A few weekends ago my Sacred Texts class accompanied the Buddhist class to a Buddhist retreat house. The monk who ran the house was a successful in business and then decided to trade that in to become a monk. With his money from business he bought the side of a mountain and built a retreat house that not many people know about. Our teacher is friends with the monk so we were allowed to go for a visit. During the visit the monk taught us different styles of meditation and we got to see how his style of living. The place was beautiful because it was so peaceful and quite. We were on the retreat for about two hours total.
The next set of pictures are from Drink ball, a game that I had never heard of until just the other day. The object of the games is to throw a ping pong ball at your opponents’ bottle. Once the ball hits the bottle your teammate has to drink your beer as quick as he can until the opposing team finds the ball and hits the table with it. You alternate throwing and teams until the first team finished their beer. As you can imagine this got really intense and slippery because 4 bottles fell and broke. I’ll let the pictures do the rest of the talking.
The last two pictures are from this past Friday night when we went to the Armin Van Buuren rave at the GT Banana. Armin is apparently one of the top 5 djs in the world and the GT Banana had a ton of people there to prove it. In preparation for this event we decided to go to the store and buy some rave outfits. Unfortunately these are only pictures of our outfits and not of the rave itself. There is a link to a video on Youtube than can explain it better.
http://picasaweb.google.com/Jim.Lechleitner/FallSemester08?authkey=JlGuPpPdzgM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rg400XV06m0
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Guilin
Guanxi Province is home to Guilin and is in southern China. This province boarders Vietnam and is where New Orleans or Texas would be in the states. Guilin is a touristy place because of its famous rice terraced fields and outdoor activities. We spent a week there from Oct. 27th to Nov 2nd.
We left of Guilin on a 22hr train ride that was really relaxing and didn’t seem that long at all. (I guess I am used to an overnight train thing by now). Once we arrived in Guilin we took a bus straight to Yao Hill. There we took a cable-car up and decended by tabaggon. The view was amazing from the top and we got a first glimpse of what the limestone formations looked liked. That night for dinner we went to Zhengyang Street and got some seafood for dinner. At the restaurant we were given an English menu and ordered dinner from that, but a couple of beers later we decided to order more food and were given a Chinese menu with the same food for less money. We argued in Chinese and made the waitress change all of the prices on our bill because they were trying to rip us off.
The next day we checked out of the hotel and took a 2hr bus ride to Yanshou another town in the province. There we got on a cruse of Li River which was another spectacular sight. One of the scenic points we floated by is on the back of the 20kuai bill. We took a bamboo boat and the cruse lasted for two hours. After that we got some dinner and went to a water show that was produced and directed by the guy that choreographed the Olympics opening ceremony. I initially thought it was going to be fireworks and lights, but instead it was more of a play with over 600 performers on the water. The highlight was the finally in which hundreds of girls dressed in outfits that lit up and did a light show to music. ( I have a video of it in the link).
Day three and four we had the option to pick between three options. Either we could: A) Bike to Moon Hill and Water Cave, B) Hike the countryside and Kayak, or C) Cook and Raft down the Yulong River. We decided to choose options A&C. First we did Cooking and Rafting, which was a blast. In our cooking class we were taught how to make dumplings, kung pao chicken, beer fish, and traditional noodles. (Don’t worry I have the recipe). The kitchen that we cooked at was our guides’ outside terrace. He had been a cook for many years and decided to switch professions, so he turned his house into a cooking classroom. From there we got back on the bus and went to the river. This was one of the highlights for me on the trip because it was nonstop laughing the whole time. We were allowed two to a raft and got water guns and had an all out war on the river. We threw everything from seaweed to mud to water at each other and had a beer to cap it off.
The next day was option A, Biking to Moon hill and the Mud Cave. I decided to rent a scooter that went about 50km/hr instead of biking because I have a bike here at school and I haven’t been on a scooter yet. So we biked about an hour and a half to lunch and climbed a ton of stair to moon hill while our food was cooking. But on the way up we ran into women selling water who decided up follow us up in case we wanted to buy water at the top. These women were easily in there 50’s and were local farmers that sell water one day a week. They followed us all the way up a gigantic hill or small mountain, I can’t decide, with a case of water on a strap. This hike up easily took a good 20min and was all stairs. The funny part about it was that these women beat a majority of our group up the hill/mountain.
From lunch we ended up riding about 15mins to the caves, and got into the proper attire for the mud. We explored the caves for what seemed like an hour and topped it off by crawling through this little hole was I could barley fit in. From there we descended into the cave further and submerged into the mud. The mud was so thick that it felt like I was walking though knee deep seaweed when it was just really thick mud. We got in a couple of mud fights and floated around for a while before we cleaned off and rode back to the hotel.
The next day we had to get a night bag ready because we were going up into the mountains to stay at this small village and meet kids at the schools there. We took a 4hr drive to Longsheng County and then had to switch to a smaller bus halfway through because our bus was too big to get on the road. There we even times on the road when our bus was about 6inches from the edge, a little scary. We finally got to the village and took a two hour hike to what felt like the shire from lord of the rings. At the school we met the kids and played with them for about an hour or so. We gave them the gifts that we had brought and talked to some of the parents and teachers. One kid brought a soccer ball and the kids had a blast kicking it around and trying to play basketball. After about an hour the kids had to head home because it was Friday and some of them live two hours walk away. So we said our good-bye’s and were about to leave when we saw this little boy with his arms full of toys not smiling. You could see he was visibly upset for whatever reason and he was just standing there staring at the ground. I went over there to see if I could cheer him up, but nothing I did managed to make him even crack a smile. One of our tour guides come over to help translate and told me that the boy was probably overwhelmed because we are so foreign. She said that it was a lot for him to take in at one and that we look like aliens to him. But to me when I was squatting there trying to cheer him up, for a second I felt like I understood all the problems in the world looking at this boy. It was as if he was trying to tell me all the problems facing Chinese culture with westernization. (corny, I know, but hang in there) Nothing I seemed to do would work and it was time to go, so I had to leave him there staring at the ground upset. But I feel like I got a better understanding of what westernization really means to the cultural identity of China or any other nation going through the same process.
As soon as I left the boy I ran into this older man who was about up to my shoulder, and smoking a cigarette with a wooden cane and some raggedy clothes. I walked down the steps and we made eye contact so I went over to him and asked him his name. With a big smile he told me a name that started with a P, Ping maybe, I couldn’t really understand him. I then told him my name, and he quickly help up three fingers to tell me that he was 83. The difference between this old mad the little boy made me think about the way china perceives westerners and particularly Americans. How the culture is changing and way different generations embrace change while other disregard it. The amazing thing about this man is that he has seen it all in China. He has lived through the great famine, Mao, Japanese acquisition, a world war, and most recently the Olympics. I wish I could have talked to him more.
After our excursion to this little school town we walked back to our other little building cluster and got some dinner. There we were swarmed by these women know for their extremely long hair, that wanted to sell us scarves. I bought an orange one. Later that night we went to a barn fire at the school in our building cluster, and got to see the kid’s classrooms. It was kind of disheartening because I couldn’t really read the little boys fourth grade Chinese text, but I new what they were talking about. We also got to see the women with the really long hair take out their weave and their hair almost touched the ground. They sang us a traditional song while we watched them comb their hair.
After that we hit the sack and woke up the next morning to find out that our trip to the rice terraces was cancelled due to rain. I was kind of upset, but rationalized it because I got to go on that amazing walk the day before. At around 11am we walked back to the small bus that took us to the large bus and drove back into town. We got some lunch at a restaurant that sold more dog and horse meat that anything else and went to our final stop. We took the bus from this town area up another mountain to this hop spring resort. The only difficult thing was that this road was unpaved and we had had a ton of rain all day and night, so the conditions were bad to say the least. After a gut-wrenching 3 hour bus ride we made it to the hotel. The first thing we did was go to the hot spring that had about 7 or 8 different Jacuzzis. They even had a special Jacuzzi that had fish that would eat the dead skin off your body for 80 kuai, I didn’t go in that one. Although I did go in the herbal medicine one that had huge tea bags floating in it at about 100 degrees. We hopped around from Jacuzzi to Jacuzzi for about an hour and topped it off with a dive in the cooler pool and went back to take a shower and nap. We ate dinner that night in the hotel itself and took it easy. The next morning we packed our stuff up and got back on the bus for another treacherous ride. This time I wised up and sat on the side furthest from the cliff so I couldn’t see how close we were to the side, and ps it had been raining all night long again so the roads were even worse. We ended up getting to the airport in just a couple of hours and back to our campus in Beijing no later than 4:30pm.
All in all I had a great trip that was quite different from the Silk Road trip. I found this trip to be more enjoyable because we didn’t go see a bunch of museums and got to see the nature the China has to offer. Activities like cooking and biking defiantly made the trip worth it and more memorable. I also got a feeling for the differences between northern china and southern china, besides the obvious accents and food. There is more of a sense of “untouched” china, meaning that the people are just beginning to get the sense of westernization. I got to see what I have read about all semester, that the development is concentrated on the costal cities, while the rest of china is trying to catch up. This is a problem that China is going to have to fix or the disparity of income and social classes is going to expand even more and hurt the country further.
http://picasaweb.google.com/Jim.Lechleitner/MudDiving?authkey=-TJskvPFMyw
We left of Guilin on a 22hr train ride that was really relaxing and didn’t seem that long at all. (I guess I am used to an overnight train thing by now). Once we arrived in Guilin we took a bus straight to Yao Hill. There we took a cable-car up and decended by tabaggon. The view was amazing from the top and we got a first glimpse of what the limestone formations looked liked. That night for dinner we went to Zhengyang Street and got some seafood for dinner. At the restaurant we were given an English menu and ordered dinner from that, but a couple of beers later we decided to order more food and were given a Chinese menu with the same food for less money. We argued in Chinese and made the waitress change all of the prices on our bill because they were trying to rip us off.
The next day we checked out of the hotel and took a 2hr bus ride to Yanshou another town in the province. There we got on a cruse of Li River which was another spectacular sight. One of the scenic points we floated by is on the back of the 20kuai bill. We took a bamboo boat and the cruse lasted for two hours. After that we got some dinner and went to a water show that was produced and directed by the guy that choreographed the Olympics opening ceremony. I initially thought it was going to be fireworks and lights, but instead it was more of a play with over 600 performers on the water. The highlight was the finally in which hundreds of girls dressed in outfits that lit up and did a light show to music. ( I have a video of it in the link).
Day three and four we had the option to pick between three options. Either we could: A) Bike to Moon Hill and Water Cave, B) Hike the countryside and Kayak, or C) Cook and Raft down the Yulong River. We decided to choose options A&C. First we did Cooking and Rafting, which was a blast. In our cooking class we were taught how to make dumplings, kung pao chicken, beer fish, and traditional noodles. (Don’t worry I have the recipe). The kitchen that we cooked at was our guides’ outside terrace. He had been a cook for many years and decided to switch professions, so he turned his house into a cooking classroom. From there we got back on the bus and went to the river. This was one of the highlights for me on the trip because it was nonstop laughing the whole time. We were allowed two to a raft and got water guns and had an all out war on the river. We threw everything from seaweed to mud to water at each other and had a beer to cap it off.
The next day was option A, Biking to Moon hill and the Mud Cave. I decided to rent a scooter that went about 50km/hr instead of biking because I have a bike here at school and I haven’t been on a scooter yet. So we biked about an hour and a half to lunch and climbed a ton of stair to moon hill while our food was cooking. But on the way up we ran into women selling water who decided up follow us up in case we wanted to buy water at the top. These women were easily in there 50’s and were local farmers that sell water one day a week. They followed us all the way up a gigantic hill or small mountain, I can’t decide, with a case of water on a strap. This hike up easily took a good 20min and was all stairs. The funny part about it was that these women beat a majority of our group up the hill/mountain.
From lunch we ended up riding about 15mins to the caves, and got into the proper attire for the mud. We explored the caves for what seemed like an hour and topped it off by crawling through this little hole was I could barley fit in. From there we descended into the cave further and submerged into the mud. The mud was so thick that it felt like I was walking though knee deep seaweed when it was just really thick mud. We got in a couple of mud fights and floated around for a while before we cleaned off and rode back to the hotel.
The next day we had to get a night bag ready because we were going up into the mountains to stay at this small village and meet kids at the schools there. We took a 4hr drive to Longsheng County and then had to switch to a smaller bus halfway through because our bus was too big to get on the road. There we even times on the road when our bus was about 6inches from the edge, a little scary. We finally got to the village and took a two hour hike to what felt like the shire from lord of the rings. At the school we met the kids and played with them for about an hour or so. We gave them the gifts that we had brought and talked to some of the parents and teachers. One kid brought a soccer ball and the kids had a blast kicking it around and trying to play basketball. After about an hour the kids had to head home because it was Friday and some of them live two hours walk away. So we said our good-bye’s and were about to leave when we saw this little boy with his arms full of toys not smiling. You could see he was visibly upset for whatever reason and he was just standing there staring at the ground. I went over there to see if I could cheer him up, but nothing I did managed to make him even crack a smile. One of our tour guides come over to help translate and told me that the boy was probably overwhelmed because we are so foreign. She said that it was a lot for him to take in at one and that we look like aliens to him. But to me when I was squatting there trying to cheer him up, for a second I felt like I understood all the problems in the world looking at this boy. It was as if he was trying to tell me all the problems facing Chinese culture with westernization. (corny, I know, but hang in there) Nothing I seemed to do would work and it was time to go, so I had to leave him there staring at the ground upset. But I feel like I got a better understanding of what westernization really means to the cultural identity of China or any other nation going through the same process.
As soon as I left the boy I ran into this older man who was about up to my shoulder, and smoking a cigarette with a wooden cane and some raggedy clothes. I walked down the steps and we made eye contact so I went over to him and asked him his name. With a big smile he told me a name that started with a P, Ping maybe, I couldn’t really understand him. I then told him my name, and he quickly help up three fingers to tell me that he was 83. The difference between this old mad the little boy made me think about the way china perceives westerners and particularly Americans. How the culture is changing and way different generations embrace change while other disregard it. The amazing thing about this man is that he has seen it all in China. He has lived through the great famine, Mao, Japanese acquisition, a world war, and most recently the Olympics. I wish I could have talked to him more.
After our excursion to this little school town we walked back to our other little building cluster and got some dinner. There we were swarmed by these women know for their extremely long hair, that wanted to sell us scarves. I bought an orange one. Later that night we went to a barn fire at the school in our building cluster, and got to see the kid’s classrooms. It was kind of disheartening because I couldn’t really read the little boys fourth grade Chinese text, but I new what they were talking about. We also got to see the women with the really long hair take out their weave and their hair almost touched the ground. They sang us a traditional song while we watched them comb their hair.
After that we hit the sack and woke up the next morning to find out that our trip to the rice terraces was cancelled due to rain. I was kind of upset, but rationalized it because I got to go on that amazing walk the day before. At around 11am we walked back to the small bus that took us to the large bus and drove back into town. We got some lunch at a restaurant that sold more dog and horse meat that anything else and went to our final stop. We took the bus from this town area up another mountain to this hop spring resort. The only difficult thing was that this road was unpaved and we had had a ton of rain all day and night, so the conditions were bad to say the least. After a gut-wrenching 3 hour bus ride we made it to the hotel. The first thing we did was go to the hot spring that had about 7 or 8 different Jacuzzis. They even had a special Jacuzzi that had fish that would eat the dead skin off your body for 80 kuai, I didn’t go in that one. Although I did go in the herbal medicine one that had huge tea bags floating in it at about 100 degrees. We hopped around from Jacuzzi to Jacuzzi for about an hour and topped it off with a dive in the cooler pool and went back to take a shower and nap. We ate dinner that night in the hotel itself and took it easy. The next morning we packed our stuff up and got back on the bus for another treacherous ride. This time I wised up and sat on the side furthest from the cliff so I couldn’t see how close we were to the side, and ps it had been raining all night long again so the roads were even worse. We ended up getting to the airport in just a couple of hours and back to our campus in Beijing no later than 4:30pm.
All in all I had a great trip that was quite different from the Silk Road trip. I found this trip to be more enjoyable because we didn’t go see a bunch of museums and got to see the nature the China has to offer. Activities like cooking and biking defiantly made the trip worth it and more memorable. I also got a feeling for the differences between northern china and southern china, besides the obvious accents and food. There is more of a sense of “untouched” china, meaning that the people are just beginning to get the sense of westernization. I got to see what I have read about all semester, that the development is concentrated on the costal cities, while the rest of china is trying to catch up. This is a problem that China is going to have to fix or the disparity of income and social classes is going to expand even more and hurt the country further.
http://picasaweb.google.com/Jim.Lechleitner/MudDiving?authkey=-TJskvPFMyw
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