I'm hoooome
Jul. 13th, 2009 10:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fishpatrolI got back yesterday evening; I ate, did a bit of catching up on LJ, and then slept for twelve hours straight. The most productive thing I did today was clear out my suitcase, but my room still looks like a disaster zone, so maybe I wasn't all that productive, really.
My travel route was like this:
Beijing -> Yunnan (Kunming -> Lijiang -> Shangri-la -> Lijiang -> Kunming) -> Beijing -> Hubei (Wuhan) -> Shanghai -> Jiangsu (Jiangyin) -> Shanghai
Just a couple of points for now before I get my photos uploaded:
Beijing:
-People in China are concerned to the point of being paranoid over the swine flu. All the workers in the airport wore masks and rubber gloves. In fact, a dude clad in green scuba goggles, surgical mask, and white lab coat came on to our plane before we were allowed to disembark, and assessed our body temperatures by pointing this little white gun-like thing at our foreheads. I had to stifle my giggles when it was my turn. I really wanted to take a photo of the guy, but I wasn't sure if it would be appropriate. Or, like, if I would get dragged off to jail. (Later though, my dad informed me that on his flight, even the flight attendant took a photo)
Yunnan:
-We spent five days in Yunnan, being carted from site to site, sleeping at 11 or 12 and getting wake-up calls at 5am. I must've taken about 400 photos -- it was just gorgeous there. (More details with accompanying photos to come later) Incidentally, the most disgusting washroom I'd encountered during my entire trip was in Yunnan, on the way from Lijiang to Shangri-La -- and it had cost us abuck yuan each!
-My favourite site: Yu Long Xuei Shan (Jade Dragon Snow Mountain). We started off at around 3000 something metres above sea level, where the bus dropped us off for the cable car ride. The cable car took us, while travelling through clouds, to an altitude of 4500 (and something) metres. The view from the mountain was breathtakingly gorgeous (photos tomorrow, promise). The topmost observatory platform was built another 100 metres higher and the climb was a bit tough due to lack of oxygen (we carried canned oxygen, but my dad's doctor-slash-researcher colleagues said they only had a placebo effect -- little bursts of pure oxygen doesn't help your body much. But when you feel like you're going to keel over? Every last gasp helps ;)). That climb was totally worth the effort.
Wuhan:
-The mosquitoes in Wuhan are vicious little critters. I have scars all over my legs thanks to them.
-Chinese people were afraid that I, coming from North America, would infect them with the H1N1 virus, but instead, I was the one to be infected. Granted, it was just the common cold, but I spent a day prone on my grandmother's bamboo sheets, under the mosquito netting, with a sore throat and a dizzy head. And then, during the subsequent days, my brain leaked out of my nose and I almost hacked up a lung.
Shanghai:
-I've been to Nanjing Road about three or four times now. I've finally realized that it contains the same stores over and over all the way down to the end of the pedestrian-only street. I got bored and decided to try to find my way to the Shanghai Bund. I knew the general direction (walk toward Huangpu River), but didn't actually know what road to follow. So I walked. And walked. The sun blazed down on me (the summer sun in China is killer. Want an insta-tan? Go to China in July) and blisters formed and popped on my feet. I almost gave up a few times, but I thought, no, I should be almost there, just keep going. There was construction site after construction site, and when I caught site of the Oriental Pearl Tower but didn't see the river, I stopped at a building construction site and asked a worker where was the Bund. He pointed straight and said, it's right there (the "duh" was implied). The reason I couldn't see the river? There was a fence all the way along the street and there was so much construction going on with the buildings along the Bund that it just wasn't worth walking any further. FAIL :|
Jiangyin:
-There was this village (the name of the place escapes me -- and "village" really isn't an accurate term anymore given all the advancements made in the past two or so decades) where all of the houses were from the same cookie cutter, arranged in neat rows. It was a rich village, but you only get a cut of what you earn. If one person wants a car, then everyone gets a car. I took several photos from a view tower they erected in the centre of the village, and man, the neatness and the sameness of all the buildings is pretty damn creepy. Don't get me wrong, it was totally worth a visit to see what a place with plenty of wealth but no freedom looks like.
-We were invited to dinner at a rotating restaurant at the top of the tallest hotel in the city. It was, of course, lavish and expensive. Funny thing that it wasn't street-meat or the food of a dinky restaurant in the middle of nowhere that took me down in the end. I woke up in the middle of the night with the urge to throw up. Which I did. Repeatedly, at least once an hour, until dawn. Of course, our sightseeing plans for the next day had to be cancelled, and we were driven back to my aunt's place in Shanghai, where I proceeded to burn up with fever and continue to vomit. (The retching noises I made sounded like I was getting a demon exorcised out of me -- but much uckier substances than black smoke were coming out. >__O)
Since we had to catch our plane the next day, I got dragged off to the hospital to get some medicine prescribed. We thought I was recovering and then bam, the medicine and the very little dinner I ate ended up in the porcelain bowl. So it was back to the hospital I went. I was given a drip feed (for, like, eight hours! I was promised that it would only take four) and had to stay in the observatory room overnight.
That was the first time I'd ever stayed in a hospital overnight (my mom was squished in the teeny hospital bed next to me because someone had to be around at all times, some dude was snoring like a buzz saw a couple beds over -- he sounded like he was going to swallow his tongue, and I kinda wished he did just so he'd stop snoring), and it was a pretty shitty night -- though, admittedly, it was better than the night before, where I was pretty much bent over the toilet or the garbage bin all night. I swear, IV drips are Chinese doctors' solutions to everything -- but in my case, it worked and I was able to catch my flight in the afternoon. I left China with a bang, with an empty stomach, two boxes of medicine, and my relatives all in a frenzy.
I still don't have much of an appetite, but I'm losing the bit of weight I gained over the last year (which was full of stress-eating) and I hope to turn what weight I gain back into muscle by jogging and swimming when I fully recover. Hurrah for silver linings. \o/ Speaking of weight, my height suggests that I should buy medium clothing in China -- my need to breathe suggests that large or X-large would be more appropriate. Saleswomen always push small or medium at me, and I'm like, no, seriously, gimme a large. I pretty much had to buy the largest coat and the largest bathing suit available (XL, for the record). Oh, China!sizes.
I kind of miss China the way I miss places after staying for more than one week. Now that I'm home again, back in the same chair, at the same desk, glued to the same screen, it's almost as if I never left.
Anyway, illustrated ramblings tomorrow. I wish I could maintain the sleep schedule of 11pm to 8am, but it's only my second night back and I'm already reverting back to 1am to 11am.
I tried catching up on LJ, but I gave up at ?skip=bajillion. So what've I missed and what've you guys been up to for the past three weeks?
My travel route was like this:
Beijing -> Yunnan (Kunming -> Lijiang -> Shangri-la -> Lijiang -> Kunming) -> Beijing -> Hubei (Wuhan) -> Shanghai -> Jiangsu (Jiangyin) -> Shanghai
Just a couple of points for now before I get my photos uploaded:
Beijing:
-People in China are concerned to the point of being paranoid over the swine flu. All the workers in the airport wore masks and rubber gloves. In fact, a dude clad in green scuba goggles, surgical mask, and white lab coat came on to our plane before we were allowed to disembark, and assessed our body temperatures by pointing this little white gun-like thing at our foreheads. I had to stifle my giggles when it was my turn. I really wanted to take a photo of the guy, but I wasn't sure if it would be appropriate. Or, like, if I would get dragged off to jail. (Later though, my dad informed me that on his flight, even the flight attendant took a photo)
Yunnan:
-We spent five days in Yunnan, being carted from site to site, sleeping at 11 or 12 and getting wake-up calls at 5am. I must've taken about 400 photos -- it was just gorgeous there. (More details with accompanying photos to come later) Incidentally, the most disgusting washroom I'd encountered during my entire trip was in Yunnan, on the way from Lijiang to Shangri-La -- and it had cost us a
-My favourite site: Yu Long Xuei Shan (Jade Dragon Snow Mountain). We started off at around 3000 something metres above sea level, where the bus dropped us off for the cable car ride. The cable car took us, while travelling through clouds, to an altitude of 4500 (and something) metres. The view from the mountain was breathtakingly gorgeous (photos tomorrow, promise). The topmost observatory platform was built another 100 metres higher and the climb was a bit tough due to lack of oxygen (we carried canned oxygen, but my dad's doctor-slash-researcher colleagues said they only had a placebo effect -- little bursts of pure oxygen doesn't help your body much. But when you feel like you're going to keel over? Every last gasp helps ;)). That climb was totally worth the effort.
Wuhan:
-The mosquitoes in Wuhan are vicious little critters. I have scars all over my legs thanks to them.
-Chinese people were afraid that I, coming from North America, would infect them with the H1N1 virus, but instead, I was the one to be infected. Granted, it was just the common cold, but I spent a day prone on my grandmother's bamboo sheets, under the mosquito netting, with a sore throat and a dizzy head. And then, during the subsequent days, my brain leaked out of my nose and I almost hacked up a lung.
Shanghai:
-I've been to Nanjing Road about three or four times now. I've finally realized that it contains the same stores over and over all the way down to the end of the pedestrian-only street. I got bored and decided to try to find my way to the Shanghai Bund. I knew the general direction (walk toward Huangpu River), but didn't actually know what road to follow. So I walked. And walked. The sun blazed down on me (the summer sun in China is killer. Want an insta-tan? Go to China in July) and blisters formed and popped on my feet. I almost gave up a few times, but I thought, no, I should be almost there, just keep going. There was construction site after construction site, and when I caught site of the Oriental Pearl Tower but didn't see the river, I stopped at a building construction site and asked a worker where was the Bund. He pointed straight and said, it's right there (the "duh" was implied). The reason I couldn't see the river? There was a fence all the way along the street and there was so much construction going on with the buildings along the Bund that it just wasn't worth walking any further. FAIL :|
Jiangyin:
-There was this village (the name of the place escapes me -- and "village" really isn't an accurate term anymore given all the advancements made in the past two or so decades) where all of the houses were from the same cookie cutter, arranged in neat rows. It was a rich village, but you only get a cut of what you earn. If one person wants a car, then everyone gets a car. I took several photos from a view tower they erected in the centre of the village, and man, the neatness and the sameness of all the buildings is pretty damn creepy. Don't get me wrong, it was totally worth a visit to see what a place with plenty of wealth but no freedom looks like.
-We were invited to dinner at a rotating restaurant at the top of the tallest hotel in the city. It was, of course, lavish and expensive. Funny thing that it wasn't street-meat or the food of a dinky restaurant in the middle of nowhere that took me down in the end. I woke up in the middle of the night with the urge to throw up. Which I did. Repeatedly, at least once an hour, until dawn. Of course, our sightseeing plans for the next day had to be cancelled, and we were driven back to my aunt's place in Shanghai, where I proceeded to burn up with fever and continue to vomit. (The retching noises I made sounded like I was getting a demon exorcised out of me -- but much uckier substances than black smoke were coming out. >__O)
Since we had to catch our plane the next day, I got dragged off to the hospital to get some medicine prescribed. We thought I was recovering and then bam, the medicine and the very little dinner I ate ended up in the porcelain bowl. So it was back to the hospital I went. I was given a drip feed (for, like, eight hours! I was promised that it would only take four) and had to stay in the observatory room overnight.
That was the first time I'd ever stayed in a hospital overnight (my mom was squished in the teeny hospital bed next to me because someone had to be around at all times, some dude was snoring like a buzz saw a couple beds over -- he sounded like he was going to swallow his tongue, and I kinda wished he did just so he'd stop snoring), and it was a pretty shitty night -- though, admittedly, it was better than the night before, where I was pretty much bent over the toilet or the garbage bin all night. I swear, IV drips are Chinese doctors' solutions to everything -- but in my case, it worked and I was able to catch my flight in the afternoon. I left China with a bang, with an empty stomach, two boxes of medicine, and my relatives all in a frenzy.
I still don't have much of an appetite, but I'm losing the bit of weight I gained over the last year (which was full of stress-eating) and I hope to turn what weight I gain back into muscle by jogging and swimming when I fully recover. Hurrah for silver linings. \o/ Speaking of weight, my height suggests that I should buy medium clothing in China -- my need to breathe suggests that large or X-large would be more appropriate. Saleswomen always push small or medium at me, and I'm like, no, seriously, gimme a large. I pretty much had to buy the largest coat and the largest bathing suit available (XL, for the record). Oh, China!sizes.
I kind of miss China the way I miss places after staying for more than one week. Now that I'm home again, back in the same chair, at the same desk, glued to the same screen, it's almost as if I never left.
Anyway, illustrated ramblings tomorrow. I wish I could maintain the sleep schedule of 11pm to 8am, but it's only my second night back and I'm already reverting back to 1am to 11am.
I tried catching up on LJ, but I gave up at ?skip=bajillion. So what've I missed and what've you guys been up to for the past three weeks?
