青岛- QINGDAO

青岛 Qingdao
Spring Break Pt. II

I would like to start off by telling you all a rather funny story that happened to me and my friends the day we were leaving Beijing to Qingdao. It was the most hectic day, ever. We got to the train station at around 9:00 p.m. and had an hour and a half to kill before our overnight train departed for Qingdao. Our train tickets had 22:48 written on them, and for some reason...we thought 22:48 = 11:48..and..of course we were wrong. We were sitting in a restaurant talking, eating food that we didn't even want, but had to buy in order to sit inside,,just waiting for our train. At 22:43 Jolie looks at her ticket and says..22:48..wait..isn't that 10:48? ..we look at her, she looks at her watch..screams "IT"S 10:43" and we literally sprinted out of the restaurant and down to our waiting hall. The ticket collectors and train conductors were yelling at us as we ran to our train, making it onto the train, just a minute short of our departure time. THANK GOD,,!

and this was the start of our crazy adventure in Qingdao,

us, after sprinting for our lives

the lounge in the hostel we stayed at-- very chill place with yummy breakfast every morning! I think we spent more time here than anywhere else..:)

Walking around outside

a rather hideous purple hotel by the beach

by the beach we walked along

and ran into Jihii's soul mate, we've predicted that they will live in the ugly purple house together..after they have a purple wedding ceremony together.

the beach

** Story II **
Another funny story that happened on our second day in Qingdao. Now, we all know that Qingdao is the city of beer--a relaxing beach city that hosts the annual beer festival in China. With this in mind, it's quite obvious that the Qingdao Beer Museum would be a tourist attraction that people stop by when visiting Qingdao right? Well, one day we got into a cab (the driver was a woman) and we told her that we wanted to go to the Beer Museum. She looks at us, with a very very puzzled attraction and asked why four girls would want to go to the beer museum. She refused to take us to the Beer Museum, and instead dropped us off at the top of a mountain/very large hill and told us that we should look at the view of Qingdao instead. So, we got off at the top of the mountain, looked at the view from...the 6th or 8th story of a building (kind of looks like the Shanghai Pearl Tower) and then ended up hiking down the mountain..which she told us would only take us 5 minutes--- well, she was wrong.

the mountain the woman taxi driver dropped us off at ..that's the building she wanted us to go too! looks pretty tall right? well, the highest floor we were allowed on was the 6th/8th floor..

Well, we eventually made it to the beer museum

learned about the history of Qingdao Beer-- and also saw all the different types of beer cans and beer bottles they've made in the past years

got to sample a little bit of Qingdao beer with some "beer" peanuts

enjoyed it so much we decided to get our faces printed on beer bottles :) haha

and after a glass each, walked into the "Drunk House" -- I must say, it was probably the best experience of my life, haha..really. It's this odd shaped "house" that you walk into and you automatically feel like you're drunk-- you can't walk straight, you stumble around, and it is the weirdest feeling EVER! but it was so much fun..we went in twice :)

and that's the end to our Spring Break!

我爱北京 - I love Beijing

我爱北京
I love Beijing

Yay Yay Yay! Spring Break is here!
I finally went back to visit Beijing--and it was amazing as always. I got to see my old program friends, my old dorm&classroom, my favorite places in Beijing--it was all so wonderful:)

Here a few highlights from my trip:

got to spend a few days with my baby sister :)

AND my mommy!

had Peking Duck-- always a highlight

saw a few old friends + old roommate

new friends met old friends (:

saw friends from my semester with IES Beijing :) + had Korean food = double happiness

went to the Great Wall for the 4th time,,

went to a few places that I miss the most (Hou Hai)

best of all, went with a few of my wonderful Shanghai friends (:

and coming up next, Spring Break pt.II in 青岛－QINGDAO,,

火锅－ Hotpot

火锅 Hotpot

Lately, Min and I have been going on a hotpot craze--eating it whenever we have the chance! The restaurant we frequently go to has all sorts of vegetables, meats, seafood, etc,, to put into the hotpot! it's delicious :) We usually put in fishcakes, meat, and a whole lot of vegetables~ oh! and can't forgot the rice cakes! Here's what our hotpot typically looks like...

This is one of the special soups at the hotpot place we go to-- half plain broth half SUPER spicy


This is how you order foods to put into your hotpot-- it's a really easy and fast meal to eat because all you need to do is put these foods into the hotpot while it's boiling,,wait a little bit, and then you're all set to eat!

Here's Min with all the food :)

and here is me with Christine!

Mmmm, I want some hotpot now!

人民广场－ People's Square

人民广场 People's Square

I went on a nice GNO (girl's night out) like date with Jolie and Min the other day to 人民广场! We went to walk around at night and buy some art supplies on 福州路 Fuzhou Lu, apparently that's where a lot of the art stores are! and of course on our mission to find these art stores, we stumble across a stationary/everything store,,,with absolutely everything you could imagine.

Anyways, a little bit about People's Square. It's downtown, in pretty much the heart of Shanghai. It's near 南京路，which is a huge shopping street! It's a great place to hang out with friends because there are several malls in the area, many restaurants, and bars. The Shanghai Museum and Urban Planning Exhibition Hall are also in the area, so if you ever visit Shanghai, you will probably be spending a lot of time around here! It's also really cool because this square used to be a horse racing course back in Shanghai's history.

This is what it looks like at night!






our usual dimsum dinner :)

our cool masks from the stationary store!

香蕉饼 banana pancakes on a Sunday morning

香蕉饼

xiang jiao bing

One lazy Sunday, my friends and I decided that it would be a good day for pancakes. When my mom visited Shanghai, we found a grocery store with imported delights from America, Japan, etc,, so, of course I treated myself to buying a few foods that I missed eating at home! a.k.a. pancakes! Chinese food is always delicious and there are so many dishes/tastes to choose from, but sometimes you just crave something that isn't stir fried in cups of oil!


Jolie, Min, and Jihii in the kitchen! :) Oh, we also made potatoes and eggs, but I didn't get a photos!

Yes, I have a Doraemon pancake pan.. :) I also have a Hello Kitty one, but it didn't come out as nicely as these ones did! :(


Good friends, yummy pancakes, sun = wonderful wonderful lazy Sunday

:)

串 串 串 儿－ CHUANR

串儿
chuan-er

what is it? basically, it's grilled meat/vegetable/seafood on a stick...I guess you could say it's kind of like a Chinese shishkebab, but soaked in a lot more oil and spices..oh and grilled on a very unique looking grill. I should probably also mention that some 串 places or restaurants also use a hairdryer to..dry the meat? i actually have no idea why they use a hairdryer, but then again, China is full of surprises ;)


(my chicken skewers, min's 4 squids, more chicken + mantou (type of white bread))

Tadaaa! Doesn't look like anything special right? but wait until you try it,, so okay it isn't the classiest or healthiest snack to eat, but it's something you have to try while being in China! It's too bad I didn't enjoy eating 串儿 while living in Beijing because it's definitely a Beijing 小吃 xiao chi- snack. Some of my friends in Beijing used to sit outside of our dorm building at night,,drinking beer and eating 串儿. If I could, I would without a doubt go back in time and join them--now that I can appreciate the taste & culture of 串儿！
You must be dying to find out how it is prepared...right? :)

First, you choose which type of meat/vegetable/seafood you want to eat

mmmm, so much to choose from huh? Basically, these are the different types you can choose from : 牛肉(beef) 羊肉 (mutton) 鸡肉 (chicken) and then a bunch of meatballs, sausages, vegetables, and seafood. The beef, mutton, chicken are probably the most popular types of 串儿,
Some close up photos :


oh yeah! everything is frozen and then grilled-- did I mention you can also get an entire fish?


This is where they grill the 串 on-- they grill it for a while, spread some oil on it and then sprinkle their yummy special spices! If you come visit me in Shanghai, I"ll take you to the 串stand right outside of my dorm complex!Maybe not every night, but maybe every other night :) You will be able to experience the delicious taste of meat seasoned with pepper flakes and cumin seeds,,Chinese style. It's probably not the healthiest snack to have, but it's definitively a tasty one!

二月。新年快乐！ Happy New Year!

新年快乐！
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Feb. 13 - 14. 2010

It's the year of the Tiger and Chinese families are getting ready to celebrate the New Year! We went to the Food Mall today to get a few snacks for our New Year's Eve party..and this is what the mall looked like. No wonder the roads were empty-- 怪不的外面没有人！everyone is shopping to buy food to celebrate!

请进请进～ 1201 欢迎你！
Welcome to 1201's new year party (:
Since we had no special plans for the New Year and we thought it would be way to hectic to travel..we decided to have a little party at our apartment. We wanted to take advantage of our opportunity to celebrate the Chinese New Year in China, so we tried to get as Chinese as possible. Meaning, we bought a few decorations, hung as much red onto the walls as possible and had our own New Year's Eve dinner (nian ye fan- 年夜饭）

Similar to the West where we feast on Christmas Eve, the Chinese have a huge dinner on New Year's Eve. They typically have fish (鱼), chicken (鸡）, duck (鸭), and vegetables (蔬菜) as the main course and then rice cakes (nian gao- 年糕）as dessert.
As shown in the picture,, we clearly feasted well on delicious Chinese food :) We ate very well-- 我们吃了满满的饭



At every New Year's Eve dinner, Chinese families eat fish because it symbolizes a profitable year ahead. The word for "surplus" in Chinese is jie yu (结余）which sounds similar to the word for fish (yu - 鱼). -- 因为 “鱼” 的发音跟结余的 “余” 一样，“有鱼” 就成了 “有余”， 意思是希望在新的一年里大家生活得更好，家家都 ”有余“！！






Here is some more of the food we had-- don't worry..it wasn't just me and Min eating all this food! We had about 10 people to share all this food with (we still had about half left over!)















Here are all of our decorations--yes, we bought a plastic lantern to set the mood of our celebration. The 副 sign in the middle of our masterpiece means happiness. On Chinese New Year, people hang this 副 characters on doors, but they hang them upside down. They hang the 副 upside down to signify that happiness is coming.

Part II of our New Year's Eve! 第二部分

It is also tradition to 包饺子 (bao jiao zi) make dumplings on New Year's Eve. Luckily we had our Chinese roommate with us (and Min-- our 华侨－Native Chinese that lives overseas) to teach us the art of making dumplings! We made way too much and couldn't finish a fourth of what we ate, but it was fun making them! Our roommate told us that families typically make dumplings at midnight, but we started a little bit earlier at around 10 PM before we went out to see what the rest of 上海 Shanghai was up to!

As you can see, making dumplings is a very messy process! We first rolled out the dough into a long snake-like roll, so that we could cut the dough into small pieces. Then, we flattened the small pieces out with our hands by rolling and pushing down on the dough in circular rotations. After the dough looked like a flat circle, we put a little bit of filling (mushrooms + chai, pork+celery) onto the circle and folded it up! We had to make sure that it was tightly closed because if not, the filling would spill out while it cooked.
The steps:

Part III of our New Year's Eve! 第三部分

Another popular past time of New Years is...fire works!! 鞭炮！Although it's supposedly prohibited (禁止) in big cities, people still do it anyways. Fireworks works were going off continuously throughout the night and it really set the whole mood for New years. We could see people right outside of our building setting off fireworks (放鞭炮) and it was really exciting!





We were so close up to the fireworks it was amazing! All of us sat on the window ledge to look out the window~~

Part IV of our New Year's Eve! 第四部分

So, New Years is a time for celebration and fun! Have fun with your friends and family..and if you're in China, don't forget to make your 中国朋友 (Chinese Friends)

Part V of our New Year's Eve! 第五部分

and for all of you born during the year of the Tiger, don't forget to wear your red underwear for good luck! ;)