Chinese New Year, Suzhou, and some fantastic weather

So we had the Chinese New Year on February 14th, and this was like nothing I've ever seen before. After being fairly disappointed with the fact that our trip to South (and North, if we had it our way) Korea was canceled, we at least had this to look forward to. Like I said before, there are fireworks everywhere in this city. Like serious, display style fireworks, ridiculously large and loud and explosive. These people are literally lighting them off at all times during the day, in the middle of the street. It's completely ridiculous, they are incredibly loud and dangerous and there are just firework scraps flying around everywhere. On the eve of the New Year, we were at a fairly crowded bar, and there was a torrential snow storm going on outside. This didn't stop anyone from lighting fireworks off though, and as the hour counted down we went outside and had a huge snowball fight, along with more fireworks.

A couple days after this, a group of 8 of us decided to get out of Hangzhou and do a little traveling. We went to Suzhou, about and hour and a half west of here, and basically just walked around the city and saw some cool gardens. Stayed at a pretty cool hostel, and had a wizard battle with roman candles outside of it at around 3 in the morning. The people at the hostel thought we were mental. After debating for a while over where we would go next, we decided to head to Shanghai. Only problem was that when we got to the hostel we couldn't stay because Pat and I didn't have our passports, so we hung out around the city and took a late train back to Hangzhou.

Since last Thursday we've been having some great weather. It was really getting to me, these past few months, the weather's been straight out of a cold war propaganda movie, just miserable. So having the sun out and it being around 75 was a great breath of fresh air. We've just been going down to the lake and walking around, hiked up a couple mountains as well. Definitely makes me realize why I like it here

Starbury in Hangzhou, Super Bowl Monday, and the Chinese New Year

So last Friday a friend told me to head to the basketball stadium after I got off work to see the game. The last basketball game I went to was honestly, one of the most exciting basketball games I've ever seen, with a last second dunk from my boy Rodney White to win it. This one though, was big for a different reason. As some may know, Stephon Marbury just signed with a team in a northern province named Shanxi. Ned, my friend with the tickets, had first row directly under the basket for about 7 of us. The game ended up being pretty good, with the hometown team taking it by 4. I think we got into Marbury's head, or maybe it was the Chinese screaming "MAH BOO ARY!" relentlessly that did it.

For the Super Bowl, a friend decided he would have people over to watch the game. He has a working SlingBox (read: Brother Matt, you owe me a Christmas gift), so we caught the Washington DC broadcast of the game, kicking off at 7:30 in the morning here. Getting up for it was a drag, but it ended up being a pretty good game. We did get some looks, rightfully so this time, for buying beers and McDonald's breakfast at 6:45 in the morning on a Monday, but it was a rightful reprieve, kicking off our Chinese New Year celebration.

We have off work until the 20th, and just about everything here is shut down. What I don't understand is where all of these people are supposed to get food during this time. Seriously just about every single store and shop is closed, I've been eating pasta for the last 3 days. I don't know what I'm gonna do. One thing that isn't closed though are firework stands. Pat just came back with a nice stack of explosives, and we're gonna go blow them up later. Some of these things are pretty intimidating, like 7 foot long black cat rolls that last for several minutes, or large half disks with cartoons of young Chinese kids running around playing with said fireworks. Not too worried about it, there are directions, all in Chinese, to avoid any danger. We'll figure them out

Hong Kong

So we were told that we would have to go to Hong Kong by our school in order to get our working visas. We had to fly to Shenzhen, which is the last major city in China before taking a bus to Hong Kong, going through several checkpoints along the way. When we finaly got to Hong Kong, it was incredibly apparant that we were in a very different place. The Western influence has been embraced for decades, so the place is more like New York or London than it is anywhere in China. Everyone speaks English for the most part, and there are hundreds of little things that you notice as well that make China so different. For one, we weren't stared at because we weren't the only white people on the street. Also, cars drive on the other side of the road and they actually obey traffic signals. It was nice not having to fear for my life every time I crossed the street. There is incredible food from all over the world as well. We were really only in Hong Kong for a day and a half, just to take care of our visas, so we didn't have much time to do or see anything special. We basically just walked around drinking PBR's all day and talking about how cool it was that we were in Hong Kong. After a memorable night in the Wan Chai district, we were disappointed that our time in Hong Kong was so short and we had to get back on a plane to China.

On a pretty sour note, we were informed yesterday that we wouldn't be able to go to South Korea because we wouldn't have our passports back in time from getting our resident permits made official. After weeks of us being completely transparant with our plans and intentions of leaving for the holiday, we got screwed. I'll hold off on ranting, but the way that things are done, and information is shared, on all levels, is inexcusable. Anyways, we'll try to plan a few things, maybe go to the beach town of Ningbo, and probably go to Shanghai for a few days. Definitely not happy about it, but what can you do. A common term used by expats here as a way of coming to terms with bullshit like this is "TIC: This is China."

Shanghai Knights

So we decided to head to Shanghai for a couple nights just to do something different. It's only an hour and twenty minute train ride and we had a nice place to stay at for free, so me, Pat and Dean headed up. Had a pretty good time exploring the city and the weather couldn't have been nicer for middle of January. It got up to around 65 degrees in the sun. We took motorcycle taxi's at one point which was an experience to say the least. These guys were total maniacs, just flying around with little regard for anyone else on the streets, whipping through sidewalks and through tunnels. We had such a good time we thought we'd continue it by getting a few drinks and hanging out on the balcony of a restaurant on the top of a building overlooking the Shanghai skyline and river. After that there were drink and dinner specials at a pretty cool pub not far from where we were. It was good to get out of Hangzhou and do something different, should happen more often.

Back in Hangzhou not a whole lot new going on. Wednesday night started out as usual, then a friend suggested we go to a Chinese club for the hell of it. It was a pretty good time, there's almost always a group of people that will approach foreigners and want to drink with them. One of them was a bit over-friendly, and I realized this after he nearly tackled me onto a table that people were dancing on. Pat ran over and pulled him away, turns out his friend told Pat that he was gay. It was incredibly weird and awkward, and we discontinued drinking with them.

After weeks of putting it off, we finally planned a trip for the Chinese New Year. Originally we had planned on going to Bangkok and Phuket, but the flights continued to be ridiculously expensive, so we booked a flight to Seoul, South Korea. 9 days to check out the country, haven't figured out much of an itinerary yet but I'm looking into it. I'm gonna see how close to the 38th Parallel I can get, maybe throw some rocks over. Somebody get in touch with Bill Clinton

Back in China

So I made it back without any real issues, being home was a nice break but it's good to be here. I did weigh myself when I got home but forgot to on the way out, but was kindly told by several of the Chinese teachers at my school that I looked like I had gained weight. They're very subtle. I was up for about 30 straight hours and just crashed when I made it to my apartment, so the jet lag hasn't really been effecting me all that much. Construction in our building is still going strong which is miserable at times, but I'm not letting it get to me. It's been pretty rainy for the most part, which gives me the opportunity to whip out my blue pancho when I'm riding my scooter around to really blend in with the locals. Other than that nothing new to report.

Transferring trains and making the commute from the Shanghai airport back to Hangzhou was a real pain. Having to carry two 50 pound bags around doing it really didn't make it easy. At one point while I was cramming into a train in Shanghai it reminded me of a youtube video that I had seen a while ago. If I wasn't holding onto my bags tightly they would absolutely be gone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sz_lRBpk76Q&feature=rec-LGOUT-exp_fresh+div-1r-2-HM

Great Honor

I had the great honor to name a child today. In China, people have Chinese names that are given to them by family, but when asked what your name is by a foreign person, they will simply say that they do not have an English name. I had a new student in one of my classes, and was told that I would be able to name him, for the rest of his given life in the English language. I thought long and hard about it, and came up with a name that I believe speaks great deals about this young man. His name is Nitro. For the rest of his life, while spoken in the English language, this boy will be known as Nitro.

I also had the great honor of being this year's Santa Claus for the Bear American school's Christmas party. To make a long story short, I dressed as Santa Claus and had 80 young Chinese kids yelling and screaming at me for 2 hours as I passed out candy to them from a stocking. It was a Christmas celebration that I will absolutely not soon forget

Christmas in China

So Christmas time has finally come, and it's quite different from back home. Religion in China is not very prevalent, so there's not much care for it, but it is still definitely celebrated. Most places have decorations set up, and I've heard some pretty interesting techno remixes to Christmas music in certain stores

We had a Christmas miracle occur when Pat was trying to get his passport to go home just the other day. To make a long story short and not offend certain parties involved, Pat was told he wouldn't get his passport until about 2 hours before his flight, which just wouldn't work and an expensive ticket would be wasted. He was able to talk to a few people and go down to the police department where it was held, and somehow it was given back to him in time to take an expensive 3 hour taxi to Shanghai, not ideal but atleast he made it. I was feeling a bit worried myself, but was able to get mine yesterday as I was told, and am looking forward to a break at home. I think I'm going to weigh myself the day I get home and the day I leave, because I'm planning on eating as much Buff Joe's and Chipotle as possible. It's kind of sad how much I miss certain foods, and going to McDonald's to get something western out here is just not really cutting it for me. Anyways, can't wait for the break, but not exactly excited about having the same conversation about six hundred times about living in China.

Other remarks on China:
I was pulling up to my apartment the other day on my scooter, on the right side of the bike lane next to the sidewalk. A man came flying in from the sidewalk on a bike and clipped my right handlebar, sending him careening out of control and falling to the ground. I sat there a moment speechless, with a bag of McDonald's in one hand and my mouth wide open, not sure of what to do. It was one hundred percent his fault but I obviously felt bad, so I pushed forward to see if he was alright. He didn't really say anything as he got up, got back on his bike, and just rode away. It was weird

Chinese people place a great deal of emphasis on not spreading swine flu. I think the bird flu was a big scare for them, so there are many reminders of how to stay healthy and not spread disease. Lots of people wear masks, which I think look absolutely ridiculous and are completely impractical. One thing that I think might help, but is absolutely never acknowledged, is that people should stop coughing and sneezing on each other. Seriously, it's pretty amazing to see how much people just let loose on one another with no regard, in restaurants, in stores, on the streets; and the amount of times I've seen people retching their bodies to cough up snot and spit wherever whenever is pretty gross.