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Published: February 10th 2009
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Shanghai
Golden New year Ox So we arrived in Shanghai after a 49 hour ferry from Osaka (Japan), and needless to say we were ready to get off the boat. . .
As soon as we did we were in the rough/developing part of Shanghai so we trekked around for 4 hours looking for our hostel but gave up and got a taxi. The first night we just headed to the local street to have some rice and tea for dinner, literally!!! was good tho. Our first full day in shanghai we headed to the museum because it was raining, then we walked down the Nanjing Road (E) to have lunch before looking at the Bund. The next day we went to the silk market but it was shut so we decided to walk back to the centre of town and found some beautiful boutique shops and a few bars. We met, randomly, a chinese professor who taught English at the university and he explained about the Ji'ang Temple and the spring celebrations. That evening we just chilled out at our hostel, International shanghai, and watched a film on the big screen. The third day we decided to walk to see the Jade budda temple
which took 40 mins, beautiful temple which was busy due to the spring celebrations. The final day we got up and made it to the airport for our flight to Wuhan, which we booked through our Shangahi hostel. The interesting bit about the airport was the magnetic train which took us 30km in 8 mins at 300 km/hr.
Wuhan was a nightmare because they are more rural and dont like western ppl so the taxi drivers refused to take us to our hostel. Luckily a local man, bless him, tried his hardest and we eventually got a taxi to take us. our Wuhan hostel, Wuhan Pathfinder, was bloody freezing cuz im sure they hadn't heard of central heating, but cool cuz it was graffitti'd all the walls. We 'enjoyed' one night at the hostel before heading to Yichan by bus, on arrival we checked into a 2 star hotel which was good and ended up stayin two nights. At first Yichang was dull, literally a white-out with fog/smog but we got into it and had a great traditional meal which has a boiling pan of stock in the middle of the table,('Chongqing' HotPot) and on our last night we ate
street food of pick and mix stir fry veg with rice - description doesn't do it justice. We were gutted that we couldn't do a full 3day, 3 gorges river cruise cuz we had a flight to Xi'an booked for the 11th, so we took the hydro foil to Wanxian (7 hrs) and a bus to Chongqing (4 hrs) and here we are..... our hostel, Perfect Time, situated in the middle of Chongqing old town on the Jia Ling Jiang River. The Old town was a concentration of Buddists and Merchants from the river, then Ci Qi Kou, is an amazing mix of flagstone streets, no cars, and Qing and Ming dynasty restored houses, built up the edge of the Ge Le Shan Mountain. It is now a bit of a tourist attraction, but great for us- as good food all day and nite! get fresh spicey BBQ the first nite- new take on chinese food!
2nd Day we decide to get up and see wat the largest city in china- maybe the world has to offer! (32million!!) hop on a bus to the peoples liberation monument- tho so unimpressive we arent sure we have found the right thing!-
whilst there we meet a chinese guy- "Jimmy" who is heading the way we ask for directions- to the Luashan Temple, so he joins us at the monks vegetarian restaurant there- strange food- lots of fresh red chillis! good to have chinese speaker on side to shout when the food is taking too long!!! get the cable car across the river=to get a little bit of a view- but still fogged out! Head back to Ci Qi Kou, and as it is the last nite of chinese new year we are ready for fireworks!!! AMAZING.....fire works goin off all around us in celebration of the last night of the chinese new year, we get a chinese lantern, to light and set free- ours made it, but others got caught in power cables and market stalls- loving the health and safety!! Happy New Year!!
Observations
-the chinese are rude and push at every opportunity...we quite enjoy the challenge to push to the front of the que.
-the chinese love to spit...man, women and child...anywhere....even on the bus to Changqing - nasty!
-good food, good views and a few good souls!
-we are a novelity here, everyone stares and children cry
-driving is a death risk, they're just nuts
Tom and Na
xxx
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Julie
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Spitting????
Well, I have to say I'm surprised to hear of such bad manners. The Chinese people that live in Britain are amoungst the nicest, politest people I've ever met - what a culture shock. What is it they say....when in Rome...get pushing guys!!!!