Photos! :D
Jul. 4th, 2011 01:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
potato_headOkay so I've figured out that signing in is not happening. Sorry guys! I'll catch up with all your posts ASAP, hopefully in two weeks since according to Professor Chen the university we're staying at for the last week has a private server and you can access facebook from it - I assume that also means I'll be able to get on LJ, but we'll see. I can still post, anyways :D I can't log in for comments though, so all my replies will be anon, LOL. I'll sign them. Also, you guys will be seeing the same icon a lot, since I can't change icons the way I'm posting = n =;
As for photos - EVERYTHING IS BLOCKED except flickr, and I'm having a lot of trouble uploading things using proxies, so I just went ahead and made a flickr account. It's here? IDK if I'm doing that right, I have trouble adjusting to these new-fangled sites ;A; if that isn't working, you can try searching for me? My username is 'Tanzelt Goes to China'. I just uploaded a bunch of photos from today. We walked around and shopped a bit :D but most of the shops don't open until the evening, and I can see why - it is really, really hot here. I'm going to try and buy a sun umbrella like Ying has, since I only brought my rain umbrella, which is black and not very well-suited to use for the sun.
You can see the things I bought in the flickr photos (I HOPE...) but here's the most exciting things:
ADORABLE NOTEBOOK. It has a cartoon cat and says 'Cute little animal' on it and underneath says 'I'm holding on forever,reaching for a love that seems so far hope my dreams will take me there.' I love it. Yes, I am a big fan of Engrish and other asian language-english translations. A lot of people seem to find them funny, but I think they sound nice :D then again, when I'm properly relaxed I speak in mangled English with German grammar? Because it sounds better to me?
Not-Oreo Cookies. They look kind of like oreos, and have three different fillings; the chocolate filled ones are indeed just like chocolate oreos. The 'vanilla ice cream' filling I expected to be like traditional oreos, but they have some sort of mint or spicy thing in them, to simulate the filling being cold like ice cream xD it's tasty, though! The 'peanut' filling is like the kind of peanut butter I would expect to find in peanut butter cracker sandwiches. Also tasty.
For breakfast we ate at the hotel's Continental Breakfast, which was free with our rooms. There was...nothing I recognized, besides slices of plain bread and boiled eggs, and I hate eggs. So I got a bit of everything in hopes I would end up with some things I liked, and it worked :D my favorites were some cucumber slices in this sort of vinegary thin sauce (REALLY tasty), and this sort of fried dough that was fried in peanut oil. I also had dumplings for the first time (I know that seems weird, but I don't eat at 'authentic' Chinese restaurants at home, only fast food places...I don't see the point in faux-authentic food). I really liked the plain milk dumpling (no filling, the dough mixed with powdered milk) it was a bit sweet :D the pork dumpling was not bad, but I wasn't fond of the sauce on the pork.
Oh, while we were walking we saw this adorable tiny dog playing with a bunny! They were chasing each other back and forth down the sidewalk but wouldn't go too far from their owners. It was so cute. We also found a dog lounging on a couch outside a store xD I put up some photos of him.
One of the strangest things walking around is that there are no parking lots built in? So people just park on the sidewalk, sort of haphazardly. In some places we were weaving through parked cars, it was funny.
There's also a lot of fruit stands. Most of them have peaches, and the smell of the peaches makes me want some so bad, but I also don't want to get covered in juice ;A; SUCH A CONUNDRUM
Anyways I am finding myself adjusting really quickly. I was feeling badly about how much I've forgotten of the language, but I understand enough to figure things out :D it's helpful that certain words, like bu and hao, are in most phrases you would use in a normal polite interaction. Anyways, I at least don't feel completely lost when interacting with people, like Pamela and Neila do.
The things I'm having trouble adjusting to are more environmental. The smells - of course the heat makes things smell a lot more, but it's also the fact that the city smells I'm used to revolve a lot around American food. Here I'm not going to smell hot dogs cooking, I'm going to smell something frying in peanut oil. And the other thing is the wildlife. The trees here are all ones I've seen before (considering we love to take trees from China and plant them at home) but in huge quantities. I've honestly never seen this many deciduous trees before, I'm used to having a lot more evergreens like we do at home. And the birds - it gives me kind of a jolt to see a bird and think I'm looking at a standard crow, then realize it has a white breast (I am still not sure what that bird was).
I am also having some trouble adjusting to the food, which I expected. My main problem is that many of the fried things are very greasy-feeling when I pick them up, so I just have trouble convincing myself to actually eat them, even though so far the peanut oil has not given my stomach any of the trouble I get with usual fried greasiness back home.
Oh, and there are SO MANY cute things here. Not that I'm having trouble adjusting to it, it all falls right in line with my style. I am just not sure how I'm going to get out of this country without spending everything I have D: so far I have been having a bit of success by reminding myself I have to carry everything with me back to the hotel, lol.
Anyways I hope you guys can actually see these posts = n = I don't know why you wouldn't be able to, but I am worried that you can't, since nobody replied to the last one, although I know logically that's because it's the middle of the night for most of you and I haven't waited very long between that post and this one, lol.
As for photos - EVERYTHING IS BLOCKED except flickr, and I'm having a lot of trouble uploading things using proxies, so I just went ahead and made a flickr account. It's here? IDK if I'm doing that right, I have trouble adjusting to these new-fangled sites ;A; if that isn't working, you can try searching for me? My username is 'Tanzelt Goes to China'. I just uploaded a bunch of photos from today. We walked around and shopped a bit :D but most of the shops don't open until the evening, and I can see why - it is really, really hot here. I'm going to try and buy a sun umbrella like Ying has, since I only brought my rain umbrella, which is black and not very well-suited to use for the sun.
You can see the things I bought in the flickr photos (I HOPE...) but here's the most exciting things:
ADORABLE NOTEBOOK. It has a cartoon cat and says 'Cute little animal' on it and underneath says 'I'm holding on forever,reaching for a love that seems so far hope my dreams will take me there.' I love it. Yes, I am a big fan of Engrish and other asian language-english translations. A lot of people seem to find them funny, but I think they sound nice :D then again, when I'm properly relaxed I speak in mangled English with German grammar? Because it sounds better to me?
Not-Oreo Cookies. They look kind of like oreos, and have three different fillings; the chocolate filled ones are indeed just like chocolate oreos. The 'vanilla ice cream' filling I expected to be like traditional oreos, but they have some sort of mint or spicy thing in them, to simulate the filling being cold like ice cream xD it's tasty, though! The 'peanut' filling is like the kind of peanut butter I would expect to find in peanut butter cracker sandwiches. Also tasty.
For breakfast we ate at the hotel's Continental Breakfast, which was free with our rooms. There was...nothing I recognized, besides slices of plain bread and boiled eggs, and I hate eggs. So I got a bit of everything in hopes I would end up with some things I liked, and it worked :D my favorites were some cucumber slices in this sort of vinegary thin sauce (REALLY tasty), and this sort of fried dough that was fried in peanut oil. I also had dumplings for the first time (I know that seems weird, but I don't eat at 'authentic' Chinese restaurants at home, only fast food places...I don't see the point in faux-authentic food). I really liked the plain milk dumpling (no filling, the dough mixed with powdered milk) it was a bit sweet :D the pork dumpling was not bad, but I wasn't fond of the sauce on the pork.
Oh, while we were walking we saw this adorable tiny dog playing with a bunny! They were chasing each other back and forth down the sidewalk but wouldn't go too far from their owners. It was so cute. We also found a dog lounging on a couch outside a store xD I put up some photos of him.
One of the strangest things walking around is that there are no parking lots built in? So people just park on the sidewalk, sort of haphazardly. In some places we were weaving through parked cars, it was funny.
There's also a lot of fruit stands. Most of them have peaches, and the smell of the peaches makes me want some so bad, but I also don't want to get covered in juice ;A; SUCH A CONUNDRUM
Anyways I am finding myself adjusting really quickly. I was feeling badly about how much I've forgotten of the language, but I understand enough to figure things out :D it's helpful that certain words, like bu and hao, are in most phrases you would use in a normal polite interaction. Anyways, I at least don't feel completely lost when interacting with people, like Pamela and Neila do.
The things I'm having trouble adjusting to are more environmental. The smells - of course the heat makes things smell a lot more, but it's also the fact that the city smells I'm used to revolve a lot around American food. Here I'm not going to smell hot dogs cooking, I'm going to smell something frying in peanut oil. And the other thing is the wildlife. The trees here are all ones I've seen before (considering we love to take trees from China and plant them at home) but in huge quantities. I've honestly never seen this many deciduous trees before, I'm used to having a lot more evergreens like we do at home. And the birds - it gives me kind of a jolt to see a bird and think I'm looking at a standard crow, then realize it has a white breast (I am still not sure what that bird was).
I am also having some trouble adjusting to the food, which I expected. My main problem is that many of the fried things are very greasy-feeling when I pick them up, so I just have trouble convincing myself to actually eat them, even though so far the peanut oil has not given my stomach any of the trouble I get with usual fried greasiness back home.
Oh, and there are SO MANY cute things here. Not that I'm having trouble adjusting to it, it all falls right in line with my style. I am just not sure how I'm going to get out of this country without spending everything I have D: so far I have been having a bit of success by reminding myself I have to carry everything with me back to the hotel, lol.
Anyways I hope you guys can actually see these posts = n = I don't know why you wouldn't be able to, but I am worried that you can't, since nobody replied to the last one, although I know logically that's because it's the middle of the night for most of you and I haven't waited very long between that post and this one, lol.
