Remembering Last Year

This post is going to divert from my current location but it is something that I wish I could be doing here.  Even with China being so big there aren’t really any chance to do one of these activities I will talk about on an older trip.  A couple weeks ago I did visit a coastal town that is named Yantai.  It was a great trip and beautiful area but I still wasn’t able to get into the water and blow some bubbles.  So as I write this post I wish I could be somewhere with the chance to go blow some bubbles.  Okay enough for an in introduction . . .about a year ago I was able to take a vacation.  This vacation was to the very interesting country of Turkey.  I never blogged about it at that time because I was busy in Yemen and was unable to blog much while living in Yemen.  So here is a little bit about what I did while in Turkey. 

I took a flight to Istanbul and ended up staying in Istanbul for two nights.  Istanbul is a very lively city that does have some neat historical places to see.  I was staying in a hostel near Taksim Square which is a main square that has a few streets meet up at this location.  One of these streets is called Istiklal Caddesi (Independence Avenue) which is a very art influenced area.  During the day the shops and street had people selling handmade items and then at night this street turned into a place for many people to visit.  During the day I did make my way to where the big tourist attractions are located such as Hagia Sophia and Sultahmed Mosque (Blue Mosque). 

I took a walk to these locations which ended up being right next to each other.  I first went to the Sultahmed Mosque which most people know it as the Blue Mosque because of the blue tiles along the top of the mosque.  I have been in a few mosques before but this one was real neat to see.  It was a good size mosque that could hold a lot of people for services and prayers and since it is still a functioning mosque you can’t visit it during prayer times.  Once inside you do see the typical items that are found in a mosque but also a key part to this mosque is the intricate blue tile work toward the top of the mosque.

 

The next thing to see is the Hagia Sophia.  This building had an interesting history behind it and it also does reflect how Turkey changed depending on who was in charge.  At certain points in history this building was a church and then it was changed to a mosque and now currently is simply a museum.  Inside it now it is probably one of the only places in the world where you will see flowing Arabic script (99 names of Allah, scriptures, etc.) right next to mosaics.  This is because in mosques there aren’t supposed to be any depictions of living things.  Luckily when this building was changed into a Mosque they simply didn’t destroy the mosaics but instead covered them with plaster.  So when the building was changed into a museum they could start the process of recovering and showing the mosaics.  Overall a very interesting building with a lot of history inside. 

Besides these two very amazing building in Istanbul I did walk around and see some more historical sites.  This country has a very long history with a lot of different cultures, religions, beliefs, customs, etc. that have had influence.  So it would take a long time lay it all out and to see everything.  Plus my main reason for going to Turkey was to get to the coast and relax.

 

After Istanbul I did fly down south and ended up in a city known as Kas.  My main reason for starting at this spot was of hearing that the scuba diving is great here.  Before going on this particular trip my main goal for my vacation was to get under the water and do some scuba diving.  It was some pretty neat diving and also at times a little strange.  There isn’t a bunch of life to see or a bunch of coral but instead the diving here was different.  Each dive seemed to offer its own unique thing and some of these include: airplane wreck, underwater canyon, underwater archaeology sites, different shipwrecks (including a wooden one), and underwater sculpture area.  They were all fun and interesting dives that I was never bored with but it is hard to describe exactly what type of diving was most common.  I ended up doing a lot of dives over about a six day time span. I could go on and on about the diving but instead I will just post some pictures below and share what else I did in Turkey.

I figured I would move inland Turkey next and go see some neat mountains and caves.  I took a bus to another city along the water and while staying there I found out about a cruise on a sailing type boat.  With my love of the coast and water I decided to do this instead and so I spent the next three nights and four days sailing along the coast.  It was a fun boat trip and the people on the boat were all pretty neat and we all got along well.  We did visit about two cities and one of them happened to be Kas, the one that I had just come.  Besides that we were mainly out along the coast and seeing some interesting spots.  A neat thing about this trip is for the most part we simple slept on the deck of the boat under the stars.  The boat was parked at night and would usually take off in the early morning to make it to a new destination but it was pretty neat sleeping under the stars like that and hearing the water along the sides of the boat.  Besides visiting other sites during the day we would swim a lot as well when the boat was parked.  Overall it was well worth it and a fun trip on the boat. 

After that I had to fly back up to Istanbul in order to catch my plane within the next couple days to make it back to Yemen for work.  In Istanbul I did go visit the area near Hagia Sophia and Sultahmed Mosque (Blue Mosque) again simply to see the atmosphere.  This whole trip was during Ramadan and with a lot of Turkish citizens being Muslim it meant they were fasting during the day.  So around the time when they were going to break their fast it basically was a big party like atmosphere around these very historical buildings amongst all of the grass in the area.  Families were out getting ready to break the fast and going to have a picnic but along with a lot of their friends as well.  Needless to say it was a neat thing to see and be in that sort of atmosphere.  I eventually did have to leave and did make my way back to Yemen where there I was able to finish seeing the end of Ramadan also known as Eid al-Fitr.   

Here in China I have been busy with work and doing a little bit of travelling.  I figured I would share this trip since I realized I never did blog about it and since I don’t have any plans for any diving soon this writing will have to do for now.  Next few weeks are normal classes and nothing special in the works.  Of course I am still practicing my Chinese.  These last two weeks I haven’t had many actual Chinese classes because one of my teachers is gone for her wedding and honeymoon.  I have started preparing to eventually blog about Chinese food since I know some people are curious what I have been eating.  So one of my upcoming posts I will start to tackle Chinese food.  I will write later.  

Hagia Sophia

40 meters (about 131 feet) deep; I wonder what the charge would be for a call?

"Wo ting bu dong" vs. "Wo bu zhidao"

One of the main reasons I did pick this particular contract that I currently have in China was because of the benefits.  One of these benefits is Chinese classes for twelve hours a week.  In fact the name of my contract here is known as the study contract and includes the twelve hours of teaching with one-on-one classes with a Chinese teacher.  Luckily I don’t have the same Chinese teacher but instead do have different teachers.  So far I have had class with nine out of the eleven different Chinese teachers that have worked at the school.  These Chinese teachers are also English teachers and so at the beginning this was good for me to be able to understand them and easier for them to teach me.  Having the different teachers throughout my time here is because of schedule changes and I think is great for me.  It gives me the chance to hear the Chinese from different accents and this is pretty important with how Chinese works. 

    

Chinese is broken down into the oral, reading, and writing with the oral being the easiest part of the language to learn.  Luckily they have somewhat Romanized the words so that makes it a lot easier to learn the speaking part of the language.  This is especially nice because it seems like the endless amount of Chinese characters.  This Romanization is known as pinyin and is what I first started learning.  Of course this can only go so far and eventually learning to read the characters is necessary to keep getting better.  The neat thing with the pinyin is it does present a great foundation and excellent way to learn oral Chinese. 

To go along with the pinyin and overall Chinese is something known as tones.  In Chinese there are four different tones and these tones can make a big difference in the meaning of a word.  A good example of this would be the word “ma.” So “ma” with the first tone (neutral) pronunciation means mother; “ma” with the second tone (rising) pronunciation means fibrous crops; “ma” with the third tone (quick falling and rising {like a V}) pronunciation means horse; and “ma” with the fourth tone (falling) pronunciation means to scold.  So if you aren’t familiar with the markings for the tone in pinyin then it would seem like those four words are pronounced the same when in fact they have different meanings.  Of course the Chinese character for all of these words are different but when starting off with pinyin it is necessary to know the difference in the tones. After a little practice with the tones it does come pretty easy and in fact can almost be inferred by the sentence being spoken.  Also an interesting thing to this pinyin and oral speech is that there are some words that have the same exact pronunciation and tone, so in that case knowing the context of the word is necessary.  This does make for some interesting tongue twisters as well. 

After some time here I started studying to read the actual characters as well.  This is important in restaurants and a few other places where no pinyin is used.  I found a good website that does help out a lot to study the characters and now my books for my Chinese classes have started introducing the characters as part of the chapters.  Writing I haven’t really worked on that and this could be because of how pinyin is used when typing.  So now when sending messages you type the pinyin and choose the correct character which means it is better to be able to read.

 

So you may be wondering exactly what I do know and how well I get around on my own.  Orally I am perfectly fine to do pretty much everything on my own.  This includes ordering food, haggling in the market, basic conversations, directions, buying train/ bus tickets, booking hotels, asking for information, and just about anything you would need in your everyday actions. It isn’t just the basic conversations but I am able to understand full blown conversations on more extensive topics.  Just last night at dinner the owner of the restaurant sat down with us (two foreign friends and I) and went into great details about different Chinese cuisine.  Sure I didn’t know every single word but I was able to grasp the main meaning of every sentence.  Overall my listening is a lot better than my speaking and this is a comfort level and normal for any learner of a new language.  When I first was here I would use the first phrase in the title a lot more often, “Wo ting bu dong”.  This means I don’t understand.  Now I am at a level where I use “Wo bu zhidao” (I don’t know) more often.  Simply put I understand what is being asked I just don’t know the answer or I will explain I forgot the particular word I am looking to answer.   

    

Here in my town it is very easy to impress the locals with very basic Chinese.  Usually there are the same set of questions that are always asked and so not that complicated.  The trick here though is the local dialect can be heavy and harder to understand.  When I travel it is a lot easier to listen and understand people because there pronunciation is a lot easier and so when back home at times it is fun. Now I am used to most of the local dialect and there are times when I start using it, of course to people’s surprise.  Every location does have a unique dialect but with the local dialect here so guttural when I travel it isn’t that hard to pick up on other locations pronunciations. 

A little story of how my local understanding and use of Chinese gave me a little bit of a discount.  A couple weeks ago I was in a local market (think of an open air street market where things are cheaper than in the stores).  I was in search of a new bottle, very common to have a refillable bottle for water.  I walk in a little store and right away they ask a couple basic questions using some of the local words and I respond quite easily.  Then I proceed to ask how much one bottle is and I say it is too expensive for me.  The very next bottle she told me it was 20 kuai (RMB) but she will give it to me for 10 kuai (RMB).  I didn’t even have to bargain down she did it before I could try.  I say that sounds great and I asked why she lowered it so quick.  She said because my Chinese is really good and she thinks it is neat that I know so much. Later that afternoon I shared this story with some of the Chinese teachers and they were pretty impressed.

      

At school when we aren’t teaching or practicing English for class, Chinese is the first language used.  It always has been like this and I remember when I was first was there I thought that it will be interesting to see if I ever will be able to keep up with them.  Now I am glad to say that I can.  Again my listening is a lot better and so sometimes they don’t believe that I understand but then I respond or explain it back to them in another fashion and they are happy.  Not that they would talk about me but some of them have said they have to be careful what they say around me.  I simply say it is your own fault for being good teachers.  

That has been a basic introduction of Chinese and my use with it.  Having lived in different countries I think it is very important to get out and lean some of the language.  I would have to say my Chinese is at a higher level than what my Korean was like.  Right now I would still have to say my Spanish and Arabic are at an overall higher level and this is because I can read and write in both of those languages while that isn't the case with Chinese.  There always is more to learn and I enjoy studying.  Currently I have started tackling Chinese grammar which overall Chinese is very literal and not that hard to learn grammatically.  

This week I  was supposed to travel but I had to cancel it in order get in touch with some people.  After the weekend classes three friends and I will be heading over to Shanghai.  It will be my first time to this well known city and so it will be neat have others to help show me around. Now I need to start doing a lesson plan for my high level class on Saturday.  I will write later.    

Good Nature Spots

So about two weeks ago I was up in Beijing seeing and visiting a couple neat things.  I won’t be writing about Beijing this post but will save that for later after seeing more and giving it a whole post.  Instead I will be talking about a couple of my other recent trips.  All of these trips do have a common theme of good spring nature locations. 

First spot isn’t that far away and actually is the capital for the providence that I live.  After spending a day in Weifang at a Kite Festival I had one day to explore Jinan.  A friend and I got up early to see everything that we wanted to see.  There were three main things that we wanted to see that day.  Our first stop was called Daming Lake Park.  It is a bigger lake area that has some neat scenic spots along it.  The day was a nice day and so we made our way around the lake getting some good pictures. While going along we did see a lot of couples who were taking wedding photos.  Here in China it is extremely important to take pictures before the wedding while being dressed up in various clothing.  According to my Chinese teachers these pictures are more important than wedding pictures the day of the ceremony.  I think that does depend on the family but either way we lost count how many couples were taking pictures.  Besides those people we also did come across some different people playing instruments.  The friend I was travelling with that day, one of his majors in college was music and so we did usually stop and listen.  He also does have a nice microphone to record better quality material.  We did see typical instruments like a saxophone but also some traditional Chinese instruments as well.  Part of the lake they charge to walk along it and so we didn’t do that, but for the most part we did go around it.

 

Besides the lake our next thing to see was some springs.  Actually Jinan is known as the City of Springs because of all the springs found throughout the city.  We stuck to visiting the bigger well known ones because of proximity to the lake and each other.  These springs are all fresh water springs coming up and actually are a good source of water.  In a few different springs there was a chance to fill up a bottle in order to drink and it was fine tasting water.  These springs had a small admission fee but it wasn’t just the springs themselves but also some various rock formations, gardens, and simply neat looking trees.  The springs themselves were different size and did create a bigger pond of water that did fit well with the surrounding nature.  We ended up visiting three different ones named Baotu Spring Park, Black Tiger Spring, and Five Dragon Pond Spring.  The Baotu Spring Park is the biggest one and most well-known spring in Jinan.

      

The last major thing we visited in Jinan is known as ‘Qian fo Shan’ which translates to “Thousand Buddha Mountain.”  This is a pretty small mountain compared to most of the mountains in China.  We started walking up the mountain and was on our way to the main path to the peak of the mountain when we were pretty surprised with what we found.  We turned onto the path and there was this huge festival going on where a lot of people were trying to sell things.  It was basically a craft sort of fair along the main path leading up to the mountain.  Now China does turn a lot of natural places into huge tourist areas and it does take away from the natural scenery.  This happens all over and is pretty annoying, but this particular set up was the worst we have seen it.  It was really bad and we just wanted to get out of there.  Once we actually started going up (on the nice perfect steps put into most places around China, one of the examples of how China ruins scenic areas) we still heard music and the crowds down below.  We never really did get to a point where we didn’t hear the sound.  Going up this mountain there is a Buddhist temple which we didn’t see much of because it looked like a lot of the other temples we have been inside.  Once on the top there was a nice view of Jinan.  Plus on top we could see another path going down and it did lead to a big golden statue of Buddha.  So we made our way over there and took some more pictures before heading to the train station to make our way back home to Jining.

 

Not long after that trip I headed down south to another good spot in China to take in the spring scenery.  I ended up in the town of Hangzhou and for anyone who has ever heard of Hangzhou the first thing they think about is West Lake.  This was my main reason to head down there and see the area around West Lake.  As the name does imply it is a lake but it also is a big nature area with different things to see.  After getting off the train I took a bus out to the area and ended up at an area known as Lingyin Temple.  This area did include multiple temples but what was also really neat was it had some neat grottoes.  A grotto is a small picturesque cave and these particular grottoes had various Buddhist carvings.  Plus there was a path on the other side of these temple grounds that led up a mountain known as the Northern Peak.  This mountain is one of the bigger mountains right next to West Lake and so it did give a neat view of the lake along with the city in the background.  After making my way down the Northern Peak I walked around a little part of the lake area. 

The next day I rented a bicycle to go around the lake.  Overall it was a good day but the bicycle did have its limitations because the bike wasn’t allowed right next to the lake for majority of the time.  I still was able to get some neat pictures and enjoy the nice warm spring weather.  Of course there were different areas around the lake that had different attractions such as temples and other cultural items.  I think the neatest part of the whole area is that it didn’t seem like I was in a big Chinese city because in fact Hangzhou is a capital city that has a lot of people.  Though in this area it was like I wasn’t in a city and the contrast of the scenic lake area with the tall skyscrapers in the background was a neat scene to see.

 

So that has been a synopsis of some neat natural scenic areas I have been able to see lately.  It is always nice to get out of my city especially to areas of less pollution then here in Jining.  These couple days off I am staying in town relaxing and studying Chinese.  I think next week I will take a trip to a providence a little west of me.  There is a place that has a famous Temple along with some more interesting grottoes nearby.  These grottoes will be bigger and I think more interesting than the little ones I saw down in Hangzhou.  For now though I need to do some studying and figure out what I will be doing for dinner.  Below are some pictures from Jinan and Hangzhou.  I will write later.   

One of many couples spotted

Playing a traditional flute called "Hulusi"

The water in the middle bubbling is the spring water