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Published: April 17th 2008
The forbidden temple
One of the many gates and two familir faces - just to prove we actually got here!!Well, turns out Zhengzhou (which is where we are) has 10 million people but doesn't even figure on this websites list of cities - go figure? So yeah, we figured out our way around the train station (actually really easy in the end) - had a leisurely 6 hour train ride south to Zhengzhou. It wasn't a bullet train or anything - about 160km/hr for those who really want to know - but was awesomely efficient, clean and easy for those of us not so blessed with the mandarin 😊
Yesterday was pretty much taken up with travelling and recovering from the last few days (andrew's feet were feeling the pain .. turns out years of 8 hour days in front of a computer aren't good preperation for 8 hour days of walking around enormous historical monuments 😊 ) so that wasn't terribly exciting. Except for the first eating in a place with absolutely zero english - not even hello which even the 3 year old kids can all say. Needless to say we caused a stir walking in and managed the most delicious meal thus far! (Our plan B was for kelly to do the chicken dance to try
Andrew's hot butt
Oh, and one of the steeper sections of the great wall - note the blue sky - we were lucky!!! and communicate what we wanted ... needless to say I wait in eager anticipation ..). The train ride was pretty cool too - saw a lot of rice paddys (some of the only green in the last week) and a lot of crazy little recycling shops with piles of doors, bottles, car bumpers all arranged in neat little piles .. oh, and the unreal amount of rubbish alongside the tracks everywhere .. but hey, it was a pretty cool ride all round
Today was one of those mastercard days. You know, train to Zhengzhou - 200 yen, half decent place to sleep - 150 yen, booking a tour to see the shaolin temple with a guide so we could learn some history - 200 yen, not realising the guided tour was in mandarin only - priceless! So yeah, we spent today in one of those tour groups we have seen so much of. We had our own flag and I'm convinced the guide really knew what she was on about ... pity her english was only 10x as good as our mandarin - ie fairly poor. Ah well, we made the best of it and managed our way through
Chinese old men are cool
And this guy was ripping it up on his two string banjo/violin an enjoyable day at the birthplace of kung fu. They had some crazy stunts (showing just where pretty much every breakdancing move ever came from) and some cool sights - a funeral urn from 700 A.D was fairly nuts .. not to mention the gorgeous courtyards and mountains that would have been breathtaking if not for the smog.
Oh, and the smog didn't clear up as we left Beijing - it kept going. Nuts!
So, we're loving it and we've made it a week with no major setbacks or upsets - I've also uploaded a couple of photos for a taste .. believe me, there's plenty more where that came from - we ain't going easy on the memory cards.
Sharps out
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Chris
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Looks
Thanks for the updates guys. Looks like you are having fun. Did you try the secret kung fu arts on those monk guys? I think this makes me the official first poster on your travel blog. Big ups to me. C and S