Chinese New Year Travels (Chengdu, Kunming)

Well, now that we've established the adventure that was my train ride to Chengdu, we can get on with my actual experience in Chengdu.

Literally 10 minutes after checking into the hostel that Mandy and Luke told me they would be staying at, the both of them walk in with a few other people that I recognized from our hostel in Xi'an. Jack (a woman) from England, Kim from Scotland, Lee from America, and Regis (aka Reggae, Frenchy) from France/Belgium. Kim and Jack are both teachers in South Korea. Kim is about 33 and is as obnoxious as a Scottish woman can get (she dubbed me "Dorothy" after telling her I was from Kansas). Jack was about 39 and kept Kim under control. Frenchy was a slightly slimy Frenchman with a hilarious, but maniacal laugh. Lee was my age and is actually teaching in a city very close to me. Jack and Kim were regular troublemakers. The most hilarious story they told us was when they got kicked out of their school in Korea. I guess on New Year's Eve Kim had stayed out very late and arrived back at their school around eight in the morning with a bottle of whiskey in her hand. Basically, she sat and drank the whiskey as students were eating breakfast. Awesome.

Anyway, after talking with Luke and Mandy at our hostel, we all concurred that Kunming should be the next stop in our travels. So after getting some Chinese scribbled down by a hostel employee, I set out to buy tickets to Kunming. I went to one ticket booth and there was a substantial line. After standing in line for a few minutes, I realized that the line was not moving AT ALL. I looked to the very front of the line and noticed that people were actually playing cards, seemingly having no interest in buying tickets. I left my spot to inquire about this bizarre state of affairs. From the way that printer parts and sheets were tangled around an employee, it appeared at first that the printer was broken. So I went to another booth.

At the second ticket booth, people were also standing in line and not moving. Except at this line there looked as if there were two police officers handing out numbers to people, so that everyone knew their place in line (FOR ONCE!). As I was leaving this line, some guy grabbed my arm. I have no idea why he did or what he said, but I pulled my arm away, yelled at him with a number of English expletives, and walked away. Not wanting to deal with this, I made my way back to the first booth. Keep in mind, this was at least half an hour later. The line HAD STILL NOT MOVED. It was at this point that I thought, "To hell with this" and went right up to the front and gave the employee my piece of scrap paper with train information on it. I ended up getting the ticket right then and there. I still have no idea to this day why I was able to get a ticket while a line full of Chinese people had been waiting for at least 30-45 minutes. I asked the hostel owner and he said, "They think that foreigners are helpless" which could possibly be part of it but I don't think that was the entire story since people were standing in line forever. I think they were just waiting for specific trains that go on sale exactly 3-10 days in advance...I don't know.

By this time it was 3:00 p.m. and not having much else to do, we elected to drink a few bottles of wine in the hostel. Having completed this task, we set out to eat Chengdu's famous hot pot. Hot pot is a really popular dish in China. It basically consists of a huge boiling pot split into two sides. One side is a kind of milky broth (actually made with bone, from what I've been told) and a spicier, darker side. After the pot boils, you can throw a bunch of food into it. Tofu, potatoes, pork slices, beef slices, cabbage, etc. and it cooks right there in front of you. Although this dish is widely available in China, it's notorious in Chengdu because of how spicy the spicy side is. Chengdu, actually the Sichuan province in general, is infamous for their spicy food. The spicy side of the hot pot was indeed tongue numbing. We all started sweating, but you could just see bead after bead of sweat rolling down Luke's face. Needless to say, our digestive systems didn't treat us too well the next day.

That night I met up with Drake pal, Sabel, and our Korean friend Seong (aka The Korean King). They happened to run into each other at the hostel they were staying at. Seong, having spent an extensive amount of time in Chengdu, was the right man to show us around. We went out to a couple of clubs, but it was in the middle of the week so not too much was happening. Afterwards, Seong took us to a great 24 hour noodle restaurant. At this point, Seong told us some crazy stories from when he was younger. Like most East Asian people, Seong looks a lot younger than he is. I wouldn't have guessed he was a day over 26 or 27 but he is actually 37. Anyway, Seong is one of the nicest, soft spoken people I have ever met, but he told us that he used to be in a biker gang. He said that he got into a lot of fights but never carried a knife or anything. Then he held up his hand to us which was noticeably scarred but one could tell it had had time to heal, and said, "There were too many times that the other person had a knife." I said something to the extent of "WHHHOOOOOOOA!" It doesn't even matter if he was lying or not, his stories were just intense.

Most of my troupe decided to go to see Pandas the next day. It is one of the only Panda reserves in China. The big thing there is that you can sit and hold a baby panda or put your arm around a grown panda. Not being very interested in doing that, I elected to opt out of the Panda excursion. Since they had left very early the morning they were also back very early in the afternoon. Luke, Mandy, and I had heard of this Mao Museum that was supposed to be an interesting find in Chengdu. After looking around quite a while for it, we realized it was just some guy's little apartment. Not only were there piles and piles of Mao junk all around (statues, posters, badges, etc.) but there was also piles and piles of other random junk. I mean, it was just this dude's apartment. The couple who owned the place were both very old. It cost five yuan to come in, and another five yuan to take pictures. We had a good laugh about that.

We got back a little later than planned so we almost just grabbed some street food. Lee had gotten us hooked up with a guy who did tourist trips and whatnot around Chengdu. We talked to this guy and scheduled a trip to see the largest sitting Buddha IN THE WORLD!!! Since Lee and Kim did not want to go we needed a sixth person to make it cheaper for all of us so we talked this Finnish guy in our hostel named Johannes and he was down with the excursion. He had a wonderfully sarcastic personality so it was great having him around. The Giant Buddha ended up being a part of a larger area filled with touristy things. A lot of the surroundings were beautiful but not that interesting. Later that night we went to see the Sichuan Opera. Besides Beijing Opera, Sichuan Opera is the most well known style of opera in China. The main thing we wanted to see were the face changers. These actors have several masks which they can change at any time in less than a second. The do it in such a way that the masks seem to disappear into thin air, because it's not like you can see them holding any of the masks in their hands. It's kind of like how magicians don't give away their secrets, the face changers don't give away their secret to changing masks so quickly. There were several shorter performances before the actual face changing: a boy balancing a candle on his head, hand shadows, music performance, etc. The face changers ended up being fairly impressive but their performance was only 15 minutes or so.

I had a sleeper train to Kunming, and luckily it was very uneventful. Our hostel was called Hump Hostel which made it that more awesome. When I first arrived, I saw that there were people in the bar downstairs (granted, this is 9:30 in the morning or so). While I was waiting for my room to open up, two of the guys I saw came upstairs to the hostel and demanded more drinks. Clearly, they were drunk out of their minds and they were scaring the Chinese employees (I think they were Australian). Eventually one of them disappeared and the other wondered to the outdoor patio. The one that ended on the patio ended up laying out in the sun ALL DAY LONG. We called him Mr. Tan. He was quite burnt afterwards.

We didn't up doing too much in Kunming, as most of the places of interest are outside of Kunming. Additionally, Kunming was a stopping point before we went to Lijiang. We did, however, eat dinner with some Drake people who are teaching in China. Kelli, Doug, and Nate all came to our hostel to bring out to a great restaurant. Fried goat cheese is a standard dish of the region so we pigged out on that since cheese is usually next to impossible to get in China. Kunming looked like a really cool city to live (and teach in!) and I wish we had had more time there. The weather was beautiful!

How I Have Become More Chinese

I thought I'd take a break writing about my travels over the last month and tell you how I have become more Chinese.

- One of the first things you notice once you go to a restaurant here is that they only serve hot water. Cold water is only available from water bottles. I prefer my water colder when I'm working out, but I definitely enjoy my hot water as well.

- When and where you would expect lines to be formed (train stations, ticket offices, waiting for the treadmills at the gym to open up, etc.) they are not. Instead, there is a tumorous lump of people surrounding the front. Admittingly, I have pushed my way to the front on a few occasions. Once, when we were putting our luggage through security, this woman who was behind me tried to push her way ahead to get her luggage as it was coming out. Having full knowledge that I put my luggage on the conveyor belt before she did, I firmly stuck my elbow and arm out in front of her.

- I absolutely adore getting drunk and doing karaoke...but I did that in the states so that doesn't really count.

- In the States I almost never drank tea. Now I drink at least four cups of day. It's great and has several wonderful health benefits!

- One thing I really do like about China over America is that Chinese men love offering cigarettes to friends and acquaintances. When I have been on nic kicks here I have offered cigarettes to a lot of different people-primarily taxi cab drivers.

This will be an ongoing list...

Chinese New Year Travels (Xi'an, Luoyang)

I had an overnight train to Xi'an which went fine, but I arrived at the crack of dawn which is never fun. As a side note, there is one thing that Chinese do that is only very annoying and bothersome when one is in a quiet, confined space: Chinese don't chew with their mouths closed. So while I was in my sleeper room with three other people, I would be reading a book and all of the sudden hear the obnoxious *smack, smack, smack* come from just a few feet away. I just wanted to kill everyone when this happened, and it continued to happen throughout the trip. Unfortunately, I notice it a whole more now. Anyway, while I was waiting for my room to open up at the hostel I met three Americans and one Australian. Two of the Americans, Omar and Paul, were on holiday from teaching in South Korea while the other American, Mandy, had been traveling the world for five months already. She bought an "around the world" ticket and will be traveling for another 11 months all over the world. I want to do that too! The Australian, Luke, was traveling on holiday from school but he is planning on coming back in September to be a student studying Chinese.

Mandy, Luke, and I decided to bike on top of the Xi'an city wall which was great. There is not much great scenery from the city wall (not to mention the haze/smoke), but it was still a good time. Apparently, it's the oldest preserved city wall in China. Later that day we went to the Drum and Bell Towers. The Bell tower was used to signify the beginning of the day and the Drum tower was used to signify the end of the day. There were performances at each tower. The Bell Tower performance was primarily made up of bell players (surprise, surprise) and the The Drum Tower...well you get the drift. The drum performance was better than the bell and it was performed by teenagers, but the innovative ways in which they played their drums (such as tapping the sticks on the side of the drums) were very entertaining.

The next day, as if you could have guessed, we went to see the Terra Cotta warriors. When we walked up we ran into a group of four American students learning Chinese. They are in an intensive program in which they can only speak Chinese. If they are caught speaking English than they may get a strike against them. Three strikes and they may be kicked out of the program...intense! The nine of us asked for a English speaking tour guide, and she said she wanted to charge us 150 yuan. At once we all started complaining ("Awww, c'mon!") and saying, "Too expensive!" in Chinese and then she almost immediately said, "OK! 100 yuan!" and we all cheered in unison. Anyway, the tour was really cool. The most interesting part of the tour was finding out that each warrior had uniquely been carved. Each has its own unique facial features with some minor differences in uniform (for instance, commanding officers have different head gear and wear their hair differently).

Both nights we were in Xi'an, we enjoyed the entertainment provided by the bar in the basement. At one point during second night, a man approached Luke and asked him, "This is going to make me sound like a weirdo, but do you happen to be from Adelaide, Australia?" Luke hesitantly replied, "...Yes". Apparently this man had been living in Adelaide and remembered seeing Luke at a bar there. This man ended up being someone we would travel with to Chengdu. His name is Regis, but we ended up calling him Frenchy, an absolutely hilarious (and slightly slimy) gent. This also isn't the only "it's a small world after all" incident which will be revealed once I get to Chengdu.

At one point while in Xi'an, I realize that, "Crap. I meant to go to Luoyang." Which is 5 1/2 hours east of Xi'an. My train ride to Luoyang ended up being the worst of the entire month of travel. You wouldn't think so because it was probably the shortest of any train that I took the entire time. However, I felt nauseous during the entire time and attempted to sleep after taking some antihistamine medication but was so uncomfortable I couldn't, especially since I had to put all my luggage right in front of me. Anyway, enough complaining. Once I got to Luoyang, I was picked up by my hostel. What was strange was he was with one of the hostel residents, a French Canadian. The Canadian kept on saying what a great host this guy was. I thought, "That's odd that the owner of the hostel would come pick me up. Usually it is an employee." On the way there, the man asked me (using the French Canadian as a translator) where I was from. I said that I was a teacher in Shijiazhuang. Almost immediately the man's face brightened right up. He said he had two girls from Shijiazhuang who were also teachers come to his hostel last year! Immediately upon hearing this, my heart dropped a little bit. My friend Sherly is a teacher at my school and she is currently in her second year of teaching through the Drake program. When I was asking her about travel during the Chinese New Year I expressed interest in going to Luoyang. She said that Luoyang was pretty cool but the hostel she stayed at was weird because it was just some guy's apartment where he lived with his son. As soon as this memory creeped back out, I realized where who I was with and where I was going! It was a little strange the first night. The French Canadian was leaving the same night I was arriving so I was down a translator. However, the man ended up being very helpful.

Also, it was absolutely freezing cold in the apartment/hostel. I didn't even need to refrigerate my leftovers from dinner. Luckily, there was a heated blanket that did the trick.

Anyway, the first day, I went to see the Buddhist Grottoes which are essentially small caves carved into limestone centuries ago. However, not all of them were small, there were a few very large ones that were quite impressive. I'll put up some pictures of these. There was also a very cool mist over the river next to the grottoes that added an air of mystery.

When I got back from the Grottoes that evening, I told the man that I wanted to go see the Shaolin temple the next day. He said it wouldn't be a problem. When I woke up the next morning he said that I had woken up too late to go to the Shaolin temple. I thought, "Well, you could have probably told me that last night." (By the way, at this point, Google translator is serving as foremost form of communication). Instead, he tells me that I can go to a Buddhist temple (not that I haven't been to enough already). However, this Buddhist temple is considered the first Buddhist temple (still standing) in China. It was quite an adventure getting there and probably took and hour to an hour and a half total. I enlisted the help of these two Chinese girls who were actually heading my same way. They were college students and they were very interested in America and my experience in China so far.

The Buddhist temple ended up being my favorite temple that I have visited in China. I watched a Buddhist ceremony that some patrons also participated in. The grounds were pleasant and offered a bit of uniqueness among the many temples in China.

The second night (and last night) I was at the apartment/hostel, there were three more guests: a Japanese man and a younger Korean couple. By the time I got back from the Buddhist temple, the man and the Japanese man had eaten dinner and were a bit drunk on baijiu (rice liquor). As he was getting ready for bed, the man said to me, "I...I...drunk" shortly after which I had to restrain myself from a fit of laughter. Since the Koreans were staying in the room that connected to the bathroom, the man (from what I could ascertain) said that I couldn't go to the bathroom after they went to bed. Like clockwork, I wake up in the middle of the night and have the utmost urge to urinate. With no where to go and no disposable container to do it in, I elected to open up my seven story window and let her rip. Very relieving (but cold!) I must say.

The next day I was off to Chengdu! I'll just say a little about my train ride. This was probably the most crowded train I had been on...and it was going to be 20 hours long. Within the first five minutes of stepping on the train there was a fight between a few girls and one guy. Apparently, the guy had a standing-only ticket and did not feel like standing for twenty hours and he refused to move from the seat that rightfully belonged to one of these girls. These girls started smacking him and screaming at him. One of the girls started bawling. This was holding up the entire line of people trying to find their seats and/or a place for their luggage to be stowed. I'm not sure, but I think at one point the guy may have pushed or hit one of the girls. When this happened, a guy standing in line with his luggage dropped his luggage and jumped over the seat. He grabbed the seat-taker by the hair and smacked him a few times, yelling at him as he did this. Finally the seat-taker, with face red and bleeding and eyes watering, gave up the seat. As we began to move, I looked back and noticed that people were sitting on top of seats. That is, people had their legs draped over or around others that were sitting. That's how crowded it was. There was also an old guy with rotten teeth who kept on staring at me. By the time we got to Chengdu, the floor was covered in trash, chicken bones, seeds, and general debris. What an awful, disgusting mess it was. At one point, a woman was eating over me while I was trying my best at a Sudoku puzzle. Of course, she was chewing with her mouth open and a little bit of saliva fell onto my page. Taking all it in stride, I brushed it off with my sleeve. A minute later, a rather large food particle from her mouth landed on my Sudoku page. "All in stride," I thought, "all in stride." Amazingly, I still wouldn't consider this as bad as my train to Luoyang.

Chinese New Year Travels Cont. (Harbin, Changchun)

The day after Terri, Angela, and I returned to Beijing after flying in from Shanghai, we tried to go to the Great Wall. After receiving some dodgy information, we believed that we could go to a particular parking lot and find a personal driver to the Great Wall for only 200 yuan. After going to this parking lot and asking around, we soon found out that we had been misinformed (although we did arrive quite late in the morning). Anyway, we decided instead to go check out Tianamen Square and later that afternoon Terri and I went to the Temple of Heaven in Beijing which is a Buddhist Temple. Later that night Terri and I went out to a couple of clubs. One of which a Chinese man insisted on dancing with me, but I declined. Terri attempted to order two whiskey shots with coke as a chaser, but the bartender did not understand that she wanted them separate from one another and not a whiskey and coke, so that took about 10 or 15 minutes. Anyway, I had an absolutely amazing time with Terri, and wish she was still here every single day...sigh. Miss ya, babe!

The next morning I decided to take the Great Wall tour offered by our hostel. Angela, Jon, Fabian, and Sasha took the same tour the day Terri left China so I had to take it by myself, which was fine with me. An American named Rob and I was picked up by a van full of people (Germans, Swiss, Americans, British, etc.) and we were handed sandwiches and juice, which was apparently our breakfast that was included in the package. It was on the Simayan (unsure of spelling) part of the wall which is the best reserved and least renovated part of the wall outside of Beijing. There's no good way to describe it. Just an amazing work of human design. We hiked about 10 kilometers which took about 3 1/2-4 hours. The best part was at the end when our tour guide set us down and said, "OK, we can either go down the fast way or the slow way. The fast way will take 30 seconds but the slow way will take 20 minutes." No one said anything, so I said, "It doesn't matter to me." No one still said anything and I said, "Shall we take it to a vote?" Finally our tour guide said, "OK, come with me." He led us to the fast way...a zip cord across a reservoir. I said, "I'll go first." but then the Germans ended going before I did. It was awesome and we went down at a pretty substantial speed. Anyway, I'll steal some of Angela's pictures and put them up here.

Angela and I ended up staying in Beijing longer than we should have because we were trying to find seats on any train to Harbin. Harbin is without a doubt one of the most popular travel destinations in China, so during the Chinese New Year, good train tickets to Harbin are extremely hard to come by. After finally convincing Angela that we were not going to find seats to Harbin, we elected to buy standing-only tickets. Eight train ride...not so bad, right? Well we didn't think so at first. We got on our train with plenty of time, sat around the dining hall and got comfortable. As soon as the train started moving, we noticed there were tons of open seats. Pleasantly surprised, we took two of the open seats. "This is great!" we thought. We purchased standing-only tickets, but we found some really nice seats that were unoccupied. After 20 minutes on the train, someone came around to check our tickets. We thought it odd before, because usually your ticket is checked twice even before getting on the train. Anyway, the woman checking our ticket took one glance at our tickets and then gave the most sour expression ever. We thought we were in trouble for taking seats when we had standing-only tickets, but she quickly took the ticket of a Chinese guy sitting next to us and compared his ticket with out ticket. The tickets were for different cities, different trains, and (barely) different times. WE HAD GOTTEN ON THE WRONG TRAIN. The full shock of this realization had not hit us before the train maid (?) held up a finger signaling she would return in a little while. Angela and I looked at each other in total shock and amazement. How had we done this? We figured out there were two trains leaving the same platform within five minutes of each other and we just hadn't bothered to check which train was actually ours. Angela and I go over all our options while freaking out, we text people who can tell us where the city we are headed actually IS relative to the city that we actually were intending to go. Finally, the conductor, who speaks decent English, comes and communicates that both trains will stop in the same city...but, we have five minutes to run six platforms to get to the train we were supposed to be on. So as we were getting close, we were rounded up by the train maids and we waited anxiously by the door. As soon as our train stopped. We ran towards the platforms. As we were running I noticed our train maid was wearing high heels because of the steady clicking noise. Finally, we got to the platform, completely out of breath and realized we had time to spare. The train maid explained our situation to a conductor on the other train, we thanked her, and entered the train. It was extremely crowded but we found a little nook on the dining table and dealt with a very annoying, spoiled, Chinese boy who wouldn't shut up for the next four hours. BUT, we WERE happy we got to sit for the first four hours.

Oh, only if that were the end of our troubles in getting to Harbin! As we left the train station in Harbin, we found it next to impossible to get a taxi. Taxis were waving us off or simply just passing us even though they were unoccupied. Finally, an employee (who was shortly followed by three businessmen) all tried helping us. Interpreting the address of our hostel and finally getting a hold of the hostel. Through broken English and some Chinglish, the three businessmen offered to take us to the hostel, free of charge. Now I have been here long enough to be weary of too-good-to-be-true offers, but I also consider myself a good judge of character. These men had already gone out of their way to help Angela and me, and they seemed to have completely charitable intentions. Not knowing where our hostel REALLY was, Angela and I accepted the offer. These men ended up being really kind and wanted to converse as much as possible (as much as the barrier would allow them). They all worked at IKEA and gave us business cards before they helped take our luggage out of their car at the hostel. When we arrive at the hostel in the middle of the day, it is completely dead. No one is around except the reception and maids. The place is dark and cold. Because of the season, Angela and I had been forced to occupy this hostel the first night in Harbin because all the other hotels were booked until the next night (oh, and this is the ONLY hostel in Harbin). Our room is freezing cold and way below par compared to the hostels we've stayed at. Anyway, we make due and get the hell out after the first night. The most hilarious part about that hostel is that most people only stay one night because it is such a terrible, terrible place. What's more, according to hostelworld.com the hostel was started by a woman who had traveled a lot and has had a range of hostel experiences...so don't you think she would try to make her hostel not a total piece of crap?

Shortly after arriving at our hotel (which, actually cost just slightly more than our hostel), we were met by our friend Daniel and his friend Craig. If you remember from earlier posts, Daniel is our Scottish friend who taught in my city, but he moved to Changchun (close to Harbin) at the end of last semester. Daniel's friend Craig came to visit him and try to find some work in Shanghai. In Harbin we walked the streets and admired all the ice sculptures. Harbin, by the way, is the most populated most Northern city in China. Every year they for the Chinese Spring Festival they build what they call Ice City. They wait until this gigantic lake is frozen and literally cut blocks of ice out of it to build a life-sized city of ice. The pictures tell the entire story. There were slides made of ice which we went down a few times. Further inside the city, though, ice sculptures line the main streets. Harbin also has an incredible amount of Russian influence on architecture, food, and culture. We definitely had some amazing Russian cuisine while we there. But, as I mentioned before, we had a tough time getting taxis. We once spent half an hour trying to hail a taxi but none of them would take us because according to our friend Daniel, the Chinese of Harbin hate the Russians. We never got a clear answer as to why this is, but Daniel asked a taxi driver why the Chinese hate Russians (this taxi driver actually refused to take us at first, but I just jumped in anyway because I did not give a crap, and after learning that we weren't Russian, he talked Daniel's ear off) and the taxi driver said, "It is not polite to answer such a question." We think that it might be because the Russians are rude to the Chinese but we're not sure.

Other than seeing Ice City, we also saw Siberian Tigers in a reserve outside of Harbin. We went in an armored bus, Jurassic Park style, through the reserve seeing the tigers (there was actually a place for Ligers (tigers + lions) which I didn't even know actually existed outside of Napoleon Dynamite. Anyway, at the ticket office of this reserve, you have the option of buying various livestock to feed to the tigers. Chickens, sheep, and yes...even cows. Unfortunately cows were 1500 yuan, so we elected to go with the chicken that was 40 yuan. At one point during our tour, our bus came to a stop and a heavily armored car came and stopped to the side of us. The driver quickly opened the door and threw out a chicken on top of the car. As soon as that happened, a tiger jumped on top of the car and bit into the chicken and started tearing its feathers out. Not as gruesome as I would have hoped but it was definitely cool.

Other than that, we ate a lot of amazing Russian cuisine in Harbin.

While in Harbin, Angela and I decided to make a side trip to Daniel's current place of residence in Changchun which is the capital of the province almost directly below Harbin. There was really nothing too special about Changchun, but we had fun. Like most other current capitals in China, it had an ever-increasing foreign population (Changchun is especially known for its Korean population) and increasingly modern (read: Western) take on culture and entertainment. We did go ice skating, which was my first time and I only fell once! I was quite proud of myself.