Challenge 1: ACCOMPLISHED!

Posted by Albert on July 31, 2010 under Challenges | 8 Comments to Read

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Challenge 1: Seek out a fortune teller to predict your future.

In the end we found three fortune tellers, the third of whom, Teacher Li (introduced to us by Dr. Yang), we couldn’t afford to consult about our futures (fees started at 500 yuan). But he still graciously agreed to answer a few questions about his profession through which we gained a vastly expanded view of the world of fortune tellers. It turns out he’s a nationally syndicated columnist and author on the subjects of fortune telling, Yìjīng, and other aspects of Chinese culture.

The other two fortune tellers (one outside a Buddhist temple, the other inside a Daoist temple), who did actually tell our fortunes, were consulted separately and disagreed on almost everything including:

• where our trip will take us
• what we’ll do
• who we’ll meet
• Albert’s future extra-marital affairs
• Adrian’s impending bad luck due to his birth day

They were both, however, eerily in agreement that:

• we will accomplish exactly 9 of our 15 challenges
• we will certianly find a girl taller than Albert (narrowed down to a girl in her late 20s by the second fortune teller)
• we will absolutely, definitely not encounter any snakes on our entire trip

In other news today:

• we found a shop selling dried snakes (for medicinal purposes?)
• we browsed the “Grand Bazaar“
• we noticed that the clock at a mosque was two hours behind the official “Beijing” time (more on this later)
• Albert tried to learn some of the Arabic-based Uighur (pronounced “WEE-gurr”) language
• Adrian finally found a camel

Videos

Arrived

Posted by Albert on July 29, 2010 under On The Road | 10 Comments to Read

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The first surprise of the trip happened yesterday before we even got out of Guangzhou. Our boarding cards mysteriously directed us to business class for the 5 hour flight. We’re still not sure what happened (we didn’t want to ask any questions!) but it was fun to look down on the economy class for the first time in our lives.

Urumqi is different from any other city we’ve visited in China. A lot of people here look Eastern European and radio music has traces of Russian and Arabic influence. Road signs are in Chinese characters and Arabic script.

After checking in to a very nice hostel, we went to a little coffee shop where a boy named June who worked there spontaneously and unexpectedly wrote us a poem then read it to us over the shop’s loudspeakers. The text of his poem appears (as he wrote it) below the video.

We also met a very kind woman named Dr. Yang and her son at a little noodle shop. She told us her incredible tales of her long history of consulting fortune tellers and she thinks she may be able to help us find one today. We’re well on our way toward accomplishing:

Challenge 1: Find a fortune teller and get your fortune told.

Poem by June (许晓龙) in Cite Coffee, Urumqi

Time goes by, the good friend ship has gone,
The sky is blue.
There are many happiness in Cite Coffee,
This is my sweet valentine,
Say that you love me, don’t go away,
When you feeling empty you should drink…latte coffee.
It’s like dancing or a beautiful girl,
A summer’s day we are meeting here is very difficult,
So love is thanks giving.

Business Cards and Last Minute Preparations

Posted by Albert on July 25, 2010 under Planning | 6 Comments to Read

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We’re leaving soon and for the first time in our lives Adrian and I have business cards. Here’s the front:

Here’s the hanzi, pinyin, and English translation:

《A計畫》- traditional characters, therefore more “artistic” and “cool”

A jì huà

Plan A

俩老外中国行

Liǎ lǎowài Zhōngguó xíng

Two foreigners China trip

一本介绍中国文化，生活，风俗的书

yì běn jièshào Zhōngguó wénhuà, shēnghuó, fēngsú

A book introducing Chinese culture, life, and customs

The back has our Chinese names which are:

• 安冬 Ān Dōng = Adrian [literally "peaceful winter" - Don't laugh, I had to have a Chinese name and somehow I ended up with this!]
• 奥博特 Ào Bótè = Albert [no real meaning, just sounds as close as I can get to my English name]

We’ve still got some packing to do, but we’ve each got new compasses and an English map (as pictured on the front page). What else could we need…?

The next time you’ll hear from us, we’ll be in Xinjiang province. It’s right up in China’s remote north west and borders 9 different countries including Afghanistan, Mongolia, Pakistan and Russia. We’re expecting it to be quite different from where we are now and hopefully not quite as hot! We’ll let you know soon.