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Shijiazhuang, China
39° 30' N 114° 8' E
Aug 12, 2006 13:09
Distance 1109km

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the northeast

Text written in: English

yesterday afternoon, my acquaintance and colleague, emily, picked me up from my house. i had my backpack in tow and duly informed my curious neighbors that i was going to ‘menggu' (mongolia) for ‘liang ge xinqi' (2 weeks). they were excited.

it turned out we were not traveling alone (why should i have expected any less, this being china and all?), and we had a quick dinner at emily's friend's factory before catching our police minivan escort to the train station - a 1.5 hour trip. all arranged by emily, of course. she is well-connected. it turned out that we were 5 adults, me and emily, plus another lady, and a husband and wife. the lady has a daughter, and the husband and wife have twin sons. the kids are all around 9 years old.

wonderful. i am traveling with a posse of loud, anji ren. we get to the train station like 3 hours early so the parents can purchase half-price train tickets for their kids. this leaves us with roughly 2.5 hours to kill in the tiny, un-air conditioned changxing train station, battling mosquitoes. i can't quite remember how i filled the time.

finally, around 10 pm, the train arrives and we are off. we have a hard sleeper berth, which means 6 beds in a non-doored compartment. i've traveled this way before in china, so it's no big deal to me. i quaff a bottle of beer after lights out and emily and i discuss english teaching in china. her english is good and she's worked hard at it. i admire her gusto and encourage her to go abroad and teach chinese - something i encourage every competent, english-speaking chinese teacher i meet.

this turns out to be a 20 hour train ride to shijiazhuang, the capital of hebei province. hebei province also houses beijing. shijiazhuang, it turns out, is beijing's much smaller, grubbier, poorer counterpart in the south of the province. 20 hours and almost an entire dan brown novel later, we arrive. i'm still not sure about the plan. i just want to get to mongolia. oh, and another surprise met me during the evening - emily, it turns out, is not going to mongolia, but to inner mongolia, the chinese province. this has me slightly worried about finances and getting to outer mongolia, after i am now obligated to rendezvous with these people in a place i never intended to come in the first place, plus go with emily to hohot, the capital of inner mongolia. * sigh *

we are greeted at the train station by angel's father and another man who are, apparently, MIA businessmen/fathers/husbands of these women. they take us to eat dinner in a small restaurant where we feast on lamb's head and snails. then they show us around a building they are currently erecting as part of their business. i'm in the back of one of the men's souped up buick, enjoying the passenger audio and AC controls as we peruse the ramshackle streets of shijiazhuang. i'm not sure what to make of this place, yet.

it also turns out we are staying in the shijiazhuang international hotel, which is clearly a 4 star residence. i'm not sure i have the pocketbook for the place, but i'm also not sure i'm footing the bill. and i can't bring it up lest i make a serious cultural faux pas - best to let things ride. not like i can change it anyway.

so, i am stuck with a large group of anji hua speaking families with no idea how much this is gonna cost me and no idea when i can get away. i'm told tomorrow our sightseeing begins at 8 am. great.

at least the weather up here is a tad more tolerable. more on my adventures in the north to come.