Nihao all,
I think the next lesson that Heidi and I need to learn is how to tell
time in Chinese. We just got off of a train bound for Chengdu, China
with the understanding that we would be trapped in our hard, middle,
sleeper berths for 20 hours, not bargaining for an extra 12! Luckily,
the space available checks in just above the bus sleeper berths, so
that I didn't have to fear falling out if I had decided to switch
sides.
Some of you may know that my friend, Heidi, and I decided to spend a
month traveling around SW China. We flew into Hong Kong a couple of
weeks ago and fulfilled my girl-in-the-city fantasy with the neon
lights and being able to find anything you had ever asked for. We
should have taken the men up on their plentiful "custom-made-suit"
offers so that we could have fit in a bit more with the business crowd
in town.
We didn't last long there, and with our newly acquired, expensive,
Chinese Visas in hand we were off to Yangshou. I thought I would find
the images of my Chinese dreams there. And I did. As I mentioned to
Heidi and Thomas, our new Czech friend, I felt as though we were in a
fairy land. Or in a movie, as we lazily floated down the river on
bamboo rafts, bikes on board, surrounded by the karst limestone
scenery. It even stopped raining long enough to fit in a day of
climbing. I realized that fewer hands have gripped the limestone here
than compared with Thailand as my shredded hands proved evidence of.
Now we find ourselves in a Chinese comedy. As Heidi and I have
managed to pick up a phrase or two (ie I don't want that, hello, thank
you), we are constantly in search of the right phrase to get us by in
our Mandarin phrasebook. We are usually at our wit's end when someone
responds in words, or better yet, in symbols, and we are left looking
at each other in despair, and at them in looks of wonder trying to
figure out what help or humility has been given to us.
Throughout our confusion, we have been biking and hiking and enjoying
saying "hello" to every person we see on the streets. The babies are
adorably wrapped up in every piece of clothing they own to resemble
min-marshmallow men, and they must learn how to say "hello" in English
before Chinese. They certainly reeled me in though with their rosy
cheeks and dark eyes.
The sights and smells are as amazing as the scenery and we have been
able to see everything from caged birds, skinned rabbits, and swimming
carp, to the most delicious smelling lilies, sweet mangoes, and
pineapples cheaper than Thailand! I am in heaven! I would kill to
have fruit like this everyday back home!
Next we head north to Juizhaighou where we hope to be surrounded by
trees and alpine scenery, and promises of some warmer temps! I am
also hoping to manage to steel Andrew's camera cable so I can finally
add some pictures to this journey!
I hope everyone is happy and healthy and enjoying the year of the pig!
Love to everyone!
Em
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Chinese Robot Performs Opera
I have the best sister anyone could ever ask for. I am visiting Minneapolis where my sister lives. We drank Chinese tea for the better part of an afternoon. Then we spent a lot of time biking around the city (she does not have a car)--Big epiphany, I realized that I could like cities, love cities (at least for awhile), if it did not involve driving in them. It was a totally new experience to use a bike for transportation rather than recreation. On bike, we caught hefty delicate whiffs of the fruit trees blooming, saw a marching band practicing, caught a peek at a shooting star, watched the almost full pumpkin moon rising over the Mississippi with the city sky line in the background and caught glimpses of multiple Prince (the singer) look-a-likes. It was fun to actually experience the city and hear/feel the heartbeat of the neighborhoods while we biked through instead of just cursing out belligerent drivers.
After biking 12 miles round trip to a movie my sister had a surprise that she had been working on. She had spent a couple hours that afternoon working on it and had been teasing me about it for some time. My sister is a Chinese Robot but with amazing ideas, lots of creativity and graphic design skills. I was directed to sit down on the couch, her boyfriend (Brady) turned up the music and she began to perform Chinese Opera, complete with cooking pot lids as props for cymbals. The clock struck midnight and the cymbals crashed in Chinese fashion; Brady and I laughed and she had a hard time not laughing herself. Then she brought out a beautiful delish cake for her 1/2 Ukrainian, 1/2 Chinese sister. The opera story continued with her cutting the cake in the performance and eventually us eating it. The cake was a checkered cake with jello in it (although I never would have guessed). The jello was not the secret to making the cake checkered and after much guessing, the secret was eventually revealed to me. The performance was complete with a flyer that she had made advertising her debut.
Thursday, May 3, 2007
Tibetan Recipe for Jiouzha/Momos/Steamed Dumplings
Ok found this great book--actually my sista found this great book --"The Lhasa Moon Tibetan Cookbook" and here's a recipe for momos. The book says it is the single dish that represents Tibetan food. Also says that momos are never eaten on the first day of the new year, because the meat closed up in the doug would signify a shutting off of good luck. Also the book says that the main thing is trying to keep the ingredients inside the pocket moist. There are apparently also subtle techiniques involved in eating momos. One should first bite a small hole in the dough and suck out the juices, then spoon chili sauce into the hole and eat the rest (no I did not make this part up).
Enuf said, here's the recipe and good luck!
BASIC MOMO DOUGH
This amount will serve 4 as a main course or 8 as an appetizer
2 1/2 cups flour
3/4 cup water
Mix the flour and water into dough, and knead it well. The amount of water needed may vary slightly depending on the age of the flour. The dough should be as moist as for ordinary bread. Cover the dough and set it aside to rest while preparing the momo filling.
Knead the dough until it becomes elastic, Keep the surface of the dough, your hands and the work table well floured. Roll the dough under your palms to a long cylinder about one inch in diameter. Break off balls of dough, each about one inch in diameter. Roll each ball in your palms to make a smooth sphere and then press to flatten it into a small circle. Use a floured rolling pin to enlarge the circle, working in a circular motion around the edges so that the middle remains slightly thicker.
If you are using more than one filling, use different shapes to tell them apart (clever!).
For all shapes, begin by holding the circle of dough in your left hand and place a tablespoon of filling in the center. Vegetable momos especially should be filled quite tightly, as the filling will shrink when it cools. Also you don't need to moisten the edges of the dough to make them stick.
HOW TO COOK MOMOS
Arrange the momos on a lightly oiled steamer tray. You can fit them as close together as you like, so long as they do not touch. Bring water to a boil before placing the trays of momos in the steamer.
Steam meat momos for 10 minutes at most and vegetable momos for 5-7 minutes. Spinach momos need only 4 minutes as filling is precooked. Test them by opening the steamer and touching the dough lightly with a fingertip, the dough will no longer be sticky when done.
BEEF MOMO FILLING
1 lb. beef
1 large onion, finely chopped
2 inches fresh ginger finely ground
4 cloves garlic finely chopped
1/2 tsp ground emma (sichuan pepper)
1/3 c. green onion or chives
1 tsp. oil
1/4 cup water
3 stalks celery chopped
1/4 tsp salt.
CHICKEN MOMO FILLING
1 lb. boneless chicken
1 large yellow onion, finely chopped
2 inches fresh ginger, finely choped
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1/2 tsp ground emma (Sichuan pepper)
1/3 cup chives, chopped
1 tsp oil
1/4 cup water
3 stalks celery, finely chopped
1/4 tsp salt.
VEGETABLE MOMO FILLING
1/2 bunch celery, finely chopped
1/2 small cabbage
1 bunch spinach
1 bunch onion greens
1 T oil
1 large yellow onion, finely chopped
1 1/2 tsp garlic, finely chopped
1 tsp fresh ginger, finely ground
1/2 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp emma (Sichuan peppper)
10 mint leaves
1 T soy sauce
1/4 tsp salt
Saute the onion til brown and then add garlic, ginger, paprika, emma and mint. Cook the spices briefly, then remove from heat. Add the soy and salt. Add cooked mixture to raw mixture. Toss lightly.
Enuf said, here's the recipe and good luck!
BASIC MOMO DOUGH
This amount will serve 4 as a main course or 8 as an appetizer
2 1/2 cups flour
3/4 cup water
Mix the flour and water into dough, and knead it well. The amount of water needed may vary slightly depending on the age of the flour. The dough should be as moist as for ordinary bread. Cover the dough and set it aside to rest while preparing the momo filling.
Knead the dough until it becomes elastic, Keep the surface of the dough, your hands and the work table well floured. Roll the dough under your palms to a long cylinder about one inch in diameter. Break off balls of dough, each about one inch in diameter. Roll each ball in your palms to make a smooth sphere and then press to flatten it into a small circle. Use a floured rolling pin to enlarge the circle, working in a circular motion around the edges so that the middle remains slightly thicker.
If you are using more than one filling, use different shapes to tell them apart (clever!).
For all shapes, begin by holding the circle of dough in your left hand and place a tablespoon of filling in the center. Vegetable momos especially should be filled quite tightly, as the filling will shrink when it cools. Also you don't need to moisten the edges of the dough to make them stick.
HOW TO COOK MOMOS
Arrange the momos on a lightly oiled steamer tray. You can fit them as close together as you like, so long as they do not touch. Bring water to a boil before placing the trays of momos in the steamer.
Steam meat momos for 10 minutes at most and vegetable momos for 5-7 minutes. Spinach momos need only 4 minutes as filling is precooked. Test them by opening the steamer and touching the dough lightly with a fingertip, the dough will no longer be sticky when done.
BEEF MOMO FILLING
1 lb. beef
1 large onion, finely chopped
2 inches fresh ginger finely ground
4 cloves garlic finely chopped
1/2 tsp ground emma (sichuan pepper)
1/3 c. green onion or chives
1 tsp. oil
1/4 cup water
3 stalks celery chopped
1/4 tsp salt.
CHICKEN MOMO FILLING
1 lb. boneless chicken
1 large yellow onion, finely chopped
2 inches fresh ginger, finely choped
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1/2 tsp ground emma (Sichuan pepper)
1/3 cup chives, chopped
1 tsp oil
1/4 cup water
3 stalks celery, finely chopped
1/4 tsp salt.
VEGETABLE MOMO FILLING
1/2 bunch celery, finely chopped
1/2 small cabbage
1 bunch spinach
1 bunch onion greens
1 T oil
1 large yellow onion, finely chopped
1 1/2 tsp garlic, finely chopped
1 tsp fresh ginger, finely ground
1/2 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp emma (Sichuan peppper)
10 mint leaves
1 T soy sauce
1/4 tsp salt
Saute the onion til brown and then add garlic, ginger, paprika, emma and mint. Cook the spices briefly, then remove from heat. Add the soy and salt. Add cooked mixture to raw mixture. Toss lightly.
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Top 10 Things I Enjoyed Most
- HUGE thermos of hot water--You get the thermos of hot water at the hotel or at the tea houses. The water stays piping hot over night. In general there is an abundant supply of hot water for tea. In fact in the airports and bus stops and train stations, you can get hot water for free. You may not be able to get hot water for a shower, but it is certainly available for tea.
- The Tea--It is very refined, smells good and l
ooks wonderful. I realized once I got back to the US, that I was more interested in the visual stimuli of the re hydrated floral bouquet in my tea glass than the taste sensation. You can have your own bouquet of flowers everyday. Yesterday I had four different plant families (Aster, Pink, Rose, Unidentified family) in my tea; staring at my tea was a pleasant distraction from work. Although not a green tea fan, I wished that I knew more about green tea because there was lots of variety. The tea balls that opened up into a beautiful flower were my favorites. The rose bud tea is also divine. - Tea Houses--YES they are a smokey haze unless they are outside on a patio and even then sometimes they are smokey. YES they are generally messy and every one's snack refuse is scattered hinder and throe on table and floor. And NO there are not dainty tea cookies (what I envisioned) that you can order, only sunflower seeds and other nuts. The essence or the idea of the tea house though should be part of every ones core existence. I like the idea of kicking back and taking time to talk to your friends family/play card games or just enjoy the day over a cup of tea.
- Tea shops--The Chinese will stand outside the door with little dixie cups of tea and lure you in. Once in, they have a proper table that includes a tea board, tea cleaning instruments, tiny tea cups, slop buckets (sometimes they poor the slop water over stone frogs and Buddhas that absorb the water and then it drains into a bucket underneath), and chairs. You sit down and they make you tea properly. The tea is necessarily a delayed pleasure.
- Tiny glass tea thermos (sooo cheap, can buy them for 25Y or about a little more than 3 US dollars!!)--everyone in China carries around a glass thermos (sometimes they are steel)that can be refilled during the day. Some people even have knitted thermos holders (I want to make one so if anyone has a pattern I would appreciate it). I like the glass ones because you can see what everyone else is drinking.
- Jiozha or steamed dumplings...most things were fried in lots of greased but the steamed dumplings had vegetables and a little meat in them and were steamed. They were similar to peroigies but smaller. You ate them by dipping them in a soy sauce with some hot pepper paste. I thought the true tests of ones chopstick skills was there ability to eat dumplings without resorting to their fingers. Some steamed dumplings are rice balls--Emily liked these but I thought they were blah.
- The hot podge of all kinds of transportation--bicycles (woman riding in heels or side saddle behind her husband), motorcycles, ricochets, diesel trucks, vendors pushing/pulling their wares on carts while talking on cell phones, goats, old buses, new luxury tour buses, carriages--all in the city streets together.
- Pineapple already peeled on a stick--Peeled pineapple ranged from 2-1Y. However the best deal was found by Emily who bought two whole pineapples peeled and quartered for 5Y (less than 1 dollar). She found this great deal in Chengdu.
- Bathroom sinks are functional!! The drain is a large coin the pivots. I'm told you can find these nifty drains in the US in cheap hotels but I've never seen them so t
hey were a novelty for Emily and I. - The bathroom stalls, yes not pleasant but they surpassed my expectations. Often there are no doors, but when there are locks present on the stalls, they are plastic. They fold up and down and are never broken. Maybe less vandalism than in the US but they were simple and very minimal.
Runners up included--very cheap cut flowers, the impressive light shows in the city, the amazing flora of Jiuzhaigou (if I had actually known what species I was looking at this would have been number one for sure), bicycle riding (even if it was scary at times), stairs!! (you not only go up stairs for the hotels--sometimes 7 floors, but also many hiking opportunities seem to involve stairs.
Back on US Soil
After many hours on the plane and in the airport and five security checks later (even though they were concerned about my shoes on the US side and my empty nalgene in Tokyo, neither of them found my glass thermos that had broken. To my chagrin I discovered it in Denver)I was back on US soil. While Emily lamented being back (I told her soon she would be in Canada anyway), I celebrated!
The plane rides were comfortable enough, although I did notice than since the last time I was on a plane at Christmas, they had become much more detailed in what one should do in the event of an emergency exit--they went into great detail on how the plane wings could be used as rafts but certain parts of the plane wings could only be used if you were instructed by the flight attendant to use them (the possibilities of the flight attendant finding me in a crash seemed slim), all the extra instruction made me wonder if they really were planning on using them and if they really did believe that if we went down these measures were going to save us. At Christmas when I sat by the emergency exit they seemed satisfied that I could just open the 45 pound door.
In Seattle, I sadly said goodbye to my traveling buddy, my appendage for the last month. I just had three plane rides left before arriving in Bozeman and then having a 1.5 hour drive to G town. In SF I watched a mother leaf through a magazine with her daughter pointing out the various beauty products she needed. Her daughter who looked very young to me, said she didn't need to wear make up. Her mother ignored this and moved on to which sweaters she was interested in and I tried to ignore them but it was hard since the mother said a 170 dollar sweater was a great price and would look fabulous on this girl. The girl again expressed disinterest. I felt so happy to live in Gardiner and be at least a bit removed from the superficial world of products. I thought how sad it was that women have enough other sources telling them they need beauty products that they certainly don't need their mother doing so. In Tokyo and Seattle I couldn't wait to get home and shower and put something besides quick-dry clothing and tennis shoes on but I suddenly felt proud to be in my unshowered, unfashionable, and uncombed state.
In Denver I found a seat that had the arm chairs removed and took a nap. I set my watch but slept through it and nearly missed getting on the last flight out (over booked of course as the earlier flights had been canceled) to Bozeman (I took a tylenol PM to put myself to sleep). I prefer not to talk to the people sitting next to me on the plane but on this ride I got lucky with an interesting seat mate. The man had just returned from visiting Israel with his family. His wife is Bahi and needs to make a pilgrimage once in her lifetime. She wanted to take the kids and he didn't want her to go by herself.
We immediately hit it off as he was originally from Wisconsin but now living in Livingston. We waxed on about Wisconsin and how much we missed it. Anyone who knows me very well at all knows how I love to romanticize Wisconsin, my homeland (although Yellowstone has now wormed its way into my heart) and I love talking about the deciduous forest, fall color change and mostly WATER. Then I discovered that we had another thing in common, neither of us like flying. Since flying was required, I had quit worrying about terrorist sitting by emergency exits and pulling the doors open, bringing the plane down (really silly). Now with this guy I could see how funny all these worries were. The pilot told us that we were the last flight out and so needed to wait for a party with a family emergency and then we would need to de-ice the plane again AND they would have to go through the FDA seat belt, emergency evac stuff again. Some time passed as he told me about how wonderful the international flights were (it was his first time out of the country and he liked the free drinks, warm handi-wipes, and meals). The flight attendant merrily bubbled out the FDA requirements again and then the engines started to fire up. We moved towards the run way. We both looked nervously at our icy wings that we had a good view of from our seats. He wondered if we should ask the flight attendant about deicing and finally said he was going to say a prayer and put it in someone elses hands besides his own. He commented that when they tell you they need to deice but don't do it, it's worrisome. I agreed. Finally, much to our relief, we did actually stop to do the deicing. He commented that he wished he could do the deicing but it looked like they had done a good job. Finally we were cruising down the run way. He chomped on his gum, saying, "Come on, get this plane in the air, when are we going to get off the ground?" Once off the ground, he questioned "Do you think it's really loud? Can you hear that noise?" These are all the things I usually listen for but for some reason it just seemed funny so I tried to be reassuring and say, "I think these small planes are really loud."
Although we both really enjoyed our visits to foreign countries, we commiserated in probably a non PC fashion on our experiences in foreign countries and remarked on how happy we were to be back in our country. On the landing, he fretted over how quickly we were going down, the quieting engine and how long it took for us to hit the run way. It was a really smooth landing for a little plane. I barely felt us hit the run way (although this might have had more to do with the amount of tylenol PM I took than the skill of the pilot). He shared with me that he confessed to his son, but wasn't going to tell his wife that he was going to kiss the ground once we landed in Bozeman. It made me laugh to think that in accordance with the country song, although I doubt he knew the lyrics to the song as his music taste wasn't country (he liked Pink Floyd), he was going to "kiss the ground when the plane finally landed". I did not kiss the ground when I got to Bozeman but I was thankful to not hear honking, be drinking water out of the faucet that came from the sewage stream, have people respect my hula hoop space and be breathing smoke free air amongst many other things.
The plane rides were comfortable enough, although I did notice than since the last time I was on a plane at Christmas, they had become much more detailed in what one should do in the event of an emergency exit--they went into great detail on how the plane wings could be used as rafts but certain parts of the plane wings could only be used if you were instructed by the flight attendant to use them (the possibilities of the flight attendant finding me in a crash seemed slim), all the extra instruction made me wonder if they really were planning on using them and if they really did believe that if we went down these measures were going to save us. At Christmas when I sat by the emergency exit they seemed satisfied that I could just open the 45 pound door.
In Seattle, I sadly said goodbye to my traveling buddy, my appendage for the last month. I just had three plane rides left before arriving in Bozeman and then having a 1.5 hour drive to G town. In SF I watched a mother leaf through a magazine with her daughter pointing out the various beauty products she needed. Her daughter who looked very young to me, said she didn't need to wear make up. Her mother ignored this and moved on to which sweaters she was interested in and I tried to ignore them but it was hard since the mother said a 170 dollar sweater was a great price and would look fabulous on this girl. The girl again expressed disinterest. I felt so happy to live in Gardiner and be at least a bit removed from the superficial world of products. I thought how sad it was that women have enough other sources telling them they need beauty products that they certainly don't need their mother doing so. In Tokyo and Seattle I couldn't wait to get home and shower and put something besides quick-dry clothing and tennis shoes on but I suddenly felt proud to be in my unshowered, unfashionable, and uncombed state.
In Denver I found a seat that had the arm chairs removed and took a nap. I set my watch but slept through it and nearly missed getting on the last flight out (over booked of course as the earlier flights had been canceled) to Bozeman (I took a tylenol PM to put myself to sleep). I prefer not to talk to the people sitting next to me on the plane but on this ride I got lucky with an interesting seat mate. The man had just returned from visiting Israel with his family. His wife is Bahi and needs to make a pilgrimage once in her lifetime. She wanted to take the kids and he didn't want her to go by herself.
We immediately hit it off as he was originally from Wisconsin but now living in Livingston. We waxed on about Wisconsin and how much we missed it. Anyone who knows me very well at all knows how I love to romanticize Wisconsin, my homeland (although Yellowstone has now wormed its way into my heart) and I love talking about the deciduous forest, fall color change and mostly WATER. Then I discovered that we had another thing in common, neither of us like flying. Since flying was required, I had quit worrying about terrorist sitting by emergency exits and pulling the doors open, bringing the plane down (really silly). Now with this guy I could see how funny all these worries were. The pilot told us that we were the last flight out and so needed to wait for a party with a family emergency and then we would need to de-ice the plane again AND they would have to go through the FDA seat belt, emergency evac stuff again. Some time passed as he told me about how wonderful the international flights were (it was his first time out of the country and he liked the free drinks, warm handi-wipes, and meals). The flight attendant merrily bubbled out the FDA requirements again and then the engines started to fire up. We moved towards the run way. We both looked nervously at our icy wings that we had a good view of from our seats. He wondered if we should ask the flight attendant about deicing and finally said he was going to say a prayer and put it in someone elses hands besides his own. He commented that when they tell you they need to deice but don't do it, it's worrisome. I agreed. Finally, much to our relief, we did actually stop to do the deicing. He commented that he wished he could do the deicing but it looked like they had done a good job. Finally we were cruising down the run way. He chomped on his gum, saying, "Come on, get this plane in the air, when are we going to get off the ground?" Once off the ground, he questioned "Do you think it's really loud? Can you hear that noise?" These are all the things I usually listen for but for some reason it just seemed funny so I tried to be reassuring and say, "I think these small planes are really loud."
Although we both really enjoyed our visits to foreign countries, we commiserated in probably a non PC fashion on our experiences in foreign countries and remarked on how happy we were to be back in our country. On the landing, he fretted over how quickly we were going down, the quieting engine and how long it took for us to hit the run way. It was a really smooth landing for a little plane. I barely felt us hit the run way (although this might have had more to do with the amount of tylenol PM I took than the skill of the pilot). He shared with me that he confessed to his son, but wasn't going to tell his wife that he was going to kiss the ground once we landed in Bozeman. It made me laugh to think that in accordance with the country song, although I doubt he knew the lyrics to the song as his music taste wasn't country (he liked Pink Floyd), he was going to "kiss the ground when the plane finally landed". I did not kiss the ground when I got to Bozeman but I was thankful to not hear honking, be drinking water out of the faucet that came from the sewage stream, have people respect my hula hoop space and be breathing smoke free air amongst many other things.
Scramblin' to get out of HK
Despite my general uneasiness in cities, I found myself liking the city--it had rolly lush terrain and HUMIDITY and a ferry system that was so much fun that I didn't ever want to get off. On our last night at 10:30 PM after a very long day (we had been to a tea shop, a tea museum, an aviary, up the world's longest escalator, through a conservatory and eaten dimp sem), Emily and I contemplated how we could become stow aways on the Star Ferry. The light show from advertising and buildings was amazing and we just wanted to rest our weary feet while feeling the ocean breeze on our face. We lamented that we didn't know why the ferry went so fast (only 10 minutes between Central and Kowloon). Exclaiming mournfully, "What's the rush?" Unfortunately the ferry afforded few places to hide besides under the sitting benches or hanging over the edge. Giggling with tiredness we brainstormed up the possibilities for a stow away adventure. Regretfully they all would have costs more energy than we would have gained in the renewal from another ferry trip. The ferry trip was only 1.7 HK.
The HK lights were amazing. Whole advertisements were done on skyscrapers. The ads had motion and went in circles--script in English, then Chinese and then pictures would circle twinkle around the outside of a building. Leaving Central, we were sad. Central had a blue collar streak, hills like SF and not as many people trying to sell you suits, food, etc. Central had the world's longest escalator and a tea museum. Back on Kowloon, the night life was awake. We managed to push our weary selves through all the masses and the people trying to lure us into their store to buy various items till we reached the Mirador Mansion. Our room was on the 13 floor. We both realized that our elevator shut down at 10PM. With no other choice, we started the 13 flight climb to our room, joking that it was a good thing we had already been doing stairs up temples in China. We were tuckered, so even though the next day we had lots of time sitting on the airplane and the exercise was probably good, neither of us shed any tears to be on our floor.
6:00 AM We had our bags, our deposit and knew where the bus stop that would take us to the airport. The double decker bus arrived and another wave of relief washed over me as now we had not overslept and were on our airport bound bus. At the next stop, the driver motioned for us to come pay. I handed him my 100HK bill (the tickets were 33HK each), expecting change. He told me that he could not give me change and to go and ask others on the bus if they had change. Well of course they all looked at me like I was nuts because no one carries that much change. We didn't have any small bills either. Additionally, we had bought from every vendor on the street the night before, given to the poor and used our change for the ferry trying to get rid of all of our coins or artillery. At the next stop, the bus driver apologetically informed us that we would need to get off the bus. Emily and I quickly concurred that we didn't need the change (a little more than 2US dollars each). I asked the driver if we could just give him our money and the HK bus could keep the change. To our chagrin he said no and kicked us off. I realized it was China after all. The day before I couldn't find a place open before 8 so at 6:30 I didn't think we were going to find change.
My always energetic eagle-eyed travel partner Emily spied a 7-11 and made a run for it--she really ran, while I watched our bags, prayed it was open and tried to come up with a plan B. We hadn't wanted to exchange more money so I didn't think we had enough HK dollars for a taxi ride. I didn't think the exchange counters were open. Emily returned with the exact change but in paper not coins. Apparently there was some confusion over the teller not being able to open a drawer with coins??
We didn't know if we needed coins or if paper money worked. We thought surely they could not expect us to have 33HK in change but then again it was China. Fortunately the bus came every 15 minutes so we waited for the next bus to try our luck. It arrived and I stuck the money in wondering if the bus driver was wondering what I was doing or if he was wondering why I was trying to gauge his reaction. It worked! Another huge wave of relief washed over me. We got rid of our bags on the luggage racked and went to the top of the double decker bus to enjoy our last ride through HK.
The HK lights were amazing. Whole advertisements were done on skyscrapers. The ads had motion and went in circles--script in English, then Chinese and then pictures would circle twinkle around the outside of a building. Leaving Central, we were sad. Central had a blue collar streak, hills like SF and not as many people trying to sell you suits, food, etc. Central had the world's longest escalator and a tea museum. Back on Kowloon, the night life was awake. We managed to push our weary selves through all the masses and the people trying to lure us into their store to buy various items till we reached the Mirador Mansion. Our room was on the 13 floor. We both realized that our elevator shut down at 10PM. With no other choice, we started the 13 flight climb to our room, joking that it was a good thing we had already been doing stairs up temples in China. We were tuckered, so even though the next day we had lots of time sitting on the airplane and the exercise was probably good, neither of us shed any tears to be on our floor.
6:00 AM We had our bags, our deposit and knew where the bus stop that would take us to the airport. The double decker bus arrived and another wave of relief washed over me as now we had not overslept and were on our airport bound bus. At the next stop, the driver motioned for us to come pay. I handed him my 100HK bill (the tickets were 33HK each), expecting change. He told me that he could not give me change and to go and ask others on the bus if they had change. Well of course they all looked at me like I was nuts because no one carries that much change. We didn't have any small bills either. Additionally, we had bought from every vendor on the street the night before, given to the poor and used our change for the ferry trying to get rid of all of our coins or artillery. At the next stop, the bus driver apologetically informed us that we would need to get off the bus. Emily and I quickly concurred that we didn't need the change (a little more than 2US dollars each). I asked the driver if we could just give him our money and the HK bus could keep the change. To our chagrin he said no and kicked us off. I realized it was China after all. The day before I couldn't find a place open before 8 so at 6:30 I didn't think we were going to find change.
My always energetic eagle-eyed travel partner Emily spied a 7-11 and made a run for it--she really ran, while I watched our bags, prayed it was open and tried to come up with a plan B. We hadn't wanted to exchange more money so I didn't think we had enough HK dollars for a taxi ride. I didn't think the exchange counters were open. Emily returned with the exact change but in paper not coins. Apparently there was some confusion over the teller not being able to open a drawer with coins??
We didn't know if we needed coins or if paper money worked. We thought surely they could not expect us to have 33HK in change but then again it was China. Fortunately the bus came every 15 minutes so we waited for the next bus to try our luck. It arrived and I stuck the money in wondering if the bus driver was wondering what I was doing or if he was wondering why I was trying to gauge his reaction. It worked! Another huge wave of relief washed over me. We got rid of our bags on the luggage racked and went to the top of the double decker bus to enjoy our last ride through HK.
HK at 2nd Glance
First impressions on our initial arrival to Hong Kong was that HK was a foreign country. Double decker buses zooming by, the presence of street vendors selling fruit/food, lots of beautiful people that weren't like us speaking foreign languages with accents, signs in Chinese, and boat rides taking you from one island to the next. Now after being in China and crossing back to HK, I realized how much HK was different from China, how westernized it was. It didn't seem like a foreign country at all. Things were orderly in HK. Vehicles stopped when the lights turned red. China brought a whole new meaning to slow and go on red lights. The crosswalks in HK were fun instead of an adrenaline rush to get across the death zone. In HK, when the light was red on the crosswalk, the tempo was slow while you waited. Then when the light turned green, the tempo sped up (although no one else generally did while crossing the street!). The toilets were clean, equipped with paper and soap, abundant and few of them were squatters. In HK, the dogs were leashed, not pregnant and didn't look starved. People were not constantly spitting up phlegm balls and to prove this there were not signs at the train stations saying, "no spitting.". There was no smoking on the buses. The signs were in English and Chinese, not Pinyin (A form of Chinese for Westerners I guess--Actually, Pinyin uses Roman letters to represent sounds in Standard Mandarin Chinese). In China, we were lucky to have the street signs in Pinyin as well as Chinese. Food in HK was expensive and the vendors less frequent.
But in other ways HK was a foreign country just not like China. Since it used to be a British colony they drove on the wrong side of the street. I'd find myself looking at cars wondering where the driver was and then remember they were on the right side of the car. One night we walked down the street with an English man from our hostel; as we passed all the stores, people asked us if we wanted to have suits tailored. He told us that this would be illegal in his country. Emily does a really great imitation of him saying this.
Chengdu
Back in Chengdu, we hailed a taxi cab (not as easy here as it had been in the irrigation town). I was a bit uneasy because I don't like getting in taxis as I feel they could take you anywhere and the guy had thrown our bags in the trunk. There really wasn't much we could do except get in but Emily told me later she was uneasy about this taxi driver too and made a point of following along on the map where we were. This was the only time in China that I felt my haunches go up. In the backseat, I tried to make small talk with Emily that indicated I knew where we were but I had idea. He did overshoot our hotel by a ways but we were eventually dropped off at Sam's Guesthouse safely. The nice receptionist told us that we were right on time. This was welcome news to our ears. I had emailed requesting a room and saying that we would arrive around 8PM (It was 7:45) but we had not known if there would be a room available. Even better she said she only had a double but she would charge us the price of a triple. Then we were greeted by a cute Tibetan who in a gesture of chivalry lifted my monstrous pack off the ground and was going to carry it to our room. Even though I was soooo sick of that huge pack, I couldn't let him carry my really ridiculously heavy pack so I told him that I would carry it and it was even more embarrassing he tried to help me get it on, but trying to put on a huge backpack does not really work out that smoothly when you have not lifted the pack yourself from the ground and my hands were full of other stuff since I wasn't prepared to put the pack back on yet. Well finally we were shown to our room. Emily and I were totally delighted with our room.
The next day we took a bus to the tea market. It was amazing, lots and lots of tea and everything related to tea. I went a little wild and spent a lot of Yuan (although not really many US dollars) on tea. I think eventually Emily had to pull me out of the tea market. If I had known Chinese and been able to know what I was buying I would probably have never left. I may have just told her I would see her back at the hotel. We took the bus back to our hotel and here's when yet another funny thing happened with a hotel.
We went to our room and then went to the lobby where we spent about 45 minutes in the lobby chatting with three guys that had just arrived from Seattle, checking our email, and asking our receptionist questions on recommendations on places to eat. Since the bathrooms are not all that great in China, we decided to go to our room and use the bathroom before we headed back out on the streets for the afternoon. In our short 45 minute absence, one of our beds had disappeared and now we only had two beds. There was no evidence that the bed had been moved but it was gone. Emily correctly deduced that it was just the two of us for the night and we didn't have to worry about getting a roommate that smoked. I thought it was hilarious, because an event that would probably have taken me the whole day to orchestrate, they had done in less than a mere 45 minutes. Just in case the bed was not supposed to be missing, we went to the desk and told them that we now only had two beds. They of course gave us a, "Of course you've only got two beds, you idiots!" look.
We left for more souvenir shopping. We (actually I) got sucked in by the first tea shop offering us free tea. They sit you down on a table that is low to the ground and then go through an elaborate process of rinsing your tiny glasses with the tea they are offering you, thereby freeing your glass of any traces of residue from the previous tea. The water goes in a slop bucket. Then they brew up another pot and pour it into yet another pot so that all the tea is the same strength. Then you are served up tea and they use wooden tweezers to pick up the glasses. There are a variety of tools for the process and the tools, tea pot, cups and slop bucket sit on top of a wooden slotted tea tray. Emily and I drank some jasmine tea and I think we both bought more tea. Here we also got tea treats (sugared plums, dried mini tomatoes and almond crackers) that were neatly wrapped up in lots of packaging (the US packaging is nothing compared to China, everything is wrapped at least twice). The treats were very refined, what I had envisioned one might be able to eat in a Tea house (not true, only sunflowers). We were both hungry so we gobbled down all the snacks they offered us. The only problem with drinking lots of free tea at the tea shops is that there do not seem to be many public bathrooms and if you do find one, all of them cost you small change that you never have, and none of them are very nice (squatters at best, gutters being the worst). We left the tea shop for more souvenir shopping and eventually called it a day. Not before we had gone out to eat for dinner.
The girls at the hotel had told us that a place 100 meters from our hotel offered very good typical Sichuan food. That seemed appropriate for our last night in Sichaun Provence. We were very hungry and were delighted when they produced an English menu. Unfortunately we ordered so much food that we had more food on the table than the table of 8 next to us! We ordered eggs and tomatoes, mushrooms, beef and vegetables, egg drop soup (different than ours), kale, chicken with spicy peanuts and vegetables and rice. OK so we ordered a lot to eat even if it hadn't all come family size. We didn't know that everything came family size. I ordered a beer too. I don't even like beer but in China it comes in a 1.5 liter size and tasted like PBR or Old Milwaukee. I like weak cheap beer and it also helped with the spice.
The next day we had a flight from Chengdu to Shenzen. In Shenzen we had to find a bus to the train station, cross the border (the lines were very long) and then get on the train to Hong Kong and find a hotel room. Luckily since Shenzen has especially good public transportation, none of this was as difficult as I anticipated with all of our stuff. Did I mention that we each had enough stuff at this point to really fill two backpacks fully? I mean really fully, absolutely bulging. The worst part was that even though the trains leave continuously we had to be pushy to get a seat for our 1 hour train ride. Something that neither of us seemed good at. Emily and I had been scheming though and we let everyone get on the first train, then we walked to purtner the furthest car and waited for the next train. Even then though, we had to be aggressive to get a seat. It all worked out OK.
The next day we took a bus to the tea market. It was amazing, lots and lots of tea and everything related to tea. I went a little wild and spent a lot of Yuan (although not really many US dollars) on tea. I think eventually Emily had to pull me out of the tea market. If I had known Chinese and been able to know what I was buying I would probably have never left. I may have just told her I would see her back at the hotel. We took the bus back to our hotel and here's when yet another funny thing happened with a hotel.
We went to our room and then went to the lobby where we spent about 45 minutes in the lobby chatting with three guys that had just arrived from Seattle, checking our email, and asking our receptionist questions on recommendations on places to eat. Since the bathrooms are not all that great in China, we decided to go to our room and use the bathroom before we headed back out on the streets for the afternoon. In our short 45 minute absence, one of our beds had disappeared and now we only had two beds. There was no evidence that the bed had been moved but it was gone. Emily correctly deduced that it was just the two of us for the night and we didn't have to worry about getting a roommate that smoked. I thought it was hilarious, because an event that would probably have taken me the whole day to orchestrate, they had done in less than a mere 45 minutes. Just in case the bed was not supposed to be missing, we went to the desk and told them that we now only had two beds. They of course gave us a, "Of course you've only got two beds, you idiots!" look.
We left for more souvenir shopping. We (actually I) got sucked in by the first tea shop offering us free tea. They sit you down on a table that is low to the ground and then go through an elaborate process of rinsing your tiny glasses with the tea they are offering you, thereby freeing your glass of any traces of residue from the previous tea. The water goes in a slop bucket. Then they brew up another pot and pour it into yet another pot so that all the tea is the same strength. Then you are served up tea and they use wooden tweezers to pick up the glasses. There are a variety of tools for the process and the tools, tea pot, cups and slop bucket sit on top of a wooden slotted tea tray. Emily and I drank some jasmine tea and I think we both bought more tea. Here we also got tea treats (sugared plums, dried mini tomatoes and almond crackers) that were neatly wrapped up in lots of packaging (the US packaging is nothing compared to China, everything is wrapped at least twice). The treats were very refined, what I had envisioned one might be able to eat in a Tea house (not true, only sunflowers). We were both hungry so we gobbled down all the snacks they offered us. The only problem with drinking lots of free tea at the tea shops is that there do not seem to be many public bathrooms and if you do find one, all of them cost you small change that you never have, and none of them are very nice (squatters at best, gutters being the worst). We left the tea shop for more souvenir shopping and eventually called it a day. Not before we had gone out to eat for dinner.
The girls at the hotel had told us that a place 100 meters from our hotel offered very good typical Sichuan food. That seemed appropriate for our last night in Sichaun Provence. We were very hungry and were delighted when they produced an English menu. Unfortunately we ordered so much food that we had more food on the table than the table of 8 next to us! We ordered eggs and tomatoes, mushrooms, beef and vegetables, egg drop soup (different than ours), kale, chicken with spicy peanuts and vegetables and rice. OK so we ordered a lot to eat even if it hadn't all come family size. We didn't know that everything came family size. I ordered a beer too. I don't even like beer but in China it comes in a 1.5 liter size and tasted like PBR or Old Milwaukee. I like weak cheap beer and it also helped with the spice.
The next day we had a flight from Chengdu to Shenzen. In Shenzen we had to find a bus to the train station, cross the border (the lines were very long) and then get on the train to Hong Kong and find a hotel room. Luckily since Shenzen has especially good public transportation, none of this was as difficult as I anticipated with all of our stuff. Did I mention that we each had enough stuff at this point to really fill two backpacks fully? I mean really fully, absolutely bulging. The worst part was that even though the trains leave continuously we had to be pushy to get a seat for our 1 hour train ride. Something that neither of us seemed good at. Emily and I had been scheming though and we let everyone get on the first train, then we walked to purtner the furthest car and waited for the next train. Even then though, we had to be aggressive to get a seat. It all worked out OK.
Orchestrating Our Own Mini Tour to a Taoist Temple
The next day we needed to get on a bus to Chengdu but our plan was to wait and take a late bus back to Chengdu. Hopefully since the bus runs continuously to Chengdu, it would be less memorable than the last bus ride I was on. We decided that we would go to the back side of the mountain that we ha
d been to yesterday. The backside of the mountain was supposed to be less developed and offer more beautiful views. Emboldened by yesterdays success on the bus, we hopped on and showed the ticket tender the name of our destination in Chinese. He did not really nod yes or no so I wasn't sure that we were on the correct bus. However in the past Emily and I would just get kicked off when we were not on the correct bus so our assumption was that this must be OK. The bus kept filling up and in typical Chinese fashion making stops every ten meters. After about an hour, we had settled in rather comfortably on the bus, eating our fruit, munching on crackers, when he motioned for us to get off. I think we both had the deer in the head light look because we had no idea where we were and he motioned again for us to get off so we dejectedly gathered up our stuff and shuffled off.
Off the bus, a nice lady, a ticket tender for another bus was motioning for us to get on. We had no reason to believe that that wasn't the right bus so we naively got on. In ten minutes the bus took off and started careening up a steep mountain face, occasionally squeezing through alleys in villages with nice houses. Emily smiled gleefully clutching her pack, commenting that she felt like she was on a roller coaster ride. After another hour or so someone got on the bus, collected 20Y from us for the mountain and we drove further. Eventually we got out.
It started out poorly as we had to go through a large touristy town where everyone wanted us to sit down and eat. Then instead of walking down the road as everyone else was doing, we walked down a path that paralleled the road but it was really slippery, so we courted hip fractures and broken tail bones as we walked down the path. After another town with more people sellin
g lots of stuff, we made it to the start of the stairs to the top. The stairs wound their way up along a gushing creek with huge boulders and lots of greenery including a forest floor carpeted with Selaginella and occasionally we would catch the scent of sweet flowers blooming. There were a few vendors and we even saw one guy offering bamboo rides to the top. To reach the top, we would have to have more time to be able to spend the night and unfortunately our time was at a premium. My camera batteries went dead too so I never really got any good pictures of this place, even though it was my favorite by far.
On the hike up, I had fallen in love with many of the wares that the vendors were selling, specifically they were selling creatures crafted out of bamboo that you could hang up. I decided to turn around a few minutes earlier than Emily so I could buy my bamboo creatures. After I decided they were the perfect gift for anyone, I started to worry that they might be sold out by the time I scrambled down all the stairs. In short I started gleefully buying bamboo creatures from every vendor in site. I bought a grasshopper from each vendor, then I bought 2 frogs and other unidentifiable bamboo treasures. I treated my bamboo creatures as if they were glass ornaments and every night they would get misted down. Then I salvaged a box that my lunch was in on our flight from Chengdu to Shenzen and put the bamboo creatures inside. Unfortunately what I did not know is that they are really disposable because once they get dry and shriveled up they don't look that good. Back on US soil, since I had taken such care getting it across the border and toting it around China, I hung it above one of my plants, but I think that if one of my candles gets out of control, it's probably going to start my apartment on fire.
Back to the Taoist temple--I also was hungry and had discovered potato balls deep fried in oil on a stick and then sprinkled with hot spices (probably loaded with MSG). The vendors were also selling these. I thought I finally had the money system figured out and offered the old lady what I thought was 2Y in coins. However there are several morphs of the 1 denomination in paper and in the coins and several morphs of the jio or 1/10 of a Yuan. So what I had actually handed her 2 Jio, not enough for the potato snack. Since I thought I was handing her 2Y, when she told me the price and I kept handing her my 2Y and she kept handing it back, I didn't understand what was going on. Eventually I got frustrated and went to the next vendor where to my relief an English speaking woman kindly intercepted and helped me out, translating for me what the problem was.
Back in town, Emily and I after some more souvenir shopping (I got useless sandals for 5Y and a couple combs) found our parking lot and saw the lady that had helped
us get on our bus before. This time though we wanted to go somewhere else so a different lady put us on the right bus. Thankfully we were the first stop and had seats. The bus was so crowded that by the 3 or 4 stop, people were opting not to get on our bus and by the 5th stop, the bus was not even stopping for others. We were surrounded by people crammed in the narrow aisles leaning over us to hold on to a bar as the bus lurched down the mountain. We saw our stop and the woman in charge knew where we needed to get off so blessedly from our backseat position we did not need to get their attention. Amazingly enough though, I noticed that even with all the chaos of honking, collecting $, screeching brakes, etc.--even the faintest utter that I could barely hear (and I would be sitting beside the person) would not go unnoticed by the bus driver. We somehow managed to pull ourselves up and squeeze off the bus, shuttling ourselves off the the next bus stop. I was rather proud of ourselves for having managed to find the next bus without having to pull out our book or look confused. One of the best things about Dujiangyan was that taxis abounded and flagging a taxis was easy, there was no hand waving or chasing after a taxi, just standing idle on the side of the street warranted further investigation by a taxi cab driver. The rest of our self orchestrated tour was uneventful. We got on the right bus, flagged a taxi back to the hotel, collected our bags that the hotel had stored for free and eventually caught a bus to Chengdu (and I slept thru most of the bus ride).
d been to yesterday. The backside of the mountain was supposed to be less developed and offer more beautiful views. Emboldened by yesterdays success on the bus, we hopped on and showed the ticket tender the name of our destination in Chinese. He did not really nod yes or no so I wasn't sure that we were on the correct bus. However in the past Emily and I would just get kicked off when we were not on the correct bus so our assumption was that this must be OK. The bus kept filling up and in typical Chinese fashion making stops every ten meters. After about an hour, we had settled in rather comfortably on the bus, eating our fruit, munching on crackers, when he motioned for us to get off. I think we both had the deer in the head light look because we had no idea where we were and he motioned again for us to get off so we dejectedly gathered up our stuff and shuffled off.Off the bus, a nice lady, a ticket tender for another bus was motioning for us to get on. We had no reason to believe that that wasn't the right bus so we naively got on. In ten minutes the bus took off and started careening up a steep mountain face, occasionally squeezing through alleys in villages with nice houses. Emily smiled gleefully clutching her pack, commenting that she felt like she was on a roller coaster ride. After another hour or so someone got on the bus, collected 20Y from us for the mountain and we drove further. Eventually we got out.
It started out poorly as we had to go through a large touristy town where everyone wanted us to sit down and eat. Then instead of walking down the road as everyone else was doing, we walked down a path that paralleled the road but it was really slippery, so we courted hip fractures and broken tail bones as we walked down the path. After another town with more people sellin
g lots of stuff, we made it to the start of the stairs to the top. The stairs wound their way up along a gushing creek with huge boulders and lots of greenery including a forest floor carpeted with Selaginella and occasionally we would catch the scent of sweet flowers blooming. There were a few vendors and we even saw one guy offering bamboo rides to the top. To reach the top, we would have to have more time to be able to spend the night and unfortunately our time was at a premium. My camera batteries went dead too so I never really got any good pictures of this place, even though it was my favorite by far.On the hike up, I had fallen in love with many of the wares that the vendors were selling, specifically they were selling creatures crafted out of bamboo that you could hang up. I decided to turn around a few minutes earlier than Emily so I could buy my bamboo creatures. After I decided they were the perfect gift for anyone, I started to worry that they might be sold out by the time I scrambled down all the stairs. In short I started gleefully buying bamboo creatures from every vendor in site. I bought a grasshopper from each vendor, then I bought 2 frogs and other unidentifiable bamboo treasures. I treated my bamboo creatures as if they were glass ornaments and every night they would get misted down. Then I salvaged a box that my lunch was in on our flight from Chengdu to Shenzen and put the bamboo creatures inside. Unfortunately what I did not know is that they are really disposable because once they get dry and shriveled up they don't look that good. Back on US soil, since I had taken such care getting it across the border and toting it around China, I hung it above one of my plants, but I think that if one of my candles gets out of control, it's probably going to start my apartment on fire.
Back to the Taoist temple--I also was hungry and had discovered potato balls deep fried in oil on a stick and then sprinkled with hot spices (probably loaded with MSG). The vendors were also selling these. I thought I finally had the money system figured out and offered the old lady what I thought was 2Y in coins. However there are several morphs of the 1 denomination in paper and in the coins and several morphs of the jio or 1/10 of a Yuan. So what I had actually handed her 2 Jio, not enough for the potato snack. Since I thought I was handing her 2Y, when she told me the price and I kept handing her my 2Y and she kept handing it back, I didn't understand what was going on. Eventually I got frustrated and went to the next vendor where to my relief an English speaking woman kindly intercepted and helped me out, translating for me what the problem was.
Back in town, Emily and I after some more souvenir shopping (I got useless sandals for 5Y and a couple combs) found our parking lot and saw the lady that had helped
us get on our bus before. This time though we wanted to go somewhere else so a different lady put us on the right bus. Thankfully we were the first stop and had seats. The bus was so crowded that by the 3 or 4 stop, people were opting not to get on our bus and by the 5th stop, the bus was not even stopping for others. We were surrounded by people crammed in the narrow aisles leaning over us to hold on to a bar as the bus lurched down the mountain. We saw our stop and the woman in charge knew where we needed to get off so blessedly from our backseat position we did not need to get their attention. Amazingly enough though, I noticed that even with all the chaos of honking, collecting $, screeching brakes, etc.--even the faintest utter that I could barely hear (and I would be sitting beside the person) would not go unnoticed by the bus driver. We somehow managed to pull ourselves up and squeeze off the bus, shuttling ourselves off the the next bus stop. I was rather proud of ourselves for having managed to find the next bus without having to pull out our book or look confused. One of the best things about Dujiangyan was that taxis abounded and flagging a taxis was easy, there was no hand waving or chasing after a taxi, just standing idle on the side of the street warranted further investigation by a taxi cab driver. The rest of our self orchestrated tour was uneventful. We got on the right bus, flagged a taxi back to the hotel, collected our bags that the hotel had stored for free and eventually caught a bus to Chengdu (and I slept thru most of the bus ride).
Dinner with an Altruist
The night before Emily and I had eaten jiozha (steamed dumplings) at a noodle shop one block from us. It was crowded with people (so far our best tip for avoiding food poisoning) and they were willing to work with our limited verbal communication skills but very flexible and broadened non verbal communication skills. We sat down and Emily and I were forced to make a decision immediately as the waitress stood by our table waiting to take our order and even though we looked clueless she didn't seem to understand that we needed some time to try and make sense of the menu. Somehow we ended up with dumplings that tasted really good for only 3Y or less than 50 cents.
We agreed to go back to that place and give it another shot. Tonight it was so packed that there was no place for us to sit. I'm sure the waitress saw us coming and wanted to run and hide, bus she directed us to a table with two other Chinese gals. Then she stood by our table again until we ordered. We had already figured out how to say the same thing as last night in mandarin but as luck would have it, they were out. Then we went through a variety of things that we thought they might have until finally the girl sitting at our table took pity on us, translating for us and ordering food for us. The sweetest part was that she asked us if our food was OK and if we had enough to eat. I was just thrilled to have anything to eat that was edible. Even though they were finished, they stayed through the entire meal to make sure that we did not have any more problems and knew how much we needed to pay. She also asked us if she had been of assistance to us. It was very nice. I knew they wanted to leave us and go shopping (I had asked them of their evening plans) so I tried to eat quickly. I was a very genuine and thoughtful act.
Taoist Temples
Today started out as one of the most frustrating days that we experienced in China. We wanted to go to Woolong, a famous panda park. We were at the bus station trying to figure out when the bus came back from the park. What happened was that basically everyone surrounded us, trying to help us out but no one spoke more than 3 English words. So as we tried to point in our mandarin phrase book to the person at the information desk, everyone else peered over our shoulder, closing in on our space with each second and then they started writing things down on newspaper that did not make any sense at all. They all wanted us to pay to take a taxi to Woolong so they were trying to be helpful but it was very frustrating to me. We finally managed to bust through the circle surrounding us and try to make some sense of it all.
We opted to go visit a Taoist temple instead. The bus leaves as soon as it fills up. In Chinese fashion, the temple was very developed. Soothing music played as we embraced zillions of stairs on our quest to the top. We paid 90Y to get into the temple, actually quite a bit of money. It was nice to walk around, even if it was with lots of people, some of which who were being carried to the top on a bamboo seat. One could get carried to the top and back for around 30 US dollars. Along the way there were tea houses and restaurants to stop at. All the views were shrouded in an occult fog giving the scenery a mysterious tone. Of course there were also lots of trinkets for sale. Knowing little about Taoism, I didn't really understand the temples, mostly they were huge huge sculptures of a Taoist leader encased in glass with flowers around the edges. Nothing that I could imagine making a pilgrimage to. The Taoist figures encased in glass all seemed surreal (OK, actually I thought they were funny looking, bordering on scary and I couldn't take them seriously) with their long long beards and hair and very white rolly polly faces. I guess it was probably considered handsome at the time but I sure didn't see it. At the end of the day, we got back on our bus and the end of the line for the bus was somewhere other than where the bus station was. However, it was closer for us to take a taxi from to our hotel and with Emily's expert navigating skills, we knew this (actually Emily knew this, I had an inkling). Did I mention that Taxis were very easy and cheap to get in Duijiangyan? They are, it's great.
We had a few funny things happen with hotels. I thought I was being time efficient and when we got back, I was going to email while Emily went to the hotel to take a shower and then we would be ready for dinner. Well when I got to the hotel, Emily was in the Lobby. It turns out that even though it was around 5PM they had decided to move us from the 3rd floor to the 6th floor. Suddenly our room was in need of repairs and our old room was under construction--Emily had had to move all of our stuff to the 6th floor. There also was no hot water due to some problem that was being repaired. The hot water would return at 8PM. We went and got dinner.
Sunday, April 15, 2007
American in Foreign Land Strangles Bus Driver
It finally happened, the scary bus ride that I knew would eventually come in China.... At O'dark thirty we set off from Zoige to our irrigation town, Dujiangyan. Dujiangyan is the largest irrigation project in the world. A town that irigates close to 3 million acres now but originally irrigated one million acres. The river used to flood and then a famous engineer decided to build a weir system and irrigate many acres. We were told that we had just missed the spring water festival when they open the weir system. Unfortunately once we got the area was closed to the public for the next few day so we did not get to see it.
The bus ride from Zoige to Songpan started out good enough. This is the section that a bus was stuck in the middle of the road on on the way to Zoige earlier in the week. The bus driver was a happy fellow and I liked him; he was amiable, had nice laugh lines around his eyes indicating to me his good nature, and smiled a lot showing his gold teeth. Most importantly he was a very good driver. The other riders liked him too because they gave him cigarettes and joked around with him. The front seat riders entertained me for most of the ride. The front seat was composed of men were handed the the bus driver cigarettes and lit his cigarettes for him. They joked around with him (although I couldn't understand any of it of course). It was similar to a coffee clutch in the Wisconsin cafes, but instead it was a puffers party in the front seat of the bus. I would have found the whole thing endearing (and I guess obviously I did find it a wee bit endearing)if I wasn't so sick of long hours on the bus in smoke clouds. Emily and I tried to avoid the smokers by moving to other seats; usually though it just resulted in us being closer to another smoker who had just lit up. By the end of the bus ride I think I had figured out that we were the only ones that didn't smoke.
The road to Songpan was a bit muddy but seem to be a solid bottom (Don't forget my dad's a logger so I do not only know what I'm talking about but have experience with this!). Of course the road was a drop off on one side for most of the way but this bus driver was very slow, almost too slow. At one point we went through a tally whacker swamp in logger terms but in wetland ecology terms it was a shrub/scrub willow alder swamp. In this particular location, I think that we were lucky it was freezing at night and that the ground was still frozen or things might have been more interesting. In Songpan I was hoping for a bathroom break since we had been on the darn bus for 4 hours but instead we just kept cruising. We were finally on a good two lane road, although certainly it was not a wide two lane road and there were lots of blind corners and drop offs. Being able to go faster down the road certainly had pluses and negatives, but as long as we had our good bus driver, I was happy to be moving faster. We had a near miss with a car that was passing on a blind corner but our alert bus driver pounded the breaks and swerved ever so slightly so that the car pulled ahead somehow avoiding a head on with us.
The much awaited bathroom break came at 11 ish when they needed to hose down the brakes. I was so excited to have a bathroom break, but little did I know that after this the scariest ride I've ever had in my life would start. In addition to hosing down the brakes they gave the bus an entire wash job. The bathroom as always was interesting. This time it was interesting because it was a one man show so he was collecting money from people using the bathroom (there were 2 maybe 3 buses there) and selling pop/snacks and pulling out other things (sandals to sell too). I gave him 10Y for crackers and wondered if I would get change as he ran around collecting money, directing the wash job and pulling out sandals but I did get change eventually.
We all piled on the bus and to my dismay the bus drivers had switched. I had a bad feeling about this. I tried to be optimistic but as I watched him accelerate to 130KPH on a windy blind corner road that was thick with traffic and not getting any better my optimism turned to fear. In the fourth seat from the front I had a good view of every near miss accident we had--near miss with a diesel truck, near miss with an old woman, near miss with a ricochet, I quit counting. Having to grip the seat on every corner and my neck aching from his hard braking (I guess it was reassuring to know the brakes still worked but I coudln't believe they could work this well) and my stomach lurching wasn't helping make me feel better. About ten minutes into the ride, I started weighing our options. IF the bus had stopped at all during the next 4 hours, I would have walked off and given someone all my Yuan and whatever US dollars it took to drive me safely to the irrigation town or just have waited for another bus. I was totally convinced this bus driver was a crazy mad nutzo. For awhile I thought we were just going to roll off the edge and die and I was OK with that. My big fear is being a vegetable but I can deal with dying but then I started to think that we probably wouldn't roll off the edge and worse we might be the ones trying to help whoever this horrible bus driver maimed. Our friend Andrew had told us that he saw many times in China, where the Chinese just walked past people who were hurt in accidents and would not offer to help. I decided that we should move to the back of the bus which was no easy task considering the speeds he was going at. Then I tried to recall some first aid. I wanted to go to the front of the bus and just shake the bus driver. Then after an hour of counting breaths and alternating with hail Marys, I didn't feel any peace and just wanted to pummel him. Emily though is really a true friend because thru this whole thing, and she didn't enjoy the bus ride either but instead of focusing on her breathing she kept trying to distract me or try to come up with things to make me feel better. Emily is such a good friend for that. I fantasized about organizing a hijacking and reinstating our old bus driver. It was probably good that I didn't speak any Chinese or I'm not sure what I would have done. I think the moment that I had the most hatred for him was when a car was stopped in front of us. The car could not go any further because there was a gate and the police were talking to this car. Our stupid pig bus driver blared on the horn for the next ten minutes. And then I thought what police officer doesn't give this bus driver a ticket or REVOKE his license??? I don't know how I made it through this bus ride. I was really happy that it was the last long distance bus ride we needed to go on. At our bus stop he beat us off the bus to have a cigarette. I found that hard to believe since I was ready to push my way off the bus at the first stop. When I got off, I couldn't look him in the eyes since I was seething. But I looked him over, sizing him up and I thought for a fleeting moment that even though I'm not very strong, I was mad enough that I thought I could take him down with my bag and anger. That thought got me off the bus and past him without yelling obscenities. Since we had just come back from Langmusi which used to be part of Tibet, I wish I could say that I thought of a teaching from the Dahli Lama that made me forgive this guy but that is definitely not true. I had nightmares and flashbacks about that bus ride for the rest of the trip. Thank goodness it was almost over.
The bus ride from Zoige to Songpan started out good enough. This is the section that a bus was stuck in the middle of the road on on the way to Zoige earlier in the week. The bus driver was a happy fellow and I liked him; he was amiable, had nice laugh lines around his eyes indicating to me his good nature, and smiled a lot showing his gold teeth. Most importantly he was a very good driver. The other riders liked him too because they gave him cigarettes and joked around with him. The front seat riders entertained me for most of the ride. The front seat was composed of men were handed the the bus driver cigarettes and lit his cigarettes for him. They joked around with him (although I couldn't understand any of it of course). It was similar to a coffee clutch in the Wisconsin cafes, but instead it was a puffers party in the front seat of the bus. I would have found the whole thing endearing (and I guess obviously I did find it a wee bit endearing)if I wasn't so sick of long hours on the bus in smoke clouds. Emily and I tried to avoid the smokers by moving to other seats; usually though it just resulted in us being closer to another smoker who had just lit up. By the end of the bus ride I think I had figured out that we were the only ones that didn't smoke.
The road to Songpan was a bit muddy but seem to be a solid bottom (Don't forget my dad's a logger so I do not only know what I'm talking about but have experience with this!). Of course the road was a drop off on one side for most of the way but this bus driver was very slow, almost too slow. At one point we went through a tally whacker swamp in logger terms but in wetland ecology terms it was a shrub/scrub willow alder swamp. In this particular location, I think that we were lucky it was freezing at night and that the ground was still frozen or things might have been more interesting. In Songpan I was hoping for a bathroom break since we had been on the darn bus for 4 hours but instead we just kept cruising. We were finally on a good two lane road, although certainly it was not a wide two lane road and there were lots of blind corners and drop offs. Being able to go faster down the road certainly had pluses and negatives, but as long as we had our good bus driver, I was happy to be moving faster. We had a near miss with a car that was passing on a blind corner but our alert bus driver pounded the breaks and swerved ever so slightly so that the car pulled ahead somehow avoiding a head on with us.
The much awaited bathroom break came at 11 ish when they needed to hose down the brakes. I was so excited to have a bathroom break, but little did I know that after this the scariest ride I've ever had in my life would start. In addition to hosing down the brakes they gave the bus an entire wash job. The bathroom as always was interesting. This time it was interesting because it was a one man show so he was collecting money from people using the bathroom (there were 2 maybe 3 buses there) and selling pop/snacks and pulling out other things (sandals to sell too). I gave him 10Y for crackers and wondered if I would get change as he ran around collecting money, directing the wash job and pulling out sandals but I did get change eventually.
We all piled on the bus and to my dismay the bus drivers had switched. I had a bad feeling about this. I tried to be optimistic but as I watched him accelerate to 130KPH on a windy blind corner road that was thick with traffic and not getting any better my optimism turned to fear. In the fourth seat from the front I had a good view of every near miss accident we had--near miss with a diesel truck, near miss with an old woman, near miss with a ricochet, I quit counting. Having to grip the seat on every corner and my neck aching from his hard braking (I guess it was reassuring to know the brakes still worked but I coudln't believe they could work this well) and my stomach lurching wasn't helping make me feel better. About ten minutes into the ride, I started weighing our options. IF the bus had stopped at all during the next 4 hours, I would have walked off and given someone all my Yuan and whatever US dollars it took to drive me safely to the irrigation town or just have waited for another bus. I was totally convinced this bus driver was a crazy mad nutzo. For awhile I thought we were just going to roll off the edge and die and I was OK with that. My big fear is being a vegetable but I can deal with dying but then I started to think that we probably wouldn't roll off the edge and worse we might be the ones trying to help whoever this horrible bus driver maimed. Our friend Andrew had told us that he saw many times in China, where the Chinese just walked past people who were hurt in accidents and would not offer to help. I decided that we should move to the back of the bus which was no easy task considering the speeds he was going at. Then I tried to recall some first aid. I wanted to go to the front of the bus and just shake the bus driver. Then after an hour of counting breaths and alternating with hail Marys, I didn't feel any peace and just wanted to pummel him. Emily though is really a true friend because thru this whole thing, and she didn't enjoy the bus ride either but instead of focusing on her breathing she kept trying to distract me or try to come up with things to make me feel better. Emily is such a good friend for that. I fantasized about organizing a hijacking and reinstating our old bus driver. It was probably good that I didn't speak any Chinese or I'm not sure what I would have done. I think the moment that I had the most hatred for him was when a car was stopped in front of us. The car could not go any further because there was a gate and the police were talking to this car. Our stupid pig bus driver blared on the horn for the next ten minutes. And then I thought what police officer doesn't give this bus driver a ticket or REVOKE his license??? I don't know how I made it through this bus ride. I was really happy that it was the last long distance bus ride we needed to go on. At our bus stop he beat us off the bus to have a cigarette. I found that hard to believe since I was ready to push my way off the bus at the first stop. When I got off, I couldn't look him in the eyes since I was seething. But I looked him over, sizing him up and I thought for a fleeting moment that even though I'm not very strong, I was mad enough that I thought I could take him down with my bag and anger. That thought got me off the bus and past him without yelling obscenities. Since we had just come back from Langmusi which used to be part of Tibet, I wish I could say that I thought of a teaching from the Dahli Lama that made me forgive this guy but that is definitely not true. I had nightmares and flashbacks about that bus ride for the rest of the trip. Thank goodness it was almost over.
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Zoom Zoom to Zoige, grrrr
Reluctantly we left Langmusi and the best lodging we had had yet for Zoige. Even though our nice Chinese family directed us to stay by the gate and wait for the bus to Zoige we did not believe them and walked twice, one block to the corner to inquire if the two buses waiting there were headed to our destination. After the first time and given our track record that in China everyone else knows where we are going except us, I don't know why we did not believe them and just stay still. Eventually we heard the bus honking as it blasted thru the other end of town getting louder as it got near us, the bus that every other morning had woken us up at 6AM with it's honking--today we were up and ready to go. We entered the plume of smoke, I tried to think about how wonderful it was that the Chinese government does not take away there right to this vice. I braced myself for the potentially scary bus ride. It was blessedly uneventful, however finding a hotel in Zoige was another matter.
With all our crud a back pack on front and back and holding water bottles and plastic food bags, we trapsed up and down the street looking for a hotel our guide book recommended. After a half hour we had been up and down the blocks a few zillion times and did not see anything that looked like a hotel except a very rich hotel so we decided to go in the hotel thinking maybe we would just have to spend more for this one night than we wanted to. One glance at their prices told us that we had to find other accomadations; the priciest rooms being more cash than either of us had on us and the more affordable ones still being way out of reach.
Back on the streets a woman offering carriage rides asked us where we needed to go. Emily told her the name of the hotel that our guide book recommended and she knew where it was. Now here is the really embarrasing part the makes me blush to even admit on a blog site, she of course offered to deliver us and reluctantly we agreed. At the time I was incredibly humilitated, but I think admitting it in writing is even worse. I wanted to put my bag inside and run along the cart but I knew this would draw more attention to us. So Emily got in first and she arranged her bags and then I had to hand her my smaller bag and water and other garbage to get in the carriage. Of course my backpack was so tall that it got stuck in between. The silver lining to the big bag was that it hid my face from view. The back pack is really that big. Now for the most humiliating part, this small waif of woman hauled our asses down the street by peddling in heels. She looked like she was struggling to move the heavy load; we were both really relieved to have here only go three blocks. For the road we payed 5Y--not even a dollar. Emily paid her and I tried to find more money to give her, thinking I could relieve part of the guilt with more money but before I could dig anymore out, she was off.
Our hotel had been right where the guidebook said but it was through a large door that led to a dark room and didn't seem very inviting. We were desperate and marched thru and despite the loud noises headed up to the second floor where the activity was, relieved to be at the hotel. On the second floor it was obvious that the hotel was under major construction, in denial we headed for the 3rd floor thinking there might be a bed for us here somewhere. On the third flood, we found the owner who gave us a look that was somewhere between shock (what the hell are you doing here?) and pity. Emily had her wits about her (I wanted to beg in Chinese for a floor space for the night) quickly found a phrase that asked for a hotel recommendation. He pointed us down the street but really we didn't understand the directions.
Back on the streets again, we were looking and feeling really grim. We headed down the street, decided to check out an alley we had not yet explored. In the alley we found a apartment/gambling? complex and asked them for a hotel recommendation. Well meaning people pointed us in various directions. We were back at our original corner feeling discouraged, when the woman with her cinderellesque carriage found us again. A decision was made to head for the really cheap quarters in our guide book and so we asked her where these were. She asked us if we wanted deliverance to our hotel but I just coudln't get in the buggy again so we trudged off in the direction she pointed us. Walking down that street an old man gave us the sleeping signal (hands in a prayer position, under your ear with your head tilted and eyes closed). With a new speck of hope we nodded listlessly and asked how much; he told us 20Y each so we decided to take a look. The first step into the place, as desperate as we were though, we knew it wasn't going to work. Even with all the windows open, I thought we were in the midst of a raging housefire. Emily and I dumbly gasped and wheezed (we both had chest colds at this point) our way up the stairs to take a look out of politeness but barely glanced at the room, fleeing down the stairs, our eyes watering, with the rolly polly owner barreling down after us saying things we coudln't understand. Emily has wildland fire fighting experience and commented that this was worse than what she experienced on the fire line.
Back on the streets again, I started to scout out clean corners as possibilities in case we had to spend the night on the streets. Finally after many hours we found "The Red Star Hotel." It was a roof over our head, two warm blankets and nothing more. Well actually the more part was when you flushed the toilet you had to step aside or you would get wet around the ankles but the room was good enough. It was a nice day out and after feeling really frustrated a walk was in order. We headed out of town and walked in the yak fields. It was quiet, the yaks didn't seem to mind and there weren't any dogs (although instead of scanning for bulls in the pastures as I would in Wisconsin, I kept scanning for wild dogs bounding towards us). Besides the yak fields, Zoige had vendors selling vegetable seeds, fruit, and other essentials. After our walk with the yaks, we found a nice tea house and settled in for a card game and tea. The only other table, a table of men (seems to be the case with tea houses and card games--men are playing while the woman work) borrowed our phrase book and asked us questions. It was fun and the tea was good.
Last of Langmusi
On our last day in Langmusi, we decided to head out of town towards a canyon visible from town. We passed by caves where the towns water source originates. Although most of the hills nearby were denuded, these hills sides forested. I wondered why. We were told that In Jiuzhaigou, the trees are often stolen from the park illegally, but when I asked the assistant director if the park had considered trying to quantify the takings, he said it never happened (although it obviously does). I was excited to see trees, they were spruce and fir of some sort. For me, it was torturesome not to be able to know the species of the trees. It was another snowing day, the snow was coming down horse feather size eventually being flap jack style. As we walked thru the canyon, we saw many raptors over head and scared up mulitiple aisan pheasants. The snow was coming down so hard that we didn't have much visibility but we could hear thunder. When we heard a good crackle that made both of us jump, we decided it was a good time to turn around. Back in Langmusi, Emily and I found the grocery store where we could get our favorite local tea (eight treasures or ba bow) tea. I kept goofing and calling it eight pleasures. I'm convinced this is because before I left I was reading a park weed plan that quoted the Organic Act, saying that Yellowstone was a "pleasuring ground" and the Chinese parks had many signs that said "pleasure ground" on it. We bought our pre made packs of eight treasures (ba bao) tea and did some sourvenier shopping. I decided that I really wanted a cup of coffee and was lured in by a sign advertising good coffee. OK, how many people KNOW without even going to China that in the land of tea it is silly to think you are going to get a good cup of coffee, even if the sign does advertise that they have good coffee? Yeah well, I had in my mind that this good coffee existed so Emily and I went up a flight of stairs that was really a ladder to the second floor where I ordered coffee. The instant coffee that I had paid 5Y for was better than what I got here. It was half sugar and a little coffee with water. Emily, who does not like coffee, enjoyed it more than I did. However, the shop was great for people watching and we watched what we were sure was the Chinese mafia walk thru town. Finally we pulled ourselves away from the cafe for street wandering. Langmusi is small (2000 people) so all the owner of Leishas that served a meaned Yak burger waved at us mulitiple times as we sashayed up and down the streets.
Thursday, April 5, 2007
Listen to the Locals
Emily and I woke up to beautiful snow falling out our window in Langmusi so we stayed in bed waiting for it to abate, but all the time enjoying the beautiful view out our window and our electric heating pads. By 10 O'Clock it had picked up and we could no longer sit still (or at least I could not). We went in search of breakfast, made new friends and ran into our Israeli friends from the previous night. They had invited us to join them for Passover and were nice enough to translate into English for us. By 1 O'Clock, the sun was peaking out and we were both wound up and ready to do something so we set out on a hike. We started out of town and got a notion to head down by the pigs/lambs/goats, cross the river and gain a ridgeline for a nice view. I have no idea how we planned to cross the river since there was no way I planned to put my bare feet in it as it was littered with trash, the toilets were all located along the river and we had just seen a large dead bloated pig floating down the river. I would rather have spent the night with rats than touch the river. By a local home we decied that we could cut down to the river, thru the livestock along a cement fence that delineated their house. As we started to head down along the fence, a girl came out and pantomined that we should not go that way. She led us down towards another route, motioning for us to go that way. We did notice one dog growling but it appeared to be on a chain. We tried to go that way again and she pulled us back. My instict said that we should listen to her but Emily still wanted to go that way so I decided to be a sheep. The girl motioned for me to pick up rocks to throw at the dog so I did. Emily boldly walked towards the cement fence that she was going to follow down to the river. Two huge dogs that weighed more than the girl and Emily tore out and took after Emily. I threw my rocks, hit the dogs but they didn't even miss a beat. Before I knew what had happened, Emily turned around started running, tripped and the dogs were on top of her. The savior girl must have been a sprinter in a previous life because she pulled the dogs off of her and authoritatively yelled at them, they responded, sending them running, still I don't think I had blinked and she was pulling Emily up and dusting her off. My heart was racing and I know Emily's must have been going even faster. We felt like the biggest fools ever, as we were and should have guessed what she was trying to tell us and know that the dog was there to protect the livestock. It didn't take us long to head down the road. Emily was lucky and just suffered a few scrapes but I think ever since we have been watching treating dogs as if they are killer dogs.
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
All that Glitters is not Gold
Arriving in Longmusi, we needed to find a hotel. Our guide book spoke of one that had central heating, hot showers and spoke English. We located the hotel and it looked very fancy on the exterior and the lobby was quite nice too. My gut told me we should go somewhere else though but I was too tired to think about doing anything but the easy solution which was just to get a room here. With our heavy packs we searched a few floors looking for someone to give us a room. Finally a girl appeared from outside and told us (not in English) that we could get a common room for 15Y each. She reconfirmed the hot water and central heating situation. The not overly friendly staff showed us to our room. I inspected the room while Emily inspected the toilet situation. My conclusion was that the room smelled of mildew, the bedding didn't strike me as clean but as I didn't feel like trudging around town, I could probably handle it for one night. Emily came back and signaled me that the bathroom was not that foxy but she concluded like me that we could handle it for one night. I was grumpy. They reluctantly gave us a key and we decided to head out on the town.
Two blocks from our hotel we saw a small shoe store advertising 24 hour hot water and heating. I was lured in my beautiful houseplants I could see. We inquired with the nice man who showed us the room. The room was through a courtyard on the second floor. The room was clean, with nice warm woodwork, a window taking up half the wall sporting a gorgeous view, AND we had billowing comforters. Not only did we have a billowing comforter, but we also each had a doubly lined fleece blanket AND a heating pad. As if all this was not good enough, we had candles which we have quickly learned produce a lot of heat in a small room. The bathroom was clean. We quickly decided that for 20Y each we were ready to move. Anyone in Longmusi, the name is XiuFeng Guest House and the number is 0941-6671020. They are located a couple stores from Leishas on the opposite site of the street.
We went back to our smelly room, quickly packed up, pulling out our phrase book so we could figure out our to get our substantial key deposit back. While I tried to get our deposit back, the guy made faces, sticking his tongue out at each of us. I would like to have made a face back but decided I should just remain calm if I wanted my key deposit. While we were trying to get the deposit, Emily discovered that in the rush to leave our crummy room, she had left her purse in the already locked room. Luckily finally the other woman showed up and let Emily back into the room to retrieve her purse, gave me my deposit and we were out of there.
Upon arrival at our new digs, they gave us a large thermos of water for tea and asked us when we wanted our hot shower. The owner ran the water until it became hot, gave us detergent for doing laundry AND let us hang our clothes on their clothes line. The shower was piping hot with water pressure. We could not be happy. I don't want to leave. The owners are so nice to us and all this for only $3 US dollars a night.
Two blocks from our hotel we saw a small shoe store advertising 24 hour hot water and heating. I was lured in my beautiful houseplants I could see. We inquired with the nice man who showed us the room. The room was through a courtyard on the second floor. The room was clean, with nice warm woodwork, a window taking up half the wall sporting a gorgeous view, AND we had billowing comforters. Not only did we have a billowing comforter, but we also each had a doubly lined fleece blanket AND a heating pad. As if all this was not good enough, we had candles which we have quickly learned produce a lot of heat in a small room. The bathroom was clean. We quickly decided that for 20Y each we were ready to move. Anyone in Longmusi, the name is XiuFeng Guest House and the number is 0941-6671020. They are located a couple stores from Leishas on the opposite site of the street.
We went back to our smelly room, quickly packed up, pulling out our phrase book so we could figure out our to get our substantial key deposit back. While I tried to get our deposit back, the guy made faces, sticking his tongue out at each of us. I would like to have made a face back but decided I should just remain calm if I wanted my key deposit. While we were trying to get the deposit, Emily discovered that in the rush to leave our crummy room, she had left her purse in the already locked room. Luckily finally the other woman showed up and let Emily back into the room to retrieve her purse, gave me my deposit and we were out of there.
Upon arrival at our new digs, they gave us a large thermos of water for tea and asked us when we wanted our hot shower. The owner ran the water until it became hot, gave us detergent for doing laundry AND let us hang our clothes on their clothes line. The shower was piping hot with water pressure. We could not be happy. I don't want to leave. The owners are so nice to us and all this for only $3 US dollars a night.
Zoige to Longmusi
By this time, I was wondering what would happen on our next bus ride for the day. It was only supposed to be 2 hours so I hoped it couldn't be too bad. As luck would have it, we somehow lost our seats and got stuck in the very back of the bus. With so little leg room I was in a permanent yoga twist with my legs turned the opposite direction of my trunk. Since the Chinese seem to do things backwards, it took us forever just to get out of the little town because the bus would stop every 50 meter and honk and wait and pick someone up. Then once it stops, someone with run out and pick something our or a friendly jostling match will break out. It's beyond me why they can't centralize the bus stops a bit more. Leaving town, I watched a motorcycle fly by us--the wife had one arm around her husband and one arm around a pink baby bundle. I marveled at what strong arms she must have. The bus was composed of muslims and tibetans.
The road to Longmusi was also under construction. I thought we are on the plateau so shurely there cannot be much elevation gain. We skirted a mounted, and then climbed and climbed, all the time being able to see hair pin turns below us. I hoped we would level out but then we started to descend the other side of the mountain. As we drove, we could see the great road that would one day be in place, but for now our road was just another glorified logging road. We skirted past antique tractors carrying wagons loaded to the max. Always the road managed to be just wide enough but I didn't see how.
Again we reached another road block on the descent. This time it was a dino diesel that roared but didn't move, eventually it reversed a few feet but not enough for us to squeeze past it or at least I hoped not. Again our bus driver shut the bus down and got out. Everyone else started piling out too. The diesel dino driver and our bus drive exchanged words. Even though they spoke Chinese, I was adept at interpretting their gestures and I knew my bus driver was saying, "Back up, I can't go around you, we'll fall off the edge." Meanwhile another bus had bipassed the switchback and gone up a steep pitch behind us. Our bus driver and the other bus driver exchanged words and again I was able to interpret our bus driver saying, "No we can't go down that gully washer makeshift road--my brakes are shot and overheating." In the backrow the old woman had generously shared with my friend Emily greasy bread that she sweetly ate. I managed to only take a small peice. In exchange for the bread, they wanted all of her water. Apparently a decision had been made as our bus driver had turned the bus on and many of the people in our bus decided to stay outside. I began the hail Mary's as I would have preferred to be outside but was trapped in the backseat with the old ladies. One of which was sleeping on my shoulder. Our bus driver did a quick reverse and I thought maybe he was going to go for the makeshift road--my heart started racing. Then the dino diesel slowly growled forward. Our bus squeezed by as the other bus passengers ran to the bottom of the turn to be picked up. I was told the bus drivers must take a special class and a test that includes 99 questions but when you are in the middle of a narrow road with a cliff on one edge and on a blind corner and you are using horn blasting as your warning mechanism, I didn't have a whole lot of confidence in the licensing process and wondered if the bus drivers also had to pass hearing tests.
The road to Longmusi was also under construction. I thought we are on the plateau so shurely there cannot be much elevation gain. We skirted a mounted, and then climbed and climbed, all the time being able to see hair pin turns below us. I hoped we would level out but then we started to descend the other side of the mountain. As we drove, we could see the great road that would one day be in place, but for now our road was just another glorified logging road. We skirted past antique tractors carrying wagons loaded to the max. Always the road managed to be just wide enough but I didn't see how.
Again we reached another road block on the descent. This time it was a dino diesel that roared but didn't move, eventually it reversed a few feet but not enough for us to squeeze past it or at least I hoped not. Again our bus driver shut the bus down and got out. Everyone else started piling out too. The diesel dino driver and our bus drive exchanged words. Even though they spoke Chinese, I was adept at interpretting their gestures and I knew my bus driver was saying, "Back up, I can't go around you, we'll fall off the edge." Meanwhile another bus had bipassed the switchback and gone up a steep pitch behind us. Our bus driver and the other bus driver exchanged words and again I was able to interpret our bus driver saying, "No we can't go down that gully washer makeshift road--my brakes are shot and overheating." In the backrow the old woman had generously shared with my friend Emily greasy bread that she sweetly ate. I managed to only take a small peice. In exchange for the bread, they wanted all of her water. Apparently a decision had been made as our bus driver had turned the bus on and many of the people in our bus decided to stay outside. I began the hail Mary's as I would have preferred to be outside but was trapped in the backseat with the old ladies. One of which was sleeping on my shoulder. Our bus driver did a quick reverse and I thought maybe he was going to go for the makeshift road--my heart started racing. Then the dino diesel slowly growled forward. Our bus squeezed by as the other bus passengers ran to the bottom of the turn to be picked up. I was told the bus drivers must take a special class and a test that includes 99 questions but when you are in the middle of a narrow road with a cliff on one edge and on a blind corner and you are using horn blasting as your warning mechanism, I didn't have a whole lot of confidence in the licensing process and wondered if the bus drivers also had to pass hearing tests.
To the Tibetan Plateau
No we didn't go to Tibet, but we are very close. Andrew recommended that we go see the Tibetan plateau. So far all of his recommendations had been really good so at 6AM after a fitful night of trying to stay warm, we bought our tickets to Zoige. Andrew got up to see us off, telling us that he had rats in his room all night. Yikes!! Our phrase book actually does have a phrase for that but we haven't had to use it yet. He walked us to the bus station--I think he was worried we would get on the wrong bus (so far though no one lets this happen, the bus drivers kick us off). I think the Chinese wondered what the white guy fluent in Chinese was doing see the two Americans off to the bus.
Anyway we were hoping our bus ride would be nice and warm and smoke free. Neither of these were true, but it was rat free. We were the only white kids and the rest of the bus was filled with Tibetans. Initially the road to Zoige was pavement and I thought I could quit worrying about the bus ride where we would gain 1000 ft. Quickly though the road deteriorated and we were on a road under construction that was no better than most logging roads. There was rebar sticking through and concrete so high that dirt ramps were built for the bus. On one side of course there was a cliff face. I reasoned that at least the bad road slowed the bus driver up. I also rationalized that this bus must have as many gears as a logging truck so we shouldn't get stuck in the ruts. I doubt this is true but at the time it seemed to add up in my mind. We started seriously gained elevation as I could see the swith backs below us. Some of the pitches on the road were so steep that as we churned up over big rocks in slow gear, I really wondered if we would make it. Finally it seemed things had leveled off and we were on the plateau. It was beautiful, looking somewhat reminiscent of the Beartooths but with much less water.
I saw a small town and though perhaps we were about to get a bathroom break. The bus ride from Chengdu they stopped frequently to wash the bus (yes complete wash job with soap and all) and hose down the brakes mulitple times. The bathroom break was much needed after this bumpy ride but instead as we got closer I could see that it was a road block. A bus (big big bus) was stuck in the middle of the road. Because the road was under construction where the road junction was, there were berms blocking the path around the bus so the only way around this situation was to move the stuck bus. About ten men were standing around looking at the bus and one had a shovel. He was trying but not too ambitiously to dig the bus out. Apparently there was only one shovel. The back driver's side wheel was buried up to the bus frame. The back wheel was only a little better off. I wondered how long the bus had been like this.
Our bus driver shut the bus down and we got our and surveyed the scene. There was another bus behind us and then one bus coming from the opposite direction. It was an interesting scene as we watched a sleek black car go around the bus. Then another vehicle get pushed through. Fifteen minutes later a kind person told us a few english words that indicated we were switching buses. The bus going to Songpan was also blocked so the occupants of the Songpan bound bus got on our bus and we got on there bus. Then the bus drivers turned the buses around and we were on our way. We arrived at Zoige, figured out that we could catch a bus to Longmusi, our final destination, that day. So we found a smoky tea house and waited til our next departure. As luck would have it, our smoky tea house was next to firecracker central and so we had to endure round after round of firecrackers. I wondered if it was some sort of holiday.
It's A Small World After All
Andrew drove us back to Songpan. His driving is very good and did not scare me at all. It was a very quiet ride compared to the bus too because there was no honking, the quiet was really welcomed by my ears. We went back to our fave hotel, the traffic hotel, looking forward to our heated blankets. Instead, the hotel was full and we were put in a little room with a ragged peice of fabric that apparently qualified as a blanket. It was going to be a cold night! We set off to fetch dinner at a cafe. Arriving at the cafe there were lots of important people working on a reforestation project in China. I met Li Bo (spelling incorrect) who worked for John Sacklin in Yellowstone. I of course shared with him that Mary Hektner was my boss and he told me to tell them hello. He wanted to sent something back for them but I told them that we were leaving at 6 AM. I took a picture instead of all of us in Songpan to prove that I had ran into someone with a tye to Yellowstone.
Hot Pot With The Hot Shot
After talking with the Science Department for the park, Andrew drove us out of town and kicked us out of his jeep. Actually he pointed us on a very nice hike through a Tibetan Village. The scenery was beautiful and we didn't get lost. All the kids seem to know how to say "Hello" and "How are you?" so this was a popular query and we hiked around the village. He had told us that the Vice director wanted to take us to see Tibetan dancing so we need to be back by 6. He told us we should be able to flag down a taxi for the ride back to town. After about 20 minutes of walking and not successfully getting a taxi we were starting to worry. Just then a taxi arrived and we were transported back to Jiuzhaigou. At 6 it was decided that it was better for us to experience Chinese hot pot than Tibetan dancing. We all piled in a nice shiny black Audi complete with leather seats and a driver that drove to take full advantage of the power under the hood, managing in the short distance through town (less than 1 mile) to go 50 mph.
At the restaurant we were ushered into our own private room. In the center of the square solid wood table, was a sunken burner for putting the big bowl. Our waitress added water and lots of red peppers. We had been warned that hot pot was very hot. Food began to appear on little plates, all neatly sliced but unrecognizable, but the identity of the mystery food was revealed--cow stomach, chicken stomach, chicken esophagus, dried yak meat, fish, deep fried pork, summer sausage, tofu, potatoes, horse stomach and more. If we had been suffering from a deficiency in protein, we were certainly going to eat enough tonight!
We mixed up our dipping sauce, adding garlic, soy and cilantro. There was also a large bowl of MSG too if we had wanted. I really thought no one ate MSG anymore. By this time the pot looked like a witches cauldron, besides having all the nicely disguised questionables in it, it was bubbling, splashing dangerously close to my eyes. Fishing out stomachs from a pot of bubbling water was incredibly challenging with chopsticks and I began to think I might not have to worry about eating anything when our private server decided to step in. Every time we ate anything from our bowl, it was immediately replaced by three more things. She was very skilled at fishing things out with the chopsticks. I managed to drop my chopsticks twice. Andrew seemed shocked that chopsticks were not by native eating tool of choice at home in the USA.
About 3/4 of the way through the meal, we were brought some yogurt milk. I eagerly gulped mine down hoping that by showing enthusiasm for the milk beverage I would be rewarded with a refill as by now my mouth was tingly numb. Both Emily and I were dabbing our faces. Unfortunately the packaging holding the horse stomach had leaked, gushing onto my lap. I had to use my three stamp sized napkins that I had been given for wiping up the spillage. Even though we slammed the yogurt drink, no more came for at least another 45 minutes. In which time I accidentally ate a pepper only grown in Sichuan province that causes your mouth to go numb for 30 minutes (so I was told, I believe it was longer). The pepper is part of the opium family. I slurped tea like mad and when the next round of yogurt drink did arrive, I was just as eager to drink it quickly but no refill came.
The hot pot bowl was overflowing with meat, causing the server to be even more diligent about refilling everything we ate. Emily and I declared we absolutely couldn't eat any more. The vice director said we must and added three more kinds of mushrooms to the hot pot. Unfortunately there had been a lull of a few minutes with toasting and declaring we couldn't eat anymore--so when we finally did try some mushrooms, having boiled for over three hours now, the spice tasted like it had increased ten fold. Finally we were told that we must eat some rice soup to close the loop. This was the same rice soup that we had had for breakfast with the Tibetan family so I knew what was coming. Even though I'm not a fan of the watered down rice, to my flaming mouth and intestines, the blah rice was a welcome carbohydrate to my body.
The hot pot was a really fun experience. We learned that is originally started many many years ago. Everyone would add what they had to the pot and eat it. Now in bigger cities, we were told that people will spend as much as 1000 US dollars for hot pot. They told us big cities will have restaurants where there can be 500 people being served hot pot. Sounds like quite the craze that has hit China.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
