Beijing Bonanza!

Hey all,

As it turns out, I'm still really good at procrastinating.  Now, all joking aside (at least for now) here is my write up of Beijing that most of you have been anxiously waiting for.  I apologize for making you wait so long, just know that the anticipation was definitely worth it.

I suppose I should start at the beginning; I arrived in Beijing on Friday evening after a nice, short week of work thanks in part to Children's Day and Sports Day (I love school holidays!).  Getting to and from the airport in Beijing is pretty pain-free.  They built a fast train into the heart of the city in preparation for the 2008 Olympics and it was definitely a good decision.  The train took roughly 30 minutes to get into the heart of Beijing and it was another 30 minutes on the subway to reach my hostel.  I chose to stay at a hostel called the Chinese Box Hostel (http://www.boxhostel.com/tour.html#p1), which is located in a hutong, an traditional Chinese neighborhood, of which there are still several all around Beijing.  It was also pretty close to the metro, which made traveling around Beijing pretty easy and accessible.  By the time I got to my hostel, I was pretty hungry and tired, so I dropped my things off and went exploring around the neighborhood for some food.  I ended up at a Muslim Chinese restaurant that had some pretty good Chinese cuisine and some excellent bread that was similar to naan.  Afterwards I hung around the hostel and met some of the people there and called it a night.

When I woke up on Saturday I wasn't sure what I was going to do.  I had a general idea of what I wanted to see, but I wasn't sure in what order I should do everything.  One of my roommates had decided that he wanted to go cycling around Beijing and stop at a few different destinations along the way.  I figured that this would be a pretty interesting way to explore Beijing, especially since it was my first full day in the city, what better way to see Beijing then by bike, just like the locals do everyday!  We were able to rent bikes from our hostel and then we were off, cruising around the city.  The weather was perfect for a long day of cycling around the city, as would be the case almost every day of the trip, with the exception of a downpour on Sunday night.  The first stop on our bike tour of Beijing was Beihai Park, which was pretty close to our hostel (maybe a 20 minute bike ride).  It is a huge park and is famous for the White Dagoba it houses.  Check it out:

White Dagoba at Beihai Park

While we were at the park, we also stumbled upon a traditional Chinese wedding, full of traditional garb and dragons!

The wedding attracted quite a crowd and after we took our pictures, we moved on.  From Beihai Park, we cycled our way to another group of parks that were along a lake.  This area was pretty nice; there were plenty of cafes lining the streets and it seemed very European, almost reminiscent of being in Amsterdam, minus the bridges.  We also went and checked out the Bell and Drum Tower, which are both centuries old.  Here's  a pic of me on my bike in front of the Bell Tower:

After a little more biking around, we were getting ready for a meal.  My hostel buddy had read about this amazing burger place in Beijing and had been craving it ever since.  I thought the idea of a really good burger joint in Beijing was pretty interesting and so we ended up biking out to Sanlitun, which is an area of Beijing that has been recently given a major face lift both before the 2008 Olympics and afterwards as well.  There is a very large outdoor mall there called the West Village, which could be anywhere in the western world.  Conveniently enough, this is where our burger restaurant was located.  Let's Burger was in very few words, simply delightful.  I ordered an Australian Double (two Australian Angus beef patties, cheese, a fried egg, bacon, and the usual toppings) and my friend ordered the Let's Burger special (one Angus beef patty, cheese, avocado spread, smoked salmon, and a tiger shrimp on top).  Check these bad boys out!

My delicious Australian Double

The Let's Burger Special

In addition to amazing burgers, Let's Burger also has delectable fries and a plethora of different sauces, ranging from the traditional (ketchup, mustard, mayo, Tabasco sauce) to the more unique (curry mayonnaise and chocolate mayonnaise).  If you are ever in Beijing and craving a burger, this is definitely the place.  Please, I beg you, don't waste your time on McDonalds.

After eating, we worked hard to keep biking around the city.  We checked out the Workers' Stadium area and then made our way back to our hostel after accomplishing all that we had set out to do.  I had found out earlier Saturday morning that a friend of a friend from Suwon was traveling in Beijing at the same time I was and coincidentally, was staying at the same hostel that I was.  I met him shortly after I got back to the hostel and it turned out that Joe and I were staying in the same room.  We went and met up with a friend of mine, Rob, from Ultimate, who lives in Beijing.  He took us for some awesome lamb skewers for dinner and then out to meet some of his friends.  We went to one bar that night that had an incredible selection of micro-brews from the Eastern USA, which are impossible to find in Korea.  Needless to say that this was a treat.  It was definitely a good decision to meet up with Rob and his friends; they showed us a great time around Beijing's nightlife.

That being said, Joe and I were ready to go do some more exploring on Sunday.  The first place headed to was the Beijing Zoo to check out the the famous pandas and some other crazy creatures.  

The pandas were the most interesting part of the zoo, but it was definitely nice to see some of the different monkeys and apes that I had learned about a few years ago back at Madison.  After the zoo we headed for the Summer Palace.  Unfortunately, this is when it started to rain, but that was okay with us, we just brought out our rain gear and went on our way.  The Summer Palace is a beautiful area filled with different buildings and the main palace and it's built around a lake.  Many of the buildings are well restored and the forest area provides for many scenic walks around the grounds.  Here are a few pics of the Summer Palace.

After making our way through the Summer Palace, we took the metro back to our hostel to get out of the rain.  We were hoping the weather would die down so we could go get some authentic Peking duck for dinner, but that wasn't the case, so we popped in to a local restaurant around the corner that had delicious dumplings.  We ordered maybe 6 different kinds of dumplings and all of them were amazing.  I can't get over how, no matter what ethnic cuisine they originate from, dumplings are always delicious.

Joe and I decided that Monday was going to be the day we went to check out the Great Wall.  I don't think you could ask for a better day, especially given the rain that Beijing received the night before.  The weather was definitely in our favor; sunny and between 20-24 Celsius all day.  We chose to go to the Jinshanling section of the Wall, which is a little more remote and less crowded.  We had to wake up at 6 am to catch our shuttle to another shuttle which drove us three hours into the northern Chinese countryside to Jinshanling.  When we arrived at Jinshanling, there was literally no one there.  We took the cable car to the top and then we had pretty much an entire section of the Great Wall to roam around for a few hours.  It is truly an impressive sight and definitely a wonder.  I feel like the pictures do it must more justice than any amount of words will, so here you are:

Joe and I at the Great Wall

We walked on the Wall for a few hours before we were worn out enough to start heading down the mountain.  At the bottom, we had a buffet lunch waiting for us, unfortunately it wasn't that great, but that's besides the point, the Great Wall experience was everything I could've hoped it would be.  When we got back to our hostel, we were pretty exhausted and had a pretty relaxed night.

Tuesday was the last day in Beijing for Joe and myself, but thankfully, we both booked evening flights to give ourselves enough time to have at least a half day of sightseeing.  We started off by heading out to the Olympic area to check out the Water Cube and the Bird's Nest Stadium.  Both are pretty cool architectural feats up close.  Take a look for yourself:

From the Olympic area, we made our way over to the Temple of Heaven, basically traversing across the city. The Temple of Heaven was also very interesting.  The area includes a large park and many historical temples and other buildings.  We went through there a little quickly because we wanted to fit in everything we had left to do.  Across the street from the Temple of Heaven is the Pearl Market, which we went to check out next.  In addition to pearls, the merchants also sell knockoff clothes, shoes, silks, and other accessories.  I was able to find a few nice polo shirts and only paid $12, so I was pretty happy about that.  At this point, Joe and I split up, because he wanted to do some more shopping and I still had to get to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City and also eat Peking duck.  I'm not quite sure how I did this, but in under four hours, I was able to check all of these things off my Beijing to-do checklist.  

I arrived at the airport safe and sound and returned back to Korea on Tuesday night.  The past two weeks have been pretty good for me.  The weather has gotten really nice, although you can feel that summer is definitely on its way soon.  Last weekend we had a frisbee tournament in Busan.  But, this was a little different, we played on the beach.  The weather was great again (although it was raining in Seoul) and it was an excellent weekend, although my feet and legs were pretty sore at the beginning of this week.  I can't believe how quickly time has been going by lately, so hard to believe that it's going to be June next week.  I've been prepping pretty hard for the GREs and feel prepared to take them in two weeks.  After that, it's all summer time mode with some extensive trip planning thrown in as well.

That's all from here, hope everybody and everything is well wherever my readers may be.

What I'm listening to: "Deep Blue Sea" by Grizzly Bear

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEDqk67AhsE

    

Passover and Jeju Dirty Dozens Tournament 2011

Hey all,

I apologize again for another long overdue blog post.  I got caught up doing some other things (frisbee practices, dinners, GRE study, watching NHL and NBA playoffs, etc...) and ended up forgetting to put something new up. But, the good news is that now I have some free time to get a few new posts up on the blog.  As some of you know, I just got back from a trip to Beijing over the long weekend that we had in South Korea, so I'll have another new post up, hopefully in a day or two, about that trip.  For now, I'll just stick with the month of April (Passover and the Jeju frisbee tournament).

I know some of my dedicated readers were concerned about how I was going to celebrate Passover in Korea this year.  Last year, as some of you might remember, I went to the Air Force base in Osan for Seder.  Unfortunately, this year, Seder was being held on a Friday, instead of Monday or Tuesday, so I couldn't make it down to the base, because I was flying out to Jeju that night.  Instead, on Tuesday night, we had a mini-Seder at my friend Raef's apartment.  For the first time in a few years, I actually made something to bring to Seder.  I found a pretty easy charoset recipe (which is pretty easy to make in general) and made a pretty solid batch.  We also had some chicken, delicious potatoes, some great vegetables, and of course, matzo ball soup.  Seder was very enjoyable and I wish I had taken some pictures so you could see how we celebrated.  Alas, you'll just have to use your imaginations.  The best part about Seder was probably the great leftovers I got to take home with me.  It was a full week's worth of good food.

In the middle of Passover, we had the Jeju Dirty Dozens Frisbee Tournament (April 22-24).  I left for Jeju Friday after school and got in at a decent time Friday night, enough time to have a little fun at the registration party and catch up with some friends who I hadn't seen in a little while.  The whole weekend was pretty windy, which as you can imagine, plays a huge factor at a frisbee tournament.  Luckily for my team, it was a positive factor for most of the weekend.  Our team was seeded 8th at the tournament and we lucked out in being able to sleep in Saturday morning, because our first game wasn't until the second round of games.  Our first game on Saturday was against Huwa (from Shanghai).  We came out pretty strong, thanks to the hard work of our zone defense and took half time 6-4 and continued our strong play in the second half to win our first game.  The second game of Saturday was against Shiok (from Singapore).  They were a little tougher of an opponent, but again, the zone defense played a huge role in our team's success on the field.  We took half time again and eventually won our second game as well.  Next up for us was the #1 seed in the tournament and the top team in our pool, Iku (from Japan).  We started the game trading points to 2-2, but then Iku got out on a run and took half 3-6.  We came out flat in the second half and Iku ended up winning 5-9.  After completing pool play, we had a cross-over game (played for Sunday's seeding) against Whisby Nation, who had already won their pool.  We started off trading points with them as well, up to 4-4, but then Whisby started pulling away.  They took half 4-6 and in the second half, we ran out of steam and lost.  Yet, we were pretty happy with our overall play on Saturday, going 2-2, meaning we had already beaten our seed and were now seeded 4th going into Sunday.

There was a tournament dinner and party on Saturday night, as per usual at frisbee gatherings, and the theme this year was mustaches.  Here is just a sample of how people incorporated the theme.

The party didn't last too long on Saturday night, mostly because people were tired out from a day of Ultimate and were gearing up for a big day on Sunday.

Sunday was a big day for all teams, including ours.  We weren't just content with beating our seed at the tournament; now that we had accomplished that goal, we looked to contend for finals on Sunday.  Our first game Sunday was the quarter-finals against SARS (a mix of players from Beijing and Hong Kong).  This game was super close the entire way through and after going down 5-7, we scored two points in a row to take the game to universe point (sudden death).  We ended up winning the game on universe point 8-7, which was huge for our team.  Here's a pic of me actually jumping for a "d;" don't let the picture fool you, I actually got the "d," just with my right hand.

It may appear like I lost the "d" here,
but I actually hit the disc with my right hand.

After beating SARS, we had another shot at Iku, who we had lost to on Saturday.  We started this game very strong, playing very aggressive offense and defense and went up 6-4, before letting up three points in a row to give up half time 6-7.  The second half was a determined battle between both sides, who traded points until Iku got a second upwind break point, which was just enough for them to pull away from our team.  In the end, we lost 9-10, but it was a very hard fought game for both teams.  A loss in the semis meant that we had finished tied for 3rd place with the Seoul A team.  Overall, Jeju was a pretty awesome experience for our team, who finally came together after a month or so of indifferent practices and played one full and exciting weekend of Ultimate.

Since Jeju, life has been pretty good.  Spring has definitely sprung here in Korea, although the last few days have been a bit wet.  Last week was a pretty easy week for teaching.  My school had Sports Day practices almost everyday, which meant that on Wednesday and Friday, my classes were cancelled.  In addition, last Thursday was Children's Day, so we didn't have school.  Just by luck, Children's Day coincided with Cinco de Mayo and one of the Mexican restaurants in Seoul held an outdoor music and food celebration for the holiday.  The weather was really nice and it ended up being a great way to spend the day off.  That's all from here for now, a full write-up of the Beijing trip will be up in the next few days, so stay tuned.