October 6, 2006

• China Blog: Day 43
  

  09:24Beijing Time
  

  
  

  Phrase Of The Day: Zhe fafeng yici maoxian de Scott he Fiona (The Wacky Adventures Of Scott And Fiona)

  Well, now that I’ve recovered sufficiently (No thanks to Crazed
  Neighbour, who yet again began his DIY at 6am) to blog, I s’pose I’d
  best let y’all know what went on in fair Xi’an, city of Terracotta
  soldiers, ancient pagodas, and smog so thick my lungs will never
  recover. This blog is gonna be kinda long and include many much photos,
  so you may want to finish any pressing matters such as feeding
  yourselves, your pets, or your families before settling down with a mug
  of hot cocoa/a beer and enjoying the ride. Or just laughing at how
  retarded I look in the photos. Enjoy!

  Day 1: Friday

  There’s one major problem with a 36-hour train journey on Chinese
  railways: The lavatories. Squat toilets, about as clean as your average
  pig trough. Now, in my time I’ve pondered the meaning of life in much
  worse places, but only barely. And the knowledge that at the other end
  of the journey there’s a beautifully sanitised porcelain throne
  awaiting you in your hotel bathroom kinda helps to induce a period of
  what I have come to label “Westerner’s Block”- the complete inability,
  no matter how desperate the urge, to use the damn things. That’s right,
  folks, nearly two whole days without…well. Y’know. Let me tell you,
  it’s UNCOMFORTABLE.

  Okay, that’s my BIG gripe about the train journey down. The rest of the
  trip went without a hitch, and even though we were in what Fiona
  described as the “most horrible hard sleeper I’ve ever been in” I
  didn’t think it was too bad. Judge for yourselves:

  
  Our Beloved Mobile Home

  See, Chinese trains are split into four different types of ticket. In
  order of cheapness, these are: Standing (Fairly obvious, and highly
  uncomfortable- can YOU imagine standing for 36 hours?) Hard Seat (Not
  much better than standing, but at least your arse gets a rest) Hard
  Sleeper (The ticket of choice- reasonably priced and not too
  uncomfortable) and Soft Sleeper (The best of a bad bunch). Hard sleeper
  is split into bunks of six, with 10 sets of six in a carriage. It’s
  quite communal, unless you get two young couples like the two below us
  who spent the whole journey making out. Tsh. The scandal. Me and Fiona
  played Pass The Pigs, because we’re just so cool.

  Anyways, after 24 hours on the train, we made it into…

  Day 2: Saturday

  Sometime around midday we pulled into Xi’an station. That’s about all
  there is to say about that. It’s hardly inspiring, as train stations
  go. Being both knackered, unhygenic and desperate for the lavatory, we
  headed off to the delightful Jianguo Hotel, a four-star (shock, horror)
  quasi-palatial holiday residence just outside the city walls of Old
  Town Xi’an:

  
  The Jianguo Hotel

  Yes, I know….Me? and a FOUR-STAR hotel??? What’s the deal here? Well,
  I was aware that Fiona probably wouldn’t appreciate the kind of
  backpacker’s hovel I’m usually content to call home whenever I travel.
  So, considering I could get the Jianguo complete with “full English
  breakfast”, swimming pool, sauna, gym, and a whole bunch of other
  goodies for less than the price of a Travelodge back home, it would
  have been stupid not to.

  A short (Four hours) nap later, we arranged to meet Glenn (Another
  Ex-Sunderland lad who got dumped in Anhui province all on his tod,
  rather than joining the Changchun Crew), his
  kinda-sorta-not-but-maybe-I’m-not-too-sure-if-she’s-his girlfriend
  Sunshine, and his student who has the totally awesome moniker of Crazy,
  to grab a bite to eat outside the Big Goose Pagoda, where hopefully we
  would catch the famous light show, complete with dancing fountains.
  However, Glenn’s pizza decided to take the best part of an hour to
  arrive so our plans were thwarted. Instead, as we were all practically
  dead on our feet, we split up and me and Fiona strolled back to our
  hotel, stopping only for a beer at a cafe on the way.

  Day 3: Sunday

  Early morning, this ‘un. I’d barely got any sleep so I was wide awake
  come 8:00. Some holiday. I must confess that, after my last Experience Wiith A So-Called “Western Breakfast”
  I was filled with trepidation about the westernness of my Western
  Brekkie, so imagine the expression on my face when, lined up ahead of
  me in sumptuous buffet style was EVERYTHING from bacon, to fried eggs,
  to beans, to hash browns… I honestly thought I was going to cry. They
  even had – dig this – TABASCO SAUCE. I was in HEAVEN.

  So, after gorging myself on fried pig of every definition, we headed
  off to meet the others for a trip to the Terracotta Army. Now, I don’t
  know about you folks, but I have wanted to see these things since I was
  about ten years old. Even more so after my accursed parents went to
  China a few years back and wouldn’t shut up about them >_<. And I
  kid you not, they are totally awesome. Observe the day’s piccies:

  
  They’re Warriors. Made Of Terracotta. Original Name, Huh?
  
  Me And Glenn, Pondering…..Something.
  
  Me And Fiona, Near A Big Pit With More Warriors In. You Can’t See Them. They’re In The Pit. Duh.

  Seriously, the warriors are amazing. I wish I could put up more than
  one picture of them, but I’m putting up so many this entry I don’t want
  to break the Internets. I won’t bore you with general tourist talk, ut
  I will mention that at one point in the day I got a massive electric
  shock when my watch hit Fi’s camera, which REALLLLY hurt.

  Oh, and there’s the Insane Taxi Driver Experience: We got our taxi from
  the hotel to Glenn’s hotel, but it soon became quite apparent that the
  moron didn’t have a god-damn CLUE where he was going. So eventually we
  told him to take us to the train station because he’d been driving
  around for twenty minutes and still didn’t know where he was. THEN,
  when we go there, the sod had the cheek to charge us 45 yuan! So we
  gave him 25 (More than the whole journey was worth anyway), and left.
  He went MENTAL and chased us into the station, and even got the station
  guards involved. It was when he grabbed Fiona really roughly that I was
  about to get involved, but some other Chinese guy took him away and
  calmed him down.

  I don’t mind being ripped off by somebody who does it properly, but
  when someone makes a mistake and THEN expects you to pay over the odds
  for it? Not gonna happen.

  That evening the pair of us stumbled across this little backstreet where we sat down and ate chuar,
  which is basically barbequed meat on skewers that wouldn’t be allowed
  in the UK or the States. Seriously, you take your stomach’s life in
  your hands when you eat the stuff, but by God is it worth the risk. The
  food is absolutely AWESOME and I’m gutted I didn’t get a picture of it
  to show y’all. However, I DID get a photie of the light show at the Big
  Goose Pagoda that we actually managed to sorta catch- there was a
  massive crowd so I kinda focused more on the pagoda:

  
  Ain’t It Bootyfull?

  I apologise for the water droplets on the lens. After heading back to
  the hotel, we hung out in the bar where we played at being very
  sophisticated- her with cocktails, me with my scotch- before retiring
  fairly late.

  Day 4: Monday

  Monday
  started off well, with a kick-arse breakfast yet again, including
  croissants (^_^!!!!!!!)  and then got even better as we took a
  wander into old-town Xi’an. FIona had spent the morning doing
  internetty-type things, and I’d been for a swim in the freezing cold,
  yet totally awesome, swimming pool. We managed to book our train
  tickets home (There’s no such thing as a return ticket in China) and
  ended up taking a really funky rickshaw ride through the streets of the
  city. It was the first time I’d really seen Xi’an in the daytime, and
  it’s a seriously strange place. Compared to Changchun, everyone seems
  happy. And I don’t just mean content, I mean “Hey, life is great!” One
  of the biggest examples I found of this is this kid, who, if he was
  doing this on the street back home, would be locked up for vandalism:

  
  Banksy Eat Your Heart Out

  It really is weird to see kids actually enjoying themselves, playing in
  the streets without a care. It’s one of the many things that makes
  China so much friendlier than the West. The kids get enjoyment out of
  simple things, and don’t need to rely on things like Playstation games
  and expensive, light-and-sound toys to have fun. It’s something that
  has long since died out back home, and seeing it here really does make
  you smile, even for a bitter child-hating cynic like myself.

  We basically spent all day in Old Town, visiting bookstores, drinking
  coffee (LOTS of coffee) and just generally hanging out. On the way
  home, we walked along the walls where, thanks in part to the massive
  caffeine kick I was on, I burst into a rendition of Notes from The
  Phantom Of The Opera, singing all three male parts, and causing Fiona
  to question my heterosexuality, a debate which raged all the way back
  to our hotel and led to her threatening to post a blog with a list of
  reasons why “Scott Lewis Is Gay”. Psssht. Women. Can’t live with ‘em,
  can’t live without ‘em. Not my fault I enjoy musicals, gawddammit!

  Day 5: Tuesday

  Laaaaazy day today. In that we didn’t actually leave the hotel until
  1:30 when we met Glenn and his group before they left for Bengbu. We
  ended up having dinner in this really sketchy restaurant, and they
  completely misunderstood my order and, instead of sweet and sour pork,
  brought me some random spicy meat-and-peanut dish that wasn’t
  particularly tasty, filling, or pleasant. However, they DID surprise me
  and Glenn by bringing our beers in pint tankards, complete with spoon:

  
  There’s A Spoon In My Beer!

  Don’t ask why. Just leave that to the philosophers.

  After we saw them off, we strolled through the city and tried to make
  it to the South Gate so that we could visit the Forest Of Steles, which
  is basically a massive collection of stone tablets charting the
  development of Chinese writing through the centuries. However, due to
  larking about, shopping, insulting each other and getting lost, we
  ended up missing it so we sat on a wall and relaxed before heading
  home. That night we’d planned a meal at the Shangri La, a five-star
  hotel about a 15-minute walk from the Jianguo, and although the meal
  was awesome I couldn’t help feeling uncomfortable. I always do in these
  sort of rich, fancy-pants places. I have no idea why, it just happens.

  And I had steak, which makes everything in the world better.

  When we got back, we decided we were going to kick back and relax in
  the hotel sauna, so we went to our room, threw on our bathing suits,
  and trotted off downstairs to the hotel’s fitness centre. After paying
  100 yuan each for an hour, we were led downstairs, and the guy opened
  the door. Now, expecting, as we were, a classic sauns with several
  other people, imagine our surprise when we were led into a room with
  tv, bed, and shower….and a two-person sauna. THEN I was led to
  ANOTHER room exactly the same.

  It was then the realisation struck me.

  We weren’t in a SAUNA, we were in a “Sauna, nudge nudge wink wink”.
  Yes, folks, we had inadvertently stepped into the hotel’s brothel. I
  hate to think what we’d have gotten if we’d ordered the “Sauna and foot
  massage”, which was 110 yuan, or the “Romantic Massage” for 450.

  So, after explaining (While beetroot red) to the attendent that we’d
  made a mistake and just needed the one room, we ended up having our
  sauna and fleeing as fast as we could, glad that  we were checking
  out the next day and hadn’t charged our little experience to my credit
  card.

  Day 6: Wednesday
  
  
  Our last day in Xi’an *sniff* was hot, muggy, and crystal clear. After
  our last breakfast *sniff* and checking out, we had 8 hours to kill
  before our train so, dumping our stuff at Left Luggage, we wandered
  around the Muslim quarter of Old Town, and just generally wasted time.
  One moment of note- we were eating at Dico’s (A chinese version of KFC
  that, surprisingly, doesn’t taste like crap) when we got accosted by a
  five-year-old girl called Cha Sha (I think) who was absolutely
  fascinated by my hair. So after talking with her for a while, and after
  she convinced her mother to buy her a sundae because I had one, we
  asked her to pose for a picture. So in her rush to stand up, she spilt
  her ice-cream everywhere! I felt so bad, I went and bought her another
  one, despite the mother trying to give me money for it. Anyway, after
  telling her I didn’t want the money because “Ta de wo shao pengyuo”
  (lit: “She is my little friend”), this was the result:

  
  Fi, Cha Sha, And Her Mother

  So we bumble around the city for a few hours, visiting Grand Mosque,
  haggling, and so on and so forth. The heat was starting to get
  oppressive and muggy and we were both getting kind of cranky, which
  sucked as at one point we even semi-jokingly discussed breaking up, but
  couldn’t decide if we wanted to or not so we settled it with a game of
  Rock, Paper, Scissors. Stable relationship, huh? Needless to say, i
  won, and we’d agreed that if I won, we’d stay together and if she won,
  we’d split. It was a laugh, and gave us plenty to talk about, if nothing else

  One of the major reasons for us being so damn grouchy was the smog.
  Seriously, I hadn’t noticed it until today when there was absolutely no
  wind and the air was so hot and still:

  
  Xi’an: City Of Smog

  Although Xi’an was awesome, it was a hell of a relief to get back on
  the train to come home. We were in a berth with four guys who were
  going to do some work for their company in Changchun, and talking with
  them in halting Chinese was great fun. Admittedly, Fiona did much more
  of the talking than me, but I was content to listen and see what I
  could pick up from their conversations- I find that helps as much with
  learning the language as actually speaking it does.

  So after teaching the guys how to play Pass The Pigs (An awesome
  exercise in my Chinese counting abilities) and being consistently
  beaten by them, we settled down to another hard-sleeper night.

  Day 7: Thursday

  Despite the fact we still had 30+ hours to go on the train, I was
  actually looking forward to today. Chatting with the guys really helped
  my Chinese, and it was great fun just hanging out with them and
  practicing my Chinese flash cards, mutually teaching them English and
  them helping me with my Chinese:

  
  Yeah, We Coo’

  However, that all changed in the afternoon. See, up until now, I’d had
  a bit of a cold. But after dinner, I crashed out for a few hours and
  then woke up with a VERY unpleasant feeling in my stomach.

  Remember Westerner’s Block? Well, I’ve found a VERY good way to get
  over it. Give yourself the Squits on a train and trust me, you won’t
  give a DAMN what the lavatory looks like.

  That’s right, folks….on a 44-hour train journey, for the first time
  since coming to China, I got a diarrhea attack. That, and I was
  throwing up, too. So eventually, although I didn’t want to leave our
  new friends, we upgraded to soft sleeper to take advantage of the
  western-style toilet, large, soft bunks, and healthier atmosphere. Not
  that I was going to sleep much anyway…

  Day 8: Friday

  And so we come to the end of our adventures. We arrived into Changchun
  at 11am, and my stomach had just began to settle down. We’d talked a
  lot over the trip, and all was good between us(except for the fact
  Fiona caught
  my cold) but after everything else- the trials, tribulations,
  discomfort, and general unpleasantness of the trip it was a HELL of a
  relief to be home. The last part of the
  train journey was hellish, and getting home to the sanctuary of my own
  lavatory was a godsend. Thus endeth the first holiday I’ve had in years.

  Seriously, during the five days away I was more relaxed than I have
  been since LONG before I graduated, maybe even in a few years. It was
  nice to just play the tourist for a change, but there was enough
  travelling and random aimless strolling to satisfy my backpacker-fu.

  And, of course, the company was fantastic.

  Anyway, I’ve been writingthis for over an hour, so I’ma going to go try and eat some grub.

  Zai Jian!

  • 11:57 pm
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