Ma Da Zhuang

Bananas and Beer

mark — Sun, 11 Jun 2006 10:46:45 +0000

STILL on the train. In stead of getting off at 2pm we get off at 2:3am the next day!!! A 28 hour train ride. Fuck Fuck Fuck

So we sat down got some beers and bananas and played some more Duodizhou.

This might put us behind one day. We’ll take a flight to Xian in two days. This might help out on the time schedule which is very fast paced anyway.

The kids are great and one is the cutest kid in China for his under 5 age group. It’s a full moon and the countryside at night is beautiful.

We got off to an empty train station and Olen had to go take a shit. This guy walks up to me asking something and I shrug my shoulders and point to the bathroom. Dude walks in and comes out a little while later with Olen. Turns out he’s just a taxi driver trying to get a fair out of us and wouldn’t leave Olen alone. (there are no doors on the stalls) There is no personal space here.

Spent from 3-8am in the net bar then checked into a crappy hotel.Â We met this guy named Lee that was just riding his bike and stopped to talk to us. He showed us a cheap hotel then waited for us to check in and then took us to three different parks spending the rest of the day with us. We couldn’t get rid of him if we tried. We took a one hour nap and are waiting for nighttime to visit this cool caves that are lit up at night. Should be cool.

almost late for train

mark — Sun, 11 Jun 2006 10:27:46 +0000

Left kunming and are on a train to Guilin to the far east. There are three kids here and i’m conserned that there going to cry the whole way. The sleeper car squeeks and is warm. I’m laying down and i have a pillow. Life is good.

Kunming

mark — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 08:13:49 +0000

Were in Kunming now and about ready to go to Guilin. That’s where those towers of stone rise out of lakes. It’s supposed to be beautiful. Kunming is a large city that is fairly impersonal. It looks like any other large city. As always the people are nice. Last night we stayed in the hostel “The Hump”. It was ok. 8 people to a room and it was coed!! I thought it was going to be olen and myself in a serority setting but as it turned out it was mostly guys. Bummer. We went to this Budist Temple today. It’s raining here a little so we had the whole place to ourselfs. It was beautiful. Now were in a net bar waiting to hop a 12-16 hour train to Guilin. I’m sure we’ll play cards alot.

6/6/06 in Lijiang

mark — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 05:11:22 +0000

I’m in Lijiang now. Very beautful. All the beds are too small here. i’ve been here for two days now, to get here it took a 12 hour train ride and an 8 hour bus ride right after that. So we were beat yesterday. Sat up last night talking to two Norwiegian girls, two israeli guys, another norwiegian guy, two dutch guys and two chinese girls. everyone speaking english. Very cool night.

yesterday i met Dr. Ho the old man was cool. Very full of himself but for good reason he’s the man when it comes to herbalism.

Kids

mark — Wed, 31 May 2006 11:43:50 +0000

Today i met Olens kids. There was about 1400 of them. We’d walk in and they would all go oooohhh. i would tell them my name where i was from and where i was going to go while i am here. Then we’d open it up for questions. What sports do you like? Do you like China? and the best one….what is your Chinese name? Olen said he done’s have one would you like to name him? She thought about it for a bit while we talked to the other students and when asked again she said Ma da zhuang. This means “Horse big strong”.

I liked it immediatly and now i can write it in Chinese. The rest of the day was fun with all the kids. There was hey their he his! going on for the next couple of days.

The next day we just hung out at Olens which is on campus and we went out to a dinner of Hot pot. i didn’t like it but the people were so nice i didn’t let on and kept eating. One of the parts was coagulated pig blood. It looked like liver and tasted bad. Olen loves hot pot.

The people were very nice and each one indivdually toasted me to my visit. Nice people.

San Tai

mark — Tue, 30 May 2006 11:31:14 +0000

Showed up in Chungdu and Olen was about 10min late. Not a biggy. He says western food for the first day? i say ok. So then I have the best Philly Cheesesteak sandwich i’ve ever had. Big too. Nice.

We leave Chungdu and and head to San Tai. 2hrs later we pull into the city. It is cool. Small town, tree lined streets and everyone smiles and says ni hao. Very friendly people here. Turns out, it will always be this way.

These people are so nice, it’s incredible. The people of the US should come here and learn something of friendliness and hospitality. They’re a messy but clean people. They spit everywhere and throw everything on the ground, have their infants pee in the gutter and can be smelly. That being said, their always cleaning stuff, sweeping everything, washing the side of guard rails on the highway. You name it. There are people that you can get a massage (sex and no sex), get your shoes cleaned, hair washed, shaved and many other things.Â Sometimes all at the same time.Â a very interesting place. I recommend it to everyone.

Is he gay?

mark — Tue, 30 May 2006 10:50:16 +0000

So left San Francisco with a pack full of food shit for Olen that he will later go “oh cool”. The jerky was good. and the trail mix was a good idea. So i get to Tokyo with no problem. The plan over head was cool because I saw alot of Japan from about 20k feet. Nothing but rice pattys with roads on the dykes and islands of homes in the middle of pattys. Very cool, Very different.

Got to Bejing about 8:30 and missed the ticket counter to buy a ticket to Chungdu by 2minutes. They were inflexible. This dude seemed to be in charge and said he’d call to see if i could get a ticket, he calls on his own cell phone and gets off and says…”no flights out tonight too late”. I say “FUCK”. So i call Olen and he Puts a different Chinese person (Dave) on the phone with my new Chinese person (Armond).

So now I’ve got a crowd hanging out around me and two different guys are helping me out. They hook me up with a room at a hotel that will bring me back in the morning (5hrs later) and I can buy flight tickets at the hotel. So they tell me to follow this kid, i follow he leads me out to the parking lot, then tells me to follow someone else. This kid tells me get on this bus, i do and then i’m taken to this ally that is dark and I wouldn’t walk down alone ever. The bus is full of people and the girl that’s sitting in front is Obviously worried and starts talking to the bus driver. My Chinese isn’t that good but i’m sure she said “Where the fuck are you taking me?” just then he pulls into the back of the hotel and everthing is cool.

I check in and after a while i get a knock on the door. It’s Armond from the airport! He’s come to check in on me and make sure the hotel is ok, and taking care of me. It dons on me that i should say something of my interest in women so I tell him of my wife in the US. so after I mention that he says ok, goodbye and leaves. Either way, dude was nice and helped me out immensely.