Walking Around Guangzhou

The train ride to Guangzhou was uneventful. I finally fell asleep in the wee hours of the morning, but still didn’t sleep well which is odd because I can always sleep on the train. I had been worried about arriving in Guangzhou at 4:30 in the morning in the dark but didn’t really have much choice in my train tickets. As it turned out, my train was actually early, and we arrived just after 4. Just before four the carriage attendant came and banged on the door to make sure we were awake, and exchange our plastic chits back for our tickets.

Walking out of the train station I arrived in a big, open square. There were tons of people around, so no need to worry about being in the dark by myself. That made me feel a lot better. And of course the suddenly warm weather was awesome. I immediately felt better than I had in days, despite the lack of sleep, just due to not having to freeze my ass off whenever I went outside.

I walked over to the taxi stand with all of my stuff and some guy tried to scam me. He quoted some ridiculous price and wouldn’t move below 40 yuan. I knew from reading the guide book that it would only cost about 15 yuan to my hotel, so I just walked away. I figured I would just take the subway, so walked over in that direction.

The subway, it turned out, didn’t open until 6am. I was debating just standing around, but didn’t really want to do that. I found a place to sit down and read my guidebook to figure out what to do, and also see just how far the walk was from my hotel to the nearest subway station (and what station that was). Eventually I just sat on the ledge I was on and got my bearings. People were staring and pointing at me (Foreigner!) but I didn’t mind too much. That is, until someone walked by and hit me in the arm. I was too shocked to say anything. At that point I figured getting a taxi, even if it did cost 40 yuan was probably a good idea.

I walked over to the other side of the plaza where there was a different taxi line. One guy made eye contact with me, so I chose him and he piled my bags in the trunk. Then I discovered that he was basically in the middle of a sea of taxis. He did some crazy Chinese driving though and made his way through them all. We made it to the hotel in no time, and it only cost 15 yuan as the guidebook said. So that was cool.



The hotel was awesome too, and let me check in, even though it was 5 am. The hotel cost 180 yuan for the night and was simple, but clean. The bathroom in particular was spotless, and included a normal shower (instead of a hose on the wall and no tub), so I was happy. Of course the first thing I did was go to bed! I ended up sleeping until 2 in the afternoon, when I woke up rested and ready to explore.

The first stop of the day was at the bank to exchange some money. Despite the fifty million banks in China (I swear there is one on every corner) there was a long line. After waiting about 30 minutes it was finally my turn. The teller was not too sure about my Japanese yen though and was doing the super inspection. I didn’t even think when I got cash that the new Japanese bills might pose a problem. With all the security features in them though, the guy eventually took it and gave me Chinese yuan in exchange.

The only thing on my list for the day was to go to the market. Seeing as it was close to 3 at this point, there really wasn’t a heck of a lot more that I could do. Qingping market is a famous market in Guangzhou that is several main streets square. I just walked around with the purpose of getting lost and trying to find as many interesting things as possible. I didn't’ see any really weird animals as the guidebook had promised; however, I wonder if that had anything to do with the fact that I was actually hitting it late in the day.



I did see lots of interesting things though: dried foods including starfish and seahorses; deer antlers; scorpions: turtles: chickens in cages, often beside rabbits or ducks; ducks in cages and attached to motorcycles being brought to the butcher; snake skin; whole dead goats; lots of vegetables and fruits; chicken feet: people de-feathering chickens on the street (it wasn’t exactly plucking); a make-shift barber shop; and more. There was even a big pet area, with lots of puppies, fish and aquarium accessories, and a few birds, bunnies and kittens.

I really enjoyed walking though the back streets because there were homes and people there. It felt like I was walking through a real community rather than a downtown core, and it was a nice change. While some of the houses were old and a bit dilapidated, overall the area was clean and seemed safe. There were tons of houses all crammed together and there was an interesting mix of Chinese and Colonial style, so it was an enjoyable walk for looking around.



Eventually, I ended up at the jade market. The jade market is nowhere near Qingping, so I pulled out my map to see where I was. Turned out I had walked a long way! In the jade market there were tons of vendors selling everything from bracelets, to pendants to figurines. Not knowing a thing about jade I bought a bracelet and a pendant, paying what I felt were fair prices. I’m sure the price was hugely inflated, but I was pleased, so I guess that is all that matters. Of course I don’t even know if it is real jade, but it looks nice. (Side note: When I got home I did the hair test, and it really is jade. To do the hair test, you wrap one hair around the jade and take a lighter to it. If it is real jade, the hair won’t burn (because Jade is an excellent heat conductor)).

I decided to hoof it back to the hotel and started off in that general direction. I eventually came to a big square with tons of modern stores. I decided to take a break at KFC. I know, I’m in China! I just wanted something to drink and a place where I could sit down and look at my guide book in peace so I could figure out where I was going. After re-orienting myself on my break, I was good to go and finally made it back to the hotel, sore feet and all.



Back at the hotel, I had to deal with the internet fiasco. I was reading the hotel binder (you know, the one they have in the middle drawer of the desk – I love reading that), and discovered that some rooms actually have internet! So off I went to see if I could change rooms. It was an extra 20 yuan a night for the room, but well worth it because it would have cost a lot more of that to go to an internet café… and I wanted to call Hiroshi (we set up Skype which is an internet telephone – free calls! (works great and I recommend it)).

Well, the first room that they moved me to had a problem with the connection, so they moved me to another one. Only that one also had a problem, so they moved me back to the first and said they would get someone to fix it in the morning. I’m like, then put me back in my old room, cuz I’m not going to pay for internet I don’t have. Eventually they said they would get a repairman to come that day. The new room was bigger than the other one, but had a smaller bathtub unfortunately. I had wanted to lay out in the tub, but this one was too short and squatty. Since the hotel didn’t have heat (just a/c) and it was a bit chilly, I decided to forego the bath. Oh well.



So I spent the night relaxing, surfing the net and organizing pictures. I also decided that I wanted to stay one more day in Guangzhou because I had enjoyed wandering around, and wanted to see a bit more of the city. It is so much nicer walking around in 10-15 degree temperatures!

To see all of my pictures from this day, check out my photoblog!

Last Day in Changsha

Sorry, no photos at all for today's entry - I was shopping! There will be lots of photos in the next entry though!

Woke up for our standard buffet breakfast again and then checked out of the hotel and wandered over to Jan’s apartment. Jan got herself organized and then we hit… Micky D’s! Ok, not really Chinese food, but I needed something that wasn’t laden with chili peppers!

After lunch we headed over to Jan’s office and I got myself organized. I had some postcards to mail – luckily I noticed that I hadn’t put the addresses on them before I put them into the mailbox. Once I had mailed my postcards, it was time to go shopping!

Jan had to prepare her lessons for the day so I went across the road to A-best to see what kind of cheap souvenirs I could find. First on my list was snake oil moisturizer. I had bought some at Carrefour in Chongqing (because it had snake oil in it) and I really liked it. I thought it would make good little gifts to give to students and stuff. I have so many people to buy omiyage (Japanese custom of getting souvenirs for everyone they know when they go on vacation) for that I needed small and cheap.

Luckily I found the lotion and off I went to look at other things. I found a green tea cup for Hiroshi – you put the tea down the side into a little compartment, so the tea isn’t floating around, and you won’t swollow it! As I was browsing I found a bag with wheels and a pull out handle for relatively cheap. I ended up buying it because my backpack is packed solid and there is no way I would get anything else in it.

Of course, now that I had a new bag, I needed locks. I finally found them and then had people chase after me when I started walking away. Apparently you are supposed to pay for locks there. Weird. I then thought that maybe I should go back to the second floor to see about whether or not I was supposed to pay for the lotion there or elsewhere. Good think I checked! These little mini-pay counters are interesting. Basically everyone is crowding around, pushing and shoving (there being no such thing as a line in China). You have to be quite aggressive to needle your way in to the front!

I also picked up a few snacks for the train and browsed around and talked myself out of many things that were awesome deals that I didn’t really need. Like a fuzzy Pooh blanket for only US$2! By the time I got myself out of there it was almost time to go to dinner. I ran across the street back to Jan’s office, and it turned out she was starting to get a bit worried. Shopping, what can I say…

We went for dinner at Milo Coffee which Jan often goes to. It was really nice. There were big couches around the tables and it seemed really cozy and relaxed. Good atmosphere! We had a hodgepodge dinner of onion rings (with a sweet honey sauce), pizza and cashew chicken (which was hot!). Pretty good though.

Finally it was time for me to leave. Jan saw me off in a taxi and I made my way to the train station. I arrived uneventfully and figured out what waiting room I was supposed to go to. Well, it was total and complete chaos. The room was about 50m X 50m and was jammed full of people! I had to push my way through to find a spot up against the wall that was marginally better because no one was pushing up against my back.

That is until the beggar arrived. There are a lot of beggars in China. For the most part they are pretty easy to ignore. As long as you don’t make eye contact. When I got out of the taxi a bunch of them ran up to me and shoved their cups in my face but I just kept walking and didn’t acknowledge their existence. They gave up pretty quickly. (This is a corner than Jan warned me about as being really bad).

Well, at the train station, this boy, who was about 12 years old, prostrated himself on the floor and started begging me for money. When I didn’t pay attention to him, he started grabbing at my leg. I eventually said “nothing” in Chinese and that only resulted in pitiful begging and him stroking my knee. It was not a nice experience. Of course all of the Chinese around us were fascinated and just stared at us to see what I would do. Eventually I figured he wasn’t going to stop, so I picked up my bags and wandered back into the seething crowd.

A bit later it was time to line up to get on to the train. In the room were rows and rows of seats. You had to line up in between them which was a bit of a challenge because people had all of their baggage sitting in the aisles, and there were people standing in the aisle because there was no where else to go.

I eventually made it on to the train though and lucked out! I got a compartment with only one other person. Excellent! Of course he spoke no English at all, but that was ok. He offered me disposable slippers to wear and we shared snacks. He also got a DVD player and put on English movies for us to watch. Do I want to admit that I saw Freddy vs. Jason? I think the man was some kind of official or something because when the car manager (don’t know what to call them – each car has a person who makes sure passengers get off, gives them a plastic chit in exchange for their ticket when they board, and other things) came by to check his ID, he just showed his wallet rather than the little ID books that I saw other people have. So who knows. Maybe he was spying on me.

Eventually I tried to fall asleep. The train compartment was really dry though so it was a bit difficult to breath. And I was worried about snoring or drooling or doing some other weird sleeping thing, so it was hard to fall asleep. Overall though the cabin was pretty comfortable, and first class soft sleeper looks like an awesome way to travel China when I come back in the future.

Train Station Nightmare

Sorry - not so many pictures from today

As I still wasn’t feeling that great and wanted to visit a bit more with Jan, I decided to stay one more day in Changsha. After breakfast I went back to bed and had a little nap, and then by 2:00 we were up and at’em.

The first order of business of the day was arranging my train ticket out of Changsha. This only took three hours. First we went to the CAAC office because I thought that would be easier than standing in line at the train station. They didn’t sell train tickets though (only air). So then we went to CITS, after wandering around for a bit, only they didn’t sell train tickets their either. They were able to give me information about what train I wanted though, so that was good. I tried to make a complaint about the lack of heat on our boat down the Yangtze, but they only dealt with complains for the Hunan region.

So then we went to the station to buy the ticket and there was this huge mass of people. I showed my note from CITS to the information booth and they showed me where to stand (there were about 40 lines). Well when I got to the counter the woman kept saying no tickets. I was trying to look up hard sleeper (I wanted soft sleeper with 4 bunks in a room, but soft sleeper with rows of 3 bunks down the length of the car was also ok) in my phrase book, but the woman basically waved me away and started serviing the next customer.

So then Jan and I went across the road to a travel agent. I had decided at this point to skip Guilin because it didn’t seem worth it to just go there for one day. The travel agent gave me some info on trains to Gunagzhou, but all of these arrived in the middle of the night. I wasn’t too thrilled about that as a single female travellling. At one point, the difficulty in communicating with a crap phrase book (no one spoke English) and the lack of available trains finally got to me and I ended up crying like an idiot. Stress release.

The ticket agent wanted to charge 40 yuan for running across the street to buy the ticket for me and I wouldn’t even be able to pick it up until the next day (so wouldn’t know if I even had a ticket), so I just gave up with them and decided to try it again myself. So we dodged through the crazy traffic again and back into the busy ticket area or the train station.

I went back up the information booth and said, “Please help me”. I showed the two people there the information I had on trains (train number, time, date and destination all in Chinese) and they pointed back to the line I had already been in. At this point, Jan noticed that everyone in that line had luggage with them – like there were leaving that day. She suggested that I check to make sure that line wasn’t for same day departure (I wanted the next day). Turns out I needed to be in a different line! Now why couldn’t they have just read the paper properly in the first place??!!! It was written by a Chinese person in Chinese. The whole thing was so frustrating. Especially coming from my experience in Japan where people go out of their way to help you and show you where to go etc. It should not take three hours to buy a train ticket, especially when you have the information that you need written in Chinese.

Anyway, we finally got in the right line and I was able to buy a ticket to Guangzhou. It arrived at 4:30 in the morning, but I didn’t really have any other choice,. At least I got a ticket, and was able to book in soft sleeper.



So after that stressful experience, I said “I need ice cream!”, so we walked to a coffee shop near the station and ordered coffee. I also ordered the banana boat for us to share. It was really funny because when it came, it was actually made up to look like a boat!

After distressing with coffee and ice cream, we went to look at the embroidery shop. It was amazing! There were things on the wall that looked like pictures, but they were actually embroidery. I only bought a silk handkerchief because I don’t have anywhere to hang an embroidered picture. And while they were quite nice, out of context they may have just looked tacky.

By this point the restaurant that we wanted to try was hopping with people (we had stopped by before and it was dead) so we went for dinner. The restaurant is called The Fire Palace and it serves Hunanese food. I thought it would be a good place to try because the waitresses walk around with carts of different types of food on them, and you just pick and choose what you want. A great way to try several different dishes and actually see what it is before ordering!



Pretty much as soon as we sat down the carts started coming by and we got a whole bunch of food – chili pepper shrimp, chili pepper sliced potatos, chili pepper konnyaku noodles (can you see a theme here?), dim sum dumplings and stinky tofu. I took one bite of the stinky tofu and hated it. It had this really sour spice in it that you can smell everywhere in Changsha. The smell on the street makes me a bit nauseous, so eating it wasn’t much better. Jan ate a whole piece though! Go Jan! We also got fresh fruit juice. My orange one was good, but Jan got the watermelon one which totally rocked! I was trying to think of ways I could steal it from her!

After dinner we went for a long walk down the main strip. I think we walked halfway back to our hotel before we got a cab. (Too cold and needed to pee!). Back at the hotel we just relaxed, checked e-mail and masked. Jan got me these cool masks for Christmas. They make your skin really soft! Oh, and I had to do laundry as well – I’ve decided that washing your underwear in the sink sucks. Give me laundry machines any day!

To see the entire 8 pictures I took today, you can check out my photoblog.

Sightseeing in Changsha

This morning we woke up in time to make the breakfast buffet. It had lots of watermelon which I love, so I was happy and got my fill. After breakfast, mom called although the connection was really crappy. We called her back after a bit of frustration (the hotel had to manually switch the call through when you dialed or something). After about 10 minutes of trying, we finally got through. Then I called Hiroshi to say Happy New Year and let him know I was still alive. Then, just as I had hung up the phone, it rang again and it was my sister Jen! That was a really nice surprise because I haven’t talked to her in ages, and I don’t think she has ever called me.

So, after a morning of talking to family on the phone, Jan and I met up with her co-worker Jurgen so we could go to the Hunan Provincial museum. We all hopped into a taxi and made it there uneventfully. At the ticket counter they tried to sell me another ticket. I had to get back in line and get a refund cuz the girl I got it from didn’t seem to understand “I don’t want this one” (which I did with gestures, pointing and the Chinese word for no).

The museum was well presented and had very good English explanations. It was interesting to see all of the things. This museum was mainly artifacts excavated from another tomb. The most amazing to me was the silk. The material was light and delicate and airy – simply amazing. More amazing that something that delicate had survived for so long. Some of it was like thin gauze.

There were also bamboo artifacts still in good condition after 2000 years. These were not so interesting in themselves, but in the fact that they were still whole. In addition there were instruments and cooking vessels and other every day items.

The main attraction at the museum is the corpse. The female ruler of the area was so well preserved that you could see the wrinkles in her skin. Different internal organs had been taken out and put in jars around her – that part wasn’t so interesting. The body was awesome though. Hard to believe it was 2100 years old. She had the thick knees of an elderly person, and you could even see her teeth.

After seeing the corpse we went up to the top floor to look at iron work (boring because I had seen a lot of similar things in Wuhan) and some paintings (scrolls). The paintings were beautiful. They were laid out in terms of time, so it was easy to see how Chinese painting style developed over time.



After the museum we wandered over to the park that was beside it, but made a quick stop at the post office. It took a bit of miming, but eventually I got the proper stamps that I wanted. Some of my postcards had prepaid stamps on them, so I needed less postage for those, and I also wanted some stamps for postcards I didn’t have with me, so it was a bit confusing. In the end it all worked out though and I popped my postcards in the mail.

Martyr’s park is quite large and there were lots of people about. Near the entrance there were zodiac statues made of what I thought were little vials of coloured water. Later in the evening though, they all lit up, so I guess they were really lights. We grabbed a cob of corn from a local vendor and made our way up the steps with zodiac signs towards a tower at the top of the hill.

On the other side of the hill at the bottom there was a large children’s amusement area as well. There were lots of rides and fun things for kids to do, like wall climbing and bouncing on cords. We walked around and Jurgen played a ball shooting game and won a neon green stuffed monkey. The rides themselves looked like carnie rejects, so who knows how safe they actually were.



After wandering through the park, we walked along the lake. There were some pagodas and other structures with Chinese architecture, which were really nice. There was a lot of construction down by the lake because they are building a boardwalk. That will be nice in the summer time. There were also tons of swan boats on the lake, so it looks like it would be a good place to hang out when it is warmer. Jan was envisioning day trips.



After we walked around for a couple hours we hailed a cab back to the hotel and went out for dinner to a Brazillian restaurant with Jan’s co-workers. Mmmm, meat! The food was pretty good, but you can only eat so much meat. I think I like a better balance between the meat and the vegetables. The bacon was awesome though – I haven’t had really bacon in eons, so that was a nice treat. I was dreaming of homemade BLT sandwiches!

After dinner we waddled across the road (dodging through 8 lines of swerving maniacal oncoming traffic – you remember the Atari game Frogger?) and went back to the hotel and played a couple games of Scattergories. We also lent our bathtub to Jurgen and Jan’s roommate Kim (separately) because they don’t have bathtubs in their apartments. Once everyone left, Jan and I just gabbed away some more before going to bed.

To see all my photos from this day, check out my photoblog!

Uneventful New Years’ Eve

Jan and I woke up a bit late, so we missed the actual breakfast buffet (which was part of the cost of the room). Luckily they still had some food and made up some plates of noodles and some watermelon for us. They also gave us some fresh croissants, which were delicious!

After breakfast we walked down to Jan’s school and around her neighbourhood. I got the grand tour of the school and her classroom, which had projects the kids had done on the walls. After visiting the school, we went to A-best, which is like a 3 story Walmart. I picked up some Kleenex with Tigger on the packages (of course), some bottled water and some throat lozenges. I was going to buy a throat spray as well, but it seemed expensive. I was really indecisive though because I woke up in the morning with a tell-tale white bubble in my throat (the beginning of strep).

We wandered over to Jan’s apartment so she could pick up some more things, and Jan’s apartment really is cold! The floors are all tiled which doesn’t help much – that seems to make it even colder. I totally understand why she wants to hang out at the hotel!



On the way back home I went back to A-best and picked up the throat spray. I figured I should do something – while expensive, it was better than leaving it. The spray was ionic silver. Now, I was totally skeptical about this stuff but figured it was some fandangled Chinese medicine despite the American flag on the box. As it turns out, this stuff has been around for a century and apparently kills pretty much any germ, including strep. Wow! A miracle drug LOL As it was discovered before patent laws, no one can patent it (and therefore make money off of it) so this is supposedly why the drug companies haven’t developed this more. (Side note: While slow acting this stuff actually did work. It took several days, but eventually I was all better. I think it would have worked faster except I wasn’t letting it sit long enough in my throat before drinking something.)

After a quick stop in the park (where people were flying kites) on the way back to the hotel, I went to bed while Jan watched the episodes of Amazing Race I had brought her. While not an overly exciting day, I think at that point I just needed the rest. We were supposed to go to a party at Jan’s apartment being held by her housemate, but I begged out cuz I wasn’t feeling up to it. Jan ended up staying with me and just hanging out while I slept.

By the time I got up and ready for dinner, nothing was open. We didn’t want to go back up to the 27th floor restaurant because they didn’t seem to have much food, but that was the only one that was open. So we ended up there, and half the menu was unavailable! This is the first time I felt like I was in a communist country. Until this point, it seemed fairly capitalistic to me. We finally found some food items that were available, including a ceasar salad that would take 20 minutes to make for some reason. Of course twenty minutes later they came to the table explaining, sorry we don’t have ceasar salad. Ummm, ok. Why not just tell us right at the beginning? Kind of weird. Maybe they had to run across he street to another restaurant to get the food, and they were out of the ceasar salad LOL.

We ended up with these huge salads (much bigger than expected). We had ordered one of each – fruit, tuna and vegetable. The salads came heaped on dinner plates. I was expecting more of a small bowl, so it was a bit of a surprise to get so much food. I also ordered the pork chop and onion soup. The onion soup was something resembling onion soup, but was weird. The pork chop was breaded and then put on top of rice with a cream sauce on top. It was only ok. The salads were delicious though. I should have just stuck with them LOL.



After dinner, we (Cal, Jan and I) wandered up to the wine and cigar bag on the top floor of the hotel. It was quite cold (isn’t everywhere in China?) but they let us move into the cigar bar area which seemed to be a bit heated. No one was actually in there, so it was nice.

The entire place was decorated with leather couches, brocade carpets and men-like stuff on the walls. There was even a picture of Winston Churchill, smoking a cigar obviously. What was really amusing was the magazine collection which included things like women’s fashion magazines for some reason.

We all sat and enjoyed relaxing with a bottle of Dynasty wine. I figured we had to get that just for the name. It wasn’t that bad actually. I often get headaches with red wine (from the tannin), and this one didn’t give me one, so it was good.

At midnight, we heard banging noises and went to the window and saw lots of fireworks going off. That was a nice surprise. That went on for a few minutes and then we called it a night and went back to our rooms to bed!

Not an entirely exciting New Year’s Eve, but relaxing. I figure New Year’s is overrated anyway. There is always all this hype, but never that much excitement.

To see all my photos from this day, visit my photoblog!

Train Dash Worthy of AR

For the first time in days I got to sleep in. Ahhh, I love this. My bed was comfy and warm, and when I woke up (to Cal calling at the ungodly hour of 9 or something) I just flipped on the TV and immersed myself in English for a while. After another fantastic hot shower, I put on my newly cleaned clothes (it is so nice when someone else does your laundry!) and jumped on the internet for a bit. I talked to my mom who told me to gargle with salt for my newly acquired sore throat (thanks to the Tour of Frozen Darkness as the Yangtze cruise well be known forever more). Then I just lazed around until noon..,. oh and used the hairdryer to finish drying my socks. I didn’t send out my undergarments for cleaning.

After checking out we went up to the Panorama restaurant, which is a bit rotating restaurant at the top of the Holiday Inn building. I haven’t been to a rotating restaurant in ages, so this was kinda cool. The Panorama had a huge buffet of Chinese and Western food. It was fabulous. I had my fill of freshly baked bread, fresh fruit, vegetables, noodles and the like. We spent a leisurely two hours eating our fill and looking out the window at the local environs.



At the end of the meal I asked for a small cup (so I could go an gargle some salt water – see I do listen mom!). The waitress brought back a plastic bag. Umm… not exactly what I was looking for. Never mind. I grabbed my wine glass of lemon water and sprinkled a bunch of salt in it, and just took it with me to the bathroom. I gargled in there and learned that lemon salt water tastes even worse than just salt water. But, at least I had gargled and hopefully that will stave off any worse infection in my throat (the last thing I need is strep which I get every season change).

After brunch we walked around the neighbourhood for a bit. In behind the hotel was a little community. It was great. There were people making sausage (that was hanging in all the windows in town it seemed), chickens running around, kids doing homework out in the cold, men playing cards or mah jong, a playground with exercise equipment, and lots of people walking about doing their business. We also so meat hanging up drying outside, fruit and vegetable vendors and a walled school yard.



We walked through the flower market, which had beautiful flowers and saw vendors with pork, coal and trinkets. So far, this has to be the best part of my trip. It was so nice to wander around and see a real community out and doing things. (One of the reasons why I wouldn’t want to be on the Amazing Race – no time to explore and look around).

Then we went back to the hotel to pick up our bags and got a taxi to the train station. The taxi took a lot longer than we expected… in fact we were really worried about missing our train. This brings me to the Amazing Race portion of the trip.



We dashed out of the taxi, grabbed our bags and ran to the entrance… only wrong entrance, so we ran down the street to the other entrance which had a huge crowd of people in front. We pushed our way through, threw our bags onto the x-ray conveyor belt, grabbed them before they had even made their way out of the x-ray machine, and ran into the terminal. Then I ran up some steps to show my ticket to a woman because we couldn’t figure out where to go. She showed us a door around the corner, and off we ran – down the stairs, around the corner, through a door and into a corridor. Of course our train platform was at the very end. Two minutes until departure…

Gasp, gasp, gasp. Run Forrest run!

We ran down the corridor, ran up the stairs, and then had to run down the length of the train. Run, run, run!

Gag, gasp, cough, gasp.

We jumped onto to train and pushed our way down to our seats. Phew! We made it!

Then we tried to find our seats and discovered that seat assignments are vague. People were sitting in our seats already. As there were two seats empty in the general vicinity of our tickets, we just sat down. Welcome to soft seat class!



Let me start by saying, if I never hear Happy Birthday again, it will be too soon. Some parent had got their kid a toy that played this song electronically and kept pressing the button (or whatever) over, and over, and over again. I wanted to grab that damn toy and wrap it around someone’s neck. Then there were people shouting and yelling and being loud in general. I gave up and just put my iPod on to tune out all the noise, and did number puzzles to idle away the time.

Meanwhile, people were slurping noodles, throwing garbage everywhere and spitting on the floor (see previous comments about Chinese completely destroying things). There were also vendors plying the aisle trying to sell things like pomelos (giant oranges), peanuts, drinks and trinkets. Needless to say the train was a whirlwind mess in less than an hour.

Vendors would come into the train car and shout, which meant everyone looked at them. Then they gave their spiel and by the end everyone was ignoring him or her. One guy was selling socks and was beating and pulling at them with a wire brush. He was also making ppl hold onto one end of the sock while he pulled the other, yanking them out of their seats. It was great showmanship. But alas, after demonstrating all of the qualities of these highly durable socks, no one bought any. If they came in another colour other than gray I might have bought a pair just because the guy was such fun to watch. Interestingly, since everyone had long ago stopped paying attention to the spiel, he just threw the socks at everyone, even if they said they didn’t want them. Then when he went away, the people would look at them, but no one bought any when he came back.



Our four-hour train trip turned into a five hour one. The girl beside me spoke English, which was good, because otherwise we may not have known where to get off. I was worried about Jan because she said she would be there when the train pulled in – which was supposed to be an hour earlier. We walked through exit and she was there waiting for us. It was so good to see her! (It has been about 3 years). Luckily she saw the train was late from the display board, so knew we were coming an hour after we were supposed to be there.

We grabbed a taxi and went to the hotel and checked in. Jan stayed with me so she could have heat (the power in her apartment keeps going out and she is freezing – seems to be a common problem in China, eh?) and we could gab. We talked for a while and then around 11 thought we should get some food. We went upstairs to the hotel restaurant but were told they only had t-bone steak and minestrone soup. I don’t know. Then we tried room service (which is supposed to be 24 hour) but they only had salad available. We didn’t really want any of these things, so we went elsewhere. We found a place next door basically that had heated stone / iron bowls with rice and mystery toppings. We couldn’t read the menu, so for all I know, it was dog that I ate. The bones were kinda small and didn’t resemble anything I had eaten before, so who knows what it was. It was pretty good. I also got some tea, which cost more than the food did! Who would have thought that tea in China would be expensive! The tea leaves were left in the glass too, so it was really strong and bitter. I didn’t really like the tea unfortunately. The food was ok though… better than t-bone and minestrone LOL.

After dinner we just wandered back to the hotel and stayed up gabbing some more until 3am. I’m looking forward to relaxing and gabbing over the next few days!

To see all my pictures from this day, check out my photoblog!

Hating China and Redemption at the Holiday Inn

Today is actually a continuation of yesterday in that it started just before midnight when we arrived at the Three Gorges Dam. As this was one tour though, and part of my “I hate China” day, I’m starting Dec 29th at around 10:00pm on Dec 28th.

Those of us who had paid to go and see the dam piled off the boat and took another funicular railway up the embankment. Once at the top we all piled into a heated bus – yes, heat! It was pure heaven! We wound down the roads towards the dock passing dump trucks and other large trucks on the way. We crossed a very long bridge – the Yangtze is probably about 2 km wide at this point – and finally got our first glimpse of the dam. While not overly tall (well, it is, but not compared to the bridge of my imagination) it is extremely long. Well, I guess it is about 2 km long LOL. On the other side of the bridge we first went past the locks before getting to the dam itself. The locks were huge; they had several long barges in one lock, and about 20 cruise ships in another. I’ve seen the locks in Ottawa and they are nothing compared to the size of these.

We finally arrived at the damn itself, which was conveniently all lit up, for everyone to take photos. The machinery sitting at the top of the dam gave some idea of scale. The thing is massive. I wonder how tall it will be once it is complete, which won’t be until 2008 I believe. After taking some photos we all got back in the bus to go to the visitors’ center. It wasn’t all that exciting, but did have the obligatory scale model. There was also an observation platform (outside and up a long set of stairs) that gave a good view of the locks. The whole area was very well landscaped. I actually noticed that coming up to the damn – the lawns are manicured, the shrubs shaped and there are winding lit pathways. The amount of money just put into landscaping this area is amazing.



After we saw the dam, then the real fun began – we went to an aquarium (in the dark of course). The aquarium had fish from the Yangtze swimming around in cramped cages. One of them was absolutely huge! It must have been a good meter and a half long. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get a good picture because the thing moved to fast and the lighting wasn’t good. There were lots of colourful carp though and other interesting fish. Fortunately (or unfortunately) they didn’t have any pink dolphins, except for the one in formaldehyde in the gift shop area. That was actually kind of sad, because it was just a baby dolphin.

After going through the aquarium we wandered up the path to the “Battle of the Three Kingdoms” show. Back a bit from the path was a huge stadium-like structure, and Cal and I were thinking, “Hey, this might be a live show!”. And upon getting closer, I thought I smelt horses. “Maybe there are live horses!” “Nah, there won’t be live horses”. “Wait, it sure smells like horses – maybe there are!”. And sure enough, there was a battle re-enactment with horses waiting at the top for our entertainment.

The whole thing was like the medieval dinner shows you can go to in Toronto (not that I have been to one, but like the commercials on TV). There were cheesy sound effects and fake cheering, and two battalions in all their battle finery charging each other. The funny thing was that they were actually hitting each other! The whole show was extremely cheesy, but that is what made it so fun. It was totally unexpected that at around 1 am we would be standing around watching people on horses charge each other with swords and jousts and smacking each other. You really had to admire the horsemanship as well, because to coordinate that without smacking a horse on the head, or seriously hurting your counterpart is rather skillful.



The next stop was to King Yu’s temple. It had some neat mannequins, some special kind of tree (couldn’t understand the translation), nice architecture, orange trees and large beams that had survived some major floods of the Yangtze. These didn’t seem all that special to me, but the tour guide made sure to point them out and the Chinese tourists were staring in awe (whether faked or real I don’t know).

So that was our entertainment while our boat passed through the locks. When we entered the temple, I asked our guide (the one I decided to double check with about everything) what we were doing. He said to look at the temple and then go sleep for an hour. I assumed there was a translation issue…. But I was wrong! He really did mean go and sleep for an hour! After viewing the temple, the bus disappeared and we were left with all kinds of vendors. We could have eaten and then slept, or just slept. I walked around for a bit and Cal went to find tea. I’m probably not supposed to tell you that he proceeded to spill the tea all over himself, but the attempts at the vendor to wipe up the tea were comical (the tea mostly fell in his lap). As I sat in a chair having pretty crappy tea, the shoe shine lady came by so I got my shoes shined. They were so muddy and dirty they really needed it! At 2 yuan (about US 25 cents) it was a bargain.



So all of that took about five minutes. Only one hour to go. But wait, it isn’t just an hour, it was two hours that we were supposed to wait around for our boat. To give you an idea the state I was in at that point, imagine spending three days outside without a heater. Kinda like when you go skiing, but there is no lodge to go into to warm up, and you have to stay outside for three whole days. Ok, now you get to sit down in the middle of the night without blankets or a heater and wait for two hours. This was not good. I was decidedly displeased at the one hour mark when I started to shiver uncontrollably. At the two hour mark, when our boat finally arrived, I was literally frozen, and sick. The dam was actually fun until this point.

Back on the boat I gathered all of my things together to be ready for the morning. Then I wrapped my scarf around my head and slept for a whole hour… and I was actually warm. For the first time in days I was actually warm, and then I got the cruel knock at my door telling me we were at Yichang and it was time to leave the boat.

There was no funicular at Yichang, so we had to walk up a long flight of stairs. This was not fun at 4am with a heavy backpack, on one hour of sleep and being frozen. Did I mention I have a hacking cough at this point? So we get on the bus for a four hour ride to Wuhan. This was the bus ride from hell. It would have been nice to sleep, but the seats were so close together on the side I was sitting on, I couldn’t get comfortable. I actually couldn’t even sit facing forward because my knees wouldn’t fit in the space. Cal’s side had about twice as much room as mine, but there was no more space on that side.

In addition to being cramped, this bus had no heat, so I got to freeze for another four hours. The bus driver was in love with his horn and honked incessantly, so I couldn't even get an uncomfortable sleep. Then people were smoking and hawking spit balls. I don’t mind the spitting, it is the loud wind up to them that is awful. I mean, is that really necessary??!! Shut the hell up. Oh, and to top it off we got to listen to loud Chinese pop videos on the TV screen. All of this combined with an extremely bumpy road, compounded by the fact that our driver chose to go down the middle of the highway rather than stay in one lane, made me extremely irritable and at that point I despised China.



We finally arrived in Wuhan and headed straight for the Holiday Inn (which had a gingerbread house in the lobby (above)), which was just across and down the road from the bus station where we were dropped off. This was significantly over my budget at 458 yuan (around US$60), but at that point, I really didn’t care. The first thing I did upon getting to my room was send out all of my still wet laundry (yes, it had been trying to dry for three days and was still wet). Then I jumped in the shower, and let me tell you, a hot shower has never felt so good! I then jumped in my soft bed, with fluffy duvet and pillow and put another blanket on top of that, and then turned up the heat in the room and just luxuriated. Ahhhh, heaven. The Holiday Inn kicks ass.

I should point out that turning on BBC was the first news I had heard about the big tsunami. It was pretty shocking seeing parts of Phuket, Thailand, where I was six months ago, devastated by the wave. It also put things into perspective. I was totally pissed about the whole Yangtze trip. After seeing the news, realizing that at least I was still alive, made things not so bad. I’m still not happy about the whole experience, but I really have no grounds to complain about a horrible holiday in light of what other people in the world have experienced this holiday season.

Anyway, after resting for a bit and getting warm again, we went downstairs and booked our train tickets to Changsha. It only cost like 15 yuan for them to book it, and seeing as it meant we wouldn’t have to go to the train station (money and time) it was worth it. Interestingly, despite the numerous trains that went thru Wuhan on the way to Changsha, they could only sell us tickets for ones that originated in Wuhan or Beijing. That didn’t leave many options. As I didn’t want to wake up at 6am again (I have done that for the last three days) we decided to get the afternoon train instead. It got me into Changsha a lot later than I wanted, but it was better than waking up early again.



Once we had gotten our tickets settled we made our way to Hubei’s provincial museum. (Wuhan is the capital of Hubei province). We grabbed a taxi, which eventually got us there (he had to ask for directions). I was worried for a bit that he was taking us around in circles. The museum showcases a tomb that was excavated that contained all kinds of artifacts including highly ornate bronze bells.

The bells are pretty amazing because they are a set (there are like a hundred of them) and each one has two tones. Even more amazing is the level of craftsmanship. Some of the bronze and iron pieces they excavated are incredibly intricate. This archeological find also confirmed that advanced bronze techniques were known much earlier than previously thought.

After walking through all the exhibits we went to the bronze bell show. A group of musicians played the bells and other instruments excavated from the site such as a 25-string zither and a giant xylophone like thing. It was basically a series of hanging slate plates that you hit as you would a xylophone. The music was pretty good. The bells really did have amazingly accurate tone. At first they played Chinese music, so it was kind of hard to tell if the instruments were good or not. As a finale they played Beethoven though, which was great because then I could really appreciate the instruments themselves.

After the concert we hailed the taxi with a death wish. It wove in and out of traffic, trying to hit pedestrians and cyclists. The Chinese really do drive like total maniacs. When I wasn’t covering my eyes for fear of seeing someone splattered across the windshield, I got to see some of Wuhan. It is a large, modern city. Interestingly, in addition to the standard laundry that hangs out of all windows in Asia, here they also had sausage, fish and ducks hanging from windows and balconies.




After arriving safely back at the hotel we made our way to Pizza Hut for dinner. Recuperation called for American food. The fare was pretty standard – same as everywhere except some of the toppings were different. What was interesting was the salad bar extravaganza. The Chinese apparently take their salad bars really seriously. The Pizza Hut salad bar is a one-trip deal, so you have to get as much as possible in one bowl. I just heaped as much as possible in mine, but the Chinese have a building system! The whole thing was fascinating to watch.

Basically, they build lettuce and/or cucumber around the bowl’s rim to extend the size of the bowl. Then they use dressing like glue to cement all the ingredients into place. The whole thing is done very meticulously – the salad leaves are chosen carefully and placed one-by-one into the proper place. The whole thing probably takes 20 minutes to build. Now, granted they could get a lot more salad in the bowl, but is all that work really worth it?

Stuffed and in a tummy happy place, we tried to hail a cab back to the hotel. This took a lot longer than expected. Basically Chinese people jump into a cab before the current passenger has even gotten out. That and the fact that we couldn’t seem to get a taxi to stop for us, made hailing a cab a bit frustrating. We eventually got one though and wandered back to heated luxury aka the Holiday Inn.

I got internet so I could download the latest Amazing Race episode, and surfed the net for a bit. Then I watched some English TV and went to bed. Despite still being sick, I was in a much better mood than I had been at the start of the day. From absolutely hating China early this morning, I’m now feeling much better about it. After a good (warm) night’s sleep, I’ll probably be in even better spirits tomorrow.

To see all my photos from this day, visit my photoblog!

The Three Gorges X 3 X 3

Café came banging on my door early this morning to wake me up to see the gorges. We had arrived at the first one. It was actually just before dawn (as opposed to a good hour or two before). The river was quite misty so we couldn’t see much, but we could see something. It was actually kind of cool, because you couldn’t see what was next. Lots of people all stood out at the front of the boat absolutely freezing to death – the wind was so cold. Boy am I thankful that I brought my new, bright coral windbreaker / raincoat with me! That thing is a godsend.

I stood out front as long as I could stand it and marveled at the fact that the water is already up 135 meters. That is amazing. I can only imagine how awesome the Gorges used to look. It’s a shame really, because even with the water this high, they are still beautiful.

After standing in the wind for over half an hour I was pretty much frozen, and also hungry. Of course the restaurant wasn’t open, so that mean instant noodles for breakfast! Well, yuck to say the least. They were very, very spicy and tasted horrible (horrible for instant noodles even). So, of course that meant it was time to go back to sleep and get warm again.



We arrived at the Three Mini Gorges around noon and transferred to a tourist cruise boat. We are actually lucky that it is low season because we also got to go to the Three Mini Mini Gorges, which only allow 3000 tourists a day to go through. I find it very interesting that there are three of each (Three Gorges, Three Mini-Gorges and Three Mini Mini-Gorges). But first the Mini Gorges – My favourite one was Misty Gorge, which was the second one. It had beautiful tall peaks and interesting rock formations. We then went into Monkey Gorge and Cal actually saw and pointed out some monkeys. There used to be a lot more, but the rising water has displaced the monkeys too. Unfortunately, I wasn’t fast enough with my camera to any pictures of them, but I did get some pics of some goats coming down to the water to drink.



After we went thru Monkey Gorge there was a little stop that had vendors and supposedly a temple (I didn’t bother going to see it). There were grilled quails on a stick (which actually looked really good, but we were told that the meat along the river wasn’t fresh and that we should avoid it). I just got some potatoes that were fried up in a wok and had hot spice on them. They were pretty good.



The Mini Mini Three Gorges were just a little bit upstream from the pit stop. We all piled into little boats, and put on life jackets to go up the stream. These gorges were blocked from the wind and the sun was out and they were very nice. Being in a little boat close to the water made the gorges seem that much taller as well. For some reason though, the “captain” of our boat stood at the front of the boat essentially blocking any and all decent scenery shots. He wouldn’t sit down! It was rather irritating actually because the scenery was so nice and I wanted to get some shots without him in them!

While going through the gorges, there was lots of music. Men were playing horns high up on the rock face, and there was a woman singing on a dock (all traditional music). It was all quite beautiful. That and the aqua green water made a really nice experience. We ended up taking one of the horn players back with us to the embarkation dock. He played on the boat for us as well.



Back on the pleasure cruise boat, we had to listen to an annoying loudspeaker – probably giving tourist info in Chinese, but I couldn’t tell you. Everyone was eating food they had picked up at the pit stop before and putting their garbage everywhere despite the fact that there were garbage cans at the end of every row of seats. We wound our way back thru the Mini Three Gorges to meet our boat again as everyone ate, smoked and rushed to buy stamps at the souvenir booth on the boat.

What I found really sad about China, and I guess I have to say Chinese people, is that they have no consideration for other property or other people. The pleasure cruiser was really nice when we got on, and four hours later, it was completely destroyed. There was garbage everywhere, spit on the floor, cigarette butts everywhere – the whole thing was disgusting. Obviously this is a cultural thing, but how hard is it to not spit your sunflower seed shells all over the seats, let alone the floor. I mean really. I guess they don’t think about the fact that someone has to clean that up later.

After rejoining our boat, we entered Wu Gorge, which is the second of the Three Gorges. I just say in my room and watched it go by my window. My toes were frozen from being outside all morning, so I needed to warm them up. All along the river there were markers indicating how high the water was going to rise. What was really sad was seeing all the quaint, little houses below the final marker – all of them will disappear in the near future.



In addition to the cute houses, there were also orange trees and agriculture. There were also coal pits, with big metal contraptions that funneled coal onto large barges to take down river. The coal itself seemed to be cut right out of the gorge face – basically half of the gorge was black from where the coal was sitting. Very interesting to see.

Back on the boat again, we had dinner with some of the other foreigners on the boat. Eric (from yesterday), Anna (who was one half of a German couple), Sylvia (from yesterday – she is the one from Shanghai) and Kelvin, a Chinese man who had moved to Australia for school. We ordered a ton of food. We didn’t even eat half of it. The whole thing only came to about 100 yuan too. So cheap. (That’s like US$13 to feed 6 people). I can’t get used to leaving all that food on the table. It feels so wrong. I can hear my mother yelling at me about starving children in Africa LOL. It is Chinese custom though to have food left over so you know your guests aren’t hungry. It still seems like a waste to me though!

To see all my photos from this day, visit my photoblog!

Things Look Better in the Dark

Five o’clock came very early this morning. I didn’t sleep well. It was absolutely freezing in my compartment, there was a draft rushing through, and there were weird noises all night. I rushed to put clothes on when I woke up, because even though it was freezing in bed all night, it was still a heck of a lot warmer than it was out of the covers!

The first task of the morning was to walk a metal “gang plank” in the dark that was a bit slippery from the rain. Oh yeah, it had broken rungs as well. Seeing as I have poor depth perception in the dark, and my balance sucks, this is not a task to throw at me when I have just woken up. At least our guide gave me his hand… you know, so I could pull him into the water too if I fell in. Haha.

We walked through very deserted streets in the darkness of pre-dawn. We later found out that the streets really were deserted. The town of Fengdu will be submerged by the rising water (due to the dam) so is being relocated across the river on higher ground. We arrived at the chair lift that would take us up to the top of the mountain. That was a relief because I sure the heck am not into climbing anything, especially at 6 am. The chair lift looked rather rickety as well, so maybe it was a good thing that we took it in the dark.



We arrived at the top, without a guide (oh well) and proceeded to walk thru a Buddhist temple called Ming Shan.

The first part we came to had a three highly arched bridges leading to the temple. We also had a good view of the city waking up below (the one across the river) as dawn cracked the horizon (it would be another hour before the roosters started crowing though). We just followed the crowd of people. We saw another temple with a giant statue of a Chinese man in it (don’t know who it was, because, as I said, no guide). Then we went to the Temple of Heaven. It had all of the zodiac gods inside, dragons curving round the pillars and, outside, grass was growing on its roof. It was very cool.



Beside the Temple of Heaven was a large pagoda. It had really nice views. We saw the rice terraces and the mist on the river. There were stairs to climb up the pagoda, but they were blocked off. Not like I was going to climb it anyway.

Finally we took the cable car back down to Fengdu, and saw that it was the real ghost town. It looked like Beirut! All of the buildings were abandoned and gutted. It was actually kind of sad, because tons of villages and cities along the Yangtze have been, or will be, submerged. The number of people that have to be relocated from their homes is amazing. I should mention also that the cable car looked much better in the dark. It didn’t look too sturdy in daylight.



After we reached the bottom of the mountain, we wandered over to Ghost Town (the tourist attraction rather than the gutted city). The whole thing was cheesy but fun. There was a cheesy hell that we walked through. Then we had to walk up a billion steps (that really was hell) to see another area, and then we walked back down again. I’m going to get lots of exercise on this trip if all of the tourist places have this many steps.

When we got to the meeting place at the scheduled time, our guide was still missing. As we didn’t want to miss our boat, we started walking back to it. As we walked all of the touts would shout, “Hello! Hello!” But not in a friendly way – more like shouting at you. It was just a ploy to get your attention so they could try to get you to buy things they were selling. Many of them had oranges, which looked really good, but I had already bought some back in Chongqing to bring with me.

Back at the boat, we had to cross over the metal gangway again. It looked exactly like I had imagined it in the dark – not safe! Crossing back to the boat was a bit easier though, and not as scary, because at least I could see where I was stepping (i.e. on a rung that was actually there). It was a good thing that we started to walk back to the boat too, because, our guide was waiting on the boat for us! I suspect that our guide does not really know that much English and any instructions we get from him we should triple check.



Back on the boat again, I just went back to bed. I piled all my blankets on top of me and got somewhat warm with them. Later on, when I woke up, I made this arrangement with the chair beside the bed. I wanted to sit up and look out the window, but stay warm at the same time, so I put one blanket across the bed and onto the chair, which was long enough to flip over my feet when I sat on top of it (sat on the bed with my feet on the chair). Then I put another blanket over my lap, and finally a third blanket was wrapped around my shoulders. It worked very well for keeping my body warm. Unfortunately, it didn’t due too much for my fingers, so I didn’t get much typing done… and I actually just fell asleep again.

Eventually lunch rolled around so we wandered up to the “restaurant” and had the special – tofu and mushrooms on rice with one tiny, itty, bitty piece of chicken. It was really spicy, which was good, because it made me warm at least. It was actually pretty good, especially since it only cost 5 yuan (about 60 cents US). After eating, I pretty much spent the afternoon like I did the morning – bundled in blankets dozing off to sleep and looking out the window.

Once dinner came around we were back up to the restaurant where we met Eric, a guy from Sweden, and a couple (she was from Shanghai and he from Germany). We all compared how much we paid for the temple tickets, etc and that is when we found out we really had been ripped off. Oh well.



After dinner we arrived at Zhang Fei temple… another site to see in the dark! I swear this is the most sightseeing I have ever done outside of daylight hours. The temple was up a ton of steps, which does not make me a happy camper. It was just a rather boring temple too, that just had some statues depicting the story from The Three Kingdoms (famous Chinese tale).



The street to (and obviously from) the temple was lined with people selling littletrinkets though. We just browsed through them on the way back to the boat. Cal bought a string of plastic chili peppers. He let me do the bargaining for him since I seem to be better at it. I got them for half the asking price for him. I didn’t buy anything though. While the stuff was all interesting (stamps, old coins, etc), what would I do with it? So I just enjoyed browsing and taking incognito pictures with my camera. I discovered if I just let it sit on the case (which I have around my neck) it is much less obtrusive than holding it in my hands. Then I just sneakily press the shutter button and get some surprisingly good, not to mention pretty much level, shots. I’m going to make good use of this trick for the rest of my trip!

After the temple, you guessed it, I went back to the boat and bundled up in blankets for the night. Tomorrow we are scheduled to hit the Three Gorges at … sometime before the sun is actually up. Oh boy! I wonder if the gorges will look better in the dark too.

To see all my pictures from this day, check out my photoblog!

Dazu: Sculptures

Woke up this morning and went down to the little restaurant for my complimentary breakfast. There was a bit of a buffet set out, with mostly lunch-like foods, so I had noodles and broccoli and really bad coffee. Then we waited around for a while for our tour to Dazu. The mini-bus they had wasn’t big enough for everyone, so they had to arrange for a new one.

Finally we were on our way and we drove through the city past gutted out buildings (couldn’t tell if they were building them or tearing them down), new buildings, old rundown apartment blocks, and apartments with wire cage balconies with stuff crammed into them up to the tops (can you say “fire hazard”?). We stopped for gas at one point and let out half of the people to use the restroom. Of course as they were filling the tank they left all the doors open and let all the hot air out!

Eventually we were in the countryside going down a very bumpy road. The driver was constantly honking and slamming on the brakes. We passed little brick houses and open land. The farm houses surprised me because many of them were made of red brick, which never struck me as a Chinese building material. (Of course, China probably invented bricks or something.)



We finally made it to Baodingshan, which is the main grouping of Buddhist statues in Dazu. The carvings in the grottos in this area were all made between 1174 and 1252, and represent Tantric Buddhism. Before going up to the area with the statues, we had lunch at one of the restaurants on the main street (which was a dirt road). Lunch was pretty good and we were joined by the cat and dog who hissed and growled at each other. Other people in our group were smoking up a storm and everyone was smacking their lips (which drives me absolutely buggy). It seems that many Chinese people eat with their mouth open and try to make as much noise as possible when eating.

The statues themselves were absolutely amazing. They had incredible detail and there was one grouping of three statues that were like 10 meters tall. I took five hundred million pictures – every statue seemed more amazing or interesting than the last. Despite the fact that it was raining slightly, it was well worth the trip out to see them. I kept imagining that these were over 1000 years old, and some of them still had gold paint on them, and very few were weathered from time. The souvenir stands also sold lots of carved things. I ended up buying a Buddha face carved out of White Purple Jade. It is a jadeite that alternates layers of white and purple colour. I figured that would make a nice souvenir.



After spending a few hours looking around (with the aid of one of Cal’s books and some informative postcards, because they tour was entirely in Chinese), we wandered back to the mini-bus. Little kids were running up to us with woven reed things they wanted us to buy for 5 yuan. Ha! I bought one for 1 yuan. I figure I’d rather give money to a little kid who had done something productive, than to someone on the street just standing there with a cup.

The ride back was just as bumpy as the ride to Dazu. I noticed that all of the stores tend to be in groups. The stores basically look like garages all lined up beside each other. So, you would go past 10 tire stores in a row, then 10 sundry stores (can’t really call them convenience stores because they don’t stock very much), then 10 fruit stores, etc. Very strange.



When we got back we were cold (they driver didn’t / wouldn’t turn the heat on for the way back) and needed to get some dinner before we boarded our boat for the cruise. We ended up just eating dinner at our hotel. It was ok, but nothing special. Just food in our stomachs!

After dinner, we collected our bags from the concierge and then walked down to the docks. At the docks, we had to take a funicular car down to the boat. There was a man there that spoke good English who explained the process of everything to us. All kinds of people were getting on the boat and wandering around. It was total chaos!

We eventually got to our rooms, which are very basic. The man who spoke English came by and sold us tickets to all of the sites along the Yangtze as well as for the bus from Yichang to Wuhan. Later on we found out we got totally scammed. We paid about 760 yuan, which was at least double what everything cost. I guess because he spoke English, and said he was part of the Port Authority we automatically assumed he was trustworthy.

We soon found out we had also been scammed by the Port Authority, whom we bought our tickets from. There was no hot water, which we hadn’t asked for (so that was ok), but also there was no heat. At all. We only bought tickets because we had been promised heat. So needless to say we are not happy. Hopefully once the boat gets moving it will warm up a bit.

What is really interesting is all the people walking by opening up random doors and looking in. I finally just locked my door. All of these strangers keep checking in on me. Even with the door locked, people are constantly twisting the door handle. I decided to pay the 100 yuan deposit and get my own key – I have too many electronics for people to be able to come in and out at will.

Since it is so cold, I quickly did some wash so I would have some clean clothes, grabbed some hot tea and crawled under the covers. I did walk around the boat with Cal for a quick tour though – there were lots of people playing mah jong on the third deck, and the other decks just had people running all over the place. I’m looking forward to looking out my picture window (which is just huge!) watching the scenery go by.

Oh, one other thing. Our guide, Café (his “English” name) actually speaks a bit of English. So at least we’ll know where we are supposed to go and when. His first instruction was he will wake us up tomorrow just after 5am so we can go to the Ghost Town! Guess that means I should get to bed!

There are tons more pictures of Dazu on my photoblog!