Pingyao/Taiyuan Trip and Various Things

Sorry for the big gap since I last posted, but not too much that has been that noteworthy has been happening lately. I'm this is mostly due to the fact that the environment that surrounds me has become quite normal to me. I'm sure once I come back to the States, I'll think to myself, "Wait, where are all the babies pooping and peeing on the street?" or "Why can't I drink alcohol in this taxi?"

As my time here in China winds down, I feel as though I'm ready to complete this experience and move on to the next step. However, I have about two months left and I'm definitely going to keep on living it up.

- We formed a foreigners' soccer team and we usually have at least one match every weekend. There is no league, per se, but our captain is well connected enough that he can arrange matches against teams made up of students, co-workers, etc. Our team is made up of Africans, Canadians, Koreans, Indians, Scottish, and English among others. Tyler, our field captain (as opposed to Hugo, our managerial captain), is incredibly competitive and likes to make a competition out of most things...not to mention something he has a lot of passion for (soccer). In fact, he is the one that regularly won all those drinking competitions at Seven Club. The first few times we played he would yell at people and be a general jerk. We nicknamed him Tyrant Tyler. Finally Francis had enough of it and ripped into him. He still yells a little bit, but most of it is positive encouragement. In any case, it's been lots of fun so far playing a game that I haven't really played since I was 8.

- I played my first game of cricket! It was a pick-up game but it was good fun. It's not nearly as confusing as I thought it would be, but it's like the imperialistic, aristocratic version of baseball (at least on some levels).

- A couple weekends ago, my school took us on a trip to a mountain outside of Taiyuan and then to Pingyao, which is one of China's only remaining ancient cities (meaning that it hasn't completely modernized and still has some structures from hundreds of years ago). We had one guide for both places and he was absolutely awful. It wasn't that his English was terrible (but it was bad enough that the Chinese people that work in my foreign affairs office were making fun of him), but it was that he didn't explain ANYTHING to us. To me, the job of a tour guide is to explain the cultural/political/religious/etc. significance of a whatever it is that one is taking a tour of. The entire tour, we had to ask our guide to explain most everything. Oh! But he did explain some things: "This is a tree trunk." or "This is a wooden table with wooden chairs." (I am 100% serious). One pretty odd experience we had during this trip occurred when we were on top of the city wall in Pingyao. Within the city wall is a prison and we could see the prisoners waving to us from their barred windows. So we waved back. We probably gave them the most amusement they had all day long.

The pictures above are all from the trip.

- Considering the recent weather we've been having (80s mostly), our classrooms can get fairly toasty without any air conditioning. So I come in with shorts, birkenstock sandals, and a t-shirt already sweating while some of my students are wearing two or three layers of clothes. I turn on the fans and my students begin to whine (Chinese girls universally have this annoying whine that makes them sound like they are spoiled 7 year olds). They say, "We are going to catch colds!" Then I usually go on a rant for a few minutes about how no one in the history of the world has ever caught a cold from a fan.

Despite the advent of modern medicine in China, there is still a firm belief in some traditional, pseudo-scientific fact views on sickness and health. One of them is that you can catch a cold as a direct result of being exposed to the cold weather (even just wind) for an extended amount of time. This, of course, is not true. However, one is infinitely more likely to catch a cold from lack of sleep (proven), lack of vitamin D (proven), or change in behaviors such as a result of winter weather like spending more time inside and being in closer proximity to others (proven).

I asked one of my students about this and they said there is an old saying in Chinese that basically translates to "Don't take off your winter clothes too soon in the spring and don't put your winter clothes on too soon in the fall"...didn't really answer my question...but OK.

In any case I am going to do a mini-presentation on "How One Actually Catches the Cold" in my classes this week. Terri thinks I'm mean for doing it, and I may be a jerk, but it must be done! I will be merely providing them with scientifically proven facts concerning the common cold...with a fair bit of biting sarcasm thrown into the mix.

- This weekend I am FINALLY going to Qingdao, which is the beer capital of China (producers of TsingTao beer, one of the worst beers I've ever had in America is considered the best beer in China! Who would've known!) I'm going with Amit and this Scottish guy named James "Jimmy". Good stories shall abound...I think we are going to go for a hostel that is right on the beach! Woo!

- Also I am visiting my Norwegian friends, Bjorn and Hanne, in Hainan (the Hawaii of China) at the end of May. Speaking of, I don't think I mentioned this but at their going away party back in the beginning of April, Bjorn, me and a few others went to a restaurant at 4 or so in the morning. Basically we made a mess of things and starting using our chopsticks as drumsticks and the various dishes and glasses as percussive instruments. I can't imagine what kind of racket we were making, but one of the waiters commented that it was "very good." Every once in a while during our jam, Bjorn would yell, "YI PING PIJIU" which means "one bottle of beer." After a while of repeating this phrase, a waiter came in, which stopped all the music for a moment, and said, "Yi ping pijiu ma?" Which essentially means "You want a beer?" I can't remember the last time I laughed that hard, but I think you kind of had to be there.

- I am beginning to plan my travels for after I am done teaching...top of the list is Thailand! We'll see how my finances are looking at that time, but I wouldn't mind just chilling three weeks in Thailand.

Updates

- A couple weeks ago, Megan had her going away party at OK Pizza, the pizza buffet in Shijiazhuang that is just "OK". The plan was to eat a minimal amount of pizza and drink a shit ton of beer while playing drinking games such as quarters and flippy cup. Not only is OK Pizza an all you can eat buffet, it's also all you can drink. As I came in, Bence immediately offered me a shot and I took it immediately. He told me it was "Hungarian baijiu." It was definitely similar to Chinese baijiu and had the same burning sensation. After a while of eating and drinking casually, Bence became very intoxicated. Bence face became red and blotchy, then his neck, and finally his shoulders. It was hilarious to compare his level of drunkeness with how red and blotchy he was (we would later find out that he is allergic to beer). Bence has a really weird sense of humor but he was incredibly entertaining to Andy and me. Bence told us of the problems that gypsies pose in his country. He said, "The worst thing ever is a gypsy flying on pegasus, because he will come down and stab you in the back with a knife!" He also mimicked the shaking of a bee hive while yelling, "Are you bees?! Will you follow me?!" After everyone had had their fill of pizza and baijiu jello shots were consumed, we cleared the table to play some rousing games of flippy cup. The Chinese in the restaurant either looked at us like we were crazy or they were trying to figure out what the hell we were playing. The restaurant was supposed to close by 9 and we ended up being there until after 11. I posed the question to our Drake friend, Jason, whose Chinese is quite advanced for how long we have been here. He said, "They have asked me to leave a few times, but I just pretend I don't understand them." Jason's girlfriend is Chinese so he added, "We just say that she is Chinese American." The entire time that we are at OK Pizza, these Russian girls that are attractive, but take total advantage of Bence call him non stop. They basically wanted him to come to the club to get them free drinks. He kept on telling them that he would be there later but they would not stop bothering him. Bence is too nice, so finally Megan, myself, and a few others got on the phone with the Russians and told them very bluntly, to "STOP CALLING!" as well as some other requests. Finally, we left OK Pizza and went to 7 Club where, of course, all the Russian girls were waiting outside...fucking bitches.

- On a similar note, the night I met many of these Russian girls, Bence had been hanging out with them beforehand. Bence came up to me and said, "These girls are crazy! They drink me under the table!" His animated face was bright red and his English was noticeably poorer. He said, "I chase baijiu with coca-cola, and they chase it with beer!" I looked over at these tiny Russian girls, and they are acting completely normal, and look back at Bence, who is a pretty big guy and has trouble standing up at this point and just laughed. Fucking Russians...I still firmly believe that there are no water pipes in Russia, only vodka pipes. Not only do they drink it but they also bathe and wash their clothes in that shit, I swear.

- There is a new bar that opened up recently called the 80s Cowboy Bar. Despite having the most unoriginal name possible and sounding like a stereotypical gay night club, the place is actually really cool and reminds me of dive bars in the states (something China seriously lacks). We've dubbed it the "music bar" (not much more original, I know, but it's the only bar in my city that has live rock music). I'd have to see it a little less crowded, but the place has all sorts of decorations covering the wall...a weird mix of Pacific Island and cowboy kitsch.

Last weekend I went to a Chinese deathcore show there. Our Chinese friend, Nigel, is one of only a few Chinese people I've met that actually has a decent taste in music and he was the one that informed us of the show. Every few weeks they have a concert and last week it was a Beijing deathcore band, Suffocated.

Recently I've been hanging out with a group of foreign teachers from No. 43 Foreign Language School which is considered the best middle school/high school in the city. There is Ben (English), Francis (Australian), Kevin "K-Fed" (Australian), Mark (Canadian), Mike (Scottish), and Dave (English). Ben and I have some similar tastes in music. We both grew up on metal and are both still into it to a certain extent. Anyway, Ben was totally down with going to a metal show. Right before the show Ben tells about four other teachers from his school (Mark, K-Fed, Dave, and Ben's wife Christine) to come to this concert...without telling them what kind of band was playing. As we are walking up I get the feeling he purposefully didn't tell him and ask the four others, "Do you know what kind of concert this is?" They said, "No...". I told them, but they seemed just as enthusiastic as before.

The opening band played a total of three songs. A little different from warm-up bands elsewhere. They were OK. A lot of standard metal riffs, but they had some lengthy Iron Maiden solo harmonies that sounded great.

The headliner, Suffocated, was very tight musically and you could tell they had been at it for a while. Both guitarists had hair down to their shoulders and the vocalist/bassist looked like any other tough guy you would see in the metalcore scene...except of course, he was Chinese. The band had some nice solo work and a really heavy sound. There were mosh pits galore as young, skinny-as-a-twig Chinese boys collided into one another. There was also Bence...out weighing and out muscling everyone else there, shirtless and head banging. Bence brought two Russian girls that have recently moved to Shijiazhuang as students as Bence's school and went CRAZY head banging with Bence. Ben and mild-mannered Dave ended up moshing which was hilarious. The crowd did this one thing that I have never seen at a metal show before. At the beginning of a song, two lines of people lined up on opposite ends of the mosh pit. As soon as the song kicked in they broke rank and ran directly into each other. It was a great time and the PBR flowed aplenty. At the end of the concert, the owner insisted that Dave make an announcement IN ENGLISH for the next concert. We were the only ones that probably even understood one word of it.

According to Dave's announcement, the bar will have a Norwegian punk band soon, which should also rule.

After the music bar and grabbing a bit to eat, we went to McDonald's Bar to meet up with the others. After being there for half an hour or so there was a near consensus of people wanting to go to Mazzo (a night club). Not particularly being in the mood, I practically had to be dragged. Levi (American teacher/student who we also hang out with) insisted he could get us free drinks there. At Mazzo it was taking us a while to get drinks. Francis, the other one of our group who was adamant about not going, became very pissed off. Finally, we got vodka and coke (?) delivered to our table which is around the time that the shit show began. After slamming back several glasses, Levi, Ben, and especially Mike became extremely intoxicated.

After a while we decide it's time to go so we're getting all our coats back from the coat check. All of a sudden there is a big commotion behind me. I look back and Francis is literally holding Mike with all of his strength. I search for the other focal point of the soon-to-be confrontation and it is quite an attractive Chinese girl, probably in her early 20s. She is surrounded by men who seem to be trying to lead her out of the club. Not knowing what is going on, but knowing how volatile Mike can get in these situations, I tell the one or two Chinese people that I somewhat know in their group to get that girl the fuck out of the club.

Afterwards, I learn that Mike had been hitting on this girl for a while. Francis explains to me that this girl has a reputation for luring in men and then having her security beat the shit out of him. Don't ask me why, but it sounds like some sort of power fetish...kinda hot if you ask me.

After this ruckus, we evacuated the premises back to McDonald's Bar. Kevin, the bartender, was not happy to say the least when he saw our stumbling, drunk asses mosey back in because he had just finished cleaning the bar (it was about 2:30 a.m. by this point). Francis insisted that we would just stay for one beer because we were trying to calm our friend down.

As soon as we sat down, Mike passed the fuck out on the table. Two minutes later, he lifted his head up, grabbed one of the ashtrays and through it against the wall causing it to shatter everywhere. Francis was ordering beers at the time turned around and said, "Who the fuck was that?!" I replied, "Who the fuck do you think it was?!" Francis came back and put a beer in Mike's limp hand. Jokingly, I pretended to remove it a couple of times and each time Francis and James (along with me, the two most sober of the group at this point) said "No no no no!!!" As we all know now, during times like these, a beer in Mike's hand is almost as important as his having a still functioning dick (sidenote: when they were traveling during the Spring Festival Holiday, Mike was in a similar condition and passed out on the bar with a beer in hand. They literally could not remove Mike's hand from his beer. They coined it "The Scottish Death Grip"). The beer never even touched Mike's lips and after the rest of us enjoyed our beers, Francis, Sandy (Francis' girlfriend), and James took Mike home, and I waited for Ben to get some McDonald's. By this point, Levi had disappeared like he tends to do when he is drunk at the end of the night.

Ben comes stumbling out of McDonald's with a huge bag of food, a cup of coffee IN A BAG, and a full beer. I said, "Ben, do you want me to carry any of that for you?" Now Ben has a quick, mumbly English accent that at times is difficult to understand anyway, but it is compounded when he is drunk. All I heard in reply to my question was, "No, shiva douba lan to ra dabba." After we got into a taxi I insisted that I hold something for him but he replied more or less the same. Ben also insisted that I have some french fries. "Here, take some fries shiva douba douba shuda." I replied, "No thanks." He got more insistent, "Here, c'mon! Shuda buda nava." Ok, I took a few, but he soon insisted I have more which I denied.

When we got back to their school, we saw Francis leading Mike upstairs to his room. Ben immediately went to his room while mumbling something incoherently. I went to Francis' room where James was lounging and drinking. Francis came back and asked where Ben was. I said, "He went to his room but I think he'll be over in a few minutes." Francis said, "He's not coming back." James, Francis, and I ended up staying up until 5:00 or so drinking and shooting the shit. What a fucking shit show of a night.

- There is a student of mine that I regularly see at the gym. She is a short, innocent girl whose English name is Madeline. A few weeks ago I saw her at the gym and she approached me a couple of times to ask how things were going. She approached me a third time and said shyly and hesitantly, "Josh...I have a question...about relationships." "Oh, God," I thought. She explained to me there was an Egyptian man who came to the gym a while back but left the city at the end of SEPTEMBER...now keep in mind it is February by this point. She said she only talked to this man once, but got his phone number before he went back to Egypt. She said she texts him semi-regularly. She then asked me...now get this..."If it's true love, do you think he will come back to Shijiazhuang?" I was so shocked that I could barely answer. I answered as calmly and collectively as I should, "Well, you know relationships are...blah blah blah" and "When two people love each other...blah blah blah." After I broke it to her as nicely as possible she said one of her friends thought she was silly for thinking such things. I said, "Well, I wouldn't be so blunt, but yea, I don't think you should bet on him coming back." She took it well, but then mentioned sometime later in class that she had an Egyptian boyfriend. I just don't know how a 20 YEAR OLD (I suppose she does look like she is 14) can be this naive. Incredible.

- One thing that I've gradually noticed is that Chinese men will look over at my dick when I'm taking a piss. I'm assuming they want to know what I'm packing. They are not too inconspicuous about it. After talking to other foreigners, this a completely regular occurrence. When I notice this, I usually say in English, "You like what you see? You can't have it" or "I know it's bigger than your's, are you jealous?" I can't wait for the day when Chinese man actually understands that.

- On a similar note, I was at McDonald's Bar about a month ago and I was waiting for the bathroom to open it up, as soon as it did and I was about to head in, the Chinese man behind me looked at me and said, "Together? Together?" meaning that he wanted us to take a piss together. Not knowing exactly what to think of this proposition, I quickly replied, "Um...no", went inside the bathroom and made sure to lock that fucking door.

- On another similar note, Francis (who I mentioned earlier) is pretty fucking crazy. Although he has calmed down quite a bit since he has a pretty serious girlfriend now, some of the stories he's recounted surpass even some of my college stories (hard to believe, I know). He said that one time, he was walking around a mall with his girlfriend and these Chinese men were following him and talking shit (Chinese men sometimes don't particularly like the fact that foreigners date Chinese women). Ignoring it to the best of his abilities for a while, he finally turned around and said, in Chinese, something like, "Do you know why she's with me and not with you?" He then proceeded to pull out his junk in the middle of this mall and then said, "Now show me your's." The Chinese banters apparently became silent and walked away.

- As I've mentioned before, restaurant experiences for Chinese men can turn into insane shit shows. They get really fucked up on baijiu and just yell a lot. As a result, the bathrooms in the "classy" restaurants turn into vomitoriums, especially on the weekends. My favorite experience concerning this is from one of the first weekends we were here. I don't think I've told this story but if I have, it bears repeating. I stepped into the men's room of a really nice restaurant only to see all of the urine stalls filled with puke...except for one. The only one void of vomit was occupied by an older gentleman who was literally seeing how far he could back up from the stall and still get his piss in the stall. I decided I would leave him to his fun and return in a few minutes but as I was leaving, he ripped one of the loudest, wettest farts I have ever heard. It was awesome.

Chinese New Year Travels (Lijiang, Dali)

Like I wrote before, we did not end up staying in Kunming for very long. After a day and half in Kunming, we decided to take an overnight bus to Lijiang. Basically, Lijiang is what everyone imagines China to look like before actually coming to China. Lijiang has an extremely well preserved Old Town that has the classic winding streets and Chinese architecture (refer to the pictures).

Our bus ride from Kunming to Lijiang was absolutely awful. As soon as we got on the bus and got situated some Chinese guy came around claiming he was the manager and charged us for our luggage based on the estimated weight. The more you thought your luggage weighed, the more he would charge you. Having no idea what the deal with this guy was before he approached me, I ended up paying 100 yuan to him and was not happy afterwards. In retrospect, I should have just refused and seen what happened. Since we got an overnight bus we had beds, but the road was so bumpy I barely slept at all...even after taking some Benadryll to make me drowsy. We got in at about 5:00 a.m., got into our hostel, and promptly passed out for about 3 hours. After breakfast, we decided to explore the city a bit. The city was beautiful and a welcome departure from the hustle and bustle of the larger Chinese cities we had been traveling to. The old city (where we were most of the time) had old Chinese houses with the traditionally made roofs along winding paths barely large enough to fit one car through. There were a couple of streams going through the city with the classic arching bridges over them. Refer to the pictures for more detail, it's a little hard to describe. One great thing was that there were a lot of merchants on the streets, but none of them were nagging us at all. I could tell that in a few years Lijiang could have the potential to be an overly touristy spot, but now it's not bad at all.

There is a famous lake just outside of the Old City in Lijiang. The name escapes me at the moment but the scenery was gorgeous. It's a little hard to tell, but you can see a very large mountain in the background of one or two of the pictures. The area is well renowned as one of the most pricelessly beautiful areas in China. A stone path lead us all around the lake.

As beautiful as Lijiang was during the day, it was spectacular at night when the only light in the city came from hundreds upon hundreds of Chinese lanterns.

While the rest of our group was headed for Tiger Leaping Gorge the next day (also considered one of the greatest destinations in China), Billie and I realized we couldn't logically go there, come back to Kunming, and get back to Shijiazhuang to teach by Sunday, so we elected to go to another nearby city called Dali. I really wish we had spent more time in Lijiang, but I definitely wish we would have been able to spend more time in Dali. Dali was completely untainted as far as western or corporate businesses are concerned (i.e. McDonald's). We stayed at an amazing hostel which was run by an older Australian man. The day we got there, we decided to go on this mountain hike. It was more than a few miles but definitely worth the peace of mind garnered from it.

That night we ate dinner with an extremely nice couple from Australia and as we returned to the hostel we saw that the party had already started! We were greeted with shots of a locally made blueberry flavored liquor which was nothing like I had tasted before, but not bad at all. As we started conversing with more people we realized that most people were indeed from Australia. As the night progressed, old AC/DC music videos were projected onto the wall. I stayed up until 3:00 sitting and talking with a fairly interesting guy who had married a German woman. The Australian guy and his wife were on vacation and he was teaching English in Germany. The next day we went back to Kunming and then the day after that we went back to Beijing and then back to Shijiazhuang! What an amazing month and a half...

It's been a while (almost two months), so if I have forgotten anything on this part of the trip, I'll add it later!

Sidenote: the one time we did not book a hostel or hotel in advance throughout the entire trip was our return to Kunming before our flight to Beijing. We got there and they told us that they were booked. However, they also told us that we could stay in the employees' room. While a little strange, it was just as comfortable as the dorms (if not more comfortable considering there were two less people able to stay in the employees' room than the big dorm rooms).

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.