Due to a bit of bad planning and some horrid traffic surrounding the National Day celebrations, Mike missed his train to HK and was forced to shift his flight to Beijing. It cost a bit of money, but at least he didn't have to worry about the hassle of getting transport out of Beijing during the largest weekend of travel in the country (like being stuck in NYC on Thanksgiving and needing to get to Miami). It also meant we had an extra day to goof around in the city before I was officially left to my own devices. We hit the hutongs (small, cramped inner-city neighborhoods which are said to be the last few remnants of traditional Beijing). Beijing's rush for modernity has been a death knell for most of the traditional areas of the city (at least those without historic landmark classification) and the smattering of hutongs wedged between massive four and six lane roads and towering skyscrapers are slowly losing their grasp on this last link as well. Wandering through one, we came to the entrance to the "Underground City", a long network of tunnels under the city built to evacuate the heads of the government should disaster strike. Our tour was a real letdown as the folks running the show were clearly trying to become a tourist attraction, but still had some work to do. Everything was draped in camouflage, including our tour guide, which was strange since the tunnels were underground. There wasn't much to see, except signs indicating where facilities once were ("Here was the gymnasium for old people. If we were forced to live in the tunnels, equipment would be here for old people to maintian their health"). After our tour, we decided to give one last shot at a wild send-off party (our last effort being a hopeless failure). We had a much better go of it this time around, starting early and continuing late, and the beer flowed like beer. As is often the case when you're drunk and trying to spend off any superfluous foreign dough before returning home, we decided it would be a good time to check out the seedier side of Beijing.

Walking around, the street girls were pretty bold in their come-ons. They'd saunter up, get in step with you and offer a massage. If you said no, they would cut through their poor attempt at subtelty and straight out offer sex. No time for sweet talking. As we stumbled along, we happened on a massage parlor still kicking at 1AM. Thinking it was a good idea, we waddled in to test the theory that Beijing massage parlors were covers for houses of ill repute. It should be noted first, that this was purely research for my loyal readers (more like a sting operation than idle curiosity), and second that we were likely reeking of alcohol. Being high-rollers for the night, we chose the cheapest massage on the menu (half-hour foot massage) and followed our guides back to the room which had a TV, a foot bath...and two massage beds. Hmmm. Well, we'd come this far, so we sat back and relaxed to the gentle musings of the Chinese period soap opera as our feet soaked in a painfully hot mixture of oils and spices. Then began the grueling half-hour foot massage, which on my side was sort of like having the soles of your feet pounded by a ball-peen hammer. Mike's theory is that because I was passing out, it was the only way to keep me conscious. To be fair, it's a valid argument. When my misery was over (penance perhaps), the masseuse arose and left. No offers for further services, no happy ending. Just a massage. It was a crappy myth anyway.

The following morning, Mike made his way successfully to the airport and home, while I hobbled around the hostel on tender tootsies and made arrangements to go to the far northeast. A twelve hour train took me, the following day, to the remote provine of Heilongjiang, north of Mongolia and North Korea, and bordered to the north by Russia. Chinese Siberia. At this point I had only been in two of the three largest cities China had to offer, and hadn't yet been to the "countryside". Therefore, my images of quaint peasant villages and subsistence agriculture were still intact. I'd envisioned getting off the train at a backwater station and haggling for a yak's wool jacket to fend off the driving snow and biting wind. I was therefore quite shocked when I unloaded in downtown Haerbin, a city of 9 million people complete with skyscrapers, flashing jumbotron advertisings, and hordes of traffic. My naivete still surprises me. I wasn't stopping in Haerbin, just passing through on my way to Wudalian Chi, a remote village close to the Russian border nestled amongst active volcanic peaks. The bus trip to Wudalian Chi did offer glimpses of the China I expected to find, as we weaved among tiny villages and zoomed past folks carrying produce on shoulder poles, with yellowing poplars lining the road and adding to the ambience.

Unfortunately, the nine-hour journey dropped me in the parking lot of a hotel in this tiny town late at night and with a cold wind blowing down from Russia. Somehow it was only at this point that I realized I didn't know the language, had no idea where I was going, and wasn't really sure how to get there. Luckily, capitalism saved the day as a young lady sauntered up and started jabbering at me. To my credit, I'd been trying to learn a few basic phrases, and I used them all here to get her to realize I didn't know what she was saying. Previous experience led me to believe she was trying to sell me something, and I just hoped it was a room for the night. Indicating that was what I wanted she led the way to a run down hotel well off the road (the "center" of Wudalian Chi is an intersection with streetlights lighting one of the roads. There are two or three upscale hotels visible and little else). She told me the room was only 15 yuan per night (less than $2), and then the other shoe dropped. She wanted me to take a tour with her the following day. I had a vague idea of what I wanted to see, and a much better idea of what I wanted to pay. I did my best to make this clear and we came to an understanding.

The following morning I piled into a minivan with a bunch of Chinese tourists and away we went, with our guide babbling in Mandarin. We arrived at the first stop, and it wasn't one I had wanted to see (i.e. I didn't want to pay the entrance fee) so they made the rounds and I froze in the van. Upon returning, one of the women showed her true colors and asked in broken but passable English why I hadn't gone along. I related a somewhat overblown but truthful accounting of my travels and the need to stay on a budget. Upon telling this budget (and making it sound like going over-budget was risking starvation and abandonment), she exclaimed and explained to the tour guide who gulped and put on a pained look. After a heated argument, it was explained that I could pay significantly less than I was currently paying (which was already over my daily budget) and go to all of the sights on the tour. I felt sort of bad, since my budget wasn't really all that tight, but accepted. When we stopped for breakfast, guilt overcame me as everyone chipped in, sliding me portions of food from their plates. I desperately tried to turn it down, but they'd have none of it. I literally couldn't eat it all (which is a bold statement for me) and slipped a couple of boiled eggs into my pocket for later.

The rest of the day, we travelled around looking at unique features of the volcanic landscape. We visited massive lava fields (while the volcanoes are still seismically active, none have erupted in many decades), a volcanic peak topped by a large crater, numerous natural springs with horrid mineral water which possessed healing powers attested to by their horrid flavor, and natural caves which maintain constant temperatures below freezing.

In these caves, they've build numerous ice sculptures to entertain goofy tourists who show up year round and aren't content with just the natural beauty of the caves. The ice sculptures were top on my list of things to see.

The whole area was fantastic, and I was arriving just at the peak of fall color, so the parks were really gorgeous.

Except for a few Russian tourists, I didn't see any other western faces and certainly didn't hear any English outside our tourbus. I could get to like Siberia, at least in the fall.

The following morning, I trundled back into the bus for Haerbin and booked a train south to Shenyang, a nowhere city of a couple million people about halfway back to Beijing. I'd never really thought about it, but with 1.1 billion people, China would naturally have a ton of massive cities, and it does. Most of them I've just never heard of. As a result, as I've been planning my trip, the only places on the map (and frequently in the guidebook) are ridiculously large. Shenyang didn't have much to offer, though they did have a nice, open city park where locals came out to fly kites so high I was scared for passing airplanes.

Additionally, they have one of the few old relics of Mancurian architecture, in the form of a walled palace for the Emperor of the Manchurian empire. It was very similar (though smaller in scale) to the Forbidden City in Beijing (where the emperor moved after Shenyang). I'd like to go into great detail here about the divison of China through history and the difference between Manchurian rule and the Hans and the Mongolians, but to be honest, most of it would be inaccurate, so I'll leave it to wiser folks. The only architectural difference I could see (and that was only because it was explained on a sign) was that one of the buildings was octagonal. Otherwise it looked pretty similar, though still impressive.

What really kept me in Shenyang as long as I was there (two nights) was I found a hotel room for about US$8 which provided me with a free computer with internet access in my room. My $2 room in Wudalian Chi not only lacked a private bathroom, but there was no shower in the whole hotel. I was moving up in the world. After my stint in Sheyang, I headed back to Beijing to plot my course southward.