Kunming

We spent several days in Kunming, and left this afternoon. It's a beautiful place, and reminiscent of Austin - very laid back. Our hotel was on the campus of Yunnan University, and there was a street across from the hotel that reminded me of 6th street - chic clothes shops, bars, and restaurants. I found an Italian restaurant with fast wireless, so I was able upload photos, but I never got around to posting.
We saw lots of temples in Kunming - Taoist, Buddhist, and Muslim (which we didn't end up touring). The Taoist one was in a park-like setting on the edge of town. There were lots of tourists, as usual. I really liked the Buddhist Temple in town. No tourists except us, and a really peaceful place, which I needed. The stress of having people around all the time is starting to get to me. I spent the last evening at the Italian place sitting by myself eating margherita pizza and surfing the web. And then 5 of our group showed up; so much for solitude.
We also went to the Stone Forest. This is an area of weird karst formations, formed when old limestone seafloor was uplifted and eroded. Unfortunately, it was raining, so we didn't get to go wandering around among the huge pillars of rock. I have never seen anything like it, except for some areas in the Guadalupe Mountains of West Texas.
Dianchi Lake is another tourist spot in Kunming. This beautiful place is incredibly polluted by industrial waste, mostly mining activities. Around the far shore of the lake are many industries which used the lake as their dumping ground. The government is trying to clean it up, but it will take many years.
Yunnan Province is home to 26 different ethnic groups, so there is a lot of diversity in town. I am always surprised by how different each area of China has been. I'm not sure why, since not every place in the US is the same - certainly New York City looks much different than Jackson, Mississippi.
We are now in Lijiang, and our plans have been disrupted by mudslides and road construction on the road to Lugu Lake, so we're not sure what we're going to do tomorrow. Today we're visiting a glacier, so I've got to go borrow some long pants.
be safe,
rem
Stone Forest


Temples


The Lake

Expo 2010

We found the 1.3 billion people - they were all at the Expo. We went Friday, and spent all day there. Since NAEA didn't have a bus for us we took the subway, which was an adventure in itself. Chinese people (watch out for the upcoming generalization) are notoriously bad map readers, we have discovered. In Hohhot they couldn't tell us where we were when we pulled out the map, and Friday when Dr. Who and Bob were studying the subway map at the Metro station they had no idea what it meant. The sign told us where we were, and they knew where we wanted to go, but otherwise they were clueless. We had to tell them which trains to take, and how many stops for each; but we made it.

OMG, the place was unbelievably crowded, and the holiday was over. The Saudi Arabia exhibit, which was supposed to be the most spectacular, had a 5 hour wait, so of course we didn't see it. I must have walked 10 miles around the place in the blazing haze/sun. It was Texas week at the USA pavilion, and the Marshall Ford Swing Band played a set. We talked with their manager, and when he found out we were from A&M they played the Fight Song, which they had learned for Gov. Goodhair, but never got the chance to play for him. We didn't go through the US exhibit, as the ladies in our group said it was very disappointing - just 3 little videos.

Nepal, Algeria, Brazil, India.....not much time waiting in those lines. There were some very cool exhibits - Chile was spectacular - they had a whole upside down room; you walked into a blank space, looked up, and there it was. They also had a nice little outside bar. Mexico was sort of disappointing except for some art they had hanging from the wall. Italy, where we waited in line for an hour, was also amazing - a tailor shop with real people working inside a glass box, a symphony hanging from the wall, and lots of fashion-art stuff. Spain was weird - what the heck does the giant robot baby represent?


But what got me were the people. Almost everyone there was Chinese, and the tickets weren't cheap. They were coming on vacation from all over China - the rising middle class. All 1.3 billion of them, shoving and pushing with never an 'excuse me' to be heard. If I slowed down in line to take a picture they would shove right past me into the middle of our group. I guess with that many people, if you wait you'll never get anything.

The whole place closes down at 9 pm - what the ****? In the US it would be open 'til midnight, at least. But this ain't the US, so we took a taxi home, because the group I was with wanted to see the lights of Shanghai at night.


The first few pictures are from the top high school in Nanjing, which we visited Thursday afternoon. 63 kids in the geography class we saw. But then, teachers have what amounts to a college-type schedule, with only 2-3 classes per day, and office hours the rest of the time - with real offices!

Delayed Posting

We are now in Kunming, so much has happened since my last post. They keep us busy.
Suzhou was interesting. We took the bullet train there, and then a bus to a tourist trap called Zhou Zhuang town. Its a very old city that has been sort of restored - very narrow alley/streets, lots of shops and restaurants, and thousands of tourists since it was Dragon Boat holiday. Pushing, shoving, bumping, with nary an "excuse me" or "sorry" to be heard. You should definitely not come here if you don't like crowds. There are some bridges over the canals that date to the Song Dynasty, and a Ming official's house that was jam packed with people, but otherwise was beautiful. Notice most of the shots have people in them - you just can't get a picture of anything without people in it. The stalls had a variety of things for sale, including lots of silk pieces, from clothing to embroidery. The vendors are really pushy, and of course start out with a high price, but then you walk away and they chase you, so you can get a silk blouse for $13 US.
We had lunch in the hotel there, then went back into Suzhou to tour one of the 280 private gardens. Before the Cultural Revolution there were over 1,000 different large gardens, but they were destroyed because they were bourgeois, and not useful to the improvement of the people. Again, packed with tourists, so not nearly as peaceful as it should have been. It was built by a Ming official who got the money through graft and corruption, then was forced out of office.
Not all the pics are captioned = the Internet is slower than dirt here in Kunming - I mean slower than dial-up, almost.

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Nanjing Sightseeing

This is the most beautiful city we've been to. We spent today sight-seeing. In the morning we went to the Zhongshan Mountain National Park, to Dr. Sun Yat-sen's Mausoleum and the Ming Tomb. Today is a holiday - the Dragon Boat Festival - so families were thronging the park.
After lunch we visited the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Museum, a memorial to the holocaust inflicted on the city by the Japanese. It was pretty gruesome, so I walked through quickly, then sat outside and people-watched.
Shopping for too short of a time, then supper and a walk along the old city wall. Later some of us went to a coffee house near the university. It had very slow Internet connection, so I am back in my room.
Tomorrow we get up at 5 and leave at 6 on the bullet train for a day trip to Suzhou. Should be fun - they have a huge park, with lots of gardens, and we have a small lecture on "the art of gardening." We won't return to the hotel 'til after 9, so I may not get pictures up.
be safe
rem

Maps of the New FAA No-Flight Zone over the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

via Geographic Travels: Maps of the New FAA No-Flight Zone over the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

Why can't planes fly over this area?

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Tourist Traps and Culture Clash

Well it wasn't a real ger, I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up. The whole past 2 days have been sight-seeing at tourist traps, or trapped on a bus. To make matters worse we have an unlikeable guide named Alice. I know she is just as frustrated with us as we are with her, but it doesn't make her much easier to take. We were traveling yesterday, and one of our ladies needed to use the restroom. Alice had the driver stop at an abandoned building and told the woman she could go in there and pee. I guess the usual tourists she shepherds would be ok with that, but we weren't. Of course, when we stopped to use the restroom at the next toll booth, I thought maybe the abandoned building would have been better.


We drove for a long time and ended up at the "Singing Sands" dunes near the Yellow River. This is a big tourist destination, sort of like the Monahans Sandhills, only with lots more stuff. I paid 40y to ride a camel, took a cable car to the top of the dunes, and decided not to slide down, since I've done that a million times at Monahans.
Back in the bus covered with sand, I slept for 2 hours and missed the giant traffic jam at the exit for the yurtel. The driver and Alice were prepared to wait in the traffic, but when Lynne found out we could go a little further and see Genghis Khan's Mausoleum instead of waiting til today, negotiations took place and we went on.
We left the mausoleum, and the bus driver was not sure about the route to the yurtel, so he asked at least 3 people. We ended up on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere for a couple hours - it was starting to get dark. I did get to see a lot of rural Inner Mongolia, which looks at lot like New Mexico, but poorer.
We finally got to the yurt tourist trap after dark. The staff met us dressed in traditional clothing, serving the worst tasting rot-gut moonshine I've ever had. We were ushered into the dining hall, where a play was just beginning. It was a sort of dinner theater, with a play on stage and more drama from the drunk Chinese tourists at the next table. One of the men was so drunk he kept going onto the stage. The actors and dancers continued their performance of traditional songs and dances like this was a common occurrence. We explained to Dr. Who, our Chinese host, that in the US the guy would at a minimum have been thrown out, and probably arrested. But not here.
Afterward we checked into our rooms in the fake yurts. There was a kang in each room, so I felt a little better. Several of us went out to star-gaze, and then the loud party started. Over by the dining hall was a giant bonfire and ear-numbing music - hip-hop and modern. Everybody was line dancing around the fire. Some of the performers from earlier were break-dancing... not exactly what we expected to see here. As the fire died down they did the "bunny hop" and then all disappeared. Peace and quiet - we all slept well.
Up early for tea and breakfast. Since nobody wanted to pay 180y to ride a horse we left at 9:30 for a 4 1/2 hour ride home. We got here at 7:15 tonight. We were in an area that has a lot of coal mines, and it seems it is all transported by truck. We got stuck in a traffic jam near Baotou, where there's a Y in the road, with a sort of traffic circle. It was backed up for miles. They said "could be hours, could be days" for it to unjam. All because of the thousands of coal trucks moving China into the 21st century.
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So we are back at the same hotel, but the condoms and underwear are gone from our rooms. We fly out tomorrow for Nanjing. The pictures are on line, but not captioned yet.
be safe, watch out for coal trucks,
rem

More Hohhot

OK, so its not Matamoros. Some parts of it are nice,like the University. And the food is wonderful, so different than Beijing. Tomorrow we go to the grassland tourist trap ger, to spend the night. Here's some pictures from our travels today. Who knew there were Muslims in Hohhot?
click on the pics to see them.

Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, China

I get to sleep in a ger! That will be 2 nights from now. That will be one night less we are in this god-forsaken hotel, with condoms available in the bathroom, and men's underwear for sale on the shelf above the tea pot.
We rushed to the airport in Beijing this morning, somehow we thought the plane left an hour later than it did. It took forever to get our tickets, then all but 1 of the guys, and several of the women, got extra searches at security. I was the last person to board the plane before they shut the door. After a one hour flight we had a rough, bumpy, fast landing in Hohhot, and so here we are at the "very nicest hotel" in town, according to our guide. I've really been transported to Matamoros or Reynosa.
This is the bleakest looking place I've been in a long time. I imagine its what Beijing was like before the Olympics. Street-front stores, everyone on bicycles or electric scooters, torn-up roads, just very poor. Block after block of Soviet style apartments going up. Block after block of rubble where the old hutong-type housing was. And still more of the traditional housing, crumbling into piles. Garbage piled everywhere - along fences, behind gates, in rooms that open to the street.
At the same time there is some beauty - parks full of trees and flowers, the old Muslim Mosque, and the Da Zhao Buddhist temple.
No captions yet on the pics - too tired. More tomorrow.

Update: pics are done.

Hohhot, China, June 10

Free Day - Pearls, Scorpions, and a Bus Ride

Our last day in Beijing before leaving for Hohhot. We started out at the Pearl market - 4 floors of shopping! My first stop was the ATM, as I have already spent most of the money I came with. I got enough to last me for at least a couple of weeks, since I am almost through buying all I intended to. The top floor of the Pearl Market is jewelry, but I didn't make it up there until it was almost time to leave; I got distracted on the 2nd floor, by the silk. The bus was leaving at 11:30 for the bookstore downtown, so I had to hurry upstairs to pick up the pearls I ordered a couple days ago from Sandy Pearls. The owner of Sandy Pearls came to the hotel a couple nights ago with a large selection of her wares, and there was a frenzy of ordering from the women on the trip. Both beds and all available desktop space was covered with pearls - necklaces, rings, earrings, bracelets, jade of various sorts - way more than I could imagine. I ordered a couple things as gifts. Anyway, I got my stuff and ran for the bus.
Several of us made the trip to the bookstore - 6 floors of every imaginable book in Chinese. They had a small selection of English language books. Jackie found me a Chinese language National Geographic magazine, and I got a couple more gifts for the teachers in my hall. The bookstore is downtown, and this is how I pictured Beijing - lots of people. Where we have been staying there are not so many people walking around, so we kept wondering - where are all the billion Chinese we keep hearing about. There is a pedestrian-type mall down the block, so that's where we headed. Down a side street was this incredible market. Lots of local-looking people, plus some tourists. I ate a fried scorpion.
The scorpions were live, and they fried them up, seasoned them, and then - yummy? Not much taste to the bugs, just crispy, with a sort of seasoned salt on them. A couple of the guys ate snake, then we found a small restaurant and had lunch - rice with stir-fried chicken and veggies.




We wandered around the market awhile, then took cabs to the Lao-She Tea House. The tea was good - I had Jasmine - and there were performances by musicians, juggling, and a shadow play. Here the stork is trying to get the turtle, and finally succeeds. It was pretty good. By then it was almost 5, so Patricia and I decided to head back to the hotel. We are both older, and the 20 somethings wanted to stay out til after dark. We need our sleep, so we thought we'd catch a cab back home. No luck. The one cab who stopped said no, too far - or maybe he didn't know where it was. Our minder had given us business cards with the name of the university, address, and a sort of map, all in Chinese, in case we got lost. About that time the younger folks came out of the tea house, so we hooked back up with them. They were trying to get a rickshaw ride somewhere. It was then that the old Chinese man in the silk jacket came up. Pat showed him the card, and Bethany (the Chinese language teacher in our group) translated for us. He ended up writing some instructions on the card on Chinese, including bus #456. We followed his instructions to go down the block and around the corner into uncharted territory.
Fortunately, each bus stop in Beijing has 2 workers whose job is to keep order. We asked at the first stop by showing them the card, and they indicated "5" and pointed further down the street. After passing a couple hutongs, 2 more bus stops, a lady with a box of baby chicks, and lots of shops, we asked again and were directed to a line with 5 written on it - for bus #5. Shortly thereafter the bus arrived, and we got on with a hundred other people. The helper talked through the window with the conductor (not the driver) and she indicated she would let us know when to get off. We passed the Grand Beijing Hotel, lots of office buildings, and at each stop more people got on, and few got off. We stood holding on to the overhead handrails until a seat finally cleared out. Not much later we were directed to get off.
At this stop some locals waiting for the bus were very helpful. Pat showed them the card, they pointed out the line for #456, then discussed whether or not that was really the right bus. After a few minutes it came, and along with lots more people we got on. Pat showed the card to the conductor and she nodded, so we grabbed the rails and hung on. By the time we got to the freeway the bus was so packed no one could move. We got on the freeway and drove for a long time, and Pat and I began to recognize some buildings. By the time the bus exited we knew we were headed in the right direction - we were in the "suburbs" where all the apartment buildings are located. Our stop ended up being 1/2 block from the NAEA campus. In all, it was exactly the experience I wanted - an hour and a half of real life in Beijing. Each bus cost 1 yuan, about 6.7 cents. We found out after we got home that another couple had taken a taxi back and it cost them 200 RMB, about $30.
So I am packing for Hohhot, and tomorrow morning we take off. It's been great here, I look forward to our return.