Here is the exclusive stand-up comedy stylings of Quackers, the headless chicken stand-up comedian. If you consider yourself a person of taste and refinement, do not watch. If you like puns and don't mind headless chickens, this is pretty much tailor made for you.
Monday, May 28, 2007
Sunday, May 27, 2007
roller rink extended remix
here's some footage of the roller rink extravaganza -- sorry some of it is a bit dark but hopefully you'll get the idea:
Still alive -- harder than you think
I almost killed someone on the Great Wall in Beijing.
What you can barely hear over the music in the beginning is me saying, "I'm scared." The steps are of uneven height and the incline is ridiculously high. I put my water bottle in my bag so that I could hold onto the railing and take what I thought was going to be standard footage. When my arm squeezed against my bag, my water bottle got pushed out. There were a couple things to note from that footage: 1. The guy was really cool about almost dying. 2. Woody's first reaction was to laugh at the guy 3. I kept the camera rolling the whole time. Wow.
Number 1 and 2 lead me to believe it wasn't that serious, but I was really scared for about half a sec. Whenever someone does anything humiliating/bad, we've been calling it "The-person's-name Reel." For instance, this almost homicide goes on The Cynthia Reel.
The rollerskating party last night was a blast.
Woody is currently cutting together a rollerskating montage, so I won't go into detail, except to say it felt great to really go out for once! And with fun people who spoke English. It felt like home. Thanks to Adam and Adrian for inviting us! A lot of the people there were from Australia or Europe. I don't think they thought I could speak English at first.
PS. Rollerskating while dancing is hard, but try this:
That, my friends who are not familiar, is a toilet that is commonly found in China. One basically squats down like if you were out camping. Also, you need to bring your own toilet paper since they rarely provide it for you. We've been pretty lucky with finding regular toilets, and all of our hotels have them, but I still get pretty anxious if I have to go the bathroom while we are sight-seeing. The actual act is not that bad. It's more the smell. Also, the stalls rarely lock and they only come up to my chest when I stand, so there isn't really any privacy.
Now for some random highlights from Beijing and Shanghai:
- As Woody mentioned, he began heavily sniffing out bootleg dvds in Beijing. It is always a semi-shady industry. The first time, a man approached us while we are walking out of the Silk Market (underwhelming, btw). He took us to a nail/hair salon, and they rolled out a suitcase from a closed room.
- Here is a mobile bootleg music stand in Shanghai. Everything is still attached to the bicycle. Handy for a quick escape!
- While walking along a night market street in Beijing, I saw a Chinese sex shop for the first time. Apparently, 1977 Arnold Schwartzenegger is the epitome of manhood.
- Latest fashion report: You know what's so hot right now? Full face visors.
- Here is a late, but promised picture from the hot springs.
- Our first day in Shanghai, we went to YuYuan Garden. It is hard to find because they built a shopping labyrinth around it. It was built in the 1500s as a private garden, but is now open to the public as "an excellent model of classical Chinese gardening."
- I leave you with some behind the scenes footage. After our climb on the great wall, we ate at a restaurant at the base of the wall. The waitress recommended a dish that you can't find anywhere else, so we got it. It was a boiling cauldron of a whole chicken including the head. Our parents wouldn't have any issues with this, I'm sure, but being semi-vegetarian anyways, I was already not into eating it. It made Simon lose his appetite, especially after we spent 20 minutes coming up with puns and Simon shot "Quackers: The Headless Chicken stand-up comedian" voiced by Woody. This is prob the only footage you will see of it since no one has the stomach to cut it.
The chef is probably wondering what is wrong with us. Answer: as LCD soundsystem would say, we are North American Scum.
What you can barely hear over the music in the beginning is me saying, "I'm scared." The steps are of uneven height and the incline is ridiculously high. I put my water bottle in my bag so that I could hold onto the railing and take what I thought was going to be standard footage. When my arm squeezed against my bag, my water bottle got pushed out. There were a couple things to note from that footage: 1. The guy was really cool about almost dying. 2. Woody's first reaction was to laugh at the guy 3. I kept the camera rolling the whole time. Wow.
Number 1 and 2 lead me to believe it wasn't that serious, but I was really scared for about half a sec. Whenever someone does anything humiliating/bad, we've been calling it "The-person's-name Reel." For instance, this almost homicide goes on The Cynthia Reel.
The rollerskating party last night was a blast.
Woody is currently cutting together a rollerskating montage, so I won't go into detail, except to say it felt great to really go out for once! And with fun people who spoke English. It felt like home. Thanks to Adam and Adrian for inviting us! A lot of the people there were from Australia or Europe. I don't think they thought I could speak English at first.
PS. Rollerskating while dancing is hard, but try this:
That, my friends who are not familiar, is a toilet that is commonly found in China. One basically squats down like if you were out camping. Also, you need to bring your own toilet paper since they rarely provide it for you. We've been pretty lucky with finding regular toilets, and all of our hotels have them, but I still get pretty anxious if I have to go the bathroom while we are sight-seeing. The actual act is not that bad. It's more the smell. Also, the stalls rarely lock and they only come up to my chest when I stand, so there isn't really any privacy.
Now for some random highlights from Beijing and Shanghai:
- As Woody mentioned, he began heavily sniffing out bootleg dvds in Beijing. It is always a semi-shady industry. The first time, a man approached us while we are walking out of the Silk Market (underwhelming, btw). He took us to a nail/hair salon, and they rolled out a suitcase from a closed room.
- Here is a mobile bootleg music stand in Shanghai. Everything is still attached to the bicycle. Handy for a quick escape!
- While walking along a night market street in Beijing, I saw a Chinese sex shop for the first time. Apparently, 1977 Arnold Schwartzenegger is the epitome of manhood.
- Latest fashion report: You know what's so hot right now? Full face visors.
- Here is a late, but promised picture from the hot springs.
- Our first day in Shanghai, we went to YuYuan Garden. It is hard to find because they built a shopping labyrinth around it. It was built in the 1500s as a private garden, but is now open to the public as "an excellent model of classical Chinese gardening."
- I leave you with some behind the scenes footage. After our climb on the great wall, we ate at a restaurant at the base of the wall. The waitress recommended a dish that you can't find anywhere else, so we got it. It was a boiling cauldron of a whole chicken including the head. Our parents wouldn't have any issues with this, I'm sure, but being semi-vegetarian anyways, I was already not into eating it. It made Simon lose his appetite, especially after we spent 20 minutes coming up with puns and Simon shot "Quackers: The Headless Chicken stand-up comedian" voiced by Woody. This is prob the only footage you will see of it since no one has the stomach to cut it.
The chef is probably wondering what is wrong with us. Answer: as LCD soundsystem would say, we are North American Scum.
shanghai update
we've been in shanghai for 3 days now. out of all the places we've been to, this is my favorite. it's the most "westernized" but it's also not... you can see it in the architecture and in the way people dress and act.
Before I go any further I would just like to say that we finally found our "di tans" (street markets)... they're basically hole in the wall stores that sell crap. But unique, can't-get-it-anywhere-else crap. Not bad lacoste/polo ripoffs but stickers of robots and laminated cards of canto pop stars, stuff like that. we found this amazing place where these guys just had their boxes of toys spilling out into the streets, and it was like new arrivals day or something because they had a bunch of new boxes loaded with cheap, multi-colored toys:
Also you may wonder what happens to cute plush toys no one wants anymore... they end up in the CUTE PLUSH TOY GRAVEYARD:
I am now a firm believer that you need a friendly local in whatever area you plan on going to. without one, we were like our parents: going to temples, monasteries, etc. there's nothing wrong with that but our impressions of the cities we went to were very traditional and conservative.
anytime we've hooked up with a local (sylvia in HK, monica in guilin) our impressions of the city were greatly improved. I guess it's kind of obvious to say that now, but this point was driven home last night when we went to an expat party in shanghai. Adrian hooked me up with his buddy Adam, who throws this roller rink party where they play nothing but disco. Quick shout outs to Adam, Mike, Dan and Chris and of course Adrian for the hookup for a great time. The party was insano-vision. Adam was good enough to let me get on and at the end we switched off song for song. Here's a quick video of what it was like from my POV... the people stage right are rollerskating, you can't really see them b/c there's no lighting on the floor:
On an unrelated note, here's a video of me almost dying:
Thursday, May 24, 2007
beijing...
We're leaving Beijing for Shanghai tomorrow. I know I haven't been too descriptive with my impression of the city, so here are some random thoughts:
1. The Chinese cities we've been visiting have been getting increasingly large in population. With this, there is a commensurate increase in rudeness. From the kind of backwards Guilin people being mega friendly to the aggressive salesman snot-rocket firing residents of Beijing, this has held true.
2. Chinese people, when they get frustrated, start yelling. Basically anything can trigger this. I have no idea why. Being surprisingly conservative myself, I often find myself immediately wincing and looking the other way.
3. Beijing is totally losing its mind over the upcoming Olympics. The city is essentially ripping its own guts out and rebuilding a brand new city so that in 2008 when a bunch of people come they'll marvel at how new and modern it is. For example, when Cynthia and I were crossing the street in a major mall area to buy Simon a card for his phone, it felt like we were in Afghanistan:
Also, construction is going on 24/7. Here's a video we shot at like 11:30 PM and people are still diligently laying down brick after brick of "New Beijing"... I get the feeling that the population of Beijing is working around the clock shifts to create a new gleaming city:
4. We spent a night with Simon's uncle showing us around, and he took us to Hou Hai (basically Expat central) and all the bars are totally corny. However, 2 things stuck out in this sea of America-aping bars/nightlife. 1, this band fronted by a punky chick sang a rock version of "Muo Li Hua," a traditional Chinese song. It sort of blew my mind, they were like the best parts of Jefferson Airplane with none of the bad. 2, there was some suspect talent show being held in one of the bars and they had this kid reciting some scripture and playing this traditional percussive thing:
At one point you can hear me say "if I had done this as a kid it would be like my dad's wet dream."
5. Great Wall, motherlovers! We were like Mongolians climbing that junk! Of course, I guess you could argue that the dozens of old white women in fannypacks could also be considered Mongolians by that logic, but whatever, we did it without collapsing in a heap!
6. Buying bootleg DVDs is a total crapshoot. They cost roughly $1.13 per DVD, and you never know if it's going to be a good copy or total crappo. Also, when you're rooting through a suitcase full of completely random DVDs there is kind of a thrill of the unknown of what you're going to find. "Party Girl" with Parker Posey? Sure I'd pay $1.13 for that! "Grindhouse"? Didn't even know that was available yet! Also, the Chinese do a pretty good job replicating the DVD covers. Why they don't just scan and print them I'll never know:
Tomorrow is Shanghai, playas!
One night only in Shanghai!
Saturday, May 26... 9-2AM
I'm DJing at a roller rink spinning mostly disco, with DJs 'Sweetmeats' Stokes and 'Nasty Boy' Elnomo. Dress code is vintage, roller skates are limited to size 43-45 skates, so come early!
Tickets 100RMB, including skates and OPEN BAR all night.
Rink is at the intersection of Yichuan Lu and Ganquan Lu.
high school high
shout out to my "littlest" brother. He's graduating high school on Friday!
Class of 2007. Ouch. I'm not even going to tell you when I graduated high school. Go get 'em Paul. I love you, man. :)
Class of 2007. Ouch. I'm not even going to tell you when I graduated high school. Go get 'em Paul. I love you, man. :)
peking duck
Beijing has been an interesting experience for me. Personally, I was expecting more from the capital and all. My overall feeling towards this city is that it is one big di tan (street market). Everywhere I go, someone is trying to sell me something. AND, it is ironic that I feel that Beijing is a big di tan because they have all but banned those types of markets here. Instead they have big fancy kiosks of useless stuff (that Woody buys a lot of) that they try to push on you. We have gotten to the point where we have to fake not being able to understand these people so they will get off our backs.
Example, they'll ask us if we want to buy, say, a silk pashmina (first off, does it look like I would ever need a pashmina?) and after we say no, they'll follow us.
We have learned to say, "Teen Boot Dome." No, that's not my sucky ping ying rearing its ugly head again. It's us pretending that we don't understand them and that the only three words of Chinese that we DO know, are spoken with a horrible American accent. They back off pretty quick, but not before calling us "stupid foreigners" (I think one old lady might of even called me an "alien.)
There is also so much construction going on here. Right next to this
is this (it's literally the next street over)
It feels like the entire city is "building" up to some sort of singular ginormous event...oh wait
that's right, the 2008 Olympic Games are coming! Don't even get me started on the number of Olympic hats, t-shirts, undies, condoms, and other trinkets that I've been attacked with, and yes, i said condoms. They come in packs of 5 and in different colors.
I made that last part up, but now i feel weird for posting it because both my mom and my aunt read this blog. Awkward!
Anyway....here we are on the outside of the Forbidden City. We were "forbidden" to go in due to it being 4:10 and ticket sales closing at 4. Sorry mom!
It's a shame that a city with such great culture has become such a tourist attraction. I would have loved to climb the great wall in peace and enjoyed the sights rather than it have been a "Teen Boot Dome" recital every 10 seconds.
On a brighter note, we have figured out the secrets to bargaining. Every negotiation starts with $10. You don't look the other person in the eye, you don't ask if they will go down in price. You just say, "10 dollars!" Before she can even get her next sentence out, you have to NOT SHOW FEAR OR WEAKNESS and scream even louder, "10 dollars!!!!" Of course if the item is less than $10, this technique doesn't work so well.
Anyway, I'll let Woods and Ctown give you their spiel (is that how you even spell it?) on Beijing. They are currently out shopping, and if I listen really carefully, I can hear Woody and Cynthia yelling in unison, "10 dollars!!!!"
Next up? I guess we are taking requests for blog topics now. So thanks to DZ, you guys will get a Team Vachina "TOP TEN THINGS that are MANDATORY when traveling to China." Also, you will be getting the last installment of our MV series shot in multiple secret locations. And then, tomorrow morning we are off to Shanghai. Wan an.
Example, they'll ask us if we want to buy, say, a silk pashmina (first off, does it look like I would ever need a pashmina?) and after we say no, they'll follow us.
We have learned to say, "Teen Boot Dome." No, that's not my sucky ping ying rearing its ugly head again. It's us pretending that we don't understand them and that the only three words of Chinese that we DO know, are spoken with a horrible American accent. They back off pretty quick, but not before calling us "stupid foreigners" (I think one old lady might of even called me an "alien.)
There is also so much construction going on here. Right next to this
is this (it's literally the next street over)
It feels like the entire city is "building" up to some sort of singular ginormous event...oh wait
that's right, the 2008 Olympic Games are coming! Don't even get me started on the number of Olympic hats, t-shirts, undies, condoms, and other trinkets that I've been attacked with, and yes, i said condoms. They come in packs of 5 and in different colors.
I made that last part up, but now i feel weird for posting it because both my mom and my aunt read this blog. Awkward!
Anyway....here we are on the outside of the Forbidden City. We were "forbidden" to go in due to it being 4:10 and ticket sales closing at 4. Sorry mom!
It's a shame that a city with such great culture has become such a tourist attraction. I would have loved to climb the great wall in peace and enjoyed the sights rather than it have been a "Teen Boot Dome" recital every 10 seconds.
On a brighter note, we have figured out the secrets to bargaining. Every negotiation starts with $10. You don't look the other person in the eye, you don't ask if they will go down in price. You just say, "10 dollars!" Before she can even get her next sentence out, you have to NOT SHOW FEAR OR WEAKNESS and scream even louder, "10 dollars!!!!" Of course if the item is less than $10, this technique doesn't work so well.
Anyway, I'll let Woods and Ctown give you their spiel (is that how you even spell it?) on Beijing. They are currently out shopping, and if I listen really carefully, I can hear Woody and Cynthia yelling in unison, "10 dollars!!!!"
Next up? I guess we are taking requests for blog topics now. So thanks to DZ, you guys will get a Team Vachina "TOP TEN THINGS that are MANDATORY when traveling to China." Also, you will be getting the last installment of our MV series shot in multiple secret locations. And then, tomorrow morning we are off to Shanghai. Wan an.
the "key" to peace and tranquility
yes, it's true that nature kicked our little butts at Le Shan Mountain. But there were some cool parts, too.
a word of advice though, tread lightly, or the buddha is gonna get you.
a word of advice though, tread lightly, or the buddha is gonna get you.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Let's Get Physical
The Chinese love to get their exercise on in public parks! I haven't noticed any gyms around, except in Westernized hotels. These scenes are from all the cities we've been to so far.
Laundry Day
It has been hard for us to find laundry places. One Beijing local told us to do it in the sink. We finally found a nice family in a small shop. The clothes came back looking literally like new. It cost as much as NY laundry -- around $12. And this price is still 3 times cheaper than when our hotel in Guilin did it.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Defeat Via Nature Extended Remix
The search for the biggest Buddha in the world at Le Shan mountain almost obliterated us.
Guilin jeans are my Vachina jeans replacement.
Today we are doing the opposite of nature and going shopping in the Silk Market (hogde podge of cheap trinkets etc). Take that natural world!
Guilin jeans are my Vachina jeans replacement.
Today we are doing the opposite of nature and going shopping in the Silk Market (hogde podge of cheap trinkets etc). Take that natural world!
Video Double-Header!
VIDEO NUMBER 1!
In an attempt to gain a culturally edifying experience, Team Vachina goes to E Mei Shan to see the monkeys, and avoid the monastary at all costs because we are sick of seeing them:
VIDEO NUMBER 2!
Every once in a while Team Vachina gets loose. We don't just shoot and cut and complain about rendering time 24/7 you know. So one night in Chengdu we went wandering to see the nightlife, and wandered into a club known as T.N.T. club (which, confusingly, stands for "The Nature Time"). Here's what it was like...
In an attempt to gain a culturally edifying experience, Team Vachina goes to E Mei Shan to see the monkeys, and avoid the monastary at all costs because we are sick of seeing them:
VIDEO NUMBER 2!
Every once in a while Team Vachina gets loose. We don't just shoot and cut and complain about rendering time 24/7 you know. So one night in Chengdu we went wandering to see the nightlife, and wandered into a club known as T.N.T. club (which, confusingly, stands for "The Nature Time"). Here's what it was like...
Monday, May 21, 2007
The "H" in Chengdu stands for Hot Pot
The gang and I were PSYCHED to have some real authentic hotpot in chengdu. We went to a place as recommended by the locals. The restaurant's logo is a good 'ol fashioned american thumbs up!
The menu was in Chinese so we didn't know what to order, what could possibly go wrong?
The menu was in Chinese so we didn't know what to order, what could possibly go wrong?
Sunday, May 20, 2007
The "C" in Chengdu stands for Cute
We went to the Panda Research Base/Giant Panda Breeding Center in Chengdu. The base is used as a safe haven to breed pandas so they can later be reintroduced into the wild. I think that the base is used to show off the panda's maximum cute-osity.
Enjoy.
Enjoy.
Blast from the Chengdu-related past!
We have so much video that we shot that we are rolling it out to the public as we post it. So even though we just landed in Beijing tonight, I now present to you footage that we shot in Chengdu a few days ago.
We spent the day trying to find a bookstore because I had finished the Da Vinci Code, which I feel compelled to say is actually not a terrible book. Despite the fact that it's annoyingly written it is still quite a page-turner. In the words of I believe the San Francisco Chronicle, I will admit that it is quite "unputdownable".
On our way to the bookstore, however, we passed by what appeared to be an abandoned building with tons of high-school age kids walking in and out of it. Not ones to pass up buying Tshirts, we go in and find that we have entered a 5 story building crammed to capacity with hole in the wall stores. Merchandise is literally spilling out of the "shops" and it's almost all clothes. I do a little question-asking and discover that the ENTIRE structure is women's clothing. Not a stitch of men's anything anywhere.
Gentlemen, if you are an Asian Fetishist, allow me to introduce you to this mall. You will lose your mind because it is the apotheosis of your creepy dreams. Simon and I looked around in a bewildered daze -- the population is approximately 98% Chinese high school girl:
The remaining 2% is comprised of the exasperated boyfriend population. What do the boyfriends do the whole time, you may ask? Well, they hang out on Exasperated Boyfriend Island:
Trust me, fellows, in this environment we are hopelessly outnumbered. It's just girls pawing and bargaining over clothes and shoes, and the men all have shellshocked expressions.
We spent the day trying to find a bookstore because I had finished the Da Vinci Code, which I feel compelled to say is actually not a terrible book. Despite the fact that it's annoyingly written it is still quite a page-turner. In the words of I believe the San Francisco Chronicle, I will admit that it is quite "unputdownable".
On our way to the bookstore, however, we passed by what appeared to be an abandoned building with tons of high-school age kids walking in and out of it. Not ones to pass up buying Tshirts, we go in and find that we have entered a 5 story building crammed to capacity with hole in the wall stores. Merchandise is literally spilling out of the "shops" and it's almost all clothes. I do a little question-asking and discover that the ENTIRE structure is women's clothing. Not a stitch of men's anything anywhere.
Gentlemen, if you are an Asian Fetishist, allow me to introduce you to this mall. You will lose your mind because it is the apotheosis of your creepy dreams. Simon and I looked around in a bewildered daze -- the population is approximately 98% Chinese high school girl:
The remaining 2% is comprised of the exasperated boyfriend population. What do the boyfriends do the whole time, you may ask? Well, they hang out on Exasperated Boyfriend Island:
Trust me, fellows, in this environment we are hopelessly outnumbered. It's just girls pawing and bargaining over clothes and shoes, and the men all have shellshocked expressions.
We do not bode well in nature
For part two of the Chengdu Temple, we bumped into an adorable magician who gave us a free show and taught Simon 2 new magic tricks that he bought. None of the tricks are particularly Chinese, but the Chinese people were wowed!
That evening, I rented a bike and went around the surrounding area while they napped. Chengdu has a population of 10 million people and is definitely more spread out than Hong Kong, NY and of course Guilin. The subways haven't been working, and being country bumpkins, it felt like we hadn't gone further than a 1 mile radius of our hotel. When I went out, it was around quitting time for workers. People young and old were at the park exercising. There is a industrial version of the eliptical that is popular at all the parks.
Also, I found it odd that there will be shanty towns put up next to a swank hotel.
We have spent the past 2 days up in the mountains. We hadn't had much nature exploration before two days ago and have been used to taking taxis in Chengdu since the subways are down. Needless to say, Le Shan Mountain kicked our butts. The elderly were smiling and passing by us as we are literally weezing, sitting down for breaks, and rummaging through our bags for any sort of sustenance. Once again, bread has been my savior. To make matters worse, I bought a useless map to lead us to the giant buddha. It was basically a cartoon map that could be found on an episode Dora the Explorer. I think the biggest morale killer was when we went up a steep set of stairs to sight see and came down them only to find that we had to go back up them in order to get to the buddha. This is us at the end of it all going down said steps.
When we came down from the mountain, we went over to Emei mountain to eat and spend the night. Our waiter literally poached us as we were walking through the park. We were walking towards his restaurant, and he appeared out of nowhere. We gave him an American name - Lloyd - because that is what his Chinese name sounded like. Lloyd became our tour guide/accomdations booker/hot springs escort/questionable potential pimp. While we were eating, he had a girl in a traditional Chinese red dress play from a pipa.
(please note: this is not the actual girl)
He later asked Simon if he thought she was pretty....suspect. However, he told us about the hot springs, which was amazing. Floating on your back, looking at the stars in a hot water lazy river. It also spilled down into about 7 different pools and there were private pools tucked away amongst greenery. Amazing! There were also signs for a massage where fish nibble at you for half an hour. Wah?! Pics to come.
Now we are off to Beijing!
That evening, I rented a bike and went around the surrounding area while they napped. Chengdu has a population of 10 million people and is definitely more spread out than Hong Kong, NY and of course Guilin. The subways haven't been working, and being country bumpkins, it felt like we hadn't gone further than a 1 mile radius of our hotel. When I went out, it was around quitting time for workers. People young and old were at the park exercising. There is a industrial version of the eliptical that is popular at all the parks.
Also, I found it odd that there will be shanty towns put up next to a swank hotel.
We have spent the past 2 days up in the mountains. We hadn't had much nature exploration before two days ago and have been used to taking taxis in Chengdu since the subways are down. Needless to say, Le Shan Mountain kicked our butts. The elderly were smiling and passing by us as we are literally weezing, sitting down for breaks, and rummaging through our bags for any sort of sustenance. Once again, bread has been my savior. To make matters worse, I bought a useless map to lead us to the giant buddha. It was basically a cartoon map that could be found on an episode Dora the Explorer. I think the biggest morale killer was when we went up a steep set of stairs to sight see and came down them only to find that we had to go back up them in order to get to the buddha. This is us at the end of it all going down said steps.
When we came down from the mountain, we went over to Emei mountain to eat and spend the night. Our waiter literally poached us as we were walking through the park. We were walking towards his restaurant, and he appeared out of nowhere. We gave him an American name - Lloyd - because that is what his Chinese name sounded like. Lloyd became our tour guide/accomdations booker/hot springs escort/questionable potential pimp. While we were eating, he had a girl in a traditional Chinese red dress play from a pipa.
(please note: this is not the actual girl)
He later asked Simon if he thought she was pretty....suspect. However, he told us about the hot springs, which was amazing. Floating on your back, looking at the stars in a hot water lazy river. It also spilled down into about 7 different pools and there were private pools tucked away amongst greenery. Amazing! There were also signs for a massage where fish nibble at you for half an hour. Wah?! Pics to come.
Now we are off to Beijing!
chengdu: wo men zhou luh, bye bye.
Ah. Finally, a breather for me to sit down and blog. Woody is pretty much the wonder blogger. His nickname is now "turnaround" since he turns these blogs out so quick. He also beats us to blog or else we have to sleep on the floor. My back still hurts from sleeping on the hard concrete floor 2 nights in a row.
Also, we are on a STRICT post schedule to bring you the hotness and most current China videos...please bear witness:
Note that we have a column for editor, if it's been shot, if it's been edited, if it's been posted on youtube, and if it's been posted. whew. wo hao lai. I'm going to take a break...wait, i,i, i c-c-can't, woody is watching over my shoulder. Here I go...
Here is an overall pictorial on city life in Chengdu (population about 10,000,000).
Now, Chengdu, according to Frommers, is known to the locals for their tea drinking and hot pot. Two things:
1. Butter Tea is nasty.
2. Chengdu hot pot is nasty.
Like Woods mentioned earlier, Chengdu Hot-Pot is nothing like what we eat in America (mama, dao li ze mu hui shi ah?) We did, indeed, capture this on film, but i shall recap:
So Friday night we decide we need more chinese culture/nature. We plan, and I use the word "plan" loosely, to go to Le Shan and Emei Shan to look at Giant Buddhas and scenery. The Giant Buddha was pretty giant.
But by the time we got to the top of the mountain, Woody was literally a skeleton. Good thing i brought beef jerky and water in my 50lb bag to sustain his life. I felt like we were playing Streets of Rage and i gave Woody some ham.
Guilin Giveaway is coming along nicely. My mom is the current winner with 7 posts. Sharon, Cynthia's mom, is coming in second with 5, and Jennifer Yin, my "other" cousin is disqualified because she keeps dissing me. Oh snap, whats up now, cuz?!
Playing it loosey goosey on the plans has been pretty exciting. We've been meeting a lot of locals and they seem to be pretty fascinated with us, especially in the small towns. But, my mommy always taught be not to be so simple.
For example, yesterday in Emei Shan we met a college student by the name of LiuJie (which we promptly renamed "Lloyd.") He swarmed on us when we got off the bus to come eat at his restaurant. He was nice and so we followed. We struck up conversation and he loved that we spoke English so that he could practice. He showed us all the hot spots and told us about Emei Shan and, actually, he was the one that told us about the hot springs in which we soaked in....
Anyway, he proceeded to tell us that he was studying tourism in college, and that he was working to pay his tuition. He went on to say that he only makes $10 a day at the restaurant and that his parents only make $2000 a year(about $286 US dollars...Woody pulled that out the ATM yesterday in about a minute). Let me preface my next question with the statement that he was, indeed, VERY nice and warm and personable, but I must ask....
Are these locals selling us a sob story in hopes to gain monetarily?"
I hate to even ask this question, but I have been seeing the same pattern emerge. Are we being too trusting or am I just being a cynic?
Discuss.
See you in Beijing!
Also, we are on a STRICT post schedule to bring you the hotness and most current China videos...please bear witness:
Note that we have a column for editor, if it's been shot, if it's been edited, if it's been posted on youtube, and if it's been posted. whew. wo hao lai. I'm going to take a break...wait, i,i, i c-c-can't, woody is watching over my shoulder. Here I go...
Here is an overall pictorial on city life in Chengdu (population about 10,000,000).
Now, Chengdu, according to Frommers, is known to the locals for their tea drinking and hot pot. Two things:
1. Butter Tea is nasty.
2. Chengdu hot pot is nasty.
Like Woods mentioned earlier, Chengdu Hot-Pot is nothing like what we eat in America (mama, dao li ze mu hui shi ah?) We did, indeed, capture this on film, but i shall recap:
"excuse me miss, do you have chicken?"
"no"
"Pork?"
"No"
"Mi Fun?"
"No"
"Fish balls?"
"No"
"Can I have your phone number?"
"No."
So Friday night we decide we need more chinese culture/nature. We plan, and I use the word "plan" loosely, to go to Le Shan and Emei Shan to look at Giant Buddhas and scenery. The Giant Buddha was pretty giant.
But by the time we got to the top of the mountain, Woody was literally a skeleton. Good thing i brought beef jerky and water in my 50lb bag to sustain his life. I felt like we were playing Streets of Rage and i gave Woody some ham. Guilin Giveaway is coming along nicely. My mom is the current winner with 7 posts. Sharon, Cynthia's mom, is coming in second with 5, and Jennifer Yin, my "other" cousin is disqualified because she keeps dissing me. Oh snap, whats up now, cuz?!
Playing it loosey goosey on the plans has been pretty exciting. We've been meeting a lot of locals and they seem to be pretty fascinated with us, especially in the small towns. But, my mommy always taught be not to be so simple.
For example, yesterday in Emei Shan we met a college student by the name of LiuJie (which we promptly renamed "Lloyd.") He swarmed on us when we got off the bus to come eat at his restaurant. He was nice and so we followed. We struck up conversation and he loved that we spoke English so that he could practice. He showed us all the hot spots and told us about Emei Shan and, actually, he was the one that told us about the hot springs in which we soaked in....
Anyway, he proceeded to tell us that he was studying tourism in college, and that he was working to pay his tuition. He went on to say that he only makes $10 a day at the restaurant and that his parents only make $2000 a year(about $286 US dollars...Woody pulled that out the ATM yesterday in about a minute). Let me preface my next question with the statement that he was, indeed, VERY nice and warm and personable, but I must ask....
Are these locals selling us a sob story in hopes to gain monetarily?"
I hate to even ask this question, but I have been seeing the same pattern emerge. Are we being too trusting or am I just being a cynic?
Discuss.
See you in Beijing!
peace, chengdu
OK so a lot's been happening recently. We decided to stop being blog nerds and go out and gain some experiences (so that we can parlay said experiences into blog form). So 2 nights ago, we went to eat Huo Guo (hotpot), because in Chengdu it's supposed to be especially delicious. Unfortunately, we were raised on nice, Americanized hotpot, where all the ingredients are identifiable and non-threatening (balls of fish, thin vermicelli noodles, cabbage, beef, etc). What we ended up getting looked a little more like this:
We had no idea what any of the ingredients were (most of the time we ask for an English menu, or one with pictures), so we just asked the waitress what she would order. BAD IDEA. First of all, the surrounding ring in the above pic is essentially a lake of fire. This is where they dumped the more aggressively frightening ingredients: snake, sprigs of some weird seasoning that was still on a twig, literally pig brains, etc. I don't want to get too into it because we shot the whole thing and Simon is going to cut the hotpot piece for your entertainment. Suffice it to say that we did not eat like kings.
The next day we go to Le Shan and Mount E Mei, where the biggest Buddha in the world is, carved into a mountain face. Little do we know that it's like a 3 hour hike to the summit, and we hadn't eaten lunch. Also, it's like 98 degrees out and Simon is lugging his 50 pound backpack for some ungodly reason. By the time we actually reach the Buddha, I'm delirious from heatstroke and am mumbling like a shaman and we are so over it that we take 2 pictures and turn immediately around:
The rest of the night is pretty uneventful... except for the fact that we totally went to a Hot Spring and soaked ourselves in boiling water and it was the most relaxing thing in the universe!
Strangely, the standard of living in the E Mei area is very low, everyone is very poor (this guy we met makes literally $1.50 US a day), but all the tourist activities are incredibly expensive. Of course later we find out that if we have a local buy the tickets for all these sight-seeing things we go on we can get everything for WAAAAAY cheaper.
We have been shooting insane amounts of footage, be on the lookout for new videos coming up next week... in the meantime, here's my installment in the Team Vachina Music Video Series:
We had no idea what any of the ingredients were (most of the time we ask for an English menu, or one with pictures), so we just asked the waitress what she would order. BAD IDEA. First of all, the surrounding ring in the above pic is essentially a lake of fire. This is where they dumped the more aggressively frightening ingredients: snake, sprigs of some weird seasoning that was still on a twig, literally pig brains, etc. I don't want to get too into it because we shot the whole thing and Simon is going to cut the hotpot piece for your entertainment. Suffice it to say that we did not eat like kings.
The next day we go to Le Shan and Mount E Mei, where the biggest Buddha in the world is, carved into a mountain face. Little do we know that it's like a 3 hour hike to the summit, and we hadn't eaten lunch. Also, it's like 98 degrees out and Simon is lugging his 50 pound backpack for some ungodly reason. By the time we actually reach the Buddha, I'm delirious from heatstroke and am mumbling like a shaman and we are so over it that we take 2 pictures and turn immediately around:
The rest of the night is pretty uneventful... except for the fact that we totally went to a Hot Spring and soaked ourselves in boiling water and it was the most relaxing thing in the universe!
Strangely, the standard of living in the E Mei area is very low, everyone is very poor (this guy we met makes literally $1.50 US a day), but all the tourist activities are incredibly expensive. Of course later we find out that if we have a local buy the tickets for all these sight-seeing things we go on we can get everything for WAAAAAY cheaper.
We have been shooting insane amounts of footage, be on the lookout for new videos coming up next week... in the meantime, here's my installment in the Team Vachina Music Video Series:
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Country Bumpkins arrive in the big city
When we land around 12am in Chengdu, we head for the Sheraton and proceed to get clowned by the desk clerk due to our Guilin-esque questions. Do you have a night market? Do you rent bikes? He was basically like, due our advancement beyond being savages, we have been able to build structures called malls. I believe when we asked for bikes, he was like, oh motorbikes? And we were like, no. Just a bicycle please, har har. (adjust rice hat and pull on suspenders). He was like, no. No we don't not rent bicycles. And I think that you will find our prices are very expensive. (no - he did not go that far) When we checked out the next day, he left us his cell phone in case we wanted more info. How nice!
The night we landed, there was also a thick fog and stench in the air. Apparently, every year Chengdu burns rice because there is too much. We happened to come when they started it. It was like being trapped in a chimney with the top closed.
We went to the tech mall, which is 6 floors of privately-owned electronic counters put side by side. You haggle with several different ones until you get the price you want, although they also seem to be in some sort of cohoots. We only made it to 3 floors, with the 3rd floor only being for bathroom sakes. We left with headaches from the flourescent lights, bartering and using Simon as human collateral. Here's a video to give you an idea of what it's like. Try to find the human baby on the floor near the end of the video:
We went to the Panda conservatory. We had to go before 10am because they feed them in the morning and sleep for the rest of the day. Our bus was coming at 7:30am. We all woke up between 7:20 - 7:27am. I got a call from a sweet lady telling us that the bus was here. Woody, however, got a call from the driver yelling at him to get our a**es down there. Woody came into my room to light a fire under my butt, but his POV is of me slowly putting in my contacts to the tune of "Sunday Morning" by Velvet Underground. We missed the 7:30am bus, but the driver came back for us. Here's another teaser to the ultra-cute montage:
We also went to this tourist trap temple mall. It's built to look like an old temple, but it's only a couple years old. It's filled with several shops and local artisans. Woody and I became obsessed with these two magnets that make a cricket's-mating-call noise when you throw them into the air correctly. Throughout the day, Woody was developing new sounds that it could make. By the end of the night, Simon was about to have an aneurism.
More on Chengdu Temple and the city to come...
The night we landed, there was also a thick fog and stench in the air. Apparently, every year Chengdu burns rice because there is too much. We happened to come when they started it. It was like being trapped in a chimney with the top closed.
We went to the tech mall, which is 6 floors of privately-owned electronic counters put side by side. You haggle with several different ones until you get the price you want, although they also seem to be in some sort of cohoots. We only made it to 3 floors, with the 3rd floor only being for bathroom sakes. We left with headaches from the flourescent lights, bartering and using Simon as human collateral. Here's a video to give you an idea of what it's like. Try to find the human baby on the floor near the end of the video:
We went to the Panda conservatory. We had to go before 10am because they feed them in the morning and sleep for the rest of the day. Our bus was coming at 7:30am. We all woke up between 7:20 - 7:27am. I got a call from a sweet lady telling us that the bus was here. Woody, however, got a call from the driver yelling at him to get our a**es down there. Woody came into my room to light a fire under my butt, but his POV is of me slowly putting in my contacts to the tune of "Sunday Morning" by Velvet Underground. We missed the 7:30am bus, but the driver came back for us. Here's another teaser to the ultra-cute montage:
We also went to this tourist trap temple mall. It's built to look like an old temple, but it's only a couple years old. It's filled with several shops and local artisans. Woody and I became obsessed with these two magnets that make a cricket's-mating-call noise when you throw them into the air correctly. Throughout the day, Woody was developing new sounds that it could make. By the end of the night, Simon was about to have an aneurism.
More on Chengdu Temple and the city to come...
Chinese TV
Yesterday was our "Unemployed Day". We spent the day wandering aimlessly around Chengdu. Now I appreciate the fact that we met Monica in Guilin... having a local on your team is a definite plus, because without one to guide you around, show you where to eat, take you places etc, we're basically the equivalent of a bunch of Chinese people going to NYC and looking at Ground Zero, taking pictures at the Statue of Liberty, and eating at Bubba Gump Shrimp Company.
In Chengdu our BFF is the Fromer's travel book we have, which has on more than one occasion made us the target of clowning. All the locals and cab drivers were snickering at us so we beat a hasty retreat to the internet cafe where we can, duh, blog more!
On our day off yesterday we went to eat Tibetan food for lunch. Not to hate on the cuisine, but our dining experience was less than stellar. For one thing, it was like 90 degrees outside and the A/C wasn't on in our part of the restaurant, and all the food we ordered was steaming hot. So already we're mega lethargic. Then we look over across the table and there's this monk and a bunch of hangers-on eating so we figure, hey these guys know what's going on, and we order the same tea they have. WRONG. Note for the future, "Butter Tea" tastes exactly as "Hmmm... that sounds interesting, I'll order it and expand my horizons, here it is, MMMMM looks good, now to taste it YEEEARRRARRTGHHH! Christ what is this!" as it sounds. Also there were homeless people constantly coming up to the window and literally just standing there for 5 minutes at a time staring at you to give them money. Grimsville.
That was pretty much it. We watched TV in the hotel (see some channel surfing examples below), and generally just slept and wandered in a daze. Today we VOW to not stay in an internet cafe all day!
team vachina takes a day off
Due to a recent increase in production and the local Internet cafe asking us not to come back (because we spent 8 hours there and only bought 1 iced coffee), team vachina is taking a break for one day to gather our thoughts and regain our sanity.
As you can see from the post production schedule, we still have plenty to do:
Please read our new blogs below. We will be back on the air in 24 hours. Thank you for your patience as we try to better serve you.
Teaser for the upcoming "cutest montage ever..."
As you can see from the post production schedule, we still have plenty to do:
Please read our new blogs below. We will be back on the air in 24 hours. Thank you for your patience as we try to better serve you.
Teaser for the upcoming "cutest montage ever..."
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
I left my heart in Guilin
After hopping through customs with my sprained ankle and then arriving into the 1980's Alphabet City of Guilin, I became scared that my limping would attract predators like the laws of nature seen repeatedly in "Planet Earth." Here is what the neighborhood looked like, except imagine people holding meat cleavers.
We were too scared that shooting broll of the neighborhood = a meat cleaver to the face.
The first night I stayed up editing the music video, only taking "render naps" and wonder-lusting after my past, more agile self. The next day was the epic boat tour, and I was delirious. On the van ride home, I woke up disoriented and ended up yelling over the heads of 5 German tourists to Woody, "What's going on?!"
They have an underground "Little Hong Kong" labyrinth-like shopping mall where all the prices are like H&M / F21. Whilst shopping, we realized that Woody and I had opposite problems. I am too big for Guilin and Woody is too small. Here is a pic of me in standard issue Girl slippers from a hotel we went to check out.
The fashion here is pretty progressive. There are a lot of cute kids here, and the guys have Japanese anime haircuts.
Moped culture is pretty huge here as well. They even invented a poncho for half-man, half-moped.
We went out the past couple nights, which meant going to neon-lit clubs. However, their dance floors are limited to 7 people. Instead, people keep to themselves at their own tables, head bob and play local games whilst surrounding themselves with Avril Lavigne.
We had a late night flight to Chengdu, which we were running late for, but still decided to drop everything for:
I wear mine now when I have a bad face day...
Bye Guilin! (fade out Enigma's "Age of Innocence" which should be played over this blog entry)
We were too scared that shooting broll of the neighborhood = a meat cleaver to the face.
The first night I stayed up editing the music video, only taking "render naps" and wonder-lusting after my past, more agile self. The next day was the epic boat tour, and I was delirious. On the van ride home, I woke up disoriented and ended up yelling over the heads of 5 German tourists to Woody, "What's going on?!"
They have an underground "Little Hong Kong" labyrinth-like shopping mall where all the prices are like H&M / F21. Whilst shopping, we realized that Woody and I had opposite problems. I am too big for Guilin and Woody is too small. Here is a pic of me in standard issue Girl slippers from a hotel we went to check out.
The fashion here is pretty progressive. There are a lot of cute kids here, and the guys have Japanese anime haircuts.
Moped culture is pretty huge here as well. They even invented a poncho for half-man, half-moped.
We went out the past couple nights, which meant going to neon-lit clubs. However, their dance floors are limited to 7 people. Instead, people keep to themselves at their own tables, head bob and play local games whilst surrounding themselves with Avril Lavigne.
We had a late night flight to Chengdu, which we were running late for, but still decided to drop everything for:
I wear mine now when I have a bad face day...
Bye Guilin! (fade out Enigma's "Age of Innocence" which should be played over this blog entry)
vachina.blogspot.com just got sponsorship!
We just got official sponsorship by one of America's leading clothing companies. Check out our national ad campaign on the back of the Onion or Vice soon!
chengdu...more like cheng-don't
The title implies that you shouldn't visit Chengdu. But I assure you
that's not the case. I am just bitter about Chengdu right now because as
I was taking a picture of a dude getting his hair cut on the sidewalk, he cursed at me and instructed me, Mr. T style, not to take pictures of him and if I continued to do so, he would pick me up and throw me in the river. I stopped.
Anyway, our first night we stopped at the Sheraton in Chengdu, and I
proceeded to be laughed out the door when I offered them $520 for a room
they wanted $1100 for. i asked Woody if he could go and try and he
said...
"I...I...I c-c-can't."
So as we hightailed it out of there, the manager (Jay Li) came running out
to us and offered us $800 a night. I scoffed at his "little too late"
offer, laughed wildly in his face, looked him straight in the eye, and told him...
"We'll take it!"
Money well spent, in my opinion, because we later [TEASER ALERT] shot their gorgeous lobby in our next installment of our music video series.
Cut to next day, I'm a skeleton again, because Woody and Cynthia want to
get external hard drives (im pian) for all the content that we are producing. Yo, try bargaining and haggling for electronics in Chengdu and you'll know what hell on earth is. I played the hard drive pimp/gimp/god, and pitted Woody's price against Cynthia's price, even offending a lady by telling her "not to take advantage of us." In the end, team vachina got ultra cuteZ0R 120 GB hard drives for ultra low prices (said as the salespeople laugh themselves silly all the way to the
bank.)
Now we are at the traffic hotel,
and you guessed it, the only reason we are here is because across the alley is this place...
We've been gone 10 days now. Feels like hardly nothing and an eternity all at once. The only thing that I know at this juncture is that I love being amongst people that look like me. Will that change? Only time will tell. Thanks for reading. Until next time...
that's not the case. I am just bitter about Chengdu right now because as
I was taking a picture of a dude getting his hair cut on the sidewalk, he cursed at me and instructed me, Mr. T style, not to take pictures of him and if I continued to do so, he would pick me up and throw me in the river. I stopped.
Anyway, our first night we stopped at the Sheraton in Chengdu, and I
proceeded to be laughed out the door when I offered them $520 for a room
they wanted $1100 for. i asked Woody if he could go and try and he
said...
"I...I...I c-c-can't."
So as we hightailed it out of there, the manager (Jay Li) came running out
to us and offered us $800 a night. I scoffed at his "little too late"
offer, laughed wildly in his face, looked him straight in the eye, and told him...
"We'll take it!"
Money well spent, in my opinion, because we later [TEASER ALERT] shot their gorgeous lobby in our next installment of our music video series.
Cut to next day, I'm a skeleton again, because Woody and Cynthia want to
get external hard drives (im pian) for all the content that we are producing. Yo, try bargaining and haggling for electronics in Chengdu and you'll know what hell on earth is. I played the hard drive pimp/gimp/god, and pitted Woody's price against Cynthia's price, even offending a lady by telling her "not to take advantage of us." In the end, team vachina got ultra cuteZ0R 120 GB hard drives for ultra low prices (said as the salespeople laugh themselves silly all the way to the
bank.)
Now we are at the traffic hotel,
and you guessed it, the only reason we are here is because across the alley is this place...
We've been gone 10 days now. Feels like hardly nothing and an eternity all at once. The only thing that I know at this juncture is that I love being amongst people that look like me. Will that change? Only time will tell. Thanks for reading. Until next time...
lions, tigers, and cows, oh my
Whew. This one took a while to get out, but here's the backstory:
In Guilin, they have a place called Xiongsen Bear and Tiger Mountain. I had heard that at this "mountain" you can see a tiger fight a cow. Woody wanted to see the tiger fight monkeys, but, alas, no such luck. However, before we got to the main event, they warmed us up with this...
Much love to DJ Roctakon for the grrrrreat soundtrack. You can check out his blog here.
So now that you have watched the warm up video, without further adieu, ladies and gentleman, children of all ages...the moment you've all been waiting for. I present to you:
COW vs. TIGER!!
In Guilin, they have a place called Xiongsen Bear and Tiger Mountain. I had heard that at this "mountain" you can see a tiger fight a cow. Woody wanted to see the tiger fight monkeys, but, alas, no such luck. However, before we got to the main event, they warmed us up with this...
Much love to DJ Roctakon for the grrrrreat soundtrack. You can check out his blog here.
So now that you have watched the warm up video, without further adieu, ladies and gentleman, children of all ages...the moment you've all been waiting for. I present to you:
COW vs. TIGER!!
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
cynthia vs homeless
The other day we were wandering around aimlessly, and all the stores blast music really loud to attract customers. Interesting sidenote -- Avril Lavigne and the Backstreet Boys are HUGE here, to the exclusion of all else. Gwen Stefani and Justin Timberlake are like unknown jokes.
Anyhow, Cynthia saw this woman dancing outside a celphone store that was blasting music, and she assumed this woman was a free and liberated woman, a creative soul, a fellow artistic kindered spirit. So Cynthia decided to go and dance with this woman, only to discover halfway through that she was a crazy homeless woman.
The line between artsy and insane is getting thinner and thinner, people!
Anyhow, Cynthia saw this woman dancing outside a celphone store that was blasting music, and she assumed this woman was a free and liberated woman, a creative soul, a fellow artistic kindered spirit. So Cynthia decided to go and dance with this woman, only to discover halfway through that she was a crazy homeless woman.
The line between artsy and insane is getting thinner and thinner, people!
Monday, May 14, 2007
fiery hot nighlife
we all went drinking dancing last night too. Let me just tell you that clubs in China (or I guess guilin at least) play the WORST music ever. its really horrendously cheesey, like you're in a neverending Sprite commercial. The beat is the same for all of them, and everyone spins off CD Dj setups. Also, there is apparently this drinking game you play thats kind of like Rock/Paper/Scissors. You have to be a character, either Cop:
Robber:
or Damsel:
The Cop beats the Robber for obvious reasons, the Robber beats the Damsel for obvious reasons, and the Damsel beats the Cop (presumably because of her feminine charms). You also have to switch characters to the beat of the music until someone wins, and whoever loses has to drink.
Robber:
or Damsel:
The Cop beats the Robber for obvious reasons, the Robber beats the Damsel for obvious reasons, and the Damsel beats the Cop (presumably because of her feminine charms). You also have to switch characters to the beat of the music until someone wins, and whoever loses has to drink.
Never leave Guilin!
we've got a pretty comfortable schedule going on here in Guilin now. It breaks down basically as: wake up, eat food, wander streets aimlessly, go to Little Italian Expat Cafe and blog for 3 hours, eat dinner, go back to hotel to edit so that the next day, we have something to post on our blog.
Blog!
Yesterday however, we broke this routine by going to the Bear/Tiger/Zoo house. Yea, we saw a tiger hunt/kill a cow, ain't no big thing. Simon's in the midst of cutting the most epic video of all time for it. He even made me download a bunch of music for the edit.
I dont really have too many pictures of the zoo, but we saw 3x "performances". The first one was kind of a second rate barnum & bailey thing where they have tigers in a cage and this guy makes them do humiliating nonsense like roll over and pretend to wave to the audience. It was actually completely mesmerizing, because I kept waiting for the tigers to go feral and attack their human captors. Alas, it never happened, but what we saw instead were the glum, defeated faces of all the zoo keeper/entertainers. Man, they were like teenager carnie runaways with these "what have we got to look forward to" looks on their faces. Husks!
The second performance was a continuation in the theme of animal humilation. we saw bears walking upright banging drums, monkeys riding bikes, and of course a monkey on top of a pole riding a camel. All of this was narrated by King Awesome:
Also they let us go up real close to the tigers with tongs of meat and feed them through a chain link fence. Not exactly super-secure. While shooting Simon I almost get my hand ripped off!
so now all the foreplay is over and we get to the main event: TIGER VS COW, SON! Basically they let a tiger out of a cage into this small fenced-in field, and he chases a cow for 5 minutes, catches it, and bites the cows throat. the end. you kind of feel dirty afterwards for watching it, like "who is the TRUE monster here" while "Man in the Mirror" plays in the background. I wont give you any footage of the chase (Simon's magnum opus is on the way), but here's a snapshot of crowd reactions. Dont let the expressions fool you, Cynthia was actually wringing her hands together in quiet desperation and Simon was actually laughing like the Joker for 15 minutes:
peace out guilin
CONGRATULATIONS to Patrick Hosmer of New York, NY! He is the winner of the HK t-shirt as referenced in a previous blog. He responded in a record 37 minutes after original posting. And his reason for wanting the prize?
"Because I want it."
That's good enough for me! Your prize is on the way, sir!
Stay tuned for the next prize giveaway...it's going to be a doozy (ps...sending the darn prize cost 3 times more than the actual prize itself!)
so, as our time in guilin is coming to a close, we find ourselves with 3 hours remaining in the day...so we are back at our local spot...blogging! everyone here in guilin is super nice, although whenever I speak to any of them they all seem to be wanting to get out of their "sleepy little town." I can definitely relate. What started out as a one day visit became a 5 day mind explosion of information, and now I feel ready to experience something else, something new.
Small town living is nice, but I could never live here. We did, however, get a glimpse of what guilin once was...just across the river and down the street, away from tourism. The torn down buildings, the dirt, the grime, laundry in the windows, people sitting out front, bare chested, smoking the day away. And if they are REAL lucky, they have a couple of their buddies over and play mah jong or cards in the street. Rinse. Lather. Repeat. This is their life.
Makes me thankful for mine.
Peace out Guilin. Thank you for being so hospitable and giving the Chinese a good name!
Next stop, Chengdu!
"Because I want it."
That's good enough for me! Your prize is on the way, sir!
Stay tuned for the next prize giveaway...it's going to be a doozy (ps...sending the darn prize cost 3 times more than the actual prize itself!)
so, as our time in guilin is coming to a close, we find ourselves with 3 hours remaining in the day...so we are back at our local spot...blogging! everyone here in guilin is super nice, although whenever I speak to any of them they all seem to be wanting to get out of their "sleepy little town." I can definitely relate. What started out as a one day visit became a 5 day mind explosion of information, and now I feel ready to experience something else, something new.
Small town living is nice, but I could never live here. We did, however, get a glimpse of what guilin once was...just across the river and down the street, away from tourism. The torn down buildings, the dirt, the grime, laundry in the windows, people sitting out front, bare chested, smoking the day away. And if they are REAL lucky, they have a couple of their buddies over and play mah jong or cards in the street. Rinse. Lather. Repeat. This is their life.
Makes me thankful for mine.
Peace out Guilin. Thank you for being so hospitable and giving the Chinese a good name!
Next stop, Chengdu!
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Hong Kong Recap
I thought all HK ads made Asian guys look effeminate.
Then to my pleasant surprise, I saw this:
HK was a good segway between America and China. It was like NY, but with Asians. We got to practice some Chinese, but everyone also spoke English. We had the creature comforts of home, but also got used to being amongst fellow Asians and trusting Asian food.
Here is a pic of my new phone for those of you who wanted to see:
During this phone excursion is where Simon and Woody coined the phrase "Cut to I'm a skeleton." ie This is taking so long, I'm dead.
After the tech mall, we walked through the Mong Kok night market, aka the "ladies market" because most of the goods are targeted for ladies. Especially these sexy-time underwears for your men, ladies:
The next day, we had a couple hours to kill before we had to catch our plane, so Simon and I shot a music video:
I ripped two slits in my jeans under the buttal area during this video from climbing on top of some walls. Not only did I have to keep wearing them for the rest of the afternoon, but the only other jeans I brought still had Repulse Bay all over them. So I had to wear the Vachina jeans, if you will, for the whole next day in Guilin before we could figure out how to do laundry.
Speaking of Repulse Bay, I loved it. It was like the Malibu Beach of Hong Kong. It was a nice break from the hectic city. But the sand is actually a variety of little rocks, so I had to walk old school binded-feet style. Oh snap!
I leave with one of the latest pieces of HK gossip. Woody's friend Sylvia translated the tabloids for us. A famous actress was caught in a 3P, which is the term for a threesome based off of video game terminology, ie 2P is 2 player. Apparently, the younger pic of her in the lower corner is pointing out how she used to be more attractive. Ouch! Blunt Asians. Also, the pics of the 6 men under her face represent her dating history.
mu qing jie
and now for a happy mother's day greeting from vachina.blogspot.com (in our mother tongue, no less!):
look at me, i'm huck finn
I haven't shaved since I left America. My head is fuzzier than it's ever been. My face is exploding because of my oily American in China skin. I saw a tiger beat down a cow today. China is pretty amazing....not quite as amazing as this blog, however!
SO, apparently, Woody has been promising videos, and I don't want to be the one to blow his vachina street cred, so here is me singing "Muo Li Hua" on the Lijiang river.
Shout out to my mom on this mother's day for teaching me those wonderful songs. "Mei you ma de hai zi shian ghun cao."
SO, apparently, Woody has been promising videos, and I don't want to be the one to blow his vachina street cred, so here is me singing "Muo Li Hua" on the Lijiang river.
Shout out to my mom on this mother's day for teaching me those wonderful songs. "Mei you ma de hai zi shian ghun cao."
random guilin thoughts
1. guilin has effectively trumped all of our expectations. the people here are insanely nice and everything is remarkably clean. all our preconceived notions/nightmares about diarhea, getting robbed etc were completely unfounded. in fact, they even vaccum seal all the silverware at restaurants!
2. Mcdonald's = fine dining experience. you know how in NY, the Mcdonalds are always the refuge of the homeless/crazy? not so here in guilin... all the kids go to Mcdonalds like it's mecca, and the place is immaculate and spotless. here is a photo of a typical mcdonalds promotional poster:
here we have a typical guilin cow, steroid'd up and taking it to the hole. MOOOve aside! all other players COWer in the face of this offense!
3. cute trumps all. you could make a mathematical equation that breaks down as this:
CUTE > EVERYTHING ELSE
practicality goes straight out the window in Asia. Form will beat function every time, visible in basically any consumable product there is. Here, for example, is Johnny Law in his off-time, surrounded by literally a wall of cute:
TEASER! today we went to "Xiong San"...the bear and tiger mountain village:
Basically, Simon heard via some Aussie expats that we could pay money and watch a tiger slaughter a cow. When he heard this, we became singleminded in purpose and thought, our every action motivated by one guiding principle: WE MUST SEE A TIGER KILL A COW (and of course document it for our blog). Video to come, son!
Saturday, May 12, 2007
what happens when 630,000 people stop being polite....
...and start getting real? Well, it seems as though this trip is all about finding the "realness" of china. We decided to stay another night in guilin, and possibly more. This town is absolutely lovely, and the people are the nicest that I have EVER met. We started the day by going shopping (again). Woods kept trying to find shirts his size, but they were all too big. He had to buy a kids small. Woods, also almost got run over by a scooter lady because he was looking at a shirt across the street that was totally "cutez0r." (If you know that term, then you are a nerd!) It seems like people are surprised that we speak Chinese when they find out that we are Americans. We are kind of a novelty here. I like it. I like it...A LOT.
This blogging thing is totally getting out of control. It is no joke that we are complete slaves to our blog. Check the dedication:
Anyway, so we go to this place for dinner, not because the food is awesome, but because it is the only place with wifi!
Once we get there, we find that we need an adapter to plug in our computers. Our waitress actually WALKED me to the back alley and helped me buy the plug. AMAZING. And then these ex-pats that are here teaching English in Guilin came in, and I realized that in only 8 days, I missed the HECK out of sitting down and having a conversation in English. They gave very interesting insight into China living....that they string up great danes and eat them, that people raise these dogs to sell, and that restaurants pretty much hit the dogs over the head with baseball bats...that women will blackmail you for your money and you'll get deported...that little chinese kids idolize westerners. It's simply awesome how we can all just be "friends" in a heartbeat because we share the same language. Plus they absolutely loved our blog name! Cheers to Gideon and Richard and the rest of the Australian homies!
Afterwards, we met up with a "greeter girl" (Huan ying guan ling) that we met at McDonalds. She originally thought that I was Korean...but I quickly cured her of those ails by showing her my Chinese language skillz. And, this will blow your mind...at McDonalds here in guilin, they pay you $RMB 4.5. That's $0.50 an hour. Crazy. She was real cool. She took us to this night club called Caesers where everybody has to "buy" a table and they chit chat over really loud and really bad mando-pop.
There was a dance floor that was, and I kid you not, 5x7 and of course the Lao Wai had to show them how they do it in America.
Keep your comments coming! That's literally the only thing that is keeping Woody alive!
This blogging thing is totally getting out of control. It is no joke that we are complete slaves to our blog. Check the dedication:
Anyway, so we go to this place for dinner, not because the food is awesome, but because it is the only place with wifi!
Once we get there, we find that we need an adapter to plug in our computers. Our waitress actually WALKED me to the back alley and helped me buy the plug. AMAZING. And then these ex-pats that are here teaching English in Guilin came in, and I realized that in only 8 days, I missed the HECK out of sitting down and having a conversation in English. They gave very interesting insight into China living....that they string up great danes and eat them, that people raise these dogs to sell, and that restaurants pretty much hit the dogs over the head with baseball bats...that women will blackmail you for your money and you'll get deported...that little chinese kids idolize westerners. It's simply awesome how we can all just be "friends" in a heartbeat because we share the same language. Plus they absolutely loved our blog name! Cheers to Gideon and Richard and the rest of the Australian homies!
Afterwards, we met up with a "greeter girl" (Huan ying guan ling) that we met at McDonalds. She originally thought that I was Korean...but I quickly cured her of those ails by showing her my Chinese language skillz. And, this will blow your mind...at McDonalds here in guilin, they pay you $RMB 4.5. That's $0.50 an hour. Crazy. She was real cool. She took us to this night club called Caesers where everybody has to "buy" a table and they chit chat over really loud and really bad mando-pop.
There was a dance floor that was, and I kid you not, 5x7 and of course the Lao Wai had to show them how they do it in America.
Keep your comments coming! That's literally the only thing that is keeping Woody alive!
what happens when 630,000 people stop being polite....
...and start getting real? Well, it seems as though this trip is all about finding the "realness" of china. We decided to stay another night in guilin, and possibly more. This town is absolutely lovely, and the people are the nicest that I have EVER met. We started the day by going shopping (again). Woods kept trying to find shirts his size, but they were all too big. He had to buy a kids small. Woods, also almost got run over by a scooter lady because he was looking at a shirt across the street that was totally "cutez0r." (If you know that term, then you are a nerd!) It seems like people are surprised that we speak Chinese when they find out that we are Americans. We are kind of a novelty here. I like it. I like it...A LOT.
This blogging thing is totally getting out of control. It is no joke that we are complete slaves to our blog. Check the dedication:
Anyway, so we go to this place for dinner, not because the food is awesome, but because it is the only place with wifi!
Once we get there, we find that we need an adapter to plug in our computers. Our waitress actually WALKED me to the back alley and helped me buy the plug. AMAZING. And then these ex-pats that are here teaching English in Guilin came in, and I realized that in only 8 days, I missed the HECK out of sitting down and having a conversation in English. They gave very interesting insight into China living....that they string up great danes and eat them, that people raise these dogs to sell, and that restaurants pretty much hit the dogs over the head with baseball bats...that women will blackmail you for your money and you'll get deported...that little chinese kids idolize westerners. It's simply awesome how we can all just be "friends" in a heartbeat because we share the same language. Plus they absolutely loved our blog name! Cheers to Gideon and Richard and the rest of the Australian homies!
Afterwards, we met up with a "greeter girl" (Huan ying guan ling) that we met at McDonalds. She originally thought that I was Korean...but I quickly cured her of those ails by showing her my Chinese language skillz. And, this will blow your mind...at McDonalds here in guilin, they pay you $RMB 4.5. That's $0.50 an hour. Crazy. She was real cool. She took us to this night club called Caesers where everybody has to "buy" a table and they chit chat over really loud and really bad mando-pop.There was a dance floor that was, and I kid you not, 5x7 and of course the Lao Wai had to show them how they do it in America.
Keep your comments coming! That's literally the only thing that is keeping Woody alive!
This blogging thing is totally getting out of control. It is no joke that we are complete slaves to our blog. Check the dedication:
Anyway, so we go to this place for dinner, not because the food is awesome, but because it is the only place with wifi!
Once we get there, we find that we need an adapter to plug in our computers. Our waitress actually WALKED me to the back alley and helped me buy the plug. AMAZING. And then these ex-pats that are here teaching English in Guilin came in, and I realized that in only 8 days, I missed the HECK out of sitting down and having a conversation in English. They gave very interesting insight into China living....that they string up great danes and eat them, that people raise these dogs to sell, and that restaurants pretty much hit the dogs over the head with baseball bats...that women will blackmail you for your money and you'll get deported...that little chinese kids idolize westerners. It's simply awesome how we can all just be "friends" in a heartbeat because we share the same language. Plus they absolutely loved our blog name! Cheers to Gideon and Richard and the rest of the Australian homies!
Afterwards, we met up with a "greeter girl" (Huan ying guan ling) that we met at McDonalds. She originally thought that I was Korean...but I quickly cured her of those ails by showing her my Chinese language skillz. And, this will blow your mind...at McDonalds here in guilin, they pay you $RMB 4.5. That's $0.50 an hour. Crazy. She was real cool. She took us to this night club called Caesers where everybody has to "buy" a table and they chit chat over really loud and really bad mando-pop.
There was a dance floor that was, and I kid you not, 5x7 and of course the Lao Wai had to show them how they do it in America.Keep your comments coming! That's literally the only thing that is keeping Woody alive!
Guilin/Yangshuo in China
Hey everyone, sorry it's taken so long to blog, and our posts have been so irregular but internet access is bone dry in this town. Let me give you my version of our 2nd, significantly better day at Guilin. Let me reiterate that our first impression of this place was when we landed and looked around a deserted airtrack, and felt totally fish out of water like we were on Mars:
But our second day we went on a river boat tour that went from Guilin to Yangshuo, which was pretty/boring. It was an hour and a half boat ride down a gorgeous river that was overshadowed by towering, immense rocks that thousands of years ago were below sea-level. When we reached Yangshuo, it was totally a tourist trap. The second you walk off the boat you get mobbed by locals playing "theme from a summer place" on traditional chinese instruments.
So we decide to take the bamboo boat tour, where 2 people sit on this bamboo raft, approx 5' x 20' and this guy peddles you downriver:
Like all things in China, this is a complex experience. One the one hand, there's beautiful scenery/you-are-there-rustic-authenticity, and on the other hand, there's dozens of tourists around you having the same exact experience. Also, there's a woman standing behind you with a husky voice singing chinese river songs, through a loudspeaker.
After a bit of this unsettlingness (hearing live chinese folk music through a loudspeaker 2' behind your head is not unlike standing in front of a banshee, or for that matter, listening to reggaeton in a club), Simon in true Simon fashion, somehow gets the megaphone and sings his renditions of famous Chinese standards, video to follow...
On a completely unrelated note, SOMEONE END THE "FLATTEST CREWCUT EVER CONTEST"... WE HAVE A WINNER:
In other news, while walking around in Guilin last night Simon's "Realness Radar" goes into overdrive and detects the following:
ROLLERSKATES AND PINGPONG, SON!!!
OK, I will let Ctown and Simon let you in on their perspective. Also, let me note that this blog is slowly taking over our lives. We in fact now plan our schedule around the availability of internet and schedule entire blocks of time to blogging/editing. Even as I type this Cynth is uploading a music video she shot in Hong Kong. Also, we now have a Vachina bug! It will make its premiere on Cynth's video...
But our second day we went on a river boat tour that went from Guilin to Yangshuo, which was pretty/boring. It was an hour and a half boat ride down a gorgeous river that was overshadowed by towering, immense rocks that thousands of years ago were below sea-level. When we reached Yangshuo, it was totally a tourist trap. The second you walk off the boat you get mobbed by locals playing "theme from a summer place" on traditional chinese instruments.
So we decide to take the bamboo boat tour, where 2 people sit on this bamboo raft, approx 5' x 20' and this guy peddles you downriver:
Like all things in China, this is a complex experience. One the one hand, there's beautiful scenery/you-are-there-rustic-authenticity, and on the other hand, there's dozens of tourists around you having the same exact experience. Also, there's a woman standing behind you with a husky voice singing chinese river songs, through a loudspeaker.
After a bit of this unsettlingness (hearing live chinese folk music through a loudspeaker 2' behind your head is not unlike standing in front of a banshee, or for that matter, listening to reggaeton in a club), Simon in true Simon fashion, somehow gets the megaphone and sings his renditions of famous Chinese standards, video to follow...
On a completely unrelated note, SOMEONE END THE "FLATTEST CREWCUT EVER CONTEST"... WE HAVE A WINNER:
In other news, while walking around in Guilin last night Simon's "Realness Radar" goes into overdrive and detects the following:
ROLLERSKATES AND PINGPONG, SON!!!
OK, I will let Ctown and Simon let you in on their perspective. Also, let me note that this blog is slowly taking over our lives. We in fact now plan our schedule around the availability of internet and schedule entire blocks of time to blogging/editing. Even as I type this Cynth is uploading a music video she shot in Hong Kong. Also, we now have a Vachina bug! It will make its premiere on Cynth's video...
Friday, May 11, 2007
Mmmm Goi Sai, HK...Ni Hao Guilin and Yanshuo
Like Woods said, we wanted to get the Da Bian out of Guilin the minute we got in. We got put in the slums and I kid you not, there was a dude just walking the street with a meat cleaver (and he wasn't trying to sell any meat). I thought about taking a pic for the blog, but I didn't want to get my arms cut off. But hey, what can you expect for RMB230 a night, TOTAL. That's less than $10 a head. Oh, and they had this special card that you have to put it in a slot (thats what she said!) that turns on the electricity. Weird.
So, CUT TO the next day. We get a call from our tour guide to go on the LiJiang RIver Tour. It takes us from the city of Guilin to the city of Yanshuo on a beautiful 52 mile river tour. The scenery is gorgeous.
But what was more amazing is we meet this Chinese woman traveling on her own...and yes, I know those of you reading this right now are thinking that I tried to hit on her. Well, you'll be proud to know that I DID...in CHINESE.
"Dua bu chi, xiao jie, ching wen, ni yiao ka fe, cha, hai shi wou?"
DOPE! But she was married. However, the truly remarkable thing was what we learned from her as a native. For example, I fit the typical stereotype that the Chinese have of Americans: loud, open, friendly, rich, frank, positive, and unhandsome. I told her I thought Chinese people smelled bad. She agreed.
After getting to an over commercialized Yanshuo (where you can buy a ROLEX for $50), we went on a lazy river ride on bamboo boats. That was probably my highlight of the day. Below is me singing on the river, "muo li hua" to the people next to us (video to follow):
Anyway, this is a totally verbose blog, and on top of that, I am trying to do this all over a dial up connection. Lesson 1 from China, NEVER take my broadband connection for granted ever again. See, I'm learning already.
Next stop? Who knows...we're playing it by ear. :)
So, CUT TO the next day. We get a call from our tour guide to go on the LiJiang RIver Tour. It takes us from the city of Guilin to the city of Yanshuo on a beautiful 52 mile river tour. The scenery is gorgeous.
But what was more amazing is we meet this Chinese woman traveling on her own...and yes, I know those of you reading this right now are thinking that I tried to hit on her. Well, you'll be proud to know that I DID...in CHINESE. "Dua bu chi, xiao jie, ching wen, ni yiao ka fe, cha, hai shi wou?"
DOPE! But she was married. However, the truly remarkable thing was what we learned from her as a native. For example, I fit the typical stereotype that the Chinese have of Americans: loud, open, friendly, rich, frank, positive, and unhandsome. I told her I thought Chinese people smelled bad. She agreed.
After getting to an over commercialized Yanshuo (where you can buy a ROLEX for $50), we went on a lazy river ride on bamboo boats. That was probably my highlight of the day. Below is me singing on the river, "muo li hua" to the people next to us (video to follow):
Anyway, this is a totally verbose blog, and on top of that, I am trying to do this all over a dial up connection. Lesson 1 from China, NEVER take my broadband connection for granted ever again. See, I'm learning already.
Next stop? Who knows...we're playing it by ear. :)
danger!
SIMON LOOKING EXCESSIVELY CHINESE:
so right now we're blogging in guilin in China. this is the first place we've been to in "the motherland" and believe me when I tell you that HK spoiled the hell out of us. fast, english-friendly mass transit system? reliable sources of potable water? free wifi everywhere you go? pretty much all service personnel speaks english?
not so in mainland china. we arrived in guilin super-late and the first thing we realized is that cynthia sprained her ankle.
UNAUSPICIOUS.
then all the memories of china come flooding back: mosquitos, yelling, aggressive salesmanship, complete lack of observance for traditional rules of the road (ie- pedestrian gets right of way, etc).
according to our fromer's book (ugh), we stay at a bug-infested hotel that is so run-down and grim it makes me and Simon think we're staying in a mining town. We decide that it's one day and that's it for this place!!! The area is so deserted we think we're in the boonies. For example, we go to the "China Agricultural Bank" and the ATM eats my card. Cynthia then proceeds to UNPLUG THE ATM FROM THE WALL and the machine reboots and spits out my ATM card, before going to the standard PC startup screen. Next we realize that it's 10 pm and nothing's open, so we go to the local store (exceedingly bare. you know those bodegas in NY that look like they're fronts b/c they sell like 3 things? the convenience stores here make them look like Pathmark on inventory day) main items for sale include but are not limited to: mosquito spray, mosquito incense, panty hose, snoopy paraphernalia, jay chou potato chips, ramen. We eat ramen for dinner like college students. This is a spartan lifestyle!
so long story short: we hate guilin the first night here and pretty much expect to get killed the next day. However, the next day is actually quite amazing and turns us 180 degrees around on the whole thing.
"there were monsters in guilin, and truly we were they" - us the next day
"dzui gao de dzun dzong" ["maximum respect"]
so right now we're blogging in guilin in China. this is the first place we've been to in "the motherland" and believe me when I tell you that HK spoiled the hell out of us. fast, english-friendly mass transit system? reliable sources of potable water? free wifi everywhere you go? pretty much all service personnel speaks english?
not so in mainland china. we arrived in guilin super-late and the first thing we realized is that cynthia sprained her ankle.
UNAUSPICIOUS.
then all the memories of china come flooding back: mosquitos, yelling, aggressive salesmanship, complete lack of observance for traditional rules of the road (ie- pedestrian gets right of way, etc).
according to our fromer's book (ugh), we stay at a bug-infested hotel that is so run-down and grim it makes me and Simon think we're staying in a mining town. We decide that it's one day and that's it for this place!!! The area is so deserted we think we're in the boonies. For example, we go to the "China Agricultural Bank" and the ATM eats my card. Cynthia then proceeds to UNPLUG THE ATM FROM THE WALL and the machine reboots and spits out my ATM card, before going to the standard PC startup screen. Next we realize that it's 10 pm and nothing's open, so we go to the local store (exceedingly bare. you know those bodegas in NY that look like they're fronts b/c they sell like 3 things? the convenience stores here make them look like Pathmark on inventory day) main items for sale include but are not limited to: mosquito spray, mosquito incense, panty hose, snoopy paraphernalia, jay chou potato chips, ramen. We eat ramen for dinner like college students. This is a spartan lifestyle!
so long story short: we hate guilin the first night here and pretty much expect to get killed the next day. However, the next day is actually quite amazing and turns us 180 degrees around on the whole thing.
"there were monsters in guilin, and truly we were they" - us the next day
"dzui gao de dzun dzong" ["maximum respect"]
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
HK!
Man, for some reason I can't get enough of Chinese signs. Nor can I get enough of falling apart buildings. It makes me feel like I'm walking around in a Geof Darrow drawing. I guess in China I'll get mugged every 5 minutes while I crane my neck up like a tourist at all the buildings.
Yesterday we had our first unsupervised, risk-taking food eating experience. We were originally going to keep a running tally of # of poos we take VS how many of those poos give us Rhea Pearlman (eg- SIMON 4:0/WOODY 3:0/CYNTHIA 0:10), but we figured that would be distasteful (esp considering the fact that loved ones/family are probably reading this). So suffice it to say that we emerged from the restaurant as Team Vachina 1, HK 0. Here's our Goodfellas tribute to how crowded this restaurant was (our only clue that it might be a good one):
Afterwards we went to Repulse Bay (more like Repulsively Boring!), where we went into the beach and tried to film a dozen promos, VJ hits, Chinese New Year IDs, a tune-in, broadband segment, and 3 shows. Here's a 360 shot, note the building with a hole in it that allows it to stand strong against gale-force winds:
By now everyone was dying of over-tourism and exhaustion so we all went back to the hotel to relax for 20 minutes (read: blog compulsively/obsess over comments left by readers) and then my friend Sylvia showed up and took us out to eat delicious HK crab. It was out of this WOOOORRLLLD! Sylvia is already featured below, looking like an American Apparel ad for Simon's HK shirt giveaway contest. She also helped Cynthia (for like 2 hours while Simon and I withered away in hunger) to buy an exclusive, trendy, Japan-only (via HK) new celphone. Celphones are serious business in Asia:
They even have a throwback one designed to look like old gigantic portable phones from the 80s (awesome) and one designed to look like a toy porsche (only slightly less awesome). I'm sure Cynth will be gushing/raving about her phone soon, so let me only say that she bought the one that is available in different Pantone colors, so that you can buy like 5 and have a different colored one every day to match your outfit.
PIBE
Playing It By Ear. The Woodman hates that term, and now I kind of do, too. We are leaving the comforts of Hong Kong tomorrow and headed towards the motherland. I won't tell you where we are going...in fact, WE didn't even know until about 2 hours ago. But you know that once we get there we are going to be blogging like a mofo (if they have Internet in China). We don't have any other plans other than a plane ticket to _________, and the wind beneath our wings. It is tough to not knowing what lays ahead tomorrow, but at the same time it's liberating. I'll let you know how I feel about it at the end of the trip. But for now, like Ice Cube says, "We Be PIBE'n."
PS. I almost had diarrhea today, but I fought it off with two well timed Pepto pills. Simon 1 HK 0.
Of course, tonight we went to another night market (di tan) and while CTOWN and Woods were buying useless items for themselves, I thought about YOU, our loyal readers. So I have a present for one lucky individual. The first person to comment on this blog and tell me why you want this free authentic "Di Tan" t-shirt will get the prize (and the number of the girl wearing it, if you are so inclined.)
Good Luck!
PS. I almost had diarrhea today, but I fought it off with two well timed Pepto pills. Simon 1 HK 0.
Of course, tonight we went to another night market (di tan) and while CTOWN and Woods were buying useless items for themselves, I thought about YOU, our loyal readers. So I have a present for one lucky individual. The first person to comment on this blog and tell me why you want this free authentic "Di Tan" t-shirt will get the prize (and the number of the girl wearing it, if you are so inclined.)
Good Luck!
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
hong kong style
Hello my lovelies. Our first night here in HK was spent at the night markets and trying to find a place to eat that wouldn't give us instant diarrhea. 
We have fondly nicknamed the runs as either "Rhea" Pearlman or Princess "Di." The first one that gets a visit from the princess is going to have their pictures posted here as well as other punishment. So far my stomach is strong, son! Here is the place we chose to eat on our first night.
Then on our second day, we decided to check out Victoria's Peak, as mentioned in Woody's previous post. I'm about to drop some knowledge on you. VP is HK's highest mountain at 1,308 ft. What use to take the Chinese People 3 hours to get to the top, they now have a tram that does it in 8 minutes. But to get to the tram, we had to take the Star Ferry first.
We get to the top and it's a pretty nice view, 
but they make you walk through this shopping mall just to get to the top. Here we are at the peak...I wonder where Cynthia is?
Now we are home blogging, Cynthia is at my side, and we are having a blog-a-thon. Also, C-town is compiling a "HOT MIX" of our trip so far. Watch out!
We have fondly nicknamed the runs as either "Rhea" Pearlman or Princess "Di." The first one that gets a visit from the princess is going to have their pictures posted here as well as other punishment. So far my stomach is strong, son! Here is the place we chose to eat on our first night.Then on our second day, we decided to check out Victoria's Peak, as mentioned in Woody's previous post. I'm about to drop some knowledge on you. VP is HK's highest mountain at 1,308 ft. What use to take the Chinese People 3 hours to get to the top, they now have a tram that does it in 8 minutes. But to get to the tram, we had to take the Star Ferry first.
We get to the top and it's a pretty nice view, 
but they make you walk through this shopping mall just to get to the top. Here we are at the peak...I wonder where Cynthia is?Now we are home blogging, Cynthia is at my side, and we are having a blog-a-thon. Also, C-town is compiling a "HOT MIX" of our trip so far. Watch out!
crowded
HK is the most crowded place on earth. In terms of new/modern existing right next to dilapidated/rundown, it beats NY by about a million times. Take a look at how tightly packed people live together!
Plus electric signs look amazingly cool in Chinese--it's like I'm watching Akira when I look at these things:
Today we went around tourist trap spots. First to Victoria Peak. This place sucks. Am I completely lame if I admit that the culturally edifying experiences are boring? Maybe just American. We ate lunch at HK's equivalent of Whole Foods and then wandered around Tsim Sha Tsui with all the expats, Chinese-Canadians, and South Africans (white). BTW, every white person around here wearing a suit is an investment banker.
Simon and Cynth have been shooting an insane amount of footage so expect an MTV style report coming up... B-roll city!
Plus electric signs look amazingly cool in Chinese--it's like I'm watching Akira when I look at these things:
Today we went around tourist trap spots. First to Victoria Peak. This place sucks. Am I completely lame if I admit that the culturally edifying experiences are boring? Maybe just American. We ate lunch at HK's equivalent of Whole Foods and then wandered around Tsim Sha Tsui with all the expats, Chinese-Canadians, and South Africans (white). BTW, every white person around here wearing a suit is an investment banker.
Simon and Cynth have been shooting an insane amount of footage so expect an MTV style report coming up... B-roll city!
Monday, May 7, 2007
arrival time
Cynthia & Simon sleeping on the plane, note that Simon looks not unlike Robocop:
Finally, after watching Harry Potter 3 times (out of sequence) our plane lands... note that Simon is DP on this shaky "you are there" first person perspective. Also, if you think that this is a bit generic or the link doesn't work, not to worry. All you have to do is youtube "plane landing" and you'll see 14 million other people's amateur footage of a plane landing -- it's all the same anyways:
Arrival time in Kowloon, son!
What's that you say? This is also a generic picture? We could be anywhere and you want your China value? Fine. After arriving and settling into the Salvation Army Booth Lodge in Yau Ma Tei (where we are telling the concierge that there's only 2 of us instead of 3 so as to save on $$$, and in this way are not only stealing from the Salvation Army but by extension Jesus Christ), we went out and hit the Di Tan (Night Market). Here's me amid a bunch of crap!
Finally, after watching Harry Potter 3 times (out of sequence) our plane lands... note that Simon is DP on this shaky "you are there" first person perspective. Also, if you think that this is a bit generic or the link doesn't work, not to worry. All you have to do is youtube "plane landing" and you'll see 14 million other people's amateur footage of a plane landing -- it's all the same anyways:
Arrival time in Kowloon, son!
What's that you say? This is also a generic picture? We could be anywhere and you want your China value? Fine. After arriving and settling into the Salvation Army Booth Lodge in Yau Ma Tei (where we are telling the concierge that there's only 2 of us instead of 3 so as to save on $$$, and in this way are not only stealing from the Salvation Army but by extension Jesus Christ), we went out and hit the Di Tan (Night Market). Here's me amid a bunch of crap!
Sunday, May 6, 2007
Delirious
I kinda like this mofo blogger thing. I know C-town mentioned that the next time you read this that we would be blogging from China, but I made a liar out of her. It is now 10:37AM American time. I have officially been up past 24 hours and I feel like Jack Bauer. If I see that hoe bag Cheng Zhi who kept Audrey captive, I'm going to whoop him. 
And, yes, it's true that I plagiarized Frommer's. Some (Woods and C-town) are Lonely Planet enthusiasts, but that book is for weak minded Americans. If you seek the truth, then ye shall find it in FROMMERS.
One last thing...in a group where Simon Yin is the planner, then we are all in trouble.
Here is a look at the previously mentioned enthusiastic excel excellence:
Oh yeah. Look at those Excel skills. OK, for reals, the next time we blog, it's gonna be straight outta HK!
And, yes, it's true that I plagiarized Frommer's. Some (Woods and C-town) are Lonely Planet enthusiasts, but that book is for weak minded Americans. If you seek the truth, then ye shall find it in FROMMERS.
One last thing...in a group where Simon Yin is the planner, then we are all in trouble.
Here is a look at the previously mentioned enthusiastic excel excellence:
Oh yeah. Look at those Excel skills. OK, for reals, the next time we blog, it's gonna be straight outta HK!
Prologue
Just to give an idea of where we are mentally, physically and emotional at this point -- we have booked only our first flight and our first hotel in Hong Kong. The rest of our schedule is on an excel document that Simon copied from Frommers. At our last "planning meeting" a week ago, we ended up walking around the east village returning Woody's latest episodes of "The Wire" and looking for a place to eat outside. When we found a place, we ordered a pitcher of Sangria, of which each of us only finished half a glass (it was 4:00 in the afternoon) and gave the rest away to a gay couple next to us. Meanwhile, both Simon and Woody have now gotten drunk off said 1/2 glass, and we talk about how we are unprepared and how we can't believe we are going and then end up taking a nap at my apartment. This is about the same amount of planning that we have accomplished at each of our other 3 or so meetings - going to Barnes and Noble to research only for Woody to wander off into the comics section and for us to lose our focus amongst all the international travel books. "Let's go to Australia! Oooo, what about Vietnam? Japan! Oh wait, aren't we supposed to be finding our roots?"
I am packing up my room right now in anticipation of a possible subletter to decide whether or not he does want my room, which he won't know until after I leave at 3pm today. So I could be wasting my time packing up my comforter into a giant B&H bag and boxing up my personal effects. It's 8:55 am, I am still packing and have been trying to stay awake all night. I took a nap for a couple hours with my cell phone waking me up every 30 minutes. Simon has been staying awake also. He is delirious. When we spoke at 5:25 am, he was rambling about socks and ice cream. We all had a 3-way call at 5:35am, wherein Woody yelled into the abyss from his bed for someone else to bring a laptop so that we wouldn't be ganking his all the time. I have the biggest and heaviest laptop. Boo! For the past couple days, Woody has been nursing a 100 degree fever. He then dj-ed last night until 4am, got drunk and smoked a cigarette -- which we will be hearing for the next week through his phlegmy coughs and his lamenting "I shouldn't have had that cigarette!" I have been working, and Simon and I have been periodically texting each other expletives about actually going to china ie "we are going to f ing china!" "f*@&! we are going to china!"
I can't actually believe that we are going. It won't hit me until we land and suddenly, we are engulfed amongst a bunch of Asian people saying Asian words and doing Asian things -- ie pushing us as they pass and cutting in front of us in line. We went to the Chinese Consulate to get our visas a couple weeks ago and I left being racist against my own people. And we had only been there for 1 hour! An old lady with a cane got in line next to me, note: not behind me, and when the person in front of us left, I heard a few quick taps of the cane on the ground and suddenly I'm staring at the back of her head.
I have to leave in an hour to be at Simon's and I have half-packed boxes, backpacks and a suitcase taunting me on my floor. Of course it would be the perfect time to blog. I also have tivo-ed Conan coming from the living room. I'm going to miss American TV! Season finale of The Office! Human Giant just started. Who is going to win America's Next Top Model?
I leave with a list of fears: getting mugged/raped/sucked into a human trafficking ring/diaheria/getting one or more from a cacophony of indigenous diseases: bird flu, Sars, Hepatitis A, B, C, yellow fever, typhoid -- options!/getting drugs planted on us and ending up in a Chinese prison/getting backed into an alley and having our organs cut out -- you know, same ol same ol.
Next time we blog, we'll be in the motherland, suckas!
I am packing up my room right now in anticipation of a possible subletter to decide whether or not he does want my room, which he won't know until after I leave at 3pm today. So I could be wasting my time packing up my comforter into a giant B&H bag and boxing up my personal effects. It's 8:55 am, I am still packing and have been trying to stay awake all night. I took a nap for a couple hours with my cell phone waking me up every 30 minutes. Simon has been staying awake also. He is delirious. When we spoke at 5:25 am, he was rambling about socks and ice cream. We all had a 3-way call at 5:35am, wherein Woody yelled into the abyss from his bed for someone else to bring a laptop so that we wouldn't be ganking his all the time. I have the biggest and heaviest laptop. Boo! For the past couple days, Woody has been nursing a 100 degree fever. He then dj-ed last night until 4am, got drunk and smoked a cigarette -- which we will be hearing for the next week through his phlegmy coughs and his lamenting "I shouldn't have had that cigarette!" I have been working, and Simon and I have been periodically texting each other expletives about actually going to china ie "we are going to f ing china!" "f*@&! we are going to china!"
I can't actually believe that we are going. It won't hit me until we land and suddenly, we are engulfed amongst a bunch of Asian people saying Asian words and doing Asian things -- ie pushing us as they pass and cutting in front of us in line. We went to the Chinese Consulate to get our visas a couple weeks ago and I left being racist against my own people. And we had only been there for 1 hour! An old lady with a cane got in line next to me, note: not behind me, and when the person in front of us left, I heard a few quick taps of the cane on the ground and suddenly I'm staring at the back of her head.
I have to leave in an hour to be at Simon's and I have half-packed boxes, backpacks and a suitcase taunting me on my floor. Of course it would be the perfect time to blog. I also have tivo-ed Conan coming from the living room. I'm going to miss American TV! Season finale of The Office! Human Giant just started. Who is going to win America's Next Top Model?
I leave with a list of fears: getting mugged/raped/sucked into a human trafficking ring/diaheria/getting one or more from a cacophony of indigenous diseases: bird flu, Sars, Hepatitis A, B, C, yellow fever, typhoid -- options!/getting drugs planted on us and ending up in a Chinese prison/getting backed into an alley and having our organs cut out -- you know, same ol same ol.
Next time we blog, we'll be in the motherland, suckas!
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
Let Us Introduce Ourselves
Before we were travelers, we were just normal human beings...
WOODY FU
aka Woods
Strengths: Very good at accessing dangerous situations
Weaknesses: Likes to randomly set up his DJ equipment and start spinning hits of the 80's.
CYNTHIA KAO
aka Mad Kao
Strengths: Yellow belt in Jit Kung Do, and can swallow a whole cantaloupe
Weaknesses: Speaks Chinese at a 2nd grade level, and can swallow a whole cantaloupe
SIMON YIN
aka The Heartbreaker
Strengths: Wou de zhong wen hen hao
Weaknesses: Gets distracted by Chinese people, especially beautiful Chinese women; can be easily bribed with sweets
WOODY FU
aka Woods
Strengths: Very good at accessing dangerous situations
Weaknesses: Likes to randomly set up his DJ equipment and start spinning hits of the 80's.
CYNTHIA KAOaka Mad Kao
Strengths: Yellow belt in Jit Kung Do, and can swallow a whole cantaloupe
Weaknesses: Speaks Chinese at a 2nd grade level, and can swallow a whole cantaloupe
SIMON YINaka The Heartbreaker
Strengths: Wou de zhong wen hen hao
Weaknesses: Gets distracted by Chinese people, especially beautiful Chinese women; can be easily bribed with sweets
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