Day 32: This Little Piggy Went to the Market, pt.2

Market #2: Of the Sunday Variety
Outdoors it is like a huge swap meet where you can sort through mountains of mismatched shoes at your leisure, and inside are aisles and aisles of booths selling spices, nuts, brass lamps, wooden boxes, scarves, and bolts of vivid, wild traditional fabric. Sam and I decide we need to buy even more scarves, so we spend quite a bit of time allowing a cute little Uyghur salesboy try to charm us with his smile while his zipper is down.

See him standing on the right?  His zipper is down.

Outside Market

Man Outside the Market

Boys Inside the Market (once again, they loved to see their pictures on the review screen)

Traditional Uyghur Fabric

More Fabric

Nut Booth

There is a pretty heinous bathroom at this market.  I stoop down really low to get under a rope holding a curtain and sort of side-step-scootch through a doorway, but in the process I can not avoid scraping my backpack and side against the filthy wall.  UGH.

There is not enough Purell to make me feel clean again.

Only time can heal this wound.

Day 32: This Little Piggy Went to the Market, pt.1

Market #1: Of and Concerning Animals
The animal market is acres of dirt filled with fur, hooves, and stench.  Donkeys, goats, horses, sheep, camels, cows, bulls; buying low, and selling high.

We learn that when a bunch of men try to “coax” an angry bull down from a tall truck bed by yanking on the bull’s ropes and dragging it forward, its hooves scraping desperately against the feces-covered metal surface, there is a moment before the bull’s forelegs hit the ground when you would swear it is going to flip forward and break it own neck; but instead it finds its footing, takes a beleaguered breath, and rampages in such a way that fear for our lives seems like the appropriate response.

I imagine the headline: “American Man, Reflexes Slowed by Life of Luxury and Excess, Gored by Livestock; Look of Embarrassment at Soiling Himself Frozen on Face.”

Hee-Haw

When they aren’t looking and sounding ridiculous, there is something about donkeys that I find to be wise, handsome, and classy.

Meeh

Moo

Baa

(What sound does a camel make?)

(Plus, how much character does that little boy’s face have?)

Neigh (and Jingle)

“Come . . . ON, you . . . little . . . pieces of- . . . UNGH!”

Day 28 and Day 29: Shopping, Dinner, Then Breakfast; Then, Bon Voyage, Kristy

Day 28

I can’t get enough of this haggling, it would seem.

Something happens to you when you spend enough time in these markets surrounded by inexpensive things.  Maybe they pump subliminal messages into your brain through a PA system.

All I know is that I am considering purchasing far more fake designer watches than I ever would have anticipated before getting here.

Day 27: How The Brochure For Our Great Wall Tour Should Have Read

[brochure front cover:

SEE THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA AND MING DYNASTY TOMBS!!!!!!!!!!!!

Day 26: The Day of Cliché

All of our unplanned, haphazard, Sam’ll-handle-it traveling had been going swimmingly, but we finally hit a snag this morning.  We arrive back in China after the splendid overnight train from Shanghai and take a taxi straight to the Liyun Apartotels that were so good to us.  We explode into the lobby, a dust cloud of backpacks and random limbs.

But it’s booked solid.  Heave the bags backs on, down the street to cross on the overhead bridge, back up the street to try somewhere else.

Booked.

Bags, bridge, try again.

Booked.

Bags, taxi, try again.

We finally find a place that is somewhere that I cannot explain because I cannot explain where any place is in Beijing.

And so, forward with the Day of Cliché.

Day 24: Shanghello

The Shanghai Museum is architecturally marvelous.  And this building, which looks like it could be a Jedi temple with its stable foundational blocks and a huge ring that surrounds it like a halo, houses some amazing ancient pottery – they have shards from 6800 B.C., which blows my mind.  Ancient Buddhist sculptures, elegant silk paintings, the history of the silk road shown through the evolution of the coins exchanged.  Very cool museum.

Day 23: Adios, Qingdao; Ni hao, Shanghai

We wake up surprisingly refreshed after yesterday’s, well, depravity. Given our recent penchant for studying all day to prepare for the bar, I think I drank more beer yesterday than in the previous three months combined. But we stayed up late enough and ate enough delicious, delicious Ali Baba chuanr that we weren’t spinning when we went to bed. So there is no hangover to ruin our sublime hotel buffet.

Day 22: Beer, Beer, and yes, Beer!

In China, you can always tell how nice your lodgings are by asking two simple questions:

1) Does it have a buffet?  If yes, proceed to 2); if no, check the bedsheets because there’s no guarantee that you’re not sleeping in a bloody crime scene.

2) Is there someone behind the counter to fry up fresh eggs?  If yes, it is a very nice hotel; if no, the place isn’t outstanding but you will still be safe and comfortable;.

The Oceanwide Elite has a buffet with a guy frying eggs.  So we’re pretty happy.

Day 21: Welcome to Qingdao

Today is right at about the half-way point of the trip.  (Crap, we’re gonna be leaving so soon!)

After the twenty-six hour train to Tibet, the trip to Qingdao (think: Ching-dow) is just a quick jaunt.  To me at least.  It might be a different story for Kristy, who’s had a little tubster of a child kicking the back of her seat the whole way.

Day 20: Back to Beijing

Laying awake in the dark, the red numbers of the clock radio flash 4:06.

A.M.

Shower.  Praise the heavens that the bathroom is stocked with a toothbrush and toothpaste and I have enough bottled water for rinsing.  And praise Buddha himself that I keep deodorant in my backpack.  Because, as you know, we don’t have our luggage.

Another trip on the road to the airport.  With any luck at all we will get out of here today.

In the airport we eat some bucket-o-noodle breakfast and wait to see what is happening with the flight.  Sam learns that the airline will be handing out cash to the people on our flight, and I prepare myself for ground-shaking chaos as these people try to get their money.