My 1st traveling experience: Taiyuan (not taiwan damnit!) Day 2

So the next morning I woke up to this:

My plan for the day was to hit up the twin pagoda temple, grab dinner and come back to the hotel. Needless to say, this IS NOT how it went down. It was more like...travel halfway to temple, freak out, hail a cab, cabbie gets lost, go off-roading in a Chinese cab, finally arrive at temple, take a thousand pictures of the most awesome pagoda's in Taiyuan, trek back to my hotel by foot, engage in spontaneous shopping spree, scavenge dinner at Dico's, pass out in comfy hotel bed at 8pm.

So, I had fully planned out what buses, I needed to take for the day. Little did I know a 2-block area around the temple was under construction and had stopped all buses to the temple, and most of the buses in the same area. Before leaving my room I again looked on Google at the route and was confident it should only be about a 30-40 minute bus ride. So I walked about 10 minutes to the bus stop and got on one of the most pleasant buses I've ridden in china so far. As we neared the train station (the halfway point) the bust began to make a noise and the driver pulled it over to the side and ordered everyone out, of course I didn't understand this because I don't speak Chinese, but eventually a lady came over and told me in English that this was the end. This made me VERY confused, because I knew there were supposed to be another 5 or 6 stops. Reluctantly I got off, but I knew the area around the train station well and knew I needed to go NE to the temple. I walked for about 15 minutes before I realized it was super hot and I really wasn't down for the trip. I had the name of the temple written in Chinese so I hailed a cab, but when I showed the cab driver he said no and told me to get out. This was the same with the next three cabs. I gave up and went into the nearest international hotel to see what was up. When I showed the name to the desk clerks they had no idea was I was talking about, it took about 10 minutes before I gave up and just drew a picture of a pagoda and said "lian ge" and they immediately understood. They said it was too far to walk but wrote something in my book and said to give it to a taxi driver. The first taxi agreed to take me. Looking back I don't know if the first few knew there was construction and wouldn't take me, or if they really just didn't understand...but finally I had a taxi. So after 15 minutes of driving he turned down a rather questionable looking street (with lots of construction) and it became apartment that he wanted to turn left but couldn't because the roads were shut, so he just kept going forward. Finally we found a left and he drove up a windy road to a large gate and I could see the two pagodas to be what looked like only a 5 minute walk or so. So I paid and got out, to a GIANT flower arrangement of a sickle and a hammer...I was pretty confused. So was the guard who ran out screaming in Chinese at the cab driver. I just stood there totally lost as what I'm sure was the guard giving directions to the cabbie on where to go, and the cabbie not really wanting to listen. So, frightened, I got back into the cab...and so began my first off-roading experience in China...in an old cab. We drove through the rather uneven construction site for about 10 minutes until we came to a dirt road which led to an alleyway, which coincidentally led to the temple. He didn't charge me, which I was glad because after having him take me first to what I’m sure was a head of government building/training facility I probably wouldn't have paid him.

The most awesome thing though was that because of the construction almost no one was visiting the temple!

[jump to gallery link]

So after a few hours at the temples I decided it was just about time to leave. I knew their probably wasn't going to be any taxis around because it was later in the day so I walked to the nearest bus station. I lucked out that the bus stop sign said there was a bus that I knew stopped near the train station, and there was a group waiting so I hoped at least one bus was still running in the area. I waited, and waited, and waited some more but nothing came. Finally I struck up a conversation with some girls who looked to be near my age. They spoke a little English and were able to tell me that the bus I wanted wasn't running even though they still had it on the sign. When I asked where I could find a main street to get a taxi they turned to the group of about 30 Chinese people and it took all of them to figure out where the nearest main road was lol it was hilarious. The group was mostly older Chinese factory workers, as there was a clothing factory right next to the temple. Eventually they gave me a street name and pointed me South East. So I began walking. After not being able to find the street they had recommended I decided I was going to try and retrace the route the taxi had taken, which led me down one of the scariest streets I'd seen in china...

Possibly the most vacant and creepy large Chinese street I've been down. So I walked down this street for a while, and took my first left. I had turned onto the busiest street in town I'm sure. There was no room to walk on the sidewalk so I was literally following around a man dodging cars in the middle of the street. I knew I was on the right path but still had a ways to go as I was not even at the halfway point yet, so I decided I would browse the street venders and see if I could get any good deals. I ended up with this:

 The train ticket I got from the train station with the help of a seemingly nice Chinese man and daughter...but we'll get to this later. So the rip off kappa bag and spring loaded pocket knife cost me a whole $7, oh china, so expensive. So it took me almost two hours to meander through the street markets before I really started heading for home. Turned out I was really only about a 15 minute walk from the train station, so I decided to go ahead and get my ticket home for the next day.

I approached the gigantic station and walked around the front for about 10 minutes before I gave up on finding the ticket office and decided to give the automated ticket machines a try. So far Chinese technology has been pretty intuitive and I new my train number so it shouldn't have been hard. The English language button helped too. I had everything sorted out and the final step was to scan my id card...but my passport is so old it doesnt have the chip like the new ones. I asked the lady standing next to me if I could use my passport, what I mean is I pointed and the screen then at my passport. She went over to a man who I'm guessing was her father and he came over and said "let me help you, you can use mine", so I was like okay whatever. So he swiped his id, I put in my money and my ticket popped out and I was all set...or so I thought. Later I was comparing my first ticket to my second ticket and noticed my new ticket has some extra Chinese characters on it where before my passport number was present. Then it dawned on me, it was his name and id number on MY ticket. So I was like great, I can try and get a refund and buy a new one, or just go for it and hope they don't notice I'm not Chinese...

Basically after this discovery I was way to worn out to do anything else for the day and just went to bed.

Taiyuan_02

Shijiazhuang Video - Daily Commute

My 1st traveling experience: Taiyuan (not taiwan damnit!) Day 1

So last week i popped onto google maps to decide where to go for national holiday. I got a week off from school but i didnt want to be gone the whole week, and i didnt want to go to far for my first venture out into china. I found travelchinaguide.com to be an amazing site. Not only did it help me pick a place but i also pulled information on sites of interest and an example touring schedule! However, after this trip i now fully understand why NO ONE in china plans anything in advance. A couple of days before leaving i got my ticket

Google helped me discover i was in car 15 seat 5, which was awesome because i was at the back of the train with a window seat! So I awoke @ 5am on October 3rd, and with my planning book and backpack in tow i set out to make it to Shijiazhuang North rail station. There was nobody on the street which was awesome because it took me far less time to hail a cab than i had planned (yes i even timed this out). So, I arrived at the train station an hour early....which turns out is way to early for china.

Getting a haircut in china

This only requires two things: luck, and a picture.

So I figured, really, when am I going to find a better time to tryout a new haircut than while in china? I have a year to grow it back to what it used to be, and the Chinese can't stare any harder at a foreigner anyway, so it’s not like anything’s going to change when it comes to standing out. I started out with some research. I literally just Googled "getting a haircut in china". I was completely amazed at the amount of material I was able to find, the reviews however were very mixed. It was about even between good and bad experiences and I knew picking the right place was going to be the main factor in my success. I thought about it for a few days and decided on a place I passed every time I went to get 包子 (a steamed bun with meat or veggies inside, pinyin: baozi). They were always blaring English pop music so I figured someone had to speak a little English. After dinner with Emily and Tyler I headed over to it. I walked in and stood in the doorway for a bit, before being beckoned in by what I guessed was a receptionist, I showed her my translations I got from my students and the picture of the cut I was going for I had put on my phone.