(Please back date to 1/29/13)
Today was a bit of a lounge day. In fact I was able to connect my VPN for a total of three hours before it quit on me this morning but the good news was that I was able to post my old blog entries from the last week or so (barring tonight’s). I was hoping for access all day because I have some messages to respond to and even more importantly, my Chengdu film is finished and I want to post it to Vimeo - the audience awaits after all! I suspect Beijing will be my first opportunity to get everything connected to the world.
Apart from my frantic VPN extravaganza this morning (sorry, let me explain VPN really quickly. VPN is basically my way for cheating the system that is the communist death grip the Chinese government has on free internet use in the mainland. Normally, China restricts the use of such websites as Facebook, Google’s Blogger (this blog), Youtube, Vimeo, etc. This is annoying for expats living in China who sort of rely on these sites to stay connected to friends and family at home. Well, VPN is basically an anonymous network (or not anonymous if done through a company or school) of servers around the world that you can link into in order to bypass Chinese servers that have firewall blockers on certain sites. VPN costs a marginal fee. It’s worth it. Please revert to the beginning of this paragraph...) I decided to walk around the town and do such functional chores as finding the train station, buying tickets for tomorrow to Jiayuguan, buying things for the train ride, stuff like that. It was relaxing. And to be honest a good way to see the town.
So, nothing exciting today. But I did just get back from a fun dinner experience. I and Alenka, my Czech friend and Dunhuang travel buddy from the hostel, went to get some dinner but it was pretty late. There is an outdoor market nearby that is active during the day. They have stalls and tables where people sell meat, fish, nuts, berries, spices, naan, all kinds of good things and there is an alleyway off the market that is crammed with specialty shops. Apparently, each of these shops (actually, they’re restaurants with one or two tables each), specializes in one type of dish. Maybe soup, maybe noodles, maybe rice, roast meat, whatever. Well, it was late and all the stalls and tables had already packed up and most of the shops were closed except a few. We walked past one and this middle aged woman with a thick Chinese accent pops out behind the heavy curtain of a door and says, “Lai! Nimen chile ma? (来！你们吃了吗?) Come, come, come! You eating?” We hesitantly approached and looked at the menu posted outside the door (all in Chinese characters so we recognized some things, but not all of it). Some things looked good. Mostly, everything was various types of fried noodles. The woman, smiling, said, “Ni chi shenme, ah? (你吃什么，啊?) So, what are you eating? Eh?” She was a plump woman and was waving a wooden ladle - I’m not sure why she had a ladle, she wasn’t the cook. Alenka asked her what her specialty dish was, what was good there (she also studies Chinese). She replied, “Mian! Mian haochi. (面! 面好吃.) Noodles! The noodles are good.” We laughed. There was a list of at least 20 things on her menu. I pointed to something. How is this one? “Nage meiyoule. Mian haochi. (那个没有了。面好吃.) No, we don’t have that. The noodles are good.” Oh, ok. Well, how about this one? Is this good? “Hahaha, (she chuckled in a plump, endearing way) Nage ye meiyou. You mian! Tese shi mian! Ni chi mian. Lai, lai, lai...(那个也没有了。有面！特色是面！你吃面！来，来，来...) No none of that either. We have noodles, our specialty is noodles, you are eating noodles, come, come, come...”
So we ate noodles. They were pretty good.
Tomorrow I’m on a five hour train ride to Jiayuguan. I’ll spend one night there and hop my overnight train to Lanzhou. I’ll leave you with part two of my best of series: best of Dunhuang. Enjoy!
Today was a bit of a lounge day. In fact I was able to connect my VPN for a total of three hours before it quit on me this morning but the good news was that I was able to post my old blog entries from the last week or so (barring tonight’s). I was hoping for access all day because I have some messages to respond to and even more importantly, my Chengdu film is finished and I want to post it to Vimeo - the audience awaits after all! I suspect Beijing will be my first opportunity to get everything connected to the world.
Apart from my frantic VPN extravaganza this morning (sorry, let me explain VPN really quickly. VPN is basically my way for cheating the system that is the communist death grip the Chinese government has on free internet use in the mainland. Normally, China restricts the use of such websites as Facebook, Google’s Blogger (this blog), Youtube, Vimeo, etc. This is annoying for expats living in China who sort of rely on these sites to stay connected to friends and family at home. Well, VPN is basically an anonymous network (or not anonymous if done through a company or school) of servers around the world that you can link into in order to bypass Chinese servers that have firewall blockers on certain sites. VPN costs a marginal fee. It’s worth it. Please revert to the beginning of this paragraph...) I decided to walk around the town and do such functional chores as finding the train station, buying tickets for tomorrow to Jiayuguan, buying things for the train ride, stuff like that. It was relaxing. And to be honest a good way to see the town.
So, nothing exciting today. But I did just get back from a fun dinner experience. I and Alenka, my Czech friend and Dunhuang travel buddy from the hostel, went to get some dinner but it was pretty late. There is an outdoor market nearby that is active during the day. They have stalls and tables where people sell meat, fish, nuts, berries, spices, naan, all kinds of good things and there is an alleyway off the market that is crammed with specialty shops. Apparently, each of these shops (actually, they’re restaurants with one or two tables each), specializes in one type of dish. Maybe soup, maybe noodles, maybe rice, roast meat, whatever. Well, it was late and all the stalls and tables had already packed up and most of the shops were closed except a few. We walked past one and this middle aged woman with a thick Chinese accent pops out behind the heavy curtain of a door and says, “Lai! Nimen chile ma? (来！你们吃了吗?) Come, come, come! You eating?” We hesitantly approached and looked at the menu posted outside the door (all in Chinese characters so we recognized some things, but not all of it). Some things looked good. Mostly, everything was various types of fried noodles. The woman, smiling, said, “Ni chi shenme, ah? (你吃什么，啊?) So, what are you eating? Eh?” She was a plump woman and was waving a wooden ladle - I’m not sure why she had a ladle, she wasn’t the cook. Alenka asked her what her specialty dish was, what was good there (she also studies Chinese). She replied, “Mian! Mian haochi. (面! 面好吃.) Noodles! The noodles are good.” We laughed. There was a list of at least 20 things on her menu. I pointed to something. How is this one? “Nage meiyoule. Mian haochi. (那个没有了。面好吃.) No, we don’t have that. The noodles are good.” Oh, ok. Well, how about this one? Is this good? “Hahaha, (she chuckled in a plump, endearing way) Nage ye meiyou. You mian! Tese shi mian! Ni chi mian. Lai, lai, lai...(那个也没有了。有面！特色是面！你吃面！来，来，来...) No none of that either. We have noodles, our specialty is noodles, you are eating noodles, come, come, come...”
So we ate noodles. They were pretty good.
Tomorrow I’m on a five hour train ride to Jiayuguan. I’ll spend one night there and hop my overnight train to Lanzhou. I’ll leave you with part two of my best of series: best of Dunhuang. Enjoy!
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| A blue sky above the grottoes |
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| A snow-swept landscape across from the grottoes |
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| Facade of the cliff that houses the Mogao caves |
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| The group I traveled with from the hostel |
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| My compatriots over a breakfast of steamed buns before our trip to the desert |
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| Alenka and Yuan in the sandbox |
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| We tried to get a group shot utilizing the photo delay function - I don't know how it turned out. |
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| Dusk over the dunes |
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| Our hiking path |
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| Sand dunes the size of mountains - our shadows for size comparison |
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| Camel caravan traversing the desert |
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