Pee-on Xi'an

Hey everybody! No, I didn't forget about you, I've just been crazy busy running around China. You've been caught up on my Shanghai trip, but two weekends ago I went to Xi'an (pronounced She-On), a city famous for two reasons: because it is very near the burial ground of the first Chinese emperor and his Terra Cotta Soldiers, and, perhaps more importantly, because it's the public urination capital of the world. You read that right. More male Xi'anites(?) freely lower their flies in public per capita than any other city on earth (fake). In fact, Xi'an has very few public bathrooms just for this reason (not true at all). They've even adapted a famous Chinese idiom about returning natures bounty...alright I'll stop. Point is, they have a problem. 

I'm not sure when this trend caught on, but personally I like to believe that in ancient times two famous scholars decided to settle a philosophical argument via drinking contest. The argument was only settled when the victorious scholar challenged the other scholar to a "pissing contest," spawning the phrase as we know it today. The tradition of public urination was then subsequently passed down through the generations, becoming less and less taboo over time until the present day, where it is an established part of the city's culture.

As I said, I like to believe that, but in reality, I have no idea why. Every. Single. Day. I was in Xi'an I saw a man stop, whip out the family jewels, and spray away at the many conveniently placed trees dotting the sidewalks. This happened in broad daylight too, so it wasn't just people getting drunk and having no shame. Furthermore, it wasn't even just a couple of homeless guys, which I could have understood. I saw two sharply dressed businessmen perform the deed, simultaneously, while having a conversation (I wasn't close enough to hear what they were saying, and probably wouldn't have understood it anyway, but maybe they both said, "Hey, look! Foreigners! Let's piss in front of them and freak'em out!). But perhaps absolutely most egregiously, during our bike ride atop the ancient city wall, I saw a man on his cell phone take a piss ON ONE OF XI'AN'S CULTURAL RELICS. Nothing. I got nothing. I was shocked.

I asked our student coordinator and one of the CLI teachers who tagged along (in addition to myself, Victoria, our history professor, his wife, an older CLI student, and the always cab-fearing Paul) and they didn't really know either. They were less shocked, but they were both from the south of China, and assumed it was just a northern thing (China is approximately the same length North to South as the US, and has just as much diversity between regions, if not more. Just as northerners in the US look down on southerners as hillbillies and southerners look at them as prissy city slickers, the Chinese have their own regional rivalries, but it's mostly based on province and the main North vs. South feud).

Apart from the urine, Xi'an is pretty cool. We hit up a Muslim walking street to find some food and buy some souvenirs. In an unusual reversal, the food was actually rather expensive, whereas the souvenirs were pretty fairly priced. One meal we wanted to have before we left was You-Po-Mian (literally means Oil Dripped Noodles). In Guilin, our my favorite place to eat is a yopomian place, and yopomian originated from Xi'an, so we were all I was excited to try the original. We I shouldn't have been. Xi'an's yopomian was bland, cold, and three times the price of Guilin's. Maybe I'm just biased towards my local mom and pop noodle shop, or maybe it's because our yopomian has enough MSG to kill a small horse in each serving, buuut I didn't like it at all. 

Another Xi'an specialty is Biang-Biang-Mian. Biang is an ancient onomatopoeia for the sound the noodles make when the chef slaps them against the wood to prepare them. The character for Biang is arguably most complicated character in Chinese (in fact, if you ask a typical Chinese person, which I did, they don't know how to write it, it's just a specialty thing):

Unfortunately, due to its fame, BiangBiangMian is expensive, and because of our other experience with Xi'an's noodles, we decided to skip it. 

So far I've been giving Xi'an a pretty bad rap, but it does have it's plus sides. If for nothing else, it is worth the trip just for the history of the place. It served as the capital of several dynasties (called Chang'An back in the good 'ole days) and while the city's dirty sprawl has replaced all of the previous grandeur, the sites just a short bus ride away more than fill the void.

The first we went to was a series of tombs from the Tang Dynasty (618-907AD). They each had their own interesting back stories, including enough court intrigue to make even the biggest Game of Thrones fan's head spin (for example, one of the tombs was the royal prince's. He was killed by his grandmother, an Empress-Dowager for allegedly bad mouthing the emperor's (her) rule. Oh yeah, and by kill I mean beaten to death with blunt wooden sticks. But, because he was royalty, a more proper cause of death was given to the common people, and his tomb bears the same lie.

Descending into the tomb: 

The next spot was the famous burial ground of Wu Zetian, the only female Empress and an all around bad ass in her own right. She consolidated her power by killing her political rivals, even family members, but once she did, she led China through a period of economic growth and territorial expansion, so the Chinese brush that first part under the rug. 

Outside her tomb, the statues of foreign envoys. I'm 82% sure they originally had heads...

Since we spent 3 full days in Xi'an, We got to explore a bit and see the sites. Back in the day, Chang'an was divided into very strictly regulated grids, with walls dividing each sector. The city had a curfew, and when the drums started beating, or bells ringing (it was a complicated system), it meant get your ass home, or face the consequences. This is the famous the Bell tower with some aftermarket neon:

Xi'An also has two very old, very famous pagodas. This is the smaller of the two:

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for. What made my journey through Xi'an's piss-laden streets and your journey through my piss-laden words worthwhile: The Terra Cotta Soldiers. I have to admit I wasn't really prepared to see them. I kind of brushed it off. But when I was walking into the huge complex that houses them, my heart felt like it was beating out of my chest. We went early in the day, and on a nasty, rainy, cold day at that, but you could still hear the clamor of people inside. My inner History nerd was livin' the dream. Right when you walk in you're hit with this:

(plus a few hundred other people pushing and shoving to get a good picture)

You can walk around and get a 360 view, and the sides were much more manageable. What concerned me though, was the lack of security. You had to pass through metal detectors and get patted down to get in to the complex, but once you were in, a 4 foot high guard rail was the only thing between you and warriors. As a self-acknowledged history nerd it would be unthinkable to mess with something as priceless as the warriors, but all it takes is one jackass. There were only three or four security guards too (which didn't really matter because if you f'd with the warriors you'd get attacked by a thousand very angry (very real) Chinese people-turned-warriors. Anyway, once I worked through my fear of someone being "that guy" I took the time to appreciate it as much as I could:

Obligatory picture with me in it:

So. Damn. Cool. It's one of the few experiences where I've been left thinking knowing, "I will remember this until the day I die."

On our last day we decided to ride bikes atop the city wall. You rent them for an hour and it's a good way to see a good bit of the city. These walls were from the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and the originals are long gone. As you can see, they are still pretty imposing:

An arrow tower:

Paul enjoyed got duped into the experience of a tandem bike:

Shot from atop the walls. Old and new all in one. I'm artsy, I know:

All in all Xi'an was a good trip. It was the dirtiest city I've visited, with the worst food, but I bought some cool gifts and saw some amazing things, things most people will never in their life see in person. How can I really complain?

[insert one last urination joke here]

Complimentary picture of our student coordinator Cecily (we wear her out):

Shanghai'd in Shanghai

Growing up my mother taught me to never trust two things: 1. Anything that bleeds for three days and doesn't die and 2. Shanghai Taxi drivers. Okay I lied about both of those, but the point is, Shanghai Taxi drivers are criminals operating a common business as a facade to trap unknowing foreigners and rob them blind. Okay, they probably aren't all that bad, maybe we just weren't lucky, OR, maybe our cab driver was actually trapped in the trunk and replaced by his attacker, a known sociopath who has been eluding Shanghai authorities and harassing the honest people for years. Whatever the case,  as you will see, we got screwed.

Our trip to Shanghai was three days long, starting with a flight on Friday night, and ending with a flight out Monday. We had decided, since Shanghai's Pudong airport was on the far eastern part of the city, fairly well removed from our hostel on the far western side of the city, to split a hotel room for one night and then take off from there. We picked a fairly cheap hotel within 5 minutes of the airport, and only a short ride away from a metro stop, where we would begin seeing Shanghai in earnest the following day. But how to get there...

SO, we get one of the regulated airport cabs (I'm still working out if they were co-conspirators or not, at the very least, they are complicit) and explain to him our destination. He understands and takes off. As we are leaving the airport, we realize he hasn't started his meter, a big no-no for Chinese taxi drivers (we found out later we could have called and reported him, or at least threatened to, for not starting it right away). I used my perfect broken Chinese to say, "Can. Use. This." while pointing to the meter (My Chinese was better than that, but you get the point). He ignores me and then my good buddy Paul, asks the requisite follow-up question, "How much is this gonna cost?" 100 RMB the man says. A cab in China usually costs 7.50 RMB to start, and then 1 additional RMB for every kilometer of 5 kilometers. So our five minute ride would have at most cost us 20 RMB. Paul lost his f'ing mind.

Paul's Chinese is much better than mine, a fact I attribute to his having been born in China, and having lived there for 8 years before emigrating to the States, and subsequently forgetting everything he ever knew about Chinese. Nonetheless, he picks it up faster than I do, and, when he has time, can learn 50 new words and characters a day, something I could never do. Paul began assaulting the driver with question after question, asking him why it was so much, explaining how close it was, and requesting (repeatedly) that he let us out. The guy shouted back, and they argued back and forth. Paul fought valiantly, but we arrived and nothing had been settled, and the price had only been reduced to 60RMB, about three times what it should cost. Exhausted from a long day of classes and travelling, and seeing no plausible avenue of escape except refusing to pay (and who knows what that SOB would've done then), we gave the bastard his dirty money and walked to the hotel defeated, having gained nothing but a life lesson and a clever title for a blog (Eyooooo).

I still taunt Paul by asking him for 60 RMB sometimes, he still doesn't think it's funny. Anyways, our trip was all downhill from there. Shanghai is an amazing city, and one dirty, thieving, cheating, (et cetera, ad infinitum) cabby wasn't going to ruin our impression (only Paul's). We started our first day with a dumpling breakfast. Then, Paul found a man (not an official cabby, which is usually sketchy) who agreed to take us to the subway station for 15RMB. Since unofficial drivers are usually more expensive anyway, we hopped in. Upon arriving, the man asked us for 45RMB. Apparently it was 15RMB per person. As you can imagine, Paul almost had a aneurysm. I calmed him down and told him we didn't have much choice since we didn't ask, and that it really was a little over 2.50USD per person anyway. We paid the man. Paul is still angry. I still taunt him by using the Chinese word for "altogether" as much as possible when discussing money.

Once we finally made it to the subway we headed into downtown Shanghai. It's a huge city, and divided down the middle by a big, dirty river. On the eastern portion are the skyscrapers, some famous, some still under construction. But the scene when you step out from the metro is pretty cool:

Our first stop was the Pearl of The Orient tower:

You pay a pretty handsome fee to go to the top and to see the museum in the basement. The trend of me enjoying museums and my companions patiently waiting for me to enjoy museums started here:

View from the top, the one skyscraper is still under construction, but already dwarfs every other building in Shanghai:

Sorry mom, but I once again trusted a Chinese glass walkway, this time from even further up:

Since Paul and I had enjoyed the ferry in Hong Kong so much we decided to take the one in Shanghai to cross the river (there isn't much to do on the East side). Bad choice. The one in Shanghai is hard to find, crowded, and not much of a ride. It took us about half an hour to find it. If you ever go, just take the subway. We did stop to take some pictures with the Bund (the strip of European style buildings along the water) in the background though:

Once we made it across we walked the Bund and took in the architecture. You know what they say, when in Rome...[insert cliche here]...sometimes you have to grab the bull by the horns:

ha-HA!

*eh-hem* Where was I? Ah yes, some of the exquisitely juxtaposed European styling of the Bund:

From there we hit the famous shopping street of Nanjing Lu. It had every designer store you could think of and then some. Even the locally owned places catered to the wealthy. The people were many, the prices were high, so we breezed through it fairly quickly and headed back to the hostel for the night.

The next day, we went to my favorite stop of the whole trip, the Shanghai Propaganda Museum. Oh man. My inner Political Science and History nerd was out in force. It's a private museum in the basement of an apartment building, but it has the best collection of Cultural Revolution era posters and memorabilia. I could have stayed there all day. And, the kicker: They had a gift shop where they sold authentic Cultural Revolution artifacts. I don't know if you think that's as cool as I do (my companions surely didn't) and I don't care. It was the coolest thing I've ever spent money on, and boy did I spend. No regrets. Sorry, no pictures allowed.

(For those interested: http://www.shanghaipropagandaart.com/ )

From there, we toured the French concession, an upper class era where the French used to hang. It's a nice change of pace from downtown Shanghai, as it's quiet, and a bit more spread out. We walked all the way down the main street, mostly due to Paul's sudden aversion to anything that even looked like a taxi, but also because the area itself is just plain nice. Nothing stood out as particularly photo-worthy, but you just felt comfortable there. I liked it. Way to go France:

We then headed to an area called Old Town. Our guidebook said there were tons of awesome small shops and souvenir stops, and to look out for pickpockets. I don't know if the guidebook was yanking our collective chain or if Shanghai had changed entirely since the thing was written, but we ended up in a very dodgy end of Shanghai (at least the pickpocket warning was useful). We could have just taken a cab to get out but....Sorry Paul. We finally managed to make it the Bazaar, another well known tourist spot. It had the usual overpriced crap, and then some, but among the suspiciously similar goods and exceedingly high prices were a few good finds:

As night rolled in we headed back to the Bund to take in Pudong (the West side of Shanghai) at night. It didn't disappoint: 

With one day left, and much of the city covered, we slept in a bit, and then headed towards the Shanghai History Museum, or the Chinese Smithsonian, as I like to think of it. The area it was in was gorgeous:

And the building itself was no slouch either:

Inside were four floors of exhibits highlighting every aspect of Chinese history. I was like a kid in a candy shop. I soaked it all in for about two and a half hours. Paul and Victoria enjoyed it as much as they could and then patiently waited for me (thank you!). Some of my favorites:

1000 Buddha Stone:

Get it Girl:

After I had exhausted the museum we headed back to the Bazaar for some last minute shopping and rest before heading back to the airport. We stopped by the Tower one last time on our way out:

All in all Shanghai was my favorite Chinese city thus far. Probably because I'm such a history dork, but still, it had a lot to commend it. If the French Concession wasn't so expensive I'd think about retiring there, and the general atmosphere was good all around...

Except for those damn Cabbies. 

Oh, and the hostel had bed bugs. (shout out to Old man Bryan for the recommendation)

Hong Kong Hijinx: Part Deux of Deux

Since American Airlines destroyed my hopes of seeing the city of Hong Kong the first time, I decided to circumvent the airline industry and take the train into Hong Kong with my trusted travelling companion, Paul (no Old Man Bryan in this post, he apologizes to his fans). A train from Guilin to Shenzhen takes about 11-13 hours depending on their given schedule for the day. Because of this, we decided to take off Friday night, arrive Saturday around noon, explore for the day, slum it in a hostel for one night and one night only, wake up early, explore all day Sunday, and finally catch the only train from Shenzhen back to Guilin at 5pm.

For those of you who are confused, Shenzhen is the Chinese city which borders Hong Kong. It is in and of itself, quite large, but alas, it is no Hong Kong, and is commonly used as the stepping stone almost all Chinese must use to reach "The Pearl of the Orient." Many Chinese have never been to Hong Kong because they must first attain a Visa, and from what they've told me, it can be quite a hassle. That being said, the prices of many consumer goods are much cheaper in Hong Kong than on the mainland, and there are some things you can only get in Hong Kong. That, along with the sightseeing, is impetus enough for scores of Chinese to cross the border from Shenzhen to visit the city. The crowds were big, the lines at customs and immigration long, and the journey tiring. After arriving in Shenzhen at around 10:30 (our train was delayed two hours), we spent an hour crossing into Hong Kong. From there you must take the MTR (Hong Kong's much cleaner, much better version of the Metro) 45 minutes into the city itself.

After a little initial confusion, we found our hostel on the 16th floor of the inappropriately named, "Mirador Mansions." These "Mansions" along with the "Chungking Mansions" are famous for their many dirty, crowded, cheap, and sometimes dangerous hostels, but, you cannot beat the location. They are both in downtown Kowloon, a perfect jumping off point for any adventure. Our room was pretty simple, bunk beds for twelve, a few windows and a door:

Once we settled our account at the hostel, we ventured out to find the Star Ferry and ride over to Hong Kong island itself (no offense, Kowloon) Having arrived three hours late, and having not eaten anything but some crushed Oreos and dried fruit, Paul and I caved and did the most lame American thing we could, we went to McDonalds:

It was amazing, and cheap, and just what we needed. I have no regrets. Sated, we made our way to Ferry and took a ride:

From there we got off and found a walkway that connects a lot of the major buildings in downtown Hong Kong. We took that as far as we could and then hiked until we found the entrance to the Peak Tram. This part of Hong Kong reminded me a lot of NYC:

Once we got to the tram we realized we had to wait in line for about an hour before taking it up to the peak. Fortunately, some kind, and possibly unstable soul with a serious dislike for America's intelligence agencies provided us with some high-quality reading material:

Just goes to show, there are conspiracy theorists everywhere. I'll apologize in advance, I only took one picture of the tram, and it's not great. By that point everyone had been on their feet and in line for over an hour and it was a running of the bulls to get on the damn thing:

We got to the peak right at dusk, which meant my small little camera wasn't able to capture anything that clearly. All the same, I took the obligatory, "I was here!" picture:

Out of about 30 blurrier ones, this one came out the best:

Once you get to Victoria Peak, there's not much to do, and it was packed when we went. That, coupled with the hour wait to go up, and the subsequent hour wait to go down, put a damper on the experience, but it was still cool. Once we got back down we headed back to the harbor for the nightly light show. A few of the skyscrapers have really powerful green lasers that dance around for about 20 minutes, twice a night. It was a bit foggy on this particular Saturday, so the show wasn't all that impressive, much to Paul's chagrin (for those of you who don't know, Paul likes loves technology, and was really looking forward to it) But, I did get this cool, but entirely unrelated shot:

After arriving back in Kowloon, we grabbed some food and headed towards a famous night market. The market was huge, maybe two or three blocks long. It sold everything from the usual tchotchke to knockoff designer clothes and bags, to sex toys and more. 

A precautionary note to any American-looking person travelling in Hong Kong: I'm not sure if it's because I am wearing facial hair and letting my hair grow a little or what, but at every corner of the city an Indian man offered me any combination of the following: Hashish, Rolex, Fake Bags, Suits, Marijuana, Cocaine, Fake Watches. During the day the illicit drugs were omitted, but at night they went for it all. Be warned, they will approach you at every. single. corner.

Once I politely refused these persistent solicitors, and asked Paul why they didn't approach him, since he was an American too (being racially profiled sucks), we returned to our hostel and prepared for bed. What we returned to was a room full of a family from a city up the coast about an hour. They were incredibly friendly, and one of the girls studied, spoke, and now taught English in her city. We practiced our Chinese, they practiced their English, everyone's back was scratched. They kept us up pretty late but, determined to see some more of the city, we woke up early and headed out:

We returned to Hong Kong island and headed towards a string of escalators that take you all the way up and through Hong Kong. Collectively they were over 1000m long, but it was cool just to relax and take in the sights. Oh yeah, and everyone in Hong Kong speaks English more or less, but it still didn't prevent some funny mistakes:

It was at this point where out trip took an unexpected turn for the better. We didn't have much of a formal plan, so we wandered a bit and found a few street markets, where I bought the above sunglasses for 35HKD or 7USD, 5 fake polo shirts for 2USD a piece, and a big 'ole bag of protein that I found at a fitness supply store. China has protein, but it's not really safe. This shop had the American brand I use back home, so I splurged and bought it. Once we got further into the city, it began to remind my a bit more of DC, with the stone and infrastructure surrounded by nature, and the buildings a bit more spaced out:

We walked around and found a free zoological and botanical garden. Don't worry, this time the monkeys were in cages:

Finally we had one last thing to check off our list. My teacher at CLI had asked me to buy her a very specific kind of makeup that apparently was very hard to find on the mainland. She said it could be found in any makeup store in Hong Kong. She was mistaken. Paul and I, the two manly men that we are, went in no less than 10 different makeup shops before finally finding the only one in all of Hong Kong which had the brand we needed (and it was in a giant mall). From there we made our way back to Kowloon, ate one last meal, and began our trip home. Our train left Shenzhen at around 5pm, we got back to Guilin at 6am, and Paul and I went to class at 8:40am. As I said, no regrets.