The China Experience

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Hello all! I am sorry it has been such a long time and that I have been so rubbish and not blogged in 5 WEEKS, but I was unable to blog the whole time I was in China and Tibet (being technically part of China too)....meaning I have loads to write about (so pity me as I have about 60 pages of my diary to write about in what will end up being around 5 separate blogs)...... I am now in Kathmandu in Nepal, hence being able to access my blog. Well, what can I say about China?? It was an EXPERIENCE!! I really enjoyed my time there but it is like nowhere else I have ever been. I will write about what I got up to, and then you can make your own mind up about China.

I managed to make a Chinese friend at Narita airport in Tokyo. His name was Bai and he was behind me in the queue to check-in our bags. He was really nice and helped me with my bags and bought me a green tea drink with cream. We sat together on the flight from Tokyo to Shenyang, and he gave me a lot of advice about China, which frightened me a tad, as he accidently made China sound like a place where you would definitely get mugged/kidnapped or murdered.... I left him in Shenyang and caught my connecting flight to Beijing.

Beijing looked very impressive while landing; it looked like a computer memory board, as it was nighttime and certain areas and roads were lit up, whereas everywhere else in between was pitch black!
Was a little dazed on landing as China is very different from Japan. I had two Australians just hop in my cab with me, but as they ended up paying for it and it meant that I wasnt alone in a taxi in a foreign city at night, it all turned out for the best.
I wasnt very impressed with the hostel I had booked to stay in that night...the toilets were foul, and the showers looked as though you would end up being dirtier when you came out than you had been when you went in. I decided to hold off on having a shower until I got to my tour hotel the next day, where hopefully everything would be much cleaner. The only plus to my hostel was that I was the only one in my dorm (as everyone else was clever enough to go elsewhere!!), which meant i wasnt kept awake by snoring, or woken up in the morning.

I stayed in bed until 11am, to recover from all the travelling and faff. As soon as I got up, I repacked and checked out and taught a taxi to my tour's starting hotel. It was much, much nicer! Met my tour group in the evening and they all seemed really friendly. We all went out for an amazing dinner together with lots of delicious chinese food.

I count the next day (25th April) as my first real day in China, as it was the first day I really had a chance to experience China. We went to the Great Wall. I learnt that the Great Wall is between 5000-6000km long. It was started 2000 years ago, and it was added to and improved in every chinese dynasty except two. We went to the Mutianyu part of the Great Wall, which involved a 2 hour drive from Beijing to get there.

I hadnt really realised how big the Great Wall was, or how far we'd have to climb to get there. It was a 30minute walk, up very steep steps, from the car park to the wall. That in itself was pretty hard, though i am glad i walked and didnt cheat and take the cablecar up.

The views from the wall are impressive, and even though it was quite a hazy day, you could see lots!
I loved the way the wall snaked along the top of the mountains, stretching far out of sight. It looked so beautiful, and to think it had been there for hundreds of years (least the bit we were at was only a couple of hundred years old).

We walked along the wall for about 6km in total, and though it was very up and down, most of it was very pleasant to walk. There was however, a staircase of doom, which was incredibly steep and had well over 500 steps. That was horrid!!! But the views made it worth it.

Then it was back along the wall the way we had come, and even a little bit further along from where we started, to get a toboggan back down to the car-park. It was a great way to get down quickly, especially as we were a little fed up of walking, whizzing past the scenery.

Then after a quick rest at the hotel for a couple of hours it was out for dinner. We went for Peking . It was quite tasty, but not as good a crispy duck in my opinion. We had a whole table full of other delicious things too, dishes and dishes covering every bit of space. There wasnt a single thing I didnt like.

We then went for a walk around Beijing at night, and went to a night food market. They sold all sorts of weird and (not so) wonderful things there. You could try silk worm, honeybee cocoons, centipedes, sea horses, lizards, grasshoppers, sheep penis, scorpions, star fish and many, many more. It was mind boggling.

I had a go and tried grasshopper, scorpion and starfish. The one I prefered was the starfish. It tasted like an odd sort of fish, not particularly nice, but not too bad either. Scorpion was my next favourite, (second least awful choice), it was deep-fried so was crispy, and just tasted spicy and peppery. I really didnt like the grasshopper, not only was it hard to eat as it was big with its wings and legs, but it had a horrid, squidgy bit that tasted like grass or what I imagine compost to taste like!!! I wont be trying that one again. YUCK!!!

The next morning, it became apparent rather early on, that I was going to regret being so adventurous with my culinary choices the night before. I woke up feeling a little bit peculiar, with a slightly painful tummy. Still, it wasnt bad, so I just got up and ready as usual, and met up with the rest of my group for the day's activities.

We headed to Tiannamen square. It was full of people queuing to see chairman Maos mausoleum. I found it so interesting to see the famous (infamous) square which had once been full of tanks, with the horrific footage of the student being run down. The square had nothing to suggest such things had ever happened there. It was just a bustling place, full of tourists.

After looking round a bit, and being gawked at by a load of chinese people, we went into the Forbidden city. It was at this time that I started to feel really rather ill. Consequently, I didnt really listen all that carefully to what my tour guide was saying..... Here is what I remember/took in....

You have to go through numerous gates to actually get into the main part of the Forbidden City. The Forbidden city is where the Chinese emperors of old lived. What I hadnt realised was that the emperor was never allowed to leave the Forbidden City, so it was rather like a very pretty prison.

There is almost no greenery or garden in the Forbidden City, instead there are bricks on the ground, eight layers deep. This was because the emperor was paranoid that if there was soil and grass, someone would be able to tunnel into the Forbidden City and murder him. There is a small garden right at the end of the Forbidden City, it is rather beautiful and full of cypress trees.

All around the Forbidden City are these vats, that were used to collect rain water, and they are literally everywhere so that if there was a fire, then there would be water to fight it with.

Towards the end of the tour, I started to feel a little better, which was a relief!!!

We then had free time in the afternoon, so after having lunch with the group, I went to explore the Jingshan park behind the Forbidden city. There is an artificial hill in the park, with three pavilions, one on each of the three small peaks. There hill is covered with evergreen trees, and according to Marco Polo, the emperor, whenever he received information about a handsome tree growing somewhere, he would order it dug up and replanted in the park.

The view from the top of the hill was great, as you could see the whole of the Forbidden City. In the park there is a tree where Chongzhen, the last emperor of the Ming Dynasty, hung himself in 1644. He hung himself because the peasant army had broken into Beijing and was heading for the Forbidden City.

Next I headed off to the Temple of Heaven. Unfortunately, I started to feel ill again. Thankfully I was by myself, so I could sit down whenever I needed to, for as long as I needed, without annoying anyone.
The Temple of Heaven was built in 1420, and was the place where emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasty went to worship heaven and offer sacrifices to pray for bumper harvests and favourable rains.

As I was a little preoccupied, it took me an embarassingly long time to realise that I wasnt going to find the Temple of Heaven I was looking for. This is because the temple complex is called the Temple of Heaven, and it is made up of several important buildings, as opposed to just on big temple..... The buildings in the Temple of Heaven include the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest, the Circular Mound Altar, the Imperial Vault of Heaven and the Abstinence Palace.
While I was walking towards the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest, I walked along side a Long corridor (literally a very long covered corridor that is outside). All along it were Chinese people playing card games, bettering and talking loudly. They looked as though they were having a great time.

After the Temple of Heaven, I went to have a quick peek at the Pearl Market, as I was feeling marginally better and was no longer crippled with sickness. It was a little bit disappointing to find that the pearl market didnt just sell pearls. It also sells clothes, watches, lots of electronic goods, and just about everything else you can think of.

I decided to for go dinner that night, as I blamed lunch for my second wave of feeling ill. In the evening I went with some of my group to see a Kungfu story acted on stage. It was a theatre play all about a young boy left at a monastery, and how he learns Kung Fu, and then is lead astray and loses his focus on Buddhism. Eventually he comes back to the temple, stronger and he becomes abbot. There was lots of impressive displays of Kung Fu, and they were all so unbelievably strong. The story itself (as you can probably tell) wasnt all that great, and it was disappointing that it was all acted in English, proving that it was put on purely for the tourists, but it was great to see some real Kung Fu. I found it funny that when they were proving their strength by breaking things on their heads and breaking stones with their fists. Was also mildly impressed ;P.

The 27th of April was my last day in Beijing, and it was a "free day", meaning that no group activities were planned. Olive, our tour leader, had suggested going to the Summer Palace, right on the outskirts of Beijing.

The Summer Palace, originally named Garden on Clear Ripples, was built by Emperor Qianlong in 1750 to celebrate his mothers birthday. It was later used as a pleasure garen for emperors and empresses.
It was burnt down in 1860, by Anglo-French Allied Forces, but rebuilt in 1886 by Empress Dowager Cixi. She diverted navy funds to rebuild the Palace, which meant that they Chinese Navy was very weak at that time. The Palace was damaged again by the Allied Forces in 1900, and rebuilt again in 1902, so the Palace I walked around probably looked nothing like the original!

What I hadnt realised was how big the Summer Palace was. The Summer Palace is an area that consists of over 290 hectares, with a huge lake (Kunming Lake) and lots and lots of beautiful buildings. The Summer Palace also boasts the longest painted corridor in the world (it is outside!!), running for 728 metres.

I enjoyed walking around the Summer Palace, but found it sad that when you peered through the windows of the locked buildings, all the antiques were covered in layers and layers of dust. They could be amazingly beautiful, but they were just left, preserved but also uncared for.

It was nice to learn about Empress Cixi, who must have been a bit of a dragon. She went through 3 emperors in her life, one was her husband (though actually she was just his concubine), one was her son and the last was her nephew. She out lived them all, though she did die the day after her nephew (very suspicious!). Her nephew was only 3 years old when he became emperor, so Cixi used him as a puppet emperor, and basically ruled China for 48 years!!!

As I mentioned before, I hadn't realised how big it all was, and ended up spending 4-5 hours walking round still failed to see it all!
I managed to run into nearly all my group at the Summer Palace, and purely by chance, we all arrived at the metro station at the same time, after we'd finished going round the Summer Palace. As we were all together, we decided to go to the Olympic Park to see the Bird's Nest and the Aqua centre. It was weird seeing them in real life after having seen them on TV not all that long ago.
It was pretty funny while we were wondering around the Olympic Park, as Chinese tourist wandering around, seemed to find it more interesting to take pictures of us instead of the stadiums.

Once we'd finished, we went back to the hotel to meet up with everyone else. We had a quick dinner and then it was off to catch the overnight train to Shanghai!

The overnight trains have three bunks all on top of each other, and 6 bunks in total in each compartment. It is pretty cramped! As we had heard horror stories, it was nice to find that the train wasn't neary as bad as expected (though the toilets weren't great by any stretch of tyhe imagination!).

I slept surprisingly well, and awoke in Shanghai!!

I gound out quickly, that Shanghai is completely different from Beijing. It seems far more modern, with huge skyscrapers. After dumping our stuff at the hotel and having a needed shower, we went out for an orientation walk.

Our hotel was about 30 seconds away from this bustling pedestrian street. It was FAB! Shops everywhere, and pretty, colourful, interesting buildings on every side. The only negative was all the Chinese sellers coming up to you every two seconds saying 'Lady, you want watch, bag?' They never seem to get the idea that you don't want anything from them, and that if you did, you would be perfectly capable of approaching them! I really wished I had known how to say 'go away' in chinese, as it was all so bloody frustrating.

We walked to the Shanghai museum, and went into look at all the exhibitions. It was nice to learn more about Chinese culture and history.

Next we walked to the Bund, an area by the river, which was lovely to walk along as you can see the three tallest buildings in Shanghai across the water. One of the buildings boasts the tallest observatory in the world!

That evening, I went for a walk with a Canadian person from my tour. It was awesome to see Shanghai all lit up and it was exactly how I thought Beijing would be, yet Beijing had failed to live up to my expectations. Shanghai reminded me of a very Asian New York City, maybe what New York's China town looks like? But as i didn't make it to NYC China Town, I guess I'll never know...

The next day, Olive, our tour leader, walked us to the Yu garden part of Shanghai. This turned out to be my favourite place in Shanghai, as the buildings are beautiful! They are only 100 years old, but they have ultra modern shops, coffee shops in them, which i felt perfectly summed up China, the old and the new mashed together!

I went into the yu Garden, a garden of classical chinese gardening architecture built in 1559 as the private garden of an administration commissioner of Sichuan Province. It was BEAUTIFUL!! And surprisingly big considering it was in the middle of a huge city. There were so many nooks and crannies, and wonderfully decorative statues, windows, ponds etc. to look at, that I could have happily spent all day there. l would love to have a garden that looks like Yu Garden.

Alas, I eventually had to leave, so Krina ( my roommate) and I went off to go up the tallest building in Shanghai (it was once the tallest building in the world!). It has the highest observatory in the world, on the 100 floor. The building itself looks bizarrely like a giant bottle opener. It was awesome being up so high, but unfortunately, as it was quite hazy, I couldn't see all that far 😞. That evening, after watching the royal wedding briefly on TV, my group we to an acrobatics show. It was spectacular. Half the time i didn't want to watch as I thought they performers must be on the verge of hurting themselves. I think what makes the Chinese so unique is that they try and perfect the things the the rest of us write off as impossible. What a crazy people! There were men flipping from swinging pole to swinging pole, women who bent in ways I didn't think humans could, a pot juggler (far mre impressive than it sounds), a lady that could hula hoop with her whole body and much, much more. The show was one gasp after another.

The next dat was the end of my time in Shanghai, so after a nice lie-in, and a quick pop to the shops to get a pot noodle for dinner, it was on to the overnight train to Xi'an. A 16 hour train..... This time my group was all together on the train, whih meant everyone could chat, play card games and majong together. it was good fun. The only issues were that the toilets were much, much worse than on the previous train. Ergh! And, that some inconsiderate Chinese men were smoking like chimneys the whole trip. So the whole carriage stank! It made it very hard to sleep and I woke up with a sore throat......

Right, that is about all I can bear to put in this blog. So that is my first week in China covered, only the next two weeks in China and then my two weeks in Tibet to catch up on now.... Easy...... Will hopefully be writing the next blogs very rapidly, my aim is to be caught up before I go to Indonesia on the 4th of June. Wish me luck!!!! As always, comments are really appreciated (though not ones abotu my bad spelling and grammar, lol!). Missing you all xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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Photos

Going down the slide
The quick way to get down from the Great Wall

Me after I'd eaten a grasshopper
I'm looking quite smug about managing to eat the grasshopper, but it had it's revenge the next day!!!

Temple of Heaven
Well, one of the buildings in the temple of heaven

Bottle opener Building
With the highest observatory in the world

Show
Hula Woman