Turphooey.

To start, I just have to vent. I was starting to come around about tour guides. Really, I was. And then after today, I realized why I despised them so much – because they are suffocating, time-wasting, and money-hungry. Just about everything that irked me about them was on full display today – we started late, much later than we were supposed to, took an inordinate amount of time to get there, got rushed through every single place, and the tour guide was a headcase – she didn’t explain anything, all she did was tell us how many minutes until we had to get on the bus, and started arguing with other tourists at the end of the night. About halfway through the day, I exclaimed loudly that I would never go with a tour group again. I hope she heard me.  Such a shame, because the place we went to today, Turpan, was one of the places I had been looking forward to going to for a long time.

Mountains of sand.

Today was awesome for a few reasons: 1) It was not desert-like heat like we were all expecting, but overcast and breezy, which as you will find out, made for a spectacularly perfect day. 2) The tour guide was pretty much non-existent, left us to do everything by ourselves and gave us plenty of time. 3) This is what we did today:

The impregnable pass.

Still no internet. I was hoping there’d be internet at this hotel, but alas, it is nowhere to be found. I’m in Dunhuang, a tourist town right in the middle of the Gobi desert. It’s hot, dry, and the sun was still high in the sky when we arrived at 6:30pm. Today was an extremely tiring day, as we arrived at Jiayuguan (jia-yu-guan) at 7:30 in the morning after getting about 4 hours of sleep aboard the top bunk on a train. It’s really tiny and although not uncomfortable, it’s not the best sleeping conditions and the fact that the train stops every hour or so doesn’t help you get a real good night of sleep.

On the overnight train…

(Note: I’m on a soft sleeper train bound for the city of Jiayuguan, which is set to arrive at 7:30am the next morning. It’s actually quite nice and comfortable, there are 4 beds to a room and we have a party of 4, so no strangers in our room. It’s a hell of a lot better than the hard sleeper train, that’s 6 bunks to a cubicle, which are public and without a proper place to store your luggage. Still haven’t found internet to post the last entry, but here I am writing the next one…maybe a week until I can post this but here goes anyway…)

Clean and real.

(Note: I’m not really sure when exactly I’ll have a chance to post this, but this is the Lanzhou entry from Friday.)

Today was my first day out of the traditional tourist cities of Beijing and Shanghai, and I’m almost positive I’m not going to see any foreigners for at least a week. The plan is to eventually make our way to Northwestern China, where the culture and people are completely different from what you’d find in eastern China. The first stop is Lanzhou, and already I started feeling the culture shock. This came in two parts – the first came before even getting on the plane. People dressed in traditional Muslim headdress – the men with the cylindrical caps and women with the full headscarves – were all over our gate area, and it was just so bizarre to see Chinese people in Muslim clothing. Later I found out that Lanzhou is about 20% Hui, which is one of the many ethnic groups in China, and they are of Islamic ethnicity. As a result, almost all the restaurants here are Halal, which in Chinese, is translated as “clean and real”. The sign “clean and real” is seen everywhere, there are mosques all around the skyline, women are covering their entire head with a scarf, and you almost feel like you’re in a completely different country.

The big Beijing finale.

Today was my last day in Beijing, and also marked the arrival of my cousin (who goes by Vivien) and my mom. We did a LOT of walking today – our day started at 10am and didn’t end until about 11:30pm. We walked through a hutong that had tons of arts and crafts shops on both sides, and then down a major shopping promenade, then took the subway to the Imperial Palace park, and then went back to the promenade to eat dinner, and then finally walked over to Tian’anmen Square and then the Beijing Opera. Oh yeah, and I ate that scorpion. =)

The Many Walls of China

A common misconception, one that I had until today, is that there is such a thing as the Great Wall of China. Simply put, there isn’t. The “Great Wall” is actually like 40 different walls all made during the span of over 2000 years. The common theme is that the Chinese leaders, whether it was pre-dynastic when there were lots of smaller countries warring against each other, or during the dynastic period where the Mongols were a consistent threat, were consistently paranoid about the possibility of an invasion that they built many, huge fortified walls, some over 3000 miles in length. But over 2000 years, land divisions change and technology gets better. So they kept on building. The result is that there are a ton of Great Walls of China. Actually, let’s just say there are a ton of Walls of China. Some of them actually aren’t that Great at all. In fact, some of them are downright unimpressive – and are therefore no longer even walls.

The city within the city.

As much as walking around in a city can be a pain in the ass because something that looks like it’s really close on the map actually takes a half hour to get to, it’s probably the only way you’ll actually get to knowing a city like Beijing. The city has two faces – one of major streets and famous landmarks – the one that’s shown to the world and that most tourists never see – and the other of the small alleyways (called hutongs), which is where 80% of the city actually lives. It feels like a complex network of close-knit villages, all neighboring each other but separated by wide, busy avenues, like a city within a city. I mean, I’m sure you can live in the alleyways without ever seeing a major street and you’d be okay – they have everything you’ll need, food stores, schools, bookstores, tailors, cobblers, but on streets about 20ft wide. And people have been living like that for hundreds of years – most have no need for the 21st century renovations that are occurring throughout the rest of the city.

The art factory.

It’s quite impressive how far Chinese contemporary art has come since the time of Chairman Mao and his “for the people art”, and there’s no greater show of it than in the No. 798 Art District in Beijing. This was an old factory district (much like the one in Shanghai, except much, much bigger) that has been turned into art spaces upon art spaces, except with the original decor of the factories. What amazes me about these art spaces in China is that although there may not be an abundance of art, or artists for that matter, they all congregate in a single space, and find a real sense of community because there’s so few of them out there.

If it looks good, eat it.

(Note: this is the food blog. Tons and tons of pictures ahead, if you’re a little squeamish at weird looking food items, read with caution.)

I’m channeling one of my idols Andrew Zimmern here, host of Travel Channel’s Bizarre Foods, who’s pretty much eaten anything and everything that’s edible on this planet. I spent my entire childhood as a picky eater, and almost every relative I have still sort of see me as one, but I think that during the last two years, watching that show has made me infinitely more curious about international cuisine and allowed me to shed away the apprehensions behind trying something new. I think that during this trip, I am finally ready to put that mettle to the test.