DATELINE:GUILIN

Well okay, so I have skipped a day of typing, it’s been some busy times for me! Here is the rundown of the events of the past two days for Ron and May in China.

Thurs, June 26 – day #2 in Xi’an, and so we got up and headed out, the group saw a famous religious area “Yan Pagoda.” I wasn’t paying too much attention to the particulars, it was an area with a large golden Buddha statue that people would prey to, and burn candles and light incense in front of. For me, it was a good spot to get a ton of photo reference, and so I did exactly that. Afterwards, we were due to visit the "ninth wonder of the world" (or was it eighth?), the Terracotta Warriors. An Ancient Chinese Ruler had an army of close to 10,000 statues built, I believe the count was, to defend his underground tomb. This dated back a good several hundred years BC, I think around the same time as the construction of the Great Wall. Hell if you want the details, go to Wikipedia! Anyway, first they brought us to a factory where they create souvenier warrior statues in their likeness, so you can bring some of your own home. Then the usual spiel of all the gaudy things you could buy. Then off to another place (in a ghost-town feeling area) to eat lunch, another tourist restaurant of course - while we ate, they would unroll enormous wall scrolls and try to get us to buy them. After this our bus headed to the pits where the actual Terracotta Warriors were (still) being unearthed, they were originally discovered in 1974. Though a lot of people generally seem interested in this topic, I must say it didn't really do too much for me compared to many other things I have seen - I mean, it doesn't rank up there with something like the pyramids or the grand canyon (i haven't actually seen the latter in person, but you get my drift). Still I can appreciate the awesome size of the exhibit, and the weirdness that it was just discovered barely 30 yrs ago - and is still undergoing excavation and reconstruction.

Following all of that, we chilled out in a tea house and I kicked back a couple of beers while we waited for the remainder of our crew to wrap up. Then of course, back to the hotel for dinner, though May and I decided to journey into the town and seek out some local bite to eat rather than another subpar "meal for tourists" (note that the food isn't "bad," per se, just boring and really the same fare over and over again). Anyway we headed downtown in Xi'an and found a place with some pretty damned tasty spicy beef, if I do say so myself. A couple of college art professors from our group joined us, and we all shared the food - they also ordered trip ad Ox Tails, which weren't bad. A little bartering with the locals, and then back to the hotel - disappointing, as we were in a hustle and bustle area and I wanted to get a chance to chill out with the locals for an evening. Instead I just relaxed in the hotel lounge and drank a few glasses of whiskey (not enough to do much damage, as they were quite small and the atmosphere was ubelievably mellow).

Last night I slept pretty horribly, I had some dream about answering a knock at my door and some kid riding his bike up to it and pointing a gun at my face, I woke up with a real jump. I fell back asleep and dreamt about losing my apartment ("my prized possession!") and I was in some relationship with some random girl, we always fought - eventually she left me for some other guy, but they lived with me and wouldn't leave me alone (they were always reminding me how I was a failure in love + career + etc) Of course I got pretty bitter and started saying disparaging things about the both of them, a lot of my friends started to get offended by this and would send me angry emails and answering machine messages. I woke up once more and felt exhausted from this stress, obviously I did not want to sleep anymore! I went to the bathroom feeling quite queasy - at last the dreaded upset stomach of the chinese vacation had caught up with me! (For the record I'd been noticeably bound up much of the past week). Wonderful things to read, I am sure, but certainly worth mentioning. I had fears of it hitting me in the middle of a Death March somewhere, or long bus ride - fortunately, it's been easygoing as those things go, and I have been trying to take it easy on the ol' digestive tract today.

Anyway, on with the tour recount - after spending some quality time with Mr Toilet, and being the last one to file onto the tour bus, we rocketed out of our hotel and towards the airport, then flew without incident towards the next stop on our destination, the somewhat tropical region of Giulin. A quick flight over (maybe 1:30?) and we piled into the next bus. This area has an interesting look to it, compared to our last stops - much, much more rural, bizarre and interesting landscape. Crazy surreal mountainous region, the likes of which I have never seen before. While much of the rest of China (that I have seen) feels like a dry dusty desert which had urban elements plopped into it, this region feels like it was until recently quite wild and...well, like I was saying, Tropical! It feels like the roads are barely freshly paved, and that's not to say they look neat and tidy - just that there probably wasn't much in the way of paving going on here 30-odd yrs ago, possibly. Lots of poverty around, lots of tiny hovels, the first 30 min we cruised through town in our bus I noticed nary an actual traffic light. As we got further in, the town built up somewhat, like the other cities in China we have visited it's just endless and always bustling, plenty of people traveling back and forth all over the place, slipping and sliding past one another. More than Xi'an, this place was even more humid and warm, fortunately it cooled as the day grew later. Also to note, it had a lot of the rice paddy field-things you read about in elementary school, the ones that look so clean and perfect, like they would be fun to run through or something..

We stopped in this weird huge cave, a big tourist trap - they've done up the inside with colorful neon lights hidden in it's crevices, giving everything this bizarre otherworldly look that's party feeling like a fake-movie set, almost. You knock on the cave walls and expect it to feel like plaster! Walking inside the cave was really a treat though, as it was so misty and cool compared to the draining gross heat outside. Also it was just a surreal and comfortable, I guess, experience, that it made me sad that we kind of poured in and out of there so fast - I could have hapily spent a couple of hours zoning out in there. It was hard to get "normal" pics in there due to the crazy lighting, but it was wonderful to generate plenty of abstract photography for the same reasons - experimenting with motion and prolonged exposure produced a lot of wild and interesting results. It was a lot of fun! Almost all my pics I shot in there look like a crazy rave..

After this, our group bussed over to some famous hill (I forget the name, bah!) and hiked up a bunch of stairs to get to the top. The heat made it a little annoying, but the climb was much more bearable than the Great Wall of just a few days earlier (by a longshot!) We got up there and shot some pics of the great 360 degree view. It was pretty cool, and I was probably a little too beat to appreciate it - you could really see a lot of interesting terrain and (rundown) cityscape from up there. That is the problem with this trip, I should say - we do see a LOT of interesting things, but it's gotten to the point where we're all so overstimulated from constant running around all over the place that there's not really any chance to "stop and smell the roses." That's the thing about taking an organized tour, you just gotta go with the flow, stay on your toes, and process it all later on. One of the reasons I am trying to keep this vacation journal at such a (relatively) hectic pace is so that I can keep track of Up and Down, since my whole sense of perspective is slippery at best, after this madness...!

Tonight we ate -- yeah, guess it, come on, another subpar chinese dinner at a tourist-serving spot! Then it was off to a local theater to see a show (I think 1.5 hrs) showcasing the traditional costume and dance of some of the local ethnicities. Like many of the shows we've seen on this trip, it was quite ghetto, though it's the first one I didn't find myself nodding off during. The previous one was easily the most lavish, though this show had some outrageous gymnastics going on. You know, those people with the unbelievably limber bodies who could lie on their chests and bend their legs all the way around and pretty much scratch their heads with them, as they were balancing on a couple of other LAYERS of people. It's amazing the amount of control some people can exert over their physique, absolutely amazing (if not also somewhat grotesque!) The show was enjoyable, but it was a long day and I think we were happy to wrap it up and head to hotel number three. We passed through Downtown in our bus, it was completely bustling with throngs of people everywhere, looking like a great time. Like I mentioned, everybody seemed completely exhausted and so I've no idea if anyone was gonna venture out into that madness - already 10pm and another day coming up of more running around to look forward to, as I type these words my drive to spite them and go out alone is diminishing. Also I am kinda colored by the night I had out by myself in Xi'an, it was cool but I felt way out of place and ill-equipped of the nerves to go out and cause a ruckus. I might just have to save my energy a little for Shanghai and May's hometown, I mean -- hell, we still have another WEEK of this trip to contend with!!

Anyway, so that's where things stand. A four hour boat tour tomorrow, followed by I dunno what else, then we'll stay in a different hotel tomorrow night, then fly to Shanghai the following day. Whew.

Some odds and ends are in order. Firstly, May wanted to point out that the post office (in the Beijing airport) ripped her off the other day when they made her mail out her Zippo Lighters, they cost US$30 to send out the US$80 set.

In Beijing, we passed by something creepy called Disney Gardens, a more-than-proposed Disney Theme Park which actually seems to have got a fair bit of the way under construction before the whole thing got shitcanned. I mean, you drive by and see cartoon buildings and cinderella-castle looking things before you notice it's something which never got completed and possibly (?) never will. The tour guide was mentioning "take a lesson, you should plan something out properly before getting far into it!" But considering it's Disney, and China, I am sure some hairy politics must have been it's undoing. A day or two later we passed another unfinished amusement park in a strange out-of-the-way place, I mean it's nothing but creepy to see those rollercoaster tracks that just abruptly stop, in the middle of a ghost town.

I know my girlfriend, and parents, etc will love reading this, but I noticed that one can not view porn on the internet over here. I dunno if it's the firewall of the hotels we are staying at, or some blocker program on my girlfriend's computer, or what, but my personality is such that when I can't access something I start to kinda dig into it and try to find a way around it, just for spite if nothing else (hell, I am a problem solver!) I did find, I think maybe ONE quality picture of a vagina. And there wasn't even any foreign objects trying to violate it, for crying out loud! Regardless, for my efforts I keep waiting for some crack military assault squad to arrive with helicopters, bust through the walls, confiscate the laptop and arrest the entire tour group, and of course do something horrible to all of my entrails to set an example for others. Hmm, something like that. Anyway, mental note, next time bring own porn. While on topic, I should note I don't believe I have seen any whores/weird sex things yet. I think we passed by a massage parlour but it looked legit.

Hanging out in Beijing was bad enough but Xi'an was worse, in regards to traffic behavior. Obeying traffic lights and such seems like more of a suggestion than anything else - the way people drive her is absolutely crazy retarded. It's just - I don't know, organic. Survival of the Fittest. Call it what you will. Being on a bus is one thing, but cabbing it is another universe altogether. You see pedesstrians (even.. little kids! Like LITTLE KIDS BY THEMSELVES!) stranded in the middle of the street while cars and trucks just whiz by them, nonchalantly. It makes one feel like traffic back home is incredibly tame, by comparison. It's quite a rush to watch, and more than anything - well, one tends to look at the faces of the pedestrians while they are INCHES FROM BEING POSSIBLY SIDESWIPED BY A BUS, and their look is just nothing, business as usual. "Oh, I almost met my maker. So, who cares." I wonder how people like that can adapt to driving in the states. It's so remarkable.

Sigh. Almost midnight. Need to be up by 7. It looked like a really good time out in the city tonight, and it's just up the road, but Lorda Mercy I think i am gonna cheese out (awww!) and give my depleted constitution a bit of the brief respite. I know, I will regret this...!