tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13690105992830115892007-07-19T18:29:11.716+08:00China 2007ChrisBlogger25125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1369010599283011589.post-60017696545448743992007-07-18T15:58:00.000+08:002007-07-19T18:29:11.745+08:00Hong Kong Disneyland<div align="left">Disneyland.</div><div align="left">We had voted to skip the Big Buddha, extend our stay past 3, past 6, all the way to half-past-nine. Even with warnings that HK Disneyland was a budding park, it was still the 'best thing' that ever happened to most of our group. Our bus took us to the parking lot, a far distance from the actual entrance. Mrs. James left us with one last thing: we would meet at 3 to decide if we wanted to leave around six instead of nine, in case the weather became unbearable. </div><div align="left">I took off with Paulina and Peter, leaving Mrs. Grey and Kozden alone. We raided Tomorrowland, ate lunch (great teriyaki burger) and went to the teacups to meet Paulina's mom, as planned, at 1. Disneyland was surprisingly vacant. Our first ride on Space Mountain required only a ten minute wait, and lines grew to be no more than thirty minutes long. We weren't devouring the park at the rate I intended, however. But we didn't meet up with anyone else so I couldn't switch alliances.</div><div align="left">Mrs. Grey didn't show up for nearly an hour, and Paulina sent us out frequently in little search parties to scour the grounds. They were going to wait there all day and all night until her mom showed up, so I gave up after an hour of pointless waiting. We were supposed to meet as a group at a specified location at 3, anyway. Why not enjoy yourself for an hour - her mom was probably doing just that, anyhow. As I departed my two solemn friends, I ran into Mrs. Grey and Kozden. I directed them to Paulina and Peter, and they reunited in a flurry of hugs and kisses. Mrs. Grey had been enjoying a show for forty minutes, having forgetten where exactly to meet her daughter. What a close call.</div><div align="left">We joined them to have another lunch at the Corner Cafe on Main Street, after watching the first parade. I only had a drink, but still managed to make friends with the waiter, who told us precisely how wet we would get in the next parade.</div><div align="left">I went off by myself for a while, to ride the Jungle Cruise (pirate style, now) and met up with Mrs. James and the gang at half-past-three. All but six or seven of us decided to leave - not even wait for the bus for a few hours, but take off on the MTR - claiming they had done everything this "lame" park had to offer. I stuck with the hardcore Disney lovers, because, as Mrs. James said, "We're only here once!"</div><div align="left">We saw every show there was to see and rode every ride multiple times well into darkness. Some of the shows - Festival of the Lion King, the Golden Mickeys - were Disney on Broadway, worthy of the highest Disney honors. After downing some delicious crepe at the Pirate Chow stand, we moved on. The afternoon parade was a special summer event, with floats and music as usual - but the floats shot water at the audience. Nobody really cared about the performance, as long as they got wet.</div><div align="left">We got front-row seats for the fireworks at nine, plopping down in front of the colorful "Sleeping Beauty Castle" with a few snacks from the bakery after another meal at the Corner Cafe, where the same waiter remembered me.</div><div align="left">The fireworks display didn't seem to end. It was pretty spectacular, music blasting, perfectly synchronized, well orchestrated. We boarded our bus at half-past-nine and relaxed, with five or six seats for each of us. It was much more convenient than any Disneyland trip I've had before, taking us right down Nathan Road without much trouble. The last few miles took centuries, so we got out and walked the last bit. Mrs. James had bought ten shirts in her shopping at Disneyland, and much of the group had followed suit. We returned to the Majestic Hotel, exhausted. Disneyland was open until midnight, but my eyes weren't.</div>Christag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1369010599283011589.post-68241555325648314692007-07-15T00:32:00.000+08:002007-07-15T00:33:29.522+08:00The Big Noodle<DIV ALIGN=LEFT>After some controversy regarding the flight time, we figured to go along with what the tickets said. 12:50 was our departure time, which allowed for a late wake-up call and then some. We got to the airport two and a half hours before our flight, and the place wasn't even open. We sat in a pre-check-in waiting area and filled out departure cards. I played hearts with Emily, Riley and Will, losing miserably to them all. We eventually got to check in, and despite the strict warnings we had all received, we were <I>all</I> overweight and we <I>all</I> got away with it. Except for Riley and Will - Riley's ten-dollar, perfectly real sword from Tibet was a no-fly. Will, right behind him in line, was the victim of suspicion due to a legitimate metal object in his suitcase. We proceeded through security free of a few dozen kilos each, with still two hours to kill. Everybody bought Pringles at the convenience store, except for one or two people - but those of our group who bought multiple each made up for them. We nearly ran the store out of their stock.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>My hunger couldn't be satisfied, so I chose to blow some yuan on a ten-dollar Häagen Dasz ice cream bar that Riley claimed to taste "orgasmic". So the minute-and-a-half I spent with it wasn't so guilt-ridden. Finally our Dragonair flight boarded, consisting of the most cramped seats but possibly the nicest service we had yet to encounter in China. The flight was also one of our longest, just over two hours. The landing in Hong Kong was a nostalgic one, for me. Just three weeks earlier I had parted with this very scenery, same weather, and a glimpse of things to come.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Our exit was quick with the exception of our lack of immigration documents, partly Dragonair's fault. It was a joy to have a big bus again, and especially in the traffic of Hong Kong. The door-to-door service made us feel like royalty, especially in my memory of the trouble of getting to and from Disneyland.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We arrived at the Majestic, not nearly majestic at all, looking upon the glorious wall of a tenament building. Our guide, Erik, explained our options for the free evening. We, in groups as always, could take the Star Ferry, watch the light show, see Harry Potter in Mong Kok, shop Nathan Road (of which our hotel was right in the middle, a mile from the harbor), or do whatever. Along with Paulina, Peter, and Mrs. Grey, I decided to see Harry Potter 36 hours or so before anyone in the States could dare to do so. I had plotted our route via MTR, bur Mrs. Grey insisted on taking a taxi. So, after so communication difficultues, in which Peter's Mandarin came in handy, we found ourselves at a theater right on the bay. It had three or four screens, each featuring about 100 seats. An interactive seat map displayed on a big screen above the counter, and the moviegoer could pick exactly which seats he or she wanted. Since there were no more than a dozen tickets sold as of yet, we got center seats near the front. In fact, there wasn't a soul in front of us.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We had an hour and a half until the showing, so we set off for dinner. The street was filled with Prada and Coach stores, until the first restaurant we found, the Hard Rock Cafe. It was a sporty little place, with a big shop and restaurant upstairs, hundreds of TVs as usual, and free wired and wireless internet for customers. The hand dryers in the bathrooms looked like something out of Star Trek. The food came in all varieties. I had chicken fajitas. Why not.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>The theater wasn't even half full. It was a long, narrow room with not much height from front to back. The screen was a dumpy little thing, and the sound wasn't "surround" per se, but it was still impressive. Chinese subtitles are something one gets used to, I found out. And they don't just exist on the bootleg DVDs. The theater only offered sweet popcorn, or even sweeter popcorn - caramel corn. Something about the Cantonese taste...</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>The movie had few previews, most of which were in Cantonese. It lasted just over two hours, but didn't feel like it.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We had given in to the adult of the group, and took a taxi back. It took twice as long, seeing as we passed the hotel three times before our driver realized it, but we got home. As usual, I was out before anyone knew what happened.</DIV> Christag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1369010599283011589.post-23231960655346566512007-07-12T16:23:00.000+08:002007-07-12T16:24:39.065+08:00Haberdashery in Hangzhou<DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We were free from the trouble of visiting three monasteries in a day, but we still had just one left. The Lin Yin Temple was "one of the most famous" in China. I wondered when they would stop saying that about everything. It was certainly one of the more scenic ones, however. </DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>The weather was over 35 °C, and humid, so the air was filled with bugs. Over 300 Buddhist figures were carved into the rocky faces of the mountains in which the temple was nestled. We walked through a small cave, under a hill, and over a bridge under which a mellow stream passed. An elaborate pagoda served as a tomb for an early Indian monk. Our guide led us into an even more secure area, where the massive temple structures rose up, their golden roofs blinding us. The first hall was pretty standard - four gigantic protectors, a great statue behind candles, incense, and anxious pilgrims. We moved on to an even bigger one, then even bigger. The last was big enough to get lost in. It was a giant maze, shaped in a clockwise-pointing swastika. Thousands of statues lined the path, all commemorating actual disciples of the past. The faces, size and all were supposed to be correct.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Our guide explained the meaning of one of the statues on the face of the mountain: a big Buddha with a big belly. The big belly means he has laughed a lot in life, a good thing.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We climbed to an even bigger hall, where only a few unimposing statues lined the walls. In the center, a 13-meter high solid gold Buddha sat - the largest <I>sitting</I> Buddha in China. I can't believe they have records for that kind of thing.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We had half an hour to explore, and Mrs. James pointed out several footpaths scaling the mountain we had passed earlier. I went alone, passing a few local tourists, as the steps went up and up across the mountain. It seemed like it never ended, but after twenty minutes I reached a viewpoint where I could see the city of buildings that was the temple below.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Mosquitoes swarmed my body dripping with sweat; I had to close my eyes and cover my nose and mouth to save myself from being eaten alive. So I ran down as fast as I could to the bus.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>After lunch we headed off to a tea plantation. We got out in the sweltering sun, among row after row of tea bush. Our guide picked the smallest and most narrow leaves, telling us that these young, tender things would be the most valuable. Tea bushes could be harvested about 30 times a season, and they will last for 25 years. Once that time is up, they can be revived two more times before replanting is needed. Considering each pinch of tea can make several cups, that's a lot of tea.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We observed the process of drying the tea leaves, in which a man swirls tea leaves around in a deep, heated bowl.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We were taken next to a frigid room where the master tea packer of the plantation, a lady, distributed samples of the finest kind of tea available - the early spring harvest. It had a nickname: emporer's tea, because in ancient times the commoners were not allowed such fine quality. Also, this kind of tea is never exported out of China.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We continued through the complex after a relaxing teatime, and encountered many more tea products. The biggest hit for our group was tea candy - it tasted like a Butterfinger, slightly more grainy, and perfectly healthy aside from some honey to sweeten the small bar. We wound our way through the huge store, seemingly bigger than the fields of tea outside. A mob of tourists, we had no choice but to follow the winding path and ocassionally pick up a tasting sample.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>On the bus to our West Lake cruise, Joy told us of the moon festival celebrated in Hanzhou. It was said that thirty-three moons could be visible: 5 from each pagoda, of which there are three, 15 more from their reflections, one real moon and its reflection, and "one in your heart".</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>The boat cruise was calm and cool, a break from the outside humidity and hassle. We drifted past the three pagodas, around the tiny island in the middle, and got a good glimpse of the city's skyline.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Although the sun was getting lower in the sky, our day wasn't hardly over. Our next stop was a beautiful tea museum. Every imaginable piece of knowledge about tea was contained in two small floors, with just a few artifacts and displays scattered around. The grounds were far more extensive than the building, however, and almost gave Hanzhou its name as "paradise on Earth".</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Our last stop with the group, our final group activity in mainland China, was a pagoda that I didn't choose to climb. Harmony tower, with an original purpose to "control the tides of the river" and prevent floods (don't ask me how, something to do with pleasing the gods, though, probably), was 13 stories high on the outside and six or seven on the inside. I didn't choose to climb it, however; I was thoroughly baked and absolutely drenched in sweat - by just standing there.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>After a few hours of recooperation at the hotel, we set off to our final group dinner on the mainland. Hong Kong is a Special Administrative Region, but everybody treats it as an international flight. After dinner a few of the group found themselves at the waterfront watching a "musical water show". I had 17 yuan with me, and a Dairy Queen Oreo Vanilla Blizzard cost 15 - so I set off to find the DQ. After walking the wrong way for an hour, I realized my mistake and turned around. Not having enough money to take a taxi, I walked for another hour and five minutes more, to the Dairy Queen I was so familiar with. I knew how to get back to the hotel from there, so I returned to suck up all the extra sleep I could get. Tomorrow we would fly to the big city, civilization - Hong Kong.</DIV> Christag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1369010599283011589.post-37193879974936184552007-07-12T10:51:00.000+08:002007-07-12T10:52:31.267+08:00Shanghai to Hanzhou<DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Tuesday, July 11. A frustrating day, to say the least. It began with rain. Rain is lovely. I like the rain. And it poured.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>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.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>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.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>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. </DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>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.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>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.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>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.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We drove a short distance to lunch through a heavy downpour. The sound of the rain on the roof of the restraunt was <I>scary</I>. 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. </DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>I went back inside as everyone was leaving. Our time in Shanghai was up.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>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.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>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.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>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..."</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>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 <I>good</I>. 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.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>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.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>The only thing on our 'itinerary' this evening was to walk to the West Lake, and get some sunset pictures among the lilies. </DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>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 <I>food</I>. And pizza, at that.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>I returned to the hotel, watched some NatGeo, and fell asleep way too early.</DIV> Christag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1369010599283011589.post-6986516323451013662007-07-09T01:05:00.000+08:002007-07-09T01:06:14.333+08:00Spotlight on Shanghai<DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Finally, the relaxation we thought the cruise would afford us. Back to the usual, 9 AM departure and done with the early morning get-your-butt-to-breakfast repetition. Shanghai was bright, busy, and hazy. Our first stop was the Children's Palace, and I expected some sort of Summer Palace spin-off. But no - we walked down a wide alley into a seemingly modern building, up a set of spiral stairs, and into a dance studio. There, four children of no more than eight fought with swords, danced around, and apparently sung. One child gave his "tourist performance" as the others restlessly made noise in the background. Our guide urged us to respond with talent, so my roommate sang a simple song to the children. It was hot and we felt as though we were intruding, so we went to another building. In fact, these children were being trained for the Beijing Opera. Starting at such a young age, attending the school once a week, they could become extremely talented through discipline and practice. But they were still kids.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>The second part of our tour was geared toward the instrumental. We nearly laughed out loud as Chinese traditional instruments played "Jingle Bells" for us a second time - we had been serenaded by one of the wind instrument vendors in Xian with the same song weeks earlier. That evening, at the acrobatics show, saxaphones would blare "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer". As if tourists came to Shanghai, sick of Chinese music, ready to settle into a Western-style Christmas. Exactly our intentions.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>The instrumental performances were startlingly good, at times. We were quickly led into a government-owned shop of "mostly children's art", however. Most items were in the hundreds of US dollars.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Our chaperones insisted on a glimpse of the Shanghai waterfront during the day, so we attempted to escape the humidity, relentless vendors and crowds in the Bund area for a quick photo stop. Shanghai traffic was not the worst yet, but it was difficult to get anywhere in the city with such a big vehicle. The waterfront was full of uniquely shaped buildings, far more dramatic and varied than Hong Kong. Take, for instance, the Marriott with a gigantic dome on top, a building with a hole to let a dragon slip through, or a giant ballpoint pen. The tallest building in China was about to be replaced by an even taller building, standing right next to it. Still, Hong Kong has that harbor splendor that can't be beat.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Just before lunch we disembarked the bus and walked along a long park, consistently hounded by attachable-skates vendors and beggars. It seems that every city we visit has its unique, tourist-trap item that any old Joe Lee will sell you. We managed to escape them by turning into a crowded market street and finally into massive gardens.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Entryways were shaped like vases and other ornamental objects, so that the scenery behind them would appear as a painting. What an idealistic, yet amusing, perspective. Well-fed coi floated lazily along the system of lakes as we passed over bridges by which the fish swarmed. </DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Ponds were everywhere, fish were everywhere, and the crowds of local tourists shattered any serenity we might have experienced. We were given some free time, which I cleverly used to visit Dairy Queen and send of some quick emails. Diary Queen was my highlight of the day, God bless 'er.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Lunch was not very stylish - we watched our food disappear from tanks and appear on our plates. Kozden feasted on his fishy friends, but most of us stuck to the traditional Chinese. The girls couldn't get enough of the "cute little crabs", and us guys were amused by their struggle to persevere, clawing at each other to be the last one out of the tank. Our final stop after lunch was the Jade Buddha temple, famous for its two jade statues purchased from Burma. Personally, they weren't anything spectacular, but it felt good to smell the incense and feel people's passion for the religion and doing-good in the air.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We were granted a few hours at the hotel to rest, during which I watched some movie on HBO about a chimpanze, and <I>Napolean Dynamite</I> on Cinemax. Looking out the window at all the tall buildings, with room and laundry service a call away, and English television, made me feel quite priveleged. I slept for about thirty minutes, and my roommate was as usual God-knows-where.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>The evening would prove to be spectacular, in fact worthy of a fifteen dollar DVD. Dinner was close and quick, nearby to the Ritz-Carlton. We entered the theatre, immediately awestruck by an awesome display of acrobatics. The lights, music and bodies all seemed to flow in a constant stream of applause. Ten minutes would have left my jaw hanging, but an hour and a half of a huge variety of unbelievable talent was what they gave us. In the middle, a man demonstrated throwing knives, then called for a volunteer. My roommate, Will, was chosen and blindfolded, after some controversy. The man pretended to throw the knives while his assistent slammed them in on cue - Will completely clueless. Nobody has told him yet, and I'm sure they can't hold out for long. Several people came out afterwards to remark on "how close those knives really were - you have NO idea." Will's nervous courage and bravery set the audience roaring with laughter at the irony and cunning miming of the actors, but my roommate never caught on. The whole combination of a member of our group being spotlighted - Will, of course, always the drama king - and an absolutely unbelievable acrobatic performances, smeared by only a few small timing flaws that made it seem only more human and realistic, made the evening unforgettable.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>When I got back to the hotel, I realized what a bad idea Starbucks by the Ritz-Carlton had been. I couldn't sleep until much too late, and we had a long train transfer the following day. Harry Potter on HBO kept me entranced, though, and my roommate arrived back early in the morning. It was nice to have some privacy to relax, and although it has taken time for my roommate and I to get close, it is comforting to have a TV, room, and great view all to oneself once in a while.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>On a side note, I was absolutely convinced that Peter, Willie, Mollie and Juli had to share a single room. They had mistakenly gotten four keys for the same room the night before, and when I came in upon them all spontaneously acting like they shared the room, I fell for it. It was an embarrasing moment for me, but I could tell the group was on a trend towards happiness after some familiar food and a spectacular show.</DIV> Christag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1369010599283011589.post-79909536726674659362007-07-08T23:56:00.001+08:002007-07-08T23:56:25.730+08:00Watermelon, Pizza and River Mud<DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Two short nights had passed, and we were docked halfway through the third and largest gorge of the Yangtze River. This morning we would explore the Three Gorges Dam from top to bottom, but nothing would match the experience of going through the locks. We had been docked just east of the big dam for most of the morning, after escaping the massive structure with five other passenger and cargo ships. It was an unusual feeling, looking out the window to see the shore - not moving. At precisely 8 we took our pendants for reboarding, boarded buses, and set off over one of the locks to get permission to enter the dam area. The guide picked up our permits and we were let out by a small observation area east of the dam. Tall, narrow doors and pillars similar to the ones leading to the ship locks demarked the pending ship elevator, which, unlike the locks, was not going to be free. We couldn't really get any perspective on the dam except at water level, but from this point of view, the length was still impressive.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We were again shuttle up to the highest hill in the area. From here, we got a great view of the locks - but still not as impressive as when <I>in</I> them. The water from the spillway shot upward as if coming from the earth below, and many power lines spread out from the generators to the mainland. Ten times as powerful as Hoover Dam, this place displayed only a fraction of the peripherals.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Construction of the dam had required excavation of a small island in the middle of the waterway, once used as an ancient burial ground. We were bussed to a muggy, second-floor museum, and led through by an energetic guide who explained absolutely every artifact - mainly pottery, bones and tools. When we were done with the museum, small but well-informed, we were "invited" into a government shop, required by the government of the tour company for each city.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Our city guide explained how small Yichang was: 1.3 million. Just a few hundred square kilometers, instead of the hundreds of miles Beijing extended in multiple dimensions, was one reason for Yichang's classification as "small". He - our young guide with excellent English - livelily (yes, that's a word) informed us of the qualifications Yichang offered us. It was among the top ten "most charming" cities in China, and believed to be in the three "most liveable". There we go with the baseball statistics again.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We stopped at the airport, happy to learn of our earlier flight - one of the fourteen flights Yichang serves every day. Most of us sat down at a restaurant, but I wasn't hungry. I observed Chairman Mao and his entourage enter the terminal, and we prayed he wasn't on the flight. At least he looked sober.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Our A320-214 (yes, they bothered to specify) looked a little clunky, but our seats were comfortable (my last name got me 4A) and its operation was smooth. China Eastern presented us with the standard hot meal on our ninety minute flight to Shanghai. As usual, as expected at every meal in mainland China, dessert was - you guessed it - watermelon.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Shanghai wasn't as humid as expected when we arrived at the old, domestic airport; although it had just rained, the atmosphere was comfortable - a relief from the unbearable Yangtze. Upon our departure just hours earlier from Yichang, the air conditioner had created a steady flow of mist into the cabin. It was a pretty scary phenomenon, but granted us the illusion of coolness.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We walked across, down, and across the street once more from the Shanghai Hotel - a street with McDonald's, Pizza Hut, Burger King and Häagen Dazs, and pirated DVDs for 5 yuan. It was heaven for all of us, and we were given an hour to enjoy it. I joined a party at Pizza Hut, sit-down style. We were feeling the Western groove, so we headed off to Burger King afterwards for fries and drinks.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>The walk back was long and wet, as it had started sprinkling again, and a few people took taxis. Our city guide (an older lady with a pretty severe accent) had really encouraged these taxis for their "fairness" - they were metered, but also government owned. The hotel wasn't too far, only a ten minute walk, and we got back fairly early for our standards. The place was four stars, and for Shanghai that means really good, at least four or five English TV channels. Central China TV International, CNN, HBO, Cinemax, and a few others. I watched an aboslutely terrible horror movie on HBO - <I>The Fog</I>. No plot, bad acting and too many "famous" young people to draw unnecessary attention. We all have a habit for watching the same program in any given night, so the next morning we were discussing the ridiculousness of that movie. Most people had given up before it had finished, but Mollie filled us in. "The lady turns into a ghost and kills everybody," or something like that. Whatever it was, it wasn't worth it.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Still, Shanghai was warming up to me.</DIV> Christag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1369010599283011589.post-84752981046937545542007-07-08T20:25:00.001+08:002007-07-08T20:25:50.037+08:00Just Another Fish in the River<DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Our second day on the river, and many of us had signed up for an optional tour of the White Emporer City, which, as always, involved a climb. We docked before 8 o' clock in the middle of the second gorge,very like a fjord, and took a small, old ferry around a bend to the base of a huge series of steps. Covered chairs with taxi numbers waited, attended by two men each, who would carry the occupant up and down five hundred steps for twenty bucks. All but one of our group walked it.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Our local guide gave us some "free time" to explore the first temple, but people wandered fast and we had soon walked through the entire complex before our guide caught up. So we went through again, this time with explanation. Honestly - it was too early for all of us. There wasn't all that much to see, and not much of a story behind it all. The most fascinating part was that the ancient city was now an island - once attached to the mainland by an isthmus, on which a factory once lay. The water had risen by hundreds of feet since the construction of the two "flood control" projects downstream. At least they could predict how far the water would rise (don't ask me how) and they could relocate factories, farms, and residents.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Mrs. James attended a tea demonstration between the first excursion and the second. They had tea for everything - constipation, bad eyesight, you name it. I slept through lunch and then packed for the Shennong Stream excursion.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>They call it a shore excursion, but we never touched bonafide land. Instead we took a speedy ferry for almost an hour, and then piled in rowboats by the dozens. Six local farmers powered each boat, two of them designated "captains". The first captain steered while the second, at the front of the boat, prodded the bottom of the stream. We enjoyed the almost-silent ride, passing waterfalls and caves, working our way slowly upstream. When the depth became visible - just a few meters - the boatmen got out and pulled the boat with a towrope and special harnesses. It was an unnecessary exertion on their behalf, but it was interesting to observe ancient custom nonetheless. We stopped when the current and rapids became too much, and they anchored the boat somehow to give us shiny stream rocks. The tickets we got showed the back of naked boatmen tugging away, and Mrs. James couldn't stop talking about it. But our stream guide, a young woman, told us that the nude practice had been discontinued for twenty years now. Their clothes had been rough and painful when wet, but apparently the technology of clothes had improved.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>On the return trip our boat shot down the stream, until it hit the slower, deeper water closer to the Yangtze. To amuse us, our river guide sung some minority folk songs to us. There was some discussion, and then the boatmen chimed in. It was the most cultural experience, and for many of us, our favorite experience, of the whole cruise.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Back on ship, I decided to prepare for the talent show that evening. When I signed up at the front desk, as only the second person with the deadline in just minutes, I was afraid that I would be in the spotlight. But when the show finally rolled around, many Chinese and Western alike participated. I had only practiced my song, with Gina, for a few hours that afternoon. When we got up there and sang "Hey There Delilah" (<I>Plain White Ts</I>) we forgot a few of the words and the harmony sounded pretty bad at times, but it was still a successful a capella performance. A few other kids from our group performed, and then a lot of the Chinese group "performed" karoake pieces in Mandarin. All the while, an old, fat, ugly, drunk man who we later found to own the cruise company smoked cigarettes and shouted obscenities at performers. While one American girl was singing a humorous ballad, he shouted "Funny!" sarcastically in his drunken stupor. He hissed at another member of our group and made a ruckus during my song. When he followed us to the airport after disembarking the next day, Mrs. James nicknamed him "Chairman Mao".</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>People tried to control him that night, but nobody could do much because of his power. Our river guide, Linda - essentially the cruise director - apologized profusely to people when Mao was not around, but said she couldn't do anything. It was his birthday, the poor guy.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Very late that night we approached a series of tall columns rising hundreds of feet out of the water. Our ship, The President III, had slowed to a snail's pace. We saw doors open to our left, and six ships left the highest upstream ship lock under coast guard escort. It took us nearly an hour to position ourselves in the back-right of the first lock, just inches from the wall and moving slower than the casual walker. The metal doors took a minute to close, and then we started to sink. Water trickled in, but poured out an invisible drain at a tremendous rate. The water level had dropped twenty meter in just minutes, but it took the better part of an hour to communicate and navigate between locks. The process repeated five times.<BR>After the first lock, I retreated to the mahjong room (aka "Captain's Pub") to eat a 'banana boat' with pears instead of bananas, and play Mahjong with two of the crew members (James and Lucy) and Gina, who kept playing the game all wrong. Eventually, Willie replaced James. Lucy and Willie, who kept babbling in Chinese, insisted I play one more game, then one more, then another. When I finally came out to the back deck before dinner, I encountered many of the young folks on the ship drunk, lounging in chairs and watching the final lock close. The final lock had walls much shorter than the rest, so it almost felt like we were sailing again, rather than being ants subject to the whim of a giant machine.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We finally hit the real river around 2 in the morning, and when I returned to my room, my roommate who usually stays up all night was asleep - a first.</DIV> Christag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1369010599283011589.post-5915724809821787312007-07-08T13:35:00.001+08:002007-07-08T13:35:57.723+08:00Listen to Your Heart on the Yangtze<DIV ALIGN=LEFT>There was to be no sleeping in. Around 7, gentle piano music began to play, out of thin air, all over the ship. I groggily tried to figure out what was causing it, and why I could not stop it. I slunk back under the sheets, having given up and thoroughly frustrated. Fifteen minutes later, our river guide, Linda, came over the speakers with morning announcements, which were slowly repeated several times. This particular morning, I decided to get up and eat breakfast, but in the following days I would not be quite so energetic.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>I stood outside on the fifth deck for some time, watching us pass through a wide, flat channel among small rocky islands and whirlpools. The windows were all covered in giant water droplets, but the air was still cool enough this early in the morning. In the night, we had passed into an area of intense humidity - the difference was vividly noticable.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We had several hours before our first shore excursion, and we were still chugging along. The only activity that morning was a demonstration of the use and fabrication of various trinkets that were sold in the shops there. Frankly, I can't remember the highlights. I sat in an alcove with Mrs. James and Mr. Kozden talking about random things.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We docked along the "old city" a flat area by the river with hundreds of leveled foundations. Several years prior, the city had moved across the river to higher ground. The water would raise another twenty meters when the third phase of the Three Gorges Dam was completed.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We took a bus, then walked along a long aisle of shops, into a large plaza. Most of the group took the cable car, but a few of us chose to run, and then walk, up six hundred steps, through abandoned temples and gazebos, to the top of the mountain. Surprisingly, we beat the cable car group by several minutes.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>This place was called Fengdu, the Ghost City. The spirits of everybody in the world were supposed to come here, according to Taoism, and we would visit both heaven and hell. Our guide took us through three tests: the first, to cross a bridge of longevity in three, six or nine steps. One the return trip, we would would choose the side bridges of health or wealth. I chose health. Another test that didn't count for us young folk, to prove faithfulness to one's wife, was to roll a 400-pound rock to balance on top of a little rock hill. Many tried, but only the trained performer succeeded. The second test was to run up a series of stairs while holding one's breath. The third, to balance one's foot on a half-submerged rock for three seconds. The guide would count it all in less than a second, so that everybody added twenty years to their lives: "One-two-three." We walked by a series of statues, on either side of the path. They were victims of hell: the drunkard, the playbody, etc. Various superstitions surrounded each. We entered the gates of hell.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Mrs. James had already gotten another tour when she snuck off, or got lost, and she pointed out some great views of the mountain from behind a giant pagoda. After we passed all three tests, we walked through Taoist and Buddhist temples. In the highest temple on the mountain, each corridor showed us the tortures of hell. As we returned through the hall of statues, we were supposed to laugh loudly to scare off the ghosts. Sadly, Mrs. James couldn't laugh on cue.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>That night the crew presented a show of dancing, singing and pantamiming in colorful costumes. </DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>After the crew's show, we danced into the late hours of the morning.</DIV> Christag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1369010599283011589.post-83426920527620352912007-07-08T09:22:00.001+08:002007-07-08T09:22:30.148+08:00First Night on the River<DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Goodbye, Tibet. My dinner of yak meat and apple pie had settled any loose ends - say, qualms with bad food or any feeling of remoteness - that might lead me to miss the place. But no, I had just enough, for now. An early morning at the Yak Hotel brought grogginess to both my roommate and I. He showered first, couldn't find a towel for me to use, and then tried to communicate that to one of the staff. "No towel" was the only response he could get. I was surprised that the people who had spoken English so well and been so happy to assist our group members with various problems were now walls. So I used a robe.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We got out just in time, but then the hotel had to check each of our rooms for missing things, and I was immediately cornered. "Missing one towel," the receptionist snarled. Seeing as my roommate had probably lost it among his terrible mess, I tried to convince them that I didn't have anything to do with it. They wanted me to pay for it, but then they found it under his bed. I was already exhausted.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We took the new road to the airport, which cut off forty kilometers through huge tunnels and long bridges. Cars in front of us were cutting it close when they passed our slow bus, some within a few feet of oncoming traffic. We were in an airport of five or six gates, but flights constantly arriving and departing. For food I bought a cup-of-noodles - that I had to boil in water myself - at the only restaurant in the terminal. When we finally boarded, we sat on the tarmac for nearly an hour for clearance. They use the runway as a taxiway, but only two planes made any movement in that period. When we finally started off, it took a good four times longer than I had expected to get off the ground: almost a minute of rolling.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>The plane smelled like cigarette smoke, as in many Chinese planes we've been on. And to make matters worse, well, my seatmate was a little obnoxious (see previous: "The Man Sitting Next to Me"). Our landing in Chongqing was surprisingly smooth.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We boarded a nice bus - two seats for nearly all of us, a relief after a cramped Tibetan bus without air conditioning - and set out for the city. Chongqing holds three nicknames: the foggy city, the mountain city, and the furnace city. We could feel the humidity and heat pressing at the cracks of every contained building, struggling to condition the air, and when we stepped outside, we nearly melted on spot. This was an excellent day, weather-wise, according to our new guide. We felt like we were dying, drowning in fact, and it could have been twenty degrees hotter.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We passed over long bridges, giving support to the second nickname of the city. More like a province, the city spread out farther than the three biggest "cities" of China combined - so the government had give Chongqing a special position as a province quite recently. The place was building up, ancient towns and buildings being turned into skyscrapers. There was a fancy monorail (which had its own huge bridge across the Yangtze) that shuttled people between the zoo, the airport, and a university town not far away. Much of the city had been destroyed in World War II, so it was a privelege that we got to see some of the older district that had remained intact.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We passed by an intricate network of manmade caves built in that same period, that the government now rented out to businesses.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We visited a museum dedicated to General Stilwell, a living model of his house and a cryptic series of pictures that explained his contribution to China. Peter, Mollie, Paulina and I snuck into the basement of the house, which was gloomy and unexciting. A few old artifacts and pictures were all there was to see.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We caught up with the group and walked across the street, to the Flying Tigers museum and art gallery. We first received a lecture on the importance of the Flying Tigers, in sketchy English. I like planes, sure, but the combination of heat and hawking was a little much. There was just too much history to see, museum after museum.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We had the usual dinner at a fancy place in the mountains, close to an older part of the city. From the restaurant, our boat - our hotel for the next three nights - was only fifteen minutes away. We walked across a plank and stepped into The Splendid China.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>The lobby looked like any hotel - receptionist, business center, many shops selling clothes and souveniers. The dining hall was just through a door on that deck, the second deck. Our room keys were strange square metal pieces, and our rooms were fitted with bathtubs, desks, TVs, and minifridges, with a great big window looking out on the river. On the fifth floor, a dance floor and lounge/bar dominated the scene. On the fourth floor, where our rooms were, there was a "Captain's Pub" with an ideal outside viewing deck and relaxing inside game room. Peter, Gina and I climbed to the highest deck to watch the ship depart, wary of its enormous horn - but it didn't leave until nearly 5 in the morning, as we were fast asleep. We woke to the rocking of the ship and an earthquake of switching motors as it turned in the narrow channel.</DIV> Christag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1369010599283011589.post-43720208123836751642007-07-04T16:26:00.002+08:002007-07-04T16:27:12.613+08:00The Man Sitting Next to Me<DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Flight CA4419. We've already been delayed an hour for takeoff, and I'm stuck in 15F. A window seat, to be sure, if it hadn't fogged up from my seatmate panting over my shoulder.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>This strange Chinese man departs Lhasa for Chongqing. It seems he flies a lot, because he likes to pile his peas, carrots and tomatoes into the center of a loaf of bread, and shove it all in. He looks like some kind of accountant, in a striped white shirt and black pants. He seems young, though - a stuck-up lip and white socks with black shoes. He finds amusement in hanging his briefcase from a closed tray table, and even when perfectly steady, constantly adjusts it.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>He pulls out a paper table, full of numbers and Chinese characters. He muses over it for a moment, then puts it away.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>He has a habit of whistling. His arms are small, but his ambitions are not. He desires power, growth, impermanence. Stuck in a seat for more than twenty minutes, and all the armrests belong to him. The window gives him an outlet, though. The problem is, he's in the middle seat. And how can he look out the window? Well, he could turn his head. That might work. Or he could stand up, bend down or bend over to stick his head over mine or in front of my face. Then, he could look at the clouds to his heart's desire. I'd offer to switch seats with him, but I doubt he understands English. He probably won't get the monkey babble I'm so good at, either.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>What a shame that my head is in the way. He'll have to tear open the air sickness bag and - oh, no, he's not sick. You had me worried for a second. He's just going to tear it to itty-bitty pieces, and place those pieces back into what remains of the bag. And then he'll put any unnecessary waste in there - a cup, his food, why not? What is a flight attendant good for, anyway?</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Something else draws his attention. He stands up, several times, to twist his body just right. He has face sideways, so that his backside juts out into my seat - my "personal space" that I'd rather not like violated - and shouts wildly to someone in the back row. I bend forward, head in my hands, enjoying some peace from his once-eternal munching with mouth wide open. But now I can't lean back: he's claimed the window once more, this time with his ear pressed against my headrest. He begins to expand, and I move forward, squeezed against the traytable. He mumbles something to himself, for what seem like hours - only minutes that my non-captive classmate in other seats feel. I stare downward, focused, waiting to be relieved of the pain in my spine.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Back to his food - slurp, slurp, slurp. I dare to turn my head, and look outside, downward: only to see clouds and more clouds. I'm pressed forward once again as he nudges his way behind my head. I'm feeling quite violated indeed... but I suppose it's all in my mind. I had worried how my videotaping might interfere with his strict, rule-abiding moral standards, but as he sits next to me text messaging, seatbelt unfastened, I don't think I need to worry about that anymore. He starts banging the two metal pieces of his seatbelt together, for a few minutes at a time. We're almost there, right? I close my eyes.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Let's just not think about the Man Sitting Next to Me.</DIV> Christag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1369010599283011589.post-2859191454136330582007-07-04T16:26:00.001+08:002007-07-04T16:26:50.601+08:00Lhasa, in All Its Glory<DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Tuesday, the third of July. It would be a long day of walking, shopping, listening, praying, getting sunburned, and going on wacky adventures with Mrs. James and Mr. Kozden. After a Western buffet on the roof, we boarded the bus and headed off to Tibet's version of a Summer Palace. Just like Beijing, it had become more of a summer park, the building essentially a museum. We walked through a tunnel of trees, and Nutu pointed out pieces of fur attached to various branches. They were placed there by people who had saved an animal from death, and taken a piece of their fur for a blessing and encouragement to others. We could see similar pieces at various monasteries. Mrs. James was feeling pretty good, so she pointed out a piece of an orange trashbag in a tree and asked, "Did somebody save the trashbag's life?" And then cackled, giving it away. But our guide, being downright awesome, laughed along and replied with a pointed, "Yes."</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>The place was full of flowers and fountains with no particular purpose but to be decorative. We crossed simple bridges over ponds full of ducks, and beside simple little buildings reflecting on the water to seem grand.<BR>Finally we entered the main palace building. This place once housed the Dalai Lama, and pilgrims still came here to pay homage. We observed a gigantic mural of the history of Lhasa, from a statue being cut out of a tree (which we would see later as the holiest place in all of Tibet) to a palace being constructed over a lake. We saw the first monastery being built during the day, strangely destroyed at night, caught in an endless cycle until a great diety arrived and gave peace to the land.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Careful to give priority to the scurrying pilgrims, we moved on through the Lama's rooms of meditation, study, and public audience (separate rooms for local and Western audiences).</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Mrs. James asked how China was controlling the religion in Tibet. Sadly, our guide claimed that the Chinese were taking yet greater measures to limit the people's practice of Buddhism. Walking around certain monuments in the clockwise fashion was prohibited, and prostration was sometimes persecuted. Seeing our interest in the subject, he continued on about the movie <I>Seven Years in Tibet</I> and subsequent films that emphasized the good qualities of Tibet, and how all those involved in the films were blacklisted for entry into China. From information he received from another student group, he told us about Students for Free Tibet. If we showed any adoration towards the region around Chinese, we would get "free coffee", a euphemism for deportation. We were soon silenced as we passed a guard, and couldn't talk about it for quite some time.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>For some reason, our group likes the pain of climbing thousands of stairs. Although the next monastery we would visit wasn't on the itinerary, Mrs. James made us cough up the money, claiming we couldn't miss it. On the first part of our climb, we encountered whole bundles of fur from saved animals. We just kept climbing and climbing, occassionally entering chapels that all looked the same. One thing this city doesn't lack - good views. We had a panorama of the city below us, music faintly drifting up. One of the protector-diety chapels was for men only, and we took pride in our privelege. It wasn't much to see, however.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Whereas previous monasteries had cared for the stray dogs of the city, this particular one seemed fond of cats. In one of the main halls, a cat sat lazily on the throne of a statue. A monk was waving one of the decorative scarves on the statue above the cat, either trying to get it to move, or to amuse it.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We got on the bus once more, navigating through crowded streets. Within a few minutes (everything in Lhasa seems close) we were in the Baakar district, ready for lunch at a place called Lhasa Kitchen. The first impression wasn't that great: a hot and smokey room, Mrs. James running after us, madly shouting, because she had lingered behind buying a t-shirt and we didn't wait for her. When we got sight and scent of the food, however, our attitudes changed. The appetizer was tomato soup, that tasted as though it should have little spaghetti letters in it. Then, pita bread and cheesy pizza. Checken curry, yak meat, and lentil soup. I even talked the waitress into a free refill, something normally unheard of. We left the restaurant satiated, and with some free time on our hands.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>I set off shopping in the giant plaza ahead of us. Little stalls with persistent owners (a few grabbed me, other just yelled a lot) covered every patch of ground, mostly selling little trinkets. A few sold monks' robes, a few tourist clothes, and one stall was completely taken up by a giant plastic blender, at least four feet tall. I found some permanent stores, hidden behind stalls, in which the vendors were not quite so obnoxious. I found a traditional sweater, made partly from yak, and an equally traditional shirt for summer wearing. I treasure the style of traditional Tibet: vibrant, random colors in patches and stripes that don't seem to have any fashion consideration. </DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Our appointed tour time for the Potala Palace was 3:20, so at 2:15 we met to walk over there. The palace is gigantic, with over one thousand rooms, of which two were built in the seventh century. The central "Red Palace" is flanked by two white stretches, displaying hundreds of windows, row after row, seemingly for eternity. Thirteen stories high doesn't even count the switchback after switchback of large Great Wall-like steps, ascending up the hill. It took much of our spare time to reach the inner palace, where we stopped to rest and watch the workers renovate, chanting and pounding. Other workers carried huge poles up and down the stairs, and still others beat things with sticks. They worked for free, their reward being the blessing of the palace grounds. Brown walls everywhere were just layers and layers of bundles of sticks, painted brown on their circular faces. Gold-ornamented roofs and rooms that stood out as second-story islands in courtyards make the place a maze beyond reckoning.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Construction on the Portala was begun by the fifth Dalai Lama, the first to hold power religiously <I>and</I> politically. Church and state, as Nutu put it. When he died before the palace was complete, his highest minister kept this a secret for twelve years, so that the people would not lose faith and could complete the palace.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We wound our way through rooms inside and outside, hallways, chapels and sanctuaries for meditation and prayer, seeing many outstanding things. Among others, the tombs of three Lamas were present. At least twenty feet high and of solid gold on sandlewood, these urns held just a handful of ashes. We calculated the gold alone to cost more than seventy million US dollars, no doubt understated, but they were also adorned with more than one thousand precious jewels and gems. </DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>In one room, a statue was presented alongside a giant pearl quite important to the religion: believed to be extracted from an elephant's brain. In the Lama's chambers, many rugs covered with swastikas could be spotted. They were a symbol of permanence, our guide explained, and a blessing that the Lama would remain forever on his throne in the palace. That didn't work out so well for the current Dalai Lama.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Mrs. James declared the best engagement present to be anything with a swastika. Any Western spouse would most certainly appreciate the gesture.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>After a long and exhausting walk (although the tour was only allowed to last one hour) we had finally descended to ground level. We were surprised that scriptures inscribed in rock, just lying outside on the path down, hadn't been taken. Somebody had offered an egg. Nutu once told us that even water could be offered to the many statues present in every monastery or holy place, as long as the donation was sincere. </DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We returned to square in the Baakar area, where the most holy monastery of all was located. This was the last we would see our bus for the day, and in getting all my stuff off and packed well enough to tour a monastery, I completely lost the group. So I had some fun exploring until I caught up with them at the entrance.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>The place was flat, and just a few stories high, with every balcony, window and railing decorated with greenery and flowers. Once inside, it was crowded and dim, low voices chattering over the general murmur. Mrs. James had her first prayer in front one of the holiest statues in Buddhism: one of the three that just came out of a tree that was cut open. The other two are located in Nepal and India.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>There wasn't much to see at this monastery besides the usual monks, cats, candles surrounded by butter and giant vats of wax, and statues. Nutu never failed to name each and every statue, getting the story pretty well pounded into our heads.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>After the monastery, a visit to a government art gallery was required. We spent nearly ten minutes wandering through, not buying a thing because it was too expensive or too big. There were huge paintings of a female Buddha, and more statues, prayer wheels, and jewelry. </DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Then we were free, until dinner, again on the roof. I rushed back to the hotel along with many of the group, to rest and upload a fraction of my still photographs at the business center: 75 cents and hour for snail-paced internet.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Dinner? Spaghetti! There was a mix of Western and Chinese options in the form of a buffet, but I decided on the Western. It was a delicacy in these parts.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Mrs. James wanted to rent a bike and ride to the palace to people-watch, but the deposit was too much so we took a rickshaw, along with Mr. Kozden and my roommate. The square across from the Portala is the antithesis of any holy palace: a giant Chinese flag waves high, and in the background a sharply angled monument celebrates "the peaceful transition of Tibet to Chinese control." Kozden remarked, "The only thing the place needs is the Chinese National Anthem blaring over loudspeakers."</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We walked down to a little lake behind the plaza, where five little boats were parker. Our first thought: paddleboats. But no, they were motorized, and they also had a little watergun on the front. Mrs. Kozden didn't want to go, but Mrs. James and Will hopped right in. The were pushed away from the dock, with explicit instruction (via sign language) not to go under any bridge or hit a buoy. Mrs. James immediately steered into the hanging branch of a tree, so that it scraped across the boat's roof, and the man in charge ran over shouting and pointing. I was laughing so hard that I couldn't tell Mrs. James to stop - she had plowed right into the thing so purposefully, then loudly said, "<I>Awk</I>ward." The man was furious, and he kept repeating some phrase in Mandarin and pointing at the tree.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Meanwhile, Will was at the gun. Whenever he pressed the trigger, it began to play a loud, cheesy song. So when I finally stopped laughing long enough to warn Mrs. James, she couldn't hear me above the monotonous beeping and screeching. Suddenly, one of the buoys that Will had pointed the gun at exploded with water, showering the boat. Mrs. James screamed so loud, the whole palace across the street must have heard. Another boat embarked from the dock, and Kozden and I soon had a turn in Mrs. James' boat. After much reluctance I let him steer, and I had to listen to the tune drone on and on, occassionally setting off the buoy when the other boat was near.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>When our twenty minutes was up, we took a rickshaw to the Baakar area. We were immediately caught up in a stream of monks, nuns and pilgrims circling the monastery clockwise. Dusk was coming on, and we watched the masses prostrate in front of the temple and half-submerged rooms full of candles. </DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>As we walked through less populated streets and alleys, a monk stops us and asks to take our picture with his cell phone. Mrs. James proposed we take his picture. We then mused - having seen pictures of Lamas all around monasteries - that one day a picture of us would be there, the rare foreigners.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Will shopped for a door to ship back the the States while the rest of us watched the young and elderly walk around and prostrate. We came upon a booth where a little gun was set up, and a corkboard holding many small balloons. For a few cents, one could play until he or she missed a balloon. What a simple, amusing way to enjoy an absolutely amazing city.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Crossing the street back to our hotel, we played Frogger with the traffic. Even on a crosswalk, nothing would stop. As we avoided the big trucks and smaller cars, pausing in the middle as traffic whizzed by within inches, we almost got hit by a bike. What a joke.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Our final plan for the day was to get some chocolate cake, cheesecake or apple pie as served by the bar next to our hotel, called Dunya ("world" in ten different languages). We went in, to find a friendly Dutch expat who could speak English perfectly. The chocolate cake didn't look so good, so we all ordered apple pie, along with Mollie and Christina, who had joined us just after we crossed the street. And that's when I saw it: right in the middle of the menu, a Yak Burger. Yak meat. Burger. I was in heaven. I escaped alive with my burger and consumed it (the fries had attracted swarms of Webbies). Beautiful, beautiful yak meat, in an amazing burger. It can't be described in words - it was the most succulent, flavorful meal I've ever eaten. The apple pie with ice cream topped it off, and I had already eaten dinner. I'm becoming a hobbit.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>To end on an unfortunately note, the sun of Lhasa is brutal. Even with sunscreen, much of the group went to bed with glowing faces, necks and arms... especially me. After such an exciting day, though, I couldn't complain.</DIV> Christag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1369010599283011589.post-20225089806245000112007-07-04T09:33:00.000+08:002007-07-04T08:33:19.663+08:00Descending<DIV ALIGN=LEFT>In our exploration of the town of Gyantse, or Gyangtse, we found little more than a few necessary shops and some anxious girls in a hole by our hotel. From Beijing to Tibet, the price of bottled water decreased from five dollars to thirty cents. Of course, when we enter a supermarket, we had to search hard to find a package that hadn't burst open from the pressure, and had to be taped shut. Oreos were a little over a half-dollar, and drinks still thirty cents. I found breakfast to be unnecessarily spicy, every alternative quite bland. My assortment of accumulated snacks - dried kiwi fruit, among others - might actually come in handy. The bus ride was quick, but by the time we entered the monastery, around 9:30, the weather was already heating up.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Dogs are an unwanted pest for the Chinese officials, who kill any they find wandering the streets. The monks - firm advocates of life - take them in, feed them spicy Tibetan food and care for them. We passed the prayer wheels and entered the main chamber, where the monks change and pray in the early morning. It cost a few dollars per room to take pictures, so I was about broke by the time we got done with the hundreds of chapels. Okay, I only spent about ten dollars. We observed people crawling under the scriptures to receive blessings, pouring butter on burning candles, and placing money at many of the statues and monuments. We climbed many stories of the steeple to get a good view of the city. Our path was constantly blocked by hundreds of peaceful pilgrims, always walking clockwise.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>From the near-highest point of the steeple, we got an excellent view of wall ascending into the nearby mountains to enclose the monastery. In the distance, a decrepid castle on a hill paid homage to the rich history of this city, primarily an attempted Indian invasion. Somebody asked how the monks prevented disease to spread among the pilgrims, and our guide explained: Tibet was so high, with such clean air, that infectious diseases were extremely rare. Not a single Tibetan got SARS, even when a Chinese lady with SARS arrived in Lhasa. Before we left the monastery, an old friend of our guide insisted on presenting him with a sandlewood necklace, a rare item of religious significance.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>While some remained on the bus, we walked around the town - through local, residential streets. We observed locals carrying water back to their residences, children sitting around, and people tending their animals. Some of the children demanded money if we took pictures of them, and some wanted money regardless. The animals didn't care.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>On the bus, departing, our guide told us how Chinese tour guides would often take groups through monasteries, telling them lies. The monks were constantly quarreling with these lies, trying to correct them, but the guides claimed that it was "none of their business." Just another reason to be thankful for our Tibetan guide and driver. Before a quick photo stop (more precariously-placed monasteries) and lunch, we watched a bootleg version of Snakes on a Plane that my roommate had purchased for a few bucks the prior evening. I was very surprised at Mrs. James' reaction to the parts with sexual content or explicit language - it seems her reaction to everything is to crack up. It was a fun experience, "bonding" with a bus-full of people shouting, "Oh!" whenever something painful or bloody flashes across the screen. I fell asleep shortly, my head in incredible pain as we rattled across bumpy road. When I woke up, it was time for lunch. We had pulled over by the river, at this point molded to manmade shores. Our lunch consisted of peanuts, yak, chicken, orange jello, 3 hard-boiled eggs, and some spicy vegetables. Mrs. James' observation seemed to hold: wherever we stopped, people came out to see us. In this particular instance, they were begging for food. Where did they come from? There was a farm house several miles down the road, but all around was mountain and desert. After lunch and before continuing on, we wandered around the area. Peter went down to the river, and his shoe fell in - so he jumped in to chase after it.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We continued on for a few hundred kilometers until we were stopped by Chinese police. Our bus was ushered into a holding area, and our driver got in a line of about twenty people who had been "speeding". Considering our bus couldn't exceed 40 km/hr, and that every car that had passed got stopped, I was slightly suspicious. We had no choice: we payed the thirty dollar fine, and we were off.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Just after lunch, my head started throbbing every time the bus went over a bump. Pound, pound, pound, pound. And then my nose began to bleed. I had been drinking a lot of water, and I took an Advil, but still... strange that the symptoms of altitude sickness hadn't kicked in until now.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>As we approached Lhasa, after passing the new airport road, we came to a sudden stop. Yaks. Mrs. James jumped from the bus, quite literally, and ran to take pictures. There were two, at first, then two more. And then, jackpot. Ten yaks or more nibbled at brush halfway up the steep mountain beside the road. We scrambled to photograph them.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>And just a few minutes from the city, we passed next to a slow-moving river, and shouts came from the front of the bus. Five or six yaks, varying from white and black to brown, were wading into the water, hanging out in the herd. Mrs. James declared this the "scenic highlight of the day."</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We pulled through a tiny arch into a traditional Tibetan courtyard. This five-story building was the Yak Hotel. No elevator, limited resources, best view in town, and our rooms were on the fourth floor. First things first, dinner. My room on the fourth floor was the closest to food in the whole hotel - these people knew who they were dealing with. On the fifth floor - the roof - tables were laid out banquet-hall style. The Portala Palace was glistening in the sunset and pending thunderstorm, just a few blocks west of our hotel. Dinner took an hour for them to prepare, and consisted of various Tibetan meats and spices, probably the best meal we had eaten in Tibet. The waiters spoke English extremely well.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>After dinner and a long day, I was still too excited to just collapse. So I decided to take a trip to the department store, camera shop, and supermarket. There weren't enough empty rickshaws or taxis for all of us, so Winn and I had to run alongside - until we got too tired to continue. So we joined another group, and went in search of food and souveniers. I wanted to find a cable that would connect my still camera to a computer, but not a single shop had heard of it. I asked around the group, but still no. Ironically, I found the next morning that my roommate had one, and didn't even know it.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We bought some cheap food and set off back to the hotel. I spent much of the evening staring out the window at the faces and activity below. Late into the night, the rickshaw pedalers were still going strong, and the horns were still raging.</DIV> Christag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1369010599283011589.post-27295268040870507812007-07-01T23:38:00.000+08:002007-07-01T22:38:49.431+08:00A Long and Winding Road<DIV ALIGN=LEFT>You may think 6 AM was brutal, but 5:30 today was worse. The Tibetan philosophy can be summed up in a nutshell: wake up early, drive fast, and honk loudly. Our voyage deeper into the Tibetan country took us out of town, on a bridge over a river that extends all the way from India, and onto one of the roughest dirt roads in existence. Whenever we rounded a blind corner, our driver seemed to accelerate. And honk.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Tibetan horns are LOUD. We got a dose as five caravans transporting Chinese infantry passed us on the main street last night - they didn't hesitate to make sure they had the right-of-way. If you're standing on the street, ouch. But if you're in another car, it's a little bit better, unless your driver also has a happy horn finger. Still, we ran into quite a few big buses at bad times, when we realized how grateful for that horn we were. Our next city, Chongqing, has imposed a fine for honking, in an attempt to reduce noise pollution.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We passed a peak at 14,000 feet - not the highest our journey to Tibet would throw at us - and we stopped for a photo op. Prayer flags draped across the power lines, crossing the road and assuming piles on either side. The clumps covered the entirety of the two little hills on either side of the road, interspersed with small incense fires. I had seen the pictures of Mt. Everest - it amuses me that while other religions strive for heaven, the comparatively unknown TIbetans/Nepalese have the market cornered in "getting-close-to-God." They work to great lengths to do amazing things, and then they treat such feats with humility.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We continued on for several hours until the road became paved, and then, immediately, we passed into the little town that had grown up around the monastery. There were hundreds of pilgrims, and many tents selling items for the annual festival, the monk dance. We were allowed to mingle with the crowd, mainly old and poor. Some obnoxious westerner actually went into the square in which the monks were dancing. The monks came out from the monastery in elaborate costumes, while accompanists on horn and drum kept an eerie background beat. We were given a brief walk-through of the place, including the main chamber, the chapel of protection, the living corridors, and the roof. Those of us who cared spun the scriptures - and then we watched sheep scuttle past and pilgrims walk many times, always clockwise, around various monuments in the area. The low moan from the horns of the ceremony droned on. I find the Tibetan sect of Buddhism to be strangely divergent from much of the Buddhist literature in existence: it places a high emphasis on a God, or diety, and ceremonies and pilgrimiges.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Nonetheless, everybody was friendly. We encountered one demanding beggar, and some of the people wanted to be paid for their pictures, but they were all friendly about it. Mrs. James considered us the diplomats of peace, spreading smiles to everyone who had never seen a white face before. Few cars hogged the street, as the masses in dark jackets, long pants and mid-hieght stovepipe hats carefully proceeded. We drove back the way we came, thankful to reach paved road once more. Our lunch consisted of potatoes, a variety of cold meat, mushy banana and some vegetables. We ate by the side of the road, lulled asleep to the baying of mountain goats on a hillside far, far away.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>The road we would have taken to Gyantse was being paved, so we had to take a 6-hour detour. We passed through small villages of 100 people, narrow gorges where farmers tended their wheat and barley. Wherever we stopped, people came out. In the valleys, children ran from schools to say hello and receive our donations of food. In the high passes, farmers came from their fields to sit in the shade and watch us go about our touristic business. After we exhausted our resources of Tibetan music videos and movies, much of the bus played cards, throwing them into the underside of a frisbee. Once the driver stopped to fix the air conditioning, but that only lasted for a while. We drove all day and into the evening, encountering frequent accidents and road maintenance detours. Every few miles, a barricade of dirt blocked the road, and we were forced onto dirt road for a bit. We shooed all forms of wildlife off the road, and eventually drifted into a big city. We stopped at the main hotel for a quick dinner, where yak meat was a delicacy. The flavor was a cross between pork and beef, slightly sweeter, and quite tender. It was the <I>best</I> exotic animal I had eaten. Light was becoming scarce, so we had no time to observe the amazing monastery on top of the hill. This was the second-biggest city of Tibet - 130,000 people - second only to Lhasa, which recently jumped 50,000 to 200 thousand people (following the inauguration of the high-speed train service).</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Only one more hour, Nutu said, and as we lost the pavement again, only thirty more minutes. We were all tired and sore, but no longer hungry. A few people were sick - not sure if it was germ, altitude or long-bus-ride related. Our hotel - the Gyangtse Hotel - was pretty much downtown. A few shops were scattered down the street until the scarce prospect of tourism drove them to an end. I wandered the streets with my roommate and neighbor, our first stop being the supermarket. Oreos couldn't have been fifty cents, a giant bag of wafers (I'm talking the size of my head) only a dollar. Considering the remoteness of the area, and the size of the shop, the prices amazed me. After Will started talking about a yak jacket for twenty dollars, I vowed to get one once we reached the big city. It would weigh me down, but I could sure use it in the Los Angeles winter. Perhaps even in the remaining Tibetan evenings. It would suit our domicile for the following two nights: the Yak Hotel. The Nepalese influence on religion, architecture and way of life (which is, essentially, religion) is apparent everywhere.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>I returned to my room, feet tired after a long day of... sitting. My roommate let matches burn to clear out the mothball smell, as there was no way to get air flowing through the room. Sophomores, I say. I performed my necessary technological maintenance, with time to spare - a first for the trip. I might actually get a decent night's sleep.</DIV> Christag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1369010599283011589.post-66201930674961383012007-06-30T23:13:00.000+08:002007-06-30T22:13:43.465+08:00We Eat, Shoot, and Leave<DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Our wake-up call was brutal - at 6 in the morning. I neglected breakfast and slept in, throwing much of the junk that should have been in my suticase into my carryon. We had to catch the pandas at the "Chengdu Research Center for Panda Breeding" while the weather was still cool, and they were out and about engorging themselves. </DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Our first impression was after a long and sweaty walk, first through vender's stalls where nothing but panda <I>things</I> could be seen for miles around, and then through the thick, decorative bamboo forests of the breeding center. The lush forests hardly parted way: large, open-air "enclosures" placed the tourists in a cage and the pandas running happily free. </DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>While we were at the Panda Breeding Center, the first panda in 2007 was born. From the movie we saw, crowded into a hot, muggy room like the rest of the reserve, the baby pandas are little, ruddy runts that can fit in the palm of one's hand and look more like worms than bears. For lunch we had a delicious feast of panda meat. Just kidding! We scurried to the airport and ate in a secluded downstairs restaurant. The food wasn't spectacular, and the airport didn't have much to offer, including an ATM machine, especially after our flight was delayed for nearly an hour.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>The plane was luxurious. Mrs. James took my seat until I needed it to videotape the landing. We came in on a wide valley, lush green for miles, then barren, shady mountains in the distance. We were served a decent meal, which fell, on our schedule, somewhere between lunch and dinner as we would feast on Tibetan delicacies many hours later as well. One of these such things was "pig's ear" - let's just say Air China was a bit more reserved. Our A330 was equipped with two outside camera, so we all watched the take-off and had a wonderful vantage point as we approached one of the longest and highest runways in the world. The touchdown was smooth as Chinese silk, and although we bulleted in around 200 knots, it was our best domestic landing so far.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>When we stepped on the bus, silk scarves as a Tibetan goodwill gesture were passed out to us. Our guide declared that Lhasa was becoming too modern, so he pointed out many traditional Tibetan dwellings. They were built up on jagged stones and bricks, with small towers a few feet high accentuating the corners of each roof. Many colorful flags stuck out of these structures, as we drove through bumpy countryside for two hours to a village about 40 kilometers out of Lhasa, and 150 from the airport. Our guide, Nutu, explained the preparation and uses of Tibetan food, and taught us a few phrases. From the few airport signs I saw, the Tibetan scripture was very beautiful.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Prayer flags spotted the countryside. At every peak and hill in sign, flags were strung out above the valley. When we arrived the remote town of Tsedang, consisting of one long main avenue and a few residential alleys, we definitely got some strange looks. One old Tibetan lady grabbed the breasts of some of our group who were taking a picture with her. It was an 'interesting' form of greeting.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>When I entered a China Mobile store to inquire about international calling, I got nowhere until Mr. Kozden started speaking Mandarin with the man. Tibetan is certainly the first language, and Chinese a close second. The extent of English, however, is "hello", "thank you", and "goodbye." I tried different SIMs, all under fifteen dollars (things are very inexpensive here,despite the remoteness), but none of them worked. By the time I had given up, a crowd had gathered of maybe ten to twenty people. They were a motley assortment, from middle-aged to ancient, all in it for the fun of watching. When I pulled out my camera and started videotaping, they swarmed with excitement. The smiles on their faces as I played back the recording were truly unforgettable.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>As we walked past a government compound, the inside nearly reduced to rubble, two statues stood haunch on either side of the gate. Brightly colored, perfectly still - wait! These were real guards. I was across a vastly large street, with six lanes total for cars and rickshaws, under the shade of a tree, amongst a crowd and not standing out particularly. I lifted up my camera to take a picture, but before I had the chance to even turn it on, the guards started waving violent gestures from far across the street. Mr. Kozden immediately pulled me away, and I slunk into the shadows, embarrassed and scared. Mrs. James exclaimed, "You got pwned!"</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>I tried my best to get money exchanged, but the banks opened late and the exchange counter wouldn't take my "old-looking" hundred dollar bills. I now had fifty cents to my name, and I was in about five dollars debt already. The ATM down the street told me how much money was in my account, but wouldn't let me withdraw any of it. Besides the friendly Tibetan people, the Chinese side of this region seemed out to get me.</DIV> Christag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1369010599283011589.post-48745976527338009092007-06-30T14:29:00.000+08:002007-06-30T13:29:56.862+08:00Failed Money-Making Schemes<DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We were granted a late morning, but our flight was at 3 so it wasn't too late. I decided to try having breakfast this morning, and got out to the lobby with my carryon just in time.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We didn't have much of a day planned, but it never feels like that. Whether or not there's something interesting to talk about, the guide always talks on the bus. Today we would bid farewell to Helen, our guide throughout all of our excursions through the capital of the Shanxi province, Xian. We took the bus to one of the best museums in the country (we're always going to the biggest or the best; they have awards for everything, like baseball statistics: our next stop, Chengdu, is one of the top three Chinese tourist city destinations). It was a historical museum - two buildings spread out over a rather large, artistic grounds. We followed the signs through galleries arranged by dynasty. First, primitive villages and caveman-like tools of stone and bone. Most of the displays were pottery, progressing to weapons and eventually imperial relics or those with religious significance. For instance, one bowl was meant to instruct one on the moral significance of avoiding greediness. If the bowl was filled to a certain point, the level would remain; if the bowl was filled above that point, the entire contents would drain.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>When the group I was with - Willie, Nishta, and Peter - got tired of the galleries, we sat outside in an open corridor. Peter played his egg-shaped flute-like instrument, quite poorly, while begging for "money for college". Nishta and Willie attempted to help him, by "donating" their own money, but nobody bought it.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We were looking forward to lunch, but Mrs. James requested that we stop at a local library, just to see what it looked like. It was nothing exciting, besides huge, and we spent much of our time sifting through the "foreign literature" to comment on the classics they had that nobody had ever touched. The archives ascended tens of stories into the air - this place had only been built a few years ago, and was the primary library of Xian.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We were hungry beyond reckoning by now. We took the bus back to the dinner theater, and ate lunch there - this time in the second row of tables - but there was no show to be seen. The skies opened up briefly, and a few of us wandered the streets aimlessly in the aftermath. There wasn't much to see along this high-class strip of travel agencies and fancy tourist hotels and theaters.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We boarded a strange airline that none of us had ever heard of, and sunk into deep blue seats. Our food for the hour flight was a package of dried apple chunks. I sat next to Christina; she slept most of the flight. I stole her Cosmo Girl and laughed at the stupid parts... but I mostly videotaped the scenery outside the window. We came into land low and fast, on our tiny A319, the brilliant green streets and streets and cars well-defined under blue sky close enough to touch. The plane seemed devoid of air as we passed the threshold, then - BANG! We touched down so hard, no, smashed down. People in the back screamed. Then, as the pilot engaged reverse thrust, with the sound of thousands of horses in pain, the whole plane shook like I've never seen before. Thank you, folks, for flying on this decrepid Airbus.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We drove through the quiet expressways of Chengdu, one of the spiciest cities in China, our first stop the hotel. The first thing we saw: a giant Starbucks. There has been a Starbucks everywhere we've gone. There was even one hidden in The Forbidden City. The only other consistency has been watermelon, served in solid and liquid forms at every meal.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Our hotel was the fanciest place on the block. While we waited to check in, a world-class violinist entertained the lobby audience, and when she took a break, two amazing dancers spun around to every corner of the room. The rooms themselves featured modern furniture, high definition television (on which I looked forward to reviewing my tape thus far), and many useless amenities. After a spicy dinner, we took to the pool and massage/sauna while another group hiked to a Mao monument and a burger bar ("Dave's Oasis"). At the massage place, we needed Peter to translate what we were getting for our money. Winn was with us, and he asked about the advertised 80 dollar "full VIP in-room service". We didn't need Peter's translation when they told us that one - a prostitute. Definitely a high-class hotel.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>I got a massage after swimming. It was kind of a scary experience at first (I thought Peter was going to pull a prank on me, and get the 680¥ service, leaving me helplessly lost in translation), but it was relaxing and I got back to my room just in time for check-in. Some of the other boys got massages in their room, to the dismay of their roommates who wanted to sleep. Still, the young Asian girls in short-cut skirts were an interesting spectacle for everyone, even the girls, to sit around and laugh about. I was dead, though; I fell asleep before I even had a chance to plug my appliances in to charge, while Will was downstairs getting <I>his</I> massage.</DIV> Christag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1369010599283011589.post-55845888459771337142007-06-29T19:00:00.000+08:002007-06-29T18:00:58.748+08:00On to Bigger and Better Things<DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We had been granted an extra thirty minutes to recover from a long day prior, and I sucked it up. In fact, I didn't even bother with breakfast. Our first long, bumpy drive dropped us in a small, government-run terra cotta warrior reproduction factory. Everything there was much too big and expensive to buy, but we listened to an interesting explanation about how the sculptures were molded and fired. Someone pointed out the kiln, which was a gigantic stone building that rose far above the display room. We were advised to buy these things at the museum, where we could barter the price down much lower.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Sometime that morning, also in the middle of nowhere, we pulled up to a small sign that said "Banpo Neolithic Village", a museum and archeological site in one. We entered a large, dark building. In the sections of dirt that lay exposed, surrounded by pathway and railings, were imprinted footstep, post holes, kilns, bones, and other remnants of a lost civilization, many thousand years old. There wasn't much action, but, hey, that was saved for the evening. We read signs referring to cards placed around (like a crime scene) and listened to our guide explain the way of life of these people, as assumed by the findings. It was pretty amazing what they could reconstruct from a few holes in the ground, a little pottery, and some skulls.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>After some lunch, we were ready for the big thing. The Terra Cotta Warriors - nearly eight-thousand standing six feet tall, devoid of any un-earthy color - are the pride of Xian. We started small, with "pit three": a small, exclusive room of the emperor's tomb for the generals and commanders. Most of the terra cotta figures had been damaged, and only a few that had been fully reconstructed stood facing the once-sealed doorway. We watched a panoramic movie next, that told us how the warriors had been damaged by a peasant uprising shorty after their seclusion, and also how they had been discovered by a local farmer. Also, they had once sported colorful suits and shiny weapons, but those had long since gone. We moved onto the second pit, the cavalry men. The room was dark and dry, not good for observing much. There were horses and chariots, for the lead men, and a few display cases showed off remnants of color. Finally...</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We worked our way through a swarming "museum", past the mobs clogging the doorway. Guards and cameras were everywhere. Finally, we broke through: line after line of well-lit, but dull, terra cotta warriors lined up into the distance. It was so... <I>real</I>. As we neared the back of the room, a five-minute walk, full warriors turned to broken pieces half-excavated, and finally just into piles of dirt. The place was so hot and so crowded that I didn't feel like sticking around any longer than the camera required, so I sat outside and watched people mess around with their instruments. We caught up with the bus and set off the the hotel.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>After a few of hours of napping, basking in the sun of a gazebo by the lake, and so forth, we got dressed for dinner. I tried on a Chinese silk jacket I had bought in Beijing, but it was too hot and didn't go well with my pants and shoes. I donned something more appropriate but still fairly traditional, and went out into the lobby. Unknowingly, Mollie had dressed up with Mrs. James' reward of one dollar in mind, but I no longer matched. Still, we went on. We boarded the bus in slightly fancier clothes than usual and went downtown. We were ushered into the dinner theater by doormen in full Tang royal guard garb, helmets and all. Our tables, to our astonishment and happiness, were right at the front, right up against the stage. Dish after dish was served to us in pure bliss. We slopped down the rice wine until Mrs. James wouldn't let us get any more. After an orchestral prelude, the acts came on with a bang. Hundreds of lights illuminated dance after dance, song after song with crazy instruments. It could have been a show choir act, for all the glamour.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We returned to the hotel a little tipsy, and some people got more food. But most of us packed and slipped off to bed, as we had gotten back very late from the show.</DIV> Christag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1369010599283011589.post-70985849167060385052007-06-28T17:38:00.000+08:002007-06-28T16:38:29.814+08:00Photographic Ambition<DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Why do I walk around lugging a giant, several-pound camera that will hardly fit in any bag? And why do I pay so much of my attention to it? I don't think it's my lack of sociability or dislike for a foreign atmosphere. It's a comfort, to be sure, but not a necessary one. Everybody in our groups carries a recording device of some kind. One's mother will never send her son or daughter on a trip halfway around the world, and then say, "You can forget a camera." I don't want to feel like a stupid tourist, is the thing. I want to record what's going on. I wan't to capture what I have seen through my own eyes, and perhaps try to enlighten others who haven't seen such images ever before - thought that's quite hard to effectively pass on. I want to show things how they are, the truest picture from the most aesthetic perspective, and get a lot of it from a lot of places. I take pride in the facts that I'm never there to intrude with a flash, that my batteries/tapes last comparatively forever so I'm not constantly changing them, and I don't obsess over tourist spots. Sometimes they're necessary, but I enjoy diversity.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>I've always been told to take as much footage as necessary, so the bad stuff can be thrown away in postproduction. Still, I like to review my pictures and video right away, critiquing the fine points and scolding myself for stupid mistakes: like thinking I'm recording when the camera is stopped, and letting it record at all other times. I have already ruined a portion of my Great Wall footage by doing that.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>But back to the subject at hand: why I expend so much effort on something that isn't really necessary. I could be looking out the bus windown right now, soaking up the blue-and-yellow-striped apartment buildings ascending hundreds of feet, or the winding, marshy river under the bridge. Why does that need to be on a tape, when it can be found anywhere on the internet, in a pamphlet, or on somebody else's camera. Why bother, why follow the actions of the masses? It's China, to be sure... but the colors and perfect moments captured on the big screen will never exist right in front of us. Even the glory of the Great Wall was diminished in person. Maybe, just maybe - this gives me a chance to relive my footstep, the memories that weren't even mine, and make the sights and sounds seem better than they ever, once did.</DIV> Christag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1369010599283011589.post-3381048458217488552007-06-28T17:20:00.000+08:002007-06-28T16:20:48.472+08:00We Dive In!<DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Our morning was spent in the air - a 4:45 wake-up call, a 6:00 meeting time, at the airport before our 8:30 flight. After we got through the painful security line and people spread out to buy food, the airline pulled a surprise gate change on us. Peter, who could speak the language, almost missed the flight.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>I settled into my window seat in relative comfort, until I heard an "Oh!" from down the aisle. Mrs. James had to sit next to me. We chatted for most of the flight until she became more interested in the Chinese man sitting next to her. Our takeoff was delayed by about an hour, as hundreds of planes landed and took off in front of us. Mrs. James told me that she had never had a flight that left on time throughout her personal excursions in China. We landed with a huge bang (we all thought the plane had lost a few wheels) - I happily picked up my bag, about the fourth one on the belt - and we got on a very "hutong" bus (our equivalent for "ghetto"), so named because we had to double up.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Xian was much cooler, slightly less humid, and very quiet. Our guide, now Helen, told us that there had not been any skyscrapers until just a few years ago, and Xian only sported a population of six million. I thought the airport was just in the countryside, but we followed an empty and equally "country" expressway to the city walls, which were almost as deserted. Once inside the city, things were busy but not packed. It was quite a relaxing change, and since we were through our "gateway" city, Beijing, it felt like we were really in China now. We pulled through a huge arch into an empty courtyard, with wall on all sides rising up at least fifty feet. This was the city wall, much wider and flatter than the Great Wall, but only about sixteen kilometers long. We climbed a huge watchtower, getting a great view of the city, and then we walked down a bit of the wall (or one could bike the length in 100 minutes). As I stared down the perfectly straight wall, bikers and pedestrians about a mile away disappeared into the smog. Until just three years ago, only farms had been outside the city walls.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Before stopping at the hotel, we toured an ancient Buddhist pagoda, about 14 stories high, that had been damaged by an earthquake. For about seventy cents, we could ring a giant gong three times. A few people from our group rang it politely, and then Collin tried riding on top of the wooden thing, causing an uproar from tourists and locals alike. Most of us climbed the pagoda after a long, pointless argument between our tour guide and the officials. However, there wasn't much to see as this was not an active place of worship. As we got ready to leave, a full-blown Chinese orchestra came out and warmed up. After waiting a while, they played part of a song and then broke into argument. We sauntered away chuckling.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We arrived at our hotel, the Xian Garden Hotel. Mrs. James had warned us that it would likely be a dump, but when we were greeted with cold towels, doormen and a sparkling gold lobby, we thought otherwise. After an hour of getting settled in nice ground-floor rooms with patios looking out onto the peacock-infested grounds, we left for the Muslim quarters of the city, and the Great Mosque. The mosque had some interesting architecture, but unlike the Buddhist temple we explored earlier, we didn't get any background on the religion and weren't allowed in any of the buildings. After a slight introduction to the area, we were released into rows and rows of alleys full of tiny shops selling the same things. Christina pointed out a 120-year old unique camera, and I got swarmed because they thought I was interested. They offered to trade for my HD camera, but I figured the size of film in that camera wasn't even made anymore. I also took a look at a cheap, fake 8 GB iPod for $45. After playing around with it, I figured I could do everything it could do on my phone - except it was smaller. Still, I didn't know in what way(s) I was getting ripped off. So I dragged Gina down some more primitive streets - no shops, but really where people lived and worked. I was the only Westerner, but surprisingly my camera drew little attention. We passed a little carefree kid who was just spinning around, enjoying the shade until he noticed my camera. I felt bad, and wanted to slip him 5 yuan to see if he would cheer up, but by the time I found the money he had run off.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We had dinner in the area, at a dumpling restaurant. We got our own private room with two tables on the fourth floor - and for the first time this trip, free refills. The dumplings came in all shapes and sizes, basket after basket. The chicken dumplings looked like miniature chickens, and the walnut dumplings looked like little nuts. There was every combination of food possible packed into these things: pumpkinfish, ham, vegetables - everything. All this for a meager fifteen dollars.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Once back at the hotel, I explored the "garden" aspect of the place, the gym and massage/sauna place, but didn't find much intriguing. It was disappointing that our group was spread all over the hotel. Our neighbors and my roommate usurped my bed and the room for long into the night, so I didn't get very much sleep. Finally they took a walk, and I immediately dropped off. The early morning flight had definitely cut into my delicate sleep schedule.</DIV> Christag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1369010599283011589.post-18903965860801476712007-06-28T10:22:00.000+08:002007-06-28T09:22:43.823+08:00Shopping and Praying<DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Out of batteries, running low on clothes, I was prepared for a day of disappointment. As I prepared for the day, I didn't need to look out the window to know that the low white fog/smog covered the city for many hundreds of miles, and perpetual traffic clogged the streets our bus would soon be aggressively driving through. Our driver, by the name of Tao, was certainly very efficient. As I scooped out my usual breakfast of Corn Flakes, I looked down at my phone to see "Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd" calling. God, I love caller ID. We were about twenty minutes away from leaving, but I was still overjoyed to hear that my bag would arrive that day. It was at least a twenty-five minute drive from the airport. Ah, the irony. Anyway, I had managed thus far - I put all my resources together and discovered that I had 11 minutes of battery power in all. I proclaimed it would be a "damn good eleven minutes."</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We first drove to the Temple of Heaven: once an ancient tribute to the gods, now a popular park for the elderly to exercise in. Hordes of old Chinese people occupied corners of concrete, waltzing, waving flags in decorative patterns, waving swords around, playing hacky-sack, singing dischordantly, musing over the next move in a checkers-like game feature circular pieces the size of one's fist, each engraved with a different character, and performing many other diligent activities. Some of them invited us to join: the flag-waving, the dancing, and a few others. Many ladies walking around insisted that we buy a Chinese hacky-sack for one US dollar. I told them if they could keep it going fifty times in a row, I'd buy it. They sombered away, only managing five or six kicks.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We ran to catch up with our speedy guide - who we all know as 'Lee' - through a long corridor filled with people claiming a bit of personal space for exercise. We rose through some steps and another gate (don't step on the thresholds; your soul might be trapped in hell eternally) until this magnificent building, much more dome-shaped and circular than most Chinese architecture, supported by twenty-one pillars, rose up into the sky. It was colorful beyond the usual splendor of gold, so the reflectiveness of the roof and of the rings of stone surrounding the structure were not so dull as previous monuments. We passed through another threshold to come upon a similar structure, but open. There were no pillars and no dome in the middle. There were nine rings of stone, each containing 81, 72, 63, until the middle ring contained 9, and then, there, it lay - the center of the universe. It was a small block of stone, slightly elevated above the rest, where people lined up to take pictures. The whole circular deal rose up from a barren square area, and in one corner a huge steel tripod rose up even higher. We inquired into its purpose, and apparently a giant lantern was sometimes hung there. Not surprising, as Mr. Kozden remarked - very like the Chinese to not conserve empty sky. I thought I also spotted a security camera staring down at the center of the universe from there.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Then we were off to eat lunch with a local family. I ate about five thousand cherry tomatoes, and a bunch of common food. The "common food" was a green bean mixture of many fascinating spices, and our guide claimed that it could be eaten at all meals of the day. We were also presented with a gigantic platter of dumplings and given a tour of the cramped courtyard, shared by eleven families. These historic, tiny, one-room houses were worth hundreds of thousands of dollars for being in the remaining Hutong district of Beijing. And our host actually owned three. If she sold them, she would have no place to live - but she would be rich.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We took a vote as to where to go next on the rickshaws. It was a choice between watchtower (spectacular vista) or tea garden. I was with Mollie on a richshaw with a very old man as we rode through cramped alleys to the garden. We were supposed to tip our cyclists/drivers a few bucks, but we found our driver to be somewhat poor - he had no stamina and kept falling behind the group, going over unnecessary bumps and not paying any attention.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>The garden itself was much better than anybody (specifically Mrs. James; she was the loudest) expected. After a tour of the same old holey-rocks and shrubs, we entered a tea house. We got the full treatment - a formal tea ceremony and explanation of everything. First, the smelling cup, which we rolled between our palms and absorbed the scent. Next, we tried three types of tea, each replacing the previous as the group's favorite. First, green; next, jasmin; finally, black (or red). The green was strong, the jasmin was smooth and refreshing, and the black tea was sweet. Paulina's mother bought a whole $400 set to ship to the U.S., and we were immediately on our best behavior to try for a chance at its use.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Our final stop for the day was at a working Buddhist temple, one of the oldest and most famous in Beijing, the Lama Temple. Gina showed me how to pray without incense, although most of the natives horded the stuff, and Mrs. James declared herself to be Buddhist. We encountered a monument to Buddhist art in the form of sand - a huge square, flat tapestry constructed entirely of sand, and redone at each ceremony. It was encased in glass in a dark temple where no photography was allowed, but it was truly a spectacle. Layer upon layer of free sand was built up to form intricate, symmetrical patterns, covering at least 4 square feet in the most minute detail. Contained in each temple building was a Buddha, surrounded by paintings or statues of "deities" or disciples. As we progressed through the the complex, the main statue in each building because bigger and bigger, from almost human-size to nearly four stories high - a giant in any terms. Sadly, no photography of these great works was allowed.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We hit the markets ready to spend. Everybody returned to the bus with bags full. Our first market of the day was the Xiu Shui Pearl Market, featuring many fake brand-name products - shoes, bags, suits, ties, and clothing - cheap pearls, and ridiculously expensive pearls. I bought very little until we got to the Panjiayuan Silk Market, where I succumbed to the beauty of several silk outfits. I was nabbed by two ladies in a jacket shop for at least twenty minutes, and we debated the merits of buying jackets in the hot, humid weather. I tried to use my sensational humor to escape, but it took a lot of time and pleading. I still bought quite a lot by my standards, putting my bag over the limit by a few pounds.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>At our standard group dinner, I sat at Mrs. James' table. When we had mostly finished, she suggested we leave one by one, inconspicuously, to see if the other table would notice. We had gotten rid of most of the table when the other started asking why we were going to the bathroom all together, and in the wrong direction. So the remaining few people just ran for it. That's Mrs. James for you.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We had a small bit of free time before bed and packing, which I used (along with Gina, Paulina and Peter) to go ice skating. It took us thirty minutes to find the ice-skating rink, on the heels of Gina, who had even been there before. The shoes were painful, but I managed to make quite a few circuits around the arena, beating out Paulina but not coming close to Peter's tricks - one-foot turns, skating backwards, and spins. I stayed a little late to check out a China Mobile store, or at least a sign that suggested one, but got lost on my way out (which involved simply crossing the street). Peter had to come back and resue me. As I settled in to our messy room, admiring the batteries charging on the sink, I dreaded the 4:45 wake-up call ahead of us.</DIV> Christag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1369010599283011589.post-84185142297688663352007-06-27T07:36:00.000+08:002007-06-27T06:37:35.123+08:00How Many Concubines Did This One Have?<DIV ALIGN=LEFT>The glory of this place is in its unexpectedness. The monuments themselves are nothing to gasp at, but the stark reality of their existance, and how much they mean to the common people, is pleasing. And of course, everything seems impossible, fake, Disney. It feels like it's put there for us to stare at, walk on, just absorb. While in reality, it's just a wall... a pile of stones, that goes on for a while. The blazing sun, never leaving us to mope at its absence, makes everything seem a bit more dreamy. But in general, it's nothing like the colorful pictures we see. The one thing I hope - that my painstaking effort in taking an HD camera up to the top of the Great Wall in loafers and long pants will pay off on the big screen.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>I was up with the sun. In Beijing, that's way before 5. We had a whole new city to explore, Beijing from the perspective of ancient history... no longer the glory of Chairman Mao and Tian'anmen Square, but the splendor of the Ming dynasty. We grow accustomed to bargaining, transportation and adjust our composure in this foreign atmosphere with a rapid pace. Our morning adventure was one of the seven manmade wonders of the world, and we were lucky to explore a section that was largely unpopulated because of its distance from the few hundred square-kilometers of 'downtown' Beijing. We spent more than an hour driving through windy country roads, mountains narrowing in to a rocky ridge ascending a few thousand feet into a sky that was rapidly becoming blue and clear. Wild horses roamed through the brilliantly green fields, and other packs of animals were herded by shepards as we sped through the dozens of kilometers of countryside. Fields were often broken up by rogue trees, however, and the shade made it appear cool outside. But no, it was far from cool, and the heat seemed to rise into the mountains. The wall stretched on up and down for a few miles; every other watchtower was accessible on multiple levels. The wall finally turned steeply upwards, presenting a menacing 500 steps. In this short stretch of wall, we must have climbed at least 500 feet. Some Webbies attempted to run this all, but stopped short of halfway. The trail back down was even more painful on the legs; I took off my loud shoes for much of the way and showered my head in recently-boiled drinking water. After taking the cable car back down, legs aching, vendors pestering and bodies cooling, we piled into the bus with a much happier perception of the world. Not only had we conquered the amazing wall, we had returned to civilization with an understanding of our priveledged state of being. We followed the small road back partway, the bus storming down in between both sides of the road, horn sounding much of the way. We pulled into a restaurant next to a large craft warehouse ("factory", in someone's words). We ate a traditonal Chinese lunch and toured ourselves around the warehouse, getting some spectacular pictures of pottery, jewelry, jade sculptures and more.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Our next destination was the tomb of the Ming Emperor Chung, one of the few exhibits excavated and open to the public. We avoided the seven kilometer walk that the gods once required of the ancients, and quickly spread through the tomb - not too colorful except for some "spectacular red paint" in the terms of Will Stecher. It looked a lot like the Forbidden City, but much less crowded. There were some cool benches, carved to represent barrels or elephants. But the heat, somewhere in the nineties and humid, was unbearable.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We came to a five-story restaurant - the Peking Duck Restaurant, aptly named. We were greeted by a bright statue of a duck, one of the 1,000 killed here every day. Our meals have been simplified so we can soak up the senses and leave the brain - choice - out of it. That's one thing I love about this trip. So we were served duck, of course, on the third floor, along with many of the traditional side dishes. The duck was carved and served in front of us by a chef. We wrapped the duck in a tiny, thin "tortilla" (in the words of Kozden) and applied plum sauce and other dressings, then chomped. It was a really great mix of sweet sauce and vegetables, and moist, crunchy, slightly-meaty duck.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>That evening we had a "free night," an excuse for me to go shopping and everybody else to go ice-skating. I visited the brand-name mall next door, as I had nowhere else to go at this time of night, and bought some shoes, shorts, and a shirt. The biggest shoes in the mall were size 11, so they hurt - but less so than my formal shoes. Tomorrow would be a flat day of walking. I realized I was running out of money, so I tried to pay with a credit card. Getting that to work was a nightmare, taking about thirty minutes. Once I had finished my necessary shopping (I had called Cathay to find they actually had no information on the whereabouts of my luggage after all), I had no time for fun.</DIV> Christag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1369010599283011589.post-66650608222082078612007-06-24T06:47:00.000+08:002007-06-24T05:48:10.349+08:00Beijing: My Day 1 and 2<DIV ALIGN=LEFT>My new phone number is 15910582430 (append Chinese country code). This post was submitted by a mobile device; please excuse spelling errors.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT> </DIV><DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Pork balls, with rice and some other vegetables. Don't ask me what that means. As such begin my experiences in China. I enjoy Cathay's business class service to Beijing, passing the time by speaking to an Australian woman - discussing, among things, travel, dogs, the aboriginals of Australia, genealogy, and the wonders of China. It would have been wonderful that by the time we exited customs, after she grabbed her bag and we parted with a friendly Aussie farewell, my simple brown bag would have plopped onto the belt. But alas, I waited and waited, fruitlessly. I was shown to a dingy office in a back room, with what looked like bullet holes in the walls, and sat in front of a lady who could barely form the hand signals to communicate. As opposed to most international tourist destinations, hardly a soul could speak English. Lucky for paperwork (as my phone was nearing its deathbed) I had an itinerary and hotel information to send the bag to. I even knew the weight, by chance. This all didn't seem necessary - just take the tracking number, and track it already! - but when I saw the sheet that noted my bag had left LAX three hours after I had, two days ago, and never arrived in London, I realized this might be harder than I first imagined.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>A security guard escorted me outside to meet my driver. I was passed between several hotel representatives, got some cash, and got in a fancy little stick-shift. After a few minutes of silence, arranging my possessions, I spoke.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>"First time in China. No bag. Sorry... how are you, Sir? It's very hot this evening."</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>The driver, a young Chinese man with a narrow face and big smile just turned slightly to the side and gave me a puzzled look.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>"Okay... ha ha. That's fine."</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We gestured a bit, discussing trivial things. He tried to teach me the names of London, Hong Kong, Beijing and Xian in Mandarin, which I eventually got, but he incorporated them into sentences much too quickly. I think he wanted me to say something like, "I flew from London to Hong Kong to Beijing." He didn't know where Los Angeles was, but eventually he understood that it was a place. Finally, he took me sightseeing as we stopped at intersections of the busy downtown area. Tienemen Square is just two blocks down the road, apparently. He taught me the word for 'blocks' but I immediately forgot. I need to see these things in writing.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We pulled into the hotel, and as a man open the trunk and prompted, "Your luggage, sir?" in a thick accent, I sighed.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Checking in was not a problem, and I was "upgraded" to an executive suite (a room consisting of a bed double the size of a twin, a couch, minibar, safe, and desk). But when I tried to explain "when large group from CITS arrives from airport, call my room" (because my phone was dead) it took quite some time to get through.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>I got to my room and found there to be, among other things, plenty of toilet paper. And only two TV channels, CNN and HBO. After answering several calls that asked me when I needed a ride to the airport, I shaved with a rusty Chinese razor (I survived), took some video of the sad view out of my window, and quickly fell asleep. I woke up around 4:30, expecting a call at any time. My alarm was set to 5:30, but I was excited. I showered, got dressed and headed down to breakfast by seven. It took me most of a day to get ahold of anybody by phone, but when I did and found Mrs. James and the gang still at LAX, I lay down with mixed feelings. Well, at least my bag should be here by tomorrow morning, I thought. Pssh. How wrong could I be?</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>I breakfasted on soggy eggs, crunchy bacon and sour milk. I watched some movies on HBO for the hours to come, until I had to check out. It took about an hour to convince the lady that I was part of a group that had been delayed by a day. "But you just check out... now check in?" Yes, yes... I am that weird. Because my room wasn't ready, I wandered much of the day around the hotel, walking in circles. I wanted to get some more cash from an ATM (I felt highly priveleged at the airport when an HSBC ATM exclusively serviced foreign cards) but the Agricultural, Workers', and Commerical Banks of China don't take my card. They wouldn't even let me in the door to the streetside ATM with that thing.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>So I wandered around the mall, full of nothing but shoes. I could use some shoes. But when I got my bag, that would be another pound and a half that I didn't need. I wandered through a food court, daring myself to eat something. But not a single sign had a single English letter. I was about to leave, and a lady called out to me. "Musige?" What? Had I found food, at last? "Hmm?" I inquired. "Massage," she exclaimed. Boy, I could have used a massage - that backpack was weighing me down, and along with sweating like a pig, I was exhausted. "No thank you. Maybe later." I went into a small booth in a corner of the mall, which sold Motorola phones and such. I walked past, into a more general computer store, pulled out my phone, and said "charger". I had to be more specific, so I showed her how the phone was dead, the battery, an outlet in the wall, and produced some worthy sound effects. "Ahh," she finally said, happy at the prospect of business. She pulled out a charger that fit loosely in my phone. I wrinkled my forehead in dissatisfaction, but she plugged it into the wall and proved to me that it worked like a charm. Satisfied at last, she had her young daughter come over to tell me the price in english. "One hundred and twenty one," she proudly pronounced. What a rip-off, I thought, but I was happy to hear English for the first time in days, so I parted with my money. Besides, I didn't have much of a choice. It was my lifeline.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>I decided to point at pictures after all. I went to a McDonald's stand, and pointed at an ice-cream like thing. Gratefully, this was only about a dollar and some, but a break from the heat. After walking in circles for a few more minutes, I decided to sit down in the hotel lobby lounge. I got a sandwich and enjoyed the cool air. Satisfied, I got settled into my room and fell asleep by about 6, after watching two more movies and some news.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Will Baker enlightened me to the fact that we also received a music TV channel, which featured a mix of Chinese and British hits. He knocked on my door around 4 in the morning, and we chatted for a while as our - excuse me, <I>his</I> - bags arrived. The plane had stopped in Anchorage, God knows why. We were ready for bed by 5, but I couldn't fall asleep quite yet. So I stared out the window at the city that already looked like noon. But still, not a single glimpse of blue, blue sky. </DIV> Christag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1369010599283011589.post-40549552568192323402007-06-22T15:03:00.000+08:002007-06-22T15:11:01.511+08:00Cathay at lastHeathrow gave us a promising twenty-minute delay, but as usual, it turned out to be more than an hour, waiting for - what, exactly? At first, the weather presented problems. But as we took off, only a few planes waited in line behind us and a few clouds above. Heathrow can always make excuses. I wasn't sure how long exactly we sat there, because I fell asleep to the plane being parked in at least three different loactions before I gathered the energy to feel the magnificent force of takeoff. I had already ordered a full dinner, what I thought to be a nasty mistake after I realized it hurt to just open my eyes. I wasn't in the mood to do anything but curl up on the floor and pass out. I started smelling the caviar, the salmon, the pasta... okay, I was wide awake. And when I reclined that seat, which seemed identical to the British Airways seat, I was comfortable at a level never felt before... well, there's a reason they call it Cathay. So I stayed awake for a while.
Eleven hours. This is after ten hours, six hours, and days of preparation. We've been flying through near-constant daylight, which goes unnoticed in the cabin, but it can mess with the mind. Weather about 100 miles out of London was severe, but who was I to care? I had my Mika, Snow Patrol, Nelly Furtado, Feeling, and about 20 other albums that perfectly fit my current obsessions. And I ended up watching two of the most relaxing movies: Alpha Dog and Children of Men. Seriously, not the best idea for the nerves. I kept hearing funny noises throughout the night, and weird images went through my head. Well, I didn't want to watch Dumbo...
I was in heaven, which appears to be only 35,000 feet up. I believe some other source places it a bit higher... but who can criticize them, when they had such primitive technology.Christag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1369010599283011589.post-80924714289324221212007-06-22T14:54:00.000+08:002007-06-22T15:03:15.433+08:00HeathrowI know why people hate airports. Let's just say: being cooped up in T3 at London Heathrow is not the most memorable experience. A first class lounge is lovely, but my stomach was killing me along with the repetetiveness of British news television. The air was stifling, so I left. I had read every newspaper, magazine and book until my eyes were sore. I walked around the terminal so many times, I figured everybody would recognize me. Hey, it's the guy in the yellow backpack. Who's mocking him now? I swear, when you travel alone, people find it as an excuse to shun you. Like you're purposely antisocial. Still, I was no Tom Hanks. I've stayed in airports for longer, usually a fair deal more groggy and upset at the viciousness of air travel over 20,000 kilometers, but then at least I had something familiar: a face to stare at, a friend to talk to. My worries are rendered unimportant, though, because time moves on and eventually... we get there. I mean, that's what you pay for. But the lack of usual smiling Cathay agents (I had to negotiate with an Indian cleaning lady who didn't speak English just to get into the lounge) and even smiling Cathay passengers (the lounge was empty save for one or two souls) - plus getting in trouble for walking around with a video camera in my hand (it needed some fresh air; I took it for a walk), AND not knowing the gate number until nearly 40 minutes before the flight - made the terminal atmosphere absolutely terminating of that pleasant feeling after a transit through British security (never thought I'd say that). Sure, I have a great trip to look forward to. But I can't take the thirty seconds of stock footage needed for a good introduction? Not until I get out of no-man's land, at least... I suppose that's where my problem lies, patience. I should be enjoying this. I should be documenting it in full. Happily. That Starbucks should have kicked in. But them Brits just don't know how to make a good coffee.Christag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1369010599283011589.post-15079513639787882192007-06-21T20:36:00.000+08:002007-06-21T21:34:00.845+08:00Midnight ThoughtsTraveling this way is such an amazing experience. It gives me the courage to think beyond the normal comforts of our Western lifestyle, allows me to see the hardship and suffering and happiness and love that is all around us, miraculously and unfortunately. We are privileged beings. And some of those terrible things that have happened to our friends, our country -- death, terror, depression -- are no longer what we read about in textbooks. The displacement from comfort and a confined perspective releases our innermost emotions - not the most emotional, but the most honest. I fear that upon reuniting with my former classmates, my judgement will once again be narrowed and impaired. For a young man of developing opinions and a diverse acceptance of reality, traveling by oneself, and just applying the time to ponder what we observe and how we feel about, is growth beyond anything one can imagine. However, it requires a determined balance of comfort and displacement.
I'm on a plane to London at the moment. It's nearing 11 in the evening, Pacific Standard. We're flying into the rising sun, as the Western hemisphere drifts into sleep. Light seeps through cracks in the bulkhead. The silence of the cabin, the simple knowledge of where we're going, and how it will be different for every one of us, unites the passengers. This is no common feat - some will be returning to family, some on business, others like myself moving on into uncharted waters. We're somewhere on the North Atlantic Track, a name that sends shivers down my spine. Desolation - it's where nobody pulls over, gets out of their car, and takes a picture. It's the middle passage, and we pass in luxury. But something seems out of place. Wherever we end up, it's not how we left it, and it's nothing like Los Angeles.
I imagine how difficult this journey will be. Relative luxury, per se, but taxing on the mind. This is no vacation, and it's not work either. It's a certain type of discovery. I'm going to tape all day, immerse myself in Chinese culture, and then have no time to think. What is it all good for, without time to understand what I'm looking at. The physical exhaustion will be enough, but the mix of personal, emotional circumstances will bring it over the top. I think, at least. Maybe I'm in for a pleasant surprise. I won't miss you, good ol' US of A. As I pass over the faintly shadowed waters seven miles below, I know I won't miss a single one. Because once I've seen it, it's not going to change... and I'm coming back. There's nothing to miss when I have nothing to lose. Everything is right here with me, in my head and with my senses. So long, bright shores of Canada.
I love London from the air. We descend through the clouds in a dream-like state. The muttering is subdued, weary from long hours of darkness. And then the air gets choppy, buffets us around through our wild turns and stepped approach. We're a majestic bird, perching in all its glory. The city below is nothing like any American city I've intimately known; broad tracts of residences are quickly separated by simple fields. High apartment buildings lie across the street from parks not given an inch of room to breathe, completely covered by flourishing trees. And then there's the Thames. It's no narrow waterway; its gloomy depth is solemnly respected by the vibrant city on either side. It winds its way into every picture, refusing to be ignored. Countryside is never far here, the bold beauty that is British.
We alight harshly, and when one thinks of where we have come from, what we have accomplished in this commonplace feat, the feeling is happiness. Pride, almost. This place is beautiful in its own right, and the best part is that it won't have a chance to grow old.Christag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1369010599283011589.post-50242061082163011092004-07-11T15:53:00.000+08:002007-07-11T15:53:33.511+08:00A Stranger's Shabu Shabu in Shanghai<DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Today's activity would consist of an all-day excursion to the city of Suzhou, a 35-minute ride by train. We drove to the Shanghai train station, and tried to enter the soft-seat (first class, as opposed to sitting on the floor) waiting area. But our elderly guide had an argument with the station attendant, so we were relegated to the waiting room of the masses.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Our train was soon called, and there was an rush of people to the platform. It was deadly business. We walked along the platform for quite a ways - the train must have had about fifteen coaches - up to the first class compartment. Our guide brainlessly directed us to our seats, and then realized we were in the wrong car. So we had to fight the onslaught of oncoming passengers, back onto the platform, then into the correct car.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>The ridiculously stringent platform guards whistled frantically for people to board the train faster, although there was nothing they could do in the backlog. Whistle after whistle in our ears only made us more pushy and nervous. The inside of the train was comfortable, however - cool with big windows and soft seats that shot forward at the press of a button. The train closed its doors with the traditional beeping, and slowly and smoothly departed. It seemed to speed up for a long, long time. I was surprised to look out the window at a blurry countryside. How fast were we really going? A scrolling display alternated between Chinese and English at the center of the car, and here was displayed the answer.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Two-hundred and fifty kilometers per hour, almost 160 mph. Once the trip to Suzhou took an hour, but on this express train it took more like thirty minutes.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>The station wasn't anything special. We crossed a street so jammed that it looked like a puzzle waiting to be solved by invisible hands from the sky. Crossing the street and almost escaping the madness, we passed through a narrow blue-lined passageway and over a clunky metal bridge. Heaps of trash were all around us, and the air smelled of cigarettes and sewer. The sky was still black and barely dripping, and people were everywhere. </DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Our guide was a stark contrast, however. Over the eight short hours he would lead us, our group would fall in love with him. He was young, single, well-spoken and funny. His first statement was a joke:</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>"You know why it is so hard for me to lead these tour groups? Let me show you an example. The UN asked all its members, 'Please explain your honest opinion regarding the food shortage in the rest of the world.' Well, Africa didn't understand the word 'food', Eastern Europe didn't understand the word 'honest', Western Europe didn't understand the word 'shortage', communist Asia didn't understand the word 'opinion', and America didn't understand the phrase 'the rest of the world'." What a way to kick off our tour. That guide has balls.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>He described the town of Suzhou as a place for "recycled teenagers" - the elderly - because the living pace was slow. The city was short and suburban, leaving all the high rises to Shanghai. Suzhou was known for its gardens and silk.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>The first garden we visited was gigantic. Small rooms, some for men and some for women, were scattered around the outskirts. Large ponds where the usual koi swarmed any crumb filled the innards of the garden. The prized area of the garden was our last stop, the bonzai garden. It was quite simplistic, and very peaceful.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>On our way to the silk factory, where we would observe the process of silk production, we passed through the city walls and over the city moat traditional to all of the cities we've visited. Until a decade ago, almost everything outside of these walls was farmland.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>The silk factory wasn't huge, and it looked more like a midsize company's office reception area. We were taken into a conference room and given a demonstration of the life cycle of a silk worm. Each stage of the worm was floating in the center of a gel-filled cylinder. Finally, we were taken to live silk worms feeding on mulberry leaves. Some freaked out at the sight of the worms, while other embraced them crawling over their various extremities, applying delicate sucking pressure.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We passed onward to watch workers find the thread from the thumb-sized cacoons and feed it into huge looms after they are boiled. They are rolled into rolls, processed, and sent off somewhere else. As we approached the giant mall-like structure, we got a demonstration of the making of comforters, and then, of course, an opportunity to buy one. Or twenty.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>The silk fabric was extremely strong, and as five people tried to stretch it a meter, they almost failed. The nimble little Chinese women could do it in a flash, though. After the demonstrations were all complete and we wandered on through the superstore to make purchases of the finest silk China had to offer, I got completely lost. Our guide had left us without much instruction, and Mrs. James and Kozden were nowhere to be found. I joined a group of three or four people, and after frantic searching we found them all at a nearby restaurant for lunch. They hadn't even noticed we had disappeared.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>After lunch we visited another garden. This one also featured buildings, ponds, and a bonzai garden. Mollie climbed up to retrieve some vines from above the walkway, and so the grape wars began. Mrs. James ran screaming from us students.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Our day wasn't nearly over. Our next tour was at a silk embroidery institute, where we watched artists create multi-thousand dollar works. The largest piece took one person nearly a year, 8 hours each day. Even for the masters who dedicated their whole lives to the craft, and spent a whole year patiently on one piece, the price - scaled up for profit, mind you - was not a very sufficient salary. Everything was out of our budget, but we have a good time trying to find the most expensive embroidery. The highest we found was half a million yuan.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We voted to take a boat ride along the Grand Canal, so we walked through a quiet little alley and over a bridge to the water's edge. A little water taxi pulled up after a few minutes. We piled into the air conditioned cabin and settled down for the half-hour ride. The Grand Canal, built hundreds and hundreds of years ago in some ancient dynasty, is almost 1,800 kilometers long. The boat just barely fit all of us, and we drifted along rather slowly. We entered a narrow residential alley, along which residents were going to the bathroom, as well as cleaning and cooking things. These houses were hundreds of years old as well, and were lucky to have running water. They call Suzhou the "Venice of China".</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We took another vote, as we had several hours before we had to go to the train station. Our next destination: a museum. It was between the museum and another activity that sucked more money out of our pockets.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>The museum was just a few air conditioned rooms, each holding a few display cases, mainly local art. Each carving was gigantic, though - two meter long elephant tusks carved where they lay, and huge sandlewood Buddhist vistas. We were also taught how to differentiate a sandlewood fan and a bamboo fan, and led into a huge shop where we could buy all kinds of ornamental carvings.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>After some serious patience, it was time to board the train back. We had no problem getting into the waiting room with our guide Tom's expertiese, and the train back was just as comfortable.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>We were taken by bus to the Bund for a nighttime view of the Shanghai skyline. Then, we were <I>released</I>.</DIV> <DIV ALIGN=LEFT>Our chaperones - primarily Mrs. James - were surely regretful of that decision, because us savage animals devoured an entire California Pizza Kitchen. I had shabu shabu at the hotel's top floor restaurant. Amy and Gina got a top-floor restaurant course at a different hotel for nearly sixty bucks a piece, but my elaborate meal, personal service and great view totaled no more than thirty dollars. Seeing as I was close to home, I just dropped a few floors and fell right asleep.</DIV> Chris