Mongolia!!!!!!!!!! Part 2

Highlights Part 2!

The Hike through the 8 Lakes region (Naim Nuur)

We got to this region, and spent half a day wandering around the fields and hills around the Ger camp we slept at. Then we had a 4 day hike, (though it wasn't really 4 full days of walking), across these hills and terrain, that our driver couldn't go across, and he met us on the other side 4 days later.

This was our first experience of Airag... it all came about when shortly after we started walking we were hit by rain. Baga, our guide (who had a pack horse too- convenient!), took us into the first Ger we past to shelter and they served us tea and Airag! We had only been walking less than an hour and already we're drinking!
We left this Ger after a while, although the rain started to get heavier as soon as we left! Then it turned into Hail! We walked for about half an hour to an hour in the hail, getting very cold and wet, and then as soon as we got to another Ger all went inside looking very miserable. These people let us take off our saturated clothing and hang them near the stove, and we put on Dels- traditional Mongolian coats. We drank tea, had cheese and more Airag... and hung around for quite a while waiting for the hail to clear... which it eventually did!
The next Ger we came to we had to stop at because for some reason the horse was limping and Baga wanted to stop... so in we all piled to Ger number three and pretty soon we were being offered MORE Airag... we started to joke that it wasn't really a hike we were on, m0re like a Ger crawl!!!
Finally we got walking, over the hills which had snow on top, and down into a gorgeous valley, with the sun shining and a big blue lake surrounded by pine trees!
The second day was pretty much walking through these nice valleys, though the flies were awful! In the evening we stayed up late by the campfire, which was pretty nice. Baga was feeling unwell so we stopped quite early, near some Gers, although we decided to walk away and make our camp some distance from the Gers, while Baga got some TLC inside.
The third day we walked a long way, maybe 25k's who knows, by the time we made it we were running out of water so we asked to camp near a ger so we could drink tea from them. hey offered to make us dinner for a small price, and we agreed not realising that what we had agreed to was MARMOT!!!!!!!! Ai ai! Blowtorched Marmot is a summer speciality in Mongolia and everywhere you could see marmots running around from the van. It was not very nice in my opinion though Lenore and Liam managed to eat most of theirs, I couldn't really stomach mine, and mainly ate rice! The family were all drunk before we even arrived, I went to bed before we could get offered Airag! An drunken elderly man was making advances on me, all in all that family was a little strange compared to other families we visited...

The region was very green and pretty, we didn't see all the lakes, about 4 of them I think!

More Highlights

• Stopping in a town called Tseterleg and having a shower, and eating an English breakfast with bacon, sausage, eggs, bread and jam and pancakes in an English run cafe there. That was a special treat. We also stocked up on Cornish Pasties for the day, and cinnamon scrolls! Luxury!

• Terkhun Tsagaan Nuur: A huge lake in a national park, we spent two nights here. It was warm enough to swim in the lake, and we also went on a horseride to a volcanic crator. Terrain was pretty cool, rocks everywhere probably from the last time the volcano blew up!

Mongolia!!!!!!!!

So I didn't get much internet access in Mongolia (where I was from 2nd July- 31st July) but I did make some journal notes while I was away, which I now have time to write up a bit.. :)

Mongolia was, overall, amazing- we spent 26 days traversing the country in a Russian supervan, with a Mongolian driver who spoke no English, but did an excellent job taking us around. We, thankfully, weren't driving every day, and some days didn't have much driving to do, but we ended up covering over 2000km, on mostly dirt tracks (I'd say less than 80km was on bitumen!), from Ulaanbator, south through the Gobi, then north west up to the top of Mongolia, then south again to Olgii and over to the Altai region.

Highlights: Part One, the Southern section!

• 5/7/2008 Day One (after leaving Ulaan Bator): basically everything was exciting this day! The Sheep looked funny and had fat tails :), we saw lots of beautiful demoiselle crane (something I wasn't expexcting to see in Mongolia...but I don't know why as we saw cranes all over!), Gers were still somewhat of a novelty to see on the steppes but we quickly got used to them!, In the evening after we set up camp we experienced a brief but heavy rain storn, and a brief but heavy dust storm, both of which my virgin tent survived, though the wind did rather flatten it!

• Camels! (first spotted on the 6th) and then many times over, in many places on the trip.

• Visiting our driver, Amara,'s home and staying with his family. They made us feel very welcome, and we had our first of many drinking experiences- bowls (not shots!) of vodka were passed around! Later drinking experiences we weren'[t so lucky to get vodka, the alcohol of choice is Airag, which we saw them distilling in one of the Gers we stopped at. Airag is made from fermented horse milk, some of it was alright, and even a bit fruity, some of it was downright awful! Anwway I was very happy that night at Amara's house!

• Gobi desert, we went to the Upper part of the desert which still had a lot of life in it! Heaps of birds, and livestock, we stayed one night in a friend of Amara's Ger which was our first Ger experience and very fun. The colours of the desert were amazing- in one part there was an eroded ancient sea that made cool white cliffs and coloured sands in the desert!

• Gazelles (7/7)!!!!!!! Running fast! In the Gobi desert.

• Being served yoghurt in the Gers. When we arrived at a Ger we'd be given milky tea, cheese (very sharp and crumbly, and a bit sour, generally goats cheese but it all depended on what animals that family kept), this fried dough stuff that you dip in the tea, and either yoghurt or the butter/cream off the top of the milk. I liked the yogurt the best of the dairy products, the cheese was a bit of an aquired taste! ... we got to try Koormog- camel yoghurt one time and it was deliciou, the nicest yoghurt of them all!

• Nadaam festival, which we saw in a tiny town we passed through- we didn't see the whole thing, but watched the wrestling competition. ha ha, very cool! First the young boys wrestled, and then came the big shot.... dressed up in fancy red and blue knickers and waist coats (taht expose their chests to verify they are not women!)... they danced their way into the field waving their arms like birds. They don't have weight categories, so the wrestles were rather like david and goliath, as the challengers had to wrestle last years' champions.... The champions were huge and won all the matches we watched, some of the challengers looked positively scrawny in comparison but were actually quite beefy men.... Sumo wrestling is very popular in Mongolia and I now can see why they are good at it!

In solidarity

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manner of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

--John Donne

Chinese Punk

Spent the May Day weekend in Beijing- originally we hoped to go to the Midi Festival, a music festival with Chinese and international bands, but a week before it was cancelled... well actually postponed till October (after the Olympics) by authorities...for no particular reason other than 'security'. A shame as it would be really cool to go to a Chinese music festival!

Who would have thought that just a few days after returning to Jinan, we would discover the so called 'undergound' music scene happening here. From a friend of friend of friend we heard that a 'cool' Beijing band 'Brain Failure' was playing in a bar in Jinan, and thus in search of 'real' non- coreographed culture we went along.

It was really cool- both music and people wise. Discovered the hiding place of the trendies of Jinan, who were really getting into the music. The bar was not a huge one, filled to capacity although given this city has 5 million people I suppose it was relatively uncrowded...definitely not mainstream Chinese taste (which is quite sickly sweet pop) even though I have found out that the band is going to make an international tour some time, so they must have quite a following. Their music was really cool, I don't know if it was really punk or not, some of it was almost reggaeish... anyway... here's some of their lyrics, the song is Coming down to Beijing

How it's so funny, how it's so lovely
How it's so pretty, how it's so junky
All the shit's happening in this city
How did they build it, all the building
It could be survives, in one second
Leave for a week, can't find your home!

Welcoming down to the b.e.i.j.i.n.g.

What you gonna do, what you gonna listen
What you gonna search, what you gonna check
Buy a DVD, back your home drink Coca-Cola on your bed!
Hey, baby you come on in July and December
It's not the good time for real human being
Hey baby you can light your
Phoenix cigarettes in the toilet

Welcoming down to the b.e.i.j.i.n.g.

Anyway, in other news I am still well- had a great trip to Beijing- went to see some art, shopping, ate some alternative food like Thai, mexican, burgers, (now I'm back on the rice :P ), experienced the nightlife a little, ..... now I'm back, studies coming along, playing a bit a mah jong in the afternoons these days, time flying by, Alex has booked tickets to come to China for 13th June which will creep up in no time!

If you get on facebook you should be able to see some photos' of the 80's birthday party Portia had, just before we went to Beijing. It was fantastic! Costumes were so easy to come by as all the fashion is 80's here anyway, and as clothes are so cheap in the markets everyone got really into it. We went to a restaurant all dressed up, we hope people realised we were dressed up as we looked pretty ridiculous! Then afterwards we took a heap of 80's playlists to Languifang, a kind of cool kind of lame bar mainly frequented by ...well us...and got the DJ there to play our stuff... which was pretty fun. It's the sort of thing you could never do back home, but here we can have our very own 80's danceclub. :)

Also it is now getting warmer here- last week was all hot days, although today it's only 22 again. Funny though, the Chinese people I see wear so many clothes for a 30 degree day. I seems no one wears shorts and skirts, and when I looked around on the streets heaps of people still had two layers on, with long sleeves. It's was only April, but 30 degrees in 30 degrees!

Lost in the misty lovely Lushan

My lapse is correspondance, oh faithful and complaining readers, can be attributed to me having a good, busy time here in China. Classes, eating, gym, mahjong, excursions, friends, long distance boyfriend :), did I say eating..., seem to take up so much of my time. It has been 3 weeks since I spent a weekend in Jinan!

I feel I should blog in chronological order, but so many things have gone by now that I'll never get it in order! So I will start from today :).

At the moment I am on a bit of an adventure in "the South". Finding myself with a week (practically- if I skipped two days of class) free o travel, I arranged with Portia and Olivia to travel around Jiangxi for a bit. It's day 5 of a 9 day trip, and we are now down to two people. We got to know Nanchang, the capital of Jianxi and our port of arrival, better than expected, especially the Number One People's Hospital, as poor Olivia was really sick, in the end she was diagnosed with pneumonia and flew to Beijing (being unable to get train or plane tickets back to Jinan) to get treated. From what we're hearing, she's in a practically luxurious hospital where all the nurses speak english, and hopefully getting better- I think it's much better for her there than traipsing round the wet province of Jiangxi.

Ironically, our plan was to come south and get some warmth, but it's colder here than in Jinan- mostly due to the wetness I think.
There were alot of (medical, culinary, wierd Nationalistic frenzy...) adventures in Nanchang, but first today... When we finally left Nanchang (yesterday), we arrived in Lushan, a mountainous national park area, which is certainly an escape from the usual China. I can breathe again!!!!

We found a lovely sweet homestead- a restaurant with some rooms up top to stay in, which didn't break the budget. We went in there when it was pouring with rain, and they were a but wary to take us in, as they weren't authorised to take foreigners, but we put our poor student faces on and they let us stay. If anyone asks we are eating in the restaurant :). We went out walking in the afternoon, it wa so good to be in nature again! There are lots of pine, bamboo, sort of forests around here. The town itself has an English quaintness and was built in the colonial era as a summer retreat from the heat. It's all cobbley, and higgledy piggledy stone houses with forest and clear running streams.

We went walking up a random path into the woods and ran into a village woman, who was amazed and delighted that we could speak chinese. She asked if we were married (no), then how old are you (21-portia), that's still young, (24- me), then you can get married!, How many children can you have in your country ("Suibian sheng"= whatever/ as you like), that's great, you should get married quickly then and have babies! We were in hysterics at this- she had such a straight forward pushy mannor to her, her first words to us were something along the lines of "What the hell are you doing walking up here- there's nothing to see!"

Last night we went to see "Love in Lushan", a Chinese classic of 1980- although the graphics looked more 1950's to us! It had the guniness world record for screening the continuously since it was released in one cinema- the cute one here in the town. We took a bottle of red wine and had night out at the movies. Ahhh, warning: the next paragraph is a semi-literary analysis for you, :)...it was quite enjoyable and interesting actually(if you take a poltical perspective). I could understand mos tof the chinese! It was about a chinese american woman, whose parents were in Nationalist army and fled China, who returns to Lushan, their home, and falls in love with a good simple local boy, whose mother lives on the mountain, and father is a general. The modern American woman is the pursuer, the Chinese man is the innocent, oblivious one. She teaches him how to pronounce, in english, "I love my Motherland, I love the morning of my motherland", and she falls in love with the motherland too. In the end it turns out their fathers were friends that fought eachother as they joined separate parties. Very 1980's politics about all Chinese being welcome in the motherland now, and China developing- in one scene the man had drawn a sketch of the scenery, and inserted a town where there was none, imagining the development of the future- this part of the film had us in hysterics.

Today was another big adventure in the woods, we decided to walk to this waterfall "San Die Quan". Our guesthouse owners said it was impossible, and not "fun", but since we got here- in the drizzly weather everyone kept saying going into the woods was "not fun". We have raincoats, waterproof shoes, and so far it had all been fun! We started walking, and stopped in the village to ask directions for the start of the path, "no no no, you can't walk to there, you won't be able to find the way, take a taxi...", and another time with the same result....but on the map there was a path so we started following a path into the forest which seemed to fit with the map.

Gosh it seemed no one wanted us to go for a walk!

We walked for quite a while and ended up on this path going along a ridge. We had very little visability, being stuck in a bit of a cloud. The further we walked the worse the paths became, blocked by trees, bushes, all the bushes were wet from the cloud condensing around us, and pretty soon we were heaps wet too from pushing past them, climbing thrugh them, basically bush bashing, although we sort of thought we were still on a path to the waterfall.
The further we walked (and wetter we became), the less convinced we were that we were on a path, and more that we were imagining gaps in the trees and bushes etc. I thought it would be impossible to get lost in the wilderness in China, but I think today, if at one point we didn't admit defeat and turn back, we could have. Later we saw the ridge the direction we were walking in and laughed, we were just bashing about in the middle of nowhere!
Turning back we found a path we thought went to "another place".... by this stage I had managed to loose both the map and an expensive jumper :( still up there somewhere on that rige with no path...when I realised it was missing we were already heading back, and a bit worried about being lost, (cold and wet) and the time...Breathed some Zen breaths and concentrated on finding civilisation.
We decided the path to this "other place" seemed to actually be a path and would be more interesting than walking back the way we'd came. Eventually we did find civilisation- a paved path that was going to the waterfall!! (and not the other place afterall!). We entered the "waterfall scenic spot" and started walking, down down down, we descended several hundred meters of steps before we reached the waterfall... (by the way all this was beautiful, as were the cliffs we could have fallen off if we'd tried to descend from the ridge with no path!)...we could see the steps kept going after the waterfall, and so we decided to keep going down, as we heard there wa a carpark at the bottom too. A few people told us not to go that way, go back up, but, we thought, they just didn't want us to have fun, afterall they were going down, why shouldn't we... down down down we went...there was certainly no going back up now...down down down...my knees were trembling, I reckon we went down 1000m in total.
These locals who worked in the scenic area started to scare us- you have to go back up, there's no way back to Guling from the bottom, we're at the bottom of the mountain and if you take a car back it's 200Y, and you'll have to buy a 180 entrance ticket.... ai ai ai
We had walked so far down these stairs in a crevice in the mountain that we'd walked completely to the bottom of the mountain. There was civilisation at the bottom, but no where near the town where our luggage was! Indeed the drive back to the top took over an hour and was 40km as we had to go to the non steep side to get back up. Luckily some lovely people helped us, making some side earnings for the day themselves of course, and we finally made it back to Guling for dinner (mmm yummy homey noodle soup)!
We reported to our guesthouse owners that we did indeed make it too the waterfall on foot, the path was indeed hard to follow, and by the end of the day we had 'walked off' the mountains- which only took an hour to do but would probably take a night to undo!

Lesson 1 of the day: Listen to Chinese people!
Lesson 2 of the day: If we had listened none of this would have happened...and life would have been much more boring :).

Shanda Life

OK, so it's well and truly time to report to the masses how I am going in Jinan! I guess my first impressions and first few days were not that brilliant- perhaps I was suffering from new-place-homesickness, Mummy leaving me behind at a strange school, waa waa ;), but you should be relieved to hear that all that disappeared quite quickly and I am thoroughly enjoying the campus life here!
It's amazing the difference having friends in your life makes! ;)
So the major news: I have been contributing to the Chinese economy with a spending frenzy! I got a Laptop- so I can access the internet, watch pirates, arr me hearty!, and listen to music in my room! I also got a bike, so I can die in the Jinan streets, oh yeah, and so I get around the city..., A mobile phone- as my handset turned out to be locked to bloody optus..., a heap of books, dictionary, bowl, mugs, thermos, knife (to replace the one that got confiscated when I tried to take it on a flight..whoops ;) ),.....yeah that is Chinese life- buy buy buy!

My classes are quite good- I start at 8am every day, which is taking some getting used to, but the discovery of ground coffee in Jinan is making that easier! I'm in Upper Intermediate for everything...seems like I will never make it to Gaoji! (the advanced class)... but as long as I am learning stuff!
Most people live in the dormitories- of which there are three buildings, which house quite a lot of students. One building only has Koreans I think- there are hundreds here! I think I will be picking up a few Korean words along the way here and there! So there is a real dormitory lifestyle here- everyone knocking on people's doors, one you know some people, you meet more people, and now it's almost hard to find a moment alone!
My wai-guo (foreigner) friends meet for lunch everyday at 12, and dinner at 7. Dinner always ends up taking ages, but both meals are highlights of the day so far! Lunch is usually street food, and man it is soooo good, I will have to take a camera down that street some time to show you! A lot of the food is not what you typically imagine as Chinese food...Mmm, I am already adicted to these 'Jianbing'- a type of crepe made from millet,5grain,peanut flour or purple flour (don't ask me what it is!). They crack an egg on top, and then rollit up with this crunchy fried stuff, lettuce, chilli and beany sauce. Mmm, yumm- I have been eating it with lettuce even though this is probably not reccomended! The good ol' belly is holding up so far though!

There is a nightlife culture on the weekends...find me on facebook to see the pictures...This bar where lots of the Koreans and International students go where they play some good music- the Middle Eastern guys bring some music to play which beats Chinese pop! It's nice to have people- Asians, Middle Eastern, Europeans, Africans, and some Aussies too, all hanging out together! It really does cover every continent except perhaps South America- there is one Peruvian I know...but in general there are very few (North/South) Americans at all..Well there are some Canadians, but I've only met one American..which is surprising I think...given the place is crawling with Dutch people (All Leiden Uni) instead! (Pretty cool for me, maybe I will improve my Dutch by the end)

I have also found a Mahjong crowd, yay! Lenore, a girl from Canada, bought a set, but no one knew how to play..Now I have taught some people, and they like it, we can play more often!

So, to put it the Chinese way, my life here is pretty Rich with Many Colours (丰富多彩）。I miss my friends, but I am making some good friends here that make being away easier! Something I quite miss are my Saturday mornings in Croydon House, (or whatever house :)), having brunch and coffee, doing the Quiz and reading the paper... But I am already able to make a long list of the things I'll miss from here when I leave!

Shanghai Shanghai

Well, I have left Shanghai now, but this is a bit more about our adventures in Shanghai...

Some parts managed to charm us, especially the French concession, a large district where the French built their mansions, houses and apartment blocks and other buildings the community needed. Wandering around there it almost felt we'd arrived in another country! The (1900-30's) European architecture felt oddly familiar, there were Indian restaurants, French cafes, Irish bars...More like Sydney than China! We enjoyed going into one cafe 'Paul's' where the pastries and tarts were delicious and better than what you find at the average bakery at home. Half the patrons seemed to be speaking French!
It was a strange mix of cultures- a couple of Russian Orthodox Churches with their meringue roofs, upperclass Chinese boutiques, restaurants and expat hangouts. Communism mummified the area, rather than destroyed it, so now it is has a historical feel (especially in comparison to Pudong across the river!) and has been gentrified. This is hopefully the way it will survive!

The worst part of our visit to Shanghai was, for me, the annoying and sinister people approaching us to 'make friends', They chat for a while, then ask if you want to go to a tea ceremony (which after you go and enjoy some teas, ends up costing hundreds of dollars- we heard of people charged over 9000Y, which is 1500 Au dollars). We had been warned of the scam, so common is it that it is even on the DFAT website for China. People must still get tricked though, as the numbers of people trying to do this was unbelievable. In one square- near the museum and art gallery, we were approached about half a dozen times, although by the end we were cutting them off before they could try- and warning them we knew what they were doing. It was obvious that they weren't simply people who were friendly and wanted to practise their English (-and there are plenty of nice people like this in China!).
It was just horibble watching tourists come out of the museum and seeing these sweet seeming students who wait near the entrance come up and start talking to them- why do they use their English skills for such mean intent!

Anyway, still plenty of nice people in Shanghai! I met up with Xiongyin, a friend whose studying at Sydney Uni, and we went around to a few places together. It was nice to see a familiar face!

One of the highlights (excuse the pun ;) ) was Jinmao tower- the tallest (although soon to be overtaken by the building in progress next door) in China, and has the highest bar in the world. We went up at duskish time- saw the sunset, and the city getting dark. Truly got a different perspective on things! From the cosy lounge, sipping cocktails, the world down below of tourist touts, crowded buses and unruly drivers seemed almost an illusion...we could see it all, yet couldn't see it at all! It was quite dizzying being so high, although the view would be improved by better air quality. It was a relatively clear day but I think the height of the tower puts the top bit in the smog layer. One drink was all we could afford up there, and so after finishing two bowls of the free peanuts :), we descended into the real world- exiting on foot rather than the conventional taxi (the building housed the Hyatt from the 57th-87th floors) to take a ferry back over the river to the Bund.