Shanghai on a whirl

My last couple days in China were filled with intense activity followed by lulls of loneliness. Qing and I took the fast train from Hangzhou to Shanghai, arriving just after the subway closed at Shanghainanzhan. That meant waiting in a long taxi line and experiencing a big difference between Shanghai and Beijing: English speakers. It’s not that Shanghai taxi drivers speak good English; they just make much more frequent attempts. Drivers wearing flip flops and beach shorts tried to convince us to take a ride in their illegitimate cars for “very cheap.” I showed Qing how well I have learned to ignore people when they are bothering me. It’s a great benefit of being a foreigner: I can always play dumb.

view from hotel in Shanghai

Qing booked us an amazing hotel in the center of Shanghai, within walking distance to pretty much every fancy pants brand in the Western world. Another big difference between Shanghai and Beijing: there are parts of Shanghai where you could be convinced you were in an American city. In Beijing, there are aspects that look very Western, but then you see a man selling melons from the back of a horse-drawn carriage and you get snapped back into Chinese reality.

people waiting to go into the aussie pavilion

My only full day in Shanghai was spent partly at the World Expo. Seventeen months prior, Jon and I learned about the expo at the Shanghai urban planning museum. Oh, cool. An expo, we thought. What’s an expo? Turns out the expo is kind of like Shanghai’s bid to host an Olympic-sized event like Beijing did in 2008. Although there are a lot of differences: Shanghai’s World Expo lasts for months, all through the summer and fall, plus it is attended by almost exclusively Chinese. I was there for an hour before I saw any foreigners. The point of the expo was to bring all the countries of the world together to talk about green technology. Each country was represented by a building or a booth, and other global interests like NGOs and corporations had presentations as well. Inside each pavilion was supposed to be cool stuff, but Qing and I didn’t have time to stand in line for all that. We went into Slovakia and Cyprus because their lines took less than 4 minutes. But countries like Australia, Saudi Arabia, and the United Kingdom had waits of up to 4 hours!

one of the most colorful pavilions, Serbia

Qing and I at the Chinese pavilion, the biggest one of course

We couldn’t spend much time at the expo because we had someone else to meet: Natalie, our good friend from school who had just the day before moved to Shanghai. Qing’s train left before we could find Natalie and her boyfriend Kenny in the train station, but I got to spend a nice evening with them. First mission: find Natalie shoes. Natalie and Kenny’s luggage had not made it with them on the journey from Pittsburgh to Shanghai, and her sandals were already giving her blisters. I took her to the only place I knew: Nanjing Lu, Shanghai’s famous shopping street. If only I were in Beijing, I could have taken her to great markets with cheap and comfy shoes. Instead we had to settle for a $7 pair of flip flops. How are those flippy floppies doing, Nat?

Shanghai's newest residents

The three of us ventured to the Huangpu River where I remembered last time seeing a psychedelic tunnel ride that was a bit out of my budget. This time, the temptation was just too much for budget concerns: crazy train, here we come! Just google Bund Tourist Tunnel and you can see youtube videos and reviews of this thing. The ride lasts only a few minutes, but it’s full of lights and colors and voices shouting out random words at you like “paradise” and “molten lava.” It’s totally trippy and absolutely worth the absurdly high price.

not really a vegetarian anymore

I was really happy I got to spend my last night in China with two awesome people. Natalie and Kenny had been in the city for less than 24 hours, but they were eager to learn a bunch of phrases in Mandarin and try my favorite Chinese dinner: hot pot! We found a seafood hot pot restaurant near my hotel where we got to sizzle some live shrimp in boiling water. After dinner, they went back to their apartment. After days of touring Hangzhou, taking a Chinese train, joining millions of people at the expo, dashing down Nanjing Lu in search of shoes, and teaching my friends as much survival Chinese as I could in one night…I was alone.

Back in my plush hotel room, watching (bad) English-language movies for the first time in months, eating a snack I can only find in China (xiang yu pi!), trying not to use the internet that cost a dollar a minute, all I wanted was to be back in my apartment in Beijing. I knew I was getting on a plane in a matter of hours to fly to San Francisco and see Jon and family and friends. But for that night, I was in China, and I wished so badly that it were my China. I was never and could never be ready to leave Beijing.

Beijingers in the desert

One of the fun things about my blog is getting to see what people Google in order to find me. One of the most popular searches is “how to get sand out of ears” and it leads to a post from Abu Dhabi last year. Well, I got sand in my ears again last weekend, but this time in China. (Sorry people, I still haven’t found a good way to get sand out of my ears except for just taking a shower!)

wonderful translation

I just got done spending nine days in a place where most people just pass through. Ningxia is northwestern province made up of mostly desert. There are many Hui people who live there, one of the Muslim groups in China. I went to Ningxia with my internship, CAI, to run six days of teacher training for teachers around the province. I taught a phonics class for English teachers along with Amy, another American living in Beijing. In total there were seven of us. Amy, her husband, and I were the Americans. However, they are both Asian-Americans, so I stood out as the weird one as I rode my bike down the street or ate my breakfast in the small house that served as a restaurant. The other four in our group were Chinese. One of them, Rona, was our translator. She studied English in college and speaks it extremely well. I was lucky to have her as my roommate throughout the whole trip.

Rona, me, Amy and Wil. Notice Amy's camel's proximity to my leg. He loved keeping his face smooshed on my leg.

So what does one do in Ningxia? Our first two days were spent preparing for the teacher training and relaxing in the rural environment. The generous teachers of Taole school lent us bikes for the week, so we biked down the road to the Yellow River. I still cannot find Taole on the map, but it’s in northern Ningxia on the Yellow River and just a few miles from the province of Inner Mongolia. The road to the river was awesome. We were surrounded by fields of sunflowers and corn, and old men herded sheep at our sides. We met more cyclists on the road than we did cars. When we reached the river, we were met by fishermen, boat constructors, and mosquitoes. I have never seen so many mosquitoes in my life. They were literally swarming me. Luckily deet really works, so as soon as they landed on my skin they flew off. However, I did not deet my clothes, so I got four enormous bites on my back from mosquitoes biting me through my shirt.

this is my freak-out face because i am literally being eaten alive

a farmer and his sheep near the Yellow River

Our other adventure into the Ningxia landscape was to the desert. This part of China is really interesting because there is so much green, so many fields and trees, and also so much sand. (Apparently it all used to be desert.) We went to a desert theme park. We tried to come up with a better description of it, but all we came up with was that it is like a winter wonderland, except you are in the desert. You can ride horses, camels, and mules, you can toboggan down a huge dune, zipline across a sand valley, go to museums showing Ningxia’s finest artifacts, meet Tibetan Mastiffs, ride a mini roller coaster, ride a mechanical bull, and drive a jeep through the dunes. There’s a lot more, but those are just the highlights. We rode camels and slid down the dunes, but my favorite part was just riding into the desert in the giant vehicles. They must have been old military vehicles or something, because they remind me of ducks, those car/boat things used in American city tours. Anyway, the driver goes as fast as he can over the dunes and we all have to hold on to these poles in front of us to keep from falling out the sides as we bumped along the dunes. Everyone in the car loved it, but they all looked so calm! The only ones screaming were my friends and I.

they ask you if you want the fast or slow sled. fast please!

We really wanted to meet the Tibetan Mastiffs, because we heard these dogs are as big as lions. When we went to the area in the park where they live, a sign said that you could not visit the mastiffs today. So we went to the office, where we told them that we came all the way from America to see the dogs. That didn’t convince them. They said they only open up the mastiff area one day a year, and the rest of the time even the governor of Ningxia can’t see the dogs. Oh well.

Our evenings in Ningxia were spent either lesson planning for the following day, or watching movies and playing cards. In the end, it really started to feel like summer camp. It was a week-long getaway from the big city, getting to know new people, eating every meal together in the same cafeteria, riding bikes through fields, trying to avoid bug bites, and playing lots and lots of games. I’m already missing everyone and our daily routine. Three teenage boys from Beijing who helped us out at the training actually had us sign their t-shirts on the last day. Ningxia Summer Camp 2010! I’ll write more about the teacher training in my next post.

mini roller coaster in the middle of the desert? in china, all is possible

Hello Singapore. Have we met before?

The first time I went to Asia, landing in Korea in January of last year, I felt culture shock immediately. I was strongly aware that I was on the other side of the world and that I stuck out significantly in the crowd of black hair and brown eyes. I remember my heart racing from the moment I stepped onto the streets of Seoul, not out of fear, but out of thrill. But this time something was different. It was more like “Hey Singapore, what’s up?” It felt comfortable and familiar. Of course the prominence of English and the friendliness of the taxi driver helped out with that.

me in front of the spitting lion in downtown Singapore

I arrived at my hostel at 2am, and I guess I kind of slept for a few hours. By 9am, I was out and about exploring Singapore with the short amount of time I had. The best way to do that was by walking from my neighborhood, Little India, to the downtown marina area. On the way I passed by many churches, mosques, and temples, showing how truly diverse Singapore is. The city-state is a mix of Chinese, Malay, Tamil, and more. Most everything is written in English, but the second most popular language is Chinese. At times I felt like I was in London or Hong Kong.

Hindu temple in Little India

Walking around Singapore was a great way for me to get reacquainted with Southeast Asia. It is truly a shock to the system to go from 60 degree Pittsburgh to 100 degree Singapore. I had to relearn very quickly how to survive in such heat, which is pretty easy to pick up from the locals. The first and most crucial rule is: do not stand in the sun unless you have to. When waiting to cross a street, do not stand on the corner if it is sunny. Stand back as far as you need to in order to be in the shade. I also fell into the Asian umbrella trick, which is really pretty great. It’s amazing how much money I can save on sunblock if I just whip out the umbrella more often.

Lunch in Singapore meant one thing to me: find Anthony Bourdain’s favorite chicken rice. Chicken rice is exactly what it sounds like. There are some sauces to it, and I guess the chicken is boiled or something to make it really juicy. But it’s a very straightforward dish. I went to the food stall area that Tony loves, but I wasn’t sure which chicken rice vendor was his. They all looked the same! So I picked one randomly and it turned out pretty good! Thanks Tony.

Singapore Parliament

boat on the Singapore River going past all the restaurants

I guess the coolest things I saw in Singapore were the Merlion and the riverwalk. The Merlion is like a mermaid lion, tail and all. It spits out water. It’s really big and you can get sprayed with the water if the wind is blowing, which is a great relief in the heat. He’s facing the other side of the bay, where the giant ferris wheel and the new double helix bridge stand. There is also a huge building that I think is a casino. It looks like three buildings with a boat on top connecting them all. The riverwalk is all around the Singapore River, and it’s covered in restaurants and bars that look like they would be quite fun with friends or at nighttime. There are boats going down the river and under the pretty white bridges that apparently were made in Scotland.

I took the wonderful subway system to the airport that afternoon. I went through some seriously wealthy neighborhoods with luxury high-rises. The airport is very impressive as well. It feels more like a hotel than an airport! I highly recommend it. From Singapore, I boarded my final flight on this crazy-long journey: to Surabaya, Indonesia.

Heading south for the spring

If there’s one thing I love about March, it’s my birthday.  If there are two things I love about March, they are my birthday and spring break.  And more often than not, these two things have coincided.  This year, I extended my spring break travels by one day in order to include my birthday.  For the first half of break, I drove with Jon and his mom down to Tennessee to visit her friend.  For the second half of break, Jon and I went to DC to spend time with friends and his dad.  In total, we drove over 2,000 miles.  I must really enjoy this awkwardly split spring break road trip setup, because I’ve done it twice in recent past.  Freshman year of college, I drove from St. Louis to Austin, back to St. Louis, up to Minneapolis, and then back to St. Louis with three friends.  Junior year of college, I drove from DC to Pittsburgh, back to DC, then to Philly, then back to DC.  It kind of makes it seem like two spring breaks, eh?

our spring break farm

For three days last week we called a farm in Minor Hill, Tennessee, our home.  We shared it with eight goats, three dogs, and a very gracious hostess.  Our visit to Tennessee also happened to be at the exact same time as my best friend’s visit to her parents in Memphis.  So we met in the middle and spent a day hiking around the Shiloh National Military Park, where the Union beat the Confederacy in 1862 and I got my first sunburn of 2010.

baby goat, momma goat, and suzie the doggie guard

picnicking in shiloh on the tennessee river

missouri pride at shiloh

We also drove down to the closest major city of Huntsville, Alabama, to witness Jon’s reunion with SPACE CAMP.  He was a NASA camper twelve years ago, so this time he wandered around the campus pointing out what has changed since then.  The expensive space suit that he bought himself against his mother’s wishes with all of his spending money, however, has remained the same.

Jon with a real-size space shuttle

space camp dorms and the airport pickup bus

Spending time in a place where the bugs are louder than the traffic always makes me calm.  Hearing local stories about organic beekeeping techniques, mule breeding, and armadillo prevention makes me appreciate how a short drive from any city can make me feel like I’m in a totally different world.  A lot of what I saw in southern TN reminded me of all the time I used to spend in western Kentucky, hiking through the woods, fishing in the lake, and watching out for deer on dark roads.  I hope that in the future I can be a part of both worlds.  Except for the beekeeping part.

pile of hungry goats

Liz and Jon: who loves the attention more?

Sophie was upset that we called her stinky

baby goat eating all alone. i love baby goat!

Sigh, Summer in St. Louis

Anyone who spends more than an hour with me will find out that I love my hometown.  I adore it.  Most St. Louisans do, and that’s why they never leave.  Or they go off to faraway places, only to return.  Growing up in St. Louis, I had no idea how good I had it.  I thought every city had huge parks with rolling green hills, baseball stadiums overflowing with fans, skylines draped with massive monuments, people who said hello as you walked down the street, ice cream and donut shops with passionate devotees, and museums with school buses hanging off the top.

But they don’t.  I’ve been to a lot of cities.  There are many that I still need to see in this country, but I can confidently say I have been to all of the “great American cities.”  I’ve been to a lot of “great” world cities, too.  And I compare every one of them with St. Louis.  At this point in my travel-obsessed life, I say there is nothing that you cannot get in St. Louis.  Some would bring up public transportation, to which I would say that #1: St. Louis is an amazing biking city, and #2: St. Louis covers a HUGE amount of land, so expanding the light rail to reach everyone in the metro area (569 square miles) is equivalent to doing so in Los Angeles (498 square miles).  Anything that is important to you in a city, I can promise you will find it in St. Louis.  Except the beach or mountains.  Let’s not get cute.

So after my four-month vacation, I landed back in St. Louis at the end of May, ready to sweat through the summer and pine away for my days in more exciting cities.  But St. Louis had other things in mind.  Not only was it the mildest summer on record, but we had a series of rockin’ thunderstorms all summer long.  Living on the east coast for the past six years, I forgot what amazing shows in the sky we get in the midwest.  In fact, the night before Jon and I drove from St. Louis to Pittsburgh, a monstrous storm blasted our eardrums all night.   I told Jon the thunder was furious at him for planning to take me away.

Instead of a summer spent dreaming about Thailand and Denmark, I filled my time with as much St. Louis as possible, and still left at the end of the three months not getting to do everything I had hoped.  Everything was better and brighter than ever — the neighborhoods, the parks, the diversity, the nightlife, the architecture — if you want to watch a city grow and change, it’s the place to be.

I spent wonderful time with my family, especially my sister who is now studying abroad in the Balkans (check her out on http://balkanbedouin.wordpress.com/).  One night she and I went to see Guster play for free on the riverfront under the Arch.  The lead singer proclaimed it the coolest venue he’s ever played at.  Sure, maybe he’s said that to other cities before, but did he then make up raps about them?  My google search says no.

When the summer was all over, I didn’t want to leave.  I cried until I couldn’t see the Arch in the rear-view mirror anymore.  And I’ve already picked out my flight for Christmas.

The Arch in the background, looking from the new downtown sculpture garden

An all-star Arch stands in front of the Old Courthouse on the day of the all-star game.