Siberian Sabbatical

Ni-How from Beijin! I guess it’s time again for me to sit down and write all about the deep, dark secrets of my life here for your examination and contemplation.

This last month has brought with it many interesting and exciting adventures and the not so pleasant experience of losing the keys to your apartment and having to wait three hours in the Siberian winter. However, I was able to break the mold this month and took a little excursion to the heart of the world’s source of cheap labor, China.

Well the first thing I had to do for my trip to China was to secure a visa, which is no pie in the sky. My visa for China was very expensive (next time you see dear old dad give him a big pat on the back) and a lot of paper work. There was also a lot of uncertainty about whether or not I could even go. There were many instances when I thought I had paid 12,000 rubles for nothing at all.

But money talks and bull walks. A week before I left I got my plane tickets and visa. I think that if you were to try to get your visa through American channels it would cost a great deal, and I could only imagine the paperwork and time needed. The only reason I got my visa in a timely fashion was because I went through Russian channels.

After I got my visa I thought entering the country would go as smooth as a baby’s bottom. No way! I still had to deal with immigration and passport control in the Russian airport. As I was walking through passport control, the red light started blinking. I can honestly say that experience was life changing. Here I was, after spending all this time and money on my visa, at the migration desk at two in the morning, being harassed by some woman who looked like she needed a little time away from Siberia, in a language I don’t completely understand about my registration being bad.

However, 15 minutes before our flight left, some sort of miraculous mercy came over her and she let me board the plane, but there was still that little thought in the back of my mind about whether I would be allowed back in the country.

The first thing I did when our plane touched down in Beijin was kiss the ground. I never thought in a million years I would actually see it. After migration in Russia, customs in China seemed like they actually enjoyed us coming. We whizzed through the airport and were off to the city. The very first thing I noticed was everything was in Chinese and English – road signs, menus, names of restaurants, everything except the signs that instruct you on how to operate the toilets. The toilets here remind me of recycling bins and I had absolutely no idea how they work. I still don’t. I feel sorry for the guy who uses the toilet after me. I feel like my Russian really improved because the whole time I was translating for the Russians.

The thing I enjoyed the most about Beijin was the food. I have absolutely no idea how I will adapt to the Tasty Buffet back home. The food was out of this world. It was also dirt-cheap. We ordered probably six entrees for eight people and when we split the bill, we had to pay about two dollars each. In China I ate scorpions – they were really fresh, still wiggling when we ate them – dog, duck brains, and eyes. My favorite food was definitely the Peking duck. It is absolutely amazing. They cut the skin into little pieces and when dipped in sugar it was the closest to heaven you could get in Beijin.

One thing that I didn’t know about Chinese cuisine is the prevalence of bakery products. They blow your mind. Next to my hotel was a shop where you could watch pastries being made from scratch. They had éclairs, pastries with meat, with cream cheese, with chocolate mousse and with this killer lemon jam. That is only the tip of the iceberg. They had a seemingly endless array of bakery products – you could eat here every day for a month without ever eating the same thing twice.

I must say the thing that had the most impact on me was the Great Wall. In the words of Mao Zedong, “Nobody is a hero until they have reached the Great Wall.” Now you can say you know a genuine, bona fide hero. It is definitely something to put on your things to do before you die list. What really struck me about the wall wasn’t its hugeness, but how many obstacles they had to build over. The section of the wall that I visited was high up on a mountain. Just the idea of transporting all the materials and building over these huge boulders was mind-boggling. In the middle of the wall was this huge boulder they seamlessly built over.

There were a lot of people there when I was there. It took me maybe 45 minutes to walk a quarter mile. Along with the people came the problems. There was a lot of litter everywhere, and where do you think people went to the bathroom? No, they didn’t want to walk a quarter mile back to the porta-potties, they just let her fly in the guard tower. Goes to show how much respect the wall gets from the general population.

One of the main reasons why most people went on this trip was to shop. Kids went on the trip just to buy electronics and other goods for their parents. I was able to buy to a really cool Nokia cell phone and a digital camera together for under $100. Remember Miss Stalinovna Lenin at school? Well I was given orders to not enter the country without a full dress suit. I impressed her and bought two for $80. The shopping was utterly amazing. Everywhere you had to bargain, which was at times cutthroat. In the markets the salespeople would shout and actually grab you saying in very bad English, “Oh looky, lookly. You want buy ladies purse. It very good. 50 dollar.”

I had some real fun seeing just how low I could get something. I was able to hone my bargaining skills to the point of salespeople remembering me and telling me to go away.

One thing I really, truly learned on my trip was how important my home in Russia is to me now. When I returned I was so excited to be returning to my own home. When I was flying over Irkutsk, I really took pride in being able to point out the different neighborhoods of the city. It seemed like only yesterday that I was flying over the city for the first time with the lump in my throat, thinking I won’t be seeing my family for a year and I’ll be living with total strangers. I look back and see how much I have changed as a person in these last three months. It is amazing, and I can only wait to see what the rest of these eight months hold in store for me. This is your Siberian Correspondent, from Siberia with love.