A very Yangshuo Birthday!

I woke up this morning to Braeden wishing me a happy birthday! What a nice brother! Even better yet, I woke up in Yangshuo! It is beautiful here. We’ve decided that it is the Banff of China- full of tourists and surrounded by mountains; except the mountains are tropical and green. It feels like I am living in a movie… what a way to start my 24th year!

We hit the streets in search of a birthday breakfast and found the Backstreet Café. It had a half Chinese half western menu. Since dumplings are the only breakfast food we have had for the past three weeks we decided to order a taste of home. I opted for porridge (don’t act surprised friends), fresh fruit, and banana pancakes. Well I think these pancakes just may be my favourite food of the trip so far! It is kind of like a crepe with slices of banana baked on top. I already know what I am having breakfast tomorrow!


Our afternoon took us to Fuli- a fifteen minute bus ride from Yangshuo. We were scanning a copy of Lonely Planet in our hostel and I read that people make traditional fans in this small village. When we got off the bus it was a little bigger than we expected… so we just started walking towards the mountains hoping the river was that way. It was so nice to be out of big cities. We actually got to observe simplistic living: animals roaming free on the streets, clothes hanging in windows to dry, and people watching tv just inside open doorways. As Braeden was taking pictures of some roosters a lady walked up to me and said: “Hello, Bamboo,” and pulled out a picture of a bamboo raft. We had probably been asked 20 times already in Yangshou to take a raft and said no 20 times. This time we said yes and followed this stranger deeper and deeper into the village.

Along our walk we found the handmade fan shops. The unpainted fans had just been glued together and were drying by the side of the road. Inside the shops people were painting beautiful mountain scenes and bamboo on the dried product. We chose to go into a shop that said “Family Run” on the sigh. The lady took us around showing which member of her family painted which fan. Each and every one was so beautiful I wanted to buy one of every size. I limited myself to only two: a Yangshuo landscape for myself and bamboo with flowers for my mom.


After shopping the “Hello, Bamboo” lady lead us into the forest and up a mountain. Braeden kept saying: “That’s it, we’re getting mugged.” We didn’t. Instead, she led us up to a spectacular view of the river winding through the mountains. And there on the river was our bamboo raft as promised! A private ride down the Li River! Definitely a must do activity on a hot day. Along the way back to Yangshuo we saw oxen bathing in the river, cormorant fisherman, and riverside restaurants. And mountains, can’t forget the mountains!

Bamboo rafting down the Li River

Cormorant Fisherman

The rest of our day consisted of: having an afternoon beer on a roof top patio, eating wood fired pizza for dinner, an ice cream sundae and pineapple beer for desert, and night market shopping! Braeden treated me as my present! And to top it all off… he bought me an owl change purse! That’s right an owl! What a great way to end my birthday!

Xi'an: Street eats and Terracotta Warriors

Xi’an was a gem. It was the one city we were really looking forward to seeing when we decided to travel to China. Xi’an is the capitol of the Shaanxi province in Central China. It is ripe with history and has walls around the downtown area. It is home to the Terracotta Warriors, which I was really excited to see. Braeden on the other hand was less excited about the culture and more about the eating opportunities. Someone told him that it is a “snacking city” and the best eats and treats were to be found in the Muslim quarter.

Day one was dedicated to food. After spending a total of 9 Yuan, I was fuller than I had ever been in my life. I don’t really know what I ate, but everything was tasty. Mostly dishes were cooked in oil, so probably not the healthiest choices. However, it was nearly impossible to find anything that wasn’t thrown into a boiling pot of oil. I mean everything from bread, to fruit, to sandwiches went in the pot and came out golden and delicious!

Braeden was in his glory tasting everything he could for usually 1 Yuan. His favourite dish was a pita sandwich, which was a little more expensive at 4 Yuan (Ha)! First step: he chose which skewers of meat and vegetables he wanted. Second step: his choices were put in a pot of oil to cook. Third step: the flat bread was also put in the oil. Last step: everything was taken out and the veggies and meat were stuffed into the bread. It was a thing of beauty I tell you. Much satisfaction was found lining the streets of the Muslin quarter.

On the other hand, the worst thing we have ever eaten was found there. We went out one night for a bite to eat with our Scottish friend Martyn and things went terribly wrong. While roaming the streets getting hungrier and hungrier, Braeden spotted something he had been dying to try. It looked like cubed up potatoes fried with onions, chives, and chilies. It looked really good- like a big old bowl of hashbrowns- so we each ordered a bowl. As the cook was dishing up our potatoes they started jiggling. Potatoes don’t jiggle. Whatever we ordered was some sort of gelatinous squares all spiced up. It tasted like nothing, which was a relief. However, we have no idea what it was so the mystery alone made us stop eating. Oh well, you win some you lose some. That was really our only loss in the Muslim quarter.



Day two was dedicated to the Terracotta Warriors. We skipped the hostel tour and ventured out on our own. There are rows of buses lined up at the train station for tourists to take to the Warriors site. So we jumped on one and in true Chinese driving fashion, let’s just say the ride was ralph worthy. Once again our driver went all over the road avoiding whatever vehicle was in his way. An hour later, we arrived. It was touristy as hell but so worth it. First stop was the museum to see replicas of the warriors and get a quick history lesson. What I learned was each Warrior was modeled after an actual soldier in the army. The emperor had his army replicated in Terracotta to protect him in the afterlife. It is believed that within the three pits discovered so far there are over 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses, and 150 cavalry horses. The majority are still buried within the pits! Sadly we had to look at them from afar, but we could still get a good idea of their size (approx 6ft). It was truly amazing to be able to see this piece of history that was discovered only 35 years ago.







http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terracotta_Army.

Datong is a dump

I am going to be honest and up front with this one… I was shit scared to go to Datong. We chose this destination because of the spectacular Hanging Temples and a massive 17 foot stone carved Buddha. While looking online for a place to stay we instead found cautionary tales from other travelers. One posted nothing but RUN! Others said that barely anyone speaks English and the city definitely wouldn’t win a beauty pageant.

My worst fear came true… the comments were right. When we stepped off the train we discovered that Datong is an industrial city ripe with pollution and smog. To me it smelled like a dirty welding shop, but ten times worse. Braeden disagreed with this comparison, but couldn’t really describe it. It was grey and it was ugly. But we didn’t come for the city. We quickly found an English speaking travel agent and he arranged transportation for us to the sites.

For 100 Yuan each we were whisked away in a private taxi to the Yungang Grottoes to see the ancient cave statues. This definitely makes the list of the most amazing things I have ever seen. Each cave had massive stone statues of Buddhas and other figures of worship. One room had a thousand little Buddhas carved into the four walls. The largest, and most spectacular, was the 17 foot statue. Others rivaled at 15 and 16 feet, but couldn’t even compare!

Next stop, the Hanging temples. The temples sat about 20 meters off the ground on the side of a mountain. The photo in our guidebook is what convinced us to take the trip to Datong. Unfortunately the admission was pretty steep for budget travelers like ourselves at 130 Yuan. That is about $20 Canadian. We judged it as a waste of money and took pictures from outside the fence!

The Grottoes rank number one and the Temple number three. What was number two you ask… the taxi ride! The scenery was a mixture of rocky hills, run down villages, and out of control driving. Our cabbie had his hand permanently positioned on the horn. There were absolutely no rules to the road: people were passing as traffic approached… in the oncoming lane! I thought we were going to have a head on collision with a semi-truck at one point. Another close call- our driver almost hit a motorized scooter carrying five, yes FIVE people! And none, including the small children, wore helmets. Despite the craziness, I oddly felt safe and even dozed off.

We got dropped off downtown and hated what we saw. The streets were dirty or ripped up and there were large mounds of dirt all over. We were constantly stared at and had idea what to do with ourselves. Since we had about 8 hours to kill before our train left, we decided to sit in McDonalds drinking coffee for a while. But that got old fast. Lucky for us a Chinese girl started talking to us to practice her English and she took us to a restaurant! We went to the train station early because we figured we could relax, read, and write. Instead we were stared at even more. Braeden went to the bathroom and left me alone for about five minutes. In that short amount of time a group of men moved into the seats around me. They just all stared and tried to speak to me in Chinese. When Brae returned they continued to stare and bother both of us. I was so creeped out I got up and went to the bathroom. At the sink I met an English speaking Chinese girl who came and sat with me. She translated what the men were saying and it was even creepier. They kept pointing at our bags and said that Canadians are rich. I thought they were going to rob me on the train so I slept with my pack under my feet.

Seventeen hours in Datong was more than enough.

Back Online

Hello Friends!

I am pleased to say that I am back online. A new Scottish friend taught me a trick to access blocked sites! Thanks Martyn!

Please still send us emails:
jilly_33@hotmail.com
braeden_taylor@hotmail.com

And if you are reading the blog leave a comment! I'd love to know what you think of the blog. Also, if you have travel suggestions or wanna see more pictures etc let me know!

The Great Wall

I am proud to say that we are the first in our family to climb the Great Wall of China. It appears that Braeden and I have developed a competitive travel agenda with our parents. Back in 2007, it almost broke my dad’s heart that he didn’t get to walk on the Great Wall. Thanks to our mom’s incessant bragging about her recent trip to South America all I can say is Ha! We beat you to it! Sorry dad, but you married her!

All joking aside, it was a spectacular experience. A lot more of a tourist attraction then I expected. There were two chairlifts to take visitors up to the wall, as well as a toboggan course to ride down. We opted to hike up to the Wall because we are cheap and able bodied. Turned out to be harder than we expected: twenty straight minutes of narrow stairs! However, once we reached the top of our hike all pain went away… we were on the freaking Great Wall of China! Looking at it now, I can barely even believe we did it. It is so surreal just thinking about the history of the structure. We never had a bad view and no matter which way we looked we could see the wall stretching on and on. We just had to have a celebratory beer… even if it was only 10 in the morning! I’mending it on that; the pictures can speak for themselves. Cheers.

Rainy Days

This morning we got off the train in the Ancient city of Ping Yao. It is one of the few remaining cities in China with a wall surrounding the perimeter. We went out of our way to stop at this traditional UNESCO World Heritage Site. (http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/812). Unfortunately, it is pouring rain. We planned our visit as a one day stay- arrive at 6:30am and leave by train at 11:30pm. Due to the horribly cold weather we had to book a hostel for the day and just hang out. So I have been writing and uploading pictures. Here are some of my favourites from our first week.

Language Barrier: the good and the bad

Braeden and I definitely signed up for a challenge when we chose China as our backpacking destination. Not only do few people speak English, it is impossible to read Chinese characters. I mean there is no chance of guessing what a word could be at all. In areas of travel and at tourist attractions signs are written in English as well. Here are some of our experiences after five days in Beijing.

Arrival:
We emerged from the subway not knowing which way to turn. I mean we actually stood on a street corner trying to guess which way our hostel was. We spotted a building I presumed to be a mall and walked towards it. The KFC sign on the outside gave me hope that someone may speak English. On route two teens gave us flyer so I asked them for directions. They didn’t speak English but still wanted to help so they found a woman who could. She promptly pulled out her phone and called the hostel for us. We arrived about ten minutes later!
Eating out:

We decided to have a Chinese breakfast on our second day. The previous morning we walked through the neighbourhood and saw dim sum being served all along the narrow backstreets (Hutongs). We stopped at the first restaurant we saw and they didn’t have an English menu or any menu at all. We just pointed at what we wanted. Out came two servings of dim sum- about 10 per plate- as well as a bowl of translucent paste. It tasted like nothing, but with sugar added reminded me of cream of wheat. All that food only cost us 9 Yuen, which equals about $1.30. This was a good outcome from not being able to communicate properly.

An opposite outcome happened at dinner on our third night. We were starving from walking around all day exploring Hutongs. We once again walked into a random restaurant to try our luck. Once again they spoke no English. This time however there was a menu with pictures. We ordered a chicken dish and what we thought to be noodles. When the server brought it out the staff was laughing at us. Turns out it was not noodles. Instead some sort of plant root, onions, and chili peppers. I wouldn’t eat it based on appearance alone. Braeden on the other hand refused to waste what we ordered. Let me tell you, I’ve never seen someone so red in the face from eating. Like a champ he refused to quit and ate the whole thing. The best thing he said: “Fuck my life that’s hot.” One part pain and one part pleasure I suppose since he said it was really good.

Buying Drugs:
Pharmaceuticals of course. Admit it, I got your attention! So after four straight says pounding the pavement I needed some Advil stat. I didn’t pack any in effort to save space. What a dumb move. It was quite an adventure trying to find some painkillers, let alone a drug store. The pharmacies are staffed mainly by women who wear nursing uniforms (complete with little hats). I googled the Chinese equivalent of Advil and I found Fenbid. Out of the six women working, none spoke English. I resorted to making motions of pain. First I triedna sore back. They brought me heat patches. Then I gestured taking a pill and they brought me a box I couldn’t read. Since I had no idea what I would be taking Braeden pulled out the old phrasebook and we found what we were looking for.

Conclusion:
All of these experiences have been more fun than frustrating. Everyone is eager to help and patient with us as we try to explain what we need. I didn’t come here expecting an easy time, but I definitely didn’t expect it to be this challenging.

Tian’amen Square, Red Flag, and Government Propoghanda

Last night, for the first time in my life, I actually feared the police. We were in Tian’amen Square for the flag lowering ceremony and the police presence was unbelievable. They were walking through the crowd, driving squad cars, and stationed around in big vans. On top of all that, they were blaring messages to the people over loud speakers.

Tian’amen Square is located across from The Forbidden city. I cannot even begin to describe just how large and open it is. People were lined up 10 deep, give or take, to watch the ceremony. Chinese soldiers dressed in green uniforms surrounded the flag and marched in unison throughout the square. Everything was very formal and monitored. Eventually police stopped all traffic along the eight lane street between the Forbidden City gates and the Flag. The ceremony was beginning. Two lines of Soldiers emerged from the gates and marched across the street carrying white flags and rifles. The procession marched by the crowd for what I believe to be photo opportunities. After the pageantry stopped and the soldier stood at attention, one pushed a button and the flag lowered. They folded it and marched back towards Mao, whose picture sat above the Forbidden City gate.

I think the most interesting part of the ceremony was watching how the people in the Square reacted. Children were waving Chinese Flags and nearly everyone was taking pictures. The whole event lasted about 10 minutes. What followed was what really scared me: the police were literally chasing everyone out of the square. As people were trying to take pictures of all the bright lights and buildings, the police drove towards the people in their vans at high speeds with flashing lights on. The people started running and the police kept on driving behind them. Braeden even got chased! However, we did get some amazing photos and a glimpse at what the Chinese authorities are capable of!

"Freedom of Speech? I think not!"

We arrived in china only to discover that many of our beloved social networking sites would not load. Braeden heard that facebook is blocked here so I Google it to find out. Turns out facebook, twitter, word press, and blogger (among others I'm sure) are blocked by the Chinese government. So you must be wondering how you are reading this entry right now? I emailed it home to my parents to post! So thank you mom and dad! Keep checking back for new entries! Thanks for reading everyone!

And we're off!

Braeden and I just finished an hour long brainstorming session to name this blog. I have to give him props for inspiring this name. He definitely threw out more ideas than me! It must be because he is so enlightened! (A lil joke for you Matt and Laura).

What I want to do with this blog is reflect, challenge, and examine views and ideas along my travels. As a writer I will use my words to interpret what I have seen.

Braeden, the photographer, will also contribute his thoughts and shots.

This blog is a work in progress, so stay tuned for more.

Now we must catch our flight to Beijing!