Three Days Condensed Into 7 Pages Worth of Text.

Aight, first and foremost, I want to apologize for the delay in between blogs. The train ride from Hangzhou to Beijing was, of course, without internet, so it kind of threw me off my blogging schedule.

Additionally, blogs will start to be written less frequently as the days go on because I now have stuff I gotta do in the evenings.

So, day two in Hangzhou. GO. We got to wake up kinda later because we only had two things to do that day. Everyone was pretty sluggish. Tucker and Greg had stayed out late at the club and were recovering a bit. Our first stop was to a traditional Chinese pharmacy. It was an interesting stop, to say the least. One major reason it was so interesting was because this pharmacy had several original several-hundred year old books from which medical history in China evolved. Really cool stuff, and all on display. This pharmacy was over 100 years old, I believe, and was built during the Qing Dynasty. There were some wicked pills they had to swallow back in the day. Imagine a ball two times the size of a paintball. That’s what I’m talking about. The only thing I could think about was something from Futurama, “Good news, everyone! It’s a suppository!” I forget this particular person’s name, but most, if not all, of Chinese medicine comes from knowledge that began with him. He himself tested hundreds and hundred of herbs, encountering poisoning several times a day, according to legend. He then recorded which herbs sucked, and which ones made him feel better. Due to this knowledge, Chinese medicine flourished, and became what it is today.

In the middle of the pharmacy, they had a small garden where they grew their herbs and whatnot. In the entrance was a small jug labeled “H1N1” and we had a laugh wondering if it prevented Swine Flu or intentionally gave it to us. Around the pharmacy were some pretty sweet shops. The pharmacy was placed at the edge of the marketplace, so after the tour of the pharmacy, we had some free time to roam around. I took the time to wander by myself around the market. It’s really funny how many more stares you get from the locals if you’re alone. I got asked to have my photograph taken at least three times by random Chinese people.

At one of the stores in the market, they were selling swords. Some of them were Tai Chi swords, so they weren’t meant to be really high-quality. I laughed silently to myself when I took the blades out of the hilt to see the blades themselves jiggle around in the hilt. As much as I want to do Tai Chi, I don’t think I could fit a sword into my suitcase for the return flight. There was even a telescoping blade, almost like my toy lightsabers. Those blades were pretty horrible, but again, they were meant purely for practicing Tai Chi. Needless to say, though, I didn’t buy any of the blades, as cool as they looked. There was some REALLY southern woman there with a translator. She wanted to buy, like, four of the telescoping blades. It was funny to me. Mostly because of her voice though.

There were some other interesting shops, though. Greg and Tucker ended up buying what appeared to be “key-saxophones” but they sound like kazoos, but you can change the pitch using the keys on the front end of it. I also bought an instrument for someone, but I don’t want to spoil it. I’m trying to take care of birthdays for everyone.

After many bad sings in Chinglish at the pharmacy, we made our way to one of the most famous tea producers in China. However, on the way there, I fell asleep on the bus. I was pretty zonked, and didn’t even notice when the bus stopped. So next thing I knew, the buss was empty and stopped. I asked the bus driver in Chinese if everyone had already left and where they were. He helped me, pointing in the right direction. Thankfully, they had only been off the bus for five or ten minutes or so, and I was able to catch up with them. They thought I had gone to the bathroom or something.

The farm (if that’s even the right term) was surrounded by mountains, covered in tea plants - just rows of them for hundreds of feet up. They covered the entire mountain face. However, the mountains were in weren’t incredibly tall, just kinda jagged. Either way, it’s an incredible site, especially since these mountains were so different from any of the ones I’d ever seen before. The pollution was still pretty bad though.

After a few minutes of wandering around, a tour guide approached us, leading us to a room where we would be given a presentation about this tea, called Long Jin Cha. We all sat around this wooden table in a closed room, and the guide (who claimed to be a Tea Major, which does actually exist in China) gave us each a glass with a few grams of tea leaves inside. Then someone else came by, giving us a small bit of steaming hot water, but just enough to smell. Then we were poured more water, and invited to drink. I’m not the biggest of fans when it comes to tea, but this stuff was really good. As it turns out, this producer is one of the most famous in China, having been visited by Soviet leaders back in the day, by the Clintons, and the Queen of England. The guide made fun of teas in tea bags, and stressed the quality of this type of tea. She was definitely a salesman at heart though, and was incredibly attractive. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if some of the Engrish she spoke was intentionally bad to seem cute.

There were a few additives that the Chinese add to their tea for certain herbal effects. They add dried orange peels for sore throats, and dried Hawthornes to help with losing weight. With the additives, it tasted amazing.

After the presentation, we had about an hour for some free time, so a few of us used the time to climb to the top of the mountains that surrounded the area we were in. We climbed completely up one of the mountains, and the view was just stunning. We could see so many mountains, but it was slightly frustrating because as a result of the smog, we could not see really far. We saw one Chinese man harvesting some of the leaves, but tried to leave him alone. We waved once and were on our way. I’m not so sure they wanted us up there, but we were making really sure that we weren’t harming any of the tea plants. Plus, I’m only in China once. I’m gonna climb the friggin’ tea mountain. Getting down was much trickier than going up, because the mountain itself was pretty steep. I cut my toe on a rock, trying to jump down a small outcropping. After the climb, we were all incredibly sweaty, and our feet were really dirty, so Hannah and I went back to the tea complex to wash our feet.

I walked in, saw that there was a guy already in the bathroom, and pretended to wash my hands until he was gone. Then, after checking that I was definitely alone, I picked up one foot and balanced it under the faucet, washing it. I repeated with the other foot and thankfully nobody noticed what the heck I was doing. It would have been insanely embarrassing, but damn were my feet dirty. Unfortunately, we didn’t know that there wouldn’t be some sort of shower on the train. We felt pretty gross, especially the next day, but I’ll get to that later.

After that, we rushed to the train station and got everything settled before getting some fast food - KFC, Chinese style - and hanging out with our guide for the last few minutes. I’m going to miss her a lot. She was kind of like a mother figure to us for the week excursion, so it was sad to see her go. Thankfully we got in one last picture with her before we had to board the Fast Train to Beijing.

The fast train was incredibly interesting. It was really snug, though. Each cabin housed four beds (two bunk beds), but were spaced apart just wide enough to fit a male torso. So there wasn’t much space at all, but we managed, using some tetris skills.

To be honest, I don’t remember too much about the train ride. Apparently I zonked out at, like, 8:30 and the next thing I remember is waking up occasionally to see a dark, Chinese countryside, then waking up at 5:30 to a loud Chinese woman asking for our tickets. Before I fell asleep, Tucker, Lanier and I shared some interesting conversations, and at one point Anqi and Emily showed up and chilled with us for a bit. Nate and Seth showed up to say hi as well, and Hannah did a few times too (but apparently I was asleep when she came).

I laugh now at the thought of buying a pillow filled with tea leaves they were selling at the tea farm. Supposedly it’s supposed to cure insomnia, but I definitely do not have this problem. If anything, I probably sleep too much. I pride myself on being able to fall asleep almost anywhere any time. When I was a baby I used to fall asleep with my face in a bowl of cereal, spoon still in hand.

Before I did fall asleep on the train, though, the three of us watched the Chinese countryside go by. And by countryside, I mean dank, destroyed homes or sectioned off rice farms flanked by huge powerlines. I was kind of disappointed in not being able to see some virgin land, but I guess I shouldn’t have expected that. However, as a treat, we did get to see a patch of blue sky! It was incredible to see real clouds. Shortly thereafter though, I did pass out pretty hard. It was a gross kind of sleep though. I couldn’t take out my contacts, brush my teeth, nothing. For most of the night I even slept in my clothes. Plus I hiked up the mountain earlier that day, so I was pretty gross.

I woke up around 5:30 to a loud Chinese woman asking for our tickets. It wasn’t much longer until our train arrived in Beijing, so we had to scurry to get all our stuff together and make sure we didn’t leave anything behind. Someone from Wild China met us outside the train station to take us to the CET campus. To be honest, it’s hard to believe that this was just yesterday. It feels like a lifetime ago. They basically dropped us off at the campus, which left us clueless as to what to do. We finally found someone who could help us out.

However, even though we were being helped, absolutely nobody expected us to arrive until much later in the day. As a result, everything in the dorms was a mess. Dirt and dust everywhere, the bathrooms incomplete and unwashed. It was kinda gross, but I’ve seen worse. Apparently the renovations of our dorms were done at the very last minute.

As an update now, everything’s working fine now, but the bathroom is constantly covered in a small film of water. Kinda weird. Least the showers and everything else work just fine.

We unpacked, still without having had food since the KFC the day before, and without showers or even brushing our teeth. We had to get keys, make sure everything in our rooms was in order, and get kinda settled before we tried to get showers and head off to the embassy.

After we all got cleaned up, we headed out. We’re right by this incredible, Russian-looking building. I think it’s the Beijing convention center or something like that. It was built when Mao was chairman, I believe, because it must have been constructed when China was on friendly terms with the USSR, and I think the split happened in 1969. It’s a sweet building. On its terrace at night, tons of people there go to dance, jazzercise, etc. People also fly kites there almost constantly. Past that is this gigantic Japanese market place. I do mean gigantic. Picture in your mind a five story tall department store, complete with supermarket in the basement level, and this would be about it. It’s called Ito Yokato, and I have a feeling it’s going to be a primary go-to place for essential items like, you know, food and water.

A note on the water on campus. There aren’t any living bacteria in the water, but there is rust and other minerals, so I think Ima stick to bottled water for now. Spank you very much. We got a few things there, then hailed a taxi outside it to take us to the embassy. The trip was longish, relatively speaking (the Commie guard outside the market that it was within walking distance).

A note on Communist guards. They’re everywhere! Every-friggin-where. Even guarding our gates outside campus. I really want to learn how to say, “Yay Communism!” and shout it whenever I see the guards. They all seem friendly anyway. Not that I want to mess with them, but it would be fun anyway…

Once we got to the embassy, the guard there asked us to come back at two. We walked down the street some from the embassy and found this place dedicated to second hand electronics. Jackpot. Totally what I came to China for, right? We decided to eat first, since we hadn’t eaten since KFC. Tucker, Lanier, Hannah and I found this really awesome noodle place (they love noodles in the north. In the south it’s all rice). I got this huge plate of noodles and a bottle of commercial green tea for about two American dollars.

God I love China.

After that, we searched for cell phones. It was a really stressful process, actually. First, I had to buy a phone that I was convinced would at least work. I didn’t want anything special. Then I had to make sure it worked (because it didn’t, damnit). Then I had to buy a number. China uses pay-as-you-go SIM cards and you just buy minutes and put them on the card. So I had to buy minutes. I had no idea how to do any of this, so I had to get help from the vendors who sold me all this crap. We finally got all our phones working, thankfully, and headed back to the embassy an hour late. We were soon to find out that it wouldn’t matter what time we could show up at all.

When we got to the embassy, they told us it was closed, even though we were told to come back at 2. The interesting thing was that there weren’t any Americans in the embassy that we could see, and they wouldn’t let us inside to register. Turns out that the guard was telling the truth - the embassy only closes on Wednesdays, and we can only register before 12. Danielle flashed her military ID to see if we could speak to an American about the topic, but no luck. It was pretty stressful, but we just decided to get a taxi back to campus, then head out for dinner later.

Around this time, more people began showing up. Previously, UNC was the only college on CET campus. At first I was kinda standoffish about other people showing up, because we almost felt like it was our place. We all quickly became acquainted with most of the people around, and they all seem like a lot of great people. There seems to be a lot of students from Yale and Michigan, but UNC is the most-represented here. Kinda special feeling, really. The UNC people are a pretty tight group. We definitely have branched out and talk/eat with other people, but at the end of the day, we’re still hanging out together. It’s a good feeling, to be honest, knowing you have a great group to end the day with. And they’re all utterly fantastic. I love spending time with them.

We wandered around with some of the new people and grabbed some dinner at a place whose name translates to “The Smell of Southern City”. Lul.

Seriously though, great food. Still very cheap too. Little more than the noodle place, but they had some dumplings there that hit the spot.

The next day (today for me, tomorrow for you western chumps :D) I woke up around 7, showered, then was met at my door by a good portion of the UNC group to get some breakfast, which was pretty delicious. There’s this yogurt they have there that you can drink with a straw. Delicious.

Afterwards, we had some H1N1 orientation, which was complete and utter bullcrap. They tried to tell us that we couldn’t leave the campus for seven days and that we had to take our temperature every day and report it at lunches. Didn’t sit too well with the UNC guys at least, seeing as two of us were in quarantine. There was no way we had Swine Flu. This also explains why we won’t be getting roommates until another week. They think we have the Swine Flu. Ugh.

Fortunately, at the next meeting, they told us that since we’d been in the country longer than the flu’s incubation period (seven days), we were free from all the restrictions. But they didn’t expect everyone to abide by all the rules anyway, like not going out. These meetings lasted until lunch, which we consumed readily, then Hannah and I hatched a plan to find a music store if it killed us. I’d been having guitar withdrawals for days, and was itching to play a guitar. Insane. Tucker and Rachael wanted to come with us because they were on the market for some bikes. So we walked out as a group.

Turns out that we had to go to this place called Xin Jie Kou, and we had little clue how to get there. We walked past the subway station, which looks like it could be from Half Life 2, especially with all the haze from pollution, and kept on going. After going for quite a ways, Tucker asked for some directions from a random Chinese stranger, who was by far the nicest stranger I’ve ever met from any country or any city. Ever. He basically walked with us, rode the bus with us, asked other people for directions etc all for several miles to get to Xin Jie Kou. Utterly incredible. And wherever he is, I hope he knows that he really helped us out today.

The street we were on was basically a straight shot from campus, but a friggin’ long one. Hannah and I must have walked several miles to and from. However, I finally found a guitar shop. A serviceman approached me in English, but I tried to ask for a lefty in Chinese. He was about my age, if I had to guess, and incredibly friendly. He asked me to follow him next door, where he presented me with this beautiful lefty acoustic guitar. He asked me to play a bit, but it was really out of tune, so he let me borrow his tuner. After tuning, I played Fade to Black. He watched me intently. He said it was worth 850 kuai, which is almost $150, so I asked for something cheaper. The serviceman brought out another one, which wasn’t as nice. He said the first one was a better guitar, but I said that it was too expensive for what I was looking for, so he offered me the better guitar for the price of the crappier one. I immediately took it, for about $120, and here’s why. It’s a beautiful guitar that, in the states, would probably cost a good $250 at least, and I was getting it for lower than half. It also has a pick up inside it, which is something I do not have in my acoustic at home. This guitar also has a cutaway. The brand is Westfield, which I’ve never heard of, but I wasn’t looking for too great of quality, just something I could jam on for two months and get rid of. However, I will not throw this thing away. Especially not after working so hard to get it. I’m already in love with this instrument.

I continued to play Fade to Black on it, and I asked the man in Chinese if he knew it. He sputtered out in accented English, “Fade to Black”. I had no idea he knew what it was, so I laughed and gave him a high five. He was really friendly and gave me a case to go with it and a pick. I wish I had gotten more picks, but this one should suffice. I just hope I don’t lose it.

After making my purchase, I went immediately next door where they had really cheap CDs and DVDs, which was one of the targets Hannah and I wanted to hit at some point in China. I had my new guitar slung over my shoulder and a serviceman came over to help me out. He was playing a harmonica he had kept in his pockets. He asked me about my guitar, asking me to play for a bit. I was startled at first, but I said that I’d play for a bit. He offered me a stool to sit on, and I got it out and started playing Fade to Black again. Yeah, I know, predictable. Gimme a break, I hadn’t played guitar for almost two weeks and it’s my favorite song of all time. He said, “Oh! Fade to Black!” and my playing started drawing a very small crowd. It was a really cool experience. Then I spoke with the guy for quite a while about music, and I asked him if there were any bands in China that were like American metal. He pointed out one called “Tang Dynasty” and I went ahead and bought it. I needed spare 1 yuan notes for the bus anyway, and I legitimately wanted to give them a listen. Hannah bought some pirated DVDs and we were on our way back. I told the guy that I’d definitely come back, and that’s the truth. I gotta get some people gifts from that shop. I got the CD for about 8 American dollars, and it’s really good stuff.

Later that evening, after dinner and whatnot, we grabbed some ice cream from a street vendor, then went back to campus. Hannah and I wanted to jam a bit, me with my guitar, and her with her flute. We pulled up some of my sheet music from my computer and had at it, site reading as fast as we could. Everyone else came in, curious what the music was. Greg did some beat box and Tucker accompanied on the piano or on his key-sax from before. It was a really great time. I loved playing. I can’t believe how much I’d missed it. At one point Danielle busted out the cards and explained her version of Egyptian Rat Screw, but the only version of it that I’m good at is the Wilmington crew’s version. Otherwise, I suck. I ran out of cards almost immediately.

As it stands now, I listened to Tang Dynasty’s latest album and I loved it. The dual guitars sound amazing together and there are one or two songs on there that I could see myself listening to over and over and over again. I’m definitely going back to that music store. Maybe even tomorrow after everything’s over.

Tomorrow’s agenda is looking tough. First is breakfast, then we head off to take Chinese placement exams. Ugh. Hopefully it’ll all turn out well though.

I am totally fried. I’ve been fried since about 9 when I started this, and it’s about 12:30, so I really need some rest. I’ll do my best to keep you all updated, but like I said, things will be a lot less interesting around here, but I’ll try to stay blogged-up. If I can’t, I’ll figure out some way to stay in contact with all you guys. I miss you all so much. Have a great afternoon!

*zonk*

---

---