6-28

Back on the train again. Just about my favorite place in the world to be.

Last night we went out for dinner at this banquet/theatre place. The whole restaurant was terraced like bleachers so everyone got a good view of the stage. The food was particularly good, too -- the place must be expensive.

(I'm getting a bit tired of Chinese food, predictably. Same thing over and over again. Pork strips with green onions. Spare ribs and onions. Sprouts. Greens. Sometimes a fish. Weak melon soup. Watermelon for dessert. Done. We keep running into Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants over here. I'm just about ready for some KFC. I'm told those on the trips in previous years flip out when they finally get to HK and go on a Western Fast Food binge. God knows I could use a Johnny Rockets right about now.)

Midway through dinner they started the performing acts. First was a couple of Beijing Opera acts. I was worried when they had mentioned that we'd be seeing Beijing Opera that evening because I was expecting a full two hours of it. Clanging, clanging, whining, and some wushu for a couple hours didn't sound fun. But they just did little bits of it. Ten minute acts or so, and stuck just to the martial arts/gymnastic bits. Pretty impressive, but like a circus. They twirl them 8 ounce plastic kwandaos around very well. The costumes were most impressive, though -- colorful and intricate. One guy had these six-foot-long feather tendril things that ran back from his head like antennae that were pretty cool. (Much like Sasami-chan, come to think of it.) Where can I get some? Would love to wear them on the plane and piss off some guy five rows back from me.

Beijing Opera. The Guy With The Tendrils.

Afterwards were several singing acts, mostly in that chinese whining style, then a few of our students performed a much-abbreviated demo of 4 forms or so. I gather there was some TV show that wanted to film our visit, so they worked the quick demo in. I thought it went very well. Dave's mantis and chain whip forms were particularly good. The crowd seemed to enjoy them as well -- for some reason they particularly seem to like the rolls and dropkicks. Guess they figure that those big ungainly Americans could never do things like that which require some dexterity. Afterwards they brought out a birthday cake for one member of the group -- the band of traditional chinese instruments played the Happy Birthday song and we sang along in English. The crowd stared at us like they had never know that song had words. What, did they ban the lyrics during the Cultural Revolution or something?

Is it Chi?

Back on the bus and back to the hotel. We were back early and I just went straight to bed, happy to have somewhere reasonable to sleep again.

I have the Blues Brothers' version of the theme to Rawhide going through my head over and over. it's been there for several days, ever since someone started chanting it. It's only natural, considering how they herd us on and off these busses. ``On the bus!'' ``Okay, off the bus! Bring everything!'' ``Okay, back on bus!'' We're an awful tour group, our guide has mentioned. We're too energetic so when we're off that bus we scatter and we're gone. He's used to older groups that are probably more content on the bus and which stay together better and move more slowly. Our guide hates us. Oh well. We're just not easily herded types.

The nice thing about the trains is that they're noisy. Yes, I'm really reaching now, but at least you don't have to worry about snoring when you sleep on a train. And I can sign Blues Brothers' songs under my breath and no one will notice. (At least no one has told me to shut up yet.) I'm trying to get Rawhide out of my head, but can only replace it with other Blues Brothers songs for some reason.

We got up this morning, then off to the train station and back on the train. Guess they didn't have any normal cars with seats available so we're in the sleeper cars again. At least we can lay down if we're tired, but I probably slept too much last night. It's going to be a long day on the train again.

I still have a fair amount of money with me -- haven't really been buying anything. My largest expense so far has been bottled water. Naturally we don't trust the tap water, so we've all been going through a lot of bottled water. The vendors know this, of course, so we're probably being reamed in terms of the price, but it's still pretty cheap in terms of US dollars. Some of the bottles have concerned people -- they found some junk floating in one bottle, which wasn't reassuring. Looking closely, they noticed that the plastic top could be removed from the bottle without serperating that little breakaway ring. Probably someone found some bottles in the trash like this, filled them with some sort of water, and sells them to gullible tourists. So we're being more careful now.

Film is also a purchasing concern. They have 100 ASA film lots of places. I've seen ASA 200 one or two places. No one has ASA 400 -- people don't even seem to know that there is more than one kind of film. Film is film. I guess these shop owners don't do much photography. I had 6 rolls of 400 that I brough but I've already used it all -- it seemed like plenty when I packed but it was woefully inadequate. So now I'm down to ASA 100 film and kicking myself. I will curse myself forever if the photos I take from this point on come our like crap because of poor film.