Adventures in China : Beauty

The drive was beautiful!

As were the skies and the real clouds.

Every time I think that China can't get any more beautiful, I am proven wrong. This past weekend, The Three Amigos or “The Party People” as we named ourselves due to the fact that we explore China as much as we can (doesn’t make much sense I know), set out to Jiuzhaigou – a Tibetan and Qing autonomous region in the very northwest of Sichuan Province. Texie, Joel, and I set out at a lovely 6:45AM once again to go to the bus station to begin our journey. We have a tendency to get up really early on our trips for some reason. We have discovered that we wander in the dark more than we ever have before. Our bus left at 7:30 and we began the 8-10 hour bus ride. The bus ride sounded a bit daunting due to the fact that it was around 9 hours on a bus… close to the same amount I would sit on a plane to fly home. The first hour and a half I slept because I was absolutely exhausted. When I woke up we were in the middle of the beautiful mountains. The route the bus followed was in a small valley between mountains and followed a river the entire 9 hours. As we drover further and further we saw a variety of different mountains. The scenery changed from very green mountains, to plain desert looking ones as if we were in Nevada, then colorful trees started appearing on the mountains, and eventually they began to get very green once again. The river turned from an ugly brown color to a beautiful sea foam green color. Along the way there were lots of Tibetan style houses and women dressed in traditional Tibetan clothing, a few city walls and cities taking advantage of the popular route to Jiuzhaigou by creating tourist attractions, once functioning bridges that had collapsed due to landslides or earthquakes, and various animals such as yaks and horses. We even began to see clear bright blue skies and real puffy white clouds – both of which are very rare to see in Chengdu, especially real clouds.


Prayer Flags are used by the Tibetan people.

The bus was full of people of all ages. In front of us was a couple consisting of a middle aged Western man and a small woman of Asian descent of some sort – they made for an interesting couple let me tell ya. There were three or so young men who were members of the Chinese military, one of whom was sitting next to me on the bus along with many older couples. Another guy sitting in our row was an older man who yawned louder than anyone I have ever heard and every time he yawned Texie and I couldn’t help but to laugh. The bus driver drove our bus like a sports car rather than a bus which made for an interesting bus ride. I already knew the driving here was crazy, but it was revealed even more on this drive. There are double lines and dashed lines meaning you can or cannot pass but these were not followed at all. Our bus driver, as well as many other drivers, passed cars or other buses on blind corners and hills, with many close calls occurring along the way. How does this work? Well, in order to let others know you’re passing on a corner you simply honk your horn several times so that others coming from the other way know you are in their lane. I have no idea how it works so effectively, but it does surprisingly. We almost got into so many accidents, but managed to avoid all of them and saw no others both driving there or back home. The crazy driving and uncomfortable seats made it a bit difficult to sleep, unless you fall asleep on the strangers shoulder next to you like I accidentally did, for a considerable amount of time might I add which I was told after we already got off the bus. Yes, Joel has proof that I fell asleep on the military guy next to me for a while and I apparently woke up and fell right back asleep afterwards. Luckily I didn’t find out until after we had gotten off the bus, but I was still embarrassed and never had a chance to apologize to the poor guy.

So since it was approximately a 9 hour bus ride you may be wondering about food and bathrooms. This bus was not like our fancy charter buses that we have in the states, instead it as a slightly sketchy bus that could have fallen apart or tipped over on a tight corner at any moment. In order to make up for that, we stopped about every 2 hours or so to use the bathroom and grab a snack. At one point we stopped for about 45 minutes for a lunch break at a gross and highly overpriced restaurant. The bathrooms were an interesting obstacle we faced. At each place we stopped they charged 1¥, about 16¢ or so. You have to bring your own toilet paper with you, which people typically carry in small tissue packages everywhere in China. The bathrooms were a bit rough and lacked in privacy. None of the “stalls” had doors, the toilet was a trench or hole in the ground, and the stalls were typically just small dividers that came about up to my hip between each “toilet”. At one point me and another woman were the only two in the bathroom and happened to stand up at the same time. When we did as we both are buttoning up our pants, she looked over, smiled, and said hello, something that is very uncommon and extremely awkward in the states, but apparently in China is very common.

We finally arrived in the small town of Jiuzhaigou around 4:30, after a 9 hour bus ride, and managed to successfully buy our tickets for the bus ride home on Sunday. We then had to find our hostel which proved to be a challenge. We didn’t have the name or the address in Chinese or Tibetan and many of the taxi drivers and people in the town didn’t speak Mandarin and if they did it was a very different dialect so they didn’t understand our Chinese for the most part. We finally got a taxi driver to take us to our hostel and made it there after he had to call our hostel several times to get the address. The hostel was a Tibetan decorated hostel with no heat, very thin walls, and was not very well known. IT was cute but extremely cold. Since we are in the mountains, it was even colder than it was back in Chengdu. The government doesn’t believe that the south gets cold enough to need heaters installed, which clearly they haven’t been to the south in the winter. Since we were still in what is considered southern China, it was absolutely freezing even though we were about 7,000 feet in elevation. Luckily our beds had heated pads, like we had up on the monastery at Emei Mountain, which kept us pretty warm while we slept. We also had a water boiler that we constantly boiled water on in order to provide a little bit of heat in the room and would hold glasses filled with hot water in order to keep our hands warm. We met a young American couple who met as foreign teachers in China and got married who gave us some advice on food and navigating the park on Saturday. We managed to find some decently cheap food after searching through several restaurants that were down the hill from our hostel. We then came back, played cards, laid in our beds and studied, and passed out nice and early because there was nothing else to do.

Fun facts about Jiuzhaigou:

Jiuzhaigou means "Valley of Nine Villages"
It's on the edge of the Tibetan Plateau
Composed of 3 valleys making up the Y shape
It is on the highest tableland in the world between the Sichuan Basin and the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau

SOOOOO many people!

Saturday morning we rolled out of bed around 9AM and caught a taxi to the entrance to the park. As students we got half off of our tickets which was awesome but we also had to buy bus tickets in order to use the bus inside the park which cost a total of about $31.50 for the two of those which by Chinese standards is really expensive but by American standards is pretty cheap when considered going into a large national park and entertainment facility. We had to buy warm hats because we underestimated how cold it was while we were there. We then accidentally got on the wrong bus that took us halfway to the tourist center which is the center of the park, which turned out okay. The park is beautiful with really high towering mountains, lots of vegetation, and beautiful lakes and waterfalls almost everywhere. Our first stop was a beautiful waterfall, one of the 4 main waterfalls in the park, and we were surrounded by people. It was so crowded and made the park a little less enjoyable at that point due to the fact that we were surrounded by so many people, getting pushed each way, that we couldn’t even see or take the time to look at the waterfall and scenery. We then walked for a decent distance along the roadway to the main tourist center, getting strange looks from bus drivers and other tourists along the way. It was refreshing to have fresh air, lots of vegetation, fresh and clean water, as well as just to walk for a while in nature. We passed several lakes and smaller waterfalls along the way. The tourist center was bustling with small shops and restaurants with people shopping, bargaining, taking breaks, and eating. We took a quick lunch break then continued on our way in order to see everything we possibly could since we only had one day.

The park is shaped like a Y with tourist center being at the cross. So after lunch we took the bus up the left side of the Y to the very tip to see the Multi-Color Lake. We gained about 1500 feet in elevation so when we got to the top it was even colder! The sun was bright and shining and there were almost no clouds in the sky which made for a beautiful view. Then we walked down to the Multi-Color Lake, a beautiful turquoise crystal clear lake. I have no idea how the water is so clear or what makes the lake so blue, but it was one of the most beautiful colors I have ever seen. The sun shone perfectly on the lake creating scenery like no other. Though many of the red leaves had fallen off the trees a few weeks before we had gotten there, there were still a few trees with all their leaves, creating a picturesque scene like none one would see in the US. We then took the bus back down and made our way up to the right fork of the Y, the more popular side. We began at Arrowhead Lake; a lake filled with brush and looks more like the countryside. Then we went to Panda Lake which is aptly named to due to the dark patches in the lake that have a “panda fur look”, the young bamboo that surrounds the lake, and the fact that it is rumored that many giant pandas in the area drink from this lake. There was then another two waterfalls as we walked through the boardwalk that weaves through the park. After a large amount of stairs we made it to the lookout along the roadside that looks out over one of the most beautiful lakes in the world. It is said to be in the top 10 of the most beautiful lakes in the world and is named Peacock Lake or Five Flower Lake and it lived up to its name, it was absolutely beautiful! We made our way down to one of the largest waterfalls in China and the famous waterfall at Jiuzhaigou, Pearl Falls. It is named Pearl Falls because they though the small beads of water that bounce on the way down the falls look like pearls. It was huge!!!!! It was also very beautiful and not very crowded lucky for us. Our final stop was Mirror Lake. When we went to the pathway that went along the lake it was blocked off saying that there was a repair in process. But since China doesn’t really have any rules the three of us made the executive decision to go under the rope and walk along the roadway anyways. Just like we had thought, there were no repairs in progress and we think it was just to make sure everyone gets out of the park before it gets dark. Mirror Lake acts as a mirror, reflecting the mountains around it. Unfortunately it was too windy while we were there so we didn’t witness the beauty of the mirror but the scenery was still beautiful.

The Falls

We left the park in the evening and went to the rows and rows of taxis to find one to take us back to our hotel, but we were rejected by at least 10 taxi drivers telling us that they didn’t know where our hostel was so they wouldn’t drive us. We finally found one to take us back, but it was a slightly frustrating and kind of a funny process trying to find one. We had the same evening as the night before – going to the restaurant, playing cards, and studying and all had an early night since we were exhausted from walking around all day.

The next morning our bus left at 7AM so when we left our hostel it was SOOOOOO cold. However it was a very clear morning and we were able to see hundreds of stars, even more than you can see in Seattle and it was amazing. We hadn’t seen stars in a while due to all the smog so it was a nice little treat to see so many stars. To our dismay, taxi drivers weren’t running when we left the hostel so we had to walk for a ways before we finally found one. The first two hours of our bus ride we were all frozen solid. It was so cold outside there was ice on the ground and the three of us were shivering for a few hours until we finally started to thaw out. Our driver on the way home was a little bit saner for the first half. But for the second half of the trip our drivers switched and our driver was once again crazy. We even picked up hitchhikers along the way and would drop them off along our route, something that is considered really dangerous back in the states at least in my opinion, but apparently it’s fairly common here. Luckily I didn’t fall asleep on a strangers shoulder, but I did have another awkward bathroom experience. Apparently it is 100% socially acceptable here in China to open the door while you are squatting to have conversations with people that are passing you in the bathroom and ask for toilet paper. As I was walking through the bathroom, a woman opened her stall door and started talking to me and asked for paper, all while she was peeing. It was a slightly awkward experience on my end, but I guess there’s no shame and no privacy here in China.

The trip overall was a successful and we were glad we did it. Traveling and adventuring China is so much fun! We enjoy navigating and the adventure aspect, seeing as much as the country as we can. This upcoming weekend we are going to adventure Chengdu and visit popular sights that we haven’t seen yet. Today we bought plane tickets for Shanghai for next weekend. Originally we were going to train it, though the train is 1/3 of the price of flying, it’s 32 hours on a train versus three or so on an airplane, so all of us except for one guy chose the airplane option. It’s our last big trip before we head home. I only have 26 days or so left until I head home. The last weekend will be spent studying for finals, then we have finals, and next thing I know it’s time to go home.

Last night I had my first job in China teaching English. I had interviewed with this place before but it went terribly and I basically wanted to cry, but then Monday the woman texted me asking if I can work and help out for the next few weeks. I went into it blindly and will be teaching two days a week for a total of 3 hours each week for the next few weeks until I go back home which will be interesting. She gave me no preparation for teaching, no curriculum, and just told me to show up. It actually went well though! I have two classes each with three 3-4 year olds. They were absolutely adorable! The only catch is I get paid the week I leave to go back to the states but that's okay. It's pretty good pay as well for not having a teaching degree. The scooter ride there was an adventure due to it being decently heavy traffic and then coming home, the scooter almost died coming home. I barely got it home safe, I was honestly a bit worried that it wouldn't make it and I was going to have to walk it home.

Well happy election day! We are watching, well attempting to watch on our extremely slow internet. It's weird being in another country for the election.

Multi-Color Lake


Each flag has a prayer written on it and when it blows in the wind the people believe that they are in a sense praying and their prayers are being taken to the Gods.	.