Off on another southern adventure

The sun is shining in a big bluebird of a sky right now and I'm about to head down to my friend Janice's pool for some relaxation time. She's unluckily at work while Dax and I get the day to relax. It's official... vacation has begun.

 

One of the biggest benefits about coming to China is the holidays. Although the year is stressful and although China can be a trying place to live, I get a week of holidays at the start of October, a long weekend in December for New Year's (nothing for Christmas this year, though), a week in May, 8 weeks in the summer, and 5 weeks in January/February for the annual Spring Festival (Chinese new year for you folks at home).

 

So as of last Saturday, I was free from my occupation obligations. I packed up my bags, said adios to Dalian, and on Sunday night I was on a train to Tianjin before I flew down to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia this past Monday.

 

I don't really want to recount my trip to Tianjin, since it wasn't exactly full of highlights (another top bunk/sweaty sleep, a challenge communicating on a meeting place with my friend who was meeting us, etc.), but now that I'm down in the tropics, I'm happy to share a bit about the present.

 

We got into KL late on Monday night after a delay with our flight coming from Tianjin. But my buddy D and I weren't worried... we were just happy to be in a warm climate, away from the cold Siberian winds that were blowing in Dalian before we left. Also, the draw of cold mango smoothies at the airport was enough to get us through our first taste of sticky heat in months. We arrived at our hostel about 2:30am and were about to check in. Because of our late arrival time, we had previously decided to get ourselves a private room with a couple of beds so we could sleep late if we wanted to. As we were checking in, the guy at the desk had a smirk on his face. He asked us, "Why you guys only get room with one bed? Are you gay? Or normal?"

 

I laughingly pondered this question for a short amount of time, wondering what kind of answer to give him. Neither were correct... gay? No. Normal? Uhhh... that's a toss up. So I responded by asking him if they had a private room with two beds, and he replied that the place was full, so no go. But, not being too homophobic and having gone on a lot of roadtrips in the past, we bucked up and said it was fine. The only thing left was a trip to the local 7-Eleven for some pre-bed drinks and we were out cold until the morning.

 

The next day, we took it easy and spent most of our time wandering the streets of KL, checking out the markets while Dani (from the UK/Spain) and Stefan (from Australia), some stragglers we met, came along around the city. After a trip to the Little India markets, the two new additions to the crew ran off to see the Petronas Towers while D and I headed a bit further north to the Chow Kit market area to check out some more food and shopping. We made a pitstop at the hostel to get organized for the trip to Singapore the next morning. We were supposed to meet up with some of our fellow ML'ers, but because we made the ridiculous decision to hop in a cab during rushour. An hour later, we finally got to the towers and the folks we were meeting were nowhere to be found. But, we took some pics as the sun was going down, walked to the Golden Triangle for some food and returned for some nighttime portraits of the Towers as they were all lit up.

Funny enough, although we missed out on one friend the first time around, we ended up running into another friend, AG and her mom. So funny that you can be in a city of millions of people and stumble across friends at popular junctions. The rest of the night was dedicated to a couple of drinks and more snacks at a nearby Indian restaurant before a cab ride back to our hostel. Next stop in the morning: Singapore! More to come soon... Much love, all.

T

NYE Part 3

As the late night of NYE drew to a close, I thought a lot about how different spending NYE in a city was. Last year, we were on a train and I'm pretty sure we didn't impress the local DongBei population with our ruckus and racket in the hard sleeper cars. Nonetheless, we made it out unscathed and have some pretty fun memories from the night.

Saturday morning was one to just take it easy, and a small group of us wandered around town and spent our time being lazy and eating food while another part of our cohort decided to go to a weird "Russian-style village" on the outskirts of town. It turns out that this was the strangest place in the city and I didn't miss much. And I'm perfectly okay with that.

We had arranged for the hotel to bus a small group of us from the hotel to the Russian village, pick up those that partook in the weirdness, and then head to the Ice Festival a few minutes up the road. However, as we were waiting at the meeting time (3:30pm), we were informed we weren't going until 4:00. The group at the village was waiting to be picked up at 3:45. Remember, it's nearly -20 at this point. Then the hotel piled us into a van with 8 other Chinese people, which left no room to pick those up at the village, and we finally left at 4:10. Then we made a 10 minute pitstop for no clear reason. After we kept on going, we passed by the village and kept driving to the Ice Festival. The 8 Chinese people got out, and as we started to, our bus driver said we couldn't and that we had to wait until our friends were with us as a group. So, tempers were starting to get testy. This is about 4:35. So the 4 foreigners piled back into the van, huffing with frustration, and headed back to the village. But we couldn't get into the village because there had been a traffic accident at the entrance and the people involved were in the middle of a fistfight (yes, this happens semi-regularly... I'll write more about traffic rules in coming days/weeks). So we had to go around to the back entrance, 5 minutes away. Finally we arrived after 5pm. The group at the village had been waiting outside in -20 degree weather for nearly 90 minutes and NO ONE was happy about it. Let's just say the driver (and later, the hotel manager) got an earful from a collection of us on the way to the festival.

That being said, we had a great time at the Ice Festival (even though the prices had risen by about 60%) and didn't lose any toes or fingers to frostbite. The pictures are up on Facebook, but I'll try to add some here later.

Sunday, the final day in Harbin, was a little less than amazing, but was still good. I had acquired some sort of fever-laden cold overnight and tossed and turned and didn't really sleep. But we took it easy, had a lazy morning lunch as we got ready to check out, hit up the Saint Sophia Cathedral (which is now a pictorial museum of local Harbin history, as the Cultural Revolution destroyed much of the church's interior... you can still see the Revolution bullet holes in the walls), then headed to the airport to come home.

I didn't exactly catch up on my sleep, and I was actually home sick from school on the following Monday, but I've recovered in time for me to jetset south. I start the journey on Sunday night as I hop on the overnight train to Beijing, then head to the Tianjin airport to fly down to MALAYSIA! Then Singapore, northern Thailand, Laos and Cambodia are on the itinerary for the next 5 weeks. I'll write more about the crazy recent weeks tonight or tomorrow. Right now, I'm winding down the final minutes of my last invigilation of the semester and I'm free as of tomorrow afternoon! More soon, but in meantime (and as always), much love everyone. Hope the new year has found you all full of high hopes, aspirations and full of love for 2011. 

T

NYE in Harbin, Part 2

After a day full of watching awesome predators stalk the chickens I provided as sacrifices, we headed back to the city so we could regroup for the NYE festivities.

Our Tiger park group corralled a total of about 8 of us and we headed to a Cantonese-style restaurant near our hotel that I went to with some friends last year while in Harbin. We ordered so much food that we nearly couldn't fit it on the table, and spent the next two hours having an epic food and drink fest while telling stories and sharing pictures from the tigers and other activities from the day. Also, since it was REALLY cold out and we hadn't confirmed our plans for the night, we were doing our best to stay warm and full before venturing out into the city.

At about 11:00pm, we met another part of the crew back at our hotel, bundled up and headed through town. A few people had heard about performances and fireworks up the famous Zhōngyāngdàjiē,  the main Central Avenue or Walking Street which runs down to the river (it's actually the longest pedestrian-only street in Asia, according to Wikitravel). As we were walking up to an area called "Euro Square", people were lighting off massive 3ft long sparklers and small fireworks while eating cotton candy from a streetside vendor. After arriving at the square, we were entertained by a truly Chinese phenomenon of the variety show sort. A boy band, some sort of bad comedy thing, techno music, people winning teddy bears. If you spend any time around a Chinese mall, this is a common thing nearly every day of the week in some form or another.

Anyways... as midnight approached, we had a big countdown to midnight which was followed up by cheering, sparklers, and fireworks. Since our crew had grown to about 20 people, we started to sing "Auld Lang Syne" with all the foreigners as we stood in a big circle, swaying to the terribly sung lyrics. After one round, Gavin, one of the teachers from our ML Elementary school (and the token Scot) yelled out that we should all grab some Chinese people and make our song circle bigger. So, we opened the circle, grabbed the closest locals we could find and dragged them into the circle and belted out "Auld Lang Syne" at the top of our lungs while being photographed/videotaped by pretty much everyone in the vicinity. It was a lot of fooling fun. The only thing to top this was watching a conga line on stage (I have no clue why) and then hearing "Mrak! You go!" coming from CG behind me and suddenly, I was leading our own conga line (both foreigners and Chinese folk) through the crowd of about 700 people in Euro Square. Sooo ridiculous. And sooo fun.

We ended up heading to a local establishment to do some dancing before going back to the hotel... our destination of choice was a(n) (in)famous place called Blue's Bar. Here's what the Harbin Travel Guide says on WikiTravel about this place:

"Blue's (布鲁斯酒吧) Dirty, crowded, and dangerous. Everything that is Harbin, Russians, Mongolians, Turks, Canadians, Brazilians, Koreans. Frequent staging ground for fights between Koreans and Mongolians or Russians fighting with Russians. The staff has also been known to get involved in fights or start them. Friday nights 10:30PM and afterward get really crazy when about 80% of Harbin's foreign newcomers head out to Blue's to party. Also, at 11PM you can buy a bottle of Vodka for ¥10, but it is devil water from Anhui has made many people go nuts and dance on the pole for hours."

I hope I don't need to explain that my experience wasn't NEARLY as exciting as all this, but it was still pretty fun.

The final story to come soon. For now, I'm off to work on my marking before report cards are due in the a.m. Much China love, all.

T

Ice and Tigers and Bullet Holes... oh my? NYE in Harbin, Part 1

The night of December 30th, I joined about 15 other teachers from my school on the train to the icy cold northern province Heliongjiang to visit, for the second year in a row, the city of Ha'erbin (Harbin). As the train pulled out of Dalian station, I started to ask myself, "Why are you doing this, T? Don't you remember? Harbin is COLD in the winter!!" Yes, I recalled the brutal winds, the ice-covered tile sidewalks, and waiting endlessly for taxis back to my hotel. Still... the attraction of Russian foods, tigers and ice slides pulled me north. So, north I went.

If you've ever ridden a Chinese train, you know that the top bunk sucks. They jack up the heat in trains all night and, since no ventilation is provided, the heat rises right to the top of the cabin. And, if you're feeling like being thrifty (as I was), then you also understand that the respite found in a "soft sleeper" costs approximately 150rmb more than the "hard sleeper". Hard sleepers are like open dorm rooms with a hallway connecting all bunks and no doors/cabins. The train car IS the cabin. It also stacks 3 people high in a pseudo-cabin that has a total of six beds. The soft sleeper, on the other hand, is a slightly more cushy, enclosed cabin setup with a door and only 4 people to each cabin. Temperature controls are available, the doors can lock, and you can hang with your friends in relative comfort as you control the lights/heat. Luxury my friends, luxury.

Did I mention that I was on the top bunk of the hard sleeper? Ya. Not fun. Sweaty, unfortable non-fun.

After tossing and turning all night, I thought the morning would go swimmingly. We were arriving at 7am, I had requested an early check-in time, and I had cleverly punched in the Chinese address of our hotel into my ITouch so I didn't need to argue with the cabs about the location of the hotel. So, after waiting in the taxi queue, I handed my ITouch to the first driver and told him in my mediocre Chinese that we wanted to go to the Hengji Hotel. He looked confused and said he didn't know where it was. I was a bit testy, so I pointed to the ITouch and said "Here it is". Then I looked at the screen.

He'd somehow managed to delete the address.

Well, I ended up being able to track down the hotel's number, got them to talk to about 4 cabs, and finally one knew the place and off we went. I was a bit frazzled, but I knew that a shower and a bed awaited me.

The rest of the morning passed by in relative peace and included a nap and some lunch. After waiting for CG to arrive from Beijing, we met up with the crew and a group of us headed out to Harbin's Siberian Tiger Park on the outskirts of town to check out the tigers of the world, up close and personal (from the safety of a bus, of course). ***

Having some sort of good luck hidden somewhere, I ended up getting the seat in the very front of the bus and got the best view in the joint. It was pretty amazing, as these massive beasts were only about eight feet from the window I was plastering my camera against. We were toured through Siberian and African tiger areas as well as an area with some African lions. There were hundreds of cats there on a pretty massive property covered in snow. The contrast of these huge, orange tigers against the white snow was pretty cool.

As we were nearing the end of the tour, the driver told us that we could buy chickens to feed to the tigers (there were also a host of other animals you could pay to "donate" to the tigers, including sheep, goats and even a cow for 2000rmb). I, however, was interested in the simple pleasure of feeding them a chicken. The driver then explained that there were two prices... 50rmb and 100rmb. As he was explaining, we thought he said that the 100rmb chicken was alive and the 50rmb chicken was dead. I didn't want to see them eat a dead chicken, so we asked a bit more for clarification... and we pretty much just said we want a live, flying chicken and I forked over the 100 kuai (the equivalent word to "bucks").

About 10 minutes later, we stopped in an open area, and a fully caged 4x4 jeep started ripping into the compound, and all the tigers perked up. As the jeep neared our bus we noticed that a tiger had hopped RIGHT ON TOP OF THE JEEP! So, as the jeep drives right in front of us, the jeep opens up the door, launches a live, flying chicken into the air, and a mondo Siberian tiger runs, leaps, and snatches the tiger right out of the air. The best part?? I got it all on video! Best 100 kaui I've spent in China yet!

After this addition to the highlight reel of China experiences, we finished the rest of the tour of the Tiger Park and headed back to our hotel so we could figure out our New Years plans so we could ring in 2010. More on NYE, the Ice Festival and my second trip to the Saint Sophia Cathedral sometime soon... I'm in search of food (and I've rambled much too long already), so for now... adieu.

T

***Just a few days ago, a bus driver from the Tiger Park was attacked and killed by one of the tigers in the park. The report said that during a tour, the bus became stuck in the snow and the driver (OBVIOUSLY NOT THE BRIGHTEST GUY) left the tourists on the bus and got OUT OF THE BUS to attempt to dislodge the tire. No, he didn't call for help. No, no one cleared out the tigers from that part of the park. Sure enough, one of the tigers attacked him, dragged him to one of the treed areas, and before the staff (who found out after he was already out of the bus) could scare the tiger off with shouting and firecrackers, the driver had been killed. A sad story, but one that belongs in the Darwin Awards.