Picture... mine... yes...

Working my way through a PC that only shows Chinese text, is extremely difficult. I was able to get one picture on the internet but no promises about, size, qaulity, etc. I Walked on a stone path around a moutain yesterday and took this picture of Dali, and the nearby lake.

Just a quick update

I arrived in Dali this morning. It's population is maybe 50,000, and it is an ancient walled city. The area is beautiful, and I'm enjoying where I'm staying. Here is the best photo I could find of Dali, but it is still a pretty poor representation. I think I'm going to climb a nearby mountain tommarow which should take all day. Then the day after tommarow I'll head towards Lijang. Bye for know.

http://www.toursgallery.com/China_Photos/Dali.jpg

There is, somehow, an order to the chaos...

I figured it out, there are no stop signs, yeild signs, or descernable rules involving right-of-way on the road. I have seen so many close calls between cars, pedestrians, scooters, and bikes. I am absolutly shocked I have only seen two accidents. To top things of maybe 1 in every 100 people on scooters wear helmets, and no one on bikes wears anything more than a visor.

On a a different topic, a lot people yell here all the time and because of certian tones, it can really difficult to figure out if somone is telling you off, or greeting you politely. It's taking some getting used to.

The balloons have been worth their weight in gold, and have won me more good interactions with people than I could have imagined. I'll probably be needing some more in the next couple of weeks.

I have decided that I am going to go to the northern portion of Yunnan which is just a hop-skip-and-jump-away from Tibet. There I'll hike through the wilderness from village to village. Thats still at least a week off, but I'm pretty excited about it.

Gabie left last night, the Korean woman who I traveled from Guilin with. She was super sweet, and helped me pick up a significant amount of Chinese that would have been impossible for me alone. Also, talking about kind people, an American named Jessie took me out to dinner last night and helped me menuvre throught the maze that is a Chinese menu. It was really a fantastic dinner.

Last thing, they play all my fravorite Hong Kong films on television, undedited. It makes me really happy.

Ninja stealth skills don't fail me now.

Last night, at 3am, I woke up with one of those searing soar throats. The kind where swolloing water feels like your working down broken glass. To make things worse, I also woke up with a severe case of diarrhea. I picked up my water bottle only to realize it was completely empty. There was a water cooler in the lobby of the hostel, so I threw on my shoes and headed down. This is probably where I should explain that the layout of this hostel is unlike any other I have seen. It has been grafted onto the side of an office building and an apartment complex. Anyways, when I got down to the lobby, I realized that the door was locked and that there was no was no way I would be able to reach drinkable water. This was extremely disconcerting because it meant that we were locked in at night, and if there was an emergency, it would be difficult to get help becasue the only exit for the hostel is in the lobby.

The tap water is, as I have been told repeatedly, undrinkable. So, I began to explore the office building. I immediatly ran into a security gaurd, before I had even reached the bathrooms the hostel uses. I immediatly approached him and said "wo yao shui" (I need water) and pointed to my empty water bottle. He looked at me very blankly and said he didn't understand. I repeated myself multiple times pointing at my empty water bottle. Everytime he just shook hid head and looked very confused. "wo yao" is a pretty hard phrase to mess up, so I decided somthing else must be going on and went back to my room.

After a couple minutes I realized, unless I could get some water so I could take some imotran ib, I was going to be absolutely miserable all night. So walked out to explore again and this time didn't run into any security gaurds. After a little wandering I found myself in a large fenced in parking lot for the apartment complex. At the entrance gate, which was closed, there was a gaurd sitting in a chair sleeping. I mulled over the thought of trying my luck with talking to him, but it seemed like it might be a problem even explaining how I ended up in a the parking lot at 3:30 in the morning, so I decided to instead just hop the fence.

Sneaking through the parking lot and hopping the fence was not positivily effected by the fact I was wearing a bright white shirt, but I made it over without being noticed. I walked a couple of blocks to a main road, and went inside a very fancy hotel lobby hoping for directions to a 24hour market. I repeated my earlier question and pointed to my empty water bottle. A young man immediatly took me to a water cooler and I was able to fill up my water bottle.

Medicated, hydrated, and ready to go back to sleep I headed back to the hostel. I jumped the fence, and was at the doors of the office building when I heard footsteps running behind me. I spun around to see the security gaurd, who had been sleeping when I left, running across the parking lot towards me. I decided this was going to get really messy if I had to try to explain myself, and the security gaurds aren't armed, so I very non-chalantly made a break for the hostel. I ducked into my room, threw on a black shirt and jumped in bed. For the next 20 minutes there was a lot of people talking loudly, and running around the building, but nobody went into the hostel. Eventually, the niose faded and then dissapeared. Everything ended up working out. I didn't end up in a Chinese jail, and I was able to get some sleep.

I've decided I'm not going to spend the night at that hostel again, so I think I'll try to take the night train to Dali today.

I hope everyone is doing well.

People's Pictures

Here are some photos that other people took of places I've been.

The Yunnan Stone Gardens:

http://www.hpwt.de/China/Yunnan2.jpg

http://www.crystalinks.com/chinastoneforest.jpg

Yangshou:

http://www.pbase.com/lupkeen/image/35650244

http://www.photoatlas.com/photo/china_liliang_river_02.jpg

Damn you tones, damn you all to hell!

Well, I didn't end up spending one night in Guilin. I took an hour bus to a smaller town called Yangshoe. I wasn't feeling well later in the day after I made my last blog entry, plus,I just had an intense urge to get out of the city. Yangshoe was amazing in a number of ways. It has the most beautiful scenery I've ever seen, and is about the size of the city of Santa Cruz, or the U-District. What was truly bizzare was that I had been traveling for 4 days in China, struggling to talk to people, and eating very ethnic food. When I got to Yangshoe, it was like entering an amusment park in the states that was made to look like China. Everyone spoke English, there was western food, and everyone was really nice. After four days, it was a shock to come across a town that was completely westernized to attract tourists. While the city itself was a little annoying, just outside was amazing. I walked to some villages and had a great time. The funniest thing about Youngshoe was the fact that there were so many western tourists, and they were out numbered by Chinese tourists at least 10 to 1. This seemed pretty normal until it was explained to me that most of the Chinese tourists come to hang out with westerners, because Yangshoe is one of the few places in China that you can be garunteed to find them .

I ate soooo much cheese in Yangshoe. It made me so happy. I also found the second best hamburger I've ever eaten in the world. It was a very close second.

I left Youngshoe, and took a 21 hour train ride to Kunming. The train was pretty disgusting, hot, and unconfortable, but part of the adventure. Kunming isn't HUMID!!!! Yay!. Also, it is my favorite city so far in China. I ended up traveling to Kunmig with an older Korean woman who I met in Yangshoe. She speaks a little English, and a lot of Chinese. She helped me nail some important phrases and was good company on the train. I'm running into some major barriers with the tones. There are 4 tones in Mandarin, and 9 in Cantonese. Thank god China's official language isn't Cantonese.

I don't know how long I will be in Kunming, maybe 2-4 days, and then I'm off to Dali (Old City). I am expecting to lighten my load by a significant measure in the next week when I send half the stuff I'm lugging around home.

Points of interest:

There is an increase in sqautting of almost 800% in China over America. By sqautting I just mean the physical act of sqautting.

The culture here in relation to garbage is akin to that of a basball stadium, or to a lesser extent, a movie theater. People just throw everything on the ground. Chinese culture seems to have accounted for this by employing armies of people with simple handmade brooms. The real problem with this is that people here don't stop littering when they go someplace that doesn't have an army of street sweepers. I've watched a number of people throw trash such as plastics bags, and styrafoam containers onto gorgeous wilderness. It's hard to know what to do when you're a forienger and you see that happening.

Thanks for all the comments, and thank you mom for sending them to me via e-mail seeing that China has kindly blocked me from viewing it.

I heart Pinyin

Well, I had my first "adventure". It started at the main train station in Guangzhou. It is the busiest station in China and swarming with people. The rain hasn't let up in days, so the enormous plaza area was flooded. When I got inside and made it to the departure gate I was grabbed by a middle aged Cantonese woman with three children. She spoke decent english and immediatly began to tell me about her former missionary work. Her, her Russian husband and thier 9 children travel around the world "spreading the word of god" and talking about the antichrist. She was very sweet and also heading for Guilin so I decided to stick with her to make sure I got on my train. After a couple of minutes a Asian man in his 20's walked up and just stood next to me looking like he wanted to ask me somthing. When I turned to face him he immediatly blurted out that he was Korean and didn't know any Chinese. Of the 6 of us, it turned out that one of the children, a 12 year old boy, spoke the best mandarin. This became aparent when he informed us we were at the wrong gate and our train was leaving very soon. After a mad-dash for the train, I began my first 12 hour train ride.

After a brief exchange about someone being in my bed, everything sorted itself out, and I sat down across from 2 teenage girls. In the train beds(bunks) included a bottom, middle, and top. Across from these beds were 3 more with a small table in the middle. At the foot of the beds was a hallway with a miniture table and two fold-out seats. Between the exchanges the two young women had with other passengers, I was able to figure out that they were part of a shool group heading back to Guilin from Gongzhou.

Things were pretty akward so, in an attempt to lighten the mood, I whipped-up a ballon flower and gave it to them. Immediatly one grabbed my balloon creation and ran off. Less than a minute later she returned with a flock of teenage girls which decended upon me. During this time I was able to practice my Chinese, so it turned out to be very positive while also being very unconfortable for me. As I stumbled over the Chinese word Ting, which means listen, stop, and please, an off Duty policeman came down from the bunk above me. He turned out to be very nice and spoke a little bit of English. At about 10pm I said I needed sleep and and everybody dispersed, but not without taking at least 16 pictures of me. This was even more unconfrotable than just being teh center of attention.

And so began my first full night on a train. I enjoyed the rocking motion and soon was fast-asleep. I had been told by the policeman that the bottom bunk, which is what I had, was the nicest, and most exspensive bunk.

At 12am I awoke to water splashing across my face and a weird almost grinding sound. I was still half asleep so nothing was really registering. Shortly after the first berrage, even more water splashed across my face accompanied with that horrible sound. Then, suddenlt, I realized that the sound was in fact gagging. I immediatly sat up just as the young man in the middle bunk across from me vomited on me, the floor, and himself a third time. As I scrambled to get out of bed the policeman sleeping above me jumped down also. It turns out that the teenage boy, who couldn't hold his liqiour, was projectile vomiting so hard that he was clearing the gap between the two sets of beds and hitting the policeman across from him too. Both covered in puke, the policeman and I ran to the washroom, which was the only lit room on the train at this point. The damage was pretty bad, with little pieces of noodle (mien) all over my shirt, face, and hair.

15 Minutes and a bottle of hand sanitizer later, I felt relitivly clean. The policeman and I joked about the experience for a while and sat down at the small table and fold out chairs in the hallway across from our beds. Just as I was going over the difference between saying 4 and 10, the young vomiteer sat up facing us and threw-up again, out over his bed, across the hallway, and onto the very seats we were siting on. The policeman and I immediatly scattered, each running in different directions through the train. This time I escaped, but the policeman wasn't so lucky.

After a second showering, the Policeman showed me to an empty top bunk, far away from my original and informed me that I should sleep there. This was extremely nice of him, and I spent the rest of the night devoid of any bodily fluids.

I arrived in Guilin at 7am and immediatly made for the local youth hostel. When I arrived on the spot, there was no hostel. As I stood there looking, I'm sure, bewildered, an older Chinese man appeared and asked me if I was looking for the Guilin Internation Youth Hostel. I said "yes", and we began talking. As our conversation progressed I learned that he was the owner of the hostel and that he had shut it down for repairs. His name was Mike Lu and I guess he owns a number of hotels in the area. He offered to walk me 8 blocks to his cheapest hotel, which was confirmed by the Lonley Planet. He was good conversation, and got me a single room at half the normal price. Half the "normal price" is probably standard for people who aren't western but it was still very welcome.

Lastly, an older woman walked me three blocks and set me up with internet here. So far I have been very impressed, and am thankful for all of the kindness I have recieved. It would be safe to say that I have been quite reliant on the kindness of strangers.

Points of interest:

I had my first returant experience where I spoke only Chinese. It went flawlessly. Later, on a different outing I tried to order pork and rice, but got beef and noodles. I guess I have some kinks to work out.

The food is fantastic and super cheap, usually under 1 American dollar

I had my first Chinese toilet (really just a hole in the ground) experience. It wasn't nearly as bad as I had been told.

The drivers and pedestrians are far crazier than New York, which is the only comparable city I have been to.

My blog is blocked from viewing in mainland China.

Wo Yao/Bo Yao

I realize that a lot of my shock with China involves coming to a place where I can't read anything or communicate with anyone. So far nothing has been too suprising though. I am actually pretty happy about the language barrier. It turns out to be a very exciting challenge which I am enjoying immensely. The challenge is: learn as much of a language as possible, as fast as you can, so that you can survive in a foriegn country. So I'm starting at the beggining as I imagine I did as a child with I want/need "insert noun here" and "I don't want/need". Building from there I beleive I'll be able to handle everything China could throw at me... eventually. I had my first resturant experience last night where I spoke only Mandarin.

Gaungzhou is an interesting city. There is an amazing distinction between the middle class and poor. The poor neighborhoods are amazing with a significant amount of character. I've enjoyed spending most of my time walking through grundgy back alleys and getting stared/pointed at. Well I don't enjoy the starring, but its still less than when I had pink hair.

I leave today for Guilin.

Two more great t-shirts:
I want grow up, not blow up.

Global Warming, Bird Vision, Don't Recycle (Then there was the recycle symbol with and arrow breaking off so that and point away from the cycle. Its one of the coolest things I've seen in a while.)

Hope you're all doing well.

Things just got a lot more exciting.

Well, I'm in Gaungzhou and while I may have been prepared for anything it was impossible not to be a little blown away by everything. I'm spending an extra day in Gangzhou so I don't have to travel over the weekend, which I hear can be a nightmare. The train trip will last about 13 hours. I will be heading to Guilin in the Guangxi province.

My first impression is probably:
There are soooooo many people here. The second thought to enter my head is, "oh shit, I need to learn Mandarin". I expected this and am enjoying trying to pick up as much as I can as fast as I can. My vocabulary is about 20 words and 10 phrases which I hope to triple within the next couple of days.

China is truly an assualt on the nose and the beggars here like to grab people. I've had to be very assertive with people about personal space, which seems to be understood slightly differently here.

I am loving everything. I have to throw out a special thanks to the young man sitting next to me who stopped whatever he was doing and walked me three blocks to a internet station. Also, Sam saved me a huge amount of time by helping me get my wits about me when I first arrived. I'm on my own now and every moment is quite an adventure.

I hope everyone is doing well.

Waiting an extra day

I've decided to wait an extra day before I leave for China. I'm doing this so I can travel the first day with someone I met at the hostel named Sam. He's from Holland and will be good company for the 4-5 hour train ride.

Nothing new today, just got my visa, and am getting my stuff together for China. The stories I've been hearing are making me both excited and trepidatious.

Well, ta ta for now.

It's the little things.

Some small differences:
1)No knapkins (the facial tissue here is thicker than usual and is sometimes used in place of knapkins)
2)There is a difference in private vs. public space that I can't quite put into words.
3)Vendors tend to have a more aggresive selling style. This behavior is not limited to foreigners.
4)Begging seems to be done mainly by very old women, and older handicap individuals. Older women often seem to beg on their elbows and knees with their hand's clasped together like they are praying.
5)There really does't seem to be any visible homeless youth or young adults. Even more fascinating is the fact that I can't find a street culture whatsoever... at least in the terms that I would understand it as a westerner.
6)Pork and Beef cereal.
7)ATM keypads often have not letter and are are flipped with the lower numbers at the bottom.
8)Very little graffiti and tagging except on one wall in Kowloon which seemed to be some community art wall.
9)Everything is priced in whole numbers such as 1.00, 2.00, 3.00... Every once in a while something is 9.50, but that doesn't seem to be the norm.

I leave for Guangzhou on the mainland tommarow afternoon. Yay!

Stuff, stuff, and some more stuff.

The Ascension House website has photos of the house, the two couples running it, and the surrounding area. Yes, it is Christian but not in the way that forces, or even pressures you to participate. Here's the address to the website:
www.achouse.com
The house is very near a Bhuddist Monastary, and the Temple of 10,000 Bhuddas in Shin Tin.

Shopping is so cheap here. I just bought a brand new pair of pants for 3 US dollars. People I know who have major shopping tendencies could be in a lot of trouble traveling in Hong Kong.

Ascension House, where I am staying at the moment, is located on the side of a moutain next to a Christian retreat that is a converted Bhuddist Monastary. Yesterday when I pulled into the train station I noticed it was raining. I thought it would be fun to walk up the hill to the hostel and get a little wet. The walk is about 15 minutes because the house is pretty secluded. It was on this walk I got a better idea of how intense a tropical rain storm can be. I was in an ankle deep stream the entire walk up the hill. When I reached the top I emptyed out well over an inch of water from my "water proof" day bag. I was pretty suprised that the house I was staying at didn't just slide down into the city.

I will be picking up my visa on Friday, and leaving immediatly after that for Gongzou. The plan so far includes heading towards a place called tiger leaping gorge.

Adventures in food

I've started getting involved in the local cuisine over the last couple of days. My first experience involved a lot of pointing and then getting a noodle/pasta soup. It wasn't until I was half way through that I realized the noodles were in fact goose intestine. Once I realized this I tried to be adventerous and eat more, but I just couldn't do it.

I also recently ordered somthing with chicken in it, which was not quite what I expected. I guess in China they just dice the chicken, bones, skin, and everything. So when you get a dish with chicken you actually get chunks of bird which you have to seperate into meat, and other stuff, in your mouth. I feel that this will drasticly effect my chicken intake over the rest of the trip.

To be honest, I would have prefered to stick to vegetable dishes so far, but it's hard to find food without meat in it. In fact, its seems rare to find food that has less than two different kinds of meat in it. I hope this changes in China, because I have a lot of trouble trusting how meat is handled and cooked here.

Anyways, my foot is feeling a little better and I think I'm starting to get an idea of how I want to start traveling in China. Everything is going according to plan... which is no plan.

My american t-shirt

The three best American t-shirts I've seen since I arrived in Hong Kong.

1) An older woman (in her 60's) with a shirt that said:
Gremilins:
Don't get them wet,
Don't feed them after midnight.

2) A really clean cut preppy kid with a shirt that had a huge pot leaf on it and said "marijuana, ganga".

3) A young woman with a shirt that:
She Bang, Bang, Bangs.

I hurt my foot last night trying to get back to the hostel so I'm taking a much needed break from running around. Everything is good.

COFFEE, COFFEE, COFFEE!!!!!!!

Yesterday I checked into a Danish/Norwegien Christian run hostel. It's a pretty amazing place, and I can only hope that my hostel experiences continue to be this fanscinating. English is the official language of the house, and two young Danish couples run everything. For 15 US dollars you get three meals, a place to sleep and they do your laundry. The Hostel (The Ascension House) is located on the side of a mountian overlooking Shin Tin which is north of Kowloon. I have been offered coffee 5 times since I got to the hostel, which I am told is part of Danish culture. So much coffee may also explain the intense game of Uno which was played last night, which was louder and crazier than I thought was possible for a card game. I'm off to see some monkeys today and then mostly rest.

Vegetarian Lunch

Yesterday I visited the worlds largest outdoor Bhudda. It was pretty much "Bhudda Land" minus a whole bunch of people running around in plushy Boddhisatva costumes posing for pictures with the family. It was gorgious scenery though. The temple and Bhudda are at the base of Latnua Peak, the highest point in Hong Kong. When I arrived at it's base, the top was obscured by clouds. Having it on good authority there was a well kept path to the top, I found my way to the trailhead and began to climb it. I hit the peak within an hour, and then ran down the otherside.

Today I walked through the markets. The markets are located in Kwaloon, across from Hong Kong island. It's grittier in Kwaloon and I enjoyed it more than I have walking around the central part of the city. The fish and bird markets were great and included a wide variety of grotesque looking guppies, and olde chinese men with cages full of tame finches. Also, today I'm going to check into a youth hostel. I think it will be a good change, and I'll have a chance to meet other people traveling asia.

Everything has been going very smoothly.

4:50am Thursday HK-1:50pm Wednesday SF

I'm "rested", showered, and feeling a whole hell-of-a-lot better than I did 8 hours ago. Drew, the friend of a friend I'm staying with is probably one of the sweetest people I've met in a long time. He gave me a spare key to get into his apartment, made me dinner, and has offered up extremely valuable travel information. He also has high speed internet, and is letting me use his cell phone to call home. This has made everything actually pretty relaxing for my first day/night in Hong Kong. I really didn't expect things to be calm at all. Don't get me wrong though, I'm not complaining. This will make HK a good warm up for Southern China.

So, Hong Kong. The best way I can think to describe it is in a recipe.

Robert's Hong Kong City Recipe:

Take New York city, and mix it with its own China town. Then Stuff the resulting city (Chinese Manhattan/ Brooklyn) into a space the size of Santa Cruz. Now make sure the city is super clean, and take out anybody who is homeless, begging, or crazy. Add some British people. In a seperate bowl mix some mountainous terrain, tons of stairs, and the worlds longest outdoor escelator. Add everything together and beat until there are no chunks. Lastly, bake at 350 degrees for 164 years, or until golden brown. Now Of course that falls short of truly describing the city but its the best I can do.

Random points of interest:
There are a lot of cool museums here and they are all about a US dollar to get into, or they're just free. That makes me very happy. The mass transit system is by far the best I have ever had the pleasure of using. I couldn't pronounce the first meal I ate here, becasue it was in French. Most of the parks are weird and super fake looking so far. I met some awesome people in a cafe, and might do some sight seeing with them. It is pretty humid here and, as I am told, it's going to get a lot hotter.

I think thats most of it. Bye.

No padding in water.

The stories about my failure to enter Hong Kong were greatly exagerated. Immigration was all sunshine and lollipops. In fact I nodded three times between immigration and customs, but didn't even breathe a word. Not a problem at all. I don't quite know how to describe Hong Kong right know except that everything seems like a dream (I'm aware of how cliche that sounds).

So far I've ridden an escalator that was almost 3/4 of a mile long, seen a great botanical and zooilogical garden, and a fansicnating exhibit on foot binding at the Hong Kong Medical Museum. No truly crazy adventures though. The law isn't breathing down my back, and monkeys have yet to fling their fieces at me. It looks like I'm in the clear.

I'll write more about the specifics of the trip when I have more time. Super Lucky Seafood Resturant to all of you.

Poorly constructed jokes, and the likes...

What drives me? No really, why on earth am I giving up all the comforts and securities I ever known indefinitely?

Its funny how it has been impossible for me to explain why I'm doing what I'm doing. Not understanding my desires is a reoccurring theme in my life. Most recently I poured myself in my job as the coordinator of a homeless youth program and did not question my devotion to the youth and young adults I worked with until last month when I decided to leave Seattle. Not once did I truly have a good explanation why I was there.

Anyways, I think I may have finally figured it out. Maybe everything is as simple as: what makes me happy is constantly challenging myself to grow and understand who I am and my surroundings. I guess I'm really lucky if that's the case, because if that makes me happy, it's something I can work on for the rest of my life.

I leave in 7 hours. I'm starting to feel butterflies in my stomach... I probably shouldn't have been eating so many caterpillars. Ha! ha, ha, hmmmm. Sorry, I guess that joke was pretty bad.

Maybe the shortest trip to Hong Kong ever.

So, it sounds like my first adventure, on my trip will be trying not to get sent back to the U.S. from Hong Kong by immigration. When I bought my one-way ticket, the Chinese consulate said, "Sure, one-way tickets are fine". Then when I was confirming my plane ticket four days before I left, I was told that sure, that's something the consulate would say, but immigration will turn me right back around.

Well, we can only hope that this information may be distorted or exaggerated for various reasons unbeknownst to me. On the other hand maybe my trip to Hong Kong will last as long as it takes me to get a flight back to the United States. Whatever the case is, it’s going to be exciting.

Truly, I don't believe that there is a ton to worry about, but not knowing anyone who has ever traveled to Hong Kong on a one-way ticket, I won't know for sure until I get there.

I think I arrive in the morning on Tuesday, so I'll post as soon as I can to fill you in on what’s going on.