Dr. Cecoli's birthday

For Professor Cecolli's birthday we went to a Korean Restaurant. It was very good. At a Korean restaurant you do not have to order a lot of food because they bring out a lot of free stuff. Most of it I could not identify but some of it I could. The things I could identify were the sticky rice balls and the kimchee. Sticky rice tastes kind of like sweetened rubber goo. It is about the consistency of rubber cement. Kimchee is a fermented vegetable dish that is usually made from cabbage. The main course consisted of bbq beef. you grab a piece and then wrap in lettuce and eat it. It was delicious. We also had kimchee pancakes. They were basically a pizza shaped dish made out of egg with kimchee for the topping. we also had Kimbap. a kind of Korean Sushi. It had cucumber, carrot, fake crab, and spam in it. It was very good. At the end of the meal I looked in the lettuce bowl and spotted a pepper at the bottom. I tried a bite from the end and it tasted just like green pepper. One of my friends tried a bite and almost choked because she said it was really hot. I didn't believe her and ate the whole pepper. At first, it tasted like it did before but then it hit me. I turned red and tears started streaming from my face. Then I started gagging. I have never had anything that hot before. I felt the pepper for the next two days.

Great Wall of China

I went to the Great Wall on Saturday and had an exhausting time. Really, the great wall is just that, a great wall. We hiked over a good portion of it. It closely follows the terrain and often goes up very steep mountainsides. I must have walked up thousands of stairs. I almost fell to my death at least three times. There really were not too many culinary highlights to the trip. On the way over, we got bread filled with either bean paste or chocolate. Also, my Chinese teacher started passing out these little foil packages. I didn't know what to think. Then I learned that they were duck stomachs and she wanted us to eat them. I pulled the slimy bastard from its package and ate half of it. The idea of what I had eaten made me slightly ill for the rest of the day. The great wall was a hike. we must have walked about four miles of it. Towards the end we ran into a lady selling stuff. She offered us water, beer and Popsicles. I enjoyed a pineapple Popsicle. At the end of the section of the great wall that we saw there was a garden and a Buddhist temple.

karaoke and bbq squid

A lot has happened since my last post. One of professor Ceccoli's friends had us over for dinner. It was a family affair. All the relatives came over and helped her make a feast for us. She taught us how to make dumplings first. To make dumplings, you concoct a filling and then fold it into little circles of dough and then cook. There is a particular way that they do it. They are extremely fast and precise. We were not. The food was Incredible, she cooked at least one dish with each kind of meat, chicken, beef, pork, and duck. She also served incredible seafood. The shrimp were the best that I had ever had. She also cooked crab. She tore each crab apart with her bare hands and told us which parts were good to eat. Friday night, we went to a Karaoke club called KTV and sang karaoke. we got a private room and used a computer to select songs. I sang "never gonna give you up" by rick astley. The next morning, we went to a huge outdoor mall. I didn't really shop for anything but I walked down the food court.The first thing that I tried was some fried squid. It was covered in a bbq seasoning with sweet chilis and it was delicious. next I tried the tofu. It was alright. it tasted like generic asian food. The next morning we went to Hank's bar and got breakfast. I was so excited when they brought out the knives and forks. It felt like I had not seen anything but chopsticks in weeks. The food was delicious too. Next, we went to a waterpark and walked around. we walked for about half an hour until we got to the center which was the zoo. they had shuttles running back to the main entrance. In China, they have not learned the concept of waiting in line. So when they encounter something that we usually would wait in line for, they just mob it. People mobbed the shuttles to get back to the entrance. I looked behind me as we were driving away and saw that a fist fight had broken out among four passengers trying to get on the shuttle behind us. The police did nothing and I don't know what happened because the driver got out of there quickly. That night, we went to this weird restaraunt where you cook your own food. Each table has a grill inset in it with burning coals. waiters weave in and out of the people as they eat with buckets of hot coals ready to replenish any grill that went out. They bring the food to the table raw and you throw it on the grill and cook it. It was the est tasting thing that I have had on the trip.

tianjin history museum

Today, we went to the Tianjin history museum.we hopped on this daewu bus and hung on for dear life as the driver charged through the city causing people, animals and other cars to flee in terror. We grabbed the back seat, which was slightly elevated, and had a good view of the carnage. When we arrived the first thing that struck me was the stunning architecture. inside there was lot of old artwork, mostly ceramics. the was also a history exhibit about how tianjin had been oppressed by the west. it was mostly in Chinese with bad english translations. tonight we are going out to sing karaoke. I ate baozi for lunch. they are steamed buns with random stuff in the middle. Not my favorite

settling in

I'm starting to get into a routine here. Every morning, I wake up at 6:50 and walk to a nearby market to get breakfast from one of the street vendors. On the way there, I walk through a park. When I first go through it in the morning, it is full of old people showing off their pet birds. This is how they socialize, later on they do tai qi together. Then i walk through a neighborhood that looks like the opening scene of Blade Runner. everything is really crammed together but the people don't seem to mind. Down a certain alley, a bunch of vendors have set up their carts. The carts consist of a bicycle with a grill on the back. They are remarkably efficient at what they do. My favorite breakfast food comes from a husband and wife team. It consists of a tortilla, chicken, egg, and mystery sauce. The husband and wife have assembly line that works well for them. The husband rolls the dough for the tortilla and then throws it over to his wife. She fries it up and then opens it and pours egg inside. Next, She smears it with mystery sauce, chili peppers and puts lettuce on it. Last, she puts some chicken in it, wraps it up and serves it for about 45 cents. it's delicious! After breakfast, I run back to my dorm through a park filled with Chinese people doing tai qi. it's interesting to watch. after a quick shower i go to class for four hours. It's all in Chinese and i only understand about 20 percent. But, I understand more everyday. Today, we read some texts and talked a little bit with the other students in Chinese. My class is full of Korean girls. They are a bit rowdy but fun to be around. after class we go and find lunch on campus. Their are several different places to eat. A favorite is the hole in the wall. It is literally a hole in the wall that you go up to and order food. The menu is all in Chinese so it can be a bit tricky to order. Luckily, my professor knew how to order one of their specialities. It's a da bing ji dan sandwich. basically the same thing i had for breakfast but with fried chicken and peanuts as well. Another place we call the hong shack. we can't read the names of the restaurants we eat at because they are all in Chinese so we make up names for them. The hong shack is always a gamble.yesterday i grabbed a menu and pointed at something. i ended up with dried mystery meat and pickles on top of noodles. today i got a sandwich it would have been good but their was something bitter in it. Another place is the dining hall .They have really good food. WE ordered dumplings, tomato and eggs, spicy chicken, and eggplant. it all tasted great. the only problem is that you have to make sure you set your chopsticks down on the plate. if they touch the table you'll end up with diarrhea. no joke! We usually rest after lunch. at night we go on adventures. we either go to a market or to a touristy part of town. Last night, we went to the Italian style town. It is left over from the first part of the 20th century when Europeans occupied Tianjin. It is still standing because the buildings were earthquake proof. Sometime in the last century, an earthquake struck Tianjin and flattened everything but the European enclaves. The Europeans left before the earthquake struck but their buildings were still there. The Chinese used those buildings as temporary civil administration buildings. The enclaves are filled with Chinese tourists they swarm white people and want to have their pictures taken with them. When we posed for a picture for the group all these Chinese people ran up and took our picture too. after that, we crammed like sardines into a bus and took it back to the dorm.

Food in China

Photos: 1. an egg mcMuffin, hashbrowns and an orange juice 2. stuff from the vangard store 3. the market 4. the soybean bar 5. food!
6. a close up of egg rolls and the thousand year old eggs with tofu. 7. fried eggplant 8 eels! 9. dinner food
The next morning, the sun rose around 4:30am. I was very confused. At 9, we met for breakfast and went to McDonalds. Du Laoshi and Stone met us there and insisted on treating. McDonalds is much cheaper in China. Last night, I paid 22 rnb for my bigmac meal. That's is roughly 3 American dollars. After breakfast, we went to this huge mall and grocery store. I bought a few things. They have basically they same stuff we do, including brands, they are just sinofied. Here are a few examples. I bought some Colgate toothpaste, razor blades, and some shampoo as well as some other stuff. That piece of food is a rice snack. it is like a litely sweetened rice cake. I had a few for breakfast this morning and enjoyed them. After the adventure at the store we went to Stone and DU laoshi's house. they gave us water melon, and leechees and berries. They were very good.
After the resting at stone's house he took us to the market. It was full of all kinds of stuff, from beautiful jade statues and fine china, to junky toys. At the market I had a soybean ice cream bar. it was delicious but a bit confusing to my palate.

After, the market we ate lunch. We looked around at the different places. One restaurant owner saw and ran down the street after us to try to get us to eat there. We gave in and had a fantastic meal. In china, when you order food they put it on a lazy susan so you can spin the dishes around to get whatever you want. Clockwise in the picture (5) is spicy beef, lamb, thousand year old egg, peking duck, cold beef, veggies, possibly more lamb, beef with scallions. The beef was decent. the eggs were kind of salty, the duck was delicious. the cold beef was just that, the lamb was kind of fatty and slimy. The beef with scallions was delicious. The beef with scallions, the duck, and the fried eggplant were my favorite.
On the way out we walked through a market that sold live animals for eating. Here is a tub of live eels! (in next email) In china food is extremely fresh. if you order fish, it is usually swimming around 15 minutes before you eat it. Probably some of the food we ate at lunch was bought that morning at the market.

After that we went back to the dorm for a rest. At 7:30 we met for dinner and went to a restaurant near our hotel. China has a large migrant work force and on the way to dinner we saw them sleeping under bridges in tents. At the restaurant everything was in Chinese and we got to watch professor Ceccoli order for us. He basically just asked the waitress what was good and she ordered for us. We got all kinds of weird stuff. Noted dishes at dinner were the Peking duck, unidentifiable vegetable, shrimp and chicken feet. The Peking duck was better at dinner than it was at lunch. The unidentifiable vegetable was pretty good, the shrimp with garlic was excellent, and the chicken feet were gross. They were just really grisly and the mustard sauce with them was hotter than hell.

After dinner we tried find a place to watch the world cup. Dr Cecolli took us to ali babas bar first. It looked like a place out of an Indiana Jones movie. It was packed with Chinese and foreigners. After that we went to ubc coffee. They had a nice viewing room. They had a huge screen with a projector and nice speakers. There were only two other people in there! We sat on the on the couches and ordered some tea . A little late the waitress came back and said that if we wanted to stay we needed to pay 50 rnb a person. Dr Ceccoli left and talked to the manager. He waived the fee and gave us some water! Germany won the game and we went back to the room for some sleep.

I made it to china. It took 4 airplanes and like 27 hours but I made it. The flight to Seattle took forever and we had a 5 hour layover once we got there. Thankfully Dr. Ceccoli got us into the delta skylounge. It was full of comfortable chairs and free snacks. we got on the plane around 8:05pm and waited. The captain called over the intercom and said that their HF rig was broken and needed to be fixed. A few minutes later he came on and said it would take an hour. At 11:30 he came on and said that they could not fix and we would have to wait for tomorrow. We hopped off of the plane and got hotel vouchers and meal tickets.

Because I did not check any bags I went straight to the hotel. It was a Doubletree Inn and was very nice. I got to bed around 1 and woke up in time to meet everyone in the lobby at ten. Our meal tickets were worth six dollars a piece, but the breakfast at the hotel was like 18. I ate a chocolate chip cookie and a two dollar banana from Starbucks for breakfast. When we got to the airport the line to check in was ridiculous. I accidentally got into the baggage line and waited for forty minutes. Then I figured it out and got into the boarding pass line. by the time we got through security it was around 12:50. I was stopped in the security line because of my razor. but they let me through after they saw that it didn't have a blade. We were supposed to board at 1:20 for our flight so I ran to the terminal and ate at a Sbarro. I figured that it was the last good pizza i would have for a while. I scarfed it down and ran to the gate.

When I got there every seat was packed, and I went the next gate to sit down. The day before I bought a book of Ken Ken puzzles to entertain myself with. I sat down and started on those. I soon heard an announcement over the intercom that said the the flight had been delayed till 3:30. The tail rudder was broken on that plane. I sat down and did some more puzzles. Dr. Ceccoli walked by and asked me if I had gotten the news about the flight. I said yes, not realizing that the flight had moved once again. After about half an hour i looked up and realized that there was nobody left at the gate the plane was supposed to depart from. I ran over there and talked to a tech. He told me that the gate that the flight had moved to. A lady that I met at the delta sky lounge had been waiting at the next gate over with me. I told her and we went to the correct gate. When we got on the plane, the lady gave me her first class passenger toiletry kit in thanks for helping her find the plane. It had an eyeshade and a toothbrush in it. They came in handy on the fifteen hour flight. When we landed the first thing I noticed was the smog. There is this heavy haze that hangs over everything. It obscures the tops of buildings and limits visibility. When we got off the plane I went to the restroom and had my first culture shock. An asian toilet. It was bizare seeing one. Not pictured is the maintenence guy who walked in just as I took the photo. It was really awkward. Next we met some guys from tianjin normal including Dr. Ceccoli's friend Stone. He'll be doing his senior year at Christian Brothers next year. We got on a bus and took the four hour ride into Tianjin.

KFC is really popular in china and we encountered proof of this on the bus ride. A Three story KFC!
When we finally got to tianjin normal university we checked in and got assigned rooms. I was the odd one out so i got assigned a room with an american student. I have no idea who he is. I've been here 3 days and haven't seen him. He's very tidy. All his stuff is arranged neatly in the room. He even left his toothbrush. I think he went out for a night on the town and never came back.

I came all the way to China and the first thing i do is eat American food. That night around 12:30 we went to the atm and then to McDonalds. I ordered a big mac fries and coke. It tasted almost exactly the same as it does in america. the burger was a little saltier an the fries weren't salted. The coke is better because they do not use corn syrup here.

After McDonalds I wanted to buy a bottle of water. The water that comes out of the faucet is non potable so we have to use bottle water if we are going to ingest it. We went across the street to this restaurant and walked in. They had a cooler next to the bar full of drinks. We walked right up and grabbed a bottle. It cause quite a commotion. All the men jumped up from the bar and the waitreses ran up to us. Apparently, in china you have to ask a waiter to get a drink for you out of the cooler. IF you do it yourself they assume that you are stealing. luckily we pulled out our money and that seemed to calm everyone down. We paid and got out of there.