Monday, August 9, 2010

Ch-Ch-Ch-China

Its been a while since I have done any blogging, but things are starting to get normal now and I'm finding it more difficult to get motivated to write. But, I just got back from China a few days ago. I was there for two weeks and had a pretty good time. But....

We spent the first 7 days there in Beijing, and that was way too much. The entire 7 days we spent there were some of the hottest days I have ever experienced. Everything you did and everywhere you went you would immediately start dripping in sweat...multiple times I could actually wring my shirt out from sweat. And if this isn't annoying enough, the streets are lined with beggar/vendors who try to sell you crap toys all day long. Even if you refuse they will lower their price until you actually scream in their faces to stop. It was incredibly annoying. And if this isn't enough, garbage lines all the streets and everywhere you go. Its amazing. I understand that you could make this argument about any big global city, but it only added to my disappointment with China's capital city. Oh and I got my haircut in Beijing for 30 yuan, or just under $5. And I think its a great haircut too.

But outside of all of that there is plenty to do. All of our days were full of stuff to do and we got plenty of culture in us. Some of the highlights included seeing:The Summer Palace;Tiananmen Square (probably the most important location in recent Chinese history); the Silk Market (a place where tons of foreigners go to bargain for knock-off goods); and the night market. At the night market there are all sorts of weird foods on display for people to eat. Its a pretty good tourist attraction. They had seahorses, cicadas, scorpions, all sorts of other bugs on sale. I actually tried the scorpion and it was decent. It didn't really have a whole lot of natural flavor cuz it was dipped in oil and salt, but its cool to say I have eaten scorpion nonetheless.

The silk market is absolutely insane. Its a big bargaining market with tons of booths where people try and sell knock-off goods and clothes. If you even look at something the vendors will immediately get your attention and ask you "you wan' buy bag/watch/shoes"? You have to be really careful how to bargain with the people. I got a sick pair of vintage knock off Jordan's for like 45 bucks. I actually paid a lot more than I should have, but that was me as a rookie haggler. There are also nice (enough) Polos and jeans and any other kind of accessories or clothes or bags you need. And everything is about the haggle, which makes it that much more nuts. Most prices start out at triple what they will usually sell for. If you even express a little interest in something and then change your mind or try to leave they will grab your attention and say something like "ok wha price? wha you lows price?" For instance, I was interested in a pair of polo shorts but the price was too high. I tried to leave but this very aggressive woman grabbed my arm and asked me what price. I dropped my price and tried walking out but she again asked me what price. When I completely rejected her price she finally accepted it. I gave her my 100 yuan for the shorts and tried getting my change but she wouldn't have it. I couldn't understand why she wouldn't give me my change, then she pointed out that there were actually two pair of shorts in my bag: the ones I wanted and another pair which I had barely touched earlier when browsing. Ok, whatever, I got two pair of knock off Polo shorts for 100 yuan (15 bucks). They will do WHATEVER it takes to make a sale. Oh, and I was browsing the jerseys one time, and fortunately they had a ton of Hawks jerseys. They literally had every pro team, all with pro's names and numbers on the backs, but I'm guessing there were so many Blackhawks ones because they just won the Cup. So, I'm checking out the jerseys and I see Niemi (who's now gone, apparently?), Toews, Hossa, Kane....and a Steve Larmer number 28 jersey complete with a fight strap and everything!!!! It was a dream come true, and I ended up paying just under 30 bucks for it. It was undoubtedly produced in some illegal sweatshop somewhere, but nobody has to know that. I'm very satisfied with my purchase.

We also went to the Great Wall at Mutianyu one day. It is about an hour trip outside of Beijing. There are a number of different locations to visit the Wall but at Mutianyu you start with a 15 minute cable car ride up the mountains. Once we got up there we walked up and down it a bunch. We got some really cool views and took lots of pictures. Then on the way down the mountain you have the option to cable car it down or take this toboggan. We obviously decided to take the toboggan down, and it was definitely the coolest part. You sit on these little metal sleds and have a simple brake and can just fly down the mountain. They tell you to slow down, but I just pretended to not understand English (not for the first time, might I add). It was pretty cool.

One night we went to a good restaurant with our Italian roommate couple. The male of the coupe, Giordano, spoke pretty good Chinese and suggested we go to this Peking duck place with them. It was awesome. The chef brings out this roasted duck and slices it up in front of you, getting absolutely everything out of it. Between the four of us we barely finished one duck...thats how much meat the chef was able to cut off from it. The duck there is unlike any duck I have eaten before...just really well cooked and with lots of sauces and veggies to eat them with. To properly eat it, you put pieces of duck into this little pancake and put the sauces and stuff in there, roll it up and eat it. It was soooo good.

Then another day we took a trip to this gorge. We hopped on a boat with this other group of foreigners whom we'd just met and cruised up and down the river for awhile. We had heard about a chance to bungee jump into the gorge and were all excited to do it. I was nervous about doing it, but slammed a beer and quickly got over it. So I went up to the jumping platform with 3 other people in our group, tightened my shoes, paid my fee, and stepped on the scale. That's when these Chinese men started screaming at me and pointing at the scale. You need to be under 90 kilos in weight to jump...and I was about 100 kilos. So I couldn't go. I was really pissed at the time. It only would have cost about $25 to do it there, and I'm pretty sure bungee jumping prices in the states are much higher. So I was bummed. Bad day, right? Well as we were leaving the gorge waiting for our bus, a Chinese man asks me to hold his child and pose for a picture. Before I go on, I need to add that most Chinese children wear very limited clothing during the summer months to stay cool. A lot of them have slits in the crotches so that they can pee and poo without trouble. Or, some parents just let their toddlers walk around completely ass naked. This particular boy had nothing but a bib on covering his front and front of his crotch, and yet his dad insisted that I hold him for a picture. (We were asked to pose for about 1-2 pictures per day by random Asian people with their families.) I could not stop laughing while holding this little kid. And when I turned to give him back to his dad he grabbed my shirt and held on. His dad finally got hold of him and the baby started crying. It was hysterical.

Another night we searched for over an hour for this Mexican place called Mexican Wave. It was pretty good but a little pricey. I guess margaritas are pricey anywhere you go though....

When we finally left Beijing, we took an overnight train to Xi'an in central China. The 11 hour ride was ok until my tummy started rumbling. I ended up spending roughly half of the time in the bathroom. It was a miserable ride. Anyway, Xi'an is a really really old city and is famous for its terra cotta warrior army. Sometime in the 1970's some Chinese guys were drilling for water or oil or something and cracked open this pit which had been covered for over 2000 years. Two more pits were found in the next few years. Inside the 3 total pits there are over 8,000 life-sized terra cotta soldiers and horses that have been standing there for millenia. Its obviously a huge tourist attraction, which kinda reduced the authenticity a little bit, but it was still really cool. Theres plenty of info on the internet if you're still interested. One of the exhibits showed chrome-based sword enamel, which wasn't created in the modern world until WWII. I guess the chrome prevents corrosion or something...but the point is that these people had developed technologies like that years and years ahead of the western world. That night we rented bikes and rode around the city walls. I don't know how long it is, but maybe like 10 miles in total. The old Xi'an was held within the city walls. It has since expanded a ton past the walls, but they are still there and in pretty good (although no doubt they have been renovated) condition. Anyway, I got real tough and decided to ride down some stairs as fast as I could. I got to the bottom and was flying along when my chain came off and I ate it all over the place. Fortunately not too many people saw it and I only had a few cuts, but it was a wipeout if I've ever had one.

The next day we went to a neolithic village on the outskirts of town. This was definitely one of the highlights of the trip for me. There were almost no tourists there and was really different. It was called Banpo Matriachrical village or something. Again it was discovered by people drilling in the 50's. Whats different about this one, however, is that it is a 6000 year old village! You can see where these people made their houses and how they cooked and stayed warm and even buried their deceased. It is not in the best shape, what with it being so old and all, but you can really see how people lived waaaay back then. It was really cool to see and experience.

The next night we took another overnight train from Xi'an to Hangzhou. This was maybe the worst trip of my life. I was still having stomach problems, and this coupled with the unbelievable amount of people on the train made it terrible. The train was packed...all the aisles had people standing in them. Thats right, people stood for the entire 19 hour ride from Xi'an. There was this one guy next to me who kept spraying when he talked and didn't ever shut the hell up. And then the air conditioning would go off and on and to even get to the bathroom it would take 10 minutes just to get there because you had to walk through so many people. And it was a squatter toilet, per usual in China. If you don't know how to use one, well, you're in big trouble. You need to be limber (I'm not), and of course be quick with your business (no way). And the bathroom on the train was disgusting, as it was located right next to the cigarette smoking area. That's right you can smoke on these trains, its terrible.There was no food or drink provided. These people would not shut the hell up, and everybodys seat was facing each other, so Laura and I were face to face with two guys the whole time. But eventually we made it to Hangzhou.

When we finally arrived in Hangzhou, which is about 100 miles from Shanghai, we were completely lost and had no idea how to get around. We finally got to our hostel and searched the area. The city revolves around the West Lake, which is this man made lake with really cool vistas and stuff. You can spend all day walking around the lake checking out parks and stuff. We actually ran into these two girls at this one pagoda in Hangzhou who we kind of knew. They were on our same train from Beijing to Xi'an about three days ago, and also happened to be leaving for Shanghai that night, on our same exact train! It was soooooooo nice to be in a clean, odorless, friendly pretty area for a change. It was honestly the complete opposite from Beijing. But we only had one night there before we left for Shanghai...

When we arrived in Shanghai we were lucky to have been on the same train as those girls because one of them knew the Shanghai subway system fairly well and the other spoke Mandarin. We would have been pretty lost if we hadn't have run into them. One of the nights we went clubbin' with them...it was interesting. But the whole concept of a 'club' is just way beyond me. Don't get me wrong, we had a lot of fun, but thats only because I can cut a rug like its nobody's business.

One day in Shanghai we went searching for the cheapest way to get to a really tall building to see the city from above. We had met a German couple in Beijing who told us about some place where the ride up is free but then you have to get a drink or something once you reach the top. Laura was extremely persistent on finding this one particular place, since the options we had looked at before cost about 150 yuan (25 bucks). But her persistence paid off, and we found out that you can go up to the top of the Hyatt building for free. But being up there you need to spend at least 120 yuan at the restaurant or bar which, obviously, wasn't a problem at all! So we went from possibly having to pay 150 yuan (to only go up to the top of one building and then leave), to actually paying 120 yuan for a) a view that was higher than any other building in Shanghai, b) getting three Jameson on the rocks, and c) relaxing in the air condition on a comfy sofa. It was a great deal.

Our final day in the trip was spent at the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai. Tons and tons of people from all over the world go to the expo, which runs from April to October. We were lucky to have been in vacationing in the host city this year. Anyway it was this ginormous park with tons and tons of pavilions for each country. We went at night to get a cheaper ticket and avoid lines, and its a good thing we did cuz the lines during the day were nuts. We made it to the USA, Chile, Caribbean, Australia, and a few other ones. Its basically just a chance for countries to sell themselves to the world and give reasons why people should travel there, invest there, etc. It was definitely something that I am proud to have gone to, and learned a lot about other countries. Well, thats all for now. Zai Jian.