ellen in china.

2006-05-29T23:38:00.000+08:00

where am i?

2006-05-16T21:28:00.000+08:00

seriously. guess.

more importantly

2006-05-10T21:41:00.000+08:00

my family has been here for the past week/2weeks. my sister already huiguo le, she has already gone home.

today we celebrated my haopuo and yehyeh's 60ths anniversary with a huge meal and 28 wang/chus.

a wang and a chu:

a lot has happened

2006-05-09T23:50:00.000+08:00

recently.

and, least significantly, i got a new pair of glasses:

a blog i can access:

2006-04-26T17:59:00.000+08:00

http://galleryoftheabsurd.typepad.com/

mo' eatin'.

2006-04-22T10:53:00.000+08:00

my cousin nina is back in beijing. on sunday night we went out for sichuan food. and then dessert. pictured above is the strawberry ice cream nina ordered. it came complete with watermelon chunks, oranges slices, whipped cream, and pringles.

but the eating didnt end there. on tuesday there were chicken sandwiches from a kiosk off of sanlitun. on wednesday nina and her roommates fixed a feast of spring rolls w/ peanut sauce, salad, and chicken soup. and then last night at a place in wudakou was the biweekly assembly of the beijing burger club (bbc).

foiled, again.

2006-04-22T09:05:00.000+08:00

i can write, still. but i cant read, again.

this made the whole internet situation here a lot clearer for me.

fengzheng.

2006-04-09T22:40:00.000+08:00

today i spent an hour on the bus with my cousin and her boyfriend to get to longtan park. where we spent about fifteen minutes trying (unsuccessfully) to get our kite to fly. and then the next hour trying to get it out of a tree.

chun tian. (spring.)

2006-04-03T22:26:00.000+08:00

the five italian girls from my class left to go home today. its sad. they were fun. (and spoke english...) but. im not letting that get me down.

today i posted more letters. and after visiting the post office returned to the purple bamboo park. (pictured above). very pretty. and only a matter of days, i would imagine, before everything is in full bloom.

when i got back i got a call from the koreans. six of us took two cabs crosstown to a hot pot restaurant. it was my third and best hot pot experience thus far. if cooking our own food in eensy little hot pots wasnt fun enough, there were three dessert courses: deep fried sesame balls filled with red bean, deep fried bread with condensed milk, and the milk popsicles.

but!

2006-03-30T19:10:00.000+08:00

china isnt all koreans and good eats.

this is one of the non korean girls in my class.

and this. is a beetle that came freeze-dried in my fangbian mian (ramen noodles, roughly).

[read,] eat, sleep

2006-03-29T23:54:00.001+08:00

on weekends i usually visit with at least one aunt. two weekends ago i was at qing gugu's. we made steamed dumplings. which i dare say are better than the fried ones i love so dearly at home. and! deep-fried, meat-filled eggplant. pure genius.

this isnt me. this is katie. the korean roommate. she is passed out from too much studying. id imagine i look like this too. only i pass out from too much eating. and my gut probably shows.

2006-03-24T22:34:00.000+08:00

it is friday night. im meeting up with the korean girls from my class in a while. they love yelling my names at me. both english and chinese. and then having me repeat the korean words theyve taught me. but in the meantime. im in my room with just one korean. watching her talk on the phone. and trying to pretend that im not actually taking pictures of her with my phone.

ive been eating a lot. maybe youll see pictures of this soon, too.

2006-03-11T08:47:00.000+08:00

all of the girls in my class, minus the thirty year old swiss, went out to dinner on wednesday night. thirteen of us piled into three cabs that took us cross town. we went to a small sandwich place that was ridiculously overpriced--30rmb for a sandwich (about 3.75usd). service was slow as they werent really equipped to fill 13 sandwich orders all at once--about two sandwiches came out every ten minutes. but our extended meal was nice.

there were five yidali ren (italians), five hanguo ren (koreans), two riben ren (japanese), and me (meiguo ren). we spoke to eachother in bad chinese and better italian, korean, japanese and english.

revised addresss

2006-03-09T22:01:00.000+08:00

the previous address probably works. but from now on. things should probably be sent like this:

china 100089
beijing, haidian district
xisanhuan north road 83
int'l culture plaza
ellen chu 1002

BIG to small.

also! maybe youre already getting things in the mail. probably because i think youre pretty great. if not. probably because i dont have your address... whats your address?

ill send you things. i like going to the post office. i get to cross a big street. and use simple chinese.

the third ring road that i cross to get to the post office.

you are the picture!

2006-03-08T12:16:00.000+08:00

gugu and gufu.

yesterday tong gugu and her husband (my gufu... can someone help me with all the names of the uncles?) took me to northeast beijing, a district called dashanzi. there there is a community of artists (residences, studios, galleries, coffee shops) called 798 space. it occupies an industrial area that was built by the russians in 1959. we walked around for a while. and it was really really nice. the picture above is from an installation/interactive/web piece called you are the picture. (check it out: http://people.apiece.net) it was neat. i think tong gugu liked it, too.

2006-03-06T15:11:00.000+08:00

after wandering around for a couple of hours yesterday. by myself. on foot. by subway. and on bus. i found myself in tiananmen square.

the weather was fantastic. and i was thrown off by the number of white people when i surfaced from the subway in tiananmen square.

uniformed men in tiananmen.

jiaozi he nian gao!

2006-03-04T21:20:00.000+08:00

today yu gugu fed teping and me LOTS. we feasted on rou wanzi (meat balls). nian gao (sticky rice noodles...). jiaozi (dumplings). hong shao rou (pork).

teping recovers from an eating coma.

family!

2006-03-04T11:35:00.000+08:00

i have a lot of family in beijing. which has been/is really great. briefly: its mostly my dad's cousins who live here. im not exactly sure how many there are. but my experience so far this time has revolved around four aunts ('gugu') and their families. quan gugu, qing gugu, and tong gugu (all sisters), and then yu gugu.

they feed me. really well. at first when i told them 'shenme dou keyi/xihuan chi'('i can/like to eat anything'), they didnt believe me. but i think ive proved that to them in the past two weeks. most of the time i spend with them revolves around eating: someone will pick me up in the afternoon and i go sit and talk with them and snack on candy and prunes and peanuts while waiting for dinner to be served.

quan gugu with bird at qing gugu's.

68 degrees!

2006-03-03T12:41:00.000+08:00

68 degrees came out tonight (thursday night, pvd time). ive only seen the layout digitally. BUT im pretty sure its one of the best issues to date.

there was a big party in list. apparently with pizza bites and wine. and a bunch of people that i miss like whoa.

i wish id been there.

someone send me a copy?

address!

2006-03-02T20:53:00.000+08:00

ellen chu (1002)
int'l culture plaza
83 xisanhuan north road
haidian district, beijing
china 100089

IM BACK.

2006-03-02T14:35:00.000+08:00

thanks to david, ive found a way to access my blog.

quickly:

i did my own laundry! in the sink! and now its drying! in the shower!

in beijing!

2006-02-18T15:09:00.000+08:00

i have now been here about 36 hours. the 13 hour plane ride from los angeles was wonderfully tolerable. as i was comfortably situated in an exit row. to my left was a couple from green bay en route to pick up their first chinese daughter. to my right was a recent fordham business grad with hopes of learning chinese in four months.

so far this is really hard. im really excited to be here. but that doesnt really compensate for how much i miss home.

it gets bright late here. or maybe it is just that ive been up early these past two mornings. i was up at 6 today. and sat on the bed and watched the city light up while listening to stars and doing sudoku puzzles.

oh youre so silent jens.

2006-02-14T06:14:00.000+08:00

i won tickets to see stars tomorrow night in boulder. i also bought two last week. so now i have four.

so to celebrate i bought a jens lekman cd. because of an email from raf:

heard this guy jens lekman that the kids are into in the car yesterday.
he's really likable and melancholy in a way that probably makes all the girls fall in love with him.
he's swedish or something and the song "black cab" is a hit.

snow.

2006-02-11T03:18:00.000+08:00

i woke up this morning in boulder. and it looked like this:

the longest winter.

2006-02-10T04:29:00.000+08:00

it may not look like it. but this has been the longest winter break. ever.

charlie. denver.

alex and tom. casa bonita.

sam and ellen. brooklyn heights.

dad and yehyeh. san gabriel.

jesse nick and alex. boulder.

testing.

2006-02-09T06:33:00.000+08:00

i am leaving the comforts of home in exactly one week. a week from friday i will be in china.