The Road Is Life

Goldfish and carp in Suzhou

Tumblr Staff: Attention Racing Fans!

staff:

Do you like fast cars? Do you like turning left? Then you’re in luck. This weekend, we’re going to see how just how bananas the Tumblr community gets when confronted with a real live sporting event, in real live time, in reality. We’re talking of course about the Indianapolis 500, a.k.a. the…

…..And of course it was glorious.

I’m sorry, China, but you don’t grasp the full extent of how freaking awesome this movie is.  I was absolutely the only white person in the theater, squealing and clapping, and shouting things at the screen black-woman style.  Also laughing hilariously at all the jokes. No one laughed at the jokes!  China, come on.  

Now, everyone knows how if you’re watching a Marvel movie, you never leave until the end of the credits because there’s a super secret awesome bonus scene.  

Duh.  Well, no one in the theater knew this, so when everyone got up and left, I was like, “Guys!  You can’t leave!  The shwarma scene is at the end!”  But everyone was like, “WTF, no one understands your Chinese.”  And so I was like, “Noooooooo” and then I got kicked out by the cleaning lady.  

At Huangshan, there’s a famous bamboo forest called Mukeng Bamboo Forest.  It’s here that scenes from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon were filmed!  It’s an incredibly beautiful grove - and best of all, you can take a flying fox zipline over the valley!

• Question: Hey, I'm studying in Hangzhou and I plan on traveling around this summer. Do you know any good places someone with average-ish chinese can go? - rejoice-life
• Answer:

  Yeah, definitely.  Shanghai’s always a great place to go, as is Beijing.  If you wanted to see some countryside, Guilin is quite touristy, and so people and tour groups speak great English there.  Yunnan/Kunming is known for being less touristy and you’ll have to use Chinese more there, so I’d avoid.  Suzhou is a great water town, and I could get around there pretty well.  Hope that helps!  :)  

This is my new best fraaaaaannnnd. It’s a thermos/water bottle with built in tea strainer. So I can have loose-leaf tea Chinese style. And also I bought dried lemon slices at Wal-Mart, so now I have lemon water all day, err’day.

Huangshan, aka The Yellow Mountain.

Huangshan has inspired countless classical Chinese poets and painters. The beautiful granite peaks are dotted with pines growing out of sheer rock faces, adding to the classical beauty of the region. We had an absolutely amazing day to climb the mountain - not a cloud in the sky. Climbing to Lotus Peak and the Welcoming Pine isn’t for the faint of heart; we had to climb over 6 vertical km of stairs.

On the Li River in Guilin. 

The Li River is considered one of the premier sites to see in China.  Exemplifying romantic rural China, the Li River has been the subject of poems and paintings, and one particularly beautiful section of the river is featured on the back of the 20 RMB bill.  

The saturation is a little wack on the photos…sorry, inexpensive camera problems. :p 

Waxberries! They taste kind of like a cross between strawberries and raspberries…May is supposed to be the best time for them in China.