Happy New Year

Hey, remember me? I know it's been quiet around here for the past two months but I thought I would pop back in to wish you a happy New Year and recap the awesomeness that was 2014.

January
The winter in Shanghai is chilly, making it perfect hot pot weather. But Shanghai apparently wasn't cold enough so we traveled to Harbin for the Snow and Ice Festival, where temperatures dipped down to negative 30. Brrrrr. While the ice was the main attraction, we also enjoyed the Russian cathedral and eating ice cream.

February
February started with an ill fated trip to Cambodia. The month improved though with the Lantern Festival and a Bean Valentine auction.

March
In March, I indulged in a decadent brunch at Vue and shared my feelings about being a housewife. I also found out I was born to be an expat.

April
I came clean about my addiction, attended the Formula One race and participated in the Jinqiao 8k. The highlight of the month was when I volunteered to teach English in rural Henan Province and visited the hometown of my childhood hero, Mulan.

May
May is my favorite month since it's the annual celebration of my parents blessing the world with their youngest child (that would be me). I celebrated the demise of my twenties dressed as a giant cat and also indulged in lots of dumplings. But May also sucked this year because it marked the beginning of an exodus of expat friends from Shanghai. At least May had lots of pretty flowers. And a weekend in Hong Kong.

June
We spent a relaxing weekend in Moganshan with college friends where I realized I had become far too local and returned to America for a detox.

July
I was feeling a bit lazy from finally figuring out how to ride ride the bus, so I ran a Half Marathon in Inner Mongolia. Normal.

August
August was hot and busy. I'm sure I did something interesting but all I can remember is attending Shanghai Supper Club.

September
September was a month of travel with a hike up Huangshan, a weekend in Seoul, and a tour of Beijing with my sister.

October
I was a bad blogger this month but I did return to Cambodia. So there's that.

November
The moment I had been dreading arrived and we said our goodbye to Shanghai by running through it in the Shanghai International Half Marathon. Then we boarded a plane and left this crazy life behind.

 

December

December was a flurry of settling into our new house, new jobs, and new lives. It was a time to celebrate with family and friends but also a time to reflect back. Not only on 2014, but on the entire three years in China. For the first time in three years, I was stateside for New Year's Eve.

As we begin a new year, I'm excited for what is ahead, the next adventure we undertake. But I'm also sad that this piece of our journey is over. Looking back over the last year, I cannot fathom the things I have done and the places I have been. I can't imagine 2015 will top 2014, but the same could have been said for 2013 I suppose. Let's hope 2015 has a few surprises in store.

A Love Letter

Dear Shanghai,

You and me, it was love at first sight. You offered me new opportunities, a new culture, a new country. I had never lived more than 4 hours from where I grew up and frankly, I was scared out of my mind. But you dazzled me from the moment I stepped off the plane. Your beautiful skyline, your delightful foods, and your endless possibilities.

You've taught me so much over the past three years. Sure, sometimes you made me feel awkward and out of place but you also showed me that I'm stronger than I ever thought possible. You forced me to try new things and embrace new cultures. You even convinced me to eat pork again.

You haven't always treated me the best. There was the case of e.coli and numerous bouts of food poisoning. And sometimes you made it toxic for me to breathe. Other people didn't always understand my fascination with you or my ability to look past your faults. But I thought those flaws gave you character. The spitting, shoving, and public defecation. Those were just your ways of asserting your independence. Your unwavering lack of interest in conforming to others' standards.

And through it all, I loved you. Your weird smells, your bustling streets, your cultural differences. I learned to embrace them all. Heck, I even started to do some of them.

But now Shanghai, it's time to move on. You'll always hold a special place in my heart, one that I didn't know was empty until you came along. I hope this isn't goodbye forever. I hope I come back to you. But life happens and it might be awhile until I see you again. I hope you won't forget me. Because I will never forget you. You've changed me, and it's for the better.

Love,
Kristin

Hiking Huangshan or How I Made Myself Sore For 5 Days

When Matthew and I realized that our time left in China was limited, we began scheduling lots of weekend trips. One of those trips was to Yellow Mountain, or Huangshan.

Before heading to Huangshan, I wrongly thought that Yellow Mountain was a single mountain. But in reality, Huangshan refers to an entire mountain range in southern Anhui province.

There are literally hundreds of peaks and thousands of ravines in the Yellow Mountains, 72 of which have been named. Heavenly Capital Peak (1800m), Lotus Flower Peak and Bright Summit (1841m/6040ft) are the three major peaks, all rising more than 1,800 meters (5,900 feet) above sea level. That means that at times, I was standing next to a cliff that dropped down over a mile. For this heights adverse gal, the trip was often harrowing.

We arrived Friday night and spent some time exploring Tangkou, the town situated at the bottom of the mountains. That took about 10 minutes because Tangkou is TINY. With more time than we knew what to do with, we took the suggestion of our hotel and headed to the hot springs to relax for a few hours. Heaven. My only regret is that we visited the hot springs prior to ascending the mountain and not after. But soaking in a pool of hot water scented with wine and coconut milk wasn't a bad way to spend a Friday night.

Early the next morning, we joined the masses in line to take the buses into the park. As Huangshan is a national park, the only way to enter is on foot or via the National Express bus. We arrived at the Yungu Cable Car or Eastern Steps and then rode the cable car to the top. I don't remember much of the 12 minute cable car ride, though Matthew claims it was beautiful. I had my head between my knees and was trying to ignore the Chinese people pointing at the foreign girl who was freaking out. Like I said, I don't do heights.

After nearly meeting my death (I'm sure the cable cars are totally safe, but it FELT like I was going to die at any moment), we spent a few moments getting our bearings and then began the hour long hike to our hotel. Some of the best views on Huangshan are sunrise and set, and staying on the mountain meant that we could enjoy them.

We arrived at our hotel only to find there was a small snafu with our room, as in they didn't have one for us. But we were able to sort things out and received free accommodations in the single sex dorm rooms. Not what we had planned but it just added to the experience. We dropped off our bags and started off on another hike.

We then spent the next five hours going up paths that looked like this:

And down stairs that looked like this:

It was beautiful, thrilling, and at times terrifying. The guard rails were only often knee high and a small stumble could send you tumbling over the side of a mountain. Thankfully, while there were thousands of other tourists with us on the mountains that day, the crowds thinned considerably once we were away from the cable cars. At one point, we hiked for over an hour without seeing another soul.

Our original plan had been to watch the sunset at Fairy Walking Bridge, but once we made our way there, we knew there was no chance we would want to hike back the same way in the dark. We instead headed back up the trail, closer to our hotel and settled in for the show.

We could see the masses of people sitting far away on Bright Top, but enjoyed our empty spot along the trail, even if the sun disappeared behind a mountain before it reached the horizon.

As the darkness began to settle, we headed to our hotel for showers and much needed food. We had managed to skip lunch amid the hotel mixup and were famished after over 6 hours of hiking.

Staying in the hostel section of the hotel meant that we had little choice as to when we awoke the next morning. At exactly 4am, the lights in my room came on and everyone began to prepare for sunrise. We slipped on some thermals (despite wearing shorts during the day) and joined the masses en route to Bright Top. Why isn't there a photo of the sunrise in this post? Because there wasn't much of one. Thick fog and crowds of people meant that we couldn't even get close to seeing the sun come up. Back in our rooms, we showered and prepared for another long day.

We spent the next five hours hiking down the Western Steps of Huangshan. While Saturday had given us blue skies and beautiful views, Sunday proved to be wet and foggy. But it meant the trails were fairly empty and the temperatures were moderate on the way down. Around noon, we arrived at Mercy Light Pavilion and happily jumped on a bus back to Tangkou. As our flight to Shanghai was not until much later that evening, we checked into a hotel for showers and an afternoon nap. After we devoured a bowl of noodles that is.

Afterwards, we realized we had walked over 13 miles/21 km, mostly on stairs, over the two days on the mountains. I consider myself to be in fairly good shape (I teach 2 spin classes and run an average of 15 miles a week, plus I'm about to run my third 1/2 marathon in a year), and I have to tell you, Huangshan was no joke. While I never felt unable to make it, I was sore when we woke up on Sunday. And I was even more sore Monday morning. In fact, I found it hard to go down stairs even on Thursday. But the views? Well, they made everything worth it.

5 Excuses For Being A Bad Blogger

I realize I'm been a bad blogger the last few months. When we first moved to China, I was posting 2-3 times a week. I'm lucky if I manage 2-3 posts a month lately. So why the decrease in content? Here are my totally valid but still lame excuses for why I've been absent.

1) I got a job. I was unemployed the first few months here which meant that I had lots of time to edit photos and write entries. Now I work, a lot, which leaves me with a lot less free time to talk about myself online.

2) I got a life. I also didn't have any friends or hobbies when we moved to China. But now I've got a thriving social circle and have enrolled in numerous classes throughout the city. So when I'm not working, I tend to spend my time with friends and family.

3) I got lazy. Did you know it takes a lot of time to be this witty online? Seriously though, a blog entry usually takes me a few hours to pull together between the photo editing, writing, and coding. Some days, I'd just rather snuggle my cat and watch Scandal on Youku.

4) Things stopped feeling strange. When I first moved to Shanghai, everything was new and exciting. But sometime over the past three years, my life here began to feel normal. I often don't look twice at things that would have been perfect blog fodder back in 2012.

5) I'm leaving China. We always knew our time in Shanghai was finite and we've come to the point where it's time to say goodbye. It's hard to write about a place you are leaving when you aren't quite ready to say goodbye. So instead of staying inside behind a computer screen, I've been out making the memories that I plan to take back with me to the motherland.

You may be wondering what does this mean for D2D? Not much right now. I still have tons of things to tell you about. There are trips (like a weekend in Hong Kong, a climb up Yellow Mountain, and a glorious return to Cambodia)  as well as daily musing (matching t-shirts anyone?) that I still want to share. My computer is loaded with photos just waiting to be uploaded.  So have no fear my friends, I'll still be around for awhile. You didn't think it was that easy to get rid of me, did you?

Grasslands Extreme Marathon

The first weekend in July, fresh off a trip to the US, we boarded a plane with some friends for the Grasslands Extreme Marathon in Xiwuqi, Inner Mongolia.

Getting there was a bit of an adventure, so I'll save that for another post. But the half marathon itself? Well, that was also rough.

I should start by saying that Inner Mongolia is simply stunning. We left Shanghai among some intense pollution and grey skies. Inner Mongolia had none of that. Blue skies, fresh air, and rolling hills. Yes, I said hills.

Simply put, this was not my race. Having trained on the flat roads of Shanghai, I was challenged by the constant change in elevation. Additionally, it was hot. I don't do hot well. Previous years had seen more moderate temperatures, but the day of our run was quite steamy. This course isn't one for personal records, and I certainly did not set one that day.

But the scenery was beautiful. At numerous points along the route, we were greeted by sheep, cows, and horses, all seemingly immune to the race taking place around them. 

For someone who usually runs in the city, seeing endless green in front of me was a nice change. However, it also meant limited water stops and non existent bathroom facilities. For most of the race, the only spectators were the previously mentioned cattle.

Despite a less than ideal personal time, I enjoyed the Grassland Marathon. Would I do it again? Probably not, but it was a nice way to see an area of China that I otherwise might have missed.

Interested in taking part in the grasslands marathon? Registration is already open for the 2015 race.

Stepping Stones Rural Volunteering Tour

I watched as one boy in my class debated over what to do. I had asked him to draw a picture of what he wanted to be when he grew up. All around him, the other students were busy copying pictures out of their textbooks. Police, teacher, farmer. His brow furrowed, his tongue slowly crept out from between his lips. Then his hand began to move as he stared down at his paper intently.

After a few moments, I glanced over at his work. At the top of the paper, he had written pilot, simply copying the words from his book. But underneath, he had written the following, "I want to be a pilot when I grow up. I want to fly to the stars". An elaborate spaceship was drawn underneath, complete with a self portrait of the artist himself inside.

By the end of class, the paper lay discarded on the floor. I picked it up and asked the student if he wanted to take the picture home to show his family. He shook his head no and stated that he didn't need it. As the students left the room, I wondered about this student and what his future would hold. Would he become a pilot? Would he even have the chance? Or would his dreams simply fall away, discarded, much like his picture?

In April, I traveled to Shangqui, in rural Henan Province with Stepping Stones as part of their bi-annual, week long volunteer teaching tour to underprivileged schools. What followed was one of the best experiences I have had thus far in China.

Stepping Stones works with volunteers to teach English in Shanghai’s migrant schools and community centers, reaching over 4,000 students in 20 different migrant schools. They also regularly take groups of volunteers to teach English to children in rural schools outside of Shanghai. This is what I had chosen to be a part of.

We traveled by train to Henan, a province located in central China. Henan is the third most populous province in China, sending out millions of migrant workers every year to urban areas like Shanghai. This means many of these children are growing up with their grandparents, only seeing their parents once or twice a year if they are lucky.

In many rural schools, the standard of English teaching is particularly low, especially oral English. In China, English is one of the three core elements of the Chinese school curriculum, along with Chinese and Math. A student’s grade in English is one of the key criteria for entry to higher education, making a basic command of English critical to a child’s life chances.

The majority of migrant children do not make it to senior high school, and only a small handful are able to attend university. It is the goal of Stepping Stones to help these children from rural areas to attend senior high school and university, and thereby improve the future prospects of rural families.

A friend of mine had volunteered for a trip the previous year and recommended the experience to me. While I work in education, I had no direct teaching experience. However, the Stepping Stones coordinators ensured me that all I needed was a positive and enthusiastic attitude. And a command of the English language.

The students were amazing. Kind, attentive, and eager to learn. One the first morning, a group of my sixth grade students skipped their break and asked me to practice vocabulary with them instead. 

At the end of the day, I was presented with flowers picked by the students and hugs farewell. Do I think my few hours with these students greatly improved their English? No. But I know that I gave them a positive first introduction with a foreigner, provided them with fun lessons in English, and reminded them people care about them and their future.

Want to join the next volunteer teaching tour to Henan this November? Contact Gloria at projects@steppingstoneschina.net or check it out at http://steppingstoneschina.net/rural-volunteering-tours.

America Observations

In June, I spent two weeks in the USA for my semi annual detox from China. And while it was wonderful to see family, friends, and eat foods I had been missing (Auntie Anne's Pretzels, I'm talking to you), I was shocked by some of the things I encountered. Perhaps it was reverse culture shock or just my poor memory but I found myself noticing odd things wherever I went. What surprised me the most? Here are five things about America that blew my mind.

1. There are a lot of dead animals

Seriously, what is going on with all the roadkill? I've seen exactly one animal that was hit by a car in the 2.5 years I've been in China. But America, holy hell. I saw three dead deer on the five minute drive to my dentist. And don't even get me started on the amount of roadkill I passed on the 3 hours drive from NY to PA.

(not a dead animal, I saved him from the middle of the road)

2. Being carded is a real thing

I ordered a beer in a restaurant and was shocked, SHOCKED, when the waitress asked to see my license. Officially, the drinking age in China is 18, but I think that's more of a suggestion than a law. I've never seen anyone carded here or anywhere else in Asia. So being asked to provide my license at the age of 30 gave me a pretty good chuckle.

3. English is everywhere

I know, I sound like an idiot for this one, but hear me out. On an average day in Shanghai, I see thousands of signs and hear hundreds of conversations that I simply cannot understand. I've learned to tune out most of it or treat it as background noise. But in America? I can understand everything! I found myself listening to all the conversations around me, simply because I could (Which also led me to interrupt a few random people's conversations. I'm pretty sure that makes me creepy). But at times the massive amount of information coming my way was just too much to process. Plus I really didn't want to hear all about the bowels of two men behind me in line. Sometimes it's nice not to know what people are talking about.

4. Tipping

I have no idea how to do this anymore. How much am I supposed to give? And to who? I gave exact change to a waiter one day and he just stood next to the table waiting for me. After a swift kick from my husband, I shoved some money at him while mumbling something about being out of practice. After that, I tipped everyone. I think the Target cashier was confused when I told her to keep the change.

5. Grocery stores are overwhelming

I walked into Wegmans (do you all know about Wegmans? You haven't lived until you've grocery shopped at Wegmans) and fully freaked out over food choices. I even hugged the cheese display before Matthew reminded me that people were watching. There are 23 million people in Shanghai and we have no where near this amount of variety in our grocery stores. I counted over 100 different brands of cereal at Wegmans before I got tired of counting. How is that even possible? And why? I can find 5 maybe 6 different brands in Shanghai if I'm lucky.

Those are the things that surprised me the most while visiting the States this year. Anyone else find themselves experiencing reversed culture shock when they returned to their home country? Or perhaps try to hug a cheese display? No, only me? Fine then.

How to: Ride the Bus

I love the bus system in Shanghai. It's easy, it's convenient, and it costly a measly 2 rmb (that's .32 US cents) to ride.

To be honest, it took me awhile to have the confidence to ride the bus. When we first moved here, I stuck to the metro system because 1) I didn't have to talk to anyone and 2) signs were clearly marked in English. But once I realized how simple the bus system was, my love affair with another form of public transportation began.

Shanghai's public bus system is quite comprehensive with more than 1,100 lines that run all over the city. Stops are generally located near intersections, with each stop named after the closest street intersecting the road the bus is running on. The stops are generally indicated with a black post with number signs on it. There is a number sign for each line the bus serves.

Each sign shows the route number, the bus stop name and the next stop, all in Chinese. But that doesn't mean you can't still figure it out. You just have to plan your trip in advance.

Determine Your Route
Personally, I use Google Maps to plan out my trip. You can also use Baidu Maps but it's a little trickier as it is in Chinese.

You start by simply typing in the route you want to take. You can use either landmarks or specific addresses. Then you select the public transportation option, indicated by the bus icon circled below.

Select "Get Directions" and you are given options for public transportation that will help you get from point A to B.

You will notice that numerous routes and methods are given to you. I generally try to take the quickest route, but am willing to deviate from my plan if one of the other buses comes along first. 

If you happen to know which buses pass by the stop you want to take (as indicated on the sign posts), you can also check out this Shanghai Bus Route website, which offers English route information for each specific bus.

Paying Your Fare
Board the bus through the front door and put the bus fare into a money box beside the driver or scan your metrocard. Drivers will not make change so ensure you have the exact amount before boarding the bus.

Ride Like A Regular
You will see several yellow seats on each bus. They are reserved for senior citizens, small children, the sick, disabled and pregnant women. You are welcome to sit in them, but remember to give your seat up if one of the above mentioned is left standing.

Air-conditioned buses can be identified by an snowflake symbol in front of the bus number. In the summer, you only want to get on an air conditioned bus.

Getting Off
Most of the buses announce in both Chinese and English and many have a screen displaying the stops at the front of the bus. Simply listen/look for your stop and exit from the backdoor when you arrive at your destination.

Overall, the bus system in Shanghai is fairly simple. Challenge yourself to step outside your comfort zone and ride the bus the next time you are meeting friends for dinner. Or when your walk to the nearest metro line suddenly feels entirely too long.