Writer. Traveler. Tea Drinker.

You have the South Beach Diet, the Mediterranean Diet and even the French-Women-Don’t-Get-Fat Diet. I’d like to introduce the new diet that I think will be all the rage…the Chinese Diet.*

This is an easy 6-step process that if you follow to the letter I will guarRONtee** results. After all, I’m not only the president, I’m a member as well.

Step One: Live a sedentary life.

You can maybe take an occasional walk but basically you need to sit at a desk all day and night and drive everywhere.

Step Two: Move to China.

Step Three: Eat whatever you want.

This is not hard. Personally I enjoy Snickers, ice cream, potato chips, sweet iced tea and all manner of bread products. Also, almost make sure all your meals are fried whether it be fried rice, fried noodles, or fried chicken.

Step Four: Live a life without conveniences.

You probably live a few stories up and your building doesn’t have an elevator so you have to go up and down on your own two legs (usually to the tune of 16 flights a day). You have no car so you need to bike or walk everywhere you go and your job is about a mile away from your house each way (and you will have such a schedule that will have you going back and forth a few times a day). The closest supermarket is a mile away, but to do any real shopping you need to go to the one 4 miles away. Also, pretty much everywhere you need to go will be up 2-3 flights of stairs. (No ADA act here!)

Step Five: Tighten up that belt!

Don’t bring any baggy pants with you when you move because what was once slightly oversized will now be comically huge.

Step Six: Look around and realize that no matter what you do you will be the biggest one around.

Really, it’s silly to try to compare yourself with the size -0 girls (and guys) you see all around. Even if you starved yourself you would still be twice their size for the mere fact that you have bigger bones. Luckily, as long as you don’t speak the language, they can call you fat and ugly all day long and you will have no idea. Instead, assume they are talking about your pretty blond hair, or how handsome your big nose is. This will give you a further ego boost.

All you need to do is follow steps 1-6 in order, give it a few months, and you too will be amazed at how you mange to lose weight without even trying. Take that South Beach!

*Results not typical. Please speak to a doctor and  travel agent before starting a new weight lose regime and buying expensive plane tickets.

**No, that’s a lie. I don’t.

Some day I hope to know enough Chinese to be able to read these crazy bathroom signs and understand what they really mean to say. But until then I’ll just enjoy the English translation.

One of the most amazing features of Yangshuo, China is the karst peaks that encircle the city. The sight of these rising crooked limestone peaks is something to behold in person, and the best place to really get a look at the peaks is along the Li River.

The Li River runs alongside the city and is the place for some amazing natural beauty. It is a must-do for tourists to take a bamboo boat ride to not only enjoy the river, but to see some of the small villages that are along the banks. We split the cost of the boat with a German couple we had met a few days before.

I should start off by saying that there is no actual bamboo on a “bamboo” boat. It is a bunch of white PVC pipes lashed together and painted black. They’re not tricking anyone with their poor attempt at “bamboo.” But the farmers and locals do actually use bamboo boats and you can see them the further away you get from Yangshuo.

Our river boat took over 3 hours and we got to explore 2 ancient towns. One was called Liu Gong Village and it was over 1000-years-olds. At the dock we were met by a young woman. We didn’t know who she was or what she wanted (money, we all thought) but she followed us around and told us things about her village.

She told us such things such as the population (a little over 1000 people), the history of the temple (very ancient, destroyed by the Japanese, then rebuilt only 4 years ago), and what happens when the river floods (she and her family had to move because the water was waist high in their home. They stayed with an uncle who lived further uphill.). As we started back to the boat she mentioned she ran a little restaurant and would we like something to drink? She had been so nice and helpful how could we refuse.

I guess the village has plenty of tourists visiting, but on that day we saw no one and there wasn’t any tacky souvenir stalls or shops that sold potato chips. (There was her humble restaurant of course but even that was hardly noticeable.) It was just a regular village with men working on the streets, chickens running everywhere and water buffalo chewing on grass. It was nice and quiet which is a rare treat in China.

The other village we stopped at was called Fuli Town. This is much more for tourists as the town specializes in making giant fans. Luckily it was a slow tourist time, and evening to boot, so no one bothered us and we were free to wander around and explore on our own.

We motored back to Yangshuo as it was getting dark and we got to sit back and watch the mystical seeming karsts fade into darkness.

Ever since the start of our trip, something was wrong with our bags. We were using our trusty backpacks which we originally got over 10 years ago for our first round-the-world backpacking trips. But now they were awkward and uncomfortable. What was going on?

I started to look at all the other travelers and realized that our bags were huge. I mean, much, much larger than everyone else. And I realized that was the problem. Neither of us had much stuff in it, we were only gone for 4 weeks, and the bags were not properly filled so they were floppy and fitting all wrong. “We need smaller bags,” I said to Ryan a few weeks into our trip. In Yangshuo we got our opportunity.

Our hostel was on West Street which is a pedestrian street filled with clubs, restaurants and tiny shops. You can’t walk more than 2 feet without at least 3 people trying to sell you something. One shop with two particularly outspoken girls was a baggage shop. On the back wall they had two perfect-sized North Face backpacks. But the girls were kind of pushy and annoying and I didn’t really want to reward their harassing (“You want to buy a bag? Come in, look at bags, coats.” “You come back later?”) but their store was the biggest and had the most variety of the styles we wanted.

We waited until they were busy helping other people and snuck in. We were just looking and it was the first store we walked in and one of the girls approached us immediately. We looked at the bags, with her chattering away at us about the quality, and how many did we want?

“How much is it?” Ryan asked.

“550,” she said. ($80)

“Okay, thanks,” we said walking away.

“Wait!” She stopped us. “How much do you want to pay?”

“Oh, we’re just looking,” we said. “This is only the first shop we’ve looked at.”

“How much. You tell me”

“I don’t know. What is your best price?”

Thus the bargaining game begun.

Ryan got her down to 200 rmb a bag ($29) and at that price we couldn’t resist. While bargaining we ended up talking to the girls quite a bit. We asked her if it was a real North Face bag and she said no (while laughing slightly at our naiveté) but that it was made in Hong Kong and was “very high quality.”

There are a lot of fakes in China. You can barely get off the plane in Beijing or Shanghai before you are bombarded by street sellers with Chanel bags or Rolex watches. North Face is also another popular brand to counterfeit (the knock-off’s are affectionately called ‘North Fakes’) and so much effort goes into producing even the small elements to make it look real. The label on our bag was generic (it was attached to both bags and jackets) but it was printed in English and French on thick, high quality paper. Ironically they copied all the elements from the original tag faithfully, including the copyright material!

I know these counterfeit bags won’t last as long as real North Face bags (my big backpack is a North Face and is still in top notch shape) but I was happy to get smaller bags that we can use while traveling here from now on. The fact that they are counterfeit Chinese bags somehow even makes them a little bit better. Like not only can I use it on future trips but it is a souvenir of our time in China as well.

And I’ll give you a size comparison between our old and new bags. We didn’t want to get rid of our bags (because they are in good condition) but we didn’t want to have to carry around big empty backpacks. We were able to fit our new bags inside our old ones and still had plenty of room for our clothes and other things. I don’t know why we ever got such big bags in the first place, but I’m glad we downgraded. Here is a picture of my original (legitimate) bag with the new backpack stuffed inside.  I had so much extra room available that it didn’t make much difference to my bag (though it added a lot of weight for me to carry!)

To get an idea of how big Chinese New Years you need to roll Christmas and Thanksgiving together. Add a pinch of Valentine’s Day (as they are on the same day this year) and multiply by 1.5 billion people. Then, replace each and every pine needle from the average numbers of Christmas trees all over America with a firework. Now add about 20 million more fireworks to that pile and you will have some idea what the Lunar New Year is like.

The Chinese love their fireworks and there is no better day to express that love then New Years. (While we call it Chinese New Years, it is more appropriately called Spring Festival.) How much do they love them, you ask? Well, here is an article from China Daily by Chinese humorist Hong Huang. (You can read the whole article here.)

“Now fireworks. It is strictly, strictly for us Chinese. We really don’t want you anywhere near fireworks. First of all, it is dangerous. You don’t understand why 1.4 billion people have to turn into pyromaniacs for one night. It’s totally beyond your comprehension. But we love it; we have been setting off these things since we were three and for 5,000 years. So let me just say that fireworks are not for barbarians like you. You don’t get it. On the other hand, we Chinese have great tolerance for fireworks; it’s one night when you can do some damage and get away with it. For example, you can burn a building down, a brand new building, with stuff in it. How can you comprehend that level of generosity?

And, don’t you dare try to do the same, we simply have no tolerance for it. You try to burn a building down, we will kill you, because, you were probably high, and we really don’t give a hoot whether you are mentally disturbed or whether your prime minister is going to make endless harassing phone calls.

So, you better be good, you better be nice, because firecrackers are coming to town!”

So I, for one, am taking her advice and not lighting any myself. But I am enjoying the display from the hundreds of Chinese people in my town. It looks beautiful yet sounds like war.

Some fireworks are sharp and quick. They sound like hail falling on a tin roof. Others are absolutely silent as they go up, then explode with a sound that breaks the sound barrier. And then there are the more “typical” fireworks that go up with a squeal and burst into a colorful spray with a boom. I’m not sure if I’ll be getting any sleep over the next few nights, but it has been really interesting to be here during the biggest holiday.

Every lunar year is also associated with a zodiac animal. This year is the year of the Tiger. The tiger is associated with unpredictability, power, sincerity and daring.

And in case you’re wondering the Chinese still put stock in the lunar calendar. Many wall and electronic calendars have both dates displayed. Many of my students use the lunar calendar for something very important, celebrating their birthday twice! Incidentally while it is year 2010 by the Gregorian calendar it is year 4707 on the Lunar calendar.

So hold on to your hats and have a very Happy New Year!!!

In the first part of train travel I talked about things you should know before getting on the train. In this part I’ll talk about the different sections and what it is like actually being on the train.

Classes of Seats:

There are 4 classes of seats on a Chinese train.

Hard Seats: These are not wooden benches without any padding, despite the name. Instead they are slightly padded, vinyl coated with tall straight backs. The seats are arranged with opposites facing each other and a little table in the middle, similar to European style trains.

We sat in hard seat only once on a 12-hour train ride. The biggest problem I had was the size. Their 3-seater is what us American would consider a 2-and-a-half-seater. We like our personal space in America, and don’t like touching other people with our hips, legs and sides, but they don’t mind that so much here so the seats are crammed feeling.

This is also the section that usually has no limit on the number of people and it can get crowded and dirty. I’ve been told that the bathrooms on the hard seat sections can get disgusting. We had a very diligent conductor in our section who not only get the bathroom tip-top but continually swept the aisle and cleaned the sink area. Our train was also only half full.

Hard seat is the cheapest price you can pay on a train. Example fare from Chengdu to Kunming (a 20 hour train ride): 123 rmb.

Soft Seats: These are airplane style seats that are padded in soft cloth with a headrest. Overcrowding is not allowed in this section. We never sat in this section, but from what we saw it looked okay. This section most resembles American commuter trains. The bathrooms are supposed to be slightly cleaner as well, but still grody.

These tickets are a bit more expensive of course. Example fare from Chengdu to Kunming: 204 rmb.

Hard Sleeper: A lot of travelers take this and seem to like it, but to me it looked pretty uncomfortable. It is entirely open (no curtains or compartments or anything) and it has beds along one side. There is a lower, middle and upper bunk and if you want to sleep on  the top you have to be a certified mountain climber to get up there it is so high. There isn’t a ladder or anything, just a random assortment of footholds and bars. At the very least you need good upper body strength to heave yourself up.

Since this place is totally open there is no privacy and so quiet either. The bathrooms are suppose to be a little cleaner but there are really a lot of people per car so I can imagine they tend to get a little rank as well. The beds are just vinyl covered platforms and you get sheets and a pillow.

You have to pay a different price for each bunk, with the bottom bunk being most ideal and therefore most expensive. (Although many people will sit on the bottom bunk during the day which I think is a little annoying.) Sample fare from Chengdu to Kunming: Bottom bunk: 223 rmb, Middle Bunk: 231 rmb, Upper Bunk: 240 rmb.

Soft Sleeper: This is the best section and the one that we did all our overnight train trips on. (Call me a snob!) There are individual 4-person compartments with a solid door that closes (and therefore keeps it quieter…that is if the people inside are quiet!). Each section has 4 beds, an upper and lower bunk against each wall, and a table in the middle. The bunks are covered in a padded, patterned cloth and then they have a blanket on the bottom, covered by a padded blanket and you get a comforter and 2 pillows as well. There is ample space for your luggage and they usually have some decorations like a lace style tablecloth or a fake flower in  vase. There is also a garbage can that gets cleaned out by a conductor every now and then, and a carpet.

There is also a “nicer” bathroom, but it seems to me that squat toilets on a moving train is never a good idea and even our nicer bathroom was still pretty gross and smelly. Take a deep breath before you go in and take care of business as fast as you can, that’s my advice. (And use the bar they provide for stability when squatting. Yeah, it’s kind of gross but the alternative is slipping and using your hand on the ground to catch yourself.)

Of course, the high quality comes with a high price tag. Again, the bottom bunk is more expensive. Example fare from Chengdu to Kunming: Top bunk: 357 rmb. Bottom bunk: 373 rmb.

Overall the difference between the cheapest seats and the most expensive is 250 rmb ($37) a price I am very willing to pay when I am on a train for 20 plus long hours.

Ryan showing off his bed in the soft sleeper.

I should mention that finding quiet time on a train is near impossible. Every section has a loudspeaker blaring (which cuts off at 10 pm but picks up at 8 am) and the compartments have little tv’s. Your neighbors (or cell mates as Ryan called them) cannot be counted on for being quiet either. I use my “night time” voice after the lights are off and people’s eyes are closed, and would never turn the volume of the television up when someone is sleeping right next to it. The same cannot be said for others.

Trains are technically non-smoking in all the sections. You are however allowed to smoke by the doors where the cars meet and somehow the wind blows all the smoke down the corridor and you end up smelling like you’ve spent all night in some seedy bar.

It sounds like I didn’t like traveling by train, but that isn’t true. We passed through a lot of amazing landscape and saw some rural scenery that we wouldn’t have seen by any other type of vehicle. I even managed to get some good sleep thanks to the smooth clackity-clack of the wheels (and Tylenol PM).

Nowadays traveling by plane can actually be cheaper than train, but I would still recommend that every traveler takes at least one long train ride. Even when the speakers are blaring and there is garbage all over the floor, trains are romantic. You can’t help but relax to train wheels and zone out as the scenery whirls by you. You also get to notice the change in the landscape, the people and the buildings as you go from area to area.

It can be long. It can be tiring. And yet at the same time it can be very, very worth it.

Yangshuo is well known for its courses. That is, classes you can take after you’ve enjoyed all the beautiful scenery. There are calligraphy course, language courses, tai chi courses and cooking courses. Guess which one us little piggies took….

Despite not ever cooking at our apartment (it is cheaper to eat out) Ryan has been dying to learn some of the tricks behind Chinese cooking. The course we took was located out in a rambling farmhouse out in the countryside. We were going to make 5 dishes each and after we cooked it, we had to eat it. So while Ryan was a little excited I was a little nervous. Me? Cut with a knife? Cook on a wok? Eat the food I make?!?

I shouldn’t have been nervous as it was really cooking for dummies. We each had our own station and everything was portioned out and laid out so throwing it all together was a snap. I even found myself enjoying it.

The first dish we made was a delicious steam chicken thing. We cut the chicken (we had bought all the food, including the meat, at the market in the morning) and added some ginger, garlic, mushrooms, wolfberries and dried dates. Then we laid one steamer on top of the other and just forgot about it. It sat steaming as we cooked the rest of the food and when it was time to eat it was steamed to absolute perfection.

My favorite dish was the egg covered dumplings. The inside was a typical and delicious minced pork filling (which we added mint and salt) and the outside was plain old scrambled egg.

We turned the wok on, let it get hot enough to steam (a secret of Chinese cooking) then added a tablespoon of oil. We poured one large spoonful of the scrambled eggs and it naturally spread into a circle. We put the meat in the center of the egg, pressed it down a bit, and with the spatula folded over half the egg which had hardened by this time. It was that simple.

We then moved it to the side of the wok while we did it 4 more times. We continued to turn them over a few times and pressed them to make sure the insides were getting well cooked and then we were done! The whole process was quick, no more than 10 minutes from turning on the wok to eating it, but it was really, really delicious.

The other dishes were an eggplant dish (I hate eggplant at home but I eat it all the time here) a cooked lettuce dish (sounds gross but it was delish) and a veggie shred with pork pieces. I managed to chop all the meat and vegetables without once ever slicing open a finger and use a wok at high heat without burning off my eyebrows. I’m very proud.

Eating all the food was so good and Ryan and I (okay, mostly Ryan) will use a bunch of the tricks we learned in the future when we try to cook at home a little more. It was a delicious afternoon and really fun. I never thought I would say that about cooking!

We were our usual mature selves during the class.

It’s time for more funny chinglish signs. What I don’t get is the bigger a tourist attraction is, the worse the English translation is. I would think they would actually be able to find SOME native English speaker to ask them for their opinion before they finished making the sign, but apparently not.  These are all the funny food related signs.

Let’s get this straight. I was sick the whole time we were in Lijiang. The old city is an amazing place, a winding maze of tiny cobbled streets, little shops, locals markets, a tourist section with many choices of western food. But it is also at a high altitude and we went in January. So it was not only bitterly cold, but without a trace of humidity.

Every breath I took cracked the inside of my stuffed nose and made it feel like it was going to bleed. When I breathed through my mouth my already sore and scratchy throat dried right up to a point where I could barely swallow. So, all the beauty and historical sites were more annoying to me than amazing. (Have you ever tried to navigate a maze of streets when you’re cloudy headed?) Ryan wasn’t feeling any better than me and in our two night there we managed to get about a total of 3 hours sleep (because of being freezing cold one night and loud neighbors the next).  That’s why I didn’t enjoy being there and why I have an unfair feeling of the place.

We did manage to point the camera in some direction and push the button despite our cloudy heads, so enjoy!

Trains are one of the easiest and most common ways to get around in China and we’ve been on them a lot throughout this trip. But like everything else, it operates just a little bit differently so I thought I would describe it.

The whole thing turned out pretty long so I’m splitting it up into two parts. The first part is pre-train info, while the second part is related to being on the train.

Buying a Ticket:

This is the easy part. China seems to have a pretty decent computerized system nationwide and most hostels will go to a booking office for you to get tickets. We booked our own tickets once, and had a Chinese person write down what we wanted because no one at the train station spoke English, nor was there a schedule in English. The tickets list the time, train number, car number and seat number clearly enough even for us stupid laowei.

Tickets go on sale 10 days before departure date but are usually available right up to the last minute. Book early on holidays and weekends just in case. You can find the train schedule online at travelchinaguide.com, but be warned the prices on that site are outdated.

Train Stations:

Train stations here are totally chaotic yet surprisingly organized. You don’t find out what platform you go to, rather it is more like an airport in which you find your gate number. When they say gate number, they mean gate. The stations have a big metal gate located between you and the track. When your train arrives they open up the gate and everyone runs through like crazy. It can be pretty stressful actually. (Especially when my jacket zipper caught a thread from a guys coat and they locked together. He didn’t notice and was pulling, I was frantically trying to get our jackets apart and luckily some guy in between us stepped in and helped. I am sure that if he made it through the gate with us attached he would have just dragged me along.)

The part before the gate opening can be pretty stressful too. It all depends on how big the station is, and how many people are traveling. We were at one train station in Dali which was surprisingly calm. The gate was waist height and when the train arrived everyone filed out calmly.

We were also at a train station in Chengdu that was total chaos. There were hundreds of people waiting for the train, all jostling and pushing and laying their heavy huge bags on the ground. Despite the cold weather the whole place smelled pretty rank and if someone panicked, the whole scene could have easily turned into a mob. It had that restless vibe. The platform gate was also 14-16 feet high giving the whole place a sort of caged quality that was unpleasant.

Train Snack:

Bring your own. Yes, there are little ladies that roam up and down the train with food items but it is really best just to bring your own food and drink. For drink, all you need is some tea leaves and your metal or glass travel mug as every train has multiple hot water stations. You can also use the hot water for the most popular train food: ramen noodles! (Of course, they don’t call it ramen noodles here—that’s a Japanese word—but it’s the same thing.) Ramen noodles are not just for the college crowd or the poor in China, but a pretty legitimate meal even off the train.

Other popular snacks are small oranges, peanuts and sunflower seeds (it’s okay to throw the shells on the ground here, even on a train) dried tofu and if you are really brave those prepackaged chicken feet. Personally, I always made sure to have some rolls or bread and a Snickers bar with me as well.

Next time: The different types of seats on a Chinese train!