(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…)
Lanzhou, as I can now summarize, it’s actually one hell of a cool city. I had a great time today going to the various sights, traveling on the Yellow River and eating the delicious mutton that they have here. We started off the day having breakfast at the cafeteria at the university, which was probably the cheapest breakfast I’ve ever had. You can order any 1 item for about 0.5RMB ($0.07), including fried pastries, pancakes, hard-boiled eggs soaked in tea, congee, pork buns – which all taste amazing. You can get full off about 6 items, for a whopping total of 3RMB ($0.42). Even if you make minimum wage in America, that’s the equivalent of about 4 minutes of work. For an entire meal. In an hour of minimum-wage work, you can get breakfast for 2 weeks. It’s amazing.
Afterwards, we took a little tour around campus, which is quite like any campus you’ll see in America, with a few major exceptions. First, while the main attraction is basketball, the second recreational sport of choice is ping-pong, which is played outside by dozens and dozens of players at a time. And they are all frighteningly good – which almost makes up for how atrociously bad the basketball players are. The second is that all the dorms are separated between male and female dorms, of which either sex is forbidden from entering the other’s dorms. Which is so completely 19th century I can’t even begin to understand why this is the case in a freaking university. And the dorms are so behind the times as well – there are 8 bunks to a room, a common washroom which consists of a communal sink and horribly smelling bathrooms. You get around 10 sq. ft of personal space, which is enough to cough or sneeze but not to yawn and stretch your arms. There’s no laundry and you have to wash your clothes by hand. It’s a terrible way to live and I don’t think I can last a week in those conditions. Makes me appreciate my bathroom at home that much more.
Really terrible basketball players.
Much, much better ping pong players.
After making our way into town, we went to West Lake Park, a beautiful park in the middle of the city with a charming little lake and tea shops under the shade. It was Sunday and everyone was out, playing with their kids, walking the dog, or playing a round of mahjong with a pot of tea. Not a bad life at all. Then, we made our way to the bank of the Yellow River again, and found a place that offered a ride across the river on a raft made of wood and sheepskin blown up like balloons. Another crazy cultural invention that I can’t even begin to figure out how they came up with. Naturally, we agreed to do it, and rode all the way across the river on this ridiculous looking raft. The pictures don’t even begin to do this experience justice. Five of us piled on top, wearing life-vests and sitting on these Arabian-style mats, being guided by our rower who had mastered the art of rowing and taking a group picture at the same time. The disgusting, smelly Yellow River water was about six inches underneath us – I mean, I can’t imagine what this looked like from an outside observer – perhaps victims of a capsized boat being pulled to shore by a rescue team. In retrospect, it was probably stupid and unnecessary, but it was quite a unique experience nonetheless.
Our sheepskin-balloon raft.
View from the middle of the river, with my shoe for reference.
What it looks like from on top of the raft.
Our trusty sheepskin-balloon raft captain. Aye aye.
Another Lanzhou attraction had yet again to do with the river (see a pattern?), this one was these huge waterwheels that were constructed along the river to act like a water mill, powering machines by harnessing the power of the river. It’s quite ingenious – there are literally dozens of applications for this one invention, and this was first constructed thousands of years ago and perfected throughout the years.
The majestic waterwheels.
Also inside the park was an amphitheater where they were staging the Lanzhou auditions for the Chinese version of American Idol. Which was enlightening to say the least, on how much China wants to be like America. Apart from the part where this was filmed in front of a live audience (who were really coming and going at their leisure), it’s was pretty much an early-season episode of American Idol, except with a less funny set of judges and way worse talent. All the contestants were female, and sang a karaoke-inspired version of an awful pop song, and got panned by the unfunny judges, who also attempted to give judgement on their fashion, but which had nothing to do with their performance altogether. One was an opera singer who just couldn’t hit any high notes. People applauded sometimes, I think out of pity.
Lanzhou Idol. Notice the camera crane in the top-left corner. It's the real deal.
We then went up to the top of the White Pagoda Mountain, which is on the north side of the Yellow River and offers a spectacular view of the city – and it looks beautiful from up there with the huge tall buildings, mountains in the background and the river in the foreground. These pictures don’t do it justice – it’s like the first time you go up to Mulholland Drive and take a look at the city below you. Except you climbed your way up to Mulholland Drive instead of driving your convertible.
The view of Central Mountain bridge.
The view is pretty amazing.
The white pagoda at the top of the mountain.
Tell me this doesn't look a little bit like Hong Kong.
After this, we took a look inside the largest mosque in Lanzhou, located right in the middle of the city and welcome to visitors. In fact, everyone we met inside were very nice – they got out of our way so we could take pictures, and they told us very nicely what we could and couldn’t do. As I said before, the calm and relaxing disposition of the Islamic people here is in complete contrast to the hustle and bustle of the Chinese – one of the many reasons I think China can use a little institutionalized religion, especially after Mao. Anyway, we were allowed to walk all around the mosque, but we weren’t allowed to go inside of photograph the inside of the mosque. The structure itself is quite awe-inspiring, and quite intimidating, not just because I had never seen a mosque before, but also the sheer beauty of the building along with the strict set of rules that are posted everywhere. It’s quite a cultural experience to see any religious structure in China that’s not a tourist destination.
A little intimidating.
It's quite stunning in the Lanzhou skyline.
So here we are. I’m on an overnight train, about to be in Jiayuguan in the morning, the western-most point of the Great Wall, and certainly a different experience than the lush green mountains seen in Badaling. We’re going on a tour from here on, and we’ll have a tour guide with us for some of the way, which is something that I usually hate. We’re mostly doing it for ease of transportation, but I hate getting pushed along, which is something Chinese tour guides notoriously do. We’ll see what happens.
