Kunming: Farewell to the Homeland

First off, I'll have to apologise for the lack of photos -- we weren't planning to stop in at this point and I don't have the stuff with me. I'll try to fill them in later if possible...

We left Chengdu on our final overnight train in China with a bit of trepidation. Although everyone always complains about overnight trains, we all kind of agreed that it was a bit fun. It's kind of like a slumber party from grade 6 except a lot of strangers show up and hork a lot over the conversation and giggling.

Our tour leader had been in a bit of pain since the desert and it turns out he got some kind of spider bite or something that had since become infected and swollen. It started to open up on the train and that was enough to keep most of us occupied for the trip. It was pretty gross -- perhaps the grossest open wound I've ever witnessed. To make things look worse, he'd gone for a Chinese massage treatment prior to the train ride that uses vacuum cups to get the blood flowing (similar to those Jewish ones I've heard abot from the old country.) The ladies tended to his wounds, while the boys mostly watched and drank (and in my case, ate.) Most people brought along western food picked up at the Carrefour (a pretty Chinese and westernish grocery store) but Yen and I went light and planned to eat on the train. They have carts that go by every so often with hot Chinese food -- usually rice and four or five things that they pile up on top. Delicious. There's also a dining car, so we did one of each. Of course, the ride also included the standard UNO tourney, where victory was held strictly by the Canadian contingent, and also the 5 yuan bag of juggling oranges. The scenery from the train was also breathtaking as we travelled though the mountains and hills to the south of China to Kunming.

Our arrival in Kunming basically marked the end of our organised activities. We got to our hotel in the morning and had until the following day at 12:30pm before heading to the airport. We dropped our bags and hit the streets to check out the sites. We walked up to the pedestrian area which was mostly overpriced trendy brand name shopping. A few streets over was a really good little foody street with stalls of BBQs, noodles, and other such excitement. Yen and I were trying to hold out for the local specialty, called "Across the Bridge Noodles", but couldn't pass up a few gizzard and lamb skewers. We ended up getting 6 of them and heading to the park to eat them. They were fantastic! Probably because when they were being made, the woman was consta-spicing them alternately with chili powder and some green spices (narrowing it down to everything but chili.) MMMMMmmmmmmmmmmm....

Perhaps partly due to the fantastic appetiser, the across the bridge noodles were a bit disappointing, though they were an interesting experience. When we sat down, we were confronted with a choice of 5 different versions of across the bridge noodles, varying by price. We took this to mean size and Yen got the 10 yuan version; I went for the 20 yuan bowl. While we were waiting, we notice a man sitting behind Yen with a massive bowl of noodles -- bigger than his head! We thought it was hysterical and discretely took a picture of him. Then our bowls came out. Same size -- both of them! The bowls were both filled to the same level with tasty broth. Then the big trays of stuff came out. The difference between the bowls is just the amount of stuff that goes in. Quail egg, different meats and seafood and a variety of veggies. It wasn't the most unusual or exciting thing to eat, but they way the waiter brings out the stuff and adds it all to the bowl made this soup a bit different. In any case, it filled us up something large.

After our noodles, we browsed around a bit and checked out some of the little Chinese shops before heading back to the hotel for a bit of rest before dinner. Our group had agreed to meet up for our last supper before going our separate ways in the morning. We met up and our tour leader took us to an old stone house, once dined at by important Chinese people I can't remember at the moment (oh yeah -- Chiang Kai Shek). Tastiness ensued.

After dinner we hit a funky bar in the "hump" section of town where all the young people hang out and where all the bars are. We basically drank a lot and in return for a barstool chin balancing and lime juggling act, I got some free (and not so tasty) red wine, China style. Despite the taste, it did it's job and all of us were enjoying the evening. Even Yen was right in there with her first official double sized Chinese beer with no assistance. A few tequila shots later and we were chatting with the locals. One of them even came from the same province as Yen's forefathers and they were chatting up a storm. Fun all around. Until that woman started losing control, puked all over her booth in the restaurant and needed the assistance of two men to get her to the door.

We thought we'd move on at that point as well and ended up in a dance club nearby. It was pretty low key and not too crowded and the house dancers took the opportunity to train up the newbie guys on the pole moves. That was indeed entertaining. After a short while we headed back to the hotel to detox for the night and stumbled across that same drunken lady passed out on the pavement. She'll certainly feel that one in the morning.

In the morning we said our goodbyes to both our tour group and leader and also to the motherland. We had very mixed feelings while heading to the airport in the shuttle. We had an amazing time in China and there was still so much we hadn't seen. Next time.

Real Yak, Pandas, and Lamb; Fake Everything Else

Yak: delicious.

For dinner after the cooking school feasting, we hit a Tibetan restaurant. This is where we learned that yak is much more than just the word of choice for the letter Y on elementary alphabet charts. We shared three big dishes and a bunch of sides. The first was some kind of stir fried (?) yak. Delicious, even on a full stomach. The next two were very similar: big roasting pots filled with potatoes, a few veggies and meat. One was yak and the other lamb. Obviously, it was the best yak I've ever had. Not quite so obvious was that the lamb ranked right up there with the best in my limited but reasonable lamb eating experience. It was so tasty! To follow the meal, we all shared a "yak butter tea", which turned out to be nobodys particular favourite. It really is just that I think. Milk tea with yak butter in it. It tasted mostly like drinking really rich butter. Not the most terrible thing in the world but certainly not something to crave or even tolerate when stomach space is at a premium.

After the yak we hit the little pedestrian street, which certainly didn't compare to the markets we'd seen in other cities, but was kind of quaint. It was actually rebuilt recently which is why it wasn't as special -- more amusement parkish than night markety. They even had a little crossbow booth and all. Anyhow, we did find some interesting street vendors with some new foods and desserts to try. There was one that looked kind of like cupcakes. You get a corn one and I assume the other was rice with a bit of sugar and stuff on top served on a banana leaf. A bit dry, but when they were being steamed, the vendors played percussion things to them. God only knows how the sound waves affected the cooking. In any case, it made me feel special enough to not complain about their lack of flavour. Wouldn't go back though since I can just watch other peoples' orders being played to.

After dessert we hit the sack so we could wake up early the next morning for the bus to see the Panda's at what I think might be the biggest research complex. The morning was alright, we woke up earlier than necessary so we could get some breakfast before catching the bus. I had a fried egg sandwich which wasn't bad, but it did some instant work on my stomach causing me to rush back to my room instead of the bus. I caused a scene when the bus had to start honking because I was late. I only held up the group by 4 minutes though it kind of seems like an eternity though when sitting on the toilet with a honking bus waking up the entire hostel complex.

The pandas were incredible. It was a cool place where not only can you get really close to the pandas who happen to be really freakin cute, but you can also learn a bit about them. Everyone knows they're endangered but now we know why. They've evolved into what seems to be the worst adapted animal in the universe. Seems like Darwin had some grand master plan for getting rid of them and we've gone and screwed it all up. In any case they're remarkably fun to watch. I kind of want to be one. They find a nice comfortable place, lie on their backs, cover themselves with food (bamboo) and then eat themselves out. When they're not doing that they're performing a similar progression that ends up in sleep instead of consumption. And because of their status as "national treasure", it seems that the more they keep up this routine, the more they're loved for doing it. I've already sent in my application to be a national treasure here -- I'll keep you posted. Oh, they also had some "red pandas" that looked more like raccoons than pandas. Still cool though.

After the pandas we were ripe and ready for another good meal. The bus dropped us off at a Buddist monestary (can't remember the name just now) with a little restaurant that's now open to the public. We sat down and the food started coming. There was an obscene number of dishes and they just kept coming. There were sausages, shrimp, assorted seafood, chickeny dishes and tonnes of other stuff... all fake! Not fake food, but fake meat. It was all vegetarian and all delicious. Some of it didn't necessarily taste exactly like its dead animal counterpart but was delicious none the less. We were so full after that!

We walked around the temple grounds after lunch and it was quite a big complex. Gorgeous gardens with pathways and ponds. The ponds were filled with turtles and large frogs too! There wasn't a square meter of water that didn't have at least one turtle. They were fun to watch compete for high spots on rocks for some sun.

After that Yen and I walk a heck of a big walk back to the hostel to clean ourselves up for a "culture show." We didn't get to see any shows in Beijing and the one in Chengdu was appparently a good variety of short snippets of different Chinese cultural elements. There was a lot of what I think was filler, with fancy costumes walking/"dancing" dramatically around the stage. Nice costumes I guess, but nothing you can't get on CCTV (Chinese cable.) Then there was guy playing a one stringed Chinese instrument that you can sometimes see being played in the Toronto subways. I actually really enjoyed that one. There was a foot balancer who was really good. There was also a clownish routine that was funny only because of the subtitles scrolling across the side of the stage, a shadow puppet artist, some other stange puppetteer and the grand finale was the famous changing of the masks. This is where there are some interestingly costumed people whose masks change so fast you can't see it. It's kind of a hard thing to explain but cool.

Unfortunately, couldn't find a restaurant open in the neighbourhood after the show so hit the local "east meets west" pub with the gang and had a pizza :-(. It was good, but just a bit out of place. Anyway, we had a good night with a few drinks and snacks.

We got up in time for a great breakfast of wonton soup, dumplings and yoghurt, fruit and muesli. I had to get a second bowl of yoghurt because I forgot to take a picture of it before inhaling the first one. So tasty! Then it was off to the train station for our final overnight train in China to Kunming.

The train station had a few enjoyable sites (see below -- hopefully you'll be able to read the signs)

We're actually about to leave Kunming as I'm writing this, so I'll have to add Kunming from Thailand! Our flight to Bangkok leaves in 3 hours!

Later!

Chengdu: Day One

After arriving in Chengdu, we made it to the hostel really early. Too early, in fact. It was like 5:30am or something horrendous like that. Most people went back to bed, but Yen and I showered and did some laundry. Nice.

We had a nice Chinese breaky at the hostel (fried rice with egg and tomato and wonton soup) and then met up with the group for our quick orientation to Chengdu. We hit the streets and found out where to find the necessities.

We then went to a big park, finding tables and tables and tables of mahjong players. It was cool. Then we went to Dufu's place. Dufu is the Shakespeare of China. A grand poet who I'm assuming is much better than the shrine they've created in his absence.

To make up for our morning disappointment, we came back to the hostel and took a Sichuan cooking course! It was awesome! Yen and I and three others from the group were in the class, which took place in the hostel kitchen. We learned how to make 5 dishes, each one was enough for a full meal and had to eat all of them! Here's the menu:

• Sweet and sour pork tenderloin
• Kung Pao chicken
• crispy rice in vegetable sauce
• vegetarian fish flavoured eggplant
• vegetable salad

TASTY!

Oh, I forgot to mention that here at the hostel is the cutest kitten! It's probably less than a month old and the hostel picked it up off the street a few days ago. Some backpackers took it to the vet and his ailments are starting to clear up nicely. It's name is Shao-Shao (small-small). CUTE!

Now here we are recovering from the mid afternoon feast because shortly, we're meeting the group to head to a tibetan restaurant for dinner! I'm going to eat so much Yak! Tasty.

Welcome to Xi'an

You'll be happy to know our onion lady was back by the time we were done on the internet last time. YESSS!!!

After having 2 green onion and tofu pancakes each, we met up with our group back at the hotel to head to the night market for dinner. We managed to catch a guy shredding noodles off a big block and watched people make dumplings and pull noodles. We opted for the dumps and nudes for dinner. Then after dinner, we played pool in the market -- they have a whole bunch of pool tables just sitting outside and it's 1 yuan per game (about 15 cents Canadian.) We sat in the town square for a while before heading back to pick up our bags and head to the train for Xi'an.

This train wasn't quite as comfortable as the first. It was an older train and didn't really have enclosed rooms like the first one. Still 6 per section though. This train ride wasn't quite so long and since we started at about 11pm and arrived at about 9am, it didn't seems so bad since we were all really tired anyway. I tried out a new technique though for my width problem and my arm always falling off... It worked out pretty well ;-)

Xi'an, at one point, was the largest city in the world. I don't remember when and I don't remember how big it is now. Google it. It's a cultural center and has a lot of chinese art related tidbits for sale. It's also got a big Muslim population with all its corresponding deliciousness! There's a big bell and drum tower in the middle of the city and four roads lead outwards: North, South, East and West Streets. This made navigation pretty easy. There's also a big wall around the city dating back to the Ming dynasty.

When we arrived, we went straight to the markety type streets to check out the culinary options. Incredible. First we tried what we thought was seafoodish stuff BBQ'd on a stick which may actually be beef tripe. In any case it was great. Then we went to a restaurant to try a dish that is supposed to be a Xi'an local favourite: mutton and bread soup. It was ok, but we had no idea what was going on and the waitress made it seem like getting 4 side dishes to go with the soup was normal. There was too much food and they were skimpy on the mutton. In the end, what we thought was going to be 30-40 Yuan ended up being 133 Yuan. Still not too bad, but considering we've rarely spent more than 10 Yuan for the two of us, it hurt a bit for something that wasn't too special. To make up for it, we had this tasty dessert from a street vendor that costs 1 Yuan each -- it was a steamed rice cake topped with raisins or other dried fruits and rolled in sugar and crushed toasted nuts. Delicious!

For dinner, our whole group went out for Muslim hot pot. What we got was a huge pot of boiling soup where one side was spicy and the other side was not. This was placed in the middle of the table and there was a large selection of different meats, vegetables, and tofu on skewers that you cook in the soup. When cooked, you take it out and dip it in a sauce. Each skewer cost 1 Mao each -- that's 1.5 cents each! In addition, we had spiced Muslim style bread, beef and lamb kebabs, and a roast lamb leg. Final damage: Eric had over 70 skewers (we lost count after that).

On the much needed walk home, we went through the park by the Bell Tower and came across some amazing jugglers juggling plastic bottles -- we figured they were flare bartenders. Eric joined them for a bit and tried to teach one of them to pass. It drew quite the crowd when the white guy was juggling.

The next morning we packed a lunch and took a one hour public bus trip to see the Terracotta Warriors. The locals can be pushy. Real pushy. There was a mad rush to get on the bus, even though there was enough seating for everybody. There were three 60 yr old plus ladies simulaneously trying to push Eric away from the bus, but he stood his ground. It was actually really funny to see. Our group hired a local tour guide named Maggie who helped get us to the Terracotta Warriors and back in one piece. She was very knowledgable and was able to answer all of our questions. In 221 BC, the leader of one of the states conquered the other warring states and unified China for the first time. He proclaimed himself to be the first emperor of the Qin Dynasty. Was he cocky? Well... when he died, he wanted all the soldiers in his army to be buried with him (alive) but settled for 7000 unique ceramic replicas of each soldier and horse instead. He had all his concubines and skilled workers buried alive with him. He had all the soil on his tomb stir fried so it nothing could grow on it. He had a model of the Yangtze River made out of mercury to surround his tomb. It took 40 years to complete his tomb. This is the emperor that the movie "Hero" was based on. Anyways, seeing the Terracotta Warriors was amazing but it was difficult to get one's head around how crazy and egocentric this Qin emperor was!

For dinner, the gang went out for Brazilian barbeque - lots of delicious meat carved by Chinese men in denim outfits and cowboy hats. Yenji opted out of the meat coma and had a crepe stuffed with eggs and garlic chives.

We walked around the square a bit to burn off dinner and came across a guy with a big wheel that you sit in and peddle like a bike. It was 5 Yuan for two circles around the square. I spent the first loop getting my bearings and the second lap trying to go faster than the guy running along beside me to make sure I don't hit anything. I was successful for the last quarter loop. That was great!

The next morning, Yen and I got up early and headed to the wall. Once on top of the city wall, we rented a tandem bike and started off to cycle around the 14km wall. It was rogh going at times but fun none the less. Yen had a bit less fun because apparently all she could see from the back of the bike was a big sweaty me back.


After the ride, we were ready for "hamburgers." There was a street vendor that had some slow cooking pork and toasting tasty mongolian circle breads. He slices the bread into a burger type bun and cuts up the pork into it. Fantastic!

Then it was back to the train station to head to Chengdu. It was only a 16 hour ride. We played some UNO and chatted and napped and by the time we woke up, we were there. Nice.

Jim and Fuzzmund

Breakfast at 7am and meet up at 8:30am for the bus out to the desert.

Breakfast at our hotel was a buffet; no China Buffet King, but certainly Zipper-worthy for breakfast. Congee, some kind of meat and veggies, soups, and for us hwaat folk, some fried eggs and toast and jam. I left the toast and jam alone, but have to admit I couldn't turn down the eggs. They also had coffee, which was a bit surprising. Perfect.

Then we layered up, as it was a cold crisp morning. I had a t-shirt, long sleeved thermal shirt, a regular long sleeved shirt, my fleece and a wind breaker on top and three layers on the bottom as well. Yen did the five layer nacho dip as well and we were so glad we did. The bus was cramped with all nine of us plus a local guide to help us translate and the driver. The bus is really just a glorified van. On the way to the desert, we stopped at a mound of dirt and found out that this mound was actually a part of the great wall from the Ming Dynasty! Apparently in this region, they were using mostly softer materials (clay) that have degraded into a very long mound of dirt -- as far as the eye can see, besides the odd break where a farmer has cleared a path for a road or barn or something. Very cool indeed.

Then we drove up to a dead-end sandy road and got out to stretch. We didn't really know why we were stretching at the time. It was just recommended and we did it. Not far behind us was a herd of camels -- a full dozen of them! The two camel farmers were great with them and had us on them relatively quickly. We formed two "caravans" or lines that were all roped together. Each camel had its nose pierced and had a wooden stake through the piercing that was tied to the camel's saddle in front of it. There was only a few feet of slack between each camel; kind of reassuring at the time, but turned out to be more scary than anything. Each caravan of six was led by one of the two farmers.

We set off into the sand. At first, the landscape hadn't changed much and I was a bit disappointed by the so called "desert" excursion. Though the camel riding was kind of adrenaline inducing at the beginning when every step is a bit precarious feeling. However, within about 20 minutes, we were totally engulfed by sand and dunes and more sand. We travelled for hours and fully left civilization behind. In all directions, it was moutainous dunes after mountainous dunes. It was more breathtaking than any desert movie could have ever prepared me for. The only movement out there was the odd lizard and some cool dung-beetles makeing intricate tracks in the sand and digging in for the evening. Un-freaking-believable.

Our guides were also quite miraculous. You never quite get an appreciation for how difficult it is to navigate sand dunes from the movies. It seems that you can just travel a straight line and get somewhere. That couldn't be farther from the truth. The dunes are massive -- each a whole mountain unto itself and so steep that it would be impossible to climb. You have to choose the route carefully so you don't get stuck in a dead end that a camel can't maneuver. One mistake could cost 30-60 minutes or more of the day.

Sometimes it's not so smooth sailing either. There are places that have pretty steep short climbs up the dunes to get to the next level of sand. Not terribly difficult for camels to do, but require a bit of leaping on occasion when the sand is very soft and causing mini landslides with each step. This is where the tethered nose ring becomes a bit scary. Although getting up the hill isn't the big problem, if one camel is up and the next one slips his nose gets a whole lot of pulling. It seemed that every step up was a close call. Then one time it happened. The first caravan had made it up the hill and I was the third camel in the second group. My camel made it up (scarily) and the two behind me as well. But the last one had a bit of a slip and started getting tugged by the face by the rest of us. Since the front one was still moving all the rest had no choice but to keep going. The last camel, being pulled so hard, didn't even have enough space to regain his footing, so ended up on it's knees on the hill, getting dragged by his face until his nose peg snapped! The camel was in a lot of pain (I assume this from the terrible noises it was making.) But they're tough and it got over it quickly. In any case it was a bit of excitement early on. They didn't re-pierce it for the time being -- they just made a rope harness for it and we were on our merry way again.

Apparently "Princess", the name that was given to the poor last camel, wasn't quite over it. A few hours later it managed to break it's harness away from the camel in front of it and start running and bucking. Her passenger couldn't hang on, and landed in the sand -- fortunately, he wasn't seriously hurt, but we were all a bit shaken up by it. Princess was having a bad day -- I guess we all do. Our guides were really good with the camels however and made sure to keep a closer eye on us all after that.

We stopped for a delicious lunch which consisted of a bag of little breads, a bag of whole cucumbers and a bag of tomatoes. They also had some weiners of sorts -- similar to hot dogs which we hungrily devoured. By shortly after 4pm, we had arrived at our first campsite. Basically it was a random valley in between some tall dunes to break the wind. It looked as though it had never been touched before. Utterly incredible. And the sand throughout was smoother and finer than any I've ever experienced. We set up our tents, gathered random dry bits of wood wherever we could find it and our guides brought out some dinner.

Later that night, we built a fire and sat around drinking massive bottles of local beer. Our guides hadn't interacted with us too much up until now, but they came to the fire and sat with us which was nice. Then they brought out the "bijo" (pronounced buy-joe I think?), which is local rice wine of sorts... 42% alcohol. They came on strong going around the circle and having a shot with each and every one of us! Then the games began. We each represented our country against the guides in rock-paper-scissors. Nobody could beat them -- and for each loss it was a shot -- high and very fast moving stakes! Then it was my turn. I won three in a row! I was getting so cocky that I even "gambei"'ed (cheers) him on the third one so he wouldn't be drinking alone. Big mistake. I lost the next three and it was down hill from there. I passed the torch to one of the aussies in the group and the games continued well into the night. Even Yen was up for the challenge and did surprisingly well for her usual non-drinking ways. When things settled a bit we started the stupid human tricks like jumping over the fire and juggling beer bottles before hitting the sack. It gets mighty cold at night. Especially when you have to get up to pee every 5 minutes. I was in bare feet, long johns and a t-shirt and ran out of the tent climbing over the dune behind our tent to find a good place. Then I realised that I was ankle deep in ice cold sand! It was a very frigid experience to say the least. However, I guess it wasn't as painful a thought as trying to get dressed in the small tent, as I did it multiple times throughout the night and never quite learned my lesson.

In the morning we had instant coffee, instant noodles and some fruit for breakfast before breaking camp and continuing into the desert. Now that we were a bit more comfortable with the camel thing, some of us even opted to go untethered. When riding solo, we hang onto the rope attached to the nose-piece and use that to stop and steer. Luckily, the camels are pretty well trained to follow the camel in front of them for the most part so it was mostly like putting it on auto-pilot. However, having something to concentrate on for the long journey made it a bit more interesting. It was fantastic actually. By doing this, you get to really know your camel's personality and what works and what doesn't and how they react to different situations. The hills, both up and down were a lot better as we began to trust our camels more as the day wore on. Instead of trepidation at the thought of each incline, I found myself looking forward to them, hoping each one was steeper than the next. I found that I could get my camel (Jim) to really step up the pace by massaging his back hump. It was quite exhilarating to be sprinting through the desert on a camel. True story. The way that the dunes work and how we had to navigate them, you end up walking along the edges of some very high sand cliffs. It was truly amazing.

By the time we set up our camp for the second night after a very long day, we were all pretty attached to our camels. We would sneak them our leftovers and go and pet them and massage behind their ears. Yen's camel, Fuzzmund, was particularly attached to her too. He'd get excited to see her coming and loved when she rubbed his head. Jim was a bit more stoic and distant, but we had a good understanding. More of a man to man respect kind of relationship, where nothing need be said, but everything was understood. Jim liked to stand up a lot. When the other camels were resting, he'd just stand there. Even the guides could really only get him to sit down long enough for me to get on and off.

The second night campsite was in a different kind of terrain -- half desert, half limey/salty pond landscape. It was much closer to civilization. Still had the heavy drinking and good times though. After dark, one of the tour company's managers was going to come out to meet us at our site, but got his van stuck in a small drift of sand that had accumulated in a nearby road. The two guides and four of our group went to help dig it out and push. With every attempt, the van just got deeper into the sand. The guides went back to camp and brought back two of the camels to lend a hand and between the eight of us (6 humans and 2 camels), the van was freed on the first try. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the latter 2 probably can probably take most of the credit. How many people can say that they cooperated with camels to rescue a van stuck in a sand drift in the Tenger desert? Indeed.

In the morning, we had a similar breakfast and played a bit of soccer in the sand until we broke camp. We packed up the camels and headed out for the 45 minute trek up the road to where we'd meet the "bus" back into town. It was a solemn 45 minutes, as we all know it was our final few moments with our new best friends. When we arrived, we all said our own goodbyes. As a special token, Jim let me rub behind his ears and even sat down when I asked him to. That was pretty special. Yen and Fuzz had a pretty tender moment as well and it was a quiet ride back to the city.

Back at the hotel, we had two rooms between the 10 of us to clean up and stuff. And boy did we need it! Sand in each and every orifice. We split up into a boys and girls room, and arranged all our packs for this evening's over night train ride to Xian. We then headed out to find the onion pancake woman again (that's all we've been thinking of since we had it before we left for the desert) but alas, she wasn't in her spot. We're hoping that after this post is complete, she'll be there (fingers crossed.) We did however, find a very nice woman selling fresh noodles in the market and had a bite to eat there (delicious!) before heading to the internet cafe to catch up.

We'll keep you posted when we can!

Train To Zhong Wei

We thought we'd wake up at 7:00am so we could check out the Forbidden City and Tienenmen Square before meeting up with the tour group at 11am to catch our train out of Beijing. The alarm went off and we woke up. After another hour or so, dead tired and quads a-burning from the Great Wall, we pulled ourselves out of bed and got ourselves ready for the road.

We didn't have enough time to really do anything, so we thought we'd grab ourselves a Starbucks (there were no Timmies in sight) and take a crispy walk down towards the square to see how far we could get before having to turn back to the hotel for our meeting. We made it to Chairman Mao's memorial building and had a chance to take a few pics, but then got nervous and headed back. Better to save a few things for our next trip to Beijing (sigh.) On the way back we passed a guy getting his haircut on the sidewalk. Fun.

We also passed a delicious looking stall of hearts and gizzards, but didn't have enough time to stop for any :-(. We grabbed our bags from the hotel and hit the metro with our group to head for the train.

We got there just in time. We headed to our gate and our train was there waiting. No lineups or anything which was a bit surprising. A good thing though, as waiting in line for a 21 hour train ride would be a bit much.

The train was a sleeper train, and in the "hard sleeper" class there are six bunks in each room, two sets of three bunks high (as opposed to the "soft sleeper" class where there are two sets of two.) There are eight of us in our group plus the tour leader. Luckily, we ended up in the room withall six from our group, as we've since heard that the three in the other room were paired up with a motley crue of snorers and random question askers at all hours of the night.

How to describe the bunks... well, the beds were exactly 1cm less wide than my body with my arms at my side and exactly my height, give or take. This means that while I could lie on my back, I couldn't do so without my pressed hard against my body with the bars cutting off the circulation to my forearms and hands. And lack of headroom there was a-plenty. I was on the third bunk and the ceiling was exactly the combined height of my elbow to the tip of my fingers plus one hand. Try lying on your bed and drawing a fake ceiling there. To be honest, it really wasn't so terrible, but it was a bit claustrophobic at first.

We found the dining car for lunch shortly after we got started. It was a bit intimidating to say the least. There weren't very many tables and they were all full. We didn't really even know how it worked or what we were supposed to do. So we turned around and walked right out. Halfway back to our car, we realised how stupid we were being and mustered up enough courage to head back and figure things out. When we arrived, we kind of suspected that you just sit with random people in their 4 seater booths if there are any seats. As luck would have it, two people were leaving as we were arriving. We sat down across from two men for what was a very awkward moment. When the waiter came over, he handed us a sheet of paper with the day's menu all in Chinese. The other two men had just ordered. I saw something that looked tasty at someone else's table and just pointed there. We gave the waiter a crapload of money and he took what he needed and walked away.

A while later, our dates' food came and they warned us that they were going to start eating first (Yen figured that out, and it was quite thoughtful of our dates). They got rice and some pork dish. Then our food came... A plate of stir fried onions and a plate of tofu. We were a bit disappointed, but hungry. It turned out to be delicious so all was well. We saw some garlic chives and a steamed fish at another table so decided to learn how to ask for that before we left to get us prepared for our next meal. We did get it for our next meal, though we believe that there was a very popular noodle special on for dinner and getting the fish and garlic chives and even the rice was a mistake. Think steamed fish. Think lunch leftovers eight hours later. The plus side is that our of sheer coincidence, our two favourite eating dates were there again and had nobody sitting with them.

Toilets. Or lack thereof. Squatters. Plugged squatters. Puddles. Mounds. Horks. Unflushable disposables. There aren't enough explatives available to describe this, so I'll stop here. Although the one cool thing is that one of them was stuck in the flush position and I could pee directly through the floor and onto the tracks. 21 hours is a long time...

We spent most of the day playing UNO, drinking and chatting. At some station stops there were food carts on the platform that we could quickly sprint to before we got moving again. One had the most delicious roti style bread. No butter or other forms of lubrication necessary.

The scenery from the train was incredible. Desert, snow, nuclear power plants, strange villages, people manually working massive farm fields, tunnels through massive hills...

The train also had a movie style soundtrack. There was a button in the hallway just outside our room that controlled the speakers for our room and the next few beside us. They broadcast nonstop Chinese music. There were Broadway hits played on synthesized Chinese instruments, Christmas carols with Chinese lyrics, Chinese pop and some nice Chinese classical music. However, despite its appropriateness, it was better when the switch was off. Unfortunately, one of the three strangers in the room next door (with the three from our group sharing) kept turning it back on. Luckily, at 10pm they shut off the lights and the music for the evening.

In the end the 21 hours actually seemed to go by quickly. We've got a few more overnight trains to go in the coming weeks and we've recently found out that they're not usually this nice. We'll see. I think this one was the longest though.

When we finally arrived in Zhongwei at 9:30 the following morning we were all pretty tired. We got to our hotel and cleaned up a bit and quickly oriented ourselves to the small town (of 500,000 people). It was immediately noticeable how different it was from Beijing. People stared but not in a judgemental way. It was more curious and they were quite happy to smile back and attempt a conversation. There was no hassle or heckling or harassment. Just genuine interest. Zhongwei isn't really a foreigner destination yet so I guess we aren't necessarily expected. In fact this is the first time our tour company has come here. I really like it. It's pretty small and easy to orient yourself in.

We checked out a Buddhist temple from 1403 that apparently has the most unique architecture of all the temples in China. Since I've got nothing to compare it to, I'll have to take their word for it. It was quite nice and very strange. There was a room full (and I mean full) of pathways surrounded by a zillion different Buddhist statues ranging from happy to sad to downright scary. The other bizarre thing was that the old bomb shelter tunnels below the temple had been converted into a cheap feeling haunted house, complete with black lights and screaming and growling sound effects. Scene after scene of strange and gory torture methods. Buddhist hell.

After the temple, we walked for a bit with the other couple in our group to find lunch. We found a noodle house which was fantastic. Yen and I had some great fresh noodles for about a buck fifty total!

After that, we started our journey by foot down to the Yellow River. We'd heard it was a 20 minute walk and had a nice old water wheel or something else cool to see. We walked for 20 minutes and ended up in a construction zone. Almost about to turn back, we found a path through the construction and found ourselves on an empty eight lane highway! We continued down the highway and eventually (like 30 minutes later!) landed on the bank of the Yellow river. There was a hut selling water and juice and a ferry that was taking its two passengers to an island that looked less than exciting.

We had some juice and watched as the two ferry passengers got off the ferry at the other side and had completed their island circumnavigation by the time the OJ was done and were boarding the ferry back. Well that was fun.

We headed back up the deserted highway towards the hotel. About halfway, we came across a herd of sheep trying to cross the highway. When they were about five lanes in, a dump truck came out of nowhere and instead of stopping, it kept on coming and honked. I guess the sheep were ok with that and they quickly recoiled back to lane 4 while the truck sped past and continued on their merry way.

All along the highway there were teams of people working the dusty dry dirt with hoes and shovels preparing for some fancy landscaping of sorts. We later saw a billboard with a drawing of what their plans are for the highway and surrounding land and it looks quite grandios. Not sure where all the people are going to come from, as this was a massive area all being developed at once. Ready for 2008. I guess we'll have to come back and see.

Just before we hit the hotel, we noticed a little side street with a bit of hustle and bustle. About halfway in, we found a woman making what looked like pancakes but they were formed by wrapping green onions and tofu in a ball of dough and flattening them in hot oil in a pan. She had two big bowls of fresh onion and tofu, one spicy and one not. She was making them to order, and flipping them, hot oil and all, with her bare hands! They were fantastic!

When we finally made back to the hotel it was nearly time for dinner. Our leader had arranged a local guy to assist in navigating the night market for dinner for anyone who was interested. Who wouldn't be interested in a market for dinner? We hit the night market with a mission. We were starving after our massive hike down to a disappointing river and this was just the place to make it all worth while! There were all kinds of booths there cooking all kinds of things over coal fires in metal drums. We eventually settled on a few fried dumplings and a noodle booth. Mostly because the guy would literally make the noodles from a ball of dough when they were ordered! They were hand-pulled noodles - he'd start with a ball of dough that that he would keep stretching and twisting until they became long, thin noodles. It was incredible.

After the night market we found a department store to see if we could find a scarf for the upcoming excursion to the desert. No luck, but did find underwear for fat men. No joke. I might have to come back here after this trip is done. Too much food, too little time.

So that's it and here we are typing away. Tomorrow morning we meet up at 8:30am to start our camel caravan out into the Mongolian desert for two nights in the sand. We bought a soccer ball in some randomly out of place sports store to take out there with us. Should be fun. Actually, now that I think of it, the soccer ball purchase was a bit funny. We looked for the cheapest ball we could find, which had a price on it of 100 Yuan (about $15 Canadian). When we asked the shopkeeper about it, he said a bunch of stuff in Chinese which turned out to be reverse bargaining of sorts. I guess we were supposed to bargain for it and since we didn't, he took it upon himself to bargain the price down to 90 Yuan. Sweet. Nice ball too. We split the cost with the Aussie couple on the trip and will probably end up donating it before we leave, but it should serve its purpose in the cold dunes.

So hopefully we'll get another chance to catch up after we get back into civilization. Hope all is well with everyone!

The Great Wall of China

Our tour guide, John, is a "temple junky" and wanted to take us to a part of the Great Wall that is less traveled and has not been restored. He wanted to avoid "The Great Mall of China" -- where you can take a cable car up to the wall and walk on brick layed in 1989. So, a small bus picked up our group bright and early on Tuesday morning for a 3 hr drive for a 10 km hike on the Great Wall from Jingshanling to Simatai.

The traffic out of Beijing was more of a slow moving parking lot, so we didn't get to the wall until after noon. There were just a handful of other tourists in addition to our group of 9. There were some farmers waiting for us near the entrance -- they act as unofficial local tour guides of sorts. They follow the tourists and help them climb the steep parts of the wall, and they also point out a 80 year old brick versus a 430 year old one, all in the hopes that you will purchase a drink or some souvenirs from them. Although their constant interference was somtimes unnecessary, they were mostly friendly. One farmer befriended Eric instantly and stuck with him -- he was very nice and tried to answer our questions and we greatly appreciated his efforts.

We were winded by the time we walked the uphill pathway just to get to the wall. Yikes -- only 10 km more to go! But when we reached the Great Wall and looked up and all around us, it was breathtaking. No other cliche could adequately describe it. Seeing the wall for the first time from the horizon was magnificant, but standing on the Great Wall and seeing how it hugs the curves of the mountains for miles and miles, it is easy to understand why it is one the the seven man-made wonders of the world, but you can't help but wonder how the Chinese managed to pull this off and what the f--- were they thinking?

The wall consists of towers connected by "straight" sections. The stretch of wall from Jingshanling to Simatai has about 33 towers. The first few sections had been rebuilt and looked like the stereotypical Great Wall postcards. However, they became increasingly less restored and soon we found ourselves walking on ruins. This is what made the experience even more amazing -- to be able to see the different stages of the wall being built across three dynasties. At this point, the wall looked nothing like the postcards. Sometimes all we had to walk on was a 2ft wide ledge. Sometimes the stairs were just a large pile of bricks in dissarray. Sometimes, there were no "sides" to the wall and you had to be careful not to get too close to the edge to a very steep and mountainous drop. If this wall were in Canada, you'd see CAUTION! signs everywhere and there would be guard rails and safety nets all around. It was strangely very refreshing to see that there was none of this at the Great Wall. Be careful and fend for yourself.

Each section of the wall was different since each had to be engineered to account for the way the mountain was shaped. Some sections required climbing or descending about one hundred 1ft deep by 2.5ft high stairs. Our quads were sore pretty fast and it was quite a work out! Ten kilometres didn't seem so daunting until we realized it required a lot of steep climbing and treacherous maneouvering. It was crazy to picture the soldiers back in the day waiting on the wall for the Mongolians to attack. Sometimes, you can see bricks of the wall with Chinese characters on them. The farmer told us that the soldiers carved their names into the bricks -- what else was there to do when waiting?

It was an absolutely wonderful experience, even though we are still sore from the climb 2 days later. It's too bad the pictures and video clips we took could never do the Great Wall of China justice.

Exploring Beijing and Eating its Duck

After a small "deposit" was made upon arrival at the Chongwenmen Hotel, Yenji stopped puking and we both ventured out into the streets of Beijing.

The first thing we noticed was that you can't go a few seconds without hearing or seeing someone hork and spit. Not good for someone with a weak stomach getting over a puking spell. Second thing we noticed was how people ignored traffic signals. Red light? Just barrel through if you think you can get away with it. Apparently, stopping for pedestrians is for suckers, even if we are crossing at a crosswalk with a pedestrian signal and the cars have a red light. In preparation for the 2008 Olympic games, Beijing is trying to enforce the rules of the road and have started employing crossing guards at some major intersections to remind people to stop at a red light (to which they get cursed out by irate drivers).

The most interesting thing we saw were the traditional hutongs (laneways). In the midst of these modern buildings, you can find a hutong where locals have lived and sold their goods for hundreds of years. Some people were selling noodles, some were making dumplings. It was like stepping back in time... if it weren't for the constant honking of horns and construction in the background. We walked past a lot of construction. It was bittersweet to see that progress has to be made at the expense of tearing down many of these hutongs.

In the evening, we were fortunate enough to meet up with Yen's cousin Pheng and her roommate. We had to pick up some food and snacks for our day trip to the Great Wall the next day, so they helped us figure stuff out at the grocery store. Thank goodness they were there! Who knew that bread can only be paid for in the bread section, and that fruit had to be bagged and weighed at the fruit section by the staff before bringing it to the checkout?

After dropping off the groceries at the hotel, we hopped on a taxi and went to a restaurant famed for its Beijing duck. Pheng ordered some fantabulous food -- sticky rice stuffed lotus root, braised chestnuts and Chinese cabbage in some delicious sauce, stir-fried pea shoots, sweet and sour pork in a taro root basket, duck hearts with lotus leaves, and last but certainly not least, Beijing duck with pancakes. Unfortunately, the duck took an hour to make and we didn't have it until last when we were already quite full. However, it was worth the wait. The duck in Beijing looks and tastes very different from what we get back home. Here, you dip the crispy skin in sugar first before consuming, and the texture is such that it almost melts in your mouth. In addition to a hoisin-like sauce, cucumber, and spring onions, they also supply other sides like radish and garlic paste. It's very good, but man it is so rich -- Yen only had one (stomach was in recovery mode), and even the high-performer Eric only had six... the Zippers know that this is shameful in comparison to what he has been known to consume.

It was great to laugh and chat with Pheng and her roommate, but we were finally kicked out the restaurant, and Pheng had to go home and study for her exam the next day while we had to pack for our trip to the Great Wall of China!

Arrival in Beijing

Nothing too exciting to report about this -- which is a great thing!

Everything went smoothly, from the rainy departure from Uijeongbu to catch the bus at 5:30am (thanks to Rachel -- yes, that's Rachel David at 5:30am!) to the flight to Beijing and the check-in at the hotel. :-)

We had to give up our bug spray for the flight though which sucks. Stoopid aerosol.

We were nervous about the cab ride too, as we've heard many shady Chinese cab stories. All was great! It was cheaper than expected and an interesting ride all in all.

We about to head out to check out the town now before hooking up with our tour group this evening. And to top it all off, we're hoping to squeeze in a visit with our cousin Pheng before the day is out!

Ok, hope to write soon, but now is when it gets tougher.

Cheers!
Eric & Yenji

Last Day In Korea

Sunday in Korea was our last full day. It was also yesterday, which is now a world away, so my memory may not serve me (and therefore you) as sufficiently as I might like. And no pics anymore for a while anyway -- no more luxury of Rachel's intermittent internet in the comfort of her own apartment.

So Rachel and I met up with her friend for an awesome lunch of Bibimbap, Kimbop (sushi rolls with lotsa stuff including processed cheddar cheese slices!!??!?!?) Tasted fantastic!

Then we went back to meet Yen at Rachel's place. Yen was diligently recovering from her illness so we could hit Seoul for a second go, hopefully more successful. And that it was. We went to the traditional tourist strip of Incedong where they have all sorts of cool Korean trinkets and musicians and even a titanium white trio playing tuba/sax/electric guitar renditions of the beatles. Rachel bought a cool flute and got free lessons from the super nice Korean guy selling them.

We saw a huge palace. Nice.

Then after much deliberation for a place to go for dinner, we landed in some strange back alley around many shady corners and got seated for dinner in what I think was the restaurant overflow -- perhaps the owners' living room? Nobody else to be seen, but a pile of laundry in the next room. Beautiful furniture and decorations though. Anyway, we didn't really even order -- I think it was a set menu -- but stuff just kept coming. It was fantastic!!!! We had all sorts of dishes and varieties of Kimchi!

There were at least 15-20 dishes! When stuff slowed down, we were all starting to fade. Since we were sitting on the floor half of us were lying down when the waiter wasn't in sight. (For the Zippers out there, for the record, it wasn't me.) Anyway, it slowed down and we tried our best to finish as much as possible. Then we found out that this was the warm up!

They cleared all the dishes from the table and out came the traditional Korean appetisers! And then the main course of fish and Kimchi stew! Unbelievable! It was all a buffet eating club could ever hope and dream of. When the ordeal was over, we all paid our 10000 WAN (approx $10 US) and rolled on out of there. Once again... fantastic.

We quickly hit the subway and did our best to stay awake until our return to Uijeongbu. And when we did, it was packing and preparation for the morning early rise for the flight to Beijing!

Saturday in Korea

We had huge plans to leave the house at 6 AM to go see the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone). Instead, we got up at 10:30 AM, Yenji puked, we lounged around, and picked up some baked goods at the "Paris Baguette". We went to a park by Rachel's house to eat it while watching kids playing basketball. Yenji layed down for a while, puked in the bushes three times and then we took the subway to Seoul to the War Memorial Museum.

On the subway, a special woman was selling candy and gum on the subway. She put a box of gum in Yenji's hand, helped herself to Yenji's bottle of water, and then asked for money for the gum. Yenji gave her 1000 won for it (and gave her the water bottle too). Eric was holding a loaf of green tea bread with red beans, and this small child (about 3 yrs old) asked Eric for a piece of it. The slice of bread was as big as her torso and she looked sooo cute eating it.

The museum is huge. That's all I have to say about that. We learned about the Korean war, but maybe some things were lost in the translation because we still weren't sure how and why it all happened. For a snack, we had "mini melts" which are little beads of ice cream that you eat with a spoon out of a plastic baseball cap. Outside, there is a huge statue of a South Korean soldier hugging his younger brother, a soldier from North Korea. War sucks.

We had plans to meet Rachel's friends for dinner in Seoul, but we missed them so we headed home first while Rachel went to meet them. We made our way back to Rachel's apartment via the park where Yenji puked 3 times again in the same location.

Somehow, we managed to find our way back to Rachel's apartment via the Family Mart, where we picked up some coffee and seaweed snacks. When we got back to the apartment, Yenji slept and Eric called Rachel to order some food for us. Rachel arrived home about 5 minutes before the food, which is nice because with the lack of cash register, communicating the cost would have been difficult. The food was great -- it came with full dishes and appetizers and everything. When we were done, we just threw all our dishes out the door and apparently the restaurant came back later to pick them up up. Fantastic.

Off to lunch soon... Last day in Korea :-(

We Made It!

We made it! And we finally succumbed to the many blog requests and started this.

So, it's Saturday morning, and it kind of even feels like it, which is good. Yesterday we weren't as lucky. We tricked ourselves into believing that it felt like morning and woke up and left the house. After two hours we realised that it was necessary to return to the house to "pick something up" and slept until well into the evening.

At least by doing this, we were able to keep up with Rachel and stay out well past the time I normally turn into a migraine having pumpkin and play a mini version of Jenga at a flair bar in downtown Uijongbu.

Important facts from the past three days:

Wednesday morning:

• Yen got a few hours of sleep, me not so much
• Penhy came to pick us up at 6:30 and had to literally force us out of the house (we thought we were ready until faced with the prospect of leaving)
• Disgusting grease meal at the airport
• Terrible flight to Chicago
• Brief but substantial Yenji puke at O'Hare
• Even more terrible flight to Tokyo (12 lengthy hours)
• Excellent reruns of some awesome Japanese game show with competing groups of people that just create weird and wonderful visual simulations with creative costumes and a few props. I'm not sure I can do it much more justice than that...
• Additional Yenji puke at Narita (the turbulent flights did not serve her well)
• Longest two hour flight to Inchon (near Seoul) from Tokyo ever
• At this point I probably hadn't slept for more than a total of 100 minutes since Tuesday morning
• We managed to figure out a pay phone and call Rachel from the airport. Conversation summary: Hi. Hi. We're here. Great! Kay, bah.
• We caught a bus from the airport and it turned out that it may have been the most comfortable bus in the universe. Both Yen and I couldn't manage to keep our eyes open for more than ten seconds at a time. Sleep... finally.
• Two hours later, we were standing in the middle of downtown Uijongbu. We met Rachel and then used a random bathroom beside a dunkin donuts. I knocked the mirror off the wall with my backpack, so we peed and ran.

Friday

• Woke up
• Went to Rachel's school
• Ate the best Bibimbop ever! They mixed cheese into it for the most delightful twist ever. I'm going to see how favourable I'm looked upon back in TO when I demand that they mix in the same tastiness.
• We checked out Rachel's school and it was a crazy wonderland. It looked like so much fun compared to Ada B.
• Her kids were really cute. That's all I have to say. They enjoyed looking at large white man.
• We saw them perform they're pre-hospital play routine, and in return, Rachel and I juggled and balanced stuff on my chin
• Yen and I took a cab home and pretended we were just going to pick up some Pepto before hitting the town and slept until Rachel was done work at 7pm... Terrible.
• We finally dragged ourselves out of bed for dinner at 10pm
• Delicious dak calbe (chicken and stuff in a big pan on the table)
• Saw a really big crab
• We then hooked up with Rachel's friends at a loungy restauranty bar where Yen got a Peppermint drink of sorts that was really just Listerine with crushed ice. Alcohol and mouthwash... excellent preparation ;-)
• Then we hit the "speed bar" a cool place where the bar tenders all do flairy type stuff and they have electronic dart games and jenga stuff. It was fun.

Now were getting ready to head to Seoul to check it out and hit the war museum and stuff.

Tsit for now!