Saturday, June 27, 2009

Xi'An and Chengdu

Sorry this will be a picture-free post, but we don't have it together enough to regale you with images. We went through Xi'An recently, the city that hosts the legion of terracotta warriors. It's pretty cool, and a massive act of humanism for a Chinese emperor to bury terracotta versions of his army instead of burying the live army along with him, but I thought it was a little boring. I know each warrior is totally individual, with a distinct face and clothes, but you're not allowed anywhere near close enough to them to really discern any differences. What was really cool was the Xi'An water and music show! An entire square in the city transforms into a dancing fountain that moves to the beat of music. It's really gorgeous. I bet there's a good YouTube video somewhere, but the site's still blocked in China, so you'll have to look it up yourself. I sort of worry that China's new, tackier tourist attractions sometimes appeal to me more than its ancient sights. Makes me feel like a heathen. I'm handing it off to Andy, who will tell you about Chengdu.
 
Chengdu is super fun! We just got back from the panda research center, where thanks to lucky connections with cool people we met, we discovered that we can avoid paying the 100 yuan fee to our hostel or the 58 yuan regular entrance fee, and instead were able to get special 1 yuan panda gold cards which allow us to visit most of the attractions around here totally free! So i used all that money i saved and blew it on getting to hold the cutest best red panda in my lap and feed it apples! IT WAS THE BEST! (I could have also held the baby famous pandas but those were 1000 yuan instead of 100). We got there at a perfect time and all the pandas were going freaking nuts:Running all over , attacking each other, and generally being the cutest things imaginable. Oh man!
 
Before that we have been visiting some weird old temples (if anyone ever played the game "Dynasty Warriors" we got to go to liu bei's mausoleum and castle), eating super spicy sichuan hot-pot, relaxed at a tea house and missed a very lame chinese death metal concert. (it started at 8 and was over before we got there at 9:30, super metal)
 
 
Tomorrow we are going to try to head out to some cool taoist caves, and maybe the world's largest overall buddha (http://www.gluckman.com/LeshanBuddha.html).














 

Monday, June 22, 2009

Yeah!

We visited the Great Wall, although we went to the wrong park first and could SEE the Great Wall but weren't allowed to go on it... Almost started crying! But we did make it up there, and Andy did ninja kicks and set off fireworks. It was awesome. We'll have to do a quick rundown of what we did.
 
1. Saw Mao's body - he sort of looks like they put a light bulb inside of his head. Now I only have Ho Chi Minh left on my list of mummified dictators.
2. Sort of ran through the Forbidden City.
3. Went to several temples, all of which had some kind of record-breaking Buddha (tallest wooden Buddha, Buddha with biggest mustache, Buddha doing highest Rockettes-style kick)
4. Got served amazing bewildering dishes at what is possibly Beijing's fanciest restaurant.
5. Made brownies!
6. Bought a lot of things at the outdoor Dirt Market that need pictures to explain them.
 
So tonight we're heading on to Xi'An, where the Terra Cotta warriors are. Maybe we'll make a better blog post then...

More Beijing!

More pics! the egg and weird european ruins in the middle of the city!

Beijing!

So we arrived in Beijing, our first stop in our giant China travel itinerary, after a six hour delay in Shenzhen airport. Apparently it was too foggy in Beijing to fly in, and it's true that you couldn't see for more than about 15 feet for the first few days. We're staying at our friend Sasha's parents' house - they are truly spoiling us rotten. Not only is their house gorgeous, they feed us extravagantly and they let us use their private driver to see the sights!

Monday, June 15, 2009

Chinese Yard Sale

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Like every time I move someplace, I have to first say goodbye to my loads of cherished, useless crap. I figured what better way to do it, than introduce the good old american concept of a yard sale to the comrades.



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I drug a huge suitcase full of stuff, two bicycles, a guitar, a kite, and a ripstick downtown and set up shop on the corner.
At first they were pretty weirded out, but once they noticed my "cheap cheap, everything must go!" prices, they couldn't resist.


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Some of my students noticed me, got their friends, and then all wanted the chance to buy something from mr. andy.

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Within 1 minute, the passers-bye instinctively assumed standard chinese, huddle-and-gawk formation.



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By the five minute mark, this lady purchased about half of what I had, and then tried to steal some squirt guns on top of it. I was only charging 3 kuai each, or 5 kuai (NOTE: I had questions about this, Chinese money is called renminbi, or RMB or Yuan, kuai is a unit word for money, like saying "bucks") for the set (about 45 cents). She then gave the guns to her kids and said that i couldn't take them from the kids since she already gave them the guns. I called her a theif, and harnessed the power of the crowd to stop her theivery. Begrudingly, she pressed the 5 yuan into my hands in 50 cent increments.

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8 Minutes in, the guy in the A-shirt bought my handy bike, 2 pairs of "Fatty Man underwear" and some hair extensions. I threw the colander in for him for free.

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After only 10 minutes of intense humidity, shouting, and craziness i sold out and made 300 RMB. I think i might have a real love for yard saling. Maybe one-day I will pursue my new life-long dream as a globe-trotting 1 man yard saling machine. First I gotta go back to school.




But first I gotta travel china!


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Leaving shenzhen on Tuesday! To beijing! Then Xi'an! Then Cheng du! Then Lijiang! Then Kunming! Then Back!



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Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Chino Productos

Time for less ranting and more of what everyone wants: MoRE WEIRD CHINESE STUFF!


First up, the most appetizing dish at a dessert restaurant in Hong Kong. Mmmm! I've had the "Mutually Symbiotic Loranthus" version, but this one's gotta be even better!

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Here is a great restaurant that we pass all the time when out shopping, but haven't been able to really locate it.

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The back of the case for the show Dollhouse. As with many of the DVDs here, the english was taken from some blog or user post and copied directly onto a template for the back. Kelsey had an even better one for the movie "Death Race 2000" which read,  "This movie is the only thing more painful than participating in an actual death race." (more risque DVDs at http://picasaweb.google.com/Andrew.Quitmeyer/ChinoProductos#)

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Good job chicken! Gold medal!

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On our last trips to the tailor we spotted the place that we should have been going to the entire time.

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This thing came with my peanut butter. It was really appealing looking, but WHAT IS IT! In our little apartment we only have chopsticks, so i was hoping it would be something i could spread my peanut butter with, but nope, got big weird holes in it. Had to throw it away for spiting me so hard.

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Kitty returns to her kingdom!

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Subverting the Big Brain

June 4th (or as the renegades refer to it, May 35th, in order to undermine the search filters of the "Great Firewall") came and went with little incident throughout the country. Hong Kong-ers were, of course, allowed to protest freely, but in the Mainland, where any type of demonstrating is illegal, Tiananmen square was filled with uniformed police as well as undercover police. Apparently, though, the plain clothes officers all decided to wear the exact same outfit, so they weren't exactly incognito. They also dispatched special police units armed with umbrellas all over the square who would attack your view if you tried to snap any photos. Overall sounds pretty goofy.

Some of our teachers, who had been university students during the "accident," as it is referred to here, actually had really interesting conversations about the rather taboo topic. Overall they seemed disheartened by the actions of those higher above, but entirely optimistic as to the future of the country as a whole. They seem to really believe that the leadership is getting much better and less corrupt and that these qualities will filter down throughout the entire republic.

What is really odd is that the gov goes through all the difficulties of blocking all of youtube, twitter, blogger, flickr, and wikipedia, but as long as I use google.com over google.cn any information about tiananmen i could ever want loads up quickly and easily. If i was the government, I think i would be blocking the sites like the ny times that are running several stories trying to find the truth behind the incident, rather than block zillions of videos of people's cats falling off things, or fat people singing pop covers on their webcams.

Anyway, I am able to get a few posts in, but it is a pretty big pain, so hopefully the ban will be lifted sometime soon. Here (hopefully) are some of the things the country really doesn't want you to see, i guess: Super fun, tourist-inducing, vacation photos of beautiful beaches! These were some of the last photos taken with my old camera before it got fixed and then stolen, so you can see the weird blurriness it was doing to things. If none of the photos work, you can go to:

http://picasaweb.google.com/Andrew.Quitmeyer

and check out our pictures there.


These shots are from our return journey to Tai Long Wan (big wave beach) that we had visited last october. First we stopped off to check out the floating fish market made by boats pulling right up to the sidewalk peir.

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People were wrestling with big live octopi and selling made-to-order cracked open starfish.
 

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