(no subject)
okokok. so i've finally gotten around to updating about TaiShan and in two days i begin my next Out-of-Beijing experience. wheee!
Well the infamous trip to Taishan began on a cool April night. Four American travellers set out with all that they'd need to survive in a couple cubic feet of space on their backs. We set out with not a single concrete plan as to where we would stay once we got there, how we would get back to Beijing, and as it turned out we didn't even know from which train station our train TO TaiShan was leaving. We went to Carrefour to buy necessities and water and various food items to sustain us on a mountain if the options there were limited. After foraging for bagged hamburgers and chinese spicy trail mix like real naturalists we piled into a cab and confidently told the taxi driver we wanted to go to Bei Zhan (North station). After being dropped off in the seediest dirtiest smelliest alleyway I've come across in Beijing and trudging through puddles of what we could only assume was raw sewage from the smell we were informed that we were at the wrong station. Not this Bei Zhan. The OTHER Bei Zhan with the same name. We hauled ass to the subway station and hoped that we would make it to the other station in time. As it turned out this was only a minor setback. We arrived at the correct train station with about an hour to spare. Hooray for leaving early! We camped out on the floor of the train station and people-watched for a bit. It was at this time we realized no one else was sitting on the ground and that we picked the smelliest place to sit, just metres from the bathroom. Elaine and Kirk went walking about while Mike and I watched the gear. (hah, gear sounds so rugged and travel-y). A small child came up to us and whipped a card at us that hit my arm. We were stunned for a moment, then laughed, then talked about the general annoyance that small children can be. Boarded the train around 11:30.
We had tickets for upper hard-sleeper berths because it was the cheapest horizontal ticket we could get. I expected way way WAY worse beds than the ones we got. After each of us climbed up to our beds we made conversation with the Chinese guys who thought I was Russian, took pictures of us hanging off of the beds, and dug a few snacks out of our packs. I was tired and slept pretty well with all of my vital belongings shoved down the front of my shirt. I woke up occassionally and wondered how we would know when to get off the train since the final station is not TaiShan, it's just a stop along the way. But my vague memories were that we would arrive in the morning so as long as it was dark we didn't have to worry about it.
Come to find out, the train attendants wake you up. Friday morning had arrived. I climed down from my perch and sat by the window and watched the cliche "countryside rolling by" which is why trains have that sense of romance and personality that plane trips lack. This coming from the girl who has never done it before this trip.
We reached TaiShan and first order of business was buying tickets back to Beijing. When we got to the ticket window we were promply informed that there were no more beds available for the train ride home. There weren't even any seats available. But she said she has these "standing tickets" available. It was a couple days away and standing on a train didn't seem like the most horrible thing in the world. We bought them and set out to complete the next set task of the day - finding a hotel room. This proved to be easier than we thought due to the fact that Tai'an, the city at the base of Taishan mountain is indeed a tourist town and crazy taxi hawkers attack you with invitations and lecherous smiles as soon as you exit the train station. Especially if you are white. we used our expert judgement and went with the taxi driver who had a legitimate taxi, and a not-so-lecherous smile. He took us to the hotel he was without question receiving a commission from but we were happy with the rooms and the price so we stayed. I actually thought the rooms were really really nice. Probably the nicest place i've stayed whilst traveling about and paying for rooms myself. There was a window between the bathroom and the bedroom which i couldn't explain but it made for an awesome picture.
Friday was designed as the official day of rest. Resting from the train ride. Resting for the mountain. No plans other than to get tickets and beds for the night. Turns out we have itchy feet and we aren't very good at staying in one place. So while Kirk and Elaine rested Mike and i went out to enjoy some delicious Shandong food. Well... we just ate at a dumplings place and the dumplings weren't nearly as good as the ones at our favourite Beijing dumpling restaurant. But it was good. And we drank Taishan brand beer with a pretty sunset on the label at seven a.m.
We didn't feel like resting much but Elaine decided that she needed to stay in the room and study since she had a midterm exam on Monday so Kirk, Mike and took our taxi driver up on his offer to rent out his services for the day and we found ourselves in Qufu within an hour. This is the birthplace of Confucius and one of the places on a LONG list of chinese cities i want to visit. It was a pleasant surprise and a lovely benefit to not having anything planned out. There are, of course, many drawbacks which will pan out inthe following paragraphs but this was lovely. The taxi driver took us around the city a bit and i took a bunch of those silly "looking out of the car window" pictures that always capture the second before or after what you wanted. We ended up going to this Confucius museum/park/temples/thing. The ticket price was crazy expensive but it was pretty much what you do when you go to this city. We had fun getting lost in stone mazes, riding stone horses, looking at stone statues. And where it wasn't stone (which you may be able to tell from my sarcastic tone, is not one of my favourite things to look at) there was this beautiful species of tree that was blossoming purple bunches of flowers. Gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous. I learned that women and men have to step throught the doors of temples with different feet. This is useful information!
We went back to the taxi driver and he took us to the next attraction but we decided it was too expensive and i wasn't really feeling the whole guided tour thing. So we got him to take us to something more "natural" and ended up in one of the prettiest parks i have ever seen in my life. It was perfect. The weather, the sprinkles or rain, the flowers that were simply dripping off the trees, the ponds that were so still they reflected everything perfectly. It was gorgeous and i took a trazillion pictures and enjoyed myself a lot. We played with this tree that was dropping its flowers and Kirk had an orgasmic experience with the flowers. He made a cute video that i wish i could post somehow... maybe i'll try to figure that out. There was also this HUGE building which was, i guess, the main attraction and a mini museum dedicated to ancient chinese philosophy was housed therein. There was this awesome circular wall thing with inscriptions of this chinese philosophy in Spanish, Italian, French, Korean, Russian, Traditional and Simplified Chinese, and English. It was super huge and super cool. We danced like hippies upon the roof. I climbed up in a willow tree and had a lovely view of ponds and tree and the swaying willow branches. Everytime i am presented with beautiful scenery like that i am reminded of how much i love those things. How at home and comfortable i feel when i am surrounded by natural things. It was lovely and i really really enjoyed that park. a lot. Enough to maybe go back to that city just to see it again.
After we were done there we were really hungry seeing as we hadn't eaten real food... since Beijing for Kirk and dumplings for Mike and I. We asked our taxi driver to take us to a genuine Shandong restaurant with genuine Shandong food. We pulled up to the fanciest restaurant in Qufu which was surrounded by tourbusses. This was not what we wanted. The food was exactly the same as the dishes in Beijing and about four times the price. We asked him to bring us to another restaurant that was cheaper and more... like where the locals would eat. He brought us to another one similar to the first and told us that if we order simple dishes, it won't be that expensive. Mike finally got the point across when he said something like "we don't mind dirty restaurants, the dirtier the restaurant, the better the food." The taxi driver liked our style and drove us back to Tai'an to where he ofen eats. Dirty floor, just a few tables, chipped bowls full of the most delicious la mian i've had in a long time. I loved that meal so much i treated. :)
We said our goodbyes to the nice taxi driver and went to the hotel to find Elaine and figure out the rest of the night. We walked around a bit and found a cute store where i bought the silliest wallet in the world. It is all pink and girly with bears on it. But then it says "gloomy" and you realize there's blood dripping from the cute cartoon bears' mouth. Haha. it had to be mine. and now it is. We also found the "red light district" of this town with middle-aged women preening themselves in front of shops that promised really really good foot massages. We were walking around trying to find some dinner and kept trying to go into restaurants but they were closed. Mike asked one guy, in chinese, if their restaurant was open and he replied with a shocked "What?" in English. It was a very very funny moment. We stayed there a while drinking tea even though the kitchen was closed. We realized this city closes at about seven p.m. and we were four hours too late. We settled for 方便面- your standard "just add water" ramen noodles and rested for the next day. THE NEXT DAY! aaahh!
check out the next installment... SOON!
Well the infamous trip to Taishan began on a cool April night. Four American travellers set out with all that they'd need to survive in a couple cubic feet of space on their backs. We set out with not a single concrete plan as to where we would stay once we got there, how we would get back to Beijing, and as it turned out we didn't even know from which train station our train TO TaiShan was leaving. We went to Carrefour to buy necessities and water and various food items to sustain us on a mountain if the options there were limited. After foraging for bagged hamburgers and chinese spicy trail mix like real naturalists we piled into a cab and confidently told the taxi driver we wanted to go to Bei Zhan (North station). After being dropped off in the seediest dirtiest smelliest alleyway I've come across in Beijing and trudging through puddles of what we could only assume was raw sewage from the smell we were informed that we were at the wrong station. Not this Bei Zhan. The OTHER Bei Zhan with the same name. We hauled ass to the subway station and hoped that we would make it to the other station in time. As it turned out this was only a minor setback. We arrived at the correct train station with about an hour to spare. Hooray for leaving early! We camped out on the floor of the train station and people-watched for a bit. It was at this time we realized no one else was sitting on the ground and that we picked the smelliest place to sit, just metres from the bathroom. Elaine and Kirk went walking about while Mike and I watched the gear. (hah, gear sounds so rugged and travel-y). A small child came up to us and whipped a card at us that hit my arm. We were stunned for a moment, then laughed, then talked about the general annoyance that small children can be. Boarded the train around 11:30.
We had tickets for upper hard-sleeper berths because it was the cheapest horizontal ticket we could get. I expected way way WAY worse beds than the ones we got. After each of us climbed up to our beds we made conversation with the Chinese guys who thought I was Russian, took pictures of us hanging off of the beds, and dug a few snacks out of our packs. I was tired and slept pretty well with all of my vital belongings shoved down the front of my shirt. I woke up occassionally and wondered how we would know when to get off the train since the final station is not TaiShan, it's just a stop along the way. But my vague memories were that we would arrive in the morning so as long as it was dark we didn't have to worry about it.
Come to find out, the train attendants wake you up. Friday morning had arrived. I climed down from my perch and sat by the window and watched the cliche "countryside rolling by" which is why trains have that sense of romance and personality that plane trips lack. This coming from the girl who has never done it before this trip.
We reached TaiShan and first order of business was buying tickets back to Beijing. When we got to the ticket window we were promply informed that there were no more beds available for the train ride home. There weren't even any seats available. But she said she has these "standing tickets" available. It was a couple days away and standing on a train didn't seem like the most horrible thing in the world. We bought them and set out to complete the next set task of the day - finding a hotel room. This proved to be easier than we thought due to the fact that Tai'an, the city at the base of Taishan mountain is indeed a tourist town and crazy taxi hawkers attack you with invitations and lecherous smiles as soon as you exit the train station. Especially if you are white. we used our expert judgement and went with the taxi driver who had a legitimate taxi, and a not-so-lecherous smile. He took us to the hotel he was without question receiving a commission from but we were happy with the rooms and the price so we stayed. I actually thought the rooms were really really nice. Probably the nicest place i've stayed whilst traveling about and paying for rooms myself. There was a window between the bathroom and the bedroom which i couldn't explain but it made for an awesome picture.
Friday was designed as the official day of rest. Resting from the train ride. Resting for the mountain. No plans other than to get tickets and beds for the night. Turns out we have itchy feet and we aren't very good at staying in one place. So while Kirk and Elaine rested Mike and i went out to enjoy some delicious Shandong food. Well... we just ate at a dumplings place and the dumplings weren't nearly as good as the ones at our favourite Beijing dumpling restaurant. But it was good. And we drank Taishan brand beer with a pretty sunset on the label at seven a.m.
We didn't feel like resting much but Elaine decided that she needed to stay in the room and study since she had a midterm exam on Monday so Kirk, Mike and took our taxi driver up on his offer to rent out his services for the day and we found ourselves in Qufu within an hour. This is the birthplace of Confucius and one of the places on a LONG list of chinese cities i want to visit. It was a pleasant surprise and a lovely benefit to not having anything planned out. There are, of course, many drawbacks which will pan out inthe following paragraphs but this was lovely. The taxi driver took us around the city a bit and i took a bunch of those silly "looking out of the car window" pictures that always capture the second before or after what you wanted. We ended up going to this Confucius museum/park/temples/thing. The ticket price was crazy expensive but it was pretty much what you do when you go to this city. We had fun getting lost in stone mazes, riding stone horses, looking at stone statues. And where it wasn't stone (which you may be able to tell from my sarcastic tone, is not one of my favourite things to look at) there was this beautiful species of tree that was blossoming purple bunches of flowers. Gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous. I learned that women and men have to step throught the doors of temples with different feet. This is useful information!
We went back to the taxi driver and he took us to the next attraction but we decided it was too expensive and i wasn't really feeling the whole guided tour thing. So we got him to take us to something more "natural" and ended up in one of the prettiest parks i have ever seen in my life. It was perfect. The weather, the sprinkles or rain, the flowers that were simply dripping off the trees, the ponds that were so still they reflected everything perfectly. It was gorgeous and i took a trazillion pictures and enjoyed myself a lot. We played with this tree that was dropping its flowers and Kirk had an orgasmic experience with the flowers. He made a cute video that i wish i could post somehow... maybe i'll try to figure that out. There was also this HUGE building which was, i guess, the main attraction and a mini museum dedicated to ancient chinese philosophy was housed therein. There was this awesome circular wall thing with inscriptions of this chinese philosophy in Spanish, Italian, French, Korean, Russian, Traditional and Simplified Chinese, and English. It was super huge and super cool. We danced like hippies upon the roof. I climbed up in a willow tree and had a lovely view of ponds and tree and the swaying willow branches. Everytime i am presented with beautiful scenery like that i am reminded of how much i love those things. How at home and comfortable i feel when i am surrounded by natural things. It was lovely and i really really enjoyed that park. a lot. Enough to maybe go back to that city just to see it again.
After we were done there we were really hungry seeing as we hadn't eaten real food... since Beijing for Kirk and dumplings for Mike and I. We asked our taxi driver to take us to a genuine Shandong restaurant with genuine Shandong food. We pulled up to the fanciest restaurant in Qufu which was surrounded by tourbusses. This was not what we wanted. The food was exactly the same as the dishes in Beijing and about four times the price. We asked him to bring us to another restaurant that was cheaper and more... like where the locals would eat. He brought us to another one similar to the first and told us that if we order simple dishes, it won't be that expensive. Mike finally got the point across when he said something like "we don't mind dirty restaurants, the dirtier the restaurant, the better the food." The taxi driver liked our style and drove us back to Tai'an to where he ofen eats. Dirty floor, just a few tables, chipped bowls full of the most delicious la mian i've had in a long time. I loved that meal so much i treated. :)
We said our goodbyes to the nice taxi driver and went to the hotel to find Elaine and figure out the rest of the night. We walked around a bit and found a cute store where i bought the silliest wallet in the world. It is all pink and girly with bears on it. But then it says "gloomy" and you realize there's blood dripping from the cute cartoon bears' mouth. Haha. it had to be mine. and now it is. We also found the "red light district" of this town with middle-aged women preening themselves in front of shops that promised really really good foot massages. We were walking around trying to find some dinner and kept trying to go into restaurants but they were closed. Mike asked one guy, in chinese, if their restaurant was open and he replied with a shocked "What?" in English. It was a very very funny moment. We stayed there a while drinking tea even though the kitchen was closed. We realized this city closes at about seven p.m. and we were four hours too late. We settled for 方便面- your standard "just add water" ramen noodles and rested for the next day. THE NEXT DAY! aaahh!
check out the next installment... SOON!