Meditations

So I woke up on Day 3,
after having a very uncomfortable night-time bathroom experience
featuring a Chinese squatter toilet (read: hole in the ground) and a receipt I happened to have in my wallet...

So I was thinking bout "missing home."
While I'm here in Xi'an,
I periodically get a pang where I miss my nice home in Shanghai,
where I know where everything is and where to get good food and where I know some people.

But then while I'm in Shanghai,
periodically wonder what it would be like to be home at NYU,
with all my buds and Bobst and Washington Square and the whole deal.

But while I'm there I periodically want to go home,
and sleep in my own bed, see my family, and eat home food.
Except if I spend too much time there, I start to lose my mind.

So, These places are real,
but I also see them almost entirely through the lens of my memory,
as if these places are in my head.

Then which is "home"? Are any of them? Is my sense of comfort and at-ease just so completely fractured that no matter which one I'm at I'll always need something from another place? I always have to keep moving as I get my fill of one place and need what another can offer?

Or maybe the only home is when I'm on the road, with my backpack and my own mind for company?

Xi'anananananananananananan

So Day 2, and the rest of day one.

I been taking lots of pictures and those are the coolest part of all this,
BUT
writing is fun too.

The fact that everyone here is an only child is really fucking weird. Think about it, no teammates,
its the two on one parent-defined reality for your entire life. Scary.

ANYWAYS
So I was right, I did here hebrew, and after I visited another tyourist trap I introdiced myself to the group of Israelis and boom: family. So I hung out with this group of Israelis last night,. smoked, it was all good fun. Then thismorning we all toured this hot springs place together, after which I went to Terra Cotta army. Which was pretty crazy. I smoked beforehand but lost my bud there, so now I'm on empty...alcohol only. Pictures pictures....

So then I took a train home.
At the last minute last night a room opened up at the hostel and I found somewhere to stay, so Im all settled.

Yesterday I met this Architecture student cause he was sitting next to me at a restaurant, and tonight I met him and a few of his friends at a bar near his school and he told em all about Xi'an and the life Chinese. Awesome Awesome.

Then I came back to the hostel and got more drunk. Ive been doing lots of thinking about all this too, but I get to write about that later.

Its kinda weird how much Shanghai feels like home these days...

Adventure Time

So! I Arrive in Xian!
Alone.
The train was three tiered. like, a wall, six beds hanging, three on each side of the wall, a little space, and then another wall... and when I say tiers its cause the beds looked like bookshelves....maybe 4 feet wide. Of course, there was beer and ramen being offered constantly for purchase, and I felt right at home.

I had to stop reading my book at 1030pm when every
(I mean EVERY) light in the train turned off for bedtime.
No, I did not have a personal switch. I saw an on off slide on the side of the light itself,
but it was the on/off for the light-cover, which fell on me after trying it.
So then I lay awake in bed for two hours alternately sweating under my sheets or freezing directly under an air duct.
Then I was woken up by EVERY old chinese person on the train talking at the top of their voices. at all of a quarter to 5.
Then I got off the train and life was okay again.

There was also a sad little smoking room in Shanghai railroad Station...
just wanted to remember it....

SOOOOOOO
I got lost in Xi'an,
got ripped off by a muslim noodle guy,
Peed in a bathroom which was four holes in teh ground separated by dividers but not doors,
and were all covered when I got there by four chinese men squatting.
It. Was. Crazy.

ANYWAY snap to present
Im in a hostel
in teh heart of Xi'an,
and I just heard hebrew. SO MUCH hebrew.
Wherever I go, Israelis beat me there.
CURSES!!!

so then I went to an internet cafe
and got fried on their backporch while watching an old man bath a dog
while a rooster crowed every few minutes.
CRAZY.Nesss.

and then I went to this crazy garden with stone tablets. Pictures wil have to wait till I can get an SD card reader.

Oh yeah,
and the hostels full so I still have no place to stay, but Im banking on this party I was invited to to find a host.

WE SHALL SEE!!

Travel Blog Spring Break: GO!

SO!
Sorry it sbeen too long since I put a real post up.
Ive been doodling and dreaming and stuff,
and thatll all go up soon enough

BUT! It is spring Break, and I'm going on a trip to Xi'an.
My friends all grouped up to lame places spring break,
or I have no friends,
but either way, I'm off to see Xi'an.
I don't know where I'm staying and I don't have a plan of what to do and I dont know anybody there except a dude I met on CouchSurfing. ADVENTURE!

Where is Xi'an? Shanghai is on the southeast coast of China,
and Xi'an is a bit north and about a third of the country west.
Xi means west in Chinese.
Its a 20 hour train ride, and I get a bed and EVRYTHING! very cool!

Anyway, so since this is gonna be a huge adventure Im gonna be blogging about it every day
(or as often as I have internet access)
Should be tres cool!!!

LIVE BLOG! YAY!
New Post tomorrow?
~Eric

Is anybody watching?!

Is anybody watching whats going on out there?

All the protestors
all the human rights activists
who were opposed to the anti-Hamas Israel operation Cast Lead.
What have they to say now?

Hamas is now holding all of Gaza hostage.
All of it.

Israel has agreed to open all its blockades.
release 392 LIVE HAMAS TERRORISTS
some with Israeli civilian blood on their hands,
in exchange for ONE live soldier.

thats it,
then end of the Blockade, Gaza has an economy again
the humanitarian crisis is over,
your people can eat.

Just let this one guy go.

But they say: We can hold him another year, and see what you'll offer us then
Meanwhile, they gain face in the Arab world,
for getting the Israelis to offer so much on a deal.
And they keep their wildcard.

I mean JEEZ...
Israel has already released so many terrorists its crazy.
Its actually insane.
The world is insane.

Its like walking past a wild dog,
and it just barks at you.
You dont know why,
you dont know this dog,
but it wants to kill you!
It just wont stop barking at you!
And Everyone around you is just like,
let it off its leash, if you let it off its leash it wont actuallly bite you
even though it sure looks like it will...
And then you say sure, I guess we could try it
and let'em off the leash...
and they try to kill you.

And you fight'em off,
put the leash back on,
and wonder jesus that was stupid,
why did I think this time would be different?

More pics - treasure

Hey dudes,
there were some crazy museums in the Forbidden City
with all sorts of really awesome treasure.
Here the pictures are:

This is a solid gold sphere with pearls to map all the stars and constellations in the night sky.
It's the only still-existing gold celestial sphere in the world.

A beautiful scene carved out of a single block of very rare blue jade.

From 1720, a Jade figure of an Arhat, whatever that is.

This is a video of some of the Commie guards walking around the forbidden city. There were a bunch of them all over the place. Note the last dude in line holding bananas.

Since the weather was nice we went for a 1am stroll near Tiananmen square, where we saw two green uniformed guards doing straight line back and forth patrol. We were just walking by (nervously) when he stopped and asked us what we were doing. We told him we were just walking (unaware if we were breaking any laws.)

We sat down at a nearby lampost and then he came over and asked us again what we're doing, so we said Just sitting the weather is nice. I asked him if he always works so late at night, and how longs he's been in the guard corps. He responded with surprising friendliness, and a 15 minute discussion later he had insisted on giving me his email address and he'd given me a Chinese name:

李芫龙

So now I'm chinese.

Delicious Red Beijing Duck

BEIJING -- Capital of the People's Republic of China
北京

So yesterday I got back from a trip to Beijing.

We landed and headed to the Great Wall,
the Kotel haMizrahi, as it were.

We went to a less touristy part.
It was long. And had lots of stairs and was very old.

You could imagine lots of horses in the valley below coming to attack you
and pushing down the ladders
while Huns were trying to climb them and invade your country and rape your wife.
I have to describe historic events to myself from a personal view
to convince myself they actually happened.

We partied that night at HouHai, a local bar district,
which was actually a neon loop around a man-made lake
There were live "bands" in every bar (= shitty guitar players and chinese singers karaoke-ing US music)
It kinda hurt my soul a bit.

Much cooler than HouHai was the Forbidden City,
with all those really typical looking China buildings.
I'm pretty sure I recognized one of the huge opening areas from Mulan.
The place was huge, miles in every direction with extremely large buldings
over perfectly flat paved squares.
The place was built in the 1400s,
and was inhabited by an emperor and his concubines advisers and servants up until
1911. Pictures tell the story best.

There were like 5 squares of this size one after the other in a straight line. The central axis of the city is directly lined up with North-South, entrance at the south, you move North and North until you get to the emperor's personal home and garden at the top.

Metal, Jade, and Gold versions of these were all over the place.
This one was about 15-20 feet tall, 10 feet wide, and 1000 ft Bad-Ass.

Thats a young couple taking their wedding photos.

There was also plenty of Communism around,
which was pretty cool as well. Tianmendfc Square (with the tanks and the...you know. ) was big and...uh square.
We wanted to go check out the Mao Zedong Mausoleum, where he lies in state (and formaldehyde), but there was a meeting of important party officials and we weren't allowed in.
They were having a meeting around his body to discuss future Party decisions,
as if he was watching them...crazy.

Statue outside of Mao's resting place. Everyone in the statue is a worker.

That portrait is at least four times as tall as you are.

GO PROLETARIAT!

I also had Peking Duck,
in Peking.
Which was pretty damn tasty.

Those are the highlights, but there is definitely more, and I will be posting again in the next few days with pictures of some of the CRAZY treasure they had in the Forbidden City, the story of how I made friends with a Communist guard (and how he gave me my Chinese name), and a picture of the crazy toilets they use here. TUNE IN NEXT TIME!!!

Chopsticks

I eat with nothing but chopsticks every day.
I just went to a western restaurant and it felt more natural
to turn the for and knife upside down and use them like chopsticks...

Brain Log

Ive decided I think its silly to record only whats actually happening while I'm here in China.
And not what I'm thinking.

Ive been doing lots of ruminating,
since Ive got lots of time to do it,
and I have been having crazy dreams,
which Ive been recording in random notepad files scattered around My Desktop...on my laptop...

So I'm in China and I spent some personal time with a pretty 26 yr old
chinese lady recently, and I'd like to share.

The fact that everyone in this country is an only child really messes with them.
I mean, only children are different, having siblings affects how you develop.
Most of them are doted on as the pride and joy of their parents' lives...
parents just born in the wrong country and generation,
when that was the legally enforced method of
population control. Kinda crazy.

They also tend to be very immature. the on I spoke to as her own job
but lives with her parents. And can't imagine moving out till she's married.
Only child, like everyone else...

Here are some pictures of stuff.

Self-Portrait from the Tallest Building in the World
But you can't tell cause shanghai has bad smog.

This is a tofu dish that's really popular here...
its really squishy and soft tofu, almost like a jelly

My bike is too far from my computer for me to take a picture...
soooooooon.....

Also,
Your body is the oldest thing around you most of the time...
Those first tree-dwelling hunter-gathering Homo sapiens
was, for 99.9% of his DNA, exactly like you.

The only big difference between you and him
are the tools man has built for himself and
the ideas he's invented...

Just one big big tower of a thousand generations of ideas on ideas on ideas on ideas....

THANKS FOR READIN!
And thanks for the comments! please leave more!