On the road again ...
So I'm sitting here in the Executive Lounge waiting for my flight to board. It's 5:10 pm and it leaves in exactly an hour, so I'm just wrapping some things up before I go on the plane. It was a bittersweet day, I had to say goodbye to RJ and I know that no one knows him, but the fact that I'm really upset about leaving him should give you some indication that he wasn't just another guy in the long string of me "not really dating". In fact, that was probably the hardest thing about leaving, and I've never really cried over someone like this before, so it's kind of startling.
There is so much more I will miss as well, the food, the noise, the gross things people do on a daily basis, the people who can only say "hello" (more like Hallo-ah), and just the way I've gotten used to pushing my way onto a bus, yelling at people who can't understand me and talking loudly about inappropriate things in public places because (again) no one can understand me (and if they can, they don't let on that they can). I've decided that my first meal back will be a Tim Horton's toasted sesame seed bagel with cream cheese and a (decaf - 'cause it's 9pm) half coffee, half hot chocolate. Oh Canada! I can't wait!
Yesterday RJ and I went to the Jade Buddah Temple, a temple with
Hot Girls
So I attended the most interesting event I've been to since coming to Shanghai, a drag show! It was cool. I wasn't really sure what to expect, since my drag experience is limmited to what I've seen in Queer as Folk, the L Word, pride day coverage and Priscilla Queen of the Desert, but it was definitely unique. It was held at this tiny 19th floor bar somewhere in the city that I'm sure I've never been to before. It was small and smoky and full of mostly gay Chinese boys, and there were lots of turtlenecks and scarves, but it was a really comfortable atmosphere and pretty chilled out, and people kept saying "lala?" which means lesbian, and poor Jo, Cristine's new friend and the only one of us who could speak Chinese had to differentiate her gender to their ever-persistent questions. The performers were beautiful (well most of them) but there was one drag-queen who kind of reminded me of Emily Howard, the rubbish transvestite on Little Britain (PS, you need to download/watch this - it's a kind of cross between trailer park boys in a kids in the hall sketch comedy format, but British - it's hilarious). People kept laughing and putting money down her shirt, and I wondered if it was because it was supposed to be funny or if it was a little mean. I was assured that it wasn't mean, but I didn't find it funny (i guess I missed a little of it in translation). I really enjoyed the show, but left after only about 40 minutes or an hour because it was way too smoky and I had to work on my essay (which strangely didn't really get worked on - procrastination always seems to win!). Anyways, I'm sitting here in a coffee shop doing no more work than I did last night (so I decided to blog) and am counting the days until I get home - mostly because I need to know when I should start packiing - ie, the morning of the 20th (I leave that afternoon). Later!
Crazy fake market
So, I'm sitting in a coffee shop on my way over to RJ's house for pizza (it's delivery, just like home, only at home they don't offer a seafood pizza - that's not a bad thing), but I feel compelled to recount my little adventure at the fake market yesterday. As many of you know, you can purchase any brand name from Northface, Helly Hensen, Burburry, Louis Vuitton, Lacosse, etc. in a variety of different stalls, and I may already own a few purses and other brand-name esque goodies (ie, a pair of Louis Vuitton sandals - made of plastic, sure they're real ...). Anyways, after several successful visits and numerous purses later, I went yesterday with Shannon after our last placement visit to finish off Christmas shopping. When we got there, I was looking for a Lacosse sweater for Hillary, and a cute clutch for my sister (which don't exist in this country, apparently) and there was nothing to be found! We were later told that police presence was heavy that day and that we better come back on a weekend. That didn't stop us from buying (me) a purse and a number of neclaces and stuff, but it was a bust for the fake stuff. One girl said she'd take us to a "warehouse" where they kept the purses, and we decided to follow her and check it out. Now don't worry, we are smart girls, and smarter girls would have said no, but we wanted to further assess the situation. We followed the girl for about 10 minutes out of the market, and on the way determined that the MOMENT either one of us got the "no" feeling we'd be out of there. The key word was "jellybeans" (as it always is here - for anyone not feeling comfortable in a conversation or with another person this is the keyword for a friend to save them - at least in this group in Shanghai) and we were both well aware of what we were doing. We were taken into a large alley and into a smaller alley where an appartment door was located. Shannon & I decided that we would NOT go inside anywhere, so we told the woman that we were stopping here. After several minutes of asking us to come in and look at the purses and us saying "no, just bring them here and show us" we left. I realize the instance of something bad happening was probably pretty low, but you never know, and I wasn't about to be mugged and sold as someones concubine or anything. I just thought it was bizarre and would tell you about it! Have fun.
Sidekicks!
So it’s been awhile yet a gain, but I have now had the opportunity to make a few side trips to some neighbouring cities/areas (all within a few hours by train) and I hope to share a little about it with you!!
Souzhou:
City of Gardens – I went one Wednesday with Kat, Donald & Cristine. It was a 15 kuai train ride (less than 3 dollars – and a 45 minute ride) to get there, and once we did, it was all exploring and fun stuff. We were lucky because Hillary & her boyfriend went for the weekend so we had a bit of a leg up on what gardens were open/closed and what was better to see. We ended up going to two of the gardens (the most beautiful ones we were told) – one was the garden of nets, quite a bit smaller and the self-proclaimed most beautiful garden in Souzhou and one just off the main street (I forget what it was called). Well the first (with the as yet unremembered name) was gorgeous and very large. We wandered around the decent sized lake in the middle (about as large as a swimming pool, not Olympic sized, but pretty big). There were fish everywhere, and people feeding them so that they crowded right up to the edge of the pond and were jumping all on top of each other. These things were freakin’ huge!! I mean, there were a couple that were as least as big as Klondike – scary! After wandering around the beautiful and peaceful garden by the lake we meandered through the various rooms, this was meant to be some kind of summer retreat for high-placed officials or rich people. On our way out we came across a performance of a couple of people playing instruments and two solos from a girl and a guy doing a Peking-opera styled performance. If you haven’t heard it before, it’s quite grating on the nerves. I thought it was neat, but it can be really annoying. It’s a high pitched almost squealing type of singing, even for guys, and it’s on TV here all the time, so if you are really jonesing for some men singing higher than I’m capable of (singing is almost stretching it) it’s right there for you. They wear this white face makeup with pink accents around the eyes and cheek bones and black around the eyes and lips that makes their faces look like their wearing a mask. It could be quite frightening if you didn’t know what it was. Well, I enjoyed it for a while, while the rest of my crew waited restlessly for me to finish with my experience and we found the last little secluded part of the garden, a windy stone path up a very small hill, but with the walls up the path quite high it could have served to be a cool maze, especially for little children, although there really wasn’t anywhere to get lost. We chilled out for a while before our tummies told us it was time for lunch. We hopped in a cab and headed towards the temple in the middle of the city, and stopped for lunch at a place called RBT (for Rabbit). It was awful and way overpriced, but we ate, and that’s all we really wanted. Well we then walked up to the temple area, where we stopped at a KFC to go to the bathroom (where they were playing nothing but Avril Lavigne). We decided not to go into the temple (we’ve seen a lot in the last 4 months) but wandered around, shopped (Kat & I bought wool & needles and now I’m the proud owner of a new scarf – not to mention the tons of pashminas I’ve acquired along the way) and went on our way to the last garden. After seeing another beautiful garden and taking more cheesy pictures we left and just started walking around downtown along the beautiful canals, found a coffee shop where we stayed for 2 hours having dessert and coffee and just chatting. It was some of the best company I’ve had in a while – and kat & I rolled our skeins of yarn into balls (well I rolled mine, Kat knotted hers up and I had to fix it). Well, we left coffee after it fell dark and stopped at almost every shop on the way before I became way too tired and we took a cab back to the train station where we caught the soft seat home (25 kuai but waaay more comfy) and ended up safely back in residence at 10 pm. What a day, it was nice and I enjoyed it, but one day was good enough for me!
Hongzhou:
This was a little further away, almost 3 hours, and I left Friday night, arriving in Hongzhou at about 8:30 pm. After some travel buddy problems involving a forgotten passport (which does not allow one to check into a hostel) I ended up checking into a hotel for us right on the shore of West Lake (the central feature of this particular city). It was a bit more expensive but the view was spectacular and the room was pretty cool. It was super late by the time we checked in so it was an early night and the next day began with a Chinese breakfast that the hotel provided and some wanderings around the city (which was pouring rain) first down “history street” which was filled with all sorts of touristy shops, and tons of craft stations. It’s amazing what people make out of things. There was a marzipan man who made all sorts of popular animals and characters (like ninja turtle type thing and Mao, of course). There were also wire figurines and minature bicycles, dragons and other crazy animals made out of palm leaves, a glass making guy (who heated up a rod of glass until it melted then made beautiful designs on things like candle holders, ash trays and other glass-type goods), and more of those candy molasses blowers (you don’t eat them, although I couldn’t promise anything). We then wandered up a bit of a hill (well, not a bit, it was pretty big) and found the city’s museum tucked away where no-body seemed to be able to find it – at least it was free. It was beautiful and really tried to showcase the neat things found there (more jade an arrowheads) and how the village used to function as a port town. Really neat old models and some of the mansions that existed for one of the really rich traders who lived in the village. We then went to a pagoda at the top of the hill/mountain and were able to see the whole city from around it’s balconies. Hangzhou is known for West Lake (Xi Hu), a large central lake with human-made islands in the middle of it, and it looked really neat from that heights despite the crazy rainy drizzly weather. While we were up there, there were fireworks which was kinda fun, but completely pointless. The fireworks are thrown around like spare change, it’s like they invented it here or something … oh wait! They did! Well, after more wandering down the streets and getting wet, we ended up by the water where a fountain show started. I’ve seen some of these before, it’s a series of spouts that move to music, and this one had bright coloured lights. And kids these days don’t see a need for physics! Some engineers worked forever trying to get the hydraulics just right for that little water show! Well, we then went to a restaurant that was attached to the hotel called Banana Leaf, a chain of Thai restaurants that have a unique “philosophy” on the dining experience. The food is great, but they also have “police” who walk around and sing and dance with customers, especially the white ones, because the songs they sing are things like Stevie Wonder and other dentist-like popular songs. Both the men & women had lots of make-up on and some of the guys I couldn’t really tell if they were guys, which was kinda interesting, because the boys I was with could certainly tell. I guess I just don’t pick up on stuff like that quite so easily.
Sunday was much nicer and I went out on the lake and explored the islands. They were gorgeous and I took lots of pictures (well, I gave my camera to a friend who took lots of pictures for me – I was too busy looking for myself). The next stop was a tea house to sample the local Xi Hu Longjing Cha (West Lake Longjing Tea) where we paid 50 kuai each for a cup and the buffet that they had. Now I say buffet, but it wasn’t quite what you think. They started off with a beautiful plate of fruit (mango, dates and these purple fruits that look like plums – they’re dark purple and kind of round – you peel open the skin and expose these white slices that look like cloves of garlic, but they’re so sweet – I’ve been looking everywhere for this fruit!!!) and kept coming by with plates of food. You’re pretty much supposed to spend hours sitting and eating/playing cards/talking and we did spend about 2 hours there. There was so much fruit and nuts and seed, and there were a few hot dishes of steamed veggies and chicken and stuff which were also pretty tasty. It was a good stop for lunch/late afternoon snack, which made it good to hold us over until we got back to Shanghai that night. The afternoon we spent hiking up one of the other surrounding mountains, checking out the beautiful scenery and caves and shrines along the way. We had a rough time finding a cab back but finally made it, collected our things and hit the train station where we got a soft seat back. It was kinda weird, though, because the soft seats from Hongzhou were just like the hard seats to Souzhou. Someone told me that it was because we got on a tourist train to Souzhou so the seats were nicer, but I’m not sure. I should investigate!
Zhujiajiao
This was a water village we went to on a class trip. It was a beautiful day to go, and it was pretty cool, but I’m glad that we didn’t stay any longer ‘cause we all got a little bored after a while. So here’s how it started, we got off the bus and went as a class through the winding cobbled streets past all kinds of tourist shops (you pay admission to get into the city, so it’s pretty much only tourists) and over bridges that passed over the various canals through the city. We visited a beautiful garden and home for yet another rich merchant that has been reconstructed for “historical” (read: touristic) purposes, but it was beautiful. They had tons of those big rocks that look like coral with all of the holes, and had a huge network of caves from these rocks that would have rocked if we played hide and seek or something. I made a few purchases at the gift shop (everything has a gift shop) and then it was time for lunch. On the way back through the canals, I stopped at a calligraphy shop with my professor and a number of the Chinese students and bought a fan with calligraphy on it, well I picked the fan and the students helped me pick what to have the man write on the fan. It ends up being something like “this is the best season to visit such a beautiful city” or something like that. I’m going to need someone to write it in pinying for me (that’s Chinese but without the characters, so in the alphabet). Lunch was pretty good except for the pork wrapped in banana or lotus leaves, ‘cause the pork still had its skin and there was definitely one piece with what looked like whiskers. GROSS!!!! I like my meat when I can’t tell exactly what part of the animal it is that I’m eating. They put shredded pork into everything else here, I don’t know why they would have such gross identifiable chunks of pork too. That was enough to lose the appetite.
The afternoon consisted of independent exploration of the city, which I did with Cristine and Donald for a while, where we caught the local Buddhist monestary where people were chanting and worshipping, which was phenomenal. We just stood and listened quietly to them and it took us a little while to break out of the trance that it got us in, it was so incredible. We then when to the city god temple and checked out the rice paddy museum. When we figured out that it was just one floor of poorly made life-sized figurines, we bolted and some people did some shopping, I met up with kate & Hillary and we went to a coffee shop to work on our essays for class. Then it was home-time!! Yay for napping on the bus ride home!
That’s pretty much it for my excursions. I’m knee deep in class work now, so there’s much less that I’m doing, but I’ll update soon!
