Whew, oh man, we have been ALL OVER in the last few days, and I haven't had enough sleep because there's been so much to do, let alone time that I feel comfortable wasting on some blog - as much as I love you, Rafa, Mom, Aunt Jill, David, et. al - but now I've arrived in Nanjing (this is Day 1) where some of Sally's family lives and there isn't much to do. Except there also isn't much in the way of internet. I have an estimated 5 minutes at her aunt's computer before we go out for dinner in Fuximiao, a neighborhood of Nanjing.
So! Rundown:
Huangshan: Stunning. Mist-covered. First blue skies, sunset, stars and sunrise we've seen the whole trip, seriously. We took the cable car up & down so we could spend our time hiking around the peaks of the mountain, which are chock full of scenic areas, mainly deeply abstract shapes made of trees and rocks - "Tiger Pine," for example, or "Monkey gazing over a sea of clouds", which was the BEST VISTA I'VE EVER GAZED UPON, though probably not as good a vista as the one the aforenamed monkey gets (the "monkey" is a rock perched on a peak off in the distance.) Pictures later! Then we hiked elsewhere to see the sunset, then we had a horribly overpriced buffet dinner ($20 whole US dollars! OMG, most expensive meal we've had the whole time). Then, we laid on another scenic area that consisted of an patio overlooking more craggy peaks right next to our hotel, and watched the stars until 1 AM. We slept in these rudimentary, unwashed bunk beds in giant rooms without showers in some nasty back room of the hotel, again the most expensive we've had yet. Woke at 4 AM to hike to the very peak, called Heavenly Sea or Tianhai, to watch the sunrise. It was insanely crowded, could barely get a picture...but in true Chinese fashion, everybody was gone, everybody, within two minutes of the sun coming fully up over the clouds. The only people left was a cadre of expensive camera-toting men, and us.
Sally's dad had arranged a tour for us for this trip, basically a bus that picked us up, dropped us off and gave us the phone number of a "tour guide" who could answer our questions about where to go etc. I was initially skeptical, but it turned out to a) save us money and b) be terribly convenient. We even had a meal waiting for us at the base of the mountain in this restaurant, for example, when we were running a little late and wouldn't otherwise have been able to eat dinner before getting on the 4-hour bus ride. This restaurant CALLED SALLY to ask if we wanted them to make us dinner. How thoughtful is that?
We then made our way to Shanghai, via bus then train. When we arrived, we resisted the temptation to drop dead in our hostel beds (which, as always, were clean and good quality - been very impressed with all our hostels) and instead went out to an area of People's Square with bars and such. We found our way to Zapata's, a Mexican ("Mexican") and slightly dive-y bar with plenty of room to dance. We ate quesadillas (which felt deeply sinful, and took a bit of psychological effort to go through with - Mexican food in China? What kind of foreign devils are we? But they only had Mexican food! Ah well, this is Shanghai after all, we told ourselves! An international city! It's part of the experience! Also we were starving, and I was as usual relieved to have an excuse to have familiar food.) Then we danced with stylish expats, 20-something tourists and Chinese people until 3 AM, got to bed at 4 AM, completing (as I wrote) the most dramatically-backdropped 24 hours of my entire life.
The rest of Shanghai was amazing. I loved Shanghai. I loved it more than I wanted to admit, actually. The thing is, Shanghai is the most Western, most modern city of China; it's the closest to New York, for example. Very little historical culture remains, and what there is has been turned into shopping malls or encased in museums. (But it's not New York. It's got this fascinating mix of colonial, especially French, architecture and flashy modern skyscrapers. Everything is lit up, but it's not as gaudy and silly as Beijing's new architecture. I was definitely the most interested in architecture of the three of us, so that's perhaps why I loved the city the most.) Plus, it's very foreigner-friendly (i.e., a lot of people speak English, the fashions are the most Western, a lot of Western food is available, it's easy to get around, etc.), so it seems like the obvious choice of favorite Chinese city for a gauche American. And gauche is the last thing I want to be!
But I got over all those hangups, because guys, I just loved Shanghai.
The Expo- well, it was good to have seen it. We went at night (5-10 PM) and managed to avoid the crowds, but still. They say about the Expo, "You'll regret it if you don't go. And you'll regret it if you do go."
OKAY! Off to dinner!
Love,
Beike (I've been spelling my Chinese name wrong all these years! It's Beike and it really means "mother-of-pearl," a step up from mollusc, eh?)
PS. Bought an erhu and a dizi today.
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