Overcoming the past, exploring the future.

Sorry I haven’t updated in forever. Lots has been happening. Last weekend 9 classmates and I went to Huangshan. It turned out to be one of the most amazing and spiritual experiences of my life. We took a 14 hours over night train followed by a 4 hour bus ride to get to Tangkao where we entered the park. On the train, Nate made friends with the really cute boy in the compartment next to us. He gave us all poki which was adorable. Alex had his first Ramen which I find to be ridiculous. How do you go 21 years without Ramen? Did he even have a childhood? Brian decided to stay in Tankou because of his foot injury, which turned out to be really good because the hike was intense. We all decided to climb the mountain, which I think everyone was happy about in the end, I know I was! Alex, Catherine, Monica, Jacklyn and I were in the fast group which was such a great group. Alex motivated us up the mountain with his spot leader skills which made me want to push him off the mountain. Catherine was probably my favorite person on the hike with her popsicle breaks and continued exclamations that she was going to die, which we were all feeling. The climb was so ridiculous. They had stairs going up the mountain. We probably climbed 2000 stairs, most of which were just a little too small (darn you tiny asian feet!) and completely vertical. It would have been easier if there were no stairs at all! At least now my calves and booty are out of control rock solid muscle. I’m pretty sure this was the original stair master. The views on the climb were also amazing. The sheer rock faces with cypress tress and springs coming from no where reminded me of a painting.  We also ran into very few people which was amazing. It was labor day weekend so we expected it to be packed, but it wasn’t. The people we ran into the most were workers carrying trash down from the mountain and supplies up on bamboo sticks on their backs. It was crazy that they could carry that much without falling off the mountain. I seriously have no idea how they did it. The thing that astonished me was that it was cheaper for the park to hire these people to do this insane physical labor than to use the gondolas at night to take the stuff up and down the mountain. They must be paid very little, which is a shame. When we reached the top, we decided to go to Now-I-Believe peak while waiting for the others to come up. This had more people, but still not too many and it was amazing. You could really tell that this was the basis for Avatar from there. I have seen few places as beautiful and humbling as this, and I have seen a lot of places. We then headed to the hotel area and met up with the rest of the group. In the middle of all of the hotels was a basketball court where Nate and I played a friendly, trash talked filled game of PIG. By the end of the game, more than 100 tourists were around the courts watching, which was hilarious. I unfortunately lost this time, but I can’t wait to kick his butt next time. When we checked into out hotel, all of us were really impressed by how nice the place was and thought we were going to be getting a pretty nice room, then they lead us to it… This guys took us out the back of the hotel to a shack with one room that had 9 beds shoved in it with barely enough room to turn around in. Stanley would have been proud. During the train ride down I taught everyone how to play palace, so we spent the night playing huge games with like 6 people which was really fun and, turns out, everyone is almost as competitive as me, almost. We got up at 5:30am the next morning to catch the early morning clouds which was absolutely breathtaking and then headed down the mountain on the gondola. This is when we saw all of the tourists which was maybe one of the weirder things I have ever seen. Half of the people were in nice clothes and heels while the other half were completely decked out in hiking gear and everyone had really obnoxious walking sticks — mind you none of these people actually climbed the mountain, they all took the gondola, so I wanted to deck most of them. We then headed to Tunxi and checked in to our hotel. On the way there, Catherine displayed her amazing arguing skills when the driver tried to make us pay more money, she is fierce and hilarious. We stayed in a hostel in the ancient town which was really cool. We played some ping pong (which I beat everyone in, duh) and rested. Wandering around Tunxi was really fun, I like it so much more than Beijing. You can still see the community there which has been absorbed into high rises in Beijing. That night, we all matched Avatar together and then the next morning started the 20 hour train ride home. It was really a great trip and I feel a lot closer to much of the group now. 

We had midterms last week, which were ok, but made it so I didn’t really do anything that fun during the week. We went to lush on Thursday for imported beer night which was fun. Friday we went to the great wall, which was no different than the last time I went, but there were fewer people. Then we went to an acrobatic show which was awesome aside from maybe the scariest clown I have ever seen.

That’s about it. I miss you all!

So this is going to be kind of a sentimental post, so skip if you’re not in to that. THe last week I have been really sick. Apparently heavy population and chronic sinusitis do not mix well. Good news though, Chinese hospitals are really nice. 

So, I was talking to my mother the other day and made the realization that, for me, traveling is as close to a spiritual experience as I have. I think it is because growing up my parents really sacrificed to make sure that my brother, sister, and I saw the world. Today was one of those spiritual days for me. It was the first day that I felt well enough to go out, and since the rest of the Stanford group is in Hangzhou, I decided to wander around on my own. I took random buses and talked to strangers (don’t worry mom, they didn’t lure me into their vans with candy and puppies) and has a really great time. It was while doing this that I realized that most people are brave enough to randomly travel around in a city like Beijing, which I think is a real shame. It made me realize that I am stronger than a lot of people. While I am generally really hard on myself because I pressure myself to excel, it is days like today that give me some perspective. Today, I felt beautiful, which for anyone who really knows me is a rarity. I realized that while my heart is broken now, time will heal it and I will love again. I realized that I am so blessed to have a family that I can be 100% honest with, because while most people my age think it is weird that I can talk to my parents about sex, drugs, and alcohol, I think that it is what makes me such a well-rounded person. Dan once told me that I was an honest person, that I don’t expect anything out of relationships with people except for them to love me back. I didn’t understand what he meant by that, or why that was a unique trait, but I think it really is and it is one of the nicer things anyone has ever said to me. I sometimes feel extremely lonely, especially at Stanford, but I know that this is just a passing phase, and that I am amazingly fortunate to have lifelong friend like I do.

Sorry this is so sappy, but I felt like I needed to write out what I was feeling. I love you all. 

The last three days, dad and I have walked ALL OVER Beijing. Seriously, my feet hurt. On Saturday, we tried to go to the Great Wall, but missed the last bus. Consequently, we ended up walking around the area where the bus stop was. Being the Dowson’s that we are, we ended up walking down this alley that looked pretty rundown. It was definitely off the beaten path and thankfully tourist free. We happened upon a barber shop, which dad decided to try. The guy was amazing. He didn’t speak any english, but talked with me the entire time and had me translate for my dad which was really fun and super useful to make me use Chinese. He gave my dad an amazing haircut for the fair price of 11 yuan (aka $1.80). Not to shabby. After that we kept wandering and found this truly serene teashop. It looked like just a hole in the wall and had no advertising, but I walked in and discovered this beautiful oasis. It was really pricey, but it was also the best tea I have ever had in by far the most amazing place ever. It was almost a spiritual experience for me because of the care they took to transform this old hutong into something from the past. After that, my dad insisted that I get a haircut too, so we returned to the barbershop and he gave me a trim (which I think looks amazing and I have gotten lots of complements on). It cost 20 yuan ($2.50). We ended up meeting the barber’s entire family and dad was obsessed with his baby boy who was ENORMOUS. That pretty much ended Saturday. Sunday we got up early and made our way to the great wall. Finding the right bus was an adventure in and of itself and once again put my mandarin to the test. We eventually made it to Badaling. On the way to the entrance to the great wall there was this bear park that literally had like 30 bears in a pit not much bigger than my room and you could throw apples at them, which some would gracefully catch in their mouths and others would like hit them square in the face. It was really sad, but the bears were so friggin cute that I ignored the inhumanity of it. We ended up taking the sliding cars up the wall so we didn’t have to climb the whole way. We thought that sliding cars was a bad translation for cable cars, but really it was different and basically a roller coaster which was hilarious. There were so many people on the wall that it once again detracted from the experience, but it is truly an amazing place. The surprising thing to my dad and me was that most of the tourists there were Chinese. We were expecting most of them to be European or American. It really speaks to the affluence in China and the growing population with a disposable income. After we came back, I studied while dad took a nap and then we went to a pizza buffet for dinner because I was missing bland american food. Monday, I had class and stuff to work on until 3, which left dad to wander around campus and play basketball. In the afternoon, we went to the Beijing zoo and saw the pandas which were adorable, but the rest of the zoo was really run down and dirty and I felt really bad for all of the animals there. We ended the day by going to Wangfujing which is famous for the night food market featuring weird things to eat. I made dad try scorpion which was actually really good. Before deciding on which to try (the choices were cockroach, seahorse, snake, squid, and scorpion), the vendor had me play with the scorpions, which were still alive, and on the skewer. Pretty gnarly but I bonded with the little fella so decided to eat him. Sick and twisted, and delicious. That’s bout it. Paz afuera. 

Classes for the rest of the week were good. Chinese is still wicked hard and the other classes are kinda boring, but I think that I can get sometime out of them. On Wednesday night a group of us with some Beida students went to sing Karaoke. Such a weird experience. You get the swanky private rooms that are like covered in mirrors and sing while drinking. It was surprisingly really fun though. Alex surprised us all by being amazing at karaoke. His rendition of It’s Gettin Hot in Herrr was maybe the best thing ever. Ever. Thursday after class Isabella dragged Hannah and I to the bars over at Wudaokou (basically college bar area). It was ladies night at Sensation which meant that we got three free drinks which was awesome! At Sensation, I met a nice Chinese boys whose english name is Tim. He offered to help me with my chinese and we ended up talking for like an hour. He seemed nice, but I’m sure all sex slave owners seem nice until your drugged in the back of a van so I don’t know if I will be responding to his requests to meet again. Friday we went to Tianamen and the Forbidden City. They were both amazing, obvi, but I am almost getting immune to the grander of things here and I also really hate guided tours, I would much rather just wander around by myself. I also had my first Beijing Kaoya (roast duck)! Apparently we went to one of the more famous places in the city for it and it was pretty good, but really fatty. And… I PICKED UP MY DAD FROM THE AIRPORT!!!! So excited for him to be here. I was really nervous because he was 2 hours late and thought he somehow had managed to get lost in China on his way through the airport. I showed him a little around Beida and then took him to his hotel. I am very glad that he didn’t try and get to his hotel on his own like he had planned because none of the receptionists spoke English so he would have ended up getting really frustrated as per usual and yelling at the poor women. His room is surprisingly nice my Beijing standards and even has a sitting toilet and toilet paper! I am thinking of taking him to the Great Wall tomorrow, but we will have to see how jet lagged he is. Peace.

Theme: I’m gunna get obese on this trip. This huge bowl of mystery meat goodness was only 5 元. And how much is that you ask? Ya… its $0.80. Omnomnom. Started classes and they are already kicking my butt. I have forgotten so much Chinese! It is actually embarrassing. Aw well, I’ll pick it up again. Sunday Taylor and I went to get cell phones which was …. an event. We finally ended up buying cheapos at the local wumei convenient store. Then he and I went and played basketball for a few hours which was a hoot. I asked a group that was playing if we could play with them and we ended up ballin’ with a bunch of 5’1” Chinese men. Needless to say, it was a huge ego boost. Then we went out to Sanlitun (the big expat area in Beijing) to meet with the rest of the Stanford students for dinner. Taylor got us wicked lost, but we ended up finding them just as they finished eating dinner. We convinced 3 of the other guys to stay out with us while the other girls headed home. We found this sketchy/fantastic hole in the wall place where we ate pizza, drank beer, and shot pool. Love being one of the guys. Not much more eventful has happened since then. I went to find the Carrefour to get some cereal and got hopelessly lost in this weird basement maze of little shops and outlets. It’s a good thing I went to Kenya this summer because I am used to being stared at. Seriously, people just look at me and think it is ok to invade my personal space because I am a foreigner. Men will just come up to me and like pet me or sit with my while I am eating and just stare. I do not enjoy it, but such is life. That’s all me thinks, peace.