I HATE MY CLOTHES

Can you imagine wearing the same clothes over and over? It gets really old. In fact I “HATE” most of the stuff that I have to put on each and every day. What seemed novel in May 2008 in prep for the trip is not so novel now. We all planned ahead and bought clothes that were multi purpose, such as zip off pants (which convert to shorts) that are made out of synthetic materials which wash and dry quickly. And that crappy black stretch belt that matches it, ugghhhh!!! We “layer” also. I wear t-shirts under my only three long sleeve shirts. I dislike my clothes even more now because earlier, with variable weather, we were mixing shorts and pants. Since we arrived in China, it's only been the long pants and layered shirts. And those zip offs do nothing for my figure? Notice the next person on the street with “travel pants” and you will notice a belly that plops over the belt AND a baggy butt. The two 600 ml beers per day have nothing to do with my belly. It's the damn pants. I have worn the same royal blue L.L. Bean fleece jacket, that I was so proud of when purchased back in April, for the last 25 days without fail. AARRRGGGH!!!!!

This seems such a petty grievance. Get over it Marty. Remember the people that have less.....Nah, I just want to complain.....

I'll go on....I have a pair of New Balance cross-trainers that are very comfortable, until you wear them for weeks on end. A podiatrist friend of mine said you should wear different shoes each day and not the same pair day in and day out. I see all these people with neat shoes....Chucks, cool Nike casual shoes and I'm stuck with my old pair that incidentally (planned) match all three of my boring pair of pants.

When in Sydney I want to go shopping for new clothes that will make me feel hip, new and invigorated and sexy. I want clothes that take off the extra ten kilos I have been packing for years. No more travel clothes. Stylish pants with a belt that takes up too much room in the suitcase will be the order of the day. Orange colors, silver emblems, even shirts that say “Billabong” will be on my shelves. And I will shod myself in a brand spanking new pair of black leather Chucks (Converse All-Stars) regardless of the of what my podiatrist might think. I just won't tell him. So what if my arches need surgery...I'm having a fashion disaster!!!! Help. Besides, I need new clothes to match the shaved head. Soon you will meet Marty, the stylin' man.

Stayed tuned in a month for me bitching about my new wardrobe.

A BITTERSWEET FAREWELL

Yangshuo was not all we wanted it to be – bad weather and illness certainly made it less than an ideal stay. But through the good days and the bad days there was The Magnolia Hotel and The China Cafe owners and staff. They had limited English, but were all there each day with warm smiles and friendly greetings. Sometimes they giggled at our antics or our attempts to communicate with them. Mostly they were all incredibly welcoming each and every day of our 16 day stay.

On our last night there, we were sitting in our room when there was a knock at the door. It was Jenny with a going away present for us. Two knit hats for the girls (which were very useful the next day in the cold Guilin Park) and a giant wall fan for our family. She expressed their pleasure at having us for guests. It was a most thoughtful gesture and it warmed our hearts to know that they too enjoyed this familial relationship.

Thank you to everyone at The Magnolia Hotel and The China Cafe and to Malcolm and his family for a wonderful stay!

OUR NEIGHBORS NEXT DOOR

We are in Yangshuo, a "touristy" town in China due to the inescapable and beautiful karst formations that surround us here. Coming with that tourism is a "western-ness" that is near to us. Avocet has posted a blog on West Street and Xian Qian Street where you can see your own kind: White westerners. But we didn't plan this trip to be sightseers of our own culture. We came to experience other cultures.

We have headed out several days to ride bikes, walk, and to just meander around the area. So we have been able to detect the "Chinaness" of Yangshuo. So here are some of my musings abut this place.

CHINESE PEOPLE PLAY GAMES. On street corners and in the park, you will always see a card game going on. Mostly older people huddled up in their coats. The cards are skinny and have Chinese letters on them. They seem to draw cards one after another with little pondering of their next move. Another game I noticed is a form of dominoes played with match sticks (I'm guessing for betting). These guys looked serious and a group of spectators gathered around. I counted at least twenty games going on in the Yangshuo City Park alone. Several "games" of badminton were going on as well. Without a net. Young teens would hit the birdie back and forth and laugh and giggle. I wonder though, where are all of those ping-pong tables that I expected??





CHINESE PEOPLE RIDE BIKES The streets around are filled with bikes. None are recreational except for the ones we foreigners use. Some look kinda new but most look old and broken in. Bikes with carts behind them are used for transporting things from one place to another. It's not uncommon to see furniture being carried on these vehicles. A brand that is popular at home dominates here: GIANT. Giant Manufacturing, Ltd. is based in Taiwan and is the largest bike maker in the world. People ride slow here and do not try to compete for speed. The cars and scooters also move slower, weaving a dance of "in and out" on the road.





CHINESE PEOPLE ARE FASHIONABLE Are knee high boots back in style? You see a lot of them here matched with leggings (that could be due to the weather) and short skirts. You see nice matching shirts and pants on both men and women. Men sometimes wear sport coats as outerwear (probably like they were intended many years ago). When I was in college I saw quite a few Chinese students in stripes and plaids. I guess they took fashion lessons, huh. Not to be critical, I must remember that MY fashions are usually about ten years behind (as are most of my clothes).




CHINESE PEOPLE EAT AT STREET STALLS You see lines at street kitchens selling food weird to me: green squares of unknown origin, some type of tuber that looks like a brown yam, large yellow "cakes" made out of "kkghdlk", and fruits of all kinds. They seem to eat fruit here. I heard that they "fruit-out" when it starts to get cold. Incidentally, I've been wanting to eat in one of these crowded stalls with five-six tables serving unknown substances but my "nose tells me no". Too bad, especially since lisa and I could eat a whole meal for about one US dollar each.




and finally...CHINESE PEOPLE SMILE Cynical as I can be, they are doing it for my fine "high priced currency". WRONG!!! People without any motive will say "Nee-ha" (hello) when eye contact is made and a smile will follow. They joke with each other and cut up, especially the young people. If you were to blot out the faces in a playground, you would say these people are Americans, or Dutch, or Slovene, or Thai....it doesn't matter. Lesson learned every month of this trip. PEOPLE ARE WONDERFUL (THROUGHOUT CHINA AND THROUGHOUT THE WORLD)

IN SICKNESS AND IN HEALTH

We have been healthy for so long I thought we might just luck out and get through the entire year without getting sick. And we got through what we thought were tough spots, Tanzania with its possible bad water, India with its garbage and bad air, Thailand and Laos, with their "Asianess" (a word I made up because I can't think of anything bad to say about either of the two country's sanitation, but know that it's not as clean as at home). So we are now in China and we've all come down with either stomach bugs or intestinal distress. I visited a Dr. Lilli Li, a Chinese medicine doctor and she told me to stay away from greasy foods because my stomach did not have a good "chi". Dr. Lilli also said "stay away from the "fire". I did and didn't. When I did, OK. When I didn't, bad news.

New Years Eve at 11:45PM. Avocet is in bed because she should be. lisa is in Siena's room watching out for her because she has been sick since this afternoon when we were on a long bike ride. She was a real trooper and didn't get really sick until we got home. Thank God for tandems where she could just sit on the back while I pedaled. lisa is not feeling good either. A couple of days ago, Av went through her "rumbly tumbly" (as Pooh Bear would have called it). So have I.

On one of lisa's earlier blog posts, she talked about how yucky the weather was at the beginning of the time here in Yangshuo. Why, oh why couldn't we have been sick while the weather was "sick" too? Well, having to hang in the room does get old but its also a way for our bodies to "slow down, folks". We feel we have been taking it easy, but maybe not easy enough. From our first days in Chiang Mai, Thailand in the middle of November, we have "laid back" and not crammed sightseeing into every single day. Well, nature (the weather) and our own bodies (sickness) have slowed us down even more. Getting sick is a part of life and this trip is about living.e

We had "it" off and on for a week with EVERYONE feeling better on the 5th of January. We sorta stopped eating the "real" (good!!!) Chinese food and went back to
easier items on our digestive tracts. I also stopped the nightly beer for awhile. Don't worry, Australia looms.

So we finally broke down and became real humans. About time.

West Street and Xian Qian, Yangshuo China

On all of our rainy and dreary days, we usually make it out to West Street. West Street is the westerner's hangout; cafes, restaurants, shops, anything you really need in China. During the day, it looks like the other streets, only with no cars and more souvie shops. The restaurants seem empty most of the time. At night, it's another story. Almost every cafe (if not all of them) turn into disco bars. Flashing lights and smokiness is the right description. At night, alot of the restaurants still seem to be empty. After all, it is the down season!

Below: West Street Daytime



Above: West Street Night Time

West Street also has many souvie shops. They sell dolls in traditional dress, tea sets, chopsticks, t-shirts with Mandarin writing on them, stamps that they carve your name in Mandarin onto, miniature Buddhas, and more little trinkets. Many of which we have bought for ourselves and some for some of you other lucky people....

There is also another small (small SMALL) street running off of West Street which is right around the corner from us. Called Xian Qian, it is a miniature of West Street. It has half a thousand cafes, some of which are listed below. Our two favorites are M.C. Blues Cafe and Bar run by Derek, (only the bar is run by him) and Alf's Place Buffalo Bar and Cafe, bar run by Wade. To both of those we have gone at least once and eaten their heavenly desserts!!!


Above: Xian Qian Street

A list of the billions of cafes on Xian Qian

Solo
Alf's Place
M.C. Blues
Lulu's Cafe
The Balcony
Lizard Lounge (bar)
Music East West Cafe
China Cafe
Bright Moon Cafe
Global Cafe
Dream and Hope Coffee Shop
Woodfired Pizza
Flower Bar
Havana Cafe and Bar
West Street May
Karst Cafe

Below: The Aussie Bar (Alf's Place)




Above: M.C. Blues Cafe and Bar

RAINY DAYS AND MONDAYS AND TUESDAYS...

Weather so far hasn't really impacted our trip until now. Days might have been a little cooler than expected or a little warmer than expected but no big deal. When it rained, we either hung out indoors or found a museum or other indoor activity to occupy our time. Here in Yangshuo, it has been colder and wetter than expected. On top of that, it is an "outdoor" area where all the activities are outdoors. So what's a family to do?


Well, we have our usual cadre of indoor activities that we have relied on heavily here in this wonderful (but cold and damp) city: Writing in our personal journals that we all keep, reading our dwindling supply of English language books (Australia is just 9 days away), Updating our Blog entries (we've even got some prepared for Hong Kong and Australia already - just joking), editing pictures and catching up with our emails. Avocet and Siena have also had some good old fashion play time. We have also eaten ample supplies of Chinese food and done some shopping. Avocet and Siena have also learned to play pool at one of the local bars and have perfected their Foosball game as well.


While there are no museums here in Yangshuo, you can take classes in lots of different things. We took a class in Chinese Calligraphy. Unlike calligraphy at home which is done with a special pen with hard nibs and ink, Chinese Calligraphy is done with paint brushes and ink. I loved the feel of the brush strokes as they glided across the page. It is a very elegant form of writing and it looks quite beautiful. While we only learned about 20 of the 2000 Chinese characters, I think we all did quite well.


We also took a class in Chinese Chess. The pieces are round disks, more similar to checker pieces than chess pieces, with Chinese writing on the top. We could all grasp how each piece moved but then once we moved them, we could never remember which piece was which. I guess if you can read Chinese, you could more easily recognize the pieces. We had a good enough time but everyone felt that they had to think too much for this one - we're all turning into a bunch of softies!


We were also signed up for a Chinese Cooking Class but on the day we were to go, Avocet woke up sick. We were planning on rescheduling but Avocet's stomach bug has been making it's way through our household so at the moment, cooking class is not in the picture.

In between the raindrops, we managed a few nicer days and rented bikes to either tool about the city or explore the country side. When life gives you lemons, make lemon gelato!

FLUSHING OUT THE TRUTH ABOUT CHINA

We encountered our first one in Dubrovnik, Croatia, and walked away. Once we arrived in Africa and later India, we encountered more and they were harder to ignore but often we did. Now that we're in China it's pretty much impossible to avoid. I'm talking about the infamous squat toilet! Easterners have been using them forever but for us Westerners it's just hard to get use to them. I don't know why it should be such a big thing, essentially we squat to go to the bathroom anyway, we're just use to doing it with a seat underneath us. Of course, when we visit a less than clean restroom at home, we don't sit, we squat - so it's kind of like the same thing right?

Our hotel has a "Western Style" toilet which means that it looks like a Western toilet, it flushes like a Western toilet but it can't handle paper like a Western toilet. You therefore must wipe and dispose of your paper into a waste bin and not into the toilet. It sounds a little gross, but it's not all that bad. The bin has a lid so it doesn't smell and they empty the bin everyday. Once you leave the hotel however, it's pretty much squat toilets everywhere.


In a decent restaurant, the squat toilet is not too bad since it is clean and doesn't smell bad. They clean the "toilet" room quite frequently, but they use water to clean the whole bathroom and they don't dry the floor afterwards. This causes a small problem; how to pull your pants down to use the squat toilet but not end up with the bottom of your pant legs all wet. Clearly you attempt to do this by holding on to your pants with one hand while you go to the bathroom and then wipe. You can often successfully get this far but then you are stuck with toilet paper in one hand, your pants in the other hand and you have to both pull up your pants and get rid of the toilet paper. The toilet paper bin often has a foot pedal but have you ever tried to push on the pedal of a trash can to open it while your pants are around your thighs and you're trying to hold the bottom of your pants legs up to keep them from getting wet from the floor? The other option is to pull up your pants with one hand while you hold the paper in the other which then frees up your foot to push the pedal to open the can to put your paper in. Clearly we will not be in China long enough to master this art but we are getting better at it.


Public restrooms are another matter. Just like at home where public restrooms can be pretty dicey, the same is true here, only worse! Squat toilets have no water sitting in them so if someone does their "business" in the toilet and doesn't flush, it is there to stink up the entire bathroom. Plus, these bathrooms are not cleaned regularly. I tried a public restroom just once. I walked in, gagged so bad from the stench, that I left and swore that I would rather use the side of the road if necessary.

The good news is that it is cold outside and no one is drinking a whole lot of water. Hot tea would be good but it is caffeinated so we don't drink much of that either. This keeps our "needs" down to a minimum. The bad news is, practice makes perfect and I guess this is one thing that we just won't perfect!