Guilin: The Best Week of My Life- Part One

The first major stop of our Guilin trip, the 2nd trip of the fall semester and the “less academic” of our group trips, was to the Yao Village. The Yao village is nestled in a valley surrounded at every angle by miles and miles of rice patty terraces. Without a doubt this is the most beautiful place I’ve ever been to. I feel like I took thousands of pictures and not one was able to adequately capture the vastness of this place.
The Yao women were dressed in hot pink and heavily laden with silver jewelry that they also tried to hawk to us for the entirety of our two-day stay. Their hair was piled on top of their heads and wrapped in cloth. They grow it until age 18 cut it off and keep it wrapped around their heads in styles depending on their status. And though they’re small women, most under or near 5 feet they proved stronger than we’d given them credit for. Our one friend Maggie took up their offer for a RIDE for the mile-long walk from the bus to the village.
That first afternoon we were free to hike the rice terraces on our own and Carlos, Sienara, Danny, Jamel, Mike, Jerome and I set off, somewhat determined to reach the top, somewhat just aimlessly wandering. Every 3 minutes it felt like we would stop to take still more pictures.

The rice terraces themselves are as incredible as the pyramids of Egypt would be. They covered every mountain in every direction and you could squint and still not find a place free of this manmade phenomenon. These have been around and not only that, but been in use, for thousands of years. Where as the pyramids are a man made wonder of the world, they sit without purpose almost marring the clean lonely face of the Egyptian desert (not that I don't like the pyramids). On the other hand the terraces, which took an equal amount of manpower and have also existed for a thousand years, longer than America has been a country, or even a concept of a country, are still functional.


After eluding the forceful selling techniques of the Yao women, or attempting to, we boarded the busses to our next local. Contributing to the fact that this was our “fun trip” instead of our educational trip instead of the many museums and tours we did on the Silk Road we here got to visit a luxurious hot springs and spa in LOCAL. Probably the nicest hotel I’ve ever been in. The hot springs were nice too; some pools so hot that I was sure if I even stuck a toe in it would sizzle and fall off.

Yangshuo was our next location and quite a drive away. On our way to Yangshuo we stopped to have lunch in a random little town to have lunch. This town was centered around some random statue, but we only had about 2 hours there and we were focused on food. To this day I think my meal in this town was one of the best I have had in my entire life. It was also somewhat traumatizing because all over the market place were dead dogs, roasted and set on tables to be sold and devoured. I let Carlos guide me with my eyes close to our chosen “restaurant,” not so much a restaurant as an outdoor patio and one man with a frying pan and a shelf of vegetables and meats. I picked out some veggies and a hunk a beef and about 15 minutes later a little fuwuyuan brought me a ridiculously delicious impromptu stir-fry. My companions didn’t like theirs quite as much, maybe it was my flat top experience that helped me create the best concoction.

Sorry for the delay.

I promise a Guilin post will come eventually, I've been working on it.
We're acutally about to leave for Yunan, so I will owe you a lot of posts when i get back.

I promise there will be pictures too!

Love you all, dear readers.

Where the Great Wall Meets the Ocean

So I think it’s possible that China caught on to blogger.com because I can open this window to write a post, but I cannot view my blog, or any other blogs hosted by blogger. It’s quite annoying. I guess I’ll just keep writing though and see what happens.

The weekend of October 21 TBC offered the chance to go see another part of the Great Wall. About 30-40 students signed up and we left on Saturday morning the DATE, at 6 am. We took a 4 hour train to Qinghuangdao and arrived around 10 or 11. Immediately after we got off the train we loaded a bus, as usual, and went to the Great Wall.
Knowing we had two hours and not being in so much of a rush, we took our time getting anywhere. Every 3 or so feet someone would stop to take a picture of something and in this manner we made our way along the wall. The surrounding area was beautiful and peaceful and the trees were showing their colors in a way remeniscent of New England, though maybe not as extreme.




After walking for a bit we came to an area where we had to climb over the wall to a point where a sign encouraged us to go back. Needless to say, we didn’t. This part of the wall was not finished and had no sides to it, so we climbed carefully over the rubble. After sneaking under another fence we came upon an area where you could see a peaceful hidden lake in the distance as well as a flock of sheep and their shepherd.




Along our walk we met a number of Chinese people, most whom wanted to have their pictures taken with us, don’t worry we’re definitely used to that by now. And then to keep with the spirit I started talking to a girl whose sweater read, “Donna” very clearly.
“Nide chenshen shui wo mama de mingzi,”
She laughed. She also said I had very good Chinese, “Nali Nali”

Anyhoo. We were the last to get back to the bus, and we had run down the loads of stairs, (I swear, China is ALL stairs.) so our legs were kinda killing, and plus we hadn’t eaten yet. Point being we were a little crabby upon our arrival at the next spot, the place where the Great Wall meets the Pacific Ocean.
We ate right away at an over-priced place with terrible food. It was pretty miserable, but our location made up for it.

This spot was beautiful, and it was nice to be at the beach again, although I didn’t go in this time, it was a little chilly. Carlos and I spent a good 40 minutes searching for shells though, or rather, searching through the shells for the good ones, and for sea glass and the like. We found a little crab too.
By this time it’s like 4 or 5 o’clock, we’re all exhausted, and just want to sleep, so once we get to our hotel we all pretty much just shower and pass out. It was a little uncomfortable though when we realized that this hotel didn’t provide towels in the bathrooms. Fortunately bed sheets can work as towels…
That night was unbelievably eventful, we had a big group dinner, by chance though, and then walked home in the rain. There's really so much more to it than that though. First we set off, the 5 of us pictured above, Mike, Carlos, Sienara, Liz and I, to go find a fanguan(r) (restaurant) and it seemed a bit like we were wandering through a ghost town-- though a beach-ghost-town. We decided to stop in a small grocery store and ask where a good place to eat was. Somehow they ended up giving us much more than a reccomendation... we ended up in an unmarked white van, all sitting together in the back. Except we were only able to get in after the boys helped push it up a hill out of the parking lot, it was interesting.

When we made it to the suggested fanguar, surprise surprise around 15 other TBC kids were already there! It was a really fun night and I got to know a lot of the kids that I don't usually hang out with much, a lot more.

The next morning we slept in, then got some jautzi for brunch, and also gloves, and then hopped the train back to Beijing. It was a quick trip, but an unbelievable amount of fun.

Much Awaited Friends Inventory

Lisa:
Lisa is my roommate and is from Manilla, and goes to Ateno Manilla. She is very clean and I feel bad that I am not as so, but she is too amazing and nice to care. She is a business major and has a fancy internship doing marketing for a hospital so twice a week she leaves all dressed up while I like roll out of bed into class.

Sienara:

Sienara is from Indonesia but goes to Loyola New Orleans. She is no doubt my closest girlfriend here. Also we joke that her father is the Sultan of Indonesia, making her princess and heir to the throne. She lives on my floor.





Michael:
Michael is from Cali near San Fransisco and goes to Santa Clara University. He and I are very good friends, he likes martial arts and to piss me off. Very frequently I want to kill him. He lives directly under me so sometimes Lisa and I jump up and down just to bug him, no just kidding.





Danny:
Danny lives down the hall, and loves plants. He is from West Virginia and goes to school in West Virginia. He plays the guitar, and sometimes comes in and sings Lisa and I to sleep.






JT:
JT and Danny are roommates. Like I said they love plants, and are really good together. Which is interesting because they are nothing a like. JT is from Massechusets, and goes to Fairfield Conneticut. He wears polo shirts and plaid shorts and likes all the same music and movies as me. At first our similar interests were almost creepy, but we’ve gotten used to it. Also he loves Arrested, and wakes me up every morning, just about. Lisa and I don’t lock our door at night.


Jon:
Jon lives on the 4th floor. He and Danny were roommates on the silk road. He is from Boston and goes to school in California. He does a wicked Boston accent. He wants to be a sports journalist and talks sports and plays basketball almost as frequently as he breathes.





Jerome:
Jerome lives next door to Mike, and is like a cuddly bear. He is from Cincinnati and goes to BC. His room always smells like inscence and he watches a lot of Seinfeld and Aqua Teen.







Jamel:
Jamel and Mike were inseperable on the Silk Road, but now Jerome and Jamel have become a twosome we like to call, Jarrel. Jamel is from DC and goes to BC also. He has a twin sister and is a pretty good cartoonist. He also is really good and practiced in Kapewara, the African Dance fighting, and it is awesome.


Kev:
Kev was a late addition to my friends list because he spent the first few weeks in China after the silk road (he was on group A) in a hospital in Hong Kong because is ear drum exploded. We like to call him Grizzles, well, we tried but it didn’t really catch on. He is from Washington (the state) and goes to school there. He really likes the movie Captain Ron, it makes him feel how Love Actually makes me feel.


Carlos:
Carlos is also a Group A kid. He is from Maryland, and goes to school in Pennsylvania. He likes to draw with me and plays the Bass. He taught me how to play Only in Dreams on it. He’s on the third floor.



Jody:
Jody was group A also, and is also on the third floor. She is from St Louis, and goes to SLU. Technically she is a senior but because she’s staying here for a year she won’t graduate til next year. She is always energetic and happy (it scares me sometimes) and is just one of the most positive people I’ve met. We’re most likely going to be roomies next semester!

National Holiday/ First Week Off

Because Last Sunday was China’s National Holiday, (their 4th of July essentially) and last night was Mid Autumn Festival, aka Moon cake Festival, we had this past week off, and were able to do some traveling. And thanks to the beautiful amazing Donna Schwarz I had a brand spanking new camera just in time to set off and explore China. Therefore this post will have an especially large number of photos. That only adds to the story though, I think.

After a few days of confusing and unreliable planning we set off on Saturday Morning, the 31st, to Tian, with the intention of climbing Mt. Taishan.
“We” being, myself, Jon, JT, Danny and Kev. Me and the boys, I liked to call it.


We started out Saturday morning on a 7-hour train ride from Beijing to Tian with standing room only tickets (they were cheaper and our goal of this trip was to see a lot but not spend a lot.) Because we were fairly sure that standing for that long was not something we really wanted to do we opted to sit in the dining car for the entire time. This meant we had to cram 5 people into a 4-person table, with all our bags, and also that we had to order a certain amount of food. So the boys had some beers at 11 am, and we had mi fan (rice) and other things that I essentially just chose not to eat. At least we were sitting though.
We had gotten out tickets last minute through JT’s host student Nadia, and had come along with her and her boyfriend Dean, only for the first few days though.

Upon arrival in Tian we explored a little and bought some provisions for our nighttime adventure and then boarded a public bus. We would have been better off walking because of all the traffic, but eventually we made it to the base of Mt. Taishan.

We started climbing the 1550-meter tall mountain at around 8 pm. Before picture:

The climb wasn’t too bad to start out with, but only got worse as we went a long. Every time I thought we were getting to the top it turned out that wasn’t it, it was that teeny dot in the distance, or it was a point I couldn’t even see yet. It didn’t help that everyone climbing around us were carrying little day bags or purses and we had huge ass backpacking backpacks. For the last however long distance I broke out the ipod and some Mike Doughty to encourage me to get up there. When we finally did make it I still didn’t believe that it was true.

We finished the 6660 stairs around 4 hours later. At the top!:


I was dead tired, and whiny, and just ready to pass out. It was a group consensus though, so we set up our tents on a cement platform and headed off to bed, though not before donning warmer clothes.

We woke up about 4 hours later and trekked up some more stairs to a few ridges and platforms to watch the infamous sunrise. Legend has it that by making it up this mountain you are guaranteed to live for 100 year. We’ll see how that works out. I ‘ll let you know.

It’s also lucky to see the sunrise because it only really shows about 50 days of the year, and seeing how ours was pretty spectacular, I’m hoping this means my luck has changed. Although armed with my brand new camera that my loving mother got to me just in time, I would say it has. Here's Kev, Jon, and myself, bundled up for the chilly morning. We rented these coats to sleep in the night before.


The next three hours basically didn’t allow my camera to leave my hand. Because we had climbed up in the dark cover of night, there hadn’t been many scenery pictures taken, and it proved to be more breath-taking than even expected.




Also, as there was a monestary on top of this mountain, although Buddhist not Taoist like I had originally suspected, there were quite a few shrines on the way up. The red ribbons, and the locks both supposedly meaning good fortune, and the locks more specifically to ensure the longevity of a couple.

Now without Dean and Nadia we began our trip to Qing Dao all by our lonesomes, although I think Danny maybe had some of my luck because he got his wallet stolen on our bus ride back to the train station.

A 5 hour train ride later, this time in much more comfortable sitting tickets we arrive in Qing Dao. We search out a reasonably cheap hotel, especially for being so last minute, and find dinner. Like Taishan, it was hard to see the city’s glory that night and only after the darkness lifted the next morning did I really appreciate this city.

I love Qing Dao. A seaport city it is one of the cleanest in China, and because of that and it’s location compared to Beijing it is the sight of the sailing portion of the 2008 summer Olympics. It was founded by the German Kaiser Wilhelm II and because of its European occupation boasts a large amount of very beautiful, and very western architecture. Many times I had to remind myself we were even in China.

We essentially just wandered the city for the next 4 days. After that first night in a hotel (we were desperate for a good nights sleep and a shower after the strenuous day/night we had had) we spent 2 nights camping on the shorefront. In Lushon Park. Lushon Park you have to pay 5 RMB to get into during the day, but at night you can just walk in. They’ve pretty much managed to make you pay for everything in China, including going to the bathroom. (1 RMB)


On the first day we split up (unintentionally, but it worked out) and JT, Kev and I visited the Tsing Tao Brewery, located on Beer Street. We had our first bout of seafood (though first of many) and then made our way back to the shore front near our beloved park to have another meal of mussels, clams, and beef noodle. Then another tented night.


The next day we woke up around 6 am and made our way to the other side of the peninsula to take us to Huan Dao, the island just a 30 minute ferry ride away that has the best beaches of the area. We did finally make it to the beach around noon (it proved very difficult to find the ferry, especially with Chinese people pointing us in many opposing directions) and spent the rest of the afternoon, into the evening there. We had to stop a few times to check the book and the map.

That night we met up with Mike, Jody, Jamel, and Jerome, they had done the same trip, Taishan to Qing Dao, but left two days later in order to spend the National Holiday in Beijing. We had a really good meal with them, a seemingly endless amount of food for so little of a price. Then we went back to our comfy tents and they to their hotel.

The next morning, our last full day we dropped off our bags in the inn we were staying that night and then went off to explore the city.

The inn. First let me tell you about our inn. JT, Kev and I discovered it in our wanderings the first day. It looked like a little antique shop, but turned out to be that and oh, so much more. This is Peter: he is the owner, and also lives there with his wife Helen. He took an endless number of pictures of us to add to the slideshow of foreigners he had going to show all who had graced his humble abode with their presence.
We were definitely lucky to find him.

For 40 RMB for the night we lived in these quaint little rooms, in which the boys couldn’t really even stand up in.

We really just explored the city for the rest of the day, went to a few more beaches, saw both a protestant and catholic church, Danny and I explored a castle, and on the beach found a bride festival or something… but that night Helen took us out to dinner. Peter had offered to cook us a dinner of endless seafood but we got back kind of late and opted to go out on the town. It proved to be a good decision as we suddenly came upon a nightlife we didn’t know existed. (I’m hoping there are hidden places like this in Beijing that we just need to find.)


Between the 5 of us, Helen, and another tenant, and their good friend Rose, we ate over 250 kabobs. There were liver kabobs, tendons, kidneys, full shrimps, chicken hearts, cloves of garlic, basically anything you could imagine. (Except pork, Jon can't eat pork.)

Then we cabbed it back to our favorite Qing Dao accommodations and had some guitar before we hit the hay, to wake up early that morning and board our final train back to Beijing. It was a sitter also, and besides JT being sick for about 6 of the 10 hours, it wasn’t too bad at all.