chillout sessions and beijing follies

hidy ho, neighbor.

back in action here. so we have been in beijing the past 6 days or so, but let me back up to our time in shnghai-- continuing from the last post.

shanghai is known for its thunderous nighttime activity on a little old street called mao ming loo. naturally, it was necessary that we sample the evening activities and really see what china's favorite up and growing child had to offer.

we did ok, in fact we had a great time (cue the pointless picture of omri and i). hearing western rap favorites-- nelly, 50 cent and eminem-- never felt so good. it had been a while since we had all heard a little "up in the club" shit. everybody has to know what i am talking about here. its like those days when you are driving in your car and one of those god awful rap songs comes on. you pause, look around to see who is watching and then somehow, some way really get in to the song and sing your heart out-- a guilty pleasure if you will.

well, ill tell you what-- that was our night in shanghai: a guilty western hip hop pleasure.

welp, thats about all it took to really bring me to my knees the next day. i was about done for. it was the cumulative effect of a hangover, 3 weeks of constant movement and just being plain tired. i just had to take a break. there was no way i was going to be able to leave shanghai the next day as we had planned.

the following events just beautifully fell in to place. a while back, a friend from MSU gave me the name of his buddy just outside shanghai. it sounded perfect! my train of thought: "my buddy chris has a buddy in shanghai-- he lives there-- so he probably has a couch-- a couch that i could easily sit on-- maybe for about 4 days straight-- and just not move"

and amazingly enough, i got just that. so i crashed in kunshan without the other 2 muskateers for a day and then we met up later. but holy crap. those days on the couch were much needed and excellent. i even managed to watch 5 movies in one day-- for those are in the loop, thats just goddamn unheard of for me.

so staying at eddie's place was cool-- no doubt. but it got slightly cooler when we managed to finagle (sp?) our way in to a nice little chinese wedding. ohhh dear. we were thinking open bar, food, dancing, the whole nine yards, right?

...haha, and we got just that.

its unfortunate that i didnt bring my camera that evening, but i am pretty sure omri has some snaps from the events of that evening on his blog (omribloch.blogspot.com).

the whole typical chinese wedding experience is pretty cool-- they skip the whole ceremonial bologna and cheese and just get right to the booze and food. by booze, im talking one bottle of this rice licquor (that clears your sinuses up in about 1.3 seconds upon ingestion) and all the beer and red wine you can ask for over the course of the evening. oh man, we really had it tough didnt we?

we began making toasts for the groom with the help of eddie who was trying to tell us what to say in mandarin. oddly enough, everyone loved our efforts even though we most definetely butchered every word we spoke. hell, who even knows what we were saying-- but when shouted out our toasting words, all our new chinese buddies drank. holy crap, they sure did.

what an evening. and things didnt end there. we kicked it pretty slick at the "disco" later that evening. i think i recognized one song at the place, but that wasnt necessary. i think at that point the people of china got a little nerveous, but we eventually had them dancing on the tables at this place-- really enjoying themselves. good fun.

the next day we all did a lot of sitting. lots.

it was time to move on to beijing after a few more of those lazy shanghai days. i managed to peel myself off the couch and hop on the train.

that train to bejing, by the way, made the entire bottom half of my body numb. we werent able to get a sleeper car so we had to be upright for the 13 hour journey. darn. the upside of not having a sleeper car was that everyone around you didnt find it necessary to shed their shoes for the evening slumber. instead, the air remained fairly pure-- untouched by the collective smell of about 65 pairs of stinky feet.

we pulled in to beijing town early in the morning walking through the famous tianneman square-- the site in '89 where the communists party mowed down and killed a large number of the demonstrators who were pushing the government to move towards democracy. kind of interesting to see really.

we checked in to a nice little establishment called "leo's hostel."

our time in beijing has really been marked by two things: 1) sightseeing 2) eating noodles at our favorite little hole in the wall 3) searching for obscure DVD titles at any one of the billion DVD huts.

sightseeing-- the summer palace for starters. it was nothing to go home to mom about. i mean, it was the damn summer home for the old emperors and his homies. if the place hadnt been leveled by the "anglo-french soldiers" about a milion times, it may have some of its ancient glory still left. to say it is devoid of its heritage is foolish because there is still plenty of old glam left. the lake that sits in the middle is quite peaceful. at the sight of an opportunity to rent a paddle boat and have some time on the water, omri and i were in. in full american fashion, we took a few cold ones out and really enjoyed the time peddling our asses around the lake.

more sightseeing-- the great wall of china. now this, ladies and gentleman takes the cake for having that sort of "feeling" associated with it. you see the thing and it just speaks to you. there is so much history in the thing. for years and years, the chinese were constructing it to prevent northern enemies from infilitrating in to their parts. it ultimately remained inneffective for a short time when genghis khan and his boys climbed through-- but still. it is just a spectacular site to see this undulating wall meander over all these mountains. seriously though, there are 500 meter drops and 70 degree slopes but the wall still stands-- a true gem and sign of the chinese persistence back in the day.

so we climbed a portion of the wall in an area called simatai. you can see a picture of the boys and i at left. the new kid in town is brad, a friend i made in bangkok. he joined us here in beijing and will be with us through to eastern europe. real solid guy (and you can read his blog at www.braddiggans.com).

so simatai, the area we went to is known as one of the more dangerous parts of the wall. we had grandiose plans for an overnight camping hike on the wall for roughly two days. we were more than ready for the adventure.

water? check. food? check. extra layers? check.

oops, guess we forgot to check in the whole "legality" of this scheme we had planned. the old chinese federales wanted nothing to do with our little "sleeping" idea. we tried to bribe them with food, candy, cigarettes, even money! nothing.. we got nowhere. they hiked our asses straight back to the starting point and watched us get out of there. looked like we would be prematurely heading back to beijing.

on to the other "happenings" in beijing-- noodles. we found this little diamond in the rough just around the corner of our hostel. they serve a handrolled noodle soup that is just to die for. omri and i have been there about 7 times in the past 4 days. for 5 yuan (roughly50 cents) we get a giant bowl of noodles. throw in another 3.5 yuan and we get a big bottle of beer.

speaking of beer-- after a night of drinking and then showing up at the place for a late-night bowl of noodles, i decided it was necessary to take up a little bet from bryan and omri. the stakes were real high folks: 100 yuan would be in my pocket if i were to eat my entire bowl of noodles with another entire bowl of chili. dear god, i took the bet.

the next morning, i was so full of chili it even burned to take a piss. i wont even go in the events that occured when i went "number two."

despite a new love for beijing, we must move on. i cant say i am devastated to leave china, but i will certainly be back. i am working up ideas for a western excursion out to tibet from nepal and the kathmandu area.

..but before that, we have some slightly more pressing issues of getting to mongolia. we leave tomorrow via the trans-mongolian train (30 hour ride) for the frozen desert area that will be. we have plans to get to ulan bator and sleep in a tent in and around that there gobi desert and drink some yaks milk for a few days. i really want to have a go at some true-blue mongolian dog sledding. seriously, how cool would that be? i also cant wait to get there and have a nice meal at the local mongolian barbeque. oh, that will be just great!

kidding! none of those out there.

in fact, word is that in mongolia its mostly tents that people live in. and when you get short on change for your meal, just throw in a stick of gum-- its accepted as currency over there. excellent!

before i take off here though, i would like to just make a few comments (that are strictly my opinion-- duh!) about china as a whole amidst all this chatter about world power and the rise of the east vis-a-vis the western powers that be.

all through college, being a business student, the power of the chinese was dumped down my throat by the truckloads. from manufacturing (CHEAP!) and production (the largest active work force in the world) perspective, this place was a gold mine. throw in the articles that you read every damn day on your favorite news website about "the rise of china," and i was a believer.

not so fast, grasshopper.

see, from what i have experienced here in china i feel is different. this isnt a country that is ready to take over the world. this is not a country that has the type of "maturity" to really step up and be the next world power. and i say this not as a deregotary type of statement-- there is nothing wrong with their position.

they are locked in their communist ways really. websites are blocked by the government (bbcnews.com), religion is suppressed (falun gong) and the government has a strong-hold on the citizens. theres an extreme poverty issue-- the gap between the rich and poor amidst a GINORMOUS (1.25+ billion) population is just constantly nipping at the heels of this nation. and amidst all this, there is a sort of naive belief in the fact that things will fix themselves with the implementation of "improvement" plans and certain drastic measures (think cultural revolution back in the mao days-- on paper this was a fine idea, but given the 10 million peasants that died in the country side becasue of starvation-- it was AWFUL. yet blindly, even elder chinese people we talked with will tell you that the cultural revolution fixed china and mao is a hero).

these characteristics of china and their sort of policy, however, should not be completely looked down upon. given their persistent increase in GDP and other figures (the united states would kill to have a piece of china's growth numbers), something is going right. i just dont think the sort of systems and policy that china upholds and supports with its domestic policy would transfer over so well in the international arena.

ok, off the soap box. done.

but i believe part of this whole travel deal is putting pieces like that in to perspective, right?

moving on to a lighter topic, how about a look at this cute little dude i took a picture of in tianneman square?

the game plan from here is to move on to mongolia as stated before. we spend a bit of time there in a tent and then hit the rail tracks to connect with the trans-siberian rail (the world's longest straight track of rail) and enter in to russia for some vodka and big furry hats. we plan to make our first stop in russia in a place called irkutsk where we will take a gander at lake baikal (worlds deepest freshwater lake). from there, we arent really sure but we are thinking we will be in moscow within a week after that. we spend a few days in moscow and then up to st. petersburgh.

armed with tons and tons (and tons) of reading material, a fully charged ipod and a nose mask to take care of late-night foot odor-- i enter the two week rail journey to moscow!