Adventures in Guangzhou!

Yup, still an awful train station despite the lack of overwhelming crowds. There are no signs, it's incredibly dirty, and there is a conspicuous lack of air conditioning anywhere. Put it this way, when I finally found a seat in the waiting room, I was directly across from a man eating an orange. This is not out of the ordinary until you take into account the fact that he was tossing the peels and spitting the seeds directly on to the floor in front of him (and me). Gross. Even grosser? He was just contributing to the pile of organic waste already on the tile. I think it may just be my travel luck, but everytime I leave GZ it seems like it's 90 degrees and humid. When you're carrying a big old backpack around it seems even worse too. Sitting there dodging projectile orange seeds and sweating through my tee shirt, I could not wait to get out of the city.

Wouldja know it! For the first time I noticed that I was not the only white person on the train. I chatted briefly with a couple of backpackers from Australia who seemed like a fun bunch of people. We collectively noticed a bunch of other random caucasians as well. It's sort of funny--you can pick out Westerners not just by their skin color or dress but by their luggage. All of us non-Chinese had big hiking packs while all the "natives" had worn down suitcases. I am absolutely attached to my backpack at this point as well after so many trips. It's awesome. Anyway, Kunming is apparently much more of a sight-seeing destination because of the scenery in Yunnan Province so for the first time in a while I felt like a tourist again.

I stepped on to the train and was greeted not by crappy Chinese pop music, but by random elevator music of western tunes. First thing I heard was John Lennon's "Imagine." Next up was Eric Clapton's "Tears in Heaven." Great tune. I was a little surprised that they would have a song like that but I suppose it was popular enough. I was pretty surprised by the next one though-- James Taylor's "Only One." So random! I love the song though and was happily singing along at full volume as I stowed my pack, much to the chagrin of my trainmates.

I settled in and immediately took a nap. If there's one thing you have a ton of on the train it's time to relax. After I woke up I decided to meet some of the folks in my "compartment." In my crappy Mandarin I asked a guy if he knew when they would be bringing the boxed dinners around since I was hungry. He answered in almost flawless English and we got to talking quite a bit more. It turns out "Yan Xiang" is a Captain in the Army stationed in Foshan (a city right near GZ) and was traveling to see his girlfriend in Kunming, the city where he grew up. Despite having gone to a military university (notorious for the less-intelligent students), he was incredibly sharp and must have had a gift for languages since he speaks Mandarin, Cantonese, English, and French.

We chatted for hours and hours about the military in both China and America, international politics, economic policy, and even religion. He was absolutely fascinated to discover I'm Jewish and began to fire multiple questions at me regarding my opinion on the strengths of Golda Meir v. David Ben Gurion. My first thought was, who the hell is this guy?? Most Jews don't even know enough about that to give a cogent response! I enjoyed dredging up my knowledge of Israeli history with him though, among other topics. When we finally got to Kunming he even introduced me to his girlfriend and let me use his cellphone to call Lexi. What a guy!

I also met one other fascinating travel companion on the train. A college-aged woman walked over to me and Yan Xiang at one point and asked if she could join our conversation. We welcomed her into our little "English Corner" and she told us she is studying law at Zhong Da, the university where my Yale friends teach. I was really interested to hear her take on law in China so we chatted for a couple of hours as well. I explained the concept of legal precedent, why the U.S. Supreme Court is so influential, the advent of Miranda Rights, and the notion of being innocent until proven guilty. She talked about the despot-like power of judges in China, the pressure of the government on lawyers, and the lack of case studies to examine. All in all, I had hours and hours of really interesting conversation to pass the time.

A couple hours before we pulled into Kunming, we passed by something called the Stone Forest. I didn't get my camera in time to get a great picture, but basically it's a huge forest...of rocks. I wish I knew more about the geology of the area because it looked surreal to see these enormous hunks of stone all jutting out of the ground. I really have never seen anything like it. Yan Xiang told me that I could take an hour-long train ride back to the forest if I wanted to, but that it would cost me around 200 yuan to get in as a foreigner. 200 yuan is around $25 which doesn't sound like *too* much, but when your meals cost around 80 cents, it's pretty excessive.

So a quick 25 hours later we pulled into Kunming station and I hopped into a cab to meet Lexi. She gave me the directions to get out at a certain hotel and walk left past the enormous lobster. She wasn't kidding. A seafood restaurant on the corner has a ~20 ft lobster on the wall of the place and it's pretty awesome. Kunming was colder than GZ but it was a welcome change. Everyone on the train warned me that it was going to oh so cold but I just chuckled and told them I could handle it. If I can survive the last two winters in Boston, I think I'lll be just fine.

I dropped my stuff off in Lexi's apartment and without even changing we headed right out to grab a snack and go to capoeira class. For those unfamiliar with it, capoeira is a Brazilian martial art / dance form that involves really cool music and flowing movement. After spending far too much time this past spring researching Brazilian-American immigration (and thus capoeira), I was excited to participate for the first time. My years of Tae Kwon Do training were definitely an asset as I began to fumble my way around doing the "genga."

I don't know if it was the altitude (Kunming is right around 2200m above sea level) or just the fact that I had never done these exercises before, but I was getting winded! Considering that I play a sport virtually every night of the week, I assumed I would be just fine doing one class. Nope. Capoeira also uses muscles that I didn't know existed so that was an interesting experience. Upon completing (read: surviving) the class, I chuckled to myself at the irony of having to go all the way to China to practice a Brazilian sport that I researched back in Boston. What a world...