What a day, what a day. I don’t even really know where to start. The DH and I woke up at six this morning in order to try to get a train to Yabuli, China’s biggest ski resort, located about two hours southeast of Harbin. We did make the train, but with standing only seats. Luckily, we were able to purchase hard sleeper tickets on board the train.

After initially checking in to a “four star” hotel at the resort and finding it totally sucky (no Internet, one restaurant, not comfortable, zero English), we relocated to a “five star” hotel (+Internet, several restaurants, closer to slopes, more comfortable, a smattering of English) and will try some skiing tomorrow…

Happy Valentine’s Day! Happy Chinese New Year!

If only you could see me rolling my eyes… I hate to be a grump, but I’ve had a harrowing evening – way too much cold and dealing with evil taxi drivers. I can put a check mark next to Harbin in my China travel book. I’m done with it. I have to admit I didn’t love it. That could have everything to do with the freezing cold. Could have everything to do with a minimal amount of things open due to Chinese New Year/Spring Festival. Could have everything to do with scummy taxi drivers out to screw everyone over at every opportunity. (Yeah, I’d say it is mostly that one.) I would almost say that Harbin is only worthwhile on a package tour where your transportation everywhere is included. That said, the ice sculptures were amazing and some of the architecture here is a nice change from the norm.

Tomorrow morning we will take a train to Yabuli ski resort. We have minimal information and the name of a hotel written in Chinese characters. The travel agent who booked the hotel for us told us Yabuli was “no good at the moment,” so there is a chance we might just show up, look around and hightail it to Beijing. Who knows. It’s an adventure. Next year the adventure will most definitely be in a tropical country! I’ve had enough of the cold.

Pictures and more details to come.

It’s seriously cold here in Harbin. Seriously cold! I think both the DH and I have second guessed our decision to come here over Spring Festival. Since the festival is a family holiday, restaurants and shops have all pretty much been shut. We’re hoping things will be open tomorrow. There are very few people in the street. Of course, it is -19C out. The people that are out in the street are setting off fireworks and burning paper money. All we can hear, in all directions, is the boom! boom! boom! of firecrackers and rockets. It has been going on for hours and will likely continue for hours more.

Our first impression of Harbin? Hmmm… I’m really not too sure… So far we’ve been ripped off by a taxi driver, eaten a dismal dinner in a Russian cafe and tried to stay warm in our mildly heated hotel room. Tomorrow is another day, right?

Fireworks for sale on a street corner

Burning paper at an intersection

Woken from my slumber entirely too early this morning, (I pretty much slept all weekend and am now accustomed to noon wakeup), the DH and I braved the cool and rainy Linyi morning for a quick flight to Beijing. Now we’re holed up in our hostel room, watching CCTV9 and feeling quite urbane.

Parked airplanes at Nanyuan Airport

The morning flight from Linyi to Beijing is serviced by China United Airlines, an airline founded by the military, (or so we’ve been told…) CUA flights land at Nanyuan Airport, a military airfield south of the city. I highly recommend all tourists and expats in China to fly into this airport at least once. Why? Nanyuan and the neighborhood surrounding it is one of the few remaining places where you can get a feel for what Beijing must have been like twenty years ago… Quiet and narrow tree-lined streets… Patriotic billboards featuring young soldiers at attention… Squatty brick buildings… Old grandmas and grandpas riding their Flying Pigeons… Red stars with hammer and sickle insignia here and there… Old railroad tracks leading seemingly nowhere… A walled compound called the “China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology”… Rows of gray hutong homes… It’s a Beijing far removed from the modern, consumption-mad powerhouse. It actually feels Communist. (Just don’t drive too far up Nanyuan Lu, where huge wholesale markets vie for space!)

Can’t you just see the white-coated technicians working on this?

If you do fly into Nanyuan, take the airport bus dowtown for a close up view of the contrast. Once you exit the baggage claim, you’ll see a small ticket counter on the right next to the exit. The bus to Xidan subway station (and CAAC office building) will be the first as you exit the doors, just byond the taxis. Cost = 16RMB

We passed the Forbidden City on the airport bus, so we consider our touristic activities done for the day. Now time for relaxing. I am even going out to a spa later. Awww, I’m feeling better already!

Proof! We were here today!

Open ABOUT 10:30 AM

This photo, taken at Uncle Mutt’s Barbecue in Victoria, Texas, reminds me to always be flexible while traveling and, of course, mindful of local customs. Sometimes in life we have a now! now! now! attitude. Like a lot of places in the world, (Southeast Asia comes to mind,) certain parts of South Texas run on a more relaxed time schedule. To be honest, I love efficiency, but an easy pace and leisurely lifestyle sounds better by the day. Sometimes you just have to wait for that barbecue plate. I assure you, it’s worth the wait!

For more travel photos, visit Photo Friday at Delicious Baby.

Confucius Temple Entrance

Our last minute trip to Qufu this past Sunday was a success, if not without its little moments. Overall I would say that the home of Confucius is a worthwhile deviation from the standard tourist trail in China and for those of us in Shandong Province, a must do day-trip. For the DH and I, it was a respite from a boring weekend spent watching old Andromeda episodes on Youku. (China’s version of YouTube with a… let’s just say much more liberal, i.e. copyright questionable, content posting policy.) There’s really nothing like saying, “Hey, we’ve always talked about going to Qufu, but have never gotten around to it. Why don’t we?” at 4PM one afternoon and then finding yourself on a train at 6:30PM wondering what the heck you are getting yourself into!

Qufu’s Center – Drum Tower

Qufu (pronounced choo-foo) is a super small city in central Shandong Province. As you know, cities in China are generally ginormous, so the scale we might use in the West to size cities is not really relevant. My city of 3-5 million people is considered small. Qufu probably has ~100,000 people. Super small! Refreshingly small. While Linyi is a city that feels like a village, Qufu is a village that feels like a city. It has city walls, drum towers, a Chinese temple and a main drag lined with all the popular Chinese sportswear and shoe shops you’d ever want. Well, maybe that is just what the DH and I felt, especially after our year in the Shijiazhuang countryside and several years in Linyi. Those coming from far more cosmopolitan places probably won’t think so. Then again, we only spent 24 hours there, so who are we to say, really? We came, we saw, we ate, we liked.

Pedestrian Street in Qufu

It all started with a phone call to a fellow expat. “What time does the train leave for Qufu?” We thought we could go on Sunday morning and come back in the evening. When our friend said the train left at 6:30PM Saturday, a quick glance at the watch told us we had 2 1/2 hours, if we really wanted to go. Why not? We jumped up, threw the camera and a change of clothes in a backpack and headed over to the train station to see if any tickets were available. Train travel is a mysterious thing in China. You can only buy tickets four days in advance, ten days over Spring Festival, and only for trains departing that station. Tickets are hard to come by, especially at the train station ticket windows. It seems that many tickets get doled out to travel agencies and so you kind of have to ask around. Since Qufu is only 2 hours away and we didn’t have a lot of time, we didn’t worry about the travel agencies, opting to try our luck at the station. Fortunately, there was a train at 6:30, the Rizhao-Beijing overnighter that stops in both Linyi and Qufu. Unfortunately, only standing tickets were available to Qufu. Because this is a very popular train, we figured the chances of finding an actual seat on board were nil. And we were right. We spent the 2 hour journey hanging out in that space between the end of two train cars. The same spot where all the men congregate to smoke and spit. And where the loo is located. Nice…

Craftsman making steamer baskets in Qufu street

Two hours later we were standing outside a tiny station, looking at one of two cars in the parking lot and trying to decide just how the heck we were going to get to town. The Qufu station is 6km out of the center, not to be confused with the Yanzhou station, which is 16km out and the main station servicing Qufu. It seems when the rail lines were being laid the Kong family (Confucius’ descendants) worried the train would disturb the big guy’s tomb, so they requested the lines be moved away (Yanzhou.) Later, a line was laid closer (Qufu.) The Qufu station is only for slow trains. We needn’t have worried about transportation, however. Taxi drivers can smell fresh meat for miles. Before we could even discuss it, an old lady in a kerchief had shoved us in the back seat of a cab, along with a very frightened Chinese man, and negotiated an exorbitant fare with the driver, all on our behalf. We hadn’t booked a hotel. We didn’t even know the name of a place, so we pressed our luck and just told the driver to take us to a bingguan (hotel/guesthouse.) The driver took us down a few alleyways, dropping off his other two customers, and then proceeded to take us to Qufu’s finest fleabag hotel. It was cold, it was dank, but it had free Internet and cost all of $15. We jacked up the electric heater, requested more blankets and tucked ourselves into the standard-issue PRC bed. (Rock hard mattress at no extra cost!) It was only at 8:30 the next morning that we realized the room had no windows.

Qufu Street View

Outside it was cold and a little overcast. Since I had thought to rip out the three pages devoted to Qufu in my 2005 Lonely Planet China guide, we had a general idea of the city layout and a plan for seeing Qufu’s three main tourist sights (given that they hadn’t been altered in the last 5 years): the Confucius Temple, the Kong Family Mansion and the Kong Family Cemetery. To the bewilderment of every rickshaw driver in town, we walked off down main street towards the temple entrance, a feat (walking, that is) that would continue to bewilder them throughout the day. Everything in Qufu is within walking distance, so despite the cold, we walked everywhere, a practice not copied by the Chinese group tourists.

Vending machine inside the temple – you can get your water cold or hot!

The first step in visiting the tourist sites is to ignore the hawkers and vendors set up outside the temple entrance and go in the ticket office to the right. There a gaggle of enterprising English speaking tour guides will try to help you buy tickets, in hopes of being hired for the day. While I’m sure they are knowledgeable and helpful, the DH and I are not well suited to these kinds of tours. We’re much too sarcastic and silly. Besides, we like to wander off and take pictures of drainage holes, walls, cats and piles of trash. Tour guides are usually frightened. Most all of the signs throughout the three sights are in both Chinese and English, so in this case we were able to wander freely without the added pressure of making up ridiculous translations for each sign we encountered. I recommend purchasing the combo ticket for all three sights, which will set you back 150RMB. We felt this price was outrageous, but what can you do.

Most signs are in Chinese and English

Winter is the off-season in Qufu, but there were several large Chinese tour groups following a bull horn-clad guide around along with a much less conspicuous Japanese group. We were the token laowai and until later in the day when we observed a foreign backpacker holding a huge round piece of bread and attempting to take photos of it as he/she (it was hard to tell) walked down the street, we had assumed we were the only ones in town.

Small buildings housing special stone tablets

I’ve always loved the crazy creatures on Chinese roofs

The temple is a collection of courtyards, gates and large halls done in the “Forbidden City Style” of architecture and colors. The only difference between the two, in my mind, is the Forbidden City is 1) a heck of a lot bigger 2) a heck of a lot better maintained and 3) displays actual relics and furniture from the time. Qufu’s temple has seen better days – the colors on the wooden beams are faded and decaying. Everything is covered in dust. There are stone tablets everywhere, I think with carved writings of Confucius’ philosophy. Many of them show evidence of damage inflicted during China’s “burning times.” (i.e. the Cultural Revolution) Don’t visit Qufu expecting the glory of Beijing. Things haven’t been spiffed up here in a long time, although we did notice that one of the halls is under scaffolding. Some might find the lack of maintenance disheartening, especially after paying 150RMB… but we kind of liked it. The temple and mansions felt used and lived in, like they were more than just museum pieces, like we were seeing something real. (From the outside, that is. Inside every room and hall, gift shops are set up, selling fans, Confucius statues, books, tablet rubbings and, strangely, giant wooden pencils.)

Apricot hall holding more tablets

Repaired stone tablets

At the main hall, there is a large incense burner and padded cushion set up in front of a Confucius statue (no gift shop in this one.) There we observed Confucius followers praying and making offerings. This obvious devotion is not something you see everyday in Communist China. (I have seen Chinese burning incense and making offerings at a small temple on Tai Shan. One of them, a Communist Party member, told me she was praying for more money.)

Main hall with Confucius Devotees

The Big Guy

The Kong Family Mansion is next door to the temple. While the temple is all about red, the mansion is all about gray. It is a labyrinth complex of courtyards and rooms and narrow passageways connecting them. As we peered into the windows of the bedrooms and common rooms, all we could think was that the Kong family must have been freezing in Winter. At the back of the mansion is a large garden. It was pretty barren but must be really lovely in the Spring and Summer.

Kong Mansion Courtyard – why can’t I be more photogenic? why?

The back garden was a little barren

No idea why this painting in the garden was so important, but lots of people were taking photos of it

For lunch we decided to go the street food route, freaking out the locals, as usual.

Next up was a visit to the Kong Family Cemetery, where Confucius and thousands of his family members are buried. It is the largest family cemetery in the world and is still in use. If you’re a Kong, you can be buried there, too. As is standard issue at Chinese tourists sights, the entrance is lined with more souvenir stalls. “Get your own carved name stamp! Buy a fan! You need a Confucius statue! Hey! Hello! Hello! Hey!” It’s a gauntlet.

Tomb of Confucius

Inside the cemetery, it’s all about serenity. And rounded mounds of earth. And the fact that thousands and thousands of Kong surround you. It is peaceful, but also slightly creepy. The cemetery is also known as the Kong Forest, because there are thousands of trees planted here. Most tourists go straight to the Confucius tomb, snap a pic and then head back out to the safety and warmth of the hotel. There are even extended golf carts to haul them all from the entrance to the tomb. We are not most tourists and instead opted to walk the entire paved path through the cemetery. I guess that’s the reason that Monday morning I collapsed off the side of the bed when I tried to stand up. We walked a lot.

Cemetery Path

We’ve seen lots of Chinese grave sights in our four years here. In the countryside surrounding the Shijiazhuang airport, farmers buried their loved ones under mounded earth right in the middle of their fields. If you ride a train, you will see the sides of the rails lined with graves. In Linyi, the airport where we work is also surrounded by graves. Every few days we see (and hear) a funeral service. Still, there really is nothing like being in the middle of a huge cemetery, rounded mounds as far as the eyes can see. The Chinese cover their graves with mounds of earth and I heard this was to mimic the shape of the womb, but I don’t know if that is true. Here you can read more than you ever wanted on Chinese funerals. There were no funerals taking place on Sunday, but we did see two men digging a hole, which we assumed would later be used for one.

Cemetery View

We finished up all of our touring around 4PM, but our train would not leave until 7:30PM. We decided to spend a couple of hours hanging out in a youth hostel we had spotted earlier. It would have been perfect, since they had a lounge area with sofas, TV with CCTV 9 and decent coffee. The problem? The place was an ice locker. After shivering together for an hour, we gave up on the idea and walked down the street to the four star Queli Hotel for dinner. (I’ve always said that if you are in a strange city at a loss of where to hang out for a few hours while waiting for trains/buses, etc., a 4 or 5 star hotel lobby is a great place!) After another two and a half hours of standing on another train (this one far dirtier than the other), we were home.

A very rare wildlife sighting – a woodpecker (wildlife is rare in China!)

You can see all of the photos here. Or view a slide-show.

Logistics:

Stay at the 4 Star Queli Hotel if you want a warm and comfortable room. Stay at the Qufu Youth Hostel if you want a bargain. (And by all means, stop in for coffee if you are not staying there. It is a convenient stop off on the way to the cemetery.) Try the Mingya Confucianist Hotel for something in the middle (that’s where we wanted to stay, but forgot the name.) Try searching elong.net for great prices.

Need to buy train tickets? The business center at the Queli Hotel can arrange this for you for a small service fee. There’s supposedly a ticket shop somewhere in downtown Qufu, but we couldn’t find it.

For travel from Linyi to Qufu: K52 train Rizhao-Beijing leaves Linyi at ~1830 and arrives to Qufu at ~2030. Qufu is the fourth stop. (all liable to change!) 24RMB for standing ticket

For travel from Qufu to Linyi: K8271 train leaves Qufu at ~1930 and arrives to Linyi at ~2130. Linyi is the third stop. (all liable to change!) 14RMB for standing ticket

iphone photo of guy waiting for bathroom and guy spitting on train

To the slopes! Errr… slope? Errr… hill?

To refresh your memory:

The Ski hill at Yi Shui

It’s really more of a gentle rise, isn’t it?

We approached our ski adventure with no expectations. We were just excited to get out of Linyi. We knew ahead of time the snow was artificial and since there aren’t any towering mountains nearby, we knew the ski hill would be small. I don’t think we expected it to be quite so small, or so crowded, or the snow to be so… crunchy! So what substance are the skis at Yi Shui Ski Hill missing? WAX! The snow is so hard and rough, that the skis barely move at all. Since the ski lift wasn’t working at first, we just walked right up the hill with our skis on. It was a bit like cross-country skiing, without the proper skis.

At Yi Shui, there are three skiing areas. Don’t think it is all grand or anything, the three areas put together are about the size of an American football field. (I don’t even like American football, but having grown up with this measurement tool in my head, I can’t seem to relate to any other kind of example!)

Area One – The Bunny Hill

The Bunny Hill is really flat. I’m not sure how anyone trying to learn could get any real practice on this area. Over on the left side is a vertical wall that several people were attempting to climb. Despite the obvious deficiencies of the ski hill, everyone seemed to be having a good time. And that’s really what matters.

Area Two – This is the same hill seen in the first picture (Here called the Middle Area)

Area Three – The Competition Slope

There’s a little bit of skiing fun for everyone! True beginners, middle skill and even competitors! I joke, but who am I kidding, I was a little unnerved skiing for the first time in nine years. After all, the last time I skied it had actually been seventeen years since I touched snow. I went down a slightly icy ski slope in Northern Spain with poles and arms flailing, screaming hysterically and going faster than everyone around me, all completely unintentional. People on the ski lift above me actually applauded. I knew this wasn’t going to happen this time, but still, there were plenty of wipeouts and so I shoved off the top of the hill with a lot of trepidation.

At the bottom of the steepest portion of the ski hill.

I didn’t fall, but I did have a heck of a time trying to shift my weight from leg to leg as I attempted to perform some graceful turns. There’s not much that is graceful about my athletic abilities, though, and I ended up snowplowing down the hill. My niece and nephew inform me that this maneuver is no longer known as the snowplow. Seems these days the kids call it the pizza wedge.

While there were plenty of spills on the hill, there were also a few skiers who knew what they were doing. Case in point – this guy who went down the hill backwards:

The guy in the middle, in yellow

And then there was the guy who was kind of enough to take someone’s skis down the hill – the DH

And plenty of people were taking risks in order to learn something:

Dads the world over teach their kids to ski

And even a few creative types were “doing it their way”

With one ski pole! No idea what happened to the other one!

But most people spent a great deal of their time posing for photographs!

The DH and L., a professor at Linyi Normal University

There were kids of all ages there that day:

The family that skis together…

Moms the world over also have their jobs!

This girl was very enthusiastic – I love her hot pink skis.

But the real reason we were at the ski hill was for a little competition. Every Saturday the local TV station, Lanshan TV, sponsors a downhill speed competition. The top speed wins a TV. At the end of the season, all the first place winners will be invited back to compete for a car!

Representing Ba Li Zou An (Julia’s Bar): a Spaniard, an American and a Canadian (also a Russian, not pictured)

The local TV station interviewed each contestant before their race.

That would be the DH, showing off on one of the jumps.

To successfully complete the race, each skier had to negotiate two jumps, then pass by the teddy bears and through a space formed by two Santa Clauses before crossing the finish line. The DH showed off a bit too much with his jumps and came in third place with 42 seconds.

The DH with TV presenters and his prize – an electric hot plate

What he could have won – a 32″ TV!

The TV Presenter at the bottom of the hill – he LURVED the foreign boys!!

So we didn’t win a TV or a chance to win the car – we had a blast just mingling with the crowds, joking with the TV presenter (who seriously loved the boys), seeing the cave and being part of something. We posed for pictures with tons of people, got interviewed for TV and spoke broken Chinese with anyone in earshot. I’d say that was a successful day.

And no broken bones or serious bruises, either.

You can see all the pics of the day here.

Let me just start by saying the DH ate dog meat on this trip. In his defense, it was cold and he was competing in a timed downhill ski competition.* Maybe he needed the strength. Maybe he’s just cruel and unjust. Everyone else at the table (a mix of Western Expats and Chinese) seemed to enjoy it as well, though, so maybe I’m the weird one.

*Not like it was Olympic caliber or anything…

Now that the dog treachery is out of the way, it is time to tell you about our day trip out of Linyi and north into the countryside, to Yi Shui County 沂水. The trip was arranged by our friend Julia. Julia owns a bar/café in Linyi, La Rive Gauche or 巴黎左岸 (ba li zuo an), and thanks to her appreciation of Western holidays and penchant for throwing parties (Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s), her bar has become a serious contender in the long list** of local expat hangouts. (**Also on the list: McDonald’s and … Yeah, that’s about it.) Julia’s main aim in arranging the trip was to have a team compete on behalf of her bar in a downhill skiing speed competition. Despite the fact that it is cold and sometimes snowy here in Shandong Province, we were all a bit surprised that downhill skiing is even possible. Having now visited one of Shandong’s ski “resorts”, I am here to report that, yes, skiing here is possible. (And this is not the only one – turns out there are small ski hills all over Shandong!)

Ski hill in Yi Shui County, Shandong Province (sorry for the bum shot)

In addition to the winter ski hill, the area is well known for a cave, or natural underground gallery, as it is translated from the Chinese. Natural scenic hotspots in China tend to have an amusement park feel to them, with giant cartoon statues, crazy colors, long rows of souvenir booths, food stands and people everywhere. The cave at Yuan Dong Tou Xiang 院东头乡, the village in Yi Shui County where we were, has none of that. It is all nature. (Or so we thought, but more on that as you read…)

Cave entrance – in the center of the photo

The visit begins with a short walk up and down a specially-built staircase, which has been constructed of natural-appearing materials instead of glaring gray concrete and which also blends in well to the sides of the small ravine. All natural! No billboards advertising milk or sportswear, no food vendors, no people milling about. We were lucky to have a clear, sunny day. It was truly peaceful and relaxing. Just look at that sky!

View down the small valley

Chinese people like to take pictures in front of scenic hotspots or statues or buildings or whatever. They figure if you or your family are not in the photo, you weren’t really there. (Or so I imagine.) I didn’t want to be not there:

Moi, posing in front of small waterfall

I have been to a few caves over the years, including Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, which I remember being pretty spectacular. Even so, I am not jaded. I was impressed by this cave in the middle of nowhere, China. Upon entering, you are hit by a wall of humidity and heat. Since it was pretty darn cold outside, this was a huge relief. I immediately removed my hat, gloves and scarf and opened up the two layers of my coat. The Chinese in our group were a little surprised, and stayed bundled up the whole time. That’s pretty common, though, so the fact that they weren’t also disrobing didn’t surprise me.

The first part of the cave has been enlarged, both width and height-wise, so it didn’t feel claustrophobic at all. The walkway, constructed out of the same material as the exterior stairs, some kind of stained concrete I think, meanders along the small stream that created the cave. Ropes of lights have been attached to the sides of the walkway at foot level. At first I thought this was a little tacky, but the further we walked the more they made sense. More than once I discovered a step or a gap in the path because of the cleverly placed lights. Good thinking on that. Further inside, the cave is in its natural state, with narrower walls and a wide variety of cave-things, like waterfalls, stalactites, stalagmites, columns and funny structures resembling birds and phalluses, you know, normal cave stuff. (There was more than just a little juvenile giggling at times.)

If you’ve ever been in a cave with a camera you know it is generally very difficult to get good photos. (Unless you’re a photographer!) There were lots of interesting structures in this cave that I would have liked to photograph, (no, not phalluses) but due to my inferior skills, I didn’t even try. The DH did get a few good shots, however, so you can imagine what this particular cave looked like. The DH insists I add a disclaimer here stating that the cave may or may not be as “interesting” as these photos let on. I will repeat my initial opinion that it’s a good cave, as caves go.

Really, the only difference between a Chinese cave and an American one is that the Chinese think up far more esoteric names for all the structures inside. (Resting Lotus Hall, Sharp Teeth of Sun Dragon, Moonbeam Pagoda, etc.)

Walkway with lights – dreamy & trippy

Towards the end of the cave is where it all starts to go downhill. Kind of literally. After a nice walk through the cave, maybe 15 minutes long, the temperature started to drop. I figured we were coming to the end and so I zipped up my coat and replaced my hat, gloves and scarf. We were not, in fact, at the end of the cave. We were at the end of the walking portion of the cave, but there was more fun to come. Fun, fun, fun. And I do mean in that most sarcastic way possible! Up ahead, imagine my surprise to see not an exit, but a large room and a concrete channel filled with water and small rubber canoes waiting for occupants. What the?! Remember how I said that Chinese nature hotspots tend to have amusement park qualities? Well, here it was, a demon water canoe slide from hell. It didn’t start out that way, of course. No, it started out as a gentle ride through yet more interesting cave, the speed of the water building up more and more until we eventually hit rapids, 90 degree angle turns and, I kid you not, concrete bumps in the canal meant to send us flying through the air, landing with a thud and splash back in the channel. Freezing cold water spewed everywhere, soaking the DH’s butt. (Mine was mildly protected by my coat.) I was so perturbed by the whole experience I couldn’t even get out of the raft at the end of the ride. An old Chinese dude had to hoist me out. (He was a really old Chinese dude, btw, with a long metal pipe hanging around his neck for smoking god knows what.) I bet that water slide is pretty fun in the Summer. In the Winter, not so much.

After the cave and demon water slide, we ate dog. Well, I didn’t, but someone I know did. Gross. Luckily, there were other dishes at lunch, too. I couldn’t bear to take a photo of the dog dish, and you’re probably thanking me for that, but I did stare at it in disbelief for several minutes and I’m pretty sure there was a tail on the plate. Okay…

Site of the dog eating

Now that my belly was full (vegetables, tofu and fish, thank you very much), and I had braved a visit to the loo, it was time to rent some skis and make a fool of myself. As if I wasn’t conspicuous enough as a foreign chic, I was going to attempt to ski after nine years… Meanwhile, all the Chinese in our group expected all of us Westerners to be Olympic class athletes… The Adventure in Yi Shui County will continue on Thursday with Part Two – Tales of the Slopes.

Here’s a question to lure you back – what substance does the Yi Shui County Ski Hill fail to put on their skis, leading to the miraculous ability to walk uphill with your skis on? Tune in Thursday!

Uygur man in night market area, Kashgar, Xinjiang Province, October 2009

The streets of Kashgar are chaos – motorbikes and taxis swerve among the pedestrians, kicking up dust. Food vendors call out to potential patrons. Kids run down the streets shouting with each other. Buses barrel down the wider avenues, honking at nearly everything. The occasional call to prayer broadcasts from the small mosques. Craftsmen hammer away at pots and pans. And in the middle of all of that sits this Uygur gentleman, oblivious to the movement and noise around him.

See more travel photos at Delicious Baby’s Photo Friday.

Do:

Drink a Starbucks eggnog latte (Just to try, then I’m back to my regular grande latte.)

Eat a chicken fried steak (One is all I need, but it must have gravy & mashed potatoes on the side.)

And while I’m at it, a Mexican dinner of some kind (Tacos, enchiladas, tamales, I’m not picky.)

Lounge in a hot bubble bath (We’ve got no bathtub in China!)

Spend an entire day in a bookstore (They’ve got books, coffee, muffins & armchairs, what more do I need?)

Indulge my bizarre food cravings: buttermilk, cottage cheese and V-8 (This stuff is just not available beyond the US & Canada. It’s a crime. A crying shame.)

Sing along to the Christmas songs playing at the mall and/or department store (This implies I will be shopping, which is a fully intentioned DO! I was tempted to add “and take a photo with Santa” but at my age I think that would be nothing less than creepy.)

Eat ice cream or similar delicious concoction daily (Yes, I said daily. Nothing wrong with this.)

Visit the local food museum. I think you call it a grocery store? (Don’t be embarrassed if I take photos.)

Enjoy fast, uncensored access to the Internetz (Without having to mess with a VPN connection.)

Don’t:

Watch any TV news or TV news channels (I’ll probably have some kind of convulsion if I do. I’ve spent the last year avoiding news and my life is so much better for it.)

Eat fast food (Though surely a Sonic product doesn’t count.)

Discuss anything politically-related. (I’m declaring a complete moratorium on politics! We all have the right to our opinions. Just please don’t share them with me. Here at Political Cynicism Central we prefer to talk about unicorns and rainbows and world peace. Thanks.)

Eat Chinese American Chinese food (It’s just not the same.)

Feel the need to purchase large quantities of high end beauty products (Sephora is temptation hell.)

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This post should publish on the 10th and by that time I will have been in the US for a few hours. Hopefully as you read this I will be sipping my eggnog latte!