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Adventures of a Laowai

~ "Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving." -Terry Pratchett

Tag Archives: pictures

Chinese New Year and the Tomb-Sweeping Festival

16 Wednesday Aug 2017

Posted by Evangelista in Xiamen 2016-17

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

China, culture, holidays, international travel, pictures, travel, university

I’ve neglected my blog (as usual), but now that I’m home, I suppose I’ll finish this post I started ON APRIL 18TH LOL:

I live a pretty average day-to-day college life, and getting anywhere interesting from this campus requires planning and energy. My classes are going well; I’m still the class monitor this semester. I finally learned to ride a bike, which has made my life significantly easier. I’m in the student orchestra and go to English Corner regularly. My friend from Brazil started teaching me Portuguese, which is definitely one of the last things I expected to learn by coming to China. A German guy opened a restaurant just off campus and makes good pizza, including Nutella pizza and sometimes even Nutella sandwiches, and my friends and I go there regularly. I joined the translation team for Humans of XMU (人在厦大), which is styled after Humans of New York but features members of the Xiamen University community. And I mean other than that, life is pretty much the same every day. So instead of rambling about all that, I’ll catch you up on how I’ve spent some of my holidays here.

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First, Chinese New Year, also called Spring Festival (春节). This is China’s biggest traditional holiday, and this year it fell on January 27 (Spring Festival Eve) and 28. We were given about a month off, from January 14 until February 12. I spent the first five days or so travelling to Hangzhou and Shanghai with a friend. In Hangzhou, we visited Hefang Street, the West Lake, the Chinese Silk Museum, and Leifeng Pagoda. I really loved Hangzhou – It was clean and beautiful, and the drivers there seemed to stop for pedestrians more often than in other cities I’ve been to. Our hostel was also quite nice; it was clean, the location was convenient, and they even had a cat! I’d really like to get back to Hangzhou and have more time to explore there.

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In Shanghai we mostly went to places I’d already been before – Nanjing Road, the Bund, Chenghuang Miao, etc. – but we also had the chance to check out the Propaganda Poster Museum, which I’d heard of before but had never gone to. It’s super weird in the sense that it’s located in the basement of a building in an apartment complex… When you get there the gate guard gives you a little card with directions to the correct building, but you still question whether or not you’re in the right place until you actually get there. But the exhibition itself is really interesting, and they even have a little gift shop with prints, t-shirts, postcards, etc. of some of the posters.

After my friend went back to the US, I relocated to my Chinese friend’s house to spend the remainder of my break there. That friend herself was busy studying abroad, but she and her parents very graciously allowed me to stay there in her room. While her parents were at work, I was free to either stay in or go out as I pleased, so I did some shopping, spent an inordinate amount of money on food, and met up with a few friends. For the Spring Festival holiday, my friend’s parents had a week off. We made dumplings and ate a bunch of food for Spring Festival Eve, and then we watched the Spring Festival Gala (春晚) on TV. Though my friend’s parents went to bed shortly after midnight, it was my first time ever watching it, so I stayed glued to the TV and watched all five hours, from 8pm until almost 1am.

Chinese New Year’s Eve Dinner

 

 

 

 

 

While they had time off, my friend’s parents also took me travelling to the nearby cities of Nanjing and Yangzhou. In Nanjing, we visited the Ming Tombs (明孝陵), Zhan Garden (瞻园), and market at the Confucius Temple (夫子庙). In Yangzhou, we visited the Slender West Lake (瘦西湖).

 

 

 

 

 

The second traditional holiday I had the chance to celebrate was the Tomb-Sweeping Festival, or Qingming Festival (清明节). I was very fortunate to have a friend from English Corner invite me to spend the day (April 4) with his family. We began the day at his uncle’s house, where we had lunch that included spring rolls, which are a traditional food in Xiamen for this holiday. After lunch, we went to a local temple-like cemetery, where they paid their respects to their ancestors and burned paper money for them to use in the after-life. Finally, I went with my friend and his dad for a walk in the park and to eat dinner at a hotpot restaurant before going back to school.

 



 

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I said I would post pictures

16 Sunday Aug 2015

Posted by Evangelista in China 2015

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

China, international travel, pictures, travel, volunteering

But I find Tumblr to be more friendly to large amounts of pictures, plus I’ve already posted all of the pictures there that I would post here. So here are links for you so that you can see my pictures and I can be a little bit lazy. Just click the words to go to a photo set!

Xitang Old Town (西塘古镇)

Shanghai (上海)

Luzhi Old Town (甪直古镇)

Wuxi, Jiangsu Province (江苏省无锡市)

Various Foods and Snacks

Nantong, Jiangsu Province (江苏省南通市)

Yanbin Primary School (南通市雁滨小学)

I hope you like them! Thanks for following!

Night Walk through Shanghai

10 Tuesday Jun 2014

Posted by Evangelista in Shanghai and Suzhou 2014

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

China, Hutong School, international travel, pictures, Shanghai, Xintiandi, Yuyuan Garden

Last night I went with the Hutong School on a night walk through Shanghai! We started in the Yuyuan Garden (豫园) area and ended in Xintiandi (新天地). There were so many lights and people! We passed some “Square Dancing” (广场舞) – NOT like the type they do in Texas, though… It’s called Square Dancing because it’s a bunch of people dancing in a square or public park. We also passed some people who had set themselves up some karaoke, with a microphone and a screen propped up on a motorbike and everything!

While we were walking, I finally located some postcards! I’ll definitely be going back there to do some shopping. And I also saw several modern/Western stores and restaurants such as Starbucks, McDonalds, Pizza Hut, and Dairy Queen located in very traditional-looking Chinese buildings. Attached are some pictures where you can (kind of) see a McDonalds and a Dairy Queen. As we walked, I chatted with other Hutong School students of all ages and from all around the world – the UK, Germany, Italy, France, and the Netherlands, as far as I can remember! So far I haven’t met any other Americans or even any Canadians…

Our final stop was a small museum. I learned nothing because I was too exhausted to read anything haha. But the last picture attached to this post is a building near the museum – it’s the building where the Chinese Communist Party had its first meeting. Anyway, when we were done, I grabbed a drink at Starbucks, then took a taxi to the Hutong School and then the subway home. I was going to make these posts last night but my bed was just so comfortable!! Oooh but speaking of Starbucks, there’s one right across from the subway stop at school…. another wonderful breakfast option!

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Insert Creative Title Here

10 Tuesday Jun 2014

Posted by Evangelista in Shanghai and Suzhou 2014

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

China, Hutong School, international travel, pictures, Shanghai

Howdy! I arrived in China Monday morning, local time, and now it’s Wednesday morning!

Getting here: Took forrrrrrr-ever…. But was rather un-eventful, thankfully! I flew from the US to a 9-hour layover in Frankfurt, and then from Frankfurt to Shanghai. I DID get to see Mongolia from the airplane like I wanted to! But I don’t have any pictures because I couldn’t charge my phone in Germany and I needed to conserve the battery. There was also a lot of glare because it was early morning. It was really pretty though!! Instead of pictures of Mongolia, attached to this post you should find a picture of the ENORMOUS plane I flew on!

Arrival in Shanghai: Monday morning, local time. I was met at the airport and brought to my apartment, where a kind Hutong School staff member showed me around before going to the airport to pick up someone else. I went to the convenience store to buy something to drink, took a shower, chatted online for a bit, and then fell asleep. I was asleep when my housemate got home and didn’t get to meet her… But attached you should also find two pictures of the view out my window!

First Day at Hutong School: Yesterday morning, the same lovely staff member who showed me around my apartment picked me up, and we and a guy from France walked together to the subway station at Zhenping Road (镇坪路) where we met up with another guy from London and took the subway together to the stop at Changshu Road (常熟路) where we disembarked and walked around the corner to the school. When we got there, they placed us into classes, and they gave us our class schedules, a short orientation, and a bag of goodies. Some of the Hutong School staff took the three of us and one other new student to lunch at a Hunan restaurant, which I think was the first real food I had eaten in at least 48 hours… After that, the French and English guy started classes that afternoon so I took the subway back to my apartment and did some college stuff. When I was done, I made my way back to meet the events coordinator at the school and go on a night walk through Shanghai! Attached, find some pictures of the school. There will probably be more to come!

Night walk through Shanghai: I’ll make a separate post for this so I can include pictures. I’m posting by email, and it can handle only so many attachments at once.

Today: It is currently 6:05am on Wednesday, June 11. My class starts at 9 and goes until 2. I’m thinking I’ll go to a noodle place for breakfast and then take the subway to school. Not sure what I’ll do once class is over, but if it’s interesting, I’ll make sure I tell you about it!

Over and Out,

Evangelista

Some Pictures

31 Tuesday Jul 2012

Posted by Evangelista in Suzhou NSLI-Y 2012

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

language, NSLI-Y, pictures, school

I can connect my laptop to wifi at school sometimes, so I’m sitting here eating lunch and I thought I’d give you guys a few pictures. Of course, I have a lot of other things to tell you about, but I’ll save them for another post and devote this one solely to pictures… So here you go! Sorry it’s not that many, but my email can upload only so much at once.

园区三中
Awkward translations…

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