Catching Up

I will apologize in advance for this long entry, but, now that I have some time, I'm trying to get caught up. I've broken it up so you can read it in sections if you don't have the stamina. I have also posted more pics, including some from Xi'an here.

The Epic Conquering of Wundang Shan
What do you get when you cross a Kungfu movie theatre, a smoking parlor, a morgue, and four wheels? I really don't know, but I think it would resemble a Chinese "sleeper bus." Just picture a charter bus (only smaller), but instead of seats you get three rows, two high, of cramped bunks. I'm not sure why they call it a sleeper bus, because besides one set of snores from someone I am convinced was heavily dosed with valium, there was certainly no sleeping going on in that bus. It was basically a death trap. I can't really complain though because " Kungfu Mahjong" and "Kungfu Mahjong II" were still pretty entertaining despite the obvious language barrier and the fact that I'd already seen them both when I was "studying" Chinese in high school. Who knew Mahjong could be so exciting?

The bus arrived in Shiyan at 4 am, two hours earlier than we expected. We awoke and, after confirming this was the place, jumped off and into the throngs of taxi drivers. After intense negotiations with a taxi driver and, subsequently, a minibus driver, we were crammed in the back of a minibus and on the way through the dark to Wudong Shan mountain. Through some miracle, not helped by our almost complete lack of communication with the drivers, by 6 am we were at the base of the mountain waiting for the park to open. Just before dawn we jumped on another bus which wound up through the hills and valleys to the small collection of empty and run-down hotels. After securing a room with hot water and heat (or so we thought), Kevin and I headed up the mountain. While it had been raining on us at the base, the mountain got a light snowfall. If it hadn't been for the elegantly carved stone steps which wound up the mountain we wouldn't have made it far, but after three hours of walking up and down (mostly up) endless steps, visiting small temples and ignoring numerous gift shops, we had made it to the frozen summit - an impressive collection of large buildings and temples. It made me shudder to think of the labor involved with hauling up the thousands of steps and other building materials needed to build this complex. The hike up was beautiful in the snow and receding mist, and was a much needed lift after a trying and difficult trip from Xi'an. I found myself surprisingly grateful for the snow, as otherwise I might not of seen any winter at all.

Arg, more stairs

Wudong Shan

The peak was amazing. The high winds and snowfall left complex structures of ice flash-frozen on the plants and structures. We fueled up on some chocolate (kudos to Burdick for that one), checked out the Buddha at the very top, and then headed down. The trip down was filled with many people, an aspect strangely absent from the trip up, because I'm pretty sure we took the hard way up. They were all Chinese tourists and we would periodically break into conversation with them - a little English, a little Chinese and sometimes even conveying limited actual meaning. As far as I could tell, we were the only foreigners besides a small group we saw from only a distance - but like the yeti himself, they remained veiled in mist, may have been a figment of our imagination, and we never saw them again.

We reached the bottom and I was exhausted to the point where I honestly wasn't sure I could make it up the last hundred steps to the village, but after not too long we were sitting in front of a table filled with twice cooked pork (though it turned out to actually be undercooked bacon, rather than actual pork that was cooked twice as the name would suggest) a diced up chicken with mushrooms and some spicy tofu. After eating our deserved feast, we headed back to the hotel to soak up the heat in our hotel room. We stumbled in, turned it on, and...nothing happened. After two hours of shivering and watching our breathe as 6 different people turned the heater off, turned it back on again, played with some other buttons and scratched their heads (as if no one had actually used the heater before), we decided to take action. Though we were clearly the only ones staying there, they were obviously perturbed that we'd bothered their mahjong game as they all huddled around a warm bucket of burning coal, but we needed heat. I headed out into the dark to see when the last bus down the mountain was and, after passing a slew of more unattractive options, saw a slightly larger hotel which appeared to actually have occupants. I looked at a room and negotiated the same low price we had at the other place (all in Chinese I might add - pat, pat), but I had to feel the heat. Despite her objections, I made her turn on the heater, and waited patiently under it, my hand held toward the ceiling, waiting. After five minutes, I felt the hot air and immediately said the Chinese equivalent of "I'll take it."

That, I knew, was the easy part. The hard part was getting the money back from the old hotel. This wasn't the Holiday Inn off of I-80 where you politely ask for the manager; this was a family run Chinese hotel at the top of the mountain, where we were the only occupants. We grabbed our bags and headed to the lobby. They weren't budging so we had to kick it into a higher gear. Kevin was decidedly angry and didn't have a problem showing it going behind the desk to try and take the money back. I in the meantime, faced 10 people and kept asking for the money back in Chinese. Kevin started going crazy and I kept telling him to stop and then would turn to the men and say "Gei wo wo men de qian." It was a little good cop, bad cop type of deal and after not too long they caved and forked over the dough. It got a little hairy and I had visions of ending up in a Chinese jail, and couldn't wait to get off the mountain, but ten minutes later we were comfortably lying in our new heated room.

Yiching and the Dam to End All Dams
I took us the whole next day to get off the mountain and to Yicang. We got there about 9pm after a jam packed minibus, a four hour wait in Xiangfan and a four hour train ride with a 21 year old English speaking heater salesman (oh, the irony!), a 13-year-old girl who wanted to marry Kevin (don't they all), and a professional arm wrestler who was decidedly not amused by our antics.

Once in Yichang, we found a sketchy basement room in an otherwise nice hotel and hit the town. We got some kickass fried rice (thanks to my request for extra garlic and spicy peppers) off the street, and after looking for a nonexistent watering hole highly recommended by the book of lies, we found Johnny's bar where we were instant celebrities (especially me, sharing the first name of a Backstreet Boy!). After many a round of "xiao da" (literally "big small" - think hi low, but with dice) with the manager and cute bartender, we promised to return the next day for some live music.

The next day we scounted for ferry tickets and headed out ot see the Three Gorges Dam. The dam was almost exactly like the Hoover Dam except it's:
1. Actually big (I mean massively, massively huge)

2. Cold

3. In China

4. Not done yet

5. Awesome

The big dam

As an engineer interested in sustainable energy, the Dam was a definite highlight for me, though I found it more than a little ironic that the locks which bypass the biggest hydroelectric project in the world were filled with barges carrying huge amounts of coal upriver for the power plants. I really would like to learn more about the project, because our tour guide was of limited use - on the way to the dam after talking Chinese over the loudspeakers for about 25 minutes, she turned to Kevin and I and said, "Sir, this is the special road built to go to the dam. It has 4 bridges and 5 tunnels." and then continued on in Chinese. I'm sure it was interesting. Later though, she did recommend a good restaurant (though she wouldn't join us for dinner).

After steak and burgers, we returned to Johnny's that night as promised. We checked out the band (whom played "pretty woman" in English in our honor) and then met a crazed sherpa at a different bar down the road. It think he wanted to be our guide up Everest, though some info might have been misinterpreted in translation. Kevin got scared as the sherpa got drunker and more animated and gave the agreed upon sign that it's time to leave--a pinky figure up the nostril--so we high tailed it out of there. We eventually ended up in a strange "singing dancing club" upstairs in our hotel. We were there with five others (mostly couples) and the three bar tenders. Someone would sing karaoke at the big screen TV and then a couple would dance under the disco ball. They tried to get us to sing, but we feigned ignorance--you know what they say: it's all fun and games until AJ starts singing karaoke.

All in all, we were in agreement that Yichang was a favorite. It wasn't too touristy, and has very few foreigners and almost no English-speaking Chinese. It's a low key city, but is booming from the dam project and the cruise business up the Yangtze.

Up the River and onto Chingching

The next night we boarded our sketchy ferry for the trip up the Yangtze. We shared a six bunk cabin with a smelly squat toilet with three Chinese. The boat was pretty rough around the edges with a lot of rusty patchwork and we were definitely the only foreigners on the boat, and labored to communicate with the others in our room. This was no Yangtze River Cruise, this was a Chinese ferry. We ate dried noodles, sweet bread, peanuts, and drank our bottle of savory Bie Jui (previously mentioned strange and mysterious liquor), eventually getting the other younger roommate to join in these latter festivities (but only after his father left the room). I woke at dawn the next day to catch the end of the majestic three gorges, the boat seeming impossibly close to the huge cliffs, and then we enjoyed the rest of the scenic cruise upstream to Chongqing. The boat was a nice change from cramped trains, uncomfortable buses and claustrophobic sleeper buses. Life was pretty laid back and the scenery was great, though it was cold and overcast.

Hot Pot

Chongching has been great. After arriving late we headed out for sichaun hot pot, a boiling concoction of oil broth and tons of spices in which you dip veggies and meat. It turned out to be really cheap and gave me tears in my eyes, partially from the spice and partially from happiness. Chiongching is situated between the Yangtzee and one of its tributaries and is up on a high hill on a small peninsula. Like Yichang, there are few tourists and foreigners as it's the low season for Yangtze tours. Kevin and I hit a temple and the sketchy cable car over the Yangtzee today and after seeing him off to the airport, I explored the city by foot. So I'm back on my own, but was so grateful to have a new friend around for a couple days. It was a tough couple days jumping around from place to place and was good to have Kevin's experience in foreign travel as a resource. Tomorrow I'm on a bus to Chengdu to see the Panda preserve and to enjoy some more Sichaun cuisine. That's everything. Zai Jian.

Cable car over the Yangtzi

Xi'an in a minute

Had a whirlwind trip to Xi'an, the capital of Shaanxi province. Usual story - arrived first thing in the morning after a restless night on the train and somehow found a way to my hostel, a really cool hostel looking out over the Xi'an bell tower at the intersection of the four main streets in the center of Xi'an. I hit my bed and about an hour later people in the room started stirring. I rose with them and heard talk of the Terracota Warriors, the main tourist draw in Xi'an. The Terracota Warriors are an army of about 7,000 larger-than-life clay armed soldiers and horses buried with emporer Qin around 200 BC when Xi'an was a pretty big deal, and vanity projects involved thousands of slaves instead of just buying a new boat. Some peasants found the warriors in 1976 when digging through their rice patties.

I asked one of my new roomates if they were going and he (Kevin) asked if I wanted to come along. After only an hour in Xi'an I'd already made a friend. Go me. I took a shower, ate a quick breakfast, and was off to the warriors with two Irishmen, a Polish Chicagon (who wanted me to invest in windpower in Montana with him after telling me about loosing all his money in the stockmarket which brought about a divorce - ahhh, thanks, but I'll pass for now), a couple Israelies, and Kevin, who turned out to be a somewhat normal American for once. The terracota warriors were neat to see, but aren't quite the huge army you expect. Many are in pieces or remain unexgevated, the lighting is terrible (I think to help preserve them) and you can't get very close, but it was still worth it. We returned to Xi'an, bypassing the Qin tomb (described as just a mound by our tour books), and set out to find a wan ba (internet cafe). The "Book of Lies" ( e.g. Lonely Planet or my Let's Go guide) misled us into a strange alley with no internet, but we did come out with a mysterious bottle of unknown liquor which will be factored in later in my story.

OK, it's later. So after dinner, which consisted of a small pack of instant noodles for yours truly, Kevin, and I and the two Irishmen drank the liquor, which tasted sweet like rice wine but packed a hell of a punch, and a bunch of beers while sharing international jokes and getting a heated account of Irish history and English atrocities. The Irishmen got a little riled up so I tried to steer the party towards the 1+1 nightclub, highly reccomended by the Book of Lies. We got there about 1 am and the music pounded away as the dance floor just got started. We orderd some Budweisers ('cause that's what Americans drink right?) and surveyed the crowd. One of the Irishmen got invited to a booth by a German girl, but she was studying engineering so after we all crashed the party we found 8 German guys and her. After we each took turns talking to the one girl we decided this wasn't going to work out. I was beckoned over by a local Chinese girl after learning she had ended up with one of my other new roomates the night before and was still wearing the same clothes...thanks but no thanks. Kevin and I went into a different booth where he started chatting it up with a local Xi'anite, and I played wingman as I fended off her male friends who insisted we were in their seats. Sometimes it helps to just smile and nod and pretend you don't know the language.

The next day was low key. I volunteered my plan of heading to Wu Dan Shan, one of the five sacred Chinese Peaks, then to Yi Chang to see the Three Gorges dam, then head up the Yangtze to Chong Ching. Kevin liked the plans and decided to come with (a decision he would later regret) for his last week in China so I got myself a traveling buddy. Later that evening we would head to the vibrant Muslim quarter for Thanksgiving dinner. He had Kung Pao Chicken and I had Beef with Sour Cabbage along with beer and delicious spicy bread. I later learned that my family went to a Chinese restaurant for thanksgiving in my honor, since we'd had our traditional meal before I left. A nice gesture from the fam, though something tells me my Chinese food was better. The next day I hit up the Bell Tower, great Mosque and skipped the free dumpling party at the hostel for a cramped sleeper bus to Shi Yan. That's when the real adventure started, but I'll have to give you the scoop on that later. I hope to get caught up later and will post some pictures of Xi'an, but for now I have to catch a train.

Tales of the Sleepy Town of Ping Yao (population 400,000)

Practicing the ancient art of cheezy, distasteful photography

If I had to use one word to describe my life in PingYao, especially after a week in Beijing, it would have to be "relaxing". Ping Yao is an ancient city about 300 miles southwest of Beijing. The old section has a 6 km (~3.5 mile) wall around it originally built in the 9th century BC out of rammed earth and then rebuilt out of real bricks in the 1300s. Within the walls are a number of well preserved houses and traditional courtyards from the Ming and Qing Dynasties (in case you can't tell from my tone, I'm basiclly copying this from my travel guide). The walls originally were built to keep the barbarians out, but now mostly seem to keep the tourists in, and the real China out. Within the walls were streets lined with empty guest houses, empty restuarants (with English menus) and touristy shops. There were tons of chinese tourists and the occasional foreigner walking the streets.

Keeping in the tourists

Arriving in Ping Yao was a trip in itself. After the train pulled in at 5:30, I was whisked through the streets in our motorbike taxi, my new Japenese friend at my side (with whom I could only chat with in Chinese so our friendship remained at a very simple, undeveloped level, but she was very nice). The outline of the west tower suddenly appeared above us, a ghostly flash in the darkness, as we disappeared through the wall and into the city. The driver wound through the dark barren streets, the weak headlight barely illuminating the numerous potholes just in time for the driver to swerve around them. At one point the driver stopped and, though I didn't see a hostel, I jumped out eagerly with my pack. I then noticed the driver hunched over the front of the bike reading a scrap of paper in the headlight. We were lost. Great, just what I needed.

Luckily, after getting his bearings, the driver eventually found the place and after ten minutes of banging on the pitch black door we were inside. The man who let us in shifted some papers around in a dazed state and then cocked his hands onto his raised hands and said, "You sleep now, pay later." I was happy to oblige.

A couple hours later I made my way downstairs through the traditional courtyard and to the front desk, which was part of the big front room filled with comfy couches, chairs, tables and big windows looking out on the quite street and the city tower. Steve, aformentioned crazy American from Beijing, was at a table eating his "American Breakfast" and gave me a map of Ping Yao and advice of what to see. Like others I met, he wasn't staying there, but just liked hanging out there and eating the western food. As a brief aside (later that day he was apparently seen inapropriately hitting on the young Chinese waitstaff), why can't I just find a nice normal American over here...

I did, though, meet a Finnish guy whom became my tourist buddy for a couple days. Days in Ping Yao consited of: walking the streets; exploring the preserved houses, temples and city walls; stopping in the occasional shop; and drinking beer and chatting with my new friends: a Swede with a thing for midgets (it's a long, good story involving Vegas and "wee man" from Jackass), a Belgian, and the Fin. Occasinally I'd also chat Chinese with my Japanese friend and the hostel staff. I occasionally ventured out of the tourist-filled walls, eliciting many a long hard stare, to get real street food and to make an unsuccesfull attempt at buying a train ticket to Xi'an (there's quite a racket there where you have to buy through the hotels and pay a hefty commision - capatilism at it's best!). Life was good, and very relaxing, but soon felt the itch to move on.

My chinese tutor and I enjoy our kao hong shu (roasted sweet potato)

Stone characters

Beijing Wrap Up and On to Pingyao

I've wrapped up my time in Beijing and I think a week was plenty. I saw the sights, braved the street food, practiced some Mandarin, and even did some shopping – though I didn't really buy anything. Beijing (and China or that matter) is a really interesting place. There's a total mix of economic development which exists side-by-side with a culture and way of life which feels (pardon my cliché) stuck in the ages: 50 story cranes alongside wooden wheelbarrows, donkey carts and handmade straw brooms. In Beijing I'd frequently see construction workers digging trenches wearing full suits as their counterparts speed by to the office in their brand new car. You also see businessmen and teenage girls riding through the streets on beat up rusty bicycles, talking on their cell phones. In the small restaurants in the hu tongs you get a full mix of people often all at the same large table. It's a great time to see China as it continues through its breakneck rate of change. I continue to think what will be different when I make it back. The people have such great pride and dignity and there's a wonderful excitement in the air over China's great "coming-out party" – the 2008 Olympic games.

When I last left you, I was thinking of going to a new hostel... well I tried, and it was a total disaster. I made the personal discovery that it was closed, being situated in the soccer stadium which, like everything else, is being renovated for the games, and had moved half way across town. It would have been nice if the woman had told me this when I made the reservation, but her English was bad and my Chinese, as previously indicated, is what they call "bu hao" in these parts. After over an hour of calling, walking, missing bus stops and more walking, I checked into my new hostel and met my roommates - a crazy old man from Illinois and a truly strange Japanese male prostitute (or so that's what the crazy old man told me). The crazy roommates, combined with a high price, bad location, unhelpfull wait staff, and sub par accomodations. Needless to say, not long after checking in, I decided to check out the next morning. The morale: In a city of 16 million people, when you find a good place to stay, you don't question it.

That evening I left the hostel to see Sanlitun - a big expat area in Beijing. The streets were nice and clean, lined with trees, well-kept restaurants, coffee shops and bars with bilingual signs. It was a sharp contrast from my previous hu tong which has, let's say, a lot more "character." I continued to run into foreigners, but not the mystified type I was used to seeing staggering around the streets wide-eyed with shopping bags full of Adidas ripoffs. In contrast, these foreigners were confident, clearheaded, and determined. It was nice to see that it's possible to understand and live in this place that seemed to crazy to me. After exploring the streets and offshoot alleys, I realized I wasn't going to find any local flavor, so, after getting directions from a French woman (apparently the French will speak English to an American, provided they're in Beijing) I found the Bookworm, an expat English lending library, book store, coffee shop, bar and restaurant. The place teemed with laptop-toting expats, cappuccinos and glasses of vino. It reminded me of Bus Boys and Poets in DC (probably not coincidentally where I received the recommendation), except the staff barely spoke English, just to make sure I remembered where I was.

The next day, I woke early, high-tailed it back to my old hostel and arranged my travel and accommodations for Pingyao, my newly determined next destination. That afternoon, I headed to the US embassy where the streets were closed off for a two block radius. After flashing my passport a couple of times I was past the droves of people lined up to get Visas and onto the ghostly desserted streets on the other side of the barbed wire fence. The embassy was closed for lunch, so I played some Jian Zi (best described as a combination of hacky and badminton) with some Chinese people on their lunch break.

Playing Jian Zi outside the US embassy during the lunch break

Turned out they worked at the US Embassy, which I learned when they headed back in and left me out on the street alone. The embassy finally opened. I passed through security, gave a "what's up" to the army guard on duty, took my number, and waited. While waiting, in a room full of Chinese (which was odd because I was in the "US citizen services" room), I got to listen to the other American in the room talk about how he disliked San Fransisco's liberal ideals and how his Chinese wife shouldn't worry about moving to America because she could always get a job at a Chinese restaurant because there were "thousands of them." I was more than a bit appalled. I'd only met two Americans so far and one was crazy, the other a jerk. With out much additional fan fare, I filled out my form to register my presence in the country, utilized the nice clean restroom, stole some crisp cold water from the water cooler and was back on Chinese soil. Next up I hit the ancient observatory, a small stone mound from the 1400s nestled amongst brand new skyscrapers downtown and topped with old astronomical instruments all adorned with elegant weaving dragons. This was one of my favorite sights because I had it all to myself and the contrast between past and present was wonderful.

Instruments ontop of the ancient observatory, built in the 1400s and now nestled among the skyscrapers of downtown Beijing

The rest of Beijing was relatively uneventful. I spent an afternoon at the Summer Palace, a huge expansive day camp for emperors and their empresses (built mostly out of funds extorted from the milatary). The Summer Palace was definitely a highlight with temples, lakes, bridges, brass oxen and Chinese Theatre.

A visitor contemplates Kunming Lake with a view of the 17 arch bridge at the empress's Summer Palace.

This was followed by a large dinner with three Australian girls, followed by an inprompt to trip to the "VIP room" of a place affectionately called "This is a Pub" by the 4 Swedes, one Canadian and one Englishmen whom had been there before. It got this name because, in spite of the huge neon sign over the door which says "Pub" (which can't be missed because it was basically on a deserted alley), when they first entered the bartender announced "This is a Pub". The actual name was quite a bit stranger, but I think "This is a Pub" is better. Simplicity has its virtues. The VIP room was in the back, with no windows, some pictures of naked women on the walls, a fake trestle ceiling with fake Ivy and hand shaped chairs - all lit by blinking colored Christmas lights and night lights. Besides us there were 4 Chinese in the front sitting at the bar. It in no way resembled a pub, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

On Saturday I did some more shopping, ate a large lunch of beef noodle soup and "Ma La Dou Fu" (tofu with chili peppers) and eventually headed to the train station. Beijing West was a total madhouse full of other chaos. There were mobs of people everywhere, coming in, going out and waiting on their bags. Through some miracle I found the waiting platform, boarded the train and was off to Pingyao. I got a hard sleeper, one of a group of six bunks, three stacked on a side. I had chosen the top bunk because it's supposed to be the safest to store your stuff. When first boarding I sat on the bottom bunk with a Chinese family. They didn't speak any English, so I chatted in broken Chinese. I asked where they were going and why, knowing full well I wouldn't understand their reply, but I think they were traveling for the older man's health. The old man and young woman were very patient with me and helped me with my Chinese. The younger man - presumably the woman's husband - would just talk back at me really fast then give me a strange look when I didn't understand. They gave me some nuts, filled my water bottle with hot water for tea and offered me their address and telephone number in Beijing and I reciprocated with mine. Then, just before 10pm I headed for my bunk because that's what everyone else was doing. I eventually fell asleep, slept through my alarm and was woken soon after by the train staff because the train was approaching Pingyao. I scrambled my stuff together and jumped off the train as a woman yelled at me for being late. All in all though, the train and the wonderful family was a true highlight.

It was pitch black, 5 am, and coming out of the station I was met by a man with a sign that said "Arghur Howard". Out of a handful of people, a Japanese woman and I jumped on the cart and were whisked through the north gate under the imposing city walls and into ancient Pingyao... more on that later. Zai Jian

Photos from Beijing

Click here for a link to my pictures on flickr.

The Dig on Beijing

So, I've know spent three days in Beijing and feel like I have something to report - although the first day really doesn't count because I spent it in a total haze after the thirty hours of travel followed by a night staring at the bottom of the bunk above me.

So far in Beijing I've done the basics including:
Tian'an men square
Forbidden City
Great Wall
Shopping (and eating) in the "hutong" (alleys)
Met a host of other backpackers (mostly Aussie so far)
Private "art" tour by a couple "students"

The Great Wall was spectacular. It's one of those things which was exactly what I was expecting, but you really have to see it for yourself. No picture can do it justice. We hiked 10 KM of it which took half a day, and that's out of a 5,000km wall.

Beijing is a crazy place. Like the Great Wall, it's scale is mind blowing. Someone recently told me the Beijing Metropolitan area is the size of Belgium, which, though it seems implausible, I believe. This afternoon, I sat atop Jingshan Park, a man made mountain built from the dirt from the moat to the forbidden city. It's one of the highest points in Beijing and looks out over the tiny shacks and government buildings which stretch into the distance followed by the skyscrapers which ring the city near the outer loops, all peppered by hundreds of cranes. This goes on as far as the eye can see.

I started a little slow, but that's what Beijing is supposed to be for. Mostly wandering the streets in a daze basically observing, echoes of "helloooo" trailing my every step with hopes and anticipation of rapid outflow of Yuan. Sleep is still hard to come by, so I'm still pretty hazy during the day, but have started to work through it. Last night I returned from the great wall, exhausted but determined to try some local food. I showered up and took to the "hutou" my hostel's on and found a restaurant with many locals, but a few backpackers. Within minutes I was whisked inside with a waiter hovering over me. I ordered, noodles with eggs and tomatoes which seemed like a safe bet, and of course a large Tsing Tao (beer). WIthin a few minutes I had struck up a conversation with some Italians whom were finishing their trek through china and by the end I was helping them teach the waiter Chinese. The noodles were delicious and the beer more so after a long couple days. Total bill - 6 Yuan (~ $.75).

Today was a long walk through the city including the Forbidden City and JingShan park. I stopped into a few shops where I got many stares because, although tourists are plentiful, few seem to stray from the beaten path. I've gotten ripped off a few times (2 Yuan for a bananna! Zhen De!?), I'm starting to hone my haggling skills- my crowning achievement so far being the "rattle snake sounding spinning balls" which I got for "only" 6 Yuan which is actually a lot, but the guy entertained me so I gave him a break (they're hard to explain but when you see them you'll know - family, you know what you're getting for christmas (if I can get the price lower, that is)). The highlight of my day was working my way from Jing Shan Park to the Drum Tour (the old time keeping tower in Beijing) and running into Isis, an Australian headed for Mongolia I'd met on the bus to the great wall. She came to the drum tower and after jumping on the back of her rented bike to escape the pestering rickshaws (this actually only resulted in us falling over and was not, in fact, a good escape plan). We decided to hit up a place later for Peking Duck, the local specialty. After half a duck, some beer and some rice, we were called over to the table with one of the owners and his friend. We chatted in broken English and even worse Chinese, laughed and ate something that vaguely resembled a fish in a boiling pot. They kept us there for a few more beers before we could politely depart. It's amazing how much fun you can have with someone with whom you can barely communicate. Although we were laughing too, I think they were mainly laughing at us, but that's something I can live with.

Tomorrow I move to a new hostel in the Shantalin which is supposed to be a hotbed of expats. Then, I'll decide where next.

I'll try and post some more pictures, but the internet is sparse and slow over here. Zai Jian.

Welcome to Beijing

Door to door, Hunnington beach to my Hostel in Beijing, took about 26 hours. This includes a nine hour layover in Hong Kong, half of which I spent chatting with a potter from South Africa on the way to visit her family in New Zealand. I met her at Starbucks while drinking tea and reading the new Economist I just bought - AKA life at the Hong Kong Airport is not much different than life at home. We labored on our attempts at conversation, but were both exhausted, and really, what can you talk to a complete stranger about for more than 4 hours?

I almost didn't make the flight to Hong Kong. I forgot to pack my paper tickets, which, though I know I should have packed them, I forgot after being led to believe I didn't need them. After running from the Cathay Pecific desk to the American desk at the next terminal, paying $100, and running back, all was right with the world and I was on my way. It amazed me that in the age of the internet I wouldn't have been able to board that plane without a piece of paper. When's the last time you used a paper ticket? Notch that up as the first of many lessons I'll learn on this adventure.

I arrived exhausted in Beijing, quickly made it though immigration and customs and found myself standing curbside at the airport, probably looking very confused. A young girl asked what I was looking for and before I could finish saying "the shuttle bus to XiDan" I had paid 16 Yuan ($2), the door of the bus closed behind me and before I could sit down we were off. It all happened so fast, but I was in Beijing headed into the city. I grabbed a seat and immediately my seatmate asked about my trip in excellent English. She gave me advice on life in Beijing and helped cross the street and hail a taxi once at XiDan.

So everything was going smoothly, then the taxi driver, whom didn't speak a word of English (or so he wanted me to think), drove me half way around the city trying to go ten blocks. I tried telling him (in broken Chinese) where to go, but all attempts to communicate were fruitless. I finally got sick of the charade and jumped out, and through the extreme generosity of two gentleman on the street, used the bus to get to the hostel. For a moment though I had felt totally helpless - confused with no idea where I was, unable to really communicate and in the hands of total strangers. Though it was only about ten, my long travels and the many time changes made it feel much later. I was quickly becoming paranoid about losing my wallet and passport - constantly thinking I lost them, finding them, moving them and then repeating. I had one of those moments, I'm sure not the last of this trip, where I just felt totally helpless and beyond hope, but in retrospect, I was just lost and tired. I hope eventually to understand this difference.

I was so relieved to get to the hostel and check in, and after fumbling around in the dark to not wake my new roomates, I was, finally, lying in a bed - safe and confortable. My heart was still pounding from the events of the evening and thoughts of what's to come. Sleep was hard to come by. Although I was extremely tired, I lay there with thoughts shooting through my mind, replaying the cab incident, thinking about the next day, and mostly thinking "OK, so I made to Beijing, now what?" More on that later, but for now, I'm safe and confortable here in Beijing. Zai Jian.

The L.A. Experience

So far I've gotten the total L.A. experience with Vijay. After getting off the plane and immediately seeing my first celebrity (the annoying guy from that cooking show... no, not Emeril, the other one) we headed to Manhattan Beach for an afternoon beer, and watched the surfers come in as the sun set above the mighty Pacific. Then we met Marcy, whom had quit early off her shoot because the cameraman was being a pill over a broken camera. Marcy worked wardrobe. She was the rarest of breeds (as I was told), a Manhattan beach native, and she loved to tell us about it. She told us about being a "band-aid" (NOT a groupie) back in the 70's and about shooting the Aerosmith video the night before. After being reminded of the band's name (What's that band with Steven Tyler in it?), she told us how bored she had been back stage (it's a tough life) and then announced she was "too old for Aerosmith", to which I replied, "Aerosmith's too old for Aerosmith". In other news, Marcy also started a surfboard company with her ex-husband and then moved to Costa Rica with her son for a year to escape him. The son's now getting married there so the family can all surf. It's amazing how much you can learn about someone in 20 minutes sitting at the bar.

Vijay and I then headed to a Hollywood scotch tasting with the top down in the Miata, but the air wasn't exactly whipping through my hair. No trip to LA is complete without sitting in stop-and-go traffic on the 405,110, 101 and... well all of them. After an hour of that we gave up and ended to the roof bar of the Standard Hotel in downtown L.A. Now this place was L.A.! They had lounge chairs, strange beds, ivy unicorns, a fireplace, a lap pool, scantly clad waitresses and $12 drinks (a days budget in China I might add), and all surrounded by 50 story buildings (we were on 13th floor). It was actually really cool, though surreal. The place was packed for a Wednesday night and the clientel seemed pretty mellow, though the high rollers started showing up as we walked out around nine.

On the way back to Hunnington Beach. Vijay drove me through the port of L.A. which was quite a sight. Empty containers with Chinese characters spread in every direction as far as the eye could see, and the whole place was lit with flood lighting as if it were daytime, drawing untoldmega watts of, apparently, abundant energy. As Vijay said, "nowhere can you see the trade deficit better than here." I would agree with that statement and add that it's a pretty good view of America's generally excessive nature to boot.



Went to the beach today to watch the surfers, and stuck my feet in the water. Next time I'll be on the other side. Leave for Beijing in 9 hours. Will have less reliable access to internet over there I imagine, so my posts will likely get shorter and less frequent, but I'll keep them coming.

The Slow Plane to China

So, tomorrow I embark on the greatest adventure of my life. The plan – go to China for two months, then Thailand, Australia and New Zealand and then (eventually) return home. “What’s the impetus for this trip?” you might ask, and if you did that would be a good question. My main interest is in going to China, and although it might seem strange to pick a place half way around the world where few people speak English, it turns out I have my reasons. Among them:

1. I studied Mandarin for three years (san nian) in high school, an educational pursuit which has so far remained totally unutilized;
2. Two words: panda preserve (anyone who’s caught a glimpse of Tai Shan, or “Peaceful Mountain,” just shy of Connecticut Avenue understands this draw);
3. Dumplings;
4. China’s increased importance in effecting global energy supply and demand as their economy emerges onto the world stage of developed nations (blah, blah)…;
5. I’ve never been there.

So I’ve taken a long break from my consulting job in Washington, DC, moved my stuff back to the ‘rents in NH, and packed my bag for a 4 month trip through Asia and Oceania. For those interested in following my progress, or, more likely, for those interested in measuring my lack of progress in comparison to the original plan, here’s the tentative agenda:

November 8^th – Fly to LA, crash at Vijay’s for a night.

November 10^th (approximately 12:30 am) - board a 747.

November 11^th - 15 hours and more than a couple of time zones later, arrive in Hong Kong, and somehow it’s the next day – who figures? I believe this has something to do with something called the international dateline but it still doesn’t make sense. Later that day fly to Beijing.

January 10^th – After two months of adventure (TBD) and the expiration of my 60 day visa, fly from Hong Kong to Bangkok.

January 24th – After two weeks in Thailand involving a pending rendezvous with Katie, whom will be researching sustainable fishing in the Klong Na Kha inlet – fly to Sydney.

February 20^th – After three+ weeks in Australia and a visit to Severine and Laurent (I hope your French is better than mine) I’ll depart to New Zealand.

March 14^th – After enjoying the natural splendor of New Zealand, fly from Christ Church back to San Francisco.

???? – Granted, I don’t know how I’m getting back the east coast from San Francisco, but in international traveling circles we call these type of issues “details,” and we don’t tend to worry about them too much.

So that’s the (tentative) plan. Luckily, I have a high degree of flexibility in travel dates and times, so, as a wise man once said about projections, “The only thing we know for certain is that they’re wrong.”

As for what I do to occupy my time between these transportation milestones, you’ll just have to stick around to find out, because your guess is almost as good as mine. It vary well may involve Tibet, Three Gorges, Vietnam, Great Barrier Reef, Platypuses and/or kangaroos, but then again, it might not.

So what does one need to rough it in China, Southeast Asia and Oceania for 4 months? I have no clue, but will show you what I’m bringing, and we’ll see how that works out:

That’s all of it. I won’t bore you with the intricate details, but the basic list goes like this:

• Pack and day bag
• A change of clothes, and a few warm clothes
• Digital camera and accessories
• Old GSM cell phone
• Lots of Yuan, and even more travelers checks
• Passport and Visa for China
• Toiletries and various emergency medications
• Fleece sleeping bag and camping towel
• 5 oz flask with some good ol' american whiskey
  
• Bug stuff
• Guidebook, big map and Mandarin phrase book
• One blank notebook

If you’ve made it this far through the post, it’s a probable testament to your dedication, and I hope that means you’re in for the long haul. I hope to post 1-2 times a week, so stop back occasionally and see what I’m up to. I’m leaving the blog open for comment and encourage you to post a response, give travel suggestions, or just stop in to say hi.

See you in a couple months…

Cheers,
AJ