HA HA HA Sineas Fock, You Were Wrong! (Watch around the world in eighty days)

If you ever need to travel the world, go to Shenzhen, take the 43 bus to the second to last stop and walk for four minutes. This will put you at the gates of Window of the World, a theme park where the other-side of the world is a five minute walk away. This is not just some corny place with the “Pyramids of Giza,” “Big Ben,” and a couple other attractions. This park’s display is intense. Among the many sites in the park are the Grand Canyon featuring river rafting, the Amazon featuring alpine sledding, the Alps featuring skiing (more on that), and the Eiffel Tower featuring the Eiffel Tower (climbable steps and all!). The river rafting is not as fun as the real deal, but it still is a blast (“Yeah, of Wahater” says one foreigner). The Amazon sledding was closed because that kind of sledding is dangerous in a typhoon.

The Alps induced a lot of pleading. A full size skating rink blasted you with cold air through the main entrance. The only people skating were good at figure skating. A small town made of ice and neon lights created a tubing land. But best of all, the main offer is a down hill slope. Two snow boarders aced all their jumps and rails, stopping inches from the end of the slope. With a mini lift and all, including large tubing ramp, this place is the bomb. But there was no time, and we were exhausted. But we still climbed the Eiffel Tower.

Not nearly as high as the real Tower, but just as impressive, this fake tower costs about 1 dollar to take an elevator to the top. Big binoculars claim you have to pay 1 yuan but really you can see through them without paying. Even though it takes five minutes to go back down, it is very, very fun.

At the almost life size pyramids, you can hitch a ride with a camel. At the Grand Canyon, you can grab a log and go with the flow. I did that TWICE!! At a river side village, you can fish for massive Koi. At a Japanese village, you can get pictures taken with squealing Chinese teenagers with plastic flowers in their hair.

Of course, Window of the World does come with a price. For no rides, the price is the great deal of 120 RMB, approximately 17 U.S. dollars. If you are shorter than 1.2 meters, the half charge rule applies. At the Grand Canyon, river rafting is just over one dollar. For skiing equipment plus clothes it is 10.70 American. To take a mono-rail above the whole park (exclamations and extra stops included), it costs just less than 3 dollars. A camel ride at the pyramids costs 1 dollar. If you want to buy souvenirs, this place is only good if you have money burning a hole in your pocket. Go to a market to buy kissing pigs, ox beads and more where you can bargain. In the Eiffel Tower, beads, fake swords, jade bracelets, and fans are incredibly expensive. Twenty RMB for a bead is expensive to start with, and anti-bargainers are the one thing that you really should avoid. Markets that have a lot of items to begin with and lots of stalls too are very easy to bargain at, therefore making it easier to buy stuff.

< () |^ |\| / Corn

Do we agree that corn can be good? Corn nuts, corn on the cob, and popcorn is good, right? But can you Imagine corn hard candy? How about with an uncooked kernel in the center? Maybe corn ice cream? No? Well you better believe it! Here I was just an innocent little boy (don’t roll your eyes!), wanting to buy some ice cream. So I walk into a store and there’s ice-cream, and I pick a particularly good-looking one pay for it and walk out. Now why didn’t anybody tell me I wouldn’t like it?! So I try to think of what it is. Think of a sweet flavor with an after taste of corn. What is it? Corn ice cream. Currently my stomach is still upset about it.

Lionfish spikes and all CatFish

The menu said Catfish. The dish looked like Catfish. It had bread crumbs like Catfish usually does. My first bite, I thought “It tastes like Catfish.” But halfway through chewing that small bit, I got an unpleasant surprise. The small piece that I ate contained about five bones. I decided to try another piece. This one had six. I tried a larger piece. There was no meat whatsoever. Then, as I swallowed, I felt something slimy on the bottom and I started coughing up food. Why does no one ever tell me that this schools cafeteria food usually has PEPPERS!!!?? Another relatively bony experience and a piece of advice. Number one; don’t ever try fish samples at Chinese stores. They have bones like knives. Now, picture me, and innocent little American boy walking down a Chinese food aisle. At the end there is a woman holding a plate of fish. Me, being a hungry growing boy, I grab one. Never again. I take a bite and it’s like the cook put in tooth picks. My mouth is bleeding in three places. Never again.

shaolin boxing punch chicken

Think of a bulging Swiss cross. Now turn that into a ceramic plate that has blue lining. Now pile that plate full of chicken cubes, peanuts, carrots, different sorts flaked red stuff (more on that later), an assortment of vegetables, and a dash of sesame seeds. Now drizzle on a moderately viscous sauce that has a reddish color and you have Kung pao chicken. Now, pull out your standard, cheap plastic chopsticks and dig in. What? Your mouth is burning and you just tried the sauce? Oh yeah, it’s a pepper sauce. What, you ate a piece of that red flaky stuff by itself?! Oh yeah, they’re an assortment of peppers that alone are like drinking Tabasco sauce and eating a habanero pepper at the same time. And now, to add to the scene, you are in a college cafeteria that only serves tea. The only source of water is said to be a ten minute walk. It turns out to be about twenty. That was my first experience with food on this trip, in China.

Onna Stick?

If a tour guide warns you extensively not to do something, you begin to wonder if the fear is rational. Sometimes you can see the knowledge behind the warning and sometimes you cannot. I had the same experience with eating from food stalls. Our guide said that we would get sick. Recently, I have had several meals at road stalls. One was at a noodle place that was very good. A second was on the Dangmen pedestrian rood that was also very good. I bought a skewer of beef balls and skewer of chicken-plus. The chicken had corn, and other veggies in it, and it was okay. The beef balls were phenomenal. A crust that comes from frying in peanut oil covered the outside. These Chinese sausages are made up of any part of an animal. My dad thinks they are Abominable. Every body in my Family agrees

Tomater Sticks

Anybody knows that tomato soup is very good. Pringles Stix are also very good. When you combine both of them you get soggy Pringle Stix, unless you make tomato Pringle Stix. These am-nam sticks are great by themselves, with hummus, or with anything else.
What makes it even better is if you get the Chinese equivalent with little goaties and wolfs from my favorite TV show. Even better is if you have home made hummus to go with it. With a little bit of salt you can do a world of good.

Tuibuqi

Sorry for not posting for a while but I am swamped with homework. Get ready for a load of stuff all at once because I have a lot to tell you. Note: some of this can be found in the walden newspaper.

shénzhēn dóng wù yuán

A big lion about a story high marks the entrance to the Shenzhen Animal Park. Along the sides of the entrance road, statues of animals pose with plaques telling what they are. The English is misspelled: gira ffe, hippopo tamus, and greate pan da. The entrance is under an archway created by two giraffes’ heads meeting. As we walk under the giraffe heads and through the turnstile, two elephants that have monkeys on their backs and birds on their trunks come into view. To the right, a panda restaurant gapes at us and to the left, horse drawn carriage drivers call to us, “ni yao ni yao ni yao ma?” I reply, “women xiangyixiang,” (We will think about it). After a long conversation with one of the drivers, we decide to pay for a carriage.

Around the first bend, a crane as tall as my dad honked at his fellow birds to leave. Monkeys swung from trees on an island in the middle of a lake full of pelicans . As a mocha-colored monkey turned around, a baby monkey clung to its pelvis. After many exclamations and pictures, we moved on. With lemurs to the side, we arrived upon a bird not unlike an ostrich, with a few slight differences. It was a little smaller and its all black body with a red head had a crest. The bird looked like a dinosaur with its massive bony crest. Common pheasants, mikado pheasants, Chinese pheasants, and red pheasants all peeped in unison. An exclamation from the other side of the carriage summoned us and we ran over to see this bird.

Driving past the peacocks to some more bird cages, we saw the smallest deer in the world, the pudu puda. Some odd gray birds that were very jumpy ran away in fear, while the crowned pigeon retained its regalness. This bird, a blue bird that has a smaller version of a peacock tail on its head, is very valiant. With a massive trumpeting, the elephants came into view. I wish that we would have been at ground level to see these giants. Our being above these massive animals, made them look like horses. After getting thrown around in the carriage, we came upon the giraffes. I always expected these animals to have massive necks but these giraffes were small. After the giraffes, we drove past yak hill, ibex-land and then the zebras. Sofia took some wonderful pictures. We sauntered past a hippo and fed some fish.

Four minutes later, we went hamster balling. Crawling into a massive balloon-like cylinder, all I can do is run, run like a hamster, run like a human, crawl, any way to keep the cylinder moving so I don’t get hit by other people. I tried not to hit the black swans on the way too. For five minutes, all I could do was run, fall down, and laugh. Then the stall runner pulled me in and I crawled out feet first.

The horse cantered pass the monkey stalls where monkeys sell stuff on the street to Penguin Island where three sorry looking penguins were alone. Then the driver strained the horse up a hill and into a space where six red, raccoon-like creatures brawled playfully. These ninjas were the lesser pandas. After several minutes of discussing how to buy one in the U.S. for a pet, we left and went on to the exit. Goodbye from Shenzhen, over and out.


Photography by Sofia Adams