climbing the wall....

This whole Chinese firewall thing is getting to my nerves. Thought we had it under control with our little Freegate VPN programme. That didn't last long. Those Chinese censors are a bunch of persistent fuckers, I tell you. Not only do they not want me to share my experiences on this blog, but more importantly, how can I feel good about myself if I can't check the number of likes on my Facebook status update(s) several times a day? Took us a while to find a decent paid VPN service to replace Freegate, because China has blocked the majority of VPN websites too. So far so good with this one, though. Hope it lasts.

I've been in China for a good 6 days now. Caught a flight from Vancouver to Guangzhou for a little stopover on route to Beijing. China Southern airlines has a shockingly bad entertainment system (i.e. it doesn't work), but the stewardesses were easy on the eye. The last time I flew on a plane with good looking flight attendants was back when I was prepubescent. Cathay Pacific, I believe it was. Continuing with the theme of eye candy, I ended up getting frisked at customs by this pretty girl. I must say, she was rather thorough. I was too tired to even care, and I bet she enjoyed it, considering she was smiling the majority of the time. Funny thing is though, I'm 100% certain I had no metal items in my posession.

Finally arrived in Beijing at around 11.pm. All I wanted was to get my luggage quickly and jump into the next taxi. One by one each person left with their possessions, until I was the only one left. It took me a while to realise that I was in a awkward situation. According to the luggage reception desk, my luggage was still in Guangzhou. In hindsight, it does make sense that I would need to retrieve my check-in luggage at an international airport upon arrival before boarding a domestic flight, but the broad in Vancouver assured me that I was checked in all the way through to Beijing. Ended up having to return to the airport the next day.

I won't get into too much detail about our room here at BLCU, but we live in student dormitory 4 on the second floor. Dorm 4 is one of the international student dorms. Ironically, I met more Americans on my first day here than during my whole San Fran/New York trip. Our room has a funny, musky smell. No doubt it's the pipes and drainage, but it's definitely not as bad as what others have claimed (edit: OK, maybe I was wrong. I think someone next door ate a carcass or something. Having trouble breathing). What I didn't expect was how easily the toilets get blocked. At the time of writing, the current tally for blocking the the toilet stands at Rogers with 5 times, and me with a slightly lower number of 1 (I still think it was a carry-on from the other tenant *ahem*). Rogers initially didn't understand the concept of having to put any toilet paper in the rubbish bin, rather down the bowl (who would?), and as a result, he had to get the maintenance/ janitor dude to come unblock the toilet for him. Twice. By the third or fourth time the thing blocked, we had learned how to use a plunger (shout out to our neighbour for lending us his), but the receptionist(s) was already assuming the toilet was blocked whenever Rogers approached the reception desk. On a related note, be wary of spicy, Szechuan food when it's your first time in China.

On Thursday, we had to sit a placement test to allow class allocation for each student. My results could be described as "high level of speaking/ conversational skills, shittier level of reading and writing skills". I was happy with my final placement as I probably would ahve been rolled in a higher level class. Skill levels range from classes A to F (F being the highest), with several levels in each letter group. I'm not going to lie, I'm closer to the A end on the spectrum, having been placed in high B class. However, I'm definitely learning more difficult content than "yi, er, san, si"... 

We hit a expat bar called Tim's Texas Bar-BQ to watch the All Blacks vs. Tonga game. For the unacquainted, the All Blacks are the New Zealand national rugby team who are competing at the 2011 Rugby World Cup which happens to be in New Zealand this time round. It only took us two and a half hours to commute from BLCU to our destination. Someone suggested that a taxi would be quicker than taking 3 trains. Made sense at the time. However, the fact that it took us nearly half an hour to wave down a taxi in the first place should have given us a massive hint framed in neon lights that what we were doing was stupid. We completely forgot that it happened to be the weekend of China's mid-autumn festival. This translates to a shit load of cars on the road. We were literally moving at one block every 5-10 minutes at one point. Luckily for us, the broadcast at Tim's was delayed by half an hour, so we managed to catch half of the second half. Sadly, this was apparently the boring portion of the game, as I later discovered on the sports news online. Beer wasn't exactly cheap at this place either, with a Tiger costing around 30RMB, which is probably what we would pay back home at a bar. Overall, though, we had a good time. Especially when we got our hands on a endless supply of Yanjing beer....

Food is comparatively cheap over here, but prices do vary. In our student cafeteria, a meal costs on average around 8-10RMB, which is nothing when you consider that you are essentially paying $2NZ for something that would cost $10 back home. Then we have your 500RMB roast duck dinners. The place we went to, Dadong Roast Duck Restaurant (or something) is highly recommended in Steve's travel guide. Since Beijing Roast Duck is a must eat while in Beijing, we decided to give this place a try. The wait time to be seated was around half an hour and getting the food was another half an hour, but it was good duck, I must say. Just to clarify, the duck itself didn't cost 500RMB, we did order other stuff. Again, this is cheap as chips (not literally) considering the type of meal we got, but I don't intend on spending the equivalent of $100NZ on every meal. Looking forward to the places that the locals prefer, where the duck is apparently even better.  

I wonder what they do with the rest of the duck

Will post again soon. Glad we got this internet issue sorted out.

DJ

PS: will also try to post stuff about NY/Canada at a later date....



     

 

大家好！ Today will be my first of many posts contributing to DJ’s BLCU blog. We are both taking this adventure together and hope to share some insight and all the good times we have in Beijing to you guysJ. I arrived first so I thought it would be appropriate to share my first experiences of BLCU before DJ. I was slightly anxious about arriving first as I would have to find my way to the university and secure our accommodation alone. My mandarin is at an elementary level which meant I could not rely on my conversation skills alone to get me there. Fortunately I know someone who is currently living over here and he was kind enough to give me the instructions. After taking 3 trains (since I did not trust the taxi drivers) I ended up in Wudakou, the district where BLCU is located. It was a bloody hot and humid morning and I was wearing jeans, a thermal and a hoodie…..yes, the plane trip was cold alright?! I ended up walking around in circles for about 30 minutes trying to ask various people where BLCU was. No one was helpful so I succumbed to the toothless grin of a dirty looking taxi driver. He was actually very nice about it all and led me straight to BLCU for 10RMB. China can be genuine at times! My misfortune did not end there however. I arrived at the international office and found out my name was not on the list of students who had reserved a room at one of the dorms. I slightly panicked and got a hold of Deej. His mum rang the office and she put him in his place. Shot DJ’s mum!

The campus is massive. Besides the many dorms its has basketball courts (incl one self enclosed rubber court), tennis courts, volleyball, table tennis, a gym, football field, track and field, dozens of convenience stalls, restaurants, cafés and a 3 storey dining hall – as well as classrooms, library etc.  

                           Hard day of walking around - we end up in our beds at 8.00pm lol
                                 

Our room is small, so small that our suitcases practically touch. I think it’ll be fine provided that my roommate doesn’t spill his beloved pistachios on my half of the room….We had our entrance exam today (I think it was called SEC but can’t be sure now). We both sat the level 2 test (ppl who know between 100 and 1000 characters). Provided we don’t end up switching classes DJ is in class B12 and I am in A11. The higher the letter and number the more advanced your class is. After the test we did a little exploring and saw some new places outside Wudakou. We ended up in a huge shopping mall and we had some sort of spicy steamboat for lunch but it was fried in a big bowl – not steamed. The chillies were so hot not even my spicy pallet could handle those things. I’m still feeling the side effects…

I’ll leave some of the quirkier stuff for DJ. I’m sure he will take pleasure in writing about our toilet situation . But stay tuned because we will be posting about all sorts including different challenges that have been set for each other. Some of them are gonna be hilarious J

Capt. America (post transformation ofc)

t-rex diiiiiiiied peow peow

It's been a very good week in Vancouver. I've explored a decent chunk of the place. At times, though, I couldn't tell the difference between here and Hong Kong. The number of asian people, predominantly Chinese, is pretty insane. This is especially so in the Richmond region. Auckland doesn't compare.  The transition to Beijing will be quite smooth

But anyway, I'll post more about New York and Canada soon. What I really wanted to show you was a picture of my cousin's two kids. omg they are so fluffy cute i could die. Ayden is six and Tristan is three. Smart kids.

Ayden

Tristan

Next time I post will most likely be in Beijing. Hopefully there are no issues with the internet there.

D

ny continued

 

The skyline has undoubtedly changed since then, and there were no tourists gawking from the base of the statue,but immigrants of yesteryear would have seen a very similar sight when they first reached the shores of their new home. That is, if you weren't part of the two or so percent that were turned back. Gutted much?

If at first you don't succeed, try, try and try again.

Easier said than done when you have traveled hundreds or thousands of kilometers by sea. 

The little cruise around the Statue of Liberty and our subsequent visit to Ellis Island was quite interesting, to say the least. It really gave us a good insight into why people made such long journeys for this opportunity, as well as the difficult process that was involved. After all, Ellis Island was the main gateway into the country for millions of people. Not wanting to miss the ferry back to Manhattan, our visit was fairly brief as a result, but we managed to take in all the important parts (I think). I'm sure the movie "Island of Hope-Island of Tears" that we attended would have been a great watch, but half an hour of napping in a dark room was more appealing to me. I'm sure it's available on Youtube anyway.    

The hall at Ellis Island where
immigrants were processed.

Having accomplished another "must-do" New York attraction(s), we made our way back to Manhattan. Do you like BBQ meats? Unless you're vegetarian (Respect. I can't do that shit), or rely on photosynthesis, I assume that you do. Well, my mate Jono suggested this place called Hill Country on his list of must dine places. He highly rated their ribs. In fact, he claimed they were the best ribs he has ever eaten. Bold claim. 

Turns out Monday was all you can eat night. $25US each person.How it works is that each "batch" consists of 4 types of meat (ribs, roast pork, roast chicken, whatever else it was), 2 sides, etc, and when you finish one batch, you request another one. I set a goal of at least six rounds of meat and sides (I was starving). Only managed two and a half measly portions. Regardless of how obese everyone else was in the restaurant, I still don't get how one person can stuff themselves in a single sitting the equivalent amount of food that could feed a whole Ethiopian village for months. I think we were close to throwing up at one point. The constant laughter over our weakness didn't help our cause. The collage of photos below is a rough photographic timeline of my progress over the evening.    

Slow death

Despite nearly splitting my stomach, I'm sure this was one of the most fun meals I've had in New York. My girlfriend wasn't stupid enough to gorge herself to the brink of death, but I was willing to self-mutilate my body to provide us with a few laughs. Next time I'll consider sticking a finger down my throat after each plate.

 

D 

i'm alive yay

Hey guys. I haven't ditched this blog. Just been occupied. And jet lagged. In Vancouver right now, which means that I survived dirty old Irene. What a bitch she was, causing all that trouble. In all honesty, Irene didn't really affect us, thank Bob, but all the news coverage definitely got us worried about whether we would be able to fly on Saturday morning. Airlines were cancelling several of their scheduled flights on the east coast. In some cases, all were canned. Although New York is quite far up north, Irene was expected to pay us a visit in a big way. Even public transport was ordered to stop by the afternoon to prevent any damage. We were very fortunate because our 11.30am flight to Minnesota scraped in before all the flights were grounded. Sad, though, to hear about the damage and loss of life it has caused in other states,as well as neighboring countries. The cost of this event will be ranked in the top 10 costliest disasters in US history according to reports. Because most of the damage was caused by flooding and the wind itself, much of it may not be covered by insurance as flood damage is not listed in many policies. It seems so surreal (if that's an appropriate word for this situation) that we were only there a few days ago, when everything seemed fine and all of a sudden, things became chaotic. Although NY ended up avoiding the full brunt of Irene, extensive damage was done, nevertheless.  Oh well, lucky us.

Unassuming little place on a quiet little
street in Chinatown.......

....but the dumplings were pretty fucking tasty.

Some catching up to do....where do I start.....did I mention that food is awesome in New York? As I've said before, food in NY is not all about hotdogs and pizza. Not to say that I haven't eaten copious amounts of the aforementioned food items during my time here, but I most definitely had enough space in my GI tract for other yummies.

When looking at places where good food is available, you can't go wrong with Chinatown. The place has a more distinct scent separate from the other parts of Manhattan. It's like HK, with its occasional whiff of sewerage (still much better than China...that place smells like you're riding Splash Mountain, except the log you're riding is a different type of log, and the water is yellow). Ah...those Chinese and their funny smelling ways,... We first went to this place called Prosperity Dumpling, where they made, er, dumplings.We could have ordered other stuff other than dumplings, but that would be likened to the idiot who orders steak at a seafood restaurant.It was something stupid like 5 dumplings for a dollar. My grandma makes some pretty phat gaozhis (and she doesn't charge me) but these were pretty awesome too. The place is a hole in a wall, seats four people max, but the atmosphere is not the reason it's famous.           

Essentials

I wonder what the Chinese
translate to. I don't think
it's Golden Unicorn.

Afterwards, we got some dim sum at Golden Unicorn. LMAO. Didn't know unicorns figured into Chinese mythology. If I'm not mistaken, that thing on the left is not even a unicorn. That thing has wings, fool! Mythological animal identity crisis aside, the dim sum was choice. Was pretty full by the end of it, evident by the fact that I walked into the kitchen, thinking it was the exit.    


Scroll down for other yummies.
 

Lost your appetite? Was pleasantly surprised that the NY subway wasn't as bad as its reputation made it out to be...until we nearly stepped on this(I'm sure one of us stepped on that trail of questionable liquid though...please be Gatorade). Prior beliefs dashed in an instant. OK truth be told, I knew the subway is pretty filthy at times. That's to be expected in a big city with a old system like this one, but couldn't the guy have just stepped into Mcdonalds or some other public toilet? Did he REALLY need to lay a cable right there and then that badly? Actually, that pile doesn't look like a cable at all....it's just a saying I learned during my tenure in good old, classy Invercargill. 

After our brief visit to Chinatown, we made our way to the Financial Center. We've already been to this area, as detailed by a previous post, but we didn't have the opportunity to explore it more thoroughly. To be honest, there wasn't too much. Architecture is impressive, but most of the action is inside, where we can't go in, especially on Wall Street.   

I don't even remember what this building
was. Could someone enlighten me?

The statue of the bull is a representation of a market where a trend of
high.......OK yeah it's a picture of me licking its, er, udders.

 
To be continued tomorrow.

D

quick post

Soz but this will be a brief post. Just got excited about this one thing. Got plenty of time to catch up when I'm in Canada since I probably won't be too busy once I'm there. This hurricane coming up the east coast issue is a bit of a worry though. 

Went around Soho today for a quick look. For those unacquainted, Soho (south of Houston, dunno what Houston is referring to) is a trendy neighbourhood that is lined with several cafes, shops and chic designer boutiques. In other words, it's a girl's paradise and I'm just there for the ride. 

One of the (several) clothing stores we visited happened to be just opening. They hadn't even finished doing up the place. In a sense, we made history because my girlfriend was literally the first customer. Was an interesting experience to boot. The big African man who assisted her essentially manhandled her while suggesting different looks. The look on her face was priceless. In some situations, this would probably be inappropriate. I'm 99% sure he was gay, though, so that's A.O.K in my book.   

So yeah..most of the afternoon consisted of a systematic approach on my part, where I would enter a clothing/shoe store, seek the closest seat (or any available surface), then proceed to sleep until it was time to repeat the process again. Soho is nice, don't take it the wrong way, but I just wasn't expecting to find anything that would interest me. However, to my surprise, we happened to walk by the Ice Cream Store by chance. Despite the name, they don't actually sell desserts. My girlfriend confirmed this when she asked the security guard whether she could buy ice cream LMAO. This place is actually the brainchild apparel store conceived by Pharrell Williams of Neptunes fame. I'm a big fan of his music and have checked out his clothing lines Ice Cream and Billionaire Boys Club on the internet. Pretty neat threads and kicks, but a tad on the expensive but side. It's essentially an American version of BAPE, especially the Ice Cream line.

The ground floor. The place actually smelt like ice cream.

 It was my lucky day. My girlfriend insisted on getting me a pair of orange BBC Nothings as a present *thanks, babe!!!*. I'm not really one to seek out 'exclusive' products, but I gotta admit that these blow my regular Air Force 1's out of the water. Orange is probably not the first choice colour for most people, but I really liked them so don't be hating. The End.

D

Getting my orange on.

   

Pizza is yum

*sorry peeps. been too occupied and exhausted over the past few days to update. hopefully i recall most of the good stuff* 

People who wait in a block-long line outside a Abercrombie and Fitch store (as I observed on 5th Avenue)for must be going inside to gawk at the shirtless male models or even to get high on the excessive perfume sprayed around the store, because those threads are just not worth waiting an hour plus over. Then again, some people really do want to look like preppy jerk-offs...

The people in front comprised of about 25% of the whole line
waiting for the place to open.

The doorman is really good at making people disappearing....
.....into Grimaldis! HAHAHA. G

However, some establishments really do deserve this sort of ludacris dedication. This includes Grimaldis Pizzeria, a little, understated joint located under the Brooklyn Bridge on the Brooklyn side of the East River. It is not only decent, but it's known to be one of the best, if not THE best pizzeria in New York. What is different about Grimaldis pizzas? I don't know, but they are cooked using traditional coal brick ovens, which are apparently illegal in the Manhattan area (stems from old legislation, no clear reasoning). Considering that we started waiting in the sizable line half an hour BEFORE the restaurant even opened, my expectations were justifiably high. As soon as the clock hit twelve o'clock, we were finally beckoned in by the doorman (who looked like he had just finished making cement shoes at the local lake). The place was filled to the brim, and the line outside continued to extend down the footpath. The menu was pretty straight forward. Large or medium? Tomato or white-based  pizza? Toppings? Extras? Sorry for anyone with a stapled stomach, but there is a no single slice policy, so we had to order and attempt to finish a whole pizza. It was brilliant and lives up to its billing. Apparently this place has been served with eviction papers recently, and will have to move, despite having the place consistently full. If that is true, then we sure are lucky to have had the chance to visit Grimaldis in the original location. The service and atmosphere were simple, and the all-male staff weren't the easiest on the eye, but in the end, it's all about pizza. A pizza which happens to be the best I've ever had. 

You finished taking photos yet?

Having eaten our pizza and looking three months pregnant as a result, we decided to hire some bikes and ride over the Brooklyn bridge. Despite being right next to the shoreline, we still had to backtrack and make our way through Brooklyn Heights because the bridge extends quite far inland. All I wanted to was change up my

gears and hoon my way across the bridge at breakneck speeds. However, leaving my girlfriend in my dust would have had dire consequences, therefore I was forced to bring it down a notch. Comparing this to our bike ride over the Golden Gate Bridge (which is more of a....hmmm.... red?), I wouldn't say it gave me the same feeling of awe, but it definitely was a good experience, regardless.

View of Manhattan from the bridge.

We eventually made our way to Ground Zero, something very high on my list of things to do in NY. It's 's obviously serious subject matter, so I will treat it as such. For those not faimliar with the 'Ground Zero' term, it's the area where the Twin Towers used to stand before the events of 9/11. The enormous impact to the financial center infrastructure, and of course, from an emotional perspective, is still very evident. Construction of the memorial, as well as 1 WTC (formerly known as the "Freedom Tower"), will be completed this September and January 2013, respectively. The memorial is named Reflecting Absence and has a associated preview site half a block away. This preview site is essentially a museum of sorts dedicated to 9/11. All net income from the store goes towards construction/maintenance of the memorial, as well as associated organisations such as the FDNY and NYPD funds, etc.

A model of the Statue of Liberty covered in  badges and photos of servicemen,  messages, etc.

Having occured on the other side of the world and at a time when I was much younger, it was hard to fully comprehend the scale of this tragedy, resulting in a sense of detachment. However,while pensively looking up at the suddenly rainy area of sky where the towers would have otherwise have covered, a sense of melancholy overcame me. My sadness towards this does not compare to those who have been more directly affected, but this experience has definitely increased my understanding about its impact.

Ground Zero (sort of.. virtually impossible to get a photo of any significance)
and the half-constructed "Freedom Tower". A couple of nearby buildings also are in the process of rebulding.

Grim ending to today's post, I know, but it was and eye-opening experience that I wanted to write about and share to those interested enough to read. Less depressing stuff next post, I promise.

D