(Surprising) Things Shanghai People Must Love:

I knew two things about Shanghai before going there-- the kids tested really well on math and language arts on the PISA, & it's the epicenter of bird flu. I spent almost my entire time in Shanghai in bed with the flu (luckily the non-fowl variety.) But, during my few days alive and well I witnessed a man almost get killed with a metro car and found Three (Surprising) Things Shanghai People Seem to Love.

Girlmances- India was the land of the bromance. China is the land of the girlmance. It takes spending a bit of time in a foreign country to realize just how "hands off" Americans are. I am greatly looking forward to my future of handshakes and the occasional hug. Girlmances, and to a lesser extent young couples (of all types) are incredibly lovey-dovey with tons of PDA. Arms around each other, giggling and the thing I can not quite get used to-- matching outfits seem to be all the rage. Girls seem to never be out alone and it seems they never have to be. With a population 1.36 billion, this is probably for the best.

The Bund (& epicenter of the girlmance in its natural habitat)

Dancing- What better thing to do with your girlmance than go dancing? But, who needs a dance studio, or a club when you have the street? I came back from my first of many unfortunate dinners of corn and chicken feet to hear lovely swing music outside my hostel. With about 30 couples and many more viewers, the entire street corner was packed. I also saw (mainly elderly women) do choreographed aerobics, tai chi, and my personal favorite, a boppy musical theater number straight faced outside a subway. In one day I counted 45 of these "dance troupes" all with at least 15 participants, the largest I saw had well over 70 people. And, of course, Martha came to mind every time.

Take it away.

KFC- What is with China and KFC? Say you're at the Shanghai Train Station and fancy some fried chicken. You walked past one on the right part of the building but don't want to turn around. Don't worry there's another on the left side. But, there aren't just one or two KFCs in the area. Oh no...

Count 'em up. You're set.

You can also pick up some rice congee and tree fungus salad while you're at it-- Finger Lickin' Good.

Traveling Transitions

I was a bit sad to leave Thailand-- in part because going to China was a bit of a tough transition... quite literally. I received an email the night before that my first flight was cancelled. I was rescheduled but on a flight that would make me miss my second flight. After quite a few phone calls I finally got a new flight, but, it would still be very close. When I learned my bag wouldn't go straight through I was sure I wouldn't make it.

Thai Airlines came through. Upon arrival in Bangkok I was met with a sign and a small army of Thai airlines workers... about 8 of them. We walked briskly through the airport, got my bag, was met by another Thai Airways person for my ticket, went through priority immigration and security and made it with five minutes to spare.

Source: Wikipedia.comRun Run Run

Big Bird & I had something in common:

I made it to Shanghai-- "in China!"

Chinese culture feels quite foreign to me. But unlike in India, at least everyone isn't staring... at least not as much. Since I've yet to find anyone that speaks any english-- I can make my mistakes in peace.

I do have a confession though. I don't particularly like Chinese food. Everything is eatable here, which makes the old "blindly pointing to Chinese menu" a rather dangerous sport. You don't know the animal or the part of the animal until it arrives. But even then, I frequently didn't know what I was eating even after I had finished it.

The most frustrating part of it, though, is that I can tell it was dreadfully unhealthy and it then had the audacity to not be delicious.

The Art of Cooking

Probably the highlight of my time in Thailand was the food. So, unsurprisingly, the cooking lesson I took (cooking is an art, right?) was wonderful.

I just hope TSA lets me keep my supplies.

The temples were great too.

My trip went so smoothly that I didn't even get any stories. Better for me, worse for my blog.

Sadly, I did not get to see the temple I really wanted to see as I did not get to cross into Burma (for a variety of reasons.)

But, ladies and gentlemen, I give you "A Temple Owl." And yes, I was going to make a special trip to another country just for this joke. I am the child of my parents.

Source: John Meckley

I know I can count on mom to be laughing right about now.

Thanks for that.

 

 

 

Oh Mai Mai Mai

Chiang Mai was simply wonderful. It didn't hurt that I was staying in one of the nicest places I've stayed in this year either. I did work in the morning, slept midday though the heat and went to markets and festivals at night. Grad school is going to be rough after this life.

My first day as I was walking home I had a man stop me outside an automechanic. He told me there was a large festival, and that I needed to come back that night. Though I'm unsure exactly what was happening the displays of dance, the outfits and the large baskets of flowers burned as offerings were delightful. I even got to participate writing names for prayers on a large piece of cloth. Locty & Jimmy had prayers made at their respective signs.

You're a Grand Old Palace

No ankles, no chest, no elbows, no stomach, no shoulders, and no flip flops was the dress code for The Grand Palace. I wore my only possible outfit and headed out. I felt a bit too strong a sense of accomplishment for being one of the only tourists not turned away at the door the first time.

I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. In my long black dress, sunglasses, and black sun umbrella I was fit for a funeral... But what a structure.

 

It's a Thai

Bangkok was warm. Every day it would climb to over a 100 (so much impressive than 37) and just stop. Walking outside was akin to swimming. The weather did wonders for my hair, and my appearance in general. I had no clue I was capible of sweating so profusely. Delightful.

To quote Beyoncé, "I woke up like this."

Now that I could all but be recruited to the Cape Town and Hungarian tourist boards, I'll try out for the Thai one. Thailand is the perfect "Asian Starter Country." You get culture, but it's not so foreign that you suffer from culture shock (you can wear what you'd wear at home, for example.) It's very easy to get around, I took a boat taxi almost every day that got me quickly where I needed to go and metros everywhere else. There's even a train in the basement of the airport that connects to the metro. The food is amazing. Even though I wasn't careful about ice (the water isn't drinkable) I was not sick at all. It's cheap, like really cheap, especially outside of Bangkok. I stayed in the best hostel I've ever stayed in (more on that later.) The shopping is amazing. I spent 7.5 hours on the Saturday milling around a massive outdoor market of 15,000 stalls. There's such variety in Thailand. Even though I stuck to Bangkok and Chiang Mai (a city in the far north) for my project, I've heard wonderful things about the islands, the jungles, and the beaches. But the reason I'd call it perhaps the best destination for travelers who want adventure but are not adventurous and solo travelers is that it's set up for tourism in the best possible way. I never felt unsafe, unwelcome, or tried to be sold anything (I know!) There weren't stares or hard selling. Bargaining is accepted, but it has to be done in a very polite fashion. If you start too low your business is refused. I found most people to be extremely polite, friendly and respectful. (Except for one demographic) I found the tourists to also be relatively polite and friendly.

Shuttle Boat

Sadly, the sex trade is alive and well in Bangkok, and it shows. As terribly depressing as it was, the upside was I had no stares, no weird calling out, touching or anything.

Though my body's natural defenses of frizz, sweat and reddening probably could be cited for this as well.

 

 

 

Dealing With It

I love a good deal. I come from the type of family that proudly tells recipients what percentage their gift was on sale. My flight to Thailand? $300. Why? Malaysia Air. Sorry mom. It was solidly one of the more uncomfortable long haul flights I've been on. My light and TV weren't working and even though it was morning in Amsterdam, they turned off the lights so we could get accustomed to Bangkok time. Meh.

My second flight went better until the landing. We landed so violently everyone screamed and assumed brace position (a first for me.) a man I'd not talked to grabbed my hand. It was over quickly but right after the pilot kept repeating "sorry, sorry, sorry" over the intercom. The rest of the trip I was simply in awe of the public transportation system. How can Bangkok's trains be so nice? (My cousins might need to do a case study here.) Plus, everyone politely stands to the sides in little lines, and let's everyone off before entering. What a novel idea.

Even better than the trains, though, has been the food. I ended up eating the exact same meal every day because it was so tasty... Though it doesn't photograph particularly well. For so long I resisted being that person who took pictures of food... But I succumbed and then didn't even do a very good job. If you're ever in Bangkok, head to "Inter" and get the red curry duck. It is heaven for less than $3.

 

 

 

Tip Toe Through the Tulips

My last few days in the Netherlands I still had yet to complete a very important task-- take a picture with a windmill. When we were living in Scotland each of us were given a task for the future- one sibling needs to find a beach we could never find and the other needs to eat a fish called whale. I needed to find a windmill in Holland.

Success (consider the gauntlet thrown you two.)

I spent my last full day seeing said windmill and touring the massive tulip garden an hour south of Amsterdam. While in the line, waiting for the bus, I started talking to a really nice Brazilian mother/son duo and spent the day with them. It was the perfect temperature, the flowers were gorgeous, and we even got to take a bike ride. Flowers are the best thing to photograph. They don't move, and they're beautiful.

 

 

Fit for the King

Every country's schools has a selling point- their students are the hardest workers, have come the farthest, or are the smartest. The Dutch (constantly) told me their students were the happiest. I had an incredibly busy and rewarding time in Dutch schools. I'll spare you the full rundown, but I'm guessing that at least a bit of the reason those students are so happy is because they seem to never actually be in class. They're out in the field, in crazy open classrooms that actually seem to work, or on vacation. My biggest surprise was how early and intensely the Dutch track their students. They make the roughly equal decision of what type of college to attend (if at all) and what their major will be at age 12. With some students, this might work. With a few of the arts high school students I talked to, it was fantastic. However, I also have talked to a few students who this really hurt. Still, if I was to send my children to school in a country of my choice I think it would be the Netherlands.

I was very thankful my research there was so fruitful, in part because it was an incredibly expensive portion of my journey. When I first looked up hostels a bed in a 24 room dorm was over $60. Why? Well, in accordance with my nack of going to countries during festivals I managed to end up in Amsterdam during the biggest day of them all, King's Day. It's basically a day of day drinking expensive beer, dancing poorly and hanging out in large crowds while wearing orange. Instead, I opted to hang out in the empty apartment I had a room in and use my day cooking and watching Netfix. Before you think I skipped the excitement entirely, I did go out Kings Night. My airbnb host showed up at my door at about 6 informing me that he was taking me out with his friends. The friends never did appear, but after I convinced him that hanging out on the street would be much better than going to a dance club, I had a great time. Dutch sounds hilarious when being sung and there were many free concerts that I could go to to enjoy. After finding out you could return glasses for 1 euro I took some time to collect glasses, until my host got a bit annoyed. (I made 16 euro in maybe 10 minutes.) Altogether, a nice night.

 

 

One Last Time!

Would my adventures in Europe have really been complete it if I hadn't embarked on a long, weird bus journey? Yes. But, I did anyway. A tight budget makes for better blogs. (I originally had a train ticket that never arrived in the mail, they told me my only option was to repurchase the ticket... But I will not reward bad behavior.) My bus trips from Kraków to Amsterdam did not disappoint. I did the first journey of 5 hours with a large group of young nuns.

The second leg of my journey (from Prague to Brussels) was very long, and rather boring. That is until we had a stop at about 2 am. Since everyone was getting off, and I was in the front row, I tried to get out the front door. There was some language spoken a few times until I was almost out the door and the bus stewardess came from behind me and pulled me back inside saying, "Ma'am! You have to go out the back!" Slightly embarrassing, since the entire bus and bus rest area watched this happen, at least it woke me up.

After a rather long delay in Luxembourg (which bumps me up to 24 hours there in my lifetime, so new country!) we arrived in Brussels. As everyone got into their cars and drove away, I realized I didn't know where I was. I hoped on a train I managed to find and huddled with some tea until check-in.

Brussels left me a bit cold (literally and figuratively.) Some people love it, but I had recently been spoiled with my European Golden Triangle. But, they did have a stunning square. I spent my two days there walking around, prepping for Amsterdam and clucking to myself about how outrageous the prices were.

My 1 o'clock bus to Amsterdam was 30 minutes away by metro, so I naturally gave myself an hour and a half. I had bought my ticket ahead of time so I could just buzz right through. But, when I went to scan my ticket it didn't work. I couldn't figure out how to get in the door. I figured my ticket must have expired so stood in line for 15 minutes to get a new one. That one didn't work. Luckily, a nice man showed me how (there's a machine about a foot away with no sign on it that you use for single use tickets.) However, the machine was broken. I stood in another line, and finally had to have someone manually let me through.

No problem. This is why I give myself time. However, with my second transfer the doors on both sides of the train opened. I got off the closer side, and it was the wrong side. There are no directions (at least in English) or explanations. Brussels was the second worst country for English I've found-- after Malaysia. I had no option to get to the other line, only to go to an exit. I exited, had to go to street level to find an entrance and... Well long story short, I missed my bus and had to buy a train ticket. But, with that I finally made it to Amsterdam.

 

Nie mój cyrk, nie moje małpy

-Polish Idiom for "Not my problem"...or more literally, "Not my circus, not my monkey." (I just liked that.)

When I meet most people I will generally ask them three questions:

1.Do you like your job?

2. What are your realistic and unrealistic dream jobs?

3. What's your favorite city that surprised you?

I have had 4 or 5 people tell me Kraków... So I decided to take a look before heading west.

I completely agree,

Kraków has just about everything going for it.

Here are my Top 5 Reasons

1. It's an overnight train away from Prague (which I liked very much) and Budapest (which I loved.)

 

2. It's relatively undiscovered. This means there are less people enjoying all the stunning architecture and it's incredibly cheap. The free walking tours are fabulous.

Source:wsllpaper.com

3. The museums are great, There's a booming art scene, both with street art and contemporary. Schindler's Factory was also very worthwhile.

4. There are interesting, incredibly depressing, but worthwhile side trips.

5. It's an easy city to visit! It's very walkable, (and did I mention inexpensive?) I stayed in an amazing hostel in an 8 bed dorm that had full breakfasts, and great dinners included! All for $16. Plus, the Poles are masters of English. I didn't come across a single person who wasn't able to communicate with me (most fluently.)

Source: sumfinity.com

I know Jaipur, Agra and New Delhi are the real "Golden Triangle" but I'd highly recommend a different one, "Prague, Kraków, & Budapest."

 

 

 

*I lost most of my Kraków pictures due to a memory card error

 

Best Thing Said On My Train

You miss water thrown on you yesterday?

I'm sorry, I have no idea what you're talking about.

For Easter.

Oh right, well we don't do that in The States so I didn't really miss it.

What do you do?

Well the Easter bunny, an imaginary rabbit, hides eggs for children to find.

That's so weird.

In Hungary there's an Easter tradition where the men will pour water on women. In fact, if you google image search "Hungarian easter tradition" you get this:

 

Worst Thing Said On My Train

An example of what not to say to a girl traveling solo on a night train with you and your 4 male friends:

You're traveling alone? But young girls traveling alone get raped a lot.

Dear Mr. Mackenzie

I've learned a lot of "street smarts" during my trip- how to meander across a 4 lane highway, haggle, be more assertive, live out of a suitcase, ect. One thing I've yet to learn is how to politely correct someone over email when they assume I'm the opposite gender. This has happened to me at least 10 times. Only once (here in the Netherlands) did they figure it out, explaining, "in the old world Theobald is a very masculine sounding name." The best I can do is write something like, "I'll be wearing a purple dress" and leave people to figure it out or be shocked that I'm not a cross dresser.

On the Hungarian train to Kraków I checked the appropriate box "female" on my ticket but was assigned to a male cabin. Arriving 2 hours early I waited until my track was called and waited with about 10 other people on the platform. I found an excuse to talk to all of them and unsurprisingly, we were all American. Being the first in my room I snagged the best luggage spot (I had worried about that all day), made my bed and settled down with a book set in 1940s Hungary (it's so much fun when your characters go to places you've recently seen.)

Source: www.seat61.com (a truly excellent website for all your train needs)

As the train started to pull away I still didn't have any roomies. One by one my five Hungarian male cabinmates all in their late 30s/early 40s came in and gave me questioning expressions. They had previously come in, seen me there and thought they were in the wrong place. One of them introduced himself and all the others saying, "don't worry we are good, nice men." They proceeded to bring out a truly impressive amount of alcohol, roughly equal to everything I've ever drunk in my life. Our cabin soon turned into a sort of tavern, that I just happened to be above, reading in bed. They brought an equally impressive amount of food which they generously offered me. About every 15 minutes a hand with a new container of goodies would emerge from under my bed. I even left with a doggy bag. The three english speakers would rotate sitting on the top bunk opposite me making conversation, until about three hours into the trip when "alcohol make lose english."

I made you a little chart (I kept track), and this is made all the more impressive when I specify that the "bottles of wine" were actually 2 liter soda bottles... Silly me thinking it was juice. However, I honestly have no clue what the "other" was, so maybe that was the juice.

Sorry for the graph weirdly starting at 1. If you noticed that, you probably did very well on your standardized tests.

I read until 1, but didn't fall asleep until 3 am. Even though I can generally fall asleep while listening to a foreign language (I found french relaxing) Hungarian and sleep are not conducive. Since our train arrived at 7, I hoped to sleep until we arrived. Haha.

About an hour in, I woke up bizarrely to someone holding my foot. Half asleep, I shook him off, and turned over. About 20 minutes later I woke up to it again, and vowed to kick him if he did it a third time. My foot made contact roughly 30 minutes later. When all the Hungarians woke up bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and loudly speaking at 5, I posed the question, "why was one of you holding my feet last night?" One of them sort of glared, rubbed his cheek and said, "I thought it was my bunk and I was trying to get in bed."

I had 9 hours to kill before I could check in. I had looked after a crying girl the night before my train ride (she arrived very early in the morning after being completely lost for hours and was just at the beginning of a year-long backpacking journey.) So, I had 6 hours of sleep in the previous 48. I checked my bag at the station and wandered around Kraków for all of 30 minutes before realizing I was just too tired. I spent the rest of the time sitting in a food court in a mall, where I wrote this blog (before managing to delete it) and planning my time in Poland.

Where in the World?

Let's play a game.

Where do you think each photo was taken?

#1

 

#2

 

#3

 

#4

 

#5

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Did you guess Budapest?

 

 

 

 

Did you guess Budapest for all of them?

 

 

 

If you did not only are you correct, but I'm incredibly impressed.