No English ... ?

I was talking with my ayi (maid) on Tuesday morning, as I was heading out the door for work, and she invited me to visit her hometown with her. Because she doesn't speak any English and is from a small town in Anhui, I was excited!! ... until she said it would be next Spring Festival, in February. I told her then I couldn't, because I'm returning to the US in January.

Today on the shuttle ride I was thinking about it some more. Even though I've been living outside the US for nearly 9 months now, I've spoken (or listened to) English every single day. English is a must at work. And even on the weekends when I might be out in the city, I'm always with or among lao wai or a Chinese friend who speaks good English. And if I'm by myself, I'm listening to my iPod with English-language music. I come home and read English-language books or web sites. So I don't know what it's like to go completely without English.

Anyway it occurred to me that if I'd been able to go with my ayi, I would have gone like a week without speaking or listening to English once (besides the "OK!" and "Bye bye!" that everyone seems to know, and assuming I don't take my iPod). She doesn't speak or understand English, so it follows that her family in small-town Anhui wouldn't either, unless there maybe are younger children there, who stand a better chance of having been educated with English. Then I got excited at the thought of relying on my Chinese for so many days and getting to experience what we call the "real" China, i.e., China - (English + Western culture). Then I remembered I couldn't go. Dang.

Huangshan!

I'm pretty excited because I just booked a trip to 黄山 (Huangshan, or "Yellow Mountain"). It's an extremely popular tourist attraction located in Anhui provice. Ever since I got to Shanghai, people have been going on and on about Huangshan, saying that if I only went to one place, that should be it. And I'd been feeling a bit complacent since returning from the US last month, in that I hadn't done much (okay, any) travelling outside of Shanghai for about two months.

Since the best way to get me to do something is to commit to it in advance (as opposed to having a spur-of-the-moment trip come up), I decided to book a flight for early August. I just paid the courier, so the trip is set!

I plan to fly there on Friday August 8th, spend the night in Tunxi, climb the mountain on Saturday, spend a night on top, and then fly back to Shanghai on Sunday night. The PVG --> TXN leg takes only an hour, which is perfect.

Rest assured there will be plenty of pictures taken :-)

Other trips I want to take (I'm certainly not going to get to do all of them):

• Osaka/Kyoto - I decided to go here instead of Tokyo. I don't feel a strong urge to see yet another crazy large congested city with tons of neon and other shit going on. I can see that just by leaving my apartment :-) Luckily, the Orix Buffaloes play in Osaka, and the Hanshin Tigers play in Nishinomiya :-) The baseball season is running out though, so I better stop slacking and book this trip before too long.
  
• Hong Kong and/or Taiwan - A given, I suppose, but to be quite honest, I'm not feeling much of a pull towards either of these places.
• Chengdu - Probably not a good idea now, unfortunately.
  
• Putuoshan.
  
• Luoyang - For the Longmen Caves.
• Yunnan - For Tiger Leaping Gorge.
• Yangshuo.
  

Again, there's no way I'll get to do all of these -- but having a list is nice.