Our trip to..Beijing?

It was our understanding that Sarah, Alison, and I were taking the bus somewhere 2 hours north of Beijing. Instead, on Saturday, we took a 2-hour bus to...northern Beijing.

We knew we were in for a treat when our first sight of the hotel/complex was a hill out back filled with man-made snow next to an indoor water park. When we finally found the correct building with the hotel, our first step was to take a group picture of CICAMS epidemiology dept:
(It is fun to zoom in on that picture.) The self-proclaimed five-star luxury hotel was a few years past its prime, as evidence by its "Merry Christma" decorations...
But we didn't let that get us down. We spent the rest of the first day listening to lectures in Chinese about undetermined topics. 10% of the time, the slides were in English, so we could follow along, but the rest of the afternoon was spent in peaceful zen-like meditation, aided by ipads.

The big appeal of the hotel was that it included activities--Sarah, Alison, and I chose the hot springs, because...how cool is that? Our enthusiasm was dampened somewhat by our 1 km walk through an unheated passageway in our swimsuits to the water park, being denied entry, walking around outside to the actual entrance, walking through the man-made jacuzzis-in-jungle-style "hotsprings" back to the water park (which our ticket allowed us entrance to), where we begged to be allowed to go down the slides, which were closing. They let us (yay for being special!), and the slides were SO FUN. Favorite moment? Being hauled out of the water the second after splash down so I didn't drown. Thank you, "lifeguard."

We then went to sit in a jacuzzi, and it was pretty awesome and chillax...until we noticed that the spa smelled like mold and unwashed gym socks. So we left, and Sarah and Alison decided it was too cold to walk back without towels from the spa, so they smuggled them out for our long, cold, walk back to the hotel. (remember this)

On day 2, both Sarah and I gave our 10-minute talks. Mine was comparing cervical cancer screening in China and the US, which was difficult in that there is no national cervical cancer screening program in China whatsoever. We then snuck out to go bowling with Eunuch as the rest of the talks did not have English slides. I came in last, but I was awarded an "A" for effort.When it was time to leave, Wangshaoming told me and Alison that the staff was accusing us and Sarah of stealing towels from the hotel. We thought we were in trouble for moving towels from the water park to the hotel (keep in mind it's the same complex and company), so I went to explain. The hotel staff berated me for 45 minutes (they said there was only 1 towel in each room, when there should have been 2 from the hotel and 1 from the water park, so they demanded payment for stolen property), and I was getting angry as 1) Alison and I both showered that morning with separate towels 2) the towels were gross so why would we steal them? and 3) I'm not letting some skeezy lady take my cash money. It was made even more sketchy because they refused to let us back into the rooms because "their maids had double checked." Luckily, Shangying convinced them to let us upstairs, and surprise surprise, we found 3 towels in each room. By the time we got back to the lobby, the hotel said the error was fixed. In the US, we would have been comped SOMETHING, but here, there was no apology whatsoever. I think what happened is the hotel didn't think we'd have such strong Chinese-speaking advocates, and that we'd just quietly fork over the money...as we're Americans, so obviously extremely rich.

We still had a good time and are glad we went, but will not be recommending a visit to the "Leisure Hotsprings Hotel" for any of our Beijing visitors.

Uncle Manny in Beijing

Monday, I took the day off of work to go sightseeing with Uncle Manny. We had a blast together, using only public transportation and google maps to get around. Basically, the price for my guided city tour was allowing me to pick his brain about entering and thriving in academic medicine, applying to residency, etc, and he did not disappoint ;)

We experienced the city in hurricane fashion, starting with Tiananmen Gate.
The positive thing about sightseeing in Beijing in the winter is that everything is nearly empty. You can even take pictures in the Forbidden City without capturing hordes of people, as you can see.The negative thing about sightseeing in Beijing in the winter is that it's 20 degrees outside (wind chill: 4 degrees). TMI alert: my pee steamed when I used the unheated public restrooms.

So, after we went up to the hutong area (historic Beijing), we thawed out at lunch and then continued to the Drum and Bell Towers.

Here's the view of the historic buildings nearby.
We then went to the Temple of Heaven, and I forgot to write the bus transfer in the directions, so we walked about 1.5 km extra (party foul). I think the circular buildings are prettier than the Forbidden City.
Once again, there were so few people there that I could take some nice pictures:
And we left the Temple of Heaven to meet up with Alison for dinner (guess where?), we passed by a group of Chinese people singing folk songs: It was a perfect end to our tour.

The following day, we both went to work while Uncle Manny hiked the Great Wall like we did in August. They give you a water bottle, and he said his froze. Can you imagine?

He left on Wednesday, and the apartment is quiet without him. But his legacy lives on as somewhere in our whirlwind adventures, I hurt my foot and have had trouble walking the last few days. Luckily Sarah had a crutch, which has been my saving grace. And I get to work from home tomorrow (missing the sacred weekly conference) to "rest" before the big conference at the 5-star hotspring hotel this weekend. Rough life, right?

Momentous moment!

We interrupt talking about our amazing trip with Uncle Manny to talk about the moment you've all been waiting for: the answer to many of your question about what happens when the diaperless baby needs to poop.

As I walked into the lobby today, the security guard was running with paper towels at a grandma holding a baby. I thought it was weird until I looked at the floor...and there was a pile of baby poop near them.

Mystery solved! Babies poop where they pee--which is everywhere.

Yangshuo

Adam, Uncle Manny, and I just returned from a weekend in Yangshuo, in southern China. Despite the rain (we were prepared this time!), it was a fantastic weekend adventure.

We arrived in the middle of the night, after a 3 hour flight and 2 hour drive to our hostel. Upon waking up in the morning, this is what we saw; it's pretty much what the entire town and surrounding villages look like:

(the white clouds are Fog, not SMog!) 


The first thing on our agenda was kayaking down the Li River.  This was my first time, so it took a few adjustments before I figured things out (and I was soaking wet!). Luckily, Uncle Manny and Adam are pros, so they gave me a crash course, switched an oar, and we were good to go. 

Because of the weather, we were the only people on the river, except for a few locals checking on their fish nets, washing clothes, or riding in their bamboo rafts. The views were spectacular, and it was a great way to see the area. Actually, the picture on the back of the 20rmb bill is from the Li River!

After arriving back at the hotel, we decided to opt of out mountain biking due to the continuous drizzle and mud. Instead, we rested for a bit and went on a long walk. We passed water buffalo,

 rocks and what looked like ruins with gravestones,

and several bamboo rafts on part of the river.

Turns out that this was the only way across. Thus, we were rowed across the river by women using bamboo. It was great!

After walking by several gardens and small farms, we walked across a bridge to hear a guy shouting towards the river. When we looked, we realized he was calling...ducks! Here they are swimming towards their owner: (who knew ducks were so smart?!)

They waddled up onto land and then along a path, past the 3 of us, into a little hut. It was both bizarre and absolutely hilarious. This is the best picture I could get of the ducks barreling towards us:

As we continued walking, we happened upon a family restaurant--tailgating tents set up with tables and chairs underneath. There was no menu, so Adam and I fumbled through figuring out what they had with the help of the family's teenage daughter. We had no idea what we were getting, but it turned out to be a delicious meal. The best part was that after we finished, the girl motioned towards a van and asked if we wanted to use it. We negotiated a price and the girl, her very excited little brother, and father got into the car and we piled in after. It turned out to be a very good thing, as it was dark and probably about 4km back to the hostel. 

Our plan for Sunday was to take a bamboo raft down a different part of the river, but apparently the president of China was going to be doing the same thing on Monday, so they closed down the river. Love it. Instead, we drove to 2 neighboring towns and walked around. The first had a huge market, full of vegetables, fish, leeches, chickens, and pretty much everything else. It was not until we happened upon our first hanging skinned dog that my stomach dropped and I was ready to go. Ughhhhhh. (I shielded my eyes and walked the other way, but Adam took some pictures. Since I refuse to look at them, I will save you from seeing them as well).

The second town was much bigger with a thriving old town. We walked through, took some beautiful pictures, and avoided throngs of Chinese tourists taking pictures near the river. We found a quiet place for a yummy lunch before heading to the airport to catch our flight.

The weekend was a wonderful getaway from the coooold and smoggy north. It has been a lot of fun to have another family visitor in China!

Pingyao

Hi everyone!

Because Uncle Manny is in China right now (!) and we meet him in Beijing on Friday (!!) to go to Guilin together (!!!), I'm going to combine all last weekend into one monstrous post. Get your Adderal, folks ;)

Pingyao is where Chinese banking was founded and was an extremely rich town of merchants (Jeopardy clue: The first Chinese draft bank was started by a rich guy who needed an easier way to move funds from his stores in different cities than schlepping bags of silver). Because it was so small, it escaped the notice of the Chinese Modernization Committee and has been left untouched as originally built 200-800 years ago. That's what's awesome about Pingyao. What stinks (literally) is that it's in Shanxi Province, which is where all of China gets its coal, so the whole town was COVERED in thick smog and dust that smelled horrible. Anyways, we took a relatively standard overnight soft sleeper train to Pingyao and were met at the station by our free transportation to the hostel...electric tuktuk! After we got settled, we signed up for a day tour of the two nearby highlights, House of Wang and the Underground Castle (sounds xxx, right?). The Wang family made a fortune selling tofu (of all things) a long time ago and built this pimp complex of buildings. The size of the compound was as impressive (this pic is probably 1/3 of it!)
as the detail within each courtyard.
One of our own problems is that we, as Westerners, don't have any appreciation for historical Chinese art/artifacts. So, we saw this room full of calligraphy and pottery from 1300, and were like, ok cool,
whereas if you replace that with Renaissance-era statues and paintings, we'd be really impressed. To add some Western flair to the settings, Alison and I re-enacted a famous scene
by one of our most famous literary geniuses.
I was thinking more along the lines of Romeo and Juliet, but apparently this picture also looks like Rapunzel. Oh well. We also got a great glimpse of the famous cave dwellings of Shanxi province: these people live in caves which they expand and add (some) modern conveniences! You can see the chimneys peaking out from the ground! We then moved on to the Underground Castle, which was actually just a series of tunnels built in the 1400s as defense against the...enemy (term undefined by tour guide). At one point, the tunnel was so short even our favorite Mini-Me could barely stand up
at other points, it had stairs.
We eventually got down to 26 meters underground! This level had a trapdoor for the enemy to fall to his death...or something. We then got a tour of an old town of 1000 people and had a nice dinner. On the second day, we spent the morning walking along the ancient city wall, built in 1300. Here you see how the wall is like a fortress preventing new Pingyao from changing the old...and how polluted it was.
Alison blew her nose near here...and the snot had black flecks in it! She also took a really cool picture of this family drying gloves and toy bunnies (which are black from the soot) on the wall. After lunch (see menu below) we went on a self-guided tour of historic Pingyao. Our first stop was the prison.Luckily, Alison escaped and was able to join me and Sarah for the rest of the tour :) The problem with this picturesque town is that after a while, everything started looking the same. For example, courtesy of Alison (of course), here's a pic of small temple and another of a random bank

Beautiful but similar, right? After a while, what happened randomly wherever we were was more exciting than the actual buildings. Inside one temple, there was a reenactment of a judge decreeing the law to peasants
and in an old amphitheater there was a rehearsal for a dance performance. We also bought some hand-made embroidery things that look like paintings for less than a Starbucks coffee costs in NYC...
before returning to Beijing in the hard sleeper class, which has 6 people to a compartment, without a door. Main difference: you can't sit up on your bed.

To sum up Pingyao, we had a great time and are really happy to go, but would NOT recommend that anyone visits in winter...or if you like your lungs. I leave you guys with a preview of Halloween, 2011:

Happy Hanukkah!

I cannot believe it is already December!! Where has the time gone? I guess that's a sign of just how adapted we've become. It has been an interesting few weeks here in Beijing, as we have now celebrated 2 holidays back-to-back and managed to make them special and unique, China-style.

Adam already posted about Thanksgiving, but he did not write anything about how my kindergarten celebrated (ps: I love that I was completely left out of the Thanksgiving celebration planning...as the only foreigner, let alone American...I will never understand my principal's logic). For the kids, they combined the November birthdays birthday party with Thanksgiving. This meant that every class had some sort of paper good to put onto hooks attached to a massive card...

 ...and then sang "Happy Birsday" to the birsday kids.

For the teachers, Thanksgiving means a gift exchange and singing a "gan en ge" (Thanksgiving song). The principal and head teacher spoke for a while when suddenly Bobby (side note: I found out yesterday that her name is actually BARBIE but it sounds like "Bobby-eh" when pronounced with a Chinese accent) stood up and lead the entire staff in a song/dance about giving thanks. I tried my best to keep a straight face! Then we had the gift exchange, where I received a piece of brown plastic in a baggie. Turns out that when you rub the plastic against your skin, it is healing. I'm slightly skeptical, as the person who told me this also told me that eating chicken skin will make your skin glow. Thoughts?

I also want to quickly add to Adam's post: he did a fantastic job with his first turkey carving! Doesn't this turkey (the one holding the knife) look delicious?

(Liz, that joke was for you!) We had quite the spread at Sarah's. I am impressed with how everyone adjusted their family's recipes according to what can be found in China. For example, I successfully replicated my mom's sweet potato casserole by using Digestives (British cookies) instead of graham crackers, yogurt and baking soda instead of baking powder, vanilla powder (with added water), and home-made applesauce. It was yummy, and I was so proud of myself!

(Sweet potatoes are to the far left) - doesn't this look great?!

Adam and I decided that for Hanukkah, we will make it special by doing fun things instead of exchanging gifts. This weekend, we are headed to Pingyao with Sarah (see Adam's post), and next week, we are going out to dinner at a French restaurant. But tonight, I made sweet potato latkes and cinnamon applesauce, both from scratch!

(Can you tell that I'm quite proud of my cooking?! Haha).  We enjoyed this delicious Hanukkah treat while watching our menorah candles burn on the windowsill:

Adam and I thought it might be cool to get a Chinese menorah, but the only ones we could find were actually American. Thus, we improvised with tea candles (thanks for the idea, Mom!)!

Happy Hanukkah and December! (don't worry, December 1st turns out to be a great day!)

truckin'

Sorry for the relative lapse in communication. Our lives here have become routine, to the point that we no longer blink at most things that China throws at us (including a little boy peeing on the floor by produce in Carrefour, me getting grazed by a huge bulldozer on my daily walk through a construction site to work, and Alison being asked to write an English essay for a colleague's 8 year old child). We are gearing up for a great 3 weeks, though: on Friday, Sarah and we are going to Pingyao for the weekend, then we are meeting Uncle Manny at the airport on the following Friday to go to Yangshou for the weekend with him. He's staying a few days with us in Beijing, and we're so excited to show him around! Then he leaves Wednesday, and Alison and I go to the annual Beijing Epi conference 2 hours away at a hotel with a hotsprings.

Last Friday, I gave a talk about American high-schools, college application process, college/university, and pre-med/med school applications.
(PS: the unexpected benefit of this year is that by the end, I will be completely used to speaking in front of 100-200 people, often with only a days notice). There were two questions, the first about what Americans thought of China's relationship with Taiwain, and the second being what I thought the shortcomings were of the Chinese education system as it does not offer as much choice as the American system does. (PPS: This year will also make me a politician, able to provide PC answers without really answering questions.)

Then Saturday, we went to Sarah's apartment for Thanksgiving x2. I carved the turkey for the first time!


The food was DELICIOUS (including Alison's sweet potato casserole with homemade apple sauce). And we spent the rest of the afternoon talking. It was a great group--mostly Europeans, a few Chinese, and then the Fogarties (minus Simon who was actually in the NYC!)--and it actually felt like Thanksgiving. I did have a faux pas when I noticed that this Chinese man was speaking perfect French and I asked him how he learned it--turns out he's from an island near Madagascar that is still a French territory, so he speaks Cantonese, Mandarin, French, and English. Show off. We also had a lot of nonverbal communication, as demonstrated by Ben and Alison. To provide a quick work update for those of you who are interested: Today, I plan on sending a rough draft of another paper to the American PI, who will probably tear it apart. The first one was rejected by Lancet (big surprise) but we edited it and sent it to JAMA 2 weeks ago, and it was assigned an editor (woo hoo!), so keep your fingers crossed. And the 2nd one has been accepted to a small journal that's published within China...so no complaints. Things are going really well.

Happy Channukah!