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2010 China Travels: Part IV – Beijing, Guilin, & Yangshuo

// April 21st, 2011 // No Comments » // China, Chinese, Dancing, Taiwan, Travel, Uncategorized

Wow, considering I wrote Part III back in November 2010, I’d say it’s about time to finish writing about my 2010 China travels! I was doing well keeping up with it all, but then classes started in Taiwan and things got busy (read my last post if you want to know what kept me so busy in Taiwan). So now I’ll take the time to finish what I started. Where I left the story last, it was Halloween and I had just landed in Beijing.

Beijing

I spent 4 days in Beijing, and while I was originally not planning on making a stop there, one thing changed my mind: The Cangelosi Cards. One of my favorite jazz bands of all time, it just so happened that the Cards were in town that weekend and were getting ready to play two shows back to back in Beijing. Since the last time I saw them was in Virginia Beach back in 2007, I decided I couldn’t miss it.

Tianjin Eye

The first day in Beijing, I joined in the Rocky Horror Picture Show party being put on by Beijing Swing, which was a riot to say the least! The next day was the Cards’ first show, and as soon as I entered the venue I ran into Tamar, the singer, who instantly recognized me. I couldn’t believe it, but she remembered seeing me the last time in VA Beach, because at that time we had talked about how I had just started learning Chinese. Here I am 3 years later and we meet in Beijing! The rest of the night was incredible, dancing away to their music till late in the morning.

The following day we did it again, and this time even better! The Cards gave an epic performance, and some of the dancers performed some routines live to the music. It was two of the best nights of dancing in a row that I’d had in a long time! The next day I headed to Tianjin to visit for a day and met with some professors at Tianjin University who showed me around the city. At the time I was considering working with them come spring of 2011 (though I ended up working in Beijing where I am now). I found Tianjin to be an extremely beautiful city, one very different from others I’ve visited, and it seemed a lot less crowded. It seemed like a city I could enjoy living in for a while.

Guilin

Guilin

I left Beijing in the morning, but my flight to Guilin was booked from Shanghai, so I spent one more night in Shanghai surprising all my dancer friends when I showed up. I flew into Guilin airport on November 5th and took a bus to the middle of the city where I went to Guanxi Normal University to meet with my buddy Robert’s girlfriend who was letting me spend the night while he was out of town. Robert and his brother run a school there, the Chinese Language Institute, and showed me around. I have to say I am very impressed with the program they have set up, and if I had the time I would considering studying there myself. I explored a tiny bit then crashed and prepared to visit Yangshuo in the morning.

Yangshuo

On the Li River

In the morning I went down to Yangshuo along with some of the CLI students, accompanying them on a field trip. We rode motor boats down the Li River marveling at the Karsts, then hiked through the small town of Xiping on our way to Yangshuo. We arrived in the evening, dropped our bags, and headed to a grand theater built on a lake where we saw Zhang Yimou’s famous show “Impression” (刘三姐). It was quite a fantastic sight to see, as most of the performance was done on small boats on the water. The choreography was breathtakingly complex and timed to a perfection that can only be achieved in China.

Climbing the Wineglass

The next day we rented bikes and rode around all over town seeing the many beautiful sites Yangshuo had to offer, including a famous mud cave where half the students stripped to their bathing suits and jumped in the mud. I opted to chill in the hot springs myself instead of freezing mud! Later that day, the students all went back to Guilin, but I decided to stay for one more day so I could do some rock climbing. I found a small climbing store, “Black Rock Climbing,” and booked a day with a couple Norwegian girls also looking to climb. In the morning, our guide, Weihua, brought us out to a cliff face called Wineglass and showed us the ropes. We spent the whole morning climbing, and in only a few hours we were pretty beat. It was an incredible experience though, because as you climb higher and higher you can see a remarkable view of the hundreds of karsts surrounding you. I now understand why the whole world talks about Yangshuo as a mecca for climbers.

On top of Moon Hill

Moon Hill

In the evening I headed over to Moon Hill mountain, famous for the huge hole in the middle, which was also full of climbers. I hiked past the “warning don’t go here” signs and got all the way to to top, where I caught an unforgettable sunset amongst the karsts. Later that night, I went over to The Giggling Tree hostel, a place I had heard of the very first time I visited China and had been wanting to see for years. It is a small place owned and run by a Dutch couple who bought the land and converted 17 different farm houses into a hostel. It is on the outskirts of Yangshuo in the middle of farms, and by far one of the most unique hostels in the world. It was also one of the nicest places I’ve ever stayed at in China, and quite affordable for a dorm room (only 50 RMB a night!). A night at The Giggling Tree was the perfect end to my 2010 backpacking adventures in China.

The Giggling Tree

I headed back to Guilin and hopped on my 20 hour train back to Shanghai, and while everything started nicely, things took an unfortunate turn for the worse. About 10 hours in, I got horribly sick…vomiting sick. Throwing up on a Chinese train for 10 hours has got to be one of the worst physical challenges I’ve endured in my life…and things only got worse. When I arrived in Shanghai, I at least had a day to recover at Bruce and Julia’s before boarding my flight for Taipei in the morning. In the morning, with nearly no strength left in my body, I managed to make it to the airport, only to find my flight had been delayed 3 hours. We boarded the plane, and waited another 2 hours before even taking off. By the time I landed in Xiamen, my connection to Taipei had left, and I was stuck for the night, sick, weak, and frustrated. Luckily I still had one extra day on my visa, and the airport put me up in a nice hotel. All in all it took an entire 24 hours until I got back on a plane for Taipei. When I landed, I was extremely relieved to find JC and Mindy waiting on me in the airport, and my Taiwan adventure began.

While it was a rough last 2 days traveling from Shanghai to Taipei, the previous month was full of incredible experiences and moments I will cherish forever. I had danced for 9 days in Shanghai and visited Hangzhou, Huangshan, Nanjing, Beijing, Guilin, and Yangshuo. I experienced so much in such little time I had to write about it in 4 parts, and didn’t finish it until now, 4 months afterwards! When I look back at the time I spent, I realize how lucky I am to have been able to see so many amazing places in this world, and it makes me very thankful to have had these experiences.

2010 China Travels: Part II – Huangshan

// November 17th, 2010 // No Comments » // China, Travel

There is an old Chinese saying that says, “No need to see 100 mountains after Huangshan.”   After my experience on the mountain, I couldn’t agree more.  Truly one of the most astonishing places I have ever traveled to, Huangshan will forever be in my memory.

After arriving in Tunxi on the night of October 24, I scrambled a plan together and decided to get up at 5:30 am to catch a bus to the mountain. The weather was supposed to still be bad, but I decided to risk it and get on up the mountain. On the morning bus I met an English girl, Charlotte, and a Taiwanese girl, Mayling (高美齡), and we decided to hike up the mountain together since we were all staying at the same hotel that night, the “White Cloud Hotel,” a fitting name considering we were basically in a giant cloud for the whole hike. As we hiked, we passed multiple men carrying loads of goods on a stick across their back. Straight through the cold rain, these guys hiked with barely anything for shoes or clothes on, some of them carrying loads easily weighing 80-90 lbs straight to the top of the mountain. They were a great source of motivation for us to keep pushing though the weather just got wetter and colder, especially since we could not see more than 10 ft in front of us through the fog.

Nearing the hotel, Charlotte and I stopped at a smaller hotel to get something to eat. We ordered a bowl of fried rice, the cheapest thing on the menu (prices were outrageous on the mountain!). While the waiter motioned with her hands that the bowl might be just enough for the two of us, we ended up with a bowl big enough to feed a family of 10! We ate not even a third before packing the rest and pushing on another 1.5 hours to the hotel.

By the time we finally reached the hotel, we had hiked for about 4 hours straight up steps, and over the last hour it had gotten quite cold. I only brought a pair of pants, a t-shirt, and a light rain jacket, so needless to say I was pretty freezing for the last bit. We showered and warmed up in the rooms and then went back to the lobby where we waited and sipped horribly watered down, overpriced hot chocolate. It was 2:00 pm, and the weather only got worse. By night fall all we had left for food was the left over rice from lunch, so we ate a bit and then went back to our rooms.

I shared the dorm room that night with just one other Chinese guy, with whom I entered into the standard conversation I have now experienced dozens of times in China. If you are an American who speaks Chinese and you are in China, you will inevitably have a conversation with multiple Chinese people that goes something like this:

Chinese guy (c): “American is great! China is not good. America is much better.”
Me (m): “Yeah, but China is good too.”
c: “Yeah, but China is so far behind America, at least 50 years back.”
m: “Well, I don’t know about that, but China is developing very quickly.”
c: “Yeah, but not fast enough. Say, you Americans are pretty good friends with Japan, right?”
m: “Yeah, we have good relations with Japan.”
c: “Yeah, but we Chinese, we don’t like Japan. You know, they never apologized for the atrocities they committed against us in WWII.”
m: “Yeah, I know. It was really terrible”
c: “Even Germany apologized. But not Japan. Japan is really terrible. But you know, you USA dropped the bombs on Japan. It was a really good thing!”
m: “Well, many people died, so it was not all good, but it did pretty much end the war.”
c: “Yeah, but Japan is bad. You should have dropped more than just 2 bombs.”

And that’s usually where the conversation ends. I’m not really sure why this topic always comes up, but for some reason the Chinese always bring up Japan and the bombs when talking to an American. Over the past two years, I’ve had this exact same conversation (almost verbatim) countless times. I wonder if it’s because I’m younger and they want to make sure I know the history?

In the morning, we got up to see the sunrise, but the weather seemed even worse, and much colder. It had dropped below freezing overnight, and while it made for a very cool sight to see all the trees frozen with ice, I could barely feel my limbs, so we went back to bed. Unfortunately, Charlotte had to leave, but I decided to wait in hopes for better weather the next day. As I was booking another night, Will walked into the lobby, the guy I met in Hangzhou just two days prior! We explored a bit more that afternoon, but it was so cold that we ended up just staying in the rest of the day. That night we shared some ramen and beer that a Chinese guy gave us since we were starving and had nothing left to eat on the mountain.

It was definitely worth the wait, because in the morning we got up and saw the most incredible sunrise of my life. The clouds had lowered over night, and we watched as the brilliant orange off in the distance creeped its way up over a sea of cotton clouds below. Since there were (of course) hundreds of Chinese tourists blocking the view, I jumped over the fence and climbed my way around the outer ledge to watch. It was quite safe and I found a solid rock to sit on, but the Chinese behind me were terrified by the crazy foreigner going beyond the boundary. One man even offered to use his belt to tie me to the fence!

After the sunrise, Will and I got breakfast then headed out to the western steps, the area famous for its cantilevered stairs and walkways that hang out off of shear cliffs. The steps were exhausting, but the view over the next few hours was absolutely unreal. We both expected a pterodactyl to come flying overhead at any moment – it was seriously like land of the lost or something! Every turn just got better and better, and since it was such a difficult part to hike through, none of the Chinese tourists went there. We had the whole place to ourselves!

“No need to see 100 mountains after Huangshan.”  Of all the places I’ve traveled to in China, Huangshan just took one of the top seats, up there with the Tiger Leaping Gorge. The fact that I had to suffer through freezing raining with barely any clothes and nothing good to eat for 2 days made the whole experience that much better in the end. By noon we were back at the hotel. Exhausted, we rode the cable car down and took a bus back to Tunxi where I took the best shower of my life and slept for 12 hours straight. In the morning, I took a 5-hour bus to Nanjing, where Part III of my trip begins.

Swing Out Shanghai & The Shanghai World Expo

// November 9th, 2010 // No Comments » // China, Chinese, Dancing, Shanghai, Shanghai, Travel, Uncategorized

Currently writing from Yangshuo, one of the most unique and beautiful little towns in all of southern China. This is the first time I’ve had a chance to write since leaving Shanghai two and a half weeks ago. I’ve now been back in China for 3 weeks, so I thought I would sit down and reflect a little my first week back since leaving in August of 2009.

I landed in Shanghai on October 13, 2010, around 1:30 pm Beijing time and proceeded to have the absolute smoothest travel experience of my life. I honestly couldn’t believe how well things went – my bad even came up just as I walked up to the baggage pick up. I got through customs with almost no wait, picked up a SIM card in the airport, called my friends Bruce and Julia who were hosting me in Shanghai, and hopped on the metro to their place. Everything seemed so familiar this time, and despite a year of living in the States, I immediately jumped back into Chinese. Bruce and Julia were a big part of that smooth transition too, because in addition to providing a very comfortable setting to get over the jet lag, they were great company and overwhelmingly helpful in every way. 5 stars to L’hotel Julia!

The very next night, I went dancing at the Melting Pot, and there is simply no better way to get over jet lag than to stay up late dancing with old friends who I haven’t seen in over a year! It was a huge reunion for me, and it began an unforgettable 9-day dancing streak. The next night (Friday) officially began “Swing Out Shanghai,” the city’s first ever international swing dancing event. Two years before in a bar in Hong Kong, the idea for the event was first hatched, and two years later it finally came to fruition.  For the next two days, it was non-stop dancing in Shanghai.  The opening dance was at C’est La Vie restaurant, followed by Saturday afternoon at Hengshan Park in the French Concession, then later that day at the Music Hall Court, then that night at the House of Blues and Jazz, and then finally the last dance at the Melting Pot Sunday night.  Friends from Beijing, Singapore, and Taiwan all came to the event which doubled our numbers and really made it a full blown lindy exchange.

As the chief DJ and music coordinator for the event, I was in charge of keeping the dance floor full, and my team of DJs really pulled through throughout the whole weekend (huge thanks to Akiko, Sam, Brian, and Chad).  The event ended, but then Monday night we were dancing again at the usual Monday night dances in Shanghai, so it sort of just kept going…and going, and going, and going, and…

…and then the Shanghai Expo performances began, called “Swing For All”featuring the Hong Kong Big Band.  It was Hong Kong week atthe Bao Steel stage, so the week was dedicated to a multitude of Hong Kong performers, which included the band and us, the dancers.  The band gave two performances on both Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons.  Throughout the show, the dancers social danced down in front of the stage to the music, and a select few gave a few special choreographed performances as well.  At the very end, we did a jam to “Sing Sing Sing,” and the very last performance the crowd rushed the stage and cheered and clapped along with us.  It was by far the most fun I’ve ever had during a dance performance, and one of the most unique dance performances of my life as well.  I was so proud of all of the dancers and musicians there and so happy to share a small piece of the happiness we all experience when we are dancing with the local Chinese people.  Photos and videos of both SOS and Swing for All can be seen here.

So then it was Thursday, and once again we danced at the weekly Thursday night dances (day #8 of dancing if you’ve been counting).  And then it was Friday, and a few Shanghai dancer friends and I decided to visit the Shanghai World Expo.  After all, we all had our VIP “performer” passes that were still good, so we figured we should make use of them and try and get into as many country pavilions as we could.  In order, we went into USA, Peru, Columbia, Brazil, Canada, Venezuela, Argentina, Germany, and finally Spain.  The whole thing was quite arbitrary – we just started walking and asking who would let us in as VIP (only Chile denied us…freakin stiff Chilean door guard).  Over all, I was so glad we did not have to wait to get into any of the pavilion, because none of them were worth more than 30 minutes.  Some were better than others (Germany, Canada, Spain), but in general there wasn’t much to see or do that was truly amazing.  It was kind of like a lousier version of Epcot without rides.  The most fun we had was when Akiko and I crashed the Argentina pavilion by totally faking some Argentine Tango (see video below).  Right in the middle there was a large open space, so when they started playing tango music we started doing really smooth swing, and kind of pulled off a tango-esque feel.  By the end, hundreds of Chinese had circled us, snapping photos right and left.  They all seemed to think we were part of the show (in fact one of the actual Argentina workers asked us afterwards what style of tango it was because had never seen it before!).  We finished the night by crashing an outdoor concert at the Australian pavilion as well where we danced right up in front of the stage.

After it all, I headed back to Bruce and Julia’s then caught a train to Hangzhou first thing Saturday morning and began my 3-week trip backpacking through China, which I am just now finishing up.  It has been quite an adventure, and there will be a massive amount of writing, photos, and videos to come soon.  I leave for Shanghai tonight and then fly to Taipei Thursday to begin my studies there for the winter.  Still, it is only just now hitting me how significant the whole first week of dancing in Shanghai was historically.  It was the first of its kind, and hopefully the beginning of much more to come.  Maybe fifty years from now people will look back at the origins of swing dancing in China and write about us!  Heck, we even made the LOCAL NEWS!

Fast Summer, Warrior Dash, Song Writing, & China

// October 7th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // China, Chinese, Shanghai, Travel

Tomorrow is my last day in Montana, and it is insane to sit here and realize just how much time has past since I first started working out here. I came here the last week of May for training, and now it’s the first week of October. So much has happened in between – road trip to Montreal, Hot Mess in Philly, family road trip to Tennessee, Southern Belle Swing Bash in Atlanta, trip to Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, and two-week trip to DC to hang out with friends one last time before leaving for Asia. It’s been one amazing summer – one full of incredible landscapes (Niagara Falls, Montana, and Yellowstone), incredible dancing, crazy amounts of traveling, and a great time off-loading in Hummers. Now there’s just one more thing to do before flying to Asia…

WARRIOR DASH! That’s right – getting ready to spend this weekend in Quarryville, PN, racing in the most ridiculous race I’ve ever seen. It’s basically a big tailgate with a 5k obstacle course in the middle. I’ve been training all summer as I usually do, but I’m hoping it will pay off at the race. I even made a training video over the past weekend which you can view at my videos page or on Facebook. I fly out Friday and the race starts Saturday morning – so excited!

On a completely different note, song writing has been a rather recent hobby of mine. With every new life experience I encounter, I find myself reflecting upon them through music, and constantly come up with instrumentals that express certain feelings. I’ve come up with several full songs, but am always struggling to find matching lyrics for them. I was recently inspired, however, by fellow lindy hopper and singer-song writer Carsie Blanton (visit her website or her myspace). I briefly met Carsie at Hot Mess in Philadelphia this past July, but only as a dancer, and I had no idea how talented she is as a musician. However, I recently listened to her performance at Mountain Stage on NPR and was totally blown away by her fantastically witty lyrics and soft, gentle, and pure voice. Such a refreshing combination of poetry and music really inspired me to continue exploring songs I have written over the years. So thanks Carsie for really helping me with a fresh, new, inspiring sound, and hopefully someday I will finish these tunes and write them down as works of art.

Next Tuesday, October 12, I fly to Shanghai, China, where I will once again begin another adventure in Asia. This time, since I’ve graduated, I have more freedom to do whatever comes across my plate, so I’m pretty excited to see what I can find. I’m hoping to do some traveling in mainland China first (Nanjin, Three Gorges Dam, Xian, Guilin, Yangshuo) and then I’ll be at National Taiwan University for the winter studying mandarin. After that, who knows. I will be looking for work opportunities the whole time I am there, so if something comes up I will probably take it. Plans are pretty flexible for now. Next time I post something, I’ll probably be in China!

Korea is Fancy

// August 9th, 2009 // No Comments » // China, Dancing, Harbin, Korea, Travel

Wow did the last few weeks fly by or what! I’m now writing from Korea and I didn’t even have time to mention that I left China! So here’s what happened:

July 25:  Went to the Tiger Park in Harbin – got some great photos of tigers that I’ll post soon.
August 4:  Final exam in Chinese classes, closing ceremonies that afternoon/evening (I somehow got all A’s!).
August 5:  Took a train all day to Beijing, arrive at 7:30 pm and meet up with Josh (swing dancer in Beijing). Hung out with Josh and other dancers, spent the night at Josh’s.
August 6:  Flight to Seoul at 1:45 pm, arrive at 4:45 pm. Took a bus to Hapjeong station and was met by my friend Miyeoung. Stay at her place that night.
August 7:  Train to Pusan, dance in Pusan that night.
August 7 – 9:  Pusan swing festival! Dancing all night, all day.
August 9:  Train back to Seoul, dance that night in Seoul.

Now I’m back in Seoul. Even though I have been in Korea for about 4 days, today is really my first chance to go out and explore the city on my own, and I am about to go do that. So far my first impressions of Korea are that it is incredibly clean, nice, and fancy. The roads are kept in perfect shape and people actually drive inside the lanes. Seoul is one of the cleanest cities I’ve ever been to (for a city of this size). There is not one piece of trash on the road and all the buildings are spotless.
My biggest impression is simply that Korea is fancy. It’s become a running joke with my friends here that whenever I see something that surprises me they always say, “Yeah I know. It’s Korea. It’s fancy.” For example, McDonald’s uses hard plastic cups and washes them to reduce waste – it’s fancy. You can pick up a wireless internet signal just about anywhere – it’s fancy. There was a giant Starcraft gaming competition on the beach in Pusan – it’s fancy. Well, that last one maybe was not “fancy,” but I did witness it. A crowd of at least 2,000 people all sat in chairs watching two computer geeks battle it out in a Starcraft match on the beach. Two huge jumbo-trans projected the game while two announcers called the game play-by-play. It was like a football match but with computer games instead of athletes. Anyway, those are my first impressions of Korea. Now I’m going to go exploring and see what else I can find.