Week One

Saturday 26th - 6:40AM Okay, it's just starting to hit me now. I got that "happy gait" while walking to the subway. I'm going to Beijing in a few hours! There's the train. Gotta go... I'm on the train now. You know that feeling you get when you think you forgot something? It's kind of irritating isn't it? I left my apartment a mess. Really, it's worse than it's been in awhile. I'm not looking forward to coming back to that.

Saturday 26th - 4:00PM So... I don't really like Beijing. It's such a strange city. Part of it might be I'm tired and I don't understand anything that's going on. Also, there's not really a big transportation system flashing in your face like in Seoul, and everything's so spread out. I came expecting a really crowded Seoul, or maybe a communist Tokyo, and instead found this wide, culture-less mass of big buildings. There aren't really any shops, or at least no where near the amount as in Seoul. And the subways are a lot dirtier. Most people who come up to us are trying to sell us something , which really isn't what I'm used to. I think Seoul has spoiled me. Either way, I'm anxious to get out and get to a smaller town. Too bad we've been told twice now that we won't be able to get out of Beijing for at least five days. There's no way there isn't one train with two tickets out of this city for five days.

We ran into some of our friends on the plane. They were going to Thailand... Small world, huh? Nicole and Me on the plane. We had no idea what we were getting into. Beijing Central Train Station. They have trash cans in China!! (Trash cans are scarce in Korea) Some family we ran into at Tiananmen Square. The markets around the hostel we stayed at. I think they were saying that they could give directions to the restaurant... Read it. What is a "cupping?" That's what I want to know... "Dog." It was close to "Deer Fetus" at the next restaurant, but the picture didn't come out.

Sunday 27th - 11:30AM We're on the bus right now, headed to the great wall. It was a big process getting here, way more long and difficult than it should have been. I'm getting a little more used to Beijing, though, now that I understand it a bit more. Not that I really like it, but I know a little more what to expect when I walk out the door. I expect to be followed down the street and harassed to buy things once anyone selling anything sees that I'm white. Although... part of that might be our location. The buildings are all really poor and ghetto. It's kind of looks neat because it's so traditional, but really most of the architecture... hasn't been touched in years. It's all falling apart and everything's covered in the pollution dust. I bought some corn for 25 cents. It was nasty, but I was so hungry. There's some really good food here, (This is China) but it's a little bit more money than in Seoul (around $7-8!) * I realized two days later that I was converting wrong. The food was actually about $3-4 in Beijing. We could definitely fill ourselves up for under $5 each. I am so glad we brought the LP. I have no idea what we would have done without it... probably just bought one out here. Although we did meet some interesting foreigners at the hostel who told us a little about Xi'an, the next city we'll go to. Oh yeah... the train. We went to the train station last night. There were hundreds of people there. We had no idea what to do and we'd been told we couldn't get a ticket out of Beijing until Wednesday, and we can't speak Chinese. We managed to get a "1st Class" ticket out of here tonight for Xi'an. The ride is 12 hours. Hopefully Xi'an we'll like a little more, though.

A sort of "shopping mall" in Beijing. I thought it looked neat. This is where I bargained for the first time. Beijing train station at night. I thought this was a big deal at the time. Little did I know... Nicole pushed and shoved her way to the front (normal behavior at the station) and started rambling in English. Notice the confused expression on the woman's face. I was proud of her, though. It got us the train ticket. Hard to explain... there was a strange man we ran into on the street who had a gigantic mustache. I didn't want to even talk to him because he looked like he'd kill us given the chance. Well... he turned out to be our roommate at the hostel. We were terrified. Us escaping from "Mustache Man." I'm not sure what "BJ" means in China, because it can't mean the same thing as in the states. This was our first interaction with "our friend" on the way to the great wall. We took lots of pictures with him and his mom, but I think they're all on Nicole's camera. He gave us a "corn dog," perhaps a translation error gone totally wrong, as it was literally a mini-hot dog with pieces of corn in it. They're actually really popular in China, though.  Kimchi Chips! Why don't they have these in Korea??  Not sure...  Tiananmen Square. Same. We pretended to be taking a normal picture, then "tripped," as to avoid going to a Chinese prison. This is what I was talking about with the buildings in Beijing (oops... that must be the next blog entry). More so this... There were whole neighborhoods like this with really interesting old buildings that haven't been touched in years and are falling apart. A public ping pong table. Interesting.

Sunday 27th - 10:45PM Right now I'm on a train to Xi'an. We have Chinese roommates, and through a variety of hand-motions and about a 200-word dictionary, we learned that one of them was in Beijing because of Kung Fu and he's from a town East of Beijing. We had an hour-long awkward talk/mime. He wrote out our names in Chinese, which is pretty cool. We wrote out his name in Korean, which he got really excited about and made us write down in his notebook. The great wall was awesome. The mountains are beautiful around the area. It was really the type of thing you just can't capture in a picture. I wonder about the wall, though. It's such a crazy, amazing piece of architecture, but why is it there? Whose bright idea was it to protect the great Chinese empire from the Huns by building... a big wall? Yeah, that will stop them. But I'm glad it was built. It's just amazing how long it is and how it just molds to the mountain it's on. You know what was really annoying, though? The hawkers. Seriously. You're wandering on this legendary structure that people dream about visiting, and very 10-30 feet you get stopped by people throwing products in your face. This one woman full-out followed me for several minutes until we literally ran away from her. It's ridiculous and annoying. We ran into some Koreans. There was a giant group of them at the top, all wearing their matching black "North Face" coats. That's how you know their Korean... plus the whole language thing. I stopped a few and asked (in Korean) where they were from and told them we were teachers in Incheon. It was surprisingly relieving to talk to them, a good reminder that adjustment in Asian countries is possible.

The Koreans we talked to.  Yeah, I know... this is intense.  I had Nicole crop off the crowds of people.  I'm not sure what bus ride this was on. This is when Nicole and I still took pictures together. Haha...  Tiananmen Square at night.  I made a compilation of pictures outside the Beijing train station. This was just to get into the train station.  At this point, I still thought it strange that someone would be carrying their bags like the one guy who's in focus in this picture. My opinion changed once we went South.  The crowds that were in the train station.  Our train. This was the good one, the one that was only 12 hours long. We were about to get on the train, excited to leave Beijing. I had Nicole take a picture while I was writing the above entry. Notice how nice this train was.  Personally, I think that Olympics sign is really tacky. Nicole's... special first step onto the Great Wall.  First random picture of the great wall. Second random picture of the great wall.  Third random picture of the great wall. Fourth random picture of the great wall.  They had rides and everything.  Me with the great wall. Another of me with the great wall. We were buds.  We could have taken a lift up to the top if we wanted.  Fifth random picture of the great wall. Look how long it is. I was wondering about this... trying to figure out how these two parts of the wall could ever have been connected. It really doesn't work... physically. The Koreans at the top. If you ever see a group of men and woman (mostly men) wearing jackets like this... they're probably from Korea. Sixth random picture of the great wall.  So... some guy was pretending he couldn't walk, needing financial help. Perhaps that would have worked better if he wasn't on top of a mountain. Inside those little tower parts that are everywhere. I'm too big for the doors.

Monday 28th - 8:00AM So we just woke up. It's so relaxing sleeping on a train and feeling the rocking and movement as you fall asleep. We looked out the window and everything's covered in snow. At first we were like, "Are you kidding me?" because we were hoping Xi'an was a little warmer than Beijing, but it looks really nice, so it should be good for a few days.

Tuesday 29th - 12:30AM What a day. I feel like I got so much accomplished, the most important being respect for this country. Xi'an is awesome. I could tell even after a half hour of being here. Everything's so much closer and more compact. There're lots of restaurants. It feels like a city. There's less poverty. Best of all: there are way fewer hawkers. I'm having a lot of fun bargaining for things. I'm pretty intense. I guess I picked up that gene from my mom. It's not even about the money, though. I'll be talking and debating something with someone for awhile, and it will really be over 5-10 Yuan... or $1-2. It's about the pride of not getting ripped off. I love the markets here. They wait for you to approach them before they start acting crazy. I love the food here, too. As much as I love Korea, I will admit that I like the food here better. I finally found orange chicken. That was my goal. I know this is probably sacrilege, but it tasted more like Panda Express than the orange chicken in Korea. It was much cheaper, though. We went to this one restaurant that had no picture menu, but we were both ready to eat the next person we saw on the street, so we went inside. Two people opened the door for us and welcomed us in Chinglish. They showed us the prices (cheaper than fast food in Beijing!) and sat us down at a really nice table. It had curtains for extra privacy. There was about three people waiting on us. The food was pretty good and we left paying under $10. That's crazy. It was really hard not to leave a tip, but that's Xi'an. I love Xi'an. We could actually wander in this city and find things. Every night there's a huge light show at the big goose pagoda, Xi'an's well-known ancient structure. You can just walk places and find markets. It felt more like home (haha... Incheon, not Elgin), only Chinese. Xi'an is definitely the cooler city (both literally and figuratively. It's freezing here!) and it definitely lifted our spirits about China. Time to sleep. We're staying in this big hostel right next to the town center. IT's about $5 a night, and we basically have the room to ourselves, although there are eight empty beds and we might wake up with roommates.

The "Bell Tower Youth Hostel." Nice place.  The view outside our hostel window. The nice restaurant we stayed at. We both ate for under $5 each. The fire extinguisher. I saw this everywhere. Maybe there's a dictionary floating around in China somewhere with the wrong spelling.   A nice, random little pagoda by the market. I liked this market. Hawkers were minimal. Bargaining was fun. I didn't see any other tourists, either.  Some rhino sculpture at the museum we stopped at. I thought it was cool. The features are all really intense and it's gigantic. How would they even know what a rhino really looks like back in the day?  Read the last paragraph. I'm sensing some tension there.  I don't know what this is. This isn't a candid shot.  I got a stamp engraved with my Chinese name on it.  He carved it right there and everything.  I think they mean "mushrooms."  Magic, you say? The title intrigues me.  My first bite of real orange chicken!  Cool flame we saw on the street.  The Big Goose Pagoda! We saw the light show shortly after.  Oh, what fun with statues.  More fun with statues.  The light show. I'm not sure how that was okay to do, because it was well-below freezing and you'd think the pipes would freeze up right after. Oh well... it looked nice.  I like this picture. It's of the bell tower, and I'm sure there're a hundred other ones just like it out there, but whatever. We went to a museum of ... tablet forests or something? Even after going, I'm not entirely sure what they were. This was a nice little fountain at the museum. This may or may not be one of the tablets. I don't think it is, though. These sculpture things used to be scattered all over the country, where people could tie their horses. Isn't that cool? These days they'd just get stolen.

Tuesday 29th - 4:30PM Yeah, we were woken up twice as two groups of people came into our room very early in the morning. That was nice. I'm on a bus right now headed back from the Terracotta Army. Well, we would be headed back if we weren't stuck in traffic with our engine turned off. Some guy was smoking right next to us on the bus. I guess that's okay in China. The Terra... oh the engine just turned on! We're moving! The Terracotta Army was awesome, very fascinating. It really got me wondering about Qin Shi Huangdi (the "first emperor" of China), and the whole ancient society that was China. "Hey! Let's build thousands of clay people and bury them underground!" "Hey! Let's build a giant wall that stretches miles across mountain peaks!" "Hey! Let's gather 700,000 people and build a tomb for our emperor and bury ourselves alive with him when he dies!" .... I understand a crazy person can think that's a good idea, but a whole nation of people? Oh well, it makes for great tourist attractions later. I better wrap up because we're probably almost at the train station. At the Terracotta Army exit, there were swarms of hawkers trying to sell us something. There were these little figurines that we were asked to buy for 3 Yuan from this guy, or about 45 cents. He kept on asking us, too. He was desperate. At that point, you can't even bargain. It's not even fun. (I'm not back at the hostel, sitting on a little stupid bench with girlish pillows, perfect for diary-writing. I know, because I saw an 8 year-old girl writing her diary here before). After driving through the country side, we saw a bit more of the true poverty in China. It's really sad, and sort of confusing. There are 2 billion people in this country * Actually, it's about 1.3 billion. and most of it probably looks like what we were seeing. This is the same country that is investing billions of dollars into the summer Olympics. It sort of makes you wonder how they can do that when so much of their country could use that money. So much that we saw of Beijing cannot be fixed before August. There might be money, but there's not enough time. Do you think that most Olympic visitors will be willing to poop in a tin hole, covered in pee? That's the Beijing I saw. They'll probably just invest the money into the rich parts of the city, further separating the divide of rich and poor that's already so prevalent in this country. But I digress. I'm having a great time, and I really don't know what I'm talking about. This is definitely something I'll look into when I get back to Incheon. *And I did. Well, not really, but my opinion's sort of changed. China is trying to change their image. Their goal with the Olympics is probably to give themselves a completely different reputation in the world, thereby bringing more international revenue into their country. Hope it works. But if they don't clean up a lot of that city, it might have a reverse effect...

We'd been really eager to try some Chinese mandu... er... dumplings. This was a little shack outside the train station that had them. No English anything. We just smiled and pointed to the food and they gave us the most expensive thing, which was still under $1 each.  Me, looking ridiculous, standing in front of the Terracotta Army.  That's how deep they were under ground.  The mountains behind the site were amazing.  Chinese DDR!  I'm not sure, but I think that's Qin. Who else would it be?   The bulk of the army...   It was interesting to see, but personally, it was just as interesting to read about. Definitely read about this on Wikipedia or something if you're not familiar with it.  I like the building. The lighting's set up so there's high contrast on the army.

Wednesday 30th - 11:30PM I'm back at the hostel again. I really like this hostel. There's a bar/lounge on the second floor that's pretty big, with lots of foreigners and local people together, just hanging out. It's pretty cold inside, but it has hot showers (in the morning) (Not early morning, as we learned) and a cheap restaurant in the lounge. For five bucks a night, who really cares? We've befriended our temporary room mates, five of them total. Both groups are just traveling, without a full-time job. We feel sort of strange, having lived in Asia with a full-time job for five months now. Oh yeah... everyone seems to love Beijing. I still don't understand why. I read a bit about the history of China and Beijing. It turns out that the communists tore down the ancient Beijing city wall and replaced it with roads. They also leveled several; neighborhoods for more space, two things that I noticed and hated in my brief time there. Man, I just sneezed again. I've been sick, mostly from the cold weather. It's so irritating. Guangzhou is supposed to be 45F-50F, so hopefully that goes away. * And I'm still sick two weeks later. Thank you, China. Also, something's wrong with my foot. I've sort of been limping. It's been unbearable at times, but I've lied to Nicole and told her it's fine. Seriously, what can we do? Tonight's our last night in Xi'an. Everyday I seem to like this city more and more. We wandered all day today. The city walls are so cool. They're so old, and cars just come in and out of them like a big stone ant hill or something. There aren't any crosswalks or sidewalks often, so people just wander around the streets. It's a little frightening at first, when cars are rushing at you, but they stop. We've been eating so much here. I've had orange/sweet & sour chicken three times since I last mentioned it in this blog. Only one of them has tasted remotely like Panda Express. It wasn't bad, but different. There's only been one dish neither of us really liked. We thought we were ordering beef, and I guess it was liver. It wasn't that bad, but our other dish was much better. Xi'an has a Muslim district that's very well-known, very "markety." It is definitely a must-see, but we got that in Korea, too (with less hawkers). We walked all over today. I know I say this a lot, but this is a really neat city. I feel like more people speak English here than in Korea. Well, sort of. In Korea, less people talk to you in English, but those that do can speak it fairly well. Probably because they only speak to you if they're confident in their English skills. In China's tourist cities, there are more clueless foreigners and they'll shout any English they know to sell their stuff. It's definitely easier to get around here knowing nothing than in Korea, although that might be because I was trying to do much more complicated things in Korea. Okay, I better get some sleep. We're getting up in 5.5 hours to go on a 26-hour train ride to Guangzhou. We went to a Wal-Mart to buy stuff for the trip, mostly because we were too tired to bargain for everything we need. I felt sort of bad shopping at Wal-Mart in China, but really, I didn't recognize a single American product, or even a process, while there. There was fruit I'd never even heard of before. We bought lots of candy and ramen. I hope our room mates are cool. We'll be spending a long time with them either way.

It's always fun to try and figure out how to use the exercise equipment in Asian parks. Think I'm doing this right?   Snow on palm trees? Maybe they really were in a cold-front.   I wish Elgin had city walls...   We walked all across the South wall. There were parks along the way and such... it was really nice.   The moat was really cool, too.   I think Wikipedia has a picture just like this, only it's summertime. This whole place would probably totally different in the summer. Old and new... okay, I actually planned to do a panoramic collage of pictures so you'd see what I meant, but... I'm not going to.   Traffic lights? Who needs 'em? This is cooler anyway.   Personally, I think the engine of a moped is a great place to put a birdcage. That poor animal.  From the bell tower, facing East. I think it's cool how a lot of the architecture in Xi'an uses a "traditional" look for a lot of their modern buildings. Look at the rooftops. They're like this all over the city. This is facing South, where we spent most of our time. You can see the city walls if you look closely.   At Wal-Mart. Does anyone know what fruit this is? There were several others I didn't recognize.

Thursday 31st - ??? I have no idea what time it is and I don't really want to know. I know I've been waiting at this train station for over four hours, maybe five. I'm sitting on the floor now, with about three Chinese people reading over my shoulder. There are probably about four thousand people at this station, all crammed into this room. It's really weird. Every rumor I've heard about Asian overpopulation is vividly true right now. Granted, things probably run smoothly during the year, but when 1.3 billion people all rush to the trains to visit family for the New Year, it's really not a place you want to be. When your train is four hours behind schedule and you're sick because it's -6C outside, it's even more unappealing. No... it was actually really interesting for the first thirty minutes. Then after two hours I started to panic, then they opened the doors and the sun rose outside, then I was okay. We befriended the Chinese people next to us in line and I'm feeling a lot better. I can't help but wonder, though... We still have a 26-hour train ride once we get on that train.

"Waiting room to Tibet." I don't know why this is funny to me. It just seems so casual, like, "Hey guys! Let's go to Tibet instead!" Judging by the emptiness of that waiting room, we probably should have.   That crowd looks fun, doesn't it? Let's go sit in it and wait for 7 hours, not knowing when our train's coming or why its not there at all!   No... at this point, we were still just fascinated about just the sheer amount of people in the room. It was just as bad outside, too, but not nearly as bad as what we'd see in Guangzhou later.

Thursday 31st - 3:00PM "This can't be right..." After seven hours at the train station, the train finally opened... only 4.5 hours late. We're now on the train, with only twenty-five hours to go. I think I might die before then, though. What we thought was a cheaply-priced, 1st class ticket on the train with private rooms, beds, TVs, and even our own teapot, is actually nothing more than a bus on train tracks. Worse than that. Bus seats usually recline. Right now I'm facing another Chinese man 3 ft. away with our legs "zippered" together because there's no leg room and for some reason the seats are facing towards each other in little booths. The boy next to me speaks and reads English and just looked over my shoulder, then whispered to his mom, laughing. I think I might smack him by the end of the train ride, either that or fall on him while falling asleep. I doubt the latter, though. Every few minutes a cart rolls down the aisle, screaming their wares at the top of their lungs. It's so close to my ear. I might lose it soon.

Look how skinny the aisles are. Look how close the seat is across from me. I couldn't even rest my head in my hands, because then I might as well have had my head in the guy's... lap. The screaming vendors never stopped, either. Right next to my ear. The whole 7 hours at the train station, I kept on just telling myself... once I get in the train, I can sleep. I'll have my own bed with clean sheets and somewhat privacy. I could pass out for 12 hours and be good as new. That was not the case.

Thursday 31st - 8:30PM Things I know now; * We are the only white people on this train * We are the only white people many of these passengers have ever seen in their lives * China's landscape is amazing * Most of China is sadly & surprisingly poorer than I realized * There are a lot of people in China * "Chinglish" is way more... intense than "Konglish" * I'm miserable, yet surprisingly better than I expected A note on Chinese staring: I've noticed that Chinese people don't seem to care or mind looking at what you're doing, and I don't think it's just because we're white. Like, I'll take a picture or watch a video on my camera and they'll stick their head right in, not remotely trying to hide it. It's really conspicuous when they stare, too. I just walked to the end of the train, which was really interesting. I swear, every single person has studied me for a few good moments until I passed. It makes me sort of wish I didn't look like crap right now.

Friday 1st - 2:00PM We have about two hours left. I have (tried) to sleep in several different positions in several different locations on this train, including next to the trash on the wet floor and currently next to the perhaps-vomit/pee-stained chair. I am very excited to get off the train. I am not excited about the snow that is outside. But I really sound more bitter than I am. I dropped my sanity off a few stops after Xi'an and I'm really okay with everything right now. Both Nicole and I had a few minutes of serious panic, but we were laughing at it with deliration a few minutes ago. You know, there is no better way to get an up-close and intimate perception of true Chinese culture. This is not an enjoyable experience, but it's certainly not one that I'll regret. * Not at only 24 hours... at 30 is where I start to regret. Looking outside, I feel like I was just pushed back about 100 years, back to factory towns with cookie-cutter brick houses. They stretch on and on, rice-fields and square brick apartment complexes in the middle of no where. I understand now the ignorant questions people asked me about Korea, probably assuming Korea was remotely like China. I can't imagine that some of these brick villages have internet and flushing toilets. It's strange, looking at the kids coming out of the houses, knowing that they're really never going to know anything else in life. About the people themselves: the "saving face" culture and modest, yet vain people I've gotten used to are practically non-existent here. Some of the nicest Chinese people I've met are the migrant workers, sharing (what I realized later) was chewing tobacco and giving their seats up for that evil woman who sat across from us. Then there's the bad ones. Though people have been getting on and off the whole train-ride, there is always one group who is completely inconsiderate of others and shouting (from 5AM-8AM) or blasting their traditional Chinese music on cheap, static-filled speakers. Some are good and some are bad. They're just people. It sounds simple, but I'm glad I moved past the racial generalizing stage I came here in when we first landed in Beijing. It's hard not to, though, when they're shouting in your face, trying to sell you things and treating you like an open wallet. I'm glad I got to see a different part of China. Note... As a group was getting off the train, Nicole noticed a woman carrying a live turkey upside-down by the legs, just like a purse or bag. She was getting off the train. Oh, China...

The funny thing about this picture... neither of us were really trying to look awful. This was supposed to be an optimistic, "Hang in there!" picture. The self-timer took two pictures. I got a picture of the woman with the turkey through the foggy window. "One of these bags is not like the other... One of these bags just doesn't belong" This was the one picture I took out the window. I wish I would have taken more. Really, the landscape for the first 8ish hours of our trip was incredible. There were huge, snowy mountains, flattened plateaus, then deep valleys, all together and covered in snow. It was cool.

Friday 1st - After 8PM Guess what? We're still on the train. Supposedly, we only have one stop to go, but I don't know if I can believe anything anymore. * Good assumption. 4 more hours to go. I find it strange that the man selling crackers has been walking up and down the aisle, screaming, for about thirty hours. Actually... I think he took a break at night. I had another panic-moment when the sun started to set. From indoors, I saw the sun rise and fall twice. I didn't take that well, but Nicole cheered me up. We started playing cards, which was a spectacle for everyone around us. We managed to get both our booth-mates to join in several games of "Arabian Slap/Egyptian Rat's Crew," which was even more of a spectacle for them. I think its funny that they'll probably teach some kids how to play and it will turn into "American Slap" or something like that. It makes me wonder if "Chinese Checkers" is really from China. PS- I have yet to see anything resembling a fortune cookie here. Not that I expected it, but it's funny... Because our train is over ten hours behind schedule, we lost a day and we might have to sleep in Guangzhou. We're going to try to fly back to Beijing. I just hope that when I hear how expensive the ticket is, I remember how miserable I was on this and I bite the bullet. 7   hours at the train station 35 hours on the train 45 hours of travel

Going crazy... Going crazy... I made a compilation of clips I took from the train station to... this point. It really is amazing. If you get bored, skip to the end. That's where it just gets ridiculous.

Click this HERE for Week Two! (Not quite yet... I'm still working on it. I'll try to get it up within the next week) - 2/19/07