I’ve edited the 750+ pictures I took in China down to a more manageable 200 or so, and they are now online HERE. Please enjoy! Comments are welcome here.

ALSO, a note about photographs on What-What dot com: I’ve added the Lightbox application to my blogging platform, so you can now see photos embedded in blog posts in a nice pop-up form without going to a separate web page. Click on the above image for a sample.

May 22, 2008

Our last day in Hong Kong started late, as we got up slow and puttered about with breakfast (hard boiled eggs, toast, waffles with peanut butter and chocolate) and such. I think we’ve realized that Hong Kong is much better is you have money. A lot of money. Bags and bags of it. Trying to be budget and underground will get you nowhere here, or at least nowhere very exciting as a foreigner/tourist.

Though it was only cloudy where we got up, by the time we left it had started a light rain, so we went to a cafe at the Eaton Hotel where we could use computers with internet. We checked email and news for the last time, and I read the papers, including the Village Voice-esque HK Magazine.

Eventually the rain broke and we got on the metro to Hong Kong island (the Bridal Tea House is in Kowloon), then a bus to do a short hike along the “Dragon’s Backbone”, a ridge that runs along the east side of the island. Though we were hoping for views of the sea, it was fogged in; nevertheless we had a good walk. After the rains the flower and plant life seemed so alive, and as the path wove through some very dense forest, it felt like being in a rainforest. We saw many large and pretty moths and butterflies, as well as countless shimmering spiderwebs.

The walk took a couple of hours before heading down into the lazy surfer town (and obvious expat enclave) of Shek O. We got some chips and a weird lemon chew thingy and hung out on the beach for awhile just watching the locals and some kids (and a few mangy stray dogs).

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May 21, 2008

Clouds but no rain when we woke up (slowly) at around 8:30. We packed up our things and went down to look for breakfast around 10am. Not much available, of course. There’s a buffet at the hotel, but it costs way too much, and we feel like we’re overspending here anyway. We got some bananas and sweet breads the night before, plus a bit of yogurt, so that tided us over for the morning.

We walked over to Mong Kok station and took the metro to Hong Kong island, Central. From here we walked over to the peak tram and rode up, hoping to get some views before the forecasted rain began. It ended up still being pretty cloudy, so the furthest we could see was the Central/Admiralty area of Hong Kong island. The temperatures were a bit cooler here, but still quite humid, so we walked around a bit at the top. (The “Sky Pavilion” or whatever they call the viewing platform costs extra money - a scam and a half when you consider that the same views can be had for free. But a sucker is born every minute, as I noted when watching some German tourists buying a cheesy print of the peak view from a vendor at the top. I’m sure the postcards move quick as well…) Soon we got back on the tram and went down.

From there we headed to the excellent botanical gardens, surely a highlight of Hong Kong. It’s free - an obvious benefit - but (thankfully) doesn’t therefore skimp on quality. Gorgeous flora, from flower trees to all kinds of varied bamboo, ferns, palms and flowers lined clean, well-kept pathways leading by aviaries and mammal cages. The amazing birds ranged from gray-necked and red-crowned cranes to stunning Macaws and Golden Pheasants, which look Egyptian with their casque of bright yellow-orange feathers. I’d never seen any like it.

There were several species of monkey in the mammal area, including a trio of large orangutans munching on fruit, some hyperactive ring-tailed lemurs, some of whom had babies hanging on their backs, and other apes swinging around by their arms only, eagerly anticipating lunch. Great stuff! We also saw a 9-meter-long boat and some Chinese alligators, which I believe they (also) eat.

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May 20, 2008

Fourteen [expletive] hours later, after no sleep due to the [expletive] roads they called “expressways” in a tiny bunk with one pee break, we finally arrived in Shenzhen, four [expletive] hours behind schedule. There was a flat tire in the middle somewhere, but I thought they’d fixed it pretty fast. The AC was either off (sub-tropical) or on (arctic). Our breakfast was cashew nuts.

Shenzhen is very industrial, and thus very forgettable. We had to take city bus 7 from the bus depot to Luhuo terminus and then walk across the border to Hong Kong. The differences were immediate and striking. Cleanliness. No spitting. Many people speak English, and many signs are in English. A huge metropolis. Electricity in the air. We had walked from communism to capitalism and ate vegetarian rice balls for brunch.

We were happy to have reserved a room two nights before, over the internet at the hotel in Yangshuo, as after the bus ride and lugging our increasingly heavy bags, things were getting tiring. We got to the hotel (the Metropark Kowloon, by far the swankiest join we’ve stayed in yet, with a pool on the roof that we unfortunately didn’t use due to the rain) without any problems. The metro system here works just like in Japan, with a distance-based fare system and turnstiles, and it’s clean and fast. We were a little taken aback by the eager bellboys, clearly hoping for tips. That’s something I know nothing about.

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May 19, 2008

When we woke up it was still raining. I felt a bit queasy from last night’s spicy food. We packed up our things and stowed the bags at the front desk, then wandered around and ate a couple of bananas and some bread before going to this bookshop/hostel that was mentioned in the L.P. Here we ordered a breakfast (they’re pretty much the same everywhere, for about the same price, but this one was significantly smaller than the one from M.C. Blues) and read up a bit about Hong Kong.

After waffling a bit about the bus tickets, and as the weather began to finally clear, we first went to the station, canceled the tickets minus a 10% fee and headed back towards the hotel, checking prices at a few tour operators along the way. While the bus station price to Shenzhen was over Y200, we’d been quoted Y130 from the lady at our hotel the night before, and used this as a starting point with the tour operators, whose prices generally started at about Y170. Apparently there are privately chartered buses in addition to the regular ones, which bring costs down. We found one place that could match the Y130 but not beat it, so we bought some ginger candies and returned to the hotel to think it over.

We asked Owen about tickets as well, and even though the lowest price we could find until then was Y130, he arranged for us to jump on the ESL student sleeper bus for Y100! What a guy. He had been so helpful the entire time, and now to do this really meant something to us, especially after all the other shady dealings we’d had. If you’re ever in Yangshuo, China, please go stay and/or eat at his place, the Cormorant Restaurant and Guest House, at the north end of West St (the main tourist drag).

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May 18, 2008

Woke up to strange dreams and pouring rain, which was actually a bit nice, as it gave us some time to relax and write.

We got going from the hotel at noon and wandered in the rain from restaurant to restaurant, comparing prices for breakfast meals, which all seemed about the same (some variation on eggs, toast, fruit, yogurt, bacon, etc). We had asked to borrow an umbrella from the hotel but they only wanted to sell us one, for Y20. We ended up eating at another place in the book, M.C. Blues, and were satisfied with the amount of food and fresh orange juice, though it was still a lot more (Y25) than we were used to paying.

After that we went to the bus station and bought sleeper tickets to Guangzhou for Y120 each, then hopped on the local shuttle for Xingping, a town a ways up the Li river where we could get a boat trip. Once there, we bargained down from Y150 to 40 for the two of us to go up to Yangdi and back on a “bamboo” boat, which was really just ‘boo-shaped metal tubes welded together. The trip was pleasant, with plenty of dramatic karst peaks, caves in the sheer cliff faces and bamboo sprays lining the banks. But when we arrived at what the boatman supposedly said was Yangdi, we just turned around and came back, and the trip was decidedly less than the hour and forty-five minutes it was promised to be. We were even dropped off at a different point than where we started from, necessitating a 15 minute walk or Y2 bus ride. Of course.

It is these types of bitter endings, such as the massage [our ignorance of local tipping practices notwithstanding] and the bus to Yuanyang, that have to some extent soured our experience of China. We have no idea if we’re getting ripped off to begin with, as in most transactions the prices for foreigners are wildly overvalued, but we sure as hell feel that way by the end of them, E especially so. I keep trying to put things in perspective, reasoning that $6 for two hour-long bus rides and a boat trip was worth it. Maybe - no, of course - it was, but does that change the way we felt cheated? Perhaps those penny-pinching Israelis back at the Gorge were right, and that you can’t compare things relatively, you have to shoot for as close to the actual Chinese price - the market rate, if you will, in a state economy - as you can.

Anyway, we finally got back to the hotel to learn that we could have gotten the sleeper bus tickets all the way to Shenzhen (which lies at the border with Hong Kong, an hour or two further along than Guangzhou) for Y130. Great. Cold, we took showers. E was in a bad mood (no surprise, with the rain and the ripoff). I went out to pick up the laundry and found a cheap noodle place that did some spicy veggie noodles and tofu with mushrooms for Y20. I got it to go. E bought some cold beers downstairs and we ate in - what a relief. The day ended as it began: relaxed.

May 17, 2008

Got up around 8:30am and walked in the morning mist and a light rain around the city. First we stopped to get some fruit and coffee smoothies that it seems ALL the Chinese kids were drinking, then E bought a pair of shoes from a discount shop. Not really interested in paying the steep entry fees for Guilin’s sights (mostly caves and faux parks), we wandered around a few of the man-made ponds, one of which has two pagodas - the “sun and moon” - which were quite atmospheric in the mist. We ate the mangosteins we’d gotten yesterday along the winding path.

Guilin seemed much cleaner than most of the cities we’ve been to so far, and we heard far less hocking and spitting than elsewhere. I suspect the reason is the area’s tourism potential during the Olympic games. What an interesting time to have come to China!

Eventually we ended up at the Buddhist vegetarian restaurant that we’d seen in the book. Despite the Chinese-only menu, the staff nicely tried to help us choose dishes based on the food types listed in the back of the Lonely Planet, and even told us the prices (especially of the more expensive ones) before taking our order. We ate a fried tofu and mushroom dish, a bowl of noodle soup and some sweet n’ sour eggplant, along with some deep fried peanuts as a snack. Funny thing: they brought us forks.

After lunch we poked through a street market trying to bargain for some so-so boxer briefs, then went to a massive department store called the Niko Niko Do Plaza (I think) and bought several kinds of tea and a bunch of snack-type things in the basement supermarket. Some of the teas were extremely cheap - about Y25 per 500 grams (which is a heckuva lot of tea) - but others were outrageously expensive, getting up above Y2000 for the same amount.

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May 16, 2008

We got up about 8am and took a taxi to the “Twin Dragons Bridge”, which, like many sights listed in the book, was mediocre - it barely went over a stream. We had more difficulties with the cab driver: when we tried to ask how much a return trip would be, he put up three fingers, and motioned back and forth. We took this to mean Y3 there and Y3 back. Suspecting that this might be a bit low, we even tried to confirm this when we got to the bridge. But he really meant Y30 - exorbitant for the maybe half hour the entire excursion took. We argued a bit, then just gave him Y15 and got out. I was looking over my shoulder for the next two hours, thinking he might have called some cabbie friends or the police to push us around. That didn’t happen, but I still felt like we’d left an impression as belligerent foreigners.

We we got back to town we did a little shopping, then checked out of the hotel and got on the bus to Kunming without difficulty. During the not-uncomfortable ride I watched some great kung-fu movies. I think Jianshui was the one place so far that we were a tiny bit sad to leave, thought I don’t know if there was much else to do there. Perhaps it was just the relaxed vibe. Once we got to Kunming we got a great hot bowl of silken tofu with spices, scallions and soybeans and a bag of mangosteins from a street vendor. I haven’t mentioned these delicious fruits until now, but they are one of the highlights of China by far. Sweet-sour, succulent and easy to open. We also had a bunch of lychees with us during our days in Yuanyang which were quite nice as well, though more sour. Now we’re finally on our flight from Kunming to Guilin, after catching an easy taxi ride to the airport. The meal sucked, but we were hungry enough to eat it.

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May 15, 2008

We met Daniel at 5am and jumped in the car. The ride out to the “best sunrise spot” was about an hour, over mostly cobblestone roads, so very rough and uncomfortable. When we got there, a heavy fog obscured the paddies, but as the sky became lighter it cleared for about five minutes and I was able to snap a few shots; though on brief review in the viewing screen I’m nearly positive they’ll be crap. The best picture will be of a local Hani minority woman, to whom I gave Y1 for a pose. I think she’s there every morning, along with a couple of young girls selling eggs to the pro photographers will the medium format backs and big lenses, frantically switching filters and bodies despite the simple fact that the was nothing much to shoot. But from the postcards we saw later, the potential is truly great: brilliant reds, purples and oranges over the mottled and patterned landscape of rice paddies.

After 45 minutes or so, we headed to the next paddy, but it was the third stop that really demonstrated the scale of this area, as after a short walk to a lookout point, we could see the entire Yuanyang valley, at least 30km long, and covered almost entirely in rice terraces. Our driver pointed far off into the distance and said the name of our town, and we could follow with our eyes through the morning haze as the road would its way around the mountains and through the villages to where we stood. Below, hundreds if not thousands of rice terraces had transformed the landscape into a bizarre pattern of twisting lines, resembling the altitude lines on topographical maps and broken up in patches by areas of dense forest. It was striking, and though a bit of haze remained, we could imagine how powerful this spot would be at sunset, when it is reportedly best.

After a stop at the obligatory market stalls selling a mix of local [or so we thought!] embroidery and the standard Chinese junk, we got back to town around 10:30am. E and I shopped a bit (I got some sandals for Y100, or about $15) and then joined Daniel for an early lunch of mushroom soup and the surefire scrambled egg & tomato dish. Afterwards we checked out of the hotel and got on a bus for Jianshui. As we had asked (or tried to) at the “luxury” hotel (still no English spoken there, either) up the road, we thought there would be a comfy motor coach that we could sleep on during the 3+ hour ride, but nooo, they just pointed us back to the main square, where first we had to deal with a testy “bus lady”, who gets the money from passengers and touts the occasional stops along the route. While it was still a long, hot ride, with a screaming baby and some heated words between the bus lady and some Hani women, who we’d dropped off at a bad spot on the outskirts of some nameless city, at least this time we took the expressway, so it wasn’t as bumpy as the mountain roads we’d been conned into taking on the way there.

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May 14, 2008

Today was the worst day of the trip so far. As mentioned before, I think my expectations have been steadily getting lower and lower with each place. On the other hand, it could be that our initial excitement is wearing off and we’re entering the mid-trip lull. I was hoping that “one of the most spectacular sights in China” would redeem this feeling, but so far I doubt that it can.

First, we got (or at least felt) ripped off by the bus ride to Yuanyang, about 4 hours south of Jianshui. We had gotten to the bus depot in Jianshui by about 8:30am, and were steered away from the normal ticket line by a seemingly honest woman wearing a red headscarf. (Incidentally, the Muslim [or what I stupidly assume to be Muslim, based on little else but women with head scarves] population on the whole has seemed cleaner and more honest than the other Chinese.) She lead us to another woman, in uniform by the bus platforms, who sold us a ticket (including receipt) that we explicitly asked take us to Xinjie, the further point of the two bus stops in Yuanyang (the first is called Nansha). After asking several times that it was to Xinjie, not Nansha, and receiving head nods in assurance, we forked over the Y31 each and got on the small bus.

After 3+ hours of incredibly bumpy, mountainous roads, picking up and dropping off passengers along the way, we arrived in Nansha, ferried into another minibus already packed to the gills, and promptly told we owed another Y10. Protest yielded no result, and we were forced to pay up - total bullshit! The hour long ride up the hill to Xinjie was intensely unappealing: bumpy, twisting roads sitting in the back of the van in which at least two people were vomiting, one of them while nursing her child.

Then we arrived in Xinjie. What we expected to be a charming mountain village with cobblestone streets and a friendly atmosphere turned out to be an ugly shantytown with no English spoken (which we’d assumed based on the guidebook’s assurance that it would be very tourist-friendly) and nothing appealing at all. Touts even tried to get into the car before it had stopped to pick up those who’d [illegible - I think I was falling asleep when I wrote this].

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May 13, 2008

The sleeper bus to Kunming was cramped but bearable, I suppose. You get this tiny little bunks, about 40-50cm wide and maybe 150cm long, so it was impossible to fully stretch out. We did get a bit of sleep, interrupted only by a bathroom break at 3am and a guy vomiting a bit before then.

We arrived in Kunming at 6am, when it was still dark. At first we had some trouble getting our bearings- nothing was in English and we were being hounded by touts every which way. After a few minutes of dodging “Hello! Hotel?” and “Dali, Lijiang!” we found the train station, where we rested a bit and planned our morning. We decided to fly from Kunming to Guilin, so finding a place to buy tickets was the first goal. This took a while- no one at the bus or train stations, or a hotel or two, knew where the ticketing agency mentioned as “handy, right next to the bus station” in the Lonely Planet was. At long last we found it (literally steps away from the bus station, but completely in Chinese, so therefore invisible to us) and began to book the tickets when we found out that they don’t take credit cards and we’d have to wait until 8:30am before banks/ATMs opened. Great start.

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May 12, 2008

The alarm went off waaay too soon, at least after the so-so night of sleep I got. I think the altitude had something to do with it; the storm as well. But a quick peek out the window revealed thick fog, with nary a peak in sight, so we rolled over and slept ’till 8. Everyone else at the place did about the same, it turned out, as we all ate at about the same time. Breakfast consisted of two large cups of Yunnan coffee, which is a little like weak Turkish, with some grounds left in the brew, a “Naxi sandwich”, which is like flatbread layered with an egg, tomatoes, onions and cheese. E had the “muesli eight fruits yogurt”, which probably didn’t actually have eight fruits, but it was still good.

We set off and generally hiked with the two aggro Israelis and the Dutch girls. The trail wasn’t at all bad - generally level and winding for a long way, maybe 10-12 km down to Tina’s guest house, which would be impossible to miss even if there hadn’t been about 600 signs pointing the way. The trail today was as spectacular as yesterday, with constant terrific views of the mountains and cliffs. At one point, we crossed a waterfall. After the Halfway Guest house, the trail went steadily down, even steeply at points, to the valley.

At the bottom we checked out the area around Tina’s and bumped into Christian again. Though the Israeli guys wanted to continue up the road to Walnut Garden, the rest of us didn’t have time, and since they were too cheap to go alone, they came with us back to Qiaotou. We negotiated a seven-person bus, but found out there had been a landslide about halfway along the valley road. The road itself is strange, about half paved and half rough stone/dirt. There were a few very hairy turns and bumpy sections, though probably par for the course in this zero-liability country. We caught a tiny and uncomfortable minibus back to Lijiang for the equivalent of about $3 each.

After a shower we packed up and went to dinner. It was a bit of a disaster, with loud obnoxious music blaring from the neighboring restaurants and bars on the Old Town party strip. But Baby A was cute as ever, the rents were in good enough spirits, and the food was decent, though the fish was pretty boney. After dinner my parents and sister saw us to our taxi. We realized how little time we’d had together to chat or just be a family. These moments are fleeting, and we should cherish them.

May 11, 2008

Got up early to catch our bus, but to no avail, it didn’t leave until 9:30. There was some discussion among J and my folks about whether to come with us. His folks weren’t interested and C didn’t think the baby could take the 2+ hour car ride. She was undoubtedly right - we’re stuck in traffic now, on the way to the Gorge.

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Whew, what a day! We finally made it to Qiaotou (pronounced “chow-tow”), the starting point for the gorge trek. There was a Danish guy on the bus named Christian who we decided to walk with. First we stopped into Gorged Tiger Cafe, where a kooky character from Australia named Margo fed us overpriced cheese and tomato melts and gave us maps and information about the hike. As we headed for the trail we picked up a Canadian guy (name?) who has been in China for four months already and was psyched to talk about it, forever. He had stopped into Jane’s Guesthouse a bit up the road from Margo’s. Apparently, “Jane” is biologically a he. What a weird place to find a foreign transvestite; but I suppose the world is full of these pockets of hidden humanity. But in communist China?

The trek started relatively easy for the first 10km or so, until the “24 (or 28, depending on who you ask) bends”, which is a set of steep switchbacks with loose, crumbling footing. At this altitude (around 2300m/7000ft) you get tired quickly on the uphill portions, and both E and I found ourselves flagging behind the two guys. The sun was no help - the hot temperatures were a drastic change from the cold and rain of Lijiang.

The views were stupendous. Simply breathtaking. Huge mountains, some with snow and bathed in clouds, others tree-studded and emerald green, all heading down to the river gorge (this would be the Yangtze river). There were really only foreigners on the trail, save a few touts with donkeys that you could ride up the steep part. The family we had met at Zen Garden hotel in Lijiang did it this way, so mom you totally could have done it!) We made it to our destination for the night, Tea Horse Guesthouse, by about 6pm or so, which was a little later than we expected, but not a problem. The staff was friendly and there were plenty of interesting foreigners to chat with. At one point it was me, an American, plus a Hungarian, a very pretty Finnish girl (whose tall stature and platinum blond hair of course drew lots of attention wherever she went in China), two nice Dutch girls, two aggro Israelis and the Canadian guy (the Danish guy had gone ahead a couple more hours to the next guest house down the trail). International! But where were the Chinese?

Dinner was fine. We had kimchi, fried “asparagus” (probably cucumber), fried rice and noodles, both veggie. We ate and chatted with the Dutch girls. Oh, and several beers! The plan is to get up early and see the sunrise. We’ll see if we can open our eyes at 6:30am, though. The hike was no joke!

May 10, 2008

Sort of a throw away day today. We got up not too early and took some taxis to see Buddhist frescoes at Baisha. As most of them were destroyed during Mao’s cultural revolution, there wasn’t a lot to see, and we had to (re)pay the exorbitant Y80 fee that we paid at the Dragon Pool yesterday. It was rainy and quiet, and I took some nice photos of flowers and the temples. The gates and rooftops reminded me of Japan, although there are definite differences in color, with the Japanese ones more reddish and the Chinese ones with more blue and white highlights.

After the fresco temple, we continued to a tourist village a few kilometers away. I say “tourist village” because it seemed entirely set up as some extant example of “authentic minority culture” that seemed a bit out of place. At first a colorful town, soon it was clear that nothing of any interest was for sale- just the usual trinkets mentioned before. There were many supposed “silversmiths” banging away at some formless chunk of metal, occasionally heating it up with foot-powered bellows below an open flame, but never quite getting to any detail. Just bang, bang, clink, all day long [reminds me of my old job]. Perhaps the one nice thing was the cappuccino at the cafe we found there. E was afraid of the cat.

For lunch in the tourist town, we went to a large - nay, HUGE - restaurant that specialized in their own farmed salmon. We picked one from the water and (after dashing it’s head in) they served it as sushi and shabu-shabu. Though the old folks thought the cooked salmon was better, I thought it was tasteless that way and preferred it as sushi, though this is certainly an understandable throwback to my Japan days. Other dishes included some lame greens and soybean soup, plus lots of rice and a silken tofu dish that wasn’t at all bad. The room we ate in was pretty dingy, smelly and had flies.

On the way back, we jumped out of the taxis to walk to the express bus station to get our sleeper tickets to Kunming. We stopped in a few shops along the way, which, true to our expectations, were cheaper and more fashionable than in old town.

Dinner was definitely the highlight of the day. For our ritziest meal so for, the owners of the hotel brought us up to their new luxury place, which features fantastic views and tasteful traditional decor. The food was terrific: spicy cucumber, fresh roasted peanuts, sautéed broccoli and other greens, Naxi-style fish, deep-fried yak cheese, eggplant, egg and tomato omelet, sweet bread puffs, plus some meaty dishes. To drink was the local wine, a light red that didn’t quite leave much of an impression. But the service was great and I will not soon forget it - it may well be the best meal of the trip!

The walk back through town was surreal, as there were huge crowds along the main old town thoroughfare, with music blaring from the canal-side bars and pubs. You could float a candle down the canals if you wished. When we got back to the hotel, full and tipsy, E was feeling sick. We arranged the taxi for Tiger Leaping Gorge (or rather, arranged a taxi to the bus station, then a bus to TLG) and asked about weather, which was forecast for rain both days

May 9, 2008

Up at 6:30am to get some early morning photography in, and happy we did so. E tagged along, and we saw the sun rise on the mountains from the hotel, then go lost in the surrounding streets. Most shops were closed up and the kids were going to school. The town is a patchwork of winding flagstone alley and minor canals, many with fish (and no small amount of trash) in them. Locals still wash clothes and vegetables in the rivers - my stomach turns just thinking of the bacteria…

Came back to the hotel for a breakfast of fruit (mango, banana), yogurt, toast, egg, carrot juice and coffee. Then we had a quick nap before heading out into the south section of old town. It all looks straight out of a kung-fu flick, like my friend Elaine had mentioned in an e-mail about the place when she visited last year. The shops seem to all sell the same tourist trinkets: scarves and “local” clothes/textiles, jewelry that looks the same as everywhere else in the world (i.e. vaguely “Indian”), corny leather cowboy hats and other animal-derived goods, silver and jade figurines, “Dried Meat Yak”, tea shops, etc etc. At least they weren’t selling gaudy western t-shirts or too much fake brand-name stuff, although that may all be available in the new town.

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May 8th, 2008

On the plane to Lijiang via Kunming. The Great Wall already seems like a million years ago. We keep getting the date wrong because of the time change and the intensity of what we’re experiencing. Even Beijing airport is insanity - huge, open space supported by giant columns. It’s all part of the palpable Olympic fever, which seems to be everywhere in Beijing. I wonder about the countryside.

There’s a funny little soap opera on the plane’s TVs; not that I’m really watching it, but there’s a bald guy getting the runaround by a while array of different women. It’s pretty slapsticky, which I suppose is universally funny. E says that all the people on the TV look like Shrek, because the tint is green.

I’m still thinking of getting to these Yuanyang rice terraces a few hours south of Kunming. There are some other towns to check out around there as well. The question is getting out to the east and into Guangxi province without losing too much time.

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Delayed in Kunming! First a 3.5 hour layover, then confusion about a gate change that didn’t actually happen, then got on the plane, pushed back from the gate and the plan blew a fuse or otherwise stalled. At least it wasn’t after we took off! Got out of the plane, waited on the tarmac for like 20 minutes (when does that EVER happen in the west? Yes, we are in “the country of zero liability” as C likes to say.), took a family picture and caught a ride to the next plane. Original departure time was 7pm, now it’s 9:45. Thankfully, the group’s spirits remain high.

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Made it to Lijiang. Beautiful stars, and so many of them, on the way from the airport. Even down near the horizon you can still see plenty, which is rare because of the compounding nature of the curving atmosphere as well as light pollution. The air must be thinner and cleaner at this altitude and area.

The hotel is great, with this terrific archetypal Chinese feeling with craggly trees and fish pools. We have a great view of the old town from our balcony.

May 7th, 2008

I write from atop the Great Wall of China, at Simatai. We’ve taken a 2 hour cab ride to get here, then a 1.5 hour hike to station 12 of the eastward expanse. The weather is warm and the sky hazy and overcast. Too bad: there are huge mountains all around us, just barely visible through the mist. Thankfully, it’s quiet, with little to no harassment by touts.

E is being a great sport, despite the lack of our clothes and amenities, which should be arriving sometime this morning. Now, the sticky cab ride back to Beijing, with lots of jet-lag induced nod-offs.

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Ah, what a difference a shower makes! And, fresh clothes. The bags got in safe and sound, with no missing bottles of pálinka. Now we’re just checking email and I’m trying to update the blog, but getting a weird error when I try to upload pictures [and still have been since getting back!]. Perhaps the Great Firewall of China?

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Had another great meal at a Sichuan place near C and J’s apartment. Dishes included tofu with various toppings (nuts, chili, scallions, pickled cabbage), fried Sichuan shrimp over french fries, sautéed string beans, sweet lotus roots and “eyeballs” - rice dumplings. Drinks were beer and local moonshine - baiju. Yuck. It kept returning every time I burped. Baby A was fussy. J and C are HEROES!

Afterwards took a cab to the area of Hutong alleyways. Cool! Wandered around, lost then found. Lots of bars and shops. Found a super-cheap place to buy trinkets. Then we finally found our way to Hohai, a pair of ponds ringed with bars, restaurants and shops. It was fun for a bit, but every place seemed the same: bad live music and WAAY overpriced drinks. $6 beers in China are not ok. So we walked and watched. Eventually we bargained for some warm beers (two for Y10, about $0.65 each) and watched the fishermen and listened to Back Street Boys emanating from a club across the water. It may be a tourist scene but it was pleasant enough. Taxied home without issue and went to sleep.