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April / May 2009 This Journal was written by my husband Kenro for a Japanese Travel Magazine that he writes for so I had him translate it into English. Japan & China Trip (4/26 ~ 5/14 2009) April 26 (Sun) Tokyo / Beijing April 27 (Mon) Beijing In a public bathroom of the Forbidden City, an old Chinese man standing by the sink next to me was having trouble figuring out the automatic faucet. When he started banging the faucet with his hands, I pressed his hands away gently, and showed him how it works by putting my hands under the faucet to start the flow of water and pulling my hands away to stop it. He was looking at my hands intently. I stopped my demonstration and motioned him to go ahead and try. He started banging the faucet again. I found out later that the street traffic everywhere in China is sheer madness. But encountering it for the first time in this city was quite a shocking and a nerve racking experience. Driving around this city is like driving through a crowded market inhabited by insane munchkins. I don’t know what kind of drugs they are taking, but cars constantly try to cut each other off while kamikaze bicycles, scooters, and fearless pedestrians jump in front of each other totally oblivious to the color of the traffic lights. I drive in Manhattan, and I drove in Rome & Paris, but I was never as nervous as this time sitting in a car. After lunch, we visit a section of Beijing where old styles of communal living still exists. (the area is called “Hutongs”) When we arrive there, we change our transportation to a bicycle Rikisha (or what they call pedicab). A special guide from the area follows us on her own bicycle riding through very narrow streets. Sue tells me that when we approached the group of Rikisha drivers, one of them laughingly said to the other “Here is another couple for adoption. Take them straight to the orphanage!” We visit one of the inside community gardens shared by three generations of a local family, then we take pictures but no adoption. On the way back to the hotel, we stop at the “Bar street by a lake” called “Houhai” and walk around this man-made lake (it was made a several hundred years ago) surrounded by nice, open and old looking bars & restaurants. Upon returning to the hotel, I go out and buy some local booze from the neighborhood store. They have liquor stores which sell large bottles of foreign or domestic alcohol. But in a local small shop, they only have beer, Chinese wines, and pocket size bottles of Chinese hooch. I get a few bottles of hooch and drink them in my room. It is one of the worst tasting, throat burning, paralyze your pancreas, fire water. I see why Chinese people drive their vehicles the way they do. We had time before the “Kung-Fu theater show” tonight, so we decide to go out for a dinner. In an alley in a hopping commercial neighborhood several blocks away from the hotel, we find a busy small restaurant. I was hoping that I will be able to guess the dishes from the Chinese characters in the menu, but finding out that it is not going to happen, we used the usual hands and facial expression method of communicating with a waitress who does not understand a word of English. Funny thing is that we never fail to succeed to get the food we want in this manner with one exception of ordering sugar on sour cream for dinner in France. We get a large bottle of beer, a can of soda and 2 dishes that were pretty decent for about $6.00 (US dollar) Later in the evening, we go see the “Kung-fu show” recommended by Richard. (He said it is like a musical show with Kung-fu action and is a very popular show among foreign tourists.) The show had a seemingly simple but incomprehensible story line (if there was any), very basic & repetitious Kung-Fu action and tooth rattling high-pitched monotonous Chinese music. It is mostly Kung Fu guys doing their flip kicks on the stage and every time our hero Kung-Fu fighter gets astray or loses to the temptation of evil force, a pretty girl shows up in flimsy costume and dances around the stage. So, after the show, we decide that the morale of the story was “Sexy girl – bad.” April 28 (Tue) Beijing We make a short visit to a factory where they make ornamental metal vases. We were combined with other tourists and were shown their newly designed vases. I was not fan of ancient Chinese art, but I had certain respect for them. But there was nothing to respect in this place. Maybe the Cultural Revolution in the 60’s destroyed all the traditions of artistic culture in China. The images and motifs of the vase were so bad I felt like I was a PTA member visiting my kids’ art classes. I just couldn’t wait for the factory tour to end. A little episode of this visit was a college professor Sue got acquainted with. This guy was trying so hard to be witty and funny. He kept talking along with the factory guide annoying everyone. And then, he started to talk to Sue, (because she talks to anybody). As we came out of the building to an open area, out of blue, he started to sing a song (loudly in full audition volume) as we walked. I didn’t know what to do, so I walked faster to get away from him. I was so glad that we were not in the tour group he belonged. After the lunch, we visit one of the highlights of this trip – “The Great Wall of China!” From the parking lot, we walk uphill for 10 minutes dodging sales people from the souvenir shops sticking Great Wall T-shirts & other souvenir items at our faces. Then we hop on a small cable car to the wall. After taking a few photos at the vista point, we start to walk this endless wall. Sue gives up shortly, and head back to the vista point. Richard tells me that once an American guy contacted his office and requested to arrange a walking trip of the entire great wall. Poor Richard was appointed for the task and he walked the whole length of it with the client for the next 3 days. Richard & I walked another 15 minutes and I told him that I want to walk further down, but he doesn’t need to come with me. He says okay. I didn’t know what I expected from the great wall, but it is really endless wall of rocks. It was boring and hard to walk because there is no flat surface. You are either climbing or descending the steps, and they made the height of steps un-even in order to make it difficult for the enemy to go up & down the steps in the event of invasion. I have a difficulty understanding this. I mean, if the enemy got on top of the wall, why should they go up and down the endless wall? They want to go to the other side of the wall, don’t they? And, doesn’t it make it difficult for the defending army to run away up and down the wall once the wall is breached? But hey, I don’t know anything about military strategy. Maybe it made sense then. Funny thing is that as I was walking, an old rock’n roll song “Great Balls Of Fire" by Jerry Lee Lewis hit me out of blue. I was humming the tune and it became “Great Walls of China” and the damn tune haunted me the whole afternoon. Before we went back to the hotel, we stop at a souvenir shop building in Beijing and were chased around by militant sales people. We were afraid to check any items they had in their shops because we thought that if we showed any interest in their stuff, they will capture us and torture us until we buy something. Tonight’s dinner is included in the itinerary and it is Sue’s favorite Peking Duck. I don’t think we ever had bad Peking Duck including this dinner. April 29 (Wed) Beijing / X’iang In the afternoon, we say “Saichen” to Richard and Om and take a flight to X’iang. At X’iang airport, we meet our new guide Bobo (a young girl) and driver Mr. Lei. After checking in to the hotel, and drinking another god-awful Chinese hooch which I purchased in the neighborhood, we decide to go out for dinner. We take a taxi to the center of town called “Bell Tower”. It’s a hopping district and we find a kind of touristy restaurant where we have local dumplings. Then we walk around the Islamic district where rows of street vendors and restaurants sell various souvenir items and grilled meats on the packed streets. Later, we take a taxi back to hotel. April 30 (Thu) X’ian After lunch, we visit the second highlight of this trip “8000 terracotta soldiers’ museum”. It was a huge sight separated into 4 buildings. We kept talking about the movie “Mummy 3” and I tried to keep my interest in the exhibit. For some reason, it was a strangely un-interesting sight to me. Maybe because of the way they were installed in a dome-like building where thousands of people shuttering their digital cameras around us, or maybe because they were just large amount of mud & clay statues without much of artistic merits, or maybe because I didn’t like the movie “Mummy 3”. After viewing all the terracotta soldiers in 3 buildings, we see a bad modern art exhibit show in the last complex, go to a bathroom, and leave the place. Before we returned to hotel, we stopped at an ancient pagoda. This one was built during the Qin dynasty which is much earlier than most of the other buildings built during Ming Dynasty. It doesn’t have all the glitters and decorative elements but was quite beautiful in its own simple presence. Back in the hotel, Sue thinks she is done for the day but I want to go out to see more of X’iang for the last time. So I leave her in hotel, wishing her a relaxing night of checking internet messages, getting body massage and ordering food from room service. Being the start of Chinese holiday weekend, it seemed impossible to catch a taxi. Giving up waiting for a taxi in front of hotel lobby, I go down to the street. A few minutes later, an Australian couple from the hotel join me for the search of the taxi. Finally, after a very long wait, I end up sharing a taxi with the couple, and an English speaking Chinese girl who happened to walk by. The driver is very un-happy having 3 different destinations and he keeps arguing with the Chinese girl. But she seems to be in no mood to hear bitching from a cab driver and she makes him to keep on driving. Since I was the first stop, I leave the fare and say good bye to everyone who shared a moment of fate together. The place I wanted to go was a bar district Bobo told me. At about 7 pm, bars in this small alley are just opening their doors. There are a few young people sitting at a table in some bars talking. I realized that I might be too old to fit in this neighborhood. So, I go into an empty small bar, sit at the counter and have a quick whiskey straight up and get out of this alley. I walk toward the brightly lighted street and find myself in the busy Islamic district again. I sit at a table in a crowded street restaurant, order beer and some skewed meat & bread. After dinner, I walk around some more and finally getting tired, decide to catch a taxi. It was difficult to find a taxi from the hotel but now it seemed impossible to find one. There are many people waiting and waiving for taxis and none of them seem to be empty. Once in a while, when a taxi pulls over, 3 or 4 groups of people run toward it. After about 30 minutes of waiting around, I surrender to the fact that the only way to get back to the hotel is to either take a bus (which I don’t have any idea how I can buy a ticket) or walk about 1 hour straight back toward the way I came. When I start to walk, out of no where, an empty taxi pulls right in front of me. It was kind of surreal. I didn’t have any idea how this taxi came through the gauntlet of these people hailing for a taxi 2 blocks behind me. But stranger things happened before in my life. Sometimes all you need is a little luck. May 1 (Fri) X’ian / Lhasa (Tibet) As we arrive safely with no hassle at Lhasa airport, the first encounter we get is the effect of the altitude. I had a very bad experience with altitude 21 years ago in Cusco (Peru). The altitude there was 3,300 meters (10,800 ft), and it nearly killed me. But Lhasa is 300 meters higher at 3,600 meter (11,975 ft). As soon as I come out of the plane, I felt dizzy, legs wobbly, and my body feels 50 lbs heavier. When I mention this to Sue, she tells me that she feels the same. When we drag ourselves to the luggage area, we find out that Sue’s suitcase was lost. After a few phone calls made at the lost luggage counter, they find it still sitting in X’iang airport. They give us 100Yuan (about $15) & promise us that they will deliver it to the hotel next day. Our guide & driver’s names in Lhasa are Tara and Mr. Wang. After we finish with lost luggage desk, Tara put two white scarves on our necks as a welcome gift. She is a Tibetan lady with bad sunburn scars on her face. It is difficult to tell her age because of it. We take a guess that she must be somewhere between 20~40 years old. Aside from her looks, her English is almost impossible to understand. As we cross the newly built bridge, she says “WIH HAVE JANE IN DJUNE AHAND DJURAI AHAND IIVAH EEZ WOTA”. We think she is saying that “We have rain in June & July and river gets filled with water”. But as we get used to her manner, we see that she is actually a pretty young lady with very gentle and pleasant personality. One hour drive takes us to our hotel in the Chinese section of Lhasa city. The hotel is old and desolate but it was supposed be the best hotel in Lhasa. We decide to have a dinner in an empty Chinese restaurant at the hotel and retire early. During the night, we both gets pretty bad altitude headaches and bad stomach problems. (It must have been the slimy curry chicken we had for dinner). We toss and turn throughout the night and take turns to the bathroom. May 2 (Sat) Lhasa (Tibet) I didn’t know what to expect from Lhasa after the recent political social upheaval, but the city seemed calm. We don’t see any damaged buildings or any trace of violence. The only unusual thing is an occasional encounter with a group of very young Chinese soldiers with rifles & machine guns patrolling the street. After we visit the monastery where the Dalai Lhama was imprisoned, we have a wonderful lunch of sizzling Yak steak, curry yak stew, and fried rice mixed with raisin & yogurt. When we return for a couple of hours’ rest at the hotel, we decide to try the oxygen machine attached in our room. Amazingly, it works like magic. After about a half hour of nap with oxygen makes our nagging headaches disappear and our bodies feel 100% lighter. In the afternoon, we go to one of the monasteries to observe the monk’s discussion meeting. At 3 pm, about 100 monks walk into a pebbled garden and break into about 10 different small groups sitting in circles. A leader stands in the middle and asks questions with a clap of his hands to one of the sitting members. If the appointed member cannot answer to the satisfaction of leader he gets slapped in his head. We sat there for about a half hour observing and feeling sorry for one particular monk being picked on and being slapped by a leader. When we return to our hotel room, we find Sue’s suitcase being delivered. At night, we take a taxi (Taxi is 10Yuan, - about $1.50 - to go anywhere in Lhasa) to a restaurant called the Tibet steak house. Tara tells us that we must eat yak meat to fight against the severe climate of Tibet while we are here. Chicken & pork meat simply won’t do it. She also tells us that Tibetan people don’t eat fish although there is an abundance of fish in the rivers simply because there has been a custom of sending a body down a river when a child dies. Tonight’s dinner menu consists of: Momo (yak meat dumpling), Fried yak tongue, Vermicelli / mushroom soup with Tsampa (flower ball mixed with butter & milk), and Fried Yogurt. They are simply excellent. We also find out next day from Tara that yak tongue is the best source of energy. May 3 (Sun) Lhasa (Tibet) When we arrive at the bottom of the palace, we see thousands of Tibetan people walking toward it. It’s because this is the last day of a religious holiday in the region. Tara tells us that most of these people came from local villages to visit the palace. When they arrive at the gate at the bottom, they pray toward the palace. They put their hands together standing, and they bow, and lay down flat forward on the ground toward the palace, stand up and repeat the motion. Tara says they are too poor to come inside the palace. I suppose you need money to be close to the holiness even in Tibet. The climb to the top goes unexpectedly trouble free for Sue. She takes a few breaks on the way up but other than that, keeps a steady pace up to the top. All the expensive personal training seems to be paying off. After the walking tour of the palace and viewing the endless clear blue sky from the top, we walk down and visit a park with a beautiful garden. Some local young girls come around us looking at Sue and keep giggling. Tara tells Sue that girls are saying she is beautiful. This makes Sue’s day. For lunch we eat more yak meat with vegetables, roasted lamb (which was simply excellent), and spinach with white rice. We go back to the hotel for a little rest, and take a taxi to the open market for haggling battle with local merchants for our Tibetan souvenirs. Since we will be leaving here early next morning, we finish packing our luggage first. And then we decide to get a massage in hotel. The massage room is on our floor and it seems that someone is there 24-7. We tell them that Sue wants to get foot massage, and I want to get back-rub. I am taken into a separate room with 2 girls, and the manager asks me which one of the 2 girls I want. I tell him that it doesn’t matter. One of the girls stays, and I lay down on the massage table. After a few minutes of massage, she pokes my arm with her finger. When I look at her, she puts both of her hands beside her face and makes a sleeping gesture. I think that she was asking me if I was sleepy. I tell her “No, No I am not sleeping, I am enjoying my massage” and close my eyes again. A minute later, she pokes me again, and this time she points her finger at me and then at herself and make sleeping gesture. I finally get that she is offering additional service for gentlemen. I tell her “NO, NO, NO, JUST MASSAGE PLEASE”. Geez, my wife was literally right out side the room…what was she thinking? My massage is over before Sue’s so I go back to our room. When Sue returns, I tell her what happened there. When she hears it she was going to go kick some Chinese butt BUT, I talked her out of it and we had a good laugh. Later that night, when the sun went down (9pm), we take a taxi to the same restaurant and have the last supper in Tibet. We have yak pizza and yak sandwich. Sue thinks that the yak sandwich is the best dish she had on this trip. (I had a mild stomach problem for a whole day, and it was getting worse. I take a small bite of a sandwich and keep drinking strong black tea.) After the dinner, we venture a short ride in a bicycle Rikisha (pedicab) to the Potala Palace. This short ride turns into one of the most frightening transportation experiences. I don’t know why these drivers think they are driving a Porsche instead of bicycle with a cart. We go down the street a several blocks and head into a busy cross section where six streets merge and split (Traffic in Lhasa is not heavy, especially at night, but the cars on the street drives like they are in Indianapolis racing track.). Our driver starts peddling like an obsessed madman charging into the chaotic traffic with red light blaring against us. As we watch with horror, he sways left and right avoiding cars coming from every direction, pushing all his weight on his feet almost standing on his bike. And then, he makes a sudden big curve motion in warp speed to avoid the car gunning toward us from an 11 o’clock degree. As we clench our teeth and whiten our knuckles holding the steel bar in front of us, we miraculously clear out of the cross section in one piece. We arrive at the town square facing the Potala Palace, pay fare with trembling fingers & get off. We take nice shots of the beautifully illuminated Potala Palace and take regular taxi back to hotel. May 4 (Mon) Lhasa / Cheng Du At 1 pm, we arrive in Cheng Du which is a capital of Setzuan region, meet with our guide Jane and driver Mr. Shang. Jane is an energetic, peppy vibrant young lady and she proceeds to tell us about the city of Cheng Du in the car all the way to the hotel. When she starts talking about expensive foreign cars we see on the highway, she tells us that they are mostly driven by women. She tells us that Cheng Du women are known for their beauty. Men work so hard to keep them happy and spoil them. I feel Sue rolling her eyes in her seat. I spend the afternoon walking around the hotel neighborhood while Sue rests in the room. In the evening, we decide to go for a famously spicy Setzuan dinner cuisine. One of our most favorite Chinese dishes is “Mabo Tofu” (It is spicy tofu mixed with ground pork). I read in the guide book that there is a restaurant which originated the “Mabo Tofu” in this city. We get there by taxi, and we order “Mabo Tofu”, “Fried duck tongue”, and cooked Fungus (well, it’s kind of mushroom.). It turns out that the only good food is fungus. Mabo Tofu is way too spicy, and duck tongue is simply weird. Did you know that duck tongues have little bones which are like Y shaped thin wires? We had trouble finding a taxi getting over there, so we decide to walk back to hotel. May 5 (Tue) Cheng Du Jane tells us a joke about the Giant Panda, it goes like this: A female Panda in the park (named Lan Lan or Min Min or something like that) tells a park keeper that she has 2 wishes: 1 is that she wants a full colored photo of herself, and the other is that she wants to see eye doctor to check her eyes because they look tired lately. A few days later, she gets photo op, and the park keeper tells her to smile. When she does, it shows the pink inside of her mouth, thus getting a colored photograph she wanted. She got at least one wish to come true. We see the Big Pandas resting or sleeping on the tree branches or sitting among the piles of bamboos and eating them. In one area, suddenly one of the Pandas sitting on a tree branch drops enormous amount of bamboo poop. As they land on the ground …“thump, thump, thump…” tourists click their cameras. We see 15 minutes of Panda documentary film, and take off. After lunch, we visit ancient (there isn’t anything that isn’t “ancient” in China) “Wenshun Temple” and walk through the peaceful garden highlighted with pagodas, tea houses and small ponds enclosed within the old red walls. And then we visit Jili street where various street vendors sell souvenir items on the street. Sue gets a rice pendant with her name and date scribed on it (yes, it’s miniscule) while I buy a bunch of hand made straw bugs. On the way back to hotel, I see a man spit on the street by our car. So, I ask Jane about spitting. When we were in Hong Kong about 15 years ago, everyone was spitting everywhere on the street. They spit as they talk, spit waiting for the bus, spit crossing street… We thought it was Chinese thing, but in this trip, we haven’t seen anyone spit in public. Jane explains to us that it used to be very bad habit of Chinese people. In one freezing winter, she was disgusted to see a street shining solid with frozen spit of people. But a few years ago, in some big cities, the Chinese government banned public spitting. They gave a fine of 20 Yuan (about $3) for spitting in public which stopped the popular habit over-night. Tonight’s dinner is included in the itinerary, so Jane & Mr. Shang pick us up at hotel. In the restaurant they took us, we have the following Setzuan dinner: 2 types of Mabo Tofu (One is made with ground pork and so spicy, we just taste it and leave it there, the other one is milder with sea cucumber.), Chicken with nuts, Cooked eggplant, and egg drop soup. They were okay, but we were not impressed. We had very high expectation for Setzuan cuisine, but the dishes we had so far were not very good. Most of them used too much & too strong spices that we couldn’t even tell if it’s pork or chicken underneath. Sue thinks “Mabo Tofu” that I make at home is still her favorite. After the dinner, we go see a Chinese Variety Show in the theater nearby our hotel, among the various performances, the changing of the masks was most interesting act. We have a nice late evening walk back to the hotel. May 6 (Wed) Cheng Du / Guilin After a couple of hours of walking around, the rain starts pouring down. We dodge into a tea house by the river and sip chrysanthemum tea while getting a back-rub from street massage service. When the rain stops, we walk back to the car for a ride to the airport. Jane turns out to be a very kind & nice girl. She was a happy person probably due to her marriage to a military doctor a year ago. She gives us a bottle of mosquito repellent for our next destination “Guilin” which turned out to be life saving gift. After saying good-bye to her & Mr.Shang at the terminal, we enter the gate area. We find a noodle shop, and stop by for a snack. (We can’t believe we are still hungry after all the eating we had.) We arrive late in raining Guilin, one of the most scenic cities in China. Upon arrival, we meet our new guide Sue (Yes, as my wife’s name) & driver Mr. Lin. The first thing we notice coming out of the terminal is a row of huge and brightly lit artificial palm trees. When we enter the city of Guilin from the dark suburban area, we see various light illuminations along the main river that runs the center of city. Running along this artificially staged yet strangely appealing scenery, we arrive at our hotel by a lake framed and illuminated with red neon lights. (It’s like we are in a Fellini movie.) On the way to the hotel, I asked Sue (our guide) about the pollution here in this city. She tells us that her city is free of pollution, because when the government decided to focus on tourism as the city’s main industry, they moved all the factories from within the city limits. Government being the owner of all land, it is not difficult to do. Although I can see the various problems with state controlled society, I started to feel a bit envious of efficiency in this country. The hotel is nice but old. After we settled in our room, I hit the bathroom, and find a jungle size cockroach perched on the bathroom mirror. It is the size that you almost need a weapon to fight against it. I take my sneaker off and smash it flat as it falls down on the floor splashing gooey yellow/green juice all over. I decide to keep this secret from Sue and clean up the floor thoroughly. May 7 (Thu) Guilin The rain stops before we arrive at the bottom of mountain. When we get out of the car, our guide tells us that we are going to walk up to the top of mountain pointing her finger to a red flag way up at the top where it is so far up we can barely see it. My wife & I look at each other. In Lhasa (Tibet), I told my wife that Potala Palace was going to be the most physically challenging part of this trip (“The Great Wall” was a place where you can walk as little or as far as you wished.). She agonized over it due to her arthritis ankle and a bad knee. But she climbed the 400 steps to the top of Palace and was so happy & proud she quickly sent E-mails to the world informing her daunting challenge and her triumphant victory over it. She was congratulated by everyone and was guaranteed that the worst was over by me. But now, we were looking at the challenge definitely harder than her last record breaking achievement. I wondered “why nobody said anything about this?” There were carriage services (2 men held sitting cot) for the people who wouldn’t be able to go up by themselves. I ask her if she wants to use the service. Sue looks at me and with an air of desperate indignation, says “No way”. We walk a very narrow passage going by small houses and roadside gift shops. We stop to take a picture with 2 girls in local ethnic costumes. (Our guide tells us that one with pink dress is from Meow tribe, and the one with blue is from Dong tribe. They both live in the middle section of this mountain.) After a very long climb (luckily, height of steps are much lower than the ones in Potala Palace and we don’t have the altitude problem.), we arrive at the top and take photos of this breathtaking scenery surrounded by a mist covered mountain top skirted with hundreds of terraced rice paddies. On the way down, we stop at a restaurant, and have a lunch of mushroom soup, beef & chicken dishes, and local favorite of baked sticky rice in bamboo. After the lunch, we pass a big middle aged European man with 2 carriage handlers taking a break on the way up. A big client probably weighs more than the combined weight of the 2 handlers and the cot. 2 handlers standing there are soaking with sweat gasping for the air waiting for their bodies to re-energize for the long remaining climb. Sue looks at me and whispers to me “See, that’s why I didn’t want to use it”. I reply “You mean you didn’t want to be a subject of passing hikers whispering at your back?” She smiles. Further down the road, we encounter a very old tribe woman carrying a tourists’ luggage on her back in a basket. Our guide tells us that people who stay in one of the inns at the mountainside use the luggage carrying service. But no matter what the reason, it is just wrong to make old women carry your luggage. At the bottom, Sue tells me that she counted 1162 steps from the top. I tell her that she has every right to brag about this, and secretly feel relieved that this didn’t become major incident to ruin this whole trip. When we got closer to our car in the parking lot, I notice some strange food being sold at the roadside shops. There are piles of dried lizards, and flattened dried mountain birds. And then, I see flattened dried small animals hanging over a table. I ask guide “Is it by any chance, rats?” She says, to my horrified face, “Yes, they are! – Zhuang people eat them. In the old days, when people were poor including my parents, they ate rats when there was no food”. I feel my lunch coming back up. “You told me that what we had for lunch was beef & chicken, wasn’t it ? WASN”T IT?” She looks at me like I am talking to her with a mouthful of fried Bok Choy cabbage and replies. “Yes, it was.” My wife thinks this is funny and starts laughing. Returning to hotel, we have a quick dinner, and go out on the night river cruise of Guilin city. Someone who designed this city really liked artificial illuminations. Everything is illuminated with garish colored lights all along the riverside. Gold & green lights for various shaped bridges, silver & purple lights for pagodas on the shore, and lights for even some rocky mountain sides. Sue wasn’t impressed, but I liked them. It seemed to work because of the scale of it. It somehow transcended from being cheap tacky lighting tricks and became strangely absorbing theater. After the cruise, we say good night to our guide and walk through a huge night market nearby the dock before we return to hotel by taxi. May 8 (Fri) Guilin / Yangshuo Today, we are going to experience another highlight of this trip, Lijiangyou (Li River Cruise). I have heard so much about this river cruise in my life, I almost don’t have to do it myself. But of course, I must confirm it with my own eyes that people were not bull shitting all along. Forty five minutes drive takes us to the dock where we board 3 decked cruise boat. There are 5 of them, and after they board all the bus loads of tourists, we disembark. (our boat takes off last). It is lively on board with Europeans, Americans, very loud & happy young Chinese group and a Japanese guy with diarrhea. River is crowded with various cruise boats, bamboo rafts, small fishing boats etc,. And the surrounding scenery, aside from fleets of boats, is a replica of all the ancient ink paintings I saw in Chinese section of art museums. It is quite unique and beautiful. I spend most of the time on the roofless 3rd deck taking in all the scenery. After about 1 hour of going down the river, we pass by a bamboo boat with several Chinese people on it. They smile & wave to us as we wave back. And the next second, their boat flips over dumping all the people and their stuff in the river. Fortunately, the river is about 4 ft deep, and we realize that nobody is in danger. Our boat stops to aid them for about 40 minutes, and leaving 2 of our crew members, we continue our cruise. At lunch time, Sue tells me that she is advised by our guide to wipe the plate before using it. Standing on the line for buffet table, I see young Chinese people take napkins and carefully wiping off their plates and silverwares. I do the same. I finish my light lunch quickly and go back up to the 3rd deck. As I view and admire the scenery, I also notice that every single cruise boat has the same kitchen layout. It is located on the 1st open rear deck with a stove for woks, cutting table, and big plastic pail used as a sink with river water flowing through a plastic tube. And then, I thought about our toilet (We had a toilet in the rear section of this boat.) I notice that there isn’t any odor caused by a holding tank here. Usually, after a few hours of toilet usage with this many people, unpleasant odors sneak out from the holding tank. Absence of odor means absence of holding tank which means the sewage from toilet is being dumped directly into the water. I looked again at the way the water is pumped up from the river to the kitchen, and I wondered how many boats are on this river with the same plumbing system…..And then, a thought hits me suddenly that there are things that shouldn’t be contemplated upon in our lives, and I decide to stop thinking about it. We arrive in the town of Yangshuo in the afternoon. We walk through tourists packed “West Town” to our hotel. I was a little worried about this hotel being 3 star in the countryside, especially after roach incident in Guilin. But it turns out that they had one of the most comfortable rooms we stayed in on this trip. Since it is only 2pm, we decide to have an excursion trip to visit a local farmhouse. Our guide (Sue) charters a taxi (which is a golf cart) and we take off to the outskirts of town. Once we leave the main street, the road becomes very narrow, winding & rough. Sue (guide) tells us that we cannot stop the car because we will be jumped by farmers for money. So, we go slowly taking pictures of magnificent rocky hills, rice paddies, water buffalos, etc,. At the end of the road, we stop by at a farmhouse where a few women stand by. As soon as we come out of the taxi, 2 women rush toward us with infants in their arms to pose for a picture. As soon as I click my camera at one of them, the woman sticks her hand at my face saying “MONEY, MONEY”. I give 10 yuan which seems to make her happy. We enter a house owned by an old lady with her children & grand children. It is an old farm house with dirt floor and very basic furniture. In the living room wall, we see a nest of swallows. It seems that residents feel quite okay to share their house with wild birds. While we walk around and take pictures of this charming house, the old lady keeps serving various local fruits. After awhile, we thank the lady for her hospitality, and head back to the hotel. We eat local favorite dish of “Beer Carp” for dinner at West Town and go see the famous light show. The stage of this show is in river inlet surrounded by rocky hills. It is hard to describe the grandness of this stage design which makes full utilization of surrounding nature and modern technology. The seating capacity of this theater is 3000 and it is almost full (they have 2 shows every night). The show is in Chinese but it is mostly dance / music show accentuated by spectacular lighting and local tribal costumes. The cast consists of professional actors, dancers, singers and 300 local farmers. It is created by Zhang Yimou, who was an art director for the opening ceremony at 2008 Beijing Olympic. In spite of relentless attack by mosquitoes (bug repellent which Jane gave us in Cheng Du saves my life.), we thoroughly enjoy this exalting production. One other thing I want to note about this show is that we were sitting next to the famous Japanese singer / actress, Judy Ongg (she is Chinese native). She is a few years older than me which makes her around 60, but she looked like she could be my daughter. When I tell Sue about her age, she just couldn’t believe that this lady was that old. (Maybe it had something to do with the lighting effect here.) After the show, Sue goes back to hotel while I venture out to have night snack of local crawfish which I saw being served in some local restaurant earlier. Funny thing about this experience is that when I entered a small restaurant which displayed crawfish, and asked where is men’s room, a waitress took me to a public restroom in a bus station 2~3 blocks away from the restaurant. Although the public restroom was not, Crawfish was pretty good. May 9 (Sat) Yangshuo / Guilin / Shanghai Well, anyway, I walk deeper inside of this very sinister looking food market. At the deepest end, I see an animal carcass hanging from hook. I go near and take a close look at it. It’s full bodied roasted animal carcass with no cuts. It has peeled teeth like it is snarling and 4 limbs are tacked like Peking duck. I get closer and I realize that it is a dog. I look around and I realize that there are 3~4 shops with same merchandise, some of them just cutting up the newly roasted one. Instinctively, I step back and realize that there is a husband & wife couple on the floor washing small skinned animals. First I think that they are puppies, but when I take a closer look, I realize that they are skinned cats. This couple had several skinned cats soaked in a pail, and was grilling one on a skewer. I take a quick picture of it & turn around and take a picture of hanging dog. I walk to another shop and I see that a woman is just cutting open a roasted dog in front of a small cage which contained a few live dogs inside. I just didn’t know how I felt about dogs until this moment. I never was animal lover, and do feel careless if there was no more cats & dogs in this world, but this felt seriously wrong. I move to the next shop and face a camera at a man who was just cutting up a dog with a huge butcher knife. When he sees me, he points a finger at me and says “NO !”. I say okay and put my camera down. As I walk away from him, my eyes meet with one pair of dog’s eyes in cage behind him. These sad eyes looked at me directly and I felt like this dog was begging me to save him/her. I walk very fast away from the scene. When I return to the hotel, I tell the story and show the pictures I took to Sue. She seemed nervous and didn’t know how to react to it. I tell Sue “This makes me think about eating meat, any kind of meat. I don’t know if I can touch any meat for awhile”. Sue says she is glad that she didn’t come out with me. I glance at the photo images and think about deleting them, but decide to keep them. I tell Sue, “Lizard and Rat eats bug, Cat eats rat, Dog eats cat, and Chinese eat them all.” Sue goes: “So, I suppose Chinese are at the top of food chain?” I suppose she is right. Later, we go to lunch in West Town, our guide orders food for us, but I can’t eat meat, so I just pick veggies from the plates. Sue seems to be okay with eating meat (she’s a fearless eater) but when we hear a faint dog bark from kitchen at the end of lunch, her eyes go wide and she stops eating. We drive back to Guilin, visit one of the huge and carefully illuminated natural caves (as I said before, they just love illumination in this town), a park with elephant shaped rock, and some souvenir shops. Then we head toward the airport. We say goodbye to our local guide (Sue) & driver Mr. Lin, and we have dinner at the terminal before the flight. (I just pick veggies again from the plates.) While we wait for our departure time, I take a walk around the boarding gate area. At the end of the hallway, I see a huge panel with original Chinese calligraphy hanging by the men’s room. I always liked Chinese calligraphy, and was thinking of buying one in this trip if I could find one that I liked. Although I have seen many during this trip, and some of them were very decent, I have never seen anything this beautiful until now. It was beyond being just an excellent calligraphy. It was more like painting. Strokes were alive with emotion and were going all over the surface almost jumping out of the frame but never losing the control. Instead of writing each character correctly, the calligrapher was seeing the whole surface of paper as one pictorial plane. It was executed rapidly from the top right hand corner -without any corrections, ending at the lower left corner. You could almost see the calligrapher moving the brush. And this calligrapher knew how to use it… I noticed that there was a small note posted on the wall along with this work. I read that this work was done by a native Guilin calligrapher named Meng Yan when SHE was 15 years old. Well, there are people with rare talents. I decided to check the works of this woman in the internet when I return to the U.S. We arrive in Shanghai airport late at night, meet our guide Michael and driver Cheng. Michael says he just came out of wedding party and that is why he is dressed so nice. We see him wearing regular light colored shirt with very regular pants. We wondered what he usually wears to his work. Going through dark streets, we enter the financial district nearby our hotel. When we turn around a street corner, we see a bunch of people standing in front of a small news paper stand. Michael tells us that they are stock traders just exchanging information. We say “But it’s almost midnight on Saturday night!” He replies “It doesn’t matter to them, there are always someone there.” At the hotel check in, Michael tells us that this hotel has one and the only Russian bar / restaurant in Shanghai. When we pass a restaurant floor on the elevator, we hear live Russian band playing. May 10 (Sun) Shanghai It seemed that they have a lot of construction going around the city including the new subway system. They are hosting World Expo next year, and building up the whole infra structures. Michael tells us that Shanghai has one third of all the construction cranes in the world, so that they are going to make crane the national bird soon. The tour ends after lunch at the hotel. Since we have the whole afternoon free, we walk to a nearby Shanghai museum, and then take a taxi to the Artist district of M50 to check out the modern Chinese art. For dinner, we go to a very nice restaurant called “Whanpoo Club” in the Bund area recommended by Michael. We have “Shark fin soup”, “Lobster cooked 3 ways”, and “Seafood noodles” looking over Shanghai nightscape. Restaurant is very gigi, but like most of these gigi restaurants, the food is gaga. I pay about $250 with my credit card (We paid $6 for our first dinner in China.), and walk back to hotel. May 11 (Mon) Shanghai / Zhu Jia Jiao / Suzhou After about 2 hours of drive, we arrive at a town of Zhu Jia Jiao. There are narrow canals where old fashioned boats float along the streets with many souvenir shops. Same as other places we visited in this trip, gift shop sales people are quite aggressive. Also, beggars here (mostly old smiling women) are very tenacious and they will not take no as answer. They will follow you around about 2 city blocks if they think they can get something out of you. We feel bad about these people being in the situation where they are, but at the same time, we don’t like to have our arms being twisted. So, we ignore them and run. (and sometimes they run after us.) We walk around for about an hour in the scorching heat, and head to Suzhou. Suzhou is, contrary to my expectation, a very modern big city. As soon as we get there, we visit the oldest city wall in China. We walk on the very empty city wall (there were nobody else) under burning sun, hit the end after 300 meters, and walk back to our car. We check into the hotel, have lunch (no meat for me.), and I use free afternoon to visit one of their famous gardens and busy modern shopping street while Sue rests at the hotel. Michael tells me that our hotel has one of the best Chinese restaurants in this city, so we decide to stay for dinner. We order: “Bird nest”, “Black sea cucumber”, “Abalone”, and fried rice. Sue thinks “Bird nest” is just gross and after tasting tiny bit of it, move onto fried rice (I think this is because I told her that what makes the bird nest tastes so unique is the bird poops in the nest.). After the dinner, we visit massage room in the hotel, and have feet massage together while I sleep thorough the whole thing. May 12 (Tue) Suzhou / Shanghai All morning, the sky looked like it was going to break open with thunder and rain any second, but somehow it stays clear. We visit a big garden busy with old Chinese tourist groups with different colors of baseball caps, and then to an embroidery factory where we see some very time consuming work. We have lunch in a big western buffet place filled with endless chain of western tour groups. (I still can’t eat meat.) In the afternoon, we return to the same hotel in Shanghai, and say good bye to Michael. He was very different from any other guides we had in China. His English was much better than anyone else, and he was a free speaking man while all the others were quiet about social & political issues. Although he didn’t criticize the Communist party, he had no problem telling us that some things were not going well in China, and that he has no interest in joining the party. We talked about various issues including changing economical policy in China, birth control, ethnic issues including Tibet, education, state ownership of land and industries, etc,. etc,. I told him that I lived my youth while Cultural Revolution in China was going on, and also was shocked to see Tianneman square incident 20 years ago. And that I was expecting to see more of social cultural control by the state throughout China, but was surprised that it seems so open and free. I also told him that people in the west were worried when China took over Hong Kong because the jewel of Asian capitalism would be forever gone from this earth, but contrary to what we expected, it seems like the whole China is now becoming Hong Kong. Michael seemed to enjoy this observation rather than being offended. I know that China is far from being free & open state. We arrived in Shanghai at the time of anniversary of terrible earthquake which killed thousands of people 1 year ago. Chinese TV media seems to broadcast the amazing recovery effort in these damaged cities, and how victims are happy about the assistance Chinese government is providing to them. Meanwhile, CNN and other foreign TV channels broadcast about thousands of people who still don’t have residence, and people who are trying to have government accountable for poorly constructed schools which collapsed and killed their children. This is a complicated and rapidly changing country. In this trip, we met our young and educated tour guides and other very savvy people while also seeing poor un-educated people with very limited means for income. We saw the countryside where people still eat rats & dogs while some people dine in a restaurant having caviar & champagne. Temples are filled with people who lay down on the floor to pray while Communist doctrinaire discourage religious devotions. Stock brokers hang around at the street corner at midnight discussing stocks while tribal people work on their rice paddies on water buffalo. I knew a Japanese man who had a Chinese wife once. He told me that it was so easy for Japan or any other countries to conquer China because Chinese people are so independent & self-centered. It is impossible to unite them as country and ask them to sacrifice themselves for greater cause. I don’t know if that is true or not. The more I travel the world, the more I see people as one same species of animal. But as we eat different food, people have different ideas and take different actions. Michael seems to think that the western idea of democracy is not going to work in China. After a little conversation I had with Michael about all the apparent contradictions in China, Michael tells me “It may not be perfect, but what we have works for us. It works for China”. With that, we said Saichen to our most westernized and free speaking guide in China. In the late afternoon, I walked around the neighborhood of our hotel and found a restaurant with big crab sign outside. Since I still couldn’t eat meat, I ask Sue if we can have a dinner there. (There was a sushi restaurant a block away, but we agreed that sushi in China may not be a good idea.) We go there and order 11 course crab dinner and it turns out to be the best meal we had since we came to China. May 13 (Wed) Shanghai I need to make a little note here about shopping in China. With the exception of Jili street in Cheng Du (which is controlled by government), shopping here means dog eats dog merciless battle of bartering. It’s not for the feeble minded. You are supposed to offer 40~50 % of what they are asking especially if you plan to buy the items in quantity. They usually say no, and they give you counter offer. After a few going back & forth, you may come to the mutually agreeable price. But if you know how to play this game well, you may actually get a good bargain. There was an old cast iron dragon statuette which was being sold for 500 yuan. I offered 200. They said no. So, I gave up and looked for something else in the shop. Not finding anything else that I wanted to buy, I made a motion to leave the shop. Then, they grabbed me and said it is okay, and quickly wrapped it in a paper. I thought maybe I offered too much, but later on, I found the same statuette in Shanghai airport being sold for 1500 yuan. That is more than 7 times of what I paid for. On the way back to hotel, our taxi and another taxi start racing on the busy street missing each other by few inches. When, we come out on a bigger street, the other taxi drives in front of us and stops. Our driver goes out and emotional shouting match pursues. We honestly don’t know why this is not happening a lot more often considering the way they drive. Sue wants to rest during afternoon, so I take off to another art district by taxi. This area is small but aside from art galleries, there are many tiny boutiques and coffee shops and bar/restaurants. There are very young foreign and Chinese people. I see 3 Japanese bars in a small alley. At night, by strong recommendation of bell captains’ desk, we go to the area called “French Concession” It is a kind of city square where many nice and chic restaurants and bars are lined up for foreign tourists and young hip Chinese people. We enter a restaurant and order Peking Duck, Grilled Fish, Fried Chicken, Shrimp in Chili sauce, and another plate of soup dumpling. Each dish was okay, but the most of them came out fried (even Peking Duck). When we were done, I felt like I just rinsed my mouth with sesame seed oil. We walk around some more after dinner and later find a busy café and sit on outside table facing lively square. We sipped gigando capucinos as we talked about this trip and see people walk by. May 14 (Thu) Shanghai / New York Our first flight is 2 and a half hours to Tokyo, and after 2 hours of lay over, another 13 hours to New York. Everything goes smoothly on the flight, and we arrive back home safely. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This was the longest vacation I have ever had. When I planned this trip, I was not sure if I would like to travel this long, because in the past, we became tired of moving around at the end of very long trip, and started to miss home. In Narita airport, as we were sitting in cafeteria, having lunch before our flight to JFK, I told Sue that I wished I was not going home. Sue told me that she felt the same way. So, I suppose we can handle this, probably a much longer trip. We have been talking about renting a small apartment in Japan or in Hong Kong and travel all over Asia using it as our hub. This old idea sounded good to us again. I started thinking about the next trip to Bhutan, or Katmandu as I was pushing away pieces of meat to the edge of my plate with my fork.
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