Primordial Soup

After the hostel yesterday afternoon, we went back to that Tibetan market. It really is the best place in Xining (西宁) to hangout - even if you're not buying anything. I got a necklace, and helped the boys pick out jewlery. Then we had early dinner at a Muslim restaurant and hit up the bus station.

I asked about 5 people how long they thought our ride would be from Xining to the hot springs in Wenquan (温泉). Responses literally ranged from 3 hours to 15 hours. After some initial excitement (on my part) about a night bus, we ended up boarding a regular bus (bummer). Turns out the ride was actually 7 incredibly uneventful hours. I bet the scenery out the window would have been beyond beautiful, but it was dark the hole ride. We watched some horrible Chinese amateur plays for teh first few hours, and then this crazy movie called Chaos. Then I pretty much slept. The bus did have an hour break fro dinner around 9, although no one told the foreigners what was going on so we wasted a good deal of the break wondering where everyone disappeared to and worrying about leaving the bus.

Anyways, around 1:30 AM we pulled into Wenquan. Thank God there was one restaurant still open so we could ask for help finding a place to stay. Turns out there is a truck stop in town were we were able to stay for 25元 per night. 3 beds per room with 2 comforters and heated blankets. Absolutely necessary - it's freezing here! It's been snowing since we arrived, and all is mud and iciness/sleety rain.

Woke up this morning and went to the restaurant that saved us for breakfast. Delicious friend rice, and really really nice guy running it. Asked him where the hot springs were. Should have been more suspect when he told us the springs were free.

We followed his directions 200 meters past the last house in town (the town is approximately 400 meters long) and came upon a giant steaming pile of trash. We though, "oh, maybe the springs are BEHIND this trash pile!" Yet, behind that is just more steaming trash. Not a Turkish bath in sight. Turns out the residents here dump their trash in the hot springs, creating a primordial soup of interesting plastic bits. The water was warm, probably 80 degrees, but a bit stagnant with algae and trash. So, we decided to follow the stream a bit further down to where there was a rock structure that we were hoping might be some sort of outdoor bath.


It was, but for sheep. Of course you need to wash your sheep every day! We came upon a corral of sheep that a few men were desperately trying to herd into a hot spring bath to be bathed - I guess. We joined in the pushing and stick beating until all the sheep were through. Then we decided to wander down river a bit.


We hiked for a ways up into snowy mountains, and then Anna and I turned back while the boys continued their hike. On the way back we figured we'd check out the source of the hot spring and came upon a pool where a couple of little boys were having a bath. Their older brothers were sitting on cinderblocks with their feet dangling in. Anna and I followed suit and pulled up some cinderblocks and sat for a while. The water felt really nice at the time, although my feet haven't really warmed up since that hike.



Then we walked back to town and wandered into what looked like a pretty happening restaurant. It was pretty happening. We asked if we could sit and drink tea with them and pulled up a seat by the stove. Thus part of Qinghai it seems people are just really into chilling out, and they just sit around doing this for hours. So we sat and chatted with them - all Tibetan men, mid 30s, for hours until the boys came back. They especially enjoyed checking out the photos of Sudbury I have on my itouch, and were super excited to see my photo of the Dalai Lama (so glad I downloaded it for this trip, now).

Boys finally came back around 4, too late for an afternoon excursion which was disappointing. We went back to the room and rested/chatted over some Grape Wall wine (yes, it tasted like it sounds), and then went to dinner. Had some of the most amazing soup ever and saw lots of the friends Anna and I made this afternoon (like I said, Wenquan is small).

~L

Waiting

We caught the bus to Xining (西宁) from Heimahe (黑马河）with the help of a nice monk who was also attempting to catch that bus. Uneventful ride; 2 movies and a baby slept on my lap the whole times.

After lunch we attempted to catch the 3pm bus to Tongren （同仁）. All was going well, and the scenery was insane - jagged mountains, fall foliage, etc - when the cops pulled our bus over. They made all the foreigners get off (ie us), examined our passports, and then took us into the police tent where we had out temperature taken. All was normal (thank God) but then they told us we were forbidden from going to Tongren. Apparently (according to my shoddy Chinese), Tongren has the swine so the government wasn't letting foreigners in. This blew. They gave us a bunch of pears and put us on the swine-ridden bus back from whence we came.

So, uneventful evening in Xining, and now we're blowing through a lazy rainy day until our bus leaves for the hot springs at 6 pm. I'm a bit nervous about that ride because I don't know how long the bus is, what to expect and if we'll be able to find somewhere to stay at midnight or whenever we're getting in. I'm willing to roll with the punches (TIC), but I hope everyone isn't freaking out in about 12 hours. Keep you posted.

~L

黑马河

Last night we tried a Xinjiang restaurant, but the guy kept trying to hustle us with all kinds of deals. We ended up at a pretty expensive place, but it wasn't so bad - food was pretty good. Then we picked up a crate of beer and headed home.

We started hanging out in our room, but pretty son were approached by some Chinese guys who were in the process of biking around the lake. They were nice and we talked to them for a while. Got some digits. One was older - 38 and from Shandong, and the other looked about our age and was from outside of Beijing.

I woke up at 6:30 this morning with Charlie to watch the sunrise over the lake. It was really beautiful. And cold. Then we went back to bed. Woke up around 9 to fried rice and zhou for breakfast and then hired a van to drive us to Heimahe (黑马河). A mianbao for 25/person, just a bit more than the (unpredictably arriving/free space) bus. It was a pretty cozy hour and a half.


We had a bit of a saga finding a hotel with a dorm, but did get lucky and ended up at the Jiaotong (交通) truck stop which had a 6 bed room with heated blankets and cable tv (!) for 15/person. The hotel(?) is a bit dingy, but its really quite nice compared to my expectations for this trip. We have also just discovered that Jose and Charlie would clearly make the perfect sitcom-about-first-year-roommates pair.


After lunch at a Tibetan restaurant, we went for a hike. We went high and far, and I was embarrassingly dying a bit. But it was so worth it. The views were amazing amazing. We had to cut through some farms, hop over and/or through a ton of barbed wire fences, and cross rivers with stepping stones. At one point there were no stones and we had to lose out shoes and ford the river. THe water was frigid but so so clear. We drank some and it was delicious. We probably hiked for about 3 hours, I'm really interested to googlemap/mapmyrun the route to see how far and high we went. The altitude was definitely getting to me; I was pretty lightheaded and overly easily exhausted. Of course a gorgeous sunset, and then we went out to dinner. Sichuan thus time - the lamb was getting a little old.




~L

To the Lake

The Xining train was uneventful. Two and a half hour hard seat with amazing mountain views (at least until the sun went down). Also got Anna hooked on Noah's Arc (what a lovely show).

Our hostel in Xining was actually legitimate (the only one of the trip - and the Qinghai Sangzhu Youth Hostel for future travellers' reference). It was decorated in Tibetan style: lots of red and lacquer. The beds were a bit softer than before, but still pretty hard. However, reception was nice and there was wireless. Also, it was Hostelling International, so it had a lot of nice facilities including maps, guidebooks and a pool table. And we got showers.

We had a pretty good dinner at the corner of Snack Street (小吃街）and Home Avenue（家街） (seriously). It was pretty good. Then we went looking for a bar. Several false attempts at KTV places first, then we ended up at a shady basement "club"/bar. It was filled with absolutely wasted Chinese people. Absolutely wasted. We danced with them and had some good times. This club was literally slapshod together - clapboard walls, plexiglass blocks over x-mas lights for a dance floor, etc. etc.

Yesterday Charlie, Jose and I woke up at 6 to go buy train tickets back to SH - the never ending saga of nervousness. Success! We were waiting in the line that forms before the station opens, and a policeman came up to us, took us to another line, had us cut that line, and opened up the ticket window just for us. Then he helped us to ask for tickets. It was amazing, and I'm not sure why it happened, but I'm always in favor of trusting in the kindness of strangers. Long story short, we all now have tickets for Saturday night, getting in at around 4 AM Monday morning. Getting to class will be awful, but there's only one SH train per day and it leaves at 10 pm. Ah well.

Everyone else woke up around 10 (and took glorious showers). We went out for brunch and then explored the Snack Street. So much delicious naan and deep fried sesame bread! I love the west. Then we went to Beishan temple （北山私）. The Daoist temple is built into a mountainside. Most of the shrines were in small caves or grottos. There were also full temple structures built into the rocks.

I am also convinced that every tourist location in China involves about 20 miles of stairs.

We bought incense and learned how to worship. We also got some amazing views of the city and a random flash rainstorm. When the rain started the plateau dust swept over the city in a matter of minutes. The result was eerie and awe inspiring, and this photo absolutely does it no justice.


After the temple we went to visit Dongguan Mosque (东关清真寺) on the recommendation of some people I met on couchsurfing. It's one of the oldest and largest mosques in China and was pretty visually impressive. We made a bunch of friends on the grounds, although most Uigher muslims do not permit their photo to be taken. Then we explored the area around the Mosque. It had delicious bread, tons of tea shops, cookies and other Muslim wares.


Before dinner we went to the Tibetan Market by the train station which was awesome! They had every kind of Tibetan good you could imagine and they were such nice people! No one tried to hustle you or anything - such a welcome change from the big Eastern cities. Ben bough sheepskin, the boys all bought winter coats, Anna and I bought jewelry, Jose bought incense etc. I also got this sick pair of long underwear - so warm and comfy. Prepare for them to be heavily featured in future photos.

We attempted to find an Indian place for dinner and failed epically, but did end up at a Tibetan restaurant which was quite delicious. They had that sweet potato stuff, but it wasn't as good as it was in Lhasa. Mild downer, but the rest of dinner was delicious.

Later we went to two bars that were in the area (side note for future visitors - we found the bar area on Wenhua Lu - 文化路). At the first we played some cards, and then when it got slow we went upstairs to another bar. We were playing kings when a bunch of Chinese kids came up and asked to meet/join us. Thus begins the epic translation of Kings into Chinese. It kind of worked. More amazing was successfully teaching them how to play Thumper (like concentration). Successful evening. We were even kicked out of our table for being too loud.

This morning we took the 8:30 bus to Lake Qinghai. First we tried to go to the Tibetan Market again because the rest of us decided we needed warm coats as well. Only Jose and Ben found one - including a legit Chinese Police Jacket which has been a huge hit among the locals - but Anna and I had to settle on mittens. I have dibs on the sheepskin should I die of cold tonight/tomorrow/etc.


The bus took about 4 hours and dropped us in the town of Hatu (哈图). The ride was uneventful, but the scenery was incredibly impressive. The valleys and mountains we passed through were exactly like those I was in at the first nunnery in Tibet, and the rolling hills around the lake seriously remind me of Xiahe. Most of the rapeseed had been harvested, so we missed out on those crazy swaths of yellow, but it was still just absolutely beautiful. There were some squares of rapeseed that had awkwardly been left for the tourists, and we drove past the Minorities "Amusement Park" - disgusting.


Hatu itself is pretty damn touristy. Its obviously the place to go for matching orange hatted Chinese with too much money. After talking to our incredibly kind hosts at lunch (thus I highly recommend the Lanzhou restaurant with the red sign across from the gas station) we found the only dorm in town - no hostels here - and were able to bargain the price down to a somewhat reasonable 30 kuai per night. I have to say though, these bunks are a good deal more comfortable than where we've slept the past few days, although the massive picture window is a bit of a creeper and a heat drainer.

After settling in we asked around for a way to get to the top of a mountain and/or downtown to the shore of a lake. The hotel owner found a friend, and we negotiated an afternoon of private driving to 150 kuai, pretty legitimate. The six of us loaded into a sheisty van and headed up. First they took us to the top of one of the mountains. The views were stunning. They also took us to a friend's house that was on a bluff with 360 degree views of lake, mountains and sky. What an absolutely perfect place to retire to. The lake is saltwater, and looks like an ocean, and there was hiking everywhere, people no where, and mountains all the way to India. After that they took us down to the lakeside where we borrowed some horses. We rode back and forth along the beach for a bit and then back into the van to 4-wheel it into town.


~L

Lanzhou Beef Noodles

Today is my second day in Lanzhou - no one else is awake yet and we still don't have return tickets to Shanghai, a fact which makes me insanely nervous. But regardless, here's a past two days recap.

Wednesday morning we walked, waited and pushed our way through the rain to the Shanghai rail station to catch our 8:15 train. Getting out tickets was the world's biggest fiasco, so we had no idea how long the train would be, and I can't believe how incredibly fortunate we were to all be in the same berth. We had originally tried to use a travel agency, because it's so hard to get tickets for Golden Week and that way you can reserve in advance. The day after the tickets were supposed to be delivered I called the agency and asked why they hadn't delivered them yet. They simply responded "the tickets never came, good luck!" Gee, thanks. Obviously by then every single ticket to anywhere was sold out. We got super super super lucky with a last minute cancellation that just happened to come up as we were in the middle of a nightmarish freakout at the ticket counter.

It turned out to be a 30 hour train - we pulled into Lanzhou at 1:30 on the 1st. Spent our time with cards, stories, MASH, Lemons, and making up random shit to do. And of course endless naps. From which I woke up to this:


Got to Lanzhou and tried - AND FAILED - to ret return tickets. Am now dying of nervousness. Then we checked into the shadiest hostel ever. Apparently it's a Chinese-only targeted hostel, which is clearly true. We are the only foreigners here and quite obviously a curiosity. The inside is a courtyard filled with plants and a fake river that ends in a grotto of goldfish. The river - since it doesn't flow - is a bit stagnant. Our beds are literally just the wooden planks. There are a few amusing sheets of newspaper between the bottom sheets and the wood. I've slept on worse, sure, but the whole atmosphere of this place is kind of creepy. The hostel owner is also incredibly unhelpful and the bathrooms are straight China. There is only one shower for the whole place, and it's located on top of the toilet that the entire hostel shares.

Then we went for a long walk around Lanzhou. We started out along the Yellow river and came up to the Zhongshan Bridge - built in 1907 by German/American engineers. It was the first east/west cooperative building project, which is pretty neat. Then we walked south through some Uigher alleys, snacking along the way on naan and sweet potato (my loyal readers know how I feel about snacking my way through travel). Eventually we had dinner at a Xinjiang restaurant which I thought was a bit overpriced and Chineseified but the others all said it was excellent, so I guess it was a success.


Lanzhou's pedestrian street is pretty hoppin at night, and people here are super friendly. We saw a bridal dance and fashion show, and went to a couple markets. There was an (probably illegal) puppy market on the street, so adorable. I need one. Then we went to a "German Brewery" and had the grossest most watered down beer ever - FAIL. If you're ever in Lanzhou, avoid the German Breweries. They may have servers in leiderhosen, but there are two beer choices - light and dark - and there is chao mein on the menu. Silly.

After returning to the hostel to discover out new roommate - an 80 year old man - we set out to discover a bar for the night. WE ended up at ILKBAR where beers are crazy cheap compared to East China (approx 10rmb). We also met an English Teacher with pretty awful English who was celebrating his birthday. People in Lanzhou are all so friendly, and so thrilled to practice their English and welcome us to town.

Also, I bought a silly cowboy hat.

After a nice, hot, uncomfortable night back a the hostel, we spend the next morning sleeping in. We went to lunch at a much tastier Xinjiang restaurant along the Uigher alley. Then we went to he gondola that takes you up to the top of the hill on the other side of the Yellow River. I'm a sucker for cheesy Chinese transportation (see various entries on the Shanghai tourist tunnel). The hills were covered in temples and pagodas, which we didn't really make it to. One of the bluffs had a really nice view of the city and it was covered with picnic tables, so we grabbed some beers and sat for a while. We had some nice discussions with other picnickers and discovered a cozy couch which awkwardly turned out to be a literal hole of poop.



When we rode down, Ben, Jose and Charlie ent in search of massages they never found, and Anna, Gareth and I went in search of a teahouse we never found. We did find a pretty cool looking antiques market though and wandered it a bit. Our cab driver on the way back was thrilled to meet Obama, and enjoyed listing off all the other Americans he had ever heard of.


Back at the hostel I said goodbye to the little boy who I had befriended this morning while everyone was sleeping. We acted out scenes from Monkey and he taught me his kung fu skills. It was pretty long and tearful. I do feel a bit bad that I won't be returning and that I don't even know his name, but I'm over it - he was a bit clingy.


~L

Shanghai Living and Qinghai Tomorrow!

My life here could usually take place anywhere, for the extreme lack of playing the tourist lately. I've settled into a routine of work, class, work, sleep, punctuated by trips to the store or dinner with friends.

Last night one of my professors had our class over for dinner. His apartment was so nice, and his son cooked the most amazing meal. I was told by my language partner the other day that Shanghai women are known for controlling their men - they must be able to cook and clean on command and generally act as "house husbands" - so perhaps by professors son is in training. In a lovely moment of cultural exchange, I taught my language partner how to say whipped.

I joined a gym the other day. It's in a pretty extensive athletic complex - as things tend to come in China. It's very nice, and I'm excited to be active again. I went swimming this morning, which turned into more of a social hour with 80 year old men who also like to swim/chat bright and early on tuesdays than a workout, but that's ok. The pool is one of those annoying 50 meter ones; for some reason those make me so much more tired than a 25 yard even if my workout is the same distance. The locker room was also colossal - I would hate to see how crowded this pool is when all those miles of showers are necessary. In all it was a lovely morning - early workout followed by the cheapest take out coffee (and actual coffee!!) that I've found in China yet, and then an actual omelette from the street food guy (Jake, clever as he is, has been teaching the jidanbing guy to make omelettes, scrambled eggs, and next up french toast. He's even created a separate "American Menu" now).

Last week Isabelle and I went for a wander somewhere in midtown Shanghai. We ended up in the lace district (as mentioned above, things in China seem to come in giant square blocks of goods). After stopping in a shop or two that apparently couldn't sell us anything (maybe they were wholesale only?) we found one with a really nice guy willing to sell us lace and chat about fabrics and his hometown for hours. Final result of this field trip is my modded Fudan t-shirt. Not gonna lie, it came out pretty nice. I'll get a picture up here eventually.

Tomorrow I'm leaving for my National Holiday trip. I'll be going to Qinghai, although no major plans as of yet. We'll use Xining and Lanzhou as jump off points. Qinghai is on the Tibetan Plateau (and is culturally Tibetan) in Western China. It is kind of like the wild west of China - largely unpopulated except by nomadic herding groups. The landscape is mostly high steppe and rolling hills, and the population a mixture of various Tibetan, Uigher, and Muslim minorities. We'll probably spend a few days travelling/camping in the area around Xining - Qinghai Lake (one of the highest saltwater lakes in the world), Takster, Linxia, Tongren, Bingling, Yushu, Nangqian. You can google it if you're interested, I don't want to bore anyone with history or information that I'll likely duplicate in a coming post (or who knows, my plans could easily change and I'll head to different places after all). So yeah, all that's concrete is the 24 hours I'll be spending on a train (oh my favorite form of China travel!) starting bright and early tomorrow morning. Stay tuned for what happens next.

Here's a map of possible destinations. Obviously the dot in Shanghai is my home.

View Qinghai Trip in a larger map


~L

[Creative Title Here - Mental Note to be More Interesting]

I have really been lacking in the blogging inspiration lately, apologies.

Since I last wrote, all my students have arrived, classes have started, the endless heat has begun to wear off, I've gained a roommate, gone to Suzhou, and basically settled in.

The students are all awesome, thank goodness, and it's so nice to have English-speaking company. Now that Fudan has started, there are foreigners everywhere. I never really thought about how Fudan would get so many exchange students, but I suppose the number three school in China is going to have it's draw. The line for foreign students registration was literally a day long (and in typical China fashion required about 20 silly steps).

Classes are what I expected. Chinese is three hours per day. Unlike Beijing (when the 5 hours of class kill me) started at 8am, in Shanghai Chinese doesn't start until 1:30, and I can't even begin to tell you how much better that is for my cognizance. Chinese class isn't super hard. Although today she did ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up and I literally was unable to answer. Humiliation ensues.
I'm also taking a class on the history and growth of Shanghai, which is interesting in all senses of the word. Our first class involved an hour long PPT biography of our professor - from birth to the present. I'm cutting him some slack though, as he is a world renowned professor. The course also involves a lot of "fieldwork" - interpreted here as short field trips to various sites of Shanghai in small groups. On our first trip we went to the World Expo Expo Hall (the redundancy was lost on my Chinese counterparts). It included this awesome wall fixture:


China takes these things seriously. Our small groups for the Shanghai Metropolis class are made of of two Chinese students and two foreign students each. When this was announced on the first day, every single Chinese student audibly groaned. The foreigners tried to pretend this wasn't insanely awkward. The two Chinese girls in my group are best friends. Clearly. They either complete each other sentences or speak in unison at all times. It's charming for now.

As mentioned, I now have a roommate. She has yet to tell me her Chinese name, but her English name is Judith. She seems nice, although I don't know much about her despite the fact that we've been living together for going on two weeks now. I know she's from Suzhou, she's a 30-year-old ex-banker, and she's recently decided to stop working and go to Fudan for a masters in History. She also likes to read Chinese poetry and sing traditional Chinese opera in the shower. She has a nice voice.

Last weekend I went to Suzhou with the group. It was a pretty touristy trip, but some parts of it I wouldn't have been able to do alone, so I guess that's ok. First we went to Tiger Hill, a very pretty park area with a pagoda on top of the hill. The pagoda was very seriously leaning so we couldn't climb it, but it was quite pretty.


Next we toured a silk embroidery factory and a silk making factory (the part I needed the icky group tour for). Both were equally impressive. I was very impressed that the embroiderers were able to reproduce paintings with no technological assistance, and though incredibly pricey, everything produced at that factory was very stunning (ok, some were tacky, but you win some you lose some. Even the silly fat pandas weren't without skill).

The silk making factory was oh-so-touristy but oh-so-awesomely-interesting. I really like learning about things I've never been able to figure out. I'd also like to know just who was the first person to look at a cocoon and go "oh hey, if we boil that down, and then pull at it in about 50 different ways, and then throw it on about 5 different looms and soak it in water it'll turn into silk!". Clever clever. Also, silk worms are pretty gross. And if you eat them, they're supposed to improve your sexual stamina.
The first photo is the assembly line in which the cocoons are boiled and then someone is able to find the end of the thread, pull it out, and attach it to a motorized spindle. The second photo is of the ever so appetizing boiled silk worms.




So that's about all I've been up to lately. I'm working on planning my trip for National Holiday now, and I'll keep you posted as things become more concrete. Right now it looks like I'm going to be camping on Lake Qinghai - all kinds of Wild West deliciousness.

~L

P.S. ADPi - Congrats on what I hear was a most stellar recruitment! Keep me posted on the biddies and maybe I'll send you postcards.

P.P.S. Keep the emails coming, I love hearing what everyone is doing with their lives.