked to the Petronas Tower - currently the tallest twin towers in the world and a symbol of modernity in Malaysia.  Later we met up with our friend Joe, who lives in Suzhou but was staying at his parent's house in Kuala Lumpur over the New Year.  Katie and Joe and I did some swimming and Joe helped us find some authentic Malaysian food.  After our amazing stay in Kuala Lumpur we took a bus to Georgetown, on the island of Penang, where we were able to relax some more and see the Kek Lok Si temple at night.  On the Chinese New Year we woke up to firecrackers and people dancing to "Kung Fu Fighting".

Katie and I left together for our Southeast Asia trip almost as soon as school got out.  Once grading had been completed, we said a quick good-bye to our friends over some Japanese all-you-can-eat food.  Early the next morning, Katie and I boarded a bus from Suzhou to the Shanghai Hongqiao airport and departed for the Guilin scenic area.  Guilin and Yangshuo are known for spectacular rock formations and these towns are nestled right in with them.  In Yangshuo we climbed one on our very first morning and took a long pause at the peak to rest and sketch and photograph.  The surreal landscape surrounding us was truly phenomenal.  Later, we met up with a German couple from our hostel and we walked around in the tourist-y West Street bazaar area.  Together we sampled the local meal: beer battered fish.  It was good, but not as Minnesotan as I had hoped.  The next day Katie and I rode a rickety bamboo raft down to Xingping town.  Here we saw the landscape that is etched on the 20 RMB note.  On our last day, we rented an ebike and drove to Moon Hill, a mountain with a bizarre circular hole in middle of it.  That night, we returned to Guilin for our first flight out of China.

Things started to get really busy during Christmas and New Year's -- with the Chinese teaching calendar, I ended up working on Christmas Eve but I did have the day off on the 25th.  Some of us went to Changzhou, a city not too far away from here, where there was a small Christmas meal and get-together.  The next day I Skyped with my parents, who hadn't received my gifts in the mail yet.  The package from my parents had arrived at the school just a few days ago, and in addition to the Western goods that I had badly needed, I also found a surprise pair of shoes and a mountain of chocolate!  Later that morning I met up with Katie and Ashley and I ended up making them pancakes.  We exchanged white elephant gifts, Chinese-style: I gave Katie some Chinese music CDs and DVDs by people like Kenju Wu and S.H.E. and I got some slippers and these really neat Mandarin flash cards.  By the time New Year's Day rolled around, my parents had received their Chinese gifts in the mail and we were able to open them (again, over Skype) on my Dad's birthday.  It wasn't quite the same as a normal holiday season, but we still had a very special time together.

This weekend was great in so many ways: the sun came out; the air warmed up; and my co-workers upgraded their health from "zombie" status to "tourist".  Katie and I found the Ping Jiang Lu historic district.  Ping Jiang Lu is one of the most ancient roads in Suzhou.  It is very quiet.  The area sits to the East of the Guan Qian Jie pedestrian market in the city center, where more of the tourists choose to congregate.  Ping Jiang Lu has a few surprising amenities, however.  There is a small expat cafe called the Bookworm here - it sits atop a short bridge hovering over one of the canals.  Farther down the road was our main destination for the day: an art reception at the Pont des Arts Gallery.  I met so many kind people here: I exchanged contact info with some other artists-turned-English teachers; I arranged for a studio visit with a local Chinese painter; and I was able to introduce myself to someone who turned out to be probably the only English-speaking ceramics instructor in the city.  Later, we met up with our trivia group (Addie, Fedo, Sima, Naomi, and Simon) to show them around the local bazaar.  We ended our traditional Chinese day of culture with Mexican food and live music at Harry's Bar.

Today I taught my first and second graders all about Thanksgiving.  I explained some simple history, and then of course I quickly moved on to talking about the food.  Most of these foods can be found in Suzhou (Katie and I were cooking until 1:00 am last night, after all) and so the children easily understood both "mashed potatoes" and "sweet potatoes".  But when it came to learning about "turkey" they were lost.  My Chinese TA told them the Mandarin word, but the students didn't know that either.  It's just not common here.  So I started with similar words they knew: pigeons and parrots (small), chicken (bigger), and then turkey (HUGE!!!!)  This drove the kids crazy, learning about a whole day centered around eating a ridiculous, gigantic, mythical bird.  We spent the rest of class drawing hand turkeys and having an awesome time.  That night, a bunch of my friends here got together at Joe's apartment for a Thanksgiving feast.  Katie and I brought the assorted starches: garlic mashed potatoes with gravy, a sweet potato mix dish, squash with brown sugar, and bread.  The others contributed salad, more veggies, dessert, and beverages.  And, since affordable turkey doesn't exist in Suzhou, I brought a large bucket of KFC.  

Today while I was on the bus back from work over in Xiangcheng, Joe called me to let me know that I had a package for me in the office over that the Main Campus.  I ran to the foreign teacher's office and promptly picked up my package.  It was from my parents!  I had asked them to send me a few things in an envelope, but, this being my parents, they sent it in a large box with a bunch of other great things.  I bet it cost a lot to ship - it only took about two weeks to get to Suzhou.  It contained the following: my old swimming trunks (for my winter trip to Thailand and Indonesia); a folder of art school information and related research; several packages of Emergen-C  vitamin supplements so that I stop getting sick from my students all the time; some forwarded mail items; an article on a local sculptor; and no less than four huge bags of chocolate.  This made my day.  These random things, along with a great notebook that my friend Sarah had sent to me, hold a lot of meaning to me while I'm on this side of the globe.  I am very thankful for these things.  Especially the short and simple "love you!" note from my 'rents.  It's now taped to my door.

Last night I had a strange knock on my door.  Looking into the peephole (which is about a foot shorter than my eye level) I saw a nice elderly Chinese woman.  I opened the door and recognized her to be one of my friendly neighbors.  She asked me a question... in Mandarin, of course.  I had no clue what she was talking about - she looked a bit bothered and kept grabbing at her chest.  I gestured for her to come in, thinking that maybe she needed to borrow a cup of sugar - or, well, in my kitchen, crackers and water.  She walked in and took off her slippers.  She shuffled on through my kitchen, past my living room, and into my porch.  I figured she must have needed something out of my yard.  I scrambled to find the correct keys to unlock my back door (I have 20).  This took an awkwardly long amount of time.  Then I quickly fetched her slippers from my entryway and helped her outside.  Where, of course, it was dark and rainy.  So I ran back in, again, and got her my umbrella.  Out there in the deluge, she was clawing at the ground, looking for... something.  And still grabbing her chest.  Finally I realized that she had accidentally dropped her laundry from her window three floors above my yard.  She was looking for her bra!  It was pink.

Nowadays, Suzhou is getting to be very chilly.  Since our schools are essentially open-air buildings without heat, I now teach in my coat.  My students each wear about four layers.  But yesterday, it was unusually beautiful outside.  I showed Ashlely how to get to the Bazaar, where she bought several things to help her keep warm.  Later, after a very traditional Chinese meal at the KFC, we walked back to the bus stop... and then kept walking instead.  It was so nice outside.  No smog.  Just the clearest of blue skies.  Ashley, being a non-Minnesotan, didn't really understand how I could enjoy the frigid air.  We walked along a road that went through the ancient city walls of Suzhou - one side had the walls preserved, and the other was just the leftover mound of earth that overflowed out into a nice municipal riverside park.  Here, the canal circles all of old town, like a moat.  Well... little did I know, but later I found out that the moat goes right past my apartment!  The canalside park is only one minute out of my front door.  The long, narrow park was full of friendly local folks (many who tried to converse with me... ) and an old woman who was practicing some Chinese aerobic swordplay.  The park leads towards an even bigger park with a pagoda perched atop another fragment of the city wall.

Let me back up one second -- late last night I saw something I never thought I would see in Suzhou: a Saint Cloud State sweatshirt!  So, if you're reading, HELLO to the group of Minnesotans in Shanghai that visited Suzhou the other day - one of the students was a Bennie too!  Small, small, small world.  We'll probably get in touch with them some time soon.  Anyhow, today Katie and I boarded an early train for Shanghai, again.  This time it was to meet up with some friends of Katie's family, Mike and Barb.  They had been to Shanghai several times before and wanted to explore more of the city together, including the Yuyuan Garden area and the Shanghai Museum.  It was really great to have a day to spend with people that were more, uh, my parent's age.  I had a nice time with Mike and Barb.  Mike even took us to a shop where his company gets a steep discount - I bought some nice gifts for %15 of their normal value.  In the early evening, the four of us walked the Bund at night and took some great photos of the futuristic neon skyline over in Pudong.  

Today was a relaxing day.  I decided to stay in for most of the day to clean my apartment and Skype with some family and friends.  In the late afternoon I got a call from Katie, but I couldn't quite hear her voice over what sounded like a pack of barking dogs and crowing birds.  She had found the Suzhou Bird and Flower Market!  I got on the bus and met up with her near the pedestrian area.  We ventured through some narrow streets until I could again hear more wild creatures.  We made our way past shady vendors with turtles, aquarium fish, chinchillas, hamsters, dogs, cats, birds, and a stingray.  They also sell plants and pots and tea.  We stopped at a booth that sold rabbits... where Katie bough her new roommate, Dumpling, for less than 3 USD.  That included the cage and food as well!  Dumpling is a brownish dwarf rabbit.  I'm not sure how I feel about how the animals are cared for in places like these, but Katie was happy to give Dumpling a new home.  He's great, too - more personable than a cat.  After we were done catching new diseases, we left the market.  Later that night, we went to Yang Yang's for some Roast Peking Duck - served with plum sauce and pancake tortillas.

After a few false starts (turns out museums are closed on Mondays in China, too) I was finally able to go to the Suzhou Museum.  The whole place is absolutely fascinating.  The building is very contemporary for the area - it was recently designed by I.M. Pei, whose family is from Suzhou.  Supposedly Pei attended the school I now teach at when he was a wee little one.  Pei created the museums' new building as a gift to his homeland, having spent most of his life in America.  This building is impressive, especially for a 90-year-old architect.  The whole place mimics the traditional colors of Suzhou (grey and white) and also uses light in subtle ways.  The building also updates the concept of the Chinese garden.  The mix between indoors and outdoors makes for a very unique museum experience.  Especially since today was raining cats and dogs - which, given the lack of visitors that day, was a really good thing.  The art there is great and all, too.  I was able to take a lot of great photos of traditional Chinese ceramic works.  Much of the ancient art is from the surrounding Wu culture.  The Suzhou Museum also has a contemporary wing that was exhibiting some kind of printmaker that I had never heard of.  I will be coming here often!

More to come!

The other day Katie and I were walking around the nearby shopping street, Shi Quan Je, and decided to try out this really rinky-dink pizza place.  Of course, the faux-Italian cost a lot of money for not a lot of, um, Italian, but not all was lost -- while waiting for our bill to come ("Mei Dan!") I was flipping through an old Suzhou expat magazine at our table.  I saw an article about the De He Bazaar - a huge market in Suzhou with over 1,000 tiny shops.  We had never heard of this before, probably because it caters to the locals.  Today, we found it!  This bazaar truly does have everything, and for dirt cheap too.  They even have chocolate!  (between the two of us, Katie and I bought 40 chocolate bars...)  The whole place is a maze of booths.  I bet we were the only Westerners in the whole neighborhood.  I bought a a few things for my Halloween costume.  Katie bought herself a mattress pad for cheap... and it turned out to be too big!  Later I helped her try to fit it on her bed.  We ended up turning the mattress pad sideways (it was as long as the bed is wide).  Then we used packaging tape to fix the ends down - it looks really, uh, pro.  Only art students would do something like this.

Following the Gecko Incident, I thought it might be a good idea to write about some of the odd things I've seen here during the last week or so.  Each one isn't really a worthwhile topic in itself, since there really isn't a whole lot to write about, mostly because I can't explain 'em (thus making them, well, odd.)  

• First off, I think I've talked about how I enjoy people-watching from the bus before.  I've seen birds on our bus.  I've seen carts outside full of small bonsai trees.  I've seen people standing around in their underwear.  Well, on that day we saw a baby - - in a baby stroller - - being pulled along by a motorcycle.  Seems dangerous, but that's just how they roll here.  
• Next, I've been noticing this odd yelling sound each day at about 1:00 in the afternoon.  It goes on for a half hour or so, and it sounds like an old man screaming "heyyyohh!" every twenty seconds.  Now that I've noticed that it's a daily pattern, I think it's safe to say that this guy isn't in some sort of pain or danger.  Maybe he is praying.
• Finally, this week about ten grey-market DVD shops opened up in our area.  Ten.  Before there were none.  I had heard that they were all shut down prior to our arrival here, but now, all of these shady shops have opened up again.  Boom, all at once.  Very strange!  
  

The other day, Katie and I walked back to her place after eating noodles or rice or something, and as she entered her kitchen to open the fridge I saw something odd in the corner of my eye.  This can't be real, I thought to myself... I told Katie that I saw some kind of creature scurry underneath the refrigerator.  We then tried to scare it outta there by moving the fridge until a lizard (???) ran out into the rest of the kitchen!  I chased it with a box and a broom, hoping to corner it.  I did corner it, so it ran up the walls instead.  This thing ran fast.  It ran up on to the ceiling, too.  At that moment our friend Joe had arrived and together we used the broom to brush the lizard so that it fell down into the cardboard box that my vacuum cleaner came in.  We closed the box and waited for Ashley to come (we all had a movie night scheduled for that night, since we've become hooked on The Sopranos) and Katie and I gave it to Ashley as a present.  She didn't really like it... anyway, we later determined that our new neighbor is called a House Gecko (what a creative name!!) and that it is useful for catching bugs.  I, however, do not want any lizards crawling around on my ceilings while I sleep at night, thank you.

Yesterday and today I went to Shanghai with Katie and Ashley.  I've been to Shanghai a few times since coming to China but never for a weekend.  Our goal was to try to get a better feel for the city outside of the center-most area.  We also had a drive to eat a lot of Western food... so we started by finding the Ikea store and had a Swedish lunch.  Mmmm.  Then we got on the Shanghai Metro underground towards the French Concession, which is another shopping area.  I looked at jackets for winter at places like H&M (which I can't afford here).  Then, for supper, I had a Whopper Jr. and Dairy Queen.  A complete cultural immersion, I know.  Later that night we returned to our hostel (where our room had twelve beds!) and woke up early to see more of the city.  Katie and I went to the MoCA Shanghai and the Shanghai Art Museum.  We saw some incredibly unique contemporary art.  The latter was hosting the Shanghai Biennale, where I was able to see large mirrored ant sculptures crawling up the walls; some bad video art; a text work by Lawrence Weiner; and a stampede of life-size metal dinosaurs with grimacing Asian faces.  For supper, we ate at a place that served Mexican food before heading back home.

My little Chinese students work so hard.  I'm sure they are given a lot of homework and have a lot of expectations - I knew this going into my tour abroad here.  Fortunately, the students have a few five-minutes periods built into their schedules each day to relax.  Kinda.  For the youngest students, some of my classes have to begin with what they call Eye Time.  The intercom blares this obnoxiously cute melody with some simple Chinese counting exercises.  At this point, one of the students usually gets up and walks to the front of the class to lead the activity.  All of the students, as per the directions given over the intercom, proceed to RUB THEIR EYES FOR FIVE SOLID MINUTES.  Five whole minutes of eye-rubbing.  School here is so daunting that they need to rest their eyes after having bucket-loads of information thrown at them.  Meanwhile I am standing in front of the room, watching my kids massage their eyeballs to the harmonious melodies.  Sometimes they count along out loud.  Sometimes they massage their whole face.  Sometimes they pick their nose with one hand and rub their eyes with the other.  It's all very cute and disturbing... Eye Time is weird.

So, yesterday when Katie was riding the bus towards SIP she caught a glimpse of what appeared to be a true art supply store, and today we made a point to go and check it out.  It's also near the TGI Fridays (what!?) which was weird to see in the middle of Suzhou.  Anyway, this art store has almost everything: paints, papers, charcoals, tools, and large plaster Roman portrait sculptures.  It's also... really, really cheap.  I bought some quality paints, brushes, and boards for less than 5 USD.  Normally I don't do the RMB-to-USD conversion now that I'm trying to live on the same budget as my Chinese neighbors, but, I mean, that is really cheap!  This adds to my collection here of miscellaneous papers and books, adhesives, pencils, card stock, and a few tools.  I still need to find maybe some bookbinding equipment, linoleum for printmaking, and if I am lucky... a full-on ceramics studio.  I'm starting to truly miss working with clay.  Soon... I've been looking at some graduate programs online but I have been looking at other options, too.  I don't want to be pigeon-holed into going down that career path if I'm not ready to leave what I'm doing here.  China is pretty nice, after all.  More to come.

Now that I am settled back in Suzhou, I've noticed two things: once, that it is no longer sweltering hot during the day - in fact at night it's downright chilly - and two, that I am coming down with a cold myself.  The other foreign teachers are getting sick, too.  Now, early in the summer I had a REALLY bad cold, that lasted for a month and when I finally got better my mom got it and she was sick for just as long.  I think my body had waited until after graduation to get sick... which is probably good since otherwise I would have had a hard time completing my Honors Thesis exhibition.  Fortunately, I am not nearly as sick as last time, but it's hard to have a cold when I must teach (or, umm, shout at) a classroom of hyperactive Chinese children.  Other than some Tang-infused orange juice, I don't really have the normal "comforts of home" that might help me feel better.  And, it's no fun to talk over Skype or iChat with my folks back at home when I have a sore throat.  I'll feel better soon enough, though.

Today was a test of endurance!  We had to get up at 4:00 am to get to the airport in time.  As we checked out of the hostel, our driver decided not to show up.  They found a replacement, which was odd since we paid our old driver extra to drive us to the airport at such an early hour... on the way to the airport we hit a wall of solid fog.  The taxis all along the road slowed down and lined up as together we all snaked our way to the airport.  It was sort of tense and beautiful.  We didn't even know we had arrived at the airport, because we couldn't see it.  Inside, we checked in, and watched as all the flights were grounded until noonish.  So much for a quick ride home!  We didn't get to Shanghai until after 1:30, where we rushed to catch the Maglev.  On the way down to the platform, I rolled my ankle and almost fell.  I thought to myself about how stupid I must have looked... and then I turned around and saw that Katie had totally biffed it and was lying on the ground, surrounded by luggage!  The whole day was pretty ridiculous!

As part of our post-Terracotta hangover, we took it easy today.  Now that we had seen most of what Xi'an had to offer, we could simply enjoy the place.  I did, however, go to the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, which was truly amazing.  It is a huge Buddhist temple, and the monks still use the place to worship.  So far in China I have seen monks wearing orangish robes and grey robes.  It wasn't long before I decided to make the trek all the way up the whole tower.  The view was foggy, but spectacular.  I took a photo of the "7F" sign at the top because I couldn't believe that I had walked up so many steep steps.   On the ground again, I walked through bonsai gardens, and into a temple of some sort of parinirvana figure.  Outside the walls of the whole complex was a market and a huge fountain in the shadow of the pagoda tower.  This water fountain is choreographed to music that played every few hours.  This evening, I did some last-minute shopping, and tried some of the local street food - including a weird pork sandwiches and some delicious fried wrap... things.  It was greasy and salty and good.

First let me explain my excitement about this whole Xi'an thing.  The Terracotta Army is a series of over 8,000 lifesize clay soldiers, each one unique.  They are divided into different ranks, including archers and even horses.  All of these were created by the infamous first emperor to unify ancient China - Emperor Qin Shi Huang.  This army, in 210 B.C., was built to protect the emperor in the afterlife.  In undergrad, I had created an entire Honors Thesis exhibition centered around life-size figurative ceramic sculptures in multiples - and so today held a certain bit of importance to me.  In short, this morning Katie and I woke up early to avoid the crowds, took a shady bus (but not one of the fake ones) out of central Xi'an, and when we finally got there we pretty much had the best day ever.  I'll let my photos do the rest of the talking.  On the bus ride back, some  strangers boarded to check everyone's tickets - turns out they were plain-clothes police!  Later, a tree fell onto our bus, but no problem, we just kept on drivin'.  Back at the hostel... we were completely exhausted.  In the evening, we went out to do some night photography near the city center.

Although there are huge crowds during the week-long National Holiday, we knew that today would be the busiest.  October 1st here is their July 4th.  With that in mind, we tried to stay away from some of the biggest attractions in Xi'an today.  Xi'an - once the largest ancient city on Earth - has ancient walls surrounding the whole city.  It is the only place in China where one can walk or bike around the whole circumference of the walls uninterrupted - this is not possible on the Great Wall, which is broken up into several sections.  So, Katie and I walked from the South Gate all the way to the North Gate.  We would have walked further, but we were really sunburned!  In October!  So we took a bus from the North Gate, down past the South Gate, to a well-known pizza place to relax.  Back out into the sun again, we walked to the Small Wild Goose Pagoda, a few museums, a Chinese antiques market, and a papercut arts and crafts market.  Having walked a good part of ancient Xi'an, we went back to our hostel early to rest up for tomorrow's big attraction: the Terracotta Army!

After waking up (and sleeping in, of course) we decided to walk around central Xi'an and save the Terracotta Army for later in the week.  Getting around Xi'an is very easy.  Our hostel was near the train station in the northeast corner of town.  The walk to the center of the old city isn't long.  We immediately noticed how different a mainland city like Xi'an is compared to Suzhou or Shanghai... it's a bit dirtier, and the dialect seemed more foriegn, along with of course the local food and other things.  In the center of the city, we toured the central Bell Tower (which is actually not in the center of town anymore - it was moved south as the town expanded) and the Drum Tower.  I was able to use my student ID card to get into these places for a reduced fee.  Once outside again, we walked over to the nearby Muslim market.  Xi'an is known for its population of Chinese Muslims.  The market was crazy - lots of food, noise, people, and souvenir-price-haggling.  Katie bought some cool fans and other trinkets.  At the end of the market, we purchased an admission ticket to the Great Mosque of Xi'an.  Later, on our way back to the city center, we did some nighttime photography.

Today Katie and I got up early to open our Bank of China accounts before departing to Xi'an via Shanghai.  But, the water in Katie's apartment suddenly stopped working, so we scrapped that idea and just headed to the Suzhou train station.  We arrived in Shanghai, walked around with our luggage for awhile, and talked with some friendly locals.  We tried going to the Shanghai Museum to burn time before our flight, but the line stretched all the way outside and nearly halfway around the building!  Eventually we hopped on the subway towards the Shanghai Maglev station.  There we boarded one of the fastest trains in the whole world - it can fly by at up to 501 km/h (311 mph).  To give you and idea for this kind of speed, Katie was sitting next to me and dropped a slip of paper under her seat.  It took her maybe two seconds to reach down and pick it up.  During this time she completely missed the oncoming train whizzing by outside her window seat.  Our ride was less than seven minutes long.  At the Pudong airport, we finally departed to Xi'an.  Upon arrival that evening we were picked up by the friendly staff at the Xi'an Ludao Hotel and Hostel.  

Today is payday!  We get paid in straight-up cash, which is kinda weird.  Our boss met with each of us to figure out how many hours we've worked for the month (and it's also really nice that we're getting paid before the week-long National Holiday) so it was pretty exciting.  To celebrate, our awesome boss then took all of us out to eat at a nearby Hot Pot restaurant.  We sat around a circular table with a boiling pot in the center.  This was separated into two sections: one side was spicy and the other less so.  While we waited for the food to come for our group ,we went over to the counter to create our own dipping sauces.  I tried to find something plain (to use to cancel out the spicy side of the pot) - and when we returned, our food was ready.  The meat comes to the table raw.  You add in some of the pieces, and then watch it cook.  Shortly after, you reach in with your chopsticks and have at it... all the while more raw meats are being tossed in.  I even ate boiled pigeon eggs!  The sanitization for this type of meal is questionable.  Salmonella aside, it's very delicious and a great place for folks to huddle around during winter.

It's official!  Katie and I will be going to Xi'an over the National Holiday break.  After several attempts to get train tickets, we finally decided to buy plane tickets instead.  It will be a lot more expensive, but hopefully way less stressful.  Anyways, today, we noticed something we haven't seen for awhile: the sky was a deep, clear blue.  It was a beautiful, cool day outside, and so we decided to celebrate the fact that we had no money by spending more money getting into the famous Humble Administrator's Garden.  Of course, it was very much worth it.  I'll put up more photos later when I get a chance.  The garden was somewhat out of the way, at least for us, but once we got there it was tourist central.  The garden is divided into several areas which are connected by paths, bridges, pagodas, and waterways.  Hopefully later when I get a Suzhou Parks Residency Pass I will be able to enter these areas for free - I do live here, after all - and at that time I will be able to spend more quality time with the gardens in Suzhou.  

Some of the faculty took the foreign teachers (Ashley, Glenn, Katie, Joe, and myself) out to eat this evening.  This was our first ultra-formal dinner, and we didn't have our program coordinator with us to act as a buffer.  We were on our own.  Well, not really - I sat next to Glenn, who has lived in Suzhou for several years now.  Thanks to him, I was able to avoid making any sort of huge cultural mistake at the dinner table.  For example, when I had to toast someone with my glass, I made sure to touch the glass below the glass of an elder.  Then, more often than not, the toast recipient might call out "gan bei!" or "empty glass!" which truly means I had to empty my glass.  Every time.  Good thing I was having a weak beer and not the wine... (the girls had to pretty much take shots of wine throughout the whole night!)  We were also offered cigarettes, and Glenn told me that it would be considered hugely inappropriate to turn down the most expensive cigarettes in China.  Nevermind that while this was all taking place we were eating jellyfish!  Stressful social encounters aside, we all had a really fun time.

Today Katie and I took a high-speed train from Suzhou to Shanghai.  It's only a half-hour train ride, although it did take us a bit to figure out how to purchase tickets.  With over 20 million people, Shanghai is the largest city in China (and, by some accounts, the largest city in the world) although the subway system makes it very easy to get around town.  We spent a lot of time at the People's Park, which is a nice open area, and then we walked down a pedestrian shopping area called Nanjing Road, which is the most famous shopping district in China.  I spent most of my time turning down offers to buy fake watches and silk.  While we were there, however, one of Shanghai's infamous "freak thunderstorms" appeared out of nowhere as the sky suddenly turned green and brown.  I was without my umbrella, so we decided to take a dinner break during the flash flood.  Back outside, our early evening walk from the People's Square through Nanjing Road ended up at an area called The Bund, a waterside walk that looks out at the newly-developed Pudong area - which has one of the fastest-growing skylines in the world.

Today we celebrated the Mooncake Festival.  Be sure to check out the link for more facts about the holiday on Wikipedia, as they can do a better job than I at explaining what it's all about (because, of course, everything on Wikipedia is true, right?)  Anyhow, the Chinese here like to give little mooncakes as gifts to mark the holiday.  In the days leading up to today, we saw a lot of people carrying around big, festive-looking bags with tins of mooncakes.  Our imaginations had been running wild all week... what could be inside these cakes?  How can they be so delicious that an entire holiday revolves around eating them with your friends and family?  Why is it supposed to be a surprise to bite into one each time?  We made sure to go out and purchase a tin of mooncakes for ourselves.  When the evening came, I got together with the rest of the foreign teachers as we unwrapped our mooncakes.  I was truly salivating at this point... I took my first bite... and it was... salty?  My mooncake turned out to have preserved pork in it.  Freaking disgusting.  Another had what we could only hope were rotten prunes or dates in it... not much better.  Lastly, the final one we dared to try had EGG in it.  Repulsive!!!  What a great holiday!!

As I keep exploring the local area, Suzhou gets bigger and bigger... and smaller, too.  I haven't bought a quality map yet, so my spatial knowledge of this place exists only in my head and is dictated by how I've travelled from place to place.  It helps that I live in the more traditional Old Town, which makes it convenient to get to the other areas of Suzhou.  There's quite a contrast... the SIP (Singapore Industrial Park) is a district full of crazy skyscrapers and awful public sculptures.  It is on the lake, which has really great views.  I think it is the third largest lake in China?  Anyhow, SIP is where we can go to find Western food such as Subway, Coldstone, and Starbucks.  But it is very expensive!  The Suzhou New District, or SND, is similar but less flashy.  My boss told me that these two areas were created by rival administrators, each trying to direct the local economic development of greater Suzhou.  Apparently, they were each promoted for work elsewhere... so that they would no longer be working with/against each other.  Finally, there is the clean and spacious Xiangcheng district, where I commute to work each day. 

Also known as the language barrier.  My Mandarin Chinese is coming along... very slowly.  My goal here is to be fluent in the language at some point, at least conversationally.  Fortunately since I live in the old downtown of Suzhou I will be forced to learn Mandarin, as very little English is spoken here.  So far all I know are the most simple of greetings, such as "hello!" ("nihao!" or literally "you good!"), "how are you?" ("nihao ma?" or "you good?").  This post doesn't incorporate the tones for these words and phrases, since each "word" has wildly different definitions based upon the tone or inflection of how it is spoken (for example, a word could have a rising tone, a falling tone, or a combination of these.)  Some also have no tones, such as the particle "-ma" which indicates a question.  Actually, English speakers use tones, too, although in different ways - when Americans ask a question the tone is raised at the end of a sentence.  Soon, perhaps in early October, I will begin some simple Mandarin Chinese lessons... but at this point, that's all for now.  Zaijian!

The area of Suzhou I live in is the old downtown.  The walk to the center of downtown from my apartment gate means I go through a wooded area that opens into an alleyway, then past a public restroom, a few family-owned restaurants, and a somewhat-shady market before I get to the main road that is part of Suzhou Old Town.  On this walk I experience what some might call "traditional" China - for example, the other day I saw an old man walking into my apartment community area balancing two large baskets over his shoulder using a long piece of bamboo.  In one basket was a large pile of eggs, and in the other, a live chicken.  However, Suzhou is very diverse and modern, too.  New districts such as the Suzhou SIP and SND, as well as the Xiangcheng area, although a bit further away, seem like different worlds altogether.  In the map below, it is possible to see the network of canals weaving through all of Suzhou.  These canals are dotted with bridges, walkways, and gardens.  Suzhou is also near a large lake to the West and is very close to Shanghai, the largest city in China.

While I really should be focused on reflecting upon my teaching performance, truly the most exciting thing about each day is still the commute.  I very much like teaching - but the bus rides provide entertainment that I can get no where else.  The people-watching on the bus here is great.  It's also free entertainment, since the school pays for my fare to work.  Some days, when I need to go between campuses, I even get a free taxi ride.  This is also much more dangerous.  I think that that only fear I need to have about living here is getting into some kind of car wreck.  The traffic laws in China seem to be merely guidelines, and the only rule seems to be "keep going" no matter what.  Although the taxi drivers are generally friendly and even chatty, the rides themselves can be harrowing.  On foot it is even worse, although I love being able to walk around on my own again and not have to rely on cars all the time.  The streets have roads, bus lanes, sidewalks, and e-bide areas, although none of these seem to be able to contain the swarming streams of people.  Thankfully, Suzhou will get a subway system by 2012 or so.

My second day of teacher turned out to be a bit rockier than the first, although the actual teaching part was just fine.  Today was the first day that I had to ride the bus to the school that I teach at.  Since I teach in the Xiangcheng district of Suzhou, I have a nearly an hour commute each day.  That's really not so bad since my teaching load is reduced to compensate for the extra time on the road.  So I get on the bus, and about ten minutes into the journey the bus driver starts yelling at everybody (in Mandarin, so I had no idea what was going on) and eventually everyone started to get off the packed bus.  I looked around and a nice old lady sort of motioned me to get off of the bus, too, and outside we found a new bus for us to board, as if it had dropped out of the sky for us.  Our old bus had broke down - possibly because of all the people on it - and I barely got to work on time!  However, I have a feeling that I will end up really liking the bus, eventually... when I interned in London a few years back I had to get on the London Underground everyday, which turned out to be a great way to incorporate myself into the daily culture of the city.  

Today was my first day of teaching, ever.  Back when I was a university student, I had studied Art Education for my first two years before switching to Studio Art and Art History.  At the time, I had decided not to become a teacher in part to focus on my art for the time being, and also to not lock myself into having to teach.  But, now, here I am in China, as an elementary teacher at a boarding school in Suzhou.  Today I had a class of about 20 or so students and it was really, really great.  I was pretty nervous... I was even being observed by my boss!  The kids in my class could understand some English already, so I spent most of the time getting to know them and answering their questions about life in Minnesota.  By now they all probably think that us Minnesotans live in frigid igloos and that the sun never rises and that we commute to work by riding wild buffaloes.  Anyways, during the class period I managed to get a good pulse on where they were all at with their English and even teach them a thing or two.  At the end of class, my boss said I did a really good job and that I was a "professional teacher".  Hopefully I can live up to that!

First off: I have new friends!  In addition to Katie, the other teachers in our program include Joe, Ashley, Suzanne, and Glenn.  The latter two have a few years' experience living in Suzhou and speak really good Mandarin.  All of them are really great and helpful.  On Sunday some of us went to a place called Auchan.  Try to imagine a Walmart on a heavy cocktail of steroids and dramamine and you may have some clue as to what Auchan is like.  If the open markets here in many parts of Asia seem unbelievably crowded, Auchan is an all-out indoor navigational nightmare.  The music is also unusually loud, blasting either bizarre contemporary Chinese ballads or pre-breakdown Britney Spears.  However, my USD stretches pretty far here: this is where I can go to purchase anything from new shoes to groceries.  I bought some cheap art supplies, too.  Katie got a set of speakers for her laptop (so we can watch movies such as the Hannibal series, ahem) and these speakers are by a brand named "Awesome."  So I can say that Katie's new speakers are truly Awesome.  Which is exactly what Auchan is, too.

Today we had a quick tour of the main campus (where I only teach one course - more on that some other time) and had a teacher training orientation session (Katie's brother: "but aren't you already in the orient!?") and it was also kinda short.  We covered a lot: payment; housing; course schedules; and even some pedagogy.  The schools  we work for are actually quite prestigious (I. M. Pei went here... when he was very young of course) and as such the selection criteria for foreign teachers here is fairly steep... so that made me feel very good about the program.  Afterwards, our boss took all of us out to dinner at a multi-story Chinese restaurant downtown.  In China, group meals such as this one consist of a round table with a huge wheel in the middle that spins the different dishes to you as you need them.  We had chicken (it was cooked whole, and still had the head on it with a little bit of a sad face), shrimp, fish, veggies, sugary corn cake, sweet lotus flowers, and Tsingdao beer.  I even ate eel, which I kinda liked.  There were 13 dishes in all.  As is the custom here, white rice was served only at the very end.

During one of my first full days in Suzhou, I had to go to the local medical center to get some health tests done.  The government likes to know the status of its foreign guests, and so I went along with my co-workers early in the morning.  I got my heart rate checked (bad), my eyesight examined (even worse), and an ultrasound (what??) along with several other tests.  It was all really odd, not knowing the language and being sort of led through this line of mass health checkups like cattle... premium cattle.  Oddly enough, my dental report was really great!  Which brings me to the next big thing we all did that day: eat our first authentic Chinese meal together with our supervisor.  He took us to a small noodle bowl place and ordered us all a large, hot, soupy bowl of noodles and chicken (which we later decided was actually pork, but at the time, this "chicken" tasted great.)  It had vegetables and shrimp a-floatin' in it, too.  I also got a glass of milk tea, which is exactly that, although sweeter, and oh also it has BERRIES on the bottom of it that you suck up with a large straw and chew as if they were little eyeballs.  Overall, it was pretty good.

Our speed demon cab driver took us to our new residencies in Suzhou.  Katie and I live on opposite sides of a canal.  My place is huge... it is more space than I could ever need.  Although with that comes the difficulty of trying to effectively clean such a large place.  Now that I have all the dust, garbage, and bugs swept away, though, it's great.  I have a small kitchen (which is OK since I can't cook to save my life) and a large dining room.  The bathroom has a tub - a rare commodity here.  Aside from my own bedroom, I also have a huge second bedroom and this opens out into a porch.  And it turns out that the land outside of it is mine, too!  I finally have my very own walled-in, cement-covered lawn.  It even has a shed for some reason.  Anyway, inside each room is a solid collection of truly bizarre furniture.  I have a butterfly lamp.  My laptop is on a children's school desk.  The TV has a huge, silo-like speaker coming out of it.  My bathroom has counterfeit Mickey Mouse tiles.  And the dining room is a sick, bubblegum purple... hopefully my landlord will let me paint it grey or something.  Below is a photo of the street near my place.

I'm in Asia!  Living in Asia has always been a goal of mine.  I've been in China for about two weeks now.  So I need to do quite a bit of catch-up with my writings - and as a result, these happenings may or may not line up with the date posted.  Here's the whirlwind tour: on September 3rd my friend Katie and I departed from the Minneapolis airport to Detroit, then Tokyo, and finally Shanghai.  In total, our flight was almost 20 hours long.  Once there, we were greeted at the airport by a young boy with a sign that said "STEPHEN LEM AND KATE RAUSC," which were not our names but we took it to be for us.  We didn't need to provide any proof that we were who we said we were, as our foreign appearance pretty much gave it away.  Our driver - who spoke absolutely no English - offered me a cigarette and together we drove to Suzhou.  People drive like absolute maniacs here - although I thought the roller coaster ride was pretty exciting and a welcome alternative to sitting on an airplane.  Once in Suzhou, we met up with our boss (at 11:00 p.m. PRC time) and he took Katie and I to our new apartments.