Last night we met Catherine (her English name) at a Taiwanese fast food chain. She majored in English at university and unlike many of the English majors we've met, is actually fluent. During dinner she offered to show us the beach in Yantai, which is one of several prosperous cities in Shandong province. She was really good with our questions and explained several aspects about China, the Chinese, her family, husband, waxed romantically about the city of Weihei (another port city in Shandong province) and, with refreshing frankness, chatted about the Chinese military (her husband is a solider in the Air Force), international trade and politics.

Catherine works at a somewhat comfortable office job for a garment wholesaler that deals mostly with Korean and UK businesses and has some interesting insights. For example, she noted some customers (American and European) want the seamstresses to be treated fairly, with regards to child labor laws and overtime, but then ignore these requirements if the shipments may be late.

Strolling along the beach front promenade for about an hour, we watched the sun set, and then sat and watched a fountain show. Catherine said these shows with lights and music are increasingly popular in reasonably well off cities throughout China. It was very pleasant and I can't think of a better person to have met on our last full day in China.

Tonight we sail back to Korea, moving east, returning to the West.

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Fear not: the dodo is not yet extinct. Fashionable babies in China still wear a piece of clothing called a dodo, which was long ago also worn by women, before bras were introduced. Now, babies of both genders wear the (usually) bright red single piece garment, which fits like a long bib from neck to thighs and ties at several places in the back. The color and patterns indicate a wish for a lucky future.

More common than the dodo on small children are two funny hair styles in which most of the head is shaved, except a small patch in the front or, if in the back, so a sort of pony tail is formed. They really look odd. Especially odd when the baby is excessively fawned over by two parents (and two sets of grandparents!), in what can be refered to as 'little Emperor syndrome'. This affliction is probably due to China's one-child policy, but leaves a nation of very spoiled children.

Leah is particularly taken with small children. I often look over at her and find her gazing and beaming at a small child, usually when I think she is listening to me. She waves. They wave and giggle. She waves.... She has managed to restrain herself from grabbing any of them, unlike last summer when I think she must have held half of Gambia's population below the age of 5 while on minibuses. But with only one child, Chinese parents are more protective of their children.

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Henan's provincial museum in Zhengzhou has an impressive piece of modern art waiting to greet it's visitors: two rearing elephants that look freeze-dried and are separated by a poorly-rendered, rumpled communist archer, spread like da Vinci's Vitruvian man and topped with a funny hat. (Oh, I almost forgot, the whole thing is a shiny gold color.) Despite this hideous statue, the rest of the museum has a nice collection of artifacts, and remarkably, they're fairly well organized and labeled. Henan has a long history and many of the narratives provide context and give texture to the museum pieces. Sadly, this is the best museum that we've seen in China, with the exception of the small Poly museum in Beijing.

Since part of our trip involves going to tourist destinations, it would be incomplete not to mention that most of those we've encountered in China have been disappointing. Despite, in some cases, their "must see" status. In general, most museums and sites are poorly organized, and artifacts are poorly displayed and labeled. Even when there are labels in English, they either make no sense or convey little useful information, especially given Leah's pet peeve, the absence of dates. Here are some big sites that ranged from okay to would-have-rather-skipped:

1. Forbidden City in Beijing. All of Beijing is under construction in preparation for the Olympics and this is no exception. A barn-shaped scaffolding with green burlap material envelopes the largest palace hall. Plus, it's too big and has far too many people to enjoy comfortably.
Alternative: the imperial palace in Shenyang.

2. Terracotta Warriors in Xi'an. Three big empty pits and a museum with almost nothing in it. The few warriors you can see closely are poorly lit and kept in dirty glass cases. Also, as a sign of how badly the artifacts are protected, the roof of Pit 2 leaks.
Alternative: pictures (maybe on the Internet) would be easier to see/appreciate.

3. Longmen Grottoes in Luoyang. Most of the Buddhas are damaged, either by weather or vandals. And several of the caves are now completely bare.
Alternative: Yonggong caves near Datong in Shanxi province.

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We're in Zhengzhou at the moment, but have bus tickets for tomorrow morning to Ji'nan, the capital of Shengdong province. Sunday, if all goes well, we'll bus to Yantai, where we'll see about buying ferry tickets back to Incheon, Seoul's port city, on Monday. All of which means it might be a while before we post again. But we'll be able to access our site when we do get post, so consider yourself warned for the subsequent explosion of photos.

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The title of this post was the title of the welcome message left in our hotel room in Luoyang. The rest of the message follows:

Dear guest:
Cordially welcome to our hotel! All my staffs and I will feel honoured to attend upon you. Introductions about facilities and functions are in the service directory, you may check it or dial" 2626" for help.
We are always putting forth effort on training staffs. we initiate cheerful work. Because we know if have no happy, satisfied and full of youthful spirit staffs, we would not supply good and satisfying products. We especially hope when you part from our hotel, please leave the big wealth for us --the suggestions and ideas. It will record your bless and help. We also hope the times in our hotel will give you a sweet memoirs.
Wish you have a nice trip and everything goes well!

-David

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We had train tickets to Luoyang yesterday and since both Xi'an and Luoyang are prime tourist destinations for foreigners and Chinese tourists, there was quite a battle to get on the train. David made it sooner than I did, but ended up dislocating and spraining the ring finger on his right hand after being shoved into a chair by an old woman. (Old women must not think he's as cute as I do.) He popped his finger back into place, but his hand's quite swollen now, so I'm a little worried we may yet end up experiencing China's "socialist health care," something I'd rather save for the Scandinavian countries.

-Leah

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I rode the little bus to one of China's five sacred Taoist mountains, Hua Shan, about 120km east of Xi'an. The two and a half hour trip passed quickly from the front passenger seat, but I was mildly concerned about the blinding rain. The bus conductor was also worried and mimed the dangers of hiking in the rain, but the day before, a friendly Canadian did the same thing and assured me that there were no perilous parts.

As the bus approached the mountain, the rain eased and then stopped, and fortunately, for the rest of the day it no more than sprinkled. I choose the "classic" 6km path up the mountain, from the west. The threat of rain must have kept many tourist away, because for the first two hours, I walked mostly alone. Walking up the steep mountain gorge was wonderful with only the sounds of the bubbling stream and birds. Every so often a Taoist temple appeared, and smiling caretakers sat in what I believed to be Taoist costumes (hair pulled into an offset top-knot; dark blue coats and pants that ended at the knee; and, tight white stockings.) A mist wafted the path; visibility varied every few minutes from 10 meters to the top of the 2000 meters, or so, peak.

After about 3km of easy uphill, I met a nice old man. He wore a wicker backpack with a large propane tank stuffed into it. We didn't share a spoken language, but communicated quite well, I thought. I "told" him I was glad the rain stopped. He agreed and "told" me that I should only step on the hand-width spaces of grout between the big slick rocks. After about 15 minutes, he stopped and I continued.

At 4km the path became a staircase that switch-backed up the mountain. All along the way, spaced about 300m apart, were rest stops and restaurants, some elaborately equipped with lounge chairs and televisions. Thankfully, most vendors weren't aggressive and just passively gestured to their goods.

After about 4.8km the steps were smaller and taller. Eventually, I found myself huffing my way up an incredibly long, steep staircase with hefty metal chain rails on either side. I measured the stairs with my body. As I stood straight up on a step as deep as my foot was wide and raised my arm at 90 degrees to my body, my finger tips touched a step above. I'd never seen anything like this and held firmly to the chains on both sides. For the last 600 meters or so, I was not alone. A polite queue of Chinese tourists formed at difficult sections. I was stunned at the civility that everyone showed each other; it was a rare sight in China. The civility ended abruptly at the north peak.

While the north peak seems at first like the top, it's just a local plateau, the path continues another 500 vertical feet to the south peak. On the east side of the mountain, a cable car dumps Chinese tourists by the ton at the north peak to take pictures, buy souvenirs, smoke, yell, push and shove their neighbors in triumph at "climbing" the mountain. I started for the south peak, but quickly gave up while waiting in a hiking queue behind several smokers.

Happy with the hiking I'd already done and not willing to battle the crowds, I descended by cable cable car in only a few minutes, and slowly returned to Xi'an by little bus, by foot, by big bus, and then by foot again.

-David

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After our second week in China David declared that there are no rules in the country other than those we brought with us. People in China disobey posted rules with abandon. They smoke in front of no smoking signs, spit on relics (and everywhere else), photos are taken of "No photos" signs, pedestrians dodge between oncoming traffic despite the piercing whistles of crossing guards and parents encourage kids to shit in the streets despite the abundance of public toilets, not to mention the public health hazards involved. David's especially convinced that there are no rules with chopsticks and that however you use them to move food from the plate to your mouth is okay. But last night at dinner after impaling a fried dough stick as though he were spearing a fish, he was proved wrong.

"Whyyyyy?" cried YangYaPeng, our trainee waitress, half laughing, half dismayed. "You told me you could use them!"

And then for the first time since arriving in China, we were given forks and knives.

-Leah

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Conversation with the young man at reception in Xi'an about the hostel we were trying to book in Luoyang:

"This hostel is bad."

"Oh, how is bad?"

"I don't know, but other people come here and they tell me it's bad."

"Do you have another recommendation in Luoyang?"

"No, I'm sorry. Have it in your mind that it's bad and you stay only one night."

"Okay. Is it bad because it's like a hotel, not a hostel?"

"I don't know, but this hostel is owned by the nation..."

"Ohhh!"

"Yes, it's owned by the nation so it's not very good."

-Leah

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Plans to go to Tibet had to be cancelled when we realized we'd be spending an extra week in Beijing. It's probably just as well, since David caught the tail end of a news story about travel agents overbooking Tibet trips and travelers not having tickets despite paying for them and not being able to get refunds. The government has apparently pulled the "privilege" of booking trips to Tibet until sometime in August and since you can only get to Tibet through a travel agent because of the special permit, I guess most trips are off until the fall. So while we're sad, Lhasa is saved for another trip when we have more time.

Having had no problem picking up our passports with the (finally!) extended visas, we're currently in Xi'an, home of the first (and basically only) Qin emperor, the man who built an enormous life size army out of terracotta, complete with horses and chariots, as a way to rule the afterlife. (Given the state of his army things probably aren't going so well there.) There are also several temples and museums in town, some of which we've already explored and others which I'll see tomorrow. David's planning on hiking up one of China's 5 sacred mountains, but I am reluctant to be pushed over the edge of a mountain by hoards of Chinese tourists, so he'll probably go by himself. Unless it's still raining, in which case he might concede to being boring and coming with me.

We bought train tickets to Luoyang, in Henan province, for Monday, where we hope to see some more Buddhist cave art and then will wander over to Yantai to catch a ferry back to Seoul. Assuming, of course, our plans don't change before then.

-Leah

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Going back over a week in our trip and despite the botched visa extension foray to Taiyuan, we really enjoyed Pingyao and wanted to post something about our time there. It's one of the best preserved Ming cities in China, which means it has the old city walls still in existence and the old courtyard houses haven't been razed for more modern buildings. The city walls are built in a roughly rectangular shape and the old streets and alleys are laid out to resemble the back of a turtle (a symbol of longevity) when looked at from above. The old walls of Pingyao reminded me of Essaouira where I checked email in Morocco, and the preservation and pedestrian-friendly tourist atmosphere reminded David of Venice. Both comparisons work especially well, since all three cites are World Heritage sites. Inside the city we toured an old banking house, one of the first in China, walked on the walls where we could, and wandered through several temples.

Our favorite temple was the Taoist Town God temple, not so much because it looked the best, though it did, but because we met Lucy, who gave us a tour of the temple. She's going to start university in Taiyuan in September and is spending her free time during the two month holiday giving free temple tours to foreigners so she can practice her English. We've met several people, mostly in Beijing, who claim to be students and who want us to talk to them to practice their English, but they usually have a calligraphy show they want us to see that's leaving the next day for Japan. Since we've received the same offer for the same show several different days, I don't think they're going to make it to Japan anytime soon. Lucy, however, had no show for us to see and it was great having someone of whom we could ask all sorts of questions.

The temple is apparently unusual in that it actually has three "sections" and is dedicated to different gods in each section. The main temple is dedicated to the Town God, who, along with his wife, protects Pingyao. To the right of the Town God's complex are the Kitchen God and his wife. Lucy told us that many households have small shrines to the Kitchen God because he provides good and abundant food. And then on the left, there's the God of Wealth, although there were actually three different wealth gods: one for students, one for businessmen and one for general prosperity.

Since it was a Taoist temple, there were some weird hell scenes of people being tortured who'd misbehaved during their lifetimes. Apparently there are three crimes for which you can't ever be reborn, but are instead eternally punished, but other than murder, I couldn't tell what the crimes were (Lucy clearly wasn't Taoist). One of the big three sin punishments was being impaled on a bunch of knives, one was being stewed in boiling oil and the other also involved knives, but the action was different, so I couldn't quite tell what was going on. All other crimes get you punished as well, and rather gruesomely, but you get reincarnated and can then build up a store of good deeds to eventually be released to heaven. You get your tongue pulled out and cut off for lying, but Lucy assured us that's a minor crime. Meat eating being taboo, butchers are flayed and cut up in the way that they dished up meat during their careers. Women aren't allowed to marry more than once, even if widowed, apparently, so if they do, their punishment is to be hung upside down and cut in two, one half for each husband. Naturally there seemed to be no such prohibition for men.

After we wandered all over the temple, asking questions about the statues and art, we switched to asking questions about Lucy. To go to university in China, everyone takes a standardized written and oral test. If your score is high enough, you can go to the best schools, such as Beijing U., but as your score drops, so do your options of schools. Lucy's score wasn't as high as she wished, which is why she's going to Taiyuan. The same process applies for graduate school, though, so she can try again, if she wants. University is affordable at Y4000 per year (about $500), and we were surprised to hear that Lucy doesn't think it's very much money, either. But studying abroad as her sister does in Canada, is much more costly. Lucy's plan is to do well at university, work for a few years and then study abroad in graduate school. I really hope she makes it.

-Leah

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On our 31st day in China, we went to see the Great Wall, or more accurately, the ruins of one of several discontinuous sections. Based on our guide book and a friendly Quebecois women from our hostel, we decided on seeing a section called Simatai. However, we realized on our way there we had actually signed up for a hike from a wall section called Jinshanling to the Simatai section. Since long hikes dissuade the tourist hoards it was a serendipitiously good move. However, I look forward to forgetting the bus ride.

Boarding the bus at 7:30 was a stark contrast from the last eight weeks and, at four hours one way (to go 110km!), it was intensely boring. The people on the bus were almost entirely NALPs (our code for "non-Asian looking people") who were neatly gridded off by couple sets. For the bus ride there, the atmosphere was quiet. Neighboring couples whispered to each other and essentially had polite barriers. Absent were the Chinese who smoke, spit, drop trash, and suffer from the sad affliction of cell-yell. (In Chinese, the phone is answered with the syllable, "waay," which more often than not, is blurred into the cry, "wannn," like an unhappy baby.)

Jinshanling was where the bus dropped us before shuttling itself to Simatai, while we hiked about 10km on top of the wall to meet the bus at Simatai. At regular intervals, the wall became a tower with multiple rooms and floors, some elaborately crenelated. The views were impressive, especially the wall in the distance as it snakes over the hills and beyond view, but more than once, I wished I could just be hiking in the hills and the wall became more of an obstruction to an otherwise nice hike. In places, the wall is a crumble of stones that requires feet and hands to scramble up. At several towers, the ruin was near complete and single-track paths around the towers were available. There were touts along the entire wall, several who hiked at least half the wall in hopes of a sale and I joked to Leah that all of the stone gaps in the wall could have been filled in with them.

Water, beer (I can't think of a heavier or more dehydrating "refreshment" during exercise!), books, fans and T-shirts were for sale on the wall. The touts tried to follow, befriend or give unnecessary advice, on the assumption that if you don't want to buy something, you might later. Leah was able to puzzle them briefly by speaking in Arabic. Eventually, toward the end, they gave up on us and we even had a few minutes with the wall to ourselves.

Near the finish, an "inertia ropeway" was an alternative to hiking the way down. So, we took it. Leah and I each stepped into climbing harness, which were then clipped together, and we both stepped off the mountain together. The steel cable stretches across the river at 30 degrees or so, and we reached the bottom in less than a minute. It was fun, but I was surprised that the "brake" was a man standing at the bottom to clamp a piece of metal to the cable, where the cable's wheel is anchored. It's better I didn't see that before we went. Finally, a small boat ferried ropeway passengers to the waiting bus.

Four hours on the bus... (if I don't write anything here, I may forget this part sooner.)

-David

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For the past several days, our time have been spent wandering around park-like settings, which have all been lovely. One of my favorite days in China so far was at the old summer palace on Tuesday. It was cool and "misting" most of the day, which was a nice change from the steamer that Beijing has been the rest of the time. Plus we had lots of fun playing with the different settings on our camera at the "Lotus-enjoying Area" on the palace grounds.

And we finally decided to make an attempt on the Wall. With warnings of masses of tourists, we decided to go to Simatai, which we're told is a big hike up and so sees fewer tourists, or so we hope. Our big preparation is to enjoy a big plate of noodles for energy. Noodles, thankfully, seem to be found everywhere in the world, maybe because they require only two simple ingredients.

-Leah

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In Beijing, Wangfujing street is a prominent pedestrian promenade and has a large, multi-floored foreign language bookstore that attracts many people, including Leah and me. Most of the store's English language selection is similar to a tiny Borders with many popular books, but most importantly, it has a decent travel book section. While browsing through the section, I discovered post-publication editing.

Pages 50, 70 and 71 of each of the Lonely Planet Beijing City Guides have sticky thin white blocks, similar to mailing labels, obscuring the text. Also, on page 72 a thin strip was stuck over a joke that bikes are not allowed in Tiananmen Square, but tanks are okay! I was able to read this because, puzzlingly, the text under the tape was still legible. It's difficult to judge: was this inept censorship or a clever loophole? The blocks of white tape act like bookmarks, drawing the reader's eye, so, I had to read them all.

Earlier that morning, I had overheard a couple talking about the Lonely Planet (LP) China guide being banned, which I have a hard time believing. Not only can you buy the LP guides in Beijing, everywhere throughout the country, you can spot bedraggled tourists moving flat-footed, heads up, mouths gaping, thick LP books swinging in one hand with a finger carefully trapped at the appropriate section. Sadly, we're not excluded from this description.

-David

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I've been meaning to write a short note about Chinese-picture-taking-tourists; here it is.

Like most places we travel, there are always people taking pictures. In China, the person behind the camera counts up 1, 2, 3. In Chinese, the person says "yee", "aar" (pronounced as would a forlorn pirate), "san" and then takes the picture. There are two poses for the subject: over a certain age, stand up straight without expression; below a certain age, smile and flash the 'peace' gesture, which I was told means 'happiness.'

(Philological note: in a previous post, I had written that 1 is 'yo'. As I understand it now, there are at least two different words for 1 and 2. 'Yo' is acceptable for bus numbers, but 'yee' is used in counting. I don't really understand why, though, so make up reasons as you choose.)

-David

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After a short spin into Shanxi province, we've speed back to Beijing. Even though the train was from 12:15 to 20:30, we bought soft sleeper tickets. The set up was comfortable: a cabin with four bunks (Leah and I took the upper ones), plenty of space to sit up, read and sleep, and thankfully, a door to keep the cigarette smoke out (most Chinese smokers stand at either end of the car to tap their ashes on the 'no smoking' signs that protrude from the wall.) The next morning, we took the bus to the PSB, filled out some paperwork and left our passports: our 30 day extensions will be ready next Thursday (July 20th)--no lines, no hassles, and no demands to "see" $6000.

-David

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In general the Chinese don't queue, they mob. Naturally this is especially bad when queueing would be most effective, like when trying to buy tickets, but this fact in no way deters people who clearly have centuries worth of mobbing behavior behind them. Even in the train stations where heavy metal dividers have been erected to funnel everyone into a line, there are still mobs. We'd experienced some mobbing buying train and bus tickets earlier, but since we'd been warned by the LP and friends who've lived in China, we usually managed to buy our tickets at "off" times. Early weekday evenings work best. In Beijing, trying to get tickets mid-morning, we stood next to a queued mob in which people were dislodging one another from the ticket window: arms were flailing, money was tossed about and punches were thrown with no regard given to size or age. Since we weren't in the melee, it was interesting to watch, but I was more than happy to not actually be in its midst. But no journey to China would be complete without actually participating in a mob and trying to get to Pingyao on Sunday we finally got our chance.

We rolled into Taiyaun at 11:30 after a very pleasant day at the Yungong caves outside of Datong on Saturday. We made it to the train station by noon, which turns out to be the worst time to buy tickets. Everyone is going home after weekend trips or is off to work for the week after staying with family. We still lucked out buying tickets, though. David spotted a roped off area that had open windows and very short lines. Of course it turns out you're not supposed to actually buy tickets there, it's for people returning/refunding tickets, but we happened to get a very accommodating ticket seller who walked to another window (thereby increasing the frustration of everyone in that line, I'm sure) to print our tickets and didn't make us move.

Getting on the train was a completely different experience. We had only been able to buy "standing tickets," so instead of waiting for the first mad crush to be over, which we usually do, we queued behind the ticket check gate with everyone else. Once through and walking on the platform looking for our car, I was thinking about how well transport had gone so far. We got a taxi stepping out of the hotel and made it to the station quickly where we secured tickets for a fancy behemoth leaving 10 minutes later. Then we were only going to have to wait 45 minutes before the train pulled out. All in all a damn fine transport day, but all those proverbs are true and I was excited about our luck too early.

Actually boarding the train was a disaster. Our plan was to move to the middle of the car, hoping to stow our bags above and then grab seats in case no one showed up for them. Moving to the middle, though, meant climbing over other standees and their luggage. The train didn't have air conditioning and with a couple hundred people crammed in the car, the heat was intense. David joked that the sweat helped us slid past everyone, but it was a little too true, to be funny at the time. I was being much too American about the process, trying not to hit people with my pack, and ended up being shoved so hard from behind that I almost tipped over. David was punched in the butt by a tiny old woman for not moving fast enough for her liking. I didn't know about the punch since he was behind me, but I knew immediately that something must have happened because he started swearing loudly, something he only does when he's truly upset. The Viennese waltz being piped over the loudspeaker seemed an incongruous accompaniment.

Eventually everyone got settled and the standing journey to Pingyao, shifting frequently to move the weight on my feet, was quite pleasant. All the pushing and shoving was quickly forgiven, probably a necessity with so many people in so small an area. David started talking to 'Mike,' a young man who's just finished his freshman year at University studying computer programming. This, especially since we were standing, attracted lots of attention, so Mike and another young man sitting nearby ended up translating lots of questions from some women sitting in that section of the car. We were asked about our age (apparently we look younger), citizenship (they knew David was an American because of his hair and because he's so tall), how much we paid for train tickets (they were afraid we might have been charged too much) and marital status (we should have children immediately). Lots of fun.

And now we don't have to mob again.

-Leah

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There are months worth of sites to see in Beijing and we missed most of them. This is somewhat handy, since we're heading back on Wednesday. Unfortunately, not because we actually want to, but because we need our visas extended. We were told we could get it done in Taiyuan, the provincial capital of Shanxi, but we went today and it's essentially impossible. We'd been on a scouting mission to the PSB (Public Security Bureau) in Beijing and thought we knew what we needed for the extension, but either they forgot to mention a key piece of information, or the officer in Taiyuan isn't up to date on her regulations. She needed each of us to show her $100 for each day we wanted an extension, so essentially $6000 for the full 30 days. We're not even going to spend that much money on the trip as a whole, so being able to produce it in cash, and dollars at that, seemed a bit of a stretch. David pointed out that since we're not stupid we don't carry that much cash and instead use travelers cheques and credit cards, which she agreed was much more secure, but she couldn't seem to make the logical connection that went with that statement.

So, we have another day in Pingyao, a well-preserved Ming era city, before heading back to see if the PSB headquarters has the same demands, or not. We will, of course, keep you posted.

-Leah

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Five and a half hours after leaving Beijing and after a slow climb up and into the mountains, we arrived in Datong, in the north of Shanxi province. As well as the scenery, the people seemed pleasantly different from those we'd met up north. Everyone was more relaxed and many said hello or spoke to us out of curiosity, rather than avarice. Additional interactions are the little-kid-wave, the hello-then-giggle, the Chinese stare, which is more common outside of the bigger cities.

Initially, the staring frustrated me, but quickly I began to appreciate it's reciprocal nature. So, since people routinely pushed their faces to my email, journal or meal, I began to do the same. It's actually immensely helpful; when I see somebody tucked into a nice looking meal, I walk over and stare at their food, sometimes pointing and evaluating it with Leah and then the waiter. Sometimes the diners look at me (with no expression), I look at them (with no expression) and then we both return to looking at their food. A different stare also exists and is used by people who rarely see tourists.

Tourists mainly stop in Datong to see the Yungong caves, as we did. Buddhas (and other Buddhist themes) in countless arrangements are carved out of the rock--actually, the cave is the space around the Buddha. Their sizes range from tiny ones that could be covered with a palm to Tokyo-crushing giants. My favorite Buddha, in cave #5, is seated, brightly painted, towers some 60 feet (from tail bone to coils) and occupies about a third of the cave's volume. For some of the Chinese tourists, though, never mind the 1500 year old ruins in the background, we were far more interesting. A girl told me that her mother has never seen a tourist and wanted to get a picture of her friends with me. Leah also posed for some pictures with a couple of other groups, an experience she found oddly flattering. I just thought it was funny, but perplexing.

-David

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We're currently still in Beijing. When, we arrived here, the plan was to leave on the 5th, but we stayed an extra day (the 6th) to recover from accumulation fatigue. Also, David's been burdened with cold symptoms for the last few days, so we didn't think the extra day would hurt. Unfortunately, I had a bout of 'e-coli' cramps yesterday morning (they reoccur every so often after Morocco), so we decided to try to leave today. Our next leg takes us to Datong. Our current plan is to travel through Shanxi province into Shaanxi province (gotta love those slight differences) to Xi'an where we'll spend some time seeing the warriors, museums and temples and extending our visas. We'll also check to see if a Tibet trip is within our time and budget constraints.

On July 1st, the railway line to Lhasa, Tibet was completed. David had seen a news report about the engineering triumph on the one English language channel and promptly decided we should go. The reason it's such a feat is that after hiring lots of outside experts, including the Swiss who are apparently the world's premier ice tunnel diggers, the Chinese government ignored them all and built the railway anyway. The Tibetan plateau sits 4000-5000 meters above sea level, so much of the railroad is on permafrost and there's a serious danger of the line buckling.

We'd really like to go, especially before they're forced to close the rail line (!), but it's an awfully long way to travel and foreigners have to get a 'Tibet Travel Permit' which basically acts as a tax. We can't buy tickets to Lhasa without it, though and we can't leave the municipality once we're there, without even more special permits, so we'll see what happens. It's also entirely possible that the new train service has been booked out through the end of the summer, with all of the promotional stuff the government has been doing. Either way, we plan, at the moment, to continue at least as far west as Lanzhou, which can be considered the Eastern end of the silk road, before heading back East to Korea.

-Leah

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Bus number 111 (which apparently is pronounced "yo yo yo" in Chinese and still makes me laugh) lumbers from the busy shop-lined street near our Beijing hostel to the China Art Gallery. With Leah sick, wanting to spend the day in bed and not the biggest fan of modern art, I headed off for a visit. The museum has seven floors, but is surprisingly small and divided into roughly three parts: a special exhibit of paintings, a special exhibit of bronze portraits, and a ceramics collection.

Mexican paintings from the 1950's to the present made up the bulk of the first special exhibit. Consisting of mostly abstract works or paintings designed to shock with an unsettling theme of anguish or anger, I didn't linger for too long. The second special exhibit of bronze portraits by Wu Weishan was wonderful. His portraits of historical and modern figures had an unfinished or rough look, but managed to convey significant movement and expression. The figures all had character, from the dominant, unapproachable first emperor of Qin to the steady, intelligent figure of Yang Zhenning, Nobel Prize winner and physicist. My only regret was that they didn't have more of his work.

Ceramics figures, vases, dishes and unusual objects didn't disappoint. I was particularly impressed by a small rusted-looking tractor that was actually made of ceramic. I worked my way up through the floors and then took the elevator down. On the elevator, descending from floor 7 to floor 1, an elderly woman gestured to the floor selection control panel and I slowly, confidently said, "yo." She didn't even giggle.

-David

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Papa used to cut my hair when I was little. It was long and beautiful, but I didn't like it because it never did that neat "blow in the wind" trick that women's hair on TV did. By the time I was 12, I was cutting my own hair, which generally meant it never saw scissors at all. (I also made some attempts at cutting hair for other people, but I was forced to give that up after giving Eleanor a bald spot when she was 8 and I was 13.) I cut my own hair for so long that I didn't think I'd ever need to have it done professionally, especially since it's so 'forgiving' that it always looks okay.

In January, though, I realized that wanting to keep it short meant I had to have someone else cut it. I could do it, but it doesn't look as good--just ask David. So with 2 professional cuts now safely under my belt I thought I could get away with not cutting my hair till we arrived in Boise in August. But, it grows too quickly and it's too hot and humid here to endure, so today, an "extra" day in Beijing to run errands and see missed sites, I got another haircut.

The salon I went to seemed fairly Western in style. They had a nice waiting space where David read and made friends with the other people waiting. And there were lots of people waiting. With 1.3 billion people in the country, there's a lot of excess labor, so the people David waited with were actually other employees.

One of the ways in which China seems to be dealing with the excess labor issue is by 'under employing' people, which means there are 2-3 people per job. I have no idea if this is a government policy or just a natural outgrowth of having so many people, but here are 'extra' laborers everywhere. The upside of this is that people actually have jobs, so when foreigners walk into a restaurant, store or salon there are at least 6 people standing around with nothing to do, who can help with any translation/gesticulating that goes on. The downside is that as an employee people are probably bored stiff. (There are all sorts of 'economic' downsides, too, but I don't remember most of them, so we'll just ignore that side.)

One of the most interesting (and least pleasant) 'underemployment' jobs I've noticed is street sweeping. We've seen a couple of street sweeping machines, so I know they exist here, but for the most part the job is done by people. There are two people for every major block, one on each side of the street. These poor women (very few are men), have to deal with traffic constantly--the noise, pollution, anarchic traffic, near death experiences at least every 3 minutes--armed with only a large broom made out of twigs, a cart for debris, face masks and a thin orange safety vest. It's a long way from working in a nice salon.

The haircut, which David claims to like, by the way, cost Y30, or just under $4.

-Leah

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Some years ago, while walking through a bookstore, I happened to flip through "The Tao of Pooh," a small book that used Winnie the Pooh to teach some of the principles of Taoism. One example that I remember, explained that when the wind blows, Pooh lies down. I had also read somewhere else that Taoism temples had a random layout; to avoid removing trees, buildings' positions and heights avoided natural obstacles--in harmony with nature. So, without actually studying Taoism, I had the impression that it was a peaceful and tolerant religion. Wow, I was wrong.

In 1319, Taoist monks razed a plot in Beijing and began raising structures for the Dongyue Temple, which consists of a rectangular set of buildings framing a row of centralized structures, straight as a arrow. The central row contains some devotional figures that are difficult to see, since the lights were broken and each was covered in thick layers of dust. It was unclear to me if in the Yuan dynasty monks also built the dozens of halls to form the outer rectangle to explain teaching of Taoism, or if they were a later addition. Either way, each of these halls was about the size of a single car garage and labelled as a particular Taoist "department."

Usually, there were 13 life-sized figures for each department, so from the center to either side: a large seated figure staring forward, two attendants, two scribes (?), 6 figures portraying the particular department's subject matter, and two guards. The figures were humans, demons and mythological characters. I'm familiar with quite a bit of weird Greek, Roman and Judeo-Christian mythology, but this mythology seemed so much creepier. The particular subjects could be described as usual, bizarre, gory, bureaucratic or dumb. There were departments for good behavior and ancestor worship, but also against abortion, incurable diseases, plague, bad intentions and dozens more. Several of the odder departments used their 13 figures to illustrate their point in extremely gruesome scenes. Departments subjects were redundant, overlapped and eventually seemed as though the subjects were chosen by a drunken group yelling their personal pet peeves to each other.

I took many pictures; here is a (incomplete) list of departments: Resurrection, Urging, Insect Birth, Egg Birth, Bestowing Happiness, Punishment, Preservation of Wilderness, Interrogation and Examination, Unjust Death, Demons and Monsters, Earth Gods, Abortion, Implementing 15 kinds of Violent Death, the Hell (which from the description sounds more like Hades), Animal, Signature, Final-indictment, Increasing Good Fortune and Longevity, Flying Birds, Deep-rooted Disease, Wandering Ghosts, Door God, Opposing Obscene Acts ("...lewdness is the worst crime."), Mammal Birth and Judging Intention.

WWPD (What would Pooh do?)

-David

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While in Beijing, we wanted to try the famous duck, so we did. Leah and I pedalled a rented 12 foot long, plastic, canopied duck on the lake in Beihei park, which is just northwest of the Forbidden Palace. I really wouldn't recommend travelling by large plastic duck. For one thing, the forward view is spoiled by what looks like the top of a huge bowling pin. For another, duck boats aren't as hydrodynamic as the more common variety. Also, the short seat, small petals and metal railing made a bruising 45 minute trip, and the squeaky gear box overpowered any potentially pleasant sounds. But we still had a lot of fun.

On dry land, we did make the short hike up to see white pagoda, which is no more impressive up close. There is an impressive multi-armed animal statue tucked away at the top and hundreds of low-relief Buddha tiles. From an upper railing, the views of the Forbidden Palace, the park and surrounding Beijing were vast, smoggy.

-David

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In no particular order are some random thoughts about being in China and the trip in general.

1) In The Gambia there's a cultural norm that men who are shirtless are considered crazy. Much of this probably comes from the Muslim influence, because all people should be covered in the sight of Allah. China (and the rest of the world) could adopt this norm, I think. There's an astonishing tendency for men here to go around with their shirts pulled up over the bellies, which I, with my prudish, hopelessly middle-class outlook, find somewhat off-putting.

2) We budgeted about $50 a day for the two of us. This was not quite enough for Korea, which means we overspent in the first 3 weeks, but it's pretty good for China. Stuff in China is fairly cheap, though museum/palace/site entrance fees have all been more than we'd expected. And in Xi'an, home of the enormous army of terracotta warriors, entrance per person is Y120!

3) Most of the hotels we stay in are classified as "budget" hotels, which means they range from about Y120 to Y200 (so $15 to $25), though for my birthday we splurged on a "mid-range" hotel for about Y348. (For more detailed info on where we stayed and how much they cost look for David's "accommodation" post.) All the hotels have air conditioners, bathrooms and TVs, which means we've watched more World Cup coverage this go-around than the last two combined. I was really rooting for Ghana, but with their loss to England, I wanted Portugal to win the final match. Of course I have to root for the Italians, now, having lived there, but I can't really be too excited about something that has devolved into a EuroCup. David pointed out that since the final match is now between France and Italy it can be played as a last arbitration for Corsica, something our friends in Italy talked about: apparently, if Italy wins, Corsica goes to them, and if France wins, Corsicans will stop speaking Italian . Go Italy!

4) We're staying in the New Dragon Hostel on Shijia Hutong. Hutongs are old alleyways in Beijing and fan out from the very meticulously laid out Forbidden City in the center of Beijing. We're only about 2 kms from the City as the crow flies, but since it's walled in and only has gates on the North and South walls, it's effectively 4 kms door-to-door. There are tons of cheap places to eat in the surrounding hutongs, but lots of upscale places, too. Since it's the heart of the old city, it necessarily sees lots of tourists, so there's something for pretty much everyone. We generally eat for between Y8 and Y16, or $1-2. Dumplings are by far my favorite meal, though that's partly because in my attempt to avoid fish, I'm not terribly adventurous without being able to point to food that either on some else's plate, or a picture. In general the food is pretty good, but greasier than we're used to.

5) Does anyone remember the song Morgan Spurlock has the little kids sing in *SuperSize Me*? His point is that the kids (probably about 7 years old, or so) all know the words to the fast food song, the chorus of which goes "McDonald's, McDonald's, Kentucky Fried Chicken and a Pizza Hut" but can't remember the words to the national anthem. In fairness to the kids there are a lot fewer words to remember in the fast food song, but it's still really funny to watch their obvious flailing with the national anthem before singing the fast food song with appropriate gestures and gusto. The chorus, though, perfectly sums up the American chains available in China. Much to my surprise, KFC is by far the most popular. I guess the Chinese really like fried chicken. At Shenyang's botanical gardens we met a chef from Delhi who told us the only Indian food the Chinese like are the chicken dishes. How can you not love naan? Weird.

6) Internet cafes are pretty much what you'd expect, if you've used one overseas. Up north most of the cafes we used charged Y2 per hour or less. Here in Beijing, it's not uncommon to find them for Y10 an hour, though, since the government closed thousands as a result of a fire last year that killed 25 people. The internet cafes range in quality, though most are dark, smoky and noisy with sad looking computers bolted to desks in long rows. Others (the expensive ones) can be clean and feel like a Starbucks would in the US. Despite being labeled a bar or cafe, most places don't serve drinks, though snacks seem to be readily available. They're probably for the emaciated young men who stare at their video games for hours on end looking sickly in the glow of the computer screen (interestingly, there are few women around). All have US keyboards (surprisingly) and use Windows (not surprisingly.) The operating system and web browsers are in Chinese, but years of computer work allows most people to easily identify the menus, icons and pop-up boxes, so it's really not a problem. At our current hostel internet use is actually free, though this seems very rare, and is actually somewhat problematic. There are only 3 computers, one of which seems to be in a permanent state of repair, so unless you're a morning person like David and can write coherently at 6 am, actually using either of the working computers is unlikely.

And that's enough randomness for today.

-Leah

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Beijing is refuge--not the highlight of any journey, but a welcome break. Generally, it's an easy place to visit, has few traffic problems (for pedestrians), far less honking, plenty of English speakers (handy when you need information about a visa extension; painful when you are forced to listen to an American yell, "This is not acceptable!"), supermarkets, and restaurants with pictures of the food. On the down side, the air pollution is some of the worst I've seen, and so thick, I feel I could cut out a little piece of smog as a souvenir. Covering more kilometers than can reasonably be walked, the subway (which is inconveniently placed from our hostel) and the local buses are compulsory.

Local buses costs Y1 (12 1/2 cents) and are relatively clean and easy to use. While we're too lazy to just get a map of the bus routes, we've found that we can just hop onto a bus heading down the correct boulevard and then hop off, if it turns. Combined with the GPS, this worked really well on our visit to the Temple of Heaven, originally a Ming dynasty harvest temple.

It's described as the "perfect" example of Ming architecture. The buildings are enormous and impressive, but overall somewhat lacking in personal feel. The park has a vaguely artificial feel because it is overly groomed and restored, but made for a relaxing few hours of strolling, especially since the cement and stone paths are sprawling.

Afterwards, trying to live up to our blog's namesake we decided to walk from the park to a "nearby" mosque--an incredibly draining experience. In the countryside or mountains, the distance, elevation and terrain are about the only logistics to consider, and once that's out of the way, the land, animals and views can be enjoyed. For big cities, though, high levels of pollution, traffic, noise, sewer smells, intermittent sidewalks, obstacles, missing street signs and the blinding heat of sunlight reflected off of cement can make even relatively short walks miserable. Especially since "we" miss estimated that the walk was about 1.5km, when it was closer to 4km. Still, the mosque was worth the trip.

Cow Street Mosque is very Chinese in design and character with brightly painted and highly glossed tiles integrating several roof components into one sophisticated piece of ceramic (classically Ming, as we had learned from the Temple of Heaven.) If we hadn't poked our heads in the doorway and seen the beautiful Arabic script on the west wall we wouldn't have even guessed it was a mosque, given the overall architecture and lack of a minaret. Unfortunately, non-Muslims aren't allowed in the mosque itself, though we were free to wander the grounds of the complex. (Ever since our trip to Turkey, I've found mosques relaxing and am always disappointed when we can't actually go inside.) This mosque has a great history, since it was founded in the 10th century, but it must be showing its age, since most of if was covered in scaffolding and being restored. As such, we didn't actually get to see very much other than green construction cloth draped everywhere, but one of the funny things we did see was a photo of the former Iranian president on his last visit to Beijing, with the Imam of the mosque.

-David

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Knowing only a few words in Chinese, we are reduced to a crude type of pattern matching to decode the script, and often we develop picture mnemonics to remember the characters. For any city, the name becomes the first characters we memorize. Fortunately for the pattern matching and like many cities, Beijing has only two characters; the first looks like the profile of two people sitting back to back and decidedly not speaking to one another, while the second (Leah's creation) looks like an elephant face (complete with trunk and tusks) with a little hat. (If your computer can display Asian fonts, you can see for yourself: 北京)

In addition to pattern matching, we have finally purchased a Chinese phrasebook, the Lonely Planet's Mandarin Phrasebook. Somewhat surprisingly, in the Northern cities, phrasebooks aren't available or, at least not stocked, even in huge multi-floor bookstores with English language sections. Even with our new book, most of our communication involves pointing, miming and gestures. Our train travelling companions helped us to discover our number gestures were almost completely wrong, which has been a huge source of confusion so far. Now we know, one through five start with the index finger, unlike European who start with the thumb. Six involves only the thumb and pinkie in a hang loose configuration. Seven requires straight fingers, finger tips together like Italians questioning comprehension, although without the movement. Eight is a straight pointer and thumb, which we'd been using for two. Nine is a coiled pointer, similar to 'X' in ASL. And ten, is a fist or two pointer fingers crossed like the Chinese character. So now we know, when forced to bargain with the unscrupulous vendors, if our counter-offer is ten, we should shake our fists, right (?!)

-David

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The overnight train from Qiqihar was great! Neither of us slept very well, crammed into the top bunks on each side of our 'compartment' but we shared the space with a very nice family going to Beijing for a 10-day holiday. The family consisted of a son (who's name I can't in the least pronounce, so won't embarrass myself by butchering the romanization), his parents and grandmother. He's 17 by Chinese age, which, like many East Asian cultures counts the 10 months in the womb as the first year so you're 1 when you're born. He just finished his fourth year of middle school and will being high school in September.

Unbeknownst to him, one of his friend's, Ding Yi, was also on the train with her mother, also on the way to Beijing for a holiday. They found each other when Ding Yi was walking past our compartment to the bathroom and instant excitement commenced. Neither of them has been to Beijing before and they were both really excited. They also both spoke English, which facilitated the conversation (with us). They've been studying for 3 years and will continue the language next year in high school. I think it's a requirement at their school, but I couldn't swear to it (communication was easier, not perfect).

In addition to the teenagers on the train, we had a lot of fun with some younger kids. They're studying English, too, but the youngest, who was 7 (American age), and the only girl, was the boldest in talking to us and her language skills were limited to the greetings and name exchanges. Her older brother, who's probably 10, seemed to understand a lot of what we said, but he wouldn't actually talk to us. He just kept whispering to her things to say, but her English wasn't up to it, so she'd tell us in Chinese, which was great, but not really helpful in terms of continuing the conversation. But giggling and trying to push each other forward translates all languages, so we all had a good time.

-Leah

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