China New Year Travels (Shijiazhuang, Beijing, Shanghai)

Note: This post chronicles the very beginning of my month and a half of travels.

Well it's been a pretty good couple of weeks so far. Angela and I picked up Jon and Terri from Beijing without too much of a hitch (except we came mildly close to missing our train to come back to Shijiazhuang). In Shijiazhuang we had a great time. The first day we went to the donkey restaurant with mixed reviews from our guests. Later that evening we (Fabian, his girlfriend Sasha, and the four of us) went to get massages while watching Purple Rain ("for your initiation, you must bathe in the waters of Lake Minnatonka") and went out to eat to some restaurant where we were greeted by sordid, drunk patrons that loudly welcomed us, "Welcome to Shijiazhuang!!!" as we walked in. Later I took Terri to the McDonald's bar and we closed the place down. The next day we went out to eat to our favorite restaurant, Golden Mountain, with a bunch of our Chinese and foreign friends. Then we went to the McDonald's/Foreigner's Bar and then to Club Seven. The first few days in Shijiazhuang were mostly dedicated to recovering from jet lag and party times.

The first night we were in Shanghai we went to see some acrobats perform. Not only were there acrobats but there were jugglers and magicians. My favorite performance consisted of about 12 guys dressed like superheroes jumping through variously arranged rings. Later that evening I lost my camera. I was stone cold sober and it just fell out of my stupid jacket pocket in the hostel lounge area, never to be seen again. Hilariously enough, when we were in Beijing the night before leaving to go to Shanghai, Terri left her camera in a taxi...also never to be seen again. We made a trip to the Shanghai zoo which was funny, but slightly depressing. All the animals looked extremely sad. Later we fed monkeys and bears. The bears sat on their butts and clasped their hands together while the monkeys held out their hands and hit the bars to get our attention (no joke). That same day we went to see a restored part of ancient Shanghai. It was pretty touristy, but it was cool to see some old architecture. I took Terri to a Buddhist temple (Jinjiang temple) that was close to our hostel (and we would see another one in Beijing as well). Although it sounds a bit ignorant or snobbish to say, many Buddhist temples are organized the same way and have many of the same attractions. Once you have seen a couple you've seen them all (at least from my experiences). Nevertheless, they are pleasant, relaxing places to go. The last full day we were in Shanghai we went on a 45 minute cruise along the river that runs through Shanghai (the name escapes me at the moment). We tried to make it for the 3 and a 1/2 hour log cruise, but alas, we ran a bit late as a result of faulty directions. We also went out a handful of times while we were in Shanghai. Most notably, we went to a "dive bar" on Ladies Night(voted the best in Shanghai, but definitely not a dive bar by my standards) called I Love Shanghai. The girls got to drink absolutely for free (from a select menu) and after spending some time there we went to dance club that surprisingly played some good music and danced our butts off. That's all I can remember for now. Pics will be up soon enough!

Chinese New Year Travels (Lijiang, Dali)

Like I wrote before, we did not end up staying in Kunming for very long. After a day and half in Kunming, we decided to take an overnight bus to Lijiang. Basically, Lijiang is what everyone imagines China to look like before actually coming to China. Lijiang has an extremely well preserved Old Town that has the classic winding streets and Chinese architecture (refer to the pictures).

Our bus ride from Kunming to Lijiang was absolutely awful. As soon as we got on the bus and got situated some Chinese guy came around claiming he was the manager and charged us for our luggage based on the estimated weight. The more you thought your luggage weighed, the more he would charge you. Having no idea what the deal with this guy was before he approached me, I ended up paying 100 yuan to him and was not happy afterwards. In retrospect, I should have just refused and seen what happened. Since we got an overnight bus we had beds, but the road was so bumpy I barely slept at all...even after taking some Benadryll to make me drowsy. We got in at about 5:00 a.m., got into our hostel, and promptly passed out for about 3 hours. After breakfast, we decided to explore the city a bit. The city was beautiful and a welcome departure from the hustle and bustle of the larger Chinese cities we had been traveling to. The old city (where we were most of the time) had old Chinese houses with the traditionally made roofs along winding paths barely large enough to fit one car through. There were a couple of streams going through the city with the classic arching bridges over them. Refer to the pictures for more detail, it's a little hard to describe. One great thing was that there were a lot of merchants on the streets, but none of them were nagging us at all. I could tell that in a few years Lijiang could have the potential to be an overly touristy spot, but now it's not bad at all.

There is a famous lake just outside of the Old City in Lijiang. The name escapes me at the moment but the scenery was gorgeous. It's a little hard to tell, but you can see a very large mountain in the background of one or two of the pictures. The area is well renowned as one of the most pricelessly beautiful areas in China. A stone path lead us all around the lake.

As beautiful as Lijiang was during the day, it was spectacular at night when the only light in the city came from hundreds upon hundreds of Chinese lanterns.

While the rest of our group was headed for Tiger Leaping Gorge the next day (also considered one of the greatest destinations in China), Billie and I realized we couldn't logically go there, come back to Kunming, and get back to Shijiazhuang to teach by Sunday, so we elected to go to another nearby city called Dali. I really wish we had spent more time in Lijiang, but I definitely wish we would have been able to spend more time in Dali. Dali was completely untainted as far as western or corporate businesses are concerned (i.e. McDonald's). We stayed at an amazing hostel which was run by an older Australian man. The day we got there, we decided to go on this mountain hike. It was more than a few miles but definitely worth the peace of mind garnered from it.

That night we ate dinner with an extremely nice couple from Australia and as we returned to the hostel we saw that the party had already started! We were greeted with shots of a locally made blueberry flavored liquor which was nothing like I had tasted before, but not bad at all. As we started conversing with more people we realized that most people were indeed from Australia. As the night progressed, old AC/DC music videos were projected onto the wall. I stayed up until 3:00 sitting and talking with a fairly interesting guy who had married a German woman. The Australian guy and his wife were on vacation and he was teaching English in Germany. The next day we went back to Kunming and then the day after that we went back to Beijing and then back to Shijiazhuang! What an amazing month and a half...

It's been a while (almost two months), so if I have forgotten anything on this part of the trip, I'll add it later!

Sidenote: the one time we did not book a hostel or hotel in advance throughout the entire trip was our return to Kunming before our flight to Beijing. We got there and they told us that they were booked. However, they also told us that we could stay in the employees' room. While a little strange, it was just as comfortable as the dorms (if not more comfortable considering there were two less people able to stay in the employees' room than the big dorm rooms).