My Dreams have been realized!

On the weekend of March 13-15 I went to Chengdu, the capital of the Sichuan province with Jenny and Daniel. It was like Italy all over again! If you don't know, Sichuan is where the Panda Research Base is, as well as the home of 麻辣, a special spice they use in Sichuanese food. I was so excited a bout seeing the pandas, REAL LIVE PANDAS, in a semi-natural environment, not behind a glass wall.

When we first got to Chengdu we went to the main temple there and walked around a bit, it was definitely made into a tourist destination because the walking areas looked so new. Even some of the buildings looked fake authentic. Inside the temple grounds it was so peaceful and beautiful, and blocked all sounds of construction and traffic jams outside. Eventually we got hungry, but it was too early to eat dinner, so we checked out a restaurant that looked pretty busy and had the spice in the dishes. I ordered some spicy wontons, and I was so surprised once I started eating! Basically..I kept eating, and I didn't think it was traditional spicy kind of taste. I slowly began to realize that I couldn't quite feel my tongue anymore, and the spice had a pine taste to it..it also made everything taste much saltier. I believe the english translation is Szechuan food, but this was nothing like that, and unlike anything I've ever tasted before. Maybe not my fondest eating adventure, but I enjoyed it and if was cool to try something new. Afterwards we sat in a teahouse for awhile to get hungry again so we could go to Chen's Mapo Tofu for dinner. I LOVE mapo tofu, and this place is the number one restaurant to go to in Chengdu. Needless to say, I was pretty excited. We ordered two bowls which turned out to be too much, along with some other small dishes. In contrast to my expectation of Sichuan spicy food from before, the Mapo Tofu tasted more like what I expected. The spiciness was kicked up a notch, and it was cooked with more oil than my mom uses. But I still loved it! And it was super cheap. The three of payed about 2USD each for our fulfilling dinner!

The next day we woke up early to get to the Panda Research Base around 9-10, so we could catch them at feeding time. We had one hour since we got a deal with the taxi driver to drive us from the research base back to the city. I was running around everywhere like a crazy woman so I could see all of the pandas! I loved seeing the pandas munching on bamboo..looking all lazy. Wow..that's the life. What was even better is that they had great jungle gym type structures and I swear the red pandas could have jumped out at us. There were even peacocks, and we saw one on the sidewalk. I'm pretty sure it had escaped somehow, haha. Before I knew it, my panda adventure was over, but I took plenty of pictures.

Another highlight of the trip? THE BUFFET BREAKFAST! Just in case you didn't notice, I love traveling and eating the local food, etc. But the buffet breakfast had everything and I took full advantage of it. They offered everything from dumplings to waffles to tons of fresh fruit. Mmmm...

Shenzhen

Wow! Two posts in such close proximity?! It's amazing!

Well, I went to Shenzhen last Thursday for the primary reason of conducting some field research about Wal-Mart and Carrefour for my marketing case. Maibritt was pretty excited since it was going to be her first visit to a Wal-Mart ever!! We left pretty early, met at the train station at 7:45 am, which meant a 25 min. walk from my place to the station..oi. I also realized I forgot my passport halfway there, so I ran back, then walked up the giant hill and ran back down. I thought I was going to trip over my feet the whole way down..but I made it safely! It took us only half an hour by train to get to the border, meaning I'm closer to China than to the central area of Hong Kong. Wow. We crossed the border, and the immigration man didn't think it was me, so he had someone else come look at my passport. At least he's careful? I gave him a death glare though, there was no way I was getting detained at immigration.

We made it through and took a taxi to Queen's Spa to prepare ourselves for the 'rigorous' research we'd have to conduct later. Going into the spa was like walking into a different world. Everyone's walking around in a standard issued set of PJ's. There's also reclining seats with TV's where you can sleep! That's where you can order different services, such as foot massages. All of us went for the 90 minute Chinese massage. I'm fine with a 30 min. but 90 min. was all they had. My body felt like jello afterwards since I was so relaxed! Afterwards we indulged in the free fruit and juice bar! I got tons of lychee! And some weird tasting Taro Ice Cream. We took some time to rest in the sleeping seats. Maibritt and I went upstairs to get our eyebrows done while Svenja and Simone got foot massages! We ended up having lunch/dim sum there too. It was strange sitting in PJ's while eating lunch in the dining area since it was decorated nicely.

We finally left and took a taxi to Carrefour, a French-based hypermarket. Svenja took tons of pics for our presentation! Their live market was more extensive than Wal-Mart's. You could catch your own live fish, prawns, turtles, etc. I saw a woman with a fish still jumping around in the net, she handed it to the man at the scale/register and he proceeded to whack it on the floor, which proved to be an effective way to make the fish stop jumping around. Wow.

Wal-Mart was Wal-Mart, just tailored to the Chinese consumer. We bought some wontons, Chinese pancakes, etc. for dinner and sat outside. How lovely. Check out my pics!

Maibritt and I stayed behind in the Lo Wu Comercial Center. There were so many stalls and people yelling at us to come look at bags, wallets, etc. all fakes. I'm glad I'm Chinese so they don't bother me as much, but at every shop they would say to Maibritt, "Hey lady, wanna look at bag or wallet?", "Hey nice lady! come look!", etc. It's like the papparazzi. Really.

And that's my trip to Shenzhen!

Macau

I guess I'm going to aim for monthly reports! February has flown by, I really don't know where the time has gone...my last exam is April 22nd, so I'm already halfway through! Really? I would say February has been pretty intense with activity. I went to Macau for Valentine's weekend with Jenny, Sabrina, and Maibritt. It's only an hour ferry ride away. We stayed at the Venetian, which I heard has the most square footage of any building in the world? Or something like that. And to explain, Macau is basically the Las Vegas of the east. There are tons of new hotels being constructed, but they already have tons of casinos, such as the Wynn, Sofitel 16, Grand Lisboa, etc. The Venetian is a little further out, but you could spend days in there shopping! Haha. Right when we got to the hotel we were able to check in, and then we took a taxi to St. Paul's Cathedral Ruins. Macau used to be a Portuguese colony, so it was really cool to see European style buildings and streets in an Asian city. It was a nice area with a fortress, tons of almond cookie shops, and Portuguese egg tarts, so we had a sweet lunch there. You could really tell it was all tourists though, so we left around 3pm to head back to the hotel. We got ready for dinner and the Cirque du Soleil show, Zaia.

We took a taxi to a village to have dinner. Everyone stared at us since we were so overdressed and the restaurants there definitely weren't high class, but I was excited about tasting some Asian food with a Portuguese flair! The restaurant we wanted to go to didn't open until 6, and we were half an hour early so we walked around...not much to see, went back to hte restaurant and hovered outside waiting for it to open. A woman was standing inside...not doing anything, so I tried to get her attention, but it didn't work. About 5 minutes til 6, a guy goes in, and it turns out they were fully booked for the night, so we waited for nothing :( Needless to say, we were bitter towards the woman that basically watched us for half an hour. So we went to another restaurant the concierge had suggested called Dumbo. And it actually had a picture of dumbo the flying elephant outside so I was pretty skeptical. But we go upstairs and it turns out to be a nice place with a number of customers already. We ordered the local specialties, such as African Chicken and Fried Fishballs (balls made out of fish..just to clarify). Then we went to another place and got the Sawdust cake, it was really fluffy and whipped with yummy crushed biscuit, making the sawdust part of the cake. Went back to the hotel and watched Zaia. It was amaaaaazing, as to be expected from a Cirque du Soleil show. Before the show I noticed a guy was walking up the aisle and I did a double-take since I realized he was NOT wearing normal clothes. Turns out it was one of the performers from the show and he gave us roses! Ahhhh Romeo!

After the show we went to the casino, I only played slots and lost all my money since I had no idea what I was doing and the instructions were in Chinese. Instead, I lived vicariously through Jenny who played War, and another game called Sic...something. It was really cool walking around the casino, but there were a lot of tourists there, so there weren't many high stakes games going on.

The next morning we had a delicious breakfast buffet at the hotel. There was so much good fruit, scrambled eggs, chicken sausage..mmmmm. I've been missing a hearty breakfast, so I was pretty excited when I saw the HUGE buffet line. Afterwards we spent the whole morning shopping around the Venetian Canal Shoppes, and left around 1pm. We all had work to do :( But it was a lovely Valentine's weekend!

Coming up next, my trip to Shenzhen and the island of Tap Mun!

Lunar New Year

Happy Lunar New Year to everyone!

I've had a week off for the holiday, which has been so relaxing. Thankfully I was able to contact a travel agent and get a great deal for my friends and I to go to Taiwan for 4 days. We got to stay in a 5-star hotel right by the Main station and round trip air tickets for less than what you'd pay just for the airline tickets! I went with Jenny, Simone, Maibritt, Linea, Svenja, and Sabrina.

We arrived on Tuesday and went to the Shilin Night Market where we had a successful shopping and eating adventure! I had stinky tofu, taro milk tea, and a cream bun. Mmmm, I was so excited that everyone really enjoyed the night market. It can be really overwhelming because of all the people and items for sale. The next day we went to Ding Tai Fung, the famous dumpling house for brunch. We ordered the must-eat dish, Xiao Long Bao. Basically small pork dumplings witha little soup in them. Everyone loved the food and from there we walked to Taipei 101, formerly the tallest building in the world. It took awhile to walk there, but it was so warm and sunny! Perfect weather! Definitely not what I was expecting, so I was wearing Uggs and a sweater. I even had to pull out my UV umbrella to help cool down. The weather really agreed with us while we were there. Went to the top of 101 and got some ice cream while enjoying the view of Taipei. From there we attempted to go to the Maokong Tea Plantation, but the gondola to the plantation was closed for the New Year. But at least I got to see where the pandas are! It was pandamania down there. I will have to save time to go see the pandas when I go back to Taiwan in May.

That night we kind of split up and I showed Linea, Jenny, and Maibritt around the mall under the Main station. We got some snacks, and went back to the hotel to rest a little. For dinner Sabrina, Maibritt, Linea, and I attempted to find another night market, but never did, so we went back to the main station for dinner and shared some huge steamed buns. The guy at the restaurant remembered us from earlier and had a lot of fun talking to us trying to guess where the girls were from.

The next day we had some traditional Taiwanese breakfast called Fantuan. It has shredded pork, a fried dough stick and maybe something else all wrapped up in rice. Then we headed over to the National Palace Museum. Spent a few hours there and we split up. Most of the girls went to Beitou for a hot spring, while Maibritt and I went to the Confucius Temple and explored the markets around there. I later found out that the hot spring they went to was nude, oops! But they still enjoyed it. That night we went to the younger area of Taipei called Ximending. There's always a lot going on, but there were so many people a few of us left early since we were going the next day anyway.

Our last day in Taipei was really relaxed. I took some sticky pics with Maibritt and we wandered around Ximending, the train station and the area around our hotel.

This experience in Taipei has really given me a better understanding of where everything is. Usually my mom takes me everywhere and I don't really think about it. But now I feel a lot more confident travelling around in Mandarin-speaking countries. I can already tell my Mandarin is improving! Jenny felt the same way too. It's different being there with family where we just go out and eat, shop, etc. This time I got to see some different areas of Taipei and fend for myself. We were so nervous the girls wouldn't enjoy Taipei, but I can tell they all enjoyed the hotel and all the things we introduced them to.

FYI

For letters:
Jamie Yang
Flat 807B, PGH4
CUHK
Shatin, New Territories
Hong Kong SAR

For packages and bulkier items:
Jamie Yang
c/o International Asian Studies Programme
Office of Academic Links
Lady Ho Tung Hall
The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Shatin N.T. Hong Kong SAR

I suck

I apologize for my lack of attention to this blog! I was counting on being better at updating it, but lately I've just been so busy trying to settle in in my new school. This semester is already panning out to be fairly busy, but I'm glad I'll have some more variety here. My classes only meet once a week, so I only have class Monday-Wednesday. And to fill in the rest of my time, I've signed up to teach English at a rural primary school in HK on Thursdays! I'm also planning several trips already...like Taiwan for Chinese New Year!! Jenny and I are going to show our friends around since we talk so much about Taiwan and how much we love it.

Basically, I arrived here on the 30th with my mom and sister, and we spent a fun week exploring the island and mainland, and eating LOTS of awesome dim sum!! It was so nice to have them there to help me move in. My room already feels much more homey than my room in Denmark. Though there are ups and downs for each place, but I'm not complaining! I actually have a prime location in my flat with 8 masters/PhD students. I am not on the hallway of rooms, instead my room is in a corner of the flat with a half bath, so I consider it a super suite! Seven of my roomies are from the mainland, and one is an older PhD student from Taiwan. She's helped me out so much, and I feel lucky to have so much help here!

I've mostly been busy with getting everything I need here, books, etc. And catching up on homework, there's not too much yet, but I am definitely behind. I don't know where the time goes!!! On that note, I'm going to get working on cover letters due this week...

Sorry again for the randomness!

Anyway, the three girls spent

One Semester Down...

Well, I've completed one semester abroad. This may be cliche, but I've definitely learned a lot this semester about myself, about others and become much more independent. I've learned how to cook...well, my version of cooking. I mean, I've survived. It's impossible to even name all of the experiences I've had since I've come here. At first, I felt sad being away from my friends, but then I grew to love Copenhagen! It's funny to think I've never considered studying abroad here before the GLOBE program, but I think it's a great city, but maybe not the best schooling..

Some of the discussions I've had lately with Jenny are about what we will take away from this semester. One thing we agree on: we are not taking away CBS. I definitely learned a lot about business and management here, but the actual system is nowhere near where it should be. Also, the exams are unbelievably subjective. There was a huge grade discrepancy in my oral exam for Organizational Behavior since we had two different examinators, though there is a censor there, so maybe the grades will even out. Either way, I'm fine with the grades I've gotten so far! Though, I have to wait a month and a half before one more is posted for my written exam.

I know this has been short, but I need to finish packing. I'll be on a plane in about 9 hours!