China 2014

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On the second week of March I had finished the south east Asia leg of this around the world overland adventure and was now heading to china. I was very excited for this part because it would be the first time I had seen my dad and grampa in 2 1/2 months. The night before I left there was a karaoke party at the Reggie backpackers bar just down the road from where I was staying in Kuala Lumpur. Me and my friends who were from Australia did not go to sleep until 3am that night as it was a fun time. The morning after however was dreadful. I woke up, got McDonalds and then jumped on the metro to the KL airport. When I boarded the plane I was wearing a T-shirt, shorts and sandals as it was 33C in Kuala Lumpur that day. When I arrived though I was in for a huge weather shock as it was 8C in Beijing. when I got my bag I though on my jacket as fast as I could. I was picked up at the airport by our tour guide feung and our driver. The first thing I noticed about Beijing when I walked out of the airport was how hard it was to breath. Breathing felt similar to smoking a cigarette. When we got into the city though the air was better Feung showed me to my hotel room and that was where I spent my fist night in China.

My Dad and Grampa were not due to arrive to Beijing 1 day after me so on this day I decided to see the temple of heaven. The temple of heaven and my hotel were both located in the Chongwen district of Beijing so it was conveniently in walking distance. the temple of heaven area is 2,700,000 square meters and there is 6 gates to enter. It was built in 1420 by Emperor Yongle of the Ming dynasty and used by the Emperors in both the Ming and Qing dynasty's up until 1911 as a a place for worship ceremonies. It is the largest of Ancient Chinas sacrificial buildings and it was opened to the public in 1988. I entered it from the eastern gate and went around and then exited from the western gate. It was a grate day to spend in Beijing. I went back went back to the hotel and a few hours later my dad and grampa had arrived. We went out for dinner and beers and caught up on what we had been doing the past 2 1/2 months. We then then went back to hotel, me and my dad shared a room and my Grampa got his own room a floor above us.

The first day of the tour we boarded a bus and everyone was introduced to each other, we had a great group of people from all over the world. Our first stop of the day would be the Forbidden city or as its called in Chinese Gu Gong. It is located in the centre of Beijing. When Beijing was first built the forbidden city was in the centre and its surrounded by the imperial city which is surrounded by the inner city and the inner city is surrounded by the outer city. Back then that system was how they separated people by their class. Now a days it just determines how much rent you pay, the further away you are from the forbidden city the cheaper the rent. the forbidden city was the palace for the emperors of China from 1420 till 1924 and it had housed 24 emperors of the Ming and Qing Dynasty in that time. Feung gave us an amazing tour of it and at the end myself, dad and grampa started tapping each other of the shoulder and looking the other way as a prank. Once we had gotten used to the prank we started including others in it and that would became our groups source of fun for the next week. After our tour of the forbidden city we went on tour where we rode in carriages being towed by bikes which were similar to the ones I rode in Vietnam. Me and Grampa shared one of the carriages and it took us into old town Beijing which was a preserved old part of the town. where a local tour guide showed us around. We then finished the day by going out for traditional Chinese food followed by going back to the hotel. going back to the room this night would turn out to be very eventful. When we got on the elevator grampa was push into the corner by some Chinese business men. And in this corner of the elevator was a massive pile of puke which grampa was stuck standing in due to the fact that he could not communicate with the men to tell them to move over as they did not speak English. All he said was this in a very Hank Hill sounding voice: "uh oh, someone spewed in here" "guys can you move over? oh right you guys don't speak English." After this moment my dad laughed like I have never seen before.

The next day we would head to the great wall of china. This was the day I was looking forward to the most as we would be seeing the great wall of china one of the 7 wonders of the world. we got up early and took the bus a few miles north of Beijing. When we got there It was the coldest day I had experienced on the trip so far. The great wall was built between the years 220 and 206 BC. The great wall runs over 7000 km across mountains and the deserts of china and has 827 platforms as well as 71 passes and countless towers. When you first step on the wall and overlook how far it runs you get this feeling of amazement and happiness. I can see why it is a wonder of the world as I have had this feeling before at other wonders of the world. The guards standing at the entrance to the great wall will not allow photos standing with them. It seemed that the 2 words in English they knew were "sorry,no." we were given 3 hours too view the wall. We first walked up the north direction of the wall and it was much longer and higher up then the south direction. We walked the south direction afterwards and it was steeper but less long. On the way back to Beijing we checked out a cloisonne workshop, where we saw practitioners of this ancient craft create magnificent enamelled metal pieces. In the evening we watched a Chinese acrobatic performance which had some very impressive shows. The one that stood out the most though was this group of motor bikers riding in a small circular cage. at one point 6 of them were riding in it and the crowed had mixed feelings of fear, shock and amazement. It truly was a great way to end our final night in Beijing.

The following day was our last day in Beijing and we would board a night train to Xian that night. we started the day by going to the myriad of clothing shops on the famous silk street where I bought a sweatshirt for my train ride to Russia that would be embarking on afterwards. After this we went to Kunming lake which is the lake in front of the summer palace. The lake is man made and the excavated soil was used to make longevity hill which is where the summer palace sits on. the summer palace was built in the 1100s by Emperor Wanyan Liang of the Jing Dynasty. After this visit we then went to the train station to board the overnight train to Xian. Me Dad and Grampa bought 3 big beers each for this trip but this would turn out to only be the start. Each cabin had 4 bunks and it was the three of us and an Australian man named Mark. Mark and Grampa had the bottom bunks while me and Dad had the top bunks. Grampa was the first one to discover how bad the toilets were, one was a seat and the other was no different then a hole in ground. Instead of going to sleep we turned our cabin into the party room and everyone else in the tour group came to join us while we all sat on the bottom bunks and drank beer for many hours. There was a beer cart being pushed through the hallways of the train and our group bought almost every beer on it. This was the night where Grampa became the most popular one in the group as told us all some of the funniest stories we had ever heard, he was also making very funny comments. I thought that I was a fast drinker but Grampa put me and the rest of us to shame fore he was by far the fastest drinker on that train. after all this drinking, sleeping on the train was no problem.

We awoke the next morning to find out that we were in Xian. This morning was beyond dreadful as we were all extremely tired, dehydrated and hungover. when we exited the train we meet our guide for Xian named Tom. Our first morning in Xi'an we visited one of the greatest archaeological finds of the 20th century: Emperor Qin's Terracotta Warriors. Made up of some 7,000 life-sized soldiers standing in military formation in excavated pits under what can only be described as a great big aircraft hangar. Made of local clay, no two soldiers' faces are alike, as each is said to be an individual portrait, which does little to make it any less eerie. Emperor Qin's army of 2,200-year-old soldiers was discovered in 1974 by local farmers digging a well. The reason for the warriors was that emperors were buried with their slaves, but slavery had been abolished by the time of Qin. To compensate, the emperor had the warriors made to protect him in the afterlife. Many of the soldiers are severely dismembered, said to be the result of a peasant revolt after the emperor's death rather than the passage of time. The emperor's tumulus (ancient grave mound) is located about a mile away and, according to folklore, contains untold treasures and so far nothing but a few exploratory digs have been attempted to find out. At this point the tapping on the shoulder joke had gotten far out of hand, everyone in the group was now doing it to each other now to the point where no one fell for it. so the new game was to tap random strangers that were walking around. At the end we met the man who discovered the Terracotta warriors. He looked very grumpy though so we did not ask him for an autograph. That night we went to a Tang Dynasty dinner and a performance of Chang'an music and dance originally performed for the illustrious emperors. That was also the place where we sampled a massive amount of dumplings. In fact that was the only thing on the menu, loads and loads of Dumplings for all 3 courses. The performance was spectacular and then end we went back to the hotel feeling very full.

The following morning at breakfast time no one want to even hear the word dumplings. We began the day with a visit to the enduring symbol of Xian, the big wild goose pagoda which was built in 652 to hold sutras collected in India by the wandering monk. After this we went on a bike ride on the city wall of Xian. Grampa ended up being the first one to complete the bike ride around the city wall as me and dad were stopping allot to take pictures. We then returned to the hotel to prepare for the over night train to Shanghai. This time we more prepared and bought ourselves many more beers It was a repeat of the last overnight train we all got very drunk and laughed at Grampa's funny stories.

In the morning we arrived in Shanghai. Shanghai is the largest city in China with a population of over 24 million. The name Shanghai is synonymous with wonder and oriental decadence. Prior to 1949, the city was a magnet for fortune seekers, idle foreigners, explorers and the dispossessed. The reason for this laissez faire attitude to all things commercial and social was to do with the notion of extraterritoriality, which meant foreign nationals were not bound by any local laws but by the laws and norms established by their respective consuls. Basically anything went. Until 1949, foreigners dominated commerce, banking and industry, amassing huge fortunes and transforming the landscape of foreign concessionary sections of Shanghai. This all came to a spectacular end in 1949, when the People's Liberation Army under Mao took power. One legacy of these heady times is Shanghai's Bund, where several colonial buildings line the promenade. Our hotel here had one of the nicest beds I had slept in on the entire trip. This city was also Grampa's favourite of the trip. After getting off the train we met our guide for shanghai, Jackie we referred to him as Jackie Chan. The first stop on the tour was the Oriental Pearl Tower. the tower was very interesting as it looked like 8 balls stacked on top of each other. the view was nothing less then amazing with the glass floor which you could stand on if you were not afraid of heights. After that we then went to the Jade Buddah temple which had many interesting sculptures of buddah. We then went to Yuyuan gardens, Bund and the old city. In the evening we boarded a cruise on the Huangpu River to get a different perspective of this fascinating city, and that was beyond incredible! the Shanghai skyline was one of the nicest skylines we had ever seen! this was a great end to the night.

The next day we made the short trip out of town to the Suzhou water canals by high speed train. On the train ride we were amazed at how fast the train went. We spent the whole time looking at speedometer instead of looking out the window. Suzhou is known as 'Venice of the east' it is made up of a patchwork of canals and waterways. As well as cruise the Grand Canal, which at nearly 2,000 kilometres is the longest constructed waterway in the world. We took a short boat cruise down the canals. We also visited a silk workshop where we tried and failed badly at making a quilt. Dad and Grampa both bought quilts for their wife's while Jackie taught me some martial arts. When we left Suzhou we said good by to Feng, she had been an amazing tour guide though out the trip. Jackie was the one to take us back to the hotel and later we had a farewell dinner. The food we had that night was noodle soup loaded with so much spice just smelling it brought tears to my eyes. The soup was loaded with jalapeños, banana peppers topped off with hot sauce. All the beer in the world could not put out this horrendous spicy flavour in our mouths. Yet we still attempted what would seem impossible: finishing this soup. It felt like hours, however I think it was only an hour total to finish it. The spicy flavour in our mouths would linger for days too come. When we said our good byes everyone said they would miss Grandpa the most because of his humours jokes and stories. The next day a Taxi drove me, Dad, Grandpa and Mark to the airport and said our good byes. Mark was flying to Brisbane, Australia, Grandpa was flying to Victoria Canada, Dad was flying to Toronto and I was flying to Beijing, China.

When I returned to Beijing I got a taxi to the hotel where I would meet the group that I would travel with on the Trans Siberian railway. This cab driver had no idea where the hotel was and with the language barrier this was extremely annoying! he was calling out to random's on the street and finally we got there. The next morning I went to the square in front of the forbidden city as I had not been there yet. I came across many people trying to scam me into getting tea or beer with them, saying they want to practice English. I polity and firmly told them to leave, but in some cases I had to yell at them as they were being to pushy. later in the day I went back to the hotel and met the travel group for the Trans Siberian railway. There was 5 of us, myself, 3 others from Australia and a lady from Singapore. We went for dinner and drinks and then too sleep. The next day we went to visit the Beijing Olympic centre for the day which had some very impressive architecture then to a market. The following day we boarded the trans Siberian railway and the beds were beyond uncomfortable, I thought were even more comfortable in Vietnam. One thing about trains is that they are very loud and in order to sleep on them you must be drunk we found out so that is what we did.

The next morning we woke up we were in this city in Northern China called Hohhot in the inner Mongolia Provence of china. There was nothing at all spectacular about this city it was just really cold. When we met our guide at the train station and he asked us what we wanted to do, we had no idea what to do so he took us to the biggest tourist attraction which was a natural history museum. This museum was no different then any other natural history museum that's located in any other major city in the world. After half an hour we had had enough of this and we went to a hotel for 3 hours to freshen up. As there was nothing great about this city we went to a movie "Need for speed." It was in English with Chinese subtitles. At the end of the day we got food and then boarded the train to the Mongolian boarder.

That night on the train we drank wine and rum out of bowls for most of the night. When we awoke we were in for a surprise as we were the only ones on board the train coach and it was in the work shop. We had no idea what to do so we just waited on the train coach till it was sent back to the station. once it got to the station we got off and were in the town of Erenhot which is a town a few meters south of the China/Mongolia boarder. there we had to wait 12 hours so we went to a restaurant and got supplies for our last day in China. When we returned to the train station we filled out our exiting China forms and got in a line up by an X-ray machine. when the line up was premeditated to move it was like a free for all as everyone was throwing their bags on the X-ray machine and pushing and shoving. This line up was long but went very fast. We Then got back on our train coach and rode it to Mongolia.

One thing that will always stick out to me about China is how well it has stuck too to its native culture. Unlike south east Asia which I felt has adopted to a more westernised culture with many restaurants, coffee shops and clothing stores. With the great wall and other amazing pieces of architecture, China is a one of a kind country which I think should be visited by everyone.

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Photos

Temple of heaven
in front of the temple of heaven

family and guide
Me, Dad and Grampa with our guide Feung

the Great Wall
Grampa, Me and Dad on the great wall of china

Party Train
Me, Dad, Mark and Grampa drinking in our train cabin

Terracotta warriors
me and Grampa with the Terracotta warriors

Party train
me and grampa drinking on the Xi'an to Shanghai train ride

party train
our tour group sitting and drinking in our cabin

Oriental Pearl TV tower
veiw from the glass floor of the Oriental Pearl TV tower

Shanghai boat cruise
Mike, Me and Mark

Farewells
saying our good byes at the end of the trip at Shanghai airport

Olympic park
in Beijing

Trans Siberian railway departure point
The trans Siberia travel group