ANGIE
These two weeks back at home just flew by! I can't believe we're leaving again so soon. We did manage to get a bunch of stuff done here, and it was great to have time to sort out the little things (like finally doing our taxes) and get ready for the real world again! It also felt so good to see family and friends after such a long time away. I've gained some weight back, which is good, but I'm sure I will gain the rest back from all the poutine eating I'm about to do in Quebec! Etienne's mom just got back from China. She had been traveling there for almost a month, so we'll have lots to chat about! First off though, we're flying into New York to see some friends for a few days. I can't wait to see Julia again; I haven't seen her in ages - since we had visited the World Trade Center together a week before Sept 11, scary!
The one thing I'm not looking forward to is the COLD! My plan is to try to stay indoors as much as possible and/or just drink lots of wine :) Love the holidays! Cheers! (clink!)
ANGIE
What can I say, it is COLD here!!! We had followed the sun this past year and it is quite a shock to my body to come back home to winter. Wow, a year of sun was amazing. I will miss wearing shorts and sandals everyday! Not looking forward to the even colder weather when we head back east to NY and Montreal. We've been home for a few days now and are still a bit jetlagged. I am almost on a normal schedule now. Besides trying to get adjusted to the new time here, the last few days we've been busy doing little things here and there, like our taxes. We're going to continue to update the blog until the end of the year at least, adding more pictures and videos that we didn't get a chance to upload before.
Etienne
As soon as we got to Bangkok from Cambodia, we flew to South Thailand. Unfortunately for us, the weather was not that great during our time there and as a consequence, we ended up spending little time at the beach, despite visiting world famous destinations such as Phuket and Koh Phi Phi islands.
Instead, we ended up spending most of our time riding a motorbike in South Thailand... so much fun! There is absolutely no such thing better than riding a motorbike to get to discover the area. It quickly turned out to be our favorite activity down South. The temperature was really warm and the scenery was absolutely spectacular! Have a look at our pictures in the South Thailand album and you will get the idea!
The first time, we rented a sport motorbike Honda 400cc. It had been years since I had last ridden one. It was awesome! The following day, as I was getting ready to rent it again, Angie tells me that she would rather rent a scooter, as it is much more comfortable for the passenger than the motorbike. I couldn't believe it! A scooter, damn it! It looks so good to ride a motorbike when ninety-nine percent of the people ride scooters! I then told Angie that it doesn't really matter if we are comfortable or not, as long as we look good! Anyway, I did not win that one... but we still managed to have a lot of fun riding the scooter around!
Our next and final stop in South East Asia was Singapore. We had been invited to stay over the entire week at Angie's friend apartment. Angie met Mei in 2003 while studying at the University of Singapore. Mei and her husband Ben were tremendous hosts! Not only did they provide us great accomodation (private room with air conditioning, satellite tv, high speed internet), but also took us out for amazing dinners on many occasions. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, they had also purchased us prepaid skytrain / subway passes and even provided us with a cell phone during our stay! Talk about five star service. It was definately one of our favourite places to stay during our trip.
It was a really nice and relaxing week in Singapore and we took the last couple days there to shop. As Singapore is considered a heaven for shoppers, we went all out! No need to pay the damn GST as a tourist!
Etienne
Oct Mui Ne, VIETNAM
Oct Hanoi / Nha Trang, VIETNAM
Sept Tiananmen Square / Forbidden City, CHINA
July Ancient sites
July Great wall
July Martial Arts
July Beijing
Jun Oaxaca - Mexico
May Guatemala
May Honduras
Apr Lima, Peru
Apr Cusco, Peru
Mar Brazil
Mar Chile
Mar Iguazu Falls
Mar Uruguay
Jan Buenos Aires
Feb Leanna´s visit
Jan Tigre
Jan La Boca
ANGIE
We arrived in Cambodia by bus from Vietnam, which wasn't too long of a ride. We had to spend $20 each on yet another visa to enter the country, though not as bad as the $100 (ouch!) visa for Vietnam. They further tried to rip us off during the 'health inspection check'. After we got in to the country we had to fill out a form concerning our health. They also wanted to see our immunization certificate and if we didn't have it, we would be charged $1. This was obviously just for them to pocket the $1 since probably 99% of the tourists don't have it on them (especially when the luggage is still on the bus which is 2 km away). Etienne had his but I didn't have mine and refused to pay the $1. It was the principle damnit! I wasn't going to give this creep a penny for anything. I took back my passport and we just walked away after saying we weren't going to pay. There was nothing he could do anyways, since it wasn't legit. It's not like he could complain to anyone, haha. It reminded me of the border guards in Guatemala when they tried to charge us money for leaving the country. I'm sure they make quite a bit though, since most people just pay up with no second thought about it. Not us though!
The bus that we took offered a service where they get your visa for you and you don't have to get off the bus to go through the regular border check. Since they were charging $5 per person, they tried to pressure everyone into buying their service, which, in my opinion, is a total rip off. They tell you that you'll have to wait in line for up to three hours and that everyone on the bus will be waiting for you, so of course you don't want to be the only one holding back the bus. We've gone through many land borders before and have never had to wait that long. We knew they would say anything to make a buck. To further discourage people to go through the border on their own, they park the bus about 2 kilometres away from the border, so the people that don't buy their service have to either walk or take a taxi to the bus. We knew all their little tricks by now. So they were pissed when us and two other people decided to cross the border on our own. It took us all of 20 minutes to do (NOT 3 hours like they claimed!), but then we had to walk the 2 kilometres, which took most of the time. Then they were angry when we wanted to get something to eat before getting back on the bus (the other passengers ate while waiting for us), but we just took our sweet time, it was great. I just hate it when they try to rip you off like that and then are angry that you didn't take the bait.
Phnom Penh (capital of Cambodia)
To my surprise, the people here speak English very well, probably the best out of all the countries that we've been to this year. It was good to be able to communicate a bit. We were here just for a few days and found the people to be extremely friendly and nice. The architecture here is stunning, similar to that of Thailand. In China, kids wear these type of pants that have a slit all down the bum/crotch area so that when they have to go to the bathroom, they just squat and don't have to take off their pants, but here, kids just don't wear bottoms at all. In fact, we saw tons of naked kids walking around here; it was pretty amusing.
The recent history of Cambodia was quite brutal and we visited an old school which used to be used for torturing people who were suspected of being against the governement at that time, including kids. Most were later killed nearby. It was so sad to see the pictures of the victims.
Angkor
We came to Angkor to see Angkor Wat, a city of ancient temples. It was a runner up in the New 7 Wonders of the World contest, but in my opinion, it should have made it. The place was huge so we had to hire a tuk tuk to get us around to the different temples in the site. The old architechture was amazing; you'll have to see our pictures to understand. It is a definite highlight in Southeast Asia and worth the trip just to see the place. They are unlike any other temples we've seen. I would put this in our top 5 places we've seen.
Bus ride to Thailand
We booked a ride on a bus from Angkor to Bangkok. We heard the horror stories of the horrible bus ride on the dirt road all the way there, but we decided to try it anyways. Bouncing up and down for five hours in the bus wasn't actually all that bad. You just get used to it after awhile. I was nervous that I would get sick on the bus, but luckily that didn't happen. I've posted a short video of the bus ride on this blog, so you'll have to check it out to see what I mean. Rumour has it that an airline company is paying off the government to not upgrade the dirt road so that people will fly instead. Sneaky!
When we bought our ticket, the agency tried to sell us a more expensive one, saying that when we switch buses at the border, we'd get a first class double decker bus. We declined this option, but when we switched buses, we got the nice one anyways! Glad we didn't fall for that one and pay more!
ANGIE
ANGIE
It was very easy to travel from one place to another in Vietnam. They have these 'open tour' buses which run from city to city, all the way from Hanoi up north to Ho Chi Minh in the south. Buses are every day and are quite cheap, about $5 to each city. You can buy these tickets at any travel agency, which are plenty in each city. A great way to see all of Vietnam if you have the time. The Vietnamese look very similar to the Chinese, so I felt very comfortable walking alone, as I didn't draw as much attention as when we were both walking together. I have to say, it's really different to not be able to speak the local language. We hadn't been in that situation since the begining of our trip in Argentina. It's definately not the same experience. In all the other countries we loved talking to the locals and hearing their stories. It's a totally different feeling not being able to do so anymore. It's difficult to really understand a country when you can't speak to the people.
Hanoi (population 3 million)
What can I say, I just didn't really like this place. As the capital of Vietnam, I would have expected a little bit more from the city in terms of infrastructure and cleanliness. Too many people, too many scooters, tiny streets, tons of scammers. This is why we got out of there after three days. It was probably the craziest traffic I've ever seen. There aren't many cars on the road, but tons of motorbikes. The worst is when you have to cross the street. You see 4 lanes of motorbikes coming in each direction and you just have to go for it and start walking across the street, even though it seems like suicide. The trick is to walk slowly across, then the bikes will go around you. If you run, you might get hit.
We did go check out a water puppet show, which Vietnam is popular for. It was pretty entertaining and the folk music was actually pretty good. Never to disappoint me is the food! Vietnamese food is in my top 3, and finally eating it here was amazing. Best pho I've ever had!
Nha Trang (population 300,000)
Nha Trang was a nice escape from the crowds. It's a beach town so it was great to be by the ocean finally. There
was basically no one at the beach, which was great. We took a little boat trip one day and it was really entertaining. For $6, we got to go to 4 different islands to swim/snorkle, got a great Vietnamese lunch, open wine bar (in the water, each floating on lifesavers), and live entertainment. I didn't expect to have any type of entertainment, but what the boat crew did was hilarious. You'll have to see our pictures in our album for this, it was good! We also rented bikes one of the days to see the town. We were originally going to go find this spa place for an outside mudbath, but on the way there, I cut my leg on this rusty piece of metal that was sticking out from my bike (good thing I got my tetanus shot last year!). So after that, mudbath was out of the picture - probably not so good for an open wound. We just ended up biking around the little town. Traffic in the main part of town was crazy and to be a part of it was even crazier. I was scared at first, to bike with all the traffic, but once you get into it, you just go with the flow and it's okay. Going through the roundabout, with traffic coming at all directions was a bit unnerving, but I survived. I just had to not think about it and keep going on the bike. If I actually looked at all that was around me, I don't know if I would have come out uninjured!
Mui Ne (population 100,000)
We were not planning on coming here, but saw pictures of the sand dunes so we decided to stop by. Because of the amazing resort we found, our two night stay soon became a nine day stay. For only $25 per night (including an amazing breakfast of fresh fruits, banana pancakes, omelettes, and fresh fruit juice), we got a great deal and just spoiled ourselves. We could have stayed in an $8 place with just the basics, but once we saw this place for the price, we couldn't resist. They also had a nice, huge pool with a little waterfall. My swimming certainly has improved! Even better, we found this delicious seafood restaurant next door. It was so good and inexpensive that we ended up having lunch and dinner there everyday for our entire stay. We couldn't pull ourselves away from the poolside and beach until one of the last days to finally see what we came here for - the sand dunes. We hired a refurbished 1950's American war jeep to get around to the sand dunes and some other sights around the town. All in all, Mui Ne was the perfect vacation from our vacation.
Ho Chi Minh City (population 7 million)
After Mui Ne, we weren't looking forward to be in a big city again, especially after our experience in Hanoi. HCMC is
quite different from Hanoi, though. It's more commercial, with big billboards, streets are bigger and wider, a bit more comfortable. Still a lot of people though. Once again, we ended up spending the first day in the hospital, as Etienne had some kind of toe infection that made his right toe swell up to almost double the size. It was our seventh time at the hospital this year and hopefully our last! I've had enough with hospitals and when we get back home we'll have tons of insurance papers to fill out...good thing we bought the travel insurance though, it was well worth it for us this year!
We spent an afternoon at the Vietnam War Museum. In addition to the tanks and artillery on display, they had an amazing photography display. It was very sad to see what the people had to endure during that time, especially the massacres of several villages and the results of the chemical weapons used by the US.
We didn't stay here for long, just a few days to get our stuff sorted out, go to the hospital, and buy our bus ticket to Cambodia.
ANGIE
ANGIE
Well to sum up China, after we finished school on Sept 14, we visited Xi'an, Shanghai, Guanzhou, Guilin, Yangshuo, and Nanning. Even though we were excited to see other parts of China, it was still a bit sad to leave Beijing, especially the staff at our hotel. A few of them went with us to the train station and started crying when we were leaving, so I started crying too. They gave us some going away presents which was really sweet.
XI'AN (population 8 million)
We came all the way here to see the Terracotta Warriors. We took the overnight train from Beijing which was 12 hours long. We had opted to go for the seated class (as opposed to the sleepers), which was a mistake...it was packed full of people. When they've sold out of seated tickets, they sell 'standing' tickets, so the whole time the aisles were also packed with people (reminded me of our no-so-pleasant chicken buses in Central America). The worst part is that people smoke inside...ugh, I still can't get used to that. The Warriors were amazing to see in person, thousands of these huge warriors standing side by side. You'll have to see our pictures to get an idea.
The city of Xi'an was a lot bigger and well-developed than I thought. The downtown is very modern and can almost be compared to Singapore (minus the skyscrapers). As the former ancient capital of China, Xi'an is inside these huge city walls, which was interesting to see. We took a little day trip over to Li Mountain, which was an hour away. It was gorgeous and so different from any mountains in BC. There's really not much to say about it, you'll just have to take a look at the pictures. On the bus ride back from the mountain, Etienne entertained the locals with his Mandarin speaking skills...always a good laugh to see a foreigner speak Chinese I suppose.
There's a huge Muslim community in Xi'an so we went to the Muslim Quarter to try some of the food. There's this popular dish, which I don't remember the name, but was sooo delicious. First you get a bowl with half cooked dense bread. When we first got this, we didn't know what it was, but started eating it anyways. Then the waiter told us we weren't supposed to eat it, but to tear the bread into lots of small pieces and give it back to him...sure, okay... So once we finished tearing the bread, we watched curiously to see what would happen next. He then poured hot broth in the bowl and added some lamb meat. This soup-like consistency with the bread tasted amazing. I don't know what was in the broth, but it made the whole dish come together with its amazing flavour.
Apart from the attractions of Xi'an, another highlight was having dinner with the National Archery Team of Iraq. Here's how the story unfolded: We were at the train station buying tickets when we saw these two Iraqis trying to buy tickets as well. This was clearly hopeless, as they didn't speak Chinese and only had limited English. Even if they spoke perfect English, it would have been difficult for them to buy tickets since the Chiense generally don't speak any English. The ticket clerks are generally very impatient and so are the people lining up behind. Every time we buy tickets, Etienne always stands behind me to control the crowd (as they yell at me to hurry up and try to get in front of me, even when I'm talking to the clerk!), so I can have time to ask questions and buy the tickets. So these guys really had no chance! Etienne offered them my help so I got their tickets for them. After chatting with them for a bit, we found out that they were in Xi'an for an archery competition with their team. They invited us to their hotel for dinner. We agreed and hopped in a taxi. Now another problem - they didn't know the name of their hotel in Chinese and didn't have any address. When in China, especially if you don't speak Chinese, ALWAYS carry the business card of your hotel with the name and address in Chinese characters. This is a must if you want to get back! Taxi drivers especially, don't speak any English. They remembered it was near a soccer stadium, but this town had 4 of them so we had no choice but to go to each one! Luckily, it turned out to be the first one. Once there, we met the entire team. About half of them spoke English, so we talked for a bit. Very interesting to hear about life in Iraq these days. Most of the men had to leave their families behind and temporarily moved to Egypt for safety. They told us that men weren't safe in Iraq, but women and children were. They also said that they were not able to get their wives and children out of the country because they didn't have passports and to get one you have to go to Baghdad, which is not an option for them at the moment! So for the past few years they only got to see their families a few times a year when they were able to go back safely. Ah, the simple things we take for granted back home!
SHANGHAI (population 20 million)
From Xi'an to Shanghai it was a 22 hour ride. This time we bought sleeper tickets which made the trip a bit easier.
We were in Shanghair for about 4 days and I wasn't really that impressed. Another big city in China. There were a lot more expats here of course. I have to say though that the skyline is pretty amazing, especially at night.
GUANGZHOU (population 9 million)
Another 20 hour train ride from Shanghai south to Guangzhou. We came here mainly to get our Vietnam visa. The south of China is so much different from the north. My family is originally from the south, so the accent is very familiar to me. I didn't have to 'fake' the northern accent, as I did in Beijing. Etienne had a bit of a hard time getting used to it at first since the pronunciation is a bit different, as are some tones. In Guangzhou people mainly speak Cantonese so I was happy I could at least understand and say a few words. Food here is excellent. It's so much different from northern China, but equally as tasty. Their subway system is quite new and very efficient. We really didn't do much here besides get our visa and get out. I would say the highlight for us was the food.
GUILIN (population 670,000)
We took a 12 hour bus from Guangzhou. It was a sleeper bus and it was one of the biggest mistakes we made. First of all, the bus was old and disgusting. The blankets were obviously never cleaned. But worst of all, they pack in so many peopole that there are people sleeping in the aisles right beside you. The bus company doesn't oversell tickets, but what happens is the drivers sell the tickets directly to passengers (as opposed to the ticket office selling them) at a lower price and just pocket it. All the locals know this, so they all buy it from the drivers directly. I got in an argument with the driver about this and his response was, "We all need to make money". That was definately the last time we took one of those sleeper buses.
Guilin has the reputation of having hte most beautiful landscape in China so we just had to see for ourselves. The place is really beautiful with its mountains, rivers, and caves. Again we thought this would be a small town, but no, there were quite a lot of people there too. One interesting thing, a lot of the restaurants had animals (chickens, birds, ducks, etc) in cages outside the front door and I didn't think much of it until we ordered chicken one time and it took forever to come. The owner then came by to tell us that our chicken had just finished being killed and would be ready shortly. I know this is often done with seafood, but I've never heard of this for land mammals! Glad we didn't see a cow out front!
One of the days we took the famous cruise down the Li River. The scenery is incredible and our pictures don't do it any justice. The whole town was really beautiful with its small peaks and lakes everywhere. We also went to Yangshuo for the day, which was just as beautiful, although this small town was filled with foreign tourists. We hadn't seen that many in one place since Mexico. We would have like to stay longer in Guilin, but a national holiday week was coming and since it is a huge tourist destination for Chinese tourists, we decided to leave before the big rush. Can you imagine the amount of people that would be there on holidays? Yikes!
NANNING (population 6.5 million)
We came to Nanning because it is one of the main transportation hubs and therefore easy to find transportation into Vietnam from here. We arrived on the first day of China's National Week holiday so there were just tons of people everywhere. We only stayed here one night - just enough time to find and book transportation. We did have one little drama though - I caught a pickpocket trying to get into my bag! Luckily, whenever I wear my little backpack out, I tie all the zippers together so it takes awhile to undo, especially when you don't know the order I tied them in. So we were walking down a busy street when I felt the top of my bag moving. I knew this was unusual because when my bag gets moved by someone bumping in to it, it always moves at the bottom, never the top. So I quickly turned around and saw a guy looking at my bag with his hand up near the zipper area. He was having trouble undoing the zippers, haha! I yelled and we went after him. He tried to blend in the crowd but he was too obvious. Etienne stared him down and then we left. A few hours later when we were walking back down the same street, we saw him trying to pickpocket other people. Etienne went up behind him and gave him a rough push and we both started yellling at him. I made him admit that he tried to steal from me earlier (which he denied at first) and apologized, but I knew he didn't mean it, he was just scared. He then went on to this sob story about how he was sick and couldn't work. I told him he was a liar and to get a job. You would think the story ends here, but, hours later, we see him running past us. I didn't recognize him at first but Etienne did, and a few seconds later, we see two girls running after him, yelling, "Thief!". So we go running after him too. He ran into a big mall, and it was hard to find him since there were many people and many exits. We helped the girls search for him for awhile but just couldn't find the creep. He was probably long gone by then anyways. The girls called the police who came by very quickly. We gave a description of the guy and left. I can't believe he ran right past us at first! That would have been great to catch him. It's okay, karma will get him in the end!
Etienne
We finally got to Vietnam a few days ago, ending our 4 month stay in China. The experience in China has been terrific and far beyond my expectations. I really, really liked it. So, how is my Mandarin Chinese? Well, it's better than it used to be!.. not too difficult I guess when you start from scratch. But seriously, I am proud of what I have accomplished. I went through two Chinese textbook while the second textbook had only Chinese characters, no Pinyin (use of the Latin alphabet to represent sounds in Standard Mandarin). Still not enough to read the newspaper though! One requires around 3000 characters in order to read it, while I can only recognize around 500. Trust me, learning Mandarin is a very long process! Hopefully, in a few years from now, I will be at conversational level, provided of course, that I get a lot of help from Angie and her family. Apparently, Angie's mom is looking forward to speak to me in Chinese... I really hope her expectations are not too high, as she could well be disappointed!
I think our experience in China would not have been as interesting if Angie would have not spoken the language. Many tourists have told us that the language barrier has made their travelling experience here in China very difficult. Fortunately for us, it's been an effortless one... thanks to Angie. In addition to speaking Mandarin fluently, she also understands Cantonese as she grew up watching television in Cantonese (shows from Hong Kong). As if that was not enough, Angie would subsequently tell me that she could understand another Chinese dialect (one that Angie has been exposed to up to the age of ten years old as her parents used to speak it with their friends). Unbelievable! And Angie made use of all her language skills, specifically in the south of China.
As far as I'm concerned, I still have some problems understanding Mandarin, let alone understanding other Chinese dialect. Just to give you an idea, when we got to Guangzhou, Angie had to specifically tell me that the people were speaking Cantonese as I thought they were speaking Mandarin... told you I still have a long way to go!
That leads us to Vietnam, a country that has failed to impress me thus far. And it all started at the Vietnam border when the customs officer tried to shortchange us, followed by the taxi scam where the meter increases by double the actual rate and finally the hotel scam where they advertise a really nice hotel on the internet only to find out that it's a different hotel once you get there. And trust me, the hotel pictures on the internet look way better! And I could go on and on... In addition, it was pouring rain in Hanoi as the local weather was being affected by a typhoon that had hit the central coast of Vietnam. Therefore, in order to avoid the typhoon as well as the Hanoi scams, we decided to take a 24 hour train down south to Nha Trang and it turned out to be a nice ocean front city. It feels so good again to be away from the big cities.
Interesting thing in Vietnam, there is still a reasonable amount of people that can speak French. As most of you know, Vietnam is a former French colony. As a result, many things here are advertised in Vietnamese, French and English. And surprisingly, the Vietnamese understand relatively well my Quebec French as opposed to Europeans who usually take half an hour to get used to my accent. It's awesome to speak French with them and finally give a well deserved break to Ang!
We should be spending another 3-4 days here in Vietnam before heading to Cambodia where we will most likely spend a week at the most to eventually end up 'Yes, you guessed it right' on the nice beaches of southern Thailand! Don't worry, we'll be posting a few pictures!
Etienne
ANGIE
Well it’s been almost 3 months in Beijing now and it’s almost time to go. We’ve got one more week of classes and then we’re off to Xi’an to see the Terracotta Warriors and start our journey around China. Fortunately my toe has gotten so much better over the last week. I took the cast off two Fridays ago and stopped using the crutches. The first few days I was still limping but now I am almost walking normally now. The funny thing is that I was looking at both my legs the other day and my left calf is a lot smaller than my right one because I hadn’t used the left one in a month. But after so long on crutches I’ve got some killer triceps! Talk about good timing though, my toe healing just in time. Now I can start to eat some of the food I wasn’t allowed to during the last month. I don’t know if you know anything about Chinese medicine/healing, but depending on what part of you is injured, there is food you have to avoid and food you should eat to help you heal faster. When I first got my toe fractured, I thought, “I should call my mom to ask her what I should and shouldn’t eat”, but I soon realized that I didn’t have to since I was in China and every Chinese person loved to tell me what food to eat and what to avoid. Their advice was all consistent too. It’s just common knowledge here! But of course I still called my mom and she told me the same thing: don’t eat red meat or peanuts (or else swelling will last longer), don’t eat anything spicy or bitter, but do eat pigs’ feet soup and bone marrow from ribs. So for a month I avoided all those foods but I can’t say I had any pigs’ feet soup or bone marrow.
Not being able to go ANYwhere for a month turned out to be not too bad, although the last week I was really sick of it which is why I took the cast off. I got hooked on this Korean soap opera (dubbed in Chinese), which I later found out is the most popular show from Korea and is also showed in Europe and even Israel. I also studied a lot and my Mandarin has never been better. I love being able to read and write now! Two Sundays ago was the first time in a month that I went out anywhere besides school. We went to this teahouse that had different Chinese performances and they had THE best tea I have ever tasted. It felt so good to get out again.
Another good thing about getting out again was that…last week we got engaged! Yes, you heard right, we are now engaged! I was shocked too, but I did say yes. Here's how the story goes...got home from school last Monday and Etienne was complaining about how bored he was and wanted to get out since we hadn't done much lately (due to the toe). I didn't feel like going out because I wanted to finish studying plus my foot didn't feel great, so I wasn't going to go. But then he kept pacing around the room looking for something to do and I felt bad for not being able to go out with him for the last month so I just agreed to go. We went to a lake close by and he wanted to rent a little boat to go around, but I didn't really feel like it plus I felt like the people were trying to rip us off and I wasn't in the mood for haggling (but damn that would have been romantic, lol!). So we continued to walk around the lake and stopped in one place and were talking for a bit and he asked me if this was a romantic place and then was laughing nervously for a bit (looking back it was pretty cute but at the time I thought he was being weird because he was just looking at me and laughing). Then he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him...and the best part was that he asked me in Chinese! And then he was like, “Did you understand what I said?” (Good thing he hit the tones right or else I could have misinterpreted, haha). Then in classic Etienne style, he said, "Now do I give you the ring? I don’t know how this is supposed to be done". That was great! I was just so surprised and it didn't really hit me until about 10 minutes later that this actually happened. Then afterwards we went out for dinner, walked around some more, got a massage on the lake, and walked home. It was a great evening and I'm glad I agreed to go!
ANGIE
ANGIE
Well now that we are in Beijing for a set period of time, I had wanted to update the blog more often, but it turns out my little prediction came true: China has blocked our website. This means that we can't have access to it. So the June 29th post we had to post by another means and it got screwed up in the process. We have finally fixed it and if you read it over again it will make sense now. For whatever reason, all the country and city names were omitted so if you had read it that way it wouldn't have made much sense. Also, the Mexico City pictures link was linking to a different album, but that’s also been fixed now too. Actually it’s been fixed for a few weeks now.
China is notorious for censoring information and the internet is no exception. A large number of websites are blocked. It is also quite evident that reporting is restricted. Reading the paper or magazines, everything is always positive and they thank the government for many things. If they do report about anything negative, the story usually ends up positive.
I have started to really love Beijing. When we first arrived, I didn’t think it was that great, mainly due to the intense pollution rampant throughout the city. Honestly, it is just disgusting. I've never seen anything like it. Mexico City is considered a very polluted city, but it is nothing compared to here. Traffic is brutal and traffic jams pretty much last well into the night. I remember I was here in 1996 and there were barely ANY cars on the road, only bicycles. SO much has changed since then! It is estimated that there are over 1000 more cars on the road everyday. They’ve relocated a few factories that were close to the city, but they’ll have to do more than that to fix the smog problem. August 8 was the one year countdown to the Olympics so they had big festivities at Tiananmen Square. International reporters were here all week covering the story and the smog that week was probably the worst since we’ve gotten here. So if you’ve seen any of it on the news lately, you’ll know what I mean. For example, on the really bad smog days, you can’t even see a building that is 2-3 blocks away, no kidding! It’s just ridiculous. They are supposed to clean up for the Olympics, but it’s been a slow process. Apparently they will close down factories for a few weeks before and during the Olympics as well as restrict some cars in the city. They can also artificially induce rain (particles are injected into clouds via cannons and rocket launchers!) in order to clear the smog and are currently working on another technology to ensure the sky will be sunny and clear during the event. Talk about control!
There are endless things to do in this city, from shows to museums to galleries and of course all the ancient attractions Beijing has to offer. I don’t think you can get bored of this city. I love the contrast between modern and ancient here. We go to school in the new and modern business district, where everything is expensive, but we live in an old part of the city, in an old ‘hutong’ (narrow alleyway), not too far from Tiananmen Square. I was a bit surprised to see how metropolitan some parts of the city are. There are great high end international restaurants, theatres, modern art galleries, etc. You can find food from pretty much anywhere in the world here. We usually eat around our place. There are a bunch of little family owned restaurants near our hotel and the dishes are delicious and cheap. On average we eat for about $5 per day for both lunch and dinner for the both of us, it’s great! We also found a good little place that serves the traditional Peking duck for less than $5 for the whole duck, including soup and all the other ingredients you need for it (pancakes, cucumbers, scallions, sauce). If you go to the bigger restaurants geared towards tourists, you would pay $20 for the duck only. I love living where we live – we get the ‘real’ prices!
Our hotel is great; I’m so glad we decided to stay here instead of renting an apartment. Apart from the low cost, we have a lot of fun with the staff. They are super nice and are always inviting us for drinks. They barely speak any English so it’s great to practice our Mandarin. Obviously I can communicate way more than Etienne, but he’s coming along. The staff are always eager to practice English with us too, so it’s fun. Plus they help me with my homework!
School is coming along well. I can’t believe we’re already halfway through our 12 week course. It went by so quick! I have improved a lot, especially with my reading and writing. I remember when I first arrived they put me in the intermediate course because I had almost no problems with listening and speaking; but as soon as I opened the book I panicked because it was all in Chinese characters and it had been years since I read anything in Chinese! And even then, I was at a low level for reading because I had only studied it for a few years, and about half of that was learning traditional characters. Here on the mainland they all use simplified characters now. But after 6 weeks, I am able to read pretty much everything from my text, I love it! Our school teaches both Chinese and English. In the morning they teach foreigners Chinese and in the evening they teach English to Chinese students. In the afternoon the Chinese students come and we can all study Chinese/English together and practice conversation. It’s great but sometimes it’s hard if you want to study without any distractions because the Chinese students are all so eager to practice their English, they are always approaching you, trying to make conversation. I’ve got a few Chinese friends now who I usually study with and it’s pretty useful – especially for learning local slang! What I also find amusing is the English names that the Chinese students choose for themselves. Sometimes I wonder where they come up with these. My two favourites are ‘Happy’ and ‘Mona Lisa’, haha, isn’t that great?! I am still waiting to meet a Chinese named Pierre or Bob or something. There are so many people at the school who are at least bi or tri-lingual. Most foreign students speak at least 2 languages and are learning Mandarin as their third. Some are already tri-lingual and are learning Mandarin as their fourth! I noticed that’s it’s only the North Americans and British/Irish who cannot speak more than one language, but I guess that is normal if you grow up in an English speaking country as there is no immediate need to speak another language. It still blows me away when I hear a non-Chinese speak perfect Mandarin! Etienne’s Mandarin progress is coming along very well and most people will usually understand what he’s saying and he can understand if people speak slowly. He can also read 400 characters now! Another skill that has improved for him is his pool skill, haha. There’s a pool table at the school and he is ALWAYS there. Before class, during breaks, and after class, I almost ALWAYS find him there! Apparently he’s improved a lot in the 6 weeks and I can see why…practice makes perfect!
It feels so good to have settled down and get in a routine again. Travelling was fun and we saw many different things, but it was also very exhausting moving from one place to another all the time. I’m glad we chose to stay in Beijing, although there are still a few things that annoy me. For one, it’s quite crowded everywhere: on the subway, on the streets, on the buses, just everywhere. I guess with a city of over 15 million people (and this is only the official number. The actual number is supposed to be much higher), you can’t get away from it all. The one thing that really annoys me is the line cutting. You’ll be in a line-up and then see a few people just cut straight to the front; and the thing that I don’t understand is that nobody in the line ever says anything! It’s always me or Etienne who will tell the person to go line up. The constant spitting is pretty disgusting too. Everyone spits everywhere, all the time. I have never seen anything like it! The government is doing a campaign to reduce the spitting, littering and line cutting (for the Olympics, of course) and I always see commercials about this. It’s pretty funny…but necessary! They have signs all over the place too, but nobody seems to pay much attention to those. Even on the subway announcement, they remind people not to spit, litter, or cut the line. One thing I think the government should also crack down on is the number of scammers there are in the tourist areas. One major scam is the teahouse scam, where ‘English students’ approach you and try to befriend you saying they are English students and want to practice their English. They are pretty friendly and seem genuine. They’ll even walk around with you and show you some sights, or help you bargain for a good price on something. Then in the end they suggest or invite you to go to a teahouse to see a tea ceremony. As a foreigner, you’re thinking, “Great, I’ve made a new Chinese friend and now I get to see something that probably most tourists don’t get to see.” So you go and at the end the bill is a few hundred dollars and they expect you to pay. Some even play dumb and say they didn’t know it would be that expensive, they’ve never been here before, blah blah blah, when in fact they work for the teahouse. There are so many of these people around and they end up scamming so many tourists. I would say about half of the people at our school have been scammed as well as many people from our hotel. Etienne always gets approached by these scammers and the last time we were super mean to them. One girl started talking to him and finally asked him out for some tea and he said, “Okay, let’s go to McDonalds”, hahaha. She of course refused and then he suggested Starbucks and she kept insisting to go to this other teahouse. We told her that we know about the scam and I asked her if she felt good about being a thief, lol. In short, it ended up with her being very angry and yelling profanities at us. It was actually quite funny and it was fun to bust them! The other week I was at this mall and just stopped and watched. There are so many of these scammers and they approach one foreigner after another. If you come to Beijing, beware!
Well if you haven’t already heard, I am currently on crutches. It’s been a week now since my baby toe got fractured. We had just finished visiting the Lama temple and were on the subway to the Military Museum, when somebody stepped on my toe in the subway station. It hurt badly at first but I didn’t think it was serious. Then Etienne took a look at it and told me that we should go to the hospital. That’s when I panicked and almost passed out again. I had to lie down on the ground; it was so embarrassing! But then he looked at my toes on my other foot and said maybe he made a mistake because my other toes are all curvy too, haha. We ended up going back home because by that time I just didn’t feel good (my toe, my head). After a few hours, the toe continued to hurt, so we thought there was probably something wrong and went to the hospital. We went to the state hospital and well, that was an experience in itself, but at least I got treated in a good amount of time (as opposed to Canada where I would have been waiting in the ER for hours). I got an X-ray which confirmed that my toe was fractured. The doctor put a cast on me and told me to come back in a month to take it off. A month! Aaargh! I had to buy a pair of crutches and have been on them for a week. It’s been hell. I cannot go ANYWHERE on my own. After one day on them my whole upper body got so sore and stiff that I couldn’t use them again for a few days. Now we have to take a taxi to school everyday, and everywhere else we want to go. It is SO inconvenient. After going somewhere on my crutches, I am usually out of breath and sweating – at least it’s a good workout! This whole weekend I have not left the hotel. Etienne has to get everything for me – food, laundry, etc. It’s the same as when he was on crutches in Argentina, when I had to do everything. Now that I know how it feels, I’d rather be on the other side! I just can’t believe that this year we both have been on crutches – this kind of stuff doesn’t even happen at home! We’ve been to more hospitals this year than probably our whole life! At least Etienne is improving his Mandarin since he has to venture out on his own now and is forced to speak (before, I would do all the talking). It was the same with me in Argentina too, with the Spanish. I’m glad we did a lot of visiting at the beginning of our trip! We are lucky too, that this didn’t happen at a later time because starting mid-September, we will be travelling all over China. It would have been awful to have this happen while we were travelling around. Well I’ve written enough for now. It’s easy to see that I’ve been stuck at home all weekend since I’ve finally updated the blog. We’ve been so busy the past 6 weeks with school and visiting that we haven’t written in so long. But now that I will be home more, I’m going to update it more often. I still have a lot to say, but I am tired of typing now and my foot hurts. Boo hoo! We’ll also be posting pictures (finally!) in the next few days as we’ve finally updated our albums. 5 new albums to come! Over and out.
ANGIE