I arrived in Manila and met Paulo Campos, a future HBS classmate from the Philippines. He was excited to show a visitor around. We drove to the Mall of Asia by Manila Bay for a drink before heading to the other airport terminal to pick up his other friends who were visiting from Hong Kong. W dropped off our stuff at his apartment and then went to Embassy, one of the top clubbing areas in the city. We grabbed a couple of drinks at the lounge before calling it a night.
The next day, we got the local Manila experience - we hung out at the malls. We grabbed brunch at a local restaurant inside Glorietta, one of the malls, before heading to the mall area near Embassy where we grabbed coffee and massages. That night, we had dinner at Greenbelt, yet another mall, before going to an exclusive lounge called Members Only at Embassy for Paulo's friend's (Carlos) birthday where we tried a ridiculously expensive clear tequila called Petron Silver. Early the next morning, we departed for Boracay.
My first impressions of Boracay was one of disappointment. We stayed at the Boracay Regency, one of Boracay's largest and nicest resorts by Boat Station 2. However, the beachfront is extremely crowded and overdeveloped with hawkers galore harassing you about boats and water sports, etc. We grabbed a delicious lunch at Lemon Cafe at D'Mall, then had drinks of the beach before it started to rain. So we didn't do much the first day. For dinner, Q (Carlos' girlfriend) brough Le Chon (a whole roasted suckling pig) from Cebu. It's a specialty there. We ripped pieces of meat off with our fingers. Rather barbaric but quite tasty.
The next day, Fei (one of January's colleagues who is in Manila on a rotation) and I went to Boat Station 1, where Dawn (another future classmate) and her fiance were staying. Now I could see why people raved about Boracay. The crystal clear water was a beautiful light aqua blue and the soft white sand was the nicest I have every felt. The water is also extremely shallow - you can walk way out into the ocean and the water still barely comes up to your chin. It looked like a swimming pool in the ocean. It was quite simply - amazing.
That afternoon, we got a boat to take us snorkling. Afterwards, we stopped at Puka Island, a tiny island that was completely undeveloped. While the sand was coarse, it did feel like there was just us, the sand, the ocean and the sun. We watched the sun set at Puka Island before heading back to Boracay.
We spent our 3rd day in Boracay at Boat Station 1. I got extremely tanned (I'm so dark I can pass as Filipino right now!). On our last day, we grabbed a late breakfast and then I hung out in the pool.
Back in Manila, I met up with Sabrina. Since she got her work visa denied by the Chinese government at the last minute, she decided to travel with me for a few weeks. We grabbed dinner together at Sentro in Greenbelt mall before meeting with Rico, our dive instructor.
We spent the next day at a pool doing our pool training for our Open Water Scuba Diving Certification. We left for Anilao late that night, where we were heading to a resort called Pacifico Azul to do our Open Water dives. The resort was simple but charming, with little nipa huts all over. Run by Japanese managers - it was clean and efficient. Our meals were tasty meals of local Filipino food. We ate whatever they served us. We did 2 dives a day and then pretty much just ate and slept and studied our diving book. The dives were amazing. We went to 3 different dive sites, all with something different and unique. The first two dives took place near the coral reefs byu Dive and Trek resort, where there were iridescent purple giant clams a meter long. We saw all sorts of fish and coral. We were supposed to go to Bubbles, a dive site thus named for the bubbles that come from an underwater volcano but the currents were too strong. Instead, we went to our second dive site, Twin Rocks, first. There were two huge rocks underwater, with coral all over. We saw amazing schools of jackfish and yellow snapper. And yes, we did see Nemo as well as a bunch of other fish, including blue starfishes. Our last dive site, Cathedral, named for the cross that was placed underwater between two rocks, is one of the most biodiverse in the world. We saw yellow trumpet fish there as well as loads of other types of fish, both large and small. We finally passed our quizzes and exams on the 3rd day. We're now both certified Open Water divers!
One of Sabrina's friends met us in Anilao. Ariana is working for a mapping company in the Philippines for a couple of months. We ate dinner together and hung out for a bit. The next morning, we left for Tagaytay, on a ridge that overlooked Lake Taal and Taal Volcano, one of the smallest but deadliest in the world. We grabbed lunch at Leslie's which had an amazing view of the lake. Then we made our way down to Talisay on the lakefront. Sabrina and I decided to stay here overnight at the Tailsay Green Lake Resort. We got a boat and took it to the island in the middle where the volcano was located. We hiked up the dusty and hot path up to the main crater, where you can see a lake within the crater and a small island inside the lake. The views were absolutely stunning.
Ariana left to go to Batangas City for her work. Sabrina and I watched an awful scary movie that gave us both nightmares. Early the next morning, we took a tricyle to a jeepney to a bus that brought us back to Manila. We head out tonight for Kuala Lumpur. Apparently you can swim with whale sharks and manta rays in Donsol, another part of the Philippines and some of the best wreck diving (both American and Japanese ships) in the world. Definitely need to come back!
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Shangrila and Xiamen
Xiaoyu and I headed up to Shangrila with high expectations. It's supposed to have beautiful grasslands and mountains, and is about as close as we are getting to Tibet this year now that it's been closed off by the Chinese government. While there is Tibetan influences that can be seen, the Old Town was not particularly interesting. We went to a temple to visit what is the world's largest Tibetan Prayer wheel, and then visited a Tibetan Monastery - the largest in Yunnan. The monastery say atop a small hill overlooking a Tibetan village. It was extremely improverished but nevertheless quite a sight to behold. We visited the grasslands the next morning. Wild flowers bloomed everywhere. It was quite pretty but hot.
We decided against paying the exorbitant fee to visit a "national park" that was in the area. Instead, we hopped on a bus to Baishuitai, or White Water Terraces, natural terraces formed by mineral deposits over hundreds of years. The long bus ride wound through beautiful terrain with gorgeous terrace farms that sparkled green and yellow in the sun. Baisha, the closest town to the terraces, was so small you can barely call it a town. And they clearly did not get many visitors. We joined the only other visitors, 3 foreigners (2 American and 1 French student), stayed at a very simple guest house for the night, before climbing up to the terraces in the morning. Inadvertently, we went up the "illegal" path and got yelled at by the locals in charge when we came down.
We left Baishuitai for Haba, with the intention of hiking the snow mountains there but the rain led us to change our plans. We headed straight back to Lijiang where we just spent a quiet day and a half wandering the Old Town and relaxing.
We flew from Lijiang to Kunming the night of the 25th and stayed overnight in Kunming with Jessika, a Clinton Foundation doctor who used to live with me in Beijing. Early the next morning, I left for Xiamen, where I needed to go to catch my Cebu Pacific flight to the Philippines.
Xiamen is a port city close to Taiwan in Fujian Province in southern China. People there speak a dialect very similar to Taiwanese and the food is very similar too. After spending a bit of time at an internet cafe, I spent several hours walking up and down Zhongshan Lu eating various types of snacks including shaved ice, shumai, buns, etc. It was yummy and reminded me of Taiwan.
That night, I flew from Xiamen to Manila, my first international stop in my trip this summer.
We decided against paying the exorbitant fee to visit a "national park" that was in the area. Instead, we hopped on a bus to Baishuitai, or White Water Terraces, natural terraces formed by mineral deposits over hundreds of years. The long bus ride wound through beautiful terrain with gorgeous terrace farms that sparkled green and yellow in the sun. Baisha, the closest town to the terraces, was so small you can barely call it a town. And they clearly did not get many visitors. We joined the only other visitors, 3 foreigners (2 American and 1 French student), stayed at a very simple guest house for the night, before climbing up to the terraces in the morning. Inadvertently, we went up the "illegal" path and got yelled at by the locals in charge when we came down.
We left Baishuitai for Haba, with the intention of hiking the snow mountains there but the rain led us to change our plans. We headed straight back to Lijiang where we just spent a quiet day and a half wandering the Old Town and relaxing.
We flew from Lijiang to Kunming the night of the 25th and stayed overnight in Kunming with Jessika, a Clinton Foundation doctor who used to live with me in Beijing. Early the next morning, I left for Xiamen, where I needed to go to catch my Cebu Pacific flight to the Philippines.
Xiamen is a port city close to Taiwan in Fujian Province in southern China. People there speak a dialect very similar to Taiwanese and the food is very similar too. After spending a bit of time at an internet cafe, I spent several hours walking up and down Zhongshan Lu eating various types of snacks including shaved ice, shumai, buns, etc. It was yummy and reminded me of Taiwan.
That night, I flew from Xiamen to Manila, my first international stop in my trip this summer.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Lijiang and Lugu Hu
We spent an easy day exploring the village of Baisha near Lijiang, at the base of the Jade Dragon Snow Mountains, a tiny charming place that is much less overrun with tourists than Lijiang's Old Town. We met this Taoist doctor who has been featured in many articles and books, making him one of the most famous doctors in China. An old, eccentric man who studied Chinese medicine and treats patients with herbs found at the foot of the mountains, he didn't really say much except show us articles about himself and proclaim himself to be famous. It was an interesting experience.
Alice and Fred had to leave that afternoon, so we headed back to Lijiang. After they left for the airport, Xiaoyu and I spent a bit of time walking through parts of the Old Town we had yet to explore en route to the Black Dragon Pool Park. The Old Town, which is lined with cobblestone streets and traditional Naxi-style (one of China's many minority groups) buildings, consists of hundreds of little charming alleys. Although beautiful, it is completely geared for tourists, with hundreds of Naxi-style, hundreds more tourist shops selling beautiful wood carvings, shawls and handicraft, as well as restaurants selling Naxi food (very similar to Chinese - I can't really tell the difference). The most pervasive Naxi food is the "baba," which, depending on where you go, varies between fried dough and something closer to scallion pancake. We tried it at several places and decided it was too greasy.
The Black Dragon Pool Park is a typical Chinese park with a most-likely man-made pond in the middle surrounded by trees and rocks. However, it's claim to fame is it's location. In front of the Jade Dragon Snow Mountains, on a clear day, you can see the mountains and the reflection in the water. However, despite many attempts to catch a glimpse of the elusive, snow-capped peaks, we were not lucky enough to see it. Although clear and sunny in Lijiang, the clouds congregated at the tops of the mountains surrounding Lijiang, obscuring the mountaintops.
The next day, Xiaoyu and I left for Lugu Hu. The lake is home of the last matriarchal society in the world supposedly. The Mosuo women practice something called a "walking marriage". Each night, they pick a lover for the night, and in the morning, the men goes home to their mothers house. They named the area Women's Kingdom to make it sound catchy and attract tourists. According to the Lonely Planet, the strategy worked and they are the richest minority group in China.
We arrived at the lake after a brutal 8+ hour bus ride through bumpy, mostly unpaved mountain roads. We passed through beautiful scenery of mountains and valleys. I was beginning to get grumpy until we caught our first glimpse of the lake when we descended the last mountain. The sun was out and the lake literally sparkled. It was breath-takingly beautiful there. When we finally got off the bus, we picked a guesthouse right along the lake in Luoshui, one of the villages along the lake, and then went exploring.
Maybe it's because I've lived in Beijing for too long and don't remember what blue sky should look like, but the sky was absolutely incredible - a brillant, rich blue color dotted by huge patches of cotton candy-like clouds that varies between pure white and stormy gray in the blink of an eye. I was mesmerized.
We had dinner with some people who came on the same bus as us before calling it a night.
The next day, we walked part way to Lige, another town around the lake before two of the guys from our bus found us. We hopped in their car, drove to Lige with them, where we had the opportunity to go inside a local family's home for tea since one of the guys, Lulu, is half Mosuo (on his mother's side, his dad is another minority). After that, we went to a Tibetan Monastery where Lulu's grandfather, a "living Buddha" of the Tibetan religion, resides whenever he is back at Lugu Lake. It was a truly unique experience. Since he resides in Lijiang, we hope to meet him before we leave Yunnan.
After lunch, we rowed out to the middle of the lake. We were joined by Lulu's childhood friend and a hard-core Taiwanese outdoorsman who brought his own kayak, mountain bike and ATV with hime. We grabbed a cup of coffee at a guesthouse before jumping into the water for a swim. Apparently it's not allowed according to all the signs posted around the lake, but the locals do it so we jumped in with them.
We grabbed dinner at a fish restaurant by yet another village. After we got back to Lige, we explored the village by foot, walking along the banks of the lake. And then we went to the performance and sort of learned some Mosuo dances. It was fun.
We left for Lijiang early the next day. The ride was truly bone-jarring, and I thought wistfully of seatbelts. The driver did not slept the night before (he told us this as we got into the bus) and then proceeded to speed up and down the mountains. I flew out of my seat many times. It was absolutely crazy. I was relieved when we finally got back to Lijiang.
Today, we are heading up to Shangrila, formerly known as Zhongdian (not as catchy as Shangrila - they renamed it to attract tourists a few years ago). Unfortunately we do not have enough time to head up to Meili Snow Mountains, which is supposed to put the Jade Dragon Snow Mountains to shame (well, we still haven't seen any snow!), near Deqin due to time restraints, but I'm still looking forward to seeing some Tibetan villages.
Alice and Fred had to leave that afternoon, so we headed back to Lijiang. After they left for the airport, Xiaoyu and I spent a bit of time walking through parts of the Old Town we had yet to explore en route to the Black Dragon Pool Park. The Old Town, which is lined with cobblestone streets and traditional Naxi-style (one of China's many minority groups) buildings, consists of hundreds of little charming alleys. Although beautiful, it is completely geared for tourists, with hundreds of Naxi-style, hundreds more tourist shops selling beautiful wood carvings, shawls and handicraft, as well as restaurants selling Naxi food (very similar to Chinese - I can't really tell the difference). The most pervasive Naxi food is the "baba," which, depending on where you go, varies between fried dough and something closer to scallion pancake. We tried it at several places and decided it was too greasy.
The Black Dragon Pool Park is a typical Chinese park with a most-likely man-made pond in the middle surrounded by trees and rocks. However, it's claim to fame is it's location. In front of the Jade Dragon Snow Mountains, on a clear day, you can see the mountains and the reflection in the water. However, despite many attempts to catch a glimpse of the elusive, snow-capped peaks, we were not lucky enough to see it. Although clear and sunny in Lijiang, the clouds congregated at the tops of the mountains surrounding Lijiang, obscuring the mountaintops.
The next day, Xiaoyu and I left for Lugu Hu. The lake is home of the last matriarchal society in the world supposedly. The Mosuo women practice something called a "walking marriage". Each night, they pick a lover for the night, and in the morning, the men goes home to their mothers house. They named the area Women's Kingdom to make it sound catchy and attract tourists. According to the Lonely Planet, the strategy worked and they are the richest minority group in China.
We arrived at the lake after a brutal 8+ hour bus ride through bumpy, mostly unpaved mountain roads. We passed through beautiful scenery of mountains and valleys. I was beginning to get grumpy until we caught our first glimpse of the lake when we descended the last mountain. The sun was out and the lake literally sparkled. It was breath-takingly beautiful there. When we finally got off the bus, we picked a guesthouse right along the lake in Luoshui, one of the villages along the lake, and then went exploring.
Maybe it's because I've lived in Beijing for too long and don't remember what blue sky should look like, but the sky was absolutely incredible - a brillant, rich blue color dotted by huge patches of cotton candy-like clouds that varies between pure white and stormy gray in the blink of an eye. I was mesmerized.
We had dinner with some people who came on the same bus as us before calling it a night.
The next day, we walked part way to Lige, another town around the lake before two of the guys from our bus found us. We hopped in their car, drove to Lige with them, where we had the opportunity to go inside a local family's home for tea since one of the guys, Lulu, is half Mosuo (on his mother's side, his dad is another minority). After that, we went to a Tibetan Monastery where Lulu's grandfather, a "living Buddha" of the Tibetan religion, resides whenever he is back at Lugu Lake. It was a truly unique experience. Since he resides in Lijiang, we hope to meet him before we leave Yunnan.
After lunch, we rowed out to the middle of the lake. We were joined by Lulu's childhood friend and a hard-core Taiwanese outdoorsman who brought his own kayak, mountain bike and ATV with hime. We grabbed a cup of coffee at a guesthouse before jumping into the water for a swim. Apparently it's not allowed according to all the signs posted around the lake, but the locals do it so we jumped in with them.
We grabbed dinner at a fish restaurant by yet another village. After we got back to Lige, we explored the village by foot, walking along the banks of the lake. And then we went to the performance and sort of learned some Mosuo dances. It was fun.
We left for Lijiang early the next day. The ride was truly bone-jarring, and I thought wistfully of seatbelts. The driver did not slept the night before (he told us this as we got into the bus) and then proceeded to speed up and down the mountains. I flew out of my seat many times. It was absolutely crazy. I was relieved when we finally got back to Lijiang.
Today, we are heading up to Shangrila, formerly known as Zhongdian (not as catchy as Shangrila - they renamed it to attract tourists a few years ago). Unfortunately we do not have enough time to head up to Meili Snow Mountains, which is supposed to put the Jade Dragon Snow Mountains to shame (well, we still haven't seen any snow!), near Deqin due to time restraints, but I'm still looking forward to seeing some Tibetan villages.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Lijiang
Except for a few short trips, one to Dunhuang (where I went to the amazing Mogao Caves and the Crescent Moon Lake in the middle of the Gobi Desert) and one to Shanghai to visit January who just moved there, I've pretty much been in Beijing. I finally left last Friday for my 7-week trip across Asia. My first stop is northwestern Yunnan Province in southern China.
I left on Friday the 13th and the trip did not get off to a good start. My flight sat on the runway forever due to poor weather in Beijing. We did not land in Kunming until 4am in the morning, at which point it did not even make sense to leave the airport. My flight to Lijiang with Alice left at 7:15am, so we had to spend a few hours at the airport waiting for our flight. We found Julia and Lauren, who were traveling with us as well. Their flight to Kunming did not take off until 2:30am and they made it to Kunming just in time for our flight to Lijiang. Luckily, our flight to Lijiang took off without any problems, but at gate 13... and Alice and I were in the 13th row. Lijiang was rainy when we arrived. We went directly to Mama Naxi's Guesthouse, a charming place run by Mama Naxi, who seriously treats every traveller like her child. We spent the morning recovering from our flight, grabbed some lunch, then spent the afternoon exploring Lijiang's Old Town while waiting for the last 2 people in our group, Fred and Xiao Yu to arrive from Shanghai. But the continuous rain put in doubt our plans to hike Tiger Leaping Gorge the next day.
The next day, the weather looked okay, so we headed off to Tiger Leaping Gorge, one of the deepest in the world, as planned. Although it was sunny when we started the hike, we were lucky we bought rain ponchos. It was a grueling 2 hour uphill hike in the hot sun to our first stop - Naxi Guesthouse, 6 km into the hike. We had lunch there and then left, prepared to hike the infamous 28-bends, an even more grueling 1+ hour uphill hike to the highest peak. However, less than half an hour later, it started to rain. We found a small shack, which we reached just in time before it started to pour. When the rain let up, we took horses up the 28-bends, the roads too slippery for a bunch of novice hikers to go up. At the peak, we got off the horses and hiked another 2 hours before we reached our second stop, the Tea Horse Guesthouse, were we had amazing Naxi Sandwiches - layers of pita-like bread with cheese, tomato, onion, lettuce and egg. After we finished eating, we quickly left for our last stop of the night, Halfway Guesthouse. The name is pretty self-explanatory. It's the half-way point of the gorge hike. About 2 hours later, with just a bit of sunlight to spare, the 6 of us rolled into the guesthouse and collapsed on the terrace to enjoy the amazing few of the mountains enshrouded by misty clouds, and the gushing gorge far below. As the sun set, the moon and the stars appeared, casting a silvery light over the mountains - it was simply ethereal.
It rained all throughout the night, and most of the morning. We hunkered down at Halfway, hoping the rain would let up. Even the guides were predicting tough hiking conditions. It was still 2-3 hours to our final stop, Jane's Guest House at Middle Tiger Leaping Gorge. We hung out with a group of 3 Belgian guys doing the hike, and a couple of other Europeans. When the rain slowed to a drizzle, we started out again. We passed the beautiful Guanyin Waterfall and reached Jane's early in the afternoon. After grabbing lunch, we hiked 2 km down to the bottom of the gorge. We clambered onto the Tiger Stone, where we enjoyed the amazing vista that surrounded us. Then we made the grueling 2 km hike back up to the low road. I was completely beat by the end. We got into a car which made the treacherous drive in pouring rain back to Lijiang. The roads were covered in loose rocks and flooded in many sections. I was so glad when we got back to Mama Naxi's.
The weather predicted rain for the next 3 days. So we scrapped plans to go to Lugu Hu and instead, decided to stick closer to Lijiang. A plan to go to Baisha villaged morphed into a full-day horseriding trip up to Jade Dragon Snow Mountains. Horseback riding - so much easier than hiking. Our amazing guides hiked the whole way, and did not even seem the least bit winded. We went through a forest of moss-covered and cloud enshrouded trees. At 4,000 meters, we learned that we picked the wrong path to go up. Instead of going up the left path and coming down the right, we had asked to go up the right path which is too steep at the top to go up to 4,900 meters on horses. So we ended up having to hike 2 kms up to the meadow at the top. As Alice said, we were like little mountain goats. The hike was hard, but nothing compared to the gorge. And the views at the top, even more incredible than the ones at Tiger Leaping Gorge, were worth the hard work. We were surrounded by green mountains on top of this meadow covered by grass and flowers. On the way down, we got amazing views of the valley. The trip took us 7-hours, not the 2 our original tour guide told us it would. But the weather held up, with only moments of slight drizzles, so we have absolutely no complaints!
Today, it is nice and sunny. We definitely plan to take advantage of the amazing weather.
I left on Friday the 13th and the trip did not get off to a good start. My flight sat on the runway forever due to poor weather in Beijing. We did not land in Kunming until 4am in the morning, at which point it did not even make sense to leave the airport. My flight to Lijiang with Alice left at 7:15am, so we had to spend a few hours at the airport waiting for our flight. We found Julia and Lauren, who were traveling with us as well. Their flight to Kunming did not take off until 2:30am and they made it to Kunming just in time for our flight to Lijiang. Luckily, our flight to Lijiang took off without any problems, but at gate 13... and Alice and I were in the 13th row. Lijiang was rainy when we arrived. We went directly to Mama Naxi's Guesthouse, a charming place run by Mama Naxi, who seriously treats every traveller like her child. We spent the morning recovering from our flight, grabbed some lunch, then spent the afternoon exploring Lijiang's Old Town while waiting for the last 2 people in our group, Fred and Xiao Yu to arrive from Shanghai. But the continuous rain put in doubt our plans to hike Tiger Leaping Gorge the next day.
The next day, the weather looked okay, so we headed off to Tiger Leaping Gorge, one of the deepest in the world, as planned. Although it was sunny when we started the hike, we were lucky we bought rain ponchos. It was a grueling 2 hour uphill hike in the hot sun to our first stop - Naxi Guesthouse, 6 km into the hike. We had lunch there and then left, prepared to hike the infamous 28-bends, an even more grueling 1+ hour uphill hike to the highest peak. However, less than half an hour later, it started to rain. We found a small shack, which we reached just in time before it started to pour. When the rain let up, we took horses up the 28-bends, the roads too slippery for a bunch of novice hikers to go up. At the peak, we got off the horses and hiked another 2 hours before we reached our second stop, the Tea Horse Guesthouse, were we had amazing Naxi Sandwiches - layers of pita-like bread with cheese, tomato, onion, lettuce and egg. After we finished eating, we quickly left for our last stop of the night, Halfway Guesthouse. The name is pretty self-explanatory. It's the half-way point of the gorge hike. About 2 hours later, with just a bit of sunlight to spare, the 6 of us rolled into the guesthouse and collapsed on the terrace to enjoy the amazing few of the mountains enshrouded by misty clouds, and the gushing gorge far below. As the sun set, the moon and the stars appeared, casting a silvery light over the mountains - it was simply ethereal.
It rained all throughout the night, and most of the morning. We hunkered down at Halfway, hoping the rain would let up. Even the guides were predicting tough hiking conditions. It was still 2-3 hours to our final stop, Jane's Guest House at Middle Tiger Leaping Gorge. We hung out with a group of 3 Belgian guys doing the hike, and a couple of other Europeans. When the rain slowed to a drizzle, we started out again. We passed the beautiful Guanyin Waterfall and reached Jane's early in the afternoon. After grabbing lunch, we hiked 2 km down to the bottom of the gorge. We clambered onto the Tiger Stone, where we enjoyed the amazing vista that surrounded us. Then we made the grueling 2 km hike back up to the low road. I was completely beat by the end. We got into a car which made the treacherous drive in pouring rain back to Lijiang. The roads were covered in loose rocks and flooded in many sections. I was so glad when we got back to Mama Naxi's.
The weather predicted rain for the next 3 days. So we scrapped plans to go to Lugu Hu and instead, decided to stick closer to Lijiang. A plan to go to Baisha villaged morphed into a full-day horseriding trip up to Jade Dragon Snow Mountains. Horseback riding - so much easier than hiking. Our amazing guides hiked the whole way, and did not even seem the least bit winded. We went through a forest of moss-covered and cloud enshrouded trees. At 4,000 meters, we learned that we picked the wrong path to go up. Instead of going up the left path and coming down the right, we had asked to go up the right path which is too steep at the top to go up to 4,900 meters on horses. So we ended up having to hike 2 kms up to the meadow at the top. As Alice said, we were like little mountain goats. The hike was hard, but nothing compared to the gorge. And the views at the top, even more incredible than the ones at Tiger Leaping Gorge, were worth the hard work. We were surrounded by green mountains on top of this meadow covered by grass and flowers. On the way down, we got amazing views of the valley. The trip took us 7-hours, not the 2 our original tour guide told us it would. But the weather held up, with only moments of slight drizzles, so we have absolutely no complaints!
Today, it is nice and sunny. We definitely plan to take advantage of the amazing weather.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Tokyo
Day 1: Tsukiji, Ginza, Edo Castle, Tokyo Station and Shinjuku
We got up at the crack of dawn to hit Tsukiji Fish Market. Apparently we did not get up early enough. We missed the tuna auction but still made it in time to see the hustle and bustle of the fish market which supplies fresh fish and seafood to Tokyo and a significant portion of Japan. We saw all sorts of sea creatures - some of them were truly grotesque looking - and huge tuna fish with heads as big as my own. Then we grab breakfast. Ankur got some sandwiches and ate it outside the restaurant that Kumi and I picked to have sashimi don buri. He reminded me of a sad puppy who couldn't go in with his owner to a store - those who did not eat could not sit inside the restaurant, a tiny place with only about 10 seats along a bar. It was definitely the earliest I've ever had raw fish - 8:30am! I guess it was dinner time at home in NYC. I feasted on sake (salmon), scallops, crab and maguro (tuna) while Kumi feasted on uni (sea urchin) and toro (fatty tuna).
We walked through Ginza, Tokyo's answer to Fifth Avenue, but it was still early and the stores were not open. Thus, we made our way to Edo (Tokyo) Castle, the Imperial Palace, but the palace gardens just so happened to have been closed. It was Friday and we did not read the guide book closely enough to realize it was open Mondays and Fridays. Nonetheless, from the outer garden, we still caught a fantastic view of Edo Castle.
We walked through Marunochi and passed by the Tokyo Interational Forum, an impressive glass and steel structure with a busy outdoor arcade area with food trucks serving foods from around the world. We had lunch at Tokyo Station with Kumi's friend Kaki, but not before walking through the entire station looking for his office building, Sepia Tower. The station was massive and undergoind construction.
After lunch, we went to the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, where we saw an exhibit by Japanese-Brazilian artist Oscar Oiwa. The main attractions of the exhibit, Dreams of a Sleeping World, were several paintings with brightly-colored flowers painted over a depressingly chaotic world full of war and destruction, inspired by the atrocities of 9/11, Iraq, among other current events.
After grabbing dessert at the cutest Japanese bakery, we headed to Shinjuku. Shinjuku was loud, busy and chaotic. It's streets were brightly light with neon lights everywhere, putting the lights in Times Square to shame. I discovered that Japan had Gap too, as well as Banana Republic. But it was Japanese stores like Beams that attracted us the most. Kumi and I sat inside Beams while Ankur shopped, liked tired husbands. It's been a long day (we started at 6am). We met with another one of Kumi's friends for dinner. We made Japanese pancakes of cabbage, egg and other fillings. It was yummy and fun. I also tried some bubbly Japanese liquor that was light but potent. It was mixed with juice and tasted more like soda than cocktail. Delicious but dangerous.
Day 2: Mister Donut, Asakasa, Asakajuban, Roppongji Hill and Shibuya
Since having my first Mister Donut experience in Taipei last summer, I've been craving another Mister Donut donut. Their original donuts are light, delicate and chewy - simply incredible. Ankur did not believe me until we had some for breakfast. Kumi and I also had taka balls - little balls filled with octopus which I absolutely love. Also something I became addicted to after my trip to Taipei last summer. It was a good morning.
It was a rainy and dreary day, but nonetheless, we braved the weather and went out to Asakasa to visit Senso-ji, one of Tokyo's temples. The temple had a lively market selling all sorts of snacks and crafts. The rain did not deter the hoards of worshippers and visitors. We had to weave through the heavy crowds (many of them locals enjoying Golden Week, a Japanese holiday), we made it to the temple. Senso-ji was a beautiful red and gold-colored temple, with a 5-story pagoda. After paying our respects, we snacked on noodles and chocolate covered bananas.
We wanted to shop for some trendy Japanese fashion in the tiny boutiques of Asakajuban but once we got there, we never found where the stores were located. Thus, we gave up and walked to Roppongi Hill where we were impressed by the Mori Tower, one of the tallest buildings in Tokyo. We went up to the 52nd floor to the Mori Art Museum where we also got amazing 360 degree views of the whole city. The Mori had an exhibit on the artwork of the finalists of the Turner Prize for promising, young British artists, hosted by the Tate in London. The artwork was edgy and innovative. We saw a mother and baby cow cut in half and preserved in formaldehyde (from Damien Hirst, who preserved a Great White Shark for the Sensation exhibit that caused a stir at the Brooklyn Art Museum when I was in high school) as well as paintings that incorporated elephant dung by Chris Ofili.
We went to Shibuya for dinner with another of Kumi's friends. We exited the Shibuya station to the craziness that is the 6-way intersection at Shibuya. Thousands of people were out and about. Even Timese Square at night can't quite compare. That night, we went to an izakaya where we tried a range of small Japanese dishes including sashimi, crab salad, zaru soba, tamago and more. It was a delicious meal like everything else we've tried in Japan.
Day 3: Harajuku and Yoyogi
Ankur and I survived my last day in Tokyo without Kumi somehow but it was definitely confusing without a Japanese-speaker as our awesome guide. Who would have guessed that Yoyogi Goen would be by Harajuku instead of Yoyogi? We literally wandered around Meiji Jingu Goen forever looking for Yoyogi Goen - twice in fact, and then only found it quite accidently. We wanted to see Yoyogi Goen for the "free entertainment" promised by Lonely Planet. Aspiring bands set up and perform for free here on Sundays. While Ankur was not impressed by the bands at Yoyogi, he really appreciated the spirit of things. It really did feel like all of Tokyo had decended upon Harajuku yesterday and lots of cute couples and families were in the park picnicking with their beautiful bento boxes. I guess Sundays must be a big day there. Oh, and we even witnessed two weddings at Meiji Jingu temple, inside the park!! The kimonos were so lovely. But we are not quite sure why the costume gang in Harajuku ranked #2 in the Tokyo Encounters book. There were some on Jingu Bashi but not that many. I took a picture with one gang and Ank did too with another. So I ended up with a lot of yen left and thus, was a total sucker for all the mochi being sold at Narita airport. I got to Narita with only an hour and 20 minutes before my flight and the check-in line was super long so I thought I would not have time buy any, but the Japanese were just too efficient and I ended up with enough time to hit not just one, but two mochi stores. Yes, needless to say, I will be quite well stocked for a while. I miss Japan already. And my Air Nippon flight might have been the best flight I've ever taken. I am not sure I can go back to flying American airlines. I had my own little tv even for the short 3.5 hour flight to Beijing. I didn't have any entertainment to help me get through my 13 hour flight to SF from Beijing, nor on my flights to Tokyo from NYC. I watched 27 Dresses and was in the middle of this Hong Kong gangster movie when they turned off the entertainment so we could land. I seriously wished the flight had been longer. Sadness. Oh, and even my airplane dinner was amazing. It looked like a bento box and tasted delicious. Who would have guessed that airplane food can actually be gourmet and tasty. I had teriyaki fish and zaru soba. I am totally flying them back to the US from Taiwan this summer.
Beijing is the exact opposite of Japan. Time to get back to shoving people around. Being polite here gets you nowhere.
We got up at the crack of dawn to hit Tsukiji Fish Market. Apparently we did not get up early enough. We missed the tuna auction but still made it in time to see the hustle and bustle of the fish market which supplies fresh fish and seafood to Tokyo and a significant portion of Japan. We saw all sorts of sea creatures - some of them were truly grotesque looking - and huge tuna fish with heads as big as my own. Then we grab breakfast. Ankur got some sandwiches and ate it outside the restaurant that Kumi and I picked to have sashimi don buri. He reminded me of a sad puppy who couldn't go in with his owner to a store - those who did not eat could not sit inside the restaurant, a tiny place with only about 10 seats along a bar. It was definitely the earliest I've ever had raw fish - 8:30am! I guess it was dinner time at home in NYC. I feasted on sake (salmon), scallops, crab and maguro (tuna) while Kumi feasted on uni (sea urchin) and toro (fatty tuna).
We walked through Ginza, Tokyo's answer to Fifth Avenue, but it was still early and the stores were not open. Thus, we made our way to Edo (Tokyo) Castle, the Imperial Palace, but the palace gardens just so happened to have been closed. It was Friday and we did not read the guide book closely enough to realize it was open Mondays and Fridays. Nonetheless, from the outer garden, we still caught a fantastic view of Edo Castle.
We walked through Marunochi and passed by the Tokyo Interational Forum, an impressive glass and steel structure with a busy outdoor arcade area with food trucks serving foods from around the world. We had lunch at Tokyo Station with Kumi's friend Kaki, but not before walking through the entire station looking for his office building, Sepia Tower. The station was massive and undergoind construction.
After lunch, we went to the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, where we saw an exhibit by Japanese-Brazilian artist Oscar Oiwa. The main attractions of the exhibit, Dreams of a Sleeping World, were several paintings with brightly-colored flowers painted over a depressingly chaotic world full of war and destruction, inspired by the atrocities of 9/11, Iraq, among other current events.
After grabbing dessert at the cutest Japanese bakery, we headed to Shinjuku. Shinjuku was loud, busy and chaotic. It's streets were brightly light with neon lights everywhere, putting the lights in Times Square to shame. I discovered that Japan had Gap too, as well as Banana Republic. But it was Japanese stores like Beams that attracted us the most. Kumi and I sat inside Beams while Ankur shopped, liked tired husbands. It's been a long day (we started at 6am). We met with another one of Kumi's friends for dinner. We made Japanese pancakes of cabbage, egg and other fillings. It was yummy and fun. I also tried some bubbly Japanese liquor that was light but potent. It was mixed with juice and tasted more like soda than cocktail. Delicious but dangerous.
Day 2: Mister Donut, Asakasa, Asakajuban, Roppongji Hill and Shibuya
Since having my first Mister Donut experience in Taipei last summer, I've been craving another Mister Donut donut. Their original donuts are light, delicate and chewy - simply incredible. Ankur did not believe me until we had some for breakfast. Kumi and I also had taka balls - little balls filled with octopus which I absolutely love. Also something I became addicted to after my trip to Taipei last summer. It was a good morning.
It was a rainy and dreary day, but nonetheless, we braved the weather and went out to Asakasa to visit Senso-ji, one of Tokyo's temples. The temple had a lively market selling all sorts of snacks and crafts. The rain did not deter the hoards of worshippers and visitors. We had to weave through the heavy crowds (many of them locals enjoying Golden Week, a Japanese holiday), we made it to the temple. Senso-ji was a beautiful red and gold-colored temple, with a 5-story pagoda. After paying our respects, we snacked on noodles and chocolate covered bananas.
We wanted to shop for some trendy Japanese fashion in the tiny boutiques of Asakajuban but once we got there, we never found where the stores were located. Thus, we gave up and walked to Roppongi Hill where we were impressed by the Mori Tower, one of the tallest buildings in Tokyo. We went up to the 52nd floor to the Mori Art Museum where we also got amazing 360 degree views of the whole city. The Mori had an exhibit on the artwork of the finalists of the Turner Prize for promising, young British artists, hosted by the Tate in London. The artwork was edgy and innovative. We saw a mother and baby cow cut in half and preserved in formaldehyde (from Damien Hirst, who preserved a Great White Shark for the Sensation exhibit that caused a stir at the Brooklyn Art Museum when I was in high school) as well as paintings that incorporated elephant dung by Chris Ofili.
We went to Shibuya for dinner with another of Kumi's friends. We exited the Shibuya station to the craziness that is the 6-way intersection at Shibuya. Thousands of people were out and about. Even Timese Square at night can't quite compare. That night, we went to an izakaya where we tried a range of small Japanese dishes including sashimi, crab salad, zaru soba, tamago and more. It was a delicious meal like everything else we've tried in Japan.
Day 3: Harajuku and Yoyogi
Ankur and I survived my last day in Tokyo without Kumi somehow but it was definitely confusing without a Japanese-speaker as our awesome guide. Who would have guessed that Yoyogi Goen would be by Harajuku instead of Yoyogi? We literally wandered around Meiji Jingu Goen forever looking for Yoyogi Goen - twice in fact, and then only found it quite accidently. We wanted to see Yoyogi Goen for the "free entertainment" promised by Lonely Planet. Aspiring bands set up and perform for free here on Sundays. While Ankur was not impressed by the bands at Yoyogi, he really appreciated the spirit of things. It really did feel like all of Tokyo had decended upon Harajuku yesterday and lots of cute couples and families were in the park picnicking with their beautiful bento boxes. I guess Sundays must be a big day there. Oh, and we even witnessed two weddings at Meiji Jingu temple, inside the park!! The kimonos were so lovely. But we are not quite sure why the costume gang in Harajuku ranked #2 in the Tokyo Encounters book. There were some on Jingu Bashi but not that many. I took a picture with one gang and Ank did too with another. So I ended up with a lot of yen left and thus, was a total sucker for all the mochi being sold at Narita airport. I got to Narita with only an hour and 20 minutes before my flight and the check-in line was super long so I thought I would not have time buy any, but the Japanese were just too efficient and I ended up with enough time to hit not just one, but two mochi stores. Yes, needless to say, I will be quite well stocked for a while. I miss Japan already. And my Air Nippon flight might have been the best flight I've ever taken. I am not sure I can go back to flying American airlines. I had my own little tv even for the short 3.5 hour flight to Beijing. I didn't have any entertainment to help me get through my 13 hour flight to SF from Beijing, nor on my flights to Tokyo from NYC. I watched 27 Dresses and was in the middle of this Hong Kong gangster movie when they turned off the entertainment so we could land. I seriously wished the flight had been longer. Sadness. Oh, and even my airplane dinner was amazing. It looked like a bento box and tasted delicious. Who would have guessed that airplane food can actually be gourmet and tasty. I had teriyaki fish and zaru soba. I am totally flying them back to the US from Taiwan this summer.
Beijing is the exact opposite of Japan. Time to get back to shoving people around. Being polite here gets you nowhere.
Kyoto, Takayama & Shirakawa-go
Japan is a country of contradictions - a mix of traditional and modern that often seem at odds but makes this place fascinating. I arrived for my trip with Kumi and Ankur in Narita on April 28th, somehow managed to navigate my way around the JR and traveled by Shinkansen to Kyoto on my own.
Kyoto
After a simple dinner of tonkatsu and other homemade Japanese dishes, Kumi took Ankur and me through the main street of Gion and down Pontocho, a traditional street, so narrow it was more alley than street, lit up with red lanterns right along the river. The city, which looked so modern during the cab ride to Kumi's place, literally melted away. It was as if we had stepped into another world. No sightings of geishas unfortunately, but already, I was enchanted by Kyoto's charming, traditional side. Kumi's parent's home was also charming - a lovely, old traditional wooden Japanese house covered with tatami mats. We slept on Japanese futons right on the tatami mats.
The next day, our only full day in Kyoto, was filled with sight-seeing. After walking through a well-preserved, old section of Kyoto, Chawan-zaka (where we sighted many fake geishas who dressed up and preened for tourists), that was lined with little shops selling local arts and crafts and delicious local snacks, we made our way up to Kiyomizu-dera Temple, one of Kyoto's most splendid. Perched on a wooded cliff overlooking Kyoto and offering spectacular views of the city, it was crowded with tourists and worshippers alike. We learned to properly pray and make an offering from Kumi. First, you ring the bell to grab God's attention, throw your money into the donation box, pray, clap twice and then back up. We also drank sacred water from the waterfall Otowa-no-taki. The Japanese are a germ-fearing bunch and the ladles we drank from were purified in UV radiation boxes.
On the way down, we grabbed some cream puffs and soft cream, then passed through Maruyama-Koen, a lovely park with cherry blossom trees before stopping at Kodai-ji, another shrine. Only a few trees still had flowers clinging onto its branches unfortunately - they would have been magnificent if we had made it for the hanami festival in early April just a few weeks back. As Kumi and Ankur can attest, I was rather obsessed with cherry blossom trees during the entire trip.
After a meal of soba and udon, we hit Fushimi-inari-taisha, a shrine dedicated to the God of Grain. The shrine was located up in the hills, and the path was lined with orange-colored tori (gates) that were reminiscent of the orange gates put up briefly in Central Park. Figures of foxes, messengers of Inari, the God of Grain, often guarded the gates, with a key to the grainery in their mouth. The quiet, heavily wooded area (you can't even tell you're in a city anymore) had a mysterious air. Some of the sections of the paths we took were completely deserted and led to small graveyards/shrines.
We ate with Kumi's parents that night in a small local restaurant. The sashimi was amazing. We went in search of jazz bars afterwards but ended up at a small basement bar with a Spanish theme. We ended the night early in preparation for our trip to Takayama in the morning.
Takayama
Ankur's obsession with onsens (hot springs) matched my obsession with sakura. Thus, we made the trip to Takayama, a charming town high up in the mountains by the Japanese alps in search of onsens. The long train ride to Takayama passed through amazing vistas. Since it was up in the mountains, the sakura here were still blooming. Sakura trees dotted the landscape - decorating it with beautiful white and pink blossoms. I could not have been happier. In Takayama, we walked around the old section of town, Sanmachi, and visited one of their morning markets, were arts and crafts and pickled vegetables were being sold. That afternoon, after visiting a brewery and grabbing a quick lunch of ramen, we made our way to Hida-no-Sato, an open-air museum that consisted of a dozen or so old Japanese farmhouses in different styles. These old farmhouses had been removed from their original locations and planted here, by a small lake, to create the most idyllic and peaceful-looking little place. It looked right out of a picture-book or a fairytale. After we made it back to Takayama, we visited Takayama-Jinya, a Tokugawa-era government office. It was a massive, traditional Japanese building, with dozens of tatami-covered rooms. Lastly, we visited the Takayama Yatai Kaikan Museum. We missed the massive matsuri (Festival) in Takayama by just a couple of weeks, but got to see 4 of the floats used in the festival at the museum. The festival is supposed to be one of the best in Japan, attracting hundreds of thousands of people, and the floats, with are over 100 years old, are intricate and beautifully decorated with golden phoenixes and dragons.
Unfortunately, Ankur's onsen dreams were temporarily dashed. We misread the bus schedule and realized there was no way we could make it there and back as we had anticipated. Thus, we made do with a quick but relaxing bath in the public bath in our ryokan (Japanese inn) before venturing out for dinner. We tried the famed Hida beef in the form of a beef cutlet with a homemade barbeque-like sauce that was delicious.
Shirakawa-go
The next morning, after eating the most elaborate breakfast of my life, a traditional Japanese breakfast with tamago, nori, hoda miso (a special Hida-region sauce made by cooking a sweet, miso paste on a leaf), rice and miso soup, we took the bus to Shirakawa-go, a World Heritage Site located deep in the Japanese alps. Shirakawa-go is famed for its gassho-zukuri, a straw-covered farmhouse. Like Hida-no-Sato, the gassho houses here (dozens of them!) were taken from its original location and placed here, in a valley surround by mountains, including the still-snow capped Japanese alps. The resulting village was so idyllic, charming and picture-perfect, that it conjured up images of the shire from Lord of the Rings. An International Herald Tribune article even noted this, and Ankur decided to call this place "Shire-kawa" instead. After walking around the town where we sampled grilled rice cake, soft cream and ice cream, and visited one of the largest Gassho houses, Nagase-ke, we hiked up to the site of the former Shirakawa-go castle for a lovely view of the entire valley. After making it back to the town, we had hida beef with hoda miso sauce. The restaurant had a beautiful view of the village. Post-lunch, we made our way back to Takayama to catch the train to Tokyo. We bought bento boxes for dinner. Even these beautifully displayed with the food laid out in the box nicely. Best of all, it was delicious. Wish we had fast food like this back at home!
Kyoto
After a simple dinner of tonkatsu and other homemade Japanese dishes, Kumi took Ankur and me through the main street of Gion and down Pontocho, a traditional street, so narrow it was more alley than street, lit up with red lanterns right along the river. The city, which looked so modern during the cab ride to Kumi's place, literally melted away. It was as if we had stepped into another world. No sightings of geishas unfortunately, but already, I was enchanted by Kyoto's charming, traditional side. Kumi's parent's home was also charming - a lovely, old traditional wooden Japanese house covered with tatami mats. We slept on Japanese futons right on the tatami mats.
The next day, our only full day in Kyoto, was filled with sight-seeing. After walking through a well-preserved, old section of Kyoto, Chawan-zaka (where we sighted many fake geishas who dressed up and preened for tourists), that was lined with little shops selling local arts and crafts and delicious local snacks, we made our way up to Kiyomizu-dera Temple, one of Kyoto's most splendid. Perched on a wooded cliff overlooking Kyoto and offering spectacular views of the city, it was crowded with tourists and worshippers alike. We learned to properly pray and make an offering from Kumi. First, you ring the bell to grab God's attention, throw your money into the donation box, pray, clap twice and then back up. We also drank sacred water from the waterfall Otowa-no-taki. The Japanese are a germ-fearing bunch and the ladles we drank from were purified in UV radiation boxes.
On the way down, we grabbed some cream puffs and soft cream, then passed through Maruyama-Koen, a lovely park with cherry blossom trees before stopping at Kodai-ji, another shrine. Only a few trees still had flowers clinging onto its branches unfortunately - they would have been magnificent if we had made it for the hanami festival in early April just a few weeks back. As Kumi and Ankur can attest, I was rather obsessed with cherry blossom trees during the entire trip.
After a meal of soba and udon, we hit Fushimi-inari-taisha, a shrine dedicated to the God of Grain. The shrine was located up in the hills, and the path was lined with orange-colored tori (gates) that were reminiscent of the orange gates put up briefly in Central Park. Figures of foxes, messengers of Inari, the God of Grain, often guarded the gates, with a key to the grainery in their mouth. The quiet, heavily wooded area (you can't even tell you're in a city anymore) had a mysterious air. Some of the sections of the paths we took were completely deserted and led to small graveyards/shrines.
We ate with Kumi's parents that night in a small local restaurant. The sashimi was amazing. We went in search of jazz bars afterwards but ended up at a small basement bar with a Spanish theme. We ended the night early in preparation for our trip to Takayama in the morning.
Takayama
Ankur's obsession with onsens (hot springs) matched my obsession with sakura. Thus, we made the trip to Takayama, a charming town high up in the mountains by the Japanese alps in search of onsens. The long train ride to Takayama passed through amazing vistas. Since it was up in the mountains, the sakura here were still blooming. Sakura trees dotted the landscape - decorating it with beautiful white and pink blossoms. I could not have been happier. In Takayama, we walked around the old section of town, Sanmachi, and visited one of their morning markets, were arts and crafts and pickled vegetables were being sold. That afternoon, after visiting a brewery and grabbing a quick lunch of ramen, we made our way to Hida-no-Sato, an open-air museum that consisted of a dozen or so old Japanese farmhouses in different styles. These old farmhouses had been removed from their original locations and planted here, by a small lake, to create the most idyllic and peaceful-looking little place. It looked right out of a picture-book or a fairytale. After we made it back to Takayama, we visited Takayama-Jinya, a Tokugawa-era government office. It was a massive, traditional Japanese building, with dozens of tatami-covered rooms. Lastly, we visited the Takayama Yatai Kaikan Museum. We missed the massive matsuri (Festival) in Takayama by just a couple of weeks, but got to see 4 of the floats used in the festival at the museum. The festival is supposed to be one of the best in Japan, attracting hundreds of thousands of people, and the floats, with are over 100 years old, are intricate and beautifully decorated with golden phoenixes and dragons.
Unfortunately, Ankur's onsen dreams were temporarily dashed. We misread the bus schedule and realized there was no way we could make it there and back as we had anticipated. Thus, we made do with a quick but relaxing bath in the public bath in our ryokan (Japanese inn) before venturing out for dinner. We tried the famed Hida beef in the form of a beef cutlet with a homemade barbeque-like sauce that was delicious.
Shirakawa-go
The next morning, after eating the most elaborate breakfast of my life, a traditional Japanese breakfast with tamago, nori, hoda miso (a special Hida-region sauce made by cooking a sweet, miso paste on a leaf), rice and miso soup, we took the bus to Shirakawa-go, a World Heritage Site located deep in the Japanese alps. Shirakawa-go is famed for its gassho-zukuri, a straw-covered farmhouse. Like Hida-no-Sato, the gassho houses here (dozens of them!) were taken from its original location and placed here, in a valley surround by mountains, including the still-snow capped Japanese alps. The resulting village was so idyllic, charming and picture-perfect, that it conjured up images of the shire from Lord of the Rings. An International Herald Tribune article even noted this, and Ankur decided to call this place "Shire-kawa" instead. After walking around the town where we sampled grilled rice cake, soft cream and ice cream, and visited one of the largest Gassho houses, Nagase-ke, we hiked up to the site of the former Shirakawa-go castle for a lovely view of the entire valley. After making it back to the town, we had hida beef with hoda miso sauce. The restaurant had a beautiful view of the village. Post-lunch, we made our way back to Takayama to catch the train to Tokyo. We bought bento boxes for dinner. Even these beautifully displayed with the food laid out in the box nicely. Best of all, it was delicious. Wish we had fast food like this back at home!
Monday, May 5, 2008
Visit Home
My first trip home in 10 months. I left last July and chose to dart from one country to another instead of going home during my many vacations. Would I suffer the reverse culture shock everyone is predicting after being away for all this time?
My first stop was San Francisco. Time was of the essence – I only had two days here, so Maria picked me up and we went straight to Napa after eating a huge American breakfast of omelet and waffles. During breakfast, I slipped up a few time and reverted to Chinglish even though I was no longer in China and it became increasingly obvious that my English has deteriorated quite a bit. The prices were quite a shock compared to Beijing, but I took it all in stride.
Napa was beautiful – hill after hill covered with grape vineyards in neat rows complete with dark green trees dotting the landscape. The sky was a gorgeous shade of blue, a color that is highly coveted in Beijing, but rarely delivered due to the pollution. Fresh air was a real treat. We stopped by 3 wineries in all, starting with bubbly champagnes (including my first rose-colored one) at the Frank Family Vineyards. We moved on to magnificent views atop the Sterling Winery, a veritable grown-up playground complete with a tram to carry you to the top of the hill that offered stunning vistas of Napa, where we slowly sipped our whites and reds while soaking in the lovely weather.
That night, we had dinner at La Strada in Palo Alto. Julie met us there along with Maria’s boyfriend Cem. Brian and Jaime, both GSB students who I traveled with last summer, joined us for drinks at the end. Julie and I drove into San Francisco afterwards and I stayed with her in her adorable new apartment.
We spent the following day in San Francisco, sampling the gourmet goodies at the Ferry Building. We had a delicious lunch of oysters and a divine grilled cheese sandwich made with cheese from Cow Girl Creamery. We even bought some cheese to give to Lisa. We met up with Grace post lunch, ate gelato and took a walk around one of San Fran’s neighborhoods. Still stuffed, we went to Bar Tartine for dinner where I tried sweetbread for the first time. The beet salad, shrimp and sashimi dishes were all delicious but the cheese plate was the real winner. I really missed good cheese in China. Julie dropped me off at the airport and then I was off to New York City.
I arrived home home and it felt fabulous. I really missed my friends and family. I visited friends and ate – a ton. It’s hard not to go crazy over all the amazing foods that I can’t get back in Beijing in the culinary Mecca that is NYC. Mom cooked a couple of amazing home-cooked meals for me that day. The next day, I met Karen’s boyfriend who checked my eyes (they were fine despite the fact I cracked one of my contacts), met my mom for dim sum in Flushing, and then headed to midtown for drinks at the Monkey Bar with Hillary and dinner with friends at Fig & Olive. The small plates we shared – figs, olives, olive oil, more olive oil, jamon, cheese, bite-sized crostinis with salmon, sundried tomatoes and more – were all yummy.
I had lunch with Joan at a Japanese restaurant the following day where I chowed down sushi without worries. Drinks at Volstead later that evening was followed by an amazing meal at Adour Alain Ducasse with Lisa and Melissa. We sampled scallops, beef and lamb as well as a variety of interesting vegetables, and of course, cheese and dessert. The macaroons in particular were spectacular and they gave me some to take home. My last day in New York comprised lunch with Bob at a homey midtown Italian place, and dinner at home with Mom.
I left for Boston the next morning and arrived just in time for pad thai at 9 Tastes with Kelly and Huang Laoshi. It was as good as I remembered. I attended some HBS events before dinner with Kelly and Ming. Burgers was followed by divine dessert at Finale for the HBS healthcare club’s event. But my 3 days in Boston were specifically for visiting HBS, and thus, did not center around eating. It consisted of the expected awkward introductions and conversations with future classmates but the big surprise was the faculty. They were hysterical and I think classes will be entertaining come this Fall.
I rushed back to NYC afterwards to pack and eat one last meal with Mom, who made my favorite sticky rice dish for the occasion. The next morning, I was off to Japan. It was a whirlwind 9 days.
My first stop was San Francisco. Time was of the essence – I only had two days here, so Maria picked me up and we went straight to Napa after eating a huge American breakfast of omelet and waffles. During breakfast, I slipped up a few time and reverted to Chinglish even though I was no longer in China and it became increasingly obvious that my English has deteriorated quite a bit. The prices were quite a shock compared to Beijing, but I took it all in stride.
Napa was beautiful – hill after hill covered with grape vineyards in neat rows complete with dark green trees dotting the landscape. The sky was a gorgeous shade of blue, a color that is highly coveted in Beijing, but rarely delivered due to the pollution. Fresh air was a real treat. We stopped by 3 wineries in all, starting with bubbly champagnes (including my first rose-colored one) at the Frank Family Vineyards. We moved on to magnificent views atop the Sterling Winery, a veritable grown-up playground complete with a tram to carry you to the top of the hill that offered stunning vistas of Napa, where we slowly sipped our whites and reds while soaking in the lovely weather.
That night, we had dinner at La Strada in Palo Alto. Julie met us there along with Maria’s boyfriend Cem. Brian and Jaime, both GSB students who I traveled with last summer, joined us for drinks at the end. Julie and I drove into San Francisco afterwards and I stayed with her in her adorable new apartment.
We spent the following day in San Francisco, sampling the gourmet goodies at the Ferry Building. We had a delicious lunch of oysters and a divine grilled cheese sandwich made with cheese from Cow Girl Creamery. We even bought some cheese to give to Lisa. We met up with Grace post lunch, ate gelato and took a walk around one of San Fran’s neighborhoods. Still stuffed, we went to Bar Tartine for dinner where I tried sweetbread for the first time. The beet salad, shrimp and sashimi dishes were all delicious but the cheese plate was the real winner. I really missed good cheese in China. Julie dropped me off at the airport and then I was off to New York City.
I arrived home home and it felt fabulous. I really missed my friends and family. I visited friends and ate – a ton. It’s hard not to go crazy over all the amazing foods that I can’t get back in Beijing in the culinary Mecca that is NYC. Mom cooked a couple of amazing home-cooked meals for me that day. The next day, I met Karen’s boyfriend who checked my eyes (they were fine despite the fact I cracked one of my contacts), met my mom for dim sum in Flushing, and then headed to midtown for drinks at the Monkey Bar with Hillary and dinner with friends at Fig & Olive. The small plates we shared – figs, olives, olive oil, more olive oil, jamon, cheese, bite-sized crostinis with salmon, sundried tomatoes and more – were all yummy.
I had lunch with Joan at a Japanese restaurant the following day where I chowed down sushi without worries. Drinks at Volstead later that evening was followed by an amazing meal at Adour Alain Ducasse with Lisa and Melissa. We sampled scallops, beef and lamb as well as a variety of interesting vegetables, and of course, cheese and dessert. The macaroons in particular were spectacular and they gave me some to take home. My last day in New York comprised lunch with Bob at a homey midtown Italian place, and dinner at home with Mom.
I left for Boston the next morning and arrived just in time for pad thai at 9 Tastes with Kelly and Huang Laoshi. It was as good as I remembered. I attended some HBS events before dinner with Kelly and Ming. Burgers was followed by divine dessert at Finale for the HBS healthcare club’s event. But my 3 days in Boston were specifically for visiting HBS, and thus, did not center around eating. It consisted of the expected awkward introductions and conversations with future classmates but the big surprise was the faculty. They were hysterical and I think classes will be entertaining come this Fall.
I rushed back to NYC afterwards to pack and eat one last meal with Mom, who made my favorite sticky rice dish for the occasion. The next morning, I was off to Japan. It was a whirlwind 9 days.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Running out of time in Beijing...
It’s crazy how quickly time flies by. I have less than a week to go before I’m done with work and can start traveling. Thus, we went out hard core for the past few days, culminating in a full weekend.
Monday: We had visitors from CSHOR (Meg and Joyce) fly in from S. Africa to help us with modeling, and Karen, one of our CF doctors, was still in town visiting. When we have visitors, we eat – a lot. We went to Hatsune for a delicious Japanese lunch with Karen. For dinner, we went to Dadong for Beijing duck. We closed out the restaurant. After eating, we talked until it was almost midnight. Meg, who is an epidemiologist, is fascinating. She is fun yet brilliant, a combination that I love and admire. Now I seriously want to be an epidemiologist and model how diseases spread. PhD Hui? Perhaps.
Tuesday: I helped to organize a dinner with Professor Perkins, who is in Beijing with his wife. They are in Beijing for 2 months so Prof. Perkins can do research, so a group of us took them out to dinner at South Beauty. His stories about China in the 70s, and its development over the past few decades were fascinating. He’s been visiting every year for 30+ years. The changes must have been incredible to witness. After dinner, I met a HBS admit who happened to have been in Beijing for work. We had a drink together and chatted. She was super nice but super overworked.
Wednesday: We took Meg and Joyce to lunch at Middle 8. I love the food there, even though it’s clearly not authentic Yunnan cuisine. That night, Grace organized a Taiwanese dinner. Everyone got lost trying to find the place, but the food made it all worthwhile. Since they did not have shaved ice (rather strange for a Taiwanese place), we hit the Bellagio for dessert.
Thursday: Spent the day working at NCAIDS and planning my Japan trip with Kumi. That night, dinner with work people at Shin Yeh, another Taiwanese place. The food was good but the best dish of the night was the mango ice – literally mango puree in a cup. Simply incredible. I’d literally go back just for that. Afterwards, drinks at LAN, my favorite bar in Beijing. Love the funky Alice in Wonderland décor and the fruity cocktails. Courtesy of Promen (we’re pro-men!), we had 2 for 1 drinks.
Friday: Lunch with Meg and Joyce at Pure Lotus. It’s been a week of visiting my favorite restaurants! That night, I briefly went to Bar Blu to meet some other HBS admits in Beijing then headed to Lido for Ethiopian food at Beijing’s first Ethiopian restaurant, Ras. Kumi, who just got her Chinese driver’s license, drove us there. We managed to find it without any major problems. Having a car made us all realize what a fairy-tale life we all lead in Beijing. Anna was right. In many ways, we are like princesses in Asia. We go out every night and live in nice apartments with pools and gyms.
Dinner was chaotic. About twice as many people as we had expected showed up, but it was fun to eat with our fingers nonetheless. Afterwards, we went to a bar opening for a new bar on a boat. Not surprisingly, the bar was called, The Boat. The place reminded me too much of a frat party, so we left to get some more food before hitting Q Bar. It was a late night.
Saturday: I got up early to grocery shop for my sushi party the next day, hit the gym and then grabbed brunch at Alameda with Karen. Then I met Kumi, Alice and Tiffany to head to Three Shadows Gallery in the new 798 (798 is the art district). None of us had a map but between our memory of how to get to Ras, directions given over the phone, a text message, and Tiffany’s fussy sense of directions from previous trips there, we made it without getting lost. It was far – past the 5th ring. Ironically, on the flight on the way home to NYC after my first trip to Beijing, I sat next to a curator at the International Center of Photography. He was telling me about this place – he went for the opening of the gallery and is on the advisory board. After almost a year, I made it there finally. It feels like my time in Beijing has come full circle.
We went to 798 to relax at a café then drove to dinner at Lemon Leaf, a Thai hotpot place. I normally don’t like hotpot, but the Thai-flavored broths were really good (we tried a curry based broth and a tom yum based broth). Afterwards, we hit Luna bar for a friend’s birthday. Open bar. We got teased about our crazy schedule, which somehow leaked out to the public.
Sunday: Kumi, Chia-Li, Reshma, Sabrina and I got up to go to Chuandixia, a well-preserved Ming village outside Beijing. Again, Kumi drove. We were all suffering from the effects of overdrinking the night before, and unsurprisingly did not find this place in the 2 hours we had anticipated. The village was neat, but we got stuck in traffic on the way back and Kumi missed her flight. I hosted a sushi-making party which went well. But getting everything ready was stressful as we got back 3 hours after we had all anticipated.
Monday again: Last night, I just needed a quiet night in. Chia-Li and I grabbed dinner at Nearby the Tree and then watched the Nannie Diaries. Today, I am planning to stay in, by myself (can’t even remember the last time I did that!), and pack. Tomorrow is Salsa night and Thursday is my last night in Beijing for a while. We’re planning to grab drinks at LAN and dinner at Rumi. I fly out Friday morning for San Francisco. Funny how fast time flies. I’m both excited and sad. Leaving will be bittersweet.
Monday: We had visitors from CSHOR (Meg and Joyce) fly in from S. Africa to help us with modeling, and Karen, one of our CF doctors, was still in town visiting. When we have visitors, we eat – a lot. We went to Hatsune for a delicious Japanese lunch with Karen. For dinner, we went to Dadong for Beijing duck. We closed out the restaurant. After eating, we talked until it was almost midnight. Meg, who is an epidemiologist, is fascinating. She is fun yet brilliant, a combination that I love and admire. Now I seriously want to be an epidemiologist and model how diseases spread. PhD Hui? Perhaps.
Tuesday: I helped to organize a dinner with Professor Perkins, who is in Beijing with his wife. They are in Beijing for 2 months so Prof. Perkins can do research, so a group of us took them out to dinner at South Beauty. His stories about China in the 70s, and its development over the past few decades were fascinating. He’s been visiting every year for 30+ years. The changes must have been incredible to witness. After dinner, I met a HBS admit who happened to have been in Beijing for work. We had a drink together and chatted. She was super nice but super overworked.
Wednesday: We took Meg and Joyce to lunch at Middle 8. I love the food there, even though it’s clearly not authentic Yunnan cuisine. That night, Grace organized a Taiwanese dinner. Everyone got lost trying to find the place, but the food made it all worthwhile. Since they did not have shaved ice (rather strange for a Taiwanese place), we hit the Bellagio for dessert.
Thursday: Spent the day working at NCAIDS and planning my Japan trip with Kumi. That night, dinner with work people at Shin Yeh, another Taiwanese place. The food was good but the best dish of the night was the mango ice – literally mango puree in a cup. Simply incredible. I’d literally go back just for that. Afterwards, drinks at LAN, my favorite bar in Beijing. Love the funky Alice in Wonderland décor and the fruity cocktails. Courtesy of Promen (we’re pro-men!), we had 2 for 1 drinks.
Friday: Lunch with Meg and Joyce at Pure Lotus. It’s been a week of visiting my favorite restaurants! That night, I briefly went to Bar Blu to meet some other HBS admits in Beijing then headed to Lido for Ethiopian food at Beijing’s first Ethiopian restaurant, Ras. Kumi, who just got her Chinese driver’s license, drove us there. We managed to find it without any major problems. Having a car made us all realize what a fairy-tale life we all lead in Beijing. Anna was right. In many ways, we are like princesses in Asia. We go out every night and live in nice apartments with pools and gyms.
Dinner was chaotic. About twice as many people as we had expected showed up, but it was fun to eat with our fingers nonetheless. Afterwards, we went to a bar opening for a new bar on a boat. Not surprisingly, the bar was called, The Boat. The place reminded me too much of a frat party, so we left to get some more food before hitting Q Bar. It was a late night.
Saturday: I got up early to grocery shop for my sushi party the next day, hit the gym and then grabbed brunch at Alameda with Karen. Then I met Kumi, Alice and Tiffany to head to Three Shadows Gallery in the new 798 (798 is the art district). None of us had a map but between our memory of how to get to Ras, directions given over the phone, a text message, and Tiffany’s fussy sense of directions from previous trips there, we made it without getting lost. It was far – past the 5th ring. Ironically, on the flight on the way home to NYC after my first trip to Beijing, I sat next to a curator at the International Center of Photography. He was telling me about this place – he went for the opening of the gallery and is on the advisory board. After almost a year, I made it there finally. It feels like my time in Beijing has come full circle.
We went to 798 to relax at a café then drove to dinner at Lemon Leaf, a Thai hotpot place. I normally don’t like hotpot, but the Thai-flavored broths were really good (we tried a curry based broth and a tom yum based broth). Afterwards, we hit Luna bar for a friend’s birthday. Open bar. We got teased about our crazy schedule, which somehow leaked out to the public.
Sunday: Kumi, Chia-Li, Reshma, Sabrina and I got up to go to Chuandixia, a well-preserved Ming village outside Beijing. Again, Kumi drove. We were all suffering from the effects of overdrinking the night before, and unsurprisingly did not find this place in the 2 hours we had anticipated. The village was neat, but we got stuck in traffic on the way back and Kumi missed her flight. I hosted a sushi-making party which went well. But getting everything ready was stressful as we got back 3 hours after we had all anticipated.
Monday again: Last night, I just needed a quiet night in. Chia-Li and I grabbed dinner at Nearby the Tree and then watched the Nannie Diaries. Today, I am planning to stay in, by myself (can’t even remember the last time I did that!), and pack. Tomorrow is Salsa night and Thursday is my last night in Beijing for a while. We’re planning to grab drinks at LAN and dinner at Rumi. I fly out Friday morning for San Francisco. Funny how fast time flies. I’m both excited and sad. Leaving will be bittersweet.
Datong
Since the Chinese government decided to change its holidays and give people back the traditional Chinese holidays, we had a 3-day weekend for Ching Ming or Tomb Sweeping Day. Alice, Kumi, Reshma and I decided to hit Datong, in northern Shanxi Province, to see the Yungang Caves and the Hanging Monastery.
Friday April 4: Friday was a full day. We arrive in Datong via overnight train early in the morning. We visited the Yungang Caves and the Hanging Monastery and made our way to Mt. Hengshan.
To see Datong and travel like the locals, we attempted to take the bus to the caves. The instructions sounded simple and clear. Take bus #4 from the train station to the last stop, then take bus #3 to the caves. After riding around on the #4 for a while and realizing that we were passing by the same thing… the bus driver told us we had MISSED the last stop (didn’t even know that was possible – you think they’d announce the last stop or something). But luckily, the man was so nice that he flagged down a bus going in the opposite direction for us and then told us to run onto the other bus in the middle of a busy intersection. We scurried off into oncoming traffic and managed to make our way to the other bus in one piece. We did eventually make it to the caves without any more trouble.
The Yungang Caves, one of 4 Buddhist Caves in China, is a series of over 40 caves filled with Buddhist art and sculptures, some dating as far back as the Wei Dynasty, more than 1,500 years ago. The really old stuff looked merely like hollow creepy skeletons, having been beaten by the elements over hundreds of years, but the less weathered stuff were stunning – colorful Buddha statues and intricate wall frescos covered the walls of the approximately 20 caves that we could view. Sadly, a layer of coal dust and pollution coated a lot of the artwork but it is impressive nonetheless.
We went in search of an old, abandoned section of the Great Wall near the caves afterwards but never found it, so we returned to Datong for a quick meal before venturing to the Hanging Monastery, about 2 hours outside Datong. We passed out on the bus and woke up when we reached Hunyuan, the closest town. They dropped us off by a gas station in the middle of nowhere and a cab driver took us to the monastery. The Hanging Monastery got its name from its precarious location, perched on the side of a cliff on skinny, long wooden poles. It is simply amazing the structure has not toppled over! The monastery is actually quite small (no monks here!), with tiny walkways and narrow stairs connecting different rooms on multiple floors. It is literally hanging right off the cliff. The monastery is clearly the main attraction in this area – people seriously would not come out here if it weren’t for the monastery.
We climbed up to the top of a dam next to the monastery where we found a pile of coal. Datong is in coal country, so there was a lot of coal around. Kumi picked out a chunk for Sabrina who couldn’t make the trip and then carried it around for the rest of the trip. We spent the night in Mt. Hengshan, where we stayed in the home conveniently converted into a hotel of some local residents. We slept together like local villagers, on a kang bed in a room that was heated by coals. There’s a long pipe that’s supposed to filter smoke out of the room, which didn’t work fabulously. We were worried that we’d freeze to death in the mountains, so we figured coal smoke was better than being freezing. When the coals seemed to have burned down really low, we snuck outside and chopped us some more chucks of coal to throw into the stove, which was located in the ground. We got caught by the lady at the hotel who came knocking on our door. Oops. Maybe coal is really expensive (but there’s so much of it there!!). She warned us not to put in more coal because the room would start to smell like coal (which it did – oops again). But between the coal stove and the huge pile of blankets we were actually quite comfortable and the evening felt like quite an adventure.
Saturday, April 5: Mt. Hengshan and Datong
We woke up the next morning way after sunrise (which we went up to the mountains originally to see) to soothing Buddhist music streaming from the temple located practically right about the hotel we were staying at. Then we climbed Mt. Hengshan, which was dotted with temples all over. When we made it down the mountain, we grabbed lunch at a local place and called for our driver to pick us up. The hotel told him where we were but we had no idea how the hotel knew. It’s like they were tracking us or something. It was very odd.
We made it back to Datong and found this area where there were little snacks and local stores by one of the major temples. We sampled all sorts of different snacks – from tofu to bread (lots of different kinds). And to pamper ourselves, we had our hair washed and blown out at a salon.
Sunday, April 6: Nine Dragon Screen
We visited the Nine Dragon Screen – the largest ceramic tiled wall of 9 dragons. But it was literally just a wall. There was nothing else. So we just relaxed in the courtyard there until lunchtime where we finally went to this baozi restaurant we had been passing by and wanting to try. Their buns or baozi were indeed delicious. It was a yummy meal. Then it was back to Beijing on the train.
Friday April 4: Friday was a full day. We arrive in Datong via overnight train early in the morning. We visited the Yungang Caves and the Hanging Monastery and made our way to Mt. Hengshan.
To see Datong and travel like the locals, we attempted to take the bus to the caves. The instructions sounded simple and clear. Take bus #4 from the train station to the last stop, then take bus #3 to the caves. After riding around on the #4 for a while and realizing that we were passing by the same thing… the bus driver told us we had MISSED the last stop (didn’t even know that was possible – you think they’d announce the last stop or something). But luckily, the man was so nice that he flagged down a bus going in the opposite direction for us and then told us to run onto the other bus in the middle of a busy intersection. We scurried off into oncoming traffic and managed to make our way to the other bus in one piece. We did eventually make it to the caves without any more trouble.
The Yungang Caves, one of 4 Buddhist Caves in China, is a series of over 40 caves filled with Buddhist art and sculptures, some dating as far back as the Wei Dynasty, more than 1,500 years ago. The really old stuff looked merely like hollow creepy skeletons, having been beaten by the elements over hundreds of years, but the less weathered stuff were stunning – colorful Buddha statues and intricate wall frescos covered the walls of the approximately 20 caves that we could view. Sadly, a layer of coal dust and pollution coated a lot of the artwork but it is impressive nonetheless.
We went in search of an old, abandoned section of the Great Wall near the caves afterwards but never found it, so we returned to Datong for a quick meal before venturing to the Hanging Monastery, about 2 hours outside Datong. We passed out on the bus and woke up when we reached Hunyuan, the closest town. They dropped us off by a gas station in the middle of nowhere and a cab driver took us to the monastery. The Hanging Monastery got its name from its precarious location, perched on the side of a cliff on skinny, long wooden poles. It is simply amazing the structure has not toppled over! The monastery is actually quite small (no monks here!), with tiny walkways and narrow stairs connecting different rooms on multiple floors. It is literally hanging right off the cliff. The monastery is clearly the main attraction in this area – people seriously would not come out here if it weren’t for the monastery.
We climbed up to the top of a dam next to the monastery where we found a pile of coal. Datong is in coal country, so there was a lot of coal around. Kumi picked out a chunk for Sabrina who couldn’t make the trip and then carried it around for the rest of the trip. We spent the night in Mt. Hengshan, where we stayed in the home conveniently converted into a hotel of some local residents. We slept together like local villagers, on a kang bed in a room that was heated by coals. There’s a long pipe that’s supposed to filter smoke out of the room, which didn’t work fabulously. We were worried that we’d freeze to death in the mountains, so we figured coal smoke was better than being freezing. When the coals seemed to have burned down really low, we snuck outside and chopped us some more chucks of coal to throw into the stove, which was located in the ground. We got caught by the lady at the hotel who came knocking on our door. Oops. Maybe coal is really expensive (but there’s so much of it there!!). She warned us not to put in more coal because the room would start to smell like coal (which it did – oops again). But between the coal stove and the huge pile of blankets we were actually quite comfortable and the evening felt like quite an adventure.
Saturday, April 5: Mt. Hengshan and Datong
We woke up the next morning way after sunrise (which we went up to the mountains originally to see) to soothing Buddhist music streaming from the temple located practically right about the hotel we were staying at. Then we climbed Mt. Hengshan, which was dotted with temples all over. When we made it down the mountain, we grabbed lunch at a local place and called for our driver to pick us up. The hotel told him where we were but we had no idea how the hotel knew. It’s like they were tracking us or something. It was very odd.
We made it back to Datong and found this area where there were little snacks and local stores by one of the major temples. We sampled all sorts of different snacks – from tofu to bread (lots of different kinds). And to pamper ourselves, we had our hair washed and blown out at a salon.
Sunday, April 6: Nine Dragon Screen
We visited the Nine Dragon Screen – the largest ceramic tiled wall of 9 dragons. But it was literally just a wall. There was nothing else. So we just relaxed in the courtyard there until lunchtime where we finally went to this baozi restaurant we had been passing by and wanting to try. Their buns or baozi were indeed delicious. It was a yummy meal. Then it was back to Beijing on the train.
Monday, April 7, 2008
Capital Airport
Over the weekend, for my flight to Shanghai for the Harvard Global Series Conference, I flew in and out of the new terminal (Terminal 3) at Beijing Capital Airport for the first time. The terminal, the world’s largest airport building, was designed by Sir Norman Foster and built in less than 4 years to open in time for the Olympics. The building is massive – a soaring steel and glass structure covered by thousands of twinkling lights on the inside. It is hard not to be impressed by the sheer size of this super modern building. However, I’ve been spoiled by the efficiency of Chinese airports over the past 9 months. It rarely takes me more than 15 minutes to get through security (there is never more than 5 or so people in front of you) and get to my gate. Now, there are miles of stairs and walkway to conquer between any 2 points. Sometimes, bigger is just not better.
Nevertheless, Capital Airport needs the extra capacity the additional terminal offers. But sadly, rather than making the transport buses to and from the plane a thing of the past (they take forever since the plane parks in the middle of nowhere miles from the terminal), they still have those.
Nevertheless, Capital Airport needs the extra capacity the additional terminal offers. But sadly, rather than making the transport buses to and from the plane a thing of the past (they take forever since the plane parks in the middle of nowhere miles from the terminal), they still have those.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
The World's Largest Airport Terminal
Over the weekend, for my flight to Shanghai for the Harvard Global Series Conference, I flew in and out of the new terminal (Terminal 3) at Beijing Capital Airport for the first time. The terminal, the world’s largest airport building, was designed by Sir Norman Foster and built in less than 4 years to open in time for the Olympics. The building is massive – a soaring steel and glass structure covered by thousands of twinkling lights on the inside. It is hard not to be impressed by the sheer size of this super modern building. However, I’ve been spoiled by the efficiency of Chinese airports over the past 9 months. It rarely takes me more than 15 minutes to get through security (there is never more than 5 or so people in front of you) and get to my gate. Now, there are miles of stairs and walkway to conquer between any 2 points. Sometimes, bigger is just not better.
Nevertheless, Capital Airport needs the extra capacity the additional terminal offers. But sadly, rather than making the transport buses to and from the plane a thing of the past (they take forever since the plane parks in the middle of nowhere miles from the terminal), they still have those. But luckily, my flight back to Beijing pulled right into a gate.
Nevertheless, Capital Airport needs the extra capacity the additional terminal offers. But sadly, rather than making the transport buses to and from the plane a thing of the past (they take forever since the plane parks in the middle of nowhere miles from the terminal), they still have those. But luckily, my flight back to Beijing pulled right into a gate.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Pollution, Tibet & Strange Happenings
There are less than 150 days until the Olympics and Beijing just experienced it's first sandstorm of the year a couple of days ago. The pollution index must have been through the roof (although I could not figure out where to find out the actual number). The skies look menacing, a grayish-white that blanketed the city and obscured even buildings close by. The pollution hasn't improved these past two days either. Is Beijing ready for the Olympics? Sure, there are good days, but it's completely unpredictable. And on days like today and the past couple of days, I am almost hesitant to walk outdoors, much less run, and some athletes are refusing to participate in the Beijing Olympics for fear of jeopardizing their health.
And then there's the riots and protests in Tibet. I still haven't figured out if Tibet should technically be considered a part of China. However, mfriends and I had been planning, and looking forward to, a trip to Tibet/Nepal at the end of May/early June, but if the unrest continues, it's unlikely the Chinese government will let any foreigners close to Tibet. They've kicked all the tourists out already and journalists too. They're not issuing any permits to foreigners to visit Tibet right now, and I'm not sure when they will start again. In retaliation, the journalists have focused their energies on writing about the pollution. It's a huge sore spot for the Chinese government and they can't even claim it's political.
And truly bizarre things have happened in my apartment complex recently. A newspaper article wrote that 60 security guards from my complex were arrested a few days ago for, of all random things, stealing fire hydrants. Why fire hydrants? Scrap metal has gotten so expensive that they could make money off of selling them. As a result of the roundup, they've started to harass residents and their visitors. A cop gave a friend of mine a hard time last night for not carrying her temporary resident permit for foreigners when she tried to visit me at my apartment, and interrogated me about my own permit and citizenship status. And they've started asking for swipe cards to get into the buildings. As an expat, it is sometimes easy to forget that China is still a police state. Now I am fully reminded. They keep tabs on people.
And then there's the riots and protests in Tibet. I still haven't figured out if Tibet should technically be considered a part of China. However, mfriends and I had been planning, and looking forward to, a trip to Tibet/Nepal at the end of May/early June, but if the unrest continues, it's unlikely the Chinese government will let any foreigners close to Tibet. They've kicked all the tourists out already and journalists too. They're not issuing any permits to foreigners to visit Tibet right now, and I'm not sure when they will start again. In retaliation, the journalists have focused their energies on writing about the pollution. It's a huge sore spot for the Chinese government and they can't even claim it's political.
And truly bizarre things have happened in my apartment complex recently. A newspaper article wrote that 60 security guards from my complex were arrested a few days ago for, of all random things, stealing fire hydrants. Why fire hydrants? Scrap metal has gotten so expensive that they could make money off of selling them. As a result of the roundup, they've started to harass residents and their visitors. A cop gave a friend of mine a hard time last night for not carrying her temporary resident permit for foreigners when she tried to visit me at my apartment, and interrogated me about my own permit and citizenship status. And they've started asking for swipe cards to get into the buildings. As an expat, it is sometimes easy to forget that China is still a police state. Now I am fully reminded. They keep tabs on people.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Anna's Visit to Beijing
In 4 short days, Anna and Nate got a taste of life as expats in Beijing...
Wednesday: Anna and I grabbed lunch at Middle 8 with my colleagues on Wednesday before we tackled Yashow to buy silk scarves for her mom. Anna was blown away by the fact the sales lady spoke pretty good Russian, and the sales lady was impressed by Anna's tough, no-nonsense negotiating skills. That night, while I had hot pot with friends to celebrate our successful International Women's Day fundraiser, Anna & Nate had a romantic dinner at Green T. House, which they were quite impressed by and convinced would do well in L.A.
Thursday: I braved the Beijing Subway to see Anna (and eat a Western breakfast!). We shopped at the Silk Market before I went back to work and Anna went to visit the Forbidden City. That night, Anna visited my apartment and I took her to Houhai to walk around before we hit Pure Lotus for dinner. As always, the food was fabulous and the surroundings serene and beautiful. I finally met Nate that night (as Anna described, a tired-looking white guy), who met us at the restaurant. Like almost everything in Beijing, Pure Lotus is located in an alley and Nate had a hard time finding the restaurant, but he found it! Afterwards, we hit up Rickshaw for a drink and Anna saw Randy for the first time since college.
Friday: A typical Chinese banquet complete with Beijing duck at Dadong. We amassed a group of 15, and the size of our table was as impressive as the food. We had three ducks, all carved table-side by the many chefs at the restaurant, and about 15 other dishes. Anna poised next to one of knife-wielding chefs for a picture. After dinner, we hit up Alfa for Friday 80's night. Nate paid for our frozen mojitos, and promptly fell asleep (the poor guy worked the whole week while Anna was, as she said, "pleasuring"). While none of us had enough stamina that night to actually hit the dance floor, we walked by just in time to hear "Welcome to the Jungle." It reminded us of senior year, when Anna, the diva, did a soaring rendition of the song on stage, under hypnosis. As much as we like the original, Anna's version is better. Anyone want to party like it's 2099?
Saturday: While Beijing's expats all hit the baseball field at Wukesong for, ironically, an exhibition game between the L.A. Dodgers and the San Diego Padres, we did what the tourists do in Beijing - hit the Great Wall! We went to the Mutianyu section. I was tour guide, translator and photographer for my favorite couple of the moment. Anna did acrobatics on wall (check out the pictures!) and we hiked a few towers before sledding down to the bottom on a tobbagan. That night, we had dinner at LAN, my favorite bar in Beijing that also happens to be a restaurant. The food is best described as creative fusion (definitely not Sichuan as advertised) - portions were tiny but everything was beautifully presented. Absolutely love the quirky, Alice-in-Wonderland decor. Rumors are one is in the works for New York City. Can't wait. We ended the evening at China Doll. You can't get more expat than the bars in Sanlitun.
And thus completes Anna & Nate's visit to Beijing. Miss them already!
Wednesday: Anna and I grabbed lunch at Middle 8 with my colleagues on Wednesday before we tackled Yashow to buy silk scarves for her mom. Anna was blown away by the fact the sales lady spoke pretty good Russian, and the sales lady was impressed by Anna's tough, no-nonsense negotiating skills. That night, while I had hot pot with friends to celebrate our successful International Women's Day fundraiser, Anna & Nate had a romantic dinner at Green T. House, which they were quite impressed by and convinced would do well in L.A.
Thursday: I braved the Beijing Subway to see Anna (and eat a Western breakfast!). We shopped at the Silk Market before I went back to work and Anna went to visit the Forbidden City. That night, Anna visited my apartment and I took her to Houhai to walk around before we hit Pure Lotus for dinner. As always, the food was fabulous and the surroundings serene and beautiful. I finally met Nate that night (as Anna described, a tired-looking white guy), who met us at the restaurant. Like almost everything in Beijing, Pure Lotus is located in an alley and Nate had a hard time finding the restaurant, but he found it! Afterwards, we hit up Rickshaw for a drink and Anna saw Randy for the first time since college.
Friday: A typical Chinese banquet complete with Beijing duck at Dadong. We amassed a group of 15, and the size of our table was as impressive as the food. We had three ducks, all carved table-side by the many chefs at the restaurant, and about 15 other dishes. Anna poised next to one of knife-wielding chefs for a picture. After dinner, we hit up Alfa for Friday 80's night. Nate paid for our frozen mojitos, and promptly fell asleep (the poor guy worked the whole week while Anna was, as she said, "pleasuring"). While none of us had enough stamina that night to actually hit the dance floor, we walked by just in time to hear "Welcome to the Jungle." It reminded us of senior year, when Anna, the diva, did a soaring rendition of the song on stage, under hypnosis. As much as we like the original, Anna's version is better. Anyone want to party like it's 2099?
Saturday: While Beijing's expats all hit the baseball field at Wukesong for, ironically, an exhibition game between the L.A. Dodgers and the San Diego Padres, we did what the tourists do in Beijing - hit the Great Wall! We went to the Mutianyu section. I was tour guide, translator and photographer for my favorite couple of the moment. Anna did acrobatics on wall (check out the pictures!) and we hiked a few towers before sledding down to the bottom on a tobbagan. That night, we had dinner at LAN, my favorite bar in Beijing that also happens to be a restaurant. The food is best described as creative fusion (definitely not Sichuan as advertised) - portions were tiny but everything was beautifully presented. Absolutely love the quirky, Alice-in-Wonderland decor. Rumors are one is in the works for New York City. Can't wait. We ended the evening at China Doll. You can't get more expat than the bars in Sanlitun.
And thus completes Anna & Nate's visit to Beijing. Miss them already!
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Hangzhou and Shanghai
I made another trip to Shanghai last weekend. Since I had to fly down for my b-school interview, I figured I'd use the opportunity to visit a friend in Hangzhou, which is only an hour away from Shanghai. Hangzhou is often said to be one of the prettiest cities in China, with a massive lake, West Lake, smack in the center of the city. Cherry blossom season (which unfortunately is still another couple of weeks away) is supposed to be amazing here, as the flower-covered trees dot the landscape around the lake.
Jiyin and Andy took me to a local Hangzhou restaurant, where we had a delicious meal, before we headed out to West Lake. We walked along the banks of one section of the lake, before stopping by the former lakefront villa of Mao (now a hotel) for afternoon tea. I sampled the local dragon well green tea as well as a bunch of tasty snacks including hazelnuts, dried grape tomatoes and dried bamboo. All were delicious. Despite the hazy clouds obscuring the view, the lake was still really tranquil and beautiful.
I had my first home-cooked local Chinese meal at Jiyin's home that night. Jiyin's mom cooked an amazing meal with over 10 dishes, including spring rolls, crab, fish, chicken and some type of glutinous cake. I also met her college roommates.
We went back to the West Lake again the next day and walked along the main pedestrian walkway that cut across the lake. We met up with one of Jiyin's roommates and took a relaxing boatride around the lake. We saw the islands in the middle of the lake and the three stone pagodas in the middle of the lake that reflect the moon during the full moon (some how, the holes in the pagodas reflect in such a way that it looks like there are 32 moons, 10 each from the pagodas, the moon itself, and the moon's reflection).
I rushed back to Shanghai in time to grab dinner with some friends. We had some yummy Indian food and the night ended pretty early because a bunch of them got kittens recently, and like good parents - they went home to feed their cats. I met Qin's new kitten, Taka (after the Japanese actor Takashiro something), who was incredibly shy and skittish. But Qin treats him so well that we all hope it'll stop being scared and shy soon.
Post-interview the following morning, Qin and I had lunch before hitting up Yu Yuan for gift ideas for the Harvard Global Series Conference in Shanghai. Even on a Tuesday the place was busy. We saw some artisans making some pretty cool things - like tin can turned into art and names twisted out of wire. I got one of the twisted things for Anna (who is visiting me in Beijing!).
Despite the fact that I love visiting Shanghai, I rushed back to Beijing, cutting my trip short, so I could see Anna. I went straight to the Peninsula - it's been more than a year since I've seen her and I am super excited she is visiting (thanks to her boyfriend who is here on business). We had wine and chocolates and caught up for a bit.
Jiyin and Andy took me to a local Hangzhou restaurant, where we had a delicious meal, before we headed out to West Lake. We walked along the banks of one section of the lake, before stopping by the former lakefront villa of Mao (now a hotel) for afternoon tea. I sampled the local dragon well green tea as well as a bunch of tasty snacks including hazelnuts, dried grape tomatoes and dried bamboo. All were delicious. Despite the hazy clouds obscuring the view, the lake was still really tranquil and beautiful.
I had my first home-cooked local Chinese meal at Jiyin's home that night. Jiyin's mom cooked an amazing meal with over 10 dishes, including spring rolls, crab, fish, chicken and some type of glutinous cake. I also met her college roommates.
We went back to the West Lake again the next day and walked along the main pedestrian walkway that cut across the lake. We met up with one of Jiyin's roommates and took a relaxing boatride around the lake. We saw the islands in the middle of the lake and the three stone pagodas in the middle of the lake that reflect the moon during the full moon (some how, the holes in the pagodas reflect in such a way that it looks like there are 32 moons, 10 each from the pagodas, the moon itself, and the moon's reflection).
I rushed back to Shanghai in time to grab dinner with some friends. We had some yummy Indian food and the night ended pretty early because a bunch of them got kittens recently, and like good parents - they went home to feed their cats. I met Qin's new kitten, Taka (after the Japanese actor Takashiro something), who was incredibly shy and skittish. But Qin treats him so well that we all hope it'll stop being scared and shy soon.
Post-interview the following morning, Qin and I had lunch before hitting up Yu Yuan for gift ideas for the Harvard Global Series Conference in Shanghai. Even on a Tuesday the place was busy. We saw some artisans making some pretty cool things - like tin can turned into art and names twisted out of wire. I got one of the twisted things for Anna (who is visiting me in Beijing!).
Despite the fact that I love visiting Shanghai, I rushed back to Beijing, cutting my trip short, so I could see Anna. I went straight to the Peninsula - it's been more than a year since I've seen her and I am super excited she is visiting (thanks to her boyfriend who is here on business). We had wine and chocolates and caught up for a bit.
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Beijing Art Scene
Contemporary Chinese art has been making a splash recently, garnering a lot of international attention. There have been some high-profile auctions that have pulled in record amounts for Chinese art. 798 is one of the main art districts (sort of like New York’s Soho before it got gentrified and outrageously expensive), where dozens of galleries are housed in warehouses. I was here a few weeks ago for a theater festival called “Shifen Theater” (10 minute theater – a collection of 10 minute acts organized by an expat for expats). It was held in one of the galleries. A lot of the performances were a bit too “avant-garde” for me to say I actually enjoyed it, but the space was awesome. I had a chance to come back over the weekend with friends to participate in an interactive exhibit called “De-Face,” where graffiti artists and the public could paint the whitewashed walls of a gallery slated for demolition. 798 has gotten to trendy for its own good, and the warehouse was being demolished in the name of development – to make way for a car park. It was an interesting “final attempt at an artistic statement” against the destruction of 1/6th of 798, which is supposed to be a protected art district.
Hundreds of visitors came to participate, painting and spray-painting the walls. The graffiti artists were amazing. I watched the evolution of a big green man taking off his mask, from a rather amorphous green blob to an impressive, detailed image. The graffiti artist worked with a bottle of beer in one hand (and a random fact – local Chinese beer is in fact CHEAPER than bottled water in China! – how crazy?!) and a bottle of spray paint in the other. After he finished, he took a few steps back, admiring his work through the cloud of cigarette smoke he exhaled. It was my first time watching an artist at work in person – definitely an interesting experience. A bunch of expats took part in this event, spraying the work “chai” or demolish in Chinese over the walls and scribbling whatever it was they wished. It was definitely a fun and interesting experience.
Before we went to De-Face, Chia-Li and I had the opportunity to walk around 798, taking pictures of some of the outdoor sculptures and popping into some of the galleries. One of my favorite was a gallery filled with lacquer paintings. The artist(s) had taken a very tradition Chinese form of handicraft, using the technique to paint interesting images that looked like cracked, glazed ceramic, but on a painting. The melding of traditional techniques into modern paintings was really cool. Definitely want to come back and explore more of this place, before more of it disappears.
Hundreds of visitors came to participate, painting and spray-painting the walls. The graffiti artists were amazing. I watched the evolution of a big green man taking off his mask, from a rather amorphous green blob to an impressive, detailed image. The graffiti artist worked with a bottle of beer in one hand (and a random fact – local Chinese beer is in fact CHEAPER than bottled water in China! – how crazy?!) and a bottle of spray paint in the other. After he finished, he took a few steps back, admiring his work through the cloud of cigarette smoke he exhaled. It was my first time watching an artist at work in person – definitely an interesting experience. A bunch of expats took part in this event, spraying the work “chai” or demolish in Chinese over the walls and scribbling whatever it was they wished. It was definitely a fun and interesting experience.
Before we went to De-Face, Chia-Li and I had the opportunity to walk around 798, taking pictures of some of the outdoor sculptures and popping into some of the galleries. One of my favorite was a gallery filled with lacquer paintings. The artist(s) had taken a very tradition Chinese form of handicraft, using the technique to paint interesting images that looked like cracked, glazed ceramic, but on a painting. The melding of traditional techniques into modern paintings was really cool. Definitely want to come back and explore more of this place, before more of it disappears.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Chinese New Year
The sky is filled with smoke tonight, the last night of the 15-day long Chinese New Year holiday. It is marked by the first full moon of the new year and celebrated by a special Lantern Festival. Everywhere you turn and everywhere you look, there are bursts of light and fire from the firecrackers and fireworks that is exploding throughout the city. Cascading streaks of bright, colorful sparks are vsible from my window. Right outside my apartment building, in and by the man-made lake in my complex, people are lighting fireworks. Visually, it is spectacular. Even though it cannot rival the professionally orchestrated firework displays for things like July 4th, how often does one come within inches of live fireworks? However, the loud crack and pop make it sound like Beijing is being beseiged by bombs. It is a bit eerie and disconcerting.
After I came back from India, I felt a slight twinge of regret for not spending Chinese New Year in a country that actually celebrates it since I am living in Asia this year. It's the most important holiday for the Chinese. But the explosion of the fireworks, reminded me of Chinese New Year as a little girl in Taiwan. I remember disliking the loud, inescapable explosion of firecracker that drowned out everything. In China, there is 15 days of fireworks. If I remember correctly, the loud noise is supposed to scare bad spirits away so you can have a good year to look forward to. The noise was a minor nusance over the past few days. Tonight, the sound is so loud and persistent that you just can't ignore it. No wonder people try to escape China during Chinese New Year. I can't even begin to imagine what it must have been like during Chinese New Year's eve. It must have been even worse.
Since it is the first full moon, the tradition is to eat little round dumplings with sweet fillings inside to celebrate. I feel like most Chinese holidays are accompanied by a specific food or foods that you are supposed to eat. We had the dumplings in the office today. Before Chinese New Year, I was told that it was a tradition to make and eat regular meat-filled crescent-shaped dumplings, so we made dumplings in the office. During mid-Autumn festival, the office gave everyone mooncakes per local customs. There is also another holiday where you are supposed to eat bamboo-leaf wrapped rice balls stuffed with meat. I thought it was great that the office provided these foods for everyone since it introduces the foreigners in the office to things that we might not have known about or could not make on our own.
It will be a sleepless night with all this ruckus. It's been going on since dusk and show no sign of relenting. Or does it all just magically end at the stroke of midnight?
After I came back from India, I felt a slight twinge of regret for not spending Chinese New Year in a country that actually celebrates it since I am living in Asia this year. It's the most important holiday for the Chinese. But the explosion of the fireworks, reminded me of Chinese New Year as a little girl in Taiwan. I remember disliking the loud, inescapable explosion of firecracker that drowned out everything. In China, there is 15 days of fireworks. If I remember correctly, the loud noise is supposed to scare bad spirits away so you can have a good year to look forward to. The noise was a minor nusance over the past few days. Tonight, the sound is so loud and persistent that you just can't ignore it. No wonder people try to escape China during Chinese New Year. I can't even begin to imagine what it must have been like during Chinese New Year's eve. It must have been even worse.
Since it is the first full moon, the tradition is to eat little round dumplings with sweet fillings inside to celebrate. I feel like most Chinese holidays are accompanied by a specific food or foods that you are supposed to eat. We had the dumplings in the office today. Before Chinese New Year, I was told that it was a tradition to make and eat regular meat-filled crescent-shaped dumplings, so we made dumplings in the office. During mid-Autumn festival, the office gave everyone mooncakes per local customs. There is also another holiday where you are supposed to eat bamboo-leaf wrapped rice balls stuffed with meat. I thought it was great that the office provided these foods for everyone since it introduces the foreigners in the office to things that we might not have known about or could not make on our own.
It will be a sleepless night with all this ruckus. It's been going on since dusk and show no sign of relenting. Or does it all just magically end at the stroke of midnight?
Monday, February 18, 2008
Jaisalmer, Jaipur and the End of My Trip to India
We arrived in Jaisalmer early in the morning, and went to drop off our bags and grab breakfast inside the Jaisalmer fort before our camel safari with Ganesh Travels. Jaisalmer is called the Golden City, and the golden colored fort towered majesticly as the sun rose. Almost all the buildings were built from the same honey colored stone. From the top of the guest house we stopped at, we can see the impressive, sprawling complex of the Jain temple that Jaisalmer is known for.
I met my camel in the Thar desert after an hour-long jeep ride with my group, which included me, Jia, another American named Andrew (the only male in the group), a girl from Australia named Natasha, a girl from London named Fiona and a couple of Polish girls who were really quiet, as well as our 5 camel drivers (which included 2 kids just 12 and 13). My camel was a 9-year old named Mr. Simon with a crooked nose, caused by a punch in the nose by a crazy Israeli a few years ago. He was not super friendly and would not allow me to pet him, and mostly just chomped and chewed away with me astride it. We were told that it was camel "love season" and Mr. Simon was extremely mellow since he was given a female camel the day before and worked "very hard for an hour." He's not a daddy yet, but a baby camel might be forthcoming next year.
We visited a couple of villages in the desert - isolated, desolate places where the people mainly raised goats and sheep to survive. The women and children were surprisingly aggressive. They asked for the jewelry we wore and when I said no, one of the woman literally tried to ripe my ring off my finger. Needless to say, I was ticked off. The ring was worth more than these people make a year, but rings do not feed people. It is one thing if they asked for contributions to their school, or for food, but stealing people's jewelry is just wrong any way you look at it. Poverty in India is extremely high and prevalent throughout, but out in the desert with only tourism to feed them if they are lucky, the poverty is omnipotent, holding these people firmly in its grip.
We camped out in the desert that night. We played in the sand dunes until dinner - a simple, but tasty meals of chapati and vegetable that our camel drivers cooked in the desert. After dinner, they sang and danced for us. With nothing else to do, it was an early night for everyone. As I layed awake most of the night (sleeping on sand is not exactly comfortable), waiting impatiently for sunrise as the camels chomped and chewed throughout the night, the stars that blanketed us twinkled brightly. I think I would have still preferred it if we had slept in Jaisalmer as opposed to in the desert, but the stars were really amazing and made the experience (my first outdoor camping experience) almost worthwhile. The weather had also warmed up a bit, so I did not even need all of the 10 or so layers that I had packed, worried that we might freeze to death in the desert.
The next morning, we took an hour long camel ride back to our jeep and headed back to the fort. We walked around, ate lunch and showered before heading to the train station for my long ride back to Delhi. On the train, Jia and I met a group of Chinese tourists, including an amazing photographer from Shanghai. His pictures are available on www.xfilm.com.cn. At the last minute, I decided to get off at Jaipur and spend the day there instead of back in Delhi. We visited the City Palace there (not that impressive after the City Palace in Udaipur!) and grabbed lunch before I hopped on a bus to Delhi.
International flights into and out of Delhi all seem to take place in the middle of the night. Mine was at 3:45am. The airport was the definition of chaos. It was managed and run with about as much efficiency as a Communist Commune - none of the airport workers seemed to care much about getting anything done. People everywhere pushed and shoved. It took over 30 minutes to get into the airport, where I was then faced with lines to get my bags screened (another 30+ minutes), check in, go through immigration (took more than an hour!) and finally, security screening (another 20 or so minutes). When I finally made it to customs, the customs officer asked me for my ticket several times. I had an e-ticket and no paper ticket. He was unsatisfied with my itinerary (which clearly indicated electronic ticket). You think that after processing thousands of people, he would have understood the concept of an e-ticket. Anyway, if you have been doing the math, yes - the whole process took over 3 hours. Most flights left late because none of their passengers had made it through all of the lines by the time the planes were supposed to leave. Mine unfortunately, was really delayed on top of that. By the time it was 5am and my flight finally boarded, I was exhausted.
I arrived back in Beijing yesterday afternoon. Beijing was as gray and colorless as usual but it was a welcomed sight. The airport there ran with military efficiency. The customs line took less than 10 minutes as usual. Back in my apartment with indoor heating, it felt good to finally feel warm again. I almost could not pull myself out of bed this morning... It's bratty of me to say this, but it felt good to be back in a developed city.
Ultimately, I think India has a lot of potential as a major tourist destination. The architecture, palaces, and temples are amazing, they have an amazing culture to share, but the sanitation and hygiene left a lot to be desired. Men urinated all over the place, treating India like one big public toilet. Cows and stray dogs deficated everywhere. Public health plays a huge impact on development and India has a long way to go. Delhi was much more under developed than I had expected, not at all what I had imagined the capital of a country going through rapid growth and nothing like the capitals of other developing countries I have visited.
Although I hate to praise China's Communist government, China has done a lot more in terms of poverty alleviation and mandatory education. According to Jia's friend in India, only about 50% of the population is literate. There is no compulsory education system. In many ways, the Indian government is failing its people and assuming that the NGO world will step in and fill the gaps. The population is booming and the country really cannot support the growing masses. One of the camel drivers even commented - people in the villages are like animals. They have huge families of more than 10 people but no way to support, feed and educate everyone. It was sad to see. India's rapid development needs to spread to the masses and not only be concentrated among the wealthy, adding to the already huge wealth gap.
I met my camel in the Thar desert after an hour-long jeep ride with my group, which included me, Jia, another American named Andrew (the only male in the group), a girl from Australia named Natasha, a girl from London named Fiona and a couple of Polish girls who were really quiet, as well as our 5 camel drivers (which included 2 kids just 12 and 13). My camel was a 9-year old named Mr. Simon with a crooked nose, caused by a punch in the nose by a crazy Israeli a few years ago. He was not super friendly and would not allow me to pet him, and mostly just chomped and chewed away with me astride it. We were told that it was camel "love season" and Mr. Simon was extremely mellow since he was given a female camel the day before and worked "very hard for an hour." He's not a daddy yet, but a baby camel might be forthcoming next year.
We visited a couple of villages in the desert - isolated, desolate places where the people mainly raised goats and sheep to survive. The women and children were surprisingly aggressive. They asked for the jewelry we wore and when I said no, one of the woman literally tried to ripe my ring off my finger. Needless to say, I was ticked off. The ring was worth more than these people make a year, but rings do not feed people. It is one thing if they asked for contributions to their school, or for food, but stealing people's jewelry is just wrong any way you look at it. Poverty in India is extremely high and prevalent throughout, but out in the desert with only tourism to feed them if they are lucky, the poverty is omnipotent, holding these people firmly in its grip.
We camped out in the desert that night. We played in the sand dunes until dinner - a simple, but tasty meals of chapati and vegetable that our camel drivers cooked in the desert. After dinner, they sang and danced for us. With nothing else to do, it was an early night for everyone. As I layed awake most of the night (sleeping on sand is not exactly comfortable), waiting impatiently for sunrise as the camels chomped and chewed throughout the night, the stars that blanketed us twinkled brightly. I think I would have still preferred it if we had slept in Jaisalmer as opposed to in the desert, but the stars were really amazing and made the experience (my first outdoor camping experience) almost worthwhile. The weather had also warmed up a bit, so I did not even need all of the 10 or so layers that I had packed, worried that we might freeze to death in the desert.
The next morning, we took an hour long camel ride back to our jeep and headed back to the fort. We walked around, ate lunch and showered before heading to the train station for my long ride back to Delhi. On the train, Jia and I met a group of Chinese tourists, including an amazing photographer from Shanghai. His pictures are available on www.xfilm.com.cn. At the last minute, I decided to get off at Jaipur and spend the day there instead of back in Delhi. We visited the City Palace there (not that impressive after the City Palace in Udaipur!) and grabbed lunch before I hopped on a bus to Delhi.
International flights into and out of Delhi all seem to take place in the middle of the night. Mine was at 3:45am. The airport was the definition of chaos. It was managed and run with about as much efficiency as a Communist Commune - none of the airport workers seemed to care much about getting anything done. People everywhere pushed and shoved. It took over 30 minutes to get into the airport, where I was then faced with lines to get my bags screened (another 30+ minutes), check in, go through immigration (took more than an hour!) and finally, security screening (another 20 or so minutes). When I finally made it to customs, the customs officer asked me for my ticket several times. I had an e-ticket and no paper ticket. He was unsatisfied with my itinerary (which clearly indicated electronic ticket). You think that after processing thousands of people, he would have understood the concept of an e-ticket. Anyway, if you have been doing the math, yes - the whole process took over 3 hours. Most flights left late because none of their passengers had made it through all of the lines by the time the planes were supposed to leave. Mine unfortunately, was really delayed on top of that. By the time it was 5am and my flight finally boarded, I was exhausted.
I arrived back in Beijing yesterday afternoon. Beijing was as gray and colorless as usual but it was a welcomed sight. The airport there ran with military efficiency. The customs line took less than 10 minutes as usual. Back in my apartment with indoor heating, it felt good to finally feel warm again. I almost could not pull myself out of bed this morning... It's bratty of me to say this, but it felt good to be back in a developed city.
Ultimately, I think India has a lot of potential as a major tourist destination. The architecture, palaces, and temples are amazing, they have an amazing culture to share, but the sanitation and hygiene left a lot to be desired. Men urinated all over the place, treating India like one big public toilet. Cows and stray dogs deficated everywhere. Public health plays a huge impact on development and India has a long way to go. Delhi was much more under developed than I had expected, not at all what I had imagined the capital of a country going through rapid growth and nothing like the capitals of other developing countries I have visited.
Although I hate to praise China's Communist government, China has done a lot more in terms of poverty alleviation and mandatory education. According to Jia's friend in India, only about 50% of the population is literate. There is no compulsory education system. In many ways, the Indian government is failing its people and assuming that the NGO world will step in and fill the gaps. The population is booming and the country really cannot support the growing masses. One of the camel drivers even commented - people in the villages are like animals. They have huge families of more than 10 people but no way to support, feed and educate everyone. It was sad to see. India's rapid development needs to spread to the masses and not only be concentrated among the wealthy, adding to the already huge wealth gap.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Udaipur & Jodhpur
We arrived in Udaipur at 2:30am in the morning, after a long, cold, miserable, though not quite as hellish bus ride, only to find our hotel completely shut for the evening. Our banging on the windows managed to wake the entire neighborhood, all except for the hotel's receptionist. We ended up staying at a guesthouse right next door that night, without heat or hot water. Sabrina, Jia and I literally had to huddled together for warmth. Lack of indoor heating has made our trip to India almost unbearably cold. The next morning, we quickly checked into our hotel where a hot shower made us feel so much better.
Udaipur is often called the Venice of India. Several man-made lakes surround the city, with a system of canals of some sort feeding them. Lake Pichola, right by Ganguar Ghat where we stayed, is the largest of the lakes. In the center of the lake is the Lake Palace, an ultra-exclusive hotel that you can't even visit unless you are staying or eating there. Luckily for us, there were several other palaces that we could visit, including the City Palace and the Monsoon Palace. Part of the City Palace has been converted into a museum open to the public. The palace, right by Lake Pichola, was beautiful. The other half of the palace has been converted into several exclusive hotels that you can't visit either unless you were staying there. We were allowed to walk through the grounds (although we had to pay for the privilege) on our way to the City Palace jetty where we caught our boat for a boat ride around the lake. In the center of the lake was another palace on Jagmandir Island. It was lovely, with a cafe on the open air garden and terraces that had with fantastic views of all of Udaipur, including the Lake Palace and the City Palace. There is a restaurant there that is probably incredibly lovely at night, although we did not eat there.
The Monsoon Palace is perched on top of a hill overlooking all of Udaipur. Jia and I went up there with her friend Anuja. Our little autorickshaw definitely had a bit of trouble making it up there, but we made it in time for sunset. There is not much to the palace itself, but it is, without a doubt, the best place to view the sunset over Udaipur. We sat atop the stone walls of the palace overlooking the city as the sky changed colors from blue to shades of orange, red and yellow until finally the sun disappeared over the hills. Afterwards, we went to Anuja's place where her cook whipped us a delicious, traditional Rajasthani dinner of dhal with wheat balls.
We left for Jodhpur by bus early the next morning. The supposedly 5 hour direct to Jodhpur bus ride became a 7+ hour ride with multiple random stops in between. But we nonetheless got here in time to visit the amazing Mehrangarh Fort. The fort was perched on top of a hill which we climbed. We had a fabulous view of the oldest section of Jodhpur from the fort, which is painted almost entirely in blue. Thus, Jodhpur is known as the blue city (Udaipur is known as the white city, Jaipur (which we skipped) the pink city and Jaisalmer (where we are going next) the Gold City). The palace within the fort was surprisingly amazingly well maintained, with intricate and detailed architecture, and a really well-done museum complete with an informative audio guide. Jia and I had to zip through the fort since it was about to close but nonetheless, we were glad we had the opportunity to see it.
We are heading to Jaisalmer by train tonight. In Jaisalmer, Jia and I are going on a camel safari where we will be spending a romantic Valentine's day with each other - in the Thar Desert. We are almost certain we will freeze to death since we don't have the right clothing for the weather, but I did pick up a sweatshirt at the fabulous price of 50 rupees in Udaipur, which will hopefully make it a bit more bearable.
Udaipur is often called the Venice of India. Several man-made lakes surround the city, with a system of canals of some sort feeding them. Lake Pichola, right by Ganguar Ghat where we stayed, is the largest of the lakes. In the center of the lake is the Lake Palace, an ultra-exclusive hotel that you can't even visit unless you are staying or eating there. Luckily for us, there were several other palaces that we could visit, including the City Palace and the Monsoon Palace. Part of the City Palace has been converted into a museum open to the public. The palace, right by Lake Pichola, was beautiful. The other half of the palace has been converted into several exclusive hotels that you can't visit either unless you were staying there. We were allowed to walk through the grounds (although we had to pay for the privilege) on our way to the City Palace jetty where we caught our boat for a boat ride around the lake. In the center of the lake was another palace on Jagmandir Island. It was lovely, with a cafe on the open air garden and terraces that had with fantastic views of all of Udaipur, including the Lake Palace and the City Palace. There is a restaurant there that is probably incredibly lovely at night, although we did not eat there.
The Monsoon Palace is perched on top of a hill overlooking all of Udaipur. Jia and I went up there with her friend Anuja. Our little autorickshaw definitely had a bit of trouble making it up there, but we made it in time for sunset. There is not much to the palace itself, but it is, without a doubt, the best place to view the sunset over Udaipur. We sat atop the stone walls of the palace overlooking the city as the sky changed colors from blue to shades of orange, red and yellow until finally the sun disappeared over the hills. Afterwards, we went to Anuja's place where her cook whipped us a delicious, traditional Rajasthani dinner of dhal with wheat balls.
We left for Jodhpur by bus early the next morning. The supposedly 5 hour direct to Jodhpur bus ride became a 7+ hour ride with multiple random stops in between. But we nonetheless got here in time to visit the amazing Mehrangarh Fort. The fort was perched on top of a hill which we climbed. We had a fabulous view of the oldest section of Jodhpur from the fort, which is painted almost entirely in blue. Thus, Jodhpur is known as the blue city (Udaipur is known as the white city, Jaipur (which we skipped) the pink city and Jaisalmer (where we are going next) the Gold City). The palace within the fort was surprisingly amazingly well maintained, with intricate and detailed architecture, and a really well-done museum complete with an informative audio guide. Jia and I had to zip through the fort since it was about to close but nonetheless, we were glad we had the opportunity to see it.
We are heading to Jaisalmer by train tonight. In Jaisalmer, Jia and I are going on a camel safari where we will be spending a romantic Valentine's day with each other - in the Thar Desert. We are almost certain we will freeze to death since we don't have the right clothing for the weather, but I did pick up a sweatshirt at the fabulous price of 50 rupees in Udaipur, which will hopefully make it a bit more bearable.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Agra and Pushkar
The majestic Taj Mahal, the Baby Taj, Akbar's Mausoleum and the other sights in Agra and Fatephur Sikri truly demonstrate the incredible architecture and magnificent artistry of the Mughul empire. We spent our first day in Agra visiting Fatephur Sikri, the site of Akbar the Great's capital during his reign. The old city walls encompass an impressive mosque and his beautiful palace. The impressive gate to the mosque was covered, of all random things, by huge honey combs. Beside the mosque, there was a beautiful marble shrine on the inside, with amazing carved lattice windows, all carved out of marble. The multi-story palace was airy and open, with large courtyards. The city was abandoned after Akbar's death due to the lack of water and the capital moved to Agra, where Agra Fort and a new palace was built. Today, there is a lively and chaotic market and approximately 40,000 people reside here.
Agra, like the rest of India, is crowded and chaotic. There is development right up to the gates and walls of the Taj Mahal. We tried to wake up in time to see it at sunrise, but it was freezing and cloudy so we promptly abandoned the idea and went right back to sleep. But the Taj was beautiful anyway. Even seeing the Taj for the second time was incredible - it is quite simply, magical. We grabbed lunch at a nearby rooftop restaurant where we ate with a view of the Taj in the background. Afterwards, we went to Sikandra to see Akbar's mausoleum, an impressive red sandstone structure decorated with marble inlay. We followed that with a visit to the Baby Taj, the first Mughul structure built entirely out of marble. It is much smaller than the Taj, but the details and design was even more intricate than the Taj. As the sun set, we went to view the Taj from the other side of the river, where we saw the back of the Taj. It never gets old.
However, living in the shadow of the magnificent Taj were some of the poorest people in India. In a small tent city, there lived hundreds who did not have real abodes. Despite the rapid pace of development in India, this is still one of the poorest countries in the world. In fact, it makes China look amazing in comparison. Children begging without shoes as well as adults, and the litter, fecal matter and urine strewn about everywhere on the streets detracts from the amazing sights and culture India has to offer and serve as a reminder that India still has a long way to go in terms of development.
We took an overnight bus to Ajmer, the closest big town to Pushkar. The bus ride was an experience to say the least. It was freezing and the bus made multiple noisy stops that made it impossible to sleep. We finally got to Ajmer at 5:30am in the morning. We were cold and tired, but found a place at the railroad station to store out luggage, then hopped on the bus to Pushkar. When we got to Pushkar, nothing was open. Things in India open surprisingly late. Even in Delhi, nothing opened until 10am. We made a half-loop around a empty, deserted town before finding a cafe open for breakfast. Post-breakfast, the town came to life. Dozens of little stores selling shawls, clothing, jewelry and other items opened and people were everywhere. We shopped, visited the Brahmin temple and walked around the ghats by the lake. The lake was small but pretty, dotted with colorful pilgrims who were visiting this holy Hindu city, and pretty pale blue and white buildings on little hills. It was nice and relaxing, and full of hippies from Europe enjoying the chill pace of life.
We rushed back to Ajmer hoping to make it in time for our train to Udaipur, which we missed. Plan B is a bus to Udaipur, which we are determined not to miss.
Agra, like the rest of India, is crowded and chaotic. There is development right up to the gates and walls of the Taj Mahal. We tried to wake up in time to see it at sunrise, but it was freezing and cloudy so we promptly abandoned the idea and went right back to sleep. But the Taj was beautiful anyway. Even seeing the Taj for the second time was incredible - it is quite simply, magical. We grabbed lunch at a nearby rooftop restaurant where we ate with a view of the Taj in the background. Afterwards, we went to Sikandra to see Akbar's mausoleum, an impressive red sandstone structure decorated with marble inlay. We followed that with a visit to the Baby Taj, the first Mughul structure built entirely out of marble. It is much smaller than the Taj, but the details and design was even more intricate than the Taj. As the sun set, we went to view the Taj from the other side of the river, where we saw the back of the Taj. It never gets old.
However, living in the shadow of the magnificent Taj were some of the poorest people in India. In a small tent city, there lived hundreds who did not have real abodes. Despite the rapid pace of development in India, this is still one of the poorest countries in the world. In fact, it makes China look amazing in comparison. Children begging without shoes as well as adults, and the litter, fecal matter and urine strewn about everywhere on the streets detracts from the amazing sights and culture India has to offer and serve as a reminder that India still has a long way to go in terms of development.
We took an overnight bus to Ajmer, the closest big town to Pushkar. The bus ride was an experience to say the least. It was freezing and the bus made multiple noisy stops that made it impossible to sleep. We finally got to Ajmer at 5:30am in the morning. We were cold and tired, but found a place at the railroad station to store out luggage, then hopped on the bus to Pushkar. When we got to Pushkar, nothing was open. Things in India open surprisingly late. Even in Delhi, nothing opened until 10am. We made a half-loop around a empty, deserted town before finding a cafe open for breakfast. Post-breakfast, the town came to life. Dozens of little stores selling shawls, clothing, jewelry and other items opened and people were everywhere. We shopped, visited the Brahmin temple and walked around the ghats by the lake. The lake was small but pretty, dotted with colorful pilgrims who were visiting this holy Hindu city, and pretty pale blue and white buildings on little hills. It was nice and relaxing, and full of hippies from Europe enjoying the chill pace of life.
We rushed back to Ajmer hoping to make it in time for our train to Udaipur, which we missed. Plan B is a bus to Udaipur, which we are determined not to miss.
Friday, February 8, 2008
Varanasi
Varanasi, simply put, was chaos personified. Our visit there was truly a unique and crazy experience. It is one of Hinduism's holiest places, where millions of Hindus come to to bathe in the Ganges, whose holy water is supposed to wash away their sins, and the place that people go to be cremated after death at the burning ghats. Jia and I stayed at a local hotel by Meer Ghat along the Ganges, and spent our first afternoon visiting the Viswarnath Temple and walking along the many ghats. We were assured that if we had never seen a dead body before, we would do so in Varanasi. At the ghats, we saw people bathing and yes, corpses being burned at the Manikarnika Ghat, the main burning ghat. Piles of wood were stacked up high all around for that purpose. We saw a body wrapped in a colorful piece of cloth, carried through the streets toward the ghat. The cremation process at the burning ghats is suppose to free people from the cycle of birth and rebirth.
Early the next morning, we took a boat ride in the fog on the Ganges where we observed the pilgrims that have come to Varanasi to bathe in the Ganges. Thousands of people were bathing by Desaswamedh Ghat, the main ghat, where throngs of people covered every free inch of space on the steps of the ghat. While there were fewer people at the other ghats, all the ghats were buzzing with life, as people washed their clothes and laundry and washed themselves in the river. The weather in Northern India was surprisingly cold, and the water probably even colder, but nevertheless, the pilgrims eagerly jumped in for ablution. We rowed by Manikarnika Ghat again, where we observed the watery burial of a baby. It was carefully put on a boat by relatives, then rowed to the middle of the river where its body was thrown overboard.
After the boat ride, Jia and I took a yoga class at one of the yoga training centers. The teacher was a bit crazy but the class was good nonetheless. We then got an ayuvedic or energy massage which was the most bizarre experience. It would be an understatement to say that we felt really uncomfortable. The masseuse kept telling us we needed male energy. Towards the end, we just told him we were done and had to leave. Ultimately, we couldn't tell if he was a real masseuse or not, and if the massage is anything like what an ayuvedic massage should be like.
Aside from the religious rites, Varanasi was also an assault on the senses. Cows, goats, sheep and dogs roamed freely, and the pungent smell of animal fecal matter, which littered the street, and human bodies and waste was overbearing at times. The twisted, narrow streets in the Old Town were crowded with visitors and locals alike, and the cows that are considered Gods. Avoiding stepping on sometime unpleasant, the touts that were so pervasive as well as the animals on the street made walking an obstacle course that required your constant attention. It is definitely not for the faint of heart and after two days, I was relieved we were heading to Agra.
Early the next morning, we took a boat ride in the fog on the Ganges where we observed the pilgrims that have come to Varanasi to bathe in the Ganges. Thousands of people were bathing by Desaswamedh Ghat, the main ghat, where throngs of people covered every free inch of space on the steps of the ghat. While there were fewer people at the other ghats, all the ghats were buzzing with life, as people washed their clothes and laundry and washed themselves in the river. The weather in Northern India was surprisingly cold, and the water probably even colder, but nevertheless, the pilgrims eagerly jumped in for ablution. We rowed by Manikarnika Ghat again, where we observed the watery burial of a baby. It was carefully put on a boat by relatives, then rowed to the middle of the river where its body was thrown overboard.
After the boat ride, Jia and I took a yoga class at one of the yoga training centers. The teacher was a bit crazy but the class was good nonetheless. We then got an ayuvedic or energy massage which was the most bizarre experience. It would be an understatement to say that we felt really uncomfortable. The masseuse kept telling us we needed male energy. Towards the end, we just told him we were done and had to leave. Ultimately, we couldn't tell if he was a real masseuse or not, and if the massage is anything like what an ayuvedic massage should be like.
Aside from the religious rites, Varanasi was also an assault on the senses. Cows, goats, sheep and dogs roamed freely, and the pungent smell of animal fecal matter, which littered the street, and human bodies and waste was overbearing at times. The twisted, narrow streets in the Old Town were crowded with visitors and locals alike, and the cows that are considered Gods. Avoiding stepping on sometime unpleasant, the touts that were so pervasive as well as the animals on the street made walking an obstacle course that required your constant attention. It is definitely not for the faint of heart and after two days, I was relieved we were heading to Agra.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Wedding, Delhi City Tour and the Taj Mahal
Nisha's wedding officially started at 7pm, although the groom's guests gathered at 5:30pm to start dancing down the street, a big part of the wedding festivities on the groom's side. The groom sat in a horse-drawn carriage at the end of the procession, while the musicians played in the street and the guests danced their way to the huge tent set up for the wedding. I was told to arrive at the tent around 6:50 to see this happening, but after getting stuck in traffic behind the procession, I got out of the car and joined the groom's friends. It was loud, chaotic and fun. When we finally arrived, Nishant's friends formed a line to keep him from entering, as if to prolong his last few minutes as a single, unmarried man. Finally, they carried him in.
On the female side, the guests slowly arrived on their own time, filling the massive tent beautifully decorated with flowers and chandeliers. Over 1,000 guests were in attendance. The women's saris and lenghes were even more spectacular tonight. The bride arrive after the groom, quietly making her way to the stage, looking ethereal in a beautiful pink dress so ornately decorated it weighted 20 kgs (44 pounds). The bride and groom exchanged garlands of flowers, then greeting their guests. The actual wedding ceremond did not start until 1am in the morning. Until that point, everyone just ate and chatted. The massive buffet included dozens of dishes and an army of servers passed out hors d'oeurves all night.
The wedding ceremony took place at Nisha's house and involved a series of pujas (or prayers). The bride and groom had to walk around this holy fire kept lit by ghee 7 times, once for each of seven promises they made to each other. The ceremony took 3 hours, before ending on an emotional note whe Nisha bade her family and parents goodbye and left to joing her new family.
The day after the wedding, I joined Nishant's friends on a tour of Delhi. We visited the Qutb Minar and Jama Masjid, drove by the Red Fort, Lotus Temple and the government buildings. That night, we attended an elaborate reception for 1,300 people where the bride and groom greeted people as an officially married couple for the first time.
The day after the reception, we went to Agra to visit the Taj Mahal, often referred to as the greatest monument ever built for love. The Taj Mahal was breath takingly beautiful, an elegant, perfectly-symmetrical white marble structure set against the blue sky. It truly blew me away ad exceeded all of my expectations. To say it is incredible would be an understatement. We also visited the Agra Fort where Emperor Shah Jahan's palace was located and from which he had a perfect view of the Taj Mahal in the distance.
After returning to Delhi late that night, we had a late dinner, slept for 3 hours and then woke up at 4:30am to watch the SuperBowl. Watching the Super Bowl in India was definitely not something I had expected, but it was fun and the Giants won!
Jia arrived on the 5th and we left for Varanasi right away.
On the female side, the guests slowly arrived on their own time, filling the massive tent beautifully decorated with flowers and chandeliers. Over 1,000 guests were in attendance. The women's saris and lenghes were even more spectacular tonight. The bride arrive after the groom, quietly making her way to the stage, looking ethereal in a beautiful pink dress so ornately decorated it weighted 20 kgs (44 pounds). The bride and groom exchanged garlands of flowers, then greeting their guests. The actual wedding ceremond did not start until 1am in the morning. Until that point, everyone just ate and chatted. The massive buffet included dozens of dishes and an army of servers passed out hors d'oeurves all night.
The wedding ceremony took place at Nisha's house and involved a series of pujas (or prayers). The bride and groom had to walk around this holy fire kept lit by ghee 7 times, once for each of seven promises they made to each other. The ceremony took 3 hours, before ending on an emotional note whe Nisha bade her family and parents goodbye and left to joing her new family.
The day after the wedding, I joined Nishant's friends on a tour of Delhi. We visited the Qutb Minar and Jama Masjid, drove by the Red Fort, Lotus Temple and the government buildings. That night, we attended an elaborate reception for 1,300 people where the bride and groom greeted people as an officially married couple for the first time.
The day after the reception, we went to Agra to visit the Taj Mahal, often referred to as the greatest monument ever built for love. The Taj Mahal was breath takingly beautiful, an elegant, perfectly-symmetrical white marble structure set against the blue sky. It truly blew me away ad exceeded all of my expectations. To say it is incredible would be an understatement. We also visited the Agra Fort where Emperor Shah Jahan's palace was located and from which he had a perfect view of the Taj Mahal in the distance.
After returning to Delhi late that night, we had a late dinner, slept for 3 hours and then woke up at 4:30am to watch the SuperBowl. Watching the Super Bowl in India was definitely not something I had expected, but it was fun and the Giants won!
Jia arrived on the 5th and we left for Varanasi right away.
Friday, February 1, 2008
First Impressions of Delhi
I arrived at Delhi airport at the ungodly hour of 3:30am a couple of nights ago, so I would make it in time for Nisha's engagement party the next morning. The event took place at the Maurya Hotel. All the women were dressed in beautiful, colorful saris and langas of every color, making me feel like a plain ugly duckling in my plain black dress. First came the groom's ceremony, where a group of men chanted something in Hindi around Nishant, the fiance, on the stage before giving him his engagement ring while everyone watched from below. Nisha arrived afterwards, looking absolutely radiant in a traditional Indian outfit of light and dark green. She was showered with gifts from him and his family, including an incredibly beautiful diamond necklace set and of course, the diamond engagement ring. An army of photographers documented the event like paparazzis. This was followed by dances by Nisha and Nishant's wedding parties. I would have been included in Nisha's group if I had arrived early enough to learn the dances. They were fun to watch - teasing the soon to be bride and groom about falling in love and getting shackled in marriage. Of course, tons of food followed afterwards. There was so many courses that I couldn't even try a bit of everything for that would be too much food.
In the evening, the guy and girl's events split. Nishant's side rented a huge club in Delhi for what was essentially a bachelor party. The girls went to Nisha's house for henna and another small traditional ceremony. I had henna done for the first time on one hand. It took hours to dry making it impossible to do anything. It dried a bright orange on my hand, leaving behind an intricate design. Nisha had it done on both arms up to her elbow and on her feet. Her design was incredibly dense and intricate, taking the 2 henna artists over an hour to do. She was so handicapped by the henna that she had to be fed her dinner, which was an elaborate, fully catered chaat bar, completely different than the curry based lunch we had.
This morning, before heading to Nisha's house again for the Goddess ceremony and other ceremonies at noon, I went to the New Delhi train station to purchase train tickets for my trip in India with Jia and Sabrina. The event was stressful - most tickets were completely sold out with long waitlists. There is a tourist quota that required passports to purchase but I only had my own. So I had to purchase tickets at the general quota area. The Indian train reservation system was really complex. I muddled through it as best as I could but only procured a fraction of the tickets we would need.
The station was seedy to say the least, and showed a stark contrast to the elaborate engagement I had witnessed the day before. Poverty is a huge problem and the area by the train station seemed worlds away from the beautiful, gated Sunder Nagar neighborhood I am currently staying at by Nisha's house. It was loud, dirty and gritty. Men milled around everywhere, openingly staring, making it rather uncomfortable as a female, even though I had a driver with me. Rather open public urinals (mostly for men) euphemistically called "Public Convenience" are everywhere. I had originally planned to travel for a couple of days on my own if I could not meet up with Micah, but now it no longer seems like a good idea. Still working on a Plan B. I might go to Agra with Nishant's friends from the States even though I will be going with Jia and Sabrina. Jia and I are going to Varanasi together, then meeting Sabrina in Agra from where we will head to Ajmer/Pushkar, Udaipur, Jodhpur and Jaisalmer before I head back to Delhi for my flight.
I arrived at Nisha's house in time for the first ceremony where everyone dabbed oil and some colorful powder all over her head, shoulder, knee and feet. I did this as well. It could not have been comfortable for Nisha though! The guests were feed little snacks of samosas and pakoras while waiting for her to get cleaned up. Then came another ceremony where she had a pink string tied around her wrist. Afterwards, people walked around her in a circle, throwing rice that she passed to everyone as part of the Goddess ceremony. She was given gifts and people paid her respect by touching her feet. Then she left to go to the salon where she will get dolled up again. Her dress will weight almost 20 pounds she told me yesterday.
Over 1,000 guests will be in attendance tonight at the wedding. There will be food galore again, and a couple of ceremonies, including the wedding ceremony which will officially make them husband and wife. I hastily picked up a dress yesterday since I did not have anything suitable for a wedding - a fancy beaded black dress that looks a bit more Indian than what I wore yesterday. Hoping to fit in a bit better this time. The festivities start at 7pm and will last until 4am. One MIT alum from the class of '69 who interviewed Nisha jokingly said that in India, the divorce rate is so low because no one wanted to go through another wedding ceremony again after going through their first. They are long and exhausting for both the groom and bride. It will be a spectacle!
In the evening, the guy and girl's events split. Nishant's side rented a huge club in Delhi for what was essentially a bachelor party. The girls went to Nisha's house for henna and another small traditional ceremony. I had henna done for the first time on one hand. It took hours to dry making it impossible to do anything. It dried a bright orange on my hand, leaving behind an intricate design. Nisha had it done on both arms up to her elbow and on her feet. Her design was incredibly dense and intricate, taking the 2 henna artists over an hour to do. She was so handicapped by the henna that she had to be fed her dinner, which was an elaborate, fully catered chaat bar, completely different than the curry based lunch we had.
This morning, before heading to Nisha's house again for the Goddess ceremony and other ceremonies at noon, I went to the New Delhi train station to purchase train tickets for my trip in India with Jia and Sabrina. The event was stressful - most tickets were completely sold out with long waitlists. There is a tourist quota that required passports to purchase but I only had my own. So I had to purchase tickets at the general quota area. The Indian train reservation system was really complex. I muddled through it as best as I could but only procured a fraction of the tickets we would need.
The station was seedy to say the least, and showed a stark contrast to the elaborate engagement I had witnessed the day before. Poverty is a huge problem and the area by the train station seemed worlds away from the beautiful, gated Sunder Nagar neighborhood I am currently staying at by Nisha's house. It was loud, dirty and gritty. Men milled around everywhere, openingly staring, making it rather uncomfortable as a female, even though I had a driver with me. Rather open public urinals (mostly for men) euphemistically called "Public Convenience" are everywhere. I had originally planned to travel for a couple of days on my own if I could not meet up with Micah, but now it no longer seems like a good idea. Still working on a Plan B. I might go to Agra with Nishant's friends from the States even though I will be going with Jia and Sabrina. Jia and I are going to Varanasi together, then meeting Sabrina in Agra from where we will head to Ajmer/Pushkar, Udaipur, Jodhpur and Jaisalmer before I head back to Delhi for my flight.
I arrived at Nisha's house in time for the first ceremony where everyone dabbed oil and some colorful powder all over her head, shoulder, knee and feet. I did this as well. It could not have been comfortable for Nisha though! The guests were feed little snacks of samosas and pakoras while waiting for her to get cleaned up. Then came another ceremony where she had a pink string tied around her wrist. Afterwards, people walked around her in a circle, throwing rice that she passed to everyone as part of the Goddess ceremony. She was given gifts and people paid her respect by touching her feet. Then she left to go to the salon where she will get dolled up again. Her dress will weight almost 20 pounds she told me yesterday.
Over 1,000 guests will be in attendance tonight at the wedding. There will be food galore again, and a couple of ceremonies, including the wedding ceremony which will officially make them husband and wife. I hastily picked up a dress yesterday since I did not have anything suitable for a wedding - a fancy beaded black dress that looks a bit more Indian than what I wore yesterday. Hoping to fit in a bit better this time. The festivities start at 7pm and will last until 4am. One MIT alum from the class of '69 who interviewed Nisha jokingly said that in India, the divorce rate is so low because no one wanted to go through another wedding ceremony again after going through their first. They are long and exhausting for both the groom and bride. It will be a spectacle!
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Ice Skating, Skiing and… Roller-Skating!
Winter sports like ice skating and skiing are still pretty new in China, but it’s definitely available. And recently, it’s been really cold in Beijing, so I decided to explore what winter in Beijing had to offer. I went ice skating on Houhai, a lake north of the Forbidden City (probably man-made), with friends a couple of weekends ago. It was packed with people, many of whom could not really skate. But the Chinese have come up with a hilarious solution for those people – recycled school chairs tacked on a little sled that people can sit on and get pushed around the ice. A lot of people simply just walk on the ice without skates too. And unlike ice skating in the States, there is actually quite a few speed skaters on the ice too, some of whom were really good. The ice is only resurfaced once a day so it’s pretty messed up by the afternoon. It was good, wholesome fun, but absolutely freezing (still can’t compare to Harbin!).
This past weekend, my friends Kumi and Morgan convinced me to go skiing. I haven’t skied in many years. Frankly, I’m terrible at it and terrified of slopes. Not a good combination. But Chinese people really do not know how to ski and the slopes here are short and easy. It really was a confidence booster to any bad skier. Definitely a good place to learn to ski – they have ski attendants whose sole job is to rush from fallen skier to fallen skier and pick them up. When someone knocked me over, my friend happened to be calling so the guy even helped me unzip my jacket pocket and hand me my cell phone. He then stood there waiting for me to be done. While I was taking this call in an awkward position lying on my back on the slope, another skier came too precariously close to me so another attendant ran over to guard me as well. After I was done talking, the two of them picked me up. Talk about service (which is usually horrible in China)! The only downside to the bunny slope was that it was super crowded and lining up to go on the lifts took forever. I think I only managed to make it up the hill 5 times in 4 hours. I also fell off the lift once and had to climb up the hill carrying my skis. While I had fun skiing, the equipment is just too heavy for me to ever love it. Maybe I should try snowboarding next time.
After skiing, we grabbed a super late lunch, attended a modern dance performance and then went ROLLER SKATING!! The rink was super ghetto and dark, but roller skating is definitely a sport that the Chinese excel at. While I teetered precariously in my roller skates, the Chinese were zipping by backwards and forwards with fancy footwork. And a Chinese guy came up to me to ask me for permission to “take your friends to play.” I was so confused until I realized he just wanted to drag them around the rink. The episode was hysterical since Kumi thought he was harassing me or trying to pick me up and kept shouting “leave her alone” and “get away from her” while the whole time, he was trying to pick her and Morgan up.
Our super active weekends have been awesome so we’re planning to go camping on the Great Wall and horseback riding on the grasslands when it warms up. But in the meantime, I’m leaving for India tomorrow! Unexpectedly got an email from a friend inviting me to a wedding in New Delhi, so I'm going to take part in my first Indian wedding. Should be an amazing 3-day affair. Then I'm traveling around Rajasthan, going to Agra to see the Taj Mahal and going to Varansi to visit one of India's holiest cities with a couple of friends, Jia and Sabrina. So excited!
This past weekend, my friends Kumi and Morgan convinced me to go skiing. I haven’t skied in many years. Frankly, I’m terrible at it and terrified of slopes. Not a good combination. But Chinese people really do not know how to ski and the slopes here are short and easy. It really was a confidence booster to any bad skier. Definitely a good place to learn to ski – they have ski attendants whose sole job is to rush from fallen skier to fallen skier and pick them up. When someone knocked me over, my friend happened to be calling so the guy even helped me unzip my jacket pocket and hand me my cell phone. He then stood there waiting for me to be done. While I was taking this call in an awkward position lying on my back on the slope, another skier came too precariously close to me so another attendant ran over to guard me as well. After I was done talking, the two of them picked me up. Talk about service (which is usually horrible in China)! The only downside to the bunny slope was that it was super crowded and lining up to go on the lifts took forever. I think I only managed to make it up the hill 5 times in 4 hours. I also fell off the lift once and had to climb up the hill carrying my skis. While I had fun skiing, the equipment is just too heavy for me to ever love it. Maybe I should try snowboarding next time.
After skiing, we grabbed a super late lunch, attended a modern dance performance and then went ROLLER SKATING!! The rink was super ghetto and dark, but roller skating is definitely a sport that the Chinese excel at. While I teetered precariously in my roller skates, the Chinese were zipping by backwards and forwards with fancy footwork. And a Chinese guy came up to me to ask me for permission to “take your friends to play.” I was so confused until I realized he just wanted to drag them around the rink. The episode was hysterical since Kumi thought he was harassing me or trying to pick me up and kept shouting “leave her alone” and “get away from her” while the whole time, he was trying to pick her and Morgan up.
Our super active weekends have been awesome so we’re planning to go camping on the Great Wall and horseback riding on the grasslands when it warms up. But in the meantime, I’m leaving for India tomorrow! Unexpectedly got an email from a friend inviting me to a wedding in New Delhi, so I'm going to take part in my first Indian wedding. Should be an amazing 3-day affair. Then I'm traveling around Rajasthan, going to Agra to see the Taj Mahal and going to Varansi to visit one of India's holiest cities with a couple of friends, Jia and Sabrina. So excited!
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Cashmere and the Environment
Beijing has sandstorms each year as winter turns into spring, a problem that has been getting noticeably worse in recent years. Friends warned me about the phenomenon before I moved out here. The Clinton Foundation also has a Climate Initiative that is working actively in China in addition to our work on HIV/AIDS. My colleague there told me that in 2006, the sandstorms were so bad that each morning, you would wake up to a thick coating of sand over everything outside.
The answer to what was causing it surprised me - cashmere. Somehow the topic of cashmere and how its recent popularity as a luxury fabric is contributing to environmental degradation came up several times this past week. The demand for the product has led to the boom of the industry in Mongolia where farmers began to raise camels, sheep and goats with no concern to whether the land could support the burden of so many additional new animals. As the industry is unregulated and farmers are only in it for a quick buck, no one has been replanting the grasslands that are quickly being chewed up. As a result, Mongolian grasslands are slowly disappearing and converting to desert at an increasingly rapid pace. And as Spring winds blow, the sand gets carried from the Gobi desert all the way to Beijing, coating the city in a layer of powder. Meanwhile, the animals are starving and beginning to attack each other.
I've purchased some beautiful and amazingly soft Mongolian cashmere sweaters since arriving in Beijing. Now, I am reconsidering whether I will buy more cashmere, often referred to as "soft gold" here due to its value, in the future. Though I love it, it does make me feel guilty to be contributing to the problem. I guess we will see how it goes this Spring. Definitely not looking forward to the sandstorms, but I am already prepared with my silk scarf, which I acquired at the advice of friends (to cover and protect my face during the storms).
The answer to what was causing it surprised me - cashmere. Somehow the topic of cashmere and how its recent popularity as a luxury fabric is contributing to environmental degradation came up several times this past week. The demand for the product has led to the boom of the industry in Mongolia where farmers began to raise camels, sheep and goats with no concern to whether the land could support the burden of so many additional new animals. As the industry is unregulated and farmers are only in it for a quick buck, no one has been replanting the grasslands that are quickly being chewed up. As a result, Mongolian grasslands are slowly disappearing and converting to desert at an increasingly rapid pace. And as Spring winds blow, the sand gets carried from the Gobi desert all the way to Beijing, coating the city in a layer of powder. Meanwhile, the animals are starving and beginning to attack each other.
I've purchased some beautiful and amazingly soft Mongolian cashmere sweaters since arriving in Beijing. Now, I am reconsidering whether I will buy more cashmere, often referred to as "soft gold" here due to its value, in the future. Though I love it, it does make me feel guilty to be contributing to the problem. I guess we will see how it goes this Spring. Definitely not looking forward to the sandstorms, but I am already prepared with my silk scarf, which I acquired at the advice of friends (to cover and protect my face during the storms).
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Food & Culture
Last night, I couldn't resist the temptations of sushi, one of the foods I eat only rarely here since it's hard to tell how safe it is to consume. Afterall, the States banned the import of all seafood from China unless inspected - not exactly a sounding endorsement for Chinese fish. It does make even an avid sushi eater think twice about eating raw fish.
The extensive menu at the restaurant featured horse carpaccio, something that I would be unwilling to try (even though it's a delicacy in Japan!) and somehow, the conversation turned to sharing "war" stories about the strange foods that we've been offered (and sometimes forced to eat) so as not to insult our hosts. So far, I've been given duck beaks (did not eat), camel meat (actually did try this one), donkey meat (passed on this one), and most recently, duck tongue (really expensive but avoided - really creepy looking), but one of the doctors who just moved down to Yunnan Province had some pretty funny stories about the things that she's had to deal with. Some of the areas we work in are really impoverished, but nonetheless, they try to treat us to the most expensive delicacies of their region when we visit, as a way of honoring their guests. That's why foreigners and guests are often offered things like the head of the fish or the head of the duck and chicken. They put the duck of the peking duck they carved up in front of you on a plate, to prove to you that it was whole. And it's supposedly supposed to be one of the best parts of the duck. Ironically, we find these things a bit unsettling during our meals.
So Michele was forced to try "dog" hot pot. It was offered to her and everyone was looking at her expectantly. Dog is eaten widely in China, especially down south in areas like Guangxi and Yunnan. In Yunnan, they also eat lots of bugs, including bees. They bring the honey comb with the insects still crawling inside (they're alive) and they remove the bees in front of you (to prove that they're fresh I guess) and then fry them. And one morning, a doctor took her to breakfast to try "tian ji fen si," (literally translates to chicken of the field noodle, a.k.a. noodle wth frog). Michele has had frog legs before, but underneath the noodle, rather than pieces of frog meat, was the whole frog, cooked. The doctor looked on expectantly and she had to try it.
I guess I've been pretty lucky so far. I spend a significant part of my time in Beijing, which is modern and has lots of non-scary foods. And no one has really pushed me very hard to try anything I'm uncomfortable with even when I traveled. And fish heads and chicken head and feet don't disturb me as much since I am Chinese and grew up with this culture (in Taiwan, you're supposed to offer food to the ancestors to get it blessed with the whole chicken - bad luck to have the head cut off). However, even though I consider myself a pretty adventurous eater (bring on the tartares, the sushi and the barely cooked steak!), I still feel queasy about being open to trying local delicacies. I guess our upbringing really does impact how far we are willing to go when it comes to new foods. The Chinese will refuse to eat raw beef and raw fish, but they're okay eating all sorts of weird organs. And because I grew up in NYC, the raw stuff is okay, but the tongues, organs and other weird stuff is not.
And after 5 months of mostly Chinese food, I'm craving Western foods. My local colleagues find my Western food cravings bizarre and thus, I'm relegated to eating Chinese still most of the time. Even pizza feels like a real treat...
The extensive menu at the restaurant featured horse carpaccio, something that I would be unwilling to try (even though it's a delicacy in Japan!) and somehow, the conversation turned to sharing "war" stories about the strange foods that we've been offered (and sometimes forced to eat) so as not to insult our hosts. So far, I've been given duck beaks (did not eat), camel meat (actually did try this one), donkey meat (passed on this one), and most recently, duck tongue (really expensive but avoided - really creepy looking), but one of the doctors who just moved down to Yunnan Province had some pretty funny stories about the things that she's had to deal with. Some of the areas we work in are really impoverished, but nonetheless, they try to treat us to the most expensive delicacies of their region when we visit, as a way of honoring their guests. That's why foreigners and guests are often offered things like the head of the fish or the head of the duck and chicken. They put the duck of the peking duck they carved up in front of you on a plate, to prove to you that it was whole. And it's supposedly supposed to be one of the best parts of the duck. Ironically, we find these things a bit unsettling during our meals.
So Michele was forced to try "dog" hot pot. It was offered to her and everyone was looking at her expectantly. Dog is eaten widely in China, especially down south in areas like Guangxi and Yunnan. In Yunnan, they also eat lots of bugs, including bees. They bring the honey comb with the insects still crawling inside (they're alive) and they remove the bees in front of you (to prove that they're fresh I guess) and then fry them. And one morning, a doctor took her to breakfast to try "tian ji fen si," (literally translates to chicken of the field noodle, a.k.a. noodle wth frog). Michele has had frog legs before, but underneath the noodle, rather than pieces of frog meat, was the whole frog, cooked. The doctor looked on expectantly and she had to try it.
I guess I've been pretty lucky so far. I spend a significant part of my time in Beijing, which is modern and has lots of non-scary foods. And no one has really pushed me very hard to try anything I'm uncomfortable with even when I traveled. And fish heads and chicken head and feet don't disturb me as much since I am Chinese and grew up with this culture (in Taiwan, you're supposed to offer food to the ancestors to get it blessed with the whole chicken - bad luck to have the head cut off). However, even though I consider myself a pretty adventurous eater (bring on the tartares, the sushi and the barely cooked steak!), I still feel queasy about being open to trying local delicacies. I guess our upbringing really does impact how far we are willing to go when it comes to new foods. The Chinese will refuse to eat raw beef and raw fish, but they're okay eating all sorts of weird organs. And because I grew up in NYC, the raw stuff is okay, but the tongues, organs and other weird stuff is not.
And after 5 months of mostly Chinese food, I'm craving Western foods. My local colleagues find my Western food cravings bizarre and thus, I'm relegated to eating Chinese still most of the time. Even pizza feels like a real treat...
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