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.

My life fits in two rolling bags. My life story fits in a 15 minute power point presentation.

So I have now officially started all of my classes. On week two I started my sophomore level 3s, on week 4 I started my freshman level 1s, and on the hellish week 5 I was introduced to my first and only class of non-English majors which are the only kids I have more than once a week (cue sarcastic yay).

My first class ever was my Wednesday sophomores. Needless to say I was terrified walking into a room of 40 Chinese people staring. I only had 2 boys in this class and about 4 invaders who were mechanical engineering majors, come to gawk at the foreigner. I had everyone break into groups and while I went around speaking with everyone I noticed they didn't have the book. The girl sitting next to them said they weren't in the class, and after I started speaking to them rapidly in English asking what they were doing in my class it seemed as if they couldn't pack up their things quickly enough to escape lol. So class began and I soon realized I was WAY under prepared. I couldn't figure out how to open the projector and decided to just wing it...which didn't work. Luckily my students were super sweet and filled up most of the time just chatting with me about America, and what I had been doing in china so far. I wrote all my contact info on the board, including my QQ number which elicited a resounding chorus of laughter from everyone. Overall this class is golden; they are all well behaved and avid in participation. Thankfully they're in the middle of the week, a nice break of the chaos that goes on Monday and Tuesday. My Friday sophomore's are much shyer but I can see ideas starting to brew when I ask them questions. The class is huge (56 people) so I can understand why participation is much lower with them than with my other English major classes. They're more challenging to wrangle because it’s the last day period on Friday but they're starting to catch on.

My English major freshmen are all pretty funny. I am the first foreigner most of them have ever spoken with and as such this illicit great statements like, "Did you know Shijiazhuang is the capital of Hebei?” why no i just popped over here to china, you know we don't have such information in the states, with the open internet and such. They're kind of adorable, in a puppy/kitten kind of way. They soak up information like sponges and it’s funny to hear them all repeat something I say in a whisper when they encounter a word they don't know. Then again this phenomenon occurs in all my classes, it's the only way I can tell when they don't understand something.

My non-majors are the equivalent of the class from hell. I can plan and plan all day and still have 30 minutes left in class when I’ve gone over everything. They don't care enough to ask questions or participate, even when I come around to small groups. I swear if I try to catch another one of them trying to take a picture while I’m walking around the classroom I’m banning cell phones from class. The worst thing is I have them two days in a row for two hours a day, and on the second day I don’t even have a projector. I'm fairly certain they are the reason I go to beer so quickly.

In China the value of friendship is measured by how much Baijiu you can drink.

So there I was. In a t-shirt and cargo shorts in arguably the nicest private dining room I’d seen since I got china, watching my Waiban frantically order food. I had remembered to take off my hat, and put down my hair…never mind that I put it back up 5 minutes later, after deciding it resembled more of a Christmas tree than a hairstyle. People began to enter. First was a head teacher, then a teacher from the power and energy department, then some officials from the school, and finally the party officials from the government foreign affairs office. At their entrance everyone stood and therefore so did i. Observation was going to be my best tool in this I could already tell, only 3 of the people spoke decent English. This was indeed my first “holy crap I’m in china” moment, then TO MY GREAT RELIEF, in walked Tyler; My fellow teacher and sort of Chinese speaking partner in crime. Between him and what I could remember from online research I do not believe I made any major faux pas. At first I did not drink baijiu with anyone but was then pretty much coerced by the teacher from the power and energy department. It wasn’t that bad but I have no idea how the rest of the people were taking upwards of 10 shots of it. Though about five minutes later it was obviously having quite the effect, especially on the vice president of the foreign affairs office from our school lmao, he was crazy. So after countless toasts, blessings, and presenting gifts to the directors from the government foreign affairs office the almost nightmare was over. What started out horrifying had turned out fine, though the drinking and nervous atmosphere really made me desire a shower O_o

Moving Day!

So last night was the last hurrah for everyone to be here in Shijiazhuang. Sadly I slept through dinner with our director Kirk but awoke to noise that was obviously my group partying in the hallway (which reminds me I still haven't blogged about my lunch with the Chinese officials? now how did I forget that!). Henceforth I went to investigate. Upon entering I was greeted by Sean with a bottle of baijiu, some terrible Chinese "vodka", and a Tsingtao. Gotta love friendly drunks. I got my first karaoke experience courtesy of the KTV in the basement of the hotel. We were only there for about 15 minutes but it was still fun. After this some of us headed out to Mazzo. I was inside for 5 minutes before I left feeling like I had experienced a mild seizure. Outside I found Kirk and some other people. It was a nice relaxing night, plus I got hear some of what other people were expecting from this experience and what they were planning on doing afterwards.

Woke up this morning with quite the headache -_- now realizing I could've had a use for that 500 count bottle of aspirin I bought freshman year but never finished off. Tyler and I were greeted by Li Wei (our Waiban) nearly an hour early in the breakfast room, seriously? Luckily I packed before heading down for food. 

Now, up until this point I felt pretty comfortable in China. The first two days I just spent touring Beijing, after that everywhere I went I knew Kirk was just a taxi away so no real panic. Before being picked up by Li (I think this is his family name, but it’s more comfortable than just calling him Wei, so I’m sticking with Li...) I thought hey, this guy knows I’ve never been to china before surely he'll be helpful and understanding. From what I had learned all of our Waiban's had arranged time to take us to get cell phones and show us our apartments and really just talk about contracts and stuff today, well I was wrong. Tyler (the other Drake teacher) and I got downstairs to a van that Li was apparently borrowing from someone (?) and really up until this point I not met a single person who had not been at least somewhat helpful with my luggage but this was too much for him I guess. I loaded my two giant bags in the back then climbed into the van to help Tyler get his stuff in...Cause I literally commandeered the whole trunk of the van lol. We were off...to what I thought was going to be our medical exams, but no Li had a lunch appointment first. So we spent a good 20-30 minutes sitting in the van outside the restaurant...then we were off again, but not to the exams instead to my apartment. Once again I received no assistance from Li with my baggage (all 2 carry on and 2 50lb rollers), in fact he even told Tyler he should wait in the van. Well thankfully for me Tyler had manners enough to help. I’m on the fourth floor, and no there isn’t an elevator but they also aren’t very common in china anyway. Now, I knew not to expect much but I was not expecting this. The living room, bed room, and office are good but it soon deteriorates. In fact I’m certain I will be renovating the bathroom at some point in the next 10 months. If nothing else a fresh coat of protectant on the wall (I think that's a giant colony of mold on the bottom of the walls but I haven't really gotten up the courage to investigate).

After a once over and some paper signing we were off, no not to our exams, to the police department. Frantically Li gathered our passports and ran in. Five minutes later he ran out, now even more frustrated. He didn't seem to want to answer our questions and after prompting him for the 3rd time about cell phones he informed us we could get our own and he had important things to do. After this is was decided we were not going to have exams until the next morning at 9am, he would meet us at the hospital, the name of which he wrote down for us so we could get a taxi in the morning. He left us at Tyler's apartment, and so Tyler and I set off to find my apartment. Which turns out is only a 20 minute walk but we wandered around for about an hour and a half. Luckily he speaks some Chinese and was able to ask for directions. So now it's cleanin time bitches!

My First Saturday in China

So after the first day of Chinese language lessons our director sent us on a mission to team up into groups of four, find dinner and haggle for a t-shirt costing no more than 5kuai. All of this sounded fairly easy and so my group members and I set out on an adventure. 

I have never in my life, had such a hard time finding a questionable t-shirt vendor in a country where street markets are so common.

After taking off down a half demolished alley we still hadn't found a vendor with t-shirts. Underwear, toilets, and shoes seemed to be very common but no t-shirts. After rounding a corner near Main Street we finally came by one, but it became immediately clear we were not getting any t-shirt for less than 5kuai lol. We haggled with the woman for about 10 minutes after which we had gotten her down to 20kuai for 4 t-shirts but we said no and walked out onto the main street. We soon returned, realizing she may have been the only T-shirt street vendor. She then raised her price to 20kuai for 1 shirt, and turned back onto the alley-way. We still had some time to kill because one of our group members was partaking in Ramadan and couldn't eat till the sun set. He was the only one brave enough to approach the pool stick wielding Chinese woman near the outdoor jimmy rigged pool tables, and thus we soon became great local entertainment.

After what was easily the longest game of pool I've ever played, and a stroll back down the alley it was dinner time! We ended up in a nice looking restaurant, which coincidentally was a hot pot! Which means there were also pictures of the food...which is handy when you don't speak Chinese...

It took a total of 5 waiters to take our order, and while it seemed like a hassle it was sure entertaining for them. They had seated us at the front table, a spectacle for everyone to behold, westerners trying to eat a meal in china. The cashier woman was especially entertained, she openly laughed and took pictures but I didn't really mind.

All in all I gotta say I still think we got the best bargain, free pool in a demolished Chinese ally-way. That experience is gunna be hard to top.

First Day in China

I have never used the expression FML so many times in one day. I woke up at 3am on the 16th to drive into San Antonio to depart, I arrived on the 17th at about 5pm in the airport and thought I had adequately prepared myself for my first day in china...SO NOT PREPARED. I had no problems in the airport but the second I stepped on the arrivals area I was totally lost, and I'm sure looked like the easiest scam ever.

Mistake #1: Accepting help from seemingly well dressed very insistent strangers
The second I started down the sidewalk looking for the taxi queue area I was approached by a professional looking man who spoke some broken English. I said "taxi" he said "free airport shuttle". I had printed directions to my hotel from the airport in Chinese from google.com/cn and he read them and nodded. I followed him a few minutes then spotted a group of taxis. After waiting about 10 minutes for this "free shuttle" I decided I probably needed to figure out how to take taxis anyway and I really just wanted to go to bed, so I headed over to them. I handed them my piece of paper with the directions and the group of 5 Chinese men took a couple of minutes I'm guessing to discuss where it was (it was only 13-15 minutes from the airport right off the expressway). After they came to a consensus the guy with the paper looked at me, I asked how much USD, he apparently didn't understand this so I said U.S. and showed him a dollar bill, and he said $100. I laughed and said $20, by the look on his face I think he didn't expect I was going to haggle with him. We continued to haggle until I got him down to $25, which I think was still rather high but whatever. I agreed and the men put my bags in the back of one of the taxis. At just this  moment the man from earlier who was with the "free airport shuttle" rushed up and began yelling at the taxi driver, of course I had NO idea what was going on lol so I just played on my phone.

Mistake #2: Letting myself be pushed around
When they stopped yelling the taxi took my bags out of the car and the shuttle guy led me back to the curb, after which a very old white shuttle pulled up that said "100% perfect airport shuttle" on the side though I could barely read it from the weathering. I got in this thing greeted the driver and in a few moments we were off. I was following where he was going on the English version of my directions and was not really paying attention to what we were passing...and therefore didn't realize we had passed the Days Hotel and had turned off down a backstreet further down. In an enclave there was the entrance to a hotel, which did actually look like the only picture I had been able to find online of the outside of the Days Hotel. A bellhop helped me get my bags to the front desk at which I encountered an associate who spoke NO English. I said I had a reservation and pointed to the Chinese translation in my phrase book. She looked at me funny and asked for my passport. I handed her my passport and watched her fill out a little piece of paper, after which she photocopied my passport and handed me a carbon copy of what she had written down. She handed a key to the bellhop and he escorted me to the room. Upon entering I noticed an intense smell of smoke. I really didn't care I just wanted to sleep.

  

After settling in my luggage I began to explore the room. The DVD player had no parts inside, the sheets were stained, it was definitely not a western mattress, and the full length mirror was clearly half caulked into what used to be the doorway of a two room suite. I walked into the bathroom with some surprise, the whole bathroom was the shower, and had apparently not been cleaned in a while. This all seemed strange but I overlooked this and took a sleeping pill and laid down on the non-stained side of the bed. Two hours later I awoke much more calm and conscious. I began to really scrutinize, having worked in a Days Inn owned hotel I know firsthand how they brand EVERYTHING, from the towels to pens in the room. I saw none of this in the room and for the first time it had dawned on me, I was definitely in the wrong hotel. I grabbed my backpack, my hotel directions, and my phrasebook and headed downstairs. I eventually came across a bellhop who understood what I was trying to convey and immediately flagged a man over, with whom I negotiated a $5 price to take me all the way to the front desk of the hotel on the paper. I was skeptical when I got in the car with him seeing no displayed taxi license or meter, turns out he was just the friend of the bellhop lol but he got me there. I was fortunate for the rest of the night my next taxi driver was very kind though he didn't speak a word of English, the phrase book/dictionary really came in handy. He successfully got me a refund at the first hotel and got me and my bags back to the Days Hotel, where the rooming situation looked much more like what I had seen online and THEY HAD INTERNET. After over 24 hours of travel I had finally arrived lol.

Artwork of the Week

Yuumei of Deviant Art