Great Wall

We climbed this part of the Great Wall yesterday. I was surprised there weren't massive amounts of tour buses, or even people. We were practically the only ones there!

Check out Alex's Flickr for our own set of Great Wall pictures (this one is from Wikipedia, I don't have access to a lot of bandwidth).

Goodbye Mama Naxi

It's pronounced Na-Shee.

The first thing Mama Naxi said to us when we arrived in Lijiang was "Mama take care of you...I give you free banana juice"

We stayed at Mama Naxi's Guesthouse while in Lijiang. At the time of writing in our trusty Lonely Planet (published May 2009), Mama Naxi was in the process of building a second guesthouse. By the time we arrived (November), Mama Naxi had completed three guesthouses and is on her way to her fourth guesthouse. If I were still in the Business School, I would love to do a marketing case study on her hostel empire. Old Lijiang is a small place, and for Mama Naxi to have four guesthouses within the city walls implies her control of the youth hostel market share. She seems to know what people like- cute dogs, kisses on the cheek, small gifts and very reasonable prices. Why can't I be like her? Mama Naxi needs to teach at the Foster School of Business.

Since there were no direct routes to Beijing, we had to go back to Kunming (the biggest city in Yunnan) in order to fly out. This involved an 8+ hour bus ride on a large bus (like a Greyhound) on a two lane road that drivers saw as a four lane road. All types of vehicles were on the road- construction trucks, dump trucks, big buses, minibuses, cars, three wheeled cars, trucks with exposed engines that looked like toy cars, bicycles, motorcycles... really everything you can imagine, with every type trying to overtake the other. We feared for our lives- if we weren't going to drive into an oncoming car because we were trying to pass a slower vehicle then we were likely to fall off an unguarded edge off a cliff.

I was on the verge of throwing up the entire time.

We were in transit for nearly 18 hours (we left Lijiang at 830 and arrived in Beijing at one), we had difficulty trying to find our hostel. I found it ironic that the one place that Liz and I are familiar with, it took us a very (very) long time to find our hostel. Our cab driver was a little whiny and scolded us for not knowing the proper address of the hostel so after 20 minutes or so of aimless driving, we decided to just walk around. We walked to the notorious Sanlitun bar street in hopes that someone would know the name of the hostel we were staying at. We were solicited by a ten year old boy saying that he knew where the place was and that he would show us. We were a little skeptical but got over ourselves when we realized that the people who worked at the bar were making fun of us for being scared of a little boy. I was afraid that this boy was going to lead us into a dark alleyway where a gang of his peers would beat us up and take our money. The scene was very likely- this boy was walking very fast through random alleyways that were either really dark or had sketchy bars and clubs that were away from the main street. He finally led us to a shifty looking hostel that actually wasn't the hostel we were planning on staying at and was probably one of "those" kinds of hotels that could be rented by the hour. While this wasn't the place, I still paid my dues to the kid (thankful that he didn't try to beat us up) and gave him 20 kuai (about $3).

Luckily for us, the man at the front desk was very nice and pointed us in the right direction. Kind of. We finally made it to our hostel after an hour and a half of wandering the vicinity. I was going to demand that we not pay for a whole day since we arrived after midnight but I felt shy. I've decided that I'm all talk when it comes to getting things my way.

Anyway, its cold in Beijing (really cold). How are you?

Hot pot in Lijiang

Despite a developed transportation network (extensive railway, flight and bus systems), our trip across China proved to be very ambitious. For the three weeks dedicated to traveling, we made it to Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Hainan, Kunming, Dali, Lijiang and Beijing, skipping Guilin, Yangshuo, the Tiger Leaping Gorge (in Lijiang), Chongqing and Xian [These names probably don't mean anything to you]. With these places on our original list, I don't understand how we thought visiting all of these places would be realistic.

ANYWAY

We made it to Beijing. How we got to Beijing is an interesting story, and it all begins with the night before we leave Lijiang. We've been using our Lonely Planet religiously, especially taking note of their recommendations for food. Disappointed by our mediocre feast from the night before at Mama Fu's, we hoped that the Blue Papaya would be a better representative of Lijiang cuisine. True to her job's namesake, our waitress was hovering over us antsy to take our order. She recommended hot pot, since everyone around us was eating it and seemed to be having a good time. Lonely Planet highly recommended the place so it didn't hurt to order something we weren't so hot about (haha).

When in China, ordering something with uncertainty can result in a painful experience. Our experience at the Blue Papaya is a perfect example of a meal gone wrong. Without realizing the option of no spice, we had ordered a our hot pot with a spice that would ruin our entire night. Taking into account Liz's pescetarian diet, we had ordered a fish hot pot. Fish in China comes with all the bones. Added with the boiling hot broth (that was literally on fire for a majority of our dinner) and a spice that could have blinded us, there were aspiring Chinese pop stars - complete with flashy outfits and headset microphones - singing as loud as they can through crackling amplifiers and their entourage of loafers toting menus of Chinese classics to the hordes of tourists (probably having a better time with their milder hot pots), there was nothing pleasurable about the experience. It didn't help with the occasional street vendor approaching us with random trinkets, fruit, flowers and cigarettes.

There were too many things going on with our meal, which was very frustrating since we were all hungry and wanted to get some kind of nourishment from our expensive meal. If we were not choking on small fish bones or on the verge of passing out from the spice, we were assaulted by vendors or had our conversations halted by competing singer/songwriters singing as loud as they can (here is another promising career for our singer/songwriter friends).

And of course this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to our trip to Beijing.

Stay tuned!

Preview for the rest of our trip:

10 hour bus ride on a 2 lane road

being led by a child to our destination

walking around at 2 in the morning trying to find our hostel

Mailing List

I can't access blogspot in mainland China so I can't blog about our wonderful travels. To remedy this, I'm setting up a mailing list. Get on this email list! Email me- francespontemayor@gmail.com

No more driving

I'm glad that I won't have to drive long distances for a while. This makes sense considering I grew up on an island that was about 30 miles long (a third of which was inaccessible because of the military) and got carsick when we were in the car for more than 10 minutes. I'm surprised Alex still likes me considering I refused to talk to him while either of us was driving, sometimes even forcing myself to sleep to avoid conversation (sorry Alex). I'm just not one of those kinds of people.

In the morning Alex and I will be off to Boston! Neither of us have been there so it will be a treat for the both of us. In the place of long distance driving will be various modes of transportation including busses, airplanes and trains. This next week (our last in the mainland) will be a test of our health. Perhaps it was a good thing that Alex's dad pawned off a lot of medicine on us. In any case, my goal is to not get sick and avoid being quarantined in China.

I better try to compress my bag now.

obligated to

Alex and I are approaching the second leg of our pre-trip. We haven't been doing much except hanging out around his dad's house, either reading, watching movies or the occasional being chased by 100 pound dogs outside. I have no problem with this because these activities are what I would like to base my entire life around (with the occasional change of scenery). The weather has been a little too cold for my taste and it doesn't help that its been really windy since we've arrived. I don't think I could handle the winters here.

Alex's dad and his wife are very nice people. His dad loves to tell stories about everything and anything (he is a good storyteller) while his wife occasionally makes fun of him. His dad also tries to pawn things off on us- jeans, face masks, books, old tshirts. I think this is cute. His wife has a nice vegetable garden that produces a large variety of stuff, which makes me wish I could have my own someday.

Minnesota

There are so many books, records and food in Alex's dad's basement! It is practically a library!

Later today we will be driving out to Alex's Uncle John's cabin in Wisconsin. I've been told that there is a massive garage- or what they like to call "garage-mahal"- that is causing much controversy. I will take pictures.

Burt (Alex's dad) has two rottweilers that are ridiculously cute and nice. They both must weigh more than I do (with the older weighing at least twice as much as me) and have the capacity to kill me if necessary. Good thing I am a nice girl.

Here is an itinerary of the remainder of our American heartland trip:

Now-October 2: Minnesota

October 3-6: Chicago/O'Fallon

October 6-9: Boston

October 9-11: DC

October 11-13: New York/New Jersey

And we fly out to Shanghai on the 14th!