(initial post: 8.9.02 at 11:02am California time)
well, here i am back in LAX again. i am sooo looking forward to spending the next twelve hours or so in a metal contraption hurling through the sky like a frightened yellow-bellied sapsucker. boooooo! we’re part of this fobby tour group called “Super Vacation” and we’re forced to wear these silly buttons. argh! we just checked in our luggage and now we’re waiting in this insanely long line to get to the terminal. i estimate the line (which stretches from the base of an escalator inside all the way outside to a bus stop) is roughly the length of a city block. well, back to waiting.
(initial post: 8.9.02 at 12:31pm California time)
one and a half hours and half a dozen security checks later, i’m sitting at gate 27 about to wait another hour or so for our 1:40pm flight to Beijing. what morbid fascination do airports have with making people wait?! ahhh! i’m insane with anger! ahhh! i’m losing my mind! heh heh…just kidding. i found some flaws in airport security during my time here at LAX. metal detectors don’t pick up sterling silver. how do i know? i went through a few of them with three rings and a chain. what’s to stop people from bringing silver knives or even silver guns? and another thing. the point in confiscating weapons is so they don’t make it aboard aircraft right? they prohibit any cutting implements including (but not limited to) ice picks and pen knives. however, what do you get when you ask for some refreshing 7up? an aluminum can! such a container could easily be transformed by hand into a deadly skin-puncturing device! boooo!
(initial post: 8.9.02 at ??:???m i have no idea what time it is or where we are…somewhere over the Pacific, i think)
to describe it in one word: maddening. i’ve been on this plane for six hours and seven minutes and i’ve got approxlmately six more hours to go. so far i’ve finished my September issue of Super Street, read 50-some pages in The Accidental Asian, watched bits and pieces of Mouse Trap (which i must say, from what little i saw, is a HORRIBLE movie), took a walk and visited the lavatory twice. not too shabby i guess… it sure beats hitting a Benz while backing out of a cramped parking space. i realize that it’s almost 11pm back home in Chicago and i wonder what everyone’s up to. i wonder to myself what i would be doing at this point if i weren’t tearing through the sky at 520mph. i ask myself why i’m not back in Chicago spending what little time i have left with my close friends until we all go our separate ways. then i realize that this is probably the last (and ironically my first) time i’ll be in the Mainland for a good while. this is my chance to get back to my roots and what can i say? i’m filled with excitement. i want to be on the Great Wall and see that it stretches farther than my eyes can see. i want to venture into the Forbidden City and imagine how many great emperors of old have stood where i’m standing. i want to stare in awe at the countless rows of Terracotta Warriors and wonder if any were modelled after my ancestors. thinking of these things brings a smile to my face and now i know that this seemingly unbearable plane ride is well worth memories that will last me a lifetime.
12:06:13. that’s how long i’ve just spent on a plane. twelve hours, six minutes and thirteen seconds…i timed it (yes, i’m a a nerd i know) from the instant the rear wheels left the ground at LAX til they touched ground again in PEK. sure, it’s not the longest airplane trip i’ve ever been on but it’s been awhile (three to four years) since i’ve even been on a plane. wanting to eliminate jetlag, i refused to sleep for the entire duration of the trip and now i’m dead tired (i’ve been up for the last 20 hours) but i gotta endure for at least four more hours before i can slip into sweet, sweet slumber. -_-
(initial post: 8.11.02 at 12:02 pm Beijing time)
wow…China is amazing. i can barely even tear myself away from the sights and sounds for a scant few minutes to blog. i just spent the last few hours wandering about the Forbidden City and let me tell ya…it makes me very proud to be Chinese. i walked where the emperors walked, i stood in the exact spot where the emperor’s ornate diamond-encrusted redwood toilet once stood in all its glory. i feel alive. well, onto another subject: cars. a lot of VWs, Audis and Citröens as well as the classic DSMs, Toyotas and Hondas. one thing most cars here have in common is that they all have clear corners! stock! Accord’s, A6’s, Camry’s…all come with clear corners! amazing. i think i’m gonna jack some Civic headlights later.
(initial post: 8.11.02 at 10:13pm Beijing time)
wah. long day. after lunch we headed to the TianTan (Temple of Heaven). pret-ty slick. it’s mind-blowing to know that these structures are more than five hundred years old! in other news, everywhere you go in China (as in tourist spots), you get pestered by street vendors who try to sell you cheap, gaudy souvenirs. well, today i got fed up with them when we were visiting the Summer Palace. this lady was trying to sell me these pressed leaves and so i declined and in turn tried to sell her my half-empty bottle of water for $5 RMB. a look of shock consumed her face as she realized that the vendor had become the vendee…the predator the prey. the tables had turned and her mouth hung open as she understood that the ludicrousness of my offer matched her’s. i wasn’t bothered by peddlers for the remainder of my stay at the Summer Palace. anyways, i just got back from shopping alone at “Carrefours”, a multilevel French Meijer’s-esque chain superstore that sells everything from live fish to CD’s. i spent half the time shopping and the other half trying to figure out how the heck to get out of there. after a long search, i asked an employee and she said the cash registers were downstairs. the only way downstairs was by “escalator” (slanted moving sidewalks). i finally checked out (i bought two t-shirts for about five bucks) and got out of there. i think i’m gonna go buy more clothes since it’s so freakin’ cheap.
(initial post: 8.12.02 at 11:32am Beijing time)
i’m blogging from on top of the Great Wall now. i thought it’d be fairly easy to climb but man, was i wrong. it’s like being handcuffed to a stairmaster set on “Himalayan trek”. the steps are all about two feet high and i’ve climbed more than a hundred of them. to sum it up: i’m exhausted. now i just realized that i lost my visor. it was around my neck before but now it’s gone. i’m guessing that it’s either still somewhere on the Great Wall or in the grubby little hands of some thieving adolescent. agh! oh well…i guess it’s time for me to let go…and go get a new one for a dollar.
(initial post: 8.12.02 at 1:31pm Beijing time)
we just arrived at our restaurant and i really had to go to the bathroom. i followed the WC signs and finally found it. it looked huge through the saloon-style doors and i felt unbelievably great as i entered. it must be how basketball players feel when their name is announced during the starting lineup. i’m not sure why i felt like a million bucks. the bathroom wasn’t really that big…or clean. hmmm…oh well.
(initial post: 8.12.02 at 6:09pm Beijing time)
i’m getting a foot massage right now at a parlor built into Beijing’s olympic stadium (for 2008). it tickles like crazy but i’m trying my best not to laugh like a supersaturated chickenhat wearing hyena. i’m gripping my palm pilot really hard and i occasionally write random letters abnormally fast when it gets too hard to handle. i think the guy who’s massaging my feet enjoys seeing me suffer because he smiles deviously whenever he sees me cringe. man…the head massage lady just walked over and asked me what i had in my hand. i replied “computer” in Cantonese (which she used to ask me) and she just said “oh.” this is the second time i’ve been asked about my PDA…the first was by a vendor guy on top of the Great Wall. well, back to my feet. there’s this traditional doctor walking around and he’s feeling everyone’s feet and telling them what’s wrong with their bodies. it’s scary (number three and four…i was just asked about my Palm again by two other massage ladies) because he accurately told my mom that she was diabetic and that she hadn’t been sleeping well. he also told my little sister to eat breakfast because he detected an imbalance in the force…i mean…her body. the strange thing is is that he didn’t say anything to me. he merely felt my feet and asked if i was healthy. he didn’t pick up my raging insomnia, eating disorder(s) or my chronic headaches. meh…oh well.
(initial post: 8.13.02 at 5:42am Beijing time)
woke up at 4:50am this morning because we’re leaving Beijing today to catch a 7:30am flight to Xi’an. i’m sooo tired. i went shopping again last night and i found a legitimate version of the new Jay Chou CD for $18 RMB (a little more than two bucks). sweeet! okay, i’m at the airport
(initial post: 8.13.02 at 2:11pm Xi’an time)
the first thing we did when we got here was to visit the city wall. for those of you that don’t know, Xi’an was the capitol of China from roughly 600 BC to 800 AD…home for a grand total of 11 dynasties. holy crap. the wall of the city is still largely intact and even the redwood gatehouses still stand. pretty freakin’ amazing for something +2000 years old. speaking of a long time, we’ve been in Xi’an for more than five hours and we haven’t gone to our hotel yet. i’m exhausted.
(initial post: 8.13.02 at 8:19pm Xi’an time)
i think i have food poisoning.
(initial post: 8.14.02 at 3:23pm Xi’an time)
it’s confirmed, i’m sick. ugh. i spent a lot of time last night in the WC but that’s another story for another day. today i want to talk about Chinese traffic. in a word? insane. no one follows the lane dividers let alone traffic laws. the taxis are dinky and they use their size to squeeze through equally small gaps in traffic. i’ve seen everything from vans on the walkways to cars driving into oncoming traffic only to swerve back into the correct side in the nick of time. however, our driver Tao “sifu” (”master” Tao…no relation to David) has the skills to avoid instant doom. he pilots the six speed (yes, it’s stick) bus like an extension of his knee. the odd thing about Chinese traffic is that despite the lack of rules, the crazy driving and the presence of automotive chaos…there are rarely any accidents. in fact, i haven’t seen any. funny considering that i think we’re going to die at any given time on the road.
(initial post: 8.15.02 at 7:17pm Xi’an time)
well…we’re leaving Xi’an today to fly to Shanghai and then we’re taking a bus to Suzhou.
(initial post: 8.15.02 at 11:03am Shanghai time)
ahh…i kinda like Air China. despite not having monitors in every seat, Air China is pretty sweet. first off, they have a live feed from the plane’s nose and belly cameras during takeoff and landing so you can see in front and under the aircraft…cool huh? the other thing cool about this airline? kiwi juice. that’s right…they carry kiwi juice. now, if you’ve ever had it before then you are well aware that it rocks. that’s right…kiwi juice rocks. well, at least i think it does. yep…that’s why Air China is cool…otherwise it’s pretty ghetto.
(initial post: 8.15.02 at 4:08pm Shanghai time)
i’m on my way to Suzhou now. we ate lunch in Shanghai and visited the famous Yu Garden afterwards. man, is it gorgeous! it makes me want to build one of my own. the city of Shanghai is quite beautiful too. its healthy helping of sleek, modern buildings threatens to beat the living snot out of most american cities and pound them into the ground. China is breathtakingly beautiful and i’m so proud to call it my homeland.
(initial post: 8.15.02 at 8:01pm Suzhou time)
we visited Tiger Hill today after we got here. it’s home to the “leaning pagoda” which is very much like the leaning tower of Pisa except this one is Chinese, isn’t as tall and is a lot older. the pagoda is part of a temple on top of the hill and the floor was repaved during the Qing dynasty using gravestones as well as normal granite slabs. pretty sad because we kept on seeing the deceased’s names carved on the steps. anyways…it’s pretty cool here in Suzhou. i just finished dinner with live traditional music. Suzhou is often called “the Venice of the east” because of the dozens of canals running throughout the city. Suzhou is ranked #420 out of 660 Chinese cities in terms of population but #5 in terms of economic status. pret-ty slick.
(initial post: 8.16.02 at 11:07am Suzhou time)
the only white guy in our tour group just crushed (literally) a metal chair when he sat down on it.
(initial post: 8.16.02 at 7:03pm Hangzhou time)
my palm is slowly losing battery life because i haven’t had a chance to charge it so please excuse the sparsity of posts for the next few days. we just spent the last few hours on the bus from Suzhou to Hangzhou. i’m tired. i’m also drinking orange soda. thank you.
(initial post: 8.18.02 at 1:10pm Beijing time)
i’m back at PEK right now. after our brief visit to Hangzhou we drove back to Shanghai and then flew back here to Beijing. i’m pooped.
(initial post: 8.18.02 at 6:23am Alaska time)
flying over the gulf of Alaska right now but i wish i could’ve stayed in China longer. in case you didn’t notice, this post’s timestamp is earlier than the previous time-wise but later in real life. weird huh? we left PEK at around 2pm today and we’ll arrive in LAX at 11am the same day so we gained three hours instead of losing twelve from the flight. uh…anyways… it’s good to be (almost) home. i have a few more days in LA and then i get to start college.
(initial post: 8.21.02 at 1:14pm LA time)
it’s time to go home! the last few days have been pretty laid back and i didn’t really go anywhere except yesterday when i drove around Arcadia with awang looking for a tuning garage. you’d think that we’d be able to find one no problem but noooo…we didn’t find ANY. boooo! okay, almost boarding time.
