Hardware, train tickets, and how much can you fit on your scooter?

One of the first things that we knew we needed to do was to buy train tickets to X'ian. Tickets are often sold out a few days ahead of departure, and with the World Expo happening in Shanghai, we figured the number of people traveling to and from Shanghai might make it difficult for us to leave.
    According to our Lonely Planet guide book, we had two different options: there was the train station, was far enough away that we would either need to take a taxi or subway to get to, or there was a train ticket office that was somewhat in our neighborhood, and that would give us a chance to explore a bit of the city on foot.

    Our journey took us to a hardware district that was about an hour's walk away from our hostel (a bit further than it looked on the map). Each storefront in this area was packed from floor to ceiling with various wrenches, drills, piping, electrical wire, couplings, screws, nails, floorboard, window panes, door panels, siding, power tools, steel chains -- or whatever a resourceful Chinese man might need to jerry-rig a scooter to carry 10 times its own weight. If we walked by a plumbing store, we would walk by 3 more that were identical before we saw an electrical store. Most of the shopkeepers either talked animatedly into a cordless phone or played solitaire on the computer while the wife and kids sat on the floor, playing with some of the inventory.

    Walking through the city, it was interesting to see how the city organized it's space. Most areas were divided into large city blocks, where on the main city streets surrounding these blocks were small shops, and on the inside and upper levels of the block, were residences. Going into these large blocks, there were small alleyways that were often just wide enough for a small vehicle to travel down. Sometimes steel gates, or even guards blocked the entrances to these alleyways. It was clear -- even when there weren't steel gates, that these were private areas where we probably weren't welcome to take uninvited strolls. People would often be lounging outside of their front doors, or hanging laundry, or bathing their families with soap and water from a garden hose.

We learned very quickly that the Lonely Planet can only get you so far in China, as we ended up chasing places that appeared to have moved a block or two down the street, or across the street, or that simply didn't exist. In the case of the ticket office that we were trying to find, we eventually found it between two streets that supposedly did not exist, and it had closed an hour before the listed times in the book. This turned into even more of a disappointment when we ended up having to take a taxi to the train station, which turned out to be something of a madhouse.

Aside from being a massive structure with lineups pouring out of its very orifice, and having people strewn about the pavement outside with their luggage, sleeping on newspapers, there was virtually no English to be found. Taxis whipped in and out of the drop-off zone, where we took our first steps towards the station, and our first task was to figure out which line we needed and then how to ask for the tickets that we wanted. We ended up finding a series of small signs that led us across the street from the station. We looked into the building across the way, where we saw more lineups of people, but this time, in front of ticket windows there were large screens full of scrolling Chinese characters above them. We weren't sure if we were in the right place yet, but a girl in a red dress probably saw the looks on our faces and asked us in English if we needed help. She said that we were in the right place, but that the people here probably wouldn't speak any English and that there wouldn't be many tickets available. She suggested that we go online and buy plane tickets instead.
    Feeling quite unsure, so we waited in line anyway, while searching out the Chinese characters for the place that we wanted to go. The lady at the window seemed to understand us, and she even understood words like, "seat," and "sleeper," but they were repeated back to us as "no seat," and "no sleeper" for the day that we wanted to leave. "Only standing" was her suggestion. It was a 16 hour train, so we asked about the next day. Looking back, I think we were lucky to find our "hard seats" on the 20 hour train ride that left the day after we wanted.
    It was getting dark by the time we left the station, so we took a subway to the People's Square, which looked interesting on our map and wasn't too far from where we were staying. The subway was crowded, but efficient overall -- except for the security check that had metal detectors and that ran everyone's bags through an x-ray machine.
    We found a series of restaurants on our way home and had dinner at a place where everyone seemed too nice and eager to help us. Although we were used to people paying more attention to us in Japan because we were foreigners, in China, this attention often took the form of shameful excess. If we didn't have 3 or 4 servers around us, wide-eyed and grinning, they would be sure to gawk at us from across the room -- only to smile and nod profusely whenever we made eye-contact. But i guess it's to be appreciated.
    I seem to remember the food being good, but i usually end up ordering food that's too spicy for Janice and i think that this evening was no exception.
    On the way home, we stopped at the 24 hour convenience store beside our hostel to buy our tickets for the Expo the next day, but it had already closed its doors. (What? Open 24 hours and they were closed? Yeah).

China: First Impressions

 Even the river was busy as our boat entered the crowded Yangtze that would lead us to the heart of Shanghai. The water was filled with fishing boats, navy vessels, ferries, tugs, coast guards, and barges that housed families who strung their laundry on lines that went over top heaps of garbage -- and all of them loosely followed lanes and that cut in and out from each other in the slow, drifting manner of water travel. We waved to the passing boats, where small children sat from their wooden chairs, eyeing us through binoculars. Even with our escort flashing blue and red lights 30 metres ahead of us, our captain laid on the foghorn against the oncoming boats that seemed always eager to play a game of chicken.     We drifted up the river for an hour -- between the refineries and loading docks with blue and red shipping containers that were stacked a dozen high. There were shipyards with cranes that lifted entire ships out of the water. Every inch of the river's shoreline was crowded with industrial or trade complexes that kept busy in supporting the world's second largest economy.

    The last leg of our tour took us to the heart of Shanghai's downtown. The iconic skyline approached us with it's various shapes and colours. The buildings glistened in silver, hues of blue and gold, and had massive names like Aurora splayed across them. There were structures that appeared to have been cleaved into two halves, another that turned into itself, another that resembled a bottle cap opener, and the needle-like TV tower at the point. As we pulled into an area not far from the Bundt, the clouds opened up slightly and we all did group shots in the diffused sunlight. Then with our cameras hanging off of our wrists, we quickly exchanged emails with people that we would probably never see again.
    The city itself seemed less crazy than the river at first. People somewhat obeyed traffic laws and waited at lights and such, but there were bike lanes that appeared and disappeared along the side of the road, and blended with the sidewalks that we walked on. We kept on our toes as bicycles, rickshaws, scooters and motorbikes, all dipped in and out of pedestrian areas.
    The boat that we arrived in seemed to have set the appropriate tone with its foghorn, as Chinese people were definitely not afraid to use their horns. There were people everywhere with no shirts, or at least with the bottoms of their shirts hiked up to their chests -- as seems to be the fashion for many Chinese men. There were also vehicles that were often loaded beyond their capacity as scooters carried entire families, or possibly  the merchandise of a small business, precariously tied together with twine. The smell was one of the more immediate impressions. There was always a metallic tinge to the air, interspersed with random pockets of rancidity.
    Overall though, the city streets were clean. The buildings may have looked run down or aged, maybe showing signs of water damage amongst large junctions of electrical hardwire, but there was generally no litter anywhere on the streets.

    It wasn't far to the Bundt area, which was made up of Art Deco buildings dedicated to banks and finance. The shore alongside the river was well groomed with a walkway, flower beds, streetlamps, river tours, and ferry boats that docked all along the shore. In the evening, when people left the World Exhibition grounds, many of them seemed to flock to the Bundt where they could get there photos taken with the city skyline, amongst the buskers and vendors selling bottles of water for 30 cents each -- or cold bottles for twice the price. On top of a small brick building near the water, was a cafe/bar with a saxophone player housed on the roof, playing jazz music to the crowds.
    Our hostel ended up being just a block behind the Wall Street-like buildings along the water and between the dingy buildings a few blocks behind. The hostel was called "the Captain's Hostel," and it had a seafaring theme, complete with blue waves imprinted into the carpets, roped guardrails in the hallways, lifesavers hung on walls, and portraits of mythical sea captains. The washroom came with toilet paper -- although only one roll at a time, and whenever we took a shower, the whole bathroom flooded.
    As it turned out, when Janice went to pay for the room with her credit card, the girl at the desk wasn't able to work the chip function in her card. We tried it a few times, trying to get her to give us the pad so that we could put in the code, but when she finally gave it to us, it still wouldn't work. The card didn't end up working for the rest of the trip and my card expired a few days later. It wasn't until we returned to Vancouver that we learned the girl at our hostel caused our card to deactivate after her third failed attempt at running the card without a PIN.
    In the area behind our hostel was where there were small restaurants with faded menus in the windows and families sitting at wooden tables. There was no English in these places, so we were always limited to the picture specials displayed behind the cash register. When the waitress would come to take our orders, we would have to lead them to the front of the restaurant and point at whatever image looked like it wouldn't have any mushrooms (mushrooms are no-good in my books). These pictures were often deceiving however, and we often ended up with one mushroom dish or another.
    One of our best meals in China however, came at our first lunch in Shanghai. Around the corner behind our hostel, there were a couple of noodle shops: one that was empty, and another that was full of Chinese people. The one that was full of customers had part of its kitchen located outside the front of the restaurant, where the cooks boiled soup and fixed dinners for the people inside. On the other side of the burners, we could see another chef who pulled wads of dough and then cut them into the noodles that were put into the soup. As we walked by, one of the servers stepped out of the door, dressed in his apron and a handkerchief tied over his head: "You come eat!" he said.

    There had to be a reason why this place was busier than the one beside it. We walked in and were quickly seated at a table with a few older men who sat across from us, slurping noodles out of boiling hot broth in the humidity of the 30 degree afternoon. I assumed that they knew what they were doing, so I pointed at their bowls when the waitress came to take our orders; Janice pointed to a picture of a sauteed beef and onion dish that was on the wall in front of us. As we ate, a family stood over us, waiting for a table. While their two children open-mouth-stared at Janice eat her lunch, we asked ourselves what could make the food taste so good. We figured it was either because of how hungry we were, or based on the headaches that we developed afterward, it could also have been the copious amounts of MSG.

Open Waters and Nostalgic Digression

We woke up in the morning surrounded by nothing but open water. With the new oceanscape also came the rocking of the boat and eventually, i would end up with my head in a dizzying state of motion sickness.
    It was shortly after breakfast that we met with a mother and son who we shared a meal with the day before. The mother was a Chinese woman who lived in Tokyo with her son, who identified himself as Japanese. Both of them spoke a bit of English and I still had a bit of my Japanese. The woman was also kind enough to teach us a few simple Chinese phrases, and even gave us an introduction to the nuances of Chinese tones and inflection.
    Anyone who hasn't tried to learn another language however, may not be aware of how taxing communication can be -- especially on the first day of study. When she suggested that we play a numbers game that her son had invented, and proceeded to explain it to us in Japanese, English, and Chinese, for some reason I found it difficult to concentrate on the numbers. It was also at about this time when I realized that the floor beneath me moved itself in ways that were entirely new to me. I always figured that boats rocked back and forth with the rise and fall of the ocean. What I learned is that boats will rock not only back and forth, but also to and fro -- and then everything in between, so that, there was always a constant lift and fall and sway and then a lilt and sometimes even some heave that was inescapable.
    Our faces began to zombify before the numbers and the languages, but our companions were eager to play their game and practice their English. We had to exaggerate our condition a bit and politely escaped to our room where we fished some Gravol out of our luggage and attempted to cope with our new environment in motion.
    When I eventually became somewhat accustomed to the motion of the boat, I went back to the cafeteria where there were tables and I could write in my journal. I managed to catch up with Darren, a guy we had met earlier, but hadn't acquainted with yet. Darren is from Hawaii, and has taken a few months off from his work as a school councilor to travel around the world.

You can read about his world travels at his blog: http://comealongwithme.wordpress.com/

    We talked for a few hours and one thing that stuck with me from our conversation, was his mention of some photos that he had seen of some old theaters being demolished. These were old theaters that he had grown up with and gone to see many movies. He told me about how amazing these buildings were and how surreal it was to see them being gutted and torn apart. Seeing the upholstery from the seats, and the colour of the walls, and the silver screen -- everything looked the same as it did when he was growing up. We talked about how a theater is an interesting place full of distinct textures and aromas. It's also a place of many places -- a place where we can see many places real and imaginary. Often, we'll have seen a film that will have changed who we are and the way we think; we leave the theater a different person than when we entered, forever changed by this place of places.
    There were two theaters in my neighbourhood growing up. One of them is still there and i haven't been to it in years. The other closed down years ago, but the building is still part of the mall and was refurbished into a framing business. I went looking for a frame a few years ago, and I remember walking along the theater complex walls that we had lined-up against to buy our tickets at the box office, and then opened the glass doors where they had torn our ticket stubs, and then into the foyer where they had sold popcorn and put up movie posters.
    Inside the place was filled with displays of empty frames. They didn't have what i was looking for at the time, and so the saleswoman took me to one of the storerooms, which was actually one of the old theater rooms. The doors were the same, hidden in an enclave, so that the light form the outside wouldn't disturb the show -- the movie ambiance. The same doors with the massive handles running the length of the door were still there and the hinges felt as smooth as ever. All of the lights were on in the theater, illuminating the place in a way that i had never seen before. The chairs had all been taken out and the screen at the front of the room was still there, but someone had cut a line across it from one corner to the other -- probably in the interests of avoiding competition. As we walked down the steps to the front of the theater, boxes of frames were stacked across the terraced floor where the seating used to be. The lady tried to show me some of the other frames that she had, but I was focused on trying to remember which movies I would have seen in this exact room. All of the rooms were the same though. Interchangeable. Theater 3 could have been the same as 8. Did we turn left out of the theater that day, or right?
    The lady didn't have what I wanted and we left the room. I asked if i could use the washroom and saw the same rows of urinals against the white tile. In the time that i was in the building, it was just the woman and me, and i wondered why all of the urinals were still there. We used to line-up outside of the theaters because they were so busy. We paid money -- $6.50 in the evening, and $4.50 for a matinee (I know because i still have the ticket stubs) just to enter those glass doors. We'd arrive early to get good seats. Beat the crowds. Now the place is full of empty frames -- empty spaces, and i can walk in anytime during store hours.


I found an article and some photos on vintage theaters being demolished in Hawaii -- maybe the same ones that Darren used to frequent? http://cinematreasures.org/news/13069_0_1_0_C/

Photos from the Shanghai Ferry

Something's up with my photo uploader, and i can't situate any of my photos properly in my posts.  I wanted to put a few of these photos in with yesterday's, but here they are instead. These are from the Shanghai Ferry as we leave Japan.

In Transit

Stuffed/crammed into the middle seat, between two aisles, and the seats in front and behind, I sit partially reclined with my feet in a small cubby, in the dark, with the bus stopping and starting, or turning, and people waking up to use the washroom -- Janice one of them, crawling over top of me, before arriving in the sunlight of Osaka at 7:30 in the morning, where we enter a massive train/subway station with standing room only, for men and women in suits going to work, eyes forward, hips swaying, nobody talking -- one train after the other unloading and loading, wave after wave of people flooding spaces between pillars, up escalators, through turnstiles; we wait in line and the doors open and we walk in, and then we are pushed further in, and then more people wedge themselves in; the next train the same: i hesitate to step on and the man pushes me in the back -- when i turn around there is nobody behind him -- he's pushed me on onto the train on his own accord and now his back is toward me, silent and unapologetic.
    We step out of the station and it's hot and it's humid, and we have no concept of direction, and we get directions from a bald man in glasses who is eager to help and to practice his English, but we're in a hurry and when we get our information, we run.
    "Thank you," we say with a wave and then we're off to find our boat.
    The international ferry terminal is air conditioned and not many people are there yet. "Wait a minute, please," says the man at the counter.
    We sit down in a row of seats near the tall windows, looking out at the gangway and the massive boat, and cargo containers stacked everywhere, and everyone around us, over the age of 8, is quiet and sitting still. People under the age of 8 are running, climbing, laughing, and adventuring. I try to be all smiles, but nobody responds.
    I make eye contact with a a French-Canadian guy, but both of us seem unsure. Maybe next time, i think to myself.
    I ask Janice what language the couple beside us are speaking and she says, "Czech." They're old-school with aluminum poles sticking out of their packs and socks pulled up to their knees. Across the way, a girl walks to her seat in tight spandex shorts -- they don't leave much to the imagination. I tell Janice, but she already knows, and i'm impressed.
    Customs is easy, boarding is easy -- wait, except for the man yelling in Japanese at the counter -- something about not having a boarding pass. He eventually gets it and seems happy. Talkative even.
    We find that our room sleeps 4, but we are only two. Soon, a French couple joins us in our room and they've been cycling Japan (Tokyo to Miyajima) for the past two months and are on their way back to France, via the surface. We make friends easily and the guy leaves his wallet in the open, on the top bunk while he takes a shower.
    On the deck, the air is still humid, but the breeze is nice. The water is beautiful and Japan's shorelines are endless and serene. I wait for the openness of the ocean, but i don't want Japan to disappear just yet. We cross under bridges and i hold back on taking too many photos -- in order to save space on the memory card.
    The cafeteria food is great -- the first thing I eat is boiled duck, and the beers are huge and they only cost $1.50.
    Eventually the sun goes down and everybody heads to the deck to see the show. The air has cooled a bit, and the sun is orange and spectacular as it sinks behind the mountains.
    The moon is equally magnificent on the other side of the boat (portside) as it reflects, sparkling, off of the water, and lighting the deck. A very drunk Japanese man joins us and he tells us about his import/export business and that he "loves Japan."
    I tell him I do too.
    Soon, he leaves us, and Janice and I share a kiss in the moonlight, and a stranger stumbles upon us only to run away when he sees us.
    Eventually we're back in our own bunks to talk with the French about China.

Last Days II

     I suspected that the landlady had changed my door code to the same "1234" that it was when i first moved in, but i figured it best that i not go where i wasn't wanted. The air conditioning was probably disconnected anyway.
    It was 36 degrees by 9 in the morning that day, and almost 40 degrees by noon. In my hand I had a shopping bag with the remaining contents of my fridge: 2 water bottles, a bun, a quarter bottle of tomato juice, and a quarter bottle of peach vegetable juice.
    I still had my phone connected, so i phoned James who was often at home when he should be at work. It turned out he was at work at the time, and he didn't answer his phone on account of a free cell game.
    I figured i better drink the peach vegetable juice while it was still cold.
    Eventually my phone rang and it was James. We had circled around to his school by this time, to the gym where the band was playing "A Whole New World." James could hear them too and he sung a few of the lyrics for me before telling me that his apartment was unlocked and that we could hang at his place for an hour until he got off. He had lost his key, so his place had been unlocked for the last few days.
    James and Lauren weren't leaving Japan for another week, so their apartment looked the way mine did the week before -- maybe a little worse. James had lived there for 3 years, and  he had a bit more baggage to take care of.
    We had some time to kill, so we sat on the balcony with a can of Asahi that i had left there from the night before. The fourth floor was nice. It had a breeze and a good view of my neighborhood.
    We eventually went inside and I played guitar for a bit and looked through some of the books on the coffee table. I started to look at a book on India, but Janice wouldn't approve of any destination-based literature until we got back to Vancouver.
    When James arrived home, it was time for me to meet Shike Sensei to tie up loose ends and then to meet with everyone again for a last sushi dinner. James found his apartment key at dinner -- it was buried in his wallet.
    We rushed a bit for dinner and said some hurried goodbyes in order to make it to the staion by 8, but it turned out that our bus didn't leave until 8:45.
     "Get used to it," I told Janice, as we prepared to start the first leg of our next month in China together.