Karaoke! (卡啦OK, or KTV)

(lobby, we went in the daytime if we had come later there would have been more people)
(I cajoled a staff member into taking this photo of us, for some reason he acted like he didn't have time)

[read the post below before reading this one!]

At one point we decided that we were through with shopping and wanted to move on to another amusing thing. This next "amusement" was Karaoke (sometimes known as KTV)! Everyone was dazzled by the front lobby! The pillars in the lobby were decked out in neon lights that change colors every few seconds. Right when you step out of the elevator (the establishment is on the 6th floor I believe) you are greeted by a loud 欢迎光临 (We welcome your patronage!). Quickly the staff asks how many people are in your party and how long you plan on renting a room.

Our group agreed on one hour to a grand total of fifty-five yuan ( about eight dollars and eight cents). All of us were then whisked off to a private room with a sofa, televison, and small screen for choosing songs and ordering snacks. The snacks are over priced so we hide our own in backpacks, under sweatshirts, and enclosed in handbags.

This was my third time to a KTV place! I finally mustered up the courage to sing! I am getting to the point where I can follow along with Chinese songs (you have to read the characters and sometimes this can be challenging if the tempo is speedy). I confess I sang English songs! Avril Lavigne is a superstar here, naturally a few of us sang one of hers.

Underground Shopping Center (地下购物中心)

(entrance)
(one of the booths situated on a corner in the labrynth-like market)
(a view down one of the main alleys of booths)

Today most of the foreign exchange students met in the most expensive/entertaining part of Chongqing, 解放碑 (Jiefangbei, ji-eh-fahng-bay). In total there were 3 Germans, 1 American, 1 Italian, and 1 Thai. We had quite a lot of fun! First was lunch at a western food restaurant (I had Chicken fingers, but I can't really be sure what kind of meat it was actually). Then later we found ourselves shopping in an underground bargain market!

Here is a list of things that one can buy in this market:

1. umbrellas

2.knock-off designer handbags

3.mani-pedi

4.hairweaves (no joke, I almost died when I saw this)

5. cheap but nice women's casual clothing

6.hello kitty-esque stuffed animals

7. t-shirts/sweatshirts with interesting tastes in the English language

Inside it is not unlike a labrynth! So many little shops, so little time!

Everything is sold from a little booth that the shopkeeper has set up. Usually these shopkeepers can be seen in or outside their boothes either eating, haggling prices, or text messaging. What is nice about these little informal establishments is that one can bargain. To some people this is most of the entertainment. I myself have never seen bargaining or done it before and it was exciting and fun!

Also this place sold mostly women's things so men were seldom seen inside. There was the occasional husband/boyfriend holding the bags for a woman. These men didn't speak much unless it was to help haggle. But even then the women didn't really listen.

Fellow Students Off To Mandatory Military Training!

Students listening to the headteacher tell them the reasons for going to this camp (supposedly for building character, and developing team building skills...but that is debatable)
I like this picture because you can get a glimpse of the student's faces and what they have brought with them. very few items are permitted.
Military officials discussing travel arrangements
Students being informed, my camera is spotted by a soldier

(Head teacher gives a rousing speech, that doesn't rouse students much)

This past week my fellow 高一(gao-ee, first year of high school in China) peers have been participating in a grueling mandatory military training camp. All foreign students at my school opted out. The food is supposed to be horrible, and for a whole week you are not permitted to shower (nor are the facilities provided). Toilets might also be a bit of a dive too then.

I saw pictures of last year's camp and the students didn't look so cheery...In fact they looked miserable. Their uniforms are not military-esque at all! Actually they are rather kitschy. Like boy scouts except more flamboyant iwth bright colors for everyone! Blues and chartreuses for boys, pink and white for girls. Everyone has matching visors/baseball caps. All the kneckerchiefs are red.

I am told the students learn basic survival techniques, like purifying water and how to start a fire as well as miltary excercises and tests. One fo the tests is standing in the sun for 30 minutes straight without moving. That was one of the reasons why I didn't want to go!

Little Neighborhood

Little neighborhood that is around my apartemnt building. It bustles from about 6:30am 'til 10:00pm with haircutters, massage parlors (not the prostitute kind...which they do have but elsewhere), noodle shops, a bra store, and a little gifty nook.

Incorrect/Silly English Signage throughout Guilin

Most Chinese signs that have English are pretty accurate....however some signs are just downright incorrect, or others you just look at and think "Okay....and?"

"hope forever days eternal enjoy you fun manners!"

Last Days in Guilin 桂林 (gway-leen)

Pagodas on the boat cruise in the urban part of Guilin
Old style architecture at the end of the boat cruise in the urban part of Guilin
Countryside of Guilin
Cave
(above: bamboo raft trip to get to the waterfall)


3rd Day

Thank God! On this day I was able to sleep in! The night befor ewe didn't return to our hotel room until about 12am. So everyone woke up around 10:30am and we started to drive to lunch at about 11:30am.

For lunch we had "Sour fish" which is a Chongqing style dish. Sour fish is prepared in a big pot on top of a stove cooker right at your table. Two fish are dropped into a soup of seasoning and vegetables, cooked, then picked apart and eaten. You spit the bones out onto your plat or the table. I found this very difficult because it requires eating the fish in the front part of your mouth and being able to spit out just the bones on to the plate. The Chinese have been doing it all their lives and are very good at this. After a while I got used to it, and began enjoying my food.

Soon after lunch we departed for another boat cruise in the city part of Guilin. At the end of the cruise was an old building complext that was built in the style of traditional Chinese architecture.
I want to see more buildings like these!

Next was a golfcart tour of Guilin's zoo/park. It is called 七星公园 (Seven Star Park). I was surprised to see that in this zoo the animals are given a lot of freedom, and boundaries are flimsy or just not there. However the park didn't have anything really dangerous like lions, tigers, or bears (oh my!).

4th and Last Day

My flight back to Chongqing with my host Grandpa wasn't until 10pm. So my host father had the two of us join a tour group to kill time until then. The rest of my family started driving back to Chongqing sometime after my host father dropped us off at the tour group's starting point.

This tour I enjoyed because we drove through the countryside of China the whole time! Fields and little villages passed by our window the whole way. I was entertained.

On the tour we were taken to a massive cave somewhere in the mountains of Guilin. But it was poorly preserved and people touched the cave way too much, so you could tell that the cave was dead. Anyone who knows about the preservation of caves would know what I am talking about. (When I went to Karchner Caverns they lectured us on this).

The cave was lit up with fancy rainbow lights and even had a train going through it so you didn't have to walk too much within the cavern.

Going to see a waterfall was the final item on our list, and to get there you we taken by bamboo raft. I was given the option to climb the waterfall but I wasn't wearing the right clothes and my host grandfather wanted me to stay with him. This tourspot advocated environmentalist to the fullest. There was a graveyard with all the extinct animals from China, a doorway with a mirror on the other side (above the mirror it said the reason for destruction of the environment), and signs explaining how to recycle and why you should.

On the tourbus the lady sitting next to me recommended a remedy for my skin disease. Skin disease!? Yes, freckles are considered an illness here! And this lady was no country bumpkin she was a TV actress from Beijing who also worked parttime as a pharmacist's assistant. This actually wasn't the first time I had heard this either.

She told me I was eating too much meat and not enough vegetables. Oh I should also drink more tea. But I showed her the half of my arm that is all white because it doesn't face the sun. "See? There are only a few freckles here. It's not that I am eating bad food, it's the sun! See white, tan, white, tan!" Her response was this "No that's not true....it's just that the skin on the bottom of your arm is more healthy." After that I told her that almost everyone in my immediate famliy has freckles and that it was genetic...to which she said "Such an unhealthy family, you must tell them what I have told you." She recommended some medicines and creams I should take for this "ailment."

5 hours later I was on my plane back to Chongqing.

I had a chatty 12 year old boy in the seat next to me and he told me about cartoons, Chinese music, his favorite American superstars, and his English class. His parents were so happy that he was sitting next to a foreigner...as a sign of friendliness they called me "big brother."

Spirited Away

on the disneyland-ish tour (psoing like the famous Ultra-Man, who is very popular in China and Japan...my brother loves him!)
Bamboo raft cruise scenery
(the motorboat cruise, this cliff has been painted by many famous caligraphers...I forget the name)
(The small kitchen in which lunch was prepared. Many of the adults in this picture were in the group of families traveling with us)

I have safely returned from Guilin (gway-leen) probably one of the prettiest and most mysterious places I have ever been to.

1st Day


I flew to Guilin with my Chinese grandfather and the people at the gate gave me a first class ticket even though I didn't book one! Free! They probably just thought that the foreigner definitely booked a first class ticket. But the flight was only one hour so it wouldn't have been worth it to buy a first class ticket in the first place.


When we got to Guilin my Chinese father picked us up at the airport and drove us directly to a restaurant to eat. The restaurant on the outside looked like an empty, unsanitary dump...but on the inside it was clean and the food smelled good. Everyone in the group of five cars that accompanied my family to Guilin was there. Four families, each with three generations (meaning one set of grandparents, parents, and one child came). I was warmly welcomed by the adults but stared and sniggered at by all the kids except my brother! I expected this much, I thought it was funny myself.


We drove far far away to our hotel. Deep in the countryside! I didn't get a very good look at it the next morning because we woke up very early.


2nd Day


The next day we went to a disneyland-ish place. A river cruise with the native minority people doing a dance as the boat passed. Men danced in the front while the women, beguiled in "traditional" grass skirts, played with their cell phones.


The mountains were amazing though!


After that we were off for another boat cruise! This time no sideshows on the banks of the river. Just the mountains. The boats were made of bamboo shafts tied together with metal wire, and were steered by a very tan man with a long bamboo pole. Chinese people seem to look down on people with darker skin. To Chinese people dark skin means you work in the fields/do hard labor and don't have an education. My mother would say very often as we walked through the street "Oh so black, so black...." if a native Guangxi (the province of Gulin) would pass by. The reason the Chinese say black is because they have no word for "tan" or "bronzed".

During lunch we went to this little backwoods kitchen and sat on the river bank under cabannas to eat. The kitchen was so understaffed that many of the adults from our group went to make the food themselves. It was very peaceful eating by the river.

Next was a motor boat cruise on the Li River. The most famous part of the river in Guilin. It was very pretty and had many photo ops.

I was constantly transfixed by the scenery around me and was often at a loss for words.

During the trip I was a bit disappointed to notice that we never really went to "off the beaten path" places. Our group of families followed a map with the "most famous" touring sites. So we never went to any temples hidden away in the mountains or any of the caves with famous carvings of Buddha (all of which Guilin has).

Our next and final stop before the hotel was to watch a show put on by the minority population that lives in Guilin. The show is performed at night on long river boats. During the show the people ar elit up and look like they are floating on the water. The board-like boats are invisible. Except our family didn't want to pay to watch. So we found a spot on the opposite bank of the river and saw the show. It wasn't bad at all, very pretty! The people's costumes (I couldn't see them clearly enough to describe them to you) would change colors in unison while they performed certain slow waving dance moves with their entire bodies. Each group of people moved as one body on the water! It was quite a sight! Behind them there were colored search lights lighting up the mountain peaks.

Our sitting area was situated in a bamboo grove near the banks of the river.

I will write more about the other days in the next post! Now my brother must select some pictures of this vacation to put in his composition for school!