Ramune in China

Revisions

2006-06-02T21:43:00.001+08:00

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

2006-05-27T12:12:00.000+08:00

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

2006-05-26T23:45:00.000+08:00

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

2006-05-21T20:44:00.000+08:00

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

2006-05-20T20:15:00.000+08:00

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 . . .

2006-05-19T13:38:00.000+08:00

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

2006-05-18T08:38:00.000+08:00

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!

Off to Huangshan!

2006-05-15T15:12:00.000+08:00

So for my last trip in China, I have chosen to go to Huangshan. Unfortunately Alex just started intensive language courses today (for ten weeks), so I am going alone. Ahhhh! I am super excited and scared all at once. I think it will be a good way to end my time here. This is what "they" say about Huangshan:

"No ordinary mountain is worth seeing after a trip to the Five Sacred Mountains; no Sacred Mountain is worth seeing after a trip to Mount Huangshan."

I bought a one way ticket, am leaving for the airport in fifteen minutes and then I think I am getting picked up to go to a Hostel near the base of the mountain. I hope. I tried calling this place and luckily the guy spoke some English but I will be pretty screwed if I run into people who do not speak any English. At least it is easier in person than on the phone. Anyway, the plan is to stay at the hostel tonight, then hike up the mountain with my bag and stay somewhere else, then I will see how things go and see if I want to come back down and fly back to Beijing that night or stay another night and then come down. Who knows. I will most likely be back by Thursday or Friday.

Ok, wish me luck and I am on my way. Check the link I provided above and then go to the bottom left where it says "Huanshan Photos." I really hope I see clouds like that. I have heard that they are normally seen between October and May, so I am on the edge. I will be very sad if I don't see them. When I think of China and Chinese art, this is what I think of.

Eeee! I am off!

Passport Photos and Thigh Pants

2006-05-15T13:44:00.000+08:00

The other morning Alex had an interview at Beijing University for an intensive language course. I went with her because apparently Beijing University is like the Harvard of the East and has a beautiful campus. Plus, what else did I have to do? She needed to get passport photos but the Kodak near our apartment was unable to do them. After her interview we looked for another Kodak and found one. For some reason it was taking a while to take the photos and Alex asked if there was a problem. Apparently their camera was not working properly and it happened to be the exact same one as mine, which I had with me. While they were trying to figure stuff out with their camera, Alex and I had some fun taking photos with the fake ocean background they had on the wall. There was also this hideous photo of a little girl with pursed lips wearing red lipstick and holding a red phone. I guess this is the kind of photo you can take at this place. After not being able to figure out their camera problems, we offered them my camera for the photo since Alex needed it right away. They took the photos and we were off.

We walked around the campus for a while and then met up with Alex's old Chinese teacher who was really cool. Alex showed me this amazing clothing store that I am now obsessed with. I have a hard time finding clothes I like and this place was almost made for me. At one point though, I was in the dressing room and Alex said, "I found pants that you have never seen in your life. Seriously, you have never seen these before and you are trying them on." So I tried them on and they were the most unflattering pants in the universe. I don't know who wants their thighs to look twice as big as they are.

It was a simple yet fun day and we had a good time at the Kodak store. Who would have thought!

Back in Beijing

2006-05-15T13:28:00.000+08:00

We arrived back in Beijing at around 7 AM and joined the masses that were also returning. We came to the apartment, did laundry, checked emails and went to "The Olive" for lunch. It's kind of funny how I have become sort of a "regular" there. The waiter came up to us and asked if we had been there before, when I said I had been he said he recognized me. I think he was trying to practice his English and how to be polite by asking us a bunch of questions. It was pretty cool.

After lunch we went to the Summer Palace. Unfortunately the sky was really "smoky" as the weather describes it, so the view was not that great. Even with the less than amazing view, it was still nice to walk around and imagine what it must have been like back in the day. We were lucky enough to see a musical performance in the old theatre. For dinner we wanted to do Peking Duck, so we found this wild Chinese restaurant. They had all kinds of weird things there. Turtle soup, sea cucumber and all kinds of things I can't even remember, but let's just say it was hard to find things on the menu that I was interested in eating. The Peking Duck was quite tasty as was the fried octopus (or was it calamari?). They gave complimentary desserts, so you can imagine I was excited. Eeeek! It was horrible! We ordered one of each since there were three of us (Carrie came as well). One was some tofu cubes in a liquid, another was some black jelly (we think maybe squid ink?) and then other was some kind of porridge. They were all equally foul.

That night Alex got back from her trip to Xiahe and so we all went to Alfa (a bar/club) to catch up. Kurt and I wanted to go to the Great Wall but did not know how to get there without paying a lot for a taxi. Julie has a driver that she uses and she told us that she would call him and arrange it. Sure enough the next morning, the driver picked us up and drove us out to Simatai. It was a very cloudy and misty day unfortunately, but Simatai looks amazing even in the fog. We heard that there is a tabogan at Simatai that you can take down, but we could not find it anywhere. My only thought is that Lonely Planet is wrong and it is actually on another part of the wall. We were pretty disappointed, but it was still an amazing day.

We took the cable car up so that we could spend more time on the wall. For good and for bad, we went on an uncrowded day. The good thing about it is obviously that there are less people, the bad thing is that the hagglers focus in on you and follow you the entire way. Luckily we managed to shake one off and enjoy the rest of our hike. We made peanut butter and nutella sandwiches for lunch, which I have now named "The Great Wall Sandwich" since I made it the last time I climbed the Great Wall. Kurt and I noticed that I put a ton more nutella and peanut butter on mine, go figure!

That evening we went to Red Rose, the Xinjiang restaurant, with Alex and Julie. They had belly dancing and a band and it was a good time until the snake came out. I totally forgot that the belly dancers sometimes bring a snake out, and Julie is deathly afraid of snakes. As soon as she saw it she freaked out and had to leave the restaurant.

The following day Kurt and I went to do some shopping at the market that had opened across the street and then I took him to the airport.

Shanghai and Hangzhou

2006-05-14T20:14:00.000+08:00

The flight to Shanghai was pure torture. While in Kunming I said that I could not stand Kenny G and there was nothing worse, but I was wrong. Two words: Celine Dion. I had noticed the music of Ms. Dion seemed popular in China, but it is normally easy to leave a place that plays it. Unfortunately Shanghai Airlines really likes Celine Dion and plays it through the speakers for everyone to hear, regardless of whether you are wearing headphones or not, during take off and landing. The worst part was every time they turned it off and put it back on, it would start back at the beginning. So I had to hear four of Celine Dion's greatest hits on repeat. I can't remember all of the tracks, but there was definitely the Titanic song and the "I'm your lady and you are my man" song. BLEH! Vomitous. At least with Kenny G there is no screaming voice and you can sort of tune it out.

Anyway, the flight was pretty painful in that respect. We got to Shanghai and the weather continued to be pretty crappy and even rained for a day or so. On our first day we checked into our hotel and then walked to this other hotel to set up a tour for the following day. I wanted to show Kurt a small village since all we were doing was big cities. Alex and I had previously wanted to go to Hangzhou or Suzhou when we visited Shanghai, but did not get a chance. We booked a tour for Hangzhou for the following day. What a disaster.

Our tour group seemed pretty small, around 13 people, so I thought Hangzhou might not be too crowded. We got there and it was horribly packed. For one, I was so wrong about Hangzhou being a small village. I might have noticed something was off when I saw a large dot next to it on the map, indicating that it was a large city. Our first stop was this temple that was very cool and I was excited to see. I am sad that it was so crowded because we literally rushed in, saw the big Buddha and left. There are loads of Buddhas carved into the side of the mountain and we just walked right by it. We did get to see some monks playing music inside the temple and that was really nice and somewhat calming (at least for Kurt, not much worked for me).

After the temple we went to this park where we saw an albino peacock. We pretty much rushed through the park and to a crowded boat that took us out on West Lake for around an hour. It was so disappointing. I remember when Alex and I were looking for places to go we thought that West Lake would be beautiful and serene. Apparently it inspired poets, but it did not inspire me. It was pretty smoggy and crowded when we went. Even if it had not been smoggy, I don't think I would have been impressed. I guess I had much grander expectations.

We went for a Chinese lunch at this hotel. It was alright, but nothing amazing. I am not particularly thrilled with Chinese cuisine. I like a few dishes, but I will admit that I prefer American Chinese. Call me a stupid American, but I just find that at least the Chinese I have had has all been really oily and is not as healthy as I thought it would have been.

Our last stop on the tour was a tea village where they grow green tea. It was really interesting but it was so obvious they were sitting us down to sell tea to us. They took us to a room where they showed us how you drink green tea and told us that it's good for high blood pressure among other things. The woman sounded like a robot, as if she had been programmed and someone just pushed a button that said "English" and she spoke.

This was the first tour I had been on like this and now I know why I have avoided them for so long. During May Break it is especially bad because you have to rush through everything. I did not really get to enjoy anything I saw. We took the bus back to Shanghai and rested that evening.

Our first full day in Shanghai we went to the Jade Buddha Temple. I had heard it was pretty cool, however when we went there were banners all over with the day's date on it. We didn't know what they said, but we figured there was some big event. Sure enough, there was a huge line to see the actual Jade Buddha. We saw everything else at the temple but ended up skipping the Jade Buddha because the line was ridiculous. When we walked outside of the temple there were several severely deformed people begging for money. I remembered seeing a guy with no legs outside of a church in Cairo. He dragged himself around with his arms and I didn't think it got much worse. The people outside the Jade Buddha Temple had all kinds of problems I didn't really know existed. There were people with really skinny legs bent in weird positions that had to push themselves on carts. The worst one for me was one I barely even looked at. This person was being pushed around on a cart by a man because his head was so enormous and his body was too weak to support it. Literally I think his head was at least two or three times bigger than a normal head. It was really disturbing and sad and put a strange cast on the day.

After cheering up a bit, we went to the Urban Planning Museum. We probably would not have gone there had several people not told me how cool it was. They have the largest model of a city in the world. It was pretty cool to see. It is supposed to show what Shanghai will look like in the year 2010 (or was is 2020?). They also had this cool exhibit on Oslo, which I found pretty funny. I am in this fairly polluted city in one of the most polluted countries in the world and then I walk into a room talking about how Norway is so clean and perfect. It was sort of a tease. They had two pretty cool interactive features. One was a photo booth where you stand in front of a snowy background and then say "Ooooooslo" for the camera. They also had a "Water from Oslo" thing where you can drink the water. For all I know it could be fake, but it was a cool idea.

We took the tourist sightseeing tunnel to the other side of the Huangpu River and went up the Oriental Pearl Tower. That was a pretty hellish experience. We had to buy tickets and then got in a long line to get to the elevator. You figure you can see the line and you only have to wait for that. But when you get to the elevator you find out that you take it up to the middle and then have to get into another line to get to the top. Since we paid for the top, we waited again . . . What sucks is that it was a cloudy rainy day, so we paid for a pretty crappy view. We did get to see the Jimao Tower, which is the 4th tallest building in the world and the tallest hotel in the world.

On our last day in Shanghai we went to the Yuyuan Gardens. We went through a part I had not seen with Alex, so it was kind of cool to get a different view off it. We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around and trying to shop. We had walked down this pretty cool street the first day we got there and decided to go back to look for clothes. I did not realize how expensive the stuff was until we walked into these stores. There was a shirt that cost $1,000!!! I can see how a boutique in New York can charge something ridiculous like that for a wild shirt, but this looked like a regular shirt. It was just ridiculous.

That night we took the overnight train back to Beijing.

Kunming and the Stone Forest

2006-05-13T01:24:00.000+08:00

Sunday morning we woke up early to fly to Kunming. It was strange flying back down there less than a week after I had already been through there. Kunming is supposed to be "spring all year" and have blue skies, however we only had a blue sky one day, and that was the only blue sky we saw while Kurt was in China. The taxis in China are pretty cool. Instead of having some long confusing number to identify taxis, they each have an animal (picture and name) and a number. For example our taxi from the airport was Cow 76 and our taxi to the Stone Forest was Butterfly 32. I think it is a great system and is also fun. We were trying to see how many animals there are, and there are quite a lot.

We got to our hotel, got ourselves together and then went in search of food. This is where you may lose all respect for me. We went to Pizza Hut. Yes, I admit it, our first meal in Kunming was at Pizza Hut. We were really hungry and it happened to be on a corner of our building. I remembered Pizza Hut in Cairo was quite different from Pizza Hut in the states, so I figured why not try. It was really good and the funny thing is that it is like a really restaurant in China and has much nicer decor than a Pizza Hut in the states.

Unfortunately it was raining on our first day there, but we decided to go for a walk anyway. We figured we could buy umbrellas somewhere on the way to the Green Lake, but we could not find any. We went to the lake anyway and found a little amusement park with all kinds of games and rides for small kids. After the park we were pretty much soaked, so we headed back to the hotel. A couple blocks away we finally found umbrellas, oy!

Our second day in Kunming we walked to Dian Chi Lake. On our way we passed by the West and East Pagodas. The East Pagoda had these beautiful fuschia flowers all over the place. It was quite a long walk to Dian Chi Lake and involved us walking on part of a highway where we were laughed at by almost every car that drove by us. The park was really pretty and the ponds in the park were a ridiculous shade of green. It looked like they were filled with some sort of neon olive green paint. We were quite stupid and did not wear sunblock on the one blue sky day we had. Unfortunately we both burned. That night we met up with Adina (she went on the Fulbright trip to Lijiang) who was hanging out in Kunming until her boyfriend came to visit. We went to this great Mexican restaurant (go figure) and I had a tasty pesto quesadillas!

Our last day in Kunming we hired a taxi to take us to the Stone Forest. I don't like how cities claim to have all of these big sights, and then when you get there, the sight is really two or three hours away. The frustrating thing is, I know there are buses you can take to the Stone Forest but with my minimal Chinese abilities I did not want to risk going somewhere else by accident. The traffic was so bad getting out of the city that at one point cars were backing up to get off of the highway.

The Stone Forest was really interesting but you have to go through a lot of touristy stuff and masses of people before you can get to the good stuff. It was so ridiculously crowded but we did manage to find some areas that were not as populated. We did not have a map, so we had a bit of a hard time finding our way out when we wanted to leave, but eventually found these Chinese girls who wanted to practice there English on us. When Kurt said he was from NY they said "It must be a beautiful place." They were really cool and giggly. They could have been making fun of us for all I know, but they sort of helped us find our way out.

On our way back to Kunming we were stuck in really bad traffic and it turned out a huge truck full of coal(?) had turned over and was blocking cars from going forward. I have no clue if anyone was hurt. We had to drive around the truck and it did not look good.

The following morning we had breakfast and then caught our flight to Shanghai.

Forbidden City and Apocalyptic Skies

2006-05-11T19:18:00.000+08:00

Kurt arrived on his birthday after having traveled in Europe for several weeks. Luckily I was feeling better and was able to bake him a cake and show him around a bit on his first day. He did not have a whole lot of jetlag, but we kept the first couple days pretty light. Unfortunately the entire time he was here, Beijing was horribly polluted, so his first impressions were not so good.

The second day in Beijing we went to the Forbidden City and the Lama Temple. The Forbidden City was pretty cool, however the sky was nasty the entire day with all the thick pollution just hanging around. The Lama Temple was cool to see again, however it was more crowded and there were no performances.

The third day we pretty much stayed indoors because it looked like the apocalypse outside and we did not want to breathe it in. It was so disgusting outside, so we unfortunately missed out on doing anything too exciting. It was good to rest though since we had to leave early the next morning for Shanghai. I did take Kurt to Yashow, a shopping market with all kinds of clothing, shoes, bags, beads, Chinese goodies. Most of the clothing and shoes are fakes, actually I don't know if any of it is real, but some stuff is definitely better quality. At any rate, there were lots of people and everyone is trying to get your money and hassling you. It was a bit much, so we did not last too long. That night we went to dinner with Jen, the other roommate who I only knew for a couple weeks but got along really well with. We went to a Korean restaurant and had hot pot.

Lijiang Day 7 (0425) - Leaving Lijiang

2006-05-11T18:48:00.000+08:00

I went to bed thinking that I would wake up feeling better since I was not staying in the same cigarette/leaky gas room, however I woke up feeling just as dizzy and sick in my stomach. I tried to get some air, Lily gave me lots of ginger tea with "local sugar" and I drank lots of water. I was unable to eat anything and thought I would fall over and pass out if I did not hold onto something at all times.

Unfortunately it was our last day and I had to go to the airport alone and fly alone for my first time in China while feeling like this. Lily was very kind and came with me in the taxi to the airport and stood with me until I went through security. My flight to Kunming was so hot and turbulent. My flight to Beijing was delayed an hour and I had to keep my eyes shut the entire time to try and not get any sicker.

I got home and went straight to sleep. I woke up the next morning still feeling dizzy, but was at least able to walk around without holding onto anything. It was such a bizarre feeling and I still don't know what was wrong with me. I spent that day getting everything in order before Kurt arrived, the following day.

Lijiang Day 6 (0424) - Hike in Liming/First Bend of Yangtze

2006-05-11T16:58:00.000+08:00

Our last full day in Lijiang was amazing. We had been talking about what to do for this day all week and it was between seeing Tiger Leaping Gorge or going to Liming. All we knew was that Justin said Tiger Leaping Gorge is better to see on a three day hike rather than pushing it into one day, and we knew that Liming had "red rocks." We decided on Liming because it sounded interesting, none of us had been there and it was less touristy (which was very important to us). We grabbed something to eat and then sat in the van for three hours through the mountains and along the Yangtze River.

We arrived at Liming and began our climb up one of the peaks. Since the area is like one big park with a variety of mountains to climb up, there were stairs the entire way. Unfortunately I needed to use the bathroom on the way and found a squatter. I have been to some foul squatters, but this one took the cake. Apparently they were not getting a lot of tourists, so they saw no reason to clean the bathrooms or make sure the water was going down. It was an assault on all senses.

The climb up the mountain was amazing. The formations there were unlike anything I had seen. The colors were beautiful and I think it is now one of my favorite places I have been to in China. All along the stairs were wooden gutters that brought water down from the top of the mountain. The sounds of the water and the look of the trees reminded us (those of us who have played it) of the computer game, Myst. It was so serene and there were not many people around, so it made for an enjoyable experience, as well as a pretty rough climb.

It took us around 1.5 hours to get to the top. Near the top we had to take off our shoes to climb the rest of the way. This is when I discovered that I was a billygoat in a past life. I much preferred climbing on the rocks barefoot. I thought everyone would feel this way, but they did not. I cannot even describe how the rocks looked, that's why I am including photos. The color and the texture was beyond amazing. Adina pointed out that some of the formations looked like cakes with chocolate syrup dripping down. This might also have to do with the fact that we had been talking about chocolate cake quite a bit. We rested on the top for a while, ate some snacks and then came down.

Our next stop was in Shuge, to have lunch and see the first bend of the Yangtze River. We ate lunch at this great place where you go into the kitchen, look at all of their ingredients and tell them what you want! At first I thought it was weird because I didn't know what would happen if I said I wanted a potato. Did that mean I would get a potato on a dish? What they did was you would pick something (like a potato) and then they would mix it with other ingredients and then you would have a dish. It was probably one of the better meals we had during our trip, until I saw a fly in my rice. After lunch we went up to a monument for the Red Army to look out on the Yangtze.

We drove back to Lijiang and went to the Prague Cafe for dinner. This is where the trip went sour. We had been wanting to get Naxi sandwiches for a while since we thought it was a Naxi thing. Sadly, Lily told us it really isn't Naxi, it's more like a thing Westerners like to eat. At any rate, we all ordered them and they turned out to be like BLTs with ham, cucumbers and goat cheese. It was alright, but I started feeling sick pretty soon after eating it. The strange thing was that no one else felt sick and we all ate the same thing.

After hanging out for a while, we went back to our rooms and I noticed a horrible stench when I walked into Adina's and my room. It smelled like someone had smoked a pack of cigarettes in there. None of us smoke and none of us had been in there since before dinner, so it was really bizarre. Then I started getting really really dizzy and had to sit down on my bed. When I went to lie down I noticed that right by my pillow the smell was the strongest and it also smelled like chemical gas. I never felt this strange before and thought I was going to pass out. It was late, but we called the woman at the front desk and she came up with a can of air freshener. I was really unhappy with that because covering up a smell is not going to stop it from killing me in the middle of the night. I was really nervous about the chemical gas smell and so we had her look around to see if there were any leaks. Justin and Steve were staying in the room next to ours and they were closer to the gas tanks, but there was no smell in their room and the gas did not appear to have a leak. We never figured it out, but we moved to another room because I did not want to risk not waking up in the morning.

Lijiang Day 5 (0423) - Hike Back to Lijiang

2006-05-11T16:13:00.000+08:00

Throughout the trip we had been changing our plans daily. Our guide, Lily, was very accommodating and dealt with our constant change of mind very well. Each night we would talk about what we were doing the rest of the week based on how that day had gone. On this day we had planned to drive back to Lijiang and then spend the day there seeing tourist sights and relaxing. Adina had the idea that we hike back to Lijiang since the previous day had consisted of us getting driven around everywhere.

Lily decided to go back into town and so did Steve (one of the Fulbrighters). We said our goodbyes to the family and the rest of us followed Lily's brother on another challenging hike through the mountains. This day was by far our hardest hike. We never stopped for a lunch break and I think we went farther than our previous hikes, although I am not sure. Lily's brother did not have anything with him. He did not drink water, and as far as I could tell he never broke a sweat or got exhausted. Initially we were going to find our own way back to Lijiang, but I am glad we followed him because I think would have gotten lost somewhere along the way.

We arrived to Suhe, a village not far from Lijiang and decided to take a van for the remainder of the trip. That evening we went to a Western restaurant that served mainly "Italian" food. Adina ordered a salad with ricotta and olives and was so excited . . . until she got the salad. It looked like a regular side salad, with some grated parmesan and no olives. Yet another example of how Western food gets twisted. After dinner we sat around and talked as if it was our last night together. Steve had printed some of his photos and handed them out. I really need to print my photos because it is such a different feeling to have a hard copy in your hands.

Lijiang Day 4 (0422) - Lashihai and Yi Village

2006-05-10T17:59:00.000+08:00

Woke up after not having slept too well due to the cold and moths, and took a shower in a cement room with no light.

We spent the day around Lashihai seeing different things. We started by taking a van up to the top of this one mountain to a Yi Village (another minority group in the area). Unfortunately most of the people were out in the farms so we only saw a handful and they were not very willing to have their pictures taken. We walked up to the top of the mountain and saw the first bend of the Yangtze off in the distance. Lily ran into someone she knew and we went to their place for more tea. The wife had very long hair and was washing it in a bowl with detergent for almost an hour I think.

We took the van back down the mountain and it smelled like burning rubber most of the way. For lunch we went to this restaurant where we waited forever to get our food. Things seem to move very slowly, which is refreshing, but we were getting quite hungry. There were these really annoying Chinese girls sitting at a table near us and it was obvious they were talking about us. They also seemed to be interested in the guys in our group because they kept giggling and then their van followed us to our next destination . . . "canoeing." We were all excited to go canoeing on Lake Lashihai and then we discovered that "canoeing" means getting into a boat, wearing bright orange lifevests and getting pushed around by a Chinese man. A little disappointing, but we still had fun. The lake was surprisingly shallow considering how big it was.

After the lake we drove to a Tibetan Temple. We went at a perfect time when the monks were doing their chants and playing the loud vibrating drums. We walked through the temple and I could have just stayed there all day listening to it. It was amazing and the drums just filled me up. Outside of the temple there were lots of little children and again, they posed for many photos and made it hard for us to stop. They would keep looking at the result on the camera, and then would reorganize and pose again and again and again. All very cute and so happy looking. I need to print a bunch of my photos out and send them to Lily to give to the kids. She said that people come through and take photos, but no one sends anything back, so some people in the villages do not want their photos taken anymore. I hope not to give all of us foreigners a bad name, and return some photos.

When we returned to Lily's family's there was an American couple also staying there with their Chinese daughter, Bebe. She was really cute and so full of energy. Unfortunately a little bit too much at times. She does not speak Chinese and it had been a while since she had people to play with who spoke English, so she was running us all around the place on little adventures. One awkward moment was when we were eating and Bebe asked Adina about her adoption. Adina looked at the parents wondering what to say and then said "I don't think I was adopted, but my siblings do." During dinner we picked up some walnuts and were doing that thing where you play with two in your hands. I don't know how to describe it without showing it, but it's like what you do with those Chinese balls that make the little jingling sound. Know what I mean? Anyway, those stuck with us the rest of the trip.

Lijiang Day 3 (0421) - Hike to Lashihai

2006-05-07T11:04:00.000+08:00

We woke up well rested after sleeping in the heated beds at the Ecolodge. Unfortunately I had not applied sunblock very well the day before and had two horn shaped burns on my face. The hike was much easier this day as we did not have to go up and down mountains quite so much. It was more of a straight shot to Lashihai, however it took the same amount of time, around 4.5 hours. It was amazing to see how dramatically the mountains changed as we hiked through them. The plant life varied so much between different altitudes and different sides of the mountains.

We passed this one lake on the way to Lashihai that had thousands of tadpoles right along the edge of the lake. The strange thing was that I didn't see many frogs. I don't know what happens once they grow into frogs, maybe the villagers eat them? That's one hell of a lot of frogs legs. We continued on and saw goats and cows feeding in the forests and then eventually made it to Lashihai where we stayed with Lily's family.

Lily's family lives at the top of the village, which I guess means they are doing pretty well. Their place was beautiful and had all kinds of flowers and vegetables growing. Their property was set up like others in the village, with three buildings facing each other like three sides of a square, and a courtyard in the middle. Each building is about the same, consisting of two floors, and no insulation. Lily's family had two guestrooms prepared on the second floor of one of the buildings. One room was to be the girls' and one was the boys'. Carrie and I ran up and like little kids we wanted to pick the better room for the girls. We were being so silly that we only noticed that one room had a square hole in the wall and the other had a closing window with glass. Naturally we decided that a room with a hole in the wall would be colder than the one with a window you can shut. Oh how wrong we were. Later that evening we noticed that there was no glass covering the holes in the one decorative wall in the room. So instead of one larger hole, we had an entire wall full of small holes that opened up to the balcony.

For lunch they fed us all kinds of treats. One of the stranger things was that they had apples from last year! Lily said that they put them under pine needles to preserve them. They looked just like regular apples, only slightly wrinkled.

After we ate, we walked around the village for a long time. We were invited to this one old couple's place to have some tea. They were a very cool old couple, but I couldn't help feeling a little sick every time I saw the old man stick his tongue through the gaps where his teeth had fallen out. They had dried a bunch of bean jelly (they make it gelatinous, but they also dry it and fry it), and then deep fried a whole mess for us. The first bite was ok, but I was getting tired of eating deep fried foods, so I tried to politely turn down anymore. Unfortunately they were very pushy and kept forcing us to take more.

We continued walking around town and went to visit the school. It was a very bizarre experience. Here was a fairly old looking town with cute homes, but nothing extravagant and then out of nowhere was this school that was all brand new with a very fancy entrance and amazing view (hard not to have an amazing view anywhere around Lijiang). We sort of suspected the Chinese government built it for some more devious reasons than just to give them a nice school. There were loads of children running around and as soon as they saw us with our cameras they would pose for photos. The weird thing was that every time I picked up my camera to take a photo, they would run away or reorganize themselves. It was like they were teasing me or something. The kids loved the immediate gratification of the digital camera because every time I took a photo, they would crowd around to see the photo and then pose for another shot.

That night we returned to Lily's family's place for dinner and then we got sucked into sitting in front of a TV watching some Naxi dancing/karaoke video until we went to sleep.

Lijiang Day 2 (0420) - Hike to Wenhai

2006-05-07T09:50:00.000+08:00

The second day started off a bit rocky. I woke up and met Carrie and her dad for breakfast. We had to meet everyone in 45 minutes and thought we would have enough time to find a place and eat a decent western breakfast. We found one place and sat there for a long time while the waiter babbled on the phone or with friends. He looked like a wannabe Chinese surfer "dude" and certainly acted like he had been in the sun for too long. We waited for at least 10-15 minutes before he came by and then told us it would take half an hour to get our food.

We left that place and went to two other places before we found a place that said they would make our breakfast quickly. Seriously, how long can it take to fry up an egg and some toast!?!? Anyway, we waited and waited and it was getting closer to 9 AM, so we went to check on the food and they had not even started cooking! We left and just picked something up to eat on the way to the van.

We took a van to St. Joseph's Village and then began our hike to Wenhai. I am not sure exactly how far it was, maybe 15 kilometers? It was funny to see all of us with our totally packed large bags and then Lily had her tiny bag that was almost entirely filled with snacks for us! The views were really amazing from the top of the mountains. There is this one mountain in Lijiang called "Jade Dragon Snow Mountain" that looks like something from the Rockies or the Himalayas. It is strange because the surrounding mountains are much lower. Apparently several groups have tried to climb Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, but no one has succeeded in reaching the top.

Eventually we got to Wenhai and left our stuff at the Ecolodge, where we were staying. It was really random because the village was quite small, and then there was this little lodge with heated blankets! We got there and they fed us delicious Naxi food. I like it so much better than the Chinese we eat in Beijing. They have all kinds of potato dishes and yummy veggies. Unfortunately everything is always cooked in oil, but it all still tasted wonderful.

We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the town, visiting the school and seeing the animals. We had another amazing view of the snow mountain during sunset. After our walk, we returned back to the Ecolodge and had dinner. Since we were out in the middle of the mountains in a tiny village with no lights, we decided to go out and see the stars. It was amazing. I have not seen stars like that since I was at Neringa in Vermont!

After looking at the stars we went to bed with our heated blankets. They were almost too warm.

Lijiang Day 1 (0419) - Getting There

2006-05-07T09:46:00.000+08:00

Carrie, her dad and I made it to the airport and on our flight painlessly. Unfortunately there was a lot of turbulence and the western breakfasts ran out right before me. I guess there are Chinese who prefer Western breakfasts to their own. Argh! The safety video was interesting and included such safety tips as: "Take off your shoes and any sharp jewelry if crashing" and "Get into bracing position." First off, if the plane is going down and there is chaos, I don't think I will be thinking about taking off my shoes and any sharp jewelry. Luckily I wasn't wearing any sharp jewelry, but that could have been a disaster if I was.

When we arrived at Kunming, we met up with Steve (another Fulbrighter), who was going to be on our flight to Lijiang. We had five hours before the next flight, so we left the airport and went to the nearest restaurant. Strangely enough, as soon as you walk out of the Kunming Airport, it looks like you are in the city, so it was quite convenient. The food was pretty tasty, however there was an older woman hocking up loogies onto the restaurant floor!!! I guess she thought that since it was being mopped, she could just spit on the floor. Nastiness. I am not sure if I have mentioned my disgust with hocking loogies yet, but it makes me sick. I can hear it a mile away. Hocking loogies indoors makes me even more disgusted!

After lunch we checked into our flight and went through security. The sign at the security entrance was pretty amusing. Here are the things you cannot take on the plane, exactly as they were written:
Guns&Ammunition
Truncheon
Controlled Dirks
Fireworks&Ammunitionk
Megnetic or Redioective Artieles
Radioective Artieles
In Flam Mables
Acid or Toxic Articles
Corrosive Avticles
Explosives

The flight to Lijiang was alright but we had a lot of turbulence (again). When we arrived at Lijiang we were all amazed at the scenery and we were breathing in the fresh air as deeply as possible. The sky was such a vibrant blue that the landscape looked unreal, like it was a painted set.

A driver took us into Old Town to our hotel, Fan Guan Guesthouse, where we met the other two Fulbrighters, Adina and Justin, and our guide, Lily. It was already evening, so Lily took us to a Naxi restaurant deep in Old Town called Mama's. The roads in Old Town all look very similar and there are many canals and bridges to cross, so it is very easy to get lost. When we got to Mama's, we ordered a bunch of traditional Naxi food, including a fish dish. Then we heard a flop and looked over to see the chef by a little pool of fish and one fish flopping around on the floor. It was there for quite a while until the chef picked it up and brought it into the kitchen. Sure enough when we got our food, our fish dish looked the same size, so I am guessing it was the same fish. Eek!

After dinner we walked around Old Town for a bit. All of the buildings had red lanterns, the roofs were lit up, there were koi in all of the canals, women singing to people in the restaurants, various meats and veggies on sticks waiting to be cooked right in front of you . . . it was all very fascinating and tickled every sense.

A couple of us decided to go to a bar because we didn't want to go to bed yet. We went to this one that was along the canal. There was a woman, dressed in traditional Naxi clothing, across the canal singing to people in the bar. These women are all over and are employed by the bars and restaurants. We noticed that she would sing to a table across the canal and then they would sing something back. We liked this one song she sang about "your legs are as big as hams," so we asked her to sing it to us. Then of course we had to respond and so since none of us know any Chinese songs, we sang "Row Row Row Your Boat" in a round.

After the bar we went to our rooms and had to pack for several nights away from Lijiang.

Back in Beijing and only Two Weeks Left!

2006-05-07T09:18:00.000+08:00

I am back in Beijing after traveling around for a bit with Kurt. I know I am severely behind on this blog, but I did take notes on Lijiang, so that should not be too hard to update. Unfortunately I did not take notes on my travels with Kurt, so hopefully I can remember it all and write about it soon. Kurt leaves on Tuesday and then I have two weeks left in Beijing. I am sad and excited. I miss home, but I will also really miss China. I feel like there is so much left that I want to explore, but as of now it will have to wait for another time. Still need to come up with plans for my last two weeks, I hope I can fit in one more place outside of Beijing.

More photos and blog entries to come soon . . .

Back from Lijiang and Need to Update

2006-04-29T12:22:00.000+08:00

I got back from Lijiang late Tuesday night and then Kurt arrived on Thursday afternoon. I have a lot to update about Lijiang but am not sure when I will have time. Lijiang was amazing! I have my photos online, so you can at least see those until I have a chance to write all about it.

Have a good one!

Off to Lijiang!

2006-04-19T06:44:00.000+08:00

I woke up this morning at 5:45 and freaked out that my clock was wrong. The sun was out and the sky was blue! I guess that's what happens when you don't have daylight savings.

Anyway, I am off to Lijiang with Carrie and her father. The Fulbright office planned a trip to Lijiang for Fulbrighters, however not enough people joined the trip and I was able to go! It does not seem to be as planned out as I thought, so wish me luck. It will be an adventure for sure. Lijiang is at the foothills of the Himalayas as far as I know, so it should be really pretty.

I will not have my laptop and I doubt that I will have internet, although who knows.

Ciao!

What is this line? What am I doing here?

2006-04-18T19:25:00.000+08:00

Today was very much like something out of Kafka's "The Trial" (funny, I think I have said that about several days). Tomorrow I am leaving first thing in the morning for Lijiang (will explain more later) and then when I get back I only have a day before Kurt arrives in Beijing, so I had a lot to do today. I avoided going outside yesterday because it looked like it was the apocalypse. Everything was covered in a layer of dirt and the pollution was so foul. I don't want that crap in my lungs. I had nothing I had to do, so I stayed inside. Today I had to leave the apartment, even though it looked pretty much the same.

I went to the Tourist Office that is several blocks away to buy train tickets. I knew this might be a bit tricky since I needed tickets from Shanghai to Beijing and it is harder to buy when you are not in the originating city. Anyway, I asked this one guy and he didn't really speak English, but he tried and told me the train was sold out. I know it's May Break (all of China has off for this week . . . hell), but I thought there would still be soft sleepers. Then another woman came in and he told her to talk to me. Her English was much better so she took me to the ticket window. I kept saying FROM Shanghai TO Beijing. Stupidly I did not say it in Chinese, which might have saved me from wasting my entire day. I kept telling her because I wanted to be absolutely clear that I wanted tickets from Shanghai, NOT from Beijing. So everything seems cool, I pay the 1008 kuai ($126) and she hands me two tickets. Lucky for me two of the handful of characters I can read area the characters for Beijing and Shanghai, since I have taken this train before. I looked at the tickets and they were from Beijing to Shanghai. I told her it was incorrect and she apologized and told me that she thought I said FROM Beijing TO Shanghai. Now I realize I am in their country and I should learn their language, so in a way I can't be all that upset, but I am. She obviously understood what "from" and "to" meant, so I don't understand how she confused what I was telling her so clearly and then switched the places!

So then I am like, whatever, they can just rip it up and issue me a new one. Well she tells me "Sorry, we can only issue tickets here, we cannot exchange or refund them." I got really pissed and tried to argue and fight for my money back for around fifteen minutes with no progress. She told me that I had to go to the train station and refund my ticket and buy a new one because they do not do exchanges. I thought that maybe this was some sort of procedure that they tell you but you can work around. So I told her that I was leaving tonight and did not have time to go to the train station, which is almost true, I am leaving tomorrow morning. That didn't do anything. Then she told me that it wasn't far, and I could take a bus to the train station. I have not taken the buses here and was not about to get lost on one today. So she wrote the name of the train station in characters for me and I caught a taxi. I was beyond pissed off at this point that I had to go to the train station for this woman's mistake. I wasn't as stressed though because I had been to the train station before and I remembered seeing a "Ticket Office for Foreigners" sign.

I got to the train station and went directly to the sign and followed the arrow. The arrow led me to a wall. I looked left and right and there were only waiting rooms. I turned around and went to the "help" desk. The woman(#1) did not speak English, so I just showed her my ticket and then whatever the woman at the Tourist Office wrote down for me to show them. We were not getting anywhere, so I pointed to the "Ticket Office for Foreigners" sign to see if she would show me where it was. Someone would surely speak English at the "Ticket Office for Foreigners." She called someone on her walkie talkie and another woman(#2) came to get me and walked me back toward the sign. I figured I was getting somewhere and she would show me this office. Nope. She walked over to another woman(#3) at the entrance of a waiting room, said something and then woman#3 told me in English, "Outside and to the left." So I walked back outside, in the complete opposite direction of this "Ticket Office for Foreigners" sign. I went to the left where I saw a bunch of "ticket" windows. I went to the only one that had anything in English thinking, they would be the ones that spoke English.

An important thing to know about China (or at least Beijing) is that there are massive lines, but standing in the back of the line will get you nowhere. People just cut to the front and push, so if you want to get anything you have to do the same, and don't even think of trying to keep your own personal space around you because some little Chinese man will think it's an invitation to stand right in front of you and bring his five friends.

Anyway, I go to the window and after having two people cut in front of me, I pushed my way to the front. I gave the woman(#4) at the window my tickets and the sheet of paper explaining I wanted tickets from Shanghai to Beijing. She did not speak much English but she said something about 20%. This did not sound cool at all. Then she pointed for me to follow her to another window (she went through the back, being that she was behind the window, and I had to try to keep an eye on where she was going while trying to navigate between a ton of people in other lines). Three windows over I get to a woman(#5) who speaks English. Success! Or so I thought. She told me that if I refunded the ticket, they keep 20%. I was soooo pissed off. I tried to explain to her that I had just bought it and that the woman who sold it to me made a mistake. She wasn't really listening. Then she told me "1" and pointed. I walked away and looked for a number 1. I was at ticket window 36 or something and the numbers were only going higher in the direction she was pointing. I was utterly confused. I went back to her then she said "Ticket Hall! Ticket Hall!" So where the hell was I?!?!?!

I kept walking as the numbers increased and saw a sign that said "Ticket Hall." I walked in and it was under construction a bunch of Chinese construction workers started to yell at me. So I left and kept walking until I saw another sign for "Ticket Hall" that was in another building next to the train station. I walked in and it was much less crowded. I found window 1 and did the same thing I did at the other ticket windows. The woman(#6) said 20% again and I tried again to explain to her why I didn't think I should have to pay it. At this point though, I just wanted money back, whether it was 80% or not, I just wanted to get the hell out of there. Then she wrote down "25" on my piece of paper and pointed. Notice a trend?

I walked over to ticket window 25, but it was closed, however 26 was open and there were a bunch of people crowding around it. No semblance of a line whatsoever. So I tried to start squishing in and about six or seven Chinese guys were staring at my tickets in my hand trying to see what they said. I was in no mood to deal with anyone giving me funny looks, so I hid my tickets. Maybe they have x-ray vision, I don't know, but they kept trying to look. The best is that when I tried to listen to them and didn't understand I would say, "Ting bu dong" which means "I don't understand." The best part is they all laugh. They thing it's the funniest thing in the world when you said you don't understand. I know Americans get a lot of crap talked about them, but I have never laughed at someone to their face because they didn't understand or because they didn't speak English. It is really frustrating.

While standing in this mob, I watched what everyone was doing and tried to figure it out. I figured this was the refund window because people were giving tickets to the guy(#7) behind the window and he was giving them money back. I also noticed that the person who went next in line was the person whose hand made it to the little window to give their tickets. I probably have longer arms than others, so I joined in and pushed my way until I got my hand to the window. I put in my tickets and the paper and the guy showed me his screen. It had the numbers in this order on it: 499, 100, 399. I figured, each ticket was 499, and 20% of that is 100, so 399 . . . ok. I get it, I guess. But he just kept yelling this number and pointing to 399. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know if he was telling me I would get that amount back or what. I tried to motion "Sure, ok" but he was not taking money out to give to me. Out of nowhere the mob behind me multiplied ten fold and all these people were yelling "Si bai ar! Si bai ar! Si bai ar!" Which is 402 . . . I think. But what the hell did that have to do with anything?!?!?! The guy put the tickets back into the window and I moved out of the way. At this point I was at my end. All of these Chinese guys (the same ones who laughed at me before) were coming up to me and showing me money and wanted to see my tickets. I guess they were scalpers? Since I don't know China's laws, I did not want to get busted and have some cop see me sell my tickets and then throw me in prison.

I walked away and called Alex because I was at a total loss. I had just spoken to seven different people and no one was helping me out. I was even willing to take only 80% back and I couldn't even do that. I totally broke down on the phone and was crying. This little Chinese boy was watching me the entire time too. Alex told me to call MCK because his Chinese is really good. So I called MCK luckily I caught him while he was on a bus not too far away. He said he would be there in 20 minutes to help me out. In the meantime I figured I would try going to another window to see if anyone spoke English. I did not want to make MCK go out of his way to help me with this insanity. I went to this woman(#8) and as usual, she told me to go to window 25. I looked over there and the line had grown so much. It was actually a line now, but there was still a mob at the front. I was tempted to go right to the front but what was that going to do? I went to the back and figured I would wait there until MCK came. The the group of Chinese scalpers came back and they even multiplied! There were so many of them. At this point I figured I was somewhat "hidden" and I think I managed to decipher that they were telling me I would only get back 402 per ticket from the refund man. So then this random guy showed me 820, I took it, gave him my tickets and walked out. I was so sick of it.

I tried texting MCK to tell him he didn't have to come, but he was less than ten minutes away. It is a good thing too because I am not sure that I would have been able to buy the correct tickets. He came, we went to a ticket booth and did all of the talking and I now have two tickets from Shanghai to Beijing. It was pure insanity and I have a massive headache now. The combination of horrible pollution, bureaucracy and too many jelly beans has sent me for a spin. I just want to sleep.

Easter in Beijing

2006-04-17T18:00:00.000+08:00

This Easter was definitely a unique one. First off, I had to find eggs to dye. I was unable to find any white eggs, so instead I bought a bunch of brown eggs, slightly lighter brown eggs and then light green eggs (I think these might be 100 year old eggs, but I could be wrong). On Saturday I set up the egg dyes (imported from the states) and wax to make margucius (Lithuanian Easter eggs). I spent probably around six hours doing eggs. Jen, our other roommate for a couple weeks, and I did most of them and Carrie and Alex did a couple but were busy with other things. It was interesting to see how the dyes worked on the brown eggs, in a way I like them better because they have a more rustic look.

On Sunday, Alex, Jen and I went to the China International Gallery Exposition 2006. From what I hear, there isn't much in the way of modern art in Beijing, so it was good to see. There were some really interesting pieces, however nothing blew me away. What really weirds me out in China is how much people take photos of themselves in front of things. In this case, in front of art. I understand taking a photo in front of a sculpture when it is in an outdoor park or something, but at this exhibit there were all of these people posing with paintings and sculptures all over the place. It is like an amusement park. So we hung around this exhibit for a bit until we got a call from Carrie. She went to pick up her father from the airport, and planned to be back well before 4 (when our party was set to start), however she was stuck in horrible traffic. She had just received a call from some people saying they were at our apartment and she wanted to see where we were. We rushed to leave the museum and arrived just as Carrie was arriving, 45 minutes late to our own party. Oops!

When we arrived, Carrie, Mr. Clyne and Julie got out of the car. Carrie and Julie had gone to some event before picking up Carrie's dad. Julie was carrying a box that looked like a Dunkin Donuts doughnut hole box and I got excited, until I heard a chirp. She opened the box and there was a little duckling in it (which strangely enough has been named "Chick," it will surely have identity problems now). Apparently on the way out of the event, there were boxes with live bunnies and boxes with live ducks for everyone to take. I can only assume that these were meant to be brought home and eaten.

We got to our apartment and several people were already there, so we rushed out the food (Carrie's dad brought baked goods!) and had a nice time. I put out the eggs and we had two egg wars, I won one, lost the other. The "Chick" was chirping non-stop, so Julie brought it up to the bathroom and put it in the bathtub. We put some water in the tub and created a "natural environment." Then Ben, decided to feed the duck crackers. The duck would not eat regular crackers, so Ben chewed it up and then fed it, just like momma duck would have done. Ben is now officially the duck's father.

After everyone left, Julie was wondering why she took the duck and did not know what to do with it. Possible ideas were: let it loose in a hutong, give it to someone in a hutong, leave the box in a cab/restaurant/street corner . . . Eventually she took it home and it looks like she might have found someone who wants it. Whether they will eat it or not, I do not know.

Acupressure

2006-04-13T00:09:00.000+08:00

Carrie took Alex and me to an acupressurist that she has been to several times. Alex said she wanted him to look at her back and I wanted him to look at my knees because I think I have weak knees. So we both get on the table, Alex had some four or five people working on her and I had one. It was so bizarre and I definitely need to go back. First of all Alex kept yelling in pain, then I made the mistake of wearing a skirt and tights, so when the guy was doing all of this stuff to my knees my skirt was going all over and everyone could see everything. Luckily my tights were very opaque black, so it was basically like wearing spandex or something. But still, it was not cool. So Alex, Carrie and I were cracking up while this guy was twisting my legs around. When I was lying on my back he told me my legs were uneven! He did all of this crazy twisting and pulling and then they were straight! This is no lie either. When I was first on my back I noticed how my feet fell, but I didn't even know yet what he was doing. After he did his voodoo, my feet rested differently, a little straighter. He also was kneeding my bum and basically smacking it. I am not sure what this does but I asked if it would make my butt smaller. Carrie and I started cracking up and then Carrie said he didn't know why we were laughing. The funny thing is, I am sure we were supposed to be quiet and relaxed, but we kept laughing and whining in pain and saying stuff that we probably would not have said aloud if they understood English. They probably do and we looked like total asses.

I thought everything was ok until he start digging around in my stomach and rearranging my organs! I felt some incredible pain and out of nowhere he said something about me eating too many sweets and too much chocolate!!! Oh holy hell, if that isn't some psychic power I don't know what is. He told me to eat more spicy foods? I think. Mind you all of this was being translated through Carrie who wasn't entirely sure, so he could be telling me "Eat more chocolate!" and I wouldn't know. It was really weird too because not long after that I started crying. Carrie and Alex thought I got offended and was crying because he said I eat too much chocolate, but that was not it. I have no clue why it happened as I was not sad or offended, I actually thought the comment about chocolate was pretty funny and probably very true.

He also told me I have problems with my lungs and spleen? Not sure what's wrong with my spleen but I know I run out of breath easily. I just thought that was because I was out of shape, but who knows. So overall it was an amazing experience and I need to go back with someone who is fluent in Chinese so that I make sure I know what's going on. This really fascinates me and I am tempted to learn more about it at some point in life.

Yangshuo Day 5 - Leaving

2006-04-12T17:13:00.001+08:00

On Wednesday morning we hung out at the Buffalo Bar and got ready to go to the train station in Guilin. We could have taken a taxi for 200 kuai but wanted to try the bus which was only 13 kuai. We had been told there was a local bus and an express bus. The local cost 10 and the express was 13 (less than $0.50 difference). We were running a bit late and got to this one bus that said Guilin. We kept asking if it was express and how much it cost but three different people gave us three different answers. We got on the bus since it was about to leave and we did not see anything else. Alex asked if I could go check out the other buses just in case. I looked around and found another bus that was definitely the express bus, it had a sign, it was nicer and was leaving in five minutes. I ran back to Alex and saw the bus she was on was about to leave. I ran on the bus and yelled to Alex, "GET OFF THE BUS!!!!!" So we grabbed our massive packs and as the bus was driving we were yelling "TING JAR!!!!" ("stop here"). No one listened until we got to the front of the bus and the guy finally stopped. Then we tried to ask for our money back and the woman who sold us the tickets laughed at us (not the cute laugh either) and was being a total slimeball. We got onto the express bus minutes before it left and were all set. The best part about the express bus was the hour and a half we spent watching Chinese music videos. There are no words to describe these videos, but I will try: insanely cheesy, horribly animated (probably by someone's kid who just started highschool) and lame. It was great fun ripping them apart from the back of the bus.

We got to the train station quite easily from the bus station in Guilin and had a nice 23 hour trip. The last train we took was from Beijing to Shanghai and we had free meals. This train however did not provide free meals, they were 15 kuai each and were not nearly as good. There were TV screens in the rooms though and I watched Armageddon dubbed in Chinese. It's not like that movie has amazing dialog anyway, so it didn't really phase me. It was weird though how we were driving in one direction for about three hours and then at this one stop we started going the other way and continued in that direction the remainder of the trip. I am not quite sure what was going on there.

We got to Beijing around 2 PM the next day and so was the end of our adventures in Yangshuo. It was an amazing time and if you are ever in China, I highly recommend you check it out. There is so much to explore and so much to do. The only thing I regret is not staying a bit longer to take a day trip to Longsheng. Longsheng is filled with ride terraces and from what I have seen in CarrieÂs photos they are amazing. Maybe next time . . .

Yangshuo Day 4 - Rock Climbing

2006-04-12T17:13:00.000+08:00

Tuesday morning we woke up early and went rock climbing. We had a choice of companies to go with and chose China Climb, because it is run by foreigners and I personally don't want to have communication problems when I am on a rock face for the first time. We had three guides, a British guy, a Chinese guy and a Canadian woman (sounds like the beginning of a joke . . .). I know nothing about rock climbing and did not realize how painful the shoes are. I never thought I wanted shoes to be too small but that's what you want with climbing shoes. If you have never been, you wear these shoes in which your toes are supposed to curl, so it's hard to tell when they are too tight because they are supposed to be too tight. Apparently it's good when on the rock. I think we all felt like we had our toes bound like they used to back in the day here in China, how appropriate.

We drove out to this location called Baby Frog and watched the British guy set up the rope in no time. The first climb was a 5.8 (I guess 5.2 is beginner? 5.8 is a little more advanced beginner). Mike went first since he has gone rock climbing before. He did a great job and made it look easier than it was. I went next and it was definitely harder than I thought. It took me a while, but I made it to the top of the first climb. After coming down you have to take your shoes off so you don't get them muddy. My toes looked like tandoori chicken! I stupidly thought it was because my feet hurt so bad that they turned this color. Later when I asked Alex why her's didn't look like that she said it was because she doesn't sweat as much, so the dye didn't come off on her feet. Foolish Ramune. Alex went next and Mike started the second climb. Alex made it almost to the top however she had not had much sleep the night before since she was also doing work while in Yangshuo. The second climb went higher up and was a level 5.9. It was easier in parts but the last 10 feet killed me. I made it within 5 feet of the top and had to come down. I had taken a while at this one part and didn't realize how late it was. I came down and then Alex start going up. She was doing well until she went too far to the left. She slipped and, like a pendulum, swung over maybe 15 feet and hit a rock that was jutting out. At this point it was time to come down. Had she not been wearing a helmet she probably would have bashed her head, but the worst she got was a couple bruises.

I think the guides were a bit disappointed in us, but whatever, I was proud that I made it as far as I did since it was my first time. I am still kicking myself for not making it to the top of the second climb but I also didn't even think I would make it that far. It's funny how half way up the first climb I was thinking, "This is not fun anymore, I want to come down, I hate this, I am not doing the next one" and then I did the next one and now I want to keep doing it and get better. Apparently there is a wall in Beijing not far from us, so I might check it out if I have time.

We went back into town and had our last meal with Mike, which included another apple crumble. We had to leave the Buffalo Bar because we had not booked the rooms for that night and they were sold out. We went to another hotel called the Magnolia which was nicer but did not have wireless.

That evening, we spent over two hours looking for a way back to Beijing. We went to two travel agents and eventually got soft sleeper tickets on a train back to Beijing the following day.

Yangshuo Day 3 - Water Caves

2006-04-12T17:10:00.000+08:00

Monday was Carrie's last day so we didn't have anything really planned. We slept in a bit and then met downstairs for breakfast. The great thing about Yangshuo, and I guess any backpacking town is meeting random people and seeing what happens. This Chinese woman, who works as a private tour guide and who we thought had taken Carrie around before we arrived (turns out that was someone else, so I trusted someone I didn't know anything about), was sitting with these two guys from London. We were talking about things to do and somehow caves came up. They had been to the Water Caves the day before and said it was worth going. I really wanted to go because I love caves and if I could, I would live in one, but Alex had to do work and Carrie and Mike were not interested. The guide and the Brits were going to a bamboo raft but said they had to drive by the caves and could drop me off. Since I had nothing planned and was feeling adventurous I went.

After eating a delicious grilled cheese sandwich we left for the caves. I talked to the Brits for a bit and they had just spent two months in another town learning Kung Fu! How cool! If I had more time I would consider that. Maybe I could be the next Kung Fu movie master! Alas, maybe in another life.

We arrived at a ticketbooth where they dropped me off. I bought a ticket for the full tour and was told to sit on this stool (they have a lot of these stools and chairs in China that look like they are for 2 year olds yet all the adults sit in them) and wait 10 minutes until someone came to get me. I was a bit sketched out and was sitting alone next to three chickens who were getting closer and closer to me and of course I kept thinking about bird flu.

Another minivan came by and I was told to get in by a random woman who came out of nowhere. There was a Dutch couple, Roel and Lieke, in the van who were also going to see the caves. Dutch has to be one of the hardest languages. I kept trying to say "Roel" but that "r" is impossible! I didn't feel so bad though because when I said my name was "Ramune" he couldn't get the "u" sound right. What followed was the bumpiest ride of my entire existence. Yet again, another moment where a video camera would have been wonderful, although I am not sure how long it would have lasted. We drove for ten minutes or so, which felt like a lifetime, on this dirt road that was full of holes and bumps. There were parts where I thought the van was going to tip over. I can't imagine the damage it does to the shocks on these vans or to the health of these drivers considering they drive back and forth on this road every day. It must do wonders to your spine. Not only was the ride insanely bumpy I was sitting in the front seat but was turning around to talk to the Dutch couple who were asking me many questions, mainly about 9/11. It was so surreal. After I mentioned living in New York, Roel said "I am sure you get this all the time, but were you there? Did you see it happen? When the planes flew into the buildings?" I almost laughed because it's been a while and honestly no one has asked me since maybe several months after it happened and here is this guy asking like it was a couple months ago. Obviously I am not laughing at what happened, it was just so surreal trying to hold on for dear life in a van that is about to tip over, while nearly twisting my neck off trying to tell someone about how I saw the planes crash into the WTC. How weird.

Finally we got to the caves and this little Chinese man gave us each hard hats and then we got into a little rowboat. This was probably the creepiest part and definitely not for anyone who is claustrophobic or afraid of the dark or in my case, afraid of the plague in the water. Roel was a really tall guy, probably over 6'6" so going into the cave was a bit of a challenge. We had to take the boat into the cave through this part where the space between the water and the cave ceiling was no more than 2'6", so we all had to lie back so as not to be beheaded. Once we got out of the boat we began our tour of the caves. The only other public cave I have been to is Luray Caverns in Virginia which is well lit and has good paths to walk on. This place was quite the opposite. There were wires that followed along the walls of the caves with small bulbs here and there to give you just enough light. At one point they all went off for a few seconds. This was not very comforting, but whatever, I love an adventure and love the quirks of third world countries. As we were walking along, our guide's flash light battery was dying. Roel asked him why and he said that he had done three tours already that day and so the battery was dying. Roel was pissed, as I was (although I wasn't going to scold the guy for it), and kept telling him that he should make sure of these things before taking people on a tour. So here we were in a massive cave with lights that we had already seen go off once before with a guy who had a flashlight that did not work. Yes!

We continued on to the mud bath, which would have been cool to try but again, mud means water which means plague. Lots of foreigners go in there, but I did not have my bathing suit with me so I passed. The weird thing was that next to the mud bath was a little computer station with a 10' x 10' tent around it. These two Chinese guys were looking at photos of people in the mud bath on the computer. I guess they take photos of people and put them on this computer. How random! A computer in the middle of the caves!

At this point Lieke had been looking at the map of the caves and noticed that we had taken a bit of a detour and had missed some scenic spots in the cave, mainly the "natural salt." An argument began between Roel and our guide in which the guide said there was no light there and Roel didn't believe him. I saw no reason in arguing because there were massive language barriers between us and the guide. The guide got a new flashlight at this point since I guess they had a spare at the mud bath computer station.

We continued on and saw some amazing formations, however we were also walking all over amazing formations which hurt my little cave-loving heart. I am used to going to Luray and the guides there telling you not to touch anything because the oils in our hands will destroy the formations and to be careful where you walk. Here we were leaning on things and walking on these amazing rice terrace looking formations. I even saw another group that was climbing all over these formations to get their photos taken. I was inspired to learn about cave preservation or something and come to China and teach them how to protect their caves. Of course this thought lasted a matter of minutes.

Once we hit the end we had to turn around and go back. The entire time we had been going through the cave Roel gave the guide a hard time about not taking us to the natural salt. The guide said he would take us there on the way back and that he did. We walked to this part where there was a sign "Do not Enter" or something similar (it was in Chinese). He could not explain this to us before because he didn't know how. So after all this time having to listen to Roel say that they wanted to see the natural salt, he said, "Well if it's dangerous then we should not go in there." I almost said, no way, you wanted to go in, we are going in. So the guide told us he would take us but we had to be quiet because it is not open to the public. He took out his flashlight and guided us in. It was like real spelunking! We saw the natural salt, which isn't actually salt, it just looks like it. It was ok, but not worth listening to bickering during the whole tour.

We left the caves the same way we came in and then took the same bumpy drive back. I talked some more with Roel and Lieke and turns out Roel has been to 48 countries and Lieke has been to 24! I assumed they must have inherited a lot of money to travel around, and maybe they did, but he is a teacher and she is a bookkeeper, and they just save up and then go places for a couple months at a time. It was really inspirational. I would love to do that. They also were going on about how amazing Antarctica was and how it was their favorite place and I should save up for five years and get a cheap ticket last minute (cheap not being that cheap, but still). So I got their information and they gave me some contacts, so I am really looking forward to adventures in Antarctica!

I got out of the van at the same place I picked it up and then had to find a ride back to Yangshuo. Roel and Lieke had biked there, so I couldn't catch a ride with them and it was a bit far to walk. I could have done it, but I did not put sunblock on that day and it would have been at least a two hour walk in the sun.

I walked to this area where I was told there were buses. I saw one and asked, in my very broken Chinese, if it was going to Yangshuo. The guy laughed and said no. After wandering around aimlessly I saw a van and asked again. The guy said no so I just stood there waiting for something, anything. Then I saw some of the guys from that van talking but I could not make any of it out other than that they were pointing at me and saying "Yangshuo." Eventually one of them came over to me and motioned me to the van and said "Yangshuo." I got in and assumed that they were not going to sell me to white slavery. The van stopped at the top of this street I did not know and they pointed and said "Yangshuo." So I got out, said thanks and started walking. I had no clue where I was but eventually came across a street I knew from riding our bikes the first day. Woohoo!

I met back up with Alex and Mike as Carrie had just left for the airport. For dinner we tried this restaurant that had good reviews and looked like it was a bit nicer than other restaurants in the area. When we asked if they had a table on the second level, the waitress said "Of course." Again, I wish I had videotaped her expression and how she said it. It was like her nose flared and she exhaled as she said it. We thought it was hilarious and had to hold back from bursting into laughter right in front of her. Although the restaurant was nice, it was a little odd. We ordered "chips and salsa" which turned out to be fried spring roll dough cut into triangles and sweet and sour sauce with little bits of tomato in it. Alex ordered some vegetarian tofu dish that had bits of meat in it (it's hard to be veggie in China, I don't think they always get the concept). We also ordered fajitas which were really tasty however instead of a tortilla they come with crepes! Good idea if you ever want to try something different.

Yangshuo Day 2 - Hike down the Li River

2006-04-11T15:28:00.000+08:00

On Sunday we had breakfast at a place called "The Best Coffee" but I do not recall their coffee being that amazing although they had nice presentation. We took a bus to Yangdi, a town further up the Li River, to start our hike. On the way we passed two people carrying a stick on their shoulders. Between them hanging off the stick were two long vertical baskets with a live pig in each one. It was kind of disturbing. However we now have a new phrase, whenever you feel like crap you say you feel like "a pig in a basket" (ok, not really funny, but like pig in a blanket? Get it? Lame, I know).

When we got off the bus in town, a group of really short old ladies came up to us and were trying to get us to buy their oranges and peanuts. It is amazing how persistent they are. Along the path we walked through an area with a few houses and there were two little boys sitting outside. Both were really cute except that one of them had a stick and he whipped all of us in the bum as we walked by. So we turned around and took photos of them. I get nervous about taking photos of people when they are doing their thing, but when they come after me, it's like revenge and I feel no shame. Not that I am a vengeful person, but I just don't feel so bad anymore.

There was a designated path to follow along the river however somehow we did not follow it correctly. There were spots where we were supposed to take a boat to cross the river but we missed them. This worked ok for most of the way until we found ourselves walking through a farm to a dead end at the river. Our choice was to go back or hail a boat, yep, hail a boat. We stood there for a bit until we saw a guy in a bamboo raft coming down the river. Naturally we began yelling and waving our hands and he came our way. We only wanted to cross the river because we saw the path on the other side, however he only wanted to take us down the river. Since we didn't have much of a choice at this point we took the raft. Unfortunately our combined weight was a bit much for a skinny Chinese bamboo raft operator and so we took turns helping him paddle. What fascinated me was that like in Egypt, he was using a paddle that had nearly no width. We were moving so slowly and the raft was a bit low in the water. As with the previous day we were avoiding touching the water like it was the plague. Along the way we saw a dead pig on the edge of the river. We couldn't quite figure out what had happened but it looked like it's hooves had been cut off. Bleh, but of course I took a picture. In the middle of our nice raft ride down the Li River, looking at the beautiful karst peaks and all the nature around, we hear a musical ringtone. Sure enough it was the raft operator's cellphone. He picked it up and was talking on his cellphone while guiding us down the river. Nothing is sacred.

After a while it was apparent that we could walk faster on land than he was getting us down this river, so we had him "pull over" and let us off on the other side. He told us there was a restaurant, and we were really hungry, so we checked it out. It was a bit sketchy to say the least. The menu was entirely in Chinese so Alex and Carrie just started asking if they had specific vegetables. The waitress was getting really frustrated with us and told us to go to the kitchen and pick what we wanted. We had fried rice and some eggplant dish. We were the only foreigners sitting there. The rest of the people around were locals who just stared at us. There was another old lady trying to sell us oranges and peanuts, a man wearing a suit who looked so out of place, and two children also trying to sell oranges and these massive grapefruits (not sure what they are called). We bought a couple oranges and a grapefruit from the kids and then asked if they had a knife to cut the rinds off since they were pretty tough. One of the kids pulled out nail clippers and started cutting that way and the other took out a little knife and stuck it in a fish tank to "clean" it. Bleh . . . Needless to say, I did not eat any oranges after that.

We continued walking to this part where there was a creek on one side, and trees on the other and in the middle grass and a bunch of a water buffalo. I decided to walk through the group group of water buffalo instead of go around. One buffalo took interest in me and started coming after me so I tried to briskly walk away without running. Luckily it did not find me important enough to chase after, so I continued on my way and missed the photo. We got to a point where we had to cross a small creek about 5' wide and 6" deep to get back on the right path. Normally if I was in the states I would not hesitate and would not care about getting my shoes wet, but again, you know our fear of the water. It was also rocky on both sides so it wasn't like we could just run and jump across. Another group of Chinese tourists came by and started picking up rocks and throwing them in the middle so that we could create a step. Then a local couple came with a water buffalo and offered to let us ride it across the creek. It was starting to get pretty absurd, seriously, who needs to take a buffalo across a 5' creek that is no more than 6" deep! Because it was so absurd we thought it would be fun. Carrie went first but did not know how to get on a water buffalo. So the woman and the man tried to push her up and as she was getting on the buffalo the man told her it would cost money so she wanted to get off. Then they tried talking her into paying for a photo of her on the buffalo. Luckily I got some photos of her getting onto it. Eventually enough rocks were thrown into the water that we had a step to go across. Alex did slip and her foot went into the water. Let's hope she doesn't get the plague.

After a ways, we got to the next boat crossing point. When we first started the trip we had to buy a ticket to take the boats. We were told that one ticket would be good for all of the crossings. When we got to this crossing point they told us it would cost more money. At this point we were tired and wanted to get back, so we took another boat down to the end of the hike. As we were pulling into the dock, a woman walked down these stairs holding a pole with a bird balancing on either side. She came down to the dock and just stood there waiting for us. This was obviously someone posing for photos. It kind of cheapened the experience.

After docking we had to walk a ways into town to catch a bus back to Yangshuo. Back in Yangshuo we ate at Drifter's, which is known for it's good apple crumble. Who would have thought, some place in Yangshuo has good apple crumble! Yangshuo is full of restaurants that serve both Chinese and foreign food. During our entire time there we only ate foreign food, mainly because Carrie got food poisoning from eating a Chinese eggplant dish there.

That night Alex and I got a room at the Buffalo Bar. They advertise wireless internet in all the rooms but it only seemed to work within 20 feet of the router, which was behind the bar. It was kind of nice because it forced us to get out of our rooms and we were able to eat fries while using the internet. Fantastic! The owner of the Buffalo Bar is this Australian guy named Alf. He was pretty cool and was really good to talk to get ideas on hikes and things to do in and around Yangshuo.

Yangshuo Day 1 - Arriving and Bike Ride

2006-04-10T17:15:00.000+08:00

Our trip was off to a rough start when the water in the shower came out brown and scorching hot. This set us back about half an hour or more. We took a taxi and of course our taxi driver had a hard time understanding that we wanted to go to the airport. We got to the terminal and when we asked someone where the Air China counter was, they told us it was a ten minute walk to the next terminal so we started running with our massive backpacks. When we got to checkin, the woman told us we had five minutes to get through security and on the plane and she just smiled. We continued running, and cut to the front of Security where a very nice Chinese man stepped aside for us red-hot laowai (foreigners) to get to our flight. Both of us had bottles of water which the security guys opened and smelled, I guess to make sure it wasn't baijiu (Chinese alcohol), which further delayed us. After going through security we looked for our gate, gate 25. We saw that gate 24 was not far, so we figured we were almost there. Oh how wrong we were! For some odd reason every other gate was normal, but gate 25 was a ways off and was it's own mini terminal that was divided into sub-gates. We found the gate and got onto a bus that took us to the plane. Of course the bus did not go anywhere near the gate, instead it drove all the way around very near to the first terminal we entered. How backwards!!!

My first experience on a Chinese domestic airline was decent except for the screaming baby kicking the back of my seat for almost three hours. I turned around and gave the mother the "Control your child or I will rip off it's leg with my claws" look and that worked for about . . . fifteen minutes. The food on the flight was surprisingly ok, it was actually better than the Continental flight to Beijing. On top of that, my ears did not even pop!

When we landed in Guilin the air was so humid and warm, the complete opposite of Beijing. For about five minutes it felt good until we started sweating for no other reason than it being humid. Carrie had a driver pick us up and drive us to Yangshuo. Driving to Yangshuo was amazing, the colors were so vibrant. Some of the greens looked like they contained colors outside our viewable spectrum, it was so intense.

While driving through Guilin we saw people carrying some weird things on their bikes, the strangest and saddest to me was a man biking with crates of live chickens in the back. They were all completely squashed together.

When we arrived in Yangshuo we were met by Carrie and her cousin Mike. Mike has been living in Bangkok, so Yangshuo was a good place for us all to meet up in the middle. We brought our stuff to her room at the Buffalo Bar & Cafe and then rented bikes for $1.25 for the whole day. I don't know why but they gave me an extra cushion cover on my bike seat. Was that to protect my not so boney bum? Out of everyone, I think my bum was the least in need of extra cushioning. We followed a path that Carrie had been on earlier in the week (she had been in Yangshuo for over a week before we arrived) and got to see some really pretty farms and amazing scenery.

While biking through the farms, we came across some people selling oranges and bought a few. This woman was carrying oranges and had a baby on her back and all four of us were taking loads of photos of her. I felt a bit weird because I don't much like invading peoples' spaces and taking photos if they are unwilling, but she seemed cool with it.

We kept riding on and came upon a little town with some really nice old Chinese architecture. We stopped for a break and this woman with silver teeth kept hassling us to look at her menu. After walking around a bit we went in and had some snacks. The food was surprisingly good and the view was really lovely. The day was how I had imagined Yangshuo, cloudy, misty and surreal. We sat around for a while before we decided to leave. It was getting to the point where if we kept riding our bikes we would not make it back before dark, so we decided to catch a boat down the river back to Yangshuo. This proved to be harder than we had anticipated. When we went down to the dock there were two boats. One was reserved for a group of over 10 Chinese tourists and their bikes and another was reserved for a couple who did not have any bikes. We asked the couple because there was tons of space on their boat. The guy was really sneaky and acted like he would help us and then their boat started leaving and they just told us no. So we went to the Chinese group and they were really cool in trying to find room for us on their boat. The boat had an indoor area where they all squished in. Apparently there was room but we decided to put our bikes on the back and stand on the back. There was barely room for the four of us with our bikes but we made it work. It was a lot of fun but we were also trying not to get wet as we all seem to think that if you touch the water in China you will get the plague.

After we got off the boat, we rode our bikes to the light show. As we got close to the ticketbooth, several women were trying to sell them to us for less. We bargained with them all the way to the ticketbooth. We discovered that their "tickets" were not really tickets. It was more of a "You pay me and I will take you to a secret place where you can watch for a third of the price and a third of the view." We thought that we could find the same place without paying them since they weren't real seats. It was getting darker and we were walking down dirt paths with our bikes and these women kept following us even though we kept telling them we did not want their tickets. After spending some 20 minutes trying to find the secret viewing spot we found a group of people walking along a path and we followed them. Eventually we got to these dirt stairs that went towards the water and then some really sketchy boards you had to walk on to get to a floating raft of benches. We were ultra paranoid that our $1.25 rented bikes would get stolen, so we lugged them the entire way up into the seats and locked them up. I wish I could have filmed the entire search for the secret spot because it was really much more involved than I can write. At this point we decided we had to pay them something because it was their "boat." So we watched the light show from behind the scenes and it was pretty cool. Maybe not worth the $22.50 they charge for it for the actual seats, but it was pretty cool.

Before the show completely finished we decided to leave. At this point it was late at night and very dark out. We somehow had to navigate our bikes back down the stairs, across the planks of wood and up the dirt stairs, through the narrow dirt path and back to the rental place.

It was 11 PM and we were tired, however we had not actually booked a hotel for the evening. We thought the Buffalo Bar would have an extra room but when we got there they had sold out. We checked some 10 other places and all were booked. Eventually we found the Magnolia which is a step above most of the hotels. We stayed there for a decent price since we arrived so late.

Quick wrap up of week before Yangshuo

2006-04-10T16:39:00.000+08:00

The other week I was trying to plan Kurt's visit to China. He is coming for 12 days, woohoo, so we are going to go to Kunming, Shanghai and then back to Beijing! I used this website to buy our flights. First off, they have flights online for around $95 one way which I guess is good. I was pretty psyched and tried to book it but the website said it was sold out. Why put a flight online that is sold out? I found another flight that was more expensive and booked it. A woman called me to confirm it and I told her I needed to book another flight. She said she could do it so we started talking and she found a flight for around $95 again. I was super excited until she said that it wasn't really available and here comes my favorite line: "Maybe they put a cheaper price to attract you, but it is not the real price." What the hell?!?! This has become a trend here when communicating with Chinese people. When talking to someone about a service you normally expect yes or no definitive answers. Here you get a lot of "I think maybes" and those drive me nuts. I don't want an "I think maybe" when I am asking if I have a seat on a plane.

The other week I also went to a concert at the Bookworm (a cool cafe/library) with Empi and Mikael. It was really interesting. The group consisted of two Mongolians and one Kazak. One of the Mongolians did amazing throat singing. He was pretty funny too. This may be one of those "you had to be there" moments, but I will tell you anyway. None of the members in the band seemed to speak English as everytime they spoke it was in Chinese, to an English speaking audience, so it was translated. Throughout the concert they would tell little stories about each song and why it was important. The last song was a catchy throat singing song and out of nowhere during the chorus, the main guy says, "Everybody!" So everyone starts singing the chorus. Mind you people spend years training their voices to sound like this, so here is this guy who is amazing at throat singing telling all of us foreigners to sing along. It was pretty funny, guess you had to be there.

Yangshuo Greetings

2006-04-03T10:31:00.000+08:00

I am back from Yangshuo and had an amazing time. I went biking and hiking. I went rock climbing for the first time ever and although it totally kicked my bum, I loved it and hope to continue doing it. Also saw some pretty sweet water caves! Anyway, it is after midnight and I am really tired as I barely slept on the 23 hour train back to Beijing.

Tomorrow I will be spending all day updating photos and this blog, woohoo! Some photos are already online however around 15 of them got screwy, so I may have to redo that album.

Off to Yangshuo!

2006-03-31T23:34:00.000+08:00

So I have a bundle of random things to say about the last couple days but it is 11:30 PM and I have to wake up at 4:30 AM to catch a flight to Yangshuo, so I am going to have to postpone those notes until later. Unless I change my mind in the morning, I am planning on bringing my laptop and they do have internet cafes, so I should be pretty well connected. If I actually have my computer with me, I might even be able to put photos up before I get back.

Super excited about this trip, however I was a bit bummed when I checked the weather and it said it would be raining all but one day. Crap. Hopefully the weather is wrong and it will be nice there. I haven't seen rain since I was home, I hope I can handle it.

Anyway, Yangshuo is supposedly a backpackers paradise and it is considered "Heaven on Earth" or something like that, I can't remember.

I bargained today for a pair of hiking boots so I hope they are decent fakes. I managed to talk her down to $60 from $125, so this weekend will be the true test.

Have a fantastic weekend and I am off to sleep!

Hiking 15 Towers of the Unrestored Great Wall

2006-03-25T23:36:00.000+08:00

Saturday morning I woke up at 5 AM to get ready and meet the Beijing Hikers. Every weekend they do a hike of varying levels. This weekend was a level 5 hike, which is supposed to be their hardest level. Although I was worried about the level 5ness of the hike, I had decided that I was mentally prepared for anything that came my way. As for physically, in the past I had been able to take on challenges without preparing for them and somehow I would be in the lead. When I did the several day hikes in the Sinai I was almost always at the front of the group and was helping lead the way even though I had never done sports. So naturally I would assume that I could do it now. Oh how wrong I was.

While on the bus they gave us each a rough drawing of what we were going to do. There were three options.

Option 1: Hike from Tower 1 to Tower 15 and then come down the mountains and come back, making a circle.

Option 2: Hike from Tower 1 to Tower 8 and come down the mountains and loop back.

Option 3: Hike from Tower 1 to Tower 4 and come down the mountains and loop back.

I had decided that I came to do the 15 towers, I was going to do the 15 towers. It's funny how easy it is to think you can do things and then they turn out to be ridiculously harder than you thought.

As soon as we got off the bus we saw our guide, Mr. Mao. Apparently the last time they tried to do this hike some farmers spotted them, climbed up the mountains and told them they had to leave because the Chinese Government does not allow people to go on the unrestored parts of the wall. I guess since we had Mr. Mao (a local farmer) as our guide it was ok? He was awesome. While all of us were decked out in fancy hiking boots (thank you Alex), backpacks (thank you Mamuke) and carrying two liters of water and snacks, this guy was wearing the equivalent of Converse hightops and he had nothing more than a little sickle to cut through the brush. I don't think I ever saw him eat or drink any water the whole time.

We started the hike going right into the hard stuff. Not even ten minutes into it I started to wonder what I got myself into. I took a lot of photos but I think they suffered due to the fact that I was focusing so much on not falling or getting hurt and keeping up with the group. The hike was set up so that there was a leader in the front and in the back. The front person would tie red ribbons to trees and then the back person would take the ribbons off. This way the path was marked and people would not get lost. Well, two girls did get lost because the leader didn't put enough red ribbons up and they came to a fork and went the wrong way. Side note, one of the girls was wearing loafers that she bought for boating in Hong Kong. I still don't know how she managed the whole thing.

At what I thought was the 8th tower we stopped for a break and I thought they would make an announcement about Option 2, going down the mountain and back to the village. All I heard was "Well it looks like everyone is going to tower 15!" Apparently they had asked if anyone wanted to earlier but obviously the people in the back who would have wanted to go back had not made it to Tower 8 yet. So we all kept going and it just got harder. It was a lot of up and down and since the wall is all over the place, it was rather difficult at parts. They told us that we would have a rope in parts but I don't think they even brought one.

When we finally got to Tower 15 I was excited but also worried about the way down. Although I have a hard time breathing when going up, going down does a serious number on my knees.

The worst part about going down was that we didn't even have the wall anymore. Mr. Mao was cutting us a path and we were constantly being scratched up by ultra dry bushes and thorns. Luckily it was chilly enough that I was wearing long pants and my windbreaker so the worst of the scratching was on my hands.

After finally completing the hike we got back to the bus and had a bunch of snacks. I am sure you can imagine my joy when I saw they had OREOs!!! Not regular Oreos, but chocolate filled ones.

After all of that I came to a very important realization: I am not 17 anymore.

First big hike

2006-03-24T22:33:00.000+08:00

Ok, so very last minute I decided to see what's going on tomorrow and sure enough there is a hike to do 15 towers of an unrestored part of the Great Wall. It is considered an "advanced hike" and is their highest level, eek. I don't know what I am getting myself into, but it sounds like fun. Wish me luck! I should have some good photos.

4.5 Fingers

2006-03-24T17:47:00.000+08:00

Alex and I are looking for places to stay in Yangshuo and I happened upon this one hostel that looks to be pretty popular. The guy can write pretty decent English, but this little "notice" is hilarious.

Notice:
There are some people who wants to bring you to the other place to stay when you are arrived Yangshuo by bus or boat, they will say they come from the Yangshuo culture house or they will say the Yangshuo culture house is full and this is the brunch or sister business, please don't trust them. To mention me-the owner of the Yangshuo culture house and it's very easy, you only need to have look my right hand and there are only four and half finger on my right hand. I never sent anyone if I'm not telling you there is someone who will come to pick up you.

Not sure what a brunch business is, but it sounds tasty, I will gladly stay there. As for his fingers, I guess if someone was desperate enough, they could cut off part of their finger to get business. Ewww . . .

Coney Island or Taoist Temple?

2006-03-23T07:55:00.000+08:00

Yesterday I walked over to the Dongyue Temple, which is not far from where I am currently living. I was intrigued because Lonely Planet said "Dongyue Temple is an unsettling, albeit fascinating experience . . . get spooked at the Department for Wandering Ghosts or the Department for Implementing 15 Kinds of Violent Death." So ofcourse I was interested in checking this out. I did not realize though until I got there how much it would remind me of Coney Island. I guess it should be the other way around, but I saw Coney Island first. I took loads of photos that you can see online. Ofcourse I went for the creepy looking ones, which there was no shortage of. It was really interesting to go through and read about each department and see each ones' depictions. I must say I was a bit disappointed in the "Department for Implementing 15 Kinds of Violent Death." With a title like that, you would expect something crazy and violent, but they looked fairly normal (in comparison to some of the other departments). The worst of them was a guy with blood coming out of his eyes and one that was headless. Sounds bad, but when you compare it to a guy holding his entrails in the "Punishment Department" it is peas.

Today was nothing too exciting. I had class and then borrowed Alex's card to go to the gym because I guess the Chinese think white people all look the same (I guess we think that about them sometimes too). The gym was pretty crazy today interms of the kind of people I saw there. For some reason I can't get over how amusing it is to see massive bulging muscles on really short Chinese guys. This one guy was probably a good foot shorter than me, was wearing tiny little spandex and one of those horrible shirts that is loose and has the huuuuuge arm holes so you can see right through it to what you assume is his six pack. Oy, it was pretty gross. Then I saw this couple walking up the stairs. The girl looked like she was probably some Chinese model or actress or something and the guy looked like he was trying to be Ali G. I did not really get to look closely but I don't think he was Chinese. He did however have a white do-rag and a necklace with three ivory looking tiger teeth. Oh and the girls . . . sheeze! They are ridiculously thin! I do not lie or overexaggerate when I say one of them is about the size of one of my thighs. Sadness. They are nearly non-existent.

Ok, super sleepy . . .

9:20 AM . . . dance to greensleeves

2006-03-20T09:24:00.000+08:00

Ever since I arrived here three weeks ago, every morning around 9:20 AM I hear "Greensleeves." The old people across the street dance in the mornings and I get to listen to the music everyday. It reminds me a lot of Cairo, only there I got to listen to gradeschool kids do P.E. which consisted of clapping their hands to Celine Dion songs. I did not notice it before, but this morning they played "La Cucaracha" right before "Greensleeves."

Cameras and costumes

2006-03-19T19:50:00.000+08:00

Today I went with Carrie (one of the roommates) and Julie (she has the same birthday as me) to a photography store way on the other side of town. First of all, the directions we had said that if we took a taxi to this subway stop, it would be obvious where this place was. We got off at the stop and started walking down this road that the store was supposed to be on. After asking four people and walking for around 20 minutes, we found it, definitely not obvious because it was nowhere near the subway stop.

The place was crazy, I was imaging something like B&H in NY where everything is organized and if you want a Canon digital SLR, you go to one spot to look for it. This place however (as many of these megastores are) was comprised of many small booths selling a lot of the same stuff. So you would have some 20 different booths selling cameras, another 20 selling lighting and so on. Then about half of the place was stores with fancy dresses, wedding dresses and crazy gaudy costumes. There were also shops with a variety of backgrounds that you can choose to take your photo in front of. I guess you can dress up and take photos in front of a romantic bridge going over a river of waterlilies. TACKY! But man it would be fun to do, get dressed up in the most hideous dress and then pose in front of a sunset or some weirdness. And no worries about makeup, there were a load of makeup booths all over the place too.

After we had had enough of the madness there, we walked down the street a bit and found a bunch of furniture stores. As we were walking into one, Julie opened the door and a mother ran out with her child and held her to the sidewalk where the kid peed right in front of us. As gross as it sounds, I think that kid almost peed on Julie and my guess is the woman knew the kid had to pee because it had already started to on her, EWWWW! Still not a fan of the open pants thing for kids.

For dinner we ordered take-out from a Mexican place and I will just say that fajitas are best eaten at a restaurant, not delivered, they were definitely not worth it.

Bellydancers and snakes

2006-03-19T08:03:00.000+08:00

First thing in the morning Alex and I went to join the gym she used to belong to. On our way there we saw a group of old Chinese people dancing in a wide area of the sidewalk. I will have to go back and take photos of them, they were too cute. Unfortunately when we go to the gym, we had to deal with a truly incompetent woman who would not budge on the membership price. Apparently for three months I have to pay $194 + $225 (initiation fee). There is no way I am paying more for an initiation fee than for a membership and it ends up being over $100 a month and I am not cool with that. So I guess what I am going to try tomorrow is to use a card of an old roommate of Alex's. There is a photo on the card and she looks nothing like me and somehow I need to renew the card. Eek! I hope it works, Alex and Carrie seem to think it will.

In the afternoon we went bowling with some of Alex's friends. This one guy has four lanes in the basement of his apartment building and although I probably had more experience bowling than anyone else, I didn't do that great.

Another market opened up across the street and Alex and I went to check it out. There were more clothes and less food this time. We found this one booth with a massive pile of clothes that I actually liked. They had some really cool shirts but as I am coming to realize in China, I am too big. Most of the XL shirts were still too small. So that was a little annoying going through all of these shirts I liked, and none of them fit.

We met up with Empi and Mikael (Empi is the daughter of one of my mother's friends back in VA) for dinner at Red Rose, a Xinjiang restaurant. Xinjiang is in the west of China and has many minorities. It is more like Central Asia than East Asia, the language is totally different and I believe that Islam is more dominant than Buddhism, but I could be wrong. Anyway, this restaurant had a band and two belly dancers. It was great! One of the belly dancers had a snake and she brought some guy up on stage to dance with. I felt bad for the snake though, she kept swinging it around. I was sort of expecting the band to play Arabic sounding music, which they did at times, but then they would play Gypsy Kings and at one point I swear they were playing country. There were also these two Greek-looking guys in the audience we got up on stage and started dancing without even being invited up there, it was great. The food was delicious, lots of meats and a massive full leg of lamb (I think).

Not sure what's going on today yet, I know a bunch of the "girls" are coming over for brunch as one of Alex's friends is probably moving to Xi'an this week.

Crimped Mullets

2006-03-17T22:54:00.000+08:00

Ok, new favorite haircut . . . the crimped mullet, or even better the half crimped mullet. This consists of the top part being crimped and the bottom part straight. Oh yes, there's lots of them here in China. I have yet to take a photo of one, but hopefully soon. So if you want to be ahead of the trends in the states . . . you know what you have to do to your hair.

Yesterday and today I basically tested out gyms, woohoo! We went to one yesterday that has a pool but costs a ridiculous amount. No one was there so Alex tried to teach me how to swim. Yes . . . I don't know how to swim. Ok, not really, I just haven't been able to freestyle ever that I can remember. I did make some progress though. Alex told me she used to teach swimming . . . to seven year olds. So I am probably her worst student, oy.

We went to this deliciously wonderful restaurant called "The Olive" that is only a block away. It's new and it a variety of European foods. It is right below Bodi (the place we go for massages) and they are trying to combine the two as a sort of healthy restaurant that works with the massage place. They had an amazing pumpkin soup that I think I was a bit too excited about.

Today we went to this gym that Alex belongs to and it was crazy. Apparently lots of Chinese models and body builders go there, heh heh. For some reason it was really amusing to see a Chinese bodybuilder. Most Chinese people are small and thin here and then you get this short guy with bulging muscles.

I learned how to say numbers today in class and boy is it confusing. Just to give you an example. If you wanted to say 50310, you would say something like, "Five ten thousand zero three hundred one ten". It will definitely take some getting used to. The money here is a bit odd too. For example most things make sense like, ten 1's make a 10. But then you get these weird 5s and two of those make a 1. And then ten small 1s make a 5. Oy, math is odd here.

We were going to go to Qingdao and Mt. Taishan this weekend however this guy currently has my passport since I have to extend it, and it probably isn't wise for me to travel around without it. Argh!!! I would hate to try and check into a hotel 8 hours away and find out I can't because I have no passport, aye!

Chaos at Carrefour

2006-03-15T23:05:00.000+08:00

I am still a little bit out of sorts from this cold but for the most part I am better. Last night Alex and I went to a 3 or so hour long meeting on the hutongs project, oy. Alex left early which left me to sit and look at every single photo taken for this project. Don't get me wrong, I love looking at photos and these are especially interesting, but 3 hours of it gets a bit tiresome. I am looking forward to going on more trips throughout the city to take photos of hutongs. Hopefully next time it won't be so cold/windy/dusty.

Today I went to Carrefour for the first time and I don't think I will be going again anytime soon. It was my first time taking a taxi alone which I managed to do without getting lost, woohoo! Carrefour is like a Walmart (which I never went to in the states) in that it is one store that has everything and anything. They even have a grocery store downstairs. Among my list of things to get, I was looking for a yoga mat. Naturally I looked in the sports section but could not find one. So I did the daring and tried to ask someone in English, because the store caters to foreigners (although I didn't see many). Unfortunately I had around four Chinese guys trying to understand what I was asking for. I tried making all kinds of motions to show a yoga mat and eventually someone brought one from the back. It was pretty frustrating though and I felt like a complete idiot trying to play charades with these guys.

After nearly losing my mind in there I decided I had to leave but ofcourse the lines to checkout are ridiculously long. I went to a line that said "Credit Card" thinking they would take mine. Side note: Not sure if I mentioned this before, but little kids here wear these big bundled clothes that have a massive opening where their butt and such are. I guess they do this so that they can just squat and do their thing without taking off their pants. It's kind of weird though when you are at a grocery store and you see little baby butts showing. Anyway, while waiting in the longest line (not really longest, but the woman in front of me had an insane amount in her cart), I looked around to see if there were any shorter lines, but then I decided to just stick with it because I was exhausted and did not want to try and switch. When I got to the checkout, they could not take my credit card because it is a foreign credit card. Apparently they had a special line for foreign credit cards, what a fool I was! Oy. So they took me out of that line and to the foreign credit card line and all was right in the world.

Beijing cold

2006-03-13T20:50:00.000+08:00

I am sick, bleh. No, not my stomach, I have a cold. I am pretty sure it is from walking around in the cold, wind and dust in the hutongs. Oy. Dusty throat stinks.

Anyway, I guess it's better than stomach problems, but it makes me uneasy about what I was inhaling yesterday. Today was pretty much a bust, I just stayed home and tried to rest. Tomorrow will be sort of busy so I need to sleep. Going to start watching Lawrence of Arabia on my lappy and go to sleep. Nak nak.

Blood pipe and Hutongs

2006-03-12T22:37:00.000+08:00

Last night as I said was the engagement party. It was fun to dress up although I didn't really know anyone. I decided to be adventurous and had Alex do my eye makeup. I never really wear eye makeup other than mascara, so it was interesting but I think it worked out pretty cool. We went to this girl, Julie's apartment (Julie and I have the same birthday, which automatically makes her cool), for the party. It was fun, not much to say though.

This morning I woke up earlier than I wanted to, to the sound of the door bell. It was weird because I woke up and did not even realize what it was since I was not quite awake yet. I just kept hearing this annoying sound. Apparently the maid (not sure if I mentioned that we have a maid that costs less than $2 an hour, how sad) came over two hours earlier than she was supposed to and was incessantly ringing the doorbell. After that stopped, I fell asleep again and then heard the doorbell go off a million times again. Then I heard a bunch of Chinese men talking really loudly and running up and down the stairs. I have no clue what was going on as I was barely conscious but I jsut made sure to stay in my room. It was very surreal. I hate the sound of our doorbell now.

Other than that rude awakening, today was pretty awesome. Alex was very busy with work, but I went on a photoshoot to some hutongs with MCK (Alex's American friend), and three of his Chinese friends, AJ, Kurt and Nicole. First we met for lunch, a lunch I will never forget. The Chinese guys wanted to go to McDonald's but MCK and I would not have it. So we went to this Chinese restaurant and since the menu was entirely in Chinese I did not bother to look for anything. Most people eat family style in China, and I was not especially hungry, so I just let them pick whatever they wanted. Not sure how good of an idea that was. The first dish to come out was weird looking and I knew it had to be some animal part, turns out it was lamb stomach. So being the little trooper, and that fact that I will eat "anything" once, I tried it. The worst part was the sauce it was in, I think on it's own it would probably be somewhat tasteless. The texture was sort of like calamari. Then came out something like Kung Pao Chicken, which honestly I have not seen yet in China, but AJ and Kurt said that that is the dish that is most associated with foreigners. Go figure . . . I actually liked that one. Some other plates came out, all of which were good and then on top of it all was this hot pot that consisted of varioud animal parts. I still don't know what all was in there but the soup part looked like blood (don't worry, it wasn't). Of all the parts that were in there, I managed to eat "blood pipe", duck blood, cow stomach (not much different from lamb stomach), possibly part of an eye of some animal, and some other organ like parts. I am not quite sure what "blood pipe" is, I would guess maybe one of the major arteries or veins? It was pretty thick. Anyway, it was not as bad as it all sounds. Not something I would ever order or choose to eat again, but none of it made me feel like I had to throw up, which in my book is the most important thing. I think the sheeps brain I had in Egypt is still more disgusting than any of what I ate today.

After lunch we walked over to where there used to be hutongs. I am not sure how recently, but most of it was rubble. We all took our cameras out and spent a couple hours wandering around and taking photos. I didn't take as many as I wanted to because it was freezing, insanely windy and I forgot my gloves, so my hands were frozen. MCK was going around and tried to talk to a couple people. Some of them were not as willing to talk but this one guy was pretty cool. He apparently only moved to Beijing three months ago so he could get a job, have a better life and see where the great leaders were from. It was really sad to see that he was living in the remnants of a demolished hutong. Luckily MCK talked to him or a while and even got him to let me take a photo of him.

Overall the day was pretty cool walking around and documenting this stuff. We are meeting on Tuesday to go over photos and who knows what will happen next. I know they are talking about doing exhibits, maybe books and who knows what else.

As for the burns I got yesterday, one of the eleven turned into a blister, argh! It seriously looks like I have some weird birthmarks on my arm right now in the shape of a bunch of red spots.

This evening we made pizza with some homemade dough that Carrie had frozen from her mother. We ordered ingredients from April Gourmet, which as usual is a very risky deal. I asked Alex to see if they had root beer and they ended up bring over a can of warm Carlsberg beer. Oy! Not what I wanted. That happend to us for the potato pancakes when we asked for oil and they brought margerine. I guess that's what we got for not wanting to walk to get our groceries last minute.

On top if it, I bought the first season of Lost on DVD here (super cheap) and am getting everyone into, mwa ha ha ha! I officially have Alex hooked.

I am super super tired so I am going to sleep, but I will put the photos up first thing tomorrow, I think I got some goods ones, unfortunately no evidence of the stomachs though, I am such a fool!

Kitchen Battle Wounds

2006-03-11T14:06:00.000+08:00

Not a lot going on right now. Yesterday I had another Chinese class and learned more food words and how to say "I like" . . . so now I can say, "I like to eat noodles." "Wo xihuan chi mientiao." Yummy! Next week we are learning about taxis and transportation, so I will finally be able to get myself around. On my walk home from class I noticed a sign on a store that said "Welcome to here." Yes . . . welcome to here indeed.

Last night Alex and I went to dinner at a Thai restaurant with her friends Fuzzy and Erla. They are both very cool. Fuzzy is Pakistani British and Erla is Icelandic. After dinner we went to get massages for super cheap again, woohoo!

This morning I decided to make French Toast and oh what a disaster. They came out tasting pretty good but not without some battle wounds. I managed to get burned in 11 spots. Three on my hands and then the mother of them all was when I was putting more butter in the pan and somehow is splattered out onto my forearm into 8 separate dots. It hurt like all hell but I didn't think it did anything, now I look like I have some weird birth marks on my arm. On top of it, I am supposed to get all dressed up tonight for a friend of Alex's and Carrie's engagement party. So I am not sure what to do, but my arm might look a bit freakish.

Ok, I am off to get ready . . . will report more later, sorry no new photos. I did fix (more like replace) the images that were not working.

First day of class

2006-03-09T20:03:00.000+08:00

Today was my first Chinese class, woohoo! I was sort of hoping I would meet cool people there, but was a bit disappointed. My class has three other people in it, all of who are probably in their 40s/50s. Not saying there is anything wrong with that, but I don't see myself becoming buddy buddy with anyone.

My teacher is pretty cool, she is closer to my age (or so she looks, Chinese can be decieving). I learned some really valuable phrases today, like how to say "Your mother eats chicken." "Tade mama chi ji." Don't try to pronounce it, their sounds are so different. The hardest part I think will be figuring out how to pronounce the vowel combinations like ae, ie, ou, uo, iu and so on . . . I have the "ou" and "uo" down, but that's about it.

Last night I was turning the lights off and we blew a fuse. So Alex and I went to the fusebox and were flicking the switches but it wasn't doing anything. We were without any lights for a full day until maintenance finally came by and flicked another switch in another fusebox that solved the problem. Oops. We didn't realize there was another fusebox for our lights, it's too bad we couldn't just communicate with them over the phone and get it done earlier.

Other than that, I am working on reuploading all of the images to the broken albums, argh. I have no clue what happened. There is nothing wrong that I can see in any of the code or image files, so I am just starting over for those three albums.

That's all for today, things have been a bit slow. I have decided that I am going to do a little project for myself on mops. For some reason the variety of mops and where they have been placed in the environment fascinates me. Everytime I see a mop and I don't have my camera I get annoyed. So from now on, the camera comes with me everywhere a mop could possibly be. Be prepared for the mop photo album.

Sizes

2006-03-07T13:34:00.000+08:00

Just a little note, China is no place for a person with low self-esteem. In the states I wear a medium size shirt, here I have to wear a 2XL!! Ha ha. If I lose a bit of weight maybe I will fit into an XL. Sheeze!

Last day in Shanghai, Yuyuan Gardens, boat tour

2006-03-07T08:42:00.000+08:00

Our last day in Shanghai was jampacked with walking and sites. We started off the day trying to find a place for a good breakfast but instead went into a good croissant place and got one to go since they had no seating. We went to the Yuyuan Gardens first which were super super cool. Outside of the gardens and around the whole area is considered Old Shanghai and has very cool Chinese architecture. I think it might have been the original center of town. While walking around outside of the gardens this old Chinese man tried to talk to us. Normally we would just keep walking, but he seemed legit. He asked if we were American and where we were from. We said Virginia and he said he has a granddaughter at UVA and a granddaughter at Northwestern and he kept going on and on about them. He spoke really good English and then out of nowhere he asked if we were going into the gardens and if we could buy him a ticket. It was sort of awkward and I couldn't tell if he pulls this act on every American or what.

As we continued on we found a Dairy Queen! It repulsed me but I also was happy. It repulsed me that there was a Dairy Queen inside this old looking part of town, but I was happy to see a blizzard and had to get one. They had weird flavors too, like Green Tea blizzards.

We went into the Gardens and it was like a little paradise, I could hang out there all day every day and have picnics. I might need one of these when I get back to the states. I can't really explain it, so you will just have to look at the photos.

After the Gardens we walked down Old Shanghai Street and then walked up toward the Shanghai Museum. On the way to the museum I saw this little kid in front of us who kept looking back at me and my camera. Then he said in Chinese that we were American. All of a sudden he tried to touch Alex's chest and grab our bags. He followed us and pulled on our stuff for a couple blocks and we could not get rid of him. I am not one for child abuse, but I was ready to slap this kid. He grabbed my water bottle out of the side of my bag and thought he had stolen something of mine. Lucky for me it was empty and I didn't care. Then Alex and I split, she went into a store and I walked behind some gate. He followed her into the store and tried to steal from the woman at the counter who then proceeded to yell at him and kick him out. Alex and I found each other again and he was still there. He just kept laughing and so I turned around and took a picture of the little rat. I don't know how we eventually shook him off but we did.

We made it to the Shanghai Museum and saw a couple interesting exhibits although there were many areas that were closed down. There were some amazing furniture pieces and old dress pieces from the 1700s. After the museum we walked back down Nanjing Donglu and then to the Bund for a boat trip up the Huangpu River. It was slowly become more and more smoggy and cloudy, so the view from the river was not that great, but it was still nice to see the shipping yards and all the boats in the area.

Once we arrived back at the dock, we had to rush to get our bags from the hotel and get to the train station. In Shanghai and I suspect in most of the large cities in China, there are areas where you cannot cross the street but you have to go over or under. The road, or more like highway, that you have to cross to get to and from the Bund is one such road. I think it is eight lanes across. We were hoping to catch a cab but could not find any so we decided to wait for no traffic and then run across. Ofcourse there were two police officers maybe 20 feet away from us. So when the traffic let up, we started to run. The officers blew their whistles but Alex just yelled to keep running! As we were running across we saw a police car with flashing lights turn the corner and we freaked out but he was not coming after us. Anyway, we made it across and no one came after us. We just played the idiot American card.

We got our bags and took a cab to the Shanghai Train Station. It was getting dark and we passed Nanjing Donglu and got to see all the bright lights for a brief moment. At least I got to see it, even though I didn't get to take any photos of it.

So we got on the train and we knew it would not be as good as going down since we were going on a Sunday night. We got into our room and were the first ones. Then two older Chinese guys, probably in their 40s or 50s came in. I was very confused because I thought they would not put men and women in the same room. Apparently I was wrong. The worst part about it was that Alex and I were on the bottom bunks, which are considered to be couches for everyone until you sleep. So we were stuck sitting with these guys until they wanted to go to their beds and sleep. One of them spoke English but the other did not. The one who did not speak English thought I was an 18 year old Russian. I guess I am psyched that I passed for 18, but I am not Russian! It's funny because I look at Chinese girls and think they are all teenagers when they are in their 20s, so I assumed that a Chinese man looking at me would think I was much older than I am. Anyway, the ride was ok, considering we slept through most of it.

So that was the trip to Shanghai, sorry if it was wordy, I have been trying to remember everything at once. I have photos online but for some weird reason am having problems with my older albums. Will try and remedy that today.

Day 2 in Shanghai, Aquarium

2006-03-06T23:46:00.000+08:00

After a very restful sleep in ye ol' Captain's sailor bunk, we got ready and began our day. We started it off by walking to the Bund and taking the underground Tourist Sightseeing Tunnel. I initially thought it was just a tunnel you could walk through to get to the other side of the Huangpu River, however I was mistaken. You have to pay to take this pod on tracks through a tunnel that was like something out of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. It was nuts! I was pretty much giggley the entire time, it was such a tourist trap but I loved it. It has cheesy narrations and crazy lights, it was like a rave on wheels without the music.

Once at the other side we decided to go to the Aquarium. I have a thing for Aquariums and like to go to them whenever I am in a city that has one. It is said that the Shanghai Aquarium has the longest underwater tunnel in Asia, so I had to see it. The Aquarium was definitely an experience. It was more like a theme park than an aquarium. There were different sections based on country or region and strangely enough Africa only had one very small room, not sure if it's because they are racist or not. Maybe there are not many fish in Africa? For each area there were places to take photos and the Chinese people there took photos everywhere they could. Unfortunately when looking at the fish many of them looked dead. The worst was this frog that had part of it's mouth and part of it's eye missing, it was quite morbid. Another thing we noticed was that the seaweed and surrounding environments in the tanks looked like plastic. The worst being a tank with neon fish in it in which they tried to match the coral to the fish. I have seen some crazy colors of coral, but not neon blues, greens and pinks like they had in this tank, they were definitely painted to match the fish. The coolest part of the Aquarium was definitely the underwater viewing tunnels. The fish were not that exciting, but it was still fun to see them all and take photos in the tunnel.

We went back to Nanjing Donglu for lunch and had some super tasty dumplings that are specific to Shanghai. I have never had anything like them in the states, but they are amazing. The dough part is much more bread like than pasta. Super tasty. Nanjing was much more packed when we went back on Saturday than on Friday. There were areas where cars are supposed to be able to drive through and the people make it near impossible. Everyone was dodging cars and trying to cut through, I would hate to have to drive through that.

After going through the touristy stuff we decided to walk in another direction and see what was around. We crossed the creek that goes into the Huangpu and ended up in an area that I doubt many tourists go to. The area was similar to Hutongs in Beijing but the buildings were a bit taller (three stories instead of one). We walked down one street that was all little shops with mannequins in rows. Each store had slightly different mannequins and most of them were only wearing tops and no pants. It was kind of creepy, I wish I could have found a way to get a photos of the entire street. We continued on walking down this one street that was pretty much empty except for one parked van. We heard a crash and looked and saw a guy on a moped had driven right into the van. I don't know how he did it because there was plenty of room to avoid the van and there were no cars coming in either direction. It also does not surprise me though because even while walking down streets we will see a guy on a moped or bicycle look at us, then look away while his moped/bicycle starts to veer towards us.

We walked down by the Astor Hotel which we initially were hoping to stay at when planning our trip. It had a hostel at one time but when Alex called to book a room they said the hostel was cancelled. It is a building with many firsts in China, such as: first modern hotel in China, first electric lamps in China, first phonecall in Shanghai . . . We used their internet and their bathrooms and then crossed over back to our side of the river.

We met up with Alex's friends again for dinner at a delicious Thai restaurant called Simply Thai. After hanging out there we looked for something to do after and ended up at the skybar in the Radisson Hotel again. It was pretty lame and there was a lounge band playing. One guy was playing what looked like a really skinny upright bass and the singer was a Chinese woman singing songs mostly in English. It was weird though how she looked like she was being dubbed. I am quite sure she was actually singing but her mouth did not look like it was making the same motions as the words she was saying.

That night I was hoping to take photos of all the lit up streets but did not realize that they turn off the lights around 11 PM! I thought for sure they would be on until at least 1 or 2 AM on a weekend night. I totally missed taking photos of nighttime in Shanghai, so I guess I will have to go back and take more next time.

Day 1 in Shanghai, wandering around

2006-03-06T23:06:00.000+08:00

We woke up shortly before arriving in Shanghai on Friday morning. Took the subway quite easily to the Captain's Hostel but were there too early to check in. We dropped our stuff off and explored the surrounding area. We found a nice place to have breakfast where they had "waffles." They tasted a bit different but were still good. It was considered a dessert, but I was fine eating it for breakfast. We walked along the Bund (a touristy area we were staying a block away from) and then checked in. Considering it cost us $7 a night, it was pretty nice, I actually slept better my two nights in the hostel than I have in Beijing. The hostel rooms were called sailor bunks and there were eight beds to a room.

After checking in we decided to just wander the streets and see what we could discover. We spent most of the day walking along Nanjing Donglu and the French Concession. Nanjing Donglu is a main walking street that lights up at night (unfortunately we did not get to see it all lit up) and is very popular during the weekends. Nanjing Donglu leads you into People's Square where we saw a Communist gathering of sorts. We took a break near a sculpture for a bit and saw an old Chinese man painting. His easel was attached to his bicycle somehow and he was painting the sculpture. As we were leaving we looked at his painting and noticed that we were in it! We were both pretty psyched that we were memorialized in this old Chinese man's painting.

We were right near the Radisson Hotel and decided to use their bathrooms since they would probably be the nicest we could find for a bit, this became a trend for the weekend. Using bathrooms in nice hotels. I recommend it, it beats the alternative. After checking out the facilities we decided to see if we could go to the top of the building and check out the revolving restaurant. We went up during a slow time so a waiter took us around the restaurant and showed us a menu as I took photos of the city. Had we gone up one of the other towers with a view, we would have had to pay, and here we got to see it for free and look at fancy menus.

We continued on to find the French Concession and some good French food. While walking down the streets there were loads of people running up to us trying to get us to buy handbags, it was getting really frustrating and annoying after a while. After being completely exhausted we found a cute French place where I had a Nutella Crepe, yum! It was refreshing and I totally did not feel like I was in China anymore. Right outside the restaurant was a market with all kinds of booths. We decided to check it out and immediately were attacked by all kinds of people trying to sell their goods. I bought the cutest tiniest little tripod I have seen which is great for traveling and surprisingly it holds the weight of my camera. Alex bought a monstrous pair of sunglasses and managed to talk the woman down to a super low price. While walking down one of the strips, a man came up to Alex trying to get her to buy a handbag and she said, "I don't like handbags." One would normally think the guy would leave us alone but instead he wanted to know why and kept following us. For some odd reason I burst out into a laughing fit and he decided to follow me instead and kept asking if I was crazy. Eventually we lost him and got out of the insanity.

On our way back to the hostel we went to a tea house that looked really cool because it had swings as chairs at some of the tables. We really really wanted one but unfortunately they only had two tables with swings and both were taken. We ate there anyway and the waitress was very odd. We asked for water and she told us that we had to order. We kept trying to tell her that we would order but that we wanted water first and she did not seem to grasp the concept. Since we were in the area and it was getting late we decided to check out some of the local bars since Shanghai is supposed to be a "happening" town. We went to one that seemed ok until some weird guy tried to talk to us. We were by no means dressed to impress as we had just been walking all day, so I am not sure why he even came over. He was obviously drunk and made some statement like, "We guys come here to get girls and you girls come here to get guys." Alex and I looked at each other like, um ... not quite. Eventually some teeny tiny Asian girls (they were definitely not Chinese) started dancing all skanky like and luckily the guy's attention shifted. Alex's friends were in the area, so we moved onto another place and stayed there until we went back to the hostel.

Leaving for Shanghai

2006-03-06T15:31:00.000+08:00

We are back in Beijing and I will do my best to write up what all happened this weekend. Unfortunately I am sure I forgot small details that I wanted to include.

After packing our bags we took a cab to the Beijing train station. There were some issues with this because apparently there are several train stations and we did not know which one we had to go to. Eventually we figured it out and got there early. We did not know what the meal situation would be on the train so we went to the food court at the train station. Word of advice, never go to the food court at the Beijing train station. There were numerous vendors selling all kinds of noodles, dumplings, soups and such. I decided to get noodles and Alex decided to get dumplings. I tried to buy my own noodles and got sucked into some whirlwind bureaucracy. The woman started putting my noodles in a bowl and I took out my Y8 to pay her. She would not take my money and kept pointing and yelling. So I looked over and there was another stall on the other side of the room. After standing there and obviously not doing what the woman wanted me to do, she led me to the stall and told me to pay Y8 plus another Y3. I don't know what the 3 was for, but I just gave it to them because I had not way of arguing. After giving the woman at the new stall the money, she gave me a foodcard. I went back to the woman with the noodles, she put my card in and then motioned for me to go back to the other woman and she put her hands up showing me "five." At this point I was getting annoyed and did not understand why I would need to pay another Y5, but whatever, I wanted my food. I went back to the foodcard woman, gave her another Y5 and went back to the noodle woman. This time she would not take my card, I was utterly confused. Then this other guy (I have no clue if he worked there or not) started yelling something at me in Chinese (like yelling it will make me understand you any better) and had me follow him back to the stall where I got the foodcard. I don't know what happened, but he gave me back Y10 and then I got my food. Some how Alex did not have to go through all of that, so I don't know what I did wrong.

After eating we tried to find out track. Something I have learned from Alex is that when asking questions in China, make sure to ask several different people until you get a confirmed answer. We asked five different people what track our train was on and got three different answers. Once on the train we found our sleeper room and it was awesome! I have never been on a sleeper and it was really exciting. We were also spoiled because there was no one else in our room. On the train they gave us a complimentary dinner which was halfway decent. There was some weird pack that we could not identify. Might have been cold noodles, cabbage, jellyfish? We did not try it. We got to listen to Chinese smooth jazz and pop songs on the train and had a blast with that. There is one song where they try to sing in English but we couldn't even understand that.

To be continued . . .

Off to Shanghai!

2006-03-02T13:35:00.000+08:00

So I am super excited, Alex and I just got tickets to take the overnight train to Shanghai tonight and stay until Sunday night. I am not sure if I will take my laptop yet, my guess is no, so I will write more on Monday when I get back.

Woohoo! Now to pack up for three days!

Thai food and blue skies

2006-03-02T00:53:00.000+08:00

Today was probably the nicest day in Beijing ever, or at least while I've been here. The sky was blue and it was pretty clear outside. I don't really understand how it went from disgustingly polluted to blue skies. Everyone here says the Chinese government controls the weather by shooting chemicals into the sky for holidays to make the sky blue. I wonder if this was one of those days.

Anyway, Alex went back to tutoring a woman from Inner Mongolia today and she invited us to have lunch with her, her husband and her friend. Alex told me and Sean to meet them at a corner because we thought we were going to her place to eat lunch. They showed up in a black volvo and got a cab for us and told the cab driver to follow them to a restaurant. Everything was fine until a black VW pulled in between us the Volvo. Somehow our idiot cab driver could not tell the difference and when the Volvo turned, the cab driver kept going and followed the VW instead. Neither Sean nor I speak Chinese and we did not know how to tell the driver to stop or turn around. We were both really flustered but luckily the VW was pulling off not far away into a parking garage, so we just got out and walked the rest of the way to look for their car.

So May, the woman Alex tutors, took us to this amazing Thai restaurant that is apparently pretty famous in Beijing. The menu was more like a magazine than a menu. It was filled with ads and it was hard to tell what you could order and what was an ad. We just let the husband order and it felt like it took half an hour for him to finish telling the waitress what to get. Eventually I figured out why, because they ordered tons of food. It just kept coming and all of it was so delicious. It's interesting to me that Thai food in America is pretty similar to Thai food in China (which I assume is similar to real Thai food in Thailand), however Chinese food in America is drastically different than Chinese food in China. There is no sweet and sour chicken or sesame chicken or any of the things you would normally associate with Chinese food. So who decided that these things would be considered Chinese food? At any rate, the food was delicious and we all tried Baijiu, a Chinese alcoholic drink that Alex thinks is disgusting but I thought tasted alright. Apparently whenever you want to drink, you hit the table with the bottom of the glass and everyone has to drink with you. So I guess everyone gets equally drunk? I am not sure. Luckily they were being cool with us and did not do that. May is a fashion designer and seems very cool. The funny thing is, she has no shame in telling people they are fat. She had emailed Alex while she was in the states asking if she was fat or skinny. Then today during lunch we were talking about Chinese food and I said I liked the noodles the best and she told me that noodles will make me fat, so if I don't want to be fat, I have to stop eating noodles.

After lunch we went to the Temple of Heaven since it was a nice day and in theory, it would be a good day for photos of the sights. Unfortunately they are doing renovations and we could barely see anything since it was all closed off. Hopefully we will get to go back when it is done. Not far from the Temple of Heaven is the Pearl Market where you can buy all kinds of bargain goods. We walked through and it is hilarious to see how these Chinese girls attack people. They are all trained to say things like, "Special price for you!" "Beautiful lady, I give you low price!" "Cheaper for you!" We actually saw one British guy get pulled by three little Chinese women when he said he did not want to buy a bag. They kept physically pulling him back in and he kept trying to get out. They are vicious, but man it must get exhausting. We saw all the pearls and it's really overwhelming and a bit frustrating. I would really like to buy beads since they are so much cheaper here and you can bargain, but I do not know how to tell what quality things are and what price I should be paying. Any pearl/jade/coral experts out there?

Wednesday nights are Quiz Night at this bar called Bar Blu. Alex's friends have been going so we went to check it out. I have only been here a week and I felt so odd walking into a bar full of Americans, Brits and other foreigners. I have not seen that many white people in one place, it's so weird.

Anyway, I am tired and will upload photos tomorrow morning.

Mardi Gras snow

2006-03-01T00:01:00.000+08:00

No big sights today, but I did wake up to snow! There was maybe a half an inch, but it was still kind of cool to see snow in Beijing considering it was built on a desert. Alex and I went to this design studio called VaporCube. She has a friend who works there and they are planning on doing a project on hutongs (the "shack" type buildings that are being knocked down in order to build highrises). He wanted us to come in because he thinks we could do a lot for the project. It could be really interesting although I am still unclear as to what exactly I would be doing. Seems like they want to do an exhibit and they want to basically spread the knowledge to people all over since there may not be any left by 2008. On our long walk home it started snowing again. I tried to take some photos but they didn't come out all too great. The creepiest thing was that I could see the sun perfectly but there were definitely no shadows. I can only assume that the pollution was so thick that the sun could not really get through enough. If I had not actually seen the sun, I would have thought it was really cloudy. Today had to have been the most polluted I have seen Beijing.

After walking around for a while, we stopped at April Gourmet for sour cream and apple sauce since I decided to make potato pancakes for Mardi Gras. Woohoo! While I was looking around, I saw a thing of Nutella and maybe I got a bit too excited. I called over to Alex and showed it to her and she immediately said, "Put it down!" so these two Australian women looked up and started laughing. They thought it was the cutest thing and we started talking about how great Nutella is. I am glad I made their day, they were even talking about how "cute" it was as they were walking out. At anyrate, I am super excited I was able to find all the ingredients I needed for potato pancakes since I am not able to have my mother's tasty cooking for Mardi Gras this year. Unfortunately they came out a bit too crispy because the stove is a bit freakish (and would probably be illegal in the US). There are only two burners and one of them doesn't seem to work unless the other one is turned off first. Then you have to fiddle with it for around ten minutes before it starts to work, if it does at all. In the middle of making the pancakes, I ran out of oil so we called April Gourmet to deliver another bottle. Somehow they misunderstood and delivered margarine instead. Even with all of that though, the pancakes were good and seemed to be a hit. Carrie even said that it was the best food she has had in Beijing.

Now I am super tired and am off to sleep. I will put the photos up tomorrow morning.

Lowkey

2006-02-27T21:05:00.000+08:00

Today was pretty lowkey. It was so cold I was not really in the mood to walk around much. We went to a library/coffee shop/restaurant called Bookworm that is pretty sweet. It is not far from Alex, has good food and is geared towards westerners. They also have Wi-Fi so it might be a nice place to go with my lappy if I have work to do and want to get out of the apartment. Other than that, it was a pretty simple day, nothing super exciting. Tomorrow we are planning on going to the Pearl Market and the Temple of Heaven if the sky clears up some.

Hairiest man and metal claws

2006-02-26T19:26:00.000+08:00

Today was pretty interesting. We started out by taking a cab to the dirt market which is a Sunday market full of all kinds of great things, including paintings, beads galore, sculptures, prints, clothing, pots, furniture and all kinds of random goods. I found these crazy metal torture looking "gloves" that we talked down to $12! So I bought them. There are photos online of these crazy things. Not sure that I will wear them, although they would be great for Halloween. I am definitely going back there for beads, they have a ridiculous amount of jade, coral, turquoise and some stones that I don't know.

After the market we went to the Lama Temple which has an 18 meter high Buddah all carved out of one piece of sandalwood sent in from Burma. The building was built around the Buddah after it was carved. It is amazing and there is really no describing it unless you see it. 18 meters doesn't even do it justice. Unfortunately you are not allowed to take photos inside the temples so I can't show you what it looked like, but I can say that I just stood there in awe for a while.

We decided to take the subway home, which cost about $0.40, and this man walked onto the train. I looked over at Alex and said, "Look, it's wolfman" since this was the harriest man I have every seen. Then she says, "Oh my god, it is! Seriously, this guy is famous, he's been on Letterman!" Sure enough, I googled hairiest man alive and Yu Zhenhuan came up. Apparently 96% of his body is covered in hair. He is no longer the hairiest man alive, there are two brothers in Mexico who are 98% covered in hair. At anyrate, he was standing right next to me on the train and there is no mistaking it. Look up his name online and you can see a photo, I did not have the nerve to ask if I could take one of him.

This evening I went for my first massage (80 minute foot massage, although they do back, arms and neck as well) and it cost less than $10! I can see this turning into a weekly or biweekly thing while I am here. I don't know how I will adjust to American prices after this. Along with the massage, there is a menu and everything is complimentary, so we had dinner and a massage for less than $10. One of the weird things that actually tasted really good was peanut butter French Toast. It's like a peanut butter sandwich that is French Toastified. Also, if you have not tried it, boil Coke and add cut up ginger. It's really good.

Another thing I have noticed but have not fully documented yet is the insane amount of construction in Beijing. Alex has even said that since she left two months ago there are buildings that she has never seen before and they seem to pop up over night. It's insane.

So that was my day . . . not sure what tomorrow will bring but this place keeps getting more interesting.

Pain in chest

2006-02-25T09:50:00.000+08:00

So this morning I woke up with a horrible pain in my chest, apparently that's what happens to a lot of people when they first come to Beijing and have to get used to the pollution. Not sure that I want my body to get used to pollution, but I guess it will have to.

This morning two of my roommates were going to go snowboarding but missed the bus, so Alex woke me up and told me that they were going to a restaurant called Steak & Eggs where you can get American breakfast. Normally I would have continued to sleep, but I could not pass it up. Unfortunately they did not have waffles, but they had French Toast, Pancakes, BACON and all other American breakfasty things. The bacon was pretty sweet.

Alex and I went to an art store today and I managed to buy quite a bit in art supplies for only $35. We are going to try to paint and draw on a somewhat daily basis. Another fun translation on a bottle of turpentine was "Keep it out of children." I will be sure to keep it out of children when I am using it. As a little note about mistranslations, I have created another blog just for translations that I find amusing. Again, the link is to the right.

After the art store we went to this little Chinese restaurant for a late lunch. We were the only people there and the menu was entirely in Chinese. Luckily it had pictures, so we tried to pick out some good stuff to eat. Somehow there were some problems with our order and we got slight variations. I don't know if MSG looks like slime, but our broccoli was definitely covered in a gelatinous snot-like substance. I am hoping it was MSG. I did learn how to say "no MSG" today and now I forgot. I am trying to learn some Chinese so I can get around, but it is pretty hard. I really need to get over being shy and just practise speaking.

MCK (a friend of Alex's) and his Chinese friend came over for a bit today and they picked a Chinese name for me. I think it sounds a bit egotistical, but apparently it is common for girls to have names like this. My name is "Luo Mei Na" which means "Beautiful girl." I think I can deal with that.

That's all for today. No new photos. Not sure what we are doing tomorrow, but I think it will involve painting, drawing and maybe more wandering if it is not too cold.

First full day in Beijing

2006-02-24T17:43:00.000+08:00

So today was my first full day in Beijing and it's been good. Alex, Sean (other subletter) and I went around to get acclimated to the areas. We went to a cute little market across the street from the apartment where we saw all kinds of cool stuff like teas, beans, seaweed, dried seahorses and snake, and weird clothes. I took a ridiculous amount of photos. Things I ate included really yummy smoked meat. Don't ask me what kind it was, but it was good. I also tried some red thing that looked and tasted like a date and the big adventure food today was jellyfish. I can't really describe it, it's seafoody and slimy with a bit of a crunch. Probably not something I would have again, but it didn't kill me.

After the market we went by the Forbidden City but didn't really hang out there. I saw quite a few Chinese mullets . . . seems like a big thing here. The sky is a permanent beige, so I think we are going to go back on a day when the sky is blue, although I am not sure when that will happen. The smell here reminds me of Cairo, I wonder if all super polluted cities smell this way.

We walked through an area of hutongs which from what I understand are alleyways where Chinese people live. They are tearing these down and turning them into apartment buildings, which kind of sucks. We walked into another market where they were selling all kinds of weird things, like various bugs on sticks. The creepiest thing was that there was a scorpion on one stick that was still moving. The stick was stuck all the way through it and it's little claws were still squirming. If I had not already been turned off by eating scorpion, that pretty much did it for me there.

We went to lunch at a little Chinese place where we paid a ridiculous price for Green Tea. Meaning, we paid $3.50 instead of $1.25. The prices here are wild. We went to this market that has a bunch of fakes but also some good stuff and it's amazing how much you can talk things down. This woman was asking $18.75 for a lamp and Alex talked her down to $3.75 and we ended up not wanting to buy it anyway.

Went grocery shopping and saw that they have Oreos among other American foods. We also went to this place called April Gourmet and it has Ritter Sport chocolates (Thank you THFers for getting me some, but apparently I can get it here too!).

We had dinner at a southern Chinese restaurant and I have noticed that my biggest problem with Chinese food, that I was not expecting, is the salt factor (or MSG). Almost everything is ridiculously salty. Unfortunately it's one of those things I do not want to get used to. I am fine getting used to eating foods I would not normally eat, but preservatives and saltiness in my food I don't count as a good change.

So that was today . . . I am trying to learn some Chinese phrases but it is taking me a while. I also took lots of photos today, so check them out in my gallery.

So sleepy

2006-02-23T18:25:00.000+08:00

So here is my first post from China! I have not slept in over 24 hours and am quite out of it. I just came back from dinner and it is 9 PM here. After this post, I am going to bed.

Where to begin . . . Kurt drove me to Newark Airport in a flash, for some odd reason no one was on the roads in NYC during rush hour. There was a Black History Month fashion show in the terminal and they were blasting music, it was very strange. Met up with Alex and I managed to steal her away from her exit row and into a row with me. My plan had been that one of us would get the window and one of us would get the aisle, so we could get the best of both worlds. Unfortunately our row was the one row on the entire plane without windows! So we had to get up if we wanted to get a glimpse of our current location. When we did get to see the view, it was pretty sweet. We flew over the north pole and saw some rather cool ice formations. The weirdest thing was not having night. We went straight from sunset to sunrise. Eternal dusk or Eternal dawn, take your pick. Food on the plane was pretty foul. They fooled us into thinking it might be good by handing out fancy menus. It was the kind of food that does not taste how it smells.

After 13 hours of trying to sleep and shifting around, we made it to Beijing. First thing that I noticed after we picked up our luggage was a Starbucks. Aye! Oh yeah, and KFC too. Bleh.

Made it to the apartment which is nice, I will be living with Alex and two of her friends. I am in a room that has a piano in it. Along with a piano I have a tiny mattress that was supposed to go on a bed frame, however the frame is missing screws, so at least for tonight, I am sleeping on a mattress on the floor. I think I might keep it this way. The lightbulbs in my room are out and I have no closets or dressers. So . . . it will be interesting. Hopefully tomorrow I will get some of this taken care of. However, I kind of like the minimalism of a mattress and candlelight. It just might work.

I also got a cellphone today and you get a card with the phone number on it that has directions. One of the directions is: "Please recharge your SIM card before the last first using time." If you can figure out that the means, I will buy you a chocolate bar.

Anyway, I am going to try to sleep now. There is some weird music playing outside, hopefully it will stop soon. I already miss everyone back home, hope you are all well.

Last day at work

2006-02-04T20:18:00.000+08:00

So my last day at work was really nice. Had a nice lunch at Ruby Tuesdays and then Lisa and Michelle S. threw a little party for me in the afternoon. It was very sweet and they gave me this great bag of goodies to get me through China. Most important items being toilet paper and hand sanitizer. Not sure how much use I will get out of the toilet seat covers as from what I hear, there are not many toilet seats. They also made me the coolest little passport looking guide to travel, complete with travel tips from everyone on the interpretive staff. Pretty much the coolest, most creative and nice thing ever! My ex-coworkers rock and I will miss them tons. Oh yeah, and Janet made me the best truffles I have ever had, seriously. They are oreo truffles and I need the recipe. I ate one and was in heaven. They even came in a cute little Chinese takeout box!

Other than that, next week is all preparing for the trip and trying to get a visa. It is looking like I might have to get a tourist visa and then switch to a student visa in China. Not sure yet though, I have to get this taken care of next week. Woohoo, I don't think it has hit me yet that I am actually going, hopefully it will before I land in Beijing!

What I have to look forward to

2006-01-25T08:00:00.000+08:00

So my friend Alex, whom I am going to China to visit, sent me this news clipping from Reuters. This is just one of the things I have to look forward to. Beijing also just recently broke the world record for largest ice cream cake. Craziness!

Tuesday, January 24, 2006; Posted: 3:32 a.m. EST (08:32 GMT)

BEIJING, China (Reuters) -- Migrant workers in south China are wearing adult diapers on packed trains heading home for the Lunar New Year holiday because they have no access to a toilet, state media said on Tuesday.

About 120 million peasants from China's vast rural areas swarm the cities for work and all try to make it home for the holiday, filling all standing room on trains and making access to the toilet impossible during trips often lasting 24 hours or more.

"During the peak travel period last year, some passengers even became deranged on their journeys because of the conditions and jumped out of the carriages," the China Daily said.

The Lunar New Year, which this year starts on January 29, is the biggest holiday in the Chinese-speaking world and family reunions prompt arguably the biggest movement of humanity on Earth.

Many supermarkets in southern Foshan had reported a 50 percent increase in sales of adult diapers for the train trips, the China Daily said in what some local commentators called the "shame of the nation". It did not mention other cities.

Domestic media said railways in China had transported 3.8 million people alone on Monday, an all-time high.

Copyright 2006 Reuters

Ticket in hand . . .

2006-01-20T20:01:00.000+08:00

So it's official, I gave my three weeks notice, I bought my ticket, I am going to China! I still have a lot to do of course, but I am on my way. Still trying to figure out what kind of visa to get, but hopefully I will take care of that soon.

Anyway, this is where I will put updates on my travels to China, so if you want to know what's going on, check back often. I leave the country on February 22, so it should get juicy after that.