My first impressions of Chengdu are not great. My very first: I couldn’t see anything. Grey-out. It’s been raining a bit. Big, industrial. Cheap taxis. Bigger hostel/guesthouse operation than I’d like to stay in, too.
Guess I’ll see the pandas and some temples and move on to other things.
I might have graduated recently, but I can’t find anyone to confirm it. I hope I graduated.
I’m done with exams now, too, and I should be done with undergraduate education entirely. I’m still not sure what I’m going to do between now and the 12th. There are some nice domestic airfares in China, and there’s always the train. But what about Japan and the Philippines? Tricky.
I completely omitted mentioning my trip to Yangshuo, near Guilin in Guangxi province on the weekend before last. I went up with Catherine, François, and Betsy. We stayed at a place called Yangshuo Culture House, where the wonderful Wei kept us well-fed and well-oriented. Yangshuo is famous for its limestone hill scenery, which you can see in my pictures. We went to the Water Cave, climbed Moon Hill, went bamboo rafting on the Yulong, and generally wandered around. Wei’s family supplied ridiculous breakfasts and dinners, including some stuffed chilis I’m still missing.
The trip included two sleeper buses: one from near Luohu to Guilin (we got off at Yangshuo and skipped Guilin entirely, on the advice of almost everybody), and one from Yangshuo to a bus station a good way west on Shenzhen metro line #1. The second was a bit nicer, but had a less flexible design which involved essentially trapping my feet in a box.
My Yangshuo album will get bigger after I steal some pictures from the others.
After Yangshuo, I wrote another paper and took my final exams. I’ve also been getting to hit my local food favorites pretty hard (Thai from Gold Dragon, Vietnamese from Mini Paris, and South Asian from Tuen Mun Curry House). I will miss the HK$22 set lunch from the curry house and the HK$20 moan, but I’ll miss the crack-laced HK$30 red curry from Gold Dragon even more.
On Saturday my former co-worker and brief housemate Jeff arrived in Hong Kong, and I spent a couple days showing him around—not nearly long enough for Hong Kong, but better than most of you reading this are doing, right? Today I met him at Sheung Shui and crossed to Mainland with him, where I pointed him to the airport bus and picked up a cheap suit and shirt I’ve been having worked on at Luohu Comm. Ctr. The suit is definitely of lower quality than the one I had made in TST, but at a third of the price that’s to be expected. The shirt, though, is just fine: I might e-mail for a couple more, now that they have my measurements.
People are leaving. That’s really sad. I hope I get to say goodbye to more properly this semester, but the departure dates are even more spread-out: some are gone already, and many are leaving before we get kicked out of our housing on the 23rd.
Don’t ask me where I’ll be on the 23rd; I can barely answer for tomorrow. There’s this really cheap flight from Guangzhou to Xi’an I’ve got my eye on…
This past week: WVU had an interesting presidential selection process, with some overly credulous reporting from Charleston newspapers and some academic drama. One embarrassing article quoted three students in a row favoring the BOG-favored lobbyist candidate (and new President), Garrison. It didn’t mention the connections these three have to each other or to Garrison, but it did give the impression that students were falling in behind the BOG against the faculty. In reality, I’m sure most students didn’t care. I’m sure I wasn’t the only student who would have preferred an academic to lead the University. The fix was in, though, and in spectacular fashion: 16-1. I hope it works out for everyone.
Kurt Vonnegut died. That wasn’t good.
I’ve not spent a full weekend in the HKSAR for a long time. This past weekend would not be an exception, as I joined Alex D. and a pack of tutors on a trip to Heidi’s family’s horse ranch in Dalan, Dongguan, Guangdong, Mainland. Dalan is a Y35 RMB/single coach ride, about an hour, from Luohu.
They have a pretty nice place up there, and some pretty nice horses [well, they were nice to other people at least] too. I’ll try to be brief, because I ought to be tapping out a quick essay for tomorrow morning instead of blogging. We arrived early Saturday afternoon, and spent most of that afternoon riding horses or watching. I’d never ridden a horse before (and I’m not sure I’d like to again), but it was an interesting experience. If I’m not mistaken, Alex hadn’t been bitten by a horse before, either.
In the evening, we joined the BBQ and its delicious beef, chicken, mini-sausages, lamb, ribs, sweet potatoes, corn, open flames, and local Kingway (Dongguan) beer. That sentence should explain my feelings about that part of the visit adequately. Afterward some of us tried to watch Little Miss Sunshine and ended up going to sleep about 45 minutes in.
Morning came—eventually—and we were given breakfast (my highlight for the trip). Baskets and baskets (well, two, but stacked really high) of homemade jiaozi and… uh… other good stuff. Lunch wasn’t much worse. Before lunch, we went up the hill to a local temple with very nice views of the area. Then, the more adventurous (everyone else) rode a second time before our late lunch and trip back to Shenzhen.
It was a nice weekend trip, but it didn’t help me write that essay: actually, it would have been illegal to bring my sources with me [though the Lo Wu formalities are very relaxed and I’m sure I would have gotten away with it]. Of note: this was my 15th entry into Hong Kong (and the 15th ridiculously big student stamp on my passport pages]. I could run out again in as little as two trips, if the HK Immigration officials continue their recent trend of stamping the half-page stamp across a full page.
On Sunday, I walked. A lot. I still have a relatively minor but annoyingly placed blister to prove it.
First I took the 20 minute walk and the subway to Tian’anmen Square where I forked over the RMB to go into the Forbidden City. It was big and impressive and all—and I liked the garden—but the KMT really did take all the good stuff for Taipei’s National Palace Museum. I really liked the garden at the northern end.
Of particular note (more than the imperial Chinese exhibits which, at this point, were starting to run together like one big wide ineffective wall snaking thousands of km across the Chinese countryside) was my visit to the Forbidden Store. It’s not as big and gaudy as I’d half-hoped: it’s just a corner of a room shared with a standard souvenir shop. If you’re a Tall or Venti (or, save us all, Short) aficionado, you’ll be disappointed: Grande only on this limited menu. Cups still have the Starbucks logo; the storefront does not. What’s truly remarkable is the willingness of people to pay standard Starbucks prices in a country where the hostel’s marked-up bottles of Tsingtao are 3 RMB/pint.
If you noticed that I didn’t mention seeing Mao’s embalmed body on my trip, it’s because I wasn’t able to: the Maosoleum is closed for repairs for a few months. Stupid Olympics.
After the Forbidden City I trucked my way down to Tiantan, the Temple of Heaven (catching a Peoples’ Armed Policeman climbing a tree to get his kite on the way). The complex was big and rather nice, actually, probably my favorite “traditional Chinese” site. This was another opportunity for the weekend’s fantastic weather to show off (maybe factories were down for Qingming): blue skies, warmer than Hong Kong, not a hint of rain. Pictures are probably better than words (working on those).
After that, I ended up walking from Qianmen to one subway stop shy of the east side of the ring along Chang’an Jie, and then back to one stop west of the west side. That’s a long way.
Sunday was a slow morning. One of my roommates dragged me along to a local market where we laughed at tourist prices set for tea and took in the delicious scene of a farmer’s market sort of arrangement. We bought food on the way back: some tasty baozi and a pineapple. Good, of course. After that it was off to the airport, on the bus to which I sat next to a 50+-year-old from Georgia who, at the suggestion of a mother in the States, had come to China to woo her Chongqing-based daughter. Hope that works out well for everybody.
Arriving at the sparkly Beijing Capital Airport, I found that it doesn’t have Shenzhen’s talent for e-ticket check-in kiosks. Shenzhen Airlines didn’t even open the physical check-in until 1h30m before departure: I kept myself busy at KFC “Select” in arrivals with a traditional Chinese “Zinger” burger, egg tart, and 7-Up “smoothie.” It was overpriced for China, but so cheap compared to the rest of the airport’s offerings (and 2/3 the price of that sacrilegious sbux latte).
Sorry if I “scare quote” “too much”—I’ve probably picked up the habit from reading too many China Daily articles about Taiwan.
SZ Air was not terrible, aside from the normal queuing culture clashes. Food was served (yes, on a budget airline flying one-class cabins domestically… such is Asia) with a drink before and after. The meal wasn’t anything special but did include a baggie of four or five longan fruit, which were tasty. ZH, like HU (a couple posts ago), is rocking the brand-new 737 models (a -900 for this flight). One interesting feature was the obsession of the cabin crew with making sure the curtain at the front of the aircraft (concealing the galley, jumpseats, and one lav.) was closed for every second permitted by regulations. There was some sort of raucous group stretch/prize drawing sort of exercise toward the end of the flight which would have been more interesting if I understood Mandarin. One nice bit: I wasn’t expecting anything after the Chinese-language newspapers were paraded past, but I was handed a copy of the China Daily just before takeoff.
Back in Shenzhen around 20:00 after a brief delay, it was easy to get to the bus for Luohu. Lo Wu crossing was more crowded than when I’d left on Thursday, but after around 15 minutes I was through and fighting to squeeze on the East Rail train. I took the minibus (44A) back from Sheung Shui for a change. The extra HK$1 was worth it to fly by trucks and buses instead of the other way around, and I finally got to see a minibus speedometer over 100.
A quick note on the Great Firewall’s practical implications for travelers: blogspot is out. Wikipedia (but not Wikitravel) is out. Gmail and my unheard-of blog are fine, at least until this post. Bloglines is working, which lets me read my friends’ blogspot blogs. Google News works, but most links from it don’t. Youtube works: take that, Thailand.
I haven’t been keeping very good track of happenings here, so I’ll dump some to this page before I lose more. Yesterday I took a ridiculously cheap Y1.5 bus to the Summer Palace (the new one, not the burned one) which is more of an outdoor attraction. Fortunately, I’ve found myself in a spell of spectacular, clear, warm weather this week (warmer and clearer by far than Hong Kong on Tuesday-Thursday). The palace grounds are mainly a gigantic lake, surrounded by paths and pavilions and towers and temples and you name it. When I came back, I puttered around Tian’anmen Square for a while, where I saw the big flag, the Great Hall of the People, lots of guards, and acres of concrete. A bit creepy. I didn’t go into the Forbidden City because it was too late when I arrived: more on that in a bit.
Today I went to the closest, super-touristed section of the Great Wall at Badaling. It’s as overtouristed as it’s cracked up to be, but I made it through easily enough. There are two ways to walk on the wall once you get up there (Y12 bus, Y25 student admission), and taking the one less traveled by got me out of the crowds quickly (after I’d gamely suffered through the more popular section for about three hours). It’s… hard to describe. In Nixon’s words, “This is a great wall.” I’m glad I went there, even if Nixon was there first.
It’s funny how tourist price inflation works. In the US, if you’re buying an overpriced hot dog at a game, the seller is going to use his government monopoly (or collusion) and refuse to serve you if you don’t play ball. Here, even at the Great Wall, a little walking away quickly gets that Y10 drink down to a more reasonable Y5 (where I stopped: I’m sure I could have gotten it to 3 or 4, same price as the city, but I’m willing to pay a little for convenience even when the shopkeepers don’t realize they can make me do that).
In a more classically East Asian treatment of the problem, I was presented with an English menu where my beef noodles from lunch were priced at a silly Y48. Comparing characters and prices with the local menu quickly found a local rip-off price of Y15: at least twice what you’d normally pay for that sort of thing in the PRC, but a lot more sane.
Now I’m back in the hostel and caught by Beijing’s early closing times (often an hour earlier in the “winter” which ends on the 15th). Getting back from the Wall around 3 or 3:30, it’s too late to try going to the Forbidden City or Temple of Heaven (my top two remaining sights here) because they’re immense and even if you beat the ticket booth to closing time (3:30 at the Forbidden City in this winter with which I’m discontented), you won’t see nearly enough to justify the trouble of getting there. I did enjoy a few blocks of street food to console myself, and it was a great idea: the supremely important Pineapple Price Index finds a new low in Beijing with a stick of fresh pineapple going for Y1. This beats Thailand’s B10 sticks, though those are much more flavorful. I also had some sort of clamshell meat/spring onion type bagged sandwich thing and some bread that smelled better than it went down. No complaints, though.
I’ll be going to both the Temple of Heaven and the Forbidden City early tomorrow, if all goes well. Traffic is frightening me so I’m going to be concentrating on getting to the airport early on Monday.
A short departure from NYU (my last post) is Beijing. My flights back over were moderately delayed but otherwise passable, a sure sign that I’ve crossed the Pacific too much (three times, but once might have been enough). I got back late on Monday night, barely made it to campus before the public transport switched over to night mode, and suffered for two days stubbornly trying to get over the lag. HK is really chilly lately… not much warmer than Beijing, so far.
Had a moderate adventure yesterday flying out of Shenzhen. I was stuck in traffic on the HK side for about an hour on the bus to Sheung Shui, but the crossing itself was faster than a normal weekend crossing: probably a combination of overstaffing and crossing on the holiday instead of the day before. The Y20 airport bus (and waiting in line) were worth it… the airport’s really far from Luohu. It’s big, and pretty modern (except for the squat toilets), and the inflated prices for food don’t look too bad if you’re coming from Hong Kong. There’s a cross-airline e-ticket self-check-in (genius!)—this probably works since all the airlines are part of CAAC. Met up with Betsy there, ate, killed time, boarded. I guess we were delayed a while on the tarmac but I was too tired to care that much. The Hainan Airlines (HU) flight was on a pretty new 737-800, and since I got on quickly enough to claim overhead space I was actually fine for legroom in coach. Dinner and two beverages served: I had chicken, it was about what I’d expect from a Chinese airline meal.
Beijing’s airport is relatively free of taxi touts, etc. I caught the Y16 shuttle bus #2 to Xidan Aviation Hall and a cab (with the help of some phoning for directions) for Y16 from there to my hostel, Red Lantern House. I’m in a 4 bed dorm. It’s a little noisy but decent so far, with slightly softer beds than LN (read: hard). They’ve done amazing things with their courtyard/restaurant area: hopefully my pictures come out, but it looks really nice. There are a few other Lingnanians in Beijing right now but I think I’m the only one with fully-working texting, so it looks like I’m (at least mostly) on my own for a few days.
Today I went through passport control six times without leaving the country. Such is China.
I took the 10:15 ferry from Tuen Mun (!!!) to Zhuhai. This company wants to go to Macau, but Stanley HO doesn’t like the idea of not controlling part of each ferry company landing in Macau (in addition to the ferry terminal and the vast majority of the casinos), so regulatory approval has not been forthcoming. Instead, it makes two round-trips daily between the humble Tuen Mun Ferry Pier (spiffed up with immigration and customs facilities) and Zhuhai’s Jiuzhou harbor. In Zhuhai, I had the option of a free shuttle bus down to Gongbei, at the border with Macau. Too easy, and I wanted to see the one big attraction of Zhuhai: the fisher girl. There’s a legend, go look it up if you’re interested.
So, I walked around (for about an hour) and up the coast until I found it. Took pictures, walked back… all the way down to Gongbei, maybe another two or three hours there. In Gongbei, I was able to muddle through ordering lunch in Mandarin. Gongbei is the Lo Wu Commercial Center equivalent in Zhuhai, but much more underground and much less seedy. I have friends who would have wept to see so many shoes in one place.
I walked over to Macau (this took maybe 30 or 45 minutes with all the standing in line for passport controls) and… kept walking. I actually walked all the way from the border to the central square, Lgo. do Senado, which is south of center. I’m not sure of the distance, but I walked a lot longer since I wasn’t navigating very well. There I broke down and took a bus down to the tip of Coloane where I stuffed myself at the semi-famous Fernando’s.
Took the bus back onto the peninsula, walked another hour or so to the ferry terminal… overall, I probably gained weight. Well worth it.
My mentioning of Yangshuo and Guilin has only served to get together a group of other exchange students to go there at times when I can’t miss class. Oops. I’ve read that it can brown out a bit in the winter, so that scenery may need to wait for spring.
This leaves me with two unused Mainland visa entries expiring on December 14th. I think that I may try to use one of them this weekend in Guangzhou. I’ve heard good and bad (mainly bad) but as non-Shenzhen overland options doable over a weekend go, it sounds like the most interesting one.
Right now I’m planning to take a roundabout way to get in by rail, avoiding the coaches to Huanggang crossing (which confuses me and would probably involve a taxi). I’ll probably take bus 263 from Tuen Mun WR / Town Center terminus to Sha Tin, and then the East Rail up to Lo Wu crossing. From Luohu (the name magically changes to Mandarin on the other side) I should be able to catch one of a number of trains or buses to Guangzhou.