The seventh degree below zero

Since I have been to several cities since I last wrote and taken way too many pictures to fit well in one post, I will write this post about Harbin and Beijing and then another about Guilin and Yangshuo.

When I bought my train ticket to Harbin, sleeper berths were already sold out, so I was stuck with a soft seat, which is usually just a slightly more comfortable version of a hard seat with fewer people per row (4 instead of 5). However, I ended up being one of six people sitting on the bottom bunks of a soft sleeper berth (there are usually four people - one for each bed). Two of us headed to the top bunks later in the night, only to be told by a conductor to come down. Apparently there was a government regulation that said we weren't allowed to use the upper bunks because we had only paid for a seat. We waited a few hours and then we, along with people in every other compartment in the car, went up to the bunks again to sleep. It was nice to be able to get some real sleep over the fourteen hour train ride. Sleep was made a bit more difficult by ridiculous, overwhelming heat, made worse by the closed-off compartments of soft-sleeper cars. I write ridiculous mainly because as we were removing layers to cool off, condensation was freezing thickly on the inside of the train windows from the rapidly lowering temperature outside.

I arrived in Harbin in the late morning and, after bundling up fully, headed straight for my hostel, which was located in an old renovated synagogue. The synagogue was one peeked roof on the skyline that distinguishes the city of Harbin. The city and surrounding area were strongly influenced by their proximity to Russia, visible in Russian language, stores, and even Russian nesting dolls throughout the city. One of the main riverside parks is named 斯大林公园, or Stalin Park. The buildings also show the influence, with a markedly different feel than other cities in China. The city also takes a page from Russia's book by being really, really cold.

At the hostel, I arranged to go to the Ice Festival that evening (I was told it was best viewed at night when the lights were on), put on my biking pants, long underwear, jeans, a pair of wool socks, a t-shirt, two sweaters, another pair of wool socks, a pair of boots, a coat, gloves, and a hat, and went out to see the city. It was achingly cold and Harbin embraced that fact. The river was frozen over and a carnival sort of atmosphere reigned over it, with ice skating, sledding, horse-drawn sleigh rides, ice bumper cars, and stands selling winter hats and (frozen) fruit covered in caramel (think candy apples, but lined up on a stick). Snow and ice sculptures lined the main avenue leading up to the river. A steeple made of ice rose out of the trees on the opposite side of the river. My snot disconcertingly froze in my nose, leading me to the warmth of a restaurant for lunch.

The ice festival in the evening was a testament to man's ability to make art even when it is very cold. There were dozens of huge structures made out of ice, each lit up with neon tubes threaded through the bricks of ice. After you carefully climbed up the steps to the top of the structures, you could then jump on your ass and slide down to the bottom. Many of the structures were sponsored, leading to such creations as a monumental snow sculpture of the characters from Ice Age, an ice bar for Harbin Beer, and a set up of the game Angry Birds. There was also a wildly incomprehensible show with ice skating and skiing and people dressed up as animals that seemed to be telling the story of how the Red Army heroically destroyed the forces of a sorcerer and his animal-killing henchmen. Beautiful and intricate ice sculptures were part of a contest that was part of the festival. Cafes with wonderful heat sold cold drinks for low prices while selling shitty tea and hot chocolate for exorbitant prices, which I caved in and partook in when I stopped feeling my toes.

Altogether, it was a lot of fun. However, both then and when I was walking around the riverbank I couldn't help but wish I were traveling with friends. Slides and ice skating and the other carnival-like activities that they had so much of were ideal for fun with friends, not so much individual traveling. I still managed to laugh happily as I slid through ice structures and to enjoy my time in general, but I think that it would have been even more fun with a small group of friends.

The next day I wandered until the afternoon, when I began my attempt to go to the Siberian Tiger Park just outside Harbin. I found the bus I thought was mentioned in the guidebook, but wasn't sure since I hadn't written it down. The bus driver didn't seem to know what I was talking about, so I got off a few stops down and went back to my hostel to check how to get there. As it turned out, I had been right about the bus number, but I had to switch buses to get there. Newly confident, I went back to the same bus stop and arrived successfully at the stop where I would have to switch buses. Unfortunately, the bus didn't seem to exist anymore, so I was stuck in the cold without a bus. I decided to stay on course and attempt to get to the park anyway, so I tried to get a taxi, but faced the problem that taxis in Harbin usually carry multiple people and throw in extras whenever they can if they are going in the same direction. I finally found an empty taxi that was willing to bring me to the park, and then negotiated a price for the taxi driver to bring me there, wait while I was in the park, and then bring me back.

The park was fun, with a minibus ride through a park filled with dozens of Siberian tigers. I was disappointed to find out that Siberian tigers are not, like I had thought they were from a third grade memory of the DC zoo, white. (As I learned from the park, White tigers result from a rare gene mutation.) They were still large and graceful and fierce. You could (I did not) pay some amount of money to feed beef, a live chicken, or even a love cow to the tigers. I figured I would enjoy the silent grace for that trip and save the fierce violence for another time.

I had a nice conversation with the taxi driver on the way back to my hostel. He told me how he hadn't studied well, and he had used to like to drive, so he had decided to become a taxi driver. He didn't mind it, but now he was tired of driving all the time (and he was only about 26 or so). He said his neck often got sore. He then proudly showed off neon lights that he had installed in his car to make it obvious in the street.

I got back to the hostel, packed, and went to my hard sleeper back to Beijing. I had one night in Beijing before a plane to Guilin in the morning. I had dinner with friends from Beida and then got back to my hostel for sleep and to prepare for Guilin. I woke up at nine in the morning with a silent alarm going off, ten minutes before my flight would be leaving for Guilin. I proceeded to say fuck in most every way imaginable, from loud and annoyed to slow and despairingly. After a refreshing shower and breakfast and with the help of the hostel staff, I was able to rebook my flight for the next morning for only a few hundred yuan more.

With the day newly opened up, I made plans with my Beida friends to go out to sing KTV in the evening, and spent the day relaxing, reading, and studying Chinese. We had a very fun night singing KTV, and the next day I successfully woke up in the morning for my flight to Guilin. Onward to my next destination!

 An ice castle greeting you to the festivities by the frozen river

 

Stalin Park

The renovated synagogue that my hostel was in

Made me smile and think of family Oberlin graduates 

The entrance to the ice festival 

 The centerpiece had a huge tv in front of it

 Some of the dancing animals in the strange performance at the ice festival

 A huge snow sculpture complete with incense burning in front of it

 The ice bar in which most people didn't seem to want beer, but who had it anyway because you could

 One of the dozen or so more artistic ice sculptures

 One of the slides got a little clogged up

 I really wanted the bird to actually be flung at the ice structure...

The very popular sugar-covered fruit on a stick

Siberian Tigers just lazing about

The icy city to the north

I spent the last five days in Beijing spending time with some of the poor souls who have already returned to classes. It was nice being someplace familiar for a little and especially nice seeing some friends again. Besides going out with the aforementioned friends/poor souls, I spent the last days in Beijing planning the rest of my trip.

As I had worried it would be, transportation around China surrounding Spring Festival is expensive and difficult to come by. I was able to get train tickets to Harbin, where I will go for a few days to see the famous ice festival and to freeze my pretty little ass off (average temperature of about -1 Fahrenheit in January). After that, I will fly to Guilin to see Yangshuo and the river for about a week before I get on the train to go to Kunming. Once in Kunming, I hope to be able to get a ticket to Lijiang, from which I will go to Dali to spend Spring Festival with my friend from travels past, Michael. After that, I will board a very expensive flight back to Beijing on the 19th, when I should be able to check into my dorm at Peking University.

Here's hoping that all goes to plan, and that that which does not go to plan spawns great adventures!

Second China on the Left

After a terrific trip to Taiwan, I am back in Beijing.

Following a truly memorable time in Taipei, I went to Hualien for two days, where I met up with Robert, a Taiwanese friend I met when he was working as a housekeeper in Williamsburg over the summer. He has a scooter that he rides around Hualien, and since the city's public transportation is pretty much non-existent, I rented a bicycle to go around by myself and rode on the back of the scooter when going around with Robert.
Hualien is a large county in Taiwan that is most well-known for its beautiful scenery both by the ocean and in the nearby mountains. Unfortunately, it is also known for having cloudy and rainy weather, especially in the winter. However, Zeus smiled upon me during my time in Hualien, allowing the past ten days of rain and clouds to give way to beautiful sunny days. Robert and I spent most of the full day I was there in Taroko Gorge, a stunning national park near Hualien. We rented a taxi for the day with four other guests at the hostel and drove around to see some really amazing sights, from ocean-side cliffs to caves sprayed with beautiful curtains of water to fields of sunflowers. As you can see below, I had a blast with my camera.
I also tried a number of good Taiwanese foods, such as Hualien's version of Xiaolongbao's and a "Tawanese Hotdog," (also known as a big sausage wrapped around a little sausage) which consisted of a sausage surrounded by what was essentially a sausage made out of rice. Creative and delicious.
On my last day in Taiwan, I took a train back to Taipei followed by a bus to the airport, where I relaxed until my flight to Beijing.
After a night of sleep in Beijing, I went to Peking University for the day to see friends and teachers from the previous semester. I also met up with a friend from William & Mary who is just beginning the grueling process of Chinese immersion at CSI, and to whom I tried to provide a few words of encouragement and camaraderie.
I also bought tickets to go to Harbin for the ice festival, which was both more expensive and more difficult than I had hoped. It looks as if it will truly be very difficult to do as much travel around China during my holiday as I would like because of Spring Festival. After Harbin, I hope to go either to Chongqing or straight to Yunnan, depending on the sort of train or plane tickets I am able to find.
Until then, feast your eyes on the beautiful landscape of Taiwan!

 View from the train on the way to Hualien from Taipei

 A train photo reminiscent of my Dad's blurred car photos

 Field of sunflowers on a beautiful morning

There is one sunflower more handsome than all the others!

 Stunning view from the road just north of Hualien

 The Pacific Ocean - in my grasp at last

 It is hard to tell in the photos, but the beach was made up of small rounded rocks rather than the fine sand we are used to on the east coast of the US

 The gorge was named not by the Japanese, as I guessed when I first heard the name, but after the native people who lived there

A pair of waterfalls leading down to the path

 

Steps leading to the cave of water curtains

 In the cave of water curtains trying to get a picture, not slip, and keep my camera and clothing dry at the same time

 A memorial for all the workers who dies building the highway that goes through the mountains.

All the nutrition you need after a long day of hiking and sightseeing in the form of a "Taiwanese hotdog"

Eight Elephants on the Door

Taipei has proven to be a terrific, if rainy, city.

After my 34 hours of flights, I took a bus into the city from the airport and then took the metro to the hostel I had booked for Taipei, the Eight Elephants, which is tucked away in an hard to find alley near a central metro stop, it's presence made apparent only by eight small paper elephants dancing on the front door. I took a thoroughly refreshing shower before meeting some of the other travelers staying at the hostel. I went with an English guy a few years older than I to a nearby night market to explore and have a bite to eat before sinking into my bunk for a deliciously long night's sleep.

In the morning, I took the metro to the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall, which was a monument and a museum to the life of Chiang Kai Shek, one of the founders of the good ol' Republic of China. It was an interesting museum that romanticized the Nationalists and their eventual inhabiting of Taiwan, complete with gift shop replete with all your needed Chiang Kai Shek and Sun Yatsen paraphernalia. From there, I went to meet up with Annie, a Taiwanese friend that I met during the IMUSE conference in the summer. She treated me to a lunch with a friend of hers at a famous restaurant that has now spread around the world, Din Tai Fung. After a tasty lunch, we went through wandering, lively side streets to a cafe for dessert.

I think it was the side streets that really entranced me with Taipei. The asphalt and concrete buildings were dark black and charcoal gray from the on-and-off raining of the past days, and pots with small trees and plants joined hanging vines in giving the streets a green, natural aura. Those were streets that I would happily walk through for years.

After lunch and dessert, we went with another of Annie's friend to a bookstore where I discovered that Taiwan not only continues to use traditional Chinese characters, but also prints books from the right to left and top to bottom. After Annie left to study for final exams (Annie is a Dentistry student and had the written portion of her root canal class just a few days later - she had already performed the lab portion where she performed the surgery on teeth that she had to obtain herself from dentistry clinics around Taipei. That was just a fun tidbit by which I was surprised and intrigued), I went back to the hostel and went with some other travelers to a night market for dinner. On returning to the hostel, I played a rousing game of Taboo with two English gentlemen, an English and a Taiwanese lady, and a group of Singaporean recent graduates. As it was an American game, I had a bit of a leg up, but the Taiwanese woman knew some references to American culture that I certainly didn't know.

It was a lot of fun, and in the midst of it I picked up a nick-name that I had once held at summer camp in 4th grade: Harry Potter. This set us on the task of finding all the characters from the books in our hostel. It being a small hostel, we only got a few checked off, among them being all the Weasleys, being played by a Taiwanese woman who had red-tinted hair, Hagrid, being played by an Englishman who had earned the moniker a few years before when he had long, untamed hair with a matching beard, and Cho Chang, being played by an Australian guy who pulled it off expertly. We are still accepting applications for all those interested.

The next day, Thursday the 10th for those of you who keep track of these things, I went to the National Palace Museum, where I saw the tiny portion of their huge collection of Chinese art and artifacts that were on display, from intricate jade figurines to carvings made out of peach and plum pits. Later, I met up with Isabel, a friend from William & Mary whose dad works for the State Department, depositing them in Switzerland when I visited my sister (and then Isabel) in Germany (and then Switzerland), and now in Taipei, where I have had the fortune of visiting her yet again. We went to Taipei 101, an immense skyscraper that towers above the rest of Taipei. After a failed attempt to avoid paying to go to the top by going to a Starbucks on a higher floor (it was closed), we decided the cloudy day wouldn't make much of a view anyway, and went to the food court in the basement for dinner.

On Friday, confronted with beautiful sunny weather for the first time during my stay, I headed to Danshui, a town at the very tip of the Taipei subway line that offered beautiful scenery and a seaside view. The town was full of mostly Taiwanese tourists, and seemed part-carnival/part-old town. It was lovely weather for walking, so I spent the day walking down the boardwalk by the water and stopping periodically to eat and read. I caught a beautiful sunset from Danshui before hurrying back to the subway to meet Isabel for dinner and bananagrams at her house. I returned to the hostel and met some new faces and continued to get to know old ones.

At one point in Danshui, a plane flew low overhead on its way to the airport, and for some reason I couldn't help but wonder what would happen if, right then, China decided to militarily assert its right to govern Taiwan. It would be terribly sad. To see the city full of lively energy become one full of deadly terror. I can't imagine the feeling of living in the wrathful shadow of the People's Republic of China. The future takes one more step toward dreadful uncertainty. It would be terrible.

Saturday brought adventures in rain-swept mountain towns as I went with a few other guests at the hostel to Jiufen, a mountain town that the town is Spirited Away is based on. We enjoyed lots of delicious food and saw beautiful sights almost completely veiled by rain and mist. We endured the soaking rain (which my new boots heroically battled and vanquished, and which my shitty umbrella heroically battled and did not) and biting cold (in the eyes of certain inadequately prepared travelers), and found ourselves in classic shops such as Condom World and a variety shop kind of like Goodwill that was ideal for pictures. I came back to the hostel damp and a little cold, but happy. We ate at a nearby restaurant, the Drunken Monkey, where I tried some sweet pineapple beer, and then played some Taboo and talked.

That brings us to the adventures of today, Sunday. This morning, Paul, an Englishman staying at the hostel, and I decided to plunge into the bookstores of Taipei in search of the newest and final book of the Wheel of Time series, which was released a few weeks ago (only in hardcover, a fact that has brought the book about 200 1-star reviews on Amazon) and, as it turned out, only in the US (and maybe Europe). This left us with no choice but to wait or to get the e-book illegally. We also got some interesting doughnut flavors, including a sour plum-flavored rice doughnut (not recommended).

Tomorrow I will leave to go to Hualien for two days before heading back to Taipei for my flight to Beijing. From there, only time will tell.

National Palace Museum

 Baby in one hand, bubble-gun in the other 

 Kids playing at Danshui

 A man and his dog (dogs are very popular in Taiwan - many wear sweaters, some wear shoes, and some are even carted around in dog strollers)

 Temple at Danshui

 A building from the former Spanish fort then Dutch fort then British consulate then tourist site in Danshui

 The sun, the mountain, the river, the port, and the ocean

 Sun setting at Danshui

 Enjoying the last bits of sunshine of the day

 Everyone is out to see the sunset

Tourists hiding under umbrellas as they walk through the old street of Jiufen

 What photogenic food we have! Photographically enjoying what we called "terrible bowls of taro balls" (for alliteration rather than commenting on the taste) before enjoying them orally

 Not the kind of place you would expect to see this sort of shop

 A beautiful and mysterious town obscured by rain and mist

 Our attempts to get a photo of ourselves with the scenery was easily thwarted by the weather

 Looking cool at a tea house in Jiufen

Our favorite national heroes! Sun Yatsen, Chiang Kai Shek, and... Mao Zedong?

We all got dressed up and looking good at the variety shop in Jiufen