The Heart of China

I haven't posted the past few days because I've been crazy busy trying to figure out our National Holiday vacation. We've booked tickets for Shanghai and I leave tomorrow morning. We'll spend two nights in Shanghai, then Monday morning, we depart for Hangzhou. Hangzhou is one of the most beautiful cities in China. In the center of town is West Lake, a beautiful and clam lake. Also, Hangzhou is nestled inbetween small mountains and has an eclectic feel (as eclectic as you can get with 3+ million residents). We spend two nights in Hangzhou and Wednesday we head to Suzhou. Suzhou is one of many local watertowns. The watertowns of China are much like Venice. Small canals run through them and the most popular towns Zhouzhuang and Tongli have no roads at all. We aren't staying the night in Suzhou but instead we head back to Shanghai for Wednesday and Thursday nights. We leave early Friday morning back to Beijing. This trip has crept up on all of us. With school and still recovering from our Qingdao trip (not literally) we haven't had much time to plan for this trip. We have places to stay and a loose itenerary but we're basically going to wing it most of the time there.

Since I have nothing interesting to write about concerning my life here (same old, same old: school work, gym, hanging out, etc.), I think I'll give everyone a glimpse of some things I have forgot to mention. These things are so distinct to China, and occur so regularly that I have completely forgot to tell everyone about them. Most of them you might have heard rumors of or inferred them from my stories but now I'll go into a few details.

First, and most recent, my marketing teacher. The Chinese people are extremely welcoming (most of the time) to foreigners. So much so that during my first marketing class, my teacher welcomed us to China and profusely apologized on behalf of his country about the milk problem going on. He said something along the lines of this:

I am so sorry that you have to come to China at this wonderful time in China's histor and are unable to drink our milk or eat our dairy. For many of you, this is your first time to China and I am ashamed that are here while this is happening. Don't worry. The managers and owners of the companies are being severely disciplined and soon I hope it will be safe to drink our milk again.

He was extremely sincere and I was personally touched by his apology. He had no need to apologize for that company or for the problem in general. It was quite a moving experience.

In addition to this sincerity, I probably haven't mentioned another gesture that shows the Chinese character. Many times, if you go to a restaurant, expecially a small family-style restaurant, and they do not have a Sprite or Iced Tea, the waitress will personally run down the street to the nearest convenience store and buy your drinks. This often happens when they serve us hot tea on a sweltering day and it makes you feel terrible. They will never tell us that they don't have our beverages, they simply reappear carrying a bag of 6 bottled waters and 2 iced teas. It makes all of us at the table feel terrible. We wouldn't have ordered those drinks if we knew they would have to go through all that trouble. Something like this would never happen in the United States.

Another example is when we were in Xi'an. We were famished after a full day of sightseeing and all of us were irritable with hunger. After walking around our hotel for 15 minutes, we were getting angry wandering around. I asked a gentleman where we could go to eat and he asked us what we wanted to eat. I told him something quick and cheap and the next thing we knew he was escorting us down a side street. I tried to tell him that he could just point us in the direction but he simply wouldn't have it. He took us to a street full of restaurants. At this point, we easily could have found a restaurant on our own, but no way, he took us to a place and we sat down. It was a kabob place with very cheap food, but some of us had had stomach problems for a few days and weren't about to try something interesting. I told the gentleman that we would like to eat elsewhere and right away he said OK! We walked to another restaurant which was much better and not only did he help us find it, but he stayed and helped us order food. We invited him to eat with us but he kindly refused stating he was on his way home from work and had to go home. I also doubt this kind of thing happens in the US.

Additionally, last one for today, was the woman at the China Mobile store in Xi'an. I had run out of minutes on the Silk Road Trip and I wanted to fill my sim card again. I asked the woman if she had Beijing minutes to sell and she did. I didn't have my wallet or my phone with me so I returned the next day. This woman was so helpful and so kind we spent well over an hour talking. She complimented me on my Chinese (which is about a 3 yr old vocabulary) and we were able to communicate on my limited vocabulary. She has a son, who is 19 who is learning English. He goes to a local university in Xi'an and she was so proud of him. I could tell by the look in her eyes that she saw her son in me. She asked if I had eaten some of the local Xi'an foods and recommended me to order certain dishes explaining what they were and how they tasted. I forgot the name of the one thing she liked the most, which was a breaded something or other and it sounded spectacular. Before I knew it, I was almost late for dinner and thanked her for her conversation. She wished me good travels and safe studies when all I wanted was a few minutes for my cellphone. It was a great experience.

Thats all for today. I have a whole list of more stories, so whenever I have nothing to say about travelling, I'll share some more.

More Silk Road Pictures

View Album

Get your own

These are pictures of the Tai Taoist Monastery near Xi'an.

View Album

Get your own

ta

These are pictures of Shaolin Monastery and the Longmen Grottoes.

My Third Chinese Adventure

I returned back to Beijing this afternoon after a great weekend in Qingdao. What a trip! Let's start with the overnight train that we had to go on. At first, we didn't mind that fact that the lights didn't turn off or the fact that the seats were really uncomfortable and practically leaned forward. We also didn't mind the fact that we were getting in at 7:20 am. But the fact that they sold at least 100+ standing tickets made the trip a little uncomfortble. If you can't quite get a mental picture going let me try and paint one for you. When we got on the train everyone was putting their belongings in the overhead holders so the isles were pretty crowded. Because this is China, people were already sitting in our seats which is fine because they moved when we asked them too. But the problem was, there wasn't anywhere to go. The isles were so packed that we figured out pretty quickly that these people were going to stand for the 8 hours to Qingdao. They were sitting on the ground, laying under our seats, squishing onto people's laps. There were people sitting on the bathroom sinks, underneath the sinks and on the floor inbetween the cars. If I had to go to the bathroom, it would have been like trying to play a game of tip-toe over peoples bodies. The conductor who checked tickets could barely snake through the hoards of people. The beverage cart never came. Sleeping was another story. Since someone was leaning on my seat, I had a great view of their backside and there were too many people to stretch out my legs. I put my head face down on the table and spent most of the night switching between that position and seat-sleeping.

When we got to Qingdao we had to buy our return tickets back. In China, you can't buy roundtrip tickets for trains, you have to buy a ticket from one destination to another. Our returning overnight train was sold out, but I'm sure that we could have gotten standing tickets (yea right). The only available tickets were early morning tickets and we tried to get everyone on the same train but ended up having to split into two trains. The rest of the day we spent napping at the hotel and eating until our friends arrived from Beijing. It was only Jim, Devon and I on the overnight train because everyone else has classes on Fridays. We met up with our Chinese friend Serena and her friends. They took us out to a pagoda on the water and afterwards we went out and had a great dinner. Tons of delicious seafood including clams, mussles, shrimp and even crab. We had a few vegetables and lots of beer. We learned all of the traditional Chinese drinking games and enjoyed challenging our Chinese friends to their own games. Most of the games involve one on one challenges like who can finish a bottle of beer faster.

We met up with our other friends at the hotel. Being in China, the hotel booked one of our reserved hotel rooms so we ended up having two rooms for 15 people. Apparently in China they dont mind how many people sleep per room. The front desk asked if we had 8 people in one room and when we said yes, the clerk wasn't even surprised. That night we all went out to a bar as a group and had a great time. The next morning we ate and headed straight to the beer festival. It was a cool festival, but not what we had expected. It wasn't as cheap as we had planned, but there were so many fun things to do. They had Hofbrauhaus from Germany (I've been to the original), they had Heineken and other imported beers and of course a huge tent for Tsingtao Beer (the beer was first owned by Germans thus the different spelling). They had tons of food and some interesting music but we had a blast. We made our own international feel by playing American drinking games. Of course, the Chinese crowded around us taking pictures, cheering us on and even joining in. The tripods and videocameras were out in full force and a Chinese newspaper took our picture for the front page. In the background of this picture, a guy is holding up his baby to get in the picture. Serena and her friends also met us there and they ended up having a great time. They really enjoyed us Americans. Around 5 o clock we headed toward the beach to continue our fun. We all took a dip in the sea and played soccer with a Chinese guy. The water wasn't the warmest but we had a great time.

We went back to the hotel to change and clean up. We went to dinner and celebrated Jeff's birthday. It was last Monday, but no one had time to celebrate because we had just returned from our Silk Road trip. We had a lot of toasts and some more seafood and finished the night by going out to a local club with our Chinese friends. Leaving Qingdao was a bummer. We all had such a great time and the weekend flew by. We were all loving the Northern California of China. I'll post some pictures when I can.

Here are some of the Jiayuguan Fort and the Hanging Wall.

View Album

Get your own

Here are some pictures of Xi'an and Muslim street.

View Album

Get your own

Here are some pictures of the Terracotta Warriors.

View Album

Get your own

Short Stories of a Silk Traveler

Well, I'm alive if anyone was wondering. I returned back to Beijing about 7:30 am yesterday and I've been doing a lot of work settling back into school. I begin classes tomorrow, but Chinese is my only class. Since tomorrow is the Mid-Autumn festival, our Chinese classes will be cancelled. That means a day off to start making a gigantic photo-fest for everyone. I think the last time I wrote was sometime in Xi'an, the day before we saw the Terracotta Warriors. The Warriors were amazing. The 8th Wonder of the World. I'll try and tell as much as I can in the captions when I post pictures. Xi'an also has a great Muslim street that was a lot of fun to go down. It had plenty of places to eat and tons of vendors selling stuff. We saw a Taoist temple near Xi'an that was absolutely 100% the picture of China. It was located in the mountains and there was fog that surrounded the lower parts of the mountains. The peaks slowly faded into the fog the further away they became and the temple was on top of a mountain side. Straight out of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, I'd say. We walked through a local village to Big Goose Pagoda and on the way back to Xi'an we went to Old Qin Palace (replica). The day we went to Luoyang we went to see the Small Goose Pagoda in the city of Xi'an.
In Luoyang, we spent most of our time exploring the town. Playing Xiangxi (Chinese Chess) with the locals, finding new restaurants, and of course going out and having a good time at night. One night, Jeff, Dan, Ryan and I spent nearly 2 hours with this Muslim family in Luoyang. They had two children (probably cousins) and we ate cheap noodles and played with them. They even had a "Panda" bunny that was no bigger than my hand. That's the abbreviated version but it was a very memorable experience. In Luoyang, we went to the Shaolin Temple, where Kongfu began. We saw students break metal sticks on their heads, throw nails through glass, do Mushu animal interpretations, sword fighting and other awesome stuff. Also, we saw the nearby Pagoda Forest made up of several dozen stone pagodas. The Shaolin Temple is also a Zen Buddhist temple, and we walked through the temple looking at monks and seeing the Buddhas. On the way home, we went to the Longmen Grottoes. These are very famous caves, similar to Mogao Caves that have thousands of Buddha statues and paintings. The Longmen Grottoes have over 2300 caves and over 100,000 Buddhas ranging from centimeters high to about 30m.
From Luoyang we took a flight to Hohhot, our final destination. Of course, because of my last name and my general luck, I was one of 12 people that didn't make it on the direct flight in Hohhot. I was lucky enough to wake up a half-hour earlier (6:30 am), have a 3 hour layover in Beijing, then arrive 3 hours later than everyone an hour before dinnertime. The flight from Beijing was delayed 40 minutes, but I didn't notice because I had already fallen asleep while we were waiting on the runway. The hotel in Hohhot was amazing. It had mineral springs and massages in the hotel. Everyone got a massage and about 6 or 7 of us guys got a massage. Naturally, not being massage connoisseurs, we didn't know NOT to have the women take glasses, light a cotton ball underneath them to remove the air, and put them on our backs. The result is 10 huge circles that are red from the suction. I have pictures that will help explain.
From Hohhot, which is located in the Autonomous Region of Inner Mongolia, we went to the Mongolian Grasslands to finish our trip by staying with the Mongols in their traditional nomadic homes called gers. Gers are round huts and our gers were a bit modernized. They had beds, bath, and even a TV. Not saying it was much, there was no heat and the water was almost a trickle. In the grasslands, you'll see in the pictures, there isn't much to do. Within 250 miles. Of the things to do, there are two that would be considered fun to 20 year olds and that was horseback riding and ATVing. The horses were "strictly forbidden" and there were about 8 ATVs. The ATVs were Y150 for an hour and a half. The hour and a half was following a Mongol on a "Grasslands Tour." Whatever that meant it sounded restrictive and boring so we decided to break the rules and ride the horses instead. We asked our leader what would happen (before we rode horses) if "hypothetically" a group of us went horseback riding. She frankly said, "Nothing." So we told her to turn around and pretend we had never talked and next thing I knew I was riding my first horse in the Mongolian Grasslands. We went for two hours to the "lake," aka big puddle with cows. Great time. Really sore after. Really really sore. We had a roast lamb dinner (you'll see pictures) and finished the night with a Mongolian dance party. Not what you would think though, they listen to techno music so it was pretty much like a high school dance party. Except outside in the cold under the stars. The sunrise wasn't as great as the Gobi and when we left the grasslands we went back to Hohhot for the day. TBC wouldn't let us rest there though, we had a museum trip and 8 hours of free time to do whatever. We took an overnight train and here I am.
That was the brief version of my past 5 days. It was a trip of a lifetime but now I'm getting ready to start classes and get into a routine. We all joined a nearby gym for Y500 for 3-months. Not bad and I feel great already after working out for two days. Expect a whole lot of pictures and some really great posts in the coming days. I have a list of stories to tell and about 1000 pictures to share. (Not all of them mine)

Jiayuguan to Xi'an

Last time I posted, we were on our way to Jiayuguan (I think). I can't remember and internet here is by the hour. We had a five hour bus ride to Jiayuguan. It was a good time. We all got to catch up on some sleep and get to know eachother a little bit more. I haven't talked about any of the people I've met yet, but we're all starting to get to know eachother a lot more now that we're settling in. Me, Jim, and Devon all knew eachother before the trip, and most of our classmates had at least someone else they knew. It was easy for us to meet up with Matt and Brittany. They both were really good friends, having known eachother at Gonzaga. Matt actually knows some people from my highschool. All us of pretty much keep eachother laughing at stories from home and just some of our life experiences. Ryan and Jeff are roommates together too. Ryan is from Las Vegas, but he's lived all over the US including Laguna, St. Louis, Florida, Georgia and Nevada. He goes to St. Louis University and his roommate Jeff goes to Georgetown. Jeff is a laid back guy and has a great sense of humor. I can't place what kind it is but he's a good time.

When we got to Jiayuguan everyone checked in and ate before we left for the Jiayuguan Fort. This fort is the last fort on the Great Wall. Criminals and corrupt officials were banished here and thrown into the Gobi. Most of the people, after leaving through the last gate, simply sat down to die. Walking through the same gate, it was pretty cool to see the mountains and desert ahead of you for miles. Nothing else (Well there were people selling horseback rides for Y5, but when you live in a 99c store you can't buy everything all the time so we didn't do it.) It got pretty windy while we were at the fort and for a while a sandstorm blew through.

After the fort, we ate a group dinner, paid for by TBC and we all went out for a friend's birthday. We woke up early the next day to see some last things before we boarded our 20 hour train to Xi'an. We saw the Weijn tombs, which were awesome. They were underground tombs that had three original rooms. The last of the rooms was the actual coffin room where the owner and his wife were put to rest. They were really small, no more than 6ft high and 8x8 square. There was no cement, and all of the 1700+ yr old paintings on the bricks were original and visible. This is one of 1400 tombs in the Jiayuguan area. The rest remained unopened until China has the technology to prevent the oxidization of colored paintings. That is some pretty good planning and patience by the Chinese. Props.

From the tombs, we went to the Hanging Great Wall. I think it's called the Hanging Great Wall because it is practically vertical. The Wall is the wall, so I took a few pictures and moved on. We left for the train station and spent most of the train talking and sleeping. We played a few games but were able to pass time fairly quickly. We got to Xi'an today and pretty much are taking it easy. We took a bike ride along the oldest completed wall around a city. It was awesome and the weather was fantastic. It's nice to be back in a modern city. We're in a pretty high end part of town and our hotel is really nice. Great service. We're about a block away from a mall with all of the name brand stores. The real stores haha. Tonight we have another group dinner with the other half the TBC groups. Tomorrow is the terracotta warriors.