Wednesday, May 25, 2005
China and more
Well, May has been another busy month. The craziness actually started on April 29 when I flew to China for a quick vacation. Normally there would be nothing crazy about such a vacation, except I was visiting 3 major cities in 10 days (china being a vast country doesn’t lend itself well to whirl-wind itineraries) and I was traveling with my friend Liv (I should probably mention at this stage that we have a bit of a reputation for being a little crazy together).
So the flight to China was fine… I didn’t get stuck next to the main weirdo onboard the flight, which was a nice change. The next morning when I looked out my hotel window I was surprised by the view that greeted me, lots and lots of dirty, cracked, broken and slightly crumbling roofs. The sight was more what I would have expected of a 3rd world country, rather than the next country signed up to host the Olympic Games.
When I went for a walk that morning, I was similarly surprised to find that the streets around my hotel were made of pressed dirt. Really, at first, Beijing was nothing like what I anticipated… for some reason I guess I was expecting another Japan… but I suppose I actually hadn’t really thought about it.
Later that day Liv arrived (sans luggage,,, apparently her luggage had forgotten to board the plane in London!) and we started sight seeing. We visited Tiananmen Square and the forbidden city all in one afternoon. That afternoon we walked and walked and walked and walked. I spent the next 9 days in China nursing blisters and trying to convince my feet that it was all ok!
The following day, May 1, we went on a tour to see the Great Wall of China. It was truly amazing (the walk up to the top almost killed us (the stairs are all uneven heights and some parts of the wall are up to 35 degrees in steepness- like climbing a ladder!) but afforded us a view of Mongolia… FYI, Mongolia looks surprisingly similar to China. That day we also took in some less exciting sites like the Ming tombs and a jade factory. I have to say, however, that lunch was a very welcome event!
The following day was my birthday. That morning we did a spot of touristy shopping before we flew out to Xian. We were put in a 6 bed dormitory. After introducing ourselves I asked if any of the 3 boys sharing our dorm room were snorers… they claimed they were not but I wasn’t so sure. Xian was quite different to Beijing… it was very beautiful and although it was also seething with tourists I am sure that at other times of the year Xian would be a much more pleasant place.
We went out to find somewhere good for dinner but our progress was hampered by my blisters and Liv’s insistence on attention-seeking ;-) we eventually ended up at a little family-run restaurant. We ordered a pork stew from the “English menu” and waited…. And waited….. and waited…. Then, when the meal finally arrived (looking delicious) we dug in and discovered that the meal consisted almost entirely of pig fat and chillies. The dish was so hot, we could barely manage to keep the meal in our mouths long enough to chew it! I have to admit that my birthday dinner defeated me very early on. Liv braved it for a little longer but by the time both our mouths were on fire and all our taste-buds were revolting against the assault, the meal still looked like we hadn’t touched it. We proceeded to return to the hostel in order to consume copious amounts of beer (for birthday and medicinal purposes of course!)
Later that night, as I dragged my little self into bed (dragging along with me a number of buckets of birthday beer) I was pleasantly surprised to find that the boys in the room were telling the truth, none of them snored at all!
The following day, nursing slight hangovers, Liv and I made up our own tour of Xian city, including the Muslim quarter, the bell tower, the drum tower, the wild goose pavilion and a shopping centre.
On May 4 we went on a tour to see the terracotta warriors. A guy from our dorm room, “Chris from Sweden” came too. I’m pretty sure he thought Liv and I are completely crazy… was it my fault that my breakfast (an egg in a flat bread roll) looked like it was talking to me… and so I added the voice???
The three of us had a really fun and interesting day… only slightly marred by the bunch of total idiots who were also on the same tour that day.
Liv and I left the following morning to fly to Shanghai. Shanghai was a lot like what I imagine Tokyo to have been 20 years ago… desperately trying to be modern, clean and rich but with large pockets of poverty, ancient buildings and filth. We really had only one day in Shanghai… but from what we saw, it was the contrasts that I found most interesting. Some of my highlights in Shanghai were the acrobatics show that we saw… if you’ve ever seen cirque de soleil, you’ll have some idea of the kinds of amazing, heart-stopping feats these people manage to perform every night. Another highlight for me was the bund tourist tunnel. Yes, it’s touristy (as you would expect of a tourist tunnel) yes it’s tacky, yes it’s psychedelic! I guarantee that if you go there it won’t be what you expect… but for a cold, windy, rainy day, Liv and I could find no better way to spend ½ an hour… closely followed by a few hours of shopping in a simply enormous shopping centre!
By the time we emerged from the shopping centre, the rain had cleared and the day was sunny, and pleasant. That evening (May 6) Liv and I traveled in a soft-sleeper compartment in an overnight train back to Beijing. We were really lucky to have no spitters or throat clearers in our compartment! Instead there was a middle-aged man (who spoke quite good English) and a teen-aged boy from the compartment next door, who spent the whole night in our compartment in order to practice his English. The four of us played card games together for much of the night (interrupted occasionally by the boy’s parents checking in on him).
On May 7, due to the heat on all the previous days we had spent in Beijing, Liv and I both decided to dress for summer… unfortunately, the weather wasn’t as pleasant as it looked out of our window and we both spent the day feeling different levels of frozen. We visited the Summer Palace and (in record time) the Beijing zoo… then went back to the hotel for a meal of Peking duck and a semi-warm shower.
The trip back to Tokyo was fraught with frustrations due to NWA in China. Let’s just say that we were eventually allowed to board the aircraft (after being stopped at every possible stage for searches of us and our luggage). The flight was fine and we made it back to my apartment in Tokyo without further incident.
For the next week Liv did the tourist thing alone in Tokyo during the day while I worked, then at night we went out shopping / for dinner etc. We completed the week by getting professional photos taken of us dressed as Japanese geisha. It was a whole lot of fun and the photos turned out to be really great! It was very sad to say goodbye to Liv… I guess we should start thinking about our next holiday together soon! ;-)
So the flight to China was fine… I didn’t get stuck next to the main weirdo onboard the flight, which was a nice change. The next morning when I looked out my hotel window I was surprised by the view that greeted me, lots and lots of dirty, cracked, broken and slightly crumbling roofs. The sight was more what I would have expected of a 3rd world country, rather than the next country signed up to host the Olympic Games.
When I went for a walk that morning, I was similarly surprised to find that the streets around my hotel were made of pressed dirt. Really, at first, Beijing was nothing like what I anticipated… for some reason I guess I was expecting another Japan… but I suppose I actually hadn’t really thought about it.
Later that day Liv arrived (sans luggage,,, apparently her luggage had forgotten to board the plane in London!) and we started sight seeing. We visited Tiananmen Square and the forbidden city all in one afternoon. That afternoon we walked and walked and walked and walked. I spent the next 9 days in China nursing blisters and trying to convince my feet that it was all ok!
The following day, May 1, we went on a tour to see the Great Wall of China. It was truly amazing (the walk up to the top almost killed us (the stairs are all uneven heights and some parts of the wall are up to 35 degrees in steepness- like climbing a ladder!) but afforded us a view of Mongolia… FYI, Mongolia looks surprisingly similar to China. That day we also took in some less exciting sites like the Ming tombs and a jade factory. I have to say, however, that lunch was a very welcome event!
The following day was my birthday. That morning we did a spot of touristy shopping before we flew out to Xian. We were put in a 6 bed dormitory. After introducing ourselves I asked if any of the 3 boys sharing our dorm room were snorers… they claimed they were not but I wasn’t so sure. Xian was quite different to Beijing… it was very beautiful and although it was also seething with tourists I am sure that at other times of the year Xian would be a much more pleasant place.
We went out to find somewhere good for dinner but our progress was hampered by my blisters and Liv’s insistence on attention-seeking ;-) we eventually ended up at a little family-run restaurant. We ordered a pork stew from the “English menu” and waited…. And waited….. and waited…. Then, when the meal finally arrived (looking delicious) we dug in and discovered that the meal consisted almost entirely of pig fat and chillies. The dish was so hot, we could barely manage to keep the meal in our mouths long enough to chew it! I have to admit that my birthday dinner defeated me very early on. Liv braved it for a little longer but by the time both our mouths were on fire and all our taste-buds were revolting against the assault, the meal still looked like we hadn’t touched it. We proceeded to return to the hostel in order to consume copious amounts of beer (for birthday and medicinal purposes of course!)
Later that night, as I dragged my little self into bed (dragging along with me a number of buckets of birthday beer) I was pleasantly surprised to find that the boys in the room were telling the truth, none of them snored at all!
The following day, nursing slight hangovers, Liv and I made up our own tour of Xian city, including the Muslim quarter, the bell tower, the drum tower, the wild goose pavilion and a shopping centre.
On May 4 we went on a tour to see the terracotta warriors. A guy from our dorm room, “Chris from Sweden” came too. I’m pretty sure he thought Liv and I are completely crazy… was it my fault that my breakfast (an egg in a flat bread roll) looked like it was talking to me… and so I added the voice???
The three of us had a really fun and interesting day… only slightly marred by the bunch of total idiots who were also on the same tour that day.
Liv and I left the following morning to fly to Shanghai. Shanghai was a lot like what I imagine Tokyo to have been 20 years ago… desperately trying to be modern, clean and rich but with large pockets of poverty, ancient buildings and filth. We really had only one day in Shanghai… but from what we saw, it was the contrasts that I found most interesting. Some of my highlights in Shanghai were the acrobatics show that we saw… if you’ve ever seen cirque de soleil, you’ll have some idea of the kinds of amazing, heart-stopping feats these people manage to perform every night. Another highlight for me was the bund tourist tunnel. Yes, it’s touristy (as you would expect of a tourist tunnel) yes it’s tacky, yes it’s psychedelic! I guarantee that if you go there it won’t be what you expect… but for a cold, windy, rainy day, Liv and I could find no better way to spend ½ an hour… closely followed by a few hours of shopping in a simply enormous shopping centre!
By the time we emerged from the shopping centre, the rain had cleared and the day was sunny, and pleasant. That evening (May 6) Liv and I traveled in a soft-sleeper compartment in an overnight train back to Beijing. We were really lucky to have no spitters or throat clearers in our compartment! Instead there was a middle-aged man (who spoke quite good English) and a teen-aged boy from the compartment next door, who spent the whole night in our compartment in order to practice his English. The four of us played card games together for much of the night (interrupted occasionally by the boy’s parents checking in on him).
On May 7, due to the heat on all the previous days we had spent in Beijing, Liv and I both decided to dress for summer… unfortunately, the weather wasn’t as pleasant as it looked out of our window and we both spent the day feeling different levels of frozen. We visited the Summer Palace and (in record time) the Beijing zoo… then went back to the hotel for a meal of Peking duck and a semi-warm shower.
The trip back to Tokyo was fraught with frustrations due to NWA in China. Let’s just say that we were eventually allowed to board the aircraft (after being stopped at every possible stage for searches of us and our luggage). The flight was fine and we made it back to my apartment in Tokyo without further incident.
For the next week Liv did the tourist thing alone in Tokyo during the day while I worked, then at night we went out shopping / for dinner etc. We completed the week by getting professional photos taken of us dressed as Japanese geisha. It was a whole lot of fun and the photos turned out to be really great! It was very sad to say goodbye to Liv… I guess we should start thinking about our next holiday together soon! ;-)
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