January 31st: back to Chengdu

Day 137

Checked out of the hotel at noon, caught the bus to Chengdu whcih dropped us off at the outermost ring of the city limits. The cabride in took forever. We checked back into the hotel from before, returned to the ambrosial noodle place for a final time.

Both of us had repsiratory difficulties from Chengdu's filthy metropolitan coal-burning air, worn out on walking. We stayed in, watched a Rockets game and the commentators used every opportunity to name drop Yao Ming. Ethnocentric to the nth degree. Now that I've seen him play, I know he's overrated. He's the great Chinese hero, simply because he's Chinese. He has no game. He's pretty much an awkward tree out there. And yet, his face is plastered all over here. NBA is the most popular sport in China because of him. But they're crowdsurfing a plywood titan. If he really works hard he might be a good player, but right now he's spending height credit and it's not going to last long. I feel bad for Yao, the pressure must be overbearing, to carry an entire country on your shoulders because of a physical anomaly. Tall as he is, he will never live up to the hype and it may drown him, and when he falls, he'll be "failing China." I wonder if he prays for a career-ending injury. Were I in his position, I might.

We had dinner at Dico's because it was near. We wandered around a department store next door, both got homesick for the west in an outdoor goods store. I kept inquiring about different jackets and such and everytime the girl would shake her head and say "for girl." It continued until I got to a swimsuit rack and there were two sets: trunks and a bikini bottom. I held up the bikini bottom and teased: "for boy?" She nodded. I was dumbfounded. The trunks were for girls and this "thing" that had no room for my scrotum, let alone the general, was supposed to be for guys. Mike and I both laughed.

We tried in vain to have some KTV fun. The first place next to the hotel was dead. The one across the street was equally dead. The manager guy put on Richard Marx's "Right Here Waiting" for me to sing.He was barking up the wrong may guo ren. Forcing me to listen to that song is a good way to become my enemy. We downed our beers, left in disgust.

In an alley, we took a WC break and Mike, after zipping up, realized he was pissing on someone's door. Bad ambassador! We got massage to work the knots out of our legs after climbing the mountain and also because nothing else was happening in town. My girl did the spine braid, but also did an individual pinch straight up that popped a few vertebre in my lower back delightfully. She also did an amazing head massage. I lulled for a bit with a tingling skull and goofy grin, Mt. Emei exorcised from limbs and bones.

Sleep was wonderful.

to indiana and back

well, i finally made it "home for the holidays", though weather and a busy schedule put it a month behind. oh well.

mom got me a cordless phone. i've been using a friggin old cordED phone for years. i suck. thanks mom.

also got a few dvds, including some Ali G stuff. sweet.

yes.

and don't forget, feb 11th at york st. cafe (in newport): a disco tribute, featuring The Black Fives, DJ Empirical, and other bands. killer.

January 30th: Emeishan and the neverending stairs

Day 136

We woke, took a pricey cab to the base of Mt. Emei (the meter tripled the last few kilometers). After surveying the map, seeing the peak was a 52 kilometer hike, we abandoned notions of seeing the top. The last and only bus to the peak had already gone up, and had we caught it, our view would likely have been of grey mist and fog (no sour grapes, just an accurate prediction).

We ate lunch in a hotel lobby and had an awful chicken dish that the lady recommended. (Lesson learned: Never take recommendations.) The chicken was mostly bone, the sauce had no flavor and little spongy cubes of god-knows-what were littered throughout. The spicy chicken with szecuan pickle was good, though.

Mike and I bought the hundred kuai ticket with our pixelated photo printed on it to prevent ticket bootlegging, then hiked up as far as time would allow. Most of the hike was stairs, endlessly winding, impossible to see the end from the bottom of the series. The path was lined with gorgeous pine glades towering bamboo stalks, trickling streams and occasional mysterious views of the mountain gauzed over with gossamer mist.

We were continually pursued for a time by somenoisy old Chinese people. We were annoyed at their tranquility-shattering chatter (this guy had something to say about everything under the sun) but simultaneously amazed at their age that they had the lung power to ascend such altitudes and maintain the onslaught of anecdotal noise. A few temples, a few vistas, and we finally turned 'round lest we get stuck on the mountain deprived of daylight. The temples were lovely, brilliantly colorful, peaceful, save for a guy operating a table saw. Mt. Emei is just too massive to see in one day, but we saw asmuch as two fit pedestrians could. The tourist trap tone initially set by the tickets and gift shops could not poison Emei's overall majesty.

We hopped a bus back to Leshan and had a post-hike meal at the eatery adjacent to the bus station. The owner/chef loaded us up with noodles, peanuts, a spicy chicken dish, some beers, then overcharged us. Everyone's a grifter.It's getting to the point where I have to constantly second guess niceness, and I don't want to.

Once back at the hotel we relaxed for a bit, then went for a walk around town. Night had fallen and the holiday crowds had descended. It appears we were ending our vacation at just the right time. At a bakery, we got two little chocolate cake wads that although the size of a rubber high-bounce ball, weighed about two pounds: the Lambas bread of the bakery world. Dense, heavy moist business, that.

We inadvertently attracted a tagalong Chinese teenager named Walter. He wanted to practice English. Mike went back to the hotel and I had Walter take me to an internet cafe, in hopes I could ditch him. I finished checking email and he was right there. He followed me to the hotel and I asked him questions about school and Mao.

"Mao is a great man."

"Why is Mao a great man?"

"Mao is a good man. He is very important, and great writer. He..."

"Here's my hotel. Goodbye."

"Ok. Bye bye."

Mike and I had some beers and he was asleep fast. I, frustratingly awake, went to say goodbye to the inhouse ladies but they were all "working." Mamasan and a security guard were sitting around the heater and I sat with them for a couple minutes to be polite. Mike's girl came in, sat down, inquired if I wanted massage. I declined, said I was merely there to say goodbye. She asked if I wanted to get noodles. I nodded. Why not, how often will I be in Sichuan province after all? She got her coat on, asked something else, probably about sex because she grabbed my package. I stepped back, fired off a barrage of "no's." Just noodles, and not mine.

We went around the corner, had some beef broth noodles, not as good as the ones in Chengdu, but tasty. I said good night to her and she whined something about 20 kuai, slapped the top of her moped. Maybe she needed petrol. I shook my head and forked it over, glad I could do my platonic part to keep her fed. Aaron:the anti-john.

Slept at last.

January 29th: Leshan and multi-Buddha splendor

Day 135

Woke early to catch a bus to Leshan. When we boarded, Mike noticed a girl having trouble with her heavy and bulky bag. Her three male travel companions did nothing to help, so Mike, cursing them, assisted her and lugged it to the back, demonstrating what a proper gentleman does. At the end of the two and a half hour busride, he helped her get it back off, her three clueless companions still clueless. After I coaxed him, they exchanged numbers outside the bus, waved goodbye.

We were then immediately accosted by an overzealous pedicab driver who promised to take us to a decent hotel for 2 kuai. We declined him ten times, as our bags were far too heavy and there was no room for them. We even tried in vain once to prove it to him, but he stayed his course. At last, we relented, piling our cumbersome bags into his pedicab like some Benny Hill skit. He pedaled off, albeit with some difficulty, and huff-puffed a good five kilometers through town, sometimes right at head-on traffic and scraping past miraculously without the aid of lubricant.

"You're great!" I said. "I'm going to recommend you to ALL of my enemies."

"I feel bad," Mike said.

This little man was wheezing and sweat streamed down the back of his neck, cigarette clenched in the corner of his mouth.

"We turned him down ten times," I reminded him.

When he delivered us at last to the hotel, we paid him 10 kuai, which was perhaps his grift anyway: the voluntary upcharge martyr. Our room was rougher than the one in Chengdu, the view of a rain-filled garbage-strewn roof and adjacent high-rise leaving something to be desired. We didn't linger long indoors. The town of Leshan had more character than Chengdu. Smaller, spread out, winding tree-lined streets, it evoked a bit of Suzhou, but with a prominent riverfront view (when the fog is gone), a tributary lake with perched skyscrapers resembling a lighthouse garden. The stores were mainly posh name brand, but it wasn't overbearing; the town added its own flair, akin to colonial-style franchises in New England towns.

We talked a cab into taking us to the Grand Buddha park for 10 kuai. Upon arrival, he tried to say it was 10 kuai for EACH of us. We gave him only 10, told him to fuck off. Everyone's a chisler.

The park was decent, and the main attraction: the world's largest Buddha statue, was relatively near the entrance, but we decided to see the rest of the park first, and then make the Grand Buddha our finale. The park contained a smattering of pavilions, pagodas, temples, an ornate carved bell housed in "jaunty boxcar" lodgings, a path along the expansive river. At one point there was a cave whcih used to be the tomb of a monk. I stepped in and was immediately flooded with disquieting energy.I felt I was trespassing, that my presence was inappropriate. Deafening vibrations like a slash of hooks against piano strings. The very walls seemed to scream with an angry silent maw: "Why are you here?! You are not welcome here! Get out! Get out! Leave! Now!" I did. I was upset almost to the point of tears and it took a few minutes to shake that feeling. I apologized to the statue of the monk out front, the visage of whom had been carved with malevolence.

We hiked on and ran across a pair of Westerners from our hotel, from New Zealand. They had taken the ferry across and it had set them back 70 kuai. Oops. We said a few words about the park and travels, then parted ways. Next we came upon another ticket booth, for a second park sitting so close to the Grand Buddha park, it may as well have been the same park, but then they couldn't charge a second entrance fee. Mike and I both thought cynically "tourist trap," but eventually caved in after seeing photos of some of the statues in the Sleeping Buddha park. The girl was so endearing and persistent how could we say no?

It was a decision that contributed to one of the best parts of the trip (my personal favorite). This park was less touristy, and resplendent with hundreds of Buddha statues in varying size and form, some a few inches, some four stories tall and beyond. The setting was delightfully traditional: vast narrow staircases climbing into the heavens, plazas, pavilions, caves, enclaves, all like stepping back in time. You could almost envision the Buddhist monks of old, their spirits still the caretakers, felt everywhere.

The signature statue for me was the depiction of the Bodhisattva with the Thousand Hands, in situ in a cave with other statues carved into the walls and pillars, three round pillows lain before it for praying purposes. Mere words cannot do justice to its sublime and awe-inspiring wonder. A figure of tranquil female enlightened beauty with the previously advertised thousand hands forming a breathtaking aura lotusburst, a quasi-Egyptian eye carved into the palm of each hand, and here and there an object grasped, like an arrow, a apagoda, a tower, an axe, a set of coins that Mike explained meant "bright heaven," a chisel, trident, scroll, pepper garland, paintbrush, flute, lotus bloom, hammer, gear,beads, knife, stone, etc. I studied it,took notes, even offered a non-denominational prayer on one of the pillows, but mostly stood in awe, on the verge of tears at something so intensely full of beauty and peace and enlightenment. It seemed beyond human hands' capability, like the rock pushed it through from the other side. The energy was complete opposite from the experience earlier in the monk's tomb. This was an enveloping good that hugged the viewer to its bosom and genuinely assured the soul, "It's ok, it's alright. Everything's fine," with a sweet, all-knowing humble smile.

A series of steep stairs led us down into an outdoor round plaza which must have been the center for the monks'main activities. Different forms of the Buddha rested in each segmented enclave, beyond which laid a garden and fountain, then into a couple caves, to a massive enclave, a multicolored five story Buddha carved into the cliffside. It was almost too much to take.

The main attraction: the Sleeping Buddha, which if stood upright was as tall as the Grand Buddha, was hardly visible from the mist and fog. No matter. At that point, it would have been lily-gilding, or been a case of "points of interest" diminishing returns. A person can only take so much maginificence. We trekked back to the Grand Buddha park and good-naturedly teased the girl that we couldn't see the Sleeping Buddha. She argued with us that we could. "No," we told her, "We could not." Shades of the Guiyang passkey incident were springing up. She pointed on the map a bridge where the best view was. "We stood on that bridge (we're not stupid), and we could not see it." She stubbornly insisted we could until Mike showed her a foggy misty picture proving it. "Oh." Yeah. Score one for may guo ren.

We made our way to the Grand Buddha, still reeling from the wonders that had just filled our eyes. We traversed the multiple narrow switchback to get to the Buddha's base. Beyond skyscraper tall and wide, the size was almost garish, incomprehensible. It was impossible to photograph and maintain a sense of scale, though we tried like fools. 75 meters high. The head was nearly lost in the mist.

We grabbed a pedicab back to the hotel and at the bridge's incline, he made us get out and push. Reparations for the first driver, perhaps? We had noodles at a mom-n-pop side street eatery owned by two sweet older ladies. There's a type of small firm bamboo that goes into all Szechuan cooking down here, a kind of Asian olive texturewise when chopped. Delicious.

While Mike got a massage in our room, I went downstairs to the bar/KTV only to discover there was neither. Only the hotel massage girls were there, circled around a heater and knitting. They bade me sit and they knew almost as much English as I knew Chinese, but we talked and laughed and "ting bu dong'd" for a while enjoyably. One of them went on a beer run for me and when she returned, she had used my money for oranges, peanuts, and chicken feet as well. My change was minimal. The way they tore into those chicken feet,you'd think they hadn't eaten in weeks.

The girl who massaged Mike appeared, sat and went into a tirade,that with my limited Chinese, I came to understand as she was upset that he only wanted massage and not sex. Wow. I was hanging out with honest-to-god whores. Ravenous whores. And they loved them some chicken feet. They kept asking me if I wasnted massage, but now that the it was a loaded question, declined repeatedly. What a weird day. From the heights of spiritual lucidity to confronting the depths of human indulgence, I was certainly getting a grand view of the existential spectrum.

Mike came down and joined us, equally surprised by the lack of KTV/bar as advertised. We hung out and drank, and Mike's girl gave him flak for not "following through." When the beer ran out and we tired of the company, we retired.

fudgie & fufu sighting

Joe found a page where you can vote for your favorite of the pictures he likes for a variety of reasons. You'll notice the one with a caption mentioning "viking" will look familiar....

January 28th: Chengdu underground shopping

Day 134

Woke and set out to get some shopping done. Found a place to have coffee on the fifth floor of a downtown mall,a ritzier UBC with damn fine coffee. Mike accidentally burned a chair with his cigarette and he sat in it to conceal it, pretending to watch a fashion show that was preparing to start.

A busboy came over and asked if he could practice English with us, pointed out words like "complimentary" and "unusually" and worked through the pronunciation. It's odd being an expert at something and being sought out for our expertise wherever we may be. It's as embarrassing as it is flattering. The boy grinned widely, thanked us for our help. We left before someone noticed the scarred chair fabric and made our way to Pizza Hut. We figured a lot of bread and cheese would block us up, ease the symptoms of the Satanically spicy huo guo the previous night. I met a Brit named Andy in the WC and we chatted briefly about American vote fraud, China and such.

Mike and I still searching for our elusive outdoor free market, stumbled onto a long underground market just by trying to get to the other side of the street. A great deal of gifts were procured. After a beer in an odd bar at the far side of market corridor, we returned above ground, wandered around trying to get our bearings, but ended up more lost.

The daylight, which earlier was barely enough to get a photo of Darby with a Mao statue, was rapidly evaporating. Male pride swallowed, we boarded a taxi who took us in the opposite direction and got us back. We ventured out later for some KFC (guts still reeling from huo guo) then called it a night.

January 27th: Chengdu ho

Day 133

Woke well-rested, huzzah for the sleep mask! Had sandwiches and coffee. George Kerry showed to talk to us again, his suit hopelessly wrinkled. It was a little early for conversation, the coffee hadn't kicked in and somehow he started on religion.

"You are the Je...er, the Jesus Christ?"

"No. Not Christian. I'm not confirmed anything. I like the principles of Buddhism, Taoism and Hinduism."

"When the person dies, their ghost comes back..."

"Where are we now?"

I pointed out the window where we had stopped, effectively ending the conversation before he mounted the pulpit. I'm not really fond of discussions on religion or beliefs. They tend to turn into campaigning instead of a chat of ideas. Why do silly humans continually try to explain the unexplainable? Whether it's science or whose god has the biggest dick, it's all just fingerpainting on plastic wrap, the more you try to control what image you want, the more it changes before your eyes. Let it be a mystery. Enjoy the movie, quit trying to guess the ending.

We checked into our hotel which online had read "recently renovated." It was actually still under renovation. The elevator ride was shared with a woman chiseling away at the steel walls with a putty knife, dropcloths like throwrugs at the foot of the hallways. Our doorknob gave us trouble, but this time it was our fault; we didn't stick the flat spoon key deep enough into the slot. The front desk girl let us in and we asigned her to inquire about train tickets back to Shanghai.

Next, we toured around Chengdu, which seemed like an Asian Vancouver. Overcast skies above, an endless string of shops below. Not particularly impressive, but then perhaps we had stumbled upon the ritzy district. We headed towards more Bohemian environs, traditional Chinese architecture,most of which were half-demolished behind cheap cinder block walls, skyscrapers looming like bullies admiring their pummeling handiwork. Culture rape in the name of progress.

Still, Sichuan province is legendary for its cuisine, and on an unassuming side street eatery we discovered the finest noodles known to humanity. Made inhouse, the freshness was unsurpassable. The spicy beef broth was different, more savory, a slower burn. There are some herbs exclusive to the area used in the recipes and I might have also detected a trace of cardamom or cinnamon.

Afterwards, we tried to take a cab to an outdoor freemarket and got dropped off at a butcher and vegetable place instead. We strolled the area, past stores and and still-inhabited partially-razed dwellings, like a Word War II movie set. Chengdu is a difficult city to get one's bearings. I theorize the extensive coal pollution is slightly magnetic and worked tothrow off my male gyro compass. The city is circular in design, a series of rings within rings too vast to fathom or navigate, a flat gerrymandered shoping wasteland with skyscrapers poking through in places like the first budding teenage whiskers. Chengdu itself seems to be in a state of puberty, overly eager to rid itself of decrepit traditional building baby teeth and flaunt its Westernized status with contrived cocksure bravado. Simultaneous buildings had been erected, yet none finished, like an awkward boy wearing too much of Dad's cologne on cheeks still stung with leftover babyfat.

With not a metropolitan bone in our body, Mike and I set out for one of the many parks on our map. Our cabbie took us to one which he immediately deemed"no good" and drove us around the corner to one more deserving of out-of-towner yuen: DuFu's Thatched Cottage park. Hardly worth the 40 kuai entrance fee, we were both disappointed. The poet DuFu's cottage, a tower, and some surrounding gardens were pastuerized and seemed incidental in the garland of intrusive gift shops all hawking the same cheap bookends, jade statues and rice wine.

A Russian tourist couple and their bogus Chinese guide made us want to leave imeediately. Some soldiers were doing sloppy exercises and their guide told them it was kung fu. If that shit was kung fu, I'm Billy Zane. But these tourists ate their steaming bowl of feces and sucked the spoon making yummy faces all the while. But who do I loathe more, the ignorant couple or their "field expert"? They even asked if they could take pictures with open-jawed awe. We left in disgust. When you travel, you're an ambassador for your country whether you want to be or not. Every cabbie who tries to charge too much, every hiked-up price for a market good, every attitude given is borne from the wellspring of bad ambassadorship.

We took a different exit and had to hike a wide arc around an Orlando-ish condo hell to get back to a main road. We caught a cab back to the hotel, asked where we could obtain some famed szechuan huo guo, and to our good fortune, one was two doors down from our lodgings. Mike ordered it and demanded it be "super spicy." Immediately a basket of tissues was brought to our table. When they brought the broth, it was redder than Satan's epidermis. Before the first item was dumped in, we knew we were in trouble. People walking by the table did a doubletake at our food instead of us. It was very tasty, very unique.The spice was a slow burn, getting exponentially hotter with each bite. Between sips of beer and noseblows, we were able to keep the furnace somewhat at bay. The wrong Willis brother as at this meal. Tom puts Tabasco on his corn flakes, he would have loved this.

A bowl of "cooling sauce" containing peanut oil, oyster sauce, vinegar, salt and other was provided, but the longer we ate and dipped, the more diluted our antidote became. As a coup de grace, we dared each other to eat a pepper, and we did it at the same time. At first, nothing, and then the temperature rose ten degrees a minute, a tingling heat that rose in such increments, you could almost see Hades grinning and working the bellows himself.

Afterwards we tried to get massage, which ended up being more trouble than it was worth. On the streets, periodic chaps hand out cards with girls' faces on it. We decided to try one, preparing ourselves for the possibility it might be a brothel, internally rehearsing our exit strategy should it be the case. When looking for our location, we ran into a weaselly gent with scabbed-over ears, who led us to a hotel and on the third floor, marched us into a "private room" KTV establishment. Not our scene. Not even massage. A brothel would have been closer to the mark.

We told him "massage" and "cheap." He nodded, and after we all rode a 6 kuai taxi (that we paid for) he took us to yet another KTV, and it was MORE expensive than the last one. We shook our heads, left. We caught a cab and asked the cabbie to take us to massage leaving Scabears on the curb remonstrating, probably insisting we give him one more chance. He's lucky we didn't beat the 6 kuai out of him. Perhaps that's how his ears got scabbed in the first place.

After massage we were in a better state of mind, although Mike's bowels were not agreeing with the huo guo. I went down to the KTV bar adjacent to the hotel to give him privacy. I killed time by drinking a beer and singing a couple songs ("Hello", and "Only You") which I didn't even have to pay for, but the coal-rich Chengdu oxygen had taken its toll on my voice. I returned to the room, fell asleep.

January 26th: train to Chengdu

Day 132

Woke for some breakfast, but no quasi-cinnamon rolls like yesterday. Crappy. We went to a different internet cafe, which smelled like a WC and a teenage gamer boy behind me kept sniffing and slurphing like a five year old with no sense. I gave him a tissue, urged him to use it before I became violent. He did, but the sniffing continued. I gave him the whole pack. Feckin' gamers.

I replied to a couple messages, posted a bulletin on myspace imploring cool people to show us around in Chengdu (none did, the bastards, or else there are no cool people in Chengdu). Ate lunch at Dico's again, got some groceries at the clandestine supermarket (finally found it!) checked out of the hotel and boarded our wheeled home for the next 21 hours.

As soon as we settled into our lower berth, a guy from the middle berth above me sat at the end of my bed reading a newspaper like my bunk was community space or we were bestest buddies. The train was still stationary, so perhaps he was merely sitting there until the train started moving and then he would get in his own damn space. No such luck. The train moved, he didn't. I stretched out, rested my foot against him, trying to solve the problem with both parties' face saved. He didn't budge. I put my bag right near him, moved it into his spot when he got up for another paper. He still sat. This was bullshit. When he got up to give his ticket to the lady, I moved my bag and sweater into position so if he stillinsisted on sitting, he would have to get right next to me or sit on my stuff. Whichever he chose, I would have to get verbally physical. This time he got the hint. Problem solved. Face saved. He's still an asshole.

Mike and I passed the time writing, listening to the music and often eating snacks (as my students say for their hobbies). A Chinese guy named George Kerry aptached himself to us, agreed to be our tour guide for a day in Chengdu, wrote down some must-sees in the city, annoyingly corrected everything about our Chinese, discussed how North Korea now is like China 30 years ago. At one point he disappeared, then returned in a few minutes with a Lonely Planet guidebook he'd borrowed from a British couple onboard.

I jotted down a few points of interest, cuisine pointers, etc, returned the book to them myself. Mark and Tasha were kind of stuffy at first, but the longer I dazzled them with conversation, the more they opened up. I had the opportunity to bash Dubya to both them and George Kerry, thereby doing my part to slowly restore and rebuild the positive image of Americans in the world's eye.

Mike and I drank and played 500 until they shut the lights. We continued straining our eyes and then mutually gave in to dreamville. I utilized my sleep mask, which used in conjunction with the High Art soundtrack, had me sawing logs in record time.

webcollage

check out this link to a webcollage. it scours the web for images and refreshes every so often with new images and links to the pages.

thing is, as my brother pointed out, it's funny how many images of text come up!

January 25th: double chicken day in Guiyang

Day 131

Slept uneasily. The fried dumplings didn't sit right. My guts felt accordioned. We woke for complimentary breakfast, Chinese fare. I ate a few rolls, sipped some tea. Mike hunted down some herbal stomach remedy and some 7up. We stepped outside into a complete 180 of the previous day: overcast and cold. Boo. The temperature had dropped about 30 degrees, the sun went back to playing Salman Rushdie.

We ate at Dico's, a kind fo KFC knockoff, had chicken sandwiches and coffee, giving the old bowels a break from the daily onslaught of picy and such. The Dico's girls were doing some weird dance routine in the back dining area. The piped-in music, which played an every-genre Broadway version of "Happy Birthday" now just kept playing the same pop song they were dancing to. After the fourth time, we left. The novelty had worn off. We then wandered around marketplaces browsing, happened upon a huge indoor center where we purchased some elaborate carved wooden pipes for friends.

A square we passed was filled with children and adults spinning tops with bull whips. Bizarre sight. Like "discipline your toy" day or something. We also stopped by a music store, checked prices on guitars and ehrus. Back at the hotel, we had troubles with the key card. It wouldn't open the door, so Mike went down to tell them. The girl at the desk insisted it worked, so Mike returned and it still didn't work, having waited for the slow elevator 15 floors both ways to be in the exact same predicament.

I went down with my trusty phrasebook, told her the keycard didn't work and she told me, "I think it does." I gestured for her to come with me and said "Then you come and you show me," increasingly unable to conceal my anger. She sent the monkey-suited bellboy with me instead and the card still didn't work. He went away, let us in with a passkey and kept coming back trying different cards and at last one worked. The ordeal took about 45 minutes to sort out. Unacceptable. Having worked at hotels before, all they had to do was re-encode it to begin with, whether they believed us about its non-function or not. I suspect that's what they ended up doing anyway, with a bunch of wasted time and two dissatisfied guests to show for their "saving face/ not backing down in front of others" ways.

I felt a tinge depressed today, whether it was physical fatigue or road-weariness, or having reached the half-way mark of my time in China. I miss my family, my friends and my culture. I want to walk down the street without being gawked at, nor hearing massive phlegm conjures all the time, nor breathing in coal dust and prevalent spicy food air, nor hearing insincere parroting "hellos" all the goddamned time. Maybe it's the weather. My brain needs warmth and colors to function properly. I'm extremely thankful for Erin Rock and Matt and Lindsey (you are missed, kiddo!) and Mike and Heather. Without them I probably would have gone apeshit long ago. Everyone needs a fellow witness to this thing called life, especially abroad.

After napping, we took a cab to an internet cafe to feel something of a connection with our friends distant. Hotmail revealed I had 12 messages on myspace.com, which I couldn't access from that day. Nuts. We then took a cab to a supermarket, or so we thought. When we got out, a fruit stand and a liquor store lay before us. We turned around, but our cabbie had driven off. We walked around trying to stumble across one, ran into a KFC instead. We were hungry and not in the best of moods since we spent a 10 kuai cabride to not be at a grocery store. Once inside the two queues became one as one girl put up a Chinese "closed" plastic tent on the counter. A kid came in behind us, went up to her, and she removed the plastic tent, started waiting on him. I barked, "Bullshit!" before I could stay my tongue. It was the most blatant hurtful snub-to-the-Westerners I've ever witnessed. Mike was uberpissed and wanted to leave, but I thought that would be "backing down" so we stayed, forced someone to serve us, ate our Western crap food in sullen vindicated silence.

A cab ride back, and then we secured snacks for the train ride tomorrow. I watched some of "Dumbo" with the sound down because it was dubbed and had never realized how mediocre the animation was before. Slept.

January 24th: Guiyang once more

Day 130

We woke, boarded the bus back to Kaili (cue the LL Cool J) the trip through the mountains this time was faster yet obscured by fog, vanquishing our attempts to get daylight pictures. I had to urinate badly halfway through the ride. In Kaili we ate lunch, got a bus to Guiyang and I had to urinate practically the whole way. I guess it's good exercise for my kegel muscles, but it didn't make for a pleasant ride.

The weather in Guiyang was incredible: sunny, warm, clear. Was this January? I walked around in short sleeves. At the train station, Heather bought her ticket back east, Mike and I got ours for Chengdu in the west, but it was for the day after tomorrow. We checked into a hotel, then got fried dumplings, enjoying having the burden of baggage off our backs.

We walked Heather to the train station, saw her off, waved goodbye. I asked the front desk girl if there was a piano in the hotel (all hotels should have one, dammit!) and she said no, but wrote down a coffee place called "Yesterday Once More" (yeah, no shit) and the name of a club for after, for Mike and I wanted to sample some Guiyang night life.

A cabbie dropped us off and i was expecting something like UBC or Ming Tien: This place was a 180 from those places: ultra-ritzy, crowded, a Haagen-Daz in the lobby. There were no open tables, and the piano was white. I don't play white pianos. We headed immediately to the disco, shrugging off the materialistic ugliness we had just breathed in. It was a nice place, dimly lit, circular bar, a centered dance floor with upper level balcony, tables with alternating red, blue and green lights under the glass surface. We sat at a blue one, too early for anything to be going on. The DJ was spinning some nauseating shite (a crap-dancehall remix of Simon and Garfunkel's "Cecilia" anyone?) We had a few beers, played that dice game. The table behind us housed a couple older suit jacketed chaps and what looked to be 15 or 16 year old female companions. Hardly nieces. The way they laughed too hard spelled out prostitute. Ugliness. But then I'm not a bare branch. How hard is it to get female companionship the old-fashioned way? And how drastically imbalanced is the female population if there are so many prostitutes? Stuff to ponder as we left.

We asked the cabbie to take us to massage and I became nervous as he drove us down some narrow backalleys. My dread was instantly quashed when we arrived. This place was health club nice, receptionist, clean lobby, pamphlets and such. I exhaled. Not a brothel. They gave us a bracelet with affixed key, had us remove our shoes and led us to a changing room. What the..? Perhaps they misunderstood. In our limited Chinese (had my phrasebook handy), we explained we wanted only garden variety vanilla massage, not the shower and robe malarky. The concierge led us to a couple private rooms.

Disclaimer: I have absolutely no qualms about nudity, having been a figure model out in Moab and on the Fudgie and Fufu album cover, Hallie's naked parties, a veteran of Bill Viavant's hot tub, Fisher Towers, as well as both the right hand and left hand of Mill Creek. My objections to showering with Chinese men are thus: There are no manners when it comes to privacy. In the States, a gentleman's eyes stay above the equator, whether at the sports club or at the urinals. It's polite. Here in China, both Mike and I have been privy to stares in the bathroom, and not casual glances, but hardcore junk study. They don't get the chance to examine American equipment (rumor has it Chinese men have certain shortcomings downstairs) so my guess is they try to memorize with an unblinking intensity only found in entymologists. That's just the bathroom. The open shower environment would have been a thousandfold more excrutiating. I came to massage to relax, and that's not the way to do it, to be a bug under glass when you first arrive. Secondly, the Chinese spit everywhere. I don't find dodging a lung oyster minefield relaxing. Thirdly, how much extra was this non-relaxing trauma going to cost us?

The concierge pointed out on a sheet 58 kuai for private room. I was just fine with that. I didn't want to be stared at for an hour in the main crowded area. After a few minutes, a girl came in, started working the knots I had in my limbs from hiking Huangguoshu. I asked her how old she was and she said 15. She didn't look it, but it weirded me out she was the same age as some of my students. She teased me about being ticklish, I told herallof the places we had been on holiday, mostly we just laughed at our mutual "ting bu dong" exchange.

Another guy came in, flipped through my phrasebook, asked if I was happy. I told him yes and he exited. The girl pointed out in the book that he was a "communist party official." He came back a few minutes later and said something like "Chinese miss/niece?" I shrugged and he flipped through the phrasebook, pointed at some characters, the English next to it reading: sex. "No." He left again. Perhaps he asks everyone, or maybe just Americans. Whatever the case, I was glad to contradict the stereotype.

We rode back to the hotel spaghetti-limbed and tingling, retired.

January 23rd: sites of Rongjiang and Muslim goodness

Day 129

Woke a little haggard, we took took the front desk girl upon her offer to show us some sites. We met her at the front desk, took a cab (who ripped us off) to some breakfast (an odd rice noodle burrito with pork and spice) outside a tower. First we traversed through the muddied alleys of a minority village.I took pictures of their small horses (only coming to the shoulder of American horses) and the timber frames of impending settlements, using joints, slats and pegs for the skeleton, saving nails for the outer siding and even then used sparingly. All of the houses and barns had the same basic design: two rectangles stacked,the upper wider than the lower, with intricate roof arcing up on the ends in tradiotional Chinese fashion.

We saw some banyan trees aged from 500 to 700 years old, and concluded our brief walk back at the tower. We climbed to view the top, but we had to pay a fee for the privilege. One level down from the top, a massive drum and two sticks were housed. Mike and I beat out a rhythm, trying to summon the locals to a sacrifice. I then tried to rally them with a hearty chorus of "We Will Rock You." It works for my students.

Exiting the tower area and walking back towards town we were all feeling a little let down. Even in a remote part of China, tourism is "muddying the well." We had to pay to climb a landmark, the most unassuming mom-n-pop eatery was strewn with a "China Unicom" banner, a satellite dish atop an ancient-looking barn. Were we responsible? It was done presumably for our benefit, and for the benefit of our traveling ilk, even if we didn't want it. Is there no untouched wild natural terrain and culture left? Perhaps parts of Africa.

It also discourgaed us to be from the very culture that this one was trying to ape. The wanton pursuit of possessions, convenience, the assimilation of luxuries into necessities; when the standard of living goes up, the uniqueness of culture goes down, the quality of life actually diminished, until its ground out under an amalgamated corporate heel like a cigarette butt. We can already see the viral aspect, disheartened to know the epidemic is on its way, bittersweetly we are glad to have seen the land and culture before it was ravaged. It seemed the bus ride was more satisfying than the destination. It sounds assholish, but we surmised that Chinese history is too important to be left to the Chinese. In their obsession to "catch up with the Joneses," history and culture are going to disappear, and they don't exhibit forethought to realize it.

Our hotel girl was called in to work, so we wandered the streets and main marketplace as our own guides. At the food section, Heather was coerced into buying a brown conicallump, with the promise it was sweet. We all tried a bite. It was not delicious. Sticky, slight carrot flavor. It was like chewing a silicone breast, still warm.

Hanging in the butcher's stands, we were dully aghast to see a couple split dogs. Hairless, pink, looking like any cut of meat except this was Rover. There is stuff you hear about and sublimate as folklore simply because the thought is too upsetting but now it was casually hanging in front of us.

On the streets we were fortunate enough to run acros some Muslims selling a raisin/walnut nougat we had read about, that we dubbed "Muslim goodness." I greeted them with "A salaam a leikum" and they grinned, asked a bunch of questions that I "Ting bu dong'd." It's simply easier to say that I'm Muslim rather tahn that I am an American who isn't jumping on the wicth hunt bandwagon to demonize a religion given a bad reputation by a tiny percentage of extremists. Are all Christians terrorists who bomb Planned Parenthood clinics? I see no difference between the two sets of extremism, but the world media made it clear in the case of pro-life bombers to classify them as a small misguided bunch of wackos. Why can't they extend the same courtesy to Islam and not make blanket generalizations?

We found ourselves in some back alley markets and the butcher section killed our appetite. More dogs, with the severed head resting on the table presumably so you can tell which animal you're purchasing. After sampling the "Muslim goodness" we set out to buy more but they had cleared out. After dinner they returned. One tried to take me by the arm and lead me somewhere, perhaps to their mosque to pray. I told him I could not, pointed at my watch, said I had to go. He pointed at the watchtoo, said some stuff, so I unclipped it, let him examine it. He said something else and Heather told me he asked if he could have it. I nodded yes. He grinned wide. The indi-glo button was gone and it had been wonky lately.One day it was 10:10 all day. If he really liked it, he should have it.

We turned in early because the beds were too comfy. The youths from the night before tried to get us to come down to the bar first by calling Heather's cell phone, then the hotel phone, then knocking on our door. Heather told them we were asleep. Soon we were.

i never get tired of this

January 22nd: road to Rongjiang (roof of our bus dragging along the belly of heaven)

Day 128

We checked out officially from the hotel. the hot water went pants, so I ghetto-showered with an Old Spice handi-wipe. As soon as we stepped outside a bus pulled up and we climbed aboard, bound for Guiyang, the hub for our intended destinations in Guizhou province.

A lady two seats up in the next row vomited repeatedly into a garbage bag at the tail-end of the trip. A kung fu comedy ("Lion Princess"?) was screened instead of the Chinese Yanni KTV rot we were subjected to upon first boarding. At Guiyang, we ate some fried dumplings and a lady from a neighboring kiosk dragged her son over, forced him to practice English with us. She pointed and he recited: "Elbow, head, table, chair, etc." When she pointed at Heather and I, he said "Auntie, Uncle." It was highly endearing.

We boarded a bus to Kaili at 1:30. I filled the time writing, listening to Grandaddy and George Harrison and grinning at the landscape which was lit by the suddenly unreclusive sun. We arrived in Kaili (which seemed like a better Guiyang, the brief glimpse we got) and practically got right back on a bus headed for Rongjiang. It was only after we got our tickets that we discovered the bus ride would be seven hours long. The bus was filled to capacity and an alarming number of carsick bags were being handed out.

The ride itself was extraordinary and we quickly forgot the travel time as we ascended into the mountains on an endlessly winding road, at times perilously close to the edge and taking blind hairpin turns at an alarming speed, with a single report of the horn as caution. The terrain was similar to Colorado's rockies, splashed with autumn color and dotted with early 20th century villages, frontier clapboard, mixed with alittle Rohan. The vast view was breathtaking, with a mindblowingly tranquil sunset near the summit where you could watch the sun completely disappear like a pocketwatch pushed into a breast pocket. Incredible.

At the summit, we stopped to eat a brilliant stir-fry in a converted-barn eatery. The meat and vegetables tasted as fresh as the mountain air they were marinated in. Fantastic, even though the rice tasted a little like the fuel used to cook it. Thirty minutes after, we stopped to change a tire. This prompted a handful of gents to go ahead and light up. No one else was opening a window and I was suffocating, so I slid mine open angrily. I hadn't noticed that the guy ahead of me was sleeping against the stationary window, and when I shoved mine open, it bludgeoned him. His head jostled like a mannequin. I whispered "Oh shit." The blow woke him, but barely. He blearily looked around confused for a second, then went back to sleep. Heather and I tried to stifle our laughter in the back. I would have felt bad about it if it wasn't so godddamned funny.

Now that night had fallen, there was a bad kung fu film on, so I put my headphones on and listened to Queen II and Radiohead's "Kid A." I realized a vocal meoldy in my song "At the In-Between" was too similar to a line in "Optimistic." I began brainstorming changes to the vocals and some arrangement tinkering to make it dynamic. we then rolledinto Rongjiang, a total market town at the foot of the mountains. We checked into the nearest and consequently poshest hotel in town. There was a teahouse/bar adjacent to the front desk adn after dropping our bags off at our rooms, we cloistered ourselves therein, toasted to arriving safely. The bus ride's beauty was matched only by its danger.

A table across the way housed the owner and some suited cronies. Farther back, a table of 17 and 21 year olds hailed us. We gan bei'd with both parties throughout the night. A lot. The music piped in was soporific in a bad way and I talked the owner into letting me put something else on. I "DJ'd" Faithless "Sunday 8pm," Asian Dub Foundation "Community Music," and half The Stone Roses. The bar closed at 2am, proper closing time. Mike retired sometime eariler in the evening while Heather and I played "Suck and Blow" with the younger crowd. (For those who don't know, "Suck and Blow" is a a drinking game where you take a playing card and suck it to your mouth and transfer it to the next person's mouth in a kind of "Berlin Wall kiss" and whoever lets the card fall has to take a drink as punishment.)

Heather and I staggered out at closing and went to sleep in the most comfortable soft beds since arriving in China.

January 21st: Huangguoshu National Park deux

Day 127

We woke, packed our gear, checked out and left our bags at the hotel, studied the map by the big TV on the plaza. Farther down the road from Huashushou minority village was another section of the park.

We set out and as we were passing the huge tree at the mouth of the village, a man ran out with Mike's gloves from two days ago. It was a life-assuring moment and for the next ten minutes we were al filled with renewed belief in human beings. We walked to the base of the valley, then took a road at the bottom lined by looming mountains, creeks, banana trees. At last we reached the entrance. The first part of the park wasn't very impressive. At times I felt we were touring a movie set. Everything was too paved and manicured, beautiful to be sure but in a processed corporate zoo kind of way.

It seemed the park was still under construction, and at times we set off on paths that abruptly ended in piles of garbage. At the face of a large pond, the tranquility was shattered by the endless whine of a bandsaw. After that, the park improved greatly. The vastness unfolded and the paved paths were less intrusive. We traversed bridges and archways over canyons, past turquoise lagoons, with mountains lurking in the mist and fog. The entrance to Tian Xing cave was hopelessly fraudulent, overrun with plaster and light bulbs, it smacked of a cheap carnival ride and our collective cynicism brought us to giggle. Then, when we got into the massive amphitheater, our jaws dropped open. Impossible shapes, stalactites like folded shrouds, gnarled goblin pillars, poxed and boiling boulders, shelves above resembling the underside of a mushroom, a staggering coral reef ceiling, dripping here and there, a place you could feel with your eyes.

We emerged again next to a wide stream and when Mike hopped out on the moss-covered stones for a photo op, a minority woman (a spry 75 year old) appeared out of nowhere, told him to be careful, that it was dangerous. She then asked if we had any plastic bottles and I took a final swig out of mine, gave it to her. I assumed that bit of charity earned us her gratitude via tour guide skills. She led us down the path, pointed which spots to take pictures from, named certain things, repeatedly warning us to "watch our head." (all through Heather's brilliant translation savvy) At the thinning of the creek was a dramatic series of rivulet waterfalls gliding over massive water-smoothed rock mounds, ending in dangerously slick crevice pools, intensely beautiful.

We crossed to the other side of the stream and our lady took her leave but not before begging us for money in compensation for her "tour." All the niceness credit that had been built up was poisoned by this leftfield grift. We shook our heads, dug in our pockets. I crossed her palm with 2 kuai and she gave me alook like "Is that all?" Her grandmotherly cuteness was gone and she now had the air of a common street beggar, whom no amount of money would please. It left a bad taste, but then I had secretly taken two pictures of her even though she didn't want to be photographed, so we rationalized our money was given for that. We still felt betrayed that all of her niceness was a grift, and this so soon after the life-affirming gloves moment.

We left the park but didn't know where the main entrance was. A kind gent in an SUV gave us a lift to the main gate and then we hiked back to the hotel, decided to stay another night (bus plans were aborted because of the hour), ate a hearty meal (our first of the day at 6ish pm!) and checked back intoour same room, freshly mopped, window open to the wintry wind.

We wrote, watched CCTV and were subjected to some horrible "Rediscover China" programme about Yiwu. It was all about foreign investors and businessfolk raving what an opportunity Yiwu was to make lots of money. It disgusted all of us. Mike stood up, turned off the television with a violent snap. "It's goddamned disgusting!" he shouted, "Here I am trying to learn the culture and these fuckers are trying to make it into another fucking America!"

He retired shortly thereafter while Heather and I played cards and discussed gameplans for escaping bad relationships until sleep took us under its beguiling wing.

January 20th: Waterfall and beyond

Day 126

Happy birthday, Barb Willis! We woke around 7-ish, took turns in the shower, the water pressure akin to being urinated on, the winter sky visible through the ceiling slats. I hand-rinsed my first set of thermals and T-shirt, hung them hither and yon to dry. We waited outside for our bargain tour guide and he pulled up in a converted motorcycle cab. Suddenly his story had changed. we weren't actually going into the park, but we would still have a view of the waterfall.This was dodgy. If he continued this way, he was probably taking us to his mother's restaurant that had a picture of the waterfall on the wall. We waved him off and entered the park the proper way.

Mike and Heather got spicy noodles for breakfast whereas I opted for fried goodness, the closest thing to a donut I could get. The beginning of the park had a series of spectacular bonsai tree gardens, the tranquility of which I could have lost myself in had I not the terrible and desperate urge to defecate. I made my way to the WC, and to my horror, it only contained the squatters. Beggars can't be choosers and there was no stopping it, so I swallowed my pride and pretended I was in the woods. I had not evacuated my bowels since Haimen, so afterwards I felt relaxed, cleansed, and a few pounds lighter. When traveling my body seems to exact a kind of "road trip constipation" for efficiency's sake. Once I reach a destination, the metaphysical "cork" dissolves, occasionally with a vengeance. I had been about two minutes from making my own addition to the bonsai garden.

We hiked down to the waterfall, a tremedously wide and invigorating oracle of beauty, emptying into azure pools. The slow winter waters gave the falls a dreamlike quality, white water droplets cascading like sugar granules, an effect lost in the muddy fast torrents of summertime. It was beautiful enough to block out the encroaching touristy bits. The watersheet cave, behind the falls themselves was unfortunately closed for safety or constrauction reasons. Damn.

On the way out we were mobbed by ladies trying to push their gumfoil cheap bracelets on us. I used the Muslim defense and said, "Allah forbids me to wear jewelry," and they left me alone. Mike and Heather were badgered mercilessly. The beard aided in the ruse, but it all stems from my inability to say no. I always have to have some sort of "valid" excuse even if it's bullshit.

We exited into a village of booths and I obtained a couple batiks after a spirited round of haggling. After lunch at our hotel, we rested and wrote a few hours, each of us scribbling away on our respective beds like some essay-writing game show. We then explored to the left of the main drag, discovering a minority village unscathed by tourism. This was the real China, uncensored, unsanitized for Western eyes. It resembled Huashushou village, but it rang with a deeper authenticity: men building houses, a butcher plying his trade on a porch smoking a pipe, men and women here and there with baskets on their back, or buckets linked by a pole across their shoulders, going about their day. Some said hi, some stared, some followed us not so stealthily. We turned around at a "dead end or get really muddy" fork and one man appeared, rattled off some Chinese that Heather translated as "Why are you here? There is no fun here. Go where there is fun!"

A deeper probe into the village sidestreets ended with being terrorized by dogs out of nowhere. We talked for a while with some seed-eating teens, then walked back.The more popular Huangguoshu National Park becomes, the more these people, their village, their culture and China itself will be in jeopardy. It's predicted China will be a superpower in the next ten years. Will the Chinese minorities suffer the same fate as the Native Americans and the Aborigines? Will they be reduced to self-parody, a minstrel show of themselves, a gaudy postcard existence scraping by, trading their dignity and culture for the scraps from the very tourism trade that exploits them? If so, I'm glad I saw them in their natural state before China moved on and rolled its tank treads over a vital part of the national Chinese identity in its eagerness to become America Minus. I will be able to say, "I saw the dodo in situ and this painted animatronic puppet does not do it justice. I want my money back."

When night fell, we hiked up the right side of the main drag,popped in at the grand hotel's disco just to be told it wasn't a disco. We continued on, had huo guo (hot pot) at one of the few mom-n-pop eateries still open. Our table was a coal oven and our knees began to roast halfway through the meal.

With full bellies and warm spirits, we walked back to the hotel. Mike passed out while Heather and I played cards. We turned in around 12:30.

January 19th: Huangguoshu National Park

Day 125

I woke, felt the cold on my face, returned to the safety of covers, repeatedly until the swelling of my bladder became too intense. I peed, brushed teeth, had some coffee, had a ghetto shower (rubbed my necessary bits with an Old Spice handi-wipe) took a look at Guiyang in the light. It's a coal-mining 'burg and had all the charm and weather of Detroit. Lonely Planet wrote that it's known countrywide for its thieves and pickpockets, so after a breakfast of spicy noodles we hopped a bus to Huangguoshu National Park, the section with the famous Hunagguoshu waterfall.

The bus ride was fun. i wrote to catch up and was seated next to an old man. I wanted to adopt him as a surrogate grandfather. So happy and cute and toothless, with chemist glasses and big Russian fur hat. He nodded and thumbsed-up everything.

We traded buses and went deeper into the vast countryside. beyond the bus, looming mountains in the mist, so unlike American mountains, such character and individual shape, impossibly vertical shapes straight from a Roger Dean painting, sentry-like boulders towering into the heavens. The land on the way alternated from terraced cropland to gutted coal wasteland to unpaved red-dirt Afghanistan terrain.

We at last arrived in Huangguoshu, a tad touched by the corrupted fingers of tourism. A bricked plaza was flanked by a gigantic television set showing footage of the waterfall in brightest summer, which seemed to mock, considering the overcast misty wintertime. The Chinese narration was at a deafening volume and it inspired us to seek lodging solace immediately. After checking into our three bed accomodations (which had the windows open to dry the floors from the Chinese compulsion to mop every surface 38 times a day) we set out to explore. It was decided we didn't have enough daylight to do the waterfall and accompanying attractions, and we arranged with a chap for the following day who said he could get us into the park at a secret entrance and it would cost us 20 kuai instead of 70.

A road alongside the entrance wound down and around into a valley, and we followed it until discovering a minority village (Huashushou) a stone-shingled settlement, nestled at the ridge of a vast series of terraces. The scale was too much to take in. The terraces were fed by a stone aqueduct and several rocky sluices.the grey mist, trailing a wraithlike veil over the mountains contrasted well with the lush green of the crops, mostly cabbages and banana trees. It was like stepping into a National Geographic page or coffee advert.

We hiked through the minature village, still under construction and rapidly conforming to touristy plasticity. The medieval through-ways, arched walkways and twixt-building haunts had sprouted identical kiosks full of chintz and pabble, tumors in an otherwise enjoyable area. A massive banyan tree draped in ceremonial flags was the village's linchpin, a 500 year old marker of untouched China. Down a series of stone steps, we burrowed into the lap of the valley, trekked over sandstone dappled with rain-induced potholes, intercut with creek and natural swimming lagoons, to a thin diagonal waterfall, then back up before our dusklight extinguished. I marveled how we still had daylight at all since it was 6:30, when Heather reminded me we indeed traveled a couple time zones west on that 32 hour train ride.

At the top of the valley, we had a light meal and some beer, talked about relationships, sex, hometowns, etc. Mike had lost his gloves somewhere on our hike. We ascended the winding road with dark skies above, the distance lit bu the stadium lights of the brick plaza and repulsively huge TV. Having metabolized our snack on the walk up, we stopped in a nearby tent for potatoes, beef and other vegetables, stir-fried first, then poured into a wide pan on the table, heated over a glowing round disk of charcoal. Delicious.

We retired for the evening and I slept well, because of an incident before dinner: I had been standing on my bed and decided to do a "trsut fall" or "Nestea plunge" backwards. I did and Ker-ack! Oops. I felt under the box springs and found I had broken one of the crossbeams. Actually, it made the bed more comfortable. Happy accidents.

January 18th: miles like smoke

Day 124

Woke to Paco and Esteban stepping on my bed to get down. Despite the presence of two sets of footrests, they seemed completely incapable of using them. Mike and I discussed upper kutting them in the scrotum next time they did it.

Miles like smoke streamed past the windows: a patchwork of terraces, shanty towns, small plots of cabbages in between dirt hills strewn with garbage, muddy staircases disappearing into deeper woods, tantalizing places to explore slipping away the same moment they came into view.

The day was spent conversing with Jin Nan and the Koreans. Jin Nan trabslated for Auntie and Dr. Thumbwars, a man who, because of his profession, needed 5 aliases. I christened him the sixth from an inside joke we had. Apparently, if you hold up your thumbs and move them like you're playing Tetris, that's a way of asking if sexual realtions are occuring. He inquired, via this thumb-business, if Heather and I were "that way." I joked back, "Yeah,we play Nintendo together, sure." He didn't understand what I said, but communication is 90% nonverbal anyway. The inside joke progressed where he had his thumbs far apart but would look toward one, wiggle it, look to the other one, wiggle that, and raise his eyebrows inquisitively. THen he moved his eyeglass arms like proxy thumbs, and eventually all he had to do was hold up his eyeglass case. Clever guy.

Auntie told us, through Jin Nan's translation that Mike and I were "childish" because we were "always playing with each other." We explained the positive term is "child-like" or "young at heart" and that "childish had bad connotation. She also said "Because of you,the train is full of fun." I taught Jin Nan "Yellow Submarine," and "Hokey Pokey," and a monologue from "A Midsummer Night's Dream." Her mind was a hungry sponge. She wore me out with all the practicing and questions.

Foodwise we struck out. In the morning, Mike and I got hoodwinked by a trainside vendor with baozi (steamed breakfast rolls). They were far too expensive and "not delicious." We placed the uneaten (most) ones below and when Auntie and Jin Nan awoke, we told them we had bought them for them. Later on in the dining car, we played cards and had some underwhelming Kung Pao chicken. Reeb and snacks kept us going. At one point I needed some downtime and retired to my bunk to write and listen to Unkle. There were only so many times I could do the inside joke with Dr. Thumbwars.

Night fell, the lights went out, we packed and got ready to leave. A couple stops before Guiyang, we took pictures with everyone, including Foster, a tiny boy with a green sweater emblazoned with "Foster," who repeatedly came by to show us an Ultraman magazine and almost single-handedly decimated our supply of Pocky. He and his family got off in Guiyang too, and he came up to us, shook each of our hands in turn, then blew us kisses and scurried back to his parents, slipped out of sight, free to grow up everywhere but our memory.

We were impressed with how enjoyable and easy the trek had been. Once out of the train station, a lady bade us to follow her to her 10 kuai a night lodgings. We marched through rain-spattered streets into darker hillier areas, at last arrived. There were four beds, all harda as a rock, lined up "seven dwarf submarine" style, no bathroom, no heat. We were tired and the price was crazy-cheap, so we bundled up, shut our eyes and waited to be greeted by Guiyang daylight.

January 17th: the long train to Guiyang

Day 123

We woke and took the subway to the Foreign Language Bookstore. I picked up the updated Lonely Planet phrasebook (which has phoentic spellings for Aussies, so I have to ignore the added R's) and then we tried the noodle place across the street. We called chuck and Meagan, then called Chris, all of whom said they were en route.

The noodle place had a small lobby and frontage and once we ordered they motioned us to go upstairs where a vastly more posh dining area lay. We were bade to sit at a large round table, which filled with strangers during the course of the meal. We left and sent messages to Chuck and Meagan that we were heading elsewhere for coffee. Outside, Chris met us and after a hearty round of introductions, led us to Starbucks. My urge for decent coffee was at war with my anti-corporate values, but caffeine lust won out this time. Chris is beautiful, and the more I sat and talked to her, the more it dawned on me how much she looked like Laura Fontana, an ex-girlfriend I can't contact because her husband won't allow my emails to reach her. (Hey Glen: You two are married with children. I am NOT a threat. Don't treat my friendship like a weed.) We drank coffee, chatted with Chris about her studies and how she had just returned from Malaysia a month ago and what clubs she frequented in Shanghai. She promised toshow us her favorite parts of the city next time we were in town. Sweet girl. Without Myspace.com, I would never have met her.

The clock was ticking. After an hour and a half, a text message revealed Chuck and Meagan were still on the subway. We texted an apology and that we'd try to meet up with them next time, but we had a train to catch. We picked upour bags from the hotel, trundled a few blocks to the train station, pressed in cattle-like to the waiting area and beyond.

Our quarters, hard sleepers, was a small compartment, six beds, Mike and I had the two middle berth, Heather had a middle berth in the next compartment. Two Chinese women were below us, two Korean guys above (whom we nicknamed Paco and Esteban.) Due to their massive amounts of luggage and boxes of snacks, we had no room to stow our luggage, Mike and I had to put them at the foot of our beds, shortleg it to sleep. 32 hours.

We passed the time drinking Reeb (yeah, I know, but beggars can't be choosers and it didn't fudge my donkey up this go 'round) and conversing with the one Chinese girl who knew English, name of Jin Nan. The other woman was "Auntie." It was wild to see the foggy mountains and terraced gardens roll by the window like player-piano sheet music wallpaper. Breath-taking National Geographic vistas here and there. Other sections were large coal communities and resembled Pennsylvania or Detroit. One thing was for certain, we were headed toward the heart of China, the eternal motherland unscathed by progress, amalgamated suburbia and Western culture imitation. Rollicking in train track rhythm, jostling and giddy like in a Simon and Garfunkel tune ("his bowtie is really a camera...") It had begun.

A man with a cart would wheel by to replenish our Reeb just at the right times, so Mike and I rarely had to leave our space or even sit upright (not that we could on middle berth, no headroom) We read, wrote, listened to music, studied Chinese. At 10, they shut the lights. We succumbed to sleep a couple hours later.

January 16th: the trek begins & indie music Shanghai style

Day 122

Went to sleep for a few hours with Asia Pacific on. Hermitage Niks was on upon waking. I did some packing double-checks and didn't have time to make myself coffee. Erin, Matt and I ambled to the hotel laden with bags to be our dresser the next few weeks.

At the point where I began to really get nervous about catching a cab, matt flagged one down, thereby usurping the authority of the hotel lady Erin enlisted to call for one.

We got dropped off out fronk of the Kodak shop, two buses idling with people milling about, Mike and Heather two towering Anglo sore thumbs. The bus to Shanghai had no heat and on the ferry the driver and his pals got embroiled in a cutthroat card game up front, chain-smoking like an Al-Anon meeting. This prompted other passengers to open their windows, letting out all the precious "exhale heat" we had generated as a group. Smart. Matt and Erin were collapsed on one another like a parka'd yin-yang, looking like newborn pups in a welping box. I listened to the Chess soundtrack and kept my spirits afloat despite the numb extremities. The excitement of the impending trip carried me.

Once in Shanghai, we directed Erin and Matt to their bus station, said a "See you later" and checked into the Amersino hotel, same one as for New Year's Eve. We tookthe subway into the heart of Shanghai's downtown proper, headed into a Mister Donut for breakfast. The donuts were great. The coffee was billed as "world famous." Yeah....for SUCKING. Three women nearby were eating shaved ice topped with lumpy glop. An idea for its name could be "Hot Karl Snow Cone."

Next, Mike negotiated with a few different camerafolk at a frenzied electronics mall to procure a 1G memory chip. 600+ pictures capability. For lunch, we indulged our lust for cheese and gave the Pizza Hut our patronage.The place was nicer than the average American Hut franchise, with a curious deco-cum-50's motif. The sauce was not the same. It seemed thinner, watered down.

Outside we sat on the steps while Mike had a post-pizza cig. A guy walked by with a guitar and he let me borrow it for a couple minutes. I played "Fake Plastic Trees," the only song I know on guitar, and it rejuvenated me. The lack of sleep the night before then waking early, plus coffee crash had me in a loagy state. A little troubadoring pricked up my blood.

We went to the outdoor marketplace, got assailed by people barking "Watch? DVD? Rolex? Gameboy?" I played the game again of asking for things they couldn't possibly provide so they'd leave me alone: "Perfume gorilla spank? Company sandwich? Big bag of pudding? Best friend?" Mike inquired about human flesh for consumption. We wandered around some winding side streets before getting back on the subway and resting at the hotel. While some disturbing Popeye cartoons played, I was delightfully robbed of consciousness for an hour.

Dusk anchored itself to Shanghai's jagged-tin skyline and we three left our cozy confines to seek nourishment. we found a ma la tong place (grab a basket, put what you want in it, they dump it into a spicy soup, kind of like personal hot pot) and it was possibly the best meal I've had yet.

We then took a cab to Harley's. I had called Chris (a friend from Myspace.com) but she was busy and said she'd catch up with us the next day. Chuck and Meagan had to study for an exam, ditto. Goey's phone was off, so I hoped to run into her at the venue, since it was her idea to begin with. Harley's was a literal underground club, a long staircase down from street level. We saw three acts: the first, Marrow Band, had a female lead singer and their sound was akin to Sonic Youth-White Stripes-Blonde Redhead. (They had no CD's, but their website is marrow-band.com) The next band, Suy, was a bit more laidback, like Velvet Underground and a drowsy Wire. The music was ok, but the lead vocalist's limited singing ability kept it from being outstanding. During soundcheck he said "Hue...Hue..." which is the "hello" form if you answer the phone, as opposed to "ni hao" which is how you greet people in person. ("Hue" is "can" and "ni hao" is "you are well.")

The last act of the evening was a trio of laptop jockeys called Aitar. They started out with some casual Orbital-IDM, then progressed into break-core, down to house, and ended with a noise finale that sounded like the primal scream of a television tuned to no certain channel. I was floored. For one, I was tremendously relieved there was an underground /indie music scene in China, and even more impressed we happened upon a venue to offer such a diverse bill to sample it. Everything's not S.H.E. and Celine Dion here after all. Aitar's accompanying video piece was top notch as well, lots of quick edit bleached-out geometrics, scenes of war, modernity on the march, development, etc. It served as a companion to the music rather than a compensator distractor proxy.

We cabbed it back to the hotel. Goey was still M.I.A, her phone still off. The club was not so large that I'd have missed her, but she might have left left before we arrived, if she'd been there at all.

I slept on the hotel sofa, alternating between fetal position and hanging my shins over the edge.

January 15th: trip prep and anticipation

Day 121

Woke at 9am, surprising since I had only fallen asleep four hours prior. I used the time to blog and make a list for the upcoming trip.

After lunch, Matt, Erin and I took a cab to the main drag to get supplies. I gathered some auxilary winter gear, like a beanie that covered my ears, gloves with fingers, etc. I also got some Pretz and gourmet Pocky for the bus trip the next day.

When we got back, Matt and I played cards and drank Jack Daniels to pass the time. After Erin rose from her nap, she joined us. The bottle I had purchased for the train was empty before sundown. Oh well.

We met Mike and Heather at the Dongzhou gates, walked to a corner bakery with restaurant upstairs. Mickey, an English teacher from Dongzhou, joined us right before the meal began. Erin got her food last because the "meatless" pizza she had ordered had ham on it. Apparently, pork doesn't rank as meat here.

The table behind us had an annoying habit of letting their phone ring and ring some horrible Chinese house/pop song.

phone girls

I eventually turned around, leaned in and reached for the phone. They let me hold it and I attempted to talk with the person on the other end. It was short-lived and I'm sure aggravating for the person on the other end of the conversation. After a couple episodes of this, the joke got old for them and they stopped letting their phone ring. I won.

toast & phone girls


matt & erin


mickey & heather


heather & mike

After the meal, Erin and Matt bailed out while Mike and I planned on watching "The Watcher." Instead we got into a discussion about how fortunate we were to be amidst the English teacher gold rush, being able to travel and make connections, how travel sets you free and that the first major venture alone starts a chain reaction and being able to see the stepping stones to your current situation is a form of enlightenment, and debating whether past restaurant or hotel jobs were more rewarding. That kind of stuff.

I took a cab back, played cards with Matt for a while, then packed and blogged. Three weeks in the unknown. I stole a magazine from the restaurant we went to tonight because it has articles and pictures of the first area we're heading. I can't wait.

Tomorrow we all catch the early bus to Shanghai, and from there, adventure reigns.


AUTHOR'S NOTE: BLOGS AND ENTRIES WILL NATURALLY CEASE UNTIL I RETURN ON FEBRUARY 21st, AT WHICH POINT I WILL HAVE A HELLUVA LOT OF CATCH-UP TO WRITE. ZAI JIAN!

January 14th: nacho night in Nantong

Day 120

Woke, did some laundry, blogged. Erin, Matt and I attempted to watch the "Dawn of the Dead" DVD, but it pixelated and went into "ADD-vision" (every seventh frame was shown, and the movie would arbitrarily jump ahead two minutes.)

Around 7pm, Mike, Heather and I decided to take a jaunt to Nantong for nachos and all-around funtimes. After a cabride that involved taking every pothole-addled back road to avoid the toll booths, we arrived at the city limits, bade to exit the cab as he was legally to proceed no further.

We walked a brisk chilly mile to "Captain's Bar and Grill," a more-or-less faithful reproduction of a sea shanty watering hole. The bar itself was infested with a greasy American denizen, a long-haired, squeezed-out rag of a man with lines in his face deep enough to feed ballots into. He was so spot-on barfly that I entertained the idea it was his job, hired by the place to "up the authenticity."

We sat adjacent the pool table, ordered nachos to split, and other tex-mex fare to dine on. Quite tasty, fairly accurate. I was hailed from a nearby table to play pool, once again the old stereotype that Americans are intrinsically skilled at sports being put to the test.

My billiard skills are avergae at best, somewhere between the second and third drink I have a window of greatness, then the law of diminishing returns takes over, and my prowess wilts. I held my own against the guy first round, then chemistry robbed me and I played for shit again. I lost three matches, but in my defense, I played gentleman-style, whilst my opponent languored in slop. He neither called shots, nor obeyed the rules of ball-placing after a scratch.

I played Heather at darts for a bit, then we had to exit because the barfly, whom they knew from Andy as Joe, attached himself to Mike, regaling him with conversation at close range. I also noticed, near the entrance of the bar, "Michael Moore" from the Christmas banquet, a most unpleasant fop whose grating "sultan superior" attitude increases exponentially with every drop drunk.

I exited, stood outside for five minutes. I peeked back in, saw "Moore" had ensnared my companions with chitchat, and I stood rolling my eyes while they made "gotta go" body language at him. Once we were all outside I asked, "How is it I'm the most conspicuous one, but I got by without being noticed?"

Next we went to revisit "Extreme Club," found it emptyish with bad house music playing. We played the dice game and had one beer before we couldn't take it anymore. I learned my Chinese numbers fairly quickly, so the night wasn't all killing brain cells.

We then took a cab to the "shipyard district" to obtain some liquor for the train ride. I debated and eventually settled on Jack Daniels. Somehow I got roped into trying on boots and jackets for a while. A man nearby was browsing DVDs and I saw he had on the top of his pulled stack: "Catwoman."

"Oh my god!" I said. "You're the guy! I need to take a picture of you!"

Since that film's release I wondered exactly who the target audience was, who saw the preview and thought, "Man, that looks like the best film ever!" This was the guy! He left before I could get my camera out.

Some girl that Mike knew kept calling him, so we went next door to have a drink with her, mainly so she would stop calling. We sat at the bar and a girl came up, stared at me. The beard strikes again,I thought. I am a chimpanzee tourist attraction, my own sideshow. Then it dawned on me. Oh, this is a brothel.

The bartender/mama-san interrogated me.

"Do you have wife?"

"No, Mr.Willis has no wife, no girlfriend." (I'm used to saying this from my students)

"Do you like Chinese girl?"

"I love Chinese girl."

"Why you not have Chinese girlfriend?"

"It's because I love Chinese girl that I have no girlfriend."

I let her think that one over a bit. All of my friends are aware that I have a sweet tooth for Asian women. However, I see them as objets d' art, and it's incomprehensible to think of ever crossing the line. I think men of lesser qulity stop listening at "objects" and launch themselves forward with wagging tongues and scrabbling fingers. No! Obects of art! Listen! See that velvet rope? That means "Don't touch!" There's a reason the pedestal is too high to reach.

(Disclaimer: However, the velvet rope isn't there for Minh. She is an amazing person and artist, and I am totally in love with her. I would do anything for her and would tend to her heart's lantern until my dying breath. The fact that she's Vietnamese gilds the lily. Her ethnicity is icing, window dressing, incidental.)

A girl with English name Susan sat next to me and I bought her a drink to be nice, but she may have mistaken it for solicitation. She was a nice girl and I could see easily how a decent guy could get roped into being a patron of brothels. With an overdeveloped "white knight" complex, a decent guy could rationalize to take her up on her offers, simply because if he was with her, then she wouldn't have to be with a bad guy. So I don't pass judgment on "decent guy" brothelgoers, but the bottom line is: any way you slice it, you are still paying for sex, and what would your mother think?

I went downstairs to use the WC and saw a kitchenette, rooms with beds. Creepy. Then to make creepy creepier, Joe of all people comes wrangling through the door, trailing his ugliness behind him like a cape. I finally pinpointed what was so uncomfortable about him: He was like an asthmatic Jame Gumb from "Silence of the Lambs." He had a know-it-all frankness about him, so desperately unnecessary. He found out I was from Ohio and the following exchange happened:

Joe: "Ohio? What town?"
Toast: "Cincinnati."
J: "Oh man, i rode my motorcycle through there back in the 70's. There's a river near there, right?"
T: "Yeah, the Ohio river."
J: "I only rode through but I remember the river and a big cliff."
T: "Yeah, that's the place, alright."

Big cliff? What the fuck was this guy on about? Maybe his synapse misfired and he accidentally accessed his "bullshit lines about Greece" response bank.

The bartender gave me a Chinese rice krispie treat and let me change the music to what I thought was going to be some Billie Holiday, but instead it was "white guy jazz fretboard noodling." Ugh.

We negotiated a cab back to Haimen, feeling a coating of sleaze blow away with every mile distant from the "shipyard."

The cab dropped me off, and I wandered back from the gate coldly and cradling my whiskey, crashed like the stock market.

matt's first pocky


weird mural

a couple films

i saw Miranda this weekend. christina ricci, kyle maclachlan, and
john hurt. verdict: whoof. give it a miss. kyle maclachlan was quite
creepy, but the filma as a whole just wasn't very interesting. also, it
had some of the worst music this side of hbo's oz.

i watched most of leo, starring the feines brother whose name
starts with j. not ralph, i mean the one from shakespeare in love.
it was ok, but not great. i didn't finish it, because i had to leave,
but i'm not overly interested in trying to do so. i guess that's a good
enough review. *shrug*

OH! one more thing: my new LEAST favorite movie commentary goes to
Total Recall. basically it's a guy with an austrian accent
(schwarzenegger) and a guy with a dutch accent (verhoeven) EXPLAINING THE
MOVIE. seriously. "you see, dis is impoatant because later you discova
dat i am actually a secret agent..." "look at how suhprised i am dat i
know how to kill deeze people so quickly...." ugh. stupid. file under:
don't bother.

2004-01-14 thursday: alien 3 revelation

shower music still the same; i havent chosen anything new, and i like this disc. ;)

worked d r a g g e d today. ugh.

when i got home i checked my email and checked out suicide girls and noticed an interview with the director of anchorman (mckay? i can't remember his name). anyway, reading the interview reminded me how good the film actually was, so when gabe called, i asked him if he was willing to run out with me so i could pick it up on dvd (he was).

when we got back to my house, we watched alien 3. gabe has the boxed set of the four non-vs. predator alien films so we could have watched his copy rather than the netflix one we watched, but the re-released alien quadrilogy boxed set that came out later had expanded editions of the 3rd and 4th films. of particular note is the director's cut (or whatever it was called) of alien 3, which is a true david fincher film, as opposed to the stupid cut that is the theatrical release. now, i haven't seen the theatrical release of alien 3, but i did watch the last few minutes of it after watching fincher's cut. the difference is AMAZING, even in those couple minutes. seriously. i truly think that fincher's alien 3 (as opposed to the theatrical release version) is a great film.

after that, we were off to the golden lions, for a bit of karaoke. it was kind of dead, so even though we got there at 12:30, i still sang two songs. first i did "pour some sugar on me", but the version she had was so poorly done that it screwed me all up; the lyrics were weird, the guitar solo (and many other parts) were removed.... it was just bad. the other song i did was madonna's "frozen", which would be a great karaoke song, were it not for the excessive "mmmmm"-ing. "mmmmmm" should be relegated to the studio only.

back home, then to bed.

January 13th: high stakes card with corn candy penalty

Day 119

Woke, blogged, had lunch. I decided to clean my domicile. Chiefly, Mike was coming over and he keeps his place pristine, so I wanted to make sure he was comfortable. Secondly, it would be nice to come back from holiday and be greeted by a clean living space. Thirdly, it just needed it badly. I dusted, mopped, swept, scrubbed, organized. It looked good.


At around 3, Mike rode over and we attempted to throw the frisbee on the soccer field, but then we noticed it was mined with tiny pieces of scrap wood, with a nail or two sticking upward. The field was mined with tetanus. Couldn't they have just put a "keep out" sign?

Some Western Union matters had Mike pedaling to the post office and when he returned, Matt joined us. Somehow, we still made our way onto the field, dodging the dangerous sticks while trying to catch a disc that the wind played havoc with.

When dusk fell, we took Mike to the hotel for dinner and somehow he had forgotten to order his meal. He "re" ordered and ate when we had mostly finished, then he and Matt split a pizza.

Afterwards we hit up the mom-n-pop place for beer and peanuts. Across the street was some big circus tent and some mysterious show going on inside. The pictures looked like women dancing with snakes, but it might have just been their costumes.

We rode back, played cards. It was just the three of us (Matt and Erin were bickering) until Heather called. She brought over more beer and we played cutthroat 3-up 3-down. I still had that massive bag of candy from the junior party and we raised the stakes by making the three losers eat a piece of the horible corn candy (it's a little round yellow ball and it tastes dead-on like corn on the cob, with a creamed corn center, nasty).

We drank and laughed and listened to music until about 12:30 and then everyone unanimously called it a night.

There was something very P