Ever ride a tandem bike?

I can safely cross that off my do-to list as my roommate and I rode through (太阳岛） Sun Island Park on a tandem bike creating the most picturesque scene of roommate bonding. CET took us to Sun Island on Saturday, and by Sun Island, they really mean SUN--it was about 100 degrees outside. We sipped on frozen bottles of water as we explored the park and rode on a water ride. The best part about the trip: it was my second time there in less than 12 hours. One of the guys in our program was invited to a huge beach party the night before and convinced about 15 of us to go with him. As we told the taxi driver Sun Island, he dropped us off in the middle of the park. We proceeded to wander around for over two hours trying to find this giant beach party. As we declined invitations from what seemed like Chinese fraternities, we walked in a huge circle around the island. When we finally found the party, it was so late that we left within half an hour. What a fail.

The next day after returning from biking in Sun Island and shopping in Zhongyang Da Jie, we decided to visit a Russian bar. And if you're looking for a Russian bar, why not go to a bar that is called the "Russian Bar." I thought it was a lovely name choice, as the guys grabbed beers, and we watched the Korea-Uruguay soccer match. A very boisterous Korean exchange student also joined us as he cheered for the ultimately unsuccessful Korea.

Another highlight of my week include fire cupping--a Chinese traditional massage/medicinal technique that basically involves setting a glass cup on fire, then putting it on your back. The hot air inside the cup creates a vacuum that suctions to your skin. The end result is a very dark and painful bruise on your back. According to Chinese traditional explanations, the dark coloration is from the violent expulsion of excess qi (air) from your body. Your body has a balance of hot and cold air, and when your body has too much of one or the other, you will feel very tired, restless, agitated, or even sick. Fire cupping will expel the imbalance in your body (排毒). I think an adequate western explanation for why people might like fire cupping is that it will stretch and move deep muscles that normally don't get stretched. Although the bruises may hurt, but a few days after fire cupping, you will feel like your back muscles are more relaxed (although this could also be the result of the 2 hour massage I got before the fire cupping).

See you next week!

Wuxi, Suzhou, Hangzhou, Shanghai Expo, Fuzhou, Harbin

Okay. It's been about two weeks since I last posted. Sorry about the lateness, but my internet was spotty in Fuzhou. To make up for it, I'll try to post an extra long post today before I start my Chinese homework.

To give you a quick rundown of the rest of my China tour first. I bought pearls in Wuxi and ate their famous marinated steamed pork. I bought a silk blanket from the silk capital of the world in Suzhou--a place that is also known for its beautiful women because all of the women stayed indoors making silk rather than going outside and farming (where they would get tan). Suzhou also offers great freshwater fish from the Great Tai Lake. Hangzhou offers its famous Dragon Well Green Tea--the best quality is always from the spring harvest, and we bought some of it. A woman who majored in Tea in college also provided a demonstration of the antioxidant effects of green tea. If you pour iodine onto rice, it will obviously turn the rice black, and you cannot rinse out the color with water. However, with a splash of green tea, the rice removed all traces of the iodine from the rice. It was amazing and convinced me even more of how awesome tea is. I also believe I went on three consecutive boat rides during this time visiting the beautiful lakes and canals of the three cities.

Our last major stop was in Shanghai for the Shanghai Expo 2010. For those unfamiliar with what a World Expo is, you may have heard of the St. Louis Expo around the turn of the 20th century when the US literally transplanted a Philippine village in the middle of St. Louis for people to gawk at. Basically the World Expo is a giant museum-fair where countries will sponsor a pavilion--many will build a building and house cultural marvels from their country (or in the US's case, a business fair with Microsoft, Johnson & Johnson, and other companies). Lines to get into some pavilions are literally hours. For Japan and Saudi Arabia, the estimated wait time is over 4 hours. For China's second floor exposition, it is well over 6 or 7 hours. But people will literally bring stools and sit in line just to experience these pavilions. Personally, I found the Expo way too crowded at over 400,000 visitors a DAY!!!

Next stop was my family's hometown in Fuzhou. Because it is monsoon season currently in Southeast China, I didn't do much but play 5 hours of mahjong everyday. I would win over 200 RMB on some days (my highest winning was 289 RMB), but on other days I would lose almost 200 (192 was my biggest loss). I think all in all, I came out of the mahjong marathon winning around 20 RMB (less than 4 US dollars).

I returned to Beijing to meet up with my Harbin program where we ate at a pretty fun pizza restaurant. It offered pizza of all different varieties from a 老北京 (Old Beijing--it was literally peking duck on pizza) to Meat Lovers. I also met some cool graduate students from NYU and their guide from the Chinese Foreign Affairs University. We took a night train to Harbin. The interesting thing was that it was a sleeper train that went through the night. We had four bunk-beds to a small cabin, and it was actually pretty comfortable with private TV's and reading lights.

Harbin is currently some of the strangest weather I have ever experienced. On some days, it is over 90 degrees and on other days it is down to 50 with thunderstorms. Mind you, I have only been here for 4 days, and everyone from Harbin I have spoken with have said similar things.

My roommate (同屋) is 王思霖， and she is one of the nicest girls ever. I had a minor cut on my foot, and she took m to buy band-aids. The store only sold non-waterproof ones, which I didn't care and bought some. Then a few hours later, I was preparing to go out and explore town with friends, and she came up to me with waterproof band-aids saying that it was going to rain. She also handed me an umbrella， which I was really grateful for because it started pouring about halfway through our exploring. I also come back to the dorm to find sliced watermelons, bubble tea, yogurt, and other goodies waiting for me on my desk from her. However, I don't know how to politely tell her that I really don't need all this stuff, and I've just been eating it all when it shows up.

I'll post more next week as classes continue. Today is only the first day, so I don't have much to say about classwork yet.