任是无情也动人

Photos are up on Facebook, opened to public (there's no images of me in there anyway and I was careful not to mention names). I've put in captions to the albums and photos as much as I can. Facebook does resize the images that are larger than normal, so if anyone needs a better quality copy of a photo (and assuming I've kept a better quality image), let me know and I'll pass it on by email.

( The Index )

Well, even though we technically still have one and a half more days to stay in our current hotel, I think I've gotten a good feel of it to be able to give it an overview/analysis. All of our hotels on this trip have been four star hotels (my aunt didn't want to chance what China would consider a three-star, especially in smaller cities like Pingyao, and five-star would have been much more overkill/expensive).

We begin with the Central Hotel (王宝和大酒店) in Shanghai. This one is my favorite, mostly for two reasons - there was free internet, and they surprised me with a (free) yummy cake for my birthday. Now that's service. :) On other things, the place was pretty clean and sanitary; no complaints about the bedding or the bathroom from my end. Breakfast was great and varied. The only downside we could have about it was that we weren't able to get our assigned rooms together next to each other or even on the same floor; and, at first, the room they'd assigned me (and one of the twins) was on a smoking floor so the hallway was rather smoky. We were able to switch on the second day to a non-smoking floor, but it was still not next to the other room we had. Ah well, I guess that could be partially blamed on the Expo for filling up pretty much all the hotels in the city.

Next, in Xi'an, we had the Grand New World Hotel (古都新世界大酒店). It was ok in regards to sanitation and cleanliness, and the sheets were warm enough for the cooling temperatures even without any central heating turned on (that I noticed). We were able to get adjoining rooms, which was good since I we all had various levels or the beginnings of a cold around the time in Xi'an. I also noted that was also the best decorated of our hotels, with nice paintings on the walls. The downside was that people were smoking even on the supposedly non-smoking rooms, and my aunt/uncle had to complain to the management about their other next door neighbor. Also, the air in general was bad in the city, and the hotel didn't seem to be too much better than the outside air. The breakfast was decent but pretty monotonous and got somewhat tiring after a while. Also, internet had to be paid for here - 200 RMB for a week.

In Pingyao, we were housed in what I think was called International Financier's Club (云锦城) or something to that effect. Since it was a recreation of the Ming style building, we couldn't help the stone floors or the stiff beds/chairs. I was glad to see that we had sanitized modern bathrooms, even though there was no tub and only a shower stall with wood or bamboo flooring. There was heating, though, which was good since the weather was the coldest in Pingyao during our vacation. Internet, on the other hand, was free and available, which was a surprise to me. On the downside, breakfast was kind of mediocre; and the old style doors with the locks and padlocks were a pain to work with, especially in the dark.

Finally, in Beijing, we stayed at the Capital Hotel (首都大酒店). Again, sanitation and cleanliness were not a problem here. My aunt thought the beds were a little too hard and had them add a layer on top of their bed; but I honestly couldn't feel the difference. The breakfast is definitely both varied and good, though I still think the Shanghai hotel had the better porridge/congee (I guess southerners just have a better way with rice than northerners :P). What I don't like here is that there aren't many outlets to let me plug all of my various appliances in at the same time (laptop, battery charger, phone charger, etc.) Also, they're charging me pretty steeply for the internet (20 RMB per hour).

In general I did want to not that I could've left out half the things in my ziplock bag of liquids/gels for airport security, as well as a few other items. All of the hotels had shampoo, conditioner, body foam, body lotion, shower cap, slippers, and ethernet cable for broadband. I should've just brought the facial wash/lotion, sunblock, deodorant, and hand sanitizer without needing to burden myself with anything else. Food for thought in any future travels, I guess.

Last day in Shanghai! We went back to the Expo, this time at a much more leisurely pace.

We took a cab to a west bank entrance at around 11-ish, since the busiest entrance times are in the early morning, and the west bank pavilions (the corporate pavilions) are generally less popular than the east bank ones (the country pavilions).

First we went to the Xi'an case pavilion, which was supposedly a scaled down replica of 大明宫. Hopefully we'll be able to see the real thing next week in Xi'an, assuming they've actually opened it for tourism in early Oct like they were planned to. We ended up waiting outside for quite a bit of time for what turned out to be only a 6 minute movie of some of the sights in Xi'an (some of which we'd be visiting).

After that we decided to take some pics at the Chengdu case pavilion because it was just so darn pretty. The kids wanted to go to the Pavilion of the Future, but my aunt kinda nixed that; or maybe she just didn't hear them. Again, skipped lunch. I'm beginning to notice a trend here...

Afternoon - we pretty much spent the entire time at the Pavilion of Footprints. That's the place where they imported all the really old pieces of history from various museums across the world. There was a piece of the Gate of Ishtar from ancient Babylon (donated from...Iran?), various pieces from Sumer, Greece, Egypt, etc... and of course there's stuff from China itself. There were also a lot of very cool animated stuff/movies/mobiles/etc which unfortunately didn't translate all that well onto photos. I liked the one that was a full room (360 degrees plus two pillars in the room) movie showing historic sights of celebrations through-out the ages (Ancient Egypt, Mayans, Ancient Rome, England, Times Square). Hopefully my aunt got some of that one on film. There was another one of the development of Chinese society done entirely with animated paper-cuttings. That was cute, but unfortunate it was moving too fast to get good photos of, and I don't think my aunt noticed that one.

After the footprints pavilion, we were originally planning on taking the ferry across the river to see the European pavilions. While in line, we saw the amusing side of lines of five PLA/military security acting as the cordon between each group (about a boat's worth of people) in the line. Then, whenever a boat docked and the next group boarded, each line of soldiers would march forward and move the rest of the groups in line forward. Hey, why worry about moving around rope cordons when you can get guys in uniform to do it instead? And this way, the 'cordon' can even watch out for people trying to cut in line! XD

Halfway through the wait in line, though, we decided we were way too tired to make it to the east bank and look at the European pavilions. Oh well. So instead we just grabbed a dinner at a local noodle place and started on our way home.

Of course, as we were on our way to the exit, we ran smack into a parade that was coming down the road. The floats were generally space/robot-themed, so I guess the twins got to see their 'pavilion of the future' after a fashion, after all.

We took one of the special Expo cabs back to the hotel. Due to these cabs actually having to follow the law that other cabs can somewhat ignore, we had to split up into two cabs to avoid too many people per car. The driver I had was particularly chatty, and I had a particularly interesting conversation with him. Apparently, all of these Expo cab drivers are pulled from the five major cab companies in Shanghai. They're chosen based on their experience and record (no accidents, complaints, etc.) so that these are pretty much the best veteran cab drivers available. Thus, they know all the shortcuts and alleyways to get around the jams on the major streets of Shanghai (a situation exacerbated due to today being a weekend and the expo). These drivers themselves get shortchanged, since as an official Expo driver, they can't pick their own customers, and they are forced to drive through the most congested parts of the city to pick up their customers. My driver had started working at 3 and only had 3 customers before me since then (this was at around 8). He's hoping they'll get some extra compensation from their companies after the Expo is over, but doesn't think it's too likely. However, when I asked if he resents the Expo and hopes that it's over, he was rather adamant that the Expo is a great thing for the country and it's a matter of national pride for him to make some small sacrifices in the interim for the good of the country. Food for thought there from the minds/mouths of the average modern Chinese citizen.

Finally, we got back to our hotel, and I got one last surprise on entering my room to find a birthday cake there. At first I was suspicious that my aunt had ordered it from room service. But on interrogating my uncle and the kids (who really suck at keeping any secrets), I determined that it really wasn't her. Also, the fact that the card was addressed to my full legal name makes me think that it might have been the hotel itself that sent it, based on information obtained from my passport. Ah well.

Least I could do is fill out the hotel questionnaire and give 'em high scores, right? The first section of the questionnaire made me break down laughing though. It asks me to rate the following Reception categories on a scale: Doorman, Bellman, Receptionist, Cashier, Telephone Operator, ......and Toilet. *snicker* I'm assuming they meant the thing in the bathroom and not some person performing the function...ok I didn't need that mental image.

Anyway, I have to get up at an ungodly hour of the morning tomorrow for the flight to Xi'an. I guess the cake will make for our breakfast since we'll be gone before the cafeteria opens. :P

Bai bai, Shanghai, you never cease to amaze me. ^^;

Belated edit to add: I'm now curious about what was in the movie at the Cisco pavilion. Colleagues who'd gone told me it wasn't worth seeing. But the lines for that pavilion was over 4 hours, being put into same category as the Japan and Saudi lines. There's gotta be a reason it was so popular.

My feet. D-E-D.

On the bright side, got to see the Chinese Pavilion at the Expo! Woot! It "only" took 3 hours in the "tour guided line"... as opposed to the estimated wait time of non-tour line - next to never. :P

Backtracking... Got up at 6:00. After breakfast and an hour's drive by taxi, arrived at the meeting place with the "tour" by 8:30. Wrangled through the admin stuff and got driven to the expo by 10:00. Waited through line to actually get in by 10:30.

Took one look at the 5 hour wait time of the Japan Pavilion and decided 'no way'. Visited a few other minor pavilions like Vietnam, Laos, Nepal, etc. It was sprinkling slightly on the last one again, but the rain managed to hold itself off. Then, we went to the mini-pavilions of the Chinese Provinces. Only managed to make it through less than half of 'em, though I think we got some of the better ones (not counting Beijing and Shanghai which had separate lines with estimated wait times of 3 hrs). The Shaanxi exhibit especially was very pretty, with very pretty songs and dances too. The Yunnan exhibit also had pretty girls and dancing, and when they did the 'sprinkling of blessed water' on nearby audience, I managed to get some of that water on me. Whoo! Blessed! XD

We skipped lunch and had an early dinner at 3-4ish. The kiddies insisted on lamb kabobs at a Turkish restaurant. Afterwards I bought a tray of half-dozen yakitori takoyaki from a Japanese stand. There goes my cholesterol intake for the year. >.>

Finally, at 5:30, met up with the tour guide again to get us into the Chinese Pavilion. Feet were already aching, but managed to tough it though three hours of standing in line until we could finally got in. For most of that wait, my uncle actually had a fine time talking to a woman right behind us in line, who was apparently a journalist from a legal journal (newspaper?) who'd been to the Expo many times for various official and unofficial reasons. I didn't listen in on most of their conversation since I was busy trying to keep the twins entertained, but after the fact, my uncle said he was very impressed with her. Apparently, she was part of a committee responsible for figuring out how the legal system was going to work for China's budding market economy. He said that she was actually more knowledgeable about economic theory/practice, and even the US economic system, than most economic "professionals" in the USA (and he says this having a pretty wide-read economics background himself). I think he was also pretty impressed/surprised by some of her strong opinions on how China is doing and where it's going in relation to the rest of the world. I just got the impression that she was pretty proud of where the nation has been able to get to, and was pretty optimistic about the future.

Anyways, once actually into the China pavilion, I took a bunch of pics, which again will have to wait to be posted until I get back on the other side of the Great Firewall (unless I find another good free media hosting). Some of it had to be run extensively through Photoshop first though, since the dark room plus animated screen did not work well at all with the camera's auto-flash and auto-focus settings. Oh well.

Speaking of pictures, I at least figured out what was triggering the grey boxes on my photos. It seems that whenever I turn off the power on the camera, the last photo shot would get those greay boxes. So I guess the temporary solution is to take an extra shot before turning off the power. After I get back to the US, I can get Canon support (which is for some reason also being blocked by the firewall) to fix this or whatever.

We took the subway metro on our way back to the hotel (ow my more achy feet), and now I'm more than ready to conk out.

We're probably returning to the expo tomorrow. But we're going to be using individual tickets instead of group tickets. Also - not going to try and kill ourselves meeting deadlines and stuff. We moved the scheduled trip to the Shanghai museum to the last day since the museum closes early, so we can get an early bedtime in order to catch the flight to Xi'an early morning after.

Edit from 10/16 - while indexing the images, also realized that I lost all the pics of the Yunnan and Guilin mini pavilions. Those were between the Tibet mini pavilion and the main China pavilion. What happened there? *glares at camera*

Went to bed at 10 pm yesterday, which means I woke up at 6 am and couldn't fall asleep again. Huh, I never had this problem back during working days. :P

Anyway, made myself my daily cup of 板蓝根 using boiled bottled water and went to check the internet for updates. Apparently, facebook is blocked, even the http://zh-cn.facebook.com/ local site. As is imageshack (can't see the pics of my previous entries anymore). So what am I gonna do for uploading photos real-time? WTF China. o_O

Add: I managed to get into imageshack using http proxies found on google. However no http proxy so far will get me into facebook. A lot of proxy sites are apparently blocked to. Anyone can find me a old style proxy service or free vpn service (not on my work laptop) I can use to get around the Great Firewall of China?

Add2: Hm...it seems that a lot of proxy services can get me to more minor sites like imageshack. But the minute I try to access facebook, that proxy isn't usable anymore for any other site, including non-blocked sites like yahoo. Wow, they really are serious about restricting facebook.

Journal Entries:
4/7, Day 0 - US Airways
Day 1 - Life Hates Me
Day 2 - Headless Chicken
Day 4 - More Headless Chicken
Day 6 - Internet
Day 8 - Modern Day Boonies
Day 9 - Belated Qing Ming
Day 10 - Island Tour
Day 11 - Wuxi
Day 12 - Buddhist Tourism
Day 13 - Political Tangent
Day 14 - Passports
Day 15 - VISA's
Day 16 - Girls Day Out
Day 17 - Party & Politics
4/27 - Home Sweet Home

Photo Entries:
Zhejiang, 4/15
Zhejiang, 4/16
Zhejiang, 4/17
Wuxi, 4/19

Mom started calling the embassy starting at 8:30 (when they open) to get updates on our passports. No one picked up the phone. So she started calling them every 10 minutes or so, using all 4 phone extensions on the card we had for the embassy offices. Still no response. AU are can say is the service at the embassy either sucks, or they are busy with something - current political climate maybe?

Finally, when I checked our email again after lunch I finally saw the notifications for picking up our passports. The email timestamps were around 11:57 and I saw the emails around 12:20. We hurried to the Wuxi train station and managed to catch the 1:10 train to Shanghai, arriving at around 2:30. We got to the embassy at about 3 and were able to pickup the passports without any problems. Then we hurried back to the train station in hopes of catching the 3:45 train.

While we did make it before the boarding time, there weren't any seats left for the 3:45 动车 and had to make do with the next available one at 5:30. We spent the intervening 2 hours looking around the shops near the train station. Bought some clothing, hairpieces, and ornaments.

Now were back to Nanjing. Next step is of course getting the exit VISA Hopefully that will take only a day (best case scenario) and not five (worst case).

7 PM local time - On the train from Shanghai to Nanjing

So early this morning we made calls again to the taxi company, etc. But by the time we were heading out the door, we didn't bear much hope of getting our passports back. In retrospect, it seems much more likely that they were pick pocketed during the short time we got off the bus from the airport and before we caught the cab to the hotel.

Anyway, theft is the story we're sticking when we headed to the embassy. There they told us that to file for replacement passports, we'll first need a loss report from the Entry/Exit Bureau. They also said that it will take around 10 (business?) days for a new passport to be issued.

So next we headed to the Entry/Exit Bureau to get the loss report. There they said that we wouldn't be able to get the report once we filed the forms until Friday. They also said that it could take anywhere from 1-5 business days to get the VISA to leave China once we get our replacement passports.

This presents the possibility that we won't be able to get the VISA in time for the time on our return plane tickets. Worst case scenario, we may be stuck in China for an extra week. In which case, we'll also need to inform our jobs. This kinda sucks since I don't have enough leave time for an extra week of PTO, so I'll need to borrow the time from future work hours. I'm sure my colleagues will not love me for this, but well, there's not much I can do at this point.

Anyway, once we got out of the Entry/Exit office (which is also the place that does VISA's), we dropped by the train station to put our other carry-on luggage in holding. Then we headed downtown for some lunch and shopping while we waited for the time to call the airport about our missing luggage from yesterday.

At about 3:30 PM we called the airport, and they told us they'd already mailed the luggage to the address we gave in Nanjing. So at least we didn't have to spend another 2+ hours on the road to/from Pudong airport. At that point, we finished up shopping and headed back to the train station to book a train to Nanjing.

(No, we decided not to spend another 2 nights in Shanghai waiting for the loss report on Friday morning because there is a huge hassle for us to book a place anywhere without passports, and the place we stayed in last night was... less than comfortable, I'll leave it at that. What with the two-hour trains between Shanghai & Nanjing, it would be simpler just to take a train back to Shanghai on Friday morning to file for the passport.)

Special thanks must be extended today to the family friend who we'd contacted last night. She came with us the whole day today and was a huge help in navigating the public transport system in Shanghai - eg. the bullet subway train thing. (I still kind of boggle at the problem my mom was having with the ticketing and entry/exit system the subway used even though it's almost exactly like BART.) She was also instrumental in preventing my mom from buying some really fugly clothing and attempting to make me try some of the same. *hugs and kisses*

I did end up buying 3 pairs of pants (they adjusted the length in-store for me), one skirt, and a shirt or two to match 'em.

Once we get to my grandparents' place in Nanjing, I expect much nagging and scolding from my grandma on the stupidity of losing our passports. Fortunately, my mom will most likely be the recipient of the sermon, so I might be able to slip by on the radar. *crosses fingers*

Other than that, I hope to be able to take a real bath (shower) tonight and sleep in a real bed. (Did I already mention that our changes of clothing and sleepwear are all in the luggage that's now supposedly going to arrive by mail in Nanjing tomorrow?) Unfortunately, at this point, I still rather prefer to be living my average day at work than be in China with all the hassles that lie waiting in the near future.

Also, I miss internet.

Chicago O'Hare - 7:48AM CST

So the flight itinerary goes from SF to LA to Chicago to Shanghai. The flight from SF to LA got canceled so we got moved to a different flight. This resulted in us wandering around dazed and fuzzy in Chicago at 5 AM PST. Our expected arrival at Shanghai is 2 PM local time. God knows when/if the luggage is going to make it.

Speaking of luggage, note to self, it's not a good idea to carry gifts in the carry-on suitcase if the gift consists of liquid/gel such as perfume kits. We had a little scare at the security checkpoint in SF until the security lady was nice enough to find us a large zip-loc bag, so we could take out the bottles and put them in the bag for security check-in, and put them back once we get to Shanghai.

Well, at least the nice thing about the fact that all 3 flights are AA means we don't have to do another security check-in. On the way back, we'll just have to remember not to buy and liquid/gel type gifts. =P

Another scare at the SF airport... I was going to try and scan for wireless networks, and nearly freaked when I noticed that the power light wasn't going on indicating the laptop battery was charging, even though I'd plugged it into an airport outlet. For a while there I'd thought I'd brought a defunct adapter, and would have to buy another one in China (at least Lenovo is Chinese manufacture now). But fortunately I decided to try again at O'Hare, and this time the battery is charging, so I guess it was just back luck with a broken outlet back in SF.

Anyway... 3 more hours to go until the flight gets here... Zzzz... =_=

So my flight plan this time is: Pudong (Shanghai) --> Narita (Tokyo) --> LA --> SF

Interesting enough, I actually arrive at LA slightly "before" I leave Shanghai by crossing the international date line. If everything went on time, I should be home in CA by 3 p.m. the same as I left Shanghai at 10 a.m., despite the fact that I'd certainly have to spend way more than 7 hours in the air.

Anyways, the layouver at Narita was about 4 hours as planned, which means about 3 hours of idle time once all the paperwork/check-in stuff was done. I used this time to check out the gift shops and they let me buy stuff with US dollars at a rate of $1 = 102¥. Not sure if that's a fiar rate, but I bought a few souvenirs anyways - a compact mirror for ¥1000 and a swordset keychain that reminds me of a certain hitokiri for ¥350, for about $13.50 total.

Also, since the flight to LA was pretty full, the nice man who checked us in at Narita bumped Mom and me up to the Business class, with all its superior service and stuff.

The flight itself had an American pilot and mostly American crew. AA once again proved itself the sluggard by being late by about an hour or so. They blamed the weather, as it was foggy with small rain in LA at the time. But still, that was one of the worst plane landings I've sat through. Honestly, it felt like a roller coaster and I actually got *cramps* over it, and I almost never get cramps after the first day of my period.