Sarah Turns 30 & Other Urban China Adventures

So we still know only three Mandarin words (hello, thank you and dumpling) and the temperatures drop with every city we stop in, but we are still enjoying China a lot.

We had an excellent time in Shanghai thanks mostly to our amazing tour guides & hosts, Jesse & Christy. They took us all over the city - from the tops of huge skyscrapers to the older, much less developed neighborhoods to a propaganda poster museum with artwork from China's early communist period through the Cultural Revolution. They also treated us to some of their favorite food spots in the city, which were all delicious. For those of you who know Christy, we want to tell you that anything that she has probably told you about her progress in learning Chinese has been way too modest. We would have been lost without her (and a few times, when we were on our own in the city...we were), and we are so impressed with how well she is able to talk with and understand people in a language that is totally opaque to us.

One of the best things that we did while in Shanghai was attend a Chinese acrobatics show. Sarah left the theater determined to practice yoga more often so she, too, can be that flexible, and Gus left a little obsessed with this guy who could balance a huge ceremic pot on his fingertip, toss it 20 feet in the air and catch it on the back of his neck.

On Friday, the four of us headed up to Xi'an, a small city by Chinese standards even though it is home for 7.5 million folks. There was a great section of town known as the Muslim Quarter, and under Jesse & Christy's guidance, we dove into many tasty street food treats there without worrying (too much) that our bellies would later regret it. (And they haven't yet...)

Xi'an is an ancient capital of China and is surrounded by a 13 kilometer wall that you could climb up onto and rent bikes to ride along the top. The 2004 guidebook that we were using said that parts of the wall had collapsed and not yet been rebuilt, so we didn't think that we would be able to ride all the way around. So we were pleasantly surprised to learn that we could circle the entire city on the wall - with great views to boot! We also went out to see the famed Terracotta Warriors.

Christy & Jesse had to head back to Shanghai on Sunday evening, so we said our sad goodbyes to them and were then on our own in Xi'an. As some of you know, yesterday was Sarah's birthday, bringing her into a new decade. Without our trusty translator Christy, we were unsure of how our day would go (since very few people in Xi'an speak English). However, we had a great morning in the city. We successfully arranged a birthday massage for Sarah without also signing her up for full body hair removal, liposuction or collagen injections (all possible options, we think, had we pointed to the wrong set of characters on the brochure). Gus succeeded in navigating a department store to purchase a new pair of socks for Sarah (if you could see the current state of her other three pairs, you would appreciate what a great birthday present this was), and we also bought dumplings from a street vendor and actually got the fillings for which we had hoped.

So we were feeling very good about ourselves when we headed out to the bus station to catch a bus to some nearby tombs. Yet this was when our pride in our charades and massacred Mandarin phrases evaporated. There was a long row of buses, all looking very promising, but none with the number that we needed. After much pointing and gesturing and some friendly but thoroughly unhelpful advice from some bystanders, we gave up and decided our visit to the tombs just wasn't meant to be. So we did the next best thing - went back to our room and took a nice nap!

As many people that we've met in the past days have reminded us, China is a developing country, but it is developing very fast. Being here as the nation really starts to transition, what has stood out more than anything else for us are the number of seeming contradictions that you see all around you. A Louis Vitton store packed with eager Chinese shoppers right beside a pay squat toilet without available toilet paper. Business men in nice suits talking on $500 cell phones while hawking giant loogies that come inches from hitting our feet. A young mom sporting the latest runway fashions encouraging her toddler to squat on the sidewalk to pee. And, of course, the craziest contradiction of all - China is a communist nation that actively restricts freedom of information (no Wikipedia for us!) and yet it is simultaneously a hyper-capitalist society, with sprawls of malls and enterprising vendors that definitely rival those of the U.S. It's very interesting to see all this and to think about what will happen next.

Now we are in Beijing, enjoying the wonderful hospitality of Thaddeaus Law. We are looking forward to spending the next few days seeing some of China's most famous sites. We were greeted at the Beijing airport by an ad for the Olympics promising to, "Convey civilization and share dreams together." Not exactly as we'd have said it, but we get their point. And we appreciate it.



Space efficiency in Old Town Shanghai. Frankly, we prefer "Bounce."



Looking out at Shanghai's changing waterfront from the historic Bund.



Christy and Sarah pose with their bikes on the Xi'an wall.



Christy and Jesse surprise Sarah with some tasty cake a few days before her 30th on their last night in Xi'an.



Sarah's 30th birthday night out took a turn for the memorable when a Chinese engineering student named "Mark" struck up a conversation with us. While the initial conversation revolved around Mark's proclamation that Brad Pitt is the greatest actor, it soon turned to a wide range of topics, including Mark's requests for romantic advice. Soon Mark had introduced us to nearly everyone in the bar, including the manager, the owner, and some guy who loved coming up to us and yelling, "Happy New Year!" at the top of his lungs. Before we knew it, they were all sending shots of Mongolian rice wine and Chinese brandy our way. The bar started out as a nice place with some live music but turned into a karaoke hotspot after midnight complete with a "regular rotation." Our rendition of "Summer Lovin'" was foiled when the DJ put on "Summertime and the Livin's Easy." Our "Friends in Low Places" fared better but we're pretty sure that our new friends didn't quite get the humor in that selection.