China: Day Trip to Lanzhou Part 3

Crossing the bridge was an interesting experience. To begin with,
although it is actually a road bridge with traffic crossing in both
directions, it was solidly packed with people crossing on foot. Here
and there there were also people crossing on bicycles and at intervals
part of the carriageway was blocked by salesmen with hand carts
offering various hot foods - chestnuts, corn on the cob, sweet
potatoes.
None of this stopped the flow of traffic which by driving slowly at
pedestrians until they got out of the way and sounding the horn when
they didn't, managed to continue flowing in both directions.

Foreigners are unusual in this part of China and though Lanzhou does
attract some western tourists, so that the stares are less blatant and
less frequent than in Baiyin, there are still stares. Occasionally we
even get asked by random Chinese if they can take their picture with
us. On the bridge a teenage couple insisted on the girl taking the
boy's photograph next to Mike who dwarfed the young man.

Once across we were at the foot of the hill where the park and its
beautiful buildings stretched up ahead of us. We inadvertently entered
through the exit gate but no one seemed bothered and we quickly set
out up the hill. A white marble terrace led past a waterfall and to
the first of a series of zigzag paths and stone steps that climbed
fairly steeply up. As we climbed we paused frequently to look back at
the ever-expanding view of the city which was simply amazing. On our
side of the river we could look down on the grey roofs of the older
buildings, or along the shore at various pagodas, but across the river
there was a gleaming modern city that looked brand new, as if it had
been set up there only minutes ago. The higher we climbed the more
magnificent it got.

There were occasional pergolas and follies beneath which tourists took
their rest in the shade. There were many tourists there, young
couples, older men and women, families on a day out. Here and there,
there were also western tourists, drawing the stares of the curious.
Half way up the hill, under one such ornate structure an old man was
playing an er-hu - the Chinese one stringed fiddle - and singing in
tones that I am sure were more to local tastes than mine.

We went onward and upward, past the pagoda which had looked like the
highest point when we were down on the road. Sadly it also looked
better from the road as at closer quarters it was covered in
scaffolding and undergoing renovation. The path wound round behind it
and we went on. Finally we reached a small tea garden where we decided
to sit for a while before starting down. Although we asked for beer,
and the waiter - who spoke good English - understood us, he chose not
to bring what we had ordered. Instead he brought two large plastic
cups and a very large flask of hot water. Into each cup he emptied the
contents of two plastic pouches. One contained a mixture of dried
leaves, fruits and twigs while the other contained several varieties
of rock sugar. He poured water on and informed us that this was a
Lanzhou specialty tea.
I sipped cautiously. It was cloyingly sweet. The addition of more and
more hot water failed to dilute the taste at all. The main effect of
the water was to further dissolve the sugar, making it sweeter still
and to soak into the dried vegetation causing it to expand and fill
the whole cup. I drank a couple of cups of it, adding more water
constantly but didn't really enjoy it. I don't have a very sweet
palate at the best of times.
When we had finished we retraced our steps to the road and hailed a
taxi to take us back to the bus station.
Our adventures were not quite ended yet though. Halfway along a very
busy dual carriageway the cab took a puncture. Refusing our offer to
pay the fare to that point the cabbie set about changing the wheel and
we set about finding another ride.
It was easier conceived than done. At the part of town all the passing
cabs already had fares. We still had the map but had no idea where we
were in relation to it. At a main junction we tried to relate the map
to the street signs but with little success. Fortunately at that
moment a cab stopped to let out a fare and we jumped in. In just a few
minutes we were at the bus station and after another short walk around
bought our tickets to return to Baiyin. Ten minutes later we were on
our way and five minutes after that the bus broke down. At least I
surmise that it broke down. All I can say with certainty is that the
driver came along saying something in Chinese and everyone got off. We
simply followed. Another bus pulled in behind and everyone got on. We
followed again.
An hour later we were back in the now familiar streets of Baiyin which
felt like coming home. We payed a visit to KFC, mainly to use their
toilets, and then looked in at a tiny music shop where we bought a few
DVDs and then rounded off a very satisfying day with a visit to the
pool hall.

I shall certainly be visiting Lanzhou again but, after a busy session
today comparing my map to one I found in English on the internet and
marking in a few places of interest, I shall hope to be better
prepared. It seems to be a city with much to offer.

China: Day Trip To Lanzhou Part 2

As we walked it rapidly became apparent that China has embraced its own communist version of capitalism not just with open arms but with a warm friendly hug. The hotels are as big and impressive as any in the world and the streets are lined with shops selling every kind of consumer goods that anyone could possibly want. The thing that surprises the most is the number of banks. Just walking along one street, from a major junction down towards the train station, I stopped counting when I reached twenty - about half a mile in.
We were heading towards the station because that was where the cheaper hotels that I knew of were to be found. I went into one to inquire. It was difficult but we eventually established that, although it was a nice hotel with reasonably priced rooms, they didn't in fact have any free and that - this being a national holiday week - I would be unlikely to find any rooms anywhere.
Outside I consulted with Mike. The only reason for staying in Lanzhou had been that the last bus back to Baiyin is at seven O'clock and that seemed rather early to be returning.
On the other hand we didn't actually have any plan for anything to do in the evening so we abandoned the idea and decided to get the six-thirty bus back. (We are, apparently, equally paranoid about catching last buses and trains).
With that decision taken we were free to look for lunch. We soon found it.
One of the things that definitely makes life easier for travellers in China is the fact that many restaurants, even quite small ones, have picture menus. Combine that with the little card I carry that says in Chinese that I am allergic to mushrooms and buying meals becomes easy - providing you don't mind what actually comes on your plate. In the restaurant we found there was also a young waiter who had some English. We ordered a plate of shredded vegetables and some fried chicken. The chicken, unlike the same dish back home, was prepared in the usual way of chopping it up bone included, battering it and frying it. Once you get used to picking bones from your teeth and NEVER swallowing without chewing, it's actually delicious - all the better for not having "secret recipe" combinations of herbs and spices added to the batter. The vegetables were not readily identifiable beyond the shredded carrot, and were coated in a thin caramelly sauce which was initially odd but became quite compelling after a the surprise had worn off.
I really find it difficult to get used to the prices though. A meal for two, including two large bottles of beer and more  food than it was possible to eat came in at under three pounds. My salary here is peanuts but it's going to be very hard to spend it.
We strolled on the extra hundred yards to the splendid railway station, which has a very interesting architectural feature. As you approach you can see the tall columns that line the frontage and you can also see that there is something odd about them though your eye can't quite make out what exactly it is. At first I thought that perhaps they weren't columns at all but were, instead, painted onto the front of the building. It was only when I got really close that I realised that they are half columns with the illusion being caused by their shape which was two concave columns joined back to back rather than a convex column. The effect was that whichever direction the sunlight came from the columns look, from a distance, like flat, painted features.

I took some photographs, which will appear in a separate entry, while we decided on our next move.

Our next move was to take a cab to the Yellow River Bridge, a destination that our FAO had not only recommended but written down for us so that we could show the cab driver. We weren't expecting much. The last time someone had told me about a beautiful bridge it had turned out to be the very plain concrete one across the river on our day-trip to the country.
The ride turned out to be longer than we had anticipated and rather more nerve-wracking. Chinese taxi drivers are clearly trained in the same techniques as Cairo ones. They do not believe in the use of brakes and they change lanes with a randomness that is dizzying. They aim the vehicle at gaps that are clearly too narrow but which magically become just wide enough at the last possible moment. We passed the front of a moving bus so closely that I could have reached my hand from the window and wiped the dust from its bumper. We dodged and weaved in and out of fast-moving traffic until I was forced to shut my eyes to preserve my sanity.
Finally we were let out from our wild ride at one end of the bridge. When we had recovered we looked at it.
It's a decent piece of engineering with its steel arches but nonetheless remains a rather ordinary bridge and were that all there was to see we would have been powerfully disappointed. Fortunately it isn't. Across the river we could see a park with a lot of very lovely buildings.
We started out across the bridge.

(To be concluded in Part 3)

China: Ornamental

I was told before I came to China that it would be impossible to buy official CDs and DVDs here and it proves to be the case. Even large department stores and nationwide chains, sell what are, when examined, pirate copies of DVDs and, because they are all that is available, people buy them. It is quite interesting though to look at the language used on the sleeves.
I know some people like to laugh at the language used, and some oddities can raise a smile, but I find it more interesting to wonder how these bizarre translations come about and, indeed, to wonder what was actually meant.

Sometimes the source of the confusion is clear. For example on the sleeve of a DVD of "Warehouse 13" we find this sentence.

"...there is a teapot, if you make a wish it, and then the friction of its outer wall, it will be randomly generated inside the same thing."

The phrase "an then the friction of its outer wall" is a noun-verb confusion joined to an idiomatic problem and when those things are corrected we get the obvious "and then rub the outside".

Some though baffle utterly. I have struggled in the same paragraph to derive the meaning of

"A football, you throw it out later, it will circle the Earth's rotation about itself a few days before returning to throwing hands (of course you have been a different matter it Zayun)."
Most of that is perfectly clear but what on Earth does the parenthetical addition mean?

Another, that almost certainly has a simple explanation for those who speak Chinese, occurs on the notes to the movie "Super". Most of the notes fall into the strange but comprehensible category. Some fall into the utterly baffling category. The one that I am sure has an explanation shows up whenever we get the common formula "character name (actor name)" in the notes, and the thing I don't understand is the addition, every single time, of the word "ornaments".
So we get
...his wife, Sarah (Liv Tyler ornaments)
...a man named Jaques (Kevin Bacon ornaments)
...a local comic shop mentally ill cute girl, LIbby (Allen Peggy ornaments)

My best guess is that it's meant to be something like "acted by" or "played by" but I can't see how to get from one to the other.

One final oddity is that the entire sleeve - including the copyright warning - has been directly copied from the US release except for this text which has clearly been translated into Chinese and then translated back. It makes me wonder why they didn't just copy the original for this as well.

China: Day Trip To Lanzhou Part 1

The bus ride from Baiyin to Lanzhou is through some rather bleak landscape. Predominantly grey and brown there is much evidence that the people are trying to do something with it, in the form of ruler straight rows of young trees planted across the otherwise barren hillsides. Sandy roads weave between the peaks and ridges and tiered stone walls protect the main road from land slippage. Everywhere there are holes and caves. I speculated on what they might be - dwellings, evidence of old mine workings, evidence of planned levelling of the ground. It was all speculation though and I'm no wiser now than I was before.
There are frequent concrete drainage culverts and a great spiders web of power and telegraph lines running near the road.

After some confusion with prices when buying the tickets we had boarded the bus for Lanzhou at the Baiyin station and started down the forty-five minute route. The demarcation between the city and the surrounding desert was sharp and now, as we approached Lanzhou the demarcation was equally prominent. One minute we were driving on a straight highway through that landscape and the next we were passing a series of advertisements for mooncake and then into the city.

Looking up, Lanzhou was impressively modern. Skyscrapers in all sorts of designs towered above us and around us. At street level it was more typically Chinese. Rows of smaller shops with open fronts plied their trade. We disembarked and set about the tasks that we wanted to achieve. Lacking a map we set off in a random direction. We were planning to stay two days and needed to find rooms at a hotel. The first problem, of course, was how to find a hotel. We had Chinese to enable us to ask and didn't even know the written down symbols to recognise on the fronts of buildings.
Across the street I saw the word "Bookshop" in English.
We crossed and went in. After a lot of picking up and pointing, we left with a map of the city (all in Chinese), our current location marked on it, the location of a street with hotels also marked on it and a pocket sized Chinese-English dictionary: the latter to facilitate the "point and look hopeful" school of communication.

We went on our way but were distracted by a department store. The store occupies the first six floors of a very high tower and promised us cafes and bars on the sixth floor. Sadly all access to said floor was blocked as it was, we gathered being renovated. WHat was interesting was the electronics and electrical goods floor, at least half of which was devoted to 3D TV. There were, as far as I could tell, four rival systems on offer and huge demonstrations of each. It was impressive stuff and shows just how far China's revolution in consumerism has advanced.
What space wasn't taken up with 3D TV was largely kitchen electricals but also included a decent sized display of massage chairs retailing at around 3000 pounds.
We, of course, left the store without buying anything.

Not so the next, far tinier store, selling music and DVDs where we purchased a selection of DVD TV series. The packaging gives it away. None of this stuff is officially licensed. Inside an impressively put together box a smaller cardboard sleeve contains a plastic bag with a DVD in it. Boxed sets of TV series are in the kind of sleeve you buy in packs of fifty but then put inside a printed copy of a sleeve where the words Season 1 have the addendum " to 5" added in a different typeface. Most telling of all the two Hulk movies are packaged on a single disc and I can't see anyone involved in the second movie allowing the abomination that is the first movie to be packaged that way.

On we went, still looking for a hotel but now also looking for food. According to my map reading we would soon reach a junction where a right turn would put us on the road to the railway station, and into a district where I knew from the internet that there were some decent cheaper hotels to be found.

Parts 2 and 3 will follow later.