Hi everyone,
As many of you may already know, I'm coming back home. I have a laundry list of reasons for departing from China earlier than expected. I'm not gonna get into that because I know my reasons are right for me. I got a lot out of this experience, but I'm ready to start my career back home. The more important thing was that I took an awesome trip around China. And following are the details:
I must first start out by thanking my cousin Robin for taking up my offer to be my traveling companion. His Chinese is much better than mine, and he both speaks and understands (even reads and writes) pretty darn well. I don't think the trip would have been as successful as it was without him along. However, here's how it went.
Our trip hit a small snag from the onset. We had planned to take a boat cruise along the Grand Canal from Suzhou to Hangzhou, but upon attempting to purchase our tickets, we were informed that the weather is too cold for the boat to travel. So, we had to take a bus to Hangzhou instead, but it was not so bad since it was only a couple hours away. We stayed our first night in a fairly nice hotel, but Robin set up all our hotels through some Chinese travel agency. And for booking all our hotels on the day before or same day, we got great deals...less than $30 each night, except one really nice hotel in Haerbin that was about $80 but with a spectacular location. There's actually a really good hotel chain throughout most of China called Jinjiang Inn, and it's only about $20 a night...so we stayed at this inn whenever possible, and it worked out well. Ok, back to the trip. The purpose for visiting Hangzhou was to see the famous "Xi Hu" or West Lake, and also to drink the special tea of the area called Longjing cha. An old Chinese saying goes, "In heaven there is paradise, on earth Suzhou and Hangzhou." While Suzhou is now a rather industrialized and boring place lacking its former glory (Irvine-like, I'd say), Hangzhou retains its luster and grandeur because of West Lake...notwithstanding the brand new Hooters we found there. Aside from that, the beauty of the lake and the countryside where the tea leaves are grown for the Longjing cha are both outstanding, and they have that special feeling of antiquity. This feeling is the heart of China and what I think makes it great, stemming from its very long history. However, this is also what I see to be the major problem in China--as industrialization, commercialization, and Westernization take a greater hold each day, more and more of China's youth (and even older people) seem to be forgetting their past. The beauty of great sights throughout China are tainted by the massive amounts of peddlers and other commercial ventures. Yes I know, they gotta make a living, right? True. But still, it doesn't take away from the fact that a possibly peaceful time at a place like West Lake is constantly disrupted by the calls of hawkers of food and trinkets. I hope, for the sake of China's historic and current greatness, that the Chinese awareness for this self-inflicted dissipation of their culture is raised by foreign and domestic forces alike. Ok, sorry for another tangent. To finish with the Hangzhou leg of our journey, the finishing touch was a dinner at a famous Hangzhou restaurant called Louwailou. Practically every popular city in every province in China has its own signature dishes, and Robin and I did our best to make our journey an amazing one gastronomically as well. We had famous dishes there called West Lake Water Shield soup, Beggar's Chicken, Dongpo Pork, and West Lake Vinegar Fish. Each dish has a story attached to it, but the best one is the Beggar's Chicken, which tells the story of an old man who got very sick while living in the streets in Hangzhou. The other beggars banded together to help him and used their last remaining money and chicken to feed him. They dug a hole in the ground and lit a coal fire, and after substituting the chicken innards for the regional Shaoxing wine and other stuffing, they wrapped the chicken in tea leaves and slushy mud coating, then baked it in the ground. When the chicken was cooked and removed from the mud, the feathers also came off. The delicious scent attracted other neighbors, and everyone praised the unique cooking style and taste.
Our next stop was the beautiful island of Putuoshan, also in Zhejiang province but just off the coast. Getting there, however, would be another small adventure. We departed from Hangzhou to Ningbo by train, where we thought we could take a fast boat from the ferry terminal to the island. However, when in Ningbo we were informed that we needed to go to a place called Shenjiamen to get to Putuoshan. So we boarded a bus that was supposed to take us there. The bus ended up going on a boat, that's right, the whole bus onto one of those large freight boats. We ambled around the boat until we docked, then got back on the bus to some other small place. From there we had to take a taxi ride to the Shenjiamen fast boat dock. We were just pretty confused the whole time, and we took every form of transportation in one day: train, bus, boat, taxi. We finally ended up in Putuoshan around 4pm that afternoon after departing from Hangzhou at 7am. It was quite a long time and strange journey for an actual distance of around 150 miles. Putuoshan was definitely worth the hassle. The island was the China we know from movies (pre-Crouching Tiger), complete with temples, flowing landscapes, beaches, and humble fishing villagers. We were able to witness a lot of natural beauty and Chinese Buddhist piety. Even at our hotel one morning, a woman flagged us down to show us pictures in her digital camera of what she believed to be spirits. Needless to say, fantastic pictures were taken, and it was a rare peaceful experience in the uber-busy land of China. We even got to have a vegetarian meal (for the equivalent of about 40 cents) with the monks and other travelers in Puji Temple, which turned out to be actually quite a delicious meal, lacking in protein though it may have been.
Our next destination was Tai Shan, one of the five sacred mountains of China. This mountain is 1545m marvel, including a menagerie of temples and sacred rocks and sights with typically cool and funky Chinese names like Sword-splitting Stone and Archway to Immortality, all connected by winding stone staircases that altogether contain 6660 steps. We walked up all 6660 of them because legend claims that anyone who ascends Tai Shan will live to be 100, so I guess now I can drink, carouse, and partake in extreme sports all I want because I'm guaranteed to be a centurion. Also, this was the mountain emperors had to climb to verify their empirical divinity ( i.e. if they died during the ascent, they were not divinely ordained as emperor...it's a no-brainer, haha); of course, the climb was a picnic for them since they were carried up in sedan chairs by servants. Anyway, it's not the highest Chinese mountain, nor even the highest of the 5 sacred ones, but it was quite a strenuous climb...since ambitious a climber and adventurer as I am, I hauled ass to the top. The peak once again felt a bit besmirched because of peddlers, a strange manor, a hotel, and several towers and antennas and other satellite type devices that cluttered the summit. However, it was still a breathtaking climb that gave me a great sense of accomplishment. The plentiful clouds and fog prevented any sort of magnificent views, but it was still pretty darn nice. Our return to the train station was much more interesting though. We descended halfway down the mountain by cable car, which is when my cousin discovered that had lost our train tickets. Cue suspense now: train departure time at 3:07pm without tickets and a current time of 1:30pm. We have to wait until 1:45pm for the rickety bus ride to the quiet square below the mountain, and the ride itself take about 25 minutes and leads us to yet another bus...2:14pm. This is a public bus, so we know there are going to be stops, but as soon as we get in, we realize that the bus driver is driving slower than I could walk. We don't know how to react until she actually stops the bus altogether without so much as a peep of explanation. She exits the bus and picks up a stick from the side of the road and starts fiddling with stuff outside the bus...turns out she was outta gas...the fates have conspired against us yet again. 2:26pm - We hop on the next bus behind ours, and it drives about half a km when we see a crowd of people in the road before us. To our dismay, they are not just a crowd of onlookers, but rather a mob of at least 35 people all waiting for, yes...our bus. If you have never seen a mob of Chinese people scramble onto a bus, you haven't lived. Amusing though it was, our current situation found it as a difficulty (side note: watching Chinese people pour out of an elevator is almost equally as amusing...it's that whole clown car phenomenon...life imitating art, good times). Mind you, we are still in a podunk part of the city for a good portion of this crowded bus ride, so we have to wait until we reach civilization before we can even hope to substitute our current situation with a taxi ride instead. 2:45pm - We squeeze ourselves off the bus (like emerging from the birth canal for a second time, haha) and into a taxi and make it to the train station with time to spare...but of course, having lost our tickets, we must wait in line for tickets that might possibly even be sold out. Fate dealt us the ace this time, as we were both able to purchase tickets and the train was delayed so that we would be able to check in on time. Whew! Qingdao, here we come!
So Qingdao is a great great city. It's a great seaside town with everything you'd expect from one: seafood, beaches, pleasant air, good weather. It's also got a little something extra...a beer factory, several in fact. The Chinese beer Tsingtao comes from this wonderful little city. The spellings are different because there are multiple pinyin spellings...and well, I'm not going to get into all that, but both the city and the beer sound like "ching dow." Of course, frat guy that I am, I had to visit the factory...and I gotta say, it was like my Graceland...just marvelous seeing all the beer and beer-related stuff. I may be brewing my own at some point soon, so keep an eye out for my face on a label. Qingdao is also a partner city for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, as it will be hosting all the water-related events. I had a chance to visit the stadium for this, along with some other aquatic fare. I'm not making it sound as great as it was, perhaps because I'm getting lazy in my writing since I've written so much. But the atmosphere of the town is just very pleasant, and there is plenty to do there. It became my favorite place on the trip...that is, until we arrived in Haerbin.
Haerbin, luckily for us lao wai (foreigners), was experiencing one of its warmest winters in a long time, so the temperature was well above it's typical -14 degrees F. However, it was still cold enough to maintain the Ice Lantern Festival, which is basically an assortment of locations throughout the city hosting outdoor ice and snow sculptures. The largest festival location was truly magnificent...a winter fantasy land where all the buildings are made of ice with neon lights highlighting them. It feels like being in the North Pole. The place had snow blanketed ground, ice slides, large ice and snow castles, ice bicycles (icycles?), and even an ice maze. I felt like a little kid again, in a snowy dream or something. In fact, the whole town of Haerbin has this sort of feeling...some kind of old world, fantasy feeling. It has lots of Russian influence because of it northern China location, and this is highly evident in the Daoliqu area that has cobblestone streets, Russian architecture, and plenty of Russian commodities and food venues. We also went to a Siberian Tiger Park, which was quite fun. The craziest moment of our journey came with our ski trip, which ended in my first Chinese hospitalization experience. Now, when you think of a ski trip, you think powder, chair lifts, and the sounds of "swoosh, swoosh, swoosh." Not in China, my friend. Here, it's icy snow, hold-on-to-some-crazy-pole-thing-with-your-hand
lifts, and the sound of a very mediocre and ONLY ski run that barely
adds up to the sounds of "swoo." With the skiing being so far below
mediocre, other diversions became necessary, such as skate-less ice
hockey (
i.e. using my very tractionless shoes on ice). I thought it
ill-advised to partake in this as first...not because it was dangerous,
but because I would be light years better than all the Chinese people
playing. However, the latter fact eventually encouraged me to play,
because, hey, who doesn't like looking good. Play transpired as
expected, and I had already scored 4 effortless goals in no time when
the other expected thing happened...my shoes fully lost grip on the
ice, and i fully face planted and split my wig. As soon as I picked my
face up quickly from its hard contact with ice, the expected stream of
blood came gushing forth from above my right eye, and I bled my way off
the ice, leaving a rather thick trail of blood in the snow and on the
ice behind me. It looked rather like someone had hunted and shot a
deer. Anyway, Chinese people rushed to my aid in a frenzy, and I
eventually got to a hospital and received 8 stitches. The real drama
of it was actually figuring out what the doctors were telling me,
especially for the care of the wound afterward. That's the part that
made the hospital adventure so long. In the end, everything worked
out...my eye is fine, and I can use the scar to tell new people I meet
a story about how I beat up 5 guys with one arm, haha. Overall,
Haerbin was a really great place with excellent food, adventures, and
awesome scenery. Go in winter between January and March, and you won't
regret it.
That's the end of the trip. I hope you didn't fall asleep reading this really long account. For more details about my trip and my learning experiences in China, especially my reasons for returning earlier than planned...well, you'll just have to suffer a conversation with me. That's what I love anyway, spending time and having conversations with you, my friends and family. So, do me that favor, and I will regale you with plenty of Chinese lore. I'm very excited to return to all of you soon, so please do find me when I'm back. I fly in this Saturday, February 3. Start penciling me in after that, hehe.
Signing off from China,
Dave
As many of you may already know, I'm coming back home. I have a laundry list of reasons for departing from China earlier than expected. I'm not gonna get into that because I know my reasons are right for me. I got a lot out of this experience, but I'm ready to start my career back home. The more important thing was that I took an awesome trip around China. And following are the details:
I must first start out by thanking my cousin Robin for taking up my offer to be my traveling companion. His Chinese is much better than mine, and he both speaks and understands (even reads and writes) pretty darn well. I don't think the trip would have been as successful as it was without him along. However, here's how it went.
Our trip hit a small snag from the onset. We had planned to take a boat cruise along the Grand Canal from Suzhou to Hangzhou, but upon attempting to purchase our tickets, we were informed that the weather is too cold for the boat to travel. So, we had to take a bus to Hangzhou instead, but it was not so bad since it was only a couple hours away. We stayed our first night in a fairly nice hotel, but Robin set up all our hotels through some Chinese travel agency. And for booking all our hotels on the day before or same day, we got great deals...less than $30 each night, except one really nice hotel in Haerbin that was about $80 but with a spectacular location. There's actually a really good hotel chain throughout most of China called Jinjiang Inn, and it's only about $20 a night...so we stayed at this inn whenever possible, and it worked out well. Ok, back to the trip. The purpose for visiting Hangzhou was to see the famous "Xi Hu" or West Lake, and also to drink the special tea of the area called Longjing cha. An old Chinese saying goes, "In heaven there is paradise, on earth Suzhou and Hangzhou." While Suzhou is now a rather industrialized and boring place lacking its former glory (Irvine-like, I'd say), Hangzhou retains its luster and grandeur because of West Lake...notwithstanding the brand new Hooters we found there. Aside from that, the beauty of the lake and the countryside where the tea leaves are grown for the Longjing cha are both outstanding, and they have that special feeling of antiquity. This feeling is the heart of China and what I think makes it great, stemming from its very long history. However, this is also what I see to be the major problem in China--as industrialization, commercialization, and Westernization take a greater hold each day, more and more of China's youth (and even older people) seem to be forgetting their past. The beauty of great sights throughout China are tainted by the massive amounts of peddlers and other commercial ventures. Yes I know, they gotta make a living, right? True. But still, it doesn't take away from the fact that a possibly peaceful time at a place like West Lake is constantly disrupted by the calls of hawkers of food and trinkets. I hope, for the sake of China's historic and current greatness, that the Chinese awareness for this self-inflicted dissipation of their culture is raised by foreign and domestic forces alike. Ok, sorry for another tangent. To finish with the Hangzhou leg of our journey, the finishing touch was a dinner at a famous Hangzhou restaurant called Louwailou. Practically every popular city in every province in China has its own signature dishes, and Robin and I did our best to make our journey an amazing one gastronomically as well. We had famous dishes there called West Lake Water Shield soup, Beggar's Chicken, Dongpo Pork, and West Lake Vinegar Fish. Each dish has a story attached to it, but the best one is the Beggar's Chicken, which tells the story of an old man who got very sick while living in the streets in Hangzhou. The other beggars banded together to help him and used their last remaining money and chicken to feed him. They dug a hole in the ground and lit a coal fire, and after substituting the chicken innards for the regional Shaoxing wine and other stuffing, they wrapped the chicken in tea leaves and slushy mud coating, then baked it in the ground. When the chicken was cooked and removed from the mud, the feathers also came off. The delicious scent attracted other neighbors, and everyone praised the unique cooking style and taste.
Our next stop was the beautiful island of Putuoshan, also in Zhejiang province but just off the coast. Getting there, however, would be another small adventure. We departed from Hangzhou to Ningbo by train, where we thought we could take a fast boat from the ferry terminal to the island. However, when in Ningbo we were informed that we needed to go to a place called Shenjiamen to get to Putuoshan. So we boarded a bus that was supposed to take us there. The bus ended up going on a boat, that's right, the whole bus onto one of those large freight boats. We ambled around the boat until we docked, then got back on the bus to some other small place. From there we had to take a taxi ride to the Shenjiamen fast boat dock. We were just pretty confused the whole time, and we took every form of transportation in one day: train, bus, boat, taxi. We finally ended up in Putuoshan around 4pm that afternoon after departing from Hangzhou at 7am. It was quite a long time and strange journey for an actual distance of around 150 miles. Putuoshan was definitely worth the hassle. The island was the China we know from movies (pre-Crouching Tiger), complete with temples, flowing landscapes, beaches, and humble fishing villagers. We were able to witness a lot of natural beauty and Chinese Buddhist piety. Even at our hotel one morning, a woman flagged us down to show us pictures in her digital camera of what she believed to be spirits. Needless to say, fantastic pictures were taken, and it was a rare peaceful experience in the uber-busy land of China. We even got to have a vegetarian meal (for the equivalent of about 40 cents) with the monks and other travelers in Puji Temple, which turned out to be actually quite a delicious meal, lacking in protein though it may have been.
Our next destination was Tai Shan, one of the five sacred mountains of China. This mountain is 1545m marvel, including a menagerie of temples and sacred rocks and sights with typically cool and funky Chinese names like Sword-splitting Stone and Archway to Immortality, all connected by winding stone staircases that altogether contain 6660 steps. We walked up all 6660 of them because legend claims that anyone who ascends Tai Shan will live to be 100, so I guess now I can drink, carouse, and partake in extreme sports all I want because I'm guaranteed to be a centurion. Also, this was the mountain emperors had to climb to verify their empirical divinity ( i.e. if they died during the ascent, they were not divinely ordained as emperor...it's a no-brainer, haha); of course, the climb was a picnic for them since they were carried up in sedan chairs by servants. Anyway, it's not the highest Chinese mountain, nor even the highest of the 5 sacred ones, but it was quite a strenuous climb...since ambitious a climber and adventurer as I am, I hauled ass to the top. The peak once again felt a bit besmirched because of peddlers, a strange manor, a hotel, and several towers and antennas and other satellite type devices that cluttered the summit. However, it was still a breathtaking climb that gave me a great sense of accomplishment. The plentiful clouds and fog prevented any sort of magnificent views, but it was still pretty darn nice. Our return to the train station was much more interesting though. We descended halfway down the mountain by cable car, which is when my cousin discovered that had lost our train tickets. Cue suspense now: train departure time at 3:07pm without tickets and a current time of 1:30pm. We have to wait until 1:45pm for the rickety bus ride to the quiet square below the mountain, and the ride itself take about 25 minutes and leads us to yet another bus...2:14pm. This is a public bus, so we know there are going to be stops, but as soon as we get in, we realize that the bus driver is driving slower than I could walk. We don't know how to react until she actually stops the bus altogether without so much as a peep of explanation. She exits the bus and picks up a stick from the side of the road and starts fiddling with stuff outside the bus...turns out she was outta gas...the fates have conspired against us yet again. 2:26pm - We hop on the next bus behind ours, and it drives about half a km when we see a crowd of people in the road before us. To our dismay, they are not just a crowd of onlookers, but rather a mob of at least 35 people all waiting for, yes...our bus. If you have never seen a mob of Chinese people scramble onto a bus, you haven't lived. Amusing though it was, our current situation found it as a difficulty (side note: watching Chinese people pour out of an elevator is almost equally as amusing...it's that whole clown car phenomenon...life imitating art, good times). Mind you, we are still in a podunk part of the city for a good portion of this crowded bus ride, so we have to wait until we reach civilization before we can even hope to substitute our current situation with a taxi ride instead. 2:45pm - We squeeze ourselves off the bus (like emerging from the birth canal for a second time, haha) and into a taxi and make it to the train station with time to spare...but of course, having lost our tickets, we must wait in line for tickets that might possibly even be sold out. Fate dealt us the ace this time, as we were both able to purchase tickets and the train was delayed so that we would be able to check in on time. Whew! Qingdao, here we come!
So Qingdao is a great great city. It's a great seaside town with everything you'd expect from one: seafood, beaches, pleasant air, good weather. It's also got a little something extra...a beer factory, several in fact. The Chinese beer Tsingtao comes from this wonderful little city. The spellings are different because there are multiple pinyin spellings...and well, I'm not going to get into all that, but both the city and the beer sound like "ching dow." Of course, frat guy that I am, I had to visit the factory...and I gotta say, it was like my Graceland...just marvelous seeing all the beer and beer-related stuff. I may be brewing my own at some point soon, so keep an eye out for my face on a label. Qingdao is also a partner city for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, as it will be hosting all the water-related events. I had a chance to visit the stadium for this, along with some other aquatic fare. I'm not making it sound as great as it was, perhaps because I'm getting lazy in my writing since I've written so much. But the atmosphere of the town is just very pleasant, and there is plenty to do there. It became my favorite place on the trip...that is, until we arrived in Haerbin.
Haerbin, luckily for us lao wai (foreigners), was experiencing one of its warmest winters in a long time, so the temperature was well above it's typical -14 degrees F. However, it was still cold enough to maintain the Ice Lantern Festival, which is basically an assortment of locations throughout the city hosting outdoor ice and snow sculptures. The largest festival location was truly magnificent...a winter fantasy land where all the buildings are made of ice with neon lights highlighting them. It feels like being in the North Pole. The place had snow blanketed ground, ice slides, large ice and snow castles, ice bicycles (icycles?), and even an ice maze. I felt like a little kid again, in a snowy dream or something. In fact, the whole town of Haerbin has this sort of feeling...some kind of old world, fantasy feeling. It has lots of Russian influence because of it northern China location, and this is highly evident in the Daoliqu area that has cobblestone streets, Russian architecture, and plenty of Russian commodities and food venues. We also went to a Siberian Tiger Park, which was quite fun. The craziest moment of our journey came with our ski trip, which ended in my first Chinese hospitalization experience. Now, when you think of a ski trip, you think powder, chair lifts, and the sounds of "swoosh, swoosh, swoosh." Not in China, my friend. Here, it's icy snow, hold-on-to-some-crazy-pole
That's the end of the trip. I hope you didn't fall asleep reading this really long account. For more details about my trip and my learning experiences in China, especially my reasons for returning earlier than planned...well, you'll just have to suffer a conversation with me. That's what I love anyway, spending time and having conversations with you, my friends and family. So, do me that favor, and I will regale you with plenty of Chinese lore. I'm very excited to return to all of you soon, so please do find me when I'm back. I fly in this Saturday, February 3. Start penciling me in after that, hehe.
Signing off from China,
Dave
