Under the Spell of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain

(Cady)

Hey everyone!

So, first off, we've received word that a LOT of people are actually following the blog this year (including most of my extended family- hi g'ma, g'pa, nanna, popop and everyone else!!), which is awesome! Thanks to one and all for reading about our excellent asian adventures. We can't actually see our own blog here so I didn't get to read Drew's account of Nick's inadequate toothbrushing methods or what Em wrote about our absolutely amazing electric scooter tour of the countryside around Yangshuo. Since we left off in Yangshuo though, I will begin there (yesterday, which was wednesday, Feb 13).

Actually, yesterday was pretty uneventful since nearly the whole day was spent traveling. We did the whole sleep in, pack up our rooms which manage to get incredibly messy on the two night stays (anyone in my family can probably imagine the clothes strewn across the hotel room floor...). Rico picked us up from the hotel at quarter to eleven and we headed across the street to the Mei You Cafe. The only reason I am including this is because lunch was amazing, delicious, fantastic- do I need any other adjectives ? Some favorites were the sweet and sour orange chicken and the eggplant (Nick and I are having a field day with all the eggplant here!). I find that I am thouroughly stuffed after every single meal here because the food is so good. Everyone has tried pretty much everything. Drew's parents- you will be happy to know that your son has been tranformed into an all-eating machine and any previous picky eating habits have been abolished. So, that was lunch, after which we bought DA BAI TU (chinese milk candy) and headed off to the airport. So, it was goodbye to Rico (who, I don't know if you all have been told, but is adorable and looks like a parakeet ), and hello to several hours of sitting on planes and in the airport. Guilin to Kunming, then Kunming to Lijiang. We were left rather exhausted but Em and I did get to go some good people watching in the airport.

So, we arrived in Lijiang, very tired, at about 9 last night. We met our guide, Kathy, who is adorable and full of energy. She realized sometime during her rapid fire speech on the Naxi people and the city of Lijiang that we were not quite up to remebering anything of substance and decided to save the rest for today. Some highlights of what she told us though- there are about 300,000 Naxi people left. They practice the dongba language and religion. The religion actually has a lot of similarities to that of native americans, including the use of totem poles and the idea that everything has a "guard," one of the most famous of which is the life guard. Naturally, every time she starts talking about the life guard I want to say Drew is a lifeguard too! No really though, it's all very interesting. The Naxi people themselves are fascinating. First of all, the women do all the work. One of the first things that Kathy told us about them was that to be darker and larger is most beautiful to the Naxi people because it shows that a woman is strong and able to work. The men on the other hand, are raised to do no work, and basically spend their childhoods doing whatever they want (this has changed a bit, though all the guys we saw today in the village WERE rather thin and lanky...) a lot of what we've experienced so far today has had to do with Naxi culture. (end of yesterday...)

Today we has to rise and shine at 6 am. which was easy when we were still jetlagged, but not so much any more. We set of at 7 for Jade Dragon Snow Mountain. Our first impression was, why on earth would they stick so many adjectives onto the name of one mountain? But, we learned that it's because there really is snow on the mountain, and to the people who named it, the mountain, which has many peaks, looks like a dragon. And since it looks almost delicate, and since the mountain is holy to the Naxi people, they called it "Jade" too. So there you have it. The mountain itself was beautiful! We took a chairlift to get up to the higher observation point, which was a lot like a ski lift. Kathy said that usually this time of year there is a lot of wind and the chairs usually shake back and forth. That wasn't actually a problem for us though, and we made it up very quickly. We walked around this sort of valley at the foot of these enormous peaks and it was absolutely breathtaking. I mean the figuratively and literally of course, since we were at altitude. It was exactly how we picture the foothils of Tibet, and it probably IS very similar, considering how close we are to tibet. We had quite a few things on the schedule, but decided to cut out the really touristy attractions and stick to the authentic stuff.

After the snow mountain, we has lunch at this ornate little inn that served us yet another amazing lunch, involving many different dishes. My family would remeber the egg and tomato dish that Ella made for us- we had that, which was actually Em's favorite. Ric and I were big fans of the eggplant (yes, eggplant again!) and pretty much everything else. yum. After that we visited the Yufeng temple (I think that's the name), which is a Tibetan temple that is still very much in use. The temple itself is very decorated with all sorts of colors. There are silks and tapestries, tapestries, and carvings everywhere. The monk who was inside gave us incense and showed us where to bow (pray) and where to put them. Then we hiked up another breathtaking set of stairs (this time I mostly mean literally) to the camilia courtyard. The courtyard has this gorgeous camilia tree growing in the middle which the current lama of the temple guards every day. The tree is several hundred years old I believe, and at one point they wanted to cut it down and sell the wood, but the lama said that if they wanted to cut the tree then they would have to cut him first. Pretty cool, right? They also call it "couple's tree" because it is actually two camilia trees that have grown together to make the beautiful shape. Since it's valentines day, and taking a picture with the tree is supposedly good luck for couples, Terry and Ric obviously seized the opportunity (yes, yes, adorable). Nick has a soft spot for people asking for money so he gave a couple RMB to some little old ladies who were singing in front of the temple. What a gentleman. We went out the other night in Yangshuo and he ended up giving one hundred RMB to a man playing the erhu (chinese instrument). Just thought that story was amusing.

Back to today though, after the temple we went to the village closest to Jade Dragon Snow Mountain. None of us can remeber the name right now, but it still preserves the Naxi culture, and in fact you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who speaks mandarin there, as most people speak dongba. It is also the previous home of an American named Joseph Stone, who came to study plants of the region and ended up spending 27 years in Lijiang. He's pretty famous in the area, as he was the first to bring in western influence (this was around the 1920s acording to Kathy). It was nice walking around the village- the houses are so old and beautiful (a very used word in this entry, but bear with me, when you all see pictures you'll see why), made of wood and bricks with tile roofs, basically exactly the way you would picture an old Chinese house. There weren't any hawkers either (a VERY rare thing here) which made the whole experience feel extremely authentic, just like riding through the villages on our electric scooters did.

After that it was back to Lijiang, which is a great mix of new and old. We walked around the "ancient neighborhood" where our hotel is actually very conveniently located. Kathy showed us around and we were able to take in the (I have to say it...) beauty of it all. The buildings, like the village, are old and ornate, though a little more modern and less run down. There are tons of shops, and colors, and OH the sky is open here! What I mean is that we've had a lot of cloudy weather in China so far, but when you're this far west and up in the mountains, the air is a lot cleaner and the sun is usually out. So although we were freezing earlier this morning, it got really nice towards the afternoon. Not being on the SNOW mountain helped too. One of the prettiest aspects of the old city part of Lijiang are the canals that run all through the area. They're not big enough to boat in, and they don't smell, even though they have fish in them. It's kind of like having a big fish pond running along side the streets of an entire area. We asked Kathy how the fish get there and she told us that it is a tradition for people to buy the goldfish of golden trout (both types are in there) and release them in the river/canal while making a wish. So, naturally we went out and found a place to buy our wish fish and release them into the canal. The lady selling them scooped the goldfish up with a copper ladel and one by one we got to release them into the canal while whispering a wish to our fish. The whole thing felt really special, and it was just fun being able to set one more lose in the canal.

After that we came here to the internet, where I typed half of this, but more on that in a bit. Then dinner- a Naxi style hot pot. We were led into a room with an old carved table and chairs, that I include because Ric and Drew, having rather long legs, didn't actually FIT under the table. oh well. The hot pot was literally a HUGE copper pot filled with broth, veggies and pork, and then out on our table were all sorts of other leafy greens and meate and mushrooms. We got to add all of those to the broth ourselves. Is hearing about the food boring? I hope not, I think my family will enjoy it at least. Besides, food is an important part of any culture, especially here. BUT ANYWAYS, after dinner we went to see a show of dances from China's different minorities. The dances were quite good and some were actually hilarious. Well, sometimes we humor in parts that I don't think we were supposed to such as two men on stilts coming out dressed as swans in tight white jumpsuits, flapping their majestic wings. oh boy. The show itself was supposed to be funny at parts though, and we all ended up liking it a lot. That brings me to right now- sitting in a HUGE room full of computers and teenagers playing every RPG possible. Especially WOW (world of warcraft)... in other words, we are in Drew's idea of heaven. But now the boys have left and Em is waiting for me so I must bid you all adieu. Sorry for any spelling errors, I'm not going to check this one over. Happy valentines day everyone!

See you all in one month and three weeks!

Reflections on Surprises

(Ric Luskin)

I knew China was going to be a land of surprises. Little did I know that my biggest surprise was arriving to find that I couldn't get into the country! I know that my border exploits were covered by the kids in an earlier blog - the good thing about being deported back to Kowloon was having unfettered access from the many available internet stations (my favorite being Pacific Coffee, a chain that for my money beats Starbucks hands down). If it hasn't already been noted, we can't access the blog from within China...

It goes without saying that if a visa issue was to arrise, it was far preferable for me to get bounced than Terry or one of the kids! The blood runs cold imagining what would have happened if it was one of the others who received the "Sorry... there is a problem..." greeting at customs. For me it was a minor inconvenience, albeit one frought with complications. A few days to cool my jets in an amazing international city - how painful could that be? Lets start with this premise. Imagine arriving in Manhattan on New Year's eve and needing to find a hotel room in Times Square. Now further imagine needing to get an official government document processed during Christmas when governemnt office are all closed. Suddenly both of these scenarios were my reality. Only I wasn't in New York. I was in Hong Kong which, although unquestionably international, is still a very foreign place.

To make a long story short, all worked out in the end and after a 48 hour delay I was able to savor a terrific reunion with Terry and the kids here in Yangshuo - a most amazing place to be sure. While I'd have preferred to have arrived like a "normal" China Exchange member, I certainly have a whole slew of separate adventures recorded in my journal that I will be happy to share with relatives and friends at a later date. In the meantime, gotta scoot to meet up with Team China for the next leg of our amazing journey. And while I welcome all of the surprises yet to come our way, I'm hoping that none will be quite as jarring as the one I experienced last Saturday at Guangzhou train station.

PS - even though I was deported, I still had to pay for the train ticket back to Hong Kong! You'd think deportation would be "free"...

Scooters and Cormorants

(Emily)

hi everyone. today was our free day in yangshuo! after a fitful night on box springs (better for your back?), we were ready to greet the day with gusto and verve. it started off cloudy , but by midmorning the sky had cleared up into a gorgeous sunny day (the second we've had so far), so team china was pretty stoked about the activities we had planned for ourselves. we had decided pretty early on that we wanted to go electric scootering instead of biking around the villages since they just seemed so much...faster. our tour guide of yesterday, rico, had pointed terry in the direction of uncle sam, a tour guide who rented scooters and bikes. he had an office on west street and we were his very first customers of the day (we got there before it technically opened). he was really nice and asked us where we wanted to go, showing us a map of yangshuo and the surrounding areas. we opted for the one less traveled by tourists and after some confusion and scooters not being charged enough, we were off!

we were quite the sight. cady got her powder blue scooter while i got yellow, a scooter that was....yellow to co-ordinate with my ginormous suitcase, also known as big yellow. nick had the same blue one as cady while drew and terry had the same yellow one as me. ric was special in that he got a very sleek silver scooter. after a rudimentary lesson on the controls of the scooter, we were on the main road, making a left turn with bikes and scooters and trucks (oh my indeed) whizzing by us, giving the stinkeye to the scared tourists. after a while on the main road, the traffic thinned out until we were the only ones on the wide open road, with mountains sprouted up in front of us with farms in the forefront. but the interesting part came when sam led us to a lesser road (read: dirt path) to a farming village, complete with stray dogs and water buffalo. it was so pretty, with trees of mandarin oranges flanking us and the mountains gleaming from the sunlight in the backdrop that we were speechless for a while. there were people working in the fields and people sunning themselves outside, appreciating the nice weather with a game of cards. the simple and happy life of the farmers made everything else seem so complicated in comparison (hold on while i charge my phone, ipod, camera, and laptop).

we also rode a water buffalo! there was a man farming in a field where we had stopped to take pictures of the li river and our surroundings. after taking pictures of him and the water buffalo (he was happily posing with it), he offered to let get on it. terry, nick, drew, cady, and i all jumped at the opportunity. i can now say that i have sat on the back of a water buffalo!

while our tour was supposed to last two hours, we didn't want it to stop and kept going. i took a couple of spills because of my habit of running over the divots in the road instead of around them, but it was worth it. i'd do it all again in a heartbeat. the view was breathtaking... rice paddies, orange trees, verdant mountains, dusty paths, traditional houses... i can't even begin to describe the happy feelings and calm that was washing over me as we were going through the small villages that looked so untouched by modernity. i didn't see any iphones! for the next group going to china: we all highly recommend renting scooters from uncle sam with a tour. scooters are faster than bikes, so we got to see more than if we had biked. not to mention the exhilaration of cruising around, on the bumpy roads, with the wind in your hair. it's all very lord of the rings, zelda-esque (team china has an obsession with lotr, zelda, and narnia... in fact, i just bought the ONE RING, which i found in a silver shop on west street)

we also went cormorant fishing with one of uncle sam's friends. we went at 7:30, the sun had already set, and met at the wharf. his friend had about five cormorants and a long wooden motor boat (which had a computer onboard). the li river was eerie at night, illuminated by only the lamps that were hanging off the bow of the boat to attract the fish. i kept thinking of the effect that the water gave in titanic, with the light reflecting off the water, flickering onto the stone cliffs. the cormorants were so cool! they have little mohawks and sounded like hippogriffs from harry potter. they were also really playful, nipping each other and splashing around on the river. they were tame and didn't have any leashes connecting them to the boat, but they did have strings around their neck to prevent them from swallowing the fish. once they had caught a fish, the fisherman would scoop them up on a pole and shake the fish from their beaks.

well that's all for today! zaijian!

"NO we're not a couple!"

(Yang Ni Ke aka Nick)

My entry into mainland China was not a very pleasant one. If you didn't already know, I got sick on the trainride from Hong Kong to Guangzhou. I then proceeded to vomit once again in our private room of probably the sketchiest restaurant I have ever been to. The tour of Guangzhou felt like a blur and all I wanted to do was sleep. Luckily I passed out in the hotel for 14 hours! I awoke feeling much better. Unfortunately, my experience in Guangzhou was not a very good one and I was rather happy to leave.

Guilin was amazing. A bit chilly but I guess that is to be expected considering its the coldest winter in China in the last century. The actual city is a little built up but the tall peaks surrounding it make it very picturesque. Last night after our tour of Guilin, we decided to get full body massages. We had our own private room. The massages were a little too much for the girls, but the rest of us found it relaxing. Cady and I are probably the two most ticklish human beings known to man, so of course we happened to be right next to each other during our massage session. We spent the whole time giggling. Our masseus' didn't really understand the concept of being ticklish and were kind of perplexed when we would just burst out into laughter. At one point we were laughing so hard, my masseuse asked me if Cady and I are a couple....which was greeted by a firm NO from each of us.

Today we went on the famous Li River cruise from Guilin to Yangshuo. Words cannot even describe the views we saw today...simply breathtaking. The mountains surrounding the Li River are very narrow and tall..it looks like another planet. The whole time we thought we were in the Lord of the Rings or Chronicles of Narnia! Our cruise lasted 4 hours. We had our own table inside where we got tea and lunch, but the whole boat was three stories high and the top story was open air for sightseeing (I spent the majority of the 4 hours of the cruise on this top story...brrrrr). I probably took a couple hundred photos in the span of 4 hours. Towards the end of the cruise, a Chinese girl approached Cady and I. We thought she wanted her picture taken but in fact she was just very friendly! We found out that she was a university student in Hangzhou of all places! We told her that we will be in Hangzhou in a couple weeks to study at Hangzhou High School, and she told us that it is the most well-regarded school in Hangzhou. The rest of the group joined us later and we spent the rest of the cruise talking with her...we used some of our (minimal) Chinese skills and she spoke amazing English. She then went down to the first story and brought up her family. Her family was very unique; her mom has a boyfriend from South Africa who lives in New Zealand but works in Abu Dhabi (wow). Her two step sisters live in London and New Zealand. We had a lot of fun meeting them and talking about both of our trips to China. We got a picture with them at the end! A very interesting family. Talk about international....We got the email address and phone number of Jessis (Jing Jing) so we can contact her when we get to Hangzhou....hopefully we can meet up!

Now we are in Yangshuo. It is by far my favorite place so far. Although it is reachable by car/bus, the fact that we took the Li river cruise to get to Yangshuo makes it feel all the more isolated. Yangshuo is very different from the other cities we've been to so far (Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Guilin) because it is not nearly as built up. There are no high-rise apartment complexes and it really does feel like a small town/village. It is very touristy but not in an western way. There is only one main street (West street) with lots of shops, cafes, restaurants, bars, and clubs. The architecture is very much Chinese. Yangshuo is a mountain village, surrounded by the skinny peaks of the Li River. In Guilin, these mysterious peaks surrounded the city, but in Yangshuo, the peaks are literally part of the city. The hotel we are staying at (The Paradise) is the best in Yangshuo and has a great location right on the end of West street. We spent all of yesterday afternoon shopping along West street for people at home (don't worry Mom and Dad, I did not forget about you!!!). Everything is so cheap and it is so much fun to bargain (Cady got two scarves down from 100 yuan to 25 yuan). Last night we went to a performance in Yangshuo that is the only theatrical performance in the world to use the water as a stage and the mountains as the background (according to our tour guide Rico). It was amazing...there were 600 actors total, 300 professional and 300 locals. It's kind of hard to describe the actual performance but it was just breathtaking..lots of special effects yet so natural being performed on the water with the Li river mountains the background! It was very well done (directed by Zhang Yimou), and its a very popular show in China right now (sells out every night), so thanks Rico for the suggestion!

After the show, we came back to the hotel and were greated by Ric who finally got into mainland China!!!!!!!! Terry was so happy to see him and so were we. It surprised us that he actually got here (he took a plane from Hong Kong to Guilin and took a taxi from Guilin to Yangshuo....dirt roads and all).

We are about to go rent mopeds to drive around the Yangshuo countryside so I must go. There is so much to talk about!!! Hope everyone is doing well in Dover-Sherborn. We are having so much fun!

Zaijian,
Yang Ni Ke

Flavor of Narnia!

(Ms. Luskin)

It was a relief to turn the calendar page to a new day today! Nick’s feeling ever so much better, and we could actually focus on the expedition from Guangzhou to Guilin. Our guide swept us along to the airport quite expeditiously, and moved us from the end of one check-in line to the very front of another – there is clearly some arcane airport wisdom that only guides are privy to!

A smooth flight, and we were met by Rico, the guide who arranged last year’s travel in Guilin and Yangshuo. He’s a young fellow not long out of university, easy-going and quite knowledgeable. Fubo Hill was our first stop after lunch: one of the limestone hills that tower so precipitously above the Li river plain. (I’d thought that hill images like these in Chinese paintings were idealized, based far more in fantasy than reality – and here was one rising up in front of us, exactly as pictured!) The surface was craggy, punctuated with greenery, and laced with the most remarkable switchback of stone steps; we agreed that this had such a flavor of Narnia! The small stone parapet at the top gave a fantastic view for miles in all directions.

From the great heights on to great depths: Reed Flute Cave was an extensive cave system with stalactites meeting stalagmites along a winding path, with moody lighting and occasional audio to help us visualize some folk-tale scenarios: a mirror covered with a drape to frighten a bad centipede away was not least among them! The students sang their way along quite merrily as we went!

A quick and chilly trip to Elephant Trunk Hill, the symbol of Guilin, and now we’re hoping to try acupressure foot massages before we pack it in for the day!