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Published: October 11th 2007
Beijing
Andrew has pulled!!Hello all, hope you're well and everything is good back home. Last time we wrote we had just arrived in Beijing, we have now been in China for nearly 3 weeks so thought we'd update you on our Chinese adventure so far....................
Our hostel in Beijing was in a great location, 5 mins from Tiananmen Sq and right in the middle of a traditional Chinese hutong. These are narrow lanes bustling with street vendors selling everything from Dog Soup to Lizard Feet. There is a great atmosphere, as lots of local live here and pass the day by playing cards, eating noodles or trying to sell you a load of tat. Walking around the hutong you also notice the smell of wet dog (sorry mum) fairly often, which is obviously some pooch being cooked up. I tried some donkey while we were there, which wasn't bad at all. Tiananmen Sq and the Forbidden City are really impressive, absolutely massive. Its difficult to comprehend the scale of the Forbidden City and it shows how extravagantly the emperors used to live - it makes Buckingham Palace look small.
We had a nice welcome when we first had a look around Tiananmen
Beijing
Kim in Tiananmen Square Sq, as we met a couple of Chinese Students, the first one thing he said to me was "Hello, you are very handsome!" I thanked him, but told him that I wasn't that kinda bloke, although I felt better when he said that my wife was very young and beautiful! Walking around the square it is evident the influence Mao has on the Chinese, there is a massive portrait of Mao on Tiananmen Sq, although I'm slightly surprised that they chose a portrait with such a dodgy do (we think his hair bears a slight resemblance to Martin Jol/John Parling).
On our third day in Beijing we went to the Great Wall on a tour with our hostel. It was pretty cool as they took us to a secluded part of the wall where our group were the only visitors. The views and scenery were spectacular, and again it was difficult to comprehend the scale of the wall (Chinese history is bonkers!). We were led by an elderley Chinese guide and we were able to walk along the wall taking in our fantastic surroundings, it was all going so well until we came across a wasps nest on our
Beijing
Kim in front to Chairman Mao - check out that do! descent from the mountain ridge. The wasps seemed to take a shine to Kim's hair (must have been the Head & Shoulders) and there were 5 massive wasps swarming around her head. At this point we were walking along a dangerous cliff-side path and I was slightly concerned when Kim started running down the mountain like a nutter with her arms flailing round her head trying to get rid of the wasps (the running style was similar to that of David Pleat when Luton stayed up on the last day of the 1983/84 season - you would have loved it Phillo!!). At the time, I was more concerned about Kim falling of the side of the cliff, although as it turned out she wasn't being a total drama queen as she had been stung 5 times. Eventually we managed to get all the wasps out of her hair, and luckily our guide was on hand to apply the ancient Chinese remedy of mud and spit to the stings!
Our overall impression of Beijing was of a clean, well ordered, modern city with lots of developments of department stores, hotels and offices going on, they are definitely making the effort
Beijing
Kim at the Forbidden City for the Olympics. Despite this they still can't stop people hacking up all over the place!
Our next stop was an ancient Chinese city called Pingyao, which is one of the only totally preserved old cities in China. We arrived overnight on the train, although only hard seat tickets were available so the journey wasn't the most comfortable. It didn't help that Kim was sat next to a Chinese version of Janice Battersby for most of the trip! As we waited at the train station for our bus to Pingyao we had a surreal moment as it was 8.00am on a thursday morning and there was hardcore techno music pumping out of the supermarket next to the bus stop at full blast. If this didn't suit our musical tastes then we had the delights of Chinese Opera on the bus journey (the worst singing you have ever heard, cats chourus springs to mind). This sums up the randomness of China. Pingyao was very nice, but it rained for 3 days solid so it gave us a good chance to catch up on some sleep and chill out.
We then caught a train to Xian, luckily (or so we
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Hutong Street thought) we managed to get hard sleeper tickets which would give us a bed for the night. Each compartment has 6 bunks, in 2 rows although there are no doors or privacy. We were sharing with a couple from the hostel in Pingyao and their two children. The bloke was a very cheesy, but funny Canadian who said things like "the weather's not looking too shit-hot" and kept harking back to when he visited China 20 years ago. Unfortunately our compartment was next to the toilet area which meant that if the door to the toilets was left open the smell of sewage drifted into where we were sleeping. The Chinese people would never close the door when they went to toilet which made it very difficult to sleep, so the Canadian bloke and I were constantly up and down all night shutting the door. By about 2am the Canadian was getting a little upset and one bloke took the force of his rage when he didn't shut the door and the Canadian said "shut the f***in door, you piece of s**t!" Luckily he didn't speak English though! To be fair to the Chinese, I think they have a higher
Beijing
Kim at the Summer Palace tolerance to foul smells as the smell of s**t and manky old fat/grease seems to be a common smell in all of the cities we have been to, so it probably didn't occur to them to shut the door.
So after our "luxury" sleeper journey we arrived in Xian. Here we saw the famous terracotta warriers and visited the Musilm Quarter. The warriors were impressive and once again it was the story behind it that made the whole thing mindboggling...In the evening we got a rickshaw to the Muslim Quarter, we ended getting a ride with with a one-legged rickshaw driver which was pretty nerve-racking!! At the Muslim Quarter there was a real carnival atmosphere loads of stalls, street vendors, markets. Here was the perfect chance to try a few of the local delicacies but nothing is what it seems, we mistook beancurd for chocolate and bombay potatoes for lumps of fat!! We really weren't too sure what we were eating! But no stomach problems to speak of yet!
Our next stop was a visit to the Longmen caves. Here we stayed in the nearby city of Luoyang, neither of us got a good feel for this city.
Beijing
Andrew at Suzhou Street - Summer Palace There was nothing to do, and it was made worse by three things: the hostel staff had zero customer services, the bloke we shared the dorm with turned off all the lights off at 9.00pm and went to sleep leaving us to twiddle our thumbs and lastly the toilet was as clean as the one out of "trainspotting'. But this was all forgotten when we saw the Buddha statues carved into the cliffside - they were amazing!
We then travelled to Nanjing which is city close to Shanghai in eastern China. We thought it was wicked there was a great atmosphere, the area around our hostel was brilliant it had canals, which were lit up at night with neon lights. We went up the cable car, which gave great views over the city. In Nanjing there was a park which featured a large lake and we got a real feel for how the Chinese chilled out, lying around in hammocks and eating sweet potatoes. I experimented with a couple of local delicacies whilst we were there including fried squids tentacles and caramelised roast potatoes. The potatoes were brilliant, I want to introduce them at home when we get back!
Beijing
Modern Beijing That brings us to our latest stop, Shanghai! The skyline, especially at night is amazing, its like stepping onto the set of Bladerunner! Like nothing we've seen before, and its made doubly enjoyable by the public binoculars which play songs such as We Wish You a Merry Christmas and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star when you put your money in! There are huge plasma screens everywhere and it really feels like the Chinese have stepped into the 21st century and if you like Neon lights and shopping you will absolutely love it (this is a warning to Laura, Kate & Jayne!). There is a lot of money here which is reflected in the amount of shopping plazas with designers shops, plush hotels, and the expense of everything. Also, the scale of building work which has gone on here is incredible and they are continuing to develop the city. The other evening we went to a Chinese chicken hot pot fast food resaturant where you get to choose what meat and veg you want to put in the hot pot. It was pretty tasty but we didn't expect to see an actual chicken foot (talons n all!) bobbing around in the
Beijing
With our Chinese Guide on The Great Wall - he later added some mud and spit to Kim's neck! pot, I suddenly wasn't hungry but it didn't put Andrew off!!!We rode the Maglev train which was brilliant, it gets up to speeds of 431km/h, they have to put special decelerating glass on the windows so that the speed you're travelling at doesn't completely freak you out - it takes 7 mins to travel 33 km! We would recommend Shanghai to anybody, and it will be very interesting to see how it compares to Hong Kong.
In short, so far China has been much much easier to travel around than we had anticipated, I think it must have changed a great deal over the last 5 years. All you need to do is be able to point and most Chinese poeple are happy to help, we have found lots of the chinese really friendly and happy people and they love saying hello to us in english. Other things that have really made us laugh are the 'Chinglish' signposts, their translations are priceless, a personal favourite was a sign for disabled access, with the English translation of "Way for Invalid!"
Tonight we get a sleeper train to Tunxi, to see some rural parts of China. We are due to
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The Great Wall arrive in Hong Kong by the 22nd so we will probably be in touch again then.
Looking forward to hearing any news....
Take Care
Andrew & Kim
p.s. apologies for the numerous photos of the Shanghai skyline but it really was amazing!
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Dee
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Pac-a-mac?
Kim, what you need is an emergency poncho condom outfit...... Sounds like you're having the best time! And well done for making the time to write such a great detailed blog too. Hope the wasp stings have gone down now. Looking forward to the next installment. Love Dee x