I can't..I just don't think I can...I guess I have no choice!

DO NOT TURN YOUR BACK ON THESE SCHEMING CREATURES

Do not take your eyes off the scheming monkeys

Musicians and friends for dinner - Cheers.

Hey, hey, whatcha doin - whatcha doin???

Making new friends in China

Red Panda..or is it a Chinese raccoon?

Whatcha lookin' at?

Foodsicles and Stairmaster Deluxe

Whew. That's all I can say today. We are in a town called Baoguo where there is a famous mountain called Emai Shan. This mountain is very famous in China and covered in monasteries and temples. You can climb the mountain up and then come down with stone steps conveniently provided. After reading the missives from previous travellers posted on bedsheets tacked to the wall at the Teddy Bear Inn where we are staying, we opted to take the bus (2 hours plus) up the mountain (cause we didn't think we could make it up, and boy, were we right) and then climb down to a monastery and stay the night. It was very foggy and drizzly on the winding, grinding bus ride up and we both started to get sleepy from the altitude (3309 metres up) and then when we got to the top we took a cable car to the summit which was a complete waste of money as the mountain was absolutely shrouded in mist. Ok, so let's walk down.

OMYGOD. I am typing this the day after and debating whether I need knee or hip replacements first. Ivan and I are gibbling about as though our legs are made of rubber. It just kept going down and then up to go down again and for God's sake, as you all know, neither one of us is young and springy anymore. 5 hours passed on teeny stone steps, going sideways sometimes on slimy, wet stones and there were Chinese folks among us who were wobbling about like rubber chickens too. In fact, you can take a porter down who will carry you on a palanquin - fit sherpa guys (always one tall and one short - you can figure that one out) who make less than a buck hauling folks down from eminent collapse. Proud to say that though we were close, did not have to employ the boys although it was just in time when we reached the most famous monastery - Wannian- where the temple is amazing but the food lady is formidable. I ordered things pointing to the menu and then was very miffed when we ended up with aquatic soup, fried cabbage and rice when I really wanted pork and bamboo shoots only to find out that I was pointing below instead of above and so it goes.

Our room was, of course, up 3 flights of stairs. The lady taking us up actually held my arm to get me up there as though she thought I would collapse on her, close, but no. Our room would have had an amazing view had we not been enshrouded with cloud and rain but they did have - HOT WATER AND ELECTRIC BLANKETS - bliss and nirvana at the monastery. sigh.

This morning we lay in bed with electric comfort as we could hear the throngs of pilgrims below visited the monastery until the power went out and then we quickly dressed and made our way to THE CABLE CAR, neither one of us in any shape to walk the 5 plus hours to the bottom and took a bus back to the hotel. There is no shame in this, as, if we are to go any further on this trip, knees will be required.

As for foodsicles, I have to relate the story of the night before we left Leshan. The musician buddies that we met invited us for dinner, as you will recall from my last blog, and we showed up after Buddha viewing at the music store. We were met there by an assortment of musicians and an english speaking friend, Tina is her English name which she was not pleased to hear, is short for Christina, and then wanted to change her name to Telly until I told her that was short for television and decided to stay with Tina. That aside, we took a taxi to a Chinese restaurant for genuine hotpot. After we were seated on kindergarten chairs (they like short chairs here) and the tea was poured and beer ordered, Tina asked me to come with her. She led me to a shelf of a gazillion sticks with a variety of bizarre looking meats and such on them and told me to choose something as she grabbed a half a gazillion sticks to take back to our table. I thought I might be safe with beef. It was a very fun dinner, with cauldrons of oil and hot spices in front of us we put the sticks containing, as we were to learn, many intestinal goodies and duck's tongues and wee eggs and God knows what into the oil and sent up copious toasts with the beer, a good time was had by all.

Afterwards, the musicians asked, shyly, if we would like to go to their jam room which, they said, was in a very dark place. We said, oh yeah. Then I rode on the back of one of the buddy's motorbikes, and Ivan walked with the other guys to an old factory site which was, dark. It was great. They had drums and a whole bunch of cool equipment, which they probably spent all their money on and they rocked out for us. Ivan played with them for a while and they played their tunes for us and it was a rockin' night. They then escorted us to a taxi and it was a very unique experience in China for to meet locals and hang with them is unusual and it was all due to the fact that music is the universal language.

We are on our way this aft, if our legs will carry us to the bus, back to Chengdu and then we hope to fly to another place and another bus ride to a countryside town. bye for now and hey, if you are reading this, send a post or an email, it's such a lift to get email from y'all.

hockin' and rockin'

We came to Leshan with some Israeli folks we met but missed the bus they were on yesterday and caught one 20 minutes after them hoping to hook up with them once we got here but, alas, we have lost them I fear, forever. Too bad, they were nice. At any rate, we like our little enclave in the neighborhood. After internet cafe yesterday, we walked over to the little music shop on our street and Ivan jammed out with the local dudes who were pretty good on the bass and drums and they were duly impressed with the shredding. So, now we have a band, or at the very least, musical friends for life. An audience lined the street to hear Ivan play with the boys and it was all good fun - he even got an encore! It was also very advantageous as today they helped us get to our bus and tonight they have invited us to their home for dinner. Our first Chinese invitation, we are excited to see what's for dinner.

Today we visited THE BIGGEST BUDDHA IN THE WORLD, no kidding, it was 77 metres high and we had climb down a very scary staircase to get to it but the Chinese folks were very gracious and all wanted their pictures taken with us, evidently, we are more popular than Buddha in Leshan.

As for the title of this blog, well the rockin' part has been addressed but I think it's only honest to say that I have taken as late to spitting on the streets along with the locals. I can't help it. I'm clogged up so bad from the pollution that I can't breathe half the time and as gross as it is, it does do the trick. Don't tell anybody. Healthwise, I'm 0 for 3, I am clogged up (nasally, that is), I stubbed my toe so hard I felt it in my cranium and my knee is buggered but I'm still movin' and groovin' Ivan of course, is impenetrable. Buddy just hocked beside me - ya gotta love China.

Lost in Translation

Well, we left Xi'an yesterday, really loved that place. Amazing light shows downtown, not a building that isn't neon it seems. Very cool with old Chinese buildings in the centre of a booming metropolis, Chanel, Gucci, Prada etc. everywhere and folks flying kites in the town square. Our hostel rocked, really clean and good folks, sorry to leave. We flew to Chengdu and took the bus we thought was going to take us to the hostel but it was just the end of the line so there we stood with all our gear in the night trying to get someone to take us to the Dragon Town Hostel - no takers. Finally found a buddy who collected Canadian coins and for a tooney and 2 quarters, he got us a cab to our destination. Funny the folks you meet on the street. We then got to our hostel and found that it was on a back street completely torn up with gaping chasms for streets - and it was a DUMP - rat running down window kind of made the case for getting out fast. Shared bathroom and wayward, opinionated, repatriated Americans made it even less palatable.

Chengshu is known for its hotpot so of course we ventured out to find place with our Israeli companions and ended up dipping things like pork balls and slimy eel into boiling vats of chili. It's not going to be a staple, in fact, the beer was good.

This morning we went to the panda preserve and watched the pandas in an assortment of poses and eating behaviours and for 50 Yuan (a highway robbery but I couldn't resist) I got to hold a red panda for photos. Too cute. It was a very impressive facility and every day we marvel at the size and scope of China - too big to describe.

This afternoon we got out of Dodge and took the bus to a place called Leshan where it is smaller and has the BIGGEST BUDDHA IN THE WORLD which we shall see tomorrow. Funny of the day is the lady on the street who said hello, we showed her the address for this internet cafe and from then on she took over. Grabbed a cab all the while jabbering away at us in Chinese, we had no idea where she was taking us, and lo and behold here we sit doing the blog. Although, it did not come without a price, she has now extracted our addresses and names and emails and written us a letter and given us her phone number with great gesticulation that we must ring her. Ya right.

The pity of the day is that we can't post the great pix we have from terracotta warriors and pandas today but stay tuned. Ok...seeya.

Terracotta Warriors and Xi'an

We are staying in a hostel right downtown that is clean and convenient although the bed does not have an ounce of move in it. I could have slept on the floor and it may have been softer than the mattress. There are 2 wee cats here, probably just a month old who were squalling away and making a terrible uproar. I asked the folks what they were feeding them and they said bread and water so...being me, I bought them some milk and kitten food and now it appears I may have 2 small additions in my pack. We have nick-named them pee-wee and pissy-pants as one is grossly undergrown and the other squatted on the couch last night and without a shred of self consciousness, vacated a good portion of the couch.

A good part of travelling here is trying to decided where to go, how to get there economically and then to try to get it done. We spent the morning deciding to go to Chengdu next and will fly there as the train here nearly killed us with smoke. We were in a hard sleeper - read patty stacker - 3 bunks on each side reaching to the ceiling. Between the cigarette smoke and stereophonic snoring - soundsurround - it was not fun getting off in the morning. The plane fare is not too much and will save us 24 hours on the train.

Today we saw the 8th man made wonder of the world - The famed Terracotta Warriors and they were, and are, everything they are cracked up to be. It is an astonishing sight and the Chinese have really outdone themselves on building beautiful facilities around them. There are so far 2000 of them reconstructed with another 4000 set to be excavated and reassembled. We took the local bus (well, we got on the wrong one first) to the train station and then caught another one to about an hour from here to where they are housed. Funny, when we were getting on our bus, they were filming with a big camera and asked us to get off the bus again so they could film us getting back on. Inevitably we will end up on some cheesy tv commercial or promo or such. The bus ride was comfortable and we got to experience the culture a little more than had we booked a tour.

Chengdu tomorrow where we will go to visit the panda preserve and who knows from there.

Farewell Pingyao

With sadness we leave Pingyao. As it turns out, the room that we were given was the equivalent of USD $112.00 per night x 3 nights plus free internet and a couple of bottles of good wine! These people were wonderful and we had a super time here. Now it's on to the night train - hard sleeper - haven't done that yet so it's all an adventure although we are not looking forward to it much - 11 hours on clunky old trains ain't much fun. My friend, Rainbow, who is the owner's wife here has kindly offered to drive us to the train which is a real treat. We could not have been treated more kindly, so with a tear we leave.

Geez.

Ok...so we did get some photos on here but as you can tell, we haven't got it all down yet. It's really, really (read impossible) to figure out directions as our Chinese hasn't caught up with our technical skills. Take it for what it is and enjoy the pix. Dig Ivan standing beside his Marquee. seeya.

Me by the beer cooler - it's always been my favourite place.

My new friend - Rainbow - dig the jackets!

Ivan's gig in Pingyao - Layla playing the egg - a star is born

corn (artsy)

A lonely soul in Datong train station

Soft sleeper compartment

Nirvana in Yungang - Communing with Buddha

On the street where we live in Pingyao

Our tour guide - works for peanuts

Shrine after shrine

New friends in Pingyao- the Collingwood contingent

Pingyao Harley

Ivan and the Pingyao Cookie Monster

Pingyao Gig

Too funny...Ivan has his first gig in China! Last night we ate at this restaurant/guesthouse where all the backpackers hang and I asked the proprieter if they would like to have some live music here. He didn't really understand but we brought along a CD and they listened to it and then all hell broke loose. There was a photographer and a contingent of Chinese people coming to our table and the manager sent the best bottle of wine in the house to our table and they offered us a free room; it was pretty cool. So we had a couple of bottles of wine with some folks we met from Collingwood and as we were leaving, they were blasting Ivan's CD down the street. We really didn't want to offend the folks where we are staying by taking a room here but when we came back today, the manager took us to the biggest suite in the hotel with a BATHTUB and everything and now Ivan will be playing here for 3 nights and we did take the room because, after all, you can't say no to a gift in China. We are now officially honoured guests. They are having a big banner made up for the outside of the hotel to advertise the entertainment and overall, it should be a good time. I think the room they are giving us is at least $50 USD which is very expensive in Pingyao as the room we have been staying in was about $12 USD.

Before we left, we joked about Ivan becoming a star in Inner Mongolia - this is better as we love this town a lot! After leaving here last night we went to our guesthouse and Ivan played for a packed room with everyone singing "I'm a Believer" and shaking eggs and tambourines. We are definitely leaving our mark here. More later ...and....I think I can post photos here tomorrow. Today I am suffering from a miserable headcold and hope to shake it off with honey and lemon. Hey, they serve really good spaghetti here :) The running joke is - so, ya feel like Chinese food tonight?

Cigarette Smoke and Attitude and Beauty

Wow..we found a little hotel that we can post from! We are in Pingyao - a really cool old town - the most typical old Chinese town in China. It is surrounded by a huge wall and is remaining from the Qing/Ming dynasty. I can't begin to tell you how impressive this place is - our favourite so far. The train ride was worth commenting on for sure. We could not get 2 soft sleepers so once we were on the train, we went to my soft sleeper and tried to communicate that we needed 2. Luckily for us the dude in the bunk below us "Jack" had been to Windsor and spoke some cursory English and helped us to get another bunk. Train travel is kind of iffy here, the small stations won't sell you soft sleepers even if they are empty and we get on the train and find out that there are some and then have to negotiate for them. It's not a free market economy by any stretch. Once on the train, we went to the dining car to play cards and one very enthusiastic buddy wanted to learn poker so we played with him for a while. Then the car filled with people and we wanted to get some food but they booted us out of the car - we still don't know why??? The train officials have some wicked attitude here - one of the guys with the smart hats on actually slammed the door in my face - haven't figured that one out yet. As the night wore on - it was an 8 hour trip, the car filled up with cigarette smoke and it was really gross. We were happy to exit the train needless to say. We got picked up by 2 guys in a tiny car and had to cram ourselves in with guitar and packs and all. The room was kind of grotty but when we walked about yesterday we found this funky place called Harmony House where I am emailing from now. We will stay here 2 more days cause it's tranquil and we need to stop moving for a couple of days and chill out. The food here is quite good - the beef rocks. Ivan played guitar for a guy in Datong and he gave us a gift of a nice box from Mongolia with chopsticks, Chinese CDs and some horn thingys - probably from Yaks or something. The first paying Busk! I am going to try and post some pix today as it seems that the connection here is not quite as restricted. Yay.

Bad Hair Day and Losing Your Way

Hiya...Ok, so we made it out of Beijing but not before getting into a cultural snafoo..Ivan went to get his hair cut (which looks good by the way- $3) and while I was waiting, the girl asked me if I wanted a massage by gesturing and I thought "hey, why not" so I sit down and she starts rubbing my head and the next thing I know she's putting gunk (read the same consistency as dish soap) in my hair and making little duck tails and stuff and rubbing the crap out of my scalp and this after I had just done my hair a 1/2 hour ago. After she rinses it out I realize that she has stripped all the natural oils out of my hair and then they want to dry it - I said no thanks - I am still in recovery! And I paid 2 bucks for it - sigh.

We took the train from Beijing to a city called Datong on our way to seeing the Terracotta Warriors in Xian and stayed the night here. Yesterday we hired a car and driver for the day - approx. $50 CAD and saw a monastery hanging off the side of cliffs - amazing. We climbed up to it and around it and both of us got the crap scared out of us because it was so high and precarious - wee little wooden hand rails encasing a platform - West Edmonton Mall rides got nuthin' on this.

Right now there is a Chinese guy hocking and spitting on the floor across from me in this internet cafe and it is filled with cigarette smoke, flies and urine smell - fun ya?

Anyways, then we went to some temples in Datong - Nine Dragon Wall ( like it sounds) and a Buddhist temple thing (by the way - it all costs $$$$$ and China is gonna KILL US) and then to the most amazing thing we have seen yet. There are some caves called Yungang Caves and they have been here since 640 A.D. and they are about 2kms long and filled with buddhas and carvings up to 17 metres high - awesome.

Today we are on the train again (thank goodness for the local travel service guy who speaks some little English, they are few and far between) to a place called Pingyao - an old, old Chinese town (more temples - I'm sure we are going to be templed out soon). The train ride is from 4:30pm to 7:00am tomorrow and we could only get one soft-sleeper and one hard-sleeper - but will try and persuade the train leader to upgrade us - we shall see.

The day started off great - NOT - Ivan decided to go for a little walk which turned into a not so little walk so much as a panic attack - he got lost and I was worried that he wasn't coming back and he was worried cuz he walked right by the hotel and didn't recognize it and anyways - he's here beside me with a tether on.

Ok dudes and dudettes, we really, really wish we could post some more photos for you but the only way we were able to do that was because our buddy from Brazil could access a proxy server to help us out on his lap top but it's virtually impossible to post blogs or photos from China as the gov. has a firewall to rival none and doesn't let anything out or in that isn't gov. friendly. In fact while we are here, we are sending this via email to Ivan's son John who posts it for us from home. Ya gotta love home - omygod - 18 months - we must be insane!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok, one more thing - food - arrghh - we essentially point to things on the menu or try to find a picture of the food or point to other people's food or point to the book we brought and generally end up with at least one thing we can eat (fingers come in handy here). The food in this region is rather greasy but as we move further south, we hear (from a buddy on the train from Shanghai) that the food gets better. Hey Ricky, howzabout a steak - FEDEX. Alright, that's all for today except to say that I think we are starting off in the most difficult country and that we can only hope things get easier as we go...

Thanks to everyone who posts to the blog - we can't sign into our own blog from here but the messages are linked to my email so we do get to read them and keep them coming - it's sanity in a world of Wu's and Wangs.

Lunch - scorpion on a stick - Yummy!

Mr. Wu, the boys from Brazil and Ivan Z. - the Chinese connection.

Who would've thought you could meet all these boys here?

1100 steps for this?

Red light district

Wonderin' where the lions are?

Shelley at the Great Wall!

Ivan in our Courtyard

The Wall, Mr. Wu and the Brazilians

Wow..we saw the Great Wall yesterday...awesome experience, a dream come true for both of us! Mr. Wu, as per the aforementioned blogs, arranged a trip for us to the Great Wall and along with us came 2 lovely fellows from Brazil, Alex and Jose so there were just the 5 of us climbing the Wall at a place other than Badaling which is the touristy place that all others are shuffled off to. We climbed 1100 steps and then witnessed the most amazing spectacle (probably why it's the first man-made wonder of the world). Afterwards we went to Beijing's foremost university clinic and had a lecture on Chinese medicine, we also got back massages and foot massages (reflexology) the four of us sitting on a couch with young folks going at our feet like mad. It's all pretty much free (tipping encouraged) but the hard sell comes with selling the herbal medicines and creams and foot soak powders. Very interesting.

The night before we went to the Chinese acrobat show - omygod - I hurt just watching them contort themselves into positions that if not illegal, must be against the laws of nature! As for life daily, being foreigners, we are paying more for everything and the language barrier makes us work soooo hard to get anything done. Beijing is so big our necks hurt from looking up at the hotels and buildings and as we are all aware, the building up of the city is tremendous, cranes and construction everywhere preparing for the 2008 olympics.

Tomorrow we are off to travel the Silk Road starting at a place called Datong and then on from there. We booked train tickets this morning which took us a very long time as the girl ticketed us wrong twice and then to another place to get a room booked. We are using our friend, Alex's computer to post this blog as we can't get in from any Chinese internet - I can't decipher any of the characters and if you don't have a Chinese address written down, you're hooped. Ok, gotta go. More from the road.

Beijing and Mr. Wu

Ok, so we landed in Shanghai only to find out that our ticket to Beijing was issued out of another airport but it was easily fixed and we were on our way. The flight to Shanghai was very comfortable and really good service - Biz class seats were life savers - it was long but at least we were comfortable and got to use real cutlery. Late into Beijing and we got ripped off on the taxi ride but that's par for the course on midnight flights. Our hotel is a gem - little chinese courtyard with red lanterns and garden with fish and very safe. We even have TV - wow. We are warned to not be whoring, gambling or illegal drug taking on our hotel literature which really takes the fun out of everything. Yesterday was our first out and about and we went to the Forbidden City (actually, today I am emailing right across the street from Tiananmen Square) and we met Mr. Lei Wu who promptly swooped down on us for $10.00 US and took us thru the Forbidden City (places we would not have seen without him) got us cheap water and ice cream, took us to get our money changed, tickets to the Chinese acrobats for tonight and led us to an inexpensive tho middle ground restaurant for Peking duck and veg. Tomorrow he will take us to the Great Wall and when we leave on Mon. or Tues. to head out on the train, he will take care of our extra clothing load until we return to Beijing in a month. Even if we lose our stuff to him, which I highly doubt as he makes his living off of Canadians, no worries, I packed too much stuff (so, who doesn't?!) - he could probably use a shiny guitar anyways - he looks rather rock n' roll.
I have to mention breakfast today from the roadside stand - roasted pork with onions and lettuce in a wee bun with 3 sauces (looked good on Ivan's white shirt too) yummy, that cost 35 cents a piece. Alrighty, we are moving on in the next day or so and blog may be few and far between or maybe not as we don't know where we will encounter email along the way. Seeya.

YVR and All Things Weird

Hullo....Maan...weird or what. Ive and I checked into hotel last night and there was a letter waiting for me. Name spelled correctly and all. I opened it - it was a love letter/poem from some buddy I never heard of with a phone no. on it to call him - soo I called him and it turns out he was thinking that his girlfriend(same name, same spelling) was at the hotel having a tryst and he was trying to let her know that he knew what she was up to and was asking her to please reconsider etc. He was pretty freaked when we called him - and happy, I might add that his SW wasn't ME. He came to the hotel and picked up the letter and bought us a beverage for our consideration. Talk about a relieved person - strange adventure already, not only that but we sold a CD right off the plane when another buddy asked about the guitars. Today hectic start, met Ivan's family for good-bye and then were first in line for check-in. We are in Exec. lounge now and breathing again after huge security line. Shanghai bound in 2 hours. Next post from China. Cheers and send posts. :)