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. :)

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.

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.

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.

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!

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...

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 "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.

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 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!

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:

"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: