新疆 Day 2 - Mountains

We boarded a large tour bus that took us into the mountains since private vehicles are not permitted into the designated scenic areas. It was filled with other tour groups from different places in China, and the people were very excited and very loud. Our first stop on the mountain road overlooked a river, and we all got off for pictures. I found a walkway leading down the valley towards the water. There were wildflowers everywhere, yellow and white. Trees I thought looked like aspens swayed in the wind, leaves flipping back and forth, the whole tree shimmering in the sun. Clouds cast their own shadows on the mountainside as they floated by overhead.

 

My dad and my uncle

It was breathtakingly beautiful at that first stop, and I was so in love with the view that I was sad to board the bus once more. We stopped at numerous other places too: there were platforms perched at the edge of a cliff, walkways looking out at green fields sprinkled with flowers and dotted with cows and sheep. Here and there, the local people of ethnic minorities had their cloth tents and wooden houses, smoke rising into the clear mountain air as small, brightly-dressed children stood in doorways to stare. At some stops, we stayed for a long time, but at others we moved on after five minutes or so. 

hmm, bonus picture

新疆 Day 2 - The Climb

The bus finally brought us to the very highest point, where we would be able to look back down at the river and the valley. The way was steep, narrow and winding, so the people in the aisle seats were told to put on their seatbelts. The bus rumbled and bumped its way up at an alarmingly high speed, coming to a few very close encounters with opposing traffic. It always seemed impossible that both buses could pass each other, but somehow the drivers would honk and manoeuvre their way, squeezing rather treacherously side by side on the narrow road.

At the top, we had to make our way up 1050 or so steps set into the mountain to get to the viewing tower. The way up was sunny, windy, and quite exhausting at times, but the view all along the valley and mountains beyond was amazing. We stopped to take pictures of course, and finally reached the peak and its glorious scenery. I was dying a little bit by then, since my feet were tired, but otherwise I felt really fresh right there.

On the side road down the mountain, my feet trembled and my eyes threatened to close. The fatigue rolled in and bore down on me in waves, and so I stumbled my way back to the buses as we returned the way we’d come. As I dozed off in the bus, I started leaning against the window beside me despite the bumping of the bus, occasionally waking up when my head smashed into the window particularly hard. Once, I opened my eyes to find passengers of another bus staring at me from their windows, only a few inches away from my face. My sleepy mind couldn’t comprehend how it was possible, but I realized it was just another bus we were passing, and that was how close they cut it. O_o
Panorama from the top from my dad's camera

新疆 Day 2 - Riverside

After a late lunch at one of the only restaurants in the area, we went down to the river we’d seen from the mountaintop in the morning. There was a dock for small boats, and a wide area along the shore with boardwalks and benches. With only a gentle breeze and the waves lapping against the shore, the atmosphere was very calming and serene. Looking up, we could see the tower we had climbed to, and I was pretty proud of myself for having survived the climb because the mountain looked especially high from where we were. Strolling along the river bank, we stopped periodically for the resident photographers (my dad and cousin, along with my uncle and his camcorder) to get the shots they wanted. While waiting, I saw an eagle swoop down to grab a fish from the water, flopping and shiny in its claws. Later on, I watched a mother duck taking her ducklings for a swim. The little duckies were trying to swim upstream, straining and straining, swimming together towards their mother as she waited on a rock. I didn’t manage to get a picture though, since I’d left my phone in the car.

新疆 Day 1 - Airport Hopping

We rose early (5:45am) to drive to the airport. There is something about waking up in an unfamiliar place that makes me awaken faster, as though there are unknowns that I need to be alert and prepared for, things to be discovered, battles to be fought. The traffic of early morning wasn't as crazy as the night before. Though it was a Monday, the workday in Guangzhou doesn't start until 8:30. The highways were cool, there are trees and bushes planted in the middle divider between opposing lanes. It has a neat feeling of driving down a boulevard lined with forest, where Toronto would simply have been gray and urban-flavoured. Of course, seat belts are a joke here.

Our first flight was from Guanzhou's Bai Yun Airport to Urumqi (capital of Xin Jiang I think). The airport was pretty modern-looking (see above) but my uncle and cousin were nervous wrecks already, taking two "esteemed Canadian guests" on a trip.

The customs are pretty slack in China. The officer found a little screwdriver my dad had left in his camera bag, and then waved it around and told us not to use it before giving it back. Waiting to board the plane was conducted outdoors in the heat rather than in an air-conditioned waiting area inside. The tunnel/walkway thing that typically leads from the terminal to the plane was there, but we weren't using it for some reason. The crew and pilot had to squeeze past the crowd of passengers to get on the plane themelves.

On the plane, the seats were definitely not as comfortable as I was used to, but it was a domestic flight anyway. They did hand out drinks and a meal shortly after take-off. There is nothing much to be said about the service as it was mediocre, and the most notable thing was one of the girls dropping a lunch box foil-cover-down onto my dad's leg. At least the foil cover was intact...

We were supposed to catch a connecting flight from Urumqi to the small city of Altay, but the flight was delayed so we ended up with five hours and nothing to do. My uncle and cousin being too timid to venture out into the city in that short span of time, we had a very long and drawn out lunch at the Urumqi Airport's KFC instead. My dad went to buy a cup of coffee which was both pricey and vile-tasting (88 yuan, making it a >$10 cup of coffee, served in a plastic bubble-tea-type cup FTL) I exhausted the possibilities of the airport (there are two very small floors in the terminal, both of which can be navigated in under ten minutes probably), and left the building on my own while trying to dispel a headache. I wandered around the parking lots until I lost the sense of being very vulnerable, somehow crossed a highway after seeing an old lady do it, wandered around a hotel lobby on the other side, crossed back, and made my way back to KFC where I was met by my uncle in a state of crippling anxiety. We then had some really spicy noodles and some really expensive water, and finally got to board the plane.

I'm guessing some of the Mainlanders more accustomed to the inefficiency of their airports choose to pass their time doing things like paying for a 5 minute session in a massage chair and proceeding to fall asleep and remain there for hours. Before boarding I also had a somewhat horrifying encounter with a Chinese washroom, made horrifying mainly by the fact that some of the stalls were missing doors and yet people used them anyway...also the odours were so strong I couldn't stop sneezing, then breathing in more, than sneezing even more.

Finally we got to Altay's airport sometime in the evening, where we were picked up by our guide and our driver with his minivan. The airport was very very very small. The planes parked in an area probably smaller than my school field, and the terminal itself was probably smaller than my school building. Picking up our luggage from the conveyor belt thing was a quick and painless ordeal. =)

新疆 Day 1 - On the Road

After arriving, our guide and driver took us on our way to where we were supposed to spend the night. As the day cooled down to a comfortable temperature, the sun set a brilliant fiery orange over the mountains. We passed shining golden fields of sunflowers, interspersed with empty dirt fields. Then it was into the mountains, rolling hills at first which rose in and out of patches of desert. In the desert segments, perhaps they’d tried to plant stuff, sparse little trees whose greenery was only little tufts stood sadly here and there. It made me think of the hair on those creepy troll dolls.

The hills and mountains were beautiful too, in a plain sort of way. The smaller ones looked like a bulldozer had simply piled dirt and sand at a construction site, but then they got higher and higher, until it was impossible to say they were anything but mountains.

As we drove on, the moon rose, glowing and swollen in the night. I swam in and out of sleep, as by this time it was nearing midnight at the end of a very long day, and each time my eyes managed to open it was darker and darker. The sun sets impossibly late in the summers of this place. We drove through mountains, the only road for miles winding back and forth with no lights whatsoever, save for our own headlights. It was a mysterious sort of thing; I kind of liked it. It was almost like being on an airplane, where nothing can be recognized or defined outside the windows, but unlike the sterile and detached capsule of a plane, the van had many windows through which the night could seep in and consume us.

新疆 Day 1 - Midnight Madness

We drove until we finally reached a point where they’d closed off the road for construction, and we were stopped by a soldier. We parked the car, being told it was blocked for an indeterminate amount of time, and got out one by one to stretch our legs and assess the situation. The tour guide seemed calm as he spoke to the people there, and our driver was simply tired and quiet. My uncle and cousin got briefly out to relieve themselves, then quickly retreated to the safety of the van. The guide brought out a melon from somewhere and had one of the locals help us cut it open. I had two pieces since I was hungry, but I never really liked melon and this one tasted strange to me. Perhaps it was just the hour of the night and the tense, unfamiliar atmosphere.

I wanted to go back to sleep but the situation was getting a little bit exciting at this point. There is something wildly exhilarating about knowing that you are stuck in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night in a country you do not understand with people you do not know well. I wandered further and further away along the moonlit road, away from where we had stopped. There were low dwellings for the local people, in which lights occasionally flashed and wobbled. The stench of animals was floating around, but the clear night breeze carried it along without giving me much trouble. I was getting pretty chilly in just a raincoat, but the moon was absolutely stunning, and everything was strangely lit, like an afternoon in negatives.

There was a creek that came down from the mountain on one side and tumbled its way through the five-house village. I stood at the “bridge” where the road passed over the bubbling water and tried to stick my hand in it (it was cold). I noticed something moving by my foot, and bent down for a closer look whereupon I saw some kind of rodent sniffing around. It was probably the size of a hamster or rat, but very sleep without much of a tail. Just then, a truck rolled by with materials for the roadwork, and when the headlights shone on it, the rodent squirmed back and forth, as if suddenly confused and intoxicated. I went back to the car for a flashlight but when I came back I didn’t find any others.

While we waited for the signal to pass through, a local Kazakh man treated us to tea. My uncle and cousin opted out, but the tour guide took my dad and I to the man's tent/house. It was round, made of cloth draped over a metal frame, about 4-5 meters in diameter. Inside there was a little wood stove warming the whole place, a small bed, a table, and a chest of drawers. He gave us tea in bowls--local tea. It wasn't the Chinese tea I'm used to. It was thick and rich, almost like broth, and slightly salty like it was fermented (I found out later they put salt and stuff in it because it tastes good when you have it together with the locally produced goat cheese--which, by the way, I also tried there but it is smelly and sour and hard and I saw a white hair sticking out of the side of the chunk they gave me). The tea was kind of filling, and it was nice that it was hot.

Finally, we got the all clear to move ahead from a soldier in a long Soviet-style overcoat. Somehow we drove over/around the newly paved part, singeing our tires and leaving a smell of burning rubber inside the car, and when I woke up again we were at the “hotel”. In the dark, it appeared to be a complex of many different buildings, with the main common one for meals in the center.

Our room was clean and cozy, although with a strong odour. In the closet where most hotels offer bathrobes, we found two of those Russian coats. So of course, we got silly since it was almost 3am by this time, and I found out how well that coat goes with a side helping of Default Face.

(It was also very useful later on for helping to make my bed feel softer…)

新疆 Prologue

My dad and I were in Hong Kong this year to visit family and stuff and today we took the "Through Train" from Hung Hom Station to the city of Guangzhou in Mainland China. My dad was born there, and his brother's family lives there now. It's only about a two hour train ride away from HK, but my dad hasn't been back there in six years or something. The trains are pretty clean and comfortable, so it was a pleasant ride.

As we sped along the rails through the changing landscapes, rainclouds came and went. I loved the strange, isolated feeling that came from opening my eyes after dozing off and being greeted by a window almost completely obscured by the raindrops running across it and the steady pitter-patter of the storm outside. Once, we passed through a city in China where they had put up a concrete wall beside the tracks to keep people form trespassing. On the top of the wall they had poured concrete and stuck in glass shards that act like barbed wire to discourage climbers. The sun was out right then, so as the train rolled past I kept staring at the glass, glinting all different colours in a strange dance between ugliness and beauty. I tried to imagine the person who had to make it, wearing thick gloves and carrying a bucket of broken glass collected from who-knows-where, slowly working his way across the wall, sticking the shards in pointiest side up with a pattern he thought most advantageous. Interesting job?

We arrived in Guangzhou in the afternoon. My aunt and uncle and cousins came to pick us up, and on the ride to their apartment I got a taste of China's epic traffic conditions. When turning from the small street onto a main road, this little blue car passes by like an inch away from the back corner of our car. I was sitting right in the back of our minivan so I watched it just slice by horrifically. Of course, there was also another spot where we had to U-turn to get to the other side of a street the size of the 401 with lane dividers down the middle. There were about 6 other cars also trying to do the same thing, in both directions, and right beside there we saw a NO U TURN sign.

My dad pointed out places he still recognized all along the way, but I couldn't recognize anything even though I've been there more often than he has in the last 10 years. It gave me a slightly harrowing feeling of being in a completely foreign and unfriendly place (as my preconceptions of China dictated to my mind), and this was the first day of a rather lonely trip for me.

NYC - Afterthought

This trip to New York City was definitely a March Break well spent. I did get to see most of the things I wanted to see, and somehow got out of seeing any museums at all (I developed a disliking for museums from a previous trip to Washington DC, the place where museum admission is free...and we all know how azn parents feel about free things). However, I must say that I walked a ridiculous amount, and maybe because I'm so soft, that was rather a pain. I guess it was worth it though. I also ate a lot of food...some good, some not-so-good. Now that I'm home again I get to return to my usual eating and sleeping habits, as well as return to school soon. In a way though, this trip taught me how much I actually like being at home and having the regular schedules of my life. Most of all, I won't forget what it felt like to go back to church again, and to be surrounded by my friends as well. =)

NYC Day 6 - Church

We visited the Cathedral Church of St John the Divine. Even from the outside, it was incredibly massive, with multiple outbuildings and a private school on the grounds. The front of the cathedral itself was beautiful, worn stone carved into arches with grapevines and different ecclesiastical figures.
Upon entering, I was faced with a long corridor of successive stone arches leading straight to the back. Softly glowing lights were suspended from the ceiling by long chains, revealing narrow walkways near the tops of the arches.At the center of the cathedral, the ceiling soared to immense heights, so high up it was lost in the shadows in some places, making a large expanse of empty air for every whisper and rustle to echo and carry. I've seen some beautiful churches in Europe too, and there's always been something about those old cathedrals that touches me. A human grandeur and architectural majesty that is raised to the glory of an all-powerful God, there is something moving and captivating that cannot be captures by words or cameras. The peace among the pillars made me want to stay forever, to worship and to wonder.


Once inside the heart of the cathedral, I found many little alcoves along the sides. So many dark and shadowy places everywhere; I wanted to crawl into them, feel the coolness of the marble, safe in the dusty silences. In one area, tables covered with candles gave off a warm glow, and coloured light from the stained glass windows dappled the pale stone columns and steps with translucent rainbows. There was also a monument in memory of firefighters who perished in the line of duty in a 1966 fire.







The air of the cathedral had a sweet, musty smell, reminding me of unused spaces like a basement in a mansion. I followed the haunting sound of music floating from the inside, and found an orchestra made up entirely of guitar players. The song ended just as I arrived, and the smattering of applause that broke through the serenity surprised me. They made a ruckus packing up and leaving, while I made my way past the pulpit (raised on white marble steps and flanked by figures of saints) to a chapel at the side.

There I found a room that reminded me of Hong Kong, with walls covered by marble tiles engraved with names and dates--niches to place the ashes of the dead. I could hear birdsong through the stained glass window, which seemed fascinating to me for a moment. There were many other chapels too, separated from the walkway around the altar area by intricate, wrought iron gates. Some of them weren't lit, uninviting for tourists but with their gates still wide open. White stained glass windows gave a curiously icy feeling to those without the benefit of warm yellow lightbulbs. Others were brightly lit with sun, being placed in the direct line of the sunlight at that time of day, golden and gleaming. Some of the side chapels were very empty, while others had chairs or pews and burning candles, and some even had their own pipe organ.



I wonder what kind of congregation might have filled this sanctuary hundreds of years ago. I wonder how the organ's music would have swelled to fill all that empty air below the great arches, how a preacher's voice would have carried without a microphone. I wonder how God spoke to those people, or if they could hear Him at all over the intensity of this man-made splendour...I feel that God is not found in buildings, so much as He is found in hearts.
The longer I stayed, the more the hollowness and shadows of the vaulted ceilings seemed to press down on me. I was cold, lonely, and I thought--rather incongruously--of the stuffy side chapel where Kyrios gathers in its crowded raucous way. That place is where I've felt like home for two amazing years, a place where I've met God time and again, so much more personal and emotional than the austere beauty of a cathedral like this.
Even so, stepping back out into the bright New York City afternoon, voices back up to a normal volume and vehicles clattering by indifferently on the street, I felt like I lost something. Just a little bit.

NYC Day 6 - Macy's

So near the end of our last day, we decided to pop in to Macy's just to see what it was like in there. It used to seem like something that had a really good reputation for quality and prestige, although I can't really remember where I got that impression from. Anyway, we went inside and found out that it was like one massive Wal-Mart. There's a huge mess from people going through the clothes and stuff, and the music in some spots was loud and unpleasant. The quality of things they sold was not even as upscale as I had anticipated. I kind of thought it would be one of those places where I could window shop and not be able to buy anything, but it turned out to be alright and we got some shirts for my dad for a pretty good price. It was impressively huge though, and they had these really interesting wooden escalators that were super old and kind of rickety. The highlight of my visit was the meal at McD's...yay for unhealthy American fast food? Their burgers do come in boxes made of nicer cardboard, but I'm not sure how good that is to the environment. Also, their ketchup packets say "Fancy Ketchup" on them; I wonder that that means...Anyway I was sad that Macy's turned out to be kind of bland, but that is okay~

NYC Day 5 - Breakfast

This morning we walked over to the Rockefeller Center and took some pictures. On the way, we passed by a Magnolia Bakery, which is reputed to have the best cupcakes in the world. We bought one specialty cupcake (pecan and banana with cream cheese icing), and one regular chocolate cupcake (with light green frosting and sprinkles). Then we ate them on a bench near the outdoor ice rink at Rockefeller. They were indeed very yummy, although pretty sweet, and worth the $3 per cupcake xD

NYC Day 5 - Grand Central Station

When we got to Grand Central Station, my dad was super excited because he'd taken the train here when he visited NYC back in like 1980. That's why he was part of a tripod party taking pictures of the place when we got inside.

It looks a bit like Union Station but bigger, more elegant, more shiny, and better lit. Things are made with smoothed marble-like material, instead of the concrete-like stuff in TO. Windows let in the daylight near the ceiling, which was painted with astrological designs and figures. I wanted to sit down on the stairs to wait, except then I noticed a sign that said sitting on the stairs is strictly prohibited. Not that it stopped anybody...




While my dad was taking pictures, my mom and I went downstairs to the "Dining Concourse". It's like a looong hall, with doors along the sides that go down to the train tracks. There are many food vendors to choose from, like a massive food court, and some cool seats to enjoy your food on. It felt like a hotel lobby mixed with a touch of cave, very classy but clearly subterranean.

NYC Day 5 - Silly Americans

I was trying on a shirt in an Esprit store, and the guy who opens the doors of the fitting rooms was all like, "So where are you from?"

"Toronto."
"..O_o"
"Er, Canada."
"Oh! Canada, huh, nice...Is it really as cold as they say up there? Y'know, igloos and all that?"
">_> Nope, it's pretty much the same as here."
"Aw, really? *disppointed* Well that's nice."

I thought that was just something that we think they say. I didn't think people actually thought that! In a big city too. I don't think he even knew Toronto.

NYC Day 5 - Nightlife

For dinner, we went to this really cool Japanese restaurant called Sapporo. We had some really good ramen, served to us by Hispanic waiters with the authentic Japanese dude calling out "irasshaimase" at the door. It was pretty cool, even though it was kind of tight on space inside. After dinner we went back out to Times Square, because our hotel is just super close to there. I walked through some stores with my mom while my dad was setting up his long exposure shots for the lights and stuff. We got some M&Ms from the big M&M store around there, and went to rejoin my dad. Because I was eating M&Ms, which is chocolate, I wanted to drink milk with it. Because I'm cool that way. Solution: Walgreen's. I was a little sad that they didn't have some reasonably smallish sized milk cartons, but more milk is good, I suppose. Osteoporosis doesn't sound particularly appealing to me. Anyways that's how I ended up drinking milk and eating M&Ms in Times Square at 10:30 at night.

NYC Day 4 - Central Park

I slept in this morning, so I was really refreshed~ After brunch, we took the subway to Central Park. The sun was shining and it was really warm and balmy outside. In the park, the grass was green and the trees were just starting to put forth green buds. Today is also St. Patrick's Day, so there were quite a lot of green-clad people who looked like they'd just come from the parade. Even dogs and babies were decked out in shamrock and beer mug accessories. We took a lot of nice pictures in the sun (I'm only uploading the ones on my phone, most of them are on Dad's camera), and saw all these people sitting on benches and grassy areas. I really enjoyed the atmosphere in the park; it was a really beautiful and peaceful bubble of green space.

NYC Day 4 - Sunny Afternoon

Before I knew it, it was already afternoon. We left the park and took the subway to 14th. I got totally dripped on by the leaky subway station ceilings, and then we actually missed our stop the first time around and had to double back one station :P At 14th, I found all these cute little figurines everywhere. I'm not sure what they're supposed to be, but they're about a foot tall and some of them are adorable while others are just plain...weird.

Once outside, we walked around that is called the Meatpacking District. There were many old, red brick, warehouse-looking buildings, kind of St Lawrence Market flavoured. What I really liked was the High Line, which is an old elevated freight train railroad that was turned into a public park. You can walk along the elevated tracks, now covered with cement walkways and grasses, shrubs, trees and wildflowers. The plants were inspired by what naturally grew on the tracks after they fell into disuse and were threatened by demolition.



People could sit on the benched built to look like they were rising smoothly out of the concrete underfoot. The building that rose around it were both modern and historical, complementing the wrought iron framework of the walkway itself. From some sections, you could even look out over the piers and see Lady Liberty in the distance. There were many people just hanging out and enjoying the sunshine, so that was a vrey relaxing and enjoyable walk for me.