China (Summer 2004)

Imagine walking down a wide tree lined boulevard on your way to KFC or McDonald's when you see a bookstore and a Starbucks and decide to stop in for a quick coffee. This could happen anywhere eh?..including a day out in communist China it seems. Not quite what I expected, but surprisingly nice. The whole trip was a similar experience.

Went this time with only one friend, Nathan. We ended up flying in to and out of Shanghai. Of course there were other cities we wanted to see in the 3 weeks, so there was a lot of traveling involved. Our basic journey was Shanghai to Xian (middle China), north to Beijing, and then back down to Shanghai. The plan was to also stop at a lot of smaller cities along the way.

Shanghai was nice but we didn't stick around long since we knew we were coming back. Some of the highlights were an acrobatics show, going to the new aquarium, and walking the waterfront and getting lost in Frenchtown. We also stuffed our faces at local noodle shops and an all you can eat Brazilian BBQ restaurant. I couldn't believe the amount of capitalism in China. It seems everyone is out to make buck and no matter where we went we were flooded with people selling all kinds of things. Plus, the constant sight of McDonald's, Starbucks, and KFC was a bit frightening. China's not the drab, poor country I had pictured. There's something really appealing to the chaos and color everywhere. Plus the people were really friendly. I can't even count the times when strangers came out of nowhere to talk (in English). At first I thought the worst (scams, muggers, etc) but soon realized these people just want talk. They're very curious and eager to practice English. Quite a change from Japan. Then again, at times it was a bit too much. The stares we got were relentless. It was as if they had never seen a foreign face in their lives. Pretty weird.

Next stop was Suzhou which is famous for its gardens and canals. It's also bike friendly and has separate lanes (thank god 'cause the driving is insane to say the least- everyman for himself) so we rented bikes and spent the day riding around the city. Stopped at some gardens, bridges, pagodas and finally the Grand Canal which I believe is the biggest in the world. My favorite reoccuring theme was the circular doorways at a lot of the gardens and temples.

Next we headed for Zouzhong which is a smaller city near Suzhou. We actually arrived pretty late and were convinced by a local bike taxi to hire his services. His mistake 'cause with our bags and his lack of gears we thought he was going to pass out from the effort. We even had to get out and walk when we got to a hill. How embarassing. Never again will I be so humiliated. Luckily we found a nice lady that had rooms and then walked the city center at night. This was probably my favorite place. It's what I imagine Venice is like. There were canals everywhere with high, round bridges and small boats transporting people around. I guess it's a day-trip kind of place 'cause we were the only foreigners at night. Really amazing. Not so amazing the next day though when the buses arrive and the place is swamped with tourists.

From there we had a long overnight train ride to Xian. We stayed near the old city wall which was cool but the city itself was kind of drab. We spend most of the time in the city center near the Muslim quarter. Lots of character here and the old mosque was impressive. Nearby we wandered the streets and market and found lots of delicious food (kebabs, dried fruits, bread, sweets). The plaza is the main hangout and it was fun to just sit and watch the kites and people. We met several locals that came over to chat. There was also a live band every night playing some cheesy Chinese rock. Of course we really came to Xian to see the nearby terracotta warriors. The whole place was impressive. The main building is an indoor airplane hanger and the statues are amazing. We also wandered around the other excavations and watched the 360 degree movie which was interesting. I had heard that no pictures were allowed so was happy to find that this wasn't true. It was impossible to capture the whole size though. What's really amazing is that what was excavated was only a fraction of what's still underground. Pretty crazy.

Next we went to Luoyang. Not a great city but nearby is the Dragon Gate Grottos. I had no idea how impressive they would be. Basically there's this cliff next to a river. For about 1km there are hundreds of small caves cut out of the cliff. Inside are thousands and thousands of carved Buddhas. Some are an inch high, some are 50 feet high. And on the other side of the river are more caves and a nice temple.

From here we went to Shaolin. This is basically the world center of Kung Fu. There are many schools and the city is full of students from the age of 5 and up. We were staying at a hotel next to one of the schools so got to see (and hear) a lot of their training. We also visited the famous temple and went hiking one afternoon to the top of a local mountain. Pretty amazing views from the top. It was here that we also had our worst meal in China. We were starving and there aren’t really restaurants here. We saw some others eating at a local shop so decide to stop there. Knowing no Chinese we pointed to what they were eating and sat down. We should have realized something was bad when the people at the other table pointed to their food and made faces. But, we were starving. What ended up in front of us was a weird mix of homemade noodles?, vegies (rotten?), and something that looked like stomach lining. It looked and tasted like garbage. We figured we could wash it down with a cold beer. The beer was cold but green? Apparently it was made from cucumbers as proudly shown on the label. Disgusting.

Next we went to Kaifeng. We had read great things about this city in the guidebook. No high-rises allowed so we though it would be old style. It wasn't, but then again it was a nice change to big city China. We saw the sights and the market. The strangest thing was going to the park and pagoda, stepping out of the taxi, and looking up to see small girl walking a tightrope behind a bicycle. Why I don't know, but it sure made an interesting picture.

From here we had a terrible 8 hour train ride to Beijing. We got on the train only to find it completely packed with people. We ended up standing and sitting in a small area or the smoking room. We also learned that several years ago this journey was even worse...I can't imagine.

Beijing was nice. It seemed very clean and almost deserted compared with the chaos of all the other cities. We spent the first day at the Temple of Heaven and the night at the hostel watching Japan beat China in the Asian Cup finals. Apparently there were riots that night in Beijing as a result but we didn't hear or see a thing. The next day we visited the Great Wall at Simatai. Amazing. We had about 3 hours to spend at the wall and only saw the smallest fraction of it. You could just stand there and see it winding out into the distance. Spent the night watching the not-so-impressive Spiderman 2. Next day was a trip to the Forbidden City (did you know there is a Starbucks inside!?) and then Tiananmen Square. Wanted to check out the Mao mausoleum but it was closed. Next, we went to the Summer Palace which was really nice. It's basically a palace and some temples surrounding a giant man-made lake. There were boats everywhere and I considered joining the madness to play a little bumper cars...er, boats. On the last day we saw the Lama temple which has the biggest standing Buddha that you can imagine. You walk into the temple and look and just see these giant eyes staring down at you. It's all carved from single piece of sandalwood and is in the Guiness Book of records. Pretty crazy. Afterwards I went and explored the backstreets of Beijing which have been around for centuries. Lots of character.

Finally, we head back to Shanghai. Spend the last two days basically going crazy at the markets. There were touts everywhere wanting to sell you watches, dvd's, cd's, shoes, clothes, etc. We went a bit crazy and bought a ton of dvd's. At least I'll be able to catch up on all those movies I've missed:)

The flight home was a story too. When we took off it seemed like we were almost vertical. As we passed through the clouds, all this fog(?) starting pouring through the ceiling vents all down the plane. It looked like the clouds were literally pouring into the ceiling. Luckily it all evaporated quickly but who knows what that was all about? Strange end to a great trip.