In this edition of my travels to famous Chinese tourist meccas, I present to you my do and don’t guide to visiting the famous Karst Limestone mountain area of Guilin/Yangshuo.

Do: tell your driver to take you on the Bamao (巴茂) highway to get from Guilin to Yangshuo. It offers endless views of the karstic mountains and lush green farmland you could eat up like a salad. Because no one else uses it, your driver will be able to see if his Santana really can make the needle hit 140km/h.

Don’t: let your driver take the provincial highway to get from Guilin to Yangshuo. It’s basically two lanes of giant trucks crawling along 40km/h that everyone else on the road is playing chicken with in order to get one position ahead. It also costs 30 kuai less than the fast highway. But takes an hour more. So if there’s 12 of you traveling together, and you do this, your time is worth a whopping 2.5 kuai an hour. That’s what I’ll pay my legions of peons, when I give them a 2.5 kuai raise.

Do: stay in one of the many chilled out resorts on the outskirts of Yangshuo. Other than being family run, having great service and food, clean rooms with internet, they’ll also remember your name every time they greet you while you reply back with an embarrassing “oh hi……you”.

Don’t: stay anywhere near downtown Yangshuo. It’s a giant swirling vortex of watch! bag! dvd!, shitty tourists, dirty hippies, “western” food and probably even some god-damned nazis. If you have to go, wear a cape and a mask to confuse the hell out of everyone, and bring some bear repellent just to be sure (I heard it works on them nazis).

Do: make sure to arrange all your transportation in advance of leaving wherever it is your staying. Best bet is to hire a driver for the times you need him, like when you’re so drunk you decide to go swimming naked in the Li river with a bunch of naked chicks, who are actually just your clothes that are floating away.

Don’t: expect to be able to hail taxis and pay a metered rate. Supply and demand rules here. Actually demand rules, and supply is its little bitch. The open air taxis are greedy blood sucking vampires. They will stop at nothing to pick you up and bring you somewhere at a grossly inflated rate given the vehicle they are transporting you in will probably break down and go out Hiroshima style on its way there.

Do: eat Guangxi style Chinese food. The chicken soup puts the chicken back in soup. Not that it ever left…well it tried to, but that’s a story for another day. A good restaurant to check out in Guilin is: 祥云居 in 鲁家村. You can find that on 桃花江路.This is a real deal local place, you won’t find it in the LP or Frommers. Once you get there you have to walk across a dam to get to it.

Don’t: bother with the western food in Yangshuo. If you want garbage save yourself the time and go straight to McDonalds. Although it might be a little hard to find.

Do: take a boat cruise down the Li river from Yangti to Xingping and have your photo taken in the famous spot that’s rendered on the 20Y bill despite it being as ridiculously cliché as throwing a penny in a fountain and wishing for world peace or eating dog meat in North Korea. Just watch out for pirates.

Don’t: take one of the big ass cuise boats down the river. They’re noisy, too fast, and akin to trying to take in Route 66 from the back of your grandpa’s Winnebago when you could be in a Cadillac drop top. I would also like to mention that almost every one I saw had a naked dude washing himself in the back of it. Ass pirates. True story.

Do: go exploring into the towns and villages along the river if you can. There’s all kinds of ancient buildings still standing, random chickens doing that thing they do, and well adjusted locals that don’t seem to mind you scoping out their hood.

Don’t: not go to Guangxi. The scenic beauty is something you should never not have the impossibility to lack the chance to see in your lifetime when you aren’t busy not trying to figure out all these double negatives.

Just a couple weeks ago I ran into some time, money and a travel buddy, all of which I don’t normally have. Seizing the opportunity like a walrus presented with a beachball, I grabbed tickets for a Xiamen Airlines direct flight to Chungking.

We arrived well past dark on our first night, so the only thing I noticed while driving into the city was walls of concrete apartments trying their best to do a Kowloon imitation. Being so late, we didn’t have any time to try out the famous Chongqing style hotpot, so we opted for street food. The options consisted of animal parts you would only eat if you were starving to death. The parts of said animals that usually take up most of the animal (i.e. the meat) were unsurprisingly absent.

I opted for some noodles and a few sticks of bbq’d mystery meat. Tasty and a little spicy it was, but my tongue wasn’t about to chop off its leg Saw style to escape. We sampled both local beer varieties and came to the conclusion that 3% alcohol and carbonation does not a beer brew. In fact, if I had to guess, I’d say they were both bottled with water straight from the Yangtze River. They certainly tasted like it. No I haven’t actually tasted water taken directly from the Yangtze, but I would extrapolate that if I did, I wouldn’t be writing this right now.

After our quick meal, we went to give the local nightlife a try. After making our way through a few places, we settled on one that looked identical to all the others, had the same identical layout inside, but was playing some western pop music instead of the campy trash that they normally deafen you with. I ordered us two Heinekens for 30 kuai a piece, the only things on the menu that weren’t some form of Chivas. At that point we were trapped. For some reason it took 10 minutes to get the beers (apparently the beers aren’t kept at the bar?!?!) During this time, the music quickly denigrated into the same steamy crap that we heard at the other clubs. I’ll honestly say this wasn’t the first time, and nor the last time for me to be fooled like this. I have a secret fantasy that one days these clubs will grow up and play music that you can dance to, drinks will be served by the glass, and there won’t be 5 guys dressed in rainbow panda suits jumping around on the stage to a techno remix of happy birthday.

We found solace in a lounge the club at set up near the entrance that was separate from the main room, where there was plenty of space, big comfortable couches, and the volume permitted regular conversation. Of course none of the clientele was enjoying this, everyone in there was passed out drunk or crying about relationship woes. My friend and I stumbled across some employment applications for the bar, and began to humorously conjecture applying when we were accosted by some boy who couldn’t have been more than 18, shitfaced and trying to practice his English. I’ve been through this kind of conversation more than once, knowing full well it was nothing. However, if a guy came up and started by telling you how handsome you were, and asking if you had a girlfriend, you’d probably guess otherwise. Giving him as boring and as unresponsive yet inoffensive responses as possible seemed to work in temporarily repelling him, but we knew he’d be back, so we made our break back to the hostel.

The next morning my welcoming present from the city of Chungking had manifested itself, I had food poisoning. Despite this, I still trudged around the city feeling like a sack of rotten potatoes both days I was there. I have my suspicions that it was actually a niacin overdose from the UHT milk I bought that morning, because I never drink that filth, and we all know how good milk is in China, but who knows, I was biased from that point on.

In terms of urban geography, the city is unlike most Chinese cities in that it’s laid out over the mountains. On a map it’s deceiving, because what looks to be a 5 minute stroll, is actually a 400 foot climb up a steep set of stairs followed by a bottle of beer to cool off, then another, then falling back down the stairs and waking up trying to figure out where you are exactly.

The architecture of the city is abnormally tall, mostly dreary concrete apartment blocks that reminded me of Kowloon. Ironically, the infamous Chungking Mansions in Kowloon closely resembles most of the buildings in Chungking. I’m not sure if that’s coincidental, or some genius thought that copying either would be a great idea. If it was the latter, I hope that guy is wanking with Gaudí and Le Corbusier in hell.

In true budget backpacker fashion, we thought about visiting some of the sights, but just wandered around the city parks and the downtown square instead. Observing the casual lives of Chungkingers, we noted that they enjoy playing majiang among other card games, sitting around doing nothing, and harassing us with ill-pitched hellos. We did manage to check out the Three Gorges Museum, whose massive concrete and glass crustacean shaped structure is completely unavoidable in its position adjacent to the square. The museum is worth checking out, mostly because it’s free, but also because some of the exhibits inside are pretty decent even by my goosey standards. You will also come across some hilarious dioramas as are mandatory per the People’s Committee for Museum Excellence’s fifth plenary session.

We stayed at the Yangtze River Hostel. Although on the map it looked like a good location, you really have to get around the city by taxi, there’s just no other way. You could walk, I mean, that’s another way, but the air pollution was pretty awful and you’d succumb to respiratory illness and die. So like I said there is no other way. Speaking of air pollution, the view from the patio of the hostel would have been magnificent, overlooking the river and the opposite bank. The only thing you could see was some rectangles drawn in MS Paint with the blur filter in Photoshop and added a tint of orange. The people working at the hostel were great though, super helpful and kind, definitely better than what you’d find in a motel, hotel holiday inn.

So, the consensus was that Chungking rivaled Riker’s Island for places you should visit. With this in mind, we quickly decided to grab tickets for the Chungking-Chengdu Express and head high speed to the heart of Sichuan, to peruse pandas and to savor some spice.

I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what these were, all I know is that they’re all asking questions related to the family planning policy of the PRC. Are they some diminutive form of propaganda or what?

Japan is world renowned for being oddly unique. I mean, when you ask the average 20 somethin guy in America what he knows about Japan, he’ll probably mention used panty vending machines, tentacle rape anime and game shows where the object is to humiliate the contestants in the most bizarre way possible. With this in mind, whenever I go to Japan, I’m always on the lookout for that kind of wacky shit, but to my dismay, all I encounter are staid salary men, surgically clean cities made up from a limited number of grey rectangular shapes and organization that would fill a Teutonic engineer with jealous rage.

So there I was, minding my business in the magazine section of Yodobashi Camera, eyes shifting from one fashion magazine to the next. All of the sudden a giant bacon cheese burger jumped at me from amongst the litany of glossy men dressed in painted on jeans. No really. It was an actual magazine devoted entirely to the divine creation that is the burger. The mag was called “别册Lightning”, it’s a magazine that thoroughly covers different topics every issue like Hawaiian shirts, old tennis shoes, and vans with pop-up roofs. Sandwiched in between its pages were some photos so thick and juicy, if food porn exists, this perfect 10. This mag was so deliciously awesome I decided to scan a few of the pictures to give an idea of how much ass it kicks.

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again, the Japanese are pros when it comes to taking something the West does and doing it even better. I’d get lynched if I said another country did burgers better than the States, but damn, just look at these pictures and tell me with a straight face that the Japanese can’t cook a tasty burger.

The cover. In America if they had a cover like this there’d be lawsuits from people trying to eat the damn thing.

Don’t forget the French fries…

After reading this post I predict you will do one of two things:

A) Run to your nearest grocery store/butcher/farm and get you some beef.
B) Become a vegan.

[update: sept 1 2009] Just stumbled across this beautifully mouth watering website with hilarious vocals.

Ha! Too bad you can’t read any of it. I know the clever ones will quickly jump to Google Language tools to get some sweet machine translation action going on, so I’ll save you the trouble by posting it below. You’ll notice that it seems to start off well, but as with all my creations, things quickly go south.

My favorite Chinese dishes
Now I do not have a favorite Chinese dishes, but I have a favorite type of cuisine. I think China could very good barbecue is good some West dishes. Last year I came to China. After a night to a bar, my friend introduced me, a simple food. Immediately I really like the. It’s still a little bit of fresh taste very hot. Many foreigners do not like spicy food. But I like spicy food because my mother is Burmese she done me a lot of spicy dishes. Another reason why I like barbecues… Very cheap. I could go in the restaurant barbecues, food, drink beer and only spent 20 yuan. Barbecues in Canada is also very tasty but too expensive.

When I eat barbecue I never buy: 10 Series lamb, five strings of meat, two strings of garlic, a bread, and a bottle of Tsingtao or Gill. Occasionally I buy: String potatoes, pork Series, and rice. Rare Series with my children I drank pot liquor. I know your thinking, you think I am crazy. On! I am crazy.

When I and my friends eat barbecue, we have to the same restaurant. I just do not know its name, but there are very good food. Because there Qingdao Olympic Therefore, the government should close down the restaurant. They think that the restaurant too soiled. Wrong! They are not clever. I think this restaurant no problem. You! The barbecue restaurants continue to open the door because they increased.

I heard barbecues from the Xinjiang best. I do not know if my information on or wrong, whether I intend to Xinjiang to eat there very famous skewers infants. I ask you to join!


Funny thing is, most people don’t actually eat them, just the act of giving them is part of the tradition. In fact once upon a time some enterprising individuals repacked some old mooncakes from previous years and sold them anew. They would have gotten away with it too if it weren’t for some meddling foreigners who happened to eat them only to later to be found dried and curled up in the fetal position off Hong Kong Road. Moral of the story, if Chinese people don’t eat it, neither should you. A good idea would be to bake some of your own fake mooncakes and carry them around with you this time of the year, and when you’ve found yourself in a situation where people are expecting you to eat pull the old switcheroo.

So today being the mooncake festival, I’ve decided to combine two important chinese traditions, fireworks and mooncakes. Unfortunately, I don’t have any fireworks, so my microwave will have to suffice. You’ll notice that there are two Chinese characters formed into the top. They roughly translate to “xiang chun” which in your English equates to a surgeons general’s warning about cancer and other ailments. What begins as an attractive looking hockey puck slowly transforms after being bombarded by the nuclear rays of my high powered microwave. After 5 minutes of a internal searing, the little plastic dish the cake came in has melted flat and there’s plume of smoke billowing out of a rupture in the center. My apartment now smells of vaporized ass death. Here are some pics.

Some would say I have to much time on my hands. I would disagree, in fact I don’t have nearly enough time to conduct all the microwave-pastry experiments I have lined up. You can’t argue with science, or ironically, death.

The greatest thing about this whole mooncake worshipping deal is that no one is around, the city I’m in is as dead the body in my freezer. I assume all the Chinese people have gone out to the country to some big pit for a ritualistic mooncake burial.

Another interesting yet pointless fact: I wrote this entire post on my cellphone while waiting for my steak and noodles in a deserted restaurant. Also I made the whole thing up, except for the part about me traveling back in time and saving all the puppies from the Titanic. Oh, and that 50 cent mooncake really did get incinerated.