3-16-09

 

The train ride to Luoyang felt longer than five hours and it made my ass hurt. The train got progressively more packed as the trip progressed and the standing passengers could barely restrain themselves from sitting on our laps. Our fellow passengers were very entertained by our presence and seemed friendly. I was surprised to find out that the “squatter” toilet in our car drained directly onto the tracks.

 

After getting off the train we flowed down a river of people holding canvas bags full of their belongings. There was a lot of touching and pestering around the train station, “Hello Hotel Hello” grab, pull, “Taxi” “Hello” “Hello water hello”. For the first time in China I saw Rachel get pissed off and yell at someone. We shook off the hawkers and made it across the street, I felt really calm even though we were being hounded (getting pretty used to it now), didn’t have clear directions to our next hotel, a booking, or a clear idea of what to do next. We asked for help at a run-down hotel, after what must have looked like a sign-language class, the girl realized we were asking her to call our hotel. Unfortunately, whatever she wrote on our piece of paper made no sense to our taxi driver or any of the other drivers that he asked. A large group of pedestrians had formed around our taxi to observe the strangeness of our presence/predicament and we started to feel a little like fish in a bowl. Finally our taxi driver called the hotel and took us on a long trip across the city.

 

Lesson Learned: Get a clear idea of where you are staying so you know how to get there and which form of transportation is best to get there. The taxi ride was an unexpected expense.

 

The hotel we ended up at was really nice and cheaper than the poorly rated hostels. The staff was super helpful and that night we went out into our surrounding area to find some food, water, and snacks. I’m always a bit wary exploring areas that aren’t well lit, a bit run-down and not super busy when it’s dark, but we found some great food stalls with super cheap food (biscuit like pita bread stuffed with stir-fried potatoes, cabbage, carrots, bean-sprouts, and egg with spices for 25 cents along with a pizza dough type tortilla covered with an oil sauce, egg, spice and wrapped over thick greens for another 30 cents). That night we got four large beers, four waters, two ramen cups and way more food than we could eat for under $5. I had a great time. The people were really nice to us.

We came back enjoyed the “high-class” room ($17) and watched downloads of “Mad Men”.

 

3-17-09

 

We had to delay going to Hangzhoa because train tickets weren’t available. Now we’re going directly to Shanghai. We had an awkward bus ride to the Longmen Caves because a creepy middle aged man kept turning completely around to stare at us every 20 seconds even though I pretty much confronted him about it. Then two muscular guys boarded, choose two seats on either side of us on an empty bus, were acting really squirrelly, didn’t speak to each other, and kept staring at my bag. After about twenty minutes of that, one of them tapped the other one, they got up to leave, and immediately started having a conversation outside while staring at us through the windows.

 

We made it to the Longmen Caves through a gauntlet of “Hello Water Hello” “Hello Lunch Hello Hello.” It’s ridiculous that everyone uses that same exact pitch in the exact same pitch and we couldn’t help but laugh every time we heard it. I’ve never tried “Hello Water” but I’m sure it’s delicious.

 

The Longmen Caves were interesting albeit overpriced for a backpacker budget in China ($17 per ticket). It’s a shame that most of the statue faces were clubbed off during the “cultural revolution” but some statues were either too big to destroy or have been restored. We spent a few hours there, didn’t get the “Hello water Hello” treatment on the way back to a random bus, and then completely relied on the GPS to guide us by foot, the rest of the way home. GPS rocks!

 

We paid for another night at our hotel, and I went and got my first Chinese haircut (pictures included). We got more of the same grub from the night before … came home, got our drink on for St. Patty’s, and enjoyed our relatively posh surrounding for a second night.

 

3-18-09

 

I slept 11 hours. Shortly after we were awakened by a full size band playing the equivalent of Chinese polka music, full-blast, in front of our motel. That was followed by 5 minutes of firecrackers which caused a moderate car accident, a wedding coming out of the building next to us, and 5 more minutes of firecrackers. Luckily our hotel gave us a 2 o’clock checkout to help us kill time until our 8pm train.

 

We found a shopping district inside of town after a pleasant bus ride (the ones with our bags are usually a drag). Made the normal suicide walk across a busy street and found a noodle restaurant which was almost impossible to order from with the lack of materials to make certain dishes and strange side dish system they used. We choose it because there was an outlet we could use to charge our computer for the 16 hours train ride to Shanghai.

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Right now I’m on the train. It’s 5 in the morning and I’ve been up most the night. I’d like to take a moment to write something to the man below me in case he ever learns English and stumbles upon my website.

 

Dude,

 

Your feet smell like the goddamn devil. Take a moment to switch your text message alarm from vibrate to silent. Dick. Better yet, go down to the end of the sleeper car, call your girlfriend and tell her to go to sleep for fuck sake. Then come back here and tell the other asshole, with his phone set to a four burst alarm, to go away. Ohhh wait, I already did. Now, lay down, put a cover over your feet, and stick a sock in your mouth, cause you snore. Loudly. Basically, you suck as a bunk mate and as a human being.

 

Totally serious,

 

~Life~

 

So, I’ve been laying here for hours. I’m not in a particularly bad mood or good one either, but I’m having trouble surmising our Chinese experience.

 

I want to commend the travelers who live here for enduring social isolation, smaller pay checks than they could get elsewhere, and sketchy apartments to get closer to the “Heart of China.” They come here to learn the language, become part of their community, and there seems to be no in-between with their opinions about it. They love it or hate it.

 

I’d like to imagine China as a fruit that requires you to peel back a lot of layers to get to its center. The problem is, you need to peel past the pollution, overpriced sites, dirty cities, and trash littered country side. Without the language, it’s difficult to feel the pulse of the people, all we can see is the ambition.

Today I forgot which city I was in because it was exactly like the one I was just in. If the next four cities don’t breath some new life into this experience, regardless of glowing reviews we’ve heard about the south, I’m afraid we can’t justify buying another set of overpriced visas to continue our trip here.