The past few days have been spent holed up in Beijing cafes and exploring the city’s hutongs, small alleyways flanked by grey stone traditional style housing. I found one particularly long street stuffed full of cute wi-fi enabled cafes and lounge bars, home to Beijing’s yuppie population and some younger ex-pats, and the perfect place to hide from the cold January air (which got colder the second I put my mom in a cab to the airport carrying my giant winter hat that I haven’t worn once).
Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes: I didn’t have a particularly raucous 21st, because all of my friends are in class and had tests this morning, but I had a nice time going out to dinner with about 10 Beijing classmates and 田老师, one of our first and second-year teachers who left Middlebury and moved here at the end of last year, and later hanging out in the dorms catching up with some of my friends whom I haven’t seen in four months and probably won’t see for another eight. Never fear, I have been promised a second celebration tomorrow night with some friends in Shanghai, and will probably have a third when I get back to the land of the free and the home of the 21 year drinking age and buy my first legal drink (Someone has suggested that I take advantage of my four hour layover in Chicago O’Hare).
This morning I went shopping to the silk market with Lisha, making a couple of last minute purchases and having an odd sense of Déjà vu, pointing out the same messenger bag I bought there two and a half years ago, and the area where I bought the coat I was wearing. Tonight at 8:00 I will get on the night train to Shanghai (I treated myself to a soft sleeper bunk), and tomorrow I will meet up with Lifang who is working in Shanghai and Xueqin who is coming in from Hangzhou. Originally I planned to go to Qingdao and Xi’an before returning to Shanghai, but I’m tired and I’ve seen quite a lot of China, and the appeal just isn’t as great when I’d really like to go home. So on Sunday evening I will fly back to the states. My last 50 or so hours in China start now.
Friday, January 11, 2008
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Beijing
On our list for Beijing were trips to the Pearl Market, Great Wall, and the Forbidden City. Though the Pearl Market was overwhelming, I was proud of my bargaining skills in getting a watch for my sister as well as some souvenirs, before we headed upstairs to the Pearl stalls, where we found a vendor we liked and tried to make a dent in their inventory. The pearls are largely lined on strings, displayed according to size, shape, color and quality. You choose a strand and a clasp, and watch as they restring the beads, tying small knots between each one. It was an interesting process, and I came away with a nice string of saltwater pearls and matching earrings.
I was a bit nervous about arranging transportation to the Great Wall: I knew I didn’t want a package tour that would include lunch in a greasy, warehouse type tourist restaurant plus unwanted shopping stops, and public transportation seemed a bit too inconvenient. The buses that ran from the central tour station were stripped of the extras but didn’t leave until late. Ultimately, I organized with a cab driver to meet us at our hotel and take us to the section of the wall at Mutianyu, less crowded than the slightly closer Badaling. As it turned out, we were among the first to arrive in the morning, and had a pleasant, quiet stroll along the wall, taking the requisite pictures of the distant towers and mountain ridges.
Unfortunately, the main buildings of the Forbidden City were under renovation in anticipation of the Olympics, but we were still able to tour through and get a sense of how it might have been as an Imperial Palace. After walking from South to North through the palace, we went out the back and into the hutong area behind (small old-style alleys with low-roofed gray houses and courtyards) to get a feel for old China, and found an area crowded with older people doing their shopping. There were huge lines of people outside two bakeries buying bags and bags of those crunchy fried noodles that are sometimes served with a meal at a Chinese Restaurant in the states, so we figured they must be especially good and bought half a bag of them. For dinner we had our requisite Beijing Duck, served with a good deal of pomp at a duck restaurant near our hotel.
One problem with Beijing is that it is very hard to get a cab to go where you want. It is a big city, street names change often and lots of businesses are in small back alleys. On a search for a Xinjiang Muslim restaurant, we got out of the cab and then proceeded to ask directions of at least 5 or 6 people before we found the right one. I’ve resorted to calling the place I want to go and letting the driver talk to them, but I still often end up driving around aimlessly for a while.
Tuesday afternoon I put my mom and sister in a cab to the airport, and later that day I went to a tiny college in the West part of town where some of my classmates are now studying, preparing for the spring term in Hangzhou. It was great to see them again, though I changed my mind about staying with Shushan in the dorm, opting to have my own place, and caught a cab to a centrally located hostel. I’m going back tonight, in theory, to participate in a cooking workshop.
Please keep looking for blog updates, and stay tuned for the possible launch of a new blog when I return to Middlebury.
I was a bit nervous about arranging transportation to the Great Wall: I knew I didn’t want a package tour that would include lunch in a greasy, warehouse type tourist restaurant plus unwanted shopping stops, and public transportation seemed a bit too inconvenient. The buses that ran from the central tour station were stripped of the extras but didn’t leave until late. Ultimately, I organized with a cab driver to meet us at our hotel and take us to the section of the wall at Mutianyu, less crowded than the slightly closer Badaling. As it turned out, we were among the first to arrive in the morning, and had a pleasant, quiet stroll along the wall, taking the requisite pictures of the distant towers and mountain ridges.
Unfortunately, the main buildings of the Forbidden City were under renovation in anticipation of the Olympics, but we were still able to tour through and get a sense of how it might have been as an Imperial Palace. After walking from South to North through the palace, we went out the back and into the hutong area behind (small old-style alleys with low-roofed gray houses and courtyards) to get a feel for old China, and found an area crowded with older people doing their shopping. There were huge lines of people outside two bakeries buying bags and bags of those crunchy fried noodles that are sometimes served with a meal at a Chinese Restaurant in the states, so we figured they must be especially good and bought half a bag of them. For dinner we had our requisite Beijing Duck, served with a good deal of pomp at a duck restaurant near our hotel.
One problem with Beijing is that it is very hard to get a cab to go where you want. It is a big city, street names change often and lots of businesses are in small back alleys. On a search for a Xinjiang Muslim restaurant, we got out of the cab and then proceeded to ask directions of at least 5 or 6 people before we found the right one. I’ve resorted to calling the place I want to go and letting the driver talk to them, but I still often end up driving around aimlessly for a while.
Tuesday afternoon I put my mom and sister in a cab to the airport, and later that day I went to a tiny college in the West part of town where some of my classmates are now studying, preparing for the spring term in Hangzhou. It was great to see them again, though I changed my mind about staying with Shushan in the dorm, opting to have my own place, and caught a cab to a centrally located hostel. I’m going back tonight, in theory, to participate in a cooking workshop.
Please keep looking for blog updates, and stay tuned for the possible launch of a new blog when I return to Middlebury.
Kunming
After two days in Dali and a five hour bus trip, we found ourselves in Kunming and in the care of a new guide, “Jonathan”. Kunming is just like any other big Chinese city, except without the scenic parks, gentrified “historic shopping streets”, quiet teahouses or vast temples that bring charm to parts of cities like Shanghai, Hangzhou, etc. We were there for two nights, finishing off our Yunnan tour before heading northeast to Beijing.
Jonathan, though eager to help out, soon proved to be annoying and, there’s no other way of saying it, too Chinese. After lunch and a tour through the loud and crowded outdoor Bird and Flower market, which in addition to Birds, Flowers and all manner of live bird food had stall after stall of worthless junk, we wanted to go back to the hotel to relax a bit, and spent about 10 minutes convincing him that no, we did not want to go have tea in his friend’s shop nearby and then get dinner, we’d just eaten and would rather go relax a bit. In any case it was nice to have him help us get from place to place, take us around a Daoist temple outside the city, go on an epic DVD shopping excursion, and get to the airport early Saturday morning. Friday afternoon we treated ourselves at the hotel “health room”; Karen and I got massages and my mom a foot reflexology treatment (it started by soaking her feet in a bucket of liquid that, to her dismay, began to coagulate into a thick gelatin). The masseuse was probably one of the funniest people I’ve met in China: during the massage she chatted to me about my study, the relative independence of American kids versus Chinese, etc. She told me a joke involving Chinese grammar nuances and an American who didn’t understand tones (it was funny, I promise), and later talked to me about stocks and finance, asking for vocabulary words like “bonds”.
Jonathan, though eager to help out, soon proved to be annoying and, there’s no other way of saying it, too Chinese. After lunch and a tour through the loud and crowded outdoor Bird and Flower market, which in addition to Birds, Flowers and all manner of live bird food had stall after stall of worthless junk, we wanted to go back to the hotel to relax a bit, and spent about 10 minutes convincing him that no, we did not want to go have tea in his friend’s shop nearby and then get dinner, we’d just eaten and would rather go relax a bit. In any case it was nice to have him help us get from place to place, take us around a Daoist temple outside the city, go on an epic DVD shopping excursion, and get to the airport early Saturday morning. Friday afternoon we treated ourselves at the hotel “health room”; Karen and I got massages and my mom a foot reflexology treatment (it started by soaking her feet in a bucket of liquid that, to her dismay, began to coagulate into a thick gelatin). The masseuse was probably one of the funniest people I’ve met in China: during the massage she chatted to me about my study, the relative independence of American kids versus Chinese, etc. She told me a joke involving Chinese grammar nuances and an American who didn’t understand tones (it was funny, I promise), and later talked to me about stocks and finance, asking for vocabulary words like “bonds”.
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
More from Yunnan
Well the day and a half trek through Tiger Leaping Gorge was beautiful and rustic, and made it quite clear that the three of us are all pitifully out of shape. We took the hike slowly, trying very hard to ignore the annoyingly persistent presence of a sherpa-for-hire towing his horse behind us, no matter how many times we asked him to leave. We were with our guide, Li, who is mercifully making navigating transportation and minority languages a non-worry for me (side: Lijiang is home to many of the Naxi minority, whose written language is, I think, the last surviving hieroglyphic language still in use). Lunch was had in the courtyard of a charming guesthouse midway up the mountain, and we slept that night in a similar guesthouse an hour’s hike down from the top (for the steepest ascent we did break down and let one of the sherpas take our bags).
New Year’s Eve we spent back in Lijiang, but were all so dead from the hike and whatnot that none of us made it to midnight. These guesthouses we are staying in are lovely and picturesque, but have no heat, so we’ve been spending many evenings bundled up reading or watching movies.
Now we are in Dali, which has an old town much like Lijiang, except that the people here are Bai minority and the side trips are different. Today we are going to a mountain temple. I’m sorry my commentary has been sparse lately, I’m just trying to paint a picture of what we’ve been up to.
New Year’s Eve we spent back in Lijiang, but were all so dead from the hike and whatnot that none of us made it to midnight. These guesthouses we are staying in are lovely and picturesque, but have no heat, so we’ve been spending many evenings bundled up reading or watching movies.
Now we are in Dali, which has an old town much like Lijiang, except that the people here are Bai minority and the side trips are different. Today we are going to a mountain temple. I’m sorry my commentary has been sparse lately, I’m just trying to paint a picture of what we’ve been up to.
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