China 2007

Tuesday, July 11. A frustrating day, to say the least. It began with rain. Rain is lovely. I like the rain. And it poured.

I had no time for breakfast. We took off past the Bund, under the tunnel, and stopped at the hazy TV tower. Two huge balls shot into the sky, the top of the tower obscured at times by thick cloud cover.

We went through airport-like security, where they confiscated my camera for no reason whatsoever. Other people's large video and still cameras were allowed through with no problem. And they didn't speak enough English other than to say "office, office!" and point at my camera and the office. This place wasn't much more than a strict tourist attraction and boasting of the third-highest building in the world.

So I rode the elevator with floors marked in meters (I though 267 and 304 were floors... oops) up to the observation deck, despondant. The ride up took at least a minute, and the pressure in my ears became overwhelming enough to require manual equalization at least three times. We only had to wait a few minutes to go up, but line to go down took ten times as long. Much of our group wanted to take the stairs, but we couldn't find any. It was a labyrinth, and what for? Not much more than a place to hold tourists in line, while squeezing every drop of money out of them.

We come back down with half an hour to peruse the shops. I'm wandering around a shop when I notice Peter on a second story balcony of the place, indoors. There's not much up there besides a window, so I shrug my shoulders at him. What are you doing? A guard comes up to me, tense as if ready to attack. "Show me your ticket, now!" he shouts at me. I didn't have a ticket, of course, because our caring tour guide had never thought to give them to us. Peter descended some stairs and had an argument with the man in Chinese. He went outside to find the tour guide and brought back a ticket, then ran off as fast as he could. The man was simmering with anger, but looked satisfied for now. I asked Peter what happened, but he was too angry to explain.

I needed to get my camera before we left, and Mrs. James wanted to get out, so we went up a staircase to the second level, where we had come in. There was a rope blocking the top of the steps, and a lady jumped at our climbing them, spewing complaints in Chinese. I showed her my reclamation key, and she let us pass, grumbling. I had to repeat this a few times, each official reluctantly letting me by to reclaim my confiscated belonging.

Mrs. James was disappointed that nobody had visited the museum of the history of Shanghai at the bottom of the tower, but frankly I was fed up with the place already. Someone had once said that while Beijing people were stern, Shanghai people were stuck up and obnoxious. I had disagreed at the time, but I was sick of being pestered for feeding these people money.

We drove a short distance to lunch through a heavy downpour. The sound of the rain on the roof of the restraunt was scary. I went outside into the cold, wet air to take a look at the sky falling down. The exit was at the side of the restaurant, and at front along the street were some picnic benches. I walked along the side of the building to get a bit out of the ground, but an old fat security guard, cigarette dangling from his mouth, stopped me and turned me around.

I went back inside as everyone was leaving. Our time in Shanghai was up.

We took the bus along an elevated highway, through rows and rows of skyscrapers, swooping between each along huge glass sound barriers. I slept a little.

The train was dirty and slow, but the seats were still "soft". The train only reached speeds of 160 km/h (100 mph), and it took just over two hours to reach Hanzhou. I slept a lot.

Our guide, Joy, reminded me of our panda-resembling guide from Chengdu. She was friendly and didn't struggle with English particularly, and she was overwhelmingly nice. She kept telling us how we were so welcome in Hanzhou, and how everybody would love us, and how it was such a pleasure to host us. The girls in the bus were constantly going, "Awww..."

We were once again in an ancient capital of China. We had been to two others so far, among which were Nanjing, also close to Shanghai, and a few others I can't recall. The first noticable difference in Hanzhou was the humidity. We stepped onto that platform and gaped at the temperature. It felt so good. It wouldn't stay that way, unfortunately, but for now the humidity was noticably lower and the temperature was a good, comfortable one. Blue sky opened up wide above us.

Us students of compartment four waited on that platform for a few minutes, while whistles were blowing, signaling the imminent departure of our not-quite-a-bullet-train. Mrs. James, of compartment three, was nowhere to be seen. Suddenly a bustling of people fighting upstream and cackling so characterizing of our fearless leader erupted from down the platform, and the train chugged away as Mrs. James stood there with her ducklings. They had no idea to get off, for some strange reason. They had been trying to name our tour guide from start to finish of this trip, and hadn't thought to wonder what station we were at. Close call.

The only thing on our 'itinerary' this evening was to walk to the West Lake, and get some sunset pictures among the lilies.

We took some pictures, found some restaurants, and feasted. I gave up on my fast food abstinence vow, and dug into some Papa John's Thin Crust BBQ Chicken. It wasn't nearly the same as the American sauce I so crave, but it was food. And pizza, at that.

I returned to the hotel, watched some NatGeo, and fell asleep way too early.