Let's go see some warriors!

I think Sara and I said this to each other about 100 times on our way to Xi'an to see Emperor Qin's terra-cotta warriors. But let me back up and talk about the events that led to our Xi'an adventure.

The last few weeks have been pretty tough for me, honestly. I feel as though I'm in a constant internal battle about if I'm happy or if I'm unhappy. Of course that sounds quite dramatic, and I don't mean it to be. But I think to best respresent the experience I'm having, I'd like to be honest. There are so many neat opportunities that I've been able to be part of here, so many wonderful people I've met, so many once-in-a-lifetime experiences in China that I am grateful for. But at the end of the day, I'm far away from home and completely out of my comfort zone. I think it's normal to feel this way on international assignments, but it really hit me after my last post how much I miss home. And how much I love it here. Again, that strange contradiction.

One of the most perfect ways to feel more at peace with being away is when one of your best friends comes to visit! I was so lucky to have had Sara come for the last ten days. She came at a great point for me - I'm starting to feel like I know Shanghai and want to show off how great it is here, but I also feel a bit fragile over missing home. What a remedy. We had such a blast - because we did so much, I'm going to split the last two weeks between two blog posts. So here goes the first one - Shanghai adventures and Xi'an.

Picking Sara up at the airport was surreal. I was elated. I did tell her that she did me no favors by having such dark hair - it made locating her in the sea of people who are mostly Chinese that much more difficult! So if any of my blonde friends want to visit, please feel welcome ... We greeted her with a sign (in Chinese, of course), a balloon and two Chinese beers to celebrate.

We spent Sara's first full Shanghai day exploring parts of the city and attending a local festival. The weather wasn't great. The next day was a bit better, so we decided to head to Yuyuan Gardens. This is a nice part of town with old temples and beautiful grounds. Not a lot in Shanghai is too old, but the Gardens are (and quite lovely, too). The area around the Gardens is the real attraction - there are little stalls with vendors selling everything you can imagine. This is where you can get some legit bargains and practice your haggling skills. There were way too many people, but we had fun looking around. In the middle of the area is a neat tea house - Huxingting - with a zig-zag bridge meant to confuse any evil spirits trying to get in. Here we are with the house in the background:

That night, we decided to head to Pudong to take in gorgeous views of the skyline. We went to a bar on the 91st floor of the tallest building in Shanghai - the World Financial Center (the bottle opener looking building I posted a pic of previously). Wow, what an experience! Sara and I sat at a table right on the window overlooking the city. Quite impressive:

I was also lucky to have another friend in town for work a few days last week. I know Jessica through GenNext. She, Sara, Holly and I headed to an acrobatics show one evening called ERA. We had heard it was cool (and a bit like Cirque du Soleil), and we were not let down!! There were amazing feats of acrobatics (like dozens of gymnasts tumbling all over the floor through little hula-hoop looking rings at various heights). My favorite, and possibly the act that gave me the most anxiety, was the finale. Eight motorcycles came out on stage and one by one entered a metal sphere-shaped cage. They drove in circles around the cage, narrowly missing each other. I was nervous when two were in the cage, so with eight I could barely look. Completely amazing! Here are pics from the website showing those two acts, and here we are after the show:

Another night brought us to the Bund to look around and have dinner on the rooftop terrace of New Heights. It was awesome. Here we are just before heading to dinner:

On Thursday, we got up super early and headed to the airport. We flew to Xi'an, which is more toward the central part of China, in an effort to see the terra-cotta warriors. It was a bit of a pain - long flight there, long taxi ride to the site, etc. - but the warriors were really cool! Emperor Qin had an army of terra-cotta soldiers, horses, etc. created to protect his mausoleum in about 200BC. He ended up being the first Emporer of all of China and was responsible for uniting many lands under one rule. The warriors were found again in 1974 when locals were trying to dig a well. The story is pretty amazing, and the terra-cotta figures are impressive. There are over 7,000! Here we are in the fake photo zone (ha, such a tourist trap but we loved it!) and here is a pic of the actual excavation dig (which, by the way, still continues to be excavated today - we got to see people continuing to dig):

From Xi'an, we headed directly to Beijing. I will fill you in on all that we did there in my next post. Unfortunately, only I would bring a camera with a nearly-dead battery to the Great Wall without realizing (umm, really?), so I will wait until Sara gets back to the US so I can upload some of her camera pics here!

Cultural tour

Another week has gone by, and I can hardly believe it. In the beginning, each day seemed to crawl. Now that I'm feeling more comfortable with my work and my life here, time is starting to go by more quickly. But it still feels like forever until I come home! The BEST part of the week to come is that my friend Sara gets here Friday - yay! I've been counting down her arrival pretty much the entire time I've been here, and now it's only a few days away!

To begin the cultural tour this week, a few co-workers and friends headed out to a Cinco de Mayo celebration last Saturday. No better way to celebrate a Mexican holiday (well, sorta a Mexican holiday, though I think Americans celebrate it more ...) than to live it up in China. Something like that. Anyway, we had a blast. It was a beautiful afternoon and evening which made it so great to be out. And the margaritas weren't bad either! Here we are starting our fun afternoon:

The next stop on the cultural tour was Japan - ok, that's not too far away, but it still counts. Our friend Dave took us to dinner Friday night at a great Japanese steakhouse. Each table gets served their own cooker filled with burning coals and a metal tray on top. You order your meat and veggies and cook it yourself. The food was so delicious. What I loved about this place was the backdrop:

A sumo ring! Though we didn't get to see any live matches, they did have black-and-white films of sumo matches from who-even-knows-when playing in the background throughout dinner. And the owner is a former wrestler! It was a blast. The sake was a nice added touch too.

The last stop on my cultural tour this week was rural China. For the first time, we ventured outside the city here. There was a H3 run about 90 minutes away from Shanghai yesterday. It was in an old water town, which basically means an older town filled with canals and bridges. Here is what our crowded bus to the run looked like, including Kya the German Shepherd (and probably the best trained dog I've ever seen):

Here are a few pics of the town itself:

This was really my first attempt at trail running. Much of the 8-mile route was through forests, grasslands, heck - even on rickety bamboo bridges and ledges of the canals. Let me tell you - it was tough. I was so afraid of turning my ankle that I basically stared down at the ground in front of me the entire time. And I was super worried about falling in the water. A guy on the run saw me snapping pics and offered to get in front of me to take a few of me running. Here's one from far away so you get the idea of how crazy the landscape was (and this wasn't close to the worst of it!), and one of me clearly having fun:

I did dodge a major bullet on this run. I got separated from Holly and she was ahead of me. When we reached a check stop, I caught up to her. She told me that while running on a ledge next to the canal, a giant snake literally crossed her path. This was NOT the news I needed to hear. Yikes! Thank the good Lord I didn't see it. Unfortunately, that was at about 2 miles in. So for the rest of the run I was petrified of seeing one. Thankfully, I did not - just a few gross dead fish.

Since I know I've talked a lot about food with it's head on, please enjoy a pic of the fish we were served as part of dinner after the run. Seriously?

We also checked out an awesome area of Shanghai this week called Tianzifang. Since we've been here, people have continued to ask if we've been there yet. Finally the answer is yes! It was such a cool area - lanes of shops, restaurants, bars and more tucked in a few city blocks. It was quite crowded, but so fun. I'm looking forward to taking Sara back next week! Here I am in front of one of the lanes:

Another funny thing happened to us this week that made us wish we spoke Mandarin (for the record, our classes are going well!). Holly had a form to fill out for a UPS delivery that's been stuck in customs for five weeks. Nope, not a joke. Anyway, a co-worker of ours downloaded something on our computers that translates Mandarin characters into English for you (and visa versa). It's pretty cool. Unfortunately, I can't figure out how to disable it so it is often hovering over things and translating either way when I don't mean to. We decided to use the function to try and translate the form. Wow, it took us forever and we still had no clue what it was trying to ask for. Here's what it looks like:

Last but not least, Happy Mother's Day to my wonderful mom! Thanks for taking all my Skype calls at weird hours of the day. I don't know how many times a day I think, "OMG I just did/said something my mom would". But as I get older, I'm finding that's a very, very good thing. I hope to always have your positive outlook, especially during experiences like this!

Steal their Seoul in South Korea

Does anyone remember the amazing 90s TV show "Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?" (Sara, no need to answer since I know you dressed up as Carmen at Halloween last year haha!)? Well this lovely line is in the theme song that Rockapella sang, and I'm pretty sure I was humming the song the entire time we were in Korea!

I mentioned in my last post that it was a Chinese holiday - Labour Day was celebrated here this past Monday and Tuesday, so with a few days off from work we decided to head out to experience more of Asia. I had heard Seoul was a great place to visit, and it did NOT disappoint. I loved Korea. It is such a beautiful place, the people are creative and smart, the food is delicious and the history is unbelievable. What an awesome weekend. 

So on our way out of the apartments here in Shanghai, a kind couple from Florida overheard us talking about getting a taxi to the airport. They offered to let us tag along as their driver also took them to the airport. It ended up being a great experience and they gave us all kinds of advice about Shanghai to-do ideas. Very cool. Here I am getting ready to board our China Southern flight:

A fun little note: money in Korea is crazy. So in China, the exchange rate it roughly 6 RenMinBi per 1 US dollar. If a soda is 6 RMB, that's basically $1. In Korea, the exchange is about 1,100 wan per 1 USD. That means that small purchases are still like 5,000 wan. I felt so wealthy carrying around 50,000 wan bills!

We arrived late Saturday night, and decided to start Sunday with a morning hike at the Bukhansan National Park. It was so gorgeous! We laughed when we got there because most of the Korean people around us had on legit hiking gear ... what did we sign up for? This nice park is behind the house of the President and is definitely a real mountain. One of the first sights we saw was this neat temple. Here I am with a pagoda on the grounds:

Here's the inside of the temple. All the figures in the background are individually carved Buddhas. And the entire ceiling was beautifully carved too:

They were playing music and had religious leaders at the site, as well as worshippers. I wanted you to feel the experience, so please enjoy my attempt at capturing the moment:

Here is another video capturing the ambiance. As we were leaving, we caught this performance of some older Koreans drumming and marching. They are on a patio that overlooks a nice ravine and creek below, all at the base of the mountain:

We could have spent all day there since it was so cool, but instead we just hiked for a few hours and decided to move on to the next activity - the War Memorial of Korea. This museum was really nice and represented centuries of wars, conquests and defending Korea. We were naturally more interested in the most recent Korean conflict and seeing how it developed, how the US played a major role and seeing the actual weapons from that time. Here is a pic of the gallery where lots of planes were hanging:

On a few of the machines, guests were allowed to climb up and take photos. That was an odd experience. Very cool, but also a bit overwhelming realizing these were actually used in war:

The memorial had lots of neat sections about the various wars Korea has been involved in, and with every time period they included a model of the uniforms. Seeing the hundreds of uniforms might have been my favorite part! Can you find Holly?

Ok, so here's where it got a little more real. There was an entire wing dedicated to the 1950s Korean conflict. Wow, scary. The museum did a great job making it interactive and, quite honestly, scary as hell. I was creeped out many times. You walked onto a floor for the first quick movie, then it lit up below you to reveal bones of the fallen - yikes. The next room was a blank projector screen, but when the movie started, you could see that behind the screen was a tank and mannequin soldiers shooting at you while the narration ran over top of it (you can't quite tell how scary it is below, but definitely creepy):

The next part of the museum was life-size mannequins in fighting positions - you walk into the room and it's like you're in the middle of combat. Fallen soldier mannequins around you, medics tending to the wounded, gun blasts lighting up the room. They did a great job, but I wanted nothing more than to leave. A little too real. As we left, we saw this amazing and HUGE statue representing that conflict and the support they received from their allies:

Sunday night we experienced Hongdae, a cool trendy area in Seoul. On Monday, we started the day early with a trip to the N Seoul Tower. This tower is on a large hill (or mini-mountain, not sure). You take a cable car up to a certain point to lookout over the city, then you take an elevator within the tower to get to this observation deck:

We had such neat views of the city! After that, we headed to the Dongdaemun Market for some chotchky shopping and street food:

Ok, I know what you're thinking - street food? We heard so many recommendations to try street food here, so we did! I had pineapple on a stick (not very adventurous), and I also had this. Take a minute to come up with a guess as to what it is:

If you guessed pork hotdog breaded and dunked into french fry pieces with ketchup, you're right! I'm not sure if I'm proud of this picture or embarrassed, but we just couldn't resist. Was I in Seoul or at the Ohio State Fair? Part of the market goes by the Cheonggyecheon - a little creek running right through the middle of the city:

We also checked out the Gyeongbokgung Palace, built in about 1400. They were conducting a gate guard change ceremony when we arrived, which was so cool! They wore traditional garb and went through a whole series of traditions. After, they allow tourists to take pics with the guards:

To end the Seoul weekend, we headed to Myeongdong for a traditional Korean dinner of guksu noodles, mandu dumplings and kimchi. I didn't love kimchi, but guksu and mandu were oh-so-delicious. The best part was our entire dinner was about $8 USD (remember, that's about 8,800 wan!). I'd also like to note that I'm pretty sure I'm becoming a master chopstick-user. Watch out Heather - I'm coming for ya:

On TripAdvisor, the #1 rated thing to do in Seoul was to see something called NANTA. It is a show kind of like Stomp, but all of it takes place in a kitchen. The actors can dance, chop like champions (!) and drum so well. It was awesome. Here we are pre-show:

That night we saw Itaewon, a great foreigner section of town. Seoul is really great. If you're trying to plan a vacation out this way, I recommend putting it on your list. The strangest moment of the whole experience for me was when we came "home", and home meant Shanghai. Still pretty unbelievable that I live in China! When else in my life will I be able to take a long weekend to go to Korea?

On a few home updates, my friend Cole came back from Afghanistan to his beautiful 8-month pregnant wife (and one of my best friends!) Eileen this week. The few, the proud ... thank you for your sacrifices, and welcome home! I have two friends graduating from law school and a Master's program next weekend! Congrats Heather and Leslie! And three early-May birthdays to celebrate - my dad, Heather and Lisa. I'm thinking about all of you!

So is the next song I should be humming called, "Where in the World is Jessica?"?!