Cleveland Thanksgiving

Back in Cleveland now, to attend what now seems to be an annual tradition: spending Thanksgiving with family and family friends:



Everyone of course has grown up, but it just makes for more interesting conversation to catch up on all the wonderful variety of endeavors everyone is into these days.

As for myself, I'm planning to be back home for anywhere from 1-3 months to tackle my long list of "Things To Do If I Ever Quit My Job." Specifically, the goals for this period is to:

1. Strengthen family unity & communication
2. Do some personal reflection and examine options & ideas to figure out next steps
3. Complete one-time cleanup and sortation of old personal items (paper/electronic docs, print & digital photos, etc)
4. Create a system to better manage items in the future (systematic cataloguing/sortation, improved accessibility, systematic backup)
5. Complete various old projects (HK the Hard Way, Thanksgiving Project, BOM)
6. Develop better skills and habits (intense exercise, cooking, cleaning, piano playing & improvisation, musical composition, etc)

It is unclear how much time I will need, and it is possible I may have bitten off more than I could chew. In any case, subjectively speaking, it is clear this is something I have been meaning to do, regardless of actual objective value. It's not too often you have time to rebuild your foundations.

NY Subway Signs

I saw 3 ridiculous signs in a row on the subway. I couldn't make any sense of them.

The first:



First they tell us to take it light, and then to take responsibility, somehow using that to allude to taking the subway. Maybe my English abilities have deteriorated due to my time in China, but that went over my head.

Then they talk about taking our trash when leaving the train, but then they claim to recycle subway litter after collection, thanking us for contributing. Why should we take our trash off the train if they're going to recycle it? Isn't that what they meant by contributing?


Next,



Somehow, they made some sort of assumption on the number of rides you would take per 30 days to arrive at $1.17 without stating that assumption. With convincing confidence, the sign encourages us to just "believe it."

Finally,


I've never heard of anyone bothering to check escalator status online, have you? Are there more trivial things we can check online instead?

Walking in Central Park

Some people like to walk their dogs thru The Park:



Other people like to walk their children:





But no, not I! I prefer to walk my bag thru The Park:



Bags do not complain if they get tired. They do not cry when they trip and fall flat on their side. Nor do they wander off independently and get lost. Furthermore, they do not leave behind waste products for you to clean.

Walking your bag thru The Park can be good exercise - the one I carry on my back is about 22kg, while the one I walk is about 23kg.

The only drawback to walking bags involve only those that have wheels; those are only suitable to be walked on paved surfaces, so off road hikes or even a muddy dirt path may be problematic. With dogs and children (unless we are speaking of the kind that must be wheeled), this is not an issue.

While taking pictures of Central Park, I realize that I'm able to enjoy what's beautiful in NYC once more (instead of seeing it as just commonplace, everyday life). I feel like a tourist again! I'm no longer a jaded New Yorker!

Financial Finale in Beijing

Anyhow, I ended up getting my sister to buy me a flight from Shanghai to Beijing. And so I took the Maglev Train from Longyang Rd Station (龍陽路站) to Shanghai Pudong Airport:



Top speed is 431 km/hr, though it sustains it for just a minute or two, as the ride is only 7 minutes and 20 seconds, covering 30km. The ride was so quiet.



From there, I flew to Beijing. After running a few errands, I had 126 RMB left. I stopped by a Beijing Olympics souvenir shop at the airport, and got two items, one for 88 RMB, and the other for 38 RMB. And with that, I hopped on the plane and left the country RMB-less.

Not a big deal; my next stop was a Hilton hotel in Toronto (a layover before flying into NYC and then Cleveland) which I booked with my HHonor Points. They won't take RMB there anyways.

Walking On Nanjing East Road

After I lost my wallet, I wasn't in a very trusting mood. However, interesting things still happened on my walk through Nanjing East Road.

When I got there initially, a lady, probably in her mid-thirties, boldly walked up to me.
"No umbrella, eh?" she asked. It was drizzling very slightly.
"Nope."
She proceeded to walk with me and ask how I was doing and where I was going.
"You look young. Are you still in school? Or are you working?"
"Neither."
"Why don't we sit down and chat for a bit?"
"You can if you want, but I'm going to continue on walking," I told her. Maybe I was overly suspicious, but the situation just smelled funny.

Anyhow, I continued on, and a mother and her daughter, a girl in her late teens to early twenties, approached me. They were clearly from the countryside. The daughter starts off and says, "Sorry to disturb you sir, but my mother and I are very hungry. Can you buy us something to eat?"
"I don't have any money," I replied, wistfully.
"Please... just buy us some bread. It only costs 1 kuai."
"I lost my wallet..."
"What?"
"I lost my wallet. If you can help me find it, I will buy you whatever you want to eat."
"You lost your wallet??"
"Yeah, everything... my money, my IDs, etc. I have nothing for you."
The mother looked at me with pity. "Where did you lose your wallet?"
"In Yangpu District."
"I don't know where that is."
"You guys are from out of town, huh?"
"Yes... we are from the countryside."
"Where?"
"Out in Anhui Province."
"What did you do there?"
"We are farmers. We work on our land."
"Ah... Why did you leave your farmland?"
"It's almost winter and so there's nothing to do at home. We thought we can find some work here in Shanghai in the meantime. We heard there was lots of opportunity here, so we came to try to find jobs. But we weren't able to find any so far."
"But why don't you have any money?"
"We brought some but it wasn't enough. We did not imagine that Shanghai would be so expensive! Are you from Shanghai?"
"No, but I am staying here."
"Where are you staying?"
"In Xujiahui."
"Where's that?"
"It's several kilometers from here..."
"What are you planning to do?"
"I'm going to walk back to where I am staying. I may have some extra cash there."
"If only we could walk back home to get some extra cash!" the mother exclaimed.
"Yeah, it's a little far..."
"So you're also from out of town?" the daughter asked.
"Yeah."
"Is it further than where we live?"
"Yes... much, much further."
The daughter and mother exchanged glances with each other in shock, as if they just met someone worse off than them. The daughter looked back at me and asked, "So what do you think of Shanghai?"
I sighed. "I think it's an expensive city."
"Yeah, we never thought Shanghai would be like this..."
As I crossed the street, I waved back at them. "You guys take care. It's a rough world out here..."
"You too..."
"Best of luck!"

Next, I passed by a guy who was trying to sell "massage" services.
"Hey... ladies? Massage? You want?"
I replied to him in Chinese, "No thanks."
He persisted, now in Chinese. "Come on... it's not very expensive."
"No, I am not interested."
"Just 100 RMB! Come take a look."
I tried a different tact. "Look, I don't have any money - I lost my wallet."
"It doesn't matter, just take a look anyways! Come back another day after you get your paycheck."
"I don't have a job."
"Well I'm sure you can ask your family for money."
"If only it would be that easy..."
He smiled and seemed to have got the message. "Alright. Thanks for putting up with me. Sorry for the inconvenience."

Finally, towards the end of the street, I ran into another woman who wanted to walk with me. She wanted to "be friends" and tried to convince me to walk in the direction I came from, but I told her I didn't feel like it.

Funny, it feels like a sort of freedom to honestly tell people you have nothing. I guess even with all the wily and shady characters on Nanjing East Road, it's hard for any of them to exploit you when you feel you have nothing left.

The Search

Did I put it in my laptop bag instead? I frantically searched the pockets. There was nothing. My coat pockets?

Nothing. Pant pockets? Nothing again.

I tried to recall the last time I had seen my wallet. I definitely had put it in my coat pocket on the bus. That was my last recollection. Perhaps it fell out onto the street while I walked from the bus to the subway station, I conjectured. I decided to retrace my steps to look for it, but to no avail. While looking, a couple girls asked me for money and food. I told them I would be happy to get them some if they can help me find my wallet. They weren't interested.

So I lost my wallet. Actually, I wasn't sure - perhaps it was stolen. Regardless, it doesn't matter now. Resigned, I called my friend who had just seen me off, and he told me to wait right there while he hurried over.

While waiting, I calmly reassessed the situation. First, I tried to recall everything that was in my wallet, and concluded most things were replaceable or unimportant. I was short about 1150 RMB in cash which isn't a huge deal, and all the credit cards I can report lost/stolen right away. While I had lost my driver's license, I was lucky enough to stil have my passport, which of course is much more important. Luckily my Taipei Easypass card was not taken (which would have been annoying since I had just consolidated all the value onto the one card a few weeks ago), mainly because it was separated from the rest of my wallet when I had forgotten it before I flew into Macau. The main loss was my CWRU Student ID card - the one irreplaceable card in my wallet - which got me all sorts of discounts to tourist attractions in China.

I still have my keys, I still have my phone, though it was low on batteries. I even had some spare cash in USD, and my passport was still at home, so I wasn't completely dislocated from society. With that in mind, I started to whistle a happy tune. It was just another challenge, another adventure. I just have to manage my finances for the rest of the trip wisely. It would take more than this to bring me down.

My friend arrived in a few minutes, and I explained the situation to him. With my spare USD cash, we exchanged at very favorable rates for me. I decided to take a taxi back home, though I limited my fare to just 50 RMB, and elected to walk the rest of the way. Despite my previous optimism, I couldn't help but feel carsick and weak anyways. I needed to eat.

Shanghai Bus

Now I'm back in Shanghai, in the process of buying a train ticket to Beijing, where my flight back to the US takes off from. I look in my wallet and only see 150 RMB left. "I need to get some cash," I told my Shanghai friend. He leads me to an ATM and I withdraw 1000 RMB before heading to the ticket office.

At the ticket window, the lady misunderstands me and sells me a hard seat instead of a hard sleeper. "We can return the ticket if you want," my Shanghai friend suggests helpfully.
"It's alright, I've never ridden hard seater on an overnight ride. Maybe it's worth trying once."

And so he leads me to the bus stop and we say goodbye. As I hopped on the bus, I casually put my wallet into my coat pocket, and readjust the shoulder strap to my laptop bag. There was a crowd of people on the bus as always, but it wasn't unbearably stifling.

Getting off the bus, I walked to the subway stop. As I approached the turnstiles, I reached into my coat pocket for my wallet. Only to find... there was nothing there.

Wuhan

From Chongqing, I took an overnight train to Wuhan. The hard sleeper bunks were comfortable and clean, and I chatted with a fellow traveler whow as in the medical supplies industry. I slept well, and got up around 6am. The sky was beautiful in the early morning, and the mist hung there, like a shroud over the air:



It cleared up after several minutes and several kilometers:



I arrived into Hankou station, at 7am:



Hankou (漢口), along with Hanyang (漢陽) and Wuchang (武昌), are the three major boroughs that comprise of Wuhan. I was planning to meet up with my friend from Wuchang, and so I boarded bus 536 to GuanShanKou (關山口), the stop by HuaZhong University (華中科技大學). As we waited for passengers to load, I could help but notice the bus driver was smoking, blatantly disregarding the no smoking sign next to him on the window:



Can't be helped. Anyhow, we got moving and the bus rolled through Wuhan, passing by many scenic spots.

HuangHeLou (黃鶴樓):



Wuchang:



Wuhan seemed to be a very clean, very likeable city. It was also huge, with plenty of places to explore.

My plan was to visit Wuhan for just the day, as I had a train ticket to Shanghai in the evening. However, it was troublesome to carry my mountaineering pack everywhere I went. So in Wuchang, I found an International Youth Hostel where I could drop my stuff off at:



Inside, the walls were delightful decorated by foreign travelers, similar to many other places catering to young Western travelers:



I rented a room for a day (without the night) for 34 RMB. It was a double, and nice enough for me to consider staying if I hadn't already bought my train ticket. After dropping my stuff off, I headed back over to HuaZhong University:



The University itself, situated close to East Lake (東湖) had a very nice campus, especially for China:







Soon, I met up with friend, one of the random people I met on my flight into Beijing initially. We had lunch and then she took me around to tour a little of Wuchang:





I was impressed - it was clean, modern, very welcoming. Already, Wuhan, along with Hangzhou and Chengdu, was beginning to rank amongst my favorite Chinese cities.

We headed over to West Lake, which was just a bus ride up from the school. West Lake had been compared with Hangzhou's East Lake at times, and while not as famous, it is a much larger, much less touristy lake.





Near the lake, there was a park called MoShan Park (磨山公園), also known as Mt. Mo Park.



Tickets for students were 20 RMB each, 40 RMB for full fare adults. Once inside, we realized the signs were a mess:



For example, it claimed Zhude Pavillion, which honored ZhuDe (朱德), the founder of the Chinese Red Army, was 16km away! Everything else was a few kilometers at most. We walked to the zhude Pavillion after just a few minutes:



Wasn't all that interesting to me, but the pavillion is situated on the first of a series of hills which overlooks East Lake:



We continud on. Soon, I noticed a very peculiar site:



It looked to be a slide of some sort, with a lot of promising potential, but no one was operating the rides.

Next, we came across the Chu Tian Platform (楚天台):



It was located at the top of the second hill. From there, we saw even nicer views of East Lake:





There was a small house in the middle of the lake:



Boats making heart-shaped ripples (as my friend pointed out):



Inside, there was a performance going on with traditional Chinese instruments:



Next, we headed to the last hill via a trail through the woods:



After about a couple kilometers, we arrived at the Liu Bei Offering Altar (劉備郊天壇), dedicated to Liu Bei, the ruler of the Shu Kingdom in the Three Kingdoms period after the fall of the Han Dynasty, and one of my favorite people in Chinese history:



It was there that we noticed something peculiar about the sky:



The clouds looked very peculiar, like a sheet of wool coming to cover the sky:



I have never seen such clouds before.

While at Liu Bei Offering Alter, we spotted a bridge that takes us from MoShan Park over to one of the islands on in the lake. We decided to head over and take a look:





It reminded me very much of Baidi or Sudi at East Lake, except:

1) There was no one there.
2) There were small bugs flying everywhere, due to the lake.

The second difference was probably the reason for the first. Note all the black specs on the side of the bridge:



They were flying, crawling everywhere. While they did not bite or sting, it was very much a nuisance to slap at them when they land on you, and roll their small, slightly squishy bodies off of your skin (perhaps somewhat reminiscent of the bugs on Joba Chamberlain's neck during the bug attack at Major League Baseball's 2007 Postseason ALDS Game 2 between the Indians and the Yankees). It makes me realize how much maintenance they must do in Hangzhou to keep East Lake the way it is - insect infestation seems to be a natural phenomenon around lakes.

We were about to make a run for it when a van pulled up and offered us a ride to the entrance for 20 RMB. We happily agreed and hopped on, and escaped from the swarm.

Good Deals in China

Things you can buy in China for...

...less than $2 USD (13.6 RMB):
- One rice burger in Wuxi (無錫) (12 RMB)
- 60 minute full body massage or 45 minute foot massage in Chengdu (成都) (12 RMB)
- A night's stay at Maoxian (茂縣) (10 RMB)
- A bowl of delicious rabbit noodle soup in Wenchuan (汶川) (7 RMB)

...less than $1 USD (6.8 RMB):
- One winter hat at Jiuzhaigou (九寨溝) (5 RMB)
- A pair of gloves at Jiuzhaigou (5 RMB)
- Bowl of Lanzhou noodles (蘭州拉面) (5 RMB)
- A huge "loaf" of bread (饃) (5 RMB)
- Huge plate of sliced & stir fried potatoes (土豆丝) (5 RMB)
- A ride around town (4.5 RMB + tip) and a story to tell

...less than half a US dollar (3.4 RMB):
- One bootleg DVD in Chengdu (3 RMB)
- 1 km taxi ride in Maoxian (3 RMB)
- An hour bus ride from Dujiangyan (都江厭) to Mt. Qingcheng (青成山) (2 RMB)
- Huge bowl of egg drop soup in Beijing (北京) (2 RMB)
- One glove at Jiuzhaigou (2.5 RMB)

...less than a US quarter (1.7 RMB):
- Tailor service to get your bag sewn and fixed (1 RMB)
- Key replication service for additional keys (1 RMB)
- An hour bus ride in Xiamen (夏門) to the airport (1 RMB)
- Plastic Bag (0.1 RMB)

...for nothing (priceless):
- 143km ride from Ruoergai (若爾蓋) to ChuanZhuShi (川主市) in a nice SUV with pleasant people
- 17km ride from ChuanZhuShi to Songpan (松潘) and free travel recommendations
- Guided Tour thru Maoxian village ruined by the Sichuan Earthquake
- Guided Tour of Yemen Guan village ruined by Sichuan Earthquake
- Temple Masters on Mt. QingCheng to unlock their doors in the middle of the night to allow us safe passage

Chongqing

After resting in Chengdu (成都) for a day, Baba and I continued on to way in Chongqing (重慶), which, while cheaper then Chengdu in many ways, was definitely a much faster pace, but much grimier city. In some ways, it resembles Hong Kong, with a lot of tall skyscrapers going up next to the waterways amongst the mountainous terrain.

We took a cab to the Hilton:



Hilton Chongqing was a Category 1 hotel, the lowest on the Hilton HHonors program. That meant a stay there went for an unbelievable bargain of 10K points! If the same hotel was in the US, it would no doubt be a Category 4 or 5 hotel.

View of Chongqing from the hotel room:



After checking in, we went out for a walk, and found a local restaurant to eat. We had some chicken in chicken soup, very spicy rabbit meat (but too many small bones), "ants crawling up a tree" (螞蟻上樹, a dish made of bits of pork mixed with vermicelli, the dish name is somewhat poetic), and some vegetables.



Afterwards, headed to the Yangtze River port, where there were cruises operating on the river to take tourists around for a view of Chongqing. We got in one of the mid-sized cruise ships:



The view back at the city:



Unfortunately, we also noticed the air was a quite smoggy and smelled very bad. Looking out, there was some visibility problems by some of the skyscrapers because of the heavy smog:



Chongqing was probably the most polluted city in China I had visited. It seemed even worse than Beijing or Tianjin. However, the skyline was nice at other areas:





Baba befriended a couple who was sitting next to us:





They were from Beijing. The husband is a writer, and the wife is a culture and travel channel producer. They had a son who studied in Chongqing, and were in town to visit him.

We had an interesting discussion about how one should really live life to the fullest. It's a question that's always worth pondering some more.