Further Scenes from a TiTTi bar

Well, Friday night was supposed to be THE big night for Liaoyang, the TiTTi bar was officially opening, and we were guests of honour. Alas, like much else in this town, twas a disappointment.

Here I am at the door, brimming with excitement:





and here I am inside, with Raphael, Andrew, and The Proprietor. Frank took the photo, and there was waiter guy sitting in back there. This was the sum total of patrons on the supposed grand opening of Liaoyang's hottest new night-spot.



In that photo, or shortly after, The Proprietor is trying to convince us to come back at 9.57 on Saturday morning, a time that various numeroligical consultants have assured her is the most propitious. "That's when TiTTi bar really opens". She assured us. Oddly enough however, the allure of TiTTi bar had begun to wear off by this point. (As an aside, those of you who have known me since I was 14 may recognise the shirt Andrew is wearing).

Promising (lying) to return the next morning at 9.57 sharp, we toddled around the corner to "That bar with the Chinese name were Lulu works" (For the record, the other bars in Liaoyang are referred to as: "Woodstock", "That other bar next to Woodstock", "That bar with the really bad music" and of course "TiTTi Bar".)

We were fortunate enough to arrive there when the owner was entertaining some Party Bigwigs, and, by managing to outdrink them all, I gained a shiny VIP card. I have no idea what it actually does, but its gold and made of metal and it says "VIP" so I feel special. I may have also agreed to marry someone's niece and sell New Zealand's state secrets to China, but they were paying and my nations reputation was at stake, so we kept drinking well past what might be deemed reasonable.


12 days left. oh yes.

Heaven above Heaven

I just ate a whole Honey Dew melon. It was delicous and cheap. I might do the same tomorrow even.

Anyway.

Last weekend, I found what I think may safely be called 'the only good reason to come within a 2 hour driving radius of Liaoyang'. That thing is Qianshan ('a thousand mountains' a slight exaggeration).

Any description I could offer would pale in comparison with that composed by Eternal Spring Tours. So here you go:

Qian-Shan Mountain
Mount Qianshan is the most famous tourist site in north China. It lies in the east, about 20 kilometers away from Anshan City, and boasts 999 mountains altogether, covering 152 square kilometers. So, it is also called thousand-lotus-flower mountain.

Mount Qianshan features many beautiful peaks, precipitious cliffs, secluded valleys, high-situated Taoism and Buddhism temples, grotesque pine trees in strange shape, exuberant flowers of various kinds, etc. So, for a very long history it has been given the name of Treasure Pearl of North China.

Ever from Shui Dynasty, it has been the religion center, and many Buddhists and Taoists came here to construct many temples, pagodas half way or at the top of the mountains. It is seldom for both Buddhism and Taoism temples stationing in one mountain area and left with present people so much cultural contents to read, understand ans explore.

For Taoism the most imposing temple is Infinity Temple who was built half way up the steep mountains and has very strange layout. Visitors coming here will sigh at the fine scenery and have the feeling of walking casually into a fairy land. Many poets left with us much poem praising the sights and so many poem inscription tablets stand fully or partly in deep shrub. Emperor-Visited Scenery Zone, Western Ocean Zone, Great Buddha Zone, Bird-Tweedling Zone and Immortal's Platform are present spot sites very deserving visting and at least 4 days are necessary to tour them all.

Well, we had one day. Actually around four hours. But I think we managed to get the requisite amount of walking casually into a fairyland.

Now, with so many mountains, and so little time, we chose to make a bee-line for this guy:



I think it was the "Mountain of Freaking Huge Buddha in some big-ass temple" or some such. The other peaks held such delights as "One Step Heaven", "A Line Heaven", "Heaven above Heaven", "Heaven slightly to the right of Heaven*" and the alluringly named "Strip Heaven".

After discarding my serfs and chicken entrails as dictated by point number seven on this sign:



We started the walk up the wide, lightly inclined avenue, keeping an eye out for marauding uber-golfcarts carrying the lazier tourists, till we got to this guy:



You'll notice how he's laughing, and looking very relaxed. This is because he knows that you are about to climb a bunch of stairs, whereas he is not.



Though again, for the Chinese tourist who insists on showing up either in impractically high heels or a full shirt/tie/jacket ensemble, there is the soft option:



We took the stairs.

Getting closer:



Seeing what must be several hundred tons of marble at the top of a very tall hill, accessible only by a narrow winding path (and a cable car) conjures images of Buddhist super monks effortlessly hefting huge slabs of stone on their backs, leaping from peak to peak to build their sequestered house of prayer. This sense of awe is somewhat dampened when you see plaques indicating that it was constructed in the ancient year of 2004.

Eventually, we found ourselves at this door, (flanked by two rather ridiculously muscled monk type fellows) What mysteries would it hold for the determined supplicant who had completed their hour long penance of stair climbing? (or 3 minutes of cable car riding?)



why BUDDHA RIDING ON A GIANT GOLDEN EAGLE OF COURSE.



Which is, as they say, something that you do not see everyday. Now I'm not one of those people that comes to the mysterious Orient and goes all gaga over the 'sublime beauty of Eastern Religion over Western Dogma' or whatever, but if the new testament involved more Jesus riding giant anthropomorphic giant eagles, I wouldn't complain.


Anyway, all of this aside, the reason why I think this is the best place I've seen in Liaoning Province so far is this:



You can look out over the landscape for about 270 degrees, and see no signs of human civilisation whatsoever. Just trees and mountains and more trees. Authentic wilderness. The thing about China, is that it has been continuously inhabited pretty much forever, certainly for the last 6000 years. Almost every inhabitable inch of soil has been farmed, flooded, burnt, built on, dug up, filled in, slept, shat and died on, by thousands of people for thousands of years. And it shows. There are really places in this country where you have an overwhelming sense that the very earth is worn. So to be able to stand not 20 minutes from a city of several million people, and stare out at pure untrammeled nature, bonafide wilderness, is, I think, something special.





* Okay I made that one up. You can quit looking for it in your guidebook.

The not-so-great wall of Liaohua

Well folks, I've managed to find a way back into blogger that runs at a reasonably usable speed (using about four different proxy type things in unison – I have no idea what any of it does, but seems to work.) So anyway, Internet police kicking in my front door and dragging me off to Internet jail notwithstanding, I should be able to post a bit more regularly now. Hopefully I can post the back-log of comments that I wasn't able to put up either.


And now, onto today's scheduled entertainment:


So I bought a bike a couple of weeks ago, as a handy means of getting round in Liaoyang, which is pretty flat and sprawling. Once you forget about such quaint western notions as 'helmet' 'lights' and 'road rules' its a nice way to see the city. For a change of scene, Paul, Andrew and I decided last weekend to head to Liao Hoa, which is a sort of village about 40 minutes (by bike) south of Liaoyang proper. So we set out, on a gentle incline into a slight, but persistent headwind. Me on my fancy schmancy mountain bike with such trimmings as gears and things, Paul and Andrew on the more traditional, fixed gear Chinese style workhorse. Suffice to say several kilometers and a bunch of gear changes later, I was glad I spent the extra 100 or so RMB.

We passed a small war cemetery on the way (not sure which war) which was fairly interesting, and the skeleton of a pretty huge stadium that they're building out in the fields. For what? I have no idea, there was a suggestion that some of the Football games in the Olympics might be played down the road in Shenyang, so maybe they'll be using it for training or some such. If so, Liaoyang's got some cleaning up to do.

Anyway, Liao Hoa.

There's a saying in China that you aren't truly a man until you have walked on the great wall. By this reckoning, I figure I'm now about 1/100th of man. Liao Hoa, in a typically Chinese attempt at getting the punters in, decided to build a sort of mini-Great Wall a couple of years back. Also in typical Chinese fashion, it seems that they sunk a whole lot of money into building the wall, furnishing it with a lovely asphalt car park, hedge maze, and crazy "Animals of the Zodiac Statuary Petting Zoo", then totally lost interest and/or ran out of cash. What this means is that you spend about half an hour wandering around the grounds of some Liao Hoa chemical concern, wondering just how much damage that smell is doing to your brain, and looking for one of about 5 nondescript and completely unsignposted roads that heads up the hill to the 'great' wall. Its kind of like stumbling upon an abandoned theme-park in the middle of a bunch of factories. In fact that's exactly what its like.

Enough chit-chat. Onto some images.

Residents of Liaoyang will tell you that Liao Hoa is very beautiful. It is a lot newer than most other places I've seen, but row upon row of identical apartment buildings, against a backdrop of smoke spewing chimneys, isn't exactly my idea of beautiful (those buildings in the foreground are under construction).



So here's the xiǎo cháng chéng (small great wall, if I may be allowed to invent Chinese names) in all its glory:



And speaking of things that are in all their glory:



Take that everybody who's never straddled a tank before.

There were some cool old A-frame houses up by the wall, but they were unoccupied and full to the rafters with rubbish. I'm assuming the owners moved out when the local government (or whoever built the wall) came to them and said “We're going to place these huge concrete dragons on your roofs. I hope you built sturdy”.



And, proving that I was not just being alarmist before, even large stone structures are not immune to the inexorable onslaught of the ladybug menace:



On the way out of town, we spotted this building, and its identical counter-part directly across the intersection. Impressive no? Oddly (and yet, increasingly unsurprisingly) both buildings are completely empty. I mean completely, bare concrete shells with a few supporting beams inside. Like so many things in this country, their origin and purpose is beyond the ken of a simple-minded Laowai like me.



Looks like wikipedia is down again in China too. The party giveth...

Tomorrow night: The great Chinese/American/New Zealander drinking party, at the best damn dumpling restaurant in town. The language barrier will add an interesting flavour to what promises to be a night of brain and liver damaging macho-posturing. There may be tales to tell.

Stay tuned Decadentwesterndogkateers.