AMERICA!!

Sooo - fast forward 5 MONTHS, and you'll have found me back in the US of A! I've spent the past 3-4 weeks back in America, readjusting to Western culture. This includes, but is not limited to saying 'Thank You' in Chinese to people when I buy things at stores, being shocked that I could understand everyone around me at once, noticing how different Chinese People look vs. the explosion of variety found here in USA, and realizing I've gained weight at an alarming rate since putting myself back on an 'American' diet (Hamburgers, nachos, pasta, you NAME it). But let me tell ya, it's been wonderful to see friends that I haven't seen in an entire year. Refreshing.. rejuvinating, even! In about 2 weeks from today, I'll be returning back to China to continue teaching for another teaching year! I touch down in Shanghai to attend a huge meeting for the new job I'll be entering, then taking a train to Zhengzhou, Henan - to begin my new job! I'm afraid I won't be spending my next year in Tongliao, which is a shame, both because I made a myriad of wonderful friends and memories there... and since my website is teachingtongliao.blogspot.com .. but I'm sure I can figure something out, here. I'll keep you all (all 6 of you that might read this?) highly posted!


Oh, and explanation about why I abruptly stopped writing in my blog 5 months ago might be in order, yeah? Well, turns out one day in March I went to log into my blog, and I was unable to access blogger.com in any way, shape or form. Was this China's fault? Maybe. Did I want to keep writing? Of course! Alas, I was unable to - so I was forced to lay down my digital pen for awhile. Bummer. Hopefully now I can pick up the pieces and try to recount my last few months in China. I'll do my best!

I hope all is well, living in America is everything I had ever dreamed. Or, at least, everything I had remembered from about a year ago.

Ricky

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!!

Love you mom - you made my life, and make it better every day. :)

Thank you so much for all your support in my crazy undertaking of going to China and seeing the world, etc. I wouldn't be able to do all this without your blessing and interest in the things that I do, and it is nothing short of a miracle how much love and admiration you've given me. I can't fathom how many sacrifices I'm sure you've made for me, and how blindly you've given your love to me through my entire life. Love shapes, love nurtures, and your love in particular has given me strength and personality enough to live out my dreams and search this world for opportunity and adventure. You've literally made me the person I am, momma. Words can't translate how much love I've got for you every single day when I think about you out here.

I miss you more than I've missed anything else in my life! I can't wait to see you this August..! Enjoy Murray Farms Flowers, and treat yourself to something you love today. :) You'll have to wait for your mother's day present when I return back home!

LOVE YOU TOO MUCH! You're the best mother a son could ask for!

And to every other mother who may read this, or who might read this and has a respective mother...

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY! To the hardest working ladies in the world!


Ricky

MY CURRENT LIFE!

Last, Last weekend I took a trip to Beijing just to get away from Tongliao for awhile. I mean, it's great here, don't get me wrong. But after teaching classes 2 months straight after a great vacation - I needed a little pick me up in the big city. I managed to meet up with Steve and Elisa (a wonderful Italian gal that I met while I was in Zhengzhou. She speaks like 40 languages and is currently studying Chinese in Beijing. Smarty Pants City) and we just had a great little 3 days together to have fun, and do, as the Chinese say, "Chi Hao, He Hao", aka, EAT GOOD, DRINK GOOD! It was great fun.

I stayed at Elisa's apartment which was in the WuDaoKou part of Beijing, and right next to BCLU, the super famous Beijing University. (I forget what the acronym stands for - sue me.) If anyone ever is in the WuDaoKou area in Beijing, they HAVE to go to "Lush", a little restaurant/pub/bar near the subway stop. The food is unbelieveable, good prices, and just seems great.

We also managed to make some time to spend in SanLiTun, aka, Foreigner Central, which is kind of a bar street/outdoors shopping village smack dab in the middle of Beijing. I bought a copy of Harry Potter: The Prisoner of Azkaban. I'm almost finished it now, and I'm going to have to pick up the next installment concerning Harry's time at Hogwarts next time I'm in the city!

Which.. conincidently - will be tomorrow! I'm taking a train tomorrow morning into Beijing, and should arrive in the city around 10pm tomorrow night. I'll be staying at my good friend Kristin's place, and then waking up at the CRACK of dawn to grab a train (6:45am, ugh.) that'll bring me directly to Qingdao, China. Qingdao is supposed to be a very beautiful beach town on the Chinese East coast, and I've been dying to check it out. Now that the weather is beautiful (and I was told about 3 days ago that I have no class this week) I've decided to make the trek out there to see it for myself! Meg and Christina, two of the girls that I live with here at Tongliao #1 School have already made the trip, and highly recommended it. So here I am, updating my blog before heading out! UNFORTUNATELY, my camera has suffered a very recent death, and it's going to make documenting this trip extremely difficult. However, I'm sure I'll persevere, and find a way to remember the place that doesn't involve photographs! And maybe I'll just buy a new camera. Who knows.

So that's the long and short of things right now! Aside from that, I've been studying Chinese pretty hard lately. I'm getting happier with my ability to string together sentences, but I still get very frustrated with my listening abilities. It's very hard for me to listen to Chinese people speak their native language, and to completely understand what they're telling me. I suppose that'll just come with more practice and study, but still, it's frustrating to know what I'm saying, then to have no idea what they reply. Argh.

Alas! Hold fast!

Let's see who can figure this out:

我今天有新工作！一个高中在郑州今天告诉我。 妈妈，，爸爸，， 妹妹。。。我很想你们！！！ 但是，我知道我回到在美国八月， 仁厚我们有一个z大聚会！！！

... And everything else.

In lieu of the fact that I'm unfathomably behind on keeping this blog updated, I've decided that I'm going to bullet-point the rest of my vacation and note a few of the things that have been going on SINCE then, (rather quickly) so that I can try to keep things more current. I apologize for my inherent laziness in keeping this a tidy record of my travels and exploits!

So let's see.

- After Hangzhou, we took a plane to Kunming, Yunnan, China. It's a city in the south-west part of China, and is kind of a hub to go to other back packing desinations via bus or train.

- We stayed in Kunming a few days, at 'The Hump' Hostel, which is easily the best hostel I've ever stayed at. The view of the city, the bar, the people, and the funky feeling from the place was far and beyond the most enjoyable I've experienced in China.

- In Kunming we were able to celebrate the Chinese New Year!!! Fireworks exploding EVERYWHERE, people having a grand time, red paper lanterns floating in the sky - it was definitely a thing to behold. Lovely, bizarre, interesting, and beautiful. What a country!

- We met up with a traveling photographer, Jason, a Californian fella traveling through south east Asia, and decided to travel to a few places together to see some more of China.

- He came with us (now it's Me, Steve, Dirk, Kristin and Jason) on a bus ride to Dali, which is an old, old, old town inlaid next to a massive lake that was unspeakably gorgeous.

- We took a donkey-back ride up a small mountain in Dali to see the view of the old city and further laying lake. It was breath-taking. But Dirk's donkey bit my leg. It's name was Nun-Chuck. My donkey was Bruce Lee.

- From Dali we took a bus (3 hours) to Lijiang, which is another back-packers paradise on earth. The old town is a web of old cobble-stone streets, shops, restaurants, and rivers flowing under your feet. It was again, completely beautiful. Our time spent there was culminated in having lunch on the 4th floor of a restaurant, overseeing the entirety of the town, and the large snow-capped mountain that silently watches the town. I think it was my favorite scenic spot all throughout China.

- In LiJiang we stayed at 'Mama Naxi's', which is a little hostel run by this old woman, Mama Naxi, and her 4-5 daughters. The place was extremely comfortable... Mama Naxi cooked us a big dinner, and gave us Naxi (a kind of Chinese nationality, or zu) good luck charms and big hugs when we left. She rocked.

- From LiJiang we took a bus back to Kunming so we could grab a train the next day to shoot up to Zhengzhou, the city that Dirk and Steve live in. I planned on staying for about a week to check things out.

- The train ride, we thought, was going to take 20 hours. Long indeed, but certainly do-able considering some of the things we had gone through so far. Turns out the ride was 36 HOURS. It was hell on wheels with an engine. I have the transcripts (an hourly journal I kept during the trip) to explain what we went through. I'll post it at a later date, for giggles.

- Zhengzhou was great, I went to a couple of Steve's classes, enjoyed staying at his apartment, and got a real feel for the city. We also had dinner at Mama Yao's (Kristin's mom's home) which was ultra delicious.

- While in Zhengzhou, I decided to take a short trip by myself to the Shaolin temple (ShaoLin Si) to see the birthplace of Kung Fu and all. It was fantastic. I got the opportunity to meet some kids who had been training, and to actually get up on stage and make a big ass out of myself in front of a Chinese crowd by trying out some kung fu moves with a master. Hoo boy.

- After my ZhengZhou adventure, I took a train back to Beijing, met back up with Jason (who had gone his separate way when we arrived in ZhengZhou) for a night of fun, and finally took my train back to Tongliao, to rest for about a week until classes started back up again!!

WHEW!

If you have any questions about anything (I'm sure I missed way too much) don't hestitate to leave a comment or ask! I'd be happy to ramble on about my time out here in China.

Okay - from here on out I'll do my best to keep this thing current, even if the posts are quite short. Hope that's okay. Alright - good talk. See you out there.

Ricky

Part IV - Hangzhou

The bus ride from Nanjing to Hangzhou was relatively harmless. After 4 hours on the road, we rolled up to a vacant lot that seemed like it could have been a pit stop, when lo and behold, it happened to be our final destination! Go figure. Welcome to China.
So we disembarked and stepped out into the Hangzhou night time air, and managed to procure ourselves a taxi that brought us to our hostel. Which was interestingly enough directly across the street from a large university (quite like our hostel in Nanjing.. hmm, a trend, perhaps?) Long story short, the hostel was nice, and had it's own little air and ambiance to it, as every different hostel will. It was also located about a 5 minute walk from the Hangzhou xihu, or West Lake. Now, a little explanation of what Hangzhou is like.
Hangzhou is actually a huge, bustling city, not unlike many of the other cities in China. However, the city is huge and bustling right up until it runs into the West Lake. Once the city hits the lake, it disperses into a few roads, a couple smaller buildings, and then finally into basically only bike paths and forests that run alongside the lake. Ultimately, the entire city fades away completely, and becomes beautiful mountainous countryside from about halfway beyond the lake, and on. It's truly something to behold for yourself. Some people say that 'if you see one Chinese city, you've seen them all'. Well, I believe that to a point, but Hangzhou is most certainly a big exception to this rule.
The next day we woke up late (tired from all of our travel) and gave ourselves some time to meander around the lake and city a bit, just to have a short look. One 'cool' thing about Hangzhou (cool to the tourists, at least) is that you can rent bikes for DIRT cheap, essentially anywhere in the city, and then return the bikes to any of the 'rent-a-bike' kiosks that you can rent from. That said, Dirk and I desperately wanted some physical activity, and decided to hop on a couple bikes to explore beautiful Hangzhou. After some heavy griping, Steve opted out of the ride. However, I loved it and we managed to cover a whole lot of ground in just about an hour or two. We mapped out the city a bit more, and circled the huge West Lake. Also we managed to sneak a peak at a couple far-away temples and pagoda's that we wanted to try and find perhaps the next day. Albeit it must have been a riot for Chinese people to watch two American guys peddle around the city on a pair of red bikes complete with handle-baskets and little ringy-ring bells... but it was pretty fun, I've got to admit.
The rest of the day we just did some laundry in the hostel, used the internet to re-connect with the rest of the world, and met a few people at the hostel as well. Primarily, a small band of British girls who had been traveling through Asia for a couple months, but had only recently made it into China. We gave them some pointers over drinks that night, and decided that the next day we would travel out around town to see some of the sights.
That next day - we walked about half the circumference of the hug West lake, and then wiggled our way to a passage that traveled up to what I think was the 'Dragon Stone Wood Park', which was kind of a big hike up a ton of stairs to a pagoda that was on top of a big ol' hill, overlooking the lake. The view was gorgeous, and so was the giant pagoda. There was also a little hike up to a prime outlook spot, though a little hard to trespass, was completely worth it. It was maybe one of my favorite views of China up to that point. You could see the sprawling city to your left, the huge, gorgeous lake dead-ahead, and then the rolling Chinese hills and forests to your right. A panoramic masterpiece, if I do say so myself.
After two more quick trips to two less impressive temples throughout the city, we retired back to our hostel and got ourselves some rest. However, we did not get to sleep until we got our airplane tickets. Getting airplane tickets in China - bizarre. Let me spin you a tale.
So when we were still in Nanjing, Dirk had his girlfriend (who speaks Chinese) order us some plane tickets over the phone to fly from Hangzhou to Kunming. It seemed to go smoothly until she told us that 'we would get our tickets in Hangzhou'. So we mostly figured, 'oh fine, we'll get them at the airport'. Wrong. What happens is a random Chinese dude calls you and tells you that he's going to come meet you at your hostel between 5 and 8 at night so you can hand him a HUGE wad of cash (3 plane tickets at 800rmb a piece = $350), and hopefully he'll hand you three legitimate plane tickets in response. We were kind of taken aback by this whole situation, and decided it'd be best if we all met with this guy at the same time to make sure he wasn't SCREWING us over, like you hear horror stories about in foreign countries. We had the receptionist/boss of the hostel confirm the legitimacy of the tickets, and made sure that the guy actually was working for the airplane company. Which, actually, in fact, he wasn't. He was simply a courier. Either way, the entire situation was very sketchy to say the least, and the next MORNING we were going to leave by plane. So if those tickets were not viable, then our trip was essentially OVER.

What happened next?

STAY TUNED!!

Part III - Nanjing

(Note: My camera was broken almost the entire time we were in Nanjing. I apologize for the obvious lack of photos.)

We get off the train.
The city seems nice.
Dozens of taxi's pass us.
NOT ONE WILL PICK US UP!
After about 40 minutes of trudging our way around Nanjing, Steve and I were FINALLY able to hail a cab. Our first impression of Nanjing wasn't quite impressive, even if it was based solely on the fact that we were tired from a 4 hour bus ride from Shanghai and couldn't find a taxi to bring us to our hostel. The bus ride was alright, by the way. 4 hours long. Watched one movie about two con men with English subtitles (score!) and another old Jackie Chan movie that was completely in Chinese, but still very entertaining! Irregardless, we finally made it to where our hostel was, and reunited with big ol' Dirk. The hostel was a nice little hideout in the middle of a massive city, right next to a large University campus. The hostel had a courtyard. It was quaint and very liveable.
First order of business? Find something to eat. Now, almost the entire time we were in Nanjing it was rainy and kind of dismal, unfortunately. However, the food in this city was some of the best I've had anywhere in China. There was a small, inconspicuous dumpling shop nearby our hostel that we made friends with fast. Best I've ever eaten in my life, hands down. Plus, the lao ban (boss) of the shop was a pretty cool guy who catered to us very well.
After a quick dinner and a completely unsuccessful attempt at trying to find the ruins of an old part of the city (we looked in the wrong place and found a park instead) we returned back to the hostel to relax for a bit. Steven, Dirk and myself being the charismatic young gentlemen that we are, managed to make friends with some of the other travelers we met in the hostel. Now, two of them were students (foreigners - one from the states, CT specifically, the other from England) at a Shanghai university. After chatting for awhile, and the fellow from Connecticut, Ryan, noticing that Steve and I were PC guys - we all had a weird moment. Ryan is actually good friends with one of my HOUSE mates throughout college (Mike Dodge) as well as a host of other kids from PC that I was good buddies/good acquaintances with! We all hit it off quick with the connection and became fast friends. The world is SMALL, huh?!
So Ryan was told by a good friend of his that there was a great Mexican restaurant called 'Behind the Wall' hiding near our hostel in Nanjing - so we set out on a journey to find said locale. After a lot of wrong turns and mistaken roads, we FINALLY found it almost directly across the street from where we started. And it was behind a wall. Go figure. The Mexican food was delectable. Such a treat. Again, I note, Nanjing - City of wonderful food.
Our next day was spent at the Nanjing Massacre Museum. It was a massive, free museum that was dedicated to the atrocities procured by the Japanese forces to the city of Nanjing during the Sino-Japanese wars in the 1930's-40s. It was so moving to the point where it's almost difficult to explain it in words. The museum was beautifully preserved and served as a chilling reminder of the darkness (killers) and yet light (those who aided) of humanity. I was particularly moved by a whole wing of the museum that was dedicated solely to foreigners who were in China at the time of the Sino-Japanese wars who refused to leave the country (under the heavy suggestion of their home countries) in order to do anything they could for the Chinese people under attack by the Japanese. Foreigners, doctors, nurses, priests, and humble volunteers, hundreds upon hundreds of them, lost their lives just to help a culture of people that wasn't even theirs to begin with. They just wanted to help. The honor that the Chinese gave these men and woman was astonishing to me. Truly graceful.
Alas, we only had a few days in Nanjing, and these ended up being our highlights. We also made it to 'Nanjing 1912' which is a part of town dedicated to oldy-timey restaurants, clubs, bars, and nightlife. It was interesting, but overall kind of expensive - so our stay in that part of town was noticeably short. Although... Dirk was able to find a club that reveled in his ability to dance with locals and get stared at by everyone else around us for awhile. Boys will by boys.
Oh - we also managed to sort out a plan for the rest of our travels. We decided that the best use of our time would be to see a more southern and rural part of China, since none of us had really experienced that sort of China yet. SO - we decided to hop the next bus out of town and into Hangzhou - supposedly a naturally gorgeous city to the south of Shanghai. From there, we would jump on a plane from Hangzhou to Kunming, Yunnan province. There, we could visit around to about half a dozen different possible destinations to check out. So it was decided, the plane tickets were paid for, and we hopped the next bus we could find to Hangzhou!

... But first, a quick note. On the way to the bus station, we managed to find a woman on the side of the road selling food. Now, this is highly common in China, since the Chinese love their snack foods, and it's a nice little industry, selling food. However, the type of food sold (commonly called xiao chi, or 'little eats') usually changes drastically depending on what part of China you're in. For example, they have these egg-bread, crunchy, spicy, tortilla things that they sell in Beijing. Delicious. In Harbin, they have Ice cream and tang hulu (candied chinese fruit on a strick) kind of everywhere. And so on. In Nanjing, the woman was making english muffins (sort of) fresh, off of her little cart, and cooking a full egg into the batter she cooked the muffins on to - then she added a ton of spices,sauces,pastes,and vegetables that I would never understand or recognize anywhere else in the world. And handed it to you to scarf. It cost less than 50 cents, and was quite possibly the most delicious thing my mouth has ever experienced. Ever. I wish I could explain this better, or had a picture of it. I'm still kicking myself for not having taken a picture with the egg-muffin lady. She's probably still on the bus station street corner... I'm tellin' ya. If anyone from a huge food provider or restaurant chain is reading this - there's your next huge sales pitch right there. Don't say I never did anything for you!!

Next Episode - Hangzhou.

Part II - Shanghai

Hey kids,

I apologize heavily for my slacking on writing, per usual. That said, here goes.

So, after Beijing, we bought a pair of tickets for Soft Sleeper beds to Shanghai. You might ask yourself - what the hell is a soft sleeper? I'll tell you. It's a single compartment in a very chic looking train set up for 4 people, basically two sets of bunk beds. The beds are rather comfortable, the furnishings a bit up scale, and all the employee's in the train are quite fashionably dressed (when it comes to Chinese taste, I guess). For the record, we took off on January 17 at around 6pm.
After about 10 minutes of milling around on the train, waiting for it to leave, Steve and I supposed that we were going to be the only two people in our quarters, since the other two didn't quite show up. However, things changed swiftly once two fella's basically flew into the room and jumped up into their bunks. They were two middle aged guys - an uncle and a nephew, we later discovered. The Newphew's name was Elton, a Chinese engineer who lived in Shanghai but had to commute often to Beijing for work... Whereas the uncle was named Robert - which aptly and quickly got changed into 'Uncle Robbie' for all intensive purposes. The guy was an absolute riot. Elton's English was broken, but quite understandable. A nice guy. Uncle Robbie knew very little English, but what he did know, he wasn't afraid to belt out as loud as possible so that we could 'clearly understand him. As for the rest of the ride, it was wonderfully comfortable, and we made solid friends with the train waitresses, Uncle Robbie and Elton. The culmination of the ride was Steve telling Uncle Robbie he had a friend that was a girl living in Shanghai (as he understand as 'girlfriend', of course), and that I had no friends like that in Shanghai. He thought about this for awhile, then asked where I was sleeping. I supposed that I would be on the floor at the apartment. I believe Uncle Robbie took this as I was on the floor, and Steve was in a bed with a lady partner. After letting this sink in for a bit, Uncle Robbie unexpectedly leaned over his bedpost, pointing at me incredulously saying, "Tomorrow.. you.. you.. you, SUFFER!".. "You sleep alone.. SUFFER!". It was easily one of the funniest things I've heard a Chinese person say to me, to date. God Bless that wild old Uncle Robbie.
Once we arrived in Shanghai the next morning, we were greeted outside the train station by Steve's good friend Lu Xuan, who promptly took us to the subway station that would eventually lead us to her apartment. She was gracious enough to let us crash at her place for the few days that we were going to spend in Shanghai, although she also needed to work during our stay. That in mind, she forewent being to work on time in order to make sure we were comfortable and situated at her apartment first. The Chinese level of hospitality is something I've never experienced before coming to this country and meeting the unbelievable people that live here. It's really a humbling thing to be catered to, just because you're a friend of a friend.
Although Shanghai is a hustling, bustling metropolis (and a really neat city), it isn't exactly all glitz and glamor. Lu Xuan's apartment was a bit outside the city proper, and more in a sort of 'chinese suburb'. The best way I can explain this is that, it was like living in a place that seemed like it was in a constant state of construction and re-construction, dust, people, and concrete. Not really too flattering a state of affairs. However, a short subway ride brought you back into the sophistication of Shanghai high rises and business architecture. It was a strange dichotomy to observe. Steve, considering his hate for New Jersey, refused to call the area that Lu Xuan lived near anything else but 'The Hoboken of Shanghai', which I guess is apt enough. Either way, it was gracious of her to give us a place to stay. Thanks again, Lu Xuan!
The time we spent in Shanghai was divided between Lu Xuan's apartment and 'Jin'an si', which is Jin'an temple, the subway stop that Lu Xuan and Tina (her best friend) worked near. One night we visited the famous 'Bund' of Shanghai with it's beautiful flashing lights of the city, and the reflection of said lights into the river running straight through Shanghai. We also managed to get ourselves to 'Window Too', a really fun bar that was extravagantly western. It felt a little like home. Oh, and on that note - Shanghai itself is extremely western feeling. Aside from the usual hordes of Chinese people around, the city has an overwhelming amount of western chains, western style, english language, and foreigners teeming inside of it. It was nice for a bit, but afterwards a little off-putting. I really enjoy Chinese culture, and it certainly exists in Shanghai, but something has been lost there, I think. Alas, it is still China!
To disprove myself a little, we also managed to find ourselves a temple (near Jin'an si, the name escapes me) to visit in Shanghai. It was thoroughly interesting at night - lit up like a giant, Chinese Christmas light decoration, and surrounded by throngs of people visiting the shops surrounding it, or just there for a stroll. By this time too, the Chinese Spring Festival was creeping up closer day by day, and each day more and more people were out being festive at night! It made for an excellent environment for a few young kids like ourselves to be exploring a beautiful city like Shanghai, and proved to make things more interesting basically everywhere we went.
As a note, Tina, Lu Xuan's good friend, was a huge help in Shanghai. She didn't speak a whole lot of English, but her friendly attitude, and helpful demeanor were awesome for the time that we were there. She taught me a ton of useful things to know in Chinese while we were there (for example, xiaoxin means 'be careful!' - an indispensable phrase to know when crossing the street in China) and was generally just a lovely person to be around!
After a few days of fun and excitement in China's largest metropolis, we said our goodbyes to the girls, and made way for the bus station early in the morning on that following Tuesday. It was sad to leave the unending possibilities of Shanghai, alas, we were heading into more cultural and beautiful places! Our next stop - Nanjing, to meet back up with Mr. Dirk Chilcote, and basically to plan out the rest of our vacation together, since nothing else (at that time) had been actually set in concrete.

Next Episode: NANJING.

Part I - Beijing

So, I've decided that if I try to write about my entire trip in one post, it'll end up becoming terribly dragging and probably get boring. The English language dreamed up paragraphs for a reason - it's easier to ready things in chunks. That simple note in mind, I'll write this little adventure out in blocks. I'm going to inevitably leave some things out, so if some of the experiences I write about are unclear (and you are actually interested in them) please let me know! Write a comment or shoot me an e-mail, I'd be more than happy to go into extensive depth about anything I write about, considering the fact that I am in China and am having a very lovely time!


THAT SAID! Here goes. So I left for Beijing around January 10th I believe - and took a hard sitter train from Tongliao to Beijing Central Station. I was on the train for about 13 hours, and made a few Chinese friends on the road. That's one of the delightful things about the Chinese transportation system when it comes to being a foreigner. More often than not, and more usually when you're on a train coming from or going to a remote location (i.e. Tongliao..) the Chinese people on the train seem to wonder what in God's name you're doing sitting on a train. This is only natural, and provides a foreigner trying to learn the language (like myself) with a perfect opportunity to beef up their Chinese language skills for a good 5, 10, or 13 hours straight, especially when you're by yourself.

I spoke with a mother and her daughter, a grandmother, some kids from the countryside, a student going back to Beijing, and a young fellow going to Beijing to begin schooling who had a Chinese book he had finished reading, and ended up giving me as a gift for speaking with him for a few hours. I was touched! The book, of course, is completely in Chinese characters, and a little hard for me to read.. Alas, the gesture was genuine, and actually gave me some further drive to study Chinese characters (known as hanzi).

After skippin' off the train and spending some time finding a taxi that wouldn't rip me off, I made my way to the hostel that Steve and Dirk were staying at, named 'Beijing Sanlitun Youth Hostel'. The Hostel was great, cozy, and had food and a bar. The perfect place to nestle down for about a week (which is how long I stayed in Beijing!) I met up with Mr. Steven Monahan that night, hugged it out, and met a few of the characters in the cast of people I'd be spending my time with. The first besides Steve was Dirk, a big guy from California who teaches in the same city as Steve - great guy. Also met his girlfriend Kristin, a lovely Chinese girl who teaches English in Beijing. And then Jing, a good good friend of Steve's.. Really good friend.. but that's a whole different story in itself. Hah.

The rest of our week was spent between me and Steve catching up with each other, talking about our respective Chinese homes, friends, lives, etc. It was great seeing the big galoot. We also managed to make it to a few western style restaurants and bars to splurge a bit. We were on vacation! The section of Beijing we were in was called 'Sanlitun', which is well known for it's bars and western appeal. It also houses the 'Worker's Stadium', where many of the world's most incredible athlete's performed during the Olympics. I came to the conclusion that a restaurant/bar named 'The Cro's Nest' has the best pizza in Beijing/China, and immediately became a Gin and Tonic drinker while around Dirk and Steve. It's the gentlemanly drink of choice.

A few days into our vacation, we decided to take a day off from the local scene, and to go and find ourselves the great mascot of ancient Chinese culture. Indeed my friends, we visited the illustrious Great Wall of China (changcheng) near Beijing. It was about an hour's drive outside of the city. Now, the way we got there was a laugh in itself. We found ourselves at the Beijing Bus annex, and tried to decipher some of the bus schedules (written completely in Chinese) in hopes of finding our way to the wall on our own, for a cheaper price than going on a tour. Alas, a Chinese businessman saw that we were a big lost in our endeavor, and offered us his services. By the end of it, we had secured a ride TO and FROM the part of the Great Wall that we wished to see for little over 100rmb each. And we had the pleasure of a private driver. To be honest, the entire experience was terribly awkward, and a little spooky. Handing some guy a wad of money and hoping that he actually drives you out to where you want to go is a bit harrowing to say the least. BUT, it went off without a hitch! We made it there, explored the wall thoroughly, took our pictures, went down "The Great Wall Slide", and made it back home to Sanlitun quite safely! It was all in all an excellent experience, and now, according to Chinese tradition, I can call myself a 'True Man' for being to the wall. The views were breathtaking, and the history was something truly to behold. I was ecstatic to visit such a wonderful landmark of human history. Plus - who goes to China and doesn't visit the Great Wall of China? I'd be laughed at back home!

From there on out, Steve and I decided that we wanted to see the financial charm of Shanghai, whereas Dirk elected to stay in Beijing for a few extra days with his girlfriend before taking leave of her to meet us at our third destination which would be Nanjing. Kristin was also kind enough to let us stay at her apartment for a few days instead of our hostel, since it was free to crash at her place, and was getting pricey for us to stay in the hostel. Plus, the night before in our 10-person room at the hostel, a Scottish fellow staggered into our room at 4am, completely drunk, and tried to climb into bed with an Irish fellow who was pleasantly sleeping until then. The outcome was a little volatile. Amusing, weird, awkward and loud are some words that come to mind.

After a day at the Beijing Train Ticket Office (which was a literally an EXPLOSION of people due to the Chinese New Year going on... everyone in China is trying to go somewhere else in China. The train stations in every single city we hit were MOBBED) we were able to secure some tickets to Shanghai in a few days. However, the tickets were the most expensive train tickets sold in China. They were Soft Sleeper tickets - something seldom heard of around China. Considering their price, I had always thought that they were like living in the lap of luxury for the hours between cities. I would soon find out if I was wrong or not!

Quick P.S. I must hand it to Beijing for having the most comprehensive and easy-to-use Subway system that I've encountered in all of China/the world. I don't speak Chinese, and I understood it immediately. It's very clean, easy to follow, and gosh darn it, Boston has a few things to learn from the way the Chinese set things up. Just had to get that out.

Next Episode: SHANGHAI.

I'm HOME!

Okay, for the record... I've been back in Tongliao for about 2 weeks time now. However, I've been lesson planning, getting my life back in order, and relaxing after a solid month and a half of traveling the better part of China. It was SUCH a wonderful trip, and I want to get my thoughts really together before I begin writing about my adventures/misadventures/fun/games/etc. in this journal here.

So I apologize for my recent lack of posting. It's on it's way. TRUST ME.

To tide you over in the meantime, however, I've posted up all the photos I took of my trip onto my photo website:

http://picasaweb.google.com/rlabontee

HOWEVER. I must profusely apologize for the quality of my photos. My camera has been giving my problems since basically day one. Many of the shots come out pretty grainy, or rather blurry. This in mind, I ended up not taking as many pictures of my trip than I really should have. I'm going to try to beef up my photo gallery by stealing pictures from friends I had made along the way (and mostly steve) in the coming weeks. I'll let everyone know if that works out or not.

The stories are on the way! Trust me! Lookit those pictures for now!

Miss you, everyone! Ricky!

The Big Trip.

Okay, so, here it is.

From Today (Janurary 10th) until the first or second week in February, I will be traveling around China, and seeing as much of this kick-ass country as humanly possible. Or at least until I run out of money.

I'll be leaving on a train to Beijing tomorrow morning at 9:30am, and getting into the city a solid 12 hours later. I'll be meeting my good, jolly, loyal, sardonic, hilarious, understanding friend - THE Steven Monahan, there in Beijing. We're planning on staying there in town for the rest of the week, and then the rest of our trip lays in my hands. I'll drop my plans into this blog right now, just to see how far I go off track from my original plan by the end of the trip. Sounds fun, yeah?

So here it is. I want to go from Beijing to Shanghai after a week. This'll put me in Shanghai exactly when four of my friends from Hong Kong (that I met in Harbin) will be town. That way we can meet up and have some Chinese friends for our stay in Shanghai. The more the merrier! After Shanghai, I want to explore Suzhou (once called 'heaven on earth'), and Nanjing, a large, old city to the east of Shanghai. From there, I can see Hangzhou (south of Shanghai), or drive west to Wuhan, which is essentially at the center of China. It also is host to the three river gorges of the Yangtze river, which I need to see while I'm in this country. After Wuhan, I want to shoot directly south towards Hong Kong, and perhaps get to see Guangzhou the big time city just north of Hong Kong. Then into Hong Kong itself, but not for long. It's EXPENSIVE. From HK, I'll go east to Hainan... and that's where my plan essentially ends. I'll have to see how much money I have left at that point, and see what day I am at in my travels. With a little luck, I'll have time and money left to get back north towards Xi'an, but stop by Zhengzhou (where Steve lives) to get to see his home.

This is my plan. Who knows what'll actually happen. Either way, I'm pumped.

Wish me some luck. I'll be checking my e-mail at every hostel I stop at, so please send me ideas of places to visit, love, help, or just a quick hello!

I'll be signing off from the blog for the next month. Get ready for some serious posting when I return. Until then... Love you everyone from home! Jai-o Zhong guo!

Signing off for a month,

Mr. Richard Anthony LaBontee, Jr.

The Frozen City: Harbin.

So I've traveled a good many places in my life, I'd say. But I can say, literally, that I've never seen things like I had seen in the city of Harbin, China.

We heard that there was a Snow and Ice festival (xue bing jie) in Harbin every year, and that since we live so close to the place, it would be an absolute travesty if we don't make it there this winter. At this, we decided 'hell, it'll be a good way to kick off our giant Chinese new years vacation, why not?'. So we bought some tickets to the place, packed up a small bag, and jumped on the train to Harbin on January 5th.

Now, the train situation was a bit funny. We bought 'standing' tickets. Now let me explain the Train system in China a bit in depth to show you what this means. (I may have done this before, alas.) There are two forms of traveling by train in China. They are Sitters and Sleepers. Sitters are what they sound like: couch-like chairs that can fit about 3 people on each side that line the cars of the train. Sleepers are bunk-style beds that you can rent out for your journey so that you can get a rest. You can buy two versions of these two forms. Soft and hard. A soft-sitter is a cushy, single serving version of a hard sitter. Very superfluous in my opinion. I've yet to experience a soft sleeper, but I'm sure it's very comfortable (I think it's a personal cab in the train with beds). A hard sleeper is just a bunk style bed that you share with 4-5 other people on the train.

For the trip to Harbin, we secured none of these. We were able to purchase 'standers'. A stander is a ticket you buy for the hard-sitter cars, and you literally stand in the aisle of the train until someone gets off the train, and you can pounce on the seat that they leave behind. We didn't really know we had this kind of ticket 'til we made it onto the train. Go figure. We also didn't really know that the trip to Harbin was about 10 hours long. Hoo boy. However, with a little luck, and with the Chinese's curiosity for foreign people, we managed to make a few friends on the train that invited us to sit with them or their family for parts of the ride. I myself made friends with a young girl who spoke some English, this fellow who spoke no English that I named 'Jim' (the english speaking girl said he was the most famous man on the train because he was very humorous. She wasn't lying. Every 15 minutes he'd say something I didn't understand to the entire train car, and the place would roar with laughter!) and another student going to Harbin who spoke some English named 'Johnson'. The trip went by quickly with so many people to get to know, and we made it to the Frozen city itself.

Harbin is famous for three things. It's snow and ice festival. It's below zero temperatures. And it's beer. Harbin beer is one of what I like to call, 'the big four' Chinese beers. Yanjing (from Beijing), Tsingtao (from Qingdao), Snow, and Harbin. The stuff was ridiculously cheap to buy in town, but that's a different story for a different day.

After getting off the train, our friend Johnson that we made brought us to the ticket office to buy tickets for our ride home to Tongliao. Unfortunately, we were forced to buy tickets for a day later than we wanted to stay in Harbin, but it turned out to be perfect later on. Johnson then also was kind enough to direct us to the proper bus that would bring us to our Hostel which we had 'booked' the night before. Johnson then had to take his leave from us since he was a student, and needed to return to his University to begin preparing for exams. But don't worry, he'll return to the story later on.

We get to the Hostel, but quite unfortunately, no one at the Hostel spoke any English. We probably would have had to leave if it weren't for the help of a group of students from Hong Kong that spoke perfect English and helped save our lives. They were hilarious, but were on their way into checking into their own rooms so we parted ways. However, they will also return to the story, so stay tuned. However, we DID make friends with another fellow from Hong Kong, a student named Dennis. Dennis was a great guy. Mild mannered, intelligent, funny, and innocent are a few words to describe the fella. He came with us on our adventures for the next day and a half, including Zhongyang street.

That night we decided to check out the city a bit, and found our way by bus to Zhongyang da jie, the most beautiful street in town. It had ice sculptures lining the streets, was blocked off from car traffic (only human) and had a series of wonderful shops and stores to look in and admire. Also, it had MCDONALDS!! Always the enthusiast, I got myself a quick burger. After checking out a few Russian Goods shops, we made our way to the end of the street, which runs right into the Harbin river (the city is situated right next to a large, beautiful river). Since the thing had frozen over, we were able to jump down on it and skate a bit. It was a hoot. Dennis loved it. He had never seen snow or ice in his life, and was taking it all in. Ultimately, we got tired and headed back to the Hostel for the night. We had a few Harbin's in Harbin, and hit the sack.

The next day, we had signed ourselves up for a Chinese tour of Harbin. We were excited, but kind of nervous due to the fact that none of us actually spoke Chinese. Luckily, Dennis was able to translate a little bit for us. Either way, we got picked up by some insidious van that drove us through Harbin to the beginning point of our tour. Oh, and by the way, I've found that I'm completely adjusted to the ridiculous driving style of the Chinese. We were barreling full speed at another car coming the opposite direction just to swerve at the last moment, and I yawned. Glad to know I don't live in fear any longer!

So the tour began and it brought us to our first destination: The Dragon Tower. I guess it's the 2nd biggest Tower in the world. But we didn't want to pay the fee to go in, so we left the tour for an hour to grab a bite to eat and explore the city ourselves. Oh, I forgot to mention that the tour was by bus, and they toted us to different sites around the city. After the tower, we shot off towards St. Sophia's church, which is a Russian style architectural beauty of a building in the middle of Harbin. There were doves flying around, and it was quite a sight. Hao mei (pretty) if you ask me. After this, we made our way to 'lunch' which we were a little wary of. Turned out to be a standard Chinese meal in a little restaurant that hosted all 20-30 of our tour group people. It was pretty fun actually - fast paced and a good chance to show off our kuai zi (chopstick) skills to the locals. After lunch we were carted off to what the Chinese affectionately called 'Snow World'. It was really a park, 'Sunny Island Park', that was FILLED with giant snow sculptures of every shape, size, genre, interest, and detail you could dream of. It was amazing. The main attraction was a MOUNTAIN sized sculpture of Santa Claus and a dream like landscape. It was unbelieveable, to say the least. Unfortunately, it was so absurdly cold in Harbin that my camera and it's batteries literally froze, and would not work. It's a shame because some of the things I saw were unaudiably gorgeous. Alas. Some of the artwork included different interpretations of Santa, of Greek Gods, of Spanish dancers, some abstract arts about Chinese culture, a life scale version of St. Sophia's church, beautiful renditions of Ocean life scenes, birds, children at play, elder people, halloween, angels, and everything in between. It was truly fantastic.

After our bout at the Snow world, we made our way (quite a short bus ride away) to Ice world. Now this here is actually the main attraction involved with the Harbin Ice Festival, so we were pretty psyched. The temperature was dangerously cold by this time, but did not, in any way, hinder our excitement. When I say that the Harbin Ice Festival was one of the most unexplainable, dreamlike, gorgeous wonders that I have ever experienced, I'm not over exaggerating by any means. The pictures can't do it justice. From full sized, explorable castles, to Chinese Pagodas, to a giant buddha, to never-ending slides, even a gigantic Chess board - EVERYTHING was made PURELY of ice and lights. It was breathtaking. I couldn't believe that people actually crafted this frozen town with their bare hands, just to let it melt every year. My eyes were HUNGRY to look at more of what was around me. If I can steal a line from Harry Potter: I felt like I wish I had 8 more eyes to take in everything that I was looking at. I was sorely sad to leave such a beautiful place, but it had to be. We soon after left the tour and made our way back to our little hostel to warm up and relax from our long day. We met up with a few Australian girls, as well as the four traveling students from Hong Kong! Edith, Jeff, Ken and Pauly. They were so fun to speak with and learn from that night, that we all decided to spend the next afternoon together before they left that next day for Jilin, a small mountain town south of Harbin. We also met up with a new friend named Jens, a dapper fella from Sweden. He was a great guy, and ended up traveling with us from that night into the next day, and until we left back to Tongliao!

The next day, I split away from the 4 other guys I came to Harbin with. They went off with Jens to explore a Tiger zoo in Harbin, while I went down town with the Hong Kong crew to explore some more of town. They were a blast to be around - especially since they spoke Cantonese, rather than Mandarin (which is what I've been learning). We taught each other a lot about language throughout the day, including a children's song, each. I learned the Cantonese version of 'twinkle twinkle little star', and I taught them 'The itsy bitsy spider' in English. It was a solid trade off. After a great, long day (I bought some Russian chocolate for a great price. Huzzah.) we all met up back at a quick dinner at a 'ma la tang' restaurant (super spicy noodle soup). It was wonderful, and we tucked it in for the night!

The next day, our day of departure, we made our way to the Harbin Walmart (American to the bone) and bought some provisions for our journey home. We had a coffee in a McDonalds, and waited for our friend Johnson (remember him??). We had called him the night before and asked if he wanted to grab some lunch before we left his city of Harbin. He was delighted to meet up, and he dragged us to this Traditional Chinese food restaurant that served 'chun bing', or 'Spring Bread'. It was basically like taking different kinds of fresh vegetables and chinese meat, putting it into a SUPER thin taco tortilla, wrapping it up, and eatin' good. It was very delicious, to say the least. After lunch we made our way to the train station and said some final goodbyes to our friends Jens and Johnson. Very sad to say goodbye to friends, new or old. We sighed a bit, and got onto the train. We unfortunately had standing seats once more, but luck prevailed, and we made friends again! I myself managed to situate myself inside a family of 6 that was traveling from Harbin to Batou (small city near Hohhot). They didn't speak really any English whatsoever, but were very friendly and a good time. They taught me a LOT of Chinese on the ride, and it was wonderful. They also had an adorable child that I managed to make friends with after awhile. Once the people on the train got wind of a bunch of foreign kids being on it, we immediately became famous, and kept making friends the whole way home. The 10 hour ride was quick because of all the talking and learning (I played chinese card games for a solid hour of it, too!) and before we knew it, we were back in good old Tongliao and grabbing a Taxi to get home and fall into bed. Happily.

All in all, a wonderful trip. .... BUT MORE TO COME!!!! STARTING TOMORROW!!!

*gasp* Let me explain.

Christmas and New Years in 1000 words or less.

I really must apologize for my tardiness in writing these blogs. I manage to get myself busy one way or another consistently over here in China, and end up making this journal kind of my last priority, when it SHOULD be one of my first! Alas, I've missed talking about our Christmas experience over here. It was great, to say the least. I won't go into horribly great detail about it, but I'll give you a quick synopsis... lesse...

Christmas eve we took our band of foreign teachers (minus Christina - she went home to America for the holidays) to the local western bar around town, King Hansens. We were greeted with many happy faces, a killer pizza for dinner, two new foreign faces (Christina and Benson, they used to live in Tongliao, but since moved to Dalian to teach, an American and a South African!) wonderful live music, and a host of familiar faces of people we know around Tongliao. All in all, it was an awesome night of celebration.

I'll also note that prior to this, on December 22nd, we were treated to a dinner with the Tongliao #1 Middle school officials. It was a blast, some of the food was weird, but everyone was having a great time by the end of it (bi-jiu seems to have this effect on dinners..).

Christmas day we spent opening each others secret santa presents! I got 'The Departed', a new coffee mug with Mr. Bean splayed across it (long story) and some new gloves! I was particularly excited. After listening to some serious Christmas tunes, we headed out for lunch with Gaowei in the north village. However, for dinner we were to attend a dinner we THOUGHT was being hosted by our gym. We were quite mistaken however, to find out the dinner was actually presented by one of the big, expensive hotels in Tongliao. Our gym decided that we were special enough to attend the big event and gave us free tickets to go! It was hilarious. Asian performances, a giant buffet, and free flowing beer. Our good friend Yuyu came with us to help translate a few things. The whole experience was grand!

New years was somethin' else too. On one nondescript day in December our boss, Mr. Zheng, gave us a call and told us that there was going to be a performance at our school on New years eve. He then told us we would be performing in it. That was it. PERFORMANCE?! That could literally mean anything. Luckily, we got a little info from the last year's foreign teachers as well as David, and we learned that this meant we could do a little dance or song for the school. Well of course we decided to dance, and chose the highly appropriate song, "Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays" by N'Sync, one of the better known bands in China. Long story short (and a few hours of practice under our belts), the dance went off without a hitch. I think the crowd particularly enjoyed the part when we laid down on the stage in a 'log roll formation' and had Neha (dressed as Mrs. Claus) roll across all of us while waving to the audience. We were born to shine. After the performance (in which many other teachers performed.. singing, dancing, an indian dance, a mongolian performance, a comedy skit that made NO sense whatsoever, and so on) we made our way to the school cafeteria to enjoy a school official endorsed dinner for all the teachers of Tongliao #1 Middle school. The food was probably the worst official dinner food I've ever had, but alas, it was full of good people and warm hearts. After the dinner (where Karaoke was the center of attention) all of the teachers were ushered back to the music hall for a DANCE PARTY!!! Turns out everyone gets together every year to dance to hilarious Chinese techno music for a couple hours. Anywhere else in the world, the dance would have been termed as 'really lame'. BUT NOT HERE! I believe the most fun part of it is the fact that even if people are horrible at dancing, they dance regardless just to enjoy themselves. This, combined with the absurdly fast pumping music, creates a judgement free environment for boogie-ing down. In this regard - I respect those wacky Chinese people.

So there is my Christmas and New Years tales in a nutshell. Sorry I blew through it so quickly. I want to write next about an adventure we took up in the most northern part of China. And I must write about this quickly since I'm leaving on my 1 month + long trip to ALL of China tomorrow morning! SO! Without further ado!
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