Orchestrated Beauty

(Alaina)

Hello all!

I believe Alex left you just after our flight to Guilin, so that’s where I’ll pick up. We were all excited to start a leg of our journey that involves fewer English signs, and more China… whatever that may be. The city of Guilin has been a perfect introduction. Guilin is both a prefecture and a city at the center of the prefecture, all within the autonomous region of the Zhuang people. Zhuang is one of the many ethnic minorities in China, and it happens to be the most prevalent. The Autonomous Region status guarantees that the representatives from the area are all Zhuang, and gives other special considerations, such as exception from the one child policy. If anyone has been to Vietnam, Guilin reminds me very much of Hue. While it has all the trappings of a large city, the pace of life is clearly much slower and less frantic than Hong Kong or New York. What was interesting to learn was that even the peace is government maintained. Because of its beautiful location, the economy of Guilin centers around tourism, so in1998 the government rebuilt most of the city to better accommodate all the Western and Chinese tourists. To make sure the city remains tourist friendly, the government has placed industry restrictions and even building height regulations. The resulting city is fascinating. The beauty is a unique combination of extreme modernity, tradition, and nature. It does seem apparent, however, that all the beauty is carefully calculated. For example, there is a famous rock that looks like an elephant drinking water. It’s very green and lush; apparently the government planted trees on it just so they could charge people to visit. Much of the construction looks traditional (though it was recently built), while the posts of street lights are tubes of neon light, and behind it all rise ragged mountains.

Anyway, in Guilin we checked into a very lavish hotel. I don’t remember the details of dinner (shock!). We visited a night market, which was fun, but seemed a bit more touristy than some of us were looking for. We woke up early and Cassie Alex and I ventured out to find breakfast. We were surprised to find that at 8:30 there was virtually nothing open save for a few 24 hour fast food joints. We ended up going to McDonalds, though even there they couldn’t give us coffee because it hadn’t been made yet. It seems that America wakes much earlier than China. (I could get used to the late start here.) We then took a van to a wharf on the Li River where we began a 5 hour cruise. The Guilin region is known for one of the most quintessential topographies of China. Google the Li River, and you’ll recognize the mountains from classical Chinese paintings. The boat we took was very nice- two floors of seating and a third floor for viewing. All the boats are owned by the government, which presumably gets direct profit from the tourists. As our boat (which was following a long string of others) proceeded down the river, the mountains enveloped us on both sides. It was pretty cold outside, but we had perfect seats so I was very happy to watch the beautiful scenery and relax for a bit.

The cruise brought us to Yangshuo, a smaller city of the Guilin prefecture. It used to be a fishing village, but I think it’s evolved as another tourist destination. West Street is the hub of activity, where both sides of the road are lined with endless stalls of everything imaginable. You can’t take a step without being offered scarves, caricature drawings, scroll paintings, and so many handicrafts. We spent several hours walking through the market. I had fun trying food. I got a cup of this warm sweet black sesame goop that looks like sludge but tastes pretty good, Cassie and I got some great dumplings, and we all tried dried persimmons. I’m not feeling so great right now, and I suspect one of the above as the culprit… they were all yummy though, so I think it’s worth it in the long run. (And now I have time to write a super blog!) We got dinner at a nice café, my favorite dish being a delicious orange chicken. There was also a great soup of clear broth, mushrooms, lettuce stuff, and chicken, and a dish of spicy beef, onions, and peppers.

After dinner we went to see a show directed by the famous Zhang Yimou, who created the opening ceremony of last year’s Olympics. He’s gone on to do much since the Olympics, but the Yangshuo show was his first major one. After fighting through a huge crowd, we eventually found our seats. The “stage” is a large lake-like portion of the Li River. I honestly can’t describe the show because it was a) so innovative and b) so trippy that I’m not even sure what was happening half the time. Seriously, save a shroom and come see this show instead. At various points there were several hundred people lined in white lights standing on walkways through the water, a woman dancing on a giant rolling moon, and dozens of kids in canoes with flaming torches. All the while, the mountains would sometimes be lit with white or multicolored lights (coming from projectors). The whole place would be black, and then suddenly purple mountains would spring out of nowhere. I had to keep reminding myself that they were actually there and not some surreal backdrop. There are over 600 actors- interestingly, 300 are professionals and 300 are local fishermen, children, etc.

Okay, this blog is now quite long. But then, the things we’re doing and seeing are quite exciting :)

Thanks for reading

Jet Lag in Hong Kong (Mon/Tue)

(Alex)

After sleeping through an entire afternoon and waking up at 11:30 pm, I was wide awake all night and early morning. Out of the five of us, I by far have the worst jet lag, which is causing me to be perpetually tired! I was able to stay awake long enough for the peak tram and zoological gardens, but once the boat cruise and dinner hit, I was completely knocked out.

The weather was misty and foggy, but we could still see the Hong Kong skyline quite well. After a standard western buffet breakfast overlooking Victoria Harbor, we set out on a ferry to reach Hong Kong island. After struggling to find exact change for the bus ride to the peak, we finally reached it in the knick of time (when we came down, the line was a few blocks long!). The tram up was insane because of the extremely high angle the tram goes up. The tram ride reminded me of Lombard street in San Francisco, except for the fact that there is A) no trolley on such a steep angle in San Francisco and B) the tram was absolutely packed and seemed to exceed the weight limit…but we survived. Once we reached the top I was surprised to see that Victoria Peak was actually a giant shopping area and restaurant hangout. The gift shop was literally 20 feet from exiting the tram, and the first thing you passed through. This is just one more example of how Hong Kong is the most commercial city I have ever been to.

After planning out more of the day in a mountain top Starbucks, we decided that we would go check out the botanical and zoological gardens around the corner for the peak tram. This was by far the highlight of the day. We had a blast getting there and climbing steep sidewalks you would never find in the US. Once we got there, we began wandering around the zoo and found a very large amount of names carved into trees. We all marveled at how clean a city Hong Kong is, and Alaina documented this first hand. She took pictures of as many signs that had fines on them as possible. There are huge fines for spitting, hawking, feeding animals, and of course: illegal photography. After 15 minutes of plant admiration, we stumbled onto birds of all sorts and my favorite: cranes. Mrs. Thibeault and I were watching these beautiful cranes when one of them started purring and walked up to us. We were officially having a stare off with a very big bird. After he/she left us, we moved onto the mammals section which was the best part of the zoo. Monkeys were all over the place jumping from tree to tree in their caged off areas, but the one thing that caught our eyes were the raccoons on display. Two very large and very lazy raccoons were just trying to sleep atop a branch, but one of the raccoons couldn’t make up his mind about which way to put his head down (this reminded me of myself on the plane over…) then right as we were about to leave, the same raccoon decided he wanted some exercise, so he climbed down the cage very slowly, dangling off the edge. We all joked about that being the raccoons daily exercise and promptly left the zoo.

Getting back to the hotel, we all went out to eat lunch at a place that Mrs. Thibeault, Cassie, and Lauren visited the night before and this lunch was pretty amazing for Hong Kong. It was a nice break from the western styled breakfasts and other bad Chinese meals we had because this restaurant not only had good food but also had a great atmosphere. We were cramped into a small table that barely fit us all and as soon as we finished we were kicked out of the restaurant to make room for others coming in. It was at this point I almost passed out. We all joked about taking a siesta, but I actually wanted to.

We all met at the hotel across the street for our bus to a Chinese dinner and fireworks show, but I was struggling so hard to stay awake from my serious jet lag. We had dinner at a gathering in a Hong Kong hotel and we sat with a group of Panamanian and Venezuelan travelers who spoke great English (even though they were only talking to each other and ignoring us for the most part). The dinner was not very good, but we wouldn’t let that get in the way of our fun. Once we reached the boat we were all tired, but once the fireworks started we all got up to see them. The show was great and there were tons of boats in the harbor gathered to see as well. One particular boat was an old wooden sloop named bounty and the silhouette of the ship on the skyline was very aesthetic and cool. All this time I was about to pass out, but I still had a good time in the end.

The next day wasn’t so nice to me…I woke up tired and dizzy and didn’t stop feeling that way until we reached Guilin. The travel that day was fine, but the jet lag was still hitting me full force three days later (lucky me). Our guide Rico has been awesome so far with helping to plan out our visit to Yangshuo, helping us find electric converters, and getting us our first Chinese dinner on the mainland.

We've Arrived! (First post of 2010)

(Cassie)

Ni hao and happy Valentine’s Day from China! Tonight is our second night in Hong Kong, but I was far too worn out to write last night. Anyway, flights make for boring writing. Especially ours, which were long, yet relatively painless considering the fact that we spent about twenty four hours traveling from the time that our first flight took off until we entered our hotel rooms. But enough about that??

Hong Kong is remarkable in that it feels a lot like a larger, more populous version of New York City. It is, however, much cleaner and has a more beautiful location. Our drive from the airport to our hotel took us across a very long (in fact the world’s longest) suspension bridge and gave us a gorgeous view of Hong Kong Island’s lush hills and seemingly endless high-rises. When we got to the hotel, Alex was down for the count, but the girls decided to go out on the town (in a manner of speaking). After getting into the elevator and forgetting to actually press a button for a while (we were all a bit out of it) we took to the streets to find almost everything?closed! As last night was Chinese New Year’s Eve, many of the shops had closed up early. This left the streets of Hong Kong feeling vaguely strange and emptier than expected.

This morning, however, the city was bustling. Although many businesses were still closed, many people were out and about. After breakfast, we decided to brave the Hong Kong subway (which is actually called the train here) to find a temple in different area of the city. We pushed random buttons on the ticket dispenser until finally figuring out how to use it, then spent another twenty minutes attempting to figure out where to go until Alaina finally suggested we wing it. Luckily, we ended up figuring things out and landed in Tsuen Wan, home of the Man Mo Temple. I have to say, I can’t get over how CLEAN the subway was. And they’re always on time.

After we all wrestled with our terrible senses of direction, we found the Man Mo Temple. It was a little oasis in the city, with trees around it and a little park across the street. The temple was dedicated to filial worship. Plaques with photographs and names of loved ones decorated the walls. In one room of the temple, huge coils of incense hung from the ceiling and people walked with bundles of burning sticks of incense to bow in front of altars overburdened with offerings of food. It was packed with people and smoke from the incense clouded the air, giving the temple an atmosphere of both chaos and mystery.

We left the temple to roam the surrounding streets, finding a stall selling antique cricket cages, jade, and Cultural Revolution era relics. After a bit more exploring, we headed back over to the hotel, where everyone but Lauren napped. We woke to head back out into the city for the “Festive Hong Kong 2010 Night Parade.” Alex was feeling exhausted, so he opted to stay in for the night. As the parade was due to start about an hour and a half after we left the hotel, we decided to stake out a good spot on the street and brave the long wait. Finally, two and a half hours after we had begun to wait and an hour after it was supposed to start, the parade reached us. It was a very interesting parade, and not quite what we expected. Among dragons, dancing girls in ethnic costumes, and a Chinese marching band were a Swiss band called the Tigers and?the San Diego Chargers cheerleaders?! Weird. The guys from SSpain next to us seemed to like them though. The cheerleaders were the final straw for Alaina and I, so after three hours of standing near the parade route we decided to head back to the hotel. Sandy and Lauren hung in there for the rest of the parade, and said it was worth the wait, but far more multi-national than expected. Frankly, there weren’t enough dragons for me.

Lauren and Sandy returned to the hotel, and the three of us went in search of food. We ended up finding a restaurant on a side street that was busy – always a good sign. We sat down to what we all considered to be the first truly Chinese meal we had eaten since we got here. It was delicious. That’s pretty much all for now. As much fun as I’m having here, I miss everyone at home! Kayla, here’s your shout out…I hope you’re reading! Goodbye for now?zhu nimen xin nian hao!