Exhausted But Amazed

Man, whenever I come back from a vacation, or any length of time without the Internet, I've got like 6,000 things to catch up on in my RSS reader. It's a tad overwhelming. I should probably just mark them all as read and move on with it.

Huangshan was amazing. On the first day, we climbed about 7 miles worth of stairs. It HURT. Just imagine that. SEVEN MILES. of STAIRS. OUCH. But it was worth it, for we got amazing photos of the North Sea and West Sea, so named because of the clouds that roll in and out. The rest of the time, it was rainy and misty and terrible.

There are so many other things I could write about, and I might when I have time. But now I am exhausted and waiting for the pictures to upload to flickr. Let me just say that it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to witness nature on such a grand scale. Looking at the vast gouges of jagged earth and roiling tendrils of mist that compose 北海 and 西海, I felt time stop. Seeing those peaks and valleys was worth every sore calf muscle, every overpriced bottle of water, every bug squashed in the hotel room, and every ragged gasp of wheezing breath I just barely managed to exhale as I willed myself to put one foot in front of the other ... just ... one ... more ... time while hobbling up that accursed set of stairs.

Seven miles. And that was just the ascent. It was another seven down, and that's only because we took a cable car partway. There are people who do that ascent and descent twice a day, with loads of hotels' dirty laundry, bottled drinks, and other sundries on their backs. I don't ever want to hear you complain about your day job again.

The pictures should finish uploading in an hour or two, so go check them out. I might post some of my favorites here on the blog. But just know this -- the pictures cannot do the view justice. Everything felt so sharp and clear and in-focus. A picture just doesn't capture the awe-inspiring majesty of looking at those peaks in person. I could have sat there for hours, and I probably would have if the mist hadn't rolled back in. It's amazing. It takes literally 15 seconds for the entire valley to empty out of, or fill up with, an opaque white cloud that kills all sightseeing opportunities. People run from one viewing platform to another, hoping to catch a glimpse of the rock walls that have been obscured for their entire visit. I feel very lucky to have gotten the time and views I did, although there were plenty of other times during the trek where I was frustrated because the mist was blocking a view. It's like, "I know there's something beautiful out there, but I can't see it, dammit!" That's frustrating.

Tourism trips improve my Chinese. I would pass small children with their families and hear them say "... lao wai ..." or "... wai guo ren ..." and then I would say (in Chinese) "Lao wai? Where? I'm not a lao wai! I'm Chinese!" I love hearing them gasp and laugh when I answered them. Unfortunately from then on it was downhill as they would continue the conversation and, more often than not, I would not understand them, haha. But it was still fun.

I met Walnut Lady while taking a picture on the descent to the Hot Springs. She was with her grandson and they were meeting up with the rest of their family. I used my new Chinese phrase "Ladies first" to tell her to go ahead of me while I stopped and took a picture. We got to talking and I managed to do pretty well. Then she said goodbye as she went down the stairs. I saw her again on the shuttle to the main gate, and she waved and smiled. Then I ran into her and her family in Tunxi, and she was so excited. She kept saying something that I couldn't understand -- and nobody with her knew how to translate into English. So I politely said goodbye again. Then, because Tunxi is a stultifying labyrinth of boredom, I ran into her again like 20 minutes later. She tried again, to the amusement of nearby shopkeepers and 7 or 8 passerby who found it interesting to watch a 老人 converse with a smiling but not-understanding 外国人, to say something to me. No go. But Herbert remembered the Chinese phrase, and when we found Charles and Kitty again, we asked her what it meant. "Walnut", she said. So we're assuming that this lady wanted me to buy her a walnut, or vice versa. Thus the Walnut Lady (核桃女) was born. That's how these things happen. I shoulda got a picture with her.

Okay, so, no travelling for at least 2 weeks. Okay? Okay. I'm exhausted. And flickr seems to be borking out again. Boo.

Globetrottin'

Just booked the travel arrangements for 澳门 (Aòmén, "Doorway to the sea", Macau). While I will get to do some tourism there, the main reason I'm going is to finally catch up with Jen, after a near-miss in Beijing and and her unexpectedly-long stay in America. I'll also get to see The Sound of Music, which is great because I've never seen it before.

So weekends in August already are pretty full. The 8th - 9th I'll be entertaining my dad's cousin Bennett and his family who will be visiting Shanghai en route to the Olympics. On the 15th - 17th I'll be in Macau. And from the 22nd - 24th I'll be in Huangshan.

Can't wait to see where I go the rest of my time here :-)

Lots of expats are making noise about the new Batman movie. Everyone keeps saying how good Heath Ledger is as The Joker. But the main topic is that it's not being shown in theaters here, unlike Hancock which a bunch of my friends saw. (I wonder how many scenes were edited out though.) People are saying it's something you have to see in the theaters, which rules out one popular option for watching movies. Some people are even talking about making a trip to Hong Kong specifically to see the movie. Sheesh. It can't be that good -- can it?

I ate dinner last night with 9 other people. Our total bill? About 250 RMB (~$36), or 25 RMB per person. The food wasn't stellar, but it was good Sichuan cuisine, and at $3.60, a definite friggin' bargain. It made the 480-RMB-for-three-people dinner I had tonight seem like I was giving away a kidney or something, espeically since the food was relatively worse than yesterday's (even though we got a boat of sushi, woohoo!)

Ummm and I got a wireless router, so I can 上网 (shàngwǎng, "surf the Internet") from my sofa. That's pretty kickass, if I say so myself. I got it at Best Buy, so I probably paid like 3x what I should have, but I know it's quality first-brand material and I can return it if it explodes or something like that.

Huangshan!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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