A part of my excursion to the nation’s capital during the Labour Day weekend was a little side trip to the recently refurbished Qianmen Street. Qianmen means front gate, cause the street runs right in front of the front gate to a certain infamous square and the Forbidden City.

Naturally I picked a day of the unholy trinity of Chinese holidays to visit. Instead of something that should have taken no more than an hour, I spent several wading through the unwashed masses as they enjoyed their holiday being yelled at through bullhorns, remembering which red hat wearing group was theirs, and admiring the 4.3 million sq. feet of soulless granite that makes up the TAM square.

It’s a long pedestrian walking street with two fake electric trams running along it. How exactly are the electric trams fake you ask? Well they’ve got the junk on the roof to hook up to an electrical wire, not unlike what you’d see on the streetcars in Toronto. In this instance however, there are no electrical wires running along the street. So this leads me to the conclusion that either the Chinese engineers have mastered the art of making things turn invisible, OR the trams are powered by nothing but the self-fulfillment of those engineers.

The architecture along the street is starts off in the nouveau Qing Dynasty style popular in Chinatowns the world over, and oddly it fades as you head down the street into this dark boxy modern stuff that I haven’t made up my mind about. It’s as though whoever was building it started off all traditional, with lots of details, then started to run out of time and money, so they decided to throw a bunch of rectangular shapes together and hope for the best. I don’t think it looks horrible, but the context is messed up. Just like using the font from the title of “Their Will Be Blood” for the invitations to a baby shower.

I read somewhere that this street was supposed to be open in time for the Olympics last year, or that it was open in time for the Olympics. Either way, if by open they mean the buildings are finished and devoid of life, then I guess it’s certainly open. The only buildings that had tenants were a large H&M store and a China Post office. While walking down it, I saw a side street that signs of commercial activity in the form of trinket shops, but it was also full of people, and narrow, so I dared not venture into that heart of darkness.

Qianmen Jie could be awesome. Instead of putting in banal corporate retail and chain stores, they should fill the street with nothing but bars and discos, and the odd strip club or massage parlour for good measure. It’s got a central location, but it isn’t near any residential, so noisy drunks aren’t an issue. There’s an adjacent subway station, and huge avenues filled with taxis and busses to transport the winos to and fro. Plus the Great Hall of the People (aka China’s parliament) is only a stone’s throw away, so the customers are already there!

Qianmen Street Yea or Nay?

If you’re in the area because you’re checking out the square, the Forbidden City, or Mao’s waxy corpse, then it might be worth a gander once it actually has stores. If you’ve already been to Beijing and seen all that stuff, then it give it a pass, in the same way that you’d pass on competing in a log cutting competition that used logs of poop instead of lumber.

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Like most utopian paradises, China has a strict visa regime in place to make sure that the undesirables are kept out. Just slide by your local expat dive to see that it’s working super awesome, just like everything else the central government plans. The process of applying for them isn’t difficult; it’s that they’re about as useful as a severe case of hemorrhoids that makes them such a pain in the ass.

Let’s examine the different visa classes together shall we?

L Visa

The L visa is mostly given to tourists and people coming to visit relatives. The L stands for “Loser” as in you will lose massive amounts of cash from everything like over priced entry tickets, to detour prone taxi drivers, to ridiculous gifts you will have to bring for your Chinese relatives. These visas are normally limited to between 1-3 months of time in China, and most of the time you’ll only get one or two entries on them.  Because of their lucrative nature for the government, they are widely available and easy to get. Just head to your nearest Chinese consulate or embassy, fork over some dough and a mugshot or two, and you’ll have your pass into the largest walmart in the world.

X Visa

The X visa is what is given to students before they come to China. The X actually stands for “X-Ray”, because X-rays are a critical part of the battery of health tests foreign students will need to undertake on return to their home countries after consuming massive amounts of dodgy street meat, fake booze, and breathing too much air while playing ultimate frisbee. These visas are usually good for 3-6 months stay in China, and are generally converted into residence permits on arrival, which allows for unlimited entry and exit. They are harder to get, as you need to apply into a Chinese University program that allows foreigners, and generally pay a whole term’s tuition up front before being given the visa (5000-10000RMB). Remember, once you’ve lined the pockets of the dean with money to spend on Russian classmates that you will see on the attendance lists but never actually in class, they will forget about you. Hound those bastards like you’ve just been released and you’ve got bees in your mouth, and when you bark they sting people.

F Visa

The F visa is the bane of my existence. The F could stand for many things such as “fallback”, “foreigner” and “fool” among others. I however like to think it simply means “fuck”, as in, you’ll be fucked around perpetually if you have this visa. It’s supposed to be good for stays in China from 6-12 months, and have multiple entries. Getting them is sometimes easy, sometimes impossible, and sometimes both depending on your space-time coordinates in the Chinese singularity. Getting them outside of China usually means providing a stamped invitation from a registered Chinese company to the consulate, but within China there’s a slew agents that can do the dirty work for you. And it is dirty. The problem is that the people in charge of the rules for these are as consistent as your stool during your first three weeks in this lovely country. If there’s any kind of special event going on, like the Olympics, or this year’s 60th anniversary of the founding of someplace that was founded 5000 years ago (one of the greatest mathematical conundrums mankind has faced), then all bets are off, and it’s anyone’s guess as to how much it will cost, how many entries you’ll be able to get, and how long it will be useable for. They’re usually the most cost effective visas to get, and as such are perfect for hippies, miscreants, and other nutjobs who want to love China long time. Be warned though, your attempts to get this visa will rape your soul and leave you crying naked in a dark corner somewhere, hopeless.

Z Visa

The Z visa is a visa given to people who are coming over here on a contract to work with a Chinese or wholly owned foreign enterprise. The Z is from “Zombie” which is what you will inevitably be transformed into after working in China for any length of time. Getting one depends simply on getting on job with a company that has the authority to hire foreigners. Usually they can only be acquired outside of the country, but if you’re willing to part with the cash, you can save the trip by dealing with agents in Beijing or Shanghai. They’re usually converted into residence permits shortly after arrival in China, are good for one year, and have multiple entry-exit. I know Z’ers may look down on us F’ers, and rightly so. But don’t forget you pay taxes suckas!

J Visa

The J Visa is given to journalists wishing to enter China. Contrary to popular belief, the J does not stand for “journalism”, but instead it means “jingoism” of the Chinese variety of course, which is exactly the type of writing that foreign journalists will have to write if they wish to pass into China on a legit visa. In order to get it, you’ll need to be able to pass a test of taking a fox news report and replacing every instance of “Republican Party” with “CCP” and “War on Terror” with “Harmonious Society”. As a bonus feature of this visa, on leaving you will need to submit all your writings to the Ministry of Propaganda for approval and certification. If it is not deemed worthy, you will be sentenced to a re-education camp in the hinterlands to learn about the fabulous 5000-year history of China (or how to shovel cow dung).

D Visa

The D Visa was a legendary visa, supposedly given to those as a permanent residence permit. It has been rendered obsolete by the actual permanent residence permit, something akin to a greencard. No one really knows what the D meant, but my guess is that it probably means “Dickless”, as that’s what you’d have to be in order to suck up to the government enough to get one of these. The permit is useful for 5 or 10 years, and is multiple entry of course. So how do you get a permanent resident permit? You don’t. The permanent resident card gets you.

C, G, and Other Visas

There are few other visas that are available to special people with special situations. The C visa is for airline hostesses and pilots, and maybe those people who work on boats. Big boats. Size matters. I’m almost certain that the G visa is has been killed by transit visas that are issued on arrival in the big airports of Shanghai or Beijing. There’s also visas that you can get in Shenzhen that are good for a few days, or hours, or whatever the case may be that limit you to the Shenzhen area. I’m not entirely confident that I could provide you with an answer that vaguely resembles my horribly skewed concept of factual information on how these work. Diplomats also get special visas, but seriously I doubt you’re the American ambassador to China and you’re coming to this blog to find out how to get it. If you are…God help us all.

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I didn’t really get to do any tourist stuff the whole two weeks I was in Italy. Instead I just ate food and stared blankly at rocks. The one day I went to Florence, I didn’t even get to see David, they were too busy washing washing his balls or some such.

I did get to spend a couple of hours in one particular tourist trap where I had more fun watching the tourists than checking out the attraction. These are the fruits of that little excursion. I also gotta give credit to my man the Fat Hash Narc Fen for giving me the idea to take out of context shots.

So where is this? Oh…right.

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I recently got back from Italy for work purposes. Not much touring was done, but several stereotypes were done away with.

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In the world, there’s a handful of places you must visit before you die. The Great Wall, The Pyramids, Angkorwat, Machu Pichhu, The Playboy Mansion Grotto, etc. Yet there is one dusty field full of relics that deserves to be on the list that most people have never even seen a postcard of.

About an hour from Rangoon by turboprop, Bagan sits right on the Ayeyarwady river in central Burma. It’s a dusty, sandy desolate place that makes you wonder why the hell anyone would even go there. Well it’s because it probably has the highest concentration of Buddhist temples per square kilometer than anywhere else on the planet. Scattered across the vast desert plain are thousands of mostly abandoned temples like McMansions in America’s suburbs. At some point the Buddhists must have hit some kind of housing bubble, followed by a credit crisis and deep recession thanks to the media giving non-stop attention to doomsayers predicting the sky falling out thus creating a self fulfilling prophecy and one kick ass playground.

A demon water spout used to scare away hippies and other undesirables

The area is divided into 3 main towns. The airport you fly into is actually in Nyaung-oo. The more expensive and luxury hotels are in Old Bagan (where we stayed). They are within walking distance of the temples, but absolutely nothing else. Fact of the matter is that no one walks around to the temples, they’re way too spread out, and it’s too hot. There is also New Bagan, which is farther away from everything, but has some small cafes, places to eat, and some really cheap guesthouses. If you go, stay in Nyaung-oo. It has plenty of internet cafes, restaurants and bars, plus it’s close proximity to the airport makes it even more convenient. If you use Franklin to light your Cubans, and Jefferson in lieu of TP, then by all means stay in New Bagan and hire a car to take you around to the temples.

This giant gold pagoda is actually not a giant bell

Transport around town can be done by bike, horse cart, taxi, and bus. If you speak Chinese you might run into some tourists from Yunnan and hitch a ride in the back of their pickup truck, while touring around all the temples and getting free history lessons. That was our preferred mode of travel. Another method that every single human will insist is impossible is renting a motorcycle/scooter. Apparently the police don’t allow foreigners to use them without special permit, but it seems this doesn’t matter if the person you are renting them from has the right connections (or forms of payment). If you want, head to New Bagan and talk to the owners of the guesthouses there, they should point you in the right direction. The best experience I had was cruising at 100km/h past sweaty faced white guys pedaling their asses off in the sunshine. The Buses are about 300 kyat from one town to the next, and consist of small flatbed trucks that have wooden planks in the back for benches, and metallic roofs covering the bed for people to climb up onto. Be warned that if a jackhammer were a mode of transportation, it wouldn’t be too far from the comfort level of the buses.

A regular, but very delicious Burmese meal consisting of a number of different meats and pickled vegetables

Bike is a decent way to get around if you’re looking to shed some of that weight you’re not gaining from all that delicious Burmese food you’re afraid to try. An important warning however, if by chance you are heading back to Old or New Bagan from Nyaung Oo at night, take the main road, not Anawrahta Road. Although Anawrahta Rd. seems like the better choice because it is generally not used much at all, and it has street lights, those lights turn off at about 10:30pm. We found this out the hard way half way home. It wouldn’t have been a problem anywhere else, but Burmese people have evolved from their environment and possess natural nightvision, and often don’t bother to turn on their headlights even though it’s impossible to see anything. Luckily we made it back without getting flattened, but wrong turns into the twilight were plentiful.

The temples themselves are often deserted with the exception of some random farmers hanging around the outside, or kids reciting memorized English history of the temple they are at. Without forgetting Buddha’s foot fancy, taking off our shoes gave us the freedom to explore the temples as much as we could gain access to. Often we could climb up to the second or third level of the temple through hidden passageways. Within the temples there’s sometimes amazing murals that remind of hieroglyphics or posters in some stoner’s bedroom. They are not protected in anyway and within time I’m sure the oils from people’s grubby meat hooks will eventually destroy them, just like everything else of value in this country. Even though sunsets are hella clichéd, we still caught one decent one after a failed attempt to find a temple we could climb up into. Even though we were stranded in the middle of some dusty field that made riding our 50’s era bicycles rather futile, there was something unreal about it that bitch smacked most other sunsets black out. I pray someone could come along and do the same to the ruling Junta, so that this amazing place might have a chance at kicking it for another 1000 years.

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Had no idea what this massive inaccessible colonial complex in downtown Rangoon was

Rangoon is the former capital of Burma and sits right on the Indian Ocean. It’s rumored that because of this, the xenophobic and paranoid generals moved the capital hundreds of miles inland to Naypyidaw to avoid a possible invasion against a country like the USA. Bad news fellas, you could move your capital to the moon if it makes you sleep better, it ain’t gonna make a difference if Uncle Sam comes a knockin’. Rangoon was once a booming colonial city, and probably a great place to get your opium fix. Thanks to this colonial past, it has some interesting architecture, and an infrastructure that might have been really good a couple of decades ago.

The power only runs part time in Rangoon, so everyone has generators

I guess some Burmese are trying to compensate…

…For their short comings!

Walking through the downtown historical district is done in about an hour or two because it really isn’t much. You can tell much has been demolished. What remains is in a sad state of disrepair. I can’t help but wonder what beautiful buildings lie leveled underneath the independence monument park. I saw only two colonial buildings that are still in mint condition. These were the Strand Hotel, and the British Embassy. The Strand is probably the only establishment in Burma that accepts credit cards, so if you’re looking for a good place for afternoon tea, snacks, or to get loaded on 8-buck drinks, you’ve found your oasis. The British embassy has a library, with lots of books on Burma, as well as uncensored BBC and possibly internet. If you try taking pictures of it from the outside, the guards will come chasing after you and try to force you delete the pictures like they did to me. These geniuses can be fooled quite easily by quickly removing your memory card before they get to you. It’s a surprisingly small downtown for such a large city. They have a population of a about 4 million, but really it feels to be about a tenth of that.

Independance Monument on top of what was probably a much nicer structure

I was almost arrested, imprisoned and tortured for this picture of the British Embassy. Savor it like it’s your last

There are a couple of major pagodas in Rangoon that are worth checking out if marveling at other peoples’ beliefs is what flies your kite. While I can appreciate their cultural and historic significance, in a way they also creep me out, so I only saw the main ones, the Sule, and the almighty Shwedagon.

We got the Shwedagon about 10 minutes before it closed, because other than some stray monks, it was virtually deserted. If you see one pagoda in all of Burma, this is the one you have to see. The stupa is supposedly coated in millions of ounces of gold that makes it look like a giant glowing cycloptic nipple after some BDSM play. Definitely go at night, it looks the best, there are few people there, and you might not be charged entrance admission like us (we went in the wrong doors). My friend got in trouble because even though she had taken off her shoes, she was still wearing stockings covering her feet and that’s a faux pas. Can someone please explain to me why Buddha has a foot fetish? Why do the feet have to bare? I asked a few people, and the answer I always got was, “just ‘cause” without any underlying logic. Junk like that racks my brain medieval style, especially when it has to do with religion. I can appreciate it when there is some kind of back-story, like Buddha spent his formative years in a Nike Sweatshop or some shit. But when there’s no reason whatsoever…well that would be like a culture where people knock on doors with their butts and wear spaghetti as a hat.

The Shwedagon

When we arrived at the Sule, we missed the sign that said foreigners had to go through the eastern entrance (we went in via the north). One of the ladies at the door asked us to pay a donation that we assumed was the entrance fee, so we dropped in $4 for the both of us. The place is actually really small, and there was too many people praying and getting their god on, so after about 90 seconds we decided to leave through the east door. Here someone who had not seen us enter this way demanded that we both pay $5 entrance fee for foreigners. Knowing full well there was no way we were going to pay that much to have made a slight detour through a badly modified temple, we played dumb and walked away. I don’t feel that bad about it either. The donations probably go towards temple upkeep cause they’re paid by locals, but I can see the foreigner admissions going to the government officials’ KTV budget. To be honest there isn’t much to it either, lots of Buddha statues with very kitsch neon glowing lights in the background and lots of modern modifications that sure don’t make you feel like you’re walking through a 2000-year-old temple.

Neon light lameness, at least his thirst is quenched.

The Sule from a distance

Rangoon also is probably one of the few places in Burma where there is anything resembling a western nightlife scene. Unfortunately we didn’t get a weekend there, and only had a Wednesday and Thursday. First we checked out a club that was supposedly owned by some movie star. Can’t remember paying cover, or drink prices, but it was mid-range. it was about a third full and there was …gasp…a cover band! Wow! I’ve never seen one of those before! (Sadly I was unable to determine if they were Filipino in origin due to Burmese people having English ability on par to them) The place died early, maybe 10pm, so it was time to hit up the next joint. We went to some club that was formerly called BME but it changed its name to Racecar McGoosecock or something. Surprisingly it didn’t play a shitty euro dance music mashup like most Chinese clubs, but instead cranked out recent house tracks. The $5 cover was steep but included a drink. Sadly we didn’t get to see the place fill up, but it was worth it to see some of the Burmese youngns act a fool.

A common streetscene, people drinking tea and chewing on beetlenut

Public transportation. These were the nicest public buses I saw in the country, most were just pickup trucks cruising around with people jumping on and off.

Private transportation. Nazi Mobile or Budhist Buggy, you be the judge.

Sewer system in downtown Rangoon getting it’s maintenance

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Other than those ass-eating generals who run rape the country, the only other thing I loathe about the place is what’s going on with the money. We’ve already established that the government is made up a subset of the human species that is about as nice as genital herpes. The western nations have thus placed “protection” on the country in the form of heavy sanctions. This bars banks, finance companies and pretty much anyone from getting it on there. As a result, it is nearly impossible to get money in or out of the country unless you are physically carrying it. It’s best to keep it in your pants.

Just before leaving Kunming, I was getting ready, doing the planning, I figured, the country only has a GDP per capita of $233 per year, if I bring in say $700, I should be like Warren Buffet up in this bitch. I worked out that at 7 nights, $25 a night on a medium to high end hotel (split with my friend), $525 would be plenty left over for getting around, eating, and maybe even some left over to buy a precious gemstone or three. These optimistic plans of mine could be summed up nicely with one word: fail.

With my rough budget worked out, I thought I was good to go. Too bad I didn’t take into account several other factors that were destined to drain my cash with greater efficiency than a vodka shop opening up in my kitchen.

Just because it’s a poor ass third would country, doesn’t mean everything is dirt-cheap. Most things are more expensive, than they would be for people from other not quite developed countries like China. For example the taxis would routinely cost twice as much as in China, yet in China you can put your feet down on the floor without worrying about causing the car to slow down Fred Flintstone style.

If you’re a foreigner (ie. unable to speak Burmese), Burmese people just assume you’re a living breathing pile of American dollar bills. I mean; I’d love to look in the mirror and see a thousand Benjamin Franklins staring back, who wouldn’t? The guy was a sexy beast. But thanks to this perception, you’re charged at least double for everything. I would be cool with it, because outside Burma, I make a million times more than they do, yet in the small warped reality within Burma’s borders, chances are they’ve probably got more saved up under a mattress somewhere than I do, and I have no way to get more.

When they aren’t charging you double or triple what the locals are paying, they’re trying to figure out new ways to charge you for things. Take for example the airports, where when you arrive in taxi, a guy will quickly run over, grab your bag a bring it to the check in counter 10 feet away. He’ll then ask you for $1 for that amazing service. The first time this happened to me, shame on me, the second time it happened, when I wasn’t even allowed to take my bag, I told the guy to fuck off and was done with it. Don’t take this the wrong way; I’ve got nothing against the common Burmese people, who are all just trying to make a buck. I just think that there’s a line on what you can do to make that buck, and if you cross it with me, I will rip off your head and poop down your throat.

If you ever decide to go, and I know you’ve already heard about this if you’re planning a trip, but I’ll say it anyways, make sure your US dollars are MINT. Even the tiniest tear and they won’t take it. If it ‘s well worn, with heavy creases, they won’t take it. If it’s got certain serial numbers on it, they won’t take it. I find this all very hypocritical, considering most of their money looks like this:

An average looking Burmese banknote.

Finally, the solution to this money problem is simply to bring a suitcase full of it. No seriously it’s probably one of the safest countries I have ever visited. Next time I go I’m bringing like ten grand. Probably the most annoying part about this whole deal was that I didn’t bring enough cash to buy stuff from people whose profits would have gone into their pockets and other people who weren’t the dirty bastards of the government/army/demonic hordes.

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I made it to one of the last frontiers I’ve wanted to travel to over the tail end of the Chinese New Years break. The place? Burma or as it calls itself: Myanmar. What follows are a bunch of incoherent ramblings concerning this enigmatic military playground.

So is it Burma, Myanmar or Pyi-daung-zu Myan-ma Naing-ngan-daw? In Chinese, it’s been called miǎndiàn (缅甸)(remote suburb) since the Yuan Dynasty set it up as a puppet province during its hegemonic heyday.

When the British came along on one of their jolly old imperial journeys, they first went through India, where it was called Brahma-desh or Barma, both were probably derived from the Burmese name Bama. These were taken and eventually mutated into “Burma”, and thus Burma became the English name. Fast forward a century or two, and the military government is throwing a temper tantrum when it finds out through democratic means that the people of Burma don’t really want to be ruled by a bunch of authoritarian douche bags. Some point not long after, they decided to rename the English name of the country to Myanmar, not to distant from the Burmese language name of Myanma that’s been used for centuries.

The problem now is that…well…you can’t just pick your own name! Especially not in a language that isn’t your own! That’s just fucking idiocy. It’s why you’ve got Chinese people running around with names like “Fenwick”, “Colour” and “Sandwich”. Thankfully, the major English-speaking countries have refused to recognize “Myanmar” and continue to use Burma. It should be noted that some media whores outlets do indeed use “Myanmar” hence the confusion.

Personally, I will continue to use Burma, as that’s what my grandparents always used, and being as they were born in the country in question, I think they knew what was what. Alas, when I arrived in Burma, and referred to it as such to the locals, they had no idea what I was talking about, so I quickly started saying “Myanma” in order to squeeze important facts out of them. For example what brand of beer they preferred. Sadly, it was “Myanmar Beer”.

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Tiger Leaping Gorge is a World Heritage Site carved into the mountains by the Yangtze River north of Lijiang. Being a WHS, you better recognize it’s worth visiting compared to those anemic “scenic spots” that every county in China has. Many people go on an overnight trek through the trail system, and wind up either on the Lijiang side, or on the northern side and head to Zhongdian (aka fake shangrila.) With the economic meltdown ushering in a time of fiscal restraint among the populace, I decided that instead of an exhausting 2 day trip that would surely necessitate spending more money on rations than otherwise, we would do the trip in one day, thus saving money for far more important things like beer and strippers. We booked through the outdoor travel agency in Lijiang Old Town and it was 元210 per person. This included the return bus fair, entrance to the site and a Chinese guy wearing a fancy tracksuit that we could follow through the trails, so I would say it was a sweet deal.

The ride up to TLG is a trip in itself. It takes a good 2-3 hours to get from the main square of Old Town Lijiang up to the gorge, depending on how suicidal your driver is. Of course we got the guy that longed to be a kamikaze pilot, in fact he reminded me in particular of a scene in one of the nightmare on elm street movies, where the bus driver (who turns out to be Freddy) just drives a bus full of kids right off a cliff straight into hell. Most of the drive is actually chilled out; you could even catch some Z’s if you were tired from the bottles of wine you drank the night before.

The road of no return

Once through the tunnel at the parking lot where I thought the bus would be stopping, it gets a little loco. Instead of letting us out at what looked like an idyllic place for a stroll through the massive gorge, the bus continued to rumble on through an unpaved road that looked like it was once under construction, but they halted it because too many people fell off the ledge. Lucky me, I had the front passenger seat, so not only did I get to see the dead drop off to the right, but I also got to see the hairpin turns that we flew around in advance. We literally came inches away from the left side tire going off the road on more occasions than I’d like to think about. There was also a couple of times the bus would just stall on these pieces of gravel road that looked like they would collapse into the abyss far below.

my awesome view…straight down

By an act of divine mercy, we somehow made it to the drop off point in tact. The actual trek consists of a short maybe 30 minute decent into the gorge. We then stopped at the narrowest point in the gorge, the spot where legend has it, the gorge dusted off it’s pants, and jumped over a tiger to audition for a part in Circle du Soleil. Hence the name: Tiger Leaping Gorge. Sadly, the gorge did not get the part; it went instead to an Austrian midget named Zwerg.

narrowest point of the gorge

Ok so the name really comes from the obvious, a tiger supposedly outran a hunter by jumping over that narrow part of the gorge. Boring you say? Well allow me to put my physics hat on and lets go through the numbers to look at the plausibility of such a scenario. Now this part of the gorge is 25 meters across. Assuming the tiger in question had zero air resistance (if one of you geniuses out there knows the air resistance of a tiger, drop me a line), and knew that jumping at an angle of about 22 degrees would be the best way to maximize speed and distance (45 is best, but there’s no way to do that without heavily compromising running speed, ask an Olympic long jumper), the projectile…uhh I mean tiger would have to be moving at a velocity of about 18.789 M/s, or 67.6 KM/h to be able to clear that gap. Now adult tigers are reported to have top speeds between 49-65 KM/h so, if our striped friend managed to build some extra momentum coming down the side of the gorge, it might have been just enough to clear it, ignoring the resistance issue. Although there are some other points that could skew it in the Tiger’s favor, for example Tigers haven’t roamed in that part of China for a long time, and taking into account erosion, the original gap might have been narrower. So, the myth busters verdict is: plausible.

The climb up is a little tougher than the way down, but there are lots of rusty old cables running along the way for you sissies out there to hang on to. There’s also two very tall metal ladders that you can climb. I would say the hike is definitely not a walk in the park, but should be doable by pretty much anyone who isn’t in a wheelchair. Fortunately on our excursion, only 3 people died, but they were all eaten by crocodiles. The part we did begins and ends not too far from Tina’s guesthouse, which looks like it would be a decent place to stay if your going for the overnighter. Bring your own food and water. There are some huts along the route, but they, of course, are ridiculously overpriced, and the food is nothing but packaged Chinese snacks…aka chemicals shaped into unidentifiable objects. Definitely a must see if you’re in Lijiang, and apart from our group I didn’t see any of the flag following, red hat wearing tour groups that usually spawn at these types of places. I have to say it was awesome…but not nearly as awesome as chilling out in an outpost of tyranny…Dun dun DUNNN…

I don’t mind tall laders, but I do mind climbing rickety old wire ladders, while about 20 other people climb with me:

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The historic city of Lijiang is one of those places that look so amazing in post cards, no matter how much money you drain on Canon L glass, no matter how well your Photoshop skills can edit Jessica Alba’s head on some porno model’s body, no matter how many grams of mushrooms you eat, you’ll never be able to capture its magic in that camera of yours. There might be a slight correlation between that unlikelihood and how it’s been transformed into a giant tourist trap.

Yes it does eat tourists, and by the thousands. But compared to any other normal Chinese city Lijiang is a breath of fresh air both literally and figuratively. I’m going to admit straight up that I liked Lijiang. From my careful research on the matter, people are polarized on it. They either see it as a tourist inferno, an unending gauntlet of knick knack shops stocked with mass made merchandise straight from the forge of hell, OR as a window into another time and a great place to kick it for the weekend. I fell into the later group because, once you get over the touristness, it’s actually very relaxing, with an endless supply of cafes, restaurants and bars. Even though it’s 100% geared towards visitors, there is a complete lack of the “lOOKa lOOka, WATCH BAG DVD” crowd. The town is well planned, there’s a dedicated bar street that’s in the west end, restaurants and cafes are strewn about everywhere and guest houses, hotels and hostels are in the east. This minimizes the eternal battle between the awesome drunken hooligans and the all-powerful army of people who want to get some fucking sleep.

With the unstoppable juggernaut of modernization, it was only a matter of time before it was transformed into what it is today, or bulldozed to make way for factories and condos. Sadly there just isn’t any money in ancient Chinese towns that don’t whore themselves out in some way. So I prefer it’s current existence to the wrecking ball. I realize that there are some disneyesque qualities about it, but it isn’t entirely fake. For example you still see people who live in the old town washing their clothes in the brooks that crisscross the coble stone streets. The naxi food is different from regular Chinese food in a very good way. I’m not so sure how authentic it is because I’ve never had it anywhere else, but I do know that the Naxi sandwich (with naxi bread, not regular toast) is a badass motherfucker. It’s actually probably a good thing that you’ve got places bling’d out like this mainly for tourism, because it might pull attention away from the smaller towns that want to keep their souls. Apart from the not so real aspect, the only thing I didn’t really like was the inflated prices for everything in the old town. If you’re planning on spending time there, do yourself a big favor and buy all your snacks, foods and booze in the new town, you’ll probably save about a quarter. And you can put that money towards a neat trip outside of the town…like…say…Tiger Leaping Gorge.

Things you should do in the “beautiful river”:

• Eat a real naxi sandwich
• Eat some naxi cakes for breakfast (the ones with honey)
• Try drinking some Salima (drink some for me, my poor bottle was stolen by a penisless taxi driver)
• Take a walk down bar street and wonder why this little city of 300 odd thousand has this many bars and the city you live in of roughly 7 million has less. Cry.
• Chill out in a cafe and drink some Yunnan coffee, then get so wired that you go…
• …rent a bike, ride up the big hill to the north east of the city and check out some REAL naxi houses with courtyards, the real naxi market, and maybe score some real naxi food.
• Dump some bodies in the river and survey people’s reactions as they float by.

Lijiang Airport: Home of quite possibly the world’s smaller luggage carousel.

The two pictures on this door are called “nianhua”. They go up during the new years festival and are there to give good luck or protect the house. The one on the right is General Tao, and he ensures and unending supply of succulent chicken. The one on the right is the Unicorn Prince, he makes sure your unicorn horn isn’t forlorn…if you know what I’m sayin.

Finally a picture of Lijiang new town. The majestic peaks of Jade Dragon Mountain almost keep your eyes from being burned by the ugly, poorly made modern cityscape that’s not unlike any other.

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A friend and I decided to hell with the fact that Chinese Spring Festival is the worst time of year to travel, we passed around the lube, bent over and with big bearing grins prepared for the exorbitant pain prices that we would pay for airfare and to stay in hotels at this time of year.

Our sketchy travels plans were something to the order of: go down to Kunming in Yunnan provinces, get acquainted with the scene there, get some visas to enter the member in training of the axis of evil (Burma), fly up to the fabled Lijiang to experience more tourist stalls per square kilometer than anywhere else in the world, then fly back to Kunming and onwards to Rangoon.

Lots of trees and foliage lined the streets in Kunming making the city like a jungle…if you were to make the buildings, roads, people and cars magically disappear.

Kunming was an administration stop, because I like to do the planning for my vacations while I’m actually on vacation. It adds a certain sense of urgency, panic and stress that make the memories fonder. So while we were running around booking hotels, flights, and filling out the 20 odd forms you need to get into Burma, we only managed to grab a mere glimpse of Kunming. Like seeing a naked obese man roll around in jello, a glimpse was more than enough.

Kunming is a cold city. They call it the city of eternal spring, but I would say it’s more like the city of eternal stupidity for not installing a heating system anywhere when in January and February the temperature regularly hovers between 5 and 10 degrees centigrade. I know this is common in southern cities, but Kunming’s altitude of 2000 some odd meters exacerbates the problem. Not only do most places not have heating (hospitals, hotels, modern shopping centers, airports), but they actually open up all the doors and windows, like saying “hey, our balls aren’t quite shrunk enough, lets make them even smaller!” It wouldn’t have been so bad had I brought adequate clothing, but I was again fooled by the lies of weather reports, when I should have known that it’s always 5 degrees colder, sun means smog, clouds mean rain, and rain means volcanic firestorms of hell.

Kunming does have some nice things. For example, the bird market is a great place to buy birds, contract bird flu, or to get a shiny new bong. Yunnan is poor as shit (3rd poorest province in China), so most food is much cheaper than in the east coast cities. I was able to acquire a proper breakfast at not one, but TWO different cafes, which is an infinite multiple of the number of places where this is possible in Qingdao. Yunnan food in general is very spicy and it seems easier to get a greater variety of foods than in the Shandong. Also worth noting, the people here seemed to be more “arty” or whatever the hell that is supposed to mean. There were more punk/goth hairstyles and fashions and people seemed to be more willing to go against the grain of mainstream Chinese style, which for your information is pure blandness with cheap unnecessary frill.

The traffic situation reminds me of that scene in Terminator 2, where the machines napalm the entire city of LA and all the cars are just stuck with unconvincing looking skeletons inside them, blocking the roads and highways. Despite silent swarms of e-bikes nearly flying into you whenever you tried to cross the street, there were cars gridlocked to the point of making driving a car totally fucking retarded. There’s no subway, and of course buses got stuck in the jam too. Walk you say? We were on a strict budget of time, and laziness would not permit a deviation from that. Every taxi ride would take about 45 minutes even though we were going roughly 3 or 4 km. According to one enlightened taxi driver, this is because of the dearth of highways in Kunming, and that one of the two ring roads was completely shut down for renovations. He also claimed that Kunming has the highest car per capita ratio of any city in China.

Before leaving Kunming, we figured it would be best if we picked up some anti-malarial medicine for the trip to Burma. While I seriously doubted it would come into use, being the dry season and lack of mosquitoes, common sense said it was better to be safe, then to get really sick, die and wind up as a ghost haunting the set of some campy Thai daytime soap opera. Funny thing those Kunming hospitals, because none of them seemed to know what malaria was! The one doctor, who had heard of it at some point in med school, directed us to the center of disease control of Kunming. Once there we were told to go to the 8th floor, where one of the doctors who wasn’t hard at work cooking instant noodles finding a cure for AIDS, told us the obvious, they didn’t have any there, maybe we should try the airport. The airport!? The airports here can barely serve up what some might call food, yet alone a series of meds that would protect one against a harmful virus! Giving up hope, we decided to say no to drugs and hope that the malarial mosquitoes were busy with other people…like certain individuals in Kunming.

Our time in Kunming quickly and thankfully came to a close, and it was on to the ancient Lijiang for old buildings, naxi food, things blowing up, and tigers leaping gorges in no particular order.

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There were alot of these old school styled tea shops selling…tea all packaged weird in traditional style bags. Yunnan coffee was despite its growing popularity, much harder to find.

The bird market!! :

Among the treasures we found in the bird market was this Rubik’s cube for people who are angry at Micheal Phelps, and a store that he might enjoy:

Lotus bulbs

For some reason the fruit was all hideous looking, I mean, look at those shriveled oranges, and look at those…uhh…things:

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Celebrated Chinese New Year’s Eve by doing the same as everyone else here…trying to blow a hole in space time with fireworks.

*
牛 = ox = cow = this year‘s new zodiac.
牛 = niú = sounds like English word ”new“
牛逼 = cow vagina = Chinese slang for ”awesome“.

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The first year I came to China, I got an agent that specializes in helping expats to hook me up. I went that route because I couldn’t communicate in Chinese to save my life, and I didn’t want to be signing any contracts that had hidden clauses allowing a group of senior citizens to practice their tai chi in my spare bedroom on weekend mornings. Turns out I didn’t pay any “expat premium”, and the agent fee was no different from other Chinese agencies around town.

Agents can be useful for a bunch of things. They have data on where tons of apartments are for rent, and can find them faster than you would on your own. There are indeed websites designed to search for rentals, but in my experience they are poorly designed. A good agent should argue on your behalf, mostly because they want to close the deal and get their fee, but also because you are the customer as opposed to the landlord. If you make your requirements clear to them, they will usually see to it that they’re met, or come close to it. Finally, they’ll do all the paperwork, and have contracts pre-written that are mostly in-favor of the tenant.

My strategy to finding the apartment I want is to first find out where I want to live. Then I pick the exact building that I want to be in. With the rental and real estate market overly saturated right now thanks to the economocalypse, chances are there will be at least one unit available in that building. The agent should be able to get you in there to take a look, and if you like it away you go. If you do need heed this advice and pick just some area, or even worse an entire district, you will wind up with some massive apartment on the verge of complete and total failure, with neighbors above, below and side to side who will all be doing renovations involving high volume power tools only at times you have to catch an early flight, are hung-over, or both.

Using this technique recently netted me a decent apartment. First inspection was good. The forties something landlord guy offered me good price, and was going to supply me with all the furniture I needed. Little did I know, despite his ownership of the place, the real owners were his elderly parents who materialized like wraiths at the second showing. It’s funny how friendly they were at first, only to become hostile banshees later on.

After heading back to the real estate office to sign the contract, the demons began to reveal themselves. First, they wanted the deposit to be a number that was perfect sounding to them, so no fours, 250’s or any other unlucky combinations. Of course I agreed, not wanting to offend their foolish but perfectly normal superstitions. Their son took a while to show up, and by the time he did I got the agent to explain that I only wanted to pay two six month terms instead of upfront for the whole year. So much can happen in a year, and if for some reason I need to make like a banana and get the fuck out, I don’t want to lose an excess of rent. Not to mention, the landlord would get to keep the deposit, thus affording him time to find a new tenant. The guy’s mom was already starting to pull the strings, and said was saying this was no good, unlucky, and would end badly. The landlord then offered that the deposit should be higher that what it was, I agreed that this was an acceptable offer. But before anyone could sign the contract, his mom suddenly started shrieking that there was no way he could rent it out, this was totally unacceptable, and that he should find someone else. Just moments early she had been signing praises about how good foreigners were to rent to.

The sheer noise she was making, and the repetitive yelling was not unlike that of a little child complaining about not wanting to eat her broccoli or something. It was just absurd to me that someone of that age would act like that. It’s really hard for me to even put it in words what the situation was like but I just sat there, and listened to this old witch go on. While I couldn’t make out everything she was saying, I did hear a number of slurs leave that old wrinkled cake hole. Finally the guy got up and said that he couldn’t sign it, and they left, without apologizing, but instead the mother continuing on about how what a horrible circumstance it would have been.

Despite this rather unpleasant experience, it was a blessing in disguise. I wouldn’t be stuck with superstitious landlords that probably would have been unreasonable anal goblins. Not to mention, the landlord’s brothers would have been living above and below me, so there very well could have noise complaints, stupid requests to practice English, and the smell of burning flesh of former tenants wafting into my flat.

On my way home in the taxi from this aborted contract signing I got a call from my agent about another landlord wanting to meet about another unit like the one I wanted in the same building the next day. Within 12 hours, I had a new contract, the landlord was in her early forties, was totally cool with six month payments and basically had no qualms whatsoever. Oh yeah and the price was more than 10% lower.

Landlords really are a completely random variable. Renting a new apartment is a lot like playing Russian roulette. Except in the empty chambers, you get delightful chambers to sleep in, while the ones that are full leave a nice gaping hole in your head with your brains oozing on the floor in a big mess that you will have to clean up in order to try and get your rental deposit back.

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It’s about that time of year again, where my rent is nearing expiration and I have to find a new home to live. I never bother resigning a new contract because I always feel like I can do better than what I’ve got, which so far, I have. Not to mention I quite enjoy looking for new apartments here.

Who doesn’t love a real estate agency, where within 2 minutes of walking in the door, they have some landlords bringing you up to take a look at an apartment? Never mind appointments, introductions, names or telling the agents what I was looking for. They just whisked me right up to some random dwelling. That was a stone’s throw away from the agency. As luck would have it, that turned out to be the best place of the day.

The landlords are always so into it, it’s great. They quote you a price, and then immediately say, but if you take it right away we’ll lower the price even more. The first ones I had where a young middle-aged couple. They were nice, perhaps a bit too nice. The guy looked like he had recently gotten facelift, and perhaps addicted to cocaine. He was always wide eyed and had this enormously open smile that I thought he might offer as an extra room in the flat.

After giving the place a good once over, we sat down in the kitchen to go over the details. Immediately the guy offered us all a smoke. Being a non-smoker, I politely refuted, at which point he pulled a half empty bottle of cola out of a drawer(?) and offered it to me instead. I was going to say that I only drank water and booze, but I was afraid of what substance he would pull out of his sleeve next, so I switched the conversation back to the topic at hand.

Even when I’m speaking English, I have a hard enough time with these awkward situations. It’s because I often feel pigeonholed. I like the place or thing that I’m looking at, but obviously I’m not going make big commitments right away. They seemed to think I was ready to sign a contract right after 5 minutes in the place. Really, who rents the first house that’s shown to them? As I tried to be as polite as I could for coming down on short notice to show me their apartment, I couldn’t help but see a sudden dejected look in their eyes when I told them I needed think things over and look around. It was like they just found out that their puppy was beheaded by pirates. Feline mutant pirates. They could watch the highlights on the news at 11. It was back to the drawing board at the agency.

It’s hard enough for me alone to figure out what I want in terms of a place to live, but then to have to explain it in another language to someone who has no concept of my utility-value system is almost a lost cause. Almost. But as it turns out, I still got to have fun practicing my real estate terms in Chinese all day while cruising around in a QQ.

First time in a QQ

As I was being ferried around looking at new and well…not so new apartments, I had the opportunity of having my first ride in a QQ. To those of you from countries where vehicle safety standards exist, the QQ is a diminutive little car that’s ubiquitous here. They’re powered by engines packing a whopping 51 or 67 horsepower, and are the same size as a large bathtub. I have to say I came away impressed. For a car so small, it managed to zip around without too much effort (so there were some points where it almost stalled, more than likely due to the driver) with 4 guys piled inside of it. Speaking of the interior, clearly the Ringling Brothers played a role in its design process, because everyone including myself had ample leg room. The only problem I could really feel was the flimsy construction of the doors, the walls, and… pretty much the whole car. If you get in an accident in one of these things, forget about an ambulance coming to pick you up, you’re leaving in a Hurst. SUVs would fly by us, and it felt like I was on the 401 in a Camry being passed by a Mach trucks. Despite these small faults, it was fun. Just don’t expect me and my homies to be rolling around in one anytime ever.

Despite 5 hours of visiting various apartments and offices in different states of neglect my quest continues. Will I find that royal habitat, fit for a golden goose? Or will I be pulled into the next landlord’s massively gaping mouth to the far side of another dimension?

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My trek to Jingdezhen was realized by way of 8-hour direct bus from Hangzhou after the return from Anji. For those interested in getting there, I would advise against this method. It’s expensive (140rmb), the buses are shit, and for reasons beyond my explanation they play really loud versions of old James Bond movies dubbed in German, with FRENCH subtitles! The hell is up with that? I’m convinced our driver was after some kind of insurance payout, and was actively trying to roll the bus on one of the endless turns through the rural roads of Jiangxi. For a similar experience get a drunken hillbilly to take you for a cruise through Kentucky. There is supposedly an airport in Jingdezhen, but if there is, there aren’t any useful flights available as I spent lots of time trying to find one. The train is the way to go, it’s about the same price as the bus, it’s overnight so you don’t waste the day, and there’s lots of them going from Nanjing and Shanghai, as well as other centers. There’s a shorter bus from Nanchang, but unless you are already in, or going to that void of Southern China, it is useless.

Once I finally got there, it was easy to get in a taxi and find my way to a hotel. It isn’t a big city, so everything is nice and cheap. Jiangxi Province, situated below the Yangtze River is considered part of Southern China, thus making the populace of Jingdezhen southerners. This is one of the reasons I couldn’t live here. You see; southern people don’t like to drink. That clashes with my raison d’etre. Red-faced after one 2% bottle of beer. Unacceptable. The other reason is that unlike in the north where most dialects are very similar to Mandarin the local vernacular down here is what you would get if you tried to learn Swedish, Urdu and Swahili at the same time and then suffered catastrophic brain damage.

Jingdezhen is the capital of Chinese pottery. Unlike many of the places that claim to be the capital of kites, toilet paper, steel bearings or airborne dust particles (for example see Weifang), this place really did have a lot of pottery. From what I could tell, the town was untarnished by the rampant modernism and “progress” that is destroying so many other Chinese cities. It has definitely got the ancient China charm going on. It has that bohemian artist vibe that is sorely lacking in so many other cities in China. You can walk down any given alley in the city’s extensive older districts and come across all kinds of wild pottery, people crafting things by hand, and painting big ass urns that are fit for an elephant’s remains.

I would highly recommend it to anyone, but if you’re interested in ceramic arts and pottery, you’ll be in heaven. It’s a bitch to get to, but I think that’s why it’s still such a great place. If they had one of those D-trains going here, and regular flights, it would be loaded with tourists and tossers.

Funny things I saw:

Guy in the train station was eating peanuts for like an hour all of the sudden jumps up and starts brushing off the shells like he was covered with bees, immediately reminding me of Nicholas Cage in the Wickerman. This made me laugh aloud, freaking out the people sitting next to me.

Saw a stunning uighur girl inside the train station as well. Of course she was married to the dude who played Noriega in the movie blow, aka the same guy who plays the child rapist in Once Were Warriors. Except this dude took it one step further, he got plastic surgery at some point, and when he did, he was like, “listen man, give me Owen Wilson’s nose.” Who the fuck does that?

In lots of places in China, it is perfectly normal to see people walking around in their PJs. In Jingdezhen, they took it one step further and decided to equip for the winter by using that idea, and sewing several layers of padding into their PJs. The end result is a whack of people wandering around in snowsuits that would be excellent camouflage in any room with 70’s wallpaper.
Saw a cow running through the streets, which may or may not have been chased by a bunch of screaming farmers on motorcycles. I say may not, because this was downtown, a good 10 km from any farm, so if they were trying to catch it, they weren’t doing a very good job. They might just been playing some weird Jingdezhen game, like the shit they do in Spain.

I saw more whorehouses than I have ever seen anywhere else in China. The only place I’ve seen more brothels was in Bangkok, but that’s a given. Jingdezhen isn’t a big place, but about 3 of the 4 major streets were lined with them. What’s going on here? Are all the ceramic artists moonlighting as harlots? Or are all the male artisans so stressed from their craft that they need to settle down at night with some cold beers, pack a smokes and a hooker or two? OR maybe it’s just that Jingdezhen wasn’t just the capital of pottery but also of hair salons that are open weird hours with pink lights and lots of done up girls hanging around. Yeah…that must be it.

There were many mysteries in Jingdezhen. For example the picture above. What the hell are those!?

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Here is what the article on Wikipedia (obviously written by some local government lackey) says:

“Anji county is synonymous with bamboo, containing as it does 60,000 hectares of bamboo groves. It has been designated a pilot county for ecological construction. Within its boundaries are mountains and gullies, lush with forests and vegetation. The air is fresh and the river water is crystal clear.”

And this is how it should really read (I’ll be changing it myself shortly):

“Anji County isn’t a synonym for anything, but it certainly has lots of bamboo. It has been designated a pilot county for how you shouldn’t do ecological construction. Within its boundaries are mountains and gullies, lush with forests and vegetation that you cannot see because of the thick yellow haze that offers you the visual experience of someone with glaucoma. The air is about as fresh as a sumo wrestler’s thong and the river water may have once been clean, but we don’t know for sure because they’re all dried up.”

Now before any Anji locals somehow come across this and start dishing out the hate, let me clarify this. The county of Anji is a large place. Smack in the middle of it is the city district called Dipu and surrounding it are some small dirty suburbs. This is where the problem lies. It was more polluted here than in Hangzhou. I saw lots of small factories with chimneys belching out smoke in colours only an acid trip could make you appreciate. Once you get out of this central area, the air does clear up significantly (but not completely) and there are some vistas and villages straight outta the tourist brochure.

My Chinese friend told me that the food sucks in Anji. When you hear this coming from a Chinese person you suddenly long for the Golden Arches like a sinner for Pearly Gates. Thank someone up there, there is a McDonalds and a KFC and their both a stones throw from each other in Dipu. I must also note that in the same building that houses McDucks there is a large grocery store that stocks western booze. Entertainment being non-existent you should make use of this fact, much like we did. Spending the nights drinking in the hotel room and discussing current world affairs was about as exciting as it got. I saw one or two KTV places but I’m not sure if they’re KTV places or KTV *Wink Wink* places.

What to do there

Knowing that most of Anji is labeled as a “scenic spots” and tourist places, you’ll probably want to avoid the damn place altogether. Why is it that these places are always far crappier than what they’re hyped to be? That said there are some worthwhile things to do if you happen to be here for business or just want to escape Hangzhou for a bit. If it weren’t for the silly entrance fees at everything then I could actually recommend this place for people from farther away. These are the places that I checked out.

The Bamboo Museum (Zhúbóyuán/竹博园)

Are you a kinky bamboo fetishist? Or perhaps giant pandas float your boat? Well if you like both, then today’s your lucky day (if your going to the Bamboo museum today that is). I was most excited about this, because I’ve never seen the giant sloths in real life. Thankfully, unlike most of the wretched zoos in this country, their pen appears new and clean. They are also well fed, perhaps too well fed. If you’re sneaky you can go right down underneath and get right up to the cage where the lazy bastard will be chomping away at bamboo. Don’t get caught doing this, or the keepers will feed you to the pandas. For real.

The Great Bamboo Sea (Dàzhúhǎi/大竹海)

This place is pretty ridiculous. First, you need to take a toll-way to get there and it’s 10rmb for like 1 km of road. You immediately turn off the highway and go through the back roads of these little farm towns, which are actually pretty neat in and of themselves. Parking is 10rmb once you get there, even though it’s low season and no one else is there. Entrance is then another 60 rmb. The place has potential to have some nice hikes, although we didn’t have enough time to explore that option. There is a zip cord like and some other dumb tourist stuff. They’ve also built a tower that allows you to get above the bamboo canopy and look around at the encroaching development and beautiful power lines that dot the hazy horizon. It’s actually more relaxing than that, and can be nice, but I was expecting a lot more. I was expecting to only see bamboo for as far as the eye can see and then have some kung-fu masters pop out of the trees and start fighting each other to the death. What can I say? I set my expectations low.

Reservoir up in the mountain(Chinese name???)

I’m not quite sure why this is even a tourist attraction or why we went there, but I guess Chinese people find it interesting. There is a large reservoir built at the top of a mountain that has partially been turned into something of a place to go see. Again its like 40 or 50 kuai to get into and the park is tiny. Not worth the entrance fee, imo. What was worth it was the crazy car ride up through the mountains to get there. We passed all kinds of people cutting down and working with bamboo, and sometimes it proved to be quite the obstacle. So go just for the drive and the scenes it gives you, but once at the top don’t bother with the reservoir park. It’s a reservoir. On a mountain. That is all.
Some good bets would be to get out of the central town and go hiking. I was also told that in the summer there is very good rafting in some of the rivers. It appeared that the water in the mountains was very clean. So that might be worth a try. I can’t really recommend Anji to anyone who A) isn’t in the Hangzhou vicinity, or B) isn’t going there for business. But if you’ve never been to a bamboo forest before, haven’t seen pandas, and enjoy hiking/climbing insane hills on your bike, then Anji might be just the thing your thing. Also if one of your friends happens to have a girlfriend named Angela, and by chance you’re in Anji and they call you, uhhh yeah.

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Longing to emerge from the sooty winter days of Qingdao, I happened on the opportunity to go treasure hunting for some Yuan Dynasty ceramics in the south half of the country in a place called Jingdezhen. Hangzhou was the city I would fly into. A good friend of mine who works in Anji, an hour north of Hangzhou had invited me down numerous times before, and I promised him that if I was ever in the area I would slide by. Going to just one random city in the Chinese hinterlands barely satiates my appetite for chances to see the unknown these days, so I decided I would pay my friend a visit.

The trip started with my usual attention to detail in planning (buying the air ticket the day before and flying down hoping to get the bus/hotel situation sorted after arrival). My goal to rival the Griswolds was realized when things started to unravel as before the plane touched the ground. As is usual practice in China, upon learning that we would be making our decent, I turned on my phone to let him know that I had arrived, landing and radio equipment be damned. I was informed by the kind Chinese robot voice on the line that my phone had run out credit. Fiddlesticks!

You would think that selling cellular minutes like every other commercial establishment in this country would be something that an airport out in the middle of munchkin land would consider. Besides Kentucky fried foul and pickled plums, this place was as useful as “duck and cover” in the event of a nuclear attack. Not having a phone was a problem because I needed to call my friend to confirm my arrival and find out what bus station to go to. Not wanting to be a lollygag around this lame excuse for a modern air hub I jumped into a cab and told him to take me downtown for 100 kuai, where I would presumably be closer to the bus station and I could find a place to get money for my phone.

Since the Hangzhou airport really is out in the sticks, and I didn’t want to waste any more time than I had to, as soon as I saw a China mobile place I told him to stop. The meter read 71rmb, so I got the cash ready and then proceeded to get into an argument about “our deal” for the 100 kuai to downtown. “Well guess what bud, I’m not even close to downtown, and you were on the meter anyways! Go suck on a rotten sea cucumber, ya prick!” is exactly what I should’ve said to him, instead I tossed him the 71rmb and ejected myself from the taxi in haste.

I made my way to the China mobile shop where I bought a 100rmb recharge for my phone. After dialing the number and following the instructions I remained hopelessly without a useful phone. Without trying to look like a foreign retard, and failing miserably in that regard, I asked the shopkeeper for help. They tried a few times, until they finally asked me where my number was from. From Qingdao I replied, and then they said that the recharges only work on Hangzhou ones. Awesome! In times past I’ve recharged my phone all over the country with these same little recharge cards so perhaps we can conclude that China Mobile in Hangzhou is managed by simians. Unable to return the recharge card I had just bought, the shopkeeper directed me to the large China Mobile center that was “Just over there at so and so road.” An hour later and possibly in some kind of Bermuda triangle of Hangzhou, I decided it would be wise to abandon this quest to find the large China Mobile center and concentrate instead on buying a new phone number. This would also prove difficult, as it seems I had been walking for an hour in the direction of absolutely nothing. An hour later I was back where I started and I hit up the first mobile shop I laid eyes on. The nice thing about China is that mobile calling is infinitesimally cheaper than in Canada, and new number can be up and activated for as little as $15.

Once I had finally got all that monkey business out of the way, I was able to get in touch with my friend who directed me to the Hangzhou North bus station, where I was able to board one of the buses that leaves every 15 minutes for a mere 27 kuai. One interesting (titillating?) thing of note about the Hangzhou north bus station. For the first time in China I actually saw on display real deal porno mags, just out in the open on the news stands, no covers or anything to shield my innocent eyes! I don’t know what that’s about but I guess Hangzhou isn’t a complete bust (or is it?!)

Filed under: transport
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Ever wonder what all those Chinese place names really mean? Keep on wondering. Although I’ve taken a map of China’s provinces and some neighboring countries, and translated their names directly into English, you will still be left clueless.

I have to say though, the resulting names are amusing. They remind me of the signs you see everywhere here that appear to be translated by monkeys who had just finished smoking banana peels. People will probably say that some these are wrong, however if you look deep enough into the characters you will find that the translations aren’t just correct, they also predict the future. I see your future is marriage to a large bovine, a life of track-pants and flab sprawled out over the couch watching Top Gear re-runs.

Oh yeah and to the people who are no doubt going to complain about the lack of the ‘Stan countries and Macao, I know I left them out. Macao is the size of Yao Ming’s dick (that sure made you think, didn’t it?!) and the ‘Stans all have like 20 characters in their names that make it really hard to fit into my map. So I’ll give them to you now:

Filed under: obscure
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[update march 09]
Check out this new map to see where everything is! Nightlife MAP

Welcome to the nightlife capital of Shandong Province. Oh god do I wish that really meant something.

The Western Bars

First and foremost, we’ve got LeBang. It’s one of the few places that I consistently go (too often). If you’re a noob in Qingdao, you are guaranteed to meet drunken expats here. It’s usually busy Fridays and Saturdays cause they have an all you can drink deal, and a DJ spinning the retarded love child of house and top40. It is acceptable the first time, but if you go as often as I do, it starts to smell of Vieux Boulogne. The highlight: Seeing drunken eurotrash try to get with Chinese girls and fail miserably, then get beaten up by said Chinese girls’ boyfriends.

Another popular place along the same lines is Corner Jazz Bar. I rarely step foot in there because I can’t stand the crowd of businessmen and Russian hookers that usually spawn after New York Bar shuts down. I don’t know what the deal is with their washrooms but I’m near certain that the mob’s choppin’ up bodies in there. It fucking reeks. Music is strictly top40 pop and some Korean tunes too because that group always has a presence. Doesn’t get busy till about 1am and during weekdays don’t even bother. It’s a given they sell fake booze. The highlight: Hourly catfights between drunk over possessive Korean girls.

Moving along, there’s the upscale Qbar and New York Bar on HK road, both of which are located in hotels. I avoid NY Bar for aforementioned reasons. Qbar has a ladies night on Wednesday that I used to frequent for the booze that I managed to sequester from lady friends. Besides that, it’s too expensive for Qingdao, and although the hip-hop cover band is better than average, they play the same music every night. Also the bartenders WILL try to jack your change; so don’t forget to get it. The highlight: The washrooms. I would hold my crap all day just so I could dump a load off in there. Seriously, it was nicer than my own damn bathroom, and you can high five the bathroom guy on the way out.

Then there’s also OldJack’s, New Jack’s and King’s Head. These three bars are virtually the same: dimly lit, not very large, and populated by old guys talking about, watching, or fantasizing about playing soccer. The pub style atmosphere if that’s your thing. I’m not into these places on account of four reasons: all older people, more expensive drinks, no music, and most importantly no girls. The highlight: Ordering sushi from the place next to Old Jack’s and getting them to serve it straight into bar, and watching as every other barfly looks at you like you’ve invented the wheel.

Finally there are two other western bars worth mentioning. Lennon Bar is a two-floor place that at one time was a full of hookers. The owner or more likely the police kicked out all the floozies and now all that remains is a big empty shell with the Beatles playing in perpetual rotation. On the weekends and possibly on the weekdays there are live cover bands, most likely there will be so few people that you’ll be able to get them to play songs for you instead of the 80’s-90’s bullshit that the musicians have been robotically programmed to play. Charlie’s Bar is across from Soho on Jiangxi Rd. and is similar atmosphere to Jack’s, but they have more reasonable prices, younger crowds, music and open bar on the weekends. The highlight: Watching the owner at Lennon slowly get drunk over the course of the night and then have to deal with the police showing up for the inevitable “noise complaint” a.k.a. the we need money to support our mistresses visit. Oh and Lennon has really good Chinese food.

The Chinese Bars

If you’ve ever wondered what working in the Chinese manufacturing industry is like, just go to one of the clubs. Big, loud, smoky environments await you. The product is you; the consumer and they want to “make” as many of you as possible. Hence you’ll be rushed to a table and pushed into buying only bottles of liquor, and they would prefer if you’d order 6 packs of warm beer instead of per bottle. You might wind up with a big gay plate of fruit on your table if you’re swindled into ordering your bottle in a combo or special.

On Jiangxi Rd. across from Charlie’s bar is Soho. This place used to be more Western/Korean, but was gradually overrun by locals and morphed into a Chinese bar. The music was once almost exclusively hip-hop, now it’s mostly Asian pop tunes. Some of the dancers are dudes in tight pants and makeup, if that’s what floats your boat (it sinks mine). Actually, it should be barred as counter-revolutionary activity. Drinks are cheap; but they really don’t know how to make anything other than bar rails. The interior is clearly steampunk inspired which I think is hilarious, although it is a franchise, so the owners probably had no idea what they were doing anyway. This is still somehow the best Chinese bar in town.

Right near LeBang, is the former Babyface, which has now become SOS. This bar is the newest of the big Chinese clubs in Qingdao. Take a shipping container full of LED lights, 2 hits of acid and really cheesy tastes you’ve got the interior design of this place. Upon entering you will be hounded by staff to sit at table and order drinks. Par for the course really. Music is sporadically hip-hop, which is why I’ve been there more than once. Almost always it’s garbage technopop though. Not often is it very busy, and the crowd thins out around 11pm.

Further up HK road towards the schools, you’ve got the massive Feelings. This is a large cavern of a dancehall, buried deep under an office building where it belongs. Same shit technopoop that never changes. Same annoying waiters. But this place for some reason or another is always RAMMED with people. I’m not sure why, maybe because it was the first on the block and the club kids here have rabid brand loyalty, or maybe they put crystal meth in the drinks. They do have one of those bouncy dance floors so maybe that’s the key.

Back down HK road, across from Carrefour is Feeling VIP. I only mention this place because people undoubtedly get it confused with Feelings. As far as I know the two are not connected in anyway. If you want to go to one of them (have mercy on your soul) it’s probably Feelings and not VIP. VIP is smaller and not as busy. Although I must confess I once knew someone who would give me a free bottle of vodka every time I went, so as you can imagine, I went often.

There’s other Chinese dance clubs scattered about the city, but those are the three main ones. I wouldn’t go to other ones, simply because they are going to be exactly the same as these three. What you should check out though, are the BEER GARDENS. Yes Qingdao is the home of Tsingtao Beer (captain obvious to the rescue!), and because of that we get some of the best draft beer in China. These places aren’t that hard to find. Just look for courtyards squished in between old apartment blocks, and then look for the giant stacks of kegs and you’ll know you’ve struck oil. You grab a small table, little chairs made for midgets and get your beer on. The price? 1.5RMB for a PINT. That’s 23 cents for 500ML of beer. And this is super-fresh, came from the brewery today beer. Far cheaper than what you pay in the stores for the crappy over carbonated junk, at half the price. You can also order to go, and take your beer home in a bag. Unfortunately these places are only open from late spring to early fall. Another downside? They often close up shop before midnight.

The Korean Bars

Korean bars are a different beast altogether. Thanks to the quarter million some odd Koreans in this town, they add another dimension to the nightlife. The people are mostly students and 20 somethings. They serve a few different brands of Soju (vodka-like liquor at 20%), maybe some sake, and big bottles of Tsingtao. All will be served ice cold. The deal is that you gotta buy a couple of dishes of food depending on how many people you’re with. Good news is the food is all pretty damn good. It ranges from the obvious nachos and nuggets to the more obscure live octopus tentacles that will still be squirming in your mouth as you chew away. Keep in mind that the menus will be in Korean and Chinese without English or pictures. The best bar I can recommend is Yakibar, it’s right next to the horrible sumo sushi in HK Garden. They have good servers who speak fluent Chinese and maybe a little English, but there will usually be someone who speaks English well. They also hook it up with free fried eggs and seaweed. Pure class.

Filed under: booze related
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[updated 04/17/09]

I’m writing this for people living in Qingdao, people visiting Qingdao, and most importantly myself because I can never figure out what I want to eat. Chinese food is good. There’s no question there. The problem is that eating out is a group thing. The best restaurants are made for 4+ people. You know, the big round tables with the lazy susannes spinning, zhongnanhai’s gettin up in ya lungs and white liquor going straight to the cerebral cortex. Sure you can still go to these places by yourself or with a friend, but the dishes are all big mofos and you can’t get a whole lot of styles in your order unless you plan on wasting a load of food. So I’ve put together this list of western food joints that Qingdao has. It is divided into two parts. Places that suck balls and places that don’t. My list will feature ISO9000 approved point form rational to make your selection fast and efficient. And yeah I know there’s the redstar and Qingdao guide websites that will show you where they are, but they don’t list some, and they sure as shit don’t tell you if the ones listed are any good.

Places that suck the kahck

Sumo Sushi

• Absurdly expensive sushi, think 25 kuai for one piece the size of a baby’s toe.
• Serious case of the mei-you’s*
• Service is probably the worst I’ve ever experienced in Qingdao, took close to an hour to get our appetizer despite seeing other people who came in after us get theirs much earlier. We had to sit at the bar because other tables were supposedly reserved; yet no one sat at the tables over the 2-hour course of our meal. Waitresses didn’t understand CHINESE. This is because it’s 100% Japanese owned and operated, and even the waitresses are Japanese. BUT this is CHINA retards. If I were Chinese I would come back to this place with a canteen of gas.
• In fact if you go to this place and give them your hard earned loot, you might as well just pay someone to urinate in your mouth while you sleep. It’s the same.
• Also the food sucked.

Murano

• Unless there’s another place that serves ‘53 Margaux like it’s going out of style this is the most expensive restaurant in Qingdao.
• Pasta tastes about as good as I could make it, which means…bleah
• Service is about on par with any other western place, and considering the price of everything plus the service charge, they should be giving you the soufflé special in the back room for what you end up paying.

Bamboo

• The only so-called thai restaurant in town.
• Food is expensive considering what it is. (30-40 kuai a dish)
• All the dishes taste really bland and not spicy, which is pretty much the exact opposite of real thai food.
• Service is anemic.

Napoli

• Advertises as a wine bar/italian restaurant but inside there is no bar whatsoever
• Pastas start at 80 kuai and taste no better than Chef Boyardi’s bastard child
• I’ve heard from a former employee they reuse food. Nuff said.

Sunshine Grill

• Lots of expensive steaks that can be had elsewhere for less.
• Horribly nasty all you can eat lunch buffet for 100 or is it 120 kuai?
• Pretty much everything else on their menu looks like it’s dying from the bubonic plague.

TJ’s Mexican Food

• This place is to Mexican food as a drunken midget is to porn.
• Prices are reasonable, if you like eating chili powder with a small side of food.
• The Nachos are the only redeeming thing on the menu, otherwise, everything else tastes exactly the same.
• Seriously…to the owner of this place…if you want to see how a Mexican restaurant is done, go to Cantina Agave in Shanghai. Case closed.

Sorrento’s Pizza/JJ’s Pizza/Farmer’s Pizza

• These Korean run pizza places don’t really suck so bad, but the pizza is pretty bad compared to proper North American pizza.
• They all use whack ingredients, and shit quality cheese.
• JJ’s uses excessively sweet tomato sauce.
• Farmer’s uses almost no sauce.
• But they all deliver so that’s all they’re good for.

Vietnamese Restaurant in Hisense Shopping Mall (In the basement level)

• Unreasonably expensive for Vietnamese food, but I guess they have to pay the stupid rent to be in the Hisense mall somehow.
• Considering the price, you would think they could have decent sized portions, but no, the pho bowls were all sized for toddlers. Come on man, it’s just noodles!
• The spring rolls were pretty tasty.
• Most of the menu is just Chinese food, or Vietnamese dishes that have been sinofied.
• You have to ask for hot sauce and oyster sauce…umm hello?
• Try it once if you must, but Yueyuxuan in HKGardens has better tasting pho, and is like a third the price.

Places that DON’T SUCK (In order of awesomeness with the slackers at the bottom)

Trattoria Verde

• Best Italian food in Qingdao hands down.
• The place is small and is always packed so make a reservation or you won’t get in.
• The kitchen is open at the back so you can see the work of the Japanese chef on the go, he’s super friendly and takes care of his customers.
• Prices were once reasonable (Cheaper than Napoli and Murano), but have now inflated to borderline unacceptable levels. Think about a 63% increase in some dishes, that’s even higher than the crazy 10% national inflation rate.
• The most of the specials here are seafood dishes, although you can get steaks and the standard but still delicious pasta plates.
• Ironic that the best Italian food in Qingdao is being cooked by a Japanese chef, while the restaurants with supposed Italian chefs are mostly garbaggio.
• Phone number: (+86 532) 8589-8530
• Address: 100 Shanghang Lu

Cassini’s

• Runner up to best Italian food.
• Recently I’ve been enjoying this place more and more, prices are stable, unlike other establishments, and they’ve got the real deal gelato going on.
• Atmosphere upstairs is Modern, and more spacious than than Tratoria.
• Lots of options, from pizza and sandwiches to full mains. Everything I’ve tried has been tasty.
• Although the owners/chefs seem alright, the waitstaff could be better. Right now I would say it’s just average for China, and if you know, that ain’t great. If it were to improve I think Cassini’s could take the #1 spot.

The Greenery Cafe

• This Guangzhou based chain has a clean and modern interior.
• Similar to Chalon, with lots of western based dishes. Prices are better though. And the food quality seems a bit better too.
• Lunches are a good deal with a healthy sized main dish and dessert for 18-25rmb
• They charge a 2rmb seating fee per person, which although insignificant, would become a serious pain in the ass if its occurrence propagated among middle market restaurants here.
• Located in the mess of a building on the other-side of the street facing Crown Plaza, on the second floor.

Story Desserts

• Interestingly decorated place that focuses on desserts, coffee and vino.
• Desserts are the best I’ve had in Qingdao
• Owner/Managers actually care and listen to their clientele.
• Open long hours from 11am-11pm so it’s good when that sweet

tooth needs a fix late in the evening.

• Located in the old location of Banana bar right next to Amy’s Bakery, on the little street that runs behind Feelings Nightclub.

Chi Nuan Lian Izakaya

• Best Japanese Izakaya in Qingdao.
• Open till 1 or 2am usually.
• Not cheap, but not too expensive depending on what you get.
• Super special udon and soba recipes that the Japanese chef stole from a samurai ninja warrior right before he chopped off his head with a ginsu sushi knife.
• Like two doors over from LeBang, wooden exterior, and you’ll know you’re there when a life size ULTRAMAN greets you at the door.
• 19 Chenghai Yi Lu. Phone 8593 5719.

Fatema Indian

• Very tasty Indian food.
• Good variety of dishes.
• But ssssssssssssslllllllllloooooooow.
• Also a little on the pricier side. (250 kuai for 2 people). But they were up till recently the only Indian place in Qingdao thus they had monopoly control and very well could have been feeding us PEOPLE dressed up as Indian food.

Barocook

• Very cheap Korean fast food.
• I enjoy the chicken burgers or toasted sandwiches for 7-9rmb, also massive chicken cutlet for only 25rmb.
• Open late on weekends.

LeBang

• Two for one pizzas on Sundays is good, but I’ve since eaten one too many.
• Sandwiches are also good.
• Prices are reasonable but have been slowly creeping upwards just like everywhere else.
• The bar has a good selection of Pernod and Vodka, and that’s all me needs.

Pyongyang

• A NORTH KOREAN restaurant.
• Real live North Koreans serve you food. But don’t trip over the chains attached to their legs.
• Pretty much tastes like any other Korean food place, but with a novelty factor to the power of 63.
• See my previous post on it here.

Yueyuxuan (越饫轩)

• Good Vietnamese food in Qingdao.
• The only Vietnamese food in Qingdao.
• Pretty cheap considering its “exoticness”.
• It’s on Zhangzhou Er Lu (66 hao) in HK garden very close to Baskin Robbins.

Celena’s Chocolate Bar

• Cafe/dessert place located in the Aushotel at Yan’an Rd. and Hong Kong West Rd.
• Very clean and modern design. What this actually translates into is chairs that feel like they’re going to launch into space.
• Prices are expensive and portions are small, so basically you’re just paying to be on the set of 2001 Space Odyssey.
• Japanese fashion magazines brought back memories of Doll’s Kitchen…unfortunately they didn’t have Egg.
• The food itself? The chocolate is all top notch quality. The waffles were a bit on the sweet side for my tastes, not to mention doused in chocolate sauce, but if you like sweet things, you can’t go wrong here.

Monnemer Eck

• German/Bavarian what have you, I don’t know?
• Has lots of sausages and potatoes.
• Good German beer on tap that’s a nice switch from Tsingtao.
• Prices are good, maybe 50 kuai/person.
• German people are friendly when they’re drunk.

May 4th Diner

• It isn’t a diner.
• But it does serve food that can be very tasty.
• And sometimes not so tasty
• And sometimes the service is very good
• And sometimes the waiters have their heads stuck up their asses they resemble popple dolls from the 80’s.
• But more often than not it’s still pretty good.

JUSCO

• Jusco is a large mall type complex on Hong Kong middle road at Fuzhou South Road.
• It is owned by a Japanese corporation, and as such is filled with a cornucopia of Japanese products and restaurants.
• In it, you will find some good Japanese restaurants all priced very reasonably.
• Be warned however, Jusco also contains an outpost of the unholy army of Ronald McDonald, and a food court that is most certainly owned and operated by MSG companies.

Japanese restaurant across from DaNiang dumplings 2nd floor jusco

• My new favorite place inside of Jusco.
• Very good quality pork cutlets, and more food than you can handle for 25-40rmb.
• Never too busy, so it sure as hell beats standing in line for Aijisen.

Aijisen(in jusco)

• Ubiquitous Japanese noodle chain restaurant.
• Very cheap.
• Usually decent tasting but not amazing.
• Usually pretty fast unless you order something unusual, like deep-fried squid infused with goose liver flown in from the Bermuda triangle.

Japanese place opposite McDo’s in Jusco (Sorry can’t remember name)

• Interesting pancake/burger like things that I can’t really describe.
• Cheap and will fill you up.
• Very tasty potatoes.
• Supposedly Osaka style according to my friend…who’s from Osaka.

Istanbul - Turkish in food court of IGO

• Good Turkish food.
• Very cheap.
• You have to get one of those stupid payment cards to buy food there.
• The location is so absurd for this type of place it’s sure to be bankrupt in a matter of months.
• The chef is Turkish, but can only speak Turkish and German, no English, which makes me wonder how the hell he gets along in this country considering the only two languages spoken are Mandarin and English.

Chalon(in jusco)

• Japanese western food, made by Chinese people.
• Lots of meats that don’t cost an arm and a leg.
• Very consistent quality and service.
• Good fall back plan when nothing else suits.

Kalinka’s

• Russian place behind mykal.
• Food is decent. Although I can’t say I’m really into Russian food.
• They used to (or may still have) 30rmb lunches that were very good and were like 4 courses.

Pasta Fresca Al Salvatore

• Italian food.
• Best pizza I’ve had in Qingdao so far, although that isn’t saying much, it was still up to Dominos level.
• Prices were about the same as Napoli or LaVilla so think about 100-150 per person.
• Didn’t try the Pasta, but I’ve heard it’s decent.
• For some reason it always seems empty.

LaLuna

• Italian/French type food.
• Service was good, food was good.
• Price was a bit cheaper than its sucky counterparts.
• Might not be open anymore because the mob might have shut it down in a gangbanger shootout where the french owner was heard yelling “SACRE BLUE!” before transmuting into a frog and hopping to his safety???
• update: definitely no more

Your Mom’s Place

• I love home cooking.

I will also be adding and updating to this list as I remember and try out places, or when I get really bored.

* For those that don’t know the mei-you’s or 没有 is what the waitress says when they don’t have what you want. It literally means, “no-have”. Normally excusable, it can get uber-frustrating as often half the things on the menu will be mei-yous. I can deal with it at Chinese places because they all have like 300 items on their damned menu, but when it happens at a supposedly upscale western restaurant…heads roll.

Filed under: quick guides, things i ate
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