Phase Two (aka a RANT about Lanzhuo)

A city never makes a good first impression at 2:30 am when you roll in sober and tired after a 2 ½ hour flight. That first impression doesn’t get any better when you then have a shitty bus ride through the windy soot covered foot hills. Then to be refused by not one BUT 3 hotels on the basis of your skin colour, well then it gets even better. The final straw is then being offered a bed bug filled, shady-off-the- street-back-door deal on the worst hotel room I have EVER seen.

Beautiful Lanzhuo

Petro-chemically smog over the hills of  Lanzhuo

So when we finally got a place to stay that wasn't a s#*thole we all crashed out fairly quickly. Things got even better when we woke up the next morning to the WONDER that is Lanzhuo. The best way to describe this place is this: take Detroit on a very very bad day, then move it to  northern Alberta and white trash it all up, then plunk it down in the middle of china and put nothing around it for miles! The place is described by Lonely planet as “petro-chemically”. So needless to say that the scenery was lacklustre and polluted! We couldn’t even see the near by mountains.

We rallied ourselves and went out for 4 yuan noodles. They were spicy and thick and delicious. After the noodle breakfast we all still felt the need for something breakfast-y so we trekked off to the “Boton” coffee house. (Did they mean to write Boston or did they actually mean Boton? We will never know) Will ordered a chocolate muffin off the Drink menu, and 30 minutes later he was presented with a 3 layer waffle, WTC. Meanwhile Catherine and Paul wanted some Irish coffee. Pretty safe right? Wrong. They were given a wine glass filled with whiskey a shot of coffee, Betty Crocker icing and sprinkles.

Tea in a small noodlehouse

Noodles for breakfast

Coffee with iriish whiskey, icing and sprinkles

We were whisked off to check out the water wheel, which Lonely planet promised us was near the walk way. But apparently they are a bunch of liars. So we checked out the golden animal statues and Morgan tired to get Hep-C off the pig’s belly.

Finally we went to the best place in Lanzhuo. There was a beautiful working Taoist Temple. We wandered around the very peaceful court yard. There were monks who all had really sweet beards and hats. They were giving fortunes and playing sweet drums that looked like Buddha bellies! Catherine was chatted up in broken chinglish for a while (like she was everywhere on our trip!) by a man who took a half hour to tell her that his daughter goes to U of T and he is writing a dictionary.

Taoist temple in Lanzhuo

Catherine making new friends

After the temple tour we split up into 3 teams of two and raced around gathering supplies for the train. Erica and Catherine got dinner from 3 different restaurants. Morgan and Will were on drinks and supplies. Paul and Kristen were on snacks and fruit. We got everything we needed and boarded our overnight train. After some negotiating with some Macbeth Style witches we got all 6 of us into one bunk. We proceed to drink, play cards, eat and hang out. The boys were drunk enough to buy some 3D vinyl pictures of wolves and eagles.  At 10 pm they turned out the lights so we all brushed our teeth and tucked into bed.



Earth, Fire, Wind, Water, Heart,,,, with our powers combined...



Warning: Huang beer may lead to the buying of one of a kind vinyl holograms of wolves and eagles.

We were only 7 hours from Dunhuang, aka the coolest place on earth!

More Lanzhuo

Lanzhuo has one of the largest communities of Muslims of any of the large Chinese cities. The mosques are some of the only beautiful sights in Lanzhuo.

Phase One

Phase One:

We recently got back from our ten day vacation to China’s Western province of Gansu. Because we saw so many amazing things and have so many awesome stories to tell, we are going to split up our trip and talk about a different chunk of our holiday in each of several blog posts. Here is the first….

Beijing Bound.

We started our trip just minutes after Kristen finished work on Friday. Gathering up our bags, we unplugged our hot water heater and ran out the door to begin our great adventure. Of course every other student and teacher was also leaving Jinshitan to head on their own holiday, so we ran into our first obstacle almost immediately.

The light transit rail that we take to get into Dalian was packed. Not packed like, “Oh excuse me did I bump into you? Awfully sorry old chap.” No, this was a maelstrom of people pushing, slipping and sneaking their way onto a train already packed with people and luggage. Even though we are now veterans of the light rail system we began to feel claustrophobic before we even left the station.

We made it through the tumult unscathed and with our friend Erica (who was one of our traveling six) we waded our way through the crowds until we made it to the front of the train station where we met up with the rest of our group (Catherine, Morgan and Will). Because it was the national holidays we had to join a “tour group” in order to find train tickets. Our group consisted of a number of other Chinese tourists who also wanted to get to Beijing. In order to find us to give us our tickets and board the train together the “tour guide” was given the directions “look for the six white people”. Somehow they found us and we all  boarded our train.

We had soft sleeper tickets which meant we were in fairly comfy booths with four bunks to a room. Kristen and I shared ours with a very nice younger Chinese couple who spoke fairly good English. We spent most of the night drinking beer with the rest of our group and then fell asleep for a few hours. All in all, this first Chinese train experience was comfortable and much more fun than a plane ride.

When we woke up we were approaching Beijing. We took a subway ride from the train station into the heart of town. Our hostel was near Tianammen Square, but because of the amount of people visiting for the national holiday, the subway station nearest the square was closed down. We got off one station early and waded our way through some thick crowds of people. As we got closer, the crowds grew thicker until we eventually had to turn down an alleyway (with hundreds of other people) cross under police tape, and weave our way through side streets to get to our hostel. Thousands of people in the streets and it was barely 8:00am!

730 am on a National Holiday in Beijing

Slipping under police tape to get to our hostel

National pride was evident from the thousands of red flags everwhere in Beijing

We checked into our hostel and then split up to explore some different parts of Beijing. Catherine and Erica rented a tandem bike to explore the hutongs (little alleyways that are still “old Beijing” style housing and markets) while the rest of us went to visit the Temple Of Heaven. The Temple is in a massive park, and thousands of Beijingers and foreigners were dancing, playing games, doing Taichi, stretching and playing tourist everywhere inside the walled park. We had a beautiful day, with little pollution and a gorgeous sunny sky, and we thoroughly enjoyed walking around, looking at the sights and the crowds. The park was so big that there were many places that you could be where no one else could be seen… a rarity in China’s cities.

The Temple of Heaven

Kristen borrowed one for a few minutes and showed them all up!

That night we met up with our crew and went to the Silk market. This is a huge emporium of knockoff clothing, silk goods, toys, shoes and just about anything else you might be interested in. We found some ties and jackets and spent the better part of an hour and half bartering as hard as we could. Paul was particularly insistent and forced the price down again and again. He also made them switch the jacket that they offered for one straight from a bag, and for a final flourish, whipped out his mandarin to haggle for the final price. Neither  the seller, nor Kristen and Paul were entirely happy at the end of the exchange, which we feel is the best way to know that a fair deal was worked out. For less then fifty dollars we picked up three silk scarves, a north face jacket and a Jack Wolfskin waterproof shell. Not too shabby.

We then went for Peking Duck at an upscale eatery. Kristen was disinclined to try the duck, but after some convincing she found she actually really enjoyed it. Basically you wrap the duck meat in a little rice flour tortilla shell, along with scallions, cucumber, hoisin, garlic or whatever else you feel like. It was a delicious treat, and we managed to eat three ducks between the six of us.

Peking duck... brains and all!

On the way back, the taxi drivers were unwilling to take us near Tiananmen because of the crowds. Three of us managed to convince one taxi to drop us off nearby so that we could walk, but the other three got kicked out of their taxi (which is illegal in China-taxis can’t refuse a fare). In the process of negotiating and getting kicked out of the taxi, Erica dropped her wallet and passport in the car. We spent the rest of the night frantically calling the police, the taxi companies, the embassy and anyone else we could think of, trying to get the passport back before we had to fly to Lanzhou the next day.

In the morning, Will and Erica went to the police station, where they created a lost passport form, and told her to try going on the flight anyways (she had a photocopy of her passport and visa and they thought that with the form they gave her, it might be enough to get her on the plane). We were pretty sure that Erica would not be coming with us, but we were determined to enjoy the day anyways.

Inside the hutongs of Beijing.

We wandered around Tiannamen square and outside the forbidden city (we contemplated going in, but the crowds were insane) and then found our way to the Lama temple. We walked around  through building after building, under persimmon trees and past pyres of incense for a few hours. If you get a chance to visit Beijing, this is a place you should go.

Mao on the gate of the forbidden city as seen from Tiannamen Square

Starbucks... in Tiannamen square. Irony much?

Persimmons, incense and bright colours... the Lama Temple in Beijing

Eventually it was time to head out for our flight. We took the subway to the airport, and Erica came with us, bags packed and ready to go in case she could somehow sneak through. After a few tense minutes at check in, and many more tense minutes and negotiation at security, she somehow managed to sneak by, and we were through. We all boarded our plane, and were off to Lanzhou!

Bring on the Mongolians

This past weekend, Paul had a chance to travel to the capital of Liaoning province in order to play some hockey. Shenyang is a city of 10 million, and it is a five hour bus ride from Dalian. To get there you have to travel on a pretty monster highway through rural agricultural land and industrial wastelands. He had an opportunity to go last year and it was a highlight of his time here so when this chance came up again he jumped at it.

The rink in Shenyang... just waiting for coach Bombay and the Ducks.

Paul’s  hockey gear had not come yet- it is currently being transported across an ocean in a shipping container- so he only had his skates and a couple of sticks. He spent the last few weeks scrambling to borrow gear and finally amassed enough to make a complete set. Unfortunately, one week prior to the trip, he was told by his work that he would have to come in and work on the Saturday of the trip.

Every year Maple Leaf has a week long holiday (instead of a number of long weekends) at the beginning of October.  However, Chinese nationals only get four days off (scattered across a number of weekends) instead of the five days that we get during our week vacation. To make up for it, we are supposed to work an extra Saturday. For some reason the Junior High decided that they would work a different Saturday then the Senior High. This of course left Paul scrambling to find a way to get out of work so that he could legitimately go to the tournament in Shenyang.

Well it took some negotiating, and some pressure from the Vice principal of the high school (who is on the hockey team and related to the other teacher from the junior high that wanted to go on the trip- sometimes it is good to have connections!) but eventually a solution was found. In exchange for working extra classes during the next week and coming in on a Saturday later in the month, they were free to go on the trip.

The hockey this time around was much higher calibre than the previous trip Paul went on. Partly this was because the quality of our team had increased with a number of new rookie teachers arriving in town, but also because the quality of the competition was far better this time around. Ex-pat teams from Shanghai and Beijing flew in for the weekend, and a Chinese team from Shenyang hosted the tournament. To cap it off, a group of Mongolian players who play with the Mongolian national team took busses and trains for 58 hours to come and get ready for their season. Apparently there are no indoor rinks in Mongolia, and they wanted to get a jump on the other players trying out for the national team. The outdoor rinks don’t freeze up for a month or so, so this was a chance to get in game shape before the season.

Awesome.

The Kaptain of the Mongolian squad

Mongolian sweater and a felted camel hair blanket they raffled off to help defray the cost of their trip.

Mongolian national team jerseys... auctioned off to the highest bidder. They went for almost 350 CDN each!

Mongolian Canadian Summit Series photo

Someone on our team thought we would have enough player for two teams so we were scheduled for double the games of everyone else. We also had a number of players go down with alcohol related disinterest  (some of the older veterans on our team like the hockey trips for the chance to get away from work, family and the same old routine… they can really cut loose, but it costs their ability to play hockey).  So we were able to consistently field between 10 and 14 players of varying quality for the 9 games we played over two days. Seven of the games were on Saturday, and we were each playing every other shift for three of the games in a row. It was gruelling, but a hell of a lot of fun.

Our record included 6 losses, 2 wins (one against the Mongolians) and a game that ended with a bench clearing brawl (not kidding- don’t worry Mom, I’m fine).

In between all the hockey, the banqueting and consuming of fine Chinese beverages, we found some time to shuffle around the Imperial palace of Shenyang (shuffle because our muscles were seizing from so much hockey!). The palace was built for the Qing dynasty rulers before they moved their capital from Shenyang to Beijing. It is pretty impressive, and a wonderful place to be invited into the pictures of random strangers. For some reason, Chinese people really like to ask white foreigners to take a picture with them. Weird.

The Imperial Palace's throne room.

It was a great hockey filled weekend, and Paul can’t wait to do it again in a couple of months.

Two weeks....

Gansu.

 Yaks and dunes. Camels, caves, the Buddhist “louvre,” monks, paragliding. 9 days of vacation. Three trains, buses, subways,  at least three plane rides. Dorm beds, motion sickness (definitely), altitude sickness (maybe), cheap beer.

We head out in two weeks on possibly the most adventurous trip of our traveling existence. Gansu province is tucked between Inner Mongolia, Sichuan (or Szechuan), Qinghai and Xinjiang provinces. It was formerly part of Tibet and has a population that is 50% Tibetan, 40% Han (“chinese” Chinese) and 10% Hui (Chinese Muslim). Regional cuisine varies between yak milk, boiled donkey with noodles and high altitude white teas (in the mountains) to spiced donkey kebabs with flat breads and chickpeas in the desert.

We are going for two reasons: One, nobody just happens through Gansu. You either GO THERE or you never do. It’s not a place we will ever just walk through on our way to somewhere else so we thought we better do it now or not at all. Two, it has some incredible places to visit.

Exhibit A: The Mogao Caves. The most impressive collection of Buddhist statuary, relics, paintings and ancient writings are contained in these desert caves. Caves is a barbaric way to describe them apparently as they are well carved caverns hewed out of the rock by master carvers. They were paid for with silk road money and have been around for a long, long time.

Exhibit B: The desert. We are talking about some of the tallest stationary dunes in the world. Gansu has a piece of the Gobi, the Taklamakan and Jadian Beran deserts. There are crazy sand sculpted rocks, buried cities and fabulous oases to feast our eyes on. Not to mention the possibility of overnight camel rides, dune buggying, sandboarding, paragliding off the dunes or ultralighting (for 100yuan a half hour… crazy cheap).

Exibit C:  Little Tibet. Xiahe is the home of one of the six most holy monasteries in the Tibetan world. It is positioned high in the mountains and receives few Western tourists because of its remoteness. The chances of altitude sickness are minimal but definitely there. The chance of seeing monks clad in robes spinning prayer wheels and chanting sutras while we sip yak tea on a heated kang overlooking a high mountain plateau in the foothills of the Himalayas…. Likely.

Today Paul eats..................

OK so we know why you are still following our blog. because like Kristen you find it endlessly entertaining to watch Paul scarf down some horrible chinese food. Well Happy Mid-Autum Fesitval, the chinese version of Thanksgiving! For Mid-Autum fest we got you all this video! Enjoy!

Teaching assignments

Kristen has been given an assignment teaching two classes of communication skills, which means she gets to focus on speaking and listening. This is right up her alley and much easier for her than the writing classes she was also teaching last year. Apparently her spelling skills are only…. Well lets say that they are not great (she blames switching from French Immersion to full English streaming).

Because she has already taught this course, she has to spend less time prepping. Because she is only teaching two courses –rather than four- she has more time to mark during school time, and less assignments to mark. She has to spend the other blocks as a teacher on call but so far has not been called on to sub. All in all she is much happier this semester with her teaching assignment then she was last year.

Paul is only teaching nine hours a week. The rest of the time he is working as the head teacher, helping the other teachers prep, plan, organize themselves and solve problems. Two teachers are also teaching at different schools (in Tianjin and Wuhan) so he has to coordinate with them as well. The program has apparently caught the eye of the chairman as he has asked us to prepare to expand to all the schools by next year. In order to do this, Paul has been tasked with creating a "student resource book" (a textbook basically!) and a teacher resource book. Vicky, the Science program’s Chinese assistant is now working almost exclusively with Paul on this. It is really exciting work, but also a little daunting. Apparently they want to have the textbook polished enough to publish by the end of 2012-2013

school year!

So far, things have been pretty smooth and we have managed to get through almost two whole weeks of school without having to bring ANY homework with use after school is over (a real feat!). Hopefully (but doubtfully) we can continue this trend.

Back in China.

Descending from cruising altitude, high above the brown and grey city, it is hard not to think that we are heading into a different world. After only a few days (well two weeks but it felt like just short days) at home, we were returning to this weird land of strange happenstance and unpredictability. We were coming back to China.

The weather hit us as soon as we landed. Sweltering heat, oppressive humidity smacked us in the face as we boarded the bus on the runway. Unlike most modern airports, China’s runways tend to have no permanent gangways that lead into a building. Instead you push and prod your way through the aisle of the airplane, rush down the stairs with hand luggage in tow and cram your way onto a bus that takes you the thirty feet to the door where you get off. Then you fight your way through to immigration (stamp, stamp, stamp) find your bags at the luggage carousel (or don’t, as the case may be) and head through customs.

On this return trip we were traveling with a number of new and returning teachers so we hired a van for the ride back to Jinshitan and piled in with all our gear. An hour later we were “home”.

In many ways it is as if we never left. Our house was in the same state we left it (although possibly it was slightly cleaner as our “auntie” stopped by several times in the summer to give it a wipe down and scrub the floors). However, the campus had changed in one spectacular way.

It was green.

There was grass where no grass had been (they only roll out the sod for a few months of the year then pack it away so it isn’t damaged by winter). There were trees, actual trees, with leaves! Our view from our bedroom window was a field of grass, wild hemp and weeds, and even the occasional bird flying by.

Of course the trade off for all this lush verdancy has been the weather. This summer has seen some of the most rain on record for the region. In fact there was more rain in July and August then in the last four years combined. So, the air is full of moisture. It is hot, so hot and humid that it feels like someone is smothering you with a wet diaper. I chose diaper as a metaphor because in China smells are often, shall we say, unpleasant.

We have started to settle in to a routine: work, workout (which in the heat is a trial and a half), cook, clean up, sleep, repeat. We are spicing it up now and again with the occasional night out, a game of baseball or ball hockey or trip to the beach, but in so many ways being back in China is…. normal.

Which is in itself, very weird.

This was the view when we arrived in February, not very awesome.

This is the view from our apartment NOW!!! Much better! If things keep getting better, we might even stay ANOTHER year, hahahahhahaahahaha!