Limited Access

Just wanted to let everyone know that we are very rural china for the
next week and a half. What does this mean to you, probably nothing,
but if you are regular reader you you might notice an even longer
interval between posts than normal. Hopefully this will give me some
time to reflect on the beauties of running water and electricity and
it might even result in more of my what is it series.

Sent from my iPhone

The drive to Xichang

Google maps is not normally very accurate about driving times in China. Our experience has been that they over estimate by as much as 25%. This past two long drives (sunday and yesterday) we found that they grossly underestimate. Sunday we got stuck behind a bus-truck collision and then in massively bad traffic on the freeway. It took 11 hrs for what google thinks is a 9 hr drive and we have done in 7.5 hrs. Then yesterday was the kicker. It was stated as a 10 hr drive from Chengdu to Xichang and 3 on to Yanyuan. We know it's another 1ish from yanyuan to Yangjuan. So we thought (innocently) that we may be able to do this all in 1 day. WRONG!

The drive started out with bad luck - we couldn't figure out how to get on the freeway. However, that is a common problem because the maps, roads, and intersections aren't well marked and don't have consistent signs. Sometimes english is translated, sometimes transliterated from Chinese. Sometimes there is no English. Signs are behind trees, 50 ft from the exit you need. Highways are numbered only on major intersection signs and on some maps. Most intersections are labeled by a bridge name, not the street names. Yikes.

So we got on the highway and drove well until the highway ended (expected) about 2 hrs from Chengdu. We then hit major construction and traffic and a really bad road. At one point we ended up on a bridge where asphalt had just been laid on the right side. Innocently enough we decided it was ok to drive on the right side (not seeing signs otherwise) but we got stopped by some workers who told me it was an RMB 500 ($75) fine for this infraction but he'd give us a discount to 300. I told him we wouldn't pay it and he said if he called his boss it would be 1000. I persisted and at one point Josh hailed some cops (wrong type. They weren't traffic cops) who told him to let me go. He told me he'd take 100 and I insisted on a receipt, which he wouldn't give me. I told him (and the cops) that I wouldn't give him money without a receipt because it would just go to his pockets. He called the bosses. They came over after about 15 minutes and took some pictures of our infraction. I explained the situation and the bribe attempt and they made him let us go. It all took nearly an hour and it was a little frightening and annoying, but I stayed reasonably calm. It was clear we had done no damage to the road and everyone knew that, and the man was just hoping to hit up the wealthy white people.

The road was pretty bad for a long time. WE drove over a few passes, through a closed basin (lots of sediment fill - kind of cool) and at one point got a flat tire. We used the pump we bought to give to the Yangjuan school for soccer balls to pump the tire up enough to get to a repair shop where the thorough guy charged us RMB 20 to check 2 tires, repair one, and pump both up. Pretty good. We had dinner at about 9 pm at a road side place run by a lovely young woman with a 2 month old daughter. Then got in to Xichang at about 10:15 and found a very nice hotel for only 128/room. It even has internet.

To add to the good ending for the day, I found out this morning that a paper from my dissertation got accepted!

We're off to Yanyuan and Yangjuan today. I will try to post mobile updates from my iphone.

amanda :)

Upcoming trip

We're meeting Liz, an Oberlin undergrad, and Brian, a UW post doc, tonight for a 3 week whirlwind field trip road trip. We're headed to Yangjuan (www.coolmountainfund.com) first, where we will spend 10 days working on a river restoration plan and continuing ongoing geomorphic research. Then we're off to Zhongdian where we get to visit my friend Michelle (from UW Madison) and see if there are comparison sites there, and then head up to Daocheng where Travis (from CU Boulder) is studying tourism. He thinks there is a good chance that Daocheng would be a good comparison site to Jiuzhaigou. Finally we'll head back to Chengdu then take Brian and Liz up to Jiuzhaigou for 2 days or so.

Here's our route:

View Larger Map


We'll not have much internet access except through our phones, but hopefully will be able to post short updates via email. Once we get to Zhongdian there will be regular internet again.

amanda :)

What is it or (something)?

Sorry for the delay in responding as to my query of "what is it from last week". While there were some very good answers that were quite clever, they were all wrong, Ok not all of them were wrong but this is my blog so I can decide what's right and what's not. In any case it turns out that the device in question is in fact a below ground dumpster (Not Dempster, sorry). In fact at some time in the near future we may even get to use it as a dumpster as recently a sign was put up on it. What did the sign say I don't know because I don't read Chinese, but if I did I'm sure that I would be enthralled at the poetic nature that was used to describe how to remove the trash from the dumpster something that I have actually yet to find out.
That being aside let us get on to our next pondering. Living in China has allowed me to see things that are not common in other parts of the world. For instance trees growing in the middle of the road, walls jutting out into the middle of the road and of course three or four lane highways where there are stripes for only two. These things all follow a theme, that theme of is of course, roads. There are many interesting things to see on the roads of China and as I'm sure there are plenty of strange things to see on roads in many parts of the world I am currently in China and this will have to suffice. That is why I am pleased to present you with not one but two images for your optical delight. Much like the vast array of reality television shows that once they run out of ideas to challenge their contestants I have decided to change the rules slightly. Don't worry they haven't changed much. As usual the correct answer will receive...nothing. As I have nothing to give you shall receive nothing unless of course you count the adulation and respect of your fellow colleagues, family, and  pets for such a prestigious honor of knowing something that they don't.

How many trucks are in the picture? and for you uber-nerdy types out there where is the center of gravity of the mass on this stretch of Public highway?


What's wrong with this picture? There are so many can you name them all.

finally I thought I would throw one last one in, and it is an actual "what is it"?

Bonus points for the lazy people that go to the Ikea catalog and look up the name on the tag.

Weekends at Abuluzi

Abuluzi is the only locally owned and authentic Tibetan restaurant in Jiuzhaigou. The family also runs a fantastic homestay. At the restaurant Zhuo Ma is the hostess, waitress, and general manager. Ke Zhu is the cook. At the homestay Zhuo Ma is the general manager and a fantastic host, Ke Zhu is the breakfast cook, Ama (their mother) is the host, housekeeper, waitress, and dinner cook, and Lopsong (Ke Zhu's son) is the entertainer. He's 2. Another time I will tell you about the homestay. We *love* their Suyou Cha (yak butter tea) which has honey, barley flour, tea, and yak butter. In any case, today I wanted to write about the restaurat. On most nights at Abuluzi their only guests are the handful of foreigners who hear about the restaurant and go for some delicious food. However, on Friday and Saturday nights (at least the last two weekends), a group of Jiuzhaigou residents gathers for food, drink, and good company. the last two weekends we ended up with them partly by accident and partly because we happened to stop by to see Ke Zhu and Zhuo Ma. The group is awesome. It includes: Kieran, a Chinese friend of his (a lovely Han lady who used to do Tibetan dancing and now works for the park; Han is the ethnic that 95% of Chinese are), a lady from Lhasa who (I believe) runs a hotel, a man from Amdo who speaks English, a famous local singer, and the singer's personal assistant. I think that's everyone. Plus us. So there are people from several different parts of Tibet, a Han woman, an Irishman, and 2 Americans eating Tibetan food in a very Chinese touristy Tibetan area. How cool! They are totally understanding of us not drinking alcohol. In fact, one of the local guys (the Amdo one) is currently not eating meat and not drinking. I'm not sure how long for. But we have been buying non-alcoholic beer in Chengdu and leaving it at the restaurant so that we can drink something tasty when we're hanging out there.

Last Friday night we showed up after a movie screening at the local orphanage. Kieran has a tradition that we participate in of showing a cartoon to the orphans once a week. In any case, we went to Abuluzi after the movie and discovered that Ke Zhu had made some fantastic hot pot (note: normally I really dislike hot pot).  While we ate the hot pot, we discovered that Lhasa lady was really worked up because she and her friends had gone to see what one of the Zang Jia Lou (Tibetan Family Home) places was like. She discovered that it was not at all representative of Tibetan culture. The proprietor was almost certainly Han and these places cater totally to Han tour groups. Inside they serve fake suyou cha (hardly any yak butter) and the wait staff are pushy, rude, loud, and generally "not Tibetan". In her mind, Tibetans are polite and quiet and gentle people and these Zang Jia Lou places are making a total spectacle out of her culture. It not only is a case of their culture losing face but that these places are a way for Han to believe that they have a superior culture.

It was interesting. I totally see where she is coming from, but I also totally see why these places have developed - they are exactly the kind of "renao" (hot and loud) places that the Han tour groups like and want to see while on vacation. So how can the Jiuzhaigou Tibetans preserve their culture, make a living in a place where the entire economy is tourism, and pass their culture on to future generations?

What is it? Part One

I have decided to try and document some of the interesting things that I see and find out if anyone else can tell me what it is. Much like the question of whether a pine cone is a flower or not I will post a picture of something and pose the question "What is it?"
A few weeks ago Amanda and I were surprised to see that a hole was being dug outside of our apartment building. As it evolved the hole got deeper and it eventually turned into a cement hole in the ground. As it took shape a giant metal contraption was placed in the hole with a couple hydraulic rams to lift it out. We were confused about what it was until we saw one in action somewhere else. The picture below is the thing in its below ground phase.

Good luck!

Getting Bike Parts in Rural China

Yesterday we returned home to Jiuzhaigou from a long span abroad (like 9 days or something) whereby we spent most of it in Chengdu save for a couple of days in Qongching.
Qongching is about a twelve hour drive from the park which is at least 11 near misses. Driving in China is often measured in near misses as they are so often connected to the distance one drives. Generally a near miss is defined as nearly being involved in some type of accident. Most of which are completely preventable since it is always someone else's fault. A couple of examples of near miss scenarios are: driving down the highway and finding that the road is blocked on a blind corner by three tractor trailers requiring one to apply emergency braking techniques; cars stopping randomly in the middle of the road requiring one to apply emergency braking techniques; chickens, sheep (goats), horses, cows, cats, people running across the road at exactly the wrong moment, requiring one to apply emergency braking techniques. The general rule for near miss calculations is 1 near miss for every 100 km of multi-lane highway driving and 1 near miss for every 50 km of rural highway driving. Of course near misses increase with speed so that for every 10 km/hr over 100 km/hr near misses will go up by 1 on multi-lane highways and 5 on rural highways. Thus at 200 km/hr one should expect to have one near miss per 10 km on divided highways and one near miss per 1 km on a rural highway.
This should not be confused with near misses in an urban setting where the ratio of near misses to distance traveled goes up dramatically. In this setting near misses can be experienced from both the standpoint of the pedestrian (whether on a bike or on foot) or the car. Consequences are much greater for the pedestrian however and should be noted lest you insist on walking and/or riding your bike in the street or sidewalk without a helmet. By bike one should expect a near miss every block of a chinese industrialized city and on foot one should expect a near miss every ten blocks. The only problem with this is that the Chinese industrialized city block is as of yet undefined.
You may be asking yourself what this has to do with getting bike parts in rural china, and the answer of course is nothing. There is no real correlation here except that when parts are sent to rural areas in china it should be expected that the box which they have been sent in be mostly flattened and heavily taped to keep it together. This is of course an energy saving measure as more boxes can be crammed into a china post truck if they have been flattened, thus making it possible to carry more mail in less trips.
I know this because we recently received to packages from the States one of which was a partially flattened box containing some much needed single-speed bike parts and tools, and the other a mere 7 weeks after being put into the mail a birthday package for Amanda. The former package however was only two days behind its scheduled guaranteed delivery date a mere three weeks from the time it was sent. Interesting how the USPS gives 7-10 days as the delivery period and then tacks on an extra 11 days to cover their assets. My theory on this matter is that they guarantee the package to leave the country within 7-10 days and who knows when it will find its final destination. Of course given that they were within two days of the expected perhaps there is some merit to their coin toss of a delivery prediction.

Pictures!

People have been asking about pictures and so I wanted to give you some links to them. We are uploading "things you see on the highway" and wedding photos to photos.google.com/jps.and.ach in the "jpg" folder. If that doesn't exist anymore it means we've gotten around to fixing it and it will involve "Chongqing" in the corrected title. Another folder or two in the same webpage will have photos from Vietnam. Photos from the bike races, Aaron and Nicole's visit, mountain biking in JNP area, and orphanage landscaping are in a variety of folders at photos.google.com/jps9ster. Please check them out!

Wait a couple hours after I post this (6:17 am EDT) to look at the photos because the photos are still uploading.

Thursday morning update: The photos are finally updated. The jpg folder is now 2010-05 Chongqing and the Vietnam ones are 2010-03 Ho Chi Minh City aka Saigon and 2010-03 Hanoi.

Jiuzhaigou Ecotourism

An article just came out about the ecotourism project at Jiuzhaigou. Josh volunteers with this program. http://in.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idINIndia-48534220100517?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=11732

I promise, photos of the wedding will be coming soon. Hopefully they'll get uploaded tonight. the internet at home works a lot better.

Attending a western style Han wedding in Tibetan clothes

Hello from Chengdu!

Josh and I are getting ready to head back to Jiuzhaigou tomorrow and are steeling ourselves for the long drive in two ways. I am using the computer and Josh is buying DVDs.

We spent the week here in Chengdu buying things we've been dreaming of for 6 weeks in Jiuzhaigou - iphones, a potato masher, cheese... the essentials really. The potato masher is because emulsifier sticks (aka hand held blenders) are too expensive and I want to make zblended soup.

Last weekend we attended a wedding in Chongqing with our good friends, Ke Zhu and Zhuo Ma. They had originally suggested that we drive to Chengdu together then decided that it was better to buy a car in chongqing and wanted Josh to help. Finally they told us that they were going to attend a wedding and we should go with them. We mentioned that we didn't really have appropriate wedding-attending clothes (turns out that some people were in jeans so we would have been ok). They decided that we were their family now, so we'd wear Tibetan clothes too.

We left Jiuzhaigou early Friday morning with Josh driving, me riding shot gun, and Ke Zhu and the lama in the backseat. we don't know the Lama's name. He's very nice though. It took about 12 hrs to get to Chongqing. Uck. Josh drove about 75% of the way. I drove the other 25%. Ke Zhu and the Lama slept. They both have licenses but were impressed with our driving skills (we've been driving a lot longer).

The first night in Chongqing was a Chinese style dinner with lots of drinking and toasting. The next day we had the morning off after a night in a nasty hotel (where we stayed all 3 nights) and spent the afternoon looking at used cars. then dinner was hotpot at a beautiful outdoor restaurant. The setting made up for the food, a little.

Sunday was the wedding. Zhuo Ma came over early to dress us. See picture above.

We then got to the hotel where the wedding was to be held around 9:30 (Le Meridian). There were 8 of us total (for 2 invitations to the wedding) - Zhuo Ma, Ke Zhu, Lama, Zhuo Ma's cousin, and cousin's daughter (Little Zhuo Ma), and our Chongqing host. And the two of us, of course. Ke Zhu, Lama, Zhuo Ma, Josh, and I were in Tibetan clothes. No one was there so we sat around downstairs for a long time, then upstairs. Zhuo Ma was asked by the groom's parents to help out at the welcoming table, but the bride's parents had someone else do it. We got to stand by the front door of the hotel and welcome the bridal party though. They came in a Lincoln Towncar Limo. Wow. Bride was a in a white wedding dress. Groom was dressed appropriately for someone who had studied in Italy - tight suit pants and long toed shoes. The groomsmen were all western friends of the bride. The bridesmaids had on rented white bridesmaid dresses. We think they were one-size-fits-all because the dress was way too short on one especially tall young woman and they all had fabric pinned in the back.

The wedding started around noon while we all sat at tables with the cold dishes already on them. Maybe 240 people were there. According to the western guys, the soundtrack was typical western style wedding soundtrack - pirates of the caribean and celine dion. The bride stood in a fake cabin and faked playing a violin. The groom faked looking for flowers to make her bouquet. The groom took the flowers to the bride. They stood and welcomed everyone at the front of the stage. they played pre-recorded vows. A friend performed something which looked like a western marriage ceremony with a priest. They did a Chinese-style thanking parents in red chairs thing. Then they walked off the stage, a scantily clad pop star sang, and we got to eat.

The whole thing was interesting for us on so many levels. The interpretations of what mattered and why for western ceremonies was my favorite, I think. It was a little like trying to follow a formula without really understanding what it was.

When we finally left it was cab shift switching time and the foreigners and Tibetans in Tibetan clothes combined with cab shift change made it nearly impossible to get a cab. We don't really know what the problem was, but we know that we were certainly unusual. There aren't a lot of Tibetans in Chongqing and one man (on a bus) even looked at me with total disgust and asked the Lama why on earth we would be dressed like this. Lots of people tried to take pictures of us, often without asking. We'd previously been dressed in Tibetan clothes, but that was to attend a monastary festival in Jiuzhaigou and so mostly it was Tibetans there. They thought we were interesting, but they approved,g enerally. A few Han tourists were there as well, but they didn't seem to think it was so weird. Maybe because Jiuzhaigou is a Tibetan area.

Upcoming post: Things you see on drives in China

Pictures for this post will be added later or a link to picasa added. Right now the internet is failing me and I can't get enough bandwidth to upload them.

--amanda

Addresses

Here is how you can send us mail. We have English versions, but we don't know if they work. You could put both our names on it as well, obviously.

Shaji Thorns you are the bain of my existence!!!

The current question around the household is "how many patches are allowable on a tube before it is to many?" The current number on my front tire in five as can be seen in the following pictures:

Upon removing the tube from the tire after our last ride, which was fast and fun, I found a small puncture (Lower photo, second from bottom patch). I obviously repaired the hole with one of the small patches that they sell locally and checked the tire for any sign of thorns that could still be hitching a free ride. Satisfied that there were no thorns in the tire I remounted the tire and tube and pumped it up.
The next day I was disheartened to find that my tire was once again flat. Today I decided to re-tackle the task of fixing the flat with the intent of finding the likely thorn that was the culprit of the puncture. I marked where the valve was on the tire so that I could use that as a reference point to further search for the thorn based on where the hole in the tube was. This seemed to work pretty well since my tube seemed to have a small hole next to one of the other patches. I peeled the old patch off in order to cover the two holes with one patch and patched the tube. Next I compared where the hole was against the orientation of the valve on the tire.
After running my fingers along the area trying to find a prickly bit which would locate the thorn I was without luck. I then began to search more thoroughly the outside of the tire which resulted in me finding a very small sliver of thorn that had broken off. Obviously this was the culprit and I made sure to remove all traces of it from existence, both on the tire and on earth.
It has now been about twenty minutes and I dare not go and check to see if the tire still has air.

Our life in Jiuzhaigou

Hi everyone! This is Amanda. Josh is watching Big Bang Theory.

I thought that although it's maybe a bit mundane, I would tell you about what it's like living in a Chinese apartment in a tourist spot in rural Sichuan. I don't have a video camera, so I can't create a repeat performance of my parents' famous insomnia curing movie of our Strawberry Hill house in the late 80s.

We live in a 3 bedroom flat. Josh and I were assigned one room and when we moved in we had 1 roommate, a lovely Chinese undergraduate. She's here for some kind of internship. Then about 10 days after we arrived, when we had guests staying in the spare room, another girl moved in. She is a PhD student in CS from Wuhan. She and her 4 classmates and teacher (they live downstairs with Kieran, the Irish guy) are setting up a new computer system. They are here for one of the following: 2 months, 5 months, a long time, 2-3 months, or some number of months. I heard all within a single conversation.

Our flat has a big living room with dirty Chinese arm chairs and a couch. They are mostly leopard print. Big windows. A broken water dispenser. 2 mountain bikes (those are ours) and 2 extra and empty shoe racks (those belong to the American professors who are coming back in June and needed them in the hotel). Oh yeah, and a TV sans remote. Or any cables with which to connect a computer to it for movies. Aaron brought one, but it wasn't quite right. We have some weird shaped shelves between the living room and what we call the dining room. The dining room is empty except for the bags belonging to the American professors for when they come back. Josh wants to build us a table. At the entry way we have a shoe storage place and a sign where I used the wrong character for remove shoes and it says "please slippers" instead of "please remove shoes". I didn't know they were different words and my dictionary didn't tell me. Also the PhD student's room is off the entry way and overlooks the sun room. And the Asian style bathroom (no hot water and no shower) which has our laundry machine (more on that later). Through the dining room one way is the western bathroom (hot water, sit toilet not bolted to floor which leaks, shower and shower curtain that no one except us uses (the curtain that is), and a sink). To the parking lot side is our undergrad roommate's room. To the river side is our room. It has 1 bed (2.3x2 m size), 2 fake closets (metals frames with cloth over them which we bought), 1 end table, 1 electric blanket (YEAH!), and 1 tupperware box for use as the other end table. It's cozy.

The best part of the house, in our opinions, is the sun room and kitchen. The sun room runs basically from our room along the entire length of the apartment to the kitchen. We are on the 2nd floor and it faces west over the river, so we get good sunlight, which helps with warmth. We put the spare tv stand out here, along with our wireless router and some Tibetan cushions on the floor. It is a small enough space that the space heater works. We also have a table (card table like, except that in this case you flip the top over to get a mahjong table) and 4 stools. We have cupboards at the end of the room which mostly have our stuff in them. The fridge and water dispenser are also in the sun room. The kitchen is big by Chinese standards. Unfortunately the sink is a 2 tap sink and the hot water is not hot water on demand, so we can't really adjust the temperature. At least we have 24 hr hot water and our own heater. We have a 1 burner ceramic heater, an oversized toaster oven, a griddle that heats from both sides like a waffle maker, and a rice cooker. We paid to have extra shelves put in so we have some decent storage space. Our food is all in a rat proof cabinet where Josh repaired the rat proof screen. The previous stuff hadn't kept the rats out. The top part is where the rats came in and that section is off limits to anything except rat poison. So far our rat removal plans are basically working.

The water dispenser is interesting. We asked when we first got here what number to call to get water. We were given a number and I called. The conversation went something like this:

Amanda: Please deliver water
Other end of the phone (OEP): What's your address
A: Park administration apartments, Entry 1, apartment 2-2.
OEP: You're in Chengdu. I don't deliver there.
A: No, I'm in Jiuzhaigou
OEP: Ok, I can take it to the bridge
A: I'm over the bridge
OEP: I'm in Chengdu
A: No, you're in Jiuzhaigou
OEP: I don't deliver to Jiuzhaigou
A: Where are you
OEP: Jiuzhaigou

I hung up. I called our handler (Wang Yan). She called the water guy and called me back. He was in the county town and would deliver our water to the visitor center the next day. The next day Josh dutifully went to get the water and discovered it wasn't there. He went to find Wang Yan (it was Sunday, but the park staff work 7 days a week. we refuse and only work 5). Wang Yan asked around and discovered that actually what you do for water is go to office 201 during work hours and pick up a jug. We get about 1 jug per week now. It's free.

Internet was another nightmare. It was one of the many times we have been very happy to have a car. The internet is in the township town (about 10 minutes away) and it took 3 trips, at least 5 phone calls, passports, a letter from the park, and a year advance payment to get signed up for it. Then another 10 days and a long visit by a technician and some angry phone calls to get it set up. I had to upgrade the firmware to get our router to cooperate with our VPN, but everything is working well now. Except with the PhD student is home and downloading too much stuff. We got internet for less than half price and pay under $10/month. The discount was for working for the park.

We get our vegetables from veggie trucks. They come at lunch time to our apartment complex and a bunch hang out all morning in the village closest to us (about a 10 min walk away). The village trucks have better selection and I prefer to shop there. Fruit is easier to get since tourists like to buy it. Most grocery stores sell some fruit and snacks. We have found 2 which sell things that we can actually use. We end up having to drive to the county town about once every 2 weeks to get staples. It's a 40 min drive. We have a 25 kg bag of flour that was the result of a staples shopping trip when we couldn't find a grocery store for residents rather than tourists (this was up on the plateau after we dropped Aaron and Nicole off at the airport). We found a wholesaler though and got a gigantic bag of flour. I've been cooking a lot recently, in part because the thing stares at me all day. I have to admit to a huge wish list for shopping in Chengdu next week when we go down to get the car inspected.

We have so far failed at making fritatta, sourdough bread, sourdough pancakes, french toast from Tibetan flat bread, and yogurt. We have successfully made: sourdough starter, sourdough pancakes, sourdough carrot cake, sourdough bread, yogurt, granola, curry, pizza, cream cheese frosting, ratatouille, rice pudding, french toast from Song Pan bread (Muslim bread from the plateau). Cooking is quite the adventure here, but it's generally turned out ok. It's relatively expensive to eat out, so we eat at home more than I ever have before in China.

Laundry is always an adventure. Of course there is no dryer. But, in both our flat here and back in Chengdu we have regressed to my laundry nightmares from Harbin. In Chengdu I had a real, fully automatic washing machine. Here and in Chengdu this time we have the awful 2 part things which either agitate or spin. At least it's in the bathroom this time and is permanently attached to the water supply. In Chengdu the drain is permanently in the floor. Here we need to direct it down the toilet. Basically you put in soap, fill up the water, add clothes (about 1/2 of what you think you can put in, less if there are pants involved), agitate for 15 min, drain, fill, agitate, drain, fill, agitate, drain, spin in 3 parts. then repeat for the rest of the week's laundry. We then have to hang it in the sun room from a pole across the ceiling. I tend to stand on chairs to do this. Josh uses the stick we have for just that purpose. Things dry quickly and sheets dry the day we wash them if we wash them in the morning. Our roommates do laundry by hand.

Washing dishes is also an adventure. We have the dreaded 2-tap sink with hot water too hot to actually use straight. After a few weeks of washing dishes and being annoyed by the inability to easily use the hot, we decided to go with the 3-sink method used in restaurants (1 sink for soapy water, 1 hot rinse, 1 cold bleach bath). We use 1 sink and 2 wash tubs spread out on the counter with the drying rack in between. It actually works really really well. Thank goodness for restaurant training.

Ok. I have definitely gone on for too long and am getting ready to go to bed anyway.

Some posts to look forward to:
Two Laowais in Tibetan clothes attend the monastery festival
Hiking in Long Kang - maybe there are golden monkeys!
Introducing our friends, Zhuo Ma and Ke Zhu, their restaurant, and their homestay
The wild 2 year old, Lop Song

Shaji Bushes 10 - Bike Tubes 4

On saturday the wife and I decided to go up another valley to explore some potential Mountain biking trails. This would be the same valley that our friend Khe Zhu lives in with his family and has a home stay. It is a lovely valley that seems to stretch back forever as you ride up the road towards the source of the basin. The ride started at Khe Zhu's place where we left him with the keys to our car so that he could get some supplies to replace the crushed section of his sewage pipe. Riding up the road that takes you through the valley Amanda and I were not surprised that our bikes were still overly geared for most of the road and spent a majority of our time walking the bikes. Of course because of the altitude we were still running a cool zone 2 - 3 heart rate (nerd alert) just walking. Everything just seems to be a little bit harder up here.
After reaching a plateau at the top of the valley we decided to take off our shoes and cross the stream to the other side in order to get into what we figured would be the good trails. The water was cold but somewhat refreshing with the temperatures in the sun being up in high 60's to low 70's and just a beautiful day all together. After crossing the stream we followed a horse/yak/sheep/goat trail further up the valley hill side towards some of the naturally formed terraces that lace the Jiuzhai valley.
It was here that we met the first in many groups of animals that we were to cross paths with. Of course when you come across a group of sheep the instinct to "baa" is overwhelming and we decided that communication with them was imperative. Of course these were Chinese/Tibetan sheep and they have a "maa" more than a "baa". After discussing politics and forestry policy we left the sheep to soak in the sun and rest in the shade.
 Weaving through the shaji bushes we were finally able to get some much deserved single track though it wasn't to last very long and we came across a group of yaks. Yaks can be a bit stubborn and we decided that it might be smart to ride slowly and avoid the pointy ends of their horns.
Continuing along the terraces we stayed at the same approximate elevation for about a kilometer until it was apparent that there was no foreseeable trail to follow. Finally after crossing two swampy meadows, a small gorge and two clear cuts all of which were down on foot with bikes in tow, Amanda began to get hungry which in turn means that we needed to finish our ride very soon. I decided to follow a steep trail down to one of lower terraces that is actively used for pasturing animals and has a very nice trail through it.
After being met with much surprise from the locals we followed the trail along the upper pasture to the edge of the valley until it drops down into the lower valley. It was a fun trail that rolls up and down for a couple of kilometers finally winding back above Khe Zhu's house. We followed a mixture of road and trails back to Khe Zhu's making it back safely and with all tires still inflated. Of course this was not to last.
We were greeted at the house by Khe Zhu's mother who promptly gave us water to drink and fed us Tibetan flat bread. She then also made us lunch while we waited for Khe Zhu to return with our car (the beast from the east). Of course when he returned it was with two 3m pipes hanging off the side of the car attached with some nylon twine. We removed the pipe and set about putting the bikes back into the car. It was then that we noticed that Amanda's front tire had fully deflated while my rear tire was beginning to show signs of becoming limp.
When we arrived at home it was apparent that at least three of our tires had fallen to the evils of the Shaji bushes. By the next morning all four tires had gone from bouncy to lifeless. Unsurprisingly I was left without any spare tubes and thus the tires would need to be repaired with patches. Since the workmen were coming over to repair our western toilet (for those unfamiliar there are western toilets and eastern toilets, suffice it to say that they are different) for the second time in a month. This gave me enough time to tackle the task of repairing the flats. This basically amounted to me removing the several thorns implanted into the tire carcass from the Shaji bushes, thoroughly examining each tube underwater for punctures and finally patching them. This turned out to be an interesting activity to the two men that were repairing our bathroom problem as any chance they got to watch me they were looking over my shoulder. After repairing six holes in the tubes and using up all of our remaining patches I was saddened later that afternoon when I came home to find that two of the tires continued to lose air and thus required further repair. It was at this point that I found another thorn in the tire and had to use four more patches. Three of which were on one tube.
Needless to say we will likely not be continuing to ride on the upper terraces of the valley until we are equipped with armor plated knobby tires or at least invest in tire patch stock which will likely be heavily subsidized by our further purchasing of their product. As a note however we were able to locally source patch kits to repair our tires thus eliminating the need for an emergency bike tube care package.
Stay tuned for further posts, such as:
The Great Toilet Adventure
and
Gardening with Joshy

Riding the Jiuzhai Valley

Actually we weren't in the actual Jiuzhai Valley but close enough that I'm not going to complain. Amanda and I have made our first attempt at finding good mountain biking around Jiuzhaigou National Park (a UNESCO World Heritage Site). Given that the majority of the hills around here top out at about 3400m (~11,000 feet) or more we have to relegate ourselves to the lower valleys and glacial moraines that exist and are flatter.
We decided to go up the Valley a couple of miles up river from the park entrance where Amanda has done some hiking on previous visits to the park. Being that it was a nice day out we suited up and packed up the French Beast from the East. As always the roads were nice and windy until we hit the flat part of the valley where we could our final destination. We chose a proper parking space, i.e where the beast could not pass.

Me, the beast, the bike, and the improbable road.
This is where Rob our savior (Thanks to Linda and George for also volunteering) with bicycle parts will be helping out tremendously, because after attempting to ride up this little stretch of road on mighty yet overly geared single speeds we were forced to hike it most of the way. 

Amanda facing up the valley.
We followed the road on our bikes until we hit some logging switchbacks and used the trail shortcuts to make faster ground. Being late in the day we decided to let this be a quick exploratory mission and an opportunity to take some pictures.

Me and the Trail.

Amanda and the Wood-stack

After about 45 minutes of Hike a bike we decided to hit the descent. It was a combination of rough trail and logging road but was mostly dry and not much animal business. It was a quick ride but after looking through the valley we decided that there is a lot of potential out here for some fun (epic) mountain bike rides and we look forward to further pursuits.

Snow Falling on Pine Trees... and Shrubs

Amanda and I recently decided to take a trip up to Song Pan (Song Pon) which is approximately 100 km away from the Park entrance where we are staying. I know that I have just used kilometers as a unit of measure and it hurts me every time that I say it but it is too difficult or maybe I am just to lazy to look up the conversion app from miles to Kilometers (ouch). It is approximately 60 miles in case any of you have not afforded yourself the luxury of a unit conversion app on your mobile. Any how we made this trip in order to see some of the country side and scout for places to possibly mountain bike. Also we decided to spruce up the sun room with some new cushions. This is of course because it is currently the only room in the house that we get internet access and doubly it is also the warmest.
After a bout of rain over the last few days which has resulted in even more snow on the mountains we decided to brave the winter conditions and go over the pass which is the headwaters of the Minjiang river a tributary to the Yangtze river. On the way up it was a beautiful drive along twisty roads with a little bit of cloud break. However along the way we were met with this:

The long arm of the Law, or maybe just a representation of it.

Not being deterred from going further we continued up the pass to come out to this:

A beautiful mountain scene complete with snow.
Of course life on the Plateau isn't all beauty occasionally you have to deal with guys like this:

I don't know what that thing on the back of that Lorrie is.
Or these guys who are more prevalent:

They have a tendency to rely heavily on the middle of the lane.
or perhaps this guy:

The local Federally or maybe just a guy in a cowboy hat and a safety vest.
Any way you look at it, it was a nice day which as it went along the weather got better... in places:

Perhaps a little blue sky peaking out there or just another sucker hole.

Things you may see on a drive in northern Sichuan

Note: the entire drive we kept saying "where is our camera", but never managed to pull it out. The car was kind of packed.

Note 2: This is Amanda writing. Some people have complained that they can't tell which of us is writing. Since Josh writes more, I'll sign mine.

1. Convoy of army learner truck drivers. I am not kidding. There were 20+ in a caravan going the other way. And each truck had a 教练车sign on the front (learner driver). The drivers were SO young looking and the trucks SO big. I hope they learn better habits than other drivers.

2. A car passing in a 2-way tunnel. Actually, I should say "overtaking" since "passing" on the driving exam means driving along a section of road. In this case, we entered a tunnel about 20 minutes after lunch and after I started driving. I was about half way through the tunnel when there was a car heading straight towards me. Some dummy decided that a tunnel was a good place to pass.

3. Cars passing on blind corners. Once again, how stupid can you get? Are you asking for a head on collision? No wonder it is the law to honk before said corners.

4. Cars at dusk with no lights. I think they want to save gas. They seem to think we're weird for putting our lights on.

5. Snow. Yes. It was snowing. The way we came there is a steep pass which you need to drive over, about 3300 m tall. We came to it just before dusk and at about 2500 m and above there was snow on the ground. Our little car did very well.

6. Cars without license plates. They are everywhere. But cars w/o plates are supposed to be detained by the traffic police. I think we learned too much taking the test and now ask too many questions that people don't want to answer.

7. Semis piled on top of one another. This one was particularly scary. On the highway from Chengdu to Mianyang (stage 1 of the journey), there were semis (just the cab bit) with no wheels on them (wheels near the cab) piled on top of other semis (also just cabs). They looked way too back heavy and like the wheels in the front might come off the ground. Josh said that. Then all of a sudden we were passing one (we passed 3 or 4) and the wheels were leaving the ground as it hit bumps. Although we really wanted to find the camera, we also really wanted to escape the monstrosities.

8. Buses overtaking you at the most inopertune times. They also are overtaking everyone else. We decided that the trucks (the evil blue things that abound in western China) and buses were the safest things to hide behind when passing other cars. Normally a bad idea, but here the big mass tells others to stay away.

9. Way over filled trucks. Not surprisingly, the darn blue trucks (actually, many were orange. That is a new color to Chinese truck world) were way too full.

10. Toll booths. It costs 1 bus ticket in tolls to do the drive. 1/2 of them are the highway toll for the 2 hrs to Mian Yang. The rest are in small chunks along the way. You can save 2 RMB if you don't accidentally take the wrong exit for the Mian Yang highway and then try to correct the mistake by taking the next exit which happens to be a bus station. Then you will end up looking like an arriving bus and have to drive around in circles until you can leave the bus station via the carpark and pay the carpark fee. There is another 30 min of driving in circles before you can manage to get on the highway going the right way.

11. Beautiful scenery

Ok... I'm running out of things. It is a pretty drive though. We'll hopefully cut it down a bit on the next trip. We'll definitely leave earlier to avoid driving at night and to avoid some of the bus traffic.

In case you want to send us mail, here is our mailing address. If you'd rather just print a label, I can send you a .pdf or .jpg for either of us. Just let me know.

<name>
中国四川阿坝藏族羌族自治州九寨沟管理科研处
623402
People's Republic of China

I don't think that the English version works. At least, a friend tried to send me a letter and I haven't gotten it yet...

Look forward to: our new home and scrubbing it clean; adventures in internet bureaucracy; successes and failures at cooking.

First Impressions

We have finally arrived to Jiuzhaigou. For those of you who are unaware this is the final destination in our trip to the Great East. After acquiring suitable transportation, a 2003 Citroen, the wife and I drove the short 9 hour route to our new home. The car behaved beautifully and at some points we were unsure if it was actually using any gas. It seems as though when the tank is full the meter reads full as well for about 200 km. It then subsequently begins to fall slowly at first and then faster as it empties. Fortunately you can drive for quite a while with the fuel light on, not that I would condone that kind of behavior.
We purchased the car on Tuesday with the intention of leaving on Thursday or Friday for the park. Part of this story is recounted in another post so I will save a lot of the details of the day, save the stuff related to buying the actual car. First off we bought the car at a new and used car dealership, mostly new. Unlike car dealerships in the states there is a relatively low level of nagging by the salesman. They still follow you around mind you, but they are less inclined to point out that there are perfectly good new cars inside. I think this is because they expect me not to a) speak Chinese and b) not actually allowed to buy a car. In the case of a) I don't speak Chinese, but fortunately Amanda does. In the case of b) I am actually allowed to buy a car it's just a pain in the a$$.
We saw this cute little number first thing in the morning and after performing the most basic of tests for functionality, i.e. kicking the tire a couple of times something I learned from Todd Martin. Of course I've learned many other things from the "old man up the road" but those will need to go in the memoirs. The salesman told us the price and then said that it is a little negotiable. This is China isn't everything negotiable. Alas the car was really the best running and best looking car in our budget and we needed something reliable and that we can resell in a year even though it is French (read as Chinese made).

Le Car (Not to be mistaken for Le Poop)

Imagine this beautiful piece of machinery, only in white and you have our beautiful piece of the latest in 90's technology from France.
After settling on a price with the salesman I was finally allowed to test drive the car, this was of course after a lengthy discussion as to whether or not we could actually buy a car as foreigners and a trip to the traffic police to confirm that we could. I can report that the test drive was basically uneventful, except that I was driving a frigging car in China. This is an especially nerve racking thing the first time as there is no way to tell what people are thinking and sometimes what they are doing. Regardless we survived the test drive and went back to the dealership to finalize the transaction. While at the dealership we were informed that the car had a 1 month or 1000km warranty and that they would handle all of the registration fees. Basically it turned out that they were going to do everything for us which was great. They also informed us of the insurance obligations and that it was insured until June and the existing insurance policy would be carried over to us.
Registering a car in China should be on the list of a 1000 places to see before you die, it is certainly up there with having high tea at the Peninsula Hotel in Hong Kong. This is how the registration works: First you pull into part of the (traffic police Supermarket is what they called it) inspection building, whereby a couple of fellows in coveralls go to removing your license plates either by screw driver or in some extreme cases of laziness a metal grinder. After removing your license plates you are then required to park in another part of the building for inspection. This inspection is to prove that the vehicle that is being registered is not something other than is represented by paper. Apparently there are a lot of illegally assembled vehicles on the road in China as questions about them were prevalent in the Drivers License Exam booklet. While awaiting inspection the used license plates are put into a pile and you the car buyer can pick out your new license plate numbers, hint the number 4 is bad luck so try to avoid having it on your plates. After picking the license plate numbers and having the car inspected I was then told to drive out of the building on one end and then back into the building on the other, aka the entrance with the guys in coveralls. I thought that maybe they would be putting my license plates back on, but alas I was merely parking in another part of the building. We then set to waiting for the rest of the paperwork to go through and I guess allow them time to make the new license plates. I guess they don't make them in prisons like they do in the states. After about two hours in the Traffic Police Supermarket (TPS) we were free to go back to the dealership where they attached our new license plates.
After many congratulations all around about the purchase of the vehicle Amanda and I left the dealership in our new (to us) retro 90's styled 4 door hatchback.
Oh and apparently they hadn't actually given us the registration for the vehicle so we had to drive back on Thursday before we left for Jiuzhaigou to pick up the rest of the paper work. Basically as far as we can tell we were two foreigners driving around illegally for a couple of days. Who's gonna say anything?

"You Can't Sell a Car to a Foreigner"

Apparently if someone doesn't know the answer to a question making
something up completely is totally reasonable and a nationally
recognized tradition. My current favorite is that foreigners aren't
allowed to buy or rent anything in China. Recently my first wife and I
rented a flat in the wing pit of China. For those not familiar with
China it is shaped like a chicken in what is referred to as General
Tso's Chinese Chicken Theory. Recently the response we got from the
police when we went to go and register are foreign selves was "You can't
rent to Foreigners, its not legal". Which of course is not true and the
police should know since they are the ones charged with registering
foreigners. Obviously it is totally legal to rent to foreigners and in
some cases its better since we are dumb enough to pay more for less. To
illustrate my point further we were told today that "Foreigners can't
buy cars". This also is not true since there are many foreigners driving
around China right now enjoying the freedom of being behind the wheel.
Well
I can safely say now that it is totally legal to buy a car in China, if you have evidence that you will be in the country for at least 6 months. I
know this because today we purchased a car from a used car dealership.This was after several trips to the used car district of Chengdu. I firmly feel that this is the last chance for most of these poor used cars to be used one last time before they die. Most of the cars in the used car district are of questionable sourcing and of even more questionable condition.
At first we were looking for a Beijing Jeep and thought that we had found one. It was a nice Yellow BJ2023 built in 2003. A little rough on the inside but not bad on the outside. Upon meeting the seller (owners and sellers may not be the same people) and taking note that the sign in the window specifically mentions no bargaining, we got them to pop the hood and start the thing up. At first everything looked normal and the engine sounded quite right. Upon further inspection of fluid levels and the oil in the engine I began to pander questions to the seller. As a side note, generally I try not to question the knowledge of people in the auto industry as you never know what their experience and expertise lie in, that being said I felt that the sellers in this case were maybe not as well informed as I would liked them to be. Of course now I realize that they were maybe just a little bit too used car salesman-like for me. When I looked into the radiator to see the condition of the radiator fluid I was not surprised to see it discolored and a little bit low. When I took the oil cap off the top of the engine and noticed the water condensation on the valve cover it was apparent that something was amiss.
Hearkening back to my younger days I was reminded of my second Subaru. My first Subaru was a 1978 edition of the venerable 4wd wagon, I bought this when I was 19 or 20 and spent a lot of time trying to spruce the thing up. After a catastrophic failure of the gearbox it was left to the care of Todd Martin's Subaru bone yard. This was of course after it had to be towed back to my parents house. My next Subaru however was a chance encounter whereby someone was looking to get rid of a small 4wd hatchback that may have had a bad motor. The story was that the car had frozen and after the thaw the block had likely cracked. In my corner however I had another motor that I could purchase cheaply and the car could easily be towed to the Martin's for repair. Also there was a small chance that there was not actually a crack in the engine block but that the freeze plugs could have been popped out in the freeze and all I needed to do was put them back in. Deciding to take a risk on the freeze plugs I pulled the valve covers off and low and behold the two freeze plugs fell out. Brilliant, I was going to get another Subaru to replace the old one and not pay anything. After popping the plugs back into their respective places and putting the valve cover back on I decided a test of the engine was necessary. I plugged the battery back in and started the car up. It ran, that was the first test. After buttoning up the rest of the bits that needed to be done I figured that I should make sure it was holding water. After driving it out to the yard and putting the hose in it I realized that they're really must not have been any water in it because it sure was taking a lot of water. Normally it takes a couple of minutes to get the radiator filled, this time however it was just drinking and drinking. The car was still running so it couldn't be that the water was going into the oil, or could it. Rest assured that when your car begins to puke out brown sludge the color and consistency of which resembles spoiled chocolate milk out of every orifice, the likelihood of successfully fixing the problem the first time was deemed very small.
Now I mention this because when I buy a vehicle I know to look for certain things that can be a sign of problems, and water in the oil is definitely one of them. In this particular case however the seller at first tried to tell us that it was perfectly normal to have water in the oil and that it was supposed to be there. He then tried to tell us that the water was from cleaning the engine, I questioned as to whether he had tried to clean the inside as well as the outside. Finally when all the cards were out, I asked him to drain the oil out and put fresh oil in as a sign that the engine was not taking any water. This is when the big guns were called in, out of nowhere a woman shows up and explains how this car is used and that if we don't want to buy it that is fine and not to waste their time. Feeling a little disheartened we decided to leave, though this was the best jeep that we had seen, I could not in good conscious take a risk on buying a vehicle that was potentially going to blow up on us.

Post Race Coffee

As you may know we have recently achieved the most honorable of Chinese positions, the drivers position. This means that Amanda and I will soon be joining the ranks of Taxi Cabs, Private drivers, trucks and the like by unanimously throwing off the shackles of two wheeled (bicycle) oppression and buying a car. Not just any car will do though, we will need something rugged enough to get through the urban jungle that is Chengdu and still retain some sense of civilized society. This means we will probably be getting an SUV of some sort. We however do not want to spend a small fortune and so will likely be getting something from the used car market.
The used car market is southeast of the University and costs about 20 yuan to take a cab out there in the middle of rush hour traffic, which could happen at anytime on any given day. The market itself is along a street between the second and third ring roads. Near as we can tell there are two main lots that have used cars for sale, each lot being made up of several small dealers who consign themselves to cleaning vehicles in the up times and drinking tea and playing cards in the down times.
The vehicles themselves are an interesting array of new and old new. Meaning that there are cars here that have been built in the last five years that were the latest model on the road in 1986. If I ever wanted to revive my dream of owning a brand new 1990 Volkswagen Jetta I could easily do it now and it would be licensed as a 2010. As you may have guessed this makes for an interesting cross section of vehicles. To have a three year old Citroen with all the fancy bells and whistles and the newer body styling sitting next to a boxy old looking carburated volkswagen with cloth seats. The worst part being that volkswagens weren't carburated in 1990, at least not in the states, so I don't even know what to make of the situation.
What's even more troublesome is something that was pointed out to me by someone. That is the fact that some vehicles that have the badges of say a toyota or a mitsubishi along with all the requisite stuff inside are not actually even made by those companies but are in fact rebranded versions of chinese produced vehicles. Worse yet is that they are mostly SUVs and they all lack what is the basis of an SUV. The Sport and the Utility and in some cases they even lack the Vehicle portion. How that is I don't know but it is paradigm shifting.
I digress however, this is the challenge that lays ahead of us in the next few days.

Now on to a much more interesting topic: Coffee.
Yesterday Amanda and I ventured into the coffee district, see in China everything is made up of districts. There is the hospital district, the Mao district (aka the center of town), the Car district (see above), the cell phone district, the computer district, the karaoke district (below our flat), and of course, the coffee district, the city is actually one big huajiao district. Amanda informed me that the coffee district would be a good place to get a coffee grinder and maybe even some coffee. Though we are not currently running low it is always a good idea to be prepared.
We rode out to the coffee district on our trusty new city steeds.

This is my new Chengdu city bike, not to be confused with a dutch city bike. Personally I am quite pleased with the bike although I have had to make some minor modifications to it since I got it. The seat post on their now is about three times longer than the one that it came with. It is equipped with anti-lock brakes, meaning no matter how hard you pull on the brake levers the wheels still won't lock up. The cranks are also now attached to the bottom bracket. As for the headset this was the bearings optional model and the original owner opted out. Anyway back to the coffee district.
Upon entering one of the many storefronts advertising their coffee wares I was surprised to find that this was no ordinary coffee retailery. In fact this was the hoity toity upscale variety that sells interesting and different ways of making coffee. Fortunately the prices were of more the Wal-Mart variety that us mouth breathers won't scoff at. After consulting with the wife about our coffee needs we decided on the little number in the picture below.

Even though it may look like something out of a chemistry lab, this glass menagerie makes a mean cup of coffee.

Here is the completed setup with water, coffee (in the top), and our new hand grinder on the side.
How does it work you ask? Well it's nothing short of a miracle or maybe it's just scientifintastic. As you can no doubt see there is a small alcohol burner under the spherical glass vial. The upper glass holder is connected to the lower via a rubber stopper and a glass tube. The coffee grounds are placed on the filter that covers the hole over the glass tube. Now the cool part. As the water is heated by the alcohol burner it creates steam in the area at the top of the vial. As more steam is added and the temperature raises the steam which is a gas pushes down on the liquid water forcing it through the glass tube. The liquid is thus mixed with the coffee grounds and starts the steeping process. However the process is not complete. Once all of the water is pushed up into the upper glass container the burner is removed. The gas in the lower chamber begins to condense which creates a vacuum pulling the liquid through the filter and back into the lower chamber. Leaving you with the perfect cup of coffee.

Isn't it beautiful, just remember to stir the coffee in the upper container before removing the heat.


Stay tuned for the following posts:

Help I'm being attacked by a crazy laowai

If Life's an adventure could you please let me know when the movie is out