more korea trip pictures!!!

Just in case you dont know, there are about 3 links for the whole trip...I took a lots of pictures!!
Part 1:
http://www.slide.com/r/A3yr9-Su7T8TgzPqcu_CIHQeUqr6Z1AN
Part 2:
http://www.slide.com/r/oMibonsFlz8JnasZ8YOrOmRpE8s89R4o
Part 3:
http://www.slide.com/r/YKbmG6D4pD__KBfr4cU7zSEmHU9axP5f?view=original
(be aware, there are 106 pictures here...it might take a while for you to see them all...but it took me more than couple hours to write all the descriptions, so plz take your time)
Attn: If you move your cursor (mouse) to the pic, there will be explainations at the bottom of the frame, this is the only way that I can make the pics look bigger to view...

let me know what you think about slide.com, if the pictures are too small to view, I might look for other sources~

These pictures are from my friends' cameras...see I am not lying~~~ I really did meet some strangers, friendly strangers on this trip !!! http://www.slide.com/r/7Ov1sINi0D9UCRxDC94S3916d7ssHZH6?previous_view=mscd_embedded_url&view=original

Last part Korea~ Pictures are here !!

People may worry about safety issue in Seoul, but I found that Seoul is a sleepless city. Even though the working hours are from 8:30a-6:30p, but it is generally understanding that employee/employers stays late afterwards because there are too much work to do, too many tasks to complete. Korean people are the number one stressful people on earth, even Japanese admits that. They work hard, and work too hard. Most of the time, my friends had to stay in their office past 8pm, sometimes until 10pm, and then come back early in the morning again. There are many many shops on the streets that are open 24 hours for the sleepless group. You can walk on the street at 1am and there will be people walking by (sometimes they can be drunks…). I admit that I like working, or like to be called a “workaholics”, but even to me I think working in Korea is a stressful thing, I wouldn’t want to work like this…My friends told me the average age for men to get married are a little over 30, and for women are somewhere at late 20th. They have to work to a point that they can save enough money for their wedding, and for a new apartment. Because of all these, Korean people eats really fast. They usually get one hour of lunch break (that is usually after 1pm…) but they ate super fast, and usually finish by 15 minutes. Both of my friends are jealous at Chinese working classes, because usually they will get one and half to 2 hours of lunch break plus a nap break.

Sorry that I couldn’t write dairy about this trip, but I took all the pictures that I can and put them on the website (http://www.slide.com/r/ebV-LUz14D8GAQr3YLk27f2uuqvEiiqS?previous_view=lt_embedded_url ) take your time and browse through them. It is my whole trip~ 200 some of them. Hope you like them!!!

Korea , more to come, read from the bottom up~~~

Living in korea is expensive, but as a travelling/shopping destination, not too bad…transportation is not a problem, they have a very complicated and detailed subway system. You can literally get to anywhere within Seoul by subway. It is usually cost around $0.90 - $1.20 USD to go one way, depends on how far you go. And as long as you are not in rush hours (7am-9am, 6pm-7:30pm), the subway is not crowded at all. In the subway, they always save 12 seats for elderly, children, sick, and pregnant women. No matter how crowded the subway is, those seats are always open. My friends told me, watch out the middle aged housewives in the subway. They usually rushed in first try to save seats, no rules on that…my friend described it as like American football ^o^. They sometimes throw their bag across the air try to occupy the seat first. Too bad I haven’t seen any crazy lady this time…
The weekend that I was in Korea was a traditional festival time, it is called Dano in Korean. It is a seasonal festival that is the fifth day of the fifth month by the lunar calendar. We have the same holiday in China, but apparently a little different way to celebrate it. Korean people believed that Yang (from Ying-yang, brightness) energy reaches the highest level on Dano. In korea, Dano is truly a holiday, people celebrate it by playing on high swing rides, watch performances on stage, and ssireum (Korean wrestling). It used to be one of the 3 biggest festivals celebrated in Korea. Because of this, I had the opportunity to watch a traditional korean clothes fashion show. The models are too pretty so that at the end of the show, I dragged my friend to the backstage and hoped to take pic with the models…my friend wasn’t even expect that would happen, but it did!!!
In general, I like Seoul. Even though it is expensive, but people are friendly, and fun to watch. Stuff here are cute, and food, very healthy! If I really end up working in China, korea wouldn’t be a bad place to get away. Only 90 minutes to get to, no passport needed as long as I get out in 30 days, and I only plan to spend a weekend here every once in a while. Young people now speaks very good english. I met couple students from Seoul National University (no.1 university in Korea), and because they want to practice English, they asked if they can tag alone with me and my friend (we were talking in English in the subway, later on that day I learned that those students heard us talking, and thought that I was Korean who were raised in America…) Anyway, they were not Seoul natives, which means it is extra hard for them to get into any Seoul university. Now they are master and ph.D students in Chemical Engineering dept, and hoping to study abroad someday. They knew a lot about Korean culture and history (from passing the college entrance exam…), so they were happy to serve as tour guides for the day. Showed me a lots of places. Their original plan was to take some pictures in the nice weather, photography is their hobbit (which by the way, it is a trend in Asia now to have a fancy professional camera…) Anyway, quite an unique experience. At first I thought they were stalkers…:p but end up they are very very friendly and funny students. If they really send me the pic they took as they promised when we separate, I will post the pictures they took on the blog so you don’t think that I am lying…
Another thing amazes me is that girls/women drinks as well in korea. I know American women drinks too, but Korean women drinks for social. You can see girls at dinner table each one holding a beer jug. To me, it was a weird scene, maybe because I don’t see a lots of women drinks at Northgate…I mean, at least not the way I see korean women drinking...it's just weird for me to see women drinking period...especially holding beer jugs and/or soju (rice drink, about 15-20% alcohol)

Korea, finally~~~

Trip to korea was fun. Seoul in general gives me an impression of similar to China. But the buildings look totally different from Beijing, it reminds me of old Chinese apartments. Seoul is a hill city, we climb up and down the streets all the time. I spent 4 nights at my high school friend’s house (apartment, they call them house, but it is a big building, each floor consists of two apartment, in Korea, they consider living in apartments like this are luxury and many people work hard their whole life trying to buy one of the fancy apartments), and gained a first hand experience to encounter Korean culture. I like this way better than going with a tour group. On this trip, I tried my best to eat all traditional Korean food, from the side of the street to small family restaurant. I have to say, I love their food! But people who know me would argue when do I not like eating… So let’s talk about Korean cuisine first. Korean cuisine consists of 3 main part, rice, kimchee, and some kind of soup. Kimchee is not just marinated cabbage, it can be carrots, soybeans, little silver fish, and variety of vegetables. In Korea, everything is very expensive compare to China, my normal meal usually cost about $6 USD, which is really not that bad compare to the States. Korean people uses metal chopsticks and a spoon as their dining ware. The chopsticks are thinner than chinese wooden ones, thus was a little bit more difficult to manipulate. Their bowls for rice are also metal…Even if you only ordered one dish, they will bring you at least 2 side dishes, sometimes up to 7…and they are all different kind of kimchee or vegetables. I like the Korean cuisine, it has a lots of vegetables, for people like me who never remembers to eat vegi, by going to restaurants and eating all those side dishes will cover all the daily needs.
I like people watching, Korean people (mainly refer to girls, cuz they go out on the street more often than boys) has really good skin, at least it appears to me. Koreans believe that white skin is the best (totally opposite from Western thinking, in America, you see more tanned people). So on the street, you see many many white, even pale girls wearing make ups. Their skin care products are all targeted towards whitening skin as well. I think buying cosmetics products are worth it here, because they have their own make up brand and they are all targeted towards Asian skins. My friends told me you can’t really tell if they really do have good skin or it is covered by the make up product. But here, everyone wears make up on street, in the store they even offer Men sections for light make ups…I know what you thinking right now…but they are not homo (pardon my word of choice, ^///^). Every girl on the street wear at least 3 inches heels, what amazes me the most is that they wears them to catch the bus, shopping on the street, walk all the long on hard concrete and…you can see girls wear REALLY high heels run on the street (try to catch the train, bus, or subway)…They start practicing in High school, even though high school teacher wont allow them to do it, but they pack them into their back pack and as soon as school is out, they change them up and put on make ups…I took a sneaky picture of the high school girls on Insa Dong…my friend was laughing at me…

June 1st, National Children's day.

Today is Chinese national Children's day. Due to the earthquake...all the celebration had a little sad tone mixed in.



I am not consider as a "children" any more...so I don't really celebrate this day. But today, I would like to talk about Chinese children...the current generation. In Chinese, my generation is called "After 80's" because we were born after 1980. This generation is the first generation after the 1979 Deng xiao Ping's open door policy (for those of you who don't know...you can wikipedia it...), and also we are the first generation of "one child one family" policy. Generally speaking, older generation call us "after 80s", they think we are like flowers in the green house, we couldn't handle stressful situation, and majority of our generation are still living with parents...living off parents... Because of the one child policy, both parents in the family try to satisfy their only child every wish that she/he ever comes up with. I think my peers are better than the "after 90's"generation. How come? after 90s, the living condition got much better, and children's wish are much easier to become true. "after 80s" are just now start entering the working forces, many older people complains about us, about how difficult to work with us. I think every story has two side, I really don't think I am a typical "after 80s" generation. Thanks to the corps, I lived in a big family with over 10 brothers and sisters (my buddies). I was at the Gym last week, and the staff asked me if I used to be an athelet...I guess because my body build (bigger than the general Chinese girls), if it wasn't the corps...I probably can never run this long ...



Anyway~ I still have to talk about the earthquake, because news here are still talking about it. We saw the PLA sending troops in to rescue, major component of the PLA army are composed with "after 80s" generation. They were not afraid, they saved thousands of lives alone with other "after 80s" volunteers. the "after 90s" generation are still in school, but they all donated...little kids brought their piggy bank to the red cross, children asked their parents to donate twice or more...from this incident, people don't look down to "after 80s" and "after 90's " generations any more...one thing I had to point out though...donation should be a volunteering action, from what I heard, it is more like peer pressure now...Yao Ming donated twice because people were complaining that the first he donated to little (half million chinese RMB, over 70,000 USD). When I was hanging out with my friends, one of the questions to ask everyone is "how much did you donate?" If the companies did not donate enough, public would complain...there used to be a rumor that KFC and McDonald's did not donate a single penny, and the government official had to hold a press conference to clearify that they did donate, over a million...I personally think that donation should be a volunteer action, but peer pressure in China is unavoidable...sigh...



Sorry that I am not a good writer, my blog has bunch of random thoughts...please continue supporting me by coming visit again and e-mail me your comments to hanlinYsong@gmail.com, I was thinking about start posting more pic than articles...I am really not good at doing this...pictures speak more than words...



I am going to Korea from 6/5-6/9, then 6/10-6/25 will be in Guiyang. Check back again after 6/14...I should be able to post more pic from Korea...lots of food...and a brand new place. Stay in touch!!!



Pic:

street scene

I wrote this on May 29....but wasn't able to post on that day...so here it is~ I am leaving for Korea from 6/5-6/9, then heading back to my mom's home town -GuiYang on 6/10...so come back after 6/13, by then I should be able to upload all the pic from Korea on the website~
thanks to all my friends who sent me comments about the blog and pic~ I will keep taking more food pic...just to make you jealous :p ~

Pic: http://www.slide.com/r/CUS8X8Cl5D9GkNOdWsE_wtIomuFeWn5q?previous_view=lt_embedded_url


The weather today is the best day that I have been to since my arrival. Last night I had dinner with my elementary school friend and her family. They took me to the infamous “Ghost street”. It is a street filled with restaurant. As night gets darker, it gets busier…one of the reason why it’s called “ghost street”. We were sitting on top of the roof, thus I took a picture of the roofs, those are traditional roof, native Beijing people (beijingnese?? Pekingnese?? No…that’s dog…)used to live in one floor house like that.
I was walking on the street a lot today, to enjoy the beautiful weather! You rarely see clear sky in China due to pollutions. Because of the strong wind, the sky are cleared today. Last time I mentioned that Beijing Olympics is everywhere in the news media. You can tell from the street. Thanks to Olympics, many streets are being re-build and expanded, many high-raise towers are built, many pots of flowers have been planted to decorate the street. I remembered back in the old day childhood memories, when the govt put out tons of flowers on the street for national day celebration, citizens used to steal them and take it home to decorate their own home. Of course, people knows more now. I was glad to see the changes in average citizen’s behavior. When I came back this past Decemeber, people used to block the escalator in the subway for convinience and conversation with friends (the right side of the escalator is used for standing passenger, and the left side are usually opened up for people who are in a rush to get to some where), four months later, I am glad to see that people automatically stand on the right side of the escalator without prompting, though there are still individuals who still block the left side…only a few though. People are changing, in a lightning speed. Beijing is changing in a speed that no one else can compare to.

most important 2 things right now in the news...

I am surrounded by two major thought right now while I am in China: 1) The May 12 earthquake that happened in Sichuan province, over 65,000 casualty, over 240,000 injured, majority of them have multiple broken bones, and some with amputated limps, which means that they are handicapped forever. 2) Aug BJ Olympics. You can’t ignore these two things if you are in china, every TV channel that you turn to, and everywhere you go, news comes up. People talk about this at the dinner table (which is where all my info comes…). You can’t escape. You cannot not thinking about it (=you have to think about it…).

These two days, while I am battling my jet legs, woke up at 7:30 every morning, I turned on the TV news, there are updates about the earthquake relief work. In case you haven’t hurt, this is a magnitude of 8.0 earthquakes, worst one in 30 years. 1976, there was a 7.6 magnitude one in Tangshan (ask every Chinese, and they can tell you about it), casualty 240,000. You might think this one is not as bad, maybe it’s because the modern communication technology, or may be the news are more transparent to the public, but this one seems to be much worse. I asked older friends why is that, they said the one in 1976 happened in the middle of the night, and only affect one city, despite the fact that they have more casualties. But this year, the earthquake is affecting a whole entire province, and because the location, rescue team couldn’t get in until 24 hours later (all the roads were blocked)…now it’s the 9th day, death toll is still increasing. I feel deeply sorrow for the lost lives. I am not affected by the disaster, but since I am in China, I am surrounded by the information, tons of information and pictures every day. This is a special time in China. It probably will take the Chinese people a long time to recovery. Everyone is optimistic about it, nowadays, everyone’s greeting has changed to “Have you donated yet?” most people have donated more than once. Students, elderlies, men and women, different kind of occupations, this is the first time I have seen chinese people have been so united, and so powerful. I am happy to see Chinese from the world are working together, to accomplish one goal, one dream. I want to say, we never were so united like today. I may be a little brain washed by the news media, I may be a little bit too optmistic, but right now it’s a good time to see China. I have talked to my friend about Tibet issues, they asked how can foreign media questions about this. To them (Chinese), Tibet and Taiwan has always been part of the Chinese map. This is a very sensitive topic, there are many answers, save one for yourself. ^^

Pictures:
Earthquake (warning: some pic can be bloody, rated R, so be careful when you viewing it)
http://www.slide.com/r/0Plem63crD_gJW_FtKQIZ2XTfbBgg1ae?previous_view=lt_embedded_url
more random pictures (SWAT training, and food)
http://www.slide.com/r/EGVyPkiY0z-SGUroduJtkl2j0kHyWd4F?previous_view=lt_embedded_url

I can't really view my blog because the Chinese firewall...but I heard that there's a way to get around...I will continue explore that route...until further notice, please feel free to e-mail me (hanlinysong@gmail.com) your comments~

5/21 first day in China!

first day in BJ

Howdy!! Ya'll:

Thanks for coming to my blog! I was hoping that I can keep up this blog at least for this summer, and all my friends overseas can stay updated with my travelling (and be jealous...) and see the real China (and maybe a little bit of Korea and Japan in June and July) through my camera.

So this is the first time I fly with Air China ( the official Chinese airline) in a long time. I left on Monday night (US time) and arrived early morning on Wed (BJ time), so converted into US time, it will be Tuesday night...It is a little bit tough to fight the jet legs because I had to stay awake the whole day and hoping that I sleep well tonight, and wake up 8 o'clock in the morning without any toss and turn. The route as you can see from the picture, we flew over AK (Alaska...I hope I got the state name right), I know it is a very blurry picture...but you got the idea...I was fortunate to see the new BJ terminal, this terminal is specifically built for the 2008 Olympics...Thanks to the Olympics, there are SO MANY new infrastructures build just for the olympics...this terminal is one of them. It IS HUGE!! I mean humongous, it took me 15 minutes to walk from where my plane is to the train station...and at least 5 minutes more train ride to reach from one side of the terminal to the other...the new terminal is magnificent, they used the typical gold to cover the ceiling. Gold in the ancient time was only used in the emperor's temple/palace, if you look at the forbidden city, they don't use "gold" metal, but a color that is very yellow...

Since my plane arrived 30 min early, and no-one is awake in the airport 5am (unless they have to work...) It was a very smooth walk from the custom to the exit gate...but my ride wasn't there!!! He was not going to be here until 6:30a~ and I dont have any phone!!! a little freaked out there, but I found some young men at other gates (they are probably staff at the airport), and they were kind enough to let me borrow their cell phone to call. If you are interested at investing foreign fund, ChinaMobile can be a good one...everyone including trash picker (and most likely beggers) and their family have at least one cellphone on hand.

I am still expereincing the new blog and the way they upload pictures...so bear with me...I will try to update this every other day~ there are just too many stories to tell and too many pictures to show~ So stay in tone and come back couple times a week! I hope to see your smily comments in my guest book! Come back soon!

Aggie Muster

It is quite a memoriable thing...I specifically chose this as my first blog post on my English website because I hold it so dear to my heart. Original plan was to start writing the blog for my friends to stay up dated when I am in China this summer. But I just want to leave a mark for Muster.

Everyone knows about the greatest aggie tradition-Aggie Muster. On April 21st every year, Aggies gather together, wherever they are, to comemorade the aggies who had passed away in the previous year. During the ceremony, their name will be called, and fellow aggies will answer "here" as they will always be with us. Many people said that Aggie Muster is their favorite aggie tradition, I wonder why...for the past 4 years, I have been to every Muster because that was part of the Corps activities...This year, on my own, I couldn't attend it because I was trying to set up the center pieces for my organization event at my friend's house. But we both are die hard aggies, and we both felt guilty not going...so we watched it on local TV.

The purpose of Aggie Muster is 1) to remember fallen aggies, and 2) gather with your fellow aggies. So we had 2 aggies gather together on the evening of April 21, 2008 at a neighborhood in Bryan...goals accomplished. :p

But what really gave me a emotional chill was the Aggie Display during the day. Love ones put up pictures, videos, and articles about the Aggie. Walking through the hall way was tough for me. What I realized is that even though they are not physically with us, but their smile and image and spirit are! Some displays have SO many pictures, that looking at those even makes my eyes teary. Reading stories about them reminded me that what a wonderful person they were. Pictures are important, that's one of the many ways that you can do for your loved ones if something happened to you. K-nut doesnt have too much pictures with me, that's why I am setting up an appoitment with vet school just to take some studio pic so I can carry it with me when I travel back in China, and of course my parents'...if they smile on the pic :P