I buy a newspaper each morning to read on my subway commute. It's only $.28 so it's not a big deal. I was brought up reading newspapers of pretty good quality so I am really happy when I get a good one to read. When version 2 of the Ipad comes out, I'll probably never read a newspaper again, but that's a story for a different day.
In Shanghai, there are two English language Chinese newspapers, China Daily, which is kind of a Communist version of USA Today and Shanghai Daily, which is a Communist version of the NY Post before it became an embarrassment. I prefer the Shanghai Daily since it has a little more focus on the area where I live.
Here are some samples of stories from this week...
1. Excessive Personal Freedom Hurts Public Good (Written by some idiot from Iowa, I guess he's living in the right country if he wants less freedom.)
2. Student stage protest (Sounds like they want more rights, but they are actually protesting against the Japanese over a group of islands disputed between the two countries.)
3. Chopstick removed from Stomach - Half of a chopstick was removed from the stomach of a 50 year old man who swallowed it 28 years ago.
4. Obama sets record for Gay appointments
5. Michael Jackson is the top earning dead star
6. Superbug reaches mainland - A drug resistant superbug was found on three people in mainland China.
7. Expo Visitors patience hailed - The Shanghai World Expo has had some outrageous crowds that have kept me away. The busiest day a few weeks ago saw 1.03 million visitors. The wait for the Saudi Pavillion which has the largest Imax screen in the world was 12 hours at 10:30 AM so they closed the line for the day. Who would wait in line for 12 hours? Certainly not anyone from New York City!
8. Increase in foreigner overstaying - Police are fining, detaining and warning foreigners who are overstaying their allowed Visa periods. (My wife thought it no big deal to stay a few days longer than she's allowed. She's actually quite afraid of ending up in a Communist prison. She's such a do-gooder, this couldn't happen, could it.)
9. China tops resume' fibs table - Job applicants in China are more likely to exaggerate their achievements than their counterparts in other Asian countries.
10. Blogger warned over post - This surely could have been me. A Shanghai blogger has been warned by police not to spread rumors online after they posted a photo of a price list of mistresses from local colleges. (I just want a copy of the list.) On the list, girls willing to be mistresses from different colleges are tagged with prices ranging from $2,900 to $75,000 depending on the quality of the colleges!
Friday, October 29, 2010
Shanghai Eats, But what is it they're eating?
As you know, I'm curious about things people do and how they do them. The following list is from a local magazine called City Weekend and I'll add either explanations or commentary help you understand. Think about which one of these you would actually try. Susan, Chris, Nancy and Dolores all have a chance fairly soon to dive right in.
I feel it necessary to warn you that some of these things are gross, so look away if you get easily bothered by articles about gross food and return for my next blog.
These are called Odd Eats - The fifteen Strangest foods in Shanghai...
1. Dog - known to be served in Korean restaurants and grilled on a barbecue. There's a restaurant here called Ruilin Dog Restaurant so they are proud of what they serve. Most people in this neighborhood don't have household pets.
2. Snake - You choose a live one in the alleyway and watch them butcher it by chopping their heads off. It's then put in a bucket until the nerves stop twitching. Usually served in a spicy stir fry; yum.
3. Guilingao - Herbal jello made from turtle shell and blubber. Hey, in the West jello is made from animal cartilage.
4. Bull Penis - served in a tonic soup, the bull penis looks like a criss-crossed white calamari ring. Supposed to give men vital energy. How is that proven?
5. Bone Marrow - you get a large bone and a straw to suck the bone's marrow out of the middle like a blood milkshake. It's a cheap snack at under $2 each.
6.Bugs - You get an enormous plate of four different fried bugs - honey bee larvae, scorpions, large black mountain ants and bamboo worms.
7. Live Drunken Shrimp - This is a bowl of live shrimp swimming in wine so they're sloppy drunk but still put up a fight and may pinch your lips.
8. Scorpions - Not as big as the ones in Beijing, the writer complained that these tasted like mold: vile, foul, nasty. Avoid this plate if you're on a date.
9. Silkworms - Like little fat grubs (oh, that helps)... you put them between your teeth and squeeze out insides.
10. Duck Bits - Your choice is necks, webbed feet or full heads cracked lengthwise down the middle so you can spoon out whatever is inside the head.
11. Fried Bees - These are deep fried Honey bees airlifted from Yunnan province far away from Shanghai. They are a must try for their light crispy coating and sweet, creamy insides.
12. Deer Placenta - All right, this is too weird, but I'm just sharing the facts. Served in a medicinal soup with herbs and meat you get some of the squiggly, wiggly bits of deer after birth. You can wash it down with some deer penis wine.
13. Peacock - tastes and looks like tough, old chicken and comes accompanied by a carrot carved like a peacock head.
14. Water bugs - You walk up to a tub of water with these little bugs swimming around, grab a bunch with your bare hands and put them in a bowl for the waiter to clean for you. They are stir fried until crispy but you need to pull off the top shell wings before eating.
15. Pig Brains - Wobbly, squishy and pink is how these are described. The same restaurant also offers sheep testicles.
The five star fear factor items were Bugs and Scorpions.
I think I lost my appetite so I'll stop here.
I feel it necessary to warn you that some of these things are gross, so look away if you get easily bothered by articles about gross food and return for my next blog.
These are called Odd Eats - The fifteen Strangest foods in Shanghai...
1. Dog - known to be served in Korean restaurants and grilled on a barbecue. There's a restaurant here called Ruilin Dog Restaurant so they are proud of what they serve. Most people in this neighborhood don't have household pets.
2. Snake - You choose a live one in the alleyway and watch them butcher it by chopping their heads off. It's then put in a bucket until the nerves stop twitching. Usually served in a spicy stir fry; yum.
3. Guilingao - Herbal jello made from turtle shell and blubber. Hey, in the West jello is made from animal cartilage.
4. Bull Penis - served in a tonic soup, the bull penis looks like a criss-crossed white calamari ring. Supposed to give men vital energy. How is that proven?
5. Bone Marrow - you get a large bone and a straw to suck the bone's marrow out of the middle like a blood milkshake. It's a cheap snack at under $2 each.
6.Bugs - You get an enormous plate of four different fried bugs - honey bee larvae, scorpions, large black mountain ants and bamboo worms.
7. Live Drunken Shrimp - This is a bowl of live shrimp swimming in wine so they're sloppy drunk but still put up a fight and may pinch your lips.
8. Scorpions - Not as big as the ones in Beijing, the writer complained that these tasted like mold: vile, foul, nasty. Avoid this plate if you're on a date.
9. Silkworms - Like little fat grubs (oh, that helps)... you put them between your teeth and squeeze out insides.
10. Duck Bits - Your choice is necks, webbed feet or full heads cracked lengthwise down the middle so you can spoon out whatever is inside the head.
11. Fried Bees - These are deep fried Honey bees airlifted from Yunnan province far away from Shanghai. They are a must try for their light crispy coating and sweet, creamy insides.
12. Deer Placenta - All right, this is too weird, but I'm just sharing the facts. Served in a medicinal soup with herbs and meat you get some of the squiggly, wiggly bits of deer after birth. You can wash it down with some deer penis wine.
13. Peacock - tastes and looks like tough, old chicken and comes accompanied by a carrot carved like a peacock head.
14. Water bugs - You walk up to a tub of water with these little bugs swimming around, grab a bunch with your bare hands and put them in a bowl for the waiter to clean for you. They are stir fried until crispy but you need to pull off the top shell wings before eating.
15. Pig Brains - Wobbly, squishy and pink is how these are described. The same restaurant also offers sheep testicles.
The five star fear factor items were Bugs and Scorpions.
I think I lost my appetite so I'll stop here.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Hong Kong Visa Leave
This week, I was able to combine a business trip with a Visa leave. The business trip was to Shenzhen (pronounce Shen-Jen). With two other people from our Shanghai office, we spent the day on Thursday visiting with our sales team clearing up some communications issues and then to our distribution center, which is, let's say, old school. We found some things we can do to help them so the trip was a success.
That night, I took a bus across the border to Hong Kong, one of my favorite cities and certainly one of the best places I have ever visited. I spent the first night visiting Kowloon which is across the bay and where most of the tourist action seems to happen. Since I've been here three or four times, I knew what to expect and generally where things are situated. Of course, the rate of change here is enormous as there is always new things being built and expanded. I still see very little Mainland China influence on the go-go pace.
Saturday was my day to go to Macau via high speed ferry but that fell apart when the Typhoon Megi warning level was raised to 3 meaning ferry service could be suspended at any time so they strongly discouraged me from going. For once I listened to reason and of course, the typhoon turned the other way, and it was a non-issue. That will teach me to listen.
Planning for the storm, I shifted gears and decided to buy a book, watch a movie and take some photos of the turbulent water during the storm. I did capture this gentleman
with his fishing line in the sewer. Please let me know if you can think of what he might catch.
So, it was off to find the movie schedule and I was able to go see "The Girl who kicked the Hornet's Nest" which would have been very disturbing if I hadn't read all three books by Steig Larsen. I enjoyed the movie with shoes off and big bottle of water. I did see a glowing review of the third movie which was just released. Definitely, something you need to read or see in sequence. The book I bought was by Lee Child, it's #15 in his Jack Reacher series. A very enjoyable group of stories about an ex-military wanderer, do-good type of guy. I know it's junk fiction but highly recommended as Reacher is a pretty amazing character. My top four of these types of guys are Lucas Davenport (author is Sandford), Mitch Rapp (by Flynn), Gabriel Allon (by Silva) and Reacher. These all high standard, no mushy romance with an unlikely female showing up in the middle. These guys just kick ass and do what many people wish they could. Hey, it's fiction so suspend your belief a little. On deck, is Einstein's biography.
Anyway, after the movie, I decided to try a highly recommended Canadian burger outlet called Triple O's, quite good, but not equal to the California one called In n Out Burger. (Of course, in California, the bumper stickers for this restaurant used to be popular and the teens would remove the first and last letters of the word burger to form a different slogan. I'll leave that for you to sound out.) Then it was back across to Kowloon and shopping in the well known night market which doesn't have great deals but has a nice environment so it's fun to go and watch. I tasted some local dishes here like bok choy and noodles with chicken. Very good. Then back across on the ferry to find out the typhoon was a bust here. Total hours walked for the day was around 6 (12-14 miles).
Another photo from the day peeking into a bridal shop window...
Here's what I really like about Hong Kong:
English Spoken here - English is more than a nice to know language, it seems almost everyone here speaks and understands it, making it very easy to ask questions and find things.
Lots of Money - In Shanghai, because it's more spread out, you don't see as much bling on people, their cars, etc. as you do in HK.
No mopeds or motorcycles - There are none of these in the city center making it safe to walk on the sidewalks.
No honking horns - For all of its traffic, HK has almost no horn honking. Except, get this, when people jay walk. Of course, I wouldn't ever do this but I did observe some people crossing illegally and getting honked at.
Cars yield to pedestrians - Even with it's go-go pace, cars generally yield to pedestrians and buses are definitely gunning for them like they do in Shanghai.
Some annoying things about HK:
Expensive - Everything costs more than in Shanghai
Crowded - Any big city with a compact city center would be like this.
Indian Tailors - Every twenty feet someone is trying to get you to buy a tailored suit. It is very annoying so I just ignore them. If I'm wearing my headphones, I just sing to them.
Massage shills - Almost as annoying are the people trying to get you into their foot massage places. Not sexual or dirty, just annoying.
Pollution - It is pretty awful. Even on Saturday when the sun was shining, everything was enveloped in a haze. I have never been able to take a good photo of the HK or Kowloon skyline because of the haze. The local paper claims that 1,100 people died from air pollution last year. How would they know?
One other observation...
Women seem much, much more independent here. They smoke in public (a big no no in China), act with more confidence than what I have observed in Shanghai, etc. The next thing you know, they are going to want to vote. What is this world coming to?
I got up early Saturday, found out that I could go to Macau and take a return boat directly to the airport, so that's what I did. With the sun out, it made for an nice day, with lots of walking. Have I said that lately? The gambling is supposedly bigger here than Las Vegas. I suppose in the U.S. with Indian casinos and Atlantic City to compete with, a lot of $ have been siphoned off of Vegas. Of course, on early Saturday, only the real low lifes are in the casinos so I decided not to be one of them. I went searching for the Macau where people have lived since the late 1500s and where the historical sites are. In the middle of some of the nicest areas, Western businesses have taken over and it's tough to see the old city without some kind of advertising in the way.
Here are some of the photos of Macau:
This is the "Ruins of St. Paul" - The only remaining part of a church built in 1602 but destroyed by fire in 1835, made entirely from granite.
Same wall from a different viewpoint...
And another viewpoint...
This is Leal Senado Square paved with traditional Portuguese tiling...
That night, I took a bus across the border to Hong Kong, one of my favorite cities and certainly one of the best places I have ever visited. I spent the first night visiting Kowloon which is across the bay and where most of the tourist action seems to happen. Since I've been here three or four times, I knew what to expect and generally where things are situated. Of course, the rate of change here is enormous as there is always new things being built and expanded. I still see very little Mainland China influence on the go-go pace.
Saturday was my day to go to Macau via high speed ferry but that fell apart when the Typhoon Megi warning level was raised to 3 meaning ferry service could be suspended at any time so they strongly discouraged me from going. For once I listened to reason and of course, the typhoon turned the other way, and it was a non-issue. That will teach me to listen.
Planning for the storm, I shifted gears and decided to buy a book, watch a movie and take some photos of the turbulent water during the storm. I did capture this gentleman
with his fishing line in the sewer. Please let me know if you can think of what he might catch.
So, it was off to find the movie schedule and I was able to go see "The Girl who kicked the Hornet's Nest" which would have been very disturbing if I hadn't read all three books by Steig Larsen. I enjoyed the movie with shoes off and big bottle of water. I did see a glowing review of the third movie which was just released. Definitely, something you need to read or see in sequence. The book I bought was by Lee Child, it's #15 in his Jack Reacher series. A very enjoyable group of stories about an ex-military wanderer, do-good type of guy. I know it's junk fiction but highly recommended as Reacher is a pretty amazing character. My top four of these types of guys are Lucas Davenport (author is Sandford), Mitch Rapp (by Flynn), Gabriel Allon (by Silva) and Reacher. These all high standard, no mushy romance with an unlikely female showing up in the middle. These guys just kick ass and do what many people wish they could. Hey, it's fiction so suspend your belief a little. On deck, is Einstein's biography.
Anyway, after the movie, I decided to try a highly recommended Canadian burger outlet called Triple O's, quite good, but not equal to the California one called In n Out Burger. (Of course, in California, the bumper stickers for this restaurant used to be popular and the teens would remove the first and last letters of the word burger to form a different slogan. I'll leave that for you to sound out.) Then it was back across to Kowloon and shopping in the well known night market which doesn't have great deals but has a nice environment so it's fun to go and watch. I tasted some local dishes here like bok choy and noodles with chicken. Very good. Then back across on the ferry to find out the typhoon was a bust here. Total hours walked for the day was around 6 (12-14 miles).
Another photo from the day peeking into a bridal shop window...
Here's what I really like about Hong Kong:
English Spoken here - English is more than a nice to know language, it seems almost everyone here speaks and understands it, making it very easy to ask questions and find things.
Lots of Money - In Shanghai, because it's more spread out, you don't see as much bling on people, their cars, etc. as you do in HK.
No mopeds or motorcycles - There are none of these in the city center making it safe to walk on the sidewalks.
No honking horns - For all of its traffic, HK has almost no horn honking. Except, get this, when people jay walk. Of course, I wouldn't ever do this but I did observe some people crossing illegally and getting honked at.
Cars yield to pedestrians - Even with it's go-go pace, cars generally yield to pedestrians and buses are definitely gunning for them like they do in Shanghai.
Some annoying things about HK:
Expensive - Everything costs more than in Shanghai
Crowded - Any big city with a compact city center would be like this.
Indian Tailors - Every twenty feet someone is trying to get you to buy a tailored suit. It is very annoying so I just ignore them. If I'm wearing my headphones, I just sing to them.
Massage shills - Almost as annoying are the people trying to get you into their foot massage places. Not sexual or dirty, just annoying.
Pollution - It is pretty awful. Even on Saturday when the sun was shining, everything was enveloped in a haze. I have never been able to take a good photo of the HK or Kowloon skyline because of the haze. The local paper claims that 1,100 people died from air pollution last year. How would they know?
One other observation...
Women seem much, much more independent here. They smoke in public (a big no no in China), act with more confidence than what I have observed in Shanghai, etc. The next thing you know, they are going to want to vote. What is this world coming to?
I got up early Saturday, found out that I could go to Macau and take a return boat directly to the airport, so that's what I did. With the sun out, it made for an nice day, with lots of walking. Have I said that lately? The gambling is supposedly bigger here than Las Vegas. I suppose in the U.S. with Indian casinos and Atlantic City to compete with, a lot of $ have been siphoned off of Vegas. Of course, on early Saturday, only the real low lifes are in the casinos so I decided not to be one of them. I went searching for the Macau where people have lived since the late 1500s and where the historical sites are. In the middle of some of the nicest areas, Western businesses have taken over and it's tough to see the old city without some kind of advertising in the way.
Here are some of the photos of Macau:
This is the "Ruins of St. Paul" - The only remaining part of a church built in 1602 but destroyed by fire in 1835, made entirely from granite.
Same wall from a different viewpoint...
And another viewpoint...
This is Leal Senado Square paved with traditional Portuguese tiling...
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Shanghai in October
It's hard to believe this mad blogger has been silent for so long. I guess I've been recuperating form the big trips and not doing a lot of exciting things but here goes the highlights before I leave for Shenzhen and Hong Kong for the weekend.
It's been fairly quiet. The weather has cooled considerably to a freezing 72 degrees and maybe 65 at night. The locals are wearing hoods, gloves and fairly heavy jackets while i continue to wear short sleeve shirts to work. It hasn't rained much at all. Did I say it was perfect weather here?
This weekend we went to a Yunnan restaurant which flies in certain products from this far away Chinese province. I sampled potato pancake, Yunnan spicy meat dishes and goat cheese and finally Pomegranate flowers. An interesting meal with good company. The next night was one of those very big group meals around a huge lazy Susan. Sixteen people, lots of food and drink. The weird and exotic were on the table (and I'm just talking about the food!) Taro root, jellyfish, chicken feet were just some of the things I passed on. It was then off to the Bund for some sightseeing for those who had never been. I came back the next day for some photography as you will soon see.
i also found a breakfast place for Western style food. Most Chinese people have hot soup, a bowl of rice or noodles for breakfast and that is hard for me to consider. The place I found had freshly made buttermilk pancakes with walnuts and bananas, very nice.
Sunday was very interesting as I tried to do a lot while walking for approx. 8 hours. First it was off to the touristy area. To video something interesting. Here's the background and the first part of my story on this...
The other day, I found myself walking down one of my favorite streets which is blocked from vehicular traffic and teems with people. This is also where visitors go, both Chinese and foreigners. As is true for every big city, where there are people from outside the country, the scammers follow.
One of the top scams is called the tea house scam. This is where a male or group of men are approached by one or two local ladies who say they just want to talk to “improve their English”. If you agree, they steer you to a nearby tea house where, by prearrangement with the owner, your credit card is charged a ridiculous amount of $, like $750, for the “special” tea you consumed. Of course, by then the ladies you were helping with their English are long gone.
Sometimes, I’m not sure if they are prostitutes or just tea house scammers and most times, I just scowl and they leave me alone. Well, I decided to see how this would work so I played the game… to a point. Two ladies approached and used the same greeting they all use.
“Hello, where are you going?”
My standard answer is “That way” (pointing).
“Wait don’t you want to talk to us?”
“No”
“We want to talk to you. We want to improve our English”
“OK so let’s talk”
“No, we are thirsty.”
“Well, I don’t drink tea.”
“OK, let’s just go to KFC”
“I don’t want to go into KFC”
“I’ll just wait here by the bench. We can talk out here.”
This goes back and forth and they finally say, “OK, wait by the bench”
I decided to try and video one of these events in progress.
Now back to my story so you can see what i did...
The problem is, they just keep on walking past KFC. So I say…
“I thought you were thirsty?”
“No, we’re really hungry”
“OK, bye”
Only now, I’m following them saying in a rather loud voice, “Are you two scammers? Are you just trying to rip people off? What do you really want” Only my money.”
One of them spins around and says, “Shut up!”
Without missing a beat, I said, “Hey, your English is pretty good.”
This was a Seinfeld moment. Remember, the low talker? She was Kramer’s girlfriend who mumbled incessantly so no one could make out anything she said. When Jerry finally says out loud what he thought of the puffy shirt, she screams, “You Bastard!” and Jerry deadpans, “Now that I heard”
A good laugh for my Sunday afternoon!
Okay, this Sunday was special. There was going to be a charity fun run so I decided to go and see what that was all about. This is a photo of one of the contestants. It turns out the run was for prostate cancer awareness.
What i didn't know was it was pay $15 and they give you a speedo to run in. Sorry that isn't me in the photo. Hey, I'm a serious journalist, I can't get caught up doing anything other than reporting the news. (That is, if you ignore my story about he scammers up above.)
Leaving this scene, I took a small ferry across the river and had some lunch and waited for the light to get good for photography. Here are some photos the evening light.
The famous Bund at night...
Finally, this is the famous M on the Bund restaurant building where I will have dinner next weekend with the Staples team visiting here.
More after the Hong Kong trip...
It's been fairly quiet. The weather has cooled considerably to a freezing 72 degrees and maybe 65 at night. The locals are wearing hoods, gloves and fairly heavy jackets while i continue to wear short sleeve shirts to work. It hasn't rained much at all. Did I say it was perfect weather here?
This weekend we went to a Yunnan restaurant which flies in certain products from this far away Chinese province. I sampled potato pancake, Yunnan spicy meat dishes and goat cheese and finally Pomegranate flowers. An interesting meal with good company. The next night was one of those very big group meals around a huge lazy Susan. Sixteen people, lots of food and drink. The weird and exotic were on the table (and I'm just talking about the food!) Taro root, jellyfish, chicken feet were just some of the things I passed on. It was then off to the Bund for some sightseeing for those who had never been. I came back the next day for some photography as you will soon see.
i also found a breakfast place for Western style food. Most Chinese people have hot soup, a bowl of rice or noodles for breakfast and that is hard for me to consider. The place I found had freshly made buttermilk pancakes with walnuts and bananas, very nice.
Sunday was very interesting as I tried to do a lot while walking for approx. 8 hours. First it was off to the touristy area. To video something interesting. Here's the background and the first part of my story on this...
The other day, I found myself walking down one of my favorite streets which is blocked from vehicular traffic and teems with people. This is also where visitors go, both Chinese and foreigners. As is true for every big city, where there are people from outside the country, the scammers follow.
One of the top scams is called the tea house scam. This is where a male or group of men are approached by one or two local ladies who say they just want to talk to “improve their English”. If you agree, they steer you to a nearby tea house where, by prearrangement with the owner, your credit card is charged a ridiculous amount of $, like $750, for the “special” tea you consumed. Of course, by then the ladies you were helping with their English are long gone.
Sometimes, I’m not sure if they are prostitutes or just tea house scammers and most times, I just scowl and they leave me alone. Well, I decided to see how this would work so I played the game… to a point. Two ladies approached and used the same greeting they all use.
“Hello, where are you going?”
My standard answer is “That way” (pointing).
“Wait don’t you want to talk to us?”
“No”
“We want to talk to you. We want to improve our English”
“OK so let’s talk”
“No, we are thirsty.”
“Well, I don’t drink tea.”
“OK, let’s just go to KFC”
“I don’t want to go into KFC”
“I’ll just wait here by the bench. We can talk out here.”
This goes back and forth and they finally say, “OK, wait by the bench”
I decided to try and video one of these events in progress.
Now back to my story so you can see what i did...
The problem is, they just keep on walking past KFC. So I say…
“I thought you were thirsty?”
“No, we’re really hungry”
“OK, bye”
Only now, I’m following them saying in a rather loud voice, “Are you two scammers? Are you just trying to rip people off? What do you really want” Only my money.”
One of them spins around and says, “Shut up!”
Without missing a beat, I said, “Hey, your English is pretty good.”
This was a Seinfeld moment. Remember, the low talker? She was Kramer’s girlfriend who mumbled incessantly so no one could make out anything she said. When Jerry finally says out loud what he thought of the puffy shirt, she screams, “You Bastard!” and Jerry deadpans, “Now that I heard”
A good laugh for my Sunday afternoon!
Okay, this Sunday was special. There was going to be a charity fun run so I decided to go and see what that was all about. This is a photo of one of the contestants. It turns out the run was for prostate cancer awareness.
What i didn't know was it was pay $15 and they give you a speedo to run in. Sorry that isn't me in the photo. Hey, I'm a serious journalist, I can't get caught up doing anything other than reporting the news. (That is, if you ignore my story about he scammers up above.)
Leaving this scene, I took a small ferry across the river and had some lunch and waited for the light to get good for photography. Here are some photos the evening light.
The famous Bund at night...
Finally, this is the famous M on the Bund restaurant building where I will have dinner next weekend with the Staples team visiting here.
More after the Hong Kong trip...
Friday, October 8, 2010
Chengdu - October, 2010 - Part 2
The next day, I planned to visit some local parks, the best known temple, eat some local specialties and go to the Sichuan Opera. Turns out the weather continued to cooperate as it was cloudy (smoggy) with mid-70s temps. I started at the Wenshu Temple which is on the must see list, o.k., I saw it, but missed the significance. I didn’t miss the food spot raved about on line and had the local noodle with spicy and sweet sauce called tian shui mian, an interesting combination. Very tasty and worth all $.75 I paid for it but nothing amazing. It did leave my lips with a comfortable amount of numbness. Here's the menu, just let me know which one you want, no English spoken or understood.
Here's what the before is for the noodles. my "after" photo didn't turn out.
A few doors down this guy was making some kind of flour ball for desert, I guess, that is then rolled in a sugar type of coating. Let's see how he gets the ball made and into the basket, so to speak.
Then I took the metro to visit some local parks, watched the tai chi workouts and headed to the opera house to find out about tickets for that evening. I was invited in like a long lost relative and allowed to go into the theatre and pick my seat. O.K., first row, slightly off center, kind of easy choice. Then I wandered through another park hoping to find a certain section with ancient streets and got miserably lost and kept getting bad directions so I got even loster (new word for more lost). Finally, after being bothered that I couldn’t get to where I wanted to go, I hailed a taxi to take me the last mile. My total time walked this day, including the opera in the evening, was 7 hours. My feet were screaming at me to get something other than boots to wear. So I went shopping hoping to find a different t-shirt too. It became a comedy. No one had any shoes that came close to fitting. I finally just pointed down to my shoes and watched them either sadly shake their heads or laugh at me. Finding a shirt that fit was also hopeless as a XXXL in China is not equal to a Western XL. So it was stay with what I had. One more word about shoe styles in China. Growing up in NYC, I wore many pairs of Chuck Taylor Converse basketball shoes back in the day when arch support and cushioning was not a big thing. By far, the most popular shoes in China are Chuck Taylors. It does make me smile when I see them to think I was wearing those every day 40 years ago. Of course, back then we called them, “Cons”. It turns out there really was a Chuck Taylor who played basketball and then became Converse’s top salesman and slightly redesigned the shoes. He had his name put on them, got a salary but no commission on the 600 million pairs that have been sold.
After dinner, I went to the opera and took some interesting photos and videos. The big deal with opera in Chengdu is called “face changing” opera. The performers quickly change their look by slickly removing the mask layer they are showing and presenting the one beneath. Pretty cool.
Photos and videos are here…
First the area where the opera is...
and a guy doing a fancy tea pouring ceremony...
Then the opera outside photos...
then some of the performers...
Videos
Face Changing opera video...
Back to the hostel and I met two Spanish brothers I had seen a few days earlier and tried to provide some climbing advice for Emeishan. These are two good looking; long and lean build guys who I was sure would make it up especially since they had better weather than I did. Then they told me they couldn’t make it to the top. They couldn’t make it to where I stayed the first night, stopping at the top of the 600 meter climb for the night. Too many stairs. Then they walked to the first place they could begin their descent and walked off without going to the top. They told me they discussed the fact that I made it and was at least a few years older than them. They are 25 and 30 years old. Each one should have skipped to the top. Of course, smoking might have slowed them down. So the rest of the evening was spent commiserating with them, well, actually, making fun of them and they good naturedly joined in. When they learned that I was 55 years old they really were shocked. Very nice guys.
A word about hostel life… the hostel was a really nice setting with lots of areas to sit and relax, a big screen TV, wireless internet plus three free to us wired PCs, a dining area, cheap food and drinks, organized tours for the opera and the pandas plus free bicycle and hiking tours on different days of the week. There is also a dumpling preparation lesson where you eat what you make. All this for $20 per night!
Finally, the trip was coming to an end so I needed to have one more Mexican fix before departing. The trip home went very smooth, even though everything was mobbed as people were still on the move. Some observations about the people in Chengdu. Unlike Shanghai, it seems Caucasians are rare there. Many people wanted to take photos of me or get their photo taken with me. It was almost like paparazzi chasing someone. I got really long stares from people and some weird looks now; I’m thinking there may be some reasons like:
1. White skin
2. Blue eyes
3. Really tall
4. Unshaven (people here don’t have much facial hair)
5. Shorts with hiking boots (lots of looks at my shoes but it could also be the size of my feet.)
6. Dirty clothes (at some point the shirts were getting recycled and my Wisconsin Timber Rattlers shirt with a snake on it got lots of stares too.)
Here's what the before is for the noodles. my "after" photo didn't turn out.
A few doors down this guy was making some kind of flour ball for desert, I guess, that is then rolled in a sugar type of coating. Let's see how he gets the ball made and into the basket, so to speak.
Then I took the metro to visit some local parks, watched the tai chi workouts and headed to the opera house to find out about tickets for that evening. I was invited in like a long lost relative and allowed to go into the theatre and pick my seat. O.K., first row, slightly off center, kind of easy choice. Then I wandered through another park hoping to find a certain section with ancient streets and got miserably lost and kept getting bad directions so I got even loster (new word for more lost). Finally, after being bothered that I couldn’t get to where I wanted to go, I hailed a taxi to take me the last mile. My total time walked this day, including the opera in the evening, was 7 hours. My feet were screaming at me to get something other than boots to wear. So I went shopping hoping to find a different t-shirt too. It became a comedy. No one had any shoes that came close to fitting. I finally just pointed down to my shoes and watched them either sadly shake their heads or laugh at me. Finding a shirt that fit was also hopeless as a XXXL in China is not equal to a Western XL. So it was stay with what I had. One more word about shoe styles in China. Growing up in NYC, I wore many pairs of Chuck Taylor Converse basketball shoes back in the day when arch support and cushioning was not a big thing. By far, the most popular shoes in China are Chuck Taylors. It does make me smile when I see them to think I was wearing those every day 40 years ago. Of course, back then we called them, “Cons”. It turns out there really was a Chuck Taylor who played basketball and then became Converse’s top salesman and slightly redesigned the shoes. He had his name put on them, got a salary but no commission on the 600 million pairs that have been sold.
After dinner, I went to the opera and took some interesting photos and videos. The big deal with opera in Chengdu is called “face changing” opera. The performers quickly change their look by slickly removing the mask layer they are showing and presenting the one beneath. Pretty cool.
Photos and videos are here…
First the area where the opera is...
and a guy doing a fancy tea pouring ceremony...
Then the opera outside photos...
then some of the performers...
Videos
Face Changing opera video...
Back to the hostel and I met two Spanish brothers I had seen a few days earlier and tried to provide some climbing advice for Emeishan. These are two good looking; long and lean build guys who I was sure would make it up especially since they had better weather than I did. Then they told me they couldn’t make it to the top. They couldn’t make it to where I stayed the first night, stopping at the top of the 600 meter climb for the night. Too many stairs. Then they walked to the first place they could begin their descent and walked off without going to the top. They told me they discussed the fact that I made it and was at least a few years older than them. They are 25 and 30 years old. Each one should have skipped to the top. Of course, smoking might have slowed them down. So the rest of the evening was spent commiserating with them, well, actually, making fun of them and they good naturedly joined in. When they learned that I was 55 years old they really were shocked. Very nice guys.
A word about hostel life… the hostel was a really nice setting with lots of areas to sit and relax, a big screen TV, wireless internet plus three free to us wired PCs, a dining area, cheap food and drinks, organized tours for the opera and the pandas plus free bicycle and hiking tours on different days of the week. There is also a dumpling preparation lesson where you eat what you make. All this for $20 per night!
Finally, the trip was coming to an end so I needed to have one more Mexican fix before departing. The trip home went very smooth, even though everything was mobbed as people were still on the move. Some observations about the people in Chengdu. Unlike Shanghai, it seems Caucasians are rare there. Many people wanted to take photos of me or get their photo taken with me. It was almost like paparazzi chasing someone. I got really long stares from people and some weird looks now; I’m thinking there may be some reasons like:
1. White skin
2. Blue eyes
3. Really tall
4. Unshaven (people here don’t have much facial hair)
5. Shorts with hiking boots (lots of looks at my shoes but it could also be the size of my feet.)
6. Dirty clothes (at some point the shirts were getting recycled and my Wisconsin Timber Rattlers shirt with a snake on it got lots of stares too.)
Chengdu - October, 2010
Chengdu - October 2010
Arriving in Chengdu, I was surprised to find that I wasn’t back in the same bus station I left from so I asked a taxi driver for a price to take me to my hostel. He quoted me $8 so I decided to ask in my broken Chinese how much the bus was and was told $.28. Having a map to point to a location was very helpful and I asked the driver to kick me off the bus at my designated spot. Everyone on the bus was trying to be helpful and made sure I got where I needed to go.
A mile walk with my 50 pound pack on a street with no sidewalks kept me wide awake as I struggled to find my hostel. Sorry, no Ritz Carlton for this guy as I’m trying to live the lower budget experience and see how much it differs from my Mongolia more structured hotel experience. After settling in the hostel, I decided I needed a Western meal. Referring to my list of good restaurants I brought with me, I decided to take the new Metro subway that opened a few days earlier. This is Chengdu’s first experience with subways and it showed. People were taking photos of the ticket machines, the street maps, the trains, each other, etc. One lady had clearly never been on an escalator and used a two handed death grip to hang on to the right side of the escalator. People are queued up inside the subways cars waiting to get off but sometimes are on the wrong side of the train and then race and push and shove back to where they were a minute ago to get out of the train. The system is beautiful and I used it many times during my stay since an entrance was located across the street from my hostel. After my excellent Mexican food meal (I haven’t had any Mexican food since July in Southern Cal and it’s one of my favorite foods), it was off to the central area of the city for a peak at what people do in the central square after dark. This resulted in the following photos…
It's good to know the boys are out there to protect me...
One of these I call the wonder of photography. After this little girl was finished posing and mugging for the camera so her mom could take photos, she got to see what she looked like. Very cool stuff.
Then it was back to the hostel for a nice spicy dish of local food with lots of red peppers.
The next day was a visit to the Panda Reserve and see what was going on there. I took an organized trip from the hostel which lowers the price but told them that I wasn’t interested in walking around with the group but would meet at the designated drop spot whenever the group was ready to leave. (I actually asked for permission.) I later learned that I “missed” out on watching a video of the pandas and stopping for refreshments. Good choice to not be part of the group. The pandas were mostly resting eating bamboo, not a lot of movement and little interaction with each other. They consume bamboo all day long and supposedly only get nutrition from 5% of the bamboo and the rest comes out as bamboo poo.
Panda photos are easy to take since they don’t move much but from a good photography standpoint, digital cameras struggle keeping detail when the extremes are present like here with the black and white fur mixed together. Knowing this, there are a few things you can do with your camera to adjust, so I think these came out okay.
More pandas can be found on the web by clicking on any one of these photos.
and then there are some panda videos...
The other pandas at this reserve are red pandas which look more like red raccoons than like the giant panda. They were pretty frisky and offered some nice looks and more natural images although I always struggle to get photos without the containment, man made things like pathways, retaining walls, structures, etc. Here are some of the better photos…
Another nice find in this park was at a lake near the entrance which had some ducks and black swans. Maybe Tom Manders or Edmund can tell me what the gold colored duck is…
The rest of the day was spent resting and relaxing and, of course, walking approx. 4 hours around the city.
Arriving in Chengdu, I was surprised to find that I wasn’t back in the same bus station I left from so I asked a taxi driver for a price to take me to my hostel. He quoted me $8 so I decided to ask in my broken Chinese how much the bus was and was told $.28. Having a map to point to a location was very helpful and I asked the driver to kick me off the bus at my designated spot. Everyone on the bus was trying to be helpful and made sure I got where I needed to go.
A mile walk with my 50 pound pack on a street with no sidewalks kept me wide awake as I struggled to find my hostel. Sorry, no Ritz Carlton for this guy as I’m trying to live the lower budget experience and see how much it differs from my Mongolia more structured hotel experience. After settling in the hostel, I decided I needed a Western meal. Referring to my list of good restaurants I brought with me, I decided to take the new Metro subway that opened a few days earlier. This is Chengdu’s first experience with subways and it showed. People were taking photos of the ticket machines, the street maps, the trains, each other, etc. One lady had clearly never been on an escalator and used a two handed death grip to hang on to the right side of the escalator. People are queued up inside the subways cars waiting to get off but sometimes are on the wrong side of the train and then race and push and shove back to where they were a minute ago to get out of the train. The system is beautiful and I used it many times during my stay since an entrance was located across the street from my hostel. After my excellent Mexican food meal (I haven’t had any Mexican food since July in Southern Cal and it’s one of my favorite foods), it was off to the central area of the city for a peak at what people do in the central square after dark. This resulted in the following photos…
It's good to know the boys are out there to protect me...
One of these I call the wonder of photography. After this little girl was finished posing and mugging for the camera so her mom could take photos, she got to see what she looked like. Very cool stuff.
Then it was back to the hostel for a nice spicy dish of local food with lots of red peppers.
The next day was a visit to the Panda Reserve and see what was going on there. I took an organized trip from the hostel which lowers the price but told them that I wasn’t interested in walking around with the group but would meet at the designated drop spot whenever the group was ready to leave. (I actually asked for permission.) I later learned that I “missed” out on watching a video of the pandas and stopping for refreshments. Good choice to not be part of the group. The pandas were mostly resting eating bamboo, not a lot of movement and little interaction with each other. They consume bamboo all day long and supposedly only get nutrition from 5% of the bamboo and the rest comes out as bamboo poo.
Panda photos are easy to take since they don’t move much but from a good photography standpoint, digital cameras struggle keeping detail when the extremes are present like here with the black and white fur mixed together. Knowing this, there are a few things you can do with your camera to adjust, so I think these came out okay.
More pandas can be found on the web by clicking on any one of these photos.
and then there are some panda videos...
The other pandas at this reserve are red pandas which look more like red raccoons than like the giant panda. They were pretty frisky and offered some nice looks and more natural images although I always struggle to get photos without the containment, man made things like pathways, retaining walls, structures, etc. Here are some of the better photos…
Another nice find in this park was at a lake near the entrance which had some ducks and black swans. Maybe Tom Manders or Edmund can tell me what the gold colored duck is…
The rest of the day was spent resting and relaxing and, of course, walking approx. 4 hours around the city.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Leshan- October 2010
The next morning, I caught an early bus to Leshan where there is an amazingly large and ancient Buddha carved into the side of a mountain. The details of this Buddha are that the Leshan Giant Buddha was built during the Tang Dynasty (618–907). It is carved out of a cliff face that lies at the confluence of the Minjiang, Dadu and Qingyi rivers in the southern part of Sichuan province in China, near the city of Leshan. The stone sculpture faces Mount Emei, with the rivers flowing below his feet. It is the largest carved stone Buddha in the world and at the time of its construction was the tallest statue in the world.
It was only a 30 minute bus ride to this town and a short taxi ride later I was boarding a boat to observe the Buddha from the water. (During the holiday week, I decided to avoid going to the Buddha and walking through. ) You can start up near his ear and climb down to his feet on a slow staircase going down single file. A combination of my legs not agreeing with a long downward climb and the pace that one could travel due to the crowds convinced me to just get the best viewpoint from the water. As the boat rounds a bend in the river, a pretty cool figure emerges.
Note the size relative to the people on the left side of the photo...
After getting my images, I decided to walk around the area for a little while and found a “wet” market. A wet market is a place where live animals and fish are sold from stalls to individual’s consumers for their cook at home meals. There are always interesting people and creatures for sale in these places. Something like this…
I decided to take a city bus to the big bus station that would take me to Chengdu for the balance of my trip and I was anxious to get settled into one place for a few days (three nights). While waiting for the bus, I realized the wet market was going to Chengdu with me…
Finally, on the bus, I was reading about Max Planck in a book by Bill Bryson. By the way, Bryson's book, "A Walk in the Woods" is a must read. Anyway, since I was a science student in college, I knew that Planck was a famous physicist but didn't remember that he invented quantum physics, I know, get to the point. Well, the point is, Planck was described as having some hardships in his life here's a quick excerpt about his life...
Planck was unlucky in life. His beloved first wife died early. The younger of his two sons was killed in WW1. He also had twin daughters. One daughter died giving birth. The surviving twin went to look after the infant, fell in love with the sister's widower and married him. Two years later she died in childbirth. In 1944, at age 85, Planck's house was hit by an Allied bomb destroying everything he worked for, his papers, his diaries and a lifetime of scientific accumulations. The following year his surviving son was caught in a conspiracy to assassinate Hitler and was executed.
Anyone want to complain about the cards they've been dealt in life?
It was only a 30 minute bus ride to this town and a short taxi ride later I was boarding a boat to observe the Buddha from the water. (During the holiday week, I decided to avoid going to the Buddha and walking through. ) You can start up near his ear and climb down to his feet on a slow staircase going down single file. A combination of my legs not agreeing with a long downward climb and the pace that one could travel due to the crowds convinced me to just get the best viewpoint from the water. As the boat rounds a bend in the river, a pretty cool figure emerges.
Note the size relative to the people on the left side of the photo...
After getting my images, I decided to walk around the area for a little while and found a “wet” market. A wet market is a place where live animals and fish are sold from stalls to individual’s consumers for their cook at home meals. There are always interesting people and creatures for sale in these places. Something like this…
I decided to take a city bus to the big bus station that would take me to Chengdu for the balance of my trip and I was anxious to get settled into one place for a few days (three nights). While waiting for the bus, I realized the wet market was going to Chengdu with me…
Finally, on the bus, I was reading about Max Planck in a book by Bill Bryson. By the way, Bryson's book, "A Walk in the Woods" is a must read. Anyway, since I was a science student in college, I knew that Planck was a famous physicist but didn't remember that he invented quantum physics, I know, get to the point. Well, the point is, Planck was described as having some hardships in his life here's a quick excerpt about his life...
Planck was unlucky in life. His beloved first wife died early. The younger of his two sons was killed in WW1. He also had twin daughters. One daughter died giving birth. The surviving twin went to look after the infant, fell in love with the sister's widower and married him. Two years later she died in childbirth. In 1944, at age 85, Planck's house was hit by an Allied bomb destroying everything he worked for, his papers, his diaries and a lifetime of scientific accumulations. The following year his surviving son was caught in a conspiracy to assassinate Hitler and was executed.
Anyone want to complain about the cards they've been dealt in life?
Emeishan China – October Golden Holiday Mountain Climb
China takes a break for a week to enjoy a Golden Holiday. Everyone seems to be going somewhere, except for those who are receiving their relatives. The buses, planes, trains and streets are full of people and vehicles. Not the recommended time for a foreigner to travel but I didn’t want to sit around for a full week without anything to do and I didn’t want to leave the country. I made several tentative plans but settled on one with no guide, staying in hostels to see how the travel experience would be, alone amidst the Chinese population and in areas where little English is spoken or understood. Well, there were some interesting moments. My plan to head to the Panda center but because I was able to make a change to my return flight and extend my stay for one day, now having the extra time, I decided to go to my destination for evening, a town two hours away, at the foot was of the mountain I was planning to climb/hike. Before I left the airport, I did use the restroom and got this helpful advice at the urinal…
Leaving the city was a good choice. The population was on the move so every bus seat was taken, every space in the terminal jammed and I did manage to get on a bus and make the journey. After locating my hostel, I decided to walk over and see where the starting point would be for the AM. Seemed pretty easy but several written warnings on the internet encouraged me to be sure. At the hostel, there was the expected mix of Westerners and locals. The Westerners were from all over Europe, Australia and the U.S.
Now, a word about the journey. Emeishan is a 10,000 foot high mountain in Sichuan Province. At the top is a Golden Colored Buddha, hence it’s called the Golden Summit. This is one of the four famous Buddhist Mountains in China. There are more than 30 temples all over the mountain. Unlike most hikes, this is not on dirt roads or hiker beaten down paths. It’s all on stairs. Not the high, mule pack steps you will find hiking up the waterfalls in Yosemite (look at me brag about my other hiking exploit). My guess was that to climb 10,000 feet, if the steps were 4-6 inches high, it would take 20,000 – 25,000 stair climbing steps to go up. Two problems with that calculation, the steps are not next to each other so you have some areas where you’re just walking on flat ground between sets of stairs cases and the other issue is no one told them just to build a straight up path. The stairs also go down on the ascent to help get over ridge-lines and around edges of the mountain. This added a lot of walking and of course, for every down stroke, you know there will be a comparable upstroke and then the rest of the climb.
The next morning, after an unsatisfying breakfast, I trudged out in shorts and a running shirt, into a slight mist that was to be my partner for the day. The other early risers at my hostel all were heading in a different direction to top, due to time constraints. I was carrying minimal gear. A toothbrush, some food and drink and my camera and a lens were in a borrowed pack. Of course, I did have raingear. No change of underwear, shirt, socks or deodorant, oops! (Hey, there was no room!) I had my camera perched on my chest in a very unique camera carrier I bought from a friend in the U.S., plus another longer, heavier lens in my pack. My total carrying weight was around 12 pounds in addition to my not inconsiderable own weight. The work from the day earlier paid off as I had no question about the right path to take. The initial walking was on a moderate grade but soon the steps began. I counted the first staircase which was 293 steps. Boy, was this going to be fun! There were some other people around but no Westerners.
After an hour, I met one of the people from the hostel who took a wrong turn and hoped they would run into me, knowing I was on this path so they were looking for me to at least have someone to converse with.
It wasn’t cold but it was off and on drizzle. That causes two issues. The obvious one is that everything gets wet but it also adds to the “excitement” of the uphill climb as footing can be unsure. After two hours, I got to the area called “Joking Monkey Zone”. There are lots of warnings about issues between monkeys and people along the trail and this is one of the best known areas where they will be seen. Of course, with people selling food for the monkeys, people selling opportunities to hold some monkeys, etc. the inevitable interaction between people and monkeys will be an issue. As a side note, Chinese people are known for their intolerance for animals that don’t perform for them. At local zoos in Shanghai, people throw things at sleeping animals to get them to wake up. Anyway, to protect myself, I had a walking stick/monkey deterrent. It came in very useful as a walking stick. I figured, correctly, it turns out, that if I gave the monkeys distance, they would bother those would acted less responsibly. Of course, my goal was to photograph the macaques in the wild, not those being held by others. As it turns out, there would be lots of opportunities for that along the way.
Upward I continued. I got to a passport checkpoint! There were government type of officials with a log book and wanted my name, passport number, etc. Of course, I wrote "Art Vandalay, Architect" and a bogus passport number. This was repeated several times. If you don't get the name, just keep reading.
There were around 10 people in a small group meeting up every few minutes. Lunch time came rather quickly and it was in a monastery called “Venerable Trees Terrace”. The altitude here was 3,300 feet meaning that so far it was a reasonable 2,800 foot climb in 4 hours. This was also supposedly 12 kilometers but I was warned not to trust the distances. Referring to my map, the next section would be a 600 meter (1,800 foot) climb in the next section. Let’s just say, it was grueling. I guess the name “99 Bends” says enough about the climb. The climb tested a lot of things, like endurance, attention as footing was slippery in spots, determination, etc.
Now a word about the other climbers. Other than the lady from San Diego who was spending 5 months in Asia trekking around and was in excellent physical shape and dressed appropriately for the hike, I saw many people who looked like they were just walking around town. One lady who was part of the lunch crew had flat shoes with a slight heel you might wear to the mall. Maybe that’s why a little while later, she was seen “Climbing” the mountain in a sedan chair you can hire…
With no idea how close to the end of this section I was, I began to hear some kind of Buddhist spiritual music. Wow, this really puts a hop in your step. I thought, “I’ve made it!” As I continued with renewed vigor and didn’t see any buildings or people, I thought there’s no chance this is just music being played on speakers in the trees could it?” (You can probably guess that answer.) So with little choice, I continued. But the mirage and misdirection really wasn’t that, as around the next bend sat the long awaited end of this climb. I was very relieved to reach the top of this section. It was a two and a half hour continuous climb. And since it was now 3:00 PM with the weather worsening, I decided that the next monastery, approx. 1.5 hours away, but on a mostly flat path would be my overnight spot, especially since we were told that it was around an additional three hour hike to the optimal stopping spot beyond the one I was headed to. Reaching the target monastery called, Yuxian Monastery, at 4:15 PM, was enough. I was tired, cold, cranky and hungry. I probably didn’t drink enough on this last section and was ready to stop. After some negotiation on room price, I got settled and anticipated the tasty dinner to be served at 6 PM. I was quite cold so I turned on the heating blanket they provide and tried to get dried out. Since this was a nice warmer, I put anything wet under the blanket. This included my rain gear which I didn’t wear because I was too hot but used to keep my pack dry, my pack because the rain gear didn’t adequately cover it, my shirt, my sock, my shorts, my camera belt, my food and even my money. Can you say, “Soaked to the bone?” The only thing that didn’t get into the bed was my hiking boots which fortunately were dry on the inside, thanks to someone for creating Gore-Tex. Physically, I was feeling pretty good. My days of walking many hours in Shanghai were paying off. No blisters, no real pains except for some strains in my left hip and lower right leg at the end of the long day but never a thought that my body couldn’t continue. Of course, they had hot showers but, alas, no towels, even for purchase, so I couldn’t warm up that way either. I almost got a different room with another bed just to have a drying bed for my stuff. After a fitful rest, I went to the dining area and found a very unappetizing meal of rice and some greens that looked like they got pulled up out in the yard. I needed protein, something that had a mother, something that had a heart, something that was killed recently, anything but rice, greens or tofu. I drank three packets of Ovaltine to try and warm up the inside. (Who is the last person you know who either drank or admitting to consuming Ovaltine?) Needless to say, there was no HBO, no ESPN, etc., just a continuous downpour and lots of wind which meant at least I made the correct decision to stop walking. Despite all of this stuff lacking, my Blackberry and cell phone had full signal strength. Not longer after, it was lights out.
I’m sure I looked something like this…
Oh, wait; maybe that's a wrong photo.
The morning brought clearing skies, a dry body, mostly dry clothes and equipment. At 6:30 AM, with no breakfast since I didn’t want more food at this location, out the door I went to climb an additional 1,200 feet to the next place of any size. This supposed three hour hike took only 1.5 hours which was a pleasant surprise. An even better surprise was the presence of monkeys without a lot of people around. Some of my best images from the hike came at this point. To me, the macaques look almost 3D.
Of course there are always new converts trying to join the monastery...
Breakfast however wasn’t a pleasure. It was noodles on which they put a fried egg. I had my last Ovaltine packet and felt somewhat better. After a brief break and buoyed by the belief that the remaining hike to the top was less than 5 hours, it was back on the trail but this time I stopped in the little kiosks that line the mountain where I had been buying water the day before. Now I was buying fruit like bananas, watermelon, etc. I also had water at almost every place so I would have no issue with cramping or dehydration.
Now, it was clearing and views of the hillsides became apparent. You could now make out some temples down below thinking, “Did I really climb that far already today?”
You could see things up above and began to feel better of course, that’s until you round the bend and there’s another 300 step climb facing you, and then another, etc. I was amazed to finally find myself in a small town teeming with people, cars and buses. This meant the end was near as this location is 1.5 hours from the top. If someone told me I could just get a ride to the top, I may have made a different choice. Probably not. I rented a warm jacket for $3 believing it was going to be really cold and would need it. After around 100 yards, the jacket went onto my small pack with my rain jacket as it was just too warm for me. Hiking uphill burns lots of calories and creates a lot of sweat. At this point, walking through the bedlam of the town and now the trail was crowded with many people all heading to the Buddha at the top. There were three choices, a huge cable car for maybe 50-100 people, a ski lift type of chair for 2 or hiking up the trail one more hour to the top. Of course, I choice the latter to finish what I started. Passing more macaques, I headed up the never ending stairs that look like this from above…
At the trails end, I finally found a protein filled meal and a cold beer. (The Golden Buddha could wait an hour or so.) It was a very satisfying meal with the only remaining member of the party of ten that walked a good distance together the day before. So we toasted to reaching our goal and rested. There was a large group of Germans here and they were the first Westerners seen in the entire trip, except for two British ladies that were going pretty slowly and planning a three day climb. So here’s what the top looks like…
The next decision was whether to stay overnight here or descend. There we just too many people staring at me like it was a freak show, too many people in too small of a space and uncooperative weather that would prohibit the types of photos I had hoped for, so I decided to descend. This was almost no walking. I took the smaller lift chair down, walked to the monkey area and watched people do really stupid things. I got some sweet photos and also took some video, so enjoy what I saw and save yourself the steps…
This is a video remember to click on it and then click on pause so it will load and you won't have to watch a jaggy movie...
Then it was a two hour bus ride that took three hours. The Chinese haven’t figured out this part yet. There are buses headed in both directions, very efficient. There are cars jammed all over trying to compete with each other and the buses for space. Finally, any chucklehead who wants to just leave their car along the narrow road can do so which squeezes the vehicles on the single lane each direction road into smaller spaces. A very ugly scene especially when coupled with the people walking to and from their cars on the same roads without any sidewalks so even less room. Since everyone here loves to blow their horn non-stop for no reason, when you give them a slight reason, they just go crazy!
Back to the same hostel as the first night for a night’s sleep and it was on to the next thing. A very active two days! I figure the total steps walked was around 80,000 of which 35,000 were stair steps up and 10,000 were stair steps down. My dogs were tired but by no means done walking on this trip.
Leaving the city was a good choice. The population was on the move so every bus seat was taken, every space in the terminal jammed and I did manage to get on a bus and make the journey. After locating my hostel, I decided to walk over and see where the starting point would be for the AM. Seemed pretty easy but several written warnings on the internet encouraged me to be sure. At the hostel, there was the expected mix of Westerners and locals. The Westerners were from all over Europe, Australia and the U.S.
Now, a word about the journey. Emeishan is a 10,000 foot high mountain in Sichuan Province. At the top is a Golden Colored Buddha, hence it’s called the Golden Summit. This is one of the four famous Buddhist Mountains in China. There are more than 30 temples all over the mountain. Unlike most hikes, this is not on dirt roads or hiker beaten down paths. It’s all on stairs. Not the high, mule pack steps you will find hiking up the waterfalls in Yosemite (look at me brag about my other hiking exploit). My guess was that to climb 10,000 feet, if the steps were 4-6 inches high, it would take 20,000 – 25,000 stair climbing steps to go up. Two problems with that calculation, the steps are not next to each other so you have some areas where you’re just walking on flat ground between sets of stairs cases and the other issue is no one told them just to build a straight up path. The stairs also go down on the ascent to help get over ridge-lines and around edges of the mountain. This added a lot of walking and of course, for every down stroke, you know there will be a comparable upstroke and then the rest of the climb.
The next morning, after an unsatisfying breakfast, I trudged out in shorts and a running shirt, into a slight mist that was to be my partner for the day. The other early risers at my hostel all were heading in a different direction to top, due to time constraints. I was carrying minimal gear. A toothbrush, some food and drink and my camera and a lens were in a borrowed pack. Of course, I did have raingear. No change of underwear, shirt, socks or deodorant, oops! (Hey, there was no room!) I had my camera perched on my chest in a very unique camera carrier I bought from a friend in the U.S., plus another longer, heavier lens in my pack. My total carrying weight was around 12 pounds in addition to my not inconsiderable own weight. The work from the day earlier paid off as I had no question about the right path to take. The initial walking was on a moderate grade but soon the steps began. I counted the first staircase which was 293 steps. Boy, was this going to be fun! There were some other people around but no Westerners.
After an hour, I met one of the people from the hostel who took a wrong turn and hoped they would run into me, knowing I was on this path so they were looking for me to at least have someone to converse with.
It wasn’t cold but it was off and on drizzle. That causes two issues. The obvious one is that everything gets wet but it also adds to the “excitement” of the uphill climb as footing can be unsure. After two hours, I got to the area called “Joking Monkey Zone”. There are lots of warnings about issues between monkeys and people along the trail and this is one of the best known areas where they will be seen. Of course, with people selling food for the monkeys, people selling opportunities to hold some monkeys, etc. the inevitable interaction between people and monkeys will be an issue. As a side note, Chinese people are known for their intolerance for animals that don’t perform for them. At local zoos in Shanghai, people throw things at sleeping animals to get them to wake up. Anyway, to protect myself, I had a walking stick/monkey deterrent. It came in very useful as a walking stick. I figured, correctly, it turns out, that if I gave the monkeys distance, they would bother those would acted less responsibly. Of course, my goal was to photograph the macaques in the wild, not those being held by others. As it turns out, there would be lots of opportunities for that along the way.
Upward I continued. I got to a passport checkpoint! There were government type of officials with a log book and wanted my name, passport number, etc. Of course, I wrote "Art Vandalay, Architect" and a bogus passport number. This was repeated several times. If you don't get the name, just keep reading.
There were around 10 people in a small group meeting up every few minutes. Lunch time came rather quickly and it was in a monastery called “Venerable Trees Terrace”. The altitude here was 3,300 feet meaning that so far it was a reasonable 2,800 foot climb in 4 hours. This was also supposedly 12 kilometers but I was warned not to trust the distances. Referring to my map, the next section would be a 600 meter (1,800 foot) climb in the next section. Let’s just say, it was grueling. I guess the name “99 Bends” says enough about the climb. The climb tested a lot of things, like endurance, attention as footing was slippery in spots, determination, etc.
Now a word about the other climbers. Other than the lady from San Diego who was spending 5 months in Asia trekking around and was in excellent physical shape and dressed appropriately for the hike, I saw many people who looked like they were just walking around town. One lady who was part of the lunch crew had flat shoes with a slight heel you might wear to the mall. Maybe that’s why a little while later, she was seen “Climbing” the mountain in a sedan chair you can hire…
With no idea how close to the end of this section I was, I began to hear some kind of Buddhist spiritual music. Wow, this really puts a hop in your step. I thought, “I’ve made it!” As I continued with renewed vigor and didn’t see any buildings or people, I thought there’s no chance this is just music being played on speakers in the trees could it?” (You can probably guess that answer.) So with little choice, I continued. But the mirage and misdirection really wasn’t that, as around the next bend sat the long awaited end of this climb. I was very relieved to reach the top of this section. It was a two and a half hour continuous climb. And since it was now 3:00 PM with the weather worsening, I decided that the next monastery, approx. 1.5 hours away, but on a mostly flat path would be my overnight spot, especially since we were told that it was around an additional three hour hike to the optimal stopping spot beyond the one I was headed to. Reaching the target monastery called, Yuxian Monastery, at 4:15 PM, was enough. I was tired, cold, cranky and hungry. I probably didn’t drink enough on this last section and was ready to stop. After some negotiation on room price, I got settled and anticipated the tasty dinner to be served at 6 PM. I was quite cold so I turned on the heating blanket they provide and tried to get dried out. Since this was a nice warmer, I put anything wet under the blanket. This included my rain gear which I didn’t wear because I was too hot but used to keep my pack dry, my pack because the rain gear didn’t adequately cover it, my shirt, my sock, my shorts, my camera belt, my food and even my money. Can you say, “Soaked to the bone?” The only thing that didn’t get into the bed was my hiking boots which fortunately were dry on the inside, thanks to someone for creating Gore-Tex. Physically, I was feeling pretty good. My days of walking many hours in Shanghai were paying off. No blisters, no real pains except for some strains in my left hip and lower right leg at the end of the long day but never a thought that my body couldn’t continue. Of course, they had hot showers but, alas, no towels, even for purchase, so I couldn’t warm up that way either. I almost got a different room with another bed just to have a drying bed for my stuff. After a fitful rest, I went to the dining area and found a very unappetizing meal of rice and some greens that looked like they got pulled up out in the yard. I needed protein, something that had a mother, something that had a heart, something that was killed recently, anything but rice, greens or tofu. I drank three packets of Ovaltine to try and warm up the inside. (Who is the last person you know who either drank or admitting to consuming Ovaltine?) Needless to say, there was no HBO, no ESPN, etc., just a continuous downpour and lots of wind which meant at least I made the correct decision to stop walking. Despite all of this stuff lacking, my Blackberry and cell phone had full signal strength. Not longer after, it was lights out.
I’m sure I looked something like this…
Oh, wait; maybe that's a wrong photo.
The morning brought clearing skies, a dry body, mostly dry clothes and equipment. At 6:30 AM, with no breakfast since I didn’t want more food at this location, out the door I went to climb an additional 1,200 feet to the next place of any size. This supposed three hour hike took only 1.5 hours which was a pleasant surprise. An even better surprise was the presence of monkeys without a lot of people around. Some of my best images from the hike came at this point. To me, the macaques look almost 3D.
Of course there are always new converts trying to join the monastery...
Breakfast however wasn’t a pleasure. It was noodles on which they put a fried egg. I had my last Ovaltine packet and felt somewhat better. After a brief break and buoyed by the belief that the remaining hike to the top was less than 5 hours, it was back on the trail but this time I stopped in the little kiosks that line the mountain where I had been buying water the day before. Now I was buying fruit like bananas, watermelon, etc. I also had water at almost every place so I would have no issue with cramping or dehydration.
Now, it was clearing and views of the hillsides became apparent. You could now make out some temples down below thinking, “Did I really climb that far already today?”
You could see things up above and began to feel better of course, that’s until you round the bend and there’s another 300 step climb facing you, and then another, etc. I was amazed to finally find myself in a small town teeming with people, cars and buses. This meant the end was near as this location is 1.5 hours from the top. If someone told me I could just get a ride to the top, I may have made a different choice. Probably not. I rented a warm jacket for $3 believing it was going to be really cold and would need it. After around 100 yards, the jacket went onto my small pack with my rain jacket as it was just too warm for me. Hiking uphill burns lots of calories and creates a lot of sweat. At this point, walking through the bedlam of the town and now the trail was crowded with many people all heading to the Buddha at the top. There were three choices, a huge cable car for maybe 50-100 people, a ski lift type of chair for 2 or hiking up the trail one more hour to the top. Of course, I choice the latter to finish what I started. Passing more macaques, I headed up the never ending stairs that look like this from above…
At the trails end, I finally found a protein filled meal and a cold beer. (The Golden Buddha could wait an hour or so.) It was a very satisfying meal with the only remaining member of the party of ten that walked a good distance together the day before. So we toasted to reaching our goal and rested. There was a large group of Germans here and they were the first Westerners seen in the entire trip, except for two British ladies that were going pretty slowly and planning a three day climb. So here’s what the top looks like…
The next decision was whether to stay overnight here or descend. There we just too many people staring at me like it was a freak show, too many people in too small of a space and uncooperative weather that would prohibit the types of photos I had hoped for, so I decided to descend. This was almost no walking. I took the smaller lift chair down, walked to the monkey area and watched people do really stupid things. I got some sweet photos and also took some video, so enjoy what I saw and save yourself the steps…
This is a video remember to click on it and then click on pause so it will load and you won't have to watch a jaggy movie...
Then it was a two hour bus ride that took three hours. The Chinese haven’t figured out this part yet. There are buses headed in both directions, very efficient. There are cars jammed all over trying to compete with each other and the buses for space. Finally, any chucklehead who wants to just leave their car along the narrow road can do so which squeezes the vehicles on the single lane each direction road into smaller spaces. A very ugly scene especially when coupled with the people walking to and from their cars on the same roads without any sidewalks so even less room. Since everyone here loves to blow their horn non-stop for no reason, when you give them a slight reason, they just go crazy!
Back to the same hostel as the first night for a night’s sleep and it was on to the next thing. A very active two days! I figure the total steps walked was around 80,000 of which 35,000 were stair steps up and 10,000 were stair steps down. My dogs were tired but by no means done walking on this trip.
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