I’m not sure what the origin of this rule is, and from what the hotel staff have told me it has always been in place, so I guess that the fact that this is the first time I’ve run into it is just a coincidence.  Maybe we just always happened to stay at “international” hotels when I traveled with my family before (though I don’t think this is true), or maybe because when I traveled with my family the hotel staff figured that it would be OK since we look Chinese enough.

In any case, this time it has been excruciatingly tedious to find hotels because 80% of the places that we check out are not authorized to take foreigners.  This rule has been bent once or twice by kind (or shrewd) hotel staff, but especially in the big cities like Xi’an and here in Luoyang where we are right now, no one seems to be willing to bend the rules for us.

The upshot is that we waste a lot of time looking for hotels (about 3 hours and 5 bus trips today in Luoyang), and we are often not able to stay in the hotels that perfectly match our price point and desired criteria (location, cleanliness, etc.).  For example, there is a very cute old town in Luoyang with a pedestrian street that is located inconveniently far from the train station.  We wanted to stay there, but all the hotels in the region were either too expensive or did not accept foreigners.

I am really curious why the government insists on this archaic system when China is today so thoroughly open to foreign travelers.  I get (though don’t terribly like) the government’s need to keep a tab on foreign visitors, but couldn’t it do so and at the same time make travelers’ lives easier by just allowing all the hotels to accept foreigners, with the provision that they take the same information that the currently authorized hotels take now anyways?

Since this is the last stop on my trip before heading to the safety of Suzhou, I guess I won’t have to deal with it again.  But for all the people out there thinking about backpacking through China or just traveling without thorough planning, be prepared!

I’ve never gone as far in America by train, simply for the fact that it’s impractical and exorbitant. Even by car the farthest I’ve gone is maybe 9 hours, which gets you basically from Boston to DC. For comparison this is roughly the distance from Lanzhou to Jiayuguan.

One feels this vastness even more when visiting the Great Wall in Jiayuguan. It’s incredible to think that this wall stretches all the way to Beijing and beyond, that man could build something so vast. And then one realizes that many sections were built over 2000 years ago and the vastness of the history also comes into the picture.

Train travel isn’t necessarily convenient here though. The ticket system is a little archaic and does not work as well (for the technologically savvy) as say the SNCF does in France. The tickets can only be bought through official sales points, and not all the sales points have access to all the tickets. There is no discriminatory pricing for tickets so they tend to sell out very quickly, especially during rush periods like right now (the summer vacation season). Tickets only become available 10 days before the trip (sometimes 20 for high speed or express trains) and can sell out right at the moment when they become available. I hear this has a lot to do with scalpers (黄牛) buying them out right away. Anyway the ticketing system might make sense since lots of people might not be able to buy things online, but still there must be a way of implementing tiered pricing so you don’t get the kind of drastic shortages like there are now.

The trains themselves and the train stations are by and large comfortable and sometimes ultramodern. I took the Beijing-Tianjin express, which leaves from the new Beijing South Station and zooms along at an average speed of 300+ kmph to reach Tianjin in half an hour. This broke the world record for highest average speed for a regular passenger train service when it opened in 2008, and I think remains as of 2010 the fastest (along with the new Wuhan-Guangzhou line). I’m really looking forward to when the high speed lines are all finished, at which point one will be able to go from Beijing to Shanghai in 5 hours by rail.

This summer, my train from Beijing to Lanzhou was slower, taking about 17 hours, but this was fine because I had a bed. From Lanzhou to Jiayuguan we had a hard seat overnighter, which turned out to really suck becaus already it’s hard to sleep upright, but then we were also next to this big pack of loud obnoxious people who stayed up pretty much all night making noise and smoking. The last segmen from Jiayuguan to Dunhuang might have even been worse because we got a train without numbered seats, so we had to stand for the first hour, but luckily enough people got off so that we could sit for most of the ride. Altogether I guess I’ve probably already spent about 30 hours on the train so far, probably with many more hours to go.

In Dunhuang we’ve frequently relied on people from random book sellers to the bus ticket collector to our hotel receptionist to give us advice on where to go and how to get there. They don’t always know everything, but when they say they don’t know you can be pretty assured that they really have no idea, rather than just being too lazy or apathetic to find out, as is often the case in Beijing or Paris.

We spent a fun afternoon in Huyanglin (胡杨林), a garden of huyang trees, talking to the people who worked there and even learning a card game from them. Granted this had a lot to do with the fact we were pretty much the only visitors there for the afternoon, but still it was very nice that they were so open and friendly.

The most generous gesture that we experienced here was when we made the miscalculation of trying to walk back to the hotel from the Overhanging wall (悬壁长城) in Jiayuguan, and after about 1 hour on the deserted road it turned dark and we were in risk of getting lost. We saw a cab go by and we tried to wave it down, but it turned off a small road before reaching us. Strangely, the cab stopped but no one got out. A minute later the cab started moving again, this time coming towards us. When it reached us we could see that there were maybe 7 people inside (it was a sedan!) and the 4 people in the back got out and offered it to us. I think they were all a family heading home, and the grandfather and a baby stayed in the front seat to be dropped off after we got dropped off. The driver offered to drop us off, then the grandpa and baby, and would then go and pick up the rest of the people, who would just stand and wait for however long. We almost didn’t take the cab because we felt bad about them waiting there in the middle of nowhere, but they insisted. In the end it saved us maybe another hour of walking, and since it turned out that I had suffered a heat stroke that day it was a good thing we took them up on their offer!

My biases come from the fact that it is commonly known (or maybe believed is more accurate) that Gansu is one of the poorest provinces in China. But maybe all of the government stimulus money has been used here to clean things up and make them more friendly for visitors?

There was a big push in the last decade to speed up the development of the Western regionsand maybe the modern looking cities are the product of that. On a related note, things are not much cheaper here than in Beijing either.

One thing along the way is this formation (click through to see the satellite photos) on Google maps, which looks like a huge valley, but it does not turn up on any searches about the surrounding cities.  Definitely gonna check that out…

Any suggestions for things to do after this part of the trip?  We’re thinking about going to Henan and seeing Luoyang, Kaifeng, and the Shaolin temples.  Anyone know if there other things in that area or in Shanxi/Shaanxi that are worth visiting?

Midwest:

May 9 – 11: Chicago
May 12 – 13: Urbana, IL
May 14: Madison, WI
May 15 – 19: Minneapolis, MN

DC:
May 29 – June 2

California:

June 8 – 15: LA
June 15 – 21: Bay Area

Europe:

July 14 – 18: Paris
July 18 – ??: Somewhere (Dublin? Madrid? Suggestions?)

America:

August ?? – probably taking a road trip somewhere, any recommendations / offers to crash on your couch?

On the other hand, this politeness comes from two different roots.  In Thailand it seems that people really are warm and friendly and go out of their way to help others, especially foreigners.  JJL made a whole bunch of friends (as did JM in her excursion out into the Thai Amazon), who all were genuinely nice and friendly, like OC.  But it seems that in Japan the politeness is much more reserved and formal.  I’ve heard many people complain that the Japanese are hard to get to know, and they keep their distance, often too much.  I personally like the fact that I’m not hassled in stores to buy things, but I could see how after living here too long you could feel very isolated from society.

The one instance in Japan where I saw someone lose their decorum was when I went with AD to an onsen (温泉) in Kyoto.  An onsen is a bath-house (a legitimate one, mind you!) where the water bubbles out from the ground and is pumped into various tubs for your soaking pleasure.  In the onsen I had to use the bathroom, and in the bathroom there was a pair of sandals.  So I stepped into the sandals in the bathroom, but forgot to take them out when I left.  I ended up inside the onsen with these slippers, and I realized that this was probably a no-no and I should return them.  Before I got the chance, the boss came through the onsen collecting trash and saw my crime.  And boy did she get pissed!  She said something to me in Japanese very angrily, something about a Toi-ru (toilet), and hussled out with the slippers.  Now if you paid attention you’ll notice also that I said “she”: the boss was a 60-year-old lady and she waltzed right into the men’s side where everyone was naked without even blinking an eye!  I guess no one else paid notice but both AD and I were kind of shocked that they wouldn’t send a male employee to take care of the men’s side.

Anyway, going back to the whole politeness thing, anyone who’s visited China will certainly agree with me that the Chinese are not very polite in public.  However, in their defense they are also much more curious and out-going than the Japanese.  People in China will stop foreigners and practice their English, or ask to take pictures, or compliment them on their Chinese, all without hesitation.  That’s something that people have told me never happens in Japan.

After seeing Yakushi-ji (药师寺) which is about 4km away from the train station in the opposite direction of all the other sites in the city, I went back to the center of town and stopped to get some food at a quickie-mart.  When I walked back out I reached in my pocket for the bike lock key and realized that it wasn’t there.  A tinge of anxiety struck me, but I figured I’d just gone inside the quickie mart and back out so it couldn’t have gone that far.

I retraced my steps and looked to see if it had fallen anywhere, but it hadn’t.  I asked the clerk if she’d seen a key lying around, but she hadn’t.  Twenty minutes later anxiety had turned to panic and I was emptying my pockets and bag looking for the key.

I tried remembering everything that I’d done between locking the bike and leaving the quickie-mart, and the only thing that could possibly explain this was that I’d tossed some things in the garbage before going inside the quickie mart.  So I opened the garbage can and fumbled through the (gross) things inside, but again nothing turned up.

At this point I started doubting whether or not I’d actually locked the bike at all.  Maybe I’d forgotten to lock it, and some asshole had come along and locked it, then taken the key?  But why would they do that instead of just taking the bike itself?  Then I realized that Japan had a penchant for “Candid Camera”-like shows and I wondered maybe I was the victim of a prank?  I looked around for any suspicious people or vans recording me, but couldn’t find any.

At this point I gave up and wheeled the bike back to the rental place.  Luckily I hadn’t gone very far so it only took about 15 minutes to get back, but all along the way I kept looking to see if anyone was taking pictures or recording me, so much was I convinced that this must be the fault of some Ashton Kutcher wannabe.

I finally got back to the rental place without catching anyone suspicious, and when I tried to explain to the rental guy that I’d lost the key, he couldn’t understand me.  He kept on speaking to me in Japanese like I could understand and I kept on responding in English as if he could understand, but it was hopeless.  Then he started writing Kanji but the characters he wrote I didn’t really recognize.  In retrospect he was obviously asking me whether I’d lost the keys (he wrote “纷失” and “锭”, which isn’t really in common usage in Chinese anymore but that I assume must mean “key”), but at the time I didn’t know what he was writing.  Finally we both walked over to the tourist information desk inside the train station and had the lady there translate for us.  He even gave me another bike so I could keep sightseeing, since I’d only covered one site before losing the key.  Still, I had to pay ¥2000 to replace the lock on the bike since he didn’t have a copy of the key.

I spent the rest of the day looking over my shoulder to see if the Candid Camera crew would hop out of the bushes.  Maybe they’d even pay me something for making me look like a fool?  But alas I was not so lucky.  Guess if it walks like a fool and loses keys like a fool, it must really be a fool.

Unfortunately, I’m not a huge fan of the noodles themselves.  I find the textures of both soba and udon to be a bit too spongy for me.  I’m a firm believer in firm noodles, and I think the best noodles I’ve found so far have been the noodles in Suzhou.  The noodle counters there are usually breakfast places, where you can order a bowl with some goodies piled on top, such as fish (鲍鱼) or shrimp (虾仁), and slurp it all down before heading to work.  Now the broths I find are a little too sweet and not a match for the Japanese broths I’ve had, but the noodles themselves are heaven itself.  They’re a little thicker than ramen and more al dente, much firmer and in my opinion better.  I keep on telling my relatives that they need to export these noodles to America and give the whole ramen craze here a run for its money.

Actually the first thing that I saw in Hiroshima wasn’t related at all to the bombing; I went to see the Shukkien garden (缩景园), which literally translates into the “Shrunken Scenery Garden”.  It’s a miniature replica of Xihu lake (西湖) in Hangzhou (), which is one of the most famous sites in all of China.  I visited Xihu lake before but I’m ashamed to say that it was so long ago that I don’t remember anything about it but the dinner that we had there.  Shukkien garden was beautiful, and in fact it was much nicer than the gardens we visited in China in one very important respect: it was empty!  There were barely any other people in the garden when I was there, so it was a nice place to take a breather, appreciate the (shrunken) scenery, and just chill out for a little bit.

From there I wandered over to the Atomic Bomb Dome  (原爆ドーム), which is the remains of the Hiroshima Industrial Promotion Hall.  The bomb was dropped about 160m away from this cite, and it’s amazing that anything withstood the blast.  The ruins are eerily out of place when contrasted with the vibrant, modern city of Hiroshima behind it, but it stands as a grim reminder of Hiroshima’s painful history.

The city is keen not to forget the lessons of that fateful morning on August 6th, 1945, and the park next to the Dome preserves the memory of those who perished and those who survived.  Both the Memorial Hall and the Museum are worth a visit, but be warned because the images are terribly disturbing and somber.  I had to keep from crying several times in the museum; to read about it sitting in a classroom is one thing, but to see the pictures and the melted and twisted remains of people’s belongings steps away from where they were vaporized without warning is another.  I’m glad that this museum exists, especially given the rather disturbing change in sentiment in Japanese politics these days, where the leaders increasingly view going nuclear as a necessary, perhaps even appropriate and desirable measure for national security.

On the way back to the train station from the museum I came across another less well-known reminder of Hiroshima’s (in)famous past: the former Hiroshima branch of the Bank of Japan (旧日本银行广岛支), which is the only building in central Hiroshima whose edifice predates the bombing.  You can see from the picture that the inscription above the door was mostly burned away by the bomb, but other than that the building is still in use as a museum.

The shrine itself is on Miyajima island, so the trip there required a Shinkansen train to Hiroshima, a local train to Miyajima-guchi (宫岛口), and a ferry to Miyajima itself.  The shrine is called Itsukushima Shrine (严岛神社) was built in the 6th century but subsequently rebuilt in the 12th century.  It’s one of the first things that pops to mind when someone says “Japan” so I had to see it firsthand.

The ferry ride from Miyajima-guchi to Miyajima was the smoothest ferry I’ve ever taken.  Waiting for the ferry to start, I kept perusing my guidebook for tidbits about its history.  When I lifted my head wondering why we still hadn’t left yet, I realized that we were actually already halfway there!  Unfortunately in my closer reading of the Lonely Planet guide, I came across the following devastating fact: the shrine is only submerged at high tide!  I crossed my fingers as we approached Miyajima in the hopes that by some miracle we’d arrive at high tide, but as we got closer it was clear that it was nowhere near high tide: there were people walking around the base of the shrine, which was standing in a mass of seaweed.

I figured that since I was there anyway I should make the best of it and check it out.  Unfortunately the shrine is nowhere near as impressive when it’s not submerged.

My one consolation was that there were lots of cute deer wandering around the island.  There were three at the exit of the train station but I thought that they were just a random fluke; turns out the entire island is crawling with deer, who are completely comfortable around people and will just sit there while tourists photograph and tease them with food.  In fact there were signs everywhere with the warning, “Be careful of deer, they eat paper!”  Boy did they know what they were talking about.