hen gaoxing renshi ni! (pleased to meet you!)
Ok, it doesn't make much sense right here, but I've been itching to use this, my most recently learned Chinese phrase. I did try it on a shy 6 year old I encountered at a street vendor, but he either didn't understand me or was too filled with terror to reply. Its been nearly 7 months in China and I'm finally OK with the fear I induce in young children :)
In 7 months, I've managed to write, what, two blog posts? (John Kerr is not impressed). Its not for lack of interesting Chinese experiences, as there are plenty of those. Somehow this blog has turned into something I feel I must do, as opposed to want to do. And so I simply just stay away. Luckily, Adam has been keeping all you folk updated with pics and and videos.
But presently I am in the rare mood to get some of these golden experiences written down, loaded up, posted out there. So here is a (lengthy) account of a trip we took last weekend, to Huang Shan, aka the Yellow Mountain. If you don't feel like reading the whole thing, you can get the gist from the chapter titles below. That's right, I said chapters. (Get another rum and coke John) Its going to be a long one.
1. Bus Bust
2. Lady-Vultures
3. Was that a pickle jar hitting the floor or did our hearts just shatter/splatter?
4. A (metaphorical) mountain climb
1. Bus Bust
Some 9 months ago, while we were still in Canada and preparing for our life in China, my coworker showed me a magazine clipping of The Jade Screen Hotel (props Trish!). The photo and accompanying travel piece told of this majestic and serene hotel, high atop the revered Yellow Mountain. It made my heart leap out of my chest and onto my Must See List, number 1. Adam and I both knew then that we had to a) get to this wondrous mountain and b) witness the indescribable sunrise atop one of its peaks. Here's someone else's photo of that glorious moment:
Now, cut to a week and a half ago, here in Zhangjiagang.Our usual weekend is Wed and Thurs each week, but last week we had a Friday thrown on there for the National May day holiday. We both felt it was time to experiece the Yellow Mountain fever we had craved for so long. So we decided to make the journey, even though we knew that to travel during a Chinese national holiday is to give yourself up to the millions of migratory masses. But could we do it all in only three days?
Adam: "I told my class we're going to Huang Shan. They said we could do it in 3 days, no problem"
Adam: "Kelly, I told Figo we're going to Huang Shan. He said we can do it in 3 days, no problem"
Adam: "Eric says we can do Huang Shan in 3 days, no problem"
Kelly: "mmmmmm"
I was skeptical, but up for the adventure. We did the math(s) and figured that if we got on a 6 am bus we'd get to Hangzhou by 9 - 9:30, pop on an eleven o'clock bus to Tangkou and get to the mountain with enough time to climb, summit, and perhaps enjoy a nice glass of wine before an early turn in. No problem.
Fade in to Wednesday morning.
We are up and at the bus station by 5:45 am. On schedule and pumped! We'll I am. Adam is sleepy and a little grumpy. But I know he's pumped underneath the cold exterior. In varying degrees of pumped, we buy tickets for the first bus to Hangzhou...leaving at 7:20. Shhhhhhhhyeck.
That's the sound of a roadblock sliding firmly into its place, right in the middle of our first road out of town. But so what? 6am was a little obnoxious anyways. We can still make it to Hangzhou by 10:30 ish...maybe even catch that 11 o'clock. No problem!
We arrive in Hangzhou at 11. Shhhhhhhhyeck.
A few quick facts about Hangzhou: it is the capital of Zhejiang province; is a teeming megatropolis of 6.4 million people; home of the infamous West Lake (made so, for westerners, by Marco Polo during his Asian tour 700 years ago); and the site of the world's largest tidal bore. (Literally a 40 foot tidal wave races up one of its rivers on a monthly basis.) Oh, and it has four long distance bus stations. It is this last fact that absorbs our thoughts while taking our first steps into the city, at the North station. Will we be able to get a bus from here?
(you guessed it) Shhhhhhhhyeck. We're not sure exactly what the ticket wicket lady is telling us, but she's definitely not handing over any tickets to Tangkou. A kind stranger translates for us "You can't go from here. You must go to the station near the university." Thank you, sweet man bearing sour news.
No matter, we'll just hop in a cab and be on our way. After all, we know how to say university AND bus station in Mandarin- oh yeah! But when we hop into a taxi, we soon realize that the driver isn't really speaking mandarin. Perhaps some of this Wu dialect we keep reading about? She doesn't understand us at all. We all laugh then speak a little slower and a lot louder at each other. No dice. Out comes the dictionary, the lonely planet. Didn't I read something about these stations...? Meanwhile a fight has erupted at a taxi a few feet away. There are men screaming, spitting, slamming doors, a crowd has gathered...I just need to think for a moment! Where was it?... The taxi driver starts yelling at some men in uniforms to help us out, but they are too enthralled with the brawl...Ah yes, here we are: buses from Shanghai to the East bus station....Yoink! Adam grabs it out of my hand! Dammit! Now the two men in uniform are at the door, talking at us and trying to decipher our weak, weak mandarin.
"Nimen yao qu nar?" one of the men asks.
"Tan- Tan-" Where do we want to go? "Tangkou!" That's it.
Blank looks. We probably shouldn't pronounce it "Tank Cow", but its the only thing coming out of our mouths amidst all the background chaos. A few more minutes of throwing words back and forth. Finally we gather some wits and blurt "Huang Shan! Huang Shan!"
"Ahhhhh! Huang Shaaaan" said with the proper tones and a satisfied sigh. He understands, and we are on our way at last. Maybe we'll make a noon bus?!? That could still work. We'll just skip the wine..no problem.
But the holiday hub-ub has begun and the roads are crowded and chaotic, as are the long-ass queues at the west bus station. We catch a 12:45 bus. We're sweaty, tired, and slightly annoyed at our progress so far. But at least the bus is air conditioned and near empty. As we sprawl out on the back seat, we begin to relax and console ourselves that we may still get there in time to take the cable car up the mountain before sunset.
Suddenly, the bus lurches to a stop on a random street 5 minutes from the bus station. We hear voices and see a line of people eagerly getting on board. What the..? About 10 people get on the bus, hurried along by a woman in a blue blazer at the front. Most of them are small, slick and very thin men. They settle in, the bus pulls away, and the blue-blazer lady begins walking up and down the aisle, counting empty seats and chatting with the new arrivals.
Uh-oh. We've experienced this before. Its the underground bus system, so to speak. At any bus station, you can find shady characters out front trying to sell you the cheap seats. You can pay a lower rate, and everyone gets a cut along the way, from the driver to someone like this lady in blue, who orchestrates the whole thing.
Usually my experience with it involves the bus stopping once and 3 or 4 people getting on board. However we stop three times before getting out of the city - Shhhhhhhhyeck, Shhhhhhhhyeck, Shhhhhhhhyeck - and each time a herd of people get on board. We are no longer sprawled nor relaxed. We are squished into two small seats, surrounded by yawning, coughing horking men who, most annoyingly of all, like to stare at the only two waiguo ren (foreigners).
To retaliate, Adam takes pictures of them sleeping:
That makes us feel a little better. As does the lush countryside flowing past our window. This is our first experience of Chinese countryside, as it is a rare find in our heavily populated province of Jiangsu (a quick 74 million people in a province 1/6 the size of Alberta!!).So when we FINALLY pull into Tangkou 4 and a half hours later, after picking up and dropping off all of our new friends, we are still hopeful and excited about glorious Huang Shan!
Here are some blurry bus shots. Don't mind the glare.
2. Lady-Vultures
Just before the now near-empty bus pulls to a stop in Tangkou, the be-blazered lady corners us (easy to do on a bus) and asks us what our plans are for the mountain.
We are going up tonight, we say in broken, simple Mandarin.
No, no. Not possible. No cable car after 5.
Well, then we'll walk up!
No, no, no. The gates are closed. Can't get in. But you can stay at my hotel...special price.
Shhhhhhhhyeck. And this one hurts. A whole day of hoping, hopping, jumping through hoops, and the gate is closed.
But we don't really believe her and think she maybe is lying to us to get us to stay at her hotel. So we begin to walk away and toward what we think is the gate of the mountain. She follows us, as does a gang of her workers plus some other random people. They are all shaking their heads, no, no, no!
Suddenly, one of the men from the underground bus crew appears. He was one of the first to sit near us, and I recall feeling a bit sorry for him (as I did the whole crew in general). He too is thin and slick, but he is wearing an Everest Base Camp hat and sporting a digital SLR camera around his neck. In perfect English, he explains to us that the gates are in fact closed, and that he suggests we find a room at another hotel then climb the mountain in the morning.
Now this is what I love about China - nothing is as it seems. And I love it when life reminds me to open my mind, shut my mouth, and not make generalization so easily. This man sat near us the whole bus ride there, probably listened to my complaints about having to squish in because of the new passengers (him included), then still takes the time to help us out. My heart it glows, my mind it grows.
We graciously start to follow him into town, but the blue lady won't let us out of her grasp just yet. So I take a look in her "hotel" (read sketchy dormitory) and then we boot it. But she literally sends one of her staff to stalk us the whole walk to town. This woman is a tiny waif of a thing, but manages to keep up with our long brisk strides while talking on her cell phone and simultaneously speaking broken English to us. The sweet Everest man is nowhere in sight, and we really don't know where to go. We go into a few posh-looking hotels only to find prices out of our desired budget, and so continue the trek.
The tiny lady is circling us like a hawk, and despite our now angry "Bu Yao!"s, we just can't shake her. Along the way three other ladies join the hunt. We are desperate to get rid of these vulture-ladies, but in our tired, hungry and disappointed states we stick out like dying, baby penguins.
(Wow, what a sick simile. But it stays)
At long last, we find a decent hotel and shake ourselves of the circling ladies. (Not before the original, tiny lady stands right beside me while I book our room and proceeds to ask me how much we're paying!! I almost kicked her in the shins.) Actually the hotel is the nicest one we have stayed in so far, and the evening turns into quite an enjoyable one. We roam around this Banff-like Chinese village, run into a few other foreigners along the way and end up having dinner with a very interesting lady from Belgium named Ineke. Its no wine-filled sunset, but something memorable all the same!
Our great hotel room. Fourth floor, huge windows, hard wood floor - fantastique!
A view of the Tangkou hub
Adam with his dictionary out, trying to tell one of the vulture-ladies something. Don't be fooled by her girlish and docile appearance...she's got claws! Acting all casual is part of their game :)
We are going up tonight, we say in broken, simple Mandarin.
No, no. Not possible. No cable car after 5.
Well, then we'll walk up!
No, no, no. The gates are closed. Can't get in. But you can stay at my hotel...special price.
Shhhhhhhhyeck. And this one hurts. A whole day of hoping, hopping, jumping through hoops, and the gate is closed.
But we don't really believe her and think she maybe is lying to us to get us to stay at her hotel. So we begin to walk away and toward what we think is the gate of the mountain. She follows us, as does a gang of her workers plus some other random people. They are all shaking their heads, no, no, no!
Suddenly, one of the men from the underground bus crew appears. He was one of the first to sit near us, and I recall feeling a bit sorry for him (as I did the whole crew in general). He too is thin and slick, but he is wearing an Everest Base Camp hat and sporting a digital SLR camera around his neck. In perfect English, he explains to us that the gates are in fact closed, and that he suggests we find a room at another hotel then climb the mountain in the morning.
Now this is what I love about China - nothing is as it seems. And I love it when life reminds me to open my mind, shut my mouth, and not make generalization so easily. This man sat near us the whole bus ride there, probably listened to my complaints about having to squish in because of the new passengers (him included), then still takes the time to help us out. My heart it glows, my mind it grows.
We graciously start to follow him into town, but the blue lady won't let us out of her grasp just yet. So I take a look in her "hotel" (read sketchy dormitory) and then we boot it. But she literally sends one of her staff to stalk us the whole walk to town. This woman is a tiny waif of a thing, but manages to keep up with our long brisk strides while talking on her cell phone and simultaneously speaking broken English to us. The sweet Everest man is nowhere in sight, and we really don't know where to go. We go into a few posh-looking hotels only to find prices out of our desired budget, and so continue the trek.
The tiny lady is circling us like a hawk, and despite our now angry "Bu Yao!"s, we just can't shake her. Along the way three other ladies join the hunt. We are desperate to get rid of these vulture-ladies, but in our tired, hungry and disappointed states we stick out like dying, baby penguins.
(Wow, what a sick simile. But it stays)
At long last, we find a decent hotel and shake ourselves of the circling ladies. (Not before the original, tiny lady stands right beside me while I book our room and proceeds to ask me how much we're paying!! I almost kicked her in the shins.) Actually the hotel is the nicest one we have stayed in so far, and the evening turns into quite an enjoyable one. We roam around this Banff-like Chinese village, run into a few other foreigners along the way and end up having dinner with a very interesting lady from Belgium named Ineke. Its no wine-filled sunset, but something memorable all the same!
Our great hotel room. Fourth floor, huge windows, hard wood floor - fantastique!
A view of the Tangkou hub
Adam with his dictionary out, trying to tell one of the vulture-ladies something. Don't be fooled by her girlish and docile appearance...she's got claws! Acting all casual is part of their game :)
Adam with Ineke, the restaurant owner and some random boy, not her son (I asked)
Dinner for three
The sunset on Huang Shan, from the bottom3. Was that a pickle jar hitting the floor or did our hearts just shatter/splatter?
We have special, warm feelings for Mr Chen instantly. He is going to get us to the gate. He is going to book our room at the right hotel on top of the mountain. He is going to show us the best place to watch the best sunrise of our lives! He is going to book our bus tickets to Hangzhou for tomorrow, leaving at 2:30pm-The next morning we wake up with smiling faces, dancing feet. The day is clear, the sky is blue and at last we are climbing our mountain! But, somewhat foolishly, we've slept in and now take our time getting breakfast and getting going. Around 9:30 we get to the road that leads to the gate...and we can't quite get anywhere! Only one official taxi company is permitted to take people to and from the gates, and there isn't a free one in site. Some guards tell us to wait for one of the "blue buses", only they keep on zooming past us. After FORTY minutes of this, we take a walk and end up at Mr. Chen's restaurant.
The sign on his restaurant read's " MR CHEN'S: English speaking tourist information" Mr Chen is out front with his wife, looking at some chickens, when we stroll up looking frustrated. He has seen this sight before. He swiftly seats us down, gets us some water, then woos us with his fantastic English fluency and even better accent (Jane Austin meets Crocodile Dundee).
As we talk to him, we realize that we should have stopped here about 16 hours ago. He is a wealth of knowledge and full of connections. Need a cheap room booked on top of the mountain? Need a bus ticket for next Tuesday? A place to store your valuables? A banana pancake? Mr Chen does it all.
The sign on his restaurant read's " MR CHEN'S: English speaking tourist information" Mr Chen is out front with his wife, looking at some chickens, when we stroll up looking frustrated. He has seen this sight before. He swiftly seats us down, gets us some water, then woos us with his fantastic English fluency and even better accent (Jane Austin meets Crocodile Dundee).
As we talk to him, we realize that we should have stopped here about 16 hours ago. He is a wealth of knowledge and full of connections. Need a cheap room booked on top of the mountain? Need a bus ticket for next Tuesday? A place to store your valuables? A banana pancake? Mr Chen does it all.
2:30pm? But that's too late. We'll only arrive in Hangzhou at 6:30 then. We'll miss our bus back Zhangjiagang and miss our 8am class the next day. Isn't there an earlier bus Mr. Chen??
Yes, a 6:30am bus. But there's no way you'll get down the mountain in time...
Even if we take the cable car, Mr Chen?
Even if you take the cable car.
Are you sure, Mr Chen?!?!
I'm sure, Kelly.
But Mr Chen!
No buts, Kelly. (Ok, he doesn't say that exactly)
But this means...
Crash. Smash. Splat.
Pickles, hearts, dreams of yore - shattered! Splattered!
There is a long silence. I can't even look at Adam because I don't want to see how deflated he is. I think I'll cry if I look at him. I think he'll cry too. This roadblock is it. Its the end of our sunrise dream. There is no way around it. We simply won't be seeing it.
4. A (metaphorical) mountain climb
Some interesting points along the way include these:
Which are hundreds of locks left behind by young lovers, to represent their eternal love. You are meant to lock the lock and throw the key off the mountain, into the abyss, never to be found.
However, we didn't bring a lock, so we give each other a high five instead. That should do, right?
Now check this out. This is probably one of the fifty flights of stairs we climbed up and down. Very steep, very hard on the knees.
And had we been complete oafs, we would have paid the few hundred yuan to be carried up and down on one of these.
That's right, you can impress all your friends by floating around the mountain on a sedan chair, by the sweat and tears of two of the strongest men you will ever meet. We saw one lady getting into one of these near the end of our trek, and I was too ashamed for her to even take a photo.
By the time we get to this shot, we have made piece with the fact that we are missing the sunrise. It doesn't matter now - we are so lucky to have spent an amazing day soaking all this in.
We come to the end of our Huang Shan journey under the setting sun. As we glide down the mountain, I look down at the kilometers and kilometers between us and the earth and automatically imagine a fatal drop. But then I think, it would be OK if death found us here, now. It has been that kind of journey, that kind of success.
And on our walk down, back towards reality, something catches Adam's eye. And presently I think, what better way to end this massive blog post than with what he found.
Hope you've enjoyed the novel,
Kelly
Mr Chen decides for us: we'll take the cable car up and down the mountain today. No point in wasting time climbing up and down. We can spend 6 hours on top and get as many peaks in as we can, then come down and have dinner here, at his restaurant.
We numbly nod. Sui bien. Whatever. We follow him in silence as he kindly books our hotel (100 yuan discount), books our bus tickets, then gently stuffs us into his friend's car, who drives us to the mini-bus station.
I can feel Adam stewing. We are both in foul moods and are taking pains not to snap at one another. Its no one's fault, its just shitty. We pile on one of the blue tourist buses with a whole lot of Chinese tourists. The holiday is approaching, you can feel the potential movement of millions in the air.
The bus is barreling toward the entrance of the mountain, and picks up speed as we start to ascend. The road is very narrow and every 200m or so there is a 150 degree turn in the road, which we take at an alarming speed. We continue like this for 10 minutes or so, narrowly avoiding oncoming cabs, buses and the occasional old man on a bicycle. We now understand why only designated companies are allowed on this road - it would be fatal if any old business man in a BMW could have their way here. (Why the bikes are still allowed, I can't say)
Now we are at a staggering height, going around perilous corners of the mountain and somehow still accelerating. There are little to no guard rails, and I start to envision, as I have done on so many other buses in China, what our death would look like off this mountain.
But instead of rolling into the Bamboo Forest, we make it to the Eastern Gate. We pour out of the bus ahead of the crowd, and run to buy our tickets. The near-death bus ride has shaken us out of our funk, and we dash to the gate holding hands, smiling.
And a glorious thing occurs - the path is clear! Instead of the 3 hour long line-ups at the cable car station our lonely planet predicted, there is NOBODY ahead of us. Has this ever happened to us in China? To anyone?? Its a Huang Shan miracle, surely.
Suddenly we are in a plastic bubble, gently gliding up, up, through a lush valley towards the mountain tops. The sun peaks through the clouds, then emerges fully to reveal the postcard-like landscapes unfolding all around us. The stresses of the last 24 hours are taking a cue from the trees below; steadily shrinking and bluring until they are nothing but a tiny area in our field of vision. I put my thumb to the plastic window of the car and POOF- they're gone!
We, along with our spirits, rise to great heights. I look at Adam and think how romantic this is. Just the sun and the sky, mountains and trees, he and I...and the chubby business man sitting across from us :)
And just when we think we can't get any higher, we get to the top to find all this:
We numbly nod. Sui bien. Whatever. We follow him in silence as he kindly books our hotel (100 yuan discount), books our bus tickets, then gently stuffs us into his friend's car, who drives us to the mini-bus station.
I can feel Adam stewing. We are both in foul moods and are taking pains not to snap at one another. Its no one's fault, its just shitty. We pile on one of the blue tourist buses with a whole lot of Chinese tourists. The holiday is approaching, you can feel the potential movement of millions in the air.
The bus is barreling toward the entrance of the mountain, and picks up speed as we start to ascend. The road is very narrow and every 200m or so there is a 150 degree turn in the road, which we take at an alarming speed. We continue like this for 10 minutes or so, narrowly avoiding oncoming cabs, buses and the occasional old man on a bicycle. We now understand why only designated companies are allowed on this road - it would be fatal if any old business man in a BMW could have their way here. (Why the bikes are still allowed, I can't say)
Now we are at a staggering height, going around perilous corners of the mountain and somehow still accelerating. There are little to no guard rails, and I start to envision, as I have done on so many other buses in China, what our death would look like off this mountain.
But instead of rolling into the Bamboo Forest, we make it to the Eastern Gate. We pour out of the bus ahead of the crowd, and run to buy our tickets. The near-death bus ride has shaken us out of our funk, and we dash to the gate holding hands, smiling.
And a glorious thing occurs - the path is clear! Instead of the 3 hour long line-ups at the cable car station our lonely planet predicted, there is NOBODY ahead of us. Has this ever happened to us in China? To anyone?? Its a Huang Shan miracle, surely.
Suddenly we are in a plastic bubble, gently gliding up, up, through a lush valley towards the mountain tops. The sun peaks through the clouds, then emerges fully to reveal the postcard-like landscapes unfolding all around us. The stresses of the last 24 hours are taking a cue from the trees below; steadily shrinking and bluring until they are nothing but a tiny area in our field of vision. I put my thumb to the plastic window of the car and POOF- they're gone!
We, along with our spirits, rise to great heights. I look at Adam and think how romantic this is. Just the sun and the sky, mountains and trees, he and I...and the chubby business man sitting across from us :)
And just when we think we can't get any higher, we get to the top to find all this:
Some interesting points along the way include these:
Which are hundreds of locks left behind by young lovers, to represent their eternal love. You are meant to lock the lock and throw the key off the mountain, into the abyss, never to be found.However, we didn't bring a lock, so we give each other a high five instead. That should do, right?
Now check this out. This is probably one of the fifty flights of stairs we climbed up and down. Very steep, very hard on the knees.
And had we been complete oafs, we would have paid the few hundred yuan to be carried up and down on one of these.
That's right, you can impress all your friends by floating around the mountain on a sedan chair, by the sweat and tears of two of the strongest men you will ever meet. We saw one lady getting into one of these near the end of our trek, and I was too ashamed for her to even take a photo.
By the time we get to this shot, we have made piece with the fact that we are missing the sunrise. It doesn't matter now - we are so lucky to have spent an amazing day soaking all this in.We come to the end of our Huang Shan journey under the setting sun. As we glide down the mountain, I look down at the kilometers and kilometers between us and the earth and automatically imagine a fatal drop. But then I think, it would be OK if death found us here, now. It has been that kind of journey, that kind of success.
And on our walk down, back towards reality, something catches Adam's eye. And presently I think, what better way to end this massive blog post than with what he found.
Hope you've enjoyed the novel,
Kelly
