I have heard many a complaint about the lack of updates on my blog. I must say that I've been far to busy traveling to a paradise beyond my wildest dreams and then having my spirit crushed into a thousand tiny pieces. Not so pushy now are you? Well we'll start with the first of many legs of my journey. why is it legs and not arms...
Shanghai and Hangzhou (January 9 - 15)The day after my birthday Andrea, Aubrey, Cathy Lee and I left for Shanghai. It was a lovely goodbye trip, as the girls were to return to the mother land after our week of travels. We arrived in the city of soap operas (many of China's daytime dramas take place in Shanghai) overwhelmed by high rises and air pollution, and after coming from Beijing that's saying a lot about the exhaust of the city's vehicles. Seeing as how this happened over a month ago it's a bit of a blur for me but the minor details are as follows:
- nothing seems to go quite right in Shanghai
- the country's tallest building, the Jin Mao Tower is pretty cool, but you can't see more than 2 miles out from the top because of all the pollution
- the Bund Sight Seeing Tunnel is freakier than any acid trip I have every heard of
- the Shanghai Sex Museum is quite possibly the hardest thing to ever find (other than a set of keys in your apartment of course)
- the Peace Hotel Old Jazz Bar literally has some of the crustiest old men I have ever seen still able to breath without the aid of a machine, and man does the trumpet player love shakin those maracas
- though we were told that because Shanghai is farther South we'd be able to find spring rolls we were heart broken to find not a single one, thus dashing Cathy Lee's hopes of ever eating a true Chinese spring roll
After a few days in China's fastest growing metropolis we hopped a train to Hangzhou. It is said that "there is heaven above, Hangzhou below" and that the most beautiful women in China come from Hangzhou. It was rainy and overcast every one of the three days we spent there. With it's pristinely kept foliage, immaculately clean buildings and wide welcoming walkways we couldn't help but agree despite the gloomy weather. There was a mist that blanketed the popular West Lake that added to the towns beautiful mystery. Hangzhou seemed much more entertaining to me. One day, after a chilly row boat tour around the lake, there was an incident at the Starbucks. Three elderly Chinese women brought some baskets with them to the edge of the lake next to the building cluster we were in. Out of the basket o' mystery one of the women pulled a fish and set it on the ground about a foot from the water's edge. The fish flopped around and succeeded in landing in the water but to it's apparent disappointment and horror was dragged out again while the three women bowed up and down clasping their hands in what seemed like prayer. It wasn't till after the fish stopped moving that they decided to release it back into the pond. The three women proceeded to pull fish after nearly dead fish out of their baskets and put them into the water where they either swam away or floated listlessly to the surface. As you can imagine, if 4 foreign girls walking down the street minding their own business turns heads for miles, then these 3 witches drew quite the crowd. We surmised that they had purchased the fish from a market and were making some kind of offering to the Lady of the Lake. In all it was a good trip. We napped, we went to a silk museum (that's crazy hard stuff to make) and we ate really good food (hardly any of it Chinese. Still no egg rolls).
We flew out of Shanghai airport and landed in Beijing at midnight. This led to the tearful but excited transition to the next arm of my journey. Drew (one of the three rock star members of the "Thailand or bust" punk band, How Delicious) was waiting for us at our hostel with snacks. (How Delicious is the name of the band I'm in where Brandon plays the keyboard, Drew is lead guitar and I'm lead vocals and tambourine.) The next morning Drew and I left my beloved travel partners for snowy Chengde. Andrea, Aubrey and Cathy Lee left me to fend for myself while they would no doubt gorge themselves on Comedy Central and anything but Chinese food for at least a month straight. I loathe you and yet I love you girls... may you no longer get China stuck up your nose... may you have solid bowl movements... may you drink water straight from the tap...
Suckaaaaaaaaaaaaaas! Now you have to find a real job! Ho ho, jokes on you!
Chengde and Beijing (January 17 - 24)
