Postscripts

China Visits Steve - 7/13/07 - Two high-level managers from towns in China came in to our office today, wanting to talk to a planner to get a feel for how planning works in the U.S. I was the one who ended up talking to them. I was better able to answer their questions because I had just been there and could use their own cities and processes as points of reference. They had a Thank You gift for me as well, a silk handkerchief.

Reunion Dinner - 7/11/07 - Both groups met in San Leandro for dinner and story swapping. The first group's membership almost all showed up, and they cheered as each person showed up. the second group, the one I was on, was more sedate. The best part of the evening was when Rob asked each of us to share a moment on the trip that they felt was most memorable, and also what they learned from the trip.

Letters of Appreciation - 6/15/07 - Several people have sent emails to the group thanking everyone for making the trip so nice. Everyone seems really pleased with how the trip went.

Bargaining Skills Improved - 6/13/07 - I was at an office supply store that was offering a "Buy 3 get 1 free" deal, but I asked for and got 2 free on the grounds that the 2 free things I wanted were together less expensive than some of the other free things I could have asked for. I initiated the negotiation effortlessly and without any hesitation. Negotiating became natural after two weeks in China.

Homecoming

Early Sunday morning we grabbed one last monster breakfast and scurried to the airport. It was a 100 Yuan ride on the freeway to the new Beijing International Airport. This airport was as modern and as clean as any in the West, and checkin went just as smoothly. We all made it to Hong Kong, where we did not have to go through customs but we did have to go through the temperature detector one more time. The temperature detector is like a metal detector, except that it works with something like a radar detector for heat. A person with the camera and monitor views people as they pass, and if your face shows up in any other color than green or yellow, they will check you for bird flu. I wonder what happens to people who do have a temperature as they pass, but for something innocuous. Do they lose their flight while medical technicians diagnose your case?

Both Dragonair and Cathay Pacific were wonderful airlines, and got us home on time. The first thing I noticed was how clean the air looked and smelled. I felt I could see for miles, and the sky was the first blue sky I had seen in 10 days. While coming back from Europe, Highway 101 might look a little run down, but coming back from Asia, its beautiful. I am glad to be back home.

The Forbidding City

On our last full day in China, we had one last planning-related presentation, then had the afternoon free to complete whatever final tour goals each of us had set for ourselves. For many of us, the final task was to attend the third fitting of the $150 hand-tailored suits many of us bought. For others such as myself, it meant visiting the sites that we hadn't been able to visit on the other days. This included the Planning Museum and the Forbidden City. But for five of us, the day began at 6:30 at the flea market.

The flea market has a permanent location in the southwest of the city and is held every Saturday and Sunday. It is about the size of a football field, with the area in the middle covered by a high roof, and the areas at the edges being occupied by tiny 10x10 lockable storefronts. I suspect the fleamarket is the wholesale source for all the trinkets that are sold by all the kiosks in all the tourist areas of the city. The storefronts house the most expensive goods with the most expansive selection, and are probably rented on a semi-permanent basis. The areas in the middle, long aisles with long tables hosting perhaps 40 sellers per bench, look like they could be reserved for regulars, rented on a month-to-month basis, with the better spots on the bench going to the highest bidders on a given week. Around the entrances and in remote corners of the complex are the amateurs who might go once a year in the same way we might hold a garage sale once a year. Those spots probably aren't reserved, and are assigned on a first-come first-serve basis. The aisles themselves were arranged by type of good, with a jade section, wood section, mask section, old farm implements section, and sections for every other type of tourist item. The sellers were not agressive in the least. It was a crowded but pleasant place to shop.

The prices here were not marked any more than at any other place, but for the smallest items, there was very little haggling, or need to haggle. Prices for bracelets started and ended at 7 Yuan. I could get beads at .8 Yuan per piece. Prices for larger items could still be negotiated.

We spent 90 minutes there then rushed back to the hotel for the huge buffet breakfast. This hotel had omelettes and breakfast steaks on offer. It was the best and most expensive hotel on the trip, but was worth it for the breakfasts that also served as lunch. Rumor had it that Hillary Clinton stayed here when she was in town once for a conference.

After breakfast we went to a newer district of town to listen to an Italian architect who has spent many years working in Beijing. We learned a lot about the design of Beijing, particularly the importance of the North-South axis, and about hutongs and their ability to serve as a mix of private and public space. Hutongs are endangered because an important element of their design is that they are one-story buildings, and thus can't handle the required densities of modern Beijing. Someone tried to develop a 2-story hutong, but the result lost the hutong flavor, and the locals didn't go for it. Either hutong or high-rise, nothing in between.

After our last lecture, I went to the Silk Market, where the hawkers were the most consistently agressive I had seen on the whole trip. Along some aisles, each hawker would claw at your arm in turn as you passed, and one of them grabbed one of us around the wrist with both hands and would not let go until support came. Nevertheless, it was the best place to buy nice silk shirts, and you could get them for 50 Yuan, about 10% of the initial asking price.

In the afternoon, some of us went on a tour of the Olympics sites, and the reports were all good. The Birds Nest stadium (it is made of long thin tubes arranged in a weave) and the Aquatic Center (it looks like it is made of blue bubbles pressed almost flat) were particularly impressive. I saw models of them at the Planning Museum, where I also saw a scale model of the city that filled half of the third floor. 3D was the fashion of the hour in the museum, as I saw another 3D model, smaller and in brass, on the wall in the stairwell, and they also offered a 3D movie showing the city and its development over history.

After the museum, two of us went to the Forbidden City. We may have been the only two in the group to have gone. The Forbidden City is under serious renovation, and the three main buildings were scaffolded up. Those smaller buildings that had already been renovated displayed rich reds, greens, blues, and golds. When the whole place is finished, it will be beautiful. The most impressive aspect to the place was the scale. The walls are huge and thick, and the plazas between major structures are vast. What the complex does not do well is vegetation. The whole place is stone, there are no incidental plants, trees, or lawns, and the one garden did not measure up at all to the peaceful and restful gardens of Suhzou.

We finished the evening with Peking Duck served in a restaurant that was probably once a hutong. We had a back room reserved for us. Our room overlooked the courtyard, where other guests ate and demonstrated their operatic prowess. The restaurant was located on a street that was lined with red Chinese lanterns, and was lined with one restaurant after the other. It could have been any place in the West.

The Great Wall

Yesterday we traveled to the Great Wall. The section we visited is a restored section of about 2 miles in length. A restored Great Wall is about 50 feet high and 20 feet wide. It varies in steepness from gentle slope to 2:1 staircases, and is lined with crenellations that are parallel to the path rather than to gravity. It runs along the crest of the hills and mountains. There is greenery on both sides, and you could easily see an enemy approaching from miles away, back in the days before smog. There were no blue skies to see on that day, and we could only see a shadow of the far towers of the wall through the smog, even though they were less than two miles away.

The wall beyond the restored section is intact, but covered with dirt and weeds that have grown over the neglected centuries. I could begin to doubt that you can see the great wall from space, because of all the overgrowth.

We got down from the Wall with a toboggan run. It lasted about 3 minutes. In the line I met a bunch of 10 year olds from an international school in Beijing. One of them approached me out of the blue in German and asked me if I was Deutsch. I answered in German that I was not German but could speak it well. They were impressed, though every one of the kids was fluent in English and at least one other language. They were really impressed when they found out I also spoke French. Then they actually said 'wow' and started vousvoyering me. They were mostly the children of diplomats, and in their group they had English/French mixes, Japanese/Canadian, and of course Germans. The least spoken language among them was Mandarin, though they had a working knowledge of it. I went down the toboggan right ahead of them, and managed to not let them catch up with me.

After the Wall hike we had lunch at the foot of the Wall, and walked a bit across some farmland on what felt like a French Grand Randonnee. After that we went back to Beijing and prepared to visit the Kung Fu & Opera. We could choose one or the other, but the reports afterward indicated that they were almost the same thing. They both had acrobatic Kung-Fu like dancing and music, and the main difference seemed to be the plot. The Opera was about love, and the Kung-Fu was about, well, Kung Fu.

For dinner I finally ate at one of the cultural icons of modern China, KFC. KFC is everywhere here, as popular as McDonalds, and KFC was here first. Its such a part of China that their presence here has made it into books. The Chinese KFC recipe is slightly more spicy, but recognizeably KFC. They have one thing here that I don't remember seeing in KFCs in the states, the custard/flan desert. I got a 6-pack of them, and they are delicious. The top is slightly caramelized, and the crust is flaky and light. The other KFC surprise is that they closed at 11. This was a KFC in the center of the capital city of the most populous nation on earth, and they kicked us out at 11. They didn't even let us linger. They turned out the lights like parents at a middle-schooler's party.

Beijing

Our first day in Beijing was not too eventful. We spent most of the morning trying to check into our hotel room and arranging for coffee. Getting coffee for the group can take a long time, because we tend to wander off while waiting for others. Its like herding cats. It was so bad today that we ended up taking our tour of the hutongs by rickshaw instead of individually driven bicycles. Our leader felt we would be easier to guide that way, and he was right.

We saw Tiananmen Square, and looked at the outside gate to the Forbidden City. We had lunch at the home of someone who showed us how to make dumplings, let us roll a few, then fed them to us. As usual, there were eight other dishes accompanying the dumplings. The meals are always huge, because we are always wanting to try everything. However, it is always healthy food, not junk food, and I had lost 10 unwanted pounds so far on this trip.

Xi'anadu

I was so impressed with Xi'an that I have more to write than I could finish in one typing session. Internet access is not ubiquitous here, even though the Xi'an hotel had free internet access (another example of Xi'an's class), and the hotel rooms have a bathroom sink made of clear glass, mounted above the granite countertop. It was the best hotel we had been in so far.
The hotel also served the best and most varied breakfast buffet so far on the trip, including Cheerios and Rice Krispies. Even the KFC here was excellent, and they had flan / custard cake desserts on the menu.

Xi'an is the most real city we have been in so far, with both positive and negative experiences. For example, at the end of the last post I mentioned Calligraphy Street. As we sat down to our kebabs and beers, we were immediately joined by one of the locals who wanted us to buy him a beer even though he had obviously had too much already. I thought he was going to get sick right in front of us. He sat down between the two of us with the best Mandarin, and made his desires known. We were considering honoring his request, but he lost patience before we could decide, and he grabbed for one of our beers. Quickly there were three hands on the bottle, and even more quickly his niece rushed in and whisked him away. We were left in peace after that. The pickpockets were also active in Xi'an. I caught someone trying to open my backpack while it was on my back, and someone else caught a strange hand in her purse.

Both of the pickpocketing incidents occured in the pedestrian tunnels, where it is easy to disappear in a crowd, or pick someone's pocket as they step on the down-escalator, so that if they try to chase you, they have to run up the down-escalator first. Imagine the head start they get. But those same tunnels are wide, well lit, and clean, and even had the first street musicians I had seen on the trip.

Our main purpose in going to Xi'an was not the Silk Road but the Terra Cotta Warriors. They have the exhibition site housed in a big open-air hall. They let you take pictures, with flash, and do not seem too concerned that all the visitors' sweat and CO2 will harm them. The warriors themselves were not so grand. I think the real attraction is in their age and the majesty of the undertaking. One is supposed to be in awe of the effort.

We left Xi'an by sleeper car. It was another type of bonding experience for the group, and very fun for all of us. We played hearts and chess, and watched movies on a portable taptop run off electricity from the train. The train passed through territory that reminded us all of the movies Blade Runner and the Terminator. In the night, through the lingering smog, we saw several nuclear and coal power plants spewing steam, several other manufacturing facilities outlined with lights, and passed through several fields where waste vegetation was being burned. Some of the grass fires were so close to the train tracks that I could feel their heat on the window as we passed. I would expect a similar scene after a battle between mechanized armies. There could be no humans in such a landscape.

At 7:18 and 30 seconds, we arrived punctually at Beijing train station. All of us had managed to get some sleep, and we walked to our bus (there is always a bus waiting for us, its like magic) and went to the new best hotel we have stayed in so far on this trip.

The End of the Silk Road

I thought I would start out with a picture today. I am the one with the beard. I thought a beard would be appropriate for a visit to the city where the Silk Road ends (from the Chinese perspective, the Silk Road starts here), but none of the chinese muslims sport beards. In every other way, however, the Silk Road has made its presence known here. This is the first city where people who really look and act differently are all living together in an integrated and organic way. It is a sense of mature multiculturalism that Shanghai, for all its international businesses and people, does not have.

One nice thing about Xi'an leapt out immediately. I saw a schoolyard with kids for the first time on this trip. This town has lots of children running around. I even saw toddlers wandering around. The kids have the strangest alternatives to diapers. Their pants are split at the crotch, so that when they squat, their bums are in the open air. The toddlers go right there in the street, both No. 1 and No.2. The city seems friendly to all of the young and innocent; even puppies and kittens look happier. In Nanjing I saw cats tied with leashes on the porches of storefronts, and they looked stressed and lost. Here in Xi'an I saw a puppy playing with a piece of paper. I later saw a second school, and in the Muslim Quarter I saw baby buggies, multi-child families, and 10 and 15 year old sons running restaurants.

There are 60,000 Muslims here in Xi'an. The Muslim Quarter has an outdoor market that looks like a bazaar, not a farmer's market. The streets are lined with merchants selling all kinds of trinkets (similar to most tourist districts in China) but also a wide variety of food I have not seen anywhere else in China. They specialize in breads and fruits, and of course the best stuff is when they combine the two to make dessert. We had dinner at a place where dinner's first step is to shred your own breadcrumbs to put into the soup. The soup itself was a mix of broth, rice noodles, beef, tofu, and other assorted vegetables. Eating it made us all sweat. Its a good thing the meal came with plum juice. We spent more on plum juice than we did on the soup. We were waited on by an 11-year old and a 14-year old. We got a look at the kitchen ou our way out, and the oldest son was standing in front of a 5x12 foot oven cooking with a wok over three foot high flames. When he sat the wok down on the oven, the flames would flare out around the sides of the wok with the look and hear of flames from a blowtorch. We saw a few more outdoor coal-burning jet engines being used to heat water and recycle plastic. They use coal here for all the cooking that I could see.

Later that evening we went to a shadow puppet show in a villa near the center of the Muslim Quarter. The villa and show were traditional Chinese. The puppets were pretty to look at, and the songs were done with the classic Chinese voices and instruments that I know only from TV. That show ended with a tea tasting that again reminded me of wine tasting (tasting is in order of lightest teas to strongest teas), and a presentation by an Australian woman who has lived here in Xi'an for several years on how Xi'an has developed recently. She told us that the city wall and moat have only recently been restored, that the South Street district was created in its historical style only last year after razing the old block-style apartment buildings that previously occuppied the site, and that the smog was not as bad as it used to be (she sometimes sees more than one blue-sky day a month now).

One of our group is almost confined to air-conditioned spaces because of the smog, and everyone has either burning eyes or stuffed sinuses. Still, its better than Nanjing by far, and all of us who braved the smog found that it did not prevent us from enjoying a 14 km bike ride around the top of the city wall. The wall is 50 feet wide at the top, and forms a square around the old town. The streets within are laid out in a grid, so you can get a good view across town along the main streets from the East Gate to the West Gate, and so on. The moat is another 300 feet wide, and has a park, a path, several ponds, public meeting areas, and mini-ampitheaters in the corners. It is all well used except for the top of the city wall, for which they charge admission. The walls themselves are about 100 feet tall.

Near the entrance to the gate where we entered the wall was a little historic district where the calligraphers and artists sell their goods to tourists and other artists. This is South Street, colloquially known as Calligraphy Street, and you can get nice trinkets here without being hassled too much by hawkers. Prices are marked on the goods. I bought a carve-it-yourself soapstone stamp for 30 cents. This is the district that was created from scratch to look historical, after some old apartment buildings were torn down. We went back to this district in the evening after our visit to the Muslim Quarter. They were very accommodating. When we expressed disappointment that the beers were not cold, they sent someone out to get cold ones for us. We had beef-kebab skewered on bicycle spokes, with a pinch of Cumin.

Leaving for Xi'an

Our flight for this morning from Nanjing to Xi'an was mercifully rescheduled to the more reasonable hour of 11 AM, so we all had a little free time in the morning. Without having made any previous arrangements, several of us independently ended up at the McDonalds on Counfucius Temple square, for pancakes and coffee. The smog was there to greet us. It did not settle or go away overnight. Even this early in the morning there was a live song and dance event on the stage in front of the temple, and the local shopkeepers watched the spectacle with more amazement than we did. They were playing Hotel California as we passed.

Nanjing

(Those aren't clouds, that's smog)

Nanjing is the site of Sun Yat-Sen's Mausoleum. He is considered the father of modern China. We had a very non-city planning day yesterday, just walking around two different parks surrounding tombs. They have a very nice central pedestrian zone including outdoor cafes and bars lining canals in front of a Confucian temple. Today we will visit one of the planning and design studios that foreign consultants need to partner with in order to do city planning in China.
The smog is so bad that you can see it in the halls of our hotel. If affects visibility after 30 feet. Everyone's eyes are burning, and the more sensitive of us are dreading Xi'an and Beijing for this reason.

The visit to the Nanjing Planning Institute was the best planning function of the trip. This was the only government planning agency that we visited, and they explained how things work in a way that made sense and fit with what we saw going on around us. Just as they don't necessarily have the cash or capacity to clean up their industry right away, they do not have the time to go through the tortuous planning processes that we can afford in the States. Their demand for urbn living is so high that they need to get cities built right away, otherwise people will starve and or revolt. During this phase of their urbanization, the marginal increment of speed is more important and valuable than the marginal increment of accuracy, so they forge ahead. They can build and populate cities of 300,000 in three years.

Numa Numa and Chess

I heard the Numa Numa song blaring out of a record store in Shanghai, and then the next day here in the Internet cafe in Suzhou I sang 3 seconds of it and the kids across from it recognized it immediately and started singing it. I then opened up youtube and found a Numa version done by some guys on a US aircraft carrier (youtube Navy Numa Numa). Music and pop culture are now world phenomena.

I had a similar experience here with Chinese Chess. I got the person running the shop next to our hotel to teach me the game, and immediately we were able to make it work with a vocabulary of two words, 'yes' and 'no'. We spent 30 minutes on the first game, and he gave me every break he could, but the second game lasted only 15 minutes and it would have been quicker except he wa trying to make my demise a work of art. He didn't take my King, I actually conceded because he had set up his position so well. Later in Suzhou I saw crowds of 10 people hovering over four different chess boards in the park near the night market. I should have brough european chess for them to try.

Golf in China

We have seen a few golf courses in China. The ones we have seen were near airports, but we would like to see one on top of the limestone hills in Yangshuo. We think a long-drive competition would work well there. We see a lot of advertising for golf and golf equipment, and I did see one Calloway shop here. Golf might still be too expensive for most people in this area, and those who can afford it probably don't have the time for it. I couldn't imagine creating a golfing tour of China similar to the one we are having now for planning.

Suzhou

Suzhou is beautiful. It is the first truly Chinese city we have been in, with the others being more western, touristy, or international. I can't really compare it to any other place, as I have with other citites, although Venice and St. Pete come to mind because of Suzhou's canals. The two most impressive features of Suzhou are its gardens and its night market.

In the afternoon we heard a presentation by a manager from Suzhou's Parks District, then visited two gardens. Both gardens integrate water (with a pond), gazebos and pavilions, courtyards, plants, trees, grass, and rocks, and hill; steps, arches, and tunnels. Each space is cozy and for the most part separated from the others. You almost have to search to find the way from one yard to the next. The wood and vegetation are both lush.

The night markets had four types. The first section is the low-end fastfood courts, where you can get a tiny skewer of pork, chicken, squid, camel, ostrich, goat, deer, or anything else you can imagine. They also have different types of veggie-filled breads, pancakes, crepes, and cakes. The second section is the trinket section. This is the first trinket mall which seemed targeted to locals rather than foreigners. Instead of stamps and chess sets, they had socks and toys for sale. The third section was the large plaza in the middle of the department stores. There was arcade basketball, rollerblading, a pond/river with a bridge, two water jet features, a water tunnel, and a bumper-boat ride for cars, where the kids bump each other with paddleboats instead of cars in a large, low inflatable swimming pool. The fourth section was the high-end food court, with the veggie-filled crepes (including plum sauce), and the dancing Aussie Chinese krewe with their exotic animal meats.

Even our hotel is impressive, though certain sections of it look like it is still under construction, and in this sense it reminds me of Vilnius just after they started to open up in the early '90s. A year from now they should have it all fixed up.

Shanghai Nights

We got into Shanghai today. Shanghai feels like a European New York. It has New York's lights and energy, and has European architecture and sense of history. We spent 50 RMB on a gin and tonic which we enjoyed on the 6th floor balcony of a 100 year old building overlooking the Bund. This capped a presentation and walking tour of the development history of Shanghai.

The Shanghai internet cafes ask for passports, and would photocopy them, so I have not posted while in Shanghai. Other than that, Shanghai was a very nice city. The people looked relaxed, there are plenty of little districts to explore, and the town is busy without being crazy. I didn't make it to the district called the French Concession, but others did, and compared it to Beverly Hills. I did make it to old town, and it is now a tourist trap. The central square looked just like the central square of a chinese Strasbourg, with the central building being a tea house instead of a cathedral. The buildings were white with dark brown timbers. There were two Starbucks there.

A major site of interest for us was the Shanghai planning museum. This museum has two scale models, one of Shanghai in its entirety, another of the section of the river that lies at its heart. The river model is 10 feet wide and 50 feet long, the city model is 50 feet by 100 feet. It shows every building existing and proposed to be built in the next 20 or so years.

Another highlight was the visit to the EDAW Shanghai offices. We have someone in our group who works for EDAW SF, but it was interesting for him as well to hear about the Asia projects. Most of what they are doing is at the master planning and conceptual level, because the implementation and specifics of design must be done by the local planning and design schools. EDAW is getting more and more business here.

Each time we took the metro it was so crowded that someone in our party got either left behind on the platform or left behind on the train. That's right, it is sometimes so crowded that you can't even get off the train in time.

The second evening we went to a bar where a pint of cider cost $10 US. They had a DJ downstairs and live music upstairs. It was mostly European men and Asian women. The bar was showing Aussie rules football, which looks to be about the best sport ever invented. It is apparently similar to Gaelic football, which is the best sport ever invented.

Planning in Yangshuo

Tonight we met with a resident of Yangshuo who has some knowledge of city-building. Ian is an South African guy who has lived here for 6 years. In a previous life, he was an architect. He does tourism now. We were able to ask him questions and have an interesting discussion about regional planning, building construction, land ownership, governmental laws, building height, and historic preservation. Hing, Erika, and I decided to join forces and write a joint blog post to discuss what we learned tonight.

Tourism is a driving force in the development of Yangshuo. When Ian arrived, Yangshuo was a sleepy village with a few cafes and mainly a tourist destination for those living in China. It first became popular with Chinese tourists who were fascinated with the influence of western backpackers in the area. For people who have trouble getting to Hong Kong, this is the next best thing. Because of the boom in tourism over the last 5 years, money has been 'pouring out of this area', and he means this in a good way, as in, there is so much money here that the city cannot contain it all. An area of several blocks has been demolished to make way for the construction of a new complex of commercial and hotel uses.

There is no strict building code and enforcement system in China like that of what you would find in the United States. It might be comparable to a remote and unincorporated area of some rural counties in the States. Permits for construction are not enforced. People just build what they like, sometimes with the help of an ex-architect friend like Ian who draws up plans to help order supplies and guide the actual construction.

Land ownership is fuzzy as well. The government owns the land, but in urban areas you get and hold the right to use the land. People don't pay property taxes on rural land. In rural areas, every 5 to 7 years the government divides up the land in a region and redistributes it to the local population. If the population in a town has changed, one might receive more or less land. If you are rich, being nice to the mayor might influence the results of the redistribution.

In China, building height is regarded as a status symbol. It's a matter of "keeping up with the Chans." Frequently you will see farm land with a 4-story building with only a finished ground floor. The upper floors would be left as an unfinished shell because the family could not afford to finish them, but wanted the status symbol of a taller building. Even the height of your threshold is noticed and compared to the neighbors.

The government will supply your building with water and electricity if it is within the height limit, but the government uses utilities as a means of enforcing building heights. If a building taller than desired is constructed, the government would cut off all utilities and the building would be forced to become self sufficient. I can see that as almost being desirable, in that you get the height you want and you are free of the government's golden handcuffs. Government-subsidized utilities are cheap, though, a single-person household can run on 4 RMB (US 50 cents) for water and 25 RMB for electricity per month.

The government has recently changed the laws regarding eminent domain (what superpower hasn't?). Previously, the government was able to take land from anyone with a week's notice to use for any purpose. In the past few years law has changed to only allow the government to take land from residents for public projects and infrastructure. However, when tourism picked up in the Yangshuo region (oh, right, we were talking about China), the government realized it could take a cut of the profits made from the bamboo raft tours and made a new law that prohibited development along the Yulong River. Shortly thereafter, all of the existing cafes and guesthouses were given a 1-week notice prior to demolition.

In China, people would rather live in modern homes than older ones and don't place the same value on older structures as our culture does. Often an older building is demolished and a new identical building is constructed in its place.

Negotiating China

We had the day off today, and I used it to go shopping. On my shopping list were sandals with straps so that I can run in them, a Chinese Chess set, and 2 light-colored T-shirts. My planned route was to go to West street (the pedestrian zone where the westerners hang out), then circle around to the kiosks by the river, then end with a stroll down the pre-boom main street of town, where locals still feel comfortable.

West street was pretty much built in the last five years, once Guilin, the previous holder of the title of prettiest city in China, became overdiscovered. We are an hour upstream from Guilin. West street is 1/3 bars, 1/3 trinket shops, and 1/3 clothes. There is nothing else there. Our hotel is across the creek over a bridge at one end of West street. I walked to the north end of West street, and turned on to an alley that serves as the local's West street. I strolled through but had a difficult time identifying a store where I could just buy a couple of T-shirts. I guess I was looking for a Mervyn's. Near the end of that street I passed a kiosk run by our Tai Chi instructor for that morning. To supplement his income, he does calligraphy and makes custom stamps. I asked for a stamp with the family name 'Ross' written on it. I got the 'friend' price, which means we didn't haggle - they didn't try to see if I would pay twice the going price out of ignorance. We also talked a little about Kung Fu, and he showed me a very nice Chinese Chess set. I really did feel like I had bought something from the store of a friend.

The next part of my loop brought me back to West street, where I saw one member of our group who had earlier shown up with two beautiful hand-painted T-shirts. She showed me the shop where she had bought the shirts. I was told I was getting the special 'friend' price by Stephanie, but somehow didn't believe it, and when I pointed out the shirt I did want the shopkeeper said that that was a more expensive shirt that the one Stephanie had bought. I didn't negotiate, and ended up paying twice what I should have.

Next I went to the far end of West street, where all the day kiosks were. I went to the first kiosk, and started negotiations on a Beijing Olympics T-shirt. She said 90, I said 20, she dropped to 70, I kept saying no, and we finally settled on 30 Mainland dollars (about $4 US). I have been wearing that shirt since then, and finally feeling cool.

I then started hunting the biggest game of the day, the sandals. I knew from the previous night out with the Eastwoods that I could get minimum quality sandals for around 50, so I was hoping to pay only that. I went to a store on the local's main street, and found Tevas there. Tevas are a lot nicer than what I was initially hoping to get, so I bargained for them. He started at 250, I countered at 50, and we got stuck between my 70 RMB and his 85 RMB. I went looking for another shop that had Tevas, since I had tried the Tevas on at the first shop and liked how they felt. At the second shop, which was on touristy West street, the bidding started at 450! I again countered at 50, and she asked me which currency I meant. I couldn't get her below 100, so I walked away. That brought her price down by 200, which brought my offer up by 10. We got stuck again and I walked away again, and the price dropped to 100 RMB. I had done more work with her and not gotten as far, so I decided to go back to the first store and pay 85. As I rounded the corner he saw me and said "welcome back". I did feel welcome, and paid my 85 and left happy.

Postscript: In Shanghai they post prices even in stores in the most touristy districts, and while negotiation is possible up to maybe 20%, its a lot easier to buy things in Shanghai. The prices are reasonable compared to the volatile Yangshuo negotiated prices. In the future I would just buy my trinkets in Shanghai.

PostPostscript: Xi'an is the place to buy trinkets. Marked prices, volume discounts, and no aggressive hawkers.

Yangshuo day off

I found an internet cafe. There are 50 computers in this room, every one of them with headphones and a webcam. The browser interface is in Chinese, so I have to rely on memory to understand which buttons to click.

We did Tai Chi first thing this morning, and the instructor used fight examples to explain the moves. We then went to the noodle restaurant and had more of the freshest noodles I have ever tasted. They were probably the noodles I saw them making last night.

Yangshuo

Yangshuo is the place that we see on pictures with the hills that are very steep, green and poking up out of a very flat river valley. The countryside shows up on the chinese $20 bill. It is even more beautiful than you can imagine from the pictures. There are thousands of these formations extending as far as the eye can see. We are staying in an exquisitely decorated hotel right at the entrance of the tourist and nightlife district. On this day we went on a bike ride to a mini-cooking school in the countryside. They had woks, burners, and tables in two medium-size rooms, all set up to let students cook some local food. We made five dishes then ate them afterwards. Everyone's favorite was beerfish. We ate while looking out over the Yangshuo countryside. Idyllic.

After lunch, many of us rode further on up the valley for a further tour of the landscape. The road we were on got smaller and smaller as we progressed. We passed two graveyards and several settlements of maybe 10 houses each. At some points we were riding on 1 foot wide dirt paths that served as walls separating two rice fields. It was strenuous, and we weren't sure we were going in the right direction. At one point my front tire went flat. I was just getting used to the idea that I would be lost in the countryside with a bike with a flat tire, when we came across the sought-for bridge, and at that crossroads we found kiosks serving drinks, and one kiosk with a bike repair kit. The handyman charged me 10 times the going price for tire repair, but I think he well understood I would be happy to pay the extra $1.25.

After the bikeride we took a mini-bus a short distance to the home of some of the original settlers of this area, for dinner cooked in their style. They came at us with plate after plate of local specialty. We were overwhelmed.

We finished off the night by going to a nightclub to celebrate Hing's birthday. Our guide Mark scared up a cake, and we pretty much owned the upper room for the evening. We played a 7-hand round of liar's dice where those who had played the game the most were out the quickest and those who were in at the end were those who have faces that can only tell the truth.

The next morning we started out with another bike ride and rode to one of the more interesting limestone hills in the area, one that has an arch in it, which was right across from the village where we had dinner the previous evening. We hiked up to the arch, matched step for step by some of the women from the village who would fan people as they walked up the hill, and then at the top offer them a drink from the cooler they carried up. I could barely make it up the hill once, and these women might do the hike several times a day, carrying drinks for others. Its very hard work, but one of them mentioned that it beat farming.

In the afternoon most of the group went to the exact location where the landscape of the $20 bill is, but I stayed in town with Rob and family and got a tour of the local part of Yangshuo, the non-touristy part. They showed me the top noodle and dumpling store, and also helped me with my shopping bargaining technique.

On to Mainland China

This morning we got a tour of Hong Kong that included parts of the city where high finance has not yet taken over the land or the way of life. We learned about how development in the city was formed in part by the location of the water front at the time of development. They keep filling in parts of the harbor, so streets that were once at water's edge are now four streets back and hidden behind skyscrapers. Our guide told us one story about how an architect was hired by one bank to create a structure that would appear threatening to the nearby building of a competing bank. We also traveled a bit on the longest outdoor escalator in the world.

Most interesting on that morning tour was the appearance of little Manila. It was Sunday, and on Sundays all of the household help for the HKers have the day off. A vast multitude of them (150,000?) are filipinas, and they all meet in the public areas and just hang out, paint their nails, and gossip about their employers. This phenomenon was described in an Economist article called "The Filipina Sisterhood".

In the afternoon we began our journey to the Mainland. We used taxi, foot, minibus, ferry, and plane to get there. There were no immigration problems or questions at any time. The Shenzen airport reminded me of the former DDR. The buildings were all well maintained, but looked like they had been built a while ago and were not the most modern anymore. Also the cafes and the tables in them just seemed outdated. We had three waiters waiting on our table at the café where we ate dinner. The prices were still airport-high, relief from Hong Kong prices would have to wait until we got to Yangshuo.

Our flight was scheduled to leave at 8:30, but was delayed for two hours because of weather, but we called our minibus pickup and were able to get to our hotel in Yangshuo after midnight.

Lan Kwai Fong

We are in Mainland China as I write this. It has been difficult to get internet connections compared to Hong Kong, but we have two laptops with us on the trip so we manage. I will have to do a couple of posts retroactively.

After we got back from Macao we went to dinner in Kowloon and got the corner table on the third floor of a restaurant with a view of the waterfront. We didn't get too much of the view because the windows were fogged and we were paying to o much attention to each other. Where we in the west had marble on the floor, this restaurant had jade, and instead of the best silverware, we had gold-banded ebony chopsticks. After dinner several of us went to the Lan Kwai Fong district.

The Lan Kwai Fong district is the chief party place for ex-pats to meet. The demographics in Lan Kwai Fong matched that of clubs around San Francisco's financial district, with Indians replacing Hispanics. The first club we went to was the most exclusive one on the steet we ended up at, and we couldn't get in because of open-toed sandals, despite having a contact inside the club.

The second place we went to was hard to find and accessible only through a footpath, and was so dark that you could only recognize people from their silhouette as they passed in front of obscured red lamps. This bar was a little too loud and smokey for some of us, whe went around the corner to a quieter and more talkable place. When they had their fill, they came back to the group and we travelled to our third stop, the techno bar across the street from the exclusive bar that would have none of us.

The techno bar had been overflowing with people an hour previously, and still looked full from the outside, but we found a table right away. Just as quickly I decided this was the time to make my break for the German kneipe I had seen down the street the previous day. I took two others with me, and on our way their we past the Russian Ice House bar where they have a 10x10x10 refrigerator that you and several friends can walk into and sit down in and enjoy a few drinks in. Bearskin coats are provided. The German bar was authentic down to the type of benches they had at corner tables. It took just the right amount of time to pour a pils, and we managed to get a seat on the front porch. We people-watched for an hour, witnessed no fights, saw two chinese supermodels, and took a $20 US taxi ride home to the YMCA.


The next morning I found someone passed out in the lobby outside my 12th floor hotel room. I could not poke him awake but hotel security could and did. That was when I knew that my night in the Lan Kwai fong was over.

Macau

Today the group visited Macau during the day, and most of us also went to the nightlife district Lan Kwai Fong.

Our trip to Macau started with a 1.5 hour ferry boat ride across the Pearl River delta. For much of the ride it felt like we were on the open ocean, with only islands visible. Some of the islands looked like something someone could buy and build a house on, about the size of Angel Island in the SF bay. Our guide for the day, Christina, actually lives on one of the larger of these islands, one that is a 30 minute boat ride from Hong Kong and has a populatino of about 40,000.

Our visit to Macau had three parts. First was a lunch at a Portuguese restaurant, next was a long meandering walk through the older districts of Macau, and last we checked out the new casino district. From the ferry terminal , we immediately got onto a bus that took us down the main streets to our restaurant at the far side of town. Macau's european feel was immediately evident from the size of the cars, the size of the bus station, and the age and size of the buildings. The buses and other vehicles were smaller, there were a lot of mopeds, and the buildings were old and mostly 6 stories or less. It reminded me most of Malta, from density, the look and mix of the people, and the apparent wealth / poverty of the city. Along the drive we saw one classic pedestrian shopping zone, that would have fit in any Mediterranean town of decent size. The buildings also were mixed in age, with the older buildings being repainted in light colors with white trim.

The restaurant looked and tasted classic Portuguese. We shared about 6 different dishes, with seafood and curry being my favorites. The house specialty is chicken. We made the mistake of not trying the sangria with our lunch. At the beginning of our lunch we had as a guest an ex-pat from Idaho who works as a historian and culture specialist in Macau. He is attracted to Macau becausee of its laissez faire attitude. Macau does have a reputation as being a sort of frontier, wild west of the east town, but the town presented itself pretty well to us.

We walked from the restaurant on the far side of the island back through the old town to the casino district. On the way we saw some of the oldest cultural institutions on the island, including a temple with incense and prayers carved into rock, several centuries old churches, and fortress walls. The physical layout included town squares and walkways and pedestrian zones and 20 ft. wide streets lined by 6 story balconied buildings. That walk showed us the true Macau.

At the far side of the walk was the casino district. The new casinos and buildings are typical modern Las Vegas, with buildings recreating entire themes, like the roman colisseum, a volcano, and a smaller but still imposing copy of the forbidden city. We didn't go inside any of them, but one of them, the Sands, is supposed to be the largest in the world. Another, still under construction, is shaped like a lotus. Most of them are finished with gold-tinted glass, and some of them include other colors as well, either other mettalics (bronze and silver), or gemstone colors (ruby, emerald, and sapphire). The whole package does not yet compete with Las Vegas, but there is great potential in its own right.

View from Victoria Peak

Last night we finished our day by taking the tram up to Victoria Peak, then having dinner in a district of Kowloon that reminded me of the streets between Les Halles and the Pompidou Center in Paris. Hong Kong in general reminds me of New York, expecially with how quickly I can spend money here. Our lunch earlier in the day was in a party-district of Hong Kong, all-you-can-eat dim sum. The selection was enourmous, and I only recognized one item, pot stickers.

The view from Victoria Peak was great, and we were there around dusk so we saw both the daytime view and the nightlights view. It surprised me how small Victoria Harbour is, especially being used to San Francisco Bay. The tram itself was climbing at least a 45 % slope. From the peak we could also see some of the places we had toured earlier under the guidance of an urban designer who works for HOK here. Sylvester is a native of Berkeley, with family roots in Hong Kong. He gave us a lot of insight on how western planning interests in preservation help moderate some of the growth-driven plans for China.

In the evening we ate at a typical restaurant in Kowloon, chosen because we were standing next to it when we finally decided to get something to eat. Those of us that had flown in on that day from the US turned in early, and I think the rest may have stayed out until midnight.

There are not a lot of children running around Hong Kong. I don't see (or don't recognize) schools, and many of the children I do see are with tourists. Maybe those with children choose not to live so close to the city center.

Pause at Coffee Shop

We are about to take a tram up Victoria Peak, but all 15 of us need to get coffee first. The cafe has an internet connection and a free computer to use (for customers only), so I am logging on really quick to get another note in.

1) They have skyways here that have escalators. In some areas of the town the skywalks plus shopping center halls create a complete separation of pedestrian (2nd floor) and auto (1st floor).

2) I might be on a web cam right now.

3) They have 2 mini models of Hong Kong and Victoria Harbor, in the Planning Exhibition.

Arrival in Hong Kong

My flight to Hong Kong was uneventful. The flight was smooth, and I met three other tour members while waiting to board. After arrival a fourth caught up to us before we even got through immigration, and together we decided to take the express train into town. The shuttle is fast and comfortable, and took us almost directly to the center of Kowloon, just across from Hong Kong Island.

Our first impression was the view from the train. It was very green, and the apartment buildings are huge. Getting off the train we were introduced to Hong Kong air. It is thick with moisture, smells, and sounds. It could take some getting used to. Aside from the population density and thick air, it does seem very western. I feel very comfortable speaking English.

Our first adventure was in trying to choose a place to eat. We had all heard stories about how the food might upset a stomach not used to it, so we were reluctant to experiment too much. We ended up with noodles, topped with pork, steak, or steaming hot vegetables. Nobody touched the soup.

This will be a long day. Not only did we have the flight, but there will be lots of walking. This is the only day we will really get a chance to see Hong Kong. Tomorrow we will be in Macau, and Sunday we leave for mainland China.

Packed and ready to go

Tomorrow evening I leave for China, on a tour organized by city planners for city planners. The tour that we set up was attractive enough that we needed to set up a second group in order to accomodate all the people that wanted to go. I am going with the second group.

One of the planners in the first group set up a blog, and posted just about every day. I enjoyed reading it, so I am returning the favor by setting up this blog for the second tour.

I finished packing today, so for the first time since planning the trip I can concentrate on the enjoyment of the trip rather than on the work of planning and preparing for it.