Tomb Sweeping Day

Not too far off the heels of Spring Festival is Tomb Sweeping Day/Clear Brightness Day (this one was actually Thursday). I ever-so-politely invited my SO and I to a Chinese friend's family home in Shi Shi, a suburb of Quanzhou, for the holiday.
Shi Shi is about an hour and a half away from Xiamen by bus and about thirty minutes outside of Quanzhou. It's apparently known for a booming clothing manufacturing industry. Coincidentally, Quanzhou is also where the school I initially signed on with when first coming to China is located.

I knew my friend's family had a lot of money because A.) she has not one but two siblings and B.) she's going to grad school in England and her father is paying for the whole shebang. When we arrived at her apartment though, I discovered that were we staying at the nicest home I have ever been to in China.

Napoleon? Of course.

I absolutely love this wall. The door to the storage room (or what in a western home would be used as the pantry) is all but hidden when it's closed!

Oh yes, that is a projector you see over the couch and central air vents over the loveseat. I've never even heard of central air here before.

I think she felt a lot of pressure to entertain us in Shi Shi. The 24ish hours we were there, we rode in three of her family's cars (three!), went to two coffee shops, three restaurants, one temple, one museum and one beach. When I asked her what she'd be doing if we weren't there, she said sleeping, ha.

The temple in Shi Shi was nothing too special. More colorful than your typical, northern China temples- much closer in style to Taiwan's temples, but I realized I hadn't been to a temple in southern China at all yet. The best part was definitely the view of the harbor.

Because Buddha like juice boxes too you know.

After the temple we went in to Quanzhou to go to the museum (and as my third Chinese museum, I have decided they're all pretty awful).

This is somehow underwear. My Chinese friend was also confused...

They are way too trusting with these tiny "No Touching" signs and no other barriers or precautions to prevent said touching.

Seriously, too trusting.

I mean come on, this guy is begging to be touched.

Does this bother anyone else? It remind me of this (second photo from the bottom).

That night we ate out with her family for her brother's birthday. Her family isn't big on drinking (which we discovered when we were the only people that ordered beers with dinner). After dinner we returned home to eat chocolate cake and watch a movie. Everyone except her brother went to bed after the cake though; it was a very chill night. Not what I was expecting at all, especially since there had been rumblings of ktv for the birthday boy.

I was also surprised to find that their entire movie collection seemed to be subtitled American action movies. Her was just apparently the only one interested enough to stay up and watch Minority Report (after he'd turned off Looper because it was too long).

Awesome projector screen movie viewing experience.

The beach the next day had a sand sculpture contest. There were a bunch of Disney sculptures and some Chinese themed designs as well that I enjoyed.

You know you love this. I certainly do.

After the beach it was time for us to catch our bus home to Xiamen and leave the family to do the actual holiday thing. Tomb Sweeping Day is about honoring ancestors by visiting their graves and burning "money" for them to use on the other side (this used to be real, but now they mostly print fake money for it). Not exactly something we needed to crash.

stuck in Taiwan

Xiamen is really close to both Taiwan and Hong Kong, which makes it a pretty popular place for foreigners to stop when they need A.) to leave the country and get stamped back in because they're here on a tourist visa (Taiwan) or B.) need to get a new visa (Hong Kong).

Xiamen is the bigger island on the left. The bigger one on the right is actually part of Taiwan. It's a 45ish minute ferry ride away, although, for some reason, the ferry leaves from the middle of the west side of Xiamen to get there...

We're a liiiittle farther from the main island (Xiamen is on the left just south of Quanzhou), but still relatively close. It's a six-ish hour ferry, or so I've heard.

Lots of foreigners take the overnight bus to Hong Kong, it takes about eight hours. There's no night return bus, so the bus back takes about 13 hours with daytime traffic.

Tourist visas in China are usually only good for 30 to 60 days per entry, then holders need to leave and get stamped back in. In Xiamen, that means taking a 150 RMB ferry 45 minutes to Jinmen, Taiwan and then basically turning right around and doing the same thing back.

I happen to know some people here that are doing the working-illegally-on-a-tourist-visa thing and were due to leave the country, so we made a run yeatserday. We all had the day off, so we planned to head out early, around 9am, and be in Taiwan by 11am so we could poke around a bit and catch the last ferry back to Xiamen at 5pm.

Xiamen has many ferry terminals, so I asked a friend that had made a visa run to Jinmen before which one we should leave from. We got to the terminal, found the correct ticket window, bought our tickets for 126 RMB apiece and got on the ferry with no problems at all.

The ferry wasn't anything special. The first level, below deck, had benches and tables to sit at. Kind of strange for a ferry, similar to park benches, but hey, it's China. The second level, where we sat, had patio furniture type chairs in the middle and chairs set up around tables around the edges. This level was open air, and you could pay 200 RMB (74 RMB more than the ferry ticket itself!) to sit at the tables and have tea and, theoretically, a better view. The third level we didn't check out because it was really foggy and intermittently raining.

We thought it was pretty funny that they had binoculars available for rent and tons of Chinese were paying for them, even though the visibility was crap. Everyone was taking of pictures of absolutely nothing and we brushed it off as Chinese being Chinese... at first.

After what seemed like it'd probably been about 45 minutes, we came upon an island with some large Chinese writing on the side and a small flag. The boat actually stopped next to it, and it seemed like almost everyone on board came up to take pictures of the island. Then the boat made about a 90 degree turn and kept going. At that point, we weren't quite sure where we were headed.

A long while later, we came upon another island. Since the first one, my friends had been joking saying that that was it, we'd seen Taiwan and we were headed back to Xiamen. We didn't see anything immediately recognizable on the new island, but once we chugged a little further along the coast we saw that they were right, it was definitely Xiamen.

Out 126 RMB and almost two hours for nothing, for a look at Taiwan, I called the friend that had told me which ferry terminal to go to. She put a Chinese teacher from her school on the phone to talk to the ticket agent, and that was when we pieced together something the ticket agent had been trying to tell us initially. We had bought tickets for a sightseeing ferry (which was now obvious and the picture taking made a little more sense), and she was trying to tell us when we bought them that they were round trip (it's common enough for foreigners to need to make the Taiwan run that ticket agents know it).

When making a visa run to Jinmen, you have to buy the return ticket there, you cannot buy round trip. Apparently, the ferry port we were at had discontinued ferry service to Jinmen. The ticket agent wrote out an address for another terminal for us and we tried again.

Taiwan ferry attempt number two was just as easy, and another 160 RMB. We had bought a backpack full of beers to be prepared for that one. We discovered that you can walk through customs with an open beer in your hand on a Tuesday morning and nobody looks at you any funnier than usual (yay China). Ferry number two was a lot nicer, with seats like a coach bus and tvs. And it had good bathrooms (clean and well lit), which is a win for me, as I have the bladder of a four year old.

Reading glasses in four different strengths to help fill out your arrival & departure cards, thanks China!

When we got to Taiwan, we classed things up a bit and didn't take open beers through customs. We did meet a Taiwanese customs official who'd spent a lot of time in Scottsdale, AZ (basically where I lived the five years before coming to China, random coincidence), and was very friendly, but he had the honor of dropping bomb number two on us. When we told him we were in Jinmen just for the day, he informed us that the rest of the ferries that day were cancelled due to the aforementioned fog.

That posed a bit of a problem for us, as none of us had brought much cash and we'd already spent a lot more than expected. Also, we definitely didn't have anything outside of the clothes on our backs and none of our phones worked. We all had the next day off though, luckily.

At that point we were delirious with hunger, as it was 3pm, none of us had eaten more than a banana and yogurt for breakfast and we'd all been drinking beer since about 10:30am. A friend of ours had told us about a great pizza place, so we decided to head there and regroup.

It ended up taking us what seemed like forever to decode his awful directions, but we did discover that they have a temple basically on every corner (his directions said "across from the temple") and the temples are really cool and colorful.

Naturally, once we got there the pizza place didn't take credit cards. They pointed us to an atm at the 7 Eleven down the street and one of my friends set off, while myself and the other waited for the pizza. The atm ended up only taking locals cards, no visa, so he went on a 45 minute wild goose chase to find a bank that was open and took visa. Meanwhile, we got the pizza and it was not nearly as good as all the hype, another letdown. It kind of made us all feel like we were dying after we ate it.

After pizza, we walked down the street and popped into the first hotel we found, were shown a room and checked in. And then we didn't know what to do. We'd been told by a few people there wasn't really anything to do on the island except camp, which was obviously out, so we decided to stop by the one and only bar. Which, sadly, was closed. In the end, we spent the night playing a little poker, drinking some random terrible beverages, going to the worst arcade ever (with only grabby claw games) and then giving up and watching Payback on tv before going to bed. It was terribly boring; the whole day falls into the "fail" column, for sure.

We had to try "The Beer" because, duh, it's THE BEER. Both kinds are crap. Also, I feel like someone should tell Asahi what "Draft Beer" means.

Sparkling Chardonnay is clearly very fancy and tastes like sparkling grape juice, only not as good.

The next day we woke up early, again (8am). It doesn't sound early in the western world, but the earliest I ever work is 10am so the earliest I ever have to get up is maybe 9:15am. We ate a quick breakfast and headed over to the ferry terminal feeling pretty apprehensive, because it was still really foggy.

When we got there, the place was absolutely packed. Hundreds of people had just spent the night, waiting for the next ferry that would be allowed through. Ferry service begins at 8:30am, and the Departures board showed everything up to at least 12:30pm as delayed. We went up to the ticket counter and were given sets of numbers in line for two different destinations, though we weren't quite sure why, but we were numbers 496 through 498 and 502 through 504.

At around 10:30am they finally announced something to the effect that the fog had lifted enough to allow for departures, and they began selling tickets based on everyone's numbers. By the time they got to 500 we figured out why we had two sets of numbers. We wanted tickets on the ferry to Dongdu, Xiamen, where we had left from. Unfortunately, because of the backlog of people, we wouldn't be able to get on that ferry at any point that day. The second set of numbers was for the ferry to Wutong, Xiamen, maybe 45 minutes by public transit from where we live.

After another two hours' wait, another 160 RMB 45 minute ferry, a 15 minute taxi and a 30 minute brt (Bus Rapid Transit) ride, we finally arrived back at home around 4pm, 30 hours into our day trip.

I'd definitely like to go back to Taiwan, the people were much friendlier and spoke a lot more English, which makes everything so much easier, and everything was so shockingly, wonderfully clean compared to China. It'd be nice to be able to actually plan for a trip though, and maybe go somewhere where there are things to do and see!

I'm baaaaaack

It's been a long time since I've posted or kept up with what I've been doing, but I'm back. More importantly, I'm back with the intention of keeping up more consistently. So, where did I leave off? Ah yes, my move to Xiamen, in Fujian province, at the end of August, after almost a month of travels.

Xiamen is an entirely different ball game than Songyuan or Tianjin. A LOT of what I'd noticed and posted about in my previous home cities doesn't hold true here, and I attribute that to a couple main factors.

It seems to me that northern China and southern China are very, very different- the accents (northern Mandarin is more pure), the food (northern food is saltier, southern food is sweeter and spicier), the physicality of the people (northern people are shorter and stockier with potbellied men), the general attitude of the people (southern people seem friendlier toward strangers), etc.

Xiamen also has a lot bigger metropolitan area than Songyuan (not Tianjin, but my time there was limited) with a lot more western influence. There is a huge stone export industry here that draws many foreign business people (no quarries though, explain that one to me) as well as a large, well reputed university with several international programs and thousands of foreign students.

These things, as well as some factors more directly related to my school have made my life here significantly different. Stay tuned for details...

leg #2: travel China, Shanghai (again)

After Beijing, we returned to Shanghai for about a day. We hit the Pearl Market again and went to a British bar for drinks, where we met a man that may have made my trip. He used to book bands, so he filled us in on where the good live music venues were in Shanghai.

My friend and I used to live together in the States, and at one point we were going to see almost a show a week. I absolutely love live music, and I haven't seen any since the day before I left for China. We went to the club that night and saw some great musicians, it was the perfect end to our trip.

Ben Houge

Daniel Hart

At the shows we go to in the States, the universe seems to have some unspoken rule, that there will be some Asian guy (likely the only one at the show) that will try to attach himself to me for the entirety of it. When Ben Houge was on, he said something that prompted me to yell, "You sound like you're from Wisconsin!" at him... and then it happened there too. This guy that was also apparently from Wisconsin, but working in Shanghai and of Chinese heritage, used that as his opening and hung out by us until we left. It cracked us up.

leg #2: travel China, Beijing

After Haikou, we flew up north to Beijing to see the Great Wall. I hadn't seen it yet, after nearly seven months in China, so I was definitely due, and it was on my friend's "must" list.

There are a few different places near Beijing to see the Wall. We didn't really care where we went as long as we saw the thing, so we just asked the front desk at our hotel if we should go in a tour group or just go by ourselves. They didn't speak great English, but they gave us directions by city bus (only one transfer!) and told us it would take an hour. And then they wished us good luck. Never a good sign...

We actually made it there without any problems, though it took two hours instead of one. We ended up at Badaling and actually passed two other spots to get on the Wall on the way. We were talking to ourselves/the driver the whole time saying, "Sir? Um, sir? I think you missed our destination... sir?" I actually would have rather stopped at one of the other places, as they were significantly less crowded, but Badaling had both newly restored Wall and old, decrepit, no-tourists-allowed-Wall, so that was cool to see.

Soooo many people. And it was a Tuesday.

Someone should tell them that this probably makes most Americans WANT to commit a nuisance.

Like so many other things that are really hyped up, it was cool, but still just a wall. Probably don't need to ever see it again. It was a really good hike though. The inclines and steps and whatnot were ridiculous. I managed in flip flops, but sneakers would have been the smarter plan.

Doesn't this look a bit like a roller coaster just before a drop?

Aside from the Wall, we hit 798 (we stayed at the art hotel down the street that I always stay at) and that was our two days in Beijing!

So, bathroom space isn't the hotel's selling point...

leg #2: travel China, Haikou

Our first day at the resort in Haikou it rained, again, so we were basically stuck indoors. We determined, after a thorough investigation of the resort, that we were two of maybe ten guests. We later found out that the whole place was basically just dead during the week; on the weekend there were a lot more people around, mostly Chinese, and more services/amenities were available. We preferred the dead times.

No one that worked there really spoke English, there was one concierge (Bruce), one front desk agent (Linda) and two servers (Doris and Jack) in the whole place with a basic grasp of the language. Jack cracked us up, the first time we met him, he said, "Hey!" as a greeting. It took a second to register that he had spoken English and said something really informal; when it dawned on us, we looked at each other and started laughing. Whomever had taught Jack English only taught him really casual language, so everything he said was completely inappropriate for a staff member at a five star resort, but really fun for us.

The place was pretty nice though, it had a private beach, hot springs and a huge spa, including pools with the fish that eat the dead skin off your body. I did the fish thing in Cambodia, but you can only do your feet there, not your whole body (which was very cool as long as there wasn't really anyone else in that pool).

These were some of the hot springs. I was a bit disappointed, I was expecting something natural looking, like pools carved into the rocks where the water came from. Not so much here though. The pools were all like regular pools, tiled and whatnot, with the hot spring water piped in; they just looked dirtier then regular pools.

The trappings of a great day: beach, beer and treasure.

We signed up for a three day spa package at the resort. We never did figure out if they thought we were dating or what, but they turned our package into a couples' thing, so all of our services were tandem, same room, same time. It was very romantic, lol.

The spa gave us these sweet, silk pjs to wear. That were huge. So we added pillows and wandered around sumo wrestling in them. The beauty of having a resort to yourself.

We mocked this card in our room for the disposable underwear, but we actually ended up wearing some after each spa service. They were ridiculous.

And yeah, these were in our room too. I think there miiiight be a typo.

We hired a driver for the day one day and checked out some local attractions. The hotel had a big list of things to see and do nearby, so we hit a volcanic geopark, a temple and an old shopping street. A lot of the other stuff on the list was way to expensive for what it was. Hainan is basically just known for its beaches and the hot springs.

Our driver that day was AWESOME. He didn't really speak English, but between his English and my Chinese we were fine.

Fist pumping to Chinese techno, ha!

view from on top of a volcano

inside the volcano

This is our driver riding a giant penis. WHY is there a giant penis at the geopark where many tourist go with their families? Who knows, it's China.