On to Yangshuo!

Well, this chapter of my travels is over...we are about to be on the move, spending a few days in the Guilin/Yangshuo area and another few days in Beijing. I doubt I will get online in that period so the next time I'll post will probably be in Hong Kong on the 23rd.

My time at my sister's home has been really great. I am thoroughly satisfied with my time here. We did a lot of really cool things. Ate some awesome food, met some great people, saw both city and country.

Saturday had to be my favorite day. Emily's friend Xiao Li invited us to his farm for the day. It was so good to get out of the city, away from the pollution. And it was a beautiful day too! Xiao Li's family was amazing...I loved spending time with them in their home. He showed us around his farm, we went on an awesome hike up the top of the mountain and fought through some serious thorny plants, we picked peaches (which they love to eat crunchy), we grilled a bunch of great food (and the family cooked up a bunch of great dishes for us as well), we played Dutch Blitz, spent some time watching Yang Bing and a couple others buy chickens. It was an awesome day with an awesome family.

Sunday we spent the afternoon at Jinli Street and the Tibetan area which was also a highlight. We got to go to a Tea House performance and I bought some really cool Tibetan beads.

Here are a few videos of the week:

I don't have much time so I must bid farewell for now. Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers, this trip has already been life changing as my time here has begun to sink in.

 Much love.
-b garrison

the Hot Pot

Right now it is 7:30 in the AM. I normally wouldn't be up this early but I have been experiencing a bit of rumbling in my bowels, which I had to address a little while ago. Last night a bunch of us, me, Mom, Emily and about 14 of her friends, went out to dinner for the infamous "Hot Pot". I didn't know what to expect, just that it was good and also somewhat spicy. Now, I can handle spice, so I wasn't too concerned about that, but I kept getting hints that this could possibly destroy my stomach, so I was still a bit weary going into it.

However, I have been gung ho about pretty much everything we've eaten or that's been offered me (I've already eaten sheep brains, fermented eggs, cooked flowers, chicken parts, among other things) so I was ready to eat whatever was before me. Hot Pot is somewhat like a fondue restaurant. There were large bowls sitting in the middle of our table that were hooked up to a heater. The bowls were divided into two kinds of oil...the spicy and non-spicy. In the non-spicy were some vegetables and a raw fish soaking to create flavor and in the spicy were these red hot looking pepper things...it looked like some sort of death brew, dark red and full of ominous looking things.

People started passing around this yogurt drink and I was encouraged to take a swig. Apparently it helps line your stomach to keep the intense oil from the hot pot messing you up too bad. So it isn't necessarily the spice that gets you, it's just the richness of the oil...though the spice helps the process I'm sure.

Once the oils got hot we started putting all sorts of meats and veggies in to cook them. Beef, black chicken, little sausages and meatballs, potatoes, tofu, seaweed, sprouts, and a bunch of other things I didn't know the name of. Emily told me that I needed to eat from the spicy pot, so I did. And it was really good. Sometimes I would get a veggie that had really soaked up a lot of spice and it would be rough to the taste buds, but other than that I really loved the spicy stuff and ate from it most of the meal. Once things started rising to the top of the oil it meant that they were ready to eat. So you just reach in with your chopsticks, grab whatever it is you want, and put it in your little bowl of oil, then after letting it cool off you partake. (And, by the way, eating in China is great because everything that would be considered rude in the U.S. is perfectly normal in China...like making noise while eating, putting elbows on the table, slouching to put your mouth close to the bowl, picking off peoples plates, and reaching around others. It's so awesome!)

The Hot Pot really was delicious. I even added cow stomach and pig throat to my list. The pig throat was certainly the weirdest thing I've eaten thus far...like eating a rubber band, took me forever to get it down.

It was a good night. Met some really awesome people. I'm envious of my sister's crowd of friends...I would love being a part of that group. I finished the evening playing Ticket to Ride (if you've never played before you've got to try it!) and I won again...I won on Saturday night as well so my international record is 2-0.

But then I woke up this morning at 6 feeling that the bowels were in distress. And I ended up pooping out a completely green poop...never seen that before in my life. So I blame the Hot Pot for that, though it was pretty cool.

Yesterday afternoon we went to the city center and a Buddhist temple called Manjushri at the Wenshu Monastery. It has been so cool to see such a BIG city filled with so many temples and cultural sections. Another interesting observation is that Chinese people hate the heat...actually they really just hate the sun. They want their skin to be as light as possibly so they use umbrellas, stand in the shade, wear gloves or weird hats...they really hate the sun.

A couple of other cool things that we got to do yesterday were, 1) ride the subway and 2) ride in a three wheeled cart. The subway system is brand new and is certainly the nicest one that I have seen or been in. Awesome new technology that is brilliant for a subway line. The three wheeled cart thing is this motorcycle that has a little cart attached to the back like a mini-taxi. It was a pretty fun ride, especially with all three of us piled in the back.

I was actually able to download a video of yesterday! Found some faster internet. Check it out.

Monday we went to see the Panda's...and it was pretty awesome. Our driver, Yang Bing, was a phenomenal tour guide and he took us to a spot away from the tourists where there were 6 pandas all frolicking around. The Pandas really were fun to observe. The Chinese love panda bears. It is their national animal. They pamper these things like crazy. It was a pretty cool place...basically a zoo of Pandas, Red Pandas, peacocks, swans, other birds and Coy catfish. The lake where the catfish were was crazy...there were so many of them wriggling all over the place trying to get in line for food from tourists throwing in little pellets. All those pandas got us in the mood for Kung Fu Panda 2, so we decided to go to the theater that night to watch it since it was still being played in English.

Here's another gem of a video:


We ate dishes that night, again phenomenal. Egg and tomato dish, fried eggplant dish, and cabbage and pork dish and then walked around a nice little park where I bought a couple of DVDs for 75 cents a piece. We then went to see Kung Fu Panda and it was hilarious...made it even more special to watch a movie set in China while sitting in a movie theater in China!

Well, that's all for now.

-b garrison

China: Day 2

Day two was another great day. Another cloudy/polluted looking sky day. At this point I could really feel the pollution in the air...it was affecting my eyes and throat a bit.

I slept in until about 9 AM which was really nice. We ate a bit of breakfast and left by 10 for the Qingyang Temple, an old Taoist temple on the west side of town.

Going to the Taoist temple was a really incredible experience for me. It was kind of surreal to be surrounded by so much in my face darkness, a religion that is so blind and lost. Granted not many people are still religiously devout but much of the superstition and ritual are still very present among young and old. Several people came in burning incense to appease certain gods, of which there was a separate building for each. The architecture was beautiful. Everything you'd think an ancient Chinese temple to look like.

From the temple we went to eat lunch and we had noodles again...not the Muslim noodles that we had the day before, but the traditional Chinese noodle dish. It looked like a big bowl of Ramen, honestly, but it was SO much better than that. And so much food too. I was surprised I finished it all. After lunch we went across the street to a Art/History museum where we checked out some of the exhibits, which were really cool. And we walked in thinking it was free, though we found out later that it wasn't...however, Chinese people won't confront foreigners if you play the dumb card according to my sister. And they didn't confront us. Funny.

We then went to my sister's university where she had class and dropped her off. We wandered around a bit while she was in language class and saw the normal student life around the campus. We stumbled upon a bunch of elderly people playing some sort of croquet game and they seemed really intense about it. Mom and I went to a cafe type place a couple of blocks away that my sister referred and spent some time there reading and then met up with Emily at the end of her class.

Her tutor taught us some Chinese phrases and mentioned that I had a bit of knack for it, though I don't think I did too well. That was pretty fun though. I learned "ce suo" which means toilet. Crucial. After class we met with Emily's old tutor who bought us dinner at a northeastern Chinese dish place...also awesome. It seemed like a sketchy place to eat, but at this point I had gotten used to that.

After dinner we went to TV night at a family's house that are friends of my sister and watched a couple of old episodes of So You Think You Can Dance. And that was day two.

I am hoping to write about our Saturday trip to the farm by tomorrow. Saturday was certainly the highlight of my trip thus far. And Sunday's trip to Jinli Street was also really enjoyable. Overall, I have had such a great trip and I've been able to meet some amazing people who blow me away. China is such a unique experience...and I have been doing a poor job explaining it thus far. You really cannot describe the feeling that this country offers. God is good. He is allowing me to look into this culture and learn much about my life and my heart, my passions and idols and how God wants to use me for the future.

in Him,

-b garrison

China: Day 1

I am back in my sister's apartment today after a very enjoyable morning at the Panda Research Center. The capital of the Panda Bear habitat in China...the panda is certainly China's beloved animal. It was pretty sweet. But I'll get to that later on. I will also note that trying to upload one video on YouTube or a dozen pictures is showing up to take at least "230 minutes" which is not what I was expecting. Therefore, videos and pictures might not come until Hong Kong and the States...unfortunately. But I will see what I can do.

So my mom and I left Beijing early Thursday morning on Hainan Airlines...a local airline leaving from the domestic terminal. People taking our tickets looked at us twice to make sure we were in the right place, seeming to say, "Are you sure you want to be here? Are you in the right place?" We were definitely the only foreigners on our plane. They put us on a stand up bus to get to our plane on the tarmac. They kept filling the bus up until you would be absolutely certain there was no more space available and then they would pile in a few more. Mom and I got on after about three of these instances...I jumped on the bus shoving a few guys into the mass of humanity standing helplessly without a pole or handle above them. Mom looked at me and said, "Are you serious?" I'm pretty sure she was the last one in, plastered against the door like a wall ornament.

We got to the plane, which was huge...8 seats across and 45 rows deep, and once the doors of the bus opened it was a mad dash up the stairs into the plane. There was no line. In fact,m I'm pretty sure since I have been here I have yet to see any resemblance of a line. And I've loved that, actually! The plane was very comfortable, plenty of leg room and a larger than usual video screen in each persons seat with plenty of movies and TV shows to watch.

After our 3 hour flight we arrived in my sister's city eagerly anticipating her friendly face and exciting smile. Once we got to our baggage, we could see Emily outside the gate eagerly waiting and waving at us. I grabbed our bags and tried to catch up to my mom who was running out the gate. And I tried to document the embrace on camera but I couldn't get there in time. I will say, it was SO good to see Emily, and so great to see her and Mom greet one another on Emily's home turf.

We jumped outside to grab a taxi and I was again thrown into the thrilling roller coaster ride that is the Chinese traffic world. It was crazy, yet again. Several times I could have slapped another driver in the face we were so close to other cars. Here's the thing I've observed about driving around big Chinese cities: 1) There are no rules. People go through red lights, drive the wrong way down a one way street, don't drive within the lanes, do not give pedestrians the right of way and park anywhere they can. 2) You must honk your horn at least 5 times per minute. OK that's an exaggeration, but there is so much honking of horns. If anyone is in your way and you are going faster, or if you are driving through a red light or going the wrong way down a street, honk your horn and people will get out of the way. 3) There is always traffic. I haven't noticed a difference to rush hour and calm traffic, though my sister says there is. There is always a huge amount of cars, scooters, buses, taxis, bikes, pedestrians, and all sorts of other transportation devices.

Anyways, we began driving closer to the heart of the city. And, while it's true that people are everywhere in China, I could definitely tell that the amount of people was increasing as we got closer and closer to the center of a city which holds 13 million people. Everything was still so new to me, so I was snapping pictures of buildings, signs with Chinese characters, traffic, dudes carrying huge bags of you name it on the back of their scooters...

Finally, we arrived at my sister's apartment complex, where she lives, but also the location of the apartment we were all going to be staying in for the next week. It is a large complex of about 8-12 buildings, maybe about 16-18 stories each, no elevators, and a big pool in the middle that you have to pay to use. After getting settled in a bit we were hungry for lunch and Emily wanted to take us to get Muslim noodles, a dish originating from northwestern Islamic Chinese peoples. This place was awesome! Only 6 yuan (or kuai which is the slang term, like "bucks") for a bowl, which is equivalent to around 90 cents. And it was a huge bowl of noodles, which can be fat or thin, with any kind of meat and sauce, just not pork. So much great food to eat for less than a dollar! I loved watching the guy made the noodles by hand, it was fascinating to see how he made each noodle, which originated from a large roll of dough. I have a video, but it'll have to wait I suppose. This was also my first time to use chop sticks in a very long tie, and honestly I have never really been able to use them before. But I am committed on this trip to not use any utensil but them and I hope I am getting better. I have been complimented twice by locals that I am doing pretty well...probably made fun of many more times.

I forgot to mention that to get to the noodle place we got there by way of scooter and bike. This certainly fulfilled my Chinese bucket list of riding a bike in the midst of traffic. My sister drove her scooter with my mom sitting on the back and I got to ride Emily's bike, pedaling hard to keep up with her while avoiding cars, pedestrians, bikes and mopeds going every which way. Often a bike would come in from a side street and try to zoom in front of me or a scooter would be going against the flow of traffic and you wouldn't see him until he was a foot in front of you. And often a taxi will make a turn through a red light and force his way through pedestrian traffic which would split me up from Emily and Mom and I would have to book it to catch up. Here I am talking about the traffic again...the thing is, it is SO unique, it continually blows my mind.

Anyways, after noodles we went the the outdoor market which was another sight to be seen. We are in no touristy location, by the way...this is my sister's world in the midst of the city, everyday, normal China. Which is what made it feel all the more raw for me. We stood out like sore thumbs everywhere we went the first couple of days because we were the only foreigners around. The market was filled with everything you would expect it to have, fruits and veggies galore. Plenty of stuff I didn't recognize. There were huge bags of rice, eggs, spices, etc. But there was much more that would wouldn't necessarily expect to see. Like huge slabs of meat hanging from a big rack outside the meat shops...several buckets of fish and eels alive in water, a cage of big frogs also alive, pig snouts and chicken feet unpleasantly sitting in an ice box. It was a pretty cool experience.

From there we took our goods back to the apartment and then went for a little walk around the neighborhood. Visited a few shops and stores that Emily frequents, went into the large Carrefore, which is like a WalMart and a mall combination to see more unique foods, a KFC, a ton of people...

At that point my mom was starting to feel the sleepiness...I was convinced that I was totally fine until we put on a movie in the apartment and all three of us fell asleep. I woke up and drowsily made my way outside to meet up with some of my sister's friends for dinner. We went to a place close by that served what Emily calls, "dishes". Local Sichuan dishes are amazing! There are some weird flavors and interesting mixtures, but overall the food was phenomenal...and it is NOTHING like Chinese food back in the States. I now know what REAL Chinese food tastes like, and I'm very thankful for that. My sister's roommate (a national) was telling us how upset she was that they don't get Chinese food right in the U.S. And now I completely see what she means by that...it's not even close. The food has definitely been one of the best things about China thus far.

Once back at the apartment, I jumped in bed and passed out until the morning. It was beautiful.


-b garrison

China

 Hello everyone!

I wish it hadn't taken me so long to post here...I am just now completing my fourth full day here and there is so much I could write about. So because my time is short and because internet here is extremely slow I will write about my first two and a half days. Tomorrow I will complete the rest. Also, because the internet is so slow right now, I am unable to download hardly any pictures and no videos. So you'll just have to wait for those until tomorrow when I can get on some faster internet speed.

Alright. China. Such an overwhelming experience to take in so quickly. Nothing could have prepared for what I have experienced these past few days...and I have loved it!

On Tuesday evening I met up with my mom in the Seattle airport. Her gate was right next to our departure gate, which was pretty sweet. We left the states at 7 PM Eastern Time and braced ourselves for an 11 hour flight...of which we were served one meal and the video player was broken so we saw the same episode of Big Bang Theory 6 times and no movies. However, I was able to do some good journaling, a bit of reading, and a little napping here and there. We arrived in Beijing around 10 PM local time on Wednesday and it really didn't seem too out of the ordinary for me time-wise. Honestly, I think jet lag wore off by Friday, which was a lot better than I was expecting. 

Mom and I arrived in the Beijing airport and went through customs fairly quickly and harmlessly (you always think something is going to go wrong and you'll be stuck in this weird limbo of not being allowed in the country but unable to get back home or something...or maybe that's just me) and I got my China passport stamp! We picked up our luggage and made our way out to the main lobby to find our shuttle bus to our hotel, which after a bit of asking around we were able to find. On that same shuttle was a very nice local girl who was coming back from college in the States and she allowed us to use her cell phone to call my sister. 

All this time I am trying to allow everything to soak in. I am in China. There are people everywhere...the place is bustling. Everyone is staring at me, I certainly stick out being tall and white. There are so many people and we are the only white people to be seen. No one speaks English. We walk outside and you can smell and feel the pollution. The sky is red in the light of the city with a heavy haze which is unlike anything I have ever seen. There are a couple of huge video screens on the side of the road playing commercials. We walk to the bus and I almost get hit by two taxis, having to carry my mom's luggage I'm not as agile as normal, but honestly, these dudes are just driving like maniacs. It was evident that I was in a completely different world.

The shuttle ride to the airport was CRAZY. Our driver was ridiculous! Cutting people off, coming within inches of bikers and honking at everything moving. I was loving it. We got to the hotel and I was really pleased at the room. The shower was awesome! and it was very modern and comfortable. One thing I didn't realize was that I could not drink the water from the tap here, which I should have known, but somehow I guess I didn't view China the way I see it now. I also thought I would be able to use a credit card in some stores, but China is still very much a cash society, which really surprised me.

I got a few hours of sleep and we woke up around 5:30 the next morning to get to the airport and catch our next plane to go see my sister. On this flight I am certain that we were the only foreigners...kind of hilarious. Getting on the plane was a stampede like I have never experienced before and getting off the plane just as crazy. I have a video I am hoping to upload soon of the madness.

Well, this is taking me much longer than I expected so I will write much more in the next two days...

Until then, I will just tell you that I am loving China. It is hard for me to explain, but it has been such an awesome experience...every bit of it. I have met some amazing people, seen some really cool things, gone to temples and museums, rode a bike through crazy traffic, played games with locals, picked peaches at a farm, eaten some amazing food, hiked through some mountains, learned some Chinese phrases, been stared at a lot (many pictures taken of me, people pointing, etc.) and overall I have been blown away at my sister's world and so impressed by her love of the country, the people and her skill in the language (we'd be lost without her, seriously).

Much love. I will keep updating in the next few days.

-b garrison