Nanjing: Snow + Converse = I'm Dumb

你好!
I just got back from a few days in Nanjing and when I arrived, it was snowing! My first thought: My feet are really cold. Why did I bring my Converses with me, and not.. boots or something better for cold weather? I don't think things through sometimes. My solution: double up on the socks, which worked out pretty well, yay.

Day One
The first day I was there, the temperature range was -7 to 3 degrees Celsius, any water that had been splashed on the floor had turned into ice. We spent our afternoon in the Fuzimiao area, walking around, looking in the shops, eating hot noodles, and visiting the Fuzimiao. This was the second time I went to this place, and upon revisit, I was rather disappointed. I think there's some sort of anniversary of the miao going on so there are a bunch of fake-y, nativity scene-esque displays up of Confucius teaching his disciples or other more ridiculous things, like a chicken, all in bright cloth. So, we left the miao and bought some candy. Really, we went across the square and bought a bag of Chinese candies. Sesame covered chewy things, milk and peanut gooeys, pine nut flavored chewies, peanut flavored chewies, strawberry gooeys, and some other glutenous candies. Then, we went back to the hotel because it was so damn cold. I couldn't feel my toes, fingers, or face any more, so we hopped on the line 1 bus back to our hotel.

That night, I met up with a friend I met while studying abroad in Shanghai. He's teaching English at a university in Nanjing and brought along one of his students. They met me at my hotel and took me on the subway to this very brightly lit street with tons of shops and restaurants. We ate really spicy hotpot and drank cold beer while providing examples of the word filthy to his Chinese student. After we'd finished the spicy hotpot, which left my lips numb, we headed toward the university area in search of a bar. We were unsuccessful as it was a Monday night and the only open bar we found had a table of party cadres (or that's what they looked like to me) and they told us they were closing. So we decided to stop wandering around in the cold and took a taxi back.

Day Two
The next day was Zijinshan day and it was slightly warmer. My momma and I took bus 游 1 to Purple Mountain, which includes Sun Yat Sen's Mausoleum and the Ming Tombs. My mom almost didn't want to see Dr Sun's Mausoleum because of all the stairs, but I made her. She remembered some old pictures of my grandmother on the steps of Dr. Sun's Mausoleum so she posed just as she remembered her mother posed and I framed the photo just as I remembered the photo. We then headed to the Ming Tombs (Ming Xiao Ling) and headed for the Sacred Path with all the stone animals. The path is a lot longer than I remember it being, the first part was 250m long and the second part (Elephant trail) was 675m long. Again, my mom remembered an old photo (around 60 years ago) of my grandfather posing in front of one of the standing stone elephants and wanted a photo like it. So we took a bunch of pictures before heading to the actual tomb area. We walked the long path toward the fortress-like building, but to our dismay, it was closed and under construction. It was okay for me because I had already been inside, but my mom wanted to see the tomb, I guess I'll just have to show her my pictures from last year. I had wanted to see the Nanjing Massacre Memorial after Zijinshan, but it was getting late so we headed back to town. We stopped at 1912 on our way back, which is a plaza that's Xintiandi-esque, but not as popular or extravagant. We had hotpot, the second day in a row for me, and it was the perfect way to end a full day of site seeing in the cold.

Day Three
Our last day in Nanjing. I made it a point to go and see the Nanjing Massacre Memorial, because it would be the only thing that I hadn't seen in Nanjing last year, as it had been closed for renovation. This place was huge. There were several monuments including a huge cross and wall stating the number of victims the Japanese army brutally killed (300,000 though the Japanese government claims otherwise and has barely even recognized that the event had happened). It also had a Washington memorial-type long pond with obelisk-in-form-of-lady at the end. Part of the exhibition is piles of bones excavated from the mass grave site where the memorial is situated along with the uncovered grave of 10,000. I thought this was greatly disrespectful of the dead, digging their bones up and putting them on display, less than 80 years after their brutal deaths. The memorial is enough to let people know what happened, the mass grave doesn't need to be shown too. Anyway, then we left for the fast train back to Shanghai and here I am now. Someone's putting off some fireworks outside and it sounds like the city is under fire. Let's hope they stop soon so I can sleep :)

Merry Christmas friends! Have a wonderful day, hope you were all good this year!

Xi'an: Land of Li Shan, Remonstration Pavilions, and Terracotta Warriors

Anyone who comes to visit Xi'an has to visit the Terracotta Army, it's like when you go to Rome, you have to visit the Sistine Cha.. I mean the Coliseum. Yeah, so that's what I did today. My mommy and I joined one of those annoying bus tours that took us to Li Shan, some random museums, lame jade "factory", lame dried fruit market, and an over priced restaurant all before taking us to the Terracotta army. Li Shan (mountain) was cool, we took one of those gondolas up and walked down. My mom almost had a heart attack coming down the mountain, she's deathly afraid of heights, so it was a slowwww walk down. We passed the crevice that Chiang Kai Shek hid in when the Communists took over before exiling him to Taiwan. There was a Remonstration Pavilion to commemorate that incident (I had to look up what remonstrate meant >_<, sometimes I don't understand the English translations of Chinese sites of importance).

It's funny the way Communists tell "history" from the way the Nationalists tell "history, especially when it comes to Chiang Kai Shek. Coming from a Taiwanese Nationalist background, I was always taught how great and revered Chiang Kai Shek was, bravely fighting the Japanese at the same time as the Communists and creating the great, democratic state of Taiwan. These days, I've spent much more time in China than in Taiwan, and all I ever hear is how Chiang Kai Shek was greatly defeated by the cunning Mao and then forced to the island of Taiwan.

Anyway, the mountain was worth the visit. We were then brought to another place that had hot springs and ruins of Tang dynasty buildings. Mainly the baths of the emperor, empress, and people who worked for them. There was also this tower the emperor had built so his girlfriend could dry her hair faster by standing in it while the wind blew. I'm sure this was my favorite part, the rest was just, meh. Then, the tour brought us to a museum that housed a model of what they think Qinshihuang's tomb looks like. This place was really creepy and mildy lame. Creepy because of all the wax figures in weird positions and lame because, why the hell were we brought here anyway?? The next place was even more lame, a jade factory. I almost lost it when I saw the place, this is why I hate bus tours in China. Every tour has taken me to some sort of lame ass, tourist trap factory. Who knows how many silk, pearl, jade, tea, ceramic factories I've been to, I hate them. >:O So, I just sat in the bus, doing sudoku. They then took us to a restaurant for our lunch break. The place looked decent enough so we ordered two dishes, one was this huge plate of really wide noodles with lamb and spicy sauce, and the other was supposed to be a mushroom dish, with weirdly textured mushrooms (at least I think they were mushrooms). The bill came and the total was over 100kuai for two dishes, wth, tourist trap. We were then whisked off to a dried fruit market, much like the dried fruit market they took us to in Dalian when I was in China last, they had many dried fruit sticks and my mom bought too much. Of course she did.

Finally, we got to the terracotta warriors site. The place is huge and takes a deal of walking to get to the pit sites. There are three pits in all, the first (main army) is the largest, the second (cavalry, infantry) has barely been excavated, and the third (command post) has a couple dozen fully excavated figures. The buildings that have been built around the pits are massive and the exhibits showcasing the different pieces are interesting enough. Needless to say, I took a good amount of pictures of those terracotta warriors. It was a nice, long day and by the time we got back to downtown Xi'an, we were exhausted.

In conclusion: Xi'an, a definite must visit while in China.
Tomorrow: More around Xi'an city, then onto Nanjing!

Also, we still don't have plane tickets from Elong, they're a really sucky booking service.

Airport Blunders: How we finally got to Xi'an

Elong.com may attract you with their low airline ticket and hotel rates, but foreign cardholder beware, the hassle you go through to actually get an airline ticket is not worth it. As it turns out, we had booked our tickets with them, thinking everything had gone smoothly (because we printed out our booking confirmation with them and such) we went to Pudong airport, upon check-in we were told that we had no tickets and had to miss our flight. What happened was that Elong claimed not to have received confirmation for use of my credit card, so cancelled my plane tickets without telling me that they cancelled it. So we were stranded at the airport while my mom made some frantic calls to the company which led to nothing, so in the end we paid nearly double the price for a ticket right at the airport. Interestingly enough, while I was waiting for my mom to make those frantic phone calls, a fight broke out right where I was standing. Some guy and his friends were late in checking in, so the airline attendent wouldn't let him check in, because the system wouldn't allow him. The guy got really angry, along with his friends who were shouting with him, and the guy went behind the counter and started HITTING the airline attendent. O_O This poor attendent merely told him that he could no longer check in and the system really wouldn't let him do it.
Anyhow, we finally made it to Xi'an! Luckily, the "hotel" we booked is nicer than the last "hotel" we were at in Shanghai (I add quotations because they were actually service apartments, but the phrase "service apartments" doesn't flow as nicely as the one-worded "hotel"). The first thing we did was find a place to eat, I was by then starving because I had not eaten the entire day (skipped out on breakfast, airport drama took the place of lunch). We were directed to De Fa Cheng, a self-proclaimed "legendary" restaurant with "delicious" dumplings. The dumplings were at best okay, I'm sure they'd taste better if they were steaming hot like most dumplings are, instead you order at a counter, place your order tabs on the side of your table while carts of pre-made dumplings are rolled around and dumped on your plate as they come by, leaving you with a plate of half warm, half room temperature dumplings. We also ordered some yang rou chuar when the appetizer cart came around, should've known, those were no longer warm either. I'm sure there's a strategic place you could seat yourself, next to the kitchen, to ensure that your dumplings are at least still hot-warm by the time they enter your mouth. At least the hotel is close to downtown.
After lukewarm dumplings, we wandered our way pass the drum tower and into the night market surrounding the Great Mosque in the Muslim quarter. This was a really big night market lined with souvenior hawkers, chuar grillers, candy makers, fruit driers, meat choppers, noodle rollers, sugar cane juicers, tea boilers, caricature drawers, rickshaw drivers (one of which almost took me out), all mixed in with crowds of pedestrians and would be consumers making for a very re nao (literally, 'hot bother') market. My feet actually hurt by the time I got back to the hotel (despite its close proximity to the sites). I thought going back to the hotel would be nice and relaxing, I'd just watch tv and sleep, but, no, I'm still trying to get Elong to book my tickets from Xi'an to Nanjing, which isn't happening right now.

To end, frusturated by tedious "booking" process on Elong, but happy about "hotel". We're going to take a Eastern tour tomorrow to see the terracotta army. Wish me luck!

Country Apple

Today was, indeed, a day of smelly alleys and stank bodies of still water. My mom had to take care of some business in a town outside of Shanghai, so today was devoted to getting that task done and getting ripped off at every turn. Now, I think of myself as a pretty "street smart" person when it comes to traveling and getting the best deals, but when it comes to traveling with my mom, I tend to leave things up to her because she's really picky. I enjoy walking everywhere or taking public transportation (i.e. the metro), but my mom prefers taking taxis when possible. This is how we came to spend a lot more money than we really needed to. We needed to get to the "fast train" toward Nanjing, the doorman told us to go to Shanghai Railway Station. We took a taxi to get there, asked the cabbie to take us there, he said Shanghai South Station also has the "fast train" toward Nanjing and it was a closer cab ride, so he took us there. Guess what, turns out there is no train toward Nanjing that passes through Kunshan (our destination) at Shanghai South Station. Bitch took us to the wrong place. So we took another taxi to the right station, the one the doorman told us in the first place. The taxi ride cost an extra 60rmb to the right station, I'm pretty sure the cabbie was taking the long way. He drops us off rather far from the train station, leaving us to find the entrance ourselves. My mom is sooo angry at this point that she yells at me for not knowing where to go, I apologize for not being familiar with a train station I've been to, maybe, twice (the last time I just remember running through it, trying to catch a bus to Huangshan, that wasn't so fun.. or maybe it was Beijing, in which case, no running was involved). We finally find the right place, but the tickets are sold out. Lame, so we decide to take a bus there instead, but the bus depot is on the other side of the station (the place we ran to prior to said Huangshan trip). We got our bus ticket and were finally on our way to Kunshan. Other incidents occurred that led my mom to be even less happy, but the upside of the entire day was that I ate xin jiang ban mian. :D

Anyway, even though today was less than stellar, I have tomorrow to look forward to. We're leaving for Xi'an at 1pm! Yay, terracotta army!

Oh yeah, the reference for today's title comes from a 朋友 who tried to trick her mind into thinking good smelling thoughts (like Bath and Body Works' Country Apple) when actually smelling stinky alley or mystery odor of shit.

Hope I'll have internet at the other hotels, if not, see you later!

Second Day Shenanigans

你好我的朋友們.
Xiaolongbao, shopping, going to the salon, and more shopping, that about sums up my day.
My shopping excursion started at S. Shaanxi Rd, a favorite shopping street of my Shanghai chums, and for good reason. I revisited the many shoes shops (many who sold only one size of each shoe), the many clothing shops (where I feel they get their merch off the back of a truck), and the many jewelry shops (particularly the one that advertised: all only 10kuai!). After wandering Shaanxi, we ate at this place called Red House, which is a restaurant that specializes in Western cuisine that was prevalent in Shanghai at the turn of the century. Overall a good place, nice decor, good food presentation, delicious soup, and good duck.

Then I continued on to Yu Yuan, the famous garden area that still showcases the old style buildings of the late 1800s Shanghai. My mom and I were trying to kill time before my hair appointment, and we achieved success by mindlessly wandering the streets surrounding Yu Yuan. I bought a leather purse (one that wasn't a knock off, unbelievable huh?) and a scarf (thus beginning my hording of scarves). We made my hair appointment and I got hit on by all three barbers who tended to my hair. I think I may have promised to host one of them if ever he comes to the U.S., god I hope not. I really need to improve my Chinese.
Wow, I am super tired and it's only 11pm here, but it is 7am Cali time.
Good night my 朋友, or good morning?

Shanghai Chronicles: December 2008

大家好! (Hello Everyone!)

Guess where I am?? That's right, as you can probably tell from the title of this post, I'm in Shanghai, China. I have definitively decided that I <3 China. I have also realized that this is the third straight year that I've gone to Shanghai, meaning, three consecutive Christmases have been spent right in China's economic capital. And I'm not tired of it at all.

I landed at Pudong Airport at around 7:30pm local time, that's 3:30am Pacific, then hopped on a taxi to my hotel. The taxi ride cost was 178rmb O_O, the exchange rate, btw, is about 6.77rmb for 1usd. Do you know how many scarves you can get with 178rmb??? (the answer is approx. 7)

I've missed the lights of the city and the familiar street names, but I do not miss the crazy driving. Although, at least Chinese drivers use their signals, unlike LA drivers.

Anyhow, even with my lingering cold, I soldier on as one should when embarking on a great adventure.
Please stay tuned for more!

Long long ago in a place called Rome

Hello all,
can you believe it's already the middle of November? Time passes incredibly fast when you're without work.. haha. Yes, I realize I promised updates from my European travels, but I got distracted by life. However, I did keep a sort of journal while traveling, so I will fulfill my previous promises and retroactively update everyone on the past trip.

Rome August 1 - 3

Our last day on the program in Sorrento was a Thursday that was spent at the Sorrento Lingue Center, frantically trying to finish and turn in our exams and papers. The night before I stayed up really late to finish my exams, pack my belongings, and clean our apartment I guess I shouldn't have been so surprised when I woke up late. I rushed to finish pack, dropped my excess luggage off at the center (because the staff was nice enough to let us keep our stuff there for the rest of our trip), turned in my exam and went back to get the luggage I would be traveling with, all before heading to the Circumvesuviana. We missed the train I had originally planned to take and arrived at the Napoli Garibaldi Station just in time to watch our train to Rome leave. Literally, I ran to the platform just to see the train whiz past my face. Now, we had experienced some displeasing incidences with Italian trains before, so I was super concerned that we would have to buy a completely new ticket and be ripped off by the Trenitalia, yet again. However, after a few minutes of worred wandering, I found out that we could just take the next train. So we did. The new train left only an hour later and we arrived in Rome at 2:30pm. We lugged our bags to the hotel and just sat on our beds for 2 hours, figuring out what we wanted to see in the next few days. We decided our first stop would be the Trevi Fountain, followed by a nice visit to the Spanish Steps. But then we decided we should probably eat before we did anything. Guess what we chose to eat? Yup, Chinese food.

Delicious, I had a simple chicken fried rice and it was wonderful.


Following our culinary trip to China..town, we wandered our way to the Trevi Fountain. We saw a bunch of really interesting buildings and statues along the way, most notably the Basilica Maria degli something.. the door to this place was cool in a creepy way as it had figures of human body parts coming out of the door:

Ah, there it is, the Basilica Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri.
If you look closely.. On the right there's a torso and head with a cross embeded into it. On the left there are body parts.



The Trevi Fountain (Fontana di Trevi, as the Italians call it) turned up after a couple of windy streets and the first thing we noticed was the immense crowd around the fountain. I'm sure the fountain is always crowded, come on, it's THE Trevi fountain.
On a side note, I found a picture of my uncle in front of the Trevi fountain from the 70's, I thought it was cool..
The fountain was indeed an attraction for good reason, it's huge! And detailed too, statues of tritons and horses and a guy named Oceanus are all over the place. We took a ton of pictures and I even threw a coin in, as everyone does, but I forgot to make a wish, whups.

After fighting our way out of the crowds, we started looking for the Spanish Steps (Piazza di Spagna, or Spanish Plaza, actually). By this time, night had fallen and the place was beautiful, all the lights were on and the crowd wasn't too massive. We climbed up the stairs, sat down, and opened a bottle of wine. We sat there drinking wine for an hour and a half, while taking all sorts of silly pictures. Definitely relaxing, I would return soon if given the chance...


See, the less than massive crowds, the top, where we chilled, wasn't this crowded, really.

We then headed back to the hotel, but not before getting some much needed gelato. A perfect ending to a perfect night.






The next day we went to the Coloseum (GLADIATORRRR), Piazza Fiori (chill outdoor market), Piazza Navona (cool statues), the Pantheon (huge hole in the ceiling, or opening to heaven), Piazza del Popolo (massive fountain, crazy man swimming in it), and the Trevi fountain (again).

Yea, that's the coloseum.

There it is again.












Hey look, a gladiator!

They were actually a little mean, but I guess everyone's gotta hustle to make a living.






I swear I was there!

Climbing in someone's house












The big hole in the ceiling at the Pantheon
We ended the incredibly HOT day with a meal of Eritrean food, there were a lot of Eritreans in the area where our hotel was located. If you've never had Eritrean food, go get some. They serve everything your party orders on a huge plate over this porous bread. You take a piece of the bread and grab some of the food in it and stuff it in your mouth. SO GOOD.

Sunday, the day of the lord, and we went to Vatican City. We attended mass in St. Peter's Basilica and it was unbelievable. First we go through a thorough security check (shoulders and knees need to be covered) then we walked through the crypt where they keep all the past popes and saints.. their corpses that is.. then we waited for the 10:30am mass. Anyone can go, so I did, despite the lack of Catholicism in my everyday life, I went for the experience. The Basilica is magnificent, everything is leafed in gold, the statues are plentiful, the molding and other decorations were intricate, and everything has a holy feel. If that makes any sense, which I guess it doesn't, it does to me...



See, I was also really in Vatican City, for real.






Us, sad >>

Sadly, and VERY unfortunately, the Sistine Chapel was CLOSED. Yes, I went all the way to Rome, spent a month and a half in Italy and never saw the Sistine Chapel, I may have failed as a traveler. Oh well, guess this means I have to return to Italy, I GUESS I don't mind. This was our last day in Rome so we ended it with a meal of.... Chinese food. Of course we did. We then ran to catch our bus to the airport and flew to Barcelona.

I must say, Rome is not over rated and lives up to its hype as a must visit destination.
This has been a really long update, and I've only covered Rome. I'll leave the other destinations for some other time. Hope you enjoyed!