Yekaterinburg: Surprisingly Pleasant City, Though it Could Just Be the Hotelby Randi / July 7, 2017
June 29 – July 2
Dear little baby laptop diary,
I titled this post after one of the most random Broadway plays I’ve ever seen, “Three Days of Rain”, with Julia Roberts making her lackluster debut, Paul Rudd just being our universal boyfriend, and a not-very-famous Bradley Cooper, whom I knew from Alias and was super excited about. Who knew that in a few short years he would be the biggest star of the bunch! Anyway, it was a kind of boring show, and that’s all I remember, which is a shame because I am currently on a train with two days and two nights left to go, and I would like to be thinking about a play instead. How is it going so far, you ask? Let’s just say if I didn’t want to talk so much about Broadway whenever I had the chance, this post would have simply been called Three Days of Pain.
Dear little baby laptop diary,
I titled this post after one of the most random Broadway plays I’ve ever seen, “Three Days of Rain”, with Julia Roberts making her lackluster debut, Paul Rudd just being our universal boyfriend, and a not-very-famous Bradley Cooper, whom I knew from Alias and was super excited about. Who knew that in a few short years he would be the biggest star of the bunch! Anyway, it was a kind of boring show, and that’s all I remember, which is a shame because I am currently on a train with two days and two nights left to go, and I would like to be thinking about a play instead. How is it going so far, you ask? Let’s just say if I didn’t want to talk so much about Broadway whenever I had the chance, this post would have simply been called Three Days of Pain.
After our 24 hour stay in Yekaterinburg – our lovely, fancy-hotel-staying-to-reward-ourselves-after-the-24-hour-train-and-to-treat-ourselves-before-the-3-day-train stay- we boarded The Train. This would be our longest train journey yet, longer than the baby-sized sleepers we’d done so far, longer than when we took Amtrak from Chicago to San Francisco and thought we were so brave. I want to slap old me across the face. Amtrak was luxury. We had a tinier cabin but it was just the two of us, and man alive if I ever slam Amtrak bathrooms again, remind me of where we are now. I would kill for an Amtrak bathroom on this train. We boarded 10pm Thursday, as I write it is 2pm Friday, and we get off this Snowpiercer on SUNDAY at noon. SUNDAY. From boarding THURSDAY! Guysss I don’t know if I’m going to make it. Well if anyone is actually reading this it means I made it, because there’s no wifi so I have to post this after we disembark on that magical day (and actually, after I post all the other posts that come chronologically before this because that’s how I want to do it), BUT STILL, who knows how changed I will be. Who knows if I will still have the same likes, the same dreams and passions, the same hair or if I tore it all out in a ravenous fit of cabin fever unchecked by all the Ativan Caki gave me (thank you Caki)? Will I even be human? Are we human or are we dancers? It’s already starting, see.
Oh dear sweet little baby 8 pound 6 ounce newborn infant laptop, don’t even know a word yet…
We boarded last night and found an empty cabin, which was nice so we could put all our stuff away without bothering people already there (this train started all the way back in Moscow). A very clean surprisingly non-smelly older gentleman (our first non-smelly gentleman in the whole country!) joined us, and he was fine. It was a lucky roommate to have! He was a history professor who was very nice and we chatted for like a minute before we all went to sleep. Perfect! Unfortunately, it was short-lived. The train made approximately 25 stops during the night, during which I started thinking about how excited my brother is for the new “Murder on the Orient Express” movie (me too what a cast hooray for Baby Leslie Odom (I decided to call everyone who is a ‘Jr.’ just ‘Baby’ instead, shout out to Baby Robert Downey)) but then of course I started THINKING about Murder on the Orient Express and how I’m as close right now to that situation as I’ll ever be and these strangers are always in our cabins and everyone smells bad and has knives because we all came prepared with days of food and the appropriate cutlery and I was like don’t let anyone stab anyone tonight Dame Judy! So then I couldn’t sleep for a while. I finally started to maybe get closer to sleep, despite the rocking motion of this train being worse than the downtown trains of the NYC subway the ones you cannot possibly try to surf hands-free during else you’ll fly into the opposite end of the carriage, and much worse than the tube with all its own dragon noises and bumping and creaking and omg. But then, at 4am, our friendly cabinmate got off at his stop. Lucky guy was only on a train for 6 hours! That’s nothing! Then, unfortunately, it started. The kind of cabinmates I had feared started coming in our room. Our first new cabinmate was a smelly Russian man about our age who immediately took his shirt off and let the smell fester even more. I was on a bottom bunk, Husband was on the top, and Shirtless Youth was on the other top. Then a few hours later after another frighteningly jerky stop, our next cabinmate arrived. He is maybe in his 40s, maybe 50, and he is a giant flesh person. He is just a giant sack of human. This is a tiny f-ing cabin and either his endless flesh or his even worse stench is EVERYWHERE. We can’t put our legs down to sit on my bunk because his are there. We can’t breathe without breathing in his b.o. He is scratching right now while humming. He scratches his uncovered skin (he’s wearing shorts and like a belly shirt) and flicks whatever comes up all while humming, Guys. I’m trying to be strong and brave and grateful. I am grateful that he doesn’t smell like smoke. That’s literally all I got.
I thought the unwritten but definite rule of these cabins was that whoever is on the top gets to sit on the bottom bunk on their side during the day and use the little table for their meals. Each side keeps to themselves. I begrudgingly learned this on our first long train when Husband and I both had bottoms so the woman on top of mine sat on my bed a lot. I learned, great, that’s how it’s done, she can’t prepare her food and eat up top. OK, I got it, sorry I gave you a bad look. But this morning, after I exercised outside our door in the hallway (there’s a bar running down the hallway of our cabin, it’s tight but it’s enough space to do barre exercises like I’m a GODDAMN BALLERINA and lots and lots of squat variations and calf raises. No one was up when I was out there so I also got out my resistance bands and worked my back so darn happy about that I think I’d go insane if I was cooped up here and couldn’t at least try to work a muscle), I came back to sit on my bed and read and Shirtless Youth was sitting on my pillow by the table making his breakfast. Like. NO. You get the bottom bunk and table part from the guy BELOW YOU. That’s the rule!! Omg! I guess he literally couldn’t because the Giant Flesh Ball Man was oozing out everywhere you turned and they couldn’t both sit on that bunk, but still, that’s not my problem man! I waited outside and did more calf raises and then when he got up I claimed my spot back and haven’t left since. Except to pee in the literal pits of despair. These toilets are so grimy and sludgy and I’m spending so much time in there because I pee a lot and Husband and I brought 15 liters of water on this trip with us and I have to drink it even though I fear it’s not enough for three days. That’s for two people! (We each carried a 5L jug and had three 1.5L bottles between us and I also had about 1/2 liter left in another bottle. Hey I guess that is 16L maybe we will make it.)
OH MY GOD Giant Flesh Ball just went to the bathroom and came back shirtless and is now putting deodorant on while sitting next to me I am going to vomit. OH my god Shirtless Youth is also still shirtless and just got down from his top bunk by jumping onto my bed with his smelly feet right on my sheets, right next to my physical body. He was just ‘cleaning’ his grundle with his towel I cannot believe this. GFB Man is still humming and now is drumming his fingers in rhythm the whole time on the table omg I am going to LOSE MY MIND.
Oh wait. Oh my god they both seem to be getting dressed! And not in their smelly sleep clothes, in real clothes with buttons and things! Ahh praise Jesus are they disembarking? Did we reach their stop? Or did we reach my melting point? We don’t stop for like 30 minutes I cannot wait to see how this goes! I’m so nervous and excited and scared that I’m getting my hopes up! Are they going?? Will our new neighbors be even worse? Even smellier? Even more in my personal space? Why do men think they have the right to my personal space? I guess we will see what happens in 30 minutes when we stop at some combination of letters I already forgot. I have to go pee before they lock the bathrooms at the stop (they get locked at every stop because, well, because everything ‘flushes’ onto the track, so at least it’s a civilized reason). We will see what happens.
Oh my god she already locked the bathroom! We don’t arrive at the stop for another 30 minutes this is INHUMAN. GFB Man is brushing his crumbs from his side of the table towards me and the computer. That’s just swell of you. He’s still humming. Shirtless Maybe-Not-So-Young Man is now shirtless again, despite having dressed himself five minutes ago, so I have less hope of his departure now. He’s also sitting on his top bunk with his feet hanging off pretty much in my face (it’s tiny room) and they smell so bad my eyes are tearing. I’m also equally frightened that if they do get off, our newbies will be even worse. What if THEY reek of smoke? Ughhh that would be worse. And we have TWO FULL DAYS LEFT. Two more sleepless nights. Two more days of having to time my bathroom breaks between frequent stops. Two more days of constant Purell because there’s no soap in the bathrooms. Two more days of using precious bottled water to brush my teeth and wash my face because the train water would give me cholera. Two more days without contacts because no way I’m touching my eyes. Actually that last one is good, my eyes need a break from contacts.
While I wait on my ability to pee and breathe from the smelly guys maybe leaving and cry from possibly worse new cabinmates, I will tell of all the food we had to buy and bring onboard for 3 days. No meals are included in our ticket and the dining car is very expensive, but also I think they have zero options for me anyway. Husband will check it out later or tomorrow I’m sure (we can’t both leave, someone has to guard our stuff). So in Yekaterinburg, we found a few giant supermarkets that were very expensive (they had no cheap supermarket, so weird! No little bodegas like have been all over the rest of Russia either). We found lots of good treats and bought a lot, but considering it’s three days worth of food for two people it’s probably just right. We bought jars of white beans in tomato sauce with some veg in there, which I’m sooo pumped about. Like mamma ‘taliano looking stuff, I hope. We also found vegetarian grape leaves in a can, another tomato sauced bean thing in a can, and lots of bread. And we brought that fantastic Russian staple, instant kasha! Sooo good. I used to think kasha was just a part of that disgusting Main Line Jewish dish of kash’ n’ bowties but aside from that it’s actually really good. And good for you! Along with cucumbers, tomatoes, and pickles (probably not the best idea because they smell, but if people don’t care how their bodies smell why should I care how my food smells), and more apples and orange, we are set. Plus we found a lot of chocolate in Yekaterinburg so happy dance. And cookies! Every city we’ve been in so far, I’ve scoured ingredient labels and found one package of accidentally vegan cookies. Never the same one, so we’re on our third try. The chocolate chip ones in St. Pete’s were still the best, but the cinnamon ones in Moscow were very yummy too. I will report back on these weird blueberry puffballs I found! I hope that when we eat all this stuff I don’t have a Meg Ryan in “French Kiss” train moment (LACTOSE INTOLERAAAAANCE who knows it? best movie ever I pretend Kevin Kline won his Tony a few weeks ago as a belated gift for “French Kiss”).
quick cooking kasha! |
this chocolate bar is ALL OVER the country !! accidentally vegan wooohooo |
these amazing Trader Joe’s finds are gonna get me through! Brought two bags! |
found these amazing dehydrated veggie crackers at Veggie Bro in Vladimir (go back and read about it if you missed it last week!) |
There are good things. I got to have an instant Quaker oatmeal packet for breakfast today, which is (I’m sorry) one of my favorite foods and one of the easiest things to make because of the samovar in our carriage (every carriage has a samovar of endless (god I hope!) hot water, so anything instant is good). We also use the boiled water to clean our dishes and stuff. I read “Between the World in Me” already, which was wonderful, “The Days of Abandonment”, which I actively despised (sorry Kip), and David Sedaris’s new diary-entry book, which is better in short bursts than all at once. I also reread dear sweet Nora’s “I Feel Bad About My Neck” because it’s the best. I have a lot of podcasts on my phone, and I could listen to at least half of one Gilmore Guys (or five regular length podcasts) before my battery dies. Also, there are really nice Dutch women with two little kids down the car who we are talking to a bit. They smell fine. It’s a treat.
Well, back to reality. The two smelly guys did indeed get off. But we immediately got two new Russian men who…I’m not yet sure, but I think they might be worse. They’re meaner, that’s for sure. When they came by, I said hello (in Russian) and smiled and they didn’t even blink or glance at me just threw their stuff on their bunks and went back out. WTF. A few minutes later, Husband did the same thing when they returned and again, no eye contact, no utterance of any kind in our direction. Stupid Russian jerks! Fine don’t talk to us, that’s good for me. But they smell a little smoky, which better not get worse. I’m promising myself two things: If they ‘magically’ get smokier (meaning they’ve smoked on the train, which is not allowed), I am going to say something (I am able to say ‘you smoked? where? not allowed!”); and if they sit on my bed at any point I am putting my foot down and getting super scary and yelling “NYET! that is your side, and this is our side.” I think I know how I say that. They know each other so that makes it easier. I hope it doesn’t come to my having to yell in very poor Russian at men I have to sleep next to for at least one night. Their phone noises are on, too, which is a big no-no, and just as the icing on the cake, their phone noises are incredibly loud bits of very bad songs.
Dear little baby laptop, lying there in your ghost manger, just watching your Baby Einstein developmental videos, learning about shapes and colors…
Guys! The men all left super quickly and we had the cabin to ourselves for dinnertime on the second night! Then an army man joined us and was so well behaved and organized (and made his bed immaculately in 8 seconds flat, we were very embarrassed about how ours looked after that). He smells fine! The Dutch family down the hall has become our friends, and they are vegetarian so we are going to all meet in Mongolia (where we all end up for Naadam) at Loving Hut! And there’s a Danish girl (not to be confused with The Danish Girl) about our age who is now also our friend and we will probably see in Mongolia! Things are looking up in Duloc! Oh man it all really depends on your cabinmates, I guess. Well but the constant bathroom locking is terrible, especially for me, so that is really rough. But with decent, nonsmelly roommates this whole train thing might actually be…fun? Okay obviously I need a nap since I’m clearly losing it.
Related Posts
Singapore Some Sugar on Me because I LOVE IT HERE
Recently* we took a gigantic trip to Australia, which is hella far away, and we faced the exciting decision of where to plan the layover between all the super long flights. To help with the expected debilitating jet-lag that comes with flying around the world all the way to the far end, we planned to spend a few days in our layover destination, so we wanted somewhere new and exciting (sorry Qatar) and somewhere we could easily enjoy with only 2-3 days without wanting to bag Aussieland and stay there forever (sorry Bangkok (we wuv u)). Out of all the options, Singapore easily won. All the interesting history, all the super rich people, all that amazing food, all that CLEANLINESS? Easiest decision ever! We were ready to be:
Singapore is a unique lil babe, known for its strict rules, diverse population, and incredible food. It can seem a little daunting if you only know it for headlines like “CHILD EXECUTED FOR SPITTING”, but as a tourist, it seems pretty nice. Yes the government needs to CHILL on a lot of things, and it’s not exactly a prime example of democracy, but that’s an issue for a different conversation (also I wanna go back so shhh). Its populace is a mix of mainly Chinese, Malay, and Indians, plus expats and workers from all over the world, making it culturally and gastronomically fascinating. Because of this diverse population, there are four official languages: Malaysian, Mandarin Chinese (which I took an intro class in last week and the Chinese professor said I had a knack for it and thought maybe I studied it before which readers and I surely find HILARIOUS considering my history with trying to speak in China), Tamil, and English.
Obviously we are happy for that last one given our mmm not so successful history with the Chinese yazik, but it’s the result of colonialism. Singapore was founded in 1819 as a British trading post by Sir Stamford Raffles. Then this poor lil bab was treated like a ping pong ball once the British East India Company collapsed: it was ceded to the British Raj (the British rule in India) and then occupied by Japan and then became part of Malaysia and then said peace to Malaysia and only became sovereign in 1965! I bet you have jeans you haven’t washed for longer than Singapore has been independent and that’s gross. Despite its age, Singapore has become a global economic leader (and a tax haven), as well as a leader in education, technology, innovation, safety, lack of gum, and throwing lavish parties for super rich people and hiring synchronized swimming teams to perform in rooftop pools even though literally no one is watching.
But first, let’s get there. To get over as much of the jet-lag as we could before continuing onto Oz (does anyone actually call it that, is this okay), we planned a solid three days in Singapore, which is both the country name and the city name, it’s a lil baby city-state, like rull small but it makes up for its size in per capita wealth (gross) and amazing food (amazing). Our flights from London took us through Dubai, which has the WORST airport for a fast transfer because you cannot find water or regular snacks, like sure there are luxury cars and jewelry for sale but what normal traveler actually needs that when you are going from one long flight to another in less than an hour? More like Du BYE BOY. Also, I find it super hilarious that the flight to Dubai is about 7 hours and then the flight to Singapore is another 7 hours! Shit’s far!
At first, I thought the coolest thing about this itinerary was that we’d have to fly Emirates, which I’d never flown but always wanted to because Bryan Safi always raved about how fancy it was on the “Throwing Shade” podcast and I guess because of JAniston’s commercials for them (though they always made me a little mad, like why is she doing airplane commercials (and ads for Aveeno and water?) after making a million $ per episode?? did she blow all her dough on pilates (it IS expensive but dayum Jen)). Suffice it to say, nothing has ever been as disappointing as Emirates was. Okay maybe not nothing but everything about it was a letdown except the bathrooms, which were normal. The service (atrosh), the comfort, the everything, all totally meh or worse. Yes we were in the economy trough and I am sure the first class extravagance is what makes it famous, but for regular people, Emirates is some overblown b.s.
When we finally got to Singapore, the smallest, coolest dot at the tip of Malaysia, the airport was so adorable it almost cured all my travel woes. Like most of Singapore, the airport was decked out for the Chinese New Year – and it was going to be the Year of the Dog. Can you imagine how happy I was after so much plane time to see these giant babies upon landing?
Because we are Serious Travelers, we took the time in our exhausted stupor to figure out the metro system to get into the city. It was frustrating – we had to go up and down many flights of stairs to get to the right ticket booth (it was early, things were closed) and then back up and down to go to the platform, but we did it. It was fine. People were looking at us, but we’re used to that. It was about a 15 minute walk from the metro station to our hotel, and once we came up from underground in the city we were greeted with some real heat. Coming from London in winter, the Singapore heat was perfection (almost making up for the inability to bring into the country what Chandler and I also consider perfection: gum (though of course I snuck a few pieces into my toiletries because I like to live dangerously) (but truth is officials don’t care as long as it’s a small amount for personal use)). We stayed at the Park Regis Hotel because it was nice, had a pool, and we could pay entirely with otherwise-worthless-for-Londoners Avios points. Unfortunately, we arrived at 9am and the room wasn’t ready until 3pm (!!), but we had access to the pool and the pool showers (and the wifi while we planned our day). Not a bad deal. It was a small pool, and it was so early that it was kind of chilly and windy by the water (and in the shade), but still, I can’t really complain about outdoor swimming in February (although yes I did just try to).
Once we were ready, we had a lot to see. As I said, we had just about three days to see Singapore, and for the cursory overview we were doing, it was the perfect amount of time. It’s a great place for a short trip as well as for multiple visits; I for one cannot wait to go back – but that’s mostly for the food, which will be a separate post (there’s a whole lot to cover).
A great introduction to Singapore is to do the river walk (the river is called the Singapore River, which is easy I guess but boring), winding through the various quays and into the well-known sights of Marina Bay. We began our meandering tour at Clarke Quay, which was close to our hotel and, more importantly, full of great food. It’s always nice to walk along the water and gaze upon the fancy hotels (so many), the grand museums (which, strangely, never came up in any of the Singapore recommendations we researched, leading us to uncharacteristically just skip museums), and the perfect blue skies.
The River Walk will bring you to Raffles Place, which good old Stammy Rafs established in the 1820s as the main mercantile district, called Commercial Square originally but renamed for Stams in 1858. Raffles Place became a popular shopping district as well as a commercial and financial center for the region. For at least a century, this was also where migrants established themselves. Many South Indian traders and bankers set up shop in this area. It was also home to Singapore’s only underground mosque, established in the 1950s so the many Muslims working in the area could pray, and now still underground in the basement of the UOB Plaza.
You’d think Raffles Place would be near the Raffles Hotel, or at least I thought that, but the famous hotel is north of the river in not the most convenient location. We visited the famous Raffles Hotel because that’s where you are supposed to get the Singapore Sling, the gin-based drink that the Raffles Hotel bartender invented there in 1915. It’s just the thing to do, to get one from where it was first made. Hilariously, it’s said that the bartender, Ngiam Tong Boon, created the drink so that all the fancy ladies could drink alcohol in public, so I guess it was like the early cosmo? appletini? only far garls! Unfortunately, we were greeted with this:
Raffles Hotel was closed! And FYI, it is still undergoing this extensive refurbishment and is not due to open until August! The original Long Bar was closed, with only a gift shop open where you could buy a book about the hotel and a kit for making your own? I mean not that I actually wanted the Sling anyway but it was a downer for the husbo to not get to do the done thing. Fie, Raffles.
Oh well, back to the water, which I will always prefer over alcohol. The river walk takes you past the iconic (their word but true) Fullerton Hotel (which seems like it should be extraordinarily expensive considering the location and the name recognish but I just checked and it’s like a decidedly decent value for how nice it is given the average hotel price in Singapore?? next time babies), which once upon a time was the General Post Office Building (noice) and was built literally just for centennial celebrations? (extra noice), and past all the banks’ skyscrapers and down into what you’ve been waiting to see – the Marina Bay, home of, well all the famous things but especially that iconic (my/everyone’s word) triumvirate of Singapore’s skyline, the Marina Bay Sands.
Oh let’s zoom out a little and let y’all see what it really looks like.
So many people! It’s just like China (but so much cleaner!). Even though this is a hotel (and a casino now), the Marina Bay Sands to me really is the quintessential image for Singapore. I mean that’s where Race Across the World had its big finish; you can’t argue with that! And you definitely can’t argue with the greatest movie ever made, Crazy Rich Asians, which also features the MBS prominently and has the aforementioned RIDONK synchronized swimming performance on that incredible/terrifying roof. SO FUN.
While I think of this as the unofficial symbol of Singapore (I mean given the financial sitch there it kind of makes sense that the symbol would be a super fance hotel), the official symbol – I’m sorry, ‘mascot’ – of Singapore is even better. It’s a MERLION. Perched right on the east side of the bay at the Downtown Core bit of the city, the merlion statue is a mythical creature (duh) with the head of a lion and the body of a fish. It’s used to represent Singapore and Singaporeans in tourism, branding, sporting events, everything. And it’s awesome, because hello, the national thang is a merlion? Only Scotland and its unicorn tops that!
Of course, continuing the trend that the Raffles Hotel started, the Merlion was UNDER CONSTRUCTION during our visit. This is like how people coming this year to London feel when they see Big Ben all covered up, except 1000x worse because Big Ben is just a dumb clock and this is a MERLION.
The city set up a smaller copy nearby so that tourists could still get their picture with the merlion, but it’s small and fake so it’s nice but also kind of a kick in the pants.
So, disappointing, but it’s hard to stay mad when you’re in this fabo city. I mean, look at how great the sign behind Faker Merlion is:
I also really enjoyed this sign on Cavenagh Bridge, even though I don’t really enjoy the feeling that a ‘u’ is missing from that name:
Behind the Marina Bay Sands is one of my favorite things about Singapore, the Gardens by the Bay. I love an immaculate man-made super weird yet pretty garden-park, what can I say. The GbtB is 101 hectares of land right smack in the middle of the city, with beautiful flower gardens and interesting conservatories. Kind of like a Kew Gardens if the creators of it had their Pimms before instead of after. It’s free to walk through a lot of it, and costs $28 (Singapore dollars) to go into the conservatories, like the Flower Dome and the Cloud Forest.
I love it!
Another day, we went into the Little India neighborhood, called Tekka in the Singapore Indian community. Contrasted with our experience of the downtown areas, the Indian neighborhood felt much more like a real city with real people living there, and not just working/visiting. Under the original Raffles plan for Singapore, ethnic Indians had to live in the Chulia Kampong region because Brits loved them some ethnic segregation/racism/being shit. That area became too crowded, and many Indians brought the overflow to what’s now this vibrant area. It may have developed around a former settlement for Indian convicts, but now it’s home to all kinds of people and businesses, as well as places of worship for several different religions.
It was hard to take pictures amid all the traffic but it was a really nice area to see. You don’t want to just stay in the shiny downtown.
When in Singapore, you’ll inevitably spend a lot of time in Chinatown, a hub of activity at all times but even moreso during Chinese New Year! We were fortunate to be there at this time of year (and it was the Year of the Cute Wittle Doggo Such a Good Boy) and Chinatown was CELEBRATING! It was so fun to see all the excitement and the random dance parties and all the decoration.
Chinatown is home to the Sri Mariamman Temple, the oldest Hindu temple in Singapore. Early in Singapore’s history, the temple gave refuge to Indian immigrants, and the temple had the only priests with the authority to perform Hindu marriages. If you won’t be in town for Chinese New Year, try to come in the fall, when the temple holds its super famous fire-walking ceremonies, where devotees walk on hot coals as a test of their devotion/skin burning point.
I didn’t get a great picture of the temple because of ALL OF THE PEOPLE but you can sort of make out how crazy cool the decor is, with the facade pretty much covered in statues and figures of gods and stuff.
Running through the heart of Chinatown is Smith Street, which we learned a forking harrowing lesson about thanks to some helpful/horrifying street signs. I love street signs giving information but dayum. So Smith Street, at the turn of the 20th century, was lined with brothels, like lots of them. The number of male immigrants far exceeded the number of female so brothels did a booming trade, but the prostitutes were subjected to a horrible life (#legalize) with no legal recourse when clients would almost certainly beat them, stiff them, and/or murder them. This unassuming street sign told us how men would usually just murder the women (prostitute and/or brothel owner) instead of paying. Since this was a living hell, many prostitutes killed themselves by jumping off buildings or overdosing on opium. COOL FACTS GUYS. now we all know.
Alright to cleanse the palate from that I’m going to share one food-ish picture, of my favorite thing, to remind us all that Singapore is full of wonderful things, not least of which is bubble tea!
Some of you know how I feel about bubble tea, and Singapore did not let me down. It was, rightly so, everywhere.
Funnily enough, even though we really enjoyed Singapore, the most memorable experience was waking up super early one morning to go to an Australian bar to watch the Super Bowl. I know, you’re like…wat? But the Philadelphia Eagles were playing (hence the * in the opening sentence when I said ‘recently’ but hey time is relative life moves at you fast &c) and that’s MY JAWN, B! This was the first time I watched the entire thing all the way through, and it was well rewarded with the Eagles winning! We made lots of friends that morning, with the bar entirely filled with American expats and tourists, just a hilarious experience.
It was pretty special to share such a random experience in SINGAPORE with a bunch of people from Pennsylvania (and a bunch of New Englanders too who got shown what’s what). I don’t really care about football and the NFL is MONSTERS but I’m still allowed to celebrate Philly mmker? Here’s a picture of my dog celebrating the Eagles’ win AND the Year of the Dog so you can’t complain.
We really enjoyed Singapore, even though we didn’t live it up like the craziest and richest of Asians but more like the normallest of travelers. There’s so much great stuff left to talk about next time – the food.
Hangzhou, China: Two Totally Different Towns in One
Hangzhou is an interesting mashup of a place. From the research we did, it seems like a small village on a big lake, with a neverending forest section that we’d be staying in, surrounded by hills and such lush trees, a calm respite from standard hectic China. But, like…Hangzhou has 9 million residents. I had never heard of it before planning this trip, and it was flipping TWO Philadelphias. And bigger than New York and London! Damn there are so many Chinese people! So even this like ‘small village’ that I hadn’t even heard of before this trip is a gigantic freaking city! Luckily, we were indeed staying in the west side of West Lake, the part that is all forests and much less people. And it’s beautiful. We went into the crazy busy downtown, but West Lake is the real draw of a visit here.
At first I was disappointed because our hotel, Best Wishes Inn, our supposed fancy lakeside getaway, was not very nice. And it wasn’t by the lake, which if you go, you should try to be right by. It was in the correct section of town, but in a little street with dirty shops and restaurants, not set back or remote from this sort of thing at all. And the lake was kind of far from us. But mostly I’m mad because they gave us the crappiest room they had – in the attic, so the roof slanted so short that we hit our heads a lot. The bed was just a mattress on the floor, and the sink was next to the bed. The bathroom was tiny – the shower head over the toilet situation – and there was no room for our luggage except right in the center/only pathway. Suffice it to say they way overcharged us. I tried to say well that’s just how accommodations are here, but then I saw every other room during our 3 nights while they were being cleaned, and they were all spacious and lovely and had actual beds, not just mattresses on the floor. What gives?! Apparently sometimes hotels will give you shitty rooms if they see you used a third party, but like, Booking.com? Really? It’s hard to believe. I can’t help thinking it was just because we were Westerners? Regardless of the reason my blood pressure is rising just thinking about it. But like, again, NO one there spoke English so how could I complain or even just ask wtf was going on? It was hard enough asking for more toilet paper through google translate.
Fortunately, that was the only letdown for me, because I quite enjoyed Hangzhou itself. It was cool (not temperature, it’s f-ing boiling and buggy) to stroll through the foresty parts to find the Buddhist temples (and, of course, their requisite vegetarian buffets), to hike to West Lake and then around the perimeter, and to explore downtown – while the latter is not strictly necessary (just like any big Chinese city), you will probably want to go there for a meal or two and – do I even need to say it anymore? – for bubble tea.
We arrived kind of exhausted after we had seen Nanxun that morning, so we rested and watched really weird Chinese teenage vampire soap opera TV. Wow. Then we made our way to the nearest HappyCow listing, the Qing Xin Vegetarian buffet at a near-ish temple complex, about 30 minutes walk away through the forest. It’s getting dark earlier now – no more northern Russia endless sunshine! – so that was a little rough at times with the streets not lit well, but we found the complex it was in – it had a KFC, a Pizza Hut, and two Starbucks! And lots of Chinese restaurants, of course. We queued up the name of the vegetarian buffet in Chinese and showed it to a lady in a convenience store, who helpfully showed us a staircase in the middle of the shopping center and pointed up. Thanks lady! We bought our drinks and stuff from her whenever we were nearby as thanks.
Unfortunately Qing Xin seemed to be closing down! It was only 6:30pm or so! Darn. A nice lady who worked there tried to communicate that it was shutting soon, but that I could take food from the 8 or so trays that still had some food in them. So, okay! I was hungry and we wouldn’t find anything else probably for an hour so I’ll eat the remnants of the monks’ dinner happily! The few dishes had enough to make a pretty decent plate of food, so it was fine. I scrounged up enough vegetables and tofu to be balanced, and then took a lot of this amazing thick noodle dish that I’m obsessed with now. It was sad to see rows and rows and rows of the food display empty, but we were coming back the next day to see the actual temples nearby, so we planned on coming back right when it opened for lunch! Yay! I finished my portion and went to find the nice lady to pay, and she motioned that I didn’t have to pay because I just took the scraps and it wasn’t the full thing. Sooo nice! I was like really? What country is this? Love her.
This is what the outside of the restaurant looks like…with or without the hilarious stretching child
We totally went back for lunch the next day, and it was PACKED. One of the volunteers spoke a little English and was eager to talk to me – he said they have exactly 100 dishes! That’s a lot of stuff for me to try! I ate a lot, and it was all so good! I loved this place. They were so nice too. I went and found the nice lady this time and she was like ahhh! So happy that we returned! So, the buffet cost 26 yuan, for all you can eat delicious food with the nicest staff. That is like…$4, max. Love it. I would eat there every day if I lived there. Which I don’t want to do, I’m just saying.
sooo packed at lunch!
so many rows of food!
the inside of the complex the restaurant is in (also where you buy tickets for the Longyin Temple and grounds
Because it was so busy, everyone shares tables so all the seats are occupied. We were sitting with a mother and her young son, and the son was studying English so he was talking to us a little. So, this was the first English speaker we’d encountered in DAYS! So exciting! What great things would he say to us that we’d be so happy to understand? First, he told me his mother was upset because I was using chopsticks wrong. I hold them too low, apparently. But that gives me more control! Leave me alone! But that wasn’t enough. The kicker was later when he just looked up at me and asked, “How do you eat so much?” JFC, kid.
After our great meal, we bought tickets for the temple grounds so we could see Lingyin Temple, the most famous one, and all the other temples on the grounds. Neither the book nor the ticket lady for the temple grounds told us this, but you need SEPARATE tickets for Lingyin Temple. See I DO give helpful tips YOU’RE WELCOME. Anyway, they aren’t that expensive and it’s worth it to see all of this because there aren’t that many sights in Hangzhou besides exploring the natural beauty. And by visiting these temples, you are seeing some serious natural beauty simultaneously!
It was so beautiful. And here, in the temples, we saw our first non-Chinese tourists in days. There’s like a weird nod of recognition that everyone gives each other, I don’t know if they’re even aware they’re doing it. Very tribal and strange.
So Lingyin is Hangzhou’s most famous Buddhist temple, which I guess is why it’s the only one on the grounds with a separate entry ticket. It was built in 326 but what’s there now is not the original – it was destroyed and rebuilt 16 times! There’s lots of grand Buddha et al. statues, including a grand one that’s 20 meters high and built from camphor wood. Lingyin is a pretty pleasant temple and even has a vegetarian noodle restaurant onsite.
The only very upsetting thing about the temples was that one of the important rooms in Lingyin, full of various Buddha statues, was shaped like a swastika. I think it’s the backwards Chinese buddhism kind, so, the ‘good kind’, but it’s never not offputting to see one. To be in one and stuck like a maze till the end was weird. It was very strange walking around and being like dude what IS this building’s shape we are going like in L’s?? and then going…ohhhhhh I know what this is. So weird. There are swastikas all over the trashcans and signs and stuff too (and we saw some in Beijing temples). Do not like.
Other than that, it was a nice visit. It requires several hours to see even part of what’s out here. I think I enjoyed the Yongfu temple up at the top of the grounds the most, which has a short climb to a viewing platform of the lake. We were excited for that, but the lake was still far away so it’s like a baby view.
babiest lake view!
The walk around this temple was gorgeous though, and honestly if you are pressed for time I think I would choose this visit over Lingyin. But it’s cool to see as much of this area as you can, if you have time.
My favorite thing in Hangzhou though was probably walking to and around West Lake. It’s really beautiful. And yes it’s super crowded with Chinese tourists who don’t know how to walk in public, but it’s worth it.
The first time we saw the lake, we were en route downtown and chanced upon this photoshoot!
For our full day of West Lake sightseeing, we walked from our hotel through about an hour and a half of unoccupied forest, with really nothing along the way but nature and old bridges and things. It was such a nice surprise to find such empty bits!
As we got closer to the busier parts of the lake (like where resorts are), things started to pick up in terms of people and shops and sights.
I had to pee really badly at one point and we saw a sign pointing into a resort or something, so we wandered through the resort grounds, which were so lovely, and found it. But then we noticed that if we kept going farther inward, away from the street we were walking on, we would reach a really busy shopping center area right on the part of the lake we wanted, where all the boats are! So thank goodness I had to pee because we found the spot we wanted!
And thank goodness also because this shopping center was amaaazing. If you follow me on instagram (which you should, links at the top of the page), you saw the incredible mango drink I had here. I saw people getting these gigantic towers of smoothie with dry ice pouring out of it! It was so fun! I got one of course after watching them make one and confirming it was just mango blended with ice in the smoothie part. Then the dry ice container was fitted in, and then a cup of mango shaved ice was put on top, all topped with chunks of fresh mango. It was SO GOOD and so fun!
I should have taken video, I know now! Just imagine dry ice shooting out every which way like a fog machine!
But that wasn’t even my favorite find of this center, because next door was a little shop selling a Chinese sort of pirozhok, the Russian stuffed bread rolls. I confirmed with the few important words I learned which were vegetarian, and got a cabbage filled one. I really should have gotten 100 of them and somehow froze them and shipped them to London for studying, or just eaten 100 immediately, because they were one of the best things ever. I was obsessed. They were just perfect. Dammit I want one now. I have to learn how to make pirozhki when home. I will blog about it if I do.
We kept walking through the beautiful waterfront for awhile until we reached the causeway that would let us cross part of the lake. It was so fun!
I really enjoyed this walk and this whole part of Hangzhou and West Lake. So beautiful and tranquil despite all the people.
Another super tall lotus pond, like in Nanxun! Tall as me !
What’s not tranquil is Hangzhou town. It’s not bad, it’s just not worth it. It’s another big super crowded and busy city where motorbikes will drive right at you even if they have a red light and there are thousands of abandoned rideshare bicycles blocking the sidewalks and there are too many cars and people and it’s hot and smelly so like, what’s the point when you can stay by the lake?
Oh right, bubble tea. I was on a mission. Such a mission, that I ended up having 3 teas in one evening! The first one was a let down because the fruit teas often don’t come with bubbles and they didn’t understand my request for them. UGHHH. It was a tea stand that wasn’t a recognizable chain – always stick with the ones with a little table on the menu with bubble options you can point to!
The second was decent, but it wasn’t a Gong Cha or Coco (the famous chains) but a 1Tea, which I really like now, but I didn’t know then (my first from them) that when you say zero sugar to them (who am I kidding – I mean when you point to the zero sugar option on the menu), it actually IS zero sugar (at the others, it’s still sweet!). And I got a lemon tea drink, so it was suuuper sour and hard to enjoy the bubbles.
But then we found a third! And it was a Gong Cha! It was too sweet of course and I was suuuper sick from having so much tea in such a short period but I couldn’t turn it down!
what my other fave restaurant in Hangzhou looks like
The food in Hangzhou aside from my favorite aforementioned buffet was good, as it is in all the cities in China! Flipping Chinese food is amazeballs and so vegan-friendly. I especially liked a place called Super Vegan, for obvious reasons! It was very nice inside, the common type of vegetarian restaurant here where I feel underdressed – the opposite of so many vegan places in the west that are so casual and hippie like. I am so impressed with the array of vegan restaurants in China’s big cities. At Super Vegan (which, by the way, just says Vegan on the awning, not super), I had to try several dishes that I found recommended in the HappyCow reviews, like this plate of sweet and sour spare ribs. So far in China, every time I get spare ribs it’s small pieces like this, not like how they do it in the USA. Might be just the vegan versions, but might be for real too.
These were freaking fantastic! In fact, all the food at Super Vegan was, and I wish I could eat here again. The texture was perfect, reminiscent enough of meat’s pull-apartness and chewiness without being disgustingly close or too hard or soft. I usually don’t like sweet and sour stuff but this could change my stance on the whole issue.
I also got a big ass plate of broccoli with some mushrooms in vegetarian oyster sauce, mostly because I need a big plate of greens as often as possible, but also because veggie oyster sauce! So fun! It was great, as most broccoli is. Then I got the Taiwan-style sauteed rice noodles, with veggie meat, cabbage, carrot, and mushrooms. It didn’t have as much of the non-noodle parts as the menu picture suggested, but still, really good!
Almost embarrassed to share the next picture, but come on, you know me – if there’s one on the menu when I’m traveling, I’m GONNA get it:
SORRY NOT SORRY.
It had avocado and quinoa in it! Super Vegaaaaannnnn!
Lastly, we got the most inventive, delicious, and all around amazing dish on the menu. Okay that’s a bold statement because as always in Chinese vegetarian restaurants the menu was 1000 pages long, and we got five things only, but this was off the charts. It was just called Golden Suncake, and the ingredients on the menu said “green bean, pumpkin, and soy protein”. I had no idea what we’d get, despite the picture, which was very vague and sort of dumpling looking. What came out, was a vegan replica of a fried egg, with a mashed pumpkin center. Not just any fried egg. The most delicious one ever. It was PERFECTION. Eggy and the perfect texture but without being too weirdly gross eggy, and with that pumpkin yolk part? Ridiculously good. Also TELL ME how this is made of green beans?!
We enjoyed the food so much that we got an order of the tea tree mushrooms, “Yu mountain style”, to go. They were fried strips of mushrooms that looked in the picture like French fries, and, even better, looked in real life and tasted like fried clam strips! Amazing! Oh man, if you are ever in Hangzhou, go to Super Vegan, get all the food, get more to go, tell them I said hi, just kidding, Marky, pick up your phone.
We enjoyed our time in Hangzhou! We were there for a while, but we didn’t do as much as we’ve been doing in other cities. It was nice to not rush around, to get to relax and go do things when we wanted and not when we must in order to fit them into a tight schedule. We have plenty of that coming, but it was important to realize that more easygoing stretches are okay, and necessary. And look how beautiful it was – outside the city. Haha I just realized I didn’t even take pictures of downtown! Eh you can imagine it – traffic, more traffic, lots of people. Stick to West Lake! It’s really as beautiful as they say.
