Dinner and Night Market Adventures!

So the dinner actually happened the night before,but I was able to get a good picture of the people I was with and our food so I thought I would included it in this post.

Some of the student from my study abroad group eating out at a Halal restaurant close to our hotel

Halal dinner! Skewered meat and spicy beef noodle bowl!

The Halal restaurants where we had wonderful food on a number of occasions. Lots of different types of skewered meat, HUGE bowls of spicy noodle soup and so much more! It was so warm you wanted to sit outside. This night in particular was exceptionally pleasant. It was in the 90's with slight humidity in the air. But, it didn't matter because we had fun conversation and a cool breeze pushing the sounds and smells of the city and crowds around us. This dinner felt more like a dream than anything else, this might have been when I fell in love with China.

Night Markets!

OK, this was just like what you see on TV on the travel or food channels! It was everything and more than I could ever ask for. One of our Chinese students found this and took us, and I am so thankful he did. Everything was geared for tourist which was perfect for us so early in our adventure! The venders not only spoke Chinese and English, but a number of other languages like Spanish, French, German etc. Everyone was friendly and excited about what was going on. Every booth you stopped at seemed to be putting on a new  show for you to see. Some were drama's others were action plays!!!

Cute Desserts!

Oh WOW! A real snack street!

Enjoying the sights with another student. Of those in my group only 3 of us attempted to eat anything wild, we were two of them!

Yep! That's me eating a deep fried scorpion! It totally freaked me out and took me several minutes to actually do it.

Surprisingly, it didn't taste bad. Kind of like a salty potato chip, very crunchy too! I ended up eating 2 that night!

ME EATING 2 SCORPIONS！！！ 

 WRIGGLING LIVE SCORPIONS ON A STICK!!!!

After everyone had their fill of weird food we walked around the corner to one of the most beautiful shopping streets I have ever been too! It looked like downtown New York City! Lots of high end stores and bright lights. There are some historical facts about Wangfujing that are worth mentioning as well.  During the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) 10 princes resided on (at the time) "Wangfu" street. However, during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) a sweet well was discovered and the street name was changed to Wangfujing literally meaning "princely residence" "well." The street has always attracted a lot of venders making it a popular street market dating back to the Ming Dynasty. In 1999 the street was closed to through traffic making it an excellent pedestrian area. The street boast around 280 Beijing brand stores as well as a number of high end retail stores.

This manhole cover shows the location of the fresh "sweet" water well that part of the street name derives from

Roomies!

Another student and myself enjoying the bright lights

 We eventually found ourselves at another famous hutong night market called Wangfujing street food and night market around the corner from the beautiful shopping area on the pedestrian street. We got to experience haggling/bartering at its finest, see more souvenir shops than should be legal in one area...and we had a marvelous time!!

Here I am in front of the paifang (archway gate) to the Wangfujing hutong night market

LOCATIONS and LINKS

Wangfujing snack street and night market 

Wangfujing Pedestrian Street 王府井小吃街

Dongcheng District

Beijing, China

Wangfujing Night Market

(Wangfujing Pedestrian Street

with 2 snack/night markets)

My New University...for the Next Month 中国人民大学

 

Today we got to go on our campus tour. Renmin is a lot bigger than the campus at University of Washington, Tacoma.

My first view of  my new university!

 
I was fortunate to attend classes at the campus of Renmin University of China during my study abroad. Established in the Haidian District of Beijing by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in 1937. Renmin or RUC is seen as one of the most prestigious universities in China educating approximately 24,000 students (as of 2012) in subjects ranging from the humanities and social sciences, theoretical economics, applied economics, legal studies, sociology, journalism and communication.

One of the main buildings where classes were held for law and politics amongst many other subjects

Graduation was being held at Renmin every day it seemed for the first week we were there

Guardian lions outside one of the restaurants on campus

Renmin graduates taking LOTS of photos in the courtyard of one of their main buildings

The Chinese flag and a phrase spoken by Mao Zedong engraved in stone ("seeking truth from facts") which guards the East gate

This simple courtyard is where "English Corner" was held every Friday night

"English Corner" is a weekly event that encourages anyone from the community to interact with others (English speaking students included) while speaking only in English. Usually when I attended English Corner I would be surrounded by as many as 25-100 people all asking me questions about my life in America. Many times I would converse with school aged children who were practicing English conversation for school. This was one of my favorite activities while in China, I had amazing conversations with a lot of people and made many new friends that I still communicate with on the Chinese messaging service WeChat.

The building where our classes were held for the study abroad

Our building, used to be the old Russian training center on campus

Statues were all over campus, this particular one shows a professor teaching his students. Professors are revered

Something I noticed while in China was the amount of respect the Chinese students had for their Chinese teachers. Not that I don't act respectfully to my teachers (because I do) but it was an overwhelming display of respect and even after class the students wouldn't say anything negative about their professors. It was just nice to finally see teachers/professors treated as I had always thought they should.

A statue of a university professor partially covered with branches

A park at the center of campus

A park at the center of campus, I often saw students playing soccer and Frisbee here

The fitness complex, at nights you could see hundreds of people (students and general public) exercising on the track and fields

A water feature at the center of campus popular with the Chinese students and local public, often just to the left of me I could find people doing Tai Chi or dance classes on my early morning walks

One of the university founders (I believe, at least that's what I was told, since I couldn't read the engravings I had to believe what I was told) 

Allowing myself to embrace my new university and surrounding helped bring China that much closer to me. I am so fortunate to have gotten the opportunity to study at Renmin, the other students, professors made China...real. When I think of China they are the representation of what that is to me.

ADDRESS
Renmin University of China
59 Zhongguancun St
Haidian, Beijing, China, 100872

LINKS
Renmin University of China

Arrival in 北京 （Beijing）

Well, I finally made it to Beijing! I didn't sleep for about 24 hours before I left, hoping that I would sleep some on the plane...

Finally in Bejing! We look a bit frazzled from our trip, LOL!

Airplane tickets!!! Seattle to Vancouver BC and then Vancouver to Beijing!!!

 Nah, who am I trying to kid! 

It took over 14 hours of travel time but we made it! We had a nice flight with a perfect landing in Beijing, didn't even feel the plane land is was so smooth. Talk about a perfect start to an incredible trip. Now to get our luggage, some Renminbi (aka Yuan or Kuai) Chinese money, and a cab to our hotel.

My first impression of China:

WOW its hot!!!

There is a LOT of people (I don't know why I was surprised about this)

Just a Little Gilman Scholarship promoting ;)

My university just had its end of year Block Party and (of course) I was involved through my Chinese Language and Culture club. We showed students how to do Chinese "hackysack" and how to use a brush to draw characters. I also had fliers at the end of our booth to talk about and promote my Gilman Scholarship and how others could apply as well.

Thank You Gilman!!!