China, day 7: Nanjing

We woke up in four o'clock in the morning, for the third time in a row, We were supposed to meet Ms.Talkative outside our hotel and hike for an hour or so to meet the rest of the group at sunrise. It was dark and cold, and Ms. Talkative would not show up. We called Fang, who told us something along the lines of “oh, yeah, she will not be joining you, just start walking”, Thank you, Fang.

We climbed the mountain in the dark, which was cool and unpleasant at the same time. After an hour or so, we got to the hotel where the rest of the group was staying, and peeked into one of the rooms. These were small, smelly rooms in which about ten men, or women, depending on the room, were stacked into bunk beds. We thanked god that we paid more in order to get our own room in a much nicer hotel, and walked outside to see the sunset, which was very pretty. 

Fang gathered us and led us down the mountain. Here’s a group picture:

Left to right: Ms. Talkative, Julia, Red Coat, Me, Old Lady, Mr. Trooper, Mrs. Trooper, Annoying Mom and Annoying Girl.

Fang showed us a famous pine tree (yes, it’s a just pine tree), quoted some poems, and pointed out more rocks that look like things. Like this rock, that looks like an old Nokia cell phone:

This rock is actually called, and I kid you not, “The Cell Phone Rock”.

Between Fang’s elaborate descriptions of rock formations, Julia and I were engaged in our favorite pastime, which is hating other people - this could be for any reason whatsoever, like yelling, shoving, posing ridiculously for pictures, or just being people that are not us.

We took a break to rest, and Julia told me that she registered us to take the cable car down the mountain instead of walking down because we was tired, and it’s only 80 Yuan for each of us (about $26 total). Guess what? It turns out everybody in the group was tired after climbing the mountain for two days, and nobody wants to walk the remaining 9 kilometers. This resulted in the amazing coincidence where the entire group, including Fang, took the cable car and met at the foot at the mountain around noon, just as scheduled. I wondered what would have happened if I told Fang “no, I want to walk. And being my tour guide, you’re gonna walk with me. Nine kilometers. While everybody else waits for us down there." 

After the cable car ride, we walked for just a little bit longer until we got to the buses. An amazing performance by the Zhaixi-tourist-trafficking-network brought us to a restaurant where the bag we left at the hotel was miraculously waiting for us. Not only that - since we were hungry and already in restaurant, we ordered some food, and guess who shows up and had lunch at the table right next to ours? Fang! What are the odds?!

Another bus came and picked us up to take us back to Nanjing, It was mostly empty, and we both fell asleep immediately. We woke up a couple of hours later, to the sound of a beast of a guy chewing sugar cane across the aisle. The bus somehow was now packed with people. They were probably picked up when we were asleep. The beast across the aisle was way too tall and had a big face and big hands, and he was biting off pieces of sugar cane, chewing them loudly, and when he was done with a piece, he just opened his mouth and let the piece fall to a trash can he had between his feet. I wouldn’t mind that so much if he didn’t have dozens of these sugar canes and the repetitive process was not so loud and disgusting.

Naturally, we could not go back to sleep, so we stared out the window, through which we could see entire cities being built at once. China is going down, I tell you. And everybody else is next.

The bus dropped us off at one of the Nanjing railroad stations. We took the metro to a Motel168, which turned out to be a different Motel168 than the one we had the booking for. We were convinced by the receptionist to stay, as she would take care of the paperwork which turned out to be a huge mistake. To this day we are fighting them for the faulty "no-show” fine the other hotel charged us.

China, day 6: Huangshan

We woke up at 4 o'clock in the morning, again, and met Fang, our tour guide. He advised us to leave our travel bag at the hotel and take only backpacks. The hotel will charge only 10 Yuan, about a dollar and half, which is not a lot of money, but isn’t this what micro-payments are about?

We were trafficked, again, by a minivan, to a bus that took us to the entrance to the mountain park area, and then another bus took us about half way up the mountain.

Up on the mountain we finally understood who is in our group. We were nine, or if you like - me and eight Chinese people. Fang told us we could either climb the first 6.5 kilometers by foot or take a cable car up the mountain. Five of us chose to climb - Julia and myself; an annoying girl in her early twenties and her mom; and a middle aged woman, who climbed like a real trooper, while her old husband took the cable car.

The way up was hard, but really nice. Many people on the trail saw me as a much more interesting attraction than the mountain. “Halo!”, they usually called, usually pairing it with an awkward hand up, kind of like an native american greeting style gesture. “Hello! Ni hao!” I replied to one of them. This was where we both exhausted our knowledge of the other person’s language. His friends, however, were very impressed. “He replied to you! wow, you really speak English? where did you learn it?” said one of them, according to Julia’s translation.

Anther group of youngsters was more intrigued by Julia and mine’s relationship: “oh… she must be his tour guide!” said one of them, forgetting that regardless of whether she was right or not, Julia can understand her very well.

All along the track, there are a lot of people carrying supplies up and down the stairs. These supplies are being delivered to the various kiosks that are scattered along the path or the hotels that are at the top of the mountain. Some of these men carry at least 40 kilograms, as we estimated by counting the amount of water bottles they can were carrying. It’s interesting that there’s enough manpower for this transportation system, but not to build an automatic system.

Notice the cell-phone stowed in his carrying device.

Our strategy for not being late to the meeting point was to make sure we’re always ahead of Annoying Girl and Annoying Mom, AKA The Annoyings, and the middle aged woman, who was actually climbing the mountain like a trooper.

We got to the meeting point. Fang was there with those who took the cable car - Mrs. Trooper’s husband, an old lady, a quiet lady with a red coat and a talkative lady with an orange coat. Feng gathered us said a more polite version of “Welcome to Yellow Mountain! It’s not called that because it’s yellow, but because we tricked you into buying these stupid yellow raincoats before you came up here!”. By the way, every kiosk on the way up sells these coats, contrary to what we were told by the girl who sold them to us yesterday. Damn you, girl!

Fang took us for a hike around the flatter top of the mountain, which is really pretty. Fang is very good at, again, trafficking people, and also showing us rocks that look like other things. On the top left corner of this picture, for example, is a monkey watching the valley:

There were also rocks shaped like a fish, a rabbit riding a turtle (or was it the other way around?) and an iguana humping a squirrel. I might have misheard Fang’s interpretation on the last one, I admit - my Chinese does need more work. Also, the rock sure looked like an iguana and squirrel shagging to me.

The Annoyings were being very annoying, unnecessarily yelling to each other and stopping every single second to take a picture. Here is Annoying Girl:

After a while Fang took us to our hotel, where we got a chance to drop off our stuff while the group, who were all staying in another hotel, waited for us. We all walked around some more, and then Fang sent Ms. Talkative (who was also isolated in a separate hotel), Julia and me to watch the sunset from a nearby peak while he took the rest of the group on another hour and a half hike to their hotel. We had time to stop in a lobby of one of the hotels to get some coffee, which was one of the best coffees I ever had. Not because of the actual quality of the coffee, but because I was cold and tired and hadn’t had a cappuccino in ages.

The only good thing about the air pollution in China is that it makes really nice sunsets.

We went back to our hotel. Although the hotel was reeeally nice, our room was freezing and would not get warm, which is unfortunate when you’re on the top of a fucking mountain in the middle of the Chinese winter. After a long saga that included sticking a credit card instead of the room key in the room’s electricity slot so we can leave for dinner while the AC warms the room, getting dinner, thinking we locked ourselves out of the room, figuring out we were not locked out, getting into the room and discovering it’s still cold, we finally got the staff to get us a portable heater. We went to bed early because tomorrow we need to get up at 4 o'clock in the morning, again, to hike to the hotel where the rest of the group stayed where we will all watch the sunrise.

China, day 5: Zhaixi

We got up at around four o'clock in the morning in order to catch our tour bus, which we found, of course, a block away and on the other side of the street of where we were told it would be. The bus broke after half an hour, and we were picked up by a smaller bus. After five more hours we got to Zhaixi, a town that resides at the foot of Huangshan. The people of Zhaixi are extraordinary in the art of trafficking tourists and collecting micro-payments from them: we were taken off the bus in front of a restaurant/convenient store, where we were told by an impressive young lady to buy yellow raincoats, because, well, it rains up there in the mountain. Everybody bought raincoats and many also bought a 3-Yuan (about half a buck) walking cane. We just got the raincoats. When I buy a cane, it’s going to be a fancy, hand-carved one.

The bus left and a swarm of minivans showed up, picking up four people each, to take us to our hotels. After being dropped off, we were told by our driver that we have the afternoon off, so we could either chill, or he can take us to some nearby attractions. We decided to go.

It’s important to note that the micro-payments collected are usually fair - the driver took money for tickets and an additional 30 Yuan, about $5, to himself.

After lunch the driver picked us and two other ladies up and dropped us off at Emerald Valley. He gave us our tickets, told us to meet him back at the same spot in an hour and a half, and left to traffic more tourists.

Emerald Valley is pretty much a long walk along a river. It’s very pretty, and supposedly very romantic, with a big rock at the middle of the valley on which the word “Ai” (Chinese for “love”) is carved and painted red.

I started to develop special interest in documenting the ancient Chinese art of picture posing.

After an hour an and a half, the driver took us to Nine Dragons Falls, and gave us another hour and a half to walk around. Nine Dragons Falls is a much prettier, intricate network of rivers, valleys and waterfalls, and had we known better, we’d prefer spending three hours there. Also, it turns out that some scenes from “Crouching Dragon, Hidden Tiger” were shot here.

We were extremely tired after all these walking, so we got back to the hotel to take a nap, then wandered around the town to find some food. All of the restaurants seemed empty, and when we finally took a seat in one that had people in it, they all turned out to be members of the family that run the place. We had our dinner as we watched them play cards, and got back to the hotel to get some sleep - tomorrow we need to be up before dawn again. We have a yellow mountain to climb.

China, day 4: Nanjing

We were getting a little tired of chasing hotels and figuring out what to do, so we decided to book a three day organized tour to Huangshan - the yellow mountain. For that, we had to go first to Nanjing.

So not a lot happened that day. We took a train to Nanjing, then a taxi to the hotel, then looked for the tourist agency for a while because it was totally impossible to find. Once the tour was booked, we went to a hot-pot place, bought some snacks for the ride, gloves for me (the pattern spells out “SHOWFLS”, which was probably supposed to be “SNOWFLAKES”) and earmuffs for Julia, and went back to the hotel.

This is a good time to talk about the Chinese perception of personal space.

And we’re done talking about it. There is no perception of personal space in China. People will walk straight into you, stand right in front of you, and push you for no reason at all. Unfortunately for them, I am both Israeli and vengeful, and so I quickly developed a variety of techniques to deal with them, most of them involve the use of a bag. If I have my backpack, for instance, I turn quickly and have the bag shove my offenders off of their course. When I’m carrying our travelling bag in my hand, I just aim it to the knees or pelvis of whoever is blocking my way as I try to get of the subway.

The main attraction of the day came in the form of this group of old people doing some kind of an old-Chinese-people-group-workout-thing in the middle of the street. I have a video for you guys. Of course I do.

China, day 3: Suzhou

We started the day by getting a taxi to the silk museum. Suzhou, turns out, used to be the silk capitol of China. Before going into the museum we stopped at a tiny restaurant (more like two tables in the middle of the street) and got breakfast: Youtiao (literally meaning “oil stick”, basically it’s deep fried dough), tea egg, and soy milk. It was excellent.

The silk museum was a lot of fun. Especially the section dedicated to the production process of silk.

We stared at this for a while until we realized that the worms were real.

This section ends in a room that occupies some old fashion looms and about four women were actively weaving silk on them. These fascinating, complex machines are slowly turning into my new obsession.

Outside the silk museum we noticed a very tall pagoda. We decided to check it out. 

The pagoda is located at the heart of the Beita Bao'en temple. We walked around and then climbed the damn thing just to find some air polluted, disappointing view of the city.

From there we took a taxi to the Humble Administrator’s Garden. The area is very touristy, and a lot of little old Chinese ladies try to shove tour flyers into peoples’ hands. I practiced some Chinese and yelled “bu yao! bu yao! bu yao!” (don’t want!) randomly. Before visiting the garden, we sat down in a small restaurant. A heavy white guy with a white goatee and blue eyes, dressed like a Chinese vagabond, came in, sat down at one of the tables, and shortly after burst into a loud conversation with the restaurant owner, in fluent Chinese (brought here as roughly translated by Julia):

- “Do you have baozi?”

- “Yes, of course.”

- “I would like some, then. Do you have beer?”

- “Yes, whatever you see on the shelf.”

- “But they are warm, I want a cold one.”

- “It’s too cold for cold beer, don’t you think?”

- “You are very lazy, you know? Instead of standing here and talking to me about beer, go make my baozi!”

After our meal we went to the Humble Administrator’s Garden. It’s pretty fancy for such a humble administrator.

Being pretty much the only white guy around, I get a lot of stares. A tiny girl was fascinated by me, and I could see how her dad practiced with her until she was ready to approach me and say “Hello! what is your name?”. I said “Hello! Ni hao!” back which made her the happiest thing on earth, as she started jumping all over the place.

After the garden we went to the Suzhou Museum which is right next to the garden. The museum is a must see in Suzhou - first of all, the architecture is very impressive. The art is really interesting too, especially the calligraphy section.

After an afternoon snack we took a taxi to go to the hotel, but when we passed the old city we asked the driver to drop us off. It’s a really pretty, very touristy area. 

We entered some stores. Chinese sales people will follow you around all over the store, even if you try to make it very clear that you don’t need their help. In a silk store, we were followed by a girl who looked a little like that girl from “The Grudge”. Having her follow me around is not what I would call a positive shopping experience.

We got some red bean bubble tea and sat on the bench to drink it. Another boy, approached me. “Hello! It’s nice to meet you!” he recited very carefully to his parents’ content. I went into a public bathroom to pee, and as I threw my bubble tea cup to the trash, an old cleaner guy started yelling at me in Chinese. Looking back, I think he thought I threw the cup into the squat toilet. I didn’t know what to do so I said “Slicha, bijo, slicha!” (Hebrew/Georgian: I’m sorry old chap, sorry!) and left quickly.

China, day 2: Suzhou

We woke up at the Fish Inn hotel and went out to look for some breakfast. The area we were staying is home to Ningbo street, that offers a large variety of street food. The way food is treated in the street is very different than anything I’ve seen before.

The head of the fish, at the far right, was still trying to breath when the picture was taken. There’s also this:

And to clarify, you are looking at washed clothes and pieces of meat hanging from a rope to dry.

From a small food stand we got a Congyoubing, which is an excellent fried onion patty kind of thing, and then we sat down in a small restaurant for some dumplings. 

On the way back to the hotel we passed through an area of hardware stores which felt to me like heaven. They had everything - electronics components, gears, bearings, pipes, and all in a huge variety.

Ahhh.. big bulky buttons…..

We went back to the hotel, packed our bags and headed for Suzhou, about a 30-minute train ride.

In Suzhou we checked in at a Motel168, which is a local chain of hotels, and went out to look around. The hotel sits on a river bank, and across the river there’s a small row of food stands. They offer mostly pieces of meat on sticks. There’s really no need to ask what kind of pieces of meat these are, but they’re pretty good. We continued to the nearby Xiyuan Temple. Here, have some pictures:

We then took a taxi to Suzhou Gongyuan (Suzhou park), but because of Julia’s foreign accent (we’re working on that) the driver took us to Suzhou Gongyiyuan, which is something very different. When we realized we were heading the wrong way Julia notified the driver, who then suggested to just drop us off at Jinji Lake that was close to where we were. We were welcomed by a sculpture of a dog sniffing a pooping baby’s ass.

The lake is nice, and this was when we were really struck by how polluted the air is. 

We decided not to give up visiting the actual park we wanted to see, so even though it was already dark we took a metro and walked around Suzhou Park. At night, the park serves as an ad-hoc exercise ground for the elderly. It seems like old Asian people just make up random exercise routines on the spot. Some of them were just walking around while other were leisurely swinging limbs back and forth. One gentleman was standing in front of a tree while pounding it with both hands.

We left the park and walked around to find food. We walked into a restaurant called “Kaka”, which coincidentally means “poop” in Hebrew, We had some noodle soup and called it a day.

China 2013, Day 1: Shanghai

Two weeks in China. Since Julia has been to Israel twice already, it has been decided (if you get my drift) that it’s time we went to her motherland. Fine, her parents’ motherland. Her grandmotherland, I suppose.

So we took a China Eastern flight to Shanghai. The personal entertainment unit offers foreign language learning games, which I used to brush up on my Chinese. Unfortunately the game broke after an hour or so, and restarting it did not change anything. I decided to diagnose the bug as a memory leak and tried to get some sleep.

About half an hour before landing, China Eastern offers the passengers some Taichi practice, or as they like to call it, “Taichi in the microspace”.

A lot of passengers cooperated, and so did I, as I already drew too much attention as one of the very few non Chinese passengers on the flight.

After landing, we took a train to the city and walked to the Fish Inn Bund which turned out to be a nice little hotel. We checked in and went on to the city to find some beer.

As we were walking around Nanjing Road, we heard a girl calling “massage! massage!” and immediately after a male voice replying “Lo, lo massage!” (Hebrew: “no, not a massage!”)

- “Lama lo? (why not?)” I yelled to the guy.

- “Gam po?! (here too?!)” the guy responded.

I like how easy it is for me to have a meaningful conversation in so few words when it’s in my native language. Also interesting is the fact that my first interaction on the streets of Shanghai is with an Israeli.

We walked for quite a lot, and after a while finally saw a sign: “Beer and Coffee”. We did it! But when we went through the door, I realized we might have a problem: There was a bar, but there was only one table. Around it sat mostly girls. “We’re in the wrong place” I told Julia, but it was obvious she doesn’t understand what’s going on.

All the girls got up at once, and one of them approached me. Not “us” - “me”, 

- “Come in, we have pretty girls” she said as she touched my wrist. Then she pointed at Julia - “and it’s free to watch”. I said “no thank you”, and dragged Julia outside. Only then could I quietly explain to her that we stumbled into a whore house. To be fair, it was her first time. I had inadvertently stumbled into whore houses before.

By now we were hungry, so we found a small place to have some dumplings. The menu did not disappoint us and provided long moments of Chingrish fun:

We finally found something that looked more like a bar, although I’m not completely convinced that it wasn’t a whore house as well. We had one drink and went back to the hotel to get some sleep.