As I sit here in my childhood room, watching repeats of The Amazing Race, part of me is very glad to be home and finally recovering from jet lag and a head cold, but the other part of me wants to be traveling again - but maybe someplace besides China!

Anyhow, thought I would recount my trip to Pingyao a few weeks ago. I went during the first week of August and had been originally hoping to go to Qingdao. Unfortunately, all of the tickets were booked. That ended up being a good thing, because Qingdao was rained out all weekend due to a major typhoon that hit China's east coast. Instead, I decided to grab tickets to Pingyao, a preserved Ming-era city in Shanxi province. The train was about 8 hours from Beijing, but I was nervous off the bat about being able to get tickets home. The always trusty, yet often faulty, Lonely Planet suggested getting tickets to Taiyuan, the provincial capital, and then buy return tickets to Beijing there, rather than from Pingyao, because there were more train options from Taiyuan. This was actually a good idea, because it also gave me multiple options to get to Pingyao. Thus, I bought hard sleeper tickets to Pingyao and prayed that I'd be able to get back for Monday morning.

I had Chinese class the night my train left, so I rushed home to change out of my suit, grab my pre-packed bags and head back off to Beijing Train Station. I made it to the station with time to spare and boarded my train. It was an older train, but it had a nice sleeper car. I had the middle bunk, which was perfect, since I could see out the window but didn't have to share the bottom bunk with swarms of Chinese travelers. I ended up basically bunkering down and going to straight to bed, since the train arrived in Taiyuan at around 7 am the next morning. I awoke about an hour before we got to the station, and when we got to Taiyuan, I filed out with the rest of the travelers to the main station plaza. Of course, I then went straight to the ticket counter and attempted to purchase sleeper tickets back to Beijing for the following evening. As I entered the ticket hall, I noticed a large electronic sign that listed the availability of tickets back to Beijing and saw that there were none available - for some trains, not even hard seats were available. Great. With memories of Nanjing 1999 in my head, I started surveying various train ticket booths, hotels and travel agencies throughout Taiyuan (a much more working class city than Beijing, btw). Long story short, no train tickets. Yuck. I finally sucked it up and bought a plane ticket home at the China Eastern Airlines office - even though the flight was actually on Hainan Airlines.

Well, I was kind of annoyed at having to spend most of my travel budget on a flight home, but I made my way back to the train station to get a ticket to Pingyao. Unfortunately, since I had taken so long to find a flight home, I missed the first trains down to Pingyao and ended up on a slow local train down there that didn't even leave until noon (it was only 10 am at the time). I wasted time by eating a burger at McDonald's on May 1st Square (exciting...not) and then headed back to the station again! When I got the train boarding area, I realized this would be a crazy train, as I had an unreserved seat and there were masses of people at the boarding gate. As they flung the gates open, I rushed toward to car that seemed most promising, but in the process, my passport fell out of my crappy money belt, so I had to stop and grab it! I made it into a car, full of hard bench seats, open windows and broken fans and forced my way into a seat. I refused to stand 2 hours on a trip to Pingyao! (BTW, my photos show the grandeur that IS hard seat!)

2 hours of spitting, smoking and sweating later, we rolled into Pingyao, after literally sitting on the slowest train in China! When I got to Pingyao, I bought train tickets back to Taiyuan in order to catch my flight home. Little did I know that I could have purchased much later tickets - but more on that below. I jostled through a couple of cab drivers and finally found one who offered me an OK price - still too high I think - and then started my trek into the old city of Pingyao. Throughout the entire day, I had been questioning whether this trip was worth it (esp. with the hassles and the costs). When we drove through the north gate of the preserved city walls and into the old city, I decided it was well worth it. Pingyao was like a set out of a Zhang Yimou period movie. Yes, touristy parts in the center, but like Yangshuo and Lijiang, there were a lot of very untouristed places literally steps away from the main drag (places I was surprised that more people did not visit given the proximity - I guess the language barrier could have been an issue).

My driver took me to the guesthouse in the Lonely Planet and escorted me inside to make sure I was happy! My guess is that he got some sort of a kickback from the place for bringing foreigners in from the train station. Anyhow, the place was pleasant - an old style Chinese courtyard house. I tried to bargain for a cheaper rate on a single room with bathroom, but didn't get too far when I realized I could save more by getting a room with shared bathroom. That was fine for me and I'd already spent far too much that day on plane tickets so I settled in. I changed out of my dirty clothes, took a shower and then decided to go out and explore the city. Before I left though, I talked to a little Chinese boy who was playing with a kitten. He was fascinated by my digital camera, so I let him look at it a bit and we talked about his kitty. (There is a pic of him on my Pingyao album.) The old city of Pingyao doesn't allow a lof of cars on the roads, so it's mostly pedestrian traffic, bikes and smaller carts and scooters. The main road, Qing Ming Street, had a bit of touristy feel - gussied up with lanterns and a lot of vendors, but still fairly authentic with original buildings all around. It was great to be in a city where the tallest building was the 3 story pagoda in the center of town! I soon learned that all of the major sights in the city were accessible by purchasing a single 90 kuai ticket, which was not bad since it covered over 20 different museums and temples. I first visited an old pawn shop and toured the old offices and residences, including an awesome underground vault meant for holding all of the valuables. It was (and is) protected by a small shrine to Buddha in the vault. I crawled down there without bumping me head, and it was nice and cool - a break from the hot weather. I also visited Rishenchang - China's first bank. This bank grew to nationwide status in the 1800s and would probably still be around today if it weren't for the Japanese invasion and subsequent Communist revolution. A lot of Chinese tourists there and not many English signs, but you got a good idea about how the Chinese came up with their own system of checkable accounts, bonds, loans and other modern banking tools that were also being used in the West at the time.

My exploration also took me to a martial arts museum, which showcases some weapons and profiled some local martial arts masters from over the centuries. Throughout all of this, I had some nice interactions with the locals, who seemed to appreciate a foreigner who could speak Chinese. I also noticed that most off the foreigners in Pingyao were French, which I found very interesting. Don't know why there were so few Americans or Brits. After touring about, I got a little tired of seeing so many tourists so I headed down one of the non-touristed streets and started exploring. Right off the main road, there were many pleasant streets that felt more authentic - still historic but less cleaned up and more "lived in." Got some looks and some smiles and had a few conversations - mostly with kids playing in the street, all of whom knew the word "hello" and some who knew surprisingly more. Got some great pics of street life, esp. some old guys playing chess. I went and checked out the east gate of the wall and walked to to outer part of Pingyao, where the city was more rundown but still fairly traditional. A lot of old men out on the street talking and playing games.

Back in the walled city, I went to a few temples, including a Taoist temple that reminded me a bit of a temple in Beijing, as well as the City God temple. That was interesting since I had studied about city gods when I wrote my thesis at CMC. Near the City God temple, there was a Catholic church! I was surprised and went inside. Despite being a very bad Catholic, I felt compelled to go in and genuflect at the altar and pray for a bit. I'm glad I did because the experience was really neat. There were a number of worshippers there, all Chinese, who seemed to be singing/chanting prayers, but there was no priest at the altar. I'm not sure if it was supposed to be Mass or what, but they kept standing and kneeling, so I followed along. The interior of the church had pictures of Jesus and Mary and some basic Christian art. They finished the "service" and as I walked out, I blessed myself with holy water and was stopped by a Chinese woman. She kept saying "Thank You" in Chinese - I guess she was touched that a foreigner would come and pray at their church. I'm not sure if this was simply Christian/Chinese welcoming or maybe a thanks for support given the sometimes oppresive regime that Chinese Catholics have to live under. Whatever it was, I found it very touching and made sure to leave a little bit of money in the collection box (the only thing in the church labeled in English, btw)!

I had a long dinner at another guesthouse, where I talked a lot to the waitresses there, mainly helping them learn English phrases to help them deal with foreigner customers and also giving advice about how to get more foreigner business (I told them to try and get into the next Lonely Planet)! Then it was back to my hotel for bed - I watched some of Lord of the Rings - in Chinese! - on state TV.

The next day, I slept in, took a shower and went off for more sightseeing. The major visit for the day was the old Pingyao government headquarters (me and government buildings), which was large and interesting. Perhaps most interesting was a re-enactment of a Chinese court trial in full costume. I liked the end when the convicted criminal was taken off in shackles while telling his wife not to wait for him! I got a few nice shots of the city too, from some higher vantage points in the complex. I also grabbed some good Islamic/Pingyao flatbread on the street for a few mao. Yummy. Also headed down to an old residence that is now a museum. It was pretty but somehow I ended up not taking pictures there - a rare break for Mr. Photo Happy. Before it started to rain, I headed up to the main city wall gate and climbed up to see the city from the wall. It's pretty neat to see a full city wall - it is basically one of the few authentic ones left in China. Even the one I saw in Xi'an seemed too modernized. Climbed up into a watch tower and looked down onto the gate below and pretended that I was some Chinese warrior in the 1400s. Then the rain kicked in and I decided to head back to the hotel. I checked out and got my back and grabbed a bite to eat at a western cafe. The service was really slow and I was worried I'd miss my train but I made it in time and actually found a seat in an air conditioned double decker car. (Of course, the grass is always greener on the other side - this car was TOO cold!) I had a brief discussion with a Chinese man across from me who interrupted my iPod listening. He wanted to practice his English - so we talked in both languages. He was actually working for a German firm and was hoping to go to Germany this year. However, he'd never been farther from Pingyao than Taiyuan, so that would be a big wake-up for him!

In Taiyuan, I grabbed more McDonald's trying to kill time in an A/C location, and then found a cab to the Taiyuan airport for my flight to Beijing. Now, the flight was supposed to leave at 8 pm, so I got to the airport at an early 6 pm. When I walked in, I saw that the sign said delayed until 11pm! YUCK. I tried to get on an earlier flight that was also delayed and scheduled to leave just then, but the airline people claimed it had already left. Well, I settled in for 5 hours in a Chinese airport, which, my friend, is not fun. The airport was new but there are no real services besides really overpriced snack bars that serve unappetizing Chinese snacks and expensive "souvenirs." Again, thank God for the iPod or I would have run screaming out of the terminal about half way in. By the end, I didn't care if I was getting stared at or not (which I was - 2 flight attendants came over and took a picture "with" me - without asking). I stated singing to myself, wandering all around with my roller bag and just generally trying to keep it together. 11 pm comes around and ---- NO PLANE. AUGH! Finally, an announcement comes over saying the flight would leave at 12:30!!! I could have spent another whole day in Pingyao almost!

I overheard some Beijing passengers arguing with the airline staff so I wandered over to listen. From their discussion, I ascertained that the Chinese government's airline policy states that flights delayed over 4 hours are supposed to qualify passengers for a partial refund. The airliner staffer claimed to no nothing about it and I thought that was that. I was shocked when, after boarding the plane, she came on and handed me a 100 kuai note! So glad that I stood there and made my presence known! And it paid for my very late taxi home. Back at the apartment at 2:30 am. I finally hit the sack. Still, I have to admit that it was nice to sleep on my own mattress instead of a hard sleeper cot.

All in all, Pingyao was definitely worth a weekend trip but the travel was almost stressful enough to cancel out the enjoyment I had while there. This was the first time I had ever failed to get sleeper seats in all my time in China - and I chalk it up to the August travel season. Now, I know that I should have tried to find a travel agent in Pingyao to buy me seats before I got there, which I could have picked up upon arrival. We did that in Xi'an - and despite some jitters - it worked out well. Anyhow, that's Pingyao. Oh...if you missed the pics...they are here. Stay tuned for my travels with Maria to Xi'an and sites in Beijing.

Check them out here...







Commentary on Pingyao and last week soon!

I'm BA-AACK! Unfortunately, I am still jetlagged and I've been up since about 3 AM watching TV and checking email. My flights home were pretty good, watched a lot of movies and had decent food. Customs was pretty quick in LAX and my family met me in the arrivals lobby, followed by a short trip to In-N-Out on Lincoln Blvd. YUM! Then I came home and fell asleep almost immediately. Now that I am back, I will update the blog with my travelogues from Pingyao and Xi'an, and my last week with a visit from my friend Maria. So, don't stop checking the blog yet! Plus, I've got a whole bunch of photos still to post. Stay tuned!

I promise to tell you all my crazy stories from Pingyao, but I wanted to at least put up a link to the pictures:

Pingyao Pics

Enjoy! More to come...and I'll be back in the States in exactly a week! Woo hoo!

Hi all,

I know I owe you a little commentary on my Great Wall excursion (though the fantastic pics speak for themselves for the most part). I will have to get to that when I get back from my little weekend excursion to Pingyao, a well-preserved Ming city in Shanxi province. I am getting on my overnight train in a few hours and (hopefully) I'll be back on Monday in time for work! (You can't buy return tickets in China, so I have to pray that I can get a sleeper back on Sunday night! Otherwise, I'll either have sit hard seat for 8 hours (YUCK!) or shell out the money for a plane ticket)

Had wanted to go to Qingdao, but everyone in China is going there for the beach ... PLUS it's supposed to rain all weekend, so I decided to do something different. Guess Qingdao will have to wait for my next visit!

Later!

I'm on the Great Wall...again!


Steep!


Great representative shot of the scenery and state of the wall here.

See the rest here...

Went on an awesome hike on an unrestored section of the Great Wall on Saturday - away from all the tourists! Incredible. I will post more later but here are some pics to tide you over:

Jinshanling Great Wall

So it's update time:

Since my last blog entry, I have been doing work stuff and generally chilling. We've had a lot of rain here in the last few weeks, which has put a bit of damper on my weekends. I spent one weekend shopping (well, looking), since I could be inside the whole time. Did laundry, boring stuff...

One day I went to Jingshan Park, which is the park directly north of the Forbidden City (see pics). I wish it had been clearer - love that Beijing fog/smog - but it was still pleasant. I climbed up to the top of Coal Hill and looked down on what I could see of the Forbidden City. On a clear day, the view must be even more incredible, though even with the fog, it was still pretty cool. There were a lot of Chinese tourists there also taking lots of pictures.

My biggest activity has taken place this past week, when a friend from school, Stefanie, arrived in town for a few days in Beijing. She is traveling throughout China for a month after her graduation, and I offered my futon (which she actually likes sleeping on)! It's been nice having someone here to hang out with after work, plus I've been able to help her with various issues, such as visa extensions. Ick...that's always fun. On Friday night, we met up with another Woo, Mark Lanning (who is studying on the Princeton in Beijing program), and he got us into an acrobatics show being paid for by Princeton. Mooching off PU all the way out in Beijing - that's what I call po!

The acrobats were amazing - some cool modern style Cirque du Soleil style numbers involving spinning is what looked like giant hula hoops. Also, a lot of traditional styles, with crazy contortions, hoop jumping. Chinese yo-yo tossing, pole climbing, tumbling, etc. They were quite good - esp. the little girls who did yo-yo and the boys who jumped and tumbled everywhere! Afterwards, we went to a Chinese restaurant and hung out for a while and then went to a party at one of the other interns' apartment. It was fun! We had a good night and everyone meshed quite well.

The next day was fun at the PSB helping her to get a visa extension. Despite some early missteps, all went smoothly (as far as we can tell)! It was DUMPING rain, and finally Stef offered to pay for a cab (I was being cheap and walking to subway stations). We went down to Xidan and did some shopping - buying DVDs and looking at all the crazy hoards of Chinese shoppers.

That night, we went to dinner with some interns and other assorted guests and then I went off to my first ever professional sporting match in China - a friendly football (soccer) match between Beijing Hyundai (the local squad sponsored by the car maker) and Real Madrid, one of the top teams in the world and home to stars such as David Beckham, Michael Owen and Ronaldo. I never thought I would be into soccer, but I played enough FIFA 2004 on the Playstation to really get into it - I think it happened to me as I became more "globalized." It was still dumping rain when we got there - I used to always laugh at those people that go to football games in the snow, but here I was off to soccer in a monsoon. Hey, I'd already bought the tickets - and they weren't cheap! We bought ponchos and braved our way up to our seats. The rain started to taper off - though it dumped a lot during the half. The field was in terrible shape and there were points were the ball would literally stop in its tracks to the amount of water on the grass. It was like a giant Slip and Slide and the players were soaked. The Beijing team was actually quite good and led at several points, though Real prevailed in the end. We ended up sitting next to Princeton in Beijing students - random! I got a picture of Figo kicking the winning goal - a penalty kick. Pretty good photojournalism, eh? (Yeah right). It was fun - and I didn't get sick either, surprisingly. The only lowlight was that Beckham didn't play because he'd injured himself playing a game in LA.

On Sunday, Stef and I went to Tianjin, which is a port city an hour from Beijing. We went to see the parents of one our classmates, who also recently graduated from the Woo. I actually didn't really know the student, but Stef did and had met the parents at graduation. I had been calling all day on Saturday trying to work out travel details and my Chinese was really starting to work overtime! They spoke no English! We took a nice train to Tianjin and the Yang's met us at the station. They were the sweetest people! We went and bought return tickets (on a much lower class train - more on that later) and then they started to show us around Tianjin. We saw some neat sights including the major downtown shopping area - similar to Wangfujing or Nanjing Road in Shanghai. Tianjin also has a lot of foreign architecture because it was run by the European "imperialists" in the 1800s. We did some shopping and then they took us to Goubuli, which is one of the most famous dumpling/bun restaurants in China. It was a favorite of the Empress Dowager and now I know why - YUM!!! They ordered so much food and we just kept eating! Then they paid for it! We kept trying to pay for things and they just refused...I know it's cultural but it was too nice of them. We felt bad because they are retired workers, but when we tried to slip money to the waitress at the noodle place where we had dinner, he made her return it to us! Oh well, we tried.

We tried to check out an old antique market that is supposed to be the best in China, but I think it is past its prime. Mr. Yang said it used to be really popular but not anymore - too many fakes. Then they took us to "Ancient Culture Street," which isn't ancient at all. It's actually a reconstruction of an old Chinese street, but very nice and full of cool shops. I bought another name chop and and also some replica Beijing opera masks (small). Nothing special - I think the masks are made assembly line style, but they were neat. We help Stef bargain for some scarves and got a good deal on a carving of a rooster. Though the translation duty was taxing on the brain, I really think I bonded with Mr. Yang and we had a great time talking. He was so friendly and he kept complimenting my Chinese, which is also cultural but nice to hear. I need to send them a thank you card. They really became like our parents and even escorted us all the way to the train platform and kept reminding us to watch our belongings. He didn't even want me to feel uncomfortable when another person tried to discuss US-China politics with us. He told him that he'd said to much and that Americans and Chinese should just be friends!

Anyhow, Mr. Yang had convinced me to buy an unreserved hard seat ticket, the lowest class possible. We were also booked on to a through train as opposed to an express train - literally the slow train to Beijing! This mean that we had to make the traditional Chinese mad dash to the platform and fight for seats! We did get seats, but they were the hardest "hard seats" I've ever seen, barely padded, in an train cabin with no air-conditioning. Thank God the windows were open! It was actually not bad for 90 minute trip, but amazingly, many people on the train were going to Datong - an 8 hour trip! No beds in hard seat, just a full bench if you luck out. Amazing when you consider that this is how most Chinese travel - no sleepers for them! Wow. The only really annoying thing was that there was a train employee who spent the first part of the trip hawking random goods (socks and pens) in a very loud voice - kind of an informercial on rails. I had never seen that before, but then this was the first real "working class" train I'd ever taken in the Middle Kingdom.

We got back to Beijing safe and sound. The last few nights, Stef and I have gone out(yes, I left the apartment on a weeknight!!!). On Monday, we went to a new Belgian beer bar and got happy hour 2 for 1 Leffes and Hoegaardens. YAY!!!! We also meant an honest to goodness Belgian who was drinking coffee. Coffee? He was missing out. Nice guy though, there with his Chinese co-worker. He was an architect from Antwerp and I waxed on about how much I loved his country. It was fun. On Tuesday night, we went to Houhai (the back lakes) and ate Hong Kong food on a terrace overlooking the lake. Very pleasant and relaxing. Tonight, I had Chinese class so she is out exploring on her own.

The only really bad part of the week was losing electricity. They switched all of our electric meters to IC card versions (where you have to pay for credit on a card in advance - you do this at the bank) and I couldn't get my card because the landlord was out of town. So when we got home from the Belgian beer place, we had no juice. The next day, the whole building was out for maintenance plus the water! I love living in a developing country! =) I got it worked out though I stiill not sure how many kWh to buy per shot. I bought very few to start because I didn't want to buy too many and waste my kuai. But, with the AC and the hot weather, the kWhs are flowing fast. Luckily, the cost seems fairly low, but now I have to go back to the bank (but it's right by work, so no biggie)...

Anyhow, I think that's the highlights and the lowlights. Email me sometime or feel free to comment!

Click here.

I passed the Foreign Service Written Exam. Now I have to take the Oral Exam in the fall. I guess this is good news, but since I am not totally fired up about becoming an FSO, I'm not out drinking or anything. Still, it's always better to pass than to fail, right?

More later...

It has been far too long since I updated this fair blog, so here goes...

I actually had a pretty nice 26th birthday. (Thanks to all who emailed and commented...it's nice to feel loved!) My theory is that birthdays abroad can be reallly great or really awful. Luckily for me, thiings were actually good. I had decided to invite friends to a birthday dinner at a Tex-Mex restaurant in Beijing. I wanted to go to a place I'd found online, but it was pretty far away and a co-worker of mine recommended a closer place. I figured it was worth a shot. I had only heard from 2 people that they were coming, so I prepared for a small crowd. Imagine my surprise when like 8 people were waiting when I got there, with a few more on their way! Very nice. To quote Linda Richman, the "Chinese Mexican Food" was neither "Chinese" nor "Mexican." Discuss.

There, I feel better. Actually, it was OK. Surprisingly, the best thing there was what most "Mexican" food places destory - the salsa. Nice and spicy, with good ingredients. Mind you, not as good as my friend Angelica's, but that's a pretty high standard! I ordered Carne Asada, figuring that the Chinese couldn't screw up grilled beef, especially since they make so many good dishes that are similar. I expected to get a plate of sizzling beef and tortillas with condiments. Well, turns out that "carne asada" translates into Mandarin as "enchilada!" It was grilled meat (what part of the cow I'm stlll not sure) in a tortilla with cheese and covered with more cheese. Again, it was good but not carne asada! I was happy with my can of Dr. Pepper though! We had a nice time and talked about all kinds of random topics. The funny thing was that two of the guys I'd never met - they were friends of one of my colleagues. They were staying at the ultra-classy Grand Hyatt Beijing and brought me the box of cookies that were in their room. They were really good!

The next day, we had a nice early July 4th BBQ at the embassy. It was super hot, but they had ice cream and beer, which was great. I had a hot dog and BBQ chicken and potato salad and corn on the cob...mmm!!! It was nice, and we got a half day off too. Good, because I had to pack for inner Mongolia.

That night, I got myself to the Worker's Stadium parking lot where I met our tour bus for the 8 hour overnight trip to inner Mongolia. For those of you unfamiliar with Chinese geography, this is not the country "Mongolia" (i.e. "outer" Mongolia). Inner Mongolia is a Chinese province that borders the country of Mongolia. It is home to quite a few ethnic Mongolians, many of whom still live nomadically and live in yurts. The region also boasts great grasslands perfect for horseback riding, which was the primary goal of this trip.

The whole tour was organized by an expat group that primarly organizes happy hours in Beijing for foreigners. I wasn't expecting a lot, especially after learning that our 900 kuai did not include a sleeper bus OR the horseback riding itself - even though that was the whole point of the trip. Still, the bus was fairly nice, except designed for short people. I stole an aisle seat since I couldn't even wedge myself into the seat itself, much less find a way to sleep in it! I did grab a few hours of shut-eye on the crazy, bumpy winding road, but it was not very refreshing. Thank God for my Ipod and my inflatable neck pillow.

We got to Nei Menggu and checked into our hotel/guesthouse/flophouse. It was not the worst place I've ever stayed in China, and that is saying something. Compared to some of the other rooms I heard about, ours was pretty clean. We then all piled back onto the bus and off to a lake, where we promised swimming and boating. Hmmm... well, the lake was not very clean and very cold, plus (thankfully) the weather was cool - not like steamy Beijing. My intern and traveling buddies did pile into a boat and rowed about for a little while. It was nice to be somewhere we could see blue sky and green grass. I talked to one of our Chinese tour guides for a while and she seemed pretty impressed by my Chinese. It's coming back!

Back onto the bus for lunch at the hotel. Meals at this place were OK - a lot of soup, but they served two interesting drinks. The first is one of my favorites - FeiChang KeLe (which translates directly as Extreme Cola, though they use Future Cola as their English trademark). Fei Chang is a Coke ripoff cola and tastes sweeter than Coke. I think it's funny because their commerical proudly claim that it is Zhongguo Ren Ziji de Kele (i.e. Chinese people's own cola). They can have it - I won't even drink Pepsi if I don't have to. That's how strong my Coke loyalty is. The other drink was Caoyuan Pijiu or "Grasslands Beer." Perhaps the WORST beer I've ever had -ever! It really tasted like grass, though I don't think that was the goal of the brewers!

After lunch, onto the bus for our trip to the grasslands. I should point out that we weren't even in Inner Mongolia yet. Our hotel was in Hebei province near the border. We drove for another hour over the border past some nice scenery (and a tour bus accident - yikes) and finally crossed into Nei Menggu. There were horse owners waiting for us to let us pay them to ride out into the great expanse of grass and rolling hills. Yay!

I haven't been on a horse for a while, but I am pretty comfortable around them. The horse I got was one of the bigger ones, but they didn't adjust the stirrups or saddle for my height, which led to some problems later on. Our guides led us out and wouldn't let us ride free until they felt we were comfortable on the horses. Mine kept me for quite a long time, I think, because she thought I was going to say when I wanted to go. Finally, we were off and my horse took off! It was great! For about an hour, I felt really good about the horse. I felt that it listened to me when I said "zhe" (go) or "yoo" (stop). That was until I found out that the horse was hungry. D'oh.

We got separated from the trail and the other horses and into some nice thick grass. Yup, it was lunchtime and nothing I did could stop him from eating. Do they feed these poor animals? Again, my poorly adjusted gear made it difficult for me to show the horse that I was boss. Luckily, the surroundings were beautiful to look at, but I did worry that I was stuck there forever.

Finally, a Chinese wrangler saw me and resuced me! He whipped my horse around so fast that I almost fell off! But we were off. Now, an only in China story - as my wrangler is riding his horse and directing mine as well, his CELL PHONE rings and he ANSWERS it! I love China.

On the way back, after the wrangler took off and we took a break by a lake, my horse decided that he really did want to go fast. I wanted him to go slow because my behind was seriously hurting from the lack of a saddle pad and the previous 2 hours of galloping. But, the horse was in charge so off we went! Ow. Ow. Ow. The power of the horse was incredible though. It was a really neat experience to be out there.

The horse owners tried to get us to "rest" for a bit, but we learned that this was a scam to make us late to return our horses and then they would force us to pay extra! Also, they didn't show us how to find our way back. Luckily, my internal compass is pretty good and after a quick detour through a pig farm, we were back. Wow, my body was totally hurting now. That's a workout!

We went back to the hotel and cleaned up and then ate dinner. That night, they had a bonfire - crazy! They also shot off really cool fireworks - not in honor of the 4th - but just because our bus driver wanted to shoot some off and they can't do it in Beijing. Still, it was nice for us Yankees who missed the 4th this year.

On Sunday, we had an early wakeup call and were off to another grassland area. I deferred more horseback riding due to my aching everything, but we went on a wonderful hike instead. I took some gorgeous pictures of the open blue sky, fluffy white clouds and great green expanses. On the way back, a Chinese woman harvesting wildflowers asked me for a drink of my water. I misunderstood her at first but her friend explained to me that she was thirsty. I gave her my bottle of water and she was very happy. Cute. They all enjoyed listening to this laowai ramble in Chinese.

After another 4 hours on the bus, we arrived in Chengde. This city was the summer getaway for Qing Dynasty emperors and they build beautiful palaces here for their time away from Beijing. One of them was a replica of Potala Palce in Lhasa, Tibet. Supposedly they built it so that visiting Tibetan tributaries would feel comfortable there. Despite the expensive tickets (40 kuai!), it was a gorgeous complex of buildings - see the pics. I really enjoyed it, and I would love to see the real (much larger) thing in Lhasa.

Finally, another 4 hours home to Beijing with a bathroom break in Jinshanling, home to part of the Great Wall. I got a few pics, but they weren't great. I hope to come back up there and hike part of it. We got stuck in a traffic jam on the way home and sat parked on the road for an hour. Ah, China. It's times like these when you remember you are still in a developing country - despite the Prada and Burberry stores in the malls.

I'm sure there were many more great little stories that I am forgetting right now - hopefully they will come back and I can put them up on the blog.

Meanwhile, check out my pics here.

Work has been busier and things should be crazy at least at the beginning of the week. The Secretary will be in town. Fun fun fun!

This weekend was slow, but I saw Batman Begins. I really liked it! Next weekend - maybe Qingdao (Tsingtao for you beer lovers). We'll see...

I think I'm out of my rut. I decided I'd better post something before the world starts to think I'm suicidal. I think the combination of my really slow work week, the oppressive weather and not really knowing anyone in this city was what put me in a funk. Thanks to those who emailed and commented!

I started Chinese class on Friday and it is a nice diversion. It's a nice supplement to my daily practical use of Chinese and I think I am learning/relearning some good stuff. Today, I had a class on newspaper reading and it was a lot of fun, actually. My tutors are very nice and I even have homework - which reminds me, I need to do that!

On Saturday, I went back to the Houhai lakes to meet my intern friends and others for dinner and drinks. It was very nice setting on the lake, with a cool breeze. That is until it started to pour rain - which seems to be a common occurrence in June here. We tried to take a cab to another bar but got stuck in a typical "only in China" experience. The road we were traveling on was only wide enough for one car (i.e. one way) but there were cars traveling in both directions! It was like an Abbot and Costello routine. No one could figure out who should back up and who should go forward. As this was going on, more and more cars were stacking up in both directions. We finally abandoned our taxi in the torrential rain and ran to the closest bar, which happened to be called the "Loveshack." Like I said, Only in China!

On Sunday, I went over to Xidan to check our some of the crazy shopping over there. I ended buying some VCDs (Video CDs - the precursor to DVDs) which I thought were not pirated. After I played them, I learned a few things:

1. You can't tell if VCDs/DVDs are pirated until you play them. Even the ones sold in state-owned stored could be copies, as evidenced by the horrible editing job I saw in my version of Ocean's Twelve.

2. Make sure the box says "Original English Edition!" Otherwise, it's gonna be in Chinese, as I also saw in Ocean's Twelve. Luckily, I was able to download English subtitiles (ah, the internet) so I could at least follow the story. I knew I was screwed when Brad Pitt walked across the screen and his first line was "Ni hao." D'oh!

3. Be careful when taking VCDs out of their cases. I broke the Collateral VCD because the CD was stuck (another sign of pirating - bad cases). Oh well, it was in Chinese anyway.

Last night, I went bowling. Yes, bowling in Beijing! Supposedly it is the biggest bowling alley in the world - the Gongti 100 with 100 lanes. It was fun. I won both matches with my measly scores of 94 and 95. Ha! Then, as if on cue, as we left, it started pouring again. We decided to cab it to a German bar in Sanlitun to have a few drinks. Then, I took a cab home where the driver dropped me off at the wrong complex. So, I had to book it in the rain across some railroad tracks and back to my place. I was soaked. But, it was fun!

Tomorrow - actually today, it's after midnight - is my birthday. I'll be 26! Augh! I am getting some interns together to go get Mexican food in North Beijing. Yes, Mexican food! I know - I am setting myself up for disappointment, but I researched this carefully and found a place that is run by a guy from New Mexico and got great reviews on the web from Americans from the Southwest. Plus, they have Dr. Pepper!

Friday, we are having a BBQ for Independence Day at the Embassy. Then, that night, some interns and I are taking a night bus to Inner Mongolia, where we are going to ride horses in the grasslands. The bus ride will suck, but the rest sounds really fun. We are also supposed to stop in Chengde, which is one of the Emperor's old summer palace sites and home to a replica of the Tibetan Potala Palace.

I'm going to bed now. Hope all are well. Feel free to comment or email.

P.S. Have you guys seen Arnold's poll numbers? Worse than Bush and nearing Gray Davis levels (sorry Gray, but this news should let you say "I told you so.") It gives me hope for California. =) If you want more great blogging on California politics, check out two great sites run by friends Christiana and Scott.

So while my weekends are usually filled with visiting famous sites, wandering the fantastic hutongs (see my recent Beijing pics) and eating good food, my weekdays seem to be filled more and more with tedium and repetition. Why am I bored in such an amazing place?

My friend Maria - boy, she gets more mentions on this blog than me - finally told me I need to snap out of it. I was complaining that my internship is pretty dull right now, which it is (it seems to be the slow time, people are off on vacation, I have a slightly tedious research project and nothing else much to do)... I also was telling her that I have gotten into the bad habit of coming home and hiding in my apartment cocoon. It's easy to do, because it's clean, it has A/C and the web (even though I'm on that at work all day), and a bed. My friend Therese posted on her blog that she can see how expats can come back from a foreign country with a skewed version of the place they live. I'm starting to see that too. The last time I lived in China, I had Chinese friends and roommates, which helped me to connect more to the "real China" (in quotes, because I'm sure it's still skewed with tall white guy involved, i.e. me). This time, I'm speaking more English (at work), eating less Chinese food and living in a much more modern area. Plus, I basically know no one. Augh. Frustrating. Easy to ignore the culture - in fact, I forget sometimes that I'm in China! My fellow intern is cool - we hang out a bit - but I need to do more.

I finally signed up to take a Chinese class - starts tomorrow, so that's something. I think I need to start working out in my gym to get the body moving (and get rid of my gut - my metabolism is definitely slowing down). I can't keep coming home and staying cocooned. It's bad for me in so many ways - keeps me separated from the culture, depresses me, etc. Of course, I am also being cheap and trying not to spend money. Staying in does keep the kuai from flowing.

I don't know about work yet. It's seems slow so I'm hoping it's just down time. I know things will get busier - and I have had some cool moments (meetings, a few nice assignments). But generally, I find it a little tedious. I am going to try to talk to my supervisor and see if I can vary my work a bit. I don't want to hate this job and I want to learn something - though it may just be that I don't like this kind of job! That would be learning something!

Anyhow, I hadn't posted for a while, so I thought I'd do a little "blog therapy." Stay tuned for more!

Hey all - here is the long promised pic of me climbing through the small hole at the temple in Nara. (I mentioned it in my Nara post below - supposedly whoever fits through this hole is on the path to enlghtenement.) Enjoy!

Check out my newest Beijng photos. I put them on Webshots, since I am running out of room on Flickr. I promise to blog more later!

Beijing Photos

For those of you dying to see my living space in Beijing...(ha!)...











I have to remember to take some pics of the exterior and my "neighborhood." Enjoy!

Hi all,

I finally got my other Tokyo photos developed and they are now online at Flickr. I just added to them to original Tokyo album, which is here. Keep going through the old ones until you get to the new stuff...

More on the way from Beijing!

OK...now that Tokyo is finally dispensed with, I can catch you all up on my first week here in Beijing. For those of you that don't know, I am interning with the US Department of Commerce here this summer - and for security purposes, I probably won't be talking about work much on the blog. Not that I am doing anything secretive, it's just sort a thing to do when you are working overseas for any government AND posting on a public website!

Anyhow, the first day here was perhaps the most dramatic of the week. Before I got here, I had secured (I thought) an apartment online - and my office had checked it out to ensure that it was real and not a hellhole. Well, my landlord had explained that it was bit difficult to find, so rather than attempt to give me directions, he suggested I just call him when I arrived in Beijing and he could explain how to get there to my driver. Well, complication number one was that I wasn't able to be picked up by our office's driver, as all cars were tied up due to a visit from the Secretary. SO, I had to cab it. Not a problem - I know Beijing well enough and my Chinese is passable enough to get around in a cab.

The cab driver nearly didn't want to take me though, because I wasn't exactly sure where I was going (true) and he didn't think I spoke Chinese (false). The guards at the airport reassured him that I could - one claiming that I spoke excellent Chinese! Like he knew anything! Anyhow, I call the landlord and I get a big "bu hao yi si," which in Chinese means "so embarassing" and usually means something has gone wrong. Not a good sign! Apparently, the current tenant had not moved out yet! He had asked for more time to stay in the place, and per some sort of Chinese ettiquette, the landlord felt it was rude to make him leave on his previously stated moveout day, even though a waiguoren was arriving to take his place! SO - I had no apartment. This was all in Chinese of course, while I had to deal with the cab driver on the expressway, who still wasn't sure where we were going!

I was able to discern from the landlord that he wanted to meet me at a hotel and then figure things out from there. I asked him to just give me a street so I could calm my cabbie's nerves. He gave me an address and a hotel name, though I didn't get it clearly. In the meantime, I had called my boss to inform him of what was going on and he offered to let me stay with him if needs be. We got to the part of town where the hotel was, and we started searching. The driver didn't know the hotel, and all I knew was the first character was "Hua!" Still, we did find it and about 10 minutes later, my landlord appeared. Around the same time, he got a call from my office (!) which was checking up to make sure I was alive and well. My office explained that my landlord was willing to pay for a hotel room for me for 2 nights until the other guy moved out of my apartment. I took him up on his offer and stayed at the hotel - which was a typically shoddy Chinese budget hotel, but I could deal for 2 nights. And, I wasn't paying!

That weekend, I just sorta slept, checked email, wandered the city a bit and got ready for move in.

On Sunday, I took a cab over to my new apartment which is actually pretty decent. It's in a newer highrise, modern looking building and there are quite a few similar buildings nearby. I have A/C, hot water, a decent bed, Chinese TV and a washer, though no dryer. I later learned that there is also a small gym in my building, which I think I have access to. I've walked in twice and no one has stopped me, though today I did see a counter that does seem to have a price list on it. It was deserted though, so who knows. My landlord took me to lunch (very nice of him - he is actually a very nice man), and we had Peking duck and eggplant! Woo hoo! Then I went to my local department store to buy overprices sheets for my bed. Ick.

On Monday, I started work, which is in a nice high rise office building. My co-workers, both Chinese and American, are very kind and I have a few cool fellow interns. It's a pretty nice setup and I think I'm going to get to work on some interesting and potentially substantial stuff. Time will tell.

We had some crazy weather (thunder and lightning) here a couple of nights, which kept me indoors and I turned into sort of a hermit. I downloaded the finale of Alias, because I'd missed it and did some laundry. I also tried to make some instant noodles and nearly burned my left thumb off when I microwave-boiled some hot water. Dumb, Richard, very dumb.

I did buy a new digital camera here! Yay! I got it for basically US prices, which is actually good, because they were selling it most places for about a 25-30% markup. I shopped around, bargained with a couple of folks (one of whom wouldn't go low enough and actually didn't follow me when I left!), and I finally got it for around 880 yuan. Not too bad, though after bargaining in China, you always leave feeling like you got cheated or that you could have done better. Now, you can see more of my exciting photos! I actually want to put up a few pics of my apartment and neighborhood, but I need to finish my laundry first!

Last night, we went to the Marine House at the Embassy and they had a spaghetti dinner. It was supposed to be 50 kuai but they let the interns in for free. They seem like some nice guys, and there were a lot of American staffers there. Unfortunately, we didn't mingle much. Maybe next time. I have a few more lunch meetings and happy hours coming up next week, so hopefully I'll get to network a bit more.

Today, I went and got a decent lunch and went over to Tiananmen to remind myself I was in Beijing! It was smoggy, but it was nice to be back. Not much has changed, though the People's History Museum now has a countdown clock for the Beijing Olympics. It was really hot today, though (surprise), so I headed home to do laundry and blog.

I was going to go out last night but I got tired. Tonight, though, I am meeting my intern colleagues for drinks in the famous Sanlitun bar area - Beijing's traditional expat hangout. Should be interesting. I haven't been there in 6 years, and it seems to change all the time. I also wanted to go to the Houhai area, which is supposedly the new hip place to go.

Tomorrow, I may try and go down to the Temple of Heaven and/or the Old Summer Palace. We'll see.

Hopefully, now that I am settled, blogging will resume in a regular fashion. I am finally starting to adjust - the first few days, I wasn't too excited about being here for some reason. I think it was just culture shock and my apartment issues. Now, I am happy about it. Anyhow, that's it for now. Miss you all!

Hi everyone -

I'm sure you all thought I dropped off the face of the planet but I'm still here. This last week has been very busy, with arriving, not having an apartment when I was supposed to - more on that later, starting my new internship, settling in, adjusting to the madness of Beijing, etc etc etc.

I'll get to Beijing in a bit but I wanted to wrap up my Tokyo trip before I forget what I did myself! After my camera destruction incident, I decided that karma was telling me that the night was over! I headed back to the trusty Juyoh and went to bed. The next morning I woke praying that the camera would magically start working again, but alas no, it was still busted. Well, what was I to do? I had to make the most of my last day in Tokyo - camera or no. As I mentioned, I had a tradtional film camera with me so I headed off to Ikebukuro to peruse the big camera stores. When I got over there, I scanned the prices for digital camera and got a big case of sticker shock. I decided that I wouldn't buy a replacement camera here, though I did attempt to get my broken one repaired. Unfortunately, a lack of Kodak parts, my lack of Japanese and the fact that the thing is probably destroyed anyway doomed any chance I had of getting it fixed. I bought some film and moved on! I also went to the Toyota Amlux showroom, a 6 story building full of model Toyotas and interactive displays. They had some beautiful cars there, including hybrids! I want a Prius!

I grabbed a Big Mac (!) and then I made my way down to Harajuku, which is sort of the high fashion area of Tokyo. Lots of little teenagers walking around, wearing all sorts of strange and/or stylish outfits. Before doing some strolling, I went over to the Meiji Shrine, which is dedicated to the Emperor Meiji, who defeated the Tokugawa shoguns and re-established the power of the emperor in the 19th century. The shrine was pretty, surrounded by beautiful tall trees. The weather was a little rainy, but it was actually nice, because it was cooler. Walking around the shrine was nice and peaceful and helped me to forget about my silly stress about the camera. Then I went back down to the main Harajuku area and did some window shopping. From there, I walked down to Shibuya - another huge shopping and business district. Tokyo has 2 or 3 areas that are comparable to Times Square!

Shibuya was also featured in Lost in Translation, primarily when Scarlett Johansen's characters is seen wandering in huge crowds on the streets. One of the main buildings has a giant video screen that curves, and in the movie, there is a big dinosaur walking across it. No dinosaur for me, but it was eerie to be there, because it was raining just like in the movie. The sheer number of people crossing the street was incredible. Now that I am in China, I would say that it was more remarkable that people actually yielded to cars and followed the signals! If Shibuya was in China, there would either be huge pedestrian deaths or no traffic would ever move!

I completed the LiT trifecta by going up into the Shibuya Starbucks, where they shot overhead shots, and I had a latte. From there, I could see all of the umbrella-totling pedestrians swarm the crossing every few minutes. I liked Shibuya. Then I metroed it back over to the other side of town to Asakusa, where I visited the Senso-ji temple. All of the guides mentioned this was a BIG deal, but it wasn't that great to me. Maybe after the amazing Kyoto temples, I was jaded, but it was just another temple! Maybe the increasingly harder rain dampened my enthusiasm, but it wasn't anything that I would have died about if I hadn't seen it.

I wish I could have made it over to Ueno Park but the rain was starting to really come down and it seemed sensible to get back to the Juyoh Hotel. I had a quiet evening there - ate some Cup of Noodles from 7-11 - and packed for the flight out the next day.

Check-out the next morning was super fast and I was off to Narita. I dozed a bit on the Keisei train and then made my schlepped my stuff to Terminal 2, where I got my huge bags that I'd stored there a week earlier. They were still there! =)

Luckily, Asian airports all seem to have free luggage carts, so it was pretty easy to get up to departures with all of my crap. The good news at check-in was that JAL didn't charge me an excess baggage charge. Yay! I searched all around Narita for a store that sold cheesy magnets. My parents need the Japan additions for their collection! Who's ever heard of an airport gift store with no magnets?! I finally found a few that passed for acceptable, but it was like pulling teeth!

Then it was off to Beijing on wonderful JAL - which served a great lunch on the 777. We had on-demand video - so cool - and I watched the Richard Gere/J Lo movie, "Shall We Dance?" Kind of a cheesy chick flick, but it was OK and it passed the time. Plus, I'd already watched Phantom and Spanglish on the long flight!

Well, I'm going to break off this post here and post again about the Beijing madness in a bit. Hope this tides you all over! Miss you all! Sorry I've been bad about email but I am catching up!!!!

You can try clicking here to get to the whole group: Tokyo Day 1. If not, click on the link in the post immediately below this to go through each pic one by one...