I'm famous!...time to leave

Well after nearly five months of living in Xi'an, the local media has finally recognized me as the star I am. By local media, I mean the free monthly expat magazine. And by recognized, I mean a rather unflattering photo of me eating pizza at an expat Halloween party.

So without further adieu, I present my fifteen minutes of fame in China:

Xianease Expat Magazine, December 2011 Issue

Expat Halloween collage. Look closely, I'm top right of the left page.

The December issue of the Xianease makes that Halloween slice of pizza seem like it was eaten just yesterday.

In other news, I have submitted all of my grades for the fall semester. This means I can now embark on a two month whirlwind tour of Southeast Asia. Here is an outline of my itinerary:

I leave today for Kunming, the capital of China's exotic Yunnan province. I'm going by train (33 hours, wish me luck). From Kunming I will head 10 hours northwest to Lijiang to see the Tiger Leaping Gorge. I head south to the ancient town and backpacker paradise of Dali to celebrate the New Year before returning to Kunming.

From Kunming I go to Singapore (BY PLANE!), with a 20 hour layover in Hainan Province--China's Hawaii. From Singapore I will leisurely spend two months making my way back to China. I have no set itinerary or timetable for the journey, but it will go something like this:

SINGAPORE

MALAYSIA

Kuala Lumpur

Georgetown/Indian Ocean Beaches

THAILAND

Phuket/More Beaches

Bangkok

Chiang Mai

CAMBODIA

Siem Reap

Phenom Phen

Sinhanoukville/Pacific Beaches

VIETNAM

Ho Chi Mihn City

Nha Trang/Beaches

Hanoi

From Hanoi I head to China by train. I will stop in Guilin, a chinese city world famous for its stunning scenic beauty, before returning to Xi'an.

I won't be traveling with my computer, so I dont know how often I'll be able to update this blog over the next two months. I will make sure to take many photos along the way, and I will post them as often as I can. 

XMAS

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Over the past few weeks its been beginning to look a lot like Christmas...sort of. Very few Chinese are christians, but that has not stopped Christmas from becoming a holiday that is celebrated. Mostly the holiday has caught on through retailers who want to capitalize on the holiday's commercial success in the States. The following are some of the holiday decoration I've seen downtown.

CHRISTMAS IN XI'AN

A christmas tree complete with presents in the hostel I like to stay in

Stockings at the front desk of the hostel

Santa is on the doors of nearly every store in Xi'an

A modernist christmas sculpture

This apparently is Santa's favorite hotpot restaurant

Santa holding up an LED billboard

This christmas present is bigger than my apartment

What better to get the one you love for christmas than a couple bottles of tea?

Peppermint pillars

Christmas sales at the Time Traveler With Love store

More Santa on storefronts

A fairly large Christmas tree. Looks like they ran out of ornaments for the bottom right side.

Santa's Chinese name translates to "Christmas Old Man" 

Why not spend Christmas at one of Xi'an's hot springs?

SIYUAN CHRISTMAS CEREMONY

To celebrate Christmas, the International School at Siyuan University put on a special ceremony. Of course the foreign teachers were special guests, so we got front row seats for the two hour event. After watching the show, I fully understand why Christmas is and will always be less popular than in America.

Waiting for me at my front row seat were complementary seeds, fruit, and tea to be enjoyed during the performance.

Student musicians--playing the Sax, Trumpet, Flute, Piano, and two Chinese instruments I dont know.

Here are some videos of the performances:

MY CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS

Here is my Christmas decoration, a paper snow globe that my family sent me. Thanks Mom, Dad, and Virginia; I love you.

Frog Hot Pot

Last night I had dinner at a hot pot restaurant in the city with a few friends. I dont know the regional style of the restaurant, only that it was not Sichuan (it lacked the classic ma & la). The restaurant's two most popular hot pot's are fish and frog. Of course we chose the frog.

the ingredients

mmm...frog

sizzle sizzle

our server making the hot pot sauce. it took her 15 minutes of stirring to turn the sauce from jello to bbq consistency.

The frog meat was very good. However it still had all of the frog bones hidden inside. This is quite common in Chinese cuisine. Unfortunately I was not thinking about the possibility of bones when I took my first bite. By the end of the meal I had developed a strategy to eating the frog meat. The best way to avoid chewing or swallowing bones is to not let them enter your mouth in the first place.

I've had about half a dozen hot pot meals in China. Despite hot pot's excellent flavor, it is one of my least favorite dishes. Hot pot requires a lot of work to get a little food and is usually on the pricey side.

The fine line between keeping warm and third degree burns

Winter in Xi'an is milder than in Rochester, NY or St Louis, MO. Its halfway through December and there is no sign of snow on the horizon. However the lack of adequate heating indoors makes it seem much colder. Last month I invested in an electric blanket. It has decreased my dependence on my heating unit which is an energy hog (I pay for my own electricity). For the week my heating unit was not working, my electric blanket was all I had.

The blanket cost me 28RMB (~$4). It doesn't cover my whole bed, but I only needed it to keep my feet warm anyway. Unfortunately the convenience store I bought it from only sold it in one style:

That's hot

The blanket has three settings: off, warm, and burn. The warm setting is not quite warm enough, but the burn setting is intolerable. Before going to bed I usually set the blanket to burn and then switch to warm when it gets too hot. When I'm sitting in bed I can keep it on the burn setting as long as I have the comforter between me and the blanket.

Burn setting not pictured

If you're guessing where this post is going, yes my electric blanket caught on fire. No, I was not asleep when it happened. I wasn't burned and I was able to put the fire out quickly. However my nights have been a lot colder ever since it happened.

I was sitting on my bed atop my comforter with the blanket set to burn. Little did I know that some of the electric chord was draped over the blanket. Normally I wouldn't think this to be a problem--surely the manufacturer would make a chord that could withstand the heat of the electric blanket it attaches to. Alas, Chinese manufacturers do not have to adhere to the quality or safety standards that constrain manufacturers for the US market. The heat from the blanket melted away the plastic coating of the chord, exposing the wire which promptly caught on fire.

The extent of the damage from the electrical fire

I miss my blanket, but I don't think I'll get a new one...

Xi'an Nights

Night time really is the best time to see Xi'an. Everything is lit in colored lights, the smells from woks and hot pots fill the air, and the streets seem less crowded. Here are just a few of the highlights from the past several weekend nights in the city.

BIG WILD GOOSE PAGODA LIGHT & FOUNTAIN SHOW

Probably the most romantic spot in Xi'an is Da Yan Ta (the Big Wild Goose Pagoda). It's grounds have a fountain show three times a day. The fountains are choreographed to traditional chinese music that plays from loudspeakers all over the park. The after dark show is lit up with many colored lights.

Colored trees line the fountains. You can see the pagoda lit in the background.

XI'AN CATHOLIC CHURCH

By far the oldest structure of European influence in the city, Xi'an's catholic church looks like it belongs in in medieval Portugal rather than China. The church has a dedicated following of chinese catholics, however the community is a small one. It also attracts an interesting mix of expats. When I visited the church I encountered mainly Scandinavians. The church is very beautiful, unfortunately my pictures are not. 

JUPITER?

This definitely makes my top five strangest experiences in China. After a nice dinner of Korean BBQ I stumbled upon a small crowd on the sidewalk. In the middle of the crowd was what looked like anti-aircraft cannon shining a green laser into the sky. It turned out it was a giant telescope mounted on the back of a tricycle. The tricycle owner was charging 10RMB for a look through his telescope.

Unbelievable. Simply unbelievable.

I had recently taken Solar System Astronomy in college so I figured I'd see what his telescope could do. It turned out the guy's telescope was very good. He used the laser to calibrate the telescope lens at Jupiter. Despite the light and air pollution of Xi'an, I was able to see four of Jupiter's moons and make out the stripes on Jupiter's surface. $1.50 can't get me a close up of Jupiter on any sidewalk I've ever been on in America.