First day at the new uni

Today’s my first day at the new uni and I am actually feeling a little bit nervous. I went to the uni on Fiday in order to sign up and I was met by a very different sign-up-ceremony (if you can even call me that) than I’ve previously experienced at Jiaotong/Suzhou University. A teacher came and handed me my personal schedule… MY personal schedule, simply because it is only for me.

-What about the other girl that you mentioned? You said we were going to be 2 students?

-Yeah.. well, turns out her Mandarin wasn’t good enough. So it’s only you.

Only me, huh? For lessons, Mon-Thu, 9.30am-4pm (with a lunch break 12-2pm), sometimes 4.30pm? Right!

Well OK, one course I will take together with others: A brief introduction to Chinese Culture, on Mondays and Tuesdays. That’s apparently some kind of lecture that I will study together with students from Hong Kong and Taiwan?

-Might be a little bit hard for you! The teacher said.

Might? MIGHT!

But I am not complaining because I wanted this challenge. I just hope they don’t believe my Mandarin is better than it is. Because really, it’s not that great. Especially not when it comes to reading/writing.

Other courses I will take include: Intensive Chinese, Communication with Chinese students (2 hours of hanging out with Chinese students, haha! They have even assigned me a special contact person who’s supposed to take care of me and introduce me to new Chinese friends), Chinese speaking, Reading Chinese new online and Business Chinese. All within four days. I have every Friday off. Quite nice actually. They have also scheduled Taiji for me every Monday (7-6pm) and Kung Fu every Wed (5-6pm) but nah, I think I’ll skip all that and stick to my gym routine. I don’t really want to live on campus. And I do enjoy going to the gym where I hang out with my old friends; Rocky, Frank and the other trainers. They provide me with great moments of practicing my Chinese + a fair deal of laughter. Plus, as soon as I have gotten rid of this flu I want to start my running 3 times/week and bodypump 2 times/week routine. Not sure how long I’ll be able to stick with that but nothing wrong with having goals, right?

Back to the registration. After being handed my schedule I was taken downstairs and introduced to the Student Societies: about 100 Chinese people who (at first) just starred at me. Then, one guy came up to me and asked if I could speak Chinese.

-Sure, I said.

Two minutes later I had been asked to join the liaison society (?), the debate society and the literature society. The whole society thing is completely new to me. I did my uni degree in Australia and there I was a member of the guild simply because it was compulsory. I kept away from all the “foreign students associations” and stuck to the university’s basketball team. More my kind of thing. So imagine how out of place I felt when I suddenly got all these “society invites.”

I politely declined all the invites and found a comfort corner: the sport society. There I signed up (and I swear I saw a girl secretly applauding when she saw how tall I was) and afterwards I was given a brief interview. The sporty girls wanted to know if I was a:

-swimmer?
-badminton player?
-volleyball player?

There was great excitement amongst the girls asking me until I replied “no” to everything.

-Eh… but I do like running. Long distance running? I tried, just when they were turning away.

Jackpot.

-GREEEEATTTTTTT!!! We have running competitions too! Excellent! You have to compete for us! Yey!

-Eh, I’m not really a professional runner, I just run because I like it and I think it’s fun….

I stopped short. Nobody was listening. They were already looking up the dates for the next race/ writing down my phone number/ measuring my shoe size.

But I’m sure it will be an exciting experience at this new university. I’ll start off the day with a lesson of Intensive Chinese. Here we go!

Ginger candy video

I've been quite sick over the last 2 days. Have no idea where it came from? On Thursday afternoon I was at the gym running 10 km at the treadmills. The next day I woke up feeling a bit off, and some hours later I felt like shit. Yesterday was spent in bed with fever and today the fever has passed but I still feel kind of out of it. I'm having a slow (but boring) Sunday hoping that I'm doing better tomorrow when I'm about to have my first private lessons (gah!) at my new university (gaaah x 2!).  My mind couldn't come up with anything to blog about today (or OK; there's quite a bit: my gym-comeback, the second part of the Tiger Leaping Gorge, more photos from Yunnan, registering at my new uni, etc etc, but I simply feel too tired and off to try and compose something read-worthy) so I leave you with a video of a guy making ginger candy in Lijiang. 

Tiger Leaping Gorge 虎跳峡, day 1

OK, so the gorge trek. Here we go (warning! Long text! Pictures at the end!):

Since both mom and I are scared of heights we were a bit nervous about the Tiger Leaping Gorge (TLG) trek. Still, since I’ve read so many reviews of it, all claiming it was “amazing!” and a “must-do” if visiting that part of Yunnan, we still decided to give it a go. Unless it was raining of that very day that is. We had read that if it rains the road/stones can get real slippery and the thought of us (me, being such a clutz) slipping off the road was kind of intimidating, forcing us to establish this rule.

So, on Thursday morning we got up really early and carb-loaded with a breakfast consisting of sickening sweet white bread that we had found from a bakery the night before (no cafés were open at that time of the morning) before heading to the bus station in order to catch the 8.30 am bus to the TLG entrance. All went well until the bus started driving and it started raining. And not as in a little drizzle, oh no. It was as if the sky had opened and it was literally pouring down. I tried to keep a brave face simply by closing my eyes and pretending that it wasn’t happening, meanwhile mom anxiously watched the road. After about 20 minutes she suddenly tapped my shoulder:

-Hey, look outside. That’s the third car accident so far!

And, very well. Out on the road were a large bus, a crashed mini van and a lot of police cars. I swallowed hard. Fortunately, even the bus driver seemed slightly affected by the amounts of slippery slops and actually slowed down as we made our way up the mountain on narrow, slippery roads. For me it almost became a little bit too much though. In 2006 I was riding a car in similar conditions in another part of Yunnan (also in mountain areas) and we actually had a car accident. Since I am not the bravest person on earth I got a minor shock form the experience, and promised never to put myself in a similar situation. And now, what was I doing? For a while I considered telling mom that we would get of the bus and hitchhike back to town.

Fortunately I didn’t and when we eventually reached the entrance it had stopped raining and the ground at this point seemed rather dry. In fact, it almost looked as if it had never rained at this height. The sun was shining from a clear blue sky and it was pretty hot. We paid the entrance fee (50 yuan/person) and started walking together with some other hikers that had arrived at the same time as us. I had read that the TLG was a challenging walk, although not too bad except for the steep, 28 bends. Therefore, I was quite surprised when I realized how much “up” the road went from the very beginning. I think mom felt the same way, because after a mere hour of walking both of us were exhausted and realized that we obviously needed to slow down if we wanted to make the top.

Since the trek is a popular choice especially amongst western travellers a bunch of local Naxi men and women have made a living out of following the travellers with horses, offering them to ride when it gets too touch. Me and mom became prime targets for the men who insisted mom would get on a horse immediately after getting off the bus. We kept saying no though, laughing at their offer and stating that her health was really good (which it is). One man refused to leave us though, and quietly walked behind us with his cute little pony.

It was around 12 pm and stinking hot when mom suddenly started feeling dizzy. A combination of the heat, not drinking enough water (we could only carry that much) and the tough trail eventually got to her, and after many “buts” we decided she would take the horse up until the Naxi Family Guest House where we were planning to have lunch. It took some seriously convincing to get her on the horse (she’s a sporty spice in deed!) but eventually she gave in. Being dizzy on a mountain in the middle of nowhere in Yunnan isn’t really to recommend. The effort of the Naxi man with the horse eventually paid off. During the rest of the trek he became a good friend and an excellent real-life story teller, sharing information about his life, his family, about Naxi people and so on. Although his dialect became a bit hard to understand at times, I didn’t have any big problems communicating with him, which felt really nice. (Overall, I don’t think I have spoken as much Chinese during the last 6 months as I did during our one week in Yunnan. All that hard work has finally paid off and travelling/reading signs/information boards/asking for directions/communicating with locals went real smooth. Yey!)

Reaching the Naxi Family Guest House felt like a blessing. I was so sweaty at this point, I looked as if I had just showered with my clothes on?! Seriously, it was much harder than running for 2 hours straight! Because of my weak ankle I was wearing an ankle support and it felt as if it was 100 degrees inside my shoes.

The lunch as the Naxi house was some of the best I’ve ever eaten. Not because it was anything special, it’s just that when real hungry food tastes amazingly good! To my great surprise all food/water bottles/ guest house rooms along the trek were still cheap. Our lunch was under 50 kuai and the most expensive bottle of water I bought along the way only set me back 5 kuai! I was so surprised about this. Seeing how popular the trek is they could have easily charged much more. Also, the Naxi people we met on the way/ the people running the guest houses/ the women selling water and snacks from small “stations” were all smiley and friendly, always offering us to sit down for a rest and a free cup of tea. It was such a pleasant atmosphere.

After 1 hours of eating and resting we decided to continue our walk to the half way guest house where we had planned to spend the night. The steepest point: the 28 bends was coming up, so mom stayed on the horse while I walked. Our new Naxi friend (who was called Xiao Hua) continued walking with us and I almost feel as if I should write a separate post only about his life, because he was so interesting to talk to. He did the trek 6 days/week (he’d been doing it for 6 years already) and although he admitted it was tough he said he wouldn’t change his life for anything. At one point he was offered an office job in Shanghai with a much better pay, but he decided to turn it down:

-Look at this view, the sky and the nature. To work in this environment every day is what makes me happy! Actually, I think I am better off than all the white-collar workers who spend all day in front of the computer. Also, by working here I can stay close to my family (that lived in Shangri-la, or Zhongdian as it is also called) and go and see them at least once a week. If I would have moved to Shanghai I would have only seen them once a year, and what’s the point of that? I’d rather make less money and stay close to my loved ones.

I have to say that it was refreshing to listen to Xiao Hua. He had no complaints what-so-ever. He listened with interest to me telling about life in Sweden but not once did he say something like “Oh, the welfare there is so good!” I think he was just genuinely happy about what he had. And it’s not often you meet a person like that.

We eventually reached the 28 bends that is said to be the hardest, steepest point. It’s a 30-40 minutes climb but to be honest I didn’t find this any harder than what we had already climbed. What impressed me the most if how that little horse made the top.

After reaching the top the trail started going downhill, which I found to be much harder than going upwards! I’m a bit of a “Bambi on thin ice,” so I kept slipping on lose stones and I actually fell several times (haha!). The impact on the knees was quite hard too, aooch! After reaching the top mom felt much better and jumped off the horse. She walked the rest of the trail, but Xiao Hua still followed us, now more as a company than as a “man with a horse trying to get us to ride.”

It took some 5 hours from the Naxi Guest House to the Half Way House. Once we got there and I took off my ankle support I saw that I had a huge rash all over my feet and legs. Xiao Hua saw it too and collected some herbs for me and told me to put my feet and legs in a bucket of hot water, which I did, and it actually helped.
We spent the rest of the day/evening at the terrace of the half way house, drinking beers and having food together with travellers from all over the world. It was a laid-back, easy-going, happy atmosphere at the terrace where everybody bonded over travel stories and trek memories. And the people running the place were also real friendly. And I have to say that although I was tired, I felt really good about having done the trek.

Seeing that this post already has turned into a minor novel I’ll continue telling about the rest of the trek in another post tomorrow.

Some pictures from the first day:

Tiger Leaping Gorge sneak peak

This video is filmed at the end of the 28 bends of the Tiger Leaping Gorge. I was pretty beat as I am sure you can tell from my heavy breathing. Actually, when I showed this clip to a friend he asked if it was a horse breathing! Haha! But just to make things clear, oh-no, no horse... Just me! Keen to reach the top!

A full post with photos will follow today or tomorrow. 

Lijiang 丽江

We had decided to spend one day in Lijiang before moving on to Tiger Leaping Gorge, so during the end of our Dali stay we located a decent looking travel agency and bought bus tickets for Lijiang. The agency we picked was run by a lovely Dali woman. She didn’t speak any English which suited me perfectly (I'm always happy to use my Chinese) and she was happy to tell a lot both about Lijiang and Dali. One of the things she said sort of jumped out:

-I don’t think you’re going to like Lijiang. It’s loved by Chinese but foreigners normally don’t like it.

Turns out she was quite right.

We caught the 10 am bus to Lijiang on the Wednesday (after 2 cups of Yunnan coffee at the Bakery No. 88) and reached Lijiang around 2 pm. The ride was fairly smooth with no dramas like toilets without doors. The bus dropped us off at Lijiang bus station and from there we asked locals for directions to the old town. A single, Israeli bagpacker immediately joined us when he heard me speaking Chinese, as he wasn't really familiar with the language himself. We started off by walking but eventually caught a cab, and 7 kuais later we were dropped off at the gate to Lijiang old town (no cars are allowed into the old town, or ancient town as it is actually called) where we waved goodbye to our new bagpacker friend.

A few steps into the old town a young Naxi girl (Naxi is a minority group mainly living in the Lijiang area) came running up to us, asking me if we were looking for a room (in Chinese). We talked for a bit and she explained that she and her family were running a family inn. We decided to have a look.

We went up and down (what felt like) 20 different alleys before we located the girl’s home. It was a fairly simple place but clean and decent and 60 rmb/night (after some negotiation). The young girl, Er Hua, and her older sister were running it, and since they seemed like lovely, honest girls we settled for the room, even though both me and mom feared that we were never going to be able to find our way back there at night.

We spent the rest of the day walking around and I have to say that the travel agency woman from Dali was quite right. Neither me nor mom enjoyed Lijiang even half as much as we enjoyed Dali. The whole old town felt a bit artificial and was super-touristy. I understand that people enjoy taking photos while holiday-ing (I’m the same) but walking around in Lijiang’s narrow, maze-like alleys was almost impossible due to people posing on every single little bit of the street. The buildings, houses and shops were nice looking, but I don’t know… the town didn’t have that “real” ring to it as Dali did (even though a lot of Dali’s architecture is also fairly new).

The artificial look is obviously due to the earthquake that rocked Lijiang in 1996. Afterwards, the Chinese Government rebuilt most of the town with traditional Naxi architecture. Rebuilt places are obviously never as nice as the original.

I also found that Lijiang locals weren’t half as friendly as Dali locals. Sure, they smiled and stuff but they were all trying to sell, sell, sell, and I missed the warm friendliness from Dali. We had one good chat with an old Naxi woman at a restaurant who told us a little bit about her family life and then started asking me 100 questions about my mom (“How old is she?” “How many children does she have?” Is this her first time in China?” “Is she fit enough for the Tiger Leaping Gorge?”). After I’d answered her (“She’s 60 years old. 4 kids including me. Third time in China. She’s definitely fit enough for the Gorge trek! She does a lot of running.”) she looked at mom with eyes glowing of respect. It was quite funny.

Other than that, the food in Lijiang was more expensive and not as good as the food in Dali. The Dali travel agency woman had already warned me about this, saying that Lijiang doesn’t have as much agriculture as Dali, so most of the veggies and stuff comes from Dali, hence the higher prices.

Later that day we decided to try a Naxi sandwich, something I had read about and was keen to have a bite off (I’m a complete food geek, and I always want to try the local specialities). I think we picked the totally wrong place though (even though it was a “Naxi restaurant”) because the sandwich (baba bread with goat cheese, egg, tomato and ketchup? The latter was a bit of a surprise. It must have been the restaurant’s very own “local touch”) was a total disappointment. Likewise was the local bread “baba” (粑粑) that I had heard others rave about. We stuck to veggie dishes for the rest of our stay in Lijiang, and my taste buds started a new love affair with bitter melon (ku gua苦瓜). Why haven’t I had that before? It's so good!

Some other goos stuff includes yak yoghurt (we had at least three serves of this per day. Simply couldn’t get enough of this thick, creamy yoghurt. It was great in milkshakes too) and the spicy ginger candy. Yum!

At night time Lijiang turned into a loud party city with screaming waitresses/hostesses and karaoke/live band performances on every door-to-door restaurant. We had decided to head to the Tiger Leaping Gorge at 8am the next morning so we were only moderately excited about the noise level when we eventually were trying to get some sleep at our family inn.

Ba ba bread

Yak yoghurt
Naxi sandwich (?)
Naxi ren
Photo mania
More photo mania
Tourist destination no 1

Man making ginger candy

Lijiang by night

Dali 大理

Goodmorning Dali!

Due to time restrictions we only spent one day in Dali, but what a day that was! We got up quite early in order to try the included breakfast at our hotel (for 260 yuan/night we were expecting something decent) that was served between 7.30-8.30 am. Unfortunately, we weren’t too impressed… rice porridge (which was OK I assume), and a spicy meat sauce-and-spaghetti-version, accompanied by 2 muffins and 2 eggs. No coffee. After a few spoonfuls of soup (mom’s a vegetarian so only rice porridge for her) we left in search for a place serving real coffee, a must-do for both of us in order to turn human in the morning.

We were out on the streets fairly early and were greeted by a stunning, blue sky and some fairly quiet streets: Some men and women selling pancakes and snacks. Mothers getting their kids ready for school. Old men on bicycles. Barely no cars. It was quite wonderful!

We didn’t have to look far for a cosy café. Dali had tonnes. We finally settled for one called “The Bakery No.88” (on Bo’ai Lu) and ordered ourselves large cups of Yunnan coffee a la 10 kuai per cup. Real good stuff. The café staff was friendly so we sat there for a bit, sucking in the relaxed atmosphere and feeling very at ease. No bus rides or angry drivers were on the schedule for the day. Rather, we had a whole day of exploring ahead of us.

We started off by walking around/across/all over Dali. We went up and down every single little alley that we could find and engaged in all kinds of fun. We spoke to Bai women (who were trying to sell us their handmade cushion covers and shoes), got our shoes re-soled by a happy local who took his time and told us a bit about Dali, engaged in some people watching and chatted to everything from old women selling exotic fruits to little school children who wanted to take our pictures. I even got to pose with two young, dong-bei guys who were pretending I was their shared girlfriend.

When our stomachs started to rumble we picked one of the less clean and commercial looking places, but rather a simple, with-all-the-veggies-on-display-sort of restaurants that had tiny little tables and seats, but friendly and cheerful staff. We ordered a mix of vegetarian wonders (veggies and tofu) and had one of the best veggie dishes I have ever had in China. I have no idea what this veggie is called, but if someone knows please feel free to share because it was really good! We also tried the local speciality, ru shan（乳扇）, namely aired yoghurt that has been fried. It didn’t sound that nice but it was actually okay.

After lunch we rented bicycles (10 rmb/bike for one day) and rode to Er Hai Hu （洱海湖）, a large lake located some 4 km from Dali. We got to the lake quite late (due to several stops on the way: to take photos, to cross a big road –it was mom’s first bicycle attempt in China- to drink water, to take more photos, to figure out the way, and so on), so the last few boats were just coming in. We considered taking a boat cruise but decided not to, it was quite nice just to sit by the water and relax (and, for a magical 10 minutes or so we were all alone!). Things got even more interesting when 10 young, local boys turned up in bathing shorts, throwing themselves into the water and playing all kinds of games. After chatting to the kids for a bit we decided to go back to the city.

Back in town we did the usual stuff: ate, walked around, and had some drinks at a really cosy bar in an alley, before heading to our hotel for some sleep. Oh, during the morning –after the breakfast disappointment- we changed our hotel to a much cheaper guest house, which was run by two young Bai girls. It was clean and fresh and only 60 rmb/night and we didn’t even have to pay any deposit. Sweet.

The day in photos:

Breakfast at the hotel
Yunnan Coffee


Shoe fix and a chat
Yummy fruit, not sure what it is called
I love this kind of restaurant

Ru Shan (aired yoghurt)

The best veggie ever!
Bike ride

Er Hai Lake

Boys taking a dip

Suzhou-Shanghai-Kunming-Dali in one day

Back in Suzhou after one fabulous week in Yunnan. Wow. So many new experiences. So much to take in!

To start off with I guess I should say that since my mom is still here so I’m quite busy, in case I don’t make it to the computer every day. Another thing, I tried to blog from Yunnan but wasn’t able to access my blog without a proxy (I cannot believe it is still blocked in China! Arrrghhh!), and trying to find a proper proxy from an internet café in Dali didn’t really feel like my thing. Besides, the computer I was using kept shutting itself down.

But, back to Yunnan. What did we do there then? Well, to start off from the beginning: On Monday, we got up super early, took a car to Shanghai, and then flew into Kunming. From there we managed to get to the wrong bus station, namely the west station. We had been told that buses to Dali would leave quite often, so imagine our surprise when we asked a woman at the ticket office when the next bus to Dali was leaving, and she said: “In 2.5 hours.”

Nice one. Not.

Since we were carrying some seriously heavy bags (I know I know, bagpacking is all about travelling light, but I simply do not possess that ability, and neither does my mom, so it wasn’t only me whining about a sore back 5 minutes into carrying my rucksack around) and had already had a late brunch (a detour from the airport before we ventured to the wrong bus station) we had nothing to do but to… wait. And wait. And wait.

2.5 painfully long hours later a man that probably qualifies as The Rudest Man I’ve Met in China came and yelled at us to get into a small, smelly, terribly unsafe-looking version of a minibus. We obliged, and he drove off, in the usual road-rage-race speed. He refused to answer any of my questions (such as: “will you please slow down?!” or “Hey, where are we going?” and “Why aren’t there any other passengers?”) and when he suddenly steered the car into a small little building area we where a line of men stood watching the car pull in, we were getting ready to get robbed.

Fortunately, the men just glared at us, and the Angry Man got out and said something to me I didn’t understand. When I ran after him and asked he started yelling at me that I was stupid who didn’t understand Chinese (cheers) and then he went to one of the men and started talking to him, without taking his eyes of us. I went back to the minibus where we felt feeling everything but comfortable and probably not being many meters closer to Dali than we had been some 20 minutes ago. I was seeing some crazy scenarios in my head about what was going to happen next when a large bus suddenly pulled up (from nowhere) and a very thin Chinese girl waved for us to hurry inside.

We threw our bags in the truck and hurried inside, all while Angry Man kept watching us. Once seated the tiny thin girl handed us a bottle of water and asked if we were going to Dali. Finally! That was the first good moment of that day.

However, whoever told me it was a mere 3 hour bus ride to Dali now “with the new highway” is to think again. It took us 5 hours with that bus, although I should mention that we stopped at one of the Dirtiest Places Ever where we were told we could enjoy 30 minutes of rest/peeing/eating.

Mom had her first encounter with a toilet stall without a door that you can close behind you, but once she had overcome her fear we headed to the restaurant and ordered, ate, and paid within a time frame of 10 minutes. I’m personally pretty impressed. Although I guess the fact that I was so hungry I was about to start nibbling on my water bottle had something to do with it.

We arrived in Dali quite late, sometime around 10 pm. The bus dropped us off in the new town where a bunch of taxi drivers competed about getting us into their cars and drive us to the old town. We picked a guy and another two bagpackers magically showed up, asking us if they could go with us as they didn’t speak one iota of Chinese. Sure they could.

During the ride mom and one of the bagpackers (a young girl) bonded over the trauma of seeing a toilet with no door that you can close, meanwhile I chatted away with the taxi driver. He proved to be the happy, chatty kind, not only driving us to the old town for a cheap price, but also telling us everything we needed to know about Dali (weather forecast, local specialities, sightseeing must-do and must-not-do) and assuring us that he’d help us to find a good hotel.

Me and mom were knackered and ended up settling for the first place he took us to: a rather fancy hotel that was a whopping 260 yuan/night (I say whopping because it was compared to what we paid for our rooms during the rest of our stay). It looked clean and had big beds that we immediately fell into. The other two travellers continued on with the happy taxi driver who kept his promise and took them to a cheap, but nice hotel. We know this because we bumped into them the next day, and they told us the driver had even insisted on everything from carrying their bags to doing the haggling for them, since he was so keen that they would end up happy. Quite a champ if you ask me.

So, that’s the story of the (fairly boring) day one where nothing really happened but we still made our way to Dali. Tomorrow I’ll write about Dali, then about Lijiang, and then eventually about the best adventure of the whole trip: the Tiger Leaping Gorge.