Sand in your pita, sand in your ear

Our time in the Middle East was very different from the rest of this trip.  Instead of carting our bags across a country every few days and spending hours walking around cities, we stayed with my Aunt Lenny and Uncle Joe in the middle of the desert outside of Abu Dhabi.  We ventured out either by taking road trips with them, or by hiring a taxi to take us to a destination or two in the city.  It was very relaxing, very hot, and very culturally challenging.  I had to get over the heat and keep my shoulders covered out of respect for local dress.  Almost every woman we saw in public (which is not many — some areas you will not see any women at all) was completely covered in black.  These outfits, called abayas, at first made me uncomfortable since I could not see their faces.  But after a day or two, I got used to them, and I started noticing the high heels they wore underneath, or the flash of gold jewelry, or the designer handbags swinging off their arms.  This is unique to the wealthy country of the United Arab Emirates, for sure, but these women were not suffering underneath those robes — except maybe from the heat — but instead they were the most elite.

me at Abu Dhabi's Grand Mosque -- yes it was really hot in that dress

The craziest thing about the UAE (beyond the construction EVERYWHERE) was the lack of contact with the locals.  Over a two-week period, we never spoke to an Emirati.  That’s because anyone who works in hotels, shops, etc, are from India, Pakistan, the Philippines, or other Arab countries.  Locals only make up 20% of the entire national population, and they are taken care of by the government so that they don’t have jobs that are below them (like pushing the baby carriage at the mall — that job is reserved for Philippina nannies.)  We did get to see where the locals lived on our fun drives along the coast of Abu Dhabi — huge palaces with multiple sets of gates and lots of very unnatural greenery.  And we got to spend a lot of time at the local hangouts: THE MALLS.  Oh, the malls.  Fake thunderstorms, ski lifts, aquariums: I could go on and on!  There are so many other strange things we learned about how the UAE works — the laws that don’t really apply to everyone, the way decisions are made — thanks to my aunt and uncle’s knowledge from living in Abu Dhabi almost one year.  It really gave me a great perspective on how the opposite of a democracy works.

Uncle Joe and I with our fancy drinks at the Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi

So beyond all the cultural modifications like wearing a fake wedding ring when Jon and I were out alone, we did some neat touristy things, too.  In Abu Dhabi we went for tea at the spectacular Palace Hotel, lounged on the “family” beach, ate tons of hummus and tabuleh, covered up at the Grand Mosque, and met camels both wild and domesticated.  In Dubai we saw the tallest building in the world (Burj Dubai) and the craziest hotel in the world (Burj al Arab) and were part of one of the last audiences of Dubai’s Cirque du Soleil.  We traveled to Al Ain, a smaller city in the emirate of Abu Dhabi, to see their museums and oasis.  Our most Arabian adventure was to the Liwa, a part of western UAE with a group of oasis towns surrounded by rolling sand dunes.  Jon got to fullfil his dream of running up enormous sand dunes and then rolling down them (I have video).  He had sand in his ears for days afterward.  We picnicked on the dunes and ingested lots and lots of sand.

Burj al Arab hotel in Dubai, changing colors through the night

farmer and his camels, right before asking us if he can come back to america with us

When we were in the Empty Quarter of UAE, we were about ten miles from the border of Saudi Arabia.  Nothing scares me more than actually going to Saudi, but the fact that I can get that close is pretty cool.  Instead of crossing that border, we decided to take a couple days to explore the capital of Oman: Muscat.  What a beautiful country!  Oman sits on the Gulf and is full of mountains and rolling desert.  Muscat is a quiet city with lots of old white buildings and a big, pretty palace.  It is ruled by a sultan who everyone adores, because the country has come so far in the past few decades.  We walked along the harbor and through the 1000-year-old bazaar.  We stayed in a mostly-Indian neighborhood where there was not one tourist to be seen.  After only a few days there, we decided we must return to Oman to see the rest of the country.  Beyond Muscat, there are coral reefs, sea turtles, and many other historic cities and fishing villages.  Oman is my new secret awesome place, so don’t tell anyone!

along the port in Muscat with the mountains coming right up to the street

beautiful gardens by the Sultan's Palace in Muscat

Beijing: Where do I even begin?

We spent 13 days in Beijing, the longest time spent in any one city on our entire trip.  You’d think that would be plenty of time — I did — but it was no where near enough.  When I first stepped off the train at Beijing Station, I wasn’t too impressed.  We had just come from tiny Tai An, with the majestic Tai Shan mountain looming above us, and Beijing was so flat and crowded.  Before that we had been in Nanjing, which charms you instantly with its canals and decorative lights; and Shanghai, with its dazzling European architecture.  Beijing just seemed very bland compared what we had just come from.  But the longer I spent in Beijing, the more I fell in love with it.  It doesn’t have an impressive skyline or body of water.  It doesn’t have lots of trees or grass.  It’s hard to even cross the street; there are pedestrian bridges over all the huge boulevards throughout the city.  But all of that is overshadowed by the amazing combination of history and modernity that I think defines Beijing.

We stayed in a hostel set deep into a hutong, which is the traditional Beijing housing style that used to cover the city.  Now, many hutongs have been razed to make room for high-rises.  A hutong is basically a collection of alleyways filled with one-story grey homes.  Our hutong was also filled with lots of clothing shops, fruit stands, and the people who sell stuff on sticks (everything from hearts to scorpions to chicken wings).  But our hutong also had a giant movie theater that was showing Slumdog Millionaire, which reminded me that I was not really in old Beijing.  About a ten minute walk from our hutong was Wangfujing Street, one of the few walking streets in Beijing and a center of shopping, eating, and seeing massive Chinese tour groups with matching hats.

Another ten minutes walking from there, you hit the walls of the Forbidden City and the concrete of Tiananmen Square.  What I will remember most about the Forbidden City is the tour groups, and the relief that I was not visiting Beijing during “tourist season,” because I cannot imagine being surrounded by MORE tour groups (all Chinese).  The city was beautiful, but it was enormous, and I went in thinking I could see it all.  Nope.  Tiananmen Square, the largest public square in the world, was smaller than I anticipated, but I think that’s because my imagination is just too big.  What I will remember most there is the number of Chinese tourists (meaning non-Beijingers) who had their pictures taken with me, Gina, and Arselie (my American friends who met us in Beijing, who have lighter hair than mine).  They spoke no English, and would just approach us with their camera and a big smile, and then pose with a peace sign next to us as their friends took a few photos.  At first we giggled about it, but it happened so much that it ended up feeling normal.

The most spectacular experience for me was visiting the Great Wall.  We went to a section called Mutianyu, where the wall is less-touristed.  There were many parts on the wall where we were the only group of people we could see!  The Great Wall is absolutely the most amazing thing I have ever seen, and I want to visit more and more sections of it and hike as long as I can.  There is no way to really describe how awesome it is.  I mean, it looks just like the photos.  But you can actually stand on it.  And that just blew my mind.  We also picked Mutianyu for a very silly, but really fun reason: They have a slide.  Yes, a slide.  We slid down the mountain from the Great Wall.  Cheesy?  Maybe.  But I SLID  DOWN the mountain from the Great Wall!

There was so much to do in Beijing, we didn’t even see all that we had planned on.  We spent a lot of time at the many parks and small lakes that scatter the city.  The parks are filled with pagodas, decorative gates, and willow trees that make every photo look like a painting.  We also spent a lot of time EATING.  I tried so many new things in Beijing, and every time I was happy.  No, I didn’t eat the scorpions or the brains, but I did eat lotus root, bamboo shoots, tofu skins, Peking duck, and lots and lots of tea and pastries.  After all the delicious tea I’ve had in China, I don’t think I’ll ever like tea in America quite as much.  We ate hotpot often, which is when you order a bunch of raw foods and put them into a pot of boiling broth in the middle of the table, and then everybody eats out of there.  The most fun food experiences were with my Chinese friends, Xiaocong, Yu, and Lili.  I met Xiaocong and Yu in Copenhagen when we were all studying abroad there.  I told them I would visit them in Beijing someday, and I meant it.  We kept in touch for four years, and they made my time in Beijing a million times more wonderful.  All three of them are journalists, so they are very vocal about the problems and changes in today’s China.

I could write forever on Beijing: Olympic Park, the Summer Palace, Chairman Mao’s pickled body, 798 art district, the markets, the Tibetan Lama temple, the cheap taxis and extensive subway, the streets lined with red lanterns, and the people just wanting to practice their English with us.  What Beijing taught me the most is that I need to spend more time in China.  My month in the giant country was like being in a parallel universe: So much was familiar, but everything was a bit off.  Nothing was ever easy, from catching buses to ordering food, but nothing was too hard to not enjoy.  Wherever we went, we were entertaining to the locals just by being in their country.  The language was incredibly difficult, but by the end of the month I had picked up enough phrases and characters to feel good about myself.  If you love the feeling of being in a totally different place where everything is new and confusing, go to China.  And if you get too lonely, there are plenty of expats (around 300,000) to be your friends.  Hey, maybe I’ll be one someday.

Now we’re in Abu Dhabi, and my laptop isn’t connecting to the Internet.  That’s why this post has no photos in it.  I’ll keep trying to work on it, but most likely I won’t be able to post Beijing photos for a couple weeks.  They’ll eventually be on facebook, where all of my other China photos are now.

Korea and Karma

My only real fear about this entire trip is my stomach.  I am a big wimp when it comes to spicy food, greasy food, and life without my daily Greek yogurt.  But I have to suck it up!  It turns out I didn’t even need to be in Asia yet to have issues with my stomach.  As soon as we got on our Korean Air flight from Los Angeles to Seoul, Jon reaches into his seat pocket and says “I may start collecting these barf bags. I’ve never seen anyone actually use them.” Uh oh.

A few hours later, his lovely girlfriend was puking into one of his collctors items.  I have no idea why.  I have never been motion sick or air sick.  I didn’t eat anything weird.  I’ll blame the turbulence, or maybe just karma.  Jon isn’t allowed to say anymore “I’ve never…” statements for the next four months.  After we got over the trauma of the 12-hour flight, we woke up to Tuesday in Korea.  That’s right; we totally skipped Monday.  Time is blowing my mind!  We spent from about 8am to 3pm in Seoul, just wandering around the city in a daze.

Entrance to Namdaemun market, which had raw seafood and silk slippers within steps of each other

It was a calm and quiet city compared to what I imagine the other Asian cities we will visit will be like.  The Metro was fantastic and really easy to use.  Whenever I go back to Korea for a real visit of the country, I will make sure to bring a bunch of empty suitcases, because the shopping there is phenomenal.  It’s cheap, it’s cute, and it’s all my size!  Everything was pretty cheap actually.  My udon lunch was only $2.50.

Colorful streets of Seoul

Seoul apparently isn’t sure when Christmas is.  We took our picture next to a big Christmas tree in the university area, and we posed with snowmen and polar bears at the airport.  There were lights and ornaments all over the airport…in February.  At least it was cheery!  In Seoul we went to a palace and a market, and that was really all we had the energy for.  Someday I’ll come back and really do Korea.  But I’m really glad we decided to do the long layover to actually see something.  It gave us a nice break and a bit more time to get over the jet lag…

Inside the grounds of Deoksugung Palace (originally built in late 1400s)

Guards in front of palace who marched around to the drums at 11am

The time change in Korea brought us back to Christmas?