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Name: Mark
Country: United States
State: Pennsylvania
Metro: Philadelphia
Birthday: 9/12/1985
Gender: Male
Interests: Jesus / the body of Christ / toronto / hong kong / tea / seaweed / free food / cpop / trance / japanese cars / going to class and learning stuff
Expertise: creating awkward moments for friends, family, and small group / finding free food
Message: message meEmail: email me
AIM:  mcheng40
MSN: mcheng40@hotmail.com
Member Since:
3/15/2004
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| things dont always go as planned. or should i say, things dont always go according to my plan. thank God im not the one in control.
leaving for mongolia tomorrow morning... please pray for me. e-mail me at mcheng40@gmail.com if you want to know more, or if you just wanna hear an awesome story about how cool God is.
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| [yangshuo, china] ok, so who's heard of yangshuo?? that's right, no one... so you're probably wondering how two koreans and a non-mainland chinese kid ended up there... or why we would choose to go there... well, to be honest, we were deciding for the longest time in korea whether we would go to beijing or shanghai for the china-segment of our trip.. well, we got to HK, and the weather sucked (rainy for the whole week).. so we decided to improv the trip and head out to the mainland three days earlier than planned. and what better a place to go on short notice than a random place that no one's heard of? well, the advantage of yangshuo was that it wasnt as far as beijing/shanghai, and we really wanted to get somewhere picturesque, not urban.. so yangshuo is about an hour's bus from Guilin (some of you might have heard of this--famous mountainous city that chinese poets have written about for millenia, literally).. well, here's our journeys, broken down into bits and pieces:
Ghetto
ok, with a heading like this, i feel like i could talk for hours... lets face it: mainland china does not have the same luxuries that we enjoy and take for granted in North America.. lets see.. squatty-potties.. pickpockets... no toilet paper (!!)... no napkins at restaurants (you have to buy them)... undrinkable tapwater... menus with more typos than correctly-spelled words... people playing Big2 on the streets shirtless... restaurants that advertise air-conditioning (if they even have it that is)... golfcarts (often as substitutes for buses/taxis).. tiny fees for everything (if you want to park your bike at a museum, if you want to see an old tree, or climb a mountain)
One Memorable Bus Trip for the Books
By this, I mean, top five worst experiences of my life.. i think the same goes for eddo and jimmy... please read on (i know its long).. So we visited approximately ten different travel agents in Yangshuo (all within a block of each other of course), asking for a return bus ticket to Shenzhen (pretty much a border town to HK).. 'wo pu' we said.. (aka. 'soft-sleeper'--the best/most desired seat on any train/bus). So prices were ranging from 130-200RMB... most advertised a busride of 10-12h. From ghetto travel agents to more professional looking ones.. we checked them all out... we finally settled on one that was both 'legit' and cheap.. in fact, they lowered prices to 140RMB before we even asked.. we thought we were getting hooked up.. and PLUS, this one advertised their bus trip as taking 8h, not 10-12h... hmm... "we'll take it" i said...
ok, so fast-forward to 6h later.. time to meet our travel agent, she's gonna take us out to the bus stop... we start walking.. "wait, why did we just walk pass the bus station?" im thinking.. "why are we stopping at this shady corner by a gas station?" all of a sudden this bus pulls up, and our travel agent convinces the bus manager to give us three seats on the bus (which i assumed we had "bought" already).. so the manager agrees, and we happen to get the three last seats... at the very back of the bus.. if you're having trouble imagining how soft-sleeper works on a bus, think of your average coachbus, minus the seats.. and put in three rows of double-decker beds, with two tiny aisles separating the rows. thats approx a total of 50 people sleeping on one coach bus... nasty... oh, and btw, no bathrooms...
we settle into our beds, me in the middle (back row, bottom bunk), and eddo and jimmy to my left and right.. small aisles between each of us... eddo's AC isnt working.. and he's sitting right beside the engine... which is already beginning to heat up (this would keep him up pretty much the whole ride). ok, 5min into our bus ride.. another stop... girl gets on bus... im thinking, "uhh... wait, didnt we take the last three seats?" bus manager walks to the back of the bus with her, and literally (i kid you not), takes a mattress out of somewhere and lays it between jimmy and i.. and tells the lady, "sleep here in this aisle"... jimmy and i stare at each other in disbelief.. the lady of course is so terrified that she just sits upright for 2h until our first stop (let me remind you there's no bathroom--eddo and i had to hold it).. fortunately after that stop, she argued her way into a better seat (i think the manager convinced someone else to get off).
so the next bathroom break was 5h down the road.. actually, "road" is sorta a misnomer.. whatever it was, it certainly wasnt paved.. in fact, i wouldnt even say it was meant for driving on.. as i saw shadows of trees and leaves in our bus, i was convinced we were driving through an unexplored forest or something... i eventually fell asleep for a short while, but awoke again to a stopped bus... i heard people shouting outside.. apparently the bus stalled... omgosh... the driver tried restarting the bus for a good 10min... eventually we got going again, but still... how ridicilous is that?
so we finally arrived at our destination... Shenzhen... well, the wrong side of the city, but who cares, we thought.. we looked at our watches.. how long did the trip take? 13h?? so much for the advertised 8h trip.. our taxi to the other side of the huge city ended up costing half of a bus-ticket (shenzhen has the most expensive cabs in all of mainland china).. but by this time we were just ready to get back to HK.. i remember how joyous it felt to cross that border, and not look back...
Useless Labor
I found this to be true for HK too, but china takes it to another level.. there's just too many people employed.. call it an "economic wonder" that so many people can have jobs, but i just think they're ridiculous.. they create jobs to give people, so that there can be more busy-work. There's so many jobs I couldn't even begin to imagine placing job descriptions on... well, lemme try, at least for a few of the people we encountered... (please take this with a light heart)
Old senior ladies that we met hiking up a mountain
Job Description: Follow lost-looking tourists up a locally famous mountain with a cooler of drinks. Offer to give advice, but tourists probably won't need it. Offer drinks for $3-5 on the bottom of the mountain. When tourists have hiked painfully for 20-30 minutes to the peak of the mountain, offer them drinks again, now for $7-10. Offer postcards of picturesque spots in Yangshuo that tourists can easily take photos of themselves from the top of the mountain.
Flute player on the streets of Yangshuo
Job Description: Walk around in town wearing a rice hat and play a wooden flute loudly to entertain (or disturb) people walking through town. Carry around a bag of flutes on your back so that if people enjoy your flute-playing, they may possibly want to buy one from you. Play stereotypically well-known oldies like "Mary had a Little Lamb" in an attempt to lure Westerners into buying flutes from you, as opposed to the other ten people down the road who are trying to do the exact same thing.
Motherland Feeling
okay, apologies if anyone thinks im hating on my people.. or are bashing my culture... i totally felt (and still feel) a sense of warm feeling that i get from being in China.. no, yangshuo was not my home village, nor was it anywhere close to it, but something about being in China really makes you appreciate your heritage and cultural roots... the (nice) people, the values, the humbleness of life... plus, the scenery there was absolutely stunning gorgeous.. eddo even said that it "brought out the poetic side of him".. (unfortunately we had to stomach his poetry during our stay there).. who knows, maybe one day God will call me back to China for one reason or another... I'm not opposed to the idea, though right now i'm just a little turned off by the difference of lifestyle if anything.
my camera doesnt even begin to capture..
i jacked this one off eddo... us at the top of the mountain.. the crazy hike
Bottom line.. has yangshuo left a good taste in our mouths? well, we
all agreed that we would want to come back to this obscure town again
sometime, but somehow i'm still a little irked... more by the Chinese
mainland culture than by Yangshuo specifically. But one thing is for
sure.. the scenery out there was magnificent--it's one of those places where you just wanna climb a mountain and sing "Wonderful Maker" at the top of your lungs
Next update: H-to-the-K.. Hong Kong
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| [korea!]
ok, so these were my thoughts on korea as i remember them, when i
was there a few weeks ago with eddo and jimmy james... even though
there were a million PC-bangs, I guess I never took the time to sum up
my thoughts until now. Here's what we did, sprinkled in randomly with
my thoughts on korea.. this is a pretty monstrous update, so i titled
every section.. if the section doesnt interest you, just skip it:
Getting Out of Incheon
We arrived at Incheon Airport, one of the
coolest and most high-tech airports i've been in.. i flew in by myself,
and had the hardest time finding myself to Bundang where I would stay
with Jeff Chung for a few days. Service in english was kinda hard to
come by, so i ended up suffering big time before i met up with someone who could talk for me.
Jeff's Apartment in Bundang
One word: baller. So i didn't really know what to expect.. and
some parts of Bundang looked sorta ghetto as we were getting there..
but when i got into his
apartment complex, there were these talking doors and elevators..
pretty much, i lived
like a baller for the few days I stayed at Jeff's, with his hospitable
family taking good care of me.. and we had a blast exploring the city
together.. by the way, jeff's mom is hilarious.. one word: germanium.. read below
Language Barrier
So an obvious problem for me was the language barrier. At
certain points in my trip, especially when I was by myself, I was getting dissed
left right and center for not speaking korean. For example, when I was
doing customs at the Korean border, the lady getting angry and gave me
a stern warning that I couldn't really understand.. it was something
like.. "next time.. speak korean." and then there's also the times when
I was with eddo's relatives, where it would just be them saying stuff
at me, and me just giving one of those smiles--the type where you
assume they're saying something nice to you, and you just sorta
ignorantly smile back...
Bowing
Koreans bow a lot...
In Chinese culture, there's not really a context to bow
(at least not in typical daily life interactions). So I figured that if
I needed to show respect to the people I met and didn't know what to
say, I could just
"bow" my way out of talking, and avoid awkward conversation moments...
in my mind I decided I would just start bowing like crazy,
taking cues from Jimmy and Eddo.. I tried to over-compensate in bowing
for my two
shortcomings: one, i wasnt raised in a bowing culture.. secondly, I
couldn't say nice stuff in korean like eddo or jimmy, so if i wanted to
communicate at
all, it would have to be through a bow.. so I bowed to the point where
it
was uncomfortable.. but even then,
I was finding that for some reason I still wasn't bowing enough.. i
just don't understand how Koreans bow so much...
Germanium
yep, im sure
you're all wondering... germanium?? huh? whats
that got to do with Korea? well, i was staying over at Jeff's, and we
were both somewhat shocked by his mom's newfound obsession with
germanium (its a rock... you know that element on the periodic table??)
well, she uses it for EVERYTHING... she puts it in her water... leaves it around the house.. sleeps
on a germanium mattress.. wears a germanium ring... its nuts.. so we
went and checked out the germanium spa nearby.. supposedly the rock is really
healthy.. how do we know? well, apparently
someone tried cooking an egg on hot germanium.. and the egg didnt spoil
for three weeks! hah, now some health-crazy koreans are turning it into
a billion sorta health products..
Seoul
Our first impression exploring Seoul together was
that we didn't
really like the city. We thought it was super-crowded, muggy, and
altogether not that fun... A few bad experiences, like me getting sick from some eating kimbap,
eddo and i trying to find a legitimate hotel in Chongno and only
finding shady places.. a few things spoiled it for us.. but that was before we knew what we were missing.. after
traveling around the rest of Korea and spending our last days in Seoul
again, we were pleasantly surprised by a new side of Seoul that was
just really awesome. We got to see some of the nicer districts in
Seoul, and right before leaving, Cheongyecheon--it's this man-made
river that
just brings life to the city. It's like a walk through the city with
beautiful scenery and cool little things to do. Anyone who goes to
Seoul should definitely check that out, that was the highlight of seoul
for us.
Onnuri
If you've heard of this church before, it's probably not a surprise
because its supposed to be the biggest church in Korea (or one of
them). Jeff, Gloria and I went to the EM together during the Sunday we
were there, and to our surprise it actually wasn't that
crowded.. the building was huge, but the EM was quite intimate in size
(apparently i was the KM thats huge).. the service was a big blessing
nonetheless, and its great to know that good English preaching is
available in Korea.
PC-Bangs
So no matter where you are in Korea..
one thing is pretty much constant... PC-bangs... as an economics major, im
still wondering how this market cant be completely saturated ten times
over... like, seriously.. every block you go to.. you cant miss finding
one of these smoke-filled places where you watch/hear people playing
Starcraft 24/7... that probably explains why when we turned on the
TV, there was this channel devoted entirely to watching people play
Starcraft. Actually, make it two channels. It's like watching sports...
but talk about ridiculous!
Matching Couples
So everywhere in Korea, we saw matching couples.. Is there any reason couples should feel the need to wear the same outfits??
cuz that seems to be the trend in korea.. and for some reason, it just
seems sorta wierd... like.. if you're in a relationship.. you might love the
other person... but does that warrant you wanting to dress like them??
i dunno, we all had a good laugh about how many matching couples there
were...
Gyeongju
Gyeongju was an awesome city that had everything historical
wrapped into one place. We did this 8-hour tour of the city in one day,
a tiring experience that was nonetheless very informative and fun. Oh
yeah, and the water there tastes awesome.. they had this spring that
dispensed free spring water... that was some of the best water
ive ever tasted. In terms of accomodations, this was the one place
where none of us knew anyone.. we ended up staying in this baller
resort, which we bargained down like crazy cuz the management liked
us... it was definitely the nicest place we stayed in all of our asia
trip, and they had free kids' programs at night run by this traveling
korean performance troupe (we sat in and watched one, it was hilarious).
Soccer Fever
So we happened to be in Korea right before the World Cup started..
meaning that it was the talk on the street wherever you went (of course
i didnt understand this talk).. though we never got to attend any of the
exhibition games, they had two games in the week we were there where Korea
beat up on countries in turmoil (Bosnia and Senegal I think they were)... also, has anyone seen
those little kids who play soccer for Korea?? yo, those kids are
awesome... but everything goes to show.. Korean soccer fever...
Pusan
So I know a lot of seoul people rip on that little city down in the
south called pusan... but in reality, this city's not all that small...
actually, its huge... and we all agreed it was one of the best cities
we visited... this coastal city has some of the best food (apparently
seafood), scenic walks, and some cool areas where people are just out on the
streets.. for those of you who have been to korea but only
seoul.. all i can say is, dont miss out on Pusan!
Daegu
If you haven't
heard of Pusan.. there's probably no way you've heard of Daegu.. In
fact, I hadn't even heard of Daegu.. not until the day we
decided to leave to go there.. but small expectations make for big
surprises... Eddo and I loved Daegu, as one of the hipper and coolest
parts of Korea. I guess it helped that we were there at night on the
streetmarkets, and
that we had local tourguides to show us around (Eddo's cousin and
friend)... And in Daegu, we tried this awesome restaurant where
we both had our
first taste of samgyetang... a chicken ginseng broth.. man, that stuff
hits the spot..
Food
ok,
I'd sum up food in Korea by saying that ALL food in korea is good...
well, ok, there's a few exceptions that might give you food poisoning,
but its worth it cuz it tastes so good.. if you're scared about not
knowing good restaurants and choosing some ghetto place.. don't worry..
we tried doing that.. and the ghetto restaurants are still good. i have
to admit though, i was sorta disappointed by the non-korean food in
korea.. most namely... the chinese food (which i actually never
tried)... but if its any indication, the biggest chain is called Jackie
Chan's Dimsum... and its got this caricature of Jackie Chan as its
mascot.. but whatever korea lacked in foreign cuisines, it more than
made up for with cheap prices on awesome korean food.
also, sorry to anyone we didnt get a chance to meet up with.. either
you werent there when we were, or we werent there when you were, or...
we just didnt meet up.. maybe next time.. hah.
Next update: Yangshuo, China.
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| [journey's end]
ok, so eddo and jimmy james left HK recently... putting an official
end to our brief makeshift east asia tour... for those of you who
were concerned for us (mostly our parents and eddos aunts).. rest
assured, we did not die of food-poisoning or get mugged by gangsters...
no, we are very much in good health.. perhaps fatter than before after
getting fed so well in asia.. our journey started first with a
pretty extensive tour of korea.. then it was onto HK after a week.. and
then we backpacked in yangshuo, a small town outside the bigger scenic
(but
shady) town of guilin (in south-western china).. but anyways, i'll
update more on the
specifics of each area we visited... cultural observations
to follow, of course, as always..
anyways, now that our trip has ended.. that leaves me by
myself here in HK... i start work this friday, which should be
exciting.. i will be teaching SATs again at
Princeton Review (it's what i did last year), and it even looks like
i'll be doing a little more work here to keep myself busy.. but other
than that, i've been finding myself with lots of time on my hands, and
less eventful days now that im not in traveling/exploring mode... as
eddo and jimmy would
sing it.. "im lonely, lonely, lonely"...
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| i just got pwned...
i spent 45 min cleansing myself and my clothes. updates to follow.
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