ChaoYang (1/4-1/7): Spring Festival in LiaoNing

So, for those of you who don't know, I've been travelling in the frigid north of China for the Chinese New Year.  Liaoning to be more specific.  ChaoYang to be exact.

Monday, January 4

First I flew from Shenzhen to Beijing.  That was Monday night...

I spent the evening at Shi Cha Hai, crashing in Wu Di's dorm room.  No other athletes were there so it was just the two of us.  After I arrived we met up with Zhou Bin, the multi-time World and Chinese National Taiji Champion from Fujian who was there to perform for the CCTV1 New Year's celebration on TV.  Wu Di was originally supposed to be a part of it too, but it ended up that he didn't go.  That was too bad, but it worked in my favor since that meant I could go to LIaoNing.

One bad thing happened.  I left my cell phone in the back of the cab!  I knew that the odds of getting it back were pretty much nill.  I had quickly resigned myself to never seeing the phone again.  Fortunately all the information is backed up on my computer.

We went to one of the few restaurants open near Shi Cha Hai that close to New Years and had some food.  Here are some photos.

Zhou Bin and Wu Di

Wu Di

After that it was back to the dorms.  It turned out that I had been volunteered to help the Beijing Team with a video editing project.  Coach Cui, former head coached turned team manager, had asked Wu Di to have me edit a quick 2 - 3 minute clip of the team with some pre-selected text to show some businessmen. 

I was having problems with the video files, and I didn't finish with it (and not a very good one, I might add) until around 7:30 a.m.

Tuesday - January 5

At 8:15 a.m. we were woken up by none other than Alfred Hsing, who had just arrived the night before from the U.S.  He surprised Wu Di and some of the other team folks with an unannounced visit.  He was only in town for a few days so it's too bad that Wu Di and I had to take off after a few hours.  We hung out with him for a bit, but pretty soon we had to grab a taxi and head to the bus station.

Alfred and Wu Di

On the way to the station I asked Wu Di to try calling my phone, just on the off chance that whomever found it had held on to it and figured out how to ignore the fact that it was on silent-vibrate.

Amazingly, someone answered. It was the cab driver from the night before.  He had actually come back to Shi Sha Hai and waited near the front gate for a while in case I came out looking for my phone.  Wu Di and I agreed ... he was undoubtedly the nicest, most honest cab driver in all of China.

We arranged to meet up with him over by the west 4th ring road.  I gave him some money to say thanks, which he tried to refuse but I forced on him.  Then it was back in the cab and off to the long distance bus terminal.  It was more like the long distance human trafficking terminal.  If you didn't understand Chinese and just walked in to the building two days before Chinese New Years you would think the end of the world had come.  It was very chaotic.

Luckily Wu Di was there to help me get situated.  We got ourselves on to the bus and were soon on our way, treking 6 hours up the highway to ChaoYang, a regional capital in LiaoNing Province.  This is it here:

It's not a large city by Chinese standards, but that basically means it only has 2 million people or so.  Wu Di makes his hometown sound poor and delapidated, but it's hardly the case.  I was expecting to sleep on dirt surrounded by clay walls and chickens.  It was more like sleeping at a 4 star hotel.

Wu Di sports the hat

Our Bus

Alive Not Toilet

Very true

His mom picked us up in their Volkswagen Jetta (called the "Bora" here) and we went to their home to drop off our things.  Then it was off to meet up with his coach, Zhang JiaoLian, and a wrestling coach, Zhou JiaoLian.  I had met the two of them 2 years ago in Beijing so it was nice to meet up again.  They looked pretty much the exact same. 

We ended up going to the "best restaurant in Chao Yang" for hot pot.  Two of Wu Di's old classmates showed up too.  One of them was a professional bodyguard.  He had the knife scars to prove it (either that or he's really bad at shaving his forearms).  Here are some photos:

Hot Pot

Coach Zhao and Coach Zhang

After that I was taken to go get my haircut (I was in serious need) and while I was doing that Wu Di took his mom home and picked up a friend of his.  Then we went to a sauna to wash up.  The shower in their bathroom was having some problems and couldn't be used until after Chinese New Years when a repair man could fix it.  So it was sauna showers for the two of us. 

Then it was back to Wu Di's where we all finally fell asleep.  It was a long day and after only getting 45 minutes of sleep the night before, I was very much ready for a night of sleep.

Wednesday - January 6

When we woke up around 11:30, Wu Di's mom had a breakfast of dumplings, Rabbit and Chicken waiting for us.  My first time eating Rabbit, that I could remember.  Not bad.  A little gamey.

Wu Di's Home

After breakfast Wu Di and I headed out to do some last-minute shopping.  Pretty much every store/business in the Eastern Hemisphere closed at 2:00 p.m. so we didn't have much time to waste.  Of course, that doesn't mean much when a certain someone's shopping mantra is "we'll just walk around and see what looks interesting". 

We were the last ones out of the store. 

We drove around Chao Yang a bit, checking out the bridge near the river, but Wu Di got a phone call that we had to get ready to go to Zhao Jiaolian's house for New Year's Dinner.

Icy River

Icy River

You can see China's first man-made UFO in the background

We went back to Wu Di's place, got changed up and then met up with Zhang Jiaolian and some other folks to make our way to Coach Zhao's ancestral home.  It reminded me of going to Wang Wei's home.  A very similar vibe.

Coach Zhao is an interesting guy.  A gangster turned shuai jiao (chinese wrestling) coach, he had become good friends with Wu Di's wushu coach.  Wu Di had all sorts of interesting stories from when he was growing up, but I won't spoil it for you.  If he feels like telling them, you can read them on his blog someday.

Coach Zhao was the 3rd of 5 boys and 1 sister.  His mother was there too, and the dinner was a big family affair.  Lots of carousing and merriment was had.  But I'll post up some photos instead of talking about it ...

They let me light the firecrackers!

Alive not Head

Around 7 p.m. it was time to leave.  We went back to Wu Di's home and dropped off his mom, while Wu Di and I went to a nice sauna for a wash and foot massage.  A few hours later we were back at home and eating handmade dumplings.  I managed to get two coins!  I was surprised since I had forgotten about the custom of putting money in the dumplings and didn't expect a hard piece of metal in my mouth.

Good fortune in 2008!

After that we watched the CCTV1 special on TV.  After midnight they had the wushu performance.  I managed to video a copy of it the next night with my digital camera.  Not the best quality, but you can get the idea ... I'll post up the video in Part 2, if I have time.

After that we all headed off to bed.

Thursday - January 7

I woke up around noon to find Wu Di's mom in the kitchen.  I watched her make food, which was very interesting.  It was like watching the "home cooking network".  Very educational.

We had breakfast and then I set up my computer to get some work done.  I spent most of the afternoon working while Wu Di's mom took a nap and Wu Di went out to hang out with some old classmate friends of his.

Around 5 or 6 p.m. his mom and I walked to the street to get picked up by the lot of them and, along with Coach Zhang, we went to a meat-stick grilling restaurant and partook of lots of grilled meats.

Some of the foods were new ones to me.  But I have a general policy of trying everything at least once.  I guess I can now mark off "head of chicken" and "head of rabbit" off my list of things to try.  And when I mean "head" .. I mean the WHOLE head.  It's a little weird to be pulling apart the face of a small animal ... but I will end my discussion there as it's probably going to gross some of you out.  Here are some photos from the meal though ...

Wu Di's old classmates

Bugs!

The after-math

Group Photo

The two women who raised Wu Di

After dinner we said goodbye and went back home via a nearby temple to pray for good luck and what not in the coming year.  Here are some photos:

Yes, I'm blonde now ...

When we got home, Wu Di and I had to make a quick run back to his old house to pick some stuff up (it was the house Shahaub had sayed in last year during New Years when he came to Chao Yang) but for the most part the evening was spent at home. 

Apparently they were impressed with my photography skills so Wu Di's mom asked me to do a photo shoot with her in various locations around the house.  To be honest, I'm not very good at portrait photography (or photography in general) but it was an interesting experience anyway.  I will post those up tomorrow.

And that brings us up to the present.  Tomorrow it's off to Wu Di's ancestral home to visit his grandparent's grave and the next day Zhang Jiaolian is going to take us to a village to see how the serfs live.  (j/k)

I'll try to update as I'm able, but it's hard to know when I'll have that much free time so keep your fingers crossed.