I am in Hangzhou now, and it looks like I will finally have some real internet time.

First, Xi'an, where I spent the last few days. Xi'an is a huge, historic city that seems to be in a hurry to tear itself down and rebuild in the form of sterile highrises. The cranes in downtown Bellevue a few years ago are no comparison to what is happening in Xi'an.

The weather in China has been pretty blah so far. Fortunately, I haven't seen anymore rain or snow since Shanghai until the rain in Hangzhou today, but I also haven't seen any bits of blue sky, either. This sort of overcast isn't like Seattle. It's so dense that it obscures vision noticibly. On my way to the Xi'an airport, I noticed that the cab driver had his brights on the whole time, even with lots of cars around. I thought, "How rude." Then I thought about it and realized he probably needed them to get through the dense fog. He also kept honking and flashing his lights when the highway curved. I closed my eyes for a moment and when I opened them, I saw bright headlights in my face. I guess to make life more interesting, the fast lane of the highway can also be used by opposing direction traffic? I saw the sun yesterday. The clouds were so thick that you could stare right at it, a red circle like a traffic light, screaming, "Stop with the air pollution already!" The forecast is for sun when I return to Shanghai. I'll believe it when I see it. It also forecasts snow for Hangzhou in a few days, but I will miss it. Snow fairy, I escaped you this time! (Snow was also forecast for Xi'an two days ago, but it didn't happen. I'm serious, snow really tries to follow me.)

Xi'an is known for the Terracotta Soldiers, but it really should be known for how crazy the roads are. Just kidding! No, wait, I'm not. It definitely beats Beijing and Shanghai because of the lack of subway until recently (and I couldn't find anywhere useful to take the one line that exists now) so there are a TON of buses on the road. On the big streets there is a dedicated bus lane and it's just a steady stream of them going through. In between all the car traffic are all the pedestrians because there is a lot of walking that has to happen to get anywhere. The only rule is that you don't hit the person in front of you, no matter what method he used to get in front of you. I needed to get to the South Gate of the city wall, and I had to cross a busy, multi lane intersection with no pedestrian crosswalk. So I gained some Asian Pedestrian skill points and just started walking. Obviously you can't make it all the way across before a car comes, but they just speed around you, and you stand in the middle of busy traffic until there is another break. No hit points lost.

Another thing in Xi'an that is almost as interesting... okay, maybe more interesting... than Terracotta Warriors is the food. Shaanxi province is known for its noodles, all sorts of noodles. However... I didn't eat them. My mom is going to be shocked. The thing is, I can get Shaanxi cuisine in the other big cities, and some of the types of noodles exist back in the US, too. But the food in the Muslim Quarter in Xi'an is both delicious and not as easy to find elsewhere. At least to my knowledge... I'd never heard of some of this stuff before. Chinese cuisines use rice or noodles as their carb staple, but in the Muslim Quarter, the popular thing is "mo," a thick pita bread that I believe is cooked in some sort of clay or wood oven. You can get it sandwich style with meat (roujiamo) or in various soup dishes. My first breakfast there, I went in search of one of these dishes and ended up what I believe is another. I don't actually know what I ate for some of these meals because I just got in line behind people and said, "One small bowl, one mo" in Chinese, following the examples before me. But anyway, I believe I ended up eating "rouwan hulutang," a spicy meatball soup served with a mo that was to be crumbled up and put into the soup. I sent that picture in the previous e-mail. The dense bread doesn't get really soggy in the broth, but it does absorb it well, so it's very tasty. Last night after climbing Huashan, I went for a hearty bowl of "yangrou paomo," a soup that starts with crumbled mo stir fried with broth, then they add noodles, slices of lamb, and other stuff. Really hearty comfort food for cold winter days. I'm
proud to say that I got the last bowl of the night... they were sweeping and putting chairs on table, and I asked them, "Any mo?" (haha, I had to do that at least once in this e-mail) The answer was yes. They proceeded to turn away at least 5 other people who came by while I was eating.

I assumed that in China, it wouldn't be hard to pick me out as a foreigner. I don't dress like the locals (to them, I probably look like a homeless person), and my Chinese is poor and extremely rusty. However, it turns out that I can do simple things without someone even realizing that I'm not from there, as long as they don't use phrases that a 5 year old wouldn't understand or ask me to read something. I've even been asked for directions by Chinese people! So yeah... when they point to a sign or something and I tell them I can't read Chinese, I really should have my camera ready because I've gotten the best "what kind of homeless redneck are you that you can't read?!" looks of astonishment. I've also had to speak Chinese more than I have in a long time. I think if I lived here, my language skills would improve rapidly... but that's not going to happen. =P

After a morning at the Terracotta Warriors, I rested for a little while and then decided to go out for a leisurely trip to the Big Goose Pagoda, since it was supposed to be Xi'an's most famous landmark. I had walked by the Bell and Drum Towers enough times and had also seen parts of the city wall from the railroad station, so I figured it wasn't a big deal if I didn't go inside those places, and it would be a back up plan for the next day if Huashan didn't work out. I decided not to go inside and opted instead to stroll around some of the nice parks surrounding it. As I went to look for the bus, I heard music and turned around, realizing the evening fountain show had started at the water fountains right in front of the pagoda. So I stayed for that for half an hour. It was pretty watching the water patterns and extremely amusing watching all the people running in between the jets trying to get photos. On the bus ride to the pagoda, I saw giant lantern figures at the South Gate so I decided to get off around there on the way back to check it out. Turned out that the Lantern Festival was still going on in Xi'an! Normally, the city wall closes before dark, but during this time, they let you pay extra and walk on the wall at night. There were all sorts of giant lantern displays on the wall heading in one direction. I think I walked about half of that before it all started to look the same. The main dragon display (in the picture) also had some performances that were fun to watch. The whole wall had
traditional red lanterns hung up, and the buildings were specially lit. I walked down the wall for a bit on the non-tacky side, which was a really cool experience because no one else was there, and it's just a cool feeling to be strolling along a city wall, at eye level with the rooftops of the older buildings within the wall. Of course, on the other side of the wall, there are tons of highrises. It's great when things like this end up working out on a spur of the moment decision! I was really exhausted from all the walking by the end of that day, though.

So naturally, the next day, I decided to climb a mountain. I'd told a number of people about my crazy plan before I left on this trip. If you search for "huashan dangerous," you'll see why I call it crazy. I was also worried because it was February and extremely cold, so maybe it would be deserted or something. Haha, yeah right. Deserted by China standards is still busloads of people. Anyway, I started off the morning by attempting to join the largest human migration in the
world. For those of you who don't know, that's referring to the period around Chinese New Year when millions of people take trains to go home and see their families (many of them are migrant workers). It's
definitely the tail end of that time, but the crowds are still there. When I got back from the warriors, the railroad station was packed full of people, and many were just sitting around with their bags, waiting to see if they could get tickets. I wanted to take a train to Huashan, so I stood in the line and listened to the guy tell people in front of me that the trains they wanted were full for the next three days. Mine was a short distance, non-sleeper ticket, but it was still sold out until noon, so I went for the bus instead. I found it easily and it was already mostly full of people, which made me feel better about the whole thing. The crazy stuff does exist. There's this optional thing that's like wooden boards stapled together over a cliff, but I didn't even go to that place. There's also a route called the "soldier's path" that you can take if you don't want to take the cable car and don't want to do the longer route. It's closed for the winter due to snow, but I got some nice views of it from the cable car ride. Maybe next time. I did have to climb up a lot of steep steps, many of them not long enough for your whole shoe to fit, but it wasn't dangerous because they've done a good job keeping the paths clear of snow and ice.

The mountain is really beautiful. It's not the same as going in the summer, of course, but I think I'd choose these conditions over the massive crowds during high season -- I read that the queue for the cable car can be over an hour long, but we had no wait at all. It's
hard to convey the scale of things through pictures, it's something you'd have to experience in person. But it's quite a grand mountain, and the rock patterns and vegetation are very different from what I am used to, definitely a lot like what you see in Chinese paintings. The stairs... argh. It makes the Lake Serene stairs look like a walk in the park. I think I probably did the elevation gain of one of my typical hikes but in a LOT less of a distance. It's really all stairs. One place where you can really see what I mean is Black Dragon Ridge, where the stairs go up a ridge of the mountain. It is a LONG set of stairs (they are visible in the picture if you look for them). As I was descending, I got to see a lot of looks of pure despair from the people going up. I visited 3 of the 5 peaks: North (the one by the cable car), West, and South (the highest). I probably could have done a circuit and seen East, but between each peak there is more down and then up, and I also didn't want to risk missing the last bus. Some people choose to stay on the mountain overnight for more time and sunset views. Another reason this mountain is awesome? There are cats. They are loud. They want your food. I took a lot of pictures. =)
Though I felt tired after all the stair walking, my measly effort paled in comparison to this old guy I saw carrying two loads of cargo balanced on a stick on his back. Even with that ridiculously hard work, he was still singing and playing some sort of flute instrument.

Oh yes, toilets. Huashan was the site of two of the more interesting toilet experiences I've had in China. Don't worry, it's not TMI. The first was when we arrived at the car park to buy tickets. I didn't really need to go, but there was a toilet sign, so I figured I might as well. I walk in and see a bunch of old ladies facing me, squatting in stalls with walls but no doors. I immediately walked out. The squat toilets are bad enough but I am definitely not doing it when people can watch!! (The toilets on the mountain itself were not like that) The second.... using a squat toilet after thousands of stairs is, like, the worst feeling in the world. My poor quads.