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During our 3 weeks in China we only managed to see a small portion of what the country had to offer due to its enormous size. We wanted to see traditional china although it became apparent quite early on that this is a country of mass development needing to house its 1.3 billion population. The sky scrapers were being thrown up everywhere and most of the old tradional buildings had been demolished.
Our first city on arriving from vietnam was a "small town" called nanning, the people here had obviously never seen a white person as they were literally falling over themselves staring at us. Not only were we a novelty but no one spoke a word of english and our chinese was a little rusty!!! Dans first encounter with a chinese was in a public toilet where a guy began pleasuring himself next to where dan stood, I've never seen such a look of disgust and horror on someones face as he came out the toilet. The words dirty f**k and knocking one out being the first words he used and dirty and violated ha ha! Luckily we only stayed 1 night before catching our first train to Shanghai,
Moto GP - Shanghai
Dans testing out his new bike!!!a mear 30 hours!!!!!!! Due to the language barrier and chinese writing we weren't even sure where we were going to end up!!!
Shanghai was obviously totally different catering for the tourist market, this metropolitan city was full of huge department stores, glitzy hotels and plenty of tourist attractions. We soon found that shanghai was quite a volatile city as on the first night Jen nearly had a fight with a sweet shop owner and we saw a taxi driver get flawed by an unhappy passenger.........funny........I was really looking forward to those jellies as well!!
However we came to Shanghai for 1 thing the MOTO GP, what a weekend. Besides the drizzle on the sunday, the sun was beaming. We met two Aussie girls who kindly got us into the best area on the start/finish straight in front of the paddocks. It was a cracking weekend as it wasn't too busy and Dan was even happier as he got to sit on a repsol GP bike. A few beers later and he managed to get in to naughty mode and with a little help we managed to pull down a 6 foot banner as a souvenir!! To top
MotoGP - Shanghai
Stupid English....... the day off we went with tanya and emily (the two Aussie's) for a brazillian BBQ which tasted amazing. All the meat, salad, potatoes etc you can eat washed down with a few pints. The first proper meat feast we have had since leaving the UK.
The next stop was (a 17 hour train journey) to Xi-an, the home to the terracotta warriors. We arrived early in the morning and due to all the sight seeing in Shanghai decided to spend the day lazing in the room of the Youth Hostel, which was fantastic. The room was very traditional, the bed was huge and by far the best hotel we have stayed in so far........oh and no bed bugs either ha ha. We spent a day exploring the city,which was still quite traditional in chinese standards. We hired out a tandom and cycled 14km around the perimeter walls, which was funny as Dan did all the peddling and I did all the sight seeing.......only a few arguments haha. The main reason for coming to Xi-an was to see the terracotta army, which were some what 15'000 life size pot warriors dating back to 5000BC, and each warrior is unique.
If you could get past the lack of information and vast (and I mean vast) amount of chinese tourists (did I mention vast!!!), this was very interesting. Tip.........dont buy food off the skanking street stalls here as its very expensive and taste like shite!!!!
Following advice from a local we decided to spend a night in Pingao which was a short diversion (only 12 hours by train!!) from Bejing. This place was very picturesque and was more like the china we originally expected/envisaged, with traditional style houses and interesting quaint side streets. The biggest shock here was the temperature.......it was very cold, and a welcomed break to the heat of shanghai and Xi-an. We also visited a a traditional House owned by the Wang family which was a massive estate, now turned into a museum, depicting how a rich chinese family used to live. The most memorable part of this day however was when we were just about to leave. While in the carpark we noticed that for about 30 seconds we and the whole surroundings were violently rocking..........we both felt like we were going to faint, it was a very strange feeling. When we got back to the
Xian
Huge traditional chinese style bed. Guest House we discovered that we had actually felt the earthquake that hit sechuan province (only a few hundred miles away) and recently found out that it has killed over 80'000 people. A couple we were travelling with were actually in the pronce only a week or so before.......very lucky!!
And then to the capital Beijing (just a 12 hour train journey this one), it was not what we expected at all but a very pleasant surprise, it felt so airy and not at all like a capital city!! We obviously had to climb the great wall whilst here, we did the section from Jinshaling to Simintai as it was less touristy but it did take us 3 an half hours to get there in order to escape the chinese stampedes. It was a 4 hour trek which took us 2 an half hours (Dan was on a mission). It was a gorgeous sunny day and the views were spectacular. The rest of the time was spent on push bikes cycling the city seeing Tianamen Square and the Forbidden City a massive temple museum of the previous kings residences and countries jewels. Spending hours around local markets with bargains
Two-up in Xian
Not too may arguments....... gallore, you could fill you wardrobe for next to nothing and cycling through the local Hutongs (back allyways/locals homes) was lovely seeing how they live and a little bit of how Beijing used to be.
We of course sampled the cities nightlife with a few couples we met in Pingyao one evening and luckily Milla one of the girls lives in beijing so it didn't cost us a fortune, it was called pisshead alley and you can see why with Malibu and Coke only a pound and 50p a beer, Bargain. We also had some of the best food in Bejing and the Peking Duck was amazing, we even tried the local speciality....Duck Tongues.....They looked revolting but didnt taste that bad.
And our final stop in China was Hong Kong. This journey was a mere 24 hours by train, Jen wanted to fly but Dan was being too tight!!! In the end it turned out quite well as it made the immigration crossing easy (Hong Kong is not fully under chinese control yet) and the transport in Hong Kong was fantastic. Hong Kong was by far the richest and most expensive place we have visited so far with
New Warrior nterviews
Dan tests the suit for size every other car being a porsche or ferrari and Prada and Gucci replacing the Primark and Next haha. But the cost didnt bother us as we were staying at Jens brother flat for free....hurahhh!! On arrival at Andrew and Ginny's flat there was a pleasant surprise waiting for us in the form of Jens Mum and step Dad. It wasnt so pleasant as we were looking forward to a decent bed, which they stole (only joking) it was great seeing them.
I think Jackie and Dave had bought the British weather with them as for the first week it was quite overcast and rainy. The first day we decided to go far a stroll along the Avenue of Stars and got absolutely drenched and nearly got blown over the harbour wall. We spent several days looking around the city, which included a walk around the Peak with fantastic views over the city and was accessed via a tourist Tram which went up the side of the mountain at a 45 degree angle. We also visited the Zoological Gardens complete with Jaguar (he was poorly though) and Hong Kong Park with a brilliant walk through aviary, one of the best
we've been too and even better it was free!!. The place has some really pretty tranquil areas for such a busy city.
We also took a ferry across to Macau for a day. This place is a mix of traditional quaint portuguese villages and Mega Casinos straight from Las Vegas. In fact new casinos were going up everywhere and the country already boasted revenue 10 times higher than that of Las Vegas. We went in the new Venetian, Wynns and Grand Lisboa and had a small flutter.......about 2 pound...... we didnt want to blow all our travelling budget!!
Andrew took a few days off with us to show us the sights, we ended up having a champayne brunch (how the other half live) all you could eat and drink for 4 hours, Dan was sick!!!! HA HA it was great food as well, What a waste. We spent the rest of that day with a hang over. We also went to ocean park, one of hong kongs theme Parks (the other was disney land) it had everything from marine life and shows to fun fair rides. Hong Kong is real nice city with a lot to do and
see.
Well we are currently sunning ourselves on the beaches in Bali (its such a hard life), before we head off to New Zealand for there winter, so more on that later.
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