Goodbye to China and Hello to Korea

I'm sorry it took so long to post. I don't even have an excuse. I'm just that lazy. But school will start soon so I should be a bit more timely in my updates.

I returned to Beijing at the end of my China trip to meet up with Ki Sung and show him around. (he's never really traveled before) so I won't post pictures of things you've already seen but I did see some new stuff. For instance I went back to the Summer Palace. But in winter the large lake freezes over so that you can walk across it. I've never walked on a frozen lake before so I was really excited about this.


And there was a whole section of the park I missed before with some interesting architecture.
And of course pictures of the Great Wall. There are four major sections of it surrounding Beijing and this is the most popular and safest part at Badaling. But it is crowded, even on a cold day in January.
Luckily this section is so long that most of the crowds turn back so that the real experience of the Great Wall can be had if you're willing to hike.
And I do mean hike. This part is so steep. They just built the wall following the contours of the land. Parts were so steep that it was safer to sit on my butt and slide down the wall rather than risk falling or putting alot of stress on my knees.
And we visited yet another large Buddha. (I think China has a fetish for them) This one is the world's largest Buddha carved from one piece of Balsa wood.

And the my new favorite food. Peking Duck! all I can say is that it's delicious and everyone should try it. But now I'm back in South Korea waiting for the semester to start. Everything is pretty much the same but my living situation has drastically improved. From the dirty, noisy dorm last semester I have moved into what is known as a hasukjib or boarding house. About the same price as student housing in the US I get my own little room on the fourth floor of a building in the middle of Sincheon (the neighborhood next to Yonsei) So here it is.

My own TV and refrigerator.
My bed


and my little bistro setup. This is my favorite part. I have a large set of windows with a little table in front of them where I eat and work on my computer.
What makes a hasukjib different from other living arrangements is there are two meals served a day (breakfast and dinner) by the ajuma, the woman who owns the building. Many older, single women in Korea make a living this way by renting out rooms to students and cooking them dinner everynight. The food price is included in the rent so it is important to not only look for a nice room but make sure the owner is a good cook. Mine is.

I went to Chengdu, home of the panda breeding reserve. So, as a few of you know I really like Pandas (asked for a Panda for Christmas when I was little) they're my favorite animal so I've been planning to come to China and see the pandas for years now. and I finally did so now you will all be subjected to the my love for these creatures and only a handful of the dozens of photos I took.

After they ate they were really playful. I was surprised to find out that they are vicious (they are wild bears) their manager is still a bit afraid of them.
Actually they're really good climbers.

Teenagers (3-4 years) So, lazy and greedy. Adult (5-6 years) Tired and slow.
Baby (less than a year) The size of my teddy bear.
Adult pandas (5-6 years) They have an pseudo thumb (so six fingers) that helps them grip the bamboo. and yes they ate all of that.
Also, there were red pandas. They aren't really pandas, more like raccoons, but still eat bamboo and are just as cuddly.
I got to hold one for 50 quai (about $9) Holding a panda cub would have cost 1000quai ($150) and sitting next to an adult would have been 400quai ($60) (And believe me I was tempted)



And of course some videos of the cuteness.






O.k besides the pandas there is one other important thing to see in Chengdu. Here's a teaser.
The Great Buddha of Leshan. 1,200+ years old and 71 meters tall. Supposedly the biggest Buddha in the world. Literally carved out of a cliff face by a several generations of monks with too much time on their hands.
You could walk down the cliff face to the bottom of the Buddha which was interesting because the cliff was covered with carvings of arhats and Buddhas and guardians all with an Indian feel to them because they're so old. In side one of the temples on the Cliff I stumbled upon some monks saying prayers so you can hear some of the Tibetan prayers.


Mom asked for "real" pictures and here's one. Everyone over the again of 40 plays Mahjong or Go or some other card game in large packs outside restaurants or beside the rivers every afternoon.
Went to a temple in Chengdu call the Green Ram temple. Nothing really distinctive about it except for the large bronze statues of Rams outside the main shrine and people rub for good luck.
All right so I never really explained train station and I wish I had a video of this. People get to the train station about two hours early just to find a place to sit. and then they usually take up three seats sleeping while their kids climb over other people and chairs. Then about thirty minutes before the train departs an announcement is made and everyone rushes to stand in line and push forward towards a closed gate. At the gate their is usually a guard with a gun or baton to control potential rioting. Then everyone pushes and gets as close to the person in front of them as possible for the next thirty minutes even though seats are assigned, the gate is not opening anytime soon and there is plenty of time to leisurely board the train. Finally boarding starts, the gates open and people trip over themselves and their bags to get on the train. I usually just wait in my seat until all this is over and then stroll onboard. Craziness.
I'm now in Beijing, my last stop, revisiting some places from this summer and I'll return to Korea in 3 days. China's been fun. If anything new happens in Beijing I'll post some pictures.

Shangri-la?

A few years ago the Chinese government renamed the city of Zhongdian on the Tibetan border Shangrila in order to increase tourism. It didn't really work as most westerners are disgusted at such an obvious ploy but I went anyway. I found a town where everyone looks like they must be at least over 100 years old and beautiful Tibetan architecture and culture without having to spend hundreds on a permit to Lhasa.

Coming into town we drove on the edge of a cliff through many snow covered peaks and passed several mounds like the one seen here. It's used for prayer but I couldn't get any information beyond that. (This is where speaking the language of the country you're in comes in handy)



The first thing I did (and also the only but we'll get to that later) was visit the Songzalin Monastery. Note how the houses still come right up to the walls of the monastery. It was also fairly dirty inside and there were still places women weren't allowed to enter. All signs that Shangri-la hasn't become the tourist theme park it was supposed to be. (lucky for me)
I really like Tibetan architecture. (that what this style is) Like the Naxi and Bai houses they painted the outside. Especially the windows are accented with pretty borders and pictures. Also, look at the sky! It's so blue and no haze. At 4000meters I think the air is too thin to really hold anything. Here I got a nice tan from the increased intensity of the sun's rays but I also had a slight headache, my only symptom of altitude sickness besides a general weakness.
I wasn't supposed to take this photo but I did. This is the inside of the main temple. Can you spot the monk praying? Fun story about Tibetan prayers. Tibet has its own language (a kind of flowing script) and when they pray they chant in their language while thumbing prayer beads (think rosary) and rocking or swaying. The first time I saw someone praying I had walked into a shop and the man behind the counter was praying. I thought he was mentally disturbed and that I should leave before I put it together. Tibetan sounds nothing like Mandarin.
Just a beauty shot.
And another monk.
Did I mention that Shangri-la really is a paradise.
A bit of the old city where I stayed. New parts were built to accomadate tourists but most of those buildings are empty.
Oh, and because they still subsist on farming there are animals roaming the streets and countryside. The most famous is the yak. Used for meat and milk.
There are also pigs (they remind me of javelinas) These pigs are skittish of people but roam the city streets. I guess they belong to somebody?
And the Mastiff originates from this area. This one is a stray who came and sat next to me when I was eating. I named him Harrison. (For some reason he looks like Harrison Ford to me, does anyone else see it?)
Again not sure what this is. I accidentally walked into a festival/dance thing. But here is some of Tibets traditional/festive dress. I like the fur hat. I realized that I never explained why I came to the South of China though. So, something like 90% of China is the Han etnicity but the other 10% is made up of about 80 different minority groups all living in southern China. Each with their own languages, dress and culture. The Bai and Naxi are actually matrilineal groups with some interesting marrige practices, so I'm told. The problem is the Chinese government keeps turning the settlements into tourist areas and relocating Han into the area to keep the authority. So I haven't taken many pictures of the minorities in the area because often times they're fake. But these women (and men) look and speak Tibetan so I feel that they're real. I haven't posted a video in a while. But here is one of the dancing and singing/chanting.



Ok, so I mentioned that traveling during the new year's holiday is hard but I never really had a problem until leaving Shangri-la. I left earlier than I wanted because the bus I wanted only left on somedays so I jumped on one at 5:00pm on Friday evening. It was a sleeper bus (seen below). About 10 beds deep and two beds high, none of them big enough to accomodate a real person comfortably. Being white I got the biggest at the front but my feet hung off the end another 3 inches still. And they're hard. And of course it's a bus on Chinese roads so it bounced and swayed for 10 hours. Needless to say I didn't sleep much.

Now my plan was to go to an industrial city called Panzhihua and take the train that connected to my next destination Chengdu. For some reason the bus stopped at an outlying town instead of the actual city, so at 5:00am I was forced to take a taxi to the train station. About 80 quai (don't convert it, just know that that's alot for a taxi ride in China) I get to the train station and find out the train I want doesn't leave until 3:30pm and the hotel where I had planned to sleep was closed. So I camped out at the train station for 9 hours. I ended up paying a shop 10quai to let me use their power outlet and watched every movie I have saved on my harddrive. But misfortune continues because when I got on the train I found that I had a hard seat (meaning sitting up) next to a mother and child with no sense of personal space. The train filled up with people litterally filling the aisles and people spitting and babies pooping on the floor (diapers don't exist in China) And I come to find out that it's a 15 hour train ride to my destination. But luckily, about 6 hours in, a conductor comes by and rescues me by asking me to upgrade to a sleeper bed (which were available) for the sake of space. This is the way the Chinese usually travel but I for one could never do it. I arrived in Chengdu at 6:00am and slept until 2:00pm.

Feats of Amazing Ability (For a Tiger and Me)

Well I finally left Dali and it took some effort due to the holiday. (New Year's apparently lasts 15 days and so I'm going to be inconvenienced until the end of my trip) But I traveled up the mountains towards Tibet to Tiger Leaping Gorge. (one of the deepest river canyons in the world, 2000meters) A beautiful and scenic area settled by the Naxi. Note the Naxi matron above. They all where blue and are once again easily identifiable by the hats. Also, something interesting (to me) they have cut their hair short (above the shoulders) all other women and general fashion in China have hair that is long enough to extend in braids down the back. But anyway, on to the Gorge.


It's only about 20km hike done over two days with guesthouses along the road. I only did the first part and then skipped out due to time. Here is the begining with the Yangtze river flowing into the gorge.

And of course the local con. People from the area follow you from the begining of the trail offering to let you ride their mule for a fee. Here is mine. He followed me and two friends for the entire first day. We did eventually give in on the hardest part of the trail (the 28 bends) but mostly I used him as my personal guide. He showed me which berries were edible (if sour) and kept us on the right trail.

Looking down at the river.
Small hamlets are scattered along the trail. People raise animals and crops on the mountain side.
And then the sun came out.
And here is the place for which the gorge was names. Supposedly a tiger escaped its pursuers by leaping across the river (to the stone in the middle) and escaped. This part of the gorge is only 25meters wide.
As I said I slept the night on the trail at the Tea Horse guesthouse. And when the rooster wouldn't shut up at 6:00am I got up and took this picture of the Jade Snow Mountains (5,000ish meters) that run along the opposite side of the gorge.
Of course there are several waterfalls that feed down into the river. This was the best one. And remember this was taken during the dry season. This area is known for mudslides during May/June.
And a look back.
So, I got to my stopping point and had the chance to climb and hour and half down straight down to see the Middle Rapids on the river. So here are trees along the river bed.
This picture doesn't capture just how massive these rapids were. (I didn't zoom in at all)
After about 10 hours of hiking I finished the gorge (or at least 3/4 of it) and headed out along my way to Shangri-la. (Yes, it exsits, as of 2001) But more on that in the next post.