An'yang, the city of a Thousands Rains

Each term, CET takes their kids on a "long" trip.  For us, the trip was not so long, only three days, but it was away from Beijing, so it was definitely not lame.   We ventured to An'yang, the previous site of the Shang Dynasty (1766-1122 BC) capital.  This is considered a medium size city for China, with a population of only 5 million (yes, that is the same number as Colorado's population...one must remember I am in China).  How does one travel to An'yang, you might ask...by train, of course

(7/11)   We only had a four day week for classes, which, as all students know, is always a blessing.  However, this was also midterm week.  So it was a blessing and a curse.  Got through the midterm, and that Thursday we (~70 students and teachers) took the bus to Beijing West Train Station.  Going their, we took the 普通车 (common/regular train).  Doesn't go über fast, and they have standing-room tickets as well as seated tickets.  This was not something I had ever encountered before in the US and Europe (as it is with most things in China).  Most of the people who buy standing-room tickets are migrant workers traveling to or from their job in Beijing.  The train was a train, but the standing-room tickets holders did get a kick out of the American girls and their card games (especially when they started playing Chinese card game).  The guys had loads of advice to give the girls:

 It was actually quite adorable.  After a 5 hour train ride, we made it to An'yang.  We were staying at the An'yang Hotel, which we were told by many a person was a Four Star hotel.  Now, coming from a hospitality industry family, I was little bit skeptical.  An'yang is not a major tourist destination, and is almost considered small by Chinese standards, so why on Earth would they have a four star hotel?  However, though it might not have been truly four star, it was definitely acceptable as a place to stay for two nights:

This was just one half of the room, so it was really quite spacious. Mom, Dad, if you ever want to take a group to An'yang, China, I have already done your site visit.  You're welcome.  We got in late to An'yang, so it was time to sleep, though we grabbed dinner first at a "nice" restaurant (aka, they had western-style-ish food).

(7/12)  Now, I must tell you of the wettest day of my life.  A lesson I learned: climbing mountains in the rain is not the most enjoyable experience.  I would advise to avoid.  However, in spite the large of amounts of water that fell from the sky, it was an unbelievable hike.  We didn't truly climb a mountain.  More like a bunch of stairs.  We was still freaking hard (shades of the Great Wall).  Here are a few examples:

I know, they appear so very safe, don't they? The best part was how wet they were.  I have no problems with heights, but some of my friends do, so it was, how can I say it....interesting.  But the views were absolutely unbelievable:

 

We were all quite wet by the end, but happy to be in China.  This is my class (minus Gongxue aka Shelby).  With Bi Laoshi in the middle (probably one of the most adorable people I have ever had the pleasure of knowing):

We then ate a "rural" like lunch (it was very similar to much of the food we had eaten in China before) and we were bused to yet another hike....needless to say I was not entirely pleased to be there.  We were wet, we were tired, it was time to sleep, not time to hike.
However (I seem to use this word a lot), it was beautiful.  We back into a canyon, the rain stopped, and there weren't as many stairs.  This made for an easy, peaceful afternoon.

We arrived back in An'yang, dried off, then explored the town a little.  Not much to it (when compared to Beijing) but it does have a movie theater.  Which, for some unknown reason, beckoned us in and made us watch an absolutely horrendous movie.  Why so horrendous?  1) American movie, Chinese dubbing 2) No English sub-titles 3) Sylvester Stallone.  Sigh, sometimes you make bad decisions.  Only good thing I got out of it was and understanding of where my Chinese level is (still quite low, sad to say). 

(7/13) Next day we did some history stuff.  Which I know can be very boring, but I like it, and I'm writing the blog, so you have to deal with it for just a little bit.  We went to the site where Shang Dynasty oracle bones were discovered in the 1970s.  Now this was a big deal.  Because previous to their discovery, the Shang dynasty was really just a legend.  We didn't have any hard evidence that it had existed.  Another big thing about oracle bones: they help us understand the origin of thousands of Chinese characters.  I'm a nerd, so I think this is fantastically cool.  For example, the character for heart:

Sort of looks like a heart, doesn't it? The Chinese knew what they were doing when creating their characters, even if it seems like they actually use ramen to write:

 This is what oracle bones look like:

Really old, lots of history, kind of cool.  The archeologists put them back together like the world's hardest jigsaw puzzle because they were found thrown in a pit, all jumbled together:

If you ask me, that was not terribly nice of the Shang Dynasty shamans. 

After our history lesson, we decided to spice up a little and play some music and dance with elderly Chinese women in bright costumes:

 Then we played goofy, wonderful children's games.  Because, really, what else are you supposed to do in China?

After our adventures with the colorful elderly, we made our way to what is supposed to be the most famous landmark in An'yang: the Wenfeng Pagoda.  We went, we saw, we couldn't got in, we left and got snacks for the train.  Little bit underwhelming, but here's the evidence:

We took the bullet train back to Beijing.  It took only 2 hours and we went as fast at 297 km/hr.  It was a very different experience that the regular train.  No standing-room tickets here.  Just big seats, attractive stewardesses and lots of blurry trees.  Didn't get any pictures this time, but don't worry, I'll be taking the bullet train again soon, because in the next episode: Paige goes to Shanghai.