Exit The Dragon

Jinji Lake

JInji Lake

 My three months in China have come and gone. Not only have I seen a part of the world that I never imagined I would, I actually lived here long enough for the experience to be much more than what a tourist on vacation would come to know. After eating Beijing duck, seeing The Great Wall, Summer Palace and Lamborghinis driving in the streets of Beijing. And seeing The Bund, Pearl Tower and eating Shanghai dumplings in Shanghai I got to the point where coming back to Suzhou was just like coming home. That feeling of comfort you have when you make it to that familiar road that leads back to your house after a nice vacation. That road for me has been Jinji Hu Da dao or Jinji Lake Avenue. It’s my Chinese version of Moreland Avenue. Although the bus ride home from work every day is mundane (well I mean once I got used to the driver almost running over people on bikes) it was always nice to pull into the driveway of Who Chow Lee Gin (not spelled right but that’s how you say it) or the Chateau Regency. The people at the desk always say hello and Carina was always sitting in the shop where I would get a coke, some chips and “occasionally” a Tsingtao beer. Then up to the third floor to my cleaned up room, which will be hard for me to get used to having to do myself back home, the only cleaning I’ve done in the last three months is washing clothes. Ah yes, kick back on the couch and turn on the flat screen and have my choice of CNN, National Geographic, HBO (sort of and sometimes) or Cinemax. On second thought take Cinemax off the list because it’s really not even worth checking here, only terrible movies that should have never been made. Or I could watch some Sumo wrestling, ping pong, strange Chinese game shows or NBA games that are two years old. That is the reason to buy DVDs here, which I think I have around thirty something, they are usually only about two dollars each.
 After relaxing for a while I would usually meet up with Scott and his family or Alan and Cecilia for a quick walk up to a pizza place called Mario’s or a quick taxi ride to the Drunken Chef for some cottage pie. Don’t think that I haven’t eaten Chinese though, I assure you I could name several places if I knew how to say them. Then back home to my not so soft bed to be woken up by my cell phone alarm clock and do it all over again.

 Suzhou is all lit up at night, it’s kind of like Vegas without the gambling and Americans. It’s always nice to walk out to Jinji Lake and look at all of the bridges glowing in neon with a big city back drop of buildings covered with neon as well. One of the more recognizable buildings has thirty floors of the game Tetris blocks coming down on it every night. All of the trees have Christmas lights in them or different colored spotlights shining up on them. Pagodas and roof tops of smaller buildings are lit up as well displaying the familiar shape of Chinese rooftop architecture. Across the lake is the Giant Wheel Park where a laser show is projected on to the, well what else, Giant Ferris wheel. (396 feet high) Near that is the Suzhou Bird’s Nest which is an expo building housing theaters that fades into different colors like electric paint is slowly running down it’s sides. On Friday and Saturday nights you have the Laser, fire water show thing that you can watch for free also. Then of course, on the weekends there is downtown Suzhou and bar street, Shi Quan Jie, where you have more choices of bars and pool tables than you can shake bamboo at. There is one simply called The Pub that some of us like to sit outside of and get stared at by older Chinese people walking by. There are other kinds of bars on bar street too, they’re called chicken bars and well, let’s just say they are not the kind of bars you would take your wife to. They seem fairly risky also, I’ve seen the police raid some of them and I would bet Chinese Jail would not be fun. I don’t think bar street really closes, I know I’ve come close to seeing the sun come up there a few times. Guys ride by on bikes selling fruit that makes for a good midnight snack or you can jump on a rickshaw to get to your next destination if you’re feeling a little lazy.

 Last night Scott and I met some of the workers at a bar called The Tunnel to have a beer and play some pool with them. The two girls ordered orange juice and the guys sipped on one beer each the whole night. Some of them had never shot pool before. It was funny to see one of the girls shooting with the cue backwards and moving balls around with her hands. Overall it was a good night, I think they all had a good time. Actually one of the guys didn’t make it to work today, I guess that one beer got to him.

 Alright, this will probably be my last blog while in China. This is really strange to know that I only have one more day of a job I have been working for nineteen years. I knew when I came to China it would be my last three months and now the time has come. I will miss Suzhou, but I am ready to come home.
 Anyone hiring?

 Hopefully the trip home will go smoother than the one coming here and the flight to Beijing. I can’t wait to get home and see Dylan and Veleta and everyone else. Here is a short list of things in my “to do” book:

Eat at Fox Brothers bbq; eat a Five Guys hamburger; eat at Waffle House; have a real steak; Black Label Maple Bacon mmm; jam with my band Single Malt Solution; eat at Six Feet Under, snow crab legs; drive my car; play regular golf with my bud Erick; cook something on the grill; sleep in my own bed….. This list could go on forever but, I’m sure you get the picture. Zi Jian

The "kids'
Left to right the guys: Sky,Dragon, American Scott, Strong, American Matta, Ocean
The girls left to right: Vicky and Finny

Metros, Trains and Automobiles

 For Veleta’s last weekend in China we decided to go to Shanghai. A couple of friends, Alan and his wife Cecilia came along and spent Saturday with us. That made the trip easier since they knew their way around the area where the hotel was and the Metro (subway) lines. Veleta and I both have been to Shanghai but only for day trips to go shopping so we looked forward to seeing the city at night.

 We took the train into Shanghai at 8:30 AM and arrived before 9:00 AM. The train had a top speed of somewhere around 320 kilometers an hour, that’s about 200 miles per hour. This makes what would be an hour and a half to a two hour drive less than thirty minutes, got to love the train and it’s cheap, less than $10. Speaking of that in the States we are so behind on public transportation, why don’t we have high speed trains running up and down the East coast? Anyway, I digress. So we decided it would be better to take a taxi to the hotel than to jump on the metro because Veleta had all of her bags with her and the metro can get very crowded so a foreigner with three pieces of luggage does not fit into the equation. Veleta’s flight back home left from Shanghai Monday morning so we were staying there until then. So that meant Monday morning I would leave Shanghai and go straight to work back in Suzhou, but I will get to that later.

 Once we got to the hotel we took a quick rest and then ventured out on the town to an American place called Malones for some lunch. There used to be one of these in Atlanta but I’m not sure if they are still around. The girls settled for salad while I had some ribs (OK but not as good as home) and Alan had a big juicy burger which is very hard to come by. So, this was a nice start to our first day in Shanghai.

 After lunch we walked to a “mall” type place where the typical bargaining and “hey lady you need bags, come lookie in my shop, just lookie, lookie”. This time I was on a mission though, I needed a new wallet because mine had started to rip from trying to hide 100’s in the credit card pockets. I also needed some sun glasses, the ones I brought were scratched. So first I scored a Mont Blanc wallet for about $15. Now I’m not up on brands but the wallet had the features I was looking for. Once I got home I looked up the brand and I guess it’s a very expensive German company. As for the shades I wanted some Ray Ban so to get them I had to ask. See most things in these stores are on display, even things like computer software. I don’t understand why they hide some of the things they have but they do. When I asked for Ray Ban the girl said "follow me” and took down a couple of tie racks to have access to a hidden door. Once we walked thru the door it was like a small closet, then the girl started taking down some shelves and opened the wall. It was like Batman’s cave. Once she opened the wall she pulled out box after box of Ray Ban and Gucci sun glasses. I found a pair I liked and paid about thirty bucks for them, I probably could have gotten them cheaper but, whatever. I had her throw a nice hard case for them in so I felt Ok with the transaction. Then she shut the wall, put the shelves back and signaled her co worker that we were coming back out. It was a very elaborate system well hidden and it even had electronic locks on the door ways. So, mission accomplished, I got what I came for.

 After that we all went back to the hotel to get some rest before going out that night. It was very hot and walking around takes the juice out of you, by that I mean I was seating like a pig in a slaughter house. Once we all got our energy back we took a taxi to a little tapas place and had some excellent chicken, shrimp, pork and sangria. Typical of many western style restaurants the place was not crowded at all so it made for a nice easy dinner. After dinner we walked a few blocks down the road to a bar called Shanghai Band Sanctuary to see a band. Well, we saw the band and were not impressed. I was waiting for the male singer to go into some back street boys any minute. But, he didn’t, at least not in the few minutes we stuck around. The drinks were very expensive there too. Shanghai is making a killing of the Expo thing. Speaking of Expo, none of us had any interest in checking it out because we have been hearing that you could stand in line for up to four hours just to see one pavilion. Four hours in the heat and two million Chinese is not too different than walking the streets but at the Expo you have to pay to do it.

 Back to Saturday night, after tapas we walked down to the local hot spot called Zapatas which is really a Mexican restaurant, Veleta and I ate at the one in Suzhou, excellent fajitas. The Zapatas in Shanghai turns into a dance club at night but also has a large patio to just sit and have some drinks. Long story short we had a nice relaxing evening and then walked back to the hotel.

 Sunday we slept in and went to have lunch with Alan and Cecelia before their train left to go back to Suzhou. After they left Veleta and I wandered around People’s Square (People’s Park) which is I guess like New York’s Central Park. We got lost looking for the Shanghai museum counting more than five Starbuck’s. There is a Starbuck’s on almost every corner, just like back home. I think more Chinese people drink coffee than they do tea now, no, not really, everybody still drinks tea all of the time but Starbuck’s is very popular. Once we found the museum we decided not to go, it was free to get in and the line was ridiculous. After all that walking we decided to take the metro back toward the hotel and get out of the heat for a while.

 After resting we took the metro to The Bund area which is a cool part of town that is river side. We went to a building called The Jin Mao Tower where we had heard we could see some great views of the city in a lounge called Cloud Nine on the eighty seventh floor. Well, we made it to the lounge but just to get in there was a 120 rmb minimum for each of us and we didn’t plan on eating there so we settled for the view from the 56th floor which was great anyway. The river and the boats with the back drop of huge buildings and the Oriental Pearl Tower all lit up was really something to see. Shanghai has twenty million people and is probably the size of five New York cities.

 Time for some dumplings now, I took Veleta to a place that Scott had taken me the last time I was in Shanghai. It’s in the Super Brand Mall which is located right next to the Pearl Tower. Super Brand is a huge mall with every store you can think of and also the dumpling restaurant Din Tai Fung. The Shanghai dumplings are the best I’ve had without a doubt. Actually everything we ordered was very good and inexpensive. It’s on the third floor above Hooters if you ever make it too Shanghai.

 After dinner we walked down to the river side and watched some of the lit up boats cruise by before we jumped back on the metro to get back to the hotel. Veleta’s flight was at 10:00 AM and it was an hour taxi ride to the airport. I had to be at work in Suzhou by 8:00 AM so I got up at 4:45 AM got ready and told Veleta good bye for the last time in China. Then I walked to the metro, rode it to the train station and caught the train back to Suzhou where I then took a taxi to work. Now that’s a commute and while carrying twenty pounds of clothes, steel toed shoes and a heavy lap top. Actually I made it to work a little early to stand out in the heat while waiting on the others to unlock the office.

 It’s good to know that Veleta is back home safe and sound now, I’m sure she is probably sleeping right now, I hope so since it’s 2:30 AM in the states. I’m sure Dylan will be happy to see her and I can’t wait to see them both in one week. Until then, it’s China time.

Trip to Beijing

After weeks of planning the trip to Beijing things did not start out the way I hoped. Veleta and I got up Friday morning to meet the driver at 8:00 am to take us to the airport in Wuxi. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 10:45 AM so, the flight was delayed. It was delayed until 1:20 PM. This instantly reminded me of sitting on the runway for close to four hours before my fourteen hour flight to Tokyo when I came here. Well, so we boarded the plane at 1:20 and sat there for about an hour then we stepped back off the plane to sit in the airport until about 5:00 pm. Then they finally called us back on and we finally took off at 6:00PM. With our trip being a short two day excursion we had lost a whole day due to mechanical problems and the weather in Beijing. After all of that after we landed we caught an express train from the airport to get us closer to the hotel and the fun began. It was raining cats and dogs and we were instantly approached by vultures wanting to give us a ride. One guy said 100 rmb when I already knew that it should only cost 15 at the most. So we blew him off and went on a 45 minute search for a taxi driver that knew how to take us to our hotel. “Toto we’re not in Suzhou”. The same guy that said 100 rmb earlier approached me again and said 70, I asked to see his car and he said “I don’t have one” well he learned some new English words that night as Veleta pulled me away from him. I have not wanted to punch anybody since I’ve been in China but that was close. Finally we found a guy who would take us for 50 rmb with “no Meter” we were tired of getting soaked so we agreed. Once we were driving he had to call the hotel and get directions. Once we got to the hotel I knew why, it was on a little back alley which made me and Veleta wonder what have we gotten ourselves into. Once we entered the hotel I felt a lot better as the staff was very courteous and instantly upgraded our room. The hotel is actually a house from the late 1800’s and unlike any hotel I’ve ever seen. Our room was great and we had a huge roof top deck all to ourselves. I’ve put some pictures here so you can see for yourself. As a bonus my boss gave me the following Monday off since we missed our Friday so “life is good”. The hotel had no problem giving us a room for an extra night and we planned our trip to The Great Wall for Sunday instead of Saturday hoping for better weather.

Saturday we visited Tian’an Men Square and the Forbidden City. Although it was raining off and on the Forbidden City was very impressive, it seemed to go on for miles. The crowds were typical of the Chinese culture, force your way thru and keep moving, so we could only take so much before we left to try and find our way back to the hotel. We missed a few more buildings in the Forbidden City but, I can say, we got the idea. You could probably spend a whole day there if you wanted to see everything. Lots of massive temple like buildings with elaborate art work now infected with souvenir stores and people putting Chinese flags in your hand, which I paid five rmb for. Sometimes it’s hard to turn people down, especially when they just won’t take no for an answer.

Saturday night we went to a very popular restaurant called Da Dong which is famous for Beijing duck. So of course we had some duck, they cook them in wood burning ovens and bring the whole duck to your table, head and all just like in the movie “A Christmas Story”, and carve it into thin slices. They also cut the head in half and put it on a special plate. Being a once in a lifetime experience I tried a little duck brain. It was sort of mushy, not very tasty but now I can say I’ve tried it. The rest of the duck was delicious, they showed us three different ways to eat it. One was to rub it in sugar or you could put in a tortilla type thing with some sweet sauce, onion and radish and roll it up like a burrito. The other way was to put it in a little hollow biscuit type thing and kind of eat it like a small hamburger. We also had some asparagus and shrimp that were fantastic. Then they brought out two plums on a tray of dry ice followed by a champagne flute of sorbet. We were stuffed. After dinner we went to the local bar street where there are small bars lined up beside each other all with Chinese bands playing, of course, Chinese music. It’s a lot different in Suzhou where they cater more to the westerners, in Beijing it’s all for the locals. It was strange because all of the bars had people standing outside begging you to come in their bar, much like walking down a shopping street. We ended up sitting outside of one place that just had a guy playing acoustic guitar, he actually did one song in English “Knocking On Heaven’s Door”. I had a Cuban cigar and we just relaxed and did some people watching for a while.

Now on to Sunday, we hired a driver for the whole day to take us to The Great Wall and Summer Palace. We started out at 8:30 in the morning and drove about an hour and half to the wall. The sights along the way were great, this was more like the China that used to be, small towns with restaurants advertising donkey meat. Once we arrived at the wall our driver told us where he would be and set us free. The part of the wall we went to is called Mutianyu, the people at the hotel recommended it because it would be less crowded than the closer area Badaling. The bad thing was that it was very foggy from all of the rain we have had. We were not able to see very far like you see in pictures. You would really have to be lucky to catch a clear day and we didn’t have much choice on which day we went. At least it didn’t rain on us, there was a slight drizzle at first but it went away after a few minutes. The cool thing was that we have actually walked on The Great Wall. It really is amazing, at times the “steps” are scary and there are hardly any level areas. We saw several people that looked like they might have a heart attack and believe me, that would not be good because there is no way you would get any kind of help. You are completely on your on at the wall. I did find it funny that at most of the towers there were people with water and beer for sale, as much as I like beer this is a hike not a leisurely walk. Beer would be the last thing you should have unless you want to break your neck. We rode the cable car up to the wall, this was a good decision because after walking on the wall and then walking down the mountain we were exhausted. Then what do you know, souvenir shops with all of the regular Chinese negotiating. I will say they all seemed surprised by the little bit of Chinese I have learned, I figure here at the wall they usually only get true tourist that aren’t in China long enough to learn any Chinese. This also happened in Beijing when I started bargaining for some tee shirts, these girls were surprised I could some ramble out some numbers and said “you are so cute but you bargain so hard” so I stood my ground and got the price down 60% which was still a little more than I’ve paid in Shanghai but, what is an extra fifty cents in the long run. I have to say that these are the only times my little bit of Chinese language helped at all. After all of that we went to The Summer Palace, which is a very cool area where Empress Dowager Cixi used to spend her downtime in the late 1800’s. We climbed to the top of the Hill Of Longevity to The Sumeru Temple and the Tower Of Buddhist Incense which was many more steps than we would have liked after climbing all over The Great Wall all day. In the center of the area lies a large lake called Kunming Lake that was manmade and all of the dirt that was dug up to make the lake is what makes the Hill Of Longevity. So after climbing back down we decided to ride back across the lake on a dragon boat, or at least a boat with a dragon on it. This was a nice little ride back across the lake and gave us a little rest. Then we finally made it back out to the parking lot to find our driver sleeping in his car, but he jumped right up and said “Summer Palace gooda?” He was really a nice guy and it was entertaining to watch him talk with people working at toll booths and parking lots.

So the last night in Beijing I was ready for a steak. There was an Outback Steakhouse not far from the hotel and it was great. Not quite exactly like home but the first steak I’ve had in over two months, the bloomin onion was perfect. It actually ended up costing as much as the duck dinner but, it was worth it. I know that sounds funny but, you get tired of Chinese food even if it is good after a couple of months.

Monday morning we get up to go to the airport and fly back to “home sweet home Suzhou” and of course our flight is delayed an hour. I’m starting to think this is a trend. One hour is not so bad though, we wondered around the terminal for a while looking at the very fancy overpriced shops, not buying anything. The Beijing airport is massive and easy on the eyes. We also noticed that it is designed to use natural light in the terminals, only the shops had lights on and it was not even a sunny day. Go figure, China is going green.

I’v e tried to put as many pictures of the things I’ve wrote about so enjoy the haze.
Sorry that they are scattered around, I'm having trouble with the new blog editor.

4th Of July China Style

Veleta got in to Suzhou around 10:30 pm. on Thursday, so far she is doing well with the time change and jet lag although tonight she crashed pretty early. That’s to be expected though, she’s lucky she doesn’t have to work like I did the day after my arrival. So far we have seen the laser, fire, water show thing at jinji lake on Friday night before she ran out of gas, and ate out Saturday night with a friend from work, his wife and two of the Chinese workers I am working with. The dinner with the workers left me wondering how much English they actually understand when I speak to them at work. As I’ve said before they tell me I am hard to understand because of my southern accent. I felt bad for Veleta in this situation because the table conversation was centered on understanding Chinese and since she had only been here for one day she is not used to the trade off that takes place when you have conversations with people that barely speak English. Actually, I think my friend set up the dinner to help me bond with the workers and the fact that my wife would be here now would make it a little less awkward to go to dinner with the two workers that happen to be young ladies. The dinner felt awkward to me too because I had very little conversation with them while trying to keep my jet lagged wife somewhat entertained. So, I guess I will find out Monday if the experiment failed or helped.

After the dinner I was able to show Veleta a taste of the Suzhou nightlife which is what I was interested in doing since we will be traveling to Beijing next weekend and Shanghai the weekend after. Although with the world cup happening it turned out not to be a regular Suzhou weekend. All of the bars were packed full of people to watch soccer. I did manage to introduce her to some of the good people I have had the honor of speaking with while enjoying a cold one after a long week at work. We started out at the blue marlin then went to the tunnel bar and then headed downtown to the pub with a stop at the dvd shop. We ended up making it home around two thirty in the morning so I will deem Veleta a trooper.

On to the fourth of July, the day began with rain so Veleta and I chose to have a slow start to the day and really didn’t do anything in the morning. Some folks from work were getting together for a cook out with hamburgers and hot dogs around five so we had no place to be for a while anyway. The cookout was fine, actually one of the best burgers I’ve had in over two months, it was a little more uneventful fourth of July than I am used to but that’s to be expected when it’s a work function involving people that aren’t really long time friends. The biggest storm I’ve seen since I’ve been here blew in just as Jim was firing up the grill at his apartment and then came one of the most eventful things I’ve witnessed. The wind was blowing the trees and the rain sideways and the lightning was striking very close when we heard a very loud boom. I think we all assumed it was just a firework at first, which is common to hear on any given weekend. Jim’s apartment is on the first floor of a twenty something story building. Turns out the loud boom was a large piece of the building’s siding had fallen from high above with enough force to put a hole on the wooden decking of Jim’s balcony. It literally ripped nailed down decking boards out of the footers. The large piece of concrete just missed the grill and must of broke in half on the railing of the balcony as there were pieces on the ground below and some broken pieces on the destroyed decking of the balcony. This apartment building is probably less than eight or ten years old so this incident has made me think more about “made in China”. The strange thing is no one at the cookout seemed to be shocked by what happened at first, but I think everyone knew that someone could have been killed and that it was sheer luck that no one was standing on the deck when this happened. I wish I would have taken a picture of the damage to show you but I felt like that would have been inappropriate for some reason at the time. Now, as I’ve said, I wish I would have.

I forgot to mention while walking to the cookout I witnessed my second Chinese fight. The first was in Shanghai which involved a little slapping, choking and running away. But this one was two taxi drivers, one of them pulled his car up close to the driver’s side of the other car trapping the guy in his car. The one on the outside was screaming at the guy trapped in his car and then he began punching and choking. This went on for several minutes and Veleta and I watched the whole thing happen as we were walking by. I have no idea what the fight was over, maybe a stolen fare, regardless, I love free entertainment.

In the two months that I’ve been here I’ve become numb to the scooter accidents, the everyone has the right of way at all times mentality while driving, the people pushing and shoving to get to the front of the so called line, the holes in the sidewalks, the oddly designed steps and the smell of stinky tofu. While some of the Americans working here don’t seem to mind all of these things, I, personally can’t wait to get back to my “overprotective” safe country.