Leaving Beijing for Xian

Some days you just work on resting and getting ready for that next overnight bus. We took it pretty easy in the morning and then trudged around with our heavy backpacks to metro to bus to finally overnight bus from Beijing to Xian. It was a pretty comfortable sleeper bus, as far as they go..best we have been on yet. I was expecting worse, bracing myself for it, and was very relieved. We stopped at a food place around 11pm and grabbed some tofu and peppers that were really good. The buffet looked somewhat ancient and the staff told us they had no plans to making more, so we opted for fresh food as always. They were very nice and as usual very confused and happy at Mike's Mandarin skills. As always, he helped us get some much needed food, before we piled back on the bus and continued along the road to Xian. There were some Chinese music videos, much like ones in other countries playing on the bus and some bizarre movie with recognizable European and American actors about these two people from medieval times who come to the present and wackiness ensues. It looked fairly recent. Mostly I tried to sleep.

Great Wall of China

 

Andy and Mike were busy with their individual plans. Andy had an interview to conduct. Omar and I had plans to go see the Great Wall of China. We are starting to get the hang of getting around. It helps that I have a lonely planet guide that has the names of places which I can point to written in Mandarin. Besides that, it tells you which bus to get on etc. The public transportation in this town is great!

We grabbed some food, and I finally gave up on being vegetarian here, having starved, and stopped eating many vegetable meals halfway through realizing they had pork in them, or eating horrible, nutritionless garbage for too long. I already lost five pounds, so enough of that. The next areas we are going to in China as well as the next few countries will all be brutally tough to find vegetarian food in, so no more.

I started with a fish fillet sandwich at the McDonalds...

So...anyway, after that Omar and I head over to the metro, on to the long distance bus station and off to the first town on the way to the section of the Great Wall that we decided to visit. We stopped in the town and then hired a car to take us to the wall. It started pouring as we approached, but this was our one chance to see it. It actually worked out beautifully. We got there and it was pouring. After purchasing tickets we went to get on the cable car, but it was not running due to the rain. We didn't know how long it might be and we only had a few hours to check things out before it would close. So we decided to grab some junky umbrellas and walk up the stairs with our tired bodies. One step at a time we made it up to the top. The shops below as well as the drink sellers on the way to and on the wall tend to quote very high prices. ALl you have to do is tell then how much you want to pay and then walk away if they refuse. They would say something ridiculous like 15RMB for water, and I'd tell them I'd give them 3 and start walking away when they said no. There was hardly any customers there, so I got my water at the normal price each time. Omar and I made it up to the top and it was gorgeous. I thought the Forbidden City would interest me more than the Great Wall, but it turned out to be the opposite. The Forbidden City was very repetitive, whereas just driving up into the mountains then up the stairs to the Great Wall was an amazing site. It stopped raining as we reached the top of the Wall. The view all around was stunning. The wall wrapped over hills far into the distance as far as you could see. Layers of fog revealed mountains in the distance. The sun started to creep out from behind the clouds as we walked over many more steep steps, over the wall and made our way to the tram going down. We hopped on after a while, grabbed some quick souvenirs after bargaining the price way down (not down enough apparently) the same car that brought us there and hopped on the bus back the Beijing.

As we reached Beijing, satisfied that we had maneuvered our way around without Mike's invaluable skills and knowledge we hit rush hour. People were pouring out of buses and the crowds were quite amazing in their size. It still wasn't that bad getting to the metro and packing ourselves in to get back to our hostel, but it was interesting to see so many people. We walked back to the hostel, sat for a bit, then explored the many shops that lined the way to the music cafe we had been to the previous night. There was a Mongolian music performance there that night, so we decided to walk around there until then. Omar started playing different percussion instruments to the delight of a music store owner and his customers. I took some photos then head out to find an internet cafe to send out a birthday message.

I checked out the toy stores while Omar jammed and gave someone a tabla lesson. We ended up grabbing some seafood at a restaurant, before I went to the internet cafe and Omar went to see the show. I finished up at the cafe and went to the show also. The place was packed and I caught the last four amazing songs of the performance. I managed a sketch in the crowd, but I didn't see Omar or Andy. I bought the group's cd and returned to the hostel, where I met up with Mike and went to sleep.

Forbidden City

The next morning we got up to a slow start. Mike and Andy were busy with other plans, so Omar and I set out on our own. We grabbed some food (fries, milkshake and ice cream for me) after the usual hunt for stuff we could eat. Then we went down to the metro and head over to Tianmen Square. As we walked through, a lady came up to us and asked us if we'd like to see an art gallery. We said sure, and walked to the gallery, which was one of the stores inside the path to the Forbidden City. She was very nice, and explained some of the cultural context of the paintings. She said she was a volunteer. We looked at the gallery, appreciating the information she told us about the pieces. Finally we had walked through the gallery and she asked us which piece we wanted. I thanked her and told her I could not really carry any of these pieces with me. 

At that point she transformed. She was not happy. Omar and I spotted a South Asian couple (first I had seen in China) so as she had her little internal meltdown, I introduced myself to them and we traded notes on Indian grocery stores and restaurant info. In the middle of this, psycho art lady starts staring me down and pointing at the door. Omar and I glanced at her and I was annoyed so I told her to wait. I took my time talking to the South Asian man before I walked out.

 

Even the sales people at the stalls in the middle section were extremely pushy and annoying in selling their over priced garbage. Thankfully, once we entered the Forbidden City, there was none of that. We purchased our tickets and walked through many large open areas, taking in various museum exhibits along the way before reaching the living quarters in the back. By then it was time to close, so we started making our way back. It was cool to check out, but much of the architecture is more of the same. The large open spaces must have been very impressive when filled with armies long ago. As we walked past the gallery, some other guy asked if we wanted to see the art gallery and I let him know we had already been tthrown out.

Afterwards, we walked around some of the streets around that area, before walking around the Performing Arts Center and then taking the metro back to the hostel. We met up with Andy and the hostel and a fellow traveller who was visiting from Zimbabwe. Mike returned, but was too tired to go out with us, so the rest of us walked down the street towards a music show Andy and learned about along the way. The street we walked down was an interesting mix of young hip clothes and toys like you'd find at Giant Robot etc with interesting and pricey cafes as well as small general stores, and little hole in the wall eateries with old and young people hanging out. It was a really interesting place. We walked past all of that and turned down narrow lane past a large traditional style building. It was dark so all you could make out was a huge looming silhouette. The lane opened into a small park, with buildings that looked like temples on either side. People were hanging out in the park. We walked into a cafe where a band was setting up for a performance that night. It felt like a really nice, intimate music venue in Los Angeles. We grabbed a table toward the front and waited for the performance to begin. It was a lot of fun.

The musicians were mostly from in and around Xian as was the style of music. They played from 10pm to 12am and I managed some sketches of each of them which I gave to them later in the night. During the break Omar and Andy got to talking to the percussionist who was visiting from western China. We didn't have a common language, but another girl from Xian helped translate. The percussionist and the a group of girls in the audience who knew him were all Muslims from the areas we are traveling to next. We went back in, enjoyed the rest of the show, then hung out. Andy talked to the girls in the audience and got some info on the places are traveling to next. One was studying to become a tour guide so she may help us once we get to Xian. We may meet up with the percussionist in his town as well. Omar and the percussionist jammed together, trading rhythms from their respective countries. They could not speak to each other through words very well, but that didn't seem to matter when it came to music. It was a lot of fun to see them interact that way, and they both left having really pushed themselves playing. We all walked out around closing time, and head back to the hostel to bed.

It's 4am in Beijing...

We reached Beijing at 4am, without having gotten any sleep the night before. It was still dark out as we walked over in a daze to a McDonalds (the only place to eat at that hour). We all washed up a bit and sat there quite out of it for a while. We had to wait until 6am for the metro to start running so we could rush over to the embassy district and hunt down the Uzbekistan Embassy to get visas for our planned travel there later in the trip. We weren't sure where it was because they did not answer their phones and several addresses were listed online. It was only open from 9am-11am and we needed to get the process started quick during the week, so we would not have to stay too long in Beijing and have to cut out days from the rest of our trip. So, with that in mind, we hopped on the metro with our heavy backpacks and trudged all over, after getting bad directions from all sorts of people. Finally we came upon the German Embassy and from there the Uzbekistan embassy, having walked all over, up and down all kinds of stairs etc with our heavy backpacks for a couple of hours. We got to the embassy early and put our things in a pile on the sidewalk. I slept on my backpack for a bit as we waited. Finally the opened and we spent some time on filling out the applications and getting it all taken care of. Thanks again to Mike and Andy's preparedness, we got it all done on the spot. Afterward we went back to the same hostel we had stayed at last time we were in Beijing just before going to Mongolia. This time we didn't have a reservation, but after being hassled a bit by the kid at the desk, we got a 3 bed room and Andy got a bed in a different room. We washed up and hung out in the cafe for a while. I updated some blog stuff and just relaxed. I figured I would just sleep at night. Sunny and the rest of the kind staff at the hostel cafe asked if we would perform there again like we did last time. She was very sweet in expressing how much they all enjoyed the music we played last time. It was a pretty spontaneous performance, but it had been lot of fun. We agreed to come back after dinner and play. In the evening, Andy, Omar and I walked around a bit. We found a really good restaurant and ate a bunch of food. The kids working there were all young college students who were extremely friendly and happy to talk to us. Two kids in particular were really nice to us, so we invited them to the hostel cafe to check out our music performance there later that night. We got back and Andy and Omar grabbed the guitar and bongos which we took upstairs to quickly figure out a few more songs. We really had not had no to prepare, and the guitar turned out to have one really messed up string that Andy frantically tried to clean up and make usable. Omar and I head down as it was time to start, and Andy was still working on the guitar upstairs. I sat down with my laptop and the cafe was packed with people, as a note had gone up on the board that a World Music performance was to take place that night, or maybe they all just happened to be there. I don't know.

Andy finally made it down having miraculously made the guitar barely useable and we started playing. The crowd this time was less attentive. Last time we were just playing around and soon everyone just turned and started watching us. This time it was much louder and we had no mics just like last time, so we really were not loud enough for that setting. But there were groups sprinkled in the crowd cheering and clapping. More important than that though, what really made the night for us was that, for one, the cafe staff were really happy, and the two kids from the restaurant were there from the very start of the performance. After a few songs, they asked me to sing a favorite song of theres, so I pulled up the lyrics and we all sang it together. It was so much more fun to include them and sing together rather than just perform to them. They suggested another song that they taught us and we sang that together too. That was the best part of the night. It's what really made it worthwhile, was to interact and give thanks to these two kids that went out of their way to be nice to us at the restaurant. We sat around and talked to people, including the two kids late into the night. They wanted to know about our travels and told us about the beautiful parts of China they were from. Finally we all exchanged emails and called it a night.

Border Crossing

Woke up in the train. The door out of our compartment was stuck. I remember half asleep watching Omar struggle with it a bit before giving up and going back to bed. I tried with similar results. I looked through the slit in the side of the door and saw some Mongolian men hanging out in the hall, looking out the window. I knocked on the door and pulled at the lock a bit and they kindly came over and yanked it open after a brief struggle. I thanked them, my eyes barely opening and we both nodded in agreement at the crappy lock we agreed not to lock again. I walked across about 8 cars to find an open bathroom to wash up. I came back and rested. We all spent time in the hall, watching the barren landscape roll past, talking to other passengers like Jaigal. I played some chess on a Mongolian chess set with Omar before we got the word that we would arrive in Zamanud momentarily. We quickly grabbed all our stuff and rushed to the nearest exit where there was already a line of people. As soon as the doors of the train car opened we made a mad dash out, across towards the buses. A guy with a jeep offered to take us across the border (this is normal practice) for 80 RMB (Yen) so we hopped in and he stepped on it. Basically, we needed to get through customs on either side of the border and try and make it to the train station on the Chinese side in time to get a train ticket back to Beijing. We had lots of competition for this goal, so there was a rush. We went to the Mongolian exit authority, jumped out the jeep with our things, ran through processing, back on the jeep and through a number of similar forms and lines, in and out of the jeep until we reached the train station on the Chinese side of the border in a town called Erling. We jumped through some hoops to change our Mongolian money (which is really hard, if not impossible to convert anywhere else). At the station it turned out there were no more trains out to Beijing until the next day, so we went over to the long distance bus station. Thanks as usual to Mike's language skills, we were able to purchase overnight sleeper bus tickets to Beijing. We grabbed some food, then hopped on a bus full of beds that was a lot nicer than the one we took with Kim Jong's brother from Anqing to Beijing. We had saved a lot of headache coming back by not having to wait for the insanely slow process of changing train wheels at the border, and not having to deal with the horrible staff on the train, but we were in for a new fun adventure on this bus. Every time we crossed from one province to another, as well as several other checkpoints and stops, the bus was boarded, IDs were checked, everyone given a once over and then we'd start moving again. This happened all night, so just as you'd fall asleep, the bus would stop and the conducter and some security people boarding the bus would have a flashlight, all the bus lights would come on and people would start demanding your ID. After they were done checking the IDs (often off the bus), the conductor would spend another 20 minutes yelling out people's names to return their IDs. So, we didn't get much sleep, much as we tried. We talked to a Mongolian man who was a fashion designer, working in western style leather clothes in Beijing. Many people on that bus went through this process on a regular basis, as they were Mongolians traveling from Ulanbataar to Beijing on regular business. As annoying as not being able to sleep was, the ride was much less painful than the train going from Ulanbataar from Beijing, thanks to the absence of "Pork Rind Face" and the rest of the wonderful train staff.

Beijing to Mongolia

The next morning we got up too early and head over to the train station to catch the train to Ulanbataar, capital of Mongolia. The diverse scenery of China along the way was fascinating. There were all kinds of small industrial and farming communities. As we traveled further, the landscape transformed from grassy fields and rocky hills to flat, barren desert with sparse vegetation and back again. The wait staff on the train was horrible. One guy, my friends had nicknamed "pork rind face" kept messing with us. The staff in the dining car were always hanging out refusing to serve food (at least whenever we went there) and coupled with the 30 hours of travel it made for rough going. Andy and I felt sick. My head really hurt and I felt weak. All we could eat was ramen and chips etc. We made sure to stock up, but after a while you really want something with more substance. 

There was this hilarious little Mongolian kid who spoke some English, Mandarin and Mongolian on the train. He'd come by and visit, and each time we'd wonder which split personality would be on exhibit. Sometimes he was really nice, and polite, saying sorry, as he squeezed past other passengers hanging out in the hall. Other times you could say something to him and he'd get this adorably evil look on his face and just keep telling people to shut up (not so cute). That's when I'd worry that little Chengaiz would lunge forward and drink my blood at any moment.

Apparently the tracks are different on the Mongolian side versus China. So once we reached the last border town in China, we stopped for 5 hours, going through Chinese customs, and a lovely train wheel replacement process that involved lots and lots of ramming. Most of the passengers were let off before this began, while those of us who were foreign to China or Mongolia were forced to stay on the train as our passports were scrutinized by customs outside. No one told us anything as we waited, My friends and I were the only ones in our car left with "Pork Rind Face" who slept in his room and told us we could not get off the train. The cars were disconnected as the laborious process of replacing wheels took place. I felt pretty miserable at this point, and we were all pretty irritated.Eventually, they were letting some people from other cars (we could see out the window) out. "Pork Rind Face" tried to tell us we still could not leave and by this point we realized that this jerk was trying to give us a hard time for nothing, so we just got off. We walked over to the general store at the station in the middle of the night. It was all pretty surreal. All the foreign passengers were emerging from the cars at last as the rest of the passengers re-boarded with bags full of food from the store. We stumbled to the general store with Celine Dion blaring from speakers all over the station.

We grabbed a whole bunch of food and sat outside in a daze with all the other foreigners. Finally, it was time to re-board and we got back into our "cells". My head hurt really bad and I felt weak so I tried to sleep. The guys for some reason thought it would be great to play cards with the neighboring Mongolian girls so they all squeezed into our compartment, woke me up and scrunched me up into half the bed. I tried to keep sleeping...but it was pointless. They played for a little bit then decided to call it a night. Just long enough for me to be wide awake as the lights went out and they were all ready to sleep. I was really angry and let my frustration out on the guys. My head pounded pretty bad, and I really wasn't in the mood to be anywhere at that point. It probably wasn't the best time to get mad, but sometimes that's just how goes.

On the plus side, I did my first watercolor sketch of the trip today, before I started feeling terrible.

Beijing, China and the J-Pop Sensation!

 

Our bus reached Beijing in the morning. We grabbed some food by the side of the road, outside the bus depot and walked to a bus stop that took us to the center of the city. Andy saw some funky looking hairdressers with big J-Pop hair hanging outside a barbershop and decided to get a hair cut. He and Omar went there while Mike and I walked further down the narrow lane to an internet cafe to get directions to our hostel. We came back to the barbershop and witnessed the beginnings of Andy's transformation into a J-Pop sensation (he's been on Japanese TV you know)..but these things take time, so we left Omar to document the process and Mike and I grabbed the metro to the hostel. Beijing is a strange city of facades from what I have seen. There is rapid construction of new traditional looking buildings and accents to stores all over. The shopekeepers seem trained to sell to foreigners, but there is a complete lack of warmth or reality. For a city with such a rich cultural history, it is sad to see it become this for the Olympics. We'll have to explore some more when we get back, but that is my initial impression. We waited for Andy and Omar at the metro stop, but gave up after a while to grab some noodles. I'd run out of clean shirts, and you really can't reuse once worn clothing in this humid heat, so I just walked around like that.

While we were eating, Andy and Omar walked passed the restaurant. We got them and they grabbed some food too. After, we went and to the hostel where everyone else cleaned up while I checked email. Andy and Omar found a guitar and bongos in the hostel cafe and started playing music. I joined them with some singing and we entertained the other travellers in the hostel cafe for a while before heading out to walk around. The area we were in was surrounded by trendy, over priced shops that were fairly devoid of customers. People were walking around, but I didn't see many buying. I don't know who these stores cater too. I assume to foreigners. We met an interesting girl working at a music cd store who told us about a lot of different types of Chinese music. Communicating was interesting because Mike was not with us and she hardly knew any english. We managed to write notes and use hand gestures combining Andy's knowledge of Japansese (I guess some of the characters are common) to get some information.

We walked on and passed some tattoo shops and more expensive boutiques before settling on a place for dinner. We managed to order some vegetarian food and struck up a conversation with some guys at the table next door who looked like they could be in a band. Turns out they were. One of them spoke some english (his nickname as he told us was Paco). He was really into all kinds of music and their band played rap/rock. They also had a shop we visited with their own label of "urban" style clothing just like the U.S. He told us about a huge rock show like woodstock for Chinese Bands that takes place in October in Beijing. We got his info and will try and check out his band when we return to Beijing.

Afterwards, we walked past the Wu Mart and tons of trendy stores to make our way back to the hostel. We walked over to the hostel cafe and found it full of foreigners again. Omar picked up the bongos, Andy the guitar and we played music deep into the night, and talked about all the cafe folks about Mongolia, shared experiences, the joys of travelling etc. It was a pretty diverse group. We have not run into any Americans on this trip though we have come across Europeans, and some Chinese travellers. It was really fun playing to that crowd late at night. Since I could communicate to them in English, I was able to tell them about the songs we sang and about some of the wonderful experiences we had enjoyed in Anqing.

We went to bed later than we should have as usual, but as usual, it was worth it.

Jiuhuashan to Anqing to Beijing

 

The next morning we head put early in the morning without hardly any sleep. The bus took us down the mountain, and on to another bus back to Anqing. It broke down and we hung out for an hour until it was repaired and we could continue. Back in Anqing a few random people welcomed us back knowing we had left the day before. Somehow word got around. We called a friend of Mike's to meet, but it did not work out, so we trudged around. Walking past a shoe shop we heard some really cool music, so we stopped in and asked them if we could copy it. So we did, and the store staff were quite amused. We grabbed some food, hit a squawking zombie filled internet cafe. The resthouse owner came with is to revisit Kim Jong at the bus depot to help us get a good price and see us off. OUr friend from the Suzuki shop dropped by with some food for the trip. The people in Anqing were the best. We head out very grateful to them on a bus with beds, thankful to a Korean dictator for securing us 4 spots on the bus, driven by his brother who squawked at people on the bus until his voice went hoarse. Tiny kids were crammed into the aisles along the way. Mike was cooked in the back of the bus, before I took his place and sweat more in that shirt than I have ever sweat in any shirt over and over without washing before.We made friends with the sweet kids on their way back to their families from school, on break. They were patient with our weak Chinese and we traded snacks. Mostly we tried to sleep, stopping once for a quick bathroom break and once for food in the middle of the night. Passengers were nice and tried to make sure we all knew when to eat etc.

17 hours is along time to soak in your own sweat in a cramped dirty bed on a bus.

Anqing and Jiuhuashan

Woke up and organized some photos while the guys slept. We left some laundry and heavy backpacks with the hotel. They kindly offered to hand wash the clothes for free. We grabbed some hot fresh noodles next door where a little girl sat shyly looking over at us..except when the camera was on her :). We grabbed a cab and started out towards the long distance bus depot. We passed some beautiful gardens en route. On the way Andy spotted a tower in the distance and we decided to take a detour there. It was a large Buddhist temple and monastery. Just past the entrance statues in the second room there were some amazing towering golden Buddhas. This place had a real sense of peace and holiness to it. More so than the one in Shanghai to me. There was an amazing garden in the complex and the tower ticket taker was happy to tell us more about this beautiful place. Some students introduced themselves to us and then came up with us up the tower. The wind whipped harder the higher we went, but the view all around was wonderful. The students asked us questions. Some entrancing singing led us around the corner, to two seated women slowly singing "". We sat down with them and Andy asked them to write down their chant for us. The were glad to share and before we knew it, were sitting in a row singing together. A few other people around the temple came down and sat with us. After singing for a while, we stopped and they insisted that we eat a melon like fruit. Coincidentally the ladies had purchased four that day and there were four of us guests. They insisted on each of us having one. We peeled the fruit and I cut mine up to share with the students and temple people and singers. I really had to coax people into taking a piece, and in the end only a few students out of all the people ate the fruit with us. The women said it was fate that they should buy 4 fruit for the 4 guests they were to meet later that day. We said goodbye and head back to the bus station from which we head off to Jiuhuashan. Mike as usual went in line to figure out and deal with our ticketing needs. Tickets had run out, but Mike figured out a bus route. We jumped on the first bus which I think called the next one and made it wait for us. We just jumped from one to the next several hours later from which we got on a third bus up the mountain to Jiuhuashan.The view coming up the mountain was gorgeous. You could see temples dotting the mountains above. Once there we got a place to sleep and walked further up the mountain. Beautiful temples were everywhere. Many had swooping, more traditional looking roofs. There was a bronze/gold colored tower further up. Exhausted before we even got there, we trudged up and met a monk by some more temples before we continued up to the tower. We lazed around took in the serenity of the tower temple. As the sun went down, the commando monk from earlier came by and hung out for a bit. We started back to the town below before it became dark. The town was well lit and full of tourist shops that sold low quality tourist trinkets as hawkers tried to rip us off. It was kind of annoying and we all had a negative feeling about the town. It was safe and clean, but the people working there just put us off in contrast to how beautiful the temples were.

Anqing

Arrived in Anqing via overnight train from Shanghai and met a bank employee on the way who was returning home. He told us about a tower but said there was not much else to see in Anqing. We got there off the train, tried to get tickets to Beijing for later, but only expensive 1st class tickets were left so we avoided an annoying ticket selling guy in the crowd and walked out of the station to check on buses. Mike met a famous Korean dictator who happens to drive buses in China (see picture). Mike's Mandarin is the whole reason we can communicate with people and get so much out of this wonderful trip. All praise Mike and his amazing Mandarin abilities. He's the best! Kim Jong graciously said that all we need do is call him and he would make sure there was room on the bus for all four of us. Special treatment for the rare foreigners to come to Anqing. Across the street Mike and Omar went to negotiate a hotel while Andy and I walked a bit further. A small mob of curious and friendly people came out of the woodworks to see us. They all wanted us to eat at their place and stay at their hotels. We figured it was the usual trying to sell you stuff thing, but these people really don't get many foreigners in town so more than anything they wanted to talk to us. So Mike and Omar joined, with the hotel owner they spoke to down the street in tow. We all sat down as they prepared some food for us. It took a long time and we talked for quite a while. They were very friendly, but we really wanted to get on with it and do things. We were also wary of intentions. We ate, paid for our meal, then walked over to the hotel. It was small and nice. After bathing, resting and hand washing clothes we went off to explore the town a bit. A couple of hours exploring later found us at a restaurant eating some of the best food of the trip so far. Across the street, the young owner of a Suzuki repair shop came over having seen us through the window eating. He wanted to take us out that night. After a bit of talking we asked about live music and found the closest thing...karaoke :). We agreed to meet later. While walking back a young guy asked if he could take a picture with us. Andy and Omar lifted him up and his wife took a photo. He dropped us off at his hotel in his car. Turns out he is a school teacher like Omar. Once we got back, we saw a huge crowd by the train station. After asking the teacher and our hotel owner, we found out it was local Anqing Opera singers doing a traditional street performance. The four of us were very excited and ran over there. As soon as they saw us, they asked us to play some songs. Again, they don't get many foreigners here. We agreed to sing a song. We have no instruments on this trip, so we just play with what is available. In his case, there were some interesting string instruments with bows and the women were amazing singers and performers. They gave us stools and sat us in front of the crowd with a great view of the performance. Honestly, in a situation like this I usually question the intentions of people involved just to be safe, but these people wanted nothing. They were just sweet and genuinely happy to see foreign guests and wanted to welcome us. After a few songs by them, we were extremely honored to go up and play. Omar grabbed a stool, Mike a small wood precussion intrument and Andy bravely borrowed a string instrument he had never played before. I setup my video camera as the guys setup, then joined them, kneeling next to Andy.I looked out at the crowd of young and old Chinese people of Anqing. They were so warm and sweet to us. Smiling and curious at these new guests. We started with a song we had played at the store in Shanghai. Usually I look down and away from the audience in the rare instances that I do sing in front of any number of people other than the bandmates. I'm really not a performer,  but that evening, I just had to look out at them. I can't even describe in words how heartfelt that experience was. Watching a crowd of kind and appreciative people welcome a bunch of weird strangers into their town and listen open heartedly to our music in languages they didn't understand was a moving experience. As we played, one by one a bunch of little kids squat down on their chubby little legs behind the video camera, watching the LCD screen with eyes wide open and cute little ears sticking out. There were probably 5 or 6 of them. Now and then one round little guy would put his little mitt in front of the camera to see his hand in the screen. It was so adorable. The people were so supportive and the opera singers asked us to play more. We probably played 4-5 songs in multiple languages. It was such a surprise. None of us expected such a spontaneous thing to happen. Then we had to leave to meet our Suzuki friend to go for Karaoke. Our host insisted on paying our way into the club. We went in and sang a bunch of songs in a private room, before checking out the automated rising and tilting dance floor with a fun live band and a great dj. The crowd was really friendly and kept giving us thumbs up as we danced. It was pretty funny. The moving floor was crazy and the energy in the crowd along with the music made everyone push until they could push no more. As the club closed we walked outside, tired and happy. Suddenly, we saw some kids running away, leaving a kid holding his head, crumpled on the floor. We went over the check on him. There was blood all over his arm and head. He was dazed. Some shirtless kids starting walking back towards him. My friends and I motioned for them to leave him alone. Thankfully they left. Some other kids came by and called the police. We took off, having done what we could for the kid, but it was a really sickening end to an otherwise great day.

Shanghai 3

 

 

Woke up at the hostel in Shanghai. Surfed the net, uploaded photos. The guys woke and went to get train tickets and drop off out heavy backpacks. From there we went to Duolin Rd which has many statues of famous Chinese political writers near their former homes. We checked out an excellent contemporary painting exhibit and many antique shops with Mao buttons and illustrated books. We walked down the street Andy tried out a Hulusi (interesting wind instrument) at an instruments shop along the roadside and I checked out some interesting inside painting done intricately on the inside of glass snuff bottles and spheres. Exhausted, we began walking back, when I saw a man in the distance down the narrow lane we were traveling. He had a long whispy beard and hat which looked like he might be Muslim. So we stopped in to say hello and find out. We walked closer and he saw is from across the street and waved for us to come in. We had just eaten, but agreed to order a small dish we could share. Our host and his family were so happy to see us (two of us are from Pakistan). He told us he was indeed Muslim and from Qinghai in the west of China. He had a large picture of the Khana Kaba in Mecca and one of a large Mosque presumably in Qinghai inside his tiny retaurant. We ate some tomatoes and eggs. After the meal we went to pay and they refused to take any money from us. We walked out to thank the owner and saw that he was performing wadu (ritual washing before Muslim prayer), so my friend Omar and I asked to join him in prayer. His brother Hasan and he (Isa as in Jesus) brought out 2 prayer mats, a cloth sheet and a towel for us to pray in the dining area (with the tables pushed to one side). Andy and Mike sat on one side and the entire family watched as Isa, Hasan, Omar and I prayed together. No language in common, but a shared religious tradition. It was a pretty amazing thing to share, and our way of connecting and thanking them. We talked a bit with Mike as translator before saying goodbye. We walked on, jumped on the metro and came back to the train station. By then we were hungry for dinner and grabbed some dumplings. Andy surprised us with some ice cream from a Burger King and Omar brought some coffee. Outside I saw this cute chubby little guy playing some stick ball on his own. His mother, a vegetable seller asked me to take his picture and I gladly did and showed it to her. She was happy, but did not want to be photographed herself. We got on the overnight train to Anqing.

Shanghai 2

I woke in the morning in Shanghai and sent a few more emails. Then we left our heavy backpacks at the hostel and took smaller bags out. We grabbed train tickets to Anqing from around the corner and then took a taxi to Qibon. We walked around lanes and alleys of a bazaar that reminded me of streets in older parts of Karachi and Lahore, but cleaner, and not all broken. I saw an amazing artist gallery of an apparently well known Chinese sculptor on his 100th anniversary (I'm assuming he is no longer living). There was a tribute gallery from his students as well. I also some art books and spoke to a man named Aaron about them. I greeted him with a "Nee how" and he assumed I knew mandarin and started speaking...but when he saw the confused look on my face, he switched to some pretty good English. I spoke for a bit then ran ahead to call my friends back to check out the music instrument shop next door. We returned and Mike broke a guitar string while tuning. Andy played Guzheng (kind of a tabletop string instrument). Omar grabbed a stool and started drumming after hitting different parts of it to get a feel for the sound. I drew a not so great sketch of them as they jammed on a song we had played before much to the delight of the woman who owned the shop and Aaron from next door. A crowd gathered in the narrow lane in front of the shop and people enjoyed seeing them play music and seeing me do my crude little pen sketch on a scrap of paper. I gave the sketch to our gracious hosts then joined the guys on a song. It was such a sweet experience to break out of that tourist looking to buy something and store owner looking to sell something mode and to just share a beautiful moment using music to communicate. The people were so sweet and gracious, it was very touching and beautiful to be there and share that. They refused to let us pay for the broken string.We exchanged contact info (I gave them my cards with the watercolor sketches on them) and we walked on across a canal with interesting boats on it and head over to the Buddhist Temple (7 treasures). Entrance fee was 5 rmb (less than a US dollar) paid to a sleeping attendant woke as soon as we snuck, I mean walked up to him. The temple was a beautiful tower in a larger walledcompound, with a garden and building with statues dedicated to military heroes. We walked up the tower, each floor with what I believe was a representation of the Buddha as people bowed down, lit incense, and walked up. Mike met a group of mostly younger girls who started asking him questions about us. They in in turn told us more about the temple. They joined us for a bit and asked for all of us to take pictures with their family out in the garden. We did and they were very sweet, and seriously had crushes on Mike haha. We went to a pool with statues of the 7 treasures before saying goodbye many pictures later and checked out the military heroes statues before heading to a restaurant outside for another amazing vegetarian meal.We rested there a few hours before grabbing a taxi to M50, an industrial complex converted into an artist area. We knew we had arrived when we started seeing tons of amazing graffiti along a long stretch of wall. We got out at a gallery and started exploring. This was the most amazing creative arts place! Many excellent galleries. The spaces were as fascinating as the art in them. Tons of variety. It was truly humbling to see the excellence of contemporary Chinese art along side some foreign art. There were younger people spray painting more great graffiti on designated walls. We spent a lot of time exploring before sitting in a beautiful coffee shop to decided a route to walk, following the Souzhu canal to the Bund. 

 

Along the walk we got to see some old housing amid colossal apartment complexes and old shops in grimy streets. We freaked out a lady at a recycling center we happened upon in the dark by standing around and discussing with each other as Andy wanted to ask to take pictures for his sustainability research. He wanted to explain to them what he was doing, and create some dialogue with them, but we spooked the lady who seemed to be in charge, so when Mike went to ask her, she freaked and yelled at us and told us to leave...so we did. Andy did manage to chat with a friendly police officer about a pile of metal scraps down the street. Our interest in it fascinated many passers by too :).  

We kept walking and passed through what I think were some old buildings from the French Concession before finally making it to the beautiful night view of the Bund. Beautiful light and a mixed bag of architecture. Another amazing meal before we head back, exhausted to a bus..which died and let all of us out followed by a taxi home. Exhausted..what a day!

Shanghai

So...the format of this blog is going to change for a bit. I'm traveling through China and a few other places, so I'll be posting some travel stuff for the folks back home.

I flew out of Los Angeles on China Eastern Air. They were really nice, my friend Omar had forgot to ask for a vegetarian meal so the flight attendant gave him hers, but it wasn't vegetarian so no luck. Oh well he got stuffed with some extra bread. There was also a funny video for the passengers to do some exercises before we landed as the flight attendants acted them out and we all followed along. Nothing like a plane full of people with their arms sticking up with a cheery flight attendant running through cute little exercises. After 13.5 hours we arrived in Shanghai around 6:15pm on July 1st.

  

The airport was really nice, and lucky for us, it very empty. We grabbed our stuff and hopped on the #6 bus toward the metro. We had directions from my friend Mike to our meeting point, but Omar and I have no Chinese language skills so it was a bit tricky. I memorized the characters for the place we were going, to see if I could keep track. We asked a few times, but it was trickyto communicate. Finally we asked again after traveling for a long time and not hearing our stop called out. The ticket taker and driver just nodded and laughed, repeating the names of our stop then dropped us off several blocks before our stop :(. So we "talked" to some very nice people at a convenience store who did hand gestures to tell us where the metro was. Very appreciative, we head there, hopped on the metro and went off to East Nanjing Road, where there are all kinds of trendy stores. We met lots of people who wanted us to buy stuff. We waited for our friend Andy, but he wasn't there, so we grabbed some food using a piece of paper that said Buddhist Meal in Mandarin (courtesy of a friend of Omar's in LA). Vegetarian food is a somewhat misunderstood concept, but we were able to find it. Waitre staff etc at restaraunts are so nice. They wait at your table and serve serve serve.

  

After eating we head over to the metro stop again and waited. We met an interesting kid who kept telling us (in a very robotic tone) "Hello, I am a child of fifteen years old. I want to talk to you. I don't want any money, just to talk to you. If you won't speak to me I will lose hope in society. Can you buy me some food. If you cannot by me some food then you can give me some money. Maybe 10 rmb. I am just a child. I am not trying to sell anything. All I want to do is talk. Look at me when I talk to you." Omar felt guilty and kept looking at the well rehearsed "child" until we just ignored him and kept walking away..he ended up walking away eventually Omar and I sat down as everything closed and a large cleaning crew started hosing down the walkways. The metro closed and we figured our friends were a bit late and would come by taxi as we had planned as a backup.

Finally Andy walked over in a dress shirt and tie and the three of us traded stories and sat around. He started teaching us some Mandarin in a robotic sounding tone. We cracked upand so did some Chinese folks sitting behind us. After a while we saw Mike in the distance with his huge red bag. Omar ran over and grabbed him. It felt surreal that the 4 of us had met up across the world like that, and everyone was very relieved.

We grabbed a taxi, with the most hilarious female taxi driver. Mike sat in front as he speaks Mandarin and told her where we were going. Andy chimed in with some Mandarin bits here and there with Mike's help. She had this really joyful laugh, even when she yelled at some other driver to go die when he got stuck in the road for a bit, blocking us. We got to the hostel which was amazing and threw our stuff down before running out to Mcdonalds (only place still open and close by) and grabbed some food before coming back and collapsing to sleep.