Golden Week Aftermath

Ni Hao!! Well, Thailand was AMAZING!! I have only been back for a week, so I have been crazy busy with school and catching up on all the projects, papers, midterms, and homework! It was a bit of a weather shock leaving Thailand and coming back to Tianjin, since the weather in Thailand is in the mid 80s and in Tianjin it gets in the 50s at night. Thailand is very different from China, from the food to the culture. We started out in Bangkok where we spent two days. In Bangkok I got to visit the Grand Palace, which was truly beautiful. We all mostly walked around the city and shopped and visit the night life. Then, we took an overnight bus ride down towards Surat Thani, where we transferred to another bus and then ferry to Koh Samui island. The island was gorgeous! The sand was so soft and smooth, it felt great to just walk around barefoot. On the island we went jet skiing for an hour and saw parts of the island that most people don't get to see. Two of us met a very nice lady that works at the bar next to our hotel, who took us on her scooter and showed us the neighborhood part of the island, in which many tourists do not see. The lady was so nice, that she actually took us to her house where we met her kids. We spent two days on the island and then took a ferry off to Koh Phangan island. Koh Phangan was similiar to Koh Samui except that it was smaller in size. At night we went to a world-wide known party called the Half Moon Festival. It was one of the most insane events I have ever attended, there was glowing body paint, people from around the world, and fire performances. The party was great overall and I would love to go back. After Koh Phangan we went to Phuket where there were more beautiful beaches, great food, and shopping. Then we took a ferry off to Koh Phi Phi which is made of gorgeous islands of limestone. The island was some of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen in my life! We toured the island and also went on a long-tail boat around part of the island to see the sunset. We also got to see a very exciting Muay Thai fight! After Koh Phi Phi I went off to Krabi which was another gorgeous area in Thailand! For the first time in my life I went horse-back riding and it was on the beach! It was so beautiful and peaceful. Krabi is such a small town, which I loved because it was just tourist attractions everywhere. After Krabi I had to head back to Bangkok where I spent two more days and then headed back to China. I miss Thailand so much! I saw and did so much, such as go to the floating market and ride an elephant, but there is so much I also didn't get to see. I WILL go back one day, I am making a promise to myself. :-) As for now, I have a midterm that I need to study for! After all, the schooling is much different here than in Miami. I feel as if in Miami the professors can really relate to the class and give great examples, whereas here everything is based off the book and memorization. All in all, I'm having the best time of my life, learning something new everyday. Wan An!

Pre-Departure to Thailand!!!!

Ni Hao!! I'm really sorry for not blogging in so long! I have been nonstop for the past few days and on top of that my internet was not working in my room, but here I am! I don't even know where to begin... Well 2 weekends ago I went to Qingdao, which is a coastal city in China. It was beautiful! There was a beach and the city is known for beer. The local beer that we all love to drink here is called Tsingdao. Qingdao is home to the factory that produces the beer, so we got to visit the museum and factory where the beer was made. Only three of us went on this trip, so it was very calm and relaxing for the most part. It was our first trip without a Chinese student to help guide us, so it was quite an adventure, but most importantly a learning experience.

Last weekend was crazy! We went to Hong Kong and Macao! There are not enough words to describe either of the cities. Hong Kong is completely different from the rest of China and for the most part everyone speaks pretty good English. There was one downfall to the trip... we missed our connecting flight! Connecting flights in China is completely different than in America, and the airline staff are not very helpful to be honest. We had 25 minutes to get on our connecting plane, but they closed the gate and would not let us through, even though the plane was just sitting there! We had to spend the night in some small town in the middle of no where, since the next flight to Hong Kong was the next day. Missing a whole day in Hong Kong sucked, but by the end of the trip I forgot we missed a day because I had a blast. There were people from all around the world that we got to meet. Hong Kong is very busy and constantly going, it kind of reminded me of being back home! One night we took a ferry from Hong Kong to Macau which is considered the Las Vegas of China! It was a blast! We partied all night long and shopped and gambled the next day. Gambling was very successful for me because I won money! After a day in Macau we were back in Hong Kong for one last night. There were six of us and by the end of the night we got separated so we had to stay in 2 different hotels and didn't meet up again until the airport. Hong Kong was so much fun and I need to go back again before coming back to America!

I'm so stressed out lately because we leave for Thailand on Wednesday night! There is so much homework to do, projects to discuss with groups, laundry to get done, packing, making reservations, planning, quizzes, tests, and oh did I mention homework?! I know that I won't be sleeping much these next couple of days, but I know that if I just get through it I will be fine because Thailand is our vacation! We will be there for 10 days and we have so much planned to do! We are going to be all over Thailand, I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am! Bangkok, Ko Samui, Ko Phangan, Phuket, Surant Thani are a few of the main places we plan on visiting. I am just looking forward to sitting on the beach and soaking in the sun and relaxing. I mean I never thought I would be in China, let alone going on vacation from China to Thailand!! How crazy! I really need to get homework done now :-( All I want to do is blog more, so hopefully the internet stays working well so that I can blog more before I leave. I really apologize for the delay in blogging and the lack of organization, but I promise the next one will be better!

A Month In and How Delicious

Nǐ hǎo, wǒ de péngyǒu (Hello my friends), it has been a bout a month into China and it has been an exciting month. We have become comfortable with our surroundings and have been exploring the area around our school more and more. For me this means finding new places to eat. There are now four places that I like to go to around campus. I wish I could tell you their names, but the truth is I don’t know them. The first is an outdoor market under the bridge right outside of school. You can buy items to take back to your room like fruits or nuts, but the best part is the street food they sell there. They have such a wide selection of food that it’s hard to mention them all. Mostly though its prepared dishes, grilled meats or select what ingredients you want and they cook those for you. My favorite though is guōtiē, which are pan-fried dumplings. Next is a restaurant on the other side of the bridge that we eat at least twice a week. We have a few stables we get when we go there. Our newest favorite is as the group calls it chocolate tofu, it is deep fried tofu with nuts and a sauce that taste like chocolate. There is always qiézi (eggplant), which I’ve stated before is delicious. Jiǎozi, which are, steamed dumplings; they are accompanied by cù (vinegar). A side not I have not seen soy sauce at all since coming to China. We have asked the Chinese students about it and they say it’s mostly a Japanese item. Around the corner from the school is a restaurant that serves donkey. It is incredibly delicious (for more info read Krysta last blog post). Lastly is a restaurant that specializes in the cuisine that comes from a region that a couple of our Chinese friends are from. I liken it to a combination of Mediterranean, Indian and Chinese food it is so hard to describe, but so delicious. One of my favorite parts of going out is the ordering process.

Our Chinese friends have also taken us to restaurants far from the school. For this we take the rail system that about a twenty-minute walk from the school. The fare ranges from 2-5 yuan depending how far you go. This weekend we went to two new restaurants Spice Spirit and a place that serves bāozi (stuffed steamed buns). These two places couldn’t be more different from one another, but both were delicious. Spice Spirit specializes in the cuisine from Sichuan and the décor is very nice. The food was supposed to be really spicy, but we think they toned it down for us since we were foreigners. This upset of because we all like and wanted spicy food. We had so many dishes there cauliflower, frog legs, a soup with crab roe and tofu, braised vegetables with bacon and mushrooms, spareribs and a whole fish (which they brought alive to the table for us to see) that they cooked submerged in oil with bean sprouts and Sichuan peppercorns (which messes with your taste). For the fish they brought out a slice of toast to soak up the oil from the fish. When the bread came out everyone wanted to eat it, since we don’t come across bread much here. For the restaurant that serves bāozi our friendsPaul and Bill took us there. It is a hole in the wall (which is typically my favorite places). We had three kinds of bāozi meat, vegetables, and fennel. They were all so delicious, the buns kept the inside nice and moist and the texture contrast between the two was surreal. We had other dishes as well. We had a dish of slightly pickled vegetables, shredded pork, some kind of fruit that was jammy, and beef that was prepared the same way that ham is in the States.

I can’t believe how good the food is here; it is going to be hard for me to go back to the States. I do miss some things, mostly breakfast. I am looking forward though to trying new items and new cuisines while I’m here or during my trips to Thailand and hopefully Vietnam, Japan and Korea. Zàijiàn (goodbye), till next time. Reanyalex@gmail.com

It's Already Week 3 :-(

Ni Hao! (Hello) I can't believe that it's already my 3rd week in China! I look at it as I only have 13 weeks left :-( As you can see I picked up on some Mandarin! The language is sooo hard, but I'm slowly, but surely learning a few key words as well as some funny words of course! We stayed in Tianjin this past weekend to try and settle down. Most of us have been sick (except me!) and so it was a good idea that we stayed "home." Speaking of sick, one of the study abroad students Justin ha been really sick, so bad in fact that the other night at 3 a.m. I went with him to the hospital. I wouldn't wish on anyone to have to go to the hospital we went too! I will be completely honest, it was disguising and scary and was making me sick to my stomach. But, at least Justin got his medicine and is feeling much better.

On the better side, I LOVE CHINA! I still really don't have any complaints except for the pollution. I wish it was more clear outside, even the students who live here complain about the pollution in Tianjin. As Alex had mentioned, the students are awesome! They are all so loyal and helpful. It amazes me each time I see them, how well-rounded and truly good people they are. I made friends with a few girls who decided to take us out at night. (Yes, the Chinese know how to party!) Their names are Tusi, Yi Fang, Ye Na, and Xuan. These girls are awesome and have been a lot of help. They all have English names and most of them thing it is real "cool" to have an English name, but I have learned their Chinese names and I try to pronounce it right, because that's what I like to call them. I don't think these students should be required to have an English name. I try my best to learn their Chinese one if I can pronounce it. My perspective is that I was born as Krysta and that is what I wish to continue to be called, and these girls were born with a name, and that's what they should forever be called. Just because we are American and speak English doesn't mean everyone has to bend over backwards to make things easier for us.

It can be frustrating at times when there is difficulty and confusion in our daily things, such as ordering food. I know a lot of people wouldn't be able to handle this. The ladies in the Canteen that we eat at often don't speak English and some students get mad, like it is their fault that they can't speak English, but I see it as a push to learn the language. As Alex had said, we play a lot of charades. I don't mind it though. After all, this is a learning experience!

Last night for dinner we ate DONKEY! It was delicious. I couldn't believe how much I liked it. The lady making it, thinly sliced the donkey with a cleaver and mixed in some peppers, which I think were cubanelles, and something that looked like pure, raw fat! We later found out that it is a mixture of meat, flowers and corn starch? Yeah I'm confused on that too. Anyways, it was then put into this freshly baked bun. It was so good that I ate 3 of them! I love food. Alex and I most definitely have that in common!

School is so so here. Everyday there is more homework and more projects and more quizzes. Blah, blah, blah. Don't get me wrong, I want to learn and further my education, but I also want a lot of free time so I can hang out more with the students and see all I can see in China! Well, it looks like it is lunch time! I will be on again soon! Don't forget to comment or email me at: krysta [dot] dibenedetto [at] gmail [dot] com.

2nd Week of Classes Done

Hey everyone! Like Krysta I want to apologize for the delay for new posts. Certain things we take for advantage in the United States can become very taxing in China. Other then the few negatives like the pollution and a few other bumps in the road everything is wonderful all eleven of us a thoroughly enjoying our time here. I feel like we have became a family already, be that a slightly dysfunctional one. As Krysta said it feel like we have been here for months and not just a week and a half. The Chinese have been so nice and accommodating to us and we have become very close to a few. Our new friend Paul (his Chinese name is pronounced Jin Ye) has been especially amazing. When we went to Beijing last weekend he come with us and helped us get around, and I am so grateful.

I’m not going to reiterate the time we all spent in Beijing since Krysta’s post summed it up very well. I will add that we all did get lost in Summer Palace, it is absolutely immense. The group I was with needed to resort to the little bit of mandarin we have picked and a playing charades to find our way out. For us that did find it to the exit our friend Paul took us to a restaurant to eat near his house where we ate the most delicious eggplant. I have always loved eggplant, but what they do to it here is magical and I must find out how to replicate it.

After the meal we went to the Olympic park and walked around. The scale of everything was so overwhelming, and beautiful. The Watercube was absolutely breathtaking. Afterwards we made out way back to the hostel where we hoped to find our lost counterparts. Once we found out everyone was safe it felt like a weight was lifted from all of us and we went to sleep to get ready for the Great Wall.

After the wall we had to make our way back to Tianjin exhausted and in desperate need for a shower. After a bus ride and a walk we reached our campus where we were greeted by the scent of the neighboring pig farm. Which in this case brought on the sense that we were home and could get so rest and unwind.

Then it was back to classes, which honestly for the most part are very boring. The Chinese students though are very attentive and quite. We noticed that none of the doodle or fidget with anything during the class. Also the teachers single us American students out from the class and sometimes it sees they are teaching to us instead of the whole class.

Recently a few students from France have moved onto the same floor as us and have fit in well. It amazing how many different languages are now flying around on our floor; English, French, Spanish, Mandarin, Korean. This experience is definitely going to make us all appreciate the different cultures and make us more global intuned.

That brings us up to date I wanted to leave you the view from my window since today the pollution isn’t so bad and you can actually see the building that are usally hidden.

One Week Already Gone

Hey guys! First off I want to give a quick apology for not posting for a while. There was some difficultly with setting up the internet here and then there was difficultly getting onto blogger. Anyways, week one in China has already came and left! I feel like I have been in China for almost a month, because this pass week was so busy and packed with fun. When I first arrived in China, it still didn't hit me that I was actually in China. This was my first time ever leaving the United States and I was really worried that I would get scared and want to crawl to a corner and just hide. I was in the exact opposite! Standing outside the terminal and seeing the different people, cars, language, and even air was nothing but exciting for me. I love experiencing new things and I can't be more thankful that I took advantage of this opportunity. After landing at the airport in Beijing, we drove about two hours in a van to Tianjin. It was incredible to look out the window during this drive and seeing the different stores, restaurants, apartments and the way the Chinese people live. I noticed during that drive and throughout the week that there really aren't any houses, or at least I haven't seen any. The Chinese live in high rise apartments which don't look very large. I never knew that living in an house was as much of an advantage as it is. When I think about it, I couldn't imagine living without a living room, dining room, individual bedroom, or fully loaded kitchen. I'm so grateful that I have those things back at home, because when it comes down to it, those things aren't necessities after all, they are just advantages I'm lucky enough to have.

The food here is FANTASTIC! I could probably start a blog on nothing but the food in China. I'm in heaven and I honestly thought I would be losing weight while in China, but at the rate I'm going I'm doing the exact opposite. :-P My first meal in China, was at a small local restaurant near the TUC-FIU campus. We were all starving by dinner time! We had so much variety from dumplings to chicken to pork to beef to vegetables. Some dishes are spicy, some are salty, and some are sweet. All in all the balance of textures and taste satisfies all of my taste buds. The first dinner was very memorable, especially since we all got to share it together as a family. After all, we are one big family since we are living and traveling together for 4 months. Not only is the food different from America, but also the way they eat. Obviously for one, our utensils for the next 4 months are chopsticks. I'm not the best at eating with them (especially when it comes to eating corn), but I'm slowly getting better and as long as the food eventually makes it from the plate to my mouth I'm happy. :-) Almost everywhere we go to eat, we don't order an individual dish for each of us. The portions are huge here, so sharing is the best method here. At most places we sit around a large round table that has a spinning round glass, lazy susan-type-thing, in the middle. As dishes come we just spin to eat a little bit of everything. When we are not out to eat, we eat at a canteen that is one the first floor of our campus. Fortunately they have a menu with both English and Chinese on it so we know what we are ordering. The challenging part is try to communicate with the kitchen staff to order since they know little to none English. My plan is that by the end of this trip I will know how to order in Chinese! The best dishes I have had to far, is a spicy chicken dish with chilies and peanuts which I guess is called Kung Pao chicken, any dish with eggplant, and there is a spicy stir-fried string green beans dish. Talking about food is making me hungry!

This past weekend was our first weekend traveling outside of Tianjin together! We chose Beijing since there is so much to do there and since it is nearby. Our Chinese friend Paul decided to come with us, which was a blast! I love hanging out with the Chinese students, they could talk to you for hours and they are so much fun. To get to Beijing we took a high-speed bullet train. The train got us from Tianjin to Beijing in exactly thirty minutes. It went as fast at 293 km/h, which is around 180 mph. We stayed at a hostel in Beijing called Happy Chopsticks. This was my first time staying in a hostel and it was a great experience. We met so many people from around the world just traveling. Beijing has so much to do that it's near impossible to do it all in one weekend. For this weekend though we went to the Summer Palace which is huge park that is spiritual for many, since it contains ancient statues of Buddhas and temples. The down part of the Summer Palace was that my friend and I got lost trying to get out! We all agreed to meet at the entrance at 5, and since the park was so enormous at around 3:30 we decided to start heading there. Well, we had no map, we can't read Chinese, and signs saying "exit" don't exist! It took us over an hour to exit the park, and just when we thought we could be relieved we realized that there is more than one exit! We had no way of getting to where everyone else was, and we don't have cell phones so we can't exactly communicate to one another. It was fine though, because we had fun getting lost and we got to figure things out on our own. We found the subway station, figured out which subways to take, and switched subway lines, and got to the hostel. We didn't get back to the hostel until 8:30 at night, but I enjoyed being lost. It was a challenge and there were many obstacles, but we overcame each and every one of them. On Sunday we went to the Great Wall of China! The section of the wall we went to was called Mutianyu. It was about an hour and a half drive to get there. The view was spectacular! There aren't enough words to describe the Great Wall. The Mutianyu Great Wall had a section of the wall that had not been restored. The steps went from being 6 inches high to 18 inches high in a matter of one step. It was amazing and exhausting. We hiked up the great wall for about 3 hours. I got to see and experience something that very few people get to do. I will be recommending the Great Wall to everyone! Getting to the top was a self accomplishment. It's physically exhausting, but if you have the mental strength than you can do it. I enjoyed every minute of being on top and I plan on going to a different part of the wall before I leave China.

Beijing was overall a very successful and fun-filled weekend, along with the whole past week of being in Tianjin. I am having the time of my life! I enjoy every minute here and I almost don't want to ever leave. I have yet to even miss home. I'm enjoying being here so much that it's kind of scaring me that I don't miss home. This experience can only get better from here and I look forward to each morning, afternoon, and night. The self discovery I'm finding here in China is unexplainable, but it is happening. I'm going to go back to America with a completely different outlook on life. Everyone has at least one life changing experience, whether it be a life threatening one or a thrilling one. China is my life changing moment and I am loving every moment of it! I wish everyone could experience what I'm going through. I will be blogging more now throughout the week so check in often!

P.S. Don't forget you can email me if you have any questions at all! My email is krysta [dot] dibenedetto [at] gmail [dot] com.


Tags: FIU Chaplin School of Hospitality
FIU - TUC
Beijing
Summer Palace
Great Wall of China

And They're Off...

The students are China bound!