First, an overdue announcement: Pictures from Lauren and Elle’s two week “Sino-journ” are up on Flickr. As incentive for you to look at all my obviously fabulous shots I thought I’d blog (in stages) about some of the interesting stories and highlights from our travels, along with a few of the photos that didn’t make it online.

The pictures here are from Mt. Hua (aka Hua Shan), one of China’s five holy (Taoist) peaks (Mt. Hua represents Metal – later we visited Shaolin Shan in Henan, the central Taoist peak representing Heart. 2 of 5 not bad for a short trip). Climbing Huashan — that is to say, walking up a whole lot of granite steps — ranks among the top “natural” experiences I’ve had in this country. Steps aside, the hike was invigorating, the air clean, the creek crystal clear, and the scenery absolutely incredible, including some of the most unique rock faces I’ve ever seen and actual native COLOR!

Huashan is a two hour train ride east of Xi’an and we decided to make it a one way destination stop en-route home to Shanghai. Gear in tow we set off on the 7am local. Since we bought our tickets the day of departure, a bad but largely unavoidable habit throughout our spontaneous trip, we found ourselves without assigned seats. Why they can’t assign seats on the day, even for an empty train, is curious to me. Naturally, this also led to some quintessential cross-cultural confusion. Frankly, I should know the train systems here better, but having been spoiled by air travel we we walked down the car aisles looking for a conductor to assist our search. Though most seats were empty, strange previous encounters pushed me onward to ensure we wouldn’t be asked to move later. However, in each car we passed the resident warden shook his head at our tickets and pointed us onwards until we’d walked the entire length of the train without successfully finding a place to park. Properly amused with our confusion the last conductor, the youngest and most kindly, decided to “let” us sit in his car. As we read later, when it comes to unassigned seats you’re basically allowed to sit anywhere as long as the seat is free. Why we kept getting passed forward will simply remain one of Shaanxi’s many customer service mysteries.

The trek up Huashan is a 5 hour affair, longer if you’re taking it easy. It is possible to spend the night on the summit in one of several “hostels” but our plan was to be down in time to catch the through train to Luoyang, in the next province. After stashing our big packs in a local restaurant at the base, and laughingly allowing ourselves to be goaded into purchasing a pair of 13-cent cotton gloves (which would later prove invaluable on the exposed “plank-path” lined with heat sucking metal hand-holds) we began our hike. It was a wonderful feeling to leave behind the valley smog and for several hours we trooped up the increasingly steep steps, which eventually looked like this:

Well past the half-way point, but still an hour from the summit, the base trail plateaus at the North Peak cut-off. It is also here that a cable-car from the opposite side of the mountain vomits forth throngs of jabbering local tourists. It would be hypocritical to overly lament the existence of the cable-car since it saved our knees, and time, on the way down, but it is not an exaggeration to say that our gorgeous and solitary walk through the country side was rudely and unexpectedly transformed into a jostling bread-line the rest of the way up the mountain, which follows a narrow trail know as Green Dragon’s Back. Thankfully, the summit is actually several distinct peaks with separate paths diverging once again near the top and our destination, the infamous “plank-path” just under the highest South Peak, was not a major draw. The following picture may help you understand why:

My friend Steve told me about the plank path when I first mentioned we were traveling to Xi’an. After his description > I knew it had to be done. It certainly lived up to it’s description. While the shoulder harnesses offered a modicum of security, the rusted metal spikes and worn chain links did not. The end destination is a small platform, home to a small chizzled-out cave containing a figure of Tao, and an interesting cedar growing horizontally out over the abyss:

All in, it was a hell of a great day trip.

Hiya. Yangshuo photos are up here. Unfortunately, no photos from our river excursion or Buddha Water Cave. Need a second small digi for convenience. Fear for mama Canon in the rain. Though, David has a few good ones that he’ll post when he gets back to London.

Off to deliver a bike to Ms. K at xiao long bao next door. A seven on the cicada index today. Melty.

Priit and Lamiaa’s housewarming tonight.

Need new flip flops.

Pandan pics are finally posted!

Mine Here.

Oscar’s Here. (though he hasn’t put them in an easy peasy Flickr set like mine )

Promise to post the accompanying story soon. As you can see… a new blog site in the works.

Sadly, I think this may be inaccessible to friends in China. I recommend using anonymouse.

Two weeks ago was a tough one for my acquaintances in Asia. Rough circumstances befell both my friends, my colleagues started getting the flu, even my city was pummeled with a Typhoon (tai feng – 台风 – extreme wind).

It’s not my place to co-opt other people’s stories of misery but the long-short is that I spent a good deal of time feeling fairly helpless on behalf of people I care about, and managed to stop off at the Kowloon hospital just long enough to be reminded of what grim places they are (the notion of having to undergo medical treatment overseas, or indeed anywhere, is simply frightening).

With regards to the lesser incident, Juliet’s bicycle was stolen by a virago pedestrian after the two collided in the street. The woman was crossing against a red light and clearly in the wrong, nevertheless she was verbally and physically overpowering and made off with the cycle as remuneration for her ‘injuries’ (must be tough to carry a bike when you’re that injured… Juliet managed to lock the rear wheel). What I find most interesting about this story is that the police walked by during the ordeal and completely shrugged off Juliet’s appeals for help. “Not their business” was the line, which is patently absurd coming from representatives of a country that makes everything about the lives of its citizens ‘its business’… much like the crowd who gathered to watch the spectacle, offering laughs but no assistance.

Hong Kong was dense and intense. It’s a city of extremes: population, shopping, temperatures. Walking in and out of the local buildings there is enough environmental flux to crack steel. One colleague (I was there for work) even claimed that, due to air-conditioning, the locals experience colder average temperatures than most other cities on earth. Likely false, but still intriguing.

Perhaps Xiang Gang’s most distinctive feature is its miles (literally) of elevated walkways curling in and out of clustered skyscrapers. A great many of the paths are also climate controlled. Amazing. I feel, with training, it may be possible to travel to all regions of the city without actually surfacing for fresh air. In addition to the skyways, Hong Kong has an <overdeveloped> abundance of subterranean malls and food courts, most of them hooked into the subway system. I found it enjoyable to ride the local tube, particularly as the insides of the trains are entirely unobstructed from cabin to cabin. When the crowd is sparse you can see down the length of the cars, as though standing in the gullet of a giant snake, and watch as the twists and undulations of the tunnel approach from the distance.

I think I’ve used the word ‘cluster’ a lot recently. Never has applied more fully than in the HK SAR. Seemingly the inverse of most cities, I believe there must be a minimum height restriction. As far as the eye can see down the coast there are 20-story-plus buildings hugging the shoreline. I was also told by colleagues that Hong Kong is surrounded by the most densely populated islands on earth. That I can believe.

During my wanderings, one experience stuck out quite vividly. In my hunt for a digital camera, I stopped by Time Square (oddly, there’s one in every Chinese town and city). Hong Kong’s was, as is to be expected, bathed in neon and swarming with hot bodies (crossing the road is like trying to push pasta through a sieve from both sides at the same time). I escaped the throngs and ate at the local food court for dinner. While fending off hypothermia, I managed to eaves drop the conversation next to me: four ABC tweens, visiting from their home in Bangkok. They spoke a mixture of English and Chinese throwing in plenty of ‘likes!’, ‘ya-knows!’, and ‘niggas’ (the chinese variant… unfortunate from a western standpoint). There was nothing innately interesting about what they had to say (“just tell your dad you spent it all on food”; “yeah, tomorrow we’re going to the spa”; “I can’t believe you don’t know ba bao jiu! You’re such a bad Chinese!”) but I had this vision of the future of Asia… bilingual, shop-aholics who live and play underground. I suppose this is a sad thought really, but it made me chuckle at the time. (I’ll admit this idea first lodged itself in my head when I visited the northern mainland city of Dalian a few years ago… the underground mall there was a warm excape from the street level snow. It also had bowling, DQ and apartments! Oh, and no subway to make it appear moderately sensible)

Clearly, however, the best part of Hong Kong was visiting with my friend John. We had several excellent moments of surreal incredulity: both working in Asia, in our mid 20’s, AT THE SAME TIME! Like, ya-know, nigga! I’ve known John for most of my life, we share the same birthday, we’re both perpetual wayfarers and this experience still ranked ‘out there’. Mucho fun to see him in Hong Kong. Among other things, we spent several nights checking out the scene at Lang Kwai Feng, a series of funky alleys backing up against the island hills, and ground zero for what I interpret to be a continual street-war between red light district and swanky bar establishment. Not to mention it’s a wet market during the day.

I did, indeed, buy a digital camera. It’s a multi-year lust-fest finally come to an end. I think most of the enjoyment was in the anticipation <isn’t it always>. But, hopefully this means I’ll be contributing bad photography to the log over the next few weeks.

With the onset of the Typhoon I pushed back my flight to Sunday hoping to avoid the inevitable travel delays. I missed the worst of it but still sat on the tarmac for 6 hours reading my pocket guide to mandarin and wishing I hadn’t eaten Indian food the night before. Didn’t get it till 3am on Monday morning. grrr.

Being back is nice. Shanghai is clearly not so happening as Hong Kong; but that’s why I like it.

I spent the first Sunday by my lonesome. Took the subway to Puxi and wandered down Nanjing Donglu, the flashy pedestrian strip between the Bund, Shanghai’s famous row of European riverside edifices, and People’s Square, the city’s massively huge central park/museum space.

I was extremely impressed to find that since I was last here two years ago the complicated overpass system that both hindered and enabled safe travel between Nanjing Donglu and People’s Square has been replaced by a more straightforward and aesthetically uncluttered underpass, which also provides a new entrance to the subway. It must have been a massive undetaking. The project is mostly done but still incomplete and in classic Chinese style pedestrians think nothing of walking directly through the path of ongoing construction and climb piles of rubble to reach several unfinished but evidently more convenient exits.

Since I was strolling, I decided to keep going. I tuned into my mandarin-on-ipod and toured the city. I walked from Old Town to the Jing’An temple, and then back to the Huangpi Nanlu Metro station through a large swatch of the French Concession. And I can tell you this: Shanghai is very, very big. In the week since my stroll I’ve been informed of at least 10 additional neighborhoods that I should explore, and none of them is anywhere close to where I walked.

Two months is just enough time to get wet, and sunday was a toe in the water. It gave me a good flavor for the place though; I found a few parks worth exploring and with a little more orienteering I’ll have this place mapped in no time.

Speaking of maps, I had no idea, until now, just how integrated into my lifestyle online cartography has become. Without google to guide me to my destination turn by turn I’m practically lost. Rediscovering the joys of unwieldy folding paper is not something I’m keen on.

Feed Me More, Feed Me Less

So, I’ll admit it, I got a little frustrated looking for food and ate at Subway. I never quite found what I was looking for during my hours of wandering (a good lamian stand, kebabs maybe) so finally, after walking through lunch, I made my way back to familiar ground and spotted a tolerable fast food: sandwiches. I’m just as sorry about this as you are. Really I am. It’s shameful.

I grant you my search efforts were illegitimate: I stuck to main roads for ease of navigation when we all know that tasty noodle shacks cluster in side streets and small alleys; still, this city has an awkward layout. It clumps like unwoven silk. Cocoons of human activity are knotted haphazardly throughout the city. And me without a map. Between the major commercial centers lie tangles of parks in various states of renovation, and shabby boulevards lined with communist-era high-rises. Most of the roads are ugly and grey; more than a few streets are shadowed by elevated super-hiways. neighborhoods are replicated ver-building on almost every block: clothing store, hairdresser, grocer, pharmacy, bike repair; repeat.

My failure led me to these two dopus dildox observations:

1) Reading Chinese is critical to eating well.
2) Just order what the guy next to you is eating.

The problem with not reading chinese is that eating in this country becomes difficult, expensive or haphazard.

Western joints all speak english, or provide a translated menu, but for all of its advances, and with the exception of fast food establishments like KFC, western infiltration to this city remains concentrated in a smattering of specific locations, most of which are far away from where I live (Pudong, the other side of the river) and most of which I plan on avoiding anyway (except to pilfer free internet… Thanks Coffee Beanery!). Not to mention expensive. A bottle of water from a swanky cafe in Xintiandi costs 24 kuai. Two blocks away, the same bottle sold by a Chinese grocer costs 3. Aai-yoh.

You could also argue that I should stick to ordering what I know. This is modestly true, but it doesn’t bear out well in practice. For one thing, China has an incredible variety of cuisines: 14 majors and many additional ethnic sub-genres. I’m talking about cuisines. At the dish level there are probably over a thousand distinct recipes. Seriously. What Americans know as “Chinese food” is really just a small and westernized selection of largely Cantonese food. Except, possibly, in San Francisco and Vancouver.

Add to this the realization that my knowledge of Chinese food is pitiful. At best, even after living in Yantai, I max out at 20 dishes. And dag-nammit if they aren’t all specialties of Dongbei (东北 — the Northeast). Much like driving and directions, I realize now that we had it easy up there and never really absorbed the facts. I rarely had to order for myself and when I did, it was the usual favorites (di san qian, gan bian yun dou, gong bao ji ding, ma po dou fu…. can I here and Amen?). On the occasions that we ventured beyond the ‘known restaurants’ (all introduced to us by experienced locals) we inevitably ended up at a street market where it’s plainly obvious what you’re ordering or trolled for the eateries who litterally display the entirety of their kitchen’s ingredients in baskets and tanks at the front of the store. Ordering was a simple matter of pointing to something which you could be reasonably assured would return to your plate in much the same state, only steeped in boiling oil.

Here in Shanghai, away from the cleansing ocean breezes, the streets seem far too dirty to support that kind of establishment. And if I walk into a place, the odds are 1 in 50 that my waiter has even heard of what I’m talking about. Wandering the city looking for 东北 above every restaurant is an impractical crap shoot…. the walls and signage of this country are awash with characters.

As for ordering what the guy next to you has. It works, just as long as you like what you see.

So really, I see only only two options: surround myself with people to order for me; or learn much, much more Chinese.

Local Happenings

Harry Potter has hit Shanghai in a big way. Local bookstores are awash with expensive and legitimate copies of the hardcover. Interestingly, the British version is cheaper. I’m a fan, whatev, but I’m trying to resist the easy read and stick to Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel (by the by, Shanghai in 2005 is a thoroughly apropos location to be reading this book in a relevant context… you can literally see History happening here)

Speaking of which, what exactly is this all about? And how does one objectively measure a pig’s physique? It all sounds very Margaret Atwood, Oryx & Crake.

Unrelated to most anything else (except, almost incidentally, China) this man is my new hero and his project is a fascinating SIMS-gamer fantasy come true. Please sire, be my mentor.

This one’s for you TC

I consider it a good sign when you’re too busy to keep a journal. It means you’re living well.

Of course, I also have a terrible memory (forget about writing memoirs at the age of 70, I can barely do it now!) and I continually regret having forgotten more fascinating stories than probably anyone would give me credit for. I am forever scribbling random notes onto assorted scraps of paper, mid-adventure, hoping one day soon to decipher them into a cohesive entry. Sadly, most of the time they end up lost in various pockets, and ultimately as lint in the washing machine.

A few survived this week.

Last Saturday, day two, I woke very early with jet lag [really, it’s the only way that’s possible] and decided to test out “the gym”. After haltily jerking through a run on the un-lubricated treadmills [yes, plural, I broke one] I was in desperate need of breakfast [and orthotics].

The unchanging daily breakfast spread at YaShiGe JiuDian (The Ascot) is a substandard continental affair offering the hungry breakfaster a choice of either cornflakes or congee. Hmm. Tough choice.

After unpacking, I met up with Juliet for lunch and a tour of the town. We wandered through the Luwan district in Puxi eating popsicles to fend off the heat, which is brutally magnified as it reflects down from skyscrapers at all angles while pulsing upwards from the absorbent asphalt. Mine was green bean flavored while she went with the red. I keep away from the frozen corn on a stick, it’s just weird, but one of these days I’ll tackle the tarrow pop. There’s always an element of surprise when you bite into these frozen concoctions. Despite what the wrapper says, on most occasions an unusual and unexpected fruity vein runs through the center of your dessert. If you’re lucky it’s chocolate, but it can vary wildly from red bean paste to corn kernels or whole peanuts.

Our daily life-in-China experience came mid afternoon when two taxis slammed into each other 15 feet from where we were standing. Witnessing a car crash is quite shocking at that distance, fortunately no-one seemed immediately injured. It’s something I’ll probably have to get used to since traffic accidents in China are 10 times more prevalent and 8 times more fatal than in the U.S.

We walked on and were soon treated to a double-feature, this one a more depressing socio-economic bellwether. Tracking their way through the throngs of fashionably dressed Shanghainese shoppers and XiaoZi 小资 (little capitalists) is a different class of people: country farmers carrying yokes laden with a summer crop of peaches and lotus cups. The fruit sells for pennies and a day’s hard labor is rewarded with a several hour lorry-ride back to the rural community they left before dawn that morning. (Food prices are kept artificially low in Chinese cities to keep the ‘visible’ population placated. Countryside demonstrations are beyond the media’s scope and easily quelled.)

Generally, in my experience, these vendors hawk their wares quite passively. Not at all like the child-bearing gypsies or persistent watch-dvd-bag men who will follow you a hundred meters thrusting a malnourished infant into your back or whispering inventory lists of ill-gotten loot into your ear. Thus, it was quite surprising when 3 seated farmers loitering at our corner stood up quickly and lurched violently in-front of oncoming traffic. A police officer had strolled up to the intersection and the reaction was like quicklime in acid. Yokes flailed, buses screeched, fruit flew and the terrorized peasants successfully escaped their menace. The officer did not pursue.

Juliet explained to me that, if caught, their fruit , a week-or-more’s potential livelihood, would be confiscated [with occasionally worse penalties]. It’s a mystery to me that so much other dubious salesmanship is tolerated but not the fruit vendors. The urgency of their reaction seemed to bely a more treacherous story. After the farmers fled a smiling traffic warden from the neighboring street gathered the fallen bounty and stuffed it in a sac. A perk of the job maybe.

When you’re new in town, you go with the flow and on Saturday night the flow took me to the Hilton Hotel where Juliet had been invited to and MBA Luxury Goods Management Conference hosted by the head of the European business school ESSEC. I have to admit, I was there for the free drinks but the lecture (by Denis Morriset) was quite interesting. For those not in the business (ah, me) the core business terms: “Foundation Myth-Codes“ (Past and Modernity!; Dreams & Aspirations!!; Style!!!; Griff!!!!; Masstige!!!!!) can seem a little cooky to start. But by the time I left I was seeing another side of things. Dollar bills floated in my eyes as I envisioned myself hawking Marzotto and Richemont products to the ”gaping hole in China’s semi-luxury goods market“.

You know, If I cared more about frivolity and less about the already massive chasm between China’s rich and poor I could probably make a killing.

We lingered at the reception afterwards filling up on wine. I spoke briefly with M. Morriset and met Juliet’s former boss Manj. They both worked in advertising sales at the super-high end fashion periodical ”Noblesse“ specifically targeted at Shanghai’s super-elite natives. We ate Indian food across the street. It was awesome. I love Indian food.

Later, we attempted to walk to a party a La Fabrique but after half an hour of trudging through the hot night my jet lag kicked in and I called an end to my first official day back in China.

They’re important, so let me  try to capture these feelings while they’re still fresh.

Shanghai is amazing. The morning after syndrome, i.e. inevitable disillusionment, is starting to kick in, but it is no lie to say yesterday was thrilling.

I’d say it started in Chicago while waiting at the gate. Two 777s, mostly filled with natives, were boarding at the far end of one concourse and it was immediately clear which culture held sway at these gates. The boarding process was absolute chaos with no heed paid, or even attemptedly enforced, to order or orderliness.

Arriving in Pudong, we were shuffled through the infrared SARS cameras on our way to the quarantine checkpoint. A large map of the world titled “Distribution Map of Quarantinable Diseases” loomed over the perfunctory desks with little dots indicating viral hot zones in virtually every country aside from China itself.

Once through customs and baggage claim I burst into the China I remember: throngs of people waiting and milling and interacting with each other in a tight weave of bodies. I saw my sign and signaled to the driver.

Emerging from the pleasant cool of the terminal my tactile and auditory senses were simultaneously assaulted: glasses fogged and sweat glands kicked in as the 30 Celsius and high humidity cloaked me like a wet blanket; a discordant operetta of vehicle horns and traffic whistles had me whipping my head every which way while the rest of the population, particularly the offending autos, seemed to ignore them altogether.

I was chauffeured in a luxury Buick to my hotel. Cheesy jazz muzak was a surprisingly appropriate backdrop for the trip.

Two things struck me about this ride: not the crazed moped drivers, cigarettes hanging as limp afterthoughts, darting across 8 lanes of traffic as though the commute home were actually a daily exercise in russian roulette; not the lorries laden excessively high with unusual loads (wire mattress frames; woven baskets, humans); not the lone individual traveling from and to no apparent location over an expansive wasteland of recently excavated earth and rubble; no, what struck me first were the assuredly expensive and well hydrated plantings that lined the entire hi-way all 45 minutes into Pudong. Bamboo groves, Asian hydrangeas and other lush green flora created an admittedly attractive natural barrier between the road and whatever lay beyond.

That ‘whatever’ is the second thing that struck me. As a cynic, and I remain so, I assumed [not entirely incorrectly] that much of what lay beyond was the kind of barren industrial tundra, junkyards, dilapidated hutongs, or rotting communist era high-rises that the government might hope to hide from arriving westerners. However, aside from brief glimpses of this expectation immediately outside the airport, what I saw through the breaks in dense vegetation was actually this: gleaming new housing developments, seemingly well planted, not unattractive, and sporting McMansion styled villas and houses.

It was at this moment that I realized just how quickly China is moving. Large scale, high speed economic growth is a hazy concept until you see it in action. When I drove this way three years ago none of this existed. Nada, zip, zero. No plants, no prefab communities, just dirt.

Entering the city outskirts and speeding towards Pudong, I was extremely impressed. Hundreds of new, attractive skyscrapers and office buildings have been erected. Cubic yards of sparkling glass wrapped ingeniously around the recently finished and spherazoidical art museum spoke of high concept engineering and a train of similar such architectural monuments disappearing into the horizon evoked this thought: Shanghai is The Shit.

Less than 24 hours later, and significantly less enamored (having actually stepped inside several of these buildings and chuckled with the realization of just how cheap everything really is), I still feel sufficiently awed to hold to that notion. Shanghai is an impressive, gigantic, modern and re-zonkulously cheap mecca of wealth, ambition, social experiment, and plenty of slapped on veneer and drying paint.

My hotel is wonderful. It is considerably far away from the reality, intrigue and entertainment of Puxi, the larger and non-corporate left bank of the city, but my apartment is large and clean. I do not have internet, which irks me, but I have a gym. My kitchen smells of dirty Chinese drain, an awful and distinct odor that those who have visited will know well (imagine stagnant water in an aluminum pipe), but I’m happy to keep the door closed and the water flowing from the bathroom sink and shower seems clean and stink free.

Upon arriving in the Pudong airport my phone immediately started buzzing and chirping with arriving emails and sms. I was excited to find that it still works here. I am skeptical of the bill for local calls so I’ll definitely be switching to some regional service but being able send of a few messages to family and friends almost certainly added to my favorable impression of the city. As a comparison to New York, where my phone continually receives almost no signal in any part of town, Shanghai is well wired everywhere. On the one hand, this probably means the local population is being bombarded with brain melting radiation from clustered and highly magnetized cell towers; but on the other hand, the subway is wired (and sports multiple flat screen televisions in every cabin) so the convenience of it all is very complete.

But this is still China, a place that makes me grimace with anger and laugh in absurdity just as much as it makes me croon in awe or gasp in horror. On my way to meet Juliet, a Shanghainese native who I met while she was at university in Yantai, I wandered inadvertently off the beaten track and into the alleys of everyday Chinese life. A virtually naked man squatted on the curb and washed himself from a shallow pan 10 feet from a noodle shop where an only half naked, but thoroughly ancient, man lingered inside at the checkout counter reading his paper. Further onward, a skinny chinese girl sat on the sidewalk in a plastic beach chair outside her parents grocer and practiced the violin while overhead in the trees a grinding, primordial insect shriek virtually drowned out all street noises and sent shivers down my spine at the thought of just how large that cricket might be (a 10 foot human eater by the my audial reckoning).

In the subway station, standing inches from the counter and mid-transaction with the teller, a pushy woman bopped me to the side and stuck a hand full of money and a face full of twanging mandarin into the plexiglass. She got her ticket first. I swear to Confucius the blood behind my eyes started to boil but my first reaction was not to throttle the taitai like Bart Simpson and then pull the teller through the holes of the window stringing her like spaghetti, but to laugh at the sheer magnitude of the social gulf that will never allow me to understand why this behavior is considered a social norm in the middle kingdom.

I think maybe that is good for now. This city will undoubtedly offer many further stories during my stay and I look forward to relaying them onward.

Arrival News:

Brian, we’re doomed… Doomed… DOOMED!

6 yuan is 75¢

Oh yeah…

Yantai Bound