Relaxing at the Old Summer Palace

I have such a love-hate relationship with China when it comes to travelling in this country. We have this week off from class in celebration of Labour Day (aka May Day), which would be a great time to travel... if the rest of China didn't this week as well. This meant train tickets were impossible to obtain, thus completely destroying our travel plans.

(On the bright side, we found a great flight deal to Hong Kong so we'll be heading there for a weekend at the end of May. As for our original travel plans this week, we've broken them up into weekend trips throughout the month.)

Anyway, since we are stuck in Beijing for a week, we decided to make the most of our time to catch up on sights we've yet to see. First on the list: 圆明园 Yuan Ming Yuan, the Old Summer Palace, famous for being home to the ruins of "China's Versailles" which was destroyed by Anglo-French forces in 1860.

We wandered around the grounds for a few hours, paying the extra ticket to scramble among the stone remains and - my favourite part - a courtyard containing a maze which leads to a tower in the center.

More photos can be seen here.

Later in the evening, we went back home to play with our favourite new toy:



Yes we bought a toaster oven! Kitchens in Beijing aren't equipped with ovens since baking isn't a common technique in Chinese cooking but we had a real craving for things like homemade cookies. It works really well, but since the tray only fits about six cookies, it took forever to work through a batch of dough meant for 36 cookies. Still, first bite of double chocolate peanut butter chip made all the effort worthwhile.

From my best friend:

So after circumnavigating 2/3’s of the world, you’ve gone through three C’s (Cornell China and Canada) and will finally be home (sort of). Funny how you’re still not really home but I guess you’re in the right province so that’s a start right? [note: the last part refers to the fact that I live in Toronto and not Ottawa which is where I'm going to school]

And from Matt:

MKusulas3: you're going back to CANADIA!
MKusulas3: it's the end of an era
MKusulas3: of Cathy, the alien
kitkatcthy: I guess I'll have to pack my antennae away

Because I prefer technicolour:



to monochrome:



Unfortunately, Saturday's weather didn't last long because a BIG sandstorm blew in early Monday morning. It's pretty normal to see hazy grey-yellow atmosphere envelop this city but it was bizaare to wake up and emerge into a orange-tinted world where everything - pavement, trees, bicycles, cars, was covered in a fine layer of sandy dust.

In other news, I've made a decision about graduate school. I've accepted an offer to the Masters in Public Administration program at Carleton University. Financial situation is excellent: I've been offered a scholarship and two-year teaching assistantship that would essentially cover my entire tuition. So it looks like I'll be in Ottawa, Canada this fall!

little girl praying at a Buddhist shrine

With blue skies and sunshine, Saturday was a perfect day for a day trip on the outskirts of Beijing. It took a one hour trip on the subway (all the way to an end station) and a short cab ride to get to 八大处公园 Badachu Park. The name means "eight great sites" and specifically refers to eight Buddhist temples, monasteries, and nunneries located in the surrounding hills. It's a major site for Chinese worshippers, and for people who just want to hike up the mountain. The less physically able can take a ski lift up the mountain but we did it backwards and took the lift down the mountain as a reward for walking all the way to the top.

It was unbelievably nice to get away from the noise and confusion of the city for a day. A few more pictures are posted here.

Classes were rescheduled and ended early today (a teacher told us that a 'foreign delegation' was visiting the school, whatever that means). We skipped the dining hall in favour of lunch at a Wudaokou coffee shop. These were atop the stack of magazines next to our table:



It's the chinese version of Seventeen, a magazine that I've always thought was oddly named because, as Chrissy once pointed out, "most 17 year-old girls have moved on to reading Cosmo".

It was fun browsing through while waiting for lunch to arrive: inside was the usual love, sex, beauty, and fashion advice, mostly in Chinese of course with the occasional english tagline. Chinese girls and actresses were featured in many, but not all, of the pictures and stories, as demonstrated by the picture of Hillary Duff on the cover.

What I didn't get was the two-page spread about appropriate hair dyes for people who have blond hair. Um, isn't the hair colour of this magazine's reading demographic a lot more like this?

dancing in the courtyard

A quiet Sunday afternoon studying was suddenly interrupted by blaring music punctuated with the bang of drums and crashing of gongs. I ran to the window to see some kind of mystery celebration going on in the courtyard of our housing complex. This is what I saw from our apartment window - 23 storeys up (Craig's camera has an awesome zoom).

My old mandarin teacher from Cornell just emailed me this commercial for Berlitz, a worldwide language instruction and translation company.

I love this! I think it's especially hilarious because I'm an English tutor. I'm showing it to my student tomorrow to emphasize the importance of listening skills and good pronounciation.

Watch German Coast Guard.

Proclaiming peace (or victory?) at Big Goose Pagoda

Trip to Xi'an: March 23 - March 25. Day Two.

(Once again, trip photos are here)

Day Two started off bright and early; with the sun shining and warm weather, it was a perfect day to explore Xi'an. The anticipation was slightly marred by the fact that the shower only had cold water and a non-draining drain, but hey, missing one shower never hurt anybody (as far as I know).

First stop, 鼓楼 the Drum Tower - a mere five minute walk away from the hostel. We were greeted by the sight of two huge drums when we stepped on to the tower. One of which, if you paid 5 kuai, you could strike 3 times with a pair of wood dowels. A placard at the side informed us that the first strike is will bring luck; the second, health; and the third, fulfillment of all your wishes. We decided to save our pennies (or fen'r as it were) and walked around the verandah to check out the other drums instead. A line of red drums are found on the north and south sides of the tower; each one is associated with specific kind of weather, such as spring breezes, summer showers etc., and you are supposed to strike the drum associated with the weather you want to arrive (or rather, were supposed to strike - you aren't allowed to hit these drums anymore). Why anyone would wish for freezing gales is beyond me, but as Chris points out, it wouldn't be such a bad thing in the middle of a scorching summer.


rows of red drums at the Drum Tower

Next stop: back through the Muslim quarter to see the Great Mosque of Xi'an. It's a beautiful place, really lovely courtyards with budding trees, blossoming flowers, and amazing architecture. The peace and tranquility was broken by the entry of a large American tour group, actually one of the same groups we saw at the Terracotta Warriors. They recognized us too because Chris said he overheard someone saying "didn't we see those three yesterday?" We wandered around for about an hour and even witnessed the latter part of halal butchering taking place in the corner of a courtyard. The public is allowed on the grounds up to, but not into, the main prayer hall. We peered into the dim interior to see a huge space filled with rows and rows of prayer mats; thanks to a quick google search, I can also tell you that there's enough room inside for one thousand people.


one of the mosque courtyards

We wanted to linger longer but we had a few more places we wanted to check out before our evening train. Such as returning to the little shop we saw last night in the Muslim quarter; we were originally attracted by a wall covered entirely with shadow puppets but what caught Craig's eye was a tray holding tiny terracotta warrior replicas. He wanted to purchase his own army(!) and so he did when we returned today: 50 figures for 50 kuai (about 6 USD). Chris and I purchased a xun 埙 each - I couldn't resist after hearing someone play it in the streets last night. I can't fully reproduce its mellow tones yet but practice makes perfect, right?

Thus loaded with souvenirs, we headed to 钟楼 the Bell Tower. The crazy part is that it's smack in the middle of a roundabout, encircled by traffic swirling on a huge 4-6 lane road. It's so busy that you can't even cross the road - you have to pass under traffic via a tunnel to reach the Tower. Like the Drum Tower, you can hit The Big Bell (going rate is 10 kuai for 13 hits I think). There weren't any other bells but there was a second floor with a small painting exhibition and a verandah with a good view of the city center and the traffic below.

We headed back downstairs to catch a cab to 大雁塔 the Big Goose Pagoda, not to be confused with Little Goose Pagoda. As we passed under the city walls, Chris asked the cabbie if people are allowed to walk on top of the wall. "Sure, the main entrance is at 南门 South Gate." We decided to check it out after visiting the Pagoda. The actual Pagoda is in the middle of a big "park", a term I use loosely given the hugely disproportionate ratio of concrete-and-tile to greenery.

Before heading up the Pagoda, we made a stop at the main temple where Chris and I decided join other Chinese people in lighting candles and incense for good luck. Traditionally, you would make a specific wish eg. good health, good grades, luck in love and so on. I hoped for good news about grad school; I guess something worked because three days later, I found out I got into one of my Master's programs! As we climbed the stairs up the Pagoda, I felt vaguely like I was climbing up the Cornell Clock Tower. No chimes at the top, but there was a really good view of of the surrounding area.


Chris and Craig light some incense

By now we were all tired but we still wanted to take a closer look at the city wall. To be really honest, we didn't find being on top of the Xi'an city wall to be particularly interesting. Maybe we were jaded by the experience on top of this wall. The lack of energy was probably a factor too so we decided to head back to the hostel to eat dinner and relax for a couple of hours in the lounge before catching our 9:30pm train back to Beijing.

The email-checking, reading, and studying (yes we brought out textbooks) was frequently and pleasantly interrupted by the presence of the hostel's golden retriever puppy named Gogo, which we think is a play on 狗 - the chinese word for 'dog' pronounced "gou". Anyway, he kept pouncing around and nipping at our toes the entire evening. Gogo took a particular liking to Chris, probably because he allowed Gogo to use his sneaker as a chew toy. Chris regretted this 15 minutes later when Gogo started treating Chris' foot as his chew toy as well. We could tell Chris never owned a dog before because he was having an awful time trying to get the dog to understand the concept of NO. It didn't help that we didn't know whether to address the dog in english or mandarin (we used both).


Gogo!

The assumption that our adventure was winding down at this point is marred by two events. One: Craig helped push a bus. As we waited for a cab to get to the train station, we saw a public bus break down right in front us. Since this is China, several passengers actually got out of the bus and started pushing it along. Craig decide to volunteer a little muscle, thus creating the image of a six-foot, blond, white guy in midst of a group of five-feet something chinese men pushing a bus together. Too bad our cameras were packed away!

Two: We boarded our train to discover our berth was already occupied by an 阿姨 ayi (middle-aged lady), baby, and granny. Um, ok. Turns out their ticket was only good up to Xi'an and they were hoping to 补票 bupiao - add extra money - to get to Beijing. Trouble is, they were sitting on bunks designated on our tickets. A quick conversation with the conductor and the three were cleared out of the berth. I wonder where they ended up on the train. I overheard the conductor saying they didn't have any more 卧铺 wopu - sleeping berths - left which meant they were probably relocated to a hard seat carriage.

13 sleepless hours later, we were back in Beijing.

The Terracotta Warriors

Trip to Xi'an: March 23 - March 25. Day One.

Note: visual version of the trip documented here

After class (ok I'm lying, I skipped class that morning), packing, and a quick trip to the grocery store for some train munchie-munchies, Chris, Craig and myself were off to Beijing West Railroad station to catch the 6:30pm "Iron Rooster" to Xi'an.

We arrived at 7:30 the next morning. Because the hostel we stayed at was nice enough to send someone to the station pick us up, we had a free 15 minute ride to the city center. One of the first things you see outside train station are the original walls which enclose the city center - modern Xi'an actually extends far beyond the walls. First impressions of Xi'an gleaned from peering out the car window: much smaller than Beijing, more trees, narrower streets, more electric bicycles. Pretty nice.

After dropping our luggage off and freshening up, it was time to go on our first adventure - the terracotta warriors! Instead of forking over a couple hundred kuai for a prepackaged tour, we decided to go it alone using public transportation. We knew the number 306 bus will take us to the warriors for 8 kuai (thank you Lonely Planet) and we knew the bus station is next to the train station. Plus we know chinese, so no problem right?

Wrong. We find the bus station just fine and start looking for buses numbered 306. Here's where the story gets interesting: there are two types of buses labelled 306 - minibuses and big green buses. One lady asks if we're looking for bus 306, after saying yes, we are promptly shuttled into a little minibus with about 10 other chinese tourists. We pay 8 kuai for the tickets and start congratulating ourselves for finding the right bus... until the lady forks over a tissue-thin piece of paper that introduces our 'itinerary' for the afternoon: some tombs, hot springs, blahblah, and the terracotta warriors dead last.

"Um, we're not really interested in seeing these other things. Isn't there a bus that goes straight to the Army?" we ask tentatively. To which the response was "No! There are no direct buses!"

Okay fine, we settle into the tiny seats for the ride, and figure we'll just skip the sights we don't want to see. As the minibus pulls out of the parking lot, the driver deftly removes the "306" sign out of the window and the lady starts thanking us for taking a tour with their company! At this point, we see one of the big green buses drive by... which still has the number 306 in its window. Turns out that is the legit bus to the Terracotta Army - we were scammed into taking a tour instead!

This wasn't too big a deal since we weren't paying more than the big bus and we were heading towards the Army anyway. But when we arrived at the first stop and were told a) we couldn't skip anything and b) we had to pay all admissions to the tour guide up front, we thought "screw this", made up some excuse to the guide about Craig feeling sick and needing skip out on the tour, before hopping in a cab to travel 5 more minutes to the terracotta warriors instead.

A flash of our student ID and 3 half-priced tickets later, we were in the grounds of Emperor Qin's Army of Terracotta Warriors! The grounds contain a museum and three 'vaults' that the excavation pits. Due to our penchant for wandering off prescribed paths, we ended up starting at Vault 3 and working backwards instead of the other way around. Good thing too because with Vault 3 being the least excavated and Vault 1 the most, we realized it would have been awfully disappointing to see Vaults 2 and 3 after Vault 1!

All three pits are cavernous spaces cut into the earth, scattered with terracotta fragments, and dotted with excavated and semi-excavated (and some decapitated) statues of horses and soldiers. But its Pit 1 that's truly memorable - it's contains the famous view of rows and rows and rows of soldiers. Craig points out that they don't seem so impressive in our age of mass-production; it was bizarre to remind ourselves that every figure was handmade.


Proof that we were actually there...

We decided to head to our next stop: The Tomb of Emperor Qin. After leaving the grounds and fending off a group of intense souvenir hawkers - these guys are worse than in Beijing! - we found the (legit) bus and rumbled off to see Emperor Qin's tomb. It was kind of disappointing since it's little more than a hill with a nice view at the top but it was a nice break before we returned to the bus and rumbled back to the city.

We wandered around the city for the rest of the evening; the Muslim quarter (which we referred to as "Hui-ville" due to the Hui ethnic minority that lives in the area)was particularly festive, filled with the sight of little shops and smell and sizzle of roasting kebabs. We took pictures of the Drum and Bell Towers (our destinations for tomorrow) before walking along the bustling shopping road of the city.


A restaurant in the Muslim quarter


The Drum Tower by night

We saw something disturbing along this road: a body, that looked like a beggar, sprawled face-down in the middle of the sidewalk. He didn't move. The thought "is he alive?" seriously crossed my mind - the blood smeared on his face and the sidewalk didn't help. A slight crowd was staring but no one was doing anything to help. Back home, I would have called the police or an ambulance without hesitation. But here... we didn't know what number to call, what street we were on, what to say, or even if calling the police was the right thing to do. I was on the brink of asking a passer-by to call someone when the body suddenly woke up and slowly sat up. We began to walk away at that point, uncomfortably reasoning that at least he's alive, he's surrounded by plenty of people, and that there wasn't anything we could have done.

But what we saw left an impression on all three of us. I don't know if I'm more disturbed by the sight of the body or by the seeming lack of public concern, even though we were on a crowded busy road. Or by the fact that I also walked by without doing anything.

We caught a taxi back to the hostel an hour or so later. It drove by the spot where we last saw the beggar sitting up. He wasn't there anymore.