My food poisoning had subsided by the time I’d boarded that morning, heading from Chungking to Chengdu via the high speed train. Originally when we were at the train station buying the tickets, we thought that the robotic ticket dispenser was a genius idea compared to waiting in a big line for the ticket window. Little did we know that robotic son of a bitch would screw us over by getting us to think we had seats next to each other with sequential numbers, when in reality the two seats were cut between different sections of the car. Not only did I get cut off from my friend but I had the pleasure of sitting in one of those annoying seats with the back to the front of the car, looking across at two other guys who were staring so hard at me I thought they were trying to steal my soul. A few minutes after the train lurched out of the station I felt like He-Man after kicking Beastman’s ass when my friend came to inform me that the seat next to him was vacant. I blew a kiss goodbye to my soulmates and spent the rest of the morning staring into the smoggy, hilly farmland of Sichuan at 200km/h.

We were staying at the Chengdu Mix Hostel, and it was pretty generous because it provided us free pickup from the train station via taxi. Now I may be comparing apples to peacocks here, but if you stay at the Peninsula in Shanghai, they charge 2500rmb to pick you up. Sure they may pick you up in a Rolls-Royce Phantom, but I mean, it costs infinitely more times than Chengdu Mix Hostel’s service. You just can’t argue with infinity…unless you want your formulas to explode. But enough about Iranian scientists.

We spent the rest of the day exploring the city by foot, bus and taxi. Now I want to make it clear I’m no fan of temples. I recognize that they have some cultural importance and are handy for the odd human sacrifice, but honestly, you’ve seen one you’ve seen em’ all. I’m especially repelled by the fact that they usually want ridiculous admission charges to see boring poorly re-built designs that looks like all the others. Add in all the tourists, and I avoid the places like a Justin Bieber concert. Chengdu gave me some exceptions to my rules when it provided a couple of decent temple complexes (Aidao Nunnery, Wenshu Temple and Qingyang Temple) and that were cheap at 5 to 10rmb, devoid of tourists, and somewhat unique in design. They even had people praying instead of the typical junk sellers that congregate at these venues.

Lunch was some authentic Sichuan street food at a place that literally was a hole in the wall. I’m not talking smack here, it looked like the kitchen had been fashioned out of a mortar blast from the civil war. The food was real tasty and lived up to it’s spicy reputation. Although I was still skittish thanks to my experience in Chungking, everything seemed cooked properly and nothing caused me severe or debilitating pains. Dinner had us in a rustic but clean and new hotpot restaurant, because I missed out on it in Chungking. We ordered the dual pot system, with a spicy and non-spicy broth and thank god for that. The spicy broth was so incredibly tongue numbing, after trying it I couldn’t taste anything. I mean, it doesn’t hurt, it just removed all sensation from my mouth. So would someone please enlighten me on what the point of it is, if you can’t even taste the food? It’s like going to a concert and setting the volume so high that you go deaf, or buying a porcupine instead of a pet dog, or going to watch a play and the actors pull out real guns and start shooting the audience right in the eyeballs. Jesus. Maybe the whole experience is some Chinese post-modernist experiment on consumption, like “if your mouth doesn’t feel anything, are you really eating?” Anyways the non-spicy bowl was yummy, plus the quality of all the stuff they gave us was seemed to be above Toyota grade, so overall I would go back.

After the hot pot we took a stroll through this hyper-touristified pedestrian area called Jinli Ancient Street. It reminded me of Qianmen Street in Beijing, or any of the other recreated old style pedestrian districts that have been appearing like boils over China’s urban skin. In a delicious twist of irony, the only thing I find these “ancient” streets useful for is the Western modernity that inhabits them. Starbucks, Dairy Queen or any number of restaurants selling burgers and Italian food are always guaranteed. I suppose the people watching can be mildly entertaining, but if you really want to check out the freaks, hang around the train station for a bit.

Fast forward to our last night in Chengdu. Nothing says awesome like finishing a bottle of vodka while wandering around the central business district and hanging out in Tianfu square while the place swarmed with military police. Sampling the nightlife in Chengdu was a little bit like sucking balls. Not that I would know. Or that that’s even a bad thing. It’s just something I wouldn’t want to do again, personally. The nightlife in Chengdu that is. I heard it was supposed to have more bars and clubs than most cities its size so I had my preconceived notions. While there was a few clubs and bars playing music that wasn’t by Lady Gaga, the patrons of said bars were as wank as…papa-razzi. Case one: My friend walking across an empty dance floor to the bar when another patron walks by and coldly crosschecks him. Case two: At another bar some random comes up to me and tells me that he makes more money than I’ll make in ten lifetimes, and then walks off. Also some guys as white as snow dressed as if they just finished filming a rap video…from 15 years ago. We wound up going to some Chinese clubs identical to the ones we saw in Chungking, and everywhere else in China, where we met a few patrons who were quite accommodating to us in sharing some booze. It’s funny how that works out.

The next day I flew back to the beautiful bubble of modern westernization that is Jing’an and lived happily ever after. There’s probably a ton more stuff that I should’ve seen in Sichuan, but the traffic was so bad and the pollution so thick that the hours stuck in a tourist bus to see the blurry whatever it was wouldn’t have been a wise investment of my time. You’re probably wondering what happened during the daytime of second day because I fast forwarded through that part. I’ll give you a hint, it rhymes with PANDA ORGY.

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

Ok, for those who don’t know, in Japan they have these places called hostess bars/clubs. You go to them, you sit down and you drink with girls (the hostesses). Yep that’s it. There might be some really shady places that operate differently but that’s not par for the course. For some reason Qingdao and the neighboring Huangdao have a plethora of these places. I can’t really figure this out, because there just aren’t that many Japanese dudes lacking in balls to go to real bars.

Yes. I have been to one. When you walk in, you’re greeted by a bunch of girls who will escort you to a table usually surrounded by shoulder height walls to give you some kind of false sense of intimacy. You’ll then be given a menu which upon reading you’ll be shocked to see that all the prices are for glasses and not bottles as the numbers would have you believe. Oh yeah and you’re expected to buy the girls drinks too. You’re probably thinking why the hell wouldn’t you just go to a bar and pick up ladies the old fashion way… using a drink spiked with rohypnol?? Well, I suppose if you’re a cranky old Japanese man with lots of dough, and a shriveled wiener, it would be more fun to piss and moan about your boring salaryman job to some Chinese university students pretending to be classy Japanese babes while you try to get hammered on 12 dollar drinks.

So as I was saying before, there’s a whole whack of them in Qingdao, and for some reason beyond the comprehension of man, they intrigue me. There’s gotta be about 20 in my immediate neighborhood that I walk by every day, and I’m completely mesmerized by them and occasionally their contents. For me it’s like driving to work on the highway and seeing some massive signs with random objects like pogo sticks and turkey basters but with obscure subheadings like “Tomorrow is yesterday’s future” and “Magic trombones kill”. One neat thing about them is their exteriors. It makes them look like a secret ninja club. That is, if secret ninja clubs advertised their whereabouts by large booze adverts, gaudy colours and names like “Loves You”. I’ve thought way too much about them and I’ve come to the sociological conclusion that they look the way they do cause Japanese businesses here tend to get pooped on whenever Sino-Japanese relations go down the crapper (both literally and metaphorically). Windows sure make good target practice for all manner of projectiles hence the speakeasy look. It’s ironic that by trying to be low key, they actually stick out like a hot Scandinavian model at a sausage party. Part of the allure is not knowing what’s going on in there, so it’s a little annoying that nothing is what’s going on.

I went for a walk and took a bunch of pictures of them so that you have an idea, these were just the ones near my place in Hong Kong Garden, there’s lots more smattered about the city. The ones in Huangdao that I saw on my brief visit there a while back were on sketchy side streets, and also had much lower key look with peep windows and security cams. According to one of my Japanese friends, Qingdao and Huangdao have some of the most well known hostess bars outside of Japan. I can’t vouch for the veracity of this claim, but judging by the number of them and the fact that I’ve never seen them anywhere else in China to this degree, there must be some kind of funk going on in there.

I’ve asked my friends about them, and they don’t really seem to care or have an opinion on them other than the fact that their customers get robbed blind. I suppose if you use money for toilet paper, they would be worth checking out. Just know that if you don’t speak Japanese or Chinese, it’s not going to be a very conversational time and as such, I would recommend forgoing the destruction of the mystique and instead heading to nightclub, which coincidently I will be elaborating on next…dun dun Duuuuun….