August, our bittersweet summer's end

Our last trip of the summer was to welcome my sister Jill and her friend Joey to China. We hit 4 cities in 13 days in a wild ride around China. Here are some of the highlights (and lowlights). I'm sorry for the length; feel free to take it in chunks or scan. The pictures are not included in the blog, but can be found on a joint picture site here:

August 12th
Nick and I had a great train ride to Shanghai, where we immediately got on the snazzy subway and walked the 10 minutes to the hostel. It was about 95 degrees outside.

August 13th
The next day we walked down to the art district, and then got on the bus to the international airport. It took about an hour because of traffic, but when we got there, we were still 45 minutes ahead of the arrival of Jill and Joey. We put up our sign early, which got a smile from an airline hostess, and plenty of business men checking to see if it said their names (except it couldn't possibly have, because it was a big color poster - business men get lame black on white name cards). Then, finally, we saw them at the baggage claim and flagged them down and showed them the sign, even before they came out of the arrivals chute. It was great to see Jill again! It had been at least a year, and she had just gotten a short haircut.

We took the mag-lev train (that's "magnetic levitation" train) from the Pudong International Airport into Shanghai, which took a mere 7 minutes. The g-forces involved in getting up to 435 km/hr are not negligible, in my experience. Also, when were on the bus, we saw the mag-lev track up above the road - it looked incomplete. It looked like a flat slab of concrete with some metal rails on the sides -- something that had been prepared for a track, not the track itself. But it was ...

That night we walked around the city and had a nice Sichuan food dinner at a restaurant behind the pedestrian mecca that is Nanjing Street ("Bag? Watch? DVD? What do you need?" [flip brochure magically opens in front of your eyes with quality {fake} bags, watches, wallets, and clothes]). Last stop of the night: Watsons, to buy earplugs for our hostel room of preposterous snoring levels.

August 14th
We got up and walked south toward the Old City and Yuyuan Gardens. The gardens were a beautiful and intricate smattering of stones, ponds, plants, trees, passageways, and buildings. The Old City was cool, and we had lunch at a famous restaurant in the middle of it: Lu Bo Lang Restaurant. The big sweet-and-sour fish was perfectly done. After that we walked toward the French Concession area, stopping about every 10 minutes to wait for the pouring rain to pass. We found the antique market, where Jill saw a blue jade elephant that we couldn't bargain down much, so we left it for another buyer. We saw lots of old suitcases, cameras, statues, dishes, shoes, paintings, etc. I couldn't help but think it was like a tribute to anything of artistic value that had made it through the Cultural Revolution. (For an interesting read about this, try this book). We finally made it to the French Concession area, with some expensive restaurants and French architecture. Strange to see rounded apartment building facades and wrought-iron balconies in China. It was an early night for tired legs.

August 15th
This day we went to see the Jade Buddha Temple, located on the west side of the city. The Jade Buddha was very pretty, and housed in a nice 2nd-story room of red carpets and mahogany walls, but the real treasure of this trip was the rest of the temple. We happened to go on either the 1st or 15th of a lunar month, which is a sort of holy day for Buddhists here. They come to the temple with small stools, and then buy some large paper bags, as well as small origami-type papers. Then they spend a good part of the day sitting in the shade of trees folding the smaller paper into uniform shapes and putting them in the larger paper bag. Once they had 3-4 large bags for each person, they stood in line to put the bags on/in the large censers in the courtyard, or the special censer barrels that had been brought out for the special day. So many people were burning these offerings that the entire courtyard was about 10 degrees hotter than the surrounding areas, and had wavering ash floating all over the place. From my standpoint, the burning of the offerings did not seem like a religious act (as there was very little prayer), but rather sitting down with family and friends to prepare these offerings seemed like the more 'religious' experience. When we left, we went down to an American sports bar place and watched some gymnastics on TV.

That afternoon, we attempted to find a dock for boats making tours of the Huang Pu River, but as we had decided to try the east side of the river, there weren't many. I think that we would have had to walk much further south in the hazy, suffocating heat of Shanghai, so we found a fancy supermarket, bought some snacks, and went back to the hostel to rest. By the way, the supermarket we found seemed to be all imported items from the US, with many sections represented in full, such as tea, cereal, cheese, GRAPE JELLY!, deli meats, dinner mixes, etc. I saw some people who looked like they bought all the main foods of their diets here, and it really shook me. How can people live in China and ignore the rich local market culture (and cheap prices) of the food markets? I'm not saying everyone should buy the pork hanging in fatty strips, but the vegetables here are really great, and if you buy them, the money goes directly to the farmer, in whose hand you put the money. I walked away from the supermarket pretty upset, and sort of dazed at the prospect of expatriates, especially Americans, coming to China and thinking that Shanghai is any indication of what "China" is. It is helping me to realize just how different East and West China are, in terms of accessibility, opportunity, and pure wealth.

August 16th
Last day in Shanghai. We walked the 30 minutes down to the Shanghai museum, only to find the line for free tickets far too long. Before we found it, however, we stumbled upon a strange group of people all sitting and wandering around the lotus pond in the People's Park. At first I thought it was a social club for the elderly, but then I saw that most people had signs posted in front of them, on clothes lines, or even just held up in front of them ... with their personal statistics: height, weight, occupation, place of residence, age, etc. It was a dating market. Some people were looking for companions for themselves, and others clearly had the advertisements for their children. Nick stopped to talk to a few people, at which point he was asked if he wanted a Chinese wife - thankfully he pointed over toward us and said he already had a wife!

We wandered back to the hostel, had lunch, and went to the domestic airport for our flight to our next destination: Datong. We arrived there at about 8 PM and went directly to a hotel and checked in. Then we went out to find an internet bar (smoky) and buy some snacks (oreos!).

August 17th
At about 9 AM we went over to the China International Tour Service (CITS) office near the train station. Having never been to a tourism office in China, I was a little suspect. I didn't know how helpful they would be if we weren't going to sign right up for a tour. However, the man was exceedingly helpful and not only signed us up for a tour for the following day, but also told us that train tickets out were extremely hard to get, as most trains just came through from Inner Mongolia, with very few seats reserved for Datong. So, we ended up checking the train station ourselves, then booking 4 tickets on an overnight bus from Datong to Xi'an.

We went down the street to take the number 8 bus, which supposedly would drop us off nearby the remnants of the Great Wall in Datong, the reason this place made it onto the itinerary in the first place. Because of rain and/or construction, the buses were not running. However, there was an older man outside who got out his phone and started making calls. We waited around just to see what he was doing, and eventually he handed us his phone. There was a nice woman named April on the other end, who agreed to take all 4 of us the 45 km up to the Great Wall for only Y80. After we got in her taxi, she explained at length that we could go straight ahead to one place on the Wall (which was "better" for an unknown reason), or turn left (while insistently indicating “right” with her hand) and go to the other place. After exchanging some blank stares, we chose straight. We pulled up through the wall to a place where some of the old watchtowers were near. We got out and wandered a little, taking some photos, when April suddenly said "Go! Climb up it!" We saw the watchtower mounds, and thought surely, she could not be telling us to just go and climb up (and possibly erode/destroy) this relic. But she was. We looked around and saw some locals climbing them. So, we went around the nearest tower and found the footholds on the back, and up we went. The view from up there was great. The watchtowers were only a few hundred yards apart, and stretched to either horizon. The Wall itself was just dirt piled in either direction to the horizon, but you can imagine what it was once like. Now it is just a local feature of that village, a place to be traversed when the sheep need pasturing.

That afternoon we got back and started to see more of the full effect of Datong. Datong is not a tourist town. It has one nice street, but most people go there to see all of the sites outside of the city. That being said, most of the coal mined in China comes from that area, and it is a center of industry, which means migrant work. Nick and I can gauge the type of city it is from how many people do the following things: stare, talk about us, point, giggle, and say "hello" in the goofiest tone you can imagine. Jill and Joey got to hear and see it all. Welcome to Northern China.

August 18th
The day of our tour arrived, and we showed up at 9, only to wait until 9:45 to actually pull out on a bus of about 25 people, 5 Chinese and 20 international people (Australians, Kiwis, Spaniards, French, British, Americans). Our first stop was the Hanging Monastery, a place built about 100 meters up on the side of a cliff. It was built there to house the Buddha to which people prayed for the river below to stop flooding out all of the homes there - so of course the Buddha couldn't be flooded out, and had to be built up high. Now it is the home of 3 religions: Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism. By the end of 2 years in China, I should be able to tell the differences between their idols; right now I'm still confused. Also, in the pictures, there appear to be spindly little dowels holding up the temple; those are mostly for show, as it is supported by beams drilled laterally up to 2/3 of their length into the mountain.

After that, we stopped off at the Smiley Restaurant or some such thing, which was basically a tourist spot to stop and eat lunch. In the afternoon, the bus pulled into the lot for the Yungang Caves, and off we went with our guide. She talked for about half an hour about all of the caves, why they were built, and how. The main caves with the biggest Buddhas and most ornate grottoes were built by an emperor for his mother, his uncle, etc. They were built by first making a cave close to the top of the cliff starting work on the head, and then working down. Before electricity, they had to use natural light, so they couldn't just start from the bottom and work upward. This led to one of the Buddhas having unfinished feet below the level of the ground outside, as the original architect had misjudged the amount of room needed when they began work on his head and torso.

The most interesting story to me was one in which a specific Buddha was commissioned to make up for, well, genocide. At some point in history, the emperor outlawed Buddhism. He had many monks and nuns put to death, as they were undermining his authority and the supposed advancement of the culture. After a few years, he realized his mistake and commissioned a very large Buddha who wears a sash with hundreds of little Buddhas perched on it, to represent those who were killed. It was said that the emperor "regretted" what he did, and the hand position and demeanor of the Buddha represent that. This, in my experience, has been the only memorial in China to those wrongly killed in a political or cultural movement. Maybe I haven't been looking hard enough, or haven't traveled enough. If anyone knows of other such memorials, let me know.

August 19th
This day we had originally planned to go the 75 km down to see the Wooden Pagoda, supposedly the oldest building standing (and it doesn't even have any metal). However, that's pretty far after the 4 hours of bus travel the previous day, so we decided just to walk around Datong for a few hours before getting on our bus at about 4 PM. The bus ride started out fine, and the sunset was nice. In the middle of the night however (after hours and hours of a terrible transvestite-hosted variety show), the driver couldn't keep himself awake. I noticed he was slapping himself and singing to keep from falling asleep. I made the mistake of mentioning this to Jill, who was then frozen with fear at the prospect of a bus wreck at 80+ miles per hour from the top bunk. Jill stayed up for the next hour or two, watching the driver sing, slap himself simultaneously on the legs and face, and smoke multiple cigarettes at a time, all the while going faster. He pulled over when he knew it was hopeless, and another driver took over, which allowed Jill a few hours of sleep before we pulled into the train station of Xi'an at 5 AM. We went to McDonald's, which is very nearby, to recover from the bus, watch the Olympic gymnastics events from the previous night, and wait for the public buses to begin to run.

August 20th
We checked into the hostel early, got a discount, and fell asleep for a few hours. After that we headed off to the Bell Tower, the Drum tower, the Muslim Quarter, and Starbucks. At the bell tower we watched a great musical performance that involved various traditional bell-based instruments as well as strings and woodwinds, and all for free after we were inside.

August 21st
This day we woke up and were headed out for the Terracotta Army when suddenly there were computers free at the hostel, so we spent about an hour of frantically checking e-mail, reading news feeds, getting hurricane (threatening our families) and typhoon (threatening our itinerary) updates, checking various online communities, and booking more plane tickets. There's nothing like computer time to measure your dependence on modern information technology. We eventually got out, and took 2 buses over about an hour and half to get out to the site of the Terracotta Army, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It's a big compound with a park, a little tourist town (supported by the real town next to it), restaurants, and hawkers and guides galore. Nick and I stayed outside this time, since we visited back in January. We wandered around the tourist stalls, I found a pomegranate to eat, and we bargained (sometimes to a ridiculous degree) for various souvenirs, including paperweights, small bone figurines of the most popular warriors, and a red book of the sayings of Chairman Mao. When Jill and Joey emerged 2 hours later, we were relaxing and people watching, with a bag of already purchased souvenirs.

Another volunteer told me about a silk factory with a large sales floor nearby, so we grabbed a cab for the 10-minute ride. When we debarked, we walked into the factory, at which point we were met by a man speaking English, saying he was the guide. So, after confirming that there was no entrance fee, we were off on a tour. This is ironic because he emphasized about 3 times that it was not a museum, but rather a shop. After seeing traditional robes from a few dynasties (beautifully colored yellow, black, and red), we were taken through the area with a machine of unknown name that took cocoons, un-spooled them, and then re-spooled them onto rolls. When fabric is made, it is made first by taking the silk thread by that method. There's no spinning involved. If, however, the cocoons are to be used for duvets, the cocoons are soaked and stretched over large frames to dry. Then people stretch them out to literally the size of a double bed (it's like a big cobweb) and layer them up. There are various densities available for purchase. We wandered around the shop for about half an hour, with Nick trying on various kungfu shirts, but we left with no purchases this time.

The afternoon was spent at the Small Goose Pagoda park. We wandered around, saw a sort of cool museum, and then made it back around to the pagoda before closing, only to find that it had already closed. So, we went back and found dinner. The nights in Xi'an were spent watching the U.S. mens basketball team whoop up on various other competitors.

August 22nd
This morning was beautifully sunny, so we headed up on top of the city wall to ride bicycles before our late afternoon flight to Guilin. We rented these really heavy bikes and set off. The stones on top of the wall weren't even, but you could comfortably pedal and look at the towers and the cityscape from 40 feet up. We stopped at the first corner for pictures and the ramps that led up to it. After that the air in the tires of the bikes decided that we were having too easy a time of it. The stones also became more uneven, so it was like pedaling uphill on cobblestones. About halfway around, Nick changed out his bike with a flat tire for a better one, and I bought an orange popsicle to power me over the jarring stones. We got around in a little less than 2 hours, sunburned and tired, but having seen some great parts of Xi'an and enjoying the weather immensely.

We arrived in Guilin in the dark, and got in a cab for 80 yuan from the airport to our hotel. Immediately the cab driver started asking us what attractions we were interested in, where we planned to go, where we were from, etc. Our Chinese gave her enough information to get her daughter on the phone to translate our more detailed questions and give answers. Nick must have passed the phone back and forth 6 times without gleaning much information. At one point we thought she was keeping us in the cab longer than usual just to get the sale on some river cruise tickets. At my insistence, she took us right to our hotel. I still don't know if we took a detour or not. At the desk was a lady whom I had spoken with earlier about the river cruise. We booked semi-expensive tickets for a cruise leaving the next morning at 8 AM; it even had an English-speaking guide. It was at least 10 degrees hotter in Guilin than Xi'an, so we were all eager to get to our rooms, turn on the air conditioners and mosquito repellent things, and get some sleep.

That didn't mean that we got to do that. Nick and I said goodnight, and then proceeded to attempt to walk to the train station and buy tickets to get back to Tianshui. This was nearly 10 PM on a very hot night. We made it to the train station, only to see that most trains originated from Nanning, the provincial capital, 5 hours south by bus. Tickets could only be purchased 5 days in advance, and all trains were sold out except for standing room only 5 days later. We didn't buy them because we didn't want to stay 5 days, and we certainly didn't want standing room only on a 30+ hour train ride. We walked over to an office near the station to try to get the agent to help us. We basically sat there while he puttered around, then eventually told us to give him Y1000 and he would "go check." Riiiiiiiight. I knew that at most, the tickets would have been something like Y700, so I thought he might just take our money and go home for the night. Then, these other obnoxious guys (the agent's friends?) barreled into the storefront and started heckling us in English ('Hel-LO?! Speakah ENG-lish?!'), and that sent me over the edge. We wandered to a hostel across the street, at which point the desk clerk told us go back to a travel agent nearby. I couldn't even speak at this point, being totally exhausted, the butt of English heckling, the possible victim of shady business practices, and having no way home. Nick was chivalrous enough to go in and talk to another, nicer, far more helpful lady for 20 minutes while I watched a spider rappel down an ancient magazine rack. We found out that it would be pretty efficient to get a train from Guilin to Zhengzhou, then on to Xi'an or Tianshui. After hauling it back over to the train station, we found that all tickets to Zhengzhou were also sold out. So, we gave up and trudged back to the hotel after midnight.

August 23rd
The minivan came to get us at 8 AM as promised, with a cheery guy who helped us with our bags. The moment we got in the car, he started with some American movie lines and idioms, such as “I’ll be back,” don’t kill all your baskets with one egg, "Hasta La Vista, Baby," and various others I can't remember. We were in the van not one full minute when the onslaught of idioms and movie quotes began. For everything we said, he had one ready. Then Nick caught right up with him, and it turned into a contest of idioms between them while Jill, Joey, and I laughed hysterically. A Chinese family got in at the next hotel, and the guy kept up the barrage, which was somewhat lost on them. When we got to the bigger bus which would take us to the boat dock, we were just waiting to see if he would run out. He was still talking when his voice faded as we got on the other bus. Imagine our deep disappointment that he was not our REAL four-hour-tour tour guide.

After about 20 more international visitors boarded the bus, we were off. We hadn't had a chance to see much of Guilin up until this point except the airport and the train station, so the karst stone structures that appeared just outside the city were amazing. Our English guide did a great job, gave us all little Panda stickers, and explained everything in both languages. Anyway, the karst structures have a really unique shape. I can describe them best by comparing them to those toys you see at Spencer's in the mall. They have hundreds of small metal pins on guides, and one side is clear plastic. When you push your hand underneath, you see the shape of your hand, sort of pixellated, under the plastic. The karst structures is like someone has put huge fingers under the ground and pushed them up into the air. They are mostly domed, all stone with a thin soil layer, and disconnected from each other. We could really understand why people say it’s a world-famous place (Side note, all students in China learn a single phrase about Guilin, 桂林山水甲天下 Gui4 Lin2 shan1 shui3 jia3 tian1 xia4, which means that the landscape of Guilin is the finest under heaven).

We got settled on the boat at a table with a nice couple from Sweden/Germany/Italy. We sat for a few minutes and had tea, then headed up to the top viewing deck to get the full effect of the karst structures and Li River. The river was filled with a few sites: local fishermen on bamboo (or bamboo-shaped PVC pipe) rafts and water buffalo down for some romping in the water. The day was just a tad hazy, but the river, wildlife, and stones were amazing. Joey kept commenting that he'd take too many pictures because it was beautiful, but they wouldn't look as good later. Really, we just stared out at the slowly passing scenery and breathed the air. The river was really stunning to me because it wasn't light brown colored (as all rivers are in northwest China), and it was actually filled with water (and presumably fish!). A few of the fisherman pulled up and moored to our boat and sold the kitchen staff some local fish, and passengers random souvenirs. After a couple of hours we were called down to lunch, which was a decent number of dishes and rice, with fresh bananas to finish it off. During lunch, we got the announcement that we were passing the scenery that was used to draw the picture for the back of the Y20 bill. I rushed up to the roof and took some pictures with the bill held up in front of the hills – almost a perfect match! It was great to see a place so inspirational.

We arrived to Yangshuo in the early afternoon and walked 10 minutes up the pedestrian street to retrieve our bags. Back toward the dock at our hostel, Monkey Jane's Guesthouse, we stumbled into a group of scantily-clad Europeans with black river tubes. We asked them where they were headed, and then we saw a short Chinese chick by the counter, looking like she was in charge. "Jane's taking us," said a blonde guy in board shorts. So, the young woman was Monkey Jane. One of the others asked if we wanted to go, at which point we looked at each other for 2 seconds and decided that would be the best plan. Jane told us we had 10 minutes to get back down in bathing suits, and one of the others looked at us and joked, "We'll give you six." We ran upstairs, changed, paid the desk for the boat ride back, grabbed tubes, and set off to the dock. Our tubing-mates turned out to be from Scotland, Sweden, and Holland (by way of Canada). When we got to the dock, Jill realized that her tube had a significant leak, and would not make it down the river. Jane borrowed a stall vendor's phone and got a new one. Jill felt bad for holding us up so she apologized, to which Jane said, "Shit happens! Don't be sorry." We were about to get in when some sort of police patrolled by the dock, and we had to move down to another part of the dock, past where the tourist ferries (like ours) moor.

Right after getting in, I didn't push far enough out and my tube was promptly sucked under a bamboo raft (think very large bamboo). I had enough sense to jump out and grab my shoes, but my sunglasses were donated to the river bottom. We floated down the river for about 2 hours, dodging tour boats, slowing or stopping so some could jump off the bridge, have a smoke, paddle toward water buffalo that pooped in the water to deter us, paddle over to the beach, stare at the sky and stone, hold on to rocks in the middle of the river, and generally have a good time. It was the perfect relief on a hot day after a nice boat ride. We had Western food (i.e. non-Chinese) food for dinner at one of the many super-touristy expensive restaurants, walked around the shopping stalls some, and went to bed.

August 24th
The plan for this day was to rent some bicycles and ride out to Moon Hill, a specially shaped karst stone structure with a large cutout in the shape of a half moon. However, it was pouring when we woke up, and we didn't feel like riding out in the rain. We asked Jane about hiking as well as tried to get around the hill just behind our hostel, but it was closed due to the hazardous slippery conditions. Soaked stone steps and mud do not make for safe hiking there. So, we walked up into the center of town and over to another hill which was smaller and open. I was a little sick, so I wasn't feeling up to much. That afternoon we decided it wasn't worth it to ride bikes in the rain, and we'd try it again the next day. Instead, Jill and I went for foot massages while Nick and Joey spent some time at the internet bar.

August 25th
We knew we had to make an afternoon bus back to Guilin for Jill and Joey's 8 PM flight back to Shanghai, so Moon Hill had to be in the morning. We put our bags in Monkey Jane's luggage room, i.e. the lobby, under some tables, and caught a mini-bus from the center of town for Y2.5 each. We got there in 15 minutes and paid a small fee to get into what looked like a (thankfully) under-developed tourist site. All it had was a small restaurant inside the gate, and then it was steps and benches to the top. Oh, and the refreshments ladies who were friendly enough at the beginning, and strangely didn't try to sell us anything. We started up the hill on all-stone stairs slightly damp from the previous night's rain. We really had to watch our steps as not to crack a knee, and the climb was good. Those ladies started to follow us, giving helpful advice about which way to turn and where to stop for good views. After about 15 minutes, we realized that they were going to follow us the whole way. Somewhat winded from my cold, I was walking slower than the others, and even these middle-aged ladies in soft shoes passed me. When they were keeping up with Jill, it got to her a little that they seemed to just be listening for snatches of English words they could recognize, and offering a little too much guidance and advice. We did know how to hike and walk, for goodness sake. When we got to the top, I had to tell them that we could both walk up and look for ourselves, which seemed to give us a little more space. After walking under the "moon" part of Moon Hill, we saw another small path, but stayed around the main viewing area for awhile. Some German tourists told us that it was a 10-minute climb up and over the top of the stone arch, and if we had done any climbing, it would be a breeze. So, in order to get the full eco-tourism experience (and to get away from those damn ladies), we started off on the muddy and steep path. We ended up using our hands, roots, and each other to navigate all of the challenging sections. It was the slickest mud I have ever walked on, and the wet stones were unforgiving. We made it to the top slightly muddied and happy to be up in the mists, so it was cooler. I held onto the climbing pole and rock outcropping for dear life while the others took pictures and looked around. We saw an inordinate number of butterflies and continued to soak in insect repellent to make sure nobody got malaria or Japanese Encephalitis. Jill and Joey were taking pictures on their phones at that point since our battery had died, and their cameras were not with us. Taking a self-portrait of 4 people using the button on the touch screen of an iPhone is a little tricky, considering there is no depth to the button, and you have to just guess where it is on the face of the phone when it is facing away from you. After about 5 attempts, we got a picture with all of our smiling faces.

We hiked down pretty quickly, not wanting to be rushed to get the bus back to Guilin. Lunch was dishes in a local restaurant, where the wait staff was visibly uncomfortable at us going back and forth between the English and Chinese menus. "They're not the same," she had whispered when we asked for the Chinese menu, only to find at least a 20% price increase for the items on the translated menu. Those translators must make a killing :) Also, I thought that I had swallowed a bone fragment which was stuck in the side of my throat, so I gagged and tried to pull it out until I was convinced that I had just scraped my throat, that there were no bone fragments stuck.

The bus back to Guilin was uneventful, and we found a small noodle place to decompress, eat, and prepare for the goodbyes to come. Around 5:30 we went out to attempt to get a cab. We found one after 5 minutes, but bargaining was nearly impossible, and she was in a rush to move since we flagged her at an illegal spot. She stayed once she realized that Jill and Joey had to get multiple bags into the trunk and say goodbye. Our goodbye was rushed, and there was no way to express how much it meant to me to have someone come and visit, especially my favorite sister and her friend. After they were off, we walked slowly back to the hotel in Guilin, at which point I showered and found a place on the bed so that I could stare at the ceiling. The next day was to start the journey back to our school, back to planning, back to our real life. I just wanted to get Jill back and hang out more, since being with her made me feel like everything would be okay. We hadn't spent more than a few days together since the summer of 2001 (I think), and when she was here I was taken back to that place in my psyche where someone knew me better than anyone else, and we could just relax. We had some good conversations, and I wished that it didn't have to end.

August 26th
The next day we spent some time at an internet bar, and then headed to the airport. At which time, unbeknownst to us, the adventure was just beginning.
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Nick and I got home on the 27th much later than planned, but all in one piece. After getting back to Xi'an we hopped on a bus to Tianshui that was supposed to leave at 7:30 PM and get in around 1 AM (a worse sleeper than the one we took together, and this time we had the back row on the bottom). When we were crawling along for an hour, I got annoyed, and then by 3 AM the bus had completely stopped, turned off all the lights and the engine. Which is when it got ridiculously hot. Nick and I thought the road was closed. At 3:30 AM Nick went out to see what was up and walked about 1 km ahead of the bus to see 2 trucks that had some of their wheels in a ditch on this narrow mountain road, which was a complete holdup. There was another wreck the other way, and zero vehicles were working together to get anything moving, so there we sat until 5 AM, at which point we moved some. We crawled until 9 AM, and then were able to move. We both finally fell asleep. Then at 10 AM on a downhill, a little van didn't see us put on the brakes, so it slammed into the back of the bus, and another truck pulled around to the left (into oncoming traffic) to avoid hitting the van. It hit the window next to Nick's head instead, but luckily nothing on the bus broke, just the truck's fender and headlight. It was a very light hit, but enough to wake us up and make Nick jump out of the bunk. After half an hour of us (me and Nick, eventually with help from the bus driver) directing traffic around us (we actually cared about the other vehicles after our 9 hour delay), another bus picked us up and we finally got home.

Here's Nick's timeline of our trip home:
day 1:
1300 cab to airport shuttle pickup (Guilin)
1330 airport shuttle to airport
1600 flight to xi'an
1800 airport shuttle to melody hotel (Xi'an)
1900 cab to bus station
1920 buy tickets
1930 board bus to tianshui, eta 0100.
2030 stop for dinner. meet an english student. eat delicious noodles. feel pretty good about having a nice restful journey that still puts is in our own bed by 0200.

day 2:
0200 wake to find that we're completely stopped on a dark mountain road.
0300 go outside for fresh air. find a plan in the offing to move some vehicles around to open up a lane around the truck that semi-jack-knifed its way into a ditch.
0400 get soaked by rain "helping" the chinese guys alert all the drivers to the plan in a rainstorm.
0500 return to bus in the rain to make sure alison doesn't freak when the bus tries to leave without me.
0530 bus moves 200 meters. stops.
0900 bus finally gets around the accident.
1000 a pickup truck rear ends us. a big flatbed tries to swerve around us, doesn't quite make it, hits the pick up and the window next to my head. no injuries, more bark than bite, but scary as all get out. i'm out of my bunk before i know what's going on, then i get back in my bunk and find myself face to face with the truck's passenger, 2 panes of glass and about 3 inches between us. scary as all get out.
1005 start directing traffic, construction worker style. halt one line, let the other go, and switch. someone doesn't appreciate where i halt the line, gets out, tries to shove me out of the way. calls me lots of inappropriate words in chinese. our bus employees/passengers come to my defense, there's lots of conversation, more pushing the foreigner around, i stood my ground, everyone got through the other direction, we reopened the jackass' lane, and the whole thing cost him 5 minutes. the people behind us had likely been in the same line as us behind that wreck; that had already cost them 6-8 hours. oh well.
1015 we're on another bus, paying another 20 kuai, and 2 hours from tianshui.
1230 cab to the school.
1245 or so, we're home. home adequate home.
1800 alison wakes me up yelling for help. turns out the water turned off mid shower, and she needed me to grab the spare water from the kitchen.

That was our trip! Happy adventuring through it!