Born Slippy

(Yeah, this is late. Very late. I'm facing internet censorship, infrequent computer access, and a serious lack of writing time. So, these will probably trickle out, in bits and pieces, as soon as I can get them written & posted.)

In many ways, my trip through China has been getting better every day: better weather, better experiences, better luck. That is, until I reached Kunming.
Kunming was shit. We arrived at midnight, checked into a small, dark room with no adjoining bath. Slept. The next morning, we had our plans for the day almost immediately dashed when we discovered that the Stone Forest ("First Wonder Of the World!") was actually too far away, overpriced, and not that great. So, we decided to visit a lake. The weather was miserable. We waited an hour for a bus, on which I was pick pocketed for $50. Hyangmi was furious, more so at me than the pickpocket, as she had warned me about keeping money in my pants pocket before. The pocket had served me well up until that point--it had a zipper--and it was my money anyhow. But anyone who's ever been in a relationship knows that all the logical arguments in the world can't save you once a woman is good and pissed, especially when she's right. So we walked, angrily, by a brown lake under a grey sky until we had seen enough shacks full of garbage to head back to the hostel.
An 8 hour night(mare) bus awaited us that evening. What was called a "sleeper" bus consisted of a Chinese action movie being blasted for the first two hours (speaker directly over my head), another couple of hours of loud talking, cell phone music and chain-smoking, followed by a military-like awakening for a bathroom break (blind and freezing, I gave up on trying to figure out which reeking hut was for men and peed behind the bus) and the next 4 hours tossing and turning in a cramped bunk, clutching my belongings, trying to will myself to sleep.

By comparison, my first day (which was pretty shit itself) seemed not half bad. Hyangmi's family saw us off at Jeju airport. Her mother gave us bracelets and told me to be happy, get rich, and be good to her daughter (Hyangmi translated). Hyangmi's 98-year-old grandmother had said similar things the previous week (several times, actually), after she had been reminded that she was indeed 98--not 88, as she had guessed--and exclaimed, "Oh! I'll be 100 soon!" Hyangmi's Jeju connections paid off immediately as one of her friends boosted us to first class. The flight to Shanghai was only 1 hour, but it was raining heavily when we got there. This wouldn't have been a big deal if there were any taxis available. There wasn't. So, we spent the next 3 hours wandering the rainy streets of Shanghai, not knowing where to go, or how to get there. This would have gone on much longer had Hyangmi not asked a hip young couple for help. These two would be the first of many almost unbelievably helpful Chinese we would encounter on our trip. They led us under a bridge, where we could get shelter from the rain, and proceeded to run all over the intersection attempting to flag down taxis for no less than half an hour. We finally got one, and after an initial "no" the Chinese couple (along with Hyangmi's pleading) finally convinced him to take us to our hostel.

We woke at 5 the next day, wanting to catch a bus, half an hour away, departing for an Ancient Water Town at 7. The first bus was at 8. We failed to beat the crowds, which, along with the continuing rain and touristization, nearly spoiled the otherwise lovely "Venice of the East" We did manage to find some solitude, in a trendy little cafe overlooking one of the cities many canals, where people boarded gondolas to be taken around the waterways. The coffee, however, was awful, and when I tried to take out my camera, a waitress told me, "No picture here." After spending a couple of hours in the parking lot, waiting for our bus back, we returned to Shanghai. Our first stop was an art district that Hyangmi wanted to check out, which turned out to be pretty cool. Loads of nice shops, restaurants, and sights packed into a bundle of narrow, stylish streets. Then, we took the subway to see the famous Bund and Shanghai skyline. Blade Runner's Los Angeles may have been inspired by Osaka, but with it's skyscraper-sized digital billboards and constant rain, Shanghai can certainly give it a run for its money. It is a place at the same time historical, retro, and hyper-futuristic. And while the tops of the tallest buildings were obscured by fog, the impact of the cityscape was no less huge.