Pictures of the wall

Okay, so now the pictures would upload.  This picture marks the end of this section of the wall. The wall behind me prevents you from climbing further.  After I took this picture 3 men from Columbia climbed up over the wall to climb more on the other side!

The woman waving is Jieru, our Chinese professor from IUPUI. She is awesome and has been wonderful on this trip.  I really enjoyed hiking the wall with her. I continue to learn more about the Chinese culture.  I cannot believe I still have two more weeks!  We've done so much already!

Forbidden City and Tian'an Men Square

Today started out right.  We took the subway, which I now love so much because it is clean and so easy to take, to Tian'an Men Square and The Forbidden City.   Once again, we were so fortunate to have Leo Meow (That is how her name is pronounced, I do not have the spelling for it) with us as a little tour guide. 

This building is the first of many on a long street right off of Tian'an Men Square.  We all squealed like obnoxious Americans when we saw the Starbucks.  I had to run inside and get something!  The highlight of the day was the clean bathrooms in the Starbucks.  It was clean, was a Western toilet,had hand soap AND paper towels! 

This is a what some of the street looked like.  Oh course bikes are everywhere and I love it.  While the best part of my day was probably the clean bathrooms, the worst was almost getting hit by a bus crossing the street.  Here is the procedure for crossing the street. 
1.  Get with a group of people.
2.  Watch the traffic and look for a gap the size of an inchworm
3.  Start walking and pray that the vehicles will stop.
4.  Say, "Oh Shit!" when they stop 2 centimeters from your body
5.  Put your hand on your chest and feel your heart start beating again when you get the other side.

Today, I literally spun in a circle like a human top on tip toes as we started crossing the street and some people then said, "Oh, watch for bus!"  I turned, and there was a flat faced bus about ready to plow me down.  I swear, I thought I was dead.  I didn't know what to do and various people were yelling but I somehow jumped and was not smashed.  Then #4 and #5 took place with a little added vigor.

This is my fantastic roommate Sara.  She bought an umbrella in the square because it was so hot and sunny.  We all followed suit.  So we were 10 American women walking around the Forbidden City with colored umbrellas.  We are now true Chinese is what we say, as Chinese women take umbrellas with them everywhere to protect them from the sun.  Sara also ran into a high school classmate of her on the sqaure.  Small world!

Javan and I thought we were clever to let Chairman Mao join our little photo between us.  (He begged us to do it and who says no to Chairman Mao).

After the Forbidden City we went to the Laoshe Teahouse. Which is a famous tea house in Beijing. We saw a little bit of Chinese Opera and some Kungfu.  Here is part of our group.  Leo Meow is in the pink Micky Mouse Shirt.  She had never been to a show before. Watching her enjoy it was probably the best part of the whole show for me! 

Here I am with the host of the Tea House.  He was showing me his picture in a big Beijing Magazine.  I told him he was so famous!  He liked that! 
I will try later to post a little video I took of the music that was played on traditional Chinese instruments in the lobby.

We are off to the Great Wall today. I am so excited to take a tour bus where I will have a seat the entire time!! :)

Pearl Market Today

I am so happy I can access the blog!  Other people helped me get around the block here in China, so I will try my best to post at least a little bit.

Today we were to go to the Pearl Market.  Honestly, I almost stayed home.  I hate to shop and the last experience I had in Guangzhou was scary and overwhelming.  After a week of classes on some pretty heavy material, I felt whiped out.  BUT, I also didn't want to miss out, I I bit the bullet and went.

I am so glad I did too.  We took the subway, which was awesome!  One of my goals coming here was to feel comfortable and confident taking public transportation by myself.  I think I can really say that I can do all three, cab, bus and subway. The bus is the hardest because there is no English anywhere.  So we really need a student with us for that.  The subways were so clean and easy to navigate.  I guess they are really new.  I feel such a sense of pride each time we go out by ourselves and manage to get where we need to go.

I think it is about time for us to head out to dinner, Beijing Noodles.  YUM!  I have to laugh that I was so worried about the food, but the Peking University students have totally showed us around and now we know just where to go and what to get.  I cannot wait.  I have been eating so much.  Many of my pictures are of the food!  I will post more later now that I know I can get on!

"So kiss me and smile for me..."

"...tell me that you'll wait for me, hold me like you'll never, let me go.  Cause I'm leavin' on a jet plane, I don't know when I'll be back again, oh babe, I hate to go..."

Gotta sing a little Peter, Paul and Mary for the occasion.  Today, in about 3 hours, I leave for China.  I will meet the rest of our group of 10 at the Indianapolis airport.  I am completely ready to go.  I've been packing and making lists like someone with OCD for the past week. 

I thought maybe you might like to get to know the rest of the group just a little bit, so I'll share one of our little ice breaker activities with you to give you a feel for the group.

Susan Larimer, one of our leaders posed this question:  "If you had to chose to a super hero name for one of your special talents, what would it be?'

Susan -hers would be that she can write in cursive backwards and upside down.  I forget the name she gave herself.  Susan's daugher will also be joining us for the trip.
Catherine-"Frugal Fanny"-apparently she has a knack for stretching a dollar. 
Claire-"Concensus Maker"- she can get people who disagree to see each others' side and come to an agreement.
Sarah-"Pop Culture Whiz"-knows all there is to know about current pop culture.
Me-"Look Alike Girl"- it seems no matter where I go, people seem to think I am someone they know, unfortunately, I'm not.
Jill-I cannot remember what Jill said, but the girl has the most perfect teeth I've ever seen.  We'll call her "Miss Chicklet".  She's also the youngest on the trip.
Amy-"Time Bender"-she and her husband own 2 businesses, she just got her PhD, teaches in 3 different cities and a few other things.  That woman can manage a clock.  She is also my roomate.   I am hoping she rubs off on me.
Javan-"Foodie"- She loves to cook and try new foods.  She is also really good at helping ease other people into tryin gnew flavors and dishes.
Jieru-Our other fearless leader, who is also Chinese-"Hard Worker"- She told us of her time in high school and all of the hours she put in studying from early morning until late at night for 6 years in order to do well on the national exam for college.

Trying a new tactic

In the past week, Kai has:

1. Colored across my laptop keyboard with a dry erase marker.
2. Scribbled on my cream desk drawers in the kitchen.
3. Cut open the back of one of Elizabeth’s dolls and pulled the stuffing out.
4. Scratched our kitchen table with a metal skewer from the kitchen drawer
5. Hammered out chunks of the corner of our upstairs hallway with a meat tenderizer.
AND…
6. Scratched our bedroom wall with the prongs of a plug in air freshener.

After feeling very frustrated and upset, and being thankful that I am not a drinker, I thought back to some advice my mom gave me one year when I was a camp counselor. I was a junior in college. I had decided to stay in Bloomington for the summer to take some classes and work as a camp counselor. I called my mom to get her input on a particularly bothersome little girl. She was in second grade and she was incredibly clingy. This girl made Scotch tape look aloof. To be blunt, she was driving me nuts. My mom offered the following advice, “Kate, that little girl is longing to be noticed. She wants attention, so give it to her. Make her your special helper. Go out of your way to overload her with positive attention.”

I was skeptical, but had no other strategies left to use, so I tried it, and “Voila!” it worked like a charm. Once this little girl knew she’d get the attention she needed from me, she backed off and proved to be a delightful camper the rest of the summer.

Getting back to Kai, I decided to apply this theory to our current problem of his unquenchable curiosity and destruction. To his credit, he does not do all of these things in anger. The kid is obsessed with cause and effect. If you k now Kai, you can almost see these words scrolling across his forehead, “How does pushing button A make tab B spin around? Well let’s see!” My neighbor Katie, described Kai this way to her mom, “He’s like our own neighborhood Dennis the Menace”. Kai has also be been referred to as the neighborhood greeter as a result of his boisterous salutations. If Kai spots a neighbor out our window, he’ll dash to the window, throw if open and yell, “Hey there Jim! Where ya going?” This occurs regardless of the weather, snowstorms, rain, heat or air-conditioning on, it does not matter.

Anyway, Kai obviously wants to explore with tools and see how they work. So, today I took him to Goodwill and we picked out an old plug in radio and cassette player. We came home, spread out a blanket in the garage, got out all the tools, and proceeded to take the thing apart. I taught him, “Righty Tighty, Lefty Loosey” and how to use wire cutters, “Think of the blades like a beak, the wire has to be in the center of the beak if you want to cut them.” He learned how to manipulate needle-nosed pliers, which is great for a kid with some fine motor delays. We sorted wires, screws, and other parts into groups on the blanket.

We played together for an hour, both of us enjoying ourselves. I pray that this strategy works. If it does, I will happily truck over to Goodwill as many times as needed so he can explore safely as much as he wants.

First class

“You just push. And if you don’t push, you will be left to push again the next time.”
Jieru-the Chinese PhD student who is co-leading our trip to China.

I went to my first class for the China trip yesterday. The above quote is when Jieru was explaining to us all about the crowding in China and how the Chinese do not wait in line most of the time. She stressed if you try not to push you will not get anywhere. I think I’ll be okay. Really, out of all of the things I could be worried about, my biggest concerns going into class today were:
“Do we need to bring sheets and pillows for the dorm rooms we are staying in?” And, “Who am I going to be rooming with?”
One of the two questions was answered. We are not staying in a dorm at Peking University after all. Apparently, the organizers weren’t quite sure we’d be comfortable there, so instead, we’ll stay in a hotel on campus. This means clean sheets every night and someone to make my bed! Yahoo!
We’ll be walking distance to all of our classes on campus. I am really excited to see the campus and get into the daily life of living in China. Apparently, we need to be prepared for no air conditioning in most places as well. China is pretty hot and humid in the summer, and I’m a sweaty person. Bring on the Certain Dry. Hopefully that will keep me from totally pitting out all of my shirts!
The roommate question still hasn’t been answered. I’ve had mixed results with roommates. We’ve either been wonderful friends, OR they dropped out of school. No kidding, two of my roommates in college dropped out of school, leaving me a room/apartment all to myself. Please God, do not let me send someone home from China as a result of living with me!
Anyway, when I went to China last time, I made a decision on what type of attitude I would bring along, sort of like picking out shoes for the trip, “Mmm, should I bring my anxious and worried attitude or my adventurous and open-minded attitude?” Since the anxious attitude gets so much use around here in the States, I decided on my open-minded and adventurous one. For the most part, it worked.
This time, I am conjuring up my inner NPR correspondent attitude, Michele Kelemen, to be exact. Since I am traveling without the added stress of meeting my 2 year old child for the first time, I want to really take notice of little details in China. I want to really get to know the other students there, say “Yes” instead of “I’m not sure”, and look to experience as much as possible.

Here's Your Sign!

I love this sign, precisely because it reminds me to do the exact opposite of what it says.

“NO Wading, NO Swimming, NO Trespassing.”

I have found that wading, swimming and trespassing are all quite satisfying.

I’d like to see the following sign posted instead:

To make your experience more enjoyable, feel free to:
Wade
Swim
Trespass
Clean up after you are finished.