Modern train travel

29 May 2010    6:58am     on the train to Lhasa

Well, we are officially on the way to Lhasa!  So far the train is a little crazy- nobody speaks English at all so it's really hard to communicate anything.  Mostly we just get yelled at in Chinese until we figure out what they're trying to tell us.  So in each compartment there's six bunks.  Katie's in one with five guys, Cecilia and I are in another with 3 guys, and a mother and child.  The kid's cute, but they got on the train after I was asleep and woke me up.  Then she wouldn't stop talking so I couldn't go back to sleep.  I'm just going to have to deal with it- there's nothing else I can do, and I can't even speak to them about it.  At the very least, it's a new life experience for me to be on this train.


29 May 2010        11:13am        still on the train

    I am once again absolutely amazed by the beauty of the Chinese countryside.  We just passed through a valley of lakes- the views were breathtaking.  We weren’t the only ones struck by it- everyone in our car was looking out the window, taking pictures.  I felt like I’m on an island- think the views of LOST, and you’ll understand what I mean.

 The amazing views from the train

    I’ve been so tired and just plain out of it that I forgot to write about yesterday.  We had initially thought our train left early, but as it didn’t leave until 9:30pm, we suddenly had the whole day free.  Since we had to be checked out of the hostel by noon, we packed and then stored our bags with the front desk.  I also found out that they had stamps, so I finally got to send all my post cards out.  For 5 yuan each, I hope they get to the U.S.

    We left the hostel around noon to meet Katie’s friend Michelle, a fellow New School student, for lunch.  She took us to a restaurant to get a hot pot, which is basically a pot of broth that all of the food gets put in.  The pot is divided into regular broth and Sichuan broth, which is usually very hot.  Seeing as how most of the food Michelle ordered for us I didn’t like, I didn’t eat much.  I’m sure it was very good though.  I felt really guilty about getting myself McDonald’s later, but I was so burnt out and hungry.  I think I reached the extent of trying new foods (hopefully just for China, not the whole summer).  I still look at the McDonald’s thing as a cultural experience- how each culture still has its own impact on globalization.  I ordered chicken nuggets, but instead of barbeque sauce they had sweet and sour (I think, it was still in the usual green) and garlic chili sauce.  I opted for the garlic chili sauce- if I was going to eat western food, I could at least try their versions of it.  The sauce wasn’t too bad, just a little too vinegar-y for my taste.

    Seeing as how we had a few more hours before we had to be back at the hostel to grab our bags and go to the train station, Michelle suggested we go to the Lama Temple.  It’s a functioning Buddhist temple with the largest statue of Buddha in Beijing (possibly the world, but I’d have to check), carved from a single piece of sandalwood.  The compound was quite large, with multiple buildings all featuring statues where people prayed.

    Eventually, we reached the last building- a few minutes before they started to close.  When people say the Buddha statue is gigantic, they mean it.  It’s 18 meters tall, which translates roughly to 54 feet tall- somewhere around 4 or 5 stories.  All I could do was stare up at it in disbelief.  I did manage to take a picture, and then promptly got yelled at by a monk.  That’s an experience.

 I took the picture, I might as well show it.  It's not very clear, but then again I didn't exactly have many opportunities to re-take it.

    We left the temple as it was closing, and stopped for groceries on the way back to the hostel so we would have snacks on the train.  I bought steak-flavored potato chips.  We’ll have to see how those go.  We took 2 taxis from the hostel to the train station, and of course got dropped off in different locations.  Luckily Dee found Keesler and I, and we all ended up making it on the train.


29 May 2010        5:12pm        on the train…

    This train ride has been pretty good so far.  We made friends with one of the only other foreigners on the train.  Of course, his English is almost non-existent – he’s Korean.  As he says, his head is stone so he can’t remember much English.  Katie and Cecilia also made friends with Katie’s roommates, the mobsters.  I finally got to see her roommate Turtleface Joe – he seems nice, he offered me a seat.  But man, are they drinking like crazy!  They’ve been doing it all day and at the last stop, they got off to get more beer.  Party in Katie’s room tonight!  I think my favorite thing, however, is that one of the mobsters has a toiletry bag with hearts on it!  So awesome.

    Back to look out the window some more!

P.S. Baby girl is growing on me- she’s so adorable!


29 May 2010        9:46pm        train…

    More fun times with our Korean friend!  One conversation awhile back we were discussing ages, and he called Cecilia ‘David Copperfield’ for guessing his age correctly (although I’m pretty sure he was lying about his age).  Later, we went over names.  He had already told us his name is Mr. Kim (I think his first name is Kuwon or something like that) and kept making jokes that Kim Jong-Il is his brother.  He also got us laughing by giving us his list of bad people (I think that’s what he meant)- 1) George W. Bush 2) Kim Jong-Il.  However, we did not agree with 3) Barack Hussein Obama (yes, he made sure to say the whole name).

    We also had a lovely conversation with our Korean friend about travel (particularly about his travels), which consisted of him speaking in Korean and saying the names of countries in English, like “Egypt!” “Canada!” and us responding, “Oh, Egypt!”  He mentioned a lot of Middle Eastern countries, so I asked him in English if he spoke Arabic.  He said yes, so I responded in Arabic, “I speak Arabic!”  I got a blank stare.  Apparently, he doesn’t.

    Later (so, not too long ago from now), we exchanged our names with him.  He had quite a hard time getting Katie’s name down.  She eventually just said K.T., which he seemed to get.  Cecilia he was fine with, but he had a really hard time with me.  I think he refused to believe that my name is Kim.  He said, “No, no, you are Virginia!”  I finally said ‘Kimberlee’, and that ‘Kim’ was just short.  He seemed to like that a lot better.

    We have all new roommates now, I believe.  Momma and baby are gone.  Sad face.  Now I’ve got a snoring guy.  Double sad face.  Oh well, if it gets too bad I can always put headphones in.  Tomorrow is our last day on the train; we should be getting to Lhasa tomorrow evening.  I can’t wait!

"Will you buy my water?"

27 May 2010     3:19pm     bus back to Beijing

I just finished hiking the Great Wall of China!  That was by far the most intense experience of my life!  The day started off at 6:15am, when the bus came to pick us up.  We were greeted by breakfast- McDonald's egg mcmuffin and coke.  But this was no normal [American] egg mcmuffin.  This was egg mcmuffin with ketchup and mayonnaise!  Definitely unusual.

T

The egg mcmuffin- unfortunately you can't seen the ketchup and mayonnaise that was in it.

    The bus ride was pretty boring, but I did take some pretty cool pictures out the window.  China's countryside is absolutely beautiful.  It took us a couple of hours to get to the wall from Beijing.

    When we got to the entrance of the part of the wall we were hiking, Jinshanling, we were given the option of taking a gondola up to the wall or hiking.  We opted to hike.  It was bad, I thought my lungs were going to collapse.  If only I knew what was coming up...

    Once we got onto the wall, my breath was taken away again- this time from beauty.  The wall itself is incredible, and the views were absolutely amazing.  Words simply cannot describe it, which is why I took so many pictures!  Although honestly, I'm not sure if pictures can accurately depict it either.  From pictures that I've seen of the Great Wall, it looks imposing, but not much.  Once you hike the thing, then you can truly understand how remarkable it is.

 The first part of the wall was nice- not too many steep climbs, and everything was fairly intact for the most part.  The second part was the complete opposite (and was the much longer part).  A lot of parts were broken or loose, and many of the slopes were steep!  I slid quite a few times and scraped my hand a little.  The rain probably didn't help things.  I feel lucky, though- apparently one woman we passed had broken her arm.  I just so amazed it wasn't me.

    Some of the staircases that were still intact were ridiculously tall- steps came up almost to my knees!  At least the third section gave us a bit of a respite from the complete disrepair of the last one.  It was still extremely slippery due to the rain, but at least we weren't practically mountain climbing up a staircase.

 Katie modeling the height of the stairs

    We finally got to the beginning of the end.  There were three sets of long metal staircases, which were scary-slippery after all the rain.  At the bottom of the stairs is a long wooden/metal bridge over the water to the other side.  It was pretty cool.  Once we (Katie, Keesler and I) reached the other side, we waited for Dee and Cecilia to catch up at the finish.  After we all finished, there were two options for getting to the parking lot: a 20-minute walk, or a zip line and a boat ride.  Katie and I opted for the adventure option.  Seeing as how I've always wanted to do a zip line, that was a no-brainer decision.

The path the zip line took us over

 The zip line was awesome.  It took us over the water down to the boat launch.  It was pretty incredible to be flying over water and look back to see the Great Wall behind me.  At the end of that there was a little path that led to the "pleasure boat" that would take us to the parking lot.  The bus in the lot took us to a restaurant where we had a lot of, if not well done, food to eat.  We ended up back on the bus, and now my plans are for a hot shower and a comfy bed!

'Yes, I'm white. No, I don't need your services'

26 May 2010    8:55pm     Beijing

Another exhausting day in Beijing!  We started off the day by visiting our old buddy Chairman Mao- or, his remains at least.  I will say he is very well-preserved.  Almost too well-preserved - he looks like he's made of wax.  The real adventure was getting to Tian'anmen Square.  We took two taxis- Katie, Keesler and I in one cab, Cecilia and Dee in the other.  Wrongfully, we assumed that we would be dropped off at the same location.  Instead, we had a near panic-inducing 10 minutes where we wandered around the square hoping to find Cecilia and Dee.  Luckily, we eventually did.

    Some people at the hostel told us there was like a two hour wait to see Mao, but we breezed in there in about 10 minutes.  I will give the communists this- they're very efficient.  Unfortunately, they may be too efficient since they tried to rush everyone through Mao's chamber.  However, there was a lovely gift shop at the end.  I'd say Mao must be rolling over in his grave because of all this capitalism going on (particularly selling him), but he looked all good when we saw him.

M

Me with my old buddy Mao

    After seeing Mao, we went to pick up our bags (no bags allowed in the memorial hall) and found a restaurant to eat at.  Luckily, they had an English menu, so we just pointed to what we wanted.  I used Dee's book to order rice- that thing is so useful!  We had about 5 people waiting on us- we can't tell if they were bored or scared to help us alone.  At least now we've figured out how much food is enough for all of us- no hordes of food anymore!  We learned our lesson from the duck...

    After lunch we walked around the square for a bit on our way to the Forbidden City.  While we were there, whe met a really nice Chinese guy named Dawson, like Dawson's Creek (as he so eloquently stated).  He's a student and artist who was having an art display by the Forbidden City.  As he stuck with us, he kept reassuring us that he wasn't a tour guide and wasn't going to charge us anything.  He just wanted us to go look at the art.  He did tell us some interesting things, like that China (the People's Republic) is turning 60 this year, so there's a huge celebration planned.  Also, Tian'anmen Square can hold 1 million people!  Crazy!

    Dee and I ended up going to see the art, and we both fell in love.  We each ended up buying two scrolls- one for ourselves, one for our families.  As a thank you, Dawson painted us mini scrolls, explaining the characters that he had painted.

    Finally, we got to the Forbidden City.  The name [city] is certainly not a misnomer- the place is huge!  I was starting to think we'd hever get through the whole thing.  The architecture and designs on most of the buildings was the same as the temple we visited yesterday, but it was still beyond beautiful.

    The interiors were all incredible.  Most of them were blocked off from entering so people have to stand at the barrier to take pictures.  Chinese people are very impatient and passive-aggressive, at least when it comes to shoving people out of the way to take pictures.  Eventually, I started being passive-aggressive right back.  Take that!

    Another observation is how much people will come up to you and offer to be tour guides, etc.  It happened so often today that I just wanted to wear a sign that said "Yes, I'm white.  No, I don't need your services."  It was beyond ridiculous.  Equally ridiculous is the picture-takers.  By the end of the day we were at 11- 11 pictures Chinese people took with us.

C

Chinese tourists getting their picture taken with Keesler

    We finally made it to the Imperial Garden, which was my absolute favorite part of the Forbidden City.  The trees were so incredible, and so old too.  A lot of trees had their branches held up by metal posts.  One of the signs said the garden was where the women of the court would stay to "amuse themselves."  I honestly have to say that I wouldn't mind being a concubine if it meant I could hang out there all day!

 One of the coolest parts of the Imperial Garden

    We left the garden (reluctantly for me) and went to the market we found our first day to do a little more shopping.  On the way, we ran into this woman who followed Keesler for quite some time, trying to sell a bunch of figurines.  The woman started off at 100 yuan for one set- she ended up selling Keesler 3 sets for 40 yuan.  Keesler's a bargaining champ.  She helped us get some great deals in the market.

    For dinner we decided to go to the night market, which is just stalls of food all lined up along one street.  I ended up getting dumplings, which weren't very good.  I asked for chicken and half of them ended up being vegetable- gross.  There was some other pretty disgusting food for sale, all on sticks- snakes, seahorses, starfishes, beetles, centipedes, and other tentacled and/or legged organisms.  One vendor thought it was hilarious to pretend to throw food at us because he could tell how grossed out we were.  I was not amused.

G

Gross food at the night market

    Either fully satisfied or fully disgusted (the latter was probably just me), we went back to the hostel to call it a night.  We also booked our tour for the Great Wall tomorrow- it's gonna be awesome.  Also, I finally got to start writing post cards with the ones I bought at Tian'anmen Square.  As soon as I find stamps and/or a post office, these are going out.

    Oh, and I also got to use the squat toilets for the first time.  They're a little weird, but overall not too bad!

"No, no, no! Too much duck!"

25 May 2010     11:33pm     Beijing, Jade Youth Hostel

Well today was certainly a full day of adventures!  We started off with breakfast at the hostel.  Good thing it was buffet-style, as we spent the rest of the day walking around the city.  And we walked everywhere.  First stop was the shopping area so that we could buy a cell phone.  They had the awesome paper collapsible cups at the water cooler like they did at the airport.  These things are so cool- they're basically envelopes sealed on three sides, and the top side is where the water goes!  It's both the weirdest and most amazing thing ever.

    After, we wandered around a little more until we found a more non-Western shopping district.  This was also where I first experienced being completely creeped out by food (in China, of course- I get freaked out about food in other countries too).  In this case, it was scorpion on a stick.  Live scorpion.  I know I was told to try new things, but I draw the line at something still alive.  This is why I don't eat yogurt.

Unfortunately, you can't see the legs actually moving.

    I found the coolest thing in the market and had my first experience bargaining a price.  I found some stacking dolls in panda form.  For anyone that knows me and my obsession with pandas (although you probably don't know about my equal obsession with stacking dolls), I'm sure you can imagine how excited I was to see these.  There was a ton of other cool stuff- apparently I missed the Mao alarm clock whose arm moved up and down when the alarm goes off.

    After that exicitng adventure, we set off wandering and ended up following signs to the train station.  The plan was to look around the station, but it was ridiculously crowded and we believe that you had to have a ticket to even get in the station.  Moving on from that, we decided to take the subway to the Temple of Heaven Park.  The subway is ridiculously nice.  I really don't know how I'm going to be able to go back to MTA after the Beijing subway.  Everything is completely clean, electronic signs actually function, and the cars are all attached- no subway surfing here.  Oh, and announcements were in both Mandarin and English.  There was also tons of security, and bags had to be scanned before entering the subway system.  The system was extremely smooth.

    We ended up taking a very long walk from the station to the park.  However, we did find some super cool stuff on the way.  On one of the side streets we found an exercise park along the road.  After walking all day, some of those 'machines' (really, they looked more like playground equipment) felt really nice on the body.  We also attempted to go to the Underground City, but we got there a week or so late- from our attempted communications with the workers there, it closed for good on the 15th.  Very sad.

    After a lot more walking, we finally made it to the park.  It was so incredibly peaceful and beautiful at the same time.  The temple was equally amazing, although other tourists were extremely pushy to get pictures of the inside of the temple.  Apparently it's rude to call people out on their shit here.  If only I was in New York...

    We ended up taking the subway back to our hostel from the park- it was too long to walk and we were tired.  On our way back, we stopped to get dumplings as a snack while we waited for Keesler to arrive.  Everyone was shocked that I had never had dumplings before.  But after all, why not try them for the first time in China?  We ended up resting for a bit while waiting for Keesler to get in.  After Keesler's arrival, the fun truly began.

    The lovely front desk clerks gave us directions to an excellent restaurant that would fill our desires for Peking duck.  Unfortunately for us, that came in overload.  First off, none of the waiters spoke English and we of course don't speak Mandarin, so our conversations consisted of haphazard sign language and pointing at pictures.  Dee's travel book helped too, seeing as how most of the Chinese words in the book had to do with eating.  Thanks, Frommer's.

    I don't think I've ever had more fun reading a restaurant menu than I did at this place.  This was true Chinglish- one dish translated as 'flatfish with no results'.  The rest were equally amusing, especially when the meat took on strong action verbs in the description.  If I remember correctly, the bacon was quite forceful.

    Anyway, we ended up ordering duck, a vegetable platter, and these chive cakes- all of which were delicious.  When we first placed our order, the waiter assured us that one duck would be enough food for 5 people.  However, he came back and said that one duck normally serves 3 people.  So, we ordered two ducks.  Oh, how wrong we all were.

    The cakes came first, then the vegetables.  They were both really good appetizers and we figured they would be good compliments to the duck that was coming.  The duck finally came out and it looked so delicious.  We got three trays of duck, a stack of pancakes, cucumbers, and plum sauce.  It was a good amount of food and we were satisfied.  Then, everything went downhill.  The wait staff started bringing out more duck.  We were in shock- "No, no!  No more duck!"  But they didn't listen.  The duck kept coming.  We seriously had no more room on the table for more food, but they kept bringing it anyway!  Remembering my duck-eating contest days from RKB (ok, so it was only once), I assured everyone that we could totally eat two ducks, no problem!  Oh, how wrong I was.  They then brought out the duck soup and some sort of fried, spicy, seasoned duck chunks.  Oh dear lord.

Holy duck.

    After about my sixth pancake I started to get pretty full.  Katie reminded me that it takes 20 minutes for the body to realize it's full, so I better keep eating.  We actually ended up eating a good amount of the duck, but we definitely did not finish.  We ended up bringing the leftovers back to the hostel and gave them to the front staff, whom I'm pretty sure thought we were crazy for giving them food.

    The way back was equally as crazy.  We found a church along one touristy street.  One of our maps said it was a 'Catholil' church, but Dee and I are pretty sure that it's Orthodox.  (Update: Dee just googled it, and it is definitely an Orthodox church.  Stupid map.)  We also came across a little kid at a smoke shop, which requires a bit of explanation first.  Apparently in China, children poop and pee on the streets (I witnessed both today) and as a consequence, their pants do not have genital or butt coverings.  So this little kid at the smoke shop was carrying around a sign, and then put it down and started laying on it, exposing himself.  Talk about awkward.  I definitely don't think I can get used to seeing exposed children like that- it just seems like a pedophile's wet dream.

    Another thing I learned over the past day and a half is that China loves KFC.  I'm going to start a KFC Count on the blog: so far, the count is 6.  We definitely saw more than that, but 6 is our 'official' count.  It should be an interesting update.

    A final thing is driving.  Being a pedestrian in Beijing is pretty terrifying.  On many streets there are no real sidewalks.  There are bike lanes that people walk in, but these also serve bicycles and motor bikes.  And let me tell you, some of those bike drivers can get a little antsy when pedestrians are involved.  I've been honked at by bikes too many times to count today.  Also, nobody follows traffic laws.  Pretty much every red light we saw, at least one person ignored it and went driving on through.  It makes it pretty scary to cross streets, because you don't know if people are actually going to stop.  Also, there really is no such thing as a one-way street.  Even if a street is only wide enough for one car at a time, cars still come from both directions.  And in crossing some streets, even though it may be one way for cars, bicycles and motor bikes will still drive the opposite way, mowing people down in the process.

    In short, Beijing is pretty awesome.  What an excellent way to unwind from the end of the school year and the end of a ridiculously intense semester.  Next stop: Forbidden City, Tian'amen Square, and Mao's body.  Which some European tourist also staying at our hostel told us was a must-see.  Awesome.

"Let me check my Casio"

25 May 2010     Apparently 5am     Beijing

Well, we are officially in China!  I’m still in disbelief- I don’t think it will hit me until we actually start walking around the city and go see all the tourist sites.  We’re all settled into our hostel, which is surprisingly nice.  I’ve never stayed in one before, but I imagined it to be a large room full of bunk beds, with a bathroom outside the room.  Here, we have the bunk beds and the bathroom, but there’s only 4 beds, the room is quite small, and the bathroom is inside the room.  It’s great.

    Driving into Beijing was an interesting experience, to say the least.  We managed not only to find a taxi (I know it’s not really that hard to do outside an airport) but communicate where we needed to go.  And we made it, no problems!  I haven’t been in many taxis before (read: I’ve been in 2 my entire life), but our driver definitely wins the A+ award for best driver.

    The drive from the airport felt strangely familiar.  Apart from the Chinese road signs, it looked as though we could have been anywhere in the US or Europe- large highways, lots of trees.  I suppose the whole method of getting from the airport to a city is pretty standard worldwide.  Even the city itself was pretty normal.  We drove past a bunch of skyscrapers, and our hotel is in an area that’s much smaller and dingier (be assured, it’s still a nice hostel).  Urban planning, much like the roads from the airport, seem to be pretty standard worldwide.

    Finally, 2 thoughts: 1) The people outside our room are being quite loud.  I think if the Americans are telling you to be quiet, you’re too loud.
2) If it really is May 25, what the hell happened to the 24th?  Where’s Monday?  An entire day went missing!  Send out the search parties!