Trans-Siberia Video 02 – Huangshan
The second leg of our journey took us to the most beautiful mountain of China, Huangshan, the Yellow Mountain.
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Trans-Siberia Video 01 – Shanghai
We finally have our first video ready to reveal to the world. Please be gentle, it was literally the first time we have ever shot and edited video to show to anyone other than the immediate family. I think they will get better as the trip progresses, but here are 6 minutes of our 4 days in Shanghai. Please enjoy…
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The Attraction of Shanghai
In September, 2010, Shanghai, China is a city that attracts people. The Las Vegas-style neon that lights up the night, the business that flows through the ports and the factories, the opportunities for Chinese nationals to attain more wealth in one month than their parents attained in their entire lives, the opportunities for foreigners to start or expand their businesses not only to the 1.3 billion Chinese, but also the world, and KFCs on every corner, all combine to form a city unlike any other on Earth.
In March, 1949, Shanghai was a city that attracted people. The Communists had taken over most of the country and anyone with any personal wealth needed to get out of China. Shanghai was the best option, with the most ships on which to hide. Mr. & Mrs. Cheung had fled from the north to Shanghai with all of their belongings and their four little girls, the youngest of whom was less than five months old. Mr. Cheung escaped first with most of their things and made it to Hong Kong, which, at the time, was a British territory, where he set up residence and sent word to his wife that it was safe to follow. Mrs. Cheung found a captain willing to hide her and her children on his ship. The city had not yet been taken by the Communists, but their boats still patrolled the waters looking for emigrants.
Before they left their home, the youngest girl had become sick and frequently cried. The couple’s friends knew they were planning to escape and warned them that they should leave the baby behind. If the baby cried on the ship during their escape, the captain would make them throw her overboard. And besides, it wasn’t like it was a little boy. It was just a girl and they did not matter so much.
Now it was time to board the ship and her baby was still sick. This was her last chance to ensure that the child would live, albeit without a family. Mrs. Cheung had no choice. It was she and her four girls against too many men; men who were afraid for their lives. Her fear was almost overpowering. What could she do? She did the only thing that she could, the only option her mind would allow. She would not leave the girl and that was it. No other alternative. She would stand up to the captain and his crew if she had to, but her family was the most important thing that she had, and she would not lose it.
The baby did not cry and the ship escaped the dangerous waters around Shanghai. They had escaped from the north to Shanghai, attracted to the city for different reasons than the masses today and were able to live different lives because of it. The family made it to Hong Kong and reunited with Mr. Cheung. Mrs. Cheung’s crying baby girl survived the journey and grew up to have two girls of her own: Sophia and Sara.
Sophia has lived in Shanghai for the last two years, drawn to the city that attracts people by the economic opportunities afforded her husband. Sara chose Shanghai as the starting point for our journey so she could spend some time with her sister. 60 years after the Cheung family escaped, its descendants have returned to a city that has changed, a country that has changed. Together, we all stood by the river at The Bund, the historic area of the city, and looked at the same water that Mrs. Cheung and her family looked at so many years before, only this time, there was no fear, only wonder at the city.
Read MoreTrans-Siberian Railway: Trip Overview
Sara and I have just returned from our 36-day Trans-Siberia trip and we had planned on it being an epic adventure, so our expectations were high. The actual journey far surpassed anything I could have imagined. I had very high hopes and not only was I not let down, but my hopes were blown out of the water. Do you know how sometimes when you are doing something, it doesn’t seem great at the time, but when you look back on it, you realize that it was, in fact, really cool? Well, this trip was not like that. It was really, really cool the entire time and we knew it.
Sara and I were joined by our two very good friends, Charles and Vina, whom we have camped with and even traveled to Hawaii with for a week several years ago. This trip was a bit longer than that, so I was nervous that we would be at each other’s throats by the end. Over the next several months we will be posting about the trip, so we will have to wait to see how that all turned out. I will say that politically Sara and I lean to the left, while Charles leans to the right. Vina did not share her opinions until 15 days into the trip when she finally unleashed how she really thought.
The trip began in Shanghai, China and through many trains, a few buses and one short airplane ride, we arrived in St. Petersburg, Russia a little over a month after we began. We climbed mountains, visited ancient burial and religious sites, attended a festival and a Buddhist religious ceremony, camped in the desert and the steppes, bathed in a very, very cold river, rode horses and camels, ate lots of sheep, mastered the squat toilet, put our feet in a very, very cold lake, visited an ice cave, stayed in a log cabin, stayed in a 4 star hotel, stayed in several youth hostels, the girls got kissed by several drunk Russian men, had tea with a real Russian family (friends of Vina) using their family heirloom Samovar, almost went to a Russian banya, saw Red Square at night and during the day, stumbled upon a 5K run which we tried to crash, and met many, many interesting locals and fellow travelers, including the writer of one of the guidebooks which we were using who gave us lots of tips and even translated the tour of the ice cave for us.
Being gone for so long makes you change your habits and some of the things that I have noticed since our return include:
1) In public, I still scan the crowd, looking for someone who might speak English
2) I momentarily panic when I realize that I have put my toothbrush under running sink water when I am brushing my teeth
3) I still spit in the shower to avoid swallowing water
4) My bed no longer feels like my bed
5) I attempt to throw my toilet paper in the trash can rather than flush it
6) In public, I truly hope to find a squat toilet rather than the sit down variety (especially in that Taco Bell by LAX)
These are all small things, which are slowly going away. However, this trip has changed me in some pretty major ways as well. I can honestly say that if Sara and I did not have two daughters, whom we missed terribly, waiting for us at home, we would have come home merely to sell everything so we could keep going. The American dream of home ownership, a BMW, and a week-long vacation at the beach no longer interests me. My home is where the majority of my underwear is.
Please join us over the next several weeks and months as we try to recreate our adventure for everyone to share. If you are interested in duplicating all or part of this trip, we will be preparing a detailed itinerary with exactly where we stayed, what we did, etc. We will have tips all along the way, but if you would like a copy of the itinerary, please email us at info@flyingcoach.org.
YOLO
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