Okay, I forgot this last video I wanted to post. This is the beginning of the pedicab ride that cost me a shitload more money than it should have :-)
Showing posts with label beijing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label beijing. Show all posts
May 17, 2008
May 15, 2008
Beijing: Final Post
Four videos from Beijing that I just finished uploading:
Impromptu choir at the Temple of Heaven:
View from the Great Wall:
Taking the zip line down:
Me eating fried scorpions:
All that, plus more Beijing photos.
My late-night snack:
Ten points if you can identify every organism in this picture:
Pics from around the 798 Art District area:
Olympic buildings:
All the rest are now uploaded at Beijing 2008.
Impromptu choir at the Temple of Heaven:
View from the Great Wall:
Taking the zip line down:
Me eating fried scorpions:
All that, plus more Beijing photos.
My late-night snack:
Ten points if you can identify every organism in this picture:
Pics from around the 798 Art District area:
Olympic buildings:
All the rest are now uploaded at Beijing 2008.
May 4, 2008
Beijing: Day 4
This day was amazing. I could go into detail, but I just flew in from Beijing and I'm a little tired. Maybe I'll elaborate in a couple of days. But here's the two highlights you need to know:
Highlight 1:
Choice pics:
More on flickr.
Now, check this out:
That is a guy, harnessed to a zip line, suspended over the lake as he plummets from the base of the wall to the bottom of the mountain. You better believe I did that on my way down, and you better believe I took video of it too. I'll post it soon. Meanwhile, here's two of my tour-mates:
I spoke earlier of a steep ascent. Here's what I meant:
See the wall there and how it goes up and to the right at at 45 degree angle? Yeah. Not an illusion. We went straight up that.
You can see the steepness again, straight-on, here:
Ouch. My quads are killing me :-)
Highlight 2:
I ate fried scorpion! Not as exciting as the Great Wall, but still worth a mention. Check one off on the crazy-ass food category, I suppose.
Anyway, more on Beijing soon, including the last day, organized pictures, and videos.
Highlight 1:
I CLIMBED THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA.Holy shit. Holy shit shit shit. Sooo amazing. So mind-boggling. It was cold and wet and rainy, but oh-so-amazing. My legs hurt from the crazy-steep ascent. But nonetheless I want to go back, really badly, and bring like, some food and a book and just sit up there, on top of the world surrounded by nothing except the occasional tourist, and read for four hours, maybe take a nap, eat some cookies, you know, just relax and soak in the atmosphere. If I hide from the occasional guards they post at some of the watchtowers, I could probably sleep up there.
Choice pics:
More on flickr.
Now, check this out:
That is a guy, harnessed to a zip line, suspended over the lake as he plummets from the base of the wall to the bottom of the mountain. You better believe I did that on my way down, and you better believe I took video of it too. I'll post it soon. Meanwhile, here's two of my tour-mates:
I spoke earlier of a steep ascent. Here's what I meant:
See the wall there and how it goes up and to the right at at 45 degree angle? Yeah. Not an illusion. We went straight up that.
You can see the steepness again, straight-on, here:
Ouch. My quads are killing me :-)
Highlight 2:
I ate fried scorpion! Not as exciting as the Great Wall, but still worth a mention. Check one off on the crazy-ass food category, I suppose.
Anyway, more on Beijing soon, including the last day, organized pictures, and videos.
May 2, 2008
Beijing: Day 3
Okay, so, yesterday's entry read "Part 1" but it's also the last part. I didn't do much after I posted; just went out to walk around Houhai, bought some more souveneirs, and ate dinner. Pretty relaxing, really.
Today though, I saw Mao Ze Dong.
Here's how it happened.
Mao's tomb is in the south-central area of Tiananmen Square, in between Qianmen and the Monument to the People's Heroes. The entrance faces north; the line starts at the north-west corner and wraps all the way around the west, south, and east sides before coming to the actual entrance. The line (I have some pictures up on flickr) wraps around the whole building and is five to six people wide. It is set off from the rest of the square by some rope, and there's about 50 feet in between the rope and the line, so we cut a narrow swath of people through an empty spot of the square.
I got to the starting point and it took about, oh I don't know, an hour? to get inside. I'm bad at tracking time in these situations. Luckily, at no point did we stand still. We were all just shuffling slowly forward. That kept the blood flowing :-)
So there's the line, which is like 5 people wide, as enforced by some painted line on the sidewalk. On either side of you are several dozen attendants, telling people to hurry up, move along, remove troublemakers from the line, and intercept people from crossing the open space in between the line and the rest of the square. (The orange twine is not a big enough deterrent, it seems.)
As you walk, loudspeakers enumerate the rules in Chinese and in English: be quiet inside, no picture taking, turn off your cell phones, dress respectfully (people with vests will not be allowed, apparently), and so forth. After shuffling forward around the building, you come to the front, at which point the line splits in two. Each half goes into a small bunker-like building in the courtyard. In these buildings, guards give you the airport-security treatment: metal detector, put your stuff in a plastic bin, wave the metal-detecting wand, etc.
When you're through, you go up the big steps in front of the building. At this point you can turn and look out over the square and get a sense of how many people there are milling around.
Then you go inside, and if you're wearing a hat, signs tell you to remove it. The signs also say to be quiet and no picture taking. I had a hat on, and I removed it before we got to the doors. I didn't bring my camera, because I'd heard the rules when walking around the area yesterday, so I didn't bother bringing it. Guards (this time in nicer dress, with white gloves) hurry you along and shush you if you talk. It's an eerie atmosphere, because there are so many people in there with you but they're all really quiet.
The first room has a big scenic painting of mountains on the far wall. In front of it is a row of vibrant green potted plants/bushes. In the middle of this row is a large white statue of Mao, seated and smiling. There are bouquets of flowers at his feet.
As you enter the door each line hugs the wall and you move towards the painting. As you get closer you realize it's not the far wall but just a partition. You move behind the partition and through another small antechamber.
Then you arrive in Mao's actual tomb. You can see him now. He's in a large glass-topped coffin, draped with a Chinese flag so only his face is showing. A light is shining on his face. The coffin is inside a glass room that's inside of the room you're in. There are three guards standing at attention inside this smaller room. The attendants rush you past. You spend maybe a total of 12 - 15 seconds viewing his actual body.
Then it's back outside and down the south steps of the building, back into Tiananmen where Qianmen stands guard.
And that's that.
After doing this, I went back to the hotel to pick up my things and began the journey out to the Summer Palace. I took the metro out to Xizhimen and then hailed a cab to the Beijing Zoo. From there I walked east along Xizhimenwai Dajie until I got to the Beijing Exhibition Center. It was a long walk, as the front gate of the zoo is (understandably) quite big. And it was really hot and sticky out. I stopped for a nice meal of Wuhan spiced duck neck, stir-fried pork, and potato pancakes (not the ones I'm used to though, haha.)
At the BEC I told the guard I wanted to get to the Summer Palace. You see, my travel guide says that you can take a boat from the north-east corner of the BEC all the way up the river, to the Summer Palace. I thought this would be more fun than a cab, so I wanted to do it this way.
The guard pointed me in the right direction. As I wandered toward the dock, I encountered two expats walking away from it. Since I was unsure of where I was going, I stopped and asked them if I was in the right spot. They said yeah, the ticket office was just around the corner, but that some guy was trying to scam people into getting into his private boat, so they were going to wait until 2 oclock.
I got to the ticket office, chatted with the lady behind the counter for a bit, and then bought the ticket (70 RMB). Soon enough, a speedboat came along to pick up myself and like four other tourists. I got some pictures of the boat as it came to the lake, so I knew what to expect. We rocketed through the water, swerving this way and that, until about 10 seconds later we arrived at a dock on the side, of the river.
We all hopped out and I started to stroll around the grounds of our landing spot. However, something was amiss. I didn't see any pagodas or giant lakes. All I saw were ... rhinos! And tiger statues! And signs for the aquarium!
I wasn't at the Summer Palace -- I was at the zoo.
Crap. Did I just get scammed again?
I was pretty pissed off right now. Memories flashed in my head of my foolishness from yesterday, with the pedicab and all that. So now I was like, shit, I just got scammed again, and even after those expats warned me!
I guess I could have just given up and wandered around the zoo. After all, it's a fun enough attraction. And there are pandas there! But I didn't feel much like it after yet another failed attempt to go somewhere scenic without getting ripped off. I just pictured this woman, and the guy who herded me into the boat, laughing at yet another lao wai victim.
Instead, I decided to try and get my money back. I walked all the way around the aquarium until I got to the north gate of the zoo. I checked my map and saw I was on Gaoliangqiao Lu. Great -- I was really close to where I'd embarked from. So I began to walk along the street towards Xizhimenwai Dajie. It was turning into a really long walk - like 15 minutes at this point and I hadn't seen the street. It was really hot and sticky out, the street was really dusty and dirty due to roadwork and construction, I was sweating like crazy, and I was still frustrated about getting ripped off again. I was picturing, you know, going up to the woman and asking for my money back, and then what happens if she refuses, could I get help, and maybe I could call one of my co-workers and have them explain it to a cop, if I could mange to find one. Robert told me that yelling works really well in situations like these, so I was psyching myself up to yell (because it's not something I do very well, so I have to, like, prepare for it).
But as I was walking along, I thought, hold on a second. What if I misunderstood something, or I should have stayed at the dock, or something like that? Did I even buy the right ticket? Maybe I was mistaken. After all, well, I don't understand Chinese very well.
The walk was dragging on, so I hailed a cab for the rest of the way. He deposited me out front of the ticket booth, and I marched right up to the woman and explained myself. "I didn't arrive at the Summer Palace. I arrived at the " (and here I pointed to the Chinese characters for 'Beijing Zoo' since I don't know how to say it."
Through the conversation that followed I figured out the problem. It was my mistake. After arriving at the zoo, I was supposed to transfer to a bigger boat. That would take me to the Summer Palace. Duh!
The woman and the guy apologized profusely. They explained the situation to the speedboat guy who came by in like 5 minutes -- this lao wai got off at the wrong stop, he's supposed to continue on to the Summer Palace. Considering it was my fault, or whoever's fault it would be for me not understanding the directions (if they had indeed been given to me in the first place), they were very very apologetic. I of course said, you know, that's okay, it's my fault, I'm wrong, thank you, thank you, etc.
And off we went again :-)
This time when we exited the boat at the zoo, a staffer pulled me aside and led me to the front of another line a short distance away. I guess the woman at the BEC radioed ahead or something: "The next boat has a tall white guy on it, make sure he gets to the Summer Palace!" Man, I was so embarrassed. And it happened in front of a shitload of people, a vast number of whom were already waiting in line, too.
After like 20 minutes of waiting in the hot sticky sun, the next big boat came and off we went. It was me and maybe like 40 other people. The woman conducting the tour did so, and of course I couldn't understand much except for a couple numbers (dates) here and there. But it was nice to be on the way ...
and on the way ...
and on the way. This boat was S-L-O-W. I guess I thought it would be faster, given the speedboat ride to the zoo. But such was not the case. I'm not sure exactly how long we spent on the river, but we got off at one point to wait for another boat. That boat took like 20 minutes to arrive, during which time I met and talked with two English students at Beijing University. They were taking the boat back to their school, which is out near palace.
Finally the next boat came, and we started off towards the Summer Palace. After like, I don't know, maybe another 20 - 30 minutes on the water, we arrived. Finally! I was really really tired by this point, after expending mental energy on the accidental zoo trip and physical energy on walking, waiting, and sitting out in the hot sun all day. I'm not sure what time it was by now; probably like 3:30 PM. I think I'd started on the first boat ride close to 1. Talk about your slow boat to China ...
*rim shot*
I debarked and immediately took in Kunming Lake. My first thought was "Hey, this look a lot like Xihu." And I come to find out later that this design was intentional. Makes sense. But, having already seen and appreciate the original -- and having been so tired and beaten up about getting to the Palace in the first place -- I didn't really have the energy to appreciate Kunming Lake that much.
I started walking around the path, just kind of relaxing and settling down from the journey. Along the way I met an expat, Odette, and her mom. I guess I'd just been frustrated by poor or nonexistent English all day, so when I heard Odette and her mom speaking in, you know, actual English, I was like "woohoo!" Haha. So I joined up with them, and we walked around for a bit and took in some of the sights around the lake. We saw a little impromptu musical performance, which I made sure to capture on video. I made comparisons between KL and Xihu, not knowing at the time that KL was designed to resemble it, hehe.
The three of us went into one of the museums around the area, the Garden of Virtue and Harmony. It was here the Empress Dowager Cixi watched theater performed onstage just for her. We took in the theater building and the halls surrounding it, which contained pictures, imperial dinnerware, costumes, jewelry, and other items of the period.
After about an hour of looking through here, I was exhausted. Luckily Odette and her mom wanted to leave also, so I tagged along with them and we caught a cab back into the city. We all made plans to meet up for dinner later on. I came back to the hotel and vegged out, watching some TV and writing the first bit of this blog entry.
Our goal for the evening was to hit up Quanjude, a 100-year old restaurant that serves the most famous (but not necessarily the best, I've heard) Beijing roast duck in town. According to wikitravel there is a branch near my hotel, so they picked me up in a cab and we headed off. We gave the driver the address and he got us most of the way there -- or so we thought. After he dropped us off, he told us to take a left at the next street -- he couldn't drive there (we think because it's in a hutong).
Long story short -- we wandered around for about half an hour, asking person after person, haggling with pedicab drivers, to no avail. No Quanjude to be found. We have no idea why the cabbie dropped us off where he did, because we walked quite a bit farther down Qianmen Xi Dajie. Perhaps we were going in the wrong direction altogether. Anyway, I was a little disappointed, because I'd promised Adeline that I'd go. But it seems it was not to be. It's apparently really difficult to find -- especially when you don't speak or understand Chinese all that well :-) But it was an adventure, you know, the unexpected kind you have in these situations.
We did end up at another restaurant that served Beijing roast duck, so we did get to eat it. It's really damn good, the sauce especially. And the restaurant was nice besides. I'm planning on maybe trying to find it tomorrow for lunch, but honestly, I'm not holding out any hopes.
After dinner, we cabbed it back to our respective hotels.
And that's the end of Day 3.
Today though, I saw Mao Ze Dong.
Here's how it happened.
Mao's tomb is in the south-central area of Tiananmen Square, in between Qianmen and the Monument to the People's Heroes. The entrance faces north; the line starts at the north-west corner and wraps all the way around the west, south, and east sides before coming to the actual entrance. The line (I have some pictures up on flickr) wraps around the whole building and is five to six people wide. It is set off from the rest of the square by some rope, and there's about 50 feet in between the rope and the line, so we cut a narrow swath of people through an empty spot of the square.
I got to the starting point and it took about, oh I don't know, an hour? to get inside. I'm bad at tracking time in these situations. Luckily, at no point did we stand still. We were all just shuffling slowly forward. That kept the blood flowing :-)
So there's the line, which is like 5 people wide, as enforced by some painted line on the sidewalk. On either side of you are several dozen attendants, telling people to hurry up, move along, remove troublemakers from the line, and intercept people from crossing the open space in between the line and the rest of the square. (The orange twine is not a big enough deterrent, it seems.)
As you walk, loudspeakers enumerate the rules in Chinese and in English: be quiet inside, no picture taking, turn off your cell phones, dress respectfully (people with vests will not be allowed, apparently), and so forth. After shuffling forward around the building, you come to the front, at which point the line splits in two. Each half goes into a small bunker-like building in the courtyard. In these buildings, guards give you the airport-security treatment: metal detector, put your stuff in a plastic bin, wave the metal-detecting wand, etc.
When you're through, you go up the big steps in front of the building. At this point you can turn and look out over the square and get a sense of how many people there are milling around.
Then you go inside, and if you're wearing a hat, signs tell you to remove it. The signs also say to be quiet and no picture taking. I had a hat on, and I removed it before we got to the doors. I didn't bring my camera, because I'd heard the rules when walking around the area yesterday, so I didn't bother bringing it. Guards (this time in nicer dress, with white gloves) hurry you along and shush you if you talk. It's an eerie atmosphere, because there are so many people in there with you but they're all really quiet.
The first room has a big scenic painting of mountains on the far wall. In front of it is a row of vibrant green potted plants/bushes. In the middle of this row is a large white statue of Mao, seated and smiling. There are bouquets of flowers at his feet.
As you enter the door each line hugs the wall and you move towards the painting. As you get closer you realize it's not the far wall but just a partition. You move behind the partition and through another small antechamber.
Then you arrive in Mao's actual tomb. You can see him now. He's in a large glass-topped coffin, draped with a Chinese flag so only his face is showing. A light is shining on his face. The coffin is inside a glass room that's inside of the room you're in. There are three guards standing at attention inside this smaller room. The attendants rush you past. You spend maybe a total of 12 - 15 seconds viewing his actual body.
Then it's back outside and down the south steps of the building, back into Tiananmen where Qianmen stands guard.
And that's that.
After doing this, I went back to the hotel to pick up my things and began the journey out to the Summer Palace. I took the metro out to Xizhimen and then hailed a cab to the Beijing Zoo. From there I walked east along Xizhimenwai Dajie until I got to the Beijing Exhibition Center. It was a long walk, as the front gate of the zoo is (understandably) quite big. And it was really hot and sticky out. I stopped for a nice meal of Wuhan spiced duck neck, stir-fried pork, and potato pancakes (not the ones I'm used to though, haha.)
At the BEC I told the guard I wanted to get to the Summer Palace. You see, my travel guide says that you can take a boat from the north-east corner of the BEC all the way up the river, to the Summer Palace. I thought this would be more fun than a cab, so I wanted to do it this way.
The guard pointed me in the right direction. As I wandered toward the dock, I encountered two expats walking away from it. Since I was unsure of where I was going, I stopped and asked them if I was in the right spot. They said yeah, the ticket office was just around the corner, but that some guy was trying to scam people into getting into his private boat, so they were going to wait until 2 oclock.
I got to the ticket office, chatted with the lady behind the counter for a bit, and then bought the ticket (70 RMB). Soon enough, a speedboat came along to pick up myself and like four other tourists. I got some pictures of the boat as it came to the lake, so I knew what to expect. We rocketed through the water, swerving this way and that, until about 10 seconds later we arrived at a dock on the side, of the river.
We all hopped out and I started to stroll around the grounds of our landing spot. However, something was amiss. I didn't see any pagodas or giant lakes. All I saw were ... rhinos! And tiger statues! And signs for the aquarium!
I wasn't at the Summer Palace -- I was at the zoo.
Crap. Did I just get scammed again?
I was pretty pissed off right now. Memories flashed in my head of my foolishness from yesterday, with the pedicab and all that. So now I was like, shit, I just got scammed again, and even after those expats warned me!
I guess I could have just given up and wandered around the zoo. After all, it's a fun enough attraction. And there are pandas there! But I didn't feel much like it after yet another failed attempt to go somewhere scenic without getting ripped off. I just pictured this woman, and the guy who herded me into the boat, laughing at yet another lao wai victim.
Instead, I decided to try and get my money back. I walked all the way around the aquarium until I got to the north gate of the zoo. I checked my map and saw I was on Gaoliangqiao Lu. Great -- I was really close to where I'd embarked from. So I began to walk along the street towards Xizhimenwai Dajie. It was turning into a really long walk - like 15 minutes at this point and I hadn't seen the street. It was really hot and sticky out, the street was really dusty and dirty due to roadwork and construction, I was sweating like crazy, and I was still frustrated about getting ripped off again. I was picturing, you know, going up to the woman and asking for my money back, and then what happens if she refuses, could I get help, and maybe I could call one of my co-workers and have them explain it to a cop, if I could mange to find one. Robert told me that yelling works really well in situations like these, so I was psyching myself up to yell (because it's not something I do very well, so I have to, like, prepare for it).
But as I was walking along, I thought, hold on a second. What if I misunderstood something, or I should have stayed at the dock, or something like that? Did I even buy the right ticket? Maybe I was mistaken. After all, well, I don't understand Chinese very well.
The walk was dragging on, so I hailed a cab for the rest of the way. He deposited me out front of the ticket booth, and I marched right up to the woman and explained myself. "I didn't arrive at the Summer Palace. I arrived at the " (and here I pointed to the Chinese characters for 'Beijing Zoo' since I don't know how to say it."
Through the conversation that followed I figured out the problem. It was my mistake. After arriving at the zoo, I was supposed to transfer to a bigger boat. That would take me to the Summer Palace. Duh!
The woman and the guy apologized profusely. They explained the situation to the speedboat guy who came by in like 5 minutes -- this lao wai got off at the wrong stop, he's supposed to continue on to the Summer Palace. Considering it was my fault, or whoever's fault it would be for me not understanding the directions (if they had indeed been given to me in the first place), they were very very apologetic. I of course said, you know, that's okay, it's my fault, I'm wrong, thank you, thank you, etc.
And off we went again :-)
This time when we exited the boat at the zoo, a staffer pulled me aside and led me to the front of another line a short distance away. I guess the woman at the BEC radioed ahead or something: "The next boat has a tall white guy on it, make sure he gets to the Summer Palace!" Man, I was so embarrassed. And it happened in front of a shitload of people, a vast number of whom were already waiting in line, too.
After like 20 minutes of waiting in the hot sticky sun, the next big boat came and off we went. It was me and maybe like 40 other people. The woman conducting the tour did so, and of course I couldn't understand much except for a couple numbers (dates) here and there. But it was nice to be on the way ...
and on the way ...
and on the way. This boat was S-L-O-W. I guess I thought it would be faster, given the speedboat ride to the zoo. But such was not the case. I'm not sure exactly how long we spent on the river, but we got off at one point to wait for another boat. That boat took like 20 minutes to arrive, during which time I met and talked with two English students at Beijing University. They were taking the boat back to their school, which is out near palace.
Finally the next boat came, and we started off towards the Summer Palace. After like, I don't know, maybe another 20 - 30 minutes on the water, we arrived. Finally! I was really really tired by this point, after expending mental energy on the accidental zoo trip and physical energy on walking, waiting, and sitting out in the hot sun all day. I'm not sure what time it was by now; probably like 3:30 PM. I think I'd started on the first boat ride close to 1. Talk about your slow boat to China ...
*rim shot*
I debarked and immediately took in Kunming Lake. My first thought was "Hey, this look a lot like Xihu." And I come to find out later that this design was intentional. Makes sense. But, having already seen and appreciate the original -- and having been so tired and beaten up about getting to the Palace in the first place -- I didn't really have the energy to appreciate Kunming Lake that much.
I started walking around the path, just kind of relaxing and settling down from the journey. Along the way I met an expat, Odette, and her mom. I guess I'd just been frustrated by poor or nonexistent English all day, so when I heard Odette and her mom speaking in, you know, actual English, I was like "woohoo!" Haha. So I joined up with them, and we walked around for a bit and took in some of the sights around the lake. We saw a little impromptu musical performance, which I made sure to capture on video. I made comparisons between KL and Xihu, not knowing at the time that KL was designed to resemble it, hehe.
The three of us went into one of the museums around the area, the Garden of Virtue and Harmony. It was here the Empress Dowager Cixi watched theater performed onstage just for her. We took in the theater building and the halls surrounding it, which contained pictures, imperial dinnerware, costumes, jewelry, and other items of the period.
After about an hour of looking through here, I was exhausted. Luckily Odette and her mom wanted to leave also, so I tagged along with them and we caught a cab back into the city. We all made plans to meet up for dinner later on. I came back to the hotel and vegged out, watching some TV and writing the first bit of this blog entry.
Our goal for the evening was to hit up Quanjude, a 100-year old restaurant that serves the most famous (but not necessarily the best, I've heard) Beijing roast duck in town. According to wikitravel there is a branch near my hotel, so they picked me up in a cab and we headed off. We gave the driver the address and he got us most of the way there -- or so we thought. After he dropped us off, he told us to take a left at the next street -- he couldn't drive there (we think because it's in a hutong).
Long story short -- we wandered around for about half an hour, asking person after person, haggling with pedicab drivers, to no avail. No Quanjude to be found. We have no idea why the cabbie dropped us off where he did, because we walked quite a bit farther down Qianmen Xi Dajie. Perhaps we were going in the wrong direction altogether. Anyway, I was a little disappointed, because I'd promised Adeline that I'd go. But it seems it was not to be. It's apparently really difficult to find -- especially when you don't speak or understand Chinese all that well :-) But it was an adventure, you know, the unexpected kind you have in these situations.
We did end up at another restaurant that served Beijing roast duck, so we did get to eat it. It's really damn good, the sauce especially. And the restaurant was nice besides. I'm planning on maybe trying to find it tomorrow for lunch, but honestly, I'm not holding out any hopes.
After dinner, we cabbed it back to our respective hotels.
And that's the end of Day 3.
May 1, 2008
Beijing: Day 2, Part 1
Whew, I just walked in from Gulou Dajie, and boy are my legs tired!
*holds for laughter*
Today started bright and early at 8 AM. I flopped out of bed and ate breakfast in the hotel's dining area, where I was informed nicely that I would be charged extra because breakfast wasn't included in my stay. Oh well.
Then I showered and dressed and hopped out on Chang'an Da Jie. The destination was the Temple of Heaven. I made it there eventually, but it took some doing.
According to the map it is just south of Tiananmen. According to reality, it is WAY south of Tiananmen. So I walked all the way down Tiananmen, past Qianmen, past the HUGE CROWDS of people lined up to see Mao's tomb (seriously -- the line went on forever and was like six people wide) and down Qianmen Dajie, expecting to see the temple. No dice. I got tired of walking and asked a group of official Olympic volunteers, no doubt practicing for August, where it was. They were like "Go down this street and turn right." I was pretty sure that was wrong, since I was facing west and I knew the temple was to my south, which would have meant a left turn. I tried to ask youguai/zuoguai? But that didn't produce much of a response.
I asked if it was possible to walk there, and they said yes, but I think they were misinformed. Either way, I didn't feel like walking more, and I felt like absorbing some local "color" so to speak, so I hired a pedicab driver. I named the destination, and off we went.
Big mistake.
Pedicab drivers have no meters, obviously, since they're just bikes with carts attached. And I didn't ask for the price. So after swerving in and out of traffic, dodging buses and going down hutong lanes, we arrived at the corner of the Temple of Heaven Park.
At this point I got out and said "How much?" At first he wanted American dollars. And I was like, I've been living in Shanghai for four months, I only have renminbi. So then he whipped out a price card and showed me what the ride cost. I'm man (or stupid) enough to post the amounts here.
The minimum charge was 300 RMB. That is a fucking insane price for a 10-minute bike ride. The 45-minute ride in from the airport didn't even cost 100 RMB, and didn't almost involve getting smashed by a bus. For 300 RMB, you could get a fancy dinner for 4 at a nice restaurant in Shanghai. A cab to the park would have cost about 15 or 16 RMB. But 300!!!
I easily could have pulled a "I don't understand" or argued with him or whatever. I could have brought the price down by saying I didn't have that much, or simply refused to pay. But, you know, I was dumb enough to ask him to go somewhere without asking the price first. That's my fault. So I paid him.
Then he was like "Hutong. 300 RMB." And pointed at the card. "Hutong tour" was listed separately on his "price list" for another 300 RMB. He mean that, since we went through the hutongs (not even stopping once, I might add) I should pay him ANOTHER 300 RMB. Sheesh. This time I argued a little bit: "I never asked you to go through the hutongs, I just said go to the park." Eventually we "settled" on an extra 200 RMB.
So a 10-minute bike ride cost me 500 RMB, or over $70. Again, a cab ride would have cost me about $5. I could have ran off, or not paid, or just thrown 20 RMB at him and left. But I consider it the stupid-tourist tax. By enforcing this on myself, I learn a lesson and will be far FAR more careful in the future.
But that doesn't mean I wasn't angry with myself about it. No, to the contrary, I was quite pissed off at myself for making the mistake of not asking about price first. I'm a little surprised that I'm posting about it. I guess I'm trying to shame myself into never doing it again :-) And, well, we all get scammed once or twice. I've managed to avoid it so far. But I got caught today.
I hope that guy treats his family to a nice dinner tonight and for the next month, that's all I've got to say :-) So yeah. A lesson to you all - unless there's a meter in the cab or whatever, ask for the damn price first :-)
To top it off, I was looking all around for that nice pretty tall pagoda you see in the Wikipedia entry. That's what I'd been looking for all morning. But it wasn't where we'd arrived. It was hot, I was a little hungry, I was essentially lost, and I'd just been fleeced for 470 more RMB than I'd intended to pay. So I was in a little pissy mood.
To calm down I just sat on a bench for like 10 minutes and just tried to relax. Then I got up and asked a bus station attendant where the park was. She pointed me in the right direction; thankfully it was really close. So I paid the 35 RMB entrance fee and learned a little something. I had thought that "Temple of Heaven" referred to the pagoda. That's incorrect. "Temple of Heaven" is an entire park, a scenic area, with numerous little areas of interest, of which the pagoda is one. It actually was an entire temple. The famous pagoda is the highlight of the area, the centerpiece (although it's not in the center of the park). Its name is the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests. So next time someone shows you that picture and says "look, Temple of Heaven!" you can correct them and impress them with your knowledge of China :-)
Anyway I found this out the hard way, by wandering around in the hot sun and getting increasingly frustrated that I couldn't find this famous landmark that I'd just gotten screwed out of $70 to see. Finally I made it there though, and it was pretty damn impressive. The thing is huge and pretty. In fact the entire temple really is nice. If you don't want to go to the Hall of Prayer, you can just pay 15 RMB and have access to the park grounds, which are really nice and spacious. So there are lots of people just lounding around, sitting on benches or sleeping in trees (I got a nice picture of that guy) or rollerblading or doing tai chi or whatever. Very nice. I went to a couple of the other areas in the park, including the Hall of Divine Music, the Nine-Dragon Juniper, and several of the gates. I also got a sweet tourist map for 10 RMB, which I'm considering framing and putting on my wall when I get home. It's that nice.
After the ToH, I decided it was time to see the Forbidden City. I didn't realize how large of an undertaking this was. All I've ever seen of the city are some photos of the palace itself and, of course, the south gate with Mao's picture hanging over it. But good lord, once I entered it, I realized - uhh, yeah, this is a city inside Beijing. It's massive. My tour book says it has an area of 7,860,429 square feet, or 180 acres. So it's easily a full-day site, even two days if you want to see everything. I was unprepared :-)
I entered through the south gate (the arch directly under Mao's portait was blocked off, so I went in to the gate immediately to the right) and begun the tour. Where you go first is the courtyard, which is free. However to go into one of the little museums or to climb one of the gates costs 10 RMB. I climbed the gate immediately after the south one, and looked down on the crowds.
At first glance, the FC is incredibly boring. It's pagoda-lined walls with huge empty stone courtyards in the middle. This is the design throughout the entire city except for the gardens near the north end. What you have to realize is that all the best stuff is hidden off to the side, through one of the doors in the walls or in one of the back rooms. I guess it would look strange if the exhibits were in free-standing modern buildings in the courtyard. But the design was off-putting at first.
The city itself is actually a museum (the Palace Museum), and you don't come to it until walking quite a distance past the south gate. All during that time you see little shops and restaurants on either side of you. Once you pay 60 RMB and get inside the city proper, these are replaced by museums. Again, everything interesting is tucked away inside the walls that divide each section. There's absolutely nothing of interest to see in the courtyards themselves, apart from being wowed by the vast expanse of empty ground.
After you pay your 60 RMB to get in, most of the other little side museums, for example the Hall of Jewelry and Treasure Gallery, cost an extra 10 RMB to get in. I went to this one, plus another couple of areas, like the Hall of Supreme Harmony. I also saw the Nine Dragon Screen, which was pretty slick.
So the FC is like the world's biggest open-air museum. And the little side museums themselves are overcrowded, hot, and noisy. And you can't take pictures in them (or so I was told; after a guide told me that, I went to the next room and saw tons of people taking pictures, so I joined in). Honestly, the FC was grand, but the sameness of all the pagodas and walls and steps and courtyards wore on me after awhile. I just didn't have the energy to cover the whole grounds in one sitting. It's definitely something to do over the course of a week, maybe, although that means you'll pay the 60 RMB entrance fee many many times :-) But it was informative and entertaining and I'm very glad I went.
At the north end you come out facing Jingshan Park, which looks like a lovely wooded hill to climb (with a pagoda on top!) but I was dead tired and so didn't even bother. Instead, I hopped a cab to the Nan Luoguo Xiang hutong up off Gulou Dong Dajie. Here I plopped my ass down in a little coffee shop-cafe type of deal, ate some spicy spaghetti with cucumbers and ham, drank a cup of coffee, and tried to relax the stink off of me. (Not sure that worked though, haha.)
This hutong runs on for a good clip and seems to be popular with the lao wai, for good reason. It has a ton of little arty/crafty stores, clothing stores, cafes and bars, and such. It seemed very peaceful and nice. I probably stayed there for like an hour and a half, just relaxing. Then I went shmying around and ended up buying a stuffed monkey, because really, who doesn't like stuffed monkeys?
That's all the excitement for today. Right now I'm relaxing in my hotel room. At some point I'll head out and eat dinner, maybe take a picture or three of Tiananmen at night (the whole thing is lit up like a stadium) and do some walking around Wangfujing or Houhai.
Tomorrow I want to see Mao, visit the Summer Palace, and walk around Peking/Tsinghua universities. Anything else will be considered a bonus :-)
Oh yeah, I took tons of pictures of course, but I haven't uploaded them yet. They're coming soon.
*holds for laughter*
Today started bright and early at 8 AM. I flopped out of bed and ate breakfast in the hotel's dining area, where I was informed nicely that I would be charged extra because breakfast wasn't included in my stay. Oh well.
Then I showered and dressed and hopped out on Chang'an Da Jie. The destination was the Temple of Heaven. I made it there eventually, but it took some doing.
According to the map it is just south of Tiananmen. According to reality, it is WAY south of Tiananmen. So I walked all the way down Tiananmen, past Qianmen, past the HUGE CROWDS of people lined up to see Mao's tomb (seriously -- the line went on forever and was like six people wide) and down Qianmen Dajie, expecting to see the temple. No dice. I got tired of walking and asked a group of official Olympic volunteers, no doubt practicing for August, where it was. They were like "Go down this street and turn right." I was pretty sure that was wrong, since I was facing west and I knew the temple was to my south, which would have meant a left turn. I tried to ask youguai/zuoguai? But that didn't produce much of a response.
I asked if it was possible to walk there, and they said yes, but I think they were misinformed. Either way, I didn't feel like walking more, and I felt like absorbing some local "color" so to speak, so I hired a pedicab driver. I named the destination, and off we went.
Big mistake.
Pedicab drivers have no meters, obviously, since they're just bikes with carts attached. And I didn't ask for the price. So after swerving in and out of traffic, dodging buses and going down hutong lanes, we arrived at the corner of the Temple of Heaven Park.
At this point I got out and said "How much?" At first he wanted American dollars. And I was like, I've been living in Shanghai for four months, I only have renminbi. So then he whipped out a price card and showed me what the ride cost. I'm man (or stupid) enough to post the amounts here.
The minimum charge was 300 RMB. That is a fucking insane price for a 10-minute bike ride. The 45-minute ride in from the airport didn't even cost 100 RMB, and didn't almost involve getting smashed by a bus. For 300 RMB, you could get a fancy dinner for 4 at a nice restaurant in Shanghai. A cab to the park would have cost about 15 or 16 RMB. But 300!!!
I easily could have pulled a "I don't understand" or argued with him or whatever. I could have brought the price down by saying I didn't have that much, or simply refused to pay. But, you know, I was dumb enough to ask him to go somewhere without asking the price first. That's my fault. So I paid him.
Then he was like "Hutong. 300 RMB." And pointed at the card. "Hutong tour" was listed separately on his "price list" for another 300 RMB. He mean that, since we went through the hutongs (not even stopping once, I might add) I should pay him ANOTHER 300 RMB. Sheesh. This time I argued a little bit: "I never asked you to go through the hutongs, I just said go to the park." Eventually we "settled" on an extra 200 RMB.
So a 10-minute bike ride cost me 500 RMB, or over $70. Again, a cab ride would have cost me about $5. I could have ran off, or not paid, or just thrown 20 RMB at him and left. But I consider it the stupid-tourist tax. By enforcing this on myself, I learn a lesson and will be far FAR more careful in the future.
But that doesn't mean I wasn't angry with myself about it. No, to the contrary, I was quite pissed off at myself for making the mistake of not asking about price first. I'm a little surprised that I'm posting about it. I guess I'm trying to shame myself into never doing it again :-) And, well, we all get scammed once or twice. I've managed to avoid it so far. But I got caught today.
I hope that guy treats his family to a nice dinner tonight and for the next month, that's all I've got to say :-) So yeah. A lesson to you all - unless there's a meter in the cab or whatever, ask for the damn price first :-)
To top it off, I was looking all around for that nice pretty tall pagoda you see in the Wikipedia entry. That's what I'd been looking for all morning. But it wasn't where we'd arrived. It was hot, I was a little hungry, I was essentially lost, and I'd just been fleeced for 470 more RMB than I'd intended to pay. So I was in a little pissy mood.
To calm down I just sat on a bench for like 10 minutes and just tried to relax. Then I got up and asked a bus station attendant where the park was. She pointed me in the right direction; thankfully it was really close. So I paid the 35 RMB entrance fee and learned a little something. I had thought that "Temple of Heaven" referred to the pagoda. That's incorrect. "Temple of Heaven" is an entire park, a scenic area, with numerous little areas of interest, of which the pagoda is one. It actually was an entire temple. The famous pagoda is the highlight of the area, the centerpiece (although it's not in the center of the park). Its name is the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests. So next time someone shows you that picture and says "look, Temple of Heaven!" you can correct them and impress them with your knowledge of China :-)
Anyway I found this out the hard way, by wandering around in the hot sun and getting increasingly frustrated that I couldn't find this famous landmark that I'd just gotten screwed out of $70 to see. Finally I made it there though, and it was pretty damn impressive. The thing is huge and pretty. In fact the entire temple really is nice. If you don't want to go to the Hall of Prayer, you can just pay 15 RMB and have access to the park grounds, which are really nice and spacious. So there are lots of people just lounding around, sitting on benches or sleeping in trees (I got a nice picture of that guy) or rollerblading or doing tai chi or whatever. Very nice. I went to a couple of the other areas in the park, including the Hall of Divine Music, the Nine-Dragon Juniper, and several of the gates. I also got a sweet tourist map for 10 RMB, which I'm considering framing and putting on my wall when I get home. It's that nice.
After the ToH, I decided it was time to see the Forbidden City. I didn't realize how large of an undertaking this was. All I've ever seen of the city are some photos of the palace itself and, of course, the south gate with Mao's picture hanging over it. But good lord, once I entered it, I realized - uhh, yeah, this is a city inside Beijing. It's massive. My tour book says it has an area of 7,860,429 square feet, or 180 acres. So it's easily a full-day site, even two days if you want to see everything. I was unprepared :-)
I entered through the south gate (the arch directly under Mao's portait was blocked off, so I went in to the gate immediately to the right) and begun the tour. Where you go first is the courtyard, which is free. However to go into one of the little museums or to climb one of the gates costs 10 RMB. I climbed the gate immediately after the south one, and looked down on the crowds.
At first glance, the FC is incredibly boring. It's pagoda-lined walls with huge empty stone courtyards in the middle. This is the design throughout the entire city except for the gardens near the north end. What you have to realize is that all the best stuff is hidden off to the side, through one of the doors in the walls or in one of the back rooms. I guess it would look strange if the exhibits were in free-standing modern buildings in the courtyard. But the design was off-putting at first.
The city itself is actually a museum (the Palace Museum), and you don't come to it until walking quite a distance past the south gate. All during that time you see little shops and restaurants on either side of you. Once you pay 60 RMB and get inside the city proper, these are replaced by museums. Again, everything interesting is tucked away inside the walls that divide each section. There's absolutely nothing of interest to see in the courtyards themselves, apart from being wowed by the vast expanse of empty ground.
After you pay your 60 RMB to get in, most of the other little side museums, for example the Hall of Jewelry and Treasure Gallery, cost an extra 10 RMB to get in. I went to this one, plus another couple of areas, like the Hall of Supreme Harmony. I also saw the Nine Dragon Screen, which was pretty slick.
So the FC is like the world's biggest open-air museum. And the little side museums themselves are overcrowded, hot, and noisy. And you can't take pictures in them (or so I was told; after a guide told me that, I went to the next room and saw tons of people taking pictures, so I joined in). Honestly, the FC was grand, but the sameness of all the pagodas and walls and steps and courtyards wore on me after awhile. I just didn't have the energy to cover the whole grounds in one sitting. It's definitely something to do over the course of a week, maybe, although that means you'll pay the 60 RMB entrance fee many many times :-) But it was informative and entertaining and I'm very glad I went.
At the north end you come out facing Jingshan Park, which looks like a lovely wooded hill to climb (with a pagoda on top!) but I was dead tired and so didn't even bother. Instead, I hopped a cab to the Nan Luoguo Xiang hutong up off Gulou Dong Dajie. Here I plopped my ass down in a little coffee shop-cafe type of deal, ate some spicy spaghetti with cucumbers and ham, drank a cup of coffee, and tried to relax the stink off of me. (Not sure that worked though, haha.)
This hutong runs on for a good clip and seems to be popular with the lao wai, for good reason. It has a ton of little arty/crafty stores, clothing stores, cafes and bars, and such. It seemed very peaceful and nice. I probably stayed there for like an hour and a half, just relaxing. Then I went shmying around and ended up buying a stuffed monkey, because really, who doesn't like stuffed monkeys?
That's all the excitement for today. Right now I'm relaxing in my hotel room. At some point I'll head out and eat dinner, maybe take a picture or three of Tiananmen at night (the whole thing is lit up like a stadium) and do some walking around Wangfujing or Houhai.
Tomorrow I want to see Mao, visit the Summer Palace, and walk around Peking/Tsinghua universities. Anything else will be considered a bonus :-)
Oh yeah, I took tons of pictures of course, but I haven't uploaded them yet. They're coming soon.
April 30, 2008
Beijing: Day 1
My flight today was at 12. My goal was to get to the airport at 9 AM. Why so early? Well, I normally have small fits of anxiety about missing flights, so I like to get to the airport early. (I truly am my father's son.) And this time I knew that, well, I'm in a foreign friggin' country, so I wanted to be extra certain. And also, I did this deal with the airlines where I changed my flight dates, if you remember. So I was just paranoid that, like, someone forgot to hit the Enter key that day and my new flight information wouldn't be there.
But it all went quite swimmingly. I was at the airport by like 8:45, actually. And I would have been through security by 9 had I not stopped to eat a couple dumplings and drink a cup of (super-expensive!!) coffee. So I had like three hours to wait. Luckily the new issue of WIRED was in my hands, so I paged through that.
Also, and this is kind of interesting, apparently in China the flight times given are really boarding times. In the US, you get departure time and you just have to know that boarding starts like half an hour before. So I stood up around 11:30 and waited for the flight to board. But we didn't start until on the dot at 12. Interesting.
Everything in the airport was in English, including major announcements of delays and such. I thought that was great, considering the flight was domestic (this was at the Hongqiao airport, not the Pudong one). But there were actually a bunch of lao wai on the plane with me.
I however sat next to a Chinese guy, probably a little younger than me. We struck up a conversation and it was pretty cool to be able to talk a little bit in Chinese (as I keep saying). He was very nice; he lives in Suzhou and was flying to Beijing to see his sister for the holidays.
He was so nice! I mean -- this is what it's like being a lao wai in China. He asked where I was staying, and I was like "oh, I have a hotel near the Forbidden City." Wo you fandian kaojin Gugong. So he was like "you can stay at our house if you like." That was so nice of him, but of course I declined, I mean, yeah. Then he was like "is anyone meeting you at the airport?" No, no one is. "We can give you a ride into the city." Wow man. Awesome.
We had an in-flight meal, and I ordered the chicken. I opened the package -- and there were no chopsticks! I dug around a bit and saw a fork and knife though. That's when I realized -- it has been a long long time since I've used a fork. I hadn't thought about that until just now. But because I stick to eating Chinese food, I always eat with chopsticks. Strange.
So, it was very strange to hold a piece of chicken down with my fork and cut it with a knife. Stranger than I'd have thought it would be. I guess now that I think about it, Chinese food isn't served with a knife. I guess all you get are chopsticks and a spoon. I guess it's always cut up into manageable pieces. Again -- interesting!
The flight landed (somewhat more precariously than I'm used to, but whatever, I haven't been in the air in awhile) and the journey was complete. My newfound friend and I headed to the baggage claim to pick up my bag (I checked my bag because I didn't think I could bring one on, based on what a co-worker had said -- but she was mistaken I think). Then we headed out of the terminal to meet his sister. I was like, look, if you really don't have a problem with driving me into the city, I'd be happy to go with you, that'd be great. And then something must have gotten miscommunicated, or his sister didn't want to take me, because they led me towards a bus, said goodbye, and left. Haha. Strange.
Anyway I actually took a cab into the city, because I'm wary of taking buses when I dont' know the route. I asked the ticket lady which one to take to the Forbidden City, and she said something I didn't understand. I think she said "The seventh one" but that didn't make sense, because the sign only listed six bus lines. Anyway, rather than chance it, I just hopped in a cab.
The ride in was long and pretty boring, just like the ride in from Pudong Airport in Shanghai. I didn't know exactly where my hotel was, but I had it marked on my map and the driver knew the streets around there (since it's right next to the F.C.) And I couldn't say "Days Inn" because that's English and the driver wouldn't know how to read it. So I just said, "I know it's on Nanheyan Lu near the Tiananmen East subway stop. I have their phone number if we need to call, and if we see the English name, I'll recognize it."
All in Chinese of course :-D
So we made it to the hotel okay, and I checked in and everything, feeling quite awesome that I made it here on my own. I relaxed for a bit, then headed out into the city for some adventures :-)
The first thing I did was make my way back to the main road via this small series of parks in between my hotel and the street. I took a couple pictures because it was so unexpected and peacful.
I then emerged onto Dong Chang'an Dajie and turned right. I wanted a quick glimpse of Tiananmen Square, so I went there first. It's about a 5 minute walk from my hotel, and of course you can see the Forbidden City from there also, with the giant portrait of Mao hanging over the main gate. I'm leaving the FC for tomorrow (it's huge and takes at least half a day to see properly) so I went into Tiananmen - which, if my Chinese is good at all, means "Peaceful Heaven Gate" or something like that. A lot of the streets around Beijing end with men, or "gate". These streets run through where the gates to the city actually used to stand.
I was actually pretty underwhelmed -- it's just a big flat space with the Monument to the People's Heroes in the middle, surrounded by a bunch of flags, and Mao's tomb at the south end. There also are museums on each side, across the street from the square. The tomb was closed but I'm DEFINITELY going tomorrow; I don't care how long I have to wait. I hope they let me take a picture of him (probably not, though).
I stood there for awhile though and just appreciated the fact that I'm, you know, here. Plus, the weather was really nice :-)
After that, I stepped into the metro station. Tiananmen is flanked by two stations, Tiananmen East and Tiananmen West. I bought a metro card (now I have two!) and set out to find Beijing's indie record store, Fusheng Records, which is listed in my travel guide and which seems pretty cool. To do so, I took the metro Line 1 west to Fuchengmen (there we go with the gates again) and transferred to Line 2, where I stopped at Jishuitan.
I really had no idea where I was going, so I ended up just walking along Xinjiekou for like, half an hour or forty-five minutes at least. For some reason the street signs in Beijing don't seem to have Pinyin on them; at least not where I was this evening. The place was definitely a shopping area, but I never made it to the record store. I kept walking, asking people once or twice if they knew where Ping'an Dadao was (my guide says the store is at the corner of Ping'an and Xinjiekou). They both pointed me in the direction that I was walking, but I must have missed it, because I did not find it.
However, I did see a bunch of music stores, and by a bunch, I mean a shit-load. There were at least 20 stores packed to the brim with guitars, violins, saxophones, drums, and other instruments I can't identify. Out front were lots of disaffected-looking youth, kicking a ball around or attempting to shred on an electric guitar. What I mean by disaffected-looking is, their style of dress would look right at home in Austin's Red River district, or in Carytown in Richmond. So, make of that what you will. But I liked it. It felt very familiar :-) And just convinced me more that this world is tiny, so tiny, if trends of dress and music can so easily make their way across the Pacific.
Not to mention I passed a store selling audio equipment, including (gasp) turnables and a Pioneer DJm-700 mixer! So exciting :-) I wonder how much those things cost here, haha. It made me think of my lonely DJ equipment sitting in a storage unit in Austin.
Anyway, after walking for so long, I was hungry and my feet hurt and I still hadn't found the record store, so I decided to turn back. I went along the opposite side of Xinjiekou this time, and ended up wandering into a couple clothing stores (I think I may have mentioned that I am in the market for some shirts and pants). The first store I stopped in had a shirt that was worth looking at -- but first I had to answer questions from the 4 or 5 employees who swarmed the gao lao wai with interest, asking me where I was from, how long I was in Beijing, etc. Hehe. One of them, I shit you not, one of them reached out and touched the tip of my nose, completely without even saying anything to me first, then touched hers. I laughed and was like, is my nose big? Which, to be fair, it is kind of :-) She was like no, you're just really tall, hahaha. So crazy! I just wonder why this never happens in Shanghai. I guess maybe people there are just used to lao wai, but Beijing is a very international city as well. Hm.
I tried on a shirt, and I liked it, so I bought it. Big mistake. They started pushing all sorts of shit on me - shoes ("These are comfortable!") shorts, pants, and so on. Again I actually would like to buy some pants, so I did buy a pair, which turned out to be good in the long run (more on that later). But I was getting annoyed that they were asking me so much.
As I paid, I noticed they were playing some terrible rave crap on the in-store speakers. Because I figured I'd be headed to a record store, I'd brought along some I <3 RY stickers. So I was able to give like 10 of them to the staff and was like yeah, if you go to my web site you can hear my music. Haha.
At that point I was really tired so I headed back to the hotel and relaxed for a little bit more. I have HBO Asia on my TV so I watched that for a bit. I was planning to go to Wangfujing Lu to walk around, but honestly, I have two full days here (not counting even the Great Wall trip on Saturday) so I was like, well, I need to rest up. So I just walked across the street to have dinner.
The restaurant wasn't that crowded, but at the table next to me were like 12 or 13 young people, eating a shit-ton of food, drinking a lot, and being super loud. I guess I should have been annoyed but it was actually pretty fun to watch. They were all wearing the same kind of clothes, so I assumed they were co-workers.
At one point, well, I forget exactly what happened, but I was done with my meal so I was just watching them all have fun while I digested. Someone did or said something funny, and they all started laughing, so I cracked a smile too. The next thing I know one of them invites me over to their table! I was like, hell yeah, sounds like fun. So I went over, sat down, and began talking with them a little bit.
It was a little tough to talk with them though, because a couple of them were suuuuuuuuper wasted. They explained they work at a travel agency, they just came off a long day, and they have to work the holiday tomorrow, so they were out getting plastered. (I can understand the logic behind everything except that last point, haha.) Anyway they were drinking baijiu, which I've had in Shanghai once before. That shit will mess you up - some varieties are like 100 proof. They poured me some and we all did one or two gan beis. (Well, I didn't drain my glass, since it was over halfway full. That would have been painful.) It was pretty fun; they were all very friendly, except, well, again some of them were plastered, which made me awkward because I was sober (two shots of baijiu notwithstanding).
It became even weirder when the drunkest guy was reaching for something near me and knocked my glass of baijiu into my lap, getting distilled alcohol all over my jeans. He and his friends were very apologetic, well, as apologetic as he could be while attempting to stand up straight, haha. That was forgotten again as soon as they ordered another bottle of baijiu, which they kept trying to get me to drink. I was a little annoyed about my pants, and I don't drink much anyway, and I want to get an early start tomorrow, so I kept refusing. But they of course didn't accept this refusal, no matter how many times I or another one of their friends (who sort of adopted me as a protectee in this situation, haha) explained.
So what I did was fake it -- I raised the glass to my lips and tipped my head back, but didn't open my mouth. They were too wasted to notice that the amount in my glass stayed the same. So everyone was happy :-)
I stayed with them for like an hour, during which time the conversation got louder and louder. It was pretty fun, actually. I don't even mind about the pants so much. And I talked with them about some interesting topics. One of the guys gave me his cell phone number -- after all, they are a travel agency. He was like "See the Great Wall and the Forbidden City -- after you've done that, call me and I'll tell you where to go." We'll see. I may or may not call him. I'd certainly hate to be on the receiving end of his travel advice tomorrow, given how smashed he was tonight!
Anyway, that was my day! Pretty good one I think. I am uploading my flickr pictures now but they're taking forever, even longer than usual, so hopefully they'll be done by the time I wake up and am ready to take some new ones :-)
But it all went quite swimmingly. I was at the airport by like 8:45, actually. And I would have been through security by 9 had I not stopped to eat a couple dumplings and drink a cup of (super-expensive!!) coffee. So I had like three hours to wait. Luckily the new issue of WIRED was in my hands, so I paged through that.
Also, and this is kind of interesting, apparently in China the flight times given are really boarding times. In the US, you get departure time and you just have to know that boarding starts like half an hour before. So I stood up around 11:30 and waited for the flight to board. But we didn't start until on the dot at 12. Interesting.
Everything in the airport was in English, including major announcements of delays and such. I thought that was great, considering the flight was domestic (this was at the Hongqiao airport, not the Pudong one). But there were actually a bunch of lao wai on the plane with me.
I however sat next to a Chinese guy, probably a little younger than me. We struck up a conversation and it was pretty cool to be able to talk a little bit in Chinese (as I keep saying). He was very nice; he lives in Suzhou and was flying to Beijing to see his sister for the holidays.
He was so nice! I mean -- this is what it's like being a lao wai in China. He asked where I was staying, and I was like "oh, I have a hotel near the Forbidden City." Wo you fandian kaojin Gugong. So he was like "you can stay at our house if you like." That was so nice of him, but of course I declined, I mean, yeah. Then he was like "is anyone meeting you at the airport?" No, no one is. "We can give you a ride into the city." Wow man. Awesome.
We had an in-flight meal, and I ordered the chicken. I opened the package -- and there were no chopsticks! I dug around a bit and saw a fork and knife though. That's when I realized -- it has been a long long time since I've used a fork. I hadn't thought about that until just now. But because I stick to eating Chinese food, I always eat with chopsticks. Strange.
So, it was very strange to hold a piece of chicken down with my fork and cut it with a knife. Stranger than I'd have thought it would be. I guess now that I think about it, Chinese food isn't served with a knife. I guess all you get are chopsticks and a spoon. I guess it's always cut up into manageable pieces. Again -- interesting!
The flight landed (somewhat more precariously than I'm used to, but whatever, I haven't been in the air in awhile) and the journey was complete. My newfound friend and I headed to the baggage claim to pick up my bag (I checked my bag because I didn't think I could bring one on, based on what a co-worker had said -- but she was mistaken I think). Then we headed out of the terminal to meet his sister. I was like, look, if you really don't have a problem with driving me into the city, I'd be happy to go with you, that'd be great. And then something must have gotten miscommunicated, or his sister didn't want to take me, because they led me towards a bus, said goodbye, and left. Haha. Strange.
Anyway I actually took a cab into the city, because I'm wary of taking buses when I dont' know the route. I asked the ticket lady which one to take to the Forbidden City, and she said something I didn't understand. I think she said "The seventh one" but that didn't make sense, because the sign only listed six bus lines. Anyway, rather than chance it, I just hopped in a cab.
The ride in was long and pretty boring, just like the ride in from Pudong Airport in Shanghai. I didn't know exactly where my hotel was, but I had it marked on my map and the driver knew the streets around there (since it's right next to the F.C.) And I couldn't say "Days Inn" because that's English and the driver wouldn't know how to read it. So I just said, "I know it's on Nanheyan Lu near the Tiananmen East subway stop. I have their phone number if we need to call, and if we see the English name, I'll recognize it."
All in Chinese of course :-D
So we made it to the hotel okay, and I checked in and everything, feeling quite awesome that I made it here on my own. I relaxed for a bit, then headed out into the city for some adventures :-)
The first thing I did was make my way back to the main road via this small series of parks in between my hotel and the street. I took a couple pictures because it was so unexpected and peacful.
I then emerged onto Dong Chang'an Dajie and turned right. I wanted a quick glimpse of Tiananmen Square, so I went there first. It's about a 5 minute walk from my hotel, and of course you can see the Forbidden City from there also, with the giant portrait of Mao hanging over the main gate. I'm leaving the FC for tomorrow (it's huge and takes at least half a day to see properly) so I went into Tiananmen - which, if my Chinese is good at all, means "Peaceful Heaven Gate" or something like that. A lot of the streets around Beijing end with men, or "gate". These streets run through where the gates to the city actually used to stand.
I was actually pretty underwhelmed -- it's just a big flat space with the Monument to the People's Heroes in the middle, surrounded by a bunch of flags, and Mao's tomb at the south end. There also are museums on each side, across the street from the square. The tomb was closed but I'm DEFINITELY going tomorrow; I don't care how long I have to wait. I hope they let me take a picture of him (probably not, though).
I stood there for awhile though and just appreciated the fact that I'm, you know, here. Plus, the weather was really nice :-)
After that, I stepped into the metro station. Tiananmen is flanked by two stations, Tiananmen East and Tiananmen West. I bought a metro card (now I have two!) and set out to find Beijing's indie record store, Fusheng Records, which is listed in my travel guide and which seems pretty cool. To do so, I took the metro Line 1 west to Fuchengmen (there we go with the gates again) and transferred to Line 2, where I stopped at Jishuitan.
I really had no idea where I was going, so I ended up just walking along Xinjiekou for like, half an hour or forty-five minutes at least. For some reason the street signs in Beijing don't seem to have Pinyin on them; at least not where I was this evening. The place was definitely a shopping area, but I never made it to the record store. I kept walking, asking people once or twice if they knew where Ping'an Dadao was (my guide says the store is at the corner of Ping'an and Xinjiekou). They both pointed me in the direction that I was walking, but I must have missed it, because I did not find it.
However, I did see a bunch of music stores, and by a bunch, I mean a shit-load. There were at least 20 stores packed to the brim with guitars, violins, saxophones, drums, and other instruments I can't identify. Out front were lots of disaffected-looking youth, kicking a ball around or attempting to shred on an electric guitar. What I mean by disaffected-looking is, their style of dress would look right at home in Austin's Red River district, or in Carytown in Richmond. So, make of that what you will. But I liked it. It felt very familiar :-) And just convinced me more that this world is tiny, so tiny, if trends of dress and music can so easily make their way across the Pacific.
Not to mention I passed a store selling audio equipment, including (gasp) turnables and a Pioneer DJm-700 mixer! So exciting :-) I wonder how much those things cost here, haha. It made me think of my lonely DJ equipment sitting in a storage unit in Austin.
Anyway, after walking for so long, I was hungry and my feet hurt and I still hadn't found the record store, so I decided to turn back. I went along the opposite side of Xinjiekou this time, and ended up wandering into a couple clothing stores (I think I may have mentioned that I am in the market for some shirts and pants). The first store I stopped in had a shirt that was worth looking at -- but first I had to answer questions from the 4 or 5 employees who swarmed the gao lao wai with interest, asking me where I was from, how long I was in Beijing, etc. Hehe. One of them, I shit you not, one of them reached out and touched the tip of my nose, completely without even saying anything to me first, then touched hers. I laughed and was like, is my nose big? Which, to be fair, it is kind of :-) She was like no, you're just really tall, hahaha. So crazy! I just wonder why this never happens in Shanghai. I guess maybe people there are just used to lao wai, but Beijing is a very international city as well. Hm.
I tried on a shirt, and I liked it, so I bought it. Big mistake. They started pushing all sorts of shit on me - shoes ("These are comfortable!") shorts, pants, and so on. Again I actually would like to buy some pants, so I did buy a pair, which turned out to be good in the long run (more on that later). But I was getting annoyed that they were asking me so much.
As I paid, I noticed they were playing some terrible rave crap on the in-store speakers. Because I figured I'd be headed to a record store, I'd brought along some I <3 RY stickers. So I was able to give like 10 of them to the staff and was like yeah, if you go to my web site you can hear my music. Haha.
At that point I was really tired so I headed back to the hotel and relaxed for a little bit more. I have HBO Asia on my TV so I watched that for a bit. I was planning to go to Wangfujing Lu to walk around, but honestly, I have two full days here (not counting even the Great Wall trip on Saturday) so I was like, well, I need to rest up. So I just walked across the street to have dinner.
The restaurant wasn't that crowded, but at the table next to me were like 12 or 13 young people, eating a shit-ton of food, drinking a lot, and being super loud. I guess I should have been annoyed but it was actually pretty fun to watch. They were all wearing the same kind of clothes, so I assumed they were co-workers.
At one point, well, I forget exactly what happened, but I was done with my meal so I was just watching them all have fun while I digested. Someone did or said something funny, and they all started laughing, so I cracked a smile too. The next thing I know one of them invites me over to their table! I was like, hell yeah, sounds like fun. So I went over, sat down, and began talking with them a little bit.
It was a little tough to talk with them though, because a couple of them were suuuuuuuuper wasted. They explained they work at a travel agency, they just came off a long day, and they have to work the holiday tomorrow, so they were out getting plastered. (I can understand the logic behind everything except that last point, haha.) Anyway they were drinking baijiu, which I've had in Shanghai once before. That shit will mess you up - some varieties are like 100 proof. They poured me some and we all did one or two gan beis. (Well, I didn't drain my glass, since it was over halfway full. That would have been painful.) It was pretty fun; they were all very friendly, except, well, again some of them were plastered, which made me awkward because I was sober (two shots of baijiu notwithstanding).
It became even weirder when the drunkest guy was reaching for something near me and knocked my glass of baijiu into my lap, getting distilled alcohol all over my jeans. He and his friends were very apologetic, well, as apologetic as he could be while attempting to stand up straight, haha. That was forgotten again as soon as they ordered another bottle of baijiu, which they kept trying to get me to drink. I was a little annoyed about my pants, and I don't drink much anyway, and I want to get an early start tomorrow, so I kept refusing. But they of course didn't accept this refusal, no matter how many times I or another one of their friends (who sort of adopted me as a protectee in this situation, haha) explained.
So what I did was fake it -- I raised the glass to my lips and tipped my head back, but didn't open my mouth. They were too wasted to notice that the amount in my glass stayed the same. So everyone was happy :-)
I stayed with them for like an hour, during which time the conversation got louder and louder. It was pretty fun, actually. I don't even mind about the pants so much. And I talked with them about some interesting topics. One of the guys gave me his cell phone number -- after all, they are a travel agency. He was like "See the Great Wall and the Forbidden City -- after you've done that, call me and I'll tell you where to go." We'll see. I may or may not call him. I'd certainly hate to be on the receiving end of his travel advice tomorrow, given how smashed he was tonight!
Anyway, that was my day! Pretty good one I think. I am uploading my flickr pictures now but they're taking forever, even longer than usual, so hopefully they'll be done by the time I wake up and am ready to take some new ones :-)
Beijing Dao Le
All is well, I'm safe and sound in my hotel in Beijing! So exciting :-)
It's 5 PM so I'm going to wander around a bit while it's light out ... but the REAL tourism begins tomorrow. Will try and update with some pics later tonight though.
It's 5 PM so I'm going to wander around a bit while it's light out ... but the REAL tourism begins tomorrow. Will try and update with some pics later tonight though.
April 28, 2008
Xianzai, wo you san ge mingzi ...
First, an announcement:
The fiendish overlords at work have decreed that I am to toil underground in the Shanghai mines, bereft of sunlight and oxygen and Mexican food, for another SEVEN months instead of two. Thanks to this extension, I will be returning to Austin around January 2009, not in July 2008 as originally planned. I screamed for mercy, but they flayed the skin from my bones, ignored my howling, and continued their awful cackling at my plight.
Please, please, save me from this hellish nightmare.
Please.
;-)
Okay, now that I'm about to get fired -- I'm still not sure whether I'm coming home in late June. I'll let you all know when there's a decision on that. But if anything, this should give you all a chance to save up more vacation time / $$ and visit.
==========================
I forgot to mention earlier that I now have a Chinese name, courtesy of my teammates:
高瑞安
If I got the characters right, that should read Gāo Ruìān. Because Chinese people put the last name first, my name in American Pinyin then would be Ruìān Gāo .
Gāo meaning tall (an obvious choice for my 'family name' - sorry Dad, I know you have like, generations of family invested in my last name, but this somehow fits me better ... hahaha)
Ruì meaning auspicious, lucky
ān meaning peaceful
I like it :-) The best part is that if you put 瑞安 into Google, you get "Ryan". It's like I was born for this name.
The next step is to learn how to write it :-)
This makes three names: 1 American, 1 Hebrew (שִׁמְשׁוֹן), and now 1 Chinese.
Word.
The best part about today was that I had an awesome conversation with an older couple on the train home. It was sooooooooooooo great because I understood like 40% of what they said, and we were able to have a semi-meaningful conversation. To prove it, here are some things we talked about:
Also, I ate dinner at a Chinese fast food place, and understood the guy behind the counter a bit ... "Do you want to eat here?" "Do you want anything else?" And I asked whether my dish had pork (It was a Chinese menu, I could only see pictures), and he said yes.
I could be having the worst day ever, I think, and conversations in Chinese like this could turn it all around. It's so incredibly encouraging to have these little moments. But, thankfully I haven't had to test that hypothesis yet :-)
====
Also, I wrote a mini-article about Saturday's CBL game for one of the (US) baseball sites I frequent. Check it out!
The fiendish overlords at work have decreed that I am to toil underground in the Shanghai mines, bereft of sunlight and oxygen and Mexican food, for another SEVEN months instead of two. Thanks to this extension, I will be returning to Austin around January 2009, not in July 2008 as originally planned. I screamed for mercy, but they flayed the skin from my bones, ignored my howling, and continued their awful cackling at my plight.
Please, please, save me from this hellish nightmare.
Please.
;-)
Okay, now that I'm about to get fired -- I'm still not sure whether I'm coming home in late June. I'll let you all know when there's a decision on that. But if anything, this should give you all a chance to save up more vacation time / $$ and visit.
==========================
I forgot to mention earlier that I now have a Chinese name, courtesy of my teammates:
高瑞安
If I got the characters right, that should read Gāo Ruìān. Because Chinese people put the last name first, my name in American Pinyin then would be Ruìān Gāo .
Gāo meaning tall (an obvious choice for my 'family name' - sorry Dad, I know you have like, generations of family invested in my last name, but this somehow fits me better ... hahaha)
Ruì meaning auspicious, lucky
ān meaning peaceful
I like it :-) The best part is that if you put 瑞安 into Google, you get "Ryan". It's like I was born for this name.
The next step is to learn how to write it :-)
This makes three names: 1 American, 1 Hebrew (שִׁמְשׁוֹן), and now 1 Chinese.
Word.
The best part about today was that I had an awesome conversation with an older couple on the train home. It was sooooooooooooo great because I understood like 40% of what they said, and we were able to have a semi-meaningful conversation. To prove it, here are some things we talked about:
- Whether I understand or speak Shanghainese
- How they don't speak English
- Where I'm from
- Whether I'm in town for work, where I work, and what I do (for this last bit I just made the typing-on-a-computer pantomime ... haha)
- If I like Chinese food
- If I like spicy Chinese food (don't worry Mom, I won't make you eat any ...)
- (I then proceeded to tell them about Di Shui Dong, including where it's located)
- If I like Shanghai
- When I'm going to Beijing (the conversation started when I noticed the woman reading my Beijing travel guide over my shoulder, so I was like yeah, I'm going on Wednesday)
- If I'm taking the train or flying
- Where I live in America
- How long I've lived in Shanghai
- How the Line 2 metro is really fast -- I think they said this because they're Shanghainese and have seen the city grow up around them
- Something about America and 20 years... I 'm guessing, something about how Shanghai will be better (or something along those lines) than America in 20 years ... or how Shanghai has changed so much in 20 years and it's now like America ... you see what I'm dealing with here, I only have so many pieces to this puzzle :-)
Also, I ate dinner at a Chinese fast food place, and understood the guy behind the counter a bit ... "Do you want to eat here?" "Do you want anything else?" And I asked whether my dish had pork (It was a Chinese menu, I could only see pictures), and he said yes.
I could be having the worst day ever, I think, and conversations in Chinese like this could turn it all around. It's so incredibly encouraging to have these little moments. But, thankfully I haven't had to test that hypothesis yet :-)
====
Also, I wrote a mini-article about Saturday's CBL game for one of the (US) baseball sites I frequent. Check it out!
April 27, 2008
::Needs Title::
Saturday afternoon I booked my hotel in Beijing. I'm not sure if I mentioned it on here, but the MIDI Festival that I was looking forward to was postponed. My friends were unable to get train tickets anyway, so it will be a Ryry solo adventure in the capital of China.
Along with the hotel I booked a tour of the Great Wall at the Simatai section. I knew absolutely nothing about which section of the GW is the "best", but Tim said it's one of the less tourist-y sections, so that's good. It's also one of the sections that isn't fully restored, which again is a good thing. The section is ~3.3 miles long and the tour info page said we'd cover it in like 3 - 4 hours. Awesome.
The Great Wall --- I mean, c'mon. I am getting really psyched for this trip. One great thing about China is that it has millenia of history which the US doesn't have, at least not in its current state. In Hangzhou I ate lunch at Louwailou, a restaurant that is 150 years old. That means that when the restaurant first opened, the pencil-with-attached-eraser was just being invented. Sort of puts things in perspective for you. Okay bad example of ancient history -- but you know what I mean :-)
The rest of the must-sees in Beijing -- The Temple of Heaven, the Summer Palace, the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, etc. -- I'll do on my own after purchasing a TimeOut guide for the city. I feel confident enough in my reading of Pinyin, and usage of maps and knowledge of taking subway systems, and maybe asking people for help, to navigate. And my co-workers are still just a cell phone call away :-)
I should have Internet access so expect timely pics. I'm staying at the Days Inn Forbidden City. How Forbidden can a city be if there's a Days Inn (and, formerly, a Starbucks) there? I think it's best to not assume that any of this stuff is at all, well, "authentic." I mean it is, to be sure, but I'll just be disappointed if I expect to get the "authentic" experience from any of these places, you know? They're tourist attractions now and the number of people there will demonstrate that (especially since I'm going during the May holiday). I will go to have fun and see things and learn and that should be plenty :-)
On Saturday, I also went to see the first China Baseball League (CBL) game of my life. The Beijing Tigers beat the Shanghai Eagles 1-0. Nobody scored a run after the first inning, and not many people had hits either. Shanghai never threatened except in the bottom of the 9th, when there were runners on second and third with none out. But then we got three outs in a row to end it. I have some pretty good pictures up on flickr.
Of course I had to ask their mascot to take a picture with me:
(Qing gei he wo pai zhao is what I said - "Please take a picture with me.")
I dunno why I'm giving the thumbs-up like some doofus American tourist, but for some reason I did that :-)
There were maybe 100 people at the game, mostly from a nearby school. When they all got up and left at the end of the 6th inning, the place felt deserted. Too bad, really. But it was fun. Super-nice weather, warm sunshine, no clouds, and hanging out with Tim, his wife, and their friend who was visiting.
Today I did some shopping, first for gifts and then for clothes. My first stop was buying a set of chopsticks for Kevin. For this I braved the Xiangyang Market, located near my place at the Shanghai S&T Museum subway stop.
Have you ever seen Minority Report? Do you remember that scene where Tom Cruise is on the lam and he's running through a shopping mall? As he walks by store windows, eye scanners pick up his image and start blaring their ads at him. That's what it's like for me walking through the Xiangyang Market here. I walk by, there are shops on both sides with barkers standing out front, like three or four per shop, and my passage triggers a chorus of "Hello watch! Hello bag! DVD! Video game! Want buy shirt? Nice shoes! Cheap! Sale! BEST QUALITY!!!!!!"
I'm not joking - that actually happened, like five girls shouting simultaneously at me as I moved through the market's corridors. I stared straight ahead and ignored them, although the ridiculousness of the situation was too much, so I smiled and said Ni men hen hao wan ("You all are very funny.").
If that weren't enough, the place is literally a maze, and after I did manage to buy some chopsticks, it took me 20 minutes to find my way out again. Finally I asked a security guard (Yay for being able to speak Chinese a little bit) who pointed me in the right direction.
Being shouted at like this, not to mention having to negotiate for a sale, is really stressful for me. Which is why, as I walked down Dingxiang Rd towards the market earlier, I thought of Obi Wan Kenobi's famous description of Mos Eisley. Which is probably an overstatement in this case, but still, I did feel like I had to prepare for battle, haha.
After that I headed out to read at Garden Books and do some clothes shopping on Changle Lu. On the subway I tried to make conversation with a tall Chinese guy by asking which one of us was the most tall, but he wasn't having any of it. Either that or my Chinese sucks -- I think it's a combination of the two, actually, haha.
That's why I'm nervous about taking pictures of people, or doing things like this -- because I fear I can't speak well enough, and also, I don't want people to feel like I'm on some safari hunt for Chinese people. You know? I think maybe he felt that way. His girlfriend managed a bit of English though, which she said "You're a little bit taller." But still, it was weird.
The saving grace was seeing a teenage boy on the train reading A Catcher in the Rye. Very very cool. Makes me wish I hadn't left my copy in Austin. I couldn't see if he was reading it in English or if he'd obtained a Chinese translation. But just the fact that he was reading it made me very happy :-)
I didn't really like any of the stores on Changle Lu, specifically, not the one I set out to patronize, which is eno. Along the road I ran into Jeremy and Amy, and they told me about a sale that Uniqlo (which is basically, the clothes section of Target) was having. There's a location at the Super Brand Mall near my apartment, so I hopped back on the train and went there. I didn't find anything there; however I did find some worthwhile things at the H&M. So it's true, I can buy jeans in China :-) They just have to be European, haha.
That's all, pretty much. I leave for Beijing at noon on Wednesday. I'll try and post an update when I land :-)
Along with the hotel I booked a tour of the Great Wall at the Simatai section. I knew absolutely nothing about which section of the GW is the "best", but Tim said it's one of the less tourist-y sections, so that's good. It's also one of the sections that isn't fully restored, which again is a good thing. The section is ~3.3 miles long and the tour info page said we'd cover it in like 3 - 4 hours. Awesome.
The Great Wall --- I mean, c'mon. I am getting really psyched for this trip. One great thing about China is that it has millenia of history which the US doesn't have, at least not in its current state. In Hangzhou I ate lunch at Louwailou, a restaurant that is 150 years old. That means that when the restaurant first opened, the pencil-with-attached-eraser was just being invented. Sort of puts things in perspective for you. Okay bad example of ancient history -- but you know what I mean :-)
The rest of the must-sees in Beijing -- The Temple of Heaven, the Summer Palace, the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, etc. -- I'll do on my own after purchasing a TimeOut guide for the city. I feel confident enough in my reading of Pinyin, and usage of maps and knowledge of taking subway systems, and maybe asking people for help, to navigate. And my co-workers are still just a cell phone call away :-)
I should have Internet access so expect timely pics. I'm staying at the Days Inn Forbidden City. How Forbidden can a city be if there's a Days Inn (and, formerly, a Starbucks) there? I think it's best to not assume that any of this stuff is at all, well, "authentic." I mean it is, to be sure, but I'll just be disappointed if I expect to get the "authentic" experience from any of these places, you know? They're tourist attractions now and the number of people there will demonstrate that (especially since I'm going during the May holiday). I will go to have fun and see things and learn and that should be plenty :-)
On Saturday, I also went to see the first China Baseball League (CBL) game of my life. The Beijing Tigers beat the Shanghai Eagles 1-0. Nobody scored a run after the first inning, and not many people had hits either. Shanghai never threatened except in the bottom of the 9th, when there were runners on second and third with none out. But then we got three outs in a row to end it. I have some pretty good pictures up on flickr.
Of course I had to ask their mascot to take a picture with me:
(Qing gei he wo pai zhao is what I said - "Please take a picture with me.")
I dunno why I'm giving the thumbs-up like some doofus American tourist, but for some reason I did that :-)
There were maybe 100 people at the game, mostly from a nearby school. When they all got up and left at the end of the 6th inning, the place felt deserted. Too bad, really. But it was fun. Super-nice weather, warm sunshine, no clouds, and hanging out with Tim, his wife, and their friend who was visiting.
Today I did some shopping, first for gifts and then for clothes. My first stop was buying a set of chopsticks for Kevin. For this I braved the Xiangyang Market, located near my place at the Shanghai S&T Museum subway stop.
Have you ever seen Minority Report? Do you remember that scene where Tom Cruise is on the lam and he's running through a shopping mall? As he walks by store windows, eye scanners pick up his image and start blaring their ads at him. That's what it's like for me walking through the Xiangyang Market here. I walk by, there are shops on both sides with barkers standing out front, like three or four per shop, and my passage triggers a chorus of "Hello watch! Hello bag! DVD! Video game! Want buy shirt? Nice shoes! Cheap! Sale! BEST QUALITY!!!!!!"
I'm not joking - that actually happened, like five girls shouting simultaneously at me as I moved through the market's corridors. I stared straight ahead and ignored them, although the ridiculousness of the situation was too much, so I smiled and said Ni men hen hao wan ("You all are very funny.").
If that weren't enough, the place is literally a maze, and after I did manage to buy some chopsticks, it took me 20 minutes to find my way out again. Finally I asked a security guard (Yay for being able to speak Chinese a little bit) who pointed me in the right direction.
Being shouted at like this, not to mention having to negotiate for a sale, is really stressful for me. Which is why, as I walked down Dingxiang Rd towards the market earlier, I thought of Obi Wan Kenobi's famous description of Mos Eisley. Which is probably an overstatement in this case, but still, I did feel like I had to prepare for battle, haha.
After that I headed out to read at Garden Books and do some clothes shopping on Changle Lu. On the subway I tried to make conversation with a tall Chinese guy by asking which one of us was the most tall, but he wasn't having any of it. Either that or my Chinese sucks -- I think it's a combination of the two, actually, haha.
That's why I'm nervous about taking pictures of people, or doing things like this -- because I fear I can't speak well enough, and also, I don't want people to feel like I'm on some safari hunt for Chinese people. You know? I think maybe he felt that way. His girlfriend managed a bit of English though, which she said "You're a little bit taller." But still, it was weird.
The saving grace was seeing a teenage boy on the train reading A Catcher in the Rye. Very very cool. Makes me wish I hadn't left my copy in Austin. I couldn't see if he was reading it in English or if he'd obtained a Chinese translation. But just the fact that he was reading it made me very happy :-)
I didn't really like any of the stores on Changle Lu, specifically, not the one I set out to patronize, which is eno. Along the road I ran into Jeremy and Amy, and they told me about a sale that Uniqlo (which is basically, the clothes section of Target) was having. There's a location at the Super Brand Mall near my apartment, so I hopped back on the train and went there. I didn't find anything there; however I did find some worthwhile things at the H&M. So it's true, I can buy jeans in China :-) They just have to be European, haha.
That's all, pretty much. I leave for Beijing at noon on Wednesday. I'll try and post an update when I land :-)
April 15, 2008
Beijing Rock City
So I had planned to go to Beijing next week, from April 25th - 29th, to do some sightseeing and catch Jen's play. However that plan fell through when a) Jen's show got cancelled and b) some friends invited me to the MIDI Festival. So today I switched my Capital City trip to be from 4/30 to 5/4.
I will still get to do some tourism, because we're all planning on going to the Great Wall, and honestly I don't know how many days I can sit out in the sun surrounded by sweaty rock 'n roll kids. (Lord knows how many days I've spent like that already.) So I will probably attend like 2 days, or a day and a half, of the festival and then spend the rest of the time touring or something like that.
Fun times :-)
In other news, I'm capitulating to the GOOG and have given my life mostly over to cloud computing. It's funny. I now check email via Gmail, use Google Calendar to organize my non-work life, update this here blog on Blogspot, and catch up on news 'n things via Google Reader. The only two non-GOOG webapps I use are flickr (owned by Yahoo!) and Remember the Milk (probably soon to be acquired by one of those companies). Well that's not true, I use a couple others, but those are the most prominent right now.
It's just so dang convenient.
This weekend is my trip to Hangzhou and I'm really excited :-) I leave Saturday at 8 AM and return Sunday night around 7. Expect plenty of pictures!!
I will still get to do some tourism, because we're all planning on going to the Great Wall, and honestly I don't know how many days I can sit out in the sun surrounded by sweaty rock 'n roll kids. (Lord knows how many days I've spent like that already.) So I will probably attend like 2 days, or a day and a half, of the festival and then spend the rest of the time touring or something like that.
Fun times :-)
In other news, I'm capitulating to the GOOG and have given my life mostly over to cloud computing. It's funny. I now check email via Gmail, use Google Calendar to organize my non-work life, update this here blog on Blogspot, and catch up on news 'n things via Google Reader. The only two non-GOOG webapps I use are flickr (owned by Yahoo!) and Remember the Milk (probably soon to be acquired by one of those companies). Well that's not true, I use a couple others, but those are the most prominent right now.
It's just so dang convenient.
This weekend is my trip to Hangzhou and I'm really excited :-) I leave Saturday at 8 AM and return Sunday night around 7. Expect plenty of pictures!!
March 25, 2008
Jen's Blog
A month or so ago I got an email from a friend of mine. Her name's Jen and we've known each other since, well, since I think third grade. We all used to carpool together to Hebrew school and everything, and then she ended up going to my high school. Well it turns out that she's been living in NYC for a couple years, doing the actress thing, and is part of a production of The Sound of Music. Insanely enough they were invited to tour across Asia, so now Jen's in China getting ready to start the first performance. She's got a blog up here, and it's interesting now to see the things she writes about. Many of them are the same, but many are different, as she is here in an entirely different situation than me :-)
They will not be performing in Shanghai, which is a little surprising. But they will be spending five days in Beijing, so that's why I arranged my trip there for the end of April. I plan to catch at least one of their performances (Mei you kan guo The Sound of Music) and then spend the next couple days touring -- maybe if I'm lucky the theater company will let me on their bus, hehe.
Anyhoo go check out her blog if you're interested in a different, but still American, perspective
on this here country we're in.
Speaking of touring, this Saturday I am headed to Suzhou. I'm pretty excited for my first travel adventure within China ... and by myself no less! It will be weird to be in China but not in Shanghai ... Stay tuned for pictures, I hear it's beautiful ...
They will not be performing in Shanghai, which is a little surprising. But they will be spending five days in Beijing, so that's why I arranged my trip there for the end of April. I plan to catch at least one of their performances (Mei you kan guo The Sound of Music) and then spend the next couple days touring -- maybe if I'm lucky the theater company will let me on their bus, hehe.
Anyhoo go check out her blog if you're interested in a different, but still American, perspective
on this here country we're in.
Speaking of touring, this Saturday I am headed to Suzhou. I'm pretty excited for my first travel adventure within China ... and by myself no less! It will be weird to be in China but not in Shanghai ... Stay tuned for pictures, I hear it's beautiful ...
February 17, 2008
Words & Food
Today was the first time I've been able to say it's actually warm. I even took off my big heavy jacket on the walk from the Thumb Plaza to the metro station. Of course, it's all relative, as today's temperature was something like 7 - 8 degrees C - hardly "warm". But given the past month of crappy weather, I'll take it. Oh yeah, and the sun came out. It was pretty nice :-)
I went to the Shanghai Art Museum today. Half the stuff my guidebook said to visit wasn't there, haha. Either that or I was just not good at finding it. There's not much English or Pinyin to be had, so I just walked around and looked at all the pretty pictures for awhile. There were a couple of which I wanted to buy prints, but the gift shop didn't seem to have them. I need to learn the word for "buy". Um, I'm sure it's in my phrasebook. I also need to learn "live", "need", "with", "there", "here", "after", and "like". Probably all also in my phrasebook.
The great thing about having a language tutor is that I can come to her and say "Help me learn these words." In fact I might text message her with these words and ask her to come up with sentences designed to help me learn and remember them. Word. (hah! no pun intended!)
I'm getting better at recognizing words I know when people say them to me. That's pretty cool and empowering. So I am having more mini-conversations with taxi drivers and waiters. In the morning when taxi drivers have talk radio on, I'm starting to recognize words like "today", "want", "have", "you", "me", and so on, from the vocabulary that I actually know and can speak. Baby steps man -- baby steps. Today I saw a billboard for Heilongjiang - and immediately knew that means "Black Dragon River". That's a pretty badass name for a province, if I say so myself.
In fact I was watching a bit of TV this morning, and there was some commercial for skin moisturizing cream on - Garnier, I think. (Amusingly, the announcer pronounced it "Gar-nyer", where in America it's pronounced "Gar-nyay", which I guess is the correct way to say it in French.) I heard the phrase gao keji, and immediately went - ahh, I know what that is! Because two metro stops I say the most are Shanghai Keji Guan and Zhangjiang Gao Ke. Ke is technology (first tone, anyway), ji (fourth tone) is science, and gao (first tone) is tall. (We all know why I know this word.)
So gao keji, in the commercial, literally means "tall science and technology". In this context though, gao probably means something like "advanced". Combined with my knowledge of how these commercials are all the same, e.g., they all try to convince you they've uncovered the secret formula for eternal youth, I could infer that the voice-over was using this same technique of persuasion in China. Not that there's anything especially interesting about that - I'm just happy I was able to recognize the words in a normal, everyday context.
Another funny phrase involving gao is Ni he gao le. This literally means, "You drink tall" which makes no sense. But colloquially, this phrase means "you're drunk", and if you think about it, it kind of makes sense (at least to me, anyway). This one is easy to confuse (when either speaking or listening) with Ni hen gao le, which simply means, "You're very tall". A way to make it easier is that he is first tone and hen is third tone, so if you get your tones right, I guess there's less of a chance of insulting someone accidentally.
In other, smaller triumphs, I went shopping yesterday at Carrefour and bought vittles. It took me a couple trips to load everything into the taxi, so I knew I wouldn't be able to carry everything up to my apartment by myself, not in one trip anyway.
Solution, you ask?
As we stopped at my door, I said to the taxi driver, Wo gei ni er shi kuai bang wo. This translates to "I give you 20 kuai help me." I could have added zhe ge ("this") while pointing at the bags, I suppose, but I got my point across. He understood and helped me carry all my bags upstairs. Victory :-)
Speaking of er ("two"), it's pronounced like "ar" (as in "yard"), and it's first tone. So every time I say it I'm reminded of the sound a dog makes ("arf arf!") and I feel a little silly because I feel like I'm barking at someone in the way a small dog would, haha.
Also speaking of er, you only say that when you're saying the numeral two. When you want to say "two of <something>", you say liang. So if you want two bottles of water and you say Wo yao er ping shui, you'll confuse people. What you need to say is Wo yao liang ping shui. But if you're giving a street address, you'd use er. Don't ask me why this little rule is in there. But it's confusing :-)
Back to Carrefour, or Jialefu as it's called here, I bought a pot and a pan. So now I can boil (and fry!) the frozen jiaozi that I bought, which is way better than microwaving them. They also make for a much better dinner than a pack of Bugles and some rice crackers. (I'm such a bachelor.) I'm really starting to enjoy all the different kinds of dumplings - jiaozi, xiaolongbao, and wonton. They're cheap and delicious. Good times. I guess it's in my blood, and all, given that I grew up being served kreplach every so often :-)
I'm not sure if now's the time to explain how I've been living here almost two months and my refrigerator was not plugged in -- but, I guess I just did. The funny part is, I didn't even notice, because it's so cold here. All the bottles of water I had in there were cold, so I had no reason to be suspicious. Yesterday I dropped something behind the fridge and had to look back there, so I noticed, hey, this thing's not plugged in! Now the fridge light turns on when I open the door, and I'm like -- oh, right, that's supposed to happen -- I forgot.
Back to Jialefu. You know you've made it in China when your company or product is blessed with a Chinese name. For example, KFC is known as kendeji which, when said out loud, vaguely sounds like "Kentucky". Same thing for places like Washington DC, Houston, Italy, Canada, Budweiser, Coca-Cola, Starbucks, McDonald's, et al.
Aaaaand I am looking into booking a trip to Beijing at the end of April. Randomly enough, a friend of mine who I used to carpool with to Hebrew School in 3rd grade is in a play that is touring through China this spring. The tour is not coming to Shanghai, so I'm going to plan to meet up with them in Beijing.
I went to the Shanghai Art Museum today. Half the stuff my guidebook said to visit wasn't there, haha. Either that or I was just not good at finding it. There's not much English or Pinyin to be had, so I just walked around and looked at all the pretty pictures for awhile. There were a couple of which I wanted to buy prints, but the gift shop didn't seem to have them. I need to learn the word for "buy". Um, I'm sure it's in my phrasebook. I also need to learn "live", "need", "with", "there", "here", "after", and "like". Probably all also in my phrasebook.
The great thing about having a language tutor is that I can come to her and say "Help me learn these words." In fact I might text message her with these words and ask her to come up with sentences designed to help me learn and remember them. Word. (hah! no pun intended!)
I'm getting better at recognizing words I know when people say them to me. That's pretty cool and empowering. So I am having more mini-conversations with taxi drivers and waiters. In the morning when taxi drivers have talk radio on, I'm starting to recognize words like "today", "want", "have", "you", "me", and so on, from the vocabulary that I actually know and can speak. Baby steps man -- baby steps. Today I saw a billboard for Heilongjiang - and immediately knew that means "Black Dragon River". That's a pretty badass name for a province, if I say so myself.
In fact I was watching a bit of TV this morning, and there was some commercial for skin moisturizing cream on - Garnier, I think. (Amusingly, the announcer pronounced it "Gar-nyer", where in America it's pronounced "Gar-nyay", which I guess is the correct way to say it in French.) I heard the phrase gao keji, and immediately went - ahh, I know what that is! Because two metro stops I say the most are Shanghai Keji Guan and Zhangjiang Gao Ke. Ke is technology (first tone, anyway), ji (fourth tone) is science, and gao (first tone) is tall. (We all know why I know this word.)
So gao keji, in the commercial, literally means "tall science and technology". In this context though, gao probably means something like "advanced". Combined with my knowledge of how these commercials are all the same, e.g., they all try to convince you they've uncovered the secret formula for eternal youth, I could infer that the voice-over was using this same technique of persuasion in China. Not that there's anything especially interesting about that - I'm just happy I was able to recognize the words in a normal, everyday context.
Another funny phrase involving gao is Ni he gao le. This literally means, "You drink tall" which makes no sense. But colloquially, this phrase means "you're drunk", and if you think about it, it kind of makes sense (at least to me, anyway). This one is easy to confuse (when either speaking or listening) with Ni hen gao le, which simply means, "You're very tall". A way to make it easier is that he is first tone and hen is third tone, so if you get your tones right, I guess there's less of a chance of insulting someone accidentally.
In other, smaller triumphs, I went shopping yesterday at Carrefour and bought vittles. It took me a couple trips to load everything into the taxi, so I knew I wouldn't be able to carry everything up to my apartment by myself, not in one trip anyway.
Solution, you ask?
As we stopped at my door, I said to the taxi driver, Wo gei ni er shi kuai bang wo. This translates to "I give you 20 kuai help me." I could have added zhe ge ("this") while pointing at the bags, I suppose, but I got my point across. He understood and helped me carry all my bags upstairs. Victory :-)
Speaking of er ("two"), it's pronounced like "ar" (as in "yard"), and it's first tone. So every time I say it I'm reminded of the sound a dog makes ("arf arf!") and I feel a little silly because I feel like I'm barking at someone in the way a small dog would, haha.
Also speaking of er, you only say that when you're saying the numeral two. When you want to say "two of <something>", you say liang. So if you want two bottles of water and you say Wo yao er ping shui, you'll confuse people. What you need to say is Wo yao liang ping shui. But if you're giving a street address, you'd use er. Don't ask me why this little rule is in there. But it's confusing :-)
Back to Carrefour, or Jialefu as it's called here, I bought a pot and a pan. So now I can boil (and fry!) the frozen jiaozi that I bought, which is way better than microwaving them. They also make for a much better dinner than a pack of Bugles and some rice crackers. (I'm such a bachelor.) I'm really starting to enjoy all the different kinds of dumplings - jiaozi, xiaolongbao, and wonton. They're cheap and delicious. Good times. I guess it's in my blood, and all, given that I grew up being served kreplach every so often :-)
I'm not sure if now's the time to explain how I've been living here almost two months and my refrigerator was not plugged in -- but, I guess I just did. The funny part is, I didn't even notice, because it's so cold here. All the bottles of water I had in there were cold, so I had no reason to be suspicious. Yesterday I dropped something behind the fridge and had to look back there, so I noticed, hey, this thing's not plugged in! Now the fridge light turns on when I open the door, and I'm like -- oh, right, that's supposed to happen -- I forgot.
Back to Jialefu. You know you've made it in China when your company or product is blessed with a Chinese name. For example, KFC is known as kendeji which, when said out loud, vaguely sounds like "Kentucky". Same thing for places like Washington DC, Houston, Italy, Canada, Budweiser, Coca-Cola, Starbucks, McDonald's, et al.
Aaaaand I am looking into booking a trip to Beijing at the end of April. Randomly enough, a friend of mine who I used to carpool with to Hebrew School in 3rd grade is in a play that is touring through China this spring. The tour is not coming to Shanghai, so I'm going to plan to meet up with them in Beijing.
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