I almost forgot Halloween was last week. It was on a monday, which is my day to teach Literature and my students quickly pointed out that today was Halloween. They asked me how I was going to celebrate it and the perfect thing sprang into my mind: I'll show a scary movie for the students!!
They all gasp in unison, all 56 of them. They began to mutter to each other about what I had just said, you could see the wheels churning in their head.
"What will you show, Mr. Tim?"
I had just picked up a copy of Frankenstein from the creators of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre on DVD, so I thought, why not? We were studying Mary Shelley's chilling tale in class as an Audiobook for the Halloween Holiday, so it seemed fitting.
Throughout the day, I kept thinking that the movie wasn't Halloweenie enough, these kids would be let down if the movie sucked and my rep would be on the line for delivering good quality entertainment to the Chinese college kids.
Word spread faster than herpes on homecoming weekend that I was showing a scary Halloween movie. People sent me text messages of excitement and concern--and the place only holds 1,000 students to see the film, so people were trying to get VIP into the showing. I laughed heartily and said a firm No.
I decided to add another film, Ring 2, to the lineup. It scared me in a creepy kind of way--not to mention that the main spooky character kind of looks like she is Asain. (This would be a constant commentary for days after the showing--"If she is Asain, she must be Japanese, because Chinese girls are never that ugly!!" --One of my lovely nationalist students.
First off, more than 2,000 kids showed up to see the film. There were injuries. People were crushed getting into the doors. It was like David Beckham and Yao Ming were presenting the film themselves.
I arrived fashionably late, my cell phone ringing frantically from the other students who were afraid of the large crowd that had gathered outside--they needed guidance. Upon arrival, I couldn't believe the amount of students. It was just a few hours ago that I had even thought about showing a film and suddenly there were thousands of kids outside the classroom wanting to see what scary really was.
The first one, Frankenstein basically sucks. Don't waste your time. The students, as well as myself, were pissed off at the ending of the film, which isnt really an ending at all, its almost like they just ran out of film. Annoying. Students told me that the film was not a horror movie, but rather a science fiction film. Haha, I thought--just wait until you see the next one.
Only about 50 students left when that film was over. The rest of them were strangely quiet as the film began. The best part of the entire night, one of the most memorable moments I will ever have of China, was what happened in the next ten minutes. The film opens with a frightening scene where the scary girl Xiomara, comes out of the television to attack the person that has the curse. When she popped out of the televison on the screen, about 200 students schrieked loudly and RAN for the doors. When I say RAN, I mean they ran like their own lives depended on it. It was pure insanity. They were so scared of this women that they did a full sprint out of the place and straight to their dormitories. I have not seen many things funnier in my life.
Throughout the rest of the film, the remaining students tried to hold out as long as they could--but every scene that was a little scary had the students moving quickly out of the theatre and after awhile I decided to give chase after them as they left--which really made for a good time. I chased after two students who literally fell into the squat position and almost peed their pants from being so scared-- it was AWESOME!
The kids talked about the film for days--some of my students were really mad at me because they couldn't sleep the entire night.
"Mr. Tim, I am very angry with you today. Each moment that my eyes closed last night, the girl would come into my dreams and wake me up. This is not a good movie!"
You can't ask for much more than that!!
Most of the students loved it. One of them entered class the following day in a xiomara outfit, no shoes and he hair combed over her head--she looked terrifying... and when some students saw her, they ran out of the other door and down the hall and did not return to class for several minutes....
Read more!
11 November 2005
Shorter, man...
Okay, so I'll start making the entries shorter.
My ability to tell the story is increasing, and with that, so is my prose. You are seeing the first draft of material, which is totally unedited, except for the occasional spell check, when I remember to check it.
I will begin to post more short stories so that you can just skim through it as I realize this is just a blog and you, my loyal readers, want more on the short end instead of waiting for a longer entry. I am still waiting for the pictures to be uploaded, it should happen at some point this weekend. It isn't my camera, so I don't have control over it. Read more!
My ability to tell the story is increasing, and with that, so is my prose. You are seeing the first draft of material, which is totally unedited, except for the occasional spell check, when I remember to check it.
I will begin to post more short stories so that you can just skim through it as I realize this is just a blog and you, my loyal readers, want more on the short end instead of waiting for a longer entry. I am still waiting for the pictures to be uploaded, it should happen at some point this weekend. It isn't my camera, so I don't have control over it. Read more!
09 November 2005
I still have not been able to upload the pictures from Yangshou and Guilin as I did not take them with my own camera and I am waiting for Clare to come and set it up so that I can actually load them for you....
But I will continue with the stories..
Clare and I decided after much deliberation that it made more sense to just call the guy at the travel agency in the train station and pay the overemphasis price. We had try to find one of the open tourist kiosks throughout the town, but we were met with very little success. We found several of the kiosks, but they were all closed in the middle of a friday afternoon--which reminded me once again that this is China. So we called him back and I attempted to bargain with him on the price, knowing that 250rmb is more than we should have to pay, especially because it is no longer the tourist season and he offered me a rate of just 200rmb, but made it sound like this route was by far the worst way to do it and for the extra 50rmb, we could do everything on our own and not have to pay attention to the tour groups and such--which was more appealing to me, so I agreed and booked us on the 250rmb cruise, slightly regretting it. I also inquired about a massage because the hard beds of China has really began to take a toll on my bones and I heard that there were good massage places in Guilin. Again, I got a little screwed on this endeavors as I got booked into a massage place at the nicest hotel in Guilin. It was 100rmb for the massage, which is still cheap in western standards, but if I were to tell a Chinese person about this price, they would shriek at the high rate. Overall, it was a nice massage, except you keep your clothes on, which I was a little surprised by, but it made me feel more comfortable about the whole procedure.
It was a good massage, with her massaging everything except my groin, including my robust buttocks, which made me giggle like a little school girl. She also jumped on top of my back, digging her knees into my back and massaging my body--quite an amazing maneuver.
When it was done, amazingly enough, the woman nodded at my compliments and then began following me saying, TIP! TIP! TIP!, which is something you never, ever, never hear in China. It was the strangest thing. She did a good job, but 100rmb is a lot of money-but I decided to oblige the request, since it is so rare. I stopped and pulled out some money and she saw a 50 note and pointed to it-- TIP TIP! and I shook my head. No way was I giving another 50note, but I did settle on a 20 and went on my way.
The next morning, we awoke at 5:15 to take the shuttle down to the pier and go on the boat ride outside of town. It was scheduled as a 2.5 hour long boat ride and the car was scheduled to pick us up at 6am sharp. He arrived about 10 minutes later than he was expected and we could immediately tell that he knew he was late. He raced through the empty streets of Guilin and got onto the highway in mere minutes. Clare became worried when he got on the freeway because we didn't know exactly where the boat trip started, but we assumed it was in the downtown area. Not true. We were in the car for about 30 minutes while it flew down the highway, trying to get to the destination by 7am, which we made just in time. We were quickly shuffled out of the car and escorted to the boat. We were in the middle of farm country, which basically equated to the middle of nowhere. As we got onto the boat, we quickly noticed that we were the only ones on the boat and the driver of the boat quickly got the engines started and we were off. Immediately, I knew we had made the right decision. Although the process seemed shady, we were now sitting on a long tour boat, the only tourists of the river. We had our own personal moments on the Li Jang river. It was an amazing hour, cruising through the low river. taking in the beautiful scenery--hundreds of small, ragged peaks, all in dense green colors lined the distance, reflecting on the calmness of the river. It was a beautifully odd combination of both serenity and chaos. The river, still and calm as we rode through it, clearer than I thought any river could really be in China. The peaks, small in size, but rugged and fierce--something major happened here not so long ago in the timeliness of the earth and it was violent.
The scale of the mountain range reminds me of my admiration of the Grand Tetons in Wyoming, just off the rugged landscape of the Yellowstone Plateau, where I spent some of my most formative summers. These were much different, both in size and distance. The Tetons are a huge range of mountains overlooking the Snake River, while this smaller mountain of the Li Jang river, go for miles upon miles, every turn in the riverbed presents a new series of mountains. I took Clares cameras and spent most of the time on the outside deck on the loud, rusty metal ship that took us through the low river channels.
Eventually, our solo journey came to an end as we met up with the other tour boats, which we about and hour and fifteen minutes ahead of us. We stopped at an island together and we were told to get on another boat, which was equipped with Chinese tourists who instantly got very excited when the learned that two Westerners would be joining their cruise. The next 45 minutes of the cruise was spent stopping periodically at different places to basically waste time as we were close to the end, but the tour stated that it was 2.5 hours, so they have to make it seem like your getting every minutes worth.
I felt like we got our moneys worth--as I said yesterday, the thing you need to remember in China is that it really doesn't matter how much you paid, as long as you feel okay about it. You can afford to get ripped off on occasion in China.
The boat ride does end directly in Yangshou, but just outside of a small village, where there are tour buses that will either take you back to Guilin or to visit Yangshou. Every westerner for some reason simply loves to visit Yangshou, which is also known as Yangers. It is about a 30 minutes ride from where you get dropped off. We were told that it was easy to get a bus ride from the town to Yangshou, but as we arrived, we discovered that this was not entirely the case. We had done more of a budgeted trip, and they didn't cut us a deal on a bus, so we had to attempt to figure out transport. Luckily, a couple from Belgium were in the same boat as we were (pun intended). For whatever reason, their tour bus has just left without them, so they needed to fend for it on their own. We quickly found a cab driver that offered to take us to Yangshou for 50rmb each, which we bargained with her down to 30rmb for all of us. This is another example how too little is never too little.
In the car ride over, we discovered that the couple lives in Brussels, works for the main airline in Brussels, he is a pilot, she is a flight attendant. Because of their jobs, they have traveled all over the world--going to every country on the planet. The woman was a frequent flyer to Africa--this week she will go to Rwanda and live for 10 days. It was interesting to get their take on the different travels, especially Africa.
Upon arrival in Yangshou, we decided to have an early lunch with each other. They took us to a western restaurant that was really an American restaurant. Bacon, Eggs, Pancakes, Burgers, Lasagna, garlic bread--good food and not too expensive.
There was not much discussion while we were enjoying our food--both Clare and I were simply amazed at how delicious everything was--you tend to forget that things taste differently than Chinese food!
The rest of the afternoon was spent shopping and bargaining for different things. I spent a lot more money than I had budgeted for the trip, but I was able to justify it because I had spent so little since my arrival here in China. Overall, I have spent less than 600usd since I have arrived here, plus my monthly salary. I had not really purchased many of the things that I wanted to make sure I bought before leaving China, and I found all of it in Yangshou.
The biggest splurge was on a Chess set that when I saw it, I knew I needed to have it. The original price for the set was 850rmb, which was just ridiculous. Without much effort, I was able to get the price down to a mere 200 rmb and the final sales price was 180rmb. I will send a picture of it in the near future.
Yangshou serves as a good base camp location for going and checking out much of the local area. It is only 50 rmb to rent a motorbike for the afternoon, and the bike tours are very famous. There are many listings on-line for guide services, which usually include a tasty Chinese lunch. We didn't do any of these adventures as I know I will be there again sometime soon.
here's a good link to Yangshou: http://www.yangers.com/ Read more!
But I will continue with the stories..
Clare and I decided after much deliberation that it made more sense to just call the guy at the travel agency in the train station and pay the overemphasis price. We had try to find one of the open tourist kiosks throughout the town, but we were met with very little success. We found several of the kiosks, but they were all closed in the middle of a friday afternoon--which reminded me once again that this is China. So we called him back and I attempted to bargain with him on the price, knowing that 250rmb is more than we should have to pay, especially because it is no longer the tourist season and he offered me a rate of just 200rmb, but made it sound like this route was by far the worst way to do it and for the extra 50rmb, we could do everything on our own and not have to pay attention to the tour groups and such--which was more appealing to me, so I agreed and booked us on the 250rmb cruise, slightly regretting it. I also inquired about a massage because the hard beds of China has really began to take a toll on my bones and I heard that there were good massage places in Guilin. Again, I got a little screwed on this endeavors as I got booked into a massage place at the nicest hotel in Guilin. It was 100rmb for the massage, which is still cheap in western standards, but if I were to tell a Chinese person about this price, they would shriek at the high rate. Overall, it was a nice massage, except you keep your clothes on, which I was a little surprised by, but it made me feel more comfortable about the whole procedure.
It was a good massage, with her massaging everything except my groin, including my robust buttocks, which made me giggle like a little school girl. She also jumped on top of my back, digging her knees into my back and massaging my body--quite an amazing maneuver.
When it was done, amazingly enough, the woman nodded at my compliments and then began following me saying, TIP! TIP! TIP!, which is something you never, ever, never hear in China. It was the strangest thing. She did a good job, but 100rmb is a lot of money-but I decided to oblige the request, since it is so rare. I stopped and pulled out some money and she saw a 50 note and pointed to it-- TIP TIP! and I shook my head. No way was I giving another 50note, but I did settle on a 20 and went on my way.
The next morning, we awoke at 5:15 to take the shuttle down to the pier and go on the boat ride outside of town. It was scheduled as a 2.5 hour long boat ride and the car was scheduled to pick us up at 6am sharp. He arrived about 10 minutes later than he was expected and we could immediately tell that he knew he was late. He raced through the empty streets of Guilin and got onto the highway in mere minutes. Clare became worried when he got on the freeway because we didn't know exactly where the boat trip started, but we assumed it was in the downtown area. Not true. We were in the car for about 30 minutes while it flew down the highway, trying to get to the destination by 7am, which we made just in time. We were quickly shuffled out of the car and escorted to the boat. We were in the middle of farm country, which basically equated to the middle of nowhere. As we got onto the boat, we quickly noticed that we were the only ones on the boat and the driver of the boat quickly got the engines started and we were off. Immediately, I knew we had made the right decision. Although the process seemed shady, we were now sitting on a long tour boat, the only tourists of the river. We had our own personal moments on the Li Jang river. It was an amazing hour, cruising through the low river. taking in the beautiful scenery--hundreds of small, ragged peaks, all in dense green colors lined the distance, reflecting on the calmness of the river. It was a beautifully odd combination of both serenity and chaos. The river, still and calm as we rode through it, clearer than I thought any river could really be in China. The peaks, small in size, but rugged and fierce--something major happened here not so long ago in the timeliness of the earth and it was violent.
The scale of the mountain range reminds me of my admiration of the Grand Tetons in Wyoming, just off the rugged landscape of the Yellowstone Plateau, where I spent some of my most formative summers. These were much different, both in size and distance. The Tetons are a huge range of mountains overlooking the Snake River, while this smaller mountain of the Li Jang river, go for miles upon miles, every turn in the riverbed presents a new series of mountains. I took Clares cameras and spent most of the time on the outside deck on the loud, rusty metal ship that took us through the low river channels.
Eventually, our solo journey came to an end as we met up with the other tour boats, which we about and hour and fifteen minutes ahead of us. We stopped at an island together and we were told to get on another boat, which was equipped with Chinese tourists who instantly got very excited when the learned that two Westerners would be joining their cruise. The next 45 minutes of the cruise was spent stopping periodically at different places to basically waste time as we were close to the end, but the tour stated that it was 2.5 hours, so they have to make it seem like your getting every minutes worth.
I felt like we got our moneys worth--as I said yesterday, the thing you need to remember in China is that it really doesn't matter how much you paid, as long as you feel okay about it. You can afford to get ripped off on occasion in China.
The boat ride does end directly in Yangshou, but just outside of a small village, where there are tour buses that will either take you back to Guilin or to visit Yangshou. Every westerner for some reason simply loves to visit Yangshou, which is also known as Yangers. It is about a 30 minutes ride from where you get dropped off. We were told that it was easy to get a bus ride from the town to Yangshou, but as we arrived, we discovered that this was not entirely the case. We had done more of a budgeted trip, and they didn't cut us a deal on a bus, so we had to attempt to figure out transport. Luckily, a couple from Belgium were in the same boat as we were (pun intended). For whatever reason, their tour bus has just left without them, so they needed to fend for it on their own. We quickly found a cab driver that offered to take us to Yangshou for 50rmb each, which we bargained with her down to 30rmb for all of us. This is another example how too little is never too little.
In the car ride over, we discovered that the couple lives in Brussels, works for the main airline in Brussels, he is a pilot, she is a flight attendant. Because of their jobs, they have traveled all over the world--going to every country on the planet. The woman was a frequent flyer to Africa--this week she will go to Rwanda and live for 10 days. It was interesting to get their take on the different travels, especially Africa.
Upon arrival in Yangshou, we decided to have an early lunch with each other. They took us to a western restaurant that was really an American restaurant. Bacon, Eggs, Pancakes, Burgers, Lasagna, garlic bread--good food and not too expensive.
There was not much discussion while we were enjoying our food--both Clare and I were simply amazed at how delicious everything was--you tend to forget that things taste differently than Chinese food!
The rest of the afternoon was spent shopping and bargaining for different things. I spent a lot more money than I had budgeted for the trip, but I was able to justify it because I had spent so little since my arrival here in China. Overall, I have spent less than 600usd since I have arrived here, plus my monthly salary. I had not really purchased many of the things that I wanted to make sure I bought before leaving China, and I found all of it in Yangshou.
The biggest splurge was on a Chess set that when I saw it, I knew I needed to have it. The original price for the set was 850rmb, which was just ridiculous. Without much effort, I was able to get the price down to a mere 200 rmb and the final sales price was 180rmb. I will send a picture of it in the near future.
Yangshou serves as a good base camp location for going and checking out much of the local area. It is only 50 rmb to rent a motorbike for the afternoon, and the bike tours are very famous. There are many listings on-line for guide services, which usually include a tasty Chinese lunch. We didn't do any of these adventures as I know I will be there again sometime soon.
here's a good link to Yangshou: http://www.yangers.com/ Read more!
07 November 2005
Yangshou Part 1
I can imagine another place when I travel in China. I look at my cell phone and the date tells me we are in November, but as the sweat drips from my nose from the humid day, this is weather I have never experienced at this time of the year. This seems like the longest summer of my life and after living in the Pacific Northwest for the last several years, I was long due for weather like this.
As we set off to see some of the most glorious land that exists on this vast earth, we had no idea what we are in for. The weather service, which is always wrong in varying degrees said that there would be morning rain and showers and the outlook for the entire weekend in Guilin was not promising. Still, we decided that we needed more than anything to get out of this space, to go somewhere else and experience the subtle differences in China that each province has.
Guilin is an almost perfect weekend from where we are located. It is a mere 7 hours by train to the city and it is fairly cheap to go into the city, just 75rmb for a seat and about 130 for a hard sleeper. We lucked out in getting a hard sleeper, which I must say is not as bad as rumoured. I will take a picture of them next time I go on a sleeper trip, which will be soon. I left my camera here on accident, so the photo opps were limited (which is especially funny because this trip had the most beautiful scenery of all the places that I have been as of yet).
Sleepers are set up in two ways, 6 to a space, 3 of each side--top, middle and lower. They are spacious enough were someone of my size can sleep in them and they are amazingly comfortable for what they are and what they cost. Although they are double the price of the cheap seats, it is a better more secure way to travel for foreigners and anything over 5 hours, a sleeper should be considered.
Our train left Chenzhou at 11:15, so it was pretty much lights out as we arrived on the train. It was relaxing to get onto the train, get situated and then the lights were turned out and I found most people asleep on the train, so I drink a little water and promptly passed out to the sounds of Radiohead. (Thanks Fargo)
Sleeping on the train works quite well for some. My travelling companion, Clair, doesnt have any problems in crashing out within half an hour of the train departing. I however have already developed an annoying habit of waking up everytime the train stops--and there are a lot of stops. I hope to cure myself of this issue in the near future.
We arrived in Guilin in the early morning, just after 7 am, and the sun was just starting to show itself. As the sun began to shine through the cloudline, we were slightly disapointed in the scenery of the city from where we were. It looked like many of the other Chinese cities that we have seen so many times before this--poor shanty shacks leading into the almost overnight revitalization--highrise, modern apartment houses and condo's. It seemed almost surreal to see these striking differences once again. For some reason I had it engrained in my head that this was not going to be the same as the other cities. Perhaps the Chinese would attempt to preserve their most treasured smaller city to the architecture that was shared with the timeless hills, but as I arrived I thought my thoughts would be proven wrong.
There certainly were let downs by the design of the outskirts of the city, but the parts where they want the tourists to stay is a pleasent mix of the new and the old coming together, but almost in a showcased, tourist kind of way.
As we pulled into the station, I was excited by the prospect of being in another place, experiencing another sampling of the different culutral landscape that makes China such an overwhelming place to visit but slightly disapointed by what I had witnessed thus far.
This would be the last moment of my unfavorable attitude toward such a wonderful and beautiful city. From the moment we stepped off of the train, I was caught in a constantly good mood with the beauty of the area surrounding the city.
Guilin is a shopping city and the various tourist kiosks and bureaus around the city certainly document that. Being the tourists that we are, we were captured by the first person that could find us, an Asain women that seemed to speak fairly good english, which always catches me off guard. I know now that this should always raise a question mark, but when I am on vacation, I don't really mind spending a little extra money if it is worth it. Clair and I immediatly began our discussion on what we should do about a hotel (get one now and drop our things or head out into the city and see where we want to center ourselves or rent a bed in a hostel--so many choices! While discussing what we should do, we are greeted with a
"Hello! How are you today, are you looking for a hotel, boat trip to Yangshou?"
This was a double check mark, which made us almost immediate suckers. She led us into what appeared to be a city run tourist bureau and we were greeted by the boss immediatly upon entering. We saw a couple of other people with big backpacks on and this set my mind to ease--but I didnt want to do anything with these people--just get some information on the various places to stay and head out and find it on our own, but it didnt work out that way. I tried to get a little information and move on our way, but Clare kept talking to the guy and soon enough we had a hotel that fit right in our price range and he quoted the ballpark figure of what the boat trip that we wanted to take would cost (and it matched the guidebook, so it seemed it might be a good enough deal, but I felt that since he got us the hotel room, that was probably good enough for now --no need to book the cruise at the same time as the hotel, so we got his card and went on our way to discover Guilin. He took us to the hotel- (Which is always an indicator that you might have paid too much for the ticket. If they are going to get a commision for the sale, they must present you to the hotel and their price is based on that price.)
The thing about pricing in China is always the same-there is always a cheaper price than what you pay because of your skin color and social status. If you let this bother you, you will not have as good of a time as if you just don't worry about it. To a Chinese person, the difference between 125rmb and 200rmb is a lot of money--to a westerner, it is less than 10 bucks and to pay 20usd for a decent hotel room is a good deal regardless. The key thing is that whenever you meet a Chinese person that is in the tourist business or a Chinese person interested in the goods you purchased or how much you spend, they will always tell you you paid too much for things but the reality is that they don't do much better in most positions. There is a price that is negotiable and its fairly easy to learn this key information when coming to China. Nothing has a set price, but there is always a price that they know they can get for the room or the trinket and they are not going to let it go for any less--but they will charge you more. The key is to play along and have fun with it. Don't be afraid to ever walk away from something because if they really want to get rid of it, they will chase you down and if you really want it, you can always go back and get a better price out of them.
I tell you this now, but I admittly didnt follow these very simple directions at all. When I arrive from a long travel, I want to find a place to put my things and get on with my travelling. I don't want to try and find the perfect room, just something to drop off my stuff and when I come back I can sleep in it. If you are spending too much time in a nice hotel, stay home, save your money and buy a hot tub or something fun. Don't waste your money on an expensive hotel--its just another step away from the real Chinese experiece!!!
So, even though we paid too much for the hotel and a couple of other things--we still had an awesome day in Guilin. We were quick to discover how awesome things were inside of the city--there is easily enough to do in that town for at least a week, if not longer.
Tommorow I will talk more about the adventure--incluiding the personalized 2.5 hour boat trip though the most scenic countryside I have ever seen (and I lived in Yellowstone for two summers--this pretty much tops it), feeding free roaming monkey peanuts and my first American breakfast in over two months...
Wednesday will be the much anticipated pictures, which are nothing short of mindblowing.... Read more!
As we set off to see some of the most glorious land that exists on this vast earth, we had no idea what we are in for. The weather service, which is always wrong in varying degrees said that there would be morning rain and showers and the outlook for the entire weekend in Guilin was not promising. Still, we decided that we needed more than anything to get out of this space, to go somewhere else and experience the subtle differences in China that each province has.
Guilin is an almost perfect weekend from where we are located. It is a mere 7 hours by train to the city and it is fairly cheap to go into the city, just 75rmb for a seat and about 130 for a hard sleeper. We lucked out in getting a hard sleeper, which I must say is not as bad as rumoured. I will take a picture of them next time I go on a sleeper trip, which will be soon. I left my camera here on accident, so the photo opps were limited (which is especially funny because this trip had the most beautiful scenery of all the places that I have been as of yet).
Sleepers are set up in two ways, 6 to a space, 3 of each side--top, middle and lower. They are spacious enough were someone of my size can sleep in them and they are amazingly comfortable for what they are and what they cost. Although they are double the price of the cheap seats, it is a better more secure way to travel for foreigners and anything over 5 hours, a sleeper should be considered.
Our train left Chenzhou at 11:15, so it was pretty much lights out as we arrived on the train. It was relaxing to get onto the train, get situated and then the lights were turned out and I found most people asleep on the train, so I drink a little water and promptly passed out to the sounds of Radiohead. (Thanks Fargo)
Sleeping on the train works quite well for some. My travelling companion, Clair, doesnt have any problems in crashing out within half an hour of the train departing. I however have already developed an annoying habit of waking up everytime the train stops--and there are a lot of stops. I hope to cure myself of this issue in the near future.
We arrived in Guilin in the early morning, just after 7 am, and the sun was just starting to show itself. As the sun began to shine through the cloudline, we were slightly disapointed in the scenery of the city from where we were. It looked like many of the other Chinese cities that we have seen so many times before this--poor shanty shacks leading into the almost overnight revitalization--highrise, modern apartment houses and condo's. It seemed almost surreal to see these striking differences once again. For some reason I had it engrained in my head that this was not going to be the same as the other cities. Perhaps the Chinese would attempt to preserve their most treasured smaller city to the architecture that was shared with the timeless hills, but as I arrived I thought my thoughts would be proven wrong.
There certainly were let downs by the design of the outskirts of the city, but the parts where they want the tourists to stay is a pleasent mix of the new and the old coming together, but almost in a showcased, tourist kind of way.
As we pulled into the station, I was excited by the prospect of being in another place, experiencing another sampling of the different culutral landscape that makes China such an overwhelming place to visit but slightly disapointed by what I had witnessed thus far.
This would be the last moment of my unfavorable attitude toward such a wonderful and beautiful city. From the moment we stepped off of the train, I was caught in a constantly good mood with the beauty of the area surrounding the city.
Guilin is a shopping city and the various tourist kiosks and bureaus around the city certainly document that. Being the tourists that we are, we were captured by the first person that could find us, an Asain women that seemed to speak fairly good english, which always catches me off guard. I know now that this should always raise a question mark, but when I am on vacation, I don't really mind spending a little extra money if it is worth it. Clair and I immediatly began our discussion on what we should do about a hotel (get one now and drop our things or head out into the city and see where we want to center ourselves or rent a bed in a hostel--so many choices! While discussing what we should do, we are greeted with a
"Hello! How are you today, are you looking for a hotel, boat trip to Yangshou?"
This was a double check mark, which made us almost immediate suckers. She led us into what appeared to be a city run tourist bureau and we were greeted by the boss immediatly upon entering. We saw a couple of other people with big backpacks on and this set my mind to ease--but I didnt want to do anything with these people--just get some information on the various places to stay and head out and find it on our own, but it didnt work out that way. I tried to get a little information and move on our way, but Clare kept talking to the guy and soon enough we had a hotel that fit right in our price range and he quoted the ballpark figure of what the boat trip that we wanted to take would cost (and it matched the guidebook, so it seemed it might be a good enough deal, but I felt that since he got us the hotel room, that was probably good enough for now --no need to book the cruise at the same time as the hotel, so we got his card and went on our way to discover Guilin. He took us to the hotel- (Which is always an indicator that you might have paid too much for the ticket. If they are going to get a commision for the sale, they must present you to the hotel and their price is based on that price.)
The thing about pricing in China is always the same-there is always a cheaper price than what you pay because of your skin color and social status. If you let this bother you, you will not have as good of a time as if you just don't worry about it. To a Chinese person, the difference between 125rmb and 200rmb is a lot of money--to a westerner, it is less than 10 bucks and to pay 20usd for a decent hotel room is a good deal regardless. The key thing is that whenever you meet a Chinese person that is in the tourist business or a Chinese person interested in the goods you purchased or how much you spend, they will always tell you you paid too much for things but the reality is that they don't do much better in most positions. There is a price that is negotiable and its fairly easy to learn this key information when coming to China. Nothing has a set price, but there is always a price that they know they can get for the room or the trinket and they are not going to let it go for any less--but they will charge you more. The key is to play along and have fun with it. Don't be afraid to ever walk away from something because if they really want to get rid of it, they will chase you down and if you really want it, you can always go back and get a better price out of them.
I tell you this now, but I admittly didnt follow these very simple directions at all. When I arrive from a long travel, I want to find a place to put my things and get on with my travelling. I don't want to try and find the perfect room, just something to drop off my stuff and when I come back I can sleep in it. If you are spending too much time in a nice hotel, stay home, save your money and buy a hot tub or something fun. Don't waste your money on an expensive hotel--its just another step away from the real Chinese experiece!!!
So, even though we paid too much for the hotel and a couple of other things--we still had an awesome day in Guilin. We were quick to discover how awesome things were inside of the city--there is easily enough to do in that town for at least a week, if not longer.
Tommorow I will talk more about the adventure--incluiding the personalized 2.5 hour boat trip though the most scenic countryside I have ever seen (and I lived in Yellowstone for two summers--this pretty much tops it), feeding free roaming monkey peanuts and my first American breakfast in over two months...
Wednesday will be the much anticipated pictures, which are nothing short of mindblowing.... Read more!
06 November 2005
Guilin Recovery
I am sorry about the lack of postings over the last week. I have been very busy, giving my lecture in front of 3,000 students as well as picking up another oral english class and travelling to Guilin and Yanghshou, some of the most beautiful countryside in the world. Think the Grand Tetons times 100. It is truly an amazing place and I have much to write about, but it is 4am here in China and I have just arrived back in Chenzhou and will be teaching in the morning, so look for more postings in the next couple of days. I am hoping that the pictures turn out as good as I think they will.
Read more!
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