Today, I thought I'd start a series of my favorite pictures and stories. I've got 10 for you to look at today and I hope you'll be interested! Please feel free to leave comments and to subscribe! Click on the pictures to enlarge.
Today we've got 9 from Lanzhou and the last one is from Beijing. I planned it to be a little more eclectic, but by the time I finished, I realized they were almost all from Lanzhou. Next time, I'll mix it up a little bit.
I was an exchange student (the 1st ever) to attend Lanzhou University of Technology. The university has two campuses and the 1st time I went to the west campus of the university, I met some total strangers and they invited me back to their rented apartment and cooked a huge meal for me and 3 friends I was meeting there.
You can see that people do meals differently in China - all the dishes are the in the middle of the table and are shared by everyone, but everyone has their own rice bowl. It's a much more enjoyable experience than everyone spooning off onto their own plate. It's a group experience.
This was taken at a primary school assembly in Lanzhou, where I talked to some of the kids and did some games and all kinds of stuff. It was an "English Adventure Day", so they were desperately trying to find a foreigner to participate.
It was an interesting experience - the kids put on short English language plays like Snow White and everyone did their best to participate, although it was hot that day and the sun was beating down on everyone for the whole 2-hour(ish) assembly. Props to the kids for putting up with it!
This is the 兰州理工大学运动会。The Lanzhou University of Technology "Sports Meeting" - it's kind of like the university's version of the Olympics. All the departments show up and parade in like in this picture, there are shows of martial arts, their ROTC (ish) program, music, and there are events like the hundred meter dash, tug-of-war, etc. It's a cool thing and I'd recommend anyone who goes to China to study to attend a meeting like this if their university holds one.
These are 3 good friends of mine (r to l) Zhu Jiacan (Mike), Xia Fei (Kevin), and "Suella" Zhang. They're all good people and really friendly and speak great English. We took this on the West campus of LUT.
This is from the time I tried Stinky Tofu. It was not exactly my favorite, as you can see...but the night market was a really cool place!!!
This is Eric, the son of one of my teachers. He's really cool and super hyper and super funny, but the only thing is that he gets angry when people speak English because he can't understand :( poor kid
My band!! Exchange Student Band - I was an exchange student, and Freddy and Janson are now exchange students in Chicago, and Christina is an exchange teacher. She was only in the band for one performance, so I guess it was E.S.T. Band for one performance. E.S. Band forever!
This is a pic of ZhongShan bridge (中山桥) in downtown Lanzhou. It was the first bridge built across the Yellow River in a Provincial level city in all of China! Cool! It's a little over 100 years old - super cool! A lot of YouTube vids that you will see of Lanzhou will feature this bridge.
This is a view of south-western Lanzhou - this bridge is the 七里河桥 Qi Li He bridge. At night, it's lit up with neon and it changes colors and it's is really, really cool! This was taken from the western part of the Bai Ta mountain, 白塔山.
This is one of my favorites from the whole trip - this is a jump back to Beijing. This was taken as I exited the Forbidden City's north entrance. The pagoda/pavilion/whatever that you see in the top center of the picture is the central pagoda/pavilion/whatever of Jingshan Park.
It's actually a part of Chinese fengshui. If you have a palace or importance building, it is good fengshui to have it surrounded by water (the moat of the Forbidden City), and then on the north side protected by a hill (Jingshan Park, created by the earth scooped out for the moat). The hill and water are supposed to protect you from demons.
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