Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Learning Chinese
First of all I have started use my cd with dialogs to learn sentences and repeat them millions of time. Believe me it is the best way to learn accent and pronunciation. Although I know I will never get rid of my natural accent. Lets be honest:)
Second I use nciku.com website (thanks be to Internet) to learn 5 characters a day, well maybe less:) In China it is crucial to recognize some of the characters (i.e. toilet sign) otherwise you will not be able to find anything.
Also I have few sentence cards with me so I can memorize Chinese sentences more efficient.
Last but not least I always try to force my husband to speak to me in Chinese:) I think it is good to have native speaker around you when you try to learn foreign language.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Karaoke (KTV) in China
I have been in several KTV's with my husband's friends and even though I didn't know any of the Chinese songs it was still fun watching people having great time.
In Shenyang during the night on almost every street there are colorful lights flashing and inviting to KTV's. Usually those buildings look like hotels with many private rooms and some of them have even little professional studios so anybody can record an album! I know crazy:)
When you want to go Karaoke prepare to be shocked! First of all at the desk you get the number of a room. Later you go to snack shop in order to buy crazy stuff such as mustard peanuts, dry squid, maybe some 'normal' sunflower seeds and of course beer,and after that you are ready to rock!!!
Friday, February 27, 2009
Bargain guide
This post I would like dedicate to all tourists visiting China;) I want to let you know that when buying anything there one pays at least from triple up to ten times more than one should! That is the truth but it doesn't mean that we have to pay so much. When I came to China I was transferring every price to Euro and I thought how cheap it is here but of course it doesn't work that way. The thing is tourists don't bargain so actually it is our fault that we pay more;) That is why I really want to emphasize on this topic here. So don't let people to rip you of even on little things as food!
First of all don't let sales people see that you really like the product. They will use that information against you. The best thing is to have calm face while buying on the market.
Secondly let them know that the product you want to buy is not perfect. For example it is in wrong colour or threads are coming out etc. In this case sales people usually will give some discount. Another thing is Chinese sellers always give higher price to foreigners so it is better for us to ask for 'onest' price at the beginning.
Finally I want to give you the most important advice. Never ever believe sales people! They will tell you anything you want to hear (including lies) just to sell the product. Salespeople can shout and even curse at you but don't give up:) Even if you will not be able to buy the thing you like at one stand you can always buy it in the next one...
At the end there is a story from the souvenir shop nearby the Shenyang Forbidden City. I was there with my husband just to have a look. I wasn't planning to buy anything but I noticed small paper fan which I liked very much. Sales people at the stand were very excited about it and they were telling me the price of it. It was 45 Yuen. I new back then that it is too much even though it is about 4.50 Euro. By the way I could buy 2 lunches for it:) Anyway I said no to that and I wanted to walk away. But the sales people didn't give up and start giving me lower prices. My husband joined me then telling them I don't want it because they don't give me the normal price but much higher. They got a little angry but at the end while we were almost walking out from the market they called us back that we can have the fan for 15 Yuen...
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Harbin - Oriental Paris
One of our goals of coming to
The city is well-known for its Russian and European-influenced architecture. The great example of it is the Russian Orthodox church, St. Sophia Cathedral.
In the city there are many ice sculptures illuminated with colorful lights which really made great impression in the night.
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We went to
Ice and Snow World was amazing but it was enormously freezing in there. We had to borrow coats from a friend who lives in Harbin because we would freeze to death I guess. Anyway you can see on the pictures that Dawei is having an army coat and I have a fur (poor animal by the way). The thing is that our friend's mum wouldn’t let us go in our regular clothes:) so we had to wear those "funny" clothes. I am glad she did that although.
As you can see on pictures the place was huge and it had illuminated full size buildings made from blocks of ice. We even went to a huge ice slide which was a bit scary for me, specially finishing part when a seat made from metal went suddenly up and I landed on my back. Anyway worth to try;)
Monday, January 26, 2009
Spring Festival in Shenyang
This year the Chinese New Year of Ox began on 26th of January.
At the New Years Eve we had family reunion dinner in our grandparents place. At
Before
Also at
Now we will celebrate New Year of the ox for another 15 days. Guo nian hao 过年好 everybody!!!
Friday, January 23, 2009
Zoo in Beijing
The Giant Panda (dàxióngmāo, in my translation: big bear cat) is a mammal classified in the bear family, native to central-western and southwestern China.
It is easily recognized by its large, distinctive black patches around the eyes, over the ears, and across its round body. And of course everybody knows that it eats mostly bamboo.
When I first saw this amazing creature I felt so happy. After a while I felt sad that this beautiful animal is endangered and it can disappear from planet even though scientists work hard not to let that happen.
The Giant Panda lives only in a few mountain ranges in central
In recent decades the Giant Panda is a national symbol for the country. Chinese government sends Pandas to other countries like
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Temple of Heaven in Beijing
As we were staying in
This complex of Taoist buildings was visited by the Emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties for annual ceremonies of prayer to Heaven for good harvest.
In order to get to the Temple of Heaven the ticket needs to be bought. More over to see all buildings in the complex 3 tickets are required or one, more expensive, for all the places there.
Anyway the Temple consists of three main groups of constructions and it is surrounded by a park. In this beautiful park there are a lot of people hanging out. It is so nice to see people despite of their age exercising, dancing or playing Jiànzi 毽子 (kicking shuttlecock - picture on the right). I have never seen that in Poland or Ireland on that scale:)
The main building is The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests (祈年殿). It is a circular building, built on three levels of marble stone base, where the Emperor prayed for good harvests. The building is completely wooden, with no nails. It is very impressive. It looked for me like floating in the air.
The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests
The Imperial Vault of Heaven (皇穹宇) is surrounded by a smooth circular wall, the Echo Wall, that can transmit sounds over large distances. We checked that and it really works. You can hear clearly a person from the opposite part of the wall. It was very exciting!
Friday, January 16, 2009
Forbidden City in Beijing
The
The palace which was built in XV century covers 720,000 square meters. It is surrounded by high city wall and a wide moat. The wall is pierced by gates on each side. To the south, there is the most famous gate called Tiananmen Gate, which is decorated with a portrait of Mao Zedong in the centre and two placards to the left and right: "Long Live the People's Republic of
Tiananmen Sq in Beijing
We began our visiting from the Tiananmen Sq like many other tourists. We passed many gates, halls and even gardens inside the museum. Many of them names I don’t remember but there is a handy way to know them all when you are over there. You can rent a small device, a guide, for only 40 Yuen. They have this guide even in Polish which was a huge surprise for me.
Anyway, if you want to see ALL in there prepare yourself to spend all day on this visit. We had been there only a half day and we had to choose places where we want to go. For example I really wanted to see an exhibition of terracotta soldiers in one of the halls as I don’t know when I will go to
I loved the
The other thing that will always remind me of The Forbidden City is the roof decoration on the roof ridge. The more creatures on the roof the highest status of the building is like on the Hall of Supreme Harmony. Very beautiful creatures they are;)
The