Alyssa Parker

6/5/11

Blog Post #5

        So this weekend is apparently a holiday in China- the Dragon Boat Festival (duangwujie)- so we get Monday off of work. The story of the holiday goes that some important guy was going to commit suicide, so he jumped into the river, but people didn’t want him to die. So they threw these little rice balls wrapped in this leaf thing into the water after him so that he could eat them. I think. That’s what I could get out of someone explaining it to me in Chinese. So now, to celebrate the holiday they eat those rice ball things.

                This weekend Ashley, Dmytri and I wanted to go to Shanghai on the train. However, it was really expensive since it is a holiday weekend so we decided to wait and plan it for another weekend we are here. The trains in China are kind of odd- you can either ride in a “soft sleeper” which is like your own room on the train with a “soft” bed (which I’m positive is not actually soft. Nothing in China is soft); you can ride in a “hard sleeper” which is like a bunk room of about 100 “beds,” (which are really boards); you can ride a “soft seat,” which is like you actually get an assigned seat but think like the seats that you sit in when waiting at the DMV but with a thin pad on it; or finally you can get the cheapest option, “hard seat.” This is like a free-for-all sit on bench or else you are standing type thing. This option actually wasn’t too expensive this weekend, but the train ride from Beijing to Shanghai is 14 hours. There was no way I am sitting or standing in the hard seats area with about a gajillion other Chinese people for 14 hours.  Some other weekend we will go.

                That’s the other thing. There are SO MANY PEOPLE. Everywhere you go there is a line a mile long. ATM? 20 people ahead of you. Post office? Line out the door always. Macdonalds? Mass mob trying to get their burgers. It’s like Disney World on crack. I can’t imagine what it’s like to try to find an apartment in this city. I’d bet landlords have zero trouble filling the space. Now, after a lazy morning, Ashley and I are going to go eat. Time for the endless struggle to find food that doesn’t make my stomach hate me!

 Alyssa, Dmytri and Ashley experiencing the Beijing nightlife at Vic's social establishment. 

The bakeries in Beijing are prevalent and sell stuff like this. In the words of Dmytri, "it's freaking art!"