Xin Nian Kuai Le

Well after the bizarre fizzle that was the celebration ringing in the official calendar year of 2008, the arrival of the lunar new year came in with a bang. About 3 days before new year's eve, fireworks vendors started popping up all over the city. I immediately made my purchase, of one cone, one cube and 6 cylinders. Through pantomime and my still limited chinese, I guessed that in this array of explosives were some flowers and some noise makers. They go "boom, boom" the vendor explained.

And so they did. While officially, the new year didn't start until midnight of february 6th, the whole week is punctuated by fireworks. I suppose the days leading up to the new year could be called "practice days," while those days following are when all those who imbibed too greatly on new year's eve and passed out before they got a chance to light their explosives set them off.

On the eve itself, we made no such mistake. After setting a few pre-eve rounds off on the roof of my parent's school, we made our Puxi-ward to see how a real new year was celebrated. Backpack packed with a six-pack, two thermos' of mulled wine and the remaining explosives we met up with a couple of our co-workers, and made our way to the edge of a public park. While I had heard that Chinese new year in China resembles a war zone, and was prepared for a light show, the new year didn't disappoint.

While there were a few official fireworks shows, the vast majority of explosives set off were of the mom and pop informal variety. The noise at midnight was so loud, you couldn't even shout and be heard. We may have been a bit too close to the light show, as debris rained down upon us. A 360 degree view from where we stood took in nothing but erupting light. The show carried on for a full 30 minutes at that intensity before dwindling to sporadic bursts. A wander through the streets revealed the carnage of the celebration. Cases of spent firework cylinders, and the scattered paper confetti that remained of their wrappers.

I tried to capture some of the night on video. Unfortunately, the microphone wasn't up to the task of recording the noise, but there are some good shots. I especially enjoy how once you get a pile of firecrackers burning hot enough, you don't need to bother lighting them - just toss them into the blaze. I pity the parked cars on either side of the blaze though.

The whole experience did shed some light on the rather cryptic signs in the subway stations. Who would bring explosives onto the subway?

Tanakji (sp?) and other delicacies

My Uncle Bruce is of the opinion that all tastes are purely cultural, and thus it's merely a mental matter to overcome your apparent distaste for particular flavours and textures. What better way to put his theory to the test than over a plate of writhing Tanakji or freshly slaughtered young octopus. That pretty much tested the limits of my mental capacities. Something about food moving inside your mouth that I don't have a cultural predisposition towards I suppose.



However, in the plate pictured below, korean blood sausage is not far of it's British isles counterpart. Liver, is as always akin to sawdust. And lung, is truly repulsive. Picture eating a dish sponge nicely laced with tendon. Unfortunately, the plate below came serviso (spelled phonetically), which is konglish for "on the house". You see, my Dad and I had stopped for a brief snack after strolling about the walls of Hwaesong fortress in Suwon, and selected some glutinous rice tubes in spicy red sauce, and some deep fried squid from a little hole in the wall restaurant. It was an interesting experience, as although our combined chinese language talents are less than impressive, they are however more than adequate to the task of simple communication and ordering food. This was made all the more obvious by our complete inability to say anything in Korean. So, ordering food was reduced to pointing and grunting. At any rate, the cook/owner/waitress took pity on our ineptitude and brought us a steaming plate of free food. More makkoli please.

Christmas in Korea

Well, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all you folks in far flung places, and not so far flung. While Meg took the long jaunt across the big pond to return to a white Christmas in Ontario, this yule season found me celebrating with family a bit nearer by, in Korea. My uncle, Bruce, and his wife Song-Ae moved to Suwon (a wee village of a million+ just outside of Seoul) not too long ago, after a lengthy stay in Vancouver. You can tell I'm a little hazy on the dates, but that's about par for the course given my brain's limit capacity for anything resembling chronology. They've since been joined by a pair of kids, one of each variety kind of like Noah's ark - one slightly over the age of 2, the other slightly under. I say joined euphemistically, as I'm reasonably certain they 'arrive' with slightly more effort than that.

At any rate, a couple of weeks before Christmas I said to hell with the job, I'm taking a holiday, and booked some tickets to visit this far closer family and meet and greet my new cousins. My Dad also came along, or I went along with, or we went together as the case may be. We were in for a great time, and a slightly new twist on christmas traditions.

First order of business upon arrival was finding something more edible than the improving but still substandard tinfoil wrapped refuse provided on China Eastern flights. So, we were whisked from the Seoul airport to a nearby oceanside seafood BBQ. This was seafood at it's finest, and I'm no much of a fan of things sea bred. It was a mountain of selfish of all shapes and sizes, some recognizable and many not. It appears landlocked Canadians have yet to develop a sophisticated vocabulary for shellfish. While both Bruce and Song-Ae could give us the Korean names of the creatures we were inhaling, it seemed they did not have an English counterpart. No matter. Still delicious.

Skipping forward in time to later that same evening, we were introduced to another fine Korean delicacy - this time of the liquid variety - Makkoli, a delicious backyard wine made from fermented rice. Picture really runny congee, or something with the viscosity of milk, but not nearly so homogeneous. It's a sweet, lightly carbonated liquid, and no bottle tastes quite like the one before it. Additionally, for those with a penchant for nibbling on the bits of raw garlic present at Korean BBQ, it can generate an impressive quantity of foul smelling burps. Not quite christmas morning mimosas, or rum and eggnog, but a new found love in the world of booze. Unfortunately, as it's generally of the backyard variety, and even the commercially produced stuff is bottled in flimsy leak prone plastic bottles, it's unlikely to be found at your neighborhood beer and wine shop.

Christmas eve found us heading into the mountains for some downhill skiing. A good inoculation for a snow starved Canadian. We intended to get in some night skiing skiing under the lights (the hill was open until 3 am). But instead, ended up grilling thick cut bacon on outdoor hibachi, topping it with rice and kimchi and wrapping the parcel in either lettuce leaves or sesame leaves. Fantastic stuff. We gathered round a roaring campfire, washed down our christmas eve feast with plenty of beer and makkoli, and didn't make it to the night ski.

Part III

These posts are already a month old, and more adventures are coming up. There's been a typhoon, meg's birthday, my birthday soon, and a trip to Bali on friday. So I'm going to power through these next couple of posts.

So, still in the national "forest" park, we hit up the bumper cars, drank entirely too much beer, and generally spent too much time considering we didn't have a place to stay sorted out yet for the night. When wiser heads prevailed we took to the highways and byways of the island again in search of real food, a shower and a bed. Who knew that such simple desires would be so hard to fulfill. None of the towns we road through were boasting much of anything in the way of accommodation. We had with us a map with a couple of circled "nong jia le" or "happy farmer houses" which a woman that works in the office at my parent's school had stayed at and reccommended. Unfortunately, these places weren't advertising themselves, and anybody we asked denied their existence or pointed us 200 M down the street where we'd ask again and be pointed another 200M down the street...and it was starting to get dark. Oh dear.

We finally abandoned our quest for a happy farmer's house and starting asked more generically for a place to sleep. Evidently something got muddled in the communication as a youth of maybe 16 took us down the street to what looked like a brothel. A very nice brightly lit brothel, but a brothel nonetheless, not the sort of place that you'd hole up in for the night. The proprietors, once they understood our needs, pointed us once again down the street in the direction we had just come from. Oh dear.

By this point, the six of us had gathered a crowd of about 40 onlookers, who were either fascinated by our appearance or laughing hysterically at our predicament. Trying to spend the night in a brothel...oh my. Between my Dad and I, we probably have a combined mandarin vocabulary of 500-600 words. Eventually we managed to communicate, or so we hoped, that we were looking for a hotel, did they know one? Yes? Could they call ahead and make sure they had rooms available? Did they have an address? Directions? The hotel owner would be waiting by the roadside for us? They'd recognize us, because we were 6 laowais on bicycles peddling on a rural island in the dark? We have to make a couple of turns to get there? Oh dear...

Suddenly a man appeared out of the crowd of onlookers and indicated that he would show us the way. Not much else to do at this point but follow him...until he hopped into a car. Ok, we'll follow a car. So, there the six of us were, following a car in the dark on an island with no idea where we were headed. It's times like these that crazy thoughts start running through your head. Where is he taking us? Maybe would could just camp in the field? If we slept in shifts...? Every so often the man would turn on his fourways and open his door to peer behind and make sure we were still following him. And finally after a few turns and maybe 20 min, we arrived at a....restaurant.

But no, we want a hotel.
Yes, we were assured eat now, and go to the hotel later.
But we're dirty.
There's a sink.
How about you take us to the hotel now.
Aren't you hungry.
Yes, but...
Eventually, we convinced the restaurant staff to show us the hotel first, which wasn't much to look at, but it did exist, had three rooms with double beds, showers and air conditioners. Sure, our bathroom had a slug in it, and Mike and my Dad's beds were more akin to sheets of plywood with sheets stapled over top, but there were beds. Incredible. Remarkable, what kind people.

Visitors Day 3 - Chongming Island, Hamster Balls and The Kindness of Strangers - Part II

So, coming from Canada I suppose I can be excused for expecting a national forest park to resemble something like a provincial park. At the very least, I expected some nature. Perhaps a few trees in forest formation, with some scattered wildlife and the pleasing notes of songbirds. But, alas, or fortunately depending on your degree of appreciation for the great outdoors, this is China, a country that continually raises the bar on tackiness. There were trees, albeit planted in straight rows. There were forest paths, although these were made of patio stones. And instead of nature, there were endless numbers of diversions - bumper cars, paintball guns, artillery range, bumper boats, hammock fishing, water park, horseback riding and hamster balls to name a few.

Unfortunately, not all of the diversions were open. After a long days ride, or perhaps more due to an absence of sleep the night before, we elected first to check out the hammock fishing. The thought of lounging lakeside in a hammock with a cold beer and a fishing pole sounded alright. So off down the patio stone path we went to find an abandoned lakeside house of sorts, in the midst of a grove of trees that obviously at one point had boasted hammocks as evidenced by the telltale wear marks on the trunks. So, we returned to the main path to find the water park lake.

Upon arrival, we witnessed the hamster balls. Giant inflatable clear plastic balls in which humans were struggling to walk on water. Bizarre. We quickly found a kiosk, bought up all their beer, grabbed a bench in the shade and settled into watch the show. Most people would get a few steps and then fall flat on their face shrieking. Then, they'd struggle to return to shore with looks of terror on their eyes, only to be mockingly pushed back into the lake by the Carnies running the show. I like to think that the carnies took a perverse pleasure in the power they had over the wealthy Shanghainese who so foolishly stepped into their little spherical prisons. They'd paid 20 RMB for the pleasure, and yes it was a ridiculously hot day, and they were probably getting sun stroke, or at the very least suffering from dehudration in their little greenhouse hamster balls, but they were going to get what they paid for, and that was a full five minutes of the torture. So, out the hapless inmates would be pushed where they'd loll indolently in the lake until their time was up, and the carnies would pull them back to shore by their rope tether and release them.

However, after a few beers, Mike, my Dad and I decided that it did indeed look like fun. And the problem the hapless Shanghainese had was their absence of gusto. So, we too willingly entered the clear plastic torture chambers and took to the water like the second coming. Or sort of...it's a lot harder than it looks. You could stand briefly, and get in maybe 6 full steps before you couldn't keep up with your legs anymore and then you'd fall ass over tea kettle. Other strategies were adopted, crawling on all fours, somersaults, log rolls. Eventually, we developed the techniques of movement and then a mighty hamster ball battle began. It was reminiscent of a blimp dog fight. Inflated spheres slowing moving towards each other until contact, and then bounce, you'd knock the person off their feet (if they were standing) and the balls would spring away from each other. It was great fun, although more than a little dehydrating we left a serious amount of water in the balls and came out drenched, and thirsty for more beer....

Visitors Day 3 - Chongming Island, Hamster Balls and The Kindness of Strangers - Part I

So, an hour and fourty-five minutes after returning from go-carting it was time to get up again. My dad had set-up, in a marginal fashion, a bike trip to a nearby island in the Yangtze delta, Chongming Dao. It was a wobbly ride to the subway station, where stormed the ticket gates with our bikes in hand, counting on the bewildering site of 5 laowais (chinese for foreigner...literally translated it means old foreigner) carrying bikes getting on a subway at an ungodly hour to get us past the ticket agents. It worked. It's generally no problem taking bikes on the subway, as long as you avoid peak hours, but we'd never attempted so many bikes at one time. At any rate, it worked, and Jeff and I had a wee nap on the nearly empty subway train as we headed for the ferry terminal on the outskirts of Shanghai.

Now, having spent a fair amount of time in Shanghai over the past 5 years, I was reasonably proud of how well I knew the city. Like any big city, after you make it your home, and scout out the places of interest, the scale of it all seems to shrink somehow. However, I had never in all that time take the subway that far to the outskirts of the city. It took about 1 hour of solid subway (alternating with an above ground light rail line) to get to the stop by the ferry terminal. Now I can see how the city holds 20-25 million people.

The area around the ferry terminal was largely industrial, lots of shipping containers full of who knows what dongxi (useful chinese expression for stuff. Pronounced dong-shee, or thereabouts) to be shipped to pretty much everywhere now. We arrived at what we thought was the ferry terminal, only to discover that there were no ferries that early in the morning. How bizarre. We had a ferry schedule that said there were lots of ferries in the morning. After a brief argument with the ticket agents, we discovered that there were in fact many ferry terminals for Chongming island, and we had to go to another one. Fortunately, it was just across the street. Unfortunately, that terminal also had no ferries. Fortunately, there was another terminal just down the street. And so it goes, finding your way in China is a series of short journeys about a block long followed by several minutes of bastardized chinese gibberish as you ask directions yet again, and move on a block before repeating the process.

Eventually, we found the right terminal, bought our tickets and had 15 minutes to spare. Unfortunately, upon attempting to go into the waiting lounge, we were told that we couldn't take our bicycles on board. This seemed strange. Was it a row boat we were taking? Was there another ferry that would take us and our bicycles? You want us to ask a truck driver to take our bikes on his truck? Your ferry can take trucks but not bicycles? How bizarre. What if we were to fold up two of our bikes so they were nice and small (yeah folding bikes), and take the front wheels off of the others so they were more compact? Yes? That would work? Fantastic.

So there the 5 of us were, waiting in line to board the ferry holding our disassembled bicycles. We followed the queue out to a sizeable ferry, that was boarding cars, trucks, motorcycles and bicycles. Not sure what the miscommunication was that happened. Perhaps the ferry staff thought we wanted to bring our bikes into the passenger cabin with us? One of those weird China experiences. At any rate, we were aboard, and quickly passed out for the 1 hour journey to the island.

The initial impression of the island was slightly less than impressive. We breakfasted dockside on greasy cold noodles topped for some with rotten beans. Good eats. From there we headed down the coast on what would have been a pretty little road, but for the absence of shade, a too strong tailwind, and the lovely industrial landscape. Not quite what my dad remembered the island looking like when he visited last year. Eventually, we broke off from that road and headed inland, trying to find a temple, a bathroom and some water - in no particular order. So we wandered into a strange town. Full of 6 lane highways like the one to the left that were devoid of traffic. Jeff and I peddled down the wrong side of the road for a good km just for the experience of riding a bicycle down the middle of a 6 lane road while going in the wrong direction. Truly bizarre. Between the superhighway and condo construction on what is largely an agricultural island, it would appear that developers are prepping Chongming to be a playground for the rich elite of Shanghai. We beat a hasty retreat from that bizarre fantasy world, and began making our way down lovely quieter, shaded roads heading for a "National Forest Park". The likes of which, I detail in the next round of posting.

Visitors Day 2 - Happy Hour and Go Carting

Having arranged for a half-day off on Friday, Meg and I jetted from work at 1:00 and met up with the crew. Jeff, Mike and I headed out to my parents place to pick up some bicycles for use on the next day's adventure (to be blogged about next), lunched on some declicious dumplings and baozi (steamed buns stuffed with green veg). Then it was off to Puxi again to introduce the beauty that is happy hour. For those not so unfortunate to live in Ontario, the beauty of happy hour will be familiar. For the unitiated, however, it's not an hour, but a window of opportunity generally comprising at least 3 hours in which an assortment of drinks are available at half price. So, off to Henry's we trucked for many wee pints.

Here Jen made the happy discovery that the women's washroom possessed a toilet of impressive powers. The control panel is featured to the right. Zoom in for added effect. No TP necessary at this joint. The john will shoot a jet of water up the poo canal according to your desired temperature and intensity, and then blow it all dry with some hot air. If ever I own a house, I will install one of these beauties. Jeff and I recieved a few curious looks exiting from a ladie's washroom, but, fortunately, happy hour was over and there was no pointing hanging around for full priced drinks. We made our merry way down to the colonial bund.

I seem to be missing the pictures of the colonial part, but the view across the way of the skyline of money central is still impressive at night. From there we were proppelled up the street by a shared bottle of baijiu, literally white alcohol it's a nasty drop that tastes like gasoline. But, it provided the necessary fuel to move the adventure along to go carting shanghai style. By this point, Meg, Mike and Jen had petered out and so it was only Jeff and I who took on the track.

The go cart establishment is an odd place. You enter into a bar, buy your tickets and your beer and then head downstairs to the track that occupies an old warehouse where you wait in line whilst drinking your beer. As you wait, you get to watch the antics of other trashed drivers. There was one chinese girl in particular who was seriously messed up on something more than alcohol. You should really be laughing that much when you leave the pit lane, fail to turn and plow straight into the wall. Nor should you continue laughing as you careen around the track bouncing from one wall to the other like a pin ball until you're turned around and heading the wrong way down the track. Now you could be distracted by these antics, or, if you're clever, you will watch the other cars carefully as some are cleary faster than others, while others have great acceleration. Then, it's your turn. You polish off the beer, hop in the cart and take-off for some demolotion derby style racing. The carts go like snot and there's no holds barred in terms of rubbing out your opponents along the walls. Helmets are available, but I'm pretty sure they're chained to the shelf.

Sadly, no pictures of the racing itself, but here's an after shot of Jeff in the cab on the way home. We arrived home at 3:30 and were up and at em at 5:15AM for the next stage of the adventure. A bike trip to Chongming Island.