I'm currently sitting on my momentarily gnat and fruit fly free bed in Le Du (a xian or small county within Haidong, a district within Qinghai), and wondering where I should even begin this post, as so much has happened since the bai jiu fest back in Xining. To save you the pain of reading verbatim my daily diary entries, I'll divide this update between two posts regarding my personal and project-related experiences. PS – Sorry about having to switch to inboxjournal.com; it has a lot of mistakes (e.g., words are going to be unintentionally bunched together or split apart), but at least it's accessible in China.
Yan and I have grown to love Xining, the capital city of Qinghai. It's almost like Beijing, but maybe about 10 years behind in development. When I first got here, all I saw was the potholes in the sidewalks, the trucks chugging by with a three-foot high pile of lamb carcasses, the mothers holding their toddlers over any crevice in the ground to let them pee or poo through the large slit in their pants.
However, after having spent a couple of weeks here, we've gotten to know the city so well that we often miss our hotel home in Xining whenever we have to travel outside of the capital. Our hotel has nice showers and a great restaurant, which takes care of two of my biggest worries about going to China. I haven't been forced to go even a day without showering and I've been getting more than enough daily intake of vegetables (both of which I thought I'd be lacking for at least a week and even up to a month while in Qinghai). Everyone at the hotel recognizes us as the two girls from America, and a few are always incredibly nice to us. One waitress at the restaurant (who is always dressed in a neon pink and green Tibetan outfit) is very patient with me whenever I try to practice my Chinese with her. Since she knows we prefer vegetables instead of meat, she has suggested some pretty tasty dishes, one of them being you mai cai which we have ordered almost every night. When we asked her if there are any fun things to do around the city, she suggested going to Nan Shan (South Mountain, literally). By chance, a few days after we asked was 9/9, the city's holiday to climb the mountain. We were extremely excited to hear this news, expecting to do a pretty rough hike, see some great scenery, and be surrounded by locals celebrating. When we get there on 9/9, dressed in our hiking boots and armed with bottles of water, it's slightly drizzling, there are about 10 other people around, the cement paths are cleanly kept, and the bushes and grass are deliberately landscaped. There is even a mini-Shanghai and a very cute bridge that make for very boring pictures (to be loaded onto Flickr).
Another great story is about one of the young girls that work at the front desk. One night, as we were heading up to our room, she asks for our help to study for an English exam she was going to take the next day. We gladly help her out and wish her luck. The next night, my stomach's not feeing so well and Yan goes downstairs to get me a cup of chamomile tea. She comes back to the room empty-handed but with a great, big smile on her face. She tells me that the same girl we helped the night before told her that chamomile tea is not the right cup of tea – instead, I'm supposed to drink this special tea boiled with lots of ginger and some brown sugar. Since we clearly don't have the means to make this tea in our hotel room, the girl calls her mom immediately, tells her to start cooking some, runs home to get it, and brings it straight to our room! I don't know whether it was the tea or the fast-acting karma, but my stomach was feeling much better by the next day.
Anyway, yes, Yan and I do venture out of the hotel at times. Just around the corner are three dumpling houses – we've tried all three and have chosen our favorite. They make their dumplings right in front of you on order and it's run by an incredibly welcoming woman who even let us help her make some jiao zi our first time eating there! A little bit farther down is the best open-air market in the world – we know it now like the back of our hand. The boy who sells li (apple pears) recognizes us, probably as his most frequent customers, and always excitedly asks, "So, how many do you want this time?"
My favorite pastime is walking from our hotel to Wang Fu Jing (a huge department store, but can also be used to describe the general shopping center of Xining; one also exists in Beijing). The directions are easy: go straight down one street from A to B. It's great exercise: we can easily ride Bus #25 at a cost of a whopping 1RMB, but Yan and I almost always opt to walk. We only do this on occasion since it takes about an hour and a half each way, if we don't stop along the way (we've estimated that it's about a 6-mile round trip adventure). The best part though is that we pretty much cover the entire city's boundaries. Starting from the hotel, the streets are a bit more rural and there aren't as many people. We pass by a lot of construction that usually forces us to walk on the roads where bicyclists, motorcyclists, cars, buses, and other pedestrians are constant hazards. There is a Muslim shopping center about a block long, always filled with men wearing white hats and women wearing brilliantly colored headscarves buying more white hats and more brilliantly colored headscarves. As we approach Wang Fu Jing, stores selling purses, jewelry, sporting goods and American brand names begin to line the streets, sidewalks become more crowded, and people are dressed more hip. There is a small bakery that has specialized in making small, delicious muffins. This is the highlight of the trip for me. I always wait for fresh ones to come straight out of the oven. Not much long after the muffins, we'll see KFC#1, at which point we're only about 5 minutes away from KFC#2 and Wang Fu Jing. Destination arrived.
Add comment
