May 29th, 2012-Chengbaishan-most beautiful frozen lake I've ever seen
- Old people in China are a lot like old people in America
- I was taking a nap at about 6 am this morning (I had woken up at 4 AM because some train officer accidentally shook me awake due to the fact that I switched beds with an old woman so she could have the bottom bunk but I don’t know how he could have confused the only white guy on the train with anybody) anyways, taking a nap, and all of a sudden these two old couples just started yelling at each other
- The first thing I thought was, “Ah sweet, old people kung fu, let me get my camera” but then I looked and they were just talking having a good time except at a really loud speaking level
- I guess Americans and Chinese are alike in some ways, like how our old people yell for no reason
- However I figured out the perfect way to make them (rather) quiet
- All you have to do is give them a deck of cards and all of a sudden they talk at normal levels
- So this means the next time you see old Chinese people talking, just throw a deck of cards in their like a grenade and they’ll start playing really cool card games that even this laowai can follow along with (and I’m pretty dumb)
- I love Chinese people who wear English shirts that make no sense
- Chang Bai Shan is a rip-off
- Yes it’s a beautiful park but I mean come on people, don’t fall for the ways of the imperialist Americans and charge for every little thing
- It’s 100 RMB for admission, 85 RMB for a bus to a staging area which doesn’t get you to the top of the mountain or to any attraction so that means you have to pay an additional 80 RMB for a 4WD to the top of the lake
- I’m telling you, every day American capitalism is winning the war and pretty soon China is going to be a lot like us menacing American capitalists if this keeps happening
- I won’t lie though, the shuttle ride was worth it in it of itself
- Imagine if you will, a Gran Turismo F1 racing track with a very thin guard rail where every turn could send you hurtling off the edge in a fiery crash
- Now imagine that instead of a sleek F1 racing car with excellent gripping wheels, you’re in an old Toyota shuttle bus whose center of gravity is way too high to be taking 40 mph turns
- Well this shuttle bus made about 30 of those turns up the mountain and 30 down and it’s a thrill ride no one will forget (we didn’t even have seatbelts)
- I remember most the times where the driver would turn WAY too sharply and all of us in the shuttle would go “WAH!” and fly to one side of the car off of our seat to the other side
- And to justify myself for paying the exorbitant fee for seeing Heaven Lake I declare it the most beautiful frozen lake in the world
- I knew that the Lonely Planet travel guide recommended going in mid-June at the earliest but I thought being really late May I would be ok
- Turns out, the beautiful Heaven Lake is frozen in late May and everything around it is dead so it’s great if you’re into the whole emo thing but if you like seeing green when you go to a park then definitely go in mid-June
- I did get to see my one sliver of unfrozen lake so I’m happy as now I can say I saw Heaven Lake
- Why do the Chinese have no respect for mountains?
- Whenever we in America see a mountain we’re like, “Oh what a beautiful mountain, let’s make a national park and protect it” whereas the Chinese are like my dad and say, “Wow, that looks like a great place for a cell phone tower”
- Even on Heaven Lake, the purported crown jewel of natural beauty in northeastern China (and trust me there aren’t many) there’s a cell phone tower
- I can’t really complain though, I’ve had 5 bars of service with China Unicom everywhere I’ve been
- The other natural features were working alright
- The “Deep Green Pond” is probably one of the most aptly named natural features I’ve come across in a long time as it really is a deep green pond
- Changbai Water Fall was actually really neat looking
- And I found the place where they keep all of the alive trees!-Dell Park
- I finally found out my Chinese cell phone number
- We were sitting around the shuttle bus trying to find the one guy who of course suddenly goes missing when everyone is ready to leave the park, and someone asks me if I gave the guy my number (because I went to the park with him)
- I said that I not only didn’t know his name, I don’t even know my own cell phone number and now after 6 days of owning this Chinese cell phone, I finally know the number
- Chinese people are really nice
- While I was at the park, I got asked to take another photo just for being white (they said I was Canadian but I didn’t react fast enough to correct them of their grievous mistake) and they saw me later about to be charged 10 RMB for a bottle of green tea (which is outrageous)
- Well I walked away and they came running up to me to give me that bottle of green tea that they bought for 3 RMB because they’re awesome
- They even gave me their QQ number, how nice
- It was a fake QQ number (they were 30+ year old women and they gave me the number for a 20 year old man in Sichuan and I didn't even catch until later that they both wrote down the same number) but the thought still counts
- Never order spare ribs if you’re a beginner at chopsticks
- So I felt brave and decided to order a dish that I saw way back in my beginning lessons of Chinese 红烧排骨 (Braised Spare Ribs)
- They were actually really good except for the fact that I kept fumbling these huge pieces of meat with my chopsticks like the dumb foreigner I am
- It got so bad that a random stranger actually came up to me, took my chopsticks out of my hand, showed how he held chopsticks, put them back in my hand, and left
- I think his trigger was when I picked up one piece and not a second later dropped it into the sauce and splattering everywhere around the dish including on my shirt
- The tea was pretty good even though I'm not quite sure what it was made out of and it came in a dirty water color (I'd have it again in a heart beat in case you're curious
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