Traveling Adventures

So it turns out finding a place to live in TO with only 2 weeks notice in September is a rather difficult task. However, after a week of stressful viewing we have finally decided on a place to live. Yay, so now we are back to working on this blog…somewhat.

Here are the pics from the last leg of our trip!

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Oops, it seems like our last month has been rather undocumented. All in all, we had quite the blast. We arrived back to TO today. In the next couple of days we will be looking for a new place to live and hopefully updating the blog with the remaining thoughts of our adventures. If we’re really good we’ll even put up more pictures.

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So on the heels of more blogs is more pictures! Here are a big chunk of our chinese pictures courtesy of Yao.

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With my friend Gordon coming over from Thailand and Linda’s cousin Yao coming over from Guangzhou we decided to go travelling to the famous places in Yunan province. The four of us headed to Dali. The town itself is very much a tourist town. We walked one street for twenty minutes and all we found we’re nicknack shops. Well that and some beautiful caramel candies shaped like a phoenix. Those were rather cool looking although a little too sweet for my liking. Our hostel was very pretty with comfy beds, good coffee and over friendly dogs. We actually spent very little time in the town. Our first day we spent on a trek to the lake. We opted to walk through the fields to get there and ended up really enjoying it. We walked through tons of rice and corn fields and asked the farmers for directions. I enjoyed being able to see a real chinese country side. How else would I get to see women wearing rice hats and what appeared to be ghost buster backpacks spraying pesticide on their crops? We got a little tired and opted for a horse carriage trip to the lake. This turned out to be a highlight. We went to what appeared to be a fishing area in the middle of nowhere. Along the way we got to see Chinese farmers going about their daily lives. Somehow this was much more interesting than tourist sites. Gordon and I agreed that if it weren’t for our chinese speaking travelling partners we would have been to afraid to get on that horse buggy. As it was, sometimes sketchy things are the most interestings.

The next day we went up the local mountain. After taking the chairlift up we went for some chinese hiking. This involves walking on a flat stone path past beautiful scenery. In this case it was mountains peeking out of the clouds and fog. Throw in the odd waterfall and phoenix looking rock face that we saw and you get an idea of what chinese landscape art is depicting. We were going to go into some phoenix cave but the fact that rocks from a landslide blocked the entrance made us reconsider. There are some things that are in fact too sketchy to do. [Linda's sidenote: Gordon had wanted to go up despite the fact it was raining and the rocks were slippery and no way to save oneself if he were to slip. So telling him: "I don't want to explain your parents how stupid a way you died" worked in nipping that in the butt. Yao has claimed that was the best quote on this trip]

All in all I enjoyed Dali very much. Hey, maybe I’ll even get to writing the Lijiang post sometime soon.

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So the afternoon started off with a pretty simple plan: since I was already downtown I’d meet my chinese tutor at a cafe instead of my apartment. After the lesson I was to take the 96 bus home. But when I arrived at the bus stop there was no 96 bus and i didn’t recognize any of the bus stops listed for the buses that did stop there. I confirmed with a stranger that the 96 bus did not stop there. It was in this conversation that I came to realize I didn’t know the name of the place I wanted to go (I only knew how to recognize the characters). I also realized I had no cell phone. I also realised I had no map. All I knew was I wanted to go basically northish. Without knowing the name of where I wanted to go even a taxi wouldn’t help. I remembered those famous words from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: “Don’t Panic”. I went to search for a place that sold maps. First store said that there was a store up that way that sold maps. They also said something about lights and “do you see it?” but I didn’t quite understand it all. After asking a few store clerks along the way I got to the map store and bought myself a map with bus routes on it. I had my current location pointed out to me on the map and asked them the best way to get to Beijing Lu (a major street that leads to my apartment). They suggested I take the 85 bus and that the bus stop was just a little bit that way. Well I must have missed the stop while walking or misunderstood them or both because after about 10 minutes walking I realised I was about a 10 minute walk away from the map store in the direction opposite to where I wanted to go. So a 10 minute walk back and a 10 minute wait for the bus and and a short bus ride later I arrived at Beijing Lu. There I was able to recognize my stop on multiple bus routes and went home. I think it is worth noting that despite the fact that I basically wondered around aimlessly for at least an hour more than was necessary I was pleased as punch at being able to succeed in this adventure. When I spoke Chinese, people understood! So I got back to the apartment complex only to realise I couldn’t remember which room I was in. I guessed building number 7, dan number 2, room number 201. Alas, I now realise that the it is building number 7, dan number 1, room number 202. After an awkward conversation with the residents of the wrong apartment number, I headed to the nearest internet cafe and checked emails to find the real address. See, having a terrible sense of direction and a poor memory will make you resourceful. Anyway, the minimum time you can buy is 1 hour so I’m spending this time writing this blog. Hope you enjoy it.

-Brit

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Sorry that we have been so terrible at posting so far. Our Europe portion of our trip just finished and hopefully we’ll get to posting blogs about the second half. But in the mean time here are some pictures from that half of the trip:

Europe 2

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Here’s a link to pictures.  We’ll try to organize and comment them in due time.

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For those of you wondering where our posts have been, Munich proved to be internetless, at least where our hotel is concerned. Nevertheless our accommodations in Munich have proven to be quite favorable.  Other than the lack of convenience that hostels provides (such as umbrellas, adaptors, laundry and wireless) our hotel has proven to be quite wonderful. Not only is the room spacious and the bathroom wonderful (we’re really thankful for the great water pressure) but we have a grocery store conveniently right outside of our building.  This has allowed us to have a well needed break from eating out.  Hurray for salades, breads, cheese and 15 cent 1.5L minealwasser!

We are also looking to be posting up more pictures in the near future.  Surprisingly for us, we have been taking our fair share, and look forward to sharing it with all of you. I’m especially excited to share with those people who’ve been bugging me about trying out beers in Munich a special pic just for you.

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