gnomes's TravelStream™ — Recent TravelPod.com entries TravelStream™ news feed for member gnomes on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/gnomes en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Wed, 02 Aug 2006 05:00:37 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com Caves, croissants, swimming and a birthday! — Vang Vieng, Lao Peoples Dem Rep http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gnomes/gnomesinasia/1069745880/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gnomes/gnomesinasia/1069745880/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gnomes/gnomesinasia/1069745880/tpod.html Wed, 02 Aug 2006 05:00:37 -0400 From China to Hahndorf: taking the long road home.
Vang Vieng, Lao Peoples Dem Rep

From Sekong, a number of buses and more buses somehow landed me in Tha Kaek in the middle of the night. In my drowsy, stubborn state, I figured I'd walk to a hostel. In the dark. Without a map. After I'd headed the wrong way, one of the laughing tuk-tuk drivers rode up and offered a reasonable price for the ten minute ride to town!

I stayed a couple of days in the lodge there that was run by some of the friendliest and most helpful locals I'd ever met. The place was designed by some Europeans, so it was really clean and cosy, making me want to stay longer...

I took a tour with a great young guide who showed me all sorts of caves and a turquoise lake that had been used as a lunch spot by the first expats that had settled there. A group of squealing Laotian girls, two guys and a German girl were hanging out there too. I didn't get why these chicks dressed up to the nines and swimming in all their clothes weren't at work. It turned out they were local prostitutes and the guys were their pimps. The German girl explained that they worked at night and relaxed during the day. I'd always had this fairly stereotypical image of the sex industry: junkie girls who were downtrodden and depressed with nasty aggro pimps. But this group of friends were the complete opposite, and it was a total pleasure and revelation to be hanging out for lunch with them!

I'd originally wanted to go for a long 5 day hike from this village, using mud maps that the owner of the hostel had given me. But again, the usual uncertainties of doing it alone because noone else was around to go with me, and taking a guide being too expensive, left me grounded. I was so frustrated because my insistence at travelling alone was stopping me from doing anything off the beaten track and was also making me crave familiar company. I decided to leg it to Vientienne so I could meet up with some old travel buddies.

Though I didn't meet up with anyone, I indulged in Vientienne's croissants, herbal sauna, massage and Beer Laos on tap! One evening I discovered a sort of funfair down by the river, with a massive group aerobics session happening plus all sorts of sideshow games!

On my birthday, I woke with an itchy head, but ignored it and went in search of lamian (long noodles) for breakfast, because these are good for longevity (according to the Chinese anyway!!!). While I was reading, a bug fell on my page and I suspected it had come from my hair, so I quickly googled it at an internet café, and sure enough, it was a common louse. At the 'foreign people's' chemist: a tiny crowded stall in the market, I explained to the woman what I had. She promptly handed me a solution for pubic lice! With some fairly embarrassing miming, I managed to get across that I had lice on my head and not down there!!! Nevertheless, that's the only stuff she had, so with some trepidation I used it on my head and luckily it worked!!!

That afternoon I jumped on a bus to Vang Vieng, a small riverside village that has turned into a bit of an oasis/party town for travellers fed up with the hard road. Here, accommodation is cheap, you can get 'happy' anything, watch movies, eat pizza, pancakes and ice-cream and float down the clear river on tubes sucking beers that the locals float out to you. I managed to find a hut right on the outskirts where the noise from the bars and movies couldn't be heard and all I could see from my balcony were massive mountains and the river.

I ended up finding all my friends, and making some new ones over a fairly debaucherous birthday dinner, sampling my first bucket (!) and a chocolate pancake birthday 'cake'!!!

I spent the next few days cycling around with Jen, checking out caves and swimming in crystal clear water!!! A highlight was definitely overcoming one of my greatest fears: swimming in black water. To get into one of the caves, we had to swim under water, through a stream that started in open air, but disappeared into the side of a hill. The guide reassured us that there was a cavern just on the other side of the opening but it was still nerve racking holding our breath and not knowing whether we'd surface in air or just more water!!! There were no professional light displays like at home, in this cave, and there were not torches, so we all carried little candles which would go out if someone splashed too much or if there was wind. Consequently, even if there had been nice decorations in this cave, we didn't see them, but it was absolutely worth the adventure!!!
]]> From Beijing with love...for the last time... — Beijing, China http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gnomes/china_emails/1060762500/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gnomes/china_emails/1060762500/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gnomes/china_emails/1060762500/tpod.html Wed, 02 Aug 2006 04:16:39 -0400 The China files: studying and travelling in the Middle Kingdom 2002-2003!
Beijing, China

I think I left you last when they released us from isolation. since then I did my exams and topped my class in 2 out of 3 classes which is way more than I was expecting and I got a 6 on my HSK (an exam that gives you an international standard score in Chinese language) which is enough for me to study along-side Chinese people at uni so I'm stoked!!!!!!!!!!!

After a memorable party after our last exam, I got up 2 minutes before my new job started...not a good way to start a job!!!!! (Why do I think I've written this before? - sorry if i have). It was recording dialogues in English which is fairly non-challenging even with a hangover.

A few days later I landed another recording job that lasted about 2 weeks which was really fortunate. It was just down the road from school and paid well. Thinking I could relax a bit before I got ready to leave Beijing, my old boss called me to his house for lunch one day where he promptly handed me my new timetable of classes to start in 3 days time. I didn't mention that he had never asked me to work in the first place, let alone me agreeing to work!!! In the end it didn't matter because I could manage it around my other job and I needed the money.

SO, I entered the working world so to speak. As in the 9 till 6 working world. I decided I didn't really like the working world. It's much more fun to be a student. There are no responsibilities to anyone except oneself which means if you don't do your homework or have a late night, it doesn't matter. Teaching is completely different. As well as classroom hours, I had to prepare which took just as long and IN MY OWN TIME. How dare something else take up my time. I can see all the working world people laughing knowingly and all the students raising their eyebrows. I'm gonna be a student for 10 more years if I can help it that's for sure!!!!!!

Nevertheless, the teaching job was extremely interesting. I was teaching about 30 forty plus year old high school English teachers from another province. I only taught them 3 hours in the afternoon which sounds like nothing but was really really hard. My job was to teach them oral English focusing on cultural lessons about the west and the east. That was the best part. I got paid to talk about one of my favourite topics for 3 hours a day. But that was also the hardest part. I was newly shocked at the differences between the way I was educated in oz and what they are used to here . They expected me to talk non stop for 3 hours while they took notes. Even though I knew they didn't understand a lot of what I said, I wasn't allowed to speak any Chinese which was an instruction from their leader so I was in no position to argue. When will education ever be separated from bureaucracy?
They wanted to learn about western teaching styles so we reached a happy medium when I introduced the concept of group work, brainstorming and argument in class discussions. I'm positive they had some concept of this before, but they were really bad at it to start with! Something 10 year olds in oz do with no problems was a huge headache to some of these teachers. I sometimes felt like I was encouraging kids when I coaxed different people to work together, to stop doing their individual note taking when they were supposed to be discussing multi-nationals in groups or to please express an individual, non-force-fed opinion!!! It was real learning experience for me too. They in turn expressed concepts they found hard to understand or why Australians did this or that.
By the end of it we had all learnt heaps and they were genuinely pleased with the 2 week course despite my fears that I had completely lost them. Maybe teaching's not such a bad job after all...I certainly appreciate my teachers more now (however, I don't remember a student ever hocking up a big golly while the teacher was talking in oz though!!!).

When that job was over, I had earned my target amount for traveling through south-east Asia so I had to get ready for that. I really tried to pack way too much in this time and it turned out a week was not enough to get everything together on time. Shopping, meeting friends, packing stuff and organising my uni courses for next year took up a week no problems and soon it was the night before my train to southern china and I had not started on my room yet. Well it wasn't happening then either because a bottle of vodka knocked on my door followed by a Russian friend who insisted I had to drink with my mates on my last night...if that was to really be my last night that is. I understood exactly what he meant the next morning at 5:30am as I stumbled back to bed noticing my not yet packed room and realised I would not be catching that day's train.
Even with an extra day, I was completely stressed out and left feeling like I should have done it better. After agonising about it for ages on the train, I just realised there was no 'right' way of leaving Beijing, it was going to be horrible either way. And it was bloody horrible. I don't think I've ever felt like I've lost something more important than when I left. It's different to leaving home because home will always be there to go back to. I'll never go back to er wai in the same circumstance as the last one and a half years again and that's really really sad. (to top off my shittiness, a guy who had been trying to speak English to me for the whole 28 hours on the train eventually made his presence unignorable so I obligingly said hello, to which he told me I was rather 'cool', as in unfriendly, to which I replied through gritted teeth, 'yes, I am feeling like shit' or translated from Chinese, 'the state of my heart is not good'. I want to know if the Chinese are this blunt with each other or just under the mask of a foreign language.)

However, the next stage has started and after a day or two here in chengdu of sleeping and catching up on emails, I'm feeling like maybe I still want to go traveling after all. My plan is to head from here to the west near the Tibetan border, then to southern china where I will cross in to Vietnam. After that I will go into Cambodia, up the Mekong through Laos and then down through Thailand to Malaysia to catch a plane back to Australia in early January. That is the plan anyway!!!

If anyone is heading that way, give me an email and we can catch up in person, otherwise I'll see you in Australia in January!!!!!!!
]]> SARS — Beijing, China http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gnomes/china_emails/1052813520/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gnomes/china_emails/1052813520/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gnomes/china_emails/1052813520/tpod.html Wed, 02 Aug 2006 04:14:04 -0400 The China files: studying and travelling in the Middle Kingdom 2002-2003!
Beijing, China

"Yes, SARS has hit Beijing big time, though the Beijing authorities only decided to let us know about it about a month too late. Apparently SARS was not a serious disease and there was a cure, until a week ago that is. Now, we have all been given thermometers, the buildings smell like bleach because the cleaners are going crazy and we are getting daily advise about hygiene from our teachers. I'm not scared but we are all a little concerned and being extremely sensible.

I laugh now, because I remember I was GOING to add that I thought the situation would fix itself fairly quickly and life would continue as per usual...I'm glad I didn't because the day after I sent that email, our university announced that we were going to be quarantined. That meant that we could leave campus if we wanted to but we would not be allowed in again until they reopened.

Let me start from the beginning...I reckon I could write a thesis about SARS but I'll save that for when I do my PhD. Towards the end of April when the government came clean about how serious the disease was, was one of the strangest periods of my life I reckon...when you don't know what the truth about your surroundings is, the things you believe and the things you doubt are almost completely random. We had to make decisions about whether we went home or not but when you have no facts to base your decision on, there is no right or wrong decision.

Lots of people here left in a huge wave of panic: once one person left, another 300 or so followed. Panic is a strange phenomenon. It's extremely seductive. When you do not know what the truth of your situation is, it is easy to follow the majority. So on some days I just felt that I should go home because everyone else was and because I thought, "If so many people think that it is unsafe here then why do I think I can stay here safely?" On other days, my resolve to stay kicked in. Those were days that I did not want to hear the latest fearful rumour about a student on campus who had been snuck away in an ambulance in the middle of the night before or hear my mum's worried voice on the phone urging me to think seriously about coming home because she'd heard another figure of SARS cases which may or may not have been correct. So the panic around me in those days scared me as well as made me more frustrated than I have ever been before.

Though I've never been in a war zone before, I think in some ways our situation was comparable: In both situations, something that you can't see, understand or control takes over your life. The freedom and safety I've always had was suddenly challenged. Outside, the shops around university all closed, most people were wearing masks and every so often an ambulance full of people dressed in white from head to toe would drive by. It was enough to send cold shivers down my back. On some days I was really, really scared that I was going to get sick and on other days I felt like there was no way I could get this stupid, completely overrated disease. I think one feeling that didn't change much was being so angry about the unfairness of our situation. Something that had absolutely nothing to do with us had made our friends go home, had scared us into not going out and made us agonise over whether we were going to go home or not. I then I had to remind myself every so often that I was lucky to still be around to make the choice, no matter how bad it sometimes felt.

Everything climaxed on a Monday afternoon in late April. In one hour, I found out that some other Aussies at my university had been called home, and also that the school was quarantining us starting from that night. At the same time, just to add to the tension, one of Beijing's summer thunderstorms was brewing above us...Even though I hadn't been called home (because I'm here independently), it was still scary to think that Australia thought it was serious enough to call my friends home. I decided that I was going to stay a bit longer and see how the situation panned out. In the meantime, we had 4 hours of freedom left to get stuff from the supermarket across the road. It was a pretty funny scene with hordes of people running in and out of the gate because rain was threatening, with bags of rice and other food. I finished my shopping with 2 minutes to go and as I walked back through the gate the sky opened up and within seconds the roads were rivers. I had to laugh at myself because for five minutes I was praying that I wouldn't die from getting struck by lightning instead of from catching SARS.

I've always wanted to know what prison life is like and have often said that I would be willing to stay in a prison for a month to find out. At first, the thought of being stuck in my university with all my friends sounded good: we were all worried about SARS and being locked up made (a few of) us feel safer and we figured it would only be for a couple of weeks anyway. That first week was fairly crazy: the Australians had to decide whether they were going to listen to their organisation and go home or whether they would cut their ties and stay. The rest of us had to think about what we were going to do too, so the question of the week was "ni hui guo bu hui guo?" (Are you going home or not?) Every night there was a party to farewell people - the first few were fun but after ten nights of drinking in a row and having fewer people to drink with each night, it was just depressing.

I'm not too sure what the Chinese people around us thought of all the 'wai guo ren' (foreigners) going home. They didn't have a choice so I think a lot of them were angrier than we were that their government hadn't dealt with SARS properly in the beginning. I remember one day, "shu shu", the caretaker of our building quite plainly told us that if he were us, he'd go home because he was really scared.
On another day, one of the Aussies and I were sitting near the canteen eating lunch where an old woman was looking after her grandchildren. She asked us why we hadn't gone home and if we weren't scared. I told her I was concerned but that I wasn't going home. I asked her if she was scared but she just shrugged her shoulders and smiled: "I'm old, I've done what I have to do, it doesn't matter if I die tomorrow or in a few years time." After all the lies and rumours and doubts we had had to listen to for the last month, her words were so refreshing and made so much sense, I could have kissed her.

After the last wave of people left, our new life began. After a week of quarantine, it was clear that they weren't going to open the gates for a while. It's hard to explain what the last 2 months have been like in a few sentences. It was nothing like prison I'm sure because we still had some choices like when and where we ate and we were allowed to do whatever we wanted to with our time (we still had classes thank goodness). As time went on though, it felt more and more like prison here as more and more rules were introduced: first we weren't allowed in our common room after 10 pm anymore, but we couldn't party in our rooms either because the music was too loud. Chinese people weren't allowed in our dormitories either so we had to party outside which was fine until one night when three of us were having a few quiet drinks, 2 guards came up to us and told us to go inside. We weren't disturbing anyone, new rules had come in that day: no drinking outside, no loud voices outside, no wearing singlets or slip-on shoes, no swearing, no hugging in public, and no jumping out of windows (these rules were almost as bizarre as the way the Beijing authorities had dealt with SARS in the beginning).

Another thing that was completely bewildering was that Chinese students weren't allowed in our dorms, but our cleaners continued to clean the building even though they went home (outside of campus) everyday. We weren't allowed to go outside but our teachers and the non-student residents of the university were allowed to move freely whenever they pleased. Some students even had special 'deals' with the guards so that they could move freely. We could tolerate quarantine, but only if it was proper quarantine, for the sake of our safety as well as our sanity. We went and complained several times, just to get an explanation but we were met with executive staff who could move freely, but surprisingly 'understood' our situation, and told us we should 'trust' them and that our "concerns would be brought up at the next meeting".
I think this year I came face to face with the reality of student voice and power here. In my own high school, 12 year olds were allowed to vote on major structural changes within the school management system but here, a university student can be reprimanded for writing a letter of complaint. I was so angry one day that I wrote a letter myself and I got a Chinese friend to check it. She read half of it and then laughed. "What are you going to do with it?" she asked me. "Give it to the administration of course" I replied. She just sighed and told me they wouldn't listen to it, they probably wouldn't even reply. I was so furious with her attitude, I told her that if everyone thought like that, nothing would ever get changed and those who were in control would do whatever they wanted. She just looked at me and went "Yeah, but most Chinese students don't think like that: they are taught to listen and do what they are told." She was right of course, and I was left feeling hopeless like I've never felt before. How does it figure that in one part of the world people's ideas about freedom are so different to those in other parts of the world? For once I didn't immediately think that my ideas were the best ones: If I had grown up here would I think differently? I'm honestly not sure, I just know that because I grew up in a place where my big mouth was free to exercise itself, being placed in situation like the last couple of months was sometimes unbearable. No wonder sometimes people went out of control and punched a hole through a door or woke up a whole building of students at 2 am screaming "REVOLUTION!!!"

Though there had been no cases of SARS for about 10 days and most of the universities around Beijing had reopened, we were still locked up. After we found out that there was no use in protesting or arguing, I think we lost a lot of hope in our situation and resigned ourselves to studying and partying on the weekends...I spent a lot of the time looking out my window at a tree that grows up the wall of the campus...

During the last week of June, most of my good friends had had enough of the hopeless and listless atmosphere that had settled on us: one went home and the remaining Aussies left to go traveling around China. It was a pretty sad few days there, but it was just another change that had to be adjusted to - I think adjustment to changes in our surroundings was instinctive by that stage and we had no more energy to challenge them anyway.

I was sitting on my bed practicing guitar (yep, quarantine's good for some things!!!) one night when the phone rang. Simon, a French friend here told me that it was over: the gates had opened again!!!!!!!!! That afternoon the traveling ban on Beijing had been lifted and the university had had a meeting and decided to end the quarantine. They didn't make any public announcement though (Simon only knew from a friend) so I of course ran screaming through the corridors of my building to tell everyone that didn't already know. The electricity of screaming, smiling, laughing, hugging people in the foyer downstairs was amasing: one of the best feelings I've ever had I reckon.

Sitting on the rooftop of one our favourite drinking spots outside that night, we couldn't wipe the smiles off our faces. I didn't realise until then how trapped I'd felt and I also couldn't understand how we'd put up with it for so long. It was as if we'd really slowly spiraled into a bit of a hole in our uni because I didn't realise how bad we had all been feeling until I was looking at it from above. If they locked us up again, I don't know if I would stay or not.

We were only locked up for 8 weeks, but I now have a better idea about what fear can make people do, what helplessness feels like and how freedom and being in control of my life is as important to me as food. I say I only have a better idea now, because I thought I already knew before hand, even though I didn't. I think I'll look at a whole lot of things much differently from now on.
]]> A few celebrations dusted off with snow!!! — Beijing, China http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gnomes/china_emails/1041498420/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gnomes/china_emails/1041498420/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gnomes/china_emails/1041498420/tpod.html Wed, 02 Aug 2006 04:11:58 -0400 The China files: studying and travelling in the Middle Kingdom 2002-2003!
Beijing, China

Sorry I've been so slack with replying to personal emails!!!!!!!!! I haven't even had time to write a crappy bulk email!! To prove how late I am, I want to wish everyone a belated Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Let's hope it's safe, happy and full of a lot more racial tolerance than last year!!! Trust me, I am learning every day how important this is everyday!!!
Also, for everyone who did year 12 - I was thinking of you in November and I hope it wasn't to stressful and that you all got what you deserved!!!!!!!!!!!

I think I left you last time with an invitation to my birthday party. The night turned out to be fantastic! My good friend Nikki and I celebrated it together at the local bar. Apart from having to argue for an hour about the price of drinks and then getting kicked out at 1 am (I don't think they liked our music) the night went off without a hitch. It was really nice to see friends we'd made in different parts of uni, come together and all enjoy themselves despite all their different interests. We had everything from painting the walls and each other to African dancing to Nikki, Emily and I doing a wonderfully satirical Britney Spear's dance (not quite whips and chains but you get the idea).
My actual birthday wasn't until the next week so we decided to have a (quiet) night in the dorm. The idea was that everyone brought something to eat to share but it turned into a riot involving my head being dumped in a cake (it took so long to get the cream out of my dreads) and a lot of crazy dancing throughout the building!

In the meantime some friends and I went to visit a friend in city a couple of hours away by train. We had a great day eating and eating (they have these special dumplings in Tianjin that are BEAUTIFUL!!!!), looking at markets, escaping the cold and having a slumber party at our friend's house - poor guy, he had to sleep on the couch cos there was already three of us in his bed!!!

Since then, the weather has turned COLD. I thought we got winter in Australia but you don't know what winter is until you feel -10 degrees. I must say, I much prefer hot weather but the snow is fantastic! I don't know who told me that it didn't snow in Beijing but they were wrong! It snowed for a couple of weeks just before Christmas so we had a white Christmas!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The staff in our building must have thought we were nuts - me and Nik spent hours sliding around in front of the entrance and bombarding unsuspecting people with snowballs.

The school managed to time Christmas right in the middle of the week before exams but just after the second snow we had in Er Wai!!! Christmas is not a huge event in our household in Australia as none of my family is particularly religious, so I thought not being at home for Christmas would not be such a big deal. As it turned out, we decided to have a party for everyone downstairs on Christmas Eve and it was probably one of the most 'anjing' (quiet) parties we ever had. There was no energy though the room was full of people. None of us really wanted to say it out loud but we all wished we were at home with our families in the sunshine, and I was growing more aware of a shift in the group as we realised our time to part and go home was growing closer. Christmas Day was more lively because Cat and Emily organised an Aussie breakfast in their room with games and some food from home.

Christmas came and went quickly as we continued to prepare for exams and the Chinese department talent show. I organised willing members of the class into an adapted version of Cinderella, including as many references to Er Wai and gender reversal as possible. After about ten minutes of practice we managed to pull it off along with other class' Tai chi demonstrations, stand up comedy and singing.


Other than that, life has been coasting along here fairly steadily. I think it's time for me to find some things to do besides study and eat and sleep - I'm getting a bit bored and restless. Everyone is also becoming very aware of how little time we have left here together, which is really sad.
But, every ending really is a new beginning - so I hope everyone has a good new beginning to the New Year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
]]> Visitors from afar!!! — Beijing and more..., China http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gnomes/china_emails/1035446760/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gnomes/china_emails/1035446760/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gnomes/china_emails/1035446760/tpod.html Wed, 02 Aug 2006 04:07:11 -0400 The China files: studying and travelling in the Middle Kingdom 2002-2003!
Beijing and more..., China

How are you all going? You've all been a bit quiet recently. I'm assuming that's to do with end of year madness - which you can't avoid by going away either let me tell you!

Before I start, I'm gonna give you a few random pieces of information...you can do what you like with it...

1) It's my birthday next Friday (22nd November)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
2) You are all invited to the joint party I am having with my mate Nikki tomorrow night at the local bar - expect cake fights (Chinese birthday tradition), twister, special Britney dancing by 3 'fab aussie babes' and painting!!!!!!!!!!! (Maybe like last year!!!!)
3) My address is: Naomi Francis (Luo Mei)
Foreign Students' Building No. 2
Beijing 2nd Foreign Language Institute
1 Nanli Dingfuzhuang
Chaoyang District
Beijing 100024
CHINA

Ph. No. 0011861065717018 (when calling from Australia)

Ok, do what you like with that!!!!!!!!!!!

The last month or two has been different again. Life here is extremely dynamic overall though the day to day stuff seems a bit monotonous. Washing my clothes by hand has lost its appeal and budgeting is no longer a fun maths exercise! I had to grow up and leave home one day didn't I!

It seems home couldn't leave me alone though cos it followed me here! Dad and Reubs came and visited me in October so we went traveling for a week or so out west again. We went back to the small Tibetan town in Gansu province that I love and rested there while dad and Reuben got over 24 hours on a hard train seat and then 6 hours on a bumpy bus ride through a terrain that I thought I would recognise but didn't cos the seasons had changed it into a mass of colours. We moved on to Xian after a few days for a very short visit. Too short I thought as Xian is actually a nice city. It is completely surrounded by stone walls and there are hundreds of small markets that could be explored for years. The terracotta warriors were interesting enough. One of the most recent emperors built himself a huge tomb full of warriors to protect him in the next life, which were discovered by a farmer a few years ago. They haven't been moved but the Chinese built these huge steel sheds over them which kind of spoils the atmosphere.
After Xian we moved on to Hua Shan (flower mountain), cheating on the way up in a chair lift, thank goodness cos the mountains there are extremely steep- as in vertical. We spent the next day walking around the summits and resting in a gust house built in the side of a valley.
Our last stop was the Shaolin temple. Basically this is the center of Kungfu in China, which means there are heaps of schools that just teach Kungfu. The atmosphere in the schools was great because the students would train from dawn till after dark in every free space on the grounds. The rest of the town was just too touristy for me and I (and I think dad and Reubs) had had enough of Chinese tourist spots by that stage.

Back in Beijing, Dad had to let me know that Mum would be 'dropping by' in a couple of days to stay for a week!!! It was gonna be a surprise but it would have been a pain for dad to organise airport stuff...but it was still a huge surprise to actually pick mum up from the airport - a huge achievement for those who know mum!!!!
We spent the week together doing touristy stuff around Beijing: the Great Wall, Forbidden City, the Opera etc...
It was pretty strange to have the family here - introducing them for the first time to a world they'd never been in, sometimes looking after them when the language and cultural differences proved to be a pain, but it was great to see them and I think it will make going home much easier cos now they'll know what I'll be missing!!!

Since then I haven't done much out of campus. Study is going ok. We had an exam last week, which I got a C for. Not happy but the whole class had trouble with it. The teacher also made the class have a 'new word quiz' where we were in 3 teams. The winners got to have dinner for free at the expense of the losing team! (My team came second so I only had to pay half!!!) Nevertheless it was a fantastic party...except for when I had to carry one of my Japanese guy friends home and tuck him in bed.

Sport has started again on the NEW sport's field and courts. The Chinese teams are all really aggressive this semester so the games are much more serious than I like. A lot more agro, fights, swearing and dirty looks. Lucky I'm taller then them and they are scared of me cos of my dreadlocks (yep I have dreads!!! Finally!). We have been losing in the basketball (none of us could play before we came here) but we won our first game of soccer. Noone could play before either except 2 of us girls but we have been practicing everyday when we can fight for a square metre of the soccer pitch, which is dominated by idiot boys who think chicks can't play too. Nevertheless we had a huge turn out to our first match, which we won by a penalty shoot out. I've never loved soccer so much!!!

Besides that, I have been doing a bit of partying, mostly involving twister, cake fights, traditional dancing from Benin (Africa) and some strip teasing...(not me of course)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have also been trying to decide what I'm gonna do next year...study here for another semester, work here teaching English and travel or what. I'm a bit lost but I think it will sort itself out! At the moment I will be coming home on Feb. 22nd but I'm hoping to get home a month earlier!!!

Ok, must fly and eat dinner and do a bit of Chinese for a change. I miss you guys, thinking of home sometimes...
]]> Back to school... — Beijing, China http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gnomes/china_emails/1030435440/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gnomes/china_emails/1030435440/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gnomes/china_emails/1030435440/tpod.html Wed, 02 Aug 2006 04:05:04 -0400 The China files: studying and travelling in the Middle Kingdom 2002-2003!
Beijing, China

There are lots of changes this semester. We have been moved into a new dormitory building which has just been renovated so we have new everything and beautiful white shiny bathrooms and toilets!!! I also have a new room mate who is from Vietnam. I think it was stupid of me to expect that we would get on right from the start but I've been learning lots about living with people in the last couple of weeks. She is a really sweet, generous person who unfortunately wants to do everything with me, I mean everything: eating, going to class, showering, EVERYTHING!!! I just get the feeling that I can not be in control of what I want to do in my own room so I haven't been there very often lately as she is always there. Nevertheless, I have been creeping back slowly as I believe I have convinced her that I am independent and have a life outside my room! The great thing about living with Nga is that she's so friendly and my Chinese is getting better by the day as well as my understanding of some of the things the Asian girls here do. She worships her boyfriend who doesn't let her go clubbing even though he's 2000km away, and she never showers alone because she's afraid for her safety. No wonder some of my class mates think I'm independent. But I think we are gonna get along fine.

The other thing that has changed is the people - one of the most important aspects of life here is your mates cos they are your family too I suppose. Some really good friends have left (KOEN!!!!!!!) and I'm a bit lost at the moment. There are a lot of new students here this semester but because the dormitory is so big, it's harder to meet people, so Nik and I organized a party for everyone to get to know each other last Friday at our local bar. Good fun, but still strange without our old mates.

A great change is that classes are a lot more interesting now. I don't know why, maybe I have better teachers or my Chinese is better, I'm not sure. We've got a new lesson now too: computer class where we learn the names of the parts of a computer in Chinese. I don't even know them in English!!! Unfortunately our class president from last semester is in my class again and he is more racist, sexist and up himself than ever, especially now that yours truly is class president with him!!! At our last class party he organized (without me) to go to a Korean restaurant, ordered all the food (no vego stuff) and spoke to the whole class in Korean even though 25% of us are not Korean!!! I almost punched him.

In the mean time I have a new language partner and am looking for a job. I did a volunteer job the other day with another Aussie for the heads of a private boy's school in Sydney who needed some translators for a meeting with parents. I didn't realize how confusing a translator's job was till I did that and it was interesting to see how useful our Chinese was already!!!
]]> Shanghai!!!!!!!!!! — Shanghai, China http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gnomes/china_emails/1029398520/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gnomes/china_emails/1029398520/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gnomes/china_emails/1029398520/tpod.html Wed, 02 Aug 2006 04:03:20 -0400 The China files: studying and travelling in the Middle Kingdom 2002-2003!
Shanghai, China

Mev and I said goodbye to Wenneke and made for our last destination: Shanghai!!! Shanghai was fantastic - the buildings are just amasing. On one side of the river (the Bund), the buildings just remind me of Adelaide in their old European style and on the other side, it looks like something from the future: huge, odd shaped silver, mirrored buildings that make Adelaide look like wooden blocks compared to Lego. Again we did city stuff, looking at the art gallery, museum and shops. On our last night we met up with Dustin and caused a riot in the bar of our hotel that had a rock climbing wall - how stupid can you get!!! I felt comfortable but strange in that city. Comfortable because it was clean, predictable and organised - what I'm used to at home. But strange because I've found a place that is more developed than home, where life is even faster (you should have seen the subway) and more people have that distant look in their eyes that I only see around office blocks at home...
The next day we both departed for our separate 'homes', me for Beijing and Mev for Hong Kong. I can't believe 2 months passed so quick through so many different places and with all sorts of people. Though it took getting used to, I've discovered a great new lifestyle on the road and I like it so much I've decided to defer uni for another year so I can work and keep going through south east Asia and hopefully by the time September rolls around again, I will have decided what I want to study!!! I will be going home for 2 months first though so I'd love to catch up in a few months time!
]]> Floating along the rising waters of the Yangtze — Yichang, China http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gnomes/china_emails/1029225600/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gnomes/china_emails/1029225600/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gnomes/china_emails/1029225600/tpod.html Wed, 02 Aug 2006 04:01:48 -0400 The China files: studying and travelling in the Middle Kingdom 2002-2003!
Yichang, China

I was to spend my last week with Mevlana (a friend from high school who has been teaching in Hong Kong) in Guilin, so I first took a train to Kunming where I stopped for a day to look at the bamboo temple there. It's a Buddhist temple that has about 500 life size sculptures of people in all sorts of crazy expressions. It was raining at the time and the bamboo forest that surrounds the place just made it all the spookier.
The next day I met Mev and a Dutch girl, Wenneke she had met at the airport. It was so good to spend time with someone from home again, just to crack some old jokes and talk about stuff without having to explain ourselves. Our first destination was Yangshuo, a small tourist town set in the middle of some of the bizzarest scenery I have ever seen. The area around Yangshuo is completely flat except for these huge sugar loaves of limestone jutting out of the ground everywhere. We spent a few days going on a bike tour, boating on the river, shopping and avoiding the rain that just didn't stop until the day we left!!! By that stage I was sick of pizza and pancakes so we took a bus to Chongqing where we were going to get on a boat cruise down the Yangste. Us three girls got a cabin with 3 British 'chaps' who were easily entertained by our accents and asking dumb questions about Oz. The first day on the boat was hot, muggy and ugly. The water was so polluted and my environmentalist conscience was quickly aggravated by the IDIOT Chinese tourists who casually chucked their rubbish over the side of the boat. It just INFURIATED me the way they just absolved responsibility for something they didn't want anymore by just letting go of it physically. Anyway, the second day we got on smaller boats (for a small extra 'tourist' price) to see the 3 smaller gorges. Here the water was clearer, the banks were not lined with ugly cities and the temperature was cooler. We even got to see a group of monkeys perched on a rock grooming themselves! As we kept going down the Yangtze, we noticed the water level markers of where the water is going to rise to after they close the dam. The 175 m mark towered above our heads as we floated by and I just felt confused as I stared at the farmers working at their crops by the bank. I could not imagine having to leave the place I was born and had worked on for so long because someone who didn't know me had different plans. Later that day we went past the dam but it isn't that big yet so it just looks like a few bits of concrete. The trip ended shortly after we went through the lock in Yichang which dropped us 17 metres - I don't know how they drained the water away so quickly!
]]> City slickers...well, kind of! — Dali, China http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gnomes/china_emails/1028966280/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gnomes/china_emails/1028966280/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gnomes/china_emails/1028966280/tpod.html Wed, 02 Aug 2006 03:59:17 -0400 The China files: studying and travelling in the Middle Kingdom 2002-2003!
Dali, China

After an extremely hair raising bus trip, we spent the next few days in Chengdu, doing city stuff. We ate pizza, saw the Sichuan opera - the puppetry, mime and stunts they did were absolutely fantastic, saw the Panda centre, a garden with more than 100 types of bamboo and of course sampled Sichuan hot pot - non spicy of course.
We were headed for Yunnan next; the province below Sichuan but to get there took ages. The first leg was a train with the worst hard seats I have ever been on, though there were some interesting characters near me - an old guy who's Chinese was completely incoherent because he dribbled and spat so much and a small family who secretly got on the train through the window and alighted in the same fashion as a guard ran for them down the aisle, he didn't get them though luckily. Then we had to catch a sleeper bus, which is a bus with 3 rows of narrow bunk beds in which you jam your head against one end and your feet against the other to stay on. You don't sleep that's for sure! I was sitting on the bus when I smelt something familiar - "eucalyptus" I screamed much to the alarm of the other passengers who thought I was absolutely nuts as I scrambled to open the window to see my first Chinese gum trees. I never realised until then how much I associated with the sight and smell of those trees. I just about cried.
Our first stop in Yunnan was Lijiang - the most touristy place I've ever been to in china - though the food and music was all western which was a great change for a day until I headed off to Tiger Leaping Gorge. This was the first Chinese place I'd heard about and was one of the reasons I wanted to come here. It's a long extremely deep gorge at the bottom of which flows the Yangtze River. Unfortunately it was cloudy and rainy the days I was there but it was great just to hike and get some fresh air by myself. By the second day I'd met up with some people and we walked down to one of the rapids in the morning - they were huge, and dangerous. In fact the whole place was dangerous. There were landslides everywhere and I didn't realise I had reached the biggest one on the map before I was under it. I think I literally ran for my life that day, dodging the stones falling from about 50 metres above me.
I had left Val and Dustan in Lijiang so my next stop was Dali, deemed as the holiday destination for backpackers in China. It was a great place to sleep-in, eat western food, watch movies, party hard and do a bit of sightseeing on a hired bike down to the nearby lake.
]]> Bumping along the Karakoram Highway — Kashgar, China http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gnomes/china_emails/1027756200/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gnomes/china_emails/1027756200/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gnomes/china_emails/1027756200/tpod.html Wed, 02 Aug 2006 03:57:54 -0400 The China files: studying and travelling in the Middle Kingdom 2002-2003!
Kashgar, China

I think I left you all about to get on the train to kashgar...
Which was largely uneventful except for me getting increasingly annoyed with the people sitting with me because they would have a high speed fluent conversation with me in Chinese for a few minutes and then talk about me in Chinese as if I wasn't there or couldn't understand...it really gives me the s...s when they do that!!!
Kashgar was fantastic. It is in China's far west, on the border with Kyrgyzstan which means the area is not like China or South East Asia at all. The people living there are largely Uyghur and they looked different from even the people in Lanzhou. They are dark skinned with Arabic facial features but really piercing clear/blue/green/fawn/no coloured eyes. And they are a really friendly, genuinely inquisitive group of people. When they stared they were genuinely curious and I felt like we were mutually scrutinising each other as opposed to me being stared at like a circus animal in other parts of china.
The city itself was also amasing. It had such a different energy to other parts of China. On my first day, a wedding procession startled me as a ute streaked past with 3 guys on the back playing a wailing sort of wind instrument a snake charmer would use and drums, serenaded a closely following, flower decorated car with the bride and groom inside. Now I compare this memory with a conversation I had a few times on trains with the women from that area. Women are now at least able to choose who they marry themselves, but they must marry by about 24/25 years old and after they do marry, they don't see themselves as having any sort of interesting life. One woman I met was going away to have fun with her friends before she got married and had to stay at home with the children she would inevitably have. She didn't seem exactly excited about it but that's what she felt she had to do as so many women do in that area, so I wonder how much of the celebrating in Kasghar that first day for that newly married couple was actually enjoyed by the couple themselves...
Nevertheless, the energy of Kashgar was great. On Sunday there was a huge bazaar near the old part of town where the people still live in mud brick alleyways with Arabic scrawled in chalk on the walls to announce items for sale I assumed. The bazaar was great fun - a huge bustle of sellers calling out 'kosh kosh' as they bumped their way past with their wares on their humped backs or rickety donkey carts. The amazing colours of the silk and carpet stalls were like entering a rainbow cave where my insides literally jumped at the sight of so much colourful material, but my pack is already loaded with too much stuff... I'd walk out of the muffled material section and be smacked in the face by something hard...looking up I would discover it to be the paw of a Siberian tiger skin - yes it was real and accompanied by all sorts of other skins, body parts and hats that I'm sure are illegal. This adjoined the spice and herbal remedies section where for the first time in months my nostrils were able to feast on the delicious smells of a variety of spices that I take for granted at home but can't find in Beijing. By the afternoon, happily weighed down with my bargains and munching on a huge slice of watermelon to counter the dry heat that sizzles everything in China west of Lanzhou, I made my way back through the streets of the old town where men would sit and play a type of Uyghur guitar or make pots and pans out of wood, brass and aluminium.

While I was in Kashgar I made a trip to Karakul lake, about 100km from the Afghanistan border. At more than 4000m above sea level I experienced my first altitude sickness ever - just a bit dizzy and extreme feelings of unfitness!!! The deep blue lake is different from the last one I went to because it was set in the middle of barren brown/grey hills topped with glaciers and in the background rose a monstrosity of snow, ice and blizzards that only crazy mountaineers attempted to ascend. I stuck to sleeping in my yurt, drinking tea with the Kazakhs who live up there, and walking around the lake, taking a very quick dip!!! It was a nice place to spend a couple of days relaxing, just observing the bizarre contrast in landscape and weather. I got really hot and sun burnt during the day and chilled at night under three blankets. Dry barren soil was freezing to touch and the water. Let's just say I didn't put my head under!!! Communicating with the few Kazakhs that were there was interesting too as we had no common language except drawing in the sand and body language - a challenge for someone who loves to talk in great detail!!! It was also nice because it was one of the only places I've been where there were only a handful of tourists and almost no traffic, in China that is.
The next few days were a bit of a nightmare consisting of a 6 hour drive through beautiful mountains back to Kashgar, 24 hours on a hard seat to Urumuqi, an hour break and then another 24 hours to Lanzhou. By that stage, I was miserable and ready to go home. Getting off the train I kept my eyes peeled for other foreigners looking for cheap accommodation - which is how I met Val and Dustin. I've now been traveling almost 2 weeks with them and we are having a great time!!!
I'm going to continue this installment a bit later after I eat genuine Sichuan hot pot!!!
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