Tourchestra 2012: Beijing

Why hello there! Now that I've finally finished blogging about my Semester in Spain, I figured it'd make sense to tell you all (translation for Esther: y'all) about the Westmont Orchestra's tour to China (more conveniently and efficiently, "tourchestra").

Every year, both the orchestra and the college choir at Westmont go on their own tours, typically during some long weekend or school vacation during the semester. Every third year, however, these tours are shifted to the summer, and the itinerary calls for an international destination (for instance, the college choir went to England and Scotland [but not Finland or Newfoundland] at the beginning of last summer). This summer it was the orchestra's turn to travel abroad, and the destination was China (specifically Beijing, Suzhou, and Shanghai). This particular post pertains to our time in Beijing. As we spent the greatest amount of time in Beijing, and as I'm trying to blog about this trip in only three posts, this first post is going to be kind of on the long side. But if you get sick of reading, just scan the pictures. If you get sick of the pictures, go take a nap. If you get sick of napping, I have no solution for you.



The reunion with all of my Westmont friends was nothing short of joyous. After a semester of being away from the Westmont community, being jammed into airplanes, buses, boats, and trains together was the perfect "welcome home" (well, sort of home) gift. Even thinking back now on first seeing people like Brad and Dean in the airport, I still feel some of that initial euphoria of seeing them after being gone for a whole semester. The view out the window, by the way, is Alaska, and the title of the book that Josiah is holding is "The Etiquette Guide to China." Fitting.



And then, after a somewhat lengthy flight that involved wearing pillows on our heads with Emily and reading Time magazines with Brittany, Nick, and James (among other time-eating activities), we were reunited with Danielsan! Now THAT was a euphoric moment. For those of you who don't know, my roommate Daniel was studying in China for the whole semester and met our group in the Beijing Airport. Micah, by the way, is Buzz Lightyear, as you can see in the picture above, and that's our hotel in Beijing.



Reliving a brief high school tradition of taking long exposure pictures out the window of our hotels on jazz band trips, I took a picture of the view out of Ryan's and my room. Oh yeah. We trumpet bros had the fortune of rooming together while in Beijing.



The next day was our crazy sightseeing day. I think we had four or five locations on the itinerary. First stop, Tiananmen Square, the site of the 1989 protest and subsequent massacre that apparently never happened. Note Cameron with the Chinese ladies...the response of the Chinese people to us was surprising. People would just walk up and take pictures of us, and the bolder ones would ask for pictures with us! Of course, we'd usually comply... :)



Here's the chairman himself.



And here we are in the Forbidden City. Dr. Ficsor is stealing David's identity. Our tour guides we pretty cool, by the way. Their names were David and Ping, so if I refer to them later you'll now know what I'm talking about.











We left the Forbidden City a different way than we had come in, and had to walk a bit through the street to get back to our bus. Here are some street shots I grabbed along the way.



Our first meal in a Chinese restaurant in China (excluding breakfast at the hotel). Enoch proved to us his manliness/Asian-ness by eating the tea leaves after we finished the teapot. And I can almost sense the sass that Esty-pants is undoubtedly about to unleash in the picture on the left.



This was our next stop, the Beijing National Stadium (commonly known as the Bird's Nest), where the 2008 Summer Olympics were held. There were a plethora of vendors selling food and drink, but also a lot of guys selling the long kites you see pictured. The man you see above (with the very anime-like hair) was following me from a distance for a while, and then finally mustered up the courage to ask for a picture.



First, take some time to laugh at Brad. Next, I'll introduce you to where we actually are. This is the Temple of Heaven, a famous religious site in Beijing. There are a lot of really pretty lawns/gardens surrounding the actual temple, and seeing groups of older people exercising there is pretty common.

As Daniel informed us, some scholars would argue that the god that the Ancient Chinese would worship here, known as Shangdi, is the same as the Abrahamic god of Christianity. From the Wikipedia (don't tell me Wikipedia isn't reliable) page about the ancient Chinese practice known as heaven worship: "The Ancient Chinese believed in a non-corporeal entity called Shangdi, an omnipotent, just, and monotheistic supreme being." Definitely some similarities as far as those listed characteristics go...



This is Peking Opera. Interesting, to say the least. High-pitched, percussive, and sleep-inducing are several other adequate adjectives.



The next day, we were heading to the Great Wall!!! First, however, we stopped for a tour at a factory where they make iron (I think that's what the metal was) vases. The coolest part was when they opened up the kiln and brought vases that were cookin' out...this huge wave of heat hit us less than a second after the lid came off!



And then we eventually made it to the wall (dare you to try to find it in the above picture)! We had to drive for quite a while to get there, as the wall sits in the mountains that are a good deal north of the city. The terrain was pretty incredible, and the rainy weather added to the atmosphere (not in the physical/meteorological sense of that word) of the whole visit.









Unfortunately, we didn't have as much time as I would've liked to have at the wall, but fortunately, there was a meal shortly afterwards to help console me. The place we went to was a combo restaurant/jade factory, and they had millions upon millions of dollars worth of jade in there. There was even a model of a ship probably about fifteen feet in length made entirely out of jade!

I'm pretty sure we had a performance that night, since my pictures next pick up on the following day (I didn't have my camera at most of the performances, seeing as simultaneous trumpet-playing and picture-taking presents substantial difficulties). Our first performance was probably our biggest, which was kind of nerve-wracking since it was my first time playing with the orchestra in months! The performance went pretty well, despite being our first, and when we returned to our hotel I was ready to pass out.



The following morning we had a small, less formal performance at an NGO that works with the children of convicts. Afterwards, we threw a frisbee around with some of the kids and staff members. What can I say; frisbee unites the world! :)



They put up a big sign for us that read, "Welcome, most awesome, coolest, and good-lookin' orchestra in the world!" Daniel, that's what it says, right?



More shenanigans, this time on the way over to lunch. We ate at a farm that had a dining facility/restaurant attached to it, but first they took us to one of their greenhouses where they grow strawberries.



Here it is!



The food at this place was significantly different from what we had been eating at our previous meals; I'm guessing that the food here was a lot more like what people in Beijing prepare on a regular basis in their homes. Anyhow, the noodles they gave us were really good! And there was this bean-based liquid that I surprisingly took a liking to (everyone else wasn't a fan).



When we got back to our hotel, Daniel offered to take us on our first Chinese subway ride. It was packed, but definitely a fun experience (and I thought I had experienced packed public transportation during Feria in Sevilla...)! We went to one of the big markets in town, called the Silk Market (I think).



For dinner, a group of us went to a less-ritzy neighborhood with narrow streets (they call these types of neighborhoods hutongs). Despite the dead fish in the aquarium, the place we ended up choosing (well, it was the only one that had the capacity to seat all of us) was really good! Maybe one of my favorite meals in China.



The next day, Sunday, was our last in Beijing. We started the day off by going to the panda exhibit at the zoo. I know, kind of a big deal. And to make things even better, he was eating while we were there. Nom nom.





Once we had finished with the pandas, we went to a state-approved church service. It was a very interesting experience. Ask me about it in person sometime and I'll delve into the specifics with you!



We then went to the Summer Palace. Not surprisingly, Ryan had a girl ask him if they could get a photo together (not the first nor the last time that'll happen). Also, note the man taking a picture of us on the top left, and one of Tori's classic expressions on the bottom right.



We also got to take a boat ride on the lake (IN A DRAGON-SHAPED BOAT!!!), during which we took the liberty of singing through the William Tell Overture, I believe. Quite a funny dorkestra moment. Also, please note Dr. Shasberger and Dr. Fiscor.



Our last activity in Beijing was a guided rickshaw tour through another hutong. I sat next to David, one of our tour guides, and he told me all kinds of interesting things about China, from the difficulties in registering your car to the different methods of Chinese character input on cellphones and computers.



Some scenes from the ride. The bathrooms in this particular hutong are communal, and there are old bikes everywhere! And those old guys are playing hacky sack with this shuttlecock-resembling projectile; pretty common here with the older people, and they're all really good too!



In the middle of the tour, we stopped by at the house of an artist who was specially-acknowledged by the Olympic Committee in 2008. Her type of art is pretty crazy; she specializes in painting the insides of these tiny glass bottles, and she's phenomenal at it. I tried it on a sample bottle she had, and it's just as hard as it seems it would be. Well, probably even harder than that.



More rickshawing.



To end our hutong tour, we went to this huge tea shop right by the hutong that had rooms set aside for demonstrations on how to drink tea the Chinese way. It was pretty involved, and the tea was really good.



A shmancy fancy meal to end our time in Beijing.



And our overnight train ride to Suzhou! It had been probably eight years since I had slept in a train car (for some reason I just thought about The Boxcar Children - does anyone remember that?!). The ride was a lot of fun, and we had a blast experimenting with different combos of trumpet (muted with Brad's huge headphones), violin, erhu, a harmomica.

Well, it's late, and I need to go to bed. Hope you enjoyed looking/reading through this! Stayed tuned for a post about our time in Suzhou! 晚安。

Mountain Biking with Fil

About a week or so back, I put up a post about a little photo project I conjured up for myself to keep my shooting assignments with a more commercial feel (a.k.a. with off-camera flash). This post is the next installment in that series. The photo below is of my cousin Fil (who conveniently happens to be one of my best friends ;). Thanks to my friend and mentor Jon, my cousin and I got into mountain biking several years back, so I figured it'd be a lot of fun to grab some shots of Fil riding. Here's my favorite image from the shoot.



I used three SB-600s, triggered with Pocketwizard MiniTT1/FlexTT5s, to light this shot. The MiniTT1/FlexTT5 system supports high-speed sync, so I was able to kill some of the ambient light by stopping up my shutter speed past 1/250th, the normal sync speed of the camera. I positioned one strobe just out of the frame on the left side of the image, and two just out of the frame on the right.

Let me know what you think!

Tsa Luego Sevilla!

I can hardly believe it. My last Spain blog post has finally come. Just to warn you, this post is a conglomeration of a bunch of different events, but all tied together by the common thread of pertaining to the end of my semester abroad. All that to say, sorry if it seems a bit scattered or super long!

Anyhow, I want to start by showing you a couple pictures of the convent where I worked!



At the end of the semester we were asked to give a short report on our service learning assignment, so on Yus's and my second to last day of work, I snapped a couple pictures of the convent (we're not allowed to post any pictures of the kids, so just imagine a bunch of cute Spanish rascals). On the bottom right you can see kind of how a typical lesson would have to go. We weren't really provided with a curriculum, so we'd have to make up the lessons on the fly. All the kids knew the numbers from 0-10 just from the muscle memory of saying them over and over, so I spent a good deal of time in a couple of the lessons trying to get them to learn 11-20...futile, for the most part, but certainly a patience-builder.



These next couple of images are from the performance that our flamenco class girls put on. Yus and I missed the actual performance because we had to work at the convent that day, but we hung out for a bit afterwards.



Then the ladies danced on the street for money. They earned €0.05. Which was subsequently taken back by the giver, pictured on the upper right.



Afterwards, we grabbed chocolate con churros at the chocolatería across from Parque Príncipes (at least I think that was the same day). Michelle, Cameron, and Jessie were intimidating everyone else.



This is Karen, our friend from the GBU Bible study and from church! GBU had an fundraising auction to which I donated a photo session, and Karen ended up bidding for it and winning. I took a break from the plethora of term papers that magically appeared in the last couple weeks of school to shoot some portraits of Karen. Here are some of my favorites!





And now it's time for...



Feria! This is actually my street, good ol' Calle Arcangel San Miguel; my apartment is just to the left beyond those trees on the left side. I'd see this view everyday...well, except for the horses. Ya see, there are random people walking around on horses because that's just what you do during Feria (if you are so fortunate/unfortunate as to own a horse whilst living in a city).



I mentioned Feria a bit in one of my last blog posts, but for those that didn't read it, I'll give you a brief rundown. Feria is a week-long fair that is huge in Sevilla. Most of the women in town dress in their flamenco dresses and the guys in their suits in the evenings when they go out (as you can see above), and there's a huge area in Los Remedios set aside for all these tents (called "casetas") that businesses or wealthy families pay for to host dancing, eating, and drinking in. That huge door you see is rebuilt every year for Feria (when we got to SIS in January, they were already building it) and its thousands of lightbulbs light up at night. Oh, and the scary lady on the bottom left is the Duquesa de Alba (the women with the most titles in the world, even more than the queen of England).



There are probably hundreds of thousands of those paper lantern lights strung up all around the casetas (you can see the inside of a caseta on the bottom left; this was one of the few public ones, hosted by UGT, a Spanish trade union that Salva detests :). And there in the middle is one of the ubiquitous sweeper trucks that's constantly cleaning up after everyone (despite what the sign on its side says).



There's also a carnival area with a bunch of rides and concession stands.



And a Ferris wheel!



Well, enough with the festivities. This is the inquisition museum. Hooray for extra credit assignments.



Here's the market right by the museum. It's a pretty cool place; you can buy everything from sardines to garbanzos to watermelons here.



My last time walking to school. I was so blessed to get to see this view every morning!



Surprising Ana Bello, our amazing secretary, for her birthday!



And then, just like that, I had to part ways with my profs and the staff :( If you guys end up reading this, thank you so much for everything!

Ana Bello, gracias por siempre ayudarnos con cualquier pregunta que teníamos y por amarnos tanto!

Salva, gracias por tener paciencia con nosotros cada mañana en Literatura Española cuando estábamos cansados por no dormir bastante.

Carmen, gracias por enseñarnos como hablar en español en la manera correcta (ojalá haya escrito todo correctamente :) y con tanta pasión.

José María, gracias por introducirnos al mundo maravilloso de Alonso Quejada-Quisada-Quejana y el maléfico sabio Frestón, y por tu sentido del humor!

Katie, gracias por tu dedicación a tu trabajo y por siempre estar dispuesto a hacer pasteles y comida estadounidense para nosotros!

Leslie, gracias por tu ayuda con todo lo que necesitábamos y por tu "sass" :)

Mercedes, gracias por quedar con nosotros por las tardes y por entretenernos cuando jugabas con las niñas de Leslie!

Y Cecilia y Ana, gracias por ser profesores excelentes para mis amigos!



Well, at this point it was Friday, I was leaving on early Sunday morning, and I still hadn't been up on the Giralda! So Yus, Rachel (a friend of ours from another abroad program), and I walked through the cathedral and then headed up the twisting sloped ramped of the tower to find a blustery but beautiful view.



Sarah Palin can see Russia from her house, but I can see my apartment from the Giralda.



The courtyard below.



I headed home to drop off my backpack after descending from the Giralda. That evening was my last free evening in Sevilla (I would have to pack all Saturday night), so Lane, Tori, and I went out for a last stroll around the river.







This is Andalucia.



We found a little dock on the Triana side of the river and watched the evening hues slowly superseded by those of the night.



Our beloved Puente de Triana.



The next morning I told Alba that I would be leaving soon, and she didn't understand what that meant. By the way, Alba definitely grew a good bit during my time in Sevilla. Take a look at the fourth picture in this blog post.



Anyone in our program will tell you that I loved this breakfast place. I've talked about it in a couple other posts; it's called the Faro de Triana. Jamón tostada y café por €2.50!



Later, I bid farewell to Valentina, the lady at the Russian store that I've mentioned in previous blog posts. She gave me a free bottle of pear soda (classic Russian drink...). Ah yeah!



As a last farewell to all the SISers, we met up in Plaza de España and had a potluck of sorts. Love these people!



What a good-lookin' bunch. In the middle is my good friend Carlos, from Monterrey, México. He taught me my favorite Spanish word: "parangaricutirimícuaro."



I think this speaks for itself. We were working without any reference material, so please forgive any inconsistencies...



Ladies.



Bros. What better way to end the semester than tossing a frisbee around in the halls of a historic monument?

In the tradition of providing anecdotes, I'll also leave you with a couple from my last week in Sevilla: I found out we had vanilla sugar at my house. It was soooo good. Some people started to move a bunch of food and products into the empty corner of the base of our apartment building; they were opening a chino - right when I was leaving. Thanks. I saw a man lean against a glass bus stop and the whole pane of glass exploded; you won't find me leaning on Spanish bus stops anytime soon (for a variety of reasons). When Carlos and I were walking over to Plaza de España to hang out with everyone, I heard someone calling my name behind me...it was my seventh-grade crush. Turns out she was studying in Madrid but happened to be in Sevilla for the weekend, on the last day I was in the country. Crazy. A couple days before I left Spain, a bird flew into my room when the window was open and I had to trap it with my laundry basket and shoo it back out. I also found out that my host mom, Maricarmen, is deathly afraid of birds.

I also want to document a couple of classic José María moments I found that I had jotted down in my class notes. For instance, when he explained the difference between moriscos (the Moors) and mariscos (seafood). He advised us, "No intentes de comer moriscos," that "el morisco no se puede comer." Another favorite moment was when Yus was trying to suggest we go to Dunkin Coffee with the class, and José María told her no. So she went on, "Pero el lunes..." at which point José María interrupted with "...es el primer día de la semana; ¡muy bien!" :)

Well, I guess this is the part where I have to wrap up the semester. How does one do that in a matter of paragraphs? Well, one doesn't. Or at least I don't, because I'm not sure how. But I will say this: I like mayonnaise a lot more than I did before the semester started (when it's the only sauce available for your food, you have to start liking it). Also, I now instinctively say "¡Oy!" instead of "Whoa!" when someone jumps across my path while I'm biking. And I now certainly speak Spanish better than I did before.

In short: God blessed me with an amazing semester (though certainly difficult at times) and I'm so grateful for the friends I made, the things I learned, and the experiences I had. So I guess now I can only say, "Tsa luego Sevilla;" I'll see you later!