big red

It's hot in Beijing and everywhere I go I leave a paper trail. The local hawkers play 'hunt down and accost the tourist' as easy as following the limp wadded paper scraps piling up behind me like soggy bread crumbs; ripped subway chits, taxi receipts, concierge cards and ticket stubs marking my admittance to everything from the Beijing Opera to the Great Wall cable car at Mutianyu spill out of my purse each time I reach in.

I left friends with soothing aloe wishes in Seoul after a weekend spent in an unrelenting sunshine blaze at the Mud Festival. By the end, Sam had turned a distressing shade of lobstery-red from the very points of his toes all the way to his hairline. Surveying his damage on the cramped and exhaustingly-late train ride back from the beach, I still don't know how I only managed to get off with a few swaths of go-away-tomorrow pink along my bikini lines.

The Boryeong Mud Fest is an event that couldn't be as worthwhile without good company. Luckily for me (especially in light of another month spent on the backside of a mountain in no-foreigner's Korea), along with Sam good company came in spades, as plentiful for those in a party mood as the bucketload-o-shellfish restos and the free-flowing beer along the beach.

Six of us internationals shacked up in the well-enough named 'Drama' hotel (thanks, Deb), snug under shared blankets and comforted with stolen pillows from the couch in the lobby.

Apart from three or so hours floating on a rented tube in the midst of a few hundred similarly positioned mixed Koreans and foreigners, when the relaxation I had so hoped for actually took its opportunity, the weekend seemed to go by in that slow-fast pace where you think you have time, but you've really run out -- when yesterday seems like a week ago but, "didn't I just get off this train?"

It was a beaut of a weekend and there are pictures, but that's another post.

Beijing certainly slows things down even more for me after Boryeong, as I choose to forgo a watch.

Six days in China's Capital, five spent walking across its center -- the bullseye of an ever-expanding ring. Its outer edges are a moving wall of Chinese humanity that no longer knows whether it's looking inward towards Mao's mausoleum at Beijing's geographical heart, or outward toward quite the opposite. Billboards advertise life outside the city, a little slice of zen for new commuters with highway-bound 'Geelys' who want to feng shui-balance metro business with the space beyond, but who ever heard of burbs in China?

I read somewhere that all you used to hear on the streets of Beijing was the roaring whisper of hundreds of thousands of bicycles, and that the communist-purist Chairman probably spins on his slab of marble when the mausoleum closes for the night.

Day 1: Wangfujing and BeiHai Park

I touch down in China Wednesday afternoon and pass through the relatively lax but crowded immigration at the airport. The first sight I'm greeted with is a group of eight or so Austrians in full lederhosen. Beijing automatically feels many times more cosmopolitan than Seoul and it's immediately clear to me that I'm a rarity, not because I'm white, but because I'm the most basic kind of white - North American. Europeans are the name of the day in Beijing, especially the Eastern Euros packed tightly in line all around me. I listen to the babel of a myriad of languages, none of them English.

I drop my bags at the luxurious China World, which is to be home base for three of five nights, and take the subway five stops into the center to Wangfujing, Beijing's famous shopping street.

Dior and Tiffany next to Ten Fu's Tea. For as long as I can stand not to buy anything, I'm in surrealist shopper paradise. I leave the bustling pedestrian broadway, cross the Donghuamen Night Market. Its food stalls are empty but stand ready to heat up dabing (steamed buns), Mongol/Muslim infusion lamb kebabs la (spicy) or bula (not) depending on your taste and tiny candied scorpions or deep-fried delights and sichuan hot plates. I pass through the East gate of the Forbidden City and hold my breath as I cross in front of the southern entrance, the 'Meridian Gate', staring straight ahead not daring to let my eyes have their fill of imperial China just yet.

I stumble across a bar named 'What?' along the western wall just outside the opposite gate and decide it's my place -- I'll be back on Saturday evening.

Northwest of the Forbidden City, Beihai Park feels one part amusement two parts history. A several-tonne blue jade urn is the centerpiece, the massive sole survivor from Kublai Khan's reign. In the shadow of a towering white pagoda, under twisting Cyprus trees and staring at the lazy carved dragons churning their way around the bowl in detailed splendor, I'm easily transported.

I stop along the lake to watch an elderly man gently practicing caligraphy on the stone road under the willows, waltzing with his meter-long brush, dipping it in and out of a tin can of water and returning it to the pathway with long curling strokes as languid and captivating as a flashing koi in a pond. Wish I could read it.

The lily pads of Beihai

At the top of the islet in Beihai, Beijing behind me note: I apologize for low-fi pic quality, but I did Beijing with a disposable cam. This is all you get!

My friend is detained in Shanghai overnight. Check-in is arranged regardless, and I pull back the drapes in a huge suite overlooking the hollow spears and iron struts of the soon-to-be new headquarters of China Central Television. It'll be the tallest building in Beijing. Besides these few towering monsters, Beijing's skyline is as demur as a long silk sleeve, but her ambitions are palatable. In no time at all the selfsame view will reach glimmering, more startling heights.

Day 2: Tiananmen and the Forbidden City

I'm beginning to love the Underground Dragon, Beijing's sprawling metro, reminiscent of the TTC in its [non]complexity (go east, go west, go up, loop back) and just as damned hot and crowded.

Tiananmen is boiling. There's no shade. It's the largest open square in the world. I could fry rice on the stone. Mao Zedong's mausoleum is closed for dead-guy upkeep, so I'm forced to skip the ritualistic 'filing past the body' and settle for pausing to stare at his wonderfully turgid expression in the infamous (and very Kim Il-Sung-y?) portrait tribute on Tiananmen Gate.

Mausoleum

Far-away Gate

I love this, because we both look like goofs trying to pull off a nice picture even though we were forced into this by her parents. They also took several shots with their own camera. It would not be the last time a Chinese family would ask me to pose for pictures with their kids. Apparently the posing-with-a-white-person shots are de riguer for Chinese tourists visiting their own capital to prove, in fact, that they'd been there.

I don an 'auto-guide' -- a GPS one-eared mini-tour headset, and step up to the gate I passed the day before, let out that breath I was holding and wait for Roger Moore.

At least my guide book said my 'auto-guide' would be the voice of Roger Moore. Liars! Instead it's a purring Chinese woman. I pretend it's Michelle Yeoh and all is forgiven.

The Imperial Palace, aka the Palace Museum, aka the Forbidden City was isolated from the world beyond its gates for over 500 years (death penalty for uninviteds). It's now so far gone in the other direction, it's happily violated daily by thousands and thousands of tourists (not to mention tarps, scaffolding and scores of renovation/restoration equipment currently in the rush to beautify for the Olympic games).

Still, it knocks me over.



It's hard to put this, but it seems like I've seen so many good rip-offs of China that even all the verifiable authenticity still set off Disneyland cliché alarms in my head.

"You can't be serious, golden dragons? Concubine palaces? Bas-relief Chinese characters and blue and yellow tile? Aren't you going a little *over the top*....?"

While listening to the purring possibly-Michelle Yeoh spell out hidden meanings and intricate details I resolve to nickname my next washroom, "The Palace of Heavenly Purity."


Day 3: Temple of Heaven Park

If the last two days had me stuck in the tourist trap, Temple of Heaven Park is my relief.

Before 9am, it's Beijing's retired workers' playground. Over 350 hectares of squat juniper forest cover and long grass. It's the place to come to see large groups seamlessly practicing Tai Chi in slow liquid unison. Small men swinging largish ping-pong-type paddles keeping bobbing balls aloft to music, a dance-partnership between man and object. And little old ladies with swords.



I sit and listen to off the cuff choir practice, watch tango lessons and find shade.

Then I fall down the stairs of the ceremonial marble 'round altar' and bruise my ass. Best bruise I've had since I fell down that ravine snowboarding back in high school -- I took a picture later with my cell phone. No you can't see it.

The Temple of Heaven itself, what the park is named for, is Beijing's iconic structure. It's not original of course (really, those giant timbers were brought over from Oregon for the current incarnation back in the 1800s), but still imposing.



I end the evening watching the angry Chinese hosts of heaven getting pissed at the Monkey King (Sun Wukong) for drinking all the Dowager Empress's wine and trying to kick his monkey butt back down to earth to no avail. Don't you know the monkey always wins? Beijing Opera is truly a theater of the eyes, with acrobatics thrown in for good measure.



I couldn't get a picture in the dark terraced theater (very much like a Chinese version of The Globe), but this one of Sun Wukong, the Monkey King, on wiki is actually from the same show I saw.


Day 4: The Great Wall

I bid adieu to my friend at the China World and board a tour bus to the Mutianyu section of The Great Wall.

We pass the soon-to-be Olympic Village, National Swimming Center ('the cube') and the Olympic Stadium ('the bird's nest') en route.

Before too long, a cable car tosses me out at a parapet on the Great Wall.

I'm awestruck. This is the Great Wall, the one and only. There is no other!

I sit on the stairs where the breeze filters through small defense gaps and take in the scope of it, shaming myself for only being able to climb about the equivalent of about a mile and a half.

These stairs go straight up.





Looks almost like I'm alone here -- the Great Wall at Mutianyu is known for its sparse crowds.

I crash land back at my new diggs for the first night, a tried tested and true international hostelling spot, meet some friendly Germans and head back to 'What?' across Tiananmen in the warm dark. I'm treated to a Chinese alt jazz/funk band while a handsome German regails me with stories of pissoirs in Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam and his awful realization of the most notorious and noxious toilets on the planet: those in China.

Kites everywhere in the square. Honestly, it's magical. They stretch up into the night, some even disappearing as they trail off into the ever-present haze hanging over the city.

The hutongs (alleyways) come alive in the duskiness with food stalls, open doors, vendors and party-goers. Go ahead and buy jade for a dollar, eat like a king for fifty cents or feel like a million just to be there.


Day 5: I just walk.

I go out the door, pick up some fresh produce to go exploring the culturally significant remains of Beijing's hutong life.

These alleyways crisscross the center of Beijing and they're hundreds of years old. But as goes progress, they're fading into history at the rate of 10,000 homes a year, not that I actually see any hutong homes; they're hidden just out of view behind large round red double doors. But the Beijing I both imagined and could never have imagined is here, snaking in and out of the open doorways and tight squeezes.

I pass a wheelbarrow, home to two bunnies munching cabbage and peering wide eyed at me. A little boy screams excitedly as I approach and hides behind his mother's skirt as she and I laugh. Gurgling babies waddle haphazardly away from stair-perched communities of mothers in standard Chinese baby uniform -- assless baby chaps -- not necessitating a concern for helping out with potty time. I'm engulfed by incense clouds at a temple with an 18 meter-high Budda statue reputed to be carved from a single piece of sandalwood. The smells make me dizzily peaceful. I can't find washrooms that have walls or even sinks for that matter. I am physically stopped and heavily abused by street hawkers who want me to purchase fireworks, t-shirts or oddities calling, "cheapa for you! I givea discount friend! Lady, you lookie, you come my store!" I watch fresh chive-stuffed dumplings steam on a contraption off the back of an old man's bike. I'm invited to play hacky sack with what seems to be a cross between a tiny set of symbols, a badminton birdie and a beanbag being kicked with expert over-the-shoulder skills by a group of middle-aged women ("hello, you try?"). I dodge the big barrel-gutted Chinamen in their wide-open snoopy-print pyjamas, beers in one hand and cellphones in the other or shirts pulled up to their armpits in personal air conditioning mode -- I stifle laughter, but it's me everyone is staring at.

I close out my last night with a cheaper-than-cheap watery Yanjing beer (official beer of the 2008 Olympics) at picnic table down the hutong behind our hostel with fellow travelers.

A few taxi, plane, subway and bus rides plus a short sprint later, I'm back in the mountains.

Chinatown will never be the same.

Sorry, I'm barely back and already busy with snotty-nosed summer camp kids. And somehow it's more stressful than regular classes, because these kids definitely do not want to learn when there's summer vacation to be had just beyond their reach.

I'm also really tired of the internet. It's becoming an inadequate excuse for human contact with all of you at home (just now?). I'm not knocking it, I'm just craving some more face time since I had touch of it this holiday.

Not much more of this...

Edit: As Mom thankfully pointed out, this post sounds bitter, I wanted to correct this by pointing out that I mean 'snotty-nosed summer camp kids' in an endearing way, seriously, I like these kids, even with their snotty noses!

From the moment I left Jeongseon, the sun beat down the scenery to the tune of 30 degrees or more and I couldn't hide - like some giant kid with a magnifying glass had intent to light me on fire. I came back this morning to a downpour in the mountains, and I'm so baked, I'm like a too-hard fortune cookie. I just want to stay in bed and let the rain soften me up. The rainy season is having it's last sputtering coughs. When it's through and I've kicked the travel legs, August will be great here with the sun finding its fervor again.

Beijing posts coming soon!

Mark Palermo

Is a genius. I always say that, because it's true.

This is the movie he shot last summer. The trailer is dope and I'm positing it here with his permission. He cast me in a really wicked cameo, see if you can spot my backside!

baozi ahoy!

Tomorrow I leave for Seoul and on to Boryeong for Korea's famous (or is that infamous?) annual mud festival. The event lasts a week, but Sam and I plus friends will hit it on the weekend.

Apparently we have to wrastle. I'm going to kick some ass.

Sam, if you're reading this, it's on.

Monday and Tuesday will see me exploring Seoul's more touristy monuments - the war museum is a big draw. No kidding! War, art and summer palaces and in that order. Time to see what Korean heritage has to offer - they've got a lot more of it I'll need to let soak in. And speaking of soak, I heard about a seven-story bath house [jjim-jil-bang] in Seoul I should give a naked-test run.

Wednesday I'm off to Beijing.

I luckily got an invite to stay in the Shangri La World, a luxury hotel near Beijing's World Trade Centre with a friend. The offer's too good to pass up.

This is what the hotel looks like:



Wowza. ("How risqué!" quoth my mother.)

The choices were endless when I started planning summer vacation. It broke down like this: Tokyo would be the spiritual trip (I imagine, in a futuristic way), China is the cultural option, and Thailand would have passed for pleasure. Culture wins, so I'm headed to the gateway of the Orient.

In the meantime, it's swelteringly hot and in between steam showers here in the mountains I can't even get my clothes to dry, so I haven't been posting much, sorry for that. Worse to come -- for the blog I mean, I'll be MIA from the internets starting tomorrow until the 24th-ish. Please don't think I've crashed the motorcycle and died, I'm just riding a slow boat to China and back. I'll take lots of pictures.

On the menu: The Great Wall, Tienanmen Square, The Forbidden City and Peking Duck (called 'Beijing Duck' by the Koreans not surprisingly).

All this and as my brother points out, that Beijing-alleyway dim sum specialty, cardboard-steamed buns. Delicious!

sincerely theirs

I had to think of something creative as a final project for my wicked smart middle-schoolers before summer vaca, so I had them send me e-mails.

I gave them some basic guidelines; the message should include a greeting, a introduction, a picture and explanation of that picture, a closing paragraph and a sign-off (you'll notice how cleverly they picked up peace and cheers from me).

Everything I found in my inbox, I loved (I sent them all thoughtful replies), but here's a cut-and-paste version of the best of the rest [sic].

hello Sarah My name is Shin sang hyeon I write e-mail to send a picture. Do you see the cat? This is very cute. I want you to like this picture. Okay Bye Riley PEACE~!!! Sincerely Sang hyeon Hi. My name is Shin jong-won. Do you know me ? I'm sending E-mail to you to give a picture. This picture is Winter. There are many trees. Many trees is cover of snow. It is a very beautiful picture. Isn't it? Do you miss your contry? I know that you're trying to teach us. I appreciate about that. Peace.!! Hello, my name is Joh se rin i"m in the your class Why Am I send this letter Becuase I want to you see the this picture It is kind of pasta it's from italy it is very delicious I think you eat this food You're very happy Bye sarah piece hello sara i am kyung kyu how are you i think you happy isn't it i like sara because sara is funny and getly you like me? and you very teacher and you very good girl i wish you happy bye. [no picture] dear salah. hi teacher i'.m your student Lee Dong Hyun. i want show this picture for you. this picture is motorcycle. i will buy this motorcycle. i know you have a motorcycle. i envy you. have a good vacation.^^ Bey~~~ Hi,serah. My name is Hong Yeon Jae. I letter because it's fun. This picture is Super Junior. Super Junior is Korean singer. They are handsome. Ha Ha Ha . See you next time. hi sera my name is hwa-yeong i was learning your teaching do you know 김치(kimchi)? kimchi is korean food korean own food it looks very delicious and spicy when many foreigner eat kimchi,they cried. becausr it is very hot but i never cry i don't taste spicily it is very delicious what about you? i want to listen your thinking cheer! Dear. Sarah Hi.Sarah I am boreum. How are you? Ha Ha Ha I write you this mail Because this class is last class and I send you funny picture The picture has animation character The character looks like funny. Sarah I want you to reumember me Sincerely yours. boreum

I'm going to Seoul this weekend for a quick visit.. back to mountain grass next week.

I finished the last puzzle in my Sudoku book tonight! I even did all the 'tough' ones!

Oh my God, what the hell am I gonna do now?

over the lips and past the gums, look out Beijing...

I joined a few Jeongseon local ladies-who-lunch for coffee and snacks with a side of English at 'Sand Day' (they serve sandwiches) at the request of someone from the Education Office.

I was explaining some Korean dishes I've tried: bibimbap [rice bowl with egg], so kalbi tang [beef rib stew], twoeng-jang-tchi-gae [soy bean paste soup], of course kimchi, and my huge fav - dak kalbi [spicy chicken BBQ with cabbage and eraser-sized pasta-esque rice cakes] just to name a few.

"You speak Korean with a mouthful of water," one of the women laughed.

News! I'm psyched to be taking my vacation to Beijing next week (among other places - more on that later).

I bet I'll speak Chinese with a mouthful of rocks.

Qǐng dǎ biǎo pronounced something like 'ching dah b-yau' means, "please turn on the meter." I've heard Taxi drivers in Beijing enjoy themselves a good scam, so I'm armed.

Dak Kalbi makes me salivate - it's a Chuncheon City specialty (capital of Gangwon-do) that's been adopted as a province-wide staple.

convincing?

I wasn't there when they decided to put my name in the hat, but I was there when they pulled it out. Maybe they didn't think it through all the way.

The 'lottery' was the end-of-semester gift to all teachers. "I've never won anything before..." I thought. I always think that during a draw. There were thirty or so prizes though, each growing in size to the finale, lots of chances.

And surprise - I did win. I won the last prize (and consequently one of the biggest): a nice new mountain bike, honestly. Chincha [really]!? Then they made me give it away while I was still in disbelief over having won it in the first place.

"You don't need it.. do you?"

Being cornered like that is embarrassing. I almost said, "well who really does need it?" But the Canadian in me stepped aside, a wry fake smile the only thing giving away my mixed confusion.

I guess I didn't need it. I just didn't want them to take it away because I'm a foreigner - not *really* a part of the whole but a token - because after looking at every angle, that's the only way it breaks down.

I reached into the pot and pulled out someone else's name. I wonder if he needed it? No one asked him.

Whatever, it's just a damn bike. I'm not five-years-old.

I don't want your stupid Korean mountain bike anyway!

Some days are good days, some days are they-took-my-bike-away days.

garby rocks packages from home

I'm wearing the shirt, treating myself to a facial and halfway through Hanranhan's crap Tokyo novel already.

Better save some for later.

I loves you!

done gone

Sunny breaks mean temporary relief from the heavy rains and an opportunity to hit the road (decide where you're going later).



OMG. I am a traffic cop (linked to a slightly less pulling-you-over version).



I'm not out of gas, swear. The gas gage just doesn't work.
Gas-a-plenty, the scenery makes the ride.



I realized after taking this picture that the gorgeous view behind me I was going for is partially obscured by a middle-of-nowhere outhouse. At least if this was about me having to pee, Korean outhouses are male/female (linked to big res). Canada doesn't even have random outhouses. We have to learn by example here.



This isn't the only cow I saw.



Here's the other cow.
I know. They look identical. I promise they're two different cows.



Self portrait with cow.

Don't think I've never seen cows before. I've just never had the chance to hang with Korean cows before. FYI: they're the same. Or as is universally understood by my students, "same same."



In Korea, you can get around in the latest in newfangled European autos, on Vespas or motorcycles. Or on this ride-on Korean plow.

It's cool though, I want one.



Gangwon-do is thick with mountains, and the only passable roads are laid across intersecting river valleys. The valleys are fertile, desirable land for a farming family that's willing to cultivate upward. Deep mountain crevasses are hollowed out as Gangwon fields spread upslope where they can, natural vegetation on the mountain rocks eradicated as plows take to the sunny broadsides of the valleys.

I mostly wonder how the farming equipment gets all the way up there.

Families with farms are subsidized 500 Won (about 50 cents!) per 1.8 meter plot of farmland as long as each plot is devoted to the cultivation of certain product - rice, cabbage and other vegetables often get star treatment.

Because of the incentive, farms in Gangwon cleave to the heavens where they can find more land, but always at a cost. The monsoon season brings river water to a standard high, excessive rainfall means damage, while catastrophic rainfall can mean.. well, catastrophic damage. Flooding leads to landslides.

While the family farm in this image [above] isn't building upwards toward a mountain peak in the extreme I've seen (they haven't actually got one), they're still taking a risk. The only access road to their plot is already flooded to the standard level for monsoon weather and it's only early July (monsoons abate in September). I saw two SUVs fly by me, negotiating this water-laden expanse in the span of just five minutes. But so far they're getting off easy - their problem's just a puddle. Excessive damage means this road will be impassable. Catastrophic damage means it won't be there at all.



A traditional Korean family burial site.
Usually large burial mounds accompany shrines, but I couldn't see more than one obvious one here. The site was by the side of the road with no visible entrance in or out.
I really don't know... serene though.





Every, and I do mean every, kid is riding one of these skateboard-surfboard-in-line-skate type dealios that I can't name and can only liken to the culturally ill-fated xlider. In this pic however, an full grown man is riding his xlider-by-any-other-name down a hill that also happens to be a highway.

Then he fell off.

This shit went down in the span of two minutes while I was talking a picture of the burial ground. Lucky there wasn't your typical dwarfish Korean transport truck rumbling up shortly behind to cream him.



Look closely at the sign. Pyeongchang lost out to Van City by only three votes last run, so they've got what some consider the leading bid for the 2014 Winter Olympics.
I'm in the area. If they get it, you can be sure I'll be filled with 'I was there' statements for everyone. The vote goes down just days from now.





Steeped in river valleys and surrounded by mountains, national highways either go in, around or through. I shoved the camera down my shirt on a timer to get this shot for you.



Your rear-view will never be the same.