Currently 25 degrees Fahrenheit in Beijing

But this past weekend, I was in NEGATIVE 15 degrees Fahrenheit weather. That's right people, wayyy below freezing temperature.

I spent the past two days visiting Harbin, which is a city in the way northeast part of China (in Heilongjiang Province). Every winter, they have the famous snow and ice sculpture festival (and China is one in only 4 countries in the world that has the biggest snow and ice sculpture festivals).

I wore ski pants over jeans and long underwear and I wore 5 layers of jackets under a down coat the entire weekend! And I felt fine (not too hot, and not freezing). The city was wonderful. We visited a park with giant sculptures made entirely out of snow. And at night we visited this area with buildings made entirely out of ice. We could climb up the structures and slide down. It was so slippery (duh, it's ice) and the pieces of ice are each made with a hole in them so that fluorescent lights inside can shine out brightly colored lights. And uh, the ice doesn't melt cuz it's so freaking cold all the time.

AND I went to a bar made out of ice! ICE BAR! And we went to a Siberian Tiger park, and I saw a real live LIGER!

Below is a video I took at the snow sculpture festival where some people are working on building some snow sculptures. They're literally breaking the snow away in blocks, leaving behind gorgeous shapes in snow. It's amazing.



This is another video I took while at the Snow Sculpture Festival. You can't tell in the youtube video (since the quality is so poor), but my cheeks are bright red from cold windburn (since it was the only part of my body not covered in 5 layers of clothing).




This last video was taken at the Siberian Tiger Park. Here they breed Siberian tigers since they're an endangered species. They have about 300 in the park, and they claim that they're preparing them to be released in the wild, but I don't believe them. It's pretty much a tourist spot, and you get taken around the park in vans, and people can pay money to buy birds or cows to feed the tigers. Here is a video of the tigers preying on some birds.





Pictures on facebook!

Whose sister is so thoughtful it hurts?

That, would be my sister. Check out the spread below of the awesome goodies my sister sent me in a care package, only the best thing I've received in the mail, ever.


FOOD! She sent me food! I know this is going to sound ridiculous, but I was actually really really craving that microwave cake thing. If you didn't know, I have a majorly soft spot for super disgusting processed junked food; I'm kinda obsessed. So tonight for dinner, I had mac and cheese, canned tuna salad, and hot chocolate. Mmmmmm. I'm going to save the cake for a special occasion.

My sister is way thoughtful. I mean who would read an email from me saying, "It's so cold here and my skin is so dry that my hands are actually starting to crack and bleed," and think, "Send that woman some hand cream!" And who would webcam with me, see a disgusting cold sore on my upper lip, ask, "Ew, what's that on your lip?" and then send me some ScarZone! to reduce scarring on my lip. And who would send a portrait of themselves, in fact the same portrait that covers our entire refrigerator back at home? Yep. Only my sister. :)

Oh yeah,. I forgot to include this in the photo, but I also got different kinds of Chinese medicine with post-its on each one. Each of the post-its had things like, "Mom says buy this for colds," "Mom says buy this for sore throats." That's right, my mother sent me Chinese medicine from the States, to me in China so that I can show the packaging to someone in a store to buy it for me.

Are we noticing a pattern here? Yes, my family thinks I get sick a lot. And it's true.

They also love me a lot, which makes me happy. And makes me miss them a lot.

beijing is a little bizarre at times.

Today was xmas eve in Beijing. Another teacher, Brandy, and I went to an Italian restaurant named Annie's Italian Experience. I had awesome penne with creamy white sauce, a Caesar salad, bread dipped in oil, vinegar and pesto, a glass of white wine, and one of the best tiramisu's I've had in my entire life. All for about 10 US dollars. It was really really awesome. And the plate of pasta was so huge that I have leftovers that I am going to eat for breakfast tomorrow, woohoo!

After dinner, Brandy and I went to this bar called the People's Bus Bar, which was pretty much a trailer in a parking lot converted to a bar. They had 10 kuai (= $1.35 USD) giant mugs of draft beer and the dj was spinning an awesome mix of reggaeton and hip-hop, my fave.

So in case you didn't know, there is no legal drinking age in China. That means, little kids as young as five (or 1 even) can buy beer (and presumably drink it), though most shopkeepers simply assume that a five year old is buying beer for parents, and not guzzling the stuff themselves. Anyhow, I mention that because at the bar that we were in, there was a 3 year old tottering around. YES! At 11pm, someone brought a 3 year old in a BAR! I'm pretty sure her parents were wasted, and the little 3 year old was running around the dance floor hugging people. The kid was sooo cute, I wanted to dance with her.

So, I checked the weather for Beijing today on weather.com and the weather condition for today in Beijing is... SMOKE. No joke. I mean, I've seen Partly Cloudy, Sunny, Windy, Showers, etc. but never ever in my entire life have I seen SMOKE as a weather condition. Seriously? That's ridiculous. I had to copy and paste it just to prove to everyone it's true. And yep, it's cold in Beijing (though that's the temperature for the middle of the night and the wee early morning; usually we're in the 30s or 40s during the day.).






Also, on the way to dinner tonight I saw a car on the highway that was smoking and on fire! It was absolutely crazy.

Other random events of the day/night: I found a Coldstone ice cream place in Beijing! I wandered around a fancy schmance hotel (China World Hotel). And I went to a swing dance club earlier tonight!

i'm feeling good.

I'm feeling great. No more homesickness. No more annoyance (okay, well, less annoyance). No more depression. Still confused, but that's expected. I've been keeping in touch with my family a lot recently, which is making me happy. I'm excited about being able to go home for my sister's wedding (I'll be in L.A. and in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico during Memorial Day weekend). I'm not sick anymore! (well technically I still have a dry cough, but it's not as bad as being sick and having a cold sore). I just cleaned my room, so now I have a nice serene environment to be in. And I've found a friend here that I really like hanging out with. So things in the life of Wendy are going well.

I was also put in charge of (against my will of course) planning a holiday concert at my school, where all the students performed Christmas songs. I didn't volunteer to do the planning, but since the Director of Teaching Affairs was leaving early (and he was supposed to plan it), he cornered me and asked me to take over since he knows I'm ridiculously organized. Even though it was more work (that I didn't get any extra pay for), part of me really missed planning events. I didn't get stressed out from it, and everything went smoothly. And I got sooo much affirmation from the other teachers, during the process and afterwards, it was great. I was shocked actually at how good these people were at affirming, but it is nice to be appreciated so much.

And earlier this week, we had a staff holiday dinner at an all-you-can-eat (and drink!) Japanese restaurant. I stuffed my face with so much raw fish, it was awesome. And I got ridiculously drunk from drinking mugs and mugs of beer, plus I had to chug with one of my bosses. Kinda awkward, but oh so fun.

Gymnastics at the new Olympic stadium

For those of you who miss the sound of my voice, you can watch this little video clip and listen to me narrate. :)

my first snow fall in beijing!

everybody!! it snowed in beijing today!!!! seeing as how i'm slowly dying from a cold that is never going away, of course my body got even more frightened, but it was absolutely beautiful this morning. a nice light blanket of white snow covering everything. and it was so peaceful running to class this morning with little snowflakes falling on my face.

this would be an absolutely perfect post if i could post a picture of the white powdery snow, but i didn't bring my camera with me today. and by the time i got back to my place, it was dark, and dreary and gray, and most of the snow got dirty and icy.

the temperature here is in the 30s, straddling "technically freezing" and "feels like freezing." either way, it's really freaking cold, and i would give up the snow to have warm, sunny weather any second now.

i'm seriously worried.

i'm sick again. for those of you who talk to me regularly, you know that i just got over being sick about a week ago. and i'm sick again. so in the past 4 weeks, i've spent 3 of those 4 weeks being sick. this is not okay. something is not right. the awful part is that, it's just a cold. day after day after day, it's just a sore throat, sniffliness, congestion, slight cough. never a fever. never vomiting. never anything to get serious about, until the symptoms last for weeks!

for anyone who reads the New York Times, you'll know that they have, essentially, a China bashing series (remember that this is coming from Chinese nationalist Wendy). and the latest one is about truck pollution and their use of cheap, low grade diesel fuel. now normally, I read the series and I wholly acknowledge the problem the article addresses as a serious one for China, but I have usually have an immediate nationalist reaction of "Oh yeah?! Well, well, the United States has got a shit-ton of its own damn problems so shut up!" but this time, i was more than a hundred percent on board with the author.

and in the past few days, i have been thinking that it's got to be a combination of the dry, cold weather, my overall lack of healthy exercising behavior, and the freaking pollution that is killing me here. now i completely recognize that my not exercising regularly and irregular sleeping pattern is unhealthy and harmful, but those behaviors have, unfortunately, been my bad habits for the past 4 years. what has been different is that it's really freaking cold here, the air quality is absolutely in the shitter, and i strain my voice constantly.

the pollution is 100 times worse than L.A. and i've lived in L.A. my entire life, so that's saying a fucking lot. okay, so in L.A. we have the haze, and we have the layer of brown that lingers right above buildings, which eventually fades into blue skies. but hey, at least in l.a. it eventually fades out. in beijing, there are days, when literally, the entire sky is gray, and it's from the pollution. not to mention the fact that regulations regarding emissions are not even remotely close to being as strict as they are in the states, and that cigarette smoking is allowed everywhere (and the cigarettes are a lot worse for your health here too). so yes, i am worried for my health.

I hope that when the weather gets warmer, I won't get sick as much. But seriously I'm worried. What if I never get better and I have to go home early? That's going to suck.

Yet another reason, I don't want to teach as a career: You can't ditch your own classes when you feel sick or tired. I am exposed to coughing, sniffling students all day (about 60 different ones), and then when I'm sick I have to continue talking and I don't get time to heal. And on top of that, I'm cranky and the students don't respond well to a cranky, sick teacher.

oh yeah, and i get cold sores here, since i get them when my immune system is down. and since i'm sick all the time, that means yep, cold sores all the time. real attractive, teacher.

sorry, i didn't mean for that to sound all pissy. But I'm sick, and I don't like it.