Revisions

You may have noticed that there are no photos of Kurt from his visit to China, this is because he has asked me to remove them.

Apologies

Just a quick note to say I have been going back through old blog entries and adding some photos here and there and have noticed that I have made some typos and grammatical errors. I have changed those that I noticed on the spot, but I apologize for any other imperfections. It's also interesting to see how things changed so much between when I started writing this and when I finished. I guess I have grown and know that much more about Chinese culture now.

Last Days in Beijing

After Huangshan, I had less than a week left in Beijing. I was really sad but had an amazing last couple days. On the Thursday before I left I was forced by Alex and Carrie to go to this mixer. It was some networking thing that was sponsored (or something like that) by a bunch of universities. Personally I thought it sounded very elitist and I had no desire to go. However, I had nothing better to do, so I went. The bar was nice, but super stuffy and hot. They cleared the floor at one point and brought out a male belly dancer and then some martial arts performers. I couldn't see much, but it looked kind of interesting. The night ended up being pretty cool and we met some interesting people.

On Saturday night a bunch of us went to Karaoke for my going away party. I was a bit skeptical at first since I have never done karaoke and have refused to sing since I was in the chorus in grade school. However, we had an amazing time. We rented out a large size room and had 15 or so people there. I could not really find any songs I wanted to sing, but still had fun with the ones that everyone else chose. The room even came equipped with maracas and tambourines! We were there from midnight to maybe 3 AM? I am not sure. I am sort of sad that it was my first karaoke experience because I doubt I will have another one like that, unless I go back to China.

Monday night was my last night, so Alex and Carrie prepared a nice dinner for me and a bunch of friends that came over. Alex said it wasn't a going away dinner but a "Convince Ramune to extend her stay" dinner. I was in a really weird mood all day because it was really hitting me that it could be the last time I saw most of these people. I thought about staying and kept joking that there was a Ramune-mometer that would determine whether I would stay or not. For many reasons though, I had to come home.

Now that I am home, I am in a weird state and trying to figure out what to do next. Part of me thinks I should seriously look for a design job and part of me wants to save enough money and get back to China and look for something there so I can continue to travel around. Maybe it is time for me to explore my own country though. I haven't really seen much of America and it is a big place full of all kinds of different things. It was rough because I am not really an impulsive person, I try to think about everything I do, but when I was in the security line and on the plane, I really wanted to get off of it. I thought, they do it in the movies, what's to say I can't do it now. Be impulsive and follow your gut. I didn't and now am in Virginia wondering what is next. NY? China? Somewhere else?

I guess this concludes my blog on China, unless I find myself back there. My photos should be all up to date pretty soon. No more to write . . .

Climbing down Mount Huangshan

Around 3 AM, people started getting up and running around outside the rooms. The sound of hocking loogies and yelling and banging on doors filled the air. They had absolutely no respect or consideration for other people. The sun was not supposed to rise until 5:something, yet they were trying to wake everyone to get up and ready. No one in my room was getting up yet, but I figured I would wait for them to leave and then I would get ready. After attempting to sleep for another hour, I got up, grabbed my stuff and went to the hotel bathroom to wash up. It was only 4 AM and there were two women doing the same thing. In the bathroom I met an American girl who said that she paid $80 to stay in the "servant's quarters." The place was such a rip off. My camera battery was dying, so after I got ready I found an outlet in a hallway of the hotel and sat there while it charged. No one even looked at me twice, maybe this was a normal thing to do.

I went to see the sunrise but decided it was not worth it. The whole point of going up Huangshan one day, spending the night and coming down the next day, is to see the sunrise. The previous night the tour guide that was at the sunset told me there was a 30% chance that the sun would rise. I wondered if there was a 70% chance of apocalypse that I was unaware of, but I assumed he meant that the sunset would not be dramatic.

I began the long hike down the mountain. Lonely Planet says that it is best to take the Eastern Steps up and the Western Steps down, because at least the hard parts are all downhill. They don't really tell you how much uphill you have to do as well. This was by far the hardest stairclimbing I have had to do. I went to the top of several peaks, including the Heavenly Capital Peak, which is the steepest of the peaks. Unfortunately the tallest (Lotus Peak) was closed off. Going up the Heavenly Capital Peak I was on all fours most of the time. There were parts of the stairs that were at 80 to 90 degree angles and you had to hold onto chains to support your weight and not fall back. I do not normally get vertigo, but I could not look down without feeling like I might fall off.

The thing that was so frustrating was that I kept thinking I was almost at the top of the peak, but I would get to the top of the steps and there would be another section and then another section and so on. I think this happened at least seven times before I got to the top. At one point along the way (almost to the top), I was walking and a group of Chinese tourists said hello. I said hello kindly even though I really just wanted to get to the top and drink some water. Then one of them said that they were students from some Aeronautics University in Nanjing. They had seen me during their trip and wanted to say hello. They asked if I would take a photo of them and then they asked if they could take a photo with me. When I asked why, they said, "Because you are the hero!" It was quite amusing and I am not sure what made me "the hero," maybe because I had a ridiculously large backpack on and most people were sane enough not to carry so much up a steep mountain. Anyway, we took photos and then we all began the descent down the peak. It was pretty frightening.

Later on during my descent, I had passed some more workers bringing goods up the mountain. It was very bizarre but on at least three occasions when I moved to the side to let them pass, a worker would touch my thigh. One other time a worker patted his thigh and looked at me. I don't know what that all meant, but I felt somewhat violated. It was very strange. I wonder if they do this to everyone who lets them go by.

By the end of the climb down, my knees were shot. It took me around six hours to get down the mountain (including climbing up Heavenly Capital Peak). I caught a bus to the hostel and the owner helped me buy a plane ticket. Unfortunately I did not get a photo of the owner, but he had the strangest eyes. I couldn't tell if he was just nervous and did not want to look me in the eye or if his eyes were just pointing in totally different directions.

He helped me get to a bus that would take me to Tunxi, where I could then take a taxi to the airport. The bus was pretty budget and three different people were trying to speak to me at once. One guy asked me what I thought of Chinese people and at the time all I could get out was "They are nice." It was a bad time to ask because I was so tired of Chinese tourists that were following flags, hocking up loogies, waking me up at 3 AM, peeing in pots near my bed and having no consideration for other people I had had quite enough, but I tried to remain cool.

I made it to the airport five hours early and went to the cafe there. They had a variety of fried rices on the menu so I figured it would be good to put some real food in my stomach, since all I had been eating was snack bars for two days. The woman said that their pork fried rice was good. I sat down and then heard a microwave in the kitchen. I figured it was something else, until my meal came out. It was one of those cup o' noodles type containers, only it had rice and a rather foul flavored pork sauce in it. I paid 30 kuai for this crap. Like the economic room for 200 kuai, it was yet another disappointment. I ate the parts that were just plain rice and then went to take a nap on some benches in the waiting area.

It was pretty nice being one of maybe three people in the airport, just relaxing for a few hours, until a huge tourist group came in. Of course they were on my flight. The entire time until we got on the flight, they were taking photos of each other in the airport. I am sure I made it into a large percent of those photos and I am sure I did not look happy. I was so tired and could barely keep my eyes open and the last thing I wanted to be surrounded by was a bunch of tourists.

The flight was mostly painless and then I made it home and to bed!

Climbing up Mount Huangshan

I woke up on Tuesday by a knocking on the door. The owner told me to wake up so I could get ready for the bus. After I got ready, I went to the hostel office and tried to talk to him about what the plan was. I did not know if I wanted to spend one or two nights on the top of the mountain and I needed to buy a flight back at some point. He told me to go up, stay one night and come down and then fly back that same night. We had some communication problems, so he got on the grungiest computer I have ever seen (the keyboard was covered in cigarette ash and all kinds of weird grime) and used an online translator to communicate with me. It worked quite well to get the main points across.

He walked me to a bus that drove me and a bunch of Chinese tourists up to the base of one of the cable cars. So my hike began up the many stairs of Mount Huangshan. I went up the East Stairs, which were quite packed with tourists going both ways. There were so many Chinese workers hiking up and down the stairs with massive loads across their shoulders. They were carrying everything from vegetables to linens and towels to building materials and garbage. I guess everything that is on top of the mountain is carried up by cheap labor. It was really annoying me because there are three cable cars that go up to the top of the mountain. Would it be so hard to bring a load up and a load down once a day? Then again, I guess it gives people jobs, but I am sure they don't get paid nearly enough. Along with carrying heavy loads, it's not like they have the best shoes to support the weight and climb.

Initially I was really excited to hike up and listen to the sounds of the nature around me, however there was nowhere I went where I did not have to listen to numerous tourists chattering. I finally took my iPod out after I was stuck behind a couple who were playing music outloud on their cellphone. Argh!

I arrived at the top of the cable car area in two hours and then tried to look for a hotel or hostel to drop my stuff off. After looking at a couple of hotels, I found the Shilin, which had an economic room for 200 kuai ($25). That is ridiculous for an economic room, so I thought it had to be pretty decent. The next room up was a single for 1280 kuai ($160), and I was not about to do that. The woman at the front desk showed me to walk outside the building and up part of the mountain to another area where the economic rooms were. It looked like they were trying to hide these rooms from their regular customers. I found the rooms, that consisted of three bunk beds and a single bed crammed into a small space. It was around 10 AM and I was the first one there, so I chose my bed and attempted to take a nap. Unfortunately the mattress was a wooden plank with practically non-existent padding. I laid in bed for around two hours tossing and turning until I decided to give up and move on.

I left my bag at the front desk and began checking out the scenic spots on the top of the mountain. There were so many amazing places to see and luckily the farther out I went from the hotel areas, the less tourists I ran into. One of the main reasons I wanted to go to Huangshan was to see the mountains in a sea of clouds. Unfortunately I think that happens between October and May, and I must have come a bit too late, as there were no clouds that low. I was climbing up and down and up and down stairs the entire afternoon. Nothing is flat on the top of the mountain, so anytime you want to see something you have to take stairs. It was starting to get late and I found this one path I wanted to take, but it was entirely down stairs into a valley for 3.5 kilometers. What goes down must come up, and I was already pretty far from the hotel area. I went down for .5 kilometers and then decided to come up so I would not miss the sunset.

Lonely Planet mentioned that to avoid the crowds, Purple Peak was a good place to see the sunset. When I got to the top, there was only one other couple and their tour guide. It was one of those sunsets that looked like it would be very dull but then at the last second was amazing. I attempted to take some photos, but none of them came out quite right.

At this point I was freezing and needed to get back to the economic rooms. It was getting very dark and I needed food and water. I found a little kiosk and bought ridiculously overpriced water and a box of cookies for snacks. I managed to find my way back to the hotel in the dark and went to the shop inside the hotel to see if I could put my photos on a disc. I had already blown through all of my memory cards and the choice was either to pay to put them on a disc, delete photos or not take any the following day. I ended up paying an insane 200 kuai for two CDs! I felt like I was being ripped off at every corner.

I went back to my room naively thinking that I would be the first or only one in the room. The door was locked, so I found a housekeeping lady to open it. I turned the lights on and managed to wake up all six other people that were sleeping in the room. After apologizing, I quietly tried to get ready for bed in hopes that since I was so exhausted I would be able to sleep no matter what the conditions were.

An hour after I got into bed, a couple of the girls starts talking. One of them got out of bed, walked over to the foot of my bed (which was by the door), took out a pot and started peeing (and farting!) in the pot! I thought this was utterly disgusting, but thought to myself, "They must be civilized people, no one wants to sleep in a room with the stench of urine . . . do they?" About five minutes after she was done, another girl got out of bed and did the same, and then another and then another. Four girls peed in this pot that was less than a foot from my feet. EEEW! I was beyond repulsed and just wanted to get out of there. What boggles my mind is why no one would just leave the room and go a little ways to the bathroom. I had not used the bathroom, but I imagine it would be better than having to sleep knowing there is a bucket of pee in your room. I attempted to sleep and cover my nose, but was very unsuccessful.

Getting to Huangshan . . .

Before I flew to Huangshan, I tried to make arrangements for a place to stay the first night, since I was going to be getting in around 9 PM. I found a hostel and called to see if I could make a reservation. The guy spoke a teeny bit of English but it was minimal and my Chinese was certainly not enough to get across what I needed to. By the time we finished speaking I was under the impression someone would pick me up at the airport when I got there. He never asked my name or anything, but I guess he figured it would be easy to spot a white girl in a sea of Chinese tourists.

The flight was mostly painless, just a little turbulence as usual. When I got off the plane the guy found me pretty easily and took me to his van. This was all really sketchy as it was 9 PM, I was tired and there were three other people in the van, all people who worked at the hostel I imagine. How many people does it take to pick someone up from the airport?

The website for the hostel said that it is 6 kilometers from the airport . . . 6 kilometers my bum . . . I think it was more like 60, maybe even more than that. It was really dark and took us over an hour on curvy mountain roads (that we were speeding around no less). Throughout the ride, the owner of the hostel kept asking me questions on how to say words in English. It was like a private tutor session in the van. And like many Chinese people I have noticed, he giggled after everything he said in English. I wonder if it is some nervous reaction. I taught him how to say "airplane" and "airport," but he kept calling it an "airplane port."

We finally arrived at the hostel and I paid 50 kuai ($6.25) for a single bedroom with a bathroom . . . not bad. Unfortunately the water faucet was not working, so I had to use the shower head whenever I wanted to wash my hands or brush my teeth. The room was entirely blue, from the walls to the blankets on the bed. It was a little strange, but very comfortable. The owner (I never got his name), told me to be ready by 6 AM so I could catch a bus to the base of the mountain.

No Knees

I am back from Huangshan and am ridiculously tired and my calves and knees are screaming at me. Took lots of photos, so I am going through them now and will hopefully have them up soon. Will also write all about it today or tomorrow. I have less than a week left, so sad!