Both Feet Wet
I am not a good traveller. I do not effortlessly wander from place to place, full of awe and free of care. I almost never like a place with more than two streets on first glance. And I really, really, really dislike flying. And uncertainty. Really.
This afternoon, riding an overcrowded bus through the streets of Qingdao, China, wondering what on earth I was thinking (not) planning this 5-week adventure. Sure, every trip I've ever taken in China has been magnificent. Sure, I've never had any major trouble in China. Sure, this time I have friends all over the place waiting to welcome me back and wander around with me. And yet...I am not a good traveller. And maybe, just maybe, I am too old for this kind of thing.
The bus ride is really long. Long enough for the dilapidated buildings to stop looking decrepit and start looking...interesting.
And the company is excellent. Kathy, my ex-Chinese teacher from Qingdao living in Changwon, is a wonderful tour guide.
And Qingdao is...cool. Beautiful and gritty at the same time. Like someone put up a shiny new cutout city on top of an old industrial port and somehow made the seems disapear.
I am totally illiterate. Except for the internet symbol, I recognize that.
And then the symbol for country. And mountain. And people. And street.
I remember numbers. Greetings.
Smells. Smelly tofu. Sugar-crusted fruit. Street meat.
Around her family's dinner table, 7 people in a space built for 3 all happily yelling away at each other simultaneously in 3 languages (they intersperse their chinese with stilted korean just in case i can undertand more of that than their chinese). LOVING china. Again.
The main dish is handmade dumplings, with a steaming side of enormous silk worm larvae. About 10 times the size of the ones in Korea. Everyone pops them in like candy, chewing with blissed-out looks on their faces, then spits the exoskeletons onto the tabletop. Kathy describes them as 'wild bondaegi' (their miniscule korean cousins) and i imagine them sparring with little rapiers on the mountains. Her father says these bondaegi, called 'pong' in local parlance, grow on BIG trees and Korean bondaegi grow on little trees. They are as big as my thumb, and roughly the same shape, glistening darkly before me. Everyone laughs at the face I make when I pop one in (may as well jump in with both feet!) and chew, though actually the faces were more for show than for actual gross-out. Definitely milder than the tame little koreans, thank god.
Senior CitiZens center on the corner. I think my grandma is definitely a Zen Senior and would like this place.
Fireworks in the courtyard - light one with a cigarette and then run for cover squealing like a little kid.
Busses so full the door won't close and we cling for life to the rail beside the door and try not to breathe when someone farts.
More, more, so much more, and all this only the first 6 hours. Train inland in a mere 8 hours, with sleep not yet happening. I am SO going to love this trip!!
(and who knows, in another day or two, my travel tales may be coherent to someone other than me...)
This afternoon, riding an overcrowded bus through the streets of Qingdao, China, wondering what on earth I was thinking (not) planning this 5-week adventure. Sure, every trip I've ever taken in China has been magnificent. Sure, I've never had any major trouble in China. Sure, this time I have friends all over the place waiting to welcome me back and wander around with me. And yet...I am not a good traveller. And maybe, just maybe, I am too old for this kind of thing.
The bus ride is really long. Long enough for the dilapidated buildings to stop looking decrepit and start looking...interesting.
And the company is excellent. Kathy, my ex-Chinese teacher from Qingdao living in Changwon, is a wonderful tour guide.
And Qingdao is...cool. Beautiful and gritty at the same time. Like someone put up a shiny new cutout city on top of an old industrial port and somehow made the seems disapear.
I am totally illiterate. Except for the internet symbol, I recognize that.
And then the symbol for country. And mountain. And people. And street.
I remember numbers. Greetings.
Smells. Smelly tofu. Sugar-crusted fruit. Street meat.
Around her family's dinner table, 7 people in a space built for 3 all happily yelling away at each other simultaneously in 3 languages (they intersperse their chinese with stilted korean just in case i can undertand more of that than their chinese). LOVING china. Again.
The main dish is handmade dumplings, with a steaming side of enormous silk worm larvae. About 10 times the size of the ones in Korea. Everyone pops them in like candy, chewing with blissed-out looks on their faces, then spits the exoskeletons onto the tabletop. Kathy describes them as 'wild bondaegi' (their miniscule korean cousins) and i imagine them sparring with little rapiers on the mountains. Her father says these bondaegi, called 'pong' in local parlance, grow on BIG trees and Korean bondaegi grow on little trees. They are as big as my thumb, and roughly the same shape, glistening darkly before me. Everyone laughs at the face I make when I pop one in (may as well jump in with both feet!) and chew, though actually the faces were more for show than for actual gross-out. Definitely milder than the tame little koreans, thank god.
Senior CitiZens center on the corner. I think my grandma is definitely a Zen Senior and would like this place.
Fireworks in the courtyard - light one with a cigarette and then run for cover squealing like a little kid.
Busses so full the door won't close and we cling for life to the rail beside the door and try not to breathe when someone farts.
More, more, so much more, and all this only the first 6 hours. Train inland in a mere 8 hours, with sleep not yet happening. I am SO going to love this trip!!
(and who knows, in another day or two, my travel tales may be coherent to someone other than me...)
posted by Roberta | 11:26 PM
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