My Favorite Travel Picture {Travel Tuesday}

Today's Travel Tuesday topic is to show our favorite travel picture, and explain why it is meaningful.

All I have to say about that is, "Really, just one?!?!" 

First of all...impossible.  And especially if the picture is to have meaning to me personally, then it is really super impossible.  I have many pictures that are not the pretties or best composed that have deep meaning to me because of the people who are in them.  So here we go with a few of my favorite pictures...because I can't pick just one.

This picture is probably my favorite picture of me in China.  It is at one of the oldest buildings on Yunnan University's campus, looks very traditional, and is obviously Chinese.  I feel like this is the epitome of why I was in China: studying abroad at Yunnan University to learn Chinese and get to know the Chinese people and culture.

Okay, so composition-wise, this is one of my favorite pictures I took in China.  This was during my first week in Kunming, and a friend was showing us around the Buddhist temple.  I thought this little old man was cute, so I took a picture of him smoking on his pipe.  The color and framing turned out well and I feel like it really embodied what it was actually like sitting in the back of the temple's outdoor area.

Here are my favorites that have more personal meaning to me...

These are some friends from an event we went to every week called English Corner.  I would go help some local students practice their English...which was always beneficial for them to speak with a native person.  It was beneficial for me because I made friends, learned more about their culture and beliefs, learned new Chinese words, and had something fun to do every Friday night.  I'll never forget about the wonderful people I met at English corner, they were really my most true Chinese friends I made while living in Yunnan. I'm also sad I don't have more pictures with the rest of them.  Joyce, on the far right, was the one who helped me become involved in English Corner and also with substitute teaching for their English class for some middle school children.  She is a person who is incredibly mature and caring, and really one of the nicest people I've met!

What's more Chinese than getting a lift home on a boy's bicycle?  I love this picture because before I ever went to China I thought it would be so fun to be the girl who got taken home by a boy on the back of his bicycle.  Obviously because I was dating Tyler this wasn't romantic like it is in all the Chinese movies, but it was still AWESOME.  Poor Josh was really tired by the time we got all the way back to Yunnan University!

This picture is from my 22nd birthday with my Korean classmate and his girlfriend.  They were definitely my closest friendships in Kunming.  It was so much fun having dinner dates with them, getting to enjoy their company for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and just having true friends.  I remember while my roommate was gone on trips a few times, Daesun would check on me to make sure I was alright.  This friendship was also the most beneficial to my Chinese learning while in China.  My level of Chinese was so low that actually having conversations with other Chinese people was really hard.  They usually used words that were WAY out of my vocabulary range, and spoke really fast.  Daesun's Chinese was just a few steps ahead of my own, so I was challenged to speak to him, but it wasn't so difficult that it was impossible.  Plus, most of the Chinese people knew English and he didn't, so Chinese was our only form of communication.  Then his girlfriend, Minjeong, came to visit in December.  She only spoke Korean and English back then, so it was always fun since everyone had to translate what we said into two languages.  I miss them!

My friend Doris was another friend from English corner!  On this particular day, she took me out for my birthday (which was the day before), and I got to spend the day seeing and learning more about her life!  Her mom runs a jewelry shop in Kunming, so I got to go to her work and watch them consult with dealers and drink coffee together.  Then she showed me some new shops that I hadn't seen yet, and I got to ask questions and learn about how she had moved from Myanmar to China.  Her Chinese is so fluent, you'd never realize she wasn't native!

These were my classmates!  It was really fun getting to know people from so many different countries and learning Chinese with them.  I think most of them had better Chinese than I did, but it was still a great opportunity to be able to learn a lot more.

One of our classmates brought puppets for our teacher to use when reading the dialogues.  I really thought this was funny, but it was amazing how much they actually helped when trying to differentiate the characters in the dialogues.  Plus this particular teacher was really sweet, so she was just cute.

Okay, so I picked 8 pictures instead of 1...which is better than 20 right??  

A Few Realities of China

Today, I'm bringing you a list of things you should know if you ever plan to live in China.  Or at least Kunming.

Bathrooms

Okay, I feel like I'm totally cheating by putting bathrooms first on this list.  This is what you expected to read in a post about realities in China.  Bathroom stuff.  Sorry I couldn't break the mold on this one, but for westerners it really is something you need to be prepared to encounter.

Bathroom sinks at Yunnan University international dorms.

Squat toilents are very much a part of every day life in China, and I'd have to say - just get used to it. 

For a place with such a huge population, unless the bathroom has frequent cleaning, you will be 100% glad for the sanitation that comes with the squat toilet - the sanitation of touching absolutely nothing.

They really aren't that bad once you overcome the initial awkwardness - it just might be a good idea to read up on techniques prior to your trip.  You think I'm kidding about researching how to use them, but the conversations I had with the other western friends during the first week in China was like this: "Which direction are you supposed to face?"  

Here are a few general rules for squat toilets.

• Carry hand sanitizer.  Most public restrooms either don't have sinks or don't have soap.
• Carry your own toilet paper with you - and get your wad of paper out prior to entering the stall.  You don't want to balance and jumble around for your toilet paper in a tiny stall with all your stuff.  
• NEVER put paper in the toilet.  There will always be trashcans in each stall for this purpose, because the plumbing cannot handle the paper.  
• ALWAYS roll your pants up before even walking in the bathroom.
• Keep some change - public restrooms usually cost somewhere between a few jiao and a few yuan.

A trough style toilet - these are common in some of the older public restrooms, bus stops, train stations, roadside, etc.  This particular one was, however, in the international student dorms at Yunnan University.  Sometimes these older styles will also not have doors.

Even my apartment had a squat toilet and an older style bathroom - meaning the toilet was also the drain for the shower.  It was weird at first that there was not a designated shower area, nor a normal toilet but it quickly became normal.  However, if you're willing to pay a little more for an apartment or move further from the city center, you can find much nicer places with more western furnishings.

Squat toilet in my apartment in China..

Laundry

My Chinese professor at OU liked to go on a lot of tangents during class by telling us stories about Chinese culture.  Her tangents were always really funny, and I'll always remember some of them.  One day, she wanted to prepare the whole class for daily life if we ever decided to study abroad in China.

And now, I'll quote to the best of my memory...because it was just funny.

"So if you want to go to China, you have washer?  Sure, most of China have a washer.  If you want to go to China, you have dryer?  Hahahaha, no! China no have dryer!  So if you do laundry, it will take several days, yes, so you must be prepared and do laundry before you run out of clothes!"

And that's basically how laundry day in China went.

Depending on the thickness of the material and humidity that week, it could take clothes between one day to three days to dry.  During the winter, towels and jeans never seemed to completely dry after being washed.

Oh, and your clothes will also smell like air pollution.

Food

 Bucket 'O' Feathers right outside the restaurant door?  Yep, that used to be on your dinner.

It's okay, it happens all around the world - you just don't always get the educational experience that comes with it.

  

Shopping

Some forms of shopping in China are really cool.  Many vendors sell products on the sidewalks, or in carts that the push up and down the streets.

This is a photo of a pet fish cart.  She was selling all kinds of fish, and she walks around and maybe you decide to buy her fish, and you pay her on the spot and get your fish on the spot.  Always remember to bargain with these types of street vendors!

Then, you have supermarkets.

While Wal-Mart is available in China, I think most people who've lived in China would suggest that Carrefour is a MUCH better option as far as supermarkets go.  They are just as widespread as Wal-Mart, if not more, and as far as food selection went I thought they had better products.

See a Chinese Carrefour below.

Carrefour is pronounced Jiā lè fú in Chinese.

Some cities will also have a store with more imports and western delicacies called Metro.  As with most imports, the price will stay true to the lack of ability to purchase such products otherwise.

Weather

Okay, this one is purely talking about Yunnan.  I don't know about other areas in China if what is said about the weather and how the weather is actually is true.

If you haven't heard, Kunming is called the City of Eternal Spring.

Its true - things stay green year round and you'll probably never encounter snow there.  But it DOESN'T mean that you won't freeze your butt off!

Most people are really confused that I laugh when I hear "City of Eternal Spring."  Sure, for the first several months, the weather in Kunming was wonderful!  It wasn't super hot, and not cold...yet.  While I was there in November, December and January, Kunming consistently stayed around the mid-30s (Fahrenheit). 

What they don't tell you when they talk about the City of Eternal Spring is that since they think it is Spring year round that that also means that building don't have insulation.  I lived in a solid concrete apartment with windows that didn't even seal all the outside air out.  There was literally an draft all the time.

So when I was up doing homework, no matter what time of day nor what building I went to, I was freezing.  My hands were so cold that I bought the red fingertip-less gloves so I could still write.  Oh, and don't laugh at my Where's Waldo jacket with sleeves too short for me.

My suggestion for anyone traveling to a new place - even if you research the weather, it might not be like what you expect with differences in humidity, winds, buildings, and altitude.  Just pack what you need to be prepared to make do with both hot and COLD weather.

The Kunming Experience: Final Week

This week concludes my study abroad experience in China.  I leave Kunming next Friday, putting me on a 35 hour traveling spree.  Then, I can eat steak, Mexican food, and not have to think about how to say something before I go to a restaurant! After I get over jet lag, I'll be hijacking my boyfriend from the rest of  society...forever.  No more of this:  :)  I can't wait to see him for the first time in five and a half months!  (I miss my parents...and kitties too, of course!)

...and hopefully I'll stealing my mom's sewing machine.  :P  All this Pinterest inspired creativity that cannot go anywhere because I have no supplies being abroad.  Oh, and I forgot to mention how I will take 3 hour hot showers multiple times daily to make up for all these cold showers here in Kunming.  I also hope to refrain from using a stove top for at least a month, to make up for 5 months with no oven.

Ok, so...enough dreaming of a week from now.  I do have big list of things to do this week.  First of all, celebrate my birthday for three days straight!  I'll be 22, and I'll get to eat Korean traditional birthday soup (seaweed soup), then on my actual birthday talk to my boyfriend all day, then the day after my birthday eat lunch with a friend!  I also need to buy some more souvenirs.  After that, I need to pack my existing suitcase, see how much stuff I still need to pack that doesn't fit, and go buy another suitcase.  I suppose all my stuff will be going home soiled since my washer decided to quit two weeks before I leave.  Then, of course, when your clothes have lost their shape to this extent because they hang dry instead of shrinking in the dryer, there's really no point in even taking them home. 

When the washer does this to your floor every time you use it.....there's no more using it.

  I'll have to be sure to eat the following before leaving:
Korean triangle kimchi snack things

Korean Topokki

Jiaozi

Er Kuai (rice tortilla with a warm, sweet peanut sauce inside.)

Candied Fruit Skewer

I guess for the rest of the week besides that crazy list, I will continue to do silly things like this and color them with my crayons (which WILL be going in my carry on.)

So that's most of my bucket list for this week, then I'll be back to Oklahoma, taking classes, reading books, and the occasional road trip or craft project.  With Pinterest around, hopefully there will be more interesting things happening around my corner of the world! 

I'll end on this note: (maybe I'm hungry too?)

The Kunming Experience: Part I

  So this is my first blog...ever!  I have been living in Kunming, China for about 5 months now, so I will do a brief overview of my time here to get us caught up to this point!  I came to Kunming  to meet my major's study abroad requirement, and of course to learn Chinese better!  Along the way, I have made some wonderful friends and fun experiences!  One thing I didn't realize before I got here was how awful my Chinese was!  Needless to say, I had a lot of improving to do...and hopefully I have done the best I could in these 5 months.

This is our Chinese class: we have people from all over the place.  America, Korea, Germany, Czech Republic, Thailand, Laos, France, Italy and Bangladesh.

After I arrived in China, I lived in a campus hotel for about 2 weeks while waiting for confirmation to move to the dorms.  Finally my friend Sam was told there were no beds left in the boy's dorms, and they told me there was 1 bed remaining, and that it was in a room with two Vietnamese girls and there was a Vietnamese girl on the waiting list.  Sam and I made the decision to look for a two bedroom apartment instead of the dorm idea.  Its a little cheaper, with more freedom, and I would be able to speak to my roommate. lol  We searched all day for places, and finally found an ad for an apartment.  We contacted the landlord and visited it...needless to say, it looked uninhabitable.  So we asked if he had other apartments we could see, and he showed us the one in the pictures below.  The apartment has wonderful location, however it's contents do not fair as well as its location.  It was much cleaner than the first place, and had a kitchen and bathroom and all.  Well, after we moved it, it turns out it does have a few issues, however overall its been a sufficient place.

One of the hardest things to get used to was this, however not a big deal now:

Here's my roommate Sam flushing our squatty potty with a water hose connected to a pipe.  Turns out, this is so out of date that even when we have Chinese people over they have to ask us how to flush the toilet. lol

 

 This is my bedroom...I put pictures up, and of course my beloved Maggie who was my first gift from my boyfriend. :)

Ok, the kitchen.  The brown spot is rust caked with grease.  I really don't think this place had ever been cleaned before we moved in. lol

Here's the rest of the kitchen: washer, sink, and bathroom entrance.  Just an update, the sink and washer have broken in our time here!  (Its really wonderful to deal with.)

Sam's room didn't have a closet, so he built one out of some tent poles we found in one of the cabinets in the living room.

After settling in, I have had the opportunity to do lots of fun things here!

Here is a photo of Kunming from a mountain we hiked:

My friends from English Corner...we help them practice speaking their English every Friday!

 I was really excited about this! My friend gave me a ride home on his bike one day after English Corner...I have always wanted to do this!  It was really fun!

Bye guys! :)