Speaking of snow

Look at the snowy scene I awoke to this morning:

You can't really tell from the picture above, but it was snowing as I took this picture.

It's supposed to snow off and on all weekend here in Beijing. While I'm not exactly thrilled---winter's not exactly my favorite season---I know any snow, however little, is a relief to the farmers and government who are worried the looming (very likely) possibility of a drought this year.

So bring it on, snow. Show us what you've got.

Hangzhou, Re-visited

Stop number two on my winter break travels (stop number three for Leslie) was Hangzhou.

If you're unfamiliar with Hangzhou, it's a city roughly 190 km (about 118 miles) southwest of Shanghai. For many years, Hangzhou's famed West Lake (西湖) made it a popular vacationing spot. Just this year, the New York Times placed Hangzhou in the 33rd spot on their list of "The 41 Places to Go in 2011." It's also now the home to Baidu, China's answer to Google and many of China's other high-tech firms.

As the title of this post suggests, this was my second time to Hangzhou. The first time I was there was with my parents just this past September before my semester started here in Beijing. However, that first time was with a tour so I didn't really get any chance at all to explore on my own, so I was happy to return and get a chance to walk around on my own.

The first we noticed when we landed in Hangzhou (we flew down from Qingdao), was that there was snow on the ground!

Okay, so I realize that doesn't sound so shocking to many of you. But you have to understand that at this point, Beijing & most of the northern China hadn't seen any rain/precipitation since October, much less snow. So when we got to Hangzhou, which was noticeably warmer than Beijing and Qingdao (since it's farther south), we were a surprised to see snow on the ground, even though it wasn't very much.

After we got out of the airport and into the city, Leslie & I hailed a cab to go to our hostel. But since our hostel was in a pedestrian-only area, our taxi driver only drop us off at the gate of the pedestrian-only area.

Since we had directions from the hostel, Leslie & I were not too worried about not being able to find it, however before we could even figure out our bearings, a older man stopped to talk to us. At first, I thought he might be selling something, but after a split second, I realized he was giving directions to our hostel. After speaking to him for a moment though, he offered to show us where it was and no, he was not looking for a tip. He really was just being incredibly kind. Leslie & I were quite shocked by his hospitality.

As it turns out though, hospitality in Hangzhou was not just limited to this one person. Another time, Leslie & I had just pulled out our map to check where we were and another elderly man stopped and told us where we were before we even had a chance to glance at the map. And even one other time, we were walking down a pedestrian street near our hostel and an older woman stopped her conversation with another man just to talk to us & have me explain to Leslie a bit about Hangzhou's history. I have to say, the hospitality of the people in Hangzhou was quite frankly amazing and it made a really big impression on me. I already had a high opinion of Hangzhou to begin with, but the people's attitude to tourists made it even higher.

The next day, Leslie & I set out to explore the star of Hangzhou: West Lake. Since we got to Hangzhou with enough time to explore a bit the day before before sunset, we already had walked a bit around lake closest to our hostel, so in the morning we headed up in a vaguely sketchy looking van-bus up to the northern part to explore the other sections.

As we walked around the lake, I was really struck by how beautiful the lake really is. The first time, I think I was a bit jaded by all the previous lakes & Chinese gardens we had seen before Hangzhou so West Lake didn't seem that special to me at the time. However, cut to the a few months later after being in Beijing for a while, and the West Lake seemed magnificent in comparison to Beijing (no offense to Beijing).

Probably the most striking thing about the lake was that even though it was the dead of winter and many trees were missing there leaves, there was still a lot of greenery around. In comparison to Qingdao and Beijing, which both looked very grey and almost dead (in terms of plant-life), Hangzhou seemed incredibly green & lush, despite having snow on the ground. The contrast of the snow, the greenery, the bare branches and the occasional already-blooming flower was incredibly beautiful.

Okay, that's enough writing for now. I'll continue writing about Hangzhou in another post. I know all of you just really want to see the pictures so, without further adieu...

 

Lots more pictures on Angela Photo Musings.

The Journey to Laoshan

In all my previous travels in China, I’ve never actually been to an actual mountain in China. I’ve always stuck pretty close to the cities. So when Leslie suggested that we visit a mountain range while she was here, I agreed. We picked Laoshan (崂山), since it is close and easily accessible from Qingdao.

Laoshan (aka Mt. Lao, and Mt. Laoshan), is a large coastal mountain on the Yellow Sea coast. During the height of Taoism, it was the home of nine palaces, eight temples and 72 nunneries. Today, only a few survive, including the oldest and largest of them all, Taiqing Temple. Laoshan is also renowned for it’s spring water, which is supposedly has healing powers and is what gives Tsingtao beer it’s good taste. 

So, after hearing all of that, how could we not go? 

Determined to go visit Laoshan, we asked the staff at our hostel about the best way to get to Laoshan the next day.  However, the look of shock that greeted us in response to our question was shocking to us. Too bad I didn’t have my camera ready to capture their expressions. Our conversation went something like this:

Me: “Excuse me, we want to visit Laoshan tomorrow, what is the best way to go out there?”

Hostel receptionist [look of shock on her face]: “You want to go to Laoshan? Really?”

Me: “Umm…yesss…? Is that possible?”

Hostel receptionist: “It’s going to be very cold if you go to Laoshan.”

Me: “I know. But we’re already here in Qingdao, so we might as well visit it.”

Hostel receptionist [looking perplexed by my insistence]: “Okayyyy…”

I should preface this by saying that at this point, I think the people at the hostel (and possibly the other people of Qingdao as well) already think we’re very bizarre for traveling to their summertime city in the dead of a very frigid winter. In fact, for a while Leslie & I were semi-convinced we were the only two tourists in the entire city. Ha ha. (We were most likely the only two guests at are our hostel though.)

Despite our hostel receptionist’s confusion, she was able to tell us which bus to take out to Laoshan and that night we prepared for a cold hike around Laoshan the next day.

Love locks attached onto a bridge at Laoshan

Now, before we go any further, I have to point out that Leslie & I were basically clueless about what we were going to do when we reached Laoshan and even about how to get there. We were basically completely reliant on the guidance and instructions of others.

 [More of our journey & pictures after the break]

On our way to the brewery..

...Leslie & I stumbled on what has to be the most ridiculous looking thing in Qingdao: Atrium City (aka Tianmu City).

Hailed on Qingdao's tourism website as "a cool indoor city with replicas of various famous and historic locations around the globe," Atrium City seemed to be designed in hopes of becoming a dining destination for Qingdao residents. However, it seemed like they better succeed in creating a bad hybrid of Disneyland and Las Vegas rolled into one. While the entire thing is very amusing, Leslie & I felt that the space was just trying too hard to be something it's not. Not to mention that the entire space is incredibly over the top.

Dear China, here's a lesson for you: less is definitely more. Something for you to chew on.

Tsingdao Brewery

Of course, no trip to Qingdao would be complete without a trip to visit the Tsingtao Brewery, home of what it likes to boast as China's number one imported beer. (Never mind that I'm pretty sure China doesn't import any other beers anyways.)

Now this was not my first trip to a beer brewery (nor my last, I suspect) and I have to say that the brewery tour for Qingdao was a bit lacking. The exhibits and models at Tsingtao were about on par with other breweries I've visited; however, if we're going to be honest here, visiting a brewery is really all about the beer tasting at the end. Leslie & I were very excited about the tasting and were hoping that we could get the chance to taste the other types of beer they produce, since they're harder to find outside of Qingdao. But when we got to the tasting room, we only got two very tiny glasses of their basic beer that you can get anywhere. We were very disappointed.

However, they did have a drunk simulation room at the end of there brewery tour that almost made up for the lack of variety in their tasting room. If you're wondering what exactly a drunk simulation room entails, it's basically a room tilted at at 30 degree angle, which sounds simple enough until you try to walk up the slope. Now that's a challenge. Needless to say, the drunk simulation room proved itself to be very entertaining.

Later that night, to make up for the pathetic beer tasting at the Tsingtao Brewery, Leslie & I conducted our own tasting in our hostel room. We ended up tasting three different types of Tsingtao beer, all of which I had never seen anywhere else besides in Qingdao. Sadly, they were poorly labelled so Leslie & I aren't exactly sure what we were tasting. We do know one was a Tsingtao stout, or as some people know it as, the black Tsingtao beer. As for the other two, all we can say is one had a red label & one had a yellow label. Overall, we really liked the Tsingtao with a red label and didn't really care for the other two. Although, the stout did have a really strong coffee after taste.

Sadly, our pictures of our little beer tasting using coffee mugs are lost on Leslie's stolen memory card/camera. (Stupid pick-pocketers.) So you guys are going to have to use your imagination for that. However, here are some pictures from the brewery tour, including one from the drunk simulation room! Whee!

Apparently, the Tsingtao brewery has the same slogan as
many universities.
Then again, beer & college do go hand-in-hand, at least in the US.

Don't be fooled by the picture.
Objects in the photo are smaller than they appear.

Leslie's drunk! Just kidding.
Welcome to the drunk simulation room, where you laugh so hard
you blur in the photos.

Qingdao

The first stop on my winter break travels was Qingdao, which is located on the southern most tip of the Shandong peninsula in northeast China. Leslie & I took the overnight train from Beijing to Qingdao and stayed in a hostel near the center of the old town. We had booked ourselves into a shared four person dorm; however since it was low season, we ended up having the entire room to ourselves the entire time we were there.

Now for background on Qingdao:

From 1897 to 1922, Qingdao was a German and Japanese concession city and as a result, much of Qingdao's old architecture still retains a German flair. In 1919, protesters in Qingdao headed the May 4th Movement against imperialism in China, with particular regards to the Japanese presence in Qingdao after the end of WWI. More recently, Qingdao hosted the sailing portion of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing and it remains a popular summertime destination because of it's many beaches.

Some thoughts on my time in Qingdao:

• Qingdao is definitely a summertime city. Many things when Leslie & I were there were closed. Some of them might have been closed down early in anticipation of the Spring Festival/Chinese New Year, but I suspect some of them only do business during the summer catering to tourists. Plus, many of Qingdao's attractions revolve around the beach, which isn't a very hospital able place to visit when mercury is hoovering at freezing every day. 


• Qingdao is a hilly city. You know you've been in Beijing, which is a very flat city, for too long when your legs are sore after spending a day walking around Qingdao, even though the hills aren't really that steep.


• If you only stay in the older portion of Qingdao, it seems like a very small town. It's not until I took the bus out to the newer, more recently developed areas that I remembered that it's actually a city with a population of 8.1 million people.


• Despite claiming to be a big tourist destination, I don't think Qingdao sees many non-Chinese/ non-Asian tourists, which is ironic considering Qingdao used to be a German concession city and hosted a portion of the 2008 Olympics. Where ever we went, people were gawking at Leslie. I think we could count on one hand how many other Westerners we saw during our three days there. When we were at the Qingdao airport waiting for our flight to Hangzhou, a young Chinese woman actually exclaimed very loudly, "There's a foreigner here!" I don't think she expected me to be able to understand what she said.


• At least in the older part of the city, Qingdao has really maintained a German feel in their buildings. While some of the buildings were probably built when Qingdao was still a German concession, I suspect at least some of them were built later to mimic the more European styles of architecture.


• In the newer parts of Qingdao, it's obvious that Qingdao is still very much a city in transition. As we walked around the city, Leslie & I saw entire city blocks that were fenced off in anticipation of being demolished and rebuilt. There also a lot of signs for the metro system they're currently building.


• Things in Qingdao get started much later than in Beijing. Leslie & I arrived on the overnight train from Beijing at 8 AM. Coming from Beijing, we didn't think we'd have a problem checking in at our hostel and finding food. But we were wrong. Luckily though, we were able to call the hostel staff and wake someone up to let us check into the hostel. We soon figured out that morning that things in Qingdao didn't really seem to get moving until around 10 AM.

Now for the pictures I know you've all been waiting for...

The Protestant Church

May 4th Monument

St. Michael's Cathedral

  

Zhanqiao Pier

Long time no see!

Hello dear blog readers,

My sincerest apologies for being MIA since my winter break started. Traveling is exhausting and time really has flown.

My friend Leslie left this morning to return home to the United States after spending a month with me in China/Hong Kong. I'm sure she's thrilled to excited to return home to comforts of home and not having to listen to Mumford & Sons (my latest musical obsession) every morning. Not to mention the fact that squat toilets don't exist in the United States.

As for me, I have a couple more days left in Hong Kong before I return to Beijing on Sunday. While I'm not exactly jumping for joy about returning to Beijing (after all, Beijing & I have a rather rocky relationship), my "loss" is definitely your gain.

Consider this blog officially back from hiatus. Pictures & posts about my travels to follow soon. Your patience (I think) will be rewarded.

Thanks for reading,

Angela

新年快乐!!

..or as you'd say in English, "Happy (Chinese) new year!!"

Leslie & I are now finally in Hong Kong, just in time for Chinese Year (also known as the Spring Festival in the mainland). It's been quite interesting to see all the Chinese New Year preparations throughout Hong Kong, and I can't wait to blog about them. However, it's already late here in Hong Kong, so you will just have to be patient and wait.

Until then, I wish everyone a happy year of the rabbit and hope that prosperity, good health and good fortune all come your way this year.

A late, hazy afternoon on the Hong Kong harbor