The Broad Abroad

In a half an hour (assuming my ride partners show up despite not having called me yet) I leave for Deqin to see the hubs for our first anniversary!  From Deqin we’ll head back to Xidang, where we’ll hike over the mountain to Yubeng and visit a neat waterfall.

The approved first anniversary gifts are paper and clocks, and I’ve been racking my brain to figure out what to get him that would survive the drive and the hike.  Answer: hypothetical gifts of paper, and the gift of time.

Thanks to a neat idea shared by a friend a few months ago, I will suggest that we use our anniversary as a day to take an annual picture of ourselves and any future members of the family.  Once we get home, I can print them and start sticking them in a book.  Made of paper.

*I had to use that title since I was banned from making any Seoul Man jokes while we were there.

Oh, Korea. You and your respected traffic laws, delicious kimchi, active temples, and old and new friends. Why must you perplex me with your not-really-cheese-sticks, official lack of homosexuals, and actual lack of trashcans?

We’ve actually been back in China for a week now, but had 2 nights in Beijing (that made me think I might be able to really like Beijing), a day and a half on a train to Kunming, then the night train/bus combo that got me back to Shangri-la…where I immediately contracted yet another cold and lost my voice for about a day and a half.

One of the things that stood out about our trip is that I’m a total dork for subways. In Seoul, we used them to get to where our hosts wanted to take us, but in Beijing I purposely planned my free days around places near the subway lines. It was easy, cheap, and I got to zoom around in underground tunnels like a mole on speed. What could be better?

Our arrival in Seoul was on a Friday around lunchtime, when our friends were both at work. They had given us directions on how to get from the airport to Insidong so we could entertain ourselves easily. We found lunch (kimchi stew!) and wandered down the street to the old palace and nearby folk museum. It was easy to see that building wooden palaces made it too easy for the Japanese to burn them down; this was also the case at the old summer palace in Beijing. In a wide open space that used to be occupied by houses for concubines, we met a lot of magpies. They’re huge, funny birds that like to hop around, and I’ve heard that they are rather mischievous. It seemed fitting that they had taken the place of the concubines. The folk museum was our next stop, and I really wish we had had more time there. The displays were well kept-up, and the English on the signs was both correct and informative. In China you tend to see a lot of physical descriptions of an object on display, but no information on how said object was used or why it’s in the museum at all.

As we waited to meet up with an old HS friend of the hubs, I wandered into a little convenience store to check out some Korean snack food. I emerged triumphant with a little bottle of plum juice and what looked like a cheese stick. The hubs eyed it warily and thought it might actually be some sort of bizarre white sausage. After running back to the store to get it snipped open by the clerk, I walked back towards the hubs with a big grin, peeling the wrapper off the top. As I took a bite, he watched my face take on an expression of absolute horror and he laughed as I ran around looking for a trashcan. I had to settle for a large sack of trash sitting in a corner. It wasn’t cheese, it wasn’t sausage, and it shouldn’t have been called edible. I briefly recalled the clerk’s smirk as I was paying for it, and tucked away the rest of it so I could ask our friends about it. I pulled it out shortly after meeting them, and before I could even ask, their expressions simultaneously turned to panic and they shouted “Don’t eat that!”

In all, the trip was great. It was great to meet an old friend of the hubs’ (G) and his fiancée (M), and absorb teaching tips from them. I got to visit a very large yarn market, and was finally able to pick up buttons for the coat I’m making. It was also interesting to discover how much I had in common (including internet friends) with M, and we enjoyed taunting the men about how they were essentially partnered with the same person. She even brushed up on her glutenny vocab to help me figure out what was safe to eat and found a bottle of safe soy sauce for me to bring back. Lastly, their apartment had one of the most amazing features I’ve ever encountered in a house—sub-floor heating. It eliminates the nasty problem of walking around with cold feet, and radiates up to warm the whole place. The only downside was that we were sleeping on a guest mattress on this floor, so it actually got TOO hot at night.

In the middle of all this, I got to have 2 lunches and visit a temple with a Korean friend from my TESOL course. As she took us around, she kept mentioning how she had never been to certain places even though she was from Seoul.  We were tour guides for her in her own city!  The temple was really interesting too.  I’m so used to temples in other Asian countries being tourist attractions.  The one we went to in Seoul obviously had a large congregation, as they had a few thousand lanterns hung for the Buddha’s birthday celebration, and were doing some sort of ceremony for children when we were there.  The place was packed.

As mentioned above, we left Korea and spent 2 nights in Beijing. Since the hubs was meeting with folks, I had the city to myself. I spent my first day wandering around the old summer palace, which has extensive grounds and both smashed and burned ruins. On day 2, I ventured out to find a store called Jenny Lou’s. It’s a well-known store stocking all sorts of imported goods from around the world, and I read online that gluten-free products were available there. The location I chose to try was in the section of town that held all the embassies, so I got to walk past a lot of well-guarded, identical buildings. I paused to squint in front of each one just to see whose it was, and noticed after a while that the guard in front of each one was picking up his radio when I stopped. I imagine there was something said about a nosy girl with a green bag, and I decided that taking pictures was out of the question. I never saw the US embassy, but did eventually find Jenny Lou’s. My purchases there were limited to tortilla chips, a grody avocado dip from Australia, fake nutella, and two of those Happy Cow 8-piece cheese wheels. Out of the 16 pieces, only 2 made it back to Shangri-la with me.

Me and cheese. We are friends. Unless you’re Korean “cheese”. We are not friends.

I consider myself a budget traveler, but that does not always mean I/we choose the cheapest option.  That said, cheaper options can often provide a better flavor—-in food and experience.

Taken from the roof of the guesthouse. Note the large platform behind us. Some genius decided to erect a wall blocking this great view and charge people to see it. Or you could climb onto the roof of the guesthouse.

A few days ago, I enountered a couple that was eager to go to Deqin (where I am typing this), but confused about the rather complicated road situation.  The main road one would take out there is only open every 4th day, and the alternate route is only open on Saturdays.  This has caused the bus company to change their route to a 3-day journey that goes into Tibet proper, thereby barring foreigners.  This leaves the option of hiring a driver on the right day.  Since the hubs and I were planning to go anyway, I gave them my info and invited them to dinner that night to discuss plans.  As it turned out, they are extreme budget travelers, sleeping, eating, and moving about using as little cash as possible.  Thus the “Nepal Day” special meal I invited them to, which was “a little much” for me at 40 yuan was probably 3 days of food for them.  Oops.

We set off 2 days later in an SUV driven by an old friend of the hubs’ (and coincidentally the same driver our companions had used elsewhere).  After a day-long drive that included peeing in the snow at over 4000 feet (I didn’t try to write my name, but guys, I can understand the temptation) and a stop at a temple deemed ho-hum until I explored the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th floors, we arrived after dark.  An unfortunate argument about price ensued with the hubs in the middle as both translater and knower of both parties.  Meanwhile, I stomped my feet and asked if we could PLEASE discuss this over dinner, but was ignored.  We stayed at a guesthouse owned by our driver, and the couple stayed next door for less than half the price.

We parted ways the next morning since our agenda involved visiting sites that may be important for the hubs’ research, and their agenda was just enjoying themselves cheaply.  We had a number of great hikes, freaky drives, mule rides, and meals fried in pork fat before meeting up with the other couple again the afternoon before we left.  They apparently did everything on foot and hit some of the same places we did on different days and had a splendid, if somewhat tiring, time.

I’m sure we spent vastly different sums of money since we paid drivers, bought meals for friends, and hired mules twice–mostly to have the benefit of talking to the mule driver.

The view from muleback as we approached the top of Meili Snow Mountain.

I will NOT complain about riding up a mountain and having the mule driver carry my pack though. I felt a bit like a princess at first, but after seeing my very fit husband struggle uphill for 4 hours, I understood that it would have taken me about 6.  I did, however, insist on walking and carrying my own pack for the somewhat easier hike back.  This is the compromise I’ve found I sometimes need to make.  I can stay in a complete dive for a few days, then feel the need to rejuvenate a bit with a night in a nicer hotel; I hike most days, but hire a mule for the ones I’m truly not ready to do.  It used to be a matter of finding a place to take a hot shower, but now that solar water heaters are everywhere here, even remote guesthouses offer this.

Now, if we could just get them to heat the buildings.

This kid that lived with one of our drivers is understandable fascinated by the computer. He kept popping open the dvd drive.

The view from our hotel window the morning we left Deqin. I watched an episode of Star Trek that night about a living cloud of gas that fed on red blood cells and smelled like honey. Coincidence?

Dealing with this gluten-intolerance thing has made me a less adventurous eater while traveling.  Without the language skills needed to make sure food is safe, I get scared when I’m fending for myself.

This was the situation I found myself in yesterday — the hubs was off making vital connections, and I was hoping some people would meet me at one of the cafes for a little yarn play.  Lunchtime rolled around (nobody showed) and I decided to walk to one of the foreign megastores to look for a couple of imported necessities.  I left the cafe (which offered the safe option of a cheese omelette) with the full intention of stopping at a noodle joint or something along the way.  The further I got from the area where foreigners tend to congregate, the less sure I was of finding safe food.  Eventually, I recognized where I was, looked to the right, and saw Wal-mart.  I cringed, since this was not the foreign megastore I was intending to visit, but where there is Wal-mart, there is surely KFC.  Where there is KFC, there are…french fries.

So my very first meal without my lovely husband’s help was a large order of fries and a strawberry sundae.  It was also 3x the cost of a far more filling meal at any of the restaurants I passed on my way there.

I continued my walk toward the central square where I was told a Carrefour loomed large.  It’s a beautiful area with lots of landscaping and some welcome shade, mostly provided by the triangular New Era hotel.  I got my shoes shined for 5 kuai, but passed up the blind masseurs since I can never remember how to ask “how much?” and my usual gesturing wouldn’t have worked.  I don’t know why, but I never found the Carrefour.  While speaking to the hubs on the phone, I told him where I was and he told me to turn around.  Perhaps I should start giving massages in the square…

That night, we ventured to a restaurant near the apartment and ordered a dish called Grandma’s potatoes.  It’s been said that there are as many varieties of this dish as there are grandmothers, but we were thrilled with the version we got: fried, half-mashed potatoes with ample spice.  Add steamed eggs and a cold rice noodle dish (yes, I know…pictures.  Sorry) and we were both stuffed.  The hubs declared it the best meal he had had so far this trip, and the restaurant delivers!

Note to my mum-in-law: They had a waving cat.