La Vie Quotidienne Part 2

I have officially been in Kunming for an entire month, and I'm really beginning to develop a nice routine for myself. Every day I wake up when it's still dark outside (thank you, China for only having one timezone and therefore making my mornings creepy) and eat some fruit while scrambling to get my homework done before class (some things never change). My walk to class takes about fifteen minutes and it's beautiful. There are flowers everywhere. After class, I usually go to a *gasp* western restaurant for lunch and either return to the classroom building for one on one or go take a nap at the dorms. I've gotten in the habit of going jogging (walking briskly, really) around Cui Hu (Green Lake) which is near the classroom building. If for no other reason, it's to see precious old Chinese men flying kites and old women line dancing with scarves in their hands. The rest of my day is usually filled with too much coffee and too much homework.

Qiuqiu, Tianqi, and Detong at Cui Hu

I guess the point of this post was bringing up the old men flying kites at Cui Hu. It is so cute. It reminds me of the old men who go to Handy Andy's every day and drink coffee (<3 Doug)--just a Chinese version.



Tonight I'm going to a 傣族 restaurant, and then Alyssa and I are going to the airport to pick up Richard! Tomorrow is a holiday! I love three day weekends.

Tibetan Cuisine

Wouldn't recommend it. The food was actually pretty good, but the beverages... Yak milk tea....aka hot liquid bleu cheese.

The restaurant we went to was super cheesy. The waiters and waitresses did performances and sang while we ate.

:)

If you want a postcard, email me your address. :)

Hejing Guzhen (黑井古镇）

This weekend my roommate, Alyssa, Alyssa's roommate, and I took a train to the old "salt city" Heijing Guzhen, three and a half hours north of Kunming. It is one of the quietest, most beautiful places I have ever been. Also, the train tickets were 29 kuai (aka $4.25)!!! We took the high speed train so that it would be a three and a half hour ride as opposed to a five hour ride. On the train, there was a little boy who had never seen a white person before. Every time he looked at me, he started giggling hysterically, and during the last hour or so of the ride, his mother brought him over to me. He gave me a tomato :) So cute.

We got to Heijing just before noon on Saturday and took a 马车 (basically a horse and buggy) to the old town.  Heijing is called "the thousand year old city of salt." (I love the nicknames China comes up with for its cities and towns). Here are a few pictures:

Our hotel!

A tribute to the workers who carried the salt from the water

Our ride

With my roommate!

A picture is worth a thousand words

Fu Xian Lake

This weekend we went to Fuxian Lake. It is super big and super deep. It spans 212 square kilometers and gets up to 155 meters deep. It has two fairly large islands etc... It was beautiful, and filled with tourists. We were the only non-Chinese tourists though, which made it really fun. I would love to go back sometime when it's a little warmer. One of the most exciting parts of the trip would have to be watching an old lady slaughter a giant fish on the sidewalk, put it into a bucket, and serve us fish soup twenty minutes later. The streets are covered in fish scales. I should probably get back to studying, but here are a few pictures from the trip!

Alyssa and me

Mountain overlooking the lake

Routine

I might have gone crazy. My schedule was originally supposed to include my one-on-one class, Kunming Studies, Minorities in China, and Contemporary Issues in China. Sounds like my kind of classes, hm? I don't really know what got into me, but I decided I wanted more of a challenge....so I switched from my minorities class to CHINESE BUSINESS.

My schedule goes like this:
Monday: 8:30-10:30 Kunming studies (15 people)
                1:15-2:45 One-on-one
Tuesday: 8:30-10:30 Business (5 people)
                10:30-12:00 Contemporary Issues in China (5 people)
Wednesday: 10:30-12:00 Kunming Studies (just 4 of us)
Thursday: 8:30-10:30 Business (5 people)
                 10:30-12:00 Contemporary Issues in China (5 people)
                 1:15-2:45 One-on-one
Friday: Test (or nothing at all)

My Kunming studies class on Wednesday is going to be awesome! It's Alyssa, a Middlebury Student named Nick, a Yale graduate named Eli, and myself (some of the coolest people in the program if you ask me ^_^).  My one-on-one class is a research project on Chinese education problems, policy reforms, and ethnic minority education issues. My teacher is way indie, and he has a purse that is about ten times more fabulous than mine. He is going to take me to minority schools in villages outside of Kunming as well as some schools within the city proper! I'm super excited.

More exciting things: Last night I went with my roommate and her boyfriend to eat Kunming's traditional noodles. It's very similar to hotpot. I'm going to plagiarize (wikitravel is wonderful) to explain: "Over-the-Bridge Rice Noodles (过桥米线; guoqiao mixian) is a typical Yunnan local flavor that could only be tasted in some parts of Yunnan. The Over the Bridge Rice Noodles has along history and it carries with itself a vivid love story. This famous dish consists of several courses and a big bowl of chicken soup with very thick oil on top to keep the heat for cooking the food items, including raw pork, cooked chicken pieces, pork liver, slices of squid and slices of carp for the first course to be dipped into the boiling hot soup. Vegetables are then added afterwards as the second course, and the rice noodles follow as the last course."

Alyssa and I have enjoyed exploring the area surrounding our dorms/classroom building. I'm currently sitting in a French Cafe, drinking a Diabolo Menthe. Though I came here a few days ago to get my BEERLAO! There are a ton of great Indian and Thai restaurants, and I can't even begin to explain how good the western food is in my area. I will gain 5 million pounds this semester...in a good way....maybe. Also, I had watermelon bubble tea for three kuai the other day (three kuai= forty-four cents). !!!!! Kunming dialect is the most ridiculous language I have ever heard...I don't know what it sounds like...but it certainly doesn't sound like Chinese.

Also: RICHARD IS COMING TO VISIT IN 23 DAYS! It will be a wonderful reunion: Tingting, Richard, and myself. The weather here is way better than Nanjing :)  Bibba and Danny are visiting a few weeks after Richard! I love that I can meet up with a bunch of friends in the middle of nowhere China. 

My roommate and I are supposed to be going on a weekend trip in two and a half weeks. It's going to be awesome!

Love and miss you all! 

roommate, Beerlao and 李明

熊鑫 (my roommate) and me

BEERLAO!

Me, 李明 (Parsons' roommate from last semester)，and Alyssa

南京—》昆明

Alyssa and I flew from Nanjing to Kunming yesterday, and I have already fallen in love with the city. It's about 65 degrees here, and our campus is beautiful and full of flowers. There is also a great street full of Thai and Indian restaurants less than a five minutes' walk from my dorm. My roommate is great. Her major is international relations, and she's obsessed with Southeast Asia. (her boyfriend is from Cambodia). She and I are currently laughing at gender stereotypes in China as well. I'm thinking she's pretty 开放, as far as it goes.

I might be tempted to complain about the fact that I don't have air conditioning in my room, but...oh wait.... the weather is perfect. Thus far, my only complaint is the fact that we can't flush toilet paper down the toilet, but something tells me I'll live.

I have to talk about it being a small world again... there are two Tulane students in my program of 15 kids. Also, Alyssa and I met up with a friend of hers from her Princeton summer program who is doing research in Kunming. It turns out his translator used to be a teacher at ACC. I will never escape ACC.

Sorry I don't have any pictures yet. I'll try to put some up soon! Love y'all!