Hi everyone! This is the second lesson in my new Chinese series! I hope this post is beneficial for you all, so please comment, rate or like. If you have any feedback I would be happy to hear from you! God bless! Oh and remember if you haven’t already done so, please purchase the New Practical Chinese Reader Textbook. You can find it easily on Amazon!
Old High School Science Project
•August 7, 2012 • 1 CommentI was copying all my photos onto a single hard drive to back them up and as I was searching through my hard drives and CDs, I found a copy of an old high school science project! The topic was on plant reproduction and our group decided to do a video on plants multiplying. This was the second film I had ever worked on. I cannot believe how bad this video was though! It’s so bad, its funny. Good memories though! I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
Apple Store in Shanghai
•August 4, 2012 • Leave a CommentI actually took this video for a particular friend of mine who considers Steve Jobs to be god-like lol! So I hope he enjoys this video! Apparently someone told me this Apple Store in Shanghai is one of the largest in the world! I have been using Macs since 2001 when I bought my first iMac G4 and I am impressed at how Apple is gaining in popularity overseas. When I first traveled to Hong Kong back in 2008, Macs were not the least bit popular in Hong Kong. The Apple stores have gained so much popularity in the Mainland, I saw several stores that posed as official Apple stores. I wish I had taken some pictures of these stores. I even saw one store that said “Premium Reseller” as opposed to “Authorized Reseller”. I would be kind of skeptical to buy from one of the counterfeit Apple stores. It might be a Windows computer in a Mac shell! The Chinese are pretty clever with fakes!
Another Funny Internet Cat Photo!
•August 3, 2012 • Leave a Comment
I think this kitten enjoyed the soup more than I did!
Silly Kitten
Writers Block
•July 30, 2012 • Leave a Comment
Hi everyone! I have been wanting to post on this blog for some time now and I have been suffering from writers block… I am not sure what the matter is but I have been wanting to post more on branhow.com, so I decided to write this post just informing everyone on what I have been wanting to do lately or am doing lately. Since I have gotten back to the United States, I have not really been doing a lot of anything really. I have been trying to continue my studies in Chinese and Korean, but I have been really wanting to start back with my Japanese. I am afraid though if I split my time up too much then I will prohibit the sharpening of my language abilities. So despite my desire to pick back up Japanese, I am trying to focus on only two languages as of now.
I will start my student teaching in the next few weeks and I have been really praying about what the next chapter in my life should be! I have a heavy burden for China and Hong Kong especially, so I have been praying that God will direct me in the path I should go. In fact, every time I try to place my focus elsewhere, my heart clings back to Hong Kong. I have been toying with the idea of travel abroad after I have completed my studies to either South Korea, Japan or Canada. But my heart leads me right back to Hong Kong. It is extremely difficult for me to explain and some people even think that I’m weird. I feel as though Hong Kong is my home and is where I belong.
Well thanks for listening to me ramble! LoL! I will try to be thinking of new articles to post about in the near future!
Se.ren.di.pi.ty
•July 26, 2012 • Leave a Comment
Jeanne, Author of Se.ren.di.pi.ty
Here is the link to her page! se.ren.di.pi.ty
A Midnight Snack, Chinese Style
•July 24, 2012 • Leave a Comment
The street food almost became a stable in my daily diet while living in Shanghai. There was plenty of street food that I have tried in Hong Kong, but it became a part of my nightly routine to go outside my university’s gate and order a pork burger. A friend of mine called these stands night crawlers because they only come outside at night time so as to avoid the police shutting them down. That may be true, but these night stalls were outside the student dorms gate at almost the same exact time every night, I am sure the police knew about them. A lot of my friends would call me at night and ask if I wanted to join them on a late night journey to find some new and exciting snacks! Meeting up with my friends and discovering new food at the night stands is definitely one experience I miss the most in Shanghai. So an excellent tip for any travelers to Hong Kong or China, try the street stalls! That is where you will find the best local food at an amazingly cheap price!
BTW- this photo is of a food stall around the Bund, she was preparing some octopus for me! MY FAV! lol
Sense of Belonging
•July 20, 2012 • Leave a Comment
I was searching youtube today for different audio clips to utilize on a video that I am currently working on and I stumbled across this video. I have a huge heart for the Hong Kong people and this video brought back all the memories I have had in Hong Kong. My dream has changed over the years, but this calling that I have discovered has been on my heart since 2008. Next year I plan on moving to Hong Kong to begin realizing that dream! My only regret is that I am having a difficult time learning Cantonese because Mandarin is the preferred dialect taught outside China. Once I obtain a job in Hong Kong, I plan on taking Cantonese lessons at one of the local universities. God has definitely called me to Hong Kong to serve the people of Hong Kong in knowing more about Him!
Wuzhen, A Chinese Water City
•July 16, 2012 • Leave a CommentNow that I am back in the United States and can successfully access my blog from a secure location, I need to get caught up on some of my blog posts! I had my sister post some entries previously on my blog to explain that I could not access WordPress in China. This was the first time I have ever spent an extended period of time in the Mainland, so I did not realize China blocked even WordPress! Anyways these photos and the short video clip were taken in the beautiful water city of Wuzhen, China. During my brief studies in Shanghai, our university took a day trip to Wuzhen during the month of June. I had done some research on the city before I decided to go on this trip and I was extremely excited about traveling to Wuzhen. Wuzhen was around 1.5 hours to 2 hours by bus from Shanghai, China. My only wish was that we had stayed until night fall, because I thought Wuzhen had looked prettier during nightfall.
I would also like to apologize again for the poor image quality. Unfortunately the nice Panasonic I had bought for this trip broke the second day I was in China. Thankfully I had my Google Nexus One, but being the photographer I am, I was greatly disappointed in taking these photographs with a camera phone. But some photos are better than no photos at all! Plus I thought these images were fairly impressive for a camera phone.I hope everyone can still enjoy these photographs!
These boats populate the town and can be seen carrying passengers all throughout the town. The cost is around 10-20 RMB per person, which equals to about $1-3 USD per person.
I know I was in China, but I could not help but think of the movie Memoirs of a Geisha and the breathtaking shots of the streets throughout Japan. I was amazing at how well preserved these old buildings/ houses actually were.
The entire town had these beautiful wood carvings everywhere. For some reason this city focused on a lot of different styles of beds in their small museums, if my Chinese was better and I hadn’t run off from the tour group, I probably could mention why the town focused on so many beds in their museums.
As we walked down these streets, we could see the locals who still live within these amazing old buildings. Thankfully we went on a holiday, so I am sure that on average, these locals would not have to interact with pesky tourists. 🙂 I forgot the rate of entering Wuzhen, but I can remember they offered a student discount. My best guess was somewhere around 100RMB or about 16USD.
A speciality of the town was wine production. There were several areas that were entirely dedicated to storing and producing wine. Our guide mentioned it was rice wine, but to my surprise, it was nothing like the Japanese version of rice wine aka sake. I’ll mention that story a little later.
This is just a sign that populated the surrounding wine areas of Wuzhen. They simply state “Wuzhen Wine” on them.
I thought this was one of the prettiest parts of China I have visited so far, my only regret is that this beautiful city has now turned into a tourist trap.
A friend of mine took this photograph of me trying some of Wuzhen’s famous rice wine! Like I had previously mentioned, I was expecting something similar to sake. Those of you who know me know that I am not much of a drinker and when I do drink its usually a non-alcoholic beer, but I could only take this small cup of rice wine. This was some of the strongest wine I have ever tasted in my life. It burnt going down my throat and it was very overpowering. If you would like to try some of their wine you can either purchase a bottle at a premium or test a sip for around 4-10 RMB. I would suggest only trying a sip.
Finally I would just like to include a link to the website for the town of Wuzhen. If you travel to Shanghai anytime in the future, I would highly recommend taking a side journey to Wuzhen. Sadly China is modernizing rapidly and a lot of the culture is being tossed to the side. Wuzhen is one of the few remaining areas that offer some of the majestic experiences of traditional China.Wuzhen Traveling Site
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