Best Weekend Ever! - Xianxi Changes Dan's Life
OK, this was literally the best weekend ever. I am going to write a short version (to tease you) and a long version to raise your consciousness per request only! First, couple of notes to keep in mind:1) The total cost of this weekend (including flights, hotel, trains, food, horses, etc.) was about US$100
2) I'm writing this while in the WIFI raggae bar in Beijing
3) I may have permanent lung damage from the amount of smog I ingested this weekend
4) Our group consisted of 9 people: 6 guys and 3 girls ranging in height from 5'3 ABC to 6'5 blond white football player. For once I wasn't the oldest, as Sandra the organizer was 29!
OK, so here is the "short rundown" of my weekend:
HIGHLIGHTS (I think I have pictures for each of these...will post soon)
1) Receiving a private performance by a troup of drummer/acrobat schoolkids in Pingyao
2) Impromptu horseback trip to one of the 5 terraces of Wutaishan (my horse had extreme gas...video available on request!)
3) The monks we came to Wutaishan wanted to take pictures of us!
4) Being told that we were the first americans that many people had ever met
5) Whenever we stood in a group for more than 5 minutes a group of chinese people would gather around us and stare
6) "American Style Breakfast" in Wutaishan - We were their first americans!
7) Catherine carrying a birthday cake around for 6 hours. Whose birthday? Nobody in particular. Cake was good though.
8) Drinking beer and bai jiu in a van at 8am after an 8 hour overnight train ride
9 ) Seeing a river that was literally BLACK
10) Fitting 50 people into a bus with 10 rows...we were in the seats, but the chinese dudes had to stand!
SHORT RUNDOWN
Thursday Night - Caught a "hard sleeper" train from Beijing to Datong leaving at 11pm
Friday:
7am - Arrive in Datong, negotiate with van driver to take us to Northern Wei Caves, Hanging Monestary, and Wutaishan
7:30am - Eat delicious noodles that we convinced the driver to buy for us!
8am - Visit 2000 year old buddhist cave temples in the middle of coal mining mecca. Couple swigs of beer and baijiu in the car...
11am - Visit hanging monestary, which is literally built into the side of a cliff! Its amazing what women will do in high heels.
1am - Drive through landscape more bleak than Mordor in which we saw a million shades of brown. Did I mention that its like 30 degrees out?
3pm - Arrive at massive wooden pagoda built with NO NAILs (1000 years old) surrounded by miles of mud-hut houses in the sea of brown. FYI, this is China's most polluted province
5pm - Depart for Wutaishan
8pm - Get ripped off by toll station, arrive in freezing Wutaishan to deflect attempted ripoff by hotel. In the end we got them down from 30 kuai per night per person (US$3.75) to 17 kuai per night per person ($2.125).
9pm - Wander freezing cold dark streets of tiny buddhist temple town looking for food. End up drinking bitter melon beer and enjoying delightful dinner!
Saturday
8am - Wake up, head to breakfast at the same place, where they promised us "American Style Breakfast". In reality, breakfast (for five of us, all dudes) consisted of two plates of scrambled eggs on tomato (??), 15 loaves of fluffy Chinese poundcake, and several jars of jam. When we asked for some fruit to put on the pound cake the night before, they literally ran to the corner store and bought 6 jars of jam!
10am - Headed to giant buddhist temples (Wutaishan is one of the holy mountains) where we were more of a spectacle than the monks. We wanted to see the giant 12 meter-long scroll written in blood, but it was closed that day.
Noon - Decided to climb to one of the mountain temples, but passed by a herd of horses and their riders. We bargained them down to US$7.5 per person to take the horses to the temple and back. My horse apparently ate a lot of broccoli and beans before the trip, as she was releasing gas like nobody's business!
1:30 - We run to the local vendor to buy hand-made Shan Bing (literally made by the dirtiest woman in China without gloves or spatula!) and fried nooddles. We pile into our bus, which continues to fill. I'm sure the bus was meant to seat about 25 people, but somehow they crammed about 35 into it, with people standing in the aisles or busting out little stools.
This trip continued until about 7pm, over the course of which we made about 75 stops, each bringing more people. It was like a clown bus, and I had to pee bad! We also made friends with the girls sitting next to us, who enjoyed reading out chinese character flashcards. We tried to stump them, but they knew every character!
7pm - Arrive in Tai Yuan, snag a sweet hotel (we had our own bath!) and head out for delicious dinner!
SATURDAY
8:30am - Hard seat train to Ping Yao, which is this old chinese walled city. The buildings are beautiful and old, but their contents are the usual tourist crap and expensive "western priced" restaurants, although I don't think this place has seen any western tourists in since last August.
10:30am - Purchase return tickets only to realize that they are for "standing" (ie. no seat).
11:am - Enter the walled city and immediately purchase copious amounts of delicious northern style xiao lum bao....mmmmm....like a cross between a dumpling and a bun.....mmmm.....
11:30 - Sam decided to walk into one of the courtyards and play ping pong with some high school kids. Their teacher walks in, introduces herself and explains that we're in a school for performers. She takes us downstairs where we 8 or 10 of them practicing on drums. 5 minutes later 90 other kids (including the ping pong kids) come into the basement and we're told they're going to give us a dress rehearsal. Bear in mind that this is Sunday, their day off! So we are treated to an AWESOME drum and dance performance, including kids doing flips and acrobatics!! At the end we clapped for them then THEY CLAPPED FOR US! Awesome awesome awesome.
We ended up wandering around the walled city for a couple of hours exploring all the tourist crap and eventually buying the kids a big cake to thank them. Catherine bought us a cake too (she had some serious cake cravings) which she carried around for the next several hours.
3 - 4:30 - Standing in train back to TaiYuan. People asked to take pictures with us.
5pm - McDonalds break. I felt really guilty, but my friends really wanted it, and a chocolate shake has never tasted so good!
6pm - Cab ride to airport. 70 kuai ($8.75)!!! We got totally ripped of!!
8pm - Flight to Beijing
10pm - Arrive at home and collapse
Yes, it was an insane weekend, including hanging monestary, coal mines, a black river of soot, child acrobats, monks on cell phones, horseback treks to secluded mountain temples, a city of dirt, and of course bitter melon beer. This may have been the best weekend ever. It also may have been the most ridiculous. Stay tuned for my "Top 10 Most Ridiculous Incidents" list that I'm working on. Pictures to come.
