Decembers Pictures

i went to the zoo as well!!! pandas are the most adorable animals up close! (also Tous Les Jours is my favorite backory in Beijing.)

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! im doing well. Just got over my THIRD cold of the year. three too many if u ask me. Christmas is around the corner and I have cut out and taped up paper snowflakes on m window, made a gingerbread house, dressed as Santa for a day and exchanged secret Santa gifts. Tomorrow the entire Dickinson group is going out for Christmas Hotpot (along with 2 of my chinese friends) I even put my secret santa gift and some chocolate in my santa hat and hung it off my bed post. I feel so Christmasy. Anyway. The Dickinson kids are all going to Shanghai next week. That will be fun. Supposedly we're staying in a pretty nice hotel and eating out every night and going to a convert on New Years Eve. Did you know the average chinese house doesnt have an oven. Thats right, unless your a westerner who owns a really really nice house, the average or even more wealthy chinese folk doesnt have an oven. The chinese dont even use ovens. so wierd. also. Its freezing here. Today the there was a high of 36 and a low of 17 and with windchill the low was 7. 7!!! its so so so cold. and no sone. theres only 2 inches of cummulative rainfall here a year. I will upload photos of my BEAUTIFUL Chinese style gingerbread house (it took me and JP HOURS to make) and my day dressed up as santa (an all day frolic around Beijing (and its many bars) dressed as santa ) as well as some other various photos taken with my fabulous new camera that doesnt take pink pictures :)

Mid terms are no fun

Since this week has been all about catching up and this week all about studying for midterms i have been busy. This wednesday i have my kouyu midterm and this friday i have my hanyu midterm. And can i just say my nai nai is AMAZING? I asked her to proof read my chinese oral and we spent an hour going over corrections and talking about my topic...snowboarding! Anyway, in the end, my little sister my grandmother and my nanny/cook/housekeeper all looking over my shoulder as i retyped my speech (in chinese of course) It was a bonding moment of sorts. Anyway, im going to get back to studying. I have a quiz tomorrow morning as well.
Wish me luck!
A.

Ps. this is a random picture i took at the summer palace. At local tourist sites you can usually find one or two people who make these creatures out of palm leaves. Really cool in my opinion. (and yes i bought one)

Its getting colder here too

Hello all!
I'm not dead contrary to popular blogging belief, although i did feel close to it this morning...I woke up this morning and threw up in my trash can. Not fun. I think i ate something that did not agree with my stomach last night. I was pretty embarrassed and didn't really know how to tell my aiyi (literally translates into aunt, but is also the standard name to call a woman who is slightly older then you but not your mothers age.) My house has an aiyi who helps my nainai (fathers mother) cook and clean and take care of my meimei (younger sister). She was so sweet and helped me clean it up right away, she also made sure i took some medicine and and slept all afternoon. At night my nainai made me soup! I never eat with the family because we're not allowed to, because we dont give the family stipend money for food. But tonight she made me the most amazing soup that was made from red and yellow beans, black rice and some other things. She told me i wasnt allowed to eat oily food or I would feel sick again. Its times like this I LOVE living with a family. Even if they do live really far away. I feel all better now, and I sat down and answered ALL of my emails finally.
Get this! I may be able to interview a dickinson applicant! She lives in China and is applying to Dickinson:) My friend JP got to interview a different girl and said that its a really neat process. Im also celebrating Thanksgiving with JiJi Jones and her family and some family friends. All of the other Dickinson students are going to a texas restraunt which is hosting a big Thanksgiving dinner and sounds really fun, but I think meeting JiJis family and her friends and learning about how life is for foriegners in China will be even more interesting.
Also, its getting quite nippy here. Today was really nice with a high of 55, but nights are brutal. I am thinking about buying another sweater. I think it would be a very wise investment. I am SO glad i asked for my UGG boots!
As for finances. I am not going to Europe and I am not going to Japan:( The plan right now is for me to travel with 3 friends down the coast of China and into Vietnam for the month, with will be about 1500 dollars we think, but nothing has been settles completely. Going to Japan would have been extremely costly and a little out of my budget even if i didnt go anywere else. And Europe is always expensive. But, with my current plan I am completely set moneywise and have no more financial worries, so there is always a silver lining.
Tomorrow im meeting with a new chinese friend I just met in the Cafateria on thursay, and then Sunday night the Dickinson Kids are going to Gao Laoshi's house for dinner. Next week I also have 2 big midterms. no fun. And thats all ive got so far.
happy almost Thanksgiving!
A.

long time no see

Its been a while and im sorry I havent updated in a while. Its hard to find the time to update, especially when my house is so far away from my school and no where near anywhere i usually frequent.
This update is specifically for my fabulous parents. Here are a few picture of the Forbidden city and the Summer Palace. The Dickinson group went to the FC 2 weekends ago and the SP this last weekend. I also went to a spa (remind me to tell you all about THAT) and i've been sick all week with a nasty cold and im just getting better now. I have an 80 WORD quiz tomorrow in Kou Yu (speaking class) and i took a huge Ting Li (listening comprehension class) mid term last thursday. I went out to dinner tonight with JP and last night with sarah, both very low key. And last night i played barbies with my youngest host sister and taught her how to make paper cranes. I am also curently on the lookout for healthy food. I dont even know where to start looking. Its hard to tell whats healthy here and whats not when you can even read the names. Anyway. here are some pictures. Enjoy!

Monday-my first bicycle ride

So today was a beautiful Monday. A bit chilly and nice and clear. Mondays I only have one class at 12:30 so i got up late, and talked to my family and matt on skype.
I decided today I wanted to try and ride my families bike to school (they said i could use it) It takes me 30 minutes to get to school by bicycle. On a good day it takes 15 minutes to walk to the bus stop and 15 minutes by bus to my school. So in a way, i may almost save time biking to school. Anyway. The bike is a little short for me (not only am i considered very tall in china, they also dont even make or sell my shoe size) so biking was made a little difficult, but not too bad. Biking in china is like playing Frogger and Dodgeball simultaneously. While bikers have their vary own lane, most drivers ignore this and use it as a passing lane. OR people park their cars in it. So after dadging parked cars, moving cars, other cyclists and motorbikes, one also has to navigate bus stops and intersections. I was pedling along, minding my own, when a motorcyle/moped zooms around and in front of me and I swerved to aviod him, but a car was coming at the same exact time. I swerved into the side of the car and grazed my leg, probably only a small bruise now. But it was still a little shocking. The moped man sped away and the car guy yelled something and drove away, and I continued on. That was probably the most exciting thing that happened today. I bought a new meal card because i had lost my old one on the subway. I met and tutored a chinese MBA graduate in english (for free because i have to explain everything in Chinese so its helping me too) and i got an early dinner by myself because i didnt want to spend money and go out to eat and shop with my friends. no fun, but cheap.
Im off to finish my HW and go to bed.
ming tian kan jian
A.

temple pictures

Here are more pictures from two weekends ago. After we climbed the great wall we went to a museum/ temple. and after that to dinner. (JP and sarah are posing with the bell) (the painted squares are the ceiling)

Im Back

miss me? i know, its ok... im sorry i was gone for so long. So much has happened in these last two weeks. Much to much to talk about. But i've been so busy that i haven't had any time to sit down at my computer at all! This is in part due to the fact that i live very far away from everything.
So, lets try and recap ashleys last two weeks.
I now have a job as a tutor 3 hours a week making a little bit of money. I have two language exchange partners nither of whom speak very good english, In fact, i would even hazard to say my chinese is better then both of there english. I climbed a mountain last weekend and bought my halloween costume. I and 4 of my friends are going as 5 of the 7 deady sins. I am greed so I got to buy a great gold and silver sequined dress:) Its getting nippy out now adays so regular attire requires a jacket or my fabulous pink puffy vest. It was our friends birthday last weekend so the Dickinson kids rolled out in style to Hooters (yes there is a Hooters in China and no none of them are bigger then an A cup) to celebrate his 21st. We then went to an amazing club called Banana, where the floor is on hydrolics, very cool. Last Thursday I took my frist set of 3 very big exams in 2 of my classes. I did miserably on one, and I havent gotten the other back yet, but im pretty sure I passed with flying colors. For my month long vacation my friend JP and I have decided to to take the trans-sibiran railway all the way to europe and then travel from moscow to berlin, from berlin to london, from london to Toulouse and then to Florence and Amsterdam, and then back to Beijing. All and all the total travel expense (tickets) costs 1000$. not bad for my first whirl wind adventure around the world. Im really excided for this may be the only time Im going to be able to see so much of europe. JP says im ging to have to buy a very large backpack, for we will be traveling out of it the entire month.
Ta Ta for now. More detailed updates coming soon
love
A.

Saturdays Pictures

A Long Saturday with a Long Wall

Saturdays Schedule: Great wall, Lunch, Temple, Massage, Dinner, Clubs.
My very long day started at 6:45 as I rolled out of bed with 4 hours of sleep under my belt and, with toast in mouth, marched out the door to the bus. The kids from Dickinson were about to have our first field trip of the year. I met up with the group at 北大西门 (Bei Da north gate). We crammed into a tiny mini bus and Gao passed out breakfast. When I say breakfast please dont mistake that for toast, eggs and ham, or a crossant and butter, oh no my friends, oh no. Goa thought it a good idea to give us what looks decievingly like capri sun, but then ends up to be grape jello in a pouch that you sip through a straw, fruit rollup like stripped of dried fruit COATED in sugar, a strange object that looked like a doughnut, but it was a lie. It was probably once doughnut like until some genius was like, "hey, lets deep fry this doughnut in liquid sugar so its like one big kind of soggy kind of stale oil stick" ><(
It was an hour long bus ride to the section of the wall we went to visit. And when we got there we found out that this portion of the wall was actually a circle. some one back in the day thought to build a portion of the great wall (that was supposed to keep people out) in a circle. Thats the chinese for you. And so we walked it, or half of it. And it was steep. I have included some pictures but they dont really do the height justice. Some portions of the wall you could almost climb up hand and foot they were so steep. And the height of the stairs differed. There was no average height, so every step was different. Afer a nice 2 hour romp around the wall, and a short picture shoot dressed up in costumes at one of the towers, we went back to the bus. I stopped breifly to look at souveneirs, and when I turned around everyone was gone! I called JP and he told me to walk along the highway under a bridge, and then past a toll booth and then I would find them. What he didnt know was that there were two highways running parallel on either side of this complex, so I walked one, and after 15 inutes I called him again to say I was still very lost. It took me half and hour to walk to where the group was. bu hao yisi (not good). After the great wall we went out for lunch where, well, lets say Gao bought some very high class drinks for group and we toasted all afternoon long. After this we went to a temple that explained the history of bells in China. It might have just been me, but I am tired of seeing reconstructions of history. Nothing is real. Everything is a repoduction because most of these things had been destroyed during the cultural revolution. But anyway. We went, I took pictures. It was nice.
After this the group was taken to a massage parlor where we got to lie on comfy chairs and have the crap beaten out of us in a good way. After this there was a group dinner. This was not so merry as the last meal. In fact, the food was aweful. The group had planned to go clubbing together that night, and so I went home and took a nap. But when I woke up, i didnt feel like clubbing. In fact, I felt extremely happy as I was, so I called up my friend and told him I would be enjoying sleep that night and then did just that.
If youve finished reading all this then your a trooper.
A.