Part 1: Qinghai in pics

Part 2: "Let's meet at the McDonalds... or the Starbucks" - Xian and Xianyang

Xianyang welcomed three of the worst smelling travelers (and the competition for the title was fierce) with, what I still believe, is the best shower in all of Asia and the first one any of us had had in approximately nine days. I can't be sure, but it is possible that my clothes were beginning to mulch on my body.

Xian, China's ancient capital, and Xianyang, its close neighbor, were my first experiences in non-ethnic minority China. I spent most of my time there on a train back and forth between the two cities.

Luckily I really love trains (after the camel my third favorite form of transportation) and have come to love them more the more I ride them. Something about the rocking back and forth, the predictable clickity clack, and the scrolling view from the window is just appealing to me.

Chinese trains, though, are unique among trains. Get on too late and you'll find yourself standing wedged between a woman with a drooling baby and a man eating his weight in boiled eggs. Get on too early and bear the pummeling as hundreds of others squeeze their way on board. Go for the hard sleepers only to wake finding yourself the object of much scrutiny from the stranger on the bunk below you. Go for the hard seats and come to a quick and brutal understanding of the Chinese meaning of "hard". Always the train staff in vain attempt to sell anything from socks to holographic pictures of tigers while simultaneously pushing their way through the crowded isles as a salmon trying to get upstream. Occasionally a drunk man bold enough to pick a fight with a foreigner nearly twice his body mass. And don't forget, lone white foreigner, you are the entertainment for your car.

So I found myself intrigued by Chinese trains.

Other Xian and Xianyang notables:

• A mercifully easy trip out to the Terracotta Warriors... it looks just like the pictures, statues surrounded by dirt. Amusingly located down the street from the front gate is the Terracotta Warrior Factory... hmmmm....
• The sun in this city had a strange orange/red tint to it which I guess was the result of the light attempting to push its way through the pollution. Never saw the blue sky here.
  
• So many McDonalds and Starbucks and other western restaurants. It was easy enough to convince yourself that you weren't really in China, especially because the Chinese restaurants were all chains and not that great. But wait, those McDonald's pies are... bean paste flavored?!?! Guess I was in China after all.
  
• The Muslim quater was massive and easily the most fascinating place in the city. Miles of allies and markets, food and junk, art and clothes. It's amazing the variety of foods they can put on a stick. The funny thing was I actually felt a twinge of familiarity when we went to a Xinjiang restaurant to eat the muslim noodles we consume with glee in Lhasa.
• My first run in with Chinese Buddhism. Removing the giant gold covered gods and arcid insense stinging your nostrils there was little in common with the Buddhism which makes this city its prisioner.
• You can get bubble tea in Xianyang for two kuai... heads up travelers... it's worth a stop here just for that!
  

Part 2: Xian and Xianyang in pics

Part 3: "OH NO... I destroyed your love planet!" -Hong Kong

Hong Kong: a dream of Manhattan arising from the South China Sea.

Hong Kong: a city severely Chinese and yet, not at all.

Hong Kong: How on earth could I have been prepared to meet with you?

Hong Kong blew my mind and my senses. I think my most uttered word in that city was a breathless "wow". As soon as we walked across the border from Shenzhen I knew we had walked across the border to another planet.

An island of the lushest green I had seen since leaving North Carolina out of which is birthed the flash and glitter of thousands of neon signs and steel sky scrapers. The zoom and bustle of constant motion from the subways deep beneath, to the ferries littering the bay, to all manner of automobile, to trolleys and gondolas slowly dragging masses to new heights made the whole city feel like it was on the move and gave one an acute, but untraceable, sense of motion sickness.

The streets were packed with an alarming diversity of people all the time and yet I couldn't remove the distinct sensation that they were all alone. Not one looked up, not one made eye contact, not one glanced toward their neighbor.

A trip to Hong Kong Disneyworld (whose claim to fame is that it's the least you'll pay to go to a Disney park) with some new friends turned out to be extremely satisfying, mostly due to the company. Perhaps the most memorable moment, however, came when the park was minutes from closing and everyone who had come that day filed dutifully into the souviener shops to spend absolutely outrageous amounts of money on trinkets and clothes with a Disney character stamped on the side. It was breathtaking to stand at the side and watch consumerism at its maddening height.

Hong Kong, two days was enough of you. I'll take my modest apartment and simple needs over you any day. Shame to leave the dim sum though...

Part 3: Hong Kong in pics

Part 4: "Trailmarkers are for babies"- Kunming and Lijiang

Kunming was, what I imagine, your typical Chinese city would be like. Think tons of traffic, taxis that won't take you to where you want to go because it's too far, mostly gray sky, tall buildings, disabled beggars on every corner, Chinese people wandering around.

But there were a few surprises for me... because I had no idea what a typical Chinese city was.

1. We woke up every morning in our hotel to the complimentary Chinese style breakfast. I guess I was thinking some clumpy rice porridge because when I woke to the massive buffet spread before me I was ecstatic. Potatoes, three kinds of eggs, varieties of noodles and rice, meats, bread stuff, french fries, fruit, choice of drinks and my personal favorite: as much bo cai (stir fried spinach) as one could possibly eat. As a result I counted my stay in Kunming, not in the number of nights I was there, but in the number of breakfasts I ate: 4 delicious breakfasts.

2. The group of us that met in Kunming together decided one morning (it being a Sunday) that we were going to find some place to go to a service. After failing miserably to find the one recommended to us (actually possible in a city as large as Kunming, not at all possible in Lhasa) we decided to wander around. And thus we wandered right into one of the most breathtaking experiences of my whole trip:
In what on a normal day would have appeared to be a simple shop front, on this day, with the gates rolled up and loud piano music and microphoned speaking blaring from somewhere deep within, was a government sanctioned Church. The first Church I had ever seen in China. Without even thinking, I took one of the plastic stools that they handed me as we walked up and sat down in a row with some other Chinese faithful outside on the sidewalk. We had to sit outside because the medium sized room was absolutely flooded with all manner of people. Old women with graying hair swept up in a bun, young children squiggling in their seats, teens and college students bending forward to listen with pens and paper in hand. When they sang a familiar tune with Chinese lyrics I was totally mesmerized to hear the praises of the One who is worthy echoing off the lips of so many in a language that I had only been able to use for trade. When the speaking was read from the text which I love all I could do was sit back and let it, the whole experience, and this amazing fellowship just wash all over me. I had never seen anything like it.

We weren't really in Kunming that long... the deal was that we were going to hop on an 8 hour long bus (with complimentary lunch and disgusting trough squatties included) to go to Lijiang. We were going to hike our way through the famed Tiger Leaping Gorge.

I can't even beign to describe the majesty of this experience. If I had been totally blown away but the Church we stumbled into, this gorge and these mountains spoke as loudly as those songs had been sung to the praise of their Maker.

Green trees and thick foliage gave way to dusty and often precarious rocks gave way to slick and refreshing waterfalls. A horseback ride up the 28 switchbacks (of doom) to the peak of the trail was an amazing opportunity to learn some Chinese and watch the turquoise waters at the bottom of the gorge slowly turn into a tiny thread. A night in a random guest house provided an amazing view, not only of a marajuana farm, but of the five fingered mountain. That night, despite the really cold chill I couldn't resist laying on the roof to stare up at the biggest night sky full of the clearest stars listening to the waters of the river push their way between those mountains somewhere far below. Another day of hiking through fields and over mountains, playing tag with a herd of goats brought us slowly down close to the base of the gorge where we stayed at another guest house, and met a very interesting character.

When I met Sean he was a disembodied voice stuck in a tree. He came down and I discovered that he, the owner of this guest house, was a Tibetan man, with long hair tied up in a pony tail, and a severly crippled hand. His English was good and we were able to have many enlightening converstations. Did you know that trailmarkers are for babies? and that tigers are only scared of two things: pregnant women and bird poop? that Christians have some powerful words? that all dogs should be called 'barbeque'? and did you know that white girls can't possibly know how to cook potatos in a bed of coals? Well I showed him... I haven't sat in North Carolina outside roasting potatoes over a bed of coals to eat some of the most delicious potatoes in the world with my family to be told that. So I roasted him some potatoes. It was sad to leave the next morning to head back to Lijiang, despite the fact that Lijiang itself was a pretty interesting place.

Once we arrived back in Kunming (again via the 8 hour bus complimentary lunch and scuzzy trough squatties included) we had an extra day before heading to Thailand so we decided to make the most of it and headed to the stone forest. Like everything in China, I'm not sure how much of it was natural and how much of it was man made, but it was an incredible place... literally a forest of towering limestone formations that stretched for what felt like miles, easy to be amused and easier to get lost. We only got out because there happend to be a Korean tour group nearby and we simply added ourselves to the mix.

What a privledge to see Him in so many extremes: from the heart of city to the heights of mountains!

Part 4: Kunming and Lijiang in pics